"Awfully sorry, old man, but that's the size of it," says Case.

"In short, you're afraid?" says I.

"In short, I'm afraid," says he.

"And I'm still to be tabooed for nothing?" I asked.

"I tell you you're not tabooed," said he. "The Kanakas won't go near

you, that's all. And who's to make 'em? We traders have a lot of gall, I

must say; we make these poor Kanakas take back their laws, and take up

their taboos, and that whenever it happens to suit us. But you don't

mean to say you expect a law-obliging people to deal in your store

whether they want to or not? You don't mean to tell me you've got the

gall for that? And if you had, it would be a queer thing to propose to

me. I would just like to point out to you, Wiltshire, that I'm a trader

myself."

"I don't think I would talk of gall if I was you," said I. "Here's about

what it comes to, as well as I can make out: None of the people are to

trade with me, and they're all to trade with you. You're to have the

copra, and I'm to go to the devil and shake myself. And I don't know any

native, and you're the only man here worth mention that speaks English,

and you have the gall to up and hint to me my life's in danger, and all

you've got to tell me is you don't know why!"

"Well, it _is_ all I have to tell you," said he. "I don't know--I wish I

did."

"And so you turn your back and leave me to myself. Is that the

position?" says I.

"If you like to put it nasty," says he. "I don't put it so. I say

merely, 'I'm going to keep clear of you; or, if I don't, I'll get in

danger for myself.'"

"Well," says I, "you're a nice kind of a white man!"

"O, I understand; you're riled," said he. "I would be, myself. I can

make excuses."

"All right," I said, "go and make excuses somewhere else. Here's my way,

there's yours!"

With that we parted, and I went straight home, in a hot temper, and

found Uma trying on a lot of trade goods like a baby.

"Here," I said, "you quit that foolery! Here's a pretty mess to have

made, as if I wasn't bothered enough anyway! And I thought I told you to

get dinner!"

And then I believe I gave her a bit of the rough side of my tongue, as

she deserved. She stood up at once, like a sentry to his officer; for I

must say she was always well brought up, and had a great respect for

whites.

"And now," says I, "you belong round here, you're bound to understand

this. What am I tabooed for, anyway? Or, if I ain't tabooed, what makes

the folks afraid of me?"

She stood and looked at me with eyes like saucers.

"You no savvy?" she gasps at last.

"No," said I. "How would you expect me to? We don't have any such

craziness where I come from."

"Ese no tell you?" she asked again.

(_Ese_ was the name the natives had for Case; it may mean foreign, or

extraordinary; or it might mean a mummy apple; but most like it was only

his own name misheard and put in a Kanaka spelling.)

"Not much," said I.

"Damn Ese!" she cried.

You might think it funny to hear this Kanaka girl come out with a big

swear. No such thing. There was no swearing in her--no, nor anger; she

was beyond anger, and meant the word simple and serious. She stood there

straight as she said it. I cannot justly say that I ever saw a woman

look like that before or after, and it struck me mum. Then she made a

kind of an obeisance, but it was the proudest kind, and threw her hands

out open.

"I 'shamed," she said. "I think you savvy. Ese he tell me you savvy, he

tell me you no mind, tell me you love me too much. Taboo belong me," she

said, touching herself on the bosom, as she had done upon our

wedding-night. "Now I go 'way, taboo he go 'way too. Then you get too

much copra. You like more better, I think. _Tofa, alii_," says she in

the native--"Farewell, chief!"

"Hold on!" I cried. "Don't be in such a hurry."

She looked at me sidelong with a smile. "You see you get copra," she

said, the same as you might offer candies to a child.

"Uma," said I, "hear reason. I didn't know, and that's a fact; and Case

seems to have played it pretty mean upon the pair of us. But I do know

now, and I don't mind; I love you too much. You no go 'way, you no leave

me, I too much sorry."

"You no love me," she cried, "you talk me bad words!" And she threw

herself in a corner of the floor, and began to cry.

Well, I'm no scholar, but I wasn't born yesterday, and I thought the

worst of that trouble was over. However, there she lay--her back turned,

her face to the wall--and shook with sobbing like a little child, so

that her feet jumped with it. It's strange how it hits a man when he's

in love; for there's no use mincing things--Kanaka and all, I was in

love with her, or just as good. I tried to take her hand, but she would

none of that. "Uma," I said, "there's no sense in carrying on like this.

I want you stop here, I want my little wifie, I tell you true."

"No tell me true," she sobbed.

"All right," says I, "I'll wait till you're through with this." And I

sat right down beside her on the floor, and set to smooth her hair with

my hand. At first she wriggled away when I touched her; then she seemed

to notice me no more; then her sobs grew gradually less, and presently

stopped; and the next thing I knew, she raised her face to mine.

"You tell me true? You like me stop?" she asked.

"Uma," I said, "I would rather have you than all the copra in the South

Seas," which was a very big expression, and the strangest thing was that

I meant it.

She threw her arms about me, sprang close up, and pressed her face to

mine in the island way of kissing, so that I was all wetted with her

tears, and my heart went out to her wholly. I never had anything so near

me as this little brown bit of a girl. Many things went together, and

all helped to turn my head. She was pretty enough to eat; it seemed she

was my only friend in that queer place; I was ashamed that I had spoken

rough to her: and she was a woman, and my wife, and a kind of a baby

besides that I was sorry for; and the salt of her tears was in my mouth.

And I forgot Case and the natives; and I forgot that I knew nothing of

the story, or only remembered it to banish the remembrance; and I

forgot that I was to get no copra, and so could make no livelihood; and

I forgot my employers, and the strange kind of service I was doing them,

when I preferred my fancy to their business; and I forgot even that Uma

was no true wife of mine, but just a maid beguiled, and that in a pretty

shabby style. But that is to look too far on. I will come to that part

of it next.

It was late before we thought of getting dinner. The stove was out, and

gone stone-cold; but we fired up after a while, and cooked each a dish,

helping and hindering each other, and making a play of it like children.

I was so greedy of her nearness that I sat down to dinner with my lass

upon my knee, made sure of her with one hand, and ate with the other.

Ay, and more than that. She was the worst cook, I suppose, God made; the

things she set her hand to, it would have sickened an honest horse to

eat of; yet I made my meal that day on Uma's cookery, and can never call

to mind to have been better pleased.

I didn't pretend to myself, and I didn't pretend to her. I saw that I

was clean gone; and if she was to make a fool of me, she must. And I

suppose it was this that set her talking, for now she made sure that we

were friends. A lot she told me, sitting in my lap and eating my dish,

as I ate hers, from foolery--a lot about herself and her mother and

Case, all which would be very tedious, and fill sheets if I set it down

in Beach de Mar, but which I must give a hint of in plain English, and

one thing about myself, which had a very big effect on my concerns, as

you are soon to hear.

It seems she was born in one of the Line Islands; had been only two or

three years in these parts, where she had come with a white man, who was

married to her mother and then died; and only the one year in Falesa.

Before that they had been a good deal on the move, trekking about after

the white man, who was one of those rolling stones that keep going round

after a soft job. They talk about looking for gold at the end of a

rainbow; if a man wants an employment that'll last him till he dies, let

him start out on the soft-job hunt. There's meat and drink in it too,

and beer and skittles, for you never hear of them starving, and rarely

see them sober; and as for steady sport, cock-fighting isn't in the same

county with it. Anyway, this beachcomber carried the woman and her

daughter all over the shop, but mostly to out-of-the-way islands, where

there were no police, and he thought, perhaps, the soft job hung out.

I've my own view of this old party; but I was just as glad he had kept

Uma clear of Apia and Papeete and these flash towns. At last he struck

Fale-alii on this island, got some trade--the Lord knows how!--muddled

it all away in the usual style, and died worth next to nothing, bar a

bit of land at Falesa that he had got for a bad debt, which was what put

it in the minds of the mother and daughter to come there and live. It

seems Case encouraged them all he could, and helped to get their house

built. He was very kind those days, and gave Uma trade, and there is no

doubt he had his eye on her from the beginning. However, they had scarce

settled, when up turned a young man, a native, and wanted to marry her.

He was a small chief, and had some fine mats and old songs in his

family, and was "very pretty," Uma said; and, altogether, it was an

extraordinary match for a penniless girl and an out-islander.

At the first word of this I got downright sick with jealousy.

"And you mean to say you would have married him?" I cried.

"_Ioe_, yes," said she. "I like too much!"

"Well!" I said. "And suppose I had come round after?"

"I like you more better now," said she. "But, suppose I marry Ioane, I

one good wife. I no common Kanaka. Good girl!" says she.

Well, I had to be pleased with that; but I promise you I didn't care

about the business one little bit. And I liked the end of that yarn no

better than the beginning. For it seems this proposal of marriage was

the start of all the trouble. It seems, before that, Uma and her mother

had been looked down upon, of course, for kinless folk and

out-islanders, but nothing to hurt; and, even when Ioane came forward,

there was less trouble at first than might have been looked for. And

then, all of a sudden, about six months before my coming, Ioane backed

out and left that part of the island, and from that day to this Uma and

her mother had found themselves alone. None called at their house, none

spoke to them on the roads. If they went to church, the other women drew

their mats away and left them in a clear place by themselves. It was a

regular excommunication, like what you read of in the Middle Ages, and

the cause or sense of it beyond guessing. It was some _tala pepelo_, Uma

said, some lie, some calumny; and all she knew of it was that the girls

who had been jealous of her luck with Ioane used to twit her with his

desertion, and cry out, when they met her alone in the woods, that she

would never be married. "They tell me no man he marry me. He too much

'fraid," she said.

The only soul that came about them after this desertion was Master Case.

Even he was chary of showing himself, and turned up mostly by night; and

pretty soon he began to table his cards and make up to Uma. I was still

sore about Ioane, and when Case turned up in the same line of business I

cut up downright rough.

"Well," I said, sneering, "and I suppose you thought Case 'very pretty'

and 'liked too much'?"

"Now you talk silly," said she. "White man, he come here, I marry him

all-e-same Kanaka; very well, then he marry me all-e-same white woman.

Suppose he no marry, he go 'way, woman he stop. All-e-same thief, empty

hand, Tonga-heart--no can love! Now you come marry me. You big

heart--you no 'shamed island-girl. That thing I love you for too much. I

proud."

I don't know that ever I felt sicker all the days of my life. I laid

down my fork, and I put away "the island-girl"; I didn't seem somehow to

have any use for either, and I went and walked up and down in the house,

and Uma followed me with her eyes, for she was troubled, and small

wonder! But troubled was no word for it with me. I so wanted, and so

feared, to make a clean breast of the sweep that I had been.

And just then there came a sound of singing out of the sea; it sprang up

suddenly clear and near, as the boat turned the headland, and Uma,

running to the window, cried out it was "Misi" come upon his rounds.

I thought it was a strange thing I should be glad to have a missionary;

but, if it was strange, it was still true.

"Uma," said I, "you stop here in this room, and don't budge a foot out

of it till I come back."

CHAPTER III

THE MISSIONARY

As I came out on the verandah, the mission-boat was shooting for the

mouth of the river. She was a long whale-boat painted white; a bit of an

awning astern; a native pastor crouched on the wedge of the poop,

steering; some four-and-twenty paddles flashing and dipping, true to the

boat-song; and the missionary under the awning, in his white clothes,

reading in a book, and set him up! It was pretty to see and hear;

there's no smarter sight in the islands than a missionary boat with a

good crew and a good pipe to them; and I considered it for half a

minute, with a bit of envy perhaps, and then strolled down towards the

river.

From the opposite side there was another man aiming for the same place,

but he ran and got there first. It was Case; doubtless his idea was to

keep me apart from the missionary, who might serve me as interpreter;

but my mind was upon other things. I was thinking how he had jockeyed us

about the marriage, and tried his hand on Uma before, and at the sight

of him rage flew into my nostrils.

"Get out of that, you low swindling thief!" I cried.

"What's that you say?" says he.

I gave him the word again, and rammed it down with a good oath. "And if

ever I catch you within six fathoms of my house," I cried, "I'll clap a

bullet in your measly carcase."

"You must do as you like about your house," said he, "where I told you

I have no thought of going; but this is a public place."

"It's a place where I have private business," said I. "I have no idea of

a hound like you eavesdropping, and I give you notice to clear out."

"I don't take it, though," says Case.

"I'll show you, then," said I.

"We'll have to see about that," said he.

He was quick with his hands, but he had neither the height nor the

weight, being a flimsy creature alongside a man like me, and, besides, I

was blazing to that height of wrath that I could have bit into a chisel.

I gave him first the one and then the other, so that I could hear his

head rattle and crack, and he went down straight.

"Have you had enough?" cried I. But he only looked up white and blank,

and the blood spread upon his face like wine upon a napkin. "Have you

had enough?" I cried again. "Speak up, and don't lie malingering there,

or I'll take my feet to you."

He sat up at that, and held his head--by the look of him you could see

it was spinning--and the blood poured on his pyjamas.

"I've had enough for this time," says he, and he got up staggering, and

went off by the way that he had come.

The boat was close in; I saw the missionary had laid his book to one

side, and I smiled to myself. "He'll know I'm a man, anyway," thinks I.

This was the first time, in all my years in the Pacific, I had ever

exchanged two words with any missionary, let alone asked one for a

favour. I didn't like the lot--no trader does; they look down upon us,

and make no concealment; and, besides, they're partly Kanakaised, and

suck up with natives instead of with other white men like themselves. I

had on a rig of clean striped pyjamas--for, of course, I had dressed

decent to go before the chiefs; but when I saw the missionary step out

of this boat in the regular uniform, white duck clothes, pith helmet,

white shirt and tie, and yellow boots to his feet, I could have bunged

stones at him. As he came nearer, queering me pretty curious (because of

the fight, I suppose), I saw he looked mortal sick, for the truth was he

had a fever on, and had just had a chill in the boat.

"Mr. Tarleton, I believe?" says I, for I had got his name.

"And you, I suppose, are the new trader?" says he.

"I want to tell you first that I don't hold with missions," I went on,

"and that I think you and the likes of you do a sight of harm, filling

up the natives with old wives' tales and bumptiousness."

"You are perfectly entitled to your opinions," says he, looking a bit

ugly, "but I have no call to hear them."

"It so happens that you've got to hear them," I said. "I'm no

missionary, nor missionary lover; I'm no Kanaka, nor favourer of

Kanakas--I'm just a trader; I'm just a common, low-down, God-damned

white man and British subject, the sort you would like to wipe your

boots on. I hope that's plain!"

"Yes, my man," said he. "It's more plain than creditable. When you are

sober, you'll be sorry for this."

He tried to pass on, but I stopped him with my hand. The Kanakas were

beginning to growl. Guess they didn't like my tone, for I spoke to that

man as free as I would to you.

"Now, you can't say I've deceived you," said I, "and I can go on. I want

a service--I want two services, in fact--and, if you care to give me

them, I'll perhaps take more stock in what you call your Christianity."

He was silent for a moment. Then he smiled. "You are rather a strange

sort of man," says he.

"I'm the sort of man God made me," says I. "I don't set up to be a

gentleman," I said.

"I am not quite so sure," said he. "And what can I do for you, Mr.----?"

"Wiltshire," I says, "though I'm mostly called Welsher; but Wiltshire

is the way it's spelt, if the people on the beach could only get their

tongues about it. And what do I want? Well, I'll tell you the first

thing. I'm what you call a sinner--what I call a sweep--and I want you

to help me make it up to a person I've deceived."

He turned and spoke to his crew in the native. "And now I am at your

service," said he, "but only for the time my crew are dining. I must be

much farther down the coast before night. I was delayed at Papa-malulu

till this morning, and I have an engagement in Fale-alii to-morrow

night."

I led the way to my house in silence, and rather pleased with myself for

the way I had managed the talk, for I like a man to keep his

self-respect.

"I was sorry to see you fighting," says he.

"O, that's part of the yarn I want to tell you," I said. "That's service

number two. After you've heard it you'll let me know whether you're

sorry or not."

We walked right in through the store, and I was surprised to find Uma

had cleared away the dinner things. This was so unlike her ways that I

saw she had done it out of gratitude, and liked her the better. She and

Mr. Tarleton called each other by name, and he was very civil to her

seemingly. But I thought little of that; they can always find civility

for a Kanaka, it's us white men they lord it over. Besides, I didn't

want much Tarleton just then. I was going to do my pitch.

"Uma," said I, "give us your marriage certificate." She looked put out.

"Come," said I, "you can trust me. Hand it up."

She had it about her person, as usual; I believe she thought it was a

pass to heaven, and if she died without having it handy she would go to

hell. I couldn't see where she put it the first time, I couldn't see now

where she took it from; it seemed to jump into her hand like that

Blavatsky business in the papers. But it's the same way with all island

women, and I guess they're taught it when young.

"Now," said I, with the certificate in my hand, "I was married to this

girl by Black Jack the negro. The certificate was wrote by Case, and

it's a dandy piece of literature, I promise you. Since then I've found

that there's a kind of cry in the place against this wife of mine, and

so long as I keep her I cannot trade. Now, what would any man do in my

place, if he was a man?" I said. "The first thing he would do is this, I

guess." And I took and tore up the certificate and bunged the pieces on

the floor.

"_Aue_!"[3] cried Uma, and began to clap her hands; but I caught one of

them in mine.

"And the second thing that he would do," said I, "if he was what I would

call a man and you would call a man, Mr. Tarleton, is to bring the girl

right before you or any other missionary, and to up and say: 'I was

wrong married to this wife of mine, but I think a heap of her, and now I

want to be married to her right.' Fire away, Mr. Tarleton. And I guess

you'd better do it in native; it'll please the old lady," I said, giving

her the proper name of a man's wife upon the spot.

So we had in two of the crew for to witness, and were spliced in our own

house; and the parson prayed a good bit, I must say--but not so long as

some--and shook hands with the pair of us.

"Mr. Wiltshire," he says, when he had made out the lines and packed off

the witnesses, "I have to thank you for a very lively pleasure. I have

rarely performed the marriage ceremony with more grateful emotions."

That was what you would call talking. He was going on, besides, with

more of it, and I was ready for as much taffy as he had in stock, for I

felt good. But Uma had been taken up with something half through the

marriage, and cut straight in.

"How your hand he get hurt?" she asked.

"You ask Case's head, old lady," says I.

She jumped with joy, and sang out.

"You haven't made much of a Christian of this one," says I to Mr.

Tarleton.

"We didn't think her one of our worst," says he, "when she was at

Fale-alii; and if Uma bears malice I shall be tempted to fancy she has

good cause."

"Well, there we are at service number two," said I. "I want to tell you

our yarn, and see if you can let a little daylight in."

"Is it long?" he asked.

"Yes," I cried; "it's a goodish bit of a yarn!"

"Well, I'll give you all the time I can spare," says he, looking at his

watch. "But I must tell you fairly, I haven't eaten since five this

morning, and, unless you can let me have something, I am not likely to

eat again before seven or eight to-night."

"By God, we'll give you dinner!" I cried.

I was a little caught up at my swearing, just when all was going

straight; and so was the missionary, I suppose, but he made believe to

look out of the window, and thanked us.

So we ran him up a bit of a meal. I was bound to let the old lady have a

hand in it, to show off, so I deputised her to brew the tea. I don't

think I ever met such tea as she turned out. But that was not the worst,

for she got round with the salt-box, which she considered an extra

European touch, and turned my stew into sea-water. Altogether, Mr.

Tarleton had a devil of a dinner of it; but he had plenty entertainment

by the way, for all the while that we were cooking, and afterwards, when

he was making believe to eat, I kept posting him up on Master Case and

the beach of Falesa, and he putting questions that showed he was

following close.

"Well," said he at last, "I am afraid you have a dangerous enemy. This

man Case is very clever, and seems really wicked. I must tell you I have

had my eye on him for nearly a year, and have rather had the worst of

our encounters. About the time when the last representative of your

firm ran so suddenly away, I had a letter from Namu, the native pastor,

begging me to come to Falesa at my earliest convenience, as his flock

were all 'adopting Catholic practices.' I had great confidence in Namu;

I fear it only shows how easily we are deceived. No one could hear him

preach and not be persuaded he was a man of extraordinary parts. All our

islanders easily acquire a kind of eloquence, and can roll out and

illustrate, with a great deal of vigour and fancy, second-hand sermons;

but Namu's sermons are his own, and I cannot deny that I have found them

means of grace. Moreover, he has a keen curiosity in secular things,

does not fear work, is clever at carpentering, and has made himself so

much respected among the neighbouring pastors that we call him, in a

jest which is half serious, the Bishop of the East. In short, I was

proud of the man; all the more puzzled by his letter, and took an

occasion to come this way. The morning before my arrival, Vigours had

been sent on board the _Lion_, and Namu was perfectly at his ease,

apparently ashamed of his letter, and quite unwilling to explain it.

This, of course, I could not allow, and he ended by confessing that he

had been much concerned to find his people using the sign of the cross,

but since he had learned the explanation his mind was satisfied. For

Vigours had the Evil Eye, a common thing in a country of Europe called

Italy, where men were often struck dead by that kind of devil, and it

appeared the sign of the cross was a charm against its power.

"'And I explain it, Misi,' said Namu, 'in this way: The country in

Europe is a Popey country, and the devil of the Evil Eye may be a

Catholic devil, or, at least, used to Catholic ways. So then I reasoned

thus: If this sign of the cross were used in a Popey manner it would be

sinful, but when it is used only to protect men from a devil, which is a

thing harmless in itself, the sign too must be, as a bottle is neither

good nor bad, harmless. For the sign is neither good nor bad. But if the

bottle be full of gin, the gin is bad; and if the sign be made in

idolatry bad, so is the idolatry.' And, very like a native pastor, he

had a text apposite about the casting out of devils.

"'And who has been telling you about the Evil Eye?' I asked.

"He admitted it was Case. Now, I am afraid you will think me very

narrow, Mr. Wiltshire, but I must tell you I was displeased, and cannot

think a trader at all a good man to advise or have an influence upon my

pastors. And, besides, there had been some flying talk in the country of

old Adams and his being poisoned, to which I had paid no great heed; but

it came back to me at the moment.

"'And is this Case a man of a sanctified life?' I asked.

"He admitted he was not; for, though he did not drink, he was profligate

with women, and had no religion.

"'Then,' said I, 'I think the less you have to do with him the better.'

"But it is not easy to have the last word with a man like Namu. He was

ready in a moment with an illustration. 'Misi,' said he, 'you have told

me there were wise men, not pastors, not even holy, who knew many things

useful to be taught--about trees, for instance, and beasts, and to print

books, and about the stones that are burned to make knives of. Such men

teach you in your college, and you learn from them, but take care not to

learn to be unholy. Misi, Case is my college.'

"I knew not what to say. Mr. Vigours had evidently been driven out of

Falesa by the machinations of Case, and with something not very unlike

the collusion of my pastor. I called to mind it was Namu who had

reassured me about Adams and traced the rumour to the ill-will of the

priest. And I saw I must inform myself more thoroughly from an impartial

source. There is an old rascal of a chief here, Faiaso, whom I daresay

you saw to-day at the council; he has been all his life turbulent and

sly, a great fomenter of rebellions, and a thorn in the side of the

mission and the island. For all that he is very shrewd, and, except in

politics or about his own misdemeanours, a teller of the truth. I went

to his house, told him what I had heard, and besought him to be frank. I

do not think I had ever a more painful interview. Perhaps you will

understand me, Mr. Wiltshire, if I tell you that I am perfectly serious

in these old wives' tales with which you reproached me, and as anxious

to do well for these islands as you can be to please and to protect your

pretty wife. And you are to remember that I thought Namu a paragon, and

was proud of the man as one of the first ripe fruits of the mission. And

now I was informed that he had fallen in a sort of dependence upon Case.

The beginning of it was not corrupt; it began, doubtless, in fear and

respect, produced by trickery and pretence; but I was shocked to find

that another element had been lately added, that Namu helped himself in

the store, and was believed to be deep in Case's debt. Whatever the

trader said, that Namu believed with trembling. He was not alone in

this; many in the village lived in a similar subjection; but Namu's case

was the most influential, it was through Namu Case had wrought most

evil; and with a certain following among the chiefs, and the pastor in

his pocket, the man was as good as master of the village. You know

something of Vigours and Adams, but perhaps you have never heard of old

Underhill, Adams' predecessor. He was a quiet, mild old fellow, I

remember, and we were told he had died suddenly: white men die very

suddenly in Falesa. The truth, as I now heard it, made my blood run

cold. It seems he was struck with a general palsy, all of him dead but

one eye, which he continually winked. Word was started that the helpless

old man was now a devil, and this vile fellow Case worked upon the

natives' fears, which he professed to share, and pretended he durst not

go into the house alone. At last a grave was dug, and the living body

buried at the far end of the village. Namu, my pastor, whom I had helped

to educate, offered up a prayer at the hateful scene.

"I felt myself in a very difficult position. Perhaps it was my duty to

have denounced Namu and had him deposed. Perhaps I think so now, but at

the time it seemed less clear. He had a great influence, it might prove

greater than mine. The natives are prone to superstition; perhaps by

stirring them up I might but ingrain and spread these dangerous fancies.

And Namu besides, apart from this novel and accursed influence, was a

good pastor, an able man, and spiritually minded. Where should I look

for a better? How was I to find as good? At that moment, with Namu's

failure fresh in my view, the work of my life appeared a mockery; hope

was dead in me. I would rather repair such tools as I had than go abroad

in quest of others that must certainly prove worse; and a scandal is, at

the best, a thing to be avoided when humanly possible. Right or wrong,

then, I determined on a quiet course. All that night I denounced and

reasoned with the erring pastor, twitted him with his ignorance and want

of faith, twitted him with his wretched attitude, making clean the

outside of the cup and platter, callously helping at a murder,

childishly flying in excitement about a few childish, unnecessary, and

inconvenient gestures; and long before day I had him on his knees and

bathed in the tears of what seemed a genuine repentance. On Sunday I

took the pulpit in the morning, and preached from First Kings,

nineteenth, on the fire, the earthquake, and the voice, distinguishing

the true spiritual power, and referring with such plainness as I dared

to recent events in Falesa. The effect produced was great, and it was

much increased when Namu rose in his turn and confessed that he had been

wanting in faith and conduct, and was convinced of sin. So far, then,

all was well; but there was one unfortunate circumstance. It was nearing

the time of our 'May' in the island, when the native contributions to

the missions are received; it fell in my duty to make a notification on

the subject, and this gave my enemy his chance, by which he was not slow

to profit.

"News of the whole proceedings must have been carried to Case as soon

as church was over, and the same afternoon he made an occasion to meet

me in the midst of the village. He came up with so much intentness and

animosity that I felt it would be damaging to avoid him.

"'So,' says he, in native, 'here is the holy man. He has been preaching

against me, but that was not in his heart. He has been preaching upon

the love of God; but that was not in his heart, it was between his

teeth. Will you know what was in his heart?' cries he. 'I will show it

you!' And, making a snatch at my head he made believe to pluck out a

dollar, and held it in the air.

"There went that rumour through the crowd with which Polynesians receive

a prodigy. As for myself, I stood amazed. The thing was a common

conjuring trick which I have seen performed at home a score of times;

but how was I to convince the villagers of that? I wished I had learned

legerdemain instead of Hebrew, that I might have paid the fellow out

with his own coin. But there I was; I could not stand there silent, and

the best I could find to say was weak.

"'I will trouble you not to lay hands on me again,' said I.

"'I have no such thought,' said he, 'nor will I deprive you of your

dollar. Here it is,' he said, and flung it at my feet. I am told it lay

where it fell three days."

"I must say it was well played," said I.

"O! he is clever," said Mr. Tarleton, "and you can now see for yourself

how dangerous. He was a party to the horrid death of the paralytic; he

is accused of poisoning Adams; he drove Vigours out of the place by lies

that might have led to murder; and there is no question but he has now

made up his mind to rid himself of you. How he means to try we have no

guess; only be sure it's something new. There is no end to his readiness

and invention."

"He gives himself a sight of trouble," says I. "And after all, what

for?"

"Why, how many tons of copra may they make in this district?" asked the

missionary.

"I daresay as much as sixty tons," says I.

"And what is the profit to the local trader?" he asked.

"You may call it three pounds," said I.

"Then you can reckon for yourself how much he does it for," said Mr.

Tarleton. "But the more important thing is to defeat him. It is clear he

spread some report against Uma, in order to isolate and have his wicked

will of her. Failing of that, and seeing a new rival come upon the

scene, he used her in a different way. Now, the first point to find out

is about Namu. Uma, when people began to leave you and your mother

alone, what did Namu do?"

"Stop away all-e-same," says Uma.

"I fear the dog has returned to his vomit," said Mr. Tarleton. "And now

what am I to do for you? I will speak to Namu, I will warn him he is

observed; it will be strange if he allow anything to go on amiss when he

is put upon his guard. At the same time, this precaution may fail, and

then you must turn elsewhere. You have two people at hand to whom you

might apply. There is, first of all, the priest, who might protect you

by the Catholic interest; they are a wretchedly small body, but they

count two chiefs. And then there is old Faiaso. Ah! if it had been some

years ago you would have needed no one else; but his influence is much

reduced; it has gone into Maea's hands, and Maea, I fear, is one of

Case's jackals. In fine, if the worst comes to the worst, you must send

up or come yourself to Fale-alii, and, though I am not due at this end

of the island for a month, I will just see what can be done."

So Mr. Tarleton said farewell; and half an hour later the crew were

singing and the paddles flashing in the missionary boat.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Alas!

CHAPTER IV

DEVIL-WORK

Near a month went by without much doing. The same night of our marriage

Galoshes called round, and made himself mighty civil, and got into a

habit of dropping in about dark and smoking his pipe with the family. He

could talk to Uma, of course, and started to teach me native and French

at the same time. He was a kind old buffer, though the dirtiest you

would wish to see, and he muddled me up with foreign languages worse

than the tower of Babel.

That was one employment we had, and it made me feel less lonesome; but

there was no profit in the thing, for though the priest came and sat and

yarned, none of his folks could be enticed into my store; and if it

hadn't been for the other occupation I struck out there wouldn't have

been a pound of copra in the house. This was the idea: Fa'avao (Uma's

mother) had a score of bearing trees. Of course we could get no labour,

being all as good as tabooed, and the two women and I turned to and made

copra with our own hands. It was copra to make your mouth water when it

was done--I never understood how much the natives cheated me till I had

made that four hundred pounds of my own hand--and it weighed so light I

felt inclined to take and water it myself.

When we were at the job a good many Kanakas used to put in the best of

the day looking on, and once that nigger turned up. He stood back with

the natives and laughed and did the big don and the funny dog till I

began to get riled.

"Here, you nigger!" says I.

"I don't address myself to you, Sah," says the nigger. "Only speak to

gen'le'um."

"I know," says I, "but it happens I was addressing myself to you, Mr.

Black Jack. And all I want to know is just this: did you see Case's

figure-head about a week ago?"

"No, Sah," says he.

"That's all right, then," says I; "for I'll show you the own brother to

it, only black, in the inside of about two minutes."

And I began to walk towards him, quite slow, and my hands down; only

there was trouble in my eye, if anybody took the pains to look.

"You're a low, obstropulous fellow, Sah," says he.

"You bet!" says I.

By that time he thought I was about as near as convenient, and lit out

so it would have done your heart good to see him travel. And that was

all I saw of that precious gang until what I am about to tell you.

It was one of my chief employments these days to go pot-hunting in the

woods, which I found (as Case had told me) very rich in game. I have

spoken of the cape which shut up the village and my station from the

east. A path went about the end of it, and led into the next bay. A

strong wind blew here daily, and as the line of the barrier reef stopped

at the end of the cape, a heavy surf ran on the shores of the bay. A

little cliffy hill cut the valley in two parts, and stood close on the

beach; and at high water the sea broke right on the face of it, so that

all passage was stopped. Woody mountains hemmed the place all round; the

barrier to the east was particularly steep and leafy, the lower parts of

it, along the sea, falling in sheer black cliffs streaked with cinnabar;

the upper part lumpy with the tops of the great trees. Some of the trees

were bright green, and some red, and the sand of the beach as black as

your shoes. Many birds hovered round the bay, some of them snow-white;

and the flying-fox (or vampire) flew there in broad daylight, gnashing

its teeth.

For a long while I came as far as this shooting, and went no farther.

There was no sign of any path beyond, and the cocoa-palms in the front

of the foot of the valley were the last this way. For the whole "eye" of

the island, as natives call the windward end, lay desert. From Falesa

round about to Papa-malulu, there was neither house, nor man, nor

planted fruit-tree; and the reef being mostly absent, and the shores

bluff, the sea beat direct among crags, and there was scarce a

landing-place.

I should tell you that after I began to go in the woods, although no one

offered to come near my store, I found people willing enough to pass the

time of day with me where nobody could see them; and as I had begun to

pick up native, and most of them had a word or two of English, I began

to hold little odds and ends of conversation, not to much purpose to be

sure, but they took off the worst of the feeling, for it's a miserable

thing to be made a leper of.

It chanced one day towards the end of the month, that I was sitting in

this bay in the edge of the bush, looking east, with a Kanaka. I had

given him a fill of tobacco, and we were making out to talk as best we

could; indeed, he had more English than most.

I asked him if there was no road going eastward.

"One time one road," said he. "Now he dead."

"Nobody he go there?" I asked.

"No good," said he. "Too much devil he stop there."

"Oho!" says I, "got-um plenty devil, that bush?"

"Man devil, woman devil; too much devil," said my friend. "Stop there

all-e-time. Man he go there, no come back."

I thought if this fellow was so well posted on devils and spoke of them

so free, which is not common, I had better fish for a little information

about myself and Uma.

"You think me one devil?" I asked.

"No think devil," said he soothingly. "Think all-e-same fool."

"Uma, she devil?" I asked again.

"No, no; no devil. Devil stop bush," said the young man.

I was looking in front of me across the bay, and I saw the hanging front

of the woods pushed suddenly open, and Case, with a gun in his hand,

step forth into the sunshine on the black beach. He was got up in light

pyjamas, near white, his gun sparkled, he looked mighty conspicuous; and

the land-crabs scuttled from all round him to their holes.

"Hullo, my friend!" says I, "you no talk all-e-same true. Ese he go, he

come back."

"Ese no all-e-same; Ese _Tiapolo_," says my friend; and, with a

"Good-bye," slunk off among the trees.

I watched Case all round the beach, where the tide was low; and let him

pass me on the homeward way to Falesa. He was in deep thought, and the

birds seemed to know it, trotting quite near him on the sand, or

wheeling and calling in his ears. When he passed me I could see by the

working of his lips that he was talking to himself, and, what pleased me

mightily, he had still my trade mark on his brow. I tell you the plain

truth: I had a mind to give him a gunful in his ugly mug, but I thought

better of it.

All this time, and all the time I was following home, I kept repeating

that native word, which I remembered by "Polly, put the kettle on and

make us all some tea," tea-a-pollo.

"Uma," says I, when I got back, "what does _Tiapolo_ mean?"

"Devil," says she.

"I thought _aitu_ was the word for that," I said.

"_Aitu_ 'nother kind of devil," said she; "stop bush, eat Kanaka.

Tiapolo big chief devil, stop home; all-e-same Christian devil."

"Well then," said I, "I'm no farther forward. How can Case be Tiapolo?"

"No all-e-same," said she. "Ese belong Tiapolo; Tiapolo too much like;

Ese all-e-same his son. Suppose Ese he wish something, Tiapolo he make

him."

"That's mighty convenient for Ese," says I. "And what kind of things

does he make for him?"

Well, out came a rigmarole of all sorts of stories, many of which (like

the dollar he took from Mr. Tarleton's head) were plain enough to me,

but others I could make nothing of; and the thing that most surprised

the Kanakas was what surprised me least--namely, that he would go in the

desert among all the _aitus_. Some of the boldest, however, had

accompanied him, and had heard him speak with the dead and give them

orders, and, safe in his protection, had returned unscathed. Some said

he had a church there, where he worshipped Tiapolo, and Tiapolo appeared

to him; others swore that there was no sorcery at all, that he performed

his miracles by the power of prayer, and the church was no church, but a

prison, in which he had confined a dangerous _aitu_. Namu had been in

the bush with him once, and returned glorifying God for these wonders.

Altogether, I began to have a glimmer of the man's position, and the

means by which he had acquired it, and, though I saw he was a tough nut

to crack, I was noways cast down.

"Very well," said I, "I'll have a look at Master Case's place of worship

myself, and we'll see about the glorifying."

At this Uma fell in a terrible taking; if I went in the high bush I

should never return; none could go there but by the protection of

Tiapolo.

"I'll chance it on God's," said I. "I'm a good sort of fellow, Uma, as

fellows go, and I guess God'll con me through."

She was silent for a while. "I think," said she, mighty solemn--and

then, presently--"Victoreea, he big chief?"

"You bet!" said I.

"He like you too much?" she asked again.

I told her, with a grin, I believed the old lady was rather partial to

me.

"All right," said she. "Victoreea he big chief, like you too much. No

can help you here in Falesa; no can do--too far off. Maea he small

chief--stop here. Suppose he like you--make you all right. All-e-same

God and Tiapolo. God he big chief--got too much work. Tiapolo he small

chief--he like too much make-see, work very hard."

"I'll have to hand you over to Mr. Tarleton," said I. "Your theology's

out of its bearings, Uma."

However, we stuck to this business all the evening, and, with the

stories she told me of the desert and its dangers, she came near

frightening herself into a fit. I don't remember half a quarter of them,

of course, for I paid little heed; but two come back to me kind of

clear.

About six miles up the coast there is a sheltered cove they call

_Fanga-anaana_--"the haven full of caves." I've seen it from the sea

myself, as near as I could get my boys to venture in; and it's a little

strip of yellow sand. Black cliffs overhang it, full of the black mouths

of caves; great trees overhang the cliffs, and dangle-down lianas; and

in one place, about the middle, a big brook pours over in a cascade.

Well, there was a boat going by here, with six young men of Falesa, "all

very pretty," Uma said, which was the loss of them. It blew strong,

there was a heavy head sea, and by the time they opened Fanga-anaana,

and saw the white cascade and the shady beach, they were all tired and

thirsty, and their water had run out. One proposed to land and get a

drink, and, being reckless fellows, they were all of the same mind

except the youngest. Lotu was his name; he was a very good young

gentleman, and very wise; and he held out that they were crazy, telling

them the place was given over to spirits and devils and the dead, and

there were no living folk nearer than six miles the one way, and maybe

twelve the other. But they laughed at his words, and, being five to one,

pulled in, beached the boat, and landed. It was a wonderful pleasant

place, Lotu said, and the water excellent. They walked round the beach,

but could see nowhere any way to mount the cliffs, which made them

easier in their mind; and at last they sat down to make a meal on the

food they had brought with them. They were scarce set, when there came

out of the mouth of one of the black caves six of the most beautiful

ladies ever seen: they had flowers in their hair, and the most beautiful

breasts, and necklaces of scarlet seeds; and began to jest with these

young gentlemen, and the young gentlemen to jest back with them, all but

Lotu. As for Lotu, he saw there could be no living woman in such a

place, and ran, and flung himself in the bottom of the boat, and covered

his face, and prayed. All the time the business lasted Lotu made one

clean break of prayer, and that was all he knew of it, until his friends

came back, and made him sit up, and they put to sea again out of the

bay, which was now quite deserted, and no word of the six ladies. But,

what frightened Lotu most, not one of the five remembered anything of

what had passed, but they were all like drunken men, and sang and

laughed in the boat, and skylarked. The wind freshened and came squally,

and the sea rose extraordinary high; it was such weather as any man in

the islands would have turned his back to and fled home to Falesa; but

these five were like crazy folk, and cracked on all sail and drove their

boat into the seas. Lotu went to the bailing, none of the others thought

to help him, but sang and skylarked and carried on, and spoke singular

things beyond a man's comprehension, and laughed out loud when they said

them. So the rest of the day Lotu bailed for his life in the bottom of

the boat, and was all drenched with sweat and cold sea-water; and none

heeded him. Against all expectation, they came safe in a dreadful

tempest to Papa-malulu, where the palms were singing out, and the

cocoa-nuts flying like cannon-balls about the village green; and the

same night the five young gentlemen sickened, and spoke never a

reasonable word until they died.

"And do you mean to tell me you can swallow a yarn like that?" I asked.

She told me the thing was well known, and with handsome young men alone

it was even common; but this was the only case where five had been slain

the same day and in a company by the love of the women-devils; and it

had made a great stir in the island, and she would be crazy if she

doubted.

"Well, anyway," says I, "you needn't be frightened about me. I've no use

for the women-devils. You're all the women I want, and all the devil

too, old lady."

To this she answered there were other sorts, and she had seen one with

her own eyes. She had gone one day alone to the next bay, and, perhaps,

got too near the margin of the bad place. The boughs of the high bush

overshadowed her from the cant of the hill, but she herself was outside

on a flat place, very stony, and growing full of young mummy-apples four

and five feet high. It was a dark day in the rainy season, and now there

came squalls that tore off the leaves and sent them flying, and now it

was all still as in a house. It was in one of these still times that a

whole gang of birds and flying foxes came pegging out of the bush like

creatures frightened. Presently after she heard a rustle nearer hand,

and saw, coming out of the margin of the trees, among the mummy-apples,

the appearance of a lean grey old boar. It seemed to think as it came,

like a person; and all of a sudden, as she looked at it coming, she was

aware it was no boar, but a thing that was a man with a man's thoughts.

At that she ran, and the pig after her, and as the pig ran it holla'd

aloud, so that the place rang with it.

"I wish I had been there with my gun," said I. "I guess that pig would

have holla'd so as to surprise himself."

But she told me a gun was of no use with the like of these, which were

the spirits of the dead.

Well, this kind of talk put in the evening, which was the best of it;

but of course it didn't change my notion, and the next day, with my gun

and a good knife, I set off upon a voyage of discovery. I made, as near

as I could, for the place where I had seen Case come out; for if it was

true he had some kind of establishment in the bush I reckoned I should

find a path. The beginning of the desert was marked off by a wall to

call it so, for it was more of a long mound of stones. They say it

reaches right across the island, but how they know it is another

question, for I doubt if anyone has made the journey in a hundred years,

the natives sticking chiefly to the sea, and their little colonies along

the coast, and that part being mortal high and steep and full of cliffs.

Up to the west side of the wall the ground has been cleared, and there

are cocoa-palms and mummy-apples and guavas, and lots of sensitive. Just

across, the bush begins outright; high bush at that, trees going up like

the masts of ships, and ropes of liana hanging down like a ship's

rigging, and nasty orchids growing in the forks like funguses. The

ground where there was no underwood looked to be a heap of boulders. I

saw many green pigeons which I might have shot, only I was there with a

different idea. A number of butterflies flopped up and down along the

ground like dead leaves; sometimes I would hear a bird calling,

sometimes the wind overhead, and always the sea along the coast.

But the queerness of the place it's more difficult to tell of, unless to

one who has been alone in the high bush himself. The brightest kind of a

day it is always dim down there. A man can see to the end of nothing;

whichever way he looks the wood shuts up, one bough folding with another

like the fingers of your hand; and whenever he listens he hears always

something new--men talking, children laughing, the strokes of an axe a

far way ahead of him, and sometimes a sort of a quick, stealthy scurry

near at hand that makes him jump and look to his weapons. It's all very

well for him to tell himself that he's alone, bar trees and birds; he

can't make out to believe it; whichever way he turns the whole place

seems to be alive and looking on. Don't think it was Uma's yarns that

put me out; I don't value native talk a fourpenny-piece; it's a thing

that's natural in the bush, and that's the end of it.

As I got near the top of the hill, for the ground of the wood goes up in

this place steep as a ladder, the wind began to sound straight on, and

the leaves to toss and switch open and let in the sun. This suited me

better; it was the same noise all the time, and nothing to startle.

Well, I had got to a place where there was an underwood of what they

call wild cocoa-nut--mighty pretty with its scarlet fruit--when there

came a sound of singing in the wind that I thought I had never heard the

like of. It was all very fine to tell myself it was the branches; I knew

better. It was all very fine to tell myself it was a bird; I knew never

a bird that sang like that. It rose and swelled, and died away and

swelled again; and now I thought it was like someone weeping, only

prettier; and now I thought it was like harps; and there was one thing I

made sure of, it was a sight too sweet to be wholesome in a place like

that. You may laugh if you like; but I declare I called to mind the six

young ladies that came, with their scarlet necklaces, out of the cave at

Fanga-anaana, and wondered if they sang like that. We laugh at the

natives and their superstitions; but see how many traders take them up,

splendidly educated white men that have been book-keepers (some of them)

and clerks in the old country. It's my belief a superstition grows up in

a place like the different kind of weeds; and as I stood there and

listened to that wailing I twittered in my shoes.

You may call me a coward to be frightened; I thought myself brave enough

to go on ahead. But I went mighty carefully, with my gun cocked, spying

all about me like a hunter, fully expecting to see a handsome young

woman sitting somewhere in the bush, and fully determined (if I did) to

try her with a charge of duck-shot. And sure enough, I had not gone far

when I met with a queer thing. The wind came on the top of the wood in a

strong puff, the leaves in front of me burst open, and I saw for a

second something hanging in a tree. It was gone in a wink, the puff

blowing by and the leaves closing. I tell you the truth: I had made up

my mind to see an _aitu_; and if the thing had looked like a pig or a

woman, it wouldn't have given me the same turn. The trouble was that it

seemed kind of square, and the idea of a square thing that was alive and

sang knocked me sick and silly. I must have stood quite a while; and I

made pretty certain it was right out of the same tree that the singing

came. Then I began to come to myself a bit.

"Well," says I, "if this is really so, if this is a place where there

are square things that sing, I'm gone up anyway. Let's have my fun for

my money."

But I thought I might as well take the off-chance of a prayer being any

good; so I plumped on my knees and prayed out loud; and all the time I

was praying the strange sounds came out of the tree, and went up and

down, and changed, for all the world like music, only you could see it

wasn't human--there was nothing there that you could whistle.

As soon as I had made an end in proper style, I laid down my gun, stuck

my knife between my teeth, walked right up to that tree, and began to

climb. I tell you my heart was like ice. But presently, as I went up, I

caught another glimpse of the thing, and that relieved me, for I thought

it seemed like a box; and when I had got right up to it I near fell out

of the tree with laughing.

A box it was, sure enough, and a candle-box at that, with the brand upon

the side of it; and it had banjo-strings stretched so as to sound when

the wind blew. I believe they call the thing a Tyrolean[4] harp,

whatever that may mean.

"Well, Mr. Case," said I, "you've frightened me once, but I defy you to

frighten me again," I says, and slipped down the tree, and set out again

to find my enemy's head office, which I guessed would not be far away.

The undergrowth was thick in this part; I couldn't see before my nose,

and must burst my way through by main force and ply the knife as I went,

slicing the cords of the lianas and slashing down whole trees at a blow.

I call them trees for the bigness, but in truth they were just big

weeds, and sappy to cut through like carrot. From all this crowd and

kind of vegetation, I was just thinking to myself, the place might have

once been cleared, when I came on my nose over a pile of stones, and saw

in a moment it was some kind of a work of man. The Lord knows when it

was made or when deserted, for this part of the island has lain

undisturbed since long before the whites came. A few steps beyond I hit

into the path I had been always looking for. It was narrow, but well

beaten, and I saw that Case had plenty of disciples. It seems, indeed,

it was a piece of fashionable boldness to venture up here with the

trader, and a young man scarce reckoned himself grown till he had got

his breech tattooed, for one thing, and seen Case's devils for another.

This is mighty like Kanakas; but, if you look at it another way, it's

mighty like white folks too.

A bit along the path I was brought to a clear stand, and had to rub my

eyes. There was a wall in front of me, the path passing it by a gap; it

was tumble-down, and plainly very old, but built of big stones very well

laid; and there is no native alive to-day upon that island that could

dream of such a piece of building. Along all the top of it was a line of

queer figures, idols or scarecrows, or what not. They had carved and

painted faces, ugly to view, their eyes and teeth were of shell, their

hair and their bright clothes blew in the wind, and some of them worked

with the tugging. There are islands up west where they make these kind

of figures till to-day; but if ever they were made in this island, the

practice and the very recollection of it are now long forgotten. And the

singular thing was that all these bogies were as fresh as toys out of a

shop.

Then it came in my mind that Case had let out to me the first day that

he was a good forger of island curiosities, a thing by which so many

traders turn an honest penny. And with that I saw the whole business,

and how this display served the man a double purpose, first of all, to

season his curiosities, and then to frighten those that came to visit

him.

But I should tell you (what made the thing more curious) that all the

time the Tyrolean harps were harping round me in the trees, and even

while I looked, a green-and-yellow bird (that, I suppose, was building)

began to tear the hair off the head of one of the figures.

A little farther on I found the best curiosity of the museum. The first

I saw of it was a longish mound of earth with a twist to it. Digging off

the earth with my hands, I found underneath tarpaulin stretched on

boards, so that this was plainly the roof of a cellar. It stood right on

the top of the hill, and the entrance was on the far side, between two

rocks, like the entrance to a cave. I went as far in as the bend, and,

looking round the corner, saw a shining face. It was big and ugly, like

a pantomime mask, and the brightness of it waxed and dwindled, and at

times it smoked.

"Oho!" says I, "luminous paint!"

And I must say I rather admired the man's ingenuity. With a box of tools

and a few mighty simple contrivances he had made out to have a devil of

a temple. Any poor Kanaka brought up here in the dark, with the harps

whining all round him, and shown that smoking face in the bottom of a

hole, would make no kind of doubt but he had seen and heard enough

devils for a lifetime. It's easy to find out what Kanakas think. Just go

back to yourself any way round from ten to fifteen years old, and

there's an average Kanaka. There are some pious, just as there are pious

boys; and the most of them, like the boys again, are middling honest,

and yet think it rather larks to steal, and are easy scared, and rather

like to be so. I remember a boy I was at school with at home who played

the Case business. He didn't know anything, that boy; he couldn't do

anything; he had no luminous paint and no Tyrolean harps; he just boldly

said he was a sorcerer, and frightened us out of our boots, and we loved

it. And then it came in my mind how the master had once flogged that

boy, and the surprise we were all in to see the sorcerer catch it and

bum like anybody else. Thinks I to myself, "I must find some way of

fixing it so for Master Case." And the next moment I had my idea.

I went back by the path, which, when once you had found it, was quite

plain and easy walking; and when I stepped out on the black sands, who

should I see but Master Case himself! I cocked my gun and held it handy,

and we marched up and passed without a word, each keeping the tail of

his eye on the other; and no sooner had we passed than we each wheeled

round like fellows drilling, and stood face to face. We had each taken

the same notion in his head, you see, that the other fellow might give

him the load of his gun in the stern.

"You've shot nothing," says Case.

"I'm not on the shoot to-day," said I.

"Well, the devil go with you for me," says he.

"The same to you," says I.

But we stuck just the way we were; no fear of either of us moving.

Case laughed. "We can't stop here all day, though," said he.

"Don't let me detain you," says I.

He laughed again. "Look here, Wiltshire, do you think me a fool?" he

asked.

"More of a knave, if you want to know," says I.

"Well, do you think it would better me to shoot you here, on this open

beach?" said he. "Because I don't. Folks come fishing every day. There

may be a score of them up the valley now, making copra; there might be

half a dozen on the hill behind you, after pigeons; they might be

watching us this minute, and I shouldn't wonder. I give you my word I

don't want to shoot you. Why should I? You don't hinder me any. You

haven't got one pound of copra but what you made with your own hands,

like a negro slave. You're vegetating--that's what I call it--and I

don't care where you vegetate, nor yet how long. Give me your word you

don't mean to shoot me, and I'll give you a lead and walk away."

"Well," said I, "you're frank and pleasant, ain't you? And I'll be the

same. I don't mean to shoot you to-day. Why should I? This business is

beginning; it ain't done yet, Mr. Case. I've given you one turn already;

I can see the marks of my knuckles on your head to this blooming hour,

and I've more cooking for you. I'm not a paralee, like Underhill. My

name ain't Adams, and it ain't Vigours; and I mean to show you that

you've met your match."

"This is a silly way to talk," said he. "This is not the talk to make me

move on with."

"All right," said I, "stay where you are. I ain't in any hurry, and you

know it. I can put in a day on this beach and never mind. I ain't got

any copra to bother with. I ain't got any luminous paint to see to."

I was sorry I said that last, but it whipped out before I knew. I could

see it took the wind out of his sails, and he stood and stared at me

with his brow drawn up. Then I suppose he made up his mind he must get

to the bottom of this.

"I take you at your word," says he, and turned his back and walked right

into the devil's bush.

I let him go, of course, for I had passed my word. But I watched him as

long as he was in sight, and after he was gone lit out for cover as

lively as you would want to see, and went the rest of the way home under

the bush, for I didn't trust him sixpence-worth. One thing I saw, I had

been ass enough to give him warning, and that which I meant to do I must

do at once.

You would think I had had about enough excitement for one morning, but

there was another turn waiting me. As soon as I got far enough round the

cape to see my house I made out there were strangers there; a little

farther, and no doubt about it. There was a couple of armed sentinels

squatting at my door. I could only suppose the trouble about Uma must

have come to a head, and the station been seized. For aught I could

think, Uma was taken up already, and these armed men were waiting to do

the like with me.

However, as I came nearer, which I did at top speed, I saw there was a

third native sitting on the verandah like a guest, and Uma was talking

with him like a hostess. Nearer still I made out it was the big young

chief, Maea, and that he was smiling away and smoking. And what was he

smoking? None of your European cigarettes fit for a cat, not even the

genuine big, knock-me-down native article that a fellow can really put

in the time with if his pipe is broke--but a cigar, and one of my

Mexicans at that, that I could swear to. At sight of this my heart

started beating, and I took a wild hope in my head that the trouble was

over, and Maea had come round.

Uma pointed me out to him as I came up, and he met me at the head of my

own stairs like a thorough gentleman.

"Vilivili," said he, which was the best they could make of my name, "I

pleased."

There is no doubt when an island chief wants to be civil he can do it. I

saw the way things were from the word-go. There was no call for Uma to

say to me: "He no 'fraid Ese now, come bring copra." I tell you I shook

hands with that Kanaka like as if he was the best white man in Europe.

The fact was, Case and he had got after the same girl; or Maea suspected

it, and concluded to make hay of the trader on the chance. He had

dressed himself up, got a couple of his retainers cleaned and armed to

kind of make the thing more public, and, just waiting till Case was

clear of the village, came round to put the whole of his business my

way. He was rich as well as powerful. I suppose that man was worth fifty

thousand nuts per annum. I gave him the price of the beach and a quarter

cent better, and as for credit, I would have advanced him the inside of

the store and the fittings besides, I was so pleased to see him. I must

say he bought like a gentleman: rice and tins and biscuits enough for a

week's feast, and stuffs by the bolt. He was agreeable besides; he had

plenty fun to him; and we cracked jests together, mostly through the

interpreter, because he had mighty little English, and my native was

still off colour. One thing I made out: he could never really have

thought much harm of Uma; he could never have been really frightened,

and must just have made believe from dodginess, and because he thought

Case had a strong pull in the village and could help him on.

This set me thinking that both he and I were in a tightish place. What

he had done was to fly in the face of the whole village, and the thing

might cost him his authority. More than that, after my talk with Case on

the beach, I thought it might very well cost me my life. Case had as

good as said he would pot me if ever I got any copra; he would come home

to find the best business in the village had changed hands; and the best

thing I thought I could do was to get in first with the potting.

"See here, Uma," says I, "tell him I'm sorry I made him wait, but I was

up looking at Case's Tiapolo store in the bush."

"He want savvy if you no 'fraid?" translated Uma.

I laughed out. "Not much!" says I. "Tell him the place is a blooming

toy-shop! Tell him in England we give these things to the kids to play

with."

"He want savvy if you hear devil sing?" she asked next.

"Look here," I said, "I can't do it now because I've got no

banjo-strings in stock; but the next time the ship comes round I'll have

one of these same contraptions right here in my verandah, and he can see

for himself how much devil there is to it. Tell him, as soon as I can

get the strings I'll make one for his picaninnies. The name of the

concern is a Tyrolean harp; and you can tell him the name means in

English that nobody but dam-fools give a cent for it."

This time he was so pleased he had to try his English again: "You talk

true?" says he.

"Rather!" said I. "Talk all-e-same Bible.--Bring out a Bible here, Uma,

if you've got such a thing, and I'll kiss it. Or, I'll tell you what's

better still," says I, taking a header, "ask him if he's afraid to go up

there himself by day."

It appeared he wasn't; he could venture as far as that by day and in

company.

"That's the ticket, then!" said I. "Tell him the man's a fraud and the

place foolishness, and if he'll go up there to-morrow he'll see all

that's left of it. But tell him this, Uma, and mind he understands it:

If he gets talking, it's bound to come to Case, and I'm a dead man! I'm

playing his game, tell him, and if he says one word my blood will be at

his door and be the damnation of him here and after."

She told him, and he shook hands with me up to the hilt, and says he:

"No talk. Go up to-mollow. You my friend?"

"No, sir," says I, "no such foolishness.--I've come here to trade, tell

him, and not to make friends. But as to Case, I'll send that man to

glory!"

So off Maea went, pretty well pleased, as I could see.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] AEolian.

CHAPTER V

NIGHT IN THE BUSH

Well, I was committed now; Tiapolo had to be smashed up before next day,

and my hands were pretty full, not only with preparations, but with

argument. My house was like a mechanics' debating society: Uma was so

made up that I shouldn't go into the bush by night, or that, if I did, I

was never to come back again. You know her style of arguing: you've had

a specimen about Queen Victoria and the devil; and I leave you to fancy

if I was tired of it before dark.

At last I had a good idea. What was the use of casting my pearls before

her? I thought; some of her own chopped hay would be likelier to do the

business.

"I'll tell you what, then," said I. "You fish out your Bible, and I'll

take that up along with me. That'll make me right."

She swore a Bible was no use.

"That's just your Kanaka ignorance," said I. "Bring the Bible out."

She brought it, and I turned to the title-page, where I thought there

would likely be some English, and so there was. "There!" said I. "Look

at that! '_London: Printed for the British and Foreign Bible Society,

Blackfriars_,' and the date, which I can't read, owing to its being in

these X's. There's no devil in hell can look near the Bible Society,

Blackfriars. Why, you silly!" I said, "how do you suppose we get along

with our own _aitus_ at home? All Bible Society!"

"I think you no got any," said she. "White man, he tell me you no got."

"Sounds likely, don't it?" I asked. "Why would these islands all be

chock full of them and none in Europe?"

"Well, you no got bread-fruit," said she.

I could have torn my hair. "Now, look here, old lady," said I, "you dry

up, for I'm tired of you. I'll take the Bible, which'll put me as

straight as the mail, and that's the last word I've got to say."

The night fell extraordinary dark, clouds coming up with sundown and

overspreading all; not a star showed; there was only an end of a moon,

and that not due before the small hours. Round the village, what with

the lights and the fires in the open houses, and the torches of many

fishers moving on the reef, it kept as gay as an illumination; but the

sea and the mountains and woods were all clean gone. I suppose it might

be eight o'clock when I took the road, laden like a donkey. First there

was that Bible, a book as big as your head, which I had let myself in

for by my own tomfoolery. Then there was my gun, and knife, and lantern,

and patent matches, all necessary. And then there was the real plant of

the affair in hand, a mortal weight of gunpowder, a pair of dynamite

fishing bombs, and two or three pieces of slow match that I had hauled

out of the tin cases and spliced together the best way I could; for the

match was only trade stuff, and a man would be crazy that trusted it.

Altogether, you see, I had the materials of a pretty good blow-up!

Expense was nothing to me; I wanted that thing done right.

As long as I was in the open, and had the lamp in my house to steer by,

I did well. But when I got to the path, it fell so dark I could make no

headway, walking into trees and swearing there, like a man looking for

the matches in his bedroom. I knew it was risky to light up, for my

lantern would be visible all the way to the point of the cape, and as no

one went there after dark, it would be talked about, and come to Case's

ears. But what was I to do? I had either to give the business over and

lose caste with Maea, or light up, take my chance, and get through the

thing the smartest I was able.

As long as I was on the path I walked hard, but when I came to the black

beach I had to run. For the tide was now nearly flowed; and to get

through with my powder dry between the surf and the steep hill, took all

the quickness I possessed. As it was, even, the wash caught me to the

knees, and I came near falling on a stone. All this time the hurry I was

in, and the free air and smell of the sea, kept my spirits lively; but

when I was once in the bush and began to climb the path I took it

easier. The fearsomeness of the wood had been a good bit rubbed off for

me by Master Case's banjo-strings and graven images, yet I thought it

was a dreary walk, and guessed, when the disciples went up there, they

must be badly scared. The light of the lantern, striking among all these

trunks and forked branches and twisted rope-ends of lianas, made the

whole place, or all that you could see of it, a kind of a puzzle of

turning shadows. They came to meet you, solid and quick like giants, and

then span off and vanished; they hove up over your head like clubs, and

flew away into the night like birds. The floor of the bush glimmered

with dead wood, the way the match-box used to shine after you had struck

a lucifer. Big, cold drops fell on me from the branches overhead like

sweat. There was no wind to mention; only a little icy breath of a

land-breeze that stirred nothing; and the harps were silent.

The first landfall I made was when I got through the bush of wild

cocoa-nuts, and came in view of the bogies on the wall. Mighty queer

they looked by the shining of the lantern, with their painted faces and

shell eyes, and their clothes and their hair hanging. One after another

I pulled them all up and piled them in a bundle on the cellar roof, so

as they might go to glory with the rest. Then I chose a place behind one

of the big stones at the entrance, buried my powder and the two shells,

and arranged my match along the passage. And then I had a look at the

smoking head, just for good-bye. It was doing fine.

"Cheer up," says I. "You're booked."

It was my first idea to light up and be getting homeward; for the

darkness and the glimmer of the dead wood and the shadows of the lantern

made me lonely. But I knew where one of the harps hung; it seemed a pity

it shouldn't go with the rest; and at the same time I couldn't help

letting on to myself that I was mortal tired of my employment, and would

like best to be at home and have the door shut. I stepped out of the

cellar and argued it fore and back. There was a sound of the sea far

down below me on the coast; nearer hand not a leaf stirred; I might have

been the only living creature this side of Cape Horn. Well, as I stood

there thinking, it seemed the bush woke and became full of little

noises. Little noises they were, and nothing to hurt--a bit of a

crackle, a bit of a rush--but the breath jumped right out of me and my

throat went as dry as a biscuit. It wasn't Case I was afraid of, which

would have been common-sense; I never thought of Case; what took me, as

sharp as the colic, was the old wives' tales, the devil-women and the

man-pigs. It was the toss of a penny whether I should run: but I got a

purchase on myself, and stepped out, and held up the lantern (like a

fool) and looked all round.

In the direction of the village and the path there was nothing to be

seen; but when I turned inland it's a wonder to me I didn't drop. There,

coming right up out of the desert and the bad bush--there, sure enough,

was a devil-woman, just as the way I had figured she would look. I saw

the light shine on her bare arms and her bright eyes, and there went out

of me a yell so big that I thought it was my death.

"Ah! No sing out!" says the devil-woman, in a kind of a high whisper.

"Why you talk big voice? Put out light! Ese he come."

"My God Almighty, Uma, is that you?" says I.

"_Ioe_,"[5] says she. "I come quick. Ese here soon."

"You come alone?" I asked. "You no 'fraid?"

"Ah, too much 'fraid!" she whispered, clutching me. "I think die."

"Well," says I, with a kind of a weak grin, "I'm not the one to laugh at

you, Mrs. Wiltshire, for I'm about the worst scared man in the South

Pacific myself."

She told me in two words what brought her. I was scarce gone, it seems,

when Fa'avao came in, and the old woman had met Black Jack running as

hard as he was fit from our house to Case's. Uma neither spoke nor

stopped, but lit right out to come and warn me. She was so close at my

heels that the lantern was her guide across the beach, and afterwards,

by the glimmer of it in the trees, she got her line up hill. It was only

when I had got to the top or was in the cellar that she wandered Lord

knows where! and lost a sight of precious time, afraid to call out lest

Case was at the heels of her, and falling in the bush, so that she was

all knocked and bruised. That must have been when she got too far to the

southward, and how she came to take me in the flank at last and frighten

me beyond what I've got the words to tell of.

Well, anything was better than a devil-woman, but I thought her yarn

serious enough. Black Jack had no call to be about my house, unless he

was set there to watch; and it looked to me as if my tomfool word about

the paint, and perhaps some chatter of Maea's had got us all in a clove

hitch. One thing was clear: Uma and I were here for the night; we

daren't try to go home before day, and even then it would be safer to

strike round up the mountain and come in by the back of the village, or

we might walk into an ambuscade. It was plain, too, that the mine should

be sprung immediately, or Case might be in time to stop it.

I marched into the tunnel, Uma keeping tight hold of me, opened my

lantern, and lit the match. The first length of it burned like a spill

of paper, and I stood stupid, watching it burn, and thinking we were

going aloft with Tiapolo, which was none of my views. The second took to

a better rate, though faster than I cared about; and at that I got my

wits again, hauled Uma clear of the passage, blew out and dropped the

lantern, and the pair of us groped our way into the bush until I thought

it might be safe, and lay down together by a tree.

"Old lady," I said, "I won't forget this night. You're a trump, and

that's what's wrong with you."

She humped herself close up to me. She had run out the way she was, with

nothing on her but her kilt; and she was all wet with the dews and the

sea on the black beach, and shook straight on with cold and the terror

of the dark and the devils.

"Too much 'fraid," was all she said.

The far side of Case's hill goes down near as steep as a precipice into

the next valley. We were on the very edge of it, and I could see the

dead wood shine and hear the sea sound far below. I didn't care about

the position, which left me no retreat, but I was afraid to change. Then

I saw I had made a worse mistake about the lantern, which I should have

left lighted, so that I could have had a crack at Case when he stepped

into the shine of it. And even if I hadn't had the wit to do that, it

seemed a senseless thing to leave the good lantern to blow up with the

graven images. The thing belonged to me, after all, and was worth money,

and might come in handy. If I could have trusted the match, I might have

run in still and rescued it. But who was going to trust the match? You

know what trade is. The stuff was good enough for Kanakas to go fishing

with, where they've got to look lively anyway, and the most they risk is

only to have their hand blown off. But for any one that wanted to fool

around a blow-up like mine that match was rubbish.

Altogether, the best I could do was to lie still, see my shot-gun

handy, and wait for the explosion. But it was a solemn kind of a

business. The blackness of the night was like solid; the only thing you

could see was the nasty bogy glimmer of the dead wood, and that showed

you nothing but itself; and as for sounds, I stretched my ears till I

thought I could have heard the match burn in the tunnel, and that bush

was as silent as a coffin. Now and then there was a bit of a crack; but

whether it was near or far, whether it was Case stubbing his toes within

a few yards of me, or a tree breaking miles away, I knew no more than

the babe unborn.

And then, all of a sudden, Vesuvius went off. It was a long time coming;

but when it came (though I say it that shouldn't) no man could ask to

see a better. At first it was just a son of a gun of a row, and a spout

of fire, and the wood lighted up so that you could see to read. And then

the trouble began. Uma and I were half buried under a wagonful of earth,

and glad it was no worse, for one of the rocks at the entrance of the

tunnel was fired clean into the air, fell within a couple of fathoms of

where we lay, and bounded over the edge of the hill, and went pounding

down into the next valley. I saw I had rather under-calculated our

distance, or overdone the dynamite and powder, which you please.

And presently I saw I had made another slip. The noise of the thing

began to die off, shaking the island; the dazzle was over; and yet the

night didn't come back the way I expected. For the whole wood was

scattered with red coals and brands from the explosion; they were all

round me on the flat; some had fallen below in the valley, and some

stuck and flared in the tree-tops. I had no fear of fire, for these

forests are too wet to kindle. But the trouble was that the place was

all lit up--not very bright, but good enough to get a shot by; and the

way the coals were scattered, it was just as likely Case might have the

advantage as myself. I looked all round for his white face, you may be

sure; but there was not a sign of him. As for Uma, the life seemed to

have been knocked right out of her by the bang and blaze of it.

There was one bad point in my game. One of the blessed graven images had

come down all afire, hair and clothes and body, not four yards away from

me. I cast a mighty noticing glance all round; there was still no Case,

and I made up my mind I must get rid of that burning stick before he

came, or I should be shot there like a dog.

It was my first idea to have crawled, and then I thought speed was the

main thing, and stood half up to make a rush. The same moment from

somewhere between me and the sea there came a flash and a report, and a

rifle bullet screeched in my ear. I swung straight round and up with my

gun, but the brute had a Winchester, and before I could as much as see

him his second shot knocked me over like a nine-pin. I seemed to fly in

the air, then came down by the run and lay half a minute, silly; and

then I found my hands empty, and my gun had flown over my head as I

fell. It makes a man mighty wide awake to be in the kind of box that I

was in. I scarcely knew where I was hurt, or whether I was hurt or not,

but turned right over on my face to crawl after my weapon. Unless you

have tried to get about with a smashed leg you don't know what pain is,

and I let out a howl like a bullock's.

This was the unluckiest noise that ever I made in my life. Up to then

Uma had stuck to her tree like a sensible woman, knowing she would be

only in the way; but as soon as she heard me sing out she ran forward.

The Winchester cracked again and down she went.

I had sat up, leg and all, to stop her; but when I saw her tumble I

clapped down again where I was, lay still, and felt the handle of my

knife. I had been scurried and put out before. No more of that for me.

He had knocked over my girl, I had got to fix him for it; and I lay

there and gritted my teeth, and footed up the chances. My leg was broke,

my gun was gone. Case had still ten shots in his Winchester. It looked a

kind of hopeless business. But I never despaired nor thought upon

despairing: that man had got to go.

For a goodish bit not one of us let on. Then I heard Case begin to move

nearer in the bush, but mighty careful. The image had burned out; there

were only a few coals left here and there, and the wood was main dark,

but had a kind of a low glow in it like a fire on its last legs. It was

by this that I made out Case's head looking at me over a big tuft of

ferns, and at the same time the brute saw me and shouldered his

Winchester. I lay quite still, and as good as looked into the barrel: it

was my last chance, but I thought my heart would have come right out of

its bearings. Then he fired. Lucky for me it was no shot-gun, for the

bullet struck within an inch of me and knocked the dirt in my eyes.

Just you try and see if you can lie quiet, and let a man take a sitting

shot at you and miss you by a hair. But I did, and lucky too. A while

Case stood with the Winchester at the port-arms; then he gave a little

laugh to himself and stepped round the ferns.

"Laugh!" thought I. "If you had the wit of a louse you would be

praying!"

I was all as taut as a ship's hawser or the spring of a watch, and as

soon as he came within reach of me I had him by the ankle, plucked the

feet right out from under him, laid him out, and was upon the top of

him, broken leg and all, before he breathed. His Winchester had gone the

same road as my shot-gun; it was nothing to me--I defied him now. I'm a

pretty strong man anyway, but I never knew what strength was till I got

hold of Case. He was knocked out of time by the rattle he came down

with, and threw up his hands together, more like a frightened woman, so

that I caught both of them with my left. This wakened him up, and he

fastened his teeth in my forearm like a weasel. Much I cared. My leg

gave me all the pain I had any use for, and I drew my knife and got it

in the place.

"Now," said I, "I've got you; and you're gone up, and a good job too!

Do you feel the point of that? That's for Underhill! And there's for

Adams! And now here's for Uma, and that's going to knock your blooming

soul right out of you!"

With that I gave him the cold steel for all I was worth. His body kicked

under me like a spring sofa; he gave a dreadful kind of a long moan, and

lay still.

"I wonder if you're dead? I hope so!" I thought, for my head was

swimming. But I wasn't going to take chances; I had his own example too

close before me for that; and I tried to draw the knife out to give it

him again. The blood came over my hands, I remember, hot as tea; and

with that I fainted clean away, and fell with my head on the man's

mouth.

When I came to myself it was pitch dark; the cinders had burned out;

there was nothing to be seen but the shine of the dead wood, and I

couldn't remember where I was nor why I was in such pain, nor what I was

all wetted with. Then it came back, and the first thing I attended to

was to give him the knife again a half a dozen times up to the handle. I

believe he was dead already, but it did him no harm, and did me good.

"I bet you're dead now," I said, and then I called to Uma.

Nothing answered, and I made a move to go and grope for her, fouled my

broken leg, and fainted again.

When I came to myself the second time the clouds had all cleared away,

except a few that sailed there, white as cotton. The moon was up--a

tropic moon. The moon at home turns a wood black, but even this old butt

end of a one showed up that forest as green as by day. The night

birds--or, rather, they're a kind of early morning bird--sang out with

their long, falling notes like nightingales. And I could see the dead

man, that I was still half resting on, looking right up into the sky

with his open eyes, no paler than when he was alive; and a little way

off Uma tumbled on her side. I got over to her the best way I was able,

and when I got there she was broad awake, and crying and sobbing to

herself with no more noise than an insect. It appears she was afraid to

cry out loud, because of the _aitus_. Altogether she was not much hurt,

but scared beyond belief; she had come to her senses a long while ago,

cried out to me, heard nothing in reply, made out we were both dead, and

had lain there ever since, afraid to budge a finger. The ball had

ploughed up her shoulder and she had lost a main quantity of blood; but

I soon had that tied up the way it ought to be with the tail of my shirt

and a scarf I had on, got her head on my sound knee and my back against

a trunk, and settled down to wait for morning. Uma was for neither use

nor ornament, and could only clutch hold of me and shake and cry. I

don't suppose there was ever anybody worse scared, and, to do her

justice, she had had a lively night of it. As for me, I was in a good

bit of pain and fever, but not so bad when I sat still; and every time I

looked over to Case I could have sung and whistled. Talk about meat and

drink! To see that man lying there dead as a herring filled me full.

The night birds stopped after a while; and then the light began to

change, the east came orange, the whole wood began to whirr with singing

like a musical box, and there was the broad day.

I didn't expect Maea for a long while yet; and indeed I thought there

was an off-chance he might go back on the whole idea and not come at

all. I was the better pleased when, about an hour after daylight, I

heard sticks smashing and a lot of Kanakas laughing and singing out to

keep their courage up.

Uma sat up quite brisk at the first word of it; and presently we saw a

party come stringing out of the path, Maea in front, and behind him a

white man in a pith helmet. It was Mr. Tarleton, who had turned up late

last night in Falesa, having left his boat and walked the last stage

with a lantern.

They buried Case upon the field of glory, right in the hole where he

had kept the smoking head. I waited till the thing was done; and Mr.

Tarleton prayed, which I thought tomfoolery, but I'm bound to say he

gave a pretty sick view of the dear departed's prospects, and seemed to

have his own ideas of hell. I had it out with him afterwards, told him

he had scamped his duty, and what he had ought to have done was to up

like a man and tell the Kanakas plainly Case was damned, and a good

riddance; but I never could get him to see it my way. Then they made me

a litter of poles and carried me down to the station. Mr. Tarleton set

my leg, and made a regular missionary splice of it, so that I limp to

this day. That done, he took down my evidence, and Uma's, and Maea's,

wrote it all out fine, and had us sign it; and then he got the chiefs

and marched over to Papa Randall's to seize Case's papers.

All they found was a bit of a diary, kept for a good many years, and all

about the price of copra, and chickens being stolen, and that; and the

books of the business and the will I told you of in the beginning, by

both of which the whole thing (stock, lock, and barrel) appeared to

belong to the Samoa woman. It was I that bought her out at a mighty

reasonable figure, for she was in a hurry to get home. As for Randall

and the black, they had to tramp; got into some kind of a station on the

Papa-malulu side; did very bad business, for the truth is neither of the

pair was fit for it, and lived mostly on fish, which was the means of

Randall's death. It seems there was a nice shoal in one day, and Papa

went after them with the dynamite; either the match burned too fast, or

Papa was full, or both, but the shell went off (in the usual way) before

he threw it, and where was Papa's hand? Well, there's nothing to hurt in

that; the islands up north are all full of one-handed men, like the

parties in the "Arabian Nights"; but either Randall was too old, or he

drank too much, and the short and the long of it was that he died.

Pretty soon after, the nigger was turned out of the island for stealing

from white men, and went off to the west, where he found men of his own

colour, in case he liked that, and the men of his own colour took and

ate him at some kind of a corroborree, and I'm sure I hope he was to

their fancy!

So there was I, left alone in my glory at Falesa; and when the schooner

came round I filled her up, and gave her a deck-cargo half as high as

the house. I must say Mr. Tarleton did the right thing by us; but he

took a meanish kind of a revenge.

"Now, Mr. Wiltshire," said he, "I've put you all square with everybody

here. It wasn't difficult to do, Case being gone; but I have done it,

and given my pledge besides that you will deal fairly with the natives.

I must ask you to keep my word."

Well, so I did. I used to be bothered about my balances, but I reasoned

it out this way: We all have queerish balances, and the natives all know

it, and water their copra in a proportion so that it's fair all round;

but the truth is, it did use to bother me, and, though I did well in

Falesa, I was half glad when the firm moved me on to another station,

where I was under no kind of a pledge and could look my balances in the

face.

As for the old lady, you know her as well as I do. She's only the one

fault. If you don't keep your eye lifting she would give away the roof

off the station. Well, it seems it's natural in Kanakas. She's turned a

powerful big woman now, and could throw a London bobby over her

shoulder. But that's natural in Kanakas too, and there's no manner of

doubt that she's an A1 wife.

Mr. Tarleton's gone home, his trick being over. He was the best

missionary I ever struck, and now, it seems, he's parsonising down

Somerset way. Well, that's best for him; he'll have no Kanakas there to

get luny over.

My public-house? Not a bit of it, nor ever likely. I'm stuck here, I

fancy. I don't like to leave the kids, you see: and--there's no use

talking--they're better here than what they would be in a white man's

country, though Ben took the eldest up to Auckland, where he's being

schooled with the best. But what bothers me is the girls. They're only

half-castes, of course; I know that as well as you do, and there's

nobody thinks less of half-castes than I do; but they're mine, and about

all I've got. I can't reconcile my mind to their taking up with Kanakas,

and I'd like to know where I'm to find the whites?

FOOTNOTE:

[5] Yes.

THE BOTTLE IMP

_NOTE_

_Any student of that very unliterary product, the English drama of the

early part of the century, will here recognise the name and the root

idea of a piece once rendered popular by the redoubtable O. Smith. The

root idea is there, and identical, and yet I hope I have made it a new

thing. And the fact that the tale has been designed and written for a

Polynesian audience may lend it some extraneous interest nearer home._

_R. L. S._

THE BOTTLE IMP

There was a man of the island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for

the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the

place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe

the Great lie hidden in a cave. This man was poor, brave, and active; he

could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate mariner

besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and steered a

whaleboat on the Hamakua coast. At length it came in Keawe's mind to

have a sight of the great world and foreign cities, and he shipped on a

vessel bound to San Francisco.

This is a fine town, with a fine harbour, and rich people uncountable;

and, in particular, there is one hill which is covered with palaces.

Upon this hill Keawe was one day taking a walk with his pocket full of

money, viewing the great houses upon either hand with pleasure. "What

fine houses these are!" he was thinking, "and how happy must those

people be who dwell in them, and take no care for the morrow!" The

thought was in his mind when he came abreast of a house that was smaller

than some others, but all finished and beautified like a toy; the steps

of that house shone like silver, and the borders of the garden bloomed

like garlands, and the windows were bright like diamonds; and Keawe

stopped and wondered at the excellence of all he saw. So stopping, he

was aware of a man that looked forth upon him through a window so clear

that Keawe could see him as you see a fish in a pool upon the reef. The

man was elderly, with a bald head and a black beard; and his face was

heavy with sorrow, and he bitterly sighed. And the truth of it is, that

as Keawe looked in upon the man, and the man looked out upon Keawe,

each envied the other.

All of a sudden the man smiled and nodded, and beckoned Keawe to enter,

and met him at the door of the house.

"This is a fine house of mine," said the man, and bitterly sighed.

"Would you not care to view the chambers?"

So he led Keawe all over it, from the cellar to the roof, and there was

nothing there that was not perfect of its kind, and Keawe was

astonished.

"Truly," said Keawe, "this is a beautiful house; if I lived in the like

of it I should be laughing all day long. How comes it, then, that you

should be sighing?"

"There is no reason," said the man, "why you should not have a house in

all points similar to this, and finer, if you wish. You have some money,

I suppose?"

"I have fifty dollars," said Keawe; "but a house like this will cost

more than fifty dollars."

The man made a computation. "I am sorry you have no more," said he, "for

it may raise you trouble in the future; but it shall be yours at fifty

dollars."

"The house?" asked Keawe.

"No, not the house," replied the man; "but the bottle. For, I must tell

you, although I appear to you so rich and fortunate, all my fortune, and

this house itself and its garden, came out of a bottle not much bigger

than a pint. This is it."

And he opened a lockfast place, and took out a round-bellied bottle with

a long neck; the glass of it was white like milk, with changing rainbow

colours in the grain. Withinsides something obscurely moved, like a

shadow and a fire.

"This is the bottle," said the man; and when Keawe laughed, "You do not

believe me?" he added. "Try, then, for yourself. See if you can break

it."

So Keawe took the bottle up and dashed it on the floor till he was

weary; but it jumped on the floor like a child's ball, and was not

injured.

"This is a strange thing," said Keawe. "For by the touch of it, as well

as by the look, the bottle should be of glass."

"Of glass it is," replied the man, sighing more heavily than ever; "but

the glass of it was tempered in the flames of hell. An imp lives in it,

and that is the shadow we behold there moving; or so I suppose. If any

man buy this bottle the imp is at his command; all that he desires--love,

fame, money, houses like this house, ay, or a city like this city--all

are his at the word uttered. Napoleon had this bottle, and by it he grew

to be the king of the world; but he sold it at the last, and fell.

Captain Cook had this bottle, and by it he found his way to so many

islands; but he, too, sold it, and was slain upon Hawaii. For, once it is

sold, the power goes and the protection; and unless a man remain content

with what he has, ill will befall him."

"And yet you talk of selling it yourself?" Keawe said.

"I have all I wish, and I am growing elderly," replied the man. "There

is one thing the imp cannot do--he cannot prolong life; and, it would

not be fair to conceal from you, there is a drawback to the bottle; for

if a man die before he sells it, he must burn in hell for ever."

"To be sure, that is a drawback and no mistake," cried Keawe. "I would

not meddle with the thing. I can do without a house, thank God; but

there is one thing I could not be doing with one particle, and that is

to be damned."

"Dear me, you must not run away with things," returned the man. "All you

have to do is to use the power of the imp in moderation, and then sell

it to someone else, as I do to you, and finish your life in comfort."

"Well, I observe two things," said Keawe. "All the time you keep sighing

like a maid in love, that is one; and, for the other, you sell this

bottle very cheap."