don said to Joan.

She drummed with her hand and waited, while Binu Charley gazed wearily at
her with unblinking eyes.

"I'll start the first thing in the morning," Sheldon said.

"We'll start," she corrected. "I can get twice as much out of my
Tahitians as you can, and, besides, one white should never be alone under
such circumstances."

He shrugged his shoulders in token, not of consent, but of surrender,
knowing the uselessness of attempting to argue the question with her, and
consoling himself with the reflection that heaven alone knew what
adventures she was liable to engage in if left alone on Berande for a
week. He clapped his hands, and for the next quarter of an hour the
house-boys were kept busy carrying messages to the barracks. A man was
sent to Balesuna village to command old Seelee's immediate presence. A
boat's-crew was started in a whale-boat with word for Boucher to come
down. Ammunition was issued to the Tahitians, and the storeroom
overhauled for a few days' tinned provisions. Viaburi turned yellow when
told that he was to accompany the expedition, and, to everybody's
surprise, Lalaperu volunteered to take his place.

Seelee arrived, proud in his importance that the great master of Berande
should summon him in the night-time for council, and firm in his refusal
to step one inch within the dread domain of the bushmen. As he said, if
his opinion had been asked when the gold-hunters started, he would have
foretold their disastrous end. There was only one thing that happened to
any one who ventured into the bushmen's territory, and that was that he
was eaten. And he would further say, without being asked, that if
Sheldon went up into the bush he would be eaten too.

Sheldon sent for a gang-boss and told him to bring ten of the biggest,
best, and strongest Poonga-Poonga men.

"Not salt-water boys," Sheldon cautioned, "but bush boys--leg belong him
strong fella leg. Boy no savvee musket, no good. You bring 'm boy shoot
musket strong fella."

They were ten picked men that filed up on the veranda and stood in the
glare of the lanterns. Their heavy, muscular legs advertised that they
were bushmen. Each claimed long experience in bush-fighting, most of
them showed scars of bullet or spear-thrust in proof, and all were wild
for a chance to break the humdrum monotony of plantation labour by going
on a killing expedition. Killing was their natural vocation, not wood-
cutting; and while they