Gordon Burns

“ He had evidently become more and more accustomed to their presence, and would stand at the edge of the clearing, his back to the jungle wall, staring unblinkingly at them. He must have stood nearly seven feet tall, with great, hanging arms.
There was something about him tremendously repellent to Ballinger. He often declared that he would shoot him, although not without a little secret feeling of blood-guiltiness, because in spite of his brutishness, the ape was, in many ways, so like a man. ”

“ The little vessel struck a cross-sea, and a wave slapped across Ballinger's face. He got up rather wearily.
"I am just where I started in," he said to himself, "and I guess I am more or less of a fool. I have a lovely wife, a partner who is honest and hardworking, and two plantations that in a few years will make me a rich man, and I sit here glooming like a sick calf." ”

“ In fact the good old trader had seemed constrained, and had shaken hands with Ballinger at parting without meeting his eyes.
He had of course asked Nadine about it, but she had laughed and pulled his ears, and told him that he had imagined it, and he had said no more, knowing how useless it was to question her. There was no harm in her having known good old Stayne. Why hide the fact?
Then there was his partner Karl Newmann. He had picked Karl up one night out of O'Halloran's place, the lowest sailor dive in Suva, and had nursed him over a broken head. ”

“ He would leave Daku, his native overseer, in charge, while he went to meet Karl, who would be back from New Guinea by now with the new field hands. How lucky it was, he thought, that he had sent Karl for the men. Always they needed new hands, of course, as the blacks never do well at plantation labor, but they would need them worse than ever now. ”