s of the
officials. Only the most trusted, however, were given such posts as
that. Yet it was necessary to trust many of them, and each official
had a large retinue of servants, for there was little settlement work
to be done, and something must be done with the men on parole, since
the prison itself was too small to hold fifteen hundred men under lock
and key at the same time. Moreover, these trusted ones were rather
necessary. In the Tropics, work is always done in a small,
half-hearted way, by reason of the heat which so soon exhausts the
vitality, consequently many people are required to perform the
smallest task.

Mercier, therefore, was obliged to accept the life as he found it, and
he found it different from the romantic conception which he had formed
at home. And he became very listless and demoralised, and the lack of
interests of all sorts bored him intolerably. He was not one to find
solace in an intellectual life. The bi-monthly call of the supply ship
with its stocks of provisions, the unloading of which he must oversee,
was the sole outside interest he had to look forward to. Old
newspapers and magazines came with the supply ship, and these were
eagerly read, and soon abandoned, and nothing was left but cigarettes
and brandy to sustain him between whiles.

On a certain morning, when he had been at the settlement for over a
year, he finished his daily report and strolled over to lay it upon
the desk in the office of the Administrator. The supply ship was due
in that day, and he wandered down to the beach to look for her. There
she was, just dropping anchor. His heart beat a little faster, and he
hastened his steps. It was cattle day. Bullocks from the mainland,
several hundred miles away, which came once a month for food. He took
his boat and rowed, out to the ship, and then directed the work of
removing the bullocks.

It was nasty work. The coolies did it badly. The hatch was opened, and
by means of a block and pulley, each bullock was dragged upward by a
rope attached to its horns. Kicking and struggling, they were swung
upwards over the side of the ship and lowered into the lighter below.
Sometimes they were swung out too far and landed straddle on the side
of the lighter, straddling the rail, kicking and roaring. And
sometimes, when the loosely moored lighter drifted away a little from
the ship's side, an animal would be lowered between the ship's side
and the lighter, and squeezed between the two--