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'Nothing, said he quietly; 'what's the use? It's too ghastly for anything. We must let the old life go on. I can only call you a hound and a liar, and I can't go on calling you names for ever. Besides which, I don't feel that I'm much better. We can't get out of this place. What is there to do? Kurrell looked round the rat-pit of Kashima and made no reply.
She had finished her crying in the night, and now she did not want to be left alone. Perhaps the Vansuythen Woman would talk to her; and, since talking opens the heart, perhaps there might be some comfort to be found in her company. She was the only other woman in the Station. In Kashima there are no regular calling-hours. Every one can drop in upon every one else at pleasure. Mrs.
All Kashima acquits Mrs. Vansuythen of any intention to do harm; but all Kashima knows that she, and she alone, brought about their pain. Boulte, the Engineer, Mrs. Boulte, and Captain Kurrell know this. They are the English population of Kashima, if we except Major Vansuythen, who is of no importance whatever, and Mrs. Vansuythen, who is the most important of all.
But the Government sent Major Vansuythen to Kashima, and with him came his wife. The etiquette of Kashima is much the same as that of a desert island. When a stranger is cast away there, all hands go down to the shore to make him welcome. Kashima assembled at the masonry platform close to the Narkarra Road, and spread tea for the Vansuythens.
Then the Rains came, when no one could go into camp, and the Narkarra Road was washed away by the Kasun River, and in the cup-like pastures of Kashima the cattle waded knee-deep. The clouds dropped down from the Dosehri hills and covered everything. At the end of the Rains Boulte's manner towards his wife changed and became demonstratively affectionate.
He was to be the outsider in that happy family whose cage was the Dosehri hills. 'You're singing villainously out of tune, Kurrell, said the Major truthfully. 'Pass me that banjo. And he sang in excruciating-wise till the stars came out and all Kashima went to dinner. That was the beginning of the New Life of Kashima the life that Mrs. Boulte made when her tongue was loosened in the twilight.
In the evenings it was the wont of all Kashima to meet at the platform on the Narkarra Road, to drink tea and discuss the trivialities of the day.
In order to keep the earthquake-fish quiet, the great giant Kashima is appointed to watch him. His business is to stand near by, and when the monster becomes violent Kashima must jump up and straddle him, and hold his gills, put his foot on his fin; and when necessary lift up the great rock of Kanamé and hold him down with its weight. Then he becomes perfectly quiet, and the earthquake ceases.
It was an unpleasant sound the mirthless mirth of these men on the long white line of the Narkarra Road. There were no strangers in Kashima, or they might have thought that captivity within the Dosehri hills had driven half the European population mad. The laughter ended abruptly, and Kurrell was the first to speak. 'Well, what are you going to do? Boulte looked up the road, and at the hills.
They had all Kashima and each other for their very, very own; and Kashima was the Garden of Eden in those days. When Boulte returned from his wanderings he would slap Kurrell between the shoulders and call him 'old fellow, and the three would dine together. Kashima was happy then when the judgment of God seemed almost as distant as Narkarra or the railway that ran down to the sea.
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