Chapter XVIII - Making the Books Come True
Several quiet weeks slipped by. Berande, after such an unusual run of
visiting vessels, drifted back into her old solitude. Sheldon went on
with the daily round, clearing bush, planting cocoanuts, smoking copra, building bridges, and riding about his work on the horses Joan had bought. News of her he had none. Recruiting vessels on Malaita left the Poonga-Poonga coast severely alone; and the Clansman, a Samoan recruiter, dropping anchor one sunset for billiards and gossip, reported rumours amongst the Sio natives that there had been fighting at Poonga- Poonga. As this news would have had to travel right across the big island, little dependence was to be placed on it.
The steamer from Sydney, the Kammambo, broke the quietude of Berande
for an hour, while landing mail, supplies, and the trees and seeds Joan
had ordered. The Minerva, bound for Cape Marsh, brought the two cows
from Nogi. And the Apostle, hurrying back to Tulagi to connect with
the Sydney steamer, sent a boat ashore with the orange and lime trees
from Ulava. And these several weeks marked a period of perfect weather. There were days on end when sleek calms ruled the breathless sea, and days when vagrant wisps of air fanned for several hours from one direction or another. The land-breezes at night alone proved regular, and it was at night that the occasional cutters and ketches slipped by, too eager to take advantage of the light winds to drop anchor for an hour.
Then came the long-expected nor'wester. For eight days it raged, lulling
at times to short durations of calm, then shifting a point or two and
raging with renewed violence. Sheldon kept a precautionary eye on the
buildings, while the Balesuna, in flood, so savagely attacked the high
bank Joan had warned him about, that he told off all the gangs to battle
with the river.
It was in the good weather that followed, that he left the blacks at
work, one morning, and with a shot-gun across his pommel rode off after
pigeons. Two hours later, one of the house-boys, breathless and
scratched ran him down with the news that the Martha, the Flibberty-
Gibbet, and the Emily were heading in for the anchorage.
Coming into the compound from the rear, Sheldon could see nothing until
he rode around the corner of the bungalow. Then he saw everything at
once--first, a glimpse at the sea, where the Martha floated huge
alongside the cutter and the ketch which had rescued her; and, next, the
ground in front of the veranda steps, where a great crowd of fresh-caught
cannibals stood at attention. From the fact that each was attired in a
new, snow-white lava-lava, Sheldon knew that they were recruits. Part
way up the steps, one of them was just backing down into the crowd, while
another, called out by name, was coming up. It was Joan's voice that had
called him, and Sheldon reined in his horse and watched. She sat at the
head of the steps, behind a table, between Munster and his white mate, the three of them checking long lists, Joan asking the questions and writing the answers in the big, red-covered, Berande labour-journal.
"What name?" she demanded of the black man on the steps.
"Tagari," came the answer, accompanied by a grin and a rolling of curious
eyes; for it was the first white-man's house the black had ever seen.
"What place b'long you?"
"Bangoora."
No one had noticed Sheldon, and he continued to sit his horse and watch. There was a discrepancy between the answer and the record in the recruiting books, and a consequent discussion, until Munster solved the difficulty.
"Bangoora?" he said. "That's the little beach at the head of the bay out
of Latta. He's down as a Latta-man--see, there it is, 'Tagari, Latta.'"
"What place you go you finish along white marster?" Joan asked.
"Bangoora," the man replied; and Joan wrote it down.
"Ogu!" Joan called.
The black stepped down, and another mounted to take his place. But
Tagari, just before he reached the bottom step, caught sight of Sheldon. It was the first horse the fellow had ever seen, and he let out a frightened screech and dashed madly up the steps. At the same moment the great mass of blacks surged away panic-stricken from Sheldon's vicinity. The grinning house-boys shouted encouragement and explanation, and the stampede was checked, the new-caught head-hunters huddling closely together and staring dubiously at the fearful monster.