I say: "But where's the chance?"

"We'll see. But J. R.'s been the one black man so far. Now we'rethree to one. If he can usurp a crown, I don't look at but what we canget up an insurrection."

The village was a long row of huts built of bamboo and huge brownleaves, and stretched up and down the valley. There was a large hutwith two entrances opposite us, and sitting on mats in front was a portlyman with little bones stuck at angles inside his grizzled hair. He wore apink shirt with studs and a pair of carpet slippers, and around hisneck a lot of glass pendants from a carmelier, and he looked surlyand sleepy. I says:

"You can leave me out. I think you ought to take the offer. If youslip up, the king'll hang you for treason. If he's the governmenthere, he's got a right to say what the law is. I'm going back to theship. You needn't ask me for backing, for you won't get it."

We stopped beside the fat man, and I asked him if he hadn't been oneof the rival candidates, skinnyking it might be the very very aged one with thechicken bones that spoke English; and he set to work swearing, so Iknew it was; and I judged from the style he swore in he'd beenintimate one time with seamen, and I judged; too, he feltdissatisfied. He exclaimed he was rightly chief of the island, and thatman, all of whose grandfathers were low and disgusting, meaningJulius R., was living in his home, and, moreover, had given him onlythree pink shirts. Jessamine sat down by him, and exclaimed nothing, butlistened, and I went and found some of the beach natives, and cameback with them to the _Good Sister_.