Jerry of the Islands / Джерри-островитянин. Книга для чтения на английском языке

For a mere puppy this offer was generous, because half a fathom of shell-money, strung on a thread of twisted coconut fibres, was equivalent in cash to half a sovereign in English currency, to two dollars and a half in American, or, in live-pig currency[171], to half of a fair-sized fat pig.

“One fathom shell-money that fella dog,” Van Horn countered, in his heart knowing that he would not sell Jerry for a hundred fathoms, or for any fabulous price from any black, but in his head offering so small a price over par as not to arouse suspicion among the blacks as to how highly he really valued the golden-coated son of Biddy and Terrence.

Ishikola next averred that the girl had grown much thinner, and that he, as a practical judge of meat, did not feel justified this time in bidding more than three twenty-strings of drinking coconuts.

After these amenities, the white master and the black talked of many things, the one blufing with the white-man’s superiority of intellect and knowledge, the other feeling and guessing, primitive statesman that he was, in an effort to ascertain the balance of human and political forces that bore upon his Su’u territory, ten miles square, bounded by the sea and by landward lines of an inter-tribal warfare that was older than the oldest Su’u myth. Eternally, heads had been taken and bodies eaten, now on one side, now on the other[172], by the temporarily victorious tribes. The boundaries had remained the same. Ishikola, in crude bêche-de-mer, tried to learn the Solomon Islands general situation in relation to Su’u, and Van Horn was not above playing the unfair diplomatic game as it is unfairly played in all the chancellories of the world powers.

“My word,” Van Horn concluded; “you bad fella too much along this place. Too many heads you fella take; too much kai-kai long pig along you.” (Long pig, meaning barbecued human flesh.)

“What name, long time black fella belong Su’u take ’m heads, kai-kai along long pig?” Ishikola countered.

“My word,” Van Horn came back, “too much along this place. Bime by, close up, big fella warship stop ’m along Su’u, knock seven balls outa Su’u.”

“What name him big fella warship stop ’m along Solomons?” Ishikola demanded.

“Big fella Cambrian, him fella name belong ship,” Van Horn lied, too well aware that no British cruiser had been in the Solomons for the past two years.

The conversation was becoming rather a farcical dissertation upon the relations that should obtain between states, irrespective of size, when it was broken off by a cry from Tambi, who, with another lantern hanging overside at the end of his arm had made a discovery.

“Skipper, gun he stop along canoe[173]!” was his cry.

Van Horn, with a leap, was at the rail and peering down over the barbed wire. Ishikola, despite his twisted body, was only seconds behind him.

“What name that fella gun stop ’m along bottom?” Van Horn indignantly demanded.

The dandy, in the stern, with a careless look upward, tried with his foot to shove over the green leaves so as to cover the out-jutting butts of several rifles, but made the matter worse[174] by exposing them more fully. He bent to rake the leaves over with his hand, but sat swiftly upright when Van Horn roared at him:

“Stand clear! Keep ’m fella hand belong you long way big bit!”

Van Horn turned on Ishikola, and simulated wrath which he did not feel against the ancient and ever-recurrent trick.

“What name you come alongside, gun he stop along canoe belong you?” he demanded.

The old salt-water chief rolled his one eye and blinked a fair simulation of stupidity and innocence.

“My word, me cross along you too much,” Van Horn continued. “Ishikola, you plenty bad fella boy. You get ’m to hell overside.^[175]”

The old fellow limped across the deck with more agility than he had displayed coming aboard, straddled the barbed wire without assistance, and without assistance dropped into the canoe, cleverly receiving his weight on his uninjured leg. He blinked up for forgiveness and in reassertion of innocence. Van Horn turned his face aside to hide a grin, and then grinned outright when the old rascal, showing his empty pipe, wheedled up:

“Suppose ’m five stick tobacco you give ’m along me?”

While Borckman went below for the tobacco, Van Horn orated to Ishikola on the sacred solemnity of truth and promises. Next, he leaned across the barbed wire and handed down the five sticks of tobacco.

“My word,” he threatened. “Some day, Ishikola, I finish along you altogether. You no good friend stop along salt-water. You big fool stop along bush.”

When Ishikola attempted protest, he shut him off with, “My word, you gammon along me too much[176].”

Still the canoe lingered. The dandy’s toe strayed privily to feel out the butts of the Sniders under the green leaves, and Ishikola was loth to depart.

“Washee-washee!” Van Horn cried with imperative suddenness.