“Well,” said I, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything there.” 

 He tried me awhile in the French, and then again in native, which he seemed to think was the best chance. I made out he was after more than passing the time of day with me, but had something to communicate, and I listened the harder. I heard the names of Adams and Case and of Randall—Randall the oftenest—and the word “poison,” or something like it, and a native word that he said very often. I went home, repeating it to myself. 

 “What does fussy-ocky mean?” I asked of Uma, for that was as near as I could come to it. 

 “Make dead,” said she. 

 “The devil it does!” says I. “Did ever you hear that Case had poisoned Johnnie Adams?” 

 “Every man he savvy that,” says Uma, scornful-like. “Give him white sand—bad sand. He got the bottle still. Suppose he give you gin, you no take him.” 

 Now I had heard much the same sort of story in other islands, and the same white powder always to the front, which made me think the less of it. For all that, I went over to Randall’s place to see what I could pick up, and found Case on the doorstep, cleaning a gun. 

 “Good shooting here?” says I. 

 “A 1,” says he. “The bush is full of all kinds of birds. I wish copra was as plenty,” says he—I thought, slyly—“but there don’t seem anything doing.” 

 I could see Black Jack in the store, serving a customer. 

 “That looks like business, though,” said I. 

 “That’s the first sale we’ve made in three weeks,” said he. 

 “You don’t tell me?” says I. “Three weeks? Well, well.” 

 “If you don’t believe me,” he cries, a little hot, “you can go and look at the copra-house. It’s half empty to this blessed hour.” 

 “I shouldn’t be much the better for that, you see,” says I. “For all I can tell, it might have been whole empty yesterday.” 

 “That’s so,” says he, with a bit of a laugh. 

 Prev. P 14/105 next