deck without even a revolver on him. He was
tomahawked. His head remains in Malaita. It was suicide. So was
Packard's finish suicide."

"I grant that precaution is necessary in dealing with them," Joan agreed;
"but I believe that more satisfactory results can be obtained by treating
them with discreet kindness and gentleness."

"And there I agree with _you_, but you must understand one thing.
Berande, bar none, is by far the worst plantation in the Solomons so far
as the labour is concerned. And how it came to be so proves your point.
The previous owners of Berande were not discreetly kind. They were a
pair of unadulterated brutes. One was a down-east Yankee, as I believe
they are called, and the other was a guzzling German. They were slave-
drivers. To begin with, they bought their labour from Johnny Be-blowed,
the most notorious recruiter in the Solomons. He is working out a ten
years' sentence in Fiji now, for the wanton killing of a black boy.
During his last days here he had made himself so obnoxious that the
natives on Malaita would have nothing to do with him. The only way he
could get recruits was by hurrying to the spot whenever a murder or
series of murders occurred. The murderers were usually only too willing
to sign on and get away to escape vengeance. Down here they call such
escapes, 'pier-head jumps.' There is suddenly a roar from the beach, and
a nigger runs down to the water pursued by clouds of spears and arrows.
Of course, Johnny Be-blowed's whale-boat is lying ready to pick him up.
In his last days Johnny got nothing but pier-head jumps.

"And the first owners of Berande bought his recruits--a hard-bitten gang
of murderers. They were all five-year boys. You see, the recruiter has
the advantage over a boy when he makes a pier-head jump. He could sign
him on for ten years did the law permit. Well, that's the gang of
murderers we've got on our hands now. Of course some are dead, some have
been killed, and there are others serving sentences at Tulagi. Very
little clearing did those first owners do, and less planting. It was war
all the time. They had one manager killed. One of the partners had his
shoulder slashed nearly off by a cane-knife. The other was speared on
two different occasions. Both were bullies, wherefore there was a streak
of cowardice in them, and in the end they had to give up. They were
chased away--literally chased away--by their own niggers. And along came