White Fire

by John Oxenham

[Illustration: "We shall see them again," said Captain Cathie (missing from book)]

"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 the Blackbirder fairly 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 the Torch was 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 a coup-de-force for 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 the Torch to 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.

CHAPTER XVII

FIRST FRUITS

Aunt Jannet Harvey's ideas of missionary work and methods differed essentially from Kenneth Blair's.

She wanted to be up and doing all the time. She was anxious for visible fruit before the seed was fairly into the ground. In spite of the practical common-sense which she brought as a rule to the ordinary affairs of life, she was, in this matter, like a child with its first garden, in danger of retarding by her very anxiety for progress. She was inclined to be for ever hauling up the tiny shoots to see how the roots were getting on. Or, to be more exact still, she was like a child placed suddenly in charge of an overgrown patch with instructions to reduce it to order. And Aunt Jannet's ideas ran to such strenuous loppings and bindings and weedings, that the timid brown women and round-faced, pot-bellied youngsters fled, white-eyed and panting, whenever they caught sight of her.

This greatly distressed the good lady, and served only to confirm her views as to the urgent necessity for prompt and radical measures, just as flight from a school-board officer but serves to accentuate the chase.

She wanted the women and children clothed and taught and transformed into the outward semblance of civilised beings at once. She wanted a church built, and a school. She wanted to teach the women sewing and decency, and the children their letters and manners.

And Blair, with his wider knowledge and experience, had to put his foot down on every suggestion she made, and, gently and good-humouredly as he tried to do it since he knew the warm heart that was at the bottom of it all, found himself in constant collision with her.

"Example first, Aunt Jannet," was his constant text, "then precept. It's not the slightest use thinking of a church or a school yet. They'll come all right when we're ready for them. And, really, you must not try to dress any of those women and children again. You'll kill them."

"But they are so—so terribly naked, Kenneth."

"Of course they are, and so they have been for thousands of years, their forbears at all events, and you might just as well begin giving them poison as insist on clothing them. If you want to kill them, clothe them. If you want them to live, just let them go as they are."

"But the men——"

"Now you just leave the men to us. If you good ladies will just keep on at your own proper work, and let these big brown children watch you and see the pleasant results, you will be doing the very best thing possible for them. Make friends with them, pick up all the words you can lay hold of, and, in fact, get in touch with them all round as quickly as possible. But we must lead them; we can't drive them."

His own example was an inspiration to them all. Evans and Stuart seconded him loyally, and by degrees the ladies, who one and all, Jean included, sympathised considerably with Aunt Jannet in her not unnatural discrimination in favour of clothing, desisted from their well-meant efforts and grew accustomed to the scant attire of their brown friends.

They had no lack of personal cleanliness to combat, for which "Thank goodness!" said Aunt Jannet more than once. "If they let you see plenty of skin, it is at all events clean skin. If they'd stop rubbing themselves all over with that nasty rotten coco-nut oil and wear some decent clothes, I wouldn't have a fault to find with them—except in their eating and a few other things."

The mission-settlement lay on the left bank of the little river which ran through the spear of white sand at the head of the bay. On the other side of the river the mountains where Ra'a lived rolled up, shoulder on shoulder, till the farther ones were lost to sight. Behind the mission the ground lay level for a space, where the valley came down to the sea, and here were masses of coco-palms and a great tangle of undergrowth, and farther up, past the village, were the disputed taro fields, and the yam and banana plantations.

On the mission side of the river, behind the level lands, another great hill flung one rough protecting arm into the sea a quarter of a mile beyond the houses. The great ridge, full of cracks and cavities, as though it had broken in its fall, shot right into the lagoon, and the barrier reef started from its outermost point. On the other side the great waves roared everlastingly up a white shell beach, but landing there was impossible, as no boat built by man could survive the tumult of the surf.

This was the island bathing-place, and here, all day long, men, women, and children were slipping and tumbling like seals in the creaming rollers. They shot deftly through the combers before they broke, and away out to sea, then came skimming back stretched flat on their swimming-boards, sitting on them, standing on them, marvels of grace and beauty, with shouts and laughter and life's tide at its fullest.

It was their most rational enjoyment, and the finest possible outlet for their activities. It kept them healthy and it kept them clean.

It also led to friction between the various factions, just as the taro fields had done. This was the only place available for surf-swimming for many miles on either side. Until the late troubles it had been common to all. Now the nearest dwellers, Ha'o's people and the atoll men, monopolised it, and when the others desired to join the sport they were received with taunts and jibes which came quickly to blows, and Blair had to adopt the rôle of peacemaker once more.

Ha'o and his men would have kept the others from the surf, just as they would have kept them from the taro swamps. But Blair would not have it. He reasoned with them, talked to them and at them, in a voluble mixture of Samoan, Kapaa'an, and English, and made them understand what he meant if many of his words were beyond them.

In a pow-wow of this kind, when his feelings ran far in advance of his tongue, he could not wait for Matti's plodding interpretation, but dashed at it himself, and surprised and tickled his hearers with his white-hot vehemence.

They were mighty arguers and had the advantage of the language, but he brought them to his will by sheer force of insistence. He had right on his side, and he would have them to it also. They grumblingly yielded the shore on certain days of the week, and Blair rejoiced in this further sign of growth and progress.

Meanwhile, however, he knew that they were busily at work on the preparation of arguments of a more forceful description, and he had little hope of reaching his ultimate goal without these coming into use. So small a spark might set them all aflame that it was useless attempting to forecast it or to stifle it in advance. All he could do was to endeavour, by every means in his power, to build up among them the new influences which he and his friends represented, so that when the time came they should count as factors in the case.

The houses in the village were all more or less laughable imitations of the mission-house, for they were as imitative as monkeys, so long as imitation imposed no restrictions, and at sight of the white men's houses they pulled down their own and began again with these as models. And when they got to boat-building, the canoes of their fathers were no longer good enough for them. Their new boats must follow the lines of the white men's boats also, to Blair's great satisfaction, since it entailed mighty labours, and while they were busy they were safe from outbreaks on side issues.

At the mission-station all worked alike; the men breaking up the ground for plants and vegetables, and attending to the live stock, the women doing the housework and cooking. All day long the house was surrounded by an inquisitive throng, which watched keenly and commented fully and frankly on everything it saw, and with whom the busy workers carried on disjointed conversations, and picked up native words in exchange for English ones, amid shouts of laughter at the multitudinous mistakes on either side.

Morning and evening the white men held a short service, and the brown men and women caught up the hymn tunes and hummed them lustily, with no slightest idea of what they meant, but with none the less enjoyment.

The small harmonium had been brought ashore and was a huge delight, and for a time a mighty mystery to them. Jean played it, and they could not understand why it should sing when she touched the keys and remain mute when they did the same. Then one cunning fellow, by dint of persistent watching, caught sight of her feet moving beneath her dress, and with an excited "Hi!" laid himself flat on his stomach with his nose at her heels, and the mystery was solved.

The novel tunes ran in their heads, some even of the incomprehensible words, and it was strange indeed to hear a naked brown man chopping away at a slab of timber and singing lustily, "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im law-daw-faw!" Later on they heard that tune amid still stranger surroundings, for the lilt and swing of it captured their fancy, and they were at it morning, noon, and night—building their boats, working in the taro fields, sweeping along on the tops of the rolling combers, sitting outside their houses when the day's work was done.

There was a hopeful, homely sound in it, and those who sang with understanding hoped fervently that in time the others might do so too.

They were very children, these brown men and women, in their light-heartedness, quarrelsomeness, and lack of restraint. Whatsoever seemed good in their eyes at the moment, that they did, regardless of consequences. Only at times, the innate savagery showed through, and then they were to be feared. Like hot-headed children who had never known restraint, there was no knowing what they would do, except that it would certainly be something unpleasant to the offending one and possibly to the bystanders.

They were very magpies, too, in the snapping up of treasure-trove.

"We won't call it stealing," said Blair soothingly to John MacNeil, the carpenter, who was complaining for the twentieth time of missing tools. "They don't look on it in that light, you see, John."

"Thievin' blayguards!" said John dourly, minus another tool.

"We'll teach them better soon. Meanwhile, leave nothing lying about if you can help it, and give them no opportunities. They are so in the habit of picking up anything they want that it's become part of their nature."

"Juist thievin' blayguards! I'd clour their heads if I could catch 'em at it, but it'd need eyes all round to be upsides with 'em."

And when, now and again, John did catch them at it, and proceeded to clour their heads, they took it quite good-humouredly, and surrendered their prize with a grin, and bore no malice.

It was a strange right-about-face in the lives of the ladies, and many a laugh they had over it.

"Jean, my dear," said Aunt Jannet one day, when all four of them were busily washing and wringing out clothes at the mouth of the river, "this is a change from Hyde Park, isn't it?" At which, and the incongruity of associations which sprang up in them at her words, they all broke into laughter.

Straight in front lay the placid stretch of the lagoon, pulsing softly to the broken influx through the gap in the reef; beyond it, the crisp, white leaping hedge of foam along the reef itself; beyond that, the infinite expanse of sea and sky, and the far-away white line where upper and lower blue met and kissed: on the one side, the bold green shoulders of the mountain, feathered with slow-swinging palms, solemn, mysterious, just a trifle threatening, since Ra'a lived there; on the beach beyond, a mixed company of brown men and white, busy at boat-building, with spasmodic outbreaks of "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im!" to the tapping of the hammers: on the other side, the tumbled rocks of the ridge and the ceaseless growl of the surf; behind them the white houses of the mission, the bosky valley, peeps of native houses, sounds of women's voices and children's laughter.

"It is certainly a wider outlook," said Jean cheerfully.

Then a slim brown and white figure stole up beside them, and became immediately all brown, as Nai loosed her towel vestments and began to wash them in the same way as the white women were doing.

"And here is first-fruits," said Jean. "Good morning, Nai."

"Mawin," smiled Nai, proud of her accomplishments, and spread her towels to dry in the sun alongside the more complicated garments of civilisation.

The Torch was away with Blair and Stuart on a tour of exploration round the island, and possibly to one or two of the neighbouring ones.

Blair had been waiting for the opportunity for some time past. Ha'o had told him of communities on the other side of the island, and he was desirous of getting in touch with them as soon as possible.

The ladies had wished to go too, but he thought them better at home till he had spied out the land himself. He intended to land at the different villages, and the enterprise might not be without its dangers. Of these he made light, however, and it was with tranquil minds that those ashore waved their farewells in the early dawn, as the Torch slipped from her anchorage and wafted lightly down the lagoon.

The times seemed in all ways propitious. Ha'o, indeed, would have preferred that the white men's favours should have been kept all for himself, but Blair was at pains to explain to him that nothing less than the whole island, and if possible all the islands, would satisfy him. In view of what he knew would follow sooner or later, he tried to explain to the brown man that if it were possible to unite the various communities on Kapaa'a under one paramount chief it would be for the great benefit of all.

To which Ha'o replied succinctly—

"Then we must kill Ra'a," and rose to the prospect.

Ra'a had been quiescent for some time now. There was occasional friction between members of the various factions, but nothing more than was to be expected under the circumstances. They were simply squabbles, resulting in no general disquiet, though symptomatic of the underlying feeling that was abroad.

Ha'o, however, never ceased his warnings. Ra'a he said feelingly, was not to be trusted, and the only right and proper thing for the white men to do was to join him in wiping him out, and the sooner the better. And, simply from a political point of view, Blair could not but confess to himself that the weight of evidence was in Ha'o's favour. For Ra'a remained in truculent retirement, and doggedly rejected all efforts at conciliation. Blair had gone up the mountain more than once since that first time, and had done his utmost to win him over. Ra'a accepted all his presents as his rightful due, but gave absolutely nothing in return, not even worthless promises. He was the black cloud on the horizon, and they could only hope that he would remain a cloud and not develop into a storm.

Each week that passed strengthened Ha'o's hands. Not only did it give him time to arm and consolidate his own little community, but his numbers were constantly increased by ones and twos, as the dwellers in the hills took note of the advantages enjoyed by those on the shore through their intercourse with the white men, and desired to share in them. Ha'o permitted the return of these prodigals, since it was better to have them under his hand than beyond his reach. He put little faith in them, but had the wisdom to keep his feelings to himself. Blair welcomed them as straws indicative of the current, but Ha'o, better versed in the ways of his race, pushed on his preparations for the conflict which he foresaw these very secessions would sooner or later precipitate.

When Blair told him of his impending trip of exploration, and tried to induce him to come with them, Ha'o stated bluntly that he preferred to remain at home. It was not impossible that he had it in his mind that if anything happened in Blair's absence, he would have the freer hand to act as he pleased. For the white men were ever on the side of magnanimity, and magnanimity, where Ra'a was concerned, was to Ha'o simple foolishness.

CHAPTER XVIII

SETBACKS

So the Torch slipped down the lagoon like a picture, and Nai and the other ladies completed their laundry operations, and in due course the red sun dropped into the sea, without the explosive hiss which seemed inevitable, and night fell on the little community as peacefully as usual.

Evans conducted their evening service, and the attentive ring of brown men and women round the platform of the house hummed the tunes gaily, echoed the white "Amen" with the gusto of children after a long sermon, and dispersed like big bumble-bees to their homes.

Jean could not sleep that night. It was the first time she and Kenneth had been separated, since their marriage, and she felt as lonely as the circumstances demanded. She got up at last and slipped on a dressing-gown, and went out and sat on the platform.

The soft lip-lap of the water on the beach, and the distant growl of the surf, were soothing, and she sat looking at the great new stars, with which she was becoming friendly by degrees, and thinking of her husband, and wondering how far he had got, and of the vast change her marriage had made in her life.

She had never for one moment regretted it. All her heaven on earth was centred in Kenneth. So long as he remained to her, all the rest was nothing. And before long they would begin to see the fruit of their quiet sowing, the Dark Islands would be dark no longer, and they would be living a quiet, happy life among a new and contented people. It was a grand and glorious work. No, she had no regrets—since she had Kenneth.

On her right across the river, as she sat facing the sea, the mountain loomed sombre and menacing—the hill Difficulty. Her thoughts ran back to that trying morning when she and Kenneth faced the hill, and what it held, all alone, not knowing whether they would ever come back alive. Like many another hill on life's highway, its menace had been chiefly in their own fears, and had disappeared on closer acquaintance. How she wished that uncomfortable man Ra'a would go away, or be reconciled to his brother, or do anything that would allow the community to settle down in peace to its new life's work.

She knew much of Blair's great hopes and large ideas, and how essential he considered it that the islands should as soon as possible attain to some kind of central government, so that they might unite in opposing an inflexible front to any attempt at interference from the outside. The Dark Islands for the Dark Islanders was his aim and object in life at present, and this truculent savage on the hill there was keeping everything back. She almost had it in her heart to wish Ra'a's speedy and sudden death.

Blair had often spoken of the evils that had followed the admission of traders in others of the South Sea Islands—drink, disease, dispossession—and how the communities were ruined before ever they had a chance of better things. Yes, surely, she thought, if Ra'a could meet with some happy accident, which would end him, it would be for the good of the community at large. That was not a thought that would commend itself to Kenneth, she knew, but she could not help thinking it. What a mighty relief it would be if Ha'o walked in some morning, and said, "Ra'a is dead." She felt as if she could almost forgive him if he had done the deed himself.

Then she thought she heard, a sound in the gloom of the hillside. She strained into the darkness and listened intently. She heard nothing, but still felt a sense of discomfort. After all, it might quite likely be one of the natives prowling about, though, as a rule, their fear of ghosts and evil spirits kept them indoors after nightfall, and it needed very strong inducement to take them abroad.

She was still peering towards the hill with puckered brow, when a curdling, short-cut yell ripped the silence behind, in the direction of the village, and in a moment pandemonium seemed loosed, and the night was alive with horrors—screams and yells and all the turmoil of warfare.

That first deadly cry sent Jean flying inside for Aunt Jannet. The good lady met her at the door of her own room with an anxious—

"What in the name of goodness——?" and then Alison Evans and Mary Stuart came tumbling in upon them, and Evans called to them from the ground outside to stop where they were, and they would be all right.

It was not in human nature, however, to stand huddled in the dark, asking one another questions which none of them could answer, when the answer was shrieking outside, and they all crept, trembling, to the verandah, and stood silently facing the danger, whatever it might be.

They heard Evans quietly ordering his men, and felt safer. And beyond, the shouts and yells waxed and waned and wavered to and fro. Once they thought they were coming in their direction, and their hearts thumped painfully. Then the tumult drifted away again, and at last passed furiously towards the taro fields, and died away on the mountain-side.

Then new sounds arose, cries of victory, little less blood-curdling than the shouts of battle, and the ladies crept back into the dark room, assured of their own safety, but with horrible premonitions of what these might portend.

Presently the shadowy darkness over by the river resolved itself into a mob of black figures which came towards the mission-houses, leaping and brandishing its newly-fleshed weapons, and shouting at the top of its voice, in horrible incongruity, and the more horrible in that the tune was perfectly correct, "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im! Law-daw-faw!"

They circled the fence, leaping and shouting and singing, and the men of the yacht inside grasped their weapons to repel an onslaught. But the brown men had had their fill of fighting for that night, and were only there to advertise their victory.

Evans said a word or two to them, but learned only that Ra'a had come down from the hill and attacked the village, but that they had been ready for him. They were too excited to be able to give any details yet, and presently they drew off and went shouting and singing home.

Jean, with something of a shock, remembered her ill-wishes for Ra'a, and wondered with discomfort, now that the bald possibility faced her so closely, if they had been realised. If they had, she would feel almost as if she had had a hand in his death.

Then a native drum began beating in the village, and the ceaseless monotony of its deep, dolorous boom fretted their ears, and set their hearts jumping, and jangled their nerves to the point of agony. They covered their ears with their hands, they stuffed their fingers into them, but the drum beat in through their temples. They clasped their heads tightly to keep them from splitting, but the drum beat in all the same. When it ceased abruptly at last, and they ventured to lift their heads, they saw one another's pale faces in a faint gleam that stole in through the windows. The darkness over the village was pulsing with the glow of great fires, and as they glanced fearfully at one another they knew that the same horrible thought was in all their minds.

It was dawn before the noises died away, and Evans came in to them with a grim, grey face. He said nothing, but nodded silently—and their horror was confirmed.

Yes, truly, it was a decided change from Kensington and Hyde Park.

No soul from the village came near them that day, nor did any of them venture out except Evans, who went along twice during the day to see what was going on, but returned each time with pinched lips and a despondent shake of the head.

The following day the brown men were about again, but sluggishly, as though the fight had used up all their energies, or something else had clogged them. It was another two days before they settled down to work, and even then they were not quite as they had been.

Ha'o had kept away from them. When Evans came across him at last, he endeavoured to get some particulars of the fight, and gathered that Ra'a had probably watched the departure of the Torch, and thought it an opportunity not to be missed. He had crept down in the dark, hoping to surprise the village, and then make easy prey of the mission-houses and their contents. Ha'o had foreseen the possibility of such an attempt. Evans understood him to say that in Ra'a's place it was just what he would have done himself. So he had men on the watch, and the rest slept armed, and instead of a surprise, the hill-men walked into an ambush—and paid. Ra'a himself had escaped, leaving a dozen or so of his men behind. They had eaten them, said Ha'o, in a matter-of-course way. Ra'a had gone farther into the hills, and to follow him would be dangerous. And so to the boat-building once more, and much singing of "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im!" which sounded more than ever out of place under the circumstances.

Nai also put in an appearance that day, and to such an extent does the mind prejudice the eye, that it seemed to Jean and the rest that even she was changed from what she had been. In a word, it was difficult to look upon any of these sleek brown men and women without thinking with disgust of the horrible orgies in which they had been indulging. Their humanity seemed but skin deep, and just below it the wild beast lurked and peeped through the glancing black eyes.

Nor was it easy to conceal their feelings entirely, and perhaps Nai's womanly intuition perceived a touch of frost in the atmosphere. She stayed but a short time, and then went quietly away.

"I'm sorry," said Jean, with a sense of discomfort; "but really I could not feel towards her quite as usual."

"Of course you couldn't—nobody could," said Aunt Jannet briskly. "If I knew how to talk to them, I'd tell them what I think of the whole business. I'd make their ears tingle, I warrant you."

"I wish Kenneth was here. He would know just what to do."

"He'll tell you, my dear, that it's no good talking to them. You must just go slow, and break them off it by degrees. All the same, it would be a relief to one's mind to give them a right good scolding."

"They've been used to it all their lives, you see."

"All the worse for them. They ought to be ashamed of themselves."

"But that's just what they don't understand. Suppose a brown man came over to England and remonstrated with us for killing and eating beautiful little lambs and graceful cows——"

"Fudge, child! Lambs and cows aren't human beings," grunted Aunt Jannet. "They haven't souls."

"I don't know that the fact of men having souls makes much difference when it's only a question of their dead bodies being eaten. But I do hope Kenneth can break them off it! It is too horrible! And one can't help thinking of it every time one looks at them. Though I suppose it was just the same before we came."

"What they did before we came was not our fault. What they do now is, and the sooner Kenneth puts a stop to it the better," was Aunt Jannet's final word.

Matters went on quietly—Evans and the men of the yacht clearing and breaking up ground for trial plantings of various seeds, the brown men busy on their boats to the tune of "Kown 'im!" the women, brown and white, busy on their household duties, the children laughing and screaming—till, on the seventh day, a brown runner came, fresh from the surf behind the ridge, to tell them that the Torch was in sight. And instantly they dropped what they were at, to scramble up the shoulder of the hill and wave their joyful welcome. Not a white man or woman there but felt a new sense of security and hopefulness at sight of her, and it was chiefly because on board of her was the wise head and great heart to which they had all come to look for guidance and inspiration in their work.

It was a very joyful meeting when the anchor rattled down, and Blair and Stuart and Captain Cathie jumped ashore from the whale-boat, and the brown men welcomed them, outwardly at all events, with as much gusto as the whites.

And great stories Blair and the others had to tell of their doings out beyond. The brown men and women crowded round the platform till late into the night, laughing and chattering with appreciation of the white men's volubility, though they could not understand a word of it all.

It had been a most satisfactory trip. They had visited all the six islands of the group, and had landed at various places on each of them. They had found the natives suspicious at first, but amenable to presents and open to their advances when they found nothing ulterior in them. In fact, in several places, when the brown men found them actually going away, without any attempts at kidnapping or otherwise molesting them, they followed in their canoes for long distances begging them to return.

"It's a glorious field," said Blair, stretching out his arms energetically as though to gather it all in at once, "if we can only occupy it and fence it round before the degraders come. And we must, for one of those islands given over to the devil would be like a plague spot infecting all the rest."

Then they told him of the happenings at home. He was startled at Ra'a's outbreak and at thought of the consequences if it had proved successful.

"I hate the thought of coercing him or any one," he said thoughtfully; "but until he either comes in, which I fear is hopeless, or is got rid of in some way, he is going to be a terrible hindrance to our work."

"Deport him to yon outer island, Mr. Blair, with such of his people as stick to him," suggested Cathie; "then the rest will have peace."

"Easily said, captain, and a good idea; but how?"

"It would mean fighting, I suppose," said Cathie briskly, "unless common-sense led him to give in quietly. Sometimes it pays best in the long run to grip your nettle at once and grip it hard."

"He'll never give in till he is forced to," said Blair. "Yet I can't see my way to use our force against him. How can we preach peace to these people if we begin by using the sword ourselves?"

"If you give the rest peace, it may be better than preaching it," said Aunt Jannet. "I agree with Captain Cathie. There'll be no peace till that man is got rid of. And, for goodness' sake, do stop them eating one another, Kenneth. I haven't enjoyed a meal since, and I can't look at one of them without thinking that a day or two ago he was munching one of his fellows."

"We shall break them off it by degrees."

"By degrees!—by degrees!" cried Aunt Jannet. "It is too horrible. You ought to go straight to Ha'o and tell him we won't have any more of it."

"And suppose he said, as would be very natural, that he'd do as he pleased? What would you do then, Aunt Jannet?"

"I'd tell him if he didn't stop it I'd make him, or else we'd all go away and leave him."

"Ay, well, you see, we can't make him and we're not going away, so it's no good telling him that. We must use our common sense. These people have eaten human flesh all their lives. It is the greatest treat they can have. If you argued the point with Ha'o, he would probably say that, as between man and pig, man is the cleaner feeder of the two, and therefore must be the better eating. When we have pigs enough, we'll work them on to pork. Until we can get them on to something they like as much, or, better still, get them to feel that man was not meant to be eaten by man, I fear words won't go for much."

"And do you mean to say that you'll pass the matter over without a word, Kenneth?" asked Aunt Jannet.

"I don't say that, and I don't intend to. But if you imagine, Aunt Jannet, that a cannibal is going to give up his daintiest dish simply for being spoken to, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."

He made his first attempt against cannibalism the next day, and returned from it with a humorous twinkle in his eye.

"Well?" asked Aunt Jannet.

"Well," said Blair, "Ha'o holds that it can't be wrong for him to eat men when we do the same."

"If he'll wait till he sees us doing it, I'll find no fault with him."

"I assured him that white people never ate human flesh. And what do you think was his proof that we did? He pointed to some of those corned-beef tins with George Washington's head on the label, and said, 'There!' and nothing I could say would convince him that George Washington did not represent the contents. He is under the impression that we can our people at home for convenience, and carry them about with us in that way. I assured him it was cow, but it was no use. He could not believe anyone would kill such a beautiful animal as a cow simply for food. He said he would give ten men for one cow any day. So there we are, you see. It will be a matter of time. Meanwhile, I suggest peeling George Washington off the rest of those meat tins!"

"Well, I never!" said Aunt Jannet. "And Ra'a?"

"He is as anxious as you and Captain Cathie to make an end of him; but he acknowledges that it would be dangerous to follow him into the hills, and would certainly mean considerable loss of life, so for the present I have dissuaded him from it."

CHAPTER XIX

FORWARD

This is not a missionary chronicle, but simply a brief record of some of the doings of Jean and Kenneth Blair. It is impossible, therefore, to enter into anything like a detailed account of their work among their chosen people, interesting as that would be. Only the more salient points can be touched upon, such as stood out from the level of hard, plodding, often dry and dreary work, as God's mountain masterpieces stand out in our travel-memories, and remain with us when the long level plains are forgotten. And just as the mountain's grandeur is the record of Nature's strife and endurance, so these salient points in a man's life as a rule mark battle-grounds and commemorate strife—and sometimes victory.

Kenneth Blair always found a vast and quite unique enjoyment in the first beginnings of things. I myself have heard him express a whimsically-veiled, but none the less profound, regret that it had not been possible for him to be present at the very first beginning of all, when "in the dim grey dawn of things, earth drew from out the void and rounded to its shape."

It was very characteristic of the man, and explains to some extent the whole-hearted delight he found in his work in the Dark Islands.

Here, if not a new-created world, was one sunk in nether gloom, to which no glimmer of the light had yet penetrated. As regards things spiritual, it was virgin soil—worse, it was a veritable swamp of heathenism, a quagmire overlaid with the strangling growths and festering remains of ages of superstition, cruelty, and thick darkness. And this in one of the fairest spots on earth.

You anti-missioners, who sit at home and mumble platitudes on the needless waste of life and time and money, spent in the effort to lift these outer fringes of the night, how very little you know!

They are quite happy as they are, those outer ones, you say. Life comes—and goes—easily with them. They have all they want. Why disturb them? Why introduce upsetting notions? Why open their minds to wants only to fill them at so heavy a cost?

The answer is so simple. Would you see any child of yours condemned, for no fault of its own, to sit in outer darkness, if at any cost to yourself you could open the door to the light and warmth you yourself enjoy? Would you refrain from opening the door to a neighbour's child, to a stranger's child, to any child whatsoever, if your hand was on the handle?

These others are children also. In spite of their blue skies and crystal seas and waving palms, they are buried in a darkness like unto death. It is for us who rejoice in the light to help them towards it. Our own great inheritance carries with it an inevitable and inalienable obligation. Shirk it we may and do, cancel it we cannot.

It was the recognition of this paramount duty, in perhaps somewhat abnormal measure, that made Kenneth Blair what he was. He brought to the work the white fire of a mighty enthusiasm which nothing could damp, and which did one good to look upon. The spur of what he deemed a former lapse urged him at times, perhaps, to extremes in the matter of personal risk; but if any man ever carried the courage of his convictions to their fullest limit, without a thought for himself, that did Kenneth Blair. With it all a simplicity of manner which was never at fault, because it assumed nothing; a natural gaiety and high-heartedness which carried him bravely through many a difficult place, and drew even the brown men to him; and a width of view, with a long forward reach, which might have made a statesman of him, had he not chosen this higher path.

To see him at football on the beach with a shrieking crowd of brown boys, himself as much a boy as the nakedest of the lot, was one thing. And to see him pondering, or hear him unfolding to the others, his plans for the Dark Islands, was quite another.

He had seen the strange, and in some cases awful, developments of civilisation in some of the other islands. He had pondered them for years, and had studied cause and effect from germ to ultimate issue. They were as warning lights to him. The wonderful chance which placed in his hands the financial lever had awakened mighty hopes in him. In his mind's eye he saw the Dark Islands enlightened, self-governing, self-possessing, self-supporting—a prospect worth any man's life's work.

Of the preliminary clearing work, then, we will say little. It was dry and dull and dreary enough at times to provoke Aunt Jannet Harvey to active remonstrance at the apparent inactivity of the propaganda. But the quiet work, confined as it was almost entirely to the presentation of better ways of life by force of example, and the very occasional dropping here and there of a seed of precept, began to show some small signs of fruit at last.

Within a very short time Nai's advanced notions in the matter of dress had caught on, and instead of the precarious ridi fringe, towels, or, in default of them, a strip of striped calico, had become the fashionable female attire. Within six months the brown men were going about fully clothed—in a loin cloth.

"It's better than nothing," said Aunt Jannet. "It keeps them from looking absolutely indecent anyway, and as for the children it doesn't matter," for the children all flatly refused any attempt to clothe them. Time after time she had made furtive experiments on them, but they all proved abortive. They took her gifts of cloth and so on willingly, but turned them to unexpected and unintended uses.

Within six months the children were coming to school—some of them, and irregularly—and were actually, in some cases, beginning to have vague ideas as to why they came. It was not much, but it was in the right direction.

Within six months the white men had learned enough of the language to be able, with their additional slight knowledge of Samoan, to understand and make themselves understood—to some extent. And the brown men, in exchange, had acquired a number of English words and had added considerably to their repertoire of hymns—the tunes they picked up marvellously, and the words they chattered like parrots.

They had also learned to handle white men's tools with facility, and they still stole them when opportunity offered, though not quite so freely as at first. They had also seen marvellous things come up out of the earth from the white men's plantings, and had learned to what uses they could be put. They had seen wonders of the white men's ingenuity, chief among which was the diversion of a rapid little stream, which from time immemorial had flowed to the sea on the other side of the ridge. By a very simple damming operation, to which the cracks and cavities of the ridge readily lent themselves, the torrent now came down the nearer side, and by means of a water-wheel, of John MacNeil's construction operated a circular saw and various other labour-saving appliances, and then flowed in a sparkling stream through the middle of the mission settlement. The water-wheel and the circular saw were endless enjoyments to the brown men, women, and children, and they would sit watching them by the hour when they could have been more profitably employed about their other affairs.

Matters politic had also advanced somewhat. In place of three parties in the close neighbourhood of the station, there were now only two. Ra'a was still at large in the hills, but the leaderless faction had gradually disintegrated, some few joining him, but the larger portion returning by degrees to their allegiance to Ha'o, drawn thereto by the manifest advantages of the white men's friendliness.

And Ha'o himself had behaved well. Constant intercourse, even through the misty medium of scarce understood tongues, with men like Blair and Stuart and Evans, could not but have its effect on any man, and on this clear-headed, sharp-witted savage the effects had been very marked.

He was naturally intelligent, and, according to his lights, of a most gentlemanly disposition. His understanding developed still more through his observation of the white men and their ways. He recognised their superiority in most things and, as headman of his tribe, was emulous of their accomplishment. He lapsed at lengthening intervals into his natural savageries, but, beyond this, never swerved by a hair's breadth from his loyalty to the men who had restored him to his home.

Nai was rejoicing mightily in the possession of a sleek, plump, black-eyed baby, the first son born to Ha'o. His other wives had given him daughters, but since his return to the island, and their tardy return to him, he had declined to have anything to do with any of them beyond seeing that they were fed. Nai's community in his dangers and sufferings had concentrated all his savage affections upon her, and now she had justified him by giving him a son.

Blair reposed great faith in these three, and counted on them as corner-stones in the mighty future.

The valley of the gods had proved a famous breeding-place. Goats and pigs and ducks abounded there. The brown men had been introduced to roast pig and goat flesh, and found it equal almost to man flesh. But nothing would induce them to go there for it.

So, with mighty labours, for the animals were become perfectly wild in their freedom, a number of them were given the run of the island, and the novel excitements of the chase bade fair to afford the brown men full vent for the energies that had hitherto run in the direction of battle and murder and sudden death. Certainly the newcomers played havoc for a time with the taro fields and plantain and banana groves. But this also made for good, since it involved fencing operations on an extensive scale, and steady work tended to keep the devil of idle hands at bay.

"The curse of savagery is the lack of employment," was one of Blair's maxims. "They get to fighting simply from having nothing else to do. Get them to work, and it is a mighty step upwards."

So, but for Ra'a, the recalcitrant, the reunion of the tribe on this side of the island would have been complete. And this was so essential to Blair's far-reaching plans for its safety and redemption that he spared no pains to bring it about.

At risk which could not be estimated, he went up alone into the hills more than once to endeavour to reconcile the insubordinates to the facts of the case. He guaranteed them life, liberty, and equal advantages with the rest if they would return to their allegiance. Failing that, he offered them safe conduct to one of the smaller, thinly-populated islands, with supplies of tools, seeds, and animals, and the assistance of one of his colleagues in turning these to account.

But Ra'a would have none of it, and his dominant will so far was strong enough to keep his turbulent crew from breaking away towards the fleshpots. The loosing of the pigs and goats had provided them also with food and sport, and, since collisions between the various hunting parties were not infrequent, life was eminently tolerable, though it lived on the point of death.

On these embassies Blair had emphatically declined to take Jean with him, on account of the indefiniteness of the journeying. Ra'a was constantly shifting camp, and each time he had to be sought afresh, with the imminent chance of the seeker meeting death in the quest. Jean dreaded these lonely journeys terribly, but she acquiesced sensibly, and each time bade him farewell in the full knowledge that it might be for the last time.