anager complete his labours by
taking a drink of Scotch. Koho noted the bottle carefully. And, though
he hung about for an hour after the conference was over, there was never
a moment when some one or another was not in the room. When Grief and
Worth sat down to a business talk, Koho gave it up.

"Me go along schooner," he announced, then turned and limped out.

"How are the mighty fallen," Grief laughed. "To think that used to be
Koho, the fiercest red-handed murderer in the Solomons, who defied all
his life two of the greatest world powers. And now he's going aboard to
try and cadge Denby for a drink."

III

For the last time in his life the supercargo of the _Wonder_ perpetrated
a practical joke on a native. He was in the main cabin, checking off the
list of goods being landed in the whaleboats, when Koho limped down the
com-panionway and took a seat opposite him at the table.

"Close up me die along altogether," was the burden of the old chief's
plaint. All the delights of the flesh had forsaken him. "Me no like
'm Mary. Me no like 'm _kai-kai_. Me too much sick fella. Me close up
finish." A long, sad pause, in which his face expressed unutterable
concern for his stomach, which he patted gingerly and with an assumption
of pain. "Belly belong me too much sick." Another pause, which was an
invitation to Denby to make suggestions. Then followed a long, weary,
final sigh, and a "Me like 'm rum."

Denby laughed heartlessly. He had been cadged for drinks before by the
old cannibal, and the sternest _tambo_ Grief and McTavish had laid down
was the one forbidding alcohol to the natives of New Gibbon.

The trouble was that Koho had acquired the taste. In his younger days
he had learned the delights of drunkenness when he cut off the schooner
_Dorset_, but unfortunately he had learned it along with all his
tribesmen, and the supply had not held out long. Later, when he led his
naked warriors down to the destruction of the German plantation, he was
wiser, and he appropriated all the liquors for his sole use. The result
had been a gorgeous mixed drunk, on a dozen different sorts of drink,
ranging from beer doctored with quinine to absinthe and apricot brandy.
The drunk had lasted for months, and it had left him with a thirst that
would remain with him until he died. Predisposed toward alcohol, after
the way of savages, all the chemistry of his flesh clamoured for it.
This craving was to him expressed in terms of ti