Chapter 7

*      *      *      *      *The Mua trader was at his door when a howling procession of natives came into the village, carrying the white man's corpse to his home. The Alofi trader, who had found the body, stepped aside to speak. After the tale of the finding had been told, the Mua trader asked slowly:"Did you think of searching his pockets? A dead man's a dead man—and I'd not be sorry to have the money he owed me, for the natives will have taken the goods by this time.""They were empty when I found him. Queer, for I was the first to see him," said the other. "I found this thing on the road close by, though. Do you recognise it?"It was the trader's darning-needle, stuck neatly into the end of a tiny, arrow-like reed, and stained at the point with some dark sticky stuff.The Mua trader took it in his hand, smelt it and looked at it closely. Then he walked to his kitchen, and, watched by the Alofi trader, threw the thing into the fire."That's what I think of it," he said. "My boy, I traded in the worst of the Solomons for three years. I'm the only man on the island that knows that thing, bar one—and he was a plantation hand in the Solomons, in the black-birding days. There's no wanderers like the Nuié men.""Do you think——" began the other."I think," said the Mua trader, "that old Sona has got his money back."*      *      *      *      *The schoonerSybilhad no reason for staying longer in Niué, for the business of the ship was done, and the captain was quite well again. A picture of perfect beauty theSybilmade, as she stood out of Alofi roads in the golden afternoon, every sail set and every inch of cloth straining to the merry breeze. Niué was sorry to part with Vaiti, for she had interested the island considerably, and her beauty had, as usual, won her more admiration than her temper deserved. Every one, on parting, expressed a courteous wish to see theSybiland her owners again.For all that, and all that, the schooner came back no more. Vaiti had won the game at last, but she never willingly mentioned Niué again.CHAPTER XVTHE CALAMITY OF CORAL BAYThe wide, still waters of Coral Bay were turning glassy pink under the sunset afterglow. TheSybil'sboat, rowing rapidly towards the schooner, left as it went a long, ugly flaw upon the stainless crystal of the sea. It was very still, and the night was coming down.Even in that uncertain twilight the colour of the boat as it cut through the pale-hued water stood out strange and sinister. Most boats are white in tropic seas: theSybil'shad always been snowy as her own graceful hull. Now they were vivid scarlet, and the ship herself had a wide band of scarlet round her counter and flew a scarlet flag at her masthead.Any islander could have told you at a glance what these things meant. The schooner was "recruiting"—conveying natives from the wild cannibal islands of the New Hebrides to the Queensland sugar plantations. Ten pounds a head was paid for the men on their arrival, and it was politely supposed that these ignorant heathen had one and all been duly engaged under a contract to serve three years, at a wage of five pounds a year. How much they understood of contracts, times, and wages—where and what they thought Australia might be—and what were the means employed to get them on board the ship, nobody asked. Saxon was not the man to answer, if any one had.Why he had temporarily deserted the pleasant, peaceful islands of the Eastern Pacific, and gone "black-birding" in the wild and wicked and fever-smitten groups of the West, was Saxon's own affair. Doubtless he had his reasons; possibly they were satisfactory. But there is reason to believe that about Apia and Papeëte at this time he was characterised as a (double-adjectived) liar, and an (impolite expression) villain, who was running away because it was (adverbially) unsafe for him to stay and risk his (past participled) neck among (adjective) men. This is not the history of Captain Saxon; at least, not all of it—from such a recital as that may the eleven thousand virgins of Saint Mudie, and the Blessed Young Person of Sixteen, deliver us! It must therefore be enough to say that, for sufficient reasons, he decided to shift his headquarters to the New Hebrides, and immediately did so, leaving behind him certain unsettled scores with which this tale has nothing to do.He was not new to the islands or the natives, having been one of the most notorious of the sandal-wood traders in years gone by. The sandal-wood was gone, and of the money he had made by it not even the memory remained. But there was still something in the labour trade, and Saxon liked the lawless atmosphere of the place.Vaiti remembered the islands well, though she had only been there as a child, and she was glad to have the excitement of the change. When the recruiting boat left the schooner (guarded by a companion, full of armed men) and drew up on the beach to negotiate with the islanders, she always sat in the stern, with a very smart little Winchester rifle across her knees, and took command, if her father was not there. Very often he was not; for the New Hebrideans have long memories, and there was many a spot where Saxon had run up so many bad, black scores in the sandal-wood days that he could not hope for success—or safety, if he had minded that—in going ashore. Harris usually took command of the covering boat, a post of comparative security that suited him very well, while the dauntless Vaiti managed all the real business, and seldom came back with an empty bag.They had good luck, on the whole, and not many narrow escapes. Coasting round the notorious island of Mallicolo, or Malekula, they succeeded in obtaining about forty natives in a week or two. Saxon was well pleased, and began to count up his profits. Also he began to drink again.Then it was that trouble came, as trouble generally does, out of a fair-seeming sky.Half-a-dozen natives had been given up to the missionaries on the far side of Malekula, to hand over to the British gunboatAlligator, which at that time was cruising about the islands, intent on punishing the Malekulans for a more than usually atrocious murder of whites. The tribes to whom the culprits belonged had taken fright, and were anxious to save themselves at any cost. The missionaries, when asked by them, consented to take charge of the prisoners, but refused to keep them any longer than could possibly be helped, since they did not consider themselves judges or gaolers. At this point theSybilturned up, and the missionaries, hearing she was bound for Parrot Harbour, where theAlligatorwas certain to call, put the men on board, and engaged Saxon to hand them over to the Parrot Harbour mission, receiving from the missionaries there the price of their passage, which the man-of-war would doubtless refund.Saxon, understanding that he had not to meet theAlligator, undertook the job at a rather excessive rate, and brought the prisoners over as agreed. But, finding that the Parrot Harbour mission refused to pay the passage money until the man-of-war arrived, he went into a towering rage and abused everybody. Wait for theAlligator? Not he! He had something else to do, and he wouldn't have any condemned gunboat that ever sailed the sanguinary waters of the Pacific poking her nose into any of his business. He had been promised the money as soon as he arrived, and the money or its equivalent he meant to have or know the reason why. Off he went, with much more whisky in his brain than was compatible with sober judgment—off out to sea again, taking with him the whole six prisoners, and openly declaring his intention either to hold them for ransom or run them down to the Queensland plantations, as seemed most convenient.Next day theAlligatorappeared, and her commander was informed of the occurrence. Saxon, master of a miserable labour schooner, had run off with prisoners of war belonging to a British gunboat, defied the Imperial Government, and offered open disrespect to the Crown! The commander, an iron-faced, flinty-eyed disciplinarian of the toughest school, and a first-class pepper-pot into the bargain, nearly choked with rage and indignation. Out went theAlligatoragain, full steam ahead, making the captain's dainty suite of cabins tremble like an ill-set jelly in the stern as the ship forged along at thirteen knots an hour, blackening the crystal sky with trails of smoke, and looking implacably about for the offendingSybil. That delinquent of the high seas was farther off than might have been supposed. The wind, though light, was in her favour, and she had managed to get round the far end of the island, and down the other side to Coral Bay, eighty miles off, before theAlligatorcame up with her, late in the afternoon. Once caught, her shrift was short. The prisoners were at once transferred; Saxon was arrested and taken, still half drunk, on board the man-of-war, and his ship was confiscated, "just to learn him," as Gray (who had viewed his captain's proceedings with sour and silent disapproval throughout) was heard to remark, not without a little I-told-you-so satisfaction.And so it came about that Vaiti, returning with the boat from an unsuccessful recruiting expedition, and not in the best of humours to begin with, was met on her arrival with extremely unpleasant news."We're took, cap'n; we're took, ma'am!" shouted Gray over the bulwarks, as the boat nosed along the side of the schooner. He added a rapid account of the calamity, in which he was careful to suppress his personal feelings of triumph.The smart young lieutenant who had been left in charge of the ship came and looked down at the boat. He wanted to know what sort of person it might be who was addressed with this extraordinary hail. He had been under the impression that the "captain" of theSybilhad been left two hours ago—sullen, swearing, and not at all sober—in the cells of H.M.S.Alligator.What he saw was a red-painted boat, manned by four stalwart native seamen, and steered by an extremely handsome, olive-faced young woman, who looked up at him with eyes that seemed to dart black lightning under their beautifully drawn brows as she listened to the boatswain's story. She wore a dainty, lacy white muslin frock, and carried a Winchester rifle in her lap.Second Lieutenant Tempest, who had been cursing his luck up to that moment, suddenly became reconciled to the uninteresting job in which he was engaged. It is just conceivable that his commander might have selected another officer to perform the duty if he had been aware of its possible alleviations; for Mr. Tempest was notoriously given to scrapes with asoupçonof petticoat in them, and had already imperilled his career more than once after this fashion. But Commander the Hon. Francis St. John Raleigh had not seen "Captain" Vaiti; so he sent Mr. Tempest to take possession of theSybil, and slept the sleep of the well-conscienced and well-dined, that evening, in his velvet armchair.... It might have seemed somewhat less perfectly stuffed to him, had his dreams been concerned with what was happening a few hundred yards away.Mr. Tempest, smiling like the godmother beast of his own ship, offered his hand to the sullen beauty as she swung herself up theSybil'sside. Vaiti tossed it indignantly away, favoured him with another black-lightning glance that reduced his susceptible sailor heart to pulp, and stalked aft like an offended Cleopatra. Tempest, persistently following, poured out explanations, apologies, smiles, consolations, promises. Vaiti began to think that civility might possibly avail her something, and began to melt by carefully calculated degrees. Before very long she was sitting on the main hatch, with Tempest beside her, holding her hand unreproved and continuing his consolations. The commander was very angry, no doubt, but he was a good sort at bottom, and perhaps he would not really seize the ship. She would be sent to Fiji, no doubt, and Saxon might possibly be imprisoned, but it would all come out all right, trust him! And he would take very good care of theSybiland her charming "captain."Vaiti, still smiling sweetly, dug her nails into wood of the hatch at her side. Underneath all this verbiage she foresaw the reality of serious trouble. Why had her father been such a fool? What could be done to save the ship? There seemed no way of helping Saxon himself. If the commander proved implacable, to prison he must go. Well, that would not break any bones; but the loss of theSybil—if such a disaster was indeed possible—must be averted at any cost. She did not believe Mr. Tempest's smiling assertion. The commander had threatened to confiscate the ship, and most probably he would. At any rate, the risk was too great to face. The schooner must not be taken to Fiji.The wily brain was hard at work, as she sat on the hatch, listening, with a gentle smile and soft, downcast, maidenly eyes, to Tempest's love-making, and answering now and then in her pretty Polynesian "pigeon-English"—so much simpler and less grotesque than thebêche-de-mertalk of the Melanesian Islands.... If he could be got out of the way, and the marines suddenly overpowered, the schooner might slip off round the corner of the headland in the dark, and get nearly a hundred miles away before daylight, with the steady wind that was blowing outside the glassy, landlocked harbour of Coral Bay. There was just enough air stirring at this farthest point to allow her to get out, and once off, she could show her heels in a way that would astonish even a British gunboat. Of course, the latter would easily overhaul her in an open chase, but Vaiti did not propose any such folly. There was many a perilous inlet and passage among those dangerous, ill-surveyed islands where theSybilcould safely go, but where theAlligatorcould not venture. Let them only gain a day, and who was to say whither they had flown into the wide wastes of the Pacific? Once beyond pursuit, paint and other disguises would so alter the ship that no one could identify her; her name could be changed, and theMary Annor theNautiluswould innocently sail the seas formerly polluted by the presence of the naughtySybil.... It was certainly worth trying.As for Tempest, she had a plan concocted to get rid of him almost as soon as the matter entered her mind. She left him, by and by, solacing himself with fresh turtle steak and excellent champagne in the cabin for the loss of his own dinner, while she went into the bows with Harris and Gray, and rapidly explained her plans. The marines had been accommodated with eatables and drinkables after their own hearts, on the cover of the main hatch, and were too much engaged to notice anything in the thick darkness that was now lying heavily on Coral Bay.Vaiti's plan was simple and effective. Tempest was to be enticed into leaving his duty and going ashore—she would see to that. Four of the New Hebridean crew, stripped of their ship clothes, and attired in their aboriginal paint and plumes, were to be concealed on the beach. They would capture him, and carry him off to a bush village near the coast, where the people were not ill disposed to the whites, and leave him there, scared no doubt, but safe until the morning, when he would be let go. Vaiti would come back to the ship as soon as the capture was effected, and the four native sailors would hurry down from the village as quickly as possible. Meantime, it would be easy for Harris to drug the marines' drink and make them helpless. They would be set adrift in one of the boats, as soon as the schooner was clear of the land, so that they should tell no tales. With good luck, everything should be over, and theSybilfar out to sea, in less than a couple of hours.*      *      *      *      *Of the disgrace of Lieutenant Tempest—of his temptation, his struggle, and his fall—there is no need to tell at length. The decline of a British officer from duty and honour—his desertion of a post which every professional instinct should have compelled him to keep is not a happy subject, as (fortunately) it is not a common one. Vaiti, in brief, invited the officer to leave the ship unguarded, and slip ashore with her, to sup at a neighbouring trader's shanty, where she said there would be drink and dancing, and every kind of fun. There was no such place, but Tempest did not know that; and if he had known, he might not have cared. Half-crazed with love and champagne, he thought only of the beautiful half-caste girl, and was ready to follow her to the mouth of hell, if she had asked him. The dinghy was got out softly and cautiously, and, with muffled oars, they slipped away unheard. So far out of his mind was the lieutenant that he did not even note the disappearance of his men, who were all lying, very ably and completely Shanghai'ed, in the hold.In less than half an hour Vaiti came back, swimming the stretch of black water that lay between theSybiland the shore, to leave the boat ready for the men. Dripping, sparkling, and laughing, she stood up in the dim light of the deck lantern and told the mate and boatswain how the capture had been managed. Tempest, with a sack over his head and his hands and feet bound to a pole, was at that moment being carried up in the dark to the bush village. The inhabitants of the place were to have ten pounds' worth of trade goods promised them to keep him there all night and let him escape in the morning, when they themselves would go off and hide in the impenetrable forests until the man-of-war had sailed away again. In half an hour or so the four natives would be back on board, and they would all sail away round the headland, and leave no evidence of any kind to connect theSybilwith this last unpardonable outrage; for Tempest could not but suppose that the natives who so neatly bagged him as he was philandering along the dark beach with the innocent Vaiti were ordinary hill tribesmen. And, in any case, his sacred person would be taken good care of."Then he ain't to be damaged, the little darlin'?" inquired Harris. The question was not an idle one. Every one on board the schooner knew that Vaiti was capable of ugly things at her worst.The girl laughed—a low, gurgling laugh."No. No kill him, no hurt him. I not like," she said, tossing back her wet, wavy hair, with a coquettish gesture that told Harris the woman in Vaiti was fully awake that night, despite the rough and ready adventure on which she was engaged. Harris was no fool, if he was something unsteady in character, and more or less he admired Vaiti himself, which tended to sharpen his sight."Good job the dandy leftenantisout of the way," he growled as Vaiti disappeared into the cabin to change. "'Twouldn't take much for 'er to get fancyin' his silly face, after all, and then the fat would be in the fire.""Well, if you hask me, I don't like none of the 'ole thing from beginnin' to hend," declared the bo'sun, jamming a wad of tobacco viciously into his pipe. "Not the keepin' of the bloomin' niggers, not again runnin' to Coral Bay, nor again this business. Wy? Because I don't, and because it make me smell dirty weather. Give us a light."Overhead the stars in the velvet sky began to twinkle here and there as the breeze rose and the clouds melted away. An odour of hot, wet jungle drifted out across the bay from the invisible land, and a locust with a rattle exactly like a policeman's whistle burred loudly among the trees. It might have been half an hour, and it might have been more, before something else became audible—something that sounded like a frightened wailing on the shore."A—wé! A—a—wé!"Vaiti came out of her cabin and stood on deck, listening intently.The sound went on."A—wé! A—wé! A—wa—wé!"Harris, watching Vaiti's face in the light of the lantern, saw it change and harden, but she said nothing. There was another sound now—a dinghy shoving off from the beach and the rattle of carelessly handled oars."What's the —— fools makin' such a —— row for?" asked Gray. "They'll 'ave theHalligatoron to us."Still Vaiti said nothing, but stood like a statue on the deck, listening and looking into the darkness.The boat rammed theSybilin another minute with a shock that made her quiver, and then drifted aimlessly along her sides. Three brown naked figures lifted up their arms from below, and cried despairingly:"Kapitani! Kapitani! A—wé! A—wé!""Get those fellows on board, too much quick, and bring him cabin," ordered Vaiti. Harris and Gray hauled them in with small ceremony, and dumped them down the companion into the cabin, where they stood in the light of the lamp, painted, feather-bedecked creatures, fierce enough in appearance, but in reality abjectly frightened and a-shiver."What thing you been do?" demanded Vaiti sharply. "Where you make other sailor-man? What you do Tempesi?"One of the men was beginning his wail again. She seized him by the shoulder, pulled a pistol from among her draperies, and shook it in his face. The man, with a yell of terror, twisted himself out of her hold. Harris, who was rather frightened at her demeanour, got him away, forced a dram of spirits into his mouth, and tried to extract the terrified creature's story from him by degrees.CHAPTER XVITHE FATE OF THE LIEUTENANTIt was not a gratifying tale. Half a mile from the beach, the captors had been overtaken by a party of wild hillmen from Ranaar, one of the worst of the inland cannibal towns, and had been set upon fiercely in the dark. Aki, one of their own party, had been clubbed, and his body carried off. The other natives had escaped. As for the lieutenant, the Ranaar men had seized on him with cries of joy, exclaiming that now indeed they had a chance of "making themselves strong" before all Malekula. Then they had carried him away, slung on a pole between two men, and theSybil'speople, half dead with fright, had run down to the beach again; and here they were, begging the Kapitani to have mercy on them, for indeed it was not their fault, and no one could have known that the Ranaar men would venture so near the coast.Vaiti, Harris, and Gray all looked grave at this recital. They knew only too well what was implied by the phrase "making strong," and what virtues the hill tribes of Malekula ascribed to the eating of white man's flesh. The rude play of the capture had turned into most serious earnest, and Tempest's life was worth just so many hours as it might take the cannibals to reach their mountain stronghold and go through the preliminary ceremonies of the feast. No more.There was silence for a minute or two, while the schooner rolled gently on the swell of the incoming tide, and the smoky kerosene light flickered to and fro upon the strange, wild scene: Vaiti's beautiful, angry head standing out above the weather-beaten faces of the two English sailors, the three naked New Hebrideans, squalid and monkey-faced, cowering before her; the remnants of Tempest's dinner, some one's greasy pack of cards, and a couple of Saxon's empty whisky bottles decorating the table. The natives were badly frightened still. They did not understand that the Kapitani's plans had been entangled beyond all hope of setting right by this disaster, or that theAlligatormust have been alarmed by their noisy return; but Vaiti's countenance was enough to warn any one who had ever seen the unpleasant things that happened at times on board theSybilthat hurricane weather was ahead. But before she had time to speak again, a loud hail from outside made every one look towards the deck. In another moment the first lieutenant of theAlligatorhad framed his smart white and gold personality in the dark oblong of the companion, and demanded, loudly, and authoritatively, to know where Mr. Tempest was, where the marines were, and what the deuce was the meaning of all this.Vaiti, motioning aside the mate and bo'sun, swept to the front and spoke straight out."All your sailor, he too much drunk, sleep 'long hold. Tempesi, he been go shore. Men belong Ranaar, they catch him, take him away. Pretty dam quick they eat him.""Great Scott!" said the officer. Facts were falling very thick and fast, and there were evidently more facts behind them which for the present he felt obliged—most reluctantly—to neglect. People think quickly in the navy, and Lieutenant Darcy realised instantly that this strange, wild, handsome creature was speaking the truth, and that it must be acted on without delay.He stepped out on deck, and gave certain orders to his men. A sharp little midshipman and half the boat's crew followed him on board, and planted themselves about the ship. The rest remained in the boat."This officer will stay here and take charge, and you will come with me to theAlligator," said the lieutenant, addressing Vaiti."Yes, I speak captain. Very good you let me see him quick," said the girl imperiously; and the lieutenant, guessing that there was more still to be told, hurried the boat away.He delivered his report to the commander, and concluded by saying that the girl was in waiting, and had, in his opinion, something more to say about the matter."Bring her in," said the commander shortly. The gravity of the affair had darkened his face a trifle, but he made no comment. It was not a time for talk.Vaiti entered with the light step and carriage of the woman who wears neither shoes nor stays, and stood silently before the commander, fixing his hard grey eyes with her inscrutable dark stare."You can sit down," said the officer. "I want to ask you some questions."Vaiti drew herself up a little higher."No time for sit," she said curtly. "Suppose you no want Tempesi ki-ki [eaten] pretty quick, you listen me.""Young woman!" began Commander the Hon. Francis St. John Raleigh sternly."I tell you, no time talk!" interrupted Vaiti. "I savvy all right you very big sea-chief; I savvy my father been made bad work, made bad work myself. Let him go all-a-same that; by-'n-by we talk those thing. Now you listen me.""All right; sit down," said the officer in a more conciliatory tone. Vaiti sat, and leaning across the table with her chin in one slender hand, and her eyes blazing out from under the mass of damp waves on her forehead, she said her say."You no savvy Malekula man; I savvy plenty. Suppose you do what I telling you, Tempesi he come back, I think. Suppose not, Tempesi he eat. Ranaar, he ten, eleven mile up 'long bush, plenty bad way. You take some sailor; he go too much sof', too much quiet, all-a-same cat. Time we coming along Ranaar, one half-mile, sailor he all stop. I go myself Ranaar. Maybe I get Tempesi; we coming back to sailor, go home all right.""Oh, nonsense! how are you going to get him, if the men can't?" demanded the commander. He saw that he had a remarkable personality to deal with in this strange half-caste beauty, but he did not comprehend her very clearly, and he thought she was "gassing" a little.Vaiti frowned."I tell you, you no savvy Malekula," she said scornfully. "Sailor belong you, all the man hear him when he walk 'long bush. Ranaar man he hear; he run away.""Well, so long as we rescue Mr. Tempest——""No you talk, I say; you listen, you Kapitani with um wooden face!" spat Vaiti.The lieutenant turned his head away, and choked a little in his pocket-handkerchief. The commander stared, then burst out laughing."Go on, you she-cat," he said."Ranaar man he run away; very good. He leave Tempesi; very good. No want Tempesi tell some tale, so he leave him dead. Break him head, all same pig, very quick, then run away. Now what you think?""I think you are a very plucky young lady, and that you have something more to say about it," replied the commander politely."Very good. Suppose I going 'long bush; savvy plenty the way. I been 'long Ranaar recruit; savvy all-a-road. No walking all same white man, walking all same one snake, all same one mice. No white man he walk that way. I come up Ranaar, all-a-dark, I stop 'long one small place; see the man he dance, he sing, he make ki-ki. Bushman, he plenty frighten something he no savvy. Savvy gun, dynamite, but no savvy big blue-light signal thing you got 'long ship. I take one, two blue-light thing; I throw. Bushman he think one big devil stop, no think man-of-war come; run away too much dam quick, not stop kill Tempesi. By'n-by he coming back, but I cut rope before he come. I bring Tempesi 'long me, 'long sailor-man; we go back quick. Tempesi all right. Savvy?""Yes, I do savvy; seems a neat plan, on the whole. But what's going to happen to you if they catch you?""Eat," said Vaiti succinctly. "Now you listen me. I no do all this thing for nothing, see?""H'm; yes, I do see. How much do you want?""Two thing," said Vaiti, eyeing him narrowly. "One. My father say he plenty sorry, no do any more bad thing. You let him go, let schooner go.""Well—yes, I'll promise that," answered the commander rather stiffly. The girl was taking her life in her hand to serve the interests of the British Crown, and it was not a time to stick at trifles, or, indeed, larger things."Two," went on Vaiti. "Tempesi he seen leave ship, go 'long shore with me. You tell him all right, you no punish.""Oh, by Jove! that's too much," snapped out the commander. "No, Miss—Miss What's-your-name, I can't promise any such thing. I can't have you or any one else interfering with the discipline of my ship. Mr. Tempest's conduct is a very serious matter, and he must take the consequences, by Gad he must, if he comes back alive to take them."Vaiti had had a good deal to do with men-of-war, and their officers, during the course of the schooner's many wanderings. She did not need to be told that Tempest's career might be ended, and his life disgraced, if naval justice took its course. A few hours ago she would not have cared. But Mr. Tempest, like all men notorious for getting into scrapes with a petticoat at the bottom of them, had a "way with him," and it happened to be a way that appealed to this daughter of the Islands more than she would have cared to allow. Besides, it was not her custom to give in to a defeat."All right," she said calmly. "I savvy all thing about Englis' officer. Tempesi he no like court-mars'al, make break, make longshoreman, all the people laugh. Tempesi, he like die, I think. All right. I let him. Good night."The commander held out his hand."Good night," he said politely. "Mr. Darcy, you will see about getting a native guide who can show the way to Ranaar, at once. We will do our best to surprise them."A low, sarcastic laugh came from Vaiti."You wooden-faced Kapitani, you think you savvy Malekula!" she said. "Where you get guide?"Mr. Darcy did know a little about the New Hebrides, and he saw that they were beaten."She's right, sir," he said. "Take my word for it, no native would dare to guide you. There's no mission here; they're a very bad lot, and all at war."It was a bitter moment for the commander, but he surrendered like a gentleman."You've got the best of me, Miss—Miss Saxon," he said. "Very well. You have my promise. Mr. Tempest shall be pardoned, if we get him back alive. You know nothing about this matter, you will remember, Mr. Darcy. Miss Saxon, you're a very brave young lady, and I wish I had met you in circumstances of which I could more honestly approve.""No one need tell me," he said afterwards, "that that old vagabond we had in the cells wasn't a gentleman once. It comes out in the girl; blood will tell, even in a half-caste. But Providence ought rightly to have a down on the man who is responsible for any one of them, for there seems no right place for them, either in heaven or earth."*      *      *      *      *Neither the bluejackets of theAlligator, nor the officer appointed to command the column, ever forgot that night's march through the mountain bush of Malekula. The air was like hot water, and not a breath of wind was stirring. The track was but a few inches wide, and as slippery as butter, so that the men slid and fell continually when struggling up the endless sides of the innumerable gullies. Mosquitoes settled in bloodthirsty hordes upon their faces and hands, roots tripped them up, saw-edged reeds slapped them in the eyes, and thorny tangles of bush-lawyers fished for and successfully hooked them. At any moment a huge soft-nosed bullet, cruel as a shell, might come singing out of the darkness; or a poisoned arrow, freighted with sure and agonising death, might whirr across their path. When the officer in command, irritated by the stumbling and falling of the men, ordered them to remove their boots and march barefoot, Vaiti told him that nothing of the kind must be done, for poisoned spear-heads were in all probability set here and there in unsuspected places, ready to pierce the unwary foot. She herself seemed invulnerable and untiring; she led the column at a pace that caused more than one to fall out, and never hesitated nor faltered through all the three hours of the worst and most intricate march that theAlligatormen had ever known.At last she told the officer to call a halt, and on no account to make the slightest noise or advance his men until he should see a blue light burning about half a mile ahead. Then she vanished into the darkness, lithe and noiseless as a lizard, and silence, dead and oppressive, settled down upon the bush.*      *      *      *      *Lieutenant Tempest was a man and a British sailor, and he was not afraid of death. But he thought there might be pleasanter ways of dying than that which actually stared him in the face.Memory plays strange tricks when the dark is closing down about her doors. Lying there on the damp earth, bound hand and foot to a pole, with the hideous howls of the cannibal dancers in his ears and the glare of the cooking-pits in his eyes. Tempest could think of nothing but a fragment of verse out of a half-forgotten poem read somewhere long ago:"It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts.But only—how did you die?"How was he dying? Not as an English officer might gladly die in the cause of his country and in loyal obedience to orders. Not even as a man, with a sword in his hand, facing the foe. He was dying an unfaithful servant, false to his trust, and suffering because of that falseness, as a slaughtered brute struck down with a club like a bullock, and afterwards....The red remains of the luckless Aki, jointed and piled in a ghastly heap, told the rest.Tempest did not look at that ugly pile any more than he could help. He wanted all the nerve he could muster for he was haunted by a deadly fear that he might cry out for mercy when it came to the last, and he did not want to add cowardice to the tale of his many shortcomings. If he could have died here as a prisoner of war—as a captured scout, a fighting enemy, taken in a skirmish—the death, hideous as it was, would have been honourable, and his pride of country would have upheld him. But it seemed as if his courage had nothing to stand on now, and he was almost—almost, but, thank God! not quite—afraid.The Malekulans had been dancing for full two hours, ever since they had brought him to the valley and flung him down upon the ground. In the middle of the open village square were three huge idols, carved out of entire tree-trunks set upright. They had black, empty sockets for eyes; their mouths were curved upwards into a ghastly wrinkled grin, and their tongues hung mockingly out. On the head of each was perched a huge black wooden bird, with beak bent down and gloomy wings outspread—the very spirit of Nightmare herself. Round and round these devilish things, in the red glow of the fires, danced the cannibals ceaselessly and untiringly, fleeing with heads down and outspread hands, wheeling and turning, circling with measured steps; and all the time the huge hollow idols, beaten with heavy clubs "to make the spirits speak," thundered death and doom. It was plainly a religious ceremony which must be fully enacted down to the last detail; but Tempest thought, as clearly as he could think in such a place and at such a time, that it could not last much longer."A fellow ought to say his prayers," he thought; but the thunder of the drums and the wild, shrieking song of the dancers bewildered him, and his swollen wrists and ankles hurt him so much as almost to confuse his mind.... What could he say? Only one prayer remained clear in the turmoil of his brain—just the old, old prayer that he had prayed at his mother's knee. Well, it would serve—and up above he hoped they'd understand how sorry he was ... for lots of things...."Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come...."It was coming, indeed! The dance had stopped."Thy will be done...."What came next? He could not remember—and the savages were advancing across the square."Forgive us our trespasses ... and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...."It wasnow! The women were hiding themselves in the houses, and two of the men, armed with clubs, were stepping forward.He was only conscious of one feeling—joy that he had the courage to look the cannibals in the face as they advanced, and meet his fate "game." He hardly knew that he was still praying—"... For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory...."Death!It came with a blaze of light—a sound as of a wild, deep shout and the rushing of many waters—then——Was this the end? Was it indeed death? He had felt nothing—but a man does not feel the blow that kills—and his eyes were so dazzled with a strange, blue glory that he could not see.... The rushing sound continued; it was like the thunder of hundreds of flying feet.... The light burst forth again, and yet again, and then died away, and there was a great silence. Tempest saw the hideous faces of the idols standing out in the empty square, and began to understand. He was not dead—but something had happened. What was it? He tried to break loose and sit up so as to see all round."Stop um little bit," said a voice, and some one drew a sharp knife across the lashings that bound his limbs, and lifted him into a sitting position.The blinding light had almost died away now, and he could see the whole square. There was no one in it. The cannibals were gone, and the beautiful half-caste girl who had brought about his downfall—innocently, as Tempest of course supposed—was squatting beside him and putting a flask to his lips."Drink a little bit whisky," she said. "Good whisky; he make strong. No good stop here, you Belitani sailor-man; more better we go away too much quick."The spirit cleared Tempest's head and put some life into his limbs. Vaiti poked him unceremoniously in the ribs as soon as she saw that he was reviving."Show um leg there, lively!" she ordered, dragging him by the arms. Rather to his surprise, Tempest found that he could walk, once on his feet. He wasted no time in getting away, after Vaiti's brief explanation of the blue-light stratagem, and the probable return of his enemies before very long. At something as near a run as his cramped limbs would allow, he followed her down the pathway that led away from the village—narrow, wet, and dark as a wolf's gullet—and into the comparative security of the bush, towards the advancing relief column from theAlligator.It would have been no more than fitting if Vaiti, like a true heroine of romance, had vanished silently into the forest when they encountered the man-of-war's men, leaving Tempest to "turn to thank his preserver," and "find that she had disappeared." But Vaiti, as it happened, was born under the Southern Cross, where the poetry of the footlights does not flourish. So she gave the men her company on the way down as a matter of course, asked the officer in command for a cigar, smoked it and accepted half a dozen more out of his case, and made herself wonderfully pleasant—for Vaiti. She had further driven Tempest to distraction by starting a flirtation with a handsome petty officer, eaten up two emergency rations, "borrowed" some one's gold tie-pin, and very soundly boxed the ears of a leading seaman who tried to kiss her in the dark, before the long roll of the surf on the barrier reef, and the welcome glimmer of theAlligator'sriding lights, told the tired-out party that they were safe back again. Then, like the mysterious heroine, at last she disappeared, and slipped off to theSybilin a native canoe, for the reason that she did not want to be seen on board the man-of-war in a very untidy and dirty dress, without any flowers in her hair, or fresh scent on her laces. Tempest had found time to "thank his preserver" on the way down, haltingly enough; but the preserver, instead of accepting his thanks after the fashion he would have preferred, had laughed wildly and somewhat wickedly, and gone on walking right in the middle of the column, without a glance to spare for him.... Still—he thought he knew women—and.... Time would show.

*      *      *      *      *

The Mua trader was at his door when a howling procession of natives came into the village, carrying the white man's corpse to his home. The Alofi trader, who had found the body, stepped aside to speak. After the tale of the finding had been told, the Mua trader asked slowly:

"Did you think of searching his pockets? A dead man's a dead man—and I'd not be sorry to have the money he owed me, for the natives will have taken the goods by this time."

"They were empty when I found him. Queer, for I was the first to see him," said the other. "I found this thing on the road close by, though. Do you recognise it?"

It was the trader's darning-needle, stuck neatly into the end of a tiny, arrow-like reed, and stained at the point with some dark sticky stuff.

The Mua trader took it in his hand, smelt it and looked at it closely. Then he walked to his kitchen, and, watched by the Alofi trader, threw the thing into the fire.

"That's what I think of it," he said. "My boy, I traded in the worst of the Solomons for three years. I'm the only man on the island that knows that thing, bar one—and he was a plantation hand in the Solomons, in the black-birding days. There's no wanderers like the Nuié men."

"Do you think——" began the other.

"I think," said the Mua trader, "that old Sona has got his money back."

*      *      *      *      *

The schoonerSybilhad no reason for staying longer in Niué, for the business of the ship was done, and the captain was quite well again. A picture of perfect beauty theSybilmade, as she stood out of Alofi roads in the golden afternoon, every sail set and every inch of cloth straining to the merry breeze. Niué was sorry to part with Vaiti, for she had interested the island considerably, and her beauty had, as usual, won her more admiration than her temper deserved. Every one, on parting, expressed a courteous wish to see theSybiland her owners again.

For all that, and all that, the schooner came back no more. Vaiti had won the game at last, but she never willingly mentioned Niué again.

CHAPTER XV

THE CALAMITY OF CORAL BAY

The wide, still waters of Coral Bay were turning glassy pink under the sunset afterglow. TheSybil'sboat, rowing rapidly towards the schooner, left as it went a long, ugly flaw upon the stainless crystal of the sea. It was very still, and the night was coming down.

Even in that uncertain twilight the colour of the boat as it cut through the pale-hued water stood out strange and sinister. Most boats are white in tropic seas: theSybil'shad always been snowy as her own graceful hull. Now they were vivid scarlet, and the ship herself had a wide band of scarlet round her counter and flew a scarlet flag at her masthead.

Any islander could have told you at a glance what these things meant. The schooner was "recruiting"—conveying natives from the wild cannibal islands of the New Hebrides to the Queensland sugar plantations. Ten pounds a head was paid for the men on their arrival, and it was politely supposed that these ignorant heathen had one and all been duly engaged under a contract to serve three years, at a wage of five pounds a year. How much they understood of contracts, times, and wages—where and what they thought Australia might be—and what were the means employed to get them on board the ship, nobody asked. Saxon was not the man to answer, if any one had.

Why he had temporarily deserted the pleasant, peaceful islands of the Eastern Pacific, and gone "black-birding" in the wild and wicked and fever-smitten groups of the West, was Saxon's own affair. Doubtless he had his reasons; possibly they were satisfactory. But there is reason to believe that about Apia and Papeëte at this time he was characterised as a (double-adjectived) liar, and an (impolite expression) villain, who was running away because it was (adverbially) unsafe for him to stay and risk his (past participled) neck among (adjective) men. This is not the history of Captain Saxon; at least, not all of it—from such a recital as that may the eleven thousand virgins of Saint Mudie, and the Blessed Young Person of Sixteen, deliver us! It must therefore be enough to say that, for sufficient reasons, he decided to shift his headquarters to the New Hebrides, and immediately did so, leaving behind him certain unsettled scores with which this tale has nothing to do.

He was not new to the islands or the natives, having been one of the most notorious of the sandal-wood traders in years gone by. The sandal-wood was gone, and of the money he had made by it not even the memory remained. But there was still something in the labour trade, and Saxon liked the lawless atmosphere of the place.

Vaiti remembered the islands well, though she had only been there as a child, and she was glad to have the excitement of the change. When the recruiting boat left the schooner (guarded by a companion, full of armed men) and drew up on the beach to negotiate with the islanders, she always sat in the stern, with a very smart little Winchester rifle across her knees, and took command, if her father was not there. Very often he was not; for the New Hebrideans have long memories, and there was many a spot where Saxon had run up so many bad, black scores in the sandal-wood days that he could not hope for success—or safety, if he had minded that—in going ashore. Harris usually took command of the covering boat, a post of comparative security that suited him very well, while the dauntless Vaiti managed all the real business, and seldom came back with an empty bag.

They had good luck, on the whole, and not many narrow escapes. Coasting round the notorious island of Mallicolo, or Malekula, they succeeded in obtaining about forty natives in a week or two. Saxon was well pleased, and began to count up his profits. Also he began to drink again.

Then it was that trouble came, as trouble generally does, out of a fair-seeming sky.

Half-a-dozen natives had been given up to the missionaries on the far side of Malekula, to hand over to the British gunboatAlligator, which at that time was cruising about the islands, intent on punishing the Malekulans for a more than usually atrocious murder of whites. The tribes to whom the culprits belonged had taken fright, and were anxious to save themselves at any cost. The missionaries, when asked by them, consented to take charge of the prisoners, but refused to keep them any longer than could possibly be helped, since they did not consider themselves judges or gaolers. At this point theSybilturned up, and the missionaries, hearing she was bound for Parrot Harbour, where theAlligatorwas certain to call, put the men on board, and engaged Saxon to hand them over to the Parrot Harbour mission, receiving from the missionaries there the price of their passage, which the man-of-war would doubtless refund.

Saxon, understanding that he had not to meet theAlligator, undertook the job at a rather excessive rate, and brought the prisoners over as agreed. But, finding that the Parrot Harbour mission refused to pay the passage money until the man-of-war arrived, he went into a towering rage and abused everybody. Wait for theAlligator? Not he! He had something else to do, and he wouldn't have any condemned gunboat that ever sailed the sanguinary waters of the Pacific poking her nose into any of his business. He had been promised the money as soon as he arrived, and the money or its equivalent he meant to have or know the reason why. Off he went, with much more whisky in his brain than was compatible with sober judgment—off out to sea again, taking with him the whole six prisoners, and openly declaring his intention either to hold them for ransom or run them down to the Queensland plantations, as seemed most convenient.

Next day theAlligatorappeared, and her commander was informed of the occurrence. Saxon, master of a miserable labour schooner, had run off with prisoners of war belonging to a British gunboat, defied the Imperial Government, and offered open disrespect to the Crown! The commander, an iron-faced, flinty-eyed disciplinarian of the toughest school, and a first-class pepper-pot into the bargain, nearly choked with rage and indignation. Out went theAlligatoragain, full steam ahead, making the captain's dainty suite of cabins tremble like an ill-set jelly in the stern as the ship forged along at thirteen knots an hour, blackening the crystal sky with trails of smoke, and looking implacably about for the offendingSybil. That delinquent of the high seas was farther off than might have been supposed. The wind, though light, was in her favour, and she had managed to get round the far end of the island, and down the other side to Coral Bay, eighty miles off, before theAlligatorcame up with her, late in the afternoon. Once caught, her shrift was short. The prisoners were at once transferred; Saxon was arrested and taken, still half drunk, on board the man-of-war, and his ship was confiscated, "just to learn him," as Gray (who had viewed his captain's proceedings with sour and silent disapproval throughout) was heard to remark, not without a little I-told-you-so satisfaction.

And so it came about that Vaiti, returning with the boat from an unsuccessful recruiting expedition, and not in the best of humours to begin with, was met on her arrival with extremely unpleasant news.

"We're took, cap'n; we're took, ma'am!" shouted Gray over the bulwarks, as the boat nosed along the side of the schooner. He added a rapid account of the calamity, in which he was careful to suppress his personal feelings of triumph.

The smart young lieutenant who had been left in charge of the ship came and looked down at the boat. He wanted to know what sort of person it might be who was addressed with this extraordinary hail. He had been under the impression that the "captain" of theSybilhad been left two hours ago—sullen, swearing, and not at all sober—in the cells of H.M.S.Alligator.

What he saw was a red-painted boat, manned by four stalwart native seamen, and steered by an extremely handsome, olive-faced young woman, who looked up at him with eyes that seemed to dart black lightning under their beautifully drawn brows as she listened to the boatswain's story. She wore a dainty, lacy white muslin frock, and carried a Winchester rifle in her lap.

Second Lieutenant Tempest, who had been cursing his luck up to that moment, suddenly became reconciled to the uninteresting job in which he was engaged. It is just conceivable that his commander might have selected another officer to perform the duty if he had been aware of its possible alleviations; for Mr. Tempest was notoriously given to scrapes with asoupçonof petticoat in them, and had already imperilled his career more than once after this fashion. But Commander the Hon. Francis St. John Raleigh had not seen "Captain" Vaiti; so he sent Mr. Tempest to take possession of theSybil, and slept the sleep of the well-conscienced and well-dined, that evening, in his velvet armchair.... It might have seemed somewhat less perfectly stuffed to him, had his dreams been concerned with what was happening a few hundred yards away.

Mr. Tempest, smiling like the godmother beast of his own ship, offered his hand to the sullen beauty as she swung herself up theSybil'sside. Vaiti tossed it indignantly away, favoured him with another black-lightning glance that reduced his susceptible sailor heart to pulp, and stalked aft like an offended Cleopatra. Tempest, persistently following, poured out explanations, apologies, smiles, consolations, promises. Vaiti began to think that civility might possibly avail her something, and began to melt by carefully calculated degrees. Before very long she was sitting on the main hatch, with Tempest beside her, holding her hand unreproved and continuing his consolations. The commander was very angry, no doubt, but he was a good sort at bottom, and perhaps he would not really seize the ship. She would be sent to Fiji, no doubt, and Saxon might possibly be imprisoned, but it would all come out all right, trust him! And he would take very good care of theSybiland her charming "captain."

Vaiti, still smiling sweetly, dug her nails into wood of the hatch at her side. Underneath all this verbiage she foresaw the reality of serious trouble. Why had her father been such a fool? What could be done to save the ship? There seemed no way of helping Saxon himself. If the commander proved implacable, to prison he must go. Well, that would not break any bones; but the loss of theSybil—if such a disaster was indeed possible—must be averted at any cost. She did not believe Mr. Tempest's smiling assertion. The commander had threatened to confiscate the ship, and most probably he would. At any rate, the risk was too great to face. The schooner must not be taken to Fiji.

The wily brain was hard at work, as she sat on the hatch, listening, with a gentle smile and soft, downcast, maidenly eyes, to Tempest's love-making, and answering now and then in her pretty Polynesian "pigeon-English"—so much simpler and less grotesque than thebêche-de-mertalk of the Melanesian Islands.... If he could be got out of the way, and the marines suddenly overpowered, the schooner might slip off round the corner of the headland in the dark, and get nearly a hundred miles away before daylight, with the steady wind that was blowing outside the glassy, landlocked harbour of Coral Bay. There was just enough air stirring at this farthest point to allow her to get out, and once off, she could show her heels in a way that would astonish even a British gunboat. Of course, the latter would easily overhaul her in an open chase, but Vaiti did not propose any such folly. There was many a perilous inlet and passage among those dangerous, ill-surveyed islands where theSybilcould safely go, but where theAlligatorcould not venture. Let them only gain a day, and who was to say whither they had flown into the wide wastes of the Pacific? Once beyond pursuit, paint and other disguises would so alter the ship that no one could identify her; her name could be changed, and theMary Annor theNautiluswould innocently sail the seas formerly polluted by the presence of the naughtySybil.... It was certainly worth trying.

As for Tempest, she had a plan concocted to get rid of him almost as soon as the matter entered her mind. She left him, by and by, solacing himself with fresh turtle steak and excellent champagne in the cabin for the loss of his own dinner, while she went into the bows with Harris and Gray, and rapidly explained her plans. The marines had been accommodated with eatables and drinkables after their own hearts, on the cover of the main hatch, and were too much engaged to notice anything in the thick darkness that was now lying heavily on Coral Bay.

Vaiti's plan was simple and effective. Tempest was to be enticed into leaving his duty and going ashore—she would see to that. Four of the New Hebridean crew, stripped of their ship clothes, and attired in their aboriginal paint and plumes, were to be concealed on the beach. They would capture him, and carry him off to a bush village near the coast, where the people were not ill disposed to the whites, and leave him there, scared no doubt, but safe until the morning, when he would be let go. Vaiti would come back to the ship as soon as the capture was effected, and the four native sailors would hurry down from the village as quickly as possible. Meantime, it would be easy for Harris to drug the marines' drink and make them helpless. They would be set adrift in one of the boats, as soon as the schooner was clear of the land, so that they should tell no tales. With good luck, everything should be over, and theSybilfar out to sea, in less than a couple of hours.

*      *      *      *      *

Of the disgrace of Lieutenant Tempest—of his temptation, his struggle, and his fall—there is no need to tell at length. The decline of a British officer from duty and honour—his desertion of a post which every professional instinct should have compelled him to keep is not a happy subject, as (fortunately) it is not a common one. Vaiti, in brief, invited the officer to leave the ship unguarded, and slip ashore with her, to sup at a neighbouring trader's shanty, where she said there would be drink and dancing, and every kind of fun. There was no such place, but Tempest did not know that; and if he had known, he might not have cared. Half-crazed with love and champagne, he thought only of the beautiful half-caste girl, and was ready to follow her to the mouth of hell, if she had asked him. The dinghy was got out softly and cautiously, and, with muffled oars, they slipped away unheard. So far out of his mind was the lieutenant that he did not even note the disappearance of his men, who were all lying, very ably and completely Shanghai'ed, in the hold.

In less than half an hour Vaiti came back, swimming the stretch of black water that lay between theSybiland the shore, to leave the boat ready for the men. Dripping, sparkling, and laughing, she stood up in the dim light of the deck lantern and told the mate and boatswain how the capture had been managed. Tempest, with a sack over his head and his hands and feet bound to a pole, was at that moment being carried up in the dark to the bush village. The inhabitants of the place were to have ten pounds' worth of trade goods promised them to keep him there all night and let him escape in the morning, when they themselves would go off and hide in the impenetrable forests until the man-of-war had sailed away again. In half an hour or so the four natives would be back on board, and they would all sail away round the headland, and leave no evidence of any kind to connect theSybilwith this last unpardonable outrage; for Tempest could not but suppose that the natives who so neatly bagged him as he was philandering along the dark beach with the innocent Vaiti were ordinary hill tribesmen. And, in any case, his sacred person would be taken good care of.

"Then he ain't to be damaged, the little darlin'?" inquired Harris. The question was not an idle one. Every one on board the schooner knew that Vaiti was capable of ugly things at her worst.

The girl laughed—a low, gurgling laugh.

"No. No kill him, no hurt him. I not like," she said, tossing back her wet, wavy hair, with a coquettish gesture that told Harris the woman in Vaiti was fully awake that night, despite the rough and ready adventure on which she was engaged. Harris was no fool, if he was something unsteady in character, and more or less he admired Vaiti himself, which tended to sharpen his sight.

"Good job the dandy leftenantisout of the way," he growled as Vaiti disappeared into the cabin to change. "'Twouldn't take much for 'er to get fancyin' his silly face, after all, and then the fat would be in the fire."

"Well, if you hask me, I don't like none of the 'ole thing from beginnin' to hend," declared the bo'sun, jamming a wad of tobacco viciously into his pipe. "Not the keepin' of the bloomin' niggers, not again runnin' to Coral Bay, nor again this business. Wy? Because I don't, and because it make me smell dirty weather. Give us a light."

Overhead the stars in the velvet sky began to twinkle here and there as the breeze rose and the clouds melted away. An odour of hot, wet jungle drifted out across the bay from the invisible land, and a locust with a rattle exactly like a policeman's whistle burred loudly among the trees. It might have been half an hour, and it might have been more, before something else became audible—something that sounded like a frightened wailing on the shore.

"A—wé! A—a—wé!"

Vaiti came out of her cabin and stood on deck, listening intently.

The sound went on.

"A—wé! A—wé! A—wa—wé!"

Harris, watching Vaiti's face in the light of the lantern, saw it change and harden, but she said nothing. There was another sound now—a dinghy shoving off from the beach and the rattle of carelessly handled oars.

"What's the —— fools makin' such a —— row for?" asked Gray. "They'll 'ave theHalligatoron to us."

Still Vaiti said nothing, but stood like a statue on the deck, listening and looking into the darkness.

The boat rammed theSybilin another minute with a shock that made her quiver, and then drifted aimlessly along her sides. Three brown naked figures lifted up their arms from below, and cried despairingly:

"Kapitani! Kapitani! A—wé! A—wé!"

"Get those fellows on board, too much quick, and bring him cabin," ordered Vaiti. Harris and Gray hauled them in with small ceremony, and dumped them down the companion into the cabin, where they stood in the light of the lamp, painted, feather-bedecked creatures, fierce enough in appearance, but in reality abjectly frightened and a-shiver.

"What thing you been do?" demanded Vaiti sharply. "Where you make other sailor-man? What you do Tempesi?"

One of the men was beginning his wail again. She seized him by the shoulder, pulled a pistol from among her draperies, and shook it in his face. The man, with a yell of terror, twisted himself out of her hold. Harris, who was rather frightened at her demeanour, got him away, forced a dram of spirits into his mouth, and tried to extract the terrified creature's story from him by degrees.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FATE OF THE LIEUTENANT

It was not a gratifying tale. Half a mile from the beach, the captors had been overtaken by a party of wild hillmen from Ranaar, one of the worst of the inland cannibal towns, and had been set upon fiercely in the dark. Aki, one of their own party, had been clubbed, and his body carried off. The other natives had escaped. As for the lieutenant, the Ranaar men had seized on him with cries of joy, exclaiming that now indeed they had a chance of "making themselves strong" before all Malekula. Then they had carried him away, slung on a pole between two men, and theSybil'speople, half dead with fright, had run down to the beach again; and here they were, begging the Kapitani to have mercy on them, for indeed it was not their fault, and no one could have known that the Ranaar men would venture so near the coast.

Vaiti, Harris, and Gray all looked grave at this recital. They knew only too well what was implied by the phrase "making strong," and what virtues the hill tribes of Malekula ascribed to the eating of white man's flesh. The rude play of the capture had turned into most serious earnest, and Tempest's life was worth just so many hours as it might take the cannibals to reach their mountain stronghold and go through the preliminary ceremonies of the feast. No more.

There was silence for a minute or two, while the schooner rolled gently on the swell of the incoming tide, and the smoky kerosene light flickered to and fro upon the strange, wild scene: Vaiti's beautiful, angry head standing out above the weather-beaten faces of the two English sailors, the three naked New Hebrideans, squalid and monkey-faced, cowering before her; the remnants of Tempest's dinner, some one's greasy pack of cards, and a couple of Saxon's empty whisky bottles decorating the table. The natives were badly frightened still. They did not understand that the Kapitani's plans had been entangled beyond all hope of setting right by this disaster, or that theAlligatormust have been alarmed by their noisy return; but Vaiti's countenance was enough to warn any one who had ever seen the unpleasant things that happened at times on board theSybilthat hurricane weather was ahead. But before she had time to speak again, a loud hail from outside made every one look towards the deck. In another moment the first lieutenant of theAlligatorhad framed his smart white and gold personality in the dark oblong of the companion, and demanded, loudly, and authoritatively, to know where Mr. Tempest was, where the marines were, and what the deuce was the meaning of all this.

Vaiti, motioning aside the mate and bo'sun, swept to the front and spoke straight out.

"All your sailor, he too much drunk, sleep 'long hold. Tempesi, he been go shore. Men belong Ranaar, they catch him, take him away. Pretty dam quick they eat him."

"Great Scott!" said the officer. Facts were falling very thick and fast, and there were evidently more facts behind them which for the present he felt obliged—most reluctantly—to neglect. People think quickly in the navy, and Lieutenant Darcy realised instantly that this strange, wild, handsome creature was speaking the truth, and that it must be acted on without delay.

He stepped out on deck, and gave certain orders to his men. A sharp little midshipman and half the boat's crew followed him on board, and planted themselves about the ship. The rest remained in the boat.

"This officer will stay here and take charge, and you will come with me to theAlligator," said the lieutenant, addressing Vaiti.

"Yes, I speak captain. Very good you let me see him quick," said the girl imperiously; and the lieutenant, guessing that there was more still to be told, hurried the boat away.

He delivered his report to the commander, and concluded by saying that the girl was in waiting, and had, in his opinion, something more to say about the matter.

"Bring her in," said the commander shortly. The gravity of the affair had darkened his face a trifle, but he made no comment. It was not a time for talk.

Vaiti entered with the light step and carriage of the woman who wears neither shoes nor stays, and stood silently before the commander, fixing his hard grey eyes with her inscrutable dark stare.

"You can sit down," said the officer. "I want to ask you some questions."

Vaiti drew herself up a little higher.

"No time for sit," she said curtly. "Suppose you no want Tempesi ki-ki [eaten] pretty quick, you listen me."

"Young woman!" began Commander the Hon. Francis St. John Raleigh sternly.

"I tell you, no time talk!" interrupted Vaiti. "I savvy all right you very big sea-chief; I savvy my father been made bad work, made bad work myself. Let him go all-a-same that; by-'n-by we talk those thing. Now you listen me."

"All right; sit down," said the officer in a more conciliatory tone. Vaiti sat, and leaning across the table with her chin in one slender hand, and her eyes blazing out from under the mass of damp waves on her forehead, she said her say.

"You no savvy Malekula man; I savvy plenty. Suppose you do what I telling you, Tempesi he come back, I think. Suppose not, Tempesi he eat. Ranaar, he ten, eleven mile up 'long bush, plenty bad way. You take some sailor; he go too much sof', too much quiet, all-a-same cat. Time we coming along Ranaar, one half-mile, sailor he all stop. I go myself Ranaar. Maybe I get Tempesi; we coming back to sailor, go home all right."

"Oh, nonsense! how are you going to get him, if the men can't?" demanded the commander. He saw that he had a remarkable personality to deal with in this strange half-caste beauty, but he did not comprehend her very clearly, and he thought she was "gassing" a little.

Vaiti frowned.

"I tell you, you no savvy Malekula," she said scornfully. "Sailor belong you, all the man hear him when he walk 'long bush. Ranaar man he hear; he run away."

"Well, so long as we rescue Mr. Tempest——"

"No you talk, I say; you listen, you Kapitani with um wooden face!" spat Vaiti.

The lieutenant turned his head away, and choked a little in his pocket-handkerchief. The commander stared, then burst out laughing.

"Go on, you she-cat," he said.

"Ranaar man he run away; very good. He leave Tempesi; very good. No want Tempesi tell some tale, so he leave him dead. Break him head, all same pig, very quick, then run away. Now what you think?"

"I think you are a very plucky young lady, and that you have something more to say about it," replied the commander politely.

"Very good. Suppose I going 'long bush; savvy plenty the way. I been 'long Ranaar recruit; savvy all-a-road. No walking all same white man, walking all same one snake, all same one mice. No white man he walk that way. I come up Ranaar, all-a-dark, I stop 'long one small place; see the man he dance, he sing, he make ki-ki. Bushman, he plenty frighten something he no savvy. Savvy gun, dynamite, but no savvy big blue-light signal thing you got 'long ship. I take one, two blue-light thing; I throw. Bushman he think one big devil stop, no think man-of-war come; run away too much dam quick, not stop kill Tempesi. By'n-by he coming back, but I cut rope before he come. I bring Tempesi 'long me, 'long sailor-man; we go back quick. Tempesi all right. Savvy?"

"Yes, I do savvy; seems a neat plan, on the whole. But what's going to happen to you if they catch you?"

"Eat," said Vaiti succinctly. "Now you listen me. I no do all this thing for nothing, see?"

"H'm; yes, I do see. How much do you want?"

"Two thing," said Vaiti, eyeing him narrowly. "One. My father say he plenty sorry, no do any more bad thing. You let him go, let schooner go."

"Well—yes, I'll promise that," answered the commander rather stiffly. The girl was taking her life in her hand to serve the interests of the British Crown, and it was not a time to stick at trifles, or, indeed, larger things.

"Two," went on Vaiti. "Tempesi he seen leave ship, go 'long shore with me. You tell him all right, you no punish."

"Oh, by Jove! that's too much," snapped out the commander. "No, Miss—Miss What's-your-name, I can't promise any such thing. I can't have you or any one else interfering with the discipline of my ship. Mr. Tempest's conduct is a very serious matter, and he must take the consequences, by Gad he must, if he comes back alive to take them."

Vaiti had had a good deal to do with men-of-war, and their officers, during the course of the schooner's many wanderings. She did not need to be told that Tempest's career might be ended, and his life disgraced, if naval justice took its course. A few hours ago she would not have cared. But Mr. Tempest, like all men notorious for getting into scrapes with a petticoat at the bottom of them, had a "way with him," and it happened to be a way that appealed to this daughter of the Islands more than she would have cared to allow. Besides, it was not her custom to give in to a defeat.

"All right," she said calmly. "I savvy all thing about Englis' officer. Tempesi he no like court-mars'al, make break, make longshoreman, all the people laugh. Tempesi, he like die, I think. All right. I let him. Good night."

The commander held out his hand.

"Good night," he said politely. "Mr. Darcy, you will see about getting a native guide who can show the way to Ranaar, at once. We will do our best to surprise them."

A low, sarcastic laugh came from Vaiti.

"You wooden-faced Kapitani, you think you savvy Malekula!" she said. "Where you get guide?"

Mr. Darcy did know a little about the New Hebrides, and he saw that they were beaten.

"She's right, sir," he said. "Take my word for it, no native would dare to guide you. There's no mission here; they're a very bad lot, and all at war."

It was a bitter moment for the commander, but he surrendered like a gentleman.

"You've got the best of me, Miss—Miss Saxon," he said. "Very well. You have my promise. Mr. Tempest shall be pardoned, if we get him back alive. You know nothing about this matter, you will remember, Mr. Darcy. Miss Saxon, you're a very brave young lady, and I wish I had met you in circumstances of which I could more honestly approve."

"No one need tell me," he said afterwards, "that that old vagabond we had in the cells wasn't a gentleman once. It comes out in the girl; blood will tell, even in a half-caste. But Providence ought rightly to have a down on the man who is responsible for any one of them, for there seems no right place for them, either in heaven or earth."

*      *      *      *      *

Neither the bluejackets of theAlligator, nor the officer appointed to command the column, ever forgot that night's march through the mountain bush of Malekula. The air was like hot water, and not a breath of wind was stirring. The track was but a few inches wide, and as slippery as butter, so that the men slid and fell continually when struggling up the endless sides of the innumerable gullies. Mosquitoes settled in bloodthirsty hordes upon their faces and hands, roots tripped them up, saw-edged reeds slapped them in the eyes, and thorny tangles of bush-lawyers fished for and successfully hooked them. At any moment a huge soft-nosed bullet, cruel as a shell, might come singing out of the darkness; or a poisoned arrow, freighted with sure and agonising death, might whirr across their path. When the officer in command, irritated by the stumbling and falling of the men, ordered them to remove their boots and march barefoot, Vaiti told him that nothing of the kind must be done, for poisoned spear-heads were in all probability set here and there in unsuspected places, ready to pierce the unwary foot. She herself seemed invulnerable and untiring; she led the column at a pace that caused more than one to fall out, and never hesitated nor faltered through all the three hours of the worst and most intricate march that theAlligatormen had ever known.

At last she told the officer to call a halt, and on no account to make the slightest noise or advance his men until he should see a blue light burning about half a mile ahead. Then she vanished into the darkness, lithe and noiseless as a lizard, and silence, dead and oppressive, settled down upon the bush.

*      *      *      *      *

Lieutenant Tempest was a man and a British sailor, and he was not afraid of death. But he thought there might be pleasanter ways of dying than that which actually stared him in the face.

Memory plays strange tricks when the dark is closing down about her doors. Lying there on the damp earth, bound hand and foot to a pole, with the hideous howls of the cannibal dancers in his ears and the glare of the cooking-pits in his eyes. Tempest could think of nothing but a fragment of verse out of a half-forgotten poem read somewhere long ago:

"It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts.But only—how did you die?"

"It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts.But only—how did you die?"

"It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts.

But only—how did you die?"

How was he dying? Not as an English officer might gladly die in the cause of his country and in loyal obedience to orders. Not even as a man, with a sword in his hand, facing the foe. He was dying an unfaithful servant, false to his trust, and suffering because of that falseness, as a slaughtered brute struck down with a club like a bullock, and afterwards....

The red remains of the luckless Aki, jointed and piled in a ghastly heap, told the rest.

Tempest did not look at that ugly pile any more than he could help. He wanted all the nerve he could muster for he was haunted by a deadly fear that he might cry out for mercy when it came to the last, and he did not want to add cowardice to the tale of his many shortcomings. If he could have died here as a prisoner of war—as a captured scout, a fighting enemy, taken in a skirmish—the death, hideous as it was, would have been honourable, and his pride of country would have upheld him. But it seemed as if his courage had nothing to stand on now, and he was almost—almost, but, thank God! not quite—afraid.

The Malekulans had been dancing for full two hours, ever since they had brought him to the valley and flung him down upon the ground. In the middle of the open village square were three huge idols, carved out of entire tree-trunks set upright. They had black, empty sockets for eyes; their mouths were curved upwards into a ghastly wrinkled grin, and their tongues hung mockingly out. On the head of each was perched a huge black wooden bird, with beak bent down and gloomy wings outspread—the very spirit of Nightmare herself. Round and round these devilish things, in the red glow of the fires, danced the cannibals ceaselessly and untiringly, fleeing with heads down and outspread hands, wheeling and turning, circling with measured steps; and all the time the huge hollow idols, beaten with heavy clubs "to make the spirits speak," thundered death and doom. It was plainly a religious ceremony which must be fully enacted down to the last detail; but Tempest thought, as clearly as he could think in such a place and at such a time, that it could not last much longer.

"A fellow ought to say his prayers," he thought; but the thunder of the drums and the wild, shrieking song of the dancers bewildered him, and his swollen wrists and ankles hurt him so much as almost to confuse his mind.... What could he say? Only one prayer remained clear in the turmoil of his brain—just the old, old prayer that he had prayed at his mother's knee. Well, it would serve—and up above he hoped they'd understand how sorry he was ... for lots of things....

"Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come...."

It was coming, indeed! The dance had stopped.

"Thy will be done...."

What came next? He could not remember—and the savages were advancing across the square.

"Forgive us our trespasses ... and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...."

It wasnow! The women were hiding themselves in the houses, and two of the men, armed with clubs, were stepping forward.

He was only conscious of one feeling—joy that he had the courage to look the cannibals in the face as they advanced, and meet his fate "game." He hardly knew that he was still praying—

"... For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory...."

Death!

It came with a blaze of light—a sound as of a wild, deep shout and the rushing of many waters—then——

Was this the end? Was it indeed death? He had felt nothing—but a man does not feel the blow that kills—and his eyes were so dazzled with a strange, blue glory that he could not see.... The rushing sound continued; it was like the thunder of hundreds of flying feet.... The light burst forth again, and yet again, and then died away, and there was a great silence. Tempest saw the hideous faces of the idols standing out in the empty square, and began to understand. He was not dead—but something had happened. What was it? He tried to break loose and sit up so as to see all round.

"Stop um little bit," said a voice, and some one drew a sharp knife across the lashings that bound his limbs, and lifted him into a sitting position.

The blinding light had almost died away now, and he could see the whole square. There was no one in it. The cannibals were gone, and the beautiful half-caste girl who had brought about his downfall—innocently, as Tempest of course supposed—was squatting beside him and putting a flask to his lips.

"Drink a little bit whisky," she said. "Good whisky; he make strong. No good stop here, you Belitani sailor-man; more better we go away too much quick."

The spirit cleared Tempest's head and put some life into his limbs. Vaiti poked him unceremoniously in the ribs as soon as she saw that he was reviving.

"Show um leg there, lively!" she ordered, dragging him by the arms. Rather to his surprise, Tempest found that he could walk, once on his feet. He wasted no time in getting away, after Vaiti's brief explanation of the blue-light stratagem, and the probable return of his enemies before very long. At something as near a run as his cramped limbs would allow, he followed her down the pathway that led away from the village—narrow, wet, and dark as a wolf's gullet—and into the comparative security of the bush, towards the advancing relief column from theAlligator.

It would have been no more than fitting if Vaiti, like a true heroine of romance, had vanished silently into the forest when they encountered the man-of-war's men, leaving Tempest to "turn to thank his preserver," and "find that she had disappeared." But Vaiti, as it happened, was born under the Southern Cross, where the poetry of the footlights does not flourish. So she gave the men her company on the way down as a matter of course, asked the officer in command for a cigar, smoked it and accepted half a dozen more out of his case, and made herself wonderfully pleasant—for Vaiti. She had further driven Tempest to distraction by starting a flirtation with a handsome petty officer, eaten up two emergency rations, "borrowed" some one's gold tie-pin, and very soundly boxed the ears of a leading seaman who tried to kiss her in the dark, before the long roll of the surf on the barrier reef, and the welcome glimmer of theAlligator'sriding lights, told the tired-out party that they were safe back again. Then, like the mysterious heroine, at last she disappeared, and slipped off to theSybilin a native canoe, for the reason that she did not want to be seen on board the man-of-war in a very untidy and dirty dress, without any flowers in her hair, or fresh scent on her laces. Tempest had found time to "thank his preserver" on the way down, haltingly enough; but the preserver, instead of accepting his thanks after the fashion he would have preferred, had laughed wildly and somewhat wickedly, and gone on walking right in the middle of the column, without a glance to spare for him.... Still—he thought he knew women—and.... Time would show.

Back to IndexNext