auled up and padlocked. This was a most necessary
precaution, for the blacks were in a funk, and a whale-boat left lying on
the beach in the evening meant a loss of twenty blacks by morning. Since
the blacks were worth thirty dollars apiece, or less, according to how
much of their time had been worked out, Berande plantation could ill
afford the loss. Besides, whale-boats were not cheap in the Solomons;
and, also, the deaths were daily reducing the working capital. Seven
blacks had fled into the bush the week before, and four had dragged
themselves back, helpless from fever, with the report that two more had
been killed and _kai-kai'd_ {1} by the hospitable bushmen. The seventh
man was still at large, and was said to be working along the coast on the
lookout to steal a canoe and get away to his own island.

Viaburi brought two lighted lanterns to the white man for inspection. He
glanced at them and saw that they were burning brightly with clear, broad
flames, and nodded his head. One was hoisted up to the gaff of the
flagstaff, and the other was placed on the wide veranda. They were the
leading lights to the Berande anchorage, and every night in the year they
were so inspected and hung out.

He rolled back on his couch with a sigh of relief. The day's work was
done. A rifle lay on the couch beside him. His revolver was within
reach of his hand. An hour passed, during which he did not move. He lay
in a state of half-slumber, half-coma. He became suddenly alert. A
creak on the back veranda was the cause. The room was L-shaped; the
corner in which stood his couch was dim, but the hanging lamp in the main
part of the room, over the billiard table and just around the corner, so
that it did not shine on him, was burning brightly. Likewise the
verandas were well lighted. He waited without movement. The creaks were
repeated, and he knew several men lurked outside.

"What name?" he cried sharply.

The house, raised a dozen feet above the ground, shook on its pile
foundations to the rush of retreating footsteps.

"They're getting bold," he muttered. "Something will have to be done."

The full moon rose over Malaita and shone down on Berande. Nothing
stirred in the windless air. From the hospital still proceeded the
moaning of the sick. In the grass-thatched barracks nearly two hundred
woolly-headed man-eaters slept off the weariness of the day's toil,
though several lifted their heads to listen to the