The same evening I went down to the mountain stream near the camp to take my bath. My daily intercourse with the natives had made me less observant than caution demanded. I had left my revolver in the hut. While I was absent a council of war was held in the camp. Mangoran, who for several days had been looking for an opportunity, was now eagerly urging the others to murder me, and was explaining how easy it would be to do this.
The grass all the way to the bank of the river was tall, so that they could steal down upon me unobserved. He explained to them what their reward would be—flour, meat, tobacco, and a large woollen blanket. They could take all, even my gun. The other blacks, however, hesitated. An old man who once had been shot in the leg by the native police considered the undertaking risky. Yokkai and another boy who was with me also argued against killing the white man. The end of the deliberations was that Mangoran and his wife should commit the murder. They were to steal down through the grass and attack me in the water—he armed with an axe, she with her “yam-stick.” It is not difficult to see how this matter would have ended had I remained in the water as long as usual; but as good luck would have it, the weather happened to be so cool that I could only take a short bath, and I made haste to dress myself again. Thus they did not get to the river in time to attack me in my defenceless condition, and when they saw that I was already dressed and on my way to my hut, they abandoned the project for the time.
When Yokkai, a long time afterwards, reported these facts to me, I asked him if they were not afraid of the police, to which he made the very appropriate response, “That the scrub is very large.” They had been so sure that the murder would be a success that they had already in advance divided my property among themselves, and decided that my body was to be thrown into the water and not eaten. One of the horses was to be eaten, but the other, the old pack-horse, which was very lean, was to be set at liberty. Yokkai added that he had made up his mind not to allow this, but would have taken both the horses to the station, and would there have told the keeper what had happened. All this came from Yokkai’s lips as naïvely and confidently as if he were talking about a person already dead and gone.
It seemed to me like reading in a newspaper about my own death and all its details, for I fully comprehended how near I had in fact been to death’s door. I was surrounded by dangers on all sides, and I had no reason to look for any bettering of the circumstances, for the natives respect only those whites who shoot them, and as I did not use my gun against them, I at length came to be looked upon as “a small white man.” Yokkai frequently blamed me for not being sufficiently kóla—that is, angry. “You do not shoot anybody,” he added.
My clothes were so tattered and torn that they scarcely hung together, and this fact did not tend to raise me in the eyes of the natives, who, like children, have a keen eye for such exterior matters, and regarded my rags as evidence that I was no longer the great man they had supposed. Add to this the defeat I had suffered on account of the conduct of the police, and it is evident that my life hung by a thread.
The blacks near Herbert Vale having proved themselves lazy and useless, I never took them with me, so they got no tobacco, which made them angry. Every time I started out on an expedition they urged my people to murder me and throw my body into the water. This advice came, not only from my former friends Willy and Jacky, but even from Nelly and the Kanaka.
The greatest danger, however, threatened me from my own people, though I felt convinced that Yokkai, despite his emotional disposition, would defend me to the extent of his ability. He had himself on one occasion told me that “he did like the white man.”
Despite these many difficulties, I was determined not to give up, feeling sure that I would yet be able to make new discoveries in these interesting and strange regions.
Yokkai was my only faithful friend. Once in a while he had to go to his mother to get some tobola, but he soon returned, and he stayed with me, for “he wanted to become white man.”
He had also made considerable progress. He could smoke tobacco as well as anybody, was himself the owner of a clay pipe, and was able to use a few English words with more or less ease. Still, there were some gaps in his education. He was continually pestering me to teach him how to ride and shoot. His eagerness to ride was soon cured. To mount the horse he would climb up one of the forelegs, just as if he were about to climb a tree. Not entirely pleased with this new style of being mounted, my pack-horse, old Kassik, put forth the remnant of his strength and made a buck, so that Yokkai came down much quicker than he had climbed up; and from that time I heard no more about his desire to ride.