The labour schooner anchored about a mile from the German trader's house, and about two hours afterwards the boat of the Englishman was seen pulling round Cape Luen, and making for Charlie's station. This was because all three traders, being on friendly terms, it would have been considered "playing it low down" for any one of them to have boarded the schooner alone.
The day was swelteringly hot, and the sea between the gloomy outlines of Mau Island and the long, curving, palm-shaded beaches of New Britain shore was throwing off great clouds of hot, steamy mist. As the Englishman's boat was about half-way between the steep-wooded point of Cape Luen and Kabakada, she altered her course and ran into the beach, where, surrounded by a cluster of native huts, was the station of Pierre. This was to save the little Frenchman the trouble of launching his clumsy boat. Pierre, dressed in white pyjamas, with a heavy Lefaucheux revolver in his belt and a Snider rifle in his hand, came out of his house. Addressing his two wives in emphatic language, and warning them to fire off guns if anything happened during his absence on board the schooner, he swaggered down the beach and into the boat.
"How are you, Pierre?" said the Englishman, languidly. "I knew you and Hans Muller would expect me to board the schooner with you, or else I wouldn't have come. Curse the place, the people, the climate, and everything!"
The little Frenchman grinned, "Yes, it ees ver' hot; but nevare mind. Ven ve get to de 'ouse of de German we shall drink some gin and feel bettare. Last veek he buy four case of gin from a valeship, and now le bon Dieu send this schooner, from vich we shall get more."
"What a drunken little beast you are!" said the Englishman, sourly. "But after all, I suppose you enjoy life more than I do. I'd drink gin like water if I thought it would kill me quick enough."
"My friend, it is but the fevare that now talks in you. See me! I am happy. I drink, I smoke, I laugh. I have two wife to make my café and look aftare my house. Some day I walk in the bush, then, whouff, a spear go through me, and my two wife will weep ven they see me cut up for rosbif, and perhaps eat a piece themselves."
The Englishman laughed. The picture Pierre drew was likely to be a true one in one respect. Not a mile from the spot where the boat was at that moment were the graves of a trading captain, his mate, and two seamen, who had been slaughtered by the natives under circumstances of the most abominable treachery. And right before them, on the white beach of Mau Island, a whaler's boat's crew had been speared while filling their water casks, the natives who surrounded them appearing to be animated by the greatest friendliness.
Such incidents were common enough in those days among the islands to the westward of New Guinea, and the people of New Britain were no worse than those of other islands. They were simply treacherous, cowardly savages, and though occasionally indulging in cannibalistic feasts upon the bodies of people of their own race, they never killed white men for that purpose. Many a white man has been speared or shot there, but their bodies were spared that atrocity—so in that respect Pierre did his young wives an injustice. They would, if occasion needed it, readily poison him, or steal his cartridges and leave him to be slaughtered without the chance of making resistance, but they wouldn't eat him.
"It's the Samoa," said the German, as he shook hands with us. "And the skipper is a d—d Dutchman, but a good sort" (having once sailed in a Yankee timber ship, trading between Sydney and the Pacific slope, Hans was now an American), "and as soon as it gets a bit cool, we'll go off. I know the recruiter, he's a chap with one arm."