She had sat up a whole night with the boy who had died, and yet his
brother demanded to be paid for his life.

"Ugh! the ungrateful beast!" she muttered, while she debated whether or
not she would confess the incident to Sheldon.

CHAPTER XI--THE PORT ADAMS CROWD

"And so it was all settled easily enough," Sheldon was saying. He was on
the veranda, drinking coffee. The whale-boat was being carried into its
shed. "Boucher was a bit timid at first to carry off the situation with
a strong hand, but he did very well once we got started. We made a play
at holding a court, and Telepasse, the old scoundrel, accepted the
findings. He's a Port Adams chief, a filthy beggar. We fined him ten
times the value of the pigs, and made him move on with his mob. Oh,
they're a sweet lot, I must say, at least sixty of them, in five big
canoes, and out for trouble. They've got a dozen Sniders that ought to
be confiscated."

"Why didn't you?" Joan asked.

"And have a row on my hands with the Commissioner? He's terribly touchy
about his black wards, as he calls them. Well, we started them along
their way, though they went in on the beach to _kai-kai_ several miles
back. They ought to pass here some time to-day."

Two hours later the canoes arrived. No one saw them come. The house-
boys were busy in the kitchen at their own breakfast. The plantation
hands were similarly occupied in their quarters. Satan lay sound asleep
on his back under the billiard table, in his sleep brushing at the flies
that pestered him. Joan was rummaging in the storeroom, and Sheldon was
taking his siesta in a hammock on the veranda. He awoke gently. In some
occult, subtle way a warning that all was not well had penetrated his
sleep and aroused him. Without moving, he glanced down and saw the
ground beneath covered with armed savages. They were the same ones he
had parted with that morning, though he noted an accession in numbers.
There were men he had not seen before.

He slipped from the hammock and with deliberate slowness sauntered to the
railing, where he yawned sleepily and looked down on them. It came to
him curiously that it was his destiny ever to stand on this high place,
looking down on unending hordes of black trouble that required control,
bullying, and cajolery. But while he glanced carelessly over them, he
was keenly taking stock. The new men were all armed with modern rifles.
Ah, he had thought so. There were fift