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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ebbing Of The Tide, by Louis Becke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Ebbing Of The Tide
+       South Sea Stories - 1896
+
+Author: Louis Becke
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2008 [EBook #24896]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EBBING OF THE TIDE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EBBING OF THE TIDE
+
+SOUTH SEA STORIES
+
+1896
+
+By Louis Becke
+
+
+
+
+"LULIBAN OF THE POOL"
+
+A boy and a girl sat by the rocky margin of a deep mountain pool in
+Ponape in the North Pacific. The girl was weaving a basket from the
+leaves of a cocoa-nut. As she wove she sang the "Song of Luliban," and
+the boy listened intently.
+
+"'Tis a fine song that thou singest, Niya," said the boy, who came from
+Metalanien and was a stranger; "and who was Luliban, and Red-Hair the
+White Man?"
+
+"_O Guk!_" said Niya, wonderingly, "hast never heard in Metalanien of
+Luliban, she who dived with one husband and came up with another--in
+this very pool?"
+
+"What new lie is this thou tellest to the boy because he is a stranger?"
+said a White Man, who lay resting in the thick grass waiting for the
+basket to be finished, for the three were going further up the mountain
+stream to catch crayfish.
+
+"Lie?" said the child; "nay, 'tis no lie. Is not this the Pool of
+Luliban, and do not we sing the 'Song of Luliban,' and was not Red-Hair
+the White Man--he that lived in Jakoits and built the big sailing boat
+for Nanakin, the father of Nanakin, my father, the chief of Jakoits?"
+
+"True, Niya, true," said the White Man, "I did but jest; but tell thou
+the tale to Sru, so that he may carry it home with him to Metalanien."
+
+*****
+
+Then Niya, daughter of Nanakin, told Sru, the boy from Metalanien,
+the tale of Luliban of the Pool, and her husband the White Man called
+"Red-Hair," and her lover, the tattooed beachcomber, called "Harry from
+Yap."
+
+*****
+
+"It was in the days before the fighting-ship went into Kiti Harbour and
+burnt the seven whaleships as they lay at anchor{*} that Red-Hair the
+White Man lived at Jakoits. He was a very strong man, and because that
+he was cunning and clever at fishing and killing the wild boar and
+carpentry, his house was full of riches, for Nanakin's heart was towards
+him always."
+
+     * The Shenandoah, in 1866.
+
+"Was it he who killed the three white men at Roan Kiti?" asked the White
+Man.
+
+"Aye," answered Niya, "he it was. They came in a little ship, and
+because of bitter words over the price of some tortoise-shell he and the
+men of Nanakin slew them. And Red-Hair burnt the ship and sank her. And
+for this was Nanakin's heart bigger than ever to Red-Hair, for out of
+the ship, before he burnt her, he took many riches--knives, guns
+and powder, and beads and pieces of silk; and half of all he gave to
+Nanakin."
+
+"_Huh!_" said Sru, the boy. "He was a fine man!"
+
+"Now, Harry from Yap and Red-Hair hated one another because of Luliban,
+whom Nanakin had given to Red-Hair for wife. This man, Harry, lived at
+Ngatik, the island off the coast, where the turtles breed, and whenever
+he came to Jakoits he would go to Red-Hair's house and drink grog with,
+him so that they would both lie on the mats drunk together. Sometimes
+the name of Luliban would come between them, and then they would fight
+and try to kill each other, but Nanakin's men would always watch and
+part them in time. And all this was because that Luliban had loved
+Harry from Yap before she became wife to Red-Hair. The men favoured the
+husband of Luliban because of Nanakin's friendship to him, and the women
+liked best Harry from Yap because of his gay songs and his dances, which
+he had learnt from the people of Yap and Ruk and Hogelu, in the far
+west; but most of all for his handsome figure and his tattooed skin.
+
+"One day it came about that his grog was all gone, and his spirit was
+vexed, and Red-Hair beat Luliban, and she planned his death from that
+day. But Nanakin dissuaded her and said, 'It cannot be done; he is too
+great a man for me to kill. Be wise and forget his blows.'
+
+"Then Luliban sent a messenger to Ngatik to Harry. He came and brought
+with him many square bottles of grog, and went in to Red-Hair's house,
+and they drank and quarrelled as they ever did; but because of what lay
+in his mind Harry got not drunk, for his eyes were always fixed on the
+face of Luliban.
+
+"At last, when Red-Hair was fallen down on the mats, Luliban whispered
+to Harry, and he rose and lay down on a couch that was placed against
+the cane sides of the house. When all were asleep, Luliban stole outside
+and placed her face against the side of the house and called to Harry,
+who feigned to sleep. And then he and she talked for a long time. Then
+the white man got up and went to Nanakin, the chief, and talked long
+with him also.
+
+"Said Nanakin the chief, 'O White Man, thou art full of cunning, and my
+heart is with thee. Yet what will it profit me if Red-Hair dies?'
+
+"'All that is now his shall be thine,' said Harry.
+
+"'And what shall I give thee?' said Nanakin.
+
+"'Only Luliban,'" said the White Man with the tattooed body.
+
+*****
+
+"On the morrow, as the day touched the night, the people of Jakoits
+danced in front of Nanakin's house, and Harry, with flowers in his hair
+and his body oiled and stained with turmeric, danced also. Now among
+those who watched him was Luliban, and presently her husband sought her
+and drove her away, saying; 'Get thee to my house, little beast. What
+dost thou here watching this fool dance!'
+
+"Harry but laughed and danced the more, and then Red-Hair gave him foul
+words. When the dance was ended, Harry went up to Red-Hair and said,
+'Get thee home also, thou cutter of sleeping men's throats. I am a
+better man than thee. There is nothing that thou hast done that I cannot
+do.'
+
+"Then Nanakin, whose mouth was ready with words put therein by Luliban,
+said, 'Nay, Harry, thou dost but boast. Thou canst not walk under the
+water in the Deep Pool with a heavy stone on thy shoulder--as Red-Hair
+has done.'
+
+"'Bah!' said Harry. 'What he can do, that I can do.'
+
+"Now, for a man to go in at one end of this pool here"--and Niya nodded
+her head to the waters at her feet--"and walk along the bottom and come
+out at the farther end is no great task, and as for carrying a heavy
+stone, that doth but make the task easier; but in those days there were
+devils who lived in a cave that is beneath where we now sit, and none of
+our people ever bathed here, for fear they would be seized and dragged
+down. But yet had Red-Hair one day put a stone upon his shoulder, and
+carried it under the water from one end of the pool to another--this to
+show the people that he feared no devils. But of the cave that can be
+gained by diving under the wall of rock he knew nothing--only to a few
+was it known.
+
+"'Show this boaster his folly,' said Nanakin to Red-Hair, who was
+chewing his beard with wrath. And so it was agreed upon the morrow that
+the two white men should walk each with a stone upon his shoulder, in
+at one end of the deep pool and come out of the other, and Harry should
+prove his boast, that in all things he was equal to Red-Hair."
+
+*****
+
+"When Red-Hair went back to his house Luliban was gone, and some said
+she had fled to the mountains, and he reproached Nanakin, saying: 'Thy
+daughter hath fled to Ngatik to the house of Harry. I will have her life
+and his for this.' But Nanakin smoothed his face and said: 'Nay, not so;
+but first put this boaster to shame before the people, and he shall die,
+and Luliban be found.'
+
+"Now, Luliban was hid in another village, and when the time drew near
+for the trial at the pool she went there before the people. In her hand
+she carried a sharp _toki_ (tomahawk) and a long piece of strong cinnet
+with a looped end. She dived in and clambered out again underneath and
+waited. The cave is not dark, for there are many fissures in the top
+through which light comes when the sun is high.
+
+"The people gathered round, and laughed and talked as the two white men
+stripped naked, save for narrow girdles of leaves round their loins. The
+skin of Red-Hair was as white as sand that lies always in the sun that
+of Harry was brown, and covered from his neck to his feet with strange
+tattooing, more beautiful than that of the men of Ponape.
+
+"They looked at each other with blood in their eyes, and the long,
+yellow teeth of Red-Hair ground together, but no words passed between
+them till Red-Hair, poising a great stone on his shoulder, called out
+to Harry: 'Follow me, O boastful stealer of my wife, and drown thy blue
+carcass.'
+
+"Then he walked in, and Harry, also with a heavy stone, followed him.
+Ere one could count a score those that watched could not see Harry,
+because of the depth of the water and the darkness of his skin. But
+the white skin of Red-Hair gleamed like the belly of a shark when it
+turneth--then it disappeared.
+
+"When they were half-way through a stone fell through a fissure of the
+cave, and Luliban, who watched for the signal, dived outwards with the
+line of cinnet, and came behind Red-Hair and put the noose over his left
+foot, and Harry, who followed close, cast the stone he carried away and
+raised his hand and stabbed him in the belly as he turned, and then,
+with Luliban and he dragging tight the line of cinnet, they shot up from
+beneath the water into the cave and pulled Red-Hair after them."
+
+*****
+
+"The people had gathered at the farther end of the pool to see the two
+men come up; and when they came not they wondered, and some one said:
+'The devils have seized them!'
+
+"Then Nanakin, who alone remained on the top of the rocks, called out,
+'Alas for the white men! I can see bubbles, and the water is bloody,'
+and he beat his head on the rocks and made great grief and called out
+to the devils in the cave, 'Spare me my white men, O devils of the cave,
+spare me my good white men. But if one must die let it be him that hath
+offended.'
+
+"Ah! he was a cunning man, was Nanakin, the father of Nanakin my father.
+
+"The men and the women and children ran up again from the end of the
+pool; for, although they were greatly afraid, they durst not leave their
+chief by himself to beat out his head upon the stones. So they clustered
+round him and wailed also with him. And Nanakin raised his voice again
+and again and called out to the devils of the pool to spare him one
+white man; and the people called out with him. Yet none of them dared
+look upon the water of the pool; only Nanakin turned his eyes that way.
+
+"At last the chief said, 'Ho, what is that?' and he pointed to the
+water, and they saw bubbles again rise up and break the surface of the
+water. 'Now shall I know if my white men are dead.'
+
+"And, as they looked, behold there shot up from the water a yellow
+gourd, and the men shouted, some in wonder and more in fear. And Nanakin
+leaned over the edge of the rock and stretched out his hand and drew the
+gourd to him. Then he took it in his hand, and lo! there was tied to the
+neck a piece of plaited cinnet, which ran deep down into the water under
+the rock.
+
+"Again Nanakin called out to his men who stood crouched up behind him.
+'What shall I do with this? shall I pull it up?'
+
+"And then--so the people said--there came a voice from the bowels of the
+earth, which said, 'Pull!'
+
+"So they drew in the line, and as they drew it became heavy, and then
+something came up with a splash, and those that held the line looked
+over, and lo! there was the head of Red-Hair, wet and bloody, tied to
+the end of it by the ear.
+
+"The head was laid upon the rock, and then the people would have turned
+and fled, but that Nanakin and two of his priests said there was now no
+fear as the cave devils were angry alone with Red-Hair, who had twice
+braved them.
+
+"Then the two priests and Nanakin leant over the wall of rocks and
+called out again for the life of Harry to be spared, and as they called,
+he shot out from underneath and held out his hands; and they pulled him
+in.
+
+"'Let us away from here quickly,' was all he said. 'I thank thee, O
+chief, for thy prayers; else had the devils of the pool taken off my
+head as they have taken off that of Red-Hair, and devoured my body as
+they have devoured his.'
+
+"Then the people picked him up, for he was weak, and every one that was
+there left the pool in fear and trembling, except Nanakin and the two
+priests, who laughed inwardly.
+
+"When all was quiet, Luliban, too, came up from under the water and
+dried her body, and oiled and scented her hair from a flask that she
+had hidden in the bushes, and went back to Red-Hair's house, and, with
+downcast face but a merry heart, asked her women to plead with her
+husband not to beat her for running away. Then they told her of the
+doings at the pool.
+
+"When ten days were gone by for mourning, Luliban became wife to 'Harry
+from Yap,' and he took her with him to Ngatik, and the favour of Nanakin
+that was once Red-Hair's became his, and he prospered. And for long,
+long years no one knew how it was that Red-Hair lost his head till
+Luliban told it."
+
+*****
+
+"_Huh!_" said Sru, the boy, admiringly. "He was a Fine Man, that
+Red-Hair; but the white man with the tattooed skin was a Better."
+
+
+
+
+NINIA
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Away out upon the wide Northern Pacific there is a group of three little
+islands. They are so very, very small that you need not seek to discover
+them on the map of the Pacific Ocean; but if any of you have a chart of
+the North or West Pacific, then you would easily be able to find them.
+Run your eye up north, away past the Equator, in the direction of China,
+and you will see, to the north of New Guinea, a large cluster of islands
+named the "Caroline Islands," some of which are named, but most are
+not--only tiny dots no bigger than a pin's head serve to mark their
+position. Perhaps, however--if you get a German chart--you may see one
+of the largest of the small dots marked "Pingelap," and Pingelap is the
+name of the largest of the three little islands of my story; the others
+are called Tugulu and Takai.
+
+Now, although Pingelap and Tugulu and Takai are so close together that
+at low tide one may walk across the coral reef that encircles the whole
+group from one island to another, yet are they lonely spots, for there
+is no other island nearer than Mokil, which is ninety miles away.
+
+But yet, although the three islands are so small, a great number of
+natives live upon them--between four and five hundred. There is only one
+village, which is on Pingelap, and here all the people lived. The island
+itself is not more than two miles in length, and in no place is it
+more than a quarter of a mile in width; and Tugulu and Takai are still
+smaller. And from one end to the other the islands are covered with a
+dense verdure of cocoanut palms, with scarcely any other tree amongst
+them, so that when seen from the ship two or three miles away, they
+look exactly like a belt of emerald surrounding a lake of silver, for
+in their centre is a beautiful lagoon surrounded on three sides by the
+land, and on the west protected from the sweeping ocean rollers by a
+double line of coral reef stretching from little Takai to the south end
+of Pingelap.
+
+There are hundreds of beautiful islands in the Pacific, but not any
+one of them can excel in beauty lonely little Pingelap. There are two
+reefs--an outer and an inner. Against the outer or ocean reef huge
+seas for ever dash unceasingly on the windward side of the island, and
+sometimes, in bad weather, will sweep right over the coral and pour
+through the shallow channel between Tugulu and Pingelap; and then the
+calm, placid waters of the lagoon will be fretted and disturbed until
+fine weather comes again. But bad weather is a rare event in those seas,
+and usually the lagoon of Pingelap is as smooth as a sheet of glass.
+And all day long you may see children paddling about in canoes, crossing
+from one shining beach to another, and singing as they paddle, for they
+are a merry-hearted race, the people of these three islands, and love to
+sing and dance, and sit out in front of their houses on moonlight nights
+and listen to tales told by the old men of the days when their islands
+were reddened with blood. For until fifteen years before, the people
+of Pingelap and Tugulu were at bitter enmity, and fought with and
+slaughtered each other to their heart's delight. And perhaps there would
+have soon been none left to tell the tale, but that one day an American
+whaleship, called the _Cohasset_ touched there to buy turtle from
+Sralik, the chief of Pingelap, and Sralik besought the captain to give
+him muskets and powder and ball to fight the Tugulans with.
+
+So the captain gave him five muskets and plenty of powder and bullets,
+and then said--
+
+"See, Sralik; I will give you a white man too, to show you how to shoot
+your enemies."
+
+And then he laughed, and calling out to a man named Harry, he told him
+to clear out of the ship and go and live ashore and be a king, as he was
+not worth his salt as a boatsteerer.
+
+And so this Harry Devine, who was a drunken, good-for-nothing,
+quarrelsome young American, came ashore with Sralik, and next day he
+loaded the five muskets and, with Sralik, led the Pingelap people over
+to Tugulu. There was a great fight, and as fast as Sralik loaded a
+musket, Harry fired it and killed a man. At last, when nearly thirty had
+been shot, the Tugulu people called for quarter.
+
+"Get thee together on Takai," called out Sralik, "and then will we talk
+of peace."
+
+Now Takai is such a tiny little spot, that Sralik knew he would have
+them at his mercy, for not one of them had a musket.
+
+As soon as the last of the Tugulu people had crossed the shallow channel
+that divides Tugulu from Takai, the cunning Sralik with his warriors
+lined the beach and then called to the Tugulans--
+
+"This land is too small for so many."
+
+And then Harry, once the boatsteerer and now the beachcomber, fired his
+muskets into the thick, surging mass of humanity on the little 'islet,
+and every shot told. Many of them, throwing aside their spears and
+clubs, sprang into the water and tried to swim over to Pingelap across
+the lagoon. But Sralik's men pursued them in canoes and clubbed and
+speared them as they swam; and some that escaped death by club or spear,
+were rent in pieces by the sharks which, as soon as they smelt the blood
+of the dead and dying men that sank in the quiet waters of the lagoon,
+swarmed in through a passage in the western reef. By and by the last of
+those who took to the water were killed, and only some eighty or ninety
+men and many more women and children were left on Takai, and the five
+muskets became so hot and foul that Harry could murder no longer, and
+his arm was tired out with slaughter.
+
+All that night Sralik's warriors watched to see that none escaped, and
+at dawn the hideous massacre began again, and club, spear, and musket
+did their fell work till only the women and children were left. These
+were spared. Among them was Ninia, the wife of Sikra, the chief of
+Tugulu. And because she was young and fairer than any of the others, the
+white man asked her of Sralik for his wife. Sralik laughed.
+
+"Take her, O clever white marn--her and as many more as thou carest for
+slaves. Only thou and I shall rule here now in this my island."
+
+So Harry took her and married her according to native custom, and Ninia
+was his one wife for nearly fifteen years, when one day he was quietly
+murdered as he lay asleep in his house with his wife and two children;
+and although Sralik wept loudly and cut his great chest with a shark's
+teeth dagger, and offered sacrifices of turtle flesh to the white
+man's _jelin_, Ninia his wife and many other people knew that it was by
+Sralik's orders that Harry had been killed, for they had quarrelled
+over the possession of a whaleboat which Harry had bought from a passing
+ship, and which he refused to either sell or give to Sralik.
+
+However, Sralik was not unkind to Ninia, and gave her much of her
+dead husband's property, and told her that he would give her for an
+inheritance for her two daughters the little islet--Takai.
+
+And there in the year 1870 Ninia the widow, and Ninia her eldest
+daughter (for on Pingelap names of the first-born are hereditary) and
+Tarita, the youngest, went to live. With them went another girl, a
+granddaughter of the savage old Sralik. Her name was Ruvani. She was
+about eleven years of age, and as pretty as a gazelle, and because of
+her great friendship for Ninia--who was two years older than she--she
+had wept when she saw the mother and daughters set out for Takai.
+
+Fierce-hearted Sralik coming to the doorway of his thatched hut heard
+the sound of weeping, and looking out he saw Ruvani sitting under the
+shade of some banana trees with her face hidden in her pretty brown
+hands.
+
+When he learned the cause of her grief his heart softened, and drawing
+his little grand-daughter to him, patted her head, and said--
+
+"Nay, weep not, little bird. Thou too shalt go to Takai; and see,
+because of thee my heart shall open wide to Ninia and her daughters, and
+I will give her four slaves--two men and two women--who shall toil for
+you all. And when thou art tired of living at Takai, then thou and thy
+two playmates shall come over here to me and fill my house with the
+light of thy eyes."
+
+So that is how Ninia, the widow of the wandering white man, and her
+two daughters and their friend came to live at the little islet called
+Takai.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The months went by and Ruvani, the chief's granddaughter, still lived
+with her friends, for she was too happy to leave them. Sometimes,
+though, on bright moonlight nights, the three girls would paddle across
+to the big village and gather with the rest of the village girls in
+front of the chiefs house, and dance and sing and play the game called
+_n'jiajia_; and then, perhaps, instead of going home across the lagoon
+in the canoe, they would walk around on the inner beaches of Pingelap
+and Tugulu. And long ere they came to the house they could see the faint
+glimmer of the fire within, beside which Ninia the widow slept awaiting
+their return.
+
+Stealing softly in, the girls would lie down together on a soft white
+mat embroidered with parrots' feathers that formed their bed, and
+pulling another and larger one over them for a coverlet, they would fall
+asleep, undisturbed by the loud, hoarse notes of a flock of _katafa_
+(frigate birds) that every night settled on the boughs of a great _koa_
+tree whose branches overhung the house.
+
+Sometimes when the trade-winds had dropped, and the great ocean rollers
+would beat heavily upon the far-off shelves of the outer reef, the
+little island would seem to shake and quiver to its very foundations,
+and now and then as a huge wave would curl slowly over and break with
+a noise like a thunder-peal, the frigate-birds would awake from their
+sleep and utter a solemn answering squawk, and the three girls nestling
+closer together would whisper--
+
+"'Tis Nanawit, the Cave-god, making another cave."
+
+Ere the red sun shot out from the ocean the eight dwellers on Takai
+would rise from their mats; and whilst Ninia the widow would kindle
+a fire of broken cocoanut shells, the two men slaves would go out and
+bring back young cocoanuts and taro from the plantation on Tugulu, and
+their wives would take off their gaily-coloured grass-girdles and tie
+coarse nairiris of cocoanut fibre around them instead, and with the
+three girls go out to the deep pools on the reef and catch fish.
+Sometimes they would surprise a turtle in one of the pools, and, diving
+in after the frightened creature, would capture and bring it home in
+triumph to Ninia the widow.
+
+Such was the daily life of those who dwelt on Takai.
+
+*****
+
+One day, ere the dews of the night had vanished from the lofty plumes
+of the cocoanut palms, there came to them a loud cry, borne across the
+waters of the silent lagoon, over from the village--
+
+"A ship! A ship!"
+
+Now not many ships came to Pingelap--perhaps now and then some wandering
+sperm-whaler, cruising lazily along toward the distant Pelew Islands,
+would heave-to and send a boat ashore to trade for turtle and young
+drinking cocoanuts. But it was long since any whaleship had called, and
+Ninia the widow, as she looked out seawards for the ship, said to the
+girls--
+
+"'Tis not yet the season for the whaleships; four moons more and we may
+see one. I know not what other ships would come here."
+
+By and by they saw the ship. She sailed slowly round the south point of
+Pingelap and backed her foreyard, and presently a boat was lowered and
+pulled ashore.
+
+Little Tarita, clapping her hands with joy, darted into the house,
+followed by Ruvani and Ninia, and casting off their wet girdles of
+banana fibre--for they had just come in from fishing--they dressed
+themselves in their pretty _nairiris_ of coloured grasses, and put on
+head-dresses of green and gold parrots' feathers, with necklaces of
+sweet-smelling berries around their necks, and were soon paddling across
+the lagoon to see the white strangers from the ship, who had already
+landed and gone up the beach and into the village.
+
+It is nearly a mile from Takai to the village, and before the girls
+reached there they heard a great clamour of angry voices, and presently
+two white men dressed in white and carrying books in their hands came
+hurriedly down the beach, followed by a crowd of Sralik's warriors, who
+urged them along and forced them into the boat.
+
+Then seizing the boat they shot her out into the water, and, shaking
+their spears and clubs, called out--
+
+"Go, white men, go!"
+
+But although the native sailors who pulled the boat were trembling
+with fear, the two white men did not seem frightened, and one of them,
+standing up in the stern of the boat, held up his hand and called out to
+the angry and excited people--
+
+"Let me speak, I pray you!"
+
+The natives understood him, for he spoke to them in the language spoken
+by the natives of Strong's Island, which is only a few hundred miles
+from Pingelap.
+
+*****
+
+The people parted to the right and left as Sralik, the chief, with
+a loaded musket grasped in his brawny right hand, strode down to the
+water's edge. Suppressed wrath shone in his eyes as he grounded his
+musket on the sand and looked at the white man.
+
+"Speak," he said, "and then be gone."
+
+The white man spoke.
+
+"Nay, spare us thy anger, O chief. I come, not here to fill thy heart
+with anger, but with peace; and, to tell thee of the great God, and of
+His Son Christ who hath sent me to thee."
+
+Sralik laughed scornfully.
+
+"Thou liest. Long ago, did I know that some day a white-painted ship
+would come to Pingelap, and that white, men would come and speak to us
+of this new God and His Son who is called Christ, and would say that
+this Christ had sent them, and: then would the hearts of my people be
+stolen from Nanawit the Cave-god, and Tuarangi the god of the Skies,
+and I, Sralik the king, would become but as a slave, for this new God of
+theirs would steal the hearts of my people from me as well."
+
+The white man said sorrowfully--
+
+"Nay, that is not so. Who hath told thee this?"
+
+"A better white man than thee--he who slew my enemies and was named Hare
+(Harry). Long ago did he warn me of thy coming and bid me beware of thee
+with thy lies about thy new God and His Son Christ."
+
+Again the missionary said--
+
+"Let me speak."
+
+But Sralik answered him fiercely--
+
+"Away, I tell thee, to thy white-painted ship, and trouble me no more,"
+and he slapped the stock of his musket, and his white teeth gleamed
+savagely through his bearded face.
+
+So the two missionaries went back, and the _Morning Star_ filled away
+again and sailed slowly away to the westward.
+
+*****
+
+That night as the three girls lay on the mats beside the dying embers
+of the fire, they talked of the strange white men whom Sralik had driven
+away.
+
+Ninia the widow listened to them from her corner of the house, and then
+she said musingly--
+
+"I, too, have heard of this God Christ; for when Hare, thy father, lay
+in my arms with the blood pouring from his wound and death looked out
+from his eyes, he called upon His name."
+
+Young Ninia and her sister drew closer and listened. Never until now had
+they heard their mother speak of their white father's death. They only
+knew that some unknown enemy had thrust a knife into his side as he lay
+asleep, and Ninia the widow had, with terror in her eyes, forbidden them
+to talk of it even amongst themselves. Only she herself knew that Sralik
+had caused his death. But to-night she talked.
+
+"Tell us more, my mother," said girl Ninia, going over to her, and
+putting her cheek against her mother's troubled face and caressing her
+in the darkness.
+
+"Aye, I can tell thee now, my children, for Sralik's anger is dead
+now.... It was at the dawn, just when the first note of the blue pigeon
+is heard, that I heard a step in the house--'twas the death-men of
+Sralik--and then a loud cry, and Hare, thy father, awoke to die. The
+knife had bitten deep and he took my hands in his and groaned.
+
+"'Farewell,' he said, 'O mother of my children, I die!' Then he cried,
+'And Thou, O Christ, look down on and forgive me; Christ the Son of
+God.'
+
+"With my hand pressed to his side, I said: 'Who is it that thou callest
+upon, my husband? Is it the white man's God?'
+
+"'Aye,' he said, 'this Christ is He whom I have so long denied. He is
+the Son of the God whose anger I fear to meet now that my soul goes out
+into darkness.'
+
+"'Fear not,' I said, weeping, 'I, Ninia, will make offerings to this
+white God and His Son Christ, so that their anger may be softened
+against thy spirit when it wanders in ghost-land.'
+
+"So he groaned and was dead. And for six or more moons did I put
+offerings to the white God upon thy father's grave as I had promised.
+No offerings made I to our own gods, for he despised them even as he
+despised his own. But yet do I think his _jelin_ (spirit) is at rest in
+ghost-land; else had it come to me in the night and touched me on the
+forehead as I slept."
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+A month had gone by since the day that Sralik had driven away the
+"Christ ship," as the people called the _Morning Star_, and then word
+came over from Sralik to Ruvani, his granddaughter, to come over and
+take her part in a night-dance and feast to the rain-god, for the year
+had been a good one and the cocoanut trees were loaded with nuts. For
+this was the dancing and feasting.
+
+All that day the eight people of Takai were busied in making ready their
+gifts of food for the feast which was to take place in two days' time.
+In the afternoon, when the sun had lost its strength, the three girls
+launched their canoe and set out for a place on the northern point
+of Pingelap, where grew in great profusion the sweet-smelling _nudu_
+flower. These would they get to make garlands and necklets to wear at
+the great dance, in which they were all to take part.
+
+In an hour or two they had gathered all the _nudu_ flowers they desired,
+and then little Tarita looking up saw that the sky was overcast and
+blackening, and presently some heavy drops of rain fell.
+
+"Haste, haste," she cried to the others, "let us away ere the strong
+wind which is behind the black clouds overtakes us on the lagoon."
+
+Night comes on quickly in the South Seas, and by the time they had
+seated themselves in the canoe it was dark. In a little while a sharp
+rain-squall swept down from the northward, and they heard the wind
+rattling and crashing through the branches, of the palms on Tugulu.
+
+Ninia, who was steering, boldly headed the canoe across the lagoon for
+Takai, and laughed when Ruvani and Tarita, who were wet and shivering
+with the cold rain, urged that they should put in at the beach on Tugulu
+and walk home.
+
+"Paddle, paddle strongly," she cried, "what mattereth a little rain and
+wind! And sing, so that our mother will hear us and make ready something
+to eat. Look, I can already see the blaze of her fire."
+
+Striking their paddles into the water in unison, they commenced to sing,
+but suddenly their voices died away in terror as a strange, droning hum
+was borne down to them from the black line of Tugulu shore; and then the
+droning deepened into a hoarse roaring noise as the wild storm of wind
+and fierce, stinging rain tore through the groves of cocoanuts and
+stripped them of leaves and branches.
+
+Brave Ninia, leaning her lithe figure well over the side of the canoe,
+plunged her paddle deep down and tried to bring the canoe head to
+wind to meet the danger, and Ruvani, in the bow, with long hair
+flying straight out behind her, answered her effort with a cry of
+encouragement, and put forth all her strength to aid.
+
+But almost ere the cry had left her lips, the full fury of the squall
+had struck them; the canoe was caught in its savage breath, twirled
+round and round, and then filled.
+
+"Keep thou in the canoe, little one, and bale," cried Ninia to Tarita,
+as she and Ruvani leaped into the water.
+
+For some minutes the two girls clung with one hand each to the gunwale,
+and Tarita, holding the large wooden _ahu_ or baler, in both hands,
+dashed the water out. Then she gave a trembling cry--the baler struck
+against the side of the canoe and dropped overboard.
+
+Ninia dared not leave the canoe to seek for it in the intense darkness,
+and so clinging to the little craft, which soon filled again, they
+drifted about. The waters of the lagoon were now white with the breaking
+seas, and the wind blew with fierce, cruel, steadiness, and although
+they knew it not, they were being swept quickly away from the land
+towards the passage in the reef.
+
+The rain had ceased now, and the water being warm none of them felt
+cold, but the noise of the wind and sea was so great that they had to
+shout loudly to each other to make their voices heard.
+
+Presently Ruvani called out to Ninia--
+
+"Let us take Tarita between us and swim to the shore, ere the sharks
+come to us."
+
+"Nay, we are safer here, Ruvani, And how could we tell my mother that
+the canoe is lost? Let us wait a little and then the wind will die
+away."
+
+Canoes are valuable property on Pingelap, where suitable wood for
+building them is scarce, and this was in Ninia's mind.
+
+They still kept hold of their paddles, and although afraid of the
+sharks, waited patiently for the storm to cease, little thinking that
+at that moment the ebbing tide and wind together had swept them into
+the passage, and that they were quickly drifting away from their island
+home.
+
+All that night Ninia the widow and her four slaves sought along the
+beach of Tugulu for the three girls, who they felt sure had landed
+there. And when the day broke at last, and they saw that the gale had
+not ceased and that the canoe had vanished, they ran all the way over to
+the village, and Ninia threw herself at Sralik's feet.
+
+"Thy granddaughter and my children have perished, O chief."
+
+The chief came to the door of his house and looked out upon the wild
+turmoil of waters.
+
+"It is the will of the gods," he said, "else had not my whaleboat been
+crushed in the night," and he pointed to the ruins of the boat-shed upon
+which a huge cocoanut tree had fallen and smashed the boat.
+
+Then he went back into his house and covered his face, for Ruvani was
+dear to his savage old heart.
+
+And Ninia went back to her lonely house and wept and mourned for her
+lost ones as only mothers weep and mourn, be they of white skins or
+brown.
+
+*****
+
+Away out into the ocean the canoe was swept along, and Ruvani and Ninia
+still clung to her, one at the head and one at the stern. Once there
+came a brief lull, and then they succeeded in partly freeing her from
+water, and Tarita using her two hands like a scoop meanwhile, the canoe
+at last became light enough for them to get in.
+
+They were only just in time, for even then the wind freshened, and Ninia
+and Ruvani let the canoe run before it, for they were too exhausted to
+keep her head to the wind.
+
+When daylight broke Ninia, with fear in her heart, stood up in the canoe
+and looked all round her.
+
+There was no land in sight! Poor children! Even then they could not have
+been more than twenty miles away from the island, for Pingelap is very
+low and not visible even from a ship's deck at more than twelve or
+fifteen miles.
+
+But she was a brave girl, although only fourteen, and when Tarita and
+Ruvani wept she encouraged them.
+
+"Sralik will come to seek us in the boat," she said, although she could
+have wept with them.
+
+The wind still carried them along to the westward, and Ninia knew that
+every hour was taking them further and further away from Pingelap, but,
+although it was not now blowing hard, she knew that it was useless for
+them to attempt to paddle against it. So, keeping dead before the wind
+and sea, they drifted slowly along.
+
+At noon the wind died away, and then, tired and worn out, she and Ruvani
+lay down in the bottom of the canoe and slept, while little Tarita sat
+up on the cane framework of the outrigger and watched the horizon for
+Sralik's boat.
+
+Hour after hour passed, and the two girls still slept. Tarita, too, had
+lain her weary head down and slumbered with them.
+
+Slowly the sun sank beneath a sea of glassy smoothness, unrippled even
+by the faintest air, and then Ninia awoke, and, sitting up, tossed her
+cloud of dark hair away from her face, and looked around her upon the
+darkening ocean. Her lips were dry and parched, and she felt a terrible
+thirst.
+
+"Tarita," she called, "art sleeping, dear one?"
+
+A sob answered her.
+
+"Nay, for my head is burning, and I want a drink."
+
+*****
+
+The whole story of those days of unutterable agony cannot be told here.
+There, under a torrid sun, without a drop of water or a morsel of food,
+the poor creatures drifted about till death mercifully came to two of
+them.
+
+It was on the evening of the second day that Ninia, taking her little
+sister in her own fast weakening arms, pressed her to her bosom, and,
+looking into her eyes, felt her thirst-racken body quiver and then grow
+still in the strange peacefulness of death. Then a long wailing cry
+broke upon the silence of the night.
+
+How long she had sat thus with the child's head upon her bosom and her
+dead sightless eyes turned upward to the glory of the star-lit heavens
+she knew not; after that one moaning cry of sorrow that escaped from her
+anguished heart she had sat there like a figure of stone, dull, dazed,
+and unconscious almost of the agonies of thirst. And then Ruvani, with
+wild, dreadful eyes and bleeding, sun-baked lips, crept towards her,
+and, laying her face on Ninia's hand, muttered--
+
+"Farewell, O friend of my heart; I die."
+
+And then, as she lay there with closed eyes and loosened hair falling
+like a shroud over the form of her dead playmate, she muttered and
+talked, and then laughed a strange weird laugh that chilled the blood in
+Ninia's veins. So that night passed, and then, as the fiery sun uprose
+again upon the wide sweep or lonely sea and the solitary drifting canoe
+with its load of misery, Ruvani, who still muttered and laughed to
+herself, suddenly rose up, and with the strength of madness, placing
+her arms around the stiffened form of little Tarita, she sprang over the
+side and sank with her.
+
+Ninia, stretching her arms out piteously, bowed her head, and lay down
+to die.
+
+*****
+
+She was aroused from her stupor by the cries of a vast flock of sea
+birds, and, opening her eyes, she saw that the canoe was surrounded by
+thousands upon thousands of bonita that leaped and sported and splashed
+about almost within arm's length of her. They were pursuing a shoal of
+small fish called _atuli_, and these every now and then darted under the
+canoe for protection. Sometimes, as the hungry bonita pressed them hard,
+they would leap out of the water, hundreds together, and then the sea
+birds would swoop down and seize them ere they fell back into the sea.
+
+Ninia, trembling with excitement and the hope of life, watched
+eagerly. Presently she heard a curious, rippling noise, and then a
+rapidly-repeated tapping on the outrigger side of the canoe.
+
+Oh! the joy of it; the water was black with a mass of _atuli_ crowded
+together on the surface, and frightened and exhausted.
+
+She thrust her hands in among them and threw handsful after handsful
+into the canoe, and then her dreadful thirst and hunger made her cease,
+and, taking fish after fish, she bit into them with her sharp teeth, and
+assuaged both hunger and thirst.
+
+As she tore ravenously at the _atuli_ the sky became overcast, and while
+the bonitas splashed and jumped around her, and the birds cried shrilly
+overhead, the blessed rain began to fall, at first in heavy drops, and
+then in a steady downpour.
+
+Taking off her thick grass girdle, she rolled it up into a tight coil
+and placed it across the bottom of the canoe, about two feet from the
+bows, so as to form a dam; and then, lying face downwards, she drank
+and drank till satisfied. Then she counted the _atuli_. There were over
+forty.
+
+All that day the rain squalls continued, and then the wind settled and
+blew steadily from the east, and Ninia kept the canoe right before it.
+
+That night she slept but little. A wild hope had sprung up in her heart
+that she might reach the island of Ponape, which she knew was not many
+days' sail from Pingelap. Indeed, she had once heard her father and
+Sralik talking about going there in the whaleboat to sell turtle-shell
+to the white traders there.
+
+But she did not know that the current and trade wind were setting the
+canoe quickly away from Ponape towards a group of low-lying atolls
+called Ngatik.
+
+*****
+
+The rain had ceased, and in the warm, starlight night she drifted on to
+the west, and as she drifted she dreamed of her father, and saw Ninia
+the widow, her mother, sitting in the desolate house on Takai, before
+the dying embers of the fire, and heard her voice crying:
+
+"_O thou white Christ God, to whom my husband called as he died, tell me
+are my children perished? I pray thee because of the white blood that is
+in them to protect them and let me behold my beloved again_."
+
+The girl awoke. Her mother's voice seemed to still murmur in her ears,
+and a calm feeling of rest entered her soul. She took her paddle, and
+then stopped and thought.
+
+This new God--the Christ-God of her father--perhaps He would help her
+to reach the land. She, too, would call upon Him, even as her mother had
+done.
+
+"See, O Christ-God. I am but one left of three. I pray Thee guide my
+canoe to land, so that I may yet see Ninia my mother once more."
+
+As the dawn approached she dozed again, and then she heard a sound that
+made her heart leap--it was the low, monotonous beat of the surf.
+
+When the sun rose she saw before her a long line of low-lying islands,
+clothed in cocoanuts, and shining like jewels upon the deep ocean blue.
+
+She ate some more of the fish, and, paddling as strongly as her strength
+would permit, she passed between the passage, entered the smooth waters
+of the lagoon, and ran the canoe up on to a white beach.
+
+"The Christ-God has heard me," she said as she threw her wearied form
+under the shade of the cocoa-nut palms and fell into a heavy, dreamless
+slumber.
+
+And here next morning the people of Ngatik found her. They took the poor
+wanderer back with them to their houses that were clustered under the
+palm-groves a mile or two away, and there for two years she dwelt with
+them, hoping and waiting to return to Pingelap.
+
+One day a ship came--a whaler cruising back to Strong's Island and the
+Marshall Group. The captain was told her story by the people of Ngatik,
+and offered to touch at Pingelap and land her.
+
+Ninia the widow was still living on Takai, and her once beautiful face
+had grown old and haggard-looking. Since the night of the storm four
+ships had called at Pingelap, but she had never once gone over to the
+village, for grief was eating her heart away; and so, when one evening
+she heard that a ship was in sight, she took no heed.
+
+Her house was very sad and lonely now, and as night came on she lay down
+in her end of the house and slept, while the other four people sat round
+the fire and talked and smoked.
+
+In the middle of the night the four slaves got up and went away to the
+village, for they wanted to be there when the boat from the ship came
+ashore.
+
+At daylight the ship was close in, and the people in the village saw a
+boat lowered. Then a cry of astonishment burst from them when they
+saw the boat pull straight in over the reef and land at Takai, about a
+hundred yards from the house of Ninia, the white man's widow.
+
+Only one person got out, and then the boat pushed off again and pulled
+back to the ship.
+
+*****
+
+Ninia the widow had risen, and was rolling up the mat she had slept
+upon, when a figure darkened the doorway. She turned wonderingly to
+see who it was that had come over so early from the village, when the
+stranger, who was a tall, graceful young girl, sprang forward, and,
+folding her arms around her, said, sobbing with joy--
+
+"My mother... The Christ-God hath brought me back to thee again."
+
+
+
+
+BALDWIN'S LOISE--Miss Lambert.
+
+Her mother was a full-blooded native--a woman of Anaa, in the Chain
+Islands--her father a dissolute and broken white wanderer. At the age
+of ten she was adopted by a wealthy South Sea trading captain, living
+on the East Coast of New Zealand. He, with his childless wife, educated,
+cared for, and finally loved her, as they once loved a child of their
+own, dead twenty years before.
+
+At sixteen Loise was a woman; and in the time that had passed since the
+morning she had seen her reckless, beach-combing father carried ashore
+at Nukutavake with a skinful of whisky and his pockets full of the
+dollars for which he had sold her, the tongue and memories of her
+mother's race had become, seemingly, utterly forgotten.
+
+*****
+
+But only seemingly; for sometimes in the cold winter months, when savage
+southerly gales swept over the cloud-blackened ocean from the white
+fields of Antarctic ice and smote the New Zealand coast with chilling
+blast, the girl would crouch beside the fire in Mrs. Lambert's
+drawing-room, and covering herself with warm rugs, stare into the
+glowing coals until she fell asleep.
+
+She had not forgotten.
+
+One day a visitor came to see her adopted father. He was captain of a
+small trading schooner running to the Paumotus--her mother's land--and
+although old Lambert had long since given up his trading business and
+voyagings, he liked to meet people from the Islands, and, indeed, kept
+open house to them; so both he and Mrs. Lambert made him welcome.
+
+The captain of the schooner was a man of a type common enough in the
+South Seas, rough, good-humoured, and coarsely handsome.
+
+After dinner the two men sat over their whisky and talked and smoked.
+Mrs. Lambert, always an invalid, had gone to her room, but Loise, book
+in hand, lay on a sofa and seemed to read. But she did not read, she
+listened. She had caught a word or two uttered by the dark-faced,
+black-bearded skipper--words that filled her with vague memories of long
+ago. And soon she heard names--names of men, white and brown, whom she
+had known in that distant, almost forgotten and savage childhood.
+
+*****
+
+When the seaman rose to leave and extended his tanned, sinewy hand to
+the beautiful "Miss Lambert," and gazed with undisguised admiration into
+her face, he little thought that she longed to say, "Stay and let me
+hear more." But she was conventional enough to know better than that,
+and that her adopted parents would be genuinely shocked to see her
+anything more than distantly friendly with such a man as a common
+trading captain--even though that man had once been one of Lambert's
+most trusted men. Still, as she raised her eyes to his, she murmured
+softly, "We will be glad to see you again, Captain Lemaire." And the
+dark-faced seaman gave her a subtle, answering glance.
+
+*****
+
+All that night she lay awake--awake to the child memories of the life
+that until now had slumbered within her. From her opened bedroom window
+she could see the dulled blaze of the city's lights, and hear ever and
+anon the hoarse and warning roar of a steamer's whistle. She raised
+herself and looked out upon the waters of the harbour. A huge,
+black mass was moving slowly seaward, showing only her masthead and
+side-lights--some ocean tramp bound northward. Again the boom of the
+whistle sounded, and then, by the quickened thumping of the propeller,
+the girl, knew that the tramp had rounded the point and was heading for
+the open sea.
+
+*****
+
+She lay back again on the pillow and tried to sleep. Why couldn't she
+sleep, she wondered. She closed her eyes. The branches of the pine that
+grew close to her window rustled and shook to a passing breath of wind,
+and her eyes opened again. How strangely, though, it sounded to-night,
+and how her heart was thumping! Again the white lids drooped and half
+closed again, and the pine branches waved and soughed gently to the
+breeze.
+
+And then the dead grey of the wall of the room changed to a bright,
+shimmering white--the white of an island beach as it changes, under the
+red flush of the morn, from the shadows of the night to a broad belt of
+gleaming silver--and the sough of the pine-tree by the window deepened
+into the humming music of the trade-wind when it passes through the
+sleeping palms, and a million branches awake trembling to its first
+breaths and shake off in pearly showers the dews of the night. Again she
+raced along the clinking sand with her childish, half-naked companions,
+and heard the ceaseless throb of the beating surf upon the windward
+reef, and saw the flash of gold and scarlet of a flock of parrakeets
+that with shrill, whistling note, vanished through the groves of
+cocoa-nuts as they sped mountain wards. Then her latent native soul
+awoke and made her desperate.
+
+*****
+
+Ere two days had passed she was missing, and six weeks later a little
+white-painted schooner hove-to off one of the Paumotu Group, lowered a
+boat, and landed her amongst the wondering natives.
+
+The dark-faced, black-bearded man who steered the boat held her hand a
+moment ere he said good-bye.
+
+"It is not too late, Loise."
+
+She raised her face and laughed scornfully.
+
+"To go back? To go back to hear the old man who was a father and the
+good woman who was a mother to me, tell me that they hated and despised
+me!" And then quick, scalding tears.
+
+The man's face flushed. "No, not that, but," with an oath, "look here,
+if you'll come with me I'll head the schooner for Tahiti, and as soon as
+she swings to her anchor we will be ashore and married."
+
+She shook her head. "Let me go, Captain Lemaire. Whatever comes to me,
+'tis I alone who must answer for it. And so--good-bye."
+
+*****
+
+She stood and watched the boat hoisted to the davits, and saw the
+schooner slowly gather way, and then glide past and disappear round
+the palm-crowned point. Then she turned with streaming eyes and choking
+voice to the brown-skinned people that stood around her, and spoke to
+them in her mother's tongue.
+
+So ended the sixteen years' life of the beautiful Miss Lambert and began
+that of Loise, the half-blood.
+
+
+                                 LOISE, THE HALF-BLOOD
+
+There was a wild rush of naked, scurrying feet, and a quick panting
+of brown bosoms along the winding path that led to Baldwin's house at
+Rikitea. A trading schooner had just dropped anchor inside the reef,
+and the runners, young lads and girls--half-naked, lithe-limbed and
+handsome--like all the people of the "thousand isles," wanted to welcome
+Baldwin the Trader at his own house door.
+
+*****
+
+Two of them--a boy and girl--gained the trader's gate ahead of their
+excited companions, and, leaning their backs against the white palings,
+mocked the rest for their tardiness in the race. With one arm around the
+girl's lissom waist, the boy, Maturei, short, thickset, muscular, and
+the bully of the village, beat off with his left hand those who sought
+to displace them from the gate; and the girl, thin, creole-faced,
+with soft, red-lipped mouth, laughed softly at their vexation. Her
+gaily-coloured grass waist girdle had broken, and presently moving the
+boy's protecting arm, she tried to tie the band, and as she tied it she
+rattled out oaths in English and French at the score of brown hands that
+sought to prevent her.
+
+"_Hui! Hui!!_ Away, ye fools, and let me tie my girdle," she said in the
+native tongue. "'Tis no time now for such folly as this; for, see, the
+boat is lowered from the ship and in a little time the master will be
+here."
+
+The merry chatter ceased in an instant and every face turned towards the
+schooner, and a hundred pair of curious eyes watched. Then, one by one,
+they sat down and waited; all but the two at the gate, who remained
+standing, the boy's arm still wound round the girl's waist.
+
+*****
+
+The boat was pulling in swiftly now, and the "click-clack" of the
+rowlocks reached the listening ears of those on shore.
+
+There were two figures in the stern, and presently one stood up, and
+taking off his hat, waved it towards the shore.
+
+A roar of welcome from the thronging mass of natives that lined the
+beach drowned the shrill, piping treble of the children round the gate,
+and told sturdy old Tom Baldwin that he was recognised, and scarce had
+the bow of the boat ploughed into the soft sand of the beach when he
+was seized upon and smothered with caresses, the men with good-natured
+violence thrusting aside the women and forming a body-guard to conduct
+him and the young man with him from the boat to the house. And about
+the strange white man the people thronged with inquiring and admiring
+glances, for he was big and strong-looking--and that to a native mind is
+better than all else in the world.
+
+With joyous, laughing clamour, the natives pressed around the white men
+till the gate was reached, and then fell back.
+
+The girl stepped forward, and taking the trader's hand, bent her
+forehead to it in token of submission.
+
+"The key of this thy house, Tamu," she murmured in the native tongue, as
+she placed it in his hand.
+
+"Enter thou first, Loise," and he waved it away.
+
+A faint smile of pleasure illumined her face; Baldwin, rough and
+careless as he was, was yet studious to observe native custom.
+
+The white men followed her, and then in the open doorway Baldwin
+stopped, turned, and raised his hand, palm outwards, to the throng of
+natives without.
+
+"I thank thee, friends, for thy welcome. Dear to mine ears is the sound
+of the tongue of the men of Rikitea. See ye this young man here. He
+is the son of my friend who is now dead--he whom some of ye have seen,
+Kapeni Paraisi" (Captain Brice).
+
+A tall, broad-shouldered native, with his hair streaming down over his
+shoulders, strode up the steps, and taking the young man's hand in his,
+placed it to his forehead.
+
+"The son of Paraisi is welcome to Rikitea, and to me, the chief of
+Rikitea."
+
+There was a murmur of approval; Baldwin waved his hand again, and then,
+with Brice, entered the house.
+
+Outside, the boy and girl, seated on the verandah steps, talked and
+waited for orders.
+
+Said Maturei, "Loise, think you that now Tamu hath found thee to be
+faithful to his house and his name that he will marry thee according to
+the promise made to the priests at Tenararo when he first brought thee
+here?"
+
+She took a thick coil of her shining black hair and wound it round and
+round her hand meditatively, looking out absently over the calm waters
+of the harbour.
+
+"Who knows, Maturei? And I, I care not. Yet do I think it will be so;
+for what other girl is there here that knoweth his ways, and the ways
+of the white men as I know them? And this old man is a glutton; and, so
+that my skill in baking pigeons and making _karri_ and rice fail me not,
+then am I mistress here.... Maturei, is not the stranger an evil-looking
+man?"
+
+"Evil-looking!" said the boy, wonderingly; "nay, how canst thou say that
+of him?"
+
+*****
+
+"What a jolly old fellow he is, and how these people adore him!" thought
+Brice, as they sat down to dinner. Two or three of the village girls
+waited upon them, and in the open doorway sat a vision of loveliness,
+arrayed in yellow muslin, and directing the movements of the girls by
+almost imperceptible motions of her palm-leaf fan.
+
+Brice was strangely excited. The novelty of the surroundings, the
+wondrous, bright beauty of sea, and shore, and palm-grove that lay
+within his range of vision were already beginning to weave their fetal
+spell upon his susceptible nature. And then, again and again, his glance
+would fall upon the sweet, oval face and scarlet lips of the girl that
+sat in the doorway. Who was she? Not old Baldwin's wife, surely! for had
+not the old fellow often told him that he was not married?... And what
+a lovely spot to live in, this Rikitea! By Jove, he would like to stay a
+year here instead of a few months only.... Again his eyes rested on
+the figure in the doorway--and then his veins thrilled--Loise, lazily
+lifting her long, sweeping lashes had caught his admiring glance.
+
+*****
+
+Brice was no fool with women--that is, he thought so, never taking
+into consideration that his numerous love affairs had always ended
+disastrously--to the woman. And his mother, good simple soul, had
+thought that the best means of taking her darling son away from
+unapproved-of female society would be a voyage to the islands with old
+Tom Baldwin!
+
+Dinner was finished, and the two men were sitting out on the verandah
+smoking and drinking whisky, when Brice said, carelessly--
+
+"I wonder you never married, Baldwin."
+
+The old trader puffed at his pipe for a minute or two ere he answered--
+
+"Did you notice that girl at all?" and he inclined his head towards the
+door of the sitting-room.
+
+The young man nodded.
+
+Then the candid Baldwin told him her history. "I can't defend my own
+position. I am no better than most traders--you see it is the custom
+here, neither is she worse than any of these half-blooded Paumotuans. If
+I married a native of this particular island I would only bring trouble
+on my head. I could not show any preference for any particular girl for
+a wife without raising the bitterest quarrels among some of the leading
+chiefs here. You see, as a matter of fact, I should have married as soon
+as I came here, twenty years ago; then the trouble would have been over.
+But I didn't. I can see my mistake now, for I am getting old pretty
+fast;... and now that the missionaries are here, and I do a lot of
+business with them, I think us white men ought to show them some kind of
+respect by getting married--properly married--to our wives."
+
+Brice laughed. "You mean, Baldwin, they should get married according to
+the rites of the Roman Catholic Church?"
+
+"Aye," the old trader assented. "Now, there's Loise, there--a clever,
+intelligent, well-educated girl, and as far as money or trade goes,
+as honest as the day. Can I, an old white-headed fool of sixty, go to
+Australia and ask any _good_ woman to marry me, and come and live down
+here? No."
+
+He smoked in silence awhile, and then resumed.
+
+"Yes; honest and trustworthy she is, I believe; although the white
+blood in her veins is no recommendation. If ever you should live in the
+islands, my lad--which isn't likely--take an old fool's advice and never
+marry a half-caste, either in native fashion or in a church with a brass
+band and a bishop as leading features of the show."
+
+*****
+
+Loise came to them. "Will you take coffee, Tamu?" she asked, standing
+before them with folded hands.
+
+The trader bent his head, and as the girl with noiseless step glided
+gracefully away again he watched her.
+
+"I think I will marry her, Brice. Sometimes when the old Marist priest
+comes here he makes me feel d----d uncomfortable. Of course he is too
+much of a gentleman--although he is a sky-pilot--to say all he would
+like to say, but every time he bids me good-bye he says--cunning old
+chap--'And think, M. Baldwin, her father, bad as he was, was a _white
+man!_"
+
+The young man listened in silence.
+
+"I don't think I will ever go back to civilisation again, my lad--I am
+no use there. Here I am somebody--there I am nobody; so I think I'll
+give the old Father a bit of a surprise soon." Then with his merry,
+chuckling laugh--"and you'll be my best man. You see, it won't make any
+difference to you. Nearly all that I have, when I peg out, will go to
+you--the son of my old friend and shipmate."
+
+A curious feeling shot through Brice's heart as he murmured his thanks.
+The recital of the girl's history made him burn with hot anger against
+her. He had thought her so innocent. And yet the old trader's words,
+"I've almost made up my mind to marry her," seemed to dash to the ground
+some vague hope, he knew not what.
+
+*****
+
+That night he lay on a soft mat on Baldwin's verandah and tried to
+sleep. But from between the grey-reds of the serried line of palms that
+encompassed the house on all but the seaward side, a pale face with
+star-like eyes and ruby lips looked out and smiled upon him; in the
+distant and ever varying cadences of the breaking surf he heard the
+sweet melody of her voice; in the dazzling brilliancy of the starry
+heavens her haunting face, with eyes alight with love, looked into his.
+
+"D------n!" He rose from his couch, opened the gate, and went out along
+the white dazzle of the starlit beach. "What the devil is the matter
+with me? I must be drunk--on two or three nips of whisky.... What a
+glorious, heavenly night!... And what a grand old fellow Baldwin is!...
+And I'm an infernal scoundrel to think of her--or a d------d idiot, or a
+miserable combination of both."
+
+*****
+
+In a few days two things had happened. Baldwin had married Loise, and
+Brice was madly in love with her and she with him. Yet scarcely a word
+had passed between them--he silent because of genuine shame at the
+treachery of his thoughts to the old man; she because she but bided her
+time.
+
+One day he accepted an invitation from the old French priest to pay a
+visit to the Mission. He went away quietly one morning, and then wrote
+to Baldwin.
+
+"Ten miles is a good long way off," he thought. "I'll be all right in a
+week or so--then I'll come back and be a fool no longer."
+
+The priest liked the young man, and in his simple, hospitable way, made
+much of him. On the evening of the third day, as they paced to and fro
+on the path in the Mission garden, they saw Baldwin's boat sail up to
+the beach.
+
+"See," said the priest, with a smile, "M. Baldwin will not let me keep
+you; and Loise comes with him. So, so, you must go, but you will come
+again?" and he pressed the young Englishman's hand.
+
+The sturdy figure of the old trader came up through the garden; Loise,
+native fashion, walking behind him.
+
+Knitting his heavy white eyebrows in mock anger he ordered Brice to the
+boat, and then extending his hand to the priest--"I must take him back,
+Father; the _Malolo_ sails to-morrow, and the skipper is coming ashore
+to-night to dinner, to say good-bye; and, as you know, Father, I'm a
+silly old man with the whisky bottle, and I'll get Mr. Brice to keep me
+steady."
+
+The tall, thin old priest raised his finger warningly and shook his head
+at old Baldwin and then smiled.
+
+"Ah, M. Baldwin, I am very much afraid that I will never make you to
+understand that too much of the whisky is very bad for the head."
+
+With a parting glass of wine they bade the good Father good-bye, and
+then hoisting the sail, they stood across for Rikitea. The sun had
+dipped, and the land-breeze stole softly down from the mountains and
+sped the boat along. Baldwin was noisy and jocular; Brice silent and ill
+at ease.
+
+Another hour's run and Baldwin sailed the boat close under the trading
+schooner's stern. Leaning over the rail was the pyjama-clad captain,
+smoking a cigar.
+
+"Now then, Harding," bawled the old trader, "don't forget to be up to
+time, eight o'clock."
+
+"Come aboard, and make out your order for your trade, you noisy old
+_Areoi_ devil," said Harding. "You'll 'make it out ashore,' eh? No
+fear, I won't trust you, you careless, forgetful old dog. So just lay up
+alongside, and I'll take you ashore in half an hour."
+
+"By Jupiter, I mustn't forget the order," and Baldwin, finding he could
+not inveigle the captain ashore just then, ran the boat alongside the
+schooner and stepped over her rail--"Go on, Brice, my lad. I'll soon be
+with you. Give him some whisky or beer, or something, Loise, as soon as
+you get to the house. He looks as melancholy as a ghost."
+
+As the boat's crew pushed off from the schooner, Brice came aft to
+steer, and placing his hand on the tiller it touched Loise's. She moved
+aside to make room for him, and he heard his name whispered, and in the
+darkness he saw her lips part in a happy smile.
+
+Then, still silent, they were pulled ashore.
+
+*****
+
+From his end of the house he heard a soft footfall enter the big room,
+and then stop. She was standing by the table when, soon after, he came
+out of his room. At the sound of his footstep she turned the flame of
+the shaded lamp to its full height, and then raised her face and looked
+at him. There was a strange, radiant expectancy in her eyes that set his
+heart to beat wildly. Then he remembered her husband--his friend.
+
+"I suppose Tom won't be long," he began, nervously, when she came over
+to him and placed her hand on his sleeve. The slumbrous eyes were all
+aglow now, and her bosom rose and fell in short, quick strokes beneath
+her white muslin gown.
+
+"Why did you go away?" she said, her voice scarce raised above a
+whisper, yet quivering and tremulous with emotion.
+
+He tried to look away from her, trembling himself, and not knowing what
+to say.
+
+"Ah," she said, "speak to me, answer me; why don't you say something to
+me? I thought that once your eyes sought mine in the boat"--then as she
+saw him still standing awkward and silent, all her wild passion burst
+out--"Brice, Brice, I love you, I love you. And you, you hate me." He
+tried to stop her.
+
+Her voice sank again. "Oh, yes, yes; you hate me, else why would you go
+away without one word to me? Baldwin has told you of--of--of something.
+It is all true, quite true, and I am wicked, wicked; no woman could have
+been worse--and you hate me."
+
+She released her hold upon his arm, and walking over to the window leant
+against it and wept passionately.
+
+He went over to her and placed his hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"Look here, Loise, I'm very, very sorry I ever came here in the
+_Malolo_"--her shaking figure seemed to shrink at the words--"for I love
+you too, but, Loise--your husband was my father's oldest friend--and
+mine."
+
+The oval, tear-swept face was dangerously close to his now, and set his
+blood racing again in all the quick, hot madness of youth.
+
+"What is that to me?" she whispered; "I love you."
+
+Brice shut his fists tightly and then--fatal mistake--tried to be angry
+and tender at the same moment.
+
+"Ah, but Loise, you, as well as I, know that among English people, for a
+man to love his friend's wife----"
+
+Again the low whisper--"What is that to me--and you? You love me, you
+say. And, we are not among English people. I have my mother's heart--not
+a cold English heart."
+
+"Loise, Baldwin is my friend. He looks upon me as his son, and he trusts
+me--and trusts you.... I could never look him in the face again.... If
+he were any other man I wouldn't care, or if, if----"
+
+She lifted her face from his shoulder. "Then you only lied to me. You
+don't love me!"
+
+That made him reckless. "Love you! By God. I love you so that if you
+were any other man's wife but his-------" He looked steadily at her and
+then, with gentle force, tried to take her arm from his neck.
+
+She knew now that he was the stronger of the two, and yet wished to hear
+more.
+
+"Brice, dear Brice," she bent his head down to her lips, "if Baldwin
+died would you marry me?"
+
+The faintly murmured words struck him like a shot; she still holding her
+arms around him, watched his face.
+
+He kissed her on the lips. "I would marry you and never go back to the
+world again," he answered, in the blind passion of the moment.
+
+A hot, passionate kiss on his lips and she was gone, and Brice, with
+throbbing pulses and shame in his heart, took up his hat and went out
+upon the beach. He couldn't meet Baldwin just then. Other men's wives
+had never made him feel such a miserable scoundrel as did this reckless
+half-blood with the scarlet lips and starry eyes.
+
+*****
+
+That night old Baldwin and the captain of the _Malolo_ got thoroughly
+drunk in the orthodox and time-honoured Island business fashion. Brice,
+afraid of "making an ass of himself," was glad to get away, and took
+the captain on board at midnight in Baldwin's boat, and at the mate's
+invitation remained for breakfast.
+
+At daylight the mate got the _Malolo_ under weigh, the skipper, with
+aching head, sitting up in his bunk and cursing the old trader's
+hospitality.
+
+When the vessel was well outside the reef, Brice bade him good-bye, and
+getting his boat alongside started for the shore.
+
+"I will--I must--clear out of this," he was telling himself as the boat
+swept round the point of the passage on the last sweep of the ocean
+swell. "I can't stay under the same roof with him day after day, month
+after month, and not feel my folly and her weakness. But where the deuce
+I can get to for five months till the schooner comes back, I don't know.
+There's the Mission, but that is too close; the old fellow would only
+bring me back again in a week."
+
+*****
+
+Suddenly a strange, weird cry pealed over the water from the native
+village, a cry that to him was mysterious, as well as mournful and
+blood-chilling.
+
+The four natives who pulled the boat had rested on their oars the
+instant they heard the cry, and with alarm and deep concern depicted on
+their countenances were looking toward the shore.
+
+"What is it, boys?" said Brice in English.
+
+Before the native to whom he spoke could answer, the long, loud wailing
+cry again burst forth.
+
+"Some man die," said the native who pulled stroke-oar to Brice--he was
+the only one who knew English.
+
+Then Brice, following the looks of his crew, saw that around the
+white paling fence that enclosed Baldwin's house was gathered a great
+concourse of natives, most of whom were sitting on the ground.
+
+"Give way, boys," he said, with an instinctive feeling of fear that
+something dreadful had happened. In another five minutes the boat
+touched the sand and Brice sprang out.
+
+Maturei alone, of all the motionless, silent crowd that gathered around
+the house, rose and walked down to him.
+
+"Oh, white man, Tamu is dead!"
+
+*****
+
+He felt the shock terribly, and for a moment or two was motionless and
+nerveless. Then the prolonged wailing note of grief from a thousand
+throats again broke out and brought him to his senses, and with hasty
+step he opened the gate and went in.
+
+With white face and shaking limbs Loise met him at the door and
+endeavoured to speak, but only hollow, inarticulate sounds came from
+her lips, and sitting down on a cane sofa she covered her face with her
+robe, after the manner of the people of the island when in the presence
+of death.
+
+Presently the door of Baldwin's room opened, and the white-haired old
+priest came out and laid his hand sympathetically on the young man's
+arm, and drew him aside.
+
+He told him all in a few words. An hour before daylight Loise and the
+boy Maturei had heard the old trader breathing stertorously, and ere
+they could raise him to a sitting position he had breathed his last.
+
+Heart disease, the good Father said. And he was so careless a man, was
+M. Baldwin. And then with tears in his eyes the priest told Brice how,
+from the olden times when Baldwin, pretending to scoff at the efforts of
+the missionaries, had yet ever been their best and truest friend.
+
+"And now he is dead, M. Brice, and had I been but a little sooner I
+could have closed his eyes. I was passing in my boat, hastening to take
+the mission letters to the _Malolo_ when I heard the_ tagi_ (the death
+wail) of the people here, and hastening ashore found he had just passed
+away."
+
+Sick at heart as he was, the young man was glad of the priest's
+presence, and presently together they went in and looked at the still
+figure in the bedroom.
+
+When they returned to the front room they found Loise had gone.
+
+"She was afraid to stay in the house of death," said Maturei, "and has
+gone to Vehaga" (a village eight miles away), "and these are her words
+to the Father and to the friend of Tarau--'Naught have I taken from the
+house of Tamu, and naught do I want'--and then she was gone."
+
+The old priest nodded to Brice--"Native blood, native blood, M. Brice.
+Do not, I pray you, misjudge her. She only does this because she knows
+the village feeling against her. She does not belong to this island,
+and the people here resented, in a quiet way, her marriage with my old
+friend. She is not cruel and ungrateful as you think. It is but her
+way of showing these natives that she cares not to benefit by Baldwin's
+death. By and by we will send for her."
+
+*****
+
+After Baldwin had been buried and matters arranged, Brice and the
+priest, and a colleague from the Mission, read the will, and Brice found
+himself in possession of some two or three thousand dollars in cash and
+as much in trade. The house at Rikitea and a thousand dollars were for
+Loise.
+
+He told the Fathers to send word over to Vehaga and tell Loise that
+he only awaited her to come and take the house over from him. As for
+himself he would gladly accept their kind invitation to remain at the
+Mission as their guest till the schooner returned.
+
+The shock of his friend's death had all but cured him of his passion,
+and he felt sure now of his own strength.
+
+*****
+
+But day after day, and then week after week passed, and no word came
+from Vehaga, till one evening as he leant over the railing of the
+garden, looking out upon the gorgeous setting of the sun into the ocean,
+Maturei came paddling across the smooth waters of the harbour, and,
+drawing his canoe up on the beach, the boy approached the white man.
+
+"See," he said, "Loise hath sent thee this."
+
+He unrolled a packet of broad, dried palm leaves, and taking from it a
+thick necklet of sweet-smelling _kurahini_ buds, placed it in Brice's
+hand.
+
+He knew its meaning--it was the gift of a woman to an accepted lover.
+
+The perfume of the flowers brought back her face to him in a moment.
+There was a brief struggle in his mind; and then home, friends, his
+future prospects in the great outside world, went to the wall, and the
+half-blood had won.
+
+Slowly he raised the token and placed it over his head and round his
+neck.
+
+*****
+
+In the morning she came. He held out his hand and drew her to him, and
+looking down into her eyes, he kissed her. Her lips quivered a little,
+and then the long lashes fell, and he felt her tremble.
+
+"Loise," he said simply, "will you be my wife?"
+
+She glanced up at him, fearfully.
+
+"Would you marry me?"
+
+His face crimsoned--"Yes, of course. You were his wife. I can't forget
+that. And, besides, you said once that you loved me."
+
+*****
+
+They were very happy for five or six years down there in Rikitea. They
+had one child born to them--a girl with a face as beautiful as her
+mother's.
+
+Then a strange and deadly epidemic, unknown to the people of Rikitea,
+swept through the Paumotu Group, from Pitcairn Island to Marutea, and
+in every village, on every palm-clad atoll, death stalked, and the brown
+people sickened and shivered under their mat coverings, and died. And
+from island to island, borne on the very breath of the trade-wind, the
+terror passed, and left behind it empty, silent clusters of houses,
+nestling under the cocoanuts; and many a whale-ship beating back to the
+coast of South America, sailed close in to the shore and waited for the
+canoes to come off with fruit and vegetables; but none came, for the
+canoes had long months before blistered and cracked and rotted under
+the fierce rays of the Paumotu sun, and the owners lay dead in their
+thatched houses; for how could the dead bury the dead?
+
+It came to Rikitea, and Harry Brice and the priests of the Mission went
+from village to village trying by such means as lay in their power to
+allay the deadly scourge. Brice had seen his little girl die, and then
+Loise was smitten, and in a few days Brice saw the imprint of death
+stamped upon her features.
+
+*****
+
+As he sat and watched by her at night, and listened to the wild,
+delirious words of the fierce fever that held her in its cruel grasp,
+he heard her say that which chilled his very heart's blood. At first
+he thought it to be but the strange imaginings of her weak and fevered
+brain. But as the night wore on he was undeceived.
+
+Just as daylight began to shoot its streaks of red and gold through
+the plumed palm-tops, she awoke from a fitful and tortured slumber, and
+opened her eyes to gaze upon the haggard features of her husband.
+
+"Loise," he said, with a choking voice, "tell me, for God's sake, the
+truth about Baldwin. _Did you kill him?_"
+
+She put her thin, wasted hands over her dark, burning eyes, and Brice
+saw the tears run down and wet the pillow.
+
+Then she answered--
+
+"Yes, I killed him; for I loved you, and that night I went mad!"
+
+*****
+
+"Don't go away from me, Harry," she said, with hard, panting breaths;
+"don't let me die by myself.... I will soon be dead now; come closer to
+me, I will tell you all."
+
+He knelt beside her and listened. She told him all in a few words. As
+Baldwin lay in his drunken sleep, she and Maturei had pierced him to the
+heart with one of the long, slender, steel needles used by the natives
+in mat-making. There was no blood to be seen in the morning, Maturei was
+too cunning for that.
+
+Brice staggered to his feet and tried to curse her. The last grey pallor
+had deepened on her lips, and they moved and murmured, "It was because I
+loved you, Harry."
+
+*****
+
+The sun was over the tops of the cocoanuts when the gate opened, and the
+white-haired old priest came in and laid his hand gently on Brice who
+sat with bowed figure and hidden face.
+
+"How is your wife now, my good friend?" he asked.
+
+Slowly the trader raised his face, and his voice sounded like a sob.
+
+"Dead; thank God!"
+
+With softened tread the old man passed through to the inner room,
+and taking the cold hands of Brice's wife tenderly within his own, he
+clasped them together and placed the emblem of Christ upon the quiet
+bosom.
+
+
+
+
+AT A KAFA-DRINKING
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+The first cool breaths of the land breeze, chilled by its passage
+through the dew-laden forest, touched our cheeks softly that night as
+we sat on the traders' verandah, facing the white, shimmering beach,
+smoking and watching the native children at play, and listening for the
+first deep boom of the wooden _logo_ or bell that would send them racing
+homewards to their parents and evening prayer.
+
+*****
+
+"There it is," said our host, who sat in the farthest corner, with his
+long legs resting by the heels on the white railing; "and now you'll see
+them scatter."
+
+The loud cries and shrill laughter came to a sudden stop as the boom of
+the _logo_ reached the players, and then a clear boyish voice reached
+us--"_Ua ta le logo_" (the bell has sounded). Like smoke before the gale
+the lithe, half-naked figures fled silently in twos and threes between
+the cocoanuts, and the beach lay deserted.
+
+*****
+
+One by one the lights gleamed brightly through the trees as the women
+piled the fires in each house with broken cocoanut shells. There was but
+the faintest breath of wind, and through the open sides of most of the
+houses not enough to flicker the steady light, as the head of the family
+seated himself (or herself) close to the fire, and, hymn-book in hand,
+led off the singing. Quite near us was a more pretentious-looking
+structure than the others, and looking down upon it we saw that the
+gravelled floor was covered with fine, clean mats, and arranged all
+round the sides of the house were a number of camphorwood boxes,
+always--in a Samoan house--the outward and visible sign of a well-to-do
+man. There was no fire lighted here; placed in the centre of the one
+room there stood a lamp with a gorgeous-looking shade, of many colours.
+This was the chief's house, and the chief of Aleipata was one of the
+strong men of Samoa--both politically and physically. Two of our party
+on the verandah were strangers to Samoa, and they drew their chairs
+nearer, and gazed with interest at the chief and his immediate following
+as they proceeded with their simple service. There were quite a number
+of the _aua-luma_ (unmarried women) of the village present in the
+chief's house that evening, and as their tuneful voices blend in an
+evening hymn--
+
+"_Matou te nau e faafetai_"--we wished that instead of four verses there
+had been ten.
+
+"Can you tell us, Lester," said one of the strangers to our host, "the
+meaning of the last words?--they came out so clearly that I believe I've
+caught them," and to our surprise he sang the last line--
+
+     Ia matou moe tau ia te oe.
+
+*****
+
+"Well, now, I don't know if I can. Samoan hymns puzzle me; you see the
+language used in addressing the Deity is vastly different to that used
+ordinarily, but I take it that the words you so correctly repeated mean,
+'Let us sleep in peace with Thee.' Curious people these Samoans," he
+muttered, more to himself than for us: "soon be as hypocritical as the
+average white man. 'Let us sleep in peace with Thee,' and that fellow
+(the chief), his two brothers, and about a paddockful of young Samoan
+bucks haven't slept at all for this two weeks. All the night is spent in
+counting cartridges, melting lead for bullets, and cleaning their arms,
+only knocking off for a drink of kava. Well, I suppose," he continued,
+turning to us, "they're all itching to fight, and as soon as the U.S.S.
+_Resacca_ leaves Apia they'll commence in earnest, and us poor devils of
+traders will be left here doing nothing and cursing this infernal love
+of fighting, which is inborn with Samoans and a part of their natural
+cussedness which, if the Creator hadn't given it to them, would have put
+many a dollar into my pocket."
+
+*****
+
+"Father," said a voice that came up to us from the gloom of the young
+cocoanuts' foliage at the side of the house, "Felipe is here, and
+wants to know if he may come up and speak to the _alii papalagi_ (white
+gentlemen)."
+
+"Right you are, Felipe, my lad," said the trader in a more than usual
+kindly voice, "bring him up, Atalina, and then run away to the chief's
+and get some of the _aua-luma_ to come over, with you and make a bowl of
+kava."
+
+"Now, Doctor L------," Lester continued, addressing himself to one of
+his guests, the surgeon of an American war vessel then stationed in
+Samoa, and a fellow-countryman of his, "I'll show you as fine a specimen
+of manhood and intelligence as God ever made, although he has got a
+tanned hide."
+
+*****
+
+The native that ascended the steps and stood before us with his hat in
+his hand respectfully saluting, was indeed, as Lester called him,
+"a fine specimen." Clothed only in a blue and white _lava lava_ or
+waist-cloth, his clean-cut limbs, muscular figure, and skin like
+polished bronze, stood revealed in the full light that now flooded room
+and verandah from the lamp lit in the sitting-room. The finely-plaited
+Manhiki hat held in his right hand seemed somewhat out of place with the
+rest of his attire, and was evidently not much worn. Probably Felipe had
+merely brought it for the occasion, as a symbol to us of his superior
+tastes and ideas.
+
+He shook hands with us all round, and then, at Lester's invitation,
+followed us inside, and sat down cross-legged on the mats and
+courteously awaited us to talk to him. The American surgeon offered him
+a cigar, which he politely declined, and produced from the folds of
+his _lava lava_ a bundle of banana-leaf cigarettes, filled with strong
+tobacco. One of these, at a nod from the trader, he lit, and commenced
+to smoke.
+
+*****
+
+In a few minutes we heard the crunching of the gravelled path under bare
+feet, and then some three or four of the _aua-luma_--the kava-chewing
+girls--ascended the steps and took up their position by the huge wooden
+kava bowl. As the girls, under the careful supervision of the trader's
+wife, prepared the drink, we fell into a general conversation.
+
+"I wonder now," said the doctor to the trader, "that you, Lester, who,
+by your own showing, are by no means infatuated with the dreamy monotony
+of island life, can yet stay here, year after year, seeing nothing and
+hearing nothing of the world that lies outside these lonely islands.
+Have you no desire at all to go back again into the world?"
+
+A faint movement--the index of some rapidly passing emotion--for a
+moment disturbed the calm, placid features of Lester, as he answered
+quietly: "No, doctor, I don't think it's likely I'll ever see the
+outside world, as you call it, again. I've had my hopes and ambitions,
+like every one else; but they didn't pan out as I expected,... and then
+I became Lester the Trader, and as Lester the Trader I'll die, have
+a whitey-brown crowd at my funeral; and, if you came here ten years
+afterwards, the people couldn't even tell you where I was planted."
+
+The doctor nodded. "Just so. Like all native races, their affections and
+emotions are deep but transient--no better in that way than the average
+American nigger."
+
+The kava was finished now, and was handed round to us by the slender
+graceful hands of the trader's little daughter. As Felipe, the last to
+drink, handed back the _ipu_ to the girl, his eyes lit up, and he spoke
+to our host, addressing him, native fashion, by his Christian name, and
+speaking in his own tongue.
+
+"How is it, Tiaki (Jack), that I hear thee tell these thy friends that
+we of the brown skins have but shallow hearts and forget quickly? Dost
+think that if, when thy time comes, and thou goest, that thy wife and
+child will not grieve? Hast thou not heard of our white man who, when he
+died, yet left his name upon our hearts?--and yet we were in those days
+heathens and followers of our own gods."
+
+The trader nodded kindly, and turned to us. "Do you want to hear a
+yarn about one of the old style of white men that used to live like
+fighting-cocks in Samoa? Felipe here has rounded on me for saying that
+his countrymen soon forget, and has brought up this wandering _papalagi
+tafea_ (beachcomber) as an instance of how the natives will stick to a
+man once he proves himself a man."
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+"It was the tenth year after the Cruel Captain with the three ships had
+anchored in Apia,{*} and when we of Aleipata were at war with the people
+of Fagaloa. In those days we had no white man in this town and longed
+greatly to get one. But they were few in Samoa then; one was there at
+Tiavea, who had fled from a man-of-war of England, one at Saluafata, and
+perhaps one or two more at Tutuila or Savaii--that was all.
+
+     * Commodore Wilkes, in command of the famous United States
+     Exploring Expedition, 1836-40. He was a noted martinet, and
+     was called _Le alii Saua_ (the Cruel Captain).
+
+"My father's name was Lauati. He, with his mother, lived on the far side
+of the village, away from the rest of the houses. There were no others
+living in the house with them, for my father's mother was very poor, and
+all day long she laboured--some-times at making mats, and sometimes at
+beating out _siapo_ (tappa) cloth. As the mats were made, and the tappa
+was bleached, and figures and patterns drawn upon it, she rolled them up
+and put them away overhead on the beams of the house, for she was
+eaten up with poverty, and these mats and tappa cloth was she gathering
+together so that she might be able to pay for my father's, tattooing.
+And as she worked on the shore, so did my father toil on the sea, for
+although he was not yet tattooed he was skilled more than any other
+youth in _sisu atu_ (bonita catching). Sometimes the chief, who was a
+greedy man, would take all his fish and leave him none for himself to
+take home to his house. Sometimes he would give him one, and then my
+father would cut off a piece for his mother, and take the rest and sell
+it for taro and bread-fruit. And all this time he worked, worked with
+his mother, so that he would have enough to pay for his tattooing, for
+to reach his age and not be tattooed is thought a disgrace.
+
+*****
+
+"Now, in the chief's house was a young girl named Uluvao. She used to
+meet my father by stealth, for the chief--who was her uncle--designed to
+give her in marriage to a man of Siumu, who was a little chief, and had
+asked him for her. So Uluvao, who dreaded her uncle's wrath, would creep
+out at night from his house, and going down to the beach swim along
+the shore till she came to the lonely place where my father lived. His
+mother would await her coming on the beach, and then these three would
+sit together in the house and talk. If a footstep sounded, then the
+girl would flee, for she knew her uncle's club would soon bite into my
+father's brain did he know of these stolen meetings.
+
+*****
+
+"One day it came about that a great _fono_ (meeting) was to be held
+at Falealili, and Tuialo, the chief, and many other chiefs, and their
+_tulafale_ or talking men, set out to cross the mountains to Falealili.
+Six days would they be away, and Uluvao and my father rejoiced, for they
+could now meet and speak openly, for the fear of the chiefs face was
+not before them, and the people of the village knew my father loved the
+girl, so when they saw them together they only smiled, or else turned
+their faces another way. That night, in the big council house, there was
+a great number of the young men and women gathered together, and they
+danced and sang, and much kava was drunk. Presently the sister of the
+chief, who was a woman with a bitter tongue, came to the house, and
+saw and mocked at my father, and called him a c naked wretch.' (Thou
+knowest, Tiaki, if a man be not tattooed we called him naked.)
+
+"'Alas!' said my father, 'I am poor; oh, lady, how can I help it?'
+
+"The old woman's heart softened. 'Get thee out upon the sea and catch a
+fat turtle for a gift to my brother, and thou shalt be tattooed when he
+returns,' she said.
+
+"The people laughed, for they knew that turtle were not to be caught
+at a silly woman's bidding. But my father rose up and went out into
+the darkness towards his house. As he walked on the sand his name was
+called, and Uluvao ran by his side.
+
+"'Lauati,' she said, 'let me come with thee. Let us hasten and get thy
+canoe, and seek a turtle on Nu'ulua and Nu'utele, for the night is dark,
+and we may find one.'
+
+"My father took her hand, and they ran and launched the canoe.
+
+*****
+
+"My father paddled, Uluvao sat in the bow of the canoe. The night was
+very dark, and she was frightened, for in the waters hereabout are many
+_tanifa_ the thick, short shark, that will leap out of the water and
+fall on a canoe and crush it, so that those who paddle may be thrown out
+and devoured. And as she trembled she looked out at the shore of the two
+islands, which were now close to, and said to my father, 'Lo! what is
+this? I see a light as of a little fire.'
+
+"Lauati ceased to paddle and looked. And there, between the trunks of
+the cocoanuts, he saw the faint gleam of a little fire, and something,
+as of a figure, that moved.
+
+"The girl Uluvao had a quick wisdom. 'Ah,' said she, 'perhaps it is the
+war canoes (taumualua) from Falifa. Those dogs hath learnt that all our
+men are gone away to Falealili to the _fono_ and they have come here to
+the islands to eat and rest, so that they may fall upon our town when it
+is dawn, and slay us all. Let us back, ere it is too late.'
+
+"But as she spoke she looked into the water, and my father looked too;
+and they both trembled. Deep down in the blackness of the sea was it
+that they saw--yet it quickly came nearer and nearer, like unto a great
+flame of white fire. It was a _tanlfa_. Like flashes of lightning did
+my father dash his paddle into the water and urge the canoe to the land,
+for he knew that when the _tanifa_ had come to the surface it would look
+and then dive, and when it came up again would spring upon and devour
+them both.
+
+"'It is better to give our heads to the men of Falifa than for us to go
+into the belly of the shark,' he said, 'and it may be we can land, and
+they see us not.' And so with fear gnawing at their vitals the canoe
+flew along, and the streak of fire underneath was close upon them when
+they struck the edge of the coral and knew they were safe.
+
+*****
+
+"They dragged the canoe over the reef and then got in again, and paddled
+softly along till they passed the light of the fire, and then they
+landed on a little beach about a hundred _gafa_ (fathoms) away. Then
+again Uluvao, who was a girl of wisdom, spoke.
+
+*****
+
+"'Listen,' she said, 'O man of my heart. Let us creep through the bushes
+and look. It may be that these men of Falifa are tired and weary, and
+sleep like hogs. Take thou, then, O Lauati, thy shark club and knife
+from the canoe, and perchance we may fall upon one that sleepest away
+from the rest, then shalt thou strike, and thou and I drag him away into
+the bushes and take his head. Then, ere it is well dawn, we will be back
+in the town, and Tuialo will no longer keep me from thee, for the head
+of a Falifa man will win his heart better than a fat turtle, and I will
+be wife to thee.'
+
+"My father was pleased at her words. So they crept like snakes along the
+dewy ground. When they came to a jagged boulder covered with vines, that
+was near unto the fire, they looked and saw but one man, and, lo! he was
+a _papalagi_--a white man. And then, until it was dawn, my father and
+the girl hid behind the jagged rock and watched.
+
+*****
+
+"The white man was sitting on the sand, with his face clasped in his
+hands. At his feet lay another man, with his white face turned up to the
+sky, and those that watched saw that he was dead. He who sat over the
+dead man was tall and thin, and his hands were like the talons of the
+great fish eagle, so thin and bony were they. His garments were ragged
+and old, and his feet were bare; and as my father looked at him his
+heart became pitiful, and he whispered to Uluvao, 'Let us call out. He
+is but weak, and I can master him if he springs upon me. Let us speak.'?
+
+"But Uluvao held him back. 'Nay,' she said, 'he may have a gun and
+shoot.'
+
+"So they waited till the sun rose.
+
+*****
+
+"The white man stood and looked about. Then he walked down to the beach,
+and my father and the girl saw lying on the rocks a little boat. The man
+went to the side, and put in his hand and brought out something in his
+hand, and came back and sat down again by the face of the dead. He had
+gone to the boat for food, and my father saw him place a biscuit to his
+mouth and commence to eat. But ere he swallowed any it fell from his
+hand upon the sand and he threw himself upon the body of the dead man
+and wept, and his tears ran down over the face that was cold and were
+drank up by the sand.
+
+"Then Uluvao began to weep, and my father stood up and called out to the
+white man _Talofa!_
+
+"He gazed at them and spoke not, but let them come close to him, and
+pointing to him who lay on the sand, he covered his face with his hands
+and bowed his head. Then Lauati ran and climbed a cocoanut tree and
+brought him two young nuts and made him drink, and Uluvao got broad
+leaves and covered over the face of the dead from the hot sun. Not
+one word of our tongue could he speak, but yet from signs that he made
+Lauati and the girl knew that he wished to bury the dead man. So they
+two dug a deep grave in the sand, far up on the bank, where it lay soft
+and deep and covered with vines. When it was finished they lifted the
+dead white man and laid him beside it. And as they looked upon him the
+other came and knelt beside it and spoke many words into the ear that
+heard not, and Uluvao wept again to see his grief. At last they laid him
+in the grave and all three threw in the sand and filled it up.
+
+"Then these two took the strange white man by the hand and led him
+away into a little hut that was sometimes used by those who came to the
+island to fish. They made him eat and then sleep, and while he slept
+they carried up the things out of the boat and put them in the house
+beside him.
+
+*****
+
+"When the sun was high in the heavens, the white man awoke, and my
+father took his hand and pointed to the boat, and then to the houses
+across the sea. He bent his head and followed, and they all got into the
+boat, and hoisted the sail. When the boat came close to the passage of
+Aleipata, the people ran from out their houses, and stood upon the beach
+and wondered. And Lauati and Uluvao laughed and sang, and called out:
+'Ho, ho, people! we have brought a great gift--a white man from over
+the sea. Send word quickly to Tuialo that he may return and see this our
+white man,' and, as the boat touched the sand, the old woman, the sister
+of Tuialo, came up, and said to Lauati, 'Well hast thou done, O lucky
+one! Better is this gift of a white man than many turtle.'
+
+"Then she took the stranger to her house, and pigs and fowls were
+killed, and yams and taro cooked, and a messenger sent to Tuialo to
+hasten back quickly, and see this gift from the gods. For they were
+quick to see that in the boat were muskets and powder and bullets, and
+all the people rejoiced, for they thought that this white man could mend
+for them many guns that were broken and useless, and help them to fight
+against the men or Falifa.
+
+*****
+
+"In two days Tuialo came back, and he made much of the white man, and
+Uluvao he gave to my father for wife. And for the white man were the
+softest mats and the best pieces of _siapo_ and he lived for nearly the
+space of two years in the chief's house. And all this time he worked
+at making boats and mending the broken guns and muskets, and little by
+little the words of our tongue came to him, and he learned to tell us
+many things. Yet at night-time he would always come to my father's house
+and sit with him and talk, and sometimes Uluvao would make kava for him
+and my father.
+
+"At about the end of the second year, there came a whaleship, and
+Tuialo, and the white man, whom we called _Tui-fana,_ 'the gun-mender,'
+went out to her, and took with them many pigs and yams to exchange for
+guns and powder. When the buying and selling was over, the captain of
+the ship gave Tui-fana a gun with two barrels--bright was it and new,
+and Tuialo, the chief, was eaten up with envy, and begged his white man
+for the gun, but he said: 'Nay, not now; when we are in the house we
+will talk.'
+
+*****
+
+"Like as a swarm of flies, the people gathered round the council-house
+to see the guns and the powder and the swords that had been brought from
+the ship. And in the middle of the house sat Tui-fana with the gun with
+two barrels in his hand.
+
+"When all the chiefs had come in and sat down Tuialo came. His face was
+smiles, but his heart was full of bitterness towards Tui-fana, and as he
+spoke to the people and told them of the words that had been spoken
+by the captain of the ship, he said, 'And see this white man, this
+Tui-fana, who hath grown rich among us, is as greedy as a Tongan, and
+keepeth for himself a new gun with two barrels.'
+
+"The white stood up and spoke: 'Nay, not greedy am I. Take, O chief, all
+I have; my house, my mats, my land, and the wife thou gavest me, but yet
+would I say, "Let me keep this gun with the two barrels."'
+
+"Tuialo was eaten up with greed, yet was his mind set on the gun, so he
+answered, 'Nay, that were to make thee as poor as when thou comest to
+us. Give me the gun, 'tis all I ask.'
+
+"'It is not mine to give,' he answered. Then he rose and spoke to the
+people. 'See,' said he, 'Tuialo, the chief, desires this gun, and I say
+it is not mine to give, for to Lauati did I promise such a gun a year
+gone by. This, then, will I do. Unto Tuialo will I give my land, my
+house, and all that is mine, but to Lauati I give the gun, for so I
+promised.'
+
+*****
+
+"Then fierce looks passed between the chief and the white man, and the
+people surged together to and fro, for they were divided, some for the
+fear of the chief, and some for the love of the white man. But most
+were for that Lauati should keep the gun. And so Tuialo, seeing that the
+people's hearts were against him, put on a smooth face, and came to the
+white man and said--
+
+"'Thou art as a son to me. Lauati shall keep the gun, and thou shalt
+keep thy house and lands. I will take nothing from thee. Let us be for
+ever friends.'
+
+"Then the white said to the chief, 'O chief, gladly will I give thee all
+I have, but this man, Lauati, is as my brother, and I promised------'
+
+"But Tuialo put his hand on the white man's mouth, and said, 'Say no
+more, my son; I was but angered.'
+
+*****
+
+"Yet see now his wickedness. For that night, when my father and Uluvao,
+my mother, were sitting with the white man and his wife, and drinking
+kava, there suddenly sprang in upon them ten men, who stood over them
+with clubs poised. They were the body-men of Tuialo.
+
+"'Drink thy kava,' said one to the white man, 'and then come out to
+die.'
+
+*****
+
+"Ah, he was a man! He took the cup of kava from the hands of his wife's
+sister, and said--
+
+"'It is well. All men must die. But yet would I see Tuialo before the
+club fells.'
+
+"The chief but waited outside, and he came.
+
+"'Must I die?' said the white man.
+
+"'Ay,' said Tuialo. 'Two such as thee and I cannot live at the same
+time. Thou art almost as great a man as I.'
+
+"The white man bent his head. Then he put out his hand to my father and
+said, 'Farewell, O my friend.'
+
+"Lauati, my father, fell at the chief's feet. 'Take thou the gun, O
+chief, but spare his life.'
+
+"Tuialo laughed. 'The gun will I take, Lauati, but his life I must have
+also.'
+
+"'My life for his,' said my father.
+
+"'And mine,' said Uluvao, my mother.
+
+"'And mine also,' said Manini, the white man's wife; and both she and
+Taulaga, her sister, bent their knees to the chief.
+
+"The white man tried to spring up, but four strong men held him.
+
+"Then Tuialo looked at the pair who knelt before him. He stroked his
+club, and spoke to his body-men.
+
+"'Bring them all outside.' They went together to the beach. 'Brave
+talkers ye be,' said he; 'who now will say "I die for the white man"?'
+
+"'Nay, heed them not, Tuialo,' said the white man. 'On me alone let the
+club fell.'
+
+"But the chief gave him no answer, looking only at my father and the
+three women."
+
+*****
+
+"'My life,' said Taulaga, the girl; and she knelt on the sand.
+
+"The club swung round and struck her on the side of her head, and it
+beat it in. She fell, and died quickly.
+
+"'Oho,' mocked Tuialo, 'is there but one life offered for so great a man
+as Tiufana?'
+
+"Lauati fell before him. 'Spare me not, O chief, if my life but saves
+his.'
+
+"And again the club swung, and Lauati, my Either, died too, and as he
+fell his blood mixed with that of Taulaga.
+
+"And then Uluvao and Manini, placing some little faith in his mocking
+words, knelt, and their blood too poured out on the ground, and the
+three women and my father lay in a heap together.
+
+"Now I, Felipe, was but a child, and when my mother had gone to kneel
+under the club she had placed me under a _fetan_ tree near by. The
+chiefs eye fell on me, and a man took me up and carried me to him.
+
+"Then the white man said, 'Hurt not the child, O chief, or I curse thee
+before I die, and thou wastest away.'
+
+"So Tuialo spared me.
+
+"Then the chief came to the white man, and the two who held his hands
+pulled them well apart, and Tuialo once more swung his blood-dyed club.
+It fell, and the white man's head fell upon his breast."
+
+
+
+
+MRS. LIARDET: A SOUTH SEA TRADING EPISODE
+
+Captain Dave Liardet, of the trading schooner _Motutakea_, of Sydney,
+was sitting propped up in his bunk smoking his last pipe. His very last.
+He knew that, for the Belgian doctor-naturalist, his passenger, had just
+said so; and besides, one look at the gaping hole in his right side,
+that he had got two days before at La Vandola, in the Admiralties, from
+the broad-bladed obsidian native knife, had told him he had made his
+last voyage. The knife-blade lay on the cabin table before him, and his
+eye rested on it for a moment with a transient gleam of satisfaction as
+he remembered how well Tommy, the Tonga boy, who pulled the bow oar, had
+sent a Snider bullet through the body of the yellow-skinned buck from
+whom the knife-thrust had come. From the blade of obsidian on the table
+his eye turned to the portrait of a woman in porcelain that hung just
+over the clock. It was a face fair enough to look at, and Liardet, with
+a muttered curse of physical agony, leant his body forward to get a
+closer view of it, and said, "Poor little woman; it'll be darned rough
+on her." Then Russell, the mate, came down.
+
+*****
+
+"Joe," said Liardet, in his practical way, which even the words of the
+doctor and the face of the clock before him could not change, "cock your
+ears and listen, for I haven't got much time, and you have the ship to
+look to. I want you to tell the owners that this affair at La Vandola
+wasn't my fault. We was doing fair and square trading when a buck drives
+his knife into me for no apparent reason beyond the simple damned fun of
+the thing. Well, he's done for me, and Tommy Tonga for him, and that's
+all you've got to say about that. Next thing is to ask 'em to sling
+Tommy a fiver over and above his wages--for saving of the boat and
+trade, mind, Joe. Don't say for potting the nigger, Joe; boat and trade,
+boat and trade, that's the tack to go on with owners, Joe. Well, let's
+see now.... My old woman. See she gets fair play, wages up to date of
+death, eh, Joe? By God, old man, she won't get much of a cheque--only
+four months out now from Sydney. Look here, Joe, the Belgian's all
+right. He won't go telling tales. So don't you log me dead for another
+month, and make as bad a passage as you can. There's only us three white
+men aboard, and the native boys will take their Bible oath I didn't die
+until the ship was off Lord Howe Island if you give 'em a box of
+tobacco. You see, Joe? That's the dodge. More days, more dollars, and
+the longer you keep the ship at sea the more money comes to all hands.
+And I know I can trust you, Joe, to lend a hand in making the old
+woman's cheque a little bigger. Right.... We've been two years together
+now, Joe, and this is the only thing I've ever asked you to do or done
+myself that wasn't square and aboveboard. But look here"--here, for some
+half-minute, Captain Dave Liardet launched into profanity--"I tell you
+that the owners of this ship wouldn't care a single curse if you and I
+and every living soul aboard had had our livers cut out at La Vandola as
+long as _they_ didn't lose money over it, and haven't to pay our wages
+to our wives and children."
+
+*****
+
+Liardet gasped and choked, and the little Belgian naturalist tripped
+down and wiped away the dark stream that began to trickle down the
+grizzled beard, and then he and Russell, the mate, laid him down again.
+
+"Don't go," whispered the Belgian to the other, "he sink ver' fast now."
+The closed eyelids opened a little and looked up through the skylight
+at the brown face of Tommy the Tongan, and then Russell gave the dying
+skipper brandy and water. Then, with fast-fading eyes on the picture in
+porcelain, he asked Russell what course he was keeping.
+
+"As near south as can be," said the mate, "but with this breeze we could
+soon make the Great Barrier, and there's always hope, cap'n. Let me keep
+her away to the westward a bit, and who knows but you may----"
+
+For answer the grizzled Liardet held out his hand, shook his head
+faintly, and muttering, "I hope to God it'll come on a Hell of a Calm
+for a Month of Sundays," he turned his face to the port and went over
+_his_ Great Barrier.
+
+***** Every one was "_so_ sorry for poor little Mrs. Liardet." She
+was so young to be a widow, "and having no children, my dear, the poor
+creature must have felt the shock the more keenly." Thus the local
+gabble of the acquaintances and friends of the pretty widow. And she
+laughed softly to herself that she couldn't feel overwhelmed with grief
+at her widowhood. "He hadn't a thought above making money," she said to
+herself--oh, Nell Liardet, for whom did he desire to make it!--"and yet
+never could make it." And then she thought of Russell, and smiled again.
+His hand had trembled when it held hers. Surely he did not come so often
+to see her merely to talk of rough, old Dave Liardet. A man whom she had
+only tolerated--never loved. And then, Russell was a big, handsome
+man; and she liked big, handsome men. Also, he was captain now. And, of
+course, when he had told her of that rich patch of pearl-shell, that he
+alone knew of at Caille Harbour, in which was a small fortune, and had
+looked so intently into her blue eyes, he had meant that it was for her.
+"Yes," and she smiled again, "I'm sure he loves me. But he's terribly
+slow; and although I do believe that blonde young widows look 'fetching'
+in black, I'm getting sick of it, and wish he'd marry me to-morrow."
+
+Russell had stood to his compact with the dead skipper. The owners had
+given her L150, and Russell, making up a plausible story to his dead
+captain's wife of Liardet having in bygone days lent him "fifty pounds,"
+had added that sum to the other. And he meant, for the sake of old Dave,
+never to let his pretty little widow run short as long as he had a shot
+in the locker. The patch of shell at Caille he meant to work, and if
+Dave had lived they would have "gone whacks." But as he was dead, he
+wouldn't do any mean thing. She should have half of whatever he got--"go
+whacks" just the same. But as for love, it never entered his honest
+brain, and had any one told him that Nell Liardet was fond of him, he
+would have called him a liar and "plugged" him for insulting a lady.
+
+*****
+
+"Going away! Mr. Russell--Joe! Surely you won't go and leave me without
+a friend in the world? I thought you cared for me more than that?"
+
+The big man reddened up to his temples.
+
+"Don't say that, Mrs. Liardet. If you'll allow me, I'll always be a
+friend. And, as I thought it would be hard for you to have to spend the
+little that Liardet left you, I have made arrangements for you to draw
+a few pounds whenever you need it from the agents. And as long as ever I
+have a pound in the world, Dave Liardet's wife----"
+
+"Wife!" and the blue eyes flashed angrily. "He is dead and I am free.
+Why do you always talk of him? I hate the name. I hated him--a coarse,
+money-loving----"
+
+"Stop!"
+
+Russell stepped forward. "Good-bye, Mrs. Liardet. I hold to what I have
+said. But the man that you call coarse and money-loving died in trying
+to make it for you. And he was a good, honest man, and I can't stay here
+and hear his memory abused by the woman he loved better than life." And
+then he turned to go, but stopped, and, with a scarlet face, said, "Of
+course you're a lady and wouldn't do anything not right and straight, so
+I know that if you intend to marry again you'll send me word; but if you
+don't, why, of course, I'll be proud and glad to stand by you in money
+matters. I'm sure poor Dave would have done the same for my wife if I
+had got that knife into me instead of him."
+
+Nell Liardet, sitting with clenched hands and set teeth, said, in a
+hoarse voice, "Your wife! Are you married?"
+
+"Well--er--yes, oh, yes. I have a--er--native wife at the Anchorites.
+Poor old Dave stood godfather to one of my little girls. God knows how
+anxious I am to get back to her."
+
+"_Good_ bye, Mr. Russell!"
+
+
+
+
+
+KENNEDY THE BOATSTEERER
+
+Steering north-west from Samoa for six or seven hundred miles you will
+sight the Ellice Group--low-lying, palm-clad coral atolls fringed on the
+lee with shimmering sandy beaches. On the weather-side, exposed to the
+long sweep of the ocean-rollers, there are but short, black-looking
+reefs backed by irregular piles of loose, flat, sea-worn coral, thrown
+up and accumulating till its surface is brushed by the pendant leaves of
+the cocoanuts, only to be washed and swirled back seawards when the wind
+comes from the westward and sends a fierce sweeping current along the
+white beaches and black coral rocks alike.
+
+*****
+
+Twenty-three years ago these islands were almost unknown to any one save
+a few wandering traders and the ubiquitous New Bedford whaler. But now,
+long ere you can see from the ship's deck the snowy tumble of the surf
+on the reef, a huge white mass, grim, square, and ugly, will meet your
+eye--whitewashed walls of a distressful ghastliness accentuated by doors
+and windows of the deadliest black. This cheerful excrescence on the
+face of suffering nature is a native church.
+
+The people have mostly assimilated themselves, in their manners and
+mode of life generally, to the new order of things represented by the
+fearful-looking structure aforementioned. That is to say, even as the
+Tongan and Fijian, they have degenerated from a fierce, hardy, warlike
+race into white-shirted, black-coated saints, whose ideal of a lovely
+existence is to have public prayer twice a day on week-days and all day
+on Sundays. To them it is a good thing to get half a dollar from the
+white trader for a sick fowl--which, when bought, will be claimed by
+another native, who will have the white man fined two dollars for
+buying stolen property. Had the white man paid a dollar he had done
+wisely--that coin sometimes goes far in the Tokelaus. For instance, the
+truly unctuous native Christian may ask a dollar for two fowls, but
+he will also lease out his wife for a similar amount. Time was, in the
+Ellices, when the undue complaisance of a married woman meant a sudden
+and inartistic compression of the jugular, or a swift blow from
+the heavy, ebony-wood club of the wronged man. Nowadays, since the
+smug-faced native teacher hath shown them the Right Way, such domestic
+troubles are condoned by--a dollar. That is, if it be a genuine American
+dollar or two British florins; for outraged honour would not accept the
+cast-iron Bolivian money or the poor silver of Chili and Peru. And for a
+dollar the native "Christian" can all but pay for a nicely-bound Bible,
+printed in the Samoan tongue, and thus, no doubt, out of evil would come
+good; for he could, by means of his newly-acquired purchase, picture to
+his dusky mate the terrors that await those who look upon strange men
+and _tupe fa'apupula_ (bright and shining money).
+
+*****
+
+But I want to tell about Kennedy. Kennedy the Boatsteerer he was called;
+although twenty years had passed and gone since that day at Wallis
+Island when he, a bright-eyed, bronze-faced lad--with the fighting-blood
+of the old Puritan Endicotts running like fire through his veins despite
+his New England bringing-up--ran his knife into a shipmate's heart and
+fled for ever from all white associations. Over a woman it was, and only
+a copper-coloured one at that; but then she was young and beautiful,
+with dreamy, glistening eyes, and black, wavy hair, ornamented with a
+wreath of orange-flowers and coil upon coil of bright-hued _sea sea_
+berries strung together, hanging from her neck and resting upon her
+dainty bosom.
+
+*****
+
+Standing at the doorway of his house, looking over the placid waters
+at the rising sun, Kennedy folds his brawny arms across his bare,
+sun-tanned chest and mutters to himself, in his almost forgotten
+mother-tongue: "Twenty years, twenty years ago! Who would know me there
+now? Even if I placarded my name on my back and what I did, 'taint
+likely I'd have to face a grand jury for running a knife into a mongrel
+Portuguee, way out in the South Seas a score of years ago.... Poor
+little Talamalu! I paid a big price for her--twenty years of wandering
+from Wallis Island to the Bonins; and wherever I go that infernal story
+follows me up. Well, I'll risk it anyhow, and the first chance that
+comes along I'll cut Kanaka life and drinking ship's rum and go see
+old dad and mum to home. Here, Tikena, you Tokelau devil, bring me my
+toddy."
+
+A native, clad in his grass _titi_, takes from a wooden peg in the house
+wall two shells of toddy, and the white wanderer takes one and drinks.
+He is about to return the other to the man when two girls come up from
+the beach with their arms around each other's waists, Tahiti fashion,
+and one calls out with a laugh to "leave some in the shell." This is
+Laumanu, and if there is one thing in the world that Jake Kennedy cares
+for above himself it is this tall girl with the soft eyes and lithe
+figure. And he dreams of her pretty often, and curses fluently to think
+that she is beyond his reach and is never likely to fill the place of
+Talamalu and her many successors. For Laumanu is _tabu_ to a Nuitao
+chief--that is, she has been betrothed, but the Nuitao man is sixty
+miles away at his own island, and no one knows when he will claim his
+_avaga_. Then the girl gives him back the empty toddy-shell, and, slyly
+pinching his hand, sails away with her mate, whereupon the susceptible
+Kennedy, furious with long disappointment, flings himself down on his
+bed of mats, curses his luck and his unsuspecting rival at Nuitao, and
+finally decides not to spring a surprise on "dad and mum" by going "hum"
+for a considerable number of years to come.
+
+*****
+
+Mr. Jake Kennedy at this time was again a widower--in the widest sense
+of the word. The last native girl who had occupied the proud position of
+_Te avaga te papalagi_ (the white man's wife) was a native of the
+island of Maraki--a dark-skinned, passionately jealous creature, who had
+followed his fortunes for three years to his present location, and then
+developed _mal-du-pays_ to such an extent that the local priest and
+devil-catcher, one Pare-vaka, was sent for by her female attendants.
+Pare-vaka was not long in making his diagnosis. A little devil in the
+shape of an octopus was in Tene-napa's brain. And he gave instructions
+how to get the fiend out, and also further instructions to one of the
+girl attendants to fix, point-upwards, in the sick woman's mat the
+_foto_, or barb of the sting-ray. So when Kennedy, who, in his rough,
+careless way, had some feint fondness for the woman who three years
+ago he went mad over, heard a loud cry in the night and was told that
+Tenenapa was dead, he did not know that as the sick woman lay on her
+side the watchers had quietly turned her with her face to the roof,
+and with the needle pointed _foto_ pierced her to the heart. And old
+Pare-vaka rejoiced, for he had a daughter who, in his opinion, should
+be _avaga_ to the wealthy and clever white man, who could _tori nui_ and
+_sisi atu_ (pull cocoanuts and catch bonito) like any native; and this
+Tenenapa--who was she but a dog-eating stranger from Maraki only fit
+for shark's meat? So the people came and brought Kennedy the "gifts of
+affliction" to show their sympathy, and asked him to take a wife from
+their own people. And he asked for Laumanu.
+
+*****
+
+There was a dead silence awhile, and then a wild-looking creature with
+long white hair falling around his shoulders like a cloak, dreading to
+shame the _papalagi_ before so many, rose to his feet and motioned them
+away. Then he spoke: "Forget the words you have said, and take for a
+wife the girl from the house of Pare-vaka. Laumanu is _tabu_ and death
+walks behind her." But Kennedy sulked and wanted Laumanu or none.
+
+And this is why he feels so bad to-day, and the rum-keg gives him no
+consolation. For the sweet-voiced Laumanu always runs away from him
+when he steps out from his dark little trade-room into the light,
+with unsteady steps and a peculiar gleam in his black eye, that means
+mischief--rude love to a woman and challenge to fight to a man.
+
+Lying there on his mat, plotting how to get possession of the girl,
+there comes to him a faint cry, gradually swelling in volume until every
+voice in the village, from the full, sonorous tones of the men to the
+shrill treble of the children, blend together: "_Te vaka motul! Te vaka
+motu!_" (a ship! a ship!). Springing up, he strides out, and there,
+slowly lumbering round the south-west end of the little island, under
+cruising canvas only, he sees her. One quick glance shows her to be a
+whaler.
+
+In ten minutes Kennedy is in a canoe, flying over the reef, and in as
+many more alongside and on deck. The captain is an old acquaintance, and
+while the boats are sent ashore to buy pigs and poultry, Kennedy and
+he have a long talk in the cabin. Then the skipper says, as he rises,
+"Well, it's risky, but it's a smart way of earning five hundred dollars,
+and I'll land you and the creature somewhere in the Carolines."
+
+The whaler was to lie off and on all night, or until such time as
+Kennedy and the girl came aboard in a canoe. To avert suspicion, the
+captain was to remain ashore with his boat's crew to witness a dance,
+and, if all went well, the white man was to be aboard before him with
+Laumanu and stow her away, in case any canoes came off with the boat.
+
+*****
+
+The dance was in full swing when Kennedy, stripped to the waist, with
+a heavy bag of money in his left hand and a knife in his right, took
+a long farewell of his house and stepped out into the silent groves of
+coco-palms. A short walk brought him to a salt lagoon. On the brink he
+stood and waited, until a trembling, voiceless figure joined him from
+out the depths of the thick mangroves. Hand-in-hand they fled along
+the narrow, sandy path till they reached the beach, just where a few
+untenanted thatched huts stood on the shingle. Between these, covered
+over with cocoanut branches, lay a canoe. Deftly the two raised the
+light craft and carried it down to the water that broke in tender,
+rippling murmurs on the white sand. And with Laumanu seated for'ard,
+gazing out beyond into the blackness before them, he urged the canoe
+seawards with quick, nervous strokes. Far away to the westward he could
+see the dull glimmer of the whaleship's lights.
+
+*****
+
+The mate of the _Essex_ was leaning over the rail, drowsily watching
+the phosphorescence in the water as the ship rolled gently to the ocean
+swell, when a cry came from for'ard: "A heavy squall coming down, sir,
+from the land!" And it did come, with a swift, fierce rush, and so
+strong that it nearly threw the old whaler over on her beam-ends. In
+the midst of the hum and roar of the squall some one in the waist of
+the ship called out something about a canoe being alongside. The mate's
+comment was brief but vigorous, and the matter was speedily forgotten.
+Then the rain fell in torrents, and as the ship was made snug the watch
+got under shelter and the mate went below to get a drink of rum, and
+curse his captain for loafing ashore, watching naked women dancing.
+
+***** Three miles further out a canoe was drifting and tossing about
+with outrigger carried away. Now and then, as a big sea lifted her, the
+stern would rise high out of the water and the sharp-nosed whaleback
+for'ard go down as if weighted heavily. And it was--with a bag of
+dollars lashed underneath. When in the early morning the whaleship
+sighted the drifting speck, floating on the bosom of a now placid sea,
+the thoughtful Down-East skipper--observant of the canoe's bows being
+under water--lowered a boat and pulled over to it. He took the bag of
+dollars and muttering something about "rather thinking he was kinder
+acquainted with the poor man's people," went back to the ship and stood
+away on his course in pursuit of his greasy vocation.
+
+*****
+
+And Kennedy and the girl! Go some night and watch the dark-skinned
+people catching flying-fish by the light of _au lama_ torches. Look over
+the side of the canoe and see those swarms of grim, grey devils of the
+tropic seas that ever and anon dart to the surface as the paddlers'
+hands come perilously near the water, and wonder no longer as to the
+fete of Kennedy the Boatsteerer and his Laumanu.
+
+
+
+
+A DEAD LOSS
+
+Denison, the supercargo of the _Indiana_, was sent by his "owners" to an
+island in the S.W. Pacific where they had a trading business, the man
+in charge or which had, it was believed, got into trouble by shooting
+a native. His instructions were to investigate the rumour, and, if
+the business was suffering in any way, to take away the trader and put
+another man in his place. The incident here related is well within the
+memory of some very worthy men who still dwell under the roofs of thatch
+in the Western Pacific.
+
+*****
+
+The name of the island was--well, say Nukupapau.
+
+The _Indiana_ sailed from Auckland in December, and made a smart run
+till the blue peaks of Tutuila were sighted, when the trades foiled
+and heavy weather came on from the westward. Up to this time Denison's
+duties as supercargo had kept him busy in the trade-room, and he had had
+no time to study his new captain, for, although they met at table three
+times a day, beyond a few civilities they had done no talking. Captain
+Chaplin was young--about thirty--and one of the most taciturn persons
+Denison had ever met. The mate, who, having served the owners for about
+twenty years, felt himself privileged, one night at supper asked him
+point-blank, in his Irish fashion _apropos_ of nothing: "An' phwat part
+av the wurruld may yez come from, captain?"
+
+There were but the five of them present--the skipper, two mates,
+boatswain, and Denison. Laying down his knife and fork and stirring his
+tea, he fixed his eyes coldly on the inquisitive sub's face.
+
+"From the same God-forsaken hole as you do, sir--Ireland. My name isn't
+Chaplin, but as I'm the captain of this rotten old hooker I want you to
+understand that if you ask me another such d------d impertinent question
+you'll find it a risky business for you--or any one else!"
+
+The quick blood mounted up to the old mate's forehead, and it looked
+like as if a fight was coming, but the captain had resumed his supper
+and the matter ended. But it showed us that he meant to keep to himself.
+
+*****
+
+The _Indiana_ made the low-lying atoll at last and lay-to outside. Those
+on board could see the trader's house close to, but instead of being
+surrounded by a swarm of eager and excited natives there was not one
+to be seen. Nor could they even see a canoe coming off. Denison pointed
+this out to the captain. Although of an evidently savage and morose
+temperament he was always pleasant enough to Denison in his capacity
+of supercargo, and inquired of him if he thought the trader had been
+killed.
+
+"No," Denison said, "I don't think the people here would ever kill
+Martin; but something is wrong. He has not hoisted his flag, and that is
+very queer. I can see no natives about his place--which also is curious;
+and the village just there seems to be deserted. If you will lower the
+boat I'll soon see what's wrong."
+
+*****
+
+The skipper called out to lower the whaleboat, put four Rotumah boys in
+her, and then offered to accompany the supercargo. As he was a new man,
+Denison naturally was surprised at his wanting to leave his ship at a
+strange place.
+
+"Glad enough," he said, "the landing here is beastly--lucky if we escape
+getting stove-in going over the reef. Martin knows the passage well and
+tackles it in any surf--wish he were here now!"
+
+Captain Chaplin soon took that off his mind. Unconsciously Denison gave
+him the steer-oar, and in a few minutes they were flying over the reef
+at a half-tide, and never touched anywhere.
+
+"Why," said Denison, "you seem to know the place."
+
+"I do," he answered, quietly, "know it well, and know Martin, too.
+You'll find him drunk."
+
+They walked up the white path of broken coral and stood in the doorway
+of the big front room. At the far end, on a native sofa, lay Martin; by
+his side sat a young native girl fanning him. No one else.
+
+The gaunt black-whiskered trader tried to rise, but with a varied string
+of oaths lashed together he fell back, waving his hand to Denison in
+recognition. The girl was not a native of the island--that could be seen
+at a glance. She was as handsome as a picture, and after giving the two
+white men a dignified greeting, in the Yap (Caroline Islands) dialect,
+she resumed her fanning and smoking her cigarette.
+
+"Martin," said the supercargo, "shake yourself together. What is the
+matter? Are you sick, or is it only the usual drunk?"
+
+"Both," came in tones that sounded as if his inside were lined with
+cotton wool; "got a knife in my ribs six months back; never got well;
+and I've been drinking all the time "--and then, with a silly smile of
+childish vanity, "all over _her_. She's my new girl--wot d'ye think of
+her? Ain't she a star?"
+
+*****
+
+All this time Chaplin stood back until Denison called him up and said to
+the trader, "Our new captain, Martin!"
+
+"By God," said the trader, slowly, "if he ain't the image of that ------
+nigger-catching skipper that was here from Honolulu four years ago."
+
+"That's me!" said Chaplin, coolly puffing away at his cigar, and taking
+a seat near the sofa, with one swift glance of admiration at the face of
+the girl.
+
+In a few minutes Martin told his troubles. Some seven months previously
+a ship had called at the island. He boarded her. She was a whaler making
+south to the Kermadecs "sperming." The captain told Martin he had come
+through the Pelews and picked up a big canoe with a chiefs retinue on
+board, nearly dead from starvation. Many of them did die on board. Among
+those left were two women, the wife and daughter of the chief--who was
+the first to die. Making a long story short, Martin gave the captain
+trade and cash to the tune of five hundred dollars for the two women,
+and came ashore. Pensioning off his other wife, he took the young girl
+himself and sold the mother to the local chief for a ton of copra.
+
+A week afterwards a young native came outside his house, cutlass in
+hand. He was a brother of the dismissed wife and meant fighting. Martin
+darted out, his new love standing calmly in the doorway, smoking. There
+was a shot, and the native fell with a bullet through his chest, but
+raising his voice he called to others and flung them his cutlass; and
+then Martin found himself struggling with two or three more and got a
+fearful stab. That night the head men of the village came to him and
+said that as he had always been a good man to them they would not kill
+him, but they then and there tabooed him till he either killed his new
+wife or sent her away. And when he looked out in the morning he saw the
+whole village going away in canoes to the other side of the lagoon. For
+six months neither he nor the girl--Lunumala was her name--had spoken to
+a native. And Martin gave himself up to love and drink, and, since the
+_fracas_ had not done a cent's worth of trading.
+
+Denison told Martin his instructions. He only nodded, and said something
+to the girl, who rose and brought the supercargo his books. A few
+minutes' looking through them, and then at his well-filled trade-room,
+showed Denison that everything was right, except that all the liquor was
+gone.
+
+"Martin," the supercargo said, "this won't do. I've got another man
+aboard, and I'll put him here and take you to Rotumah."
+
+But he swore violently. He couldn't go anywhere else. This island was
+his home. The natives would give in some day. He'd rather cut his throat
+than leave.
+
+"Well," said Denison, calmly, "it's one of two things. You know as well
+as I do that a _tabu_ like this is a serious business. I know you are the
+best man for the place; but, if you won't leave, why not send the girl
+away?"
+
+No, he wouldn't send her away. She should stay too.
+
+"All serene," said the man of business. "Then I'll take stock at once,
+and we'll square up and I'll land the other man."
+
+This was a crusher for poor Martin. Denison felt sorry for him, and had
+a hard duty to carry through.
+
+Presently the sick man with a ten-ton oath groaned, "------ you, Mister
+Skipper, wot are you a-doin' of there, squeezin' my wife's hand?"
+
+*****
+
+"Well, now," said the captain, quietly, "look here, Martin. Just put
+this in your thick head and think it out in five minutes. You've either
+got to give up this girl or get away from the island. Now, I don't want
+to make any man feel mean, but she don't particularly care about you,
+and----"
+
+The graceful creature nodded her approval or Chaplin's remarks, and
+Martin glared at her. Then he took a drink of gin and meditated.
+
+Two minutes passed. Then Martin turned.
+
+"How much?" he said.
+
+"Fifty pounds, sonny. Two hundred and fifty dollars."
+
+"Easy to see you've been in the business," mumbled Martin; "why, her
+mother's worth that. 'Tain't no deal."
+
+"Well, then, how much _do_ you want?"
+
+"A hundred."
+
+"Haven't got it on board, sonny. Take eighty sovereigns and the rest in
+trade or liquor?"
+
+"It's a deal," said Martin; "are you game to part ten sovereigns for the
+girl's mother, and I'll get her back from the natives!"
+
+"No," said Chaplin, rising \ "the girl's enough for me."
+
+She had risen and was looking at Martin with a pallid face and set
+teeth, and then without a word of farewell on either side she picked
+up a Panama hat and, fan in hand, walked down to the boat and got in,
+waiting for Chaplin.
+
+*****
+
+Presently he came down, and said, "Well, Mr. Denison, I suppose, as
+matters are arranged, you'll want to land Martin some trade?"
+
+"Oh, no," said Denison, "he's got plenty. This _tabu_ on his own
+business will teach him a lesson. But I want to send him some provisions
+on shore. By the way, captain, that girl's likely to prove expensive to
+you. I hope you'll put her ashore at Rotumah till the voyage is nearly
+over."
+
+"No," said he, "I won't. Of course, I know our godly owners would raise
+a deuce of a row about my buying the girl if I couldn't pay for her
+keep while she's on board, but I've got a couple of hundred pounds in
+Auckland, as they know, besides some cash on board. After I've paid that
+thundering blackguard I've still some left, and I mean to put her ashore
+at Levuka to live until I can take her to her destination."
+
+"Why," Denison queried, "what are you going to do with her?"
+
+"Just this: there's a friend of mine in Honolulu always willing to give
+a few thousand dollars for a really handsome girl. And I believe that
+girl will bring me nearly about three thousand dollars."
+
+*****
+
+For three months the girl remained on board, grave, dignified, and
+always self-possessed. Chaplin treated her kindly, and it was evident
+to all on board that the girl had given him such affection as she was
+capable of, and little knew his intentions regarding her future. With
+both Chaplin and Denison she would now converse freely in the Pelew
+Island dialect. And often pointing to the sinking sun she would
+sigh--"There is my land over there behind the sun. When will we get
+there?" Laying her hand on Chaplin's she would seek for an answer. And
+he would answer--nothing.
+
+*****
+
+After the _Indiana_ had cruised through the Line Islands she headed
+back for Rotumah and Fiji. The girl came up on deck after supper. It
+was blowing freshly and the barque was slipping through the water fast.
+Lunumala walked to the binnacle and looked at the compass, pointing to
+S.S.W. She gazed steadily at it awhile and then said to the Rotumah boy
+in his own tongue--"Why is the ship going to the South?"
+
+Tom, the Rotuman, grinned--"To Fiji, my white tropic bird."
+
+Just then Chaplin came on deck, cigar in mouth. The girl and he looked
+at each other. He knew by her white, set face that mischief was brewing.
+
+Pointing, with her left hand, to the compass, she said, in a low voice--
+
+"To Fiji?"
+
+"Yes," said Chaplin, coolly, "to Fiji, where you must remain awhile,
+Lunumala."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"That is my business. Question me no more now. Go below and turn in."
+
+Standing there before him, she looked again in his hard, unrelenting
+face. Then she slowly walked forward.
+
+"Sulky," said Chaplin to Denison.
+
+Steadily she walked along the deck, and then mounted to the to'gallant
+fo'c's'le and stood a second or two by the cathead. Her white dress
+flapped and clung to her slender figure as she turned and looked aft at
+us, and her long, black hair streamed out like a pall of death. Suddenly
+she sprang over.
+
+With a curse Chaplin rushed to the wheel, and in double-quick time
+the whaleboat was lowered and search was made. In half an hour Chaplin
+returned, and gaining the deck said, in his usual cool way, to the mate:
+"Hoist in the boat and fill away again as quick as possible." Then he
+went below.
+
+A few minutes afterwards he was at his accustomed amusement, making
+tortoise-shell ornaments with a fret-saw.
+
+"A sad end to the poor girl's life," said the supercargo.
+
+"Yes," said the methodical ex-Honolulu black-birder, "and a sad end to
+my lovely five hundred dollars."
+
+
+
+
+HICKSON: A HALF-CASTE
+
+"Mauki" Hickson and I were coming across from the big native town at
+Mulinu'u Point to Apia one afternoon when we met a dainty little white
+woman, garmented in spotless white. Hickson, touching his hat, walked on
+across the narrow bridge that crosses the creek by the French Mission,
+and waited for me on the other side.
+
+This tiny lady in white was a lovable little creature. There was not a
+man in Samoa but felt proud and pleased if she stopped and spoke to him.
+And she could go anywhere on the beach, from respectable Matautu right
+down to riotous, dissolute Matafele, and make her purchases at the big
+store of Der Deutsche Handels Plantagen und Sud See Inseln Gesellschaft
+without even a drunken native daring to look at her. That was because
+every one, dissolute native and licentious white, knew she was a good
+woman. Perhaps, had she been married, and had she had a yellow, tallowy
+skin and the generally acidulated appearance peculiar to white women
+long resident in the South Seas, we wouldn't have thought so much of
+her, and felt mean and contemptible when she taxed us in her open,
+innocent fashion with doing those things that we ought not have done.
+But she had a sweet, merry little face, set about with dimples, and soft
+cheeks hued like the first flush of a ripening peach; and when she spoke
+to us she brought back memories of other faces like hers--far-away faces
+that most of us would have liked to have seen again.
+
+*****
+
+Just by the low stone wall, that in those days came close down to the
+creek, the little lady stood under the shade of some cocoanuts, and
+spoke to me.
+
+"Who is that horrible, sulky-looking half-caste?" she said, jerking her
+sunshade towards my late companion.
+
+"That is Hickson, Miss Milly," I said--a very decent, steady fellow,
+with a white man's heart.
+
+"Decent! steady! and with a white man's heart!" and Miss Milly's
+pink-and-white cheeks reddened angrily. "How I hate that expression!
+No wonder all sorts of horrible things happen in these dreadful islands
+when white men will walk down the road with a cruel, remorseless wretch
+like Hickson--the man that murdered his sister."
+
+"You should not say that, Miss Milly," I said. "Of course that is the
+common report, spread about by the captain of the German brig----. But
+that is because Hickson nearly killed him for calling him a nigger. And
+you must remember, Miss Milly, that I was there at the time. Hickson
+was our second mate. His sister was killed, but it is a cruel thing to
+accuse him of murdering her; he was very fond of her."
+
+"Oh dear! I am so glad to hear some one say it isn't true," and the
+bright eyes filled. "They say, too, she was such a pretty little thing.
+How ever did she get to such a terrible place as Ponape? Come up and see
+uncle and me before you go away again. Good-bye now, I'm going to buy a
+water-bag at Goddeffroy's."
+
+*****
+
+I think that Hickson must have guessed that he had formed the subject
+of the conversation between the little lady and myself, for after we had
+walked on a bit he said, suddenly--
+
+"I think I'll go aboard the _Menchikoff_ and ship; she wants some hands,
+and I would like to clear out of this. Except two or three that have
+known me for a long time, like yourself, every one looks crooked at me."
+
+"I think you are right, Hickson, in going away. Samoa is a bad place
+for an idle man. But won't you come another trip with us The old man{*}
+thinks a lot of you, and there's always a second mate's berth for you
+with him."
+
+     * The "old man," i.e., the captain.
+
+Hickson's eyes flashed fire. "No! I'd as lief go to hell as ship again
+with a man that once put me in irons, and disgraced me before a lot of
+Kanakas. I've got White Blood enough in me to make me remember that.
+Good-bye," and he shook hands with me; "I'll wait here till the
+_Menchikoff's_ boat comes ashore and go off and see Bannister."
+
+Poor Hickson. He was proud of his White Blood, and the incident he
+alluded to was a bitter memory to him. Could he ever forget it? I never
+could, and thought of it as I was being pulled off on board.
+
+*****
+
+It was at Jakoits Harbour--in Ponape--that it happened. Hickson and I
+were going ashore in the long boat to buy a load of yams for our native
+crew, when he began to tell me something of his former life.
+
+His had been a strange and chequered career, and in his wanderings as
+a trader and as a boatsteerer in a Hobart Town whaler, he had traversed
+every league of the wide Pacific. With his father and two sisters he
+had, till a few years or so before he joined us, been trading at Yap, in
+the Western Carolines. Here the wandering old white man had died. Of his
+two sisters, one, the eldest, had perished with her sailor husband by
+the capsizing of a schooner which he commanded. The youngest, then
+about nine years old, was taken care of by the captain of a whaler that
+touched at Yap, until he placed her in charge of the then newly-founded
+American Mission at Ponape, and in the same ship, Hickson went on his
+wanderings again, joining us at Tahiti. And I could see as he talked to
+me that he had a deep affection for her.
+
+"What part of Ponape is she living on?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure. Here, I suppose; and if you don't mind, while
+you're weighing the yams, I'll go up to the mission-house and inquire."
+
+"Right you are, Hickson," I said, "but don't forget to get back early,
+it's a beastly risky pull out to the ship in the dark."
+
+We went into a little bay, and found the natives waiting for us with the
+yams, and Hickson, after inquiring the way to the Mission, left me.
+
+*****
+
+Ponape in those days was a rough place. It was the rendezvous of the
+American whaling fleet, that came there for wood and water and "other
+supplies," before they sailed northward along the grim coasts of Japan
+and Tchantar Bay to the whale grounds of the Arctic Seas.
+
+And sometimes there would be trouble over the "other supplies" among the
+savagely licentious crews of mixed men of all nations, and knives would
+flash, and the white sand of the beaches be stuck together in places
+with patches and clots of dull red. It was the whalers' paradise--a
+paradise of the loveliest tropical beauty, of palm-shaded beach and
+verdure-clad mountain imaginable; a paradise of wonderfully beautiful
+and utterly, hopelessly immoral native women; and, lastly, a paradise of
+cheap native grog, as potent and fiery as if Hell had been boiled down
+and concentrated into a small half-pint.
+
+It was dark, and the yams had all been brought and stored in the boat
+before Hickson returned. By the flickering light of a native fire in a
+house close by I could see that something was the matter with him. His
+face was drawn, and his black eyes gleamed out like dully burning coals
+from the thick wavy hair that fell about his temples.
+
+"I'm sorry I'm late," he said, and the moment he had spoken I knew
+by the dangerous huskiness of his voice that he had been drinking the
+native grog.
+
+Staggering into the boat, he sat down beside me and took the tiller.
+
+"Give way, _fanau seoli_ (children o hell)," he growled to our crew of
+Samoans and Rotumah boys, "let us get these yams aboard, and then I'm
+coming back to burn the ------ mission-house down."
+
+Slowly the heavily-laden boat got way on her, and we slid away from the
+light of the native fire out into the inky blackness of night. Beyond a
+muttered curse at the crew, and keeping up that horrible grinding of
+the teeth common enough to men of violent passions when under great
+excitement, Hickson said nothing further till I asked--
+
+"Hickson, what's the matter? Couldn't you find your sister?"
+
+He sat up straight, and gripping my knee in his left hand till I winced,
+said, with an awful preliminary burst of blasphemy--
+
+"By God, sir, she's gone to hell; I'll never see poor little Katia
+again. I'm not drunk, don't you think it. I did have a stiff pull of
+grog up in the village there, but I'm not drunk; but there's something
+running round and round in my head that's drivin' me mad."
+
+"Where is she?" I asked.
+
+"God knows. I went to the mission-house and asked for the white
+missionary. The ------ dog wasn't there. He and his wife are away in
+Honolulu, on a dollar-cadging trip. There was about three or four of
+them cursed native teachers in the house, and all I could get out of
+them was that Katia wasn't there now; went away a year ago. 'Where to?'
+I said to one fat pig, with a white shirt and no pants on him. 'Don't
+know,' says he, in the Ponape lingo; 'she's a bad girl now, and has left
+us holy ones of God and gone to the whaleships.'"
+
+Coming from any other man but Hickson I could have laughed at this,
+so truly characteristic of the repellent, canting native missionary of
+Micronesia, but the quick, gasping breath of Hickson and his trembling
+hand showed me how he suffered.
+
+"I grabbed him and choked him till he was near dead, and chucked him in
+a heap outside. Then I went all round to the other houses, but every
+one ran away from me. I got a swig of grog from a native house and came
+right back." Then he was silent, and fixed his eyes on the ship's lights
+seaward.
+
+I could not offer him any sympathy, so said nothing. Lighting our pipes
+we gazed out ahead. Far away, nearest the reef, lay our brig, her riding
+light just discernible. A mile or two further away were three or four
+American whalers, whose black hulls we could just make out through the
+darkness. Within five hundred yards of us lay a dismantled and condemned
+brig, the _Kamehameha IV._ from whose stern ports came a flood of light
+and the sounds of women's voices.
+
+We were just about abeam of her when Hickson suddenly exclaimed--
+
+"Why, sir, the boat is sinking. Pull hard, boys, pull for the brig. The
+water's coming in wholesale over the gunwale. Hadn't you fellows enough
+sense to leave a place to bale from?" and he slewed the boat's head for
+the brig.
+
+She had two boats astern. We were just in time to get alongside one and
+pitch about two tons of yams into her, or we would have sunk.
+
+The noise we made was heard on the brig, and a head was put out of
+one of the ports, and a voice hailed us. This was the brig's owner and
+captain, W------.
+
+"Come on board and have a cigar!" he called out.
+
+Leaving the crew to bale out and re-ship the yams, we clambered on deck.
+
+Now, this brig and her captain had a curious history. She was, two years
+before, as well-found a whaleship as ever sailed the Pacific, but by
+some extraordinary ill-luck she had never taken a fish during a cruise
+of seven months, although in the company of others that were doing well.
+The master, one of those fanatically religious New Englanders that
+by some strange irony of fate may be often met with commanding vilely
+licentious crews of whaleships, was a skilled and hitherto lucky man. On
+reaching Ponape the whole of his officers and crew deserted _en masse_
+and went off in other ships. Utterly helpless, W------ was left by
+himself. There were, of course, plenty of men to be had in Ponape, but
+the ship's reputation for bad luck damned his hopes of getting a fresh
+crew.
+
+Whether the man's brain was affected by his troubles I know not, but
+after living like a hermit for a year, alone on the brig, a sudden
+change took place in his character and conduct. Sculling ashore in
+one of his boats--she was a four-boat ship--he had an interview with
+Nanakin, the chief of the Jakoit's district, and returned on board with
+five or six young girls, to whom he gave permanent quarters on board,
+selling from time to time his sails, whaling gear, and trade to keep his
+harem in luxury. At the end of a year the brig was pretty well stripped
+of all of any value; and W------ went utterly, hopelessly mad.
+
+*****
+
+The brig's cabin was large and roomy. The table that had once nearly
+filled it had been taken away, and the floor covered with those
+peculiarly made Ponape mats which, by rolling up one-half of either end,
+forms a combined couch and pillow. As Hickson and I, following the crazy
+little captain, made our appearance, some four young girls, who were
+lolling about on the mats, started up, and looked at us with big,
+wondering eyes, ablaze with curiosity.
+
+Both Hickson and myself--and he had roved throughout Polynesia from his
+boyhood--were struck by the extraordinary beauty of these four young
+creatures; so young and innocent in looks; in sin, as old as Ninon
+d'Enclos.
+
+Placing one hand on the shoulder of the girl nearest to him, and fixing
+his big, blue, deep-set eyes on us, W------waved the other towards the
+girls, and said--
+
+"Welcome, gentlemen, welcome. Behold these little devils, who in the
+guise of sunburnt angels are the solace of a man forgotten by his God,
+and the father of a family residing in Martha's Vineyard, United States
+of America."
+
+Then he gave us each a cigar and told us to be seated while he got us a
+glass of New England rum.
+
+*****
+
+Hickson, with a contemptuous smile, sat with folded arms on a short,
+heavy stool. One of the girls, unshipping one of the two lights from the
+hook on which it hung, followed W------into a state-room to get the
+rum. Presently we heard them coming out, W------ carrying a
+wickerwork-covered five-gallon jar; but two girls came out instead of
+one. The stranger kept close to W------, one hand holding the sleeve of
+his shirt.
+
+Stooping as he set the jar on the floor, I had a good view of the
+new-comer, and a deadly fear seized me. I knew at once that she was
+Hickson's sister! He was coarse and rough-looking, but yet a handsome
+man, and this girl's likeness to him was very striking. Just then
+Hickson, not even noticing her, rose and said he was going on deck to
+see if the boat was ready, when the strange quavering tones of W------
+arrested him.
+
+"Be seated, sir, for another minute. Nijilon, get some glasses. You see
+here, gentlemen, the fairest and choicest or all my devil-vestals, one
+that------"
+
+Hickson looked at her, and with a terrified wail the girl clutched
+W------'s arm, and placed her face against his breast. With lips drawn
+back from his white teeth the half-caste sprang up, and his two clenched
+hands pawed the air. Then from his throat there came a sound like a
+laugh strangled into a groan.
+
+Scarce knowing what I did I got in front of him, He dashed me aside as
+if I were a child, and seized the stool. And as he swung it round above
+his head the girl raised a face like the hue of death to his; then the
+blow fell, and she and W------ went down together.
+
+******
+
+Hickson rushed on deck and tried to spring overboard. I think he must
+have struck the main boom, for one of our crew who was on deck heard
+him fall. We got a light, and found him lying senseless. Two of the
+"vestals" held him up while I went below for some rum and water. W------
+was lying where he had fallen, breathing heavily, but not seriously
+injured as far as I could see. But one look at the closed eyes of the
+girl told me she was past all help. The heavy stool had struck her on
+the temple.
+
+Placing Hickson in the boat with two men to mind mm, I took the other
+two with me into the cabin of the brig. W------ was seated on the floor,
+held up by two of his harem, and muttering unintelligibly to himself.
+The other two were bending over the figure on the floor, and placing
+their hands on her bosom.
+
+"Come away from here, L------," said Harry, one of our Rotumah boys, to
+me; "if the Ponape men come off, they will kill us all."
+
+We could do nothing, so we got back into the boat, and with the still
+senseless body of Hickson lying at our feet, pulled out to the ship.
+
+******
+
+When he came to he was a madman, and for his own safety our captain
+put him in irons. We put to sea next day, our skipper, like a wise man,
+saying it would go hard with us if W------ died, and four Yankee whalers
+in port.
+
+The day after we got away Hickson was set at liberty, and went about his
+duties as usual. At nightfall I went into his deck cabin. He was lying
+in his bunk, in the dark, smoking. He put out his hand, and drew me
+close up to him.
+
+"Harry says she is dead?"
+
+"Yes," I whispered.
+
+"Poor little Katia; I never meant to hurt her But I am glad she is
+dead."
+
+And he smoked his pipe in silence.
+
+
+
+
+A BOATING PARTY OF TWO
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+The prison gate opened, and Number 73 for a minute or so leaned against
+the wall to steady himself. The strange clamour of the streets smote
+upon his ear like dagger strokes into his heart, and his breath came in
+quick, short gasps.
+
+Some one was speaking to him--a little, pale-faced, red-whiskered man
+with watery eyes--and Challoner, once "Number 73," staring stupidly
+at him, tried to understand, but foiled. Then, sidling up to him, the
+little man took one of Challoner's gaunt and long hands between his
+own, and a stout, masculine female in a blue dress and poke bonnet and
+spectacles clasped the other and called him "brother."
+
+A dull gleam shone in his sullen eyes at last, and drawing his hands
+away from them, he asked--
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+The stout woman's sharp tongue clattered, and Challoner listened
+stolidly. Sometimes a word or two in the volley she fired would cause
+him to shake his head wearily--"happiness in the life heternal," "washed
+in the blood of the Lamb," and "cast yer sins away an' come an' be saved
+without money an' without price."
+
+Then he remembered who he was and who they were--the warders had told
+him of the Prison Gate Brigade. He turned to the man and muttered--
+
+"I want to get away from here," and stepped past them, but the woman
+laid her fat, coarse hand on his sleeve.
+
+"Come 'ome with us, brother. P'r'aps yer 'ave a mother or a wife waitin'
+to 'ear from yer, an' we----"
+
+He dashed her hand aside savagely--"Blast you, no; let me go!"
+
+Then with awkward, shambling gait he pushed through the curious crowd
+at the prison gate, crossed the street, and entered the nearest
+public-house.
+
+"Another soul escaped us, Sister Hannah," squeaked the little man; "but
+we'll try and rescue him when he comes out from the house of wickedness
+and abomination."
+
+"Better leave him alone," said a warder in plain clothes, who just then
+came through the gate, "he won't be saved at no price, I can tell yer."
+
+"Who is the poor man?" asked Sister Hannah, in a plaintive, injured
+voice.
+
+"Sh! Mustn't ask them questions," said the little man.
+
+But he knew, all the same, that the tall, gaunt man with the sallow face
+and close-cropped white hair was Harvey Challoner, once chief officer of
+the ship _Victory_, sentenced in Melbourne to imprisonment for life for
+manslaughter, but released at the end of ten years.
+
+*****
+
+The _Victory_ murder trial had not attracted much public attention, and
+the prisoner had been defended at the public expense. On the voyage from
+London to Australia the crew had become discontented. They had
+reason for their discontent. Captain Cressingham, for all his suave,
+gentlemanly shore manners, was an adept at "hazing," and was proud
+of the distinction of making every ship he commanded a hell to the
+fo'c's'le hands. Sometimes, with sneering, mocking tongue, he would
+compliment Challoner upon the courteous manner in which he "addressed
+the gentlemen for'ard." As for the other two mates, they were equally
+as brutal as their captain, but lacked his savage, methodical
+vindictiveness.
+
+When only a few weeks out, Harman, the second mate, one day accused
+one of the men of "soldiering," and striking him in the face, broke his
+nose, and as the man lay on the deck he kicked him brutally. Challoner,
+who was on deck at the time, jumped down off the poop, and seizing
+Harman by the arm, called him a cowardly hound.
+
+"And you're a d------d old woman," was the retort.
+
+Challoner's passion overpowered him, and at the end of five minutes
+Harman was carried below badly knocked about, and a stormy scene ensued
+between Challoner and the captain.
+
+"You have all but killed Mr. Harman. I could, and should, put you in
+irons for the rest of the voyage," the captain had said.
+
+There was a steely glitter in the mate's dark eyes as he answered--
+
+"In dealing with ruffians such as Harman and yourself one doesn't stop
+at an extra blow or two."
+
+From that time Cressingham was his bitter enemy; but Challoner did
+his duty as chief officer too faithfully to give the captain a chance
+against him.
+
+Day after day had passed. The sullen discontent of the crew had changed
+into outspoken hatred and a thirst for revenge upon the captain and
+Harman and Barton--the latter the third mate--and Challoner, who knew
+what was brewing, dared not open his mouth to any one of the three upon
+the subject. Between himself and Cressingham and the other two there had
+now sprung up a silent yet fierce antagonism, which the crew were quick
+to perceive, and from which they augured favourably for themselves.
+
+One night, just as Challoner had relieved the second mate, some of the
+hands from both watches marched boldly aft and asked him if he would
+take command of the ship. He had only to say the word, they said. They
+were tired of being "bashed" and starved to death by the skipper and two
+mates, and if he would navigate the ship to Melbourne they would keep
+him free from interference, and take the consequences, &c.
+
+"Go for'ard, you fools," said Challoner, with assumed harshness, "don't
+talk mutiny to me."
+
+A step sounded on the deck behind him, and Cressingham's sneering tones
+were heard.
+
+"Discussing mutiny, are you, Mr. Challoner? By God, sir, I've suspected
+you long enough. Go below, sir; or go for'ard with these fellows. You'll
+do no more mate's duty aboard of this ship. Ah, Colliss, you're one of
+the ringleaders, are you?" And in an instant he seized a seaman by the
+throat, and called loudly for Barton and Harman to help him.
+
+Before they could respond to his call the poop was black with struggling
+men. Cressingham, mad with passion, had Colliss down trying to strangle
+him, and Challoner, fearing murder would be done, had thrown himself
+upon the captain and tried to make him release his grip of the man's
+throat. At that moment a sailor called out--
+
+"Stand by, chaps, for Barton and Harman, and drop 'em the moment they
+shows up. Mr. Challoner's got the old man safe."
+
+But Messrs. Harman and Barton were tough customers. The loud cries on
+deck and heavy tramping of feet told them that a crisis had occurred,
+and they dashed up, each with a revolver in hand--only to be felled from
+behind ere they could fire a shot. Challoner, letting the captain free,
+sprang to their aid. But he came too late, for before, with blows,
+kicks, and curses, he could force his way through the swaying, surging
+mass of men that hid the fallen officers from his view, he heard a
+sound--the sound of a man's skull as it was smashed in by a heavy blow.
+
+"He's done for," said a voice, with a savage laugh, "scoot, chaps,
+scoot. This shindy will keep the old man quiet a bit, now one of his
+fightin' cocks is gone," and the men tumbled down off the poop as quick
+as their legs could carry them, leaving Challoner and the two prone
+figures behind them. Cressingham had gone below for his revolver.
+
+"Steward," called Challoner, "bring a light here, quick, and see where
+the captain is," and, stooping down, he tried to raise Harman, then laid
+him down with a shudder--his brains were scattered on the deck. Barton
+was alive, but unconscious.
+
+As Challoner was about to rise, Captain Cressingham stood over him and
+raised his arm, and dealt him a crashing blow with a belaying pin. When
+he regained consciousness he was in irons.
+
+*****
+
+A month later and he stood in the dock charged with murder. The
+principal witnesses against him were his captain and Barton, the third
+mate. The crew, who, of course, were also witnesses in the case, didn't
+worry much about him. It wasn't likely they would run their necks into
+a noose if it could be placed round any one else's. And in this
+instance--superinduced by a vision of the gallows--fo'c's'le hands stuck
+to one another and lied manfully together. None of them "had hurt Mr.
+Harman."
+
+But it was upon Cressingham's evidence that his fate hung; and
+Cressingham, suave, handsome, and well-dressed, told the court how
+Challoner had once attempted to murder Harman in the earlier part of the
+voyage. Barton, with his arm in a sling, corroborated the lie with blunt
+cheerfulness.
+
+His Honour summed up dead against the prisoner, and the jury, impressed
+by the calm, gentlemanly appearance of Captain Cressingham, and the
+haggard, unshaven, and guilty look of the man whose life they held in
+their hands, were not long in considering their verdict.
+
+The prisoner was found guilty, but with a recommendation to mercy.
+
+And then the judge, who was cross and tired, made a brief but affecting
+speech, and sentenced him to imprisonment for life.
+
+He went into his prison cell with hair as black as night, and came out
+again as white as a man of seventy.
+
+******
+
+In a back room of the public-house he sat and waited till he had courage
+and strength enough to face the streets again. And as he waited, he gave
+himself up to visions of the future--to the day when, with his hand on
+Cressingham's lying throat, he would see his face blacken and hear the
+rattling agonies of his gasps for breath. He leaned back in his chair
+and laughed hoarsely. The unearthly, hideous sound startled him, and he
+glanced round nervously as if he feared to betray his secret. Then he
+drank another glass of brandy, and with twenty-six shillings of prison
+money in his pocket and ten years of the blackest hatred in his heart,
+he went out again into the world to begin his search--for Cressingham
+and revenge.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The people of Port ------, on the east coast of New Zealand, were
+charmed with the handsome commander of the biggest ocean steamer that
+had yet visited the port, and on the eve of his departure gave Captain
+Cressingham the usual banquet. Banquets to captains of new lines of
+steamers are good things to boom the interests of a budding seaport
+town, and so a few score of the "warmest" men in the place cheerfully
+planked down their guinea each for the occasion.
+
+The _Belted Will_ had hauled out from the wharf and lay a mile or so
+from the shore ready for sea, and the captain had told his chief officer
+to send a boat ashore for him at twelve o'clock.
+
+Among the crowd that lounged about the entrance to the town hall and
+watched for the arrival of the guest of the evening was a tall, dark,
+rough-looking man with white curly hair. One or two of those present
+seemed to know him, and presently some one addressed him.
+
+"Hallo, Harry! come to have a look at the swells? 'Taint often you come
+out o' nights."
+
+The white-haired man nodded without speaking, and then moved away again.
+Presently the man he was looking for was driven up, and the loungers
+drew aside to let him pass up the steps into the blaze of light under
+the vestibule of the hall, where he was welcomed by half a dozen
+effusive citizens. For a moment he stood and chatted, and the man who
+watched clenched his brawny hands and ground his teeth. Then Captain
+Cressingham disappeared, and the tall man walked slowly away again in
+the direction of the wharves.
+
+*****
+
+At eleven o'clock Cressingham's boat came ashore, and the crew as they
+made her fast grumbled and cursed in true sailor fashion.
+
+"Are you the chaps from the _Belted Will?_" said a man, who was leaning
+against one of the wharf sheds.
+
+"Yes; who are you, mister?" said one of them.
+
+"I'm Harry--one of the hands that was stowing wool aboard. I heard you
+was coming ashore for the captain, and as you won't see him for the next
+couple of hours, I thought I'd come down and ask you to come up and have
+a couple of nips. It's cold loafing about here. I live pretty close."
+
+"You're one o' the right sort. What say, Peter?" Peter was only too
+glad. The prospect of getting into a warm house was enough inducement,
+even without the further bliss of a couple of nips.
+
+In half an hour the two men were helplessly drunk in Harry's room, and
+their generous host carefully placing another bottle (not doctored this
+time) of rum on the table for them when they awoke, quietly went out
+and locked the door behind him. Then he walked quickly back to where
+the _Belted Will_ boat lay, and descending the steps, got into her and
+seemed to busy himself for a while. He soon found what he was looking
+for, and then came the sound of inrushing water. Then he drew the boat
+up again to the steps, got out, and casting off the painter, slung it
+aboard, and shoved her into the darkness.
+
+For another hour he waited patiently, and then came the rattle of
+wheels, and loud voices and laughter, as a vehicle drew up at the
+deserted wharf.
+
+"Why not stay ashore to-night, captain," said one of the guest's
+champagne-laden companions, "and tell your man to go back?"
+
+"No, no," laughed Cressingham. "I don't like the look of the weather,
+and must get aboard right away. Boat ahoy! Where are you, men?"
+
+"Your boat isn't here, sir," said a gruff voice, and a tall man advanced
+from the darkness of the sheds. "I saw the men up town, both pretty
+full, and heard them laughing and say they meant to have a night ashore.
+It's my belief they turned her adrift purposely."
+
+Cressingham cursed them savagely, and then turned to the tall man.
+
+"Can you get me a boat?"
+
+"Well, sir, there's a big heavy boat belonging to my boss that I can
+get, and I don't mind putting you aboard. We can sail out with this
+breeze in no time. She's lying under the coal-wharf."
+
+"That'll do. Good-bye, gentlemen. I trust we shall all meet again in
+another eight months or so."
+
+The big man led the way, and in a few minutes they reached the coal
+wharf, under which the boat was moored. She was a heavy, clumsily-built
+craft, and Cressingham, on getting aboard and striking a match, cursed
+her filthy state. The tall man stepped to the mast and hoisted the
+lug-sail, and Cressingham, taking the tiller, kept her out towards the
+_Belted Will_ whose riding light was discernible right ahead.
+
+"We must look out for the buoys, sir," said the gruff-voiced man, as the
+breeze freshened up and the heavy boat quickened her speed.
+
+"All right," said Cressingham, and pulling out a cigar from his overcoat
+he bent his head and struck a light.
+
+Ere he raised it the white-haired man had sprung upon him like a
+tiger, and seized his throat in his brawny hands. For a minute or
+so Cressingham struggled in that deadly grip, and then lay limp and
+insensible in the bottom of the boat.
+
+Challoner, with malignant joy, leaned over him with a world of hate in
+his black eyes, and then proceeded to business.
+
+Lifting the unconscious man he carried him for'ard, and, placing him
+upon a thwart, gagged and bound him securely. Then he went aft and,
+taking the tiller, hauled the sheet in and kept the boat away again upon
+her course for the _Belted Will_.
+
+He passed within a quarter of a mile of the huge, black mass with the
+bright riding light shining upon the fore-stay, and the look-out from
+the steamer took no notice of the boat as she swept past toward the open
+sea.
+
+*****
+
+Daylight at last. For six hours the boat had swept before the strong
+northerly wind, and the land lay nearly thirty miles astern, lost in a
+sombre bank of heavy clouds and mist. Challoner had taken off his rough
+overcoat and thrown it over the figure of his enemy. He did not want him
+to perish of cold. And as he steered he fixed his eyes, lighted up with
+an unholy joy, upon the bent and crushed figure before him.
+
+Cressingham was conscious now, and stared with horror-filled eyes at the
+grim creature in the craft before him--a gaunt, dark-faced man, clad in
+a striped guernsey and thin cotton pants, with a worn and ragged woollen
+cap stuck upon his thick masses of white curly hair. Who was he? A
+madman.
+
+Challoner seemed to take no notice of him, and looked out upon the
+threatening aspect of sea and sky with an unconcerned face. Presently he
+hauled aft the sheet a bit, and kept the boat on a more westerly course,
+and the bound and wondering man on the for'ard thwart watched his
+movements intently.
+
+The boat had made a little water, and the white-headed man stooped and
+baled it out carefully; then he looked up and caught his prisoner's eye.
+
+"Ha, ha, Cressingham, how are you? Isn't it delightful that we should
+meet again?"
+
+A strange inarticulate cry broke from Cressingham.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"What! is it possible that you don't remember me? I am afraid that that
+banquet champagne has affected you a little. Try back, my dear fellow.
+Don't you remember the _Victory?_"
+
+Ah! he remembered now, and a terrible fear chilled his life-blood and
+froze his once sneering tongue into silence.
+
+"Ah! I see you do," and Challoner laughed with Satanic passion. "And so
+we meet again--with our positions reversed. Once, unless my memory fails
+me, you put me in irons. Now, Captain Cressingham, I have you seized up,
+and we can have a quiet little chat--all to ourselves."
+
+No answer came from Cressingham. With dilated, horror-stricken eyes and
+panting breath he was turned into stone. The wretched man's silence at
+last broke up the depths of his maddened tormentor's hatred, and with a
+bound he sprang to his feet and raised his hand on high.
+
+"Ah! God is good to me at last, Cressingham. For ten years I hungered
+and thirsted for the day that would set me free, free to search the
+world over for the lying, murderous dog that consigned me, an innocent
+man, to a lifelong death. And when the day came, sooner than I thought
+or you thought--for I suffered for ten years instead of for life--I
+waited, a free man till I got you into my power."
+
+His hand fell to his side again, and then he leaned forward and laughed.
+
+Cressingham, with death creeping into his heart, at last found his
+voice.
+
+"Are you going to murder me?" he said.
+
+"Yes," said Challoner, slowly, "I am going to murder you. But not
+quickly. There would be no joy in that. I want you to taste some of my
+hideous past--some little space, if only for a day or two, of that ten
+long years of agony I spent in Pentridge."
+
+Then he sat down again, and opening the locker in the stern sheets, took
+out food and water, and placing it beside him, ate and drank. But he
+gave none to Cressingham.
+
+He finished his meal, and then looked again at his prisoner, and spoke
+calmly again.
+
+"You are comfortable, I trust, Captain Cressingham? Not cold, I am
+certain, for you have my overcoat in addition to your own. Do you know
+why I gave it to you? Just to keep you nice and warm during the night,
+and--alive. But, as I feel chilly myself now, I'll take it from you.
+Thanks," and he laughed mockingly as he leaned over and snatched it
+away.
+
+"You see, sir, we are going on a long cruise--down to the Snares,
+perhaps--and I must keep warm myself, or else how can I talk to you to
+break the monotony of the voyage?... It is no use looking astern, my
+friend. There's only one tug in port, and she is not in sea-going trim,
+so we've got a good start of any search party. And as I don't want to
+die myself, we won't run away from the land altogether."
+
+And so the day passed, agony and deadly fear blanching the face of one,
+and cruel, murderous joy filling the heart of the other. Once, as the
+last dying gleams of the wintry sun for a few brief moments shone over
+the blackened waters, Challoner saw a long stream of steamer's smoke
+between the boat and the misty line of coast, and he lowered the sail
+and let the boat drift till darkness enwrapped them again.
+
+Once more he took out food and water, and ate and drank, and then lit
+his pipe and smoked, and watched with eyes that glared with the lust of
+murder and revenge the motionless being before him.
+
+Only once in all that night of horror to Cressingham did he speak, and
+his voice shook and quivered, and came in choking gasps.
+
+"Challoner, for the love of Christ, kill me and end my misery."
+
+"Ha! still alive, Captain Cressingham! That is very satisfactory--to
+me only, of course. Kill you, did you say?" and again his wild demoniac
+laugh pealed out through the black loneliness of the night. "No, I don't
+intend to kill you. I want to see you suffer and die by inches. I want
+you to call upon God to help you, so that I can mock at you, and defy
+Him to rob me of my vengeance."
+
+A shuddering moan, and then silence again.
+
+Again the day broke, and as the ocean mists cleared and rolled away, and
+the grey morning light fell upon the chilled and stiffening form of his
+enemy, Challoner came up and looked into his face, and spoke to him.
+
+No answer came from his pallid lips, and Challoner thrust his hand under
+Cressingham's coat and felt his heart. He was still alive, and presently
+the closed and swollen eyelids opened, and as he met the glance of the
+man who leaned over him an anguished groan burst from his heart.
+
+Challoner looked at him intently for awhile; then he hoisted the sail
+again, and, taking the tiller, headed the boat in for the land. The wind
+had hauled round during the night, and although the boat made a lot
+of leeway there was no danger now of being blown away from the land
+altogether.
+
+As the sun mounted higher, and the grey outlines of the shores darkened,
+he glanced carefully over the sea to the north-west. Nothing in sight
+there. But as the boat lifted to a sea he saw about five miles to
+leeward that a big steamer was coming up. In half an hour, unless she
+changed her course, she would be up to the boat and could not fail to
+see her.
+
+In five minutes more Cressingham lay in the bottom of the boat unbound,
+but dying fast, and Challoner was speaking to him.
+
+"Cressingham, you are dying. You know that, don't you? And you know that
+I am not lying when I tell you that there is a steamer within five miles
+of us. In less than half an hour she will be up to us."
+
+One black, swollen hand was raised feebly, and then fell back, and a
+hoarse sound came from his throat.
+
+"Well, now listen. I said I wanted to see you die--die as you are dying
+now--with my face over yours, watching you die. And you die and I live.
+I can live now, Cressingham, and perhaps the memory of those ten years
+of death in life that I suffered through you will be easier to bear. And
+yet there is one thing more that you must know--something that will make
+it harder for you to meet your Maker, but easier for me.... Listen."
+He knelt beside him and almost shrieked it: "I had no one in the whole
+world to care for me when I was tried for my life but my wife--and you,
+you fiend, you murderer--you killed her. She died six years ago--starved
+and died."
+
+Cressingham, with closed eyes, lay with his head supported on
+Challoner's left arm. Presently a tremor shook his frame, a fleck of
+foam bubbled from between his lips, and then the end.
+
+With cold, merciless eyes the other regarded him, with clenched hands
+and set teeth. Then he went for'ard and unbent the boat's kedge, and
+with the same lashings that had bound the living man to the thwart he
+lashed the kedge across the dead man's chest.
+
+He stood up and looked at the approaching steamer, and then he raised
+the body in his arms and dropped it over the side.
+
+*****
+
+A few days later the papers said that the steamer _Maungatapu_ had
+picked up a man named Harry, who with Captain Cressingham, of the
+_Belted Will_ had been blown out to sea from Port ------. It appeared
+from the survivor's statement that during a heavy squall the same night
+Captain Cressingham had fallen overboard, and his companion was unable
+to rescue him.
+
+
+
+
+
+"THE BEST ASSET IN A FOOL'S ESTATE"
+
+A slight smile lit up the clear-cut, sombre face of Lawson from Safune,
+as looking up from his boat at Etheridge's house he saw the glint of
+many lights shining through the walls of the roughly-built store. It
+was well on towards midnight when he had left Safune and sailed round
+to Etheridge's, a distance of twelve or fifteen miles, and as his
+boat touched the sand the first streaks of dawn were changing the dead
+whiteness of the beach into a dull grey--soon to brighten into a creamy
+yellow as the sun pierced the heavy land-mist.
+
+A native or two, wrapped from head to foot in the long _lava lava_ of
+white calico, passed him as he followed the windings of the track to
+Etheridge's, but gave him no sign of greeting. Had he been any one of
+the few other white men living on Savaii the dark men would have stopped
+him and, native-like, inquired the reason of his early visit to
+their town. But they knew Lawson too well. _Mataaitu_ they called
+him--devil-faced. And in this they were not far wrong, for Lawson,
+with his dark olive skin, jet black beard, and eyes that belied the
+ever-smiling lips, was not a man whom people would be unanimous in
+trusting.
+
+The natives knew him better than did his few white acquaintances in
+Samoa, for here, among them, the mask that hid his inner nature from
+his compeers was sometimes put aside, though never thrown away. But
+Etheridge, the hot-blooded young Englishman and friend of six months'
+standing, thought and spoke of him as "the best fellow in the world."
+
+Etheridge had been taking stock, and the wearisome work had paled his
+usually florid features. His face flushed with pleasure at Lawson's
+quiet voice:--
+
+"Hard at it, Etheridge? I don't know which looks the paler--you or
+Lalia. Why on earth didn't you send for me sooner? Any one would think
+you were some poor devil of a fellow trading for the Dutchmen instead of
+being an independent man. Now, I'm hungry and want breakfast--that is,
+if Lalia isn't too tired to get it," and he looked compassionately at
+Etheridge's young half-caste wife, sister to his own.
+
+"I'm not tired," said the girl, quietly. "I've had easy tasks--counting
+packets of fish-hooks, grosses of cotton, and things like that. Billy
+wouldn't let me help him with the prints and heavy things," and with
+the faintest shadow of a smile on her lips she passed through into the
+sitting-room and thence outside to the little thatched cook-house a few
+yards away. With ardent infatuation Etheridge rested his blue eyes on
+the white-robed, slender figure as she stood at the door and watched the
+Niue cook light his fire for an early cup of coffee--the first overture
+to breakfast at Etheridge's.
+
+"By Jove, Lawson, I'm the luckiest man in Samoa to get such a wife as
+Lalia--and I only a new-chum to the Islands. I believe she'd work night
+and day if I'd allow it. And if it hadn't been for you I'd never have
+met her at all, but would have married some fast creature who'd have
+gone through me in a month and left me a dead-broken beachcomber."
+
+"Yes," said Lawson, "she _is_ a good girl, and, except her sister, about
+the only half-caste I ever knew whom I would trust implicitly. Their
+mother was a Hervey Island woman, as I told you, and Lalia has been with
+Terere and me all over Polynesia, and I think I know her nature. She's
+fond of you, Etheridge, in her quiet, undemonstrative way, but she's a
+bit shy yet. You see, you don't speak either Rarotongan or Samoan, and
+half-caste wives hate talking English. Now, tell me, what is it worrying
+you? You haven't had another attack?"
+
+"Yes," said the younger man, "I have--and a bad one, too, and that's why
+I sent for you. The stocktaking is nothing; but I was afraid I might get
+another that would stiffen me properly. Look here, Lawson, you've been
+a true friend to me. You picked me up six months ago a drunken,
+half-maddened beast in Apia and saved my life, reason, and money,
+and----"
+
+"Bosh!" said Lawson, taking his coffee from the hand of Etheridge's
+wife; "don't think of it, my boy. Every man goes a bit crooked
+sometimes; so don't thank me too much."
+
+Etheridge waited till his wife was gone and then resumed: "I've been
+horribly scared, Lawson, over this," and he placed his hand over his
+heart, "I was lifting a case of biscuits when I dropped like a pithed
+bullock. When I came to, Lalia was bathing my face.... I feel pretty
+shaky still. The doctor at Goddeffroy's warned me, too--said I'd go off
+suddenly if I wasn't careful. My father and one brother died like that.
+And I want to talk things over with you in case, you know." Lawson
+nodded.
+
+"Everything I have is for her, Lawson--land, house, trade, and money.
+You're pretty sure there's no irregularity in that will of mine, aren't
+you?"
+
+"Sure. It's very simply written. It's properly witnessed, and would hold
+in any court of law if contested. And perhaps your people in Australia
+might do that."
+
+Etheridge reddened. "No; I cut adrift from 'em long ago. Grog, you know.
+Beyond yourself and Lalia, I haven't a soul who'll bother about me.
+I think, Lawson, I'll take a run up to Apia and see the Dutch doctor
+again. Fearful cur, am I not?"
+
+"Come, Etheridge," and Lawson laid his smooth, shapely hand--how
+dishonest are shapely hands!--on the other's arm. "You're a little
+down. Anything wrong with one's heart always gives a man a bad shaking.
+There's Lalia calling us to breakfast, so I won't say any more but this:
+Even if Lalia wasn't my wife's sister, and anything happened to you,
+there's always a home for her in my house. I'd do that for your sake
+alone, old man, putting aside the principle I go on of showing respect
+to any white man's wife, even if she were a Oahu girl and had rickety
+ideas of morality."
+
+When Lawson had first met him and had carried him down to his station on
+Savaii, nursed him through his illness, and treated him like a brother,
+Etheridge, with the impulsive confidence of his simple nature, poured
+out his thanks and told his history, and eagerly accepted Lawson's
+suggestion to try his hand at trading, instead of continuing his erratic
+wanderings--wanderings which could only end in his "going broke" at
+Tahiti or Honolulu, Fifteen miles or so away, Lawson said, there was a
+village with a good opening for a trader. How much could he put into
+it? Well, he had L500 with him, and there was another thousand in
+Sydney--the last of five. Ample, said his host. So one day the land
+was bought, a house and store put up, and Etheridge commenced life as a
+trader.
+
+The strange tropic beauty of the place and the ways of the people soon
+cast their spell over Etheridge's imaginative nature, and he was as
+happy as a man possibly could be--with a knowledge that his life hung by
+a thread. How slender that thread was Lawson knew, perhaps, better than
+he. The German doctor had said, "You must dell him to be gareful, Mr.
+Lawson. Any excidemend, any zooden drouble mit anydings; or too much
+visky midout any excidemends, and he drop dead. I dell you."
+
+*****
+
+A month or so after he had settled, Etheridge paid his weekly visit to
+Lawson, and met Lalia.
+
+"This is my wife's sister," said Lawson; "she has been on a visit to
+some friends in Tutuila, and came back in the _Iserbrook?_"
+
+The clear-cut, refined, and beautiful features of the girl did their
+work all too quickly on Etheridge. He was not a sensualist, only a
+man keenly susceptible to female beauty, and this girl was.
+beautiful--perhaps not so beautiful as her sister, Terere, Lawson's
+wife, but with a softer and more tender light in her full, dark eyes.
+And Lawson smiled to himself when Etheridge asked him to come outside
+and smoke when his wife and her sister had said good-night. A student
+of human nature, he had long ago read the simple mind of Etheridge as
+he would an open book, and knew what was coming. They went outside and
+talked--that is, Etheridge did. Lawson listened and smoked. Then he put
+a question to the other man.
+
+*****
+
+"Of course I will, Lawson; do you think I'm scoundrel enough to dream
+of anything else? We'll go up to Apia and get married by the white
+missionary."
+
+Lawson laughed in his quiet way. "I wouldn't think you a scoundrel
+at all, Etheridge. I may as well tell you that I'm not married to her
+sister. We neglected doing that when I lived in the eastward groups, and
+no one in Samoa is any the wiser, and wouldn't think anything of it if
+they were. But although I'm only a poor devil of a trader, I'm a man of
+principle in some things. Lalia is but a child, so to speak, and I'm her
+natural protector. Now, you're a fellow of some means, and if anything
+did happen to you she wouldn't get a dollar if she wasn't legally
+your wife. The consul would claim everything until he heard from your
+relatives. And she's very young, Etheridge, and you've told me often
+enough that your heart's pretty dicky. Don't think me a brute."
+
+Etheridge grasped his hand and wrung it. "No, no--a thousand times no.
+You're the best-hearted fellow in the world, and I honour you all the
+more, Lawson. Will you ask her to-morrow?"
+
+Perhaps if he had heard the manner of Lawson's asking it would have
+puzzled his simple brain. And the subdued merriment of the two sisters
+might have caused him to wonder still more.
+
+A week or so after, Etheridge and the two sisters went up to Apia.
+Lawson was unable to go. Copra was coming in freely, he had said with
+a smile, and he was too poor to run away from business--even to the
+wedding of his own wife's sister.
+
+*****
+
+As Etheridge and his young wife came out of the mission church some
+natives and white loafers stood around and watched them.
+
+"Ho, Magalo," said one, "is not that _teine_, the sister of the wife of
+_Mataaitu_ the black-visaged _papalagi?_"
+
+"Aye," answered a skinny old hag, carrying a basket of water-bottles,
+"'tis she, and the other is Terere. I lived with them once at Tutuila.
+She who is now made a wife and looketh so good and holy went away but
+a year ago with the captain of a ship--a pig of a German--and now, look
+you, she marrieth an Englishman."
+
+The other natives laughed, and then an ugly fat-faced girl with
+lime-covered head and painted cheeks called out "_Papatetele!_" and
+Terere turned round and cursed them in good English.
+
+"What does that mean?" said a white man to Flash Harry from Saleimoa--a
+man full of island lore.
+
+"Why, it means as the bride isn't all as she purfesses to be. Them
+pretty soft-lookin' ones like her seldom is, in Samoa or anywhere else."
+
+*****
+
+The day following the stock-taking Etheridge went to Apia--and never
+came back.
+
+One night a native tapped gently at Lawson's window and handed him a
+note. As he read Terere with a sleepy yawn awoke, and, stretching one
+rounded arm out at full length, let it fall lazily on the mat-bed.
+
+"What is it, Harry?"
+
+"Get up, d------ you! Etheridge is dead, and I'm going to take Lalia up
+to Apia as quick as I can. Why the h---- couldn't he die here?"
+
+A rapid vision of unlimited presents from the rich young widow passed
+through the mind of Terere--to whom the relations that had formerly
+existed between her and Lawson were well known--as she and he sped along
+in his boat to Etheridge's. Lalia received the news with much equanimity
+and a few tears, and then leaving Terere in charge, she got into the
+boat and rolled a cigarette. Lawson was in feverish haste. He was afraid
+the consul would be down and baulk his rapid but carefully arranged
+scheme. At Safune he sent his crew of two men ashore to his house for a
+breaker of water, and then once they were out of sight he pushed off and
+left them. They were in the way and might spoil everything. The breeze
+was strong, and that night Lawson and Lalia, instead of being out in
+the open sea beating up to Apia, were ashore in the sitting-room of the
+white missionary house on the other side of Savaii.
+
+"I am indeed glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Lawson. Your honourable
+impulse deserves commendation. I have always regretted the fact that a
+man like you whose reputation as an educated and intelligent person far
+above that of most traders here is not unknown to me"--Lawson smiled
+sweetly--"should not alone set at defiance the teaching of Holy Writ,
+but tacitly mock at _our_ efforts to inculcate a higher code of morality
+in these beautiful islands. Ere long I trust I may make the acquaintance
+of your brother-in-law, Mr. Etheridge, and his wife."
+
+Lawson smiled affably, and a slight tinge suffused the creamy cheek of
+Lalia.
+
+"And now, Mr. Lawson, as you are so very anxious to get back home I will
+not delay. Here are my wife and my native assistant as witnesses. Stand
+up, please."
+
+*****
+
+"Get in, you little beast," said Lawson, as he bundled Lalia into the
+boat and started back home, "and don't fall overboard. I don't want to
+lose the Best Asset in that Fool's Estate."
+
+*****
+
+When the consul, a week later, came down to take possession of
+Etheridge's "estate," he called in at Safune to ask Lawson to come and
+help him to take an inventory. Terere met him with a languid smile, and,
+too lazy perhaps to speak English, answered his questions in Samoan.
+
+"He's married and gone," she said.
+
+"Married? Aren't _you_ Mrs. Lawson?" said the bewildered consul, in
+English.
+
+"Not now, sir; my sister is. Will you take me to Apia in your boat,
+please?"
+
+And that is how Lawson, the _papalagi mativa_ (poor white) and "the
+best-hearted fellow in the world," became a _mau aha_--a man of riches,
+and went, with the Best Asset in Etheridge's estate, the calm-eyed
+Lalia, to start a hotel in--well, no matter where.
+
+
+
+
+DESCHARD OF ONEAKA
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Among the Gilbert Group--that chain of low-lying sandy atolls annexed
+by the British Government two years ago--there is one island that may be
+said to be both fertile and beautiful; yet for all this Kuria--for so
+it is called by the natives of the group generally--has remained almost
+uninhabited for the past forty years. Together with the lagoon island
+of Aranuka, from which it is distant about six miles, it belongs to the
+present King of Apamama, a large and densely populated atoll situated
+half a degree to the eastward. Thirty years ago, however, the
+grandfather of the lad who is now the nominal ruler of Apamama had cause
+to quarrel with the Kurians, and settled the dispute by invading their
+island and utterly destroying them, root and branch. To-day it is
+tenanted only by the young king's slaves.
+
+Of all the many groups and archipelagoes that stud the North and South
+Pacific from the rocky, jungle-covered Bonins to Juan Fernandez,
+the islands of the Gilbert Group are--save for this Kuria--the most
+uninviting and monotonous in appearance. They are for the most part but
+narrow strips of sandy soil, densely clothed, it is true, with countless
+thousands of stately cocoanut palms varied with groves of pan-danus and
+occasional patches of stunted scrub, but flat and unpleasing to the
+eye. Seldom exceeding two miles in width--although, as is the case at
+Drummond's Island, or Taputeouea, they sometimes reach forty in the
+length of their sweeping curve--but few present a continuous and
+unbroken stretch of land, for the greater number consist of perhaps
+two or three score of small islands, divided only by narrow and shallow
+channels, through which at high water the tide sweeps in from the ocean
+to the calm waters of the lagoons with amazing velocity. These strips
+of land, whether broken or continuous, form the eastern or windward
+boundaries of the lagoons; on the western or lee side lie barrier reefs,
+between whose jagged coral walls there are, at intervals widely apart,
+passages sufficiently deep for a thousand-ton ship to pass through in
+safety, and anchor in the transparent depths of the lagoon within its
+protecting arms.
+
+*****
+
+Years ago, in the days when the whaleships from Nantucket, and Salem,
+and Martha's Vineyard, and New Bedford cruised northward towards the
+cold seas of Japan and Tchantar Bay, and the smoky glare of their
+tryworks lit up the ocean at night, the Gilberts were a wild place, and
+many a murderous scene was enacted on white beach and shady palm grove.
+Time after time some whaler, lying to in fancied security outside the
+passage of a lagoon, with half her crew ashore intoxicated with sour
+toddy, and the other half on board unsuspicious of danger, would be
+attacked by the ferocious brown people. Swimming off at night-time, with
+knives held between their teeth, a desperate attempt would be made to
+cut off the ship. Sometimes the attempt succeeded; and then canoe after
+canoe would put out from the shore, and the wild people, swarming up the
+ship's side, would tramp about her ensanguined decks and into the cabins
+seeking for plunder and fiery New England rum. Then, after she had been
+gutted of everything of value to her captors, as the last canoe pushed
+off, smoke and then flames would arise, and the burning ship would
+drift away with the westerly current, and the tragedy of her fate, save
+to the natives of the island, and perhaps some renegade white man who
+had stirred them to the deed, would never be known.
+
+*****
+
+In those days--long ere the advent of the first missionary to the
+isolated equatorial atolls of Polynesia and Melanesia--there were
+many white men scattered throughout the various islands of the Ellice,
+Gilbert, and Marshall groups. Men, these, with a past that they cared
+not to speak of to the few strangers they might chance to meet in their
+savage retreats. Many were escaped convicts from Van Diemen's Land and
+New South Wales, living, not in dread of their wild native associates,
+but in secret terror of recapture by a man-of-war and a return to the
+horrors of that dreadful past. Casting away the garb of civilisation
+and tying around their loins the _airiri_ or grass girdle of the Gilbert
+Islanders, they soon became in appearance, manners, language, and
+thoughts pure natives. For them the outside world meant a life of
+degradation, possibly a shameful death. And as the years went by and
+the bitter memories of the black days of old, resonant with the clank
+of fetters and the warder's harsh cry, became dulled and faint, so died
+away that once for-ever-haunting fear of discovery and recapture. In
+Teake, the bronzed, half-naked savage chief of Maiana, or Mesi, the
+desperate leader of the natives that cut off the barque _Addie Passmore_
+at Marakei, the identity of such men as "Nuggety" Jack West and Macy
+O'Shea, once of Van Diemen's Land or Norfolk Island, was lost for ever.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+On Kuria, the one beautiful island of the Gilberts, there lived four
+such white men as those I speak of. Whence they came they alone knew.
+Two of them--a Portuguese deserter from a whaler and a man named
+Corton--had been some years on the island when they were joined by two
+others who came over from Apamama in a boat. One was called Tamu (Tom)
+by the natives, and from the ease with which he spoke the Gilbert Island
+dialect and his familiarity with native customs, he had plainly lived
+many years among the natives; the other was a tall, dark-skinned,
+and morose-looking man of nearly fifty. He was known as Hari to the
+natives--once, in that outer world from which some crime had dissevered
+him for ever, he was Henry Deschard.
+
+Although not familiar with either the language or the customs of the
+ferocious inhabitants of the Gilbert Group, it was soon seen by the ease
+with which he acquired both that Hari had spent long years roaming about
+the islands of the Pacific. In colour he was darker than the Kurians
+themselves; in his love of the bloodshed and slaughter that so often ran
+riot in native quarrels he surpassed even the fiercest native; and as
+he eagerly espoused the cause of any Kurian chief who sought his aid he
+rapidly became a man of note on the island, and dreaded by the natives
+elsewhere in the group.
+
+There were then over a thousand people living on Kuria--or rather,
+on Kuria and Oneaka, for the island is divided by one of those narrow
+channels before mentioned; and at Oneaka Tamu and Deschard lived, while
+the Portuguese and the man Corton had long held joint sway with the
+native chief of Kuria.
+
+During the time the four renegades had lived on the island two vessels
+that had touched there had had narrow escapes from seizure by the
+natives. The first of these, a small Hawaiian whaling brig, was
+attacked when she was lying becalmed between Kuria and Aranuka. A breeze
+springing up, she escaped after the loss of a boat's, crew, who were
+entrapped on the latter island. In this affair Deschard and Tamu had
+taken part; in the next--an attempt to capture a sandalwooding barque
+bound to China--he was leader, with Corton as his associate. The
+sandalwooder, however, carried a large and well-armed crew, and the
+treacherous surprise so elaborately planned came to ignominious failure.
+Deschard accused his fellow-beachcomber of cowardice at a critical
+moment. The two men became bitter enemies, and for years never spoke to
+each other.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+But one afternoon a sail was sighted standing in for the island, and in
+their hateful bond of villainy the two men became reconciled, and agreed
+with Pedro and Tamu and some hundreds of natives to try to decoy the
+vessel to an anchor and cut her off. The beachcombers, who were tired
+of living on Kuria, were anxious to get away; the natives desired the
+plunder to be obtained from the prize. A compact was then made that the
+ship, after the natives had done with her, was not to be burnt, but was
+to be handed over to the white men, who were to lead the enterprise.
+
+*****
+
+Sailing slowly along till she came within a mile of the reef, the
+vessel hove to and lowered a boat. She was a large brigantine, and the
+murderous beings who watched her from the shore saw with cruel pleasure
+that she did not appear to carry a large crew.
+
+It had been agreed upon that Corton, who had special aptitude for such
+work, should meet the boat and endeavour to lure the crew into the
+interior, under the promise of giving them a quantity of fresh-water
+fish from the artificial ponds belonging to the chief, while Deschard
+and the other two, with their body of native allies, should remain at
+the village on Oneaka, and at the proper moment attack the ship.
+
+As the boat drew near, the officer who was in charge saw that although
+there were numbers of natives clustered together on the beach, the
+greater portion were women and children. He had with him five men, all
+armed with muskets and cutlasses, and although extremely anxious to
+avoid a collision, he was not at all alarmed. The natives meanwhile
+preserved a passive attitude, and when the men in the boat, at a word
+from the officer, stopped rowing, backed her in stern first, and then
+lay on their oars, they nearly all sat down on the sand and waited for
+him to speak.
+
+Standing up in the boat, the officer hailed--
+
+"Hallo there, ashore! Any white men living here?"
+
+For a minute or so there was no answer, and the eyes of the natives
+turned in the direction of one of their number who kept well in the
+background.
+
+Again the seaman hailed, and then a man, seemingly a native, stout and
+muscular, with hair felling down in thick masses upon his reddish-brown
+shoulders, walked slowly out from the others, and folding his brawny
+arms across his naked chest, he answered--
+
+"Yes; there's some white men here."
+
+The officer, who was the mate of the brigantine, then spoke for a few
+minutes to a young man who pulled bow oar, and who from his dress was
+not one of the crew, and said finally, "Well, let us make sure that
+there is no danger first, Maurice."
+
+The young man nodded, and then the mate addressed the seeming native
+again:
+
+"There's a young fellow here wants to come ashore; he wants to see one
+of the white men here. Can he come ashore?"
+
+"Of course he can. D'ye think we're a lot o' cannibals here? I'm a white
+man myself," and he laughed coarsely; then added quickly, "Who does he
+want to see?"
+
+The man who pulled the bow oar sprang to his feet.
+
+"I want to see Henry Deschard!"
+
+"Do you?" was the sneering response. "Well, I don't know as you can.
+This isn't his day at-home like; besides that, he's a good long way
+from here just now."
+
+"I've got good news for him," urged the man called Maurice.
+
+The beachcomber meditated a few seconds; then he walked down to the
+boat.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I'm telling the exac' truth. Deschard's place
+is a long way from here, in the bush too, so you can't go there in the
+boat; but look here, why can't you chaps come along with me? I'll show
+you the way, and you'll have a good look at the island. There's nothin'
+to be afraid of, I can tell you. Why, these natives is that scared of
+all them guns there that you won't see 'em for dust when you come with
+me; an' the chief says as you chaps can drag one of his fish-ponds."
+
+The mate was tempted; but his orders were to allow only the man Maurice
+to land, and to make haste back as soon as his mission was accomplished.
+Shaking his head to the renegade's wily suggestion, he, however, told
+Maurice that he could go and endeavour to communicate with Deschard. In
+the meantime he would return to the ship, and tell the captain--"and the
+other" (these last words with a look full of meaning at the young man)
+that everything was going on all right.
+
+Foiled in his plan of inducing all the men to come ashore, Corton
+assumed a careless manner, and told Maurice that he was still willing to
+conduct him to Deschard, but that he would not be able to return to the
+ship that night, as the distance was too great.
+
+The mate was agreeable to this, and bidding the beachcomber and his
+victim good-day he returned to the ship.
+
+Holding the young man's hand in his, the burly renegade passed through
+the crowd of silent natives, and spoke to them in their own tongue.
+
+"Hide well thy spears and clubs, my children; 'tis not yet time to act."
+
+Still clasping the hand of his companion, he led the way through the
+native town, and then into the narrow bush track that led to Oneaka, and
+in another five minutes they were alone, or apparently so, for nought
+could be heard in the fast gathering darkness but their own footsteps as
+they trod the leafy path, and the sound of the breaching surf long miles
+away.
+
+Suddenly the beachcomber stopped, and in a harsh voice said--
+
+"What is the good news for Deschard?"
+
+"That I cannot tell you," answered the stripling, firmly, though the
+grim visage, tattooed body, and now threatening aspect of his questioner
+might well have intimidated even a bolder man, and instinctively he
+thrust his hand into the bosom of his shirt and grasped a letter he
+carried there.
+
+"Then neither shall Deschard know it," said the man savagely, and
+throwing himself upon the young man he bore him to the ground, while
+shadowy, naked figures glided out from the blackness of the forest and
+bound and gagged him without a sound. Then carrying him away from the
+path the natives placed him, without roughness, under the shelter of an
+empty house, and then left him.
+
+The agony of mind endured by the helpless prisoner may be imagined when,
+unable to speak or move, he saw the beachcomber and his savage followers
+vanish into the darkness; for the letter which he carried had been
+written only a few hours before by the wife of the man Deschard, telling
+him of her loving quest, and of her and her children's presence on board
+the brigantine.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+At daylight next morning some native women, passing by the deserted
+house on their way to work in the _puraka_ plantations of Oneaka, saw
+the figure of the messenger lying dead. One of the women, named Niapo,
+in placing her hand upon his bosom to feel if he yet breathed, found
+the letter which had cost him his life. For nearly twenty years she kept
+possession of it, doubtless from some superstitious motive, and then it
+was bought from her by a white trader from Apamama, named Randall,
+by whom it was sent to the Rev. Mr. Damon, the "Sailors' Friend," a
+well-known missionary in Honolulu. This was the letter:--
+
+My Dear Husband,--It is nearly three years since I got your letter, but
+I dared not risk writing to you, even if I had known of a ship leaving
+for the South Seas or the whale fishery. None of the sandalwooding
+people in Sydney seemed even to know the name of this island (Courier?).
+My dear husband, I have enough money now, thank God, to end all our
+troubles. Your letter was brought to me at Parramatta by a sailor--an
+American, I think. He gave it first to Maurice. I would have rewarded
+him, but before I could speak to him he had gone. For ten years I have
+waited and prayed to God to bring us together again. We came to Sydney
+in the same ship as Major D------, of the 77th. He has always been so
+good to us, and so has his wife. Nell is sixteen now, Laura eighteen.
+God grant that I will see you in a few hours. The captain says that he
+will land us all at one of the places in the Dutch East Indies. I have
+paid him L100, and am to pay him L100 when you are safely on board. I
+have been so miserable for the past year, as Major D------ had heard
+that a man-of-war was searching the islands, and I was in such terrible
+fear that we would never meet again. Come quickly, and God bless you, my
+dear husband. Maurice insisted and begged to be allowed to take this to
+you. He is nineteen years old now, but will not live long--has been a
+faithful and good lad. Laura is eighteen, and Nell nearly sixteen now.
+We are now close to Courier,{*} and should see you ere long.--Your
+loving and now joyful wife,--Anna Deschard.
+
+     * The native pronunciation of Kuria is like "Courier."--
+     L.B.
+
+*****
+
+In the big _maniapa_ or council house, on Oneaka, two hundred armed
+and naked savages were sitting awaiting the arrival of Corton and his
+warriors from Kuria. A little apart from the muttering, excited
+natives, and seated together, were the man Deschard and the two other
+beachcombers, Pedro and Tamu.
+
+As Corton and his men filed across the gravelled pathway that led to the
+_maniapa_ Deschard, followed by the two other white men, at once came
+out, and the former, with a fierce curse, demanded of Corton what had
+kept him.
+
+"Couldn't manage to get them ashore," answered the other, sulkily. Then
+he proceeded to impart the information he had gained as to the ship, her
+crew, and armament.
+
+"Nine men and one native boy!" said Deschard, contemptuously. He was a
+tall, lean-looking, black-bearded man, with even a more terrifying and
+savage appearance than any of his ruffianly partners in crime, tattooed
+as he was from the back of his neck to his heels in broad, perpendicular
+lines. As he fixed his keen eyes upon the countenance of Corton his
+white teeth showed in a cruel smile through his tangled, unkempt
+moustache.
+
+Calling out the leading chiefs of the cutting-out party, the four
+desperadoes consulted with them upon their plan of action for the attack
+upon the brigantine, and then arranged for each man's work and share o
+the plunder. The white men were to have the ship, but everything that
+was of value to the natives and not necessary to the working of the ship
+was to be given to the natives. The muskets, powder, and ball were to be
+evenly divided between the whites and their allies.
+
+Six of the native chiefs then swore by the names of their deified
+ancestors to faithfully observe the murderous compact. After the ship
+was taken they were to help the white men if the ship had anchored to
+get her under way again.
+
+It was the intention of Deschard and his mates to make for the East
+Indies, where they would have no trouble in selling the ship to one of
+the native potentates of that archipelago.
+
+*****
+
+At daylight the brigantine, which had been kept under easy sail during
+the night, was seen to be about four miles from the land, and standing
+in. Shortly after, two or three canoes, with only a few men in each, put
+off from the beach at Oneaka and paddled out leisurely towards the ship.
+When about a mile or so from the shore they ceased paddling, and the
+captain of the brigantine saw by his glass that they were engaged in
+fishing.
+
+This was merely a device to inspire confidence in those on board the
+ship.
+
+In another hour the brigantine passed close to one of the canoes, and a
+native, well tutored by past masters in the art of treachery in the part
+he had to play, stood up in the canoe and held out a large fish, and in
+broken English said it was a present for the captain.
+
+Pleased at such a friendly overture, the captain put the helm down for
+the canoe to come alongside. Handing the fish up over the side, the
+giver clambered up himself. The three other natives in the canoe then
+paddled quietly away as if under no alarm for the safety of their
+comrade, and resumed their fishing.
+
+As the ship drew into the land the mate called the captain's attention
+to some eight or ten more natives who were swimming off to the ship.
+
+"No danger from these people, sir," he remarked; "they are more
+frightened of us than we of them, I believe; and then look at the
+women and girls fishing on the reef. When the women come out like that,
+fearless and open-like, there isn't much to be afraid of."
+
+One by one the natives who were swimming reached the ship, and
+apparently encouraged by the presence of the man who had boarded the
+ship from the fishing canoe, they eagerly clambered up on deck, and were
+soon on the most friendly terms with the crew, especially with one of
+their own colour, a half-caste native boy from the island of Ambrym, in
+the New Hebrides, named Maru.
+
+This Maru was the sole survivor of the awful tragedy that followed, and
+appeared to be well acquainted with the captain's object in calling
+at Kuria--to pick up the man named Deschard. More than twenty years
+afterwards, when speaking of the events here narrated, his eyes filled
+with tears when he told of the "white lady and her two daughters" who
+were passengers, and who had sat on the poop the previous day awaiting
+the return of the mate's boat, and for tidings of him whom they had come
+so far to find.
+
+*****
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+The timid and respectful manner of the islanders had now so impressed
+the master of the brigantine that in a fatal moment he decided to
+anchor. Telling the mate to range the cable and clear away all ready, he
+descended to the cabin and tapped at the door of a state-room.
+
+"I am going to anchor, Mrs. Deschard, but as there are a lot of rather
+curious-looking natives on board, you and the young ladies had better
+keep to your cabin."
+
+The door opened, and a girl of seventeen or eighteen appeared, and,
+taking the captain's hand, she whispered--
+
+"She is asleep, captain. She kept awake till daylight, hoping that my
+father would come in the night. Do you think that anything has happened
+either to him or Maurice?"
+
+Maru, the Ambrym cabin-boy, said that the captain "patted the girl's
+hand" and told her to have no fear--that her father was on the island
+"sure enough," and that Maurice would return with him by breakfast time.
+
+The brigantine anchored close in to the shore, between Kuria and Oneaka,
+and in a few minutes the long boat was lowered to proceed on shore and
+bring off Maurice and Deschard. Four hands got into her and then the
+mate. Just as he was about to cast off, the English-speaking native
+begged the captain to allow him and the rest of his countrymen to go
+ashore in the boat. Unsuspicious of treachery from unarmed natives, the
+captain consented, and they immediately slipped over the side into the
+boat.
+
+There were thus but four white men left on board--the captain, second
+mate, two A.B.'s--and the half-caste boy Maru. Arms and ammunition,
+sufficient for treble the crew the brigantine carried, were on board.
+In those days the humblest merchant brig voyaging to the East Indies and
+China coast carried, in addition to small arms, either two or four guns
+(generally 6-pounders) in case of an attack by pirates. The brigantine
+was armed with two 6-pounders, and these, so the Ambry half-caste
+said, were still loaded with "bags of bullets" when she came to an
+anchor. Both of the guns were on the main deck amidships.
+
+*****
+
+Contrary to the wishes of the mate, who appeared to have the most
+unbounded confidence in the peace-ableness of the natives, the captain
+had insisted upon his boat's crew taking their arms with them.
+
+No sooner had the boat left the vessel than the English-speaking native
+desired the mate to pull round to the east side of Oneaka, where, he
+said, the principal village was situated, and whither Maurice had gone
+to seek Deschard. It must be remembered that this native and those
+with him were all members of Corton's _clientele_ at Kuria, and were
+therefore well aware of his treachery in seizing the messenger to
+Deschard, and that Maurice had been seized and bound the previous night.
+
+In half an hour, when the boat was hidden from the view of those on
+board the brigantine, the natives, who outnumbered the whites two to
+one, at a signal from their leader suddenly threw themselves upon
+the unsuspecting seamen who were rowing and threw every one of them
+overboard. The mate, a small, active man, managed to draw a heavy horse
+pistol from his belt, but ere he could pull the trigger he was dealt
+a crushing blow with a musket stock. As he fell a native thrust him
+through and through with one of the seamen's cutlasses. As for the
+unfortunate seamen, they were killed one by one as they struggled in the
+water. That part of the fell work accomplished, the natives pulled
+the boat in towards Oneaka, where some ten or fifteen large native
+double-ended boats and canoes, all filled with savages lusting for blood
+and rapine, awaited them.
+
+Deschard, a man of the most savage courage, was in command of some
+twenty or thirty of the most noted of the Oneaka warriors; and on
+learning from Tebarian (the native who spoke English and who was
+Corton's brown familiar) that the two guns were in the waist of the
+ship, he instructed his white comrades to follow in the wake of his
+boat, and, once they got alongside, board the ship wherever their fancy
+dictated.
+
+There was a muttered _E rairai!_ (Good!) of approval from the listening
+natives, and then in perfect silence and intuitive discipline the
+paddles struck the water, and the boat and canoes, with their naked,
+savage crews, sped away on their mission of death.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+But, long before they imagined, they had been discovered, and their
+purpose divined from the ship. Maru, the keen-eyed half-caste, who was
+the first to notice their approach, knew from the manner in which the
+canoes kept together that something unusual was about to occur, and
+instantly called the captain. Glass in hand, the latter ascended the
+main rigging for a dozen ratlins or so and looked at the advancing
+flotilla. A very brief glance told him that the boy had good cause for
+alarm--the natives intended to cut off the ship, and the captain, whom
+Maru described as "an old man with a white head," at once set about to
+make such a defence as the critical state of affairs rendered possible.
+
+Calling his men to him and giving them muskets, he posted two of them on
+top of the deckhouse, and with the remainder of his poor force stationed
+himself upon the poop. With a faint hope that they might yet be
+intimidated from attacking, he fired a musket shot in the direction of
+the leading boat. No notice was taken; so, descending to the main deck
+with his men, he ran out one of the 6-pounders and fired it. The roar of
+the heavily-charged gun was answered by a shrill yell of defiance from
+two hundred throats.
+
+"Then," said Maru, "the captain go below and say good-bye to women and
+girls, and shut and lock cabin door."
+
+Returning to the deck, the brave old man and his second mate and two men
+picked up their muskets and began to fire at the black mass of boats and
+men that were now well within range. As they fired, the boy Maru loaded
+spare muskets for them as fast as his trembling hands would permit.
+
+Once only, as the brigantine swung to the current, the captain brought
+the gun on the port side to bear on them again, and fired; and again
+there came back the same appalling yell of defiance, for the shower
+of bullets only made a wide slat of foam a hundred yards short of the
+leading boat.
+
+By the time the gun was reloaded the brigantine had swung round head
+to shore again; and then, as the despairing but courageous seamen were
+trying to drag it forward again, Deschard and his savages in the leading
+boat had gained the ship, and the wild figure of the all but naked
+beachcomber sprang on deck, followed by his own crew and nearly two
+hundred other fiends well-nigh as bloodthirsty and cruel as himself.
+Some two or three of them had been killed by the musketry fire from the
+ship, and their fellows needed no incentive from their white leaders to
+slay and spare not.
+
+Abandoning the gun, the captain and his three men and the boy Maru
+succeeded in fighting their way through Deschard's savages and reaching
+one of the cabin doors, which, situated under the break of the high
+poop, opened to the main deck. Ere they could all gain the shelter of
+the cabin and secure the door the second mate and one of the seamen were
+cut down and ruthlessly slaughtered, and of the three that did, one--the
+remaining seaman--was mortally wounded and dying fast.
+
+Even at such a moment as this, hardened and merciless as were their
+natures and blood-stained their past, it cannot be thought that had
+Deschard and his co-pirates known that white women were on board the
+brigantine they would have perpetrated their last dreadful deed. In his
+recital of the final scene in the cabin Maru spoke of the white woman
+and the two girls coming out of their state-room and kneeling down and
+praying with their arms clasped around each other's waists. Surely the
+sound of their dying prayers could never have been heard by Deschard
+when, in the native tongue, he called out for one of the guns to be run
+aft.
+
+*****
+
+"By and by," said Maru, "woman and girl come to captain and sailor-man
+Charlie and me and cry and say good-bye, and then captain he pray too.
+Then he get up and take cutlass, and sailor-man Charlie he take cutlass
+too, but he too weak and fall down; so captain say, 'Never mind,
+Charlie, you and me die now like men.'"
+
+Then, cutlass in hand, the white-haired old skipper stood over the
+kneeling figures of the three women and waited for the end. And now the
+silence was broken by a rumbling sound, and then came a rush of naked
+feet along the deck.
+
+"It is the gun," said Maru to the captain, and in an agony of terror he
+lifted up the hatch of the lazarette under the cabin table and jumped
+below. And then Deschard's voice was heard.
+
+"_Ta mai te ae_" (Give me the fire).
+
+A blinding flash, a deafening roar, and splintering and crashing of
+timber followed, and as the heavy pall of smoke lifted, Deschard and the
+others looked in at their bloody work, shuddered, and turned away.
+
+Pedro, the Portuguese, his dark features turned to a ghastly pallor, was
+the only one of the four men who had courage enough to assist some of
+the natives in removing from the cabin the bodies of the three poor
+creatures who, but such a short time before, were full of happiness and
+hope. Deschard and the three others, after that one shuddering glance,
+had kept away from the vicinity of the shot-torn cabin.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+The conditions of the cutting off of the brigantine were faithfully
+observed by the contracting parties, and long ere night fell the last
+boatload of plunder had been taken ashore. Tebarau, chief of Oneaka, had
+with his warriors helped to heave up anchor, and the vessel, under
+short canvas, was already a mile or two away from the land, and in his
+hiding-place in the gloomy lazarette the half-caste boy heard Corton and
+Deschard laying plans for the future.
+
+Only these two were present in the cabin. Pedro was at the wheel, and
+Tamu somewhere on deck. Presently Corton brought out the dead captain's
+despatch box, which they had claimed from the natives, and the two began
+to examine the contents. There was a considerable amount of money in
+gold and silver, as well as the usual ship's papers, &c. Corton, who
+could scarcely read, passed these over to his companion, and then ran
+his fingers gloatingly through the heap of money before him.
+
+With a hoarse, choking cry and horror-stricken eyes Deschard sprang to
+his feet, and with shaking hand held out a paper to Corton.
+
+"My God! my God!" exclaimed the unhappy wretch, and sinking down again
+he buried his face in his hands.
+
+Slowly and laboriously his fellow ex-convict read the document through
+to the end. It was an agreement to pay the captain of the brigantine
+the sum of one hundred pounds sterling provided that Henry Deschard
+was taken on board the brigantine at Woodle's Island (me name Kuria was
+known by to whaleships and others), the said sum to be increased to
+two hundred pounds "provided that Henry Deschard, myself, and my two
+daughters are landed at Batavia or any other East India port within
+sixty days from leaving the said island," and was signed Anna Deschard.
+
+Staggering to his feet, the man sought in the ruined and plundered
+state-room for further evidence. Almost the first objects that he
+saw were two hanging pockets made of duck--evidently the work of some
+seaman--bearing upon them the names of "Helen" and "Laura."
+
+*****
+
+Peering up from his hiding-place in the lazarette, where he had lain
+hidden under a heap of old jute bagging and other debris, Maru saw
+Deschard return to the cabin and take up a loaded musket. Sitting in the
+captain's chair, and leaning back, he placed the muzzle to his throat
+and touched the trigger with his naked foot. As the loud report rang
+out, and the cabin filled with smoke, the boy crawled from his dark
+retreat, and, stepping over the prostrate figure of Deschard, he reached
+the deck and sprang overboard.
+
+For hours the boy swam through the darkness towards the land, guided by
+the lights of the fires that in the Gilbert and other equatorial islands
+are kindled at night-time on every beach. He was picked up by a fishing
+party, and probably on account of his youth and exhausted condition his
+life was spared.
+
+That night as he lay sleeping under a mat in the big _maniapa_ on Kuria
+he was awakened by loud cries, and looking seaward he saw a bright glare
+away to the westward.
+
+It was the brigantine on fire.
+
+Launching their canoes, the natives went out to her, and were soon close
+enough to see that she was burning fiercely from for'ard to amidships,
+and that her three boats were all on board--two hanging to the davits
+and one on the deckhouse. But of the four beachcombers there was no
+sign.
+
+Knowing well that no other ship had been near the island, and that
+therefore the white men could not have escaped by that means without
+being seen from the shore, the natives, surmising that they were in a
+drunken sleep, called loudly to them to awake; but only the roaring of
+the flames broke the silence of the ocean. Not daring to go nearer, the
+natives remained in the vicinity till the brigantine was nothing but a
+mastless, glowing mass of fire.
+
+Towards midnight she sank; and the last of the beachcombers of Kuria
+sank with her.
+
+
+
+
+NELL OF MULLINER'S CAMP
+
+Mulliner's Camp, on the Hodgkinson, was the most hopeless-looking spot
+in the most God-forsaken piece of country in North Queensland, and
+Haughton, the amalgamator at the "Big Surprise" crushing-mill, as he
+turned wearily away from the battery-tables to look at his "retorting"
+fire, cursed silently but vigorously at his folly in staying there.
+
+It was Saturday night, and the deadly melancholy of Mulliner's was, if
+possible, somewhat accentuated by the crash and rattle of the played-out
+old five-head battery, accompanied by the wheezings and groanings of its
+notoriously unreliable pumping-gear. Half a mile away from the decrepid
+old battery, and situated on the summit of an adder-infested ironstone
+ridge, the dozen or so of bark humpies that constituted Mulliner's Camp
+proper stood out clearly in the bright starlight in all their squat
+ugliness. From the extra display of light that shone from the doorway of
+the largest and most dilapidated-looking of the huts, Haughton knew
+that the Cooktown mailman had come in, and was shouting a drink for the
+landlord of the "Booming Nugget" before eating his supper of corned
+beef and damper and riding onward. For Mulliner's had gone to the bad
+altogether; even the beef that the mailman was eating came from a beast
+belonging to old Channing, of Calypso Downs, which had fallen down a
+shaft the previous night. Perhaps this matter of a fairly steady beef
+supply was the silver lining to the black cloud of misfortune that had
+so long enshrouded the spirits of the few remaining diggers that
+still clung tenaciously to the duffered-out mining camp, for whenever
+Mulliner's ran out of meat a beast of Channing's would always--by some
+mysterious dispensation of a kindly goldfield's Providence--fall down a
+shaft and suffer mortal injuries.
+
+*****
+
+Just at the present moment Haughton, as he threw a log or two into the
+retort furnace and watched the shower of sparks fly high up over the
+battery roof, was thinking of old Channing's daughter Kate, and
+the curious state of affairs existing between her and his partner
+Ballantyne. Briefly stated, this is what had occurred--that is, as far
+as Haughton knew.
+
+Twelve months before, Mrs. Channing, a meek-faced, religious-minded
+lady, had succumbed to the worries of life under the combined and
+prostrating influences of a galvanised iron roof, an independent
+Chinaman cook, and a small powerful theological library. Immediately
+after her death, old Channing at once wrote to his daughter, then at
+school in Sydney, to come back "and cheer up his lonely life."
+
+"Poor dad," said Kate, "I suppose he means for me to continue poor
+mother's feeble remonstrances to Chow Kum about giving away so much
+rations to the station gins, and to lend a hand when we muster for
+branding."
+
+However, being a dutiful girl, she packed up and went.
+
+On board the steamer she had met Ballantyne, who was returning to
+Queensland to resume his mining pursuits in the Palmer District. He knew
+old Channing well by reputation as a wealthy but eccentric old squatter,
+and in a few days he managed to make the girl fall violently in love
+with him. The day that the steamer reached Brisbane a telegram was
+brought on board for Miss Channing. It was from her father, telling
+her that Mrs. Lankey, of Mount Brindlebul, was coming up from Sydney in
+another week, and she was to wait in Brisbane for her. Then they were to
+travel northward together.
+
+If there was one woman in the world she hated it was Mrs. Lankey, of
+Mount Brindlebul station, in the Gulf country, and Ballantyne, from whom
+she could hide nothing, saw his opportunity, and took it. He took her
+ashore, placed her in lodgings, went to an hotel himself, and the day
+before her future escort arrived, married her.
+
+Perfectly satisfied with the cogent reasons he gave for secrecy in
+not apprising her father of their marriage, and shedding tears at the
+nonchalant manner in which he alluded to a honeymoon "some time in a
+year or so when the old man comes to know of it," pretty Kate Channing
+went back alone to her lodgings to await Mrs. Lankey and cogitate upon
+the peculiarly masterful way in which Ballantyne had wooed and won her.
+
+Six months afterwards she got a letter from Ballantyne, telling her that
+he had bought Petermann's crushing mill at Mulliner's Camp, "so as to be
+near you, my pet," he said. At the same time he warned her of the folly
+of their attempting to meet, at least openly; but added that Haughton,
+his partner, who knew of his marriage, would visit Calypso Downs
+occasionally and give her news of him; also that they could correspond
+by the same medium.
+
+Thus matters stood between them for some months, till Kate, wearying to
+meet the cold, calculating Ballantyne, adopted the device of riding over
+late every Sunday afternoon to Mulliner's for the mail, instead of her
+father sending over one of his black boys.
+
+But instead of meeting her with kisses, Ballantyne terrified her with
+savage reproaches. It was madness, he said, for her to run such a risk.
+By and by he would be in a better position; at present he was as poor
+as a rat, and it was best for them to be apart. And Kate, thoroughly
+believing in him, bent to his will. She knew that her father was, as
+Ballantyne thoughtfully observed, such a violent-tempered old man that
+he would cast her off utterly unless he was "managed" properly when he
+learnt of her marriage.
+
+"And don't come down this way from Mulliner's," added the careful
+Ballantyne. "There's an old mail tin, about a mile or so away from here,
+near the worked-out alluvial patch. You can always drop a letter in
+there for me. Haughton's such a good-natured ass that he'll play Mercury
+for you. Anyway, I'll send him to look in the tin every Sunday night."
+
+That, so far, was the history of Mr. and Mrs. Ballantyne.
+
+*****
+
+"Another duffing crushing," muttered Haughton, as he stooped and placed
+his hand into the bucket of quicksilver under the nozzle of the retort
+pipe. "What between a reef that doesn't pan out five pennyweights to the
+ton, and a woman that pans out too rich, I'm sick of the cursed place."
+
+As he stood up again, and, hands on his hips, looked moodily into the
+fire, a woman came down the rough path leading from Ballantyne's house
+to the battery. Walking quickly across the lighted space that intervened
+between the blacksmith's forge and the fire, she placed a billy of tea
+on the brick furnace-wall, and then turned her handsome black-browed,
+gipsy-like face up to his. This was Nell Lawson, the woman who had
+"panned out too rich."
+
+"Here's your tea, Dick," she said.
+
+"Thanks," he said, taking it from her, and then with a quick look over
+towards the battery, "I wish you wouldn't call me 'Dick' when any of the
+hands are about; Lawson might hear of it, and I don't want you to get
+into any trouble over me."
+
+The black eyes sparkled, and the smooth olive-hued features flushed
+darkly in the firelight as she grasped his arm.
+
+"You lie!" and she set her teeth. "A lot you care! Do you think I'm a
+silly? Do you think as I don't know that you want to sling me and don't
+know how to go about it?" and she grasped his arm savagely.
+
+Haughton looked at her in gloomy silence for a few seconds. Standing
+there, face to face, they looked so alike in features--he wiry,
+muscular, black-bearded, and bronzed to the hue of an Arab, and she
+tall, dark-haired, with oval, passionate face--they might have been
+taken for brother and sister.
+
+She let his arm free, and then, being only a working miner's wife, and
+possessing no handkerchief, whipped her apron to her eyes.
+
+"You're a damned cur!" she said, chokingly. "If it hadn't ha' been for
+you I'd ha' gone along all right wi' Bob, and put up wi' livin' in this
+place; an' now------"
+
+"Look here, Nell," said Haughton, drawing her away into the shadow of
+the forge, "I'm a cur, as you say; but I'd be a worse cur to keep on
+this way. You can't marry me, can you?"
+
+"You used to talk about our boltin'--_once_" and she snapped out the
+last word.
+
+Haughton tried to explain why the "bolting" so trenchantly referred to
+did not eventuate. He was stone-broke. Ballantyne was going to do his
+own amalgamating at the battery, and it would be cruel of him to ask
+her to share his fortunes. (Here he began to appreciate his leaning
+to morality.) If she was a single girl he would stay at Mulliner's and
+fight it out with bad luck for her sake; but they couldn't go on like
+this any more. And the people at Mulliner's were beginning to talk about
+them, &c, &c.
+
+She heard him in silence, and then gave a short, jarring laugh--the
+laugh that ought to tell a man that he is no longer believed in--by a
+woman who has loved him.
+
+"I know," she said, quietly, "you want to get clear o' me. You're took
+up with Kate Channing, the _proper_ Miss Channing that rides over here
+o' Sundays to meet you on the sly."
+
+At first he meant to undeceive her, then he thought, "What does it
+matter? I'll be away from here in a day or so, and after I've gone
+she'll find I'm not so base as she thought me, poor girl;" so, looking
+away from her so as to avoid the dangerous light that gleamed in her
+passionate eyes, he made the plunge.
+
+"That's it, Nell. I'm hard up and desperate. If you were a free
+woman----"
+
+She struck him in the mouth with her clenched hand--"I'll kill her
+first, Dick Haughton," and then left him.
+
+*****
+
+A mile or so out from the battery, on a seldom used track that led to an
+abandoned alluvial workings, a stained and weather-worn biscuit-tin had
+been nailed to an iron-bark tree. In the prosperous days of Mulliner's
+it had been placed there by the diggers as a receptacle for letters, and
+its location there saved the mailman a long _detour_ to their camp.
+At present poor loving Kate Channing and Dick Haughton were the only
+persons who ever looked into it. After getting the station letters from
+the landlord of the "Booming Nugget," Kate would ride through the bush
+and come out on the track just opposite; then, bending down from her
+horse, she would peer eagerly into the tin to see if a letter had been
+left there for her. Generally there was not. So, with a sad, wistful
+look in her blue eyes, she would drop her own tenderly-worded letter in
+and ride away home.
+
+Twice Nell Lawson had seen her passing over the ridge towards the old
+workings, and had wondered what had taken her so far off the road; and
+on each of these occasions she had seen Dick Haughton follow in the same
+direction shortly after. He was never away more than half an hour. The
+first time she simply wondered, the next she grew suspicious, and as she
+saw him returning went and stopped him. As she threw her arms around his
+neck she felt the rustling of a letter that lay loosely in the front of
+the dungaree jumper he always wore when at work. She said nothing, but
+determined to watch, and one day, with the bitterest hatred gathering
+at her heart, she saw Kate Channing ride up to the tin on the iron-bark,
+look carefully inside, and then drop in a letter. And as Nell Lawson
+could not read she let it lay there untouched. But from that hour murder
+lay in her passionate heart.
+
+That evening, as she entered Bob Lawson's humpy, her husband, a big,
+heavy-featured man, looked up and saw the ghastly pallor of her face.
+
+"Why, what's the matter wi' 'ee, Nell? You be lookin' quite sick-loike
+lately. Tell 'ee what, Nell, thee wants a cheange."
+
+"Mulliner's be a dull pleace," she answered, mechanically.
+
+"Aye, lass, dull as hell in a fog. Mebbe I'll take thee somewheres for a
+spell."
+
+*****
+
+For nearly another week she nursed her hatred and planned her revenge;
+and Haughton, as he saw the dark rings forming under her eyes, and the
+cold, listless manner as she went about her work, began to experience a
+higher phase of feeling for her than that of the mere passion which her
+beauty had first awakened in him long months before.
+
+*****
+
+It was five o'clock on Sunday afternoon. The fierce, blinding sun had
+just disappeared behind the hideous basalt range twenty miles away
+from the "Big Surprise," when Nell Lawson put on her white sun-hood and
+walked slowly towards the old alluvial workings. When well out of sight
+from any one, near the battery, she turned off towards the creek and
+made for a big Leichhardt tree that stood on the bank. Underneath it,
+and evidently waiting for her, was a black fellow, a truculent-looking
+runaway trooper named Barney.
+
+"You got him that fellow Barney?" she asked, in a low voice.
+
+"_Yo ai_," he replied, keeping one hand behind his back. "Where that
+plenty fellow money you yabber me vesterday?"
+
+"Here," and she showed him some silver; "ten fellow shilling."
+
+Barney grinned, took the money, and then handed her an old
+broken-handled crockery teapot, which, in place of a lid, was covered
+over with a strip of ti-tree bark, firmly secured to the bottom by a
+strip of dirty calico.
+
+As soon as the black fellow had gone she picked up that which he had
+given her and walked quickly along the track till she reached the old
+mail tin. She stood awhile and listened. Not a sound disturbed the
+heated, oppressive silence. Placing the teapot on the ground, she lifted
+the stiff, creaking lid of the tin and pushed it well back. Then, taking
+up the teapot again, she placed one hand firmly upon the ti-tree bark
+covering the top, while with the other she unfastened the strip of rag
+that kept it in position. In another moment, grasping the broken spout
+in her left hand, she held it over the open tin, and, with a rapid
+motion, turned it upside down, and whipped away her right hand from the
+piece of bark.
+
+Something fell heavily against the bottom of the tin, and in an instant
+she slammed down the lid, and threw the empty teapot in among the
+boulders, where it smashed to pieces. Then, an evil smile on her dark
+face, she placed her ear to the side of the tin and listened. A faint,
+creeping, crawling sound was all she heard. In another minute, with hand
+pressed tightly against her wildly beating heart, she fled homewards.
+
+*****
+
+"This will be my last ride over, dear Ted," was the beginning of the
+letter to Ballantyne that lay in Channing's bosom. "Father is very ill,
+and I cannot leave him. Do let me tell him, and ask his forgiveness; it
+is so miserable for me to keep up this deceit."
+
+Darkness had set in by the time she had got the mail from the landlord
+of the "Booming Nugget," and turned her horse's head into the track that
+led over the ridge to the old workings.
+
+*****
+
+Two hours before daylight, Kate Channing's horse walked riderless up
+to the sliprails of Calypso Downs, and the stockman who had kept awake
+awaiting her return, went out to let his young mistress in.
+
+"Got throwed somewhere, I suppose," he grumbled, after examining the
+horse. "This is a nice go. It's no use telling the old man about it,
+he's too sick to be worried just now, anyway."
+
+Taking a black boy with him, and leading Kate's horse, he set out to
+look for her, expecting, unless she was hurt, to meet her somewhere
+between the station and Mulliner's Camp. Just as daylight broke, the
+black boy, who was leading, stopped.
+
+"Young missus been tumble off horse here," and he pointed to where
+the scrubby undergrowth on one side of the track was crushed down and
+broken.
+
+The stockman nodded. "Horse been shy I think it, Billy, at that old
+fellow post-office there?" and he pointed to the old mail tin, which was
+not ten feet from where Billy said she had fallen off.
+
+"Go ahead, Billy," said the stockman, "I believe young missus no catch
+him horse again, and she walk along to Mulliner's."
+
+"_Yo ai_," answered the black boy, and he started ahead. In a few
+minutes he stopped again with a puzzled look and pointed to Kate
+Channing's tracks.
+
+"Young missus been walk about all same drunk."
+
+"By jingo, she's got hurted, I fear," said the stockman. "Push ahead,
+Billy."
+
+A hundred yards further on they found her dead, lying face downwards on
+the track.
+
+Lifting her cold, stiffened body in his arms, the stockman carried
+his burden along to Ballantyne's house. Haughton met him at the door.
+Together they laid the still figure upon the sofa in the front room,
+and then while the stockman went for Nell Lawson, Haughton went to
+Ballantyne's bunk and awoke and told him. His mouth twitched nervously
+for a second or two, and then his hard, impassive nature asserted itself
+again.
+
+*****
+
+"'Tis a terrible thing this, Ballantyne," said Haughton,
+sympathetically, as they walked out together to see the place where she
+had been thrown.
+
+"Yes," assented the other, "dreadful. Did you hear what Channing's black
+boy told me?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"He says that she has died from snake-bite. I believe him, too. I saw a
+boy die on the Etheridge from snake-bite, and he looked as she does
+now; besides that, there is not a scratch or bruise on her body, so she
+couldn't have received any hurt unless it was an internal one when she
+was thrown. Here's the place," and then he started back, for lying at
+the foot of the tree was the panting, trembling figure of Nell Lawson.
+
+She had tried to get there before them to efface all traces of her
+deadly work.
+
+"What are you doing here, Mrs. Lawson?" said Ballantyne, sharply; "we
+sent over for you; don't you know what has happened?"
+
+The strange hysterical "yes" that issued from her pallid lips caused
+Ballantyne to turn his keen grey eyes upon her intently. Then something
+of the truth must have flashed across his mind, for he walked up to the
+tree and looked into the tin.
+
+"Good God!" he said, "poor little woman!" and then he called to
+Haughton. "Come here, and see what killed her!"
+
+Haughton looked, and a deadly horror chilled his blood: lying in the
+bottom of the tin was a thick, brownish-red death adder. It raised
+its hideous, flatted head for a moment, then lowered it, and lay there
+regarding them with its deadly eye.
+
+"How did it get there?" he asked.
+
+Ballantyne pointed to Nell Lawson, who now stood and leant against a
+tree for support.
+
+Haughton sprang to her side and seized her hands.
+
+"Are you a murderess, Nell? What had she done to you that you should
+take her innocent life? She was nothing to me--she was Ballantyne's
+wife."
+
+She looked at him steadily, and her lips moved, then a shrill, horrible
+laugh burst forth, and she fell unconscious at his feet.
+
+That day Haughton left Mulliner's Camp for ever.
+
+*****
+
+Perhaps this story should have another ending, and Nell Lawson have met
+with a just retribution. But, as is the case of many other women--and
+men--with natures such as hers, she did not. For when old Channing lay
+dying she nursed him tenderly to the last, and perhaps because of this,
+or for that he could never understand why blue-eyed Kate had never
+come back, he left her all he had, much to the wondering admiration of
+honest, dull-witted Bob, her husband, who almost immediately after
+the old man's death, when returning home one night from the "Booming
+Nugget," filled with a great peace of mind and a considerable quantity
+of bad rum, fell down a shaft and broke his neck, after the manner of
+one of old Channing's bullocks--and then she married Ballantyne.
+
+Everything seems to come to him who waits--especially if he is
+systematic in his villainy, and has a confiding wife--as had Ballantyne
+in his first matrimonial venture.
+
+
+
+
+AURIKI REEF
+
+One evening, not long ago, an old island comrade and I sat on the
+verandah looking out upon the waters of Sydney Harbour, smoking and
+talking of the old wild days down there in the Marshall group, among
+the brown people who dwell on the white beaches under the shade of the
+swaying palms. And as we talked, the faces of those we had known came
+back one by one to our memories, and passed away.
+
+*****
+
+In front of us, with her tall, black spars cutting out clearly against
+the flood of moonlight, that lit up the waters of the quiet little bay,
+lay the old _Wolverene_--to both of us a silent reminder of one night
+not long ago, under far-off skies, when the old corvette sailed past
+our little, schooner, towering up above us, a cloud of spotless white
+canvas, as she gracefully rose and sank to the long sweep of the ocean
+swell.
+
+*****
+
+"Poor old Tierney," said my friend, alluding to the captain of that
+little schooner. "He's dead now; blew his hand off with dynamite down in
+the Gilbert Group--did you know?"
+
+"Yes. What a good fellow he was! There are few like him left now. Aye,
+few indeed."
+
+"By the way, did he ever tell you about Jack Lester and his little
+daughter, Tessa?"
+
+"Something of it. You were with him in the _Mana_ that trip, weren't
+you?"
+
+*****
+
+"Yes," said my friend, "Brayley and I both. He had been up to Honolulu,
+sick; and he came on board of the _Mana_ and seemed so anxious to
+get back to his station on Maduro that Tierney--good old fellow as he
+was--told him to bring his traps aboard, and he would land him there
+on the way to Samoa. His wife had died five years before, and he had to
+leave his station in the care of his daughter, a child of twelve or so.
+Not that he fretted much about the station--it was only the little girl
+he thought of."
+
+We smoked on in silence awhile. Then my friend resumed--
+
+"I shall never forget that voyage. It was a night such as this that it
+happened--I mean that affair of the boat on Auriki Reef."
+
+Fifteen years ago is a long time to try back, and although I had been
+told something of a strange incident that had occurred during one voyage
+of the Hawaiian schooner _Mana_ (she is now a Sydney collier), I could
+not recall the circumstances.
+
+So then my friend told me the story of the boat on Auriki Reef.
+
+*****
+
+"I have told you that Brayley was a man of few words. But sometimes as
+we paced the deck together at night, as the schooner skimmed over the
+seas before the lusty trade-wind, he would talk to me of his child; and
+it was easy for me to see that his love for her was the one hope of his
+life.
+
+"'I am going back to England soon,' he said to me one night; 'there is
+but one of us left--my sister--and I would like to see her face again
+in this world. She is older than I--she is past fifty now.... And it is
+thirty years since I said good-bye to her... thirty years... thirty long
+years,' and then he turned his face away and looked out upon the sea.
+'Just to see her, and then say good-bye again, for here I have cast my
+lot, and here I will die. If I were alone in the world perhaps I would
+take to civilisation again, but Tessa'--he shook his head--'she would
+wither and die in cold England.'"
+
+*****
+
+"Ten days out we ran in amongst the Radack Chain of the Marshall
+Islands, and the wind falling light, and being surrounded by reefs and
+low uninhabited coral atolls, Tierney brought to, and anchored for
+the night. You know the spot, about nine miles due west of Ailuk, and
+between two sandy atolls covered with a scant growth of cocoanuts and
+pan-danus palms.
+
+"The ship being all right the hands turned in, leaving only one man on
+watch, while we three white men laid down aft to smoke and yarn. It was
+a bright moonlight night, as light as day--just such a night as this.
+Away on our port quarter, distant about a quarter of a mile, was a
+shallow patch on which the surf was breaking. It was merely one of those
+flat patches of coral that, rising up steep from the bottom, have deep
+water all round them, but are always covered on the surface by a depth
+of one or two fathoms--c mushrooms,' we call them, you know. Well, it
+was such a wonderfully clear night that that shallow patch, with the
+surf hissing and swirling over and around it, was as clearly visible
+to us on the schooner as if it had been under our counter, not ten feet
+away."
+
+*****
+
+"Covering up my face from the vivid moonlight with a soft native mat, I
+laid down, and after awhile dropped off to sleep.
+
+"How long I had been asleep I did not know then--I learnt afterwards
+that it was nearly four hours--when I was awakened by a loud hail of
+'Boat ahoy!' called out by some one on board.
+
+"I was awake in an instant, and sprang to my feet.
+
+"'What is it?' I said to Tierney and Brayley, who were standing close to
+me, looking out towards the breaking reef. 'Where is the boat that you
+are hailing?'
+
+"Neither of them answered; Tierney, turning towards me for a second,
+made a curious half-commanding, half-imploring gesture as if to ask my
+silence, and then gripping Brayley by his shoulder, stared wildly at the
+white seeth of the breakers astern of us.
+
+"A quick look along the decks for'ard showed me that all the native
+sailors were on deck and clustered together in the waist, as far aft as
+they dared come. Each man had hold of his fellow, and with open mouths
+and wildly staring eyes they stood like statues of bronze, in an
+attitude of horror and amazement.
+
+"'What is it?' I commenced again, when Tierney slowly raised his
+clenched and shaking hand and touched me.
+
+"'Look,' he said, in a strange, quivering whisper, 'in the name of God,
+man, what is that?'"
+
+*****
+
+"I followed the direction of his shaking hand. It pointed along the
+broad, golden stream of moonlight that ran from close under our stern
+right across to the low, black line that we knew was Ailuk Island. For a
+moment I saw nothing, then, suddenly, amid the wild boil of the surf in
+Auriki, I saw a boat, a white-painted boat with a black gunwale streak.
+One person seemed to be sitting aft with his face drooping upon his
+breast. The boat seemed to me to be in the very centre of the wild
+turmoil of waters, and yet to ride with perfect ease and safety.
+Presently, however, I saw that it was on the other side of the reef, yet
+so close that the back spray from the curling rollers must have fallen
+upon it."
+
+*****
+
+"Pushing Captain Tierney away from him, Brayley suddenly seemed to
+straighten himself, and taking a step in advance of us he again hailed--
+
+"'Boat, ahoy!'
+
+"The loud, hoarse cry pealed over the waters, but no answer came from
+the silent figure, and then Brayley turned towards us. His bronzed
+features had paled to the hue of death, and for a moment or two his
+mouth twitched.
+
+"'For God's sake, Tierney, call the hands and lower the boat. It is
+nothing from the other world that we see--_it is my daughter, Tessa_.'
+
+"In a second the old man sprang into life and action, and in a shrill
+voice that sounded like a scream he called, 'Man the boat, lads!'
+
+"Before one could have counted twenty the boat was in the water, clear
+of the falls, and Tierney and Brayley, with a crew of four natives, were
+pulling swiftly for the other boat."
+
+*****
+
+"In a few minutes they reached her, just as a big roller had all but got
+her and carried her right on top of Auriki. I saw Brayley get out of our
+boat and into the other, and lift the sitting figure up in his arms, and
+then Tierney made fast a line, took the strange boat in tow, and headed
+back for the ship.
+
+"When the boat was within speaking distance, Tierney hailed me--'Get
+some brandy ready--she is alive.'"
+
+*****
+
+"We carried her into the cabin, and as Brayley bent his face over the
+poor, wasted figure of his child, the hot tears ran down his cheeks, and
+Tierney whispered to me, 'She is dying fast.'
+
+"We all knew that as soon as we looked at her. Already the grey shadows
+were deepening on the face of the wanderer as we gathered around her,
+speaking in whispers. Suddenly the loud clamour of the ship's bell,
+struck by an unthinking sailor, made the girl's frame quiver.
+
+"With a look of intense pity the captain motioned to Brayley to raise
+her head to try and get her to swallow a teaspoonful of water. Tenderly
+the trader raised her, and then for a moment or two the closed, weary
+eyelids slowly drew back and she gazed into his face.
+
+"'Thank God,' the captain said, 'she knows you, Brayley.'
+
+"A faint, flickering smile played about her lips and then ceased. Then a
+long, low sigh, and her head fell upon his breast."
+
+*****
+
+"At daylight we hove-up anchor and stood on our course for Brayley's
+Station on Arhnu. Just as we rounded the south end of Ailuk Island we
+saw the _Lahaina_, schooner, lying-to and signalling that she wanted
+to speak. Her skipper came aboard, and hurriedly shaking hands with us,
+asked if we knew that Jack Brayley's little Tessa had gone adrift in his
+boat ten days ago.
+
+"Silently Tierney led him to the open skylight and pointed down to where
+she lay with her father kneeling beside her.
+
+"'Poor man!' said the skipper of the _Lahaina_. 'I'm real sorry. I heerd
+from the natives that Tessa and two native girls and a boy took the
+whaleboat, for a joke like, and she said she was going to meet her
+father, as she had seen him in her sleep, an' she reckoned he was close
+to on the sea somewhere. I guess the poor thing's got swept to leeward
+by the current. They had a sail in the boat.'
+
+"'Aye,' said Tierney, 'a squall must have struck the boat and carried
+away the mast; it was snapped off short about a foot above the thwart.'"
+
+*****
+
+"When we ran into Maduro Lagoon three days afterwards our flag was
+half-mast high for Tessa Brayley, and for her father as well--for we had
+found him the next morning on his knees beside her, cold and stiff in
+death, with his dead hand clasped around hers."
+
+
+
+
+AT THE EBBING OF THE TIDE
+
+Black Tom's "hell" was one of the institutions of Samoa. And not
+an unpleasant hell to look at--a long, rambling, one-storeyed,
+white-painted wooden building, hidden on the beach side from ships
+entering Apia Harbour by a number of stately cocoanuts; and as you came
+upon it from the palm-shaded track that led from the brawling little
+Vaisigago towards the sweeping curve of Matautu Point, the blaze of
+scarlet hibiscus growing within the white-paled garden fence gave
+to this sailors' low drinking-den an inviting appearance of sweetest
+Arcadian simplicity.
+
+That was nineteen years ago. If you walk along the Matautu path now and
+ask a native to show you where Tom's house stood, he will point to a
+smooth, grass-covered bank extending from the right-hand side of the
+path to the coarse, black sand of Matautu beach. And, although many of
+the present white residents of the Land of the Treaty Powers have heard
+or Black Tom, only a few grizzled old traders and storekeepers, relics
+of the bygone lively days, can talk to you about that grim deed of one
+quiet night in September.
+
+*****
+
+Tamasi Uliuli (Black Thomas), as he was called by the natives, had come
+to Samoa in the fifties, and, after an eventful and varied experience in
+other portions of the group, had settled down to business in Matautu
+as a publican, baker and confectioner, butcher, seamen's crimp, and
+interpreter. You might go all over the Southern States, from St.
+Augustine to Galveston, and not meet ten such splendid specimens of
+negro physique and giant strength as this particular coloured gentleman.
+Tom had married a Samoan woman--Inusia--who had borne him three
+children, two daughters and one son. Of this latter I have naught to
+say here, save that the story of _his_ short life and tragic end is one
+common enough to those who have had any experience of a trader's life
+among the betel-chewing savages of fever-haunted New Britain. And the
+eldest daughter may also "stand out" of this brief tale.
+
+*****
+
+Luisa was black. There was no doubt about that. But she was also comely;
+and her youthful, lissom figure as she walked with springy step to the
+bathing-place at the Vaisigago gave her a striking individuality among
+the lighter-coloured Samoan girls who accompanied her. Yet to all of us
+who lived in Matautu the greatest charms of this curly-haired half-caste
+were the rich, sweet voice and gay laugh that brightened up her
+dark-hued countenance as we passed her on the path and returned her
+cheerful "Talofa, _alii!_" with some merry jest. And, although none of
+us had any inclination to go into her father's pub. and let _him_ serve
+us with a bottle of Pilsener, Luisa's laughing face and curly head
+generally had attraction enough to secure, in the course of the day,
+a good many half-dollars for the 50lb. beef-keg which was Black Tom's
+treasury.
+
+*****
+
+It gave us a shock one day to see Luisa emerging from the mission chapel
+with a white-haired old man by her side--married. The matter had been
+arranged very quietly. For about two months previously this ancient had
+been one of Black Tom's boarders. He was from New Zealand, and had come
+to Samoa to invest his money in trade, and being, perhaps, of a retiring
+and quiet disposition the sight of Mr. Thomas Tilton's innocent-looking
+dwelling attracted him thither. Anyhow, old Dermott remained there, and
+it was noticeable that, from the day of his arrival, Tamasi Uliuli
+exacted the most rigid performance of morning and evening devotions by
+his family, and that the nightly scenes of riot and howling drunkenness,
+that had theretofore characterised the "hotel," had unaccountably toned
+down. In fact, burly old Alvord, the consular interpreter, who had been
+accustomed to expostulate with Tom for the number of prostrate figures,
+redolent of bad rum, lying outside on the path in the early morning,
+showing by the scarcity of their attire that they had been "gone
+through" by thieving natives, expressed the opinion that Tom was either
+going mad, or "was getting consairned" about his sinful soul.
+
+*****
+
+The knowledge of the fact that old Dermott had so much worldly wealth
+stowed away in his camphor-wood trunk, may have had (doubtless it did)
+the effect of causing this remarkable change in Tom's daily conduct.
+Dermott, in his way, was sourly religious; and, although not
+understanding a word of Samoan, was fond of attending the native church
+at Apia--always in the wake of Luisa, Toe-o-le-Sasa, and other young
+girls. His solemn, wrinkled visage, with deep-set eyes, ever steadily
+fixed upon the object of his affection, proved a source of much
+diversion to the native congregation, and poor Luisa was subjected to
+the usual Samoan jests about the _toe'ina_ and _ulu tula_ (old man and
+bald head), and would arrive from the church at her father's hell in a
+state of suppressed exasperation.
+
+The happy marriage had been celebrated by Tom and his _clientele_ in a
+manner befitting the occasion and the supposed wealth of the bridegroom,
+Then none of us saw Luisa for a week at the bathing-place, and her
+non-appearance was discussed with interest at the nightly kava-drinking
+at half-caste Johnny Hall's public-house. Old Toi'foi, duenna of the
+kava-chewing girls, used to say solemnly that the old man had Luisa
+locked up in her room as she was _vale_ (obstinate), and sat on a chair
+outside and looked at her through a hole in the wall.
+
+*****
+
+An hour after midnight on one of those silent tropic nights when naught
+is heard but the muffled boom of the ocean swell on the outer reef, a
+shot rang out through the sleeping village, and then a long wail as of
+some one in mortal agony or terror. Leger, the Canadian carpenter at
+Macfarlane's store, was, in company with Alvord the Swearer, and Pedro
+the Publican, and marry of us general sinners, up late at the kava-bowl
+when Leva, the prettiest girl on the Point, and the most notorious
+_nymphe du beach_ in Apia (there are no pavements in Samoa), dashed in
+amongst its with the announcement that "Luisa was dead." In another
+ten seconds we kava-drinkers, with unsteady legs but clear heads, were
+outside on our way to Black Tom's house, which was within pistol-shot.
+
+*****
+
+An old man with a throat cut from ear to ear is not a cheerful sight
+at any time, and we turned quickly away from where he lay on the once
+spotless white bed, now an ensanguined horror, to look at poor Luisa,
+who lay on a mat on the floor, gasping out her brief young life. Her
+head was pillowed on her mother's bosom, and down her side the blood
+ran from the jagged bullet-hole. On a chair sat the herculean figure
+of Black Tom with his face in his hands, through which splashed heavy
+tears. Slowly he rocked himself to and fro in the manner of his race
+when strongly moved; and when he tried to speak there only struck upon
+our ears a horrible gasping noise that somehow made us turn again to the
+awful thing on the bed to see if it had aught to say upon the matter.
+
+*****
+
+Luisa spoke but little. The kind-faced, quiet-voiced missionary doctor
+told her that which she already knew too well; and then we drew away
+while he spoke of other things, and we saw the look of dread and horror
+on the comely young face pass away and a faint smile part the lips that
+were already touched by the grim shadow of coming dissolution. Some of
+her village playmates and companions, with wet cheeks, bent their faces
+and touched her lips with theirs, and to each she sighed a low _To Fa_
+of farewell, and then she looked toward the shaking bent figure in the
+chair and beckoned him over. With noiseless tread he came, and then,
+with her very soul looking at him from her great, death-stricken eyes,
+she murmured, "Fear not, my father, my mouth is covered by the hand of
+Death; farewell!" *****
+
+The sound of the soft lapping of the falling tide came through the open
+window as Luisa spoke again to Toe-o-le-Sasa, the Maid of Apia--"E Toe,
+_e pae afea te tai_?" ("When is the tide out?") And the girl answered
+with a sob in her throat, "In quite a little while, O friend of my
+heart."
+
+"_Ua lelei_. (It is well.) And as the waters run out so does my soul
+float away!" and she turned her face to her mother's bosom. And as we
+went softly out from the room and stood upon the path with the lofty
+palm-plumes rustling above us, we saw the first swirling wave of the
+incoming tide ripple round Matautu Point and plash on Hamilton's beach.
+And from within the silent house answered the wail of Death.
+
+
+
+
+THE FALLACIES OF HILLIARD
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+With clenched hand grasping the two letters--the one that sank his last
+hope of saving his plantation, and the other that blasted his trust in
+human nature--Hilliard, the planter of Nairai Viwa, walked with quick,
+firm step to his house, and sat down to think awhile. The great cotton
+"burst-up" had ruined most men in Fiji, and although long delayed in his
+case the blow had crushed him utterly.
+
+An angry flush tinged his set features for a few seconds as he re-read
+the curt, almost savage denial, by his father of the "couple of
+thousand" asked for. "A fool to resign his commission in the Service and
+go into a thing he knew nothing about, merely to humour the fantastic
+whim of a woman of fashion who will, no doubt, now sheer very clear of
+your wrecked fortunes."
+
+Ten minutes previously when Hilliard, who had thought his father would
+never see him go under for the sake of a couple of thou., had read these
+lines he had smiled, even with the despair of broken fortune at his
+heart, as he looked at the other letter yet unopened.
+
+Kitty, at least, would stick to him. He was not a maudlin
+sentimentalist, but the memory of her farewell kisses was yet strong
+with him; and his past experiences of woman's weaknesses and his own
+strength justified him in thinking that in this one woman he had found
+his pearl of great price.
+
+Then he read her letter; and as he read the tappa mallets at work in the
+Fijian houses hard by seemed to thump in unison with the dull
+beats of his heart as he stared at the correctly-worded and
+conventionally-expressed lines that mocked at his fond imaginings of but
+a few breaths back.
+
+*****
+
+Jimmy, the curly-headed half-caste who had brought him his letters from
+Levuka, had followed in his steps and was sitting, hat in hand, on the
+sofa before him when Hilliard raised his face. The fixed pallor had left
+his bronzed cheeks. For an instant the face of another man had passed
+before him--Lamington, his one-time fellow-officer, whom every one but
+Hilliard himself looked upon as being "first in the running" with the
+woman who had pledged herself to him. But, then, Lamington himself had
+told him that she had refused him, heir to a big fortune as he was, and
+they had shaken hands, and Lamington had wished him luck in his honest,
+good-natured fashion. "Perhaps," and here the dark flush mantled his
+forehead, "he's tried again and she's slung me. And I... what a damnably
+unpleasant and quick intuition of women's ways my old dad has! I always
+wondered why such a fiery devil as he was married such a milk-and-water
+creature as my good mother. By ------, I begin to think he went on safe
+lines, and I on a fallacy!"
+
+The stolid face of Jimmy recalled him to the present. He must give up
+the plantation and take a berth of some sort. From the sideboard he took
+a flask of liquor and poured out two big drinks.
+
+"Here, Jimmy, my boy. This is the last drink you'll get on Nairai Viwa.
+I'm burst up, cleaned out, dead broke, and going to hell generally."
+
+Jimmy grunted and held out his brown hand for the grog. "Yes? I s'pose
+you'll go to Levuka first? I'll give you a passage in the cutter."
+
+Hilliard laughed with mingled bitterness and sarcasm. "Right, Jimmy.
+Levuka is much like the other place, and I'll get experience there, if I
+don't get a billet."
+
+"Here's luck to you, sir, wherever you go," and Jimmy's thick lips glued
+themselves lovingly to the glass.
+
+Hilliard drank his oft quietly, only muttering to himself, "Here's
+good-bye to the fallacies of hope," and then, being at bottom a man
+of sense and quick resolution, he packed his traps and at sunset went
+aboard the cutter. As they rippled along with the first puffs of the
+land-breeze, he glanced back but once at the lights of Nairai Viwa
+village that illumined the cutter's wake, and then, like a wise man, the
+hopes and dreams of the past drifted astern too.
+
+And then for the next two years he drifted about from one group to
+another till he found an island that suited him well--no other white man
+lived there.
+
+*****
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The laughing, merry-voiced native children who, with speedy feet, ran to
+the house of Iliati, the trader, to tell him that a visitor was coming
+from the man-of-war, had gathered with panting breath and hushed
+expectancy at the door as the figure of the naval officer turned a bend
+in the path, his right hand clasped with a proud air of proprietorship
+by that or the ten-year-old son of Alberti the Chief.
+
+Iliati with a half-angry, half-pleased look, held out his hand.
+"Lamington!"
+
+"Hilliard! old fellow. Why didn't you come on board i Are all your old
+friends forgotten?"
+
+*****
+
+"Pretty nearly, Lamington. Since I came a cropper over that accursed
+cotton swindle I've not had any inclination to meet any one I
+knew--especially any one in the Service, but"--and his voice rang
+honestly, "I always wondered whether you and I would ever meet again."
+
+"Hilliard," and Lamington placed his hand on the trader's shoulder, "I
+know all about it. And look here, old man. I saw her only two months
+ago--at her especial request. She sent for me to talk about you."
+
+"Ah!" and the trader's voice sounded coldly, "I thought, long ago, that
+she had reconsidered her foolish decision of other days and had long
+since become Mrs. Lamington. But it doesn't interest me, old fellow. Can
+you drink Fiji rum, Lamington? Haven't anything better to offer you."
+
+"I'll drink anything you've got, old fellow, even liquid Tophet boiled
+down to a small half-pint; but I want you to listen to me first. I've
+been a bit of a scoundrel to you, but, by God, old man, I exchanged into
+the beastly old _Petrel_ for this cruise expressly to find you and make
+a clean breast of it. I promised her I would."
+
+"Confound it all, Lamington, don't harrow your feelings needlessly, and
+let us have the rum and talk about anything else."
+
+"No, we won't. Look here, Hilliard, it sounds beastly low, but I must
+get it out. We met again--at a ball in Sydney more than two years
+ago. Some infernal chattering women were talking a lot of rot about the
+planters in Fiji having very pretty and privileged native servants--and
+all that, you know. She fired up and denied it, but came and asked me if
+it was true, and I was mean enough not to give it a straight denial. How
+the devil it happened I can't tell you, but we danced a deuce of a lot
+and I lost my senses and asked her again, and she said 'Yes.' Had she
+been any other woman but Miss ------, I would have concluded that the
+soft music and all that had dazed her. It does sometimes--lots of 'em;
+makes the most virtuous wife wish she could be a sinner and resume her
+normal goodness next day. But Kitty is different. And it was only that
+infernal twaddle caused it and made her write you that letter. A week
+hadn't passed before she wrote to me and told me how miserable she was.
+But I knew all through she didn't care a d------about me. And that's the
+way it occurred, old man."
+
+Hilliard's hand met his. "Say no more about it, Lamington; it's a _mea
+mate_ as we say here--a thing that is past."
+
+"But, good God, old fellow, you don't understand. She's written ever so
+many times to you. No one in Levuka knew where you had gone to; there's
+thousands of islands in the South Seas. And this letter here," he held
+it toward him, "she gave to me, and I promised her on my honour as a man
+to effect an exchange into the _Petrel_ and find you."
+
+"Thanks, Lamington. You always were a good fellow." He laid the letter
+on the table quietly and rose and got the rum.
+
+*****
+
+A young native girl, with deep lustrous eyes shining from a face of
+almost childish innocence, had entered the door and stood with one bare
+and softly-rounded arm clasped round the neck of Alberti's little son.
+Her lips parted in a smile as Lamington, with a gasping cough, set down
+his glass after drinking the potent spirit, and she set her brows
+in mock ferocity at Hilliard who drank his down like an old-time
+beachcomber.
+
+"By Jove, Hilliard, what an astonishingly pretty face! She could give
+any New Orleans creole points. Time you got out of this before some of
+the Rotumah beauties make you forget things; and oh, by the way, I'm
+forgetting things. Remember you are to come aboard and dine with us
+to-night, and that you're in indifferent health, and that Captain
+------, of Her Majesty's ship _Petrel_ is going to give you a passage to
+Sydney."
+
+At an angry sign from Hilliard the girl disappeared. Then he shook his
+head. "No, Lamington. I appreciate your kindness, but cannot accept it.
+I've been here two years now, and Alberti, the principal local chief,
+thinks no end of me; and he's a deuced fine fellow, and has been as good
+as ten fathers to me. And I've business matters to attend to as well."
+
+*****
+
+Lamington pressed him no further. "Lucky devil," he thought. "I suppose
+he'll clear out in the trading schooner to Sydney, next week; be there
+long before us any way, and I'll find them well over the first stage of
+married infatuation when I see him next."
+
+Another hour's chat of old times and old shipmates in the _Challenger_
+and Lamington, with his honest, clean-shaven face looking into the
+quiet, impassive features of the ex-officer, had gripped his hand and
+gone, and Hilliard went over to the house of Alberti, the chief,
+to drink _kava_--and see the old French priest. From there, an hour
+afterward, he saw the cruiser with wet, shining sides dip into the
+long roll of the ocean swell, as with the smoke pouring from her yellow
+funnel she was lost to sight rounding the point.
+
+*****
+
+Said the son of Alberti to Lela, the innocent-faced girl with the
+dancing, starlike eyes and red lips, as they stood watching the last
+curling rings of the steamer's smoke--"And so that is why I knew much of
+what the _papalagi_ from the man-of-war said to your Iliati; Alberti, my
+father, has taught me much of your man's tongue. # And, look thou, Lela
+the Cunning, Iliati hath a wife in his own country!"
+
+"Pah!"--and she shook her long, wavy locks composedly, and then plucked
+a scarlet hibiscus flower to stick in front of one of her pretty little
+ears--"what does that matter to me, fathead? I am she here; and when
+Iliati goeth away to her she will be me there. But he loveth me more
+than any other on Rotumah, and hath told me that where he goeth I shall
+go also. And who knoweth but that if I have a son he may marry me?
+Then shalt thou see such a wedding-feast as only rich people give. And
+listen--for why should I not tell thee: 'Tis well to starve thyself now,
+for it may be to-morrow, for look! fathead, there goeth the priest into
+thy father's house, and Iliati is already there."
+
+
+
+
+
+A TALE OF A MASK
+
+Lannigan, who lived on Motukoe, was in debt to his firm. This was partly
+due to his fondness for trade gin and partly because Bully Hayes had
+called at the island a month or so back and the genial Bully and he had
+played a game or two of poker.
+
+"I'll give you your revenge when I come back from the Carolines,
+Lannigan," said the redoubtable captain as he scooped in every dollar of
+the trader's takings for the past six months. And Lannigan, grasping
+his hand warmly and declaring it was a pleasure to be "claned out by a
+gintleman," bade him good-bye and went to sleep away from home for a
+day with some native friends. Tariro, his Manhiki wife, had a somewhat
+violent temper, and during the poker incident had indulged in much
+vituperative language outside, directed at white men in general and
+Lannigan in particular.
+
+*****
+
+"See, thou swiller of gin, see what thy folly has brought us to," said
+the justly-incensed Tariro, when he came back, and with her took stock
+of his trade goods; "a thousand and five hundred dollars' worth of trade
+came we here with, and thou hast naught to show for it but five casks
+of oil and a few stinking shark-fins; and surely the ship of the _malo_
+(his firm) will be here this month."
+
+Lannigan was in a bit of a fix. The firm he was trading for on Motukoe
+didn't do business in the same free-and-easy way as did Bobby Towns'
+captains and the unconventional Bully Hayes. They made him sign papers,
+and every time the ship came the rufous-headed Scotch supercargo took
+stock, and a violent altercation would result over the price of the
+trade; but as the trader generally had a big lot of produce for the
+ship, matters always ended amicably. He--or rather his wife, Tariro--was
+too good a trader to have an open rupture with, and the wordy warfare
+always resulted in the trader saying, in his matter-of-fact way, "Well,
+I suppose it's right enough. You only rob me wanst in twelve months, and
+I rob the natives here every day of my life. Give me in a case of gin,
+an' I'll send ye a pig."
+
+*****
+
+But he had never been so much in debt as he was now. Tariro and he
+talked it over, and hit upon a plan. He was to say, when the ship came,
+that he had but five casks of oil; all his trade had been sold for cash,
+and the cash--a thousand dollars--represented by a bag of copper bolts
+picked up on the reef from an old wreck, was to be taken off to the ship
+and accidentally dropped overboard as it was being passed up on deck.
+This was Lannigan's idea, and Tariro straightway tied up the bolts in
+readiness in many thicknesses of sail-cloth.
+
+*****
+
+"Here's Lannigan coming," called out the captain of the trading vessel
+to the supercargo, a week or so afterwards, "and that saucy Manhiki
+woman as usual with him, to see that he doesn't get drunk. The devil
+take such as her! There's no show of getting him tight."
+
+"How are you, Lannigan?" said the supercargo, wiping his perspiring
+brow. He had just come out of the hold where he had been opening tinned
+meats, and putting all the "blown" tins he could find into one especial
+case--for Lannigan. This was what he called "makin' a mairgin for loss
+on the meats, which didna pay well."
+
+"Fine," said the genial Lannigan, "an' I haven't got but five casks of
+oil for yez. Devil a drop av oil would the people make when they looked
+at the bewtiful lot av trade ye gave me last time. They just rushed me
+wid cash, an' I tuk a matter av a thousand dollars or so in a month."
+
+"Verra guid business," said the supercargo, "but ye made a gran'
+meestake in selling the guids for Cheelian dollars instead of oil.
+An' sae I must debit ye wi' a loss of twenty-five par cent, on the
+money----"
+
+"Chile dollars be damned!" said Lannigan; "all good American
+dollars--we've had about twenty whaleships here, buyin' pigs an' poultry
+an' pearl shell."
+
+"Twenty-one ship!" said Tariro, blowing the smoke of her cigarette
+through her pretty little nose.
+
+"Whaur's the money, onyway?" said the supercargo; "let's get to
+business, Lannigan. Eh, mon, I've some verra fine beef for ye."
+
+"Get the bag up out of the boat, Tariro," said the trader; "it's mighty
+frightened I was havin' so much money in the house at wanst, wid all
+them rowdy Yankee sailors from the whaleships ashore here."
+
+*****
+
+There was a great crowd of natives on deck--over a hundred--and the mate
+was swearing violently at them for getting in his way. The schooner
+was a very small vessel, and Motukoe being her first place of call for
+cargo, she was in light trim, having only her trade and a little ballast
+on board.
+
+"Send those natives away from the galley," he called out to the cook,
+who was giving some of the young women ship-biscuits in exchange for
+young cocoanuts; "can't you see the ship keeps flying up in the wind
+with all those people for'ard!"
+
+*****
+
+Hekemanu, Lannigan's native "Man Jack," sat in the boat towing
+alongside, with the bag of "dollars" at his feet. He and all the boat's
+crew were in the secret. Lannigan owned their souls; besides, they all
+liked him on Motukoe.
+
+Tariro stood for a moment beside the captain, indulging in the usual
+broad "chaff," and then leaning over the rail she called out to
+Hekemanu: _Ta mai te taga tupe_ ("give me the bag of money").
+
+The man for'ard hauled on the line to bring the boat alongside the
+schooner, and Hekemanu stood up with the heavy bag in his hand.
+
+"Hold on there, you fool! If you drop that bag I'll knock your head
+off," said the skipper. "Here, Mr. Bates, just you jump down and take
+that money from that native, or he'll drop it, sure."
+
+Before Hekemanu had time to let it fall over the side the mate had
+jumped into the boat and taken it.
+
+Lannigan, putting his head up out of the little cabin, groaned inwardly
+as he saw the mate step over the rail with the fateful bag and hand it
+to the supercargo.
+
+"Be the powers, ye're in a mighty hurry for the money," said Lannigan,
+roughly, taking it from him, "ye might ax me if I had a mouth on me
+first."
+
+The supercargo laughed and put a bottle of gin on the table, and
+Lannigan's fertile brain commenced to work. If he could only get the
+supercargo out of the cabin for a minute he meant to pick up the bag,
+and declaring he was insulted get it back into his boat and tell him
+to come and count it ashore. Then he could get capsized on the reef and
+lose it. They were always having "barneys," and it would only be looked
+upon as one of his usual freaks.
+
+*****
+
+"What the deuce is that?" he said, pointing to a hideous,
+highly-coloured paper mask that hung up in the cabin.
+
+The supercargo handed it to him. "It's for a man in Samoa--a silly,
+joking body, always playing pranks wi' the natives, and I thoct he would
+like the thing."
+
+"Bedad, 'tis enough to scare the sowl out av the divil," said Lannigan.
+
+Just then a mob of natives came aft, and the two men in the cabin heard
+the captain tell them to clear out again. They were saucy and wouldn't
+go. Hekemanu had told them of the failure of Lannigan's dodge, and they
+had an idea that the ship would take him away, and stood by to rescue
+him at the word of command.
+
+"I'll verra soon hunt them," said the supercargo, with a proud smile,
+and he put the mask on his face. Tariro made a bolt on deck and called
+out to the natives that the supercargo was going to frighten them with a
+mask.
+
+*****
+
+Instead of wild yells of fear and jumping overboard, as he imagined
+would happen, the natives merely laughed, but edged away for'ard.
+
+The schooner was in quite close to the reef; the water was very deep,
+and there was no danger of striking. She was under jib and mainsail
+only, but the breeze was fresh and she was travelling at a great rate.
+The wind being right off the land the skipper was hugging the reef as
+closely as possible, so as to bring up and anchor on a five-fathom patch
+about a mile away.
+
+"Here, quit that fooling," he called out to the supercargo, "and come
+aft, you fellows! The ship is that much down by the head she won't pay
+off, with the helm hard up."
+
+One look at the crowd of natives and another at the shore, and a wild
+idea came into Lannigan's head. He whispered to Tariro, who went up
+for'ard and said something to the natives. In another ten seconds some
+of them began to clamber out on the jib-boom, the rest after them.
+
+"Come back!" yelled the skipper, jamming the helm hard up, as the
+schooner flew up into the wind. "Leggo peak halyards. By G--d! we are
+running ashore. Leggo throat halyards, too!"
+
+The mate flew to the halyards, and let go first the peak and then the
+throat halyards, but it was too late, and, with a swarm of natives
+packed together for'ard from the galley to the end of the jib-boom, she
+stuck her nose down, and, with stern high out of the water, like a duck
+chasing flies, she crashed into the reef--ran ashore dead to windward.
+
+*****
+
+No one was drowned. The natives took good care of the captain, mate, and
+supercargo, and helped them to save all they could. But Lannigan had a
+heavy loss--the bag of copper bolts had gone to the bottom.
+
+
+
+
+THE COOK OF THE "SPREETOO SANTOO"--A STUDY IN BEACHCOMBERS
+
+We were in Kitti Harbour, at Ponape, in the Carolines, when, at
+breakfast, a bleary-eyed, undersized, more-or-less-white man in a dirty
+pink shirt and dungaree pants, came below, and, slinging his filthy old
+hat over to the transoms, shoved himself into a seat between the mate
+and Jim Garstang, the trader.
+
+"Mornin', captin," said he, without looking at the skipper, and helping
+himself to about two pounds of curry.
+
+"Morning to you. Who the deuce are you, anyway? Are you the old bummer
+they call 'Espiritu Santo'?" said Garstang.
+
+"That's me. I'm the man. But I ain't no bummer, don't you b'lieve it. I
+wos tradin' round here in these (lurid) islands afore you coves knowed
+where Ponape was."
+
+"Are you the skunk that Wardell kicked off the Shenandoah for stealing a
+bottle of wine?" said the mate.
+
+"That's me. There was goin' ter be trouble over that on'y that the
+Shennydor got properly well sunk by the _Allybarmer_ (history wasn't
+his forte), and that ------ Wardell got d------d well drownded. Hingland
+haint a-goin' to let no Yankee insult nobody for nuthin'--an' I'm a
+blessed Englishman. I didn't steal the wine. Yer see, Wardell arst me
+off to dinner, and then we gets talkin' about polertics, an' I tells 'im
+'e wos a lyin' pirut. Then he started foolin' around my woman, an' I up
+with a bottle of wine an'----"
+
+"Why, you thundering liar," said Garstang, "you stole it out of the
+ward-room."
+
+"I wouldn't call no man a liar if I was you, Mister--by G----, that
+Chinaman cook knows how to make curry."
+
+He ate like a starving shark, and between mouthfuls kept up a running
+fire of lies and blasphemy. When he had eaten three platefuls of curry
+and drunk enough coffee to scald a pig, the skipper, who was gettin'
+tired of him, asked him if he had had enough.
+
+Yes, he had had enough breakfast to last him a whole (Australian
+adjective) week.
+
+"Then clear out on deck and swab the curry off your face, you beast!"
+
+"That's always the way with you tradin' skippers. A stranger don't
+get no civility unless he comes aboard in a (red-painted) gig with a
+(crimson) umbrella and a (gory) 'elmet 'at, like a (vermilion) Consul."
+
+The mate seized him, and, running him up the companion way, slung him
+out on deck.
+
+*****
+
+"What do you think of him?" asked the skipper, a man fond of a joke--it
+was Bully Hayes. "I thought I'd let you all make his acquaintance. He's
+been bumming around the Ladrones and Pelews since '50; used to be cook
+on a Manilla trading brig, the _Espiritu Santo_."
+
+Then he told us how this wandering mass of blasphemy got his name of
+"Spreetoo Santoo." While in the brig he had been caught smuggling at
+Guam by the guarda costas, and had spent a year or two in the old prison
+fort at San Juan de 'Apra. (I don't know how he got out: perhaps his
+inherently alcoholic breath and lurid blasphemy made the old brick wall
+tumble down.)
+
+After that he was always welcome in sailors' fo'c's'les by reason of
+his smuggling story, which would commence with--"When I was cook on the
+_Espiritu Santo_" (only he used the English instead of the Spanish name)
+"I got jugged by the gory gardy costers," &c, &c.
+
+*****
+
+When we came on deck he was sitting on the main-hatch with the Chinese
+carpenter--whose pipe he was smoking--and telling him that he ought to
+get rid of his native wife, who was a Gilbert Island girl, and buy a
+Ponape girl.
+
+"I can git yer the pick o' the (crimson) island, an' it won't cost yer
+more'n a few (unprintable) dollars. I'm a (bad word) big man 'ere among
+the (adjective) natives."
+
+Hung looked up at him stolidly with half-closed eyes. Then he took the
+pipe out of his mouth and said in a deadly cold voice--
+
+"You palally liar, Spleetoo."
+
+*****
+
+He slouched aft again presently, and asked the mate, in an amiable tone
+of voice, if he had "any (ruddy) noospapers from Sydney."
+
+"What the devil do _you_ want newspapers for?" inquired Hayes, turning
+round suddenly in his deck-chair, "you can't read, Spreetoo."
+
+"Can't read, eh?" and his red-rimmed, lashless eyes simulated intense
+indignation. "Wot about that 'ere (red) bishop at Manilla, as wanted
+me to chuck up me (scarlet) billet on the _Spreetoo S antoo_ and travel
+through the (carnaged) Carryline Grewp as 's (sanguinary) sekketerry?
+'Cos why? 'Cos there ain't any (blank) man atween 'ere an' 'ell as can
+talk the warious lingoes like me."
+
+"Here," said the mate, giving him two or three old Maoriland
+newspapers--"here's some Auckland papers. Know anybody there?"
+
+"No," he answered, promptly, "not a soul, but he knowed Sydney well.
+Larst time I wos there I sold old Bobby Towns L6,000 worth of oil--a
+bloomin' shipful. I got drunk, an' a (blank) policeman went through me
+in the cell and took the whole blessed lot outer me (scarlet) pocket."
+(Nine bad words omitted.)
+
+"Bank notes?" queried Bully.
+
+"No, sov'reigns--(gory) sov'reigns."
+
+*****
+
+He asked us if we had seen any men-o'-war about lately, and said that
+the captain of H.M.S. -------- had wanted to marry his daughter, but
+he wouldn't let her marry no man-o'-war cove after the way that ------
+Wardell had treated him. He thought he would go back to Sydney again for
+a spell. His brother had a flaming fine billet there.
+
+The Cook of the "Spreetoo Santoo" 243
+
+"What is he?" asked Hayes.
+
+"'E's a (blessed) Soopreme Court Judge, wears a (gory) wig big enough
+to make chafin' gear for a (crimson) fleet o' ships; 'e lives at Guvment
+'Ouse, and Vs rollin' in money an' drinks like a (carmine) fish. I
+thought I might see somethin' about the ------ in a (blank) Sydney
+noospaper. I'll come in for all his (ensanguined) money when 'e dies."
+
+Bully gave him a bottle of gin after a while. Then he hurriedly bade us
+farewell and went ashore.
+
+
+
+
+LUPTON'S GUEST: A MEMORY OF THE EASTERN PACIFIC
+
+A long sweeping curve of coast, fringed with tall plumed palms casting
+wavering shadows on the yellow sand as they sway and swish softly to
+the breath of the brave trade-wind that whistles through the
+thickly-verdured hummocks on the weather side of the island, to die away
+into a soft breath as, after passing through the belt of cocoanuts, it
+faintly ripples the transparent depths of the lagoon--a broad sheet of
+blue and silver stretching away from the far distant western line
+of reef to the smooth, yellow beach at the foot of the palms on the
+easternmost islet. And here, beneath their lofty crowns, are the brown
+thatched huts of the people and the home of Lupton the trader.
+
+*****
+
+This is Mururea. And, if it be possible, Mururea surpasses in beauty any
+other of the "cloud of islands" which, lying on the blue bosom of the
+Eastern Pacific like the islands of a dream, are called by their people
+the Paumotu. And these people--it is not of very long ago I speak--are a
+people unto themselves. Shy and suspicious of strangers, white or brown,
+and endued with that quick instinct of fear which impels untutored
+minds to slay, and which we, in our civilised ignorance, call savage
+treachery, they are yet kind-hearted and hospitable to those who learn
+their ways and regard their customs. A tall, light-skinned, muscular
+people, the men with long, straight, black hair, coiled up in a knot at
+the back, and the women--the descendants of those who sailed with broken
+Fletcher Christian and his comrades of the _Bounty_ in quest of a place
+where to die--soft-voiced, and with big, timorous eyes.
+
+*****
+
+'Twas here that Ben Peese, the handsome, savagely humorous, and voluble
+colleague of Captain "Bully" Hayes, the modern rover of the South
+Seas, one day appeared. Lupton, with his son and two natives, were out
+searching the beach of a little islet for turtles' eggs, when the boy,
+who had been sent to obtain a few young drinking cocoanuts from a tree
+some little distance away, called out, "_Te Pahi!_" (a ship). A few
+minutes passed, and then, outlined against the narrow strip of cocoanuts
+that grew on the north end of the main islet of the lagoon, Lupton saw
+the sails of a schooner making for the only opening--a narrow passage on
+the eastern side.
+
+Now vessels came but rarely to Mururea, for Du Petit Thouars, the French
+Admiral of the Pacific fleet, had long since closed the group to the
+Sydney trading ships that once came there for pearl-shell, and Lupton
+felt uneasy. The vessel belonging to the Tahitian firm for whom he
+traded was not due for many months. Could the stranger be that wandering
+Ishmael of the sea--Peese? Only he--or his equally daring and dreaded
+colleague, Bully Hayes--would dare to sail a vessel of any size in
+among the coral "mushrooms" that studded the current-swept waters of the
+dangerous passage.
+
+What did he want? And honest Frank Lupton, a quiet and industrious
+trader, thought of his store of pearl-shell and felt still more
+doubtful. And he knew Peese so well, the dapper, handsome little
+Englishman with the pleasant voice that had in it always a ripple of
+laughter--the voice and laugh that concealed his tigerish heart and
+savage vindictiveness. Lupton had children too--sons and daughters--and
+Peese, who looked upon women as mere articles of merchandise, would have
+thought no more of carrying off the trader's two pretty daughters than
+he would of "taking" a cask of oil or a basket of pearl-shell.
+
+*****
+
+His anxious face, paling beneath the tropic bronze of twenty years'
+ocean wanderings, betrayed his feelings to the two natives who were
+now pulling the boat with all their strength to gain the village, and
+one--Maora, his wife's brother, a big, light-skinned man, with that
+keen, hawk-like visage peculiar to the people of the eastern islands of
+Polynesia, said--
+
+"'Tis an evil day, Farani! No ship but that of the Little Man with the
+Beard hath ever passed into the lagoon since the great English fighting
+ship came inside" (he spoke of 1863), "for the reef hath grown and
+spread out and nearly closed it. Only the Little Bearded Devil would
+dare it, for he hath been here twice with the Man of the Strong Hand"
+(Hayes). "And, Farani, listen! 'The hand to the club!'"
+
+They ceased pulling. From the village came the sound of an almost
+forgotten cry--a signal of danger to the dwellers under the palms--"The
+hand to the club!"--meaning for the men to arm.
+
+*****
+
+Lupton hesitated. The natives would, he knew, stand to him to a man if
+violence to or robbery of him were attempted. But to gain the village he
+must needs pass close the vessel, and to pass on and not board her would
+savour of cowardice--and Lupton was an Englishman, and his twenty years'
+wanderings among the dangerous people of some of the islands of the
+Paumotu Group had steeled his nerves to meet any danger or emergency.
+So, without altering the course of the boat, he ran alongside of the
+vessel--which was a brigantine--just as she was bringing to, and looking
+up, he saw the face he expected.
+
+"How are you, Lupton, my dear fellow?" said Peese, as the trader gained
+the deck, wringing his hand effusively, as if he were a long-lost
+brother. "By Heavens! I'm glad to meet a countryman again, and that
+countryman Frank Lupton. Don't like letting your hand go." And still
+grasping the trader's rough hand in his, delicate and smooth as a
+woman's, he beamed upon him with an air of infantile pleasure.
+
+*****
+
+This was one of Peese's peculiarities--an affectation of absolute
+affection for any Englishman he met, from the captain of a man-of-war
+(these, however, he avoided as much as possible), to a poor beachcomber
+with but a grass girdle round his loins.
+
+"What brings you here, Captain Peese?" said Lupton, bluntly, as his
+eye sought the village, and saw the half-naked figures of his native
+following leaving his house in pairs, each carrying between them
+a square box, and disappearing into the _puka_ scrub. It was his
+pearl-shell. Mameri, his wife, had scented danger, and the shell at
+least was safe, however it befell. Peese's glance followed his, and
+the handsome little captain laughed, and slapped the gloomy-faced and
+suspicious trader on the back with an air of _camaraderie_.
+
+"My dear fellow, what an excessively suspicious woman your good Mameri
+is! But do not be alarmed. I have not come here to do any business this
+time, but to land a passenger, and as soon as his traps are on the beach
+I'm off again to Maga Reva. Such are the exigencies, my dear Lupton, of
+a trading captain's life in the South Seas, I cannot even spare the time
+to go on shore with you and enjoy the hospitality of the good Mameri and
+your two fair daughters. But come below with me and see my passenger."
+And he led the way to his cabin.
+
+*****
+
+The passenger's appearance, so Lupton told me, "was enough to make a
+man's blood curdle," so ghastly pale and emaciated was he. He rose as
+Lupton entered and extended his hand.
+
+"My friend here," said the worthy little Ishmael, bowing and caressing
+his long silky beard, "is, ah, hum, Mr. Brown. He is, as you will
+observe, my dear Lupton, in a somewhat weak state of health, and is in
+search of some retired spot where he may recuperate sufficiently----"
+
+"Don't lie unnecessarily, sir."
+
+Peese bowed affably and smiled, and the stranger addressed Lupton.
+
+"My name is not Brown--'tis of no consequence what it is; but I am,
+indeed, as you see, in a bad way, with but a few months at most to live.
+Captain Peese, at my request, put into this lagoon. He has told me that
+the place is seldom visited by ships, and that the people do not care
+about strangers. Yet, have you, Mr. Lupton, any objections to my coming
+ashore here, and living out the rest of my life? I have trade goods
+sufficient for all requirements, and will in no way interfere with or
+become a charge upon you."
+
+Lupton considered. His influence with the people of Mururea was such
+that he could easily overcome their objections to another white man
+landing; but he had lived so long apart from all white associations that
+he did not care about having the even monotony of his life disturbed.
+And then, he thought, it might be some queer game concocted between the
+sick man and the chattering little sea-hawk that sat beside him stroking
+and fondling his flowing beard. He was about to refuse when the sunken,
+eager eyes of "Mr. Brown" met his in an almost appealing look that
+disarmed him of all further suspicion.
+
+"Very well, sir. The island is as free to you as to me. But, still, I
+_could_ stop any one else from living here if I wished to do so. But you
+do look very ill, no mistake about that. And, then, you ain't going
+to trade against me! And I suppose you'll pass me your word that there
+isn't any dodge between you and the captain here to bone my shell and
+clear out?"
+
+For answer the sick man opened a despatch-box that lay on the cabin
+table, and took from it a bag of money.
+
+*****
+
+"This," he said, "is the sum I agreed to pay Captain Peese to land me
+on any island of my choice in the Paumotu Archipelago, and this unsigned
+order here is in his favour on the Maison Brander of Tahiti for a
+similar sum."
+
+Signing the paper he pushed it with the money over to Peese, and then
+went on:--
+
+"I assure you, Mr. Lupton, that this is the only transaction I have ever
+had with Captain Peese. I came to him in Tahiti, hearing he was bound to
+the Paumotu Group. I had never heard of him before, and after to-day I
+will not, in all human probability, see him again."
+
+"Perfectly correct, my dear sir," said Peese. "And now, as our business
+is finished, perhaps our dear friend, Lupton, will save me the trouble
+of lowering a boat by taking you ashore in his own, which is alongside."
+
+Five minutes later and Lupton and the stranger were seated in the boat.
+
+"Good-bye, my dear Lupton, and _adios_ my dear Mr. Brown. I shall
+ever remember our pleasant relations on board my humble little trading
+vessel," cried the renowned Peese, who, from former associations, had a
+way of drifting into the Spanish tongue--and prisons and fetters--which
+latter he once wore for many a weary day on the cruiser _Hernandez
+Pizarro_ on his way to the gloomy prison of Manilla.
+
+The boat had barely traversed half the distance to the shore ere the
+brigantine's anchor was hove-up and at her bows, and then Peese, with
+his usual cool assurance, beat her through the intricate passage and
+stood out into the long roll of the Pacific.
+
+*****
+
+When Lupton, with his "walking bone bag," as he mentally called the
+stranger, entered his house, Mameri, his bulky native wife, uttered an
+exclamation of pity, and placing a chair before him uttered the simple
+word of welcome _Iorana!_ and the daughters, with wonder-lit star-like
+eyes, knelt beside their father's chair and whispered, "Who is he,
+Farani?"
+
+And Lupton could only answer, "I don't know, and won't ask. Look to him
+well."
+
+He never did ask. One afternoon nearly a year afterwards, as Lupton and
+Trenton, the supercargo of the _Marama_ sat on an old native _marae_ at
+Arupahi, the Village of Four Houses, he told the strange story of his
+sick guest.
+
+*****
+
+The stranger had at first wished to have a house built for himself, but
+Lupton's quiet place and the shy and reserved natures of his children
+made him change his intention and ask Lupton for a part of his house. It
+was given freely--where are there more generous-hearted men than these
+world-forgotten, isolated traders?--and here the Silent Man, as the
+people of Mururea called him, lived out the few months of his life. That
+last deceptive stage of his insidious disease had given him a fictitious
+strength. On many occasions, accompanied by the trader's children, he
+would walk to the north point of the low-lying island, where the cloudy
+spume of the surge was thickest and where the hollow and resonant crust
+of the black reef was perforated with countless air-holes, through which
+the water hissed and roared, and shot high in air, to fall again in
+misty spray.
+
+And here, with dreamy eyes, he would sit under the shade of a clump of
+young cocoanuts, and watch the boil and tumble of the surf, whilst the
+children played with and chased each other about the clinking sand.
+Sometimes he would call them to him--Farani the boy, and Teremai and
+Lorani, the sweet-voiced and tender-eyed girls--and ask them to sing
+to him; and in their soft semi-Tahitian dialect they would sing the old
+songs that echoed in the ears of the desperate men of the _Bounty_ that
+fatal dawn when, with bare-headed, defiant Bligh drifting astern in his
+boat, they headed back for Tahiti and death. *****
+
+Four months had passed when one day the strange white man, with Lupton's
+children, returned to the village. As they passed in through the doorway
+with some merry chant upon their lips, they saw a native seated on the
+matted floor. He was a young man, with straight, handsome features,
+such as one may see any day in Eastern Polynesia, but the children,
+with terrified faces, shrank aside as they passed him and went to their
+father.
+
+The pale face of the Silent Man turned inquiringly to Lupton, who
+smiled.
+
+"'Tis Mameri's teaching, you know. She is a Catholic from Magareva, and
+prays and tells her beads enough to work a whaleship's crew into heaven.
+But this man is a 'Soul Catcher,' and if any one of us here got sick,
+Mameri would let the faith she was reared in go to the wall and send
+for the 'Soul Catcher.' He's a kind of an all-round prophet, wizard, and
+general wisdom merchant. Took over the soul-catching business from his
+father--runs in the family, you know."
+
+"Ah!" said the Silent Man in his low, languid tones, looking at the
+native, who, the moment he had entered, had bent his eyes to the
+ground, "and in which of his manifold capacities has he come to see you,
+Lupton?"
+
+Lupton hesitated a moment, then laughed.
+
+"Well, sir, he says he wants to speak to you. Wants to _pahihi_ (talk
+rot), I suppose. It's his trade, you know. I'd sling him out only that
+he isn't a bad sort of a fellow--and a bit mad--and Mameri says he'll
+quit as soon as he has had his say."
+
+"Let him talk," said the calm, quiet voice; "I like these people, and
+like to hear them talk--better than I would most white men."
+
+*****
+
+Then, with his dark, dilated eyes moving from the pale face of the
+white man to that of Lupton, the native wizard and Seer of Unseen Things
+spoke. Then again his eyes sought the ground.
+
+"What does he say?" queried Lupton's guest.
+
+"D------rot," replied the trader, angrily.
+
+"Tell me exactly, if you please. I feel interested."
+
+"Well, he says that he was asleep in his house when his 'spirit voice'
+awoke him and said"--here Lupton paused and looked at his guest, and
+then, seeing the faint smile of amused interest on his melancholy
+features, resumed, in his rough, jocular way--"and said--the 'spirit
+voice,' you know--that your soul was struggling to get loose, and is
+going away from you to-night. And the long and short of it is that this
+young fellow here wants to know if you'll let him save it--keep you from
+dying, you know. Says he'll do the job for nothing, because you're a
+good man, and a friend to all the people of Mururea."
+
+"Mr. Brown" put his thin hand across his mouth, and his eyes smiled at
+Lupton. Then some sudden, violent emotion stirred him, and he spoke
+with such quick and bitter energy that Lupton half rose from his seat in
+vague alarm.
+
+"Tell him," he said--"that is, if the language expresses it--that my
+soul has been in hell these ten years, and its place filled with ruined
+hopes and black despair," and then he sank back on his couch of mats,
+and turned his face to the wall.
+
+The Seer of Unseen Things, at a sign from the now angry Lupton, rose to
+his feet. As he passed the trader he whispered--
+
+"Be not angry with me, Farani; art not thou and all thy house dear to
+me, the Snarer of Souls and Keeper Away of Evil Things? And I can truly
+make a snare to save the soul of the Silent Man, if he so wishes it."
+The low, impassioned tones of the wizard's voice showed him to be under
+strong emotion, and Lupton, with smoothened brow, placed his hand on the
+native's chest in token of amity.
+
+"Farani," said the wizard, "see'st thou these?" and he pointed to where,
+in the open doorway, two large white butterflies hovered and fluttered.
+They were a species but rarely seen in Mururea, and the natives had many
+curious superstitions regarding them.
+
+"Aye," said the trader, "what of them?"
+
+"Lo, they are the spirits that await the soul of him who sitteth in thy
+house. One is the soul of a woman, the other of a man; and their bodies
+are long ago dust in a far-off land. See, Farani, they hover and wait,
+wait, wait. To-morrow they will be gone, but then another may be with
+them."
+
+Stopping at the doorway the tall native turned, and again his strange,
+full black eyes fixed upon the figure of Lupton's guest. Then slowly he
+untied from a circlet of polished pieces of pearl-shell strung together
+round his sinewy neck a little round leaf-wrapped bundle. And with quiet
+assured step he came and stood before the strange white man and extended
+his hand.
+
+"Take it, O man, with the swift hand and the strong heart, for it is
+thine."
+
+And then he passed slowly out.
+
+Lupton could only see that as the outside wrappings of _fala_ leaves
+fell off they revealed a black substance, when Mr. Brown quickly placed
+it in the bosom of his shirt.
+
+*****
+
+"And sure enough," continued Lupton, knocking the ashes from his pipe
+out upon the crumbling stones of the old marae, and speaking in, for
+him, strangely softened tones, "the poor chap did die that night,
+leastways at _kalaga moa_ (cockcrow), and then he refilled his pipe in
+silence, gazing the while away out to the North-West Point."
+
+*****
+
+"What a curious story!" began the supercargo, after an interval of some
+minutes, when he saw that Lupton, usually one of the merriest-hearted
+wanderers that rove to and fro in Polynesia, seemed strangely silent and
+affected, and had turned his face from him.
+
+He waited in silence till the trader chose to speak again. Away to
+the westward, made purple by the sunset haze of the tropics, lay the
+ever-hovering spume-cloud of the reef of North-West Point--the loved
+haunt of Lupton's guest--and the muffled boom of the ceaseless surf
+deepened now and then as some mighty roller tumbled and crashed upon the
+flat ledges of blackened reef.
+
+*****
+
+At last the trader turned again to the supercargo, almost restored to
+his usual equanimity. "I'm a pretty rough case, Mr.------, and not much
+given to any kind of sentiment or squirming, but I would give half I'm
+worth to have him back again. He sort of got a pull on my feelin's the
+first time he ever spoke to me, and as the days went on, I took to him
+that much that if he'd a wanted to marry my little Teremai I'd have
+given her to him cheerful. Not that we ever done much talkin', but he'd
+sit night after night and make me talk, and when I'd spun a good hour's
+yarn he'd only say, 'Thank you, Lupton, good-night,' and give a smile
+all round to us, from old Mameri to the youngest _tama_, and go to bed.
+And yet he did a thing that'll go hard agin' him, I fear."
+
+"Ah," said Trenton, "and so he told you at the last--I mean his reason
+for coming to die at Mururea."
+
+"No, he didn't. He only told me something; Peese told me the rest. And
+he laughed when he told me," and the dark-faced trader struck his hand
+on his knee. "Peese would laugh if he saw his mother crucified."
+
+"Was Peese back here again, then?" inquired Trenton.
+
+"Yes, two months ago. He hove-to outside, and came ashore in a canoe.
+Said he wanted to hear how his dear friend Brown was. He only stayed an
+hour, and then cleared out again.9'
+
+"Did he die suddenly?" the supercargo asked, his mind still bent on
+Lupton's strange visitor.
+
+"No. Just before daylight he called me to him--with my boy. He took the
+boy's hand and said he'd have been glad to have lived after all. He had
+been happy in a way with me and the children here in Mururea. Then he
+asked to see Teremai and Lorani. They both cried when they saw he was a
+goin'--all native-blooded people do that if they cares anything at all
+about a white man, and sees him dyin'."
+
+"Have you any message, or anything to say in writin', sir?" I says to
+him.
+
+He didn't answer at once, only took the girls' hands in his, and kisses
+each of 'em on the face, then he says, "No, Lupton, neither. But send
+the children away now. I want you to stay with me to the last--which
+will be soon."
+
+Then he put his hand under his pillow, and took out a tiny little
+parcel, and held it in his closed hand. *****
+
+"Mr. Lupton, I ask you before God to speak honestly. Have you, or have
+you not, ever heard of me, and why I came here to die, away from the
+eyes of men?"
+
+"No, sir," I said. "Before God I know no more of you now than the day I
+first saw you."
+
+"Can you, then, tell me if the native soul-doctor who came here last
+night is a friend of Captain Peese? Did he see Peese when I landed here?
+Has he talked with him?"
+
+"No. When you came here with Peese, the soul-seer was away at another
+island. And as for talking with him, how could he? Peese can't speak two
+words of Paumotu."
+
+He closed his eyes a minute. Then he reached out his hand to me and
+said, "Look at that; what is it?"
+
+It was the little black thing that the Man Who Sees Beyond gave him, and
+was a curious affair altogether. "You know what an _aitu taliga_ is?"
+asked Lupton.
+
+"Yes; a 'devil's ear'--that's what the natives call fungus."
+
+*****
+
+"Well," continued Lupton, "this was a piece of dried fungus, and yet it
+wasn't a piece of fungus. It was the exact shape of a human heart--just
+as I've seen a model of it made of wax. That hadn't been its natural
+shape, but the sides had been brought together and stitched with human
+hair--by the soul-doctor, of course. I looked at it curiously enough,
+and gave it back to him. His fingers closed round it again."
+
+"What is it?" he says again.
+
+"It's a model of a human heart," says I, "made of fungus."
+
+"My God!" he says, "how could he know?" Then he didn't say any more, and
+in another half-hour or so he dies, quiet and gentlemanly like. I looked
+for the heart with Mameri in the morning--it was gone.
+
+"Well, we buried him. And now look here, Mr. ------, as sure as I
+believe there's a God over us, I believe that that native soul-catcher
+_has_ dealings with the Devil. I had just stowed the poor chap in his
+coffin and was going to nail it down when the kanaka wizard came in,
+walks up to me, and says he wants to see the dead man's hand. Just to
+humour him I lifted off the sheet. The soul-catcher lifted the dead
+man's hands carefully, and then I'm d------d if he didn't lay that dried
+heart on his chest and press the hands down over it."
+
+"What's that for?" says I.
+
+"'Tis the heart of the woman he slew in her sleep. Let it lie with him,
+so that there may be peace between them at last," and then he glides
+away without another word.
+
+*****
+
+"I let it stay, not thinking much of it at the time. Well, as I was
+tellin' you, Peese came again. Seeing that I had all my people armed, I
+treated him well and we had a chat, and then I told him all about 'Mr.
+Brown's' death and the soul-saver and the dried heart. And then Peese
+laughs and gives me this newspaper cutting. I brought it with me to show
+you."
+
+Trenton took the piece of paper and read.
+
+*****
+
+"'Lester Mornington made his escape from the State prison at San Quentin
+(Cal.) last week, and is stated to be now on his way either to Honolulu
+or Tahiti. It has been ascertained that a vast sum of money has been
+disbursed in a very systematic manner during the last few weeks to
+effect his release. Although nearly eight years have elapsed since he
+committed his terrible crime, the atrocious nature of it will long be
+remembered. Young, wealthy, respected, and talented, he had been married
+but half a year when the whole of the Pacific Slope was startled with
+the intelligence that he had murdered his beautiful young wife, who had,
+he found, been disloyal to him.
+
+"'Entering the bedroom he shot his sleeping wife through the temples,
+and then with a keen-edged knife had cut out her still-beating heart.
+This, enclosed in a small box, he took to the house of the man who had
+wronged him, and desired him to open it and look at the contents. He did
+so, and Mornington, barely giving him time to realise the tragedy, and
+that his perfidy was known, shot him twice, the wounds proving fatal
+next day. The murderer made good his escape to Mexico, only returning to
+California a month ago, when he was recognised (although disguised) and
+captured, and at the time of his escape was within two days of the time
+of his trial before Judge Crittenden.'"
+
+*****
+
+"There's always a woman in these things," said Lupton, as the supercargo
+gave him back the slip. "Come on." And he got down from his seat on the
+wall. "There's Mameri calling us to _kaikai_--stewed pigeons. She's a
+bully old cook; worth her weight in Chile dollars."
+
+
+
+
+IN NOUMEA
+
+Chester was listening to those charming musicians, the convict band,
+playing in Noumea, and saw in the crowd a man he knew--more, an old
+friend, S------. The recognition was mutual and pleasing to both. They
+had not met for six years. He was then chief officer of a China steamer;
+now he was captain of a big tramp steamer that had called in to load
+nickel ore. "Who," exclaimed Chester, "would ever have thought of
+meeting _you_ here?"
+
+He laughed and replied: "I came with a purpose. You remember Miss ------,
+to whom I was engaged in Sydney?"
+
+Chester nodded, expecting from the sparkle in S------'s dark brown eye
+that he was going to hear a little gush about her many wifely qualities.
+
+"Well, I was in Sydney three times after I saw you. We were to be
+married as soon as I got a command. Two years ago I was there last. She
+had got married. Wrote me a letter saying she knew my calmer judgment
+would finally triumph over my anger--she had accepted a good offer, and
+although I might be nettled, perhaps, at first, yet she was sure my good
+sense would applaud her decision in marrying a man who, although she
+could never love him as she loved me, was very rich. But she would
+always look forward to meeting me again. That was all."
+
+"Hard lines," said Chester.
+
+"My dear boy, I thought that at first, when her letter knocked me flat
+aback. But I got over it, and I swore I would pay her out. And I came to
+this den of convicts to do it, and I did it--yesterday. She is here."
+
+"_Here?_" said Chester.
+
+And then he learnt the rest of Captain S------'s story. A year after his
+lady-love had jilted him he received a letter from her in England. She
+was in sad trouble, she said. Her husband, a Victorian official, was
+serving five years for embezzlement. Her letter was suggestive of a
+desire to hasten to the "protection" of her sailor lover. She wished,
+she said, that her husband were dead. But dead or alive she would always
+hate _him_.
+
+S------ merely acknowledged her letter and sent her L25. In another six
+months he got a letter from Fiji. She was a governess there, she said,
+at L75 a year. Much contrition and love, also, in this letter.
+
+S------ sent another L25, and remarked that he would see her soon. Fate
+one day sent him to take command of a steamer in Calcutta bound to Fiji
+with coolies, thence to Noumea to load nickel ore. And all the way out
+across the tropics S------'s heart was leaping at the thought of seeing
+his lost love--and telling her that he hated her for her black frozen
+treachery.
+
+As soon as he had landed his coolies he cautiously set about discovering
+the family with whom she lived. No one could help him, but a planter
+explained matters: "I know the lady for whom you inquire, but she
+doesn't go by that name. Ask any one about Miss ------, the barmaid. She
+has gone to New Caledonia."
+
+He asked, and learned that she was well known; and S------ wondered why
+she had brought her beauty to such a climate as that of Fiji when it
+would have paid her so much better to parade it in Melbourne.
+
+The evening of the day on which his steamer arrived at Noumea a man
+brought him a letter. He showed it to Chester.
+
+My darling Will,--Thank God you have come, for surely you have come for
+me--my heart tells me so. For God's sake wait on board for me. I will
+come at eight. To live in this place is breaking my heart. Ever yours,
+------
+
+She came. He stood her kisses passively, but gave none in return, until
+she asked him to kiss her. "When you are my wife," he said, evasively.
+And then--she must have loved him--she burst out into passionate sobs
+and fell at his feet in the quiet cabin and told him of her debased life
+in Fiji. "But, as God hears me, Will, that is all past since your last
+letter. I was mad. I loved money and did not care how I got it. I left
+Fiji to come here, intending to return to Australia. But, Will, dear
+Will, if it is only to throw me overboard, take me away from this hell
+upon earth. For your sake, Will, I have resisted them here, although
+I suffer daily, hourly, torture and insult. I have no money, and I am
+afraid to die and end my sufferings."
+
+Captain S------, speaking calmly and slowly, placed money in her hand
+and said, "You must not see me again till the day I am ready for sea.
+Then bring your luggage and come on board."
+
+With a smothered sob bursting from her, despite the joy in her heart,
+the woman turned and left him.
+
+Then S------ went up to the Cafe Palais and played billiards with a
+steady hand.
+
+*****
+
+There was a great number of people on board to see Captain S------ away.
+Presently a boat came alongside, and a young lady with sweet red lips
+and shiny hair ascended to the deck.
+
+"Helas!" said a French officer to S------, "and so you are taking away
+the fair one who won't look at us poor exiles of Nouvelle."
+
+With a timid smile and fast-beating heart the woman gained the
+quarter-deck. In front of her stood the broad-shouldered, well-groomed
+Captain S------, cold, impassive, and deadly pale, with a cruel joy in
+his breast.
+
+The woman stood still. There was something so appalling in that set
+white face before her, that her slight frame quivered with an unknown
+dread. And then the captain spoke, in slow, measured words that cut her
+to her inmost soul.
+
+"Madam, I do not take passengers!"
+
+No answer. Only short, gasping breaths as she steadied her hand on the
+rail.
+
+And then, turning to one of the Frenchmen: "M. ------, will you request
+this--this lady to go on shore? She is known to me as a woman of
+infamous reputation in Fiji. I cannot for a moment entertain the idea of
+having such a person on board my ship."
+
+Before the shuddering creature fell a man caught her, and then she was
+placed in the boat and taken ashore. Of course some of the Frenchmen
+thought it right to demand an explanation from S------, who said--
+
+"I've none to give, gentlemen. If any of you want to fight me, well and
+good, although I don't like quarrelling over a pavement-woman. Besides,
+I rather think you'll find that the lady will _now_ be quite an
+acquisition to you."
+
+But S------'s revenge was not complete. He had previously arranged
+matters with his engineer, who presently came along and announced an
+accident to the machinery--the steamer would be delayed a couple of
+days. He wanted to see her again--so he told Chester.
+
+"It was a cruel thing," said his friend.
+
+"Bah!" said S------, "come with me."
+
+In the crowded bar of the cafe a woman was laughing and talking gaily.
+Something made her look up. She put her hand to her eyes and walked
+slowly from the room.
+
+As the two Englishmen walked slowly down to the wharf the handsome
+Captain S------ whistled cheerily, and asked Chester on board to hear
+him and his steward play violin and piccolo. "By God, S------," said
+Chester, "you have no heart!"
+
+"Right you are, my lad. She made it into stone. But it won't hurt her as
+it did me. You see, these Frenchmen here pay well for new beauty; and
+women love money--which is a lucky thing for many men."
+
+
+
+
+THE FEAST AT PENTECOST
+
+There was a row in the fo'c's'le of the _Queen Caroline_, barque,
+of Sydney, and the hands were discussing ways and means upon two
+subjects--making the skipper give them their usual allowance of rum,
+or killing him, burning the ship, and clearing out and living among the
+natives.
+
+Half of the crew were white, the others were Maories, Line Islanders,
+and Hawaiians. The white men wanted the coloured ones to knock the
+skipper and two mates on the head, while they slept. The natives
+declined--but they were quite agreeable to run away on shore with their
+messmates.
+
+*****
+
+The barque was at anchor at one of the New Hebrides. She was a
+"sandalwooder," and the captain, Fordham, was, if possible, a greater
+rascal than any one else on board. He had bargained with the chief of
+the island for leave to send his crew ashore and cut sandalwood, and on
+the first day four boatloads were brought off, whereupon Fordham cursed
+their laziness. One, an ex-Hobart Town convict, having "talked back,"
+Fordham and the mate tied him up to the pumps and gave him three dozen.
+
+Next day he started the boats away during fierce rain-squalls, and told
+the men that if they didn't bring plenty of wood he would "haze" them
+properly.
+
+At dusk they returned and brought word that they had a lot of wood cut,
+but had left it ashore as the natives would lend them no assistance to
+load the boats.
+
+The spokesman on this occasion was a big Maori from the Bay of Islands.
+Fordham gave him three dozen and put him in irons. Then he told the men
+they would get no supper till the wood was in the barque's hold--and he
+also stopped their grog.
+
+"Well," said the captain, eyeing them savagely, "what is it going to be?
+Are you going to get that wood off or not?"
+
+"It's too dark," said one; "and, anyway, we want our supper and grog
+first."
+
+Fordham made a step towards him, when the whole lot bolted below.
+
+"They'll turn-to early enough to-morrow," said he, grimly, "when they
+find there's no breakfast for 'em until that wood's on deck." Then
+he went below to drink rum with his two mates, remarking to his first
+officer: "You mark my words, Colliss, we're going to have a roasting hot
+time of it with them fellows here at Pentecost!"
+
+*****
+
+At daylight next morning the mate, who was less of a brute than the
+skipper, managed to get some rum and biscuit down into the fo'c's'le;
+then they turned-to and manned the boats. At noon the second mate,
+who was in charge of the cutting party, signalled from the shore that
+something was wrong.
+
+On Fordham reaching the shore the second mate told him that all the
+native crew had run off into the bush.
+
+The chief of the island was sent for, and Fordham told him to catch the
+runaways--fourteen in number--promising seven muskets in return. The
+white crew were working close by in sullen silence. They grinned when
+they heard the chief say it would be difficult to capture the men;
+they were natives, he remarked--if they were white men it would be easy
+enough. But he would try if the captain helped him.
+
+*****
+
+An hour afterwards the chief was in the bush, talking to the deserters,
+and taking in an account of the vast amount of trade lying on board the
+barque.
+
+"See," said he, to the only man among them who spoke his dialect--a
+Fijian half-caste from Loma-loma--"this is my scheme. The captain of the
+ship and those that come with him will I entice into the bush and kill
+them one by one, for the path is narrow----"
+
+"Good," said Sam the half-caste, "and then ten of us, with our hands
+loosely tied, will be taken off to the ship by two score of your men,
+who will tell the mate that the captain has caught ten of us, and has
+gone to seek the other four. Then will the ship be ours."
+
+*****
+
+"Halloa!" said the mate of the barque to the carpenter, "here's a
+thundering big crowd of niggers coming off in our two boats, and none
+of our white chaps with 'em. Stand by, you chaps, with your muskets. I
+ain't going to let all that crowd aboard with only six men in the ship."
+
+The men left on board watched the progress of the two boats as they were
+pulled quickly towards the ship. They hardly apprehended any attempt at
+cutting-off, as from the ship they could discern the figures of some
+of their shipmates on shore stacking the sandalwood on a ledge of rock,
+handy for shipping in the boats.
+
+"It's all right," called out the mate presently, "the niggers have
+collared some of our native chaps. I can see that yaller-hided Fiji Sam
+sitting aft with his hands lashed behind him. Let 'em come alongside."
+
+*****
+
+"Cap'en been catch him ten men," said the native in charge to the mate,
+"he go look now find him other fellow four men. He tell me you give me
+two bottle rum, some tobacco, some biscuit."
+
+"Right you are, you man-catching old' cannibal," said the mate,
+jocosely, "come below." As the mate went below with the native at his
+heels, the latter made a quick sign by a backward move of his arm. In an
+instant the ten apparently-bound men had sprung to their feet, and with
+their pseudo-captors, flung themselves upon the five men. The wild cry
+of alarm reached the mate in the cabin. He darted up, and as he reached
+the deck a tomahawk crashed into his brain.
+
+No need to tell the tale of the savage butchery on deck in all its
+details. Not one of the men had time to even fire a shot--they went down
+so quickly under the knives and tomahawks of the fifty men who struggled
+and strove with one another to strike the first blow. One man, indeed,
+succeeeded in reaching the main rigging, but ere he had gained ten feet
+he was stabbed and chopped in half-a-dozen places.
+
+*****
+
+And then, as the remaining members of the crew sat "spelling" in the
+jungle, and waiting for the skipper's return, there came a sudden, swift
+rush of dark, naked forms upon them. Then gasping groans and silence.
+
+There were many oven-fires lit that night and the following day; and
+although the former shipmates of the "long, baked pigs" were present by
+the invitation of the chief, their uncultivated tastes were satisfied
+with such simple things as breadfruit and yams.
+
+That was the "wiping-out" of the _Queen Caroline_ at Pentecost, and the
+fulfilment of the unconscious prophecy of Captain Fordham to his mate.
+
+
+
+
+AN HONOUR TO THE SERVICE
+
+The Honourable Captain Stanley W------ believed in flogging, and during
+the three years' cruise of the frigate in the South Pacific he had taken
+several opportunities of expressing this belief upon the bluejackets of
+his ship by practical illustrations of his hobby. He was, however--in
+his own opinion--a most humane man, and was always ready to give a dozen
+less if Dr. Cartwright suggested, for instance, that Jenkins or Jones
+hadn't quite got over his last tricing up, and could hardly stand
+another dozen so soon. And the chaplain of the frigate, when dining with
+the Honourable Stanley, would often sigh and shake his head and agree
+with the captain that the proposed abolition of flogging in the British
+Navy would do much to destroy its discipline and loosen the feelings of
+personal attachment between officers and men, and then murmur something
+complimentary about his Majesty's ship _Pleiades_ being one of the very
+few ships in the Service whose captain still maintained so ancient and
+honoured a custom, the discontinuance of which could only be advocated
+by common, illiterate persons--such as the blue-jackets themselves.
+
+*****
+
+The frigate was on her way from Valparaiso to Sydney--it was in the days
+of Governor Bligh--and for nearly three weeks had been passing amongst
+the low-lying coral islands of the Paumotu or Low Archipelago, when
+one afternoon in May, 182- she lay becalmed off the little island of
+Vairaatea. The sea was as smooth as glass, and only the gentlest ocean
+swell rose and fell over the flat surface of the coral reef. In those
+days almost nothing was known of the people of the Paumotu Group except
+that they were a fierce and warlike race and excessively shy of white
+strangers. Standing on his quarter-deck Captain W------ could with
+his glass see that there were but a few houses on the island--perhaps
+ten--and as the frigate had been nearly six weeks out from Valparaiso,
+and officers in the navy did not live as luxuriously then as now, he
+decided to send a boat ashore and buy some turtle from the natives.
+
+"If you can buy a few thousand cocoanuts as well, do so, Mr. T.," said
+the captain, "and I'll send another boat later on."
+
+*****
+
+The boat's crew was well armed, and in command of the second lieutenant.
+Among them was a man named Hallam, a boatswain's mate, a dark-faced,
+surly brute of about fifty. He was hated by nearly every one on board,
+but as he was a splendid seaman and rigidly exact in the performance of
+his duties, he was an especial favourite of the captain's, who was never
+tired of extolling his abilities and sobriety, and holding him up as an
+example of a British seaman: and Hallam, like his captain, was a firm
+believer in the cat.
+
+On pulling in to the beach about a dozen light-skinned natives met them.
+They were all armed with clubs and spears, but at a sign from one
+who seemed to be their chief they laid them down All--the chief as
+well--were naked, save for a girdle of long grass round their loins.
+
+Their leader advanced to Lieutenant T------ as he stepped out of the
+boat, and holding out his hand said, "Good mornin' What you want?"
+
+Pleased at finding a man who spoke English, the lieutenant told him he
+had come to buy some turtle and get a boatload of young cocoanuts, and
+showed him the tobacco and knives intended for payment.
+
+The chiefs eyes glistened at the tobacco; the others, who did not know
+its use, turned away in indifference, but eagerly handled the knives.
+
+*****
+
+All this time the chiefs eyes kept wandering to the face of Hallam,
+the boatswain's mate, whose every movement he followed with a curious,
+wistful expression. Suddenly he turned to the lieutenant and said, in
+curious broken English, that cocoanuts were easily to be obtained, but
+turtle were more difficult; yet if the ship would wait he would promise
+to get them as many as were wanted by daylight next morning.
+
+"All right," said Lieutenant T------, "bear a hand with the cocoanuts
+now, and I'll tell the captain what you say;" and then to Hallam, "If
+this calm keeps up, Hallam, I'm afraid the ship will either have to
+anchor or tow off the land--she's drifting in fast."
+
+In an hour the boat was filled with cocoanuts, and Lieutenant T------
+sent her off to the ship with a note to the captain, remaining himself
+with Hallam, another leading seaman named Lacy, and five bluejackets.
+Presently the chief, in his strange, halting English, asked the officer
+to come to his house and sit down and rest while his wife prepared food
+for him. And as they walked the native's eyes still sought the face of
+Hallam the boatswain.
+
+His wife was a slender, graceful girl, and her modest, gentle demeanour
+as she waited upon her husband himself impressed the lieutenant
+considerably.
+
+"Where did you learn to speak English?" the officer asked his host after
+they had finished.
+
+He answered slowly, "I been sailor man American whaleship two year;" and
+then, pointing to a roll of soft mats, said, "You like sleep, you sleep.
+Me like go talk your sailor man."
+
+*****
+
+Hallam, morose and gloomy, had left the others, and was sitting under
+the shade of a _toa_-tree, when he heard the sound of a footstep, and
+looking up saw the dark-brown, muscular figure of the native chief
+beside him.
+
+"Well," he said, surlily, "what the h---- do you want?"
+
+The man made him no answer--only looked at him with a strange, eager
+light of expectancy in his eyes, and his lips twitched nervously, but no
+sound issued from them. For a moment the rude, scowling face of the old
+seaman seemed to daunt him. Then, with a curious choking sound in his
+throat, he sprang forward and touched the other man on the arm.
+
+"_Father!_ Don't you know me?"
+
+With trembling hands and blanched face the old man rose to his feet, and
+in a hoarse whisper there escaped from his lips a name that he had
+long years ago cursed and forgotten. His hands opened and shut again
+convulsively, and then his savage, vindictive nature asserted itself
+again as he found his voice, and with the rasping accents of passion
+poured out curses upon the brown, half-naked man that stood before him.
+Then he turned to go. But the other man put out a detaining hand.
+
+*****
+
+"It is as you say. I am a disgraced man. But you haven't heard why I
+deserted from the _Tagus_. Listen while I tell you. I was flogged. I was
+only a boy, and it broke my heart."
+
+"Curse you, you chicken-hearted sweep! I've laid the cat on the back of
+many a better man than myself, and none of 'em ever disgraced themselves
+by runnin' away and turnin' into a nigger, like you!"
+
+The man heard the sneer with unmoved face, then resumed--
+
+"It broke my heart. And when I was hiding in Dover, and my mother used
+to come and dress my wounds, do you remember what happened?"
+
+"Aye, you naked swab, I do: your father kicked you out!"
+
+"And I got caught again, and put in irons, and got more cat. Two years
+afterwards I cleared again in Sydney, from the _Sirius_.... And I came
+here to live and die among savages. That's nigh on eight years ago."
+
+There was a brief silence. The old man, with fierce, scornful eyes,
+looked sneeringly at the wild figure of the broken wanderer, and then
+said--
+
+"What's to stop me from telling our lieutenant you're a deserter? I
+would, too, by God, only I don't want my shipmates to know I've got a
+nigger for a son."
+
+The gibe passed unheeded, save for a sudden light that leapt into the
+eyes of the younger man, then quickly died away.
+
+"Let us part in peace," he said. "We will never meet again. Only tell me
+one thing--is my mother dead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Thank God for that," he murmured. Then without another word the outcast
+turned away and disappeared among the cocoa-palms.
+
+*****
+
+The second boat from the _Pleiades_ brought the captain, and as he and
+the lieutenant stood and talked they watched the natives carrying down
+the cocoa-nuts.
+
+"Hurry them up, Hallam," said Lieutenant T------; "the tide is falling
+fast. By the by, where is that fellow Lacy; I don't see him about?"
+
+As he spoke a woman's shriek came from the chiefs house, which stood
+some distance apart from the other houses, and a tall brown man sprang
+out from among the other natives about the boats and dashed up the
+pathway to the village.
+
+"Quick, Hallam, and some of you fellows," said Captain W------, "run and
+see what's the matter. That scoundrel, Lacy, I suppose, among the
+women," he added, with a laugh, to the lieutenant.
+
+The two officers followed the men. In a few minutes they came upon
+a curious scene. Held in the strong arms of two stout seamen was the
+native chief, whose heaving chest and working features showed him to be
+under some violent emotion. On the ground, with his head supported by
+a shipmate, lay Lacy, with blackened and distorted face, and breathing
+stertorously. Shaking with fear and weeping passionately as she pressed
+her child to her bosom, the young native wife looked beseechingly into
+the faces of the men who held her husband.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" said Captain W------'s clear, sharp
+voice, addressing the men who held the chief.
+
+"That hound there"--the men who held their prisoner nearly let him go
+in their astonishment--"came in here. She was alone. Do you want to know
+more? I tried to kill him."
+
+"Let him loose, men," and Captain W------ stepped up to the prisoner and
+looked closely into his dark face. "Ah! I thought so--a white man. What
+is your name?"
+
+The wanderer bent his head, then raised it, and looked for an instant at
+the sullen face of Hallam.
+
+*****
+
+"I have no name," he said.
+
+"Humph," muttered Captain W------ to his lieutenant, "a runaway convict,
+most likely. He can't be blamed, though, for this affair. He's a perfect
+brute, that fellow Lacy." Then to the strange white man he turned
+contemptuously:
+
+"I'm sorry this man assaulted your wife. He shall suffer for it
+to-morrow. At the same time I'm sorry I can't tie _you_ up and flog you,
+as a disgrace to your colour and country, you naked savage."
+
+The outcast took two strides, a red gleam shone in his eyes, and his
+voice shook with mad passion.
+
+"'A naked savage'; and you would like to flog me. It was a brute such as
+you made me what I am," and he struck the captain of the _Pleiades_ in
+the face with his clenched hand.
+
+*****
+
+"We'll have to punish the fellow, T------," said Captain W------, as
+with his handkerchief to his lips he staunched the flow of blood. "If I
+let a thing like this pass his native friends would imagine all sorts
+of things and probably murder any unfortunate merchant captain that may
+touch here in the future. But, as Heaven is my witness, I do so on that
+ground only--deserter as he admits himself to be. Hurry up that fellow,
+T------."
+
+*****
+
+"That fellow" was Hallam, who had been sent to the boat for a bit of
+line suitable for the purpose in view. His florid face paled somewhat
+when the coxswain jeeringly asked him if he didn't miss his green bag,
+and flung him an old pair of yoke-lines.
+
+*****
+
+The business of flogging was not, on the whole, unduly hurried. Although
+"All Hands to Witness Punishment" was not piped, every native on the
+island, some seventy or so all told, gathered round the cocoanut-tree
+to which the man was lashed, and at every stroke of the heavy yoke-lines
+they shuddered. One, a woman with a child sitting beside her, lay face
+to the ground, and as each cruel swish and thud fell on her ear the
+savage creature wept.
+
+*****
+
+"That's enough, Hallam," said Captain W------, somewhat moved by the
+tears and bursting sobs of the pitying natives, who, when they saw the
+great blue weals on the brown back swell and black drops burst out,
+sought to break in through the cordon of blue jackets.
+
+***** Clustering around him, the brown people sought to lift him in
+their arms and carry him to his house; but his strength was not all
+gone, and he thrust them aside. Then he spoke, and even the cold,
+passionless Captain W------ felt his face flush at the burning words:
+
+"For seven years, lads, I've lived here, a naked savage, as your captain
+called me. I had a heavy disgrace once, an' it just broke my heart
+like--I was flogged--and I wanted to hide myself out of the world. Seven
+years it is since I saw a white man, an' I've almost forgotten I _was_ a
+white man once; an' now because I tried to choke a hound that wanted
+to injure the only being in the world I have to love, I'm tied up and
+lashed like a dog--_by my own father!_"
+
+*****
+
+The island was just sinking below the horizon when the burly figure of
+boatswain's mate Hallam was seen to disappear suddenly over the bows,
+where he had been standing.
+
+*****
+
+"A very regrettable occurrence," said Captain W------, pompously, to the
+chaplain when the boats returned from the search. "No doubt the horror
+of seeing his only son a disgraced fugitive and severed from all decent
+associations preyed upon his mind and led him to commit suicide. Such
+men as Hallam, humble as was his position, are an Honour to the Service.
+I shall always remember him as a very zealous seaman."
+
+"Particularly with the cat," murmured Lieutenant T------.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ebbing Of The Tide, by Louis Becke
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