Chapter XXI: Might of Right

Matters were progressing thus, surely if slowly, when a sudden sharp stroke fell upon them--sudden, but not altogether unlooked for.

With the individual as with the nation, peaceful times are growing times; and yet, to both individual and nation, there come times of stress and strife, when the slow upbuilding of the years is put sharply to the test, and, surviving, is the stronger for the strain. Winter's storms provoke the oak to deepest rooting.

At times, indeed, too long a period of peaceful growth may lead to over-fatness and deterioration. The nation and the man that waxes over-fat grows lean of soul. But that is a side issue at the moment. The little community on Kapaa'a was too near to its swaddling bands to be in any danger of fatty degeneration. And yet the stressful time that came to it made for good in every way. It had been striking roots and feelers. Well for it that time had been given them to grip the soil before the storm burst. As it was, they only gripped the tighter, and the breaking of the storm cleared the air, and made for more prosperous weather.

Captain Cathie, in his capacity of watch-dog, had never for a single moment relaxed his precautions at home, or his keen-eyed vigilance abroad. When he was touring the islands, his glasses swept the horizon continually, with a special eye to the east, which was the threatening quarter.

"Those yellow deevils will come back, as sure as we're here," was his constant word.

And so the beach was never bare of stacks of neatly-cut wood from away up the valley, and the bunkers of the _Torch_ were always full, and the men were regularly drilled, and Long Tom was ready to speak at a moment's notice.

Each day, when the _Torch_ lay at anchor in the lagoon, he took the steam-launch, or, occasionally, one of the whale-boats, by way of exercise for muscles, through the reef, to an offing whence he could obtain wide views of the approaches to the islands.

"In there," he would say, "I feel like a man with his back to the wall. It's safe enough, but there's no telling what's behind it."

And the wall was quite too high to climb, for the only eastward view from the summit of the hill was of the higher ridge, which ran right across the island, with only one possible passage, and that but a narrow one.

They used to mildly chaff the old man about his fears, but he took it all with characteristic good humour.

"Ay, ay, all right!" he would say. "Just you wait, and we'll see who laughs last. When they come, it'll be no laughing matter, I'm thinking."

"They've probably forgotten all about us by this time, and have found easier pickings elsewhere," said Blair.

"That kind doesn't forget in a hurry, and they know they've only got to break us up to get all the pickings here they want," said Cathie stubbornly.

And it was thanks to these ceaseless precautions that, when the time came, they were not taken unawares.

Cathie had run out in the launch one morning as usual, and presently came plunging back through the passage with a haste that betokened the unusual.

"They're coming," he said quietly, as the others met him on the beach.

"What, the nightmares?" said Blair, with a keen glance, for the captain was not above a joke.

"Ay, the nightmares, sure enough. A brig and two tops'l schooners working up steady from the south-east. They'll carry a heap of men, I'm thinking, and we'll have our hands full."

"Right? How soon can they be here, captain?"

"Wind's light--a couple of hours, I should say, at soonest."

"Our old plans stand?"

They had long since discussed the possible campaign, though not very lately.

"If they have as many men as I expect, we'll have to change 'em a bit. Unless they're absolute fools, which it's as well not to reckon on, they'll split and strike us more than one side at once. There's easy landing the other side the island."

"But a difficult way across."

"They don't know that, and they'll trust to luck to get across once they're ashore."

"You can keep this side all safe with the _Torch_, I suppose, captain?"

"Any quarter this time?" asked Cathie anxiously.

"Make quite sure of their intentions first. Then, if they are what we have reason to suspect, hit hard and end it."

"I'll keep this side all safe," said Cathie briskly, "and when I've cleared them here, I'll take a run round to the back and wipe 'em up there too."

"How many men can you spare us, captain?"

"I can do with six besides those below," said Cathie, after a moment's consideration. "Under steam we'll have the weather gauge all the time, and we'll give 'em no chance to board."

"That leaves us ten. Give us your ten best, captain, and see that each man has a revolver in addition to his Winchester and cutlass. Better beat up your men at once with the drum, Ha'o. What about Ra'a? Will he rest quiet, or will he take advantage of the matter to attack us, or will he help us?"

"He won't help. He may attack. If we are beaten, he is chief," said Ha'o, with a look which implied that the proper thing to do under the circumstances was to wipe out Ra'a forthwith.

"Run the ladies across to the Happy Valley at once then, captain, and take Lean and his wife to look after them, if she'll go. Will you send your women and children there too, Ha'o? They would be safe from Ra'a, at all events."

But Ha'o, knowing his people, shook his head.

"They will not go."

And so it proved. Fighting, the women understood, though they did not like it, but spirits they neither understood nor liked, and they would take no risks in such matters. They chose in preference to go up the southern hill, where they could keep a look-out for Ra'a and could scatter if he showed head.

The ladies understood the necessities of the case. Their preparations were quickly made, and within the hour they were landed in the Happy Valley, with Sandy Lean, armed to the teeth, to guard them from any stray yellow skins who might get in, an eventuality which was not at all likely. Sandy's wife chose to go with her man, which was a gratifying sign of moral improvement through marriage, and they tried their best to get Nai and her baby boy to go too, but she would not.

Captain Cathie saw to the armament of the land contingent, and gave them a strenuous word or two of his own. Then he carried the _Torch_ through the passage in the reef and lay waiting for his prey.

Close upon a hundred men answered the call of the drum. They were armed only with fire-hardened wooden spears and clubs, and the axes they had used in more peaceful pursuits. But they had had no fighting for some time past, they were defending their hearths and homes, and with the yellow men keen in their memories, they were aching to be at them. And the little band of heavily-armed whites gave both edge and backbone to their courage and made them formidable.

Blair, Stuart, and Evans carried Winchesters and revolvers.

"Our cause is a just one," said Blair. "We will defend it by every means in our power. These men's blood is on their own heads." And there was that in all their faces which boded ill for the invaders.

The only communication between the east and west sides of the island was over a dip in the central ridge which, from its most prominent feature, they had named One-Tree Pass. On the farther side the slope was gradual and easy. On the mission side the ground was so broken, and the ascent so precipitous, that for all ordinary usage the pass was impracticable. No one ever dreamed of using it unless under most urgent necessity. No more urgent necessity had ever arisen than this present, and One-Tree Pass for once in its life became the active centre of the island.

The defending force scrambled up the broken way, and before it reached the pass Long Tom was bellowing angrily behind them, and was answered by another gun which sounded equally loud and defiant. The hill shoulders, however, hid what was going on, and they could only hope that Captain Cathie would be able to hold his own and something more.

Blair placed his men among the boulders overlooking the pass, and crept on along the ridge with Ha'o and Evans and Stuart, until they could look out over the long, easy sweep of the hill to the farther sea.

Opposite the landing-place lay the two schooners, with boats plying rapidly between them and the shore. The landing had evidently been disputed. The village was in flames and brown figures were creeping cautiously up the hill. The beach was filling rapidly with men from the ships.

"It will be a couple of hours before they get here," said Blair, and with instinctive foresight, in view of his greater work, "I wish we could get hold of those brown fellows. If they know that we're fighting their battle, it will pave our way with them later on."

He put it to Ha'o, and eventually the latter slipped away down the hillside, none too eagerly, to endeavour to intercept the fugitives and bring them in, if it were possible.

There was no difficulty in intercepting them. They were flying for their lives. Bringing them in, however, was quite another matter.

They recognised Ha'o, by his speech, as from the other side of the island--hostile therefore, and not to be trusted; and it took all his diplomacy, through the veil of a different dialect, to persuade the first half-dozen to the venture.

The sight of Blair, however, reassured them. They recognised him from his calls in the _Torch_, and presently they were off along the hills to bring in their fellows.

Altogether about thirty terrified men and women came in. The women were sent on down the valley. The men lay down among the rocks with the defending party.

Meanwhile the marauders had completed their landing and had begun their march, like the shadow of a black cloud creeping slowly up the hillside. Before them, urged on by blows from behind, crept two reluctant brown guides with ropes round their necks. There was no fear of the yellow men missing the pass. They toiled upward with stubborn determination, and wasted breath in voluble commination of the length of the way, when they could have employed it more usefully in compassing it.

And there was no possible doubt of their intentions. Slaughter and plunder were written all over them, as plain to see as the nature of a hyaena in the cut of its slinking face.

Nevertheless, Blair would permit no attack unchallenged. As the bristling crest of the black wave foamed cursing into the level of the pass, he drew cautiously back under cover till the whole should be there. When he struck, he would strike with all his might. This was a nettle to be gripped hard, to be squeezed to pulp and trampled out of sight.

The yellow men flung themselves flat and cursed their wind back. And the pass lay blank and bare and open under the glare of the sun. Not a stone rattled, not a shadow moved. The one lone palm seemed cast in brown.

In due course, and with the aid of many curses, the marauders got to their feet at last, and came pressing loosely along behind their unwilling guides. They passed unchallenged the place where Blair knelt behind a big rock. Below and on each side, pinched brown faces craned anxiously over restless brown shoulders at him, eager for the word. It was not till the motley crew had passed that he stepped out suddenly from his cover, and stood, a tall white figure, in the sun-glare.

"Hola!" he cried. "What are you after?" And instantly such a villainous array of vicious yellow faces was turned on him as he had never before in his life set eyes on.

A babble broke out among them.

"Dios! It is he!"

"It is the fighting padre!"

"It is the devil himself!"

"Down with him!"

"Our turn now, senor missionary!"

And one answer to his question which needed no knowledge of bastard Spanish for its translation. A sharp report, and a bullet buzzed past his head.

Other guns were rising to correct the insufficiency of the first.

"Give it them, boys!" shouted Blair, and before the words were out of his mouth, rocks and fire-pointed spears were raining on them, back and front, and as they tried in vain to face both sides at once, there came the quick crackle of the Winchesters and a ringing cheer from the _Torch_ men at the end of the pass.

The yellow men reeled under their flailing. The ground was cumbered with bodies and the air with curses. The momentary panic drove them in upon themselves and bunched them together.

But the weak point about the thrown spear as a weapon of offence is the fact that, once hurled, it is gone. The yellow men were an undisciplined mob, Ishmaelites all, accustomed every man to fight for himself and ready to fight at any moment, but their death dealers remained in their hands, and they outnumbered the _Torch_ men by seven to one. The Torches poured in volley after volley. The yellow men tightened their defence and replied in kind; while the brown men danced wildly among the rocks, and hurled stones and clubs, and were shot down like rabbits.

Blair's men were falling all round him. The sight was too much for him. He snatched a club from the ground and sprang down the hillside. In a moment the sides of the pass vomited brown men frenzied for the fight.

"Kown 'im!--kown 'im!--kown 'im!" they yelled, and hurled themselves on the enemy.

The _Torch_ men, reduced in number, fired one more round and came racing in with their cutlasses. The yellow men replied, and then clubbed their guns and thrashed wildly at the advancing tide.

Under such conditions, and with the might of right as well as numbers against them, the yellow men gave way and drifted back towards the mouth of the pass, fighting stubbornly all the way.

And Kenneth Blair forgot that he was a man of peace. He saw his brown men falling all round him, ripped and bashed and broken, and he dashed into that fight as he had dashed into many a more peaceful one on the football field at home. He saw nothing at the moment but the vicious yellow faces and shaggy heads of the despoilers. He knew nothing but the necessity of demolishing them, and with his unaccustomed club he smote with all his might at every head he could reach, as his forbears long ago struck down the Northmen when they came wading ashore from their beaked ships on the coast of Caledonia.

The brown men eyed him with amazement, and yelled with unholy joy at sight of his Berserk fury. The teacher was a man like themselves, and could let himself loose like the rest of them. And Blair thought neither of them nor himself, or of anything whatsoever, save the necessity of ridding the island of the vermin that would pollute it.

For once in his life he tasted the wild, mad joy of battle.

His red club whirled and fell, and wherever it fell there fell a gap, and in him raged a red fury which nothing could appease or oppose.

He would surely have been a terrible sight to himself--his white face set to slaughter, and smeared with blood from a bullet graze on the temple, his white clothes spattered red, his eyes ablaze, and that murderous red club whirling and smashing to the tune that plunged in his veins.

At the end of the pass, where it dipped towards the sea, the yellow men broke, and it was over, so far as danger to the island was concerned. But not by any means over as concerned the yellow men. Never yet did enemy break and flee but prudence and restraint fled with him. Cast-iron discipline may leash it in the bulk, but in the individual the lust of death will out and have its way. The wild beast that lurks in every man once roused is ill to curb, and hardest, maybe, in the man not easily provoked. And here was no pretence of discipline. The furies were afoot that day, and death and destruction were rampant.

Blair found himself plunging down the hill path after a scattered mob of yellow men. They were too breathless to curse. Their only hope was the sea.

The prey was escaping. Terror lent it wings stronger than the fury behind. He hurled his dripping club among them, and one man fell.

At one side, among the boulders, he caught a glimpse of Ha'o, all aflame with battle, doing dreadful things with a dripping red axe. So horrible did he look, so utterly inhuman and wholly possessed of the devil, that Blair gasped at the sight. Then he stumbled to a rock and dropped his bursting head into his hands--and came to himself.

The pursuit sped on down the hillside. The yells and shouts died away towards the sea.

He raised his head at last, and his bloodshot eyes looked heavily after them.

"God forgive me!" he gasped. "I have been in hell."

He jumped up with the idea of stopping the work he had started. But that was impossible. As well try to stop the mountain snow in its death gallop. The red fury had gone down the hill like an avalanche. Until its force was spent it must run its course.

Now that the fire had died out of him he found his legs trembling so that he could hardly walk. He sank down again on his boulder and drew his hand dazedly across his brow, streaking it horribly with fresh smears of blood.

He looked round him, at the blue sea, the white surge, the quiet ships. He heard the shouts below. He saw a boat put off from the shore and labour heavily towards one of the ships.

"God forgive me!" he groaned once more. "I have been killing men."

But the only man he was actually conscious of killing was the one at whom he had hurled his club in his last spasm. And when he got up heavily, and went down to him where he lay in the glare of the sun, he found the man was not dead, and he was glad. He carried him carefully to the partial shelter of a rock, and propped him up, and gave him water from a runlet close by. He drank deeply himself, and washed his hands and face and plunged his head under water. He noticed now for the first time that his white jacket was spattered all over with blood. He tore it off and flung it from him.

The reaction which followed his temporary possession left him limp and exhausted, and burdened with a heavy mental load which as yet he made no attempt at lightening.

Then he went slowly down the hill, and saw one of the schooners loosing her sails in a hurried and shifty fashion. From that he gathered that some of the invaders had escaped, and he was too unaccustomed a warrior to regret it.

The rest, who had followed the pursuit to the shore, were held back by no such considerations however. To them the yellow men were enemies to be smitten hip and thigh, to be destroyed root and branch. When they reached the beach and saw the broken boat-load lumbering towards the schooner, the _Torch_ men and a number of natives flung themselves into one of the other boats and set off after them with the most final intentions.

The schooner caught the breeze and began to make way. The _Torch_ men played on her with their Winchesters, a chance shot dropped the helmsman, her head fell off, and she was theirs. Some of the yellow men jumped overboard. For the rest--well, the Torches knew Captain Cathie's views, and the islanders were of a like mind.

Blair passed several dead men as he went down the hill, but saw no wounded ones. As he neared the remains of the village he came upon the bodies of the first victims of the invasion, brown men and women and children.

He had seen nothing of Evans and Stuart since the fight began. Evans he had placed in command of the Torches; Stuart had been in charge of the opposite side of the pass.

The brown men were leaping about the beach inflated with their victory. The _Torch_ men had anchored the one schooner and were now securing the other.

A sudden shout along the beach showed him a yellow man fleeing for his life with half a dozen islanders after him. He had been hidden in the bushes till they stumbled upon him. The sight of his twitching face and agonised eyes remained with Blair for many a day. There had been many such eyes and faces up there on the hillside, but he had had no eyes to see them. Now he was himself, and would stop the dreadful work.

He ran towards the man to succour him. But succour was the last thing the other looked for in him. His long knife was in his hand. Escape was hopeless, but here was a chance for a blow in return. He flew at Blair like a wild cat, and drove the knife at his neck. Blair swerved instinctively, and it went through his shoulder. The wild cat was on him with gnashing teeth and flaming eyes, snarling, grappling, biting him.

They rolled over and over in the sand. Then sinewy brown fingers gripped the other and tore him away, with a mouthful of Blair's shirt between his teeth, and in a moment he lay still.

Blair lay still also. The last things he remembered were the horror of that animalised snarling grip, and a dreadful agony in the shoulder as he rolled over in the sand with the knife still sticking in him.

When he came to, he found himself the centre of a group of the island men who were looking down on him with troubled faces. They gave a shout when he opened his eyes, and presently he was sitting up showing them how to bind up the wound with strips of his torn shirt. The knife had been pulled out while he lay unconscious--for the sake of the knife.

The _Torch_ men came leisurely ashore after securing the schooner and found him so. He had lost blood freely both from head and shoulder, and felt sick and dizzy. They made a stretcher out of a couple of oars and a native mat, and at his request carried him at once up the hill to the pass.

He was anxious about the others; he had no recollection of seeing them since the fight began. It seemed to him that since he picked up that club and leaped down into the pass he had seen nothing but vicious yellow faces and evil eyes, and broken heads, and bodies that suddenly crumbled and fell.

His mind was relieved by the sight of Evans as soon as they topped the pass. And at distant sight of the stretcher Evans came running up with an anxious face.

"Serious?" he asked.

"Don't think so. A jag through the arm and a scratch on the face, but I felt sick and couldn't climb the hill. Where's Stuart?"

"Back here. Got a bullet through the leg. No bones broken, but he won't walk for a week or two."

"Many others wounded?"

"Two Torches, half a dozen natives, and a dozen of the yellow men. Frightful blackguards they are too. Makes me wish they'd been killed outright just to look at them."

Blair nodded. He could not plead wholly guiltless in that respect.

A dozen yellow men on their hands would be an anxiety and a burden. A light affliction, however, compared with what might have been if the invaders had caught them napping. And so they must make the best of it, and be thankful for things as they were.

"Now see here, boys," he said, sitting up on the stretcher. "We've had our fight and by God's mercy we've won. I'm afraid we all lost our heads a bit while it was on"--at which, and their recollection of him in the fight, the sailors grinned--"and I think we cannot blame ourselves for that. But these men who are left on our hands are tabu. The islanders will kill them if they get the chance, and we must prevent it. What is done in the hot blood of battle is done. But killing in cold blood is murder. You have all fought valiantly. Don't spoil it by any such doings. And, by the way, Evans, there's another of them lying under a rock to the left of the path over there. You might see to him. I flung my club after a bunch of them and this fellow went down, but he was only stunned."

"I'll go and bring him up at once, before the brown fellows come."

"No news of Cathie, I suppose. When did his big gun stop?"

"Over an hour ago. We've no news. I hope it's all right. I'd have sent down but I'd no one to send."

"Which of you boys will go for news?" asked Blair. "I doubt if we can all get down to-night."

"That you can't," said Evans. "It'll be a case of go easy for some days for all you hipped ones."

All the men volunteered at once. Every one of them was keen to know what had been going on on the other side of the island.

"You seem fairly fresh, Irvine. Tell Captain Cathie how we've gone on here, and that casualties are not serious. If he can spare us some more help we can do with it to get the wounded down. Ask him to send word to the ladies also. They will be anxious about us all. And if he can send us something to eat we'll be glad of it. I'm feeling empty after it all."

"I'll go after your half-deader," said Evans. "One of you come with me in case he can't walk."

But he was back empty-handed in a quarter of an hour.

"Gone?" asked Blair, with a pinched face.

"He's dead, but you didn't kill him. Some one came after you and split his head with an axe."

"Ah!" said Blair gloomily, "these others will fare the same unless we see to it. We'll go to them, Evans, in case any of our brown friends come prowling round."

But the brown men were much too busy, and we may drop more of a veil over their proceedings than the night did. Big fires were glowing along the beach before it was dark, and no brown man came up the hill that night.

They went along to the temporary hospital Evans had made among the rocks. The beds consisted of the softest patches of ground he could find, and the only furnishings were the patients. He had hastily bandaged their wounds, however, and all, except the yellow men, were fairly cheerful.

Stuart, indeed, became almost hilarious at sight of Blair as an invalid also.

"I was thinking ill of myself for getting hit," he said; "but since you're in the same boat I feel better."

"Glad to be of use," said Blair, "and very thankful things are no worse. They might have been. There were more of them than I expected, and they fought harder than their cause justified."

"Even rats will fight in a corner," said Evans.

Just before dark Captain Cathie came panting in on them, in the best of spirits and with many rough words for the road. He had half a dozen of his men with him, and they brought an ample supply of food.

"Well, captain, how have things gone with you?"

"We mustn't complain, sir. He'd brought a gun along as heavy as ours and we had a fine set-to. But with our steam we had the weather hand all the time and just waltzed round him. He did his best to board, but we thought differently."

"And how did it end? Where is he now?"

Captain Cathie jabbed his finger downwards two or three times in eloquent silence.

"Sunk?"

"Sunk with all aboard, big gun and all. No more trouble from that quarter. We plugged him more than once below the water-line and we saw he was settling down. But it came sudden at the end."

"And you were not able to save any of them?"

"We were not"--said Cathie emphatically, and after a moment's pause added--"and what on earth would we have done with 'em if we had?"

"We have about a dozen on our hands here--all wounded."

"Humph!" grunted Cathie.

"We couldn't very well kill them in cold blood, you see."

"And what'll you do with 'em, Mr. Blair?"

"I don't know yet. We'll have to think that over. Did you send word to the ladies how things had gone all round?"

"I went over myself with young Irvine and told 'em all about it. They were all very thankful it was over and no more harm done."

"And how is the _Torch_?"

"Ah!" said the old man, with an aggrieved shake of the head, "she got it pretty hot; that's why I couldn't get round to wipe out those schooners. Both her masts are down, and she got a shot into the machinery. The men are seeing what they can do to it. The masts we can fit ourselves."

"And you've no casualties?"

"Some splinter wounds and some bit bruises from the spars. Nothing of consequence, sir."

"Well, we're very well through a nasty job, captain, and we've reason to be thankful for it. Now suppose we have something to eat--I'm starving."