SALT OF THE EARTH
The effect of the great wave in the Valley had been extraordinary.
When last they were there the whole place was a tangle of luxuriant
undergrowth, ferns, mosses, lichens, pandanus, hibiscus, paw-paws, with
stately palms waving gracefully above.
Now the bed of the Valley was bare. The growths and the undergrowths
had been torn off and swept away, and the newcomers were led
wonderingly through the uncovered ruins of the city built by the men
who set up the stone gods--along a wide street paved with stone blocks,
which ran up the middle of the Valley with the stream flowing through
it; past the foundations of great buildings; into an immense square
where the denudation had been less complete. A certain amount of mud
had silted down again on to the ruins. Nature was already at work
covering up the scar of her latest wound. And the great stone gods sat
gazing expectantly out to sea, as they had gazed when the city below
still teemed with busy life; as they had gazed through all the long
years since, while the ruins of the city slowly disappeared beneath the
touch of the healing hand.
The first party had found strange quarters in the uncovered basement of
a building, which, from its size, had probably been a temple. It was a
great quadrangle, and the head of the wide roadway that led from the
sea ran right into it, and ended there. The upper end of the enclosure
rose ten feet or more above the level, and was composed of great
chiselled blocks of stone, and in this were cavernous square openings,
the entrances of which now served as houses for these houseless
strangers. They had appropriated four adjacent holes, and had made
themselves as comfortable as circumstances permitted.
The whole place had been covered in with wild growth, but the great
wave foaming up the valley had swept it all bare. The apartments were
not uncomfortable except in one respect. They ran so far back into the
hillside that the ends of them had not yet been discovered. "And,"
said Aunt Jannet, peering into the shadows which the firelight
quickened into ghostly life, "I'm always expecting something will come
out, and either frighten us to death or eat us alive."
Ha'o stood it for one night, with crumpled face and quick-glancing
eyes, but next day he carried up some boards from the beach, and built
a tiny lean-to outside for himself and Nai, and they found life more
tolerable.
Nothing ever came out of those mysterious passages for their undoing.
What dark uses they may have served in the bygone times they could only
surmise. One passage they followed till it issued in the cliffs behind
the stone gods. The others ran straight into the heart of the
mountain, with cross cuts leading round towards the city, and the uses
they might have been put to in the hands of a priestly oligarchy were
apparent.
Captain Pym was fired with thoughts of hidden treasure, and spent many
odd hours searching for it. Blair laughed at the idea, and begged him
to keep it to himself, lest the men should catch the infection, and
waste on it valuable time which might be used to much better advantage.
"Treasure is unlikely," he said. "If, as we suppose, these pioneers
were accidentally blown across, or fled for reasons, they would not be
likely to bring much with them."
"All the same, they built mightily," argued Pym, and went on with his
search. All that he ever found, however, was a few flat beaten plates
of gold, and some golden ornaments, of no great value save as
curiosities.
Captain Cathie reported a fair amount of fruit and palms still standing
on the hillsides, and pigs and goats enough to re-stock the island, in
time and with protection. Most of the other animals had disappeared
completely.
"I'll take the men back to-morrow over the hill," said Cathie, in
excellent spirits at the prospect of the opening door, "and we'll bring
back another raft of timber. With the tools you've got we can make a
start anyway, and we can fish up more by degrees. There's timber
enough in the lagoon to build a new schooner."
"Build us something that will float as far as the Marquesas or
Paumotus, and we'll soon have a new schooner, captain. But the first
thing I want is to get to Kanele and Anape to see how Evans and Stuart
have fared. If they came through pretty well we can get fresh stock
from them, both animals and plants."
"I've got a lot of paw-paws for you on the beach, and some bananas and
plantains. Where will you plant, Mr. Blair?"
"For the present in the mud of the old fields. It'll make splendid
growing ground. Later on, when we rebuild, we must get higher up.
We're not likely to have another deluge just yet, but what has been may
be, and we must take all precautions. When your boat is ready, and
we've had a trip round the islands, my idea is for you to run across to
the Marquesas and buy a schooner there, if you can lay hands on one,
and send her back by Gregor for our use while you're away. Then you go
on to Sydney and buy a new _Torch_ and everything we need, Long Tom,
Winchesters and all"--with a quizzical glance at Pym. "You know just
what we want, and you can have all the money you require."
Captain Pym listened with surprise. His ideas of missionaries were
crystallising rapidly from the solution of scepticism into concrete
beliefs and admirations. He was not a man given to admiration of other
men, but he recognised in Kenneth Blair a master mind and an
indomitable spirit. He said little but thought much.
Every one was at work soon after daylight. Cathie produced drowned
meat from an adjacent passage way, which he used as cold storage. Jean
and Aunt Jannet prepared the morning meal. Blair had planted two rows
of paw-paws and a number of bananas before breakfast, and Ha'o had
built his lean-to for Nai and brought in some fruit.
Then Cathie built a small raft, and in due course Aunt Jannet Harvey
was seated on it with many startled exclamations, and wafted herself
uncouthly out into the lagoon. She was provided with two fishing lines
and a supply of bait, and a rope to the shore lest she should disappear
entirely from human ken, and she had instructions to catch all the fish
she could for the amplification of the larder.
And Blair, when he had made sure of her safety, and turned to go up the
valley to cross the hills, could hardly contain himself at sight of her
face, in which determination to catch struggled desperately with horror
at thought of pulling the hooks out of what she caught.
"This is a change from Kensington, Aunt Jannet, isn't it? You're quite
sure you won't tumble overboard?" had been his jovial parting word.
"I'll t--try not, Kenneth. D--do you think it hurts them much to have
the hooks pulled out?"
"If you leave them for a few minutes they'll die quite comfortably.
Then it won't hurt them. Anyway, you see we need them."
So Aunt Jannet pursed her lips valiantly, and cast in the lines he had
baited for her, and watched him and Captain Cathie with one eye, while
the other waited on her lines in fear and expectation.
They waved her an adieu at the turn of the valley, and in her attempt
to reply to it she frightened away a swarm of eager nibblers and nearly
fell overboard herself.
"Yes," she said to herself, "it's a great change from Kensington. But
if that child Jean can stand it, I can. And she seems as happy as a
lark. That's partly Kenni-Kenni, of course. Oh dear, I've caught
something! Whatever am I to do now?"
She looked wildly round for assistance, but the men were climbing the
hill, laden with provisions for the brown folk. So she tightened her
lips and hauled in her line, and at last drew her first fish on to the
raft. And then, after a pitiful look at its changing colours, she
turned her head away as far as she could, suppressed a strong
inclination to throw her victim back into the water, and waited for the
poor thing to die comfortably.
When Jean and Kenni-Kenni came down to inquire how she was getting on,
she was quite herself again.
"I've got a dozen or so," she cried. "I hope they are all fit to eat.
It's really quite interesting when you get used to it. If you like to
try your hand at it, Jean, haul me in and I'll take care of Kenni-Kenni
for a bit."
The men were back before nightfall, very tired, but rich in timber, and
in high spirits at the recovery of more tools, and all with appetites
that disposed of Aunt Jannet's fish in a very much shorter time than it
had taken that good lady to catch them.
Next day they laid the keel of their forlorn hope, and when that
ceremony was over, Blair and Ha'o started off again across the hills to
the old village, to endeavour to get the brown men to make a start on
their own buildings and plantings. Characteristically, they were
inclined to lie down under misfortune and let things take their chance,
and Blair, characteristically also, stated his intention of stopping
there till they got to work. He exhorted them to better heart both by
word and example, and Ha'o lent the weight of his authority, and, where
that failed, added the still weightier impulsion of physical force.
Authority weakens under disaster, but a bold heart and a heavy hand are
strong arguments, and, disaster or no disaster, Ha'o had no intention
of abating one jot of his seigneurial rights. He was chief still and
he let them feel it.
"What is the good of planting?" said the brown men. "We shall be dead
before the fruit comes."
"Oh no, you won't!" said Blair cheerfully. "There is fruit in the
Valley and fruit on the other side of One-Tree Pass, but in future
you'll have to go and get it for yourselves, and you can have all the
fish you want for the catching."
"But we don't care for fish every day."
"There are many things I don't care for myself, my sons, but when I
can't do better I put up with them. You must learn to be men."
The actively mutinous spirit, which the opportunity of the day after
the storm had kindled in them, had passed with the passing of that
which had excited it. It had vanished in the smoke of the funeral
pyre, and Blair was grateful, for things might have been very
different. Instead of fighting the lethargy of despair they might have
had to defend themselves against its fury, and he was well content.
He tried hard to get them to come over into the Valley, but that they
would not do. They would come to the hill top for such fruits as might
be brought there for them, and they would go over One-Tree Pass, but
into the valley of the stone gods not one of them would set so much as
a toe, and Ha'o himself could not make them.
With all hands working heartily and at high pressure,--from Captain
Pym, who dropped the last remnants of his starch in the process, to
Aunt Jannet who, in the intervals of her other duties, picked oakum as
if she had been undergoing a term of imprisonment,--the boat building
made famous progress, and four weeks from the day the keel was laid the
Kenni-Kenni was launched--prevailed upon, at all events, and apparently
much against her will, to quit mother earth and take to the water. And
if she looked, as Captain Cathie admitted, something of a cross between
a washtub and a patchwork quilt, she was undoubtedly built strong and
would stand a good deal of knocking about. As to her sailing
qualities, they might have been better and they might have been worse,
and, as Cathie said, they had not started out to build a
cup-winner--which was perhaps just as well.
There was an old candle-nut tree in a corner at the head of the Valley,
and they set out to stain the little ship dark red with a decoction of
its bark, but as the supply ran short the result was not altogether
happy. However, she floated on an even keel and was as tight as a
drum, forty feet over all, ten feet beam, decked all over and yawl
rigged. Spars and sails they had in plenty from the treasure trove of
the beach, and Captain Cathie undertook to take her all the way to
Sydney if need be. He also expressed the explicit intention of
overhauling the first ship or island he came across for a supply of
paint, all of one colour, sufficient to go all round her.
Nevertheless, and in spite of her lack in such minor details, their
hearts were very full as they lined the beach, with their eyes on the
little ship, and in their ears Blair's voice ringing strong and true
with gratitude and hope, as he prayed God's blessing on the
accomplished work of their hands, and on the work she had still to do.
When the ceremony was over, and Blair happened to be standing for a
moment alone, Captain Pym came up to him and wrung his hand heartily.
"Blair," he said, and his old shipmates on the _Bonita_ would not have
known either his voice or the look on his face, "I'm glad I came here.
But for my poor fellows who are gone, I could almost say I'm glad I was
wrecked here. I have learnt a great deal," and Blair answered him with
a cordial grip and a beaming smile.
On the morrow, Blair and Pym and Cathie and a crew of six, three
Torches, and three Bonitas, took leave of the rest and sailed for
Kanele.
Jean felt this parting terribly, the little ship looked so small, so
uncouth, so unequal to emergencies. But she kept a brave face, and
waved her farewells from the shore with a fervent prayer for their
safety, and then went quietly about her work, with her own Kenni-Kenni
clinging to her skirts, while his namesake carried his father away
across the seas to possible dangers, to possible---- Nay, she would
have faith in that protecting hand which had brought them through so
many difficulties before, and to fear was to doubt.
[Illustration: Waved her farewells from the shore.]
So her heart sang valiantly, "God's in His heaven, all's well!" and
after that first hour her face was calm and hopeful, and she was
counting the days to their return.
The secret passages of the old temple made capital homes. The men had
snatched odd moments from their other labours, and material from their
abundant stores, and had boarded off the interior darknesses and
ghostly possibilities, and had knocked together some rough tables and
stools. They had food enough, though they were all tiring somewhat of
fish, fish again, and always fish. Blair had laughingly assured them
it was good for the brain, and Aunt Jannet asserted that she was
getting so brainy that, unless a change of diet came soon, she would
not answer for consequences. But in reality there was very little to
complain of. The health of the whole party had been excellent, and
Blair's high spirits had permitted no one else's to droop for a moment.
Jean had more than once suggested their return to their work among the
brown men and women. But, in view of this first trip round the
islands, to which he had been looking forward with much eagerness,
Blair judged it best for them to remain where they were.
"As soon as we're rid of Captain Pym and Cathie and the rest, we'll go
back and tackle the work," he said. "The brown folks are getting on
all right in the meantime. They're actually beginning to learn how to
help themselves."
"Jean, my dear," said Aunt Jannet, one day after the _Kenni-Kenni_
sailed, "it's just wonderful the way you stand it all."
"Stand it, Aunt Jannet? Why, what do you mean? What is there to
stand?"
"Why--heaps. Look at your dress, for instance. And when one remembers
that you've got L10,000 a year or so!--yes, I say, it's just wonderful."
"I've done my best with it, and it's very rude to comment on people's
clothes before their faces. Besides, your own is no better, and the
needle Captain Cathie made for you out of that fishbone was very much
better than mine."
"Well, well," laughed Aunt Jannet. "It wasn't your dress I was
meaning, child----"
"You're getting fish on the brain, dear. Isn't that enough to make any
woman happy?"
That, of course, was Kenni-Kenni, whose great delight it was at this
time to rush through and through the shining stream that babbled across
the temple floor, kicking up diamond showers with his pink toes and
squealing with delight as the sparkling drops played round him.
"Yes, it does one good just to look at him," said Aunt Jannet. "But I
do wish you could get him to wear some more clothes. He's----"
"Clothes!" said Jean scornfully. "What does a boy like that want with
clothes?"
Kenni-Kenni was developing rapidly. He had one day thrown a stone at a
little black pig which sought his acquaintance. And when the piglet
fled Kenni-Kenni came suddenly to the knowledge of his prowess and
thereafter became a mighty hunter of small pigs whenever chance offered.
He had also, after considerable hesitation, thrown a pebble at one of
the stone gods, of which he had hither-to stood in much awe. And as no
ill results followed he had become bold and warlike, and thought
nothing of challenging the bearded sailormen to mortal combat. And
they delighted in him exceedingly, and had promised to teach him to box
and to swim as soon as the boat was finished.
Nai was getting about again and would soon be as well as ever. The
broken arm and leg were mending, and never was invalid more tenderly
ministered to, or more grateful to her nurses. It was upon Ha'o that
the catastrophe seemed to have had the most lasting effect, and that,
after all, was perhaps not unnatural. The country was his, and the
people were his, and they had suffered terribly. His faith in Kenneth
Blair underwent no visible eclipse, however, and he laboured at the
boat-building with the rest.
The days passed very slowly for those left behind, and when the limit
allowed for the voyage was exceeded by one day, two days, three days,
Jean's anxieties began to show head again.
"Don't worry, child!" said Aunt Jannet. "That boat has probably proved
even slower than they expected. My only wonder was that it would sail
at all. Not one of them ever built a boat in his life before, and I'm
sure it looked a deal more like a big washtub with a cover on than a
ship. They'll turn up all right in time. If they'd been meant to be
drowned they'd every chance when all the rest were."
And surely enough, on the eleventh day, the _Kenni-Kenni_ came wafting
slowly down the lagoon, having come in by the upper entrance and made a
short call on the brown men in the old quarters.
They were all well and brought a full cargo of news and stock and
plants, and Blair himself was in the highest of spirits and hungry to
get to work on the new plantations.
The other islands had suffered somewhat from the big wave, chiefly in
the matter of boats. The news of the dire happenings on Kapaa'a had
filled them with amazement. The Evanses and Stuarts, and all their
works and belongings, were flourishing mightily. They sent endless
condolences to Jean and Aunt Jannet and Nai and Ha'o, and had been for
embarking at once to their consolation. But as the _Kenni-Kenni_ was
to start on her longer journey as soon as she could be provisioned,
that was out of the question, as it would have been impossible for them
to get back home again.
"Yes," acknowledged Captain Cathie, in reply to a pointed question of
Aunt Jannet's respecting the sailorly qualities of his boat, "I'm bound
to say she's not exactly what you might call a fast boat. But she's
sure, and if you give her wind enough and time enough she gets there
all right."
They had a busy three days preparing for the long voyage. Captain
Cathie reckoned they might make the Marquesas in twelve days with good
weather. So they made provision for twenty, out of the stores they had
brought from Kanele and Anape. He had borrowed Evans's pocket compass,
but vowed he could find his way without it.
"If we go west with a touch of south in it we're bound to hit either
the Marquesas or Paumotus," he said cheerfully. "You may look for that
schooner here in six weeks from to-day--that is, if there's one to be
had, and if I can find a trader who'll negotiate the drafts."
Jean had been racking her brains as to how they were to get hold of
some of the money waiting to be used in London, for all her papers had
disappeared in the deluge. But Blair had thought the whole matter out,
and had brought over paper and pens and a bottle of ink. And among
them they drew up a number of documents which, with Captain Pym's
verification of the circumstances, would, they thought, procure for
Captain Cathie all the money he needed as soon as he reached Sydney,
and possibly before that.
And a very busy man would Captain Cathie be, if ever he reached Sydney.
For he had to buy a new _Torch_ and a multitudinous cargo; engage new
hands--to a limited extent, however, this time, for henceforth they
hoped to utilise largely the services of the brown men; and last, but
by no means least, to provide, so far as money could do it, adequate
recompense for the families of the men whose lives had been given in
the service of the Dark Islands. So far as forethought and hard
thinking could do it they had attended to everything, and Captain
Cathie's programme might have daunted a less valiant man.
And so, very early one morning, before the sun had topped the hills
behind, though the outer sea danced and sparkled merrily, there was a
great leave-taking on the white beach at the mouth of the valley where
the old village used to stand. The _Kenni-Kenni_ had brought them all
up the day before, with all their belongings, in a couple of trips, and
they were among their own brown people once more, ready and anxious to
be at their work again.
The last hearty handshakes had been given and the last words said. The
shallop they had built for use with the larger boat, and which was to
be left behind, had just put Captain Pym and Captain Cathie on board.
The sails ran up, and the _Kenni-Kenni's_ nose turned determinedly for
the passage and the long journey westward.
Kenneth Blair and his wife Jean, and Aunt Jannet Harvey stood in the
centre of a line of brown folk and waved the farewells and benedictions
their voices could no longer carry, and little Kenni-Kenni waved and
shouted because the others did. His namesake bobbed and rose to the
swell of the passage and was lost to sight behind the spouting jets of
the reef.
The line of watchers on the beach climbed the hillside behind them, and
watched and waved till the white sails alone were visible, till they
became a tiny white speck, till they disappeared.
Then Kenneth Blair kissed his wife very tenderly, for his heart was
very full. And he turned to the brown folk, and said--
"We will ask God's blessing on their journeying, for it means much to
us all, and then we will get to our work. Let us pray!" and the brown
folk bent their heads.
On the little ship, Captain Cathie had given the helm to Jim Gregor,
and stood looking back at the peaks of the little land where he had
spent so many full days.
And to him came Captain Pym, and said--
"That is one of the finest men I ever met, Captain Cathie. I count it
a privilege to have known him. He will do great things yet."
"Yes, sir," said Cathie quietly, for the parting was still on him.
"The brown men call him White Fire, and so he is, and his wife's
another, and so is Mrs. Harvey. Salt of the earth, sir, every one of
them. If there were more like them the world would be a sight better
to live in than it is."
The Gresham Press,
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED,
WOKING AND LONDON.