White Fire Part 32

"Glad to be of use," said Blair, "and very thankful things are no worse. They might have been. There were more of them than I expected, and they fought harder than their cause justified."

"Even rats will fight in a corner," said Evans.

Just before dark Captain Cathie came panting in on them, in the best of spirits and with many rough words for the road. He had half a dozen of his men with him, and they brought an ample supply of food.

"Well, captain, how have things gone with you?"

"We mustn't complain, sir. He'd brought a gun along as heavy as ours and we had a fine set-to. But with our steam we had the weather hand all the time and just waltzed round him. He did his best to board, but we thought differently."

"And how did it end? Where is he now?"

Captain Cathie jabbed his finger downwards two or three times in eloquent silence.

"Sunk?"

"Sunk with all aboard, big gun and all. No more trouble from that quarter. We plugged him more than once below the water-line and we saw he was settling down. But it came sudden at the end."

"And you were not able to save any of them?"

"We were not"--said Cathie emphatically, and after a moment's pause added--"and what on earth would we have done with 'em if we had?"

"We have about a dozen on our hands here--all wounded."

"Humph!" grunted Cathie.

"We couldn't very well kill them in cold blood, you see."

"And what'll you do with 'em, Mr. Blair?"

"I don't know yet. We'll have to think that over. Did you send word to the ladies how things had gone all round?"

"I went over myself with young Irvine and told 'em all about it. They were all very thankful it was over and no more harm done."

"And how is the _Torch_?"

"Ah!" said the old man, with an aggrieved shake of the head, "she got it pretty hot; that's why I couldn't get round to wipe out those schooners. Both her masts are down, and she got a shot into the machinery. The men are seeing what they can do to it. The masts we can fit ourselves."

"And you've no casualties?"

"Some splinter wounds and some bit bruises from the spars. Nothing of consequence, sir."

"Well, we're very well through a nasty job, captain, and we've reason to be thankful for it. Now suppose we have something to eat--I'm starving."

CHAPTER XXII

PAX

It took some days to get matters shipshape after the general upheaval of the invasion.

For one thing, the brown men were much too busy on the other side of the island to settle down to ordinary work. Most of the women and children had joined them there, the villages were deserted, and there was an intangible something in the mental and moral atmosphere which made for depression.

Blair sent Evans over to see Ha'o, and endeavour to bring him back to his right mind. Evans returned downcast, and described what he had seen only to Blair and Stuart. Aunt Jannet, if she had heard, would have had a fit.

The ladies were back in their own homes, and the crippled Blackbirds were bottled up in the Happy Valley, under the wardership of Sandy Lean and his wife and a small guard of _Torch_ men. It seemed like desecration of the beautiful spot to use it as a prison, but it was the only place in the island where the yellow men would be reasonably safe from the brown ones.

The stars in their courses fought for Joshua. In like manner the strange, stern facts of life fought now for Kenneth Blair. The cloud which had threatened his work with destruction broke in unexpected blessing. The fight in One-Tree Pa.s.s was an epoch in the history of Kapaa'a.

In the first place it had brought into line--fighting line indeed, but none the less permanent on that account--the various factions in the island, and developed among them a hitherto undreamed-of community of interests. Not by any means for the first time in history, a general menace from without welded into one a diversity of hostile fragments, and discovered to them an unexpected ident.i.ty of ideas. On a microscopic scale it was, in its results, the Franco-German war over again.

The men from the eastern coast, who had borne the first brunt of the invasion, had lost everything, including their headman. But they had found more than they had lost. They had found out that the western men were not necessarily their enemies, and that both they and the white men were ready to fight to the death to save the island from the grip of the yellow men.

They fully recognised that without the white men's help the marauders would have had their will, and matters would in all probability have gone very differently. In their way they were grateful, and by no means blind to the advantages of the white alliance. That their grat.i.tude was based in no small degree on a sense of favours to come, in no way lessened its utility as a factor in the solution of political difficulties.

They too would share the benefits reaped by the western men from the white men's friendship, and when differences arose amongst them at once as to the choice of a headman, it was the most natural thing in the world to refer the rival claims to Blair, who might reasonably be expected to be without local bias in the matter.

The opportunity was too good to be lost. Blair was at pains to make clear to them the great advantages which would accrue from the union of all the communities under one head, and finally they argued the matter out among themselves and agreed to accept Ha'o as chief, with local headmen chosen by him and Blair.

They reaped their harvest at once and were content. Their houses were rebuilt, tools were given them, and they were initiated into the mysteries of the new foods and fruits introduced by the white men. A proper road was promised to further communication between the opposite sides of the island, and, so far, the descent of the Blackbirds made for good.

In another and quite unexpected direction also the invasion wrought in the direction of Blair's aims.

They were all sitting on the verandah of his house one night, watching the lightning play tremulously up and down the western sky, listening to the surf, and discussing matters generally. Captain Cathie, in the little leisure the refitting of the _Torch_ afforded him, was much exercised in his mind as to what was to be done with the prisoners.

Aunt Jannet had just expressed the opinion that it was a very great pity they had not all been scuttled.

"It does seem a pity you could not have made a clean sweep of them like Captain Cathie did, Kenneth," said she.

"Well, you see, we couldn't kill them in cold blood, Aunt Jannet."

"And now you've got them alive in cold blood what on earth are you going to do with them?"

"I see nothing for it but shipping them off home as soon as they are fit to travel. What do you say, Cathie?"

"I suppose there's nothing else for it," said Cathie gloomily. "We don't want them here, and yet I'm loth to turn them loose."

"I don't think they'll ever come back, after the reception they had this time."

"I don't know that they will, but they'll be at the same game somewhere else. I look on them as I do on mad dogs--best got rid of."

"Right!" said Aunt Jannet with emphasis.

"The trouble is that men are not dogs, you see----"

"That they're not. Dogs are mostly honest and good to look at," said Aunt Jannet again.

"We could put them on one of the schooners, and you could convoy them part way home," said Blair to Cathie. "I really don't think we have anything more to fear from them."