Gordon Young

“ Good people have a hard enough time doing what they think is right; but an outlaw—he rides the horns of dilemma.
“Two passengers.” The one that might not want to stay was surely the woman. “You may not want the other to leave”; that was sardonic.
Had Williams, so strangely faithful to his promise, brought Davenant all the way to Dakaru expecting Grahame would kill him? Perhaps there was at once punishment for Davenant and a favor to Grahame in that. Williams had a grim sense of justice.
The boat swept on rapidly toward the landing. Many people were waiting there. ”

“ The house—a mile from the beach—was a low, great-flanked structure based with coral mortar and breasted with vines that reached over and festooned the low broad veranda, burying it in cool shadows. The big wide door of carved oak had been sent out from England.
“Fever,” Carp Taylor had explained, significantly jerking a thick hand toward the house, and adding:
“Some men can't drink—in this climate.” ”

“ My hair isn't red for nothing, and I never was likely to be intimidated in daylight by Portuguese. At night when any shadow may hold a knife—that is different. Besides Williams through his glasses was probably watching me.
I pointed to the boat where Malua and the boys stood with heads and shoulders above the landing, watching.
“Get out of my way. Get out, or those Samoans'll come up here. And there won't be enough Portuguese left to show your own blacks where to bury you!” ”

“ He had to traffic with England, for no luxuries were to be denied her; and somehow Davenant had heard of and reached Carp Taylor, who carried supplies and orders for Dakaru. With pearls and threats Grahame had made Carp Taylor refuse to meet Davenant as promised.
Grahame was no longer afraid of Davenant. He feared nothing except what would happen to Eunice when he died. There was nobody on earth to trust. ”

“ She was all he had in life; and in eternity God wouldn't so much as let him see her from hell; he had kept her so innocent, so like her mother, that she would be too high in Heaven for his eyes to reach.
Hurricane Williams—the nigger-lover; Grahame had abhorred his name for years. Officers from wandering gunboats spoke it. Blackbirders told of his hideous friendship with cannibal blacks. Even stray whalers had heard it and cursed it; for blacks armed with rifles that were said to have come from Williams fought them off at times when they landed for water, food—and women. ”

“ Then impulsively: “Oh, what do you terrible men want now? Come, Nolopu.”
Carp Taylor said something about himself being there to look after her and her father. But she seemed not to hear him; more than that, seemed to ignore him, though he came close to her.
I glanced scrutinizingly at the native woman. Nolopu was a Samoan name. She was a Samoan too. She did not look toward me as she went out after Taylor and the girl.
Two hours later there were three emptied bottles of rum on the table of the dragons, and I was cold, coldly sober. My hands shook a little and my heart shivered. ”

“ You want to go out and speak to Williams. He can tell you. I can't.”
More words equally futile and uninteresting passed between us; then he decided to lead me to Grahame.
We went up the white sanded roadway lined with slabs of coral and along the coral were planted roses. Half a ship-load, so I had heard, of clay soil had been brought up from Australia to bed roses. The grilled iron gates of the eight-foot wall were closed but unlocked.
On every side were the marks of long, hard work from human hands. Grahame had used up his blacks much as the old kings of Egypt had used up their fellaheen. ”

“ That captain had said:
“He's a dangerous man, you know. He kills quick. I've poked about among the trustworthiest reports of the blighter. Doesn't seem to care how or how many if they get him going. But take it long and short he doesn't seem to have potted many that the queen wouldn't have paid the hangman for the crackin' of their necks—if the Crown had caught 'em with all the evidence. ”