“Right you are, Hickson,” I said, “but don't forget to get back early, it's a beastly risky pull out to the ship in the dark.”
We went into a little bay, and found the natives waiting for us with the yams, and Hickson, after inquiring the way to the Mission, left me.
Ponape in those days was a rough place. It was the rendezvous of the American whaling fleet, that came there for wood and water and “other supplies,” before they sailed northward along the grim coasts of Japan and Tchantar Bay to the whale grounds of the Arctic Seas.
And sometimes there would be trouble over the “other supplies” among the savagely licentious crews of mixed men of all nations, and knives would flash, and the white sand of the beaches be stuck together in places with patches and clots of dull red. It was the whalers' paradise—a paradise of the loveliest tropical beauty, of palm-shaded beach and verdure-clad mountain imaginable; a paradise of wonderfully beautiful and utterly, hopelessly immoral native women; and, lastly, a paradise of cheap native grog, as potent and fiery as if Hell had been boiled down and concentrated into a small half-pint.
It was dark, and the yams had all been brought and stored in the boat before Hickson returned. By the flickering light of a native fire in a house close by I could see that something was the matter with him. His face was drawn, and his black eyes gleamed out like dully burning coals from the thick wavy hair that fell about his temples.
“I'm sorry I'm late,” he said, and the moment he had spoken I knew by the dangerous huskiness of his voice that he had been drinking the native grog.
Staggering into the boat, he sat down beside me and took the tiller.
“Give way, fanau seoli (children o hell),” he growled to our crew of Samoans and Rotumah boys, “let us get these yams aboard, and then I'm coming back to burn the ——— mission-house down.”
Slowly the heavily-laden boat got way on her, and we slid away from the light of the native fire out into the inky blackness of night. Beyond a muttered curse at the crew, and keeping up that horrible grinding of the teeth common enough to men of violent passions when under great excitement, Hickson said nothing further till I asked—