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i "Bwana Heron says that there are trees on this island for all of you and he has sufficient rope." A sigh blew through them, soft and restless as a small wind in a field of wheat. Heads turned slowly until they were all looking at Walaka.
Reluctantly Walaka stood up to reply. He realized that it was foolhardy to draw attention to himself when there was talk of ropes in the air, but the damage had already been done. The hundreds of eyes upon him had singled him out to the Allemand. Bwana Intambu always hanged the man that everyone looked at.
Walaka began to speak. His voice had the soothing quality of a rusty gate squeaking in the wind. It went on and on, as Walaka attempted a one-man filibust.
"What is he talking about? "demanded Ensign Proust.
"He is talking about leopards," the sergeant told him.
"What is he saying about them?"
"He says, among other things,
that they are the excrement of dead lepers,"
Proust looked stu
"Tell him that he is a wise old man, and that I look to him to lead the others to their duties." And the sergeant gazed upon Walaka sternly.
"Bwana Heron says that you, Walaka, are the son of a diseased porcupine and that you feed on offal with the vultures.
He says further that you he has chosen to lead the others in the dance of the rope." Walaka stopped talking. He sighed in resignation and -started down towards the waiting launch. Five hundred men stood up and followed him.
The two vessels chugged sedately down to Blitcher's moorings.
Standing in the bows of the leading launch with his hands on his hips,
Ensign Proust had the proud bearing of a Viking returning from a successful raid.
"I understand these people," he would tell Lieutenant Kyller.
"You must pick out their leader and appeal to his sense of duty." He took his watch from his breast pocket.
"Fifteen minutes to seven" he Murmured. "I'll have them aboard on the hour." He turned and smiled fondly at Walaka who squatted miserably beside the wheelhouse.
"Good man, that! I'll bring his conduct to Lieutenant Kyller's attention." Lieutenant Ernst Kyller shrugged out of his tunic and sat down on his bunk. He held the tunic in his lap and fingered the sleeve. The smear of blood had dried, and as he rubbed the material between thumb and forefinger, the blood crumbled and flaked.
"He should not have run. I had to shoot." He stood up and hung the tunic in the little cupboard at the head of his bunk. Then he took his watch from the pocket and sat down again to wind it.
"Fifteen minutes to seven." He noted the time mechanically, and laid the gold hunter on the flap table beside the bunk. Then he lay back and arranged the pillows under his head, he crossed his still-booted feet and regarded them dispassionately.
"He came aboard to try and rescue his wife. It was the natural thing to do. But that disguise the shaven head, and stained skin that must have been carefully thought out. It must have taken time to arrange." Kyller closed his eyes. He was tired. It had been a long and eventful watch. Yet there was something nagging him, a feeling that there was an important detail that he had overlooked, a detail of vital no, of deadly importance.
Within two minutes of the girl's recognition of the wounded man,
Kyller and the Surgeon commander had established that he was not a native, but a white man disguised as one.
Kyller's English was sketchy, but he had understood the girl's cries of love and concern and accusation.
"You've killed him also. You've killed them all. My baby, my father and now my husband. You murderers, you filthy murdering swines!" Kyller grimaced and pressed his knuckles into his aching eyes.
Yes, he had understood her.
When he had reported to Captain von Kleine, the captain had placed little importance on the incident.
"Is the man conscious?"
"No, sir."
"What does the surgeon say his chances are?"
"He will die. Probably before midday."
"You did the right thing, Kyller." Von Kleine touched his shoulder in a show of understanding. "Do not reproach yourself It was your duty."
"Thank you, sir."
"You are off watch now. Go to your cabin and rest that is an order. I want you fresh and alert by nightfall."
"Is it tonight then, sir?"
"Yes. Tonight we sail. The minefield has been cleared and
I have given the order for the boom to be destroyed.
The new moon sets at 11:47. We will sail at midnight." But Kyller could not rest. The girl's face, pale, smeared with her tears, haunted him. The strangled breathing of the dying man echoed in his ears, and that nagging doubt scratched against his nerves.
There was something he must remember. He flogged his tired brain,
and it balked.