“And do you mean to tell me you can swallow a yarn like that?” I asked.

She told me the thing was well known, and with handsome young men alone
it was even common; but this was the only case where five had been slain
the same day and in a company by the love of the women-devils; and it had
made a great stir in the island, and she would be crazy if she doubted.

“Well, anyway,” says I, “you needn’t be frightened about me.  I’ve no use
for the women-devils.  You’re all the women I want, and all the devil
too, old lady.”

To this she answered there were other sorts, and she had seen one with
her own eyes.  She had gone one day alone to the next bay, and, perhaps,
got too near the margin of the bad place.  The boughs of the high bush
overshadowed her from the cant of the hill, but she herself was outside
on a flat place, very stony and growing full of young mummy-apples four
and five feet high.  It was a dark day in the rainy season, and now there
came squalls that tore off the leaves and sent them flying, and now it
was all still as in a house.  It was in one of these still times that a
whole gang of birds and flying foxes came pegging out of the bush like
creatures frightened.  Presently after she heard a rustle nearer hand,
and saw, coming out of the margin of the trees, among the mummy-apples,
the appearance of a lean grey old boar.  It seemed to think as it came,
like a person; and all of a sudden, as she looked at it coming, she was
aware it was no boar but a thing that was a man with a man’s thoughts.
At that she ran, and the pig after her, and as the pig ran it holla’d
aloud, so that the place rang with it.

“I wish I had been there with my gun,” said I.  “I guess that pig would
have holla’d so as to surprise himself.”

But she told me a gun was of no use with the like of these, which were
the spirits of the dead.

Well, this kind of talk put in the evening, which was the best of it; but
of course it didn’t change my notion, and the next day, with my gun and a
good knife, I set off upon a voyage of discovery.  I made, as near as I
could, for the place where I had seen Case come out; for if it was true
he had some kind of establishment in the bush I reckoned I should find a
path.  The beginning of the desert was marked off by a wall, to call it
so, for it was more of a long mound of stones.  They say it reaches right
across the island, but how they know it is another question, for I doubt
if anyone has made the journey in a hundred years, the natives sticking
chiefly to the sea and their little colonies along the coast, and that
part being mortal high and steep and full of cliffs.  Up to the west side
of the wall, the ground has been cleared, and there are cocoa palms and
mummy-apples and guavas, and lots of sensitive plants.  Just across, the
bush begins outright; high bush at that, trees going up like the masts of
ships, and ropes of liana hanging down like a ship’s rigging, and nasty
orchids growing in the forks like funguses.  The ground where there was
no underwood looked to be a heap of boulders.  I saw many green pigeons
which I might have shot, only I was there with a different idea.  A
number of butterflies flopped up and down along the ground like dead
leaves; sometimes I would hear a bird calling, sometimes the wind
overhead, and always the sea along the coast.

But the queerness of the place it’s more difficult to tell of, unless to
one who has been alone in the high bush himself.  The brightest kind of a
day it is always dim down there.  A man can see to the end of nothing;
whichever way he looks the wood shuts up, one bough folding with another
like the fingers of your hand; and whenever he listens he hears always
something new—men talking, children laughing, the strokes of an axe a far
way ahead of him, and sometimes a sort of a quick, stealthy scurry near
at hand that makes him jump and look to his weapons.  It’s all very well
for him to tell himself that he’s alone, bar trees and birds; he can’t
make out to believe it; whichever way he turns the whole place seems to
be alive and looking on.  Don’t think it was Uma’s yarns that put me out;
I don’t value native talk a fourpenny-piece; it’s a thing that’s natural
in the bush, and that’s the end of it.

As I got near the top of the hill, for the ground of the wood goes up in
this place steep as a ladder, the wind began to sound straight on, and
the leaves to toss and switch open and let in the sun.  This suited me
better; it was the same noise all the time, and nothing to startle.
Well, I had got to a place where there was an underwood of what they call
wild cocoanut—mighty pretty with its scarlet fruit—when there came a
sound of singing in the wind that I thought I had never heard the like
of.  It was all very fine to tell myself it was the branches; I knew
better.  It was all very fine to tell myself it was a bird; I knew never
a bird that sang like that.  It rose and swelled, and died away and
swelled again; and now I thought it was like someone weeping, only
prettier; and now I thought it was like harps; and there was one thing I
made sure of, it was a sight too sweet to be wholesome in a place like
that.  You may laugh if you like; but I declare I called to mind the six
young ladies that came, with their scarlet necklaces, out of the cave at
Fanga-anaana, and wondered if they sang like that.  We laugh at the
natives and their superstitions; but see how many traders take them up,
splendidly educated white men, that have been book-keepers (some of them)
and clerks in the old country.  It’s my belief a superstition grows up in
a place like the different kind of weeds; and as I stood there and
listened to that wailing I twittered in my shoes.

You may call me a coward to be frightened; I thought myself brave enough
to go on ahead.  But I went mighty carefully, with my gun cocked, spying
all about me like a hunter, fully expecting to see a handsome young woman
sitting somewhere in the bush, and fully determined (if I did) to try her
with a charge of duck-shot.  And sure enough, I had not gone far when I
met with a queer thing.  The wind came on the top of the wood in a strong
puff, the leaves in front of me burst open, and I saw for a second
something hanging in a tree.  It was gone in a wink, the puff blowing by
and the leaves closing.  I tell you the truth: I had made up my mind to
see an _aitu_; and if the thing had looked like a pig or a woman, it
wouldn’t have given me the same turn.  The trouble was that it seemed
kind of square, and the idea of a square thing that was alive and sang
knocked me sick and silly.  I must have stood quite a while; and I made
pretty certain it was right out of the same tree that the singing came.
Then I began to come to myself a bit.

“Well,” says I, “if this is really so, if this is a place where there are
square things that sing, I’m gone up anyway.  Let’s have my fun for my
money.”

But I thought I might as well take the off chance of a prayer being any
good; so I plumped on my knees and prayed out loud; and all the time I
was praying the strange sounds came out of the tree, and went up and
down, and changed, for all the world like music, only you could see it
wasn’t human—there was nothing there that you could whistle.

As soon as I had made an end in proper style, I laid down my gun, stuck
my knife between my teeth, walked right up to that tree, and began to
climb.  I tell you my heart was like ice.  But presently, as I went up, I
caught another glimpse of the thing, and that relieved me, for I thought
it seemed like a box; and when I had got right up to it I near fell out
of the tree with laughing.

A box it was, sure enough, and a candle-box at that, with the brand upon
the side of it; and it had banjo strings stretched so as to sound when
the wind blew.  I believe they call the thing a Tyrolean {3} harp,
whatever that may mean.

“Well, Mr. Case,” said I, “you’ve frightened me once, but I defy you to
frighten me again,” I says, and slipped down the tree, and set out again
to find my enemy’s head office, which I guessed would not be far away.

The undergrowth was thick in this part; I couldn’t see before my nose,
and must burst my way through by main force and ply the knife as I went,
slicing the cords of the lianas and slashing down whole trees at a blow.
I call them trees for the bigness, but in truth they were just big weeds,
and sappy to cut through like carrot.  From all this crowd and kind of
vegetation, I was just thinking to myself, the place might have once been
cleared, when I came on my nose over a pile of stones, and saw in a
moment it was some kind of a work of man.  The Lord knows when it was
made or when deserted, for this part of the island has lain undisturbed
since long before the whites came.  A few steps beyond I hit into the
path I had been always looking for.  It was narrow, but well beaten, and
I saw that Case had plenty of disciples.  It seems, indeed, it was a
piece of fashionable boldness to venture up here with the trader, and a
young man scarce reckoned himself grown till he had got his breech
tattooed, for one thing, and seen Case’s devils for another.  This is
mighty like Kanakas; but, if you look at it another way, it’s mighty like
white folks too.

A bit along the path I was brought to a clear stand, and had to rub my
eyes.  There was a wall in front of me, the path passing it by a gap; it
was tumbledown and plainly very old, but built of big stones very well
laid; and there is no native alive to-day upon that island that could
dream of such a piece of building.  Along all the top of it was a line of
queer figures, idols or scarecrows, or what not.  They had carved and
painted faces ugly to view, their eyes and teeth were of shell, their
hair and their bright clothes blew in the wind, and some of them worked
with the tugging.  There are islands up west where they make these kind
of figures till to-day; but if ever they were made in this island, the
practice and the very recollection of it are now long forgotten.  And the
singular thing was that all these bogies were as fresh as toys out of a
shop.

Then it came in my mind that Case had let out to me the first day that he
was a good forger of island curiosities, a thing by which so many traders
turn an honest penny.  And with that I saw the whole business, and how
this display served the man a double purpose: first of all, to season his
curiosities, and then to frighten those that came to visit him.

But I should tell you (what made the thing more curious) that all the
time the Tyrolean harps were harping round me in the trees, and even
while I looked, a green-and-yellow bird (that, I suppose, was building)
began to tear the hair off the head of one of the figures.

A little farther on I found the best curiosity of the museum.  The first
I saw of it was a longish mound of earth with a twist to it.  Digging off
the earth with my hands, I found underneath tarpaulin stretched on
boards, so that this was plainly the roof of a cellar.  It stood right on
the top of the hill, and the entrance was on the far side, between two
rocks, like the entrance to a cave.  I went as far in as the bend, and,
looking round the corner, saw a shining face.  It was big and ugly, like
a pantomime mask, and the brightness of it waxed and dwindled, and at
times it smoked.

“Oho!” says I, “luminous paint!”

And I must say I rather admired the man’s ingenuity.  With a box of tools
and a few mighty simple contrivances he had made out to have a devil of a
temple.  Any poor Kanaka brought up here in the dark, with the harps
whining all round him, and shown that smoking face in the bottom of a
hole, would make no kind of doubt but he had seen and heard enough devils
for a lifetime.  It’s easy to find out what Kanakas think.  Just go back
to yourself any way round from ten to fifteen years old, and there’s an
average Kanaka.  There are some pious, just as there are pious boys; and
the most of them, like the boys again, are middling honest and yet think
it rather larks to steal, and are easy scared and rather like to be so.
I remember a boy I was at school with at home who played the Case
business.  He didn’t know anything, that boy; he couldn’t do anything; he
had no luminous paint and no Tyrolean harps; he just boldly said he was a
sorcerer, and frightened us out of our boots, and we loved it.  And then
it came in my mind how the master had once flogged that boy, and the
surprise we were all in to see the sorcerer catch it and bum like anybody
else.  Thinks I to myself, “I must find some way of fixing it so for
Master Case.”  And the next moment I had my idea.

I went back by the path, which, when once you had found it, was quite
plain and easy walking; and when I stepped out on the black sands, who
should I see but Master Case himself.  I cocked my gun and held it handy,
and we marched up and passed without a word, each keeping the tail of his
eye on the other; and no sooner had we passed than we each wheeled round
like fellows drilling, and stood face to face.  We had each taken the
same notion in his head, you see, that the other fellow might give him
the load of his gun in the stern.

“You’ve shot nothing,” says Case.

“I’m not on the shoot to-day,” said I.

“Well, the devil go with you for me,” says he.

“The same to you,” says I.

But we stuck just the way we were; no fear of either of us moving.

Case laughed.  “We can’t stop here all day, though,” said he.

“Don’t let me detain you,” says I.

He laughed again.  “Look here, Wiltshire, do you think me a fool?” he
asked.

“More of a knave, if you want to know,” says I.

“Well, do you think it would better me to shoot you here, on this open
beach?” said he.  “Because I don’t.  Folks come fishing every day.  There
may be a score of them up the valley now, making copra; there might be
half a dozen on the hill behind you, after pigeons; they might be
watching us this minute, and I shouldn’t wonder.  I give you my word I
don’t want to shoot you.  Why should I?  You don’t hinder me any.  You
haven’t got one pound of copra but what you made with your own hands,
like a negro slave.  You’re vegetating—that’s what I call it—and I don’t
care where you vegetate, nor yet how long.  Give me your word you don’t
mean to shoot me, and I’ll give you a lead and walk away.”

“Well,” said I, “You’re frank and pleasant, ain’t you?  And I’ll be the
same.  I don’t mean to shoot you to-day.  Why should I?  This business is
beginning; it ain’t done yet, Mr. Case.  I’ve given you one turn already;
I can see the marks of my knuckles on your head to this blooming hour,
and I’ve more cooking for you.  I’m not a paralee, like Underhill.  My
name ain’t Adams, and it ain’t Vigours; and I mean to show you that
you’ve met your match.”

“This is a silly way to talk,” said he.  “This is not the talk to make me
move on with.”

“All right,” said I, “stay where you are.  I ain’t in any hurry, and you
know it.  I can put in a day on this beach and never mind.  I ain’t got
any copra to bother with.  I ain’t got any luminous paint to see to.”

I was sorry I said that last, but it whipped out before I knew.  I could
see it took the wind out of his sails, and he stood and stared at me with
his brow drawn up.  Then I suppose he made up his mind he must get to the
bottom of this.

“I take you at your word,” says he, and turned his back, and walked right
into the devil’s bush.

I let him go, of course, for I had passed my word.  But I watched him as
long as he was in sight, and after he was gone lit out for cover as
lively as you would want to see, and went the rest of the way home under
the bush, for I didn’t trust him sixpence-worth.  One thing I saw, I had
been ass enough to give him warning, and that which I meant to do I must
do at once.

You would think I had had about enough excitement for one morning, but
there was another turn waiting me.  As soon as I got far enough round the
cape to see my house I made out there were strangers there; a little
farther, and no doubt about it.  There was a couple of armed sentinels
squatting at my door.  I could only suppose the trouble about Uma must
have come to a head, and the station been seized.  For aught I could
think, Uma was taken up already, and these armed men were waiting to do
the like with me.

However, as I came nearer, which I did at top speed, I saw there was a
third native sitting on the verandah like a guest, and Uma was talking
with him like a hostess.  Nearer still I made out it was the big young
chief, Maea, and that he was smiling away and smoking.  And what was he
smoking?  None of your European cigarettes fit for a cat, not even the
genuine big, knock-me-down native article that a fellow can really put in
the time with if his pipe is broke—but a cigar, and one of my Mexicans at
that, that I could swear to.  At sight of this my heart started beating,
and I took a wild hope in my head that the trouble was over, and Maea had
come round.

Uma pointed me out to him as I came up, and he met me at the head of my
own stairs like a thorough gentleman.

“Vilivili,” said he, which was the best they could make of my name, “I
pleased.”

There is no doubt when an island chief wants to be civil he can do it.  I
saw the way things were from the word go.  There was no call for Uma to
say to me: “He no ’fraid Ese now, come bring copra.”  I tell you I shook
hands with that Kanaka like as if he was the best white man in Europe.

The fact was, Case and he had got after the same girl; or Maea suspected
it, and concluded to make hay of the trader on the chance.  He had
dressed himself up, got a couple of his retainers cleaned and armed to
kind of make the thing more public, and, just waiting till Case was clear
of the village, came round to put the whole of his business my way.  He
was rich as well as powerful.  I suppose that man was worth fifty
thousand nuts per annum.  I gave him the price of the beach and a quarter
cent better, and as for credit, I would have advanced him the inside of
the store and the fittings besides, I was so pleased to see him.  I must
say he bought like a gentleman: rice and tins and biscuits enough for a
week’s feast, and stuffs by the bolt.  He was agreeable besides; he had
plenty fun to him; and we cracked jests together, mostly through the
interpreter, because he had mighty little English, and my native was
still off colour.  One thing I made out: he could never really have
thought much harm of Uma; he could never have been really frightened, and
must just have made believe from dodginess, and because he thought Case
had a strong pull in the village and could help him on.

This set me thinking that both he and I were in a tightish place.  What
he had done was to fly in the face of the whole village, and the thing
might cost him his authority.  More than that, after my talk with Case on
the beach, I thought it might very well cost me my life.  Case had as
good as said he would pot me if ever I got any copra; he would come home
to find the best business in the village had changed hands; and the best
thing I thought I could do was to get in first with the potting.

“See here, Uma,” says I, “tell him I’m sorry I made him wait, but I was
up looking at Case’s Tiapolo store in the bush.”

“He want savvy if you no ’fraid?” translated Uma.

I laughed out.  “Not much!” says I.  “Tell him the place is a blooming
toy-shop!  Tell him in England we give these things to the kids to play
with.”

“He want savvy if you hear devil sing?” she asked next.

“Look here,” I said, “I can’t do it now because I’ve got no banjo-strings
in stock; but the next time the ship comes round I’ll have one of these
same contraptions right here in my verandah, and he can see for himself
how much devil there is to it.  Tell him, as soon as I can get the
strings I’ll make one for his picaninnies.  The name of the concern is a
Tyrolean harp; and you can tell him the name means in English that nobody
but dam-fools give a cent for it.”

This time he was so pleased he had to try his English again.  “You talk
true?” says he.

“Rather!” said I.  “Talk all-e-same Bible.  Bring out a Bible here, Uma,
if you’ve got such a thing, and I’ll kiss it.  Or, I’ll tell you what’s
better still,” says I, taking a header, “ask him if he’s afraid to go up
there himself by day.”

It appeared he wasn’t; he could venture as far as that by day and in
company.

“That’s the ticket, then!” said I.  “Tell him the man’s a fraud and the
place foolishness, and if he’ll go up there to-morrow he’ll see all
that’s left of it.  But tell him this, Uma, and mind he understands it:
If he gets talking, it’s bound to come to Case, and I’m a dead man!  I’m
playing his game, tell him, and if he says one word my blood will be at
his door and be the damnation of him here and after.”

She told him, and he shook hands with me up to the hilt, and, says he:
“No talk.  Go up to-morrow.  You my friend?”

“No sir,” says I, “no such foolishness.  I’ve come here to trade, tell
him, and not to make friends.  But, as to Case, I’ll send that man to
glory!”

So off Maea went, pretty well pleased, as I could see.



CHAPTER V.  NIGHT IN THE BUSH.


Well, I was committed now; Tiapolo had to be smashed up before next day,
and my hands were pretty full, not only with preparations, but with
argument.  My house was like a mechanics’ debating society: Uma was so
made up that I shouldn’t go into the bush by night, or that, if I did, I
was never to come back again.  You know her style of arguing: you’ve had
a specimen about Queen Victoria and the devil; and I leave you to fancy
if I was tired of it before dark.

At last I had a good idea.  What was the use of casting my pearls before
her?  I thought; some of her own chopped hay would be likelier to do the
business.

“I’ll tell you what, then,” said I.  “You fish out your Bible, and I’ll
take that up along with me.  That’ll make me right.”

She swore a Bible was no use.

“That’s just your Kanaka ignorance,” said I.  “Bring the Bible out.”

She brought it, and I turned to the title-page, where I thought there
would likely be some English, and so there was.  “There!” said I.  “Look
at that!  ‘_London_: _Printed for the British and Foreign Bible Society_,
_Blackfriars_,’ and the date, which I can’t read, owing to its being in
these X’s.  There’s no devil in hell can look near the Bible Society,
Blackfriars.  Why, you silly!”  I said, “how do you suppose we get along
with our own _aitus_ at home?  All Bible Society!”

“I think you no got any,” said she.  “White man, he tell me you no got.”

“Sounds likely, don’t it?” I asked.  “Why would these islands all be
chock full of them and none in Europe?”

“Well, you no got breadfruit,” said she.

I could have torn my hair.  “Now look here, old lady,” said I, “you dry
up, for I’m tired of you.  I’ll take the Bible, which’ll put me as
straight as the mail, and that’s the last word I’ve got to say.”

The night fell extraordinary dark, clouds coming up with sundown and
overspreading all; not a star showed; there was only an end of a moon,
and that not due before the small hours.  Round the village, what with
the lights and the fires in the open houses, and the torches of many
fishers moving on the reef, it kept as gay as an illumination; but the
sea and the mountains and woods were all clean gone.  I suppose it might
be eight o’clock when I took the road, laden like a donkey.  First there
was that Bible, a book as big as your head, which I had let myself in for
by my own tomfoolery.  Then there was my gun, and knife, and lantern, and
patent matches, all necessary.  And then there was the real plant of the
affair in hand, a mortal weight of gunpowder, a pair of dynamite
fishing-bombs, and two or three pieces of slow match that I had hauled
out of the tin cases and spliced together the best way I could; for the
match was only trade stuff, and a man would be crazy that trusted it.
Altogether, you see, I had the materials of a pretty good blow-up!
Expense was nothing to me; I wanted that thing done right.

As long as I was in the open, and had the lamp in my house to steer by, I
did well.  But when I got to the path, it fell so dark I could make no
headway, walking into trees and swearing there, like a man looking for
the matches in his bed-room.  I knew it was risky to light up, for my
lantern would be visible all the way to the point of the cape, and as no
one went there after dark, it would be talked about, and come to Case’s
ears.  But what was I to do?  I had either to give the business over and
lose caste with Maea, or light up, take my chance, and get through the
thing the smartest I was able.

As long as I was on the path I walked hard, but when I came to the black
beach I had to run.  For the tide was now nearly flowed; and to get
through with my powder dry between the surf and the steep hill, took all
the quickness I possessed.  As it was, even, the wash caught me to the
knees, and I came near falling on a stone.  All this time the hurry I was
in, and the free air and smell of the sea, kept my spirits lively; but
when I was once in the bush and began to climb the path I took it easier.
The fearsomeness of the wood had been a good bit rubbed off for me by
Master Case’s banjo-strings and graven images, yet I thought it was a
dreary walk, and guessed, when the disciples went up there, they must be
badly scared.  The light of the lantern, striking among all these trunks
and forked branches and twisted rope-ends of lianas, made the whole
place, or all that you could see of it, a kind of a puzzle of turning
shadows.  They came to meet you, solid and quick like giants, and then
span off and vanished; they hove up over your head like clubs, and flew
away into the night like birds.  The floor of the bush glimmered with
dead wood, the way the match-box used to shine after you had struck a
lucifer.  Big, cold drops fell on me from the branches overhead like
sweat.  There was no wind to mention; only a little icy breath of a
land-breeze that stirred nothing; and the harps were silent.

The first landfall I made was when I got through the bush of wild
cocoanuts, and came in view of the bogies on the wall.  Mighty queer they
looked by the shining of the lantern, with their painted faces and shell
eyes, and their clothes and their hair hanging.  One after another I
pulled them all up and piled them in a bundle on the cellar roof, so as
they might go to glory with the rest.  Then I chose a place behind one of
the big stones at the entrance, buried my powder and the two shells, and
arranged my match along the passage.  And then I had a look at the
smoking head, just for good-bye.  It was doing fine.

“Cheer up,” says I.  “You’re booked.”

It was my first idea to light up and be getting homeward; for the
darkness and the glimmer of the dead wood and the shadows of the lantern
made me lonely.  But I knew where one of the harps hung; it seemed a pity
it shouldn’t go with the rest; and at the same time I couldn’t help
letting on to myself that I was mortal tired of my employment, and would
like best to be at home and have the door shut.  I stepped out of the
cellar and argued it fore and back.  There was a sound of the sea far
down below me on the coast; nearer hand not a leaf stirred; I might have
been the only living creature this side of Cape Horn.  Well, as I stood
there thinking, it seemed the bush woke and became full of little noises.
Little noises they were, and nothing to hurt—a bit of a crackle, a bit of
a rush—but the breath jumped right out of me and my throat went as dry as
a biscuit.  It wasn’t Case I was afraid of, which would have been
common-sense; I never thought of Case; what took me, as sharp as the
colic, was the old wives’ tales, the devil-women and the man-pigs.  It
was the toss of a penny whether I should run: but I got a purchase on
myself, and stepped out, and held up the lantern (like a fool) and looked
all round.

In the direction of the village and the path there was nothing to be
seen; but when I turned inland it’s a wonder to me I didn’t drop.  There,
coming right up out of the desert and the bad bush—there, sure enough,
was a devil-woman, just as the way I had figured she would look.  I saw
the light shine on her bare arms and her bright eyes, and there went out
of me a yell so big that I thought it was my death.

“Ah!  No sing out!” says the devil-woman, in a kind of a high whisper.
“Why you talk big voice?  Put out light!  Ese he come.”

“My God Almighty, Uma, is that you?” says I.

“_Ioe_,” {4} says she.  “I come quick.  Ese here soon.”

“You come alone?” I asked.  “You no ’fraid?”

“Ah, too much ’fraid!” she whispered, clutching me.  “I think die.”

“Well,” says I, with a kind of a weak grin, “I’m not the one to laugh at
you, Mrs. Wiltshire, for I’m about the worst scared man in the South
Pacific myself.”

She told me in two words what brought her.  I was scarce gone, it seems,
when Fa’avao came in, and the old woman had met Black Jack running as
hard as he was fit from our house to Case’s.  Uma neither spoke nor
stopped, but lit right out to come and warn me.  She was so close at my
heels that the lantern was her guide across the beach, and afterwards, by
the glimmer of it in the trees, she got her line up hill.  It was only
when I had got to the top or was in the cellar that she wandered Lord
knows where! and lost a sight of precious time, afraid to call out lest
Case was at the heels of her, and falling in the bush, so that she was
all knocked and bruised.  That must have been when she got too far to the
southward, and how she came to take me in the flank at last and frighten
me beyond what I’ve got the words to tell of.

Well, anything was better than a devil-woman, but I thought her yarn
serious enough.  Black Jack had no call to be about my house, unless he
was set there to watch; and it looked to me as if my tomfool word about
the paint, and perhaps some chatter of Maea’s, had got us all in a clove
hitch.  One thing was clear: Uma and I were here for the night; we
daren’t try to go home before day, and even then it would be safer to
strike round up the mountain and come in by the back of the village, or
we might walk into an ambuscade.  It was plain, too, that the mine should
be sprung immediately, or Case might be in time to stop it.

I marched into the tunnel, Uma keeping tight hold of me, opened my
lantern and lit the match.  The first length of it burned like a spill of
paper, and I stood stupid, watching it burn, and thinking we were going
aloft with Tiapolo, which was none of my views.  The second took to a
better rate, though faster than I cared about; and at that I got my wits
again, hauled Uma clear of the passage, blew out and dropped the lantern,
and the pair of us groped our way into the bush until I thought it might
be safe, and lay down together by a tree.

“Old lady,” I said, “I won’t forget this night.  You’re a trump, and
that’s what’s wrong with you.”

She humped herself close up to me.  She had run out the way she was, with
nothing on her but her kilt; and she was all wet with the dews and the
sea on the black beach, and shook straight on with cold and the terror of
the dark and the devils.

“Too much ’fraid,” was all she said.

The far side of Case’s hill goes down near as steep as a precipice into
the next valley.  We were on the very edge of it, and I could see the
dead wood shine and hear the sea sound far below.  I didn’t care about
the position, which left me no retreat, but I was afraid to change.  Then
I saw I had made a worse mistake about the lantern, which I should have
left lighted, so that I could have had a crack at Case when he stepped
into the shine of it.  And even if I hadn’t had the wit to do that, it
seemed a senseless thing to leave the good lantern to blow up with the
graven images.  The thing belonged to me, after all, and was worth money,
and might come in handy.  If I could have trusted the match, I might have
run in still and rescued it.  But who was going to trust the match?  You
know what trade is.  The stuff was good enough for Kanakas to go fishing
with, where they’ve got to look lively anyway, and the most they risk is
only to have their hand blown off.  But for anyone that wanted to fool
around a blow-up like mine that match was rubbish.

Altogether the best I could do was to lie still, see my shot-gun handy,
and wait for the explosion.  But it was a solemn kind of a business.  The
blackness of the night was like solid; the only thing you could see was
the nasty bogy glimmer of the dead wood, and that showed you nothing but
itself; and as for sounds, I stretched my ears till I thought I could
have heard the match burn in the tunnel, and that bush was as silent as a
coffin.  Now and then there was a bit of a crack; but whether it was near
or far, whether it was Case stubbing his toes within a few yards of me,
or a tree breaking miles away, I knew no more than the babe unborn.

And then, all of a sudden, Vesuvius went off.  It was a long time coming;
but when it came (though I say it that shouldn’t) no man could ask to see
a better.  At first it was just a son of a gun of a row, and a spout of
fire, and the wood lighted up so that you could see to read.  And then
the trouble began.  Uma and I were half buried under a wagonful of earth,
and glad it was no worse, for one of the rocks at the entrance of the
tunnel was fired clean into the air, fell within a couple of fathoms of
where we lay, and bounded over the edge of the hill, and went pounding
down into the next valley.  I saw I had rather undercalculated our
distance, or over-done the dynamite and powder, which you please.

And presently I saw I had made another slip.  The noise of the thing
began to die off, shaking the island; the dazzle was over; and yet the
night didn’t come back the way I expected.  For the whole wood was
scattered with red coals and brands from the explosion; they were all
round me on the flat; some had fallen below in the valley, and some stuck
and flared in the tree-tops.  I had no fear of fire, for these forests
are too wet to kindle.  But the trouble was that the place was all lit
up-not very bright, but good enough to get a shot by; and the way the
coals were scattered, it was just as likely Case might have the advantage
as myself.  I looked all round for his white face, you may be sure; but
there was not a sign of him.  As for Uma, the life seemed to have been
knocked right out of her by the bang and blaze of it.

There was one bad point in my game.  One of the blessed graven images had
come down all afire, hair and clothes and body, not four yards away from
me.  I cast a mighty noticing glance all round; there was still no Case,
and I made up my mind I must get rid of that burning stick before he
came, or I should be shot there like a dog.

It was my first idea to have crawled, and then I thought speed was the
main thing, and stood half up to make a rush.  The same moment from
somewhere between me and the sea there came a flash and a report, and a
rifle bullet screeched in my ear.  I swung straight round and up with my
gun, but the brute had a Winchester, and before I could as much as see
him his second shot knocked me over like a nine-pin.  I seemed to fly in
the air, then came down by the run and lay half a minute, silly; and then
I found my hands empty, and my gun had flown over my head as I fell.  It
makes a man mighty wide awake to be in the kind of box that I was in.  I
scarcely knew where I was hurt, or whether I was hurt or not, but turned
right over on my face to crawl after my weapon.  Unless you have tried to
get about with a smashed leg you don’t know what pain is, and I let out a
howl like a bullock’s.

This was the unluckiest noise that ever I made in my life.  Up to then
Uma had stuck to her tree like a sensible woman, knowing she would be
only in the way; but as soon as she heard me sing out, she ran forward.
The Winchester cracked again, and down she went.

I had sat up, leg and all, to stop her; but when I saw her tumble I
clapped down again where I was, lay still, and felt the handle of my
knife.  I had been scurried and put out before.  No more of that for me.
He had knocked over my girl, I had got to fix him for it; and I lay there
and gritted my teeth, and footed up the chances.  My leg was broke, my
gun was gone.  Case had still ten shots in his Winchester.  It looked a
kind of hopeless business.  But I never despaired nor thought upon
despairing: that man had got to go.

For a goodish bit not one of us let on.  Then I heard Case begin to move
nearer in the bush, but mighty careful.  The image had burned out; there
were only a few coals left here and there, and the wood was main dark,
but had a kind of a low glow in it like a fire on its last legs.  It was
by this that I made out Case’s head looking at me over a big tuft of
ferns, and at the same time the brute saw me and shouldered his
Winchester.  I lay quite still, and as good as looked into the barrel: it
was my last chance, but I thought my heart would have come right out of
its bearings.  Then he fired.  Lucky for me it was no shot-gun, for the
bullet struck within an inch of me and knocked the dirt in my eyes.

Just you try and see if you can lie quiet, and let a man take a sitting
shot at you and miss you by a hair.  But I did, and lucky too.  A while
Case stood with the Winchester at the port-arms; then he gave a little
laugh to himself, and stepped round the ferns.

“Laugh!” thought I.  “If you had the wit of a louse you would be
praying!”

I was all as taut as a ship’s hawser or the spring of a watch, and as
soon as he came within reach of me I had him by the ankle, plucked the
feet right out from under him, laid him out, and was upon the top of him,
broken leg and all, before he breathed.  His Winchester had gone the same
road as my shot-gun; it was nothing to me—I defied him now.  I’m a pretty
strong man anyway, but I never knew what strength was till I got hold of
Case.  He was knocked out of time by the rattle he came down with, and
threw up his hands together, more like a frightened woman, so that I
caught both of them with my left.  This wakened him up, and he fastened
his teeth in my forearm like a weasel.  Much I cared.  My leg gave me all
the pain I had any use for, and I drew my knife and got it in the place.

“Now,” said I, “I’ve got you; and you’re gone up, and a good job too!  Do
you feel the point of that?  That’s for Underhill!  And there’s for
Adams!  And now here’s for Uma, and that’s going to knock your blooming
soul right out of you!”

With that I gave him the cold steel for all I was worth.  His body kicked
under me like a spring sofa; he gave a dreadful kind of a long moan, and
lay still.

“I wonder if you’re dead?  I hope so!” I thought, for my head was
swimming.  But I wasn’t going to take chances; I had his own example too
close before me for that; and I tried to draw the knife out to give it
him again.  The blood came over my hands, I remember, hot as tea; and
with that I fainted clean away, and fell with my head on the man’s mouth.

When I came to myself it was pitch dark; the cinders had burned out;
there was nothing to be seen but the shine of the dead wood, and I
couldn’t remember where I was nor why I was in such pain nor what I was
all wetted with.  Then it came back, and the first thing I attended to
was to give him the knife again a half-a-dozen times up to the handle.  I
believe he was dead already, but it did him no harm and did me good.

“I bet you’re dead now,” I said, and then I called to Uma.

Nothing answered, and I made a move to go and grope for her, fouled my
broken leg, and fainted again.

When I came to myself the second time the clouds had all cleared away,
except a few that sailed there, white as cotton.  The moon was up—a
tropic moon.  The moon at home turns a wood black, but even this old
butt-end of a one showed up that forest, as green as by day.  The night
birds—or, rather, they’re a kind of early morning bird—sang out with
their long, falling notes like nightingales.  And I could see the dead
man, that I was still half resting on, looking right up into the sky with
his open eyes, no paler than when he was alive; and a little way off Uma
tumbled on her side.  I got over to her the best way I was able, and when
I got there she was broad awake, and crying and sobbing to herself with
no more noise than an insect.  It appears she was afraid to cry out loud,
because of the _aitus_.  Altogether she was not much hurt, but scared
beyond belief; she had come to her senses a long while ago, cried out to
me, heard nothing in reply, made out we were both dead, and had lain
there ever since, afraid to budge a finger.  The ball had ploughed up her
shoulder, and she had lost a main quantity of blood; but I soon had that
tied up the way it ought to be with the tail of my shirt and a scarf I
had on, got her head on my sound knee and my back against a trunk, and
settled down to wait for morning.  Uma was for neither use nor ornament,
and could only clutch hold of me and shake and cry.  I don’t suppose
there was ever anybody worse scared, and, to do her justice, she had had
a lively night of it.  As for me, I was in a good bit of pain and fever,
but not so bad when I sat still; and every time I looked over to Case I
could have sung and whistled.  Talk about meat and drink!  To see that
man lying there dead as a herring filled me full.

The night birds stopped after a while; and then the light began to
change, the east came orange, the whole wood began to whirr with singing
like a musical box, and there was the broad day.

I didn’t expect Maea for a long while yet; and, indeed, I thought there
was an off-chance he might go back on the whole idea and not come at all.
I was the better pleased when, about an hour after daylight, I heard
sticks smashing and a lot of Kanakas laughing, and singing out to keep
their courage up.  Uma sat up quite brisk at the first word of it; and
presently we saw a party come stringing out of the path, Maea in front,
and behind him a white man in a pith helmet.  It was Mr. Tarleton, who
had turned up late last night in Falesá, having left his boat and walked
the last stage with a lantern.

They buried Case upon the field of glory, right in the hole where he had
kept the smoking head.  I waited till the thing was done; and Mr.
Tarleton prayed, which I thought tomfoolery, but I’m bound to say he gave
a pretty sick view of the dear departed’s prospects, and seemed to have
his own ideas of hell.  I had it out with him afterwards, told him he had
scamped his duty, and what he had ought to have done was to up like a man
and tell the Kanakas plainly Case was damned, and a good riddance; but I
never could get him to see it my way.  Then they made me a litter of
poles and carried me down to the station.  Mr. Tarleton set my leg, and
made a regular missionary splice of it, so that I limp to this day.  That
done, he took down my evidence, and Uma’s, and Maea’s, wrote it all out
fine, and had us sign it; and then he got the chiefs and marched over to
Papa Randall’s to seize Case’s papers.

All they found was a bit of a diary, kept for a good many years, and all
about the price of copra, and chickens being stolen, and that; and the
books of the business and the will I told you of in the beginning, by
both of which the whole thing (stock, lock, and barrel) appeared to
belong to the Samoa woman.  It was I that bought her out at a mighty
reasonable figure, for she was in a hurry to get home.  As for Randall
and the black, they had to tramp; got into some kind of a station on the
Papa-malulu side; did very bad business, for the truth is neither of the
pair was fit for it, and lived mostly on fish, which was the means of
Randall’s death.  It seems there was a nice shoal in one day, and papa
went after them with the dynamite; either the match burned too fast, or
papa was full, or both, but the shell went off (in the usual way) before
he threw it, and where was papa’s hand?  Well, there’s nothing to hurt in
that; the islands up north are all full of one-handed men, like the
parties in the “Arabian Nights”; but either Randall was too old, or he
drank too much, and the short and the long of it was that he died.
Pretty soon after, the nigger was turned out of the island for stealing
from white men, and went off to the west, where he found men of his own
colour, in case he liked that, and the men of his own colour took and ate
him at some kind of a corroborree, and I’m sure I hope he was to their
fancy!

So there was I, left alone in my glory at Falesá; and when the schooner
came round I filled her up, and gave her a deck-cargo half as high as the
house.  I must say Mr. Tarleton did the right thing by us; but he took a
meanish kind of a revenge.

“Now, Mr. Wiltshire,” said he, “I’ve put you all square with everybody
here.  It wasn’t difficult to do, Case being gone; but I have done it,
and given my pledge besides that you will deal fairly with the natives.
I must ask you to keep my word.”

Well, so I did.  I used to be bothered about my balances, but I reasoned
it out this way: We all have queerish balances; and the natives all know
it, and water their copra in a proportion so that it’s fair all round;
but the truth is, it did use to bother me, and, though I did well in
Falesá, I was half glad when the firm moved me on to another station,
where I was under no kind of a pledge and could look my balances in the
face.

As for the old lady, you know her as well as I do.  She’s only the one
fault.  If you don’t keep your eye lifting she would give away the roof
off the station.  Well, it seems it’s natural in Kanakas.  She’s turned a
powerful big woman now, and could throw a London bobby over her shoulder.
But that’s natural in Kanakas too, and there’s no manner of doubt that
she’s an A 1 wife.

Mr. Tarleton’s gone home, his trick being over.  He was the best
missionary I ever struck, and now, it seems, he’s parsonising down
Somerset way.  Well, that’s best for him; he’ll have no Kanakas there to
get luny over.

My public-house?  Not a bit of it, nor ever likely.  I’m stuck here, I
fancy.  I don’t like to leave the kids, you see: and—there’s no use
talking—they’re better here than what they would be in a white man’s
country, though Ben took the eldest up to Auckland, where he’s being
schooled with the best.  But what bothers me is the girls.  They’re only
half-castes, of course; I know that as well as you do, and there’s nobody
thinks less of half-castes than I do; but they’re mine, and about all
I’ve got.  I can’t reconcile my mind to their taking up with Kanakas, and
I’d like to know where I’m to find the whites?




THE BOTTLE IMP.


Note.—Any student of that very unliterary product, the English drama of
the early part of the century, will here recognise the name and the root
idea of a piece once rendered popular by the redoubtable O. Smith.  The
root idea is there and identical, and yet I hope I have made it a new
thing.  And the fact that the tale has been designed and written for a
Polynesian audience may lend it some extraneous interest nearer home.—R.
L. S.

There was a man of the Island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the
truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the place
of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe the
Great lie hidden in a cave.  This man was poor, brave, and active; he
could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate mariner
besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and steered a
whaleboat on the Hamakua coast.  At length it came in Keawe’s mind to
have a sight of the great world and foreign cities, and he shipped on a
vessel bound to San Francisco.

This is a fine town, with a fine harbour, and rich people uncountable;
and, in particular, there is one hill which is covered with palaces.
Upon this hill Keawe was one day taking a walk with his pocket full of
money, viewing the great houses upon either hand with pleasure, “What
fine houses these are!” he was thinking, “and how happy must those people
be who dwell in them, and take no care for the morrow!”  The thought was
in his mind when he came abreast of a house that was smaller than some
others, but all finished and beautified like a toy; the steps of that
house shone like silver, and the borders of the garden bloomed like
garlands, and the windows were bright like diamond; and Keawe stopped and
wondered at the excellence of all he saw.  So stopping, he was aware of a
man that looked forth upon him through a window so clear that Keawe could
see him as you see a fish in a pool upon the reef.  The man was elderly,
with a bald head and a black beard; and his face was heavy with sorrow,
and he bitterly sighed.  And the truth of it is, that as Keawe looked in
upon the man, and the man looked out upon Keawe, each envied the other.

All of a sudden, the man smiled and nodded, and beckoned Keawe to enter,
and met him at the door of the house.

“This is a fine house of mine,” said the man, and bitterly sighed.
“Would you not care to view the chambers?”