"I forgot to tell you that your trader at Ugi has been murdered," he said
to Sheldon. "Five big canoes came down from Port Adams. They landed in
the night-time, and caught Oscar asleep. What they didn't steal they
burned. The _Flibberty-Gibbet_ got the news at Mboli Pass, and ran down
to Ugi. I was at Mboli when the news came."
"I think I'll have to abandon Ugi," Sheldon remarked.
"It's the second trader you've lost there in a year," Young concurred.
"To make it safe there ought to be two white men at least. Those Malaita
canoes are always raiding down that way, and you know what that Port
Adams lot is. I've got a dog for you. Tommy Jones sent it up from Neal
Island. He said he'd promised it to you. It's a first-class
nigger-chaser. Hadn't been on board two minutes when he had my whole
boat's-crew in the rigging. Tommy calls him Satan."
"I've wondered several times why you had no dogs here," Joan said.
"The trouble is to keep them. They're always eaten by the crocodiles."
"Jack Hanley was killed at Marovo Lagoon two months ago," Young announced
in his mild voice. "The news just came down on the _Apostle_."
"Where is Marovo Lagoon?" Joan asked.
"New Georgia, a couple of hundred miles to the westward," Sheldon
answered.
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