"She will go," said Ha'o tersely.
He was in a gloomy frame of mind through all these strange happenings and the defection of his people.
"Then the sooner we get to it the better." And under Cathie's directions they all set to work on a raft. Timber and rope were not wanting.
"Take all you can, and especially what we can use for boat-building later on," said Blair. "We shall have to get out of our hole ourselves, and that, I think, is the way out."
The brown women and children he set to collecting for themselves all the food they could find along the shore. He also gave them some lengths of rope, and bade them untwist it for fishing-lines and then start fishing from the ledge with splinters for hooks.
"You will probably find the bottom of the valley scoured out, Cathie," he said; "but there should be both fruit and animals on the hillsides. We may have to replenish the island from there."
When the work was well forward, he set out with his little band to cross the island by One-Tree Pass, and found the passage extremely difficult. For the cloud seemed to have finally broken on the saddle of the hills, and in many places the road they had built with such labour and difficulty was washed completely away, and in other places it was buried deep under slides of broken rock.
They found their way over the ridge, however, and saw at once that the deluge had wrought heavily on the further side also. The long slope was deeply scored and furrowed, but there were houses and palm-trees still standing down below, and they went on quickly to see how the brown folk had fared.
The villagers welcomed them heartily and received their news with amazement. The storm above and the storm below had terrified them. The water had come down the hill in cascades, but the long stretch had dissipated much of its force before it reached them. Then the great wave had swept across the beach and carried away all their boats. Their palms and plantations had suffered heavily, and they had picked up a number of dead pigs and goats, but otherwise there had been no loss of life. They had not overmuch food, but what they had they were quite willing to share with the others who had none. And Blair's heart, still sore over the defection of the western men, was comforted somewhat by their simple kindliness.
They stayed the night, and Blair explained more fully the disasters on the other side of the island and the temporary aberration of Ha'o's people, and begged them, if there should be any attempt at raiding, to treat the others as reasonably as might be, remembering what they had gone through.