cend the spur to get it.

For some hours not a sound broke the silence, then a stone rolled
down, and presently Larmer's head appeared above a boulder. He looked
carefully round, and then, finding all quiet, began the descent. On the
very edge of the pool he again stopped and listened, holding his pistol
at full cock. His left hand was slung to his chest by a piece of green
hibiscus bark, which was passed round his neck and roughly tied.

The silence all around him was reassuring, but he still held out the
pistol as he bent his knees to drink. Ere his lips could touch the water
two half-naked figures sprang upon him and bore him down. He was too
weak to resist.

"Do not bind him," said Challoner, "but tie his right hand behind his
back."

Larmer turned his bloodshot eyes upon the trader, but said nothing.

"Give him a drink."

A native placed a gourd of water to his lips. He drank greedily. Then,
in silence, Challoner and his men began their march back.

*****

At sunset the people of Jakoits gathered together in front of the
blackened space whereon the trader's house had stood. Raised on four
heavy blocks of stone was the still blood-stained cannon, and bound with
his back to its muzzle was Larmer.

Challoner made a sign, the brown-skinned men and women moved quickly
apart in two parties, one on each side of the gun. Then Rul, the chief
of the Jakoits* village, advanced with a lighted stick, touched the
priming, and sprang aside. A sheet of flame leaped out, a bursting roar
pealed through the leafy forest aisles, and Challoner had avenged his
murdered wife.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brothers-In-Law: A Tale Of The
Equatorial Islands; and The Brass Gun Of The Buccaneers, by Louis Becke

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROTHERS-IN-LAW ***

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