The Mutineers Part 23

"Pom-pom, pom-pom!"

What the phrase meant we had not the remotest idea, but that our state now was doubly perilous the renewed hubbub and the closing circle of weapons convinced us.

"Pom-pom, pom-pom!" Again and again in all parts of the hall we heard the mysterious words.

Was there nothing that we could do to prove our good faith? Nothing to show them that at least we did not come as enemies?

Over Davie Fame's face an odd expression now pa.s.sed. He was staring at the heap of melons.

"Mr. Hamlin," he said in a low voice, "if we was to cut a ship out of one of them melons, and a boat and some men, we could show these 'ere heathen how we didn't aim to bother them, and then maybe they'd let us go away again."

"Davie, Davie, man," Roger cried, "there's an idea!"

I was completely bewildered. What could Davie mean, I wondered. Melons and a ship? Were he and Roger mad? From Roger's actions I verily believed they were.

He faced our captors for a moment as if striving to think of some way to impress them; then, with a quick gesture, he deliberately got down on the floor and took the chief's foot and placed it on his head, to signify that we were completely in the fellow's power. Next he rose and faced the man boldly, and began a solemn and impressive speech. His grave air and stern voice held their attention, though they could not understand a word he said; and before their interest had time to fail, he drew from his pocket a penknife, a weapon so small that it had escaped their prying fingers, and walking deliberately to the corner where the melons were heaped up, took one of them and began to cut it.

At first they started forward; but when Roger made no hostile motion, they gathered round him in silence to see what he was doing.

"Here, men, is the ship," he said gravely, "and here the boats." Kneeling and continuing his speech, he cut from the melon-rind a roughly shaped model of a ship, and stuck in it, to represent masts, three slivers of bamboo, which he split from a piece that lay on the floor; then he cut a smaller model, which he laid on the deck of the ship, to represent a boat.

On one side of the deck he upright six melon seeds, on the other twelve.

Pointing at the six seeds and holding up six fingers, he pointed at each of us in turn.

Suddenly one of the natives cried out in his own tongue; then another and another seemed to understand Roger's meaning as they jabbered among themselves and in turn pointed at the six seeds and at the six white men whom they had captured.

Roger then imitated a fight, shaking his fists and slashing as if with a cutla.s.s, and, last of all, he pointed his finger, and cried, "Bang! Bang!"

At this the natives fairly yelled in excitement and repeated over and over, "Pom--pom--pom--pom!"

"Bang-bang!"--"Pom-pom!" We suddenly understood the phrase that they had used so often.

Now in dead silence, all in the hut, brown men and white, pressed close around the melon-rind boat on the floor. So moving the melon seeds that it was obvious that the six men represented by six seeds were being driven overboard, Roger next set the boat on the floor and transferred them to it.

Lining up all the rest along the side of the ship, he cried loudly, "Bang bang!"

"Cook," he called, beckoning to black Frank, "come here!"

As the negro reluctantly obeyed, Roger pointed to the long gash that Kipping's bullet had cut in his kinky scalp. Crying again, "Bang-bang!" he pointed at one of the seeds in the boat and then at the cook.

Not one of them who could see the carved boats failed to understand what Roger meant, and the brown men looked at Frank and laughed and talked more loudly and excitedly than ever. Then the chief stood up and cried to some one in the farthest corner of the room, and at that there was more laughing and shouting. The man in the corner seemed much abashed; but those about him pushed him forward, and he was shoved along through the crowd until he, too, stood beside the table, where a dozen men pointed at his head and cried "Bang-bang!" or "Pom-pom!" as the case might be.

To our amazement we saw that just over his right temple there was torn the path of a bullet, exactly that on the cook's head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He cut from the melon-rind a roughly shaped model of a ship and stuck in it, to represent masts, three slivers of bamboo.]

CHAPTER XXI

NEW ALLIES

Now the chief reached for Roger's knife and deftly whittled out the shape of a native canoe. In it he placed several seeds, then, pushing it against the carved ship, he pointed to the man with the bullet wound on his temple and cried, "Pom-pom!" Next he pointed at two seeds in the boat and said, "Pom-pom," and snapped them out of the canoe with his finger.

"Would you believe it!" Blodgett gasped. "The heathens went out to the ship in one o' them boats, and Falk fired on 'em!"

"And two of 'em was killed!" Davie exclaimed unnecessarily.

Roger now laid half a melon on the floor, its flat side down, and moved the boat slowly over to it.

That the half-melon represented the island was apparent to all. The natives crowded round us, jabbering questions that we could not understand and of course could not answer; they examined the cook's wound and compared it with the wound their friend had suffered; they pointed at the little boats cut out of melon-rind and laughed uproariously.

Now one of them made a suggestion, the others took it up, and the chief split melons and offered a half to each of us.

We ate them like the starving men we were, and did not notice that the chief had a.s.sembled his head men for a consultation, until he sent a man running from the hall, returned shortly with six pieces of betel nut, which the natives chew instead of tobacco, and gave them to the chief, who handed one to each of us as a mark of friendship. Next, to our amazement, one of the natives produced Roger's useless pistol and handed it back to him; and as if that were a signal, one after another they restored our knives and clubs, until, last of all, a funny little man with a squint handed the cleaver back to the cook.

With a tremendous sigh of relief, Frank seized the mighty weapon and laid it on his knee and buried his big white teeth in half a melon. "Mah golly!"

he muttered, when he had swallowed the huge mouthful and had wiped his lips and chin with the back of his hand, "Ah neveh 'spected to see dis yeh felleh again. No, sah!" And he tapped the cleaver lovingly.

The chief, who had been talking earnestly with his counselors, now made signs to attract our attention. Obviously he wished to tell us a story of his own. He cut out a number of slim canoes from the melon-rind and laid them on the half-melon that represented the island; next, he pushed the ship some distance away on the floor. Blowing on it through pursed lips, he turned it about and drew it back toward the half-melon that represented the island. When it was in the lee of the island, he stopped it and looked up at us and smiled and pointed out of the door. We were puzzled. Seeing our blank expressions, he repeated the process. Still we could not understand.

Persisting in his efforts, he now launched three roughly carved canoes, in which he placed a number of seeds, pointing at himself and various others; then in each of the prows he placed two seeds and pointed at the six of us, two at a time. Pointing next at the roof of the hut, he waved his hand from east to west and closed his eyes as if in sleep, after which he placed his finger on his lips, pushed the carved canoes very slowly across the floor toward the ship, then, with a screech that made our hair stand on end, he rushed them at the seeds that represented Captain Falk and his men, yelling, "Pom-pom-pom-pom!" and snapped the seeds off on the floor.

Leaning back, he bared his teeth and laughed ferociously.

Here was a plot to take the ship! Although we probably had missed the fine points of it, we could not mistake its general character.

"Ay," said Blodgett, as if we had been discussing the matter for hours, "but we'll be a pack of b.l.o.o.d.y pirates to be hanged from the yard-arms of the first frigate that overhauls us."

It was true. We should be liable as pirates in any port in Christendom.

"Men," said Roger coolly, "there's no denying that in the eyes of the law we'd be pirates as well as mutineers. But if we can take the ship and sail it back to Salem, we'll be acquitted of any charge of mutiny or piracy, I can promise you. It'll be easy to ship a new crew at Canton, and we can settle affairs with the Websters' agents there so that at least we'll have a chance at a fair trial if we are taken on our homeward voyage. Shall we venture it?"

The cook rolled his eyes. "Gimme dat yeh Kipping!" he cried, and with a savage cackle he swung his cleaver.

"Falk for me, curse him!" Davie Paine muttered with a neat that surprised me. I had not realized that emotions as well as thoughts developed so slowly in Davie's big, leisurely frame that he now was just coming to the fullness of his wrath at the indignities he had undergone.

Turning to the native chief, Roger cried, "We're with you!" And he extended his hand to seal the bargain.

Of course the man could not understand the words but in the nods we had exchanged and in the cook's fierce glee, he had read our consent, and he laughed and talked with the others, who laughed, too, and pointed at Roger's pistol and cried, "Pom-pom!" and at the cook's cleaver and cried, "Whish!"

When by signs Roger indicated that we needed sleep the chief issued orders, and half a dozen natives led us to a hut that seemed to be set apart for our use. But although we were nearly perishing with fatigue, they urged by signs that we follow them, and so insistent were they that we reluctantly obeyed.

Climbing a little hill beyond the village, we came to a cleared spot surrounded by bushes through which we looked across between the mountains to where we could just see the open ocean. There, not three miles away, the Island Princess rode at anchor.

I remember thinking, as I fell asleep, of the chance that Falk and Kipping would sail away before it was dark enough to attack them, and I spoke of it to Roger and the others, who shared my fear; but when our savage hosts wakened us, we knew by their eagerness that the ship still lay at her anchor. Why she remained, we could not agree. We hazarded a score of conjectures and debated them with lively interest.

Presently the natives brought us rice and sago-bread and peas.

As I ate and looked out into the darkness where fires were twinkling, I wondered which was the light I had seen that night when I watched from the summit of the headland.