ssing, primitive statesman that
he was, in an effort to ascertain the balance of human and political
forces that bore upon his Su'u territory, ten miles square, bounded by
the sea and by landward lines of an inter-tribal warfare that was older
than the oldest Su'u myth. Eternally, heads had been taken and bodies
eaten, now on one side, now on the other, by the temporarily victorious
tribes. The boundaries had remained the same. Ishikola, in crude beche-
de-mer, tried to learn the Solomon Islands general situation in relation
to Su'u, and Van Horn was not above playing the unfair diplomatic game as
it is unfairly played in all the chancellories of the world powers.

"My word," Van Horn concluded; "you bad fella too much along this place.
Too many heads you fella take; too much kai-kai long pig along you."
(Long pig, meaning barbecued human flesh.)

"What name, long time black fella belong Su'u take 'm heads, kai-kai
along long pig?" Ishikola countered.

"My word," Van Horn came back, "too much along this place. Bime by,
close up, big fella warship stop 'm along Su'u, knock seven balls outa
Su'u."

"What name him big fella warship stop 'm along Solomons?" Ishikola
demanded.

"Big fella _Cambrian_, him fella name belong ship," Van Horn lied, too
well aware that no British cruiser had been in the Solomons for the past
two years.

The conversation was becoming rather a farcical dissertation upon the
relations that should obtain between states, irrespective of size, when
it was broken off by a cry from Tambi, who, with another lantern hanging
overside at the end of his arm had made a discovery.

"Skipper, gun he stop along canoe!" was his cry.

Van Horn, with a leap, was at the rail and peering down over the barbed
wire. Ishikola, despite his twisted body, was only seconds behind him.

"What name that fella gun stop 'm along bottom?" Van Horn indignantly
demanded.

The dandy, in the stern, with a careless look upward, tried with his foot
to shove over the green leaves so as to cover the out-jutting butts of
several rifles, but made the matter worse by exposing them more fully. He
bent to rake the leaves over with his hand, but sat swiftly upright when
Van Horn roared at him:

"Stand clear! Keep 'm fella hand belong you long way big bit!"

Van Horn turned on Ishikola, and simulated wrath which he did not feel
against the ancient and ever-recurrent trick.

"What name you come alongside, gun he stop along