One evening a terrific uproar arose in the barracks, and Sheldon, aided
by Joan's sailors, succeeded in rescuing two women whom the blacks were
beating to death. To save them from the vengeance of the blacks, they
were guarded in the cook-house for the night. They were the two women
who did the cooking for the labourers, and their offence had consisted of
one of them taking a bath in the big cauldron in which the potatoes were
boiled. The blacks were not outraged from the standpoint of cleanliness;
they often took baths in the cauldrons themselves. The trouble lay in
that the bather had been a low, degraded, wretched female; for to the
Solomon Islander all females are low, degraded, and wretched.
Next morning, Joan and Sheldon, at breakfast, were aroused by a swelling
murmur of angry voices. The first rule of Berande had been broken. The
compound had been entered without permission or command, and all the two
hundred labourers, with the exception of the boss-boys, were guilty of
the offence. They crowded up, threatening and shouting, close under the
front veranda. Sheldon leaned over the veranda railing, looking down
upon them, while Joan stood slightly back. When the uproar was stilled,
two brothers stood forth. They were large men, splendidly muscled, and
with faces unusually ferocious, even for Solomon Islanders.
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