Sarréo by George Lewis Becke (ebook audio reader txt) 📖

boat keeping our rifles out of view, but quite ready.

"In about five minutes Warby sang out to me that it was all right. The vessel, the natives told him, had parted her cables, gone ashore and bilged on the reef in the night; and the hands being too frightened to come ashore, had gone away next morning in two boats. Then he told me to wait a few minutes, as he was going to the chief's house to look at the copper and other gear that the natives had taken from the schooner, and very likely he would buy it. First of all, though, he told Sarreo to pass him out a 12 lb. case of tobacco as a present for the chief.

"He took the case from Sarreo and handed it to the chief, and then off they went--he in the middle of thirty or forty murderous-looking savages; but he had done the same thing so often before that we did not feel any particular alarm.

"We lay there, backed stern on to the beach, for about five minutes, looking at the house into which he had gone with the natives. Suddenly we saw him burst out of the house and fall on his knees, trying to draw his revolver; but in another moment he was being tomahawked and clubbed by a mob of yelling devils! Poor chap, he must have died very quickly.

"We opened fire at once and they disappeared like magic, and then from every bush, tree, and rock they began firing at us in the boats with both muskets and arrows. One of my men was hit, and then, before I could stop him, Sarreo had jumped out of his boat and was running up the beach, rifle in hand, to where Mr. Warby's body was lying.

"He got there, I think, without being hit, just as a big native ran at him with a tomahawk. He hadn't time to put his Snider to his shoulder; but that nigger gave his last jump anyway, for I saw the rifle go off and the nigger topple over. In another five seconds he had lifted the supercargo up, thrown him over his left shoulder, and was running down to the boats.

"By this time, me and two of my crew had jumped out of the boat and ran to meet him, firing as we went. We had just reached him when down he went on to his face in the sand--a bullet had smashed his hip.

"Dropping our rifles, we picked him and Mr. Warby's body up, and by God's mercy managed to tumble into the boat together and push off, covered by the fire from the ship, which carried two six-pounders.

"Sarreo lived two days--he died the same morning that we were getting ready to take Warby's body ashore to bury on a little island between Bouka and Bougainville. So we made only one trip ashore. Poor chap! He had a good, simple heart, and almost his last words were that he 'was glad Mr. Warby wasn't eaten.'

*****

"Ah, as you say, Mr. Denison, the rotten South Seas ain't no place for a white man. Good-night."
Imprint

Publication Date: 08-12-2010

All Rights Reserved