The boy with the billiard ball said that he had never seen it in his life
before, and hazarded the suggestion that it had got into his box through
some mysterious and occultly evil agency. So far as he was concerned it
might have dropped down from heaven for all he knew how it got there. To
the cooks and boats'-crews of every vessel that had dropped anchor off
Berande in the past several years were ascribed the arrival of scores of
the stolen articles and of the major portion of the ammunition. There
was no tracing the truth in any of it, though it was without doubt that
the unidentified weapons and unfamiliar cartridges had come ashore off
visiting craft.
"Look at it," Sheldon said to Joan. "We've been sleeping over a volcano.
They ought to be whipped--"
"No whip me," Gogoomy cried out from below. "Father belong me big fella
chief. Me whip, too much trouble along you, close up, my word."
"What name you fella Gogoomy!" Sheldon shouted. "I knock seven bells out
of you. Here, you Kwaque, put 'm irons along that fella Gogoomy."
Kwaque, a strapping gang-boss, plucked Gogoomy from out of his following,
and, helped by the other gang-bosses; twisted his arms behind him and
snapped on the heavy handcuffs.
"Me finish along you, close up, you die altogether," Gogoomy, with wrath-
distorted face, threatened the boss-boy.
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