



Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org





THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT.

BY

GRANT ALLEN,

AUTHOR OF "BABYLON," "IN ALL SHADES," ETC., ETC.


_WITH SEVENTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. FINNEMORE._

LONDON:

HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY, W.

1888.

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BUNGAY.


[Illustration: 'BOWING DOWN TOWARDS THE MOUTH OF THE CRATER, THEY SEEMED
TO SALUTE THE GODDESS OF THE VOLCANO.']


DEDICATION.

TO

JERRARD GRANT ALLEN,

_THE ONLY BEGETTER OF THESE ENSUING ADVENTURES._

My Dear Grantie,

From the following pages, written with a single eye to your own personal
tastes and predilections, you may, I trust, learn three Great Moral
Lessons.

First, never to approach too near the edge of an active volcano.

Second, never to continue your intimacy with a man who deliberately and
wickedly declines to pull you out of a burning crater.

And third, never to intrust the care of youth to a cannibal heathen
South Sea Islander.

With the trifling exception of these three now enumerated, I am not
aware that you can extract any Great Moral Lesson whatsoever from the
hairbreadth escapes of Kea and her associates.

Having thus almost entirely satisfied your expressed wishes in this
matter--for "a story without a moral"--I subscribe myself, with pride,

Your obedient servant and very loving father,

G.A.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.



"BOWING DOWN TOWARDS THE MOUTH OF THE CRATER, THEY SEEMED TO SALUTE THE
GODDESS OF THE VOLCANO" _Frontispiece._

"IT'S MORE THAN DANGEROUS. IT'S ALMOST CERTAINLY FATAL"

"ALL AT ONCE A GREAT BODY OF GAS WAS EJECTED INTO THE AIR, IN A BLAZE OF
LIGHT"

"'YOUNG MAN,' HE CRIED, '...I WARN YOU NOT TO TRIFLE WITH THE BURNING
MOUNTAIN'"

"I ROLLED DOWN RAPIDLY TO THE VERY BOTTOM"

"I LAY THERE HORROR-STRICKEN, AND GAZED IDLY DOWN"

"I CLUTCHED THE CRUMBLING PEAK WITH MY HOOKED FINGERS"

"SHE CARRIED ME SLOWLY UP THE ZIG-ZAG PATH"

"'IF YOU KNEW ALL,' SHE ANSWERED, 'HOW YOU WOULD PITY ME!'"

"'EVERYTHING IS CORRECT,' HE WHISPERED"

"SHE LOOKED UP IN AN AGONY OF SUSPENSE"

"KEA TRIED ON ALL HER THINGS"

"A STRANGE PROCESSION BEGAN SLOWLY TO DESCEND"

"THE BAMBOO BENT OMINOUSLY DOWN"

"WE RODE AT FULL SPEED IN BREATHLESS HASTE"




THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT.




CHAPTER I


My brother Frank is a most practical boy. I may be prejudiced, but it
seems to me somehow there's nothing like close personal contact with
active volcanoes to teach a young fellow prudence, coolness, and
adaptability to circumstances. "Tom," said he to me, as we stood and
watched the queer party on deck, devouring taro-paste as a Neapolitan
swallows down long strings of macaroni: "don't you think, if we've got
to live so long in a native hut, and feed on this port of thing, we may
as well use ourselves to their manners and customs, whatever they may
be, at the pearliest convenient opportunity?"

"Haven't you heard, my dear boy," said I, "what the naval officer wrote
when he was asked to report to the Admiralty on that very subject of the
manners and customs of the South Sea Islanders? 'Manners they have
none,' he replied with Spartan brevity, 'and their customs are
beastly.'"

"Not a bit of it," Frank answered quickly in his jolly way. "For my part
I