"You've all heard of me," Peter Gross resumed. "You know that the voice of Peter Gross speaks truth, that lies do not come from his mouth." He glanced at a Chinaman on the outskirts of the crowd. "Speak, Wong Ling Lo, you sailed with me on the Daisy Deane, is it not so?"
Wong Ling Lo was now the center of attention. Each of the pirates awaited his reply with breathless expectancy. Peter Gross's calm assurance, his candor and simplicity, were already stirring in them a hope that in other moments they would have deemed utterly fantastic, contrary to all nature—a hope that this white man might be different from other men, might possess that attribute so utterly incomprehensible to their dark minds—mercy.
"Peter Gross, him no lie," was Wong Ling Lo's unemotional admission.
"You have heard what Wong Ling Lo says," Peter Gross cried. "Now, listen to what I say. You shall go back with me to Bulungan; alive, if you are willing; dead, if you are not. At Bulungan each one of you shall have a fair trial. Every man who can prove that his hand has not taken life shall be sentenced to three years on the coffee-plantations for his robberies, then he shall be set free and provided with a farm of his own to till so that he may redeem himself. Every man who has taken human life in the service of Ah Sing shall die."
He paused to see the effect of his announcement. The owlish faces turned toward him were wholly enigmatic, but the intensity of each man's gaze revealed to Peter Gross the measure of their interest.
"I cannot take you along the trail without binding you," he said. "Your oaths are worthless; I must use the power I have over you. Therefore you will now remember the promise I have made you, and submit yourselves to be bound. Juragan, you are the first."
As one of Carver's force came forward with cords salvaged from the proa, the juragan met him, placed his hands behind his back, and suffered them to be tied together. The next man hesitated, then submitted also, casting anxious glances at his companions. The third submitted promptly. The fourth folded his hands across his chest.
"I remain here," he announced.
"Very well," Peter Gross said impassively. He forced several Chinamen who were near to move back. They gave ground sullenly. At Carver's orders a firing-squad of three men stood in front of the Chinaman, whose back was toward the bay.
"Will you go with us?" Peter Gross asked again.