ve Peter and Missa Burrowes?" asked
Banderah.

"Five hundred," answered Bilker; "five hundred between them. But I will
give you a thousand."

"You no 'fraid man-o'-war catch you by and by?" inquired Banderah.

"No. Who's going to tell about it? You and your people won't."

"What 'bout Missa Blount? What 'bout mission'ry?"

Bilker grinned savagely. "Peter and Burrowes say they will kill Blount
if I give them another five hundred sovereigns."

"What 'bout mission'ry and mission'ry woman?"

For a moment or two Bilker, crime-hardened villain as he was, hesitated.
Then he raised his head and looked into the dark face of the native
chief. Its set, savage expression gave him confidence.

"Plenty missionaries get killed. And, all the man-o'-war captains know
that the Mayou bush-men{*} are very savage. Some day--in about a week
after I have gone away in the schooner, you will take the missionary
and his wife to the little bush town, that Peter and Burrowes tell me
he goes to sometimes. They will sleep there that night. You and some of
your people will go with them and sleep in the same house with them. You
do that sometimes, Banderah, eh?"

* "Bushmen," a term applied to natives living in the
interior of the Melanesian Islands.

"Yes, sometimes."

This was perfectly true. The bush tribes on Mayou, although at war with
Banderah and his coast tribes, yet occasionally met their foes in an
amicable manner at a bush village called Rogga, which had been for many
decades a neutral ground. Here Banderah and his people, carrying fish,
tobacco, and bamboos filled with salt water,{*} would meet small
parties of bush people, who, in exchange for the commodities brought
by Banderah, would give him yams, hogs, and wild pigeons. At several of
these meetings Mr. Deighton had been present, in the vain hope that he
might establish friendly relations with the savage and cannibal people
of the interior.

* Having no salt, the bush tribes of Melanesia, who dare not
visit the coast, buy salt water from the coast tribes. They
meet a a spot which is always sacredly kept as a neutral
ground.

"Well," resumed the ruffian, "you will sleep at Rogga with the
missionary and his wife. In the morning, when you and your people awake,
the missionary and his wife will be dead. Then you will hurry to this
place; you will go on board the man-of-war and tell the captain that the
bad bushmen killed them when they were as