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diff --git a/old/50663.txt b/old/50663.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 32a651c..0000000 --- a/old/50663.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7530 +0,0 @@ - VAITI OF THE ISLANDS - - - - -This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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 -http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United -States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are -located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Vaiti of the Islands -Author: Beatrice Grimshaw -Release Date: December 10, 2015 [EBook #50663] -Language: English -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VAITI OF THE ISLANDS *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - - - *VAITI OF THE ISLANDS* - - - *BY BEATRICE GRIMSHAW* - - - - LONDON - GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED - SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. - - - - - *CONTENTS* - -CHAPTER - -Prologue - - I. The Pearl Lagoon - II. A Race for a Fortune - III. The Flower behind the Ear - IV. The Black Viri - V. A Diamond Web - VI. Marooned - VII. The Turning of the Tables - VIII. The White Man of Nalolo - IX. The Lost Island - X. What came of the Paris Dress - XI. A Dead Man's Revenge - XII. Breaking the Mana - XIII. The Game Played Out - XIV. How the Witch-Doctor got his Money back - XV. The Calamity of Coral Bay - XVI. The Fate of the Lieutenant - XVII. Invaders in Tanna - XVIII. A Cannibal Party - XIX. The Rival Princesses - XX. Queen after all - - - - - *VAITI OF THE ISLANDS* - - - *PROLOGUE* - - -It was in the seventies, long ago. - - * * * * * - -Summer--yet a slow grey dawn, lingering long in the sky. August--yet a -chilly morning, crisping the landlocked waters of the bay with cold -knife-edges of foam. Out at sea, the wild white horses plunging madly -under the whip of the sunrise wind; the bar beginning to thunder. -Inshore, beneath the green slope of the castle hill, small angry ripples -beating and fretting the untrampled sand. Dead rose-leaves from the -gardens floating among the seaweed; a torn bird's-nest, flung down by -the wind, lying on the edge of the steep cliff pathway.... It was still -the time of summer, yet, too surely, autumn had come. - -The sodden leaves lay thick in the bottom of the boat when the man -seized it by the gunwale and ran it down the beach into the snatching -waves.... Oh, an autumn day indeed, here in wild Caithness, though -summer was still at its fairest in kinder lands. And in the heart of -the man who was rowing fast through the angry dawn light, to the tall -schooner yacht that swung and tore at her moorings out in the bay, there -was autumn too, with winter close at hand. - -All so long ago! who remembers? - -Not the newspapers which, in a day or two after, shrieked the scandal -broadcast, east and west. Not the guests of the castle -house-party--they are dead, or old, which is half of death, since then. -Not the Prince whose dignity had been insulted by the outbreak of a -vulgar card scandal in his very presence--he struck the titled owner of -the house off the list of his intimates forthwith, and then forgot about -it and him. Not the colonel of the famous regiment, who found out -defalcations in the funds belonging to the mess, a few days after, and -knew why his most promising young officer had done the unforgiveable -thing--for the Ashanti spears ended life and memory for him out on the -African plains, before even Piccadilly had made an end of talking. Not -the Royal Yacht Squadron--the reported loss of the famous _Paquita_ at -sea, with her disgraced owner on board, is a tale that even the oldest -_habitue_ of Cowes could not tell you to-day.... No one remembers. When -the beautiful white schooner spread her wings below the castle wall, and -beat her way like a frightened butterfly out to the stormy sea, she -sailed away in silence, and she and hers were known no more. - -Yet, but for that stormy day in the Highlands, and the boat that fled to -sea, these tales of far-off lands had never been told. - - - - - *CHAPTER I* - - *THE PEARL LAGOON* - - -"Where's the old man?" - -"Old man drunk," replied Vaiti indifferently. She had learned to play -"The Maiden's Prayer," maltreat three European languages, and cultivate -a waist in her Tahitian convent school. But that was five years ago -now, and Vaiti's "papalangi" verbs had dropped from her quite as soon, -and as naturally, as her "Belitani" stays. - -"Why can't he wake up and give us an observation?" commented the mate -indignantly. "It would be hard if a man mightn't enjoy himself in port; -but we're four days out now, and he's as bad as ever, lyin' all the time -on the settee like a----" - -"You better mind too much what you say my father!" Vaiti had set one -shapely olive hand on the deck, and sprung to her feet like a -flying-fish making a leap. She was taller than the sturdy, red-haired -mate, as she stood up on the poop, her bare feet well apart, her white -muslin loose gown swelling out as she leaned to the roll of the steamer, -and her black-brown eyes, deep-set under fine brows as straight as a -ruler, staring down the blue eyes of the man. - -"Very sorry, I'm sure; no offence meant," said the mate humbly. "But we -want an observation, and he ain't no good. Why, you know as well as me -that he'll be like this, off and on, all the voyage now; we've both of -us seen it before." - -Vaiti stamped her bare feet on the deck. - -"I know--I know! I try all the way from Apia wake him up--no good! I -tell you, Alliti"--the mate's name, Harris, usually took this form in -the pigeon-English of Polynesia--"this very bad time for him to get -'quiffy. Too much bad time. Never mind. Get the sextan'. I take sun -myself." - -The mate ran down the companion and into the cabin, where the captain's -six feet two of drunken ineptitude sprawled over most of the space -available for passing. He stopped for a moment to look at the heavy, -unconscious face--a handsome face, with the remains of refinement about -it; for Captain Saxon had been a gentleman once, and his name (which was -certainly not Saxon then) had appeared among the lists of "members -deceased" in the annual reports of all the best London clubs of the -'seventies.... Why Saxon died, and why he came to life again in the -South Pacific some years later, is a tale that need not be told, even if -it is guessed. Many such substantial ghosts roam the South Seas -unexorcised--many a man whose name adorns a memorial tablet, guarded by -weeping marble angels, on the walls of some ivied English Church, is -busy conferring a peculiar fitness upon the occupation of those guardian -seraphs, down among "The Islands," where he and the devil may do as they -please. - -"'Og!" observed the mate, as he passed through to the captain's cabin, -and fetched out the sextant. "'Alf-caste or quarter-caste, Vaiti's too -good a daughter for him, by the length of the mainmast and the mizzen -together. She's got all his brains--Lord, how she learned navigation -from him, like a cat lapping up milk, when she set her mind to it!--and -none of his villainy. At least----" The mate paused on the companion, -and filled his pipe. - -"At least----" he repeated, and broke off the remark unfinished. - -"Sun coming out nice now," he said, handing the sextant to the girl. -Vaiti made her observation with the ease of an old sea-captain, and went -below to work it out. It was true, as Harris said, that she had plenty -of brains, though they did not lie along the lines of "The Maiden's -Prayer" and Dr. Smith's English Grammar. And, whatever the legal status -of poor derelict Saxon, or the mate, might be, no one who had ever -climbed the side of the schooner _Sybil_ could doubt the obvious fact -that the real commanding officer of that vessel was Vaiti herself. - -"What d'ye make it?" asked the mate, looking over her shoulder. Vaiti, -always sparing of her words, pointed to the figures. Harris whistled. - -"Ain't we off our course, just!" he said, drawing his finger down the -chart. - -"No," said Vaiti. - -"Why, hang it all, Cap"--the girl was accorded the title, half in fun, -half through habit, a good deal oftener than her father--"we ain't -making for the Delgada reefs, are we? I don't pretend to be any -navigator, but I do know the course for Papeete." - -"What you think not matter," said Vaiti, rolling up the chart. "Make -him eight bell. You go take wheel; I ki-ki [dinner], then I take him." - -"What's the course?" demanded the mate eagerly. - -"Nor'-west by west," answered Vaiti, going into her cabin, and slamming -the door against Harris's open-mouthed questions. - -An Aitutaki boy with a chain of red berries in his hair, and a scarlet -and yellow "pareo" (kilt) for all clothing, brought up the dinner. -Vaiti ate her meal alone, and then came on deck to take over the wheel, -keeping a determined silence that Harris hardly cared to break.... And -yet--Nor'-west by west, with the wind fair for distant Papeete, and the -deadly Delgadas lying about a quarter point off their present course, -not ten miles away! - -"She's a hard case, bo'sun," he remarked to that official as they sat -down together. "She has me fair scared with the course she's steering; -and yet, you may sling me over the side in a shotted hammock for the -sharks'es ki-ki, if she don't know a lot more than the old man himself. -Ain't she a daisy, too! Look at her there 'olding the wheel, as upright -as a cocoanut palm, and as pretty and plump as a--as a----" - -"Porker," concluded the bo'sun, pouring an imperial pint of tea into his -mug. - -"You ain't got no poetry in you," said the mate disgustedly. - -"Nor nothing else," growled the bo'sun. "Ain't you going to help that -curry, and give a man something to put in his own inside after stowing -the whale-boat full of beef and biscuits?" - -"The whale-boat? (That's plenty, bo'sun; I've got to live as well as -you)." - -"Ay, biscuits, beef, and water; compass and sextant. She give the order -a while ago." - -"What's in the wind now?" - -"I don't ask questions, so I'm never told no lies." - -"I do, though," said the mate, in a spasm of authority, deserting his -dinner to spring up the companion and join Vaiti at the wheel. The -bo'sun's mahogany face broke up into a score of curving wrinkles, and -his shoulders shook a little, as he watched the scene on deck. Quite -mechanically he transferred the rest of the curry to his plate, and -while clearing the dish with the precision of a machine, kept an eye on -the couple at the wheel. He saw Harris ask an eager question, and -repeat it more eagerly. He saw Vaiti jerk a brief answer, and the mate -speak again. Then he saw the girl swing round on her heel, lift one -slender hand, and bring it down across Harris's cheek with an emphasis -that left a crimson mark upon the polished brown. He saw the mate take -a step forward, and look at the handsome helmswoman as though he were -very much minded to pay back the correction after the manner of man in -general where a pretty vixen is concerned. The two figures stared at -each other, eye to eye, for a full minute. Vaiti's brown eyes, keen as -twin swords, never wavered; her lip was insolent and unrelenting. The -mate's half-angry, half mischievous expression dissolved into an -embarrassed grin; then he turned tail and hurried down the hatch. - -"She's a tigress in 'uman form," he declared. "If the old man--or any -other--was to lay 'is little finger on me--but there! who cares what a -scratchin' cat does? I'd as soon marry a shark--I would!" - -"You've as much chance," granted the bo'sun. - -"Talk of sharks!" said the mate, gazing ruefully at the table and the -empty dish. - -Some two hours later, a milky gleam on the port bow attracted the mate's -attention as he stood on the poop. A Kanaka sailor had just taken the -wheel, and Vaiti was below. - -"Breakers on the port bow!" sang out Harris. - -Vaiti was up in a minute. - -"I t'row water on my father's head," she said coolly--"but no good; he -too much sick, he see snake by and by, I think. You and Oki carry him -into him cabin, and come back pretty quick. I see this t'rough myself." - -"See _what_?" demanded the mate, on the last verge of frenzy. - -"Not know myself yet," answered Vaiti, giving one of her rare laughs. -She seemed in a very good humour for once. - -When the mate came out a little later, and the sailor went back to the -neglected wheel, Vaiti was standing by the whale-boat, wearing an air of -perfect self-possession and a complete suit of her father's white ducks. -The sight was no novelty to Harris, but it came upon him now, as -usually, with a new shock of admiration. - -"Isn't she an outrighter!" he observed to the unsympathetic bo'sun. - -"She certainly is, if outrighter's French for an undacent young woman," -replied that officer sourly. Harris did not hear him, for the -significance of the morning's mystery had just burst on his mind. He -had not spent ten years in the Pacific for nothing and the sight of Tai, -a diver from Penrhyn, standing beside Vaiti, with a water-glass in his -hand, spelt "pearl-shell" to the eyes of the mate as clearly as if the -magic word had been printed in letters three feet long. Vaiti flashed -her white teeth at him. - -"Tai, me, three boys, we go into lagoon," she said. "Suppose somethings -happen, you find course for Apia written out, cabin table; you take ship -back, put captain in hospital." - -"By ----, but you're a corker, Vaiti!" cried Harris admiringly. -"Where'd you hear anything about the Delgadas? No ship goes near them -that can help it; they're a regular ocean cemetery." - -"You 'member officer from gun-boat, Apia?" - -"Ay!" said Harris. He did remember the lad, and the rather inexplicable -friendliness shown him by Saxon and Vaiti during the stay in port of the -_Alligator_. - -"He show me photo Delgadas. _Alligator_ he been go all round him, mark -him right for chart, because he all wrong. Officer give my father -bearings; say plenty talk and show photo. He dam fool officer, I think; -he not know that kind place mean pearl-shell, and we not tell anything." - -Harris mounted the rigging, and surveyed the reef from the main -cross-trees. It was the best part of a mile away; a creaming circle of -foam on the sea's blue surface, enclosing a pallid spot of green. -Vaiti, who had followed him, flung one arm round the mast, and, leaning -outwards towards the horizon, surveyed the reef intently. Within that -ring of foam--the grave of many a gallant ship that had sailed the fair -Pacific as bravely as their own little schooner--might lie many -thousands of pounds. The repurchase of the _Sybil_, once Saxon's sole -property, now partly owned by a trading syndicate; the regaining of her -captain's lost position in decent society--perhaps the realisation of -half a hundred luxurious dreams, dreamed on coral beaches under the -romance-breeding splendours of the tropic moon--all this, and more, hung -on the chances of the next few hours. - -There was silence for the space of a minute or two, as the man and woman -swung between earth and heaven, staring across the sun-dazzled plain of -sea. Then, in one instant, the dream broke, and the rainbow fragments of -that bubble of glory scattered themselves east and west. For across the -bar of the level horizon slipped a small, pointed, pearl-coloured sail, -growing as they watched it, flying past, and heading all too surely for -the Delgadas reef. - -Vaiti flung herself round a backstay, and slid down to the deck, with a -word on her lips that would have justified the bo'sun's recent judgment, -could he have caught it. Harris followed, swearing fully and freely. It -was evident to both that the newcomer had special business with the reef -as well as themselves; and they wasted no time, acting in concord, and -without dispute, after a fashion that was new on board the _Sybil_. -Within half an hour they had reduced the distance between the ship and -the reef to a quarter of a mile; nearer than that even Vaiti did not -care to go, for the weather looked unsettled, though the wind was off -the reef. The whale-boat, with a picked crew, was lowered, and sent -flying towards the break in the reef, while the mate, burning to be in -her, but conscious that his duty must keep him on the ship, paced -excitedly up and down the deck, glass in hand, watching the advance of -the stranger ship from time to time. She was a good two hours' sail -away as yet; and surely first possession was worth something, even out -here in the lawless South Seas! - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - *A RACE FOR A FORTUNE* - - -Before an hour was over, the wind had freshened considerably, and the -mate began to feel anxious for the safety of the boat, in case he should -be obliged to run for it from the neighbourhood of the treacherous reef. -That Vaiti would return an instant sooner because of the threatening -weather he did not expect, knowing the dare-devil recklessness of her -character too well. It was certain, however, that he might lose the -ship, and incidentally himself, by waiting too long; and it was equally -certain that Saxon, once recovered, would put a bullet through his -mate's head if Vaiti came to harm. And all the time that threatening -sail was growing larger and larger. - -It was an unspeakable relief, though no less of a surprise, when he saw -that the boat was actually heading towards the ship again, the sail up -and every oar hard at work. He did not remember having seen Tai go -down, in any of his hurried inspections through the glass, and the time -was certainly short. What did it all mean? - -The meaning became sufficiently clear as soon as the boat approached the -ship, but not through the medium of eye or ear. A strong stench of -rotting fish struck the mate's nostrils almost before the boat was -within hail, and instantly enlightened him. No one who has ever smelt -the terrible smell of the pearl-oyster removed from its ocean bed, and -left to putrefy in a tropical sun, can mistake the odour. Harris -understood at once that the strange ship had been there before, and that -Vaiti was bringing back a sample of the last catch, left out to rot -during the vessel's temporary absence. - -The _Sybil_ was leaping dangerously when the boat came alongside, but -Vaiti snatched at the lowered rope, and swung herself up over the -bulwarks before any of the native crew. Tai, following her, brought a -sack of hideously smelling carrion, and dumped it down on the deck. The -mate's eyes glistened. - -"I find great lot lying on reef," said Vaiti, with an apparent calmness -that might have deceived any one who knew her less accurately than the -mate. "I think been there two week. C'lismas Island, he one week away, -good weather. Papalangi C'lismas Island belong plenty diving gear. You -see?" - -"Rather!" said Harris gloomily. "Game up, eh?" - -"I think you no man at all," spat Vaiti suddenly, swinging into the -cabin. Harris, not especially put out, gave a hand to hauling in the -boat, remarking to the bo'sun, who was picking over the heap of decaying -pearl-shell, "Don't know as one could say the same about her, lump of -solid devilment that she is! But this looks like the end of all our -'opes, as they say in the plays; don't it?" - -In a minute or two Vaiti appeared again, wearing a dignified muslin gown -with three frills on its tail, and holding a chart in her hands. She -eyed the horizon narrowly, and ordered the ship to be put about, a -manoeuvre which headed the _Sybil_ straight for the oncoming sail. It -was now evident that the stranger ship was a schooner of some eighty or -ninety tons, rather larger than the _Sybil_, and nearly as fast. No one -on board had the smallest doubt of her mission, even had that rotting -heap of shell not been there to offer evidence. Pearl-shell lagoons, -with their shell worth L100 to L200 per ton, and their pearls (if any -are found, which is not always certain) worth a fortune for half a -handful, are the gold mines of the South Sea world; the very birds of -the sea seem at times to carry the news of such a discovery, and spread -it far and wide. - -The _Sybil_ gathered way, and sped fast towards the stranger ship. The -sea was blackening and rising, but there was not very much wind as yet. -Vaiti sat cross-legged on the deck, studying her chart in the waning -light of the gusty afternoon. It was some minutes before she laid it -down and stood up to speak, steadying herself with one hand against the -deck-house, for the schooner was now rolling heavily. - -"Alliti," she said, "suppose you got heart one small fowl inside you, I -get captain's Winchester, my levolver, you and bosun's levolver, and we -send that people Davy Jones, or go ourself, pretty quick. But you not -got heart, though you big man, and old man he all time sick. Now, you -listen too much what I tell you. You run alongside ship, you go on -board. You say captain sick, no one take sun, we get off course, nearly -wreck on Delgadas. Then you ask captain give bearings reef, and you look -at him chart too much careful, see if this line mark--here." - -She put the point of her small forefinger on the chart she held, and -showed two or three newly-ruled lines in red ink, enclosing a large -space east and south of Samoa. These were the boundaries of the area -lately annexed by New Zealand, and she was exceedingly anxious to know -if the stranger knew as much about the significance of that matter as -she did. - -"Then," she went on, "you ask him if he been Wellington, say we wanting -news----" - -"What the (adjective noun) for?" demanded the mate. - -"Because I say, pauki!" (pig) flashed Vaiti. "No!--you got head of pig, -heart of fowl. You bo'sun, you know I get you through this all right, -suppose you trusting me--you come here." - -Harris, shaking his great shoulders in an easy laugh, swung down on to -the main deck, and began ordering about the crew. He had an enormous -admiration for Vaiti, even when she boxed his ears, but he thought her -special peculiarities of character rather a trying obstacle in the way -of his enjoying the easy life beloved of South Sea mates. - -The acidulous bo'sun rose from his seat on deck, holding out an unclean -palm, in the midst of which glittered two fine pearls. - -"I've been through that little lot, and got these, which do look like -biz, ma'am," he observed. "As to people havin' fowls' hearts, or pigs' -heads, I'm not prepared to pass judgment. But I don't own to neither -myself, and if you say it's a fight, a fight it is. Or if you've got a -better plan in that uncommon level 'ead of yours, I'm ready to stand -by." - -"You something like a man," pronounced the commanding officer in the -muslin skirt. "You listen. I tell him all again." - - * * * * * - -An hour later the bo'sun, very wet and draggled, climbed over the -bulwarks of the _Sybil_, and the schooner _Margaret Macintyre_, of -Sydney, slipped behind into the falling dusk. - -"Said he was thirteen weeks out from Sydney, ma'am," reported the -ambassador. "Four weeks out from Apia, gettin' copra round here and -there, and there wasn't no Wellington news anywhere, as he remembered. -Nice new chart, with no lines of that kind ruled on it anywhere. As to -where he got the divin' gear that was in the cabin, or what kind of -copra he reckoned to pick up on the Delgadas, he didn't say, not bein' -asked." - -Vaiti stood still to consider, a beautifully poised black silhouette -against the yellow oblong of the lamp-lit cabin door. - -"I think it all right; he not been near Wellington," she pronounced at -last. "Alliti! How her head?" - -"Sou'-west by south," answered the mate from the wheel. - -"Keep her so." - -"Ay, ay, sir!" laughed the mate. - - * * * * * - -Every one in the South Pacific knew that the _Sybil_ was a marvel of -speed, and that she had not been originally built for trading, though -nobody could tell exactly how Saxon had acquired such a clipper. It was -a popular theory that she was a millionaire's yacht from San Francisco, -which he had stolen and subsequently disguised. He was known, however, -to have possessed her for more than twenty years, and was now as -completely identified with her as her own mainmast; so that any doubts -as to the honesty of the way by which he might originally have obtained -her were now of a purely academic nature. - -Famous as she was for speed, the record of her passage from the Delgadas -to Wellington fairly astonished the Islands, when it came to be told. -They had a fair wind almost all the way, with two or three lively nights -when the little vessel, hard driven under the utmost pressure of the -canvas, piled up the knots like a liner. Saxon continued delirious, but -was fortunately quiet. Harris, and Gray the boatswain, though -unenlightened as to the cause of the _Sybil's_ sudden southward flight, -fully understood that the possession of the pearl lagoon hung in the -balance, and worked like half-a-dozen to supplement the efforts of the -scanty Kanaka crew. - -Vaiti interfered little with the working of the ship, but she kept a -look-out that hardly left her time for sleep or food; although the -_Sybil_, like most Pacific ships, was allowed, under ordinary -circumstances, to chance it, day and night. Hour after hour she sat -cross-legged on deck, watching the unbroken rim of the black horizon, or -paced up and down the poop, silent and grave, in her lace and muslin -fripperies, as a naval officer on the bridge. What she was looking for -no one knew, but during that wild ten days of foam and smother, cracking -sails and straining sheets, her silent watchfulness infected the men -themselves, and eyes were constantly turned to scan the empty, seething -plain over which they flew. - -It was drawing on towards dusk of the tenth day, and the sky was -beginning to light fires of angry copper-purple, high in the -storm-driven west, when Vaiti, of a sudden, stopped dead in her endless -walk, and looked with lips apart and eyes narrowed deep beneath her -brows over the weather rail. All this time they had not sighted a -single sail or a solitary funnel. They had been well off the track of -New Zealand bound ships, and the Pacific waters are wide. But now they -were drawing near to Wellington, and there was nothing to be astonished -at in the sight of another sail creeping up over the horizon, except, -indeed, the fact that it was momentarily growing larger and gaining on -the _Sybil_. There was scarce another schooner afloat from New Guinea to -the Paumotus that could have done as much. - -The mate came up behind Vaiti, and handed her a glass. She looked -through it, lowered it, raised it, and looked again with a steady gaze, -and suddenly flung it out of her hand across the deck. - -Harris caught it deftly and asked, with the constitutional calm that -alone saved his reason when Vaiti took over command, "What's to pay -now?" - -"She got auxiliary," said Vaiti, with a note of agony in her voice. - -"What if she has? Isn't any vessel free to carry an auxiliary that can -stand the stink of the oil and the cussedness of the injin?" - -"I go see captain," said Vaiti, flashing down the companion. - -Saxon was better to-day, and almost in full possession of his senses. -Vaiti went to the medicine chest; took out a hypodermic syringe, filled -it with careful accuracy from a tiny dark blue bottle, and lifted her -father's arm as he lay limp and weak, but mending fast, in his bunk. - -"Good girl, take care of your old father," he murmured in island Maori -as she slipped the needle-point painlessly under the skin, and the -powerful drug began to race through every vein of the inert body. The -effect was rapid and decisive. Saxon sat up against his pillows in five -minutes, clear-headed though weak, and asked if the _Sybil_ had not -sighted the Delgadas yet. - -"Listen, father," said Vaiti, speaking fluently in the low, soft tongue -that the two had used together all her life--the Maori language Saxon -had first learned from the pretty brown girl, dead this many years, whom -he had stolen from her South Sea island to sail the blue Pacific at his -side in the days of long ago. "Listen. There is little time, and we are -in great need. We came to the reef, and the shell was there truly, but -a strange ship had been before us. Even as we lay there she returned -from Christmas Island with diving gear. I sent Gray on board to look at -her chart and find out if she had been to Wellington; and it seemed that -she had not the new line of annexation marked on the chart, where New -Zealand this year added to herself all that lay within a certain space -of the sea; also she had not been south of Auckland. So then, knowing -that we, if we asked the Government, might have the atoll granted us for -twenty years and take possession above the people of the other ship, I -made sail for Wellington; and we are now but one day away when this ship -appears again, chasing us. Where the suspicion has waked in their -hearts, or when, is nothing; but that they have thought and discovered -our desire, that is certain." - -"Give the _Sybil_ all sail, daughter, and she will leave the other. -What is this talk?" asked Saxon, raising himself on his elbow to look -out of the glooming circle of the port. - -"But the ship has 'auxiliary,' my father, and she will have passed out -of sight before the morning." - -"Oh, she has, has she?" grunted the captain, dropping back into his -native tongue. "What are you going to do about it?" - -He had noted a glimmer in Vaiti's eye that told him that she was not yet -at the end of her resources. The Maori guile and the English daring -were united to some purpose in this strange creature that he had given -to the world. - -"I will tell," she said, standing up to her full height. "But you must -give the order, my father, for Alliti drags on the rein these days. Let -the bale of trawl-net, and the Manila rope, be taken from the cargo, and -let us cross the bows of this ship, and drop them across her path. The -keel will run clean, but the screw will foul, and they will creep like a -bird with a broken wing till daylight. Then, if the sea has grown less, -they will send down a diver and clear the screws; but we shall be almost -into Wellington, and the lagoon is ours." - -"You are worthy to be the daughter of a brave man," answered Saxon in -Maori, sinking back wearily on his pillow. "Go, then; and if we lose -the ship, we lose her; there is great wealth to gain, and a man must die -at one time, if not another. I am tired. I will sleep." - -Vaiti left him, and hurried back on deck. The purple dusk was already -beginning to gather, and the green starboard light of the _Margaret -Macintyre_ gleamed like a glow-worm a mile or so behind. She was -drawing very near; there was no time to lose. - -"Alliti!" called Vaiti. "My father he better; he send word to take -trawl-net and Malila out of hold, make come across that ship him path, -foul him sclew. Suppose you not afraid, you bring us close, drop net and -Malila." - -Harris's hide was thick, but Vaiti knew how to pierce it when she chose; -and the man had courage enough, in streaks. Vaiti had hit the mark when -she called him chicken-hearted in fighting, but there was no manoeuvre -of the ship too risky for him to undertake and carry through with -perfect coolness. - -"All right, my lady," he nodded. "Don't forget me and Gray when it -comes to sharing out the swag, that's all." - -The net and the rope were brought up, and the latter knotted here and -there to make a hideous tangle of it. Then the _Sybil's_ lights were put -out, even the cabin lamp being extinguished. The stars pricked -themselves out in sudden sharpness on the great blue chart of heaven -above, and the waste of dark rolling water all around grew large and -lonely. - -You are not to suppose that Saxon's daughter did not see and feel these -things--did not hear the voiceless talk of the great seas on starry -evenings, or feel her mortal body almost rapt away in the ecstasy of a -black midnight and a shrieking storm; just as you, perhaps, who think -that no one ever shared such experiences with yourself, may feel. It is -not only the blameless tourist, with his daily diary, and his books of -travel teaching him how and when to "enthuse," who enjoys the splendid -pageant of the seas. Vaiti, as the most indulgent chronicler must -confess, had more than a spice of her father's villainy in her -composition, not to speak of whatever devilry her Maori forebears might -have bequeathed to her. She was unscrupulous, ruthless, and crafty as a -general rule; she was engaged in a deed of the very shadiest description -to-night--yet, as she stood with her hands on the wheel, and her eyes on -the green starboard light of the oncoming ship, steering the _Sybil_ to -something extremely like certain destruction, she knew that the Southern -Cross was rising, clear and beautiful, above its gem-like pointers, just -ahead; and that a little sliver of young moon, crystal-silver against -the dark, was slipping up the sky to her left. The thought just grazed -her mind that this might be the last time the moon would ever rise over -the Pacific for her. She smiled a little in the dusk, and steered -steadily ahead. There were no "streaks" in the composition of Vaiti's -spirit. - -A short tack to the starboard became necessary. Harris put the ship -about at a lift of Vaiti's hand. It grew very dark; a cloud was over -the moon, and the stars were dimmed by driving vapour. The wind was -increasing; the schooner lay over with its weight, and the foam gurgled -along her clean-ran sides. Still the _Margaret Macintyre_ came on, -stately and unsuspicious, all sail set, and the beat of the little screw -distinctly audible through the night. - -Vaiti signalled again to put the ship about, and as soon as the great -booms had creaked across the deck. gave over the wheel to Harris. - -"Run him just as he head now," she said softly, "and bring him too much -close; so (double adjective) close to ship he scrape the (qualified) -paint off him. I go do rest." - -Harris, humming "Good-bye, Dolly Gray," took the wheel over. If he had -any doubts as to Vaiti's purpose, the vigour of her language would have -dispersed them. Vaiti never swore unless she was exceedingly in -earnest. - -The trawl-net and the tangle of Manila were hanging over the stern, held -up by a single rope. Vaiti glided to the rail, holding a sharp knife in -her hand--("I always _did_ think she kept one somewhere among her -frilligigs," commented Harris silently, as he caught the flash of the -steel)--and waited, still as a statue. - -Presently out of the darkness shot a hail, accompanied by a perfect -constellation of oaths. Its apparent object was to ascertain the -_Sybil's_ reason for steering such a course. The _Sybil_ answered not a -word, but steered the course some more. - -The hail, at the second time of repeating, became a yell, with a strong -note of terror in it. On came the _Sybil_, a dim, unlit tower of -blackness, taking as much notice of the shouts as the _Flying Dutchman_. -Those on board the _Margaret Macintyre_ gave themselves up for lost. -There was even a rush made for one of the boats. But the threatening -shape swept past her bows, so near that the furious captain could have -tossed a biscuit on board--so near that the _Sybil's_ Kanaka crew, -thinking the "papalangi" officers meant to ram the stranger, uttered -war-cries wherein pure delight was mingled with overjoyed surprise. - -It was all over in a minute, and the _Sybil_ was well away on the -_Margaret Macintyre's_ port side before the latter vessel discovered, -through the medium of a horrible jar from the engine-room and a powerful -odour of oil, that the screw was badly fouled, leaving them, like St. -Paul with nothing to do but make the best of circumstances, and "wish -that it were day." - - * * * * * - -December weather is hot in Wellington, and it was now close to -Christmas. Perhaps that was why the senior member of the trading firm -that had taken over part ownership of the _Sybil_ for an unpaid debt -thought his eyes were deceived by the glare of the sun when he saw a -white schooner of singularly graceful lines lying alongside one of the -wharves on a date when her engagements plainly demanded her presence in -Tahiti. - -When, however, he met Saxon and his daughter, a few minutes afterwards, -on Lambton Quay, he understood that his eyes were in excellent order. -So, it soon appeared, was his tongue. He was a gentleman of Scottish -extraction, and it hurt him badly to see possible profits thrown away. - -Saxon let him have his say, and merely laughed for answer. - -"Come into the Occidental, and Vaiti and I'll tell you something worth -all the trade that you'd take out of Papeete in ten years," he said. -"I'm going to own the ship again before New Year's Day, and paint this -good old town scarlet as well. You'll see." - -And the man of money-bags, anxious to see, went into the hotel. - -Vaiti, in a fit of perversity, declined to come in. She knew only too -well that, in Saxon's impecunious condition, there was no hope of -getting their discovery effectively worked save at a price that would -leave very little change over for the present possessors of the -lagoon--even if the captain had been quite sober, which he was not. -They had got the grant, and had furthermore had the satisfaction of -noting that, day after day, Wellington Harbour remained empty of the -hardly-used _Margaret Macintyre_. It was evident that her people, -whoever they were, had tamely accepted defeat. There was no standing -against a grant from the Government of New Zealand--no matter how -acquired. But all this did not alter the fact that there was not going -to be a great deal for the _Sybil_, and her captain, and her captain's -daughter--especially the latter. It was there that the sting lay. -Vaiti had had dreams--oh, but dreams! oh, such dreams! before solid -common-sense had brought her down to earth, and made her realise that -Saxon's unlucky state, and the eminently Scottish firm who held the -destinies of the _Sybil_ in their hands, were quite certain to stand in -the way of realisation. To make a fortune, you must first have one, -generally speaking. And it was the canny Glasgow men who had it. - -So, because she did not want to hear with her own ears what she knew -very well must take place, she refused to come into the hotel, and -wandered off alone down the quays, in the warm December sun, which yet -was cool compared to the burning heats of the island world. She was -dressed in a long, waistless muslin gown, as usual, but her shady Niue -hat and white deck shoes--not to speak of a pair of kid gloves that -caused her horrible discomfort and a parasol that embarrassed her -extremely--spoke of a respect for certain of the conventions that might -have astonished people who knew, or thought they knew, Vaiti of the -Islands. Of course, the loungers on the quays looked admiringly after -her--she would have liked to see them dare to omit that tribute to her -fiery charms--and some of them freely spoke to her, calling her Mary and -Polly, offering her hearts and drinks and new bonnets, and asking her -for kisses or jobs on the schooner, just as it occurred to them, after -the simple fashion of the sea. Some of them knew her, and some of them -did not. It was the latter who asked for jobs. The men who did know -the _Sybil_ and her "Kapitani" asked for kisses, which they did not -expect to get. That was safer. - -Vaiti, quite accustomed to this sort of demonstration, and enjoying it -in a languid way as she strolled along under the annoying parasol, -covered half a mile or so of the quay at her own leisurely pace, and -then sat down on a coil of rope in a quiet place, to stare across the -water and think. - -She wanted something, and she did not see her way to get it. - -To disentangle the dreams and hopes, wild fancies, and wilder -aspirations of the half-caste mind when that mind, puzzling and elusive -enough to the pure white in any case, is further complicated with a -touch of genius, would be a task worthy of a whole academy of science. -This much alone can the necessarily all-knowing biographer of Vaiti -say--that she wanted to be someone, and wanted it so badly that nothing -else in life seemed worth having, or even existent, She was a princess -of Atiu on her mother's side, and on her father's (though Saxon's past -was as much a mystery as the origin of the yacht-like _Sybil_ herself) -Vaiti felt that she had every right to claim high standing. - -Doubly dowered, therefore, with the instinct of rule, the actual command -of the schooner had fallen into her capable hands quite naturally. Left -to herself, she would probably have made the _Sybil_ pay in a way -unknown before to the easy-going island world. But the useless, -dissipated Saxon had to be counted on. She liked him in her own way, -such as it was, but she despised him also. And it was an undoubted fact -that he hampered everything. This bargain with M'Coy and Co., for -instance--it was useless for her to attempt to put a finger on it. -Saxon had got drunk the night before, as soon as the matter of the grant -had been finally decided, at the end of some anxious days of waiting; -and in the morning the numerous "hairs" that he had taken to restore him -had left him in a condition of hopeless obstinacy and self-sufficiency. -In such a state he was as certain to be over-reached as a stranded -jelly-fish is certain to be licked up by the sun. And this was bitter -to Vaiti. - -For, sitting there motionless under the parasol (which was serving a -useful purpose at last, in shading her handsome face from observation -and comment by the passers-by), Vaiti had arrived at something rather -like a conclusion, and a conclusion, too, that was likely to shape most -of her thoughts and acts henceforward. - -Money was the thing. - -She did not care for money in itself, and none of the things it could -bring really interested her, except pretty clothes. - -But money was importance, money was power; money was the freedom to do -exactly what you wanted, and make other people do it too. She did not -think it out in words, like a European. Pictures passed before her -mind, more vivid by far than the glittering water and flashing sea-gull -wings in front of her bodily eyes. She saw captains of great ships, -giving orders like kings, and obeyed by the promptest and smartest of -slaves. She saw owners of big stores entertaining half the island on -their verandahs, paid court to by wandering beach-combers, going out to -ships in beautiful boats manned by their own uniformed crews, who bent -their backs double at a word. She saw "Tusitala," of Samoa, the great -English story-teller, living in his splendid house outside Apia, -surrounded by a humble clan of native followers wearing wonderful -lava-lavas of a foreign stuff they called "tatani" (tartan)--Tusitala, -who was as great a chief as Mataafa himself, and had spoken to her, -Vaiti, as one worthy of all honour.... Her pictures were almost all of -the islands, for the islands were in her blood; but something, too, she -saw of Auckland--the merchant M'Coy, old and so ugly, and of the -commonest birth, yet reverenced like the greatest of chiefs, because he -had money.... - -The afternoon rays grew blinding hot on the water as the sun sank down. -The sea-gulls dipped and screamed. Steamers glided away from the -wharves with long hooting cries that somehow seemed to embody all the -melancholy of the homeless sea. Steam cranes chattered ceaselessly -above the yawning holds of discharging ships. Behind, the tramcars -hummed in the street, and people hurried up and down. - -And at last the western sky began to burn with sultry red, and Vaiti -went home. - -Something had taken root in her mind that afternoon that struck down and -shot up, in the days to come, and led her into ways and places wilder -even than the adventure of the pearl lagoon. As children string berries -on a straw, so upon the stem that grew from that seed were strung the -strange events that followed, one by one. - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - *THE FLOWER BEHIND THE EAR* - - -As Vaiti, Cassandra-wise, had prophesied about the pearl lagoon, so -indeed it fell out. - -It takes money to exploit even the smallest discovery of this kind, and -the canny M'Coy made the most of the fact. Delgadas Reef was too risky -a neighbourhood to be worked by any vessel unprovided with an auxiliary -engine, so a cranky little schooner of some forty tons, owning a tiny -oil engine that sometimes worked and sometimes did not--more commonly -the latter--was chartered; also a couple of boats for diving work, and -two sets of diving dresses; and a cheap crew was picked up somewhere, -and some poor provisions laid in. Everything was done on the most -economical scale possible--yet the Scotchman grumbled and lamented, and -declared he would never see his money back. The shares had been fixed -at a wickedly low figure for Saxon and there were, furthermore, clauses -in the agreement concerning expenses which made that unlucky derelict -swear fiercely when he read them after he was sober. It was too late to -complain then, however, for he had signed everything he was asked, under -the influence of the good whisky to which M'Coy--liberal for once--had -freely treated him. Nor did he get any sympathy from Vaiti. She merely -laughed when he complained, and told him frankly that he would have done -better to stay in his cabin and drink there, if he liked, leaving her to -finish what she had begun. - -So the pearling ship sailed off, and Saxon, who could not afford to stay -in port, went another voyage. And some months later, when he came back, -it was to find that Delgadas Reef was cleaned out. It had held not much -after all, said the Glasgow man, and shell was down, and the pearls had -been few and off colour. But there was enough to pay Saxon's debt and -leave him owner and master of the _Sybil_ once more. And there might be -a few pounds in addition--not much; but there, he was an honest man, and -he would rather ruin himself than let Saxon and the charming Miss Vaiti -feel they were badly treated. And if Saxon would kindly sign this paper -releasing him from all further claims, he would be happy to give over -all claim in the ship. Otherwise--money was tight, and that little -matter between them had been owing so long that---- - -Saxon interrupted with a statement to the effect that he knew blank well -he had been blank well had, and for the sum of two sanguinary sixpences -he would be prepared to knock Mr. M'Coy's doubly condemned head off his -unpleasantly qualified shoulders--only, luckily for Mr. M'Coy, he was -sick of him and the like of him, and merely wanted to get out of his way -as soon as he possibly could. With which concise summing up of facts he -signed the paper, picked up the cheque, and went out to spend it after -his own fashion. Vaiti secured half of it at the bank where he cashed -it, and went off with the money done up in her hair, to keep house by -herself on the schooner until her father should turn up again. She knew -him too well to expect that that would come about immediately. - -Meanwhile, there were banks in which she could deposit her own share, -and thus feel herself a step nearer to her goal--that dim, undefined -goal that was to be reached somehow, some time, through the possession -of the precious bits of paper and coin without which all pleasant things -were impossible. She did not decide at once where the money should go, -but hid it in her cabin, and day by day walked the pavements of -Wellington, delighting her eyes with the shop-window beauties which she -had so seldom seen. Thus came her undoing. Vaiti had never heard the -saying, "We are none of us infallible, even the youngest," or she might -have been less certain of herself before it came about, and less bitter -afterwards. - -For was it not natural that when Saxon unexpectedly reappeared at the -Constantinople Hotel with a good deal of his money still left, and sent -for Vaiti to join him and "live like a lady while she could," the -improvident island blood should all unbidden well up and smother -everything else? Why go on? There are shops in Wellington--there are -as many ways of getting fifteen shillings' worth out of a sovereign, and -repeating the process a great deal oftener than one means, as in any -other of the world's big ports.... The end was that, after ten -delirious days of glorious spending. Captain Saxon and his daughter set -sail for Tahiti with a general cargo, a complete set of empty pockets -between them, and, on the part of Vaiti, a glad remembrance more than -half stifled by angry regret for the cost. Yet, and yet, what a lovely -thing money was, and what a pity that one could not both spend and keep -it! If you did the one, you were happy, but no one thought anything of -you. If you did the other, everyone paid court to you, but you didn't -get the fun. Yes, that was true of money--and of other things. Girls -who had been brought up at convent schools understood a lot that the -ignorant beach girls didn't.... And, _bon Dieu!_ as they used to say in -Papeete, when the Sisters couldn't hear--what a headache it gave her to -think, and what a fool she was to do it! - -"Ruru!" she called in Maori to a native sleeping peacefully on the deck. -"Wake up, pig-face, son of a fruit-bat, and make me kava immediately. I -am weary." - - * * * * * - -It was many weeks after, and the hot season had come round once more. - -The schooner was slamming helplessly about on a huge glassy swell. -Everything on board that could rattle, rattled; everything in the cabins -that could break loose and take charge, did so, sending up a melancholy -chorus of crashes with every wallow of the ship. The great mizzen sail -slatted about above the poop, offering and then instantly withdrawing a -promise of cooling shade, in a manner that was little short of -maddening, seeing that the hour was three o'clock, and the latitude not -four degrees south. Friday Island looking like a small blue flower on -the rim of a crystal dish, hovered tantalisingly on the extreme verge of -the horizon, as unattainable as Sydney Heads or heaven. For the _Sybil_ -was becalmed, a week's from anywhere in particular, and there seemed no -chance of a breeze. - -"Lord," said the mate, dropping the marlinspike with which he was -splicing a rope, and mopping his forehead with his rolled-up sleeve, "I -wonder 'ow many thousand miles we are from an iced beer!" - -"Turtle!" said Vaiti, taking a slim brown cigar out of her mouth, and -looking down from her seat on the top of the deck-house. "Only nine -hundred and eighty-seven. You not remember Charley's in Apia?" - -"I'd forgotten Samoa," said Harris, in a more cheerful tone, picking up -the marlinspike, and going to work again, as if revived by Vaiti's -arithmetic. - -"A miss is as good as a mile, for all me, specially when it's nine -hundred mile," remarked the gloomy boatswain. "Couldn't you manage to -talk about something rather less 'arrowing to a man's insides?" - -"I'd like to know why she's going skull-huntin' to Friday Island, then," -said the mate, casting a cautious glance at Vaiti, who was scarcely out -of ear-shot, up on the deck-house. - -"Trade I can understand," he went on, "and shell-huntin'--we haven't -done too bad all round over that last little job, and the old man's a -sight more sober since he's owned the ship again. But skulls--and old -skulls at that--filthy natives' bones that's been lyin' in the caves -since Heaven knows when! Besides, they ain't our skulls, however you -may look at it----" - -"Nor I hope they won't be," said the boatswain darkly. "In no way, I -mean. The Friday Islanders aren't people to ask out to an afternoon -tea-party without you've got your knuckle-duster on underneath your -voylet kid gloves. And you know what natives are about their old bones -and graves." - -"I do. What I don't know is how she thinks she's going to make anything -out of a proper nasty job like that." - -"Oh, she's on the make, is she!" - -"Did you ever know her anything else, bless her?" asked the mate. "She -wants sixty pounds, havin' spent all the old man give her out of the -shell business in Wellington, takin' boxes at the theaytres and halls, -and buyin' women's gear, and staying at the Constantinople, where she -wore two new 'ats a day for a week; and other games of a similar kind. -Pity you was sick, and not there to see the fun. I tell you, she made -the town look silly." - -"What's the sixty pound for?" asked the boatswain, chewing fondly on his -quid. - -Harris giggled explosively, and whispered: - -"She wants a Dozey dress!" - -"What in ----'s that? It don't sound respectable," virtuously observed -the boatswain, who had never heard of the famous French dressmaker. - -"You bet it is, then. Dozey's a regular bang-up swell in Paris, who -makes the most expensive gownds in the world, and every one in them -parts treats him just the same as a baronight or a duke. You can't get -so much as a jumper from him for less than sixty pound, and Vaiti she -says every woman in Papeete or Aucklan' or Sydney who saw one of his -dresses would spot it right away, and go and throw herself over the -Heads. She read about his things in a piece in one of them female papers -in the hotel, and she saw an actress wearin' of one, and she's been -layin' out to get one ever since, somethin' awful. Seems when a woman -in London, or Paris, or Yarmouth gets a Dozey dress, and takes to -standin' off and on before the others, who's only got new velveteens -with musling frills or such-like it just makes them other women drag -their anchors and run head-on to the shore. So Vaiti, she----" - -"Hold on," interrupted the boatswain. "Why, if she 'ad one of those -gownds, she couldn't bend it on to her yards, not if it cost a million. -Man alive, she ain't laid down on the same lines as them Frenchwomen, -anyway." - -"You let her alone for that," chuckled Harris. "But what beats me is -_who_ she's going to do with them skulls, and _how_. We won't know in a -hurry, either, because she and Pita's fixed it up between them to do the -job alone. Thank 'eaven for small mercies, says I. 'Er on the -war-path's rather more than I care for; and this isn't going to be any -picnic, if I know anything of natives." - -"Pita!" whistled the boatswain. "The old man will 'ave 'is gore before -the voyage is out, if Vaiti goes on like this. It's Ritter, that fat -German trader in Papeete, that he's wanting to marry her to; and as for -natives, it's 'ands off for them, if she is 'alf of one 'erself." - -"Well, she and Pita was planning it all out in the fore-top last night. -I heard them, when she thought I was sleeping on the top of the galley. -And the old man came out and roared at her like a Marquesas bull to come -down; so down she came, laughing at him, like the devil she is. There's -no one else on this ship would laugh, without it was on the wrong side -of his mouth, when the old man gets ratty. Coming! All right!" - -The mate jumped to his feet, and answered Vaiti's sharp hail in person, -a deprecating smile spreading like spilt treacle all over his face as he -came up to her, cap in hand. Vaiti took her cigar out of her mouth, and -looked at him for a minute without speaking. The _Sybil_ rolled on the -towering swell like a captured beast trying to beat its brains out -against a wall, but Saxon's Maori daughter stood as steady as the -slender main-mast upon the reeling deck. Harris smiled more than ever, -and turned the marlinspike about in his hands, looking a little foolish. - -"You wanting Captain Saxon come and lay you out in the scupper pretty -soon?" inquired Vaiti presently. - -"Not particular," answered the mate, the smile sliding slowly off his -face. - -"Then I think perhaps you keep your mouth more better shut," said Vaiti, -walking off with a contemptuous swing in the very fall of her laced -muslin skirts. And Pita of Atiu, as if in defiance of the captain, the -mate, and every one else but his cousin Vaiti, pulled a mouth-organ out -of his shirt and began to play it triumphantly and frantically, making a -noise exactly like the buzzing of a mad bluebottle on a warm -window-pane. Further, he plucked a frangipani flower out of the -wreath--a good deal the worse for wear--that hung round his neck, and -stuck the blossom behind his ear. Now, every one who has ever been in -the Islands knows that these two actions are significant of courtship. -Pita was courting Vaiti, as everybody knew--Pita, a mere deck hand, who -had been taken on at wild Atiu, in the Cook Islands, because he was a -relation of Saxon's dead native wife. Very handsome was Pita, very young -and tall and broad-shouldered, wily and fierce like all the Atiuans, but -smooth and pleasant of countenance. Were not the men of Atiu nicknamed -"meek-faced Atiuans," even in the days, only a generation gone, when -they were the cruellest and most warlike of cannibals and pirates? - -Needless to say, Captain Saxon, who had always had "views" for Vaiti, -ever since she left the Tahitian convent school that had given her such -fragments of civilisation as she possessed, did not favour the -compromising attentions of Pita. As for Vaiti, her father's -prohibitions neither piqued her into noticing the handsome Atiuan more, -nor alarmed her into favouring him less, than she found agreeable. At -present there was rather more than less about the matter, because Saxon -was in one of his fits of gloomy depression, and Vaiti foresaw the usual -result. It was not at all likely that her father would be able to help -her in her forthcoming raid. Harris she did not choose to rely on at a -pinch; Gray was old; the crew were far and away too superstitious to aid -in such a sacrilege as she proposed. There remained Pita, who, if he -was a wild Atiuan, was at least "misinari" after a fashion, had been -educated, more or less, in Raratonga, and was most certainly in love -with herself.... Yes, Pita would do. - -That night, when the second dog-watch had commenced, and a lew large -crystal stars were just beginning to glimmer through the pink of the -ocean sunset, Vaiti descended to the cabin, looked into Gray and -Harris's berths to make sure that they were both on deck, and then sat -down on the cushioned locker opposite her father. - -"What is it?" asked Saxon, raising his heavy blue eyes. He had been -sitting with his head propped in the corner of the cabin, silent as a -fish, since the clearing away of tea an hour before. You might have -thought him asleep, or, if you knew him intimately, drunk. He was -neither; but dead and drowned things were rising up from the black sea -caverns of his heart to-night, and their bones showed white and ghastly -upon the desert shores of his life. So he sat silent, with his face -turned to the darkening porthole and to the night that was striding down -upon the sea. - -Through the port he saw the shining harbour of Papeete as it looked a -week or two ago--a tall grey British war-ship lying at anchor, the -_Sybil's_ dinghy, small and crank and unclean, creeping up to the -man-of-war's accommodation-ladder, himself, a weather-scarred, red-faced -figure, in a worn duck suit and bulging shoes, sitting in the boat, and -waiting patiently until the Governor's steam-launch should have passed -in front of him and discharged its freight of visitors. - -He saw the captain of the great Queen's ship standing at the top of the -ladder, slight and trig and trim, all white and gold from top to toe, -all smiling self-possession and cool command. - -He saw ladies, immaculately coiffed and daintily shod; tall, clean, -grey-moustached men following them; a cordial welcome on the deck; a -flutter of light drapery and a glimpse of lounging masculine figures -afterwards, framed by the great open gun-ports of the captain's cabin in -the stern. They were laughing and talking, and he could hear the clink -of cups and glasses. After--a long time after--he could see his own -shabby little boat creeping up to the ladder; the captain, cold and -business-like, and more than a little brusque, speaking to him on the -deck about a certain anchorage in the Cook Islands group, concerning -which he was known to have information; himself, burningly conscious of -his shoes and his finger-nails, answering shortly and with some -embarrassment, and feeling, of a sudden, very shabby, very broken, very -old.... Was it twenty-five years, or two thousand, since the Admiral of -the Fleet, and the Prince of Saxe-Brandenburg, with half the mess of his -own regiment, had dined on board his biggest yacht at Cowes a week -before--it--happened? ... Now a mere commander left him standing on the -deck, and spoke to him like a native or a dog. Well, what did it all -matter to a dead man? Was not his name of those days carved on the -family monument in letters half an inch deep, and was not he, Edward -Saxon, whom nobody knew, out here in the living death of the farthermost -islands, a thousand miles from anywhere? ... - -"Father," said Vaiti. - -"What is it?" answered Saxon's voice dully, as befitted a dead man. - -"The wind is rising at last," said the girl in Maori, "We shall be off -the island by morning. Will you, or will you not, go with me into this -cave of death, where I have told you that I shall find what is worth -finding?" - -"I have no heart. I will not." - -"Then I and Pita will go," said Vaiti, fixing the Englishman's blue eyes -with her own black, stabbing and savagely unfathomable, yet set in -Saxon's very own narrow high-bred face. - -The captain's dark mood was on him, and he turned his face to the wall, -with a Maori oath consigning Vaiti and Pita to a cannibal end. - -"I go; stay you there," said Vaiti, using the quaintly courteous native -form of farewell, barbed with a little sneer unknown to the original. -Then she went to her cabin. And Saxon turned in his seat, and reached -for the brandy bottle at last. - - * * * * * - -Handsome Pita had a great awe for Vaiti, for she was a princess of Atiu -by her mother's side. But she was beautiful, and he admired her--also -he hoped that her imperious soul harboured one soft spot for him. It -seemed good, on the whole, when they were pulling the dinghy over the -reef next morning, to ask Vaiti openly where the value of the booty came -in--with a secret hope in the background of securing as much as possible -for a certain very deserving, more or less Christian youth of Atiu. - -Vaiti, her white dress girded up high over her scarlet pareo, waded -through the last yard or two of the emerald lagoon before she answered. -The boat being safe on shore, she stood up and looked sharply about her. -They had chosen a quiet spot at the back of the island for landing, all -the natives being down at the harbour loading copra. The weird pandanus -trees, standing on their high wooden stilts at the verge of the shore, -the rustling coco-palms swinging their great fronds far over the water, -the golden and pink-flowered vines trailing yard on yard of green -garlandry over the paper-white sand, could carry no tales, and they were -the only witnesses. - -Vaiti looked at Pita up and down, from head to foot, and Pita gave the -flower behind his ear a knowing cock, and set one hand saucily on his -hip. He knew that he was the handsomest man in the Cook archipelago, -and he felt that the way his pareo was tied that day was a pure -inspiration. So he shut up his mouth very tight, and made play with his -burning black eyes as only a South Sea Islander can, waiting confidently -the while for the information that the whole ship's company of the -_Sybil_ could not have extracted from Vaiti in a week. - -The girl stepped forward, and with a commanding finger tapped Pita's -biggest dimple, as if he had been a baby. - -"Suppose I tell you, then you know too much, you plenty frighten, go -back to ship," she laughed. - -"Speak Maori, high chieftainess!" implored Pita. - -"No fee-ah!" answered Saxon's daughter succinctly. Pita understood at -once that Vaiti was unwilling to use a language that gave free rein to -her tongue and his, and the knowledge elated him. - -"Perhaps I tell you," went on Vaiti, watching him narrowly. "I think -you got heart in belly belong you, more better than Alliti. I tell you, -you want plenty heart by-and-by." - -"High chieftainess, Vaiti, speak Maori!" was Pita's answer, linked to an -attempted embrace that only fell short of its main object because Vaiti -quite calmly pulled a seaman's knife out of her dress and laid it edge -upwards across her lips. Pita, who had learned the real European kiss -during his visits to civilisation, and wanted very much to show it off, -felt disappointed, although there was a smile behind the blade that -almost out-dazzled the steel. - -"Maori!" he persisted, putting his arm round her waist, with a cool -disregard of her well-known readiness with the knife that won Vaiti's -admiration a step further than before. She laughed, wavered, and then, -still playing with the keen, bright blade, she lowered it a little, and -spoke in the soft language of the Islands at last. - -It was a fairly long tale that she had to tell. When last the _Sybil_ -had been in the Society Islands, some weeks before, there had been a -German man of science in the group, collecting native skulls for museums -at home. The grizzly old gentleman and his pursuits had not troubled -Vaiti's mind particularly until her chief admirer, Ritter, a Papeete -trader, happened to drop a remark one day about the amount of money some -of these old skulls were worth. Vaiti's sharp intelligence linked on -the casual saying at once to certain other wandering rumours she -remembered, and she decided to find out something more. She did not ask -Ritter, for he was no talker, even to a handsome girl whom he admired; -and the German was his compatriot, in any case. But when the schooner -reached Raiatea, where Professor Spricht was staying, Vaiti drifted off -among the native huts, and squatted for an hour or two on the mats of -the second chief's wife's mother's cousin's house, smoking a great deal, -talking very little, and listening quietly. By degrees the house filled -up with interested natives all eager for gossip and chatter; and to -Vaiti, pulling steadily at her cigar, and maintaining the grave, -unsmiling demeanour proper to a princess of Atiu and a great Belitani -chieftain's daughter, the drawing out of the secret she wanted was as -easy as spinning sinnet out of cocoanut husk. - -Nothing is private in the Eastern Pacific, and it was not long before -all the professor's personal affairs were tossing about like seaweed on -the flood of general gossip--mostly unfit for publication--that surged -about the apparently uninterested ears of the silent, splendid sea-queen -throned on the pile of pandanus mats.... The Siamani (German) had got -skulls in Niue, in Uea, in Mangaia, and was now collecting them about -the Society group.... He was an ugly, grey-snouted pig to look at, and -rooted in the earth like any pig; still, Taous and Mahina, daughters of -Falani, seemed to think that--(details lost in a heated argument about -the personal characteristics of the ladies).... Anyhow, Vekia from the -hills said he was going to buy her two silk dresses from San Francisco -when he came back from Falaite Island; so he was not as mean as he -looked. Yes, he was going to Falaite Island in a great hurry; he would -not even take time to finish his pig-rooting in Raiatea, on account of -something he had heard from an old man who had once lived up in -Falaite.... What fools the papalangi (whites) were. Did not every one -in the Islands know about the old, old people that used to live on -Falaite, hundreds of moons before the days of Tuti (Cook), and how they -all died, and nobody lived there for very, very long, until some people -wandered up from Niue in Tuti's time; and how the skulls of the old, old -people were still there, buried in a cave that was a hundred miles long, -and guarded by as many devils as would fill twenty war canoes? Of -course, these things were known, and always had been--but when would any -man of Tahiti or Raiatea have thought of such folly as travelling more -than a thousand miles to fight the devils and take away the skulls? -What if they were worth money enough to buy a big schooner, as the old -grey pig had told Vekia when he promised her those dresses? Would a -whole schooner, loaded down with dollars, be any good to a man after the -devils had killed him? Vekia would never get her trade finery, for all -her airs; and Jacky Te Vaka, whose schooner was to be hired to take the -Siamani up to Falaite, would never come back from such a sacrilegious -journey.... Why could he not wait, and go by Kapitani Satoni's schooner -when she made her yearly trip by and by? Every one knew that the -_Sipila_ was under a charm, and no harm could come to any one on board -her. But he would not wait, and just as soon as Jacky's boat came back -from Bora-Bora, next week, they were to go.... Ahi! and Jacky was such -a handsome man--it was a great pity! - -Such was the substance of the information gathered by Vaiti. It -resulted in her ordering the course of the ship to be changed, and -heading direct for Friday Island, instead of going down to Auckland. -Friday Island--out of the way, infertile, uninteresting, and little -known--had been one of Saxon's private preserves for some years. He -touched there once a year, purchased all the copra that the little place -produced at his own price, and paid for it in cheap tinned meat, boxes -of damaged biscuit, and tins of imitation salmon instead of cash. He -seldom went ashore, and certainly did not waste his time cave-hunting, -if he did chance to set foot on the beach. Vaiti, with her odd faculty -for acquiring miscellaneous information, had known since the first time -the _Sybil_ called that there were great caves on the island, and that a -devil of unusual quality and size guarded them. So much might have been -said of a hundred similar islands, however, and she had not troubled -herself about either caves or devils until the German professor's secret -set her on the alert for something that looked like a dangerous, -exciting, and profitable adventure. - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - *THE BLACK VIRI* - - -Moreover, as Harris had said, she had been devoured with desire of a -real Paris dress ever since her stay in the Wellington hotel. There had -been a famous actress there at the same time, and all her garments had -been freely paragraphed in the ladies' column of the local press. When -she swam languidly through the hall of the Constantinople, shining -mystic and wonderful out of a cloud of rainbow silks and chiffons that -had cost a formidable row of figures in the Rue de la Paix, all the -women caught their breath, looked once, and then gazed determinedly out -of the windows, pretending that they had noticed nothing. When she came -in to a late supper, floating in spangled mists and sparkling with -constellations of diamonds, every head was turned her way, and half the -heads--the short-cropped ones--stayed turned, in more senses than one. -It was a revelation and a martyrdom to Vaiti. What were her muslin -frocks and her ten new hats at a whole pound apiece compared to this? -And the vision of money saved up faded away for the time being before -the vision of one such frock--only one--belonging to her. Life could -surely offer nothing more. - -Of this, naturally, she said nothing to Pita, merely relating the matter -of the skulls in as few words as possible. Pita, for his part, made no -comment, but took a couple of revolvers out of the boat and thrust one -into his belt, handing the other to the girl. Then he girded up his -pareo--a significant action among islanders--and felt the handle of his -knife to see that it was loose in the sheath. There was a large sack in -the boat containing candles and food, and leaving ample space for other -filling later on. Vaiti tossed it to Pita, and the two began their -walk, barefoot, swift and silent, casting a quick glance every now and -then among the weirdly stilted stems of the lonely pandanus groves as -they went. - -"They are all down with the _Sybil_--it is safer now than it would be at -night," said Pita. "Vaiti, if we get these things, and sell them for -much money in Sitani, you and I will leave the _Sybil_ when she next -goes to Atiu; and you shall be queen of Atiu and I shall be king, and we -shall eat roast pork and 'uakari' every day." - -"My father would burn the villages and kill the chiefs, and hang your -head on the bowsprit of the ship," replied Vaiti conversationally. -"Besides, I like Sitani, and I will buy myself a wonder dress from -Palisi town there." - -"Then we will leave at Sitani, and be great chiefs there, if these old -bones indeed sell for so much money. And we will buy a little schooner -for ourselves, and you shall be the real captain, and there will be four -gold bands on your sleeve and one on the peak of your cap; and you shall -get a _sitificati_ from the chiefs of the great harbour, and take the -schooner out of Sitani Heads yourself. And every one shall be afraid of -me and you, and they will say----" - -Vaiti had been listening as she swung along, now casting a glance of -approval at the handsome lad while he spoke cunningly of the schooner -she should command, now shooting out her lip a little, and slashing -impatiently with her knife at the young cocoanut fronds. Suddenly, -looking very straight ahead, she interrupted. - -"Pita, you talk too fast. There are things you do not know. Tell me, -is your heart strong within you?" - -"It is strong," answered the island Maori. - -"Then listen. There is a devil in the cave." - -"I do not believe in devils. I am misinari, and go to church five times -on Sundays; also I have a black coat and two boots very nearly the same -as each other to wear on collection days." - -"There is a devil all the same; you do not know everything that is in -the world, little Pita," replied Vaiti. "There is something bad there. -I do not believe in native devils, for I am 'papa-langi'; but I know -there is--a thing of some kind--there. A bad thing. A black viri, they -say, but I do not understand that." - -"A black viri is nothing. You and I do not mind such things. -See--there will perhaps be one in this rotten wood." Pita struck and -kicked at a mass of decaying cocoanut wood, and hunted out one of the -great black centipedes that are common in the equatorial islands. - -There is nothing on the bosom of Mother Earth more loathly than the -centipede, and Pita's quarry--nearly a foot long, as thick as a sausage, -scarlet feelers on its hideous head, and scarlet legs fringing its long -lithe body--was as hideous a specimen as ever jerked itself -lightning-wise across a forest path. Pita, however, with swift -dexterity, seized the horrible beast by the neck and tail, holding it so -that it could neither bite nor sting, and lifted it up to his companion. -Vaiti's eyes dilated ever so little. She drew her knife and slashed the -creature in two; then, stooping down, she struck at the flying halves as -they ran away in opposite directions, and cut them up into mincemeat. -Leaving the red fragments still wriggling in the track amidst an -unsavoury, snaky smell, she stepped swiftly on. - -"It is no matter," she said. "We two shall see what we shall see. Keep -your heart warm within you." - -"And if we come back safe?" cried the impetuous Pita, catching the -girl's warm round arms in his two sinewy hands, and letting his black -eyes gaze into hers. - -Vaiti stood very still for a moment, looking out to sea. The spell of -her stillness fell on Pita, and he remained as if frozen. Far away the -surf hummed on the reef, and a sea-bird cried. Above the two beautiful, -motionless young figures the palms rustled endlessly in the long trade -wind. - -"... If we come back" ... said Vaiti at last, her eyes still fixed on -the far-off line of the outer sea--"if we come back--we will go away -together, you and I." - -She looked so like a witch in a trance (such things are not unknown even -now, in strange Atiu) that Pita's hands dropped from her arms, and he -felt half frightened in the moment of his triumph. But Vaiti recalled -him to himself by starting her steady swing again, and saying with a -laugh, as they footed it through the dry, sun-struck woods side by side: - -"I think some day my father will make a parrot cage to hang a green Atiu -parrot in, and it will be made of your ribs and breast-bone, little -Pita--all the same as my grandfather did in the islands to the man who -stole his wife." - -At that moment the woods opened out and the cave came into view--a -velvet-dark blot in the dazzling glare of greenery that tangled itself -about the shoreward cliffs. - -Pita's hand sprang to his revolver, and he uttered an exclamation of -angry surprise. Beside the cave stood a tall, brown, naked figure -painted like a witch-doctor and armed with a spear. - -"Do not shoot," said Vaiti quickly. "It will do no good. Let me look -to him myself." - -She walked right up to the native, stood within a yard of him, and -stared at him, in a silence that somehow managed to express unflattering -things. The man, stamping the butt of his spear on the ground, turned -away from her and addressed Pita. - -"I have nothing to do with this woman of yours," he said. "It is with -men I would speak." - -"Speak, then, pig-face," said Pita insolently, hoping to provoke a -fight, since the man seemed to be alone. - -"Enter if you wish," replied the other. "We have sent no fighting-men -to hinder you; the way is clear. Yet if you think the hot sun on the -pleasant land is good to see, and the beating of the warm heart in the -living breast is sweet to feel, go not into our sacred caves, to lay -evil hands upon the holy bones of Falaiti. Enough." - -The man's words were strangely void of heat or anger, and he held his -spear loosely, Vaiti did not suspect an ambush, for she knew that no -native would enter the cave. Yet in that moment her quick mind leaped -to the knowledge of some unknown danger threatening herself and Pita -from out the cold-breathing world of darkness that lay within that -rugged arch, and for one prophetic instant she could smell the very -smell of death. - -But Vaiti's courage was of the kind that rises, wave by wave, the higher -for all obstacle, and her spirit swelled within her to flood-tide in -that moment. She turned upon the witch-doctor and laughed in his face. -Then she stretched out her hand, and Pita's leaped into it, warm and -strong, and together they stepped over the threshold of the cave. - -The man outside cursed them, slowly and with relish. - -"Shall we not kill him?" asked Pita. - -"There is no use," said Vaiti. "It is plain to me that all the tribe -know, and they trust to the dangers of the place, whatever these may be. -This island is at the very end of the world, it is true, and strange -things may happen here." - -"Yes, there is nothing that one might not believe in this place," said -Pita, looking back. Already the gloom of Hades itself was winding about -them, and the air struck gravelike and cold. In the distance the mouth -of the cave cast a brief glow of emerald light upon the dewy ferns and -mosses close to the threshold, so that they shone like the jewelled -foliage of some magic forest in a fairy play. Then came the dripping -roof, the enormous stalactite buttresses of the cave, dimly edged with -light; the oozing floor, and the lifeless dark. - -Vaiti spoke not at all, as they walked side by side down dark tunnel -after dark tunnel, across empty, thunderous-echoing black halls and -archways--their little candles flitting like fireflies through a dim -world of unconquerable gloom. Pita, however, was strangely gay. He -yelled aloud to set the echoes booming in the black domes above, when -they crossed some invisible great goblin market-place, full of hollow -sounds and half-glimpsed monstrosities. He sang when the way along the -endless corridors grew tedious, and the glistening stalactite candelabra -succeeded one another, thick as forest branches, for mile after mile -unchanged. When the path was barred by inky lakes of unknown depth and -ghastly chill, and the two explorers had to tie their lights on their -heads and swim for it, he pretended to cry at the cold, and played -tricks on Vaiti by slipping behind her and catching her feet in his -teeth. So they went on, one in wild spirits, the other silent and -grave. And the hours of the sunny day slipped by dark and changeless, as -they passed farther and farther away life and light into the cold black -depths of the cave. - -When it was about noon, as near as they could guess, Vaiti took the -biscuits and tinned meat out of the sack, and they ate, squatting on the -wet floor of the tunnel. They knew that the journey was a long one, and -that the way could not well be missed, yet they were beginning to feel a -little uneasy now. Did this cave go on for ever? - -Somehow, the food did not cheer them and when they rose and went on -again they did not talk. And now a worse difficulty than any they had -yet encountered suddenly barred the way. The winding tunnel along which -they were walking turned sharp round a corner, and then ended to all -appearance in nothing. They stood at the edge of an empty gulf, black -as a starless sky and of depth unknowable. Thin trickles of light. from -the candles wavered faintly about its edges, and showed that the -colossal crack had a farther side, but it was impossible to see what lay -beyond, and the depth below cast back the candle rays as an armoured -hull throws off a rifle bullet. - -Pita detached a lump of rock and threw it over the edge. Vaiti watched -him with sombre eyes. "There is no bottom there," she said. "It goes -through the earth, and out on the other side; that is what I think." - -"Children's talk," said Pita, listening intently. There was an echoing -rattle as the stone bounded from side to side on its way down. The -rattle grew fainter and fainter, diminished to a sound like the ticking -of a watch, faded to an almost imperceptible vibration, and then seemed -to die out. Seemed--for although there was nothing left for the ear to -catch, the sharpened sensory nerves of the body still responded to a -faint tingle, somewhere, somehow, long after the actual sound had faded -away. - -"I told you," said Vaiti. "There is no bottom." Pita did not answer; -he was measuring the narrowest part of the gulf with his eye, and -estimating the value of the three short steps of a run that were -possible before taking off. - -"It is not two fathoms wide here," he said, throwing the provision sack -across to judge his distance better in the uncertain light. Yet, -despite the three steps of a run, there was not an inch to spare when he -landed on the other side, with an effort that strained every muscle of -his powerful young body. - -"Can you jump it?" he called to Vaiti--without any particular anxiety, -for the Maori has no nerves, and he knew what the girl could do aloft on -the schooner. - -To his astonishment, Vaiti made no answer, but stood leaning up against -the wall of the tunnel, both hands pressed against her chest. In a -moment more she was violently sick. - -"The smell!" she said presently, turning a ghastly face towards the -light of Pita's candle. - -"I smell nothing," said Pita, puzzled. "The wind blows your way. There -is perhaps some dead thing down there." - -Vaiti shook her head, and Pita saw that her eyes seemed to fill half her -face as she looked down into the gulf. Suddenly she sprang, her white -drapery flying behind her, and landed half a yard behind Pita, with a -leap that drew a cry of wonder from the Atiuan. "Come, come," she said, -taking his hand and fairly dragging him on. - -They had little farther to go. The tunnel wound on for perhaps another -hundred yards, and then stopped. They found themselves in a low-roofed -circular chamber, such as is often met with at the end of long -underground passages--a small, insignificant place, roofed with drooping -green stalactites and floored with shapeless, slimy hummocks of -stalagmite. Numbers of deep shelves were quarried out in the rocky -sides, and in these lay, row on row, the bare, mouldering skulls of -Falaite's long-ago chiefs--many of them cracked and split, and not a few -fallen into shapeless fragments, though there were a score or two in -excellent condition. They were curious skulls indeed, had their -discoverers been able to understand them. In the projecting jaws, huge -canines, strangely high cranium, and oddly developed ridges near the -opening of the ear were the materials of a problem contradictory and -complicated enough to occupy the wits of a whole college of science. But -Vaiti and Pita saw none of these things. They only noted with -disappointment, that most of the skulls had gone to decay--picked out -the best of the unbroken specimens, packed the great sack full of them, -and turned homewards. - -"Vaiti," said Pita, as they walked down the rocky tunnel, and felt the -slope of the gulf beginning under their feet. "Vaiti, what did you----" - -Her face, turned back upon him, slew the still-born question on his -lips. - -It was scarce a minute before the chasm gaped in their path yet again. -The leap was worse on this side, for the clustered cones of stalagmite -did not allow a fair take-off. Pita looked calculatingly at the farther -side, very dimly visible in the faint candle-light, and picked up a -fallen stalactite to throw across. - -"Do not throw!" said Vaiti, in a breathless whisper. - -"Why not? I can jump better if I hear where it hits," replied Pita, -casting the stone before Vaiti had time to snatch at his hand. It fell -short, and rolled down into the chasm with a loud, crashing noise. - -"Fool! fool! Jump quickly!" exclaimed Vaiti, in the same strained, -horrible whisper.... Just for a second before he sprang, Pita looked -down into the black pit beneath, and it seemed to him that the darkness -shirred and shivered below the farther edge of the crevasse--that for -the fragment of a second something long, red, whiplike, vibrated high up -in the light of the candles, and then was gone.... There was a -sickening odour in the air--a living smell, not a dead one; there was a -sliding, rustling sound.... - -"Jump!" shrieked Vaiti. - -They leaped through the air as one, but it was only Vaiti who landed on -the farther side. Behind her, as she touched the rock, rose a shriek -that blasted the leaden air into red-hot drops of horror--that went on -and on and on, tearing upwards to the vaulted roof like a rocket fired -from the mouth of hell; breaking at last into a gasping bellow, and -snapping off into grisly silence on the very crest of a long, choking -roar, in which there was nothing left of human. - -... Pita had jumped short. Falling on the far side, with his legs half -over the abyss, he had grasped for an instant at Vaiti's outstretched -hands, and in the very act had been snatched away--snatched by a long, -ghastly head, armed with poisoned jaws and quivering red antennas, that -shot with the speed of a bullet out from the depths of the chasm, and -back again with its prey.... The head was a foot long at least, the -horrible winnowing feelers more than a yard, the black and red body, -that just flashed into view for a second, was as thick as a man's thigh. -It was a nightmare, an impossibility, and yet ... it was, beyond doubt, -the Black Viri. - -For a little while it seemed to Vaiti that she went mad, and then that -the world went out and she died. A long time after, she found herself -sitting on the floor of the tunnel, her head badly bruised and cut -where she had dashed it against the rock, her candle guttering down -towards extinction, her revolver empty and smelling of powder--she did -not remember in the least how it had become so--and the whole black, -horrible place still and silent as the bottom of the sea. Pita was gone. -The bag of skulls had disappeared--fallen, no doubt, into the abyss. -There was not a movement or a sound, save the whisper of the -water--drops trickling ceaselessly from the roof into the dark pools -upon the ground. - - * * * * * - -That evening, when the early starlight was beginning to shine down upon -the creepers veiling the mouth of the tunnel, Saxon, sober at last, and -rushing like a madman to the cave to find his daughter, met Vaiti -herself coming down the rocks at the entrance, haggard, trembling, and -almost old. He asked for Pita, and was answered only by a shuddering -gesture of the hands. Questioning no more, he carried the girl down to -the beach and brought her on board the schooner. There, when they had -sailed, he left her undisturbed in her cabin for many days, while they -ran steadily southward to pleasant Auckland and the temperate latitudes, -farther and farther away from lonely, sun-smitten Falaite. The story of -the day in the cave was known to him, as to every one on the island, for -the witch-doctor of Falaite had told it far and wide, reserving only the -one interesting fact--how he became possessed of the information. And -as no one else alive on Falaite knew that there were two ways of -reaching the skull-chamber, and more than one place where a man could -hide unseen, the witch-doctor's reputation as a prophet and a -clairvoyant was greatly increased; so that he suffered continually from -a happily-acquired indigestion, and his dogs grew fat on bones of pig -and fowl. And no one came ever any more into the sacred caves of -Falaite Island. - -Saxon declared plumply that he did not believe the tale, opining rather -that the "blanked old wizard Johnnie had shoved Pita into the hole -himself, and good riddance of bad rubbish, too." - -None the less, he was uneasy at Vaiti's rather prolonged depression, and -though he dared not break in upon her solitude further than to hand her -in her meals and ask her how she felt, now and then, he listened almost -constantly at her state-room door, and gave up whisky for at least ten -days. - -About the eleventh day, Te Ai, a young Samoan A.B., sat upon the main -hatch in the pleasant coolness of the second dog-watch, and sang the -farewell song of sweet Samoa, "Good-bye, my F'lennie"--the song that -plucks so surely at the heartstrings of all who have ever loved and -sailed away among the far-off fairy islands of the wide South Seas. - - "Good-bye, my F'lennie (friend)--o le a o tea, - Efau lau le va'a, o le alii pule i ..." - -he sang, beating time with his knees on the hatch.... Then suddenly he -stopped, and the little group of mates and captain on the poop did not -see why. - -Later on, Harris, his face stiff with suppressed laughter, knocked at -the captain's door. - -"Can you oblige me with a piece of sticking-plaster, sir?" he said. - -"Who for?" asked Saxon, reaching for the yellow roll that lies handy in -every shipmaster's cabin about the peaceful Pacific. - -"Te Ai, sir. He's been knocked down, and his head got cut against the -pump." - -"Who did it?" bristled Saxon, ready to uphold his own peculiar -privileges, at once. - -"She did, sir," said Harris, nearly choking. "Te Ai, he was singin' -'Good-bye, my F'lennie,' on the main 'atch and out she come from the -deck cabin like a--like a nurricane, begging your pardon, sir--and she -ups with a belayin' pin from the rail, an----" - -"All right, all right; there's your plaster," interrupted Saxon. -"Harris! Here." - -"Yes, sir!" - -"Give this to Te Ai." - -"Lor' bless you, sir, 'e don't mind; 'e's a----" - -"You do what you're told. Stop. Where's my daughter?" - -"Walkin' on the poop, sir, uncommon lively, and looking like dirty -weather ahead." - -"That's all right," sighed the captain, with an air of infinite relief. - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - *A DIAMOND WEB* - - -It was six o'clock in Apia, and the round sun was hanging low above the -rim of the level sea, like a burning coal ready to drop down upon a -breadth of hyacinth silk. The stores were closed along the straggling -beach street, where the sand was white under foot, and parrakeets -tweedled cheerily in the scarlet-flowered flamboyant trees. Native -dandies, greatly oiled and dyed, and wearing a bright hibiscus blossom -over each ear, swung past with the inimitable Samoan roll, their golden -brown limbs gay with the red-and-white English bath-towel that is -popular as full dress for steamer days in the little island capital. -Girls with high-coiffed yellow heads and pink or green tunics wandered -lazily home to the cool, dark-domed native houses open all round to the -sunset sky. They went in groups, and sang as they walked--windy, fitful -gusts of strange island melody, breaking out and dying away like the -evening breeze among the heavy-headed palms. Smells of yam and -breadfruit, brown from the baking pits, of fish cooked in green, savoury -leaves, and taro spinach stewed with cocoanut cream, crept out upon the -cooling air. The long, hot day was done, and Apia rested and ate. - -In "Charley's"--the least reputable of Apia's tavern-hotels--the -egregious _table d'hote_ was in full progress out in the green-shuttered -verandah. Charley himself, an oily, flashy New Caledonian half-caste, -dressed in striped pyjamas, was eating curried tin--nature unknown--with -a knife and two fingers, at the head of the table. A corpse-faced -Chinese was shuffling round with the inevitable Pacific fowl, cut up in -a watery soup. The table-cloth was of linoleum, the swinging lamp -guttered and smoked, the cutlery was dislocated and black. But there -was English beer on the bar counter, and plenty of broken ice; and the -whisky that mounted high in each man's smeary tumbler was good of its -kind. Charley knew his customers, and sought first the essential. - -Captain Saxon, his schooner safe at anchor outside, and his copra -advantageously sold to an Auckland agent, sat eating at the table, -heavy-faced, a little intoxicated, and almost absolutely blank in mind. -This was his nearest approach to happiness, and one that he enjoyed -often enough, for, since thought meant pain to him, he had managed to -acquire a wonderful agility in avoiding it, and to live for the most -part almost as purely by instinct and impulse as a dog. - -It was perhaps for this reason that he did not notice anything unusual -in the demeanour of that singularly unknown quantity, Vaiti, his -daughter. And yet Vaiti--sombre and sparkling in a dress of vaporous -red, with a handful of star stephanotis from the verandah thrust into -the marvellous waves of her hair--was evidently not quite herself. She -sat a little apart from the noisy company that sprawled about the table, -looked at no one, ate her food absent-mindedly and pulled little strips -off the decaying oilcloth of the table-cover with a steady industry that -made Charley wriggle in his seat, although he did not dare to -remonstrate. - -Some one else was watching her, if Saxon was not. A short, stocky man, -with burning grey eyes, a fiery red beard, and a sharp furrow between -the eyebrows, that somehow suggested belaying-pins and rope's ends, was -looking at her every now and then as he noisily sucked in his soup. The -inspection did not appear to please him altogether. He finished his -dinner quickly, took the current glass of whisky in his hand, and rolled -off to the dark end of the verandah, followed by a grey-haired, -greasy-faced mate who had been sitting beside him. - -"Still on for it, cap?" asked the latter, leaning over the railing with -an air of careless ease that contrasted oddly with his watchful eye. - -"Yes, blank asterisk your condemned foolishness, sure I am on for it!" -replied the captain, betraying his nationality by a slight touch of -brogue. - -There is no nation that swings so high and so low between opposite -extremes of character as the impetuous race that is handcuffed, by an -odd freak of geography, to steady, serious England. Great saints and -great rogues are commoner in Ireland than ordinary people, and each -displays the fullest flavour of his kind. Donahue, master of the island -schooner _Ikurangi_, was, or had been, Irish; and it was assuredly not -the company of the saints that claimed his membership. - -The two spoke together for a little while in level tones that sounded -loud and careless enough, yet somehow did not carry. One learns these -things by practice. - -"She smells a rat, I'm thinking," said the old mate, looking critically -the while at Charley, as if he were valuing the half-caste's clothes for -pawn. - -"Let her. You and I are apt to be a match for her, for all that," -answered the captain. He looked at Charley also. You would have sworn -the two were discussing him, and rather unfavourably. Charley himself -shifted in his seat, and showed his magnificent teeth uncomfortably. - -"Think she'll come on board?" - -Vaiti was watching them, her chin on her hand. Her expression was not to -be read. - -"I'll get her on board all right," answered the captain, keeping his -eyes away from the girl with an effort. "You play up, that's all." - -"'Jer think you're a match for that weasel in a woman's skin--you or any -of us?" - -"I do, then. Forty's a match for twenty any day in the year, if the -heads of them comes anything near equal. Cunnin' as Old Nick she is, -but I've been cunnin' twenty years longer than her." - -"You pitched her a good yarn, I'll lay." - -"I did that--about the derelick we boarded nor'-east of the Paumotus, -and the Spanish ladies' clothes and cases of goods that was lying about, -and how we took what there was, includin' of a di'mond necklashe that -was sittin' all its lone on the table in the old man's cabin (Be minding -me, now, or you'll be making mistakes), and the way a gale riz on us -before we was through, and hurried us back to the _Ikurangi_, so that we -lost the derelick, and didn't see no more of her; and how we heard in -Noumea afterwards that there was like to be joolery on boord her, so -that we're all on to go and find her again." - -"Straight fact up to finding the di'monds, and gory lyin' after that, I -see. But how d'ye make out the people that deserted the ship was such -fat-headed idiots as to leave the joolery?" - -"Why, they was fat-headed idiots right enough; they did leave a good lot -of saleable stuff, as you and I knows; and it's only addin' on a bit to -say that the ship had been on fire and made them clear for their lives, -so that they didn't think of the valuables. There's the necklashe I -have for proof. And, mind me now, what we heard was that the people of -the ship knows now that she didn't go down, and will be out after her -themselves when they can raise the cash, so that hurry's the word." - -"How much of that's true?" - -"Not a ---- bit. The people was drowned, I allow. But it hangs well, -and don't you go and forget none of it. I pitched the yarn that way -because of that bit of pashtry joolery I got hould of in mistake for -goods down Melbourne way.... I misremember if I tould you." - -"You did, more nor once, and you was jolly well served right by her," -candidly replied the mate. "The yarn's all right, I suppose, and the -paste necklace is good business; but where does this Vaiti come in?" - -"Quit lookin' at her, ye ---- fool, and give me a light for me poipe. -Talk easy, can't you.... Why, she knows more navigation than most men -that's got a master's ticket, and she's as vain of it as a paycock. And -that's how I'll have her. Always get a woman t'rough her consate, me -boy, especially if her eyes are too sharp in common. That'll pull the -wool over them when nothing else will." - -"When I was in Callao----" began the mate, with an evil chuckle. - -"Leave Callao be now; you can tell me about her another time. Well, you -understand about Saxon's girl, I hope? She's to navigate us on the -trip, because nayther you nor I knows enough for a cruisin' job like -this, and the old chap himself is pretty general drunk--that's the way I -put it--and shares with what we find, and the ould divil himself to come -along, just for propriety, and in case of a fight with the owners. Oh, -a nate yarn, and she shwallowed it down like a cat atin' butter. She's -comin' on boord to-night, to see the necklashe and look over the chart -I've marked. She'll not bring ould Saxon, for she's feared of nayther -man nor divil, and I'll bet she thinks to get the bearin's of the place -off of me and chate me out of it after all." - -"And how the h---- do you think she's going to believe that you give the -show away before the ship sails? Her teeth wasn't cut yesterday, by all -we know." - -"Faith, and we do know!" muttered the captain, with a horrible -undercurrent of oaths. "And she'll know, by ---- she will! I'd slit -the throat of her, if it wasn't for the other bit of divarsion we've -planned." - -"Say you've planned," interrupted the mate darkly. "I call it bad work, -whether she was man, woman, or child; but you're my master." - -"And you're a plashter saint, ain't you?" sneered the captain. "Let's -have no more of your chat; we know each other a ---- sight too well. As -for the chart, she'll think we don't mean to give it away till she and -her father is under sail with us, but she'll come on the chance of -sneaking it out somehow. And when we've got her aboard, why--lave it to -me! Ould Saxon's hell-cat daughter won't take no more pearl-shell beds -from us or any one else." - -"You ain't afraid of her knowing who we are?" - -"How would she, then? The _Ikurangi_ isn't the _Margaret -Macintyre_--bad luck to her who brought me down to such a tub, after -ownin' the finest auxiliary in Auckland!--and she never seen you or me -till to-day. No, it's all right. That's enough jaw; you go aboard, and -attend to you know what, and then send off the boat for her and me." - -Vaiti, curly classic head on slender hand, still watched from her -corner. - -Did she suspect? There was nothing for suspicion to lay hold of. -Donahue was one of the acutest villains under the Southern Cross, and he -did not make clumsy mistakes. The story of the derelict, of the -valuables abandoned on board, of the necessity for finding the ship soon -and secretly, might have sounded far-fetched to city-dwelling folk, but -out in the wild South Seas stranger things may happen any day. The plan -was neat and plausible from every point of view, and Vaiti had taken the -bait readily enough that afternoon. Yet Donahue felt--as the two walked -silently down the dim, perfumed beach street, all ablow with vagrant sea -winds and wandering wafts of song--that he would have given a good deal -for just one peep into his handsome companion's mind. - -Vaiti walked beside him, looking straight ahead. Had Donahue's wish been -granted, he would have thought somewhat less of his own acuteness. She -did suspect. A man, in her case, would have been convinced by the -reasonable aspect of the whole affair. Vaiti, being a woman, with -sea-anemone tentacles of instinct floating and tingling all about the -steady centres of reason in her mind, was convinced, and vet not -convinced. She thought it was all right, yet she knew it was not--after -a woman's way. - -In any case, however, it was an adventure, and there was a mystery to -fathom. So she put on a more substantial dress than the gauzy draperies -she had been wearing, hung the neatest possible little pearl-handled -Smith and Wesson round her neck, under the swelling folds of her frock, -by means of an innocent-looking thin gold neck-chain that would snap -with a tug; put her long-bladed knife in her pocket, with the sheath -sewn to the dress, so that a pull would bring out the blade, and joined -Donahue an hour after dinner, on the verandah steps, confident of her -ability to see the thing through, whatever it might be. - -She looked sharply about her, as she stepped over the low bulwarks of -the _Ikurangi_ and dropped down on to the encumbered, untidy deck. No -one about. Nothing to be seen but a dirty little main deck, with rusty -pumps and a yawning hatch, and a poop that even in the pallid light just -beginning to tremble up from the rising moon showed neglect of the -sacred ceremony of daily deck-washing. - -Now, any decent ship's captain will attend to his deck-washing, even if -he doesn't shave or wash himself from port to port. Vaiti did not like -that unscrupulous, dirty poop. But she was already up on it, and -Donahue was bowing her down the cabin companion, with a jarring smile -and a good deal of over-fluent blarney. The cabin was small and smelly; -it had an oblong table in the middle, surrounded by cushioned lockers, -and an open door at the end facing the companion. This door evidently -opened into Donahue's own cabin, for a rough wash-stand and a -looking-glass, the latter hung high on the bulkhead, were plainly -visible. There was a lamp nailed above the glass, and the two together -shone brightly out into the rather ill-lit main cabin. - -"What'll you take?" asked Donahue, with his unpleasant smile. "I've got -some sweet sherry wine, just the thing for ladies--or wouldn't ye put -your lips to a taste of peach brandy?" - -Vaiti shook her head. - -"No good drink, suppose talk business," she said. She would not have -swallowed a glass of water on the _Ikurangi_ for a dozen Virot hats. - -Donahue had not expected to catch her so easily; still, he cast a -thought of regret to his nicely-doctored liquors. She evidently meant -what she said--and the other way Was harder. - -"Well, thin, darlin', we'll have a look at the cha-art," he observed, -producing a roll of paper. "It's yourself that can help us t'rough this -business--you and the ould man--better than any one from Calloa to -Sydney if only yez are raisonable about terms." - -He spread the chart out on the table, and weighted it down with a couple -of tumblers. - -Vaiti, her mind charged full with watchful suspicion, felt that sudden -small, sick thrill that is the forerunner of the thought--"I wish I -hadn't!" Afterwards, when she came to think matters over, she knew that -it was because Donahue had made the mistake of bringing out the chart -before the terms had been discussed, which was an improbable sort of -thing to do. In such moments, however, one does not think, one only -feels. Still, the warning was unmistakable, and Vaiti made as if to -rise, intending to plead sudden illness and get out on deck. But -Donahue, sharp as a snake, saw the movement, and brought out his trump -card at once. - -"Sure, I'm a ---- fool, I am, to forget the necklashe! You haven't seen -that yet," he said, whipping a stream of white fire out of his pocket -and letting it fall across the dark wood of the table. It was a -magnificent piece of paste-work, and had taken in Donahue himself, some -few weeks ago, after a fashion that made him sore enough to remember. -Vaiti gasped when she saw it, and laid both her pretty olive hands upon -it at once. Her suspicions were not exactly killed, but they had for the -moment no room to live with the passionate feeling aroused by the gems. -Donahue, with his unspeakable experience of the sex, had calculated -rightly when he classified her among the women who would almost do -murder for a diamond.... Such jewels! and she had never had one in her -hand before, though her eyes had often filled and her heart ached with -hopeless desire before the maddening glories of the jewellers' windows -in Auckland and Sydney. - -She hugged the necklace to her breast like a baby, she shook it, she -danced it in the light.... And then, was it in woman's nature to -refrain from snapping the clasp about her neck, and feeling the dear -touch of those cold drops and pendants on her bosom? - -"Ah, now, but you're the beauty wit' them little jokers round your neck! -And the lovely neck you have, darlin'!" blarneyed Donahue. He had -better have been silent, for Vaiti, used to admiration of every kind and -degree as to daily bread, felt the falseness of the tone. If all other -men admired her beauty, this one did not, though he said so. His grey, -goat-like eyes looked something more like hate across the narrow table, -under the ill-smelling oily lamp, and Vaiti saw they did. - -Donahue, taught by twenty years of active villainy, was quick to feel -the necessity for the next move. He went into his own cabin and turned -up the lamp. The looking-glass shone out brightly under its rays. - -"Come and look at yourself, me beauty," he said; "and let me ould -shavin'-glass see the handsomest girl in the islands wearin' what she -ought to wear every day of her life, if she'd her rights." - -For the moment, Vaiti was not herself. She was drunk with the jewels; -she was crazed with the desire to see herself in them. If heaven and -hell had stood between her and the looking-glass, she was bound to go to -it, and Donahue knew it, as surely as he knew that the moon would set -that night. - -Vaiti--still sensing the danger that she would not heed, through all the -intoxication of the jewels--thought, in a cinematographic flash, that -one was safe before a glass, at all events.... No one could come up -behind you.... Besides, there was the little revolver, hanging on the -chain that would snap with a tug.... - -And then, for the space of a full minute, she saw nothing, knew nothing, -lived for nothing but the sight of her own dark, beautiful face in the -glass, lit up into surpassing loveliness by the scintillating fires -about her neck. There was no movement in the mirror behind her. -Donahue sat motionless at the table, and the cabin was very still. - -... The first ecstasy subsided, and she turned her head a little to see -the diamonds twinkle.... - -Donahue's elbow knocked a glass off the table with a sharp crash. -Almost at the same instant two powerful hands closed on each of Vaiti's -ankles, and snatched her feet from under her. She plucked out the -revolver as she fell, but her hands were caught, whisked behind her, and -securely tied, with a prompt swiftness that told of frequent experience. -In another minute her ankles were lashed together, none too gently; she -was carried into a small state-room, thrown down upon the bunk, and left -alone in the dark, with the slam of the door and snap of the lock -resounding in her ears. - -Most women would have screamed. Vaiti remembered that they were out in -the middle of a wide harbour, and decided not to risk the infliction of -a gag for such a slight chance of rescue.... Certain ugly scenes on the -_Sybil_ rose up before her eyes. No; decidedly it was her only policy -to keep quiet. - -Outside there was the thud of bare feet running about the deck, the -creak of the booms rising on the masts, the slatting of loose -sails--loud orders, long yells from the native crew, as they pulled and -hauled. The _Ikurangi_ was making sail. - -Then sudden silence, slow heeling over of the cabin, lip-lap of hurrying -water along the hull. They were off. Where? God--or the devil--only -knew! - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - *MAROONED* - - -There was plenty of time for reflection in the long days that followed. -The greasy-faced old mate came in and cut the lashings off Vaiti's -ankles and wrists, a few hours after sailing, and she was left free to -move about the cabin, which offered a promenade of exactly seven feet by -three. Meals were handed in to her three times daily--the usual black -tea, tinned meat, and weevily biscuit of second-class island -schooners--and she was not in any way molested, though the door was -always kept locked. Donahue put in his head once or twice to look at -her, as she sat cross-legged on her bunk, staring out through the port -at the tumbling seas. He generally had something to say--a jarring, -mocking compliment, or a remark about the time they were likely to make -Sydney Heads--knowing all the time that Vaiti could estimate the general -direction of their course by the sun, and that there was no southing in -it. If she had ever feared any one, she feared this man--almost. - -It was not difficult to understand how the capture had been brought -about. A man under the bunk, another under the sofa opposite--her own -eyes watching only the upper part of the cabin as reflected in the -glass--nothing could be simpler or better planned. The affair was none -the less ugly on that account. Perhaps it was only Vaiti's burning -anger at her utter rout and defeat in her own business of plotting and -intrigue that saved her from something very like despair, as the -schooner ploughed steadily on, day after day, carrying her into the -great unknown, farther and farther away from all who could defend her. -Yet, despairing or not, Saxon's daughter never lost her courage. They -had taken her weapons from her as they carried her into the cabin, but -they could not take away her undaunted spirit. She waited her time. - -As to the meaning of the business, she trusted, again, to time's -enlightenment. Saxon had many enemies; so had she. It would all come -out by-and-by. Meantime, it was clear that no one meant to murder her. -What else might be meant she could not tell, and she did not care to -speculate overmuch. Under such circumstances one does best to save -one's nerve against the time it may be wanted. - -It was on the twenty-third day out from Apia, bearing, as far as she -could discover, in a north-westerly direction, that she first noted the -approach of land. Nothing could be seen from her side of the ship, but -she heard the long, excited cries of the island crew, and the thundering -of their feet, as they began putting the ship about with unwonted -vigour, to a chorus of native songs. She strained her eyes eagerly when -the ship came about on the other tack, but the line of the horizon was -unbroken; and it was not for another hour that she saw, from her low -elevation, what the look-out in the crow's nest had sighted long -before--a line of small black bristles pricking the edge of the horizon -several miles away. - -Vaiti knew the sight at once for the palms of a low atoll -island--evidently some barren, sun-smitten spot close up to the -line--and a ready solution of the whole puzzling affair at once sprang -into her mind. - -Marooning! - -Most people know the meaning of this term; nearly every one has heard of -sailors captured by pirates in old days, and left on lonely islands, or -even deserted by their own comrades on some isolated spot, with just -enough food and water to save the marooners' consciences from the guilt -of actual murder. Vaiti knew both the word and the thing very -well-indeed, and she was almost certain that the _Ikurangi_ had gone off -the course on the way to some South American port with the view of -hiding her where she would not easily be found again. There are many -islands in the wastes of the vast Pacific where a ship may not pass once -in half a century, and these--unlike the typical "desert" island of -stories--are almost always barren, hungry, shadeless spots, where Crusoe -himself would have been hard put to it to make a decent living. The -fertile, mountainous, well-watered isle is never without a native -population, permanent or occasional, and is very seldom indeed, in these -days, without a trader as well, and a regularly calling schooner. As -for the breadfruit, oranges, pineapples, the pigs and goats, the -sugarcane and maize of uninhabited islands as known to fiction, they -have no counterpart in real life. All the valuable food plants and all -useful animals are the product of importation and cultivation, ancient -or modern. It follows, that where there are no people and no ships, -there is nothing worth having. - -Vaiti knew this very well, and decided that if she was going to be -marooned, she might as well make such provision as circumstances -allowed. She had hunted over every inch of the cabin--which seemed to -belong to the mate--during the long days of the voyage, and she knew -exactly what it contained. From the stores put away under the bunk she -selected a large new sheet, which she concealed under her dress; a small -stock of needles and thread, a box or two of matches, some hooks and -line, and a stick of dynamite, evidently meant for some forgotten -fishing purpose. There was nothing in the shape of a knife, much to her -regret; and there was a good deal of clothing that she would have liked -to carry away; but it would not do to take more than she could easily -conceal. So she made an end of her preparations, and sat down to wait -once more. - -There was no moon that night until very late, and darkness came down so -close on the stroke of four bells that Vaiti felt sure they were very -near the equator. No one came near her, and tea seemed to be unusually -late. The anchor-chain roared home soon after dark, the ship lay very -still, and there was a good deal of running about on deck. Vaiti was -confirmed in her anticipations of an uninhabited island by the fact that -no boat was to be heard coming off from shore. Not a sound of any kind, -indeed, came from the island, and there were no lights on the beach. -Some one handed her in her tea by-and-by, and a little later her door -was flung open again by the mate. - -"Come on out," he said. - -Vaiti followed the mate out of the cabin at once, rather to his -surprise. She had made up her mind that anything was better than the -_Ikurangi_, and she was looking out sharply for a chance--any chance--of -turning the tables. - -It did not look at first as if she were to have one. The dinghy had been -swung out when she got on deck, and a couple of men were standing ready -to lower away. They were islanders, and she knew that they would -befriend her if they could--indeed, their glances showed as much--yet -what could they do? - -Donahue was nowhere visible. He had planned this business with some -forethought, and he wanted to have a chance of casting blame on his -subordinate if any inquisitive Government official should incline to -look the matter up later on. So he stayed down in his own cabin, -pretending to be asleep, and the mate, rather against his will, had to -carry out orders alone. - -Just as the boat was ready to lower away, one of the men let her go with -a run, and she struck the water stern first, with a terrible splash. -The mate, screaming curses, ran over to the falls and began to abuse the -crew. The dinghy was injured, and they had to haul her up and swing out -the whaleboat instead. - -This took some little time, and Vaiti was forgotten for the moment--a -chance that made her heart beat with eagerness to profit by it. - -Two ideas held possession of her--that she must plan to secure a boat, -and that she must manage to do the _Ikurangi_ some sort of mischief. -Was it to be borne that Donahue should go unpaid? The blood of a -hundred fierce Island chiefs made answer. - -Concerning the boat, she thought she saw a chance. They were bound to -stay a day for wood and water, and that should furnish an opportunity. -But the other matter? - -If she could only get hold of the ship's papers and destroy them! That -would be satisfactory. She knew, none better, that a ship's papers are -her character, her "marriage-lines" of respectability. Without them a -vessel is an illegitimate, furtive creature, every man's hand against -her, every official eye turned coldly upon her. Vaiti would have liked -very well to get hold of the _Ikurangi's_. - -But, careless as Donahue was, the papers were not to be found in the -little deck cabin which he used as a chart-room. Vaiti, disappointed, -took one of the charts and began studying the position of the ship, with -a view to finding out the name of the island off which they were lying. -The chart was almost a blank, nothing being marked upon its wide expanse -but a number of reefs and two or three atolls--Bilboa Island, Vaka, -Ngamaru--dotted hundreds of miles apart in a naked waste of white. -Bilboa, an abandoned guano island, of which she had heard something, -seemed to Vaiti the most likely of the three spots. Ngamaru, she knew, -had a native population, and about Vaka she could for the moment -remember nothing, although she knew she had heard something once upon a -time. All this part of the Pacific was far removed from the _Sybil's_ -haunts, and indeed from the haunts of any other ship of which Vaiti had -ever heard. - -It did not seem to be a healthy place for schooners; the reefs round -both Vaka and Bilboa were many, and most were marked "Position -doubtful." Donahue was evidently not familiar with either place, for -the chart was freshly pencilled over with notes and corrections. -Vaiti's heart leaped up as she looked at the careless work.... She saw -a way. - -They were still clearing the lumber out of the whaleboat on deck. No -one was watching. - -Vaiti took a pencil and rubber, and began to do some artistic -alterations on the chart, helped by her knowledge of seamanship. In ten -minutes she had converted the innocent piece of parchment into a perfect -death-trap, rolled it up and replaced it, put back the rubber and -pencil, and slipped out again on deck, where she sat down on a coil of -rope and waited. - -In another couple of minutes the boat was in the water, and the mate -called rudely to Vaiti. She came without a word, covering her face with -her dress, and sobbing bitterly. She stumbled as she walked; you would -have sworn she was weak, broken in spirit, and utterly helpless. - -If the mate felt any compassion, he did not dare to show it. They -shoved off, two natives at the oars. Vaiti, sobbing effectively behind -her hands, kept a sharp look-out with the corner of one eye as they slid -across the dark water, but she could see nothing save a faintly -glimmering line of grey shore, and hear nothing but the humming of the -surf on the reef. - -As soon as they reached the shallow water near the shore, the mate took -Vaiti by her arm and roared, "Out you go!" - -Sobbing afresh, in the most natural and convincing manner in the world, -she obeyed.... It was dark, and the native who rowed bow oar never knew -that she whipped his knife dexterously out of his belt as she passed -him. - -"Why are you marooning me?" she wailed, as she waded through the warm, -shallow water towards the shore. - -The mate leaned out of the boat, now fading fast away into the starry -gloom, and shouted as he disappeared: - -"To pay for Delgadas Reef and the _Margaret Macintyre_!" - -Vaiti, who had reached the shore, almost sat down with the shock. So -that was it! that was it! The pearl-shell lagoon out of which she, -almost unaided, had "jockeyed" the schooner _Margaret Macintyre_, some -months before, was bringing in a crop other than pearls--of which last, -indeed, the canny Scot who had financed the working of the place had had -very much the larger share. - -Well, things must be taken as they were found. The soft tropic night -stirred gently round her. The stars were large and golden; they shone -in the still lagoon like little moons. Palm trees waved somewhere up in -the dusk above, striking their huge rattling vanes together with the -swing of the night-breeze. It was land, safe, solid land, and the sand -was warm and soft, and Vaiti was tired. She walked a little way up the -beach, stretched herself under a pandanus tree, and went to sleep.... - -Some hours later she woke, with the dim, mysterious volcano-glow of the -tropic dawn in her eyes, and a curious feeling of disquiet about her -heart. Still half asleep, she saw the long grey shore sloping down to -the silent lagoon, the ink-coloured pandanus trees standing up against -the dull orange sky, the leaning stems and stumps of coco-palms, dark -and formless in the shadow. She shut her eyes and tried to sleep again. - -No use. That nameless disquiet--now almost fear--still stirred at her -heart. She opened her eyes once more, and looked about. A little more -light--the touch of a glowing finger away in the east--a clearer -defining of the cocoanut stumps, snapped off near their roots in the -last great hurricane.... One of the stumps was oddly shaped--almost -like a human figure. She could have fancied it was a rude image of a -sitting man, only that the profile, against the lightening east, was -featureless, and there was nothing to represent the hands. - -"I will not be frightened by a rotten cocoanut tree," thought Vaiti. "I -will sleep again till it is light. Am I not a sea-captain's daughter, -and the descendant of great Island chiefs, and shall I fear the fancies -of my own mind?" - -Determinedly she closed her eyes again, and lay very still. The dawn -wind began to stir; the ripples crisped upon the beach; the locusts in -the trees broke out into a loud chirr-ing chorus. And as the day broke -silver-clear upon the shore, Vaiti, still lying on the sand, felt that -some one, in the gathering light, was watching her as she lay. - -Wary as a fox, she opened her dark, keen eyes without stirring her body -... and looked straight into a face that was bending almost over her ... -a face hooded by a black cloth that hid the head and brow, and only left -to view ... O God! O God! what was it? - -The thing was featureless. Nose, eyes, and mouth were gone. In the -midst of a cavern of unspeakable ruin the ghastly throat gaped vacant. -Two handless, rotting stumps of arms waved blindly -about--feeling--feeling.... - -Could it hear? Some instinct told the girl that it could. Softly as a -snake she writhed out of the reach of those terrible groping arms. - -It did hear. It sprang blindly forward--it snatched. - -With one leap Vaiti was on her feet. Never looking back, she fled down -the open beach, the sand spurting behind her as she ran. She heard a -dull padding in her rear at first; it soon grew faint, but she ran on -blindly, long after it had died away--ran, while the sun climbed over -the horizon and cast down handfuls of burning gold on her uncovered -head--ran, while the beach grew parchment-white and dazzled back the -heat into her face like an open furnace--ran till at last her -over-driven body gave way, and the sand spun round and the sky turned -red before her eyes. Then only she staggered into the shade and dropped -down upon a green mattress of convolvulus creeper to rest. - -And now, when she had leisure to think and strength to cast off the -haunting horror of that inhuman face, she knew what Donahue had done. - -This was not Bilboa, the uninhabited guano island that she had feared. -This was infinitely worse--it was Vaka, the leper isle! - -She remembered that she had once heard a dim rumour of Vaka and its -ghastly leper people--the remnant of a plague-smitten tribe long ago -forcibly exiled there from one of the fierce western groups. No ships -ever called at this graveyard of the living; it was supposed that the -cocoanuts and fish of the island provided sufficient food for the -people, and no one cared to run the chance of their stowing away and -escaping, especially as they were known to be both daring and -treacherous on occasion. Donahue had indeed laid his plans well for the -most hideous revenge that the heart of man or devil could conceive. A -few weeks or months in this charnel-house of horrors, where the very air -must reek of contagion, and what would it avail her if, after all, some -stray, storm-driven vessel should rescue the castaway? Better, then, -that she should stay and die among the other nameless nightmare horrors -that walked these stricken shores. - -No! Vaiti, sitting cross-legged on the netted vines and staring grimly -out to sea, then and there took resolve that such a fate should not be -hers.... Sharks were uncertain, if you really wanted them; but the -stick of dynamite she had taken from the mate's cabin was safe and sure. -If she failed in using it for the special purpose she had planned, she -would put it in her mouth and light the fuse.... There would be no more -trouble after that. And as for the flies--one did not feel them, of -course, when one was dead. - -All the same, she did not mean to die if she could avoid it, and, as the -first step towards helping herself, she knocked some nuts off a young -palm, and took her breakfast off the refreshing water and juicy meat. -Then she cut a length of bush rope, looped it round the tallest palm in -sight, and set her feet inside the loop, so that she could work herself -up to the top of the tree, monkey-on-stick fashion, leaning against the -rope. When she got into the crown of the palm she knelt among the -leaves, holding on tightly, and looked right and left over the island. - -It was a pure atoll, an irregular circle of feather palms lying on the -sea like a great green garland set afloat. The inner lagoon was several -square miles in extent, but the land was not more than a few hundred -yards wide at any point, and there was no soil to speak of. The palms, -the scanty, pale green scrub, the mop-headed pandanus trees, the -trailing creepers, all sprang out of pure white coral gravel and sand. -The scene was lovely as only a coral atoll can be--the jewel-green water -of the inner lagoon, shaded with vivid reflections of lilac and pale -turquoise, the stately circled palms, the wide, white beach enclasping -all the island like a frame of purest pearl, the burning blue of the -surrounding sea, all combined to form a picture bright as fairyland and -sparkling as an enamelled gem set upon a velvet shield. - -But Vaiti, while she saw and admired the loveliness of the scene, also -recognised its barrenness as only an islander could. No fruit, no -roots, little fresh water--nothing, in fact, but cocoanut and pandanus -kernels, eked out by a little fish.... The lepers must often go hungry. - -The hot day turned suddenly chill as Vaiti recalled those blind, -snatching, handless arms. They came of a cannibal race, these Vaka -folk. What if she had not waked? What if, wearied as she well might -be, she slept too long and too soundly in the night that was to come? - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - *THE TURNING OF THE TABLES* - - -She looked narrowly about the island, hoping to discover the place where -the lepers lived. A cluster of small, miserable huts, on the far side -of the lagoon, attracted her attention. It seemed not more than half a -mile from the spot where she had spent the night. The best fishing -grounds she judged, by the look of the shore, to be near the village. -She was therefore, no doubt, several miles from their usual haunts. - -So far, so good. Where was the schooner? It lay to her left about a -mile out at sea, close to a small, uninhabited, sandy islet. Vaiti -supposed that the men were cutting wood and looking for water. She saw -one or two black dots on the shore, recognisable by their blue dungaree -clothing, and strained her eyes eagerly to see if the dinghy had been -pulled up on the sand, for in this lay her only chance. If they brought -the boat up on the beach, to repair her where wood could be had without -going to the atoll itself (Vaiti would have wagered that the _Ikurangi_ -did not carry a splinter outside of the galley fuel), then the schooner -would probably stop overnight. In that case she could carry out her -plans. Otherwise ... there was always the dynamite. - -The dinghy was ashore, drawn well up on the beach. - -She drew a breath of relief, and slid down the tree again. Now she -could wait till night with an easy mind. - -All day she hid in the tangle of young palm and low-growing scrub that -clustered about the foot of the loftier trees. Once she saw a couple of -the lepers pass by in the distance, evidently looking for something. -These had eyes, and she crept closer into the shelter of the scrub till -they were gone. Then she came cautiously out, and plucked long sheets -of the fine pale-brown natural matting that protects the young shoot of -the cocoanut, to cover up her white dress, for the scrub was dangerously -thin, in that staring overhead sun. She did not venture down to the sea -to fish, but fed upon cocoanuts during the day. - -Night came at last--night and coolness, with big stars shining in the -lagoon, and a gentle breeze stirring among the palms. About midnight, -as near as she could guess, Vaiti came out of her shelter and prepared -for action. - -She took off her clothes, and fastened about her waist a petticoat of -the dark-coloured cocoanut matting which she had stitched together -during the day. So habited, with her olive skin and black hair, she -knew that she was invisible in the darkness of the night. She fastened -the dynamite, and a box of matches, into the coil of hair on the top of -her head, stuck her knife into the waist of her petticoat, and walked -down the beach into the warm, dark sea. - -She knew very well that the outer side of an atoll commonly swarms with -sharks, but the risk did not trouble her. There was something a good -deal worse to face on the island than any number of sharks. Heading for -the distant light of the schooner, she swam through the starry water -with the low, dog-like island paddle that can cover such marvellous -distances--keeping her head well out, and quietly taking her time. - -It was a long swim, but it ended at last, and the schooner rose up -before her in the water, black and silent, and shifting ever so little -upon the swell of the incoming tide. The stars made little trickles of -light upon her wet, dark hull. Two boats lay alongside--the dinghy, -freshly mended and watertight, and the whaleboat, loaded with wood and -cocoanuts. After the slovenly fashion of the _Ikurangi_, they had left -the boats until the morning to hoist inboard, seeing that it was dead -calm in the lee of the islet. - -This was more than Vaiti had hoped for, and it made her task easy. She -cut the dinghy's painter, got into the boat, and muffled the oars with a -strip or two torn from her petticoat. Then she put the dynamite into -the whaleboat, cut and attached a good long fuse, set a match to it, and -saw that the tiny red spark was steadily eating its way along, before -she pulled off from the ship. She towed the whaleboat after her a little -way, and then let it go thirty or forty yards from the ship. It was not -her desire to wreck the schooner at Vaka Island, and possibly let loose -her enemies upon the atoll; rather she wished the ship well out of the -way before any disaster should overtake her. The charts would most -probably ensure that matter. The destruction of the boat was only -intended to secure her own possession of the dinghy. - -She had scarcely reached the shore before a loud explosion boomed out -across the water, and immediately after lights began to stir on board -the schooner. Vaiti worked with coolness and speed, knowing that it was -not likely, though possible, that any one would swim ashore. From her -eyrie in the coco-palm she had noted a deep, narrow creek running up -from the lagoon--a mere crack in the coral, but wide enough to admit a -small boat, taken in with care. There was just enough light from the -stars to enable her to find the place, and run the boat up on the sand -at the end, into the heart of a tangle of leaves and creepers that -entirely concealed it. For safety's sake, she cut a few more armfuls of -trailing vines from the shore, and buried the boat two or three feet -deep, so that neither from the sea nor the land could it possibly be -seen. - -As she worked, she could hear shouts and cries, made faint by distance, -coming across the water from the schooner. She could imagine the scene -that would take place on board when they found themselves boatless. Some -of the native crew--not Donahue or the mate; they would never face the -sharks--would probably swim ashore to-morrow to investigate. Well, let -them! - -Having finished the concealing of the dinghy, she got into it herself, -put on her clothes again, drew the tangled creepers well over her, and -went calmly to sleep, secure that no one could find her unless she chose -to be found. - -All the same, she was very cautious about getting up the next morning, -and looked carefully between the leaves before she ventured out of her -hiding-place. She covered up her light dress with the cocoanut canvas, -and then climbed a palm to look about. - -People were moving hurriedly about the decks of the schooner; something -seemed to be going on. As she watched, she saw two natives, clad only -in loin-cloths, stand up on the bulwarks, ready to dive. In another -moment they had flashed down into the sea, small as ants to sight at -that distance, but perfectly clear to Vaiti's sea-trained eyes. Then -the dark specks began to make their way across the water. The sun was -newly risen, the sea was still a mirror of molten gold, and the tiny -black heads stood out sharply on its surface. Vaiti set her teeth as -she watched them creeping on. They were island men, of her mother's own -race, and they had done her no harm. And ... the longer a vessel lies -at anchor in equatorial latitudes, the more certain it is that sharks -will gather round her--even if there has been no explosion in the water -alongside to kill the fish and collect the tigers of the sea from far -and near. - -Vaiti looked away, and began desperately to count the nuts clustered -among the palm-fronds at her feet.... How many were there? -Ten--fifteen--twenty---- - -A long, despairing shriek tore across the water. She put her fingers in -her ears and buried her face in the leaves. Yet, all the same, she -heard a second cry, short and sudden, and quickly ended. There was -nothing more. She lifted her face again, her teeth set tight into her -lower lip. The two black heads were gone. - -"No one will come ashore to-day," she said, with a shiver. Something -seemed to stab her, as she thought of that doctored chart in the -schooner's deck cabin. The reefs on the course to South America were -hundreds of miles from shore--the ship had no boats--and the native crew -must suffer with the villainous captain and mate, if the disaster that -she had plotted so carefully should come about.... There would be -sharks there, too, when the ship broke up.... - -The crystal-gold of the sea turned dim before Vaiti's eyes. It was only -a mist of tears that lay between, but to the girl's excited imagination -it seemed like the spreading and darkening stain of blood. - -Careless of whether she was seen or not, she slid down the tree and -rushed into the scrub, where she sat down upon the sand and cried like a -mere nervous schoolgirl. The sun was past the zenith when she lifted her -head again; the schooner had put out to sea, and lay, a far-off snowy -speck, upon the blue horizon. - -Vaiti stood up, flung back her hair, and cast the trouble from her. She -could not afford to grieve over the inevitable now; there was too much -to do. The boat had to be prepared and provisioned, and that was not -the work of a moment. - -She husked and opened a number of large cocoanuts, and removed the -insides. She then cut a quantity of young palm-leaves, and plaited them -into baskets, which she filled with the cocoanut meat. Afterwards she -cut down dozens of young green nuts for drinking, husked them to save -space, and slung them together in bunches with strips of their own -fibre. This done, she hid the provisions in the boat, and set about her -own supper, as it was almost dark. - -Nourishing food she felt she must have, if she was to get through with -her enterprise, but she dared not attract attention to herself by going -out torch-fishing on the reef. However, there were certain holes in the -ground about the roots of the palms that to her experienced eye promised -something better than fish. - -She dug a fire-hole in the gravel at the end of the gully where she had -hidden the boat, lined it with stones, and made a fire, looking well to -it that no gleam should be visible from above. When the stones were -beginning to heat, she took a piece of palms-leaf in her hand, hid -herself in the bush, and waited, still as a rock. - -By-and-by there was a faint scuffling among the roots of the trees, and -a shadowy thing began climbing up the trunk of a palm. Vaiti waited -till it had disappeared in the crown of the tree, and then climbed after -it to a point about ten feet from the top, where she tied her strip of -leaf round the trunk and came down again. - -Thump! thump! Two cocoanuts fell to the earth. The crab (for it was a -cocoanut crab of the biggest and fiercest kind) was getting his supper. -Now he would come down the tree, rip open the nuts with his formidable -claws, and enjoy the contents. - -Slowly he began to back down the palm, his sensitive tail ready to tell -him when he had touched earth and might safely let go. And now it was -that Vaiti's trap (a well-known native trick) proved his undoing. The -belt of dry leaflets round the tree tickled his tail, he promptly let -go, and fell with a crash seventy feet through air on to the pile of -coral lumps that Vaiti had heaped up at the foot of the tree. - -The girl picked him up, badly injured and unable to use his claws (which -were big enough to crack her ankle), and put an end to him with a clever -stroke of her knife. He proved to be two feet long in the body alone, -and of a fine blue and red colour, as seen in the dim light of the fire. -She put him on the heated stones, wrapped in leaves, buried him until -cooked, and then enjoyed a hot supper that an epicure might have envied. - -Strengthened by the good food, she worked on late into the night, -catching more crabs, whose meat she hoped she could dry in the sun, -making a rough sail out of the bed-sheet she had carried away from the -schooner, twisting sinnet plait out of cocoanut husk for ropes, cutting -and trimming a small pandanus for the mast. She had all her plans laid, -and knew what she meant to do. Her present position was about five -hundred miles from the Marquesas, and the south-east trades would be in -her favour. With lines for fishing, a beaker full of fresh water on -board (she had found that in the dinghy when she took it away), -cocoanuts to help out with, and plenty of crab to dry, she hoped that -she might manage to reach the islands before her strength or her food -gave out. Greater voyages had been done many a time in mere canoes, and -the dinghy was a large boat of its kind, strong, well built, and new. -If she failed--well, any death, any horror that the wide seas could hold -was better than Vaka Island. - -All being ready, she lay down and slept till dawn--a somewhat restless -sleep, for it was full of wandering dreams, and all the dreams took one -shape: Donahue's schooner, snared by the lying chart, rushing helpless -to her end, with the green-eyed tigers of the sea hovering ever about -the reefs, and waiting ... waiting.... - - * * * * * - -"I don't think the patient can see any one," said the nurse doubtfully. - -The big, yellow-haired sailor took off his hat and stepped up on to the -verandah. It was a very beautiful verandah. You could see most of Suva -Bay from it, and half the tumbled purple peaks of Fiji's wonderful -mountains lying across the harbour. - -"If you could stretch a point, ma'am," said the sailor, "it might be as -well for him. I've got good news." - -"About his daughter?" asked the nurse. She, like every one else in -Suva, was deeply interested in this especial patient's story. He had -come to Suva in his own schooner, the _Sybil_, several weeks before, -furious with rage and despair at the loss of his daughter, and eager to -demand assistance from the High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, -although it seemed by no means clear in what manner Her Majesty's -representative could aid him. Before the matter had even been -discussed, however, he had fallen seriously ill of sunstroke and -excitement combined, and had been sent to hospital, with rather a bad -chance of recovery. He was just turning the corner now, and the -nurse--who could not but admire his rather weather-beaten good looks and -romantic history--regarded him as her most interesting patient. - -"Yes, it's about his daughter," answered the sailor. "I'm the mate of -the _Sybil_, ma'am; Harris is my name. Perhaps you'd kindly read this." - -He held out a long slip of printed paper, containing a _resume_ of the -cables for the day--Suva's substitute for a daily paper. - -The nurse took it, and read: - -"The missing daughter of Edward Saxon, owner and master of the trading -schooner _Sybil_, has at last reappeared. Her fate has excited much -interest and conjecture all over the Pacific. She arrived in Sydney -yesterday on board the cable-ship _Clotho_, by which she was picked up -on the 2nd instant, in an open boat, alone, and two hundred miles from -any land. She had experienced bad weather, and was much exhausted for -want of food, but declared herself capable, if it had been necessary, of -reaching the nearest island group unaided. She had been carried away, -as was surmised, by the captain of the island schooner _Ikurangi_, who -marooned her on a remote leper island, Vaka, and then sailed for South -America. Revenge for the loss of a pearl-shell bed of disputed -ownership is said to have been the motive of this unparalleled outrage." - -"He shall have it at once," said the nurse cordially. "It'll do him more -good than our medicines." - - * * * * * - -The story was a popular one in the hospital for months after, and it had -not been quite forgotten when, towards the close of the hot season, a -Sydney paper furnished the last chapter of the tale. Saxon's late nurse -read it aloud to the others at afternoon tea, and they all agreed (not -knowing how Vaiti's fingers had cogged the dice of chance) that it was a -wonderful Providence and a real judgment. The item read: - - - "THE LAST OF AN OCEAN ROMANCE. - -"News comes via Tahiti from Nukahiva, Marquesas Islands, of the arrival -of a shipwrecked crew on a raft, six weeks ago. They were the survivors -of a disaster that destroyed the notorious schooner _Ikurangi_ whose -master, it will be remembered, kidnapped and marooned the daughter of a -British captain some months ago. The schooner, after leaving the -island, sailed for Callao, but was wrecked on an uncharted reef three -days east of Vaka, and went to pieces. The crew escaped on a raft, and -underwent great suffering in their efforts to reach land. The captain -and mate were drowned." - - -"And serve them right, too!" said the audience. - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - *THE WHITE MAN OF NALOLO* - - -"By Jove! it's a white man," said Saxon, checking like a pointer on the -threshold of the low dark doorway. - -"Certainly. Very pleased to meet you," observed the figure on the mats. -It was sitting cross-legged, clad only in a waist-cloth, and the house -was a Fijian chief-house in a mountain village three days' journey from -the nearest white settlement--but the thing squatted on the mats was -undoubtedly white, and--English? Well, no; Saxon thought no. The -phrase was American in flavour. He stepped across the threshold, and -came a little way in, relieved in mind. When you have been dead and -buried among the islands for a quarter of a century it is much -pleasanter not to run the risk of meeting other ghosts (with university -accents, tea-coloured families, and a preference for modest retirement -on steamer days) who may possibly have been alive together with you -before... - -Before.... The word means much in that vast Pacific world, sepulchre of -so many lost hopes and forgotten lives. We do not, in the Islands, -cultivate curiosity as a virtue, since it would be likely to bring -rather more than virtue's own reward after it. We do not ask cross -questions, because the crooked answers might involve questions of -another sort. And when overfed, sanguineous passengers from smart -liners happen along and tell us, as a new and excellent joke, that the -proper formula for receiving an introduction in the Islands is: "Glad to -meet you, Mr. So-and-so; what were you called _before_?" we smile an -acid smile, and pretend we are amused.... - -Saxon was very tired, having walked thirty miles that day, and very -hungry, being out of luck, and more or less on the tramp. But I think, -tired as he was, he would have found another village to rest in if the -derelict white on the mats had spoken with the shibboleth of his own -class and country. - -As things were, the look of the house pleased him, and he came in and -folded himself up on the mats. The other man noted that he selected a -"tabu kaisi" mat (a kind strictly forbidden to all but chiefs or -whites), and that he looked hopefully towards the kava bowl. - -"Not the first time you've stopped under a pandanus roof, I guess?" he -remarked. - -"No," said Saxon. "Whose house is this?" - -"Mine," said the stranger. "Make yourself at home." - -It was a handsome chief-house of the best Fijian type, forty feet from -mats to ridge-pole, the walls covered with beautifully inlaid and -interwoven reeds, the roof bound together with exquisite sinnet work in -artistic patterns, of red, black, and yellow, and towering up into a -dark, cool cavern of pleasant gloom. The floor was overlaid with fine -parquetry of split bamboo at the "kasii" or common-folk end, and piled -deep with fine mats in the "chief" part. A Fijian bed, ten feet wide -and three feet high, ran like a dais right across the end of the house. -It was covered by mats prettily fringed with coloured parrot feathers. -There were three great doors, east, west, and south, each framing in its -dark-set opening a different picture of surpassing loveliness. Nalolo -town (its name is on the map of Fiji, but it reads otherwise) stands -very high on the sheer crest of a pointed green hill that is just like -the enchanted hill in the pictures of a fairy tale. There is a little -round green lawn on the top, and all about it stand the high, pointed -beehive houses of the town, each perched on its own tiny mound like a -toy on a stand. Sloped cocoanut logs run up to the doors of the houses, -and quaintly coloured crotons cluster about them. In the deep, soft -grass golden eggs from the guava trees lie tumbled about among fallen -stars of orange and lemon blossom, and everywhere the red hibiscus -shakes its splendid bells in the soft hill-winds. About the foot of the -peak a wide blue river wanders, singing all day long; and from every -door of every house, high perched above the cloudy valleys and hyacinth -hill ranges, one can see pictures, and pictures, and pictures almost too -lovely to be true. There are not two places in the world like Nalolo. - -The White Man of Nalolo, however, was only interested in the fact that -the river provided excellent crayfish; and that taro grew very well -indeed on the slopes below the town. He had once been young, but he was -not young now, and did not matter any longer. Therefore he had become -particular about his dinner and indifferent to scenery. I will not tell -you the story of the White Man of Nalolo, or why he, of all men, -rebelled so fiercely against the common lot of "not mattering any more," -that he came away to the wilds of the Pacific and the highlands of Fiji, -and never went back again, because, like many true stories, it cannot be -believed, and therefore had better not be told. Besides, this is the -story of Saxon and his daughter. - -Saxon was down on his luck. He had a charter for the _Sybil_, but she -was not able to undertake it at present, for, trying to pilot her into -Suva harbour himself, he had contrived to run her on a reef, and damaged -her so seriously that she was at present careened on the beach in front -of the local boat-builder's, undergoing repairs. The builder, knowing -something of Saxon's reputation, had insisted on cash in advance, and -the captain, in consequence, found himself so nearly out of funds that -he was unable to stay in Suva pending the repairs to his ship. He had -therefore started with Vaiti for the interior of the great island of -Viti Levu, intending to live on the real hospitality of the natives for -a few weeks, and tramp from village to village. - -He explained something of this as he sat on the mats enjoying the -grateful coolness of the house. The other man nodded gravely, watching -the door. He offered a curious contrast to the Englishman's coarse red -fairness, being lean, sundried, and grizzled, with expressionless, -boot-buttoned eyes, and a straggling "goatee" beard that dated his exile -from America back to long-ago days. - -"Where's your daughter?" he asked. - -"Coming. She stopped to tidy up at the river." - -The doorway was darkened at that moment by Vaiti herself, balancing -lightly up the cocoanut log to the threshold. She wore a white tunic -over a scarlet "pareo," her wavy curls, sparkling with the water of the -stream, fell loose upon her shoulders; her lips were as red as the -freshly-plucked pomegranate blossom behind her ear. Something like life -stirred in the boot-button eyes of the White Man of Nalolo as he looked -at her. - -"Afi!" he called to a Fijian woman who was sleeping on the mats at the -"kaisi" end of the house, "go and hurry the girls with the supper, and -make tea for the marama (lady). Quick!" - -Then he turned to Saxon. - -"Stay here as long as you like, both of you," he said. "Let her sit -there sometimes, where I can see her and fancy.... I'll show you -something." - -He rose slowly and stiffly, and limped across to a Chinese camphorwood -box that stood in the corner. In a minute he returned with a faded -photograph in a gaudy frame. - -"My daughter," he said. "The only child I ever had. She was Afi's. -She died a long time ago. Afi's a chief woman: she was as handsome as -Andi Thakombau when she was young, and the girl took after her. Your -girl's mother was chief too, I guess. Do you see any likeness?" - -Vaiti and her father craned over the photograph. The pretty half-caste -girl, was certainly like the stately, slender creature who gazed at her -pictured face, though the fire and spirit of Vaiti's expression were -wanting. - -"I'm growing old," went on the White Man. "I've no children. Stay a -bit. I'll be glad to have you." - -"Thank you; delighted, I'm sure," drawled Saxon, with a pathetic -resurrection of his long-forgotten "grand manner," And so it was -settled. - -Vaiti, listening and thinking as usual, with her chin in her slender -fingers, approved of what she heard, and smiled very pleasantly at her -host. It seemed to her that he could be very useful just now. - -The four weeks that followed after glided away agreeably enough in the -silent hills. Nothing happened; no one came or went--the Fijians, men -and women, went out to the yam and taro fields in the morning, and -returned in the afternoon; and after dark there would be long, -monotonous chanting, and interminable sitting dances, on the mats inside -the high-roofed houses. Saxon stupefied himself with kava most of the -time, in the absence of stronger drink, and almost got himself clubbed -once or twice on account of his too impulsive admiration for the -beauties of the village. His host, however, was no censor of morals, -and troubled very little about him. On Sundays the Fijians dressed -themselves in their brightest cottons, stuck up their hair in huge -halos, and went five times to church, under the auspices of the native -Wesleyan teacher; while Saxon and his host smoked, slept, drank kava, -and played cards. The village provided plenty of yam and taro, kumara, -cocoanut, and fish; and there was tea and sugar in the Chinese box, and -now and then the White Man killed a pig or a fowl. It was very pleasant -on the whole. - -In a month's time, however, Saxon girded up his loins to leave this -mountain Capua and descend to Suva once more. The _Sybil_ would be -ready, and his charter to convey ornamental Fiji woods to San Francisco -would not wait. - -They said good-bye to their host, and walked a mile or two across the -river-flats below the town before either spoke. Then Vaiti put her hand -into her sash, and drew out something small and shining. - -"See, father, what the White Man gave me, because I was like his -daughter," she said. - -Saxon took the object, and turned it over in his fingers. It was a small -seal, shaped like an eagle standing on a rock. The eagle was gold, the -rock amethyst. - -"A pretty thing, but not worth more than two or three pounds," he said. - -Then he turned it over and looked at the device. There was a curious -crest on the face of the seal--a wolf with a crescent moon in his jaws; -underneath, a motto in a strange foreign character. - -Saxon's red complexion paled as he examined the crest. In other days and -scenes, among ice-bound rivers and grim mediaeval fortress-castles, he -had seen that crest light up the crimson panes of old armorial -windows--had read the motto underneath--"What I have, I hold"--of nights -when he and the wildest young nobles of the Russian court were dining -together under the splendid roof of one of Moscow's greatest banqueting -halls. For a moment he felt the keen cold air of the ice-bound streets -blow sharp on his cheek; heard the jingle of the sleigh-bells, drawing -up before the marble steps where the yellow lamplight streamed out -across the snow. The fancy faded, swift as a passing lantern picture -that flashes out for a moment and then sweeps away into darkness. He -saw the burning sky and the crackling palms again, felt the -furnace-heated wind, and knew that it was all over long ago, and that he -was ruined, exiled, and old. Yet there remained a thread of indefinite -recollection, a suggestion of something half-remembered, that was not -all unconnected with the present day. What was the story belonging to -that crest--the story that the whole world knew? - -"Where did the fellow get the thing?" he asked his daughter. - -Vaiti told him. - -The White Man of Nalolo, it seemed, was one of the numerous South Sea -wanderers who believe in the existence of various undiscovered islands, -hidden here and there in the vast, untravelled wastes of sea that lie -off the track of ships. Thirty years before, there had been wondering -rumours of an island of this kind, touched at once by a ship that no one -could name, found to be uninhabited, and never revisited; indeed, no one -was sure where it was within a few hundred miles. Years went by, and -the White Man, who had always taken a special interest in the story, -found himself shipwrecked--the sole survivor of a boatful of -castaways--on the very island itself. But fortune was unkind, for the -morning after his arrival, when he was trying to sail round the island, -a sudden storm blew him out to sea again, and he had drifted for many -days, and all but perished, in spite of the fish and nuts he had -obtained from the island, before a mission schooner happened to see him -and pick him up. He had examined most of the island while ashore, and -had seen no inhabitants or traces of cultivation. Nevertheless he had -always been convinced that there was something mysterious about the -place, for two reasons. One was the presence of common house-flies, -which he had never seen far away from the haunts of human beings. The -other was the discovery of an amethyst seal, lying under a stone on the -shore. It was dirty and discoloured, but he did not think so small and -heavy an object could have been washed up on the shore from a wreck. - -Where mystery is in the air, most men's minds turn naturally to thoughts -of hidden treasure, and the White Man of Nalolo had ever since cherished -a hope that there was treasure on the island. For several years he had -fully intended to go and look--some day--but as he could only guess at -the latitude and longitude, and as he had little money to spare, he -never succeeded either in hunting the place up himself or in persuading -any one else to do so. Now he was old and half-crippled, and did not -care any more about anything; so he wanted Vaiti, who reminded him so -much of his dead daughter, to have the seal. It was a pretty thing, and -perhaps it would make her think sometimes of the poor old White Man of -Nalolo. - -Saxon listened attentively to the story, and heaved a sigh of -disappointment at the end. - -"There's nothing in it, my girl," he said. "No proof of treasure there, -eh?" - -"No; no treasure," said Vaiti, looking at the ground as she walked. - -"What then?" asked Saxon curiously. He saw she had something in -reserve. - -Vaiti suddenly flamed out in eloquent Maori. - -"What then, my father? Am I one who sees through men's heads, that I -can tell what was in the mind of you as you looked at the jewel, and -turned yellow and green like a parrot, only to see it? What then? I do -not know. I walk in the dark, and the light is in your hand, not in -mine. As for you, you have made your brain dull with the brandy and the -kava, so that you cannot see at all. What then? Tell me yourself, for -I do not know. I know only that there is something to be told." - -"Don't be rough on your poor old father," said Saxon pathetically. "I'd -have knocked the stuffing out of any man who said half as much, but I -spoil you, by Gad, I do. I don't know--I can't think, somehow or other. -But there was a story about the Vasilieffs--the johnnies who had that -crest--people I used to stay with when I went to----" - -He broke off, smashed a spider-lily bloom with his stick, and began -afresh. - -"Junia Vasilieff--what was it she did? Big princes they were, and much -too close to the throne to be safe company.... Junia Vasili--I have it! -Yes--the end of the story was in the Sydney papers, time you were a -little kid. I remember. They were to have married her to the -Czarewitch, just to make things safe. Her claim to the throne was big -enough to have started a revolution any day, if it had been asserted.... -Poor little Junia!--only sixteen when I knew--when the marriage was -talked of--and such golden hair as she had! She hated the whole thing; -courts and ceremony weren't in her line. But she was a gentle little -creature, and I never thought she'd have had the spirit to do as she -did." - -He turned the seal over in his fingers, as if reading the past from its -glittering surface. - -"There was a young lieutenant of Hussars, a Pole--you don't know what -that is, but the Russians don't like them, I can tell you--a noble, but -a very small one; not fit to black Junia's boots, according to their -notions. Well, he bolted with her. It was in the Sydney papers, time I -was in the Solomons; the paper came up to Guadalcanar.... She must have -been twenty then; just the year the marriage to the Czarewitch was to -have come off.... They bolted--cleared out--never seen again. All -Russia on the boil about it; no one knew but what they'd hatch up plots -against the throne, she having a better claim than any one else, if it -hadn't been for the law against empresses. The secret police were after -them for years, but they were never traced, though most people knew -Russia'd give a pretty penny to know where they were----" - -"O man with the head of a fruit-bat, do you not see?" interrupted Vaiti -at this juncture. "They hid on that island--they may be there still. -It is worth a hundred treasures!" - -"The Pole was a great traveller, and had a sort of a little yacht," said -Saxon thoughtfully. "It might be true, of course--if there is an -island, and if the Nalolo Johnnie had any idea of where it was, and if -nobody found them out and split years ago. Plenty of 'ifs.'" - -"I think him all-right good enough," averred Vaiti, returning to English -and prose. "By'n-by we finish F'lisco, then we go see, me and you." - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - *THE LOST ISLAND* - - -Some two or three months later, the schooner might have been seen, like -a white-winged butterfly lost at sea, beating up and down before a -solitary, low, green island lying far east of the lonely Paumotus. -Vaiti, sitting on the top of the deck-house, was examining the land -through a glass. The native crew were all on deck; also Harris and -Gray, the mate and bo'sun. Captain Saxon was not to be seen. - -"The old man always do get squiffy at the wrong time, don't he?" -commented Harris, rather gleefully. - -Gray spat over the rail for reply. - -"You're ratty because you don't know nothing, ain't you?" he said. - -"Do you?" asked the mate curiously. Harris had not much notion of the -dignity of his office, and dearly loved a gossip at all times. - -"More nor you, havin' eyes and ears that's of use to me occasionally," -replied the bo'sun dryly. - -Harris considered. - -"I'll give you my grey shirt to tell," he said persuasively. "There's -sure to be something up." - -"'Ow much does we ever get out of it when there is?" asked Gray sourly. -"I could do with that shirt very well, though. There ain't much to -tell, except that the old man he thought there was an island hereabouts -not marked on the chart that nobody knew about; and Vaiti she allowed -that was all ---- rot, because, says she, this part's been surveyed, and -though the Admiralty surveys isn't the for-ever-'n-ever-Amen dead -certainties the little brassbound officers thinks them, still they don't -leave whole islands out on the loose without a collar and a name round -their necks, so to say. So, says she, let me work out the length of -time they ran before the hurricane, says she, and the d'rection of the -wind, which the old boy remembered right enough, says she; and then look -it up on the chart, and I'll be blowed, says she, if you don't find -something for a guide like. So by-and-by she looks, and says she, -''Ere's something; 'ere's a reef marked P.D., and it is P.D.,' says she, -'for you and I knows there's nothin' there,' she says. 'But we'll look -a bit more to the north'ard,' she says, 'where it's right off the' track -of ships, and maybe we'll find somethin' and maybe we won't,' she says. -'But I think,' she says, 'that somewheres not too far off from that P.D. -reef we'll maybe get a sight of what we're lookin' for,' she says, -'because sometimes reefs is put down for bigger things by mistake,' she -says, 'especially if you 'aven't been to see.' Then she comes on deck, -and I makes myself scarce, for it ain't healthy on this ship to listen -at no cabin skylights, not if she knows you're there." - -"Well, whatever the game is, I don't suppose it'll line our little -insides any fatter, bo'sun. We don't count on this ship anything like -as we ought to when there's shares goin'. I wonder that I stick to her, -I do! Old man as drunk as a lord half the time--me doin' his work as -well as my own--a blessed she-cat running the blooming show----" - -"Ready about!" sang Vaiti from the deck-house, and the mate and bo'sun -sprang across the deck. There was something about the orders of the -"she-cat" that enforced a smartness on the _Sybil_ rare on an island -schooner, even when heavy-fisted Saxon was not about. - -Half an hour later, Vaiti had rowed herself ashore, curtly declining -Harris's polite offers of assistance, and had landed on the beach. As -she did not know who she might be going to see, she had provided for all -emergencies. Her revolver was in her pocket, and she wore a flowing -sacque of lace-trimmed white silk that made her feel she was fit to meet -any Russian princess, if such were indeed on the island. It was a -gratifying thought that the said princess, if she had been a celebrated -beauty, must now be well into the forties, and consequently beneath all -contempt as a rival belle. - -Her father's absence did not trouble her. He had a nasty trick of -starting a drinking bout just when he was most needed--in fact, it was -the one point in Saxon's character on which you could absolutely rely. -Vaiti, therefore, had grown used to doing without him, and rather liked -to have a perfectly free hand. - -She had fully grasped the bearings of the case. There was possibly a -very great chief's daughter from Europe, with a rather insignificant -chief who had stolen her away, living there in hiding. The people of -her country would pay a great deal to know where she was and bring her -back. Or, if there seemed any lack of safety about this proceeding -(Vaiti had long ago learned that her father was not fond of putting -himself within the reach of principalities and powers of any kind), the -couple themselves must be made to pay for silence. It was all very -simple. - -The fact that the island was supposed to be uninhabited did not trouble -her. She meant to investigate that matter after her own fashion. - -She walked all round it first of all. It took her about an hour. There -was a nice, white, sandy beach, with straggling bush behind it. There -were a good many cocoanuts--all young ones--also a large number of -broken trunks, apparently snapped off by a hurricane. - -This set Vaiti thinking. It seemed to her that the damage was rather -too universal and even to be natural. Yet why should any sane human cut -short all his full-grown cocoanuts? - -She crossed the island twice at the ends, noting everything with a keen -and wary eye. Fairly good soil; nothing growing on it, however, but low -scrub and a few berries. In the centre of the island the scrub -thickened into dense bush, impenetrable without an axe. No sign of life -anywhere. - -Vaiti stamped her foot. Was it possible she had been mistaken? Was -this indeed just what it seemed, a commonplace, infertile, useless, -little mid-ocean islet, let alone because it was worth nothing, and -incorrectly described as a reef because no one had ever troubled to -examine it? Things began to look like it. - -And yet ... she thought--she did not quite know what, but she was very -sure that she did not want to leave the island just yet. She would at -least climb a tall tree and take a general survey before she gave it up. - -Nothing simpler--but there was no such tree. - -All the palms were young, or broken off short; all the pandanus trees -were in the same condition. There was no rock, no commanding height. -She could not get a view. - -Vaiti's cheek flushed crimson under its olive brown. The spark was -struck at last! - -Somebody had cut short those trees--to prevent anyone from climbing up -and overlooking the island. The encircling reef would not allow any ship -to approach close enough for a look-out at the mast-head to see over the -island, except in a very general way. There was something to conceal. -What, and where? - -Only one answer was possible. The mass of apparently virgin bush in the -centre of the island--several acres in extent--was the only spot where a -cat could have concealed itself. The scent was growing hot. - -With sparkling eyes Vaiti began to circle the wood, watching narrowly -for the smallest trace of a pathway. The branches were interlocked and -knitted together as only tropical bush can be. Many were set with huge -thorns; all were laced and twined with bush ropes and lianas of every -kind. - -Nothing larger than a rat could have won its way through such a rampart. -Vaiti walked swiftly on and on, striking the bushes now and then with a -stick, to make sure that there were no loose masses of stuff masking a -concealed entrance, and keeping a sharp eye for traces of footsteps.... -It was with a heart-sinking shock that she found herself once more -beside the low white coral rock that had marked the commencement of her -journey, and realised that she had been all round, and that there was -most certainly no opening. - -The sun was slipping down the heavens now. She had been exploring half -the day, but she was not beaten yet. The unexpected difficulties she -had met with only sharpened her determination to enter the thicket at -all costs. Harris, suffering acutely, as usual, from suppressed -curiosity, was nearly driven mad by the sight of the "she-cat" suddenly -reappearing on the ship, picking up an axe, and departing as silently as -she had come, with a countenance that did not invite questions. She had -taken off her smart silk dress, and was in her chemise and petticoat, -arms and feet bare, and waist girdled with a sash into which she had -stuck her revolver. She dropped the axe into her boat, rowed silently -away, and disappeared on the other side of the island. - -The sun was still some distance above the sea when she let the axe slip -from her torn, scratched, and aching hands, and stood at last, tired but -triumphant, in the heart of the mysterious island's mystery. She had -won her way, with the woodcraft that was in her island blood, through -the dense belt of bush, hacking and slashing here, stooping and writhing -there, until the light began to show through the tangled stems in front, -and a few swift strokes cleared the way into the open. Yes! there was a -space in the centre, after all--a clearing over an acre in extent. -There was grass here, and a few overgrown bananas, and a tangle of yam -and pumpkin vines. Passion fruit ran in a tangle of wild luxuriance -over the inner wall of the thicket; pine-apples rotted on the ground and -fig-trees spread their wide leaves unchecked and unpruned.... In the -middle of all was a house--a one-storied little bungalow, iron-roofed, -with a tank to catch the rain. There was a long, low store behind it, -and something that looked like a pig-sty, and something that might have -been a fowl-run. But.... - -But everything was rotten, ruined, overgrown, hardly to be distinguished -in the thick tangle of vegetation that had overflowed the little retreat -like a great green wave let loose upon a low-lying shore. Vaiti knew -what she was going to see before she had reached the door of the -bungalow--a rotten floor, with green vines shooting up between the -crevices, and bush rats scuffling and squeaking under the boards--a -rusted iron roof, where pink convolvulus bloom peeped in under the -rafters, and lizards sunned themselves in the airy blue furniture -unglued and decayed fast sinking into one common mass of ruin--door -aslant, and thresholds sunken. Everywhere silence, emptiness, decay. -There needed no explanation of the vanished pathway. - -The Maori blood owns strange instincts. Again Vaiti knew what she was -going to see before it came--knew, and walked straight over to a certain -corner of the enclosure, as if she had been there before.... It was -under a scarlet-flowered hibiscus tree that she found it--a long, low -grave, fenced round with a wall of coral slabs, so that the overflowing -bush had surged less thickly here, and one could see that there was -something lying on the mound, only half hidden by creeping -vines--something long and white and slender. - -Vaiti dragged away the creepers.... Yes, it was a skeleton, bare and -fleshless, with bony fingers and black, empty eyes. There was a -splintered gap in one temple, and close to one of the hands lay a mass -of rusted steel that had once been a revolver. - -On a flat white stone, standing at the head of the grave, a long -inscription had been carved with infinite care in three different -languages. Two of them Vaiti did not understand, but the third was -English. She pulled the growing ferns off the stone, and, wiping its -surface, read: - - - "Here is buried Junia, of the race of Vasilieff. - Died 20th June, 1889. - - "Here is buried Anton, son of Junia Vasilieff - and her husband, Alexis, Baron Varsovi, - Born 20th June, died 21st June, - 1889. - - "Here rests Alexis, Baron Varsovi. Into the - unknown thou didst follow me: into the - Great Unknown I follow thee. - Reunited 21st June, 1889." - - -Vaiti, descendant of cannibal chiefs and lawless soldiers, more than -half a pirate herself, and hard of nature as a beautiful flinty coral -flower, was yet at bottom a woman after all. What passed in the breast -of this dark, wild daughter of the southern seas, as she stood above the -strange, sad record of loves and lives unknown, cannot be told. But in -a little while, with some dim recollection of the long-ago, gentle, -pious days of her convent school, she knelt down beside tie lonely -grave, and, crossing herself, said something as near to a prayer as she -could remember. Then, still kneeling, she cut and tied two sticks into -the form of a cross, and set them upright in the earth of the mound. -The sun was slanting low and red across the grave as she turned away. - - * * * * * - -"What'd she give you?" asked Harris eagerly, as the bo'sun stepped -across the gang-plank on to the quay. The lights of San Francisco were -blazing all about, the cars roared past, there was a piano-organ -jangling joyously at the corner. - -"Fifty dollars for the two of us," said Gray, his acid face sweetened -with unwonted smiles. - -"Crikey! Honest men is riz in the market at last! What in h---- can she -have got herself?" - -"Might as well arst me what she got it for. Don't know, and don't care, -so long as we've got the makings of a spree like this out of it. I see -her comin' out of the Rooshian Consulate this mornin' lookin' like as if -some one 'ad been standin' treat to her." - -"You know she don't touch anything." - -"I'm speaking figuryative; she looked that sort of way. And coming' -back to the ship, she says to the old man, she says: 'Why, dad, better -dead than alive!' she says. And he laughs." - -"Don't sound 'olesome," observed Harris thoughtfully. - -"Now, don't you get to thinkin', for you ain't built that way, and -you'll do yourself a mischief," said the boatswain warningly. "And -let's be thankful to 'eaven for all its mercies, say I, that we've got -such a nice, warm, dry, convenient night for to go and get drunk in." - - - - - *CHAPTER X* - - *WHAT CAME OF THE PARIS DRESS* - - -The effects of Saxon's illness in Fiji were a long time in wearing off. -It was many weeks after Vaiti had come back to the _Sybil_, flushed with -importance and with the lionising she had received on the -cable-ship--many weeks after the voyage to the unknown island and the -visit to San Francisco--that he took ill again; not very seriously, but -badly enough to prevent his going to sea. Of course, the time was an -awkward one. They were off Niue, and there was copra waiting to be -taken to Raratonga for the steamer--copra which would certainly be -secured by some other schooner if Saxon did not take it at the promised -date. Neither Harris nor Gray knew enough to be trusted with the ship, -and he did not much care about letting Vaiti sail her--not because he -doubted his fiery daughter's ability or desire, but because, rash as he -was himself at times, he knew her to be still worse. He had seen her -run the _Sybil_ in the trough of the very last swell alongside a barrier -reef for miles, sailing all the time so close to the wind that the -shifting of a single point would have meant destruction. He had heard -her raving about the deck in half a gale as they swept up to the -iron-bound coast of Niue, abusing Harris in the strongest of beach talk -because he had not another main topsail in the locker to replace the two -that had just carried away one after the other and battered themselves -to ribbons--the principal ground of her complaint being apparently the -fact that she considered herself labouring under a social disadvantage -of the most mortifying kind because the schooner was obliged to come up -to Niue for the very first time without all sails set. He had seen her -perform tricks of steering, getting in and out of Avarua in Raratonga (a -perfect death-trap of a port at times, as all old islanders know), that -"fairly gave him the jim-jams," to use his own phraseology.... No, on -the whole he thought he would rather miss that fright than lie idle in -the trader's house at Avatele, and think daily and nightly of the cranky -though light-heeled _Sybil_ out upon the high seas in Vaiti's sole -command. - -This being so, it was natural and inevitable that Vaiti should set her -heart upon going and carry out her desire. She did not make any trouble -about the matter; neither was she at all unkind to the invalided owner -of the ship. On the contrary, she paid the trader's wife more than that -kindly woman wanted, to take good care of her father while she should be -away, bought him everything decent to eat that the island contained -(which was saying very little), indulgently presented him with a -demijohn of whisky, and then informed him, in the coolest manner in the -world, that the copra was all loaded, the stores and water on board, and -the schooner ready to sail next day, under her command. - -Saxon swore at large first of all, then stormed at Vaiti, and finally -began a pathetic lament over his own helpless position and the -heartlessness of his only child. Vaiti, sitting cross-legged on the end -of his bed, smoked a big cigar through it all and looked out of the -window. When he stopped at last, fairly run out, she laughed and handed -him a weed out of her own case and a match. - -"You take'm that, no speak nonsense. You know me, what?" she demanded; -and Saxon, who was not in reality nearly as ill as he thought himself, -laughed, and allowed himself to be won over. - -Having gained her point, Vaiti went off again to the schooner through -the wonderful pink dusk that wraps a South Sea island at sunset, and -left the captain to hold commune with his demijohn and sleep. - -As she walked down to the shore, she heard a sound of laughing and the -rustle of many dresses among the palms close at hand. Now in Niue it is -an important matter that brings people out of evenings, because, -although the island has been Christianised long ago, like all the rest -of the Eastern Pacific, it still suffers from a perfect plague of -heathen ghosts that no amount of Sunday church-goings and week-day pious -exercises seem to affect in the least. So the natives are afraid to go -out of their houses after sunset, lest uncanny things should rise out of -the forest to spring upon the wayfarer's back unseen and choke him. -This Vaiti knew, so she suspected something of interest in the little -crowd, and turned aside to look. If she had not, there had been no -story to tell about Niue and the happenings there. - -She saw a curious scene, so nearly hidden by the growing dark that no -one but an island resident could have taken in its full significance. A -group of islanders, men and women stood round the door of a big white -concrete house with a pandanus roof--the finest native house in the -village. They seemed to be waiting for something--something both -amusing and exciting, to judge by the explosions of giggles that -continually burst through the dusk. - -Presently the door of the house swung open with considerable violence, -and a large mat was thrown out by an invisible hand. Then the door was -slammed, and the giggles redoubled. Within the house now sounded -something very like a struggle. There were loud sobs and cries of a -shrill, theatrical kind, scuffling. banging, and a dragging sound. - -"Tck, tck, tck," went the tongues of the outsiders delightedly. The -interesting moment was at hand. - -It came without warning. The door burst open with still more violence -than before, and out upon the mat was shot by some invisible agency a -very solid young woman in a white loose gown, weeping somewhat -mechanically, but with much effect. She fairly rolled over with the -force of the shock that had ejected her, and before she could pick -herself up the door was closed once more with a slam that shook the -whole house. Then the waiting group rushed upon her with cries of joy, -and bore her away in their midst, singing as they went. - -"A wedding," said Vaiti to herself. "It must be Mata's; that is their -house. And it will be a big wedding, too. I did not know that it was -to be so soon." - -She fell into a fit of musing as she wandered shorewards among the -leaning palms.... The palms of Niue sweep downwards to the gleaming sea -like a band of lovely maidens hurrying with sweet impatience to meet -their lovers on the coral shore. Of a moonlight night, when all things -are possible, and nothing seems too wonderful in an air that itself is -wonder, it needs but little for those white, slender stems, and tossing, -plumy crowns, poised high above the shadowy beach they curve to meet, to -change themselves into South Sea dryads of a new and lovely race, and -rush down, at long last, upon the calling sea, where Tangaroa, the king -of ocean, has his dwelling. Under the palms of Niue, when the blazing -white moon has risen so high in the heavens that a perfect star of jetty -shadow is rayed about the base of every tree--when the wandering sea -winds are held close by the breathless spell of midnight and nothing -wakes on all the lonely shore but the long, long song of the droning -coral reef--under the wonderful palms of Niue, loveliest and strangest -of all the islands in that dreamy world of "perilous seas and fairylands -forlorn"--nothing is too strange to be true, no fancy too wild to hold, -when the moon is up and the palms are alone with the sea.... - -Was Vaiti thinking of visionary palm-maidens and sea-foam kings as she -went down the winding path to the bay, through a wondrous afterglow of -russet-rose laced through with opal moonrays? Perhaps--or of kindred -fancies. I who knew her cannot say, for no one ever knew her -altogether. It is more likely, however, that less poetic thoughts were -in her mind just then. The scene she had witnessed in the palm-grove -was the usual ceremony that takes place in Niue the night before a -wedding, when the friends of the bridegroom come to the house of the -bride's parents, and the latter go through the symbolical form of -casting her out and closing the door, so that the bridegroom's people -may take her over and guard her until the wedding morning. Vaiti liked -a wedding above all things (next to a funeral), and the hint of great -doings on the morrow, offered by the ceremony she had witnessed, decided -her to stay another day. Why not? The copra was loaded, and no rivals -were in sight. Besides, she had a motive for staying--the strongest -possible motive. She wanted to wear her Paris dress. - -Yes, it had been acquired at last. That day in San Francisco, when she -had come out of the Russian Consulate with more money in her pocket than -any one of her adventures had ever brought before, she had been able to -restrain herself no longer. And thereafter, in Madame Retaillaud's -elegant and exclusive Parisian emporium, replete with the choicest -imported wares (I quote the lady's own description of her goods), there -took place a scene that is remembered to the present day by those of -Madame Retaillaud's young ladies who survived the earthquake year. - -Vaiti, dressed in one of her waistless muslin gowns, with a broad-leafed -island hat on her head, a long-bladed sheath-knife stuck quite visibly -in the breast of her dress, and her wavy hair falling loose over her -shoulders, stalked into the shop among the smartly-gowned San Francisco -ladies who were turning over Madame's stock, and demanded to see-- - -"One dress belong Palisi, pretty dam quick." - -They are used to all sorts of strange nationalities along the -water-front in San Francisco, but not, as a rule, in the milliners' and -modistes' well-bred establishments. Vaiti concentrated the whole -attention of the place upon herself at a single stroke. She did not -care about that in the least, but Madame's hesitation stung her, and she -pulled out a thick wad of notes. - -"Look 'em alive, my hearties!" she ordered impatiently in her -quarter-deck voice. "Lay aft here with that goods. I want um Palisi -model, all sort." - -The customers were nearly in hysterics by this time, and the assistants -were all a-giggle. Madame herself, however, grasped the situation in a -twinkling, and frowned down the girls. Whoever and whatever this pirate -queen might be, she certainly had money, and Madame would have welcomed -Lucrezia Borgia or the Witch of Endor, under like circumstances, as -pleasantly as an Anglo-American duchess. - -"Perhaps Madame will come into a private room. Madame would like, no -doubt, to look at our most exclusive goods, and we do not bring them -into the outer shop," she said in her most honeyed voice. And the door -of the lift closed upon the pair. - -What Vaiti underwent in that fitting-room in the course of getting into -Madame's latest model promenade gown, built for a typical French figure, -will never be told. Early in the proceedings a message came down to the -showroom for the strongest pair of Paris corsets in stock, and a little -later Madame herself, very red and overheated, ran down to select a -fresh silk lace. - -"Ah, but she has courage, that one!" she declared, as the lift received -her again. "Never, no, never!--jamais de la vie! ..." - -The lift went up. - -It was almost an hour before a wonderful vision sailed slowly through -the show-room and out into the street--slowly, not alone for pride, but -also because it could scarcely move or draw its breath. The vision, as -described in the receipted bill that went with it, was made up of the -following elements: - -"One promenade costume (model, Doucet & Cie.) composed of chiffon -velours, couleur poussiere de roses, inlet with motifs of point -d'Alencon, hand-embroidered with lilies of the valley in French paste. -Mounted on chiffon bleu-de-ciel, with full volants edged lace and -chiffon ruching. Made over foundation of glace silk, couleur citron -d'or. - -"One set silk underclothing to match. - -"One Corset Ecraseur, patent laces. - -"One pair bronze promenade shoes, Louis XV. heels, extra height. -Stockings to match. - -"One parasol composed peau-de-soie rose fanee and chiffon bleu-de-ciel." - -To which may be added--one young woman, suffering horrible agony and -quite intoxicated with happiness. - - * * * * * - -It was this marvellous possession that Vaiti yearned to show off at the -wedding. She had not had a chance to wear it since the day when she had -walked through the streets of San Francisco, with an admiring and amused -crowd at her rear, and found it quite impossible to get on board the -schooner, when she reached the water front, until she took off her -voluminous skirt and handed it up over the side--afterwards climbing the -rope-ladder in a storm of applause and a pink silk petticoat. Now the -occasion for getting full value out of the wonderful thing had come at -last, and she could not--no, she really could not--miss it. - -Rather late next morning, when the bride and bridegroom--the former in a -gorgeous gown of yellow curtain muslin, the latter in a thick tweed suit -from Auckland that caused him to stream at every pore--were sitting on -opposite sides of the little white church, enthroned on chairs all by -themselves, and listening decorously to a long preliminary address from -the native pastor--Vaiti swept in, and at once brought the ceremony to a -momentary pause. The pastor stopped in his address and gaped, the women -exclaimed audibly, the bridegroom fixed his eyes on the apparition and -sighed in a manner that the bride evidently resented as a personal -slight, for she grew still darker in the face than nature had made her, -and stared penknives and scissors at Vaiti. Wild titters of delight -swept indecorously through the church. The entry was indeed a -success--the native pastor found it necessary to address his flock -directly, and to tell them that they would undoubtedly all go to hell if -they did not behave better in church, before order was restored. - -It is not necessary to relate at length how Mata and Ivi were made one, -how they walked out of the church nonchalantly by different doors, and -were subsequently so deeply interested in the killing of the pigs for -the marriage feast, and the preparing of the various cooking-pots, that -they did not meet again all afternoon. It was a commonplace wedding -enough, and this history is not interested in it, other than as it -concerned the affairs of Vaiti. These, indeed, were fairly notable. - -For with Vaiti pride very literally brought about a fall that day. - -She had had a terrible time getting into her dress, and the whole ship's -company had shared in the trouble. First, the native A.B.'s had to fetch -her a big looking-glass from the nearest trader's, and secure it to the -bulkhead of her cabin. Then the cook had to deliver up all the hot -water in the galley--at seven bells, with dinner just coming on!--and -the boatswain must needs broach the cargo for some special scented soap. -Matters were only beginning, however. When the dress was disinterred -from its many wrappings and finally put on it became immediately -apparent that the bodice could not possibly be made to meet. Perhaps -the coming of the bread-fruit season had caused the young lady's waist -to expand--perhaps the practised art of Madame Retaillaud had exceeded -anything that a mere amateur could compass in the way of lacing. At any -rate, it was not till Vaiti had passed her corset laces out through the -port and ordered two of the strongest sailors to tail on to them--not -till Harris, agonising with laughter, had directed this novel evolution -from the poop for at least five delirious minutes, during which Vaiti -several times thought she was dying, but remained none the less -determined to die rather than give in, that the deed was accomplished at -last, and the "Kapitani" of _Sybil_ was enabled to look at herself in -the glass and know heavenly certainty that she was the best dressed -woman in the Pacific at that instant, whoever saw or did not see. - -The natural result of all this was that in the very hour of her triumph -she fainted dead away in the church, for the first time in her life, and -had to be carried out. - -The ceremony was just over by now, and the bride, still burning with -jealousy of the woman who had dared to eclipse her on her wedding day, -was among the first of those who crowded round like bees going after -honey, to stare at the beautiful creature lying senseless on the -sunburnt grass. The bridegroom had sped away hot-foot in the direction -of the village, whence certain enticing yells indicated that the -pig-slaughter was now going on; but Mata was not a bit appeased by his -indifference to the visitor. That dress--and oh, how wonderful it -was!--still rankled in her soul. - -Mata was a teacher's daughter, and she knew something of white people's -lore. A brilliant thought darted into her mind as she pressed and -struggled in the crowd about the deathly form on the grass.... - -"Ai, ai! she is surely dead!" wailed the people. "Ai! the-great -chieftainess will rise no more!" - -"Daughters of a turtle!" said Mata contemptuously. "I will show you if -she is dead. It is nothing at all but that she is vain, and wanted to -make herself a middle like the 'papalangi' women, who all look like -stinging hornets. Give me a knife, someone." - -A knife was given, and Mata, with horrid joy, half lifted Vaiti and -slipped the keen point into the back of the dress. - -Rip went the silk with a hideous splitting noise, and the delicate -underwear swelled out through the opening like a bush lily bursting its -sheath. Mata felt for the stay-lace, and cut that too. The tension on -the bodice increased frightfully--the seams gaped and strained.... - -"She will die, I think, if I do not cut it off," said Mata hastily, -feeling Vaiti reviving under her hand, and anxious to finish her work. -Two more cuts of the knife did it. The Paris dress was, speaking -sartorially, no more; the owner, lying on the ground, was opening her -eyes to the outrage that had been done; and Mata, shrieking with malign -laughter, was fleeing wildly through the palms in the direction of the -pig-killing, peace in her heart again. - -Peace was very far indeed from Vaiti's heart when she revived and found -out what had been done. The crowd drew away from her in fear when they -saw her flashing eyes and set, furious mouth, though she said never a -word. Confronted by that Medusa-head, they were almost too terrified to -find words; but one or two stammered out a hasty explanation that freed -the present company from blame by inculpating Mata. - -Vaiti did not doubt it--she had seen the bride's face during the -ceremony. Still silent, but flashing looks of sheet-lightning all about -her, she drew together her garments as best she could, and walked off in -the direction of the ship. As she did so, a little ugly man with red -hair slipped out from behind the trees, and looked narrowly at her -retreating figure. - -"It is the white man from the bush!" cried the girls. "White man of -ours, why did you not come down for the wedding?" - -"Because I didn't, my little dears," replied the newcomer in English, -still looking after Vaiti. He stood well in the shade, and did not make -himself unnecessarily conspicuous. - -"That's a fine girl, that Mata," he added by and by. "A smart girl. I -should like to know Mata." - -Vaiti put off her going for yet another day. She had business to attend -to. - -It was very simple business, and it was characterised by the directness -that attended all the proceedings of Saxon's daughter. She merely went -up to the bride's new home, that was so handsomely stocked with trade -goods and imported furniture, while the wedding party were making merry -in the village after dark, and set fire to it with a torch in about a -dozen places. It was very dry weather, and there was a strong wind. - -There was scarce a stick of the cottage left when she marched into the -village with a blazing torch in her hand, and calmly told the assembled -revellers what she had done. Then she left them, seething in a tumult -of excitement that almost drowned the hysteric screams of Mata, and went -to bed and to sleep with a quiet mind, ready for an early start next -morning. - -The men came on board late and very drunk, but they did come. They were -afraid of Vaiti, and so was Harris, who would very well have liked to -extend his revels in the village for another twelve hours, but did not -dare to do so. He thought, as he stumbled into his bunk, that the -sounds proceeding from the forecastle were a good deal odder than -usual--he could almost have sworn that there was one person, if not -several, crying in there. But he had good reason for mistrusting the -evidence of his senses just then, so he flung himself down and went to -sleep. - - - - - *CHAPTER XI* - - *A DEAD MAN'S REVENGE* - - -When one is well on the right side of five-and-twenty, with a good ship -underfoot, a fair breeze setting steadily from the right quarter, and a -pleasant goal ahead, it is hard to be unhappy. Vaiti's sense of -bereavement at the loss of her cherished dress faded considerably before -the _Sybil_ had fairly cleared the land, and was gone altogether by the -next day. She had done what she felt to be the right thing by Mata; the -score was even. Vaiti did not like loose ends of any kind, and she had -not left any behind her. She smiled as she thought of it, and paused in -her official-looking walk across and across the poop, to revile a native -A.B. for leaving the end of a halyard trailing on deck. - -"You d---- lazy nigger," she said. "What sort ship you thinking you -stop? You thinking one mud scow" (_Mud cow_ was her pronunciation), -"one pig-boat, one canoe belong dam man-eating Solomon boy? I teaching -you some other thing pretty quick. Suppose you no flemish-coil that -halyard, keep him coil all-a-time, I let 'em daylight inside that black -hide belong you, knock 'em two ugly eye into one." - -She plucked a belaying-pin out of the rail and sent it flying at the -sailor's ear. Vaiti was a straight thrower, but the crew seldom failed -to dodge; they had every opportunity of becoming proficient. On this -occasion, however, the sailor made not the least attempt to escape, and -the pin struck him fair and square at the angle of the jaw, and knocked -him over. He was hurt, but not stunned, and sat up immediately on the -deck, gazing at the tall white figure on the poop with lack-lustre eyes -that scarcely seemed to comprehend what they saw. - -"Bring 'em that pin," commanded Vaiti, still in what stood for English -with her. She never addressed the crew in the tongue that was native to -both. - -The man crept slowly aft, and handed it to her. She motioned to him to -replace it neatly in the rail, and then pointed to the trailing halyard. -It did not escape her, as the sailor made his way down to the main deck, -that there were tears in his large black eyes, and that his pareo was -tied with a carelessness unusual among Polynesians, and significant of -trouble and depression when seen. But she put the one down to the -swelled and reddening bruise that marked all one side of his face and -the other to the orgies of the previous night. If the men chose to make -brutes of themselves on bush-beer, they need not expect that she was -going to slacken their work for them on that account. No, not if she -broke the head of every man in the ship. She was not Saxon's daughter -for nothing, as they very well knew. - -It was small wonder that Vaiti was not popular with crews. - -She went on pacing the deck, in the joyous crystal-clear sunlight of the -sea. The trade wind ran through the sky like a warm, blue river, the -rigging sang, the sails drew steadily. It was a good day, a happy day, -a pleasant day to be alive. The girl felt pleased with the world. She -took the wheel from the sailor who held it, for the sheer pleasure of -feeling the flying vessel answer to the touch of her own light hand. -All the force and fury of those roaring sails overhead seemed to -concentrate itself here in her fingers, as the power of a great dynamo -passes through a single wire. It was almost as if she drove the ship -herself. The _Sybil_ went as steady as an albatross; once or twice the -spokes fairly shook in her hands. - -"The wheel is laughing to-day," she said in Maori, using the island -sailor's expression. - -Dinner-time came round soon, and she descended to eat with Harris alone. -Saxon himself did not particularly care whether he dined with his bo'sun -or not, if it happened to be convenient to leave Harris on deck; but -Vaiti would have run the ship as strictly as a man-of-war at all times, -if she could have had her way. Indeed, she would have liked to dine in -solitary state, like the captain of a cruiser, had she not had too much -good sense to fly in the face of merchant service custom by excluding -the mate. - -As things were, she graciously condescended to order Harris down to the -cabin with her, and they discussed together the inevitable curried tin -of Pacific cookery. It was wonderfully light and bright in the little -cabin, which was large for the size of the ship, and had plenty of berth -and locker space, besides its neatly fitted trade shelves. The -bulkheads were painted white picked out with blue (they were satinwood -and bird's-eye maple underneath the paint, a thing which had astonished -and perplexed more than one ship's carpenter in the past quarter of a -century), and there was a pretty bird's-nest fern in a basket hanging -from the skylight, and the seats were covered with the neatest thing in -blue and white trade prints that Auckland could produce. Vaiti's taste -was evident everywhere, and Vaiti herself, hair freshly combed and held -back with a bright ribbon, laces and frills dainty and immaculate as -ever, looked, as she demurely poured out tea (you will seldom find the -teapot absent from the table of a colonial ship), quite the last sort of -person by whom a native A.B. might expect to be knocked into the -scuppers. Yet, truth to tell, the unlicked Harris, wolfing his food at -the opposite side of the table, was very much better liked by the crew, -even though he was heavy-handed enough at times; and he certainly -understood more about the five A.B.'s and one ordinary seaman who -inhabited the forecastle than did Vaiti, who was half one of themselves, -and therefore thought them beneath consideration as a rule. - -Of this fact he proceeded to give an illustration when the curry and the -tea and the fried bananas were almost done, and nobody's dinner could be -spoilt by unpleasant news. - -"Think you're in for a good time, don't you, Cap?" he said. - -Vaiti, the economical of words, merely nodded. But her face spoke for -her. - -Harris was never quite sure whether he liked Vaiti in an uncomfortable, -indefinite way, or heartily hated her. To-day the balance perhaps -inclined in the latter direction. He watched her face with some -interest as he said: - -"That's where you spoils yourself, Cap. You ain't. And if you want my -advice, which you never do, I'd tell you that the sooner you 'bouts ship -and back to Niue the better." - -Vaiti bit slowly through the piece of bread she was eating and -deliberately chewed it, eyeing the mate all the time, before she -condescended to answer. - -"Mph!" was all she said at last. She had never studied diplomacy, but -she knew how much more you learn in general by letting the other person -lead the conversation than by talking yourself. And it occurred to her -that Harris wanted to make himself important by hinting and patronising -over some ship business which might, or might not, be in his department. -Well, let him. She would not give him a lead. - -Harris, on his part, got angry at once, and blurted out what he had -meant to keep a good deal longer. - -"Oh, very well," he said. "You can do just as you likes, of course, but -where you'll find yourself when it comes to a question of mutiny, that's -another two-and-six. Musling curtains on the ports, and white -table-cloths, and ropes all flemish-coiled on deck is going to help you -a lot then, ain't they? And if ever I've seen signs of trouble in a -crew, I seen them to-day, and you knows it--ma'am." - -The last word came with a jerk, screwed out, as it were, by an ominous -flash of Vaiti's eye. - -Vaiti herself was thinking very quickly indeed, but you would not have -imagined it if you had seen her slowly scooping out the inside of a -mummy-apple, and as slowly eating it. She was obliged to acknowledge to -herself, now Harris had spoken, that there had been something unusual -about the demeanour of more than one of the men since their departure -yesterday. But mutiny? Nonsense! Indigestion from too much pork, more -likely. She did not believe for an instant that any crew once handled -by her father and herself would have an ounce of mutiny left in the lot, -if you ran them through a stamp-mill and assayed the result three times -over. - -So she merely remarked, between spoonfuls: - -"You talk plenty nonsense. You keep those men work, they no squeak. -Suppose you finish eat, you go tell Gray he come down ki-ki." - -"All right!" said Harris meaningly, trying to make an effective and -tragic exit. He was really not at all easy in his mind, and Vaiti's -attitude did nothing to relieve his apprehension of what might be about -to follow. The men had never dragged on the rein as they had done these -two days past, and he felt it in his bones that there was more than met -the eye in the matter. - -Vaiti, for her part, was so much incensed by the tone of his -remonstrance that she would not even listen to the conviction which -began to force itself upon her own mind, next day, that there was really -something astray. Luck in general seemed to have deserted them. With a -fair wind the schooner should have made the run to Raratonga in three -days, but on the afternoon of the second day a dead calm had fallen, and -they lay helpless in the trough of the sea by four o'clock, three -hundred miles from anywhere. - -"All-a-time I saying no good trust those trade winds, when that -(adjective) Cook Islands be near," sighed Vaiti, scanning the horizon -vainly right and left. Like a true sailor, she was generally cross in a -calm. - -"I wish we was out of this, ma'am, I do," remarked Gray, who was busy -spinning sinnet at her feet on the deck. For some odd reason, the sour -old bo'sun generally found her more approachable than the others. - -"Why?" asked Vaiti, almost amiably. - -"Because, ma'am, of that, for one thing. And hothers." - -He pointed forward, and Vaiti saw what she had not noticed before, the -ship's carpenter, a powerful young Mangaian, lying flat on the foc'sle -head and obviously weeping. - -"They've been at that game, one and another, off and on, ma'am, all -to-day," he said. "And you know yourself 'ow we've been put to it to -get the work out of them. Darned if I knows what monkey tricks they's -up to, but I allow we're liable to understand all about it before very -long, for that sea-lawyer of a fellow, Shalli, he's bin speechifyin' -down in the foc'sle 'alf of this watch, like a bloomin' 'Yde Park -sosherlist, he has." - -Vaiti glanced at her watch. - -"Make him eight bell," she ordered, scanning the foc'sle hatch. - -"Ay, ay, ma'am," said Gray readily, passing on the order. - -The watch below were prompt enough about turning out, but Shalli the -forlorn could not, it seemed, find energy enough to get up and turn in. -Instead, he beat his curly head upon the planks and began to sob. Vaiti -took no notice of him whatever, but just strolled nonchalantly for a -minute into her cabin, and reappeared with a slight projection in the -bosom of her muslin dress that had not been there before. Harris and -Gray looked at each other significantly, and the former cast a swift -glance about the vacant horizon. No, not a shred of sail, not a trail -of smoke. Only the glancing flying-fish, and the oily, glittering -swell, and the hard, pale, empty sky. - -The men, who had all been standing in a bunch by the hatch, now -signalled to Shalli, who put off the rest of his weeping to a more -convenient season, and got upon his feet. Then the six began advancing -slowly and uncertainly to the break of the poop. They were a -good-looking crew in their way, all Eastern Pacific men, with bright -eyes and well-featured brown faces, and their dress--the brilliant red -or yellow "pareo" of the islands, gaily figured with enormous white -flowers, and the bright cotton shirt or coloured jersey--lent a -distinctly operatic air to the little scene. Vaiti and her officers, -however (like Moliere's _bourgeois_ who had talked prose all his life -without knowing it), had lived in the midst of picturesque and -extraordinary things most of their lives, and therefore took no -interest, as a rule, in anything save the sternest practicalities. - -And it was stern enough in all conscience, this fact with which they -were confronted. The men were mutinous, beyond doubt. - -Vaiti's mind rapidly ran over all possible causes for the trouble, even -while Shalli was stepping forward and opening his mouth to speak. It -could not be rough treatment, because, as a matter of fact, the men were -no worse handled on the _Sybil_ than on most other island schooners, and -an occasional knock-down blow is not the sort of thing that a Pacific -native will seriously resent. It could not be any objection to go to -Raratonga--the crew were mostly Cook Islanders themselves, and glad of a -chance of seeing their homes. Nor could it be dislike to her command, -for a chief rank counts tremendously among Polynesians; and islanders -who were ruled at home by a queen of her family would be most unlikely -to strike against the authority of one of the Makea race, unless for -some very grave cause. It was, of course, possible that they had -planned to seize the schooner and run off with it.... She put her hand -up to her bosom, and played with the laces that lay over that hard -substance under the dress.... - -But Shalli was speaking now, in answer to her sharp query as to what -they wanted there. - -He had a good deal to say, and he said it with flashing eyes and much -eloquence, using his slender, pointed, brown fingers a good deal to -emphasise his remarks, and turning dramatically from his mates to Vaiti, -and back to his mates again. Harris listened anxiously, catching only a -stray word here and there, for his knowledge of Maori was confined to -the few phrases used in running the ship. Shalli was certainly saying -that somebody was going to die--that somebody had got to die, and -immediately--to judge by the emphasis with which he spoke.... The mate -was, as Vaiti had once told him, rather chicken-hearted underneath his -great bulk and strength. He felt himself turning chilly, for all the -burning sky. What the devil did that fiend of a Vaiti mean by standing -there listening as calmly as if they were paying her compliments on her -eyes? Perhaps there was no particular trouble after all; but her -demeanour was no guarantee, for she would have looked like that if they -had all been on the verge of drowning, or burning, or hanging together, -any day of the week. - -Gray, on the other hand, did not trouble to try and make out anything, -but cut a large quid and chewed it at leisure, idly looking on. He did -not know if the men meant mutiny or not, and he did not particularly -care. They were three whites against six niggers, and there were -firearms on their side. And he had seen mutinies in his time beside -which any little amusement that could be got up by half a dozen amiable -Cook Islanders would seem a mere Sunday-school tea-party. Let them -mutiny if they liked. It would not mean the interruption of the work -for half a watch. - -And Shalli went on talking as if he never would stop, and the _Sybil_ -rolled ceaselessly on the idle swell, and the useless sails slapped -rhythmically upon the mast. And Vaiti, standing on the poop above the -group of men on the main-deck, listened with an unmoved countenance -until quite the end of Shalli's long speech. - -When he had finished he turned his face away, and instantly began to -weep. And the five other men, exactly as if a tap had been turned on, -also began to weep at the same moment, howling loudly and lifting their -hands to heaven. - -"If this isn't a bloomin' mutiny, it's a bloomin' lunatic asylum," -declared Harris quite inaudibly in the midst of the hideous noise from -the main-deck. It is not a common thing, even in that world where all -things are possible, the wide, strange Pacific Ocean, to see a whole -ship's company shedding tears in concert on a calm and peaceful -afternoon, with nothing more alarming in sight than a handsome young -woman in an expensively pretty frock. - -"Ow-ow-ow!" went Shalli, getting quite beyond his own control. - -"Ey-ah, eyah!" screamed a plump lad from Aitutaki, fluttering his hands -like frantic pigeons. - -"For God's sake, Vaiti, tell us what's up," called Harris, sending his -bull-like tones through the confusion. - -And then Vaiti spoke, shrieking at the top of her voice in order to be -heard. Her face, its hard calm broken up at last, was black with rage, -and she had pulled out her revolver, and was holding it in her hand, -though, strange to say, none of the men took the least notice of it. - -"That ----, ---- witch-man belong Niue, he curse them, they say they -die!" she screamed. "By'n-by I cut him liver out!" - -"What witch-man?" bellowed Harris. "Don't understand. That white -bloke--him with the red hair and the scar on his nose--who dresses -native, and lives native up in the bush? Saw him lookin' at you like as -if he'd like to knife you, from behind Mata's house." - -"No, pig-head! no white man got 'mana' for make die that way," shrieked -Vaiti, shaking her revolver without effect at the men. "Niue witch-man. -What man you mean? I not see----" - -But she did see at that moment, and to Harris's utter dismay she dropped -the revolver on the deck and flung her skirt over her head. - -"My Gord! she's mad now," cried Harris. The crew paid not the least -attention, but continued to weep with lungs of brass. The mate's head -went round. He felt as if he was going out of his senses, too. Gray, -who seemed to be the only normal person left on board, went up to Vaiti -and plucked her dress off her face. - -"Now, ma'am, keep 'er 'ead to wind," he remonstrated. "What's got 'old -of the Capting? Blest if we ever saw you afraid before." - -Vaiti turned on him like a tigress. - -"You think me frighten, you parrot-face, bal'-head, humpback pig-monkey! -Think some more those thing, and I shoot some hole in you lie-making -tongue, learn you talk to me. I tell you----" - -The hubbub on deck was calming down a little now, and subsiding into -lost and homeless wails. It was possible to make oneself heard. - -"I tell you, that thing Alliti see 'long Niue, he one dead man. Captain -schooner _Ikurangi_--same I making tart [chart] all wrong, so he go -drown, he and him mate. You think it good thing one dead man he go walk -along Niue, looking me?" - -"A cat may look at a king," said Harris, who had realised that no -fighting was afoot, and therefore was very brave just now. "Besides, -that red-head man wasn't no ghost--he borrowed a pouchful of tobacco off -of me, and never paid it back." - -"What sort that man?" demanded Vaiti. "He small, all same Gray, he ugly -all same you, got red hair, cut 'long him nose, tooth all break?" - -"That's him," agreed Harris. - -Vaiti took a turn across the deck, and fell silent, angrily chewing a -lock of her hair. The horrid vision of Donahue risen from his ocean -grave, and wandering about the islands as a malignant ghost, bent on -avenging his death, had struck her as such a fancy could only strike an -islander, and almost paralysed her active mind. Now she realised that it -was merely a case of mistaken newspaper report, and that Donahue had -somehow escaped from the wreck of his schooner, and was once more -roaming the islands in the flesh--at the very lowest ebb of fortune, it -was evident, but probably none the less dangerous for that. She was -quite certain that he was in some way at the bottom of this business of -cursing the crew, although no doubt the witch-doctor and Mata had been -intermediary. And it was no trifle. Sheer mutiny she would have much -preferred. - -"Wot's it all about?" asked Gray, who had not been so long in the -islands as the mate. "Wot's the odds if a lot of bally niggers thinks -they've been cursed? Seems to me anythin' the witch-doctor could do -wouldn't be likely to harm a crew that's been salted by our old man in -the cursin' way. There ain't no witch-what-d'ye-call-'em about the -islands that can lay over 'im for language." - -"Oh, shut up! You don't know anything about it," said Harris with -irritation. - -"Suppose you tells me," suggested Gray, tucking another quid into his -cheek, and looking dispassionately at the crew, who were now lying on -deck rolling about with the motion of the vessel, and looking half dead -already. "Doesn't seem as if we was goin' to have much bother with that -lot.... And you gettin' as white at the gills as a flounder, thinkin' -they was goin' to take charge. Go 'ome and learn a ladies' -dancin'-class, Mr. 'Arris; you ain't fit to 'andle men." - -"I'll handle you if----" Harris was beginning roughly, when Vaiti, whose -temper had been badly ruffled by the events of the last half-hour, -stepped across the deck and delivered two stinging blows, one on -Harris's right ear and one on Gray's left. - -"You take'm that," she said. "Alliti, you speak bo'sun about Maori -'mana.' Glay, you lemember Alliti mate, no give cheek." - -"Want to know if I've got any left for myself, before I start givin' it -away," observed the bo'sun ruefully, rubbing his face. "But better be -slapped nor neglected by a pretty girl, hany day, says I." - -Vaiti did not smile, but leaned over the rail, and began staring at the -crew. She was in no mood for flattery. - -"Well, if you want to know, it's like this," said Harris. "These native -blokes, they thinks some of their chiefs has got what they call 'mana.'" - -"Wot's that mean?" - -"Pretty near any thin', take it by and large, but one meanin's all we -want, and that's the notion they have that these chiefs can sort of -blast 'em with a curse, so's they'll go away and die. Like as if I was -a chief, and you was a common man, same as you are, anyhow, and I was to -say, 'Gray, you go off out of this and die next Thursday at four bells -in the afternoon watch.' And you says to me, says you, 'Ay, ay, sir,' -says you." - -"Blowed if I would," ejaculated the bo'sun. - -"Yes, you would, you chump, because you'd be a bloomin' native, and they -always does. So off you'd go, and when Thursday come you'd lie down and -die at four bells, wherever you happened to be." - -"Wot of?" - -"Nothin'--you'd run down like a watch--sort of 'stop short never to go -again' business, like the grandfather's clock--and when you was dead -you'd stay dead. That's all." - -"And I never 'eard worse rot in all me days," said the bo'sun -disgustedly. "Think I'm going to believe all that?" - -"Who cares what you believes or what you don't?" demanded Harris, -"You'll ---- well see all about it soon enough. Vaiti she says they -says Mata went to the witch-doctor, who they're as much afraid of as any -chief in Niue, for all they're by way of bein' Christian, and he cursed -them up and down and inside and out, worst style, and says they're all -to die by sunset, to-night. And if I knows anything of natives they'll -do it. I'll lay you, we got to work the ship up to Raratonga -ourselves--if we ever get there. Of all the low-down, mean skinks that -ever walked, them natives are the worst. They haven't a blessed scrap -of consideration in them for anyone but themselves. Here we are with -every man-jack of these fellows got an advance on his wages, and they -says they're going to die! Die! I've no patience with them. I do hate -selfishness and meanness." - - - - - *CHAPTER XII* - - *BREAKING THE MANA* - - -Vaiti all this time had been steadily watching the men as they lay about -on the main-deck in various attitudes of limp resignation. One or -two--notably the emotional Shalli--were already beginning to look ill. -Matters looked badly enough for the _Sybil_. It was in the hurricane -season, and signs were not wanting that the calm would break up with -energy when it did break. If the crew persisted in their dying, other -people who had not been in any way subjected to the witch-doctor's -operations might find it incumbent on them to die too. She did not for -a moment doubt the Niuean's power to slay. Had she not more than once -seen the queen, who was her own cousin, politely dismiss some offender -with the significant remark, "I wish I may never see you again after -to-morrow" (for the queen was always courteous, and would never have -used the crude terms of a Niuean witch-doctor); and had not every one on -the island known that with the next evening's sunset the wretch would -lay him down and die as surely as the dark would fall? These men were -doomed, and the ship would miss the steamer and the cargo would not be -sold, and possibly the schooner would be lost in the blow that was -creeping up, and none of them would ever go home any more. - -Thus the native side of Vaiti spoke. But now the white side woke up and -demanded its innings too. Was it endurable that the red-headed rat of a -Donahue (for she was as certain that he had been at the bottom of the -matter as only a woman with no direct evidence to go on can be) should -win the last move in the deadly game they had been playing this year and -more. Was she to get into difficulties, and perhaps lose the ship, the -very first time that she had taken off the _Sybil_ all alone? The fact -that such a disaster would include the losing of herself did not -trouble, as it did not console, her. She would leave her reputation -behind her, and people, when they spoke of Vaiti of the Islands, would -say---- - -No, they wouldn't, and they shouldn't. The white blood was up now. It -was impossible to prevent the "mana" from working. Well, let it be. -She would do the impossible. She had done the impossible before, in -many ways; it was the only sort of thing really very well worth doing, -in the opinion of Vaiti of the Islands. - -Whatever was to be done must be done quickly. The storm was not far -away, and the _Sybil_ was rolling in the trough of the increasing swell -with every rag of sail set. - -"What you goin' to do?" asked Harris hopelessly, as he saw her move. -"Give them medicine? It ain't any good." - -"Yes, give 'em medicine--you and Gray, you giving it plenty by'n-by," -said Vaiti calmly, beckoning the two men over to her. The crew -continued to lie on the deck, giving no sign of life but an occasional -groan. The wind was beginning to cry a little among the rigging, just -whimpering, like a chidden child. A glassy tinkling of foam sounded -about the keel. The sun was almost down. - -"You listen me," said the girl, her handsome, hawk-like features looking -curiously sombre in the orange light. "I speak those men in Maori. I -tell them some thing--thing not belong 'papalangi.' You no understan'. -Wait." - -Then, with a look on her face that the white men had never seen there -before, and were never to see again, she stepped swiftly down the -ladder, crossed the main-deck, and stood in the midst of the prostrate -crew. - -As though struck themselves by a spell, Harris and Gray remained -motionless on the poop, only swaying with the unconscious movement of -the sailor to the roll of his ship, while they watched with fascinated -eyes the scene upon the lower deck. The crew at first lay still as -logs, while Vaiti stood and looked at them--only looked. Presently they -began to open their eyes and roll over, and the weeping, which had -apparently ceased, began again. - -Then Vaiti, suddenly flinging her arms high above her head, with her -light muslin dress fluttering in the wind and all her magnificent hair -falling to her knees, burst into such a flood of speech as made the two -hard-bitten Englishmen on the poop open eyes of stolid amaze. There is -no language in the world so full of eloquent possibilities as the Maori -tongue--even in the somewhat debased and altered type that is current -among the islands. And, hidden away somewhere in the strange nature of -this strange thing in woman's shape, there was more than a touch of the -true witch wildness and fire. - -"Lord!" said Harris, in a tone of awe. "She's the devil himself!" - -She looked it, as she stood there in that livid light, her arms -stretched high to heaven, her voice--was there ever a voice so full of -passion, prophecy, command?--ringing out, now high, now low, now in -tones vibrating with some subtle suggestion of horror that caused even -the uncomprehending whites upon the poop to feel a cold shudder about -the region of the spine. Upon the crew the effect was marvellous, yet, -from Gray's and Harris's point of view, unsatisfactory as well. The -limp figures sat up, it was true, wept afresh, and even rose to their -feet before long; but it was only to rush wildly up and down the heaving -deck, driven, it seemed, by the sting of an agony greater than any they -had suffered yet. Above the loose sails thundered and the wind wailed -wickedly. - -Gray, at a motion from the mate, went to the idle wheel and grasped the -spokes. The _Sybil_ would want watching soon. - -"Strike me pink if this isn't the craziest ship's company outside a -lunertic asylum from Yokohama to the 'Orn," muttered the bo'sun to -himself. "Now, what the 'ell is _that_? Ho, Jemmy Gray, why don't you -look for a berth as a bally stoker in a bally Red Sea liner, or a -supercargo on a Chinese pirate junk, and 'ave a quiet life at your age? -Here, Mr. 'Arris, you going to let 'er shoot 'erself before your heyes?" - -Vaiti had plucked out her revolver again, but instead of threatening the -crew with it, she was holding it close to her own curly head, all the -time pouring forth a river of eloquent Maori, strongly charged with -adjurations and threats. It needed no translation to understand so -much, not to see the abject if inexplicable terror of the crew, who -cowered and howled in an extremity of distress every time she raised the -pistol to her head. - -"Vaiti, Vaiti! What're you doing, Cap?" yelled Harris. "You'll shoot -yourself! Are you crazy? What are you givin' 'em, for Cord's sake?" - -Vaiti turned round, and cried angrily at him: - -"Hold 'm tongue! You no leave me myself, very quick I shooting you. I -tell those men I great chief, no one can take 'um curse away, but can -come 'long all those men myself, suppose they die--go Raratonga when 'um -night come, an' all those man soul he running quick, quick, all a-cold, -'long those mountains top Raratonga where 'um dead man he go to -jumping-off place. A--a--h! I put one bullet in head belong me, very -quick, suppose those men they got dam cheek go an' die. I coming, very -dead, very angry, I go 'long that soul, all a-time; no let 'um rest, no -let 'um see woman fliend, die long time ago--I take big club belong -chief, make 'um run, cry, all-a-time--no sleep, no eat, no lie down! -A--a--h! no go heaven, no go hell, all-a-time, for ever'n ever, Amen. I -pay him out for going die!" - -She stormed through the brief speech like a hot-season squall, and -instantly returned to the natives. Harris, struck dumb by the entirely -unprecedented nature of the situation, could find no vent for his -feelings save in plucking off his cap and casting it under his feet. She -was threatening the crew that she would kill herself if they died; -follow them to the land of shades (the entrance to which was popularly -supposed to be over the edge of a certain desolate, far-up mountain -precipice in Raratonga), and make it so hot for them in the "otherwhere" -that they would certainly wish they hadn't dared to die.... What on -earth was a man to do in a ship commanded by a thing--he could not call -it a woman--that talked like that--with night coming on, too, and -something very like a bad blow unpleasantly near? - -Vaiti did not leave him long in doubt as to what he was to do. The -crew, driven previously to the verge of frenzy by her gruesome threats, -became entirely frantic during the eloquent peroration that followed her -address to Harris. They ran up and down the deck; they shrieked, they -prayed, they besought. Vaiti, with the eye of a hunter watching a -quarry almost driven to bay, kept a keen look-out through all her fiery -eloquence, and just at the moment when the men seamed driven to the -highest point of human endurance, turned to the mate with a triumphant -cry. - -"Now, Alliti! he all right by'n-by: I no shoot myself, I think. You and -bo'sun you get rope's end very quick, give 'um order shorten sail, make -'um go. I think he go; he too much plenty frighten die 'long me." - -"Too much plenty frighten" the men were indeed. The threat that Vaiti -had made--for the carrying out of which they doubted neither her ability -nor her will, any more than she did herself--was so much more potent -than the curse of the witch-doctor that the terror of the one paled -before the terror of the other. For the moment, they felt that they -might not be able to live, but they certainly must not die; and it was -right in the middle of this illogical state of mind that the mate and -bo'sun came in with their rope's ends and settled the matter once for -all. An hour ago, red-hot irons only would have moved them to hurry up -with their dying. Now a couple of ropes' ends, laid about among the six -with a will, drove them howling up the masts and out along the yards, -where, with Gray and Harris still after them, and Vaiti threatening from -below, they succeeded in getting the sails stowed and the vessel snug in -very little over the ordinary time. The blow that followed kept all -hands busy the night through, but it came from the right quarter, and -the _Sybil_ fled before it at such a speed that morning found her only -half a day's run from Raratonga, with the wind quieting down to a -pleasant breeze, the schooner uninjured, and the crew as cheerful and -busy as they had ever been in their lives. - -Vaiti caught the steamer, sold her copra, and saw it on the wharf ready -to load. Then she went back to the schooner, and waited till the last -of the men returned. - -"Suppose you like go die now, plenty time for you," she said. "Plenty -good sailor-man stop Raratonga. You go 'long die; I no want." - -The men looked at her sheepishly, and Shalli, the spokesman, scratched -his head and surveyed a heap of tributary pigs, fowls, and fruit that -lay on the deck of the schooner before he answered. The crew had many -relations about Raratonga, and the relations had done them very well -this trip. - -"Many thanks, great chieftainess," he said at last, in his own tongue. -"We are much obliged to you, but we have changed our minds, and now we -do not ever mean to die at all." - - - - - *CHAPTER XIII* - - *THE GAME PLAYED OUT* - - -Every one in the trader's had gone to bed, and Vaiti, barefoot and -dressed in dark cotton, had just got out of her room by the window, and -was gliding noiselessly down the back verandah. - -The moon was down, and the thick darkness under the trees of the village -covered her safely as she slipped along at the backs of the little -white, palm-thatched houses. It was not at all likely that any native -would be about in the middle of the night, but one could never reckon on -white men, of whom there were several in the little town--and Vaiti, -being engaged as usual on "urgent private affairs," did not want any -inquiries. - -She got away from the village without remark, and then struck into one -of the narrow grass roads penetrating the bush. Everything was asleep. -The little green parrots were hidden deep under heavy leaves, each with -its noisy head tucked under its wing. The lizards that had been darting -and flickering all day long about the path now slept, chill as little -stones, among the roots of the trees. There was a cold, dewy smell in -the air, and the palm-tree plumes were motionless as drawings in Indian -ink against the violet gloom of the sky. Very far away the immemorial -music of the reef beat softly in the dark. - -Vaiti girded her dress high, and walked swiftly. She had a long way to -go, and she wanted to be back in her neat, white, mosquito-curtained -bed, sleeping the sleep of the innocent, before the trader's wife should -come in with her morning cup of tea. Vaiti was a past mistress in the -art of avoiding useless comment. - -Three miles, five miles, seven miles.... It was right at the other side -of the island, past mile after mile of tangled bush, acre after acre of -sparsely planted, rocky, open ground, grove after grove of tall, plumy -cocoanut, heavy with fruit. Oranges grew by the track here and there; -broad green banners of banana leaf blotted out whole sections of the -stars, and slim, quaint mummy-apple trees stood up among the prickly -coral rocks. Vaiti had no time to stop, but she snatched a little -refreshment on her way from time to time, as the wayfarer may always do -in the kindly South Sea climate. - -She struck at last into a narrow track leading off the main pathway--so -small that in the dusk of the starry night it must have been invisible -save for a mass of pointed rocks that stood up just beside the overgrown -entrance and made a landmark. Afterwards came a mile or two of tangled -walking among clumps of pink and scarlet and yellow hibiscus, all -reduced to a common blackness by the levelling night, and through thorny -lemon-trees, and over rocky knolls where there was scarce footing for a -goat.... A lonely God-forsaken region this; not a village, nor even the -gleam of a solitary white-washed hut. What had the "Kapitani" of the -_Sybil_ to do with such a place? - -Vaiti knew very well indeed what she had to do. She had gathered in the -town that the mysterious white man who "lived native" in the bush had -his dwelling about this lonely neighbourhood. It was very well known to -her, and she meant to find the man's dwelling-place, and see him with -her own eyes before... - -Well, that was still to come. - -It took her rather longer than she had expected, but she did at last -succeed in finding the tumble-down little palm-leaf shanty, built -against the side of a rock, that she had heard described. It was a -miserable place, so far as her cat-like eyes could judge it in the -purple gloom, not more than three or four yards long, and looking like -nothing so much as a heap of dead leaves and rubbish piled against the -rock. She trod noiselessly round its three sides, and listened here and -there. The door, as she ascertained by feeling, was a heavy mat hung up -from the eaves, and it was tightly fastened across the opening. There -was a faint sound of slow, heavy breathing from within. The man was -evidently asleep. - -Vaiti climbed up on the rock above the hut, and pulled away a piece of -the loose grey coral of which it was composed. Then, sheltering herself -behind a clump of hibiscus growing in a cleft, she raised her voice in a -fearful squealing cry, exactly reproducing the yell of a wild pig -wandering in the bush at night. At the same time she cast a lump of -coral with all her strength down the side of the big rock, whence it -landed with a crash in the middle of a mass of brushwood, burying itself -completely. - -The double noise, as she had anticipated, brought out the owner of the -hut, very cross and sleepy, clad only in a pareo, and angrily anxious -for the safety of his patch of yams. He carried a torch in his hand, -made of blazing candlenuts strung on a stick ("Must have run out every -bit of credit at the stores," thought Vaiti parenthetically), and he -was, beyond all shadow of doubt, against all common probability, the -red-haired master of the _Ikurangi_. - -If looks could ever blast, those black eyes behind the hibiscus boughs -would have slain him where he stood. Vaiti quivered with rage as she -watched him shambling sleepily about, looking, with his long, matted red -hair, bloated, evil face, and half naked body, infinitely lower than any -coloured native on the island.... He had not prospered since he escaped -the wreck of the _Ikurangi_--how or where she did not care to know. He -looked as if he had been living on the natives and half drinking himself -to death, as was indeed the case. - -But Vaiti was not in the least mollified by his unprosperous case. In -her opinion, he ought to have been dead long ago. There could be no -peace of mind for her while he was still drifting about the Pacific, -ever on the alert to do her an evil turn. She was not equal to actual -murder, and, in any case, Niue was a British-owned island, with a -resident Commissioner and a regular nest of missionaries, where you had -to be very careful of what you did. But if any accident--a safe, -convenient accident--should befall him by-and-by, why, it would -certainly be an advantage to the _Sybil_ and her owners. Well, that -might come about, and without introducing Saxon into it either. In such -a delicate matter Saxon's interference would very likely have acted much -as a charge of dynamite might act in the destruction of a wasps' -nest--something more than the wasps would probably come to grief. - -She waited until the ugly creature had rolled back into his cottage and -shut the make-shift door. Then she slipped down from the rock once -more, and began the second part of her errand. Neither then, nor at any -other time, did she trouble to find out the manner of Donahue's escape. -If she had, she would have heard that he had been picked up by a native -canoe, floating about on a piece of wreck the day after the disaster -that destroyed the _Ikurangi_, and that, he had spent a good many months -on a neighbouring island before a stray schooner had consented to accept -his watch for passage money and convey him as far as Niue--the only -place near their course where a penniless beachcomber would have been -allowed to land. As things were, he was more or less smuggled off, and -thought best to take refuge in the bush at once. The moneyless -adventurer is not encouraged in islands belonging to the British Crown. - -It is easy, therefore, to understand why Donahue, living under an -assumed name in the far interior of the island, had not been recognised, -and was not likely to be, by any one save the person whom his presence -most concerned. His malice against Vaiti had by no means evaporated -with the events that took place on Vaka. He did not, as it happened, -suspect her of having actually caused the loss of the _Ikurangi_, but he -was of a darkly superstitious nature, and laid down his ill-luck, first, -last, and all through, to the fact of her influence. She had been a -"Jonah" of the worst kind to him, and he would have been very glad -indeed to serve her any ill turn of any kind that might be possible. -But only the small piece of spite compassed through Mata had, so far, -lain within his power. - -Vaiti had still a mile or two to go, and it was waxing very late, or -rather, early. She almost ran along the winding rocky path, following -it as easily as if broad day or full moon had surrounded her instead of -star-lit dark. Now the sound of the sea, unheard for the last hour, -broke out again, and a cold salt breath from the beach cut through the -heavy perfume of the forest track. In another minute she was out of the -wood and fairly running down a sloping, sandy track that led to a little -white house standing alone on the shore.... She laughed as she ran--it -was such a soft, clear night, and the sea called so pleasantly down in -the dark, and she did so dearly love an adventure--especially when all -the world imagined her to be sleeping quietly in her mosquito-netted -bed. - -There was no secrecy about this matter apparently. The house had a good -wooden door, and she rapped loudly on it with a stone, calling at the -same time, "Sona! Sona! Wake up!" - -There was a brief interval, in which the rollers tore at the beach and -the palms swung and crashed overhead, uninterrupted by other sound. -Sona was evidently asleep. She struck loudly on the door again. This -time some one answered in a drowsy voice, and a slow, shuffling foot -came to the door. The hinges creaked, and in another minute a small, -bent, feeble figure appeared on the threshold. - -"Tck! tck!" it clucked. "Is there magic in the air, and have I grown -fifty years younger, that the lovely maidens come to my door in the -starlight once more? Is it my beauty that has struck you to the heart, -chieftainess Vaiti; or do you want a charm to catch the love of some one -less deserving than myself?" - -A fit of coughing interrupted him; he crept out to the open air, and -clung to the door-post, shaking all over with the violence of the -paroxysm. There was more light here, down by the foaming rollers; one -could see, if one had been walking half the night in the dark bush, that -the man was very small and hairy, very decrepit, and very, very old. -Indeed, the personal appearance of Sona, solitary recluse of the -Avarangi beach, good Nonconformist Christian on Sundays, and heathen -witch-doctor out of business hours, was a very important item of his -stock-in-trade. He looked his part to perfection, and knew it. His -very name was a piece of business, even though, rightly pronounced and -written. it was that of the godly man of Nineveh. When Shark-Tooth of -Avarangi had consented, largely for reasons of policy, to join the -mission fold a good many years before--the last straggling heathens on -the island having been then "brought in" by the exertions of a -determined and energetic missionary--he had selected the name of Jonah -for his baptismal title solely because, so far as he could ascertain, -the original bearer of the name was proverbial for bringing bad luck to -his enemies--and that was the sort of reputation that Shark-Tooth -especially coveted. - -Vaiti had not met him before, but she knew him well by reputation, and -was very sure that he knew all he cared to know--probably a good -deal--about her. It was, she thought, a case for going straight to the -point, so she went very straight indeed. - -"Let me in, Sona," she said in his own tongue. "I want to talk with -you, and I want to buy you; for you and I are wise people, and I know -that there is nothing that may not be bought." - -"Crah--crah--crah!" cackled Sona, in a feeble old man's laugh, tacking a -joke to the end of it that might well have raised a blush on Vaiti's -cheek if she had been capable of such a weakness. He led the way into -the house, still cackling, lit an ill-smelling kerosene lamp, and sank -down upon the mats, a mere heap of crumpled cotton clothes, old bones, -and ancient wickedness. - -Vaiti pulled out her cigar-case, tossed the old creature a cigar, which -he clutched at eagerly, and lit one for herself. Then she squatted down -on the mats, her back against the wall, and puffed for a minute or two -in silence. Old Sona watched her eagerly with his glassy little eyes. -He saw that she was not angry at the part he had played in the late -unpleasant occurrence upon the schooner, or at least that she did not -mean to resent it. He had heard all about the strange happenings of the -voyage, and was a good deal awed at the power of the woman who had -actually broken the spell of his curse--in which, be it observed, he -believed most fully himself, with excellent reasons for doing so. And -he was really very anxious to know what she wanted now, and especially -what he was going to make by it. - -Vaiti pulled at her cigar vigorously for a minute to make it draw well, -and then, with a leisurely puff, remarked in Sona's own tongue: - -"Mata gave you a gold ring to curse my sailors that they should die--all -the village knows of it, so you need not deny it, old man with the face -of a scavenger-crab. Was it not foolish of you to set yourself against -Vaiti, the great sea-princess--very foolish to run into danger, and for -so little?" - -"Yes, yes, so little," repeated Sona, in a kind of wail. - -"Now I come to buy you for myself," went on Vaiti, puffing between words -(she smoked like most women, very hard and fast). "I buy like a great -chief's daughter, and you shall feed and drink well for a long time if -you are faithful to me. If not, I shall split you open with my knife as -one splits open a fish on the beach, and leave you out on the strand, so -that the crabs may come and eat you before you are dead. That is what I -shall do to you." - -"I belong to the high chieftainess, soul and liver," quavered Sona -nervously. Vaiti, hardly looking at him, pulled something out of her -dress and flung it down carelessly on the mat between the two. Sona's -eyes glittered, for he heard the chink of gold. - -"Take it, old pig of the woods," said Vaiti contemptuously, and he -clutched eagerly at the little parcel of rag. It contained a roll of -gold coins. Sona, panting with mingled delight and fear lest his -visitor should change her mind, scuttled away to some hiding-hole in an -inner room, and concealed the packet with breathless haste. Then he -returned to the lamp-lit room, where Vaiti sat smoking and waiting. - -"I am yours, high chieftainess; I am yours," he repeated, rubbing his -hands together and cackling. - -"What is this thing they tell about a devil that stays upon the road to -Mua, and comes out at night-time?" asked Vaiti carelessly, looking over -Sona's head at the wall. - -Sona shut up his eyes very tight, and shook his shaggy little head from -side to side. - -"If you ask the good misinari doctor, he will tell you," he answered. -"As for me, I have nothing to do with devils. I am a very old man, and -I want to go to heaven. - -"You will go to-night, old scorpion-head, if you do not tell me -everything I want to know," remarked Vaiti. Her tone was pleasant, but -there was a flavour of something else below the pleasantness that caused -Sona, literally and figuratively, to sit up. - -"I tell, I tell, high chieftainess," he stammered eagerly. "The thing -is known to all the people on the island--even the white people. It -happened only last year, and it is as true as the Good Book. It was the -foolish man from Mua way, whom they called a witch-doctor--and every one -knows that such a thing does not exist, high chieftainess; but they said -he was that thing, and he said so himself, because he was proud and mad. -Now, we all know that there are many devils on Niue, and that the -misinaris never were able to drive them all away. And there is a very -bad devil on that road to Mua, right where the six palm-trees stand up -by themselves among the graves. It is powerless in the day, but at -night there is no Niue man who would dare to go there. Sometimes the -white traders will ride past the place coming home in the dark, but it -is a true thing that their horses will often shy and bolt when they come -near to the home of the devil, and no man can say why; indeed, the -devils, for the most part, do not have power over the 'papalangi.' - -"So this witch-doctor, as he called himself, said that he did not fear -the devil, and he would go and stay the night among the graves, thinking -that because of that all the people in the island would believe in him, -and give him many pigs and yams for fear of his 'mana.' So he went to -the devil-place, and all night he stayed, but in the morning he did not -come back at all. And by-and-by all the people of his village went -together to look for him. And they found him lying on the road, all -dead, and his face was black and his body twisted up. So the people -brought him to the misinari doctor, and he said that he could not make -him alive again. And the traders said, 'What is the kind of this death? -We do not know it, though we are white men and know everything.' But -the misinari doctor did not know. And they buried him, and that is all, -high chieftainess." - -Vaiti smoked thoughtfully. She had heard something of the tale before, -and Sona's story did not vary from the version that was generally -current about the island. She thought, on the whole, that she believed -in it. There was no doubt that many of the white people gave it credit, -though a few of them declared the man must have died in a drunken fit. -A paper in Australia had published an account of the mysterious -incident, and the spiritualistic set in Sydney were so deeply interested -in it that a letter of inquiry from a psychical research society had -been sent up to the island, inquiring into the matter. But it happened -that the trader to whom the letter was addressed had committed suicide a -good many months earlier, and excellent onions and pumpkins (much -appreciated by his successor) were growing green upon his grave by the -time the letter reached the island. So the inquiry was never answered. - -Yes, on the whole, Vaiti thought she believed the story. That a similar -result would follow in the case of a "papalangi" (white man) who -followed the deceased magician's example she did not, however, believe. -She thought it very likely, however, that mischief of one kind or -another would result.... And if the worst should chance to come -about.... - -Vaiti took another cigar. - -"What does your misinari say?" she asked. "He is not the right sort of -misinari, it is true, but still, he should know more about devils than -the traders." - -"Our good misinari was not here when it happened," replied Sona in a -pious tone. "It was the doctor misinari. Our own good misinari says -that devils cannot do harm to any but bad men." - -Vaiti reflected, her eyes on the floor. She really had some respect, in -an odd, upside-down kind of way, for missionary opinion. It is bred in -the bone with the younger generation of Eastern Pacific islanders. - -Donahue was certainly a very bad man. She did not think she had ever -met any one much worse. Perhaps the badness, balanced against the -whiteness, might swing down the scale. At any rate.... - -"Hear me, Sona!" she said, in a voice of command. "I have bought you -to-night, and you belong to me. There will be more to pay by-and-by if -you do as I tell you. But I would warn you to be careful, for you will -not find it pleasant lying on the shore down there, with your inside -hanging out like a gutted fish, and the crabs coming running to eat you -before you are dead, as you will if you make any mistakes. Listen, -then, very carefully." - -"I listen, I listen!" cried Sona. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIV* - - *HOW THE WITCH-DOCTOR GOT HIS MONEY BACK* - - -When the trader's wife came in next morning with Vaiti's cup of tea, she -was touched to see how deeply her pretty lodger was sleeping. - -"Poor young dear," said the good woman, "lying there so sweet and -innocent, sleeping like a baby! It's only the good heart that rests like -that. I don't believe a word of the silly lies they tell about her. -Here, dear, wake up," she called gently. "Your good papa is ever so -much better this morning, and looking for you to come in. And it is -Sunday morning, and a nice cool day." - -"Thank you, Mrs. Smith," said Vaiti politely, broad awake at once. "May -I asking you one little hot water? I like get up and go to turch." - -Church, attended for reasons religious or otherwise, was not one of the -amusements patronised by the nameless white man of the bush. Indeed, -his amusements, such as they were, were so far confined to the native -villages of the interior that very few of the other whites had seen him. -He was not good for trade, having no money and possessing no -credit--that was all they knew, or for the most part wanted to know, -about him. - -There was all the more astonishment, therefore, in the shanty owned by -the Mua trader, away up in the bush, when the unknown man walked into -the store that Sunday night, and demanded some tobacco, at the same time -showing a sovereign he held in his hand. He was dressed in a pitiful -mass of rags, none too clean, but he looked well pleased with himself, -and was more than half drunk. Fortune had apparently found him out at -last. - -The Mua trader was an honest man, but he did not see why he should not -have a share in anything good that happened to be available about that -lonely and unprofitable district. So he welcomed the stranger in with -much cordiality, and asked him to stop for supper. - -The newcomer had no objection in the world to come in and share the -trader's good tinned meats and new yeast bread, and he made himself very -much at home without pressing. The trader, who had a private store of -consolation in his own back kitchen, plied the spirits freely. He was -curious, and he believed in the old saw of "Wine in, truth out." A -couple of friends who had ridden over from Alofi, the capital, and were -equally curious about the derelict's sudden access to fortune, did their -disinterested best to help, and the bottle went merrily round. The Niue -traders are a sober, decent set of people enough, but Donahue had mixed -with them so little that he did not know this, and consequently was not -put on his guard by the unusual conviviality. Indeed, he was by no -means the same active, crafty villain who had set that successful snare -of the diamond necklace in Apia many months ago. A white man cannot -"live native" without going downhill very fast, and Donahue was nearly -at the bottom. - -So he drank, and laughed, and told evil tales, and grew quarrelsome, and -pathetic, and finally affectionate and confidential, in well-defined -stages, while all the time the other men kept sober, or nearly so. The -Mua trader in particular hardly touched his glass. But Donahue, once so -wary, never saw, and chattered on. - -Before midnight the trader had sold him some gay calico for the native' -girls, and a little tinned meat and flour, and half-a-dozen various -trifles that brought the score up to about a pound. Here the guest came -to a pause and fingered his coin. - -"Oh, well, if that's all you have, you won't get any more goods -to-night. Thanks," said the trader, putting out his hand. - -The visitor, however, declined to hand over the money. He would pay -to-morrow, he said. He was not going to leave himself without money -again--not if he knew it--and he would have lots to-morrow: and if the -trader wouldn't send up the goods without the cash to-night, why, he -might keep his condemned rubbish, and his customer would go elsewhere. - -Rather than lose the order, the other gave in, and sent a boy away with -the stuff. It would always be easy to bully him out of it afterwards, -he thought, and there was no arguing with a drunken man's whim. - -Then he set himself, in company with all the rest, to find out where the -money had come from. - -Donahue, who by now was far gone, responded readily. It was the silly -old chap who lived down on Avarangi beach, he said; an old fool who was -an uncle of a girl who was a friend of his. The old chap had a notion -that there were some Spanish doubloons hidden somewhere on the island, -but in a place he was afraid to touch, so he had forked out a good -British sovereign, and offered it to Donahue to go in his place, and -share the money with him. Donahue was to keep the earnest money for his -trouble, if nothing came of it, and if anything did turn up he was to -take half. So he was going, that very night--the sooner the better. -Natives were--well, natives; but as for him, he was afraid of nothing. - -"Thasser-sort-er-man I am," he finished thickly, looking round for -applause. - -He did not get it. The traders one and all burst out laughing. The -story of the doubloons, they told him, was a very old one in the island, -and only the newest of new chums thought of believing it. It was quite -true that the natives, who were perfect magpies for hoarding, did -possess among them a certain number of doubloons, which came from -God-knows-where--for the coinage used in the island was British--and -true also that the trader would get a doubloon from one of them every -now and then in the course of business, always with some mystery -attached to it, and some reluctance to part with the coin. But the -Resident Commissioner, who knew the island pretty well, and the -missionary too, had long been certain that the store was merely the -remains of some ship-wrecking raid of past days, about which the Niueans -were now ashamed to speak. They were great misers, and it would like -enough be another generation before all the hoarded coins had come to -light and passed through the traders' hands. But hidden treasure in -Niue! Pf! If old Sona had been giving away money, he must be either -going mad with age or (more likely) up to something. He was the cutest -old fox on Niue, and that was saying something. Why, when he had come -into that very store to buy a darning-needle a few hours ago (what a man -who lived in a waist-cloth and nothing else wanted with a darning-needle -he hadn't explained), it had been all the trader could do to prevent his -picking up half-a-dozen odds and ends. That was what he was like if one -ever took an eye off him; and he wouldn't even pay for the needle, -either, till the trader had threatened to hammer him unless he forked -out. Take his word for it, if Sona had been giving away money, he meant -to have it back--somehow. And the treasure was poppy-cock. - -Donahue had now passed into the quarrelsome stage, and he rose with -tipsy dignity from his seat. - -"I considdle you no gennlemen," he said scornfully. "For half a Chile -dorrer I'd" ... He mentioned what he would do, in gross and in detail, -to the assembled company for the small sum mentioned. - -"Kick the dirty brute out," said the Alofi trader disgustedly. "It's -easy to see what sort of company that carrion has kept." - -Donahue was gone, however--gone with surprising agility, and lurching -rapidly up the forest pathway towards his house. His legs were always -the last thing to fail him. - -He knew very well that he had had too much, and when he reached his hut -he proceeded to sober himself by dipping his head repeatedly in a bucket -of water. Then he brewed himself a powerful jorum of black tea, drank -it, and set off considerably sobered. - -It was a long way to the clump of palms, and he stumbled badly now and -then as he went over the graves that lay thick about the edges of the -path. Burial along the high-road is very popular in Niue, where they -like to keep an eye on their dead and see that they are lying quiet in -their graves--a thing that no one considers at all a matter of course. -Some of the graves that Donahue passed had felt hats laid upon them; -others had plates, bowls, bottles of hair-oil, fans--all to amuse the -ghost and keep it quiet; and one or two looked ghostly enough to scare a -nervous person as it was, with the wraith-like mosquito curtains -thoughtfully suspended over the tomb by mourning and anxious relatives. -Every grave was completed by a solid mass of concrete, weighing anything -from several hundredweight to a ton. It was not the fault of any Niuean -if his dead relatives "walked." - -Donahue as he went chuckled to himself at the thought of his keenness in -over-reaching the old witch-doctor. He had used him for his own -purposes through the girl Mata before, and though that had not worked -out too well, it was the witch-doctor who bore the discredit, not he. -He would use him again now, and in another way. It was in the daytime -that Sona had arranged to meet him at the palm-tree clump. At night, he -said, it would be certain death; and even in daylight no one would -linger there who could help it. He at least would never dare to disturb -the big tomb in which the money was hidden and call down the anger of -the devils on himself, unless he had a white man with him who feared -nothing. So next morning, very early, the white man who was so brave -would meet him, and they would open the big, cracked tomb together--the -tomb that no Niuean had ever dared to lay a finger on before, though -there were one or two besides himself who suspected that it was just -there the mysterious foreign coins had come from years ago, and that -there were a good many left. - -Thus the witch-doctor. And Donahue had assented eagerly, and gone off -with his earnest money. And, on arriving at his hut, he had looked out -an old axe that he possessed, and cleaned up his lamp, and begged a drop -of oil from the nearest native house. For he meant to go that very -night, and take everything there was for himself. Who was to prove it? - -Which was just the course of action that Sona had calculated very -confidently on his taking. - -It poured furiously in an hour or two, for it was in the hot season, and -the great rains were out. Donahue could not light his lamp when he came -to the clump of palms, which he knew well enough to recognise almost in -the pitch dark. It thundered soon after, and the sky was split from -pole to pole by corpse-blue flashes of lightning. In one of these, -Donahue, feeling about the cracks of the tomb, thought he saw something -moving against the gloom of the bush near at hand. It made his throat -turn dry, for all the wet, and he felt his hair prickle curiously. But -he went on groping. Another flash ripped up the sky; it was a smaller -one, but for one horrible moment he thought he had been struck, for -something stinging streaked across his face and gave him an ugly thrill. -But it passed immediately, and he began groping again--groping with both -hands, in a frantic hurry, trying to make out the best place to apply -the axe--tearing and grasping and scuffling like some deadly graveyard -mole, breathless, with beads of warm sweat coursing down his face -through the streams of chilly rain.... He was fighting--fighting he -knew not what and knew not why--but he was fighting, for all that, -fighting hard, with the stone falling away from his nerveless hands, and -the breath in his body sinking down under some nightmare oppression, and -the sound of the thunder now almost continuous, blending itself with -another and far louder sound that was battering madly in his ears. He -was fighting with---- Christ!--it was Death! - -The thunder passed, as tropic storms do pass, suddenly and completely. -The dawn shot up in the east, wet and red, and cast long, black, ghostly -shadows, set shaking by an icy wind, low down upon the palm-trunks and -the grave. But Donahue did not want the light. The axe lay untouched -beside him; and he lay over the tomb, dead. And his face was black and -his body was all contorted. - -It was barely daylight yet when something small and slow crept out of -the bush, and began hunting carefully near the corpse. It could not -find what it wanted, seemingly, and this distressed it, for it whimpered -pitifully in a thin old voice, and looked long before it desisted. Then -it put its claws into the dead man's pockets, and hunted through them, -before it finally disappeared down the road. - - * * * * * - -The Mua trader was at his door when a howling procession of natives came -into the village, carrying the white man's corpse to his home. The -Alofi trader, who had found the body, stepped aside to speak. After the -tale of the finding had been told, the Mua trader asked slowly: - -"Did you think of searching his pockets? A dead man's a dead man--and -I'd not be sorry to have the money he owed me, for the natives will have -taken the goods by this time." - -"They were empty when I found him. Queer, for I was the first to see -him," said the other. "I found this thing on the road close by, though. -Do you recognise it?" - -It was the trader's darning-needle, stuck neatly into the end of a tiny, -arrow-like reed, and stained at the point with some dark sticky stuff. - -The Mua trader took it in his hand, smelt it and looked at it closely. -Then he walked to his kitchen, and, watched by the Alofi trader, threw -the thing into the fire. - -"That's what I think of it," he said. "My boy, I traded in the worst of -the Solomons for three years. I'm the only man on the island that knows -that thing, bar one--and he was a plantation hand in the Solomons, in -the black-birding days. There's no wanderers like the Nuie men." - -"Do you think----" began the other. - -"I think," said the Mua trader, "that old Sona has got his money back." - - * * * * * - -The schooner _Sybil_ had no reason for staying longer in Niue, for the -business of the ship was done, and the captain was quite well again. A -picture of perfect beauty the _Sybil_ made, as she stood out of Alofi -roads in the golden afternoon, every sail set and every inch of cloth -straining to the merry breeze. Niue was sorry to part with Vaiti, for -she had interested the island considerably, and her beauty had, as -usual, won her more admiration than her temper deserved. Every one, on -parting, expressed a courteous wish to see the _Sybil_ and her owners -again. - -For all that, and all that, the schooner came back no more. Vaiti had -won the game at last, but she never willingly mentioned Niue again. - - - - - *CHAPTER XV* - - *THE CALAMITY OF CORAL BAY* - - -The wide, still waters of Coral Bay were turning glassy pink under the -sunset afterglow. The _Sybil's_ boat, rowing rapidly towards the -schooner, left as it went a long, ugly flaw upon the stainless crystal -of the sea. It was very still, and the night was coming down. - -Even in that uncertain twilight the colour of the boat as it cut through -the pale-hued water stood out strange and sinister. Most boats are -white in tropic seas: the _Sybil's_ had always been snowy as her own -graceful hull. Now they were vivid scarlet, and the ship herself had a -wide band of scarlet round her counter and flew a scarlet flag at her -masthead. - -Any islander could have told you at a glance what these things meant. -The schooner was "recruiting"--conveying natives from the wild cannibal -islands of the New Hebrides to the Queensland sugar plantations. Ten -pounds a head was paid for the men on their arrival, and it was politely -supposed that these ignorant heathen had one and all been duly engaged -under a contract to serve three years, at a wage of five pounds a year. -How much they understood of contracts, times, and wages--where and what -they thought Australia might be--and what were the means employed to get -them on board the ship, nobody asked. Saxon was not the man to answer, -if any one had. - -Why he had temporarily deserted the pleasant, peaceful islands of the -Eastern Pacific, and gone "black-birding" in the wild and wicked and -fever-smitten groups of the West, was Saxon's own affair. Doubtless he -had his reasons; possibly they were satisfactory. But there is reason -to believe that about Apia and Papeete at this time he was characterised -as a (double-adjectived) liar, and an (impolite expression) villain, who -was running away because it was (adverbially) unsafe for him to stay and -risk his (past participled) neck among (adjective) men. This is not the -history of Captain Saxon; at least, not all of it--from such a recital -as that may the eleven thousand virgins of Saint Mudie, and the Blessed -Young Person of Sixteen, deliver us! It must therefore be enough to say -that, for sufficient reasons, he decided to shift his headquarters to -the New Hebrides, and immediately did so, leaving behind him certain -unsettled scores with which this tale has nothing to do. - -He was not new to the islands or the natives, having been one of the -most notorious of the sandal-wood traders in years gone by. The -sandal-wood was gone, and of the money he had made by it not even the -memory remained. But there was still something in the labour trade, and -Saxon liked the lawless atmosphere of the place. - -Vaiti remembered the islands well, though she had only been there as a -child, and she was glad to have the excitement of the change. When the -recruiting boat left the schooner (guarded by a companion, full of armed -men) and drew up on the beach to negotiate with the islanders, she -always sat in the stern, with a very smart little Winchester rifle -across her knees, and took command, if her father was not there. Very -often he was not; for the New Hebrideans have long memories, and there -was many a spot where Saxon had run up so many bad, black scores in the -sandal-wood days that he could not hope for success--or safety, if he -had minded that--in going ashore. Harris usually took command of the -covering boat, a post of comparative security that suited him very well, -while the dauntless Vaiti managed all the real business, and seldom came -back with an empty bag. - -They had good luck, on the whole, and not many narrow escapes. Coasting -round the notorious island of Mallicolo, or Malekula, they succeeded in -obtaining about forty natives in a week or two. Saxon was well pleased, -and began to count up his profits. Also he began to drink again. - -Then it was that trouble came, as trouble generally does, out of a -fair-seeming sky. - -Half-a-dozen natives had been given up to the missionaries on the far -side of Malekula, to hand over to the British gunboat _Alligator_, which -at that time was cruising about the islands, intent on punishing the -Malekulans for a more than usually atrocious murder of whites. The -tribes to whom the culprits belonged had taken fright, and were anxious -to save themselves at any cost. The missionaries, when asked by them, -consented to take charge of the prisoners, but refused to keep them any -longer than could possibly be helped, since they did not consider -themselves judges or gaolers. At this point the _Sybil_ turned up, and -the missionaries, hearing she was bound for Parrot Harbour, where the -_Alligator_ was certain to call, put the men on board, and engaged Saxon -to hand them over to the Parrot Harbour mission, receiving from the -missionaries there the price of their passage, which the man-of-war -would doubtless refund. - -Saxon, understanding that he had not to meet the _Alligator_, undertook -the job at a rather excessive rate, and brought the prisoners over as -agreed. But, finding that the Parrot Harbour mission refused to pay the -passage money until the man-of-war arrived, he went into a towering rage -and abused everybody. Wait for the _Alligator_? Not he! He had -something else to do, and he wouldn't have any condemned gunboat that -ever sailed the sanguinary waters of the Pacific poking her nose into -any of his business. He had been promised the money as soon as he -arrived, and the money or its equivalent he meant to have or know the -reason why. Off he went, with much more whisky in his brain than was -compatible with sober judgment--off out to sea again, taking with him -the whole six prisoners, and openly declaring his intention either to -hold them for ransom or run them down to the Queensland plantations, as -seemed most convenient. - -Next day the _Alligator_ appeared, and her commander was informed of the -occurrence. Saxon, master of a miserable labour schooner, had run off -with prisoners of war belonging to a British gunboat, defied the -Imperial Government, and offered open disrespect to the Crown! The -commander, an iron-faced, flinty-eyed disciplinarian of the toughest -school, and a first-class pepper-pot into the bargain, nearly choked -with rage and indignation. Out went the _Alligator_ again, full steam -ahead, making the captain's dainty suite of cabins tremble like an -ill-set jelly in the stern as the ship forged along at thirteen knots an -hour, blackening the crystal sky with trails of smoke, and looking -implacably about for the offending _Sybil_. That delinquent of the high -seas was farther off than might have been supposed. The wind, though -light, was in her favour, and she had managed to get round the far end -of the island, and down the other side to Coral Bay, eighty miles off, -before the _Alligator_ came up with her, late in the afternoon. Once -caught, her shrift was short. The prisoners were at once transferred; -Saxon was arrested and taken, still half drunk, on board the man-of-war, -and his ship was confiscated, "just to learn him," as Gray (who had -viewed his captain's proceedings with sour and silent disapproval -throughout) was heard to remark, not without a little I-told-you-so -satisfaction. - -And so it came about that Vaiti, returning with the boat from an -unsuccessful recruiting expedition, and not in the best of humours to -begin with, was met on her arrival with extremely unpleasant news. - -"We're took, cap'n; we're took, ma'am!" shouted Gray over the bulwarks, -as the boat nosed along the side of the schooner. He added a rapid -account of the calamity, in which he was careful to suppress his -personal feelings of triumph. - -The smart young lieutenant who had been left in charge of the ship came -and looked down at the boat. He wanted to know what sort of person it -might be who was addressed with this extraordinary hail. He had been -under the impression that the "captain" of the _Sybil_ had been left two -hours ago--sullen, swearing, and not at all sober--in the cells of -H.M.S. _Alligator_. - -What he saw was a red-painted boat, manned by four stalwart native -seamen, and steered by an extremely handsome, olive-faced young woman, -who looked up at him with eyes that seemed to dart black lightning under -their beautifully drawn brows as she listened to the boatswain's story. -She wore a dainty, lacy white muslin frock, and carried a Winchester -rifle in her lap. - -Second Lieutenant Tempest, who had been cursing his luck up to that -moment, suddenly became reconciled to the uninteresting job in which he -was engaged. It is just conceivable that his commander might have -selected another officer to perform the duty if he had been aware of its -possible alleviations; for Mr. Tempest was notoriously given to scrapes -with a _soupcon_ of petticoat in them, and had already imperilled his -career more than once after this fashion. But Commander the Hon. -Francis St. John Raleigh had not seen "Captain" Vaiti; so he sent Mr. -Tempest to take possession of the _Sybil_, and slept the sleep of the -well-conscienced and well-dined, that evening, in his velvet -armchair.... It might have seemed somewhat less perfectly stuffed to -him, had his dreams been concerned with what was happening a few hundred -yards away. - -Mr. Tempest, smiling like the godmother beast of his own ship, offered -his hand to the sullen beauty as she swung herself up the _Sybil's_ -side. Vaiti tossed it indignantly away, favoured him with another -black-lightning glance that reduced his susceptible sailor heart to -pulp, and stalked aft like an offended Cleopatra. Tempest, persistently -following, poured out explanations, apologies, smiles, consolations, -promises. Vaiti began to think that civility might possibly avail her -something, and began to melt by carefully calculated degrees. Before -very long she was sitting on the main hatch, with Tempest beside her, -holding her hand unreproved and continuing his consolations. The -commander was very angry, no doubt, but he was a good sort at bottom, -and perhaps he would not really seize the ship. She would be sent to -Fiji, no doubt, and Saxon might possibly be imprisoned, but it would all -come out all right, trust him! And he would take very good care of the -_Sybil_ and her charming "captain." - -Vaiti, still smiling sweetly, dug her nails into wood of the hatch at -her side. Underneath all this verbiage she foresaw the reality of -serious trouble. Why had her father been such a fool? What could be -done to save the ship? There seemed no way of helping Saxon himself. -If the commander proved implacable, to prison he must go. Well, that -would not break any bones; but the loss of the _Sybil_--if such a -disaster was indeed possible--must be averted at any cost. She did not -believe Mr. Tempest's smiling assertion. The commander had threatened -to confiscate the ship, and most probably he would. At any rate, the -risk was too great to face. The schooner must not be taken to Fiji. - -The wily brain was hard at work, as she sat on the hatch, listening, -with a gentle smile and soft, downcast, maidenly eyes, to Tempest's -love-making, and answering now and then in her pretty Polynesian -"pigeon-English"--so much simpler and less grotesque than the -_beche-de-mer_ talk of the Melanesian Islands.... If he could be got -out of the way, and the marines suddenly overpowered, the schooner might -slip off round the corner of the headland in the dark, and get nearly a -hundred miles away before daylight, with the steady wind that was -blowing outside the glassy, landlocked harbour of Coral Bay. There was -just enough air stirring at this farthest point to allow her to get out, -and once off, she could show her heels in a way that would astonish even -a British gunboat. Of course, the latter would easily overhaul her in -an open chase, but Vaiti did not propose any such folly. There was many -a perilous inlet and passage among those dangerous, ill-surveyed islands -where the _Sybil_ could safely go, but where the _Alligator_ could not -venture. Let them only gain a day, and who was to say whither they had -flown into the wide wastes of the Pacific? Once beyond pursuit, paint -and other disguises would so alter the ship that no one could identify -her; her name could be changed, and the _Mary Ann_ or the _Nautilus_ -would innocently sail the seas formerly polluted by the presence of the -naughty _Sybil_.... It was certainly worth trying. - -As for Tempest, she had a plan concocted to get rid of him almost as -soon as the matter entered her mind. She left him, by and by, solacing -himself with fresh turtle steak and excellent champagne in the cabin for -the loss of his own dinner, while she went into the bows with Harris and -Gray, and rapidly explained her plans. The marines had been accommodated -with eatables and drinkables after their own hearts, on the cover of the -main hatch, and were too much engaged to notice anything in the thick -darkness that was now lying heavily on Coral Bay. - -Vaiti's plan was simple and effective. Tempest was to be enticed into -leaving his duty and going ashore--she would see to that. Four of the -New Hebridean crew, stripped of their ship clothes, and attired in their -aboriginal paint and plumes, were to be concealed on the beach. They -would capture him, and carry him off to a bush village near the coast, -where the people were not ill disposed to the whites, and leave him -there, scared no doubt, but safe until the morning, when he would be let -go. Vaiti would come back to the ship as soon as the capture was -effected, and the four native sailors would hurry down from the village -as quickly as possible. Meantime, it would be easy for Harris to drug -the marines' drink and make them helpless. They would be set adrift in -one of the boats, as soon as the schooner was clear of the land, so that -they should tell no tales. With good luck, everything should be over, -and the _Sybil_ far out to sea, in less than a couple of hours. - - * * * * * - -Of the disgrace of Lieutenant Tempest--of his temptation, his struggle, -and his fall--there is no need to tell at length. The decline of a -British officer from duty and honour--his desertion of a post which -every professional instinct should have compelled him to keep is not a -happy subject, as (fortunately) it is not a common one. Vaiti, in -brief, invited the officer to leave the ship unguarded, and slip ashore -with her, to sup at a neighbouring trader's shanty, where she said there -would be drink and dancing, and every kind of fun. There was no such -place, but Tempest did not know that; and if he had known, he might not -have cared. Half-crazed with love and champagne, he thought only of the -beautiful half-caste girl, and was ready to follow her to the mouth of -hell, if she had asked him. The dinghy was got out softly and -cautiously, and, with muffled oars, they slipped away unheard. So far -out of his mind was the lieutenant that he did not even note the -disappearance of his men, who were all lying, very ably and completely -Shanghai'ed, in the hold. - -In less than half an hour Vaiti came back, swimming the stretch of black -water that lay between the _Sybil_ and the shore, to leave the boat -ready for the men. Dripping, sparkling, and laughing, she stood up in -the dim light of the deck lantern and told the mate and boatswain how -the capture had been managed. Tempest, with a sack over his head and -his hands and feet bound to a pole, was at that moment being carried up -in the dark to the bush village. The inhabitants of the place were to -have ten pounds' worth of trade goods promised them to keep him there -all night and let him escape in the morning, when they themselves would -go off and hide in the impenetrable forests until the man-of-war had -sailed away again. In half an hour or so the four natives would be back -on board, and they would all sail away round the headland, and leave no -evidence of any kind to connect the _Sybil_ with this last unpardonable -outrage; for Tempest could not but suppose that the natives who so -neatly bagged him as he was philandering along the dark beach with the -innocent Vaiti were ordinary hill tribesmen. And, in any case, his -sacred person would be taken good care of. - -"Then he ain't to be damaged, the little darlin'?" inquired Harris. The -question was not an idle one. Every one on board the schooner knew that -Vaiti was capable of ugly things at her worst. - -The girl laughed--a low, gurgling laugh. - -"No. No kill him, no hurt him. I not like," she said, tossing back her -wet, wavy hair, with a coquettish gesture that told Harris the woman in -Vaiti was fully awake that night, despite the rough and ready adventure -on which she was engaged. Harris was no fool, if he was something -unsteady in character, and more or less he admired Vaiti himself, which -tended to sharpen his sight. - -"Good job the dandy leftenant _is_ out of the way," he growled as Vaiti -disappeared into the cabin to change. "'Twouldn't take much for 'er to -get fancyin' his silly face, after all, and then the fat would be in the -fire." - -"Well, if you hask me, I don't like none of the 'ole thing from -beginnin' to hend," declared the bo'sun, jamming a wad of tobacco -viciously into his pipe. "Not the keepin' of the bloomin' niggers, not -again runnin' to Coral Bay, nor again this business. Wy? Because I -don't, and because it make me smell dirty weather. Give us a light." - -Overhead the stars in the velvet sky began to twinkle here and there as -the breeze rose and the clouds melted away. An odour of hot, wet jungle -drifted out across the bay from the invisible land, and a locust with a -rattle exactly like a policeman's whistle burred loudly among the trees. -It might have been half an hour, and it might have been more, before -something else became audible--something that sounded like a frightened -wailing on the shore. - -"A--we! A--a--we!" - -Vaiti came out of her cabin and stood on deck, listening intently. - -The sound went on. - -"A--we! A--we! A--wa--we!" - -Harris, watching Vaiti's face in the light of the lantern, saw it change -and harden, but she said nothing. There was another sound now--a dinghy -shoving off from the beach and the rattle of carelessly handled oars. - -"What's the ---- fools makin' such a ---- row for?" asked Gray. -"They'll 'ave the _Halligator_ on to us." - -Still Vaiti said nothing, but stood like a statue on the deck, listening -and looking into the darkness. - -The boat rammed the _Sybil_ in another minute with a shock that made her -quiver, and then drifted aimlessly along her sides. Three brown naked -figures lifted up their arms from below, and cried despairingly: - -"Kapitani! Kapitani! A--we! A--we!" - -"Get those fellows on board, too much quick, and bring him cabin," -ordered Vaiti. Harris and Gray hauled them in with small ceremony, and -dumped them down the companion into the cabin, where they stood in the -light of the lamp, painted, feather-bedecked creatures, fierce enough in -appearance, but in reality abjectly frightened and a-shiver. - -"What thing you been do?" demanded Vaiti sharply. "Where you make other -sailor-man? What you do Tempesi?" - -One of the men was beginning his wail again. She seized him by the -shoulder, pulled a pistol from among her draperies, and shook it in his -face. The man, with a yell of terror, twisted himself out of her hold. -Harris, who was rather frightened at her demeanour, got him away, forced -a dram of spirits into his mouth, and tried to extract the terrified -creature's story from him by degrees. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVI* - - *THE FATE OF THE LIEUTENANT* - - -It was not a gratifying tale. Half a mile from the beach, the captors -had been overtaken by a party of wild hillmen from Ranaar, one of the -worst of the inland cannibal towns, and had been set upon fiercely in -the dark. Aki, one of their own party, had been clubbed, and his body -carried off. The other natives had escaped. As for the lieutenant, the -Ranaar men had seized on him with cries of joy, exclaiming that now -indeed they had a chance of "making themselves strong" before all -Malekula. Then they had carried him away, slung on a pole between two -men, and the _Sybil's_ people, half dead with fright, had run down to -the beach again; and here they were, begging the Kapitani to have mercy -on them, for indeed it was not their fault, and no one could have known -that the Ranaar men would venture so near the coast. - -Vaiti, Harris, and Gray all looked grave at this recital. They knew -only too well what was implied by the phrase "making strong," and what -virtues the hill tribes of Malekula ascribed to the eating of white -man's flesh. The rude play of the capture had turned into most serious -earnest, and Tempest's life was worth just so many hours as it might -take the cannibals to reach their mountain stronghold and go through the -preliminary ceremonies of the feast. No more. - -There was silence for a minute or two, while the schooner rolled gently -on the swell of the incoming tide, and the smoky kerosene light -flickered to and fro upon the strange, wild scene: Vaiti's beautiful, -angry head standing out above the weather-beaten faces of the two -English sailors, the three naked New Hebrideans, squalid and -monkey-faced, cowering before her; the remnants of Tempest's dinner, -some one's greasy pack of cards, and a couple of Saxon's empty whisky -bottles decorating the table. The natives were badly frightened still. -They did not understand that the Kapitani's plans had been entangled -beyond all hope of setting right by this disaster, or that the -_Alligator_ must have been alarmed by their noisy return; but Vaiti's -countenance was enough to warn any one who had ever seen the unpleasant -things that happened at times on board the _Sybil_ that hurricane -weather was ahead. But before she had time to speak again, a loud hail -from outside made every one look towards the deck. In another moment -the first lieutenant of the _Alligator_ had framed his smart white and -gold personality in the dark oblong of the companion, and demanded, -loudly, and authoritatively, to know where Mr. Tempest was, where the -marines were, and what the deuce was the meaning of all this. - -Vaiti, motioning aside the mate and bo'sun, swept to the front and spoke -straight out. - -"All your sailor, he too much drunk, sleep 'long hold. Tempesi, he been -go shore. Men belong Ranaar, they catch him, take him away. Pretty dam -quick they eat him." - -"Great Scott!" said the officer. Facts were falling very thick and -fast, and there were evidently more facts behind them which for the -present he felt obliged--most reluctantly--to neglect. People think -quickly in the navy, and Lieutenant Darcy realised instantly that this -strange, wild, handsome creature was speaking the truth, and that it -must be acted on without delay. - -He stepped out on deck, and gave certain orders to his men. A sharp -little midshipman and half the boat's crew followed him on board, and -planted themselves about the ship. The rest remained in the boat. - -"This officer will stay here and take charge, and you will come with me -to the _Alligator_," said the lieutenant, addressing Vaiti. - -"Yes, I speak captain. Very good you let me see him quick," said the -girl imperiously; and the lieutenant, guessing that there was more still -to be told, hurried the boat away. - -He delivered his report to the commander, and concluded by saying that -the girl was in waiting, and had, in his opinion, something more to say -about the matter. - -"Bring her in," said the commander shortly. The gravity of the affair -had darkened his face a trifle, but he made no comment. It was not a -time for talk. - -Vaiti entered with the light step and carriage of the woman who wears -neither shoes nor stays, and stood silently before the commander, fixing -his hard grey eyes with her inscrutable dark stare. - -"You can sit down," said the officer. "I want to ask you some -questions." - -Vaiti drew herself up a little higher. - -"No time for sit," she said curtly. "Suppose you no want Tempesi ki-ki -[eaten] pretty quick, you listen me." - -"Young woman!" began Commander the Hon. Francis St. John Raleigh -sternly. - -"I tell you, no time talk!" interrupted Vaiti. "I savvy all right you -very big sea-chief; I savvy my father been made bad work, made bad work -myself. Let him go all-a-same that; by-'n-by we talk those thing. Now -you listen me." - -"All right; sit down," said the officer in a more conciliatory tone. -Vaiti sat, and leaning across the table with her chin in one slender -hand, and her eyes blazing out from under the mass of damp waves on her -forehead, she said her say. - -"You no savvy Malekula man; I savvy plenty. Suppose you do what I -telling you, Tempesi he come back, I think. Suppose not, Tempesi he -eat. Ranaar, he ten, eleven mile up 'long bush, plenty bad way. You -take some sailor; he go too much sof', too much quiet, all-a-same cat. -Time we coming along Ranaar, one half-mile, sailor he all stop. I go -myself Ranaar. Maybe I get Tempesi; we coming back to sailor, go home -all right." - -"Oh, nonsense! how are you going to get him, if the men can't?" demanded -the commander. He saw that he had a remarkable personality to deal with -in this strange half-caste beauty, but he did not comprehend her very -clearly, and he thought she was "gassing" a little. - -Vaiti frowned. - -"I tell you, you no savvy Malekula," she said scornfully. "Sailor belong -you, all the man hear him when he walk 'long bush. Ranaar man he hear; -he run away." - -"Well, so long as we rescue Mr. Tempest----" - -"No you talk, I say; you listen, you Kapitani with um wooden face!" spat -Vaiti. - -The lieutenant turned his head away, and choked a little in his -pocket-handkerchief. The commander stared, then burst out laughing. - -"Go on, you she-cat," he said. - -"Ranaar man he run away; very good. He leave Tempesi; very good. No -want Tempesi tell some tale, so he leave him dead. Break him head, all -same pig, very quick, then run away. Now what you think?" - -"I think you are a very plucky young lady, and that you have something -more to say about it," replied the commander politely. - -"Very good. Suppose I going 'long bush; savvy plenty the way. I been -'long Ranaar recruit; savvy all-a-road. No walking all same white man, -walking all same one snake, all same one mice. No white man he walk -that way. I come up Ranaar, all-a-dark, I stop 'long one small place; -see the man he dance, he sing, he make ki-ki. Bushman, he plenty -frighten something he no savvy. Savvy gun, dynamite, but no savvy big -blue-light signal thing you got 'long ship. I take one, two blue-light -thing; I throw. Bushman he think one big devil stop, no think -man-of-war come; run away too much dam quick, not stop kill Tempesi. -By'n-by he coming back, but I cut rope before he come. I bring Tempesi -'long me, 'long sailor-man; we go back quick. Tempesi all right. -Savvy?" - -"Yes, I do savvy; seems a neat plan, on the whole. But what's going to -happen to you if they catch you?" - -"Eat," said Vaiti succinctly. "Now you listen me. I no do all this -thing for nothing, see?" - -"H'm; yes, I do see. How much do you want?" - -"Two thing," said Vaiti, eyeing him narrowly. "One. My father say he -plenty sorry, no do any more bad thing. You let him go, let schooner -go." - -"Well--yes, I'll promise that," answered the commander rather stiffly. -The girl was taking her life in her hand to serve the interests of the -British Crown, and it was not a time to stick at trifles, or, indeed, -larger things. - -"Two," went on Vaiti. "Tempesi he seen leave ship, go 'long shore with -me. You tell him all right, you no punish." - -"Oh, by Jove! that's too much," snapped out the commander. "No, -Miss--Miss What's-your-name, I can't promise any such thing. I can't -have you or any one else interfering with the discipline of my ship. Mr. -Tempest's conduct is a very serious matter, and he must take the -consequences, by Gad he must, if he comes back alive to take them." - -Vaiti had had a good deal to do with men-of-war, and their officers, -during the course of the schooner's many wanderings. She did not need -to be told that Tempest's career might be ended, and his life disgraced, -if naval justice took its course. A few hours ago she would not have -cared. But Mr. Tempest, like all men notorious for getting into scrapes -with a petticoat at the bottom of them, had a "way with him," and it -happened to be a way that appealed to this daughter of the Islands more -than she would have cared to allow. Besides, it was not her custom to -give in to a defeat. - -"All right," she said calmly. "I savvy all thing about Englis' officer. -Tempesi he no like court-mars'al, make break, make longshoreman, all the -people laugh. Tempesi, he like die, I think. All right. I let him. -Good night." - -The commander held out his hand. - -"Good night," he said politely. "Mr. Darcy, you will see about getting -a native guide who can show the way to Ranaar, at once. We will do our -best to surprise them." - -A low, sarcastic laugh came from Vaiti. - -"You wooden-faced Kapitani, you think you savvy Malekula!" she said. -"Where you get guide?" - -Mr. Darcy did know a little about the New Hebrides, and he saw that they -were beaten. - -"She's right, sir," he said. "Take my word for it, no native would dare -to guide you. There's no mission here; they're a very bad lot, and all -at war." - -It was a bitter moment for the commander, but he surrendered like a -gentleman. - -"You've got the best of me, Miss--Miss Saxon," he said. "Very well. -You have my promise. Mr. Tempest shall be pardoned, if we get him back -alive. You know nothing about this matter, you will remember, Mr. Darcy. -Miss Saxon, you're a very brave young lady, and I wish I had met you in -circumstances of which I could more honestly approve." - -"No one need tell me," he said afterwards, "that that old vagabond we -had in the cells wasn't a gentleman once. It comes out in the girl; -blood will tell, even in a half-caste. But Providence ought rightly to -have a down on the man who is responsible for any one of them, for there -seems no right place for them, either in heaven or earth." - - * * * * * - -Neither the bluejackets of the _Alligator_, nor the officer appointed to -command the column, ever forgot that night's march through the mountain -bush of Malekula. The air was like hot water, and not a breath of wind -was stirring. The track was but a few inches wide, and as slippery as -butter, so that the men slid and fell continually when struggling up the -endless sides of the innumerable gullies. Mosquitoes settled in -bloodthirsty hordes upon their faces and hands, roots tripped them up, -saw-edged reeds slapped them in the eyes, and thorny tangles of -bush-lawyers fished for and successfully hooked them. At any moment a -huge soft-nosed bullet, cruel as a shell, might come singing out of the -darkness; or a poisoned arrow, freighted with sure and agonising death, -might whirr across their path. When the officer in command, irritated -by the stumbling and falling of the men, ordered them to remove their -boots and march barefoot, Vaiti told him that nothing of the kind must -be done, for poisoned spear-heads were in all probability set here and -there in unsuspected places, ready to pierce the unwary foot. She -herself seemed invulnerable and untiring; she led the column at a pace -that caused more than one to fall out, and never hesitated nor faltered -through all the three hours of the worst and most intricate march that -the _Alligator_ men had ever known. - -At last she told the officer to call a halt, and on no account to make -the slightest noise or advance his men until he should see a blue light -burning about half a mile ahead. Then she vanished into the darkness, -lithe and noiseless as a lizard, and silence, dead and oppressive, -settled down upon the bush. - - * * * * * - -Lieutenant Tempest was a man and a British sailor, and he was not afraid -of death. But he thought there might be pleasanter ways of dying than -that which actually stared him in the face. - -Memory plays strange tricks when the dark is closing down about her -doors. Lying there on the damp earth, bound hand and foot to a pole, -with the hideous howls of the cannibal dancers in his ears and the glare -of the cooking-pits in his eyes. Tempest could think of nothing but a -fragment of verse out of a half-forgotten poem read somewhere long ago: - - "It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts. - But only--how did you die?" - - -How was he dying? Not as an English officer might gladly die in the -cause of his country and in loyal obedience to orders. Not even as a -man, with a sword in his hand, facing the foe. He was dying an -unfaithful servant, false to his trust, and suffering because of that -falseness, as a slaughtered brute struck down with a club like a -bullock, and afterwards.... - -The red remains of the luckless Aki, jointed and piled in a ghastly -heap, told the rest. - -Tempest did not look at that ugly pile any more than he could help. He -wanted all the nerve he could muster for he was haunted by a deadly fear -that he might cry out for mercy when it came to the last, and he did not -want to add cowardice to the tale of his many shortcomings. If he could -have died here as a prisoner of war--as a captured scout, a fighting -enemy, taken in a skirmish--the death, hideous as it was, would have -been honourable, and his pride of country would have upheld him. But it -seemed as if his courage had nothing to stand on now, and he was -almost--almost, but, thank God! not quite--afraid. - -The Malekulans had been dancing for full two hours, ever since they had -brought him to the valley and flung him down upon the ground. In the -middle of the open village square were three huge idols, carved out of -entire tree-trunks set upright. They had black, empty sockets for eyes; -their mouths were curved upwards into a ghastly wrinkled grin, and their -tongues hung mockingly out. On the head of each was perched a huge -black wooden bird, with beak bent down and gloomy wings outspread--the -very spirit of Nightmare herself. Round and round these devilish things, -in the red glow of the fires, danced the cannibals ceaselessly and -untiringly, fleeing with heads down and outspread hands, wheeling and -turning, circling with measured steps; and all the time the huge hollow -idols, beaten with heavy clubs "to make the spirits speak," thundered -death and doom. It was plainly a religious ceremony which must be fully -enacted down to the last detail; but Tempest thought, as clearly as he -could think in such a place and at such a time, that it could not last -much longer. - -"A fellow ought to say his prayers," he thought; but the thunder of the -drums and the wild, shrieking song of the dancers bewildered him, and -his swollen wrists and ankles hurt him so much as almost to confuse his -mind.... What could he say? Only one prayer remained clear in the -turmoil of his brain--just the old, old prayer that he had prayed at his -mother's knee. Well, it would serve--and up above he hoped they'd -understand how sorry he was ... for lots of things.... - -"Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom -come...." - -It was coming, indeed! The dance had stopped. - -"Thy will be done...." - -What came next? He could not remember--and the savages were advancing -across the square. - -"Forgive us our trespasses ... and lead us not into temptation, but -deliver us from evil...." - -It was _now_! The women were hiding themselves in the houses, and two -of the men, armed with clubs, were stepping forward. - -He was only conscious of one feeling--joy that he had the courage to -look the cannibals in the face as they advanced, and meet his fate -"game." He hardly knew that he was still praying-- - -"... For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory...." - -Death! - -It came with a blaze of light--a sound as of a wild, deep shout and the -rushing of many waters--then---- - -Was this the end? Was it indeed death? He had felt nothing--but a man -does not feel the blow that kills--and his eyes were so dazzled with a -strange, blue glory that he could not see.... The rushing sound -continued; it was like the thunder of hundreds of flying feet.... The -light burst forth again, and yet again, and then died away, and there -was a great silence. Tempest saw the hideous faces of the idols -standing out in the empty square, and began to understand. He was not -dead--but something had happened. What was it? He tried to break loose -and sit up so as to see all round. - -"Stop um little bit," said a voice, and some one drew a sharp knife -across the lashings that bound his limbs, and lifted him into a sitting -position. - -The blinding light had almost died away now, and he could see the whole -square. There was no one in it. The cannibals were gone, and the -beautiful half-caste girl who had brought about his -downfall--innocently, as Tempest of course supposed--was squatting -beside him and putting a flask to his lips. - -"Drink a little bit whisky," she said. "Good whisky; he make strong. -No good stop here, you Belitani sailor-man; more better we go away too -much quick." - -The spirit cleared Tempest's head and put some life into his limbs. -Vaiti poked him unceremoniously in the ribs as soon as she saw that he -was reviving. - -"Show um leg there, lively!" she ordered, dragging him by the arms. -Rather to his surprise, Tempest found that he could walk, once on his -feet. He wasted no time in getting away, after Vaiti's brief -explanation of the blue-light stratagem, and the probable return of his -enemies before very long. At something as near a run as his cramped -limbs would allow, he followed her down the pathway that led away from -the village--narrow, wet, and dark as a wolf's gullet--and into the -comparative security of the bush, towards the advancing relief column -from the _Alligator_. - -It would have been no more than fitting if Vaiti, like a true heroine of -romance, had vanished silently into the forest when they encountered the -man-of-war's men, leaving Tempest to "turn to thank his preserver," and -"find that she had disappeared." But Vaiti, as it happened, was born -under the Southern Cross, where the poetry of the footlights does not -flourish. So she gave the men her company on the way down as a matter of -course, asked the officer in command for a cigar, smoked it and accepted -half a dozen more out of his case, and made herself wonderfully -pleasant--for Vaiti. She had further driven Tempest to distraction by -starting a flirtation with a handsome petty officer, eaten up two -emergency rations, "borrowed" some one's gold tie-pin, and very soundly -boxed the ears of a leading seaman who tried to kiss her in the dark, -before the long roll of the surf on the barrier reef, and the welcome -glimmer of the _Alligator's_ riding lights, told the tired-out party -that they were safe back again. Then, like the mysterious heroine, at -last she disappeared, and slipped off to the _Sybil_ in a native canoe, -for the reason that she did not want to be seen on board the man-of-war -in a very untidy and dirty dress, without any flowers in her hair, or -fresh scent on her laces. Tempest had found time to "thank his -preserver" on the way down, haltingly enough; but the preserver, instead -of accepting his thanks after the fashion he would have preferred, had -laughed wildly and somewhat wickedly, and gone on walking right in the -middle of the column, without a glance to spare for him.... Still--he -thought he knew women--and.... Time would show. - - * * * * * - -The rest of the wardroom did not envy Mr. Tempest his interview with the -commander. It took place immediately after his return to the ship, and -he came out from it with a countenance of entire inexpressiveness and -extreme whiteness. One sentence--the last--was unavoidably heard by the -lieutenant who followed immediately after Tempest, to deliver his -report. - -"Finally, Mr. Tempest--this Miss--a--Saxon--has risked her life to save -your life and reputation. I think there is only one way in which you -can repay her--by never seeing her again." - -Tempest's answer was inaudible. But--he never did. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVII* - - *INVADERS IN TANNA* - - -"What a beautiful girl! Is she one of the heathens, I wonder?" said -Lady Victoria Jenkins, leaning on the rail of her yacht. - -The _Alcyone_ floated on a sea of living silver. The coral reefs forty -feet before her keel showed like a pavement of pale turquoise in the -searching splendour of the tropic moon. Close at hand loomed the dark -woods and cliffs of Tanna, and above them, blotting out half the crystal -broidery of the stars, rose the cone of the great volcano, crowned by a -canopy of fire. So, in the days of Bougainville and of Cook, stood this -southward sentinel of the wild New Hebrides, a pillar of cloud by day -and a pillar of fire by night. So it stands yet, its deathless fires -unquenched, its awful voice breaking the forest silences hour by -hour--as the dead and gone discoverers of these distant lands saw and -heard it long ago, and as those who follow us will find it in the days -to come, when we and our thoughts and hopes, and adventures and loves -are but a whisper in the homeless winds and a handful of dust blowing -about on long-forgotten graves. - -There are few volcanoes in the southern hemisphere more famous, and none -less frequently visited, than the fiery cone of Tanna. The island lies -thousands of miles away from everywhere, and the inhabitants are known -to be almost all heathen, cannibal, and hostile to whites, although the -expression of their hostility has been kept considerably in check of -late years. But Lady Victoria Jenkins, daughter of the late Earl of -Wessex, and wife of Mr. Abel Jenkins ("Jenkins's Perfect Pills"), is -well known as a romanticist and a lover of all things unusual and -strange. Mr. Abel Jenkins's income is only exceeded by that of two -other commoners in England, and Mr. Abel Jenkins's ugliness and -ill-temper are not exceeded by the ugliness and ill-temper of any one -known to polite society. If the reader will piece these detached facts -together, and consider them, he will readily understand why Lady -Victoria was enjoying a tour round the world in her celebrated -steam-yacht, the _Alcyone_, why she had come to look at Tanna, and why, -including a good deal of miscellaneous company, the travelling party -somehow was not miscellaneous enough to include Lady Victoria's husband. - -The yacht had come in that afternoon after a somewhat stormy voyage from -Sydney ("They call it the Pacific Ocean," said Lady Victoria -plaintively, "instead of which, I have not really enjoyed a meal since -we cleared the Heads"), and had instantly, by the mere fact of her -dropping anchor in Sulphur Bay, denuded the whole seaboard of its -population. This was because the conscience of Tanna is never quite -clear, and the Tannese, struck by the conviction of sin, thought the -_Alcyone_ was a man-of-war. Only two kinds of ships were known to the -islands, outside trading schooners: British and French warships, and the -lazy little monthly steamers from Sydney, which strolled round the group -once a month, picking up copra, and conveying missionaries and traders -about. The _Alcyone_ was not a schooner; she was certainly not the -well-known "B.P." steamer; therefore she must be some new variety of -man-of-war. As it happened, there was a little matter of a murdered -trader on the conscience of Tanna just at that time--he had been very -annoying, but a British man-of-war is prejudiced about these affairs. -So the Tannese of the coast, like the modest violet of the poem, -concealed their drooping heads in the shady vales of the interior, and -coyly hid from view. Like the modest violet, too--only with a -difference--you might, if you wished, have located them by their---- -But no; this is a polite history, and the Tannese are a very impolite -people. Let us change carriages. - -Vaiti and her father, who had come up from Queensland with an empty ship -and a full money-bag, and were just starting a fresh recruiting trip, -regarded the appearance of the yacht with hearty disgust. What were the -good old islands coming to if this sort of thing was to be permitted? -Not a bushman would come near the beach as long as the _Alcyone_ stayed, -and the sprinkling of mission natives who were not afraid of the yacht -were worse than useless, for they neither recruited nor encouraged their -heathen friends to do so. Besides, the airs and graces of the _Alcyone_ -were sickening. Late dinner with low dresses and jewels; piano tinkling -all the evening; clothes that looked as if they had been run hot on to -the wearers, as icing is run on to a cake; sparkling glass and brasswork -all over the ship, and dainty brass signal cannons, pretty as toys, and -a little funnel all cream-colour and blue, and great sails white as -trade-wind clouds, and a hull that sat the water like a beautiful -sea-bird settled down to rest--all these unnecessary and disgusting -affectations made a smart schooner like the _Sybil_ look no better than -a mud-scow in a marsh, for all that she was the beauty of the South Seas -and the most famous ocean adventuress from 'Frisco to Hobart Town. -Besides, Saxon would not stir out of his cabin while the yacht was -there, having developed the lumbago that always attacked him whenever -English society folk loomed on the horizon--Vaiti knew that -lumbago!--and he might really have been of use about Sulphur Bay, where, -for a wonder, no one had any old scores against him. - -It was all most abominable, thought the "Kapitani," and she cast an -unfriendly glance on the luxurious _Alcyone_, as her boat shot past the -yacht in the moonlight, returning from a fruitless hunt along the coast -for any stray bushman who might have heard the recruiting signal--a -stick or two of dynamite set afloat on a board and exploded--and come -down to the coast. - -Lady Victoria's comment on the "beautiful girl" did not soften her in -the least, coupled as it was with the unspeakable assumption that she -was "a heathen." Probably she was, in one sense, having long ago given -up all but the merest rags of religion, but it was not the accusation of -moral deficiencies that galled her: it was the idea that she, Vaiti, -daughter of a great Polynesian princess and a white sea-captain, should -have been "evened" to the black, monkey-like, naked hags of Tanna. The -resentful spirit of the half-caste burned hot within her as she steered -the boat through the moonlit water. She could see Lady Victoria and her -friends, a brilliant flower-show of coloured dresses and sparkling gems, -leaning over the rail, and watching her as impersonally as if she were a -porpoise or a shark. She could catch their comments, loudly and -carelessly spoken. - -"I suppose she is one of them. But she looks quite nice. See her -pretty dress. She is quite decently clothed, isn't she?" - -"I wonder is she a cannibal? She does not look dangerous. I would like -to ask her on board, and give her some tea and cake, and things of that -kind, and talk to her. Just to try and reform her from their own -horrible food, you know," said Lady Victoria angelically. - -"That would be so dear of you," chimed in her special sycophant and -foil, a plain and elderly young woman who knew when her bread was -buttered on both sides, and why. - -But here the rowers--urged by a signal from Vaiti who thought she had -heard about as much as she could stand without exploding--gave way -vigorously, and pulled the boat out of earshot. - -That was not a happy evening for any one on board the _Sybil_. Vaiti -would not give out any grog for supper though it was a settled custom on -the ship; would not have singing in the cabin, gloomed like a hurricane -sky over the mate and boatswain's sociable game of cards until Gray, out -of pure nervousness, dropped a greasy ace upon his knee, and was -thereupon accused by Harris of cheating, and coarsely threatened by him -with an operation usually confined to sufferers from appendicitis. At -this Vaiti rose and walked out of the cabin with the air of a -convent-bred princess who had never so much as heard a jibbing donkey -"confounded"; and went to sit on deck near the wheel, where she stayed -so long, smoking so many thin black cigars, that every one but the night -watchman turned in and left her, and only the dead, dark hour of two -o'clock, when the spongy heat of the island night stiffens for a while -into fever-bringing chill, shook her out of her sulks and into her -cabin. - -When Vaiti sulked it was usually observed that things happened before -very long. But on this occasion the exception seemed to rule. The -disgusting yacht stayed all the next day, and the _Sybil_ lay quietly at -anchor on the other side of the bay. Some of the yacht people went -ashore in the afternoon, and roamed timorously about the beach, -wondering at the hot springs and tasting everything in the way of fruit -they happened to see. (It was nearly all inedible, but none of it, by a -fortunate chance, happened to be poisonous.) Lady Victoria was -disappointed with her day on the whole. The natives from the mission, -who had officiously attended them all day long, were unromantically -clothed, clean, and English-speaking. The wild savages did not appear; -and there were one or two other mishaps of an entirely unromantic kind. - -"How did you enjoy it, darling?" asked the plain young woman of Lady -Victoria, when the daring pioneers returned. - -Mr. Jenkins's partner shook out her soiled tussore silk disgustedly. - -"It was untidy and ugly and nasty," she declared; "and when I sat down -under a great pineapple tree all covered with fruit, and said that I was -realising one of my dreams, Jack de Coverley laughed at me, and said it -was only a pandamn-us, or something else profane, and that pineapples -grew on the ground. And when we started to walk among the palms, and I -was saying that I had always dreamed of wandering softly by a coral -strand and seeing the cocoanuts drop into my hands, something as big as -a horse's head suddenly thundered down like a bombshell from a hundred -feet high, and buried itself in the sand at my feet with such a fearful -shock that I jumped a yard away and screamed like anything! So then the -missionary came out, and said he wondered I wasn't killed; and if you'll -believe me, it was nothing but a horrible nut! And the coral strand was -pretty enough, all over little bits of branching coral stuff; but why -doesn't anyone ever tell you that coral strands burn all the skin off -your nose and blacken you into a nigger? We're going up the volcano -tomorrow--the missionary says it's quite safe--and I'm sure I hope it's -true, but one never knows. Darling, if I die, see that the new -Lafayette photo is sent to the papers--not on any account the other; and -I like Latin crosses on graves, I think; Carrara marble, very thick, and -just one short text, something nice, like 'They were lovely and pleasant -in their lives'--you know." - -... "'And in death they were not divided,'" finished the plain young -woman with mechanical piety.... "Darling! dearest! what have I said? -What is the matter?" - -"Now you _have_ done it!" roared Mr. de Coverley, who was rather a -well-bred, but sometimes rather a vulgar young man. "Not divided! Oh, -great Scott! Oh, my eye! Oh, I'll die of laughing! Hold me up! Never -mind, Vic; I'll see you aren't divided, or cooked either--trust to me!" - - * * * * * - -Vaiti was still in a speechless state of sulks when she started off the -next morning into the interior, to recruit on her own account. It was -not a very safe thing to do, but the bushmen would not come down to the -coast, and the _Sybil_ could not hang out indefinitely, since the -doubtful character of her methods had given the French and English -Commissioners of the islands a nasty habit of asking questions about -her. Saxon, who had relinquished his lumbago to go off into the hills -at a safe distance from the yacht, wanted to make his daughter accompany -him; but Vaiti simply laughed at him, and departed with a guide seduced -from the mission towards a village lying a mile or two above the -volcano. She preferred the glory of working on her own account, and -besides, it doubled the chances of recruits. - -She knew the Tannese nature well, so she dressed herself for her part in -a robe of scarlet sateen, with liberal necklaces of different coloured -trade beads, and stuck a couple of tomahawks in her sash, besides an -ornamented sheath-knife. Across her splendid young bosom she slung an -incongruous-looking bandolier of cartridges, designed apparently for the -slaughter of elephants; and a smart magazine rifle, carried over her -shoulder, completed the outfit. All these valuables, though designed to -assist her plans by suggesting the enormous store of desirable goods -possessed by the recruiters, were almost as likely to assist her to a -sudden and unprovided end, by reason of the natives' covetousness. She -took her chance of this, however; Vaiti was used to taking chances. It -is easier than most people suppose to take the risk of being killed -every day of your life. In the strange places of the earth, where such -things are a common happening, men do not look upon the inevitable end -after the pursy, secretive, never-mention-it fashion of Peckham and -Brixton. Death is just death in the earth's wild places--yours to-day, -mine to-morrow--a thing to walk with shoulder to shoulder, to meet face -to face at noonday; in any case, to make no bones of it until it makes -bones of you; and after that circumstances will keep you from -complaining if you feel like it. - -It was a long, hot walk up to the village. A "walk" is mostly a -scramble about the uncleared New Hebrides, where roads are mere -foot-wide cracks and canyons in the dense forest growth, and level -ground apparently does not exist. Besides, a bandolier of cartridges -and an assortment of small arms are rather heavy jewellery for such a -climate. Vaiti, however, possessed the enviable gift of never looking, -or apparently feeling, hot or tired; and she swung along at an unvarying -pace that caused the unlawfully enticed mission native, who had waxed -fat and lazy, to regret his enticement and wish himself back in the -mission school writing copies, instead of slaving up and down -precipitous gullies in the rear of a woman-devil who did not know what -it was to want a rest. - -At long last, however, the reedwork fence of the village came in sight, -and they entered the open square, shaded by an immense banyan tree and -surrounded by low, ugly huts, all roof and no wall, like all the -mountain villages of Tanna. There were sentries perched up in the trees -outside the gate, and others squatted on the ground at every entrance, -their rifles ready in the crook of the elbow. Within, the dusty -tan-coloured square, quivering under the pitiless fire of the white-hot -sky, was all alive with moving figures--ugly women in brief grass skirts -humped out into swaying bustles; young boys with murderous little faces, -and full-sized rifles; wild-looking men, with thick hair twined into -myriads of tiny strings ending in a great bush on the shoulders, stripes -of scarlet paint on their faces, and no clothing save their native -impudence and a cartridge belt--all seething about in a very bee-hive of -excitement and alarm. As for the rifle-barrels, they were bobbing about -like piano-jumpers all over the square, and every weapon was cocked and -loaded. - -Vaiti saw at a glance that they were expecting an attack, and picking -out a native who could speak English, asked what the trouble was. The -man replied that they feared the little man-of-war down below, but that -they were entirely innocent. Questioned further, they said naively that -they had never eaten a white man, and that none of them were low -cannibals in any case. Vaiti, who had not heard of this little affair -before, saw her chance. - -"No good you speak alonga that fellow way," she said, using the -_beche-de-mer_ talk that some of the Tannese understood; for Vaiti, like -many half-castes, could handle almost any dialect or corruption of a -dialect, though she could not speak decent English or French. "I savvy -plenty, you eatum one fellow white man. By'n by, big fellow man-of-war -come, shoot you all-a-same one pig, all-a-same one blind box [flying -fox], burn altogether house belong you. Very good you come alonga Saxon -ship, go Queensland; then you all right." - -"No eatum," persisted the man (who was the professional talking-man or -orator of the village), with a coy smile. - -Vaiti's nose was keen, and she had already guessed something by its aid. -She marched straight across the square into a little yam-house, and -pointed to a small parcel done up in green banana-leaf and tied with -cocoanut sinnet. Five toes and an instep protruded from one end. The -game had been well hung, as the Tannaman likes it to be, and there was -no mistaking the fact of its presence in any sense. - -The talking-man giggled like a school-girl caught consuming -surreptitious chocolates. - -"Eatum jus' little-fellow bit," he allowed, with a bad-child chuckle. -The other men took up the laugh, and the village resounded with a roar -like the bellowing of a herd of bulls. - -Vaiti, seeing her advantage, stepped out into the square and began to -talk, marching to and fro in Tannese fashion as she spoke. The sun cast -dancing spangles on her many-coloured beads as she moved, and threw back -darts of fire from her heavy bandolier. One arm emphasised her remarks -with sweeping gesture; in the other the tall rifle pounded the earth -with its stock, marking the points of her discourse. The fat, stolid -mission native watched her with staring eyes and open mouth, and the -chiefs gloomed at her under sullen savage brows, evidently impressed, -but restive. - -The sum of her discourse was that they and their women would do well to -come down with her to the schooner, recruit at once, and fly to a land -of safety where men-of-war never came, where Tanna people reclined all -day under the shade of banyan and banana, picked a little cane for their -employers occasionally, lived upon tinned meat and sugared tea, and -eventually returned loaded with riches in the shape of rifles, -cartridges, cotton, and knives. There was a good deal more of the same -highly-coloured stuff. This was old business to the people of the -_Sybil_. - -The talking-man, also strutting backwards and forwards, Tanna fashion, -in a kind of continual country dance with the glittering vision from the -ship, answered now and then. It was very well to talk about recruiting, -and perhaps some of them might go if they got lots of tinned salmon and -"bisketti" to eat before they went on board, and promise of rifles to be -paid the tribe when the bargain was complete. But they did not believe -that the new ship was not a little man-of war, and until she was gone -they would not go down to the coast--no, not even to bathe, although -they had all decided to have a bath soon, for the weather was hot and -their skins were like the bark of trees, and it was now about ten moons -since they had had their last bath. - -At this Vaiti's eyes lit up, for she suddenly saw a plan, a plan which -might give her a score of recruits, drive the objectionable yacht out of -Sulphur Bay, and pay off every rankling insult inflicted by the -_Alcyone_ and her people. But the savages were watching her, so she -veiled her eyes with her long lashes, and replied carelessly: - -"All that very good. To-morrow, small-fellow man-of-war he go 'way; -then you coming longa schooner. To-day, what name [why?] you no go wash -big water 'long place one-fellow-fire stop? Very good place that. -Suppose you going, I come up from schooner, bring plenty-plenty tucker. -Plenty-plenty bulimacow [beef], bisketti, tucker belong white man, cost -ten rifle. All the Tannaman he eat; by'n-by he stop lie down, he break, -so much he eat." - -This tempting picture had its effect, backed up by a few presents of -beads and cartridges. The Tannamen agreed that the plain below the -burning mountain, where a wide, stagnant lake spread out its dull -expanse, would do for a bathing place, short of the impossible shore, -and they chuckled with joyous anticipation of the feast. They also -agreed, rather doubtfully, to embark as soon as the "man-of-war" was -gone; and it seemed evident that a fair number would at least come down -and negotiate on board the schooner after which--well, the _Sybil's_ -smart heels would do the rest. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVIII* - - *A CANNIBAL PARTY* - - -Vaiti went off to get ready the feast, telling the natives that they -might follow her before long, as everything would be ready soon; and -they might trust her, the great Kapitani, that it would be a feast such -as no Tannaman, not even of those who had served in Queensland, had ever -witnessed in his wildest dreams. - -The mission native being a rather weak-kneed convert, and anxious to -enjoy a good heathen gossip with his old companions, wanted very much to -stay on in the village. But that was just what Vaiti did not want, so -she drove him out in front of her like a fat and nervous sheep, -hastening his movements all the way down with occasional reminders from -the butt of her rifle. He had given her certain information about a -picnic at the foot of the volcano, arranged by the people of the yacht -for that afternoon, and she did not want him to share his news with the -men of the village and cause them, perhaps, to put two and two together -where he himself had failed to do so. She despatched him therefore to -his own town on the coast, and saw that he went, before herself turning -off in the direction of the track that led to the volcano. - -Near to the lake there lies a curious little valley with a soft, clean -flooring of black volcanic sand and sheltering walls of green pandanus. -Here, shaded from the burning heat, yet close to the volcano plain, was -the only possible place for the picnickers to enjoy their meal. Beyond -lay only a lurid plateau of red and yellow lava beds, curdled and coiled -as they had flowed down from the crater lip long ago; a desert of black -ash and sand, and a dark, wicked, smoking, rumbling cone in the centre -of all. Not a native would have climbed the cone for all the goods in -the _Sybil's_ hold; it was the mouth of hell, they said, and full of -devils of every kind. But they were not afraid of the valley below, -within safe limits, and even if they had been, the feast and the bathe -after it were attractive enough to conquer a little nervousness. - -As Vaiti had anticipated, there were several picnic baskets stowed under -a tree in the valley, and a big wine hamper as well. Four mission -natives, who had acted as guides and carried up the provisions, were -lying on their stomachs in the shade, smoking and talking. - -It was essential to get them out of the way, and time was short. Vaiti -did not waste any unnecessary words. She simply pointed her rifle at the -men and told them to clear. They cleared, howling, and she was left -alone. - -With quick, neat hands she unpacked the hampers, spread the cloth, and -laid out the food. It was a goodly display--hams and tongues and fowls, -cold meats, pies, cakes, tarts, fruits, and tinned dainties of every -kind. There was plenty of champagne, also a supply of whisky and soda. -She set all the bottles in a row, and looked with satisfaction upon the -glittering array. Then she went up to the edge of the plain and looked -at the crater. No one was yet in sight. The exploring party at that -moment were on the other side of the cone, standing on the black lip of -an appalling gulf eight hundred feet deep and half a mile across; -looking down, awe-struck and amazed, upon colossal fire fountains that -uplifted their gory spray three hundred feet in the air, and listening -to the heart-shaking thunders of the volcano's awful voice, as from time -to time that terrifying note of illimitable force and fury made the -whole plain tremble and echoed far out to sea.... It was indeed no -wonder that the ignorant Tannamen feared to ascend the cone. - -Vaiti sat down at the edge of the plain, and watched till she saw a -number of many-coloured dots creeping down the black pyramid in its -centre. Then she suddenly lay down upon the ashy ground, and writhed -with silent laughter. People were in the habit of saying that Vaiti had -no more sense of humour than the jibboom of her father's ship. They -might have modified that judgment, could they have seen her now. - - * * * * * - -Lady Victoria Jenkins had enjoyed her morning very much indeed. She had -dressed for the ascent in a mountaineering costume that combined equal -suggestions of "Carmen" and the Alpine Club, and gave great -opportunities to her ankles. She had been helped up the cone by four -devoted admirers, all at once, and had come down it at a wild running -slide, ably braked by two strong hands of two or three others who wanted -to have their turn. The other women had trodden on their skirts, and -torn them, burned and cut their foolish boots, and also got unbecomingly -hot and out of breath, because there was not nearly one man apiece to -help them up, after Lady Victoria had annexed all the best. It must be -allowed that the men were the weak point of the _Alcyone's_ travelling -party. Mr. de Coverley and his set were "dear boys" and charming -companions, no doubt, but they were not quite as manly as some of the -ladies. Lady Vic and her companions did not attract the best sort of -men, as a rule. - -They were all very hungry when they reached the plain, and thirsty with -a thirst unknown outside the tropics. All the way across the baking -black sand and the tinkling lava beds, "one fair vision ever fled" -before the eyes of the party--vision of gold-necked champagne bottles -lying coolly embedded in icebaskets; of topaz-coloured jellies, -trembling on silver dishes; of flaky, savoury pies, and delicate cold -meats, and crisp green salads concocted as only the hand of the -_Alcyone's_ _chef_ could concoct them. - -It seemed as if that plain would never end, but it did end at last, and -a green fringe of pandanus announced the beginning of the bush. The -elderly young lady and most of the others were making excellent time -ahead, and they reached the verge of the plain some little while before -Lady Victoria and Mr. de Coverley came to it. The latter pair, as it -happened, were really not thinking very much about their lunch, because -a still more interesting matter absorbed their attention. - -"Not understood!" Mr. de Coverley was saying bitterly. "And so we die -and go down to the grave--not understood! The pathos of it!" - -"We are never understood," sighed Lady Victoria, patting the side waves -of her "transformation" to see that it was on straight. "We women, -especially. And those who should understand us best of all are so -often----" - -"Exactly--so they are. But, Lady Victoria--Victoria!--there are some -who are different; there are men, rare souls, who----" - -"What in Heaven's name is the matter?" interrupted the misunderstood -one, stopping dead in her tracks (literally, for the sand was deep) and -staring at the edge of the bush. - -From the valley below the plain had just risen a long, loud shriek, -followed by another and another, and then by a burst of laughter that -sounded scarcely human. The other members of the party had disappeared, -but it was clear that something had happened. - -"Good God, the savages!" exclaimed Lady Victoria; and she began to run. -Let it be stated, for the credit of her race and name, that she ran -towards the sound. As for Mr. de Coverley.... - -But this story is not about Mr. de Coverley. If it were, it would be -interesting to tell why the Sydney steamer that called at Sulphur Bay -two days later found an unexpected passenger waiting at the trader's, -and why Lady Victoria and Mr. Abel Jenkins, of Jenkins's Perfect Pills, -became eventually reconciled and lived the life of a model couple. As -things are, it must be enough to state that Mr. Jack de Coverley turned -and ran away at the sound of the shouts--ran right across the plain into -the bush at the other side--ran as far as he could get, and did not come -back at all--and thereby ran once and for ever out of the life of the -lady whom he "understood." - -Lady Victoria, speeding in the opposite direction, reached the edge of -the little valley in a very few minutes, and, looking over, beheld what -was certainly the strangest sight she had encountered in all her varied -life. - -Round about the elaborately-laid luncheon were squatting a dozen or so -of naked brown savages, painted, feathered, and slashed with ornamental -scars. A few women, clad only in a six-inch fringe of grass, stood -behind them, eyeing the eatables eagerly, but not daring to touch them -while their masters fed. The talking-man, a big, hulking savage with a -huge bush of hair, and a match-box stuck in each ear-lobe, had buried -his face in the savoury interior of a boned turkey, and was gnawing out -the stuffing. The principal chief, one hand in a dish of Spanish cream -and the other in a chicken curry, was casting double supplies into his -mouth with the regularity of a patent feed-machine. A fat young fighting -man, with nose and forehead painted scarlet, and white ashes in his -hair, had tucked a ham under one arm, and was sitting on a peach pie, -with intent to secure as many good things as possible, while he hastily -worried large mouthfuls off the forequarter of lamb he was holding in -both hands. Another man was drinking mint sauce out of the silver -sauceboat with horrible grimaces; his neighbour, having captured a -handful of maraschino jelly, fast melting in the sun, was industriously -rubbing it on his hair; and a grizzly old fellow, with a monkey-like -face, was half-choking himself over a souffle, which he was trying to -swallow case and all. The necks of the champagne bottles were all -knocked off, and from engraved wine-cases, empty entree-dishes, and -dredged-out tins the savages were drinking Lady Victoria's excellent -wines with every appearance of satisfaction. Between mouthfuls they -stopped to look at the party from the yacht, and to roar with laughter -at their evident fright. Too terrified even to run away, the voyagers, -in their dainty frocks and smart white suits, stood huddling together -for protection, the women crying, the men looking rather white and -foolish, for every Tannaman had a loaded rifle slung to his side, and -there was not so much as a saloon pistol among the whites. A few yards -off Vaiti stood, regarding the whole scene with an expressionless -countenance that covered a good deal of quiet enjoyment. She knew, if -the visitors did not, that the cannibal bushmen were really not at all a -bad lot of fellows when you knew them, and that the yacht party, against -whom they had no grudge, were perfectly safe. In fact, the Tannamen -merely thought these oddly-behaved whites were a new party of -missionaries, and were quite ready to be civil to them, since they -thought all the mission people harmless, if eccentric. - -But the true inwardness of the situation not being apparent, the -_Alcyone's_ guests were very frightened indeed. - -"P-perhaps if we go away very quietly, they won't f-follow us," said a -wealthy young stockbroker, who had retained a little presence of mind, -though his teeth were chattering in his head. - -"Oh, let us! Victoria, save me! Oh, what shall we do?" wailed the -elderly young lady, rushing up the bank and flinging her arms round the -mistress of the violated feast. Lady Victoria, though white as her own -Belfast linen collar, kept her head fairly well. She saw that Vaiti was -not one of the invaders, and called to her. "Do you speak English? -What are we to do? Will they kill us?" she asked. - -Vaiti walked over to her with the bearing of a stage duchess, and -favoured her with a fashionable high handshake that was the one thing -wanting to complete the insanity of the whole impossible scene. A new -idea had suddenly struck her--a fresh spark of mischief was lit. With -an immovable countenance she replied: - -"No kill you, I think. Suppose you want go 'way all right by'n-by, very -good I think you sit down, eatum dinner alonga those fellow--then they -think you all right, let you go home, no kill." - -"Oh, Victoria, anything to please them!" sobbed the elderly young lady. - -"Yes--a--I think we'd better do anything we can to get into their good -graces, since we're not armed," submitted the stockbroker. - -Vaiti exchanged a few words with the Tannese. She explained that these -white people had come a long way, and were very hungry. The Melanesian -has not many virtues, but hospitality is certainly one of them; and a -man who may be planning to dine off you himself tomorrow will certainly -not refuse you half of his own leaf of yams to-day. The Tannese were -delighted at the chance of sharing their good fortune with the white -chiefs, even in spite of the latter's extremely silly manners, and they -beckoned to them at once to come and sit down. - -Thereafter took place a scene incapable of description by mortal pen. -The chief took his head out of the turkey, chewed off a leg, and -grinningly handed it to Lady Victoria. The young warrior got off the -pie, disembowelled it with one scoop of the hand that had not known -water "for ten moons," and laid its interior in the elderly young lady's -lap. Another knowingly poured out a champagne glass of Worcester sauce -and handed it to the stockbroker, while the much-bitten lump of mutton -that was at that moment circling from mouth to mouth, native-fashion, -was hospitably passed on to all the whites. Driven by fear, they tried -to swallow something; choked in the effort, made futile remarks to each -other, laughed nervous laughs, and all the time watched with eyes of -utmost apprehension the dusky hosts who were thus entertaining them with -their own audaciously ravished goods. And above the crazy party the -burning Tanna sun beat down, and the great volcano-cone far across the -plain smoked and thundered. - -It had been Vaiti's design to dismiss them in peace by and by, assured -that their compliance had saved their lives, and anxious to make steam -out of Sulphur Bay as soon as was reasonably possible. Fate, however, -reserved a more dramatic ending to the entertainment, And it was "all -along of" that talking-man. - -The cannibal native is invariably shy of displaying his tastes before -whites, since people who do not share the "point of view" are so -frequently prejudiced. Therefore the talking-man did not open a certain -small green parcel tied up with sinnet string, which he had brought down -with him from the mountain village. A feast in the hand is worth two in -the pandanus-bush, thought the talking-man, so he brought his _bonne -bouche_ with him for dessert and said nothing about it. And thereby -came the end. - -For Lady Victoria, unable to swallow the clawed and chewed morsels -pressed upon her by dirt-encrusted hands, began to hunt despairingly -about for something that she could really eat, so that she should not -offend the dangerous monsters who surrounded her. - -"Isn't there anything clean to be had?" she asked the stockbroker -anxiously. "I can't eat--and yet we must! What are we to do?" - -The stockbroker, who had once been to Honolulu, and thought he knew -something about native foods, spied the packet of green banana-leaf, and -reached out for it. - -"This'll be some of their own boiled yam," he said. "Natives always do -it up like this. You can eat it all right if you scrape it with a -knife. Allow me." - -Before the talking-man could stretch out his filthy claw to stop him, -the Englishman had cut the sinnet string, the parcel had burst open, and -right into the middle of a half-demolished chicken pie fell a large -white foot, cut off at the ankle, nicely browned across the instep and -all crackled on the toes. - -There was a wild shriek from the women, a splutter of horrified -exclamations from the men, a boiling up of white petticoats like to the -breaking of a wave on a pebbly shore, and then nothing but a diminishing -string of rapidly trotting figures, each woman hand in hand with a man -who was dragging her along far away, farther and farther, down the long, -black, sandy path into the bush. Then ... they were gone. - -Vaiti stood on the bank to look after them, and laughed quietly. - -"Now I think we keep Sulphur Bay all our own self," she said. - -As for the Tannamen, they rolled on the ground with laughter, and then -picked the dainty morsel out of the chicken pie and ate it up. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIX* - - *THE RIVAL PRINCESSES* - - -It was full mid-day when the schooner _Sybil_ dropped anchor off Liali -Island. The hot season was at its height. The long, white coral strand -blazed in the sun, the moated lagoon was raw emerald, the waveless outer -sea blue fire. Beyond the beach stretched a green, grassy lawn, dotted -with quaintly-shaped Norfolk pines, tall palms, and feather-tressed -ironwood trees; and against its enamelled background rose a palace like -a picture in a fairy-tale--white, long-windowed, lofty-towered, and -crowned with a crimson flag set below a gilded vane. - -Vaiti, standing on the break of the poop, with the inevitable cigar -between her fingers, looked critically at the island, and liked it well. -A mere little matter of kidnapping somebody's indentured labourers--the -sort of thing that any gentleman with an extensive island practice might -easily find himself obliged to do--had brought about her father's -expulsion from the New Hebrides labour trade, and obliged him to seek -new fields for the activities of the notorious and naughty _Sybil_. -Saxon himself was virtuously indignant, Vaiti not particularly sorry. -She was getting tired of the gloomy feverish New Hebrides and their ugly -savages. The Eastern Pacific was her heart's home after all, -semi-Polynesian as she was; and even the wild excitement of the cruel -western isles could not hold her away very long. So when Saxon was -wavering between the advantages of strictly illegal gun-running in the -Solomons and honest trading about the Liali group (which had just -wrecked its native schooner, and was open to employ a successor), -Vaiti's influence went for once on the side of peace and virtue, and the -course was set for Liali. The group was new to both father and -daughter, but was none the less attractive on that account, since all -over the wide island world the _Sybil_ and her owners were best loved -and most warmly welcomed where they were least known. - -The Liali group, as many people in the Southern hemisphere agree, offers -the nearest possible approach to comic opera known off the actual stage. -Liali itself, the chief island, is as pretty as a toy-box, and quite -extraordinarily theatrical in appearance. Its handsome, merry, brown -people wear the most picturesque costume in the Pacific--a knee-length -kilt of fine cashmere, girded by a deep sash of pure silk, and worn with -a silken or cashmere shirt or a graceful sleeveless tunic, according to -sex--all in the most vivid of sea- and flower-colour. Liali is civilised -after a fashion. It goes barefoot and barelegged, sits on mats, lives -in reed-woven houses devoid of furniture, worships a sacred lizard on -the sly, and sometimes breaks out openly into club-fights and -devil-dances. But it has a king, and a palace and a Parliament, a brass -band, and quite a number of very active Nonconformist churches, run by -white missionaries, who find that "labouring" among the well-off and -amiable Lialians is a task in which the meritorious martyrdom of -missionary life can be combined with quite a number of pleasant -alleviations. - -Nothing in Liali is entirely what it seems. The palace, when one comes -close to it, is perceived to be built of painted wood, like a -"practicable" scene in a theatre. The Parliament never passes any laws, -because the Lords, who are chiefs, always on principle throw out every -bill introduced by the vulgar Commons, just to "teach" them. The Prime -Minister is oftener in prison for _lese majeste_ than out of it, and -several Chancellors of the Exchequer have been transported to the -Colonies for theft. But there is a real throne in the palace, all -crimson velvet and gilt wood, and a wonderful gold crown (the verdigris -is cleaned off it with a wad of cocoanut husks by the Chief Equerry -every Saturday afternoon), and when the King goes out in state he wears -a purple velvet train, held up by two pages in tights and plumes, and a -marvellous ermined robe, all exactly like the Savoy Theatre in the -consulship of Gilbert and Sullivan. On occasions not of state he sits -cross-legged upon the palace parquet, clad in a shirt and a kilt, and -plays _ecarte_ with his native guards. - -There are a few colonial traders in Liali, and a dozen or so of the -English "legion that never was listed"--just such as one finds in all -the odd corners of the Pacific--talkative, plausible, thin and nervous, -given to avoid home topics and discourse with awful fluency upon small -local politics; hospitable, restless and lazy, and usually married more -or less to some dark beauty of the islands, who has grown as fat as a -feather bed and spends a fortune on store muslins. - -These, as a matter of course, took possession of the _Sybil's_ people at -once, hardly waiting for the schooner to cast anchor before they were -alongside with their boats. Saxon and Vaiti were swept ashore -immediately, and begged to make their home in half-a-dozen different -houses. With a fine sense of the fitting, Saxon selected Bob Peter's -public-house, misnamed hotel, and immediately held a _levee_ in the bar, -wearing his smartest Auckland suit (not paid for, and not likely to be) -and looking, with his heavy, old-fashioned cavalry moustache, -blonde-grey hair, and well set-up though rather bloated figure, quite -like a somewhat seedy Milor on his travels. (And, as a matter of -fact.... But that was Saxon's long-buried secret, and must not be -told.) - -Vaiti, splendidly attired in a flowing island robe of yellow silk, with -a gold chain twisted through her misty black hair, sat in the midst of a -court of her own, and drank expensive pink lemonade to her soul's -content. She was revelling in the sights, the sounds, the smells of the -dear eastern islands once more. She had a necklace of perfumed red -berries round her neck, and white "tiere" flowers behind each ear, and -the well-remembered scent almost intoxicated her. Outside she could -hear the boom of a dancing-chant, broken by interludes of clapping; and -from the very next house, a big native reed-built structure, came now -and then in the quieter moments the sonorous voice of a Lialian man -calling out the names at a kava-drinking. - -The double soul that is the curse of the half-caste surged within the -girl.... This, this, this, and all it meant--how she loved it! And -yet, the wild, fierce life of the western islands; the chance, the risk, -the strong wine of danger, adventure, power! The two natures of the -soldier of fortune and the sensuous island princess who had given her -birth, fought together in her heart.... If one could eat one's cake and -have it! If one could sleep all day, crowned with flowers, under the -singing casuarina trees, and yet be the daring sea-queen, the "Kapitani" -of the _Sybil_, if only... - -Vaiti shook herself impatiently in her hammock chair, and asked for -ginger beer with sugar in it. She hated thinking, and felt as if she -were going mad when the half-white brain in her pretty dusky head took a -strange fit of sober industry. Swift, instinctive plotting and planning -were one thing, deliberate reflection quite another.... Ugh! she must -be sick.... And for once the temperate Vaiti said yes to the inevitable -offer of "a stick in it," as her ginger beer was handed to her by an -eager admirer. - -The "sickness" passed away, and she began to listen and watch in her old -fashion, smiling all the time to the compliments and sweet sayings that -were being poured into her ears. A trader was telling her father all -about the latest dynastic crisis in the monarchy, and Saxon was not even -pretending to listen. The affairs of "niggers" never interested him, -unless there was a question of immediate profit ahead. - -"You see," said the trader, "King Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III., which -is his full title, wants for to get married. He's thirty, and there's -no heir. And there being just the two Lialian princesses that wasn't -his sisters--Mahina and Litia--what does he do but go and propose to -both of them, and, of course, gets snapped up like winkin' by the two. -It's no small potatoes being Queen of Liali, mind you. Te Paea gets -lots of money out of the fruit, and copra taxes, and then the Crown -lands is half the island, there's presents besides. And he's a real -king if he is coffee-coloured--why, the kings of Liali goes back -hundreds of years before Captain Cook, and he was in Henry Eighth's -time, wasn't he? And if you was to see the pink satin chairs in the -throne-room, and the phonographs, and musical-boxes, and albums, and -lookin'-glasses, and the lovely wax flowers in cases, and real -hand-painted oil pictures--ah! it's a good job, is Te Paea's, and either -Mahina or Litia's going to be a very lucky girl. What he'd like, you -see, is to marry both of them, same as his old grandfather--only he -married nine, he did. But the King's a Methody, good as they make -them--when he don't forget, or want a spree--and of course the -missionaries won't hear of his havin' two queens. And, says he, -Mahina's real fat; there's nothing mean about Mahina; she fills the eye, -says he, and that's what a Lialian likes, for they don't hold with any -sort of stinginess, says he. But Litia, he says, has eyes like the -buttons on his Auckland boots, they're so round and black and bright, -says he, and she walks for all the world like a lovely young -mutton-bird, says he. And what's a king to do, with both the girls' -relations fighting and squabbling over him like land-crabs fighting over -a bit of fish, and he himself liking them both, and the girls clean mad -for him--because, you see, Te Paea he's a handsome fellow, and when he's -got his military uniform on, and all his orders and medals what he drew -out himself on paper, and got made in Sydney, he's a fancy man, he is. -The wedding's to be in three weeks, and the invites is being printed -down in Auckland all in silver, with a blank to write the bride's name -in--and the House of Lords has bought the bride's dress for her, which -is what the Kings says it's their right to do, according to custom,--and -no one knows which he's going to marry, and no more does he. And it's -my belief that there'll be war over it, before all's said and done, for -Mahina's people say they'll burn down every village belonging to Litia's -tribe, and Litia's folks say they'll kill Mahina's people's cattle and -cut up their gardens. That's the way things are, and you may take my -word it's a pretty kettle of fish." - -"What are you giving for copra at present?" asked Saxon, yawning -unrestrainedly. And the conversation turned at once to the inevitable -trading "shop." - -A few days afterwards the _Sybil_ spread her wings and started for -Waiwai, the outermost of the Liali islands. She was to make the whole -round of the group afterwards, and might not be back for some weeks, so -that it seemed likely that Saxon would miss the festivities of the -King's wedding. This Vaiti declared was no reason why she should miss -them, and she insisted on being left behind. Saxon was not too well -pleased, for if he had a remnant of conscience left, it was connected -with the care of his daughter, and he did not quite care about leaving -her alone in a group to which they were both strangers. But Vaiti -promised to behave like a saint, and furthermore said that she would -stay with one of the married traders, and not in the native villages. -She also added that she meant to stay anyhow, and that it was no use -making a fuss. - -So the _Sybil_ sailed away out of Liali harbour, and became a little -pearl-coloured pinhead on the blue horizon, and then melted quite away. -And Vaiti went to the tin-roofed shanty belonging to Neumann, the fat -German trader, who had married a Lialian wife, and was received with the -unquestioning hospitality of the islands. - -Nobody, among either whites or natives, could talk of anything but the -King's matrimonial affairs. Mahina and Litia both appeared in Neumann's -parlour more than once, sat on the floor, drank black tea with a handful -of sugar in it, and related their several woes at length. They did not -come together, except once, when Litia, walking in unexpectedly, found -Mahina there, crying into her teacup, and telling Neumann's wife that -the King had given Litia a beautiful chemise, all trimmed with lace, -only the day before, and that in consequence she considered him a -monster and a perjured villain, although she knew perfectly well that he -meant nothing whatever by it. What was a chemise? He had sent her two -pounds of stick tobacco the Sunday before last. She would show Litia yet -that the King was her King, and nobody else's. - -Litia, entering at this point, wasted no words, but simply buried her -hands in Mahina's curly black masses of hair, and dragged her, -shrieking, across the floor. Neumann interfered, and parted them; but -Mahina flew at Litia immediately after, ripped open her dress with one -clutch, and disclosed the royal gift chastely embracing Litia's lovely -form. With a howl of anger, the rival seized the chemise in both hands; -there was a scuffle, a scream, a rending noise, and Litia stood up in -the middle of the room, a gold-bronze statue, shedding tears of rage, -while Mahina, running out on to the verandah, tore the offending garment -into strips and rags, and cast them upon the road. Litia, rushing out -after her, stood upon the steps clad with wrath as with a garment (and -with extremely little else), explaining her wrongs to an interested and -sympathetic native crowd, until the Methodist missionary happened to -come by, and told her that unless she went in and dressed herself at -once, she might safely count upon eventually finding herself in a place -where dress would be very much at a discount ... or words to that -effect. So Litia went in, and Mahina went away, escorted by a strong -cousinly "tail"; and afterwards Neumann, enveloped in oracular clouds of -smoke, remarked sleepily that the princesses were the greatest nuisance -on the island, and that he believed the King would run away from the -whole set if he could, for he was "by-nearly mad-driven on account of -their so-tiresome ways, and feared-himself to choose, because the one -that he not married had would cause to make war by her people against -the one he married should." - -During the whole of the fight, Vaiti remained perfectly unmoved on a -cane lounge in the corner of the room, uninterruptedly puffing rings of -blue smoke at the ceiling. Not a detail had escaped her, all the same, -nor did she miss a word of Neumann's remarks. And they made her think. - -In the afternoon, the dull thud of galloping hoofs along the grass -street made Mrs. Neumann run to the door. She called loudly to Vaiti to -come. - -"It is the King," she said. - -A small victoria, drawn by two spirited blacks, was tearing up the -street. Seated alone in it was an extraordinary and notable -figure--Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III., King of Liali. He was six feet -four inches in height, and over eighteen stone in weight. He wore a -scarlet cloth uniform coat, blazing with gold, and his heavy, handsome -brown face, with its weak, small mouth, and black eyes almost too large -and soft for a man, was shaded by a white sun helmet with a wide gold -band. - -He drove furiously, looking neither to right nor to left, and, passing -the house like a gorgeous whirlwind, was instantly lost in the casuarina -forest beyond. - -"That is the King, then?" said Vaiti. The Lialian language came almost -as easily to her as her own, being only one of the dialects of the great -Maori tongue that covers a good two-thirds of the island world. - -"Yes," said Neumann's wife, "that is the King. And very little any of us -have seen of him lately. He is afraid of the trouble he has got himself -into; he shuts himself up all the time, and sees no one but his guards, -and just sends a present now and then, first to one girl then to the -other. And when he drives to take the air, he flies along like that, so -that no one can stop and speak to him. He is terribly shy of strangers; -I think it was because the _Sipila_ was here that he did not come out at -all last week." - -"Is it such a very good thing for the princess he will marry?" asked -Vaiti, playing with a yellow alamanda flower. - -"Very, very good indeed," replied the Lialian impressively. "She will -have a gold crown to wear on her head, and sit on a red velvet and gold -throne beside the King, and have the most beautiful satin dresses from -Sydney, and all her chemises will have lace and ribbons on them. And as -soon as the King buys another schooner for himself and Liali, she will -travel in it with him whenever she likes, for sometimes he will go to -Samoa, to stay with King Malietoa, or he will sail a whole week to Mbau -in Fiji, and then Princess Thakombau and the Prince of Kandavu make -feasts and dances for him, and the Kovana [governor] gives a real -'papalangi' dinner for him, with champagne and a band. And as for what -she will have to eat at home, it is past telling, for in the palace -there is no count whatever made of tinned salmon and biscuit, and she -may have a sackful of sugar at every meal, and a whole roast pig every -day. She may eat till she falls asleep, and then wake up to eat. Ah, it -is a good thing for the princess who marries the King, whichever she may -be!" - -"I think you will be thirsty if you talk so much," said Vaiti rather -rudely. "I am thirsty myself with only listening to you. Go and make -some kava for me." - -Mrs. Neumann, who had been rather proud to have Vaiti staying with -her--since her rank as a princess of Atiu counted for a good deal among -the island races--began to dislike her visitor soon after this, and to -wish her well away. Vaiti was not an angel in the house at the best of -times, and she did not trouble to make herself pleasant just then. -Indeed, one would almost have thought she was trying to pick a quarrel. -And, as that sort of effort rarely goes unrewarded, it is not -astonishing to learn that the quarrel came before long--a bitter, -loud-tongued dispute that left Mrs. Neumann sobbing in a fat, frightened -heap on the floor, and Vaiti, silent but stormy, packing up her -camphorwood box to depart. - -Neumann, being afraid of Saxon's possible anger, tried to keep her, but -she laughed in his face, and went on packing. There was an empty native -house--little more than a palm-leaf hut, once tenanted by a Chinese -trader--standing by the road about halfway through the great casuarina -forest; a lonely, ramshackle place, used and wanted by nobody. There -and there only Vaiti would go, taking mats and cooking pots with her, to -stay until her father came back. When some of the islanders betrayed -meddlesome curiosity as to her motives, and the missionaries declared -they scented scandal, Vaiti silenced and terrified the one, and -convinced the others that she was hopelessly beyond the pale, by giving -out that she was something of a witch, and meant to go into the forest -to gather and prepare certain powerful charms. These, she said, would -injure only her enemies, but were altogether powerless to hurt anyone -who spoke well of her. In consequence, the evil tongues of Liali -received a sudden check. - -Furthermore, Vaiti, neglecting the half-castes and the whites, began -with considerable art to make herself popular among the natives. She -dressed herself Liali fashion, and arranged her hair after the island -modes. She joined in all their interminable boating journeys and -picnics, and was never tired of sitting cross-legged on the ground, -waving her arms and head in time with a hundred others, and chanting -Lialian songs that lasted an afternoon apiece. After dark, she was -often to be seen out on the reef, with a torch and a fishing spear -making an exhibition of piscatorial skill that astonished even the -Lialians themselves. When there was an unmissionary dance in some big -chief-house, Vaiti was always there, decked with wreaths and flower -necklaces, and polished with cocoanut oil, turning the heads of all the -young men by the grace of her dancing, and winning the astonished -approval of the women by the cool reserve with which she received every -advance of a sentimental nature. Both Mahina and Litia took jealous -fancies to her--thus acquiring yet one more cause of mutual -dissension--and separately poured all their woes into her ear. She was -wonderfully sympathetic, and urged each one on to assert her rights and -stand no nonsense; insomuch that before very long the island was fairly -ringing with what Litia's people meant to do to Mahina's, and what -Mahina's would certainly do to Litia's, in the event of the King -selecting one or the other. - -Somebody about this time--it was never ascertained who--spread a report -that Captain Saxon of the _Sybil_ had a number of trade rifles on board -his ship, and several cases of cartridges. The talk began to take a -more dangerous turn. The schooner would not be back till the wedding -was over, it was said, but let the winning party look out for themselves -when she did come! The Lialians, under missionary rule, had been -peaceful and law-abiding people for almost a whole generation; but they -had not yet forgotten that they were once the masters of the Pacific, -and that of all the warlike island races, none had been such fighters as -they.... The older men began to snuff battle in the air, walked about -with their chests flung out, and told bloodthirsty ancient stories to -the younger Lialians. The women sang war songs at the evening -gatherings in the chief-houses, and Mahina and Litia began to go about -followed by bands of eager partisans. Liali was certainly warming up. - - - - - *CHAPTER XX* - - *QUEEN AFTER ALL* - - -News of all these things came duly to the King through his faithful -spies, and his Majesty Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III. went nearly -frantic. He actually began to lose weight--a consummation that all the -skill of his European court doctor had hitherto failed to bring -about--and day by day he drove more wildly behind his famous blacks, -covering mile after mile of lonely forest roads at a pace that brought -the horses home all in a lather and the yellow satin cushions grimed -with dust. The wedding approached within ten days: the triumphal arches -were being erected; the Queen Consort's throne came back from the -carpenter, freshly gilded and upholstered; and the band were hard at -work practising the strange conglomeration of shrieks and wails that -make up the Lialian National Anthem. The bride's dress, provided, -according to usage, by the House of Lords, arrived at the palace in a -palm-leaf basket. It was a very gorgeous affair--a long, loose robe of -orange satin, embroidered in scarlet by a few of the cleverest -mission-school girls--and it was of a usefully indefinite size, since -the difference between the massive Mahina and the waspish little Litia -was almost as great as the difference (of another kind) between their -respective parties. The silver-printed invitations for the white people -and the chiefs--"To be present at the wedding of His Majesty King -Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III. with Princess----," came up by a -whale-ship from Auckland, and so did the wedding cake, largely plaster -of Paris. And still the wretched King, lashed by the scourge of his own -light-hearted follies, sent pacificating presents to both girls, and put -off the dire decision. - -It was about this time that any wayfarer passing through the casuarina -forest "might have observed" a light in Vaiti's cottage late one night. -There was no one to observe, however, for the wood was supposed to be -devil-haunted, and no native ever passed through it save in broad -daylight. When it grew toward sunset the only Lialian who would brave -its dangers so far as to rush across it in the red evening light was the -King himself, who had been educated in Sydney, and did not believe in -devils--much. The forest road was the shortest way home from his usual -circular drive, and he frequently passed by the cottage just before -sunset, driving like Jehu the son of Nimshi, and looking neither to -right nor to left. He had never noticed Vaiti as he passed, for she was -always within the house, looking out between the cracks of the -palm-leaves, where she could see without being seen. - -This evening, long after the King had passed by and the dark had come -down, Vaiti sat on the floor of the hut, looking very thoughtful, as she -turned out the contents of her big camphorwood box by the light of a -ship's hurricane lantern. She was all alone, as usual, and smoking, -also as usual. There was no sound in the solitary little house but the -sighing of the wind in the casuarina trees and the steady puff of the -girl's cigar. Papers, letters, packets of lace, odd bits of jewellery, -silk dresses, pistols, knives, collections of rope and twine, laced -underclothing, cartridges, feathers, shells, cigars, pearl-inlaid boxes, -revareva plumes, and a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends -garnered from all the four corners of the South Seas, strewed the floor, -and the box was still half full. By-and-by she came upon what she -wanted--a roll of stuff done up in waxed paper. She unfastened it, and -let the contents fall out across the mats under the rays of the lantern. -It was a web of pure gold tissue, bright as a summer sunrise and fine as -a fairy's wing--an exquisite piece of stuff, which she had acquired from -a Chinese trader in Honolulu by means none too scrupulous, and hoarded -away for years. - -Vaiti looked at it thoughtfully, and then opened a little tortoise-shell -and silver box, and spilled its contents--a shower of photographs--into -her lap. They were an exceedingly various collection--naval, military, -British, French, native and half-caste--but most were men, and many were -young and handsome. Perhaps the best-looking of the collection was that -of a young English naval officer, signed across the corner "R. Tempest," -with a Sydney address, and "Must it be good-bye?" written in tiny -letters under the signature. Vaiti took the picture in her hand, and -looked at it so long and earnestly that her cigar went out while she -gazed. She lit another, put down the photograph, and sat smoking and -thinking for quite a long time.... The world was still all before her -... and the whaling ship had said that another vessel was almost sure to -touch, on her way to Sydney next week. - -Once in Vaiti's many-coloured history a looking-glass had proved her -undoing. It was a looking-glass that proved her salvation now, at the -parting of the ways. For, as she sat thinking, a brilliant picture -caught her eye--her own proud, lovely head, crowned regally with a -wreath of flowers, reflected in the mirror inside the lid of the box. -She smiled, stretched out her hand--letting the photograph fall -unnoticed to the floor from her lap--and placed a fold of the golden -tissue across her head.... Yes, it looked quite like a crown--a Queen -Consort's crown ... the glass gave back a truly royal picture. - -Vaiti's cheeks flushed as she looked. She could hardly turn away. But -the golden fold slipped off her hair, and the queenly picture was gone. - -She shut the box, and with set lips took a match, lit it, and set fire -to the photograph. It burned very slowly, and the flame seemed to lick -sympathetically round her own heart as it crawled about the handsome, -debonair, but sensual face, lit up, and then put out, the laughing eyes, -crackled through the curly hair and the white naval cap, and at last -reduced the whole bright picture to a little pile of feathery black -ash--dead, dead, dead! - -Vaiti dropped the charred fragments from her hands, and then put her -head down upon the mats and lay very still.... - -When morning broke through the narrow door of the hut, the rays of the -rising sun fell upon the figure of a girl with a cold, expressionless -face, sitting upon the threshold, hard at work with needle and thread. -Upon her lap lay a pile of golden gauze. - -That afternoon the King drove late in the forest. The sun was near -setting, and the rays were slanting long and low among the red trunks of -the gloomy casuarina trees, when the spirited blacks came galloping up -to the cottage. Every day they had passed it by, a still, brown nest in -the shadows, where nothing moved, but this evening, as they reached the -spot, something caused them to check and shy, and the King, splendid -driver as he was, had some difficulty in pulling them in. When he had -succeeded, he glanced at the object that had caused their fright, and -saw a vision startling enough to astonish even himself. - -A stranger girl of exceeding beauty stood in the midst of the forest -clearing. She was dressed in a robe of magnificent golden tissue, from -which the level rays of the westering sun sparkled back in a halo of -almost supernatural glory. On her head was a wreath of blood-red -hibiscus flowers, and her exquisite right arm, bare except for a twisted -chain of gold, held up an island kava cup of carved cocoanut shell. -When she saw that the King observed her, she sank on her knees, bent her -neck, and raised the cup higher in both hands above her head. - -It was an invitation, and one that no Lialian could possibly have -refused, for the drink brewed from the kava root, and the ceremonies -connected with the brewing, tasting, and giving round, are almost a -religion in those islands, and many a man, in the old wild days, has -died for the insult of putting aside the proffered cup. Therefore the -King descended at once, tied his horses to a tree, and advanced to take -the cup from the hands of this unknown woman who understood royal -etiquette so well. It was his Majesty's right to have his kava, and -indeed all his food and drink, proffered in this especial attitude; but -half-castes and whites were sometimes careless enough to forget the -honour. - -He drank the great bowlful at a draught, as a king should, and, sending -the cup with a twirl to the ground, according to etiquette, cast a side -glance at the beautiful cup-bearer. He hated strangers and distrusted -foreigners, still... - -"Will you not come in and rest, O Great Chief?" asked Vaiti in Lialian. - -"Who are you?" said the King, still looking half away--but only half. - -"Princess of Atiu, and daughter of the great English sea-captain Saxon," -replied Vaiti, drawing herself up to her full height, and looking him -straight in the eyes. The King met the look full this time, and thought -that Litia's eyes, Lialian though she was, were not so bright by half. -And if Mahina was fatter--as she certainly was--she never had such hair, -or such a coral-red mouth. And what a magnificent dress the magnificent -creature wore! - -He knew at once who Vaiti was, when she mentioned her rank in Atiu, for -the chocolate-coloured island kings and queens understand each other's -complicated genealogies quite as clearly as do their white compeers on -the other side of the world--and though Atiu was a broken, -half-depopulated place, annexed to the British Crown, its chiefs were of -ancient lineage and high repute. Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III. hesitated -a moment--stretched out his hand--withdrew it--then stretched it out -again, and graciously offered it to Vaiti, as to an equal in blood. - -Vaiti, glowing with gratification, yet had the happy intuition of -dropping on one knee and kissing the royal hand, European fashion. The -King understood it, and swelled with pleasure, remembering how Mahina -had had the impudence to chuck him under the chin when he bestowed a -gracious salute upon her inferior lips, and how Litia had objected -altogether to get off her horse when he was passing by, as Lialian royal -customs enjoined upon all riders ... What a nuisance they had both grown -to be, crying and battering at the palace gates, fighting over his -gifts, getting up trouble among their relatives--trouble that he now -began to fear might become so serious as to bring down the interference -of the British Crown. And every Pacific monarch knew what was the -inevitable next move, when that game had once begun! Good-bye to his -kingship, if once the British Lion laid a claw on Lialia. - -"Will you not come in and rest, Great Chief?" said the humble voice of -the stranger again. And the King, still shy and distrustful, and -looking at Vaiti only out of the corners of his eyes, did condescend to -come in. - -And the next day he rested again, and the day after that. It was -astonishing how easily driving seemed to tire his Majesty at this -period. And all the time the wedding preparations went forward, while -Mahina and Litia, with their respective factions, grew more and more -jealous of each other, and more and more enraged. - -But there came a day at last, four days from the wedding, when the King -declared that he would make his final choice on the evening before the -marriage day, and would send a herald on that night to proclaim it -through the capital. - -Ruru, the royal herald, who had never before had a chance to exercise -his office or wear his uniform, was extremely pleased. He got out his -finery at once--a Beefeater cap and tabard of crimson silk, worn with a -large silk sash, and bare legs--and began a dress rehearsal that lasted, -with intervals for food and sleep, until the evening of the -proclamation. At sunset he went up to the palace, received the paper -that contained the message, and strutting like a turkey, came out on to -the open green in front, where at least a thousand Lialians--half of -them Litia's friends, and half of them Mahina's--were collected. Mahina -and Litia themselves, each defiantly dressed in all the bridal finery -she could muster, stood in the forefront of the crowd, exchanging looks -of death and hatred. It had come to this with the two women now, that -either would have cheerfully died a death of slow torture, if by so -doing only she could have prevented the other from winning. That she -might miss the glories of the throne was not the prominent thought in -Litia's mind--only that Mahina might secure them and triumph over her; -and the self-same fancy agitated the ample breast of her rival, as the -two stood in the cool twilight, within sound of the breakers on the -reef, waiting with choking anxiety for Ruru's words. - -"People of Liali!" read the herald impressively, striking an attitude, -with one bare leg advanced: "His Majesty King Napoleon Timothy Te Paea -III. of Liali, being sovereign by right divine, and the Lord's Anointed, -also High Chief of all the Liali Islands as descendant of the Sacred -Lizard, has decided to marry, according to the custom of his -forefathers, and give the land of Liali an heir to our mighty crown. -The wedding will take place in the mission church to-morrow, at noon and -there will be a collection afterwards for expenses! If anyone comes -drunk to church, or puts nothing in the plate, he will be turned out. -His Majesty hereby announces that, in order to save war and dissension -among his loyal subjects, and to teach some princesses to pay him proper -respect, he has decided to give the honour of his hand to Princess -Vaiti, daughter of Princess Rangi of Atiu, deceased, and Captain Saxon, -of the schooner _Sybil_. God save the King, and you are all to go home -without making a row." - -It was a fine proclamation, but assuredly the order in the last clause -asked too much of Lialian humanity. No one attempted to obey it. The -news was received first in a dead silence of amazement, and then by a -storm of shrieks, howls, questions, a wild trampling and rushing to and -fro, and, last of all, by a Homeric roar of laughter. The Lialian -possesses a rough but reliable sense of humour, practical joking being -his especial delight; and it suddenly dawned upon the populace of Liali -that the King had played the most stupendous practical joke upon them -ever known in the history of the islands. Therefore these light-hearted -children of the sun, instead of raiding the palace in two separate -factions, lay down and rolled upon the grass, or held helplessly on to -one another, roaring with laughter. The utter disconcerting of Mahina -and Litia, now that all party feeling was removed from the matter, -further appealed to them as a jest of the finest sort, and witticisms -that would have made a trooper blush were hurled upon the disconsolate -maidens from all sides. Some few there were who frowned at the triumph -of a foreigner and a stranger; but Vaiti's arts had succeeded in making -her popular, and the malcontents were borne down by the roar of public -amusement and assent. Vaiti herself, safely hidden in the Methodist -mission house, listened to the laughter far off, and felt well pleased. -She had not been very sure how matters might go, and had therefore, at a -bold stroke, won the favour of the Church by approaching the missionary, -and assuring him of the extreme purity of her Methodism (she was, if -anything, a pure heathen) and, in confidence, of the honour awaiting -her. The reverend gentleman, who had long sat on thorns by reason of -the power of the Seventh Day Adventist, Christian Science, and Original -Shaker missions in the islands, received her with delight, and handed -her over to the care of his wife, who shortly afterwards informed him -that the new light of the Church was, in her opinion, a "perfect -minx"--but that she supposed it was as well, under the circumstances, to -make to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, as the Bible -enjoined, and remain on intimate visiting terms with the palace. So -Vaiti spent the fateful evening under the secure protection of the -Church itself, and claimed the same creditable patronage for the day of -the wedding. - -What of Mahina and Litia? The disappointed princesses, when the -proclamation was read out, turned and stared at each other like -tigresses robbed of a meal. Neither was going to be Queen of -Liali--neither was going to scratch her rival's eyes out, and root up -her hair, for the crime of securing the coveted honour. The very bottom -of the world had dropped out--what was to follow? - -For a moment they continued to stare, each scanning the other's face -under a new light--the light of common feeling. Litia remembered that -she and Mahina had been brought up almost as sisters in the palace of -the late Queen. Mahina recalled the time when she had almost died of -measles, and Litia had nursed her through. They were both deceived, both -deserted, and the friends of one could never crow offensively over the -other now. The thought was mingled bitter-sweet, and the two burst out -crying, and dropped into each other's arms, simultaneously vowing -threats of vengeance against the treacherous interloper, which--unbacked -by their war-like following of friends--they knew very well they would -never be able to execute. And the crowd dispersed as the sun went down. - - * * * * * - -The _Sybil_ made better time than was expected, after all. Her white -sails lifted against the blue, from behind the nearest island, just as -the royal wedding party commenced its gorgeous procession to the church. -Before the ceremony was ended, the schooner had made the harbour and -Saxon was ashore. He came upon an utterly deserted town, and saw not a -human being until he was halfway up to the church, outside of which he -perceived an immense crowd, unable to enter. Under a tree by the -wayside sat one of the English traders who had failed to get a place. -He greeted Saxon uproariously, and asked him if this wasn't a proper go. - -"What?" asked Saxon. "Which is he marrying?" - -"Oh, crikey! he doesn't know!" roared the trader--and fell back against -the tree, suffocating with laughter, and utterly declining to explain. - -Saxon, cursing him for a silly fool, tramped on towards the church. The -procession was coming out now, and he wanted to see the show, for though -he might call the coffee-coloured Lialians niggers, he quite understood -the position of King Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III., and the importance -to all the islands of his choice. - -He got upon a bank to see the better, fixed his long-sighted sailor eyes -upon the chapel door, and saw a glittering vision emerge into the -sunlight, amidst the cries and cheers of the people. That was the King, -in a gorgeous uniform, with his crown on his head and a long velvet -mantle sweeping behind him ... and at his left hand stepped a tall, -stately, slender figure, also crowned, and dazzlingly dressed all in -glittering gold.... Not Mahina, certainly; not Litia either--Who was it, -then? It could never be--but it was--Vaiti! - -Saxon staggered off the bank, sat down, jumped up again, and clapped his -hands. - -"By ----, if it isn't like her, through and through!" he cried. "By -----, I'm proud of her! Queen of Liali! Queen of Liali! But----" - -He stopped, and shook his head with a knowing laugh. He was not very -sober. - -"But--God help the King!" he said. - - - - THE END - - - - PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND ECCLES. - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VAITI OF THE ISLANDS *** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50663 - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so -the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. -Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this -license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg(tm) -electronic works to protect the Project Gutenberg(tm) concept and -trademark. 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