Part 17

“We couldn’t, if we would,” cried the lay brother. “You might as well try and hide the island as to keep them out. When I was a boy I was in the Kattabelong gold rush with my father, and I know what I am talking about. They rose up like waves in the sea--waves and waves of men, bursting in with yells like an invading army. Why, it won’t be any time before we are holding our valley with a line of rifles; you will see all hell loose and a thousand devils landing at a time; you will see the horizon black with steamer smoke, bringing in thousands more; you will see men killed and their bodies rotting in the sun. That’s the first stage of a gold rush--the pioneer stage, the stage of murder and crime, of might for right. That will be the time for us to live through as best we can. Bit by bit there comes a subsidence into a kind of order. There is a rally of the better sort; the inevitable leader rises to the top. You walk out one morning, and you run across Billy This, the terror of the camp, swaying peacefully at the end of a rope. At another turn it is Tommy That, with his toes turned up and a ticket on his breast. The third period is the arrival of an official with a tin office and blank forms. Who owns the land here? Why, we do. Who claims that? Why, we claim it. Who owns the beach from a point beginning at such and such a place, to a point marked B on the new official map? We again! Who owns the mountain lakes they talk already of tapping for the water-supply? We do. Who owns everything in sight? The same old firm, if you please, sir. But I am not saying we can hold the fort single-handed. God never made the two men that could. But this is what we do. We grant titles, concessions, half and quarter interests to men of the right stamp, and make them our partners against the mob. We take the money they bring, and reserve a substantial profit in their future undertakings. As I said before, we must have our fist in every pocket.”

Michael paused and slowly filled a second pipe. The father remained silent, his head resting on his trembling hand. He was staring into vacancy, seeing through his half-shut eyes a myriad of changing pictures.

“Michael,” he said, “have you ever thought how it will be with our people?”

“Oh, the Kanakas!” said the lay brother.

“Yes, the Samoans,” said Father Studby. “What is to become of them, Michael?”

“They will go,” said the young man, coolly, “where the inferior race always goes in a gold rush. They will go to the devil.”

“Oh, Michael,” exclaimed the priest, “I cannot bear to think of them!”

“I am sure I am sorry, too,” said the lay brother. “But there is no use blinking our eyes to facts, or feeling miserable about what can’t be helped. The men must learn to work like other people, and I look to you, with your influence here, to line them up on the right side. Fifty or sixty of them would be worth everything to us at the start. As for the nigger women, if they are young and pretty, I dare say a use can be found for them, too. I am sorry, but what can you do? You can’t put back the clock, old fellow.”

The priest groaned.

“I wish you had never found the gold!” he cried out passionately.

“Well, it is too late now,” said Michael.

* * * * *

The next day the old man was up at the first peep of dawn. He had not slept all night, but had lain with open eyes, in a fever of horror and remorse. He walked down to the village and along the sandy beach, and sat miserably for an hour on the bottom of an upturned canoe. One by one, he saw the beehive houses awaken; he saw the _polas_ rise, disclosing dark interiors and smoking lamps; he heard the _pāté_, that most primitive of human signals, rousing the sluggards to another day, its insistent tapping the prelude to the morning prayer which rose here and there as each household assembled its members. Grave old chiefs appeared at the eaves, yawned, gazed at the sun, and exchanged ceremonious greetings; children trooped out sleepily to play; half-grown girls tripped away for water, or sat on logs or strips of matting, in twos and threes, staring out to sea. An imperious old chief began to blow a conch-shell bigger than his head. Bu, bu, bu! it sounded, rich and mellow, with faint reëchoings on the woody hills. The young men assembled about him, laughing and shouting, and taking up the note of the conch in a lusty chorus as they called out the names of those still to come. The father remembered that they were to launch the new _alia_, the huge double canoe, which belonged in common to all Lauli’i.

He looked about him mournfully; he felt himself a traitor through and through; he dropped his eyes as every one saluted him and the little children ran up to kiss his hands. He was about to sweep this all away, this life of simplicity, peace, and beauty; he was going to enslave these stalwart men; he was going to give these women to degradation. Under the scorching breath of what was called civilisation they would wither and die. God help them! On the ground where those houses now stood there would rise the brick banks and churches of which Michael had spoken; offices, stock exchanges, theatres, and roaring bars; dance-halls full of shameless women, and dens where men would be drugged and robbed. And what was he to gain for it all? What was the price for so much sin and misery? Wealth for his Order! The biggest account in that brick bank, blocks of bonds and shares, sheafs of mortgages! Good God, how had he dared set his hand to such an infamy! And if, by way of penance, he were to build a church, the great church of which he had dreamed, with lofty windows of stained glass, and an organ that would shake the very ground, and bells tempered with hundredweights of silver, who, indeed, would there be left to worship in it? What had gold-seekers to do with Christ, with God, with the Blessed Virgin? There might appear, perhaps, a few brown faces, changed and heartbroken, a few shrinking figures in the rags of the disinherited, who would appeal to him for comfort in their extremity. Ah, how could he look at them, these that he had wronged?

Mercy of God, let the accursed gold lie undug!

In an agony of self-denunciation, he walked hither and thither, without looking, without caring where he went, treading the phantom streets of that city of his dreams. He talked aloud and gesticulated to himself; he knelt at the foot of a palm and prayed; he was overwhelmed by his own powerlessness in the face of that impending calamity. He could see no help, he could find no solace. And yet, all the while he felt, with an intense conviction that belied the supplicating words on his lips, that it lay with him, and him alone, to save his people. Thus writhing in the coil of his perplexities, despairing and half mad at the unavertible ruin he knew no way to avoid, he suddenly found himself at his own door, confronting the man who had brought them all to such a pass.

“My word, father!” cried Michael, “you don’t look fit for another day up there. Why, if you could see your face in the glass it would give you the shakes; you ought to be in bed.”

He would have passed on, but the priest caught him by the arm.

“Michael,” he broke out, “Michael, stop and listen to me. I have something important to tell you--something that must be said, however little you may like to hear it. I--I find I cannot permit this to go any further.”

The lay brother stopped short.

“You cannot permit what?” he demanded.

“This digging of gold,” cried the priest; “this crime we have in mind against these people, this crime against ourselves. Do you count our vows for nothing, our holy vocation, the fact that God has set us apart to guard the flocks he has confided to us? Fall on your knees, miserable boy, and beg His pardon for your impiety--here, even as I have done; down, down with you!” The old priest’s voice rose to a scream; he wound his skinny arms round his companion, and calling on the saints for help, tried to force him to the earth.

The lay brother grew suddenly pale, and, with a violent movement, shook himself free.

“You old fool!” he exclaimed. “Keep your dirty hands off me, I tell you. Leave me alone.”

“I forbid you to take another step,” cried the priest. “In the name of God I forbid you.”

“See here,” said Michael, somewhat recovering himself, “I don’t want to quarrel with you. I would rather cut off my right hand than quarrel with you. I need you; and if you only had the sense to see it, you would know that you need me. It would be a rotten business if we ruined each other.”

“Why can’t you take the gold you have, and go?” exclaimed the father. “Leave the island and content yourself that you have got a competence. It is more already than you could have gained by a lifetime of honest work.”

“I mean to stay just where I am,” returned the lay brother, “regardless of whether you like it or don’t like it; I mean to stand by all my rights, with you if I can, without you if I must. You can do me lots of harm, and skim no end of cream off my milk; though I don’t think you have much to gain by doing it, or that the niggers you are so fond of will be greatly benefited. You have every reason to stand in with me, both for your sake and theirs; and if the money cuts no figure with you, you can surely see the sense of having some say in the subsequent developments. That’s all I have time for now, though if you are more in your right mind by evening I won’t mind talking it over with you again.”

With that last word Michael passed on, with an air of assurance implying that all would come right. The old priest remained standing in the path, sullenly looking after him; and he remained long in that attitude, even after the brother’s black figure had dwindled and disappeared into the distance. He felt utterly baffled, utterly conquered; he wondered whether he had any more resistance in him; he asked himself if God had forsaken him.

What was there now left for him to do, helpless and despairing as he was, but to wait with what patience he might for the concluding tragedy? After all, his own soul was clean; except for the one day, when, in the exultation of the discovery, in the madness that had temporarily possessed him, he had soiled his hands with the accursed thing. He remembered, with self-disdain, how he had accepted the partnership held out to him; how he had been dazzled, cajoled, swept altogether off his feet by the importunity of the devil. But that was all done with now. He would have none of the blood-money; if the knell had sounded for his people, he at least would not profit by their ruin, he at least would not transmute their agony into gold. The others could do that; Michael and his white savages; the hosts that were to come. Had the young man no conscience, no compassion? Was he simply a wall of selfishness, against which one might beat in vain? Oh, the hypocrite, the months he had lived a lie! Oh, the remorseless devil and his gold! How could God endure such things? A man like that ought to be struck down by thunderbolts; people ought to kill him like a mad dog.

The thought made him tremble. If Michael were dead, who would ever know about the gold? Had it not lain there all these years, latently evil in the earth, no one dreaming of its existence? Why should it not continue to lie for ever, powerless for all mischief, or until such a time, perhaps, when men would no longer count it a thing of price; when it would be relegated to museums for the curious to stare at, side by side with the wampum of Indians, cowry-shells, and the white beards that pass for money in the Marquesas. Ah, were it not for Michael!

His hands shook and he began to pant for breath. Were it not better that one should suffer than the many? one rather than a thousand? one rather than a whole race, with countless generations yet unborn? He looked down on the roofs of the village, a sight endeared to him by the recollections of so many years; he saw, in the brilliant sunshine, amid the houses that had sheltered them in life, the mossy tombs he knew so well. There, under the shadow, lay Soalu, his first friend; there, the black-browed Puluaoao, the heathen, the libertine, who had first thwarted and then had loved him; there, the earth that covered Lala’ai, in whose bright eyes he had looked once and never dared to look again, whose memory was still as sweet to him as on the day she died; there lay To, the silver-tongued; Silei, the poet; Lapongi, the _muaau_, with a dozen bullets through his headless corpse; Faamuina, Tupua, Sisimaile--how many there were! He had loved those honest hearts now mouldering in the grave; to some he had given messages to carry beyond the unknown river to those dark comrades who had already gone. He loved their children, now men and women, who had been held out to him by dying arms, and whom he had led crying from the house of bereavement to comfort as best he could. For nigh twenty years he had been the ruler and lawgiver of the bay, the trusted adviser of great chiefs, the faithful priest, the ever-welcome friend. Should he desert his people now?

He went into the cook-house, where Ngalo was sitting on the steps playing hymns on his mouth-organ.

“Ngalo,” he said, “I want your rifle and some cartridges.”

The boy looked up at his master’s face with astonishment,--the ways of whites were past all understanding,--and it was not until he was asked a second time that he rose and sought his gun.

The priest tried to say something by way of explanation, but the words would not come. He could do nothing but take the gun in silence, and charge the magazine with an unsteady hand, while the boy’s eyes grew bigger and bigger.

“Doubtless your Excellency has seen a wild cow in the bush?” Ngalo at length inquired.

The father nodded and turned to go.

“Blessed be the hunting!” cried the boy after him from the door, before resuming the strains of “There’s a land that is fairer than day.”

“Blessed be the home-stayers,” returned the priest, with conventional politeness.

* * * * *

At last he was at the place--at the foot of the second ladder, on the narrow ledge that overlooked the third. He scarcely knew why he had been led to choose this spot, for the top would surely have done as well. But the ladder there was shorter, and a desperate man might let himself drop below, or rush up like lightning before one could pull a second trigger. The third ladder was immensely long; Michael himself had once said that it was sixty feet or more; in the middle of it a man was helpless. If he fell it would be to smash to pieces on the rocks beneath; if he elected to climb, it would be in the face of a dozen bullets.

He threw himself on the ground, and sat cross-legged, with the rifle resting in his lap. He was haunted by a dread that the lay brother might still outwit him; that he might burst on him from behind with a mocking laugh; or dart up unexpectedly from the very edge of the cliff. He wondered how Michael would look with a bullet through his face. He remembered such a wound in the Talavao war, when he had helped to bury the killed; and the thought of it made him shudder. He tried to pray, but the words froze on his lips. What had a murderer to do with prayer? But he was not yet a murderer--not yet. There was still time to draw back; there was still time to save his soul from everlasting hell. How dared he hesitate when all eternity was at stake? He was shocked at himself, at his own resolution, at his own courage and steadfastness. He meant to kill the lay brother, even if the skies were to fall. He was there to make a sublime sacrifice for the sake of those he loved. Let hell do its worst. He would say between the torments: “I saved them! I saved them!” His only dread was that his hand might tremble on the trigger; that at the supreme moment he might flinch and fail; that he might throw his weapon from him in uncontrollable horror.

Hark! what was that? Mercy of God, what was that?

He peeped stealthily over the edge.

Michael was standing at the foot of the ladder.

The priest felt a sudden sinking in the region of the stomach. Something seemed to say to him: “But that’s flesh and blood; that’s a _man_!” He would have given worlds to have dispossessed himself of the rifle; lies and explanations crowded to his lips; his teeth chattered in his head. Then, as he cowered impotently to the ground, the ladder shook with the weight of Michael’s feet on the lowest rung.

He tried to pull himself together; but under the stress of that overwhelming agitation the mechanical part of him seemed to stop. He had to tell himself to breathe; his heart suffocated within his breast. He gasped like a drowning man, drawing in the air with great, tremulous sighs as his choking throat relaxed. Suddenly he ceased altogether to be himself; he became a phantom in a dream; a twitching, crazy creature whom he saw through a sort of mist, dizzily centred in a whirl of forest and sky.

He looked over and saw that Michael was more than half-way up. The lay brother’s whole body spoke of dejection and fatigue, of a long day’s work not yet ended, and it was evident that the heavy can slung from his neck was for once more of a burden than a satisfaction. He raised his weary eyes, and with a kind of a shock encountered those of Father Studby peering down at him from above. He cried out inarticulately, and began to redouble his exertions, smiling and panting as he did so.

Still as in a dream, the priest leaned boldly over the precipice, and dropped the point of his rifle until its farther sight was dancing across the lay brother’s face, which, in swift gradations, underwent the whole gamut of dismay, astonishment, and utter stupefaction. For an instant Michael faltered and hung back; he even slunk down a step, speechless and as white as death. Then, of a sudden, he broke out into shrill peals of laughter, followed by a torrent of gabble, brisk, friendly, and tremblingly insincere, such as one might address to a madman from whom it is dangerous to run. He had struck a new place, he cried. My word! there was no end to it--pockets upon pockets only waiting to be washed out. It was at the fifth waterfall, not far from the dam by the banyan-tree, and he had worked there all day with extraordinary success. The other place was good enough, to be sure, with its average of three pounds and more, but this at the fifth waterfall was the real McKay. The father must positively come down and see it at once; positively you could see the nuggets shining in every spadeful; no matter if it were late, the father must come. He had better leave his gun on the top, for who was there to touch it?

Father Studby never turned from his position, nor made the least pretence of answering the breathless patter with which the brother tried to shield himself. Like a rock he waited, while the miserable man below him, sweating with fear, moved slowly into point-blank range. Talk as he might, with a volubility that grew increasingly anxious and incoherent, Michael realised at last that his time had come. He stopped; he raised his hand convulsively; he cried out in a broken voice: “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t kill me!”

Even as he did so, the father pulled the trigger.

Then he turned, reclimbed the ladders, and went home.

* * * * *

That night the priest went outside the reef in his canoe, and emptied Michael’s store of gold-dust into the sea, scattering it like seed on the ocean floor at a point where the tide ran swiftest. On his return, with a cunning that seemed to him the inspiration of the devil, he got out the lay brother’s spare hat and some of the clothes that were in his chest, and left them, to tell their own tale, on the sandy beach. At dawn he made his way back to the valley, still sustained, in spite of all his fatigue, by a consuming fire of activity. He felt that the sands of his own life were running out; that at any moment he might be struck down himself by an unseen hand; that those strange, benumbing premonitions in his brain bade him imperiously to close the chapter of his crime. The horror of dying with his purpose unfulfilled spurred him on to desperate exertions. He stumbled again and again on the path; he had recurring fits of giddiness, when the sun seemed darkened to his eyes, when for a space he half forgot his dreadful errand, and wondered to find himself in the bush. He expected, when he reached the brink of the cliff and began to descend the long, shaky ladders, to feel some recrudescence of the emotions of the day before. But, to his own surprise, he discovered in himself a callousness that set all such qualms at defiance; he had exhausted, in the course of those last forty hours, all his capacity for such paralysing susceptibilities; like some soldier after the battle, he was sated with the horrors through which he had passed, and had become altogether deadened to those about him. Even when he stood on the very place from which Michael had made his last appeal, and, looking in the air above, more than half expected to see the protruding muzzle of another rifle, he felt, indeed, no answering thrill or perturbation. The burden of his own fatigue seemed of greater moment than this reliving of a tragedy; and the thought of how much there was for him still to do moved him infinitely more.

At the foot of the ladder, shrunken and disordered, the corpse of the dead brother lay tumbled in the grass like a sack. With his face upturned to the sky, his sightless eyes, filming with corruption, his tangled hair in a slime of blood and dirt, he opposed a ghastly barrier to the old priest’s further progress; and seemed, even in death itself, to continue to resist and defy him. But the father had passed the stage when such a sight could turn him back, though he faltered for a moment in the throes of an unconquerable disgust before daring at last to set his foot across the body. Even when he did so, driving off the swarming flies with both his hands, it was with an agony of precaution against the least contact with that dead flesh.

Descending into the valley, he drew together all the tell-tale evidences of their work below, the cradles, picks, and shovels, the tins and boxes and ends of boards and scantlings, which had been carried, at one time and another, into that secluded place, and buried them in one of the deepest holes along the stream. He broke down the dams that Michael had spent days in building, the stones that had been piled aside to uncover the ground of some new pocket, the rough shelters he had raised here and there against the sun; he obliterated with his knife the marks that had been blazed upon the trees, and searched everywhere, with a feverish pertinacity that took him again and again over the same ground, for the least detail that he might have overlooked.

Then, in a drip of sweat, and exhausted to such a pitch that he wondered whether he should ever leave the valley alive, he took the spade he had kept by him to the last, and mounted the bottom ladder. As he went he cut away the lashings that bound it to the rock, and from the top sent it headlong behind him. In the same manner, resting painfully at each stopping-place, he detached the second ladder and the third, arriving once more at the wide shelf where he had meant to dig the grave. But his little strength suddenly forsook him; he was overcome by a deadly nausea; he could hardly stand, much less dig. He cast the spade into a thicket, and with unflinching resolution detached the can of gold-dust from the dead man’s neck. That, at least, should not remain to tell its tale, and he let the stuff dribble through his fingers over the cliff.