Gibney, "an' leave all bargainin' to me. This boy is all right
and we'll get along first rate if you two just haul ship and do
somethin' useful besides buttin' in on your superior officer.
Come along, Tabu-Tabu. Makee little eat down in cabin. You talkee
captain."
"Gib, my _dear_ boy," sputtered Captain Scraggs, bursting with
curiosity, following the commodore's reappearance on deck,
"whatever's in the wind?"
"Money--fortune," said Mr. Gibney solemnly.
McGuffey edged up and eyed the commodore seriously. "Sure there
ain't a little fightin' mixed up in it?" he asked.
"Not a bit of it," replied Mr. Gibney. "You're as safe on Kandavu
as if you was in church. This Tabu kid is sort of prime minister
to the king, with a heap of influence at court. The crew of a
British cruiser stole him for a galley police when he was a kid,
and he got civilized and learned to talk English. He was a
cannibal in them days, but the chaplain aboard showed him how
foolish it was to do such things, and finally Tabu-Tabu got
religion and asked as a special favour to be allowed to return to
Kandavu to civilize his people. As a result of Tabu-Tabu's
efforts, he tells me the king has concluded that when he eats a
white man he's flyin' in the face of his own interests, and most
generally a gunboat comes along in a few months and shells the
bush, and--well, anyhow, there ain't been a barbecue on Kandavu
for ten years.
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