White Fire

by John Oxenham

Blair called for the mate and told him curtly what he had already told the captain.

"First, make fast that hawser!"

They did it to the satisfaction of the Torches, and at a call from Blair the Torch started slowly ahead, the hawser tightened, and every solid thrust of the blades in the blue water cut an upward step in the life of the Dark Islands.

"Now, understand! There will be a hand on that rope night and day. If there is any tampering with it you will hear from us. This mess"—pointing to the dismantled masts—"you will not touch till we reach the islands. Now I am going to inspect your cargo. How often do you feed them?"

"Twice a day."

"Some of us will come across each time and see it done. I hold you responsible. If they suffer, you will suffer. Understand? Now lead the way! You"—to Stuart and the four Torches—"please keep your eyes about you while I go below. Matti, you come with me."

A grating, through which came a most horrible smell, was hauled up, and the three went down into the inferno, and felt sick before their feet quitted the ladder. For the mate was sick at this unexpected turn of fortune, and Blair and Matti came near to physical sickness with the stench.

Blair clung to the side of the ladder and gazed mistily round. There was little light, but the dimness seemed to come not so much from lack of light as from superfluity of nastiness of every possible description and human misery indescribable. The feel of the place was like a hot breath from the pit. It closed silently upon one like the hand of a crawling death. It dimmed the eyes, and choked the throat, and lay like a weight on the heart.

To breathe it seemed death, yet three hundred miserables breathed it and lived, and by degrees his eyes discerned them and never lost the sight.

A great confused tangle of brown limbs and bodies, many entirely naked, a forest of shock heads, a hypnotising multitude of dark eyes all focussed on him, and all pitted with sparks of light from the opened hatch—mostly men, a few women, no children—short panting breaths, sighs, groans, the dull rattle of chains.

"Have they been fed to-day?" gasped Blair, and pointed to his mouth.

The mate nodded.

Blair went two steps up the ladder and called to Stuart.

"Tell them to feed and water these poor things instantly. Now, Matti, ask them in all the tongues you know if there is any headman or chief among them. And say we mean them well."

Matti tried them without success in two or three dialects, but at last hit upon one that evoked responsive movements in some of those nearest the light. He felt his way, and at last got a word in answer, the meaning of which he understood.

Here a couple of men came down the ladder carrying baskets of what looked like dog-biscuits, which they commenced handing round, one to each prisoner, and the latter sprang to the limits of their tethers for them, and snatched and worried them like dogs that had not been fed for a week. Blair looked at the mate, but the mate looked elsewhere.

It took a long time and many renewals to supply them all; but Blair would not move till it was done, nor until every one had had a drink of water. Then the interrupted conversation was resumed.

Yes, there was a chief there, and Blair ordered the mate to release the man and bring him forward. He came without eagerness, a tall, brown, well-built man of middle age, with a gloomy, but not absolutely forbidding face, pinched just now, perhaps with hunger, perhaps with despair. Experience had taught him to expect nothing but evil at the hands of white men.

But even his dull misery could not but perceive a difference between this clean, white-clad white man and those he had become accustomed to, and he gazed at Blair with a note of sullen inquiry.

"You are a chief?" asked Blair, through Matti.

"I am a king," he said, answering Blair, and bestowing no look on Matti, who, he perceived, was only a voice. And there was that in his tone and manner which carried conviction in spite of the misery of his condition.

"We have come to set you free and to take you back to the island."

And when the words beat through Matti's attempt at his dialect and got into his brain, it was as though an electric shock had galvanised him suddenly into new life.

"Free?—the island?" he stammered, and stared, still doubting. "All?" he asked.

"Yes, all," and he turned and told the news to the rest in quick, clipping words, and after a moment's amazed silence a shout went up, and the fetid hole was filled with a deafening buzz of talk.

It was only after anxious consideration of the point that Blair had decided to tell them the good news. He grudged every lost soul there. He would not lose one. There might be some given over to utter despair, and there is no tonic like hope.

"You will come with us," said Blair, to the discrowned king.

The man looked back into the gloom, and then again at Blair, and spoke eagerly.

"He says one of his wives is there," said Matti. "She shall come also."

The man pointed her out, the mate released her, and they climbed to the blessed upper air, all a-tremble with eagerness.

"Now, understand!" said Blair to the mate, through Stuart, so that all could hear him: "when your cargo is discharged, you will be at liberty to go where you will. If you attempt any treachery, we will blow you to pieces. If you ever return to the Dark Islands, you do so at your own peril," and he saw his guests into the boat and followed them.

The woman was young and not uncomely, but subdued and apparently somewhat dazed still at these sudden reverses of fortune. Neither spoke a word as the Torch slowed down for them to come aboard, but the man's eyes roved to and fro in ceaseless questioning, and he seemed to arrive at an intelligent understanding of matters. The long steel gun claimed his attention the moment he reached the deck, and from his instant glance across at the shattered hamper of the brig he evidently associated the two things.

Their only visible clothing was a native mat wrapped round the waist and falling nearly to the feet, and the very first thing to do was to cleanse them of the visible results of their 'tween-decks imprisonment.

Blair led the man down to the men's bathroom, and turned on the taps and filled the bath before his astonished eyes. He showed him also the use of soap, by washing his own hands, and left him to complete his toilet. He could not, however, forbear listening outside to hear how he got on, and was rewarded at first by a long silence, then by several tentative turnings on and off of the wonderful taps. Then a slight splashing suggested an experiment with the soap; and finally grunts of satisfaction and much wallowing told of savage man's enjoyment of the amenities of civilisation, and the return to his natural cleanliness. When he had had time to wash himself several times over, Blair knocked on the door and went in, and found his guest lying full length under water, with only his brown nose showing, and evidently feeling very much better.

He sat up and gurgled some words expressive of his feelings, and was mightily astonished at the sudden disappearance of the water when the plug was pulled up. He wanted to fill the bath again at once to see it run out again, and Blair let him engineer a final sluice for himself.

He was a much pleasanter companion after his wash. His fine brown skin shone under the unusual treatment of a towel, and his hair stuck out from his head like a twirling mop. He was about to assume his dirty mat again, but Blair hauled out some clean towels, tied one round him like a loin-cloth, draped another from his hips as he had worn his mat, and threw another over his shoulders, and the man was dressed as he had never been dressed in his life before. The towels happened to have broad red bands along the edges, and moreover had fringes, and their wearer was as proud of them as any Piccadilly dandy of his newest thing in spring suits.

Somewhat similar doings had been in course in the ladies' quarters, but, thanks to Aunt Jannet Harvey's very determined, but equally mistaken, good intentions, the results were less happy.

Aunt Jannet believed firmly that decency as well as cleanliness were first steps towards godliness, and she was too recent an arrival in the equatorials, and perhaps also too conservative in her own ideas, to understand that decency of attire is after all purely matter of custom. To her, a girl dressed, or undressed, only in a ridi fringe which clung precariously to her hips and fell half-way to her knee, was practically unclothed. She did not know that it was death for a man to touch that scant, precarious garment. Strange anomaly of the cannibal isles—a dangling fringe of smoked coco-nut fibre a more stringent safeguard than the multitudinous garments of civilisation! When Aunt Jannet did learn that fact she thought considerably, and thereafter took a somewhat wider view of things.

Meanwhile, in the mistaken goodness of her heart, she had insisted on arraying the newcomer in garments of her own, the most visible of which was a light print dress, in which the poor creature looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt.

At sight of her transformation the brown man stared hard, and then grinned vigorously, and the girl hotched and wriggled in disgustful discomfort. She came up to the man and fingered his soft towels wistfully. She spoke to him, and he instantly handed her the one he had over his shoulder. She tore at the neck of her dress with evident intention, and Blair begged Jean to take her away and provide her with what towels she wished.

"Well, I never!" began Aunt Jannet remonstratively.

"That is a mistake that has wrought infinite mischief, dear Aunt Jannet," he said. "Our work must begin inside, not outside. Meddle as little as possible with manners and customs or you do more harm than good."

"My goodness me! It's absolutely indecent for a woman to go about with nothing on but a towel. Don't tell me you allow them to eat one another, Kenneth!"

"Well, we break them off that as soon as we can. But in all these matters we have learned that it is highest wisdom to hasten slowly."

"Well, I——"

But here the brown girl came back, all smiles and modest grace, clad in red-fringed towels like the man, and even Aunt Jannet, in her heart, could find no fault with her appearance.

Then Blair called Matti, and, sitting on the deck by the new arrivals, he quietly commenced his approaches towards the conquest of the Dark Islands.

Briefly—in the telling, though very much otherwise in the extracting—this was what they learned. The man's name was Ha'o—which he pronounced Hacho, the ch as in loch—and the woman's Nai or Na-ee.

He was, he asserted, chief of that one of the Dark Islands which had been raided by the brig. A number of the islanders had been enticed on board with soft words and presents and then suddenly made prisoners. The ship had then apparently sailed, but that same night the village was burnt and he and the rest carried off.

It was not easy to make him understand what had induced these other white men to follow and bring them back. If they did really land him on his own island again—of which he was by no means sure—he would be their friend and brother. As for those others—looking venomously at the captain of the brig, who was sitting amidships in gloomy contemplation of the scurviness of fortune—he would ask nothing better than to eat them if the chance offered.

"You eat men, then?" asked Blair, through Matti.

"Of course. Why not? Properly cooked they are excellent eating"—or words to that effect.

And Aunt Jannet Harvey and the other ladies shuddered and wondered, for he did not by any means look the monster his words implied.

Blair tried hard to convey to him the idea that they had come from the other side of the world for the sole purpose of helping him and his people; but that was too much for him—he could not comprehend it.

He got tired of being questioned out of his depth, and strolled about the ship, examining everything attentively. The long brown steel gun, the revolving screw, the engines, and the smoke pouring out of the funnel claimed his chief attention. During the next few days he hung over the stern watching the revolving blades and the bubbling wake by the hour, with absorbed and puzzled face, and every now and then would lick his hand and hold it up to feel the air. There was little wind, for Captain Cathie had purposely run up into the calm belt to lessen the strain of the towage, but such as there was it was dead against them, and the brown man could not understand it. As to the gliding pistons and smooth-running wheels in the engine-room, they were white men's magic of the most virulent description, and Matti himself understood the business too little to be able to convey any clear idea of the connection between them and the never-resting screw astern.

For the rest, both the brown man and the girl found ample grounds for wonder in the farm-yard in the bows—the contemplative cow, the sullen-eyed young bull, the stolid goats, and the rooting piglets and their mother, and the cocks and hens in their coops, and the men's pet cat, which occupied their various bunks in turn, and accepted all their attentions with the utmost complacence and gave nothing in return. But of all the things that set sparks in the girl's wondering eyes, the crowning delight was the piano in the saloon and the little harmonium which was lashed alongside it.

She would sit with her ear pressed tight to the frame and her eyes like saucers as long as any one would play for her; and when her own slim brown finger touched one of the white keys and elicited due response she jumped with delight, and would have practised one-finger exercises of her own composition all day and all night. There were other wonders in reserve, but she had enough for the present, and more than enough.

"She has an ear for music," said Jean to her husband one night. "She was crouching by me during the singing, and I heard her humming the tune quite nicely."

"They are famous singers, some of them," said Blair. "I count a good deal on working up to the citadel through Eargate."

The Blackbirder captain was lodged in an empty cabin, and had his meals there. He had ample time for introspective musing, for none cared to associate with him.

In the middle of the first night Blair jumped up in a sweat of terror. The idea had suddenly occurred to him that the hostage might make a break for liberty or revenge by setting the ship on fire. He went hastily to the spare cabin and found him snoring comfortably. Nevertheless he sat there all night, and after that the man was never left alone, day or night, till they finally got rid of him.

Twice each day some of them, with Matti as interpreter, dropped down to the brig and saw the islanders duly fed and watered, and said a word or two of cheer to them. And day after day the sallow crew scowled across at the quiet ordered life on board the schooner—the pleasant, friendly relations, the morning and evening services on deck—and cursed sparks into its vicious eyes; but ventured no more because of the ever-present Winchesters and the black mouth of Long Tom which gaped hungrily at them whenever they looked that way.

Their weighted progress was slow. It was the evening of the sixth day before the distant peaks of the Dark Islands bit up through the setting sun, and on the morning of the seventh day they were steaming slowly for the entrance to the lagoon.

Ha'o and Nai had refused to lie down all night. All night long they had hung over the bows, peering into the darkness in a fever of anticipation which left them no words. When the flaming east lit up the giant peak they knew so well, they could scarce contain themselves. Cannibals they were and benighted heathen, but this was home, and there was hope in them and for them.

Captain Cathie, with admirable skill, and a couple of his whale-boats, humoured the brig in, stern foremost, since she had no steerage-way on her. He dropped her down the lagoon as close to the white sand spear as he deemed advisable, then bade them drop their anchor and loose the tow-rope, and heaved a sigh of content as his gallant little ship shook herself free of that most undesirable partnership.

He took up a position to seaward of the brig, and Blair, and Evans, and Ha'o, with Matti and the usual guard in attendance, went on board of her to discharge cargo.

It was a thing to remember, one of the high times of life that stand out in the past when other things have faded.

A great shout went up from the chaotic mass of brown men as the white-clad figures came down the ladder and Ha'o shouted the good news to them. He had been across each day with whoever was going, and Blair, watching carefully this corner-stone of his enterprise, had come to think well of him.

A thing to remember, indeed, as the brown figures came tumbling up the ladder in batches. They fairly scrambled over one another in their haste, and, after one wild glance round to make sure, flung themselves headlong into the familiar waters, and made straight for the shore, shouting breathlessly as they went, eager only to set foot on that white beach once more.

Blair had reckoned on carrying them ashore in the boats, but who would wait for boats when the sparkling water called?

That long string of urgently bobbing black heads from brig to shore—first-fruits of victory—spolia opima in very truth—was a sight none of them ever forgot. The Torches laughed aloud with enjoyment. Even the sullen-eyed Blackbirders watched with interest.

Ha'o stood among the white men with wonderful self-control. Instinct drew him to the water with the rest, but he would not. Even these few short days on the higher plane had not been without their effect. He had watched ceaselessly. He had seen much that was beyond him. For the first time in his life, he had come across a force greater than his own, which made for good and not for evil. There were stirrings within him which he did not understand, but the first expression of them made for restraint.

When the stream of brown bodies ceased pouring out of the hatch, and the last batch had leaped overboard with joyful shouts, Blair and the others climbed down into the empty dimness to make sure that all had gone. They found three lying with starting eyes, too weak to move and fearful that they had been forgotten. These they wrapped in abandoned mats and passed up on deck and lowered into one of the whale-boats. Then a flying visit to the Torch for Nai, and they sped to the shore.

It was only when they all stood on the white beach that Ha'o, shaking with excitement barely to be restrained, turned to Blair and, grasping his hand in his own two trembling ones, carried it to his forehead and said some words in a low voice.

Blair glanced at Matti for enlightenment.

"He says he is your man from this day, and will be to you as a brother," said Matti, and the white hand and the brown gripped firmly on the compact. Then Ha'o turned and walked rapidly towards the village, and they went with him.

So Ha'o of Kapaa'a became the Man's man's man. And the first sparks of light for the Dark Islands leaped from the match that set fire to the village thatch ten days before.

So good comes out of evil, and no man may safely say this is good and that is ill. For no man knows, save Him Who knows all things; and His ways are so very different from man's ways that wisdom and experience drive one only to the doing with one's might the thing that is in hand, in the faithful hope that He will round the corners and shape the work to its appointed end.

CHAPTER XIV

CLIPPING A BLACKBIRD

Before we proceed to other matters, let us get rid of the Blackbirder.

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 the Blackbirder in 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 the Blackbirder's wings, 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 the Torch and sent his boats to bring back the prisoners from their damp roosting-place.

He explained to the gloomy-faced captain of the Blackbirder what 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 the Torch sat 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 the Blackbirder, 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 the Blackbirder, and the traffic between the Torch and 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 the Blackbirder three 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, the Torch got 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.