There was the island, only ten miles away, and there it had been for a whole week. Sometimes we had got near enough to see Long Charley's house and the figures of natives walking on the yellow beach; and then the westerly current would set us away to leeward again. But that night a squall came up, and in half an hour we were running down to the land. When the lights on the beach showed up we hove-to until daylight, and then found the surf too heavy to let us land.
We got in close to the reef, and could see that the trader's copra-house was full, for there were also hundreds of bags outside, awaiting our boats. It was clearly worth staying for. The trader, a tall, thin, pyjama-clad man, came down to the water's edge, waved his long arm, and then turned back and sat down on a bag of copra. We went about and passed the village again, and once more the long man came to the water's edge, waved his arm, and retired to his seat.
In the afternoon we saw a native and Charley together among the bags; then the native left him, and, as it was now low tide, the kanaka was able to walk to the edge of the reef, where he signalled to us. Seeing that he meant to swim off, the skipper went in as close as possible, and backed his foreyard. Watching his chance for a lull in the yet fierce breakers, the native slid over the reef and swam out to us as only a Line Islander or a Tokelau man can swim.
"How's Charley?" we asked, when the dark man reached the deck.
"Who? Charley? Oh, he fine, plenty copra. Tapa my bowels are filled with the sea—for one dollar! Here ARIKI VAKA (captain) and you TUHI TUHI (supercargo)," said the native, removing from his perforated and pendulous ear-lobe a little roll of leaf, "take this letter from the mean man that giveth but a dollar for facing such a GALU (surf). Hast plenty tobacco on board, friends of my heart? Apa, the surf! Not a canoe crew could the white man get to face it. Is it good twist tobacco, friends, or the flat cakes? Know that I am a man of Nanomea, not one of these dog-eating people here, and a strong swimmer, else the letter had not come."
The supercargo took the note. It was rolled up in many thicknesses of banana-leaf, which had kept it dry—
"DEAR FRIENDS,—I have Been waiting for you for near 5 months. I am Chock full of Cobberah and Shark Fins one Ton. I am near Starved Out, No Biscit, no Beef, no flour, not Enything to Eat. for god's Saik send me a case of Gin ashore if you Don't mean to Hang on till the sea goes Down or I shall Starve. Not a Woman comes Near me because I am Run out of Traid, so please try also to Send a Peece of Good print, as there are some fine Women here from Nukunau, and I think I can get one for a wife if I am smart. If you Can't take my Cobberah, and mean to Go away, send the Squair face [Square face—Hollands gin], for god's saik, and something for the Woman,—Your obliged Friend, CHARLES."
We parcelled a bottle of gin round with a small coir line, and sent it ashore by the Nanomea man. Charley and a number of natives came to the edge of the reef to lend a hand in landing the bearer of the treasure. Then they all waded back to the beach, headed by the white man in the dirty pyjamas and sodden-looking FALA hat. Reaching his house, he turned his following away, and shut the door.
"I bet a dollar that fellow wouldn't swap billets with the angel Gabriel at this partikler moment," said our profane mate thoughtfully.
We started weighing and shipping the copra next day. After finishing up, the solemn Charley invited the skipper and supercargo to remain ashore till morning. His great trouble, he told us, was that he had not yet secured a wife, "a reg'lar wife, y'know." He had, unluckily, "lost the run" of the last Mrs Charley during his absence at another island of the group, and negotiations with various local young women had been broken off owing to his having run out of trade. In the South Seas, as in the civilised world generally, to get the girl of your heart is usually a mere matter of trade. There were, he told us with a melancholy look, "some fine Nukunau girls here on a visit, but the one I want don't seem to care much about stayin', unless all this new trade fetches her."
"Who is she?" enquired the skipper.
"Tibakwa's daughter."
"Let's have a look at her," said the skipper, a man of kind impulses, who felt sorry at the intermittency of the Long One's connubial relations. The tall, scraggy trader shambled to the door and bawled out: "Tibakwa, Tibakwa, Tibakwa, O!" three times.
The people, singing in the big MONIEP or town-house, stopped their monotonous droning, and the name of Tibakwa, was yelled vociferously through-out the village in true Gilbert Group style. In the Gilberts, if a native in one corner of a house speaks to another in the opposite, he bawls loud enough to be heard a mile off.
Tibakwa (The Shark) was a short, squat fellow, with his broad back and chest scored and seamed with an intricate and inartistic network of cicatrices made by sharks' teeth swords. His hair, straight, coarse, and jet-black, was cut away square from just above his eyebrows to the top of his ears, leaving his fierce countenance in a sort of frame. Each ear-lobe bore a load—one had two or three sticks of tobacco, twined in and about the distended circle of flesh, and the other a clasp-knife and wooden pipe. Stripped to the waist he showed his muscular outlines to perfection, and he sat down unasked in the bold, self-confident, half-defiant manner natural to the Line Islander.
"Where's Tirau?" asked the trader.
"Here," said the man of wounds, pointing outside, and he called out in a voice like the bellow of a bull—"TIRAU O, NAKO MAI! (Come here!)"
Tirau came in timidly, clothed only in an AIRIRI or girdle, and slunk into a far corner.
The melancholy trader and the father pulled her out, and she dumped herself down in the middle of the room with a muttered "E PUAK ACARON; KACARON; TE MALAN! (Bad white man)."
"Fine girl, Charley," said the skipper, digging him in the ribs. "Ought to suit you, eh! Make a good little wife."
Negotiations then began anew. Father willing to part, girl frightened—commenced to cry. The astute Charley brought out some new trade. Tirau's eye here displayed a faint interest. Charley threw her, with the air of a prince, a whole piece of turkey twill, 12 yards—value three dollars, cost about 2s. 3d. Tirau put out a little hand and drew it gingerly toward her. Tibakwa gave us an atrocious wink.
"She's cottoned!" exclaimed Charley.
And thus, without empty and hollow display, were two loving hearts made to beat as one. As a practical proof of the solemnity of the occasion, the bridegroom then and there gave Tirau his bunch of keys, which she carefully tied to a strand of her AIRIRI, and, smoking one of the captain's Manillas, she proceeded to bash out the mosquitoes from the nuptial couch with a fan. We assisted her, an hour afterwards, to hoist the sleeping body of Long Charley therein, and, telling her to bathe his head in the morning with cold water, we rose to go.
"Good-bye, Tirau!" we said.
"TIAKAPO [Good-night]", said the good Little Wife, as she rolled up an empty square gin bottle in one of Charley's shirts for a pillow, and disposed her graceful figure on the matted floor beside his bed, to fight mosquitoes until daylight.
One day Ned Burr, a fellow trader, walked slowly up the path to my station, and with a friendly nod sat down and watched intently as, with native assistance, I set about salting some pork. Ned lived thirty miles from my place, on a little island at the entrance to the lagoon. He was a prosperous man, and only drank under the pressure of the monotony caused by the non-arrival of a ship to buy his produce. He would then close his store, and, aided by a number of friendly male natives, start on a case of gin. But never a woman went into Ned's house, though many visited the store, where Ned bought their produce, paid for it in trade or cash, and sent them off, after treating them on a strictly business basis.
Now, the Marshall Island women much resented this. Since Ned's wife had died, ten years previously, the women, backed by the chiefs, had made most decided, but withal diplomatic, assaults upon his celibacy. The old men of his village had respectfully and repeatedly reminded him that his state of singleness was not a direct slight to themselves as leading men alone. If he refused to marry again he surely would not cast such a reflection upon the personal characters of some two or three hundred young girls as to refuse a few of them the position of honorary wives PRO TEM., or until he found one whom he might think worthy of higher honours. But the slow-thinking, methodical trader only opened a bottle of gin, gave them fair words and a drink all round, and absolutely declined to open any sort of matrimonial negotiations.
"I'm come to hev some talk with you when you've finished saltin'," he said, as he rose and meditatively prodded a junk of meat with his forefinger.
"Right, old man," I said. "I'll come now," and we went into the big room and sat down.
"Air ye game ter come and see me get married?" he asked, looking away past me, through the open door, to where the surf thundered and tumbled on the outer reef.
"Ned," I said solemnly, "I know you don't joke, so you must mean it. Of course I will. I'm sure all of us fellows will be delighted to hear you're going to get some nice little CARAJZ [an unmarried girl] to lighten up that big house of yours over there. Who's the girl, Ned?"
"Le-jennabon."
"Whew!" I said, "why, she's the daughter of the biggest chief on Arhnu. I didn't think any white man could get her, even if he gave her people a boat-load of dollars as a wedding-gift."
"Well, no," said Ned, stroking his beard meditatively, "I suppose I SHOULD feel a bit set up; but two years ago her people said that, because I stood to them in the matter of some rifles when they had trouble with King Jibberick, I could take her. She was rather young then, any way; but I've been over to Arhnu several times, and I've had spies out, and damn me if I ever could hear a whisper agin' her. I'm told for sure that her father and uncles would ha' killed any one that came after her. So I'm a-goin' to take her and chance it."
"Ned," I said, "you know your own affairs and these people better than I do. Yet are you really going to pin your faith on a Marshall Island girl? You are not like any of us traders. You see, we know what to expect sometimes, and our morals are a lot worse than those of the natives. And it doesn't harrow our feelings much if any one of us has to divorce a wife and get another; it only means a lot of new dresses and some guzzling, drinking, and speechifying, and some bother in teaching the new wife how to make bread. But your wife that died was a Manhikian—another kind. They don't breed that sort here in the Marshalls. Think of it twice, Ned, before you marry her."
The girl was a beauty. There are many like her in that far-away cluster of coral atolls. That she was a chief's child it was easy to see; the abject manner in which the commoner natives always behaved themselves in her presence showed their respect for Le-jennabon. Of course we all got very jolly. There were half a dozen of us traders there, and we were, for a wonder, all on friendly terms. Le-jennabon sat on a fine mat in the big room, and in a sweetly dignified manner received the wedding-gifts. One of our number, Charlie de Buis, though in a state of chronic poverty, induced by steadfast adherence to square gin at five dollars a case, made his offerings—a gold locket covering a woman's miniature, a heavy gold ring, and a pair of fat, cross-bred Muscovy ducks. The bride accepted them with a smile.
"Who is this?" she asked, looking at the portrait—"your white wife?" "No," replied the bashful Charles, "another man's. That's why I give it away, curse her! But the ducks I bred myself on Madurocaron."
A month or two passed. Then, on one Sunday afternoon, about dusk, I saw Ned's whale-boat coming over across the lagoon. I met him on the beach. Trouble was in his face, yet his hard, impassive features were such that only those who knew him well could discover it. Instead of entering the house, he silently motioned me to come further along the sand, where we reached an open spot clear of coco palms. Ned sat down and filled his pipe. I waited patiently. The wind had died away, and the soft swish and swirl of the tide as the ripples lapped the beach was the only sound that broke upon the silence of the night.
"You were right. But it doesn't matter now ..." He laughed softly. "A week ago a canoe-party arrived from Ebon. There were two chiefs. Of course they came to my house to trade. They had plenty of money. There were about a hundred natives belonging to them. The younger man was chief of Likieb—a flash buck. The first day he saw Le-jennabon he had a lot too much to say to her. I watched him. Next morning my toddy-cutter came and told me that the flash young chief from Likieb had stuck him up and drank my toddy, and had said something about my wife—you know how they talk in parables when they mean mischief. I would have shot him for the toddy racket, but I was waitin' for a better reason.... The old hag who bosses my cook-shed said to me as she passed, 'Go and listen to a song of cunning over there'—pointing to a clump of bread-fruit trees. I walked over—quietly. Le-jennabon and her girls were sitting down on mats. Outside the fence was a lad singing this—in a low voice—
"'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers.'
"Le-jennabon and the girls bent their heads and said nothing. Then the devil's imp commenced again—
"'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers.'
"Some of the girls laughed and whispered to Le-jennabon. She shook her head, and looked around timorously. Plain enough, wasn't it? Presently the boy creeps up to the fence, and drops over a wreath of yellow blossoms. The girls laughed. One of them picked it up, and offered it to Le-jennabon. She waved it away. Then, again, the cub outside sang softly—
"'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers,'
"and they all laughed again, and Le-jennabon put the wreath on her head, and I saw the brown hide of the boy disappear among the trees."
I went back to the house. I wanted to make certain she would follow the boy first. After a few minutes some of Le-jennabon's women came to me, and said they were going to the weather side of the island—it's narrer across, as you know—to pick flowers. I said all right, to go, as I was going to do something else, so couldn't come with them. Then I went to the trade-room and got what I wanted. The old cook-hag showed me the way they had gone, and grinned when she saw what I had slid down inside my pyjamas. I cut round and got to the place. I had a right good idea where it was.
"The girls soon came along the path, and then stopped and talked to Le-jennabon and pointed to a clump of bread-fruit trees standing in an arrow-root patch. She seemed frightened—but went. Half-way through she stopped, and then I saw my beauty raise his head from the ground and march over to her. I jest giv' him time ter enjoy a smile, and then I stepped out and toppled him over. Right through his carcase—them Sharp's rifle make a hole you could put your fist into.
"The girl dropped too—sheer funk. Old Lebauro, the cook, slid through the trees and stood over him, and said, 'U, GUK! He's a fine-made man,' and gave me her knife; and then I collared Le-jennabon, and——"
"For God's sake, Ned, don't tell me you killed her too!"
He shook his head slowly.
"No, I couldn't hurt HER. But I held her with one hand, she feeling dead and cold, like a wet deck-swab; then the old cook-woman undid my flash man's long hair, and, twining her skinny old claws in it, pulled it taut, while I sawed at the chap's neck with my right hand. The knife was heavy and sharp, and I soon got the job through. Then I gave the thing to Le-jennabon to carry.
"I made her walk in front of me. Every time she dropped the head I slewed her round and made her lift it up again. And the old cook-devil trotted astern o' us. When we came close to the town, I says to Le-jennabon:
"'Do you want to live?'
"'Yes,' says she, in a voice like a whisper.
"'Then sing,' says I, 'sing loud—
"'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers,'
And she sang it in a choky kind of quaver.
"There was a great rush o' people ter see the procession. They stood in a line on both sides of the path, and stared and said nothin'.
"Presently we comes to where all the Likieb chief's people was quartered. They knew the head and ran back for their rifles, but my crowd in the village was too strong, and, o' course, sided with me, and took away their guns. Then the crowd gathers round my place, and I makes Le-jennabon hold up the head and sing again—sing that devil's chant.
"'Listen,' I says to the people, 'listen to my wife singing a love song.' Then I takes the thing, wet and bloody, and slings it into the middle of the Likieb people, and gave Le-jennabon a shove and sent her inside."
I was thinking what would be the best thing to say, and could only manage "It's a bad business, Ned."
"Bad! That's where you're wrong," and, rising, Ned brushed the sand off the legs of his pyjamas. "It's just about the luckiest thing as could ha' happened. Ye see, it's given Le-jennabon a good idea of what may happen to her if she ain't mighty correct. An' it's riz me a lot in the esteem of the people generally as a man who hez business principles."
Then the flag of "Bobby" Towns, of Sydney, was still mighty in the South Seas. The days had not come in which steamers with brass-bound supercargoes, carrying tin boxes and taking orders like merchants' bagmen, for goods "to arrive," exploited the Ellice, Kingsmill, and Gilbert Groups. Bluff-bowed old wave-punchers like the SPEC, the LADY ALICIA and the E. K. BATESON plunged their clumsy hulls into the rolling swell of the mid-Pacific, carrying their "trade" of knives, axes, guns, bad rum, and good tobacco, instead of, as now, white umbrellas, paper boots and shoes, German sewing-machines and fancy prints—"zephyrs," the smartly-dressed paper-collared supercargo of to-day calls them, as he submits a card of patterns to Emilia, the native teacher's wife, who, as the greatest Lady in the Land, must have first choice.
In those days the sleek native missionary was an unknown quantity in the Tokelaus and Kingsmills, and the local white trader answered all requirements. He was generally a rough character—a runaway from some Australian or American whaler, or a wandering Ishmael, who, for reasons of his own, preferred living among the intractable, bawling, and poverty-stricken people of the equatorial Pacific to dreaming away his days in the monotonously happy valleys of the Society and Marquesas Groups.
Such a man was Probyn, who dwelt on one of the low atolls of the Ellice Islands. He had landed there one day from a Sydney sperm whaler with a chest of clothes, a musket or two, and a tierce of twist tobacco; with him came a savage-eyed, fierce-looking native wife, over whose bared shoulders and bosom fell long waves of black hair; with her was a child about five years old.
The second mate of the whaler, who was in charge of the boat, not liking the looks of the excited natives who swarmed around the newcomer, bade him a hurried farewell, and pushed away to the ship, which lay-to off the passage with her fore-yard aback. Then the clamorous people pressed more closely around Probyn and his wife, and assailed them with questions.
So far neither of them had spoken. Probyn, a tall, wiry, scanty-haired man, with quiet, deep-set eyes, was standing with one foot on the tierce of tobacco and his hands in his pockets. His wife glared defiantly at some two or three score of reddish-brown women who crowded eagerly around her to stare into her face; holding to the sleeve of her dress was the child, paralysed into the silence of fright.
The deafening babble and frantic gesticulations were perfectly explicable to Probyn, and he apprehended no danger. The head man of the village had not yet appeared, and until he came this wild license of behaviour would continue. At last the natives became silent and parted to the right and left as Tahori, the head man, his fat body shining with coconut oil, and carrying an ebony-wood club in his hand, stood in front of the white man and eyed him up and down. The scrutiny seemed satisfactory. He stretched out his huge, naked arm, and shook Probyn's hand, uttering his one word of Samoan—"TALOFA!" [Lit., "My love to you", the Samoan salutation] and then, in his own dialect, he asked: "What is your name, and what do you want?"
"Sam," replied Probyn. And then, in the Tokelau language, which the wild-eyed people around him fairly understood, "I have come here to live with you and trade for oil"—and he pointed to the tierce of tobacco.
"Where are you from?"
"From the land called Nukunono, in the Tokelau."
"Why come here?"
"Because I killed an enemy there."
"Good!" grunted the fat man; "there are no twists in thy tongue; but why did the boat hasten away so quickly?"
"They were frightened because of the noise. He with the face like a fowl's talked too much"—and he pointed to a long, hatchet-visaged native, who had been especially turbulent and vociferous.
"Ha!" and the fat, bearded face of Tahori turned from the white man to him of whom the white man had spoken—"is it thee, Makoi? And so thou madest the strangers hasten away! That was wrong. Only for thee I had gone to the ship and gotten many things. Come hither!"
Then he stooped and picked up one of Probyn's muskets, handed it to the white man, and silently indicated the tall native with a nod. The other natives fell back. Niabong, Probyn's wife, set her boy on his feet, put her hand in her bosom and drew out a key, with which she opened the chest. She threw back the lid, fixed her black eyes on Probyn, and waited.
Probyn, holding the musket in his left hand, mused a moment. Then he asked:
"Whose man is he?"
"Mine," said Tahori; "he is from Oaitupu, and my bondman."
"Hath he a wife?"
"Nay; he is poor, and works in my PURAKA [A coarse species of taro (ARUM ESCULENTUM) growing on the low-lying atolls of the mid-Pacific.] field!"
"Good," said Probyn, and he motioned to his wife. She dived her hand into the chest and handed him a tin of powder, then a bullet, a cap, and some scraps of paper.
Slowly he loaded the musket, and Tahori, seizing the bondman by his arm, led him out to the open, and stood by, club in hand, on the alert.
Probyn knew his reputation depended on the shot. He raised his musket and fired. The ball passed through the chest of Makoi. Then four men picked up the body and carried it into a house.
Probyn laid down the musket and motioned again to Niabong. She handed him a hatchet and blunt chisel. Tahori smiled pleasantly, and, drawing the little boy to him, patted his head.
Then, at a sign from him, a woman brought Niabong a shell of sweet toddy. The chief sat cross-legged and watched Probyn opening the tierce of tobacco. Niabong locked the box again and sat upon it.
"Who are you?" said Tahori, still caressing the boy, to the white man's wife.
"Niabong. But my tongue twists with your talk here. I am of Naura (Pleasant Island). By-and-by I shall understand it."
"True. He is a great man, thy man," said the chief, nodding at Probyn.
"A great man, truly. There is not one thing in the world but he can do it."
"E MOE [true]," said the fat man, approvingly; "I can see it. Look you, he shall be as my brother, and thy child here shall eat of the best in the land."
Probyn came over with his two hands filled with sticks of tobacco.
"Bring a basket," he said.
A young native girl slid out from the coconut grove at Tahori's bidding, and stood behind him holding a basket. Probyn counted out into it two hundred sticks of tobacco.
"See, Tahori. I am a just man to thee because thou art a just man to me. Here is the price of him that thou gavest to me."
Tahori rose and beckoned to the people to return. "Look at this man. He is a truly great man. His heart groweth from his loins upwards to his throat. Bring food to my house quickly, that he and his wife and child may eat. And to-morrow shall every man cut wood for his house, a house that shall be in length six fathoms, and four in width. Such men as he come from the gods."
"Oho!" said Lagisiva, the widow, tossing her hair back over her shoulders, as she raised the heavy, fluted tappa mallet in her thick, strong right hand, and dealt the rough cloth a series of quick strokes—"Oho!" said the dark-faced Lagisiva, looking up at the White Man, "because I be a woman dost think me a fool? I tell thee I know some of the customs of the PAPALAGI (the white foreigners). Much wisdom have ye in many things; but again I tell thee, O friend of my sons, that in some other things the people of thy nation—ay, of all white nations, they be as the beasts of the forest—the wild goat and pig—without reason and without shame. TAH! Has not my eldest son, Tui Fau, whom the white men call Bob, lived for seven years in Sini (Sydney), when he returned from those places by New Guinea, where he was diver? And he has filled my ears with the bad and shameless customs of the PAPALAGI. ISA! I say again thy women have not the shame of ours. The heat of desire devoureth chastity even in those of one blood!"
"In what do they offend, O my mother?"
"AUE! Life is short; and, behold, this piece of SIAPO [The tappa cloth of the South Seas, made from the bark of the paper mulberry.] is for a wedding present, and I must hurry; but yet put down thy gun and bag, and we shall smoke awhile, and thou shalt feel shame while I tell of one of the PAPALAGI customs—the marrying of brother and sister!"
"Nay, mother," said the White Man, "not brother and sister, but only cousins."
"ISA! [an expression of contempt]" and the big widow spat scornfully on the ground, "those are words—words. It is the same; the same is the blood, the same is the bone. Even in our heathen days we pointed the finger at one who looked with the eye of love on the daughter of his father's brother or sister—for such did we let his blood out upon the sand. And I, old Lagisiva, have seen a white man brought to shame through this wickedness!"
"Tell me," said the White Man.
"He was a FOMA'I (doctor), and rich, and came here because he desired to see strange places, and was weary of his life in the land of the PAPALAGI. So he remained with us, and hunted the wild boar with our young men, and became strong and hardy, and like unto one of our people. And then, because he was for ever restless, he sailed away once and returned in a small ship, and brought back trade and built a store and a fine house to dwell in. The chief of this town gave him, for friendship, a piece of land over there by the Vai-ta-milo, and thus did he become a still greater man. His store was full of rich goods, and he kept many servants, and at night-time his house was as a blaze of fire, for the young men and women would go there and sing and dance, and he had many lovers amongst our young girls.
"I, old Lagisiva, who am now fat and dull, was one. Oho, he was a man of plenty! Did a girl but look out between her eyelashes at a piece of print in the store, lo! it was hers, even though it measured twenty fathoms in length—and print was a dollar a fathom in those days. So every girl—even those from parts far off—cast herself in his way, that he might notice her. And he was generous to all alike—in that alone was wisdom.
"Once or twice every year the ships brought him letters. And he would count the marks on the paper, and tell us that they came from a woman of the PAPALAGI—his cousin, as you would call her—whose picture was hung over his table. She was for ever smiling down upon us, and her eyes were his eyes, and if he but smiled then were the two alike—alike as are two children of the same birth. When three years had come and gone a ship brought him a letter, and that night there were many of us at his house, men and women, to talk with the people from the ship. When those had gone away to their sleep, he called to the chief, and said:—
"'In two days, O my friend, I set out for my land again; but to return, for much do I desire to remain with you always. In six months I shall be here again. And there is one thing I would speak of. I shall bring back a white wife, a woman of my own country, whom I have loved for many years.'
"Then Tamaali'i, the chief, who was my father's father, and very old, said, 'She shall be my daughter, and welcome,' and many of us young girls said also, 'She shall be welcome'—although we felt sorrowful to lose a lover so good and open-handed. And then did the FOMA'I call to the old chief and two others, and they entered the store and lighted lamps, and presently a man went forth into the village, and cried aloud: 'Come hither, all people, and listen!' So, many hundreds came, and we all went in and found the floor covered with some of everything that the white man possessed. And the chief spoke and said:
"'Behold, my people, this our good friend goeth away to his own country that he may bring back a wife. And because many young unmarried girls will say, "Why does he leave us? Are not we as good to look upon as this other woman?" does he put these presents here on the ground and these words into my mouth—"Out of his love to you, which must be a thing that is past and forgotten, the wife that is coming must not know of some little things—that is PAPALAGI custom.'"
"And then every girl that had a wish took whatever she fancied, and the white man charged us to say naught that would arouse the anger of the wife that was to come. And so he departed.
"One hundred and ten fat hogs killed we and roasted whole for the feast of welcome. I swear it by the Holy Ones of God's Kingdom—one hundred and ten. And yet this white lily of his never smiled—not even on us young girls who danced and sang before her, only she clung to his arm, and, behold, when we drew close to her we saw it was the woman in the picture—his sister!
"And then one by one all those that had gathered to do him honour went away in shame—shame that he should do this, wed his own sister, and many women said worse of her. But yet the feast—the hogs, and yams, and taro, and fish, and fowls—was brought and placed by his doorstep, but no one spake, and at night-time he was alone with his wife, till he sent for the old chief, and reproached him with bitter words for the coldness of the people, and asked: 'Why is this?'
"And the old man pointed to the picture over the table, and said: 'Is this she—thy wife?'
"'Ay,' said the White Man.
"'Is she not of the same blood as thyself?'
"'Even so,' said he.
"'Then shalt thou live alone in thy shame,' said the old man; and he went away.
"So, for many months, these two lived. He found some to work for him, and some young girls to tend his sister, whom he called his wife, whilst she lay ill with her first child. And the day after it was born, some one whispered: 'He is accursed! the child cries not—it is dumb.' For a week it lived, yet never did it cry, for the curse of wickedness was upon it. Then the white man nursed her tenderly, and took her away to live in Fiji for six months. When they came back it was the same—no one cared to go inside his house, and he cursed us, and said he would bring men from Tokelau to work for him. We said naught. Then in time another child was born, and it was hideous to look upon, and that also died.
"Now, there was a girl amongst us whose name was Suni, to whom the white woman spoke much, for she was learning our tongue, and Suni, by reason of the white woman's many presents, spoke openly to her, and told her of the village talk. Then the white woman wept, and arose and spoke to the man for a long while. And she came back to Suni, and said: 'What thou hast told me was in my own heart three years ago; yet, because it is the custom of my people, I married this man, who is the son of my father's brother. But now I shall go away.' Then the white man came out and beat Suni with a stick. But yet was his sister, whom he called his wife, eaten up with shame, and when a ship came they went away, and we saw her not again. For about two years we heard no more of our white man, till he returned and said the woman was dead. And he took Suni for wife, who bore him three children, and then they went away to some other country—I know not where.
"I thank thee many, many times, O friend of my sons. Four children of mine here live in this village, yet not a one of them ever asketh me when I last smoked. May God walk with thee always for this stick of tobacco."
Three years ago, in an Australian paper, I read something that set me thinking of Taplin—of Taplin and his wife, and the fate of the ALIDA. This is what I read:—
"News has reached Tahiti that a steamer had arrived at Toulon with two noted prisoners on board. These men, who are brothers named Rorique, long ago left Tahiti on an island-trading trip, and when the vessel got to sea they murdered the captain, a passenger, the supercargo (Mr Gibson, of Sydney), and two sailors, and threw their bodies overboard. The movers in the affair were arrested at Ponape, in the Caroline Islands. The vessel belonged to a Tahitian prince, and was called the NUROAHITI, but its name had been changed after the tragedy. The accused persons were sent to Manilla. From Manilla they appear now to have been sent on to France."
[NOTE BY THE AUTHOR.—The brothers Rorique were sentenced to imprisonment for life at Brest in 1895.]
In the year 1872 we were lying inside Funafuti Lagoon, in the Ellice Group. The last cask of oil had been towed off to the brig and placed under hatches, and we were to sail in the morning for our usual cruise among the Gilbert and Kingsmill Islands.
Our captain, a white trader from the shore, and myself, were sitting on deck "yarning" and smoking. We lay about a quarter of a mile from the beach—such a beach, white as the driven snow, and sweeping in a great curve for five long miles to the north and a lesser distance to the south and west. Right abreast of the brig, nestling like huge birds' nests in the shade of groves of coconut and bread-fruit trees, were the houses of the principal village in Funafuti.
Presently the skipper picked up his glasses that lay beside him on the skylight, and looked away down to leeward, where the white sails of a schooner beating up to the anchorage were outlined against the line of palms that fringed the beach of Funafala—the westernmost island that forms one of the chain enclosing Funafuti Lagoon.
"It's Taplin's schooner, right enough," he said. "Let us go ashore and give him and his pretty wife a hand to pack up."
Taplin was the name of the only other white trader on Funafuti besides old Tom Humphreys, our own man. He had been two years on the island, and was trading in opposition to our trader, as agent for a foreign house—our owners were Sydney people—but his firm's unscrupulous method of doing business had disgusted him. So one day he told the supercargo of their vessel that he would trade for them no longer than the exact time he had agreed upon—two years. He had come to Funafuti from the Pelews, and was now awaiting the return of his firm's vessel to take him back there again. Getting into our boat we were pulled ashore and landed on the beach in front of the trader's house.
"Well, Taplin, here's your schooner at last," said old Tom, as we shook hands and seated ourselves in the comfortable, pleasant-looking room. "I see you're getting ready to go."
Taplin was a man of about thirty or so, with a quiet, impassive face, and dark, deep-set eyes that gave to his features a somewhat gloomy look, except when he smiled, which was not often. Men with that curious, far-off look in their eyes are not uncommon among the lonely islands of the wide Pacific. Sometimes it comes to a man with long, long years of wandering to and fro; and you will see it deepen when, by some idle, chance word, you move the memories of a forgotten past—ere he had even dreamed of the existence of the South Sea Islands and for ever dissevered himself from all links and associations of the outside world.
"Yes," he answered, "I am nearly ready. I saw the schooner at daylight, and knew it was the ALIDA."
"Where do you think of going to, Taplin?" I asked.
"Back to the Carolines. Nerida belongs down that way, you know; and she is fretting to get back again—otherwise I wouldn't leave this island. I've done pretty well here, although the people I trade for are—well, you know what they are."
"Aye," assented old Humphreys, "there isn't one of 'em but what is the two ends and bight of a—scoundrel; and that supercargo with the yaller moustache and womany hands is the worst of the lot. I wonder if he's aboard this trip? I don't let him inside my house; I've got too many daughters, and they all think him a fine man."
Nerida, Taplin's wife, came out to us from an inner room. She was a native of one of the Pelew Islands, a tall, slenderly-built girl, with pale, olive skin and big, soft eyes. A flowing gown of yellow muslin—the favourite colour of the Portuguese-blooded natives of the Pelews—buttoned high up to her throat, draped her graceful figure. After putting her little hand in ours, and greeting us in the Funafuti dialect, she went over to Taplin, and touching his arm, pointed out the schooner that was now only a mile or so away, and a smile parted her lips, and the star-like eyes glowed and filled with a tender light.
I felt Captain Warren touch my arm as he rose and went outside. I followed.
"L——," said Warren, "can't we do something for Taplin ourselves? Isn't there a station anywhere about Tonga or Wallis Island that would suit him?"
"Would he come, Warren? He—or, rather, that pretty wife of his—seems bent upon going away in the schooner to the Carolines."
"Aye," said the skipper, "that's it. If it were any other vessel I wouldn't care." Then suddenly:
"That fellow Motley (the supercargo) is a damned scoundrel—capable of any villainy where a woman is concerned. Did you ever hear about old Raymond's daughter down at Mangareva?"
I had heard the story very often. By means of a forged letter purporting to have been written by her father—an old English trader in the Gambier Group—Motley had lured the beautiful young half-blood away from a school in San Francisco, and six months afterwards turned her adrift on the streets of Honolulu. Raymond was a lonely man, and passionately attached to his only child; so no one wondered when, reaching California a year after and finding her gone, he shot himself in his room at an hotel.
"I will ask him, anyway," I said; and as we went back into the house the ALIDA shot past our line of vision through the coco-palms, and brought up inside the brig.
"Taplin," I said, "would you care about taking one of our stations to the eastward? Name any island you fancy, and we will land you there with the pick of our 'trade' room."
"Thank you. I would be only too glad, but I cannot. I have promised Nerida to go back to Babelthouap, or somewhere in the Pelews, and Motley has promised to land us at Ponape, in the Carolines. We can get away from there in one of the Dutch firm's vessels."
"I am very sorry, Taplin——" I began, when old Captain Warren burst in with—"Look here, Taplin, we haven't got much time to talk. Here's the ALIDA'S boat coming, with that (blank blank) scoundrel Motley in it. Take my advice. Don't go away in the ALIDA." And then he looked at Nerida, and whispered something.
A red spark shone in Taplin's dark eyes, then he pressed Warren's hand.
"I know," he answered, "he's a most infernal villain—Nerida hates him too. But you see how I am fixed. The ALIDA is our only chance of getting back to the north-west. But he hasn't got old Raymond to deal with in me. Here they are."
Motley came in first, hat and fan in hand. He was a fine-looking man, with blue eyes and an unusually fair skin for an island supercargo, with a long, drooping, yellow moustache. Riedermann, the skipper, who followed, was stout, coarse, red-faced, and brutal.
"How are you, gentlemen?" said Motley affably, turning from Taplin and his wife, and advancing towards us. "Captain Riedermann and I saw the spars of your brig showing up over the coconuts yesterday, and therefore knew we should have the pleasure of meeting you."
Warren looked steadily at him for a moment, and then glanced at his outstretched hand.
"The pleasure isn't mutual, blarst you, Mr Motley," he said coldly, and he put his hand in his pocket.
The supercargo took a step nearer to him with a savage glare in his blue eyes. "What do you mean by this, Captain Warren?"
"Mean?" and the imperturbable Warren seated himself on a corner of the table, and gazed stolidly first at the handsome Motley and then at the heavy, vicious features of Riedermann. "Oh, anything you like. Perhaps it's because it's not pleasant to see white men landing at a quiet island like this with revolvers slung to their waists under their pyjamas; looks a bit too much like Bully Hayes' style for me," and then his tone of cool banter suddenly changed to that of studied insolence. "I say, Motley, I was talking about you just now to Taplin AND Nerida. Do you want to know what I was saying? Perhaps I had better tell you. I was talking about Tita Raymond—and yourself."
Motley put his right hand under his pyjama jacket, but Taplin sprang forward, seized his wrist in a grip of iron, and drew him aside.
"The man who draws a pistol in my house, Mr Motley, does a foolish thing," he said, in quiet, contemptuous tones, as he threw the supercargo's revolver into a corner.
With set teeth and clenched hands Motley flung himself into a chair, unable to speak.
Warren, still seated on the table, swung his foot nonchalantly to and fro, and then began at Riedermann.
"Why, how's this, Captain Riedermann? Don't you back up your supercargo's little quarrels, or have you left your pistol on board? Ah, no, you haven't. I can see it there right enough. Modesty forbids you putting a bullet into a man in the presence of a lady, eh?" Then slewing round again, he addressed Motley: "By God! sir, it is well for you that we are in a white man's house, and that that man is my friend and took away that pistol from your treacherous hand. If you had fired at me I would have booted you from one end of Funafuti beach to the other—and I've a damned good mind to do it now, but won't, as Taplin has to do some business with you."
"That will do, Warren," I said. "We don't want to make a scene in Taplin's house. Let us go away and allow him to finish his business."
Still glaring angrily at Riedermann and Motley, Warren got down slowly from the table. Then we bade Taplin and Nerida good-bye and went aboard.
At daylight we saw Taplin and his wife go off in the ALIDA'S boat. They waved their hands to us in farewell as the boat pulled past the brig, and then the schooner hove-up anchor, and with all sail set, stood away down to the north-west passage of the lagoon.
A year or so afterward we were on a trading voyage to the islands of the Tubuai Group, and were lying becalmed, in company with a New Bedford whaler. Her skipper came on board the brig, and we started talking of Taplin, whom the whale-ship captain knew.
"Didn't you hear?" he said. "The ALIDA never showed up again. 'Turned turtle,' I suppose, somewhere in the islands, like all those slashing, over-masted, 'Frisco-built schooners do, sooner or later."
"Poor Taplin," said Warren, "I thought somehow we would never see him again."
Five years had passed. Honest old Warren, fiery-tempered and true-hearted, had long since died of fever in the Solomons, and I was supercargo with a smart young American skipper in the brigantine PALESTINE, when we one day sailed along the weather-side of a tiny little atoll in the Caroline Islands.
The PALESTINE was leaking, and Packenham, tempted by the easy passage into the beautiful lagoon, decided to run inside and discharge our cargo of copra to get at the leak.
The island had but very few inhabitants—perhaps ten or twelve men and double that number of women and children. No ship, they told us, had ever entered the lagoon but Bully Hayes' brig, and that was nine years before. There was nothing on the island to tempt a trading vessel, and even the sperm whalers, as they lumbered lazily past from Strong's Island to Guam, would not bother to lower a boat and "dicker" for pearl-shell or turtle.
At the time of Hayes' visit the people were in sore straits, and on the brink of actual starvation, for although there were fish and turtle in plenty, they had not the strength to catch them. A few months before, a cyclone had destroyed nearly all the coconut trees, and an epidemic followed it, and carried off half the scanty population.
The jaunty sea-rover—than whom a kinder-hearted man to NATIVES never sailed the South Seas—took pity on the survivors, especially the youngest and prettiest girls, and gave them a passage in the famous LEONORA to another island where food was plentiful. There they remained for some years, till the inevitable MAL DU PAYS that is inborn to every Polynesian and Micronesian, became too strong to be resisted; and so one day a wandering sperm whaler brought them back again.
But in their absence strangers had come to the island. As the people landed from the boats of the whale-ship, two brown men, a woman, and a child, came out of one of the houses, and gazed at them. Then they fled to the farthest end of the island and hid.
Some weeks passed before the returned islanders found out the retreat of the strangers, who were armed with rifles, and called them to "come out and be friends." They did so, and by some subtle treachery the two men were killed during the night.
The woman, who was young and handsome, was spared, and, from what we could learn, had been well treated ever since.
"Where did the strangers come from?" we asked.
That they could not tell us. But the woman had since told them that the ship had anchored in the lagoon because she was leaking badly, and that the captain and crew were trying to stop the leak when she began to heel over, and they had barely time to save a few things when she sank. In a few days the captain and crew left the island in the boat, and, rather than face the dangers of a long voyage in such a small boat, the two natives and the woman elected to remain on the island.
"That's a mighty fishy yarn," said Packenham to me. "I daresay these fellows have been doing a little cutting-off business. But then I don't know of any missing vessel. We'll go ashore to-morrow and have a look round."
A little after sunset the skipper and I were leaning over the rail, watching the figures of the natives, as they moved to and fro in the glare of the fires lighted here and there along the beach.
"Hallo!" said Packenham, "here's a canoe coming, with only a woman in it. By thunder! she's travelling, too, and coming straight for the ship."
A few minutes more and the canoe was alongside. The woman hastily picked up a little girl that was sitting in the bottom, looked up, and called out in English—
"Take my little girl, please."
A native sailor leant over the bulwarks and lifted up the child, and the woman clambered after her. Then, seizing the child from the sailor, she flew along the deck and into the cabin.
She was standing facing us as we followed and entered, holding the child tightly to her bosom. The soft light of the cabin lamp fell full upon her features, and we saw that she was very young, and seemed wildly excited.
"Who are you?" we said, when she advanced, put out a trembling hand to us, and said: "Don't you know me, Mr Supercargo? I am Nerida, Taplin's wife." Then she sank on a seat and sobbed violently.
We waited till she regained her composure somewhat, and then I said: "Nerida, where is Taplin?"
"Dead," she said in a voice scarce above a whisper; "only us two are left—I and little Teresa."
Packenham held out his hands to the child. With wondering, timid eyes, she came, and for a moment or two looked doubtingly upwards into the brown, handsome face of the skipper, and then nestled beside him.
For a minute or so the ticking of the cabin clock broke the silence, ere I ventured to ask the one question uppermost in my mind.
"Nerida, how and where did Taplin die?"
"My husband was murdered at sea," she said and then she covered her face with her hands.
"Don't ask her any more now," said Packenham pityingly; "let her tell us to-morrow."
She raised her face. "Yes, I will tell you to-morrow. You will take me away with you, will you not, gentlemen—for my child's sake?"
"Of course," said the captain promptly. And he stretched out his honest hand to her.
"She's a wonderfully pretty woman," said Packenham, as we walked the poop later on, and he glanced down through the open skylight to where she and the child slept peacefully on the cushioned transoms. "How prettily she speaks English, too. Do you think she was fond of her husband, or was it merely excitement that made her cry?—native women are as prone to be as hysterical as our own when under any violent emotion."
"I can only tell you, Packenham, that when I saw her last, five years ago, she was a graceful girl of eighteen, and as full of happiness as a bird is of song. She looks thirty now, and her face is thin and drawn—but I don't say all for love of Taplin."
"That will all wear off by and by," said the skipper confidently.
"Yes," I thought, "and she won't be a widow long."
Next morning Nerida had an hour or two among the prints and muslin in the trade-room, and there was something of the old beauty about her when she sat down to breakfast with us. We were to sail at noon. The leak had been stopped, and Packenham was in high good-humour.
"Nerida," I inquired unthinkingly, "do you know what became of the ALIDA? She never turned up again."
"Yes," she answered; "she is here, at the bottom of the lagoon. Will you come and look at her?"
After breakfast we lowered the dingy, the captain and I pulling. Nerida steered us out to the north end of the lagoon till we reached a spot where the water suddenly deepened. It was, in fact, a deep pool, some three or four hundred feet in diameter, closed in by a continuous wall of coral rock, the top of which, even at low water, would be perhaps two or three fathoms under the surface.
She held up her hands for us to back water, then she gazed over the side into the water.
"Look," she said, "there lies the ALIDA."
We bent over the side of the boat. The waters of the lagoon were as smooth as glass and as clear. We saw two slender rounded columns that seemed to shoot up in a slanting direction from out the vague, blue depths beneath, to within four or five fathoms of the surface of the water. Swarms of gorgeously-hued fish swam and circled in and about the masses of scarlet and golden weed that clothed the columns from their tops downward, and swayed gently to and fro as they glided in and out.
A hawk-bill turtle, huge, black, and misshapen, slid out from beneath the dark ledge of the reef, and swam slowly across the pool, and then, between the masts, sank to the bottom.
"'Twas six years ago," said Nerida, as we raised our heads.
That night, as the PALESTINE sped noiselessly before the trade wind to the westward she told me, in the old Funafuti tongue, the tragedy of the ALIDA.
"The schooner," she said, "sailed very quickly, for on the fifteenth day out from Funafuti we saw the far-off peaks of Strong's Island. I was glad, for Kusaie is not many days' sail from Ponape—and I hated to be on the ship. The man with the blue eyes filled me with fear when he looked at me; and he and the captain and mate were for ever talking amongst themselves in whispers.
"There were five native sailors on board—two were countrymen of mine, and three were Tafitos [Natives of the Gilbert Islands].
"One night we were close to a little island called Mokil [Duperrey's Island], and Taplin and I were awakened by a loud cry on deck; my two countrymen were calling on him to help them. He sprang on deck, pistol in hand, and, behold! the schooner was laid to the wind with the land close to, and the boat alongside, and the three white men were binding my country-men with ropes, because they would not get into the boat.
"'Help us, O friend!' they called to my husband in their own tongue; 'the white men say that if we go not ashore here at Mokil they will kill us. Help us—for they mean evil to thee and Nerida. He with the yellow moustache wants her for his wife.'
"There were quick, fierce words, and then my husband struck Motley on the head with his pistol and felled him, and then pointed it at the mate and the captain, and made them untie the men, and called to the two Tafito sailors who were in the boat to let her tow astern till morning.
"His face was white with the rage that burned in him, and all that night he walked to and fro and let me sleep on the deck near him.
"'To-morrow,' he said, 'I will make this captain land us on Mokil;' it was for that he would not let the sailors come up from the boat.
"At dawn I slept soundly. Then I awoke with a cry of fear, for I heard a shot, and then a groan, and my husband fell across me, and the blood poured out of his mouth and ran down my arms and neck. I struggled to rise, and he tried to draw his pistol, but the man with yellow hair and blue eyes, who stood over him, stabbed him twice in the back. Then the captain and mate seized him by the arms and lifted him up. As his head fell back I saw there was blood streaming from a hole in his chest."
She ceased, and leant her cheek against the face of the little girl, who looked in childish wonder at the tears that streamed down her mother's face.
"They cast him over into the sea with life yet in him, and ere he sank, Motley (that devil with the blue eyes) stood with one foot on the rail and fired another shot, and laughed when he saw the bullet strike. Then he and the other two talked.
"'Let us finish these Pelew men, ere mischief come of it,' said Riedermann, the captain.
"But the others dissuaded him. There was time enough, they said, to kill them. And if they killed them now, there would be but three sailors to work the ship. And Motley looked at me and laughed, and said he, for one, would do no sailor's work yet awhile.
"Then they all trooped below, and took me with them—me, with my husband's blood not yet dried on my hands and bosom. They made me get liquor for them to drink, and they drank and laughed, and Motley put his bloodied hand around my waist and kissed me, and the others laughed still more.
"In a little while Riedermann and the mate were so drunken that no words came from them, and they fell on the cabin floor. Then Motley, who could stand, but staggered as he walked, came and sat beside me and kissed me again, and said he had always loved me; but I pointed to the blood of my husband that stained my skin and clotted my hair together, and besought him to first let me wash it away.
"'Wash it there,' he said, and pointed to his cabin.
"'Nay,' said I, 'see my hair. Let me then go on deck, and I can pour water over my head.'
"But he held my hand tightly as we came up, and my heart died within me; for it was in my mind to spring overboard and follow my husband.
"He called to one of the Tafito men to bring water, but none came; for they, too, were drunken with liquor they had stolen from the hold, where there was plenty in red cases and white cases—gin and brandy. "But my two countrymen were sober; one of them steered the ship, and the other stood beside him with an axe in his hand, for they feared the Tafito men, who are devils when they drink grog.
"'Get some water,' said Motley, to Juan—he who held the axe; and as he brought it, he said, 'How is it, tattooed dog, that thou art so slow to move?' and he struck him in the teeth, and as he struck he fell.
"Ah! that was my time! Ere he could rise I sprang at him, and Juan raised the axe and struck off his right foot; and then Liro, the man who steered, handed me his knife. It was a sharp knife, and I stabbed him, even as he had stabbed my husband, till my arm was tired, and all my hate of him had died away in my heart.
"There was quick work then. My two countrymen went below into the cabin and took Motley's pistol from the table; ... then I heard two shots.
"GUK! He was a fat, heavy man, that Riedermann, the captain; the three of us could scarce drag him up on deck and cast him over the side, with the other two.
"Then Juan and Liro talked, and said: 'Now for these Tafito men; they, too, must die.' They brought up rifles, and went to the forepart of the schooner, where the Tafito men lay in a drunken sleep, and shot them dead.
"In two more days we saw land—the island we have left but now, and because that there were no people living there—only empty houses could we see—Juan and Liro sailed the schooner into the lagoon.
"We took such things on shore as we needed, and then Juan and Liro cut away the topmasts and towed the schooner to the deep pool, where they made holes in her, so that she sank, away out of the sight of men.
"Juan and Liro were kind to me, and when my child was born, five months after we landed, they cared for me tenderly, so that I soon became strong and well.
"Only two ships did we ever see, but they passed far-off like clouds upon the sea-rim; and we thought to live and die there by ourselves. Then there came a ship, bringing back the people who had once lived there. They killed Juan and Liro, but let me and the child live. The rest I have told you.... How is this captain named? ... He is a handsome man, and I like him."
We landed Nerida at Yap, in the Western Carolines. A year afterwards, when I left the PALESTINE, I heard that Packenham had given up the sea, was trading in the Pelew Group, and was permanently married, and that his wife was the only survivor of the ill-fated ALIDA.