uiser program. I'll charter a
couple of trading ketches, take my own black police force and as many
white men as I cannot prevent from volunteering. There won't be any
shelling of grass houses. I'll land my shore party down the coast and
cut in and come down upon Somo from the rear, timing my vessels to arrive
on Somo's sea-front at the same time."

"You will answer slaughter with slaughter?" Villa Kennan objected.

"I will answer slaughter with law," the Commissioner replied. "I will
teach Somo law. I hope that no accidents will occur. I hope that no
life will be lost on either side. I know, however, that I shall recover
Captain Van Horn's head, and his mate Borckman's, and bring them back to
Tulagi for Christian burial. I know that I shall get old Bashti by the
scruff of the neck and sit him down while I pump law and square-dealing
into him. Of course . . . "

The Commissioner, ascetic-looking, an Oxford graduate, narrow-shouldered
and elderly, tired-eyed and bespectacled like the scholar he was, like
the scientist he was, shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, if they are
not amenable to reason, there may be trouble, and some of them and some
of us will get hurt. But, one way or the other, the conclusion will be
the same. Old Bashti will learn that it is expedient to maintain white
men's heads on their shoulders."

"But how will he learn?" Villa Kennan asked. "If he is shrewd enough not
to fight you, and merely sits and listens to your English law, it will be
no more than a huge joke to him. He will no more than pay the price of
listening to a lecture for any atrocity he commits."

"On the contrary, my dear Mrs. Kennan. If he listens peaceably to the
lecture, I shall fine him only a hundred thousand coconuts, five tons of
ivory nut, one hundred fathoms of shell money, and twenty fat pigs. If
he refuses to listen to the lecture and goes on the war path, then,
unpleasantly for me, I assure you, I shall be compelled to thrash him and
his village, first: and, next, I shall triple the fine he must pay and
lecture the law into him a trifle more compendiously."

"Suppose he doesn't fight, stops his ears to the lecture, and declines to
pay?" Villa Kennan persisted.

"Then he shall be my guest, here in Tulagi, until he changes his mind and
heart, and does pay, and listens to an entire course of lectures."

* * * * *

So it was that Jerry came to hear his old-time name on the lips of Villa
and Harley, an