White Fire Part 28

Matters politic had also advanced somewhat. In place of three parties in the close neighbourhood of the station, there were now only two.

Ra'a was still at large in the hills, but the leaderless faction had gradually disintegrated, some few joining him, but the larger portion returning by degrees to their allegiance to Ha'o, drawn thereto by the manifest advantages of the white men's friendliness.

And Ha'o himself had behaved well. Constant intercourse, even through the misty medium of scarce understood tongues, with men like Blair and Stuart and Evans, could not but have its effect on any man, and on this clear-headed, sharp-witted savage the effects had been very marked.

He was naturally intelligent, and, according to his lights, of a most gentlemanly disposition. His understanding developed still more through his observation of the white men and their ways. He recognised their superiority in most things and, as headman of his tribe, was emulous of their accomplishment. He lapsed at lengthening intervals into his natural savageries, but, beyond this, never swerved by a hair's breadth from his loyalty to the men who had restored him to his home.

Nai was rejoicing mightily in the possession of a sleek, plump, black-eyed baby, the first son born to Ha'o. His other wives had given him daughters, but since his return to the island, and their tardy return to him, he had declined to have anything to do with any of them beyond seeing that they were fed. Nai's community in his dangers and sufferings had concentrated all his savage affections upon her, and now she had justified him by giving him a son.

Blair reposed great faith in these three, and counted on them as corner-stones in the mighty future.

The valley of the G.o.ds had proved a famous breeding-place. Goats and pigs and ducks abounded there. The brown men had been introduced to roast pig and goat flesh, and found it equal almost to man flesh. But nothing would induce them to go there for it.

So, with mighty labours, for the animals were become perfectly wild in their freedom, a number of them were given the run of the island, and the novel excitements of the chase bade fair to afford the brown men full vent for the energies that had hitherto run in the direction of battle and murder and sudden death. Certainly the newcomers played havoc for a time with the taro fields and plantain and banana groves.

But this also made for good, since it involved fencing operations on an extensive scale, and steady work tended to keep the devil of idle hands at bay.

"The curse of savagery is the lack of employment," was one of Blair's maxims. "They get to fighting simply from having nothing else to do.

Get them to work, and it is a mighty step upwards."

So, but for Ra'a, the recalcitrant, the reunion of the tribe on this side of the island would have been complete. And this was so essential to Blair's far-reaching plans for its safety and redemption that he spared no pains to bring it about.

At risk which could not be estimated, he went up alone into the hills more than once to endeavour to reconcile the insubordinates to the facts of the case. He guaranteed them life, liberty, and equal advantages with the rest if they would return to their allegiance.

Failing that, he offered them safe conduct to one of the smaller, thinly-populated islands, with supplies of tools, seeds, and animals, and the a.s.sistance of one of his colleagues in turning these to account.

But Ra'a would have none of it, and his dominant will so far was strong enough to keep his turbulent crew from breaking away towards the fleshpots. The loosing of the pigs and goats had provided them also with food and sport, and, since collisions between the various hunting parties were not infrequent, life was eminently tolerable, though it lived on the point of death.

On these emba.s.sies Blair had emphatically declined to take Jean with him, on account of the indefiniteness of the journeying. Ra'a was constantly shifting camp, and each time he had to be sought afresh, with the imminent chance of the seeker meeting death in the quest.

Jean dreaded these lonely journeys terribly, but she acquiesced sensibly, and each time bade him farewell in the full knowledge that it might be for the last time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: It might be for the last time.]

She was, indeed, becoming reconciled to partings as incidental to the missionary life. The _Torch_ was constantly coming and going among the islands now, and sometimes the ladies were allowed to go and sometimes not. Relations with the outlying tribes were progressing satisfactorily. In most cases, after two or three calls with no exhibition of cloven hoofs or ulterior designs on the part of their visitors, the natives welcomed them in the most friendly fashion. In some cases they still held back, and regarded them with suspicion and distrust, but on the whole the tendency was towards confidence and friendship.

CHAPTER XX

MANY FORMS OF GRACE

We have glanced at the higher phases of Kenneth Blair's character, the more homely ones were no less strenuous and striking.

Anything less like a saint in daily life one could hardly imagine. In his love of fun and frolic he was a big, clean-hearted schoolboy, full of jokes, and with a laugh that did one good to listen to and was as infectious as the mumps. Out of harness, on the sands or in the sea, with the brown men and boys and his own, or up the hills after pigs and goats, he let himself go with an abandon which only helped to brace the straps when he geared again.

He set them to football, cricket, boxing, and fencing, for all of which his foresight had made provision, kite-flying on a scale so gigantic as to set the natives gaping, rowing, swimming--anything and everything that might harmlessly take the place of the excitements their savage natures craved, and which served at the same time to strengthen the bonds between white and brown, he pressed into the service.

The boxing-gloves and basket-hilted fencing-sticks became absolute means of grace to the islanders. Here was scope for fighting to any extent, with no ill results. They took to them amazingly, and what was lacking in science was more than made up in zeal. And if these fighting bouts filled specific wants of their own, they also provided no less excellent entertainment for the onlookers.

At first they put both gloves and sticks to the primitive service of belabouring their opponents to the utmost capacity of their muscles, and the sight of two stalwart brown men, clad only in boxing-gloves or basket-hilt, pounding away at one another with every ounce that was in them, and with never an attempt at defence, kept the white men in paroxysms of laughter. But punishment even of so comparatively mild a character as that soon led to more advanced ideas, and before long the browns were a match for the whites, and were never tired of the sport.

Captain Cathie, when he was not ranging the seas in the _Torch_, put his men through their cutla.s.s drill on the beach as regularly as if the houses behind had been a coastguard instead of a mission-station, and to the brown men this was a sight never to be missed. The measured sweep and clash of the glancing steel fascinated them. Presently they were asking for cutla.s.s drill also, and it was not denied them. Such things might to some seem roundabout steps on the road to salvation--to Kenneth Blair they were very direct and important ones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Steps on the road to salvation.]

With these brown men and women he was forbearing and long-suffering to a degree which, in the opinion of some of his friends, pa.s.sed reasonable bounds. That, perhaps, only went to prove the breadth and depth of his nature. He could flame, however, with the best when occasion called, yet there was a righteousness in his anger which lifted it above the common anger of smaller men.

From whatever distant strain they drew, the girls of Kapaa'a were undoubtedly good looking. Physically they were models of sinuous beauty, wild, dark-eyed nymphs, with manes of flower-decked hair and natural graces of action that came of ages of unfettered life and limbs. Their pretty faces and kittenish ways might well play havoc with the hearts--or say the fancies--of hot-blooded young sailormen, and these coquettes of the ridi-fringe were no whit behind their kind in the full appreciation of their powers.

Blair saw the danger as soon as he saw the girls. He had a way of looking facts square in the face without any blinking. He talked very straight to his boys, pointing out the cons of the case with the utmost frankness, and exhorting them to caution and restraint in their dealing with the island women. That so few casualties occurred spoke volumes for his moral grip over his men.

The danger was very real, for the brown girls' estimation of the attentions of the white men was open and unblushing, and tended to irritation on the part of discarded brown lovers.

Captain Cathie, in one of his bluffer moments, bluntly suggested wholesale marriage as a preventive of irregularities, and the starting of a new race on that basis, instancing the Pitcairners as typical resultants. But Blair bade him postpone any such notions until the islanders had at all events attained to some degree of civilisation.

"Trained and educated, there is no reason why our island girls should not make excellent wives," said he; "but the time is not ripe yet.

Nothing but bitterness and disillusion can come of the mingling of natures so opposite. Meanwhile, if our lads can stand the test they will be all the better for it."

Nothing serious happened--outwardly at any rate, though it is not impossible that a good deal went on of which the authorities were not aware--until, one day, one of the men was missing, and no one knew--or at all events would say--what had become of him.

Captain Cathie discovered the lapsus when he had his men out for drill on the beach.

"Where's Sandy Lean?" he asked.

No answer, but covert grins from the rest, and flashes of laughter from the girls who were watching--laughter which evoked a growl from the brown men.

"Very well! We'll deal with Sandy afterwards. Fall in, men!

'Tention!" and the drill proceeded.

When it was over, the captain questioned two or three of them as to Sandy's probable whereabouts, but got nothing out of them. So he marched over to Blair's quarters, where the four heads of the community were hammering away at the language, Ha'o giving and receiving, and Matti straightening out kinks.

"Sandy Lean's away, Mr. Blair, and I can't get track of him," announced the captain.

"Ah!" and Blair drummed quietly on the table till the hot anger cooled.

"So that's come at last," he said presently. "I'm sorry. The man's a fool, but as he has chosen, so he must lie."

He explained the matter to Ha'o, who showed no surprise and still less annoyance. His manner even implied that he looked upon the alliance as an honour to Kapaa'a, and that any other view of it might be popularly resented.

"Can you find the man for us?" asked Blair.

"What do you want with him?" asked Ha'o.

"He must marry the girl."

"I will find him," and next day he brought word that the fugitives were camped lightly in the hills, in one of the houses vacated by the dissolved third faction.

Blair, Cathie, and Ha'o accordingly set off at once to straighten the matter out, and a couple of hours' climbing brought them to the place.

Sandy Lean's old mother in Greenock Vennel would surely not have known him in his present estate. With the bonds and trammels of civilisation he had lightly discarded also its outward and visible tokens. His only clothing was a kilt of white cotton, whereby he was already paying tribute to folly in the clouds of flies and mosquitoes which levied toll on his white skin. In the hope of circ.u.mventing them, or with a loverly idea of a.s.similation to his brown bride, he had smeared himself with mud from the taro fields, and was now a motley pastel in black and red and white.

The sound of his voice, droning a comic song, drew them to the house, where he lay flat on his back on a mat. By his side sat the brown girl, doing her best to keep off the flies with a bunch of leaves.