! who's this?"

"Hello, Koho!" Grief said genially, though he knew better than to offer
to shake hands.

It was one of Koho's _tambos_, given him by the devil-devil doctors when
he was born, that never was his flesh to come in contact with the flesh
of a white man. Worth and Captain Ward, of the _Wonder_, greeted Koho,
but Worth frowned at sight of the Snider, for it was one of his _tambos_
that no visiting bushman should carry a weapon on the plantation. Rifles
had a nasty way of going off at the hip under such circumstances. The
manager clapped his hands, and a black house-boy, recruited from San
Cristobal, came running. At a sign from Worth, he took the rifle from
the visitor's hand and carried it inside the bungalow.

"Koho," Grief said, introducing the German Resident, "this big fella
marster belong Bougainville--my word, big fella marster too much."

Koho, remembering the visits of the various German cruisers, smiled with
a light of unpleasant reminiscence in his eyes.

"Don't shake hands with him, Wallenstein," Grief warned. "_Tambo_, you
know." Then to Koho, "My word, you get 'm too much fat stop along you.
Bime by you marry along new fella Mary, eh?"

"Too old fella me," Koho answered, with a weary shake of the head. "Me
no like 'm Mary. Me no like 'm _kai-kai_ (food). Close up me die along
altogether." He stole a significant glance at Worth, whose head was
tilted back to a long glass. "Me like 'm rum."

Grief shook his head.

"_Tambo_ along black fella."

"He black fella no tambo," Koho retorted, nodding toward the groaning
labourer.

"He fella sick," Grief explained.

"Me fella sick."

"You fella big liar," Grief laughed. "Rum tambo, all the time tambo.
Now, Koho, we have big fella talk along this big fella mar-ster."

And he and Wallenstein and the old chief sat down on the veranda to
confer about affairs of state. Koho was complimented on the peace he
had kept, and he, with many protestations of his aged decrepitude, swore
peace again and everlasting. Then was discussed the matter of starting a
German plantation twenty miles down the coast. The land, of course, was
to be bought from Koho, and the price was arranged in terms of tobacco,
knives, beads, pipes, hatchets, porpoise teeth and shell-money--in terms
of everything except rum. While the talk went on, Koho, glancing through
the window, could see Worth mixing medicines and placing bottles back in
the medicine cupboard. Also, he saw the m