Then all would be well and when the ship sailed away, having brought us all sorts of exciting packages, we would drink a special wine and we would laugh and be merry. I soon realized that my parents were afraid the ship would bring someone they did not want to see.

When we arrived on the island we were received by Luke Carter, whose house my father had bought. Luke Carter had owned the coconut plantation which had brought a certain prosperity to the island. He told my father that he had been there for twenty years. But he was getting old and wanted to retire. Moreover the industry had faltered during the last years. Markets had dropped off; the people didn't want to work; they wanted to lie in the sun and pay homage to the old Grumbling Giant. He was going to stay, as he said, to show my father the ropes. When the ship left next time it would take him with it.

He was all alone now. He had had a partner who had succumbed to one of the fevers which were prevalent on the island and grew worse during the wet season.

"You're a doctor," he said. "You'll know how to deal with it, I dare say."

My father said that one of the reasons why he had wanted to come to this particular island was because these fevers were endemic here. He believed he could discover ways of treating them.

"You'll be up against old Wandalo," Luke Carter told him. "He runs the place. He decides who is and who is not going to die. He's the witch doctor johnny and great chief. He sits under his banyan tree and contemplates the earth."

During the days which followed Luke Carter took my father round the island.

My mother never let me go out without her. When we did go she held tightly to my hand and I was rather disconcerted to find that the sight of us filled the islanders with mirth, particularly the children, who would have to be slapped on the back to prevent their choking. Sometimes we found them peering in at the windows at us and, if we looked up, they would shoot away as if in fear of their lives.

In the evenings Luke Carter used to talk about the island and the islanders.

"They're intelligent," he told us. "Crafty though, and light-fingered. They're not respecters of property. You want to watch them. They love color and sparkle but they wouldn't know the difference between a diamond and a bit of paste. Treat them well and they'll respond. They'll never forget an insult and they'll never forget a good turn. They're faithful enough if you can get their trust. I've lived with them for twenty years without being clubbed to death or thrown down the crater as a sacrifice to the old Grumbling Giant, so I've done rather well."

"I dare say I'll manage equally well," said my father.

They'll accept you ... in time. Strangers put them on their guard. That's why I thought it best to stay awhile. By the time I leave they will have come to regard you as part of the island life. They're like children. They don't question much. The only thing you have to remember is to be respectful to the Giant."

"Do tell us about this Giant," said my mother. "I know it is the mountain, of course."

"Well, this island is one of a volcanic group, as you know. It must have come into being millions of years ago when the earth's crust was being formed and it was all internal eruptions. Thus the old Giant was thrown up. He's the god of the island. You can understand it. They think he has power over life and death and he has to be placated. They pay homage to him. Shells, flowers and feathers adorn the mountainside, and when he starts to grumble they get seriously worried. He's an old devil, that mountain. Once it really did erupt. It must have been three hundred years ago and it all but destroyed the island. Now he grumbles from time to time and sends out a few pieces of stone and lava ... to warn them."

"We should have chosen another island, I think," said my mother. "I don't like the sound of this Grumbling Giant."

"He's safe enough. Remember he hasn't been what you could call really active for three hundred years. The little grumblings are a safety valve really. He's done his erupting. In another hundred years he'll have settled down entirely."

He introduced us to Cougaba, who had served him well and was willing to do the same for us. He hoped he could persuade us to keep her, for she would find it hard to go from the big house and settle in one of the native huts now. She had been with him for almost the whole of the twenty years he had spent on the island. She had a daughter, Cougabel, who should be allowed to stay with her mother in the house.

"They'll make you good servants," said Luke Carter. "And they'll be a kind of go-between with the natives and yourselves."

My mother declared at once that she would be pleased to have them both, for she had been apprehensive about getting the right servants.

So the first weeks on Vulcan Island passed and by the time Luke Carter was ready to go we were settled in.

My father had already made an impression. He was a very tall man—six feet four in his stockinged feet—and the islanders were a small people. That gave him an immediate advantage. Then there was his personality. He was a man born to dominate and this he proceeded to do. Luke Carter had explained to some of the islanders that my father was a great doctor and he had come to help make the people well. He had special medicines and he believed he could bring great good to the island.

The islanders were disappointed. They had Wandalo. What did they want with another medicine man? What they really wanted was someone to continue marketing the products of the coconut and bring back to the island the prosperity which had once been theirs.

It did seem a pity not to exploit the natural resources. Vulcan Island was the biggest of the group and was all that one imagines a South Sea island should be—hot sun, heavy rains, waving palms and sandy beaches. My father had said that he wanted to call the place Palm Tree Island when he first saw it, but it had already been named Vulcan, which was equally apt really because of the presence of the Giant.

It was a beautiful island—some fifty miles by ten—lush, luxuriant, dominated by the great mountain. It was grand, that mountain, the more so because it was awe-inspiring and, strangely enough, when one stood close to it—and it was not possible to be far away from it on that island—it seemed to possess those rare qualities with which the natives endowed it. The valleys were fertile, but if one glanced up one could see the ravages on the top slopes where the Giant's anger had boiled over and scarred the earth. But in the valleys trees and shrubs grew close together. Casuarina, candlenut and kauri pine flourished in abundance beside breadfruit, sago plant, oranges, pineapple, sweet banana and of course the inevitable coconut palm.

The Giant had to be watched. He could grow angry, Cougaba told me, for she quickly attached herself to me and became a sort of nurse and maid. I grew fond of her and my mother was pleased by this and encouraged it. Cougaba was grateful because not only did she stay in the house but her daughter did also. She was clearly fond of her daughter, who must have been about my age, but it was difficult to tell with the natives. She was a considerably lighter shade than her mother and her smooth light brown skin was very attractive. She had dancing brown eyes and liked to adorn herself with shells and beads, many of them dyed red with dragon's blood. Cougabel was a very important little girl. A certain respect was shown to her. It was because of her birth. She herself told me that she was a child of the mask. What that meant I learned later.

I discovered a great deal from Cougabel. She took me with her to lay shells and cocks' feathers on the mountainside.

"You come too," she said. "Perhaps Giant angry with you. You come to island and Wandalo not pleased. He say medicine man here. Want man to sell rope and baskets and coconut oil... . Don't want medicine man."

I replied: "My father is a doctor. He is not here to work with coconuts."

"You take shells for Giant," she said, nodding sagely as though it would be wise for me to follow her advice.

So I did.

"The Giant can be terrible angry. Grumble ... grumble ... grumble. ... He throw out burning stones. 1 very angry,' he say."

"It's what is called a volcano," I told her. "There are others in the world. It's quite natural."

The English of Cougaba and Cougabel was better than that of most of the people. They had lived in the big house for a long time. All the same it left much to be desired. Cougaba was expressive in her gestures, though, and we could understand her very well.

"He warns," she told us. "He say, 1 angry.' Then we take shells and flowers. When I was little girl, like you, missy, they throwed man in the crater. He was one wicked one. He killed his father. So they throw him in ... but Giant not please. He did not want bad man sacrifice. He want good man. So they took holy man and throw him in. But old Giant still angry. You watch old Giant. He finish all island once."

I used to try to explain to her that it was a perfectly natural phenomenon. She would listen gravely, nodding. But I knew she did not understand a word of what I said and wouldn't have believed it if she had.

Slowly I absorbed the lore of the island from my parents, from Cougaba and Cougabel and from the magician Wandalo, who showed no objection when I went and sat beside him under the banyan tree.

He was very small and thin and wore only a loincloth. I was fascinated by the way in which his ribs stood out. To look at him was like looking at a skeleton. He had a little round hut at the edge of a clearing among the trees and there he would sit all day with his magic stick making lines in the sand.

The first time I saw him was just after Luke Carter had left and my mother's fears had abated a little and I was allowed to go out on my own as long as I did not stray too far from the house.

I stood at the edge of the clearing watching Wandalo, for he fascinated me. He saw me and just as I was about to run away beckoned. I went to him slowly, fascinated yet apprehensive.

"Sit down, small one," he said.

I sat.

"You pry and peep," he said.

"It's just that I was fascinated by you."

He did not understand but he nodded.

"You come from far over sea."

"Oh yes." I told him about Crabtree Cottage and how we came on a ship, while he listened attentively, understanding some of it, I believed.

"No medicine man wanted... . Man for plantation... . Understand, small one?"

I told him that I did and explained as I had to Cougaba that my father was not a businessman but a doctor.

"No medicine man wanted," he repeated firmly. "Plantation man. People poor. Make people rich. No medicine man."

"People have to do what they do best," I pointed out.

Wandalo drew circles in the sand.

"No medicine man." He brought the stick down on the circle he had drawn and disturbed the sand. "No good come... . Medicine man go. ... Plantation man come."

It was very disturbing and difficult to understand, but there was something ominous about Wandalo's actions and words.

Cougabel and I played together. It was good to have a companion. She came to the lessons which my mother gave to me and Cougaba was absolutely overcome with joy to see her little daughter sitting beside me holding a pencil and making signs on a slate. She was a very bright little girl and different from the others on the island with her light chocolate-colored skin. Most of the islanders were a very dark brown, many black. Very soon we were going everywhere together; she was sure-footed and knew which fruits could be safely eaten; she was a happy child and I was glad of her company. She showed me how to cut our fingers with shells and mingle our blood. "We good sisters now," she said.

I sensed that my parents were not as happy as they had hoped to be. In the first place there were the visits of the ships and a few days before they were due to arrive I would be aware of their uneasiness. When the ship left we would be gloriously happy. I used to sit with them and listen to their talking. I would be on a stool leaning against my mother's knee and she would run her fingers through my hair as she loved to do.

I knew that my father had come here to study the malaria, ague, marsh and jungle fevers which abounded. He wanted to see if he could wipe those diseases out of the island. He planned in time to build a hospital.