The report of the murder made a deep impression on me. Perhaps I ought to be satisfied with the results I had already gained. If I remained longer I might meet with a similar fate. I did not dare show Yokkai that the information affected me, though the words did escape my lips, that the black police would be angry with Jimmy and kill him.
When Nilgora came home in the evening, I heard Yokkai at once informing him “that the police would kill Jimmy.” That whole evening the blacks were very reticent and unapproachable. Doubtless my ill-advised statement had frightened them, for they were aware that the police paid no respect to persons, but would shoot the first native they found, and they were also afraid that Yokkai would have to suffer for his thoughtlessness in telling tales out of school.
It was necessary to be equal to every emergency, for it was in their power to hinder the news of the murder from spreading. To avoid every danger, I resolved to be on the alert that night—the only night I ever kept awake during my life with the blacks. As was my custom, I fired a shot to remind my companions that my weapon was still in existence.
The natives were lying down round the fire in front of the opening of my hut, and from time to time they cast sly glances at me lying with half-closed eyes in my hut. The camp fire made it easy for us to watch each other. To convince them that I was wide awake, I now and then ordered them to fetch wood for the fire. I did not feel at all safe, and not until morning did I fall asleep, exhausted with fatigue.
When I opened my eyes the first rays of the morning sun were shining into my hut, and it was a source of the keenest gratification to know that I was unscathed. Never before had the dewy tropical morning seemed so beautiful as it did after this night.
I decided to go back to Herbert Vale for the present, and the same day Yokkai and I started on our return. I was determined to do all in my power to secure the punishment of Jimmy. Something ought to be done to show the blacks that they could not with impunity take the life of a white man.
Jimmy had accompanied me on several expeditions, so that I knew him well. He was a brutal, despotic fellow, and very reserved. Not long before this he had also killed one of his wives. He had robbed a man of his pretty young wife, Mólle-Mólle. But she loved her first husband and could not get on well with Jimmy, the less so as he had another wife, who was very jealous and always inflamed him against Mólle-Mólle. She tried to escape to her former husband, but was recaptured by Jimmy, who cut her on the shoulder with his axe to “mark” her. Still, she soon again found an opportunity to escape, and came to Herbert Vale, where I then happened to be staying. On her shoulder was a large open wound, which did not, however, appear to give her much pain. She requested me to shoot Jimmy, for he was “not good.” In spite of her beautiful, beseeching eyes and her coquettish smiles, I could make her no promise, but I urged her to make haste and go to her former husband, whom she was seeking. The same night she disappeared.
I afterwards learned that she had found the man she loved, but her joy was of short duration. Jimmy was the stronger of the two men; he recaptured her, and punishment was again inflicted. According to the statements of the natives, he had almost killed her. He had struck her with a stone on the head, so that she fell as if dead on the hot sand. There he left her, in the middle of the day, after covering her with stones. The next time I saw Mólle-Mólle she had grown very thin and pale, and had great scars on her head. She was on the point of going with Jimmy down the river to another “land.” On this journey he killed her with his tomahawk, and an old man buried her. This happened only three weeks after Jimmy had slain the white man.
Yokkai was afraid that he would be killed by the blacks at Herbert Vale, because he had revealed the murder of the white man, but I quieted him with the assurance that his name should not be mentioned.