His hands shook and he began to pant for breath. Were it not better that one should suffer than the many? one rather than a thousand? one rather than a whole race, with countless generations yet unborn? He looked down on the roofs of the village, a sight endeared to him by the recollections of so many years; he saw, in the brilliant sunshine, amid the houses that had sheltered them in life, the mossy tombs he knew so well. There, under the shadow, lay Soalu, his first friend; there, the black-browed Puluaoao, the heathen, the libertine, who had first thwarted and then had loved him; there, the earth that covered Lala’ai, in whose bright eyes he had looked once and never dared to look again, whose memory was still as sweet to him as on the day she died; there lay To, the silver-tongued; Silei, the poet; Lapongi, the muaau, with a dozen bullets through his headless corpse; Faamuina, Tupua, Sisimaile—how many there were! He had loved those honest hearts now mouldering in the grave; to some he had given messages to carry beyond the unknown river to those dark comrades who had already gone. He loved their children, now men and women, who had been held out to him by dying arms, and whom he had led crying from the house of bereavement to comfort as best he could. For nigh twenty years he had been the ruler and lawgiver of the bay, the trusted adviser of great chiefs, the faithful priest, the ever-welcome friend. Should he desert his people now?
He went into the cook-house, where Ngalo was sitting on the steps playing hymns on his mouth-organ.
“Ngalo,” he said, “I want your rifle and some cartridges.”
The boy looked up at his master’s face with astonishment,—the ways of whites were past all understanding,—and it was not until he was asked a second time that he rose and sought his gun.
The priest tried to say something by way of explanation, but the words would not come. He could do nothing but take the gun in silence, and charge the magazine with an unsteady hand, while the boy’s eyes grew bigger and bigger.
“Doubtless your Excellency has seen a wild cow in the bush?” Ngalo at length inquired.
The father nodded and turned to go.
“Blessed be the hunting!” cried the boy after him from the door, before resuming the strains of “There’s a land that is fairer than day.”
“Blessed be the home-stayers,” returned the priest, with conventional politeness.