s
to leeward of Choiseul. Geographically, it belonged to the Solomon
Group. Politically, the dividing line of German and British
influence cut it in half, hence the joint control by the two Resident
Commissioners. In the case of New Gibbon, this control existed only on
paper in the colonial offices of the two countries. There was no real
control at all, and never had been. The beche de mer fishermen of
the old days had passed it by. The sandalwood traders, after stern
experiences, had given it up. The blackbirders had never succeeded in
recruiting one labourer on the island, and, after the schooner _Dorset_
had been cut off with all hands, they left the place severely alone.
Later, a German company had attempted a cocoanut plantation, which was
abandoned after several managers and a number of contract labourers had
lost their heads. German cruisers and British cruisers had failed to
get the savage blacks to listen to reason. Four times the missionary
societies had essayed the peaceful conquest of the island, and four
times, between sickness and massacre, they had been driven away, More
cruisers, more pacifications, had followed, and followed fruitlessly.
The cannibals had always retreated into the bush and laughed at the
screaming shells. When the warships left it was an easy matter
to rebuild the burned grass houses and set up the ovens in the
old-fashioned way.

New Gibbon was a large island, fully one hundred and fifty miles long
and half as broad.

Its windward coast was iron-bound, without anchorages or inlets, and it
was inhabited by scores of warring tribes--at least it had been,
until Koho had arisen, like a Kamehameha, and, by force of arms and
considerable statecraft, firmly welded the greater portion of the tribes
into a confederation. His policy of permitting no intercourse with white
men had been eminently right, so far as survival of his own people was
concerned; and after the visit of the last cruiser he had had his own
way until David Grief and McTavish the Trouble-mender landed on the
deserted beach where once had stood the German bungalow and barracks and
the various English mission-houses.

Followed wars, false peaces, and more wars. The weazened little
Scotchman could make trouble as well as mend it, and, not content with
holding the beach, he imported bushmen from Malaita and invaded the
wild-pig runs of the interior jungle. He burned villages until Koho
wearied of rebuilding them, and when he c