White Fire Part 29

"Hoots, la.s.sie, scat 'em!--scat 'em!" he broke out. "They nip like the de'il himsel'. It's the kiss of a cold Scotch mist I'm wantin'."

The dusky bride greeted the newcomers with a smile broad enough to typify her happiness and victory. She had proved herself stronger than the white men, and was satisfied with her prize. She had woven a garland of crimson hibiscus into her dark hair and another round her neck, and with her l.u.s.trous eyes and gleaming smile she made a very pretty picture. In a playful mood she had also inserted a crimson flower behind each ear of her captive, and when, at her warning word, he sat up suddenly, he looked supremely silly and was aware of it.

"So you've made your choice, Lean?" said Blair quietly.

And Sandy glowered back at him with defiant confusion, while the flies settled on his shoulders.

"You're the first to fall away from us," said Blair, "and it would have been better, I think, if you had waited. However, as you have decided, so it must be. You have no wife at home?"

"No, sir."

"Very well. Stand up before me with the girl and take her hand."

They stood up in their surprise, and he read the marriage service over them, insisting on Sandy's responses and taking the girl's for granted, since there was no possible doubt about her wishes.

"Now," he said, when it was over, "she is your wife, and you are at liberty to return to the village. Ha'o will see you married again there according to the island custom, so that the people may understand that you really are married. You have taken yourself off the ship's books, of course, and you will have to support yourself and your wife.

I hope you will treat her well. No doubt her relatives will see to it if you do not. It would, I think, be as well for you to keep in touch with the mission, and we will do what we can to help you. You can have tools and seeds. If you get into any trouble, come to me. Now goodbye--and--see you treat that girl well." And they left the newly-married couple to their honeymooning.

It was some days before Mr. and Mrs. Sandy descended from the clouds to the humdrum cares of life. Ha'o punctiliously performed over them all the rites and ceremonies observable in marriage on Kapaa'a, and before they were ended the bridegroom began to weary of all the fuss and to long for the easier accommodations of civilised life.

But Sandy's troubles were only beginning. With much labour he built for himself and his wife a house of parts, and his wife's relatives expressed themselves highly pleased with it, and immediately quartered themselves there, not simply in very great contentment, but fairly uplifted with their lot. They began to put on airs on the strength of the lofty alliance, and at the same time to put off even such trifling habits of labour and thrift as had hitherto supplied their daily wants without any undue exertion. Sandy remonstrated verbally, and at times otherwise, but custom was against him, and there was no shirking the burden. The other men visited him pretty regularly, and gave him a hand with his planting in their spare time; but in spite of his pretty wife, with her odd, outlandish ways, the sight of his full house offered them no inducements to follow his example. He was a standing warning to the rest, and so was not without his uses.

CHAPTER XXI

MIGHT OF RIGHT

Matters were progressing thus, surely if slowly, when a sudden sharp stroke fell upon them--sudden, but not altogether unlooked for.

With the individual as with the nation, peaceful times are growing times; and yet, to both individual and nation, there come times of stress and strife, when the slow upbuilding of the years is put sharply to the test, and, surviving, is the stronger for the strain. Winter's storms provoke the oak to deepest rooting.

At times, indeed, too long a period of peaceful growth may lead to over-fatness and deterioration. The nation and the man that waxes over-fat grows lean of soul. But that is a side issue at the moment.

The little community on Kapaa'a was too near to its swaddling bands to be in any danger of fatty degeneration. And yet the stressful time that came to it made for good in every way. It had been striking roots and feelers. Well for it that time had been given them to grip the soil before the storm burst. As it was, they only gripped the tighter, and the breaking of the storm cleared the air, and made for more prosperous weather.

Captain Cathie, in his capacity of watch-dog, had never for a single moment relaxed his precautions at home, or his keen-eyed vigilance abroad. When he was touring the islands, his gla.s.ses swept the horizon continually, with a special eye to the east, which was the threatening quarter.

"Those yellow deevils will come back, as sure as we're here," was his constant word.

And so the beach was never bare of stacks of neatly-cut wood from away up the valley, and the bunkers of the _Torch_ were always full, and the men were regularly drilled, and Long Tom was ready to speak at a moment's notice.

Each day, when the _Torch_ lay at anchor in the lagoon, he took the steam-launch, or, occasionally, one of the whale-boats, by way of exercise for muscles, through the reef, to an offing whence he could obtain wide views of the approaches to the islands.

"In there," he would say, "I feel like a man with his back to the wall.

It's safe enough, but there's no telling what's behind it."

And the wall was quite too high to climb, for the only eastward view from the summit of the hill was of the higher ridge, which ran right across the island, with only one possible pa.s.sage, and that but a narrow one.

They used to mildly chaff the old man about his fears, but he took it all with characteristic good humour.

"Ay, ay, all right!" he would say. "Just you wait, and we'll see who laughs last. When they come, it'll be no laughing matter, I'm thinking."

"They've probably forgotten all about us by this time, and have found easier pickings elsewhere," said Blair.

"That kind doesn't forget in a hurry, and they know they've only got to break us up to get all the pickings here they want," said Cathie stubbornly.

And it was thanks to these ceaseless precautions that, when the time came, they were not taken unawares.

Cathie had run out in the launch one morning as usual, and presently came plunging back through the pa.s.sage with a haste that betokened the unusual.

"They're coming," he said quietly, as the others met him on the beach.

"What, the nightmares?" said Blair, with a keen glance, for the captain was not above a joke.

"Ay, the nightmares, sure enough. A brig and two tops'l schooners working up steady from the south-east. They'll carry a heap of men, I'm thinking, and we'll have our hands full."

"Right? How soon can they be here, captain?"

"Wind's light--a couple of hours, I should say, at soonest."

"Our old plans stand?"

They had long since discussed the possible campaign, though not very lately.

"If they have as many men as I expect, we'll have to change 'em a bit.

Unless they're absolute fools, which it's as well not to reckon on, they'll split and strike us more than one side at once. There's easy landing the other side the island."

"But a difficult way across."

"They don't know that, and they'll trust to luck to get across once they're ash.o.r.e."

"You can keep this side all safe with the _Torch_, I suppose, captain?"

"Any quarter this time?" asked Cathie anxiously.

"Make quite sure of their intentions first. Then, if they are what we have reason to suspect, hit hard and end it."

"I'll keep this side all safe," said Cathie briskly, "and when I've cleared them here, I'll take a run round to the back and wipe 'em up there too."

"How many men can you spare us, captain?"

"I can do with six besides those below," said Cathie, after a moment's consideration. "Under steam we'll have the weather gauge all the time, and we'll give 'em no chance to board."

"That leaves us ten. Give us your ten best, captain, and see that each man has a revolver in addition to his Winchester and cutla.s.s. Better beat up your men at once with the drum, Ha'o. What about Ra'a? Will he rest quiet, or will he take advantage of the matter to attack us, or will he help us?"

"He won't help. He may attack. If we are beaten, he is chief," said Ha'o, with a look which implied that the proper thing to do under the circ.u.mstances was to wipe out Ra'a forthwith.