They stepped ashore in a compact little party, the boys with ready pistols, Sadok’s long sumpitan sweeping every glade for a mark. The curator walked to the center of the clearing and swept the surrounding forest with his arm.
“Pigs!” he pronounced, in the Arfak dialect, waving his arm around comprehensively.
There were rustlings in the jungle, but no native dared show himself.
“Tell them, Baderoon, that white men are peaceful—when let alone. Also, that the white man will not harm any chief if he will step out and talk.”
Baderoon raised his voice, translating the curator’s message. Absolute silence brooded in the jungle.
“Tell them,” said the curator, and his voice rang like iron, “that the white man would be friends. But if they do not make a talk at once he will bring down his thunders and lightnings and utterly destroy this village, their canoes, and their coconut palms. I have spoken it.”
Baderoon translated, and at this a grizzled old sinner with a white mop of woolly hair stepped out trembling from behind a tree.
“If the White Thunderer will only deign not to utterly destroy us!” he croaked, shaking all over as Baderoon translated.
“Ye shall call your old men to tow-tow; and ye shall send runners to every village, far and near, lest the thunders descend on them also!” declared the curator, sternly.
“It is agreed,” said the old man, finally, with shaking voice. “Only let the white man not harm us further! Many warriors and many canoes come not back because of him!”