ould have been mad
enough to stir abroad in the noon hour of repose: nobody but Karaki, the
untamed black, who cared nothing for custom nor yet for dreams. The
light pad of his steps was lost in the surf drone on the barrier reefs.
He flitted to and fro like a wrath. And while Fufuti slept he applied
himself to a job for which he had never been hired....

Karaki had long ago ascertained two vital facts: where the key to the
trade room was kept and where the rifles and ammunition were hidden. He
opened the trade room and selected three bolts of turkey red cloth, a
few knives, two cases of tobacco, and a fine small ax. There was much
else he might have taken as well. But Karaki was a man of simple tastes,
and efficient.

With the ax he next forced the rifle chest and removed therefrom one
Winchester and a big box of cartridges. With the ax again he broke into
the boat sheds. Finally with the ax he smashed the bottoms out of the
whaleboat and the two cutters so they would be of no use to any one for
many days to come. It was really a very handy little ax, a true
tomahawk, ground to a shaving edge. Karaki took a workman's pleasure in
its keen, deep strokes. It was almost his chief prize.

* * * * *

On the beach lay a big proa, a stout outrigger canoe; of the kind
Karaki's own people used at Bougainville, so high of prow and stern as
to be nearly crescent-shaped. The northwest monsoon of last season had
washed it ashore at Fufuti, and Karaki had repaired it, by the agent's
own order. This proa he now launched in the lagoon, and aboard of it he
stored his loot.

Of supplies he had to make a hasty selection. He took a bag of rice and
another of sweet potatoes. He took as many coconuts as he could carry in
a net in three trips. He took a cask of water and a box of biscuit.

And here happened an odd thing.

In his search for the biscuit he came upon the agent's private store of
liquor, a dozen bottles of rare Irish whisky. He glanced at them and
passed them by. He knew what the stuff was, and he was a savage, a black
man. But he passed it by. When Moy Jack heard of that later he
remembered what he had seen in Karaki's eyes and ventured the surprising
prediction that Karaki would never be taken alive.

When all was ready Karaki went back to his thatch and aroused
Christopher Alexander Pellett.

"Hy, mahster, you come 'long me."

Mr. Pellett sat up and looked at him. That is to say, he l