One by one the boys were captured. In the first man-drive through the
mangrove swamp Seelee caught two. Circling around to the north, a third
was wounded in the thigh by Boucher, and this one, dragging behind in the
chase, was later gathered in by Seelee's hunters. The three captives,
heavily ironed, were exposed each day in the compound, as good examples
of what happened to bad examples, all for the edification of the seven
score and ten half-wild Poonga-Poonga men. Then the _Minerva_, running
past for Tulagi, was signalled to send a boat, and the three prisoners
were carried away to prison to await trial.
Five were still at large, but escape was impossible. They could not get
down to the coast, nor dared they venture too far inland for fear of the
wild bushmen. Then one of the five came in voluntarily and gave himself
up, and Sheldon learned that Gogoomy and two others were all that were at
large. There should have been a fourth, but according to the man who had
given himself up, the fourth man had been killed and eaten. It had been
fear of a similar fate that had driven him in. He was a Malu man, from
north-western Malaita, as likewise had been the one that was eaten.
Gogoomy's two other companions were from Port Adams. As for himself, the
black declared his preference for government trial and punishment to
being eaten by his companions in the bush.
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