barque, in forty-one, in the Mediterranean, I could pay out their lingo
as easy as you would a five-inch warp over a ship's side--"

"Yes, he was a proper man," pursued Lingard, meditatively, as if for
himself only. "You could not find a better fellow for company ashore. He
had an affair with a Bali girl, who one evening threw a red blossom at
him from within a doorway, as we were going together to pay our respects
to the Rajah's nephew. He was a good-looking Frenchman, he was--but the
girl belonged to the Rajah's nephew, and it was a serious matter. The
old Rajah got angry and said the girl must die. I don't think the nephew
cared particularly to have her krissed; but the old fellow made a great
fuss and sent one of his own chief men to see the thing done--and the
girl had enemies--her own relations approved! We could do nothing. Mind,
Shaw, there was absolutely nothing else between them but that unlucky
flower which the Frenchman pinned to his coat--and afterward, when the
girl was dead, wore under his shirt, hung round his neck in a small box.
I suppose he had nothing else to put it into."

"Would those savages kill a woman for that?" asked Shaw, incredulously.

"Aye! They are pretty moral there. That was the first time in my life
I nearly went to war on my own account, Shaw. We couldn't talk those
fellows over. We couldn't bribe them, though the Frenchman offered the
best he had, and I was ready to back him to the last dollar, to the last
rag of cotton, Shaw! No use--they were that blamed respectable. So, says
the Frenchman to me: 'My friend, if they won't take our gunpowder for a
gift let us burn it to give them lead.' I was armed as you see now;
six eight-pounders on the main deck and a long eighteen on the
forecastle--and I wanted to try 'em. You may believe me! However, the
Frenchman had nothing but a few old muskets; and the beggars got to