When Maehoe desperately got out the medicine bottle that afternoon and stared dumbly at Gleason, begging for permission to administer the medicine that had made Henderson well of other fevers, Gleason shivered and went out of the room. He was afraid to stop Maehoe again.
And that night, because he knew Henderson was going to die, Gleason ran away in his whaleboat. He took his own four paddlers and four of the houseboys, whom he impressed into service by flourishing a revolver. Maehoe knew nothing of his departure. He was hovering over Henderson’s bunk, dumbly miserable, waiting for signs of improvement in Henderson’s condition from the quinine. And quinine is, of course, rank poison in black-water fever.
And that was that. Gleason should have gotten away nicely. He should have made Uras Cove in about four days. There is a missionary there, and unregenerate persons have convinced the neighboring tribesmen that the particularly potent devils of the white men will consume the vitals, bit by bit, of any man who harms a hair of his head—of which conviction, however, the missionary is wholly ignorant. Gleason would have been safe with him until a trading schooner came along.
But news travels fast in the bush. All that had gone on on Henderson’s island since Gleason’s landing and before, was known for an astonishing distance along the mainland. And with astonishing speed that news was kept up to date. No white man knows how news does travel in the bush, but it goes, and when it is news of a white man unarmed or unnerved or ill there are innumerable bepainted, befrizzed and tattooed young warriors who inspect their weapons and dream high dreams.
So when Gleason’s whaleboat blundered into a belated fishing-canoe some ten miles to the northwest of Henderson’s place, there was an instant reaction. The fishing-canoe challenged. A To Ba’ita boy answered. There was excited chatter in the fishing-canoe, caused by his foreign manner of speech. Gleason warned it off in a white man’s curt voice. And the fishing-canoe fled.
That opened the second act of the drama of Gleason and Maehoe and Fear.
Five minutes after the fishing-canoe had vanished into utter darkness, a few puffs of wind came from nowhere. Gleason had a sail hoisted and prepared to beat his way up to the northwest. The boat was intended for surf work and was a clumsy sailer, but would make better time under sail than with unskilled oarsmen. The puffs of wind continued, enough to tease him with the hope of a steady breeze at any minute, but not enough to make much headway. It was utterly dark. A long, oily swell came from offshore and pounded dully on the beach—where there was a beach—and gurgled among mangrove roots where there was none. There was a thin film of cloud overhead, just enough to obscure most of the stars and make the world abysmally dark and to make the boat seem hideously and horribly alone.
Then, from a little distance behind, there arose a dull and monotonous throbbing thunder. Devil-devil drums, sending out a general call for any devils that might be in the neighborhood to call at the devil-devil house and receive instruction. Lights appeared, racing about the village that housed the drums. Great flaring flambeaux sent pin points of reflected light dancing upon the distant smooth swells. There were yells and howls, and there was much activity ashore. Two long war-boats—la’os—were being slid down into the dark water.
They went swiftly into the outer darkness, beyond the shore. A white man had been sighted in a whaleboat. A To Ba’ita boy had answered a challenge. The white man had warned the fishing-canoe off instead of cursing it or desiring to trade with it. Therefore it was the mane maala, the wounded man from Henderson’s.