A spume of torn salt water, white and stinging like sleet, drove from crest to crest of the seas, mingling with horizontal sheets of rain which blinded us as we fought desperately to hold the plunging canoe bow-on. It was then that I began to realize the wonderful seaworthiness of the Polynesian canoe—light, sharp, and high-sided, balanced by its outrigger of hibiscus wood, buoyant as cork. In riding such a sea there were sudden fierce strains on outrigger and outrigger-poles—strains which would have snapped the tough wood in an instant, save for its strong and flexible cinnet-lashings. Each time a sea came rearing high above us the bow tossed up to meet the slope of broken water—rose up and up, surmounted the wave, and plunged into the seething trough beyond.
"Bale!" Marama was shouting in a voice that came to me faintly above the screaming of the wind. "Bale, or we shall be swamped!"
As I leaned back to take up the baler I saw that the canoe was a third full of water—mingled sea water and rain. I set to work in a panic, while Marama fought to hold us head-on to the seas, with clenched teeth and a steady eye ahead. Working at top speed to throw the water out, I perceived with a sinking heart that the task was beyond his strength; we had done our best, but in another moment the canoe would fill and swamp. Three times, with a sweep of the paddle that knotted his muscles as though cast in bronze, Marama saved us by a miracle. A white-crested roller seized us with a fierce caprice, spinning the canoe about. Marama's paddle dug deep to swing our bows to meet the oncoming sea and then, with a crackling sound audible above the wind, the haft of hard black wood snapped clean in two.
Next moment the wave burst over the gunwale, and we were struggling in the sea.
Next moment the wave burst over the gunwale, and we were struggling in the sea.Next moment the wave burst over the gunwale, and we were struggling in the sea.
For a time I felt that the end was near. The water was warm and I was clinging to the outrigger-pole, but it seemed impossible to breathe. I think I should have suffocated, without my long experience of diving at Iriatai. My eyes were filled with water, and each time I strove to get a breath, the sea broke over me to fill my nose and mouth. Little by little I learned to watch my chance, to fill my lungs hastily at moments when I could get a gulp of air.
Marama worked his way along the gunwale of the swamped canoe and took hold beside me, on the forward outrigger pole. The buoyant wood supported our bodies in the water, and our weight at the forward end held the long hull bow-on. The clouds were breaking to the west; the squall was passing suddenly as it had come. The ocean was calming rapidly, steep breaking seas giving place to a long swell, though for the time being there could be no thought of baling the canoe. Before long we were able to speak of our predicament, and I remember that neither of us mentioned sharks, the subject uppermost in both our minds. It is curious that the white man, like his savage cousins, brown or black, is still the prey of an ancient instinct of the race: Never speak of the evil thing you dread!
If the sharks had found us that day, our end would have been a sudden and a ghastly one.
Toward noon the sun shone out through the last of the storm clouds and the sea had gone down so much that Marama made ready for an attempt to get the water out of our canoe. "You have seen it done at Faatemu," he said; "I will watch the waves carefully till our chance comes—and then you must do your best!"
We swam aft and took our places on either side of the stern, holding the canoe head-on while two or three long swells rolled by. Then, at the beginning of a lull, the native boy gave the signal, and we put all our weight on the stern, sinking it deep. "Now!" cried Marama, and we dove down, pushing it still deeper and thrusting forward as our hands let go their hold. The canoe shot into the air, leaping forward as the light wood bounded to the surface; the hull smacked down on the sea, and a rush of water tumbled forward and poured in a cascade over the bows. Piloted by Marama's skilled hands, she took the next swell without shipping a cupful, her gunwale four or five inches clear of the sea.
"Hold on with one hand and bale with the other," ordered my companion, "and I will swim forward to keep her head-on till she is dry."
There were still a good fifty gallons of water and my task was a weary one, but at last she floated high and one after the other we clambered in gingerly over the stern. Without a word Marama stood up, balancing himself with one bare foot on either gunwale as he gazed out intently to the west.
"There is no land in sight," he said.
I felt no great concern at his words, for I believed the squall could not have carried us many miles offshore and though we had only one paddle between us, a few hours would bring us within sight of the palms of Iriatai. I learned afterward that we were in the clutch of one of the uncharted currents of the Paumotus—a current which swept around the north end of Iriatai and was carrying us farther and farther into the vast stretch of ocean between the coral islands and the South American coast.
Toward three o'clock, while I paddled and Marama scanned the empty line of the horizon from his perch in the bows, he gave a sudden shout. "E pahi!—a ship!" he cried, and presently I made her out, a two-masted schooner, hull down in the north. Could it be the Tara, come out in search of us? But no—this was not the first time we had spent a day away from camp; by evening my uncle would begin to feel anxiety, but for the present he would think we had been caught in the squall and forced to land—a stove-in canoe, perhaps, and a weary journey on foot through thorny bush and over sharp and broken rocks.
A light steady breeze ruffled the sea that afternoon, and anxious minutes passed before we made certain that the schooner was heading south. When she was still miles away I saw that she was not the Tara. She carried a pair of lofty topsails, a rare sight in these seas; and unlike the schooners in the island trade, the stranger's mainsail sported a gaff, cocked at a jaunty yachting angle. As she came closer, her towering canvas drawing every ounce of power from the air, she made a picture to delight more critical eyes than mine. The Tara had a sturdy beauty of her own, but she was a "bald-headed" schooner, without topmasts, and she would have had the look of a barge beside the tall, graceful vessel approaching us, skimming the sea like a cup-defender under her press of sail.
Presently she was within hailing-distance and we saw her native crew along the rail. The brown men began to shout questions at us, after the fashion of their race: Who were we—whence did we come—where were we going? Then I heard a command, in a roaring voice that made the sailors spring to their posts. The schooner shot into the wind with a crisp shiver of canvas, bobbing and ducking into the head sea as she moved forward and lost way close alongside. Lines were passed down, strong hands came out to help us; the next moment our canoe lay on deck and we were standing beside it, surrounded by good-natured islanders who were chattering, gesticulating, grinning with flashes of their white teeth.
Again the roaring voice boomed out from astern: "Back the fore-staysail! Eh, Tua! Send the Kanaka forward and bring the white boy aft to me!"
Tua, the mate, a tall native with a handsome determined face, touched my arm. Walking aft while the schooner filled away again, I had my first look at the helmsman, a white man of herculean build. He wore a suit of drill, freshly starched and ironed, snowy yachting-shoes, and a Panama of the finest weave. The lower part of his face was concealed by heavy moustaches and a thick blond beard, but the skin above his cheek-bones was smooth as a woman's. His eyes were of a blue I have never seen before nor since: dark and sparkling when his humor was good—in anger, glittering with the cold glare of ice. In some subtle way the eyes reflected the man's whole personality, at once virile, magnetic, daring, unscrupulous, and cruel. But I was young and his cordial manner disarmed me; for the time, my eyes were not open to the evil in our rescuer. He smiled and stretched out a hand to me—an enormous hand with fingers like so many bananas.
"Well, young man," he said, his deep voice and the order of his words carrying a foreign hint, "from where are you come? In that direction, South America is the nearest land!"
I had asked for water as I stepped aboard, and now a black man with a great shock of hair came aft to hand me a pitcher and a glass. The captain watched me, smiling behind his beard as I drank the water to the last drop. Finally I set down the glass.
"Excuse me, sir," I said, "I was very thirsty! It was lucky for us that you happened to pick us up. We went fishing this morning and our canoe was swamped in a squall. Afterward, when the clouds passed, the land was out of sight, and we've been paddling ever since." He glanced down at a chart unrolled before him on the cockpit floor.
"From Iriatai you are come, then," he remarked. "That is strange, for the island is marked as uninhabited. Well, it is not far out of my course—I am bound for Mangareva to load shell."
His courteous manner and lack of curiosity made me feel that it would be boorish to be reticent. I had no suspicion that he was feeling me out for information. And my uncle had nothing to conceal.
"My name is Selden," I told him, "and I have been on the island several mouths. My uncle, Henry Selden, has leased Iriatai from the Government and planted coconuts. Last year he discovered a patch of shell in the lagoon, and the French have granted him a season's diving-rights."
I was going to say more, but a sudden sound interrupted my words. The ship's bell rang out two sharp and measured beats, paused, and sounded twice again. It was six o'clock. The watch was changing, and at a word from the captain the tall mate came aft to take the wheel.
"Keep a man aloft," the skipper said. "It grows dark, but within half an hour you will raise the land." He turned to me. "Come below," he suggested, "you will be hungry after your day at sea. When we have dined, I shall be interested to hear more of your island."
He followed me down to the saloon, where the table was set with shining glass and porcelain. A young woman rose as we appeared, a slender, graceful girl, with sullen eyes and a great bruise disfiguring one pale brown cheek. She wore a loose gown of scarlet silk; crescents of gold were in her ears; and her dark hair, dressed in a single braid thick as a man's arm, hung to her knees. I learned afterward that she was a half-caste from the Carolines. The captain spoke to her and glanced at me.
"Madame Schmidt," he said in introduction; and as I took her hand, I realized suddenly how I must have appeared. It was months since scissors had touched my hair, which stood on my head like a Fijian's, tangled and bleached by the sun. My skin was tanned to a sort of saddle-color, and I was naked save for the torn and faded pareu about my waist. The captain seemed to divine my thought.
"Eh, Raita!" he ordered, "get out for our guest some clean clothes. He will feel more at ease."
I slipped into a stateroom to put on the garments the woman laid out for me: an enormous pair of trousers I rolled up at the bottom, and a coat in which Marama and I could have buttoned ourselves with room to spare. The meal was served by the captain's body servant, the black, shock-headed savage I had seen on deck. He was an evil-looking creature, like some fierce ape masquerading in a sailor's clothes. Several times during the meal Schmidt gave him orders in an outlandish jargon I had never heard, and once, when the captain told him to fetch wine, he asked his master a question in a shrill chatter, grimacing with his eyebrows like a monkey. The woman ate sullenly, without once raising her eyes; when she had finished, she rose and left us without a word.
It was still daylight outside, but the swinging lamp above the table was lit, and under its light I had an opportunity to study the features of my host. I began to change my first opinion of him, for the scrutiny was not reassuring: the more I looked, the more he puzzled me and the less I trusted him. When the black man set cups of coffee before us Schmidt began to question me. How long had we been on Iriatai? How many divers were at work? Was there plenty of shell? Was its quality good? Had we been lucky with pearls? But by now I was on my guard, and returned evasive answers, feigning the stupidity of weariness—a deception which did not require much acting on my part. A long-drawn shout from above brought us suddenly to our feet.
"Land ho!"
When I came on deck the western sky was glowing with a fiery sunset, and under the crimson clouds I could make out the long dark line of Iriatai. Puzzled and vaguely uneasy in my mind, I was leaning on the rail when my eye fell on a handsome dinghey, slung on davits close to where I stood. Her stern was toward me, and there, neatly lettered on the bright varnished wood, I saw the word, "Cholita." So Schmidt's vessel was called Cholita—a pretty name for a pretty schooner—and then I remembered with a sudden start. My thoughts flashed back to the morning when I had paddled out to breakfast with my uncle in Faatemu Bay—to his account of Thursday Island Schmidt. My uncle's words came back to me: "His schooner's as pretty as her reputation is black, and the way he handled her was a treat to watch."
So this was the Cholita, and I was the guest of the famous Thursday Island Schmidt!
I felt a touch on my shoulder, Marama was beside me, a serious expression on his face. "Listen!" he said in a hurried whisper; "I must go forward before the captain returns. If we approach the land to-night, let us slip overboard and swim ashore. Seroni must be warned, for I think that there is evil afoot. Do you remember Rairi, the Tara's cook who tried to kill old Pahuri that night on our passage south? He is aboard—I have seen him, though his face was turned away from me. He has been ordered to keep out of your sight. This schooner was bound for Iriatai before she picked us up. The mate, who is a good man and beginning to fear for himself, has told me as much."
The captain was approaching with a noiseless step; when I glanced up he was not four yards off. He halted and looked at Marama in angry astonishment. "Get forward," he bellowed, in a voice that made the sailors turn their heads, "verdammtKanaka cheek!" He turned to me, the former suavity gone from his manner. "And you," he ordered—"go below!"
I obeyed him, choking with anger and a sense of impotence. The half-caste girl was sitting on the lounge, she had been sewing, but now her hands were clenched and her work lay where it had dropped to the floor. There was a look of apprehension in her eyes. When she saw that I was alone she beckoned me with a swift gesture.
"Come here, boy—me want talk with you," she whispered in quaint broken English. "Me hear Schmidt say 'Go below'—he too much bad man!Guk! Me hate him!—Suppose we go near land tonight, me jump overboard, swim ashore. You come too—we go hide in bush."
Her fierce eyes blazed as she pointed to the bruise on her cheek.
"Schmidt do that yesterday," she went on. "Me like kill him, but too much 'fraid! Before, me think him good man. My father white man—same you. Me, my mother, live Ponape, Caroline Island. One day Cholita come—everybody think Schmidt good man—spend plenty money—have good time. Every day he come my house. By and by he say: 'To-morrow I go 'way; you my friend—give me orange, pig, drinking-coconut. To-night you bring old woman aboard—we have bigkaikai.' My mother think he good man—we go. Schmidt bring us aboard schooner—we eat, play accordion, have good time. Pretty soon hear noise on deck. My mother stand up. 'What that?' she say. Then Kwala hold old woman—Schmidt throw me in stateroom—lock door. Outside reef he throw my mother in canoe—tell her go ashore. Porthole open—me hear old woman crying—Guk! Schmidt never let me go ashore. In Tahiti—Noumea—me 'fraid—he say suppose me swim ashore, send police fetch."
Her quick ear caught the sound of a footstep on deck and she signaled me hurriedly to move away. Next moment Schmidt came down the companionway, glancing at the woman sharply. Without a word he motioned me into the stateroom, slammed the door behind me, and turned the key.
I heard Raita's voice raised in protest, and the captain's gruff reply. Then the companionway creaked under his weight as he went on deck again.
Until now I had viewed the Cholita and her master in an adventurous light; but as I lay there in the dark behind a locked door I began to feel anxious and a little afraid. Little by little, as realization grows at such a time, I put together the scattered recollections in my mind: what my uncle had said of Schmidt; the half-caste girl's story; the presence aboard the Cholita of Rairi, our former cook; the old letter, telling of the gold-lipped shell in Iriatai lagoon; Rairi's stealthy visit to the Tara after his discharge; Schmidt's treatment of me; Marama's words, and the brutal stopping of our conversation. There was small room for doubt—each detail fitted perfectly into the story taking form in my mind.
While the schooner lay alongside the Papeete wharf (I thought), discharging the load of shell of which my uncle had spoken, Rairi must have made the acquaintance of Schmidt. Our one-time cook had looked through the papers snatched up in hope of doing my uncle an injury, and had come upon Turia's letter, written to her son. It was a chance in a thousand, but how was Rairi to make use of it? Then, meeting Schmidt and knowing something of his character from gossip along the waterfront, the vengeful Paumotan must have seen his opportunity. A few cautious questions to feel out his man, increasing confidence, the final disclosure of Turia's old letter—and the compact made. It would be a daring bit of robbery in these modern days; I wondered how Schmidt could hope to keep out of trouble in the long run. He might scuttle the Tara, of course, and leave us marooned on Iriatai, but our whereabouts was known to many people, and before many months had passed someone was bound to set out with a schooner to see what had become of us. But he was a resourceful scoundrel, from all I had heard; he must have weighed his chances before embarking on such a piece of barefaced piracy. And robbery was the Cholita's errand. I knew it now as surely as if Schmidt had disclosed his plans to me.
As I lay there in the berth, tired and frightened, I began to blame myself for not having played a more cunning game. Now that my chance had gone, I saw that I might have played the part of a talkative and unsuspecting lad, answered Schmidt's questions freely, and perhaps have kept my liberty until we drew near the land. Then I might have gone overboard in the darkness, made my way to my uncle and given him warning of the Cholita's approach. Now it was too late. They would take the Tara by surprise. There might be bloodshed. A terrible thought flashed into my mind—Uncle Harry stretched out on his schooner's deck—
I sat up in the berth, clenching my hands. I had no dearer friend in the world. But at last excitement and weariness overcame my anxious thoughts, and I fell into a dreamless sleep.
When I awoke the morning sun was shining through my porthole, and looking out, I saw that we lay close to the beach, just inside the pass of Iriatai. A noise of thumping and scrubbing overhead told me that the decks were being washed down. We were at anchor, I knew, for the schooner lay motionless, though the current at this place was strong. An hour passed and as I craned my neck out the port I saw the Cholita's dinghey approaching us from the north. The handsome little boat drew near and I saw Rairi in the stern, a Winchester across his knees and a bandolier of cartridges over one shoulder. Schmidt's shock-headed black was at the oars and at his feet a man lay in the bottom of the dinghey—an elderly native, bound hand and foot, his gray head matted with blood and unsheltered from the sun. It was Pahuri—I knew with a sudden breathlessness that they had taken the Tara and that Rairi was enjoying a savage's revenge.
The dinghey passed out of my sight around the schooner's stern. I heard the thump of a body flung down roughly on the after deck, Rairi's voice raised in a sharp command, and the creak of the davit-blocks as the boat was hoisted to the rail. Then, for a long time, all was quiet. Rairi had gone below for a rest and a nap, leaving the black on guard, for most of the crew were new men whom neither Rairi nor Schmidt would trust too far. Finally the silence was broken by a weak voice—old Pahuri begging monotonously for water. Heavy steps came aft over my head and I heard the mate order the black man to give water to his prisoner. But the savage chattered a refusal in his own uncouth tongue; he had a rifle and he was under orders from Rairi, so Tua strode forward angrily, muttering to himself. Then suddenly I heard a rapid whispering at the keyhole of my door. It was Raita.
"Eh, boy!" she said, "listen—you asleep?"
"No," I whispered back.
"Last night," she went on, "Schmidt take your schooner—Rairi bring back old man he no like. I sorry that man—head hurt—too much blood. Rairi leave him in sun—no give water. Schmidt stop aboard your schooner—suppose wind come up, Cholita go there. Native boy, your friend, swim ashore last night. Me think go too, then think no—me stop aboard, maybe help you. Ah—me hear Rairi—me go!"
I heard her move away, quickly and softly, from the door. Her words added little to my anxiety, for Pahuri's presence told me that Schmidt had captured the Tara, but the thought of my uncle tortured me: Where was he—captured, wounded, perhaps dead? I glanced out the porthole. The palms were swaying to the first of the trade wind, heralded by long blue streaks outside the pass. Presently there were sounds of activity on deck; shouting and creaking of blocks as they hoisted the foresail, the deep-voiced chant of the sailors at the windlass. Then, heeling a little to the freshening breeze, the Cholita filled away on the port tack, turned to leeward as she gathered way, and slacked off for the long run across the lagoon.
When we drew near the islet, toward midday, I saw that the Tara's anchorage had been changed: she was lying fully a quarter of a mile off shore. Eight bells struck as we rounded into the wind beside her; I heard the anchor plunge overboard and the prolonged rattle of the chain. Then the bellowing voice of Schmidt hailed us, shouting orders and instructions. A moment later the key turned in the lock of my door and Rairi entered to grasp me by the arm.
"Come," he said roughly, "Schmidt want you aboard Tara!"
He half dragged me up the companionway and across the deck, where I had a glimpse of our engineer lying bound in the sun, his gray hair clotted with blood. Rairi motioned me into the dinghey alongside, sprang in after me and signed to the oarsman to pull us across to the Tara. Schmidt was standing by the rail.
"Where's the Kanaka boy?" he asked.
"Swim ashore last night; maybe shark take him—no matter."
"Let him go—no harm can he do us. Wait for me."
I clambered over the rail in obedience to Schmidt's gesture, and he followed me below. My uncle's stateroom was open and in great disorder. We halted opposite the door of my own cabin. The German drew from his belt a heavy Colt's revolver, cocked it, unlocked the door quickly, and pushed me inside. As I stood there, dazzled by the bright light of the porthole, I heard the key turn behind me, and then my uncle's quizzical voice.
"Well, old fellow," he remarked, "it's good to see you safe and sound. We seem a bit down on our luck, eh?"
He was lying in my berth, quietly puffing one of his long, thin cigars.
For a moment I was overcome by astonishment and relief; my mouth half opened and tears came into my eyes. My uncle stretched out his hand.
"Cheer up!" he said, smiling at my long face. "We're not beaten yet! Before I tell you my side of the yarn, let's hear how our friend Thursday Island happened to pick you up."
Speaking in a low voice, I told him of our fishing, of the squall, how the canoe was swamped, how we had baled her, and how Schmidt had picked us up. His only comment was a soft whistle when I spoke of how I had nearly drowned before the sea went down. Then I told him of the Cholita: her captain, the half-caste girl, Rairi, and the story I had pieced together. As I finished, Uncle Harry nodded his head.
"That's it," he remarked—"not a doubt! That scoundrel Rairi—I wish I'd handed him over to the authorities as I was tempted to do! I wish also that I hadn't built my stateroom doors so well; they're solid oak, an inch and a half thick, with hinges and locks to match! And Schmidt took care to clear away everything movable: even the water-bottle's gone! But I must tell you about last night.
"You know the family next door to Maruia's house—their baby died yesterday, and when dinner was over I gave the men permission to go ashore for the singing. It was careless, of course, but we've never stood an anchor watch since we've been here. Pahuri stopped aboard—he was asleep up forward—and I was in a pareu, working on my ledger. I keep the books in the safe, you know, and the door of the safe, like the stateroom door, was open. At about eleven o'clock I heard a boat bump softly against the Tara's side, but Fatu was due to bring the men aboard and I paid no attention to the sound. I glanced up from my work a moment later, and there was Mr. Thursday Island Schmidt in the doorway, with a big revolver cocked and aimed at my chest. He requested me, very politely, to hold up my hands and keep them there, and as my own gun was in a drawer behind me, I could see no way of refusing him!
"The only men with Schmidt, I believe, were Rairi and some sort of outlandish nigger. All I saw of the black man was a glimpse of his fuzzy head outside the door, but Schmidt still keeping me covered, ordered Rairi in to go through the contents of the safe. He wanted to get me out of the way, but he saw that the safe was open and he was too wise to turn his back on his partner, even for a moment. He's a cheeky devil, Rairi: he gave me a sour grin that must have done him good. First he pulled out the little drawer where I keep my loose money for emergencies—about a thousand dollars in gold. He laid it on the table, and as Schmidt glanced down I was tempted to have a go at him. But I knew his reputation, and I knew that Rairi was aching for a chance at me. At that moment, when I was half decided to try to knock Schmidt out, I was distracted by a glimpse of something that escaped him altogether. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rairi's hand shoot out suddenly behind his back and come up to his waist, where he seemed to fumble for an instant with the tuck of his pareu. I looked more closely—one of the small round tobacco-tins was missing from the row on the shelf! Rairi stooped down as though he had just perceived them, gathered the little boxes in a double handful, and stepped across the room to lay them on the table beside the drawer of gold. 'Pearls, perhaps,' he said.
"Schmidt showed signs of interest at that. He ordered Rairi to open them, and gave each lot a glance, one after the other, but he never relaxed his watch on me. Thursday Island is not a man to trifle with—he's proved that over and over again! 'A nice lot of pearls, Mr. Selden,' he observed, grinning behind his beard; 'there will be a sensation on Tahiti when they learn that the gold-lipped shell has been acclimatized. The Government will owe you a debt for the discovery.'
"I'd been keeping an eye on the pearls and when the last tin was opened I saw that the Twins were missing: by the purest chance, Rairi's thieving hand had landed on their box. I was on the point of telling Schmidt that the pearls he had seen were not bad, but that the finest of the lot were in the tuck of his partner's waistband. I don't know why I didn't speak,—they might have had a row which would have given me my chance—but for some reason I kept my mouth shut. When Rairi had made a bundle of my papers and made sure that there was nothing else of value in the safe, Schmidt told him to clear all the loose stuff out of the stateroom across the way. Then he invited me to make myself at home here until his business was done. He spent some time in assuring himself that the door and lock were strong. 'It may ease your mind,' he said, polite as a dancing-master, 'to know that your nephew is safe; I picked him up yesterday at sea; he'll join you presently.'
"They must have overlooked Pahuri when they first came aboard. As the German left my door I heard a racket up forward: that half-caste, mauling the old man in a way that made me see red. I was fool enough to try to break down the door until Schmidt bellowed out something that stopped the noise."
My uncle held up his hands to show me the knuckles, bruised and clotted with blood.
"The noise must have given the alarm to Fatu," he went on, "for a few minutes afterward he put off with Ivi and Ofai in the boat. The current had swung the Tara around so that I could see what followed out of the porthole. Schmidt heard them launching the boat and called his men. He had a powerful electric torch and when he flashed it toward the land I saw my boys taking their places at the oars, Fatu in the stern, and ten or a dozen divers on the beach. Schmidt growled out an order to his partner and I heard Rairi's voice raised to warn the boat away. But our men paid no attention; the light showed them making for the Tara at top speed.
"'Let them have it, then!' bawled Thursday Island. I heard two rifles crack, the snap and click of the levers, and two more quick shots. Ivi dropped his oar and sank down on the grating with a hand to his shoulder. Fatu sprang to his feet, snatched up the oar, and took the wounded man's place, to pull straight for the schooner. Rairi and the nigger would have slaughtered them like sheep, but they held their fire when I shouted through the porthole, telling my men to go back; that a strange schooner was in the lagoon, that her skipper had made me prisoner, and that they had best leave the affair in my hands. There isn't a gun of any sort ashore and I don't want to be rescued at the cost of half a dozen lives! Well, they obeyed me and went ashore. The sound of the shooting roused the whole camp—things have been humming ever since. Perhaps Fatu has some scheme for setting me free; Schmidt seems to think so at any rate, for he and his men went to work on the windlass, got the anchor off the bottom, and allowed the Tara to drift offshore with the current before they anchored her again. As for the fix we're in, the worst that can happen is that we'll lose our pearls. I doubt if even Schmidt has the audacity to load a hundred tons of shell under the noses of the men ashore—I wonder if he would dare? What sort of crew has he—many men he can trust for this sort of villainy?"
I said that I believed most of Schmidt's men were newly shipped, that aside from Rairi and the black they seemed an average lot of natives, not particularly bad. From Marama's words and what I had seen of the man himself, I judged that Tua, the mate, was a first-class fellow, beginning to feel qualms about the company in which he found himself.
"Tua," remarked Uncle Harry, musingly, "Tua—that's not a common name! Did he ship in Papeete? He isn't by any chance a youngish chap, rather light brown and more than six feet tall? That's the man? By Jove! I'd like fifteen minutes alone with him—he's Maruia's foster son!"
A sound of voices put an end to our talk. Schmidt and the black man had come across in the dinghey and were making her fast alongside. Raita was with them, for I heard the captain order her roughly to climb aboard. There was a step on the deck overhead; a sound made me look up and I saw that a basket of food had been lowered to our porthole. Schmidt hailed us.
"I am sorry, Mr. Selden," he said, "that your lunch comes late. For me, these are busy days!" He spoke with a kind of cool politeness he had not troubled to affect toward me. I never heard any man speak rudely to my uncle; even now, while he lay helpless to resent an injury, Schmidt chose to address him courteously. Water was to be had at the tap, and we ate with good appetites while Schmidt conversed with my uncle through the stateroom door. He had come below for a yarn, he said, and he seemed in a communicative mood.
"My friend Rairi," he began abruptly, "does not love that old man of yours. Last night, when he tied his hands, he hurt him more than I thought necessary—I believed that he was taking him back to the schooner that he might bind up his wounds. To-day I found that old man delirious in the sun, and I was forced to speak plainly. Ach! A savage—I have had more than enough of the native—It would be good if business did not deprive me of your company."
"See here, Schmidt," remarked my uncle good-naturedly, "do you realize that this business of yours is apt to deprive you of all company except your own, for a good many years to come? You have brains, man—use them! So far, you've played your cards well: we'll grant that you are able to get away from Iriatai with the pearls. You know pearls. I'll be frank: they're worth forty or fifty thousand at least. But think of the future—you can't do this sort of thing nowadays. Matters were different twenty years ago. Sooner or later this affair will be the talk of the Pacific. Think of the wireless, man—they'll be looking for you in every port in the world! Don't mistake me,—I'm not telling you this for your own good,—but the lawyers have a very unkind name for what you are doing. Think it over, Schmidt. If you're wise, you'll return what you've taken and clear out of Iriatai. As a matter of fact I rather admire your nerve. If you'll turn over Rairi to me, I'll let the matter drop at that."
The answer to my uncle's words was a rumbling chuckle; I could fancy the ironical glint in the German's cold blue eyes. "A handsome offer," he said mockingly. "You are more than kind! Since you are good enough to be frank, I will be frank as well. As for thinking, mine was done long ago. I do not fear all the warships and all the wireless in the world! There can be no harm in telling you, for that matter; in estimating my chances of escape, you can amuse yourself for the next day or two.
"This morning I took my glasses and had a look ashore. A nice stack of shell you have made ready for me, under the shed! That I must have. If there is trouble in loading it and any of your men are hurt, they will have themselves to blame. Bloodshed I do not like: it is always foolishness! Without an axe you will not break out of your stateroom. Matches I have left you and you could set fire to the schooner, but that would be for you unpleasant and would only save me trouble in the end. If you should succeed in breaking out, always there will be one of my men to deal with. Kwala, the black, is a Malaita boy—not a man to trifle with. And Rairi I do not trust overmuch myself; he is a primitive, and he bears you an old grudge. I was nervous last night when he brought me in through the pass; did you know that long ago he lived on this island? Yes—his mother was one of the savage women deported by the French. So you see, I put you out of my mind."
"Well," said my uncle in an amused voice, "suppose you do load the shell and get away from Iriatai. Can't you see that your troubles would only be beginning then?"
"Ach, Mr. Selden," said Schmidt with reproachful irony, "you do me injustice! Remember, please, I am a man of resource. There can be no harm in it: I shall open my heart to you and tell the truth—what my vulgar Australian friends used to call, in their picturesque way, the 'straight griffin,' or the 'dinkum oil.' First of all, much though I regret, I must scuttle your pretty Tara. When I am ready to leave and the holes are bored, the key will be given you through the porthole in time, that you may swim to land before the schooner goes down. Your boats I shall tow to sea with me. I hope you are not foolhardy enough to venture to sea in the native canoe. Many months will pass before information can be laid against me. One chance I take—that a schooner might put in here soon after I leave; but that chance is small. Like your schooner, the Cholita is of French registry now; on paper, my mate, Tua, is her captain; I am cleared for the Paumotus, to pick up copra and shell. What shall I do? The simple thing, which all my life I have found the wisest: go straight to Tahiti, sell my cargo to the highest bidder, and clear once more for the Paumotus within a week. As for the gold-lipped shell, there will be a hint of a discovery in a remote lagoon; I can see now the wise ones among the traders hastening to a place five hundred miles from Iriatai! My men may talk, but two things will close their mouths, I think—love of money and fear of me. Clear of Tahiti, my beard and my schooner's topmasts will come off; she will have a new name and a new set of papers. At filling them out, I am clever—you would be surprised! Then, one fine day, long before they have come to look for you on Iriatai, a strange schooner will put into a far-away port, South America, perhaps, or among the Dutch East Indies—Ach—who knows? There is a Chinaman in Gillolo who would gladly take the schooner off my hands. It is a sad thing to grow old, my friend; I am tired of the Pacific and of this wandering life. Much is forgotten in twenty years; it is my dream to settle quietly in the German village where I was born—But you must excuse me—I hear my good Rairi calling!"
I heard Rairi's voice and the sound of Schmidt's footsteps as he climbed on deck. Then all was silent for an hour or more, while my uncle and I spoke in low tones of our predicament. Suddenly there was a whispering at our door—the voice of Raita. the half-caste girl.
"Eh, boy," she said rapidly, "you hear me? No talk loud—Kwala, that black man, on deck! Schmidt, Rairi, they go aboard Cholita. You gotkaikai—got water? Good—me 'fraid you hungry. Listen: Raita tell you what they do. Schmidt go Cholita tell that mate, Tua, go ashore. Tua tell people on island stop in bush to-morrow; suppose they come on beach, they get shot! When Tua come back, Schmidt, Rairi come aboard this schooner sleep. Keep pearls here. When dark, maybe me swim ashore hide in bush."
"Raita," I called softly, as a sudden idea came to me, "wait by the door for a minute. I want to speak to you when I've talked with my uncle."
I climbed into the upper berth and squeezed my head and shoulders through the porthole. It was as I thought; no man could have passed through such a narrow aperture, but the feat was possible for a slender boy. "Listen, Uncle Harry," I whispered as I climbed down to his side, "you heard what that woman said; now see what you think of the plan I have in mind. Schmidt has sent Tua ashore to warn the people to keep away from the beach while he loads our shell. Tua, you say, is Maruia's foster son, and I feel sure that he and most of the crew are uneasy in their minds. This is my plan: we can see the shore from our porthole, and if, by the time it is dark, Tua has not returned to the Cholita, I will wriggle through the port and swim ashore. It will be easy, I think, to explain the situation to Tua and to our divers. Tua can go off to the Cholita and tell his crew what kind of venture they are engaged in. Once they understand, I'm sure there won't be a hand raised to help Schmidt to-night. Then, in the darkness after the moon has set, I'll swim off quietly with Fatu, Ofai, and a few of the divers, climb aboard and take the Tara by surprise. Once we have Schmidt and his two followers, there'll be no trouble with the others, I think. We must decide quickly—let me try!"
For a moment, while I waited in suspense, my uncle puffed meditatively at his cigar. His eyes were half closed and he seemed scarcely to have heard what I had said. Suddenly, with a shrug of his shoulders, he spoke.
"Very well, Charlie—see what you can do. But take care of yourself. Remember that I'd rather lose the Tara and all the shell than have anything happen to you! It's the devil to have to sit here helpless while those scoundrels sail away with our property. I was beginning to believe they held the winning cards! You've a level head, old man; this plan of yours has a chance of working out, I should say. Can you really squeeze through that porthole? By Jove! I'd give something to have the laugh on our friend Herr Schmidt!"
Before he had finished I was at the door. "Raita!" I whispered; and when I heard her answering voice, I told her that I planned to escape through the porthole and swim ashore. Knowing her hatred of Schmidt, I confided the fact that we were going to attack the schooner that night, and begged her to leave a rope's end hanging over the stern. The girl was all eager excitement. The blood of a fierce and vengeful people ran in her veins.
"Guk!" she exclaimed. "Maybe you kill Schmidt, eh? Me too much happy! Stop aboard now. That other man—tell him when plenty dark me get axe from galley. He watch porthole, eh? Suppose you come aboard—he break door, go help kill Schmidt! Guk! Me like see that!"
"It's lucky you made friends with her," remarked my uncle quizzically, when Raita was gone; "I should dislike to have that young lady for an enemy! Well, if she doesn't forget that axe, I'll do my best to entertain her!"
The sun went down that night behind banks of crimson clouds, which grew black as twilight gave place to darkness and blotted out the young moon sinking in the west. The evening was calm, but the night promised to be a stormy one. The Tara still lay broadside to the beach and a close watch informed us that Tua had not left the islet. My time had come.
Our chief concern was to make no sound which might give the alarm to the sharp ears of the savage on watch. Pulling together the curtains of the lower berth and muffling the operation in blankets to avoid the slightest noise, we tore a sheet into strips and braided a length of clumsy cord. Then in the upper berth my uncle knotted our rope to one of my ankles, and very gently and cautiously I began to squirm my way out through the porthole. It was a tighter fit than I had supposed; after a twist or two it seemed to me that I could neither move forward nor go back. I was naked save for a pair of swimming trunks, and several square inches of my skin remained on the porthole's sharp brass rim, but at last I was through, hanging by one leg with my head and arms in the water. Knowing that the least splash would bring Kwala instantly to the side, my uncle lowered me little by little into the lagoon, until I lay motionless in the black water and the end of the cord fell into my outstretched hand. I undid the knot, heard Uncle Harry's faintly breathed "Good luck!" and dove without a sound. It was not yet fully dark and I feared that the black man's eyes might discern my head in the reflections of the sunset. Thirty yards nearer the shore I rose to the surface and expelled the breath gently from my lungs. All was quiet aboard the Tara. I had neither been seen nor heard.
I landed under an overhanging thicket of hibiscus, in a little cove where Marama and I kept our canoe hauled up. There were no lights in the doorways that I passed, but when I came to Maruia's house I found the population of the islet assembled there, women and children outside and the divers in the house, surrounding Maruia and Schmidt's mate who sat in earnest conversation on the floor. The light of a lamp shone on the pair and I saw that Tua's face wore an expression of dejection and perplexity. A murmur of astonishment went up as I arrived, and indeed I must have presented a strange appearance—wet, nearly naked, bleeding in a dozen places. Maruia rose and put an arm about me, patting my bare shoulder softly.
"Ah, Tehare," she said, "you have escaped from that wicked man—that is good. And Seroni, your uncle?" I told her how we had been imprisoned in the stateroom, and how I had escaped through the porthole, too small for the broader shoulders of a man. Then I asked for news of Marama.
"He is here," she answered, leading me to her bed, screened off with mats in a corner of the spacious room; "see, he sleeps, and we must not wake him. He followed the western shore on foot, hastening to warn Seroni, but when he came here it was too late. His feet are cut to ribbons by the coral and the sun has given him a fever; I have bandaged his wounds and brewed a tea of herbs. But come—there are other things of which we must speak." She led me back through the crowd and pointed to Tua.
"This man is my foster son," she said, "a good man, but he serves an evil master. He brings us a message from that German that we must go to the far end of the islet while our shell and Seroni's is carried away. Tua is greatly troubled in his mind. He has signed papers and the white man's laws are strict. Furthermore those men are fierce and wary; they are armed with rifles, while we have none. What are we to do?"
I turned to the mate. "Saving Schmidt and the black and Rairi," I asked him, "are the others of the Cholita's crew good men?"
"I know them all," he replied, "and they are like others of their kind, neither good nor bad. But like me, they are in fear of Schmidt and of the white man's prison."
"Listen, then," I went on, "and I will show you how to act the part of honest men. Schmidt is indeed an evil captain and to stand by him means prison in the end. My own ears have heard him say that after he has stolen our pearls and our shell he plans to sell the schooner and leave you deserted and friendless in a foreign land. Take warning, therefore, while there is time. You have heard of Seroni—Maruia will tell you whether he or Schmidt is the more to be trusted. Give heed to my words, then. Schmidt and that dog Rairi await your coming on the Cholita. Go to them now and tell them that you have delivered their message; that the people will obey, being unarmed and in fear of the rifles. In a little while those two men will go to the Tara, where they will sleep this night. Once they are gone, arouse the crew softly without showing lights, and talk to them in the forecastle, telling them what I have said. Remember that you on the Cholita need run no risks: only lie quietly if there are noises from the other schooner. In the morning the Tara will be ours and those three men our prisoners. Seroni will see to it that no man of you is wrongly accused. The truth is that the Government will praise you for having refused to aid a captain who is no better than a robber. Think of old Pahuri, whose blood is on your decks—is that the work of honest men?"
"Aye, and this!" A deep voice rang out as Fatu rose from the dark corner where he had been lying, and pointed downward with a gigantic outstretched arm. Then for the first time I saw Ivi, grinning at me over a shoulder done up in blood-soaked rags. "It is well said that Rairi is a dog," Fatu went on. "If I had my hands on his throat once more, I would not let go so soon!" An angry murmur went up from the divers; I perceived that the moment was ripe for my proposal.
"Who will come with me this night," I asked—"who will follow Fatu to capture the Tara and to set Seroni free?" Ofai sprang from his seat at Ivi's side. The divers crowded about me eagerly to hear my plan.
"We shall need only six or seven of the strongest," I told them. "Let us give Tua time to return and deliver his message, and then, when Rairi and the bearded captain have gone back to the Tara to sleep we will swim out without noise, climb softly on deck, and take them by surprise. Only one man will be on watch; Seroni waits our coming to break down the door with an axe that will be given him."
While I lay on a mat, discussing our plan with Maruia and the others, Tua took leave of us. I felt a reasonable confidence that he would play his part and keep his men from interfering on behalf of Schmidt. Maruia's blood was up; she was keen to go with us and it was not easy to persuade her to stay behind. An hour dragged by—another—another—it was nearly midnight when I gave the word to set out. Each man was naked save for a breechclout; our bodies were well rubbed with coconut oil, and we carried the long keen knives used for clearing bush.
The moon had set long since, and black clouds blotted out the stars. A stir of air from the south caused the palms to rustle and sigh uneasily. We were in for a squall. I saw that unless the wind grew strong enough to rouse the sleepers on the Tara, the weather was in our favor: the squall would put the watcher off his guard and drown the slight noises of our approach. Presently the wind was sweeping in gusts across the lagoon, driving a fine rain into our faces. The schooner must be facing the south, with her stern toward shore.
"I think there will be a line astern," I told the men crouching beside me under the dripping hibiscus trees, "and Fatu and I will go aboard that way. You others must swim to the bow without a sound and climb up by the chain or by the jib-boom stay. We will allow you time to get aboard. Wait by the forecastle till you hear the alarm given and then come aft to take them by surprise. As I told you, there will be only one man on watch, and Fatu alone can handle him. We must not use our knives unless they drive us to it. Come—it is time we set out—this squall will drown the noise of our approach."
"Yes," put in Fatu, whose closest friend was Pahuri, the old engineer, "let us go quickly! My hands yearn for the feel of Rairi's throat!"
I led the way into the water, deeper and deeper, till we were swimming in the black lagoon. We seemed an hour in reaching the Tara, anchored no more than four hundred yards offshore. The little waves slapped against my face and the rain stung my eyes. At last, when I was wondering if we had taken the wrong direction, the clouds broke and the stars shone out, disclosing the dim outlines of the Tara close ahead and Schmidt's schooner, riding at anchor a hundred yards away. At that moment a man appeared on deck,—whether Schmidt or Rairi I could not make out,—carrying a lantern in his hand. He made the lantern fast to the main boom and left it hanging there. Then he drew a deck-chair into the circle of faint light, and sat down, facing the schooner's bow.
With Fatu close behind, I swam under the overhang of the stern, and next moment my hand touched a heavy rope, trailing overboard from the rail. The half-caste girl had kept her word. The others were clustering about us, and as the wind was still strong I ventured to whisper fresh instructions there in the schooner's lee. "The rope is here," I told them softly; "do not hurry about getting aboard. Give that man time to settle down quietly in his chair. Be ready to come running aft in five minutes."
I had not reckoned on Fatu's impatience, nor on the native vagueness about time. My companion was roused as I had never seen him before. For a little while, with the greatest difficulty, I restrained his eagerness, but finally he shook my hand off his shoulder and began to pull his huge body up the rope, hand over hand. I followed: there was nothing else to do. The wind was still blowing strongly from the south.
Fatu reached the rail in an instant, heaved himself aboard with uncanny agility, and dropped to the deck without a sound. I was desperately slow in following, for I was tired and chilled, and my arms were not trained to sailors' work. When at last my head rose above the rail, I saw that the giant was stealing toward the unconscious man in the deck-chair, creeping forward with a stealthy swiftness in the shadow of the binnacle. The lantern, flickering in gusts of wind, cast a dim yellow light on the scene. Then my hand slipped on the wet rail, and I fell thumping to the deck.
I was on my feet in an instant, but the man in the chair was quicker still. It was Schmidt, and his senses must have been keen as those of a savage, for his eye was on me before I had taken a step, and the rifle came to his shoulder with a snap. In the same instant Fatu leaped at him from behind the binnacle, springing like a monstrous cat—but the spring was a breath too late. I saw a bright tongue of flame, heard a crashing report, and felt a great blow on my leg—a shock that spun my body about and sent me sprawling to the deck. I lay there sick and numb, yet keenly alive to every detail of the scene that followed: a swift drama stamped indelibly on my memory.
Fatu seized the rifle with a single mighty wrench, tore it from Schmidt's hands and sent it flying overboard, then his arms closed about the German's body. Schmidt was a very strong and active man. His foot went out behind the leg of his antagonist; he twisted his body with the movement of a skilled wrestler, and the pair came crashing to the deck. But Fatu's grip never relaxed and I knew that in the hug of those mighty arms Schmidt's moments of consciousness were numbered. He seemed to realize it too, and his right hand, free from the elbow down, began to move painfully toward the holster at his belt, where I saw the gleam of an ivory pistol-butt. Then I heard my uncle's axe thundering at the stateroom door, and the shouts of the divers, climbing over the bows.
I raised my eyes, hoping to see the natives running aft. I glanced back at the wrestlers and saw Raita there beside them—a slender, crouching figure in white, her face framed in waves of dusky hair. She had drawn Schmidt's revolver in the nick of time, and held it cocked in her hand.
But Kwala, the black savage, who must have been sleeping on the forward hatch, still had a part to play. In the second while Raita crouched there, fiercely seeking her chance to kill, there was another streak of flame, and the report of another rifle-shot. The girl sank down on the deck. I saw the shock-headed savage blinking in the lamplight while a wisp of smoke eddied from the muzzle of his Winchester. Then, with fierce shouts and a rush of bare feet on deck, the divers were on him, and he went down in a smother of brown arms and legs.
For an instant, Raita lay where she had fallen, but though she was dying, hatred of the German gave strength for the last act of her life. "Guk!" I heard her exclaim with a weak fierceness, as her hand went out to take up the pistol a second time. By chance it had not gone off when she had dropped it. With a wavering hand she aimed it at Schmidt's temple and pulled the trigger. A third shot rang out above the tumult—Schmidt's body quivered and relaxed—Fatu rose slowly to his feet.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man standing at the companionway. It was Rairi, an expression of angry astonishment on his handsome, sullen face.
He glanced swiftly about him, seemed to arrive at a decision, and bounded across the deck. Before I could cry out, he was over the rail and into the lagoon.
The appearance of my uncle, dressed in a scarlet waistcloth and brandishing an axe, smothered the shout on my lips.
"Eh, Fatu!" he cried, as his eye fell on the gigantic figure of the mate. "Have you got them safe? Where's Charlie?"
"Here!" I said in a weak voice, and next moment he was bending over me. "Schmidt shot me in the leg. He's dead, I think, and so is that poor girl. Ofai and the divers have the black man—look—they're tying him now! And Rairi—he dove over the side a second before you came on deck! Quick! Send someone after him!"
At my words Fatu sprang away to lower a boat. When my uncle had made sure that Schmidt and the woman were dead and that the black was safely bound, he took me in his arms and carried me below to dress my wound. He laid me on the lounge in the saloon, turned up the lamp and bent over my wounded leg, his face wearing an expression I had never seen. Then he straightened his back with a great sigh of relief.
"Well, old fellow," he said, patting my bare shoulder, "you've given me a scare! But you're not badly hurt: the bullet has passed through the muscle of your thigh without touching the bone. Hurts like the deuce, eh? That won't last long—we'll have you on foot within a month!"
He made me drink a glass of brandy, the first I had tasted: burning stuff that made me cough and ran through my veins like fire. I was weak from loss of blood, and when he had staunched the bleeding and bandaged the wound with wet compresses, I fell into an uneasy sleep.
It was later that I was told of the happenings of that night: how one of the divers swam ashore to tell the people that Seroni was free; how a great fire was built on the beach and a fleet of canoes put off to swarm about the Tara; and how her decks were crowded with brown men and their women and children, all eager to shake my uncle's hand. It was a night of rejoicing. A fire was built in the galley to brew huge pots of tea, and cases of bully beef and ship biscuit were opened on deck.
The morning found me feverish and in pain with the stiffening of my wound. Old Maruia had installed herself in my stateroom. The season was over, she declared; she had earned enough for one year, and now she was going to nurse me till I was well. I was eating the gruel she had prepared, when I looked up and saw my uncle standing in the splintered doorway, a long cigar in his mouth.
"It's tough luck to be laid up this way!" he remarked, "Hurts, eh? It will for a few days. But you've a first-class nurse; I reckon she'll have you in a steamer-chair inside of a fortnight! I didn't know how many friends you had ashore—the whole lot of them were asking after you last night—Eh, Maruia, don't let him move that leg!
"About Rairi," he went on—"he got clean away. A Paumotu boy in the water on a dark night is a hard proposition to catch! We don't know which way he swam, of course; we'll search the two islands on the east side of the lagoon to-day. I'm leaving now; the boats will follow along the beach to the pass and meet us there to-night. With fifteen men we'll be able to comb the bush so that a dog couldn't pass us! If we don't get him to-day, we'll try the west side to-morrow—You've guessed why I'm going to so much trouble? Yes, he's gotten away with your pearls!
"This morning, when the excitement was over, I made an inventory of the things in the safe. The door was open; Schmidt had left everything in place, only taking the precaution to lock the inner door. I found the key in his pocket. He never knew about the Twins—I told you how I saw Rairi steal them under his eyes. I was losing hope of coming out of this affair so well. I owe you a lot, old man; I'll try to repay part of it by getting your pearls for you. We'll catch Rairi, never fear! Schmidt and the girl were buried this morning. He was a man, that German, though he had the morals of a wolf! It's odd—but there was something I almost liked about him—It takes courage to play a game like his, and he might have succeeded if he'd been a little less contemptuous of the natives he's abused so long. I wonder who he really was! I'm sorry the girl was killed—I would have sent her home. She couldn't have been more than twenty, poor child—a forlorn way to die. The black is in irons aboard the other schooner, where he's not popular with the crew!"
When my uncle had gone I sent a man ashore for Marama, and presently he was installed in the upper berth, a mass of bandages about his swollen feet. It was good to see my friend once more.
"I do not know where Rairi is now," he said, when Maruia had left us to smoke her cigarette on deck, "but if he was barefoot when he went overboard, he will be in no shape to run away! Aué! That dry coral is sharp underfoot! When I escaped from the Cholita, I had one thought in mind; to get to Seroni quickly, to warn him and bring help to you. I landed close to the village of the copra-makers and there was an old canoe on the beach, but when I took thought, I saw that the day would break before I reached the Tara, and that I would run a risk of being picked up again by that bearded captain who is now dead, so I traveled the length of the western island afoot. The sun was high when the time came to swim, and I was faint with pain and loss of blood—the coral cuts deep! If I had been stronger I would have gone directly to the Tara, for I had no suspicion that Rairi's boat had come to her in the night. Fatu was the first man I saw on shore; he told me of the shooting, of Ivi's wound, and how Seroni was a prisoner on his own schooner. All that day I lay in great pain, and my head was light with the sun."
At midday Maruia dressed our wounds and brought up food, and we dozed through the long warm afternoon. It was evening when my uncle returned with his weary men. They had scoured the eastern islands from end to end without finding so much as a footprint.
Next day, when they searched the long island on the western side of the lagoon, the story was the same, though one of the divers claimed to have found the half obliterated tracks of a man on a stretch of muddy beach. That night my uncle went to bed with scarcely a word; I could see that he was discouraged, mystified, and very tired. Marama and I were silent for a long time after the others had gone to bed. Finally the native boy spoke.
"Are you asleep?" he asked in his own tongue.
"No," I whispered back; "I lie here thinking."
"And I too. Listen, for there is something in my mind. First of all, know that Rairi is not a stranger on this land of Iriatai. His mother was a woman of the island—one of the wild people the French soldiers came to take away. And when he was a boy he came here to labor at the copra-making, with the woman who lived here before Seroni's coming. There are true words! Knowing all this, I have tried to put myself in his place. He has our pearls—pearls of great value, for which a man would endure hardships and long months of waiting. The question in his mind must be: 'Where shall I hide myself till the schooners are gone and I can steal a canoe to chance a passage to the nearest land?' Where, indeed? The three islands about the lagoon are long, but they are flat and narrow. The bush is thick in places, but not too thick to be searched as one searches for a dropped fishhook in a canoe. Where, then? Listen, and I will tell you—in the Cave of the Shark! Is it not possible that in his boyhood Rairi found the cavern even as we found it, or that the woman Turia showed it to him as an ancient sacred place? He would believe that no other man on the island knew of it; that he might lie hidden there for months, stealing out by night to catch fish and to gather coconuts for food and drink. I tell you that the thought of losing our pearls has weighed like a lump of lead on my stomach, but now I feel hope!"
When my uncle had returned that evening, discouraged and empty-handed, I had felt the full bitterness of disappointment—the hopeless collapse of all my dreams. After all, our hopes had been absurd; a three or four mile swim at night was a risky business, even for a native. Perhaps Rairi had been seized with cramps; perhaps a roving shark had picked him up. In reality, the chances were against his being alive. But now, as the possibility of the cave grew large in my mind, I could scarcely wait for the morning, to tell my uncle of Marama's idea. Eight bells struck. It was midnight, and the soft breathing in the upper berth told me that Marama was asleep. He had a wholesome lack of nerves, and to him the loss of the pearls meant no more than a passing disappointment. In his eyes, money was not a thing that mattered greatly—if one had none of it, one did without; if one's pockets were full, it was pleasant to spend. I envied him, for with me it was far different.
Hour after hour I lay there, wakeful with anxiety and the fever of my wound, while the round ship's clock in the saloon struck off the bells. The glimmer of dawn was in the stateroom when at last I fell asleep.
Maruia woke us with a tray of breakfast, steaming hot from the galley. The sun was high, and glancing through the door, I could see my uncle, bending over some papers at his table. My head was heavy with lack of sleep, but the fever seemed gone and the pain in my leg diminished. I called to Uncle Harry and he rose at the sound of my voice.
"Well, boys," he said, smiling in at us, with a hand on either side of the doorway, "had a good night? I was for letting you sleep, but the old lady thought it was time you were eating breakfast." I told him what Marama had suggested the night before, and his eyes lit up with a brilliant gleam of interest.
"I believe you've hit it!" he exclaimed. "That's the one place we haven't searched. I remember now Schmidt's saying that, as a boy, Rairi had lived on Iriatai. I lay awake half the night puzzling over this business—I was beginning to believe that the man must have been taken by a shark. But we must waste no time; I'm off now for a look at this cave of yours. Wish me good luck!"
The hours of that day dragged past with interminable slowness. I grew depressed as time went on: perhaps we had been unduly sanguine the night before; the thread supporting our hopes was a slender one, after all. Even if Rairi were found, he might have lost the pearls or hidden them. Marama laughed at my fears, refusing to share in my renewed depression. At noon the old woman brought us lunch and we ate with good appetites, for by now we were on the way to recovery. Afterward, when she had cleared the things away, I fell into a dreamless and refreshing sleep.
It was late afternoon when I awoke. There was a hail from the deck and the sound of a boat, bumping against the schooner's side. Next moment my uncle ran down the companionway and burst into our stateroom, a smile on his lips and in the dark brilliance of his eyes. Without a word he placed in my hands a small tin box—a box that I had seen before. I opened it with a beating heart, and there, side by side in their nest of damp cotton-wool, were the Marama Twins! The native boy, gazing down over the side of his berth, gave a shrill whoop of joy.
"It was a tame affair," remarked my uncle, when he had answered our first rapid questions, but your cave is certainly a curious place. We had no difficulty in finding the entrance. I led the way in, with Fatu, Ofai, and a couple of others close behind. Whew! That's a bit of a swim before you can come up to blow! I had warned the men to make no noise; it was possible that Rairi might have clung to the six-shooter I had seen at his belt, and good ammunition is almost waterproof. Presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, I made out the idol and the heathen altar, and then, on the ledge a little to one side, the huddled figure of a man. It was Rairi—his eyes were open and he had been watching us all the time. He's a plucky scoundrel; when I was standing over him wondering why he had not moved, he shook his head and grinned at me as he made an effort to hold up his right arm, blackened and horribly swollen out of shape. 'I glad you come!' he said in a weak voice. He was burning with fever.
"Then he told me what had happened. Swimming across the lagoon in the dark, he had run squarely on a patch of the purple coral, the poisonous kind that cuts like a razor-edge. He managed to get to the cave before the wounds stiffened, but next morning, when daylight began to appear through the cranny in the rock, he realized that it was all up with him unless help came. Both legs and his right arm are frightfully infected—I'm not sure that we can pull him through. Well, if he dies, it will save the Government from supporting him in jail! The pearls were in the pocket of his dungarees—he handed them to me of his own accord. We had the deuce of a time getting him out to the boat; he'd have been drowned if Fatu hadn't been along!"
There is little more to tell of our days at Iriatai. For a fortnight, while I lay bored and convalescent in a steamer-chair, the diving went on. Then each man's share of the shell was laid out for my uncle's inspection, sacked, weighed, and loaded in the Tara's hold. There were a hundred and twenty tons of it, of a quality unknown in the lagoons of the Eastern Pacific, and Uncle Harry was jubilant over our good luck. His safe held a little fortune in pearls, and the divers had others they were keeping to sell on their own account.
A day came at last when the village on the islet was dismantled; when the people crowded our decks, noisy and gay with the joy of being homeward-bound; when the Tara, deeply laden, turned her sharp bows toward the pass, away from the anchorage which had been our home so long.
Pahuri was at his accustomed place in the engine-room—the old man had soon recovered from the rough handling he had endured. Ivi, with his left arm in a sling, was the hero of the forecastle; the divers never tired of discussing the memorable night when he had received his wound, and I could see that in the future the story would be passed from island to island, growing to epic proportions as the years went by. Marama and I had thriven under Maruia's care; his feet were healed by now, and I was able to get about the deck, though my leg still gave me an occasional twinge.
The Cholita, with Tua in command and our two prisoners stowed away below, followed us southward toward the pass. Rairi was out of danger at last, after days of raging fever when there seemed small chance that he would live. The copra-makers had been on Iriatai for more than a year, and Schmidt's schooner halted off their village to take them aboard and load the twenty tons of copra stacked under the shed on the beach.
Outside the pass, when the Tara dipped her nose into the long Pacific swell, I lay alone on the after deck, gazing back at the line of palm-tops that was Iriatai, fast disappearing beyond the slope of the world. I thought of Schmidt, sleeping forever under a wooden cross on the deserted islet; of the woman in the shallow coral grave beside him, the half-savage girl he had stolen from her home in the far-off Carolines—Raita, who had been my friend, and whose hand, at the last, had ended his strange life. I felt a lump in my throat, as I realized that in all probability my eyes would never again rest on Iriatai, this dot of land, immeasurably lonely and remote.
A week later we dropped anchor in Faatemu Bay. The other schooner had gone on to Tahiti and would await us there. The village hummed with the excitement of our arrival; there were long stories to be told, friends and relatives to be greeted, and good fortune to be shared. Forty pigs were killed for the feast that Taura, the gray-haired chief, gave in our honor. Fat old Hina welcomed me like a mother, with easy native tears. I had not forgotten her kindness, and on the last day I tendered my parting gift: two handsome pearls—one for her, and one for my former playmate, Marama's little sister. When the Tara sailed out through the Nao Nao Passage and I went below, I found my stateroom littered with their presents—fans, hats, baskets, wreaths of bright-colored shell.
Marama and his father accompanied us to Tahiti. At dawn of the second day I was awakened by my uncle's voice, calling me on deck to see the land. The schooner was slipping through a calm gray sea, running before a light breeze from the north, and a glimmer along the horizon told of the approaching day. Close on our starboard beam, and so unreal that I half-expected the vision to fade before my eyes, I saw the fantastic pinnacles of Eimeo. Tahiti lay straight before the Tara's bows—faint, lofty outlines rising from the sea to disappear in veils of cloud. We were standing side by side at the rail, and at last my uncle spoke.
"This is my home-coming," he said quietly. "To me, that island is the most beautiful thing in all the world."
At ten o'clock we were opposite the pass, and I saw for the first time the little island port of Papeete: the masts of trading-schooners rising along the docks; the warehouses and the line of sheds for freight; the narrow, shaded streets running inland from the waterfront; the background of green, jagged mountains, cleft by the Fautaua Gorge.
A crowd gathered while the Tara docked. There were shouted greetings in native, in English, and in French. As the schooner was warped alongside and the gangplank came out, the people began to stream aboard. The Cholita had brought news of our coming, with the story of our gold-lipped shell and Schmidt's attempted piracy. My uncle had given Tua a letter to the authorities, turning over the schooner and the prisoners to the Government, exonerating the crew, and giving a detailed account of the affair. The news had caused a stir in this peaceful and remote community; we refused a dozen invitations to lunch, and Uncle Harry was forced to tell the story twenty times—to traders, to officials, to his own agents in Papeete—before his friends would give him peace. And through it all I heard a chorus of exclamations at the gold-lipped shell.