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 lie 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 Falesa, 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 Falesa; 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 Falesa, 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?
(4)
Yes
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