Van Horn pulled the long slender account book out of the twist of his loin-cloth, and, while he skimmed its pages, impressed Nau-hau with the dynamite of the white man’s superior powers which enabled him to remember correctly inside the scrawled sheets of a book instead of inside his head.
“Sati,” Van Horn read, his finger marking the place, his eyes alternating watchfully between the writing and the black chief before him, while the black chief himself speculated and studied the chance of getting behind him and, with the single knife-thrust he knew so well, of severing the other’s spinal cord at the base of the neck.
“Sati,” Van Horn read. “Last monsoon begin about this time, him fella Sati get ’m sick belly belong him too much; bime by him fella Sati finish altogether,” he translated into bêche-de-mer the written information: Died of dysentery July 4th, 1901.
“Plenty work him fella Sati, long time,” Nau-hau drove to the point. “What come along money belong him?”
Van Horn did mental arithmetic from the account.
“Altogether him make ’m six tens pounds and two fella pounds gold money,” was his translation of sixty-two pounds of wages. “I pay advance father belong him one ten pounds and five fella pounds. Him finish altogether four tens pounds and seven fella pounds.”
“What name stop four tens pounds and seven fella pounds?” Nau-hau demanded, his tongue, but not his brain, encompassing so prodigious a sum.
Van Horn held up his hand.
“Too much hurry you fella Nau-hau. Him fella Sati buy ’m slop chest along plantation two tens pounds and one fella pound. Belong Sati he finish altogether two tens pounds and six fella pounds.”
“What name stop two tens pounds and six fella pounds?” Nau-hau continued inflexibly.