^^ I v-Aap»ajJ^ .^ . ^"'^■'^m. j=^ , ' - ' . ^m ^m^vPH^s^^^^^^^*!^ * ^: '^^ 1 t '^^^*^^K«^ ,hL |1 ■¥' |-V^ ^ •'"^^^^•■■■i' IQ^K\k^^l^l f ^^^^^^^^K n '"-■1 ■ ' ' . ■■"' . f':::t '■ 'Jm * BOWING DOWN TOWARDS THE MOUTH OF THE CRATEB, THEY SEEMED TO SALUTE THE GODDESS OF THE VOLCANO. " THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. Vf GRANT ALLEN, AUTHOR OF •' BABYLON," " IN ALL SHADES," ETC., ETC. i,\ O^ <2>V *.b3 WITH SEVENTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. FINN E MORE. LONDON: HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY, W. 1888. Richard Clat and Sons, Limitkd. london and bunoav, 9R TO JERRARD GRANT ALLEN, THE ONLY BEGETTER OF THESE ENSUING ADVENTURES. My Dear Grantie, From the following pages, written with a single eye to your own personal tastes and predi- lections, you may, I trust, learn three Great Moral [Lessons. First, never to approach too near the edge of an [active volcano. Second, never to continue your intimacy with a [man who deliberately and wickedly declines to pull you out of a burning crater. And third, never to intrust the care of youth to la cannibal heathen South Sea Islander. ^ DEDICATIOX. ~ Witli tho trittius exception of these throe now euuiueiated, I am not aware that you can extract any Great Moral Lesson whatsoever from the hair- breadth escapes of Kea and her associates. Having thus almost entirely satisfied your ex- pressed wishes in this mattcr-for " a story without a moral "—I subscribe myself, with pride, Your obedient servant and very loving father, G. A. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAOE. «* BOWINO DOWN TOWARDS THE MOUTH oF THE CRATER, THEY SEEMED TO SALUTE THE GODDESS oF THE VOLCANO " Frontispiece. " it's MORE THAN DANGEROUS. IT's ALMOST CERTAINLY FATAL " 11 "ALL AT ONCE A GREAT BODY OF GAS WAS EJECTED INTO THR AIR, IN A BLAZE OF LIGHT " 33 " ' YOUNG MAN,' HE CRIED, * ... I WARN YOU NOT TO TRIFLE WITH THE BURNING MOUNTAIN ' " 45 '* I ROLLED DOWN RAPIDLY TO THE VERY BOTTOM" .... 51 ** I LAY THERE HORItOR-STRICKEN, AND GAZED IDLY DOWN " . , 61 •* I CLUTCHED THE CRUMBLING PEAK WITH MY HOOKED FINGERS " 84 "SHE CARRIED ME SLOWLY UP THE ZIG-ZAG PATH " .... 91 '* * IF YOU KNEW ALL,' SHE ANSWERED, * HOW YOU WOULD PITY MEl'" Ill '* ' EVERYTHING IS CORRECT,' HE WHISPERED " 129 "SHE LOOKED UP IN AN AGONY OF SUSPENSE" 139 " KEA TRIED ON ALL HER THINGS " 168 " A STRANGE PROCESSION BEGAN SLOWLY TO DESCEND " . . ,177 " THE BAMBCO BENT OMINOUSLY DOWN " 197 " WE RODE AT FULL SPEED IN BREATHLESS HASTE " . . . . 209 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. CHAPTER 1 My brother Frank is a most practical boy. I may be prejudiced, but it seems to me someliow there's nothing like close personal contact with active volcanoes to :each a young fellow prudence, coolness, and adapt- iability to circumstances. " Tom," said he to me, as we stood and w^atched the queer party on deck, devouring taro-paste as a Neapolitan swallows down ilong strings of macaroni " don't you think, if we Ve [got to live so long in a native hut, and feed on this 5ort of thing, we may as well use ourselves to their manners and customs, whatever they may be, at the 'arliest convenient opportunity ? " B a& THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. *' Haven't you heard, my dear boy," said I, " what the naval officer wrote when he was asked to report to the Admiralty on that very subject of the manners and customs of the South Sea Islanders ? ' Manners they have none/ he replied with Spartan brevity, ' and their customs are beastly.' " " Not a bit of it," Frank answered quickly in his jolly way. " For my part I think this sticky, pasty stuff they're eating with their fingers, though it's a bit stodgy, looks like real jam, and I'd much rather take my lunch off things like that up here on deck, out of a native calabash, than go down and eat a civilized meal with a knife and fork in that hoky- poky, stuffy little cabin there." I confess, for myself, I didn't exactly like the look of it. Cosmopolitan as I am, I object to fingers as a substitute for spoons. We were on board the Royal Hawaiian mail steamer Like Like, 500 tons registered burden, from Honolulu for Hilo, in the island of Hawaii ; and a quainter group than the natives on deck I'm bound to admit, in all my wanderings, by sea or by land, I had never set eyes on. The tiny steamer THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 8 was built in fact on purpose to accommodate all tastes alike, be the same savage or civilized. Down stairs was a saloon where regular meals in the European liishion were well served by a dusky Polynesian steward in a white linen jacket, to such luxurious persons as preferred to take them in that orthodox manner. But the unsophisticated natives, in their picturesque dress, believing firmly in the truth of the proverb that fingers were made before forks, liked better to carry their own simple provisions in their baskets with them. They picnicked on deck in merry . little circles, laughing and talking at the top of their voices (when they weren't sea-sick) as they squatted on their mats of woven grass round the fiimily taro- bowl. From this common dish, parents and children, 3'oung men and maidens, fed all alike, each dipping his forefinger dexterously into the sticky mess, and then twisting it round, as one might twist a lot of half-boiled tofi'ee, till they landed it safely with a sudden twirl in their appreciative mouths. " It must be awfully good," Frank went on meditatively, eying the doubtful mixture with a hungry look. "They B 2 T/fE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. seem to enjoy it so, or else of course they wouldn't lick their fingers ! I wish we could strike up a friend- ship now with some of these amiable light-coloured natives, and get them to share their lunch with us off-hand. I wonder what they call this precious stuff of theirs ? " " We call it taro," one of the nearest group answered, greatly to our surprise, in perfectly good and clear English. " Would you like to taste some ? It's very nice. AVe shall be delighted if you'll try it. Hawaiians are always proud indeed to show any hospitality in their power to friendly strangers." She was a pretty young girl of eighteen who spoke, lighter a good deal in complexion than most of the other natives around, and she was seated with a tall, dark, serious-looking old Hawaiian at a calabashful of the strange pasty mixture the appearance of which had so attracted Frank's favourable attention. As she spoke, she moved a little aside to make room for us on her mat, as if they were all playing Hunt-the- Slipper ; and Frank, whose fault, I'm bound to admit, was never shyness, squatted down at once, nothing THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT, loth, tailor-fashion, on the deck by her side, and with many thanks accepted the courteous offer of a dip in the taro-bowl. " Upon my word, Tom," lie said, twirling a great dab of the queer-looking paste awkwardly into his mouth, " it's first-rate grub when you come to taste it. A little sour to be sure, but as good as pan- cakes. If you're going to feed us like this on the islands, sir," he added, turning to the stern ild man, " I don't think w^e'll be in any hurry to run away again." "Bring out some more food, Kea," the dark old Hawaiian half whispered to the girl politely, in English not quite so good as her own, but still very fluent, " and ask the gentleman," wdth a slight bow towards me, "if he won't be good enough to join us in our simple luncheon." " I shall be only too glad," I answ^ered, immensely surprised, and with some qualms of conscience about my unfortunate remark as to the manners and customs, which I never expected any native on board to understand. "It will be much more pleasant, I'm 6 THE WHITE MAX'S FOOT. sure, to take my meals up here on deek than to go down to that hot and stuffy little saloon below." As I seated myself, the girl Kea took up from her side a pretty basket of plaited palm-leaves, and produeed from it a few pieces of dried fish, some cold roast pork, a stick or two of sugar-cane, several fresh oranges just picked from the tree, and a tempting display of bananas and bread-fruits. Frank and I were old enough sailors and old enough travellers to fare sumptuously off such excellent food stuffs ; indeed we had just arrived in the Islands from San Francisco by the last mail steamer, and fresh fruit was a great luxury to us ; Avhile after so long a voyage on the open Pacific we thought nothing of this pleasant little summer cruise between the beautiful members of that volcanic archipelago. A meal together is a capital introduction. In the course of ten minutes we were all four of us on excellent terms with one another. Kea had intro- duced to us the dark old man as her Uncle Kalaua, a Hawaiian chief of the old stock of some distinction, whose house was remarkable for beino; situated hioher THE WIIITK SIAX'S FOOT. up the slopes of tlie great volcano, Mainia Loa, than- any other on the entire island. She herself, she let us know hy casual side-glimpses, was a half-caste by birth, though she hardly looked as dark as many Europeans ; her mother had been Kalaua's only sister, and her father the captain of an English whaling-ship ; but both were dead, she added with a sigh, and she, lived now with her grim old uncle near the very summit of the great burning mountain. She told us a vast deal about herself, in fact, by way of intro ; duction, with the usual frankness of the simple, unsophisticated children of nature, and she asked us a lot of questions in return, being anxious to learn, as we were neither missionaries, nor whalers, nor sugar-planters, nor merchants, what on earth our business could be in Hawaii. " Well," said J, with a smile of amusement, " you'll think it a very funny one indeed when I tell you what it is. We've come to make observations on. Mauna Loa.'' - , **To make observations!" Kea answered with at faint thrill of solemn awx in her hushed voice. THE WHITE MAiV'S FOOT. '' Oh, don't say that. It'fl — it's so very dangerous." And she glanc^Hl aside timidly at her uncle. Kalaua looked up at us quickly with a suspicious glance. " Observations on Mauna Loa ? " he cried ill a very stern ton^. *' On our great volcano ? Scientific observations ? The man is ill advised in truth who tries to go poking and prying too much about Mauna Loa ! " " Oh, you needn't be afraid," Frank answered laughing ; '' need they, Tom ? It's not by any means owr first experience of eruptions. My brother's an awful dab at volcanoes, you know. He's seen dozens ; and he's been sent out to examine this one in particular by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Fm his assistant-ex- aminer, without salary. Sounds awfully grand that, doesn't it ? But we mean to have a jolly lark in Hawaii for all that. Expenses paid, and all found ; and nothing to do but to go down the crater and look about us. We expect to have a splendid time. There's nothing I love like a really good volcano." But in spite of Frank's enthusiastic way of looking THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. at the matter I could see at a glance that the mention of our object in visiting Hawaii had cast a sliade of ffloom at once over both Kea and her uncle. The old man seemed to grow moody and sullen ; Kea was rather grieved and saddened. The rest of our meal passed off less pleasantly. It was not till we began to chew green sugar-cane together by way of dessert, that Kea's spirits at all returned. She laughed and talked then once more with native good-humour, showing us how to strip and peel the fresh cane, and making fun of us merrily because in our English awkwardness we got pieces of the fibre wedged hopelessly in between our front teeth. Yet even so I couldn't help suspecting that something w^as weighing upon her mind a little. Evidently they were either hurt or distressed that we should think of scientifically observing Mauna Loa. I wondered much whether they held the mountain too sacred a thinor for inquisitive science to poke its nose into, or whether they only considered it too dangerous a crater for the bold explorer to meddle with carelessly. If it was merely the last, I didn't much mind. Frank and I 10 THE WHITE MAN'^ FOOT. were thoroiiorhly at lioine with nasty-tempered vol- eaiioes, and knew tlicir tricks and tlieir manners down to the ground far too well to be in the least afraid of them. I had l)een engaged in studying their mnnifes- tations indeed for the last six years ; and Frank, who was born to face danger, had joined me in all my expeditions and explorations ever since he'd been big enough to carry a knapsack. In the course of the afternoon however I happened to be standing with pretty little Kea near the bow of the steamer, while her uncle was slowly pacing the quarterdeck, immersed in conversation with a Hawaiian acquaintance. She was a graceful young girl, with a wreath of yellow flowers twined, Pacific fashion, round her broad straw hat, and another garland of crimson hibiscus thrown lightly like a scarf like one well- shaped shoulder. She glanced timidly round to see if Kalaua was well out of earshot ; then, seeing herself safe, she said to me in a low, half- whispered voice, " If I were you, Mr. Hesselgrave, I'd give up the idea of exploring Mauna Loa." " Give it up ! " I cried. '* Wli} , really, you know, ^■" I II I' vT'-'-y. ^^li^. «eismologist and vulcanologist — no offence meant by those awesome w^ords — I've alw^ays had a sneaking kindness in an underhand way for other de- partments of natural science, especially zoology ; and a new butterfly, with a red spot on its tail, is a severe temptation that my utmost philosophy can never in- duce me to disregard under any circumstances. There are some scientific men, I know, who seem to think science ought to be made as dull and as dry and as fusty as possible : for my ow^n part, I never could take that eminently correct and respectable view : I like my science as amusing as 1 can get it, with a consider- able spice of adventure thrown in ; and I prefer speci- men-hunting amono- the Pacific Islands to name- o o hunting among the prodigiously learned and stupid memoirs of the British Museum. Betw^een ourselves, too (but I wouldn't like this to reach the ears of the Royal Society), I regard a man as much more useful THE WHITE MAN\S FOOT. 49 to science when eugag(;d in catching birds or insects in the Malay ArchipeUigo or the African mountains than when inventing names for tliem out of his own head in a fusty, dusty, musty room in the museum at Soutli Kensington. Have the kindness to keep this dark however if you ever go to a British Association Meeting : for if it reached the ears of the Committee, they might think me an unfit person to entrust with any furtlier volcanic in- vestigations. "Well, my butterfly was resting, poised like a statue, on a pretty flowering plant that grew out of a cranny in the sheer wall of rock, a yard or two below the precise point where I was tlien sitting. Said I to myself, with an eager dart forward, " I shall nab that specimen ; " and laying aside my pencil and drawing-pad at once, I proceeded forthwith, at the top of my speed, incontinently to nab him. it was witli great difficulty however that I clam- bered 'down the side of the crag, for the lava just there was porous and bubbly. It crumbled and broke 60 TffE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. like thin ice under my feet ; and wherever I thought I had ju3t secured myself a firm foothold it gave way after a moment, bit by bit, with the force of my pres- sure. Nevertheless I managed somehow, to my great delight, to reach the plant that sprouted from the cranny without at all disturbing my friend the butter- fly, who, engrossed on his dinner, was hardly expect- ing an attack from the rear ; and clapping my hand upon him before he could say Jack Robinson, I popped him, triumphant, into my pocket collecting case. Then, with a light heart, and the proud consciousness of a duty performed, I turned once more to climb up the cliff again. But that, I found, was by no means so easy a matter as descending. I had got down partly by the •mean and illegitimate device of letting my feet slide ; to o:et back I must somehow secure a firm and certain foothold in the loose lava. To my surprise and horror there was none to be found. The soft and creamy pumice-stone seemed nowhere to afford a single solid point of support. I struggled in vain to recover my balance ; at last, to my dismay, I stum- THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 51 Lied and fell — fell, as I feared, towards the Floor of the Hawaiians, that yawned a full hundred and twenty feet of sheer depth in the crater below me. With a wild lunge I clutched for support at the plant in the "l nOLLED DOWN RAl'IDLY TO I'lIE VERY BOTTOM. E 2 52 THE WITITK MAN'S FOOT. cranny. It hroko sliort in my hand, and my one chance gone, I rolled down rapidly to the' very bottom. I didn't exactly tiiml>le down the entire sheer height in a single fnll ; if I had 1 shouldn't l)e here to tell you. I broke; the force of the descent somewhat by digging my hands and feet witli frantic efforts into the loose wall of rotten lava. But before I could realize precisely what was happening I lost my head. The world reeled round me ; my eyes closed. Next moment I was aware of a horrid thud, and a fierce blow against some hard surface. I knew then just where I had landed. I had fallen or rolled by stages the whole way dow^n the crag, and was lying on my side on the Floor of the Hawaiians ! CHAPTER IV. My first thought, as I hiy half-stunned and almost unconscious upon that naked bed of hard })hick rock, was that at any rate I had caught and fairly hoxed my butterfly. My second, a much less agreeable one to encounter, was that I had certainly broken my leg in my fnll to the bottom. 1 was conscious, in fiict, of a dull but very deep- seated [»ain in my right thigh. I tried to move it. The agony war} intense. It threw me back into my momentary faint again. For a minute or two I could hardly realize my position. Then it slowly came home to me by gradual stages that I w'as lying helpless, with a broken leg, unseen and un- attended, on the Floor of the Hawaiians, a hundred and tw^enty feet down the gap of the crater. 54 TlIK WIIITK MAN\S FOOT. Would aiiylxxly come to help mo 1 I woiidonMl. That was more than doubtful. As a rule, the whole day passed on those lonely heights without anybody approaching the mouth of the volcano, let alone climbing down by the zigzag path into the floor above me. Kalaua's household were the sole fre- quenters of that solitary spot. However, Frank would at least be back from Hilo by six o'clock, or thercal)outs, and then he would be sure to come up and look for me, when he migS3d me from my accustomed j^lace on the verandah. 1 took out my watch, in order to see how long I might have to lie there in frightful pain, waiting for my brother's return to save me. We had learnt early rising with a vengeance since we came to the islands — break- fast at Kalaua's was at six sharp — to my horror, I found it was even now only half-past seven ! More than ten weary, dreary hours to watch and wait, with my broken leg, in that dismal crater ! It was an unpleasant outlook. I gazed around and tried to take in the situation. TIIK WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 06 Above me, a steej) black wall of «i;ranite ix)se sheer and straight townnls the open heaven. J5eA>\v me, I could hear, though 1 could not sec, th(^ lake of li(|uid fire hissing and hubhling with horrible noises in its eternal cauldron. Around, the floor was com- posed of solid dark green obsidian, as hard and transparent and sharp as bottle-glass. 1 must lie as best I could, on my uneasy bed, and brave it out for ten hours somehow. Fortunately, I soon discovered that as long as I lay quite still, the pain of my leg was comparatively trifling. It was only when I moved or stirred rest- lessly that it hurt me much, and then, the agony was enough to drive one frantic. I laid down my watch, to mark the time, on the rock in front of me. Happily, being a good naval chronometer, it had not been injured in the shock of my fall. I had nothing to do now but to count the hours till Frank could come up and relieve me at last from my awkward and even dan onerous situation. Ten hours is a very long time, with a broken leg, in the crater of Mauna Loa. 56 7V/A' WHITE MAiY^"^ FOOT. The floor of the ledge, I observed, as I gazed around, was covered with long strings of dark thread like lava— as thin and delicate as a spun-glass tissue. These strings are a well-known product of the volcanic acfion of Manna Loa, and the natives call them '' Peld's hair." They look upon them as the veritable tresses of the goddess. Ilav- ino' nothino' else to do, I picked some up and ex- amined it closely. No wonder the superstitious old Hawaiians took it in their time for the actual combinos of their dread goddess's hair! I never in my life saw anything so exactly resembling human locks, at a first rough glance: and I was not sur- prised tliat even Kea herself should regard it as a token of the presence of that mysterious being who dwelt, as she still half believed, all alone among the eternal fires of the great crater. Eio-ht o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock, passed, and I began by that time to get most unfeignedly weary of my enforced imprisonment. It was im- possible to lie in one position all the time ; and whenever I turned, or even moved, my leg gave me THE WIIITK MAN'S iOOT. 57 the most excruciating jerks of pain and agony. 1 was heartily sick now of the crater and all that heloniied to it. What on earth, I thought, made luc ever take to such a trade as vulcanology ? T said to myself more than once in my despair that henceforth I'd give up volcanoes for ever, and go ill for some safe and honest trade — like a light- house-man's or an inspector of mines — for a liveli- hood. About half-past ten however, as I lay half dozing with fatigue and pain, an incident occurred which l)roke the monotony of the situation : my attention was suddenly and vividly aroused by a noise that sounded like the report of a pistol. What on earth could it be ? I raised myself on my arms and gazed all round. The crater of Mauna Loa was a queer place indeed for even the most enthusiastic sportsman to come shooting in. The only game he could expect to find in such a spot w^ould be surely salamanders. But firing was without doubt going on in the crater, not indeed on the floor on which I myself lay, but strange to 68 THE WHITE MA N \S FOO T. sayT on tlie other and still deeper ledges below me. As I strained my ear to listen, I heard fre- quent reports of pistols, one after another, in all directions down the hollow of the crater. Then, with a sudden flash of recollection it burst in upon my memory that Frank and I had heard similar reports the year before on the slopes of Hecla, just on the eve of a serious eruption, when we were engaged in investigating the volcanoes of Iceland. In a second, the appalling and terrible truth came home to me in all its ghastly awfulness. The lava in the crater must be rising explosively ! I was never much frightened of a volcano before, but that moment, I confess, I felt distinctly nervous. From where I lay, I couldn't see over into the lake of liquid fire below, and my broken leg made it almost impossible for me to move or even to drag myself towards the steep edge, where I could gaze down into the abyss and make sure whether the lava was really rising. But such suspense was more than one could bear. With a supreme effort THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 59 1 raised myself a second time, very cautiously, upon my two hands and my left knee, and, trailing my right leg with difficulty behind me, I crawled or crept with unspeakable pain over yards of rough rock to the brink of the precipice. An ineffable sight there met my eye. The black slaggy bottom ^of the huge crater, which generally reposed in tranquil peace like a calm sea, just broken here and there by fiery fissures, w^as now transformed into one bubbling mass of flame and vapour, all alive with a horrible livid glare, that lit up its seething and blazing billows w^th an awful distinctness. Loud, snorting puffs of steam burst thick and fast from the gaping fissures, and from many of the chinks great jets of molten material were w^elling out in huge floods, and rising grad- ually towards the Floor of Peld, the third and last ledge immediately below me. If the eruption con- tinued for two hours longer at its present rate, by half-past twelve, I felt fully convinced, the sea of lava would be wildly surging and roaring above the very spot whence I now surveyed it. 60 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT What was to be done '\ I lay and pondered. Unless somebody came to my rescue meanwhile, I had only two hours more to live on earth; and then inch by inch I would be scorched to death, in unspeakable agony, before an advancing tid. of liquid fire, by the most awful fate ever known to humanit}- ! It was ghastly ; it was horrible ; but T had to face it. I peei-cl over the edge, and watched with eager and tremulous awe the gra.lual approach of the devouring fire-rtood. Slowly, slowly, foot by foot, and yard by yard, my inanimate enemy rose and rose, 'and rose again, by constant, cruel, crawling stages. Not always regularly, but in fluctuating l,illows. At times the molten sea leapt upward with a bound ; at times it fell again, in a vast sink- hole, lilie some huge collapsing bubble of metal ; but all the while, in spite of every apparent fluctuation, ,t mounted steadily in the long run up the black wall of rock, as the tide rises over a shelving beach, with its hideous gas jets hissing and groaning, and THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. CI its angry flames drawing nearer and nearer each moment to devour me. J lay there Jil rror-stricken , and gazed idly down. I LAY TIIEUE IIOUIIOK-STIIICKKN, AND CA/KD IDLY DOWN. Nothing on earth that I myself could do would now avail me in any way to escape my destiny. I tried to turn and attempt the wall behind me. I might as well 62 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT have tried to scale the naked side of a smooth and polished granite monument. The crag was like glass. There was nothing for it but to lie back in quiet and await my death as a brave man should await it. Science had had many martyrs before. I felt sure, as I lay there, that I too was to be numbered upon the increasing roll-call of its illustrious victims. It is easy enough to fight and die ; but to lie still and be slowly roasted to death— that, I take it, is quite a different matter. Eleven o'clock went past on my watch. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty minutes. The fire had mounted half way up the side of the ledge on which I lay. I could feel its hot breath borne fiercely towards me. A jet of steam raised itself now and then to the level of my own floor. Ashes and cinders were falling freely around. The eruption was gathering strength as it went. It was dangerous any longer to lie so close to the broken edge. I must drag myself away, near the further precipice. Frank would not return from town much before six, I felt sure. He always loitered when he got THE WHITE yfAfTS FOOT. «^ down to Hilo:'"^- --l^° - I thouglt. peering down curiously into the depths of ^^fXl could attract that man's attention I felt there might yet be some small chance for me. CHAPTER V. HE niiin was looking the other way. 1 must somehow maii- ao-e to make liim turn round to me. I raised myself on my knees, put my hands to my mouth, and shouted aloud at the top of my voice, with the utmost force of whicli my lungs were capabh^ You never know how hard you can shout, till you've had to shout for dear life through a storm at sea, or some other terrible natural convulsion. rilE WHITE MAX'S FOOT. 65 Could I make myself heard, I wondered to myself, above the constant hiss and roar and din of that volcanic outburst ? Thank Heaven, yes ! The man turned and heard me. I could see him start and look sharply in the direction where T lay on the ledge. By the move- ment of his face I felt sure he observed me. lie saw me and jumped back. He recognized the deadly peril in which I lay. " Help ! help ! " I shouted with terrific energy. " Quick ! quick ! a rope ! The fire is almost upon me ! " The man rose and stood close to the brink. I could see by his dress <]^uite clearly now that he was a native Hawaiian. Awe and surprise w^ere visible on his face. He understood and drank in the full horror of my situation. Surely, surely, he would make haste to help me I To my utter hoiror he did nothing of the sort. He stood still as if rooted to the spot in superstitious fear, and gazed down on my face with his own like a statue's. I never saw anvthinor more stolid than his features, or the pose of his limbs. I flung up my arms Cfi rilK WHITE MAN'S FOOT. al-i-ealiusly for an^ ■■ I l'"''"**-'*^ ^'^'^ '^^■'^'>' 8''^"'' "' puin ami helplossnoss to my Ijroken limb : I tncl t.. ..xprcsH to l.im l.y natural pantomime the absolute necessity for inin.ediato assistanee. Tlic native iokled his arms iu front and gazed plaeidly down with horrible unconcern in spite of my cries an.l shrieks and signs of agony. I knew now what it ^^•as to be a savage. Ho seemed utterly careless whether I lived or died. If I had been a worm or a scorpion or a venomous reptile he couldn't more wholly and totally have disregarded my obvious suffering. At last, with the same look of indifference, he turned on his heel slowly, without one sign of en- couragement, and disappeared from my sight towards the lip of the crater. Had ho gone to seek aid ou my behalf, 1 wondered '. Had he gone to call other natives to his assistance, and to bring ropes and ladders to haul me up from that unearthly crater % I could not say, but I hardly dared hope it. And all the while those billows of molten lava in the lake below surged madly on, rising and rising, and riiE wiirri<: maws foot. «7 ever risiiion llioii' angry crests, and making ready their greedy jagged teeth of flame us it' on ]ui]"pose to dose on me ami devour me piecemeal. The volcano seemed indeed to be really alive. I didn't wonder the natives once saw in it a horrible, liungry, implacable goddess. For ten mimites more I lay there still, half smothered by the sulphurous fumes of the rising gases, and whitened with a powdery shower of gray dust, waiting in agony for the inevitable end to arrive and stifle me. Then I looked up again, and saw to my surprise the native had come back to his former sta- tion. But not alone. Nor yet to save mo. Three other Uawaiians, tall and shapely men, stood silent and moody by the first-comer's side, and gazed down as he had done, unmoved and unhorrified, upon myself and the crater. Above the roar and crackling of the unquenchable lire, my ear, quickened by the straits in which I hiy, caught just once the sound of the words they were saying. I had learnt a fair amount of Hawaiian since ^ • F 2 08 THE WHITE MAX'S FOOT. my lUTival, and I could tell tluit in their talk '' tlir anger of IVile," "victim" and "stranger," occurred fVcMpiently. Could it be that tlioy meant deliberately to leave me there unaided to die ? Were they afraid to meddle with the prisoners of the goddess I Christianized and civilized as they were in name, I knew too well then how deeply the old heathen super- stitions must still be ingrained in the very core and tibre of their inmost l)eing, not to f^ar that this might really be their hideous intention. The worship of Pole might be dead, indeed, as a direct religion, l)ut the awe and terror of Pele's power I had long observed was as vivid and real in their hearts as ever. Even Kea herself, English as she was on her Other's side, half feared and propitiated that blood-thirsty goddess. The four men drew slowly to the edge of the precipice. I couldn't hear, but I could see by their actions they were consulting together very earnestly. The heat by this time was growing intensely painful. I lifted up my hands and clasped them as if in prayer. After all, they were human. I trusted they might still be inclined to help me. 77/ A' llV/Zr/; }fAX'S FOOT. fiO To my ufisp(\'ik«Ml»l(i terror, nl.irin, mikI dismay, the men shook th<'ii' heads grimly in eoiieert. Then all four of them, howiiio- down as if in worsliip towards the mouth of the crater, with thcnr hands spread open in solemn accord, seemed to salute and a(h)rc the i^nxhh'ss of the volcano. I knew wliat it meant. J understood their gestures. Converts by profession as 1 (h)ul)t not they were, in tlieir secret souls they were votaries of Pele ! At that sight, I flung myself down on my side and gave up all for lost for ever. I thought of tliose who were nearest and dearest to me at home, and who would never behold my face again. 'I must die where I lay, unaided and unpitied. When Frank returned to Kalaua's that night he would, find no trace of me left on earth — not even a charred and blackened skeleton ! The fire w^ould have burnt me to fine gray ashes. * Presently, as I looked, a fifth man joined the group above — a man dressed as I had never before beheld any one. His head was covered with a huge shape- less mask, which seemed to me to represent a cruel 70 THE WHITE MAX'S FOOT. oriiiuinc- face, with teeth and eyes of white motlier-of- too' *' pearl, that glistened hideously in tiie ruddy glare of the fierce volcano. I had seen such a mask once in my life, I remembered well, before leaving England — in the ethnological room at the British Museum. That one, I knew, was made of rare Hawaiian red and yellow feathers, and was said to be used by the ohl heathen priests of cannibal days in offering up sacri- fices to their Ijlood- thirsty idols. The new-comer was further draped from head to foot in a long mantle of the same costly plumes, which concealed his limbs from view altogether. I don't know how, but I felt sure by t"hc very way he moved across the ledge that the man with the mask was none other than Kalaua ! He w^ns a priest of Pele, then, to this very day ! In spite of his outer veneer of civilization, in spite of hit^ pretended conversion to a gentler creed, he still believed at heart in the vindictive and cruel goddess of the crater The man in the mask, walking slowly as m a solemn dance, approached the edge of the beetling precipice. THE WHITE MAN'S FOxjT. 71 The other four men grouped themselves around in set attitudes, two and two on either side of him. Their looks were impressive. The priest lifted up his hands slowly. His action as he lifted them, graceful yet majestic, convinced me more than ever that it was really Kalaua. I recognized the old chief's grim and stately statuesque air — the air as of a last survivirior scion of the old man-eatinor Hawaiian nobility. The priest stood still with his hands erect. The four others, in pairs on either side, bowed down their faces in awe to the ground. It was growing every moment more intolerably hot. I could scarcely watch them. The priest lifted up his voice aloud. I could catch not one word or svilable of what he said, but I was dimly aware in my intervals of pain that he was chanting some sort of measured savage litany. Every now and again he paused a moment, and then I could hear that his four companions answered him back in a solemn but loud response, in which I frequently fancied I caught the name of Pele. At that awful moment Kea's words came back dis- 72 TilK WHITE MAN'S FOOT. tinctlv to my mind. "The second ledgje that you see down V)elow there, in the dark glow, is the Floor of the Hawaiians : as far as that, only natives may pene- trate. If a white man's foot ever treads that floor, Pele will surely claim him for her victim. In the twinkling of an eye, like a feather in the flame, Pele will shrivel him in her wrath to ashes." I knew then what was happening up a1.)ove. The ' priest of Pele had come forth to the crater in his sacrificial garb, attended by his acolytes, and was performing a sort of dedicatory death -service over Pt^le's own chosen victim, before the flames rose up to embrace and devour me ! In spite of the heat, in spite of the pain, in spite of the bodily terror in which I la\^ and writhed, I remembered, too, what Kea had once told me — how in the old days when men sacrificed to Pele they never burnt their ofl'erings with earthly fire, but flung them whole, a living gift, into the cracks and fissures of the burning lava, that the goddess might consume her ov/n victims for herself in her own unearthly subterranean furnaces ! THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 73 It was an awful ceremony, yet surely an appropriate one. The flames were rising nearer and nearer now. These cruel and luird-liearted men would do nothino- to save me. I could see great jets of burning gas rise from time to time above the wall of the crater. I could hear the loud hiss and shiver of the unearthly steam. I could feel the hideous heat bakino^ me slowly to death where I lay. I crossed my arms resignedly, and gave up all for lost. I would die at least at the post of honour, as an Englishman ouoht to die, without fear and without flinchino^. 1 only waited for the merciful flames to come and put me out of my lingering misery. It could not be lono; now I felt sure. The lava would soon How fast all rciund me. And above there, on the jagged edge of the precipice, the priest was still droning his terrible death-song, and the fom' tall men, bowed down to the ground almost, w^eire still crying aloud in a strange monotone their hidee>u& responses. x\s the first few bubbles of boiling lava rose level 74 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. at Last with tlie top of the Fh)or of the Hawaiians, I caucrht the final words of their triumphant song. I knew what they meant; they were simple and easy. " Pele has avenged herself on the White Man's Foot ; the White Man's Foot that trod her floor ; we offer up the white man's hody in expiation to P^ld." CHAPTER VI. While the ring of their heathen death-song still echoed in my ear, and the hiss and roar of the volcanic fires still boomed and resounded wildly around me, I was dimly conscious in an interval of ■heat that the lava-flood fell back for a few moments, and that a lull had intervened in that surging tide of fiery liquid. I was sorry for that. It would do nothino- now bat needlessly prolong my horrible torture. When once one has made up one's mind to face death, in whatever form, the sooner one can get the wrench over the better. To be roasted alive is bad enough in all conscience ; but to be roasted alive by intermittent stages is a thing to make even a soldier or a man of science shrink back appalled from the ghastly prospect. In my agony, I looked up once more at the Tfi TIfK M'IflTI': MAX'S FOOT. sheer precipice. As I looked, I saw yet another person had come down to join the group by the edge, ^ly heart bounded with a faint throb of hope. It was Kea, Kea, pretty, gentle Kea. " Surely," I said to myself in my own soul, " Kea at least will not desert me. Kea will try her very best to save- me." The light of the volcano lit up the faces of the men and the girl with a ruddy glow. I could see every movement of their muscles distinctly. Kea came down with clasped hands, and blanched lips, like one frantic with terror, and seemed to beg and implore the man in the mask to aid or assist her in some projected undertaking. The man in the mask shook his head sternly. It was clear he was adamant. Kea redoubled her prayers and entreaties. The priest rejected her petition with his hands outspread, and turned once more as if in blind worship toward the mouth of the crater. I knew that Kea was begging hard for my life, and that Kalaua, sternly refusing her prayer, Avas devoting me as a victim to his unspeakable goddess. TUE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. There are moments that seem as hnvjf ms years. This was one of them. ' Presently, Kea seemed to ask some favour, some hist favour. The stern old priest made answer slowly. I fancied he was relenting. She turned to the men, ns if to ask a question. The men in return assented with a solemn movement of tlieir awe-struck bodies, 'ilien Kea looked up at her uncle again imploringly. She spoke with fervour, I could see it was some sort of compact or bargain between them she was trying to negotiate. At last the man in the mask gave in. He nodded his head and folded his arms. He appeared to look on like a passive spectator. I imagined somehow, quickened as my senses were by the ex- tremity of the moment, that he had entered into an agreement with her, not indeed to save me, but to abstain from active interference with Kea's move- ments if she wished herself to assist me in any way. I breathed more freely. As soon as their hasty conference was over, the girl drew near to the brink of the precipice. She raised her hands as if pulling at an invisible rope : then she made signs to me to 78 THE WHITE MAX\S FOOT. wait patiently, if wait I could, for that help wns going to arrive shortly. Aft(>r that, she hioke eagerly away with a gesture of sympathy, and ran oil' in hot haste towards the winding path that led from the floor to the summit of the crater. I lav there some minutes more in an ai^onv of suspense. Would she come back in time, or would the fiery flood burst u^) once more to the level where I lay before she had time to arrive with assistance ? The man in the mask, whom 1 took to be Kalaua. and the four natives who stood bv his side, still watched me, unmoved, with stolid indifference, from the jagged brink of that high granite precipice. By and by, they looked down with deeper attention still. I could tell bv their ij^estures and their excited manner that the lava, after its lull, had begun to ascend afresh. The man in the mask advanced and prostrated himself. He quivered with emotion, lie flung his arms up wildly. Ilis limbs shook. He seemed as if in the bodily presence of Pele. Next moment, a roar like the roar of thundei', or the discharge of a voUej/ of heavy artillery, boomed forth THE WHITE MAN 'S FOOT. 71) i'roni the crater, loud and sharp, with explusive violence. The ledge about me begau to gape with chinks. Fis- .^ui'es opened up in the solid lock by my side with a craekliug noise. The Floor of the Ilawaiiaiis sweated fire. liiquid lava oozed forth from a huge rent not three hundred yards away fruju the place where I la}', ;iud flowing in a stream over the bed inward, fell back amiin in a suroing cataract of fire into the central hollow. I wondered I was not scorched to death outright, so near was the lava-flood. But the place where I lay stdl remained solid. How long it would remain so, 1 did not even dare to speculate. At that instant, as I looked uj) in my agony of suspense towards the brink of the precipice, with the liquid fire rising apace to seize me, I saw Kea, all breathless with haste, rush easrerlv ui) to the edire and lean over towards me. In her liands, joy, she held a large coil or ring of something. Thank heaven ! Thank heaven ! Mv heart bounded with delight. Saved ! saved ! It was rope she was carrying ! She Hung it dow^n in a curl, sailor-fashion, to- 80 TirE WHITE MAX'S FOOT. Wiinls tlie spot where I lay. I saw as it fell it was j of (lilfcreiit sizes, and knotted together with hig j rude knots in many places. Clearly she had not been able to find a single rope long enough for her purpose. She had made up this length as well as she was able out of different pieces hunted up by hazard in odd corners at Kalaua's on the spur of the moment. It was a giddy height to which to trust one's self, even with the stoutest and strongest cabh' ever woven on earth. But with that weak and patched-up line of rotten old cords ? Impossible ! Impossible ! If one of the knots were to give wfiy with my weight, if one of the pieces were to break in the middle, I should be hurled down again a second time, yet more helpless than ever, and dashed into little pieces in an instant on that sharp and stubborn granite platform ! But drowning men clutch at straws. This was no moment to deliberate or reason. I would have trusted myself just then, broken leg and all, to a line of whipcord, if nothing else came handy. THE WIflTR MAN'S FOOT. 81 The rope clesceiided in a whirl tlirongh the air. \t fell taut — plumb to the bottom. A fresh dis- iippoiiitment 1 To my utter horror, the end still dangled some ten feet above me ! [ couldn't possibly jump up to reach it. With a loud cry of distress Kea saw it was too short. In a moment wiihout stopping to think or hesitate, she had torn the lower part of her long native dress into strips and shreds, and lengthened the frail cord by this insecure addition just far enough to reach me as I stood on tip-toe. 1 clutfhed it at last with both my hands, and threw back my head as a signal to Kea that all was right, and she might begin pulling. Never shall I forget the awful sensations that coursed through my body as I dangled there, half- way in air, wdiile that delicate young girl, thin and graceful, but strong of limb, with the inherited strength of her savage country-women, hauled me slowly up by main force of struggling nerve and sinew, past all possible conception of her natural powers. a 82 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. She litiuled me up by first passing the l*ope round a jagged peak of lava, which thus acted as a sort of rude natural pulley, enabling her to get rid of the direct strain, and to throw the weight in part on the edge of the precipice, and then by winding it round her own waist as a living 'wind- lass. Slowly, slowly, clinging by my hands to the hard rope, that cut and bruised my poor bleeding fingers, and with my broken leg dangling painfully in mid-air with excruciating twitches, I rose by degrees towards the brink of the abyss. How Kea had ever strength to raise me I do Hot know to this very day. I only know that as each knot on the rope grated and jerked round the edge of the peak that served for pulley it sent a thrill of incredible and unutterable pain through my injured limb, and almost made me let go my hands off the hard rope they were grasping and cltitching with all their energy. ' - - ' '• ' Meanwhile, the man in the feather mask and the natives by his side stood stolidly by, neither help- ing nor hindering, but gazing at me as I dangled o 2 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 85 in mid-air with sublime indifference, as one might gaze at a spider running up his own web with practised feet towards his nest on the ceiling. It was clear my life was no more to them than that. If the rope had given way, if the crumbling peak of honey-combed lava had broken short with the weight, and precipitated me, a mangled mass, to the bottom, they would have stood there as stolidly, and smiled as imperturbably at my shattered limbs in the awful embrace of their fiery goddess. Truly, truly, the dark places of the earth are full of cruelty. As I rose in the air the lava, now belching forth with renewed vigour, followed me fast up the mouth of the crater. It followed me fast, like a living creature. One might almost have fancied that Pele, disappointed of her victim, made haste in her frantic efforts to snatch him from the hands of that frail mortal maiden who strove almost in vain to rescue him in time by violent means from her cruel clutches. I didn't wonder any longer that those ignorant and superstitious natives should 86 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. picture the volcano to themselves in their own souls as a living will. I almost felt it alive myself, so wildly and eagerly did the tongues of flame seem to dart forth towards me with their forked and vibrating tips, as if thirsting to lick me up and swallow me down in their hungry lunges. The time I took in rising was endless. Could I hold on till the end ? that was the question. At last, after long intervals of giddy suspense, I reached the top, or almost reached it ; I clutched the crumbling peak with my hooked fingers. Kea still wound the rope round and round her body, as she approached to help me. She held out her hand. I grasped it eagerly. "You must jump," she cried : and all wounded as I was, I jumped with wild force on to the solid floor of the upper platform. My broken leg thrilled through with pain. But I was safe — safe. I was standing by her side on the Floor of the strangers. The lava sank down again with a hideous sob, as if dis- appointed of its living prey. I gazed around me for the priest and his acolytes. Not a sign or a THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 87 mark of them anywhere was to be seen. 1 stood alone with Kea by the brink of the prccipicM'. The rest had melted away to their hidden lairs as if by magic, I was rescued, indeed, but by the skin of my teeth. Such peril leaves one unmanned as on<* escapes it. tap - • * V. CHAPTER VII. COULDN'T walk with my broken leg. My gentle preserver took me up in her arms with tender care, and lifted me, strong man as I am, bodily from the ground as if I had been a week- old baby. It was partly her powerful Hawaiian limbs and sinews that did it no doubt, but still more, I believe, that wonderful nervous energy with which Nature supplies even THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 89 the weakest of our kind when they stand face to face at last in some painful crisis with a great emergency. She carried me slowly up the zig-zag path, and over the lip of the crater to Kalaua's house. Then she laid me down to rest upon a bamboo bed, and went out to fetch me food and water. What happened next I hardly knew, for once on the bed, 1 fainted immediately with pain and exhaustion. When I next felt conscious, it was well on in the night. I found myself stretched at full length on the bed, wdth Frank leaning over me in brotherly affection, and an American doctor, hastily sum- moned from Hilo, endeavouring to restore me by all the means in his power. At the foot stood Kalaua, no longer grim and severe as formerly, but, much to my surprise, the very picture of intelligent and friendly sympathy. " How did you get here so soon ? " I asked the doctor, when I was first able to converse with him rationally. " You must have hurried up very fast from Hilo." 00 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. *' I did," he answered, going on with his work uninterruptedly. *' Your friend Kalaua fetched mc up. " He happened to be here when that brave girl rescued you from the crater, and he rode down on one of his little mountain ponies in the quickest time I ever remember to have known made between Hilo and the summit. He was extremely anxious I should get back quickly to see you at once, and we cantered up on the return journey as I never before cantered in the whole course of my life. I've nearly broken my own bones, I can tell you, in my haste and anxiety to set yours right for you." " That's very good of you," I answered gratefully. " Oh ! you needn't thank me for it," he replied, with a laugh. " It was all our good friend Kalaua's doing. He wouldn't even allow me to draw rein for a moment till 1 halted at last beside his own verandah." I gazed at Kalaua in the blankest astonishment. Could it really be he who had stood so stolidly by in the feather mask and devoted my head with awful SHE CARRIED ME SLOWLY Vr THE ZIG-ZAG PATH. THE WHITE MAX'^ FOOT. 1)3 rites to the nether gods while 1 lay helpless on the Floor of the Hawaiians ? My confidenco in his identity began distinctly to waver. After all, I hadn't seen the features of that grim heathen priest while I lay at the bottom. Perhaps I was mistaken. He was Kea's uncle. For Kea's sake, I ardently hoped so. They set my leg that very night, and Frank and Kalaua in turns sat up to nurse me. I can hardly say which of the two was kinder or tenderer. Kalaua watched me, indeed, as a woman watches by her son's bedside. He was ready wdtli drink, or food, or medicine, whenever I wanted it. His wakeful eye- lids never closed for a moment. No mother could have tended her own child more patiently. " Is the volcano still at work, Frank ? " T asked once, in a painless interval. I could never forget, even on a sick bed, that I was by trade a man of science. "No, my dear old fellow," Frank answered affectionately. *' The volcano, finding yon were no longer in a fit condition to observe it, has politely 94 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. retired to the deepest recesses of its own home till you're in a proper state to continue your investiga- tions. The moment you were safely out of the hole, Kea tells me, it sank back like a calm sea to its usual level." " Pele is satisfied," the old man muttered to him- self in Hawaiian from the bottom of the bed, not thinking I understood him. " She has given up her claim to the victim who offered himself of his own accord upon her living altar." It was not till next morning that I saw Kea again. The poor girl was pale and evidently troubled. She received all my expressions of gratitude with a distracted air, and she hardly appeared at times to be quite conscious of what was passing around her. But . she was gentle and considerate and kind as ever — even more kind, I fancied, than we had yet known her. For the next week, Frank, Kalaua, and Kea in turn each bore their fair share in nursing and watching me. I wondered to myself, after all that had happened, that I wasn't afraid of stopping any THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 95 longer under the old chiefs roof ; yet now that it was all over, my staying there for the time seemed some- how quite natural. Indeed, it would have been impossible to carry me further along the rugged road that led down the mountain, with my ](ig in splints, and my general health in a most enfeebled condition. And I wasn't in the least afraid, either that Kalaua would cut my throat in his own house, or otherwise offer me personal violence. Nothing could possibly exceed his personal kindness to me now : and I felt as safe in the old chief's hands as I did in his niece's, or in my own brother's. My conversations with the American doctor too reassured me greatly in this curious matter. A day or two later, I told him the whole strange and romantic story, in far fuller detail than I have told it here (for all the incidents were then fresh in my memory), and he listened with the air of a man to whom such marvellous recitals of savage superstition were hardly anything out of the common. '.'... "I shouldn't be surprised if it really was Kalaua," OC TIIR WHITE MAN'S FOOT. he said to me confidentially, when I had finished my narrative. "The fact is, the old man has always been more or less suspected of persistent Pele worship. Beliefs like that don't die out in a single generation. But you needn't be afraid on that account that he'll do you any bodily harm now. Pele cares nothing for unwilliug victims. She takes those only who go to her willingly. You fell in of yourself, and therefore Kalaua wouldn't pull you out. To have done so would have been to incur the severest wrath of P^ld. But now that youVe once got safe out again, every good old-fashioned heathen Hawaiian will hold to it as a cardinal article of faith, that you're absolutely inviolable. The goddess had you once in her power, and of her own free will she has let you go again. If she liked, she might have eaten you, but she let you go. That shows you are one for whom she has a special concern and regard. The moment you got up in safety to the brink once more, the lava fell back. To 'Kalaua, that would be a certain sign and token that Pey relinquished all claim upon your body. She may THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 07 take some other victim, unawares, in your stead : but you yourself, the Hawaiians believe, are hence- forth and for ever next door to invulnerable. You are Taboo to Pele. " Well, I've been very nearly dipped in Styx," I answered, smiling, " so I ought to be inviolable. But you don't think, then, I run any risk by remaining under this roof till my leg gets well again "? '** " Quite the contrary," the doctor replied with perfect confidence. " I should think you would nowhere be treated with greater care, consideration, and courtesv than here at Kalaua's. Whatever it may have been a very few days ago, these people regard you now^ as Pole's favourite. If you were to ask politely for a White Elephant, they'd import one for you direct, I verily believe, by the first mail steamer in from Burmah." " That's lucky," I said, " though after wdiat I saw in the crater the other day, I confess I feel a little nervous at times about our personal safety.** As the doctor was just taking his leave, he turned H ■ 98 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. and said to me in a very serious tone, " If I were you, do you know, Mr. Hesselgrave, I think I wouldn't say anything at all in public while you remain in Hawaii about the scene in the crater." *' No ? " I said interrogatively. *' No," he answered. " You see, it's impossible to 2V'ovc anything. After all, when one looks the thing squarely in the face, what did you really see and feel sure of ? Why, just five natives looking down at you in the crater, on the very eve of a serious outbreak of the volcano. Well, nobody's bound to risk his life to rescue a stranger from the jaws of an eruption. As to the mask, the less said about that the better. People won't believe you : they'll say it's impossible. / believe you, because I understand Hawaiians down to the very ground : I know how skin-deep their civilization goes : but folks who don't, will think you're romancing. Besides, Kalaua wouldn't like it, of course. It's had form to be a heathen in Hawaii. AVhatever the natives may be in their own hearts, in their outer lives they prefer to be considered civilized Christians. There's nothing riles your true-born THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 09 Hawaiian like a public imputation of cannibalism or heathendom." *' All riglit," I answered. " You may depend upon my discretion." For Kea's sake indeed I should have been sorry to bring disgrace upon her stern old uncle, however richly the old chief might have merited it. 1 was profoundly grateful to her for her gallant rescue ; it would have been an ill reward indeed to repay her kindness by betraying the terrible secret of her family. H 2 CHAPTER VIII. All that night Kea sat up with me ; and somewhat to my surprise she occupied herself for most of the time in working at a great white veil of very fine material. " That looks like a bridal veil, Kea," I said at last, regarding it curiously in an interval of sleeplessness. Kea laughed, not merrily as heretofore, but a very sad laugh. " It is a bridal veil," she answered, blush- ing and stammering. " I — I'm working at it at present for — for one of my family." I saw she was embarrassed, so I asked her no further questions about it. Perhaps, I thought, she's going to be married. Even in Polynesia, young girls are naturally reticent upon that subject. And Kea was hardly a Polynesian at all : on her father's side she THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 101 was an English lady. So I turned on my back and dismissed the matter for the moment from my consideration. For eight long weary weeks I lay there on my bed, or on the adjoining sofa, with my leg slowly and tediously healing, and my head much bothered by such long inaction. What made me more impatient still of my enforced idleness was the fact that, accord- ing to Frank's continuous report, Mauna Loa was now rumbling, and grumbling, and mumbling away in a more persistently threatening style than ever. I was afraid there was going to be a really grand eruption on the large scale — and that I wouldn't be well enough to be there to observe it. It would be ignominious indeed for the accredited representative of the British Association for the Advancement of Science to be carried down the mountain on a hospital stretcher at the very moment when perhaps the finest volcanic display of the present century was just about to inaugurate its arrival by a magnificent outburst of lava and ashes. I should feel like a soldier who turned his back upon the field of battle : like a sailor 102 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. who went below to the ladies* cabin at the first approach of a West Indian hurricane. The idea distressed me and gnawed my heart out. If you are a man of science you will understand and sympathize with me. If you are not, you will perhaps consider me a donkey. Kalaua meanwhile remained as courteous and attentive as ever. But he often came in from the mountain much perturbed in soul, as I could see by his manner, and as I gathered, also, from his remarks to Kea. I understood Hawaiian pretty well by this time. I'm naturally quick at languages, I believe, and I've travelled about the world so much, in search of the playful and pensive volcano, that a new idiom conies to me readily : and besides, I had nothing to do while I lay idle on my bed but to take lessons in the native dialect from Kea. Now a pretty girl, it is well known, is the best possible teacher of languages. You understand at once from her mouth what you would only vaguely guess at on a man and a brother's. You read from her eyes w^hat her lips are saying. " Fold's uneasy again, my niece," the old man would THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 103 muimur often as he entered. '* I never knew the crater more disturbed. Peleis angry. She will flood Hawaii. She will drown the people. We must try to quiet her." Kea looked down always when he spoke like that with a guilty look upon her poor young face. I understood that look. I knew^ she considered she had cheated the goddess by rescuing me from the flames, and I grieved to think that I should cause her unhappiness. '* Kea," I said to her one day, as she sat still sewing away at a pure white dress in the room by my side, " do you know anything of your English relations — your father's people ? " • . • • Kea burst suddenly into a flood of tears. *' I wish 1 did ! " she cried earnestly. " I wish I could go to them. I wish I could get away from Hawaii for ever. I'm tired of this terrible, terrible island. It wears m}^ heart out." And she flung away the dress from her in an agony of horror, and fled from the room, still crying bitterly. " I see what it is," I said to myself pityingly. 104 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. '•Tlicy want to marry that helpless young girl to somebody or other she doesn't like. Probably a fat old native with a good thing in cocoa-nuts and sugar- plantations. Poor child I I can easily understand her feelings. She, an English girl almost, in blood and sentiment, to be tied to some wretched old Hawaiian ex- cannibal — some creature incapable of appreciating or sympathizing with her ! I don't wonder she shrinks from the horrid prospect. She's a great deal too good and too sweet for any of them." I may mention however, to prevent misconception, that I was not myself the least little bit in the world in love with Kea. I merely regarded her from a brotherly point of view, with friendship and gratitude. The fact is, a certain young lady in a remote English country rectory, who received a letter from me by every Honolulu mail regularly, might have had just ground of complaint against me had I harboured any trace of such a feeling in my heart towards the gentle little Hawaiian maiden. It was the thought of that particular English lady that caused me so much agony as I lay on the floor of Mauna Loa that awful morning. THE WHITE MAX'S FOOT. 106 Nothing else could have made me cling to the last chance of life with so fierce a clinging. For my own part, as a man of science, I have rather a contempt fur any f'llovv who will not willingly risk his own neck, under ordinary circumstances, for any great or noble cause on which he may he occupied : and among such great and noble causes I venture to hold the pursuit of truth and natural knowledge by no means inferior to the pursuit of liberty or of material welfare. But when there's a lady in the case — why, then, of course, the case is altered. A man must then, to some extent, consult his own personal safety. His life is not entirely his own to lose : he has mortgaged it as it were on behalf of another. This however is a pure digression, for which I must apologize, on the ground that it is needful to prevent misapprehension of the relation in which I stood to Kea. Forgive me for thus for a moment dragging in my own private and domestic feelings. In a few minutes Kea returned again. She had an envelope with a name and address on it in her hand. She gave it to me simply Her eyes were still red 106 HIE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. with vAy'm^. " That's where my father's people live," she said quietly. " I wish I was with them. My father wanted me to return to them when he died. But I was afraid to go, because — because, though they asked me after his death, they never wrote to me while he was alive — they never wrote to him either — They were angry with him for marrying my mother." She said it with infinite tenderness and regret. I glanced at the address Kea had given me, and saw to my surprise the name of her iiither's brother, he was a clergyman in Kent, well known, as it happened, to my own family in England. "I wish you could go to them, Kea," I cried earnestly. " Whatever they think and feel now, they couldn't help liking you and loving you when they saw you. I wish you could get away from this dread- ful Hawaii ! " " I wish I could," Kea answered in a hopeless voice. '' But — " she paused for a moment. ''' 1 must stop here now ; I must stop here — till my marriage ! " . She pointed to the white dress that lay huddled upon the floor ; and, with the tears welling ud into THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 107 her eyes once more, rushed madly and desperately out 0^ the room like one distracted. I couldn't help contrasting the life of that peaceful Kentish rectory with the awful surroundings of the priest of P^lt5, and wishing 1 could rescue that gentle girl from so terrible a place, as she herself had rescued me from the floor of Mauna Loa. And I wondered to myself to whom on earth they could ever mean against her will to marry her. Meanwhile, in spite of my broken leg, the volcano itself attracted no little share of my distinguished attention. I couldn't go out to call on it in person, to be sure ; but I had in Frank an acute and well-trained assistant, who could be trusted to keep a steady eye upon its daily proceedings, and who knew exactly what traits in its character I wished him to report to me. In order that I might the more fully be kept in- formed from time to time of the state of the crater, and the momentary changes taking place in its temper and the lava level, I taught Frank in his leisure moments how to work a heliograph. For that purpose I fastened a slanting piece of looking-glass 108 THE WHITE MAX'S FOOT. to my own bed-head, and stationed my brother with a second mirror on the summit of the mountain, in a good position for observing the lake of fire and tlie smoke-stacks in its centre. On this simple form of telegraphic arrangement Frank flashed me news by the Morse code ; so many long and short flashes in * (pertain fixed and regular orders standing each for a certain letter : and I flashed him back by the same method my directions and remarks on his own despatches. In this way we constantly kept up quite a brisk conversation by means of the mirrors. " Lava now rising in the main basin ; " Frank would flash over to me. *' Any fissures ? " I would ask. In a minute the answer came promptly back, " Yes, two, in the black basalt." *' Steam issuing from them ? " " None at present, but clouds of dense sn.-^ke forming slowly in the second cavern." " All right : then note its volume and direction." And so forth for an hour at a time together. It relieved the monotony of my existence on my sick bed thus to carry on by proxy my accustomed avocations : and I was glad to feel I wasn't quite useless, even with my broken leg to weigh THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT 109 me down, but was honestly earning my bread (or at least my taro-paste) from the subscribers to the British Association Seismological Committee Fund. One evening, towards the end of my convalescence, Frank came in in very high spirits (for Mauna Loa had been smoking like a German student that day) and found Kea busy as usual at her endless task of making her own very extensive trousseau. She w^as at w^ork now on a long white satin train, which certainly seemed to me far more expensive and hand- some in texture and quality than I should ever have expected a Hawaiian half caste girl to wear for her wedding. " What a swell you are, Kea ! " Frank cried, half chaffingly. " I wonder what sort of a match you expect to make, that you're getting yourself up so smart for the occasion ] " Kea glanced back at him with a painfully sad and serious face. " I'm going to marry a very important personage indeed," she said solemnly. "A chief, perliaps?" Frank suggested laughing, and peeling a banana. no THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. The tears stood in poor Kea's eyes, though Frank did not notice them. " Higher than a chief," she answered slowly, with a deep-drawn sigh. "A prince of the blood-royal of Hawaii, then," Frank went on, boy-like, without observing how serious and painful the conversation seemed to the poor little half-caste. ; '' Higher than a prince," Kea replied once more almost reverently. "What! i\ot the King I" Frank exclaimed in astonishment. " The King is mariied already," Kea replied with dignity, the tears trickling one by one down her cheeks, unseen by Frank, who, busy with his banana, couldn't observe her dowmcast face as well as I could from my place on the pillow. " , *' Higher than a chief! Higher than a prince! Higher than the King ! " Frank cried incredulously. " Hang it all, Kea ; why, then,, you must be going to marry the captain of an American whaler ! " I laughed in spite of myself. Hawaiian royalty, to say the truth, when you see it on the spot (as we :% THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. * 113 had done at Honolulu) is such a very cheap sort of imitation kingship ! But Kea, instead of laughing,, burst suddenly into tears, and flung down her work on the floor in an agony of despondency. " Frank," I cried, " how on earth can you tease her so ? Don't you see poor Kea's dreadfully distressed ? It's downright cruelty to chafl" on such a subject." Kea turned her big brown eyes full upon me, all tearful as they were. "If you knew all," slie answered, "you would say so indeed. You would pity me, both of you — oh, how you would pity me !" And without another word, she rose like a queen and glided from the room, muttering to herself some inaudible sentence in Hawaiian as she retreated. When she had left us alone, Frank turned to me, abashed, with unusual earnestness and wonder in his voice. "Tom," said he impressively, "does it ever strike you there's something very mysterious indeed about this marriage of Kea's ? " " How so ? " I asked ; though in fact I felt it quite as much as he did, but I wanted to hear Frank's own unadulterated idea about the matter. I lU THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. ■ " Why, you see," he answered, " they're getting ready for a wedding : but where's the bridegroom ? A marriage is never quite complete without a man ill the proceedings. Now, we've never seen any young man come courting around ; especially not any one so very important as Kea makes her future husband out to be. A bridegroom, I take it, is an indispensable sort of accompaniment to every respectable civilized wedding. You can't very well . get on without him. But he's not forthcoming here. It seems to me there's something awfully uncanny about it all." *'I often hear them speak among themselves," I said, "about somebody called Maloka. I wonder who on earth this Maloka is ? I expect it's Maloka slie's going to marry." " I'll make inquiries," Frank answered decisively. '^ We must get to the bottom of it. For my part, Tom I don't half like the look of it." CHAPTER IX. That uight I hardly closed my eyes in • sleep. My leg, which for several days had scarcely pained me, hecame troublesome once more with a sort of violent twitching neuralgic rheumatism. Never before had I felt anything so curiously spasmodic. 1 had tossed about during the evening indeed a great deal more than usual, and Kalaua, who noted my discomfort with his keen and observant Hawaiian glance, asked me more than once how I felt, with apparent kindli- ness. I told him my symptoms in perfect frankness. "Aha," he cried grimly, looking back at me with a smile. " That settles the matter. We shall have an eruption then. The old-time folk in heathen days always noticed that all neuralgic and rheumatic pains became fiir more severe when an eruption was brewdng." I 2 116 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. ** Did they ? " I answered languidly ; " that was no doubt a mere heathen superstition on their part." "Oh, no," he retorted with flashing eyes: "it was no superstition. It was solemn fact. Wounds would never heal at such times, and broken limbs would set with difficulty. You see, in the old days, we know a' good deal about wounds, of course — far more than nowadays. We were all warriors then. We fought and hacked each other. We were often liable to get severely injured. Stone hatchets cut a man up so awkwardly." " Why," I cried, " now you come to mention it, I remember the year I was working at Etna, the Sicilians at Catania all declared that sprains and cuts and rheumatic affections would never get well before or during eruptive periods. I hardly believed them at the time, I confess ; but if two people so widely apart in race and space as you and the Sicilians both say so, I dare saj^ there may really be something in it." " There is something in it," Kalaua echoed gravely. " I know it by experience." ^ THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT 117 '' An atmospheric or electric condition, no doubt," I said, lighting a cigarette. " Our fathers used to think," Kalaua corrected slowly, " that Pole's daughter was the goddess of disease ; and when Pdle was angrily searching for a victim, or when Pel(5's son, the humpbacked god, who lives w^itli his mother among the ashes of the crater, was in search of a fresh wife among the daughters of men, then, our heathen forefathers used to say, the goddess of disease went forth through the land to prick the people with the goads and thorns that she pushed into their flesh and their veins and their marrow. Pele had many sons and daughters ; all of them worked the will of their mother. The goddess of disease was the eldest and noblest — she searched everywhere for a victim for her mother." " And did she ever get one ? " I asked with curdlinsj blood. " Yes," Kalaua answered. " The Hawaiians are brave. Sometimes the people would suffer so much from Pelt's daughter that some one among Ihem, 118 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. a Qoble -minded youth, would willingly oftor himself up as a propitiation to Pdld. Then Pdle's wrath would b(5 appeased for the time, and the eruptions would eease, and the land would have slumber. But those, we know, were only foolish old heathen ideas. Nowadays of course the Ilawaiians are wiser." "Yes," I replied, smiling and withdrawing my cigarette. "The Hawaiians nowadays are nomin- ally Christian." The phrase seemed to excite Kalaua's suspicions. " We know now," he went on more quietly, with a searching look, " that eruptions are due to purely natural causes." " I hope," I said, " if an eruption's coming, I shall be well enough anyhow to get out and watch it. The doctor promised soon to let me hav^e a pair of crutches." Kalaua smiled. " If an eruption comes at all," he answered, with the air of a man who speaks of what he knows, " it'll come, I take it, on Saturday next, and you won't be well enough to get out by then. The moon will be full on Saturday at mid- THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 119 night. Eruptions come oftenest at the full moon. Our fathers had a foolish old reason for that, tli(\v said that P^l^ and her son had a grudge against the moon, and strove always to put it out with their belching fire, for eclipses, they thought in their ignorance and folly, were caused by Pdle's humpbacked son trying to strangle the moon in its cradle." "Why," I said, "that's likely enough, when one comes to think of it." Kalaua gazed at me in speechless amazement. " That P^lt^'s son is the cause of eclipses ! " he cried, astonished. "No, no," I answered. "No such nonsense as that. But the connection may be real between phases of the moon and volcanic phenomena. The moon's attraction must be just as powerful on the lava in a volcano as on the water in the sea. There may be a sort of spring-tide tendency towards eruptions so to speak. And curiously enough, since you mention eclipses, there's going to be an eclipse of the moon on Saturday." 120 THE WIIITIC MAS'S FOOT. Kalaua's face changiid .suddenly at the word. *' An eclipse!" he cried, with intense solemnity. ** An eclipse of the moon ! On Saturday ! — impossible ! " " No, not impossible," I said. " I sec it by the almanac." " Not total ? " Kalaua asked excitedly. "Yes, total." I answered, amused at his excite- ment. " You think that will bring an eruption in its train ? " "Eclipses always bring eruptions," Kalaua said solemnly. "Our fathers told us so, and we our- selves have proved it." " Well, you may be right : " I replied smiling ; " we really know so little about these things as yet that it's impossible to dogmatize in any particular instance. But for my ow^n part, I believe there's no counting upon eruptions. Sometimes they come and sometimes they don't ! They're like the weather — exactly like the weather — products of pure law, yet wholly unaccountable." Kalaua rose wdth great resolution. "An eclijj..o THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 121 of the moon ! " he repeated to himself aloud in Hawaiian. " Kea, Kea, come here and listen I An eclipse on Saturday ! Ifow very strange, Kea ! That's earlier than any of us at all expected. How lucky we made our arrangements so well beforehand, or else this thing might have taken us all quite unprepared. There'll be an eruption. We must look out for that ! I must go at once and tell ^Maloka ! " Maloka, then, the mysterious bridegroom, lived quite near! Kalaua could go out at a minute's notice, and speak to him easily. I longed to ask liim who Maloka was, where he lived, and what he did, but a certain sense of shame and propriety restrained me. After all, Kalaua was my host. I had no business to go prying into the private affairs of a native family who had been kind enough to extend to me their friendly hospitality. Kalaua left the room and went out hurriedly. I turned on my bed and tried to sleep. But try as I would, my leg still kept me persistently awake Frank was soon snoring soundlv in his own room 122 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. next door. I envied him his rest, and gave myself up to a sleepless night with what resignation I could manage to summon. Gradually, as the night wore on I began to doze. A numb drowsiness stole slowly over me. I almost slept, I fancy ; at any rate, I closed my eyes and ceased to think about anything in particular. For half an hour I was practically unconscious. Then on a sudden, as 1 lay there dozing, a slight noi,^^e attracted my attention. I opened my eyes and stared out silently. The door of my bedroom was pushed gently open. A hand held it gingerly ajar for a while. A brown head was thrust in at the slit, and then another. " Softly ! " a voice mur- mured low in Hawaiian. I lay still, and never moved a thread or muscle of my face, but gazing across dimly through my closed eyelids I could see that one of the men was Kalaua; the other, I imagined, was a perfect stranger. My heart beat fast. Strange thoughts thronged me. " Surely," I said to myself, "this must be Maloka." I was dying with curiosity to learn something more THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 123 about that unknown bridegroom. But I dared not move. I dared not speak. A solemn awe seemed to thrill and overcome me. *'Is he asleep?" tlie stranger asked in a low voice. ' " Yes, fast asleep," Kalaua replied in Hawaiian. " Can he understand if he hears ? " the stranger said again. '* Not much, if auythirig," Kalaua answered. " He has only been such a short time in Hawaii." I was glad they under-estimated my knowledge of their language. It enabled me to learn what they were talking about. " Then we can speak with safety," the stranger went on. Kalaua nodded, w^ent out once more, and closed the door softly behind him. They both seated themselves as far as I could guess, on chairs in the sitting-room. Oh, how I longed to hear the rest of their conversation 1 It was quite irresistible. Curiosity got the better of my native prudence. I couldn't catch a word of what they were saying with any distinctness where I 124 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. lay on the bed. I must rise and listen. I undid the splints that bound up my leg ; crawled carefully across the room without jerking or hurting it ; and throwing myself down at the bedroom door, bent eagerly though cautiously down to the key-hole. Even so, I could catch but little. Kalaua and the stranger were conversing in low and earnest tones in their native language. Though I could understand Hawaiian pretty well by this time, I found it hard to follow so rapid and familiar a colloquy between two Hawaiians in half-w^hispered accents. They spoke of many things I didn't understand. But one thing I was sure I caught from time to time quite distinctly, and that was the oft-repeated name, Maloka. They were talking of Maloka, Maloka, Maloka. Was this Maloka ? I asked myself more than once. If so, I should like to take a good look at the man who has to be Kea's future husband. Why all this mystery? This midnight meeting? Why couldn't Kea be quietly married like any one THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 125 else 1 Why couldn't Kea's lover come to the house at a reasonable hour, like all the rest of humanity ? I must clear up this question, one way or the other. It was very wrong of me, no doubt ; but in my anxiety to learn the whole truth of the case, I held my eye for a second to the key-hole. The stranger's face was turned towards me now. I recognized him in a moment. He was one of the four tall, stately natives who had stood by Kalaua's side on the brink of the precipice that awful day when Kea rescued me. This, then, was Maloka ! My blood ran cold. Kea married to this cold stern creature ! But no. A minute later I caught their words once more. The stranger himself was speaking this time. " And you went down and told Maloka exactly when and where to expect her ? " he asked seriously. "Yes," Kalaua answered. **It's all arranged. I told Maloka. I went out at once to see him and to tell him." A sudden thrill passed through me irresistibly. Wrong again. This, then, was not Maloka after all ! 126 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. But Maloka, whoever lie was, lived quite near. It had taken Kalaua only half an hour or so apparently to go to his house and tell him the story of the expected eruption. " She may well be honoured," the stranger mur- mured. ** So great a marriage is indeed an honour to any girl in Hawaii." They whispered together for a few minutes longer in a lower voice, even more mysteriously, but I could catch very little of all they said, except that now and chen the words " marriage," *' bridegroom," " bride," and " distinction " fell upon my ears quite unmistak- ably. Once, to my surprise, my own name, too, came into their colloquy. I strained my ears to catch the meaning, 'i'hey repeated it once more. Strange ! I couldn't quite understand what they meant, but I seemed to be somehow mixed up with the mystery. Was this — could it be, some w^onderful heathen plot or contrivance to carry mc off and marry me 2)er- force against my will to Kea ? " She rescued him," I heard Kalaua say in a very stern tone : the next words I couldn't quite catch, THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 127 then he added more distinctly, " and she must marry him." *' It is the law of our forefathers," the strange Hawaiian repeated. ''Life for life. Bride for husband." " For fifty years have I served faithfully," Kalaua said, " and now I may surely be honoured in the marriages of my family." '* Good," the other man answered. " You will see to the bride ; and I for my part will take every care that the bridegroom is ready." " Don't fear for me," Kalaua replied. " The daughters of the Hawaiians shrink not from their duty." He rose, and walked across the room in the opposite direction from that of the door w^here I still sat crouching on the ground in my night-shirt, with my broken leg extended sideways in front of me. He went up to the wall and pushed aside a picture that hung from a nail near the ceiling before me. Behind it was a small brass knob. He took a little key from his pocket, which he fitted into the midst of the knob. 128 TfTE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. and suddenly, with a spring a door opened. Tt wns tlie door of a cupboard or small recess let into tlie wall, and in it I saw for the twinkling of an eye an apparition of something brilliantly red and yellow. I knew in a second what that thing was. It was tlio, royal robe of sacred feathers that Kalaua had worn as his priest's costume when he solemnly dedicated me to the anger of Pel^. Behind it, two horrible goggle eyes shone forth with lurid gleams into the blank room. I knew those too, they were the eyes of the mask — that grinning mask that Kalaua wore as the sign of his priestship. Hideous, barbaric, staring things ; but Kalaua regarded them w^ith the utmost veneration. " Everything is correct," he whispered, looking over the strange paraphernaiia with a stern look of content and handling them reverently. " The wedding shall come off, then, duly as arranged. We know the place, the day, and the hour. I answer for the bride : you answer for the bridegroom. All is well. It is an auspicious marriage. May they live happily ever after!" THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 120 **"^«»«^' " ' ISVEllYTHING IS CORRKCT,' HE WHISPEllED." "Such is the pracyei' of all the Hawaiians," the stranger answered, with the air of a man who recites some liturgy. 1.30 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. Kalaua ])owcd liis head solemnly. " Among the faithless," he said, " wo at least are faithful." He shut the door once more, and locked it securely. Then he turned towards the room where I was eagerly watching him through that narrow keyljole. How I knew what was coming next I can never tell, but I did know somehow that they were moving across once more to my hiding place. Fear supplied me witli strength and agility. Dragging my leg after me agjain with breathless haste, I managjed to scramble l)ack into my bed somehow, and, pulling the sheet over me, to feign sleep, before those two savage devotees of a dead religion w^ere once more leaninof over the pillow beside me. Next instant, I heard the door pushed cautiously open a second time ; and peer- ing afresh through my closed eyelids, I saw Kalaua and his nameless satellite steal over softly to where I lay half dead with terror and excitement. I closed my eyes and waited, awestruck. Were they really come to murder me or to carry me off by force ? AVere they going to marry me against my will to Kea ? Did Kalaua mean to put THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 131 me 'there and then through some hideous and in- human wedding ceremony ? Was I the bridegroom for whom the stranger was to answer ? Was this the secret of their sudden kindness to me ? Was I bound to atone for the saving of my life by accepting in wed- lock the last daughter and heiress jof the priests of Pdle? But no ! My suspicions must surely be wrong. It was Maloka, Maloka, that unknown Maloka, who was destined to be the simple little brown maiden's hated bridegroom. I must find out soon who Maloka was ; but for the moment, fear got the better of curiosity. The two Hawaiians approached on tiptoe to my side. My heart beat hard, but I gave no token. I lay as still as death, and breathed heavily. I felt rather than heard them stoop down and look at me. " Asleep ? " asked the stranger. " Asleep ! " Kalaua answered. " Let us see ! " the stranger said, and moved his robe a little. I knew he had drawn a knife from his girdle. I felt him raise it but I never cringed. K 2 132 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. There was a moment's suspense — an awful suspense, for I didn't feel sure they hadn't come to murder me — and then, apparently satisfied, the men withdrew'^ the footsteps retreated as stealthily as they had approached ; and the door was closed again noiselessly behind them. ♦ They had only come, after all, to make sure I was asleep and had heard nothing. Whatever this busi- ness might be on which they were engaged, they evidently meant to conduct it with the utmost secrecy. Whatever these things meant, they did not mean murder. CHAPTER X. Next morning, as 1 lay on the sofa in the verandah, humming and idling, with Kea still stitching away at the very last touches on her wedding garments beside luc, I saw by a sudden glitter in my mirror that Frank was anxious to heliograph me a message. Pulling the cord that moved my looking-glass, I flashed back " Well ? " Frank answered by signal, "Big ship off Hilo. Gunboat apparently. Flying British colours. A party is landing." I signalled back by code, " Try to attract their attention if possible, and ask them what's their business in Hawaii." For a few minutes Frank seemed engaged in establishing communications with the newly-arrived gunboat, and made me no reply ; but I soon saw he 1.34 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT, luid succeeded in forcing himself upon tlieir notice iit last, for lie was flashing back question and answer rapidly now, as I judged by the frequent antl hasty movements of his dancing mirror. By and by he turned the ray upon my sofa again. " Gunboat Hornet,'' he signalled in swift flashes, " Pacific squadron : party of twenty men sent ashore by admiral's orders to make arrangements for observing total eclipse of the moon on Saturday evening." I was glad to hear it, for we began to feel the want of civilized society. That same morning the doctor rode up to see me again, and brought me a very welcome present — a pair of crutches. On these I was now to be permitted to hobble about, and I took advantage of my liberty that very afternoon by stumping up, wdth Frank's aid, to the mouth of the crater. While I stood there, supported on my two sticks, and watching the lava still grunting and grumbling as uneasily as ever — for it was clear that Pele was in grumpy mood and a big eruption was slowly THE WI/ITE MAiV'S FOOT. 1.35 brewing — we were joined by the officers and doctor of the Hornet on their eclipse obs(;rvation expedition, accompanied by several sailors and natives, with ponies, tents, and other necc^ssaries for camping ont on the very summit, high above the level of the ordinary cloud-veil. The new-comers were suri)rised to find a scientific man already on the spot, in possession as it were, and gladly availed themselves of my knowledge of the mountain in choosing a good and suitable station for their tents and instruments. I confess, after the terrors by which I had lately been surrounded, it was no small relief to rvc to find ourselves reinforced as it were by a strong and armed body of our own fellow-countrymen. I breathed a little more freely when I knew at least that help was at hand should we ever chance to stand in need of it. I sent off Frank at once to show the naval men Avhat seemed to me the best position on the whole mountain for pitching their tents and setting up their observatory, and, under m}^ directions, he led them straight to a low peak on the right of Kalaua's, 136 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. uver-looking the crater and the Floor of the Ilawaiians. It was a jutting point with a good open platform on the very summit, composed of rock a good deal softer than the mass of basaltic lava which makes up in great part the cone of that vast and seething volcano. The men of the Hornet were delighted with my selection, which combined all the adv^antages of shelter and position, and began forth- with to unpack their belongings and settle themselves down in their new quarters. For myself, I hobbled back after a while to the house to rest and ob- serve their actions through a field-glass from a distance. Now, at any rate, we should be quite safe from any machinations of our Hawaiian entertainers. As I reached the door Kalaua came out, his face all livid with anger and excitement. Evidently the new turn of affairs had greatly displeased him. He had been away all the morning, and had only just returned. His eyes were fixed now on the party on the summit, and some strange passion seemed to be THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 137 agitating his soul as he watched their preparations for camping on the platform. " Who are all these people here ? " he cried out to mc in English, flinging up his hand as soon as I was well within speaking distance, " and what do they want with their tents and their instruments here on the open top of Mauna Loa ? " " They're a party of English naval officers," I answered, " from a gunboat that has just steamed into the harbour, and they've come up by order of the admiral to observe the eclipse of the moon on Saturday." Kalaua's countenance was an awful sight to look upon. Never before or since has it been my lot to behold a human face so horribly distorted with terror and indignation as his was that moment. His features were ghastly. They reminded me of the mask of his heathen ancestors. It seemed as if some cherished hope of his life was frustrated and dis- appointed, dashed to the ground at once by some wholly unexpected and untoward incident. " Kea," he cried aloud in Hawaiian to his niece within, " this 138 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. is awful ! This is unendurable I Come out and see ! The English are camping on the Platform of Observation." At the words, Kea sprang out upon the balcony from the room within where she had been sittinsf alone, and shaded her eyes with her hands as she looked up in an agony of suspense and expectation towards the distant peak. In a moment some sudden passion thrilled her. Then she clasped her fingers hard and tight in front of her, as it seemed to me with some internal spasm of joy and satisfaction. *' I see them," she cried, " I see them ! I see them." " They shall never remain there ! " Kalaua shouted again, stamping his foot on the ground with resolute determination. " If they stop there till Saturday, it will spoil all ! I won't permit it ! I can't permit it ! " Then he turned to me more calmly, and went on in English, " I know a much better place than that, up on the left yonder, less exposed a great deal to the open wind and the glare of the volcano." He pointed as he spoke to another peak, away off /• ,w>^. ^ n SHE LOOKFJ) UP IN AX AGONY OF SUSPENSE." THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 141 to the west ; a peak that did not look down nearly so sheer into the hollow of the crater and the sea of fire. I had thought of that place too, and rejected it at once, as being in fact far more exposed and windy than the other. I shook my head. *' Oh, no," I said, " the peak they've chosen is by far the best one." '' Yon think so ? " " I am sure of it." Kalaua turned away with an angry gesture. ''Better or worse, they shall never camp there ! " he exclaimed with warmth. "The Hawaiians are masters still in Hawaii. Whether they will or whether they w^on't, the Englishmen shall move their tents from that peak there. We will never allow them to occupy that spot. We will make them shift from the Platform of Observation." " I don't think you'll find it easy to turn away an English detachment," I observed quietly. Kalaua clenched his fist hard, and ground his teeth. " Anywhere but there," he muttered, " and there, never !" 142 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. He stalked away angrily with long liumed stritU's towards the point where Frank and the sailors, all unconscious, were pegging their tents and staking out their encampment with a merry hubbub. Wliat happened next I could only observe vaguely at a distance through the medium of my glass ; I learned the details afterwards more fully from Frank and tlie officers. But what I could notice for myself most clearly nearer home was this — that all the time while Kalaua was parleying wnth the Englishmen on the mountain, Kea stood still quite breathless on the verandah, watching the result of her uncle's action with the keenest interest and the wildest emotion. She watched so closely that I couldn't help feeling the result w^as a matter of life and death to her, and it somehow seemed to me that her hopes were now fixed entirely on the white men's resolve to maintain the position they had first taken up on the point of the mountain. It was clear from what we saw that the Englishmen insisted on maintaining their position. In about an hour, Kalaua returned, trembling with THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 143 rao*e. " It's no use," he cried, " I can't turn them off. They will camp there. I've said my host, but I can t dislodge them : they must take their lives in their own hands." And he flung himself like a sulky child into an American rocking-chair on the broad verandah. As for Kea, I saw her look up suddenly, with a wild flash of relief coming over her white face. Next moment, a fixed despair succeeded it. '' No use, no use," she seemed to say to herself. " They w^ill have to go yet. A respite, perhaps, but not a rescue." Kalaua sat and rocked himself moodily up and down like one who resolves some desperate adventure. AVhen Frank returned late at night to Kahlua's, he told me the full story of that hasty interview. The old Hawaiian had gone up to the mountain determined to put a stop to the camp on the platform at all hazards. At first, his manner was all politeness and sweet reasonableness. He offered them water from the well at his own house, and he had come, he said, with the utmost suavity, to save 1 14 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. tlieni from choosing an unsuitable spot, and putting tlieniselvcs in the end to immense inconvenience by having to move to some better position. He pointed out a thousand imaginary disadvantages in their present site, and a thousand equally imaginary points of superiority in the one he himself had selected for them. He knew the mountain from top to bottom : no one could choose as well as he could. But the officers stuck to their point steadily. This was the place to observe the eclipse from, and here they meant to camp out according]}^ Wouldn't they at least sleep down at his house ? No, thanks, they preferred to camp out by themselves, according to orders, here on the open. Then Kalaua began to lose his temper. "What right hiid they, he asked in a threatening voice, to come trespassing there on private property ? The first lieutenant responded promptly by showing a letter from the King at Honolulu, authorizing the officers and men of the Iloryiet to choose a place for themselves an}"- wdiere on the open summit of Mauna Loa, all of which was Government demesne, with the solitary THE ]VIIITE MAN'S FOOT. 145 exception of Kalaua's garden. The old native's anger grew hotter and hotter. They couldn't say why, but it was quite clear that some private end of his own would be interfered with if the officers were allowed to camp out within view of the crater and the Floor of the Hawaiians. I had very little doubt myself, from what Frank told me, that some native superstition was at the bottom of his objection. I thought it probable there was a taboo upon the place — it was in all likelihood a sacred spot of Fold's. I remembered the fate of the man who trod the Floor 'of P^l^, and I wondered what would happen to our friends from the Hornet, However, in the end, as the naval men refused to be moved by either threats or entreaties, Kalaua retired at last in silent wrath, muttering to himself some urantelligible words about the folly of white men and the might of the volcano. " Take care," he cried, as he turned on liis heel, flinging back his last words at them. *' YouVe chosen the most dangerous spot on. the whole moun- tain. It reeks with fire. The rock about there is h 146 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. all iriHammable. Mauna Loa will take care of itself. If you drop a match upon it, it'll burn like sulphur." The officers laughed and took no more notice. They didn't know as well as I did how deep and fierce a hold heathendom still exercised over the minds and actirns of these half-savage natives. When Prank told me all this in the silence of our own rooms by ourselves that evening, my heart somehow sank ominously within me. " Frank," I said, " I don't know why, but I'm sure there's mischief brewing somewhere for us and for Kea. I wish we knew something more about this man Maloka they're always talking about. I feel that some terrible plan is on foot for that poor girl's marriage. 'J'he mystery darkens everywhere around us. Thank heaven, the English sailors have come to protect us." *' I asked several natives about Maloka to-day," Frank replied quietly ; " but though they all knew the name, they only laughed, and refused to answer. They seemed to think it an excellent joke. One of them said he didn't trouble himself at all al)out THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 14: people like Maloka. Acd then they all looked very serious, and glaneed around as if they thought he might possibly hear them. But when I asked if Maloka lived near by, behind the peaks, they burst into roars of laughter again, and advised me not to be too inquisitive." " Strange," I answered. *' He seems to live close here upon the summit, and yet we never happen to come across him." " Where's Kalaua now ? " Frank asked. " Gone out," I answered. ** He went away early in the evening. Perhaps he's visiting his friend Maloka." " I wish I could follow him," Frank cried eagerly. " I'd like to catch this Maloka by the throat, whoever he is, and 1*11 bet you sixpence, if I once caught him he'd be pretty well choked before I let him go again." "Did the Hornet's men send down for w^ater to Kalaua's well ? " I asked. "Oh, yes," Frank answered. *"They took up some pailfuls." " Humph ! " I said. " I hope Kalaua hasn't put anything ugly into it." L 2 CHAPTER XI. That night, like the nights before, I tossed and turned on my bed incessantly. The pain in my leer had come back once more. It was lonfj before I dropped asleep by degrees. When I did sleep, I slept very heavily, almost as if some one had drugged or tampered with my drink at dinner. In the stillness of the night, a sound asain awoke me. I raised my head and gazed up suddenly. Oould this be Kalaua and his friend again ? No, not this time. A red glare poured in at the window. And it was Frank who stood with a warning finger uplifted close by my bedside in the glow of Mauna Loa. " Tom," he whispered in a hoarse, low voice, " there's foul play going on, I'm certain. I see THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 140 nobody in Kalaua's room, and just look how red it all is to eastward." At the word, I jumped out of bed awkwardly, and crept to the window as well as my injured limb would permit me. Sure enough, a lurid light hung over the peak where the sailors were encamped. " Give me the glass I " I cried. Frank handed it to me hastily. I looked and saw a great glare of fire surrounding the tents with their white awnings. At first my eyes told me no more than that : aftor a while, as I grew more and more accustomed to the gloom, I could see that a dozen httle points of fire WTre blazing away around the frail canvas shelters. *' There's something up on Maun a Loa," I cried. " An eruption ? " Frank inquired with bated breath. "No, no," I answered. "Not a mere eruption. Worse than that — a fire, an incendiary fire. The ground around them seems to be all one blaze." *' Kalaua said it was inflammable, you remember," Frank cried. 150 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. " But sulphur would never burn like that," I answered. *' I fancy he must mean to turn them out by fair means or foul ; and as far as I can see he's succeeding in his object." *' You think it's he who's set it on fire then ? " Frank asked curiously. " Run up and see," I answered. " The sailors arc awake and moving about hastily ; but perhaps you may yet be of some use to them." " All right," Frank answered, *' I'll be with them like wildfire." In a minute he had tumbled into his coat and trousers, pulled on his boots, clapped his hat on his head, and run out lightly up the road to the en- campment. By the time he reached the burning summit, I could see with the glass that the whole camp was in a perfect turmoil of wild confusion. The sailors were rapidly unpegging the tents and carrying away the instruments from the burning patch to a place of safety lower down the mountain. I could make out Frank joining eagerly in the task ; he was helping them now with all his heart and THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 151 soul. I only wished I too was there to second him. In this struggle of science against savage malignancy, my indignant sympathy went fiercely out on the side of knowledge. But my lame leg kept me painfully inactive. Presently, in the dim light, far nearer home, I saw two men creep slowly down the crater path from the summit : two skulking men, with native scarves tied loosely round their waists ; tall and erect, lithe and cautious. I recognized them at once ; one was Kalaua, the other was his visitor of the preceding evening. They crept down with the air of men engaged on some criminal undertaking. In their hands they bore two empty tin kegs : I knew the shape well ; they were American petroleum cans ! Like lightning the truth flashed through my startled brain. For some reason or other best known to themselves, these two secret votaries of an almost extinct faith desired to dislodge the eclipse-observing party from the peak that overhung and commanded the crater. They feared perhaps the wrath of their hideous goddess. Unable to 152 . THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. move the Englishmen by force of reasoning, they had tried to drive them out from this sacred site by means of fire. They had saturated the porous and sulphurous soil here and there with petroleum. No pity, no remorse ; they must have meant to burn them as they lay, for then, applying a match to it quietly, they had stolen away, leaving the flames to fiojht the battle in their absence against the sleeping white men, whom they had perhaps sup- plied with drugged water from the v/ell in the 'garden. At the gate they separated. It was a weird sight. Neither spoke, but both together bowed down thrice in the direction of the steaming crater. After that each placed his palms against his neigh- bour's. Then Kalaua stalked silently on towards his own house ; his companion descended the zis^- zag path that led right down to the Floor of the Stranfrers. Could Maloka live in some cave of the platform ? It was terrible to dwell in an atmosphere like this — an atmosphere of doubt, suspicion, and heathen THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 153 tre■■ 168 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. hang over the whole proceeding. Instead of hiughing ^-..,.. ^;»Mfc *«. |l 111 ifcii ■iMI'tllllW pi KEA TKIED ON ALL ilKU TiilNGS. and talking, as the natives generally do on the slightest provocation, we could hear them whispering THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 169 below their brecatli in solemn tones in Kea's room, and though lots of flowers had been picked and arranged for the occasion in long wreaths and rrarlands, the girls didn't make sport, as usual, out of their self-imposed task, but went through with it all with profound and most unwonted sombreness of look and movement. Kea had said her betrothed was somebody of very great importance. I began to think be must be some one so awfully important that nobody dare even smile when they thought or spoke of him 1 I had never heard of any one quite so important as that before, except the bead master of a public school ; and it seemed in tbe highest degree improbable that Kea should be going to marry the Provost of Eton, or the Principal of Clifton or Cheltenham Colleo-e. When evening drew on, we all had supper together at Kalaua's— the naval officers, Frank, and myself— and then the eclipse obscivation committee went off under Frank's efficient guidance round the long gully to their chosen station. I meant to 170 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. observe them there through my field-glass myself, and sec what sort of scientific success was likely to attend their arduous labours. For a while I sat and mused in silence. The house seemed unusually still and lonely after Frank left. Kalaua, Kea, and the native servants were none of them loitering about on the verandah or in the sitting-room, where they generally lounged. I seemed to be in sole possession of the establish- ment, and I hobbled out by myself a little way on to the platform in front of the house, wondering what on earth could have become of all the inhabit- ants in a body together. My leg was nearly well now, I could get along nicely with the aid of the crutches. I was almost sorry indeed I hadn't tried to ride a horse, game leg and all, and go round w^ith the eclipse party to the camp of ob- servation. Yet somehow I felt uneasy, too, at Kea's ab- sence, and my uneasiness was increased, I don't know why, by the constant glare that overhung the crater. The lava was unusually red-hot to- THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 171 niglit; the great eruption we had long expected must surely be coming. I hoped it would wait till my leg was quite well ; a lame foot is more than enough to spoil the whole pleasure of the best and finest volcanic outburst to an enthusiastic amateur. I went back to the house and called twice for Kea. Nobody answered. My suspicions were quickened. I ventured to open the door of her bedroom. It was empty— empty ! All the wedding-dresses and wreaths and veils were gone from tireir places, where I had often observed them when the door stood ajar in the course of the morning. A vague sense of terror fell upon my soul. What could all this mean? Where was Kea? and why was she out at this time of night, with all her friends, and in her wedding garments ? I called a third time, and nobody answered. But out on the platform in front of the house I saw an aged Hawaiian hag, a witch-like old woman who hung about the place and lighted the fires, sitting crouched on the ground with her arms round 172 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. her knees, and grinning hideously at my obvious discomfiture. " Where's Kea, okl lady ? " I cried to her in Hawaiian, as well as I could manage it. The horrihle old woman grinned still more odiously and maliciously in reply. " Gone out," she answered, mumbling her words in her toothless mouth so that I could hardly make them out or understand them. " AVhcre to ? " I asked angrily, for I was ill at ease. " How should I know ? " the old woman growled back. " I suppose to the festival." " The festival 1 Where ? What ? When ? Whose festival ? " *' The festival of Maloka," the old hag mumbled with a cunning smile. AVith a sudden horror I remembered then that Maloka was the mysterious person to whom, as I concluded, Kea was engaged — the person whom she and Kalaua had so often mentioned in their low and whispered talk with one another. " Who's Maloka ? " I cried, sternly laying my THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 173 l^^^^^d"^!! her withered shoulder, ''Quick! tell me at once, or it will be the worse for you." " He's Pele's son," the old hag answered, chuck- ling to herself with a horrible chuckle. " lie lives with his mother, his angry mother, away, away, down in the depths of Mauna Loa. He's Poles favourite. She loves him dearly: and she often asks for a wife for Maloka." In an instant the whole hideous, incredible truth flashed wihlly across my bewildered brain. They were going to sacrifice Kea to this hateful god! They were going to fling her into the mouth of the crater ! They were going to offer her up in marriage to the son of P(^le ! CHAPTER Xir. " Which way have tliey gone, you liag ? " I cried, shaking her in my fierce anger. The old woman raised one skinny brown finger, and pointed with a grin in the direction of a zig-zag path which lay to the left of Kalaiia's roadway. AVithout waiting one second to deliberate, or question her, I set off at once upon my crutches, bounding and scurrying over the ground like a kangaroo by successive leaps, and hastening forward at a brisk rate which I should have thought before- hand no crutches on earth would possibly have compassed. I reached the path, and turned hastily down it. The track was rough and difficult to traverse, even for THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 175 an active man with both liis legs to go ui)oii ; l)ut for mo, in my present halt and maimed eondition, it was terribly hard and all but impracticable. Nevertheless, impelled by horror and fear for poor Kea's safety, T hurried along at a mad rate down the steep zig-zag, careless whether I fell or not in my wild haste, hut eager only to prevent 1 knew not what awful heathenish catastrophe. I only prayed I might yet he in time to save her life. After many stumbles and hairbreadth escapes, rolling over and over with my crutches by my side, 1 found myself at last on the Floor of the Strangers, not far from the spot from which I had fallen before, but se2)arated from it by a narrow chasm in the black basalt — a chasm, riven deep in the solid rock, and filled below, as I saw at once, with a fiery strait of white-hot lava. It was full moonlight. Away off to the left, on the summit of the mountains, I saw the camp-fires of the naval eclipse parties. They were standing there, etched out distinctly against the pale sky-line ; and I could recognize every one of their faces with 176 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. ease through that clear air in the bright light of a tropical moon. But not a sign of Kea was to be seen anywhere. I looked anxiously round for her, and met no token anywhere. The old woman must surely have misdirected me on purpose. Fool that I was to have believed that hag ! Kea and her party could not have come this way at all towards the crater. - ... ■4 t • I saw my mistake. They had sent mc wrong by deliberate design I At this supreme moment Kalaua had intentionally attempted to escape my notice. Suddenly, as I looked and wondered in awe, a strange procession began slowly to descend the mountain side opposite, beyond the chasm, into the mouth of the crater. At its head came the man in the feather mask whom I had seen that day that I broke my leg on the edge of the precipice, and whom I now more distinctly than ever recognized as indeed Kalaua. There was no mistaking his gait and carriage. He stalked on proudly in front of the procession. Next after him, bearing rods with bunches of feathers fluttering in the breeze from their tops, came the four acolytes who A STRANGE 1' lOCESSIOX BEGAN SLOWLY TO DESCEND, N THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 179 had stood by his side that awful morning when he solemnly devoted me to the devouring volcano. Then four Hawaiian girls in white bridesmaids' dresses, with long garlands of oleanders strung round their necks, followed in order, two by two, waving their hands slowly above their heads, and chanting native hiinenes, as they call their long monotonous wails and dirges. My heart stood still as I saw with horror that Kea walked last, with downcast eyes, habited in her full bridal dress, and with the white veil falling round her in folds almost to her ankles. Behind her straggled a few hushed and awe- smitten spectators, half friendly assistants at this ghastly ceremony. I saw them all clearly but two hundred yards off, though the chasm in the rock with its red mass of molten lava below separated me from them far more effectually than a mile of intervening distance could possibly have done. My first impulse was to cry aloud with indignation and horror. My next, for Kea's sake, was to hide myself at once behind a black jagged pinnacle of hardened lava before they caught sight of me. I N 2 180 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT did so almost as soon as the procession began to file slowly past the turn of the road ; and it was by ])eoring wdth caution round the corner of the pin- nacle that I had observed them all as they descended two by two along the narrow foot-path. Step after step they moved gradually down, to the long-drawn music of those unearthly himenes. Kea, in particular, glided on like a ghost, with downcast eyes and shrinking demeanour, yet not so much in the manner of a victim as of one who willingly and heroically devotes herself to some terrible end for the good of her country. I knew she believed she was averting the wrath of Pele, and I gasped with horror at her awful resolution. Presently, the procession reached the Floor of the Strangers, on whose platform I myself w^as already crouched flat, though always separated from me by that terrific chasm ; and advancing still to the lugubrious sound of these doleful himeiies. Kalaua placed himself on the edge of the precipice, at the very spot where I myself had fallen over in pursuit THE WHITE MAN^S FOOT. 181 of the butterfly. Kea, moving forward with slow and solemn steps, stood at his right hand, in her bridal dress, with her bloodless fingers clasped downward in front of her. Then Kalaua began, in a strange cramped voice, to drone out some horrible dedicatory service. It sounded like the service he had droned out over myself on the morning of my accident : but I under- stood Hawaiian much better now, and could follow the words of his frightful litany with very little difficulty. Crouching behind the shadow of my broken lava pinnacle, I saw and heard the whole savage orgy like some unseen presence in that vast and self-lighted natural cathedral. "Great Mother Pdlt5," Kalaua began, intoning his words on a single note and dividing his address into curious irregular verses — "Great Mother Pele, who dwellest in the fire-lake, Queen of the Hawaiians, we, thy children, bow ourselves down in worship before thee. "We assemble in thy temple, oh, thou, that de- lightest in the flesh of white-skinned chickens : we 182 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT, come into the outer threshold of thy house, oh, thou, that ridest on the red flaming surges. "Sugar-cane, and tappa-cloth we offer to thy children : a bride, a wife, to thy favourite, to Maloka. "Five sons thou hast borne in thy home, below ; and one is humpbacked ; thy favourite Maloka. **A white man came from the lands beyond the sea : a pale-faced stranger ; a wanderer to Hawaii. " Of thy own accord thou chosest him a victim for thyself. He fell into thy trap. The w^hite man's foot trod forbidden ground : the Floor of thy children, of thy children, the Hawaiians. "In thy wrath, thou rosest to crumple him to ashes : thy flames soared upward like tongues of fire ; dancing and surf-riding on the billows of flame, didst thou put forth thy red right hand to seize him. " Come forward, Kea ! " The trembling girl came forward timidly. Kalaua continued his awful chant once more, shaking his robe, and slowly dancing. THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 183 ** A maiden rescued him : a mortal maiden. She stole the victim from the clutches of Pelc. " No liand might save him against thy will : the furce of a mortal avails not against the fiery might of a livinor o-oddess. " Thou, Pele, lettest him go for very contempt ; thou gavest up the prey from thy fingers willingly. " For such as her, a law is laid down. " Victim for victim : life for life : whoever snatches an offering from Pele, himself must satisfy the wrath of the goddess. " Were it not so, thou w^ouldst deluge the land with lava ; thou wouldst swallow the towns in the jaws of earthquakes : thou wouldst lick up the cane- fields with red tongues of fire. "Thy son, Maloka, thy favourite, the hump- backed, he cried aloud to his mother for the maiden in marriage. " ' Give me this girl, he cried aloud. Oh Pele : give me this maiden who snatched away thy victim.' " Thou, Pele, madest answer: * My son, I give her thee.' Thou didst turn uneasily in thy flaming 184 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. home, and threaten the Hawaiians with a deadly vengeance. *' See, we bring her : and we give her to Maloka ; willingly, of her own accord, the maiden comes : on Mai oka's night, arrayed as a bride :. in snow-white raiment, eager for her fate. *' Come forward, attendants ! " The bridesmaids, in their wreaths and garlands, stepped forward. T listened, horror-struck. " Kea, do you take this god, Maloka, for your wedded lord?" In a stifled voice, tremulous but firm, Kea answered aloud in her soft Hawaiian, *' Kalaua, I take him." "Maloka, do you take this girl, Kea, for your wedded wife ? " And even as he spoke Kalaua cast something invisible from his hand with a dexterous Ihrow, into the yawning abyss of lava below him. I then observed, for the very first time, that while the ceremony went on, the lake of fire had risen by slow degrees in the crater, and stood flush now with the Floor of the Hawaiians. THE WHITE MAX'S FOOT. 185 The volcano, as if in response to his direct quos- tion, gave a hideous roar, excited, I suppose, into some minor eruptive effort by the ol)ject he cast into it, which seemed to crash down and break upon a smouldering smoke-stack. It was as though the mountain had answered back in words, " Oh, priest, I take her." Kalaua leaned forward, shaking and agitating his sacrificial robes. *'At the stroke of midnight," he went on solemnly, " at the actual moment when Maloka the humpbacked climbs aloft to put out the moon, w^e will take the bride into the bridegroom's chamber. When Maloka the humpbacked puts out the moon, then leap, Kea, into the arms of your husband. See, see, how lovingly he stretches out his fiery arms for you in his chamber below there ! When he rises in his might to put out the lamp that rides in heaven, then leap into his embrace. 'Tis the signal he gives you I Till then, sit still, and await your husband ! " Kea sat down by the edge of the precipice, on an isolated block of black basalt, and leaning her 186 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. little chin on her small white hand, gazed below in awe and silent expectation on the flood of lava. I knew, then, exactly what Kalaua meant. At the precise moment of the total eclipse, Kea was to leap into the abyss of the volcano. I took out my watch, and consulted it anxiously, It wanted more than hulf-an-hour still to the actual point of absolute totality. I had that half- hour only to save Kea in. I saw her there seated on the edge of the abyss. I knew that the moment the moon was finally obscured, she would rise from her place, and leap madly forward o£ her own accord, into that sea of lava. She thought it her duty to appease the goddess. How to rescue her I could form no plan. Even if I rushed forth in my horror and managed by some miracle to span with a leap that yawning chasm that spread so wide between us, what was one lame white man among so many wild and heathenish Hawaiians ? I could do nothing. I was helpless, powerless. If I set out to call the naval officers to my aid, long before I reached them, Kea's charred THE WHITE HAN'S FOOT. ^ ^ ^" and manglercorpse would be floating, a mass of l,luckcned ashes, oa the fiery flood in the still rising crater. I trembled with horror. And yet-and yet — • • And yet I must do something to rescue Kca ! CHAPTER XIII. On the summit above, all unconscious of this ghastly and incredible tragedy taking place within a stone's throw of where thev stood, I could see Frank and the men from the gunboat, busying themselves quietly with their eclipse arrangements, as if nothing more terrible than an ordinary volcanic outburst were proceeding anywhere in their immediate neighbour- hood. The bright tropicd moonlight revealed their forms and faces to me almost as clearly as the noonday sun : I could even distinguish the play of their features, and notice how Frank was laughing and talking, with his usual good-humoured boyish merriment, to the officers and sailors. The contrast was nothing short of appalling. On one side, those easy-going sea-faring men, with their finished instru- THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 189 merits of modern science, calmly engaged in observing and noting down the face of our distant satellite : on the other side, that group of stern and sombre half-heathen Hawaiians, occupied in the horrible and cruel rites of an effete and proscribed barbaric religion. Never, I thought to myself, did civilization and savagery stand closer together, cheek by jowl : never did the two extremes of human thought and human sentiment come in nearer contact, all unconscious and heedless one of the other. For neither party could see round the corner of jagged rock that overhung and divided them ; I alone, looking either way up and down the crater, could take in both groups at a single glance — the scientific observers and the wuld heathen priests of that human sacrifice. But how to attract the notice of the Enoiishmen ! If only I could manage to catch Frank's face ! If only I could fling up my arms and sign to him to come ! But he would not look ! It was terrible ! It was agonizing ! Suddenly, an inspiration seized me unawares. 190 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. The heliograph to the rescue ! 1 might signal to him by the moonlight. One chance yet left ! My mirror ! My mirror ! 1 felt for it in my pocket with trembling fingers. One moment of hope. Then an abyss of despair. I had left it at home by the sofa at Kalaua's. That chance was fruitless. To have made my way back for it would have been of little avail. I could not fail in that case to attract Kalaua's keen attention, as I hobbled painfully in tlie broad moonlight up tlie zig-zag path : and to attract attention under existing circumstances would probably mean all the sooner to hasten poor trembling Kea's impending fate. I must think of some other means of communicating with Frank. I must find some less obtrusive and dangerous way of calling the sailors and officers to our assistance. How short a time still remained to us ! I took out my watch and gazed at it hopelessly. In another burst of inspiration, then, T saw my way clear. A mirror ! A mirror ! all ready to hand ! I could signal still ! I could call their attention ! THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 191 My watch was a gold one — a naval chronometer : the inside of the case was burnished and bright. I held it up straight in the bright beams of the moon, and as Frank's face turned for a moment in the direction where 1 stood, or rather crouched under cover of the pinnacle, I flashed the light full in his eves from the reflecting surface. Thank heaven ! Thank heaven ! he started and observed it. I signalled three rapid flashes for attention. Frank flashed me back, yes, from his own pocket mirror. My hands shook so that I could hardly hold the watch aright : but wuth tremulous fingers I managed .somehow to spell out the words, " Come quick. Bring sailors. Steal cautiously round the dark corner. There's foul play on. Kalaua means to make Kea leap into the crater as a bride to Pele's son at the moment of totality." In a second, I saw that Frank and the officers had taken it all in in its full ghastliness, and that, if time enough remained, Kea might yet be saved from that awful death in the fiery abysses. Without one moment's delay their men seized the horses, and 192 THE WHITE MAiV'S FOOT. leaving one or two officers alone to continue the observations, dashed wildly down the ravine, and into the gloom of the gully. Then, for a few minutes more, I lost sight of them entirely. When they emerged again to view, on the Floor of the Strangers, they had left their horses, and, headed by Frank in his white jacket, were creeping cautiously, unperceived, under cover of the broken masses of lava, round the sharp corner of the jutting platform. My heart bounded as I saw them ap- proach. There was still some chance, then, of saving Kea ! Had she been my own sister I could not have felt the suspense more awful. As we gazed below we saw, to our dismay, that the lake of fire was still tossing and rolling with wild wreathing billows, and that it had risen visibly several feet in the last few minutes. "While we still looked, the moon's face began slowly to darken. The eclipse had commenced. We had only a quarter of an hour yet to the period of totality. THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 193 In a few short words, I explained to Frank and the sailors he had brought with him the entire situation in all its gravity. I told them all I liad seen and heard ; and their own eyes confirmed my report : for there stood Kea full in view, round the corner of the pinnacle, beyond the open chasm, in her white dress, with her hands clasped in inar- ticulate prayer, and her pale face turned up appeal- ingly towards the cold moonlight. She had but a quarter of an hour left to live. Yet near as we were to her, it would have taken us more than fifty minutes to ride round the crater by the outer rim to the only practicable path on the other side of the chasm. " What are we to do ? " I cried, in my horror, though in a low voice, for it was necessary above all things not to arouse the Hawaiians' quick attention. " We must cross the chasm somehow," the eldest officer of the party answered at once. " We can't let the ppor girl be sacrificed before our very eyes." 194 THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. "If we only had a rope, and could once get it fastened on the other side, we might sling ourselves across, hand over hand," Frank suggested eagerly. " We have rope, lots of it, on my saddle over yonder," the officer answered. *' But we can't get it fastened. If only the chasm were narrow enough to leap ! But it's quite impossible. No athlete on earth could ever jump it." *'Stop!" Frank cried. ''The bamboo! The bamboo ! — I had a big bamboo down here the other day, stirring up lava in a liquid pool in the small craters. There it is — over yonder. I think with that—" He said no more, but creeping over for the bamboo, crawled noiselessly on with it to the edge of the chasm. We all followed him on our hands and knees, skulking behind the pinnacles, and concealed from the Hawaiians by the rough lava- masses. I seemed to forget my half-mended leg in the excitement of the moment, and to crawl along as easily and as quickly as any of them. On the very edge of the deep fissure, now boiling THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 195 below with liquid fire. Frank laid across the bam- boo from cliff to cliff, so that it hung, a frail bridge, across that yawning abyss of sulphurous vapour. With great difficulty, he thrust it home on the far side into a honey-combed mass of crumb- ling scoriae lava. " Now stand, you fellows, on the end," he said, " to give it weight and keep me from slipping. I'm the lightest of the lot : it'll bear me, I suppose, if it'll bear anybody. I'm going to cross it, hand over hand, and take a rope with me for you others to come over by. If it breaks, I shall fall into the lava below. No matter : it's jolly white hot down there now ; it'd frizzle me up, if it came to the worst, before I could feel it." The sailors brought all their weight to bear upon the loose end. I knelt by myself, breathless with suspense, to see the result of this mad experiment. The bamboo was frail and supple indeed : if it broke, as Frank said, all would be up with him. But Frank was too brave to heed much for that. He tied the rope round his waist in a running noose, caught hold 2 19fi THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. of the bamboo with both his hands, and swinginfr liimself off the edge with a quiet and gentle swaying motion, so as to lessen as fur as possible the strain of that slender bridge, hung one moment like a gymnast, from a trapeze, suspended between the sky and the gulf of liquid lava. It was a terrible moment. All eager with excite- ment, we leaned over the abyss, and watched him rapidly but quietly passing hand over hand across that frightful chasm. As he reached the middle, the bamboo for one indivisible second of time bent ominously down under his light weight. Would it yield ? Would it crack ? If so, the next instant we should see him falling, a lost life, into that hideous strait of liquid fire. For half a throb of the heart, our agony of doubt and suspense was unspeakable. Next instant, he had passed in safety the central point ; the weight was easier ; the faithful bamboo curved slowly up again. We breathed more freely. He had reached the far end ; he \yas grasping the cliff, the further cliff, in eager confidence, with that brave young hand of his. The "the bamboo bext ominously down," THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. 199 lava was loose ; all bubbly with boles like a piece of rotten pumice-stone. " Frank, Frank," I cried in a low voice, but beside myself with terror, " take care how you trust it. The stuff's all dry. It never can bear you. Don't try to grasp it ! " "All right," Frank answered low, as he struggled on. " There's no foothold anywhere near the edge. I must go in for a somersault. Thank goodness that gymnasium work I used to hate so has done some- thing for me unexpectedly at last." As he spoke, he vaulted with a light leap on his hands up the edge of the precipice. 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Certainly young and old may gam much amusement from Mr. Langbridge's clever story.'- Owr/ CiVaJrtr. • LONSDALE {MARGARET)— THE CARE AND NURSING OF CHILDREN IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS. Crown Svo. cloth, 9^/. ; sewed, 6/. . . l6 Works Published by Messrs. Hatehard, JLIGHT AT EVENTIDE. Large-print Readings for the Sick and Aged. Fifth Edition. Square crown 8vo. cloth, \s. 6ii. ; in packet, is. STRENGTH OF MY LIFE. By the same Author. Large-print Readings for the Sick and Aged. Square crown Svo. cloth, i^. td, ; or in packet, xs. ' Will be a great comfort and help to the class for whom it is intended.' Christian World. WE WOULD SEE JESUS. By the same Author. Large-print Readings for the Sick and Aged. Square crown Svo. large type, cloth, i*. od. ; in packet, \s. ' Simple, but full of Gospel truth, especially adapted to direct and comfort those for whom they are written.' — Ottr Own Fireside. L. M. H. [Editor of' Work and Leisure.')— (6.) A FEV/ WORDS to the MOTHERS of LITTLE CHILDREN. 86th Thous. i6mo. coloured wrapper, 2d. each; 50 for distribution at half price. A FEV7 WORDS TO SCHOOLMISTRESSES. 23rd 1 hous. i6mo. coloured wrapper, 2d. each ; 50 for distribution at half price. A FEW WORDS TO GIRLS AND BOYS ON THE CARE OF THEIR HEALTH IN MIND AND BODY. 15th Thous. i6mo. coloured wrapper, 2d. each ; 50 for distribution at half price. A FEW WORDS TO EMPLOYERS UPON QUESTIONS OF MORALITY. i6mo. coloured wrapper, 2d. each ; 50 for distribution at half price. THE ENGLISHWOMAN'S YEAR-BOOK (published annually) And Directory of Institutions for the Benefit of \A^omen and Children. Edited by L. M. H., Editor of ' Work and Leisure.' Thoroughly revised and corrected up to date. Crown Svo. paper cover, is. Jubilee Edition. Containing a Chapter on the Progress of English Womenand their Work in Queen Victoria's Reign. Sm. 4to. cloth extra, 2,s. 6d. ' Should be within the reach of everybody interested in woman's work.' Guardian. ' It is a pity that the existence of so valuable a book is not more widely known. There can be no doubt it would be an inestimable treasure to hundreds who are not at present aware of \i.'—John Bull. WORK AND LEISURE: The Englishwoman's Advertiser, Reporter, and Gazette. Publijhed Monthly. Demy Svo. 40 pp. Price 3d. THE STORY OF RUTH. 14th Thousand. iSmo. limp cloth, \s. A PLAIN HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 9th Thousand. iBmo. limp cloth, is. GREAT TRUTHS IN VERY PLAIN LANGUAGE. 37th Thousand. iSmo. limp cloth, t.s. THE BARHAM TRACTS. Nos. I to 4Q, at id. each; 25 for is. 4,d. assorted; the 49 Nos. in packet, is. ^^' \Full list on appUcaii(m. THE PLUCKLEY TRACTS. ist Series.— Nos. i to 33, at id. each ; 25 for is. i,d. assorted ; the 33 Nos. in packet, 2S. U'M list on apphcaiton. THE PLUCKLEY TRACTS. 2nd Series.— Nos. 34 to 67, at id. each; 25 for is. 4d. ' Original and well told ; the book may be fairly said to be among the best of the Christmas gift-books.' — Morning Post. ' The sympathy and skill of Ismay Thorn's studies of children are once again convincingly demonstrated in "The Story of a Secret." The author's unswerving fidelity to the moods and speculations of childhood is admirably shown in every incident and in all the dialogue of this simple story.' — Saturday Review. ' Ismay Thorn undoubtedly knows how to describe amusing children.' — Graphic. 'The characters are life-like, the story interesting, and the situation novel.' Guardian. A GOLDEN AGE. With six Illustrations by Gordon Browne. Crown 8vo. 5^. ' There are three small boys and a little girl, all portrayed with admirable fidelity and insight, and, for all their wilful little ways, most attractive creatures.' Saturday Review. ' A clever study of boy life. The story of the Cornish brotherhood, at once humorous and pathetic, is one of the most attractive episodes in a very attractive book.' — Guardian. ' A very amusing and lovable little hero. The golden binding of this pretty nursery book adds to its overwhelming attractions.' — Record. ' Ismay Thorn is at her best. . . . Charming from beginning to end.' London Figaro. TOWNS END {M. E.)— (4.) BIRDIE'S BONNET, AND OTHER STORIES. Square fcap. 8vo. is. MAIDENS OF SCRIPTURE. i6mo. paper, i^.; cloth, i^. 6d. ' Simply, thoughtfully, and affectionately written.' — Recora. ' A charming little book : the young maidens of the present day cannot do better than study and take to heart the characters as they are here briefly painted, with all the grace of which the talented authoress is so complete a mistress.' Church Times. HEART AND HOME SONGS: Original and Selected. Dedicated to our Working IMen, Women, and Children. Chea p Edition for Working People. Fcap. Svo. limp, i^. td. Also set to Music by D'Arcy Ferris, fcap. Svo. cloth, 2j. Music only, sewed, i,d. ' Copious, yet choice, containmg poems, old and new.' — Guardia7i. ' An admirable book for use at Penny Readings.' — Hovtilist. ' A most useful volume, welcome -^specially to the sons and daughters of toil.' Hand and Heart. THOUGHTS ON THE MARRIAGE SERVICE. i6mo. sewed, 6d. ; cloth, is. ; white cloth, gilt, is. 6d. 'A charming little book, and can hardlyfail to do good to anygirl.' — ChurchBells. ' Written in a very plain and almost colloquial style, but entering into the sub- ject with a minuteness of detail which proves it to be the offspring of a good deal of observation and reflection.' — Church Revieiv. 18/ Piccadilly y London^ IV. 39 THOUGHTS FOR THE SICK. With Prayers and Hymns. By A. L. M. With Preface by M. E. Townsend. Fcap. 8vo. cloth, is. 6d. ; paper cover, is. ' Tender, sympathetic, and remarkably real : will be found excellent for occasional use in parish ministrations.' — Litera>y Ckiirchiitatt. ' Very clear, simple, and suggestive, and the book is altogether one that will provide light and comfort by the way.' — Christian Treasury. TYTLER [MISS CHRISTINA FRASER)— A ROSE AND A PEARL. Cheaper Edition, croivn Zvo. with Front isj>iece, cloth, 3.1. 6d. ' The scenes and situations are well conceived and well brought out :_ there is a delicate and pleasant savour of sentiment throughout : there is a chastening but not depressing religious spirit.' — Illustrated London News. TYTLER {MISS ANN ERASER)— (2.) MARY AND FLORENCE ; or, Grave and Gay. Sixteenth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. with Illustrations, cloth, 3s, 6d, MARY AND FLORENCE AT SIXTEEN. Seventh Edition. Fcap. 8vo. with Illustrations, cloth, 35. 6d. ' Excellent. Especially valuable for their religious spirit.'— Quarterly Review. WAINWRIGHT [REV. SAMUEL)— (3.) 'TRAVELLERS' TALK ON ENGLAND'S CRISIS. Crown 8vo. 5.?. ' A valuable book, and will well repay careful study. Sparkling with apt illus- tration and happy epigram, these suggestive discussions will make many pause to think. Although it can be profitably dipped into at odd moments, it is most certainly one of those books that "are to be read." Almost every page bears evidence of wide study and deep thought.' — Record. ' The various characters are drawn with much acuteness and perception We would end this brief notice of this powerfully written book by a repeatal of the wish that each of our senators, hereditary or representative, would rend and profit by its experienced wisdom, enlightened teachings, and most timely cautions.' English Churchman. 'A really enjoyable book, recalling the days of our youth and the novels of Mrs, RadclifFe.' — Morning Post. MODERN AVERNUS (THE). The Descent of England. How Far? A Question for Parliament and the Constituencies. By Junius Junior. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth antique, 6j. ' A remarkable book, and a startling one. . . . A book which every effort should be made to circulate, and which should especially be placed in public libraries, and the libraries of institutions frequented by the working classes and the general body of electors.' — Christian Advocate. CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY. 8vo. cloth, los. 6d. '"A Synopsis of the Christian Evidences " would be no untrue title for this work. It brings together and presents in one view such an accumulation of proofs of the truth of the Bible as we never remember to have met with before.' Christian Observer. WEBER (MISS A.)— ' \ '. HESTER TRACY. A Story. Crown 8vo. Illustrated, ^s. 6d. ' We can recommend this as a capital book for girls.'— Literary World. 30 Works Published by Messrs. Hatehard, WHATELY [MISS E. J.)— (5.) THOUGHTS ON SICKNESS. i6mo. paper cover, price td. ; cloth, u. CHRISTIAN LIFE AND CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. Part I. Evangelical Teaching. II. The Three Caskets, &c. Crown 8vo. \s. Crown 8vo. 2f. td. MAUDE ; or, The Anglican Sister of Mercy. Cheap Edition, i6mo. paper, \s. 6d. PLYMOUTH BRETHRENISM. Fourth Edition, with Additions. i6mo. cloth, is. 6d. ; pap^r, xs. 'Admirable The errors are calmly and clearly pointed out, and ably refuted.' — Rock. THE LOOKER-ON. Sketches of Sunday-school Teaching at Home and Abroad. T6mo. cloth, \s. td. ; paper cover, \s. WHERE TO SPEND A HOLIDAY. Being Part I. of ' The Work and Leisure Manuals to the Employment and Recreation for Women Workers.' Crown 8vo. sewed, qd. ' The articles are thoroughly practical and well written, and the particulars given are very exact, and such as cannot fail to be seiviceable.' — Pubiic Opinion. WORDSWORTH {MISS E.)— (5.) THIS WORK-A-DAY WORLD; Or, Thoughts for Busy People. Fcap. Svo. cloth, 2j. 6d. ' Written in a most interesting fashion, full of anecdote and a propos recollec- tions. This book would make an admirable gift for servants and young people of every class, and should be found useful for reading aloud at Sunday School and for home teaching.' — Review. SHORT WORDS FOR LONG EVENINGS. A Book for Mothers' Meetings, Cottage Homes, &c. 7th Thousand. iSmo. \s. 6d. _ * Deep, poetical, and sometimes quaint thought, simply expressed, which renders t in our eyes a remarkable book.' — Guardian. THOUGHTS FOR THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. For Cottage Homes, Mothers' Meetings, &c. gth Thousand. i8mo. is. 6d. ' One of the most delightful books we have come across.' — John Bull. 'These most useful and well-expressed "Thoughts" may be read with interest and profit at all our firesides, and are especially well adapted for reading aloud at mothers' meetings. Very cordially do we recommend it.' — Motliers' Treasury. AN EMPTY HOUSE. (A Temperance Tale.) iSmo. cloth, price u. ; sewed, dd. ' Of deep and tragic interest, and told with much literary grace and power.' Christian. ' A touching little story.' — Rock. IN DOORS AND OUT. (Poems.) Fcap. Svo. cloth, price 2^. dd. ' Charmingly playful and tender; all, without exception, give evidence of a pure taste and great refinement of mind.' — Guardian. i^T Piccadilly, London, W. 31 WRIGHTSON [REV. W. G.)— CONDENSED CONFIRMATION ADDRESSES. i6mo. cloth, ts. ' Should be found most useful by the clergy and by all who have anything to do with the preparation of candidates for confirmation.' — Ecclesiastical Gazetti. YONGE {CHARLOTTE M., Author of ' The Heir of Redely ffc,') ajid others— ASTRAY : A Tale of a Country Town. By Charlotte M. Yonge, Mary Bramston, Christabel Coleridge, and Esm6 Stuart. New and Cheaper Edition, with Frontispiece by Gordon Browne. Cr.Svo. 3^.6^. ' Charmingly told The weaknesses, the ridicules, and also the good points of a small country-side community, are here portrayed with a keenness 01 observation and a vivacity of style that place this " Tale of a Country Town ' much above its peers.' — Morning Post, ; ' A very agreeable and wonderfully successful experiment in joint authorship.' Academy. ' Told, as far af may be, in the fashion in which Miss Yonge has told so niany popular stories.' — Saturday Revieiv. UTO. I. :PTJBIjISIIEI3 OCTOBEIl, 1887- ATALANTA. Edited by L. T. MEADE AND ALICIA. A. LEITH. 'T^HIS Magazine, with Svipplements, consists of sixty-four pages monthly. ■'■ It is profusely Illustrated by Artists of repute both here and in America, and has on its staff many of the best known and most popular writers of the day. In the matter of paper, print, and general style of production, the Magazine aims at the highest standard of excellence. The brilliant success achieved by this Magazine during the first year of its existence gives the Proprietors confidence in offering fresh attractions for 1888-89. Special attention is invited to the * Atalanta Scholarship and Reading Union.' PRIZES I. A Scholarship of 30/. per annum tenable for three years. 2. Fifteen Pounds (15/.) 3. Books to the value of 5/. Fine Art Section — PRIZES. — Two Scholarships of 20/. per annum each, tenable for two years. Two Prizes of 10/. each. Five Prizes of i/. each. Full particulars are given with the September and October numbers. Serial Stories for 1888-89 by W. E. Norris, Mrs. L. B. Walford, Mrs. Moles- worth. Short Stories and Papers by F, Anstey, Jean Ingelow, Grant Allan, John Strange Winter, Sir Edwin Arnold, Hamilton Aide, C. F. Gordon-Cumming, &c. Amongst others the following Authors and Artists are contributors : — AUTHORS. Edwin Arnold. H. Rider Haggard. Walter Besant. Andrew Lang. Miss Thackeray. Miss Yonge, Grant Allen. Rev. S. Baring-Gould. Frances M, Peard. F. Anstey. ^c. ^c. ARTISTS. E. J. Poynter, R.A. G. H. Boughton, A.R.A. Frank Dicksee, A.R.A. Walter Crane. Heywood Hardy. G. DU Maurier. Harry Furniss. M, Ellen Edwards. Gordon Browne. Kate Greenaway. C. J. Staniland. dfc. S^'c. LONDON: HATCHARDS, PUBLISHERS, 187 PICCADILLY, W. And all Booksellers in Town and Country,