“I, master,” and Tematau placed an ensanguined hand on mine.
“And I,” said a softer voice, and Niâbon's eyes met mine calmly. “Tematau and I together each stabbed him twice.”
As soon as I was able to pull myself together, I desired all the natives but three of the head men to leave, and then, after the unfortunate German's body was covered from view by a large mat, I asked the principal man of the village to tell me what he knew of the tragedy.
“I know nothing,” was his reply. “Niâbon can tell thee.”
Niâbon, in response to my inquiring glance—I was shaking from head to foot as I looked at her, but her calm, quiet eyes as she looked into mine restored my nerve—spoke clearly.
“The German dashed thee against the centre posts of the house, Simi. Then he drew a little pistol from his breast and shot at me, and the bullet struck me on the neck. See,” and she showed us a still bleeding score on the right side of her neck, where a Derringer bullet had cut through the flesh. “And then he sprang at Tematau, but Tematau was on his feet and met him and stabbed him twice; and, as he fell I too stabbed him in the breast.”
“This is an evil day for me,” I said to the three head men, “and I fear it will prove an evil day to the people of this village, for the wife of the man who lies there told me that a ship of war of his country was soon to be here at this island. And how shall we account for his death?”
Niâbon bent forward and spoke—
“Have no fear, Simi. Neither thou, nor Tematau, nor the people of this village, nor I, shall come to any harm from the German fighting-ship. For when it comes thou and I, and Tematau, and Tepi, who know of the blood let out this day upon the floor of thy house, will be far away. And when the captain of the fighting-ship questioneth, and sayeth to the people, 'Where is my countryman?' the people will shake their heads and say, 'We know not. He and his wife, and the Englishman, and Tepi, and Tematau, and the witch woman Niâbon have gone. They have sailed away to beyond the rim of the sea and the sky—we know not whither.”
I listened with all my faculties wide awake, and yet with a strange sense of helplessness overpowering me. Then Niâbon made a swift gesture to the head men. They rose, and lifting the huge body of Krause, carried it away.