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The natives got wilder than ever after this, and were almost afraid to die, lest they’d be dug up again and their bones cast to the winds. From being the most orderly island in the Pacific, Manihiki slumped to be the worst; and it got such a name that ships were scared of coming near it; and once, when Tom and me went out in a whaleboat toward a becalmed German bark, hoping to raise a newspaper or a sack of potatoes, they opened fire on us and lowered two boats to tow away the ship. Tom and me got mixed up in the general opinion of the place, which was stinking bad and what they called a pirates’ nest, and an English man-of-war came down special to deport Tom. I never was so glad in my life to be an American, for, though the captain gave Tom what he called the benefit of the doubt, they fined him two hundred and fifty dollars and slanged him like a nigger.

The last straw was the visit of a French man-of-war, that opened broadsides on us without warning, and then landed and burned the settlement, including everything me and Tom owned in the world, except the clothes we stood in and the cash we snatched on the run. This was on account of the “outrage” on the Tahiti schooner.

Tom said the island was becoming a regular human pigeon-shoot, and wondered where the lightning would strike next; and we both grew clean sick of it and in a fever to get away. There was not even the temptation of Old Dibs’s treasure to keep us now, for the natives all got together and heaped up the graveyard solid with rock to the level of the outside walls, and floored the top with cement six inches deep, putting in a matter of a thousand tons. It was as solid as a fortification, and pounded down, besides, with pounders, like a city street; and if ever there was money in a safe place and likely to stay there undisturbed, I guess it was Old Dibs’s.

It was a happy day for Tom and me when the Flink dropped anchor off the settlement, and we patched it up with the captain to give us a passage to the Kingsmills, to begin the world again. It had always lain sort of heavy on my wife that we hadn’t put up a name over old Dibs’s grave, and now that we were going away with that undone she reproached me awful. You see, I had promised her something nice in the marble line from Sydney, and kept putting her off and off in the hope she’d forget it. She had been remarkably fond of the old fellow, as, indeed, so was I, and she said it was a shame to go away forever with this unattended to. I didn’t have no time for anything fancy, nor the ability neither, but as the ship lay over for a couple of days I made shift to please her with a wooden slab. We went over and set it up about an hour before we sailed, and for all I know it may be there yet. Some folks might kick at the inscription, but he had always been mighty good and kind and free-handed to us, and you must take a man as you find him. This was how it run:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF RUNYON RUFE BANKER AND
PHILANTHROPIST ERECTED BY HIS SORROWING FRIENDS