White Fire Part 45

"How was it?"

"When I saw that devilish thing smash the ships, and the other coming towards me, I made for the hill. I was just under that rock when it broke. It was like being under Niagara, only worse. It jammed me flat and beat the breath out of me. Then the earth came rolling down, and cased me in tight except a hand's s.p.a.ce through which I could breathe.

I've been seeing those ships go smash every minute since. G.o.d! It was awful!" and he hung slackly on their arms and glanced over the placid lagoon.

Jean and Aunt Jannet gave him quiet greeting, as one come back from the dead, and hastened to supply his wants. Blair and Cathie set off again up the valley with tight faces.

The havoc there was terrible. The cloud-burst and the great wave together had swept it bare. They went some distance up and stood looking round. It seemed incredible that so short a time could have wrought so woful a change.

The plantations were gone to the last stick and leaf. The very hillsides were almost cleared of trees. The smiling valley of yesterday was a stark empty pan, with deeply-scored sides and a sheet of shining mud caking slowly at the bottom.

"It will make good growing ground," said Blair.

"If we'd anything to grow and any one to grow it for," said Cathie gloomily.

"We shall find some of them in the hills, I hope. Let us get on."

And presently there was a shout up above on the hillside, and there came down, at a pace that risked their necks, Jim Gregor of the _Jean Arnot_ and young Irvine, who was on the _Torch_ when last they heard of him.

They whooped with joy and shook hands a dozen times with Blair and Cathie, and were quite incoherent for many minutes.

"We're right glad to see you, boys," said Blair, when they calmed down.

"Are there any more up there?"

"Three more Torches, sir, and half a dozen Bonitas, and about a dozen islanders, men and women, and a couple of children. Have you got anything to eat?"

"Yes. Go on to the water-wheel. You'll find food there. Where are these others?"

"Right by yon rock. We'll go back with you. Some of them are badly bashed and can't walk without help."

So they all climbed up, and came on the forlorn little company crouching by the rock, and gave them new life by the very sight of them.

The sailors plucked up heart at once, but the brown men were very subdued and silent. Their eyes were still wide with terror when at last they sat under the southern ridge and ate the food Jean and Aunt Jannet found for them, supplemented by coco-nuts and bruised fruit from the beach.

All the men had strange stories to tell. Gregor and Irvine, and some of the others, a.s.serted that when the waterspout struck the ships they were whirled up out of them and dropped into the lagoon some distance away. Then, before they could swim ash.o.r.e, the great wave caught them and whirled them up into the valley, bruising them all more or less and breaking some. The brown men were mostly sound of limb. They had fled for the hills at the first sight of the spectral dangers outside.

"Have you seen signs of any others?" asked Blair.

Yes, they thought they had seen moving forms on the further hills, but too far away to distinguish clearly. On which Cathie set them to collecting driftwood from the sh.o.r.e, and piled it on the fire, with wet brush and tangle on top, till the smoke rose in a dense column.

"That'll bring them," he said, and in time they came dropping in, in small companies, from their various hiding-places, and last of all came one carrying a woman in his arms.

And at sight of him, toiling through the new soft mud where the village had stood, Blair sprang up and ran to meet him.

"Thank G.o.d, you are left to us, Ha'o!" he cried as they met, but Ha'o was as silent as the rest of his people. "Is Nai hurt? Let me help you."

Nai smiled wanly at him as he put his arms under her and took part of the weight, and then her face crumpled with pain.

They carried her gently to the fire, and laid her on the soft white sand, and Jean and Aunt Jannet knelt beside her and saw to her wants.

Captain Cathie, when he saw the increasing company, had made another visit to their only storehouse, the beach, and came back this time with a young pig and some bananas and coco-nuts, and some carefully-sought-out paw-paw leaves for the benefit of the too-fresh pork.

Ha'o was too weary and too hungry for talk, and Blair and Cathie called the militant members of the party to salvage work on the beach.

Gruesome work too, and not calculated to raise their spirits even after a full meal, for every few steps brought them to the bodies of those they had known alive and well the day before.

These they drew up the sand for burial later. Meanwhile the orders were to save everything they could lay hands on. Where everything had been taken, the smallest find was of value.

Fruits and shrubs especially Blair commended to their attention, and he had a couple of dozen paw-paw trees and several rows of bananas planted before sunset.

Out of the piles of timber they secured, Cathie and Pym built lean-to shelters among the rocks sufficient for the whole party. With the coco-nuts and broken fruit, and the bodies of several pigs and goats, they had food for several days, if only they could keep it in eatable condition. By the time it was finished they would know more about their actual circ.u.mstances.

Jean informed her husband that Nai had an arm and leg broken, and he at once sought out slips of wood and strips of garments, and put the broken limbs into splints.

Ha'o, after eating, lay thoughtful for a time, and then went down to a.s.sist the salvage party. He dragged and carried in silence for some time, but finally gave voice to his thoughts.

"Kenni, why has this come upon us?"

"You have had storms before, Ha'o."

"But never a storm like this one, with whirling devils and waves like rushing mountains."

"I have heard of both before in other places, but I never saw them myself till now."

"Was it your G.o.d sent them, Kenni?"

"Only in the same way that He sends everything, Ha'o--light and wind and rain."

"Why did He send this when we were doing our best to please Him?"

"It came in the ordinary way of things. It was just a bigger storm than usual."

"We never had it like this before," said Ha'o, sticking stubbornly to his point. "My people are saying it is your G.o.d sent it. If He is that kind of a G.o.d we don't want Him."

"How do you train your young men, Ha'o? By treating them softly? By petting them, and giving them all things easy and pleasant?"

"Nay, we toughen them, so that they may endure."

"Exactly! Do you think that G.o.d knows less than you? He also wants men who can endure even when the fight goes against them."

That seemed to strike him. He went on stolidly hauling and carrying, and at last said, bitterly--

"If He had left my people alive, Kenni, and not broken Nai, I would have thought better of Him."

"Let us be grateful for what is left, my friend. Nai will get better.

Many of our people are dead, but more are left than we think, perhaps."

But Ha'o shook his head gloomily, and went on hauling and carrying, and said no more.