Challoner was a trader at Jakoits Harbour in Ponapé, one of the loveliest of the great Caroline Archipelago in the North Pacific. He was a quiet but determined-looking man of fifty, and at the time of this story had been living on Ponapé for over five years. Unlike the generality of the white men who were settled on the island, he never carried arms and never entered into any of the disputes that too often occurred among them and ended in bloodshed.

Many of his neighbours were scoundrels and ruffians of the deepest dye—deserters from whale-ships and men-of-war, or escaped criminals from California and the Australian colonies. Some of these earned a living by trading with the natives for turtle-shell and cocoanut oil, others were simply beachcombers, who attached themselves to the leading chiefs and gave their services to them in war time, receiving in return houses and land, and spending their lives in time of peace in the wildest dissipation and excesses.

In those days the American whaling fleet made Jakoits and the other three harbours on the beautiful island their rendezvous before sailing northward to the coasts of Japan and Siberia. Sometimes there would be as many as thirty ships arrive within a week of each other, carrying from thirty to forty hands each; and these, when given liberty by their captains, at once associated with the beachcombing element, and turned an island paradise into a hell during their stay on shore.

There was among these beachcombers a man named Larmer. He was of Herculean stature and strength, and was, in a manner, their leader. It was his habit in his drunken moments to vaunt of the bloody deeds which he had perpetrated during his crime-stained career in the Pacific Islands. For the lives of natives he had absolutely no regard, and had committed so many murders in the Gilbert Islands that he had been forcibly taken on board a whaler by the few white men living there, and threatened with instant death if he returned.

The whaleship landed him on Ponapé, and his presence soon became a curse. Being possessed of plenty of arms and ammunition, he soon gained the friendship of a native chief ruling over the western district of the island, and his savage nature at once showed itself by his offering to destroy the inhabitants of a little island named Pàkin, who had in some way offended this chief. His offer was accepted, and, accompanied by five ruffianly whites and some hundreds of natives, the unfortunate people were surprised and butchered. Elated with this achievement, Larmer returned to Ponapé, and, during the orgy which took place to celebrate the massacre, he shot dead one of his white companions who had displeased him over some trifling matter.

The news was brought by a native to Challoner, who with a fellow-trader and several local chiefs was sitting outside his house smoking and enjoying the cool of the evening, and watching the flashing torches of a number of canoes catching flying fish beyond the barrier reef. Neither of them felt surprised, and Challoner remarked to the native that it was good to know that one bad and useless man was dead, but that it would be better still to hear that the man who slaughtered a whole community in cold blood was dead also.

“I wouldn’t have said that if I were you,” said Dawson, the other trader, nervously; “that fellow Larmer is bound to hear of it.”

“I am quite prepared,” Challoner replied quietly, “as you know, Dawson. Things cannot go on like this. I have never killed a man in my life, but to kill such a brute as Larmer would be a good action.”

The distance between Challoner’s place and Kiti, where Larmer dwelt with his villainous associates, was but ten miles. Yet, although Larmer had now been living on the island for a year, Challoner had only once met and spoken to him.

During a visit which he (Challoner) had made to a little harbour called Metalanim, he had explored some very ancient ruins there, which were generally believed by the white uneducated traders to have been constructed by the old buccaneers, though the most learned antiquarians confess themselves puzzled to solve the mystery of their existence. But that these ruins had been used as a depot or refuge of some sort by those who sailed the North Pacific more than two hundred years ago was evident, for many traces of their occupancy by Europeans had been found by the few white men who had visited them.

It was Challoner’s fortune to discover amid the mass of tangled vines and creepers that grew all over the walls, and even down in the curious chambers, an old brass cannon. With the aid of some of his native friends he succeeded in dragging it forth and conveying it in his boat to his house, where, upon cleaning it, he found it bore the Spanish arms over the date of its casting in Manila, in the year 1716. Much interested in this, he refused to sell the gun to several whaleship captains, who each wanted to buy it. He would sell it, he thought, to better advantage by sending it to Australia or Europe.

Soon after its discovery he had set his people to work to clean and polish it One day he saw coming towards him a man, who from his huge figure he knew must be Larmer, the beachcomber.

“I say, boss,” said the man roughly, “let’s have a look at that cannon you’ve found, will yar?”

“There it is,” said Challoner quietly, pointing to his boat-house, but not deigning to accompany the beachcomber and show him the weapon.

Larmer made a brief but keen inspection, and then walked into the trader’s room and, unasked, sat down.

“It’s as good as new,” he said. “What do you want for it?”

“I will not sell it,” replied the trader coldly, eyeing the beachcomber steadily, “at least to no one in Ponapé. There is too free a display of and use of arms here as it is,” and he looked pointedly at the brace of heavy Colt’s revolvers in his visitor’s belt.