`It would have worried me, too, had the question arisen this time last week,' James replied with a smile. `But not now. This afternoon I sent word to my Council of Elders that I intend to do a fire walk. When they have seen me do that, my people will follow me anywhere. It was so that I could be up early in the morning, to supervise the making of the pit, that I denied myself the pleasure of a prolonged good night to Olinda, and left her as soon as I had seen her aboard the yacht.'
`Well done,' Gregory smiled back. `I'm proud of you, James. We'll get the better of that gang of thugs yet.'
`Thank you. It is going to be a close call, though, because I'll have to spend twenty four hours preparing myself to go down into the pit, and I can't start my vigil until I've seen the pit made. While the work is being carried out tomorrow morning, I intend to write two letters: one giving authority over my people to Aleamotu'a while I am out of action, and the other nominating you as my representative with the Resident. So that, if Lacost refuses to comply with the old boy's orders, as it's pretty certain that he will, you can exert pressure on Elboeuf to call on the authorities in Noumea to send him support.'
Gregory agreed these to be sound measures, and it warmed his heart to find again how, now that the young Ratu was back in his own island, he readily took decisions and assumed the leadership.
When they had wished each other an affectionate good night Gregory went to his bure, to find Manon sitting up in bed waiting for him, in anticipation of a night of connubial bliss. But in that she was to be disappointed. Firmly, Gregory told her that the next day might prove an unusually hectic one, so he meant to get all the sleep he could; but, kissing her fondly, he consoled her by saying that he had good hopes that the future held for them many happy nights together.
In the morning they walked down the lovely, flower filled slope of garden to the Meeting House. Outside it, James was directing the preparations for his fire walk. One gang of natives had already nearly completed the digging of a deep pit some twenty feet in diameter; another, under Aleamotu'a, was bringing up from the beach a number of carefully selected large, smooth stones, and a third had been sent to collect the best type of logs for heating them.
James gave Gregory the letter for Elboeuf, and said he had given Aleamotu'a orders that the fire should be lit at seven o'clock the next morning. He added that he had told Olinda of his intentions before leaving her the previous night. Naturally, she was greatly concerned for him and had said she would prefer to spend the day on the yacht. He meant to ask Manon to go off and keep her company, to which he felt sure `Mrs. Sallust' would readily agree.
As the news of the Ratu's intention had soon spread, it had created great excitement among his people. Most of the Elders and a considerable crowd had collected to watch the preparations in awed silence. The usual Ceremony of Welcome on his return to the island should have been held that day, but the Elders had accepted the reason for its postponement and were planning a great meke for the following night.
By eleven o'clock, the work on the pit was completed and, escorted by a large, silent crowd, James returned up the hill to start his twenty four hour vigil. Gregory then took Manon off to the yacht, where they found that Olinda had passed a sleepless night and was making herself ill with worry that, although James had done the fire walk successfully on Beqa, here he might fail and become, instead of a paladin, the laughing stock of his people.
Gregory, too, was secretly harassed by that fear; but he strove to reassure her and could honestly report that James showed no trace of fear himself. On the contrary, he appeared perfectly calm and confident. Olinda being in such poor shape, Gregory would have liked to remain with her throughout the day, but it was essential that he should learn the result of the warning that had been given to Lacost; so, at midday, he went ashore again, leaving Manon to do her best to distract Olinda 's mind from James' coming ordeal.
From the harbour, Gregory drove out in James' jeep to the Residence, a large French style Colonial villa built back in the nineties, and lying some way outside the town. On the broad veranda he found Elboeuf enjoying his morning Amoer Picon, and presented James' letter to him. The old Resident welcomed him courteously,, sent a boy to make a Planter's Punch which, when offered a drink, Gregory said he would prefer, then said:
`It take it you have already heard from Sergeant Marceau that his mission proved unsuccessful?'
`No,' Gregory replied. `If you sent him up to the bure, I missed him, as I left it over two hours ago. But I'm not surprised. What happened?'
`He went out to the Pigalle with two of his men about nine o'clock. Lacost would not even let them go aboard and flatly refused to abandon his operations.!
'Then we shall have to resort to force. As the law is on our side, I assume that, backed by the Ratu's body guard, you are willing to order your gendarmes to board the Pigalle?'
The old man hesitated for a moment, then he said, `I suppose we now have no alternative, but I am far from happy at having to give such an order. After all, the Colons have weapons and they are desperate men. There are six of them with, in addition, a native crew; and they will have the advantage of being able to fire on my people from the cover provided by their yacht; whereas Marceau has only six men, and they would have to attack in open boats.'
Gregory nodded. `I appreciate the danger they will run, but they will 'have the support of about fifty warriors, so the Colons are bound to realise that they will be overcome by weight of numbers. The odds are that after a few shots have been exchanged they will surrender.'
`Theoretically,. Monsieur, your argument is sound. But I have little faith in the courage of the Ratu's men. They are not warriors in the true sense. Unlike their forbears they have never taken part in tribal wars, and are untrained. Even a few shots might scare them into turning tail and abandoning my men:
That might well have been the case yesterday,' Gregory replied, `but I have good reason to believe that tomorrow they will show a different mettle.' He then told the Commandant about the fire walk that James intended to undertake, and of his conviction that it would bring out in his men the fanatical devotion and courage that they had inherited from their ancestors.
After expressing astonishment at the Ratu's daring, Elboeuf said, `Personally, I am an agnostic, so have no belief in occult powers. It is, of course, true that Draunikau is still widely practised in the islands and that if a native believes that the curse of death has been put upon him he will pine away and die. I have known many such cases; but that is attributable to self hypnosis. The tales one hears of dead men being raised from their graves and imbued with new life as zombies, of fakirs lying on beds of nails without becoming scarred, walking through fire, yet remaining unburned, and so on, fall into a very different category. All of them are based on clever trickery, and I have no doubt that the islanders of Beqa long ago devised some means of deceiving onlookers. If they passed their secret on to the Ratu he may succeed in fooling his people. Otherwise, I fear he will be bitterly disillusioned and suffer a grave humiliation.'
Gregory, too, on considering the matter again that morning, had been subject to serious misgivings. He did not, for one moment, doubt that James had performed the fire walk on Beqa, but he could not help wondering if he had been able to accomplish it only because the Chief had either hypnotised him into a deep trance in which he would not be conscious of pain or, unknown to him put some powerful drug into the last meal he had had before beginning his fast. Were that so, without such aid he must fail, which would have a most disastrous effect both on his own mentality and his prestige with his people. But to have raised such questions with James could only have undermined his confidence in himself so, the die having been cast, Gregory had decided that he must now let matters take their course, and he countered Elboeuf scepticism by asserting that `faith could move mountains'.