White Fire Part 46

CHAPTER x.x.xI

REVERSIONS

Captain Pym was in that state of mind in which every man who loses his s.h.i.+p finds himself, and from which his fellow in misfortune, Captain Cathie, was slowly emerging. No slightest blame attached to him in the matter, and he would have no difficulty in proving it. Nevertheless, he was suffering exceedingly. The burden of his thoughts kept sleep far from him, and, after tossing restlessly through the night on a by no means uncomfortable couch of dried palm fronds, he got up very early next morning to give his depressed spirits fresh air and wider s.p.a.ce than the confinement of the lean-to afforded them. Blair and Cathie, worn out with hard work and anxieties, were still sleeping soundly.

As Pym walked along the beach, he saw with surprise a thin curl of smoke rising behind an angle of the hillside not far from the scene of his coffining.

When he came to the angle he stopped transfixed, and then set off at a run to the huts. He caught Blair by the shoulder and roughly shook him awake.

"Blair," he cried hoa.r.s.ely, "your brown devils are eating our men," and Blair and Cathie were on their feet in a moment.

Blair was not very greatly surprised, though not a little disturbed.

He had seen the upsetting the catastrophe had wrought in Ha'o, the most advanced of all, and he had wondered if the rest would stand the strain.

"It's a throw-back," he said, "but it's really not very surprising.

Where's Ha'o? Cathie, will you call the men?"

He went quickly to the shed Ha'o had built for Nai, and found him there asleep, and was to that extent relieved. He woke him quietly, and told him what was going on.

"Food is scarce, and will be scarcer," said Ha'o, when he arrived at an understanding of the matter. "Everything is destroyed."

"Better starve than live so," said Blair vehemently. "But everything is not destroyed. We shall live somehow, and this has got to be stopped. Come on!"

He picked up a stick of wood from the drift, and set off at a run along the beach. The others armed themselves in like manner and followed him.

The brown men sprang up from their feast as they rounded the corner, some of them still gnawing at chunks of flesh in their hands.

Blair rushed at them like a blazing bolt. Several of them, for lack of clubs, s.n.a.t.c.hed brands from the fire. He paid no heed to their weapons, but laid about him with his stick with such vigour that they gave way before him, and the others, following his lead with hearty good will, drove the brown men back, and finally put them to the run.

"Now," said Blair, as he leaned on his stick, "there is only one thing to be done. Pile all the rough wood you can find on to that fire.

Keep out anything that may be useful. We must burn all those bodies.

We can't take them out to sea, and if we bury them they'll dig them up."

It was obviously the best thing to do, and they set about the gruesome business at once.

They made a mighty pile of firing and laid the bodies reverently on it, and covered them with more wood, and more bodies and again more wood, till they had to wait till the pile burned down, because of the height of it and the heat. And their faces were pinched and their breaths shortened, as they carried to the pyre the bodies of those they had lived with in comrades.h.i.+p for so long, and they worked in silence.

The only sound that was heard beyond the crackle and fall of the burning wood, as the dense black smoke rolled up into the sky, was the voice of Blair, as he stood to windward and quietly recited portions of the service for the Burial of the Dead from time to time. And surely never did the solemn words sound more weighty and full of meaning.

"I am the resurrection and the life....

"Lord, Thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another....

"Thou turnest man to destruction....

"They are even as a sleep: and fade away suddenly like the gra.s.s....

"In the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered....

"For we consume away in Thy displeasure....

"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live.... He cometh up and is cut down, like a flower....

"In the midst of life we are in death....

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust....

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.... For they rest from their labours...."

None of them ever forgot that strange and somewhat ghastly service--the hungry lick of the flames, blue and green and yellow and red from the salt and tar, but almost unseen in the beams of the fully-risen sun; the rippling lagoon; the sparkling white beach; the foam-jets on the reef; the great blue sea beyond; the pitiful things the flames consumed; and the rolling clouds of smoke which spread like a pall along the scarred hillside.

Aunt Jannet Harvey came hurrying round the corner to see what they were at, and Cathie caught sight of her and sent her hurrying back surprised at his brusqueness. For this was one of the things that may be told but is better not seen.

Ha'o had taken no part in these doings. He had no desire for human flesh, but there was a doubtful look on his face, as though he thought the proceedings wasteful and possibly to be regretted later on.

The brown men stood in a clump at a distance and watched sullenly all that was done.

When the pile died down Blair went over to the chief.

"Ha'o," he said, "go and speak to your people. Tell them that things are as they were, and that flesh they shall not eat."

"They will starve."

"No, they will not starve. We will find them food."

Ha'o looked at him doubtfully, but not without expectation. The white men were so wonderful, that it was difficult to say what they could or could not do, and Kenni never lied.

Nevertheless, "Where, Kenni?" he asked.

"We shall not starve," said Blair emphatically.

The brown man looked searchingly at him for a full minute, and then turned and strode away towards the others.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

FROM THE BEGINNING

"Our brown folk have lost their heads for the time being," said Blair to his wife, as they all stood round the huts. "They have gone off to the hills. It is not very surprising. They will come back all right in time. Captain Cathie, I want you to make a raft and take the ladies and the sick--in fact, all but Gregor and Irvine--to the Happy Valley for a time, till things straighten out a bit. You will, I think, find food there, and the natives won't intrude on you."

"And you, Kenneth?" said Jean anxiously.

"I am going across to the other side of the island with Ha'o, to see how they fared there. If food is plentiful we will bring some back here for the women and children. They may have been washed out also.

If so we must get food from the Valley. We will drop in on you from the upper end, but it is too rough a road for you and the sick men.

Will you join us, Captain Pym, or will you go and take care of the ladies?"