MIGHT OF RIGHT
Matters were progressing thus, surely if slowly, when a sudden sharp
stroke fell upon them--sudden, but not altogether unlooked for.
With the individual as with the nation, peaceful times are growing
times; and yet, to both individual and nation, there come times of
stress and strife, when the slow upbuilding of the years is put sharply
to the test, and, surviving, is the stronger for the strain. Winter's
storms provoke the oak to deepest rooting.
At times, indeed, too long a period of peaceful growth may lead to
over-fatness and deterioration. The nation and the man that waxes
over-fat grows lean of soul. But that is a side issue at the moment.
The little community on Kapaa'a was too near to its swaddling bands to
be in any danger of fatty degeneration. And yet the stressful time
that came to it made for good in every way. It had been striking roots
and feelers. Well for it that time had been given them to grip the
soil before the storm burst. As it was, they only gripped the tighter,
and the breaking of the storm cleared the air, and made for more
prosperous weather.
Captain Cathie, in his capacity of watch-dog, had never for a single
moment relaxed his precautions at home, or his keen-eyed vigilance
abroad. When he was touring the islands, his glasses swept the horizon
continually, with a special eye to the east, which was the threatening
quarter.
"Those yellow deevils will come back, as sure as we're here," was his
constant word.
And so the beach was never bare of stacks of neatly-cut wood from away
up the valley, and the bunkers of the _Torch_ were always full, and the
men were regularly drilled, and Long Tom was ready to speak at a
moment's notice.
Each day, when the _Torch_ lay at anchor in the lagoon, he took the
steam-launch, or, occasionally, one of the whale-boats, by way of
exercise for muscles, through the reef, to an offing whence he could
obtain wide views of the approaches to the islands.
"In there," he would say, "I feel like a man with his back to the wall.
It's safe enough, but there's no telling what's behind it."
And the wall was quite too high to climb, for the only eastward view
from the summit of the hill was of the higher ridge, which ran right
across the island, with only one possible passage, and that but a
narrow one.
They used to mildly chaff the old man about his fears, but he took it
all with characteristic good humour.
"Ay, ay, all right!" he would say. "Just you wait, and we'll see who
laughs last. When they come, it'll be no laughing matter, I'm
thinking."
"They've probably forgotten all about us by this time, and have found
easier pickings elsewhere," said Blair.
"That kind doesn't forget in a hurry, and they know they've only got to
break us up to get all the pickings here they want," said Cathie
stubbornly.
And it was thanks to these ceaseless precautions that, when the time
came, they were not taken unawares.
Cathie had run out in the launch one morning as usual, and presently
came plunging back through the passage with a haste that betokened the
unusual.
"They're coming," he said quietly, as the others met him on the beach.
"What, the nightmares?" said Blair, with a keen glance, for the captain
was not above a joke.
"Ay, the nightmares, sure enough. A brig and two tops'l schooners
working up steady from the south-east. They'll carry a heap of men,
I'm thinking, and we'll have our hands full."
"Right? How soon can they be here, captain?"
"Wind's light--a couple of hours, I should say, at soonest."
"Our old plans stand?"
They had long since discussed the possible campaign, though not very
lately.
"If they have as many men as I expect, we'll have to change 'em a bit.
Unless they're absolute fools, which it's as well not to reckon on,
they'll split and strike us more than one side at once. There's easy
landing the other side the island."
"But a difficult way across."
"They don't know that, and they'll trust to luck to get across once
they're ashore."
"You can keep this side all safe with the _Torch_, I suppose, captain?"
"Any quarter this time?" asked Cathie anxiously.
"Make quite sure of their intentions first. Then, if they are what we
have reason to suspect, hit hard and end it."
"I'll keep this side all safe," said Cathie briskly, "and when I've
cleared them here, I'll take a run round to the back and wipe 'em up
there too."
"How many men can you spare us, captain?"
"I can do with six besides those below," said Cathie, after a moment's
consideration. "Under steam we'll have the weather gauge all the time,
and we'll give 'em no chance to board."
"That leaves us ten. Give us your ten best, captain, and see that each
man has a revolver in addition to his Winchester and cutlass. Better
beat up your men at once with the drum, Ha'o. What about Ra'a? Will
he rest quiet, or will he take advantage of the matter to attack us, or
will he help us?"
"He won't help. He may attack. If we are beaten, he is chief," said
Ha'o, with a look which implied that the proper thing to do under the
circumstances was to wipe out Ra'a forthwith.
"Run the ladies across to the Happy Valley at once then, captain, and
take Lean and his wife to look after them, if she'll go. Will you send
your women and children there too, Ha'o? They would be safe from Ra'a,
at all events."
But Ha'o, knowing his people, shook his head.
"They will not go."
And so it proved. Fighting, the women understood, though they did not
like it, but spirits they neither understood nor liked, and they would
take no risks in such matters. They chose in preference to go up the
southern hill, where they could keep a look-out for Ra'a and could
scatter if he showed head.
The ladies understood the necessities of the case. Their preparations
were quickly made, and within the hour they were landed in the Happy
Valley, with Sandy Lean, armed to the teeth, to guard them from any
stray yellow skins who might get in, an eventuality which was not at
all likely. Sandy's wife chose to go with her man, which was a
gratifying sign of moral improvement through marriage, and they tried
their best to get Nai and her baby boy to go too, but she would not.
Captain Cathie saw to the armament of the land contingent, and gave
them a strenuous word or two of his own. Then he carried the _Torch_
through the passage in the reef and lay waiting for his prey.
Close upon a hundred men answered the call of the drum. They were
armed only with fire-hardened wooden spears and clubs, and the axes
they had used in more peaceful pursuits. But they had had no fighting
for some time past, they were defending their hearths and homes, and
with the yellow men keen in their memories, they were aching to be at
them. And the little band of heavily-armed whites gave both edge and
backbone to their courage and made them formidable.
Blair, Stuart, and Evans carried Winchesters and revolvers.
"Our cause is a just one," said Blair. "We will defend it by every
means in our power. These men's blood is on their own heads." And
there was that in all their faces which boded ill for the invaders.
The only communication between the east and west sides of the island
was over a dip in the central ridge which, from its most prominent
feature, they had named One-Tree Pass. On the farther side the slope
was gradual and easy. On the mission side the ground was so broken,
and the ascent so precipitous, that for all ordinary usage the pass was
impracticable. No one ever dreamed of using it unless under most
urgent necessity. No more urgent necessity had ever arisen than this
present, and One-Tree Pass for once in its life became the active
centre of the island.
The defending force scrambled up the broken way, and before it reached
the pass Long Tom was bellowing angrily behind them, and was answered
by another gun which sounded equally loud and defiant. The hill
shoulders, however, hid what was going on, and they could only hope
that Captain Cathie would be able to hold his own and something more.
Blair placed his men among the boulders overlooking the pass, and crept
on along the ridge with Ha'o and Evans and Stuart, until they could
look out over the long, easy sweep of the hill to the farther sea.
Opposite the landing-place lay the two schooners, with boats plying
rapidly between them and the shore. The landing had evidently been
disputed. The village was in flames and brown figures were creeping
cautiously up the hill. The beach was filling rapidly with men from
the ships.
"It will be a couple of hours before they get here," said Blair, and
with instinctive foresight, in view of his greater work, "I wish we
could get hold of those brown fellows. If they know that we're
fighting their battle, it will pave our way with them later on."
He put it to Ha'o, and eventually the latter slipped away down the
hillside, none too eagerly, to endeavour to intercept the fugitives and
bring them in, if it were possible.
There was no difficulty in intercepting them. They were flying for
their lives. Bringing them in, however, was quite another matter.
They recognised Ha'o, by his speech, as from the other side of the
island--hostile therefore, and not to be trusted; and it took all his
diplomacy, through the veil of a different dialect, to persuade the
first half-dozen to the venture.
The sight of Blair, however, reassured them. They recognised him from
his calls in the _Torch_, and presently they were off along the hills
to bring in their fellows.
Altogether about thirty terrified men and women came in. The women
were sent on down the valley. The men lay down among the rocks with
the defending party.
Meanwhile the marauders had completed their landing and had begun their
march, like the shadow of a black cloud creeping slowly up the
hillside. Before them, urged on by blows from behind, crept two
reluctant brown guides with ropes round their necks. There was no fear
of the yellow men missing the pass. They toiled upward with stubborn
determination, and wasted breath in voluble commination of the length
of the way, when they could have employed it more usefully in
compassing it.
And there was no possible doubt of their intentions. Slaughter and
plunder were written all over them, as plain to see as the nature of a
hyaena in the cut of its slinking face.
Nevertheless, Blair would permit no attack unchallenged. As the
bristling crest of the black wave foamed cursing into the level of the
pass, he drew cautiously back under cover till the whole should be
there. When he struck, he would strike with all his might. This was a
nettle to be gripped hard, to be squeezed to pulp and trampled out of
sight.
The yellow men flung themselves flat and cursed their wind back. And
the pass lay blank and bare and open under the glare of the sun. Not a
stone rattled, not a shadow moved. The one lone palm seemed cast in
brown.
In due course, and with the aid of many curses, the marauders got to
their feet at last, and came pressing loosely along behind their
unwilling guides. They passed unchallenged the place where Blair knelt
behind a big rock. Below and on each side, pinched brown faces craned
anxiously over restless brown shoulders at him, eager for the word. It
was not till the motley crew had passed that he stepped out suddenly
from his cover, and stood, a tall white figure, in the sun-glare.
"Hola!" he cried. "What are you after?" And instantly such a
villainous array of vicious yellow faces was turned on him as he had
never before in his life set eyes on.
A babble broke out among them.
"Dios! It is he!"
"It is the fighting padre!"
"It is the devil himself!"
"Down with him!"
"Our turn now, senor missionary!"
And one answer to his question which needed no knowledge of bastard
Spanish for its translation. A sharp report, and a bullet buzzed past
his head.
Other guns were rising to correct the insufficiency of the first.
"Give it them, boys!" shouted Blair, and before the words were out of
his mouth, rocks and fire-pointed spears were raining on them, back and
front, and as they tried in vain to face both sides at once, there came
the quick crackle of the Winchesters and a ringing cheer from the
_Torch_ men at the end of the pass.
The yellow men reeled under their flailing. The ground was cumbered
with bodies and the air with curses. The momentary panic drove them in
upon themselves and bunched them together.
But the weak point about the thrown spear as a weapon of offence is the
fact that, once hurled, it is gone. The yellow men were an
undisciplined mob, Ishmaelites all, accustomed every man to fight for
himself and ready to fight at any moment, but their death dealers
remained in their hands, and they outnumbered the _Torch_ men by seven
to one. The Torches poured in volley after volley. The yellow men
tightened their defence and replied in kind; while the brown men danced
wildly among the rocks, and hurled stones and clubs, and were shot down
like rabbits.
Blair's men were falling all round him. The sight was too much for
him. He snatched a club from the ground and sprang down the hillside.
In a moment the sides of the pass vomited brown men frenzied for the
fight.
"Kown 'im!--kown 'im!--kown 'im!" they yelled, and hurled themselves on
the enemy.
The _Torch_ men, reduced in number, fired one more round and came
racing in with their cutlasses. The yellow men replied, and then
clubbed their guns and thrashed wildly at the advancing tide.
Under such conditions, and with the might of right as well as numbers
against them, the yellow men gave way and drifted back towards the
mouth of the pass, fighting stubbornly all the way.
And Kenneth Blair forgot that he was a man of peace. He saw his brown
men falling all round him, ripped and bashed and broken, and he dashed
into that fight as he had dashed into many a more peaceful one on the
football field at home. He saw nothing at the moment but the vicious
yellow faces and shaggy heads of the despoilers. He knew nothing but
the necessity of demolishing them, and with his unaccustomed club he
smote with all his might at every head he could reach, as his forbears
long ago struck down the Northmen when they came wading ashore from
their beaked ships on the coast of Caledonia.
The brown men eyed him with amazement, and yelled with unholy joy at
sight of his Berserk fury. The teacher was a man like themselves, and
could let himself loose like the rest of them. And Blair thought
neither of them nor himself, or of anything whatsoever, save the
necessity of ridding the island of the vermin that would pollute it.
For once in his life he tasted the wild, mad joy of battle.
His red club whirled and fell, and wherever it fell there fell a gap,
and in him raged a red fury which nothing could appease or oppose.
He would surely have been a terrible sight to himself--his white face
set to slaughter, and smeared with blood from a bullet graze on the
temple, his white clothes spattered red, his eyes ablaze, and that
murderous red club whirling and smashing to the tune that plunged in
his veins.
At the end of the pass, where it dipped towards the sea, the yellow men
broke, and it was over, so far as danger to the island was concerned.
But not by any means over as concerned the yellow men. Never yet did
enemy break and flee but prudence and restraint fled with him.
Cast-iron discipline may leash it in the bulk, but in the individual
the lust of death will out and have its way. The wild beast that lurks
in every man once roused is ill to curb, and hardest, maybe, in the man
not easily provoked. And here was no pretence of discipline. The
furies were afoot that day, and death and destruction were rampant.
Blair found himself plunging down the hill path after a scattered mob
of yellow men. They were too breathless to curse. Their only hope was
the sea.
The prey was escaping. Terror lent it wings stronger than the fury
behind. He hurled his dripping club among them, and one man fell.
At one side, among the boulders, he caught a glimpse of Ha'o, all
aflame with battle, doing dreadful things with a dripping red axe. So
horrible did he look, so utterly inhuman and wholly possessed of the
devil, that Blair gasped at the sight. Then he stumbled to a rock and
dropped his bursting head into his hands--and came to himself.
The pursuit sped on down the hillside. The yells and shouts died away
towards the sea.
He raised his head at last, and his bloodshot eyes looked heavily after
them.
"God forgive me!" he gasped. "I have been in hell."
He jumped up with the idea of stopping the work he had started. But
that was impossible. As well try to stop the mountain snow in its
death gallop. The red fury had gone down the hill like an avalanche.
Until its force was spent it must run its course.
Now that the fire had died out of him he found his legs trembling so
that he could hardly walk. He sank down again on his boulder and drew
his hand dazedly across his brow, streaking it horribly with fresh
smears of blood.
He looked round him, at the blue sea, the white surge, the quiet ships.
He heard the shouts below. He saw a boat put off from the shore and
labour heavily towards one of the ships.
"God forgive me!" he groaned once more. "I have been killing men."
But the only man he was actually conscious of killing was the one at
whom he had hurled his club in his last spasm. And when he got up
heavily, and went down to him where he lay in the glare of the sun, he
found the man was not dead, and he was glad. He carried him carefully
to the partial shelter of a rock, and propped him up, and gave him
water from a runlet close by. He drank deeply himself, and washed his
hands and face and plunged his head under water. He noticed now for
the first time that his white jacket was spattered all over with blood.
He tore it off and flung it from him.
The reaction which followed his temporary possession left him limp and
exhausted, and burdened with a heavy mental load which as yet he made
no attempt at lightening.
Then he went slowly down the hill, and saw one of the schooners loosing
her sails in a hurried and shifty fashion. From that he gathered that
some of the invaders had escaped, and he was too unaccustomed a warrior
to regret it.
The rest, who had followed the pursuit to the shore, were held back by
no such considerations however. To them the yellow men were enemies to
be smitten hip and thigh, to be destroyed root and branch. When they
reached the beach and saw the broken boat-load lumbering towards the
schooner, the _Torch_ men and a number of natives flung themselves into
one of the other boats and set off after them with the most final
intentions.
The schooner caught the breeze and began to make way. The _Torch_ men
played on her with their Winchesters, a chance shot dropped the
helmsman, her head fell off, and she was theirs. Some of the yellow
men jumped overboard. For the rest--well, the Torches knew Captain
Cathie's views, and the islanders were of a like mind.
Blair passed several dead men as he went down the hill, but saw no
wounded ones. As he neared the remains of the village he came upon the
bodies of the first victims of the invasion, brown men and women and
children.
He had seen nothing of Evans and Stuart since the fight began. Evans
he had placed in command of the Torches; Stuart had been in charge of
the opposite side of the pass.
The brown men were leaping about the beach inflated with their victory.
The _Torch_ men had anchored the one schooner and were now securing the
other.
A sudden shout along the beach showed him a yellow man fleeing for his
life with half a dozen islanders after him. He had been hidden in the
bushes till they stumbled upon him. The sight of his twitching face
and agonised eyes remained with Blair for many a day. There had been
many such eyes and faces up there on the hillside, but he had had no
eyes to see them. Now he was himself, and would stop the dreadful work.
He ran towards the man to succour him. But succour was the last thing
the other looked for in him. His long knife was in his hand. Escape
was hopeless, but here was a chance for a blow in return. He flew at
Blair like a wild cat, and drove the knife at his neck. Blair swerved
instinctively, and it went through his shoulder. The wild cat was on
him with gnashing teeth and flaming eyes, snarling, grappling, biting
him.
They rolled over and over in the sand. Then sinewy brown fingers
gripped the other and tore him away, with a mouthful of Blair's shirt
between his teeth, and in a moment he lay still.
Blair lay still also. The last things he remembered were the horror of
that animalised snarling grip, and a dreadful agony in the shoulder as
he rolled over in the sand with the knife still sticking in him.
When he came to, he found himself the centre of a group of the island
men who were looking down on him with troubled faces. They gave a
shout when he opened his eyes, and presently he was sitting up showing
them how to bind up the wound with strips of his torn shirt. The knife
had been pulled out while he lay unconscious--for the sake of the knife.
The _Torch_ men came leisurely ashore after securing the schooner and
found him so. He had lost blood freely both from head and shoulder,
and felt sick and dizzy. They made a stretcher out of a couple of oars
and a native mat, and at his request carried him at once up the hill to
the pass.
He was anxious about the others; he had no recollection of seeing them
since the fight began. It seemed to him that since he picked up that
club and leaped down into the pass he had seen nothing but vicious
yellow faces and evil eyes, and broken heads, and bodies that suddenly
crumbled and fell.
His mind was relieved by the sight of Evans as soon as they topped the
pass. And at distant sight of the stretcher Evans came running up with
an anxious face.
"Serious?" he asked.
"Don't think so. A jag through the arm and a scratch on the face, but
I felt sick and couldn't climb the hill. Where's Stuart?"
"Back here. Got a bullet through the leg. No bones broken, but he
won't walk for a week or two."
"Many others wounded?"
"Two Torches, half a dozen natives, and a dozen of the yellow men.
Frightful blackguards they are too. Makes me wish they'd been killed
outright just to look at them."
Blair nodded. He could not plead wholly guiltless in that respect.
A dozen yellow men on their hands would be an anxiety and a burden. A
light affliction, however, compared with what might have been if the
invaders had caught them napping. And so they must make the best of
it, and be thankful for things as they were.
"Now see here, boys," he said, sitting up on the stretcher. "We've had
our fight and by God's mercy we've won. I'm afraid we all lost our
heads a bit while it was on"--at which, and their recollection of him
in the fight, the sailors grinned--"and I think we cannot blame
ourselves for that. But these men who are left on our hands are tabu.
The islanders will kill them if they get the chance, and we must
prevent it. What is done in the hot blood of battle is done. But
killing in cold blood is murder. You have all fought valiantly. Don't
spoil it by any such doings. And, by the way, Evans, there's another
of them lying under a rock to the left of the path over there. You
might see to him. I flung my club after a bunch of them and this
fellow went down, but he was only stunned."
"I'll go and bring him up at once, before the brown fellows come."
"No news of Cathie, I suppose. When did his big gun stop?"
"Over an hour ago. We've no news. I hope it's all right. I'd have
sent down but I'd no one to send."
"Which of you boys will go for news?" asked Blair. "I doubt if we can
all get down to-night."
"That you can't," said Evans. "It'll be a case of go easy for some
days for all you hipped ones."
All the men volunteered at once. Every one of them was keen to know
what had been going on on the other side of the island.
"You seem fairly fresh, Irvine. Tell Captain Cathie how we've gone on
here, and that casualties are not serious. If he can spare us some
more help we can do with it to get the wounded down. Ask him to send
word to the ladies also. They will be anxious about us all. And if he
can send us something to eat we'll be glad of it. I'm feeling empty
after it all."
"I'll go after your half-deader," said Evans. "One of you come with me
in case he can't walk."
But he was back empty-handed in a quarter of an hour.
"Gone?" asked Blair, with a pinched face.
"He's dead, but you didn't kill him. Some one came after you and split
his head with an axe."
"Ah!" said Blair gloomily, "these others will fare the same unless we
see to it. We'll go to them, Evans, in case any of our brown friends
come prowling round."
But the brown men were much too busy, and we may drop more of a veil
over their proceedings than the night did. Big fires were glowing
along the beach before it was dark, and no brown man came up the hill
that night.
They went along to the temporary hospital Evans had made among the
rocks. The beds consisted of the softest patches of ground he could
find, and the only furnishings were the patients. He had hastily
bandaged their wounds, however, and all, except the yellow men, were
fairly cheerful.
Stuart, indeed, became almost hilarious at sight of Blair as an invalid
also.
"I was thinking ill of myself for getting hit," he said; "but since
you're in the same boat I feel better."
"Glad to be of use," said Blair, "and very thankful things are no
worse. They might have been. There were more of them than I expected,
and they fought harder than their cause justified."
"Even rats will fight in a corner," said Evans.
Just before dark Captain Cathie came panting in on them, in the best of
spirits and with many rough words for the road. He had half a dozen of
his men with him, and they brought an ample supply of food.
"Well, captain, how have things gone with you?"
"We mustn't complain, sir. He'd brought a gun along as heavy as ours
and we had a fine set-to. But with our steam we had the weather hand
all the time and just waltzed round him. He did his best to board, but
we thought differently."
"And how did it end? Where is he now?"
Captain Cathie jabbed his finger downwards two or three times in
eloquent silence.
"Sunk?"
"Sunk with all aboard, big gun and all. No more trouble from that
quarter. We plugged him more than once below the water-line and we saw
he was settling down. But it came sudden at the end."
"And you were not able to save any of them?"
"We were not"--said Cathie emphatically, and after a moment's pause
added--"and what on earth would we have done with 'em if we had?"
"We have about a dozen on our hands here--all wounded."
"Humph!" grunted Cathie.
"We couldn't very well kill them in cold blood, you see."
"And what'll you do with 'em, Mr. Blair?"
"I don't know yet. We'll have to think that over. Did you send word
to the ladies how things had gone all round?"
"I went over myself with young Irvine and told 'em all about it. They
were all very thankful it was over and no more harm done."
"And how is the _Torch_?"
"Ah!" said the old man, with an aggrieved shake of the head, "she got
it pretty hot; that's why I couldn't get round to wipe out those
schooners. Both her masts are down, and she got a shot into the
machinery. The men are seeing what they can do to it. The masts we
can fit ourselves."
"And you've no casualties?"
"Some splinter wounds and some bit bruises from the spars. Nothing of
consequence, sir."
"Well, we're very well through a nasty job, captain, and we've reason
to be thankful for it. Now suppose we have something to eat--I'm
starving."