For if there were any concerted attack, and organised hate in the brain maddened by hashish and ganja, it would all be directed against the Administrator. Gregory was the man to fall, by treachery or open warfare, and she recognised the maddening position she was in by being cut off from news. Even if she went down to Port Albert the telephone wires were cut, and they were dependent for information on the little coasting steamers which at best were irregular. When Mrs. Gilderoy had asked if she would stay at Vohitra or come back with her, Leoline had answered with the unselfish impulse of her love, seeing in a flash of comprehension that her presence would only hamper Gregory, and paralyse his action with a private anxiety. She had not thought of herself at all in that moment, nor did she regret her decision now by the light of reason; but her heart cried out in its distress that her place was with him, and that not to know of his safety was unbearable, with a desire as great as Mrs. Gilderoy’s. She had no right to act the weak woman, and please herself at the expense of the man she loved—no right justified, like Mrs. Gilderoy’s, by years of open marriage. Gregory would believe her safe at Vohitra, and be freer to use the brain and nerve, in which she took some comfort, remembering the night when he had cleared the stoep, alone, with no weapon but a shambok. But she realised, during the next few days, that she had set herself the hardest task that a woman can—to wait and endure the anxiety in silence, that a man may feel her a helpmate, and not a burden.
Life went on the same in the Tsara Valley in spite of the panic that threatened the whole island. The coloured people were cutting the cane, driven by the dogged wills of a few strong white men, whose grim determination triumphantly proved them once more the dominant race. The planters saved their crops as if nothing had happened to upset the usual routine of harvest, and though labour was scarce, they quietly forced the natives who had not been drawn to the centre of trouble to work as usual. There had been a meeting at Port Albert, and a concerted plan of action agreed upon amongst those men most experienced in the island, the result being that the rioting in the other districts hardly affected the little seaport, and the sugar harvest was not ruined. Gradually the influence of these few men made itself felt amongst the dangerous numbers of mixed races; and Mrs. Lewin, from the stoep at Vohitra, saw the dark forms bending in the furrows, the mellowing blades falling, and, leaving the ground shorn of its gold-green glory, the trucks pass up and down the whole sweep of the valley, while the factory smoked through the long, hot days. Once the town warden rode out to pay her a hurried visit, and give her what news he could; but he was a busy man—Gregory’s representative, and the despot of the town—and could spare but little time. He left some of his own servants at Vohitra whom he could trust, and asked Mrs. Lewin quietly if she could charge and fire a revolver.
“Yes,” she said briefly, remembering that Gregory had asked her the same question once before, at the last threatened rising.
“I have brought you one of mine—you had better keep it by you,” Ambroise said cheerfully. “I don’t think there will be the least necessity for it, but it is as well that the people about you should know you are armed.”
“Have you any news?”
“The island is quieting down, and I do not think anyhow it would spread out this way. But there has been real fighting at Port Victoria, and the troops were called out. One poor fellow was killed in the first skirmish—Hamilton Gurney. Did you know him?”
“Yes. I used to admire his voice so much. Poor fellow! How was it?”
“There was a rush in the Square, and they got him up against the Market buildings. You know those steps? He was trying to get through the mob with some girl, and they stabbed him with a razor they had looted from a private house. No one knows who did it, of course.”
“Where were the troops?”
“They arrived on the scene three minutes later. It was very sudden—those risings always are—and Gurney had no warning. He was not in uniform at all, or with his men—he had been in town, and was going to ride out to Maitso, but he had not had any orders even.”