CHAPTER XIV
CLIPPING A BLACKBIRD
Before we proceed to other matters, let us get rid of theBlackbirder.
She lay like a black blot on the smooth swell of the lagoon, and till we are quit of her the place will not feel clean. Civilisation, as represented by the dismantled brig, was as foul a thing as any the Dark Islands could show—not excepting even the terrors of the feasting-places. For what the dark men did they did in their darkness, and what the yellow men did they did in their light, and condemnation goes with knowledge.
And as it was here, so it was elsewhere. Vicious civilisation gashed Nature with a broad red wound and trampled her to earth. Fortunately, in this case there was healing and reparation. But it was not always so.
Blair and Cathie had had ample time during the return voyage to arrange their plans, Blair's part in the discussions consisting chiefly of acting as brake to the captain's whirring wheels. For Captain Cathie, honest man, foresaw such certain trouble from letting the raiders go that he would have strained many points to put it out of their power ever to return.
But Blair would have none of it.
"I haven't a doubt that you are right, captain," he said, "but even these men have got to have their chance. If they do come back, they must take the consequences. We will deal with them then as may seem best."
So while Blair and Evans followed Ha'o towards the village, Captain Cathie was busy in his own way. With his long brown gun menacing the brig, he sent his other two boats over in charge of his mate and Stuart, with instructions to deport the yellow men to a tiny crown of rock where the wall of the reef had crept up a few feet higher than elsewhere. It was a precarious lodging at best and uncomfortably damp, for the great ocean rollers broke on the seaward side in ceaseless thunder, and their spray lashed up to heaven, and came crashing over into the lagoon, and the rock was always wet. Captain Cathie jocularly expressed the opinion that the yellow men would be none the worse for a bit washing, for not one of them looked as if he had known soap since he was a kiddie.
He sent by Stuart, on his own responsibility, the information that he was going to disinfect their ship, and that if they were not all out of it in ten minutes he would sink it with a shot between wind and water. The yellow men turned green with apprehension, grabbed their meagre belongings under the certain belief that they were leaving their ship for good and all, and did as they were bidden. Then, leaving the captain of theBlackbirderin strict custody, Cathie pulled over to the brig and proceeded to overhaul it with all the enjoyment of a humanitarian highwayman going through his victim's pockets.
Every bond and shackle they found was promptly tossed overboard. Every ounce of trade they could find—cloth, beads, knives, and so on, which might still be used for the enticement of unwary natives and the replenishment of a depleted exchequer—was annexed as salve for native wounds. Several rifles and revolvers, which the haste of the previous surrender, or malice prepense, had overlooked, were now included. Every keg of rum they could lay hands on was stove in and emptied into the lagoon, and when the captain was fairly satisfied that he had clipped theBlackbirder'swings, for this voyage at any rate, and, as he jocularly said, had given the yellow men a chance of practising teetotal principles for a spell, though he feared the effect would only be temporary, he returned to theTorchand sent his boats to bring back the prisoners from their damp roosting-place.
He explained to the gloomy-faced captain of theBlackbirderwhat he had done, and why, and sent him back to his ship with instructions to refit as quickly as possible, to take in what water he needed, and to get away without delay, lest the natives should take it into their heads to pay him in their own way for his maltreatment of them.
"And tell him, sir," he said to Stuart, "that if I'd had my way I'd have strung every man of them up to the yardarm, and if they ever come back that's what they may expect, and I'll be delighted to have a hand in it."
When Blair and the rest came on board, they reported the village still in ruins. No attempt had been made to rebuild it yet, and they had seen no other natives than those who had come ashore from the brig.
The atoll men and women had camped in a bunch among the ruined houses, by starting a fire with a borrowed match and proceeding to cook some taro from the adjoining fields. The Dark Island men had scattered among the hills to find their friends and relatives, and to tell them of their wonderful deliverance.
Under the compulsion of the grinning long gun the Blackbirders worked hard at their rigging, and the party on theTorchsat and watched them till the shadows chased the red glow of the sunset rapidly up the hills, and work was over for the day.
"It is very wonderful," was Blair's summing-up of the whole matter: "good once more comes out of evil. If the arranging of matters had been in our own hands, they could not have fallen more fortunately for us. In the ordinary course of things we might have been years in arriving at the position this catastrophe and its remedying have put us into. Ha'o and Nai will, I think, prove staunch friends. They know we desire nothing but their good. Through them we shall get all the rest by degrees."
"All I wish is that we'd hung those yellow blackguards, sir," said Cathie, with lingering regret. "It would only have been right common sense, after all."
"Hear, hear!" said Aunt Jannet Harvey.
"Well, well," said Blair. "It's generally easier to undo than to do. But our aim is life, not death. We shall have all we can do to put new life into our brown friends, without spending our energies and bruising our consciences by choking the old life out of our yellow enemies."
"All the same, sir, we'd have been safer for the future if those rascals were rolling at the bottom of the sea than floating quietly on top of it. If they don't come back here, they'll go somewhere else and play the same game."
"I'm afraid they will, captain; but all the same I don't see my way to hanging them. If they come back here, as they quite possibly may——"
"Will, sure," said the captain.
"Well, if they do it will be our duty to protect the sheep from the wolves."
"I'm half hoping they'll try it on," said Cathie. "Yon long gun would make fine play with 'em."
In the morning Blair and the other men went ashore again. The ladies begged to go too, but he thought it wiser to wait till they learned the minds of the rest of the islanders.
They found the atoll men busily at work running up shelters, and quite content with their new surroundings. This was a place of infinitely wider scope than their own circumscribed island, and they had no desire whatever to go back to it. Knowing how intense the racial hatreds were among the islands, Blair could only hope that Ha'o's influence might suffice for their protection.
He was wondering when any of the original inhabitants would turn up again, when he saw a straggling company descending the hill, and at the head of it Ha'o, easily recognisable by his costume of white towels.
He waved his hand at sight of them, and quickened his pace. As he drew near they saw that his face was very grim, and he began to speak so rapidly and energetically that Matti could only wait and absorb the sense of it without any attempt at translation.
"There is trouble," said Matti, turning to Blair as the other paused for breath. "In his absence, and thinking he was gone for good, his brother has become chief, and he will not give up his place."
"And what do the people say?" asked Blair, and Matti put the question.
"They are divided. There were some who were never contented, and there are some who always want change, and there are some who stand on one side to see which party is strongest. Those who were with me on the ship stay with me, and there are many others, but Ra'a"—Racha or Raka, his brother—"has also many. It will lead to trouble."
This was a quite unexpected development and obstacle. From his slight knowledge of island ways, Blair foresaw that it was a matter that might lead to constant strife. For there is no quarrel so bitter as a family quarrel, and the tribe is but the family on a larger scale.
"Come to the ship, Ha'o," he said, "and let us talk it over. Where is Nai?"
"She is with her people. She will come when I send for her. My other wives my brother has taken, but I do not want them."
"Is he likely to do anything unpleasant at once?"
"No; at present everything is——." And with his hands he indicated chaos.
The situation was a grave one in some respects, though still far better than it would have been had they landed entire strangers with all their footing to win.
It might even contain advantages, for Ha'o and his party would be driven by stress of circumstances still closer to them, and there was material enough to occupy them there for a long time to come.
Captain Cathie was for grasping this nettle again in such a way as to neutralise its sting.
"If we tackle them at once, Mr. Blair, we can knock the brother out and make things safe, and it'll maybe be the shortest cut in the end, and cost fewest lives. You know what these brown fellows are when they get to loggerheads among themselves. It's just Stewarts and Campbells over again, and no peace till one side or the other goes under."
Blair nodded.
"I know, captain; but, all the same, we can't begin by killing the men we want to convert. Gentle handling and patience may bring us to the appointed end. It may take longer, but the end, I think, will be the larger."
But Captain Cathie shook his head, and Aunt Jannet Harvey shook hers in unison.
"Some things are best nipped in the bud," said she, "and it seems to me that Mr. Ha'o has been very badly treated all round."
"Well, we've done our best for him, and we'll go on doing it, but we must do it in the way we think wisest."
Ha'o himself now struck in through Matti, and his question was the very natural one as to whether the white men, who had done so much for him, would continue to do so, and help him to recover his rights.
It took time and patience to explain to him that they would do everything they could without fighting, unless the other side attacked him, in which case they would help him and his people to defend themselves. Ha'o saw no use for the other side except to be killed—and possibly eaten. It was not possible as yet to make clear to him their object in coming to the islands. The root idea was beyond him. He had hoped with their help to smash the opposition out of hand, and was inclined to resent this, as it seemed to him, very lukewarm offer of defensive assistance. Blair, however, was at pains to explain, as far as was possible, that they had come not to fight—at which the brown man's eyes rested appreciatively on the long brown gun—but to teach him and his people better things than fighting, and that they would help him in every possible way—except, as Ha'o's face plainly showed, in this one way, for which he would willingly have foregone all the rest.
Blair showed him the tribute exacted from theBlackbirder, and told him the things were for himself and those who had been carried off with him, and the black eyes sparkled greedily.
Then Blair suggested that the first thing to do was to rebuild the village, and asked him to allot them land where they could build their own houses. At which Ha'o waved his hand regally over Kapaa'a and said, "Choose!"
They chose a spot at the head of the white sand spear, with the brush curving round behind, and the little river gurgling alongside. A dozen tall palms swung their crests above, in front lay the placid stretch of the lagoon, and beyond it the reef, and the white jets of foam, and the never-ending thunder of the breaking rollers.
By way of setting a good example to the islanders, and no less to impress upon the Blackbirders that they had come to stop, Captain Cathie got out and sent ashore the frames of the houses they had brought with them. One of the little steam-launches was got into working order, and before nightfall was chuffing merrily back and forth with load after load of necessaries, planks and beams and fittings; and what with the work on board theBlackbirder, and the traffic between theTorchand the shore, and the doings on the beach, the lagoon of Kapaa'a was livelier than ever it had been since time began. Deadlier it had often been, but this was the beginning of the new life, and the dawn came to the Dark Islands in such commonplace guise as doors and windows, and chairs and tables and bedsteads.
By Cathie's advice they built their houses on piles, with roomy platforms under which the fresh sea breezes could blow at will.
Every man who could be spared from the ship helped in the building, and the work went on apace. Blair and Evans and Stuart, stripped to shirts and trousers, carried and sawed and hammered with the rest, and spared themselves not at all. The ladies would have come too, but reluctantly obeyed orders, and stopped on board till the political horizon should become somewhat more determined.
Ha'o and his people, after watching the small beginnings of a work that was far beyond their understanding, turned to their own business. Blair had a quantity of spades and axes brought ashore, and gave them to Ha'o for his building operations, and the effect on their spirits, as their hands closed on the handles, was magical. They rushed to the woods to try them, and when the white men went along presently to see how they were going on, they found the village already getting into shape.
There had evidently been some argument with the atoll men, who had thought to establish themselves on the old site, but they had now drawn off, and were stolidly building shelters a short distance away, and regarding with envious eyes the new tools of the island men.
That was soon put right, and a supply of axes for themselves transformed them into an excited, chattering crew, without a grievance in the world. Food was plentiful, the taro swamp was there to their hand, coco-nuts abounded, they had fire and water: what more could any man want, unless it was a slice of brother man to add zest to the feast? And at present both they and brother man were much too busy to give the matter the necessary consideration.
It took theBlackbirderthree days' hard work to clear away her damaged spars and refit sufficiently for the voyage. Her sulky master suggested a trip ashore to procure some new topmasts. Captain Cathie urged him to go, but expressed doubts as to the probability of his return; and on the morning of the fourth day, the launch having filled their water barrels for them, theTorchgot up steam and towed her enemy through the opening in the reef and out to a fair offing, and then cast her off and lay watching till she was hull-down on the eastward horizon. And the very last thing the scowling crew saw—for that time, at all events—was the menacing black mouth of the long gun, and Captain Cathie standing patting its big brown breech affectionately, but in a most unpleasantly meaning way.
"Well, thank God we're rid of them at last!" said
Aunt Jannet Harvey with fervour, as the brig caught the breeze and drew slowly away.
"We shall see them again, ma'am," said Captain Cathie.
"I wish we'd scuttled them," said Aunt Jannet.
CHAPTER XV
WHERE THOU GOEST
The building operations were progressing apace, and so far they had caught no more than distant glimpses of the malcontents, as they crept cautiously about the hillsides to oversee what was going on below. The proximity of the white men in such force kept them from any expression of what might be in them, and Blair was not without hope that, if he could only get time to develop his plans and demonstrate clearly the advantages of the white alliance, they might still think better of it and come in.
Time, however, is what no man can count on. Cautious Captain Cathie, as soon as he had seen theBlackbirderfairly off, proceeded to "bolt the front door," as he said, by running a stout hawser with a kedge at each end across the opening in the lagoon. As this was buried by each incoming roller, it would inevitably overturn any boat running in on the swell, and he felt comparatively safe.
Nevertheless, he paced the deck for several nights to make safer still. For theTorchwas still the greatest factor in the enterprise, and any accident to her would spell disaster to them all.
That first night he was not without his fears of a possible attempt from without.
"You never know where you are with rascals like yon, until you've seen 'em hanging for an hour at the end of a rope," said he. "It would be a mighty fine thing for them, and a mighty bad look-out for us, if they crept in and caught us napping." And more than once he stood for minutes at a time listening intently, under the impression that he heard the cries of drowning men above the rhythmic roar of the outer surges, and in the morning he looked eagerly about, but found nothing.
He was also somewhat surprised at the complete absence of native canoes, and had visions of such also creeping up in the darkness and carrying his ship by assault. But the canoes had mostly been smashed by the raiders, as a matter of precaution, when they enticed the natives on board, and the rest they had destroyed when they came ashore in the night, and the captain's fears were groundless.
The ladies were allowed ashore for a time each day to inspect the progress of their future homes, but they still slept on the schooner.
Aunt Jannet Harvey demanded of Blair how long that kind of thing was to go on, as they were all anxious to get to housekeeping again as soon as possible, and Blair could only tell her that they could not hasten developments, but that he hoped each day passed in peace might make for healing.
But the peace was suddenly broken. That which had befallen the head of the community had equally struck its tail. Just as Ha'o, supposed to be as good as dead, had been supplanted by Ra'a, so on a smaller scale had most of his companions in misfortune. It was a matter only of degree. The hurt was the same.
Yams and taro do not come to maturity in a day. The rescued ones were rebuilding the village on its old site, close to the taro fields. The rebels on the hills and the perchers on the fence wanted their share of the common goods. They ventured down by night, warily and in mortal fear of more than Ha'o and his men, to procure them, and the fat was in the fire.
At first it spluttered in hot words.
"We want our proper share of taro," said the hillmen, not without reason. "You went away"—which was a provocative way of putting it—"and left us to tend the fields, and now you come back and sit on them."
"The fields belong to the community. We are the community. Come back into it and you will share with us. Where are our wives?" was the answer.
Some few, such as cared little who ruled so long as their stomachs were filled, did come back, and Nai brought down a number of the women and children, her towel costume and her descriptions of the white men's wonders forming strong inducements to the others. But many stood out, and the arguments developed from words to blows. Ra'a's men came down in force by night to replenish their larders. Ha'o's men resisted. One of the former got his head smashed in by an axe, and the feud was complete.
Blair did his best to prevent the rupture, but it was beyond him. Ha'o was, not unnaturally, hot against the usurper and his followers, and it was all the white men could do to persuade him from attempting acoup-de-forcefor the full rehabilitation of his fortunes. Under Blair's forcible arguments, and a grievous shortage of weapons, he agreed to postpone any active movement till his village was rebuilt. Then, when time lay on his hands, Blair knew that it would be next to impossible to restrain him. He hoped, however, that opportunity might arise which would afford a chance of intervention with some hopes of success.
Meanwhile skirmishes went on almost nightly, and there came a time at last when two of Ha'o's men, in repelling an attempt on the taro fields, were speared and their bodies carried off.
In the morning Ha'o came up, wearing his grimmest face.
"They have killed my men," he said, through Matti. "Now I go to kill them."
Blair had been considering the matter ever since the report reached him, and he had made up his mind what to do.
To understand Kenneth Blair fully you must bear in mind all that he had gone through, and the effect it could not fail to have upon him.
Once in his life, in the face of imminent death, he had flinched and he had never forgiven himself. To all the world outside he could be tender and forbearing. To himself he was harder than iron.
He would condone in another what he would never permit in himself. In the intensity of his feeling on this matter even his strong common sense was liable to be thrown somewhat off its centre. His only fear was of himself, and in that fear he was liable to choose the hardest and most dangerous path, lest a smoother one should prove but a pitfall to his duty.
In his somewhat morbid dread of doing too little he was constantly in danger of doing too much. He was quite aware of it, and he held himself tightly. But where two ways offered, it was almost inevitable that he should choose the more dangerous and difficult. It was a weakness, perhaps, but, after all, he was only human, and no man is perfect.
Just as the soldier on whom has rested an imputation of lack of nerve will, when the chance offers, rush to seemingly certain death in order to wipe off the reproach, so Kenneth Blair. It was the spirit of the Six Hundred at Balaclava over again, save that, indeed, in their case their courage had never been called in question, but only their utility.
And so, when Ha'o came up, thirsting for his brother's life, Blair said quietly—
"This matter must be settled without shedding of blood. I will go and see Ra'a, and will do my best to persuade him either to come in or to leave us in peace."
"He will kill you," said Ha'o briefly.
"I hope not. We shall see."
"He hates the white men. The hardest thing he has against me is that I ever had any dealings with those others."
"Those men were yellow, I will show him what white men are."
"He will kill you," said Ha'o once more.
"I hope not," was all the reply he got.
When the rest heard of his undertaking they also tried hard to dissuade him from it—all except Jean, who sat silent and thoughtful.
"It's risky," said Captain Cathie, with a gloomy shake of the head.
"Few good things come without risk, captain—besides, I don't believe it's as risky as you imagine."
"It's simply suicidal," said Aunt Jannet Harvey. "It's just throwing yourself away, Kenneth, and spoiling all your great plans, to say nothing of Jean's life."
"I shall go too," said Jean quietly.
"You, Jean?" said Blair, with a catch in the throat and a sudden weight at the heart.
"Yes, dear. If you go, I go. If it is death for you it is death for me in any case, and I would sooner it was together."
A terrible temptation this to choose the easier path—on her account. What right had he to drag her life into so great a danger? For imminent danger there was, though he had made light of it.
He halted, and she saw it, and understood much of what was in him.
"Don't hesitate one moment on my account, Ken. I must go. It is possible my being with you may help. It will show them, at all events, that we mean them no ill."
"We are in God's hands," he said quietly, but was visibly disturbed at her insistence.
Stuart and Evans also strove with him, but with no better effect.
"The peace must be kept, if it is possible," he said. "And this seems to me a possible way to it. I would sooner my wife had stopped behind, but I quite understand her point of view. And—we are as safe there as here."
"You've no objection to my firing a blank round or two, Mr. Blair?" asked Captain Cathie.
"What's the idea, captain?"
"Just to impress them with the fact that we're here behind you, sir. A bang or two from the big gun will maybe have as big an effect as anything you can say to them."
"Well, I see no objection. All we want is to keep the peace. The big gun may impress them, as you say."
"You wouldn't take a dozen of the men with you, would you sir?" asked the captain insinuatingly.
But Blair shook his head at that.
"That, I fear, would hardly carry the impression that I want to make. I look on all these people as my parishioners. Sooner or later, please God, they will be. But we must win them, captain; we can't force them."
He walked the deck alone that night, long after all but the watch had retired, and thought and thought.
And at thought of Jean going into the peril of the morrow the temptation was strong at times to find some other and less dangerous way—for her sake. For himself he would not think twice. For her—ah! for her he would think many times. And, after all, had he the right to persist in his own way, even though he believed it to be the right way, since it meant undoubted danger to her?
But he found in such thoughts the visible cloven hoof of avoidance, compounding, cowardice, and resolutely shut down upon them. For her sake he could have wished that she had been content to stay quietly on board, and let him face the danger alone. But duty called him with a clear voice, and go he must, whatever came of it.
And so it came that, very early the next morning, Kenneth Blair and his wife Jean set out on a somewhat perilous journey. And with them went Matti, the Samoan. And Matti by no means relished the undertaking, yet compassed a fairly stout face, since it was a matter of duty and a tangible business, with nothing ghostly about it, as yet at all events, though as to what it might presently develop into he had his own very grave doubts.
They were surely as peaceful-looking an embassage as ever sought a distrustful enemy. They were all in spotless white, and their only visible weapons, beyond Jean's green-lined white sunshade, were some small bundles containing presents, and a new axe and spade carried by Matti. Blair, indeed, had a revolver in his hip pocket, but it was only there because Jean was there. Had he been alone it would have stayed behind. It was, no doubt, somewhat of an anomaly after his confident "We are as safe there as here" of the previous night. But he was very human, and, as I have said, no more perfect than you or I, though an infinitely finer specimen than either of us.
As they quitted the ship, the long gun thundered out over their heads, and the noise of it bellowed up into the hills, and clanged to and fro in the valleys. And when they touched the shore it bellowed again, and went on bellowing at intervals like the threatening little monster it was.
Ha'o met them at the landing with some of his people, and shook his head gloomily at their prospects. He offered to accompany them as far as possible; but, as he bitterly said, they had not a spear among them, nothing but the axes Blair had given them, and axes are of little use against spears and poisoned arrows.
But Blair would not hear of it. He begged him to keep his people at their work as usual, and went on quietly through the disputed taro fields, up through the yam plantations and banana groves, and stood for a moment to look back over the lagoon, with the shapely little ship at her anchorage, and the bursts of white foam along the reef behind. A puff ball of white smoke fluffed out from her deck as they looked, and the roar of it went past them into the hills. It was not by any means impossible that they looked on it all for the last time. And Kenneth Blair's heart was not light as he took Jean's arm through his own and pressed it close to his side, and felt the trustful pressure of her arm in reply.
They understood one another fully. They had said all that needed to be said. In this and in all they were one; and if this meant death, they had no other wish than that it should be together.
"You are very brave, Jean."
"I am where I would be, and as I would be, Ken. We are in God's hands."
"Amen!" he said, and lifted his hat and led her round the shoulder of the hill.
They did not know where they might come across Ra'a.
"You will find him," Ha'o had said meaningly.
So they climbed on and up, through tangled thickets of hibiscus and branching matpandanus, under grey-boled palms, along bare patches of rock, certain that scores of dark eyes were watching them, wondering when and how their journey would end.
The hills had echoed many times to the voice of the long gun, when, from a clump of brush in front, a couple of bristling warriors rose suddenly and barred their way. They carried long, thin, venomous spears and heavy bows, and each had a bundle of arrows at his thigh.
"Aoha!" said Blair quietly, and they stared grimly, first at him, and then, and longer, at Jean. She sat down on a rock and opened her fan and began to use it with an equanimity which covered a jumping heart.
The climb had been somewhat exhausting, her face was radiant with colour and a great wistful expectancy, and her eyes shone like southern stars. She was a goodly sight to any man. To these brown men, who had never in their lives seen anything like her, she must have seemed almost more than human. After an appreciative glance at Matti's axe and spade, they stared at her with stolid insistence.
"Tell them we have come to speak with Ra'a. We bring him presents," said Blair to Matti, and a conversation of clips and jerks ensued, and in the result the brown men turned and led the way into the bush.
They came at last to a number of houses which had a hasty and temporary look about them, and were surrounded instantly by a buzzing crowd of men, women, and children, Jean again the centre of attraction, and bearing it, as before, with surprising equanimity.
They almost mobbed her, and shouted their comments aloud from one to another. Her sunshade, her fan, her dress, her face, her hair, her hands, every bit of her was a new sensation, and they made the most of it.
Then sudden silence fell, as a tall man strode through the lane they made before him, and stood in front of the strangers.
"You are Ra'a?" asked Blair of him direct.
"I am Ra-ch-ch-ch-a!" and his raucous name sounded worse in his own throat than it had ever sounded to them before; and as he said it, so it seemed to fit him.
He was tall and well made, evidently younger by some years than Ha'o, but his face was truculent and his eyes quick-glancing and shifty.
They rested, however, on Jean, and under other circumstances, and from a civilised man, Blair would have resented the look.
"What do you want?" asked Ra'a harshly.
And, through Matti, Blair answered him—
"We want peace between you and Ha'o"—and at the very mention of his brother the other scowled—"and between your people and his."
"It is you who have made the trouble. Why did you bring him back?"
"If it had been you we would have brought you back just the same."
"Ha'o is a fool to have dealings with white men."
"Those others were not white men, they were yellow. They are not of our tribe. We, too, hate the things they do, and we have come to stop them."
"You are all the same. If you hate them, why did you not kill them?"
"We do not kill if we can help it. If they come again, we may have to kill them."
"Why is that noise?" as the voice of Long Tom bellowed in the hills once more.
"It is the voice of my big canoe."
"It is only a voice. It does no harm."
"When I choose. You saw the other big canoe's masts? It did that with twice speaking."
"What do you want?" asked Ra'a once more.
"We have come from the other end of the world, where the people are all white, to try and be of use to you."
"We do not want you. We do quite well."
"There are many things you do not know, many things you have not got. Axes, spades," and he laid them down at the brown man's feet, "and cloth, and beads, and fish-hooks, and knives"; and he opened the bundles and gave them to him, and the black eyes round about snapped greedily. "Very many things we have, and we would share them with you. But we must have peace. If you will make things as they were before, we will share all these among you, and many more. It is far better than killing one another."
There was a visible inclination in the crowd towards a share in the good things, and Ra'a saw it and countered quickly. The man was a savage and brutalised, but he did not lack brain.
"We do not need your gifts. We can take them—all you have."
"You cannot take them. My big canoe could blow you all to pieces. But it has come to fight for you, not against you, and when it has done fighting it will go back and bring many more things for you. But it must be in peace."
Ra'a, whatever else he was, was a diplomat. Truculent he was without doubt, treacherous if it served him, and his word was probably of small account; but such things are not unknown in even more accomplished diplomatic circles.
He saw the inclination of his people, and that he must go with the tide.
"Give us our share of the things and we will be satisfied."
"You shall have your share if it is peace. There must be no more killing."
"The taro and the yams belong to us also?"
"Certainly. We will divide equally. If you will draw a line, we will draw a line, and you and your people will keep to your side, and Ha'o and his people will keep to his side."
"We will draw the line and tapu it. When will you send the things?"
"When the line is drawn. Will you come and draw it now?"
"You will go—and you," he pointed to two of his men. "You will put in tapu sticks and bring back what the white man gives you. Who is the woman?" staring hard at Jean, who had managed to keep an unruffled face in spite of the inquisition to which the women were subjecting her—touching her hands, her face, her hair, and the puzzling appointments of her dainty toilet. She had even induced one mother to let her pat the head of one brown mite, who was mumbling its fingers after reluctant teeth and stared at her with big round eyes.
"She is my wife."
"What is she wanting?"—a question evidently inspired by Jean's Miss Inquisitive look, which showed strongly at times and was much to the fore under the strain of the present interview.
"She is wanting everything," said Blair, with a smile. "It is probably that brown baby at present."
"She can have it. Is she hungry?"
"I don't think she is hungry, and she would not take the baby from its mother."
"Is she white all through?"
"White all through," said Blair.
"Have you any more in the big canoe?"
"They are all married—except one."
"I will marry her. How many coco-nuts will you take for her?" and he stared appreciatively at Jean.
"We do not sell our women. You would have to ask her yourself."
And at last they got away without further compromising Aunt Jannet, and very gratefully they went back by the way they had come, with full, yet lightened hearts. For the way, though it had opened before them, and now, to look back upon, seemed neither very difficult nor very dangerous, had been a perilous one, and one where death might have opened at their feet at any moment.
They went in silence with over-full hearts. Blair did not in the slightest delude himself with the idea that he had settled the matter at one stroke. He was quite prepared to find the agreement turn out but a temporary one, but it was a step towards the light to have arrived at any understanding whatever.
He was not surprised, also, to find Ha'o anything but satisfied with the arrangement. He would have preferred wiping out Ra'a and the malcontents, and settling the business at once on a sound and final basis.
With infinite difficulty Blair succeeded in showing him that those others had rights as well as himself, even though they had wronged him, and tried hard to inspire him with his own hope that matters would eventually work out for the best.
Ha'o, however, knew better.
"Their hearts are like this," he said, laying his hand on a length of twisted creeper dangling from an adjacent tree. "They are as grasping as a convolvulus for the water. They will take all you will give them, and they will keep the tapu just as long as it suits them." And he said to himself, "But by that time we shall perhaps be ready for them"; while Blair was thinking, "Every approach they allow us to make is a point gained."
The taro fields and yam plantations and banana groves were soon roughly divided off in a fair equality, and sticks with plaited palm leaves set up to warn off trespassers from either side. Then, with the idea of impressing them to the utmost, Blair invited the two plenipotentiaries to accompany him on board the big canoe to get the things he was to give them.
To this they demurred at first, though obviously desirous, and it was only after much argument among themselves that they at last agreed, and then only on condition that the white woman stopped on shore till they were brought safely back.
They stepped gingerly into the steam-launch at last, and eyed her bustling, unaided progress with obvious but well-concealed amazement. They were shown over the ship, the big gun was fired for them at close quarters, they inspected the farmyard and the cat, and they finally went home laden with gifts, and with new impressions enough to set their brains spinning and their tongues wagging for a month to come. And it is not likely that their stories lost anything in the retailing.
CHAPTER XVI
SAWDUST AND SHAVINGS
"Aunt Jannet," said Blair, as they sat in great relief and content discussing the day, when their visitors had left, "we had an offer for you this morning."
"An offer?—for me, Kenneth? Whatever do you mean?"
"A brown gentleman desires to correspond with a white lady with a view to matrimony. He wanted to know what we would take for you in coco-nuts."
"In coco-nuts indeed!" and Aunt Jannet bridled red. "And who was the impudent fellow?"
"Our enemy, our host, Mr. Ra'a. Jean made such an impression on him that I fear the brown ladies' noses will be permanently out of joint."
"H'mph!" with a snort of disgust. "He'd better keep out of my reach."
"I told him he'd have to ask you himself."
"I'd like to see him."
"A hint to that effect will bring him along hotfoot, I've no doubt. The matter is worth consideration," he said, with an assumption of weightiness. "Royal alliance—union of opposing factions—peace secured—a very good solution of our difficulties. Say, Aunt Jannet! will you sacrifice yourself for the good of the community?"
"Get along with you," said Aunt Jannet. "No naked brown cannibals for me."
The ice being broken with the factious ones, Blair and Stuart and Evans, with Matti still necessary as interpreter, though they were all rapidly picking up words and phrases of the island tongue, paid Ra'a several visits and did their utmost to strengthen the slim foundations of peace.
Ha'o and his people, however, declined any active intercourse with the rebels, and never ceased to warn the white men to be on their guard, asserting that their present amenableness was only assumed and would be thrown off as soon as no more was to be got by it. Blair judged that likely enough, but gave no sign of it, and treated the others as though he believed them in every way worthy of confidence. And Ha'o and his people meanwhile went on steadily replenishing their houses, and constructing the weapons without which they felt but half men and wholly insecure.
The mission-houses were completed and furnished. The farmyard was transferred from the bows of theTorchto suitable premises ashore, and what with the discontented bellowings of John Bull—who was always wanting something he hadn't got, though what it was neither he nor any one else could make out—and the mellower remonstrances of his more thoughtful consort, and the satisfied gruntings and squeakings of the delighted piglets and their mother, and the bleating of the goats, and the crowings and cluckings of cocks and hens, and the gabbling of geese in the river pools, the little settlement began to assume a most home-like appearance.
The ladies rejoiced in the feel of solid earth once more, and discovered endless delights in the nearer woods and along the beach. Limits, however, had to be placed on their wanderings, till assurance of good intent on the part of the outsiders was made doubly sure or proved entirely worthless.
Their nearest neighbours were the atoll community. These, not unnaturally, felt somewhat doubtful as to the permanence of their security among the discordant elements around them, and looked anxiously to the white men for protection. Left alone they would undoubtedly have been slaughtered and eaten out of hand, for human flesh was still the choicest dish where the only other variations from a vegetarian diet were occasional wood-pigeons, paraquets, and an unreliable choice of fish.
So far as Ha'o and his people were concerned, the atoll men were safe enough for the present and until cause might arise. They had been bed-fellows in misfortune and had shared a common deliverance, and so they were allowed to work beside the others in the taro swamp and to take their allowance of the fruits of the earth.
But there was a spirit of fear and distrust abroad—the fear that walks by night and makes light sleepers in palm-thatched houses, and no man went abroad after dark if he could help it.
With no little difficulty Blair succeeded in getting into communication also with the fourth community in the neighbourhood—the sitters on the fence, who were naturally at odds with all the others and would have fared badly but for their numbers, and for the hope each side had of eventually drawing them into their own folds.
They were perhaps more dangerous to approach even than Ra'a. For Ra'a was one, and his men obeyed his words. But these outlanders were many, and each man did what seemed right in his own eyes, and kept on terms with his neighbour and the community simply from motives of safety. In going among them, therefore, the risks were multiplied. They took all that was offered, however, and promised anything that was required of them in hopes of more.
But, obviously, four more or less distinct communities in one district were at least three too many. It was like having four savage dogs at large in one small back yard, and the proper thing to do was to get some of them to move.
Captain Cathie, coasting down the lagoon in the launch, had reported several fine wide valleys opening up into the hills, and Blair determined to try to induce some of the others to move farther down the coast and start fresh settlements there.
So far as Cathie had seen—and he was much too cautious to land until he knew more about what he might meet ashore—these valleys seemed unoccupied and capable of profitable occupation.
But Ha'o, when the idea was mooted, only shook his head mysteriously, and said they would never go there. No one lived there. No one ever had lived there. Farther down there were scattered communities, but the men rarely came up this way because they had made a practice of eating them whenever they got the chance. Over the mountains also there were villages, exclusive for the same reason.
And when Blair suggested the idea to Ra'a and the others, and offered to assist them in laying out taro fields and yam plantations, he was met in the same way. He could get nothing more out of them. The subject was so evidently distasteful that he determined to go and find out for himself, if possible, what the objectionable features were.
And so, very early one morning, he set off in one of the whale-boats, with Matti and Stuart and four men, and they pulled quietly along round the great frontlet of the hills till they came to the first opening into the hinterland, some five miles from the settlement.
Keeping a sharp look-out, they ran in on a fine white shell beach, and took cautious way up a wide valley from which the hills rolled back in long sweeping slopes, well bushed, and thick with palms. Gay flights of paraquets flashed in and out of the bushes, and the soft crooning of multitudinous wood-pigeons was like the humming of bees in a summer garden. A broad stream flowed through the valley, widening into silvery pools and glittering over broken shallows.
"It's an ideal place," said Blair. "What on earth has kept them out of it?"
They passed cautiously on through the tangled undergrowth. In front was the sound of falling waters, an intermittent drenching splash, now heard, now lost, as though a raincloud burst and passed and came again; otherwise a wide and perfect silence, which the droning of the doves seemed but to accentuate.
Through dense tangles of lemon hibiscus, and crowding paw-paws, and stilted pandanus, and the gleaming boles of the palms, they saw the valley widen into a great arc, and caught glimpses of mighty walls of rock which marked the end of it. And presently they were standing below, and gazing up in awed amazement.
In the shadow of the cliff, with their backs to it and their faces to the sea, sat a row of gigantic stone figures, gazing out In solemn silence through the slow-waving tops of the palms, the ephemeral palms which had grown and died in countless generations, and had crept gradually nearer and nearer, since those grim figures first sat down there, with their backs to the cliff and their faces to the sea.
So huge were they that the gazers felt themselves pigmies in comparison. Each grave head bent slightly forward as though listening intently for something that should come up from the sea, and the great stone hands were crossed reverently on the massive stone breasts.
From the sheer edge of the cliff above leaped streams of sparkling water, which broke in mid-air, and swung to and fro in the breeze like veils of gauze, and swept constantly over the seated figures, and wrapped them in fragmentary rainbows.
In their grim everlasting expectancy the great stone gods were very terrible to look upon, even with the eyes of understanding. More than once the gazers found themselves glancing fearfully over their shoulders towards the sea, lest perchance the long-delayed answer to that unspoken questioning might be coming. The sudden confrontation with these mighty relics of a long-vanished civilisation conjured up thoughts which bated their words to whispers.
"This accounts for it," said Blair softly. "What an amazing sight in a cannibal island! What do you make of it, Stuart?"
Stuart had been eyeing the monster nearest him with keenly critical eyes.
"Peruvian, I should say. Of the time of the Incas—or perhaps earlier still. Yes, earlier probably. I see no suns. This is mighty curious, you know. The present natives cannot be descended from them. They are pure Polynesians. And yet"—following out his own train of thought—"I'm not so sure. Ha'o and Nai and some of the others show traces of something more. I have often wondered about it. This may explain. These"—nodding at the silent figures—"or their makers, fled their country, or perhaps got blown across, and founded a new civilisation here. Then the old race ran to seed and got lost among the dark men, and ages afterwards their cousins from the mainland come across to kidnap them."
"Odd enough to think of," said Blair, "and likely enough to be true. What were these figures for, do you suppose? Worship?"
"Worship, sacrifice. Down in the brush there we shall probably find the remains of their houses."
And they did, all overgrown and barely discernible, but ruins without a doubt, and of a city of great buildings. By dint of peeling off the superincumbent growths of the ages they even laid bare a piece of wall, huge squared blocks from which the creeping mosses and lichens had long since eaten out the mortar.
"We shall never get them to live here, that's certain," said Blair. "The place is alive with ghosts for them. It would be an uncommonly safe place for a mission-station, if safety were the only thing. But it's too far from the parish. I think we can use it, however," he nodded thoughtfully, with some of his far-reaching schemes in view. "How those little pigs would enjoy those big paw-paws!"
They rambled about the valley, charmed with its wealth of fruit and flower, gathered quantities of each as evidences of their visit, and pulled back home.
Every one was on fire at once to go and view the wonders of the valley.
"To-morrow we will carry over a pair of goats and half a dozen piglets and some geese. They will have rare times there. If they don't burst themselves, they will multiply rapidly. By the time we have educated our friends here to better taste in the matter of eating, the larder will be stocked. It is better for them to hunt pigs and goats than men. And the wilder the pigs and goats the better. They will carry their own sauce with them," said Blair.
"It's the very place I've dreamed of since I was six years old," said Aunt Jannet, shedding her years. "Girls! we'll go over to-morrow, with the geese and the goats and the piglets, and have a scramble and a rummage."
Which they did, and found even more than the men. For Jean, at cost of a wetting, discovered a narrow entrance behind one of the figures, and inside it a winding stone staircase which led up into its head, and found that through the eyes of the god she could see all that went on below.
And one of the things she saw was Aunt Jannet Harvey wandering amazedly in front of the great stone figures; and then in a moment the earth opened and swallowed her up. For the good lady had stepped on a carpet of beautiful green moss, and the carpet gave way beneath her and precipitated her into a chamber of horrors full of skulls and dead men's bones, whence she was extricated with difficulty and in a state of extreme nervous tension by the men from the boat. Aunt Jannet's taste for exploration was dulled somewhat by the incident, and they went back home promising to return another day.
The goats, pigs, and geese entered into their new possession with delighted gabblings, bleatings, squeakings, and proved forthwith that they could look after themselves without any outside assistance.
Meanwhile, the two nearer-home communities had been taking their first timid steps towards the light, in the very practical shape of elementary lessons in carpentry. The white men's tools, in the skilled hands of the ship's carpenter, appealed strongly to them. Their various uses were speedily grasped—the tools also, unless he kept his eyes about him, as John MacNeil very soon found out. He was inclined to wrath and the bestowal of hard names, but it was simply human nature in its most natural form, and he learned to circumvent them by using only one tool at a time and never letting it out of his hand till he put it back into safety with the others. The driving of nails, especially when they were allowed to do it themselves, marked epochs in their lives and on their thumbs. Screws and hinges were revelations to them, the saw and the plane perpetual wonders, the grindstone an endless delight.
Blair watched them quietly, showed them the uses of the various things, let them experiment for themselves, and was satisfied that his sawdust and shavings would blossom into fruit. Their interest was excited, they were taking in new ideas, more in a day than hitherto in a generation; the rest would follow.