, first the
flat, and next the edge, of a paddle upon his head while he still swam.
And the darkness of unconsciousness welled over his bright little love-
suffering brain, so that it was a limp and motionless puppy that the
black boy dragged into his canoe.

In the meantime, down below in the _Arangi's_ cabin, ere ever Jerry hit
the water from Lerumie's kick, even while he was in the air, Van Horn, in
one great flashing profound fraction of an instant, had known his death.
Not for nothing had old Bashti lived longest of any living man in his
tribe, and ruled wisest of all the long line of rulers since Somo's time.
Had he been placed more generously in earth space and time, he might well
have proved an Alexander, a Napoleon, or a swarthy Kahehameha. As it
was, he performed well, and splendidly well, in his limited little
kingdom on the leeward coast of the dark cannibal island of Malaita.

And such a performance! In cool good nature in rigid maintenance of his
chiefship rights, he had smiled at Van Horn, given royal permission to
his young men to sign on for three years of plantation slavery, and
exacted his share of each year's advance. Aora, who might be described
as his prime minister and treasurer, had received the tithes as fast as
they were paid over, and filled them into large, fine-netted bags of
coconut sennit. At Bashti's back, squatting on the bunk-boards, a slim
and smooth-skinned maid of thirteen had flapped the flies away from his
royal head with the royal fly-flapper. At his feet had squatted his
three old wives, the oldest of them, toothless and somewhat palsied, ever
presenting to his hand, at his head nod, a basket rough-woven of pandanus
leaf.

And Bashti, his keen old ears pitched for the first untoward sound from
on deck, had continually nodded his head and dipped his hand into the
proffered basket--now for betel-nut, and lime-box, and the invariable
green leaf with which to wrap the mouthful; now for tobacco with which to
fill his short clay pipe; and, again, for matches with which to light the
pipe which seemed not to draw well and which frequently went out.

Toward the last the basket had hovered constantly close to his hand, and,
at the last, he made one final dip. It was at the moment when the Mary's
axe, on deck, had struck Borckman down and when Tambi loosed the first
shot at her from his Lee-Enfield. And Bashti's withered ancient hand,
the back of it netted with a complex of large