nds and we will work."

They thought that Walker would spring on him. It would not have been the
first time that he had thrashed a native with his own hands; they knew
his strength, and though Walker was three times the age of the young man
and six inches shorter they did not doubt that he was more than a match
for Manuma. No one had ever thought of resisting the savage onslaught of
the administrator. But Walker said nothing. He chuckled.

"I am not going to waste my time with a pack of fools," he said. "Talk
it over again. You know what I have offered. If you do not start in a
week, take care."

He turned round and walked out of the chief's hut. He untied his old
mare and it was typical of the relations between him and the natives
that one of the elder men hung on to the off stirrup while Walker from a
convenient boulder hoisted himself heavily into the saddle.

That same night when Walker according to his habit was strolling along
the road that ran past his house, he heard something whizz past him and
with a thud strike a tree. Something had been thrown at him. He ducked
instinctively. With a shout, "Who's that"? he ran towards the place from
which the missile had come and he heard the sound of a man escaping
through the bush. He knew it was hopeless to pursue in the darkness, and
besides he was soon out of breath, so he stopped and made his way back
to the road. He looked about for what had been thrown, but could find
nothing. It was quite dark. He went quickly back to the house and called
Mackintosh and the Chinese boy.

"One of those devils has thrown something at me. Come along and let's
find out what it was."

He told the boy to bring a lantern and the three of them made their way
back to the place. They hunted about the ground, but could not find what
they sought. Suddenly the boy gave a guttural cry. They turned to look.
He held up the lantern, and there, sinister in the light that cut the
surrounding darkness, was a long knife sticking into the trunk of a
coconut tree. It had been thrown with such force that it required quite
an effort to pull it out.

"By George, if he hadn't missed me I'd have been in a nice state."

Walker handled the knife. It was one of those knives, made in imitation
of the sailor knives brought to the islands a hundred years before by
the first white men, used to divide the coconuts in two so that the
copra might be dried. It was a murderous weapon, and the blade, twelve
inches