SETBACKS
So the _Torch_ slipped down the lagoon like a picture, and Nai and the
other ladies completed their laundry operations, and in due course the
red sun dropped into the sea, without the explosive hiss which seemed
inevitable, and night fell on the little community as peacefully as
usual.
Evans conducted their evening service, and the attentive ring of brown
men and women round the platform of the house hummed the tunes gaily,
echoed the white "Amen" with the gusto of children after a long sermon,
and dispersed like big bumble-bees to their homes.
Jean could not sleep that night. It was the first time she and Kenneth
had been separated, since their marriage, and she felt as lonely as the
circumstances demanded. She got up at last and slipped on a
dressing-gown, and went out and sat on the platform.
The soft lip-lap of the water on the beach, and the distant growl of
the surf, were soothing, and she sat looking at the great new stars,
with which she was becoming friendly by degrees, and thinking of her
husband, and wondering how far he had got, and of the vast change her
marriage had made in her life.
She had never for one moment regretted it. All her heaven on earth was
centred in Kenneth. So long as he remained to her, all the rest was
nothing. And before long they would begin to see the fruit of their
quiet sowing, the Dark Islands would be dark no longer, and they would
be living a quiet, happy life among a new and contented people. It was
a grand and glorious work. No, she had no regrets--since she had
Kenneth.
On her right across the river, as she sat facing the sea, the mountain
loomed sombre and menacing--the hill Difficulty. Her thoughts ran back
to that trying morning when she and Kenneth faced the hill, and what it
held, all alone, not knowing whether they would ever come back alive.
Like many another hill on life's highway, its menace had been chiefly
in their own fears, and had disappeared on closer acquaintance. How
she wished that uncomfortable man Ra'a would go away, or be reconciled
to his brother, or do anything that would allow the community to settle
down in peace to its new life's work.
She knew much of Blair's great hopes and large ideas, and how essential
he considered it that the islands should as soon as possible attain to
some kind of central government, so that they might unite in opposing
an inflexible front to any attempt at interference from the outside.
The Dark Islands for the Dark Islanders was his aim and object in life
at present, and this truculent savage on the hill there was keeping
everything back. She almost had it in her heart to wish Ra'a's speedy
and sudden death.
Blair had often spoken of the evils that had followed the admission of
traders in others of the South Sea Islands--drink, disease,
dispossession--and how the communities were ruined before ever they had
a chance of better things. Yes, surely, she thought, if Ra'a could
meet with some happy accident, which would end him, it would be for the
good of the community at large. That was not a thought that would
commend itself to Kenneth, she knew, but she could not help thinking
it. What a mighty relief it would be if Ha'o walked in some morning,
and said, "Ra'a is dead." She felt as if she could almost forgive him
if he had done the deed himself.
Then she thought she heard, a sound in the gloom of the hillside. She
strained into the darkness and listened intently. She heard nothing,
but still felt a sense of discomfort. After all, it might quite likely
be one of the natives prowling about, though, as a rule, their fear of
ghosts and evil spirits kept them indoors after nightfall, and it
needed very strong inducement to take them abroad.
She was still peering towards the hill with puckered brow, when a
curdling, short-cut yell ripped the silence behind, in the direction of
the village, and in a moment pandemonium seemed loosed, and the night
was alive with horrors--screams and yells and all the turmoil of
warfare.
That first deadly cry sent Jean flying inside for Aunt Jannet. The
good lady met her at the door of her own room with an anxious--
"What in the name of goodness----?" and then Alison Evans and Mary
Stuart came tumbling in upon them, and Evans called to them from the
ground outside to stop where they were, and they would be all right.
It was not in human nature, however, to stand huddled in the dark,
asking one another questions which none of them could answer, when the
answer was shrieking outside, and they all crept, trembling, to the
verandah, and stood silently facing the danger, whatever it might be.
They heard Evans quietly ordering his men, and felt safer. And beyond,
the shouts and yells waxed and waned and wavered to and fro. Once they
thought they were coming in their direction, and their hearts thumped
painfully. Then the tumult drifted away again, and at last passed
furiously towards the taro fields, and died away on the mountain-side.
Then new sounds arose, cries of victory, little less blood-curdling
than the shouts of battle, and the ladies crept back into the dark
room, assured of their own safety, but with horrible premonitions of
what these might portend.
Presently the shadowy darkness over by the river resolved itself into a
mob of black figures which came towards the mission-houses, leaping and
brandishing its newly-fleshed weapons, and shouting at the top of its
voice, in horrible incongruity, and the more horrible in that the tune
was perfectly correct, "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im!
Law-daw-faw!"
They circled the fence, leaping and shouting and singing, and the men
of the yacht inside grasped their weapons to repel an onslaught. But
the brown men had had their fill of fighting for that night, and were
only there to advertise their victory.
Evans said a word or two to them, but learned only that Ra'a had come
down from the hill and attacked the village, but that they had been
ready for him. They were too excited to be able to give any details
yet, and presently they drew off and went shouting and singing home.
Jean, with something of a shock, remembered her ill-wishes for Ra'a,
and wondered with discomfort, now that the bald possibility faced her
so closely, if they had been realised. If they had, she would feel
almost as if she had had a hand in his death.
Then a native drum began beating in the village, and the ceaseless
monotony of its deep, dolorous boom fretted their ears, and set their
hearts jumping, and jangled their nerves to the point of agony. They
covered their ears with their hands, they stuffed their fingers into
them, but the drum beat in through their temples. They clasped their
heads tightly to keep them from splitting, but the drum beat in all the
same. When it ceased abruptly at last, and they ventured to lift their
heads, they saw one another's pale faces in a faint gleam that stole in
through the windows. The darkness over the village was pulsing with
the glow of great fires, and as they glanced fearfully at one another
they knew that the same horrible thought was in all their minds.
It was dawn before the noises died away, and Evans came in to them with
a grim, grey face. He said nothing, but nodded silently--and their
horror was confirmed.
Yes, truly, it was a decided change from Kensington and Hyde Park.
No soul from the village came near them that day, nor did any of them
venture out except Evans, who went along twice during the day to see
what was going on, but returned each time with pinched lips and a
despondent shake of the head.
The following day the brown men were about again, but sluggishly, as
though the fight had used up all their energies, or something else had
clogged them. It was another two days before they settled down to
work, and even then they were not quite as they had been.
Ha'o had kept away from them. When Evans came across him at last, he
endeavoured to get some particulars of the fight, and gathered that
Ra'a had probably watched the departure of the _Torch_, and thought it
an opportunity not to be missed. He had crept down in the dark, hoping
to surprise the village, and then make easy prey of the mission-houses
and their contents. Ha'o had foreseen the possibility of such an
attempt. Evans understood him to say that in Ra'a's place it was just
what he would have done himself. So he had men on the watch, and the
rest slept armed, and instead of a surprise, the hill-men walked into
an ambush--and paid. Ra'a himself had escaped, leaving a dozen or so
of his men behind. They had eaten them, said Ha'o, in a
matter-of-course way. Ra'a had gone farther into the hills, and to
follow him would be dangerous. And so to the boat-building once more,
and much singing of "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im!" which sounded more
than ever out of place under the circumstances.
Nai also put in an appearance that day, and to such an extent does the
mind prejudice the eye, that it seemed to Jean and the rest that even
she was changed from what she had been. In a word, it was difficult to
look upon any of these sleek brown men and women without thinking with
disgust of the horrible orgies in which they had been indulging. Their
humanity seemed but skin deep, and just below it the wild beast lurked
and peeped through the glancing black eyes.
Nor was it easy to conceal their feelings entirely, and perhaps Nai's
womanly intuition perceived a touch of frost in the atmosphere. She
stayed but a short time, and then went quietly away.
"I'm sorry," said Jean, with a sense of discomfort; "but really I could
not feel towards her quite as usual."
"Of course you couldn't--nobody could," said Aunt Jannet briskly. "If
I knew how to talk to them, I'd tell them what I think of the whole
business. I'd make their ears tingle, I warrant you."
"I wish Kenneth was here. He would know just what to do."
"He'll tell you, my dear, that it's no good talking to them. You must
just go slow, and break them off it by degrees. All the same, it would
be a relief to one's mind to give them a right good scolding."
"They've been used to it all their lives, you see."
"All the worse for them. They ought to be ashamed of themselves."
"But that's just what they don't understand. Suppose a brown man came
over to England and remonstrated with us for killing and eating
beautiful little lambs and graceful cows----"
"Fudge, child! Lambs and cows aren't human beings," grunted Aunt
Jannet. "They haven't souls."
"I don't know that the fact of men having souls makes much difference
when it's only a question of their dead bodies being eaten. But I do
hope Kenneth can break them off it! It is too horrible! And one can't
help thinking of it every time one looks at them. Though I suppose it
was just the same before we came."
"What they did before we came was not our fault. What they do now is,
and the sooner Kenneth puts a stop to it the better," was Aunt Jannet's
final word.
Matters went on quietly--Evans and the men of the yacht clearing and
breaking up ground for trial plantings of various seeds, the brown men
busy on their boats to the tune of "Kown 'im!" the women, brown and
white, busy on their household duties, the children laughing and
screaming--till, on the seventh day, a brown runner came, fresh from
the surf behind the ridge, to tell them that the _Torch_ was in sight.
And instantly they dropped what they were at, to scramble up the
shoulder of the hill and wave their joyful welcome. Not a white man or
woman there but felt a new sense of security and hopefulness at sight
of her, and it was chiefly because on board of her was the wise head
and great heart to which they had all come to look for guidance and
inspiration in their work.
It was a very joyful meeting when the anchor rattled down, and Blair
and Stuart and Captain Cathie jumped ashore from the whale-boat, and
the brown men welcomed them, outwardly at all events, with as much
gusto as the whites.
And great stories Blair and the others had to tell of their doings out
beyond. The brown men and women crowded round the platform till late
into the night, laughing and chattering with appreciation of the white
men's volubility, though they could not understand a word of it all.
It had been a most satisfactory trip. They had visited all the six
islands of the group, and had landed at various places on each of them.
They had found the natives suspicious at first, but amenable to
presents and open to their advances when they found nothing ulterior in
them. In fact, in several places, when the brown men found them
actually going away, without any attempts at kidnapping or otherwise
molesting them, they followed in their canoes for long distances
begging them to return.
"It's a glorious field," said Blair, stretching out his arms
energetically as though to gather it all in at once, "if we can only
occupy it and fence it round before the degraders come. And we must,
for one of those islands given over to the devil would be like a plague
spot infecting all the rest."
Then they told him of the happenings at home. He was startled at
Ra'a's outbreak and at thought of the consequences if it had proved
successful.
"I hate the thought of coercing him or any one," he said thoughtfully;
"but until he either comes in, which I fear is hopeless, or is got rid
of in some way, he is going to be a terrible hindrance to our work."
"Deport him to yon outer island, Mr. Blair, with such of his people as
stick to him," suggested Cathie; "then the rest will have peace."
"Easily said, captain, and a good idea; but how?"
"It would mean fighting, I suppose," said Cathie briskly, "unless
common-sense led him to give in quietly. Sometimes it pays best in the
long run to grip your nettle at once and grip it hard."
"He'll never give in till he is forced to," said Blair. "Yet I can't
see my way to use our force against him. How can we preach peace to
these people if we begin by using the sword ourselves?"
"If you give the rest peace, it may be better than preaching it," said
Aunt Jannet. "I agree with Captain Cathie. There'll be no peace till
that man is got rid of. And, for goodness' sake, do stop them eating
one another, Kenneth. I haven't enjoyed a meal since, and I can't look
at one of them without thinking that a day or two ago he was munching
one of his fellows."
"We shall break them off it by degrees."
"By degrees!--by degrees!" cried Aunt Jannet. "It is too horrible.
You ought to go straight to Ha'o and tell him we won't have any more of
it."
"And suppose he said, as would be very natural, that he'd do as he
pleased? What would you do then, Aunt Jannet?"
"I'd tell him if he didn't stop it I'd make him, or else we'd all go
away and leave him."
"Ay, well, you see, we can't make him and we're not going away, so it's
no good telling him that. We must use our common sense. These people
have eaten human flesh all their lives. It is the greatest treat they
can have. If you argued the point with Ha'o, he would probably say
that, as between man and pig, man is the cleaner feeder of the two, and
therefore must be the better eating. When we have pigs enough, we'll
work them on to pork. Until we can get them on to something they like
as much, or, better still, get them to feel that man was not meant to
be eaten by man, I fear words won't go for much."
"And do you mean to say that you'll pass the matter over without a
word, Kenneth?" asked Aunt Jannet.
"I don't say that, and I don't intend to. But if you imagine, Aunt
Jannet, that a cannibal is going to give up his daintiest dish simply
for being spoken to, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
He made his first attempt against cannibalism the next day, and
returned from it with a humorous twinkle in his eye.
"Well?" asked Aunt Jannet.
"Well," said Blair, "Ha'o holds that it can't be wrong for him to eat
men when we do the same."
"If he'll wait till he sees us doing it, I'll find no fault with him."
"I assured him that white people never ate human flesh. And what do
you think was his proof that we did? He pointed to some of those
corned-beef tins with George Washington's head on the label, and said,
'There!' and nothing I could say would convince him that George
Washington did not represent the contents. He is under the impression
that we can our people at home for convenience, and carry them about
with us in that way. I assured him it was cow, but it was no use. He
could not believe anyone would kill such a beautiful animal as a cow
simply for food. He said he would give ten men for one cow any day.
So there we are, you see. It will be a matter of time. Meanwhile, I
suggest peeling George Washington off the rest of those meat tins!"
"Well, I never!" said Aunt Jannet. "And Ra'a?"
"He is as anxious as you and Captain Cathie to make an end of him; but
he acknowledges that it would be dangerous to follow him into the
hills, and would certainly mean considerable loss of life, so for the
present I have dissuaded him from it."