Bunster's wife to return to her family house. Had she refused, he
would have been in a quandary, for his tambo would not have permitted
him to lay hands on her.

The house deserted, he entered the sleeping room, where the trader lay
in a doze. Mauki first removed the revolvers, then placed the ray fish
mitten on his hand. Bunster's first warning was a stroke of the mitten
that removed the skin the full length of his nose.

"Good fella, eh?" Mauki grinned, between two strokes, one of which
swept the forehead bare and the other of which cleaned off one side of
his face. "Laugh, damn you, laugh."

Mauki did his work throughly, and the kanakas, hiding in their houses,
heard the "big fella noise" that Bunster made and continued to make
for an hour or more.

When Mauki was done, he carried the boat compass and all the rifles
and ammunition down to the cutter, which he proceeded to ballast with
cases of tobacco. It was while engaged in this that a hideous,
skinless thing came out of the house and ran screaming down the beach
till it fell in the sand and mowed and gibbered under the scorching
sun. Mauki looked toward it and hesitated. Then he went over and
removed the head, which he wrapped in a mat and stowed in the stern
locker of the cutter.

So soundly did the kanakas sleep through that long hot day that they
did not see the cutter run out through the passage and head south,
close-hauled on the southeast trade. Nor was the cutter ever sighted
on that long tack to the shores of Ysabel, and during the tedious