White Fire Part 35

"No, never," said Blair, with an expression of disgust.

"Then you cannot know how good he is. My people think there is nothing equal to man--except woman or child, which are better still. But I will promise you never to eat yellow man again, Kenni."

"That is not enough. Unless you will give up eating man of any kind we must go. We have provided other food. You cannot go hungry. The pigs and the goats are all over the island. The paw-paws grow while you sleep. You have taro and bananas, and breadfruit and coco-nuts. You have the chance to become a nation, strong and powerful. You are sole chief on Kapaa'a now. I would have you chief of the other islands also. But if you prefer to eat man I can do nothing for you. It is the foundation of all the rest that you give up eating man."

"My little son did not eat of the yellow men, Kenni, but your G.o.d took him. Why?"

"It was the disease took him. It is the most terrible thing for pa.s.sing from one to another. Could you stand the thought of your little son being eaten, Ha'o?"

"My son? No! I would have died sooner than let him be eaten."

"Yet you say other men's babies are good to eat."

Ha'o looked at him, and then lay looking out over the lagoon.

"See, Ha'o," said Blair at last, "if the thought of your little son will turn you from flesh-eating, he will have done more for Kapaa'a in the short time he lived than you have done in all your life, and we shall remember Ha'o's little son always as the beginning of the better times."

The brown man lay thinking a long time and one may not know his thoughts. But at last he said quietly--

"Twice you have saved my life and my people, Kenni. I am your man.

You must not go away. For the thought of my little son who is dead I will give up eating man. I will become a nation."

"And you will answer for the rest?"

"I will answer for the rest. If any man eats man I will kill him."

Ha'o kept his word, and so, in the death of his little son, the foundations were laid in Kapaa'a, and the black cloud broke once more in blessing.

CHAPTER XXIV

GAIN OF LOSS

With a clean bill of health, and Ha'o as supreme chief anxious to become a nation, and therefore ready to follow the white men's ideas, matters began to progress rapidly.

The first thing to be done, as soon as the men could be spared from hospital work, was to get rid of the Blackbirders.

Captain Cathie, vehemently backed up by Aunt Jannet, would even now have made short work of them.

"Give 'em a fair trial and string 'em up," was his simple idea of the justice that would meet the case. And "Hear, hear!" said Aunt Jannet with energy.

"I really don't think they're likely ever to come back, after the lesson they've had this time," said Blair.

"They wouldn't if I had my way," said Cathie grimly. "Vermin like that is best stamped out when it's under your foot."

"We stamped pretty hard last time. They'll recognise that the game is not worth the candle."

So, in due course, the larger schooner, which was the older and poorer found of the two, was provisioned for the voyage, and the prisoners were brought over from the valley and put on board of her. Blair and Stuart and Cathie awaited them there, and, through Stuart, Blair told them very explicitly what would happen if they ever showed face in those waters again. Then the refitted _Torch_ towed them out to the offing, and bade them make tracks for home, and followed them with dogged restraint for three days to see that they did it, and the island was once more purged of contamination.

When the captain got back, Blair laughingly asked him if they had got safely away, and Aunt Jannet eyed him with a spark of hope.

"They're gone," said Cathie, with a gloomy nod. "I'd have felt better if they'd gone by the shorter road."

"You ought to have scuttled them, captain," said Aunt Jannet.

Then followed many busy full days. First the village was rebuilt on a plan Blair had thought out during his hospital watches. The bush between the hills was all cleared away and burnt on the spot, leaving only the palms standing, and on this open s.p.a.ce, with the shallow river brawling through the middle, the houses were built. Stereotyped lines, both as to design and location, were purposely avoided, and the result was eminently pleasing. Fresh plantations of taro and bananas were started, pawpaw trees and breadfruit were put in wherever s.p.a.ce offered, and a close fence across the valley kept the pigs and goats from intruding.

The next great undertaking was the making of a decent road up to One-Tree Pa.s.s, for the benefit of the east coast community. And at all these works, brown men and white, Ha'o's people and the late rebels, the atoll men, and the east coasters, high and low without exception, toiled side by side, to the very great promotion of good feeling and mutual understanding. The ladies, meanwhile, fostered among the women and children all such imitative habits as were judged good for them, and after the stress and storm the peaceful times made for growth and enlightenment, and feelings of security and content such as Kapaa'a had never known before.

Of direct religious teaching there was no lack, though it still ran more to practice than to precept. Native habits and customs were interfered with as little as possible, save wherein they palpably ran counter to Nature's own laws and made for deterioration rather than uplifting.

The white men held their services regularly, and made them as simple as possible so that gleams of the light might penetrate dark hearts but by no means dark understandings. The brown men, at their work in the plantations, along the hillsides after the pigs and goats, and skimming along the combers on the other side of the ridge, chanted merry hymns whose meanings they understood not, but which did them no harm, and were very good to hear. The women learned many things in their own homes and in the mission houses, and the tubby, brown children rollicked nakedly in the school-house, learned games in which they delighted, and some of them were even beginning their ABC.

"Charles, my son," said Blair to Evans, as they were all sitting in usual conclave on the verandah one evening, "what do you say to vaccinating the whole community, lock, stock, and barrel? All, I mean, that did not have the plague. There may be some germs of it lurking in hidden corners yet."

"I'm willing, if you can bring them to it. I can take them in batches."

"I'll speak to Ha'o. He can make them do pretty well anything he pleases. I'm more and more thankful that he was spared to us."

"And Nai too," said Jean. "She is a great help. The women do whatever she tells them, and she's as bright as a needle. What do you think she came to ask for to-day, Ken?"

"No idea. Not a pair of shoes, I hope."

"No--some hairpins! She wanted to do her hair like ours."

"The eternal feminine," laughed Blair. "Well?"

"I a.s.sured her that it looked far nicer hanging loose with flowers stuck in it. But she was so disappointed that I had to give her the pins. You won't recognise the women in a day or two, I expect."

Blair explained the vaccination idea to Ha'o, and made it as clear as the limitations of language and understanding of so abstruse a matter permitted.

"You would give them a little crawling death to keep them from having it big?" said Ha'o, after much explanation.

"Yes, that is what it comes to."

"All those who did not have it before?"

"Yes."

"I will order it. It is right that Ra'a's people should taste it too."

Exactly what he told them they never learned, but in due course a batch of stalwart brown men came doubtfully into the compound, and watched Evans with apprehensive, white-eyed glances as he deftly p.r.i.c.ked and bound up their arms, and sent them away looking doubtfully at their white bandages, in evident expectation of speedy and unique developments.

They were in fine healthy condition and the operation was prosperous.

The bandage-wearers regarded them as badges of distinction. They looked upon their inoculation as a ceremonial necessary to full admission to the white alliance, and Blair was at once scandalised and amused by a crowd clamouring round the house next day for similar honours.

"Kenni," they cried, "make us Christians too! p.r.i.c.k our arms and give us our badges."