Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/272

260 He glared round, a revolver in each hand, filled with righteous indignation. His knowledge of beche de mer was fully equal to that of Chester, and by long experience he knew how to mingle with it biting, stinging words such as penetrate into the skull of a South Sea islander. It was well that Joan could not hear all that he said, for he used the language a ship's officer would employ to a crowd of island greenhorns afloat. He made no appeal to their loyalty, for that would have been a waste of words. It was fear that he was instilling into them—fear of the determined white man, fear of the white man's lash, fear of the white man's power of revenge that could come with an ear-splitting shriek and explosion from a war-ship. There were men there who had tasted the terror of a bombardment as a form of punishment for murder, and those who had not tasted it had heard it described, the story losing nothing in the telling. The blacks listened with expressionless faces. It was not their way to display emotion. But they were afraid, so far as it was possible for their natures to feel fear. At least they were willing to assume the appearance of being obedient if by so doing they could avoid death, and Keith knew them well enough to be aware that was all he could hope for. Then, as a salutary measure, he informed them that they would each be deprived of half of one year's pay. He made a "boss boy" of Utanga, a native who had on occasion acted as