The mere idea has always put my monkey up, and I rapped my speech out pretty big. Then Case translated it — or made believe to, rather — and the first chief replied, and then a second, and a third, all in the same style, easy and genteel, but solemn underneath. Once a question was put to Case, and he answered it, and all hands (both chiefs and commons) laughed out aloud, and looked at me. Last of all, the puckered old fellow and the big young chief that spoke first started in to put Case through a kind of catechism. Sometimes I made out that Case was trying to fence, and they stuck to him like hounds, and the sweat ran down his face, which was no very pleasant sight to me, and at some of his answers the crowd moaned and murmured, which was a worse hearing. It’s a cruel shame I knew no native, for (as I now believe) they were asking Case about my marriage, and he must have had a tough job of it to clear his feet. But leave Case alone; he had the brains to run a parliament.
“Well, is that all?” I asked, when a pause came.
“Come along,” says he, mopping his face; “I’ll tell you outside.”
“Do you mean they won’t take the taboo off?” I cried.
“It’s something queer,” said he. “I’ll tell you outside. Better come away.”
“I won’t take it at their hands,” cried I. “I ain’t that kind of a man. You don’t find me turn my back on a parcel of Kanakas.”
“You’d better,” said Case.
He looked at me with a signal in his eye; and the five chiefs looked at me civilly enough, but kind of pointed; and the people looked at me and craned and jostled. I remembered the folks that watched my house, and how the pastor had jumped in his pulpit at the bare sight of me; and the whole business seemed so out of the way that I rose and followed Case. The crowd opened again to let us through, but wider than before, the children on the skirts running and singing out, and as we two white men walked away they all stood and watched us.
“And now,” said I, “what is all this about?”
“The truth is I can’t rightly make it out myself. They have a down on you,” says Case.
“Taboo a man because they have a down on him!” I cried. “I never heard the like.”
“It’s worse than that, you see,” said Case. “You ain’t tabooed — I told you that couldn’t be. The people won’t go near you, Wiltshire, and there’s where it is.”
“They won’t go near me? What do you mean by that? Why won’t they go near me?” I cried.
Case hesitated. “Seems they’re frightened,” says he, in a low, voice.
I stopped dead short. “Frightened?” I repeated. “Are you gone crazy, Case? What are they frightened of?”
“I wish I could make out,” Case answered, shaking his head. “Appears like one of their tomfool superstitions. That’s what I don’t cotton to,” he said. “It’s like the business about Vigours.”
“I’d like to know what you mean by that, and I’ll trouble you to tell me,” says I.
“Well, you know, Vigours lit out and left all standing,” said he. “It was some superstition business — I never got the hang of it but it began to look bad before the end.”
“I’ve heard a different story about that,” said I, “and I had better tell you so. I heard he ran away because of you.”
“O! well, I suppose he was ashamed to tell the truth,” says Case; “I guess he thought it silly. And it’s a fact that I packed him off. ‘What would you do, old man?’ says he. ‘Get,’ says I, ‘and not think twice about it.’ I was the gladdest kind of man to see him clear away. It ain’t my notion to turn my back on a mate when he’s in a tight place, but there was that much trouble in the village that I couldn’t see where it might likely end. I was a fool to be so much about with Vigours. They cast it up to me to-day. Didn’t you hear Maea — that’s the young chief, the big one — ripping out about ‘Vika’? That was him they were after. They don’t seem to forget it, somehow.”
“This is all very well,” said I, “but it don’t tell me what’s wrong; it don’t tell me what they’re afraid of — what their idea is.”
“Well, I wish I knew,” said Case. “I can’t say fairer than that.”
“You might have asked, I think,” says I.
“And so I did,” says he. “But you must have seen for yourself, unless you’re blind, that the asking got the other way. I’ll go as far as I dare for another white man; but when I find I’m in the scrape myself, I think first of my own bacon. The loss of me is I’m too good-natured. And I’ll take the freedom of telling you you show a queer kind of gratitude to a man who’s got into all this mess along of your affairs.”
“There’s a thing I am thinking of,” said I. “You were a fool to be so much about with Vigours. One comfort, you haven’t been much about with me. I notice you’ve never been inside my house. Own up now; you had word of this before?”
“It’s a fact I haven’t been,” said he. “It was an oversight, and I am sorry for it, Wiltshire. But about coming now, I’ll be quite plain.”
“You mean you won’t?” I asked.
“Awfully sorry, old man, but that’s the size of it,” says Case.
“In short, you’re afraid?” says I.
“In short, I’m afraid,” says he.
“And I’m still to be tabooed for nothing?” I asked
“I tell you you’re not tabooed,” said he. “The Kanakas won’t go near you, that’s all. And who’s to make ‘em? We traders have a lot of gall, I must say; we make these poor Kanakas take back their laws, and take up their taboos, and that, whenever it happens to suit us. But you don’t mean to say you expect a law obliging people to deal in your store whether they want to or not? You don’t mean to tell me you’ve got the gall for that? And if you had, it would be a queer thing to propose to me. I would just like to point out to you, Wiltshire, that I’m a trader myself.”
“I don’t think I would talk of gall if I was you,” said I. “Here’s about what it comes to, as well as I can make out: None of the people are to trade with me, and they’re all to trade with you. You’re to have the copra, and I’m to go to the devil and shake myself. And I don’t know any native, and you’re the only man here worth mention that speaks English, and you have the gall to up and hint to me my life’s in danger, and all you’ve got to tell me is you don’t know why!”
“Well, it is all I have to tell you,” said he. “I don’t know — I wish I did.”
“And so you turn your back and leave me to myself! Is that the position?” says I.
“If you like to put it nasty,” says he. “I don’t put it so. I say merely, ‘I’m going to keep clear of you; or, if I don’t, I’ll get in danger for myself.’”
“Well,” says I, “you’re a nice kind of a white man!”
“O, I understand; you’re riled,” said
