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"It was a German, a big fellow like that Seibert, that got me deported. Ten years. But in prison I was bad. They put arrowheads on me an' kept adding till it was life. But I've squared up all round. I've got the best of life, an' of every Dutchman on this island, an' I'm dying rich. And if Seibert crowds you, Tom, you send for Williams.
"That is rain. I like it. Mildew the copra—but that's your trouble now."
He died a day or so afterwards, going out as a strong man goes, without a word for his pain or a groan of fear as he looked across. He had been cursed, whipped, and branded too much to care what lay beyond.
6
When Combe, in a puttering, unhappy sort of way, decided to do something handsome for Waller he had the doctor, who was an atheist, and the French padre, who was Dr. Lemaitre's closest friend, help him to order a big tombstone. Combe's idea—and about the only one he had in mind—was to secure something big, monumental. In time the tombstone was sent from Paris.
Onlookers gathered about and made comments while it, covered with grating and packing, was being laboriously hoisted out of the hold and set down on the rickety wharf, already crowded with rum barrels and copra that were to be taken on board.