“How’s that for nerve?” Phil exclaimed. “Sitting there watching himself hung and actually smiling over it. I’m certainly not going to miss the real thing. I wonder if his splendid nerve will break down at the last?”
The day of execution was set at a week hence. The “de facto” government, as the British and American consuls insisted upon calling it, apparently had decided that in the interest of civilization the dread sentence of the law should be carried out with due decorousness.
Stump, who was by trade a carpenter and who had in some unaccountable way been experienced in erecting gallows, was seen directing the erection of a novel sort of framework on the public “Malae”[34] at Kulinuu.
“Who gave you the job?” O’Neil asked Stump, after he and Marley had watched the work for several minutes.
Stump did not answer; instead he drew near the boatswain’s mate and whispered anxiously:
“‘Bully’ Scott hasn’t left the islands yet. He and the ‘Talofa’ are around at Saluafata harbor, the other end of the island. He sent me word by a native to come back, or he’d come and get me.”
“You don’t believe he will, do you?” O’Neil asked.
“There ain’t many things he won’t do when he sets his mind to it,” Stump replied nervously. “Klinger offered me this job,” he added. “I’ve done some smart carpentering in my time. I’ve got to earn enough money to pay my way back to ‘Frisco.’”
O’Neil’s sympathy was aroused at once.
“You’re an American,” he said. “Why don’t you ship in the navy? We need a carpenter.”