As they drew near it was full daylight and the clouds overhead were already aflame with the rising sun. The curator loaded his air gun and stood up in the bow as they approached the landing. A deathlike silence reigned throughout the jungle. The long black canoes lay hauled up in rows, deserted, and not a sign of life appeared in the huts nor in the glades under the coco palms. As their bow grated on the beach, the curator took careful aim at the largest of the huts and fired. The jungle shook with the sharp detonation as the building was torn asunder in crackling walls of bamboo and rattan which immediately took fire. Runnings and scamperings in the forest--and then all was silent as the grave again. They stepped ashore in a compact little party, the boys with ready pistols, Sadok’s long sumpitan sweeping every glade for a mark. The curator walked to the center of the clearing and swept the surrounding forest with his arm. “Pigs!” he pronounced, in the Arfak dialect, waving his arm around comprehensively. There were rustlings in the jungle, but no native dared show himself. “Tell them, Baderoon, that white men are peaceful--when let alone. Also, that the white man will not harm any chief if he will step out and talk.” Baderoon raised his voice, translating the curator’s message. Absolute silence brooded in the jungle. “Tell them,” said the curator, and his voice rang like iron, “that the white man would be friends. But if they do not make a talk at once he will bring down his thunders and lightnings and utterly destroy this village, their canoes, and their coconut palms. I have spoken it.” Baderoon translated, and at this a grizzled old sinner with a white mop of woolly hair stepped out trembling from behind a tree. “If the White Thunderer will only deign not to utterly destroy _us_!” he croaked, shaking all over as Baderoon translated. “Ye shall call your old men to tow-tow; and ye shall send runners to every village, far and near, lest the thunders descend on them also!” declared the curator, sternly. “It is agreed,” said the old man, finally, with shaking voice. “Only let the white man not harm us further! Many warriors and many canoes come not back because of him!” He called into the forest and three other old men came unwillingly forth. They advanced, unarmed, to the edge of the clearing, stooping down and pouring sand on their heads in token of abject submission, but that was as far as they could be coaxed to come. “It is well,” called the curator, at length, for he had no wish to risk any undue familiarity with them. “Shoot something, Sadok. I want them to fear you, too.” Sadok looked around for a mark, and his eyes lit on a wandering pig under one of the huts. He poised his sumpitan and the dart flew out of its muzzle. The pig squealed and twitched his tail, and then went on rooting. In another moment he sighed and laid over, dead. A shiver and a rustling of leaves ran through the underbrush.