It eats in every direction, consuming skin and
muscle with astounding rapidity.
The pin-point ulcer of the first
day is the size of a dime by the second day, and by the end of the
week a silver dollar will not cover it.
Worse than the sores, the two Japanese had been afflicted with
Solomon Island fever. Each had been down repeatedly with it, and in
their weak, convalescent moments they were wont to huddle together
on the portion of the Snark that happened to be nearest to faraway
Japan, and to gaze yearningly in that direction.
But worst of all, they were now brought on board the Minota for a
recruiting cruise along the savage coast of Malaita. Wada, who had
the worse funk, was sure that he would never see Japan again, and
with bleak, lack-lustre eyes he watched our rifles and ammunition
going on board the Minota. He knew about the Minota and her Malaita
cruises. He knew that she had been captured six months before on
the Malaita coast, that her captain had been chopped to pieces with
tomahawks, and that, according to the barbarian sense of equity on
that sweet isle, she owed two more heads. Also, a labourer on
Penduffryn Plantation, a Malaita boy, had just died of dysentery,
and Wada knew that Penduffryn had been put in the debt of Malaita by
one more head. Furthermore, in stowing our luggage away in the
skipper's tiny cabin, he saw the axe gashes on the door where the
triumphant bushmen had cut their way in.
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