By Reef and Palm

by

Louis Becke

CONTENTS

 INTRODUCTION CHALLIS THE DOUBTER "'TIS IN THE BLOOD" THE REVENGE OF MACY O'SHEA THE RANGERS OF TIA KAU PALLOU'S TALOI A BASKET OF BREAD-FRUIT ENDERBY'S COURTSHIP LONG CHARLEY'S GOOD LITTLE WIFE THE METHODICAL MR BURR OF MAJURU A TRULY GREAT MAN THE DOCTOR'S WIFE THE FATE OF THE ALIDA THE CHILIAN BLUEJACKET BRANTLEY OF VAHITAHI

INTRODUCTION

When in October, 1870, I sailed into the harbour of Apia, Samoa, in theill-fated ALBATROSS, Mr Louis Becke was gaining his first experiencesof island life as a trader on his own account by running a cutterbetween Apia and Savai'i. 

It was rather a notable moment in Apia, for two reasons. In the firstplace, the German traders were shaking in their shoes for fear of whatthe French squadron might do to them, and we were the bearers of thegood news from Tahiti that the chivalrous Admiral Clouet, with a veryproper magnanimity, had decided not to molest them; and, secondly, thebeach was still seething with excitement over the departure on theprevious day of the pirate Pease, carrying with him the yet moreillustrious "Bully" Hayes. 

It happened in this wise. A month or two before our arrival, Hayes haddropped anchor in Apia, and some ugly stories of recent irregularitiesin the labour trade had come to the ears of Mr Williams, the EnglishConsul. Mr Williams, with the assistance of the natives, very cleverlyseized his vessel in the night, and ran her ashore, and detained MrHayes pending the arrival of an English man-of-war to which he could begiven in charge. But in those happy days there were no prisons inSamoa, so that his confinement was not irksome, and his only hardlabour was picnics, of which he was the life and soul. All wentpleasantly until Mr Pease--a degenerate sort of pirate who made hisliving by half bullying, half swindling lonely white men on smallislands out of their coconut oil, and unarmed merchantmen out of theirstores--came to Apia in an armed ship with a Malay crew. From thatmoment Hayes' life became less idyllic. Hayes and Pease conceived amost violent hatred of each other, and poor old Mr Williams was reallyworried into an attack of elephantiasis (which answers to the gout inthose latitudes) by his continual efforts to prevent the twodesperadoes from flying at each other's throat. Heartily glad was hewhen Pease--who was the sort of man that always observed LESCONVENANCES when possible, and who fired a salute of twenty-one guns onthe Queen's Birthday--came one afternoon to get his papers "allregular, " and clear for sea. But lo! the next morning, when his vesselhad disappeared, it was found that his enemy Captain Hayes haddisappeared also, and the ladies of Samoa were left disconsolate at thedeparture of the most agreeable man they had ever known. 

However, all this is another story, as Mr Kipling says, and one which Ihope Mr Becke will tell us more fully some day, for he knew Hayes well, having acted as supercargo on board his ship, and shared a shipwreckand other adventures with him. 

But even before this date Mr Becke had had as much experience as fallsto most men of adventures in the Pacific Ocean. 

Born at Port Macquarrie in Australia, where his father was clerk ofpetty sessions, he was seized at the age of fourteen with an intenselonging to go to sea. It is possible that he inherited this passionthrough his mother, for her father, Charles Beilby, who was privatesecretary to the Duke of Cumberland, invested a legacy that fell to himin a small vessel, and sailed with his family to the then very newworld of Australia. However this may be, it was impossible to keepLouis Becke at home; and, as an alternative, a uncle undertook to sendhim, and a brother two years older, to a mercantile house inCalifornia. His first voyage was a terrible one. There were nosteamers, of course, in those days, and they sailed for San Franciscoin a wretched old barque. For over a month they were drifting about thestormy sea between Australia and New Zealand, a partially dismasted andleaking wreck. The crew mutinied--they had bitter cause to--and onlyafter calling at Rurutu, in the Tubuai Group, and obtaining fresh food, did they permit the captain to resume command of the half-sunken oldcraft. They were ninety days in reaching Honolulu, and another forty inmaking the Californian coast. 

The two lads did not find the routine of a merchant's office at all totheir taste; and while the elder obtained employment on a sheep rancheat San Juan, Louis, still faithful to the sea, got a berth as a clerkin a steamship company, and traded to the Southern ports. In a year'stime he had money enough to take passage in a schooner bound on ashark-catching cruise to the equatorial islands of the North Pacific. The life was a very rough one, and full of incident andadventure--which I hope he will relate some day. Returning to Honolulu, he fell in with an old captain who had bought a schooner for a tradingventure amongst the Western Carolines. Becke put in $1000, and sailedwith him as supercargo, he and the skipper being the only white men onboard. He soon discovered that, though a good seaman, the old man knewnothing of navigation. In a few weeks they were among the MarshallIslands, and the captain went mad from DELIRIUM TREMENS. Becke and thethree native sailors ran the vessel into a little uninhabited atoll, and for a week had to keep the captain tied up to prevent his killinghimself. They got him right at last, and stood to the westward. Ontheir voyage they were witnesses of a tragedy (in this instancefortunately not complete), on which the pitiless sun of the Pacific haslooked down very often. They fell in with a big Marshall Island sailingcanoe that had been blown out of sight of land, and had drifted sixhundred miles to the westward. Out of her complement of fifty people, thirty were dead. They gave them provisions and water, and left them tomake Strong's Island (Kusaie), which was in sight. Becke and the chiefswore Marshall Island BRUDERSCHAFT with each other. Years afterwards, when he came to live in the Marshall Group, the chief proved hisfriendship in a signal manner. 

The cruise proved a profitable one, and from that time Mr Beckedetermined to become a trader, and to learn to know the people of thenorth-west Pacific; and returning to California, he made for Samoa, andfrom thence to Sydney. But at this time the Palmer River gold rush hadjust broken out in North Queensland, and a brother, who was a bankmanager on the celebrated Charters Towers goldfields, invited him tocome up, as every one seemed to be making his fortune. He wanderedbetween the rushes for two years, not making a fortune, but acquiringmuch useful experience, learning, amongst other things, the art of ablacksmith, and becoming a crack shot with a rifle. Returning toSydney, he sailed for the Friendly Islands (Tonga) in company with theking of Tonga's yacht--the TAUFAAHAU. The Friendly Islandersdisappointed him (at which no one that knows them will wonder), and hewent on to Samoa, and set up as a trader on his own account for thefirst time. He and a Manhiki half-caste--the "Allan" who so frequentlyfigures in his stories--bought a cutter, and went trading throughoutthe group. This was the time of Colonel Steinberger's brief tenure ofpower. The natives were fighting, and the cutter was seized on twooccasions. When the war was over he made a voyage to the north-west, and became a great favourite with the natives, as indeed seems to havebeen the case in most of the places he went to in Polynesia andMicronesia. Later on he was sent away from Samoa in charge of a vesselunder sealed orders to the Marshall Islands. These orders were to handthe vessel over to the notorious Captain "Bully" Hayes. (Some day hepromises that he will give us the details of this very curiousadventure). He found Hayes awaiting him in his famous brig LEONORA inMilli Lagoon. He handed over his charge and took service with him assupercargo. After some months' cruising in the Carolines they werewrecked on Strong's Island (Kusaie). Hayes made himself the ruler ofthe island, and Mr Becke and he had a bitter quarrel. The nativestreated the latter with great kindness, and gave him land on the leeside of the island, where he lived happily enough for five months. Hayes was captured by an English man-of-war, but escaped and went toGuam. Mr Becke went back in the cruiser to the Colonies, and then againsailed for Eastern Polynesia, trading in the Gambiers, Paumotus, andEaster and Pitcairn Islands. In this part of the ocean he picked up anabandoned French barque on a reef, floated her, and loaded her withcoconuts, intending to sail her to New Zealand with a native crew, butthey went ashore in a hurricane and lost everything. Meeting with MrTom de Wolf, the managing partner of a Liverpool firm, he took servicewith him as a trader in the Ellice and Tokelau Groups, finally settlingdown as a residential trader. Then he took passage once more for theCarolines, and was wrecked on Peru, one of the Gilbert Islands (latelyannexed), losing every dollar that he possessed. He returned to Samoaand engaged as a "recruiter" in the labour trade. He got badly hurt inan encounter with some natives, and went to New Zealand to recover. Then he sailed to New Britain on a trading venture, and fell in with, and had much to do with, the ill-fated colonising expedition of theMarquis de Ray in New Ireland. A bad attack of malarial fever, and awound in the neck (labour recruiting or even trading among the blacksof Melanesia seems to have been a much less pleasant business thanresidence among the gentle brown folk of the Eastern Pacific) made himleave and return to the Marshall Islands, where Lailik, the chief whomhe had succoured at sea years before, made him welcome. He left on afruitless quest after an imaginary guano island, and from then untiltwo years ago he has been living on various islands in both the Northand South Pacific, leading what he calls "a wandering and lonely butnot unhappy existence, " "Lui, " as they call him, being a man both likedand trusted by the natives from lonely Easter Island to the farawayPelews. He is still in the prime of life, and whether he will now remainwithin the bounds of civilisation, or whether some day he will return tohis wanderings, as Odysseus is fabled to have done in his old age, I fancythat he hardly knows himself. But when once the charm of a wild rovinglife has got into a man's blood, the trammels of civilisation are irksomeand its atmosphere is hard to breathe. It will be seen from thisall-too-condensed sketch of Mr Becke's career that he knows the Pacificas few men alive or dead have ever known it. He is one of the rare menwho have led a very wild life, and have the culture and talentnecessary to give some account of it. As a rule, the men who know don'twrite, and the men who write don't know. 

Every one who has a taste for good stories will feel, I believe, theforce of these. Every one who knows the South Seas, and, I believe, many who do not, will feel that they have the unmistakable stamp oftruth. And truth to nature is a great merit in a story, not onlybecause of that thrill of pleasure hard to analyse, but largely made upof associations, memories, and suggestions that faithfulness ofrepresentation in picture or book gives to the natural man; but becauseof the fact that nature is almost infinitely rich, and the unassistedimagination of man but a poor and sterile thing, tending constantlytowards some ossified convention. "Treasure Island" is a much betterstory than "The Wreckers, " yet I, for one, shall never cease to regretthat Mr Stevenson did not possess, when he wrote "Treasure Island, "that knowledge of what men and schooners do in wild seas that was hiswhen he gave us "The Wreckers. " The detail would have been so muchricher and more convincing. 

It is open to any one to say that these tales are barbarous, and whatMrs Meynell, in a very clever and amusing essay, has called"decivilised. " Certainly there is a wide gulf separating life on aPacific island from the accumulated culture of centuries ofcivilisation in the midst of which such as Mrs Meynell move and havetheir being. And if there can be nothing good in literature that doesnot spring from that culture, these stories must stand condemned. Butsuch a view is surely too narrow. Much as I admire that lady'swritings, I never can think of a world from which everything waseliminated that did not commend itself to the dainty taste of herselfand her friends, without a feeling of impatience and suffocation. Ittakes a huge variety of men and things to make a good world. Andranches and CANONS, veldts and prairies, tropical forests and coralislands, and all that goes to make up the wild life in the face ofNature or among primitive races, far and free from the artificialconditions of an elaborate civilisation, form an element in the world, the loss of which would be bitterly felt by many a man who has neverset foot outside his native land. 

There is a certain monotony, perhaps, about these stories. To someextent this is inevitable. The interest and passions of South SeaIsland life are neither numerous nor complex, and action is apt to berapid and direct. A novelist of that modern school that fills itsvolumes, often fascinatingly enough, by refining upon the shadowyrefinements of civilised thought and feeling, would find it hard to plyhis trade in South Sea Island society. His models would always becutting short in five minutes the hesitations and subtleties that oughtto have lasted them through a quarter of a life-time. But I think it ispossible that the English reader might gather from this little book anunduly strong impression of the uniformity of Island life. The loves ofwhite men and brown women, often cynical and brutal, sometimesexquisitely tender and pathetic, necessarily fill a large space in anytrue picture of the South Sea Islands, and Mr Becke, no doubt of setartistic purpose, has confined himself in the collection of tales nowoffered almost entirely to this facet of the life. I do not questionthat he is right in deciding to detract nothing from the strikingeffect of these powerful stories, taken as a whole, by interspersingamongst them others of a different character. But I hope it may beremembered that the present selection is only an instalment, and that, if it finds favour with the British public, we may expect from him someof those tales of adventure, and of purely native life and custom, which no one could tell so well as he. 

PEMBROKE. 

CHALLIS THE DOUBTER

The White Lady And The Brown Woman

Four years had come and gone since the day that Challis, with a dulland savage misery in his heart, had, cursing the love-madness whichonce possessed him, walked out from his house in an Australian citywith an undefined and vague purpose of going "somewhere" to drown hissense of wrong and erase from his memory the face of the woman who, hiswife of not yet a year, had played with her honour and his. So hethought, anyhow. 

* * * * *

You see, Challis was "a fool"--at least so his pretty, violet-eyed wifehad told him that afternoon with a bitter and contemptuous ring in hervoice when he had brought another man's letter--written to her--andwith impulsive and jealous haste had asked her to explain. He was afool, she had said, with an angry gleam in the violet eyes, to thinkshe could not "take care" of herself. Admit receiving that letter? Ofcourse! Did he think she could help other men writing silly letters toher? Did he not think she could keep out of a mess? And she smiled theself-satisfied smile of a woman conscious of many admirers and of herown powers of intrigue. 

Then Challis, with a big effort, gulping down the rage that stirredhim, made his great mistake. He spoke of his love for her. Fatuity! Shelaughed at him, said that as she detested women, his love was tooexacting for her, if it meant that she should never be commonlyfriendly with any other man. 

* * * * *

Challis looked at her steadily for a few moments, trying to smother thewild flood of black suspicion aroused in him by the discovery of theletter, and confirmed by her sneering words, and then said quietly, butwith a dangerous inflection in his voice--

"Remember--you are my wife. If you have no regard for your ownreputation, you shall have some for mine. I don't want to entertain myfriends by thrashing R----, but I'm not such a fool as you think. Andif you go further in this direction you'll find me a bit of a brute. "

Again the sneering laugh--"Indeed! Something very tragic will occur, Isuppose?"

"No, " said Challis grimly, "something damned prosaic--common enoughamong men with pretty wives--I'll clear out. "

"I wish you would do that now, " said his wife, "I hate you quiteenough. "

Of course she didn't quite mean it. She really liked Challis in her ownsmall-souled way--principally because his money had given her thesocial pleasures denied her during her girlhood. With an unmoved faceand without farewell he left her and went to his lawyer's. 

A quarter of an hour later he arose to go, and the lawyer asked himwhen he intended returning. 

"That all depends upon her. If she wants me back again, she can write, through you, and I'll come--if she has conducted herself with areasonable amount of propriety for such a pretty woman. "

Then, with an ugly look on his face, Challis went out; next day heembarked in the LADY ALICIA for a six months' cruise among the islandsof the North-west Pacific. 

* * * * *

That was four years ago, and to-day Challis, who stands working at alittle table set in against an open window, hammering out a ring from asilver coin on a marline-spike and vyce, whistles softly andcontentedly to himself as he raises his head and glances through thevista of coconuts that surround his dwelling on this lonely and almostforgotten island. 

"The devil!" he thinks to himself, "I must be turning into a native. Four years! What an ass I was! And I've never written yet--that is, never sent a letter away. Well, neither has she. Perhaps, after all, there was little in that affair of R----'s. .. . By God! though, ifthere was, I've been very good to them in leaving them a clear field. Anyhow, she's all right as regards money. I'm glad I've done that. It'sa big prop to a man's conscience to feel he hasn't done anything mean;and she likes money--most women do. Of course I'll go back--if shewrites. If not--well, then, these sinful islands can claim me for theirown; that is, Nalia can. "

* * * * *

A native boy with shaven head, save for a long tuft on the left side, came down from the village, and, seating himself on the gravelled spaceinside the fence, gazed at the white man with full, lustrous eyes. 

"Hallo, TAMA!" said Challis, "whither goest now?"

"Pardon, Tialli. I came to look at thee making the ring. Is it of softsilver--and for Nalia, thy wife?"

"Ay, O shaven-head, it is. Here, take this MASI and go pluck me a youngnut to drink, " and Challis threw him a ship-biscuit. Then he went ontapping the little band of silver. He had already forgotten the violeteyes, and was thinking with almost childish eagerness of the soft glowin the black orbs of Nalia when she should see his finished handiwork. 

The boy returned with a young coconut, unhusked. "Behold, Tialli. Thisnut is a UTO GA'AU (sweet husk). When thou hast drunk the juice give itme back, that I may chew the husk which is sweet as the sugar-cane ofSamoa, " and he squatted down again on the gravel. 

* * * * *

Challis drank, then threw him the husk and resumed his work. Presentlythe boy, tearing off a strip of the husk with his white teeth, said, "Tialli, how is it that there be no drinking-nuts in thy house?"

"Because, O turtle-head, my wife is away; and there are no men in thevillage to-day; and because the women of this MOTU [Island or country. ]I have no thought that the PAPALAGI [Foreigner] may be parched withthirst, and so come not near me with a coconut. " This latter in jest. 

"Nay, Tialli. Not so. True it is that to-day all the men are in the bushbinding FALA leaves around the coconut trees, else do the rats steal upand eat the buds and clusters of little nuts. And because Nalia, thywife, is away at the other White Man's house no woman cometh inside thedoor. "

Challis laughed. "O evil-minded people of Nukunono! And must I, thyPAPALAGI, be parched with thirst because of this?"

"FAIAGA OE, Tialli, thou but playest with me. Raise thy hand and callout 'I thirst!' and every woman in the village will run to thee, eachwith a drinking-nut, and those that desire thee, but are afraid, willgive two. But to come inside when Nalia is away would be to put shameon her. "

* * * * *

The white man mused. The boy's solemn chatter entertained him. He knewwell the native customs; but, to torment the boy, he commenced again. 

"O foolish custom! See how I trust my wife Nalia. Is she not even nowin the house of another white man?"

"True. But, then, he is old and feeble, and thou young and strong. Nonebut a fool desires to eat a dried flying-fish when a fresh one may behad. "

"O wise man with the shaven crown, " said Challis, with mocking goodnature, "thou art full of wisdom of the ways of women. And if I wereold and withered, would Nalia then be false to me in a house of anotherand younger white man?"

"How could she? Would not he, too, have a wife who would watch her? Andif he had not, and were NOFO NOA (single), would he be such a fool tosteal that the like of which he can buy--for there are many girlswithout husbands as good to look on as that Nalia of thine. And allwomen are alike, " and then, hearing a woman's voice calling his name, he stood up. 

"Farewell, O ULU TULA POTO (Wise Baldhead), " said Challis, as the boy, still chewing his sweet husk, walked back to the native houses clusteredunder the grove of PUA trees. 

* * * * *

Ere dusk, Nalia came home, a slenderly-built girl with big dreamy eyes, and a heavy mantle of wavy hair. A white muslin gown, fastened at thethroat with a small silver brooch, was her only garment, save the foldsof the navy-blue-and-white LAVA LAVA round her waist, which theEuropean-fashioned garment covered. 

Challis was lying down when she came in. Two girls who came with hercarried baskets of cooked food, presents from old Jack Kelly, Challis'sfellow-trader. At a sign from Nalia the girls took one of the basketsof food and went away. Then, taking off her wide-brimmed hat of FALAleaf, she sat down beside Challis and pinched his cheek. 

"O lazy one! To let me walk from the house of Tiaki all alone!"

"Alone! There were two others with thee. "

"Tapa Could I talk to THEM! I, a white man's wife, must not be toofamiliar with every girl, else they would seek to get presents from mewith sweet words. Besides, could I carry home the fish and cooked fowlsent thee by old Tiaki? That would be unbecoming to me, even as itwould be if thou climbed a tree for a coconut, "--and the daughter ofthe Tropics laughed merrily as she patted Challis on his sunburntcheek. 

Challis rose, and going to a little table, took from it the ring. 

"See, Nalia, I am not lazy as thou sayest. This is thine. "

The girl with an eager "AUE!" took the bauble and placed it on herfinger. She made a pretty picture, standing there in the last glow ofthe sun as it sank into the ocean, her languorous eyes filled with atender light. 

Challis, sitting on the end of the table regarding her with half-amusedinterest as does a man watching a child with a toy, suddenly flushedhotly. "By God! I can't be such a fool as to begin to LOVE her inreality, but yet . .. Come here, Nalia, " and he drew her to him, and, turning her face up so that he might look into her eyes, he asked:

"Nalia, hast thou ever told me any lies?"

The steady depths of those dark eyes looked back into his, and sheanswered:

"Nay, I fear thee too much to lie. Thou mightst kill me. "

"I do but ask thee some little things. It matters not to me what theanswer is. Yet see that thou keepest nothing hidden from me. "

The girl, with parted lips and one hand on his, waited. 

"Before thou became my wife, Nalia, hadst thou any lovers?"

"Yes, two--Kapua and Tafu-le-Afi. "

"And since?"

"May I choke and perish here before thee if I lie! None. "

Challis, still holding her soft brown chin in his hand, asked her onemore question--a question that only one of his temperament would havedared to ask a girl of the Tokelaus. 

"Nalia, dost thou love me?"

"Aye, ALOFA TUMAU (everlasting love). Am I a fool? Are there not Letia, and Miriami, and Eline, the daughter of old Tiaki, ready to come tothis house if I love any but thee? Therefore my love is like thesuckers of the FA'E (octopus) in its strength. My mother has taught memuch wisdom. "

A curious feeling of satisfaction possessed the man, and next dayLetia, the "show" girl of the village, visiting Challis's store to buya tin of salmon, saw Nalia, the Lucky One, seated on a mat beneath theseaward side of the trader's house, surrounded by a billowy pile ofyellow silk, diligently sewing. 

"Ho, dear friend of my heart! Is that silken dress for thee? For thelove of God, let me but touch it. Four dollars a fathom it be pricedat. Thy husband is indeed the king of generosity. Art thou to become amother?"

"Away, silly fool, and do thy buying and pester me not. "

* * * * *

Challis, coming to the corner of the house, leant against a post, andsomething white showed in his hand. It was a letter. His letter to thewoman of violet eyes, written a week ago, in the half-formed idea ofsending it some day. He read it through, and then paused and looked atNalia. She raised her head and smiled. Slowly, piece by piece, he toreit into tiny little squares, and, with a dreamy hand-wave, threw themaway. The wind held them in mid-air for a moment, and then carried thelittle white flecks to the beach. 

"What is it?" said the bubbling voice of Letia, the Disappointed. 

"Only a piece of paper that weighed as a piece of iron on my bosom. Butit is gone now. "

"Even so, " said Letia, smelling the gaudy label on the tin of salmon inthe anticipative ecstasy of a true Polynesian, "PE SE MEAFA'AGOTOIMOANA (like a thing buried deep in ocean). May God send me awhite man as generous as thee--a whole tin of SAMANI for nothing! Nowdo I know that Nalia will bear thee a son. "

* * * * *

And that is why Challis the Doubter has never turned up again. 

"'TIS IN THE BLOOD"

We were in Manton's Hotel at Levuka-Levuka in her palmy days. Therewere Robertson, of the barque ROLUMAH; a fat German planter from theYasawa Group; Harry the Canadian, a trader from the Tokelaus, andmyself. 

Presently a knock came to the door, and Allan, the boatswain of ourbrig, stood hat in hand before us. He was a stalwart half-caste ofManhiki, and, perhaps, the greatest MANAIA (Lothario) from Ponape toFiji. 

"Captain say to come aboard, please. He at the Consul's for papers--hemeet you at boat, " and Allan left. 

"By shingo, dot's a big fellow, " said Planter Oppermann. 

"Ay, " said Robertson, the trading skipper, "and a good man with hismauleys, too. He's the champion knocker-out in Samoa, and is a matchfor any Englishman in Polynesia, let alone foreigners"--with a sourglance at the German. 

"Well, good-bye all, " I said. "I'm sorry, Oppermann, I can't stay foranother day for your wedding, but our skipper isn't to be got atanyhow. "

The trading captain and Harry walked with me part of the way, and thenbegan the usual Fiji GUP. 

"Just fancy that fat-headed Dutchman going all the way to Samoa andpicking on a young girl and sending her to the Sisters to get educatedproperly! As if any old beach-girl isn't good enough for a blessedDutchman. Have you seen her?"

"No, " I said; "Oppermann showed me her photo. Pretty girl. Says she'sbeen three years with the Sisters in Samoa, and has got all the virtuesof her white father, and none of the vices of her Samoan mammy. Told mehe's spent over two thousand dollars on her already. "

Robertson smiled grimly. "Ay, I don't doubt it. He's been all roundLevuka cracking her up. I brought her here last week, and theDutchman's been in a chronic state of silly ever since. She's analmighty fine girl. She's staying with the Sisters here till themarriage. By the Lord, here she is now coming along the street! Bet adollar she's been round Vagadace way, where there are some fast Samoanwomen living. 'Tis in the blood, I tell you. "

The future possessor of the Oppermann body and estate WAS a prettygirl. Only those who have seen fair young Polynesian half-castes--beforethey get married, and grow coarse, and drink beer, and smoke like afactory chimney--know how pretty. 

Our boat was at the wharf, and just as we stood talking Allan saunteredup and asked me for a dollar to get a bottle of gin. Just then theGerman's FIANCEE reached us. Robertson introduced Harry and myself toher, and then said good-bye. She stood there in the broiling Fijian sunwith a dainty sunshade over her face, looking so lovely and cool in herspotless muslin dress, and withal so innocent, that I no longerwondered at the Dutchman's "chronic state of silly. "

Allan the Stalwart stood by waiting for his dollar. The girl laughedjoyously when Harry the Canadian said he would be at the wedding andhave a high time, and held out her soft little hand as he bade heradieu and strolled off for another drink. 

The moment Harry had gone Allan was a new man. Pulling off his strawhat, he saluted her in Samoan, and then opened fire. 

"There are many TEINE LALELEI (beautiful girls) in the world, but thereis none so beautiful as thou. Only truth do I speak, for I have been toall countries of the world. Ask him who is here--our supercargo--if Ilie. O maid with the teeth of pearl and face like FETUAO (the morningstar), my stomach is drying up with the fire of love. "

The sunshade came a little lower, and the fingers played nervously withthe ivory handle. I leant against a coconut tree and listened. 

"Thy name is Vaega. See that! How do I know? Aha, how do I? Because, for two years or more, whenever I passed by the stone wall of theSisters' dwelling in Matafele, I climbed up and watched thee, O Star ofthe Morning, and I heard the other girls call thee Vaega. Oho! and somenight I meant to steal thee away. "

(The rascal! He told me two days afterwards that the only time he everclimbed the Mission wall was to steal mangoes. )

The sunshade was tilted back, and displayed two big, black eyes, luminous with admiring wonder. 

"And so thou hast left Samoa to come here to be devoured by this fathog of a Dutchman! Dost thou not know, O foolish, lovely one, that shewho mates with a SIAMANI (German) grows old in quite a little time, andthy face, which is now smooth and fair, will be coarse as the rind of ahalf-ripe bread-fruit, because of the foul food these swine of Germanseat?"

"Allan, " I called, "here's the captain!"

There was a quick clasp of hands as the Stalwart One and the Maidhurriedly spoke again, this time in a whisper, and then the whitemuslin floated away out of sight. 

The captain was what he called "no' so dry"--viz. Half-seas over, andvery jolly. He told Allan he could have an hour to himself to buy whathe wanted, and then told me that the captain of a steam collier hadpromised to give us a tug out at daylight. "I'm right for thewedding-feast after all, " I thought. 

* * * * *

But the wedding never came off. That night Oppermann, in a franticstate, was tearing round Levuka hunting for his love, who haddisappeared. At daylight, as the collier steamed ahead and tautened ourtow-line, we could see the parties of searchers with torches scouringthe beach. Our native sailors said they had heard a scream about ten atnight and seen the sharks splashing, and the white liars of Levukashook their heads and looked solemn as they told tales of monstersharks with eight-foot jaws always cruising close in to the shore atnight. 

* * * * *

Three days afterwards Allan came to me with stolid face and asked for abottle of wine, as Vaega was very sea-sick. I gave him the wine, andthreatened to tell the captain. He laughed, and said he would fight anyman, captain or no captain, who meddled with him. And, as a matter offact, he felt safe--the skipper valued him too much to bully him overthe mere stealing of a woman. So the limp and sea-sick Vaega wascarried up out of the sweating foc'sle and given a cabin berth, andAllan planked down two twenty-dollar pieces for her passage to theUnion Group. When she got better she sang rowdy songs, and laughed allday, and made fun of the holy Sisters. And one day Allan beat her witha deal board because she sat down on a band-box in the trade-room andruined a hat belonging to a swell official's wife in Apia. And sheliked him all the better for it. 

* * * * *

The fair Vaega was Mrs Allan for just six months, when his erraticfancy was captivated by the daughter of Mauga, the chief of Tutuila, and an elopement resulted to the mountains. The subsequent andinevitable parting made Samoa an undesirable place of residence forAllan, who shipped as boatsteerer in the NIGER of New Bedford. As forVaega, she drifted back to Apia, and there, right under the shadow ofthe Mission Church, she flaunted her beauty. The last time I saw herwas in Charley the Russian's saloon, when she showed me a letter. Itwas from the bereaved Oppermann, asking her to come back and marry him. 

"Are you going?" I said. 

"E PULE LE ATUA (if God so wills), but he only sent me twenty dollars, and that isn't half enough. However, there's an American man-of-warcoming next week, and these other girls will see then. I'll make thePAPALAGI [foreign] officers shell out. TO FA, ALII [Good-bye]. "

THE REVENGE OF MACY O'SHEA

A Story Of The Marquesas

I. 

Tikena the Clubfooted guided me to an open spot in the jungle-growth, and, sitting down on the butt of a twisted TOA, indicated by a sweep ofhis tattooed arm the lower course of what had once been the White Man'sdwelling. 

"Like unto himself was this, his house, " he said, puffing a dirty claypipe, "square-built and strong. And the walls were of great blocks madeof PANISINA--of coral and lime and sand mixed together; and around eachcentre-post--posts that to lift one took the strength of fifty men--waswound two thousand fathoms of thin plaited cinnet, stained red andblack. APA! he was a great man here in these MOTU (islands), althoughhe fled from prison in your land; and when he stepped on the beach themarks of the iron bands that had once been round his ankles were yetred to the sight. There be none such as he in these days. But he is nowin Hell. "

This was the long-deferred funeral oration of Macy O'Shea, sometimemember of the chain-gang of Port Arthur, in Van Dieman's Land, andsubsequently runaway convict, beachcomber, cutter-off of whaleships, and Gentleman of Leisure in Eastern Polynesia. And of his many knowncrimes the deed done in this isolated spot was the darkest of all. Judge of it yourself. 

* * * * *

The arrowy shafts of sunrise had scarce pierced the deep gloom of thesilent forest ere the village woke to life. Right beside thethatch-covered dwelling of Macy O'Shea, now a man of might, theretowers a stately TAMANU tree; and, as the first faint murmur of women'svoices arises from the native huts, there is a responsive twitteringand cooing in the thickly-leaved branches, and further back in theforest the heavy, booming note of the red-crested pigeon sounds forthlike the beat of a muffled drum. 

* * * * *

With slow, languid step, Sera, the wife of Macy O'Shea, comes to theopen door and looks out upon the placid lagoon, now just ripplingbeneath the first breath of the trade-wind, and longs for courage to goout there--there to the point of the reef--and spring over among thesharks. The girl--she is hardly yet a woman--shudders a moment andpasses her white hand before her eyes, and then, with a sudden gust ofpassion, the hand clenches. "I would kill him--kill him, if there wasbut a ship here in which I could get away! I would sell myself over andover again to the worst whaler's crew that ever sailed the Pacific ifit would bring me freedom from this cruel, cold-blooded devil!"

* * * * *

A heavy tread on the matted floor of the inner room and her face palesto the hue of death. But Macy O'Shea is somewhat shy of his two years'wife this morning, and she hears the heavy steps recede as he walksover to his oil-shed. A flock of GOGO cast their shadow over the lagoonas they fly westward, and the woman's eyes follow them--"Kill him, yes. I am afraid to die, but not to kill. And I am a stranger here, and if Iran a knife into his fat throat, these natives would make me work inthe taro-fields, unless one wanted me for himself. " Then the heavy stepreturns, and she slowly faces round to the blood-shot eyes anddrink-distorted face of the man she hates, and raises one hand to herlips to hide a blue and swollen bruise. 

The man throws his short, square-set figure on a rough native sofa, and, passing one brawny hand meditatively over his stubbly chin, says, in a voice like the snarl of a hungry wolf: "Here, I say, Sera, slewround; I want to talk to you, my beauty. "

The pale, set face flushed and paled again. "What is it, Macy O'Shea?"

"Ho, ho, 'Macy O'Shea, ' is it? Well, just this. Don't be a fool. I wasa bit put about last night, else I wouldn't have been so quick with myfist. Cut your lip, I see. Well, you must forget it; any way, it's thefirst time I ever touched you. But you ought to know by now that I amnot a man to be trifled with; no man, let alone a woman, is going toset a course for Macy O'Shea to steer by. And, to come to the point atonce, I want you to understand that Carl Ristow's daughter is cominghere. I want her, and that's all about it. "

* * * * *

The woman laughed scornfully. "Yes, I know. That was why"--she pointedto her lips. "Have you no shame? I know you have no pity. But listen. Iswear to you by the Mother of Christ that I will kill her--kill you, ifyou do this. "

O'Shea's cruel mouth twitched and his jaws set, then he uttered ahoarse laugh. "By God! Has it taken you two years to get jealous?"

A deadly hate gleamed in the dark, passionate eyes. "Jealous, Mother ofGod! jealous of a drunken, licentious wretch such as you! I hateyou--hate you! If I had courage enough I would poison myself to be freefrom you. "

O'Shea's eyes emitted a dull sparkle. "I wish you would, damn you! Yetyou are game enough, you say, to kill me--and Malia?"

"Yes. But not for love of you, but because of the white blood in me. Ican't--I won't be degraded by you bringing another woman here. "

"'Por Dios, ' as your dad used to say before the devil took his soul, we'll see about that, my beauty. I suppose because your father was ad----d garlic-eating, ear-ringed Dago, and your mother acome-by-chance Tahiti half-caste, you think he was as good as me. "

"As good as you, O bloody-handed dog of an English convict. He was aman, and the only wrong he ever did was to let me become wife to adevil like you. "

The cruel eyes were close to hers now, and the rough, brawny handsgripped her wrists. "You spiteful Portuguese quarter-bred ----! Call mea convict again, and I'll twist your neck like a fowl's. You she-devil!I'd have made things easy for you--but I won't now. Do you hear?" andthe grip tightened. "Ristow's girl will be here to-morrow, and if youdon't knuckle down to her it'll be a case of 'Vamos' for you--you cango and get a husband among the natives, " and he flung her aside andwent to the god that ran him closest for his soul, next to women--hisrum-bottle. 

* * * * *

O'Shea kept his word, for two days later Malia, the half-caste daughterof Ristow, the trader at Ahunui, stepped from out her father'swhaleboat in front of O'Shea's house. The transaction was a perfectlylegitimate one, and Malia did not allow any inconvenient feeling ofmodesty to interfere with such a lucrative arrangement as this, wherebyher father became possessed of a tun of oil and a bag of Chiliandollars, and she of much finery. In those days missionaries had notmade much head-way, and gentlemen like Messrs Ristow and O'Shea tookall the wind out of the Gospel drum. 

And so Malia, dressed as a native girl, with painted cheeks and barebosom, walked demurely up from the boat to the purchaser of hersixteen-years'-old beauty, who, with arms folded across his broadchest, stood in the middle of the path that led from the beach to hisdoor. And within, with set teeth and a knife in the bosom of her blousebodice, Sera panted with the lust of Hate and Revenge. 

* * * * *

The bulky form of O'Shea darkened the door-way. "Sera, " he called inEnglish, with a mocking, insulting inflection in his voice, "come hereand welcome my new wife!"

Sera came, walking slowly, with a smile on her lips, and, holding outher left hand to Malia, said in the native language, "Welcome!"

"Why, " said O'Shea, with mocking jocularity, "that's a left-handedwelcome, Sera. "

"Aye, " said the girl with the White Man's blood, "my right hand is forthis"--and the knife sank home into Malia's yellow bosom. "A cold bosomfor you to-night, Macy O'Shea, " she laughed, as the value of a tun ofoil and a bag of Chilian dollars gasped out its life upon the mattedfloor. 

II

The native drum was beating. As the blood-quickening boom reverberatedthrough the village, the natives came out from their huts and gatheredaround the House of the Old Men, where, with bound hands and feet, Sera, the White Man's wife, sat, with her back to one of thecentre-posts. And opposite her, sitting like a native on a mat ofKAPAU, was the burly figure of O'Shea, with the demon of disappointedpassion eating away his reason, and a mist of blood swimming before hiseyes. 

The people all detested her, especially the soft-voiced, slender-framedwomen. In that one thing savages resemble Christians--the deadly hatredwith which some women hate those of their sex whom they know to bebetter and more pure than themselves. So the matter was decidedquickly. Mesi--so they called O'Shea--should have justice. If hethought death, let it be death for this woman who had let out the bloodof his new wife. Only one man, Loloku the Boar Hunter, raised his voicefor her, because Sera had cured him of a bad wound when his leg hadbeen torn open by the tusk of a wild boar. But the dull glare from theeyes of O'Shea fell on him, and he said no more. Then at a sign fromthe old men the people rose from the mats, and two unbound the cords ofAFA from the girl, and led her out into the square, and looked atO'Shea. 

"Take her to the boat, " he said. 

* * * * *

Ristow's boat had been hauled up, turned over, and covered with therough mats called KAPAU to keep off the heat of the sun. Withstaggering feet, but undaunted heart, the girl Sera was led down. Onlyonce she turned her head and looked back. Perhaps Loloku would tryagain. Then, as they came to the boat, a young girl, at a sign fromO'Shea, took off the loose blouse, and they placed her, face downwards, across the bilge of the boat, and two pair of small, eager, brown handseach seized one of hers and dragged the white, rounded arms well overthe keel of the boat. O'Shea walked round to that side, drawing throughhis hands the long, heavy, and serrated tail of the FAI--the giganticstinging-ray of Oceana. He would have liked to wield it himself, butthen he would have missed part of his revenge--he could not have seenher face. So he gave it to a native, and watched, with the smile of afiend, the white back turn black and then into bloody red as it was cutto pieces with the tail of the FAI. 

* * * * *

The sight of the inanimate thing that had given no sign of its agonybeyond the shudderings and twitchings of torn and mutilated flesh was, perhaps, disappointing to the tiger who stood and watched the darkstream that flowed down on both sides of the boat. Loloku touched hisarm--"Mesi, stay thy hand. She is dead else. "

"Ah, " said O'Shea, "that would be a pity; for with one hand shall shelive to plant taro. "

And, hatchet in hand, he walked in between the two brown women who heldher hands. They moved aside and let go. Then O'Shea swung his arm; theblade of the hatchet struck into the planking, and the right hand ofSera fell on the sand. 

A man put his arms around her, and lifted her off the boat. He placedhis hand on the blood-stained bosom and looked at Macy O'Shea. 

"E MATE! [Dead!]" he said. 

THE RANGERS OF THE TIA KAU

Between Nanomea and Nanomaga--two of the Ellice Group--but within a fewmiles of the latter, is an extensive submerged shoal, on the chartscalled the Grand Cocal Reef, but by the people of the two islands knownas Tia Kau (The Reef). On the shallowest part there are from four toten fathoms of water, and here in heavy weather the sea breaks. TheBritish cruiser BASILISK, about 1870, sought for the reef, but reportedit as non-existent. Yet the Tia Kati is well known to many a Yankeewhaler and trading schooner, and is a favourite fishing-ground of thepeople of Nanomaga--when the sharks give them a chance. 

* * * * *

One night Atupa, Chief of Nanomaga, caused a huge fire to be lit on thebeach as a signal to the people of Nanomea that a MALAGA, or party ofvoyagers, was coming over. Both islands are low--not more than fifteenfeet above sea-level--and are distant from one another aboutthirty-eight miles. The following night the reflection of the answeringfire on Nanomea was seen, and Atupa prepared to send away his people inseven canoes. They would start at sundown, so as to avoid paddling inthe heat (the Nanomagans have no sailing canoes), and be guided toNanomea, which they expected to reach early in the morning, by the fardistant glare of the great fires of coconut and pandanus leaves kindledat intervals of a few hours. About seventy people were to go, and allthat day the little village busied itself in preparing for theNanomeans gifts of foods--cooked PURAKA, fowls, pigs, and flying-fish. 

* * * * *

Atupa, the heathen chief, was troubled in his mind in those days ofAugust 1872. The JOHN WILLIAMS had touched at the island and landed aSamoan missionary, who had pressed him to accept Christianity. Atupa, dreading a disturbing element in his little community, had, at first, declined; but the ship had come again, and the chief having consentedto try the new religion, a teacher landed. But since then he and hissub-chiefs had consulted the oracle, and had been told that the shadesof Maumau Tahori and Foilagi, their deified ancestors, had answeredthat the new religion was unacceptable to them, and that the Samoanteacher must be killed or sent away. And for this was Atupa sending offsome of his people to Nanomea with gifts of goodwill to the chiefs tobeseech them to consult their oracles also, so that the two islandsmight take concerted action against this new foreign god, whose priestssaid that all men were equal, that all were bad, and He and His Sonalone good. 

* * * * *

The night was calm when the seven canoes set out. Forty men and thirtywomen and children were in the party, and the craft were too deeplyladen for any but the smoothest sea. On the AMA (outrigger) of eachcanoe were the baskets of food and bundles of mats for their hosts, andseated on these were the children, while the women sat with the men andhelped them to paddle. Two hours' quick paddling brought them to theshoal-water of Tia Kau, and at the same moment they saw to the N. W. Thesky-glare of the first guiding fire. 

* * * * *

It was then that the people in the first canoe, wherein was Palu, thedaughter of Atupa, called out to those behind to prepare their ASU(balers), as a heavy squall was coming down from the eastward. ThenLaheu, an old warrior in another canoe, cried out that they shouldreturn on their track a little and get into deep water; "for, " said he, "if we swamp, away from Tia Kau, it is but a little thing, but here--"and he clasped his hands rapidly together and then tore them apart. They knew what he meant--the sharks that, at night-time forsaking thedeep waters, patrolled in droves of thousands the shallow waters of thereef to devour the turtle and the schools of TAFAU ULI and other fish. In quick, alarmed silence the people headed back, but even then thefirst fierce squall struck them, and some of the frail canoes began tofill at once. "I MATAGI! I MATAGI! (head to the wind)" a man calledout; "head to the wind, or we perish! 'Tis but a puff and it is gone. "

* * * * *

But it was more than a puff. The seven canoes, all abreast, were stillin shallow water, and the paddlers kept them dead in the teeth of thewhistling wind and stinging rain, and called out words of encouragementto one another and to the women and children, as another black squallburst upon them and the curling seas began to break. The canoe in whichwas Atupa's daughter was the largest and best of all the seven, but wasmuch overladen, and on the outrigger grating were four children. Thesethe chief's daughter was endeavouring to shield from the rain bycovering them with a mat, when one of them, a little girl, endeavouredto steady herself by holding to one of the thin pieces of grating; itbroke, and her arm fell through and struck the water, and in an instantshe gave a dull, smothered wail. Palu, the woman, seized her by herhair and pulled the child up to a sitting posture, and then shriekedwith terror--the girl's arm was gone. 

* * * * *

And then in the blackness of night, lightened now by the white, seething, boiling surge, the people saw in the phosphorescent watercountless hundreds of the savage terrors of the Tia Kau darting hitherand thither amongst the canoes--for the smell of blood had brought themtogether instantly. Presently a great grey monster tore the paddle fromout the hands of the steersman of the canoe wherein were the terrifiedPalu and the four children, and then, before the man for'ard couldbring her head to the wind, she broached to and filled. Like raveningwolves the sharks dashed upon their prey, and ere the people had timeto give more than a despairing cry, those hideous jaws and gleamingcruel teeth had sealed their fate. Maddened with fear, the rest of thepeople threw everything out of the six other canoes to lighten them, and as the bundles of mats and baskets of food touched the water thesharks seized and bit, tore and swallowed. Then, one by one, everypaddle was grabbed from the hands of the paddlers, and the canoesbroached to and filled in that sea of death--all save one, which wascarried by the force of the wind away from the rest. In this were theonly survivors--two men. 

* * * * *

The agony could not have lasted long. "Were I to live as long as hewhom the FAIFEAU (missionary) tells us lived to be nine hundred andsixty and nine, I shall hear the groans and cries and shrieks of thatPO MALAIA, that night of evil luck, " said one of the two who lived, toDenison, the white trader at Nanomea. "Once did I have my paddle fastin the mouth of a little devil, and it drew me backwards, backwards, over the stern till my head touched the water. TAH! but I was strongwith fear, and held on, for to lose it meant death by the teeth. AndTulua--he who came out alive with me, seized my feet and held on, elsehad I gone. But look thou at this"--and he pointed to his scarred neckand back and shoulders "ere I could free my FOE (paddle) and raise myhead, I was bitten thus by others. Ah, PAPALAGI, some men are born towisdom, but most are fools. Had not Atupa been filled with vain fears, he had killed the man who caused him to lose so many of our people. "

"So, " said the white man, "and wouldst thou have killed the man whobrought thee the new faith? Fie!"

"Aye, that would I--in those days when I was PO ULI ULI [Heathen, lit. "Inthe blackest night"]. But not now, for I am Christian. Yet had Atupakilled and buried the stranger, we could have lied and said he died of asickness when they of his people came to seek him. And then had I now myson Tagipo with me, he who went into the bellies of the sharks atTia Kau. "

PALLOU'S TALOI

A Memory Of The Paumotus

I stayed once at Rotoava--in the Low Archipelago, EasternPolynesia--while suffering from injuries received in a boat accidentone wild night. My host, the Rotoava trader, was a sociable old pirate, whose convivial soul would never let him drink alone. He was by trade aboat-builder, having had, in his early days, a shed at Miller's Point, in Sydney, where he made money and married a wife. But this latterevent was poor Tom Oscott's undoing, and in the end he took his chestof tools on board the THYRA trading brig, and sailed away to Polynesia. Finally, after many years' wandering, he settled down at Rotoava as atrader and boat-builder, and became a noted drinker of bottled beer. 

The only method by which I could avoid his incessant invitations to"have another" was to get his wife and children to carry me down to hiswork-shed, built in a lovely spot surrounded by giant PUKA trees. Here, under the shade, I had my mats spread, and with one of his childrensitting at my head to fan away the flies, I lay and watched, throughthe belt of coconuts that lined the beach, the blue rollers breaking onthe reef and the snow-white boatswain-birds floating high overhead. 

* * * * *

Tom was in the bush one morning when his family carried me to theboat-shed. He had gone for a log of seasoned TOA wood [A hard wood muchused in boat building] to another village. At noon he returned, and Iheard him bawling for me. His little daughter, the fly-brusher, gave ananswering yell, and then Tom walked down the path, carrying two bottles ofbeer; behind him Lucia, his eldest daughter, a monstrous creature ofgiggles, adipose tissue, and warm heart, with glasses and a plate ofcrackers; lastly, old Marie, the wife, with a little table. 

"By ----, you've a lot more sense'n me. It's better lyin' here in thecool, than foolin' around in the sun; so I've brought yer suthin' todrink. "

"Oh, Tom, " I groaned, "I'm sure that beer's bad for me. "

The Maker of Boats sat on his bench, and said that he knew of abrewer's carter in Sydney who, at Merriman's "pub, " on Miller's Point, had had a cask of beer roll over him. Smashed seven ribs, one arm, andone thigh. Doctors gave him up; undertaker's man called on his wife forcoffin order but a sailor chap said he'd pull him through. Got anindiarubber tube and made him suck up as much beer as he could hold;kept it up till all his bones "setted" again, and he recovered. Whyshouldn't I--if I only drank enough?

"Hurry up, old dark-skin!"--this to the faded Marie. Uttering merelythe word "Hog!" she drew the cork. I had to drink some, and every houror so Tom would say it was very hot, and open yet another bottle. Atlast I escaped the beer by nearly dying, and then the kind old fellowhurried away in his boat to Apatiki--another island of the group--andcame back with some bottles of claret, bought from the French traderthere. With him came two visitors--a big half-caste of middle age, andhis wife, a girl of twenty or there-about. This was Edward Pallou andhis wife Taloi. 

* * * * *

I was in the house when Tom returned, enjoying a long-denied smoke. Pallou and his wife entered and greeted me. The man was a fine, well-set-up fellow, wiry and muscular, with deep-set eyes, and bearingacross his right cheek a heavy scar. His wife was a sweet, daintylittle creature with red lips, dazzling teeth, hazel eyes, and longwavy hair. The first thing I noticed about her was, that instead ofsquatting on a mat in native fashion, she sank into a wide chair, andlying back enquired, with a pleasant smile and in perfect English, whether I was feeling any better. She was very fair, even for aPaumotuan half-caste, as I thought she must be, and I said to Pallou, "Why, any one would take your wife to be an Englishwoman!"

"Not I, " said Taloi, with a rippling laugh, as she commenced to make abanana-leaf cigarette; "I am a full-blooded South Sea Islander. Ibelong to Apatiki, and was born there. Perhaps I have white blood inme. Who knows?--only my wise mother. But when I was twelve years old Iwas adopted by a gentleman in Papeite, and he sent me to Sydney toschool. Do you know Sydney? Well, I was three years with the MissesF----, in ---- Street. My goodness! I WAS glad to leave--and so werethe Misses F---- to see me go. They said I was downright wicked, because one day I tore the dress off a girl who said my skin wastallowy, like my name. When I came back to Tahiti my guardian took meto Raiatea, where he had a business, and said I must marry him, thebeast!"

"Oh, shut up, Taoi!" growled the deep-voiced Pallou, who sat beside me. "What the deuce does this man care about your doings?"

"Shut up yourself, you brute! Can't I talk to any one I like, youturtle-headed fool? Am I not a good wife to you, you great, over-grownsavage? Won't you let a poor devil of a woman talk a little? Look here, Tom, do you see that flash jacket he's wearing? Well, I sat up twonights making that--for him to come over here with, and show off beforethe Rotoava girls. Go and die, you ----!"

The big half-caste looked at Tom and then at me. His lips twitched withsuppressed passion, and a dangerous gleam shone a moment in his darkeyes. 

"Here, I say, Taloi, " broke in Tom, good-humouredly, "just go easy abit with Ted. As for him a-looking at any of the girls here, I knowsbetter--and so do you. "

Taloi's laugh, clear as the note of a bird, answered him, and then shesaid she was sorry, and the lines around Pallou's rigid mouth softeneddown. It was easy to see that this grim half-white loved, for all herbitter tongue, the bright creature who sat in the big chair. 

Presently Taloi and Lucia went out to bathe, and Pallou remained withme. Tom joined us, and for a while no one spoke. Then the trader, laying down his pipe on the table, drew his seat closer, and commenced, in low tones, a conversation in Tahitian with Pallou. From the earnestmanner of old Tom and the sullen gloom that overspread Pallou's face, Icould discern that some anxiety possessed them. 

At last Tom addressed me. "Look here, ----, Ted here is in a mess, andwe've just been a-talkin' of it over, and he says perhaps you'll dowhat you can for him. "

The half-caste turned his dark eyes on me and looked intently intomine. 

"What is it, Tom?"

"Well, you see, it come about this way. You heard this chap'smissus--Taloi--a-talkin' about the Frenchman that wanted to marry her. He had chartered a little schooner in Papeite to go to Raiatea. Pallouhere was mate, and, o' course, he being from the same part of the groupas Taloi, she ups and tells him that the Frenchman wanted to marry herstraightaway; and then I s'pose, the two gets a bit chummy, and Palloutells her that if she didn't want the man he'd see as how she wasn'tforced agin' her will. So when the vessel gets to Raiatea it fell calm, just about sunset. The Frenchman was in a hurry to get ashore, andtells his skipper to put two men in the boat and some grub, as he meantto pull ashore to his station. So they put the boat over the side, andFrenchy and Taoi and Pallou and two native chaps gets in and pulls forthe land. 

"They gets inside Uturoa about midnight. 'Jump out, ' says the Frenchmanto Taloi as soon as the boat touches the beach; but the girl wouldn't, but ties herself up around Pallou and squeals. 'Sakker!' says theFrenchy, and he grabs her by the hair and tries to tear her away. ''Ere, stop that, ' says Pallou; 'the girl ain't willin', ' an' he pushesFrenchy away. 'Sakker!' again, and Frenchy whips out his pistol andnearly blows Pallou's face off'n him; and then, afore he knows how itwas done, Ted sends his knife chunk home into the other fellow'sthroat. The two native sailors runned away ashore, and Pallou and Taloitakes the oars and pulls out again until they drops. Then a breezecomes along, and they up stick and sails away and gets clear o' thegroup, and brings up, after a lot of sufferin', at Rurutu. And eversince then there's been a French gunboat a-lookin' for Pallou, and he'sbeen hidin' at Apatiki for nigh on a twelvemonth, and has come overhere now to see if, when your ship comes back, you can't give him andhis missus a passage away somewhere to the westward, out o' the run ofthat there gunboat, the VAUDREUIL. "

* * * * *

I promised I would "work it" with the captain, and Pallou put out hisbrawny hand--the hand that "drove it home into Frenchy's throat"--andgrasped mine in silence. Then he lifted his jacket and showed me hismoney-belt, filled. 

"I don't want money, " I said. "If you have told me the whole story, Iwould help any man in such a fix as you. " And then Taloi, fresh fromher bath, came in and sat down on the mat, whilst fat Lucia combed anddressed her glossy hair and placed therein scarlet hisbiscus flowers;and to show her returned good temper, she took from her lips thecigarette she was smoking, and offered it to the grim Pallou. 

A month later we all three left Rotoava, and Pallou and Taloi wentashore at one of the Hervey Group, where I gave him charge of a stationwith a small stock of trade, and we sailed away east-ward to Pitcairnand Easter Islands. 

* * * * *

Pallou did a good business, and was well liked; and some seven monthsafterwards, when we were at Maga Reva, in the Gambier Group, I got aletter from him. "Business goes well, " he wrote, "but Taloi is ill; Ithink she will die. You will find everything square, though, when youcome. "

But I was never to see that particular island again, as the firm sentanother vessel in place of ours to get Pallou's produce. When thecaptain and the supercargo went ashore, a white trader met them, with aroll of papers in his hand. 

"Pallou's stock-list, " he said. 

"Why, where is he? gone away?"

"No, he's here still; planted alongside his missus. "

"Dead!"

"Yes. A few months after he arrived here, that pretty little wife ofhis died. He came to me, and asked if I would come and take stock withhim. I said he seemed in a bit of a hurry to start stocktaking beforethe poor thing was buried; but anyhow, I went, and we took stock, andhe counted his cash, and asked me to lock the place up if anythinghappened to him. Then we had a drink, and he bade me good-day, and saidhe was going to sit with Taloi awhile, before they took her away. Hesent the native women out of the bedroom, and the next minute I heard ashot. He'd done it, right enough. Right through his brain, poor chap. Ican tell you he thought a lot of that girl of his. There's the twograves, over there by that FETAU tree. Here's his stock-list and bag ofcash and keys. Would you mind giving me that pair of rubber sea-bootshe left?"

A BASKET OF BREAD-FRUIT

It was in Steinberger's time [Colonel Steinberger, who in 1874 succeededin forming a government in Samoa]. A trader had come up to Apia in hisboat from the end of Savaii, the largest of the Samoan Group, and was onhis way home again, when the falling tide caused him to stop awhile atMulinu'u Point, about two miles from Apia. Here he designed to smoke andtalk, and drink kava at the great camp with some hospitable nativeacquaintances, during the rising of the water. Soon he was taking hisease on a soft mat, watching the bevy of AUA LUMA [The local girls] makinga bowl of kava. 

Now this trader lived at Falealupo, at the extreme westerly end ofSavaii; but the Samoans, by reason of its isolation and extremity, havefor ages called it by another name--an unprintable one--and so some ofthe people present began to jest with the trader for living in such aplace. He fell in with their humour, and said that if those presentwould find for him a wife, a girl unseared by the breath of scandal, hewould leave Falealupo for Safune, where he had bought land. 

"Malie!" said an old dame, with one eye and white hair, "thePAPALAGI [foreigner] is inspired to speak wisdom to-night; for at Safunegrow the sweetest nuts and the biggest taro and bread-fruit; and lo! hereamong the kava-chewers is a young maid from Safune--mine owngrand-daughter Salome. And against her name can no one in Samoa laugh inthe hollow of his hand, " and the old creature, amid laughter and cries ofISA! E LE MA LE LO MATUA (The old woman is without shame), crept over tothe trader, and, with one skinny hand on his knee, gazed steadily into hisface with her one eye. 

* * * * *

The trader looked at the girl--at Salome. She had, at her grandmother'sspeech, turned her head aside, and taking the "chaw" of kava-root fromher pretty mouth, dissolved into shame-faced tears. The trader was aman of quick perceptions, and he made up his mind to do in earnest whathe had said in jest--this because of the tears of Salome. He quicklywhispered to the old woman, "Come to the boat before the full of thetide, and we will talk. "

When the kava was ready for drinking the others present had forgottenall about the old woman and Salome, who had both crept away unobserved, and an hour or two was passed in merriment, for the trader was a manwell liked. Then, when he rose and said TO FA, [good-bye] they begged himnot to attempt to pass down in his boat inside the reef, as he was sure tobe fired upon, for how were their people to tell a friend from an enemy inthe black night? But the white man smiled, and said his boat was tooheavily laden to face the ocean swell. So they bade him TO FA, and calledout MANUIA OE! [Bless you!] as he lifted the door of thatch and went. 

* * * * *

The old woman awaited him, holding the girl by the hand. On the groundlay a basket strongly tied up. Salome still wept, but the old womanangrily bade her cease and enter the boat, which the crew had nowpushed bow-on to the beach. The old woman lifted the basket andcarefully put it on board. 

"Be sure, " she said to the crew, "not to sit on it for it is very ripebread-fruit that I am taking to my people in Manono. "

"Give them here to me, " said the trader, and he put the basket in thestern out of the way. The old woman came aft, too, and crouched at hisfeet and smoked a SULUI [a cigarette rolled in dried banana leaf]. Thecool land-breeze freshened as the sail was hoisted, and thenthe crew besought the trader not to run down inside the reef. Bullets, they said, if fired in plenty, always hit something, and the sea wasfairly smooth outside the reef. And old Lupetea grasped his hand andmuttered in his ear, "For the sake of this my little daughter gooutside. See, now, I am old, and to lie when so near death as I am isfoolish. Be warned by me and be wise; sail out into the ocean, and atdaylight we shall be at Salua in Manono. Then thou canst set my feet onthe shore--I and the basket. But the girl shall go with thee. Thoucanst marry her, if that be to thy mind, in the fashion of thePAPALAGI, or take her FA'A SAMOA [Samoan fashion]. Thus will I keep faithwith thee. If the girl be false, her neck is but little and thy fingersstrong. "

Now the trader thought in this wise: "This is well for me, for if I getthe girl away thus quietly from all her relations I shall save much inpresents, " and his heart rejoiced, for although not mean he was acareful man. So he steered his boat seaward, between the seething surfthat boiled and hissed on both sides of the boat passage. 

* * * * *

As the boat sailed past the misty line of cloud-capped Upolu, thetrader lifted the girl up beside him and spoke to her. She was notafraid of him, she said, for many had told her he was a good man, andnot an ULA VALE (scamp), but she wept because now, save her oldgrandmother, all her kinsfolk were dead. Even but a day and a half agoher one brother was killed with her cousin. They were strong men, butthe bullets were swift, and so they died. And their heads had beenshown at Matautu. For that she had grieved and wept and eaten nothing, and the world was cold and dark to her. 

"Poor little devil!" said the trader to himself--"hungry. " Then heopened a locker and found a tin of sardines. Not a scrap of biscuit. There was plenty of biscuit, though, in the boat, in fifty-pound tins, but on these mats were spread, where-on his crew were sleeping. He wasabout to rouse them when he remembered the old dame's basket of ripebread-fruit. He laughed and looked at her. She, too, slept, coiled upat his feet. But first he opened the sardines and placed them besidethe girl, and motioned her to steer. Her eyes gleamed like diamonds inthe darkness as she answered his glance, and her soft fingers graspedthe tiller. Very quickly, then, he felt among the packages aft till hecame to the basket. 

A quick stroke of his knife cut the cinnet that lashed the sidestogether. He felt inside. "Only two, after all, but big ones, and nomistake. Wrapped in cloth, too! I wonder--Hell and Furies! what'sthis?"--as his fingers came in contact with something that felt like ahuman eye. Drawing his hand quickly back, he fumbled in his pockets fora match, and struck it. Bread-fruit! No. Two heads with closed eyes andlivid lips blue with the pallor of death, showing their white teeth. And Salome covered her face and slid down in the bottom of the boatagain, and wept afresh for her cousin and brother, and the boat came upin the wind, but no one awoke. 

* * * * *

The trader was angry. But after he had tied up the basket again he putthe boat on her course once more and called to the girl. She creptclose to him and nestled under his overcoat, for the morning air cameacross the sea from the dew-laden forests, and she was chilled. Thenshe told the story of how her granddam had begged the heads from thoseof Malietoa's troops who had taken them at Matautu, and then gone tothe camp at Mulinu'u in the hope of getting a passage in some boat toManono, her country, where she would fain bury them. And that night hehad come, and old Lupetea had rejoiced, and sworn her to secrecy aboutthe heads in the basket. And that also was why Lupetea was afraid ofthe boat going down inside the passage, for there were many enemies tobe met with, and they would have shot old Lupetea because she was ofManono. That was all. Then she ate the sardines, and, leaning her headagainst the trader's bosom, fell asleep. 

* * * * *

As the first note of the great grey pigeon sounded the dawn, thetrader's boat sailed softly up to the Salua beach, and old Lupetearose, and, bidding the crew good-bye, and calling down blessings on thehead of the good and clever white man, as she rubbed his and the girl'snoses against her own, she grasped her Basket of Bread-fruit and wentashore. Then the trader, with Salome nestling to his side, sailed outagain into the ocean towards his home. 

ENDERBY'S COURTSHIP

The two ghastly creatures sat facing each other in their wordlessmisery as the wind died away and the tattered remnants of the sail hungmotionless after a last faint flutter. The Thing that sat aft--forsurely so grotesquely horrible a vision could not be a Man--pointedwith hands like the talons of a bird of prey to the purple outline ofthe island in the west, and his black, blood-baked lips moved, opened, and essayed to speak. The other being that, with bare and skinny armsclasped around its bony knees, sat crouched in the bottom of the boat, leaned forward to listen. 

"Ducie Island, Enderby, " said the first in a hoarse, rattling whisper;"no one on it; but water is there . .. And plenty of birds and turtle, and a few coconuts. "

At the word "water" the listener gave a curious gibbering chuckle, unclasped his hands from his knees, and crept further towards thespeaker. 

"And the current is setting us down to it, wind or no wind. I believewe'll see this pleasure-trip through, after all"--and the black lipsparted in a hideous grimace. 

The man whom he called Enderby sank his head again upon his knees, andhis dulled and bloodshot eyes rested on something that lay at thecaptain's feet--the figure of a woman enveloped from her shoulders downin a ragged native mat. For some hours past she had lain thus, with thegrey shadows of coming dissolution hovering about her pallid face, andonly the faintest movement of lips and eyelids to show that she stilllived. 

* * * * *

The black-whiskered man who steered looked down for a second upon theface beneath him with the unconcern for others born of the agony ofthirst and despair, and again his gaunt face turned to the land. Yetshe was his wife, and not six weeks back he had experienced a cold sortof satisfaction in the possession of so much beauty. 

He remembered that day now. Enderby, the passenger from Sydney, and hewere walking the poop; his wife was asleep in a deck-chair on the otherside. An open book lay in her lap. As the two men passed and re-passedher, the one noted that the other would glance in undisguised andhonest admiration at the figure in the chair. And Enderby, who was asopen as the day, had said to him, Langton, that the sleeping MrsLangton made as beautiful a picture as he had ever seen. 

* * * * *

The sail stirred, filled out, and then drooped again, and the twospectres, with the sleeping woman between, still sat with their hungryeyes gazing over toward the land. As the sun sank, the outlines of theverdure-clad summits and beetling cliffs stood forth clearly for ashort minute or two, as if to mock them with hope, and then becameenshrouded in the tenebrous night. 

* * * * *

Another hour, and a faint sigh came from the ragged mat. Enderby, forever on the watch, had first seen a white hand silhouetted against theblackness of the covering, and knew that she was still alive. And as hewas about to call Langton, who lay in the stern-sheets muttering inhideous dreams, he heard the woman's voice calling HIM. With pantingbreath and trembling limbs he crawled over beside her and gentlytouched her hand. 

"Thank God, you are alive, Mrs Langton. Shall I wake Captain Langton?We must be nearing the land. "

"No, don't. Let him sleep. But I called you, Mr Enderby, to lift me up. I want to see where the rain is coming from. "

Enderby groaned in anguish of spirit. "Rain? God has forgotten us, I----, "and then he stopped in shame at betraying his weakness before awoman. 

The soft, tender tones again--"Ah, do help me up, please, I can FEELthe rain is near. " Then the man, with hot tears of mingled weakness andpity coursing down his cheeks, raised her up. 

"Why, there it is, Mr Enderby--and the land as well! And it's a heavysquall, too, " and she pointed to a moving, inky mass that halfconcealed the black shadow of the island. "Quick, take my mat; one endof it is tight and will hold water. "

"Langton, La-a-ngton! Here's a rain squall coming!" and Enderby pressedthe woman's hand to his lips and kissed it again and again. Then witheager hands he took the mat from her, and staggering forward to thebows stretched the sound end across and bellied it down. And then themoving mass that was once black, and was now white, swept down uponthem, and brought them life and joy. 

Langton, with an empty beef-tin in his hand, stumbled over his wife'sfigure, plunged the vessel into the water and drank again and again. 

"Curse you, you brute!" shouted Enderby through the wild noise of thehissing rain, "where is your wife? Are you going to let her lie therewithout a drink?"

Langton answered not, but drank once more. Then Enderby, with an oath, tore the tin from his hand, filled it and took it to her, holding herup while she drank. And as her eyes looked gratefully into his while heplaced her tenderly back in the stern-sheets, the madness of a momentoverpowered him, and he kissed her on the lips. 

Concerned only with the nectar in the mat, Langton took no regard ofEnderby as he opened the little locker, pulled out a coarse dungareejumper, and wrapped it round the thinly-clad and drenched figure of thewoman. 

She was weeping now, partly from the joy of knowing that she was not todie of the agonies of thirst in an open boat in mid-Pacific, and partlybecause the water had given her strength to remember that Langton hadcursed her when he had stumbled over her to get at the water in themat. 

* * * * *

She had married him because of his handsome face and dashing manner forone reason, and because her pious Scotch father, also a Sydney-Tahitiantrading captain, had pointed out to her that Langton had made and wasstill making money in the island trade. Her ideal of a happy life wasto have her husband leave the sea and buy an estate either in Tahiti orChili. She knew both countries well: the first was her birthplace, andbetween there and Valparaiso and Sydney her money-grubbing old fatherhad traded for years, always carrying with him his one daughter, whosebeauty the old man regarded as a "vara vain thing, " but likely toprocure him a "weel-to-do mon" for a son-in-law. 

Mrs Langton cared for her husband in a prosaic sort of way, but sheknew no more of his inner nature and latent utter selfishness a yearafter her marriage than she had known a year before. Yet, because ofthe strain of dark blood in her veins--her mother was a Tahitianhalf-caste--she felt the mastery of his savage resolution in the faceof danger in the thirteen days of horror that had elapsed since thebrigantine crashed on an uncharted reef between Pitcairn and DucieIslands, and the other boat had parted company with them, taking mostof the provisions and water. And to hard, callous natures such asLangton's women yield easily and admire--which is better, perhaps, thanloving, for both. 

But that savage curse still sounded in her ears, and unconsciously madeher think of Enderby, who had always, ever since the eighth day in theboat, given her half his share of water. Little did she know the agonyit cost him the day before when the water had given out, to bring herthe whole of his allowance. And as she drank, the man's heart hadbeaten with a dull sense of pity, the while his baser nature calledout, "Fool! it is HIS place, not yours, to suffer for her. "

* * * * *

At daylight the boat was close in to the land, and Langton, in hiscool, cynical fashion, told his wife and Enderby to finish up the lastof the meat and biscuit--for if they capsized getting through into thelagoon, he said, they would never want any more. He had eaten all hewanted unknown to the others, and looked with an unmoved face atEnderby soaking some biscuit in the tin for his wife. Then, with theragged sail fluttering to the wind, Langton headed the boat through thepassage into the glassy waters of the lagoon, and the two totteringmen, leading the woman between them, sought the shelter of a thicketscrub, impenetrable to the rays of the sun, and slept. And then for aweek Enderby went and scoured the reefs for food for her. 

* * * * *

One day at noon Enderby awoke. The woman still slept heavily, the firstsign of returning strength showing as a faint tinge in the pallor ofher cheek. Langton was gone. A sudden chill passed over him--hadLangton taken the boat and left them to die on lonely Ducie? With hastystep Enderby hurried to the beach. The boat was there, safe. And at thefarther end of the beach he saw Langton, sitting on the sand, eating. 

"Selfish brute!" muttered Enderby. "I wonder what he's got?" just thenhe saw, close overhead, a huge ripe pandanus, and, picking up a heavy, flat piece of coral, he tried to ascend the triplicated bole of thetree and hammer off some of the fruit. Langton looked up at him, andshowed his white teeth in a mocking smile at the futile effort. Enderbywalked over to him, stone in hand. He was not a vindictive man, but hehad grown to hate Langton fiercely during the past week for his selfishneglect of his wife. And here was the fellow, gorging himself onturtle-eggs, and his tender, delicate wife living on shell-fish andpandanus. 

* * * * *

"Langton, " he said, speaking thickly and pretending not to notice theremainder of the eggs, "the tide is out, and we may get a turtle in oneof the pools if you come with me. Mrs Langton needs something betterthan that infernal pandanus fruit. Her lips are quite sore and bleedingfrom eating it. "

The Inner Nature came out. "Are they? My wife's lips seem to give you avery great deal of concern. She has not said anything to me. And I havean idea----" the look in Enderby's face shamed into silence the slanderhe was about to utter. Then he added coolly--"But as for going with youafter a turtle, thanks, I won't. I've found a nest here, and have had agood square feed. If the cursed man-o'-war hawks and boobies hadn'tbeen here before me I'd have got the whole lot. " Then he tore the skinoff another egg with his teeth. 

With a curious guttural voice Enderby asked--"How many eggs were left?"

"Thirty or so--perhaps forty. "

"And you have eaten all but those?"--pointing with savage contempt tofive of the round, white balls; "give me those for your wife. "

"My dear man, Louise has too much Island blood in her not to be able todo better than I--or you--in a case like ours. And as you have kindlyconstituted yourself her providore, you had better go and look for anest yourself. "

"You dog!"--and the sharp-edged coral stone crashed into his brain. 

* * * * *

When Enderby returned, he found Mrs Langton sitting up on thecreeper-covered mound that over-looked the beach where he had leftLangton. 

"Come away from here, " he said, "into the shade. I have found a fewturtle-eggs. "

They walked back a little and sat down. But for the wild riot in hisbrain, Enderby would have noted that every vestige of colour had lefther face. 

"You must be hungry, " he thought he was saying to her, and he placedthe white objects in her lap. 

She turned them slowly over and over in her hands, and then droppedthem with a shudder. Some were flecked with red. 

"For God's sake, " the man cried, "tell me what you know!"

"I saw it all, " she answered. 

"I swear to you, Mrs Lan----" (the name stuck in his throat) "I nevermeant it. As God is my witness, I swear it. If we ever escape from hereI will give myself up to justice as a murderer. "

The woman, with hands spread over her face, shook her head from side toside and sobbed. Then she spoke. "I thought I loved him, once. .. . Yet it was for me . .. And you saved my life over and over again inthe boat. All sinners are forgiven we are told. .. . Why should notyou be? . .. And it was for me you did it. And I won't let you giveyourself up to justice or any one. I'll say he died in the boat. " Andthen the laughter of hysterics. 

* * * * *

When, some months later, the JOSEPHINE, whaler, of New London, pickedthem up on her way to Japan, VIA the Carolines and Pelews, the captainsatisfactorily answered the query made by Enderby if he could marrythem. He "rayther thought he could. A man who was used ter ketchin' andkillin'whales, the powerfullest creature of Almighty Gawd's creation, was ekal to marryin' a pair of unfortunit human beans in sich apre-carus situation as theirs. "

* * * * *

And, by the irony of fate, the Enderbys (that isn't their name) are nowliving in a group of islands where there's quite a trade done inturtle, and whenever a ship's captain comes to dine with them theynever have the local dish--turtle eggs--for dinner. "We see them sooften, " Enderby explains, "and my wife is quite tired of them. "

LONG CHARLEY'S GOOD LITTLE WIFE

There was the island, only ten miles away, and there it had been for awhole week. Sometimes we had got near enough to see Long Charley'shouse and the figures of natives walking on the yellow beach; and thenthe westerly current would set us away to leeward again. But that nighta squall came up, and in half an hour we were running down to the land. When the lights on the beach showed up we hove-to until daylight, andthen found the surf too heavy to let us land. 

* * * * *

We got in close to the reef, and could see that the trader'scopra-house was full, for there were also hundreds of bags outside, awaiting our boats. It was clearly worth staying for. The trader, atall, thin, pyjama-clad man, came down to the water's edge, waved hislong arm, and then turned back and sat down on a bag of copra. We wentabout and passed the village again, and once more the long man came tothe water's edge, waved his arm, and retired to his seat. 

In the afternoon we saw a native and Charley together among the bags;then the native left him, and, as it was now low tide, the kanaka wasable to walk to the edge of the reef, where he signalled to us. Seeingthat he meant to swim off, the skipper went in as close as possible, and backed his foreyard. Watching his chance for a lull in the yetfierce breakers, the native slid over the reef and swam out to us asonly a Line Islander or a Tokelau man can swim. 

"How's Charley?" we asked, when the dark man reached the deck. 

"Who? Charley? Oh, he fine, plenty copra. Tapa my bowels are filledwith the sea--for one dollar! Here ARIKI VAKA (captain) and you TUHITUHI (supercargo), " said the native, removing from his perforated andpendulous ear-lobe a little roll of leaf, "take this letter from themean man that giveth but a dollar for facing such a GALU (surf). Hastplenty tobacco on board, friends of my heart? Apa, the surf! Not acanoe crew could the white man get to face it. Is it good twisttobacco, friends, or the flat cakes? Know that I am a man of Nanomea, not one of these dog-eating people here, and a strong swimmer, else theletter had not come. "

The supercargo took the note. It was rolled up in many thicknesses ofbanana-leaf, which had kept it dry--

"DEAR FRIENDS, --I have Been waiting for you for near 5 months. I amChock full of Cobberah and Shark Fins one Ton. I am near Starved Out, No Biscit, no Beef, no flour, not Enything to Eat. For god's Saik sendme a case of Gin ashore if you Don't mean to Hang on till the sea goesDown or I shall Starve. Not a Woman comes Near me because I am Run outof Traid, so please try also to Send a Peece of Good print, as thereare some fine Women here from Nukunau, and I think I can get one for awife if I am smart. If you Can't take my Cobberah, and mean to Go away, send the Squair face [Square face--Hollands gin], for god's saik, andsomething for the Woman, --Your obliged Friend, CHARLES. "

We parcelled a bottle of gin round with a small coir line, and sent itashore by the Nanomea man. Charley and a number of natives came to theedge of the reef to lend a hand in landing the bearer of the treasure. Then they all waded back to the beach, headed by the white man in thedirty pyjamas and sodden-looking FALA hat. Reaching his house, heturned his following away, and shut the door. 

"I bet a dollar that fellow wouldn't swap billets with the angelGabriel at this partikler moment, " said our profane mate thoughtfully. 

* * * * *

We started weighing and shipping the copra next day. After finishingup, the solemn Charley invited the skipper and supercargo to remainashore till morning. His great trouble, he told us, was that he had notyet secured a wife, "a reg'lar wife, y'know. " He had, unluckily, "lostthe run" of the last Mrs Charley during his absence at another islandof the group, and negotiations with various local young women had beenbroken off owing to his having run out of trade. In the South Seas, asin the civilised world generally, to get the girl of your heart isusually a mere matter of trade. There were, he told us with amelancholy look, "some fine Nukunau girls here on a visit, but the oneI want don't seem to care much about stayin', unless all this new tradefetches her. "

"Who is she?" enquired the skipper. 

"Tibakwa's daughter. "

"Let's have a look at her, " said the skipper, a man of kind impulses, who felt sorry at the intermittency of the Long One's connubialrelations. The tall, scraggy trader shambled to the door and bawledout: "Tibakwa, Tibakwa, Tibakwa, O!" three times. 

The people, singing in the big MONIEP or town-house, stopped theirmonotonous droning, and the name of Tibakwa, was yelled vociferouslythrough-out the village in true Gilbert Group style. In the Gilberts, if a native in one corner of a house speaks to another in the opposite, he bawls loud enough to be heard a mile off. 

* * * * *

Tibakwa (The Shark) was a short, squat fellow, with his broad back andchest scored and seamed with an intricate and inartistic network ofcicatrices made by sharks' teeth swords. His hair, straight, coarse, and jet-black, was cut away square from just above his eyebrows to thetop of his ears, leaving his fierce countenance in a sort of frame. Each ear-lobe bore a load--one had two or three sticks of tobacco, twined in and about the distended circle of flesh, and the other aclasp-knife and wooden pipe. Stripped to the waist he showed hismuscular outlines to perfection, and he sat down unasked in the bold, self-confident, half-defiant manner natural to the Line Islander. 

* * * * *

"Where's Tirau?" asked the trader. 

"Here, " said the man of wounds, pointing outside, and he called out ina voice like the bellow of a bull--"TIRAU O, NAKO MAI! (Come here!)"

Tirau came in timidly, clothed only in an AIRIRI or girdle, and slunkinto a far corner. 

The melancholy trader and the father pulled her out, and she dumpedherself down in the middle of the room with a muttered "E PUAK ACARON;KACARON; TE MALAN! (Bad white man). "

"Fine girl, Charley, " said the skipper, digging him in the ribs. "Oughtto suit you, eh! Make a good little wife. "

Negotiations then began anew. Father willing to part, girlfrightened--commenced to cry. The astute Charley brought out some newtrade. Tirau's eye here displayed a faint interest. Charley threw her, with the air of a prince, a whole piece of turkey twill, 12yards--value three dollars, cost about 2s. 3d. Tirau put out a littlehand and drew it gingerly toward her. Tibakwa gave us an atrociouswink. 

"She's cottoned!" exclaimed Charley. 

* * * * *

And thus, without empty and hollow display, were two loving hearts madeto beat as one. As a practical proof of the solemnity of the occasion, the bridegroom then and there gave Tirau his bunch of keys, which shecarefully tied to a strand of her AIRIRI, and, smoking one of thecaptain's Manillas, she proceeded to bash out the mosquitoes from thenuptial couch with a fan. We assisted her, an hour afterwards, to hoistthe sleeping body of Long Charley therein, and, telling her to bathehis head in the morning with cold water, we rose to go. 

"Good-bye, Tirau!" we said. 

"TIAKAPO [Good-night]", said the good Little Wife, as she rolled up anempty square gin bottle in one of Charley's shirts for a pillow, anddisposed her graceful figure on the matted floor beside his bed, to fightmosquitoes until daylight. 

THE METHODICAL MR BURR OF MADURO

One day Ned Burr, a fellow trader, walked slowly up the path to mystation, and with a friendly nod sat down and watched intently as, withnative assistance, I set about salting some pork. Ned lived thirtymiles from my place, on a little island at the entrance to the lagoon. He was a prosperous man, and only drank under the pressure of themonotony caused by the non-arrival of a ship to buy his produce. Hewould then close his store, and, aided by a number of friendly malenatives, start on a case of gin. But never a woman went into Ned'shouse, though many visited the store, where Ned bought their produce, paid for it in trade or cash, and sent them off, after treating them ona strictly business basis. 

Now, the Marshall Island women much resented this. Since Ned's wife haddied, ten years previously, the women, backed by the chiefs, had mademost decided, but withal diplomatic, assaults upon his celibacy. Theold men of his village had respectfully and repeatedly reminded himthat his state of singleness was not a direct slight to themselves asleading men alone. If he refused to marry again he surely would notcast such a reflection upon the personal characters of some two orthree hundred young girls as to refuse a few of them the position ofhonorary wives PRO TEM. , or until he found one whom he might thinkworthy of higher honours. But the slow-thinking, methodical trader onlyopened a bottle of gin, gave them fair words and a drink all round, andabsolutely declined to open any sort of matrimonial negotiations. 

* * * * *

"I'm come to hev some talk with you when you've finished saltin', " hesaid, as he rose and meditatively prodded a junk of meat with hisforefinger. 

"Right, old man, " I said. "I'll come now, " and we went into the bigroom and sat down. 

"Air ye game ter come and see me get married?" he asked, looking awaypast me, through the open door, to where the surf thundered and tumbledon the outer reef. 

"Ned, " I said solemnly, "I know you don't joke, so you must mean it. Ofcourse I will. I'm sure all of us fellows will be delighted to hearyou're going to get some nice little CARAJZ [an unmarried girl] to lightenup that big house of yours over there. Who's the girl, Ned?"

"Le-jennabon. "

"Whew!" I said, "why, she's the daughter of the biggest chief on Arhnu. I didn't think any white man could get her, even if he gave her peoplea boat-load of dollars as a wedding-gift. "

"Well, no, " said Ned, stroking his beard meditatively, "I suppose ISHOULD feel a bit set up; but two years ago her people said that, because I stood to them in the matter of some rifles when they hadtrouble with King Jibberick, I could take her. She was rather youngthen, any way; but I've been over to Arhnu several times, and I've hadspies out, and damn me if I ever could hear a whisper agin' her. I'mtold for sure that her father and uncles would ha' killed any one thatcame after her. So I'm a-goin' to take her and chance it. "

"Ned, " I said, "you know your own affairs and these people better thanI do. Yet are you really going to pin your faith on a Marshall Islandgirl? You are not like any of us traders. You see, we know what toexpect sometimes, and our morals are a lot worse than those of thenatives. And it doesn't harrow our feelings much if any one of us hasto divorce a wife and get another; it only means a lot of new dressesand some guzzling, drinking, and speechifying, and some bother inteaching the new wife how to make bread. But your wife that died was aManhikian--another kind. They don't breed that sort here in theMarshalls. Think of it twice, Ned, before you marry her. "

* * * * *

The girl was a beauty. There are many like her in that far-away clusterof coral atolls. That she was a chief's child it was easy to see; theabject manner in which the commoner natives always behaved themselvesin her presence showed their respect for Le-jennabon. Of course we allgot very jolly. There were half a dozen of us traders there, and wewere, for a wonder, all on friendly terms. Le-jennabon sat on a finemat in the big room, and in a sweetly dignified manner received thewedding-gifts. One of our number, Charlie de Buis, though in a state ofchronic poverty, induced by steadfast adherence to square gin at fivedollars a case, made his offerings--a gold locket covering a woman'sminiature, a heavy gold ring, and a pair of fat, cross-bred Muscovyducks. The bride accepted them with a smile. 

"Who is this?" she asked, looking at the portrait--"your white wife?""No, " replied the bashful Charles, "another man's. That's why I give itaway, curse her! But the ducks I bred myself on Madurocaron. "

* * * * *

A month or two passed. Then, on one Sunday afternoon, about dusk, I sawNed's whale-boat coming over across the lagoon. I met him on the beach. Trouble was in his face, yet his hard, impassive features were suchthat only those who knew him well could discover it. Instead ofentering the house, he silently motioned me to come further along thesand, where we reached an open spot clear of coco palms. Ned sat downand filled his pipe. I waited patiently. The wind had died away, andthe soft swish and swirl of the tide as the ripples lapped the beachwas the only sound that broke upon the silence of the night. 

* * * * *

"You were right. But it doesn't matter now . .. " He laughed softly. "Aweek ago a canoe-party arrived from Ebon. There were two chiefs. Ofcourse they came to my house to trade. They had plenty of money. Therewere about a hundred natives belonging to them. The younger man waschief of Likieb--a flash buck. The first day he saw Le-jennabon he hada lot too much to say to her. I watched him. Next morning mytoddy-cutter came and told me that the flash young chief from Likiebhad stuck him up and drank my toddy, and had said something about mywife--you know how they talk in parables when they mean mischief. Iwould have shot him for the toddy racket, but I was waitin' for abetter reason. .. . The old hag who bosses my cook-shed said to me asshe passed, 'Go and listen to a song of cunning over there'--pointingto a clump of bread-fruit trees. I walked over--quietly. Le-jennabonand her girls were sitting down on mats. Outside the fence was a ladsinging this--in a low voice--

 "'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers. '

"Le-jennabon and the girls bent their heads and said nothing. Then thedevil's imp commenced again--

 "'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers. '

"Some of the girls laughed and whispered to Le-jennabon. She shook herhead, and looked around timorously. Plain enough, wasn't it? Presentlythe boy creeps up to the fence, and drops over a wreath of yellowblossoms. The girls laughed. One of them picked it up, and offered itto Le-jennabon. She waved it away. Then, again, the cub outside sangsoftly--

 "'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers, '

"and they all laughed again, and Le-jennabon put the wreath on her head, and I saw the brown hide of the boy disappear among the trees. "

* * * * *

I went back to the house. I wanted to make certain she would follow theboy first. After a few minutes some of Le-jennabon's women came to me, and said they were going to the weather side of the island--it's narreracross, as you know--to pick flowers. I said all right, to go, as I wasgoing to do something else, so couldn't come with them. Then I went tothe trade-room and got what I wanted. The old cook-hag showed me theway they had gone, and grinned when she saw what I had slid down insidemy pyjamas. I cut round and got to the place. I had a right good ideawhere it was. 

* * * * *

"The girls soon came along the path, and then stopped and talked toLe-jennabon and pointed to a clump of bread-fruit trees standing in anarrow-root patch. She seemed frightened--but went. Half-way through shestopped, and then I saw my beauty raise his head from the ground andmarch over to her. I jest giv' him time ter enjoy a smile, and then Istepped out and toppled him over. Right through his carcase--themSharp's rifle make a hole you could put your fist into. 

"The girl dropped too--sheer funk. Old Lebauro, the cook, slid throughthe trees and stood over him, and said, 'U, GUK! He's a fine-made man, 'and gave me her knife; and then I collared Le-jennabon, and----"

"For God's sake, Ned, don't tell me you killed her too!"

He shook his head slowly. 

"No, I couldn't hurt HER. But I held her with one hand, she feelingdead and cold, like a wet deck-swab; then the old cook-woman undid myflash man's long hair, and, twining her skinny old claws in it, pulledit taut, while I sawed at the chap's neck with my right hand. The knifewas heavy and sharp, and I soon got the job through. Then I gave thething to Le-jennabon to carry. 

* * * * *

"I made her walk in front of me. Every time she dropped the head Islewed her round and made her lift it up again. And the old cook-deviltrotted astern o' us. When we came close to the town, I says toLe-jennabon:

"'Do you want to live?'

"'Yes, ' says she, in a voice like a whisper. 

"'Then sing, ' says I, 'sing loud--

 "'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers, '

And she sang it in a choky kind of quaver. 

"There was a great rush o' people ter see the procession. They stood ina line on both sides of the path, and stared and said nothin'. 

"Presently we comes to where all the Likieb chief's people wasquartered. They knew the head and ran back for their rifles, but mycrowd in the village was too strong, and, o' course, sided with me, andtook away their guns. Then the crowd gathers round my place, and Imakes Le-jennabon hold up the head and sing again--sing that devil'schant. 

"'Listen, ' I says to the people, 'listen to my wife singing a lovesong. ' Then I takes the thing, wet and bloody, and slings it into themiddle of the Likieb people, and gave Le-jennabon a shove and sent herinside. "

* * * * *

I was thinking what would be the best thing to say, and could onlymanage "It's a bad business, Ned. "

"Bad! That's where you're wrong, " and, rising, Ned brushed the sand offthe legs of his pyjamas. "It's just about the luckiest thing as couldha' happened. Ye see, it's given Le-jennabon a good idea of what mayhappen to her if she ain't mighty correct. An' it's riz me a lot in theesteem of the people generally as a man who hez business principles. "

A TRULY GREAT MAN

A Mid-Pacific Sketch

Then the flag of "Bobby" Towns, of Sydney, was still mighty in theSouth Seas. The days had not come in which steamers with brass-boundsupercargoes, carrying tin boxes and taking orders like merchants'bagmen, for goods "to arrive, " exploited the Ellice, Kingsmill, andGilbert Groups. Bluff-bowed old wave-punchers like the SPEC, the LADYALICIA and the E. K. BATESON plunged their clumsy hulls into therolling swell of the mid-Pacific, carrying their "trade" of knives, axes, guns, bad rum, and good tobacco, instead of, as now, whiteumbrellas, paper boots and shoes, German sewing-machines and fancyprints--"zephyrs, " the smartly-dressed paper-collared supercargo ofto-day calls them, as he submits a card of patterns to Emilia, thenative teacher's wife, who, as the greatest Lady in the Land, must havefirst choice. 

* * * * *

In those days the sleek native missionary was an unknown quantity inthe Tokelaus and Kingsmills, and the local white trader answered allrequirements. He was generally a rough character--a runaway from someAustralian or American whaler, or a wandering Ishmael, who, for reasonsof his own, preferred living among the intractable, bawling, andpoverty-stricken people of the equatorial Pacific to dreaming away hisdays in the monotonously happy valleys of the Society and MarquesasGroups. 

* * * * *

Such a man was Probyn, who dwelt on one of the low atolls of the ElliceIslands. He had landed there one day from a Sydney sperm whaler with achest of clothes, a musket or two, and a tierce of twist tobacco; withhim came a savage-eyed, fierce-looking native wife, over whose baredshoulders and bosom fell long waves of black hair; with her was a childabout five years old. 

The second mate of the whaler, who was in charge of the boat, notliking the looks of the excited natives who swarmed around thenewcomer, bade him a hurried farewell, and pushed away to the ship, which lay-to off the passage with her fore-yard aback. Then theclamorous people pressed more closely around Probyn and his wife, andassailed them with questions. 

So far neither of them had spoken. Probyn, a tall, wiry, scanty-hairedman, with quiet, deep-set eyes, was standing with one foot on thetierce of tobacco and his hands in his pockets. His wife glareddefiantly at some two or three score of reddish-brown women who crowdedeagerly around her to stare into her face; holding to the sleeve of herdress was the child, paralysed into the silence of fright. 

* * * * *

The deafening babble and frantic gesticulations were perfectlyexplicable to Probyn, and he apprehended no danger. The head man of thevillage had not yet appeared, and until he came this wild license ofbehaviour would continue. At last the natives became silent and partedto the right and left as Tahori, the head man, his fat body shiningwith coconut oil, and carrying an ebony-wood club in his hand, stood infront of the white man and eyed him up and down. The scrutiny seemedsatisfactory. He stretched out his huge, naked arm, and shook Probyn'shand, uttering his one word of Samoan--"TALOFA!" [Lit. , "My love to you", the Samoan salutation] and then, in his own dialect, he asked: "What isyour name, and what do you want?"

"Sam, " replied Probyn. And then, in the Tokelau language, which thewild-eyed people around him fairly understood, "I have come here tolive with you and trade for oil"--and he pointed to the tierce oftobacco. 

"Where are you from?"

"From the land called Nukunono, in the Tokelau. "

"Why come here?"

"Because I killed an enemy there. "

"Good!" grunted the fat man; "there are no twists in thy tongue; butwhy did the boat hasten away so quickly?"

"They were frightened because of the noise. He with the face like afowl's talked too much"--and he pointed to a long, hatchet-visagednative, who had been especially turbulent and vociferous. 

* * * * *

"Ha!" and the fat, bearded face of Tahori turned from the white man tohim of whom the white man had spoken--"is it thee, Makoi? And so thoumadest the strangers hasten away! That was wrong. Only for thee I hadgone to the ship and gotten many things. Come hither!"

Then he stooped and picked up one of Probyn's muskets, handed it to thewhite man, and silently indicated the tall native with a nod. The othernatives fell back. Niabong, Probyn's wife, set her boy on his feet, puther hand in her bosom and drew out a key, with which she opened thechest. She threw back the lid, fixed her black eyes on Probyn, andwaited. 

Probyn, holding the musket in his left hand, mused a moment. Then heasked:

"Whose man is he?"

"Mine, " said Tahori; "he is from Oaitupu, and my bondman. "

"Hath he a wife?"

"Nay; he is poor, and works in my PURAKA [A coarse species of taro (ARUMESCULENTUM) growing on the low-lying atolls of the mid-Pacific. ] field!"

"Good, " said Probyn, and he motioned to his wife. She dived her handinto the chest and handed him a tin of powder, then a bullet, a cap, and some scraps of paper. 

Slowly he loaded the musket, and Tahori, seizing the bondman by hisarm, led him out to the open, and stood by, club in hand, on the alert. 

Probyn knew his reputation depended on the shot. He raised his musketand fired. The ball passed through the chest of Makoi. Then four menpicked up the body and carried it into a house. 

* * * * *

Probyn laid down the musket and motioned again to Niabong. She handedhim a hatchet and blunt chisel. Tahori smiled pleasantly, and, drawingthe little boy to him, patted his head. 

Then, at a sign from him, a woman brought Niabong a shell of sweettoddy. The chief sat cross-legged and watched Probyn opening the tierceof tobacco. Niabong locked the box again and sat upon it. 

"Who are you?" said Tahori, still caressing the boy, to the white man'swife. 

"Niabong. But my tongue twists with your talk here. I am of Naura(Pleasant Island). By-and-by I shall understand it. "

"True. He is a great man, thy man, " said the chief, nodding at Probyn. 

"A great man, truly. There is not one thing in the world but he can doit. "

"E MOE [true], " said the fat man, approvingly; "I can see it. Look you, heshall be as my brother, and thy child here shall eat of the best in theland. "

Probyn came over with his two hands filled with sticks of tobacco. 

"Bring a basket, " he said. 

A young native girl slid out from the coconut grove at Tahori'sbidding, and stood behind him holding a basket. Probyn counted out intoit two hundred sticks of tobacco. 

"See, Tahori. I am a just man to thee because thou art a just man tome. Here is the price of him that thou gavest to me. "

Tahori rose and beckoned to the people to return. "Look at this man. Heis a truly great man. His heart groweth from his loins upwards to histhroat. Bring food to my house quickly, that he and his wife and childmay eat. And to-morrow shall every man cut wood for his house, a housethat shall be in length six fathoms, and four in width. Such men as hecome from the gods. "

THE DOCTOR'S WIFE

Consanguinity--From A Polynesian Standpoint

"Oho!" said Lagisiva, the widow, tossing her hair back over hershoulders, as she raised the heavy, fluted tappa mallet in her thick, strong right hand, and dealt the rough cloth a series of quickstrokes--"Oho!" said the dark-faced Lagisiva, looking up at the WhiteMan, "because I be a woman dost think me a fool? I tell thee I knowsome of the customs of the PAPALAGI (the white foreigners). Much wisdomhave ye in many things; but again I tell thee, O friend of my sons, that in some other things the people of thy nation--ay, of all whitenations, they be as the beasts of the forest--the wild goat andpig--without reason and without shame. TAH! Has not my eldest son, TuiFau, whom the white men call Bob, lived for seven years in Sini(Sydney), when he returned from those places by New Guinea, where hewas diver? And he has filled my ears with the bad and shameless customsof the PAPALAGI. ISA! I say again thy women have not the shame of ours. The heat of desire devoureth chastity even in those of one blood!"

"In what do they offend, O my mother?"

"AUE! Life is short; and, behold, this piece of SIAPO [The tappa cloth ofthe South Seas, made from the bark of the paper mulberry. ] is fora wedding present, and I must hurry; but yet put down thy gun andbag, and we shall smoke awhile, and thou shalt feel shame while I tellof one of the PAPALAGI customs--the marrying of brother and sister!"

"Nay, mother, " said the White Man, "not brother and sister, but onlycousins. "

"ISA! [an expression of contempt]" and the big widow spat scornfully onthe ground, "those are words--words. It is the same; the same is theblood, the same is the bone. Even in our heathen days we pointed thefinger at one who looked with the eye of love on the daughter of hisfather's brother or sister--for such did we let his blood out upon thesand. And I, old Lagisiva, have seen a white man brought to shame throughthis wickedness!"

"Tell me, " said the White Man. 

* * * * *

"He was a FOMA'I (doctor), and rich, and came here because he desiredto see strange places, and was weary of his life in the land of thePAPALAGI. So he remained with us, and hunted the wild boar with ouryoung men, and became strong and hardy, and like unto one of ourpeople. And then, because he was for ever restless, he sailed away onceand returned in a small ship, and brought back trade and built a storeand a fine house to dwell in. The chief of this town gave him, forfriendship, a piece of land over there by the Vai-ta-milo, and thus didhe become a still greater man. His store was full of rich goods, and hekept many servants, and at night-time his house was as a blaze of fire, for the young men and women would go there and sing and dance, and hehad many lovers amongst our young girls. 

"I, old Lagisiva, who am now fat and dull, was one. Oho, he was a manof plenty! Did a girl but look out between her eyelashes at a piece ofprint in the store, lo! it was hers, even though it measured twentyfathoms in length--and print was a dollar a fathom in those days. Soevery girl--even those from parts far off--cast herself in his way, that he might notice her. And he was generous to all alike--in thatalone was wisdom. 

* * * * *

"Once or twice every year the ships brought him letters. And he wouldcount the marks on the paper, and tell us that they came from a womanof the PAPALAGI--his cousin, as you would call her--whose picture washung over his table. She was for ever smiling down upon us, and hereyes were his eyes, and if he but smiled then were the two alike--alikeas are two children of the same birth. When three years had come andgone a ship brought him a letter, and that night there were many of usat his house, men and women, to talk with the people from the ship. When those had gone away to their sleep, he called to the chief, andsaid:--

"'In two days, O my friend, I set out for my land again; but to return, for much do I desire to remain with you always. In six months I shallbe here again. And there is one thing I would speak of. I shall bringback a white wife, a woman of my own country, whom I have loved formany years. '

"Then Tamaali'i, the chief, who was my father's father, and very old, said, 'She shall be my daughter, and welcome, ' and many of us younggirls said also, 'She shall be welcome'--although we felt sorrowful tolose a lover so good and open-handed. And then did the FOMA'I call tothe old chief and two others, and they entered the store and lightedlamps, and presently a man went forth into the village, and criedaloud: 'Come hither, all people, and listen!' So, many hundreds came, and we all went in and found the floor covered with some of everythingthat the white man possessed. And the chief spoke and said:

"'Behold, my people, this our good friend goeth away to his own countrythat he may bring back a wife. And because many young unmarried girlswill say, "Why does he leave us? Are not we as good to look upon asthis other woman?" does he put these presents here on the ground andthese words into my mouth--"Out of his love to you, which must be athing that is past and forgotten, the wife that is coming must not knowof some little things--that is PAPALAGI custom. '"

"And then every girl that had a wish took whatever she fancied, and thewhite man charged us to say naught that would arouse the anger of thewife that was to come. And so he departed. 

* * * * *

"One hundred and ten fat hogs killed we and roasted whole for the feastof welcome. I swear it by the Holy Ones of God's Kingdom--one hundredand ten. And yet this white lily of his never smiled--not even on usyoung girls who danced and sang before her, only she clung to his arm, and, behold, when we drew close to her we saw it was the woman in thepicture--his sister!

"And then one by one all those that had gathered to do him honour wentaway in shame--shame that he should do this, wed his own sister, andmany women said worse of her. But yet the feast--the hogs, and yams, and taro, and fish, and fowls--was brought and placed by his doorstep, but no one spake, and at night-time he was alone with his wife, till hesent for the old chief, and reproached him with bitter words for thecoldness of the people, and asked: 'Why is this?'

* * * * *

"And the old man pointed to the picture over the table, and said: 'Isthis she--thy wife?'

"'Ay, ' said the White Man. 

"'Is she not of the same blood as thyself?'

"'Even so, ' said he. 

"'Then shalt thou live alone in thy shame, ' said the old man; and hewent away. 

"So, for many months, these two lived. He found some to work for him, and some young girls to tend his sister, whom he called his wife, whilst she lay ill with her first child. And the day after it was born, some one whispered: 'He is accursed! the child cries not--it is dumb. 'For a week it lived, yet never did it cry, for the curse of wickednesswas upon it. Then the white man nursed her tenderly, and took her awayto live in Fiji for six months. When they came back it was the same--noone cared to go inside his house, and he cursed us, and said he wouldbring men from Tokelau to work for him. We said naught. Then in timeanother child was born, and it was hideous to look upon, and that alsodied. 

* * * * *

"Now, there was a girl amongst us whose name was Suni, to whom thewhite woman spoke much, for she was learning our tongue, and Suni, byreason of the white woman's many presents, spoke openly to her, andtold her of the village talk. Then the white woman wept, and arose andspoke to the man for a long while. And she came back to Suni, and said:'What thou hast told me was in my own heart three years ago; yet, because it is the custom of my people, I married this man, who is theson of my father's brother. But now I shall go away. ' Then the whiteman came out and beat Suni with a stick. But yet was his sister, whomhe called his wife, eaten up with shame, and when a ship came they wentaway, and we saw her not again. For about two years we heard no more ofour white man, till he returned and said the woman was dead. And hetook Suni for wife, who bore him three children, and then they wentaway to some other country--I know not where. 

* * * * *

"I thank thee many, many times, O friend of my sons. Four children ofmine here live in this village, yet not a one of them ever asketh mewhen I last smoked. May God walk with thee always for this stick oftobacco. "

THE FATE OF THE ALIDA

Three years ago, in an Australian paper, I read something that set methinking of Taplin--of Taplin and his wife, and the fate of the ALIDA. This is what I read:--

"News has reached Tahiti that a steamer had arrived at Toulon with twonoted prisoners on board. These men, who are brothers named Rorique, long ago left Tahiti on an island-trading trip, and when the vessel gotto sea they murdered the captain, a passenger, the supercargo (MrGibson, of Sydney), and two sailors, and threw their bodies overboard. The movers in the affair were arrested at Ponape, in the CarolineIslands. The vessel belonged to a Tahitian prince, and was called theNUROAHITI, but its name had been changed after the tragedy. The accusedpersons were sent to Manilla. From Manilla they appear now to have beensent on to France. "

[NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. --The brothers Rorique were sentenced to imprisonmentfor life at Brest in 1895. ]

In the year 1872 we were lying inside Funafuti Lagoon, in the ElliceGroup. The last cask of oil had been towed off to the brig and placedunder hatches, and we were to sail in the morning for our usual cruiseamong the Gilbert and Kingsmill Islands. 

Our captain, a white trader from the shore, and myself, were sitting ondeck "yarning" and smoking. We lay about a quarter of a mile from thebeach--such a beach, white as the driven snow, and sweeping in a greatcurve for five long miles to the north and a lesser distance to thesouth and west. Right abreast of the brig, nestling like huge birds'nests in the shade of groves of coconut and bread-fruit trees, were thehouses of the principal village in Funafuti. 

Presently the skipper picked up his glasses that lay beside him on theskylight, and looked away down to leeward, where the white sails of aschooner beating up to the anchorage were outlined against the line ofpalms that fringed the beach of Funafala--the westernmost island thatforms one of the chain enclosing Funafuti Lagoon. 

"It's Taplin's schooner, right enough, " he said. "Let us go ashore andgive him and his pretty wife a hand to pack up. "

* * * * *

Taplin was the name of the only other white trader on Funafuti besidesold Tom Humphreys, our own man. He had been two years on the island, and was trading in opposition to our trader, as agent for a foreignhouse--our owners were Sydney people--but his firm's unscrupulousmethod of doing business had disgusted him. So one day he told thesupercargo of their vessel that he would trade for them no longer thanthe exact time he had agreed upon--two years. He had come to Funafutifrom the Pelews, and was now awaiting the return of his firm's vesselto take him back there again. Getting into our boat we were pulledashore and landed on the beach in front of the trader's house. 

"Well, Taplin, here's your schooner at last, " said old Tom, as we shookhands and seated ourselves in the comfortable, pleasant-looking room. "I see you're getting ready to go. "

Taplin was a man of about thirty or so, with a quiet, impassive face, and dark, deep-set eyes that gave to his features a somewhat gloomylook, except when he smiled, which was not often. Men with thatcurious, far-off look in their eyes are not uncommon among the lonelyislands of the wide Pacific. Sometimes it comes to a man with long, long years of wandering to and fro; and you will see it deepen when, bysome idle, chance word, you move the memories of a forgotten past--erehe had even dreamed of the existence of the South Sea Islands and forever dissevered himself from all links and associations of the outsideworld. 

* * * * *

"Yes, " he answered, "I am nearly ready. I saw the schooner at daylight, and knew it was the ALIDA. "

"Where do you think of going to, Taplin?" I asked. 

"Back to the Carolines. Nerida belongs down that way, you know; and sheis fretting to get back again--otherwise I wouldn't leave this island. I've done pretty well here, although the people I trade for are--well, you know what they are. "

"Aye, " assented old Humphreys, "there isn't one of 'em but what is thetwo ends and bight of a--scoundrel; and that supercargo with the yallermoustache and womany hands is the worst of the lot. I wonder if he'saboard this trip? I don't let him inside my house; I've got too manydaughters, and they all think him a fine man. "

* * * * *

Nerida, Taplin's wife, came out to us from an inner room. She was anative of one of the Pelew Islands, a tall, slenderly-built girl, withpale, olive skin and big, soft eyes. A flowing gown of yellowmuslin--the favourite colour of the Portuguese-blooded natives of thePelews--buttoned high up to her throat, draped her graceful figure. After putting her little hand in ours, and greeting us in the Funafutidialect, she went over to Taplin, and touching his arm, pointed out theschooner that was now only a mile or so away, and a smile parted herlips, and the star-like eyes glowed and filled with a tender light. 

I felt Captain Warren touch my arm as he rose and went outside. Ifollowed. 

* * * * *

"L----, " said Warren, "can't we do something for Taplin ourselves?Isn't there a station anywhere about Tonga or Wallis Island that wouldsuit him?"

"Would he come, Warren? He--or, rather, that pretty wife of his--seemsbent upon going away in the schooner to the Carolines. "

"Aye, " said the skipper, "that's it. If it were any other vessel Iwouldn't care. " Then suddenly:

"That fellow Motley (the supercargo) is a damned scoundrel--capable ofany villainy where a woman is concerned. Did you ever hear about oldRaymond's daughter down at Mangareva?"

I had heard the story very often. By means of a forged letterpurporting to have been written by her father--an old English trader inthe Gambier Group--Motley had lured the beautiful young half-blood awayfrom a school in San Francisco, and six months afterwards turned heradrift on the streets of Honolulu. Raymond was a lonely man, andpassionately attached to his only child; so no one wondered when, reaching California a year after and finding her gone, he shot himselfin his room at an hotel. 

* * * * *

"I will ask him, anyway, " I said; and as we went back into the housethe ALIDA shot past our line of vision through the coco-palms, andbrought up inside the brig. 

"Taplin, " I said, "would you care about taking one of our stations tothe eastward? Name any island you fancy, and we will land you therewith the pick of our 'trade' room. "

"Thank you. I would be only too glad, but I cannot. I have promisedNerida to go back to Babelthouap, or somewhere in the Pelews, andMotley has promised to land us at Ponape, in the Carolines. We can getaway from there in one of the Dutch firm's vessels. "

"I am very sorry, Taplin----" I began, when old Captain Warren burst inwith--"Look here, Taplin, we haven't got much time to talk. Here's theALIDA'S boat coming, with that (blank blank) scoundrel Motley in it. Take my advice. Don't go away in the ALIDA. " And then he looked atNerida, and whispered something. 

A red spark shone in Taplin's dark eyes, then he pressed Warren's hand. 

"I know, " he answered, "he's a most infernal villain--Nerida hates himtoo. But you see how I am fixed. The ALIDA is our only chance ofgetting back to the north-west. But he hasn't got old Raymond to dealwith in me. Here they are. "

* * * * *

Motley came in first, hat and fan in hand. He was a fine-looking man, with blue eyes and an unusually fair skin for an island supercargo, with a long, drooping, yellow moustache. Riedermann, the skipper, whofollowed, was stout, coarse, red-faced, and brutal. 

"How are you, gentlemen?" said Motley affably, turning from Taplin andhis wife, and advancing towards us. "Captain Riedermann and I saw thespars of your brig showing up over the coconuts yesterday, andtherefore knew we should have the pleasure of meeting you. "

Warren looked steadily at him for a moment, and then glanced at hisoutstretched hand. 

"The pleasure isn't mutual, blarst you, Mr Motley, " he said coldly, andhe put his hand in his pocket. 

The supercargo took a step nearer to him with a savage glare in hisblue eyes. "What do you mean by this, Captain Warren?"

"Mean?" and the imperturbable Warren seated himself on a corner of thetable, and gazed stolidly first at the handsome Motley and then at theheavy, vicious features of Riedermann. "Oh, anything you like. Perhapsit's because it's not pleasant to see white men landing at a quietisland like this with revolvers slung to their waists under theirpyjamas; looks a bit too much like Bully Hayes' style for me, " and thenhis tone of cool banter suddenly changed to that of studied insolence. "I say, Motley, I was talking about you just now to Taplin AND Nerida. Do you want to know what I was saying? Perhaps I had better tell you. Iwas talking about Tita Raymond--and yourself. "

* * * * *

Motley put his right hand under his pyjama jacket, but Taplin sprangforward, seized his wrist in a grip of iron, and drew him aside. 

"The man who draws a pistol in my house, Mr Motley, does a foolishthing, " he said, in quiet, contemptuous tones, as he threw thesupercargo's revolver into a corner. 

With set teeth and clenched hands Motley flung himself into a chair, unable to speak. 

Warren, still seated on the table, swung his foot nonchalantly to andfro, and then began at Riedermann. 

"Why, how's this, Captain Riedermann? Don't you back up yoursupercargo's little quarrels, or have you left your pistol on board?Ah, no, you haven't. I can see it there right enough. Modesty forbidsyou putting a bullet into a man in the presence of a lady, eh?" Thenslewing round again, he addressed Motley: "By God! sir, it is well foryou that we are in a white man's house, and that that man is my friendand took away that pistol from your treacherous hand. If you had firedat me I would have booted you from one end of Funafuti beach to theother--and I've a damned good mind to do it now, but won't, as Taplinhas to do some business with you. "

"That will do, Warren, " I said. "We don't want to make a scene inTaplin's house. Let us go away and allow him to finish his business. "

Still glaring angrily at Riedermann and Motley, Warren got down slowlyfrom the table. Then we bade Taplin and Nerida good-bye and wentaboard. 

At daylight we saw Taplin and his wife go off in the ALIDA'S boat. Theywaved their hands to us in farewell as the boat pulled past the brig, and then the schooner hove-up anchor, and with all sail set, stood awaydown to the north-west passage of the lagoon. 

A year or so afterward we were on a trading voyage to the islands ofthe Tubuai Group, and were lying becalmed, in company with a NewBedford whaler. Her skipper came on board the brig, and we startedtalking of Taplin, whom the whale-ship captain knew. 

"Didn't you hear?" he said. "The ALIDA never showed up again. 'Turnedturtle, ' I suppose, somewhere in the islands, like all those slashing, over-masted, 'Frisco-built schooners do, sooner or later. "

"Poor Taplin, " said Warren, "I thought somehow we would never see himagain. "

* * * * *

Five years had passed. Honest old Warren, fiery-tempered andtrue-hearted, had long since died of fever in the Solomons, and I wassupercargo with a smart young American skipper in the brigantinePALESTINE, when we one day sailed along the weather-side of a tinylittle atoll in the Caroline Islands. 

The PALESTINE was leaking, and Packenham, tempted by the easy passageinto the beautiful lagoon, decided to run inside and discharge ourcargo of copra to get at the leak. 

The island had but very few inhabitants--perhaps ten or twelve men anddouble that number of women and children. No ship, they told us, hadever entered the lagoon but Bully Hayes' brig, and that was nine yearsbefore. There was nothing on the island to tempt a trading vessel, andeven the sperm whalers, as they lumbered lazily past from Strong'sIsland to Guam, would not bother to lower a boat and "dicker" forpearl-shell or turtle. 

At the time of Hayes' visit the people were in sore straits, and on thebrink of actual starvation, for although there were fish and turtle inplenty, they had not the strength to catch them. A few months before, acyclone had destroyed nearly all the coconut trees, and an epidemicfollowed it, and carried off half the scanty population. 

* * * * *

The jaunty sea-rover--than whom a kinder-hearted man to NATIVES neversailed the South Seas--took pity on the survivors, especially theyoungest and prettiest girls, and gave them a passage in the famousLEONORA to another island where food was plentiful. There they remainedfor some years, till the inevitable MAL DU PAYS that is inborn to everyPolynesian and Micronesian, became too strong to be resisted; and soone day a wandering sperm whaler brought them back again. 

But in their absence strangers had come to the island. As the peoplelanded from the boats of the whale-ship, two brown men, a woman, and achild, came out of one of the houses, and gazed at them. Then they fledto the farthest end of the island and hid. 

Some weeks passed before the returned islanders found out the retreatof the strangers, who were armed with rifles, and called them to "comeout and be friends. " They did so, and by some subtle treachery the twomen were killed during the night. 

The woman, who was young and handsome, was spared, and, from what wecould learn, had been well treated ever since. 

"Where did the strangers come from?" we asked. 

That they could not tell us. But the woman had since told them that theship had anchored in the lagoon because she was leaking badly, and thatthe captain and crew were trying to stop the leak when she began toheel over, and they had barely time to save a few things when she sank. In a few days the captain and crew left the island in the boat, and, rather than face the dangers of a long voyage in such a small boat, thetwo natives and the woman elected to remain on the island. 

"That's a mighty fishy yarn, " said Packenham to me. "I daresay thesefellows have been doing a little cutting-off business. But then I don'tknow of any missing vessel. We'll go ashore to-morrow and have a lookround. "

A little after sunset the skipper and I were leaning over the rail, watching the figures of the natives, as they moved to and fro in theglare of the fires lighted here and there along the beach. 

"Hallo!" said Packenham, "here's a canoe coming, with only a woman init. By thunder! she's travelling, too, and coming straight for theship. "

A few minutes more and the canoe was alongside. The woman hastilypicked up a little girl that was sitting in the bottom, looked up, andcalled out in English--

"Take my little girl, please. "

A native sailor leant over the bulwarks and lifted up the child, andthe woman clambered after her. Then, seizing the child from the sailor, she flew along the deck and into the cabin. 

She was standing facing us as we followed and entered, holding thechild tightly to her bosom. The soft light of the cabin lamp fell fullupon her features, and we saw that she was very young, and seemedwildly excited. 

"Who are you?" we said, when she advanced, put out a trembling hand tous, and said: "Don't you know me, Mr Supercargo? I am Nerida, Taplin'swife. " Then she sank on a seat and sobbed violently. 

* * * * *

We waited till she regained her composure somewhat, and then I said:"Nerida, where is Taplin?"

"Dead, " she said in a voice scarce above a whisper; "only us two areleft--I and little Teresa. "

Packenham held out his hands to the child. With wondering, timid eyes, she came, and for a moment or two looked doubtingly upwards into thebrown, handsome face of the skipper, and then nestled beside him. 

For a minute or so the ticking of the cabin clock broke the silence, ere I ventured to ask the one question uppermost in my mind. 

"Nerida, how and where did Taplin die?"

"My husband was murdered at sea, " she said and then she covered herface with her hands. 

"Don't ask her any more now, " said Packenham pityingly; "let her tellus to-morrow. "

She raised her face. "Yes, I will tell you to-morrow. You will take meaway with you, will you not, gentlemen--for my child's sake?"

"Of course, " said the captain promptly. And he stretched out his honesthand to her. 

* * * * *

"She's a wonderfully pretty woman, " said Packenham, as we walked thepoop later on, and he glanced down through the open skylight to whereshe and the child slept peacefully on the cushioned transoms. "Howprettily she speaks English, too. Do you think she was fond of herhusband, or was it merely excitement that made her cry?--native womenare as prone to be as hysterical as our own when under any violentemotion. "

"I can only tell you, Packenham, that when I saw her last, five yearsago, she was a graceful girl of eighteen, and as full of happiness as abird is of song. She looks thirty now, and her face is thin anddrawn--but I don't say all for love of Taplin. "

"That will all wear off by and by, " said the skipper confidently. 

"Yes, " I thought, "and she won't be a widow long. "

* * * * *

Next morning Nerida had an hour or two among the prints and muslin inthe trade-room, and there was something of the old beauty about herwhen she sat down to breakfast with us. We were to sail at noon. Theleak had been stopped, and Packenham was in high good-humour. 

"Nerida, " I inquired unthinkingly, "do you know what became of theALIDA? She never turned up again. "

"Yes, " she answered; "she is here, at the bottom of the lagoon. Willyou come and look at her?"

After breakfast we lowered the dingy, the captain and I pulling. Neridasteered us out to the north end of the lagoon till we reached a spotwhere the water suddenly deepened. It was, in fact, a deep pool, somethree or four hundred feet in diameter, closed in by a continuous wallof coral rock, the top of which, even at low water, would be perhapstwo or three fathoms under the surface. 

She held up her hands for us to back water, then she gazed over theside into the water. 

"Look, " she said, "there lies the ALIDA. "

* * * * *

We bent over the side of the boat. The waters of the lagoon were assmooth as glass and as clear. We saw two slender rounded columns thatseemed to shoot up in a slanting direction from out the vague, bluedepths beneath, to within four or five fathoms of the surface of thewater. Swarms of gorgeously-hued fish swam and circled in and about themasses of scarlet and golden weed that clothed the columns from theirtops downward, and swayed gently to and fro as they glided in and out. 

A hawk-bill turtle, huge, black, and misshapen, slid out from beneaththe dark ledge of the reef, and swam slowly across the pool, and then, between the masts, sank to the bottom. 

"'Twas six years ago, " said Nerida, as we raised our heads. 

That night, as the PALESTINE sped noiselessly before the trade wind tothe westward she told me, in the old Funafuti tongue, the tragedy ofthe ALIDA. 

* * * * *

"The schooner, " she said, "sailed very quickly, for on the fifteenthday out from Funafuti we saw the far-off peaks of Strong's Island. Iwas glad, for Kusaie is not many days' sail from Ponape--and I hated tobe on the ship. The man with the blue eyes filled me with fear when helooked at me; and he and the captain and mate were for ever talkingamongst themselves in whispers. 

"There were five native sailors on board--two were countrymen of mine, and three were Tafitos [Natives of the Gilbert Islands]. 

"One night we were close to a little island called Mokil [Duperrey'sIsland], and Taplin and I were awakened by a loud cry on deck; my twocountrymen were calling on him to help them. He sprang on deck, pistolin hand, and, behold! the schooner was laid to the wind with the landclose to, and the boat alongside, and the three white men were bindingmy country-men with ropes, because they would not get into the boat. 

"'Help us, O friend!' they called to my husband in their own tongue;'the white men say that if we go not ashore here at Mokil they willkill us. Help us--for they mean evil to thee and Nerida. He with theyellow moustache wants her for his wife. '

"There were quick, fierce words, and then my husband struck Motley onthe head with his pistol and felled him, and then pointed it at themate and the captain, and made them untie the men, and called to thetwo Tafito sailors who were in the boat to let her tow astern tillmorning. 

"His face was white with the rage that burned in him, and all thatnight he walked to and fro and let me sleep on the deck near him. 

"'To-morrow, ' he said, 'I will make this captain land us on Mokil;' itwas for that he would not let the sailors come up from the boat. 

"At dawn I slept soundly. Then I awoke with a cry of fear, for I hearda shot, and then a groan, and my husband fell across me, and the bloodpoured out of his mouth and ran down my arms and neck. I struggled torise, and he tried to draw his pistol, but the man with yellow hair andblue eyes, who stood over him, stabbed him twice in the back. Then thecaptain and mate seized him by the arms and lifted him up. As his headfell back I saw there was blood streaming from a hole in his chest. "

She ceased, and leant her cheek against the face of the little girl, who looked in childish wonder at the tears that streamed down hermother's face. 

* * * * *

"They cast him over into the sea with life yet in him, and ere he sank, Motley (that devil with the blue eyes) stood with one foot on the railand fired another shot, and laughed when he saw the bullet strike. Thenhe and the other two talked. 

"'Let us finish these Pelew men, ere mischief come of it, ' saidRiedermann, the captain. 

"But the others dissuaded him. There was time enough, they said, tokill them. And if they killed them now, there would be but threesailors to work the ship. And Motley looked at me and laughed, and saidhe, for one, would do no sailor's work yet awhile. 

"Then they all trooped below, and took me with them--me, with myhusband's blood not yet dried on my hands and bosom. They made me getliquor for them to drink, and they drank and laughed, and Motley puthis bloodied hand around my waist and kissed me, and the others laughedstill more. 

"In a little while Riedermann and the mate were so drunken that nowords came from them, and they fell on the cabin floor. Then Motley, who could stand, but staggered as he walked, came and sat beside me andkissed me again, and said he had always loved me; but I pointed to theblood of my husband that stained my skin and clotted my hair together, and besought him to first let me wash it away. 

"'Wash it there, ' he said, and pointed to his cabin. 

"'Nay, ' said I, 'see my hair. Let me then go on deck, and I can pourwater over my head. '

"But he held my hand tightly as we came up, and my heart died withinme; for it was in my mind to spring overboard and follow my husband. 

"He called to one of the Tafito men to bring water, but none came; forthey, too, were drunken with liquor they had stolen from the hold, where there was plenty in red cases and white cases--gin and brandy. "But my two countrymen were sober; one of them steered the ship, andthe other stood beside him with an axe in his hand, for they feared theTafito men, who are devils when they drink grog. 

"'Get some water, ' said Motley, to Juan--he who held the axe; and as hebrought it, he said, 'How is it, tattooed dog, that thou art so slow tomove?' and he struck him in the teeth, and as he struck he fell. 

"Ah! that was my time! Ere he could rise I sprang at him, and Juanraised the axe and struck off his right foot; and then Liro, the manwho steered, handed me his knife. It was a sharp knife, and I stabbedhim, even as he had stabbed my husband, till my arm was tired, and allmy hate of him had died away in my heart. 

* * * * *

"There was quick work then. My two countrymen went below into the cabinand took Motley's pistol from the table; . .. Then I heard two shots. 

"GUK! He was a fat, heavy man, that Riedermann, the captain; the threeof us could scarce drag him up on deck and cast him over the side, withthe other two. 

"Then Juan and Liro talked, and said: 'Now for these Tafito men; they, too, must die. ' They brought up rifles, and went to the forepart of theschooner, where the Tafito men lay in a drunken sleep, and shot themdead. 

"In two more days we saw land--the island we have left but now, andbecause that there were no people living there--only empty houses couldwe see--Juan and Liro sailed the schooner into the lagoon. 

"We took such things on shore as we needed, and then Juan and Liro cutaway the topmasts and towed the schooner to the deep pool, where theymade holes in her, so that she sank, away out of the sight of men. 

* * * * *

"Juan and Liro were kind to me, and when my child was born, five monthsafter we landed, they cared for me tenderly, so that I soon becamestrong and well. 

"Only two ships did we ever see, but they passed far-off like cloudsupon the sea-rim; and we thought to live and die there by ourselves. Then there came a ship, bringing back the people who had once livedthere. They killed Juan and Liro, but let me and the child live. Therest I have told you. .. . How is this captain named? . .. He is ahandsome man, and I like him. "

* * * * *

We landed Nerida at Yap, in the Western Carolines. A year afterwards, when I left the PALESTINE, I heard that Packenham had given up the sea, was trading in the Pelew Group, and was permanently married, and thathis wife was the only survivor of the ill-fated ALIDA. 

THE CHILEAN BLUEJACKET

A Tale Of Easter Island

Alone, in the most solitary part of the Eastern Pacific, midway betweenthe earthquake-shaken littoral of Chili and Peru, and the thousandpalm-clad islets of the Low Archipelago, lies an island of the days"when the world was young. " By the lithe-limbed, soft-eyed descendantsof the forgotten and mysterious race that once quickened the land, thislonely outlier of the isles of the Southern Seas is called in theirsoft tongue Rapanui, or the Great Rapa. 

* * * * *

A hundred and seventy years ago Roggewein, on the dawn of an EasterSunday, discerned through the misty, tropic haze the grey outlines ofan island under his lee beam, and sailed down upon it. 

He landed, and even as the grim and hardy old navigator gazed upon andwondered at the mysteries of the strange island, so this day do thecunning men of science, who, perhaps once in thirty years, go thitherin the vain effort to read the secret of an all-but-perished race. Andthey can tell us but vaguely that the stupendous existing evidences ofpast glories are of immense and untold age, and show their designers tohave been coeval with the builders of the buried cities of Mexico andPeru; beyond that, they can tell us nothing. 

Who can solve the problem? What manner of an island king was he whoruled the builders of the great terraced platforms of stone, thecarvers of the huge blocks of lava, the hewers-out with rudest tools ofthe Sphinx-like images of trachyte, whose square, massive, anddisdainful faces have for unnumbered centuries gazed upwards andoutwards over the rolling, sailless swell of the mid-Pacific?

* * * * *

And the people of Rapa-nui of to-day? you may ask. Search the wholePacific--from Pylstaart, the southern sentinel of the Friendlies, tothe one-time buccaneer-haunted, far-away Pelews; thence eastwardthrough the white-beached coral atolls of the Carolines and Marshalls, and southwards to the cloud-capped Marquesas and the sandy stretches ofthe Paumotu--and you will find no handsomer men or more graceful womenthan the light-skinned people of Rapa-nui. 

* * * * *

Yet are they but the survivors of a race doomed--doomed from the daythat Roggewein in his clumsy, high-pooped frigate first saw their land, and marvelled at the imperishable relics of a dead greatness. Withsmiling faces they welcomed him--a stranger from an unknown, outsideworld, with cutlass at waist and pistol in hand--as a god; he left thema legacy of civilisation--a hideous and cruel disease that sweptthrough the amiable and unsuspicious race as an epidemic, and slew itsthousands, and scaled with the hand of Death and Silence the eager lifethat had then filled the square houses of lava in many a town from thewave-beaten cliffs of Terano Kau to Ounipu in the west. 

* * * * *

Ask of the people now, "Whence came ye? and whose were the hands thatfashioned these mighty images and carved upon these stones?" and intheir simple manner they will answer, "From Rapa, under the settingsun, came our fathers; and we were then a great people, even as theONEONE [sand] of the beach. .. . Our Great King was it, he whose name isforgotten by us, that caused these temples and cemeteries and terraces tobe built; and it was in his time that the forgotten fathers of our fatherscarved from out of the stone of the quarries of Terano Kau the greatSilent Faces that gaze for ever upward to the sky. .. . AI-A-AH! . .. But it was long ago. .. . Ah! a great people were we then in thosedays, and the wild people to the West called us TE TAGATA TE PITO HENUA(the people who live at the end of the world) . .. . And we know nomore. "

And here the knowledge and traditions of a broken people begin and end. 

* * * * *

I

A soft, cool morning in November, 187-. Between Ducie and PitcairnIslands two American whale-ships cruise lazily along to the gentlebreath of the south-east trades, when the look-out from both vesselssee a third sail bearing down upon them. In a few hours she is closeenough to be recognised as one of the luckiest sperm whalers of thefleet--the brig POCAHONTAS, of Martha's Vineyard. 

Within a quarter of mile of the two ships--the NASSAU and theDAGGET--the newcomer backs her foreyard and hauls up her mainsail. Acheer rises from the ships. She wants to "gam, " I. E. To gossip. Witheager hands four boats are lowered from the two ships, and the captainsand second mates of each are soon racing for the POCAHONTAS. 

* * * * *

The skipper of the brig, after shaking hands with his visitors andmaking the usual inquiries as to their luck, number of days out fromNew Bedford, etc. , led the way to his cabin, and, calling hisPortuguese steward, had liquor and a box of cigars brought out. Thecaptain of the POCAHONTAS was a little, withered-up old man with sharp, deep-set eyes of brightest blue, and had the reputation of possessingthe most fiery and excitable temper of any of the captains of the sixtyor seventy American whale-ships that in those days cruised the Pacificfrom the West Coast of South America to Gaum in the Ladrones. 

After drinking some of his potent New England rum with his visitors, and having answered all their queries, the master of the POCAHONTASinquired if they had seen anything of a Chilian man-of-war further tothe eastward. No, they had not. 

* * * * *

"Then just settle down, gentlemen, for awhile, and I'll tell you one ofthe curiousest things that I ever saw or heard of. I've loggedpartiklars of the whole business, and when I get to Oahu (Honolulu) Imean to nar-rate just all I do know to Father Damon of the HonoluluFRIEND. Thar's nothing like a newspaper fur showin' a man up when he'sbeen up to any onnatural villainy, and thinks no one will ever knowanything about it. So just take hold and listen. "

The two captains nodded, and he told them this. 

* * * * *

Ten days previously, when close in to barren and isolated Sala-y-Gomez, the POCAHONTAS had spoken the Chilian corvette O'HIGGINS, bound fromEaster Island to Valparaiso. The captain of the corvette entertainedthe American master courteously, and explained his ship's presence sofar to the eastward, by stating that the Government had instructed himto call at Easter Island, and pick up an Englishman in the Chilianservice, who had been sent there to examine and report on the colossalstatues and mysterious terraces of that lonely island. The Englishman, as Commander Gallegos said, was a valued servant of the Republic, andhad for some years served in its Navy as a surgeon on board ELALMIRANTE COCHRANE, the flag-ship. He had left Valparaiso in thewhale-ship COMBOY with the intention of remaining three months on theisland. At the end of that time a war vessel was to call and convey himback to Chili. But in less than two months the Republic was in thethroes of a deadly struggle with Peru--here the commander of theO'HIGGINS bowed to the American captain, and, pointing to a huge scarthat traversed his bronzed face from temple to chin, said, "in which Ihad the honour to receive this, and promotion"--and nearly two yearshad elapsed ere the Government had time to think again of the Englishscientist and his mission. Peace restored, the O'HIGGINS was ordered toproceed to the island and bring him back; and as the character of thenatives was not well known, and it was feared he might have beenkilled, Commander Gallegos was instructed to execute summary justiceupon the people of the island, if such was the case. 

But, the Chilian officer said, on reaching the island he had found thenatives to be very peaceable and inoffensive, and, although muchalarmed at the appearance of his armed landing party from the corvette, they had given him a letter from the Englishman, and had satisfied himthat Dr Francis ---- had remained with them for some twelve monthsonly, and had then left the island in a passing whale-ship, andCommander Gallegos, making them suitable presents, bade them good-bye, and steamed away to Valparaiso. 

* * * * *

This was all the polite little commander had to say, and, after afarewell glass of wine, his visitor rose to go, when the captain of thecorvette casually inquired if the POCAHONTAS was likely to call at theisland. 

"I ask you, " he said in his perfect English, "because one of my ship'scompany deserted there. You, senor, may possibly meet with him there. Yet he is of no value, and he is no sailor, and but a lad. He was veryill most of the time, and this was his first voyage. I took him ashorewith me in my boat, as he besought me eagerly to do so, and the littledevil ran away and hid, or was hidden by the natives. "

"Why didn't you get him back?" asked the captain of the POCAHONTAS. 

"That was easy enough, but"--and the commander raised his eyebrows andshrugged his shoulders--"of what use? He was no use to the corvette. Better for him to stay there, and perhaps recover, than to die on boardthe O'HIGGINS and be thrown to the blue sharks. Possibly, senor, youmay find him well, and it may suit you to take him to your good ship, and teach him the business of catching the whale. My trade is to showmy crew how to fight, and such as he are of no value for that. "

Then the two captains bade each other farewell, and in another hour theredoubtable O'HIGGINS, with a black trail of smoke streaming astern, was ten miles away on her course to Valparaiso. 

A week after the POCAHONTAS lay becalmed close in to the lee side ofRapa-nui, and within sight of the houses of the principal village. Thecaptain, always ready to get a "green" hand, was thinking of thechances of his securing the Chilian deserter, and decided to lower aboat and try. Taking four men with him, he pulled ashore, and landed atthe village of Hagaroa. 

* * * * *

II

Some sixty or seventy natives clustered round the boat as she touchedthe shore. With smiling faces and outstretched hands they surroundedthe captain, and pressed upon him their simple gifts of ripe bananasand fish baked in leaves, begging him to first eat a little and thenwalk with them to Mataveri, their largest village, distant a mile, where preparations were being made to welcome him formally. Theskipper, nothing loth, bade his crew not to go too far away in theirrambles, and, accompanied by his boatsteerer, was about to set off withthe natives, when he remembered the object of his visit, and asked abig, well-made woman, the only native present that could speak English, "Where is the man you hid from the man-of-war?"

* * * * *

There was a dead silence, and for nearly half a minute no one spoke. The keen blue eyes of the American looked from one face to anotherinquiringly, and then settled on the fat, good-natured features ofVarua, the big woman. 

Holding her hands, palms upwards, to the captain, she endeavoured tospeak, and then, to his astonishment, he saw that her dark eyes werefilled with tears. And then, as if moved with some sudden and sorrowfulemotion, a number of other women and young girls, murmuring softly inpitying tones, "E MATE! E MATE!" ["Dead! Dead!"] came to his side, andheld their hands out to him with the same supplicating gesture. 

The captain was puzzled. For all his island wanderings and cruises hehad no knowledge of any Polynesian dialect, and the tearful muteness ofthe fat Varua was still unbroken. At last she placed one hand on hissleeve, and, pointing land-ward with the other, said, in her gentlevoice, "Come, " and taking his hand in hers, she led the way, the restof the people following in silence. 

For about half a mile they walked behind the captain and hisboatsteerer and the woman Varua without uttering a word. PresentlyVarua stopped, and called out the name of "Taku" in a low voice. 

A fine, handsome native, partly clothed in European sailor's dress, stepped apart from the others and came to her. 

Turning to the captain, she said, "This is Taku the Sailor. He canspeak a little English and much Spanish. I tell him now to come withus, for he has a paper. "

Although not understanding the relevancy of her remark, the captainnodded, and then with gentle insistence Varua and the other women urgedhim on, and they again set out. 

* * * * *

A few minutes more, and they were at the foot of one of themassive-stoned and ancient PAPAKU, or cemeteries, on the walls of whichwere a number of huge images carved from trachyte, and representing thetrunk of the human body. Some of the figures bore on their heads crownsof red tufa, and the aspect of all was towards the ocean. At the footof the wall of the PAPAKU were a number of prone figures, with handsand arms sculptured in low relief, the outspread fingers clasping thehips. 

About a cable length from the wall stood two stone houses--memorials ofthe olden time--and it was to these that Varua and the two white men, attended now by women only, directed their steps. 

* * * * *

The strange, unearthly stillness of the place, the low whispers of thewomen, the array of colossal figures with sphinx-like faces set to thesea, and the unutterable air of sadness that enwrapped the whole scene, overawed even the unimaginative mind of the rough whaling captain, andhe experienced a curious feeling of relief when his gentle-voiced guideentered through the open doorway the largest of the two houses, and, ina whisper, bade him follow. 

* * * * *

A delightful sense of coolness was his first sensation on entering, andthen with noiseless step the other women followed and seated themselveson the ground. 

Still clasping his hand, Varua led him to the farther end of the house, and pointed to a motionless figure that lay on a couch of mats, coveredwith a large piece of navy-blue calico. At each side of the couch sat ayoung native girl, and their dark, luminous eyes, shining star-likefrom out the wealth of black, glossy hair that fell upon their bronzedshoulders, turned wonderingly upon the stranger who had broken in upontheir watch. 

* * * * *

Motioning the girls aside, Varua released her hold of the white man'shand and drew the cloth from off the figure, and the seaman's pityingglance fell upon the pale, sweet features of a young white girl. 

But for the unmistakable pallid hue of death he thought at first thatshe slept. In the thin, delicate hands, crossed upon her bosom, therewas placed, after the manner of those of her faith, a small metalcrucifix. Her hair, silky and jet black, was short like a man's, andthe exquisitely-modelled features, which even the coldness of death hadnot robbed of their beauty, showed the Spanish blood that, but a fewhours before, had coursed through her veins. 

Slowly the old seaman drew the covering over the still features, and, with an unusual emotion stirring his rude nature, he rose, and, followed by Varua, walked outside and sat upon a broken pillar of lavathat lay under the wall of the PAPAKU. 

* * * * *

Calling his boatsteerer, he ordered him to return to the beach and gooff to the ship with instructions to the mate to have a coffin made asquickly as possible and send it ashore; and then, at a glance fromVarua, who smiled a grave approval as she listened to his orders, hefollowed her and the man she called Taku into the smaller of the twohouses. 

Round about the inside walls of this ancient dwelling of a forgottenrace were placed a number of seamen's chests made of cedar and camphorwood--the LARES and PENATES of most Polynesian houses. The gravelledfloor was covered with prettily-ornamented mats of FALA (thescrew-palm). 

Seating herself, with Taku the Sailor, on the mats, Varua motioned thecaptain to one of the boxes, and then told him a tale that movedhim--rough, fierce, and tyrannical as was his nature--to the deepestpity. 

* * * * *

III

"It is not yet twenty days since the fighting PAHI AFI (steamer) camehere, and we of Mataveri saw the boat full of armed men land on thebeach at Hagaroa. Filled with fear were we; but yet as we had done nowrong we stood on the beach to welcome. And, ere the armed men had leftthe boat, we knew them to be the SIPANIOLA from Chili--the same asthose that came here ten years ago in three ships, and seized and boundthree hundred and six of our men, and carried them away for slaves tothe land of the Tae Manu, and of whom none but four ever returned toRapa-nui. And then we trembled again. "

(She spoke of the cruel outrage of 1862, when three Peruvianslave-ships took away over three hundred islanders to perish on theguano-fields of the Chincha Islands). 

"The chief of the ship was a little man, and he called out to us in thetongue of Chili, 'Have no fear, ' and took a little gun from out itscase of skin that hung by his side, and giving it to a man in the boat, stepped over to us, and took our hands in his. 

"'Is there none among ye that speak my tongue?' he said quickly. 

"Now, this man here, Taku the Sailor, speaketh the tongue of Chili, buthe feared to tell it, lest they might take him away for a sailor; so heheld his lips tight. 

"Then I, who for six years dwelt with English people at Tahiti, waspushed forward by those behind me and made to talk in English; and lo!the little man spoke in your tongue even as quick as he did in that ofChili. And then he told us that he came for Farani [Frank]. 

* * * * *

"Now this Farani was a young white man of PERETANIA (England), big andstrong. He came to us a year and a half ago. He was rich, and had withhim chests filled with presents for us of Rapa-nui; and he told us thathe came to live a while among us, and look upon the houses of stone andthe Faces of the Silent that gaze out upon the sea. For a year he dweltwith us and became as one of ourselves, and we loved him; and then, because no ship came, he began to weary and be sad. At last aship--like thine, one that hunts for the whale--came, and Farani calledus together, and placed a letter in the hands of the chief at Mataveri, and said: 'If it so be that a ship cometh from Chili, give these mywords to the captain, and all will be well. ' Then he bade us farewelland was gone. 

* * * * *

"All this I said in quick words, and then we gave to the littlefighting chief the letter Farani had written. When he had counted thewords in the letter, he said: 'BUENO, it is well, ' and called to hismen, and they brought out many gifts for us from the boat--cloth, andgarments for men and women, and two great bags of canvas filled withtobacco. AI-A-AH! many presents he gave us--this because of the goodwords Farani had set down in the letter. Then the little chief said tome, 'Let these my men walk where they list, and I will go with thee toMataveri and talk with the chief. '

"So the sailors came out of the boats carrying their guns and swords intheir hands, but the little chief, whose AVAGUTU (moustache) stuck outon each side of his face like the wings of a flying-fish when it leapsin terror from the mouth of the hungry bonito, spoke angrily, and theylaid their guns and swords back in the boats. 

"So the sailors went hither and thither with our young men and girls;and, although at that time I knew it not, she, who now is not, was oneof them, and walked alone. 

"Then I, and Taku the Sailor, and the little sea-chief came to thehouses of Mataveri, and he stayed awhile and spoke good words to us. And we, although we fear the men of Chili for the wrong they once didus, were yet glad to listen, for we also are of their faith. 

* * * * *

"As we talked, there came inside the house a young girl named Temeteri, whom, when Farani had been with us for two months, he had taken forwife; and she bore him a son. But from the day that he had sailed awayshe became sick with grief; and when, after many months, she told methat Farani had said he would return to her, my heart was heavy, for Iknow the ways of white men with us women of brown skins. Yet I fearedto tell her he lied and would return no more. Now, this girl Temeteriwas sought after by a man named Huarani, the son of Heremai, whodesired to marry her now that Farani had gone, and he urged her toquestion the chief of the fighting ship, and ask him if Farani wouldreturn. 

* * * * *

"So I spoke of Temeteri. He laughed and shook his head, and said: 'Nay, Farani the Englishman will return no more; but yet one so beautiful asshe, ' and he pointed to Temeteri, 'should have many lovers and know nogrief. Let her marry again and forget him, and this is my marriage giftto her, ' and he threw a big golden coin upon the mat on which the girlsat. 

"She took it in her hand and threw it far out through the doorway withbitter words, and rose and went away to her child. 

"Then the little captain went back to the boat and called his men tohim, and lo! one was gone. Ah! he was angry, and a great scar that randown one side of his face grew red with rage. But soon he laughed, andsaid to us: 'See, there be one of my people hidden away from me. Yet heis but a boy, and sick; and I care not to stay and search for him. Lethim be thy care so that he wanders not away and perishes among thebroken lava; he will be in good hands among the people of Rapa-nui. 'With that he bade us farewell, and in but a little time the greatfighting ship had gone away towards the rising sun. 

* * * * *

"All that day and the next we searched, but found not him who hadhidden away; but in the night of the second day, when it rainedheavily, and Taku (who is my brother's son) and I and my two childrenworked at the making of a KUPEGA (net), he whom we had sought came tothe door. And as we looked our hearts were filled with pity, for, as heput out his hands to us, he staggered and fell to the ground. 

"So Taku--who is a man of a good heart--and I lifted him up and carriedhim to a bed of soft mats, and as I placed my hand on his bosom to seeif he was dead, lo! it was soft as a woman's, and I saw that thestranger was a young girl!

"I took from her the wet garments and brought warm clothes of MAMOE(blankets), and Taku made a great fire, and we rubbed her cold body andher hands and feet till her life came back to her again, and she sat upand ate a little beaten-up taro. When the night and the dawn touchedshe slept again. 

* * * * *

"The sun was high when the white girl awoke, and fear leapt into hereyes when she saw the house filled with people who came to questionTaku and me about the stranger. With them came the girl Temeteri, whosehead was still filled with foolish thoughts of Farani, her white lover. 

"I went to the strange girl, put my arm around her, and spoke, butthough she smiled and answered in a little voice, I understood her not, for I know none of the tongue of Chili. But yet she leaned her headagainst my bosom, and her eyes that were as big and bright as Fetuaho, the star of the morning, looked up into mine and smiled through theirtears. 

* * * * *

"There was a creat buzzing of talk among the women. Some came to herand touched her hands and forehead, and said: 'Let thy trembling cease;we of Rapa-nui will be kind to the white girl. '

"And as the people thronged about her and talked, she shook her headand her eyes sought mine, and hot tears splashed upon my hand. Then themother of Temeteri raised her voice and called to Taku the Sailor, andsaid: 'O Taku, thou who knowest her tongue, ask her of Farani, my whiteson, the husband of my daughter. '

* * * * *

"The young girls in the house laughed scornfully at old Pohere, forsome of them had loved Farani, who yet had put them all aside forTemeteri, whose beauty exceeded theirs; and so they hated her andlaughed at her mother. Then Taku, being pressed by old Pohere, spoke inthe tongue of Chili, but not of Temeteri. 

"Ah! She sprang to her feet and talked then! and the flying wordschased one another from her lips; and these things told she to Taku:--She had hidden among the broken lava and watched the little captaincome back to the boat and bid us farewell. Then when night came she hadcrept out and gone far over to the great PAPAKU, and lay down to hideagain, for she feared the fighting ship might return to seek her. Andall that day she lay hidden in the lava till night fell upon her again, and hunger drove her to seek the faces of men. In the rain she all butperished, till God brought her feet to this, my house. 

"Then said Taku the Sailor: 'Why didst thou flee from the ship?'

"The white girl put her hands to her face and wept, and said: 'Bring memy jacket. '

"I gave to her the blue sailor's jacket, and from inside of it she tooka little flat thing and placed it in her bosom. 

* * * * *

"Again said old Pohere to Taku: 'O man of slow tongue, ask her ofFarani. ' So he asked in this wise:

"'See, O White Girl, that is Pohere, the mother of Temeteri, who bore ason to the white man that came here to look upon the Silent Faces; andbecause he came from thy land, and because of the heart of Temeteri, which is dried up for love of him, does this foolish old woman ask theeif thou hast seen him; for long months ago he left Rapa-nui. In ourtongue we call him Farani. '

* * * * *

"The girl looked at Taku the Sailor, and her lips moved, but no wordscame. Then from her bosom she took the little flat thing and held it tohim, but sickness was in her hand so that it trembled, and that whichshe held fell to the ground. So Taku stooped and picked it up fromwhere it lay on the mat, and looked, and his eyes blazed, and heshouted out 'AUE!' for it was the face of Farani that looked into his!And as he held it up in his hand to the people, they, too, shouted inwonder; and then the girl Temeteri cast aside those that stood abouther, and tore it from his hand and fled. 

"'Who is she?' said the white girl, in a weak voice to Taku; 'and whyhath she robbed me of that which is dear to me?' and Taku was ashamed, and turned his face away from her because of two things--his heart wassore for Temeteri, who is a blood relation, and was shamed because herwhite lover had deserted her; and he was full of pity for the whitegirl's tears. So he said nought. 

"The girl raised herself, and her hand caught Taku by the arm, andthese were her words: 'O man, for the love of Jesu Christ, tell me whatwas this woman Temeteri to my husband?'

"Now Taku the Sailor was sore troubled, and felt it hard to hurt herheart, yet he said: 'Was Farani, the Englishman, thy husband?'

"She wept again, 'He was my husband. '

"'Why left he one as fair as thee?' said Taku, in wonder. 

"She shook her head. 'I know not, except he loved to look upon strangelands; yet he loved me. '

"'He is a bad man, ' said Taku. 'He loved others as well as thee. Thegirl that fled but now with his picture was wife to him here. He lovedher, and she bore him a son. '

"The girl's head fell on my shoulder, and her eyes closed, and shebecame as dead; and lo! in a little while, as she strove to speak, blood poured from her mouth and ran down over her bosom. 

"'It is the hand of Death, ' said Taku the Sailor. 

* * * * *

"Where she now lies, there died she, at about the hour when the peopleof Vaihou saw the sails of thy ship. 

"We have no priest here, for the good father that was here three yearsago is now silent [i. E. Dead]; yet did Taku and I pray with her. And ereshe died she said she would set down some words on paper; so Alrema, mylittle daughter, hastened to Mataveri, and the chief sent back some paperand VAI TUHI (ink) that had belonged to the good priest. So with weak handshe set down some words, but even as she wrote she rose up and threw outher hands, and called out: 'Francisco! Francisco!' and fell back, and wasdead. "

* * * * *

IV

The captain of the POCAHONTAS dashed the now fast-falling tears fromhis eyes, and with his rough old heart swelling with pity for the poorwanderer, took from Taku the sheet of paper on which the heart-brokengirl's last words were traced. 

Ere he could read it a low murmur of voices outside told him his crewhad returned. They carried a rude wooden shell, and then with baredheads the captain and boatsteerer entered the house where she lay. 

Again the old man raised the piece of navy blue cloth from off thesweet, sad face, and a heavy tear dropped down upon her forehead. Then, aided by the gentle, sympathetic women, his task was soon finished, andtwo of his crew entered and carried their burden to its grave. Servicethere was none--only the prayers and tears of the brown women ofRapa-nui. 

* * * * *

Ere he said farewell the captain of the whale-ship placed money in thehands of Varua and Taku. They drew back, hurt and mortified. Seeing hismistake, the seaman desired Varua to give the money to the girlTemeteri. 

"Nay, sir, " said Varua, "she would but give me bitter words. Even whenshe who is now silent was not yet cold, Temeteri came to the door ofthe house where she lay and spat twice on the ground, and taking upgravel in her hand cast it at her, and cursed her in the name of ourold heathen gods. And as for money, we here in Rapa-nui need it not. May Christ protect thee on the sea. Farewell!"

* * * * *

The captain of the POCAHONTAS rose and came to the cabin table, andmotioning to his guests to fill their glasses, said--

"'Tis a real sad story, gentlemen, and if I should ever run acrossDoctor Francis, I should talk some to him. But see here. Here is mylog; my mate, who is a fancy writist, wrote it at my dictation. I can'tshow you the letter that the pore creature herself wrote; that I ain'tgoing to show to any one. "

The two captains rose and stood beside him, and read the entry in thelog of the POCAHONTAS. 

"November 28, 187-. 

This day I landed at Easter Island, to try and obtain as a 'green' handa young Chilian seaman who, the captain of the Chilian corvetteO'HIGGINS informed me, had run away there. On landing I was shown thebody of a young girl, whom the natives stated to be the deserter. Shehad died that morning. Buried her as decently as circumstances wouldpermit. From a letter she wrote on the morning of her death I learnedher name to be Senora Teresa T----. Her husband, Dr Francis T----, wasan Englishman in the service of the Chilian Republic. He was sent outon a scientific mission to the island, and his wife followed him in theO'HIGGINS disguised as a blue-jacket. I should take her to have beenabout nineteen years of age. 

"SPENCE ELDRIDGE, MASTER. "MANUAL LEGASPE, 2ND OFFICER. "Brig POCAHONTAS, of Martha's Vineyard, U. S. A. "

"Well, that's curious now, " said the skipper of the NASSAU; "why, Iknew that man. He left the island in the KING DARIUS, of New Bedford, and landed at Ponape in the Caroline Group, whar those undergroundruins are at Metalanien Harbour. Guess he wanted to potter around therea bit. But he got inter some sorter trouble among the natives there, an' he got shot. "

"Aye, " said the captain of the DAGGET, "I remember the affair. I wasmate of the JOSEPHINE, and we were lying at Jakoits Harbour when he waskilled, and now I remember the name too. Waal, he wasn't much account, anyhow. "

* * * * *

Ten years ago a wandering white man stood, with Taku the Sailor, at thebase of the wall of the great PAPAKU, and the native pointed out thelast resting-place of the wanderer. There, under the shadow of theSilent Faces of Stone, the brave and loving heart that dared so much isat peace for ever. 

BRANTLEY OF VAHITAHI

One day a trading vessel lay becalmed off Tatakoto, in the PaumotuArchipelago, and the captain and supercargo, taking a couple of nativesailors with them, went ashore at dawn to catch some turtle. The turtlewere plentiful and easily caught, and after half a dozen had been putin the boat, the two white men strolled along the white hard beach. Thecaptain--old, grizzled, and grim--seemed to know the place well, andled the way. 

* * * * *

The island is very narrow, and as they left the beach and gained theshade of the forest of coconuts that grew to the margin of high-watermark, they could see, between the tall, stately palms, the placidwaters of the lagoon, and a mile or so across, the inner beach of theweather side of the island. 

For a quarter of a mile or so the two men walked on till the widestpart of the island was reached. Here, under the shadow of some giantPUKA trees, the old skipper stopped and sat down on a roughly hewn slabof coral, the remains of one of those MARAE or heathen temples that areto be found almost anywhere in the islands of Eastern Polynesia. 

"I knew this place well, once, " he said, as he pulled out his pipe. "Iused to come here when I was sailing one of Brander's vessels out ofTahiti. As we have done now we did then--came here for turtle. Nonatives have lived here for the past forty years. Did you ever hear ofBrantley?"

"Yes, " answered the supercargo, "but he died long ago, did he not?"

"Aye, he died here, and his wife and sister too. They all lie here inthis old MARAE. "

And then he told the story of Brantley. 

* * * * *

I

It was six years since Brantley, with his companions in misery, haddrifted ashore at lonely Vahitahi in the Paumotu Group, and thekindly-hearted people had gazed with pitying horror upon the dreadfulbeings that, muttering and gibbering to each other, lay in the bottomof the boat, and pointed with long talon-like fingers to their burntand bloody thirst-tortured lips. 

* * * * *

And now as he sits in the doorway of his thatched house, and gazesdreamily out upon the long curve of creamy beach and wind-swayed lineof palms that fringe the leeward side of his island home, Brantleypasses a brown hand slowly up and down his sun-bronzed cheek, andthinks of the past. 

He was so full of life--of the very joy of living--that time six yearsago when he sailed from Auckland on that fateful voyage in the DORIS. It was his first voyage as captain, and the ship was his own, and evennow he remembers with a curious time-dulled pang the last words of hisonly sister--the Doris after whom he had called his new ship--as shehad kissed him farewell--"I am so glad, Fred, to hear them call you'Captain Brantley. '"

And the voyage--the wild feverish desire to make a record passage to'Frisco and back; the earnest words of poor old white-headed Lutton, the mate, "not to carry on so at night going through the PaumotuGroup"; that awful midnight crash when the DORIS ran hopelessly intothe wild boil of roaring surf on Tuanake Reef; the white, despairingfaces of five of his men, who, with curses in their eyes upon hisfolly, were swept out of sight into the awful blackness of the night. And then the days in the boat with the six survivors! Ah! the memory ofthat will chill his blood to his dying day. Men have had to do thatwhich he and the two who came through alive with him had done. 

How long they endured that black agony of suffering he knew not. Bycommon consent none of them ever spoke of it again. 

Three months after they had drifted ashore, a passing sperm whaler, cruising through the group, took away the two seamen, and thenBrantley, after bidding them a silent farewell, had, with bitterdespair gnawing at his heart, turned his face away from the ship, andwalked back into the palm-shaded village. 

* * * * *

"I will never go back again, " he had said to himself. And perhaps hewas right; for when the DORIS went to pieces on Tuanake his hope andfortunes went with her, and, save for that other Doris, there was noone in the world who cared for him. He was not the man to face theworld again with: "Why, he lost his first ship!" whispered among hisacquaintances. 

And this is how Brantley--young, handsome, and as smart a seaman (savefor that one fatal mistake) as ever trod a deck--became Paranili thePAPALAGI, and was living out his life among the people of solitaryVahitahi. 

* * * * *

Ere a year had passed a trading captain bound to the Gambier Islandshad given him a small stock of trade goods, and the thought of Dorishad been his salvation. Only for her he would have sunk to the life ofa mere idle, gin-drinking, and dissolute beach-comber. As it was, hissteady, straightforward life among the people of the island was a bigfactor to his business success. And so every year he sent money toDoris by some passing whaler or Tahitian trading schooner, but twiceonly had he got letters from her; and each time she had said: "Let mecome to you, Fred. We are alone in the world, and may never meet againelse. Sometimes I awake in the night with a sudden fear. Let me come;my heart is breaking with the loneliness of my life here, so far awayfrom you. "

* * * * *

But two years ago he had done that which would keep Doris from evercoming to him, he thought. He had married a young native girl--that is, taken her to wife in the Paumotuan fashion--and surely Doris, with herold-fashioned notions of right and wrong, would grieve bitterly if sheknew it. 

Presently he rose, talking to himself as is the wont of those who havelived long apart from all white associations, and sauntered up and downthe shady path at the side of his dwelling, thinking of Doris, and ifhe would ever see her again. Then he entered the house. 

* * * * *

Seated on the matted floor with her face turned from him was a youngnative girl--Luita, his wife. She was making a hat from the bleachedstrands of the pandanus leaf, and as she worked she sang softly toherself in the semi-Tahitian tongue of her people. 

Brantley, lazily stretching himself out on a rough mat-covered couch, turned towards her, and watched the slender, supple fingers--covered, in Polynesian fashion, with heavy gold rings--as they deftly drew outthe snow-white strands of the pandanus. The long, glossy, black wavesof hair that fell over her bare back and bosom like a mantle of nighthid her face from his view, and the man let his glance rest incontented admiration upon the graceful curves of the youthful figure;then he sighed softly, and again his eyes turned to the wide, saillessexpanse of the Pacific, that lay shimmering and sparkling before himunder a cloudless sky of blue, and he thought again of Doris. 

* * * * *

Steadily the little hands worked in and out among the snowy strands, and now and then, as she came to the TARI, or refrain, of the oldPaumotuan love-song, her soft liquid tones would blend with thequavering treble of children that played outside. 

 "Terunavahori, teeth of pearl, Knit the sandals for Talaloo's feet, Sandals of AFA thick and strong, Bind them well with thy long black hair. "

Suddenly the song ceased, and with a quick movement of her shouldersshe threw back the cloud of hair that fell around her arms and bosom, looked up at Brantley and laughed, and, striking the mat on which shesat with her open palm, said--

"HAERE MAI, PARANILI. "

He rose from the couch and stooped beside her, with his hands restingon his knees, and bending his brow in mock criticism, regarded herhandiwork intently. 

Springing to her feet, hat in hand, and placing her two hands on hisnow erect shoulders, she looked into his face--darker far than herown--and said with a smile--

"Behold, Paranili, thy PULOU is finished, save for a band of blackPU'AVA which thou shalt give me from the store. "

"Mine?" said Brantley, in pretended ignorance. "Why labour so for me?Are there not hats in plenty on Vahitahi?"

"True, O thankless one! but the women of the village say that thoulookest upon me as a fool because I can neither make mats nor do manyother things such as becometh a wife. And for this did Merani, mycousin, teach me how to make a wide hat of FALA to shield thy face fromthe sun when thou art out upon the pearling grounds. AI-E-EH! myhusband, but thy face and neck and hands are as dark as those of thepeople of Makatea--they who are for ever in their canoes. .. . See, Paranili, bend thy head. AI-E-EH! thou art a tall man, my husband, " andshe trilled a happy, rippling laugh as she placed the hat on his head. 

He placed one hand around the pliant waist and under the mantle ofhair, and drew her towards him, and then, moved by a sudden emotion, kissed her soft, red lips. 

"Luita, " he asked, "would it hurt thee if I were to go away?"

The girl drew away from him, and, for the first time in two yearsBrantley saw an angry flush tinge her cheek a dusky red. 

* * * * *

"Ah!"--the contemptuous ring in her voice made the man's eyesdrop--"thou art like all White Men--was there ever one who wasfaithful? What other woman is it that thou desirest? Is it Nia ofAhunui--she who, when thy boat lay anchored in the lagoon, swam off atnight and asked thee for thy love--the shameless Nia?"

The angry light in the black eyes shone fiercely, and the dull red onher cheeks had changed to the livid paleness of passion. 

Brantley, holding the rim of the hat over his mouth, laughed secretly, pleased at her first outburst of jealousy. Then his natural manlinessasserted itself. 

"Come here, " he said. 

Somewhat sullenly the girl obeyed and edged up beside him with facebent down. He put his hand upon hers, and for a few seconds looked atthe delicate tracery of tattooing that, on the back, ran in thin bluelines from the finger tips to the wrists. 

"What a d----d pity!" he muttered to himself; "this infernal tattooingwould give the poor devil away anywhere in civilization. Her skin isnot as dark as that pretty creole I was so sweet on in Galveston tenyears ago . .. Well, she's good enough for a broken man like me--but Ican't take her away--that's certain. "

A heavy tear splashed on his hand, and then he pulled her to him, almost savagely. 

"See, Luita. I did but ask to try thee. Have no fear. Thy land is minefor ever. "

The girl looked up, and in an instant her face, wet with tears, waslaid against his breast. Still caressing the dark head that lay uponhis chest, Brantley stooped and whispered something. The littletattooed hand released its clasp of his arm and struck him a playfulblow. 

"And would that bind thee more to me, and to the ways of these ourpeople of Vahitahi, " she asked, with still buried face. 

"Aye, " answered the ex-captain slowly, "for I have none but thee in theworld to care for. "

She turned her face up. "Is there none--not even one woman in far-offBeretania, whose face comes to thee in the darkness. "

Brantley shook his head sadly. Of course there was Doris, he thought, but he had never spoken of her. Sometimes when the longing to see heragain would come upon him, he would have talked of her to his nativewife, but he was by nature an uncommunicative man, and the thought ofhow Doris must feel her loneliness touched him with remorse and madehim silent. 

* * * * *

Another year passed, and matters had gone well with Brantley. Tenmonths before he had dropped on one of the best patches of shell in thePaumotus, and to-day, as he sits writing and smoking in the big room ofhis house, he looks contentedly out through the open door to a littlewhite painted schooner that lay at anchor on the calm waters of thelagoon. He had just come back from Tahiti with her, and the twothousand dollars he had paid for the vessel was an easy matter for aman who was now making a thousand dollars a month. 

"What a stroke of luck!" he writes to Doris. "Had I gone back toSydney, where would I be now?--a mate, I suppose, on some deep-seaship, earning twelve or fourteen pounds a month. Another year or two likethis, and I can go back a made man. Some day, my dear, I may; but I willcome back here again. The ways of the people have become my ways. "

* * * * *

He laid down his pen and came to the door, and stood thinking awhileand listening to the gentle rustle of the palms as they swayed theirlofty plumes to the breezy trade wind. 

"Yes, " he thought, "I would like to go and see Doris, but I can't takeLuita, and so it cannot be. How that girl suspects me even now. When Iwent to Tahiti to buy the schooner, I believe she thought she wouldnever see me again. .. . What a fool I am! Doris is all right, I suppose, although it is a year since I had a letter . .. And I--could any manwant more. I don't believe there's a soul on the island but thinks asmuch of me as Luita herself does; and, by G-d! she's a pearl--eventhough she is only a native girl. No, I'll stay here; 'Kapeni Paranili'will always be a big man in the Paumotus, but Fred Brantley would benobody in Sydney--only a common merchant skipper who had made money inthe islands. .. . And perhaps Doris is married. "

* * * * *

So he thought and talked to himself, listening the while to the softsymphony of the swaying palm-tops and the subdued murmur of the surf asthe rollers crashed on the distant line of reef away to leeward. Oflate these fleeting visions of the outside world--that quick, busyworld, whose memories, save for those of Doris, were all but dead tohim--had become more frequent; but the calm, placid happiness of hisexistence, and that strange, fatal glamour that for ever enwraps theminds of those who wander in the islands of the sunlit sea--as the oldSpanish navigators called Polynesia--had woven its spell too stronglyover his nature to be broken. And now, as the murmur of women's voicescaused him to turn his head to the shady end of the verandah, the dark, dreamy eyes of Luita, who with her women attendants sat there playingwith her child, looked out at him from beneath their long lashes, andtold him his captivity was complete. 

* * * * *

A week afterwards the people of Vahitahi were clustered on the beachputting supplies of native food in the schooner's boat. That night hewas to sail again for the pearling grounds at Matahiva lagoon, andwould be away three months. 

One by one the people bade him adieu, and then stood apart while hesaid farewell to Luita. 

"E MAHINA TOLU [Only three months], little one, " he said, "why such agloomy face?"

The girl shook her head, and her mouth twitched. "But the MITI [dream], Paranili--the MITI of my mother. She is wise in the things that arehidden; for she is one of those who believe in the old gods ofVahitahi. .. . And there are many here of the new LOTU [Faith, i. E. Christianity] who yet believe in the old gods. And, see, she has dreamedof this unknown evil to thee twice; and twice have the voices of those whoare silent in the MARAE called to me in the night, and said: 'He must notgo; he must not go. '"

Knowing well how the old superstitious taint ran riot in theimaginative native mind, Brantley did not attempt to reason, but soughtto gently disengage her hands from his arm. 

She dropped on the sand at his feet and clasped his knees, and a long, wailing note of grief rang out--

"AUE! AUE! my husband! if it so be that thou dost not heed the voicesthat call in the night, then, out of thy love for me and our child, letme come also. Then, if evil befall thee, let us perish together. "

Brantley raised his hand and pointed to the bowed and weeping figure. Some women came and lifted her up. Then taking the tender face betweenhis rough hands, he bent his head to hers, sprang into the boat, andwas gone. 

* * * * *

II

With ten tons of shell snugly stowed in her hold, the little Tamarikiwas heading back for Vahitahi after barely two months' absence. Brantley, as he leant over the rail and watched the swirl and eddy ofthe creamy phosphorescence that hissed and bubbled under the vessel'sstern, felt well satisfied. 

It was the hour of dawn, and the native at the tiller sang, as thestars began to pale before the red flush that tinged the sky towindward, a low chant of farewell to Fetuaho, the star of the morning, and then he called to Brantley, who to all his crew was always"Paranili, " and never "Kapeni [Captain], " and pointed with his naked, tattooed arm away to leeward, where the low outlines of an island beganto show. 

"Look, Paranili, that is Tatakoto, the place I have told thee of, wherethe turtle makes the white beach to look black. Would it not be wellfor us to take some home to Vahitahi?"

"Thou glutton!" said Brantley, good-humouredly, "dost thou think I amlike to lose a day so that thou and thy friends may fill thy stomachswith turtle meat?"

Rua Manu laughed, and showed his white, even teeth. "Nay, Paranili, notfor that alone; but it is a great place, that Tatakoto, and thou hastnever landed there to look, and Luita hath said that some day she wouldask thee to take her there; for, though she was born at Vahitahi, herblood is that of the people of Tatakoto, who have long since lainsilent in the MARAES. "

* * * * *

Brantley had often heard her speak of it, this solitary spot in thewide Pacific, and now, as he looked at the pretty, verdure-clad islandagainst the weather shore of which the thundering rollers burst with amuffled roar, he was surprised at its length and extent, and decided topay it a visit some day. 

"Not now, Rua, " he said to the steersman, "but it shall be soon. Arethere many coconuts there?"

"Many? May I perish, but the trees are as the sand of the sea, and thenuts lie thick upon the ground. AI-E-EH! and the robber crabs are inthousands, and fat; and the sea-birds' eggs!"

"Glutton again! Be content. In a little while we and as many of thepeople of Vahitahi as the schooner will carry will go there and stayfor the turtle season. "

* * * * *

Three days afterwards the schooner was within fifty miles of his islandhome, when Brantley was aroused at daylight from his watch below by thecry of "TE PAHI!" (a ship!) and hastening on deck he saw a large vesselbearing down upon them. In half an hour she was close to, and Brantleyrecognised her as a brig from Tahiti, that occasionally made a tradingvoyage to the Paumotus, and whose skipper was a personal friend. Suddenly she hove-to and lowered a boat, which came alongside theschooner, and the white man that steered jumped on deck and held outhis hand. 

"How are you, Brantley?" and then his eye went quickly over the crew ofthe schooner, then glanced through the open skylight into the littlecabin, and a hopeful, expectant look in his face died away. 

"Very well, thank you, Latham. But what is wrong?--you look worried. "

"Come on board, " said the captain of the brig, quietly, "and I'll tellyou. "

As Brantley took his seat beside him, Latham said: "I have bad news foryou, Brantley. Your sister is on board the brig, and I fear she willnot live long. She came down to Tahiti in the MARAMA from Auckland, andoffered me a good round sum to bring her to you. "

"Has she been ill long, Latham?"

* * * * *

Latham looked at him curiously. "Didn't you know, Brantley? She's in arapid consumption. "

For a moment neither men spoke; then Latham gave a short cough. 

"I feel it almost as badly as you, Brantley--but I've got a bit morebad news--"

"Go on, Latham--it can't matter much. My poor sister is everything to me. "

"Just so. That's what I told Miss Brantley. Well, it's this--your wifeand child are missing----" Latham glanced at him and saw that his handtrembled and then grasped the gunwale of the boat. 

"We got into Vahitahi lagoon about ten days ago, and I took MissBrantley ashore. What happened I don't exactly know, but the next nightone of your whale-boats was gone, and Luita and the child were missing. Your sister was in a terrible state of mind, and offered me a thousanddollars to put to sea. Brantley, old man, I wouldn't take a dollar fromher--God bless her--but I did put to sea, and I've searched nigh ontwenty islands, and scores of reefs and sandbanks----"

"Thank you, Latham, " said Brantley quietly; "when we get on board youcan give me further particulars of the islands you've searched. "

"You can have my marked chart; I've got a spare one. Brace up, old man!you'll see your sister in a minute. She is terribly cut up over poorLuita--more so than I knew you would be. But she was a grand littlewoman, Brantley, although she was only a native. "

"Yes, " he answered, in the same slow, dazed manner, "she was a goodlittle girl to me, although she----" The words stuck in his throat. 

* * * * *

Latham showed him into the brig's cabin, and then a door opened, andDoris threw herself weeping into his arms. 

"Oh, Doris, " he whispered, "why did you not tell me you were ill? Iwould have come to you long ago. I feel a brute----"

She placed her hand on his lips. "Never mind about me, Fred. HasCaptain Latham told you about----"

"Yes, " he replied; and then suddenly: "Doris, I am going to look forher; I think I know the place to which she has gone. It is not far fromhere. Doris, will you go on back to Vahitahi with Latham and wait for me?"

"Fred, " she whispered, "let me come with you. It will not be long, dear, before I am gone, and it was hard to die away from you--that iswhy I came; and perhaps we may find her. "

He kissed her silently, and then in five minutes more they had saidfarewell to Latham, and were on their way to the schooner. 

The crew soon knew from him what had happened, and Rua Manu, with hisbig eyes filled with a wondering pity as he looked at the frail bodyand white face of Doris lying on the skylight, wore the schooner's headround to the south-west at a sign from Brantley. 

"Aye, Paranili, " he said, in his deep, guttural tones, "it is toTatakoto she hath gone--'tis her mother's land. "

* * * * *

That night, as she lay on the skylight with her hand in his, Doris toldhim all she knew:--

"They were all kind to me when I went ashore to your house, Fred, butLuita looked so fiercely at me. .. . Her eyes frightened me--they hada look of death in them. 

"In the morning your little child was taken ill with what they callTATARU, and I wanted to give it medicine. Luita pushed my hand away andhugged the child to her bosom; and then the other women came and madesigns for me to go away. And that night she and the child were missing, and one of your boats was gone. "

"Poor Luita, " said Brantley, stroking Doris's pale cheek, "she did notknow you were my sister. I never told her, Doris. "

"She is a very beautiful woman, Fred. They told me at Tahiti that shewas called the pearl of Vahitahi; and oh! my dear, if we can but findher, I will make her love me for your sake. "

* * * * *

Late in the afternoon of the second day, just as the trade wind beganto lose its strength, the schooner was running along the weather-sideof Tatakoto, and Rua Manu, from the mast-head, called out that he sawthe boat lying on the beach inside the lagoon, with her sail set; and, as landing was not practicable on the weather-side, the schooner ranround to the lee. 

"We will soon know, Doris. It always rains in these islands at thistime of the year, so she would not suffer as I once did; but the sailof the boat is still set, and that makes me think she has never leftit. Wait till I come back again, Doris; you cannot help me. "

And Doris, throwing her weak arms round his neck, kissed him with a sob, and lay back again to wait. 

* * * * *

With Rua Manu and two others of his faithful native crew, Brantleywalked quickly across the island to the lagoon to where the boat lay. Luita was not there, and the dark eyes of his sailors met his in aresponsive glow of hope--she had not died in the boat!

They turned back into the silent aisles of coconut palms, and then RuaManu loudly called her name. 

"Listen, " he said. 

A voice--a weak, trembling voice--was singing the song of Talaloo. 

 "Terunavahori, bending low, Bindeth the sandals on Talaloo's feet; 'Hasten, O hasten, lover true, O'er the coral, cruel and sharp, Over the coral, and sand, and rock, Snare thee a turtle for our marriage feast; IA AKOE! brave lover mine. '"

"In the old MARAE, Paranili, " said Rua Manu, pointing to the remains ofa ruined temple. Motioning to the seamen to remain outside, Brantleyentered the crumbling walls of the old heathen MARAE. At the far endwas a little screen of coconut boughs. He stooped down and went in. 

A few minutes passed, and then his hand was thrust out between thebranches as a sign for them to follow. 

* * * * *

One by one they came and sat beside Brantley, who held the wastedfigure of the wanderer in his arms. The sound of his voice had broughtback her wavering reason, and she knew them all now. She knew, too, that her brief young life was ebbing fast; for, as each of the brownmen pressed their lips to her hand, tears coursed down their cheeks. 

"See, men of Vahitahi, my Englishman hath come to me, a fool that fledfrom his house . .. Because I thought that he lied to me. Teloma wasit who first mocked, and said: ''Tis his wife from Beretania who hathcome to seek him;' and then other girls laughed and mocked also, andsaid: 'AH-HE! Luita, this fair-faced girl who sayeth she is thyhusband's sister, AH-HE!' . .. And their words and looks stungme . .. So at night I took my child and swam to the boat. .. . My child, see, it is here, " and she touched a little mound in the soil beside her. 

There was a low murmur of sympathy, and then the brown men went outsideand covered their faces with their hands, after the manner of theirrace when death is near, and waited in silence. 

* * * * *

Night had fallen on the lonely island, and the far-off muffled boom ofthe breakers as they dashed on the black ledges of the weather reefwould now and then be borne into the darkness of the little hut. 

"Put thy face to mine, Paranili, " she whispered; "I grow cold now. "

As the bearded face of the man bent over her, one thin, weak arm rosewaveringly in the air, and then fell softly round his neck, andBrantley, with his hand upon her bosom, felt that her heart had ceasedto beat. 

* * * * *

The next day he sailed the schooner into the lagoon, and Doris pressedher lips on the dead forehead of the native girl ere she was laid torest. Something that Doris had said to him as they walked away from hergrave filled Brantley's heart with a deadly fear, and as he took her inhis arms his voice shook. 

"Don't say that, Doris. It cannot be so soon as that. I was never agood man; but surely God will spare you to me a little longer. "

But it came very soon--on the morning of the day that he intendedsailing out of the lagoon again, Doris died in his arms on board theschooner, and Brantley laid her to rest under the shade of a giantpuka-tree that overshadowed the stones of the old MARAE. 

* * * * *

That night he called Rua Manu into the cabin and asked him if he couldbeat his way back to Vahitahi in the schooner. 

"'Tis an easy matter, Paranili. So that the sky be clear and I can seethe stars, then shall I find Vahitahi in three days. "

"Good. Then to-morrow take the schooner there, and tell such of thepeople as desire to be with me to come here, and bring with them allthings that are in my house. It is my mind to live here at Tatakoto. "

As the schooner slipped through the narrow passage, he stood on thelow, sandy point, and waved his hand in farewell. 

* * * * *

A week later the little vessel dropped her anchor in the lagoon again, and Rua Manu and his crew came ashore to seek him. 

They found him lying under the shade of the puka-tree with his revolverin his hand and a bullet-hole in his temple.