Alone, in the most solitary part of the Eastern Pacific, midway between the earthquake-shaken littoral of Chili and Peru, and the thousand palm-clad islets of the Low Archipelago, lies an island of the days "when the world was young." By the lithe-limbed, soft-eyed descendants of the forgotten and mysterious race that once quickened the land, this lonely outlier of the isles of the Southern Seas is called in their soft tongue Rapanui, or the Great Rapa.
A hundred and seventy years ago Roggewein, on the dawn of an Easter Sunday, discerned through the misty, tropic haze the grey outlines of an island under his lee beam, and sailed down upon it.
He landed, and even as the grim and hardy old navigator gazed upon and wondered at the mysteries of the strange island, so this day do the cunning men of science, who, perhaps once in thirty years, go thither in the vain effort to read the secret of an all-but-perished race. And they can tell us but vaguely that the stupendous existing evidences of past glories are of immense and untold age, and show their designers to have been coeval with the builders of the buried cities of Mexico and Peru; beyond that, they can tell us nothing.
Who can solve the problem? What manner of an island king was he who ruled the builders of the great terraced platforms of stone, the carvers of the huge blocks of lava, the hewers-out with rudest tools of the Sphinx-like images of trachyte, whose square, massive, and disdainful faces have for unnumbered centuries gazed upwards and outwards over the rolling, sailless swell of the mid-Pacific?
And the people of Rapa-nui of to-day? you may ask. Search the whole Pacific—from Pylstaart, the southern sentinel of the Friendlies, to the one-time buccaneer-haunted, far-away Pelews; thence eastward through the white-beached coral atolls of the Carolines and Marshalls, and southwards to the cloud-capped Marquesas and the sandy stretches of the Paumotu—and you will find no handsomer men or more graceful women than the light-skinned people of Rapa-nui.
Yet are they but the survivors of a race doomed—doomed from the day that Roggewein in his clumsy, high-pooped frigate first saw their land, and marvelled at the imperishable relics of a dead greatness. With smiling faces they welcomed him—a stranger from an unknown, outside world, with cutlass at waist and pistol in hand—as a god; he left them a legacy of civilisation—a hideous and cruel disease that swept through the amiable and unsuspicious race as an epidemic, and slew its thousands, and scaled with the hand of Death and Silence the eager life that had then filled the square houses of lava in many a town from the wave-beaten cliffs of Terano Kau to Ounipu in the west.
Ask of the people now, "Whence came ye? and whose were the hands that fashioned these mighty images and carved upon these stones?" and in their simple manner they will answer, "From Rapa, under the setting sun, came our fathers; and we were then a great people, even as the ONEONE [sand] of the beach.... Our Great King was it, he whose name is forgotten by us, that caused these temples and cemeteries and terraces to be built; and it was in his time that the forgotten fathers of our fathers carved from out of the stone of the quarries of Terano Kau the great Silent Faces that gaze for ever upward to the sky.... AI-A-AH! ... But it was long ago.... Ah! a great people were we then in those days, and the wild people to the West called us TE TAGATA TE PITO HENUA (the people who live at the end of the world) .... and we know no more."
And here the knowledge and traditions of a broken people begin and end.
A soft, cool morning in November, 187-. Between Ducie and Pitcairn Islands two American whale-ships cruise lazily along to the gentle breath of the south-east trades, when the look-out from both vessels see a third sail bearing down upon them. In a few hours she is close enough to be recognised as one of the luckiest sperm whalers of the fleet—the brig POCAHONTAS, of Martha's Vineyard.
Within a quarter of mile of the two ships—the NASSAU and the DAGGET—the newcomer backs her foreyard and hauls up her mainsail. A cheer rises from the ships. She wants to "gam," I.E. to gossip. With eager hands four boats are lowered from the two ships, and the captains and second mates of each are soon racing for the POCAHONTAS.
The skipper of the brig, after shaking hands with his visitors and making the usual inquiries as to their luck, number of days out from New Bedford, etc., led the way to his cabin, and, calling his Portuguese steward, had liquor and a box of cigars brought out. The captain of the POCAHONTAS was a little, withered-up old man with sharp, deep-set eyes of brightest blue, and had the reputation of possessing the most fiery and excitable temper of any of the captains of the sixty or seventy American whale-ships that in those days cruised the Pacific from the West Coast of South America to Gaum in the Ladrones.
After drinking some of his potent New England rum with his visitors, and having answered all their queries, the master of the POCAHONTAS inquired if they had seen anything of a Chilian man-of-war further to the eastward. No, they had not.
"Then just settle down, gentlemen, for awhile, and I'll tell you one of the curiousest things that I ever saw or heard of. I've logged partiklars of the whole business, and when I get to Oahu (Honolulu) I mean to nar-rate just all I do know to Father Damon of the Honolulu FRIEND. Thar's nothing like a newspaper fur showin' a man up when he's been up to any onnatural villainy, and thinks no one will ever know anything about it. So just take hold and listen."
The two captains nodded, and he told them this.
Ten days previously, when close in to barren and isolated Sala-y-Gomez, the POCAHONTAS had spoken the Chilian corvette O'HIGGINS, bound from Easter Island to Valparaiso. The captain of the corvette entertained the American master courteously, and explained his ship's presence so far to the eastward, by stating that the Government had instructed him to call at Easter Island, and pick up an Englishman in the Chilian service, who had been sent there to examine and report on the colossal statues and mysterious terraces of that lonely island. The Englishman, as Commander Gallegos said, was a valued servant of the Republic, and had for some years served in its Navy as a surgeon on board EL ALMIRANTE COCHRANE, the flag-ship. He had left Valparaiso in the whale-ship COMBOY with the intention of remaining three months on the island. At the end of that time a war vessel was to call and convey him back to Chili. But in less than two months the Republic was in the throes of a deadly struggle with Peru—here the commander of the O'HIGGINS bowed to the American captain, and, pointing to a huge scar that traversed his bronzed face from temple to chin, said, "in which I had the honour to receive this, and promotion"—and nearly two years had elapsed ere the Government had time to think again of the English scientist and his mission. Peace restored, the O'HIGGINS was ordered to proceed to the island and bring him back; and as the character of the natives was not well known, and it was feared he might have been killed, Commander Gallegos was instructed to execute summary justice upon the people of the island, if such was the case.
But, the Chilian officer said, on reaching the island he had found the natives to be very peaceable and inoffensive, and, although much alarmed at the appearance of his armed landing party from the corvette, they had given him a letter from the Englishman, and had satisfied him that Dr Francis —— had remained with them for some twelve months only, and had then left the island in a passing whale-ship, and Commander Gallegos, making them suitable presents, bade them good-bye, and steamed away to Valparaiso.
This was all the polite little commander had to say, and, after a farewell glass of wine, his visitor rose to go, when the captain of the corvette casually inquired if the POCAHONTAS was likely to call at the island.
"I ask you," he said in his perfect English, "because one of my ship's company deserted there. You, senor, may possibly meet with him there. Yet he is of no value, and he is no sailor, and but a lad. He was very ill most of the time, and this was his first voyage. I took him ashore with me in my boat, as he besought me eagerly to do so, and the little devil ran away and hid, or was hidden by the natives."
"Why didn't you get him back?" asked the captain of the POCAHONTAS.
"That was easy enough, but"—and the commander raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders—"of what use? He was no use to the corvette. Better for him to stay there, and perhaps recover, than to die on board the O'HIGGINS and be thrown to the blue sharks. Possibly, senor, you may find him well, and it may suit you to take him to your good ship, and teach him the business of catching the whale. My trade is to show my crew how to fight, and such as he are of no value for that."
Then the two captains bade each other farewell, and in another hour the redoubtable O'HIGGINS, with a black trail of smoke streaming astern, was ten miles away on her course to Valparaiso.
A week after the POCAHONTAS lay becalmed close in to the lee side of Rapa-nui, and within sight of the houses of the principal village. The captain, always ready to get a "green" hand, was thinking of the chances of his securing the Chilian deserter, and decided to lower a boat and try. Taking four men with him, he pulled ashore, and landed at the village of Hagaroa.
Some sixty or seventy natives clustered round the boat as she touched the shore. With smiling faces and outstretched hands they surrounded the captain, and pressed upon him their simple gifts of ripe bananas and fish baked in leaves, begging him to first eat a little and then walk with them to Mataveri, their largest village, distant a mile, where preparations were being made to welcome him formally. The skipper, nothing loth, bade his crew not to go too far away in their rambles, and, accompanied by his boatsteerer, was about to set off with the natives, when he remembered the object of his visit, and asked a big, well-made woman, the only native present that could speak English, "Where is the man you hid from the man-of-war?"
There was a dead silence, and for nearly half a minute no one spoke. The keen blue eyes of the American looked from one face to another inquiringly, and then settled on the fat, good-natured features of Varua, the big woman.
Holding her hands, palms upwards, to the captain, she endeavoured to speak, and then, to his astonishment, he saw that her dark eyes were filled with tears. And then, as if moved with some sudden and sorrowful emotion, a number of other women and young girls, murmuring softly in pitying tones, "E MATE! E MATE!" ["Dead! Dead!"] came to his side, and held their hands out to him with the same supplicating gesture.
The captain was puzzled. For all his island wanderings and cruises he had no knowledge of any Polynesian dialect, and the tearful muteness of the fat Varua was still unbroken. At last she placed one hand on his sleeve, and, pointing land-ward with the other, said, in her gentle voice, "Come," and taking his hand in hers, she led the way, the rest of the people following in silence.
For about half a mile they walked behind the captain and his boatsteerer and the woman Varua without uttering a word. Presently Varua stopped, and called out the name of "Taku" in a low voice.
A fine, handsome native, partly clothed in European sailor's dress, stepped apart from the others and came to her.
Turning to the captain, she said, "This is Taku the Sailor. He can speak a little English and much Spanish. I tell him now to come with us, for he has a paper."
Although not understanding the relevancy of her remark, the captain nodded, and then with gentle insistence Varua and the other women urged him on, and they again set out.
A few minutes more, and they were at the foot of one of the massive-stoned and ancient PAPAKU, or cemeteries, on the walls of which were a number of huge images carved from trachyte, and representing the trunk of the human body. Some of the figures bore on their heads crowns of red tufa, and the aspect of all was towards the ocean. At the foot of the wall of the PAPAKU were a number of prone figures, with hands and arms sculptured in low relief, the outspread fingers clasping the hips.
About a cable length from the wall stood two stone houses—memorials of the olden time—and it was to these that Varua and the two white men, attended now by women only, directed their steps.
The strange, unearthly stillness of the place, the low whispers of the women, the array of colossal figures with sphinx-like faces set to the sea, and the unutterable air of sadness that enwrapped the whole scene, overawed even the unimaginative mind of the rough whaling captain, and he experienced a curious feeling of relief when his gentle-voiced guide entered through the open doorway the largest of the two houses, and, in a whisper, bade him follow.
A delightful sense of coolness was his first sensation on entering, and then with noiseless step the other women followed and seated themselves on the ground.
Still clasping his hand, Varua led him to the farther end of the house, and pointed to a motionless figure that lay on a couch of mats, covered with a large piece of navy-blue calico. At each side of the couch sat a young native girl, and their dark, luminous eyes, shining star-like from out the wealth of black, glossy hair that fell upon their bronzed shoulders, turned wonderingly upon the stranger who had broken in upon their watch.
Motioning the girls aside, Varua released her hold of the white man's hand and drew the cloth from off the figure, and the seaman's pitying glance fell upon the pale, sweet features of a young white girl.
But for the unmistakable pallid hue of death he thought at first that she slept. In the thin, delicate hands, crossed upon her bosom, there was placed, after the manner of those of her faith, a small metal crucifix. Her hair, silky and jet black, was short like a man's, and the exquisitely-modelled features, which even the coldness of death had not robbed of their beauty, showed the Spanish blood that, but a few hours before, had coursed through her veins.
Slowly the old seaman drew the covering over the still features, and, with an unusual emotion stirring his rude nature, he rose, and, followed by Varua, walked outside and sat upon a broken pillar of lava that lay under the wall of the PAPAKU.
Calling his boatsteerer, he ordered him to return to the beach and go off to the ship with instructions to the mate to have a coffin made as quickly as possible and send it ashore; and then, at a glance from Varua, who smiled a grave approval as she listened to his orders, he followed her and the man she called Taku into the smaller of the two houses.
Round about the inside walls of this ancient dwelling of a forgotten race were placed a number of seamen's chests made of cedar and camphor wood—the LARES and PENATES of most Polynesian houses. The gravelled floor was covered with prettily-ornamented mats of FALA (the screw-palm).
Seating herself, with Taku the Sailor, on the mats, Varua motioned the captain to one of the boxes, and then told him a tale that moved him—rough, fierce, and tyrannical as was his nature—to the deepest pity.
"It is not yet twenty days since the fighting PAHI AFI (steamer) came here, and we of Mataveri saw the boat full of armed men land on the beach at Hagaroa. Filled with fear were we; but yet as we had done no wrong we stood on the beach to welcome. And, ere the armed men had left the boat, we knew them to be the SIPANIOLA from Chili—the same as those that came here ten years ago in three ships, and seized and bound three hundred and six of our men, and carried them away for slaves to the land of the Tae Manu, and of whom none but four ever returned to Rapa-nui. And then we trembled again."
(She spoke of the cruel outrage of 1862, when three Peruvian slave-ships took away over three hundred islanders to perish on the guano-fields of the Chincha Islands).
"The chief of the ship was a little man, and he called out to us in the tongue of Chili, 'Have no fear,' and took a little gun from out its case of skin that hung by his side, and giving it to a man in the boat, stepped over to us, and took our hands in his.
"'Is there none among ye that speak my tongue?' he said quickly.
"Now, this man here, Taku the Sailor, speaketh the tongue of Chili, but he feared to tell it, lest they might take him away for a sailor; so he held his lips tight.
"Then I, who for six years dwelt with English people at Tahiti, was pushed forward by those behind me and made to talk in English; and lo! the little man spoke in your tongue even as quick as he did in that of Chili. And then he told us that he came for Farani [Frank].
"Now this Farani was a young white man of PERETANIA (England), big and strong. He came to us a year and a half ago. He was rich, and had with him chests filled with presents for us of Rapa-nui; and he told us that he came to live a while among us, and look upon the houses of stone and the Faces of the Silent that gaze out upon the sea. For a year he dwelt with us and became as one of ourselves, and we loved him; and then, because no ship came, he began to weary and be sad. At last a ship—like thine, one that hunts for the whale—came, and Farani called us together, and placed a letter in the hands of the chief at Mataveri, and said: 'If it so be that a ship cometh from Chili, give these my words to the captain, and all will be well.' Then he bade us farewell and was gone.
"All this I said in quick words, and then we gave to the little fighting chief the letter Farani had written. When he had counted the words in the letter, he said: 'BUENO, it is well,' and called to his men, and they brought out many gifts for us from the boat—cloth, and garments for men and women, and two great bags of canvas filled with tobacco. AI-A-AH! many presents he gave us—this because of the good words Farani had set down in the letter. Then the little chief said to me, 'Let these my men walk where they list, and I will go with thee to Mataveri and talk with the chief.'
"So the sailors came out of the boats carrying their guns and swords in their hands, but the little chief, whose AVAGUTU (moustache) stuck out on each side of his face like the wings of a flying-fish when it leaps in terror from the mouth of the hungry bonito, spoke angrily, and they laid their guns and swords back in the boats.
"So the sailors went hither and thither with our young men and girls; and, although at that time I knew it not, she, who now is not, was one of them, and walked alone.
"Then I, and Taku the Sailor, and the little sea-chief came to the houses of Mataveri, and he stayed awhile and spoke good words to us. And we, although we fear the men of Chili for the wrong they once did us, were yet glad to listen, for we also are of their faith.
"As we talked, there came inside the house a young girl named Temeteri, whom, when Farani had been with us for two months, he had taken for wife; and she bore him a son. But from the day that he had sailed away she became sick with grief; and when, after many months, she told me that Farani had said he would return to her, my heart was heavy, for I know the ways of white men with us women of brown skins. Yet I feared to tell her he lied and would return no more. Now, this girl Temeteri was sought after by a man named Huarani, the son of Heremai, who desired to marry her now that Farani had gone, and he urged her to question the chief of the fighting ship, and ask him if Farani would return.
"So I spoke of Temeteri. He laughed and shook his head, and said: 'Nay, Farani the Englishman will return no more; but yet one so beautiful as she,' and he pointed to Temeteri, 'should have many lovers and know no grief. Let her marry again and forget him, and this is my marriage gift to her,' and he threw a big golden coin upon the mat on which the girl sat.
"She took it in her hand and threw it far out through the doorway with bitter words, and rose and went away to her child.
"Then the little captain went back to the boat and called his men to him, and lo! one was gone. Ah! he was angry, and a great scar that ran down one side of his face grew red with rage. But soon he laughed, and said to us: 'See, there be one of my people hidden away from me. Yet he is but a boy, and sick; and I care not to stay and search for him. Let him be thy care so that he wanders not away and perishes among the broken lava; he will be in good hands among the people of Rapa-nui.' With that he bade us farewell, and in but a little time the great fighting ship had gone away towards the rising sun.
"All that day and the next we searched, but found not him who had hidden away; but in the night of the second day, when it rained heavily, and Taku (who is my brother's son) and I and my two children worked at the making of a KUPEGA (net), he whom we had sought came to the door. And as we looked our hearts were filled with pity, for, as he put out his hands to us, he staggered and fell to the ground.
"So Taku—who is a man of a good heart—and I lifted him up and carried him to a bed of soft mats, and as I placed my hand on his bosom to see if he was dead, lo! it was soft as a woman's, and I saw that the stranger was a young girl!
"I took from her the wet garments and brought warm clothes of MAMOE (blankets), and Taku made a great fire, and we rubbed her cold body and her hands and feet till her life came back to her again, and she sat up and ate a little beaten-up taro. When the night and the dawn touched she slept again.
"The sun was high when the white girl awoke, and fear leapt into her eyes when she saw the house filled with people who came to question Taku and me about the stranger. With them came the girl Temeteri, whose head was still filled with foolish thoughts of Farani, her white lover.
"I went to the strange girl, put my arm around her, and spoke, but though she smiled and answered in a little voice, I understood her not, for I know none of the tongue of Chili. But yet she leaned her head against my bosom, and her eyes that were as big and bright as Fetuaho, the star of the morning, looked up into mine and smiled through their tears.
"There was a creat buzzing of talk among the women. Some came to her and touched her hands and forehead, and said: 'Let thy trembling cease; we of Rapa-nui will be kind to the white girl.'
"And as the people thronged about her and talked, she shook her head and her eyes sought mine, and hot tears splashed upon my hand. Then the mother of Temeteri raised her voice and called to Taku the Sailor, and said: 'O Taku, thou who knowest her tongue, ask her of Farani, my white son, the husband of my daughter.'
"The young girls in the house laughed scornfully at old Pohere, for some of them had loved Farani, who yet had put them all aside for Temeteri, whose beauty exceeded theirs; and so they hated her and laughed at her mother. Then Taku, being pressed by old Pohere, spoke in the tongue of Chili, but not of Temeteri.
"Ah! She sprang to her feet and talked then! and the flying words chased one another from her lips; and these things told she to Taku:— She had hidden among the broken lava and watched the little captain come back to the boat and bid us farewell. Then when night came she had crept out and gone far over to the great PAPAKU, and lay down to hide again, for she feared the fighting ship might return to seek her. And all that day she lay hidden in the lava till night fell upon her again, and hunger drove her to seek the faces of men. In the rain she all but perished, till God brought her feet to this, my house.
"Then said Taku the Sailor: 'Why didst thou flee from the ship?'
"The white girl put her hands to her face and wept, and said: 'Bring me my jacket.'
"I gave to her the blue sailor's jacket, and from inside of it she took a little flat thing and placed it in her bosom.
"Again said old Pohere to Taku: 'O man of slow tongue, ask her of Farani.' So he asked in this wise:
"'See, O White Girl, that is Pohere, the mother of Temeteri, who bore a son to the white man that came here to look upon the Silent Faces; and because he came from thy land, and because of the heart of Temeteri, which is dried up for love of him, does this foolish old woman ask thee if thou hast seen him; for long months ago he left Rapa-nui. In our tongue we call him Farani.'
"The girl looked at Taku the Sailor, and her lips moved, but no words came. Then from her bosom she took the little flat thing and held it to him, but sickness was in her hand so that it trembled, and that which she held fell to the ground. So Taku stooped and picked it up from where it lay on the mat, and looked, and his eyes blazed, and he shouted out 'AUE!' for it was the face of Farani that looked into his! And as he held it up in his hand to the people, they, too, shouted in wonder; and then the girl Temeteri cast aside those that stood about her, and tore it from his hand and fled.
"'Who is she?' said the white girl, in a weak voice to Taku; 'and why hath she robbed me of that which is dear to me?' and Taku was ashamed, and turned his face away from her because of two things—his heart was sore for Temeteri, who is a blood relation, and was shamed because her white lover had deserted her; and he was full of pity for the white girl's tears. So he said nought.
"The girl raised herself, and her hand caught Taku by the arm, and these were her words: 'O man, for the love of Jesu Christ, tell me what was this woman Temeteri to my husband?'
"Now Taku the Sailor was sore troubled, and felt it hard to hurt her heart, yet he said: 'Was Farani, the Englishman, thy husband?'
"She wept again, 'He was my husband.'
"'Why left he one as fair as thee?' said Taku, in wonder.
"She shook her head. 'I know not, except he loved to look upon strange lands; yet he loved me.'
"'He is a bad man,' said Taku. 'He loved others as well as thee. The girl that fled but now with his picture was wife to him here. He loved her, and she bore him a son.'
"The girl's head fell on my shoulder, and her eyes closed, and she became as dead; and lo! in a little while, as she strove to speak, blood poured from her mouth and ran down over her bosom.
"'It is the hand of Death,' said Taku the Sailor.
"Where she now lies, there died she, at about the hour when the people of Vaihou saw the sails of thy ship.
"We have no priest here, for the good father that was here three years ago is now silent [i.e. dead]; yet did Taku and I pray with her. And ere she died she said she would set down some words on paper; so Alrema, my little daughter, hastened to Mataveri, and the chief sent back some paper and VAI TUHI (ink) that had belonged to the good priest. So with weak hand she set down some words, but even as she wrote she rose up and threw out her hands, and called out: 'Francisco! Francisco!' and fell back, and was dead."
The captain of the POCAHONTAS dashed the now fast-falling tears from his eyes, and with his rough old heart swelling with pity for the poor wanderer, took from Taku the sheet of paper on which the heart-broken girl's last words were traced.
Ere he could read it a low murmur of voices outside told him his crew had returned. They carried a rude wooden shell, and then with bared heads the captain and boatsteerer entered the house where she lay.
Again the old man raised the piece of navy blue cloth from off the sweet, sad face, and a heavy tear dropped down upon her forehead. Then, aided by the gentle, sympathetic women, his task was soon finished, and two of his crew entered and carried their burden to its grave. Service there was none—only the prayers and tears of the brown women of Rapa-nui.
Ere he said farewell the captain of the whale-ship placed money in the hands of Varua and Taku. They drew back, hurt and mortified. Seeing his mistake, the seaman desired Varua to give the money to the girl Temeteri.
"Nay, sir," said Varua, "she would but give me bitter words. Even when she who is now silent was not yet cold, Temeteri came to the door of the house where she lay and spat twice on the ground, and taking up gravel in her hand cast it at her, and cursed her in the name of our old heathen gods. And as for money, we here in Rapa-nui need it not. May Christ protect thee on the sea. Farewell!"
The captain of the POCAHONTAS rose and came to the cabin table, and motioning to his guests to fill their glasses, said—
"'Tis a real sad story, gentlemen, and if I should ever run across Doctor Francis, I should talk some to him. But see here. Here is my log; my mate, who is a fancy writist, wrote it at my dictation. I can't show you the letter that the pore creature herself wrote; that I ain't going to show to any one."
The two captains rose and stood beside him, and read the entry in the log of the POCAHONTAS.
"November 28, 187-.
This day I landed at Easter Island, to try and obtain as a 'green' hand a young Chilian seaman who, the captain of the Chilian corvette O'HIGGINS informed me, had run away there. On landing I was shown the body of a young girl, whom the natives stated to be the deserter. She had died that morning. Buried her as decently as circumstances would permit. From a letter she wrote on the morning of her death I learned her name to be Senora Teresa T——. Her husband, Dr Francis T——, was an Englishman in the service of the Chilian Republic. He was sent out on a scientific mission to the island, and his wife followed him in the O'HIGGINS disguised as a blue-jacket. I should take her to have been about nineteen years of age.
"SPENCE ELDRIDGE, MASTER. "MANUAL LEGASPE, 2ND OFFICER."Brig POCAHONTAS, of Martha's Vineyard, U.S.A."
"Well, that's curious now," said the skipper of the NASSAU; "why, I knew that man. He left the island in the KING DARIUS, of New Bedford, and landed at Ponape in the Caroline Group, whar those underground ruins are at Metalanien Harbour. Guess he wanted to potter around there a bit. But he got inter some sorter trouble among the natives there, an' he got shot."
"Aye," said the captain of the DAGGET, "I remember the affair. I was mate of the JOSEPHINE, and we were lying at Jakoits Harbour when he was killed, and now I remember the name too. Waal, he wasn't much account, anyhow."
Ten years ago a wandering white man stood, with Taku the Sailor, at the base of the wall of the great PAPAKU, and the native pointed out the last resting-place of the wanderer. There, under the shadow of the Silent Faces of Stone, the brave and loving heart that dared so much is at peace for ever.
One day a trading vessel lay becalmed off Tatakoto, in the Paumotu Archipelago, and the captain and supercargo, taking a couple of native sailors with them, went ashore at dawn to catch some turtle. The turtle were plentiful and easily caught, and after half a dozen had been put in the boat, the two white men strolled along the white hard beach. The captain—old, grizzled, and grim—seemed to know the place well, and led the way.
The island is very narrow, and as they left the beach and gained the shade of the forest of coconuts that grew to the margin of high-water mark, they could see, between the tall, stately palms, the placid waters of the lagoon, and a mile or so across, the inner beach of the weather side of the island.
For a quarter of a mile or so the two men walked on till the widest part of the island was reached. Here, under the shadow of some giant PUKA trees, the old skipper stopped and sat down on a roughly hewn slab of coral, the remains of one of those MARAE or heathen temples that are to be found almost anywhere in the islands of Eastern Polynesia.
"I knew this place well, once," he said, as he pulled out his pipe. "I used to come here when I was sailing one of Brander's vessels out of Tahiti. As we have done now we did then—came here for turtle. No natives have lived here for the past forty years. Did you ever hear of Brantley?"
"Yes," answered the supercargo, "but he died long ago, did he not?"
"Aye, he died here, and his wife and sister too. They all lie here in this old MARAE."
And then he told the story of Brantley.
It was six years since Brantley, with his companions in misery, had drifted ashore at lonely Vahitahi in the Paumotu Group, and the kindly-hearted people had gazed with pitying horror upon the dreadful beings that, muttering and gibbering to each other, lay in the bottom of the boat, and pointed with long talon-like fingers to their burnt and bloody thirst-tortured lips.
And now as he sits in the doorway of his thatched house, and gazes dreamily out upon the long curve of creamy beach and wind-swayed line of palms that fringe the leeward side of his island home, Brantley passes a brown hand slowly up and down his sun-bronzed cheek, and thinks of the past.
He was so full of life—of the very joy of living—that time six years ago when he sailed from Auckland on that fateful voyage in the DORIS. It was his first voyage as captain, and the ship was his own, and even now he remembers with a curious time-dulled pang the last words of his only sister—the Doris after whom he had called his new ship—as she had kissed him farewell—"I am so glad, Fred, to hear them call you 'Captain Brantley.'"
And the voyage—the wild feverish desire to make a record passage to 'Frisco and back; the earnest words of poor old white-headed Lutton, the mate, "not to carry on so at night going through the Paumotu Group"; that awful midnight crash when the DORIS ran hopelessly into the wild boil of roaring surf on Tuanake Reef; the white, despairing faces of five of his men, who, with curses in their eyes upon his folly, were swept out of sight into the awful blackness of the night. And then the days in the boat with the six survivors! Ah! the memory of that will chill his blood to his dying day. Men have had to do that which he and the two who came through alive with him had done.
How long they endured that black agony of suffering he knew not. By common consent none of them ever spoke of it again.
Three months after they had drifted ashore, a passing sperm whaler, cruising through the group, took away the two seamen, and then Brantley, after bidding them a silent farewell, had, with bitter despair gnawing at his heart, turned his face away from the ship, and walked back into the palm-shaded village.
"I will never go back again," he had said to himself. And perhaps he was right; for when the DORIS went to pieces on Tuanake his hope and fortunes went with her, and, save for that other Doris, there was no one in the world who cared for him. He was not the man to face the world again with: "Why, he lost his first ship!" whispered among his acquaintances.
And this is how Brantley—young, handsome, and as smart a seaman (save for that one fatal mistake) as ever trod a deck—became Paranili the PAPALAGI, and was living out his life among the people of solitary Vahitahi.
Ere a year had passed a trading captain bound to the Gambier Islands had given him a small stock of trade goods, and the thought of Doris had been his salvation. Only for her he would have sunk to the life of a mere idle, gin-drinking, and dissolute beach-comber. As it was, his steady, straightforward life among the people of the island was a big factor to his business success. And so every year he sent money to Doris by some passing whaler or Tahitian trading schooner, but twice only had he got letters from her; and each time she had said: "Let me come to you, Fred. We are alone in the world, and may never meet again else. Sometimes I awake in the night with a sudden fear. Let me come; my heart is breaking with the loneliness of my life here, so far away from you."
But two years ago he had done that which would keep Doris from ever coming to him, he thought. He had married a young native girl—that is, taken her to wife in the Paumotuan fashion—and surely Doris, with her old-fashioned notions of right and wrong, would grieve bitterly if she knew it.
Presently he rose, talking to himself as is the wont of those who have lived long apart from all white associations, and sauntered up and down the shady path at the side of his dwelling, thinking of Doris, and if he would ever see her again. Then he entered the house.
Seated on the matted floor with her face turned from him was a young native girl—Luita, his wife. She was making a hat from the bleached strands of the pandanus leaf, and as she worked she sang softly to herself in the semi-Tahitian tongue of her people.
Brantley, lazily stretching himself out on a rough mat-covered couch, turned towards her, and watched the slender, supple fingers—covered, in Polynesian fashion, with heavy gold rings—as they deftly drew out the snow-white strands of the pandanus. The long, glossy, black waves of hair that fell over her bare back and bosom like a mantle of night hid her face from his view, and the man let his glance rest in contented admiration upon the graceful curves of the youthful figure; then he sighed softly, and again his eyes turned to the wide, sailless expanse of the Pacific, that lay shimmering and sparkling before him under a cloudless sky of blue, and he thought again of Doris.
Steadily the little hands worked in and out among the snowy strands, and now and then, as she came to the TARI, or refrain, of the old Paumotuan love-song, her soft liquid tones would blend with the quavering treble of children that played outside.
"Terunavahori, teeth of pearl,Knit the sandals for Talaloo's feet,Sandals of AFA thick and strong,Bind them well with thy long black hair."
Suddenly the song ceased, and with a quick movement of her shoulders she threw back the cloud of hair that fell around her arms and bosom, looked up at Brantley and laughed, and, striking the mat on which she sat with her open palm, said—
"HAERE MAI, PARANILI."
He rose from the couch and stooped beside her, with his hands resting on his knees, and bending his brow in mock criticism, regarded her handiwork intently.
Springing to her feet, hat in hand, and placing her two hands on his now erect shoulders, she looked into his face—darker far than her own—and said with a smile—
"Behold, Paranili, thy PULOU is finished, save for a band of black PU'AVA which thou shalt give me from the store."
"Mine?" said Brantley, in pretended ignorance. "Why labour so for me? Are there not hats in plenty on Vahitahi?"
"True, O thankless one! but the women of the village say that thou lookest upon me as a fool because I can neither make mats nor do many other things such as becometh a wife. And for this did Merani, my cousin, teach me how to make a wide hat of FALA to shield thy face from the sun when thou art out upon the pearling grounds. AI-E-EH! my husband, but thy face and neck and hands are as dark as those of the people of Makatea—they who are for ever in their canoes.... See, Paranili, bend thy head. AI-E-EH! thou art a tall man, my husband," and she trilled a happy, rippling laugh as she placed the hat on his head.
He placed one hand around the pliant waist and under the mantle of hair, and drew her towards him, and then, moved by a sudden emotion, kissed her soft, red lips.
"Luita," he asked, "would it hurt thee if I were to go away?"
The girl drew away from him, and, for the first time in two years Brantley saw an angry flush tinge her cheek a dusky red.
"Ah!"—the contemptuous ring in her voice made the man's eyes drop—"thou art like all White Men—was there ever one who was faithful? What other woman is it that thou desirest? Is it Nia of Ahunui—she who, when thy boat lay anchored in the lagoon, swam off at night and asked thee for thy love—the shameless Nia?"
The angry light in the black eyes shone fiercely, and the dull red on her cheeks had changed to the livid paleness of passion.
Brantley, holding the rim of the hat over his mouth, laughed secretly, pleased at her first outburst of jealousy. Then his natural manliness asserted itself.
"Come here," he said.
Somewhat sullenly the girl obeyed and edged up beside him with face bent down. He put his hand upon hers, and for a few seconds looked at the delicate tracery of tattooing that, on the back, ran in thin blue lines from the finger tips to the wrists.
"What a d——d pity!" he muttered to himself; "this infernal tattooing would give the poor devil away anywhere in civilization. Her skin is not as dark as that pretty creole I was so sweet on in Galveston ten years ago ... Well, she's good enough for a broken man like me—but I can't take her away—that's certain."
A heavy tear splashed on his hand, and then he pulled her to him, almost savagely.
"See, Luita. I did but ask to try thee. Have no fear. Thy land is mine for ever."
The girl looked up, and in an instant her face, wet with tears, was laid against his breast. Still caressing the dark head that lay upon his chest, Brantley stooped and whispered something. The little tattooed hand released its clasp of his arm and struck him a playful blow.
"And would that bind thee more to me, and to the ways of these our people of Vahitahi," she asked, with still buried face.
"Aye," answered the ex-captain slowly, "for I have none but thee in the world to care for."
She turned her face up. "Is there none—not even one woman in far-off Beretania, whose face comes to thee in the darkness."
Brantley shook his head sadly. Of course there was Doris, he thought, but he had never spoken of her. Sometimes when the longing to see her again would come upon him, he would have talked of her to his native wife, but he was by nature an uncommunicative man, and the thought of how Doris must feel her loneliness touched him with remorse and made him silent.
Another year passed, and matters had gone well with Brantley. Ten months before he had dropped on one of the best patches of shell in the Paumotus, and to-day, as he sits writing and smoking in the big room of his house, he looks contentedly out through the open door to a little white painted schooner that lay at anchor on the calm waters of the lagoon. He had just come back from Tahiti with her, and the two thousand dollars he had paid for the vessel was an easy matter for a man who was now making a thousand dollars a month.
"What a stroke of luck!" he writes to Doris. "Had I gone back to Sydney, where would I be now?—a mate, I suppose, on some deep-sea ship, earning twelve or fourteen pounds a month. Another year or two like this, and I can go back a made man. Some day, my dear, I may; but I will come back here again. The ways of the people have become my ways."
He laid down his pen and came to the door, and stood thinking awhile and listening to the gentle rustle of the palms as they swayed their lofty plumes to the breezy trade wind.
"Yes," he thought, "I would like to go and see Doris, but I can't take Luita, and so it cannot be. How that girl suspects me even now. When I went to Tahiti to buy the schooner, I believe she thought she would never see me again.... What a fool I am! Doris is all right, I suppose, although it is a year since I had a letter ... and I—could any man want more. I don't believe there's a soul on the island but thinks as much of me as Luita herself does; and, by G-d! she's a pearl—even though she is only a native girl. No, I'll stay here; 'Kapeni Paranili' will always be a big man in the Paumotus, but Fred Brantley would be nobody in Sydney—only a common merchant skipper who had made money in the islands.... And perhaps Doris is married."
So he thought and talked to himself, listening the while to the soft symphony of the swaying palm-tops and the subdued murmur of the surf as the rollers crashed on the distant line of reef away to leeward. Of late these fleeting visions of the outside world—that quick, busy world, whose memories, save for those of Doris, were all but dead to him—had become more frequent; but the calm, placid happiness of his existence, and that strange, fatal glamour that for ever enwraps the minds of those who wander in the islands of the sunlit sea—as the old Spanish navigators called Polynesia—had woven its spell too strongly over his nature to be broken. And now, as the murmur of women's voices caused him to turn his head to the shady end of the verandah, the dark, dreamy eyes of Luita, who with her women attendants sat there playing with her child, looked out at him from beneath their long lashes, and told him his captivity was complete.
A week afterwards the people of Vahitahi were clustered on the beach putting supplies of native food in the schooner's boat. That night he was to sail again for the pearling grounds at Matahiva lagoon, and would be away three months.
One by one the people bade him adieu, and then stood apart while he said farewell to Luita.
"E MAHINA TOLU [Only three months], little one," he said, "why such a gloomy face?"
The girl shook her head, and her mouth twitched. "But the MITI [dream], Paranili—the MITI of my mother. She is wise in the things that are hidden; for she is one of those who believe in the old gods of Vahitahi.... And there are many here of the new LOTU [Faith, i.e. Christianity] who yet believe in the old gods. And, see, she has dreamed of this unknown evil to thee twice; and twice have the voices of those who are silent in the MARAE called to me in the night, and said: 'He must not go; he must not go.'"
Knowing well how the old superstitious taint ran riot in the imaginative native mind, Brantley did not attempt to reason, but sought to gently disengage her hands from his arm.
She dropped on the sand at his feet and clasped his knees, and a long, wailing note of grief rang out—
"AUE! AUE! my husband! if it so be that thou dost not heed the voices that call in the night, then, out of thy love for me and our child, let me come also. Then, if evil befall thee, let us perish together."
Brantley raised his hand and pointed to the bowed and weeping figure. Some women came and lifted her up. Then taking the tender face between his rough hands, he bent his head to hers, sprang into the boat, and was gone.
With ten tons of shell snugly stowed in her hold, the little Tamariki was heading back for Vahitahi after barely two months' absence. Brantley, as he leant over the rail and watched the swirl and eddy of the creamy phosphorescence that hissed and bubbled under the vessel's stern, felt well satisfied.
It was the hour of dawn, and the native at the tiller sang, as the stars began to pale before the red flush that tinged the sky to windward, a low chant of farewell to Fetuaho, the star of the morning, and then he called to Brantley, who to all his crew was always "Paranili," and never "Kapeni [Captain]," and pointed with his naked, tattooed arm away to leeward, where the low outlines of an island began to show.
"Look, Paranili, that is Tatakoto, the place I have told thee of, where the turtle makes the white beach to look black. Would it not be well for us to take some home to Vahitahi?"
"Thou glutton!" said Brantley, good-humouredly, "dost thou think I am like to lose a day so that thou and thy friends may fill thy stomachs with turtle meat?"
Rua Manu laughed, and showed his white, even teeth. "Nay, Paranili, not for that alone; but it is a great place, that Tatakoto, and thou hast never landed there to look, and Luita hath said that some day she would ask thee to take her there; for, though she was born at Vahitahi, her blood is that of the people of Tatakoto, who have long since lain silent in the MARAES."
Brantley had often heard her speak of it, this solitary spot in the wide Pacific, and now, as he looked at the pretty, verdure-clad island against the weather shore of which the thundering rollers burst with a muffled roar, he was surprised at its length and extent, and decided to pay it a visit some day.
"Not now, Rua," he said to the steersman, "but it shall be soon. Are there many coconuts there?"
"Many? May I perish, but the trees are as the sand of the sea, and the nuts lie thick upon the ground. AI-E-EH! and the robber crabs are in thousands, and fat; and the sea-birds' eggs!"
"Glutton again! Be content. In a little while we and as many of the people of Vahitahi as the schooner will carry will go there and stay for the turtle season."
Three days afterwards the schooner was within fifty miles of his island home, when Brantley was aroused at daylight from his watch below by the cry of "TE PAHI!" (a ship!) and hastening on deck he saw a large vessel bearing down upon them. In half an hour she was close to, and Brantley recognised her as a brig from Tahiti, that occasionally made a trading voyage to the Paumotus, and whose skipper was a personal friend. Suddenly she hove-to and lowered a boat, which came alongside the schooner, and the white man that steered jumped on deck and held out his hand.
"How are you, Brantley?" and then his eye went quickly over the crew of the schooner, then glanced through the open skylight into the little cabin, and a hopeful, expectant look in his face died away.
"Very well, thank you, Latham. But what is wrong?—you look worried."
"Come on board," said the captain of the brig, quietly, "and I'll tell you."
As Brantley took his seat beside him, Latham said: "I have bad news for you, Brantley. Your sister is on board the brig, and I fear she will not live long. She came down to Tahiti in the MARAMA from Auckland, and offered me a good round sum to bring her to you."
"Has she been ill long, Latham?"
Latham looked at him curiously. "Didn't you know, Brantley? She's in a rapid consumption."
For a moment neither men spoke; then Latham gave a short cough.
"I feel it almost as badly as you, Brantley—but I've got a bit more bad news—"
"Go on, Latham—it can't matter much. My poor sister is everything to me."
"Just so. That's what I told Miss Brantley. Well, it's this—your wife and child are missing——" Latham glanced at him and saw that his hand trembled and then grasped the gunwale of the boat.
"We got into Vahitahi lagoon about ten days ago, and I took Miss Brantley ashore. What happened I don't exactly know, but the next night one of your whale-boats was gone, and Luita and the child were missing. Your sister was in a terrible state of mind, and offered me a thousand dollars to put to sea. Brantley, old man, I wouldn't take a dollar from her—God bless her—but I did put to sea, and I've searched nigh on twenty islands, and scores of reefs and sandbanks——"
"Thank you, Latham," said Brantley quietly; "when we get on board you can give me further particulars of the islands you've searched."
"You can have my marked chart; I've got a spare one. Brace up, old man! you'll see your sister in a minute. She is terribly cut up over poor Luita—more so than I knew you would be. But she was a grand little woman, Brantley, although she was only a native."
"Yes," he answered, in the same slow, dazed manner, "she was a good little girl to me, although she——" The words stuck in his throat.
Latham showed him into the brig's cabin, and then a door opened, and Doris threw herself weeping into his arms.
"Oh, Doris," he whispered, "why did you not tell me you were ill? I would have come to you long ago. I feel a brute——"
She placed her hand on his lips. "Never mind about me, Fred. Has Captain Latham told you about——"
"Yes," he replied; and then suddenly: "Doris, I am going to look for her; I think I know the place to which she has gone. It is not far from here. Doris, will you go on back to Vahitahi with Latham and wait for me?"
"Fred," she whispered, "let me come with you. It will not be long, dear, before I am gone, and it was hard to die away from you—that is why I came; and perhaps we may find her."
He kissed her silently, and then in five minutes more they had said farewell to Latham, and were on their way to the schooner.
The crew soon knew from him what had happened, and Rua Manu, with his big eyes filled with a wondering pity as he looked at the frail body and white face of Doris lying on the skylight, wore the schooner's head round to the south-west at a sign from Brantley.
"Aye, Paranili," he said, in his deep, guttural tones, "it is to Tatakoto she hath gone—'tis her mother's land."
That night, as she lay on the skylight with her hand in his, Doris told him all she knew:—
"They were all kind to me when I went ashore to your house, Fred, but Luita looked so fiercely at me.... Her eyes frightened me—they had a look of death in them.
"In the morning your little child was taken ill with what they call TATARU, and I wanted to give it medicine. Luita pushed my hand away and hugged the child to her bosom; and then the other women came and made signs for me to go away. And that night she and the child were missing, and one of your boats was gone."
"Poor Luita," said Brantley, stroking Doris's pale cheek, "she did not know you were my sister. I never told her, Doris."
"She is a very beautiful woman, Fred. They told me at Tahiti that she was called the pearl of Vahitahi; and oh! my dear, if we can but find her, I will make her love me for your sake."
Late in the afternoon of the second day, just as the trade wind began to lose its strength, the schooner was running along the weather-side of Tatakoto, and Rua Manu, from the mast-head, called out that he saw the boat lying on the beach inside the lagoon, with her sail set; and, as landing was not practicable on the weather-side, the schooner ran round to the lee.
"We will soon know, Doris. It always rains in these islands at this time of the year, so she would not suffer as I once did; but the sail of the boat is still set, and that makes me think she has never left it. Wait till I come back again, Doris; you cannot help me."
And Doris, throwing her weak arms round his neck, kissed him with a sob, and lay back again to wait.
With Rua Manu and two others of his faithful native crew, Brantley walked quickly across the island to the lagoon to where the boat lay. Luita was not there, and the dark eyes of his sailors met his in a responsive glow of hope—she had not died in the boat!
They turned back into the silent aisles of coconut palms, and then Rua Manu loudly called her name.
"Listen," he said.
A voice—a weak, trembling voice—was singing the song of Talaloo.