By Reef and Palm, Page 5

  II

  The native drum was beating. As the blood-quickening boom reverberatedthrough the village, the natives came out from their huts and gatheredaround the House of the Old Men, where, with bound hands and feet,Sera, the White Man's wife, sat, with her back to one of thecentre-posts. And opposite her, sitting like a native on a mat ofKAPAU, was the burly figure of O'Shea, with the demon of disappointedpassion eating away his reason, and a mist of blood swimming before hiseyes.

  The people all detested her, especially the soft-voiced, slender-framedwomen. In that one thing savages resemble Christians--the deadly hatredwith which some women hate those of their sex whom they know to bebetter and more pure than themselves. So the matter was decidedquickly. Mesi--so they called O'Shea--should have justice. If hethought death, let it be death for this woman who had let out the bloodof his new wife. Only one man, Loloku the Boar Hunter, raised his voicefor her, because Sera had cured him of a bad wound when his leg hadbeen torn open by the tusk of a wild boar. But the dull glare from theeyes of O'Shea fell on him, and he said no more. Then at a sign fromthe old men the people rose from the mats, and two unbound the cords ofAFA from the girl, and led her out into the square, and looked atO'Shea.

  "Take her to the boat," he said.

  * * * * *

  Ristow's boat had been hauled up, turned over, and covered with therough mats called KAPAU to keep off the heat of the sun. Withstaggering feet, but undaunted heart, the girl Sera was led down. Onlyonce she turned her head and looked back. Perhaps Loloku would tryagain. Then, as they came to the boat, a young girl, at a sign fromO'Shea, took off the loose blouse, and they placed her, face downwards,across the bilge of the boat, and two pair of small, eager, brown handseach seized one of hers and dragged the white, rounded arms well overthe keel of the boat. O'Shea walked round to that side, drawing throughhis hands the long, heavy, and serrated tail of the FAI--the giganticstinging-ray of Oceana. He would have liked to wield it himself, butthen he would have missed part of his revenge--he could not have seenher face. So he gave it to a native, and watched, with the smile of afiend, the white back turn black and then into bloody red as it was cutto pieces with the tail of the FAI.

  * * * * *

  The sight of the inanimate thing that had given no sign of its agonybeyond the shudderings and twitchings of torn and mutilated flesh was,perhaps, disappointing to the tiger who stood and watched the darkstream that flowed down on both sides of the boat. Loloku touched hisarm--"Mesi, stay thy hand. She is dead else."

  "Ah," said O'Shea, "that would be a pity; for with one hand shall shelive to plant taro."

  And, hatchet in hand, he walked in between the two brown women who heldher hands. They moved aside and let go. Then O'Shea swung his arm; theblade of the hatchet struck into the planking, and the right hand ofSera fell on the sand.

  A man put his arms around her, and lifted her off the boat. He placedhis hand on the blood-stained bosom and looked at Macy O'Shea.

  "E MATE! [Dead!]" he said.