WIPED OUT
Jean and Aunt Jannet were dozing fitfully, fairly spent with the strain
and misery of it all. Cathie's grey beard was on his chest, but
whether he slept Blair could not tell.
He himself sat on his rock, chilled to the marrow of his bones, and
watched with heavy eyes the slow birth of new life after the deadly
horrors of the night. And his heart was as cold as his body.
He wrestled manfully with that which was in him, but surely man's faith
and courage were rarely put to sorer test. He had striven so hard, and
toiled so ceaselessly, at utmost stretch of hand and heart and brain,
and here, just as the harvest was ripening, it was all dashed into
nothing, as though by the stroke of an angry hand. Oh, it was hard,
hard, hard!
But he fought out his fight singlehanded, and found himself--where
steadfast faith and undaunted courage have always firm footing. And a
spark of hope struggled up in him to meet the sun. The beginnings of
things had always had a charm for him. And here must be a new
beginning. They were back at first principles and the elementary facts
of life. But, truly, there is a mighty difference between a beginning
and a beginning again, and it calls for the best that is in a man to
begin again with the heart with which he began before.
The rain ceased towards morning, the wind slackened, and when the sun
rose behind the hills the western sky shone opalescent, and the sea
below it was a cold, dark blue. The rollers were still of mighty size,
but the reef was spouting foam again, and the lagoon was heaving within
its usual bounds.
But everything else was changed--everything except the bare ridge on
which they crouched.
The village--gone as though wiped with a sponge off a slate. The
mission-houses, schools, church--not a plank left. And somewhere below
the smiling face of the lagoon lay all that was left of the ships and
the men who had been in them.
Not all below, after all, for from his perch he could see the beach
strewn with fragments, human and otherwise. Right below him on the
hillside, John MacNeil's waterwheel turned busily in fruitless labour,
and its bare nakedness and useless fussiness added to the sense of
desolation and discomfort.
Then the sun topped the hills, and cheered their chilled senses
somewhat. Blair and Cathie straightened themselves wearily, but
neither dared as yet look into the other's face, lest he should find
there only confirmation of his own worst fears.
Kenni-Kenni, who had fared better than any of them, and was conscious
of nothing more than bodily discomfort, gave a hungry cry which woke
response in Cathie's breast.
"Let us go down," he said. "Maybe we'll find something to eat," and
the two men scrambled down to the level, and walked over the soft mud
where the houses had stood, and searched with anxious eyes for
something that might stay their more pressing necessities.
Blair turned up towards the valley. Cathie, with more prescience,
sought the beach, and presently a shout from him brought the two
together again. When they met, the captain was carrying the body of a
drowned kid under one arm, and a bundle of wood under the other.
"Here's breakfast," he said, and did not think it well to mention that
he had found the kid lying between the bodies of two dead men, one
brown, the other white.
The matches in their metal cases were all damp, but a few minutes'
exposure to the sun put that right, and they soon had fire, and kid
steaks grilling over it on pointed sticks. Then they helped the ladies
down and were presently eating, though, in spite of their hunger, each
one of them felt like choking at every mouthful. And there was no talk
among them, for they were sitting on the grave of their hopes.
More than once Jean stopped feeding her boy and glanced questioningly
at the men, and then, as they ate stolidly, weighted with their
thoughts, she went on with her work.
It was only when they had all quite finished, and sat as though
dreading what might come next, that she said--
"Are we all that are left, Ken? I thought I heard a cry just now."
"Did you, dear? It is possible. There must surely be others. We will
go and see," and he and Cathie went off again towards the beach.
"How's it up the valley?" asked the captain briefly.
"Drowned out."
The beach was a pitiful sight. Every step spoke of the catastrophe.
Bodies uncountable, white and brown, men, women, and children, pigs and
goats, broken coco-nuts, bruised fruit, wreckage from the ships and
plantations and houses.
"By God! Mr. Blair, I cannot understand it," broke out Cathie in a
paroxysm, as he stood over the bodies of two of his men from the
_Torch_. "What had we done to deserve this?"
"Cathie, Cathie! Come to your senses, man! This is no punishment of
God's. Rather let us be thankful we are still alive."
"I'd almost as lieve be dead," said Cathie stubbornly. "Ships gone,
men gone, everything gone, and all our work undone. Say what you will,
Mr. Blair, it's bitter hard."
"These," said Blair, raising his hands reverently over the dead at
their feet, "have gone home--beyond the reach of storms. The ships can
be replaced. If there are any people left, the work can be rebuilt.
If they are all gone, they are the better off, and they have gone
further than if we had never come here."
"It's bitter hard, all the same----"
And then a faint, muffled cry reached them, apparently from the ragged
hillside whose debris lay all over the beach, and they both ran towards
it.
The cries were repeated, and led them at last to an out-jutting rock
round which the sliding earth had flowed and settled.
"Where are you?" cried Blair.
"Here!" came from under their feet, and they spied a small hole in the
earth, and set to work at once to enlarge it with their hands.
Cathie ran down to the beach and came back with some pieces of wood
which made the work go quicker. The cries from the inside had ceased,
and they worked the harder, and at last they had the hole large enough
for Blair to get his head and shoulders in.
With his hand he felt the body of a man fallen in a heap, and by great
exertions managed to drag it out through the hole.
It was the body of Captain Pym, white and senseless. They carried him
down to the beach and dashed water in his face, and presently he came
to, and lay for a minute looking dazedly up at them. Then he sat up.
"I apologise," he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness. "Been dead
and buried all night--thought of coming to life again bowled me out.
Saw you in the distance, and shouted and shouted--like being in a
coffin--just room to stand, but couldn't move, and been holding up that
hill all night. My God!" as it all came back on him. "What a horror
it has been! Are you the only ones left?"
"I hope not," said Blair. "Can you walk? We've got a fire over there
and something to eat."
"Bit shaky yet," said Pym, as he staggered along on their arms. "Never
expected to walk again in this life."
"How was it?"
"When I saw that devilish thing smash the ships, and the other coming
towards me, I made for the hill. I was just under that rock when it
broke. It was like being under Niagara, only worse. It jammed me flat
and beat the breath out of me. Then the earth came rolling down, and
cased me in tight except a hand's space through which I could breathe.
I've been seeing those ships go smash every minute since. God! It was
awful!" and he hung slackly on their arms and glanced over the placid
lagoon.
Jean and Aunt Jannet gave him quiet greeting, as one come back from the
dead, and hastened to supply his wants. Blair and Cathie set off again
up the valley with tight faces.
The havoc there was terrible. The cloud-burst and the great wave
together had swept it bare. They went some distance up and stood
looking round. It seemed incredible that so short a time could have
wrought so woful a change.
The plantations were gone to the last stick and leaf. The very
hillsides were almost cleared of trees. The smiling valley of
yesterday was a stark empty pan, with deeply-scored sides and a sheet
of shining mud caking slowly at the bottom.
"It will make good growing ground," said Blair.
"If we'd anything to grow and any one to grow it for," said Cathie
gloomily.
"We shall find some of them in the hills, I hope. Let us get on."
And presently there was a shout up above on the hillside, and there
came down, at a pace that risked their necks, Jim Gregor of the _Jean
Arnot_ and young Irvine, who was on the _Torch_ when last they heard of
him.
They whooped with joy and shook hands a dozen times with Blair and
Cathie, and were quite incoherent for many minutes.
"We're right glad to see you, boys," said Blair, when they calmed down.
"Are there any more up there?"
"Three more Torches, sir, and half a dozen Bonitas, and about a dozen
islanders, men and women, and a couple of children. Have you got
anything to eat?"
"Yes. Go on to the water-wheel. You'll find food there. Where are
these others?"
"Right by yon rock. We'll go back with you. Some of them are badly
bashed and can't walk without help."
So they all climbed up, and came on the forlorn little company
crouching by the rock, and gave them new life by the very sight of them.
The sailors plucked up heart at once, but the brown men were very
subdued and silent. Their eyes were still wide with terror when at
last they sat under the southern ridge and ate the food Jean and Aunt
Jannet found for them, supplemented by coco-nuts and bruised fruit from
the beach.
All the men had strange stories to tell. Gregor and Irvine, and some
of the others, asserted that when the waterspout struck the ships they
were whirled up out of them and dropped into the lagoon some distance
away. Then, before they could swim ashore, the great wave caught them
and whirled them up into the valley, bruising them all more or less and
breaking some. The brown men were mostly sound of limb. They had fled
for the hills at the first sight of the spectral dangers outside.
"Have you seen signs of any others?" asked Blair.
Yes, they thought they had seen moving forms on the further hills, but
too far away to distinguish clearly. On which Cathie set them to
collecting driftwood from the shore, and piled it on the fire, with wet
brush and tangle on top, till the smoke rose in a dense column.
"That'll bring them," he said, and in time they came dropping in, in
small companies, from their various hiding-places, and last of all came
one carrying a woman in his arms.
And at sight of him, toiling through the new soft mud where the village
had stood, Blair sprang up and ran to meet him.
"Thank God, you are left to us, Ha'o!" he cried as they met, but Ha'o
was as silent as the rest of his people. "Is Nai hurt? Let me help
you."
Nai smiled wanly at him as he put his arms under her and took part of
the weight, and then her face crumpled with pain.
They carried her gently to the fire, and laid her on the soft white
sand, and Jean and Aunt Jannet knelt beside her and saw to her wants.
Captain Cathie, when he saw the increasing company, had made another
visit to their only storehouse, the beach, and came back this time with
a young pig and some bananas and coco-nuts, and some
carefully-sought-out paw-paw leaves for the benefit of the too-fresh
pork.
Ha'o was too weary and too hungry for talk, and Blair and Cathie called
the militant members of the party to salvage work on the beach.
Gruesome work too, and not calculated to raise their spirits even after
a full meal, for every few steps brought them to the bodies of those
they had known alive and well the day before.
These they drew up the sand for burial later. Meanwhile the orders
were to save everything they could lay hands on. Where everything had
been taken, the smallest find was of value.
Fruits and shrubs especially Blair commended to their attention, and he
had a couple of dozen paw-paw trees and several rows of bananas planted
before sunset.
Out of the piles of timber they secured, Cathie and Pym built lean-to
shelters among the rocks sufficient for the whole party. With the
coco-nuts and broken fruit, and the bodies of several pigs and goats,
they had food for several days, if only they could keep it in eatable
condition. By the time it was finished they would know more about
their actual circumstances.
Jean informed her husband that Nai had an arm and leg broken, and he at
once sought out slips of wood and strips of garments, and put the
broken limbs into splints.
Ha'o, after eating, lay thoughtful for a time, and then went down to
assist the salvage party. He dragged and carried in silence for some
time, but finally gave voice to his thoughts.
"Kenni, why has this come upon us?"
"You have had storms before, Ha'o."
"But never a storm like this one, with whirling devils and waves like
rushing mountains."
"I have heard of both before in other places, but I never saw them
myself till now."
"Was it your God sent them, Kenni?"
"Only in the same way that He sends everything, Ha'o--light and wind
and rain."
"Why did He send this when we were doing our best to please Him?"
"It came in the ordinary way of things. It was just a bigger storm
than usual."
"We never had it like this before," said Ha'o, sticking stubbornly to
his point. "My people are saying it is your God sent it. If He is
that kind of a god we don't want Him."
"How do you train your young men, Ha'o? By treating them softly? By
petting them, and giving them all things easy and pleasant?"
"Nay, we toughen them, so that they may endure."
"Exactly! Do you think that God knows less than you? He also wants
men who can endure even when the fight goes against them."
That seemed to strike him. He went on stolidly hauling and carrying,
and at last said, bitterly--
"If He had left my people alive, Kenni, and not broken Nai, I would
have thought better of Him."
"Let us be grateful for what is left, my friend. Nai will get better.
Many of our people are dead, but more are left than we think, perhaps."
But Ha'o shook his head gloomily, and went on hauling and carrying, and
said no more.