Klinger was a man who had all his life governed with the overseer’s whip. During his fifteen years in the South Seas his strong will had never been seriously thwarted. What he wanted he took, using force if necessary. He was a big man, somewhat inclined to stoutness, but the outdoor life he had lived, in the saddle for days at a time, riding over the plantations, had given a hardness to his added flesh. The person confronting him, who declined to give back his own property, was a mere youth. In his white flannels he sized up of much slighter build if a trifle taller than the angry manager. Personal violence was far removed from Phil’s thoughts.
Klinger, with a snarl of rage, was upon the midshipman before he could evade the rush. One of the manager’s great hands reached for the lad’s throat, while his other arm endeavored to draw in and crush the slight boy against his massive chest. Sydney and Alice could only cry out in their surprise and alarm.
The next moment Klinger appeared to plunge head first into the roadway beyond, as if sprung from a catapult. The manager lay unconscious, a huddled heap of brawn and muscle, while Phil, very pale and trembling violently in apprehension, gazed upon his stricken foe.
“Jujitsu,” Sydney exclaimed admiringly, yet in alarm, as he surveyed the inert form of Klinger in the roadway.
CHAPTER XIV
COUNT ROSEN TAKES CHARGE
The signal victory won by Kataafa and his warriors and the acknowledgment from the Powers increased many-fold his trust in the two papalangi, who had so ably advised him and supplied the necessary weapons for success. As the old chief surveyed the work of destruction, however, his heart sank within him. The fear of the war-ships and their thunderbolts, and a vivid recollection of the last war against the papalangi spurred him to consult that man of few words, Count Rosen, whom Klinger had said was vested with high powers from that great nation beyond the seas, more powerful than both England and America.
The English and Americans, he knew, would soon be crying aloud for retribution. Their property had been destroyed by his warriors. The life of the chief justice, an American, had even been endangered, and his valuable house unlawfully burned. To Kataafa, the papalangi were terrible people. Those in Kapua he did not fear; he had seen that they could be killed and beheaded as easily as men of his own race; but the intangible nations that protected them, sending war-ships “bursting through the clouds,” as the Kapuans express the slow approach of a ship coming up over the sea horizon—of these Kataafa stood in mortal fear.
As the blood lust subsided among his warriors, already gossip bared its disquieting head. Some said many war-ships of England and America would come and destroy, as if by a volcano, their beautiful islands.
Kataafa with his trusted chiefs marched solemnly to the Herzovinian consulate at Matafeli. Count Rosen had taken up his abode in the consulate. He received the chiefs in silence, and sent word at once for Klinger to appear to act as interpreter. The count had that morning been appointed by the rebel king his prime minister, and the three consuls had acknowledged, in grudging terms, the “de facto” government, as they pointedly expressed it.
Klinger did not appear and finally the native messenger returned with the information that Missi Klinger was very sick. The count excused himself to the chiefs, telling them to wait, and hurried away to see what was the matter. There on a low couch in the store office he found the manager, but just regaining consciousness. A white doctor was attending him, examining his entire body carefully for serious injuries. The story of the encounter with the Americans was told most graphically to the count by a number of native eye-witnesses, and each described the strength of the “young David” as greater than that of “Sampson” himself. The Kapuans are well up on the Bible and glory in airing their knowledge.