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If the most horrible experience was Mr. Stewart's, it was Captain Hart himself who ran the nearest danger. He had bought a piece of land from Timau, chief of a neighbouring bay, and put some Chinese there to work.
But Timau a great fellow, his eyes blood-red with the abuse of kava, six foot three in stature cast him on one side; and the captain, instantly expecting to be either shot or brained, discharged his pistol in the dark.
Captain Hart, who almost rivals Bishop Dordillon in popularity, shared with him the policy of extreme indulgence to the natives, regarding them as children, making light of their defects, and constantly in favour of mild measures. The death of Timau has thus somewhat weighed upon his mind; the more so, as the chieftain's musket was found in the house unloaded.
When they carried Timau out at the door into the moonlight, he was already dead, and, upon this unlooked-for termination of their sally, the whites appeared to have lost all conduct, and retreated to the boats, fired upon by the natives as they went.
As he drew near the door he heard the snap of a gun cocking from within, and in sheer self-defence there being no other escape sprang into the house and grappled Timau. 'Timau, come with me! he cried.
Visiting the station with one of the Godeffroys, he found his Chinamen trooping to the beach in terror: Timau had driven them out, seized their effects, and was in war attire with his young men. The assailants were fully exposed, the interior of the hut quite dark; the position far from sound. The gendarmes knelt with their pieces ready, and Captain Hart advanced alone.
I have threaded beautiful and rugged Carnia nearly as far west as Monte Croce, have ascended the valley of the But to Mount Timau, where the Austrians, as elsewhere, are in close touch, and, passing on to wonderful Cadore, have visited the haunts of the Alpini above the sources of the Tagliamento and Piave.
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