Only the sacred laws of hospitality, nowhere more firmly held to and observed than here where everything was held in common, as became the primitive Christianity of the people, restrained them from isolating the strangers as if they were suffering from frightful disease both contagious and infectious. Occasionally a gentle attempt to show their disapproval of the foul terms used by the narrator in telling his story was made, but quite in vain, for it is a lamentable fact that picking up a language colloquially, as one does among the workers of the world, it is always the vilenesses of the language which are first acquired, because they are most frequently used, and by some devilish twist of memory they are always the expressions which stick.
However, the older men among the islanders met and determined that, God helping them, this new and bad element of evil must not be permitted to spread among the younger folk, and the word was passed quietly around that while the strangers were to be treated with every courtesy and kindness, they were not to be associated with indiscriminately; intercourse with them was to be confined to a very small body of the older men, all of whom had known something of the evil of the world without, and were all unlikely to be affected now by anything they might hear, however vile.
Nevertheless, it was felt throughout the settlement that there had come into their peaceful midst an appalling danger, and the subject came into their prayers continually. The strangers, having made a rapid recovery, swaggered about the little settlement as if they were the lords of it, rather enjoying the whole-hearted terror of them evinced by the younger folk, and yet cursing vigorously what they were pleased to call the inhospitable way in which they were being treated. By this time the islanders had discovered that they were harbouring two criminals of the blackest dye, men from whom the least vestige of goodness was absent, whose thoughts were only evil, and that continually. Worse still, it seemed as if the island was likely to be cursed with their presence for an indefinite time, for upon the suggestion that they would be able to leave by the first ship that called at the island the two desperadoes avowed with awful words that they were not going to risk their liberty in any ship whatever. They were quite contented, they said, in their present position, and proposed to marry and settle down.
What that prospect meant to the islanders can hardly be realized unless the readers have entered into the spirit of this happy community. The advent of a couple of man-eating tigers in some peaceful, lonely village here in England could not cause as much terror, because sportsmen would speedily be forthcoming who would slay the beasts, and these human beasts, though far more dangerous than tigers, could not be destroyed in the same manner. And day by day those patient, peaceful people watched and waited and prayed, yet feared what they could not help feeling was the approaching tragedy.
It is not too much to say that the whole course of life in that lovely island home was embittered by the presence of these two degenerate children of French civilization, who prated and bragged of their superiority to all law, and being Anarchists and free, professing indeed much the same principles that some of our legislators do to-day, although the latter are hardly prepared as yet to carry those principles to their logical conclusion.
Deliverance from this terrible incubus came in dramatic fashion. By some means, during an extra busy time, the two miscreants had escaped from the almost ceaseless watchfulness of those set apart for that purpose. And as they were always planning evil of a certain kind, and were only waiting fitting opportunity to carry out those plans, they seized this, to them, favourable chance to attempt a crime which I will not hint at. It happened that at this very time C. B. had been up the mountain side after honey, having some days before located a hive. He was heavily burdened with spoil, and having tramped a good many miles was feeling healthily weary, when he heard a piercing shriek. It was the first time in his life that he had ever heard such a sound, but it focussed all his fears and apprehensions, and for one moment paralyzed all his energies.
Then the brave blood surged back from his heart, he dropped his burden and plunged furiously in the direction of the sound, actuated by he could not tell what terrible thoughts. A stifled scream spurred him on, like a buffalo he crashed through all obstacles, arriving presently in the open of a little glade amidst the thick boscage to find his sister, his darling Jenny, four years younger than himself, faintly struggling in the grasp of the two ex-convicts. He was transformed for the moment into a savage, and leapt upon the nearest with a yell that would have quite become one of his dusky ancestors. The wretch upon whom he fell, taken by surprise, had no chance at all, for C. B. snatched him up as one does a filthy rag and hurled him with tremendous force against a tree hole, which he struck with a dull crash and fell limp and motionless.
The other scoundrel, letting go the trembling girl, rushed off into the bush, but C. B., full of fury, plunged after him, caught him in a dozen strides, and battered him with fists and feet in so furious a manner that in a very short time he was reduced to a helpless lump of inanimate flesh. Then C. B. desisted, panting, but beginning to feel compunction for the fury he had been led into, as well as fear that he had killed one or both of the wretches. But I am truly thankful to say that such a feeling was only momentary, justification of himself as being bound to act in the way he did or be unfit to live quickly succeeded, and he drew himself up again to the full stature of his grand young manhood. And then he thought of his poor young sister; but she, as soon as she was released from her savage assailants, had fled with the swiftness of an antelope to the settlement, nor stayed until she had found a group of men, to whom she told her story.
So as C. B. was puzzling himself as to how he should secure his prisoners—for, of course, he so regarded them—three stalwart men, one of whom was his father, came crashing through the undergrowth and greeted him warmly. He said little but pointed to the evidence of his prowess. Both of the villains were just recovering from the shocks they had received, and were looking almost as if they had been dragged along under a harrow. They were very subdued, and regarded C. B. with a great deal of respect, making no attempt at resistance as they were led away toward the village.
By this time the news of the affair had spread, and the whole community were gathering with looks of horror and consternation at the two wretches who had thus repaid, or attempted to repay, the loving-kindness to which they owed life and health. But little was said, and that only in whispers, as the prisoners were led to the house of the old patriarch who was at once minister and dispenser of law, the latter function indeed being quite a sinecure among this people whose love of righteousness was inbred and fostered in every imaginable way.