Читать книгу The Queen Versus Billy, and Other Stories онлайн

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It was not everybody who would have liked such a task; in dealing with savages the innocent are too often lumped with the guilty, and while you are scattering death and canister among the evil-doers, you are often mangling their wives and children in a way horrible to think of. Captain Casement had seen such things in the course of his eventful service, and though no stickler where his duty was concerned, he was neither a brute nor a coward. He was a simple gentleman of character, parts, and conscience, with refined tastes, and a horror of shedding innocent blood. Under his command were five officers: Facey, acting first lieutenant, Burder, acting second, Assistant Paymaster Pickthorn, Engineer Sennett, Dr. Roche, ten marines, and a crew of eighty-eight men.

After a roundabout cruise through the pleasant groups of Fiji, Tongataboo, and Samoa, with little to occupy him save official dinners, tennis parties, and an occasional dance ashore, Captain Casement headed his ship for the wild western islands and pricked out a course for Sunflower Bay. One hot morning, when the damp, moist air made everything sticky to the touch, and the whole ship sweated like a palm-house from stem to stern, the Stingaree ran past the towering cliffs and roaring breakers of Guadalcanar, and let go her anchor off the blow-hole in Sunflower Bay. It was a melancholy spot to look at, though beautiful in a gloomy and savage fashion, and the only signs of man’s occupancy were the blackened ruin of the trader’s house, a small mountain of coal half covered with creepers, and a flagstaff surmounted by a skull. There was no visible beach, for the mangroves ran to the water’s edge, save where it had been partially cleared away by the man whose murder they had come to avenge; nor did the closest scrutiny with the glass betray any tell-tale smoke or the least sign of habitation. Captain Casement surveyed the place with his keen, practised eyes, and the longer he looked the less he liked it. The desolation jarred upon his nerves, and his heart fell a little as the blow-hole burst hoarsely under the ship’s quarter, and the everlasting breakers on the outer reef droned their note of menace and alarm.