the whole island from Fale a Lupo to
Diamond Rock. Anyway, whatever he thought or didn't think, what he did
was to waylay Mrs. Tweedie one morning about ten, as she was going over
to visit the native pastor's wife, who was sick; and, tying her hands
and feet together with sinnet, he put her in a hammock and carried her
off up the mountain; and this, if you please, in open daylight, with
scores of people looking on, while she screamed and struggled and
fought, and they helpless to do anything against the line of Afiola's
rifles--and Tweedie himself not four hundred yards away, organizing a
Y.M.C.A. for untattooed boys, and explaining how they was to play basket
ball, and learn arithmetic nights!

When I heard the news, which was right off and the moment after it
happened, I had only one idea in my head, and that was to reach Captain
Coe as fast as the paddles could race me off to the schooner. It is in
them moments that the strong man looms up like a mountain and one's cry
is for a leader. But it seemed for a spell like it was a knock-out blow
for Coe, and that he couldn't grapple with the thing at all, moaning and
grinding his teeth, and tearing the red-dotted handkerchief off his neck
like it choked him. When I tried to talk, he swore at me terrible,
saying he wanted to think, by God! and I was to shut my bloody face; and
ordering the mate and the Chinaman into the lazarette to get out the
arms. There was a big store of them, which the pair got out on their
hands and knees, the place being cramped and low and the guns furthest
in; and they broke open boxes of cartridges on the cabin floor till they
ran all over. Then Coe ordered the whaleboat cleared and went ashore
with nigh all hands, every one of them with a loaded rifle, and he with
a twelve-bore gun; and if you ever saw the light of hell in a man's
eyes, it was Coe as he formed us up on the beach and headed inland in a
crowd. The whole settlement was buzzing like a hornet's nest, and they
were beating a wooden drum in front of the king's house, and everybody
was running every which way, telling the news, and how Mrs. Tweedie had
been carried off by Afiola, and all screaming out at once, like natives
do when excited.

Finding Afiola would be about as easy as the needle in the haystack, and
the crews of a hundred _Peep o' Days_, and all the warriors of Fale a
Lupo besides, couldn't have tracked and cornered him up the mountain. I
thought Coe was acting like a hot-