Part 16

That night he slept but little. He tossed on his hot bed, and whether he lay on this side or on that, the same question dinned in his ears without cessation. He was tortured by thoughts of hidden wickedness in the bush; mysteries of evil in rocky defiles, in caves beside great waterfalls. He rose and went out into the starlight, reproaching himself for his foolishness; and even as he did so, Brother Michael’s even breathing thrilled on his ears like a vindication. When all was said, what was it that he feared for the young man? What could an old priest fear but the one thing--a woman? And what woman, he asked himself, however dissolute or abandoned, would venture alone into those haunted woods? He could trust superstition to keep the wickedest from such a course. Had he indeed become such an old Kanaka, that even he, Father Studby, was to credit the existence of the witch, roving in her naked beauty, a peril to white lay brothers? Perish the thought, so degrading and childish! Assuredly it was not Saumaiafe he had to fear.

He got to bed again, and waited with open eyes for the approach of day. As the cocks began to crow, he heard, with a sudden sinking of the heart, the sound of the lay brother stirring in the next room; heard him dress and go stealthily out, shaking the verandah under his heavy tread.

Mercy of God, what did it all mean?

Morning after morning he asked himself the same question, as the mysterious routine continued with unabated regularity; and the thought of it haunted him persistently throughout the day as he tried to fix his mind on other things. Evening after evening he saw the young man return with his tired face, the pigeons so ambiguously obtained, the gun that had never been fired. They would eat their silent meal together, and then Michael would doze in his chair till bedtime. On Sunday, the only day he remained at home, the lay brother resigned himself to the unavoidable services of religion, going with the father to mass, and assisting, by his presence at least, the cause to which they had both pledged their lives. The few hours of his leisure were spent at a little lock-fast desk; and the nature of this correspondence became the second mystery of his singular and baffling life. Once, looking up from his half-written page, he asked the priest how many feet went to a mile. On another occasion he inquired as to the soundings of the bay, and the most likely point for a steamship pier. Steamship piers, and feet in miles! Miles of what? Whose steamships, and what was there to bring them? Mercy of God, what did it all mean?

In the beginning, when Father Studby had first begun to suspect he knew not what, to worry, to ask himself importunate questions, a way had occurred to him--a way not altogether honourable nor dignified--which could not fail to lead to some elucidation of the mystery. He had put it behind him with decision, as unworthy of himself and his reputation. What! act the spy and follow the young man? See with his own eyes, from the vantage of some thick fern or bush, the nature of that strange tryst? No; let him keep his honour, even if curiosity went unsatisfied--even if that same curiosity were not wholly bad, but inspired by a genuine regard for the young brother’s welfare, for which, as the elder of the two, he was in some degree responsible. It was only right to hold out your hand to a sinking man. But could the lay brother be called a sinking man? Ah, if one could be sure of that, how much might be pardoned!

One morning Father Studby could bear it no longer. As the boards creaked in the next room, he, too, rose and dressed himself, trembling as he did so with a sense of guilt. When the front door at length closed on the lay brother, and his quick step was heard on the path outside, Father Studby found himself on the verandah, looking after him in the dawn. He would have followed; he even took a few steps down the hill. But the folly of such a course was at once apparent. To act the detective, one must one’s self remain undiscovered. Yet how could he hope to elude observation and keep on Brother Michael’s heels all through the open village and the wide _malae_? It was manifestly impossible. In the forest it might be different; yes, in the forest, crouching in the thick undergrowth, it would not be so hard to track a man down.

The next night, which happened to be one of a moon almost full, the father lay down ready dressed for a new adventure. A little after one o’clock, he rose, crossed himself, and cautiously quitted the house, making his way through the sleeping village to the path across the swamp. This he followed, slipping on the sodden tree-trunks that served as bridges, until he attained the farther region of cocoanut, banana, and breadfruit plantations. These were in a choking tangle of weeds and lianas; trees thirty feet in height bent under their weight of parasites; others, still higher, were altogether overwhelmed and lost to view in a wall of green; and in the forks of the giant breadfruits orchids were sprouting like the scabs of some foul disease. Keeping with difficulty on the half-obliterated track, the priest toiled slowly and painfully through this belt of so-called cultivation, from which, indeed, the village drew no considerable portion of its sustenance, until at last he reached the welcome shelter of the forest. In contrast to the zone through which he had just emerged, opened by man to the furious energy of the sun, the forest floor itself, densely shaded from this fecundating fire, was comparatively open and easy to penetrate. It was dark, of course, dark as the inside of a well; and the father stopped and lighted the lantern he carried in his hand. He peered about him, blinded by the glare, and uncertain for the first time as to his road. Yes, he had not been misguided; he could trust the instinct of eighteen years to steer him through these labyrinths. Here, indeed, was the _ifi_-tree of which Ngalo had told him, with its low, spreading foliage that had so often concealed Michael’s gun. At the thought of the lay brother his heart began to beat, and he crossed himself repeatedly.

He paced off seven, eight, nine, ten yards from the trunk of the _ifi_; and his feet at that distance carried him into a thicket of fern and wild bananas. He blew out the lantern, and settled himself in the damp ambush so providentially at hand, drawing the big leaves over his head until he could no longer see the stars. From two o’clock--for such he judged the hour when he first took up his station in the ferns--from two o’clock till five he remained huddled in his green lair, praying at intervals, and counting the interminable minutes to dawn. With the first peep of day his impatience turned no less swiftly into dread. What had tempted him to such madness, such dishonour? What if he should be discovered in this shameful nest, and incontinently revealed to the jeers and laughter of the man he thought to track down? What if the lay brother, turning a little aside, should stumble over his cramped and aching body? Explain? How could he explain? Mercy of God, what a position for an old religious! He underwent spasms of panic; he was of two minds whether or not to rise and run. But the sound of a footstep, of a man’s hoarse breathing, of rustling branches and snapping twigs, suddenly brought the heart to his mouth. The wild animal in him was instantly on the defensive, and he flattened himself to the ground.

He lay like a log, not moving so much as an eyelash. He heard the ring of metal as Michael apparently fumbled with his gun in the lower branches of the _ifi_-tree. The shot-flask fell with a crash, and the brother swore--yes, said “damn” audibly, and picked it up. Then there was a silence; an eternity of suspense; then a faint crackling as of parting boughs. The father peeped out, and saw a black figure disappearing inland; an unmistakable black figure, bent and furtive, speeding mysteriously through the gloom. He was up and following in a second, half doubled together, like the man he pursued, eager as a bloodhound with his nose to the spoor. The way, with few intermissions, ran steadily uphill, up and up, faster and faster, until one’s side seemed to crack and one’s heart to burst. Up and up, with a swing to the right to avoid the splashing waterfalls of the Vaita’i; through groves of _moso’oi_ that stifled the air with sweetness; under towering _maalava_-trees that seemed to pierce the very sky.

Would he never stop?

But the lay brother, without once turning, without once stopping either to rest or to look back, plunged forward with the certainty of a man who knew his way blindfold. They were, now, pursued and pursuer, on the high ridge between two river valleys; on the one hand was the Vailoloa, a tributary of the Vaita’i, on the other the roaring Fuasou, both racing tumultuously to the sea. The father wondered how Michael meant to extricate himself from such a cul-de-sac, unless (and the thought dashed his hopes to the ground) he intended to assail the cloudy slopes of Mount Loamu itself and make a circuit of a dozen miles.

But his question no sooner suggested itself than it was answered. Of a sudden the brother stopped on the edge of the Fuasou ravine, dropped one leg over, then the other, and began to disappear hand over hand by means of a hidden ladder. The priest stood where he was, transfixed with astonishment. To hurry now seemed unwise. If he had come to ladders he was not improbably near the goal itself. Patience! A breath or two, a moment to cast one’s self full length on the ground and wipe the acrid sweat from one’s eyes, and then, having given the lay brother a minute’s start, to descend the precipice in his wake.

Father Studby approached the brink and looked over. Below him, dropping, perhaps, sixteen feet, was a roughly made ladder of bamboo which rested at the bottom on a rocky buttress of the cliff. On the edge of that, again, with its splintered ends appearing through the trampled undergrowth, was a continuing ladder, the second of a series that dropped, one after another, into the deep defile. With guarded steps, and after a prolonged deliberation, the priest let himself slowly down ladder number one; down number two; down number three, which ran so long and straight on the open face of the rock that he faltered, turned dizzy, and had to close his eyes to recover himself; down number four; down number five, at the base of which there descended a zigzag path to the river. Following this unhesitatingly, with the noise of rushing water in his ears, he emerged at last on a basaltic shelf not six feet above the bed of the Fuasou. From this coign of vantage he gazed about in vain for any sight of Michael, until, on creeping to the very edge of the rock, he ventured to look below. There, immediately beneath him, so close, indeed, that he might have touched him with his hand, was the lay brother himself, busy shovelling a bucket full of sand.

“Mercy of God!” exclaimed the priest below his breath; and even as he did so, by that singular telepathy which so often confounds us, Michael lifted his head and looked his pursuer squarely in the face. For an appreciable instant the pair challenged each other’s eyes in silence; the lay brother’s were kindling and fierce, the priest’s all abashed, like those of a girl.

“Come down here,” said Michael, peremptorily. “I have something to tell you.”

The priest obeyed, with the mien of a man descending to his execution.

“You old interloper,” cried Michael, with a mirthless laugh. “So you are here at last, are you? I have seen it working in your silly old head for weeks. I never looked up but I thought to see your bloody boots!”

This unexpected address only served to add to the old man’s confusion. He looked about him helplessly. Such unrestrained language seemed to call for a sharp rebuke. He was shocked and frightened; as much so as a woman insulted on the street; and yet the consciousness of his own position--that of the detected spy--froze the words of correction on his lips.

“Of course, you want to know what I have been doing here,” continued Michael, in his mocking tone. “If you’ll look into that cradle you will see quick enough. Why, man alive, don’t you know what it is?”

Amazed and ashamed, Father Studby touched the dirty sediment with his finger.

“That’s gold!” cried the lay brother.

The priest hastily withdrew his hand and stared at his companion in consternation.

Gold!

The priest’s head went round; his heart thumped in his breast, with that word everything was forgotten--his shame, his anger, his humiliation.

“Oh, Michael!” he broke out incoherently. “Oh, Michael!”

“I am taking out about twenty ounces a day,” said the lay brother. “Some days I have touched forty.”

“Mercy of God!” cried the old man, hoarsely. “Mercy of God, show me how you do it!”

Michael had another cradle ready to hand. It was the first he had made he said, and nothing like so good as the other; but it would do for a day or two until they made a new one--yes, it would do, though a lot of the finer stuff was lost. You did it this way--so--just rocking it like a baby’s cradle; the squares of blanket screened the gold, and you washed them out afterwards in a pan. A place? Oh, anywhere along the stream. It was all rotten with gold.

The priest hurried off, and was soon shaking frantically a hundred yards below. He had not been gone an hour when he came hurrying back to where his companion was still at work.

“Look at that!” he cried, holding out a trembling hand. “Oh, Michael, what is it worth?”

“Three or four pounds, perhaps,” said the lay brother, indulgently.

“Mercy of God!” cried the priest, and he was off again at a run.

A little later he came back again. They were watched, he said; he was certain they were watched. He could hardly speak for agitation. He had heard noises behind him, again, and again, like the laughter of girls in the bush.

But Michael only derided his fears. The bush was a creepy place, he said, when you were all alone in it. He had felt the same way himself when he first came, and was eternally peeping over his shoulder and stopping his work to listen. One got used to it after a while; he supposed it must be some kind of a bird.

All day long they worked together in the stream, stopping only at noon for a bite of bread and a pipe. So engrossing was the occupation that one seemed never to grow tired; the glittering reward was always a fresh incentive to try one’s luck again. Five pounds, four pounds, six pounds, three pounds! One lost all count, and the level of the tobacco-tin in which the golden sand was poured rose and rose in half-inch tides. Father Studby was almost angry when his companion declared it was time to go. He was hurt at such a suggestion; he was disappointed; he almost cried. Michael showed him his watch. Mercy of God, it was past five o’clock! Then he remembered, for the first time, his neglected duties: the morning service, the school, the woman who lay dying in Nofo’s house; the hundred calls, great and small, that kept his day so busy. He wondered at his own unconcern, at his own apathy and selfishness. He felt that his contrition lacked the proper sting; he asked himself whether, indeed, he cared. He was dizzy with the thought of gold, of cradles and rich pockets, of those bright specks that still stuck to his hands. He followed his companion in a sort of dream, silent and triumphant, trying to fasten on himself a remorse that would not come.

“I’ll never forget the first time I got into that valley,” said Michael, on the long road home. “It was the hardest job of my life to follow up that river. I climbed into places that would have scared a sea-faring man; and I was no sooner up one than I would have to risk my life shinning up another, hanging on to lianas and kicking for my life. Tired? Why, I would regularly lie down and gasp--when there was anything big enough to lie on; and the noise of those falls, those that I was on top of, and those that were still to come--my word! it made me sick to hear them. And when I at last got into the place, and sat down by a big pool, and saw the black sand with the shrimps wriggling in it, I simply said to myself, as quiet as that: ‘Here’s gold.’”

When they reached home Michael called loudly for brandy. The priest himself was glad of a little after that day of days; placer-mining was a new experience, even to that veteran of labour, and he felt extraordinarily stiff and tired. He remembered with contrition how often in the past he had grudged his companion the stimulant, and he now blushed for those trivial economies with a hot sense of impatience. Could he not take out in a day what they represented in a twelvemonth? With a new-found sense of freedom, he helped himself again to the bottle, and, for once in his frugal life, did not measure the allowance with his thumb. Then Michael, with an elaborate pantomime of secrecy, beckoned him into the other room, and, after shutting and bolting the door, threw open the top of his trunk. Beneath the rumpled heap of clothes there were a dozen tin cans of all shapes, some with their own original covers, others capped with packing-paper like pots of jam. The lay brother opened them one by one, lovingly, exultingly, his face shining with satisfaction. Each was filled to the brim with coarse gold-dust; each weighed down the hand like an ingot.

“Take one, father,” said Michael. “It is a little enough return for all your kindness.”

The priest trembled and drew back.

“No, no!” he cried.

“As you like,” said Michael, with a tone of affected indifference. “You will be doing as well yourself in a few days.”

“God help me!” exclaimed the priest, and buried his face in his hands.

The lay brother looked down at him strangely and said nothing. He knew something of the hidden conflict at that moment raging in the old man’s breast, and he had too much at stake himself to venture an incautious word. Everything depended now upon the priest, for good or evil; it lay with him to keep the secret inviolate, or to spread it to all the world; to accept the partnership thus tacitly offered, and allow them both to reap a colossal harvest; or, standing coldly on the letter of his vows, to open the door to a rush of thousands. The brother held his breath and waited for that supreme decision on which so much depended; he was afraid to speak, afraid even to move, as he looked down at his companion in a fever of suspense. The intolerable silence weighed upon him like a nightmare. He felt that it was the enemy of all his hopes; that every minute of it increased the hazard of his fortunes; that he was being tried, that he was being condemned.

“Father,” he broke out, “your name need not appear in this; you need do nothing but hold your tongue; you can be my partner without a soul to know it. As God sees me, I will divide with you to the last penny.”

The old man lifted his head.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

“It’s just this,” said Michael, regaining a little confidence. “If you spread the news broadcast--and the merest whisper will do that--you will get nothing at all and I will get no more than a beggarly claim. Keep it to ourselves and we shall share tens of thousands of pounds.”

“I am a Marist priest,” said Father Studby. “I am a missionary. I am an old man nearing the end of my days. My vows prevent me from withholding any property from my Order. I should be acting dishonourably in entering into such an enterprise. I have no right to gain money for myself.”

“Who is asking you to keep it for yourself?” demanded Michael. “What prevents you giving your Order every ounce that falls to your share? Do you really think Monseigneur would find fault if you brought him a check for a hundred thousand pounds? And I don’t even ask you to keep silence for ever. In six months, or a year, or whatever it is,--when the proper time comes,--you can make a clean breast of it. Of course, if you choose the other thing, your Order will get nothing, and somehow I don’t think they will be as pleased as you seem to think. Why, man, think what the money would do for the cathedral! They could build the new mission-house to-morrow. And remember for one moment what you could do here!”

“No,” said the father, “you have put the matter in a new light. I should fail in my duty if I let this money go from us. They would be right to reproach me if I let the chance slip. I fear I was thinking more of myself than of them.”

After supper they drew out their chairs on the moonlit verandah, and sat for a while in silence. The priest was conscious, amid the uneasy preoccupation that settled on him like a cloud, that in some manner their relative positions had changed. The masterful young man, by reason of his great discovery, on the strength, perhaps, of his more vigorous and determined will, seemed now to arrogate to himself the right to lead. It appeared natural to Father Studby to acquiesce in this; to subordinate himself to his companion and wait timidly for him first to speak; even to feel a kind of gratitude for the partnership that caused him such qualms. Self-effacing and humble, it came easy to him to sink to a second place and accept unquestioningly the orders of a superior. Besides, what did he know of gold?

“The first thing we must consider,” began Michael, “the first, because it is the most important, is the land. It must all be ours, from the sea to the mountain-tops, from one end of the bay to the other. In a small way I have been already moving in the matter. I have taken options from Maunga, Leapai, and George Tuimaleali’ifano, the three principal chiefs here, for what seems to cover more than the area of the group. I paid them out of hand about twenty dollars each; but the options, to make them good, will call for twenty-eight thousand dollars in Chile money. Oh, it’s all perfectly right and legal,” he broke out, forestalling an objection he saw on his companion’s lips. “I had the forms drawn up in Nukualofa by a lawyer; it cost me three pounds to do it. The only point is how much of the land really belongs to these chiefs, for there are bound to be half a hundred other claimants whose consent will be needed to make the title good; and it will be your part to ferret them out. What you must bear in mind most is that we must nail every inch of the beach. There will be a city here in a month after the news is out; in a year there will be tramways, and newspapers, and brick banks and churches, and wharves with ships discharging. Don’t you see, we must have our fist in all that; we must have the lion’s share; every pound the others bring must pay us toll.”

“The others!” cried the priest. “Mercy of God, let us keep the thing to ourselves!”