“It’s damned foolishness,” he repeated. “They trade with him, and let him kick them, and then go on with that nonsense. If they refused him copra, they would bring him to his senses quick enough.”
“Anyhow they hate him,” said she.
“Much good that is,” he replied.
4
Now it came about that the soul trap—turning out a dead failure, since not a single fly went through the hole—instead of destroying Seedbaum, fixed him on a pedestal more secure than that which he had hitherto occupied.
He was indestructible, and the power which he exercised over the native mind threatened to be as indestructible as himself.
However, vengeance was coming. Retribution for all the wrongs he had committed, his swindlings, brutalities and beatings.
It came in this wise:
One afternoon Mrs. Connart, seated on the verandah and reading The Moths of the Limberlost, heard the cries of a child.
Right in front of the house, King Seedbaum was beating a native child for some fault or fancied disrespect towards his royal highness, cuffing it and cuffing it, whilst the squeals of the cuffed one affronted the heavens and the ears of all listeners.