He wrestled manfully with that which was in him, but surely man's faith and courage were rarely put to sorer test. He had striven so hard, and toiled so ceaselessly, at utmost stretch of hand and heart and brain, and here, just as the harvest was ripening, it was all dashed into nothing, as though by the stroke of an angry hand. Oh, it was hard, hard, hard!
But he fought out his fight singlehanded, and found himself—where steadfast faith and undaunted courage have always firm footing. And a spark of hope struggled up in him to meet the sun. The beginnings of things had always had a charm for him. And here must be a new beginning. They were back at first principles and the elementary facts of life. But, truly, there is a mighty difference between a beginning and a beginning again, and it calls for the best that is in a man to begin again with the heart with which he began before.
The rain ceased towards morning, the wind slackened, and when the sun rose behind the hills the western sky shone opalescent, and the sea below it was a cold, dark blue. The rollers were still of mighty size, but the reef was spouting foam again, and the lagoon was heaving within its usual bounds.
But everything else was changed—everything except the bare ridge on which they crouched.
The village—gone as though wiped with a sponge off a slate. The mission-houses, schools, church—not a plank left. And somewhere below the smiling face of the lagoon lay all that was left of the ships and the men who had been in them.
Not all below, after all, for from his perch he could see the beach strewn with fragments, human and otherwise. Right below him on the hillside, John MacNeil's waterwheel turned busily in fruitless labour, and its bare nakedness and useless fussiness added to the sense of desolation and discomfort.
Then the sun topped the hills, and cheered their chilled senses somewhat. Blair and Cathie straightened themselves wearily, but neither dared as yet look into the other's face, lest he should find there only confirmation of his own worst fears.
Kenni-Kenni, who had fared better than any of them, and was conscious of nothing more than bodily discomfort, gave a hungry cry which woke response in Cathie's breast.
"Let us go down," he said. "Maybe we'll find something to eat," and the two men scrambled down to the level, and walked over the soft mud where the houses had stood, and searched with anxious eyes for something that might stay their more pressing necessities.
Blair turned up towards the valley. Cathie, with more prescience, sought the beach, and presently a shout from him brought the two together again. When they met, the captain was carrying the body of a drowned kid under one arm, and a bundle of wood under the other.