pprehensively waited their coming. For the morning of the third day all
the summits of leeward Malaita smoked into speech. A warship was on the
coast--so the tale ran; a big warship that was heading in through the
reef islands at Langa-Langa. The tale grew. The warship was not
stopping at Langa-Langa. The warship was not stopping at Binu. It was
directing its course toward Somo.

Nalasu, blind, could not see this smoke speech written in the air.
Because of the isolation of his house, no one came and told him. His
first warning was when shrill voices of women, cries of children, and
wailings of babes in nameless fear came to him from the main path that
led from the village to the upland boundaries of Somo. He read only fear
and panic from the sounds, deduced that the village was fleeing to its
mountain fastnesses, but did not know the cause of the flight.

He called Jerry to him and instructed him to scout to the great banyan
tree, where Nalasu's path and the main path joined, and to observe and
report. And Jerry sat under the banyan tree and observed the flight of
all Somo. Men, women, and children, the young and the aged, babes at
breast and patriarchs leaning on sticks and staffs passed before his
eyes, betraying the greatest haste and alarm. The village dogs were as
frightened, whimpering and whining as they ran. And the contagion of
terror was strong upon Jerry. He knew the prod of impulse to join in
this rush away from some unthinkably catastrophic event that impended and
that stirred his intuitive apprehensions of death. But he mastered the
impulse with his sense of loyalty to the blind man who had fed him and
caressed him for a long six months.

Back with Nalasu, sitting between his knees, he made his report. It was
impossible for him to count more than five, although he knew the fleeing
population numbered many times more than five. So he signified five men,
and more; five women, and more five children, and more; five babies, and
more; five dogs, and more--even of pigs did he announce five and more.
Nalasu's ears told him that it was many, many times more, and he asked
for names. Jerry know the names of Bashti, of Agno, and of Lamai, and
Lumai. He did not pronounce them with the slightest of resemblance to
their customary soundings, but pronounced them in the whiff-whuff of
shorthand speech that Nalasu had taught him.

Nalasu named over many other names that Jerry knew by ear but could not
h