CHAPTER I--SOMETHING TO
BE DONE
He was a very sick white man. He rode pick-a-back on a woollyheaded,
black-skinned savage, the lobes of whose ears had been pierced
and stretched until one had torn out, while the other carried a circular
block of carved wood three inches in diameter. The torn ear had been
pierced again, but this time not so ambitiously, for the hole accommodated
no more than a short clay pipe. The man-horse was greasy and dirty, and
naked save for an exceedingly narrow and dirty loin-cloth; but the white
man clung to him closely and desperately. At times, from weakness, his
head drooped and rested on the woolly pate. At other times he lifted his
head and stared with swimming eyes at the cocoanut palms that reeled and
swung in the shimmering heat. He was clad in a thin undershirt and a
strip of cotton cloth, that wrapped about his waist and descended to his
knees. On his head was a battered Stetson, known to the trade as a
Baden-Powell. About his middle was strapped a belt, which carried a
large-calibred automatic pistol and several spare clips, loaded and ready
for quick work.