3
In a week they were settled down, and a few days later, the cargo having been landed and stored, the Golden Gleam took her departure.
They went down to the beach to see her off; they watched her topsails vanish beyond the reef, and they returned, feeling very much alone in the world. A good man is warmth and light even to the souls of sinners. Captain Bowlby was illiterate; his language was free; he was not a saint, but he was a good, human man right through. The sea turns out characters like this just as she turns out shells. It is a pity that they have to cling to the ocean and the beaches; the cities want them.
“I feel just as if I had lost a near relation,” said Mrs. Connart.
“Well, we’ll have him back soon,” said her husband. “It’s up to us now to get the copra to give him a cargo.”
Next morning the new trader began business by laying out a selection of goods on the verandah of his store. Mrs. Connart, who knew something of the Polynesian dialects and who had the art of picking up unknown tongues, had already got in touch with the Kanakas; they charmed and pleased her, especially the children, and wherever she went she was greeted by friendly faces. It seemed to her that the population of this island, leaving out Seedbaum, her husband and herself, consisted entirely of children, children of different sizes and different ages, but children all the same.
Returning that day from a long walk in the woods she found Connart smoking a pipe on the verandah of their house. He looked rather depressed.
“I can’t make it out,” said he; “there’s no trade doing.”
“Maybe they don’t know you have started in business yet.”
“Oh, yes, they do; lots of them have passed and seen the store open; they’ve turned to look at the goods, and they seemed attracted, but they went on.”
“Well, give them time,” said she.
“Look,” said Connart, “there’s copra going to Seedbaum’s; they’re trading with him, right enough.”
Mrs. Connart watched the copra bearers, but said nothing.
In her heart she felt that Seedbaum was moving against them by some stealthy means. At first she thought that it might be possible he had worked upon the native mind and induced the Kanakas to put a taboo upon the newcomers, but she dismissed this idea at once. There was no taboo. The Kanakas were not a bit afraid of either her or her husband, on the contrary, there was every evidence of friendliness.
“Well,” she said that night, when the store was closed for the day without a knife or a stick of tobacco changing hands, “there’s nothing to be done till we find out why they are acting so. It’s that creature, I am sure. He began by robbing me of my beautiful cedar-wood chest, and he’s going on to rob you of your chances in business. Well, let him beware. I’m Christian enough not to wish to hurt him, but I’m Christian enough to believe there’s a power that punishes the wicked, and he’s wicked. I knew him for a wicked man directly he came on board the ship.”
“He keeps to himself, and that’s one good thing,” said Connart; “but I don’t see how he can stop the natives from trading with us.”
“I don’t, either, but I know he does,” said she.
The next day passed without business being done, and the next.
“We may as well shut up shop, it seems to me,” said Connart. “How would it be if you spoke to some of these people and asked them what is the matter?”
“I’ve thought of that,” said his wife, “and I held off because—because—oh, I don’t know, it seems sort of indelicate to ask people why they don’t come to one’s store. I’ll do it to-morrow morning first thing. One mustn’t let one’s feelings stand in the way when one’s living is concerned.”
“I wish we had never come here,” said he, “for your sake.”
“Never come here?” she cried. “Why, I wouldn’t for the earth have gone anywhere else! I love the place and I love people, and what are difficulties? Why, difficulties are the main excitement in life. If life wasn’t an obstacle race, it would be a very flat affair. George, we have got to beat that man, and I’m going to, you wait and see.”
He kissed her and blessed her, and they sat down that night to a game of cribbage, Seedbaum and the wickedness of the world forgotten.
Next morning after breakfast Mrs. Connart went out. She passed through the village and on to the beach, brilliant in the morning light, breeze-blown and filled with the murmurs of the reef; some natives were pulling in a net and she watched them, chatting to them and playing with the children who had come down to secure the little fish. Then she had a talk with a woman who was standing by, a woman dark and straight as an arrow, a woman mild-eyed and with a voice sweet as the sound of running water.
Leaving her, Mrs. Connart passed to a man who was engaged in mending an outrigger of one of the canoes hauled up on the beach; she had a talk with him.
Then she returned, walking slowly and thoughtfully to the house, where she found her husband.
“George,” said she. “I am right. It is that Creature. The people hate him, but they are afraid of him. It seems absolutely absurd, but it is so. He holds them in a spell. He kicks them and beats them, but they are not afraid of that. It’s just him.”
“Good Lord,” said Connart, “why on earth don’t they rise against him, and tell him to go to the devil; he’s only one man, anyway.”
“I don’t know,” said she. “It’s a mystery of human nature. He’s the tyrant type, and it’s always been the same in the world; there’s some sort of magnetism in that type that keeps folk under. History is full of that. It’s the soft man and the kindly man and the good man that’s assassinated, but tyrants seem to go free. He’s what he said he was, the king of this place—well, we must see what we can do to pull him from his throne. I wish there were more whites here.”
“That’s the bother,” said Connart.
Next morning they found a basket of fruit on their verandah, a gift from some unknown person. It was as though the Kanakas, afraid to show their sympathy and friendliness openly for the strangers, had done it in this manner. But no one came to trade.
That night two chickens, some sweet potatoes and another basket of fruit were deposited in the same place.
“And we can’t thank them,” said Mrs. Connart; “but I believe these haven’t all come from one person. I think it’s everyone here—they all like us. Oh, George, isn’t it maddening that we can’t have them openly our friends, just because of that Beast!”
“It is,” said George.
Now at eleven o’clock that morning, Mrs. Connart, seated on the verandah and engaged on some needle-work, noticed a little native girl, who, pausing at the garden gate and seeming undecided, at last picked up courage, opened the gate and came towards the house.
Connart was in the house, going over some accounts, when his wife ran in to him.
“George, come at once,” cried she; “such a dreadful thing—they’ve risen against Seedbaum and they are killing him somewhere in the woods, and they want us to go and see!”
“Good Lord!” cried he, “killing him! Want us to go and see! Are they mad?”
He picked up his hat and came out on the verandah, where the pretty little native girl was waiting, a flower of the scarlet hibiscus in her hair and calm contentment in her eyes.
“I can’t quite make out all she says,” said Mrs. Connart; “but I can make out her meaning.”
“You’d better stay here,” said he, “whilst I go; there may be trouble.”
“I am not afraid,” she replied. “Come on, we may be too late.”
They followed the child.
“Tell her to hurry,” said Connart.
“She says we need not hurry,” replied she; “as far as I can make out they are only going to kill him—I expect they have him a prisoner somewhere; well, much as I hate him, I am glad we will be able to save him.”
“That depends on how the natives take it,” said he.
The child led them from the road by a path trod by the copra gatherers, a path running through the wonderland of the woods, a green gloom where the soaring palms shot upwards through a twilight roofed with moving shadows and sun sparkles.
They reached a glade where a number of natives were seated in a circle. Above them and swinging by a cord from two trees was hanging a little disk about half the size of a tambourine; the disk was made of cane, and so constructed as to leave a small hole in the centre. An old native woman seated under the disk was clapping her hands and repeating something that sounded like an incantation. Every pair of eyes in the whole of that assembly was fixed upon the disk.
The child whispered something to Mrs. Connart. Then she turned from the child and whispered to her husband.
“It’s only witchcraft. That’s a soul trap. They are waiting for a fly to pass through the hole in that thing. If it does, then Seedbaum will die.”
“Good heavens,” murmured Connart, with a half-laugh. “Why, the fellow hasn’t any soul—not enough to furnish out a fly.”
They watched patiently for ten minutes. There were plenty of flies; they rested on the little tambourine, crawled round its edge, but not one went through the hole.
“Come,” whispered Connart.
They withdrew, taking the path back.
“It’s pathetic,” murmured she.
“It’s damned foolishness,” he repeated. “They trade with him, and let him kick them, and then go on with that nonsense. If they refused him copra, they would bring him to his senses quick enough.”
“Anyhow they hate him,” said she.
“Much good that is,” he replied.