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?
