He said he was rightly chief of the island, and that
man, all of whose grandfathers were low and disgusting, meaning
Julius R., was living in his house, and, moreover, had given him only
three pink shirts. Jessamine sat down by him, and said nothing, but
listened, and I went and found some of the beach natives, and came
back with them to the _Good Sister_.
That night passed, and it came the morning of the next day, and I
heard nothing from them. I went ashore, but found no one about the
huts there but children and a few old women. The old women jabbered
at us excitedly.
I took six of the men and started inland through the hot woods,
where the green and red parrots screamed overhead. When we came out
to look up the valley to the open country, we saw no signs of
fighting, nor any one moving about. Through the valley, as we went up
it, there was no smoke from the huts, no women bruising nuts and
ground roots into meal, no fat man before the hut with two doors
sitting on his mats, not a soul in the village.
But coming near the palace we could see all the red flower shrubs
were trampled and smashed. Then we came on a dead body by the path;
then more bodies, bloody and spitted with spears; and one man, who
was wounded, lifted himself, and glared, and dropped again among the
red flowers.
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