"There they go," said Kyte quietly, as he sat down on the edge of the trader's verandah and lit a cigar, "and they'll give those smart niggers of yours a dressing down that will keep them quiet for the next five years (he was right, they did). Well, I had to let them have their own way. They told me that if I didn't let them have revenge for the two men that I would be unlucky before I got to Samoa,—a polite way of saying that they would seize the schooner and cut our throats on the way up. So to save unpleasantness, I gave each man a Snider and twenty-five cartridges, and told them to shoot as many pigs and fowls as they liked. You should have heard the beggars laugh. By the way, I hope they do shoot some, we want pork badly."
"Hallo, they've got to Tubarigan's, the chief's bush-house, and fired it!" said Muller.
A column of black smoke arose from the side of the mountain, and in another second or two loud yells and cries of defiance mingled with the thundering reports of the Sniders and the crackling of the flames.
The little Frenchman and Muller played nervously with their rifles for a moment or two; then meeting the answering look in each other's eyes, they dashed into the trees and up the jungle-clad mountain side in the direction of the smoke and fighting.
The native houses in New Britain are built of cane, neatly lashed together with coir cinnet, and the roofs thatched with broad-leaved grass or sugar-cane leaves. They burn well, and as the cane swells to the heat each joint bursts with a crack like a pistol shot.
"Look now," said Kyte to his companion, pointing along the tops of the hills. Clouds of black smoke and sheets of flame were everywhere visible, and amidst the continuous roar of the flames, the crackling of the burning cane-work of the native houses, and the incessant reports of the Sniders, came savage shouts and yells from the raiders, and answering cries of defiance from the New Britain men, who retreated slowly to the grassy hills of the interior, whence they watched the total destruction of some four or five of their villages. These bush-houses are constructed with great care and skill by the natives, and are generally only a short distance from the main village on the beach; every bush-house stands surrounded by a growth of carefully-tended crotons of extraordinary beauty and great variety of colour, and in the immediate vicinity is the owner's plantation of yams, taro, sugar-cane, bananas, and betel nuts.
In the course of an hour or two the Solomon islanders ceased firing, and then the two white men, looking out on the beach, saw a number of the beaten villagers fleeing down to the shore, about half a mile away, and endeavouring to launch canoes.
"By ——!" exclaimed Kyte, "my fellows have outflanked them, and are driving them down to the beach. I might get some after all for the schooner. Will you lend me your boat's crew to head them off? They are going to try and get to Mau Island."