Ainslee's Magazine/The Will and the Deed

by Ethel Watts Mumford

 

THE WILL
AND
THE DEED
BY

ETHEL WATTS
MUMFORD

CHYNE urged his sure-footed mount along the rough lava path.

The mule scrambled and slid, readjusting his narrow hoofs to the broken surface in a wild attempt to keep both his footing and the pace demanded of him. His rider stared grimly ahead, resentment and helpless fury in his heart.

The brooding of weeks and months had culminated in this day of agony. There had been nothing, apparently, to bring his growing misery to a head. It was the slow focusing of all his senses in revolts

As he galloped on over the torn road, he saw before him the face of the man he hated—the man he felt to be at the bottom of the pursuit that had driven him from his place and his people. Back there in Honolulu his enemy went scot-free, while he, Baldwin Chyne, sulked in Puna, his companions Chinamen, Jap boys, and natives. He dug his heels into the mule's ribs, and the exasperated animal plunged, reared, and broke into a scattering run that threatened to end in disaster.

The rider looked gloomily at the sheer drop on his right. After all, what did it matter? His deal in life had been a pretty raw one, and he could not defend himself because no one would openly accuse him. He had been dropped from his place of trust—with veiled hints that he “knew why.” One by one his friends had shunned and cut him, and no question of his could bring him enlightenment. There had been something in the air that had hinted of trouble at the bank, but all had been hidden, subtle, impalpable. When he had demanded the reason for his ostracism, he had been answered by sneers.

But he knew his enemy; there was no doubt in his tortured mind as to whose was the hand that had struck him down, and who had poisoned the world against him. He was young, inexperienced, and tactless, because he had never had need of diplomacy. His struggles to clear himself had only made matters worse, and at last, like a mortally wounded animal, he had fled to cover. Little it had profited him!

Of all his friends, only Bertier had proved true. The others—Bolton, Hall, Chalmers, even McCollum—had left him severely alone, when a word of friendliness would have meant so much. Even McCollum, whose name had been mouthed by scandal, even he shunned him. Chyne thought with fury of his own unwavering loyalty, and cursed aloud as he remembered the cold reception he had given that story about McCollum at the club.

Topping the cliff, they plunged at once into the hot and breathless jungle. High overhead the trade winds still rocked the fronds of monkey-pod and palm, but the thicket held only silence, heat, and the smells of rank vegetation. Here and there in the green twilight a white veil of steam hissed upward from some open crevasse that proved the nearness of the great craters—the lonely halls of flame, the home of Pele, the fire goddess. The jungle caught at the invader, seeking to tear him down. Grasping fingers of branch and vine made it impossible for him longer to keep the saddle. He dismounted, threw the single rein across his arm, and pushed on.

Suddenly the flower-crowned, perfumed jungle found a voice. Sweetly the melting music of ukulilis and tare-patches drifted to him, the witchery of melodious, soft voices singing a hula, the beat and rhythm seeming to express all the mystery of the tropic forest, all the vigor of the singing trade winds. The music acted strangely on the nerves of the white man in his sorrow, translating itself into terms of his own martyrdom. He would go to them, these carefree natives; he would be one of them. They at least were free of the taint of civilization; they were incapable of a white man's treachery.. They were as simple as the day itself, as guileless as their own laughter. And he needed companionship, craved it as a drug victim craves his potion. A feast was in progress; well, he would join it.

A trail opened from the main track. Chyne turned into the green labyrinth, guided by the thread of melody. The dense foliage thinned, giving him glimpses of a vast view of jutting crags and the peacock colors of the ocean. A moment later, he stood upon the edge of a thousand-foot-deep crater, clothed in emerald to the very bottom of its cup, which cradled a lake of vivid turquoise. He led the mule along the moss-grown rim and turned sharply to the right.

Before him, on a stretch of open glade, the revelers were gathered. A half dozen girls, in single red or yellow garments, dangled their heels in the waters of a Pele's bowl—a hot spring that welled up within a few feet of the crater's edge. Three others, crowned with flowers, swayed in' the measure of the hula. Opposite, the young men writhed and stamped, waving agile hands in measured time. The musicians lounged against thé trunk of a giant monkey-pod, while an elderly woman added the necessary emphasis on a wooden drum.

The dancers stopped. Even before they recognized the newcomer, the instinctive hospitality of their race bade them welcome him. When they realized that it was none other than Baldwin Chyne of the Big Plantation, their greetings were redoubled. Chyne threw himself on the grass near the spread repast, accepted offers of fish, roast meat, and fresh shrimp, and drained the cup of native wine that little Lei-Aloha offered him. The strong, white brandy ran hot in his veins, warming and soothing him, and his hardened lips relaxed.

Pecoli, the fisherman, approached him, smiling.

“Boss, you like Anu-Aina shall sing for you? Old hula, very old, not kind what you sing Honolulu. Sing Pele's hula. Sing, Anu-Aina.”

And Anu-Aina lifted up her voice without embarrassment or further preamble and sang. The tiny guitars took up the strain, strumming an accompaniment.

The music and the liquor drowsed through Chyne's veins. He drank again, that he might dream of the goddess of volcanoes, with her brittle black hair and her eyes of flame, dancing the measure with illumined fury, while the ground beneath her feet glimmered white hot and sparks sprang from her weaving fingers. His bitterness dimmed and vanished. More and more he felt the healing relaxation of primitive things. Then he sat up more attentively, as Lei-Aloha began to chant the legend of Puaanui, and of Pele's sledging.

“She believes it,” thought Chyne, amused; “all that mass of wonder tales—men transformed into lava pillars, and a furious goddess riding on waves of molten lava, like a surf rider on the sea; monster sharks and household deities, protecting gods who live in stones, and poison goddesses who live in trees.”

He laughed to himself. She could sing Christian hymns, of course, and reel off the catechism; but what did it all mean to Lei-Aloha, to any of her people? They believed in witch doctors and magic, just as they had before the missionaries came.

And who should say that the incantations and the stories were mere vaporings? Who had the right to deny the power of the kahunas, those grim priests who laid claim to strange control of stranger forces? Could any one say that the ancient rite of praying an enemy to death was impossible? Who knew where will ended and began?

Old Anu-Aina approached him softly and squatted by his side.

“Look, boss!” she murmured. “Look, see, here come Nui-Moku.”

Chyne looked up. Across the clearing a stranger was approaching. He was of middle age and powerfully built. His eyes were singularly brilliant, and his straight, black hair had been dyed red by coral lime. He wore only a dilapidated pair of dennin trousers, tied at the waist with a fine fiber belt of antique workmanship. Above the waistline, high up under the arms, Maori fashion, rose circles of blue tattoo. About his neck hung a curious ornament of tortoiseshell. As he neared the group of merrymakers, now grown silent and respectful, he spoke first to one and then to another. Anu-Aina shivered slightly, and seemed to draw within herself.

“Who is Nui-Moku?” Chyne inquired lazily, rolling over, the more readily to examine the newcomer.

“Kahuna, priest of the shark god,” whispered Anu-Aina, in a scared voice.

“Kahuna!” Chyne exclaimed.

The old woman shook her head quickly.

“Do not talk of him,” she said. “He know. He hear inside your head, he see—inside your heart.”

A sudden wild impulse left Chyne almost breathless.

“Can he do the ana na? Can he bring the blight and pray to death?” he whispered.

“Oh,” she cried, “I should not have speak—I should not have named him! Now will he be angry and put spell on.”

As if in answer to Chyne's unspoken call, the priest came straight up to him, halted, and looked him in the eyes with disconcerting steadiness. Then he addressed Anu-Aina sharply.

The woman cringed and nodded. The kahuna walked away, with the same solemn aloofness with which he had come. Anu-Aina turned to her white companion and eyed him fearfully.

“Well, what did he say?” he asked.

“He said,” the woman murmured, while her frightened eyes looked straight before her to the distant sea, “he said you knew he was kahuna on your plantation, boss. He say he very grateful you no tell Honolulu po-leece-man. He say you been good man to Kanaka. He say you remember shark burning Ania-Han way?”

The rising inflection of her voice made her sentence a question, and suddenly Chyne recalled a forgotten incident. He had shunted off official investigation of a shark-burning. He recalled that a kahuna had been mentioned as master of ceremonies at that auto-da-fé—the rite of torturing a captured man-eating shark which had been accused of being able to turn human at will. It had all seemed too absurd for a white man's time and attention, a silly survival of paganism, better ignored than punished. He had shut the matter up by a prompt denial of its happening on his premises, though the missionaries had besought him to take a hand in putting a summary stop to such cruel and heathenish practices.

“Is that all he said?” he insisted, for there was something in Anu-Aina's agitation that indicated a more intimate message than that which she had delivered. She shifted uneasily, looking with anxious eyes at the matted screen of green vines that swayed where the priest had disappeared.

“No,” she whispered reluctantly, “that not all he say. He say, “Not for the white man is it to command the prayer of death, but for you—because you have stood between the Hawaiian and the foreign law—for you, if you have the desire in your heart, he will do the prayer to death.'”

Chyne jerked himself to a sitting posture and gazed at the native woman.

“He say,” she added hurriedly, as if anxious to be delivered of a fearsome message, “he live in the thatch house by the waters of Ukupamipo, where are the caves of. the dead. You come—he make for you the ana na.”

She rose as she finished and stood before him, fear on her kindly old face.

“The ana na!” he whispered.

His gaze was as fixed and brilliant as a snake's. The ana na, the mysterious rite to which no man or woman of alien race had access, was offered to him. Well, he would follow it up; it would be interesting to see it done, and it could do no harm. He grinned wolfishly. Of course it could do no harm. But there was a man down there in Honolulu—— The softened mood engendered by the happy, laughing, carefree gathering by the sacred pool had vanished. The other side of the primitive claimed him—sinister, blind faith in evil magic, in charms and omens, amulets and visions; the power of things unseen, the lure of things unknown. His weeks and months of isolation, of dwelling upon his misery, the pang of injustice, the ache of helplessness, had prepared him for this suggestion.

“Why didn't he speak to me himself?” he asked abruptly.

“Not before a Kanaka will he speak to a white man. Alone he speak to you,” Anu-Aina replied, under her breath.

Without a word of thanks or farewell, he rose, crossed the clearing and caught his mule, swung the rein over his arm, and entered the mysterious, monstrous jungle. No word was spoken as he took his silent departure. The dances and songs had ceased. Lei-Aloha stood, wide-eyed and solemn, by the edge of the pool, her wet hair streaming about her.

Chyne plunged on, the mule following him, snuffling warm breath at his shoulder. He walked quickly, in spite of the heavy, moist air and the difficulties of the way as he scrambled down the steep incline. He crossed a clearing, where the overflow of the spring fell sheer to the blue basin of the crater and threaded its way over the old vent to the second fall; then once more the jungle engulfed him until he reached sea level, where the dense growth thinned into a fringe of palms.

Before him stood the house of the witch doctor, a humble square of grass thatch, with a swinging mat at the single entrance. Beside the hut a great cave opened into the mountain, into which the waves rushed with a hollow roar. High up in the face of the cliff, from shallow pockets in the volcanic rock, the bows of canoe coffins protruded. Chyne paused, uncertain whether to retreat or to advance.

But the kahuna stood before him on the strip of beach, and, with a stately gesture and without surprise, bade the white man welcome. He lifted the curtain over the doorway, and Chyne entered the one room of the house. There was little to differentiate it from any primitive Hawaiian home. A raised platform at one end held the sleeping mats, wooden poi bowls stood about, a dipper made from a coconut hung on the wall. On either wall, a woven mat, hung arraswise, veiled something from sight. From the roof pole hung string nets, in which were tiny packages rolled in tapa. The witch doctor motioned his visitor to the platform. Placing a small, intricately carved box upon his knees, he settled himself before Chyne, and spoke:

“You have the will to kill?”

“I have,” said Chyne, and his lips and eyes narrowed.

“Why?”

Chyne flushed and hesitated; then he spoke with hurried intensity, falling unconsciously into the rhythmic form of native speech.

“He has robbed me of my good name. He has made me the scapegoat. I am accused of things I never did—not openly, that I may answer, but by stealth, and I cannot prove myself innocent. He has driven me away from Honolulu and my people. He has sent me here to Puna, while he rides the highways, and my people greet him. If you are a kahuna, show me now. If the power of death lies in prayer, teach me to pray.”

The witch doctor listened; his beady, brilliant eyes seemed to bore into Chyne's brain. Slowly, with whispered apologies, he opened the box on his lap and took from it a distorted, fat-bellied god of Tasmanian jade. Its eyes were inlaid rings of green abalone shell, which glittered with changing lights. Nui-Moku thrust the image into Chyne's hands.

“Look!” he ordered, and, rising to his feet, he drew back the tapa curtains that masked the sides of the room.

Two roughly carved and painted half tree trunks stood revealed—grotesques of semihuman shape, with scarlet lips, inlaid teeth, and eyes of bone and shell; childish contrivances, perhaps, but conveying an impression of a child's nightmare terrors. They seemed to grow and fill the room with their evil presence. Chyne glanced at them and shivered.

“Have you of his person something?” the kahuna asked.

Chyne took a letter from his pocket and held it out.

“His own writing,” he whispered.

Nui-Moku folded the paper until it was no larger than the square of his thumb, placed it in a strip of doth, and tied it on his forehead, muttering the while. He dragged a short-bladed knife from his loin cloth and went outside. Chyne heard the outcry of a slaughtered fowl, and a moment later the witch doctor returned, his hands and breast smeared with blood. He did not look at Chyne; he seemed unconscious of his presence. He squatted down, facing the largest of the two grim figures, placed the knife on the ground, and began a hurried, whispered muttering. His eyes became set, and flecks of foam showed at the corners of his mouth.

The heat was intense in the little closed room. Outside, the sea roared in the cave of the shark god, booming and growling as the waves charged and retreated. Within the hut the hurried, insistent incantation continued, and Chyne sat hynotized into belief, staring into the green, shifting lights of pearl shell that were the eyes of death. He lost all sense of reality, all sense of locality and time. With every atom of his being he sought to project his hatred. He felt that he could annihilate space—that, indeed, his will could triumph over every earthly barrier.

Suddenly Nui-Moku shrieked, seized the knife, and dashed it, point downward, into the bare floor of the platform, where it stood erect, quivering. Slowly his body swayed and collapsed, his eyes rolled back, his fingers twitched convulsively and were still.

Chyne struggled to his feet. Blind terror was upon him. The room seemed thronged with ghosts. He threw the jade god from him and staggered to the door and out into the free air and the blessed sunlight. Before him the peacock-colored waves lapped the black lava sands. The waves welled green into the cave mouth, and came crowding out, all white spray and spume. The mule grazed under the palms, and the jungle closed in lavish and reeking. The sun was well on its road to rest, the tide was low. Chyne sprang into the saddle and urged his beast forward along the sands. If the tide held right, he could make it across the shingle to the fishermen's cove at Hira. He rode like a madman. He was afraid, with a sickening fear, of his own heart.

At last he rounded the point of rock that sheltered the cove and cantered over the beach, now hard as macadam, till he saw the lines of canoes, each gripping the land with its long, curved, yellow-painted outrigger. With a sigh of relief, he paused beside the boatmen sorting their catch, and held them in talk. Slowly he got his world back into focus. The grip of the grinning gods loosened, the leer of the green, shifting eyes that had held his from that carven face of ancient jade ceased to hold him. A little later, when he rode into the luxuriant loveliness of his own grounds and up to the inviting length of his own veranda, he could laugh at the foolery of it. But he could not laugh at himself.

That night his dreams were visions of dread. Voices called to him out of the night; strange, dark faces clustered around him; there were sounds of many drums beating, beating; medicine men with tattooed faces passed him in endless procession, carrying feathered emblems; never a white man, only strange, brown forms. He knew why—his heart told him; he heard it reproaching him in a dim, anguished voice. He was an outcast from his own people, forever and ever, not only in body, but in spirit. He had done something—something—what was it?—something that set him forever apart from them. A huge green god rose from the ground and peered at him with eyes that glowed. Then he knew—he knew! He had prayed one of his own to death with the brown man's power. He was theirs now—he belonged to.the green god and the priests. The ana na! He had killed one of his own people!

He awoke, cold sweat standing out on his forehead, his limbs trembling. He tried to steady himself, and found his courage failing. He struggled against the obsession. Suppose he had lent himself to a murderous rite and a murderous thought. He had been cruelly wronged; it was only natural that he should let his imagination run away with him. He got up and went out of doors, threw himself into a hammock, and watched the brilliant checkerboard of the moonlight on the graveled paths. The cry of night birds sounded sweet and sleepy; the voice of the all-surrounding Pacific murmured afar; the wind in the branches whispered. Heavens, how that kahuna had shrieked! The memory of it cut through him. He started to his feet, tense and sick.

“Steady, old man,” he said aloud. “You're 'most all in. Steady, there!”

It was well into the morning before Kim, his China boy, thought best to awaken him. His master had slept but little. Kim had heard him prowling back and forth on the lanai until long after dawn.

Chyne looked at the new day before him dully. He had an uneasy feeling, a conscience-stricken sense of wrongdoing. It was some time before he could recall its purport. Then recollection and remorse rushed upon him again. He fought them down, ordered his horse, and started off on his inspection rounds. He rode unmercifully all through the heat of midday, and returned so weary that he was glad, with a mere physical gladness, to immerse himself in the big pool behind the house, change his linen, and stretch himself out in comfort, with a cool drink and the anticipation of an appetizing meal—and sleep.

But he counted without the host within his brain. Dreams—they crowded upon him; and, in self-defense, on awakening, he began to justify himself. Slowly his anger mounted above his contrition. Of what good was the nonsense of a kahuna, the incantations of a native witch doctor? He laughed savagely. If he felt like that, if he wanted it like that, why didn't he go and do it? That was it! He was a poor lot to give himself nightmares for a piece of tomfoolery! He'd been handed a pretty nasty deal and—— Well, a man was called a coward if he didn't try to defend himself.

With feverish energy, he packed his belongings and told Kim to telephone to Bertier, in Hilo, that he would be in to spend the night and wanted passage to Honolulu the next day. Oh, no, he assured himself, he'd not be content with the silly prayers of any silly kahuna.

He mounted his blue-roan pony and bade Kim good-by. Kim eyed his master narrowly.

“No can do, go Honolulu way,” he said, with the presumption of the treasured house servant. “Mo' betta you go sleep. Me go catchee dlocta. You got um fleva.”

“Shut up, Kim!” said Chyne angrily.

The China boy shook his head.

“Mo' betta—mo' betta me callem dlocta,” he implored.

“Mo' betta you bling my suit case,” Chyne retorted, and now he laughed, his laughter as disconcerting as his too-ready anger.

The luggage was strapped on the led horse, and the little procession headed down the long mountain slope toward Hilo. Within an hour they reached the outposts of civilization and joined the main tourist road that terminates at the hotel by the volcano, Chyne's head was swimming; he kept hearing Kim's voice repeating over and over, “Mo' betta me catchee dlocta.” He had to look back to assure himself that it was Aka riding the mule and leading the pack pony. But there was a mission on which he was bent, and it didn't matter how he felt. He must get to Honolulu.

At a turn in the path he beheld a man on horseback cantering toward them. The man gave a friendly whoop at sight of Chyne and spurred his mount.

It was Bertier himself, riding out to meet him.

“Chyne, old man,” he called, “I've great news for you. Came out to get you.”

He wheeled his pony excitedly and drew alongside. He was too full of his subject to notice Chyne's staring eyes and the unhealthy flush that purpled his hollow cheeks.

“Listen, Chyne, you're cleared absolutely. The whole confounded truth is out.”

Chyne rocked in his saddle and stared at him.

“I bet they're a sorry lot back there in 'Lulu, where they gave you the cold shoulder and never a chance to square yourself,” Bertier rejoiced. “But, by gad, the cat's out now, the fat's burning—and the whole town knows it was Ballanger, not you.”

Chyne said nothing. His face had grown ghastly pale.

“Darnedest thing!” Bertier rattled on. “He shot himself—couldn't stand the strain. Said he was haunted with what he'd done—things were a lot worse, anyhow. Left a confession—— Chyne—— Gad, man! Hold on!”

For the recipient of the good news was fainting. He hung to the pommel of his saddle, the reins falling on the pony's neck. He lifted his head and looked at Bertier's frightened face with eyes of horror. For a moment his open mouth refused to speak. Bertier sprang from his horse, threw the bridle to the boy, who had caught up with them, and placed his arm about the swaying man.

“Don't take it like this!” he cried. “Buck up! Why, you're cleared—cleared of everything! There's not a soul. on earth can start a cowardly whisper against you. It all came out. They found entries among his papers, and it didn't take ten minutes on the books—— Chyne! Chyne!”

Chyne drew away from the kindly clasp that gripped him.

“I'm a murderer!” he gasped thickly. “I killed him!”

Bertier gave him a startled glance.

“You're sick! You're crazy!” he exclaimed. “Why, man, dear, you've never left this island in months! Here, get that out of your head. Aka, how long has your master been this way?”

A terrible ague shook the tortured man. He threw his arms about his body as if to hold down the racking quiver of every muscle.

“I killed him! I killed him!” he repeated.

“Come, come!” Bertier expostulated. “Don't talk about it. Let's get down to my house as quickly as possible. I'll lead you. Aka, get on my horse and ride as quick as you can. Send a carriage out—grab the first thing you see. Telephone the doctor to come to my house. Tell 'em Chyne's raving.”

The boy obediently fastened the led horse to his mule, handed the leader to Bertier's left hand, and, mounting the fresh horse, started off on a run.

Bertier held Chyne in the saddle with his right arm, walking beside the roan.

In torn sentences, Chyne talked. All his sufferings, his hurt pride, the impossibility of defending his honor when no definite accusation had ever been made, his weeks and months of exile, his fury at the world, his suspicions of Ballanger—the whole pitiful tale welled from his lips as unconsciously as water from a fountain overfull. He told, without volition, in gasping, broken words, of the feast at Pele's bowl, of the savage priest who had sought him out, of the rite he had attended, of the fury that had willed Ballanger's death.

Bertier listened with agonized sympathy to the whole childish story, the very futility of its climax making the prior weeks of misery more real. Poor Chyne, poor Chyne! Men go dotty living by themselves, with nobody but natives and Chinamen for companions. The crowd was a set of bounders that they hadn't gone after him and made him come out of his shell and down to the club in Hilo. They should have made it plain that they'd never set any store by the silly gossip of Honolulu, knowing him, the man.

He listened with only half an ear to Chyne's talk of green jade gods and burning death prayers. Once he interjected a question, and strove to drive home an important point into his friend's consciousness, but the field of Chyne's comprehension was entirely covered by his remorse. He could take in nothing more.

“I'm a murderer. I'm not a white man. I'm a murderer,” he repeated.

And Bertier, walking at his stirrup, muttered, “Poor Chyne, poor Chyne!”

They stood on Bertier's big veranda—Bolton and Chalmers, Hall and McCollum. Upstairs, Chyne moaned and muttered to the doctor. Bertier nervously sat on the edge of the rail.

“Say,” he exclaimed, “it's a damned shame! The whole thing's an outrage. It's everybody's fault except Chyne's, and there he is upstairs crazy with brain fever, saying he's a murderer.”

“Rum go,” Bolton agreed, knocking the ashes from his cigarette. “Couldn't you get it through his head that Ballanger committed suicide on Monday, and he didn't see his old kahuna, you say, till Tuesday?”

“Did 1?” growled Bertier. “I busted a lung trying to drive it in. It won't go in—his mind's solidified. He says he did it, and he was on his way to do it again.”

“Nutty,” said Hall.

McCollum, who was tall and lean and Scotch, stood up awkwardly.

“He'll get over it, won't he?” Hall inquired.

“Of course,” said Bertier. “He's got to—the whole of Honolulu owes it to him. Think of what that poor devil is suffering up there now!”

McCollum shifted again uneasily.

“Ye see,” he said softly, and the others ceased to move—there was always silence when McCollum spoke—“I see it now. I've always thought it a fule thing to fight this witch business the way they do—it being flash stuff with nothin' to it. But it's the intent. I ken it now. There's na doot, puir Chyne, but that he had the will, and the domned sly priest of Belial pointed it and sharpened it. There's a wurd—a wurd perhaps we're fergettin'; I dinna see the Buke it's in in our hands often. It's somethin' we'd all be the better fer thinkin', fer it isn't always murder we'd be lukin' after—and the will is an unco part of us. 'If a man sin in his heart'—ye ken the wurds? Aweel, and the puir laddie up there cryin', 'I'm a murderer——' Friends, it makes ye think—it makes ye think. And God forgi'e us all!”

His head bent wearily, and no one spoke as he softly left the veranda. At the gate, he paused, and, opening his watchcase, took out a scrap of a photograph, tore it slowly into minute fragments, and scattered them on the gravel walk.