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.