Careless of his own life and skin, nevertheless David Grief was
possessed of no false hardihood. He knew when to fight and when to run,
and that this was the time for running he had no doubt. Up the path,
past the old men sitting in the shade, past Mataara crouched in the
doorway of the Big House, he followed at the heels of Mauriri. At his
own heels, doglike, plodded Hare-Lip. From behind came the cries of the
hunters, but the pace Mauriri led them was heartbreaking. The broad path
narrowed, swung to the right, and pitched upward. The last grass house
was left, and through high thickets of _cassi_ and swarms of great
golden wasps the way rose steeply until it became a goat-track. Pointing
upward to a bare shoulder of volcanic rock, Mauriri indicated the trail
across its face.
“Past that we are safe, Big Brother,” he said. “The white devils never
dare it, for there are rocks we roll down on their heads, and there
is no other path. Always do they stop here and shoot when we cross the
rock. Come!”
A quarter of an hour later they paused where the trail went naked on the
face of the rock.
“Wait, and when you come, come quickly,” Mauriri cautioned.
He sprang into the blaze of sunlight, and from below several rifles
pumped rapidly. Bullets smacked about him, and puffs of stone-dust
flew out, but he won safely across. Grief followed, and so near did
one bullet come that the dust of its impact stung his cheek. Nor was
Hare-Lip struck, though he essayed the passage more slowly.
For the rest of the day, on the greater heights, they lay in a lava glen
where terraced taro and _papaia_ grew. And here Grief made his plans and
learned the fulness of the situation.
“It was ill luck,” Mauriri said. “Of all nights this one night was
selected by the white devils to go fishing. It was dark as we came
through the passage. They were in boats and canoes. Always do they have
their rifles with them. One Raiatea man they shot. Brown was very brave.
We tried to get by to the top of the bay, but they headed us off, and we
were driven in between the Big Rock and the village. We saved the guns
and all the ammunition, but they got the boat. Thus they learned of your
coming. Brown is now on this side of the Big Rock with the guns and the
ammunition.”
“But why didn't he go over the top of the Big Rock and give me warning
as I came in from the sea?” Grief criticised.
“They knew not the way. Only the goats and I know the way. And this I
forgot, for I crept through the bush to gain the water and swim to you.
But the devils were in the bush shooting at Brown and the Raiatea men;
and me they hunted till daylight, and through the morning they hunted
me there in the low-lying land. Then you came in your schooner, and they
watched till you went ashore, and I got away through the bush, but you
were already ashore.”
“You fired that shot?”
“Yes; to warn you. But they were wise and would not shoot back, and it
was my last cartridge.”
“Now you, Hare-Lip?” Grief said to the _Valetta's_ cook.
His tale was long and painfully detailed. For a year he had been sailing
out of Tahiti and through the Paumotus on the _Valetta_. Old Dupuy was
owner and captain. On his last cruise he had shipped two strangers in
Tahiti as mate and supercargo. Also, another stranger he carried to be
his agent on Fanriki. Raoul Van Asveld and Carl Lepsius were the names
of the mate and supercargo.
“They are brothers, I know, for I have heard them talk in the dark, on
deck, when they thought no one listened,” Hare-Lip explained.
The _Valetta_ cruised through the Low Islands, picking up shell and
pearls at Dupuy's stations. Frans Amundson, the third stranger, relieved
Pierre Gollard at Fanriki. Pierre Gollard came on board to go back to
Tahiti. The natives of Fanriki said he had a quart of pearls to turn
over to Dupuy. The first night out from Fanriki there was shooting
in the cabin. Then the bodies of Dupuy and Pierre Gollard were thrown
overboard. The Tahitian sailors fled to the forecastle. For two days,
with nothing to eat and the _Valetta_ hove to, they remained below. Then
Raoul Van Asveld put poison in the meal he made Hare-Lip cook and carry
for'ard. Half the sailors died.
“He had a rifle pointed at me, master; what could I do?” Hare-Lip
whimpered. “Of the rest, two went up the rigging and were shot. Fanriki
was ten miles away. The others went overboard to swim. They were shot
as they swam. I, only, lived, and the two devils; for me they wanted to
cook for them. That day, with the breeze, they went back to Fanrika and
took on Frans Amundson, for he was one of them.”
Then followed Hare-Lip's nightmare experiences as the schooner wandered
on the long reaches to the westward. He was the one living witness and
knew they would have killed him had he not been the cook. At Noumea five
convicts had joined them. Hare-Lip was never permitted ashore at any of
the islands, and Grief was the first outsider to whom he had spoken.
“And now they will kill me,” Hare-Lip spluttered, “for they will know
I have told you. Yet am I not all a coward, and I will stay with you,
master, and die with you.”
The Goat Man shook his head and stood up.
“Lie here and rest,” he said to Grief. “It will be a long swim to-night.
As for this cook-man, I will take him now to the higher places where my
brothers live with the goats.”