something of the hidden conflict at that moment raging in the old man’s
breast, and he had too much at stake himself to venture an incautious
word. Everything depended now upon the priest, for good or evil; it
lay with him to keep the secret inviolate, or to spread it to all the
world; to accept the partnership thus tacitly offered, and allow them
both to reap a colossal harvest; or, standing coldly on the letter of
his vows, to open the door to a rush of thousands. The brother held his
breath and waited for that supreme decision on which so much depended;
he was afraid to speak, afraid even to move, as he looked down at his
companion in a fever of suspense. The intolerable silence weighed upon
him like a nightmare. He felt that it was the enemy of all his hopes;
that every minute of it increased the hazard of his fortunes; that he
was being tried, that he was being condemned.
“Father,” he broke out, “your name need not appear in this; you need
do nothing but hold your tongue; you can be my partner without a soul
to know it. As God sees me, I will divide with you to the last penny.”
The old man lifted his head.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“It’s just this,” said Michael, regaining a little confidence. “If you
spread the news broadcast--and the merest whisper will do that--you
will get nothing at all and I will get no more than a beggarly claim.
Keep it to ourselves and we shall share tens of thousands of pounds.”
“I am a Marist priest,” said Father Studby. “I am a missionary. I am an
old man nearing the end of my days. My vows prevent me from withholding
any property from my Order. I should be acting dishonourably in
entering into such an enterprise. I have no right to gain money for
myself.”
“Who is asking you to keep it for yourself?” demanded Michael. “What
prevents you giving your Order every ounce that falls to your share?
Do you really think Monseigneur would find fault if you brought him a
check for a hundred thousand pounds? And I don’t even ask you to keep
silence for ever. In six months, or a year, or whatever it is,--when
the proper time comes,--you can make a clean breast of it. Of course,
if you choose the other thing, your Order will get nothing, and somehow
I don’t think they will be as pleased as you seem to think. Why, man,
think what the money would do for the cathedral! They could build the
new mission-house to-morrow. And remember for one moment what you could
do here!”
“No,” said the father, “you have put the matter in a new light. I
should fail in my duty if I let this money go from us. They would be
right to reproach me if I let the chance slip. I fear I was thinking
more of myself than of them.”
After supper they drew out their chairs on the moonlit verandah, and
sat for a while in silence. The priest was conscious, amid the uneasy
preoccupation that settled on him like a cloud, that in some manner
their relative positions had changed. The masterful young man, by
reason of his great discovery, on the strength, perhaps, of his more
vigorous and determined will, seemed now to arrogate to himself the
right to lead. It appeared natural to Father Studby to acquiesce in
this; to subordinate himself to his companion and wait timidly for him
first to speak; even to feel a kind of gratitude for the partnership
that caused him such qualms. Self-effacing and humble, it came easy to
him to sink to a second place and accept unquestioningly the orders of
a superior. Besides, what did he know of gold?
“The first thing we must consider,” began Michael, “the first, because
it is the most important, is the land. It must all be ours, from the
sea to the mountain-tops, from one end of the bay to the other. In
a small way I have been already moving in the matter. I have taken
options from Maunga, Leapai, and George Tuimaleali’ifano, the three
principal chiefs here, for what seems to cover more than the area of
the group. I paid them out of hand about twenty dollars each; but the
options, to make them good, will call for twenty-eight thousand dollars
in Chile money. Oh, it’s all perfectly right and legal,” he broke out,
forestalling an objection he saw on his companion’s lips. “I had
the forms drawn up in Nukualofa by a lawyer; it cost me three pounds
to do it. The only point is how much of the land really belongs to
these chiefs, for there are bound to be half a hundred other claimants
whose consent will be needed to make the title good; and it will be
your part to ferret them out. What you must bear in mind most is
that we must nail every inch of the beach. There will be a city here
in a month after the news is out; in a year there will be tramways,
and newspapers, and brick banks and churches, and wharves with ships
discharging. Don’t you see, we must have our fist in all that; we must
have the lion’s share; every pound the others bring must pay us toll.”
“The others!” cried the priest. “Mercy of God, let us keep the thing to
ourselves!”
“We couldn’t, if we would,” cried the lay brother. “You might as well
try and hide the island as to keep them out. When I was a boy I was in
the Kattabelong gold rush with my father, and I know what I am talking
about. They rose up like waves in the sea--waves and waves of men,
bursting in with yells like an invading army. Why, it won’t be any time
before we are holding our valley with a line of rifles; you will see
all hell loose and a thousand devils landing at a time; you will see
the horizon black with steamer smoke, bringing in thousands more; you
will see men killed and their bodies rotting in the sun. That’s the
first stage of a gold rush--the pioneer stage, the stage of murder and
crime, of might for right. That will be the time for us to live through
as best we can. Bit by bit there comes a subsidence into a kind of
order. There is a rally of the better sort; the inevitable leader rises
to the top. You walk out one morning, and you run across Billy This,
the terror of the camp, swaying peacefully at the end of a rope. At
another turn it is Tommy That, with his toes turned up and a ticket on
his breast. The third period is the arrival of an official with a tin
office and blank forms. Who owns the land here? Why, we do. Who claims
that? Why, we claim it. Who owns the beach from a point beginning at
such and such a place, to a point marked B on the new official map? We
again! Who owns the mountain lakes they talk already of tapping for
the water-supply? We do. Who owns everything in sight? The same old
firm, if you please, sir. But I am not saying we can hold the fort
single-handed. God never made the two men that could. But this is what
we do. We grant titles, concessions, half and quarter interests to men
of the right stamp, and make them our partners against the mob. We take
the money they bring, and reserve a substantial profit in their future
undertakings. As I said before, we must have our fist in every pocket.”
Michael paused and slowly filled a second pipe. The father remained
silent, his head resting on his trembling hand. He was staring into
vacancy, seeing through his half-shut eyes a myriad of changing
pictures.
“Michael,” he said, “have you ever thought how it will be with our
people?”
“Oh, the Kanakas!” said the lay brother.
“Yes, the Samoans,” said Father Studby. “What is to become of them,
Michael?”
“They will go,” said the young man, coolly, “where the inferior race
always goes in a gold rush. They will go to the devil.”
“Oh, Michael,” exclaimed the priest, “I cannot bear to think of them!”
“I am sure I am sorry, too,” said the lay brother. “But there is no
use blinking our eyes to facts, or feeling miserable about what can’t
be helped. The men must learn to work like other people, and I look to
you, with your influence here, to line them up on the right side. Fifty
or sixty of them would be worth everything to us at the start. As for
the nigger women, if they are young and pretty, I dare say a use can
be found for them, too. I am sorry, but what can you do? You can’t put
back the clock, old fellow.”
The priest groaned.
“I wish you had never found the gold!” he cried out passionately.
“Well, it is too late now,” said Michael.
* * * * *
The next day the old man was up at the first peep of dawn. He had not
slept all night, but had lain with open eyes, in a fever of horror
and remorse. He walked down to the village and along the sandy beach,
and sat miserably for an hour on the bottom of an upturned canoe. One
by one, he saw the beehive houses awaken; he saw the _polas_ rise,
disclosing dark interiors and smoking lamps; he heard the _pāté_,
that most primitive of human signals, rousing the sluggards to
another day, its insistent tapping the prelude to the morning prayer
which rose here and there as each household assembled its members.
Grave old chiefs appeared at the eaves, yawned, gazed at the sun, and
exchanged ceremonious greetings; children trooped out sleepily to play;
half-grown girls tripped away for water, or sat on logs or strips of
matting, in twos and threes, staring out to sea. An imperious old
chief began to blow a conch-shell bigger than his head. Bu, bu, bu! it
sounded, rich and mellow, with faint reëchoings on the woody hills. The
young men assembled about him, laughing and shouting, and taking up
the note of the conch in a lusty chorus as they called out the names
of those still to come. The father remembered that they were to launch
the new _alia_, the huge double canoe, which belonged in common to all
Lauli’i.
He looked about him mournfully; he felt himself a traitor through and
through; he dropped his eyes as every one saluted him and the little
children ran up to kiss his hands. He was about to sweep this all away,
this life of simplicity, peace, and beauty; he was going to enslave
these stalwart men; he was going to give these women to degradation.
Under the scorching breath of what was called civilisation they would
wither and die. God help them! On the ground where those houses now
stood there would rise the brick banks and churches of which Michael
had spoken; offices, stock exchanges, theatres, and roaring bars;
dance-halls full of shameless women, and dens where men would be
drugged and robbed. And what was he to gain for it all? What was the
price for so much sin and misery? Wealth for his Order! The biggest
account in that brick bank, blocks of bonds and shares, sheafs of
mortgages! Good God, how had he dared set his hand to such an infamy!
And if, by way of penance, he were to build a church, the great
church of which he had dreamed, with lofty windows of stained glass,
and an organ that would shake the very ground, and bells tempered
with hundredweights of silver, who, indeed, would there be left to
worship in it? What had gold-seekers to do with Christ, with God, with
the Blessed Virgin? There might appear, perhaps, a few brown faces,
changed and heartbroken, a few shrinking figures in the rags of the
disinherited, who would appeal to him for comfort in their extremity.
Ah, how could he look at them, these that he had wronged?
Mercy of God, let the accursed gold lie undug!
In an agony of self-denunciation, he walked hither and thither, without
looking, without caring where he went, treading the phantom streets of
that city of his dreams. He talked aloud and gesticulated to himself;
he knelt at the foot of a palm and prayed; he was overwhelmed by his
own powerlessness in the face of that impending calamity. He could see
no help, he could find no solace. And yet, all the while he felt, with
an intense conviction that belied the supplicating words on his lips,
that it lay with him, and him alone, to save his people. Thus writhing
in the coil of his perplexities, despairing and half mad at the
unavertible ruin he knew no way to avoid, he suddenly found himself at
his own door, confronting the man who had brought them all to such a
pass.
“My word, father!” cried Michael, “you don’t look fit for another day
up there. Why, if you could see your face in the glass it would give
you the shakes; you ought to be in bed.”
He would have passed on, but the priest caught him by the arm.
“Michael,” he broke out, “Michael, stop and listen to me. I have
something important to tell you--something that must be said, however
little you may like to hear it. I--I find I cannot permit this to go
any further.”
The lay brother stopped short.
“You cannot permit what?” he demanded.
“This digging of gold,” cried the priest; “this crime we have in mind
against these people, this crime against ourselves. Do you count our
vows for nothing, our holy vocation, the fact that God has set us
apart to guard the flocks he has confided to us? Fall on your knees,
miserable boy, and beg His pardon for your impiety--here, even as I
have done; down, down with you!” The old priest’s voice rose to a
scream; he wound his skinny arms round his companion, and calling on
the saints for help, tried to force him to the earth.
The lay brother grew suddenly pale, and, with a violent movement, shook
himself free.
“You old fool!” he exclaimed. “Keep your dirty hands off me, I tell
you. Leave me alone.”
“I forbid you to take another step,” cried the priest. “In the name of
God I forbid you.”
“See here,” said Michael, somewhat recovering himself, “I don’t want
to quarrel with you. I would rather cut off my right hand than quarrel
with you. I need you; and if you only had the sense to see it, you
would know that you need me. It would be a rotten business if we ruined
each other.”
“Why can’t you take the gold you have, and go?” exclaimed the father.
“Leave the island and content yourself that you have got a competence.
It is more already than you could have gained by a lifetime of honest
work.”
“I mean to stay just where I am,” returned the lay brother, “regardless
of whether you like it or don’t like it; I mean to stand by all my
rights, with you if I can, without you if I must. You can do me lots of
harm, and skim no end of cream off my milk; though I don’t think you
have much to gain by doing it, or that the niggers you are so fond of
will be greatly benefited. You have every reason to stand in with me,
both for your sake and theirs; and if the money cuts no figure with
you, you can surely see the sense of having some say in the subsequent
developments. That’s all I have time for now, though if you are more in
your right mind by evening I won’t mind talking it over with you again.”
With that last word Michael passed on, with an air of assurance
implying that all would come right. The old priest remained standing
in the path, sullenly looking after him; and he remained long in
that attitude, even after the brother’s black figure had dwindled
and disappeared into the distance. He felt utterly baffled, utterly
conquered; he wondered whether he had any more resistance in him; he
asked himself if God had forsaken him.
What was there now left for him to do, helpless and despairing as
he was, but to wait with what patience he might for the concluding
tragedy? After all, his own soul was clean; except for the one day,
when, in the exultation of the discovery, in the madness that had
temporarily possessed him, he had soiled his hands with the accursed
thing. He remembered, with self-disdain, how he had accepted the
partnership held out to him; how he had been dazzled, cajoled, swept
altogether off his feet by the importunity of the devil. But that was
all done with now. He would have none of the blood-money; if the knell
had sounded for his people, he at least would not profit by their ruin,
he at least would not transmute their agony into gold. The others could
do that; Michael and his white savages; the hosts that were to come.
Had the young man no conscience, no compassion? Was he simply a wall of
selfishness, against which one might beat in vain? Oh, the hypocrite,
the months he had lived a lie! Oh, the remorseless devil and his gold!
How could God endure such things? A man like that ought to be struck
down by thunderbolts; people ought to kill him like a mad dog.
The thought made him tremble. If Michael were dead, who would ever know
about the gold? Had it not lain there all these years, latently evil
in the earth, no one dreaming of its existence? Why should it not
continue to lie for ever, powerless for all mischief, or until such a
time, perhaps, when men would no longer count it a thing of price; when
it would be relegated to museums for the curious to stare at, side by
side with the wampum of Indians, cowry-shells, and the white beards
that pass for money in the Marquesas. Ah, were it not for Michael!
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.
* * * * *
At last he was at the place--at the foot of the second ladder, on the
narrow ledge that overlooked the third. He scarcely knew why he had
been led to choose this spot, for the top would surely have done as
well. But the ladder there was shorter, and a desperate man might let
himself drop below, or rush up like lightning before one could pull a
second trigger. The third ladder was immensely long; Michael himself
had once said that it was sixty feet or more; in the middle of it a man
was helpless. If he fell it would be to smash to pieces on the rocks
beneath; if he elected to climb, it would be in the face of a dozen
bullets.
He threw himself on the ground, and sat cross-legged, with the rifle
resting in his lap. He was haunted by a dread that the lay brother
might still outwit him; that he might burst on him from behind with a
mocking laugh; or dart up unexpectedly from the very edge of the cliff.
He wondered how Michael would look with a bullet through his face. He
remembered such a wound in the Talavao war, when he had helped to bury
the killed; and the thought of it made him shudder. He tried to pray,
but the words froze on his lips. What had a murderer to do with prayer?
But he was not yet a murderer--not yet. There was still time to draw
back; there was still time to save his soul from everlasting hell. How
dared he hesitate when all eternity was at stake? He was shocked at
himself, at his own resolution, at his own courage and steadfastness.
He meant to kill the lay brother, even if the skies were to fall. He
was there to make a sublime sacrifice for the sake of those he loved.
Let hell do its worst. He would say between the torments: “I saved
them! I saved them!” His only dread was that his hand might tremble on
the trigger; that at the supreme moment he might flinch and fail; that
he might throw his weapon from him in uncontrollable horror.
Hark! what was that? Mercy of God, what was that?
He peeped stealthily over the edge.
Michael was standing at the foot of the ladder.
The priest felt a sudden sinking in the region of the stomach.
Something seemed to say to him: “But that’s flesh and blood; that’s a
_man_!” He would have given worlds to have dispossessed himself of the
rifle; lies and explanations crowded to his lips; his teeth chattered
in his head. Then, as he cowered impotently to the ground, the ladder
shook with the weight of Michael’s feet on the lowest rung.
He tried to pull himself together; but under the stress of that
overwhelming agitation the mechanical part of him seemed to stop. He
had to tell himself to breathe; his heart suffocated within his breast.
He gasped like a drowning man, drawing in the air with great, tremulous
sighs as his choking throat relaxed. Suddenly he ceased altogether to
be himself; he became a phantom in a dream; a twitching, crazy creature
whom he saw through a sort of mist, dizzily centred in a whirl of
forest and sky.
He looked over and saw that Michael was more than half-way up. The lay
brother’s whole body spoke of dejection and fatigue, of a long day’s
work not yet ended, and it was evident that the heavy can slung from
his neck was for once more of a burden than a satisfaction. He raised
his weary eyes, and with a kind of a shock encountered those of Father
Studby peering down at him from above. He cried out inarticulately, and
began to redouble his exertions, smiling and panting as he did so.
Still as in a dream, the priest leaned boldly over the precipice, and
dropped the point of his rifle until its farther sight was dancing
across the lay brother’s face, which, in swift gradations, underwent
the whole gamut of dismay, astonishment, and utter stupefaction. For
an instant Michael faltered and hung back; he even slunk down a step,
speechless and as white as death. Then, of a sudden, he broke out into
shrill peals of laughter, followed by a torrent of gabble, brisk,
friendly, and tremblingly insincere, such as one might address to a
madman from whom it is dangerous to run. He had struck a new place,
he cried. My word! there was no end to it--pockets upon pockets only
waiting to be washed out. It was at the fifth waterfall, not far from
the dam by the banyan-tree, and he had worked there all day with
extraordinary success. The other place was good enough, to be sure,
with its average of three pounds and more, but this at the fifth
waterfall was the real McKay. The father must positively come down and
see it at once; positively you could see the nuggets shining in every
spadeful; no matter if it were late, the father must come. He had
better leave his gun on the top, for who was there to touch it?
Father Studby never turned from his position, nor made the least
pretence of answering the breathless patter with which the brother
tried to shield himself. Like a rock he waited, while the miserable man
below him, sweating with fear, moved slowly into point-blank range.
Talk as he might, with a volubility that grew increasingly anxious
and incoherent, Michael realised at last that his time had come. He
stopped; he raised his hand convulsively; he cried out in a broken
voice: “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t kill me!”
Even as he did so, the father pulled the trigger.
Then he turned, reclimbed the ladders, and went home.
* * * * *