CHAPTER X
THE CAST OF THE DIE
An hour after the white men's return, they watched from their hut the funeral procession winding towards the gate. Some of the younger men led the way; then followed four bearers, with the body of the dead chief encased in his sleeping-mat. Behind marched his relatives and the whole of the population of the enclosure, the men wearing towering head-dresses of feathers, the women carrying small branches.
'Shall we follow?' asked Hoole.
'Perhaps the people would like it,' replied Trentham.
But when they reached the gate at the tail of the procession they were stopped by the interpreter.
'New chief he say no come alonga,' said he. 'Me fella people say old chief he die alonga you; all proper mad.'
'That accounts for their scowls as we came in,' remarked Trentham. 'I suppose the medicine-man accuses us of giving the evil eye. But the new chief, whoever he is, evidently doesn't want us to be pulled to pieces.'
'Things are going from bad to worse,' said Hoole. 'Our news won't make them better pleased with us. I guess there 'll be trouble.'
The death of the chief and the absence of his son had in fact kindled a slumbering spark of revolt in the Papuan community. A chief in New Guinea at no time wields great authority over his tribe, and the prestige of the dominant caste had already fallen low. Authority was assumed by a cousin of the dead man, but he had no moral qualities to support it. After the funeral, when Trentham reported to him, through the interpreter, the capture of the outpost, his agitation bordered on hysteria. The Papuans already connected their recent misfortunes with the arrival of the white men, who, they declared, were in league with the white men from the ship, and were responsible for the capture of their leader Kafulu and the late chief's son. The disappearance of the outpost would confirm their dark suspicions, and the fact that Meek also had gone would seem to them proof of collusion.