This was about the last straw to Bannerman. He drew off to himself to think over his troubles to come.
The traders let him alone for the rest of the day; but they were preparing new tales to tell him. They had intended to help things along that night at dinner, but Bannerman kept to his bunk, although the sea was as smooth as it ever gets, and it was not until lunch next day that they got a chance to make his life more miserable. This was his first appearance at the table.
"That's right; come and fill up on white man's grub while you've got the chance, for two years is a long time to live on native kai-kai and tinned foods."
"Well, I can stand it, if you fellows can," answered Bannerman bravely.
"Right you are! Now that's the way I like to hear a man talk. I tell you, men, he will be able to handle the black boys, all right. Don't ever let them see you are afraid of them," he cautioned the other, "or they will sure get you."
Every trader present had a tale of horror to tell. By the time the meal was over, Bannerman was in a p348 state of collapse. The captain sat at the head of the table and said nothing during the meal. After we had finished eating, I went on the bridge with him, and we got to talking over this new trader.
"He's the easiest mark I ever saw," exclaimed the captain. "The men generally have a good time with the new traders each trip, but this fellow seems to take it more seriously than any of the others. If he don't get wise before we reach Tulagi, I'll have to set him right—wouldn't be the square thing to send him ashore in the state he's in."
We got in Tulagi just after dark, and the dozen schooners that always come after their mail and as much liquor as they can hold, were anchored in the bay. Immediately after our anchor was dropped, their passengers swarmed aboard, all heading for the bar. I knew some of them, and I told all of them of the way we had frightened Bannerman, and they determined to help the thing along. So one captain asked three of us and Bannerman to go over to his schooner. As we got alongside, thirty natives just recruited from Malaita gave a yell, and the captain told us to get our guns ready. Poor Bannerman said he had no gun. Then the captain asked him if he had come to the Solomons to commit suicide. "Why, no man ever has one hand off his gun here!" the captain declared. At this, Bannerman wanted to go back to the steamer, but the captain said he thought the blacks were in a good humour now. The blacks were a raw, p349 savage lot, stark naked, and adorned, as they thought, most becomingly, with big plugs in their ears, and nose-rings, shell anklets and armlets. But it was their bleached woolly hair that made them look most terrible.
We told Bannerman stories, and the captain, innocently as could be, mentioned a big massacre up near Collins Brothers' plantation, where Bannerman was to work. Bannerman told him this identical place was to be his future home; whereupon the captain elaborated a fiction as to three white men who had lost their heads at Collins' place a few weeks before. (As a matter of fact, Collins' plantation is really one of the most peaceful spots in the Solomons.) Bannerman then and there declared that he would go back to Brisbane on the same steamer that had brought him. But by next morning, he informed us that he had decided to try a few months of it. I think the captain of the Moresby had seen the joke was too far advanced, and had told him that we were "stringing" him.
Governor Woodford, whose station is at Tulagi, had just bought a steamer in order to keep in touch with the other islands, and the traders were having great fun about it. It was just about the size of the Snark, and looked like a tug-boat. It was painted slate colour, the same as the British warships, and had several small guns mounted on deck. All the discipline of a warship was maintained. A native had p350 been trained to blow a bugle; at eight in the morning the flag went up, and at sunset it came down, while the black bugler played his best, and all the schooners followed example in the raising and lowering of flags. At a civilised place, this would seem all right, but at Tulagi it was comical. The traders talked proudly of the "Solomon Island fleet" and were even facetiously arranging for it to follow the American fleet's example and make a trip around the world.