Otoo signed on before the mast, and for the next
half-dozen years, in as many ships, we knocked about the wildest
portions of Melanesia. Otoo saw to it that he always pulled
stroke-oar in my boat. Our custom, in recruiting labor, was to
land the recruiter on the beach. The covering boat always lay on
its oars several hundred feet off shore, while the recruiter's
boat, also lying on its oars, kept afloat on the edge of the
beach. When I landed with my trade goods, leaving my steering
sweep apeak, Otoo left his stroke position and came into the
stern sheets, where a Winchester lay ready to hand under a flap
of canvas. The boat's crew was also armed, the Sniders concealed
under canvas flaps that ran the length of the gunwales. While I
was busy arguing and persuading the woolly-headed cannibals to
come and labor on the Queensland plantations Otoo kept watch. And
often and often his low voice warned me of suspicious actions and
impending treachery. Sometimes it was the quick shot from his
rifle, knocking a nigger over, that was the first warning I
received. And in my rush to the boat his hand was always there to
jerk me flying aboard.
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