“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He’s here to start a war, you know. To set this whole island on fire. I’m white, as you fellows are, you have to help me out! You can’t leave me here like this!”
By that point, Davenport lost patience and the bullet-headed man started spitting furiously in our direction when we began our exit again. I felt rather confounded by the encounter, and my companion appeared unusually flustered.
“What do you think?” I asked as we walked the long passage to the gates of the prison.
“We’ve wasted time.”
Our horses had to be kept back beyond the swampy land around the prison. As we walked, I flung open my umbrella to keep the wind off my face.
“Well,” I commented, “at least you know Stevenson will not have made much progress completing the book in our absence, with all the preparations they are doing for the storm, and for the arrival of the missionary and their precious tobacco.”
As I spoke, I noticed a group of natives following behind us; then there were natives to the left, to the right. I slowed and they slowed. I paused and swung around to Davenport, but he seemed to be in a mood of deep contemplation and had not noticed.
“Davenport, I think we are in some kind of trouble.”
He followed my gaze.
Now a native called out an unfamiliar word at me, then another repeated the same word, pointing. I realized what had excited them.
“This?” I asked, twirling my umbrella.
The movement elicited a round of cheers; perhaps they had never seen an umbrella before, or at least not a striped one.
Davenport’s contemplation suddenly broke, revealing his thoughts. “The tobacco,” he said under his breath. “Cipaou, the horses!” he shouted to our man, who was waiting by some trees on more solid ground. He rushed to untie them.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed by the change in the bookaneer’s demeanor.
“Put that blasted thing away.”
I folded the umbrella and the disappointed natives drifted away.
“The missionary,” Davenport continued, “the one who is delivering the Stevensons’ tobacco, this Father Thomas. He’s expected at Vailima, isn’t he?”
“Any minute,” I said.
“What do you know of him?”
“He’s from the Marist mission. Stevenson said he is one of the longest-serving missionaries.”
“No, he said the mission is one of the longest continuously in operation. The man could be new there.”
“What are you driving at?”
“What better way to the Stevensons’ hearts than through their blasted tobacco?”
? ? ?
WE DISMOUNTED AT VAILIMA and hurried to the front verandah, where a narrow wagon had been pulled by a span of horses. In addition to a traveler’s trunk, the wagon was piled high with crates that Stevenson’s servants were unloading. The top of one of the crates had come loose and opened. There were the holy jars of tobacco. Underneath sat rifles and pistols. John quickly removed the open crate from my sight and said something to me in Chinese, which sounded like a stern warning—though I suppose even a comment on the weather would sound like a warning from John.
For the moment, my thoughts lingered on the contents of the shipment. I recalled the outlandish accusation that Banner had made against Stevenson. That he was no mere writer—that he was here to start a war. Davenport had believed Hines had been thinking something similar when his eyes landed on Treasure Island in the frigate’s library. My thoughts on the matter were fleeting, for in the next moment we heard the voice of the new arrival, the missionary.
“It’s Belial,” Davenport whispered to me, then steeled himself as he turned around.
There he was, the bookaneer who kept himself on everyone’s tongue while keeping himself out of view. Davenport’s rival removed a white pith helmet. He did not have a hair out of place on his large head. Belial’s brow, nose, and chin sat at handsome angles, his eyes bright. He was tall enough for most people to have to look up to him, and his mouth was big and expressive. Everything jutted out prominently. His brow, his chin, his chest. His presence instantly commanded interest and deference. There was something about him that made it hard to believe he was the same individual described to me for years by Davenport and others as so ruthless and remorseless.
“Apologies, Tusitala, that I was away on business longer than I expected,” the deliverer of the goods was saying in his perfect enunciation when we joined them.
“We can just thank the heavens that nobody had to face Barkis’s wrath over an empty tobacco jar,” Stevenson said. “Well, you understand how women are. By Jove, no, how can you? Show me the man who does! Thomas, may I present to you an Englishman and an American, recent arrivals to Upolu—Mr. Fergins and Mr. Porter—Mr. Porter, Father Thomas, a missionary we have all come to esteem and even like in his short time serving the people of our island.”
“Talofa,” Belial greeted us with a nod as we approached. “Tusitala, you know I always get on first rate with the natives on this beautiful island, but I do savor the opportunity to see white faces after these long months.”
“Talofa,” Davenport said.
“I trust you gentlemen have settled into our little metropolis,” Belial said as he shook our hands. “Have you grown accustomed to picking the weevils off your bread yet?”
“Bread? Is that what it is?” Davenport joked.
The little show of friendliness was interrupted when Mount Vaea rumbled with the vibration of an earthquake. Stevenson enjoyed the concern in our faces. “Life is not so much what happens as what one waits for,” he mused.
“I see Mrs. Stevenson has expanded her impressive garden with some tall corn since I last visited,” Belial noted.
“I will take you on a tour of the latest crops, Mr. Thomas,” Davenport said. “I gave Mrs. Stevenson a hand with some new plantings the other day.”