The Adventure Megapack: 25 Classic Adventure Stories by Quick Dorothy & E. Hoffmann Price & Robert E. Howard & Captain A.E. Dingle & J. Allan Dunn & H. De Vere Stacpoole & Perley Poore Sheehan & William Hope Hodgson & Harold Lamb & S. B. H. Hurst & Allan R. Bosworth & F. St. Mars

Author:Quick, Dorothy & E. Hoffmann Price & Robert E. Howard & Captain A.E. Dingle & J. Allan Dunn & H. De Vere Stacpoole & Perley Poore Sheehan & William Hope Hodgson & Harold Lamb & S. B. H. Hurst & Allan R. Bosworth & F. St. Mars [Quick, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: action, excitement, pulp, adventure, pulp fiction
ISBN: 9781434438423
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2012-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

MAORI JUSTICE, by Bob Du Soe

Kamaka had been the first to sight the strange schooner as it headed in toward the opening in the reef, and he had hastened at once to the bungalow to break the news to old man Stovall. He stood there now on the porch, head and shoulders above the old trader, his dark, oily skin glistening in the morning sunlight.

“See, Mr. Stovall, he lose mainmast. He come long way, eh? No storm now for two, maybe three weeks. What you think?”

“It looks to me like the Wasp—Captain Bowker’s outfit,” the trader answered. “What do you say, Ugly, ever seen her before?”

Ugly Smith, mate, steward, and sometimes even cook on Stovall’s own schooner, the Lalanai, screwed his homely face into a puzzled frown and shook his head. “No, sir, can’t say as I have. They had better have a care, though, or they’ll be loosin’ more than their stick.”

“Not if it’s Bull Bowker. See, he’s got her in the channel already.”

The disabled schooner rose on an oncoming swell, as Stovall spoke, and slid through the narrow channel like an outrigger in the hands of a native. The plunge of her anchor sent a ripple over the lagoon and then a long-boat that had been towing astern was hauled up amidships and a white man with two blacks climbed down into it.

Bowker had reason enough to be in a nasty mood on that particular morning, for his disreputable old schooner had come to anchor with her hull half-full of water and the main mast but a splintered stump. However, he selected a very poor time to indulge his humor.

Ugly, Kamaka, and two of the natives went down to the beach to meet him, as his long boat crossed the lagoon, and as it grounded in the shallow water they waded out to help drag it in. Why Bowker should have been standing carelessly in the bow the way he was no one knew, but there he stood and as the boat suddenly stopped he went sprawling head first into the water. He was on his feet again in an instant, cursing vilely, and then he caught sight of Kamaka who was roaring with laughter.

Without a word his fist shot out and he caught the big Maori square on the mouth. And then, before the astonished native could strike back, if such a thing had occurred to him, Bowker had him covered with his gun.

“Laugh at me, will you?” he swore. “I’ll teach you to respect a white man!”

Ugly had been laughing, too, but in an instant his scrawny frame was tense. “Put up that gun, you white-livered bully!” he growled. “You deserve to be laughed at.”

Shooting a black and shooting a white man were two different things or Bowker, in his rage, might have killed them both. He waded out of the water, swearing as he went, the gun still held in his hairy fist.

“Put up that gun!” Ugly repeated, “or by cripes we’ll make you eat