Two hours later the canoes arrived.  No one saw them come.  The house-boys were busy in the kitchen at their own breakfast.  The plantation hands were similarly occupied in their quarters.  Satan lay sound asleep on his back under the billiard table, in his sleep brushing at the flies that pestered him.  Joan was rummaging in the storeroom, and Sheldon was taking his siesta in a hammock on the veranda.  He awoke gently.  In some occult, subtle way a warning that all was not well had penetrated his sleep and aroused him.  Without moving, he glanced down and saw the ground beneath covered with armed savages.  They were the same ones he had parted with that morning, though he noted an accession in numbers.  There were men he had not seen before.

He slipped from the hammock and with deliberate slowness sauntered to the railing, where he yawned sleepily and looked down on them.  It came to him curiously that it was his destiny ever to stand on this high place, looking down on unending hordes of black trouble that required control, bullying, and cajolery.  But while he glanced carelessly over them, he was keenly taking stock.  The new men were all armed with modern rifles.  Ah, he had thought so.  There were fifteen of them, undoubtedly the Lunga runaways.  In addition, a dozen old Sniders were in the hands of the original crowd.  The rest were armed with spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and long-handled tomahawks.  Beyond, drawn up on the beach, he could see the big war-canoes, with high and fantastically carved bows and sterns, ornamented with scrolls and bands of white cowrie shells.  These were the men who had killed his trader, Oscar, at Ugi.

“What name you walk about this place?” he demanded.

At the same time he stole a glance seaward to where the Flibberty-Gibbet reflected herself in the glassy calm of the sea.  Not a soul was visible under her awnings, and he saw the whale-boat was missing from alongside.  The Tahitians had evidently gone shooting fish up the Balesuna.  He was all alone in his high place above this trouble, while his world slumbered peacefully under the breathless tropic noon.

Nobody replied, and he repeated his demand, more of mastery in his voice this time, and a hint of growing anger.  The blacks moved uneasily, like a herd of cattle, at the sound of his voice.  But not one spoke.  All eyes, however, were staring at him in certitude of expectancy.  Something was about to happen, and they were waiting for it, waiting with the unanimous, unstable mob-mind for the one of them who would make the first action that would precipitate all of them into a common action.  Sheldon looked for this one, for such was the one to fear.  Directly beneath him he caught sight of the muzzle of a rifle, barely projecting between two black bodies, that was slowly elevating toward him.  It was held at the hip by a man in the second row.

“What name you?” Sheldon suddenly shouted, pointing directly at the man who held the gun, who startled and lowered the muzzle.