Chang faced up the hill, beckoning and calling Rowgowskii and the coolies to descend. They were perched on its crest like banderlog hypnotized by fear. They did not move.
"Come down out of that!" yelled Lavelle in anger at the white man and instantly repeating the command to the coolies in their own tongue.
"It is unsafe! I will stay here!" Rowgowskii cried back.
The coolies, chattering to each other, settled again on their haunches from which they had half started. They were taking their cue from the black-bearded white man beside them. They would not trust themselves to the earth below which trembled and swallowed things like the sea.
"Bring 'em down, Chang!" snapped Lavelle.
The giant sprang up the hill at the order, hurling at the coolies a curse which consigned forty generations of their ancestors to an additional century of grilling in the fires of eternity. It started them, but Rowgowskii did not move. Then, out of Chang's belt flashed a long knife. He raised it to hurl at the white man.
With uplifted hands and crying that he would obey, Rowgowskii stood up. Chang lowered the knife and paused in his ascent. The leader of the mutineers motioned to the coolies to precede him. They clambered along the rocks, darting glances over their shoulders as if measuring to descend as far from the reach of Chang as possible.
Whether it was Rowgowskii or one of the coolies who did it neither Emily, Chang, nor Lavelle, watching from below, could tell, but a large round boulder was dislodged by the feet of one of the three. It crashed down the hillside with the ricochet of a spending shell, missed Emily by a hair's-breadth, and plunged through the side of the boat.