White Fire Part 48

"I'll t--try not, Kenneth. D--do you think it hurts them much to have the hooks pulled out?"

"If you leave them for a few minutes they'll die quite comfortably.

Then it won't hurt them. Anyway, you see we need them."

So Aunt Jannet pursed her lips valiantly, and cast in the lines he had baited for her, and watched him and Captain Cathie with one eye, while the other waited on her lines in fear and expectation.

They waved her an adieu at the turn of the valley, and in her attempt to reply to it she frightened away a swarm of eager nibblers and nearly fell overboard herself.

"Yes," she said to herself, "it's a great change from Kensington. But if that child Jean can stand it, I can. And she seems as happy as a lark. That's partly Kenni-Kenni, of course. Oh dear, I've caught something! Whatever am I to do now?"

She looked wildly round for a.s.sistance, but the men were climbing the hill, laden with provisions for the brown folk. So she tightened her lips and hauled in her line, and at last drew her first fish on to the raft. And then, after a pitiful look at its changing colours, she turned her head away as far as she could, suppressed a strong inclination to throw her victim back into the water, and waited for the poor thing to die comfortably.

When Jean and Kenni-Kenni came down to inquire how she was getting on, she was quite herself again.

"I've got a dozen or so," she cried. "I hope they are all fit to eat.

It's really quite interesting when you get used to it. If you like to try your hand at it, Jean, haul me in and I'll take care of Kenni-Kenni for a bit."

The men were back before nightfall, very tired, but rich in timber, and in high spirits at the recovery of more tools, and all with appet.i.tes that disposed of Aunt Jannet's fish in a very much shorter time than it had taken that good lady to catch them.

Next day they laid the keel of their forlorn hope, and when that ceremony was over, Blair and Ha'o started off again across the hills to the old village, to endeavour to get the brown men to make a start on their own buildings and plantings. Characteristically, they were inclined to lie down under misfortune and let things take their chance, and Blair, characteristically also, stated his intention of stopping there till they got to work. He exhorted them to better heart both by word and example, and Ha'o lent the weight of his authority, and, where that failed, added the still weightier impulsion of physical force.

Authority weakens under disaster, but a bold heart and a heavy hand are strong arguments, and, disaster or no disaster, Ha'o had no intention of abating one jot of his seigneurial rights. He was chief still and he let them feel it.

"What is the good of planting?" said the brown men. "We shall be dead before the fruit comes."

"Oh no, you won't!" said Blair cheerfully. "There is fruit in the Valley and fruit on the other side of One-Tree Pa.s.s, but in future you'll have to go and get it for yourselves, and you can have all the fish you want for the catching."

"But we don't care for fish every day."

"There are many things I don't care for myself, my sons, but when I can't do better I put up with them. You must learn to be men."

The actively mutinous spirit, which the opportunity of the day after the storm had kindled in them, had pa.s.sed with the pa.s.sing of that which had excited it. It had vanished in the smoke of the funeral pyre, and Blair was grateful, for things might have been very different. Instead of fighting the lethargy of despair they might have had to defend themselves against its fury, and he was well content.

He tried hard to get them to come over into the Valley, but that they would not do. They would come to the hill top for such fruits as might be brought there for them, and they would go over One-Tree Pa.s.s, but into the valley of the stone G.o.ds not one of them would set so much as a toe, and Ha'o himself could not make them.

With all hands working heartily and at high pressure,--from Captain Pym, who dropped the last remnants of his starch in the process, to Aunt Jannet who, in the intervals of her other duties, picked oak.u.m as if she had been undergoing a term of imprisonment,--the boat building made famous progress, and four weeks from the day the keel was laid the Kenni-Kenni was launched--prevailed upon, at all events, and apparently much against her will, to quit mother earth and take to the water. And if she looked, as Captain Cathie admitted, something of a cross between a washtub and a patchwork quilt, she was undoubtedly built strong and would stand a good deal of knocking about. As to her sailing qualities, they might have been better and they might have been worse, and, as Cathie said, they had not started out to build a cup-winner--which was perhaps just as well.

There was an old candle-nut tree in a corner at the head of the Valley, and they set out to stain the little s.h.i.+p dark red with a decoction of its bark, but as the supply ran short the result was not altogether happy. However, she floated on an even keel and was as tight as a drum, forty feet over all, ten feet beam, decked all over and yawl rigged. Spars and sails they had in plenty from the treasure trove of the beach, and Captain Cathie undertook to take her all the way to Sydney if need be. He also expressed the explicit intention of overhauling the first s.h.i.+p or island he came across for a supply of paint, all of one colour, sufficient to go all round her.

Nevertheless, and in spite of her lack in such minor details, their hearts were very full as they lined the beach, with their eyes on the little s.h.i.+p, and in their ears Blair's voice ringing strong and true with grat.i.tude and hope, as he prayed G.o.d's blessing on the accomplished work of their hands, and on the work she had still to do.

When the ceremony was over, and Blair happened to be standing for a moment alone, Captain Pym came up to him and wrung his hand heartily.

"Blair," he said, and his old s.h.i.+pmates on the _Bonita_ would not have known either his voice or the look on his face, "I'm glad I came here.

But for my poor fellows who are gone, I could almost say I'm glad I was wrecked here. I have learnt a great deal," and Blair answered him with a cordial grip and a beaming smile.

On the morrow, Blair and Pym and Cathie and a crew of six, three Torches, and three Bonitas, took leave of the rest and sailed for Kanele.

Jean felt this parting terribly, the little s.h.i.+p looked so small, so uncouth, so unequal to emergencies. But she kept a brave face, and waved her farewells from the sh.o.r.e with a fervent prayer for their safety, and then went quietly about her work, with her own Kenni-Kenni clinging to her skirts, while his namesake carried his father away across the seas to possible dangers, to possible---- Nay, she would have faith in that protecting hand which had brought them through so many difficulties before, and to fear was to doubt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Waved her farewells from the sh.o.r.e.]

So her heart sang valiantly, "G.o.d's in His heaven, all's well!" and after that first hour her face was calm and hopeful, and she was counting the days to their return.

The secret pa.s.sages of the old temple made capital homes. The men had s.n.a.t.c.hed odd moments from their other labours, and material from their abundant stores, and had boarded off the interior darknesses and ghostly possibilities, and had knocked together some rough tables and stools. They had food enough, though they were all tiring somewhat of fish, fish again, and always fish. Blair had laughingly a.s.sured them it was good for the brain, and Aunt Jannet a.s.serted that she was getting so brainy that, unless a change of diet came soon, she would not answer for consequences. But in reality there was very little to complain of. The health of the whole party had been excellent, and Blair's high spirits had permitted no one else's to droop for a moment.

Jean had more than once suggested their return to their work among the brown men and women. But, in view of this first trip round the islands, to which he had been looking forward with much eagerness, Blair judged it best for them to remain where they were.

"As soon as we're rid of Captain Pym and Cathie and the rest, we'll go back and tackle the work," he said. "The brown folks are getting on all right in the meantime. They're actually beginning to learn how to help themselves."

"Jean, my dear," said Aunt Jannet, one day after the _Kenni-Kenni_ sailed, "it's just wonderful the way you stand it all."

"Stand it, Aunt Jannet? Why, what do you mean? What is there to stand?"

"Why--heaps. Look at your dress, for instance. And when one remembers that you've got 10,000 a year or so!--yes, I say, it's just wonderful."

"I've done my best with it, and it's very rude to comment on people's clothes before their faces. Besides, your own is no better, and the needle Captain Cathie made for you out of that fishbone was very much better than mine."

"Well, well," laughed Aunt Jannet. "It wasn't your dress I was meaning, child----"

"You're getting fish on the brain, dear. Isn't that enough to make any woman happy?"

That, of course, was Kenni-Kenni, whose great delight it was at this time to rush through and through the s.h.i.+ning stream that babbled across the temple floor, kicking up diamond showers with his pink toes and squealing with delight as the sparkling drops played round him.

"Yes, it does one good just to look at him," said Aunt Jannet. "But I do wish you could get him to wear some more clothes. He's----"

"Clothes!" said Jean scornfully. "What does a boy like that want with clothes?"

Kenni-Kenni was developing rapidly. He had one day thrown a stone at a little black pig which sought his acquaintance. And when the piglet fled Kenni-Kenni came suddenly to the knowledge of his prowess and thereafter became a mighty hunter of small pigs whenever chance offered.

He had also, after considerable hesitation, thrown a pebble at one of the stone G.o.ds, of which he had hither-to stood in much awe. And as no ill results followed he had become bold and warlike, and thought nothing of challenging the bearded sailormen to mortal combat. And they delighted in him exceedingly, and had promised to teach him to box and to swim as soon as the boat was finished.

Nai was getting about again and would soon be as well as ever. The broken arm and leg were mending, and never was invalid more tenderly ministered to, or more grateful to her nurses. It was upon Ha'o that the catastrophe seemed to have had the most lasting effect, and that, after all, was perhaps not unnatural. The country was his, and the people were his, and they had suffered terribly. His faith in Kenneth Blair underwent no visible eclipse, however, and he laboured at the boat-building with the rest.

The days pa.s.sed very slowly for those left behind, and when the limit allowed for the voyage was exceeded by one day, two days, three days, Jean's anxieties began to show head again.

"Don't worry, child!" said Aunt Jannet. "That boat has probably proved even slower than they expected. My only wonder was that it would sail at all. Not one of them ever built a boat in his life before, and I'm sure it looked a deal more like a big washtub with a cover on than a s.h.i.+p. They'll turn up all right in time. If they'd been meant to be drowned they'd every chance when all the rest were."

And surely enough, on the eleventh day, the _Kenni-Kenni_ came wafting slowly down the lagoon, having come in by the upper entrance and made a short call on the brown men in the old quarters.

They were all well and brought a full cargo of news and stock and plants, and Blair himself was in the highest of spirits and hungry to get to work on the new plantations.

The other islands had suffered somewhat from the big wave, chiefly in the matter of boats. The news of the dire happenings on Kapaa'a had filled them with amazement. The Evanses and Stuarts, and all their works and belongings, were flouris.h.i.+ng mightily. They sent endless condolences to Jean and Aunt Jannet and Nai and Ha'o, and had been for embarking at once to their consolation. But as the _Kenni-Kenni_ was to start on her longer journey as soon as she could be provisioned, that was out of the question, as it would have been impossible for them to get back home again.

"Yes," acknowledged Captain Cathie, in reply to a pointed question of Aunt Jannet's respecting the sailorly qualities of his boat, "I'm bound to say she's not exactly what you might call a fast boat. But she's sure, and if you give her wind enough and time enough she gets there all right."

They had a busy three days preparing for the long voyage. Captain Cathie reckoned they might make the Marquesas in twelve days with good weather. So they made provision for twenty, out of the stores they had brought from Kanele and Anape. He had borrowed Evans's pocket compa.s.s, but vowed he could find his way without it.

"If we go west with a touch of south in it we're bound to hit either the Marquesas or Paumotus," he said cheerfully. "You may look for that schooner here in six weeks from to-day--that is, if there's one to be had, and if I can find a trader who'll negotiate the drafts."