“They must not find me. Tusitala is my family now; he is my chief, no other. They do not like the new God. If they find me here, Tusitala will—” Charlie stopped his sentence and took long strides out of the room before I could find out more.
Later, I ran across Stevenson in the fields. He was chopping away at the liana that grew across and over other vegetation and strangled the pathways. I suppose his body was set up rather badly. His chest, which was exposed in his loose garments, was flat as a board, but his limbs were so long they made it seem as though there would need to be a great effort to stay upright. I started to walk toward him to suggest he look in on Charlie, but something gave me pause. Watching the surprisingly powerful motion of the novelist’s arm bringing the blade down on the vines, I thought about the servant’s insinuation of Stevenson’s potential for anger if he found out Charlie’s family was looking for him.
“Fergins?” he asked, watching me watch him.
“Apologies, Tusitala, just wondering if you need a hand.”
He waved my offer away and used the interruption to flick the sweat from his hair. “Our strangling enemy, this endless liana. Do you know something? When I ply the cutlass and make the equivalent of sixpence, idiot conscience applauds me. But if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds by writing, idiot conscience wails over my neglect and the day wasted. No, to come down covered with mud and drenched with sweat and rain after some hours in the bush. To change, rub down, and take a chair in the verandah, that makes for a quiet conscience.”
The fact was, I had plenty to dwell on without becoming involved in Stevenson’s dealings with his domestics. For one thing, Davenport was slamming doors on me and generally giving me the cold shoulder. I’m afraid he believed I was just as overly charmed by the newcomer as most of the household. To be perfectly honest, I had heard about Belial for so many years, had followed his exploits so closely as one of the top-notch bookaneers, that I could not help finding his presence fascinating.
Belial also seemed to read my interest as admiration. In a clear ploy to annoy his great rival, when we crossed paths at Vailima, he would wrap his meaty hand around my arm and regale me with stories of various predicaments encountered in spreading the word of God throughout the South Seas. Belial made an art of laughing when the person with him laughed, of smiling when the other person did, and then his laugh was the cause of the other’s laugh, his smile the kindling for the other’s.
Davenport would not admit to it, but he was eager to know my opinion on Belial and on Belial’s power over even complete strangers. Even complete strangers, in the case of many of the Samoans, who did not speak English. I began to catalog what I saw as Belial’s strengths for him—his refined face, his elegant company, his confident posture—but Davenport could not listen. He grew especially warm with me one day when he found me using my umbrella as a walking stick.
“What on earth is that?” Davenport asked with absolute horror.
“What?”
“You know damn well. That . . . umbrella.”
“Davenport,” I said, cowed by his uncharacteristic tone. “It’s nothing. I hurt my ankle the other day on the trails.”
Davenport looked as though he might throw the umbrella and maybe me into the magma chamber of Mount Vaea. Belial was never seen without his golden-hued cane, though it was not clear whether he suffered from a physical limitation or it was an accessory; it made observers examine him all the more closely, one moment believing they could identify a limp or maybe a weak knee, sympathizing with him, stopping themselves out of politeness from asking, and then wondering again if any limp was there at all. Davenport suspected that however I injured myself I found the idea of imitating the great Belial appealing.
Of course, this was not so at all. Or perhaps there was truth in it. Perhaps the power of suggestion took hold of me without my knowing. I cannot say. I understand the intensity of my companion’s feelings against Belial, especially after we learned more about what had happened with Kitten in the time before her death. But selfishly I could not help being tickled to think that here I was, Edgar Fergins, proprietor of the Hoxton Square Bookstall, dwelling on a remote island with the world’s two greatest bookaneers in the battle to claim their ultimate prize.