but she died just the same. And staked out in the fresh
running water, up to their necks, were three more women. All their bones
were broken and their joints crushed. The process is supposed to make
them tender for the eating. They were still alive. Their vitality was
remarkable. One woman, the oldest, lingered nearly ten days. Well, that
was a sample of Koho's diet. No wonder he's a wild beast. How you ever
pacified him is our everlasting puzzlement."

"I wouldn't call him exactly pacified," Grief answered. "Though he comes
in once in a while and eats out of the hand."

"That's more than we accomplished with our cruisers. Neither the German
nor the English ever laid eyes on him. You were the first."

"No; McTavish was the first," Grief disclaimed.

"Ah, yes, I remember him--the little, dried-up Scotchman." Wallenstein
sipped his whiskey. "He's called the Trouble-mender, isn't he?"

Grief nodded.

"And they say the screw you pay him is bigger than mine or the British
Resident's?"

"I'm afraid it is," Grief admitted. "You see, and no offence, he's
really worth it. He spends his time wherever the trouble is. He is a
wizard. He's the one who got me my lodgment on New Gibbon. He's down on
Malaita now, starting a plantation for me."

"The first?"

"There's not even a trading station on all Malaita. The recruiters still
use covering boats and carry the old barbed wire above their rails.
There's the plantation now. We'll be in in half an hour." He handed the
binoculars to his guest. "Those are the boat-sheds to the left of the
bungalow. Beyond are the barracks. And to the right are the copra-sheds.
We dry quite a bit already. Old Koho's getting civilized enough to make
his people bring in the nuts. There's the mouth of the stream where you
found the three women softening."

The _Wonder_, wing-and-wing, was headed directly in for the anchorage.
She rose and fell lazily over a glassy swell flawed here and there by
catspaws from astern. It was the tail-end of the monsoon season, and the
air was heavy and sticky with tropic moisture, the sky a florid, leaden
muss of formless clouds. The rugged land was swathed with cloud-banks
and squall wreaths, through which headlands and interior peaks thrust
darkly. On one promontory a slant of sunshine blazed torridly, on
another, scarcely a mile away, a squall was bursting in furious downpour
of driving rain.

This was the dank, fat, savage island of New Gibbon, lying fifty mile