The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

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136 THE FOOT OF TIME
black, smoked-ivory, and white, too; but don't endeavour
to upset faiths which at least are real, to
take such from them, and have the presumption to
think that, having smashed something absolute, you
can replace it with something else. You are strong,
indeed, if you can effect that double deed and leave
the building bereft of its original foundation (at
the outset a stronger one than you enjoy) , replaced
with yours, as rigid as it was until your disturbance.
Remembering, too, that the foundation you
smash is little different to your own, of less variation
than your own squabbles, and that in no case
can you do it. You think you can, but you are
wrong, for behind is left something shaky in place
of concrete, a concrete which, if your faith be true,
will be accepted. In effect, you can give something
where there is nothing, but you cannot take away
and replace it with something else. But let no
stone be flung at missionaries individually. Their
hygienic teaching alone is yeoman service.
But their work needs variation according to the
field in which they are administering it, lest the
last state of the house upset become worse by far
than its first. Where there is no religion—but only
then—give Christianity. It is beyond all else the
most perfect code. A pagan earth turned humane
by the revolution of faultless teaching.
For immorality look west, not east nor south. In
the unspoiled portions of the Pacific you will find
Nature, not vice.
The meal at the chieftain's but that first night
turned out to be a regular banquet, but not so big
THE FOOT OF TIME 137
as the feast under preparation for a few nights
later. After the function terminated Bruce and
Brian repaired back to the new but made ready
hfoimr sethlfern. About 9 p.m. Brian, who had been
reclining on his bed-couch, got up and stretched
The two had partaken of a meal which left them
drowsy; the effects were indeed only just beginning
to wear off. Said Pinkerton:
"Well, Bruce, old top, between ourselves, I have
a date, as you probably guess. See you to-morrow
morning at breakfast, old man. Sleep well."
Without waiting for any rejoinder, he left the
!nit. "Slightly embarrassed," Bruce thought.
Thinks conversation futile." And then, as though
Brian's going had furnished the signal for which
the cousin of the girl he was meeting awaited,
Bruce, reclining cilinitre htuhte.re on his fern bed, heard a
rustle outside
He sat up, all his senses alert. That he was to be
the object of feminine overture was too evident.
It was in the very atmosphere of the island. The
talk over the late feast had illustrated it. Outside,
the warm night air held scented intercourse with
the tropical foliage. There was a strange, sensual
calm about the whole place. One could feel it in
the very air. Slight rustlings, whisperings, movements.
A cricket would be heard, then the low
chirping of a bird, the rustle of light wings. In
the distance the surf, its force broken by the coral
reef outside the lagoon, could be faintly heard. It
mingled itself with the sounds of distant dancing.