“Big fella Cambrian, him fella name belong ship,” Van Horn lied, too well aware that no British cruiser had been in the Solomons for the past two years.
The conversation was becoming rather a farcical dissertation upon the relations that should obtain between states, irrespective of size, when it was broken off by a cry from Tambi, who, with another lantern hanging overside at the end of his arm had made a discovery.
“Skipper, gun he stop along canoe!” was his cry.
Van Horn, with a leap, was at the rail and peering down over the barbed wire. Ishikola, despite his twisted body, was only seconds behind him.
“What name that fella gun stop ’m along bottom?” Van Horn indignantly demanded.
The dandy, in the stern, with a careless look upward, tried with his foot to shove over the green leaves so as to cover the out-jutting butts of several rifles, but made the matter worse by exposing them more fully. He bent to rake the leaves over with his hand, but sat swiftly upright when Van Horn roared at him:
“Stand clear! Keep ’m fella hand belong you long way big bit!”
Van Horn turned on Ishikola, and simulated wrath which he did not feel against the ancient and ever-recurrent trick.
“What name you come alongside, gun he stop along canoe belong you?” he demanded.
The old salt-water chief rolled his one eye and blinked a fair simulation of stupidity and innocence.