THE
BEACH OF FALESA.
CHAPTER I - A SOUTH SEA BRIDAL.
I saw that island
first when it was neither night nor morning. The moon was to the west, setting,
but still broad and bright. To the east, and right amidships of the dawn, which
was all pink, the daystar sparkled like a diamond. The land breeze blew in our
faces, and smelt strong of wild lime and vanilla: other things besides, but
these were the most plain; and the chill of it set me sneezing. I should say I
had been for years on a low island near the line, living for the most part
solitary among natives. Here was a fresh experience: even the tongue would be
quite strange to me; and the look of these woods and mountains, and the rare
smell of them, renewed my blood.
The captain blew
out the binnacle lamp.
"There!"
said he, "there goes a bit of smoke, Mr. Wiltshire, behind the break of
the reef. That's Falesa, where your station is, the last village to the east;
nobody lives to windward - I don't know why. Take my glass, and you can make
the houses out."
I took the glass;
and the shores leaped nearer, and I saw the tangle of the woods and the breach
of the surf, and the brown roofs and the black insides of houses peeped among
the trees.
"Do you
catch a bit of white there to the east'ard?" the captain continued.
"That's your house. Coral built, stands high, verandah you could walk on
three abreast; best station in the South Pacific. When old Adams saw it, he
took and shook me by the hand. 'I've dropped into a soft thing here,' says he.
- 'So you have,' says I, 'and time too!' Poor Johnny! I never saw him again but
the once, and then he had changed his tune - couldn't get on with the natives,
or the whites, or something; and the next time we came round there he was dead
and buried. I took and put up a bit of a stick to him: 'John Adams, OBIT
eighteen and sixty-eight. Go thou and do likewise.' I missed that man. I never
could see much harm in Johnny."
"What did he
die of?" I inquired.
"Some kind
of sickness," says the captain. "It appears it took him sudden. Seems
he got up in the night, and filled up on Pain-Killer and Kennedy's Discovery.
No go: he was booked beyond Kennedy. Then he had tried to open a case of gin.
No go again: not strong enough. Then he must have turned to and run out on the
verandah, and capsized over the rail. When they found him, the next day, he was
clean crazy - carried on all the time about somebody watering his copra. Poor
John!"
"Was it
thought to be the island?" I asked.
"Well, it
was thought to be the island, or the trouble, or something," he replied.
"I never could hear but what it was a healthy place. Our last man,
Vigours, never turned a hair. He left because of the beach - said he was afraid
of Black Jack and Case and Whistling Jimmie, who was still alive at the time,
but got drowned soon afterward when drunk. As for old Captain Randall, he's
been here any time since eighteen-forty, forty-five. I never could see much
harm in Billy, nor much change. Seems as if he might live to be Old Kafoozleum.
No, I guess it's healthy."
"There's a
boat coming now," said I. "She's right in the pass; looks to be a
sixteen-foot whale; two white men in the stern sheets."
"That's the
boat that drowned Whistling Jimmie!" cried the Captain; "let's see
the glass. Yes, that's Case, sure enough, and the darkie. They've got a gallows
bad reputation, but you know what a place the beach is for talking. My belief,
that Whistling Jimmie was the worst of the trouble; and he's gone to glory, you
see. What'll you bet they ain't after gin? Lay you five to two they take six
cases."
When these two
traders came aboard I was pleased with the looks of them at once, or, rather,
with the looks of both, and the speech of one. I was sick for white neighbours
after my four years at the line, which I always counted years of prison;
getting tabooed, and going down to the Speak House to see and get it taken off;
buying gin and going on a break, and then repenting; sitting in the house at
night with the lamp for company; or walking on the beach and wondering what
kind of a fool to call myself for being where I was. There were no other whites
upon my island, and when I sailed to the next, rough customers made the most of
the society. Now to see these two when they came aboard was a pleasure. One was
a negro, to be sure; but they were both rigged out smart in striped pyjamas and
straw hats, and Case would have passed muster in a city. He was yellow and
smallish, had a hawk's nose to his face, pale eyes, and his beard trimmed with
scissors. No man knew his country, beyond he was of English speech; and it was
clear he came of a good family and was splendidly educated. He was accomplished
too; played the accordion first-rate; and give him a piece of string or a cork
or a pack of cards, and he could show you tricks equal to any professional. He
could speak, when he chose, fit for a drawing-room; and when he chose he could
blaspheme worse than a Yankee boatswain, and talk smart to sicken a Kanaka. The
way he thought would pay best at the moment, that was Case's way, and it always
seemed to come natural, and like as if he was born to it. He had the courage of
a lion and the cunning of a rat; and if he's not in hell to-day, there's no
such place. I know but one good point to the man: that he was fond of his wife,
and kind to her. She was a Samoa woman, and dyed her hair red, Samoa style; and
when he came to die (as I have to tell of) they found one strange thing - that
he had made a will, like a Christian, and the widow got the lot: all his, they
said, and all Black Jack's, and the most of Billy Randall's in the bargain, for
it was Case that kept the books. So she went off home in the schooner MANU'A,
and does the lady to this day in her own place.
But of all this
on that first morning I knew no more than a fly. Case used me like a gentleman
and like a friend, made me welcome to Falesa, and put his services at my
disposal, which was the more helpful from my ignorance of the native. All the
better part of the day we sat drinking better acquaintance in the cabin, and I
never heard a man talk more to the point. There was no smarter trader, and none
dodgier, in the islands. I thought Falesa seemed to be the right kind of a
place; and the more I drank the lighter my heart. Our last trader had fled the
place at half an hour's notice, taking a chance passage in a labour ship from
up west. The captain, when he came, had found the station closed, the keys left
with the native pastor, and a letter from the runaway, confessing he was fairly
frightened of his life. Since then the firm had not been represented, and of
course there was no cargo. The wind, besides, was fair, the captain hoped he
could make his next island by dawn, with a good tide, and the business of
landing my trade was gone about lively. There was no call for me to fool with
it, Case said; nobody would touch my things, everyone was honest in Falesa,
only about chickens or an odd knife or an odd stick of tobacco; and the best I
could do was to sit quiet till the vessel left, then come straight to his
house, see old Captain Randall, the father of the beach, take pot-luck, and go
home to sleep when it got dark. So it was high noon, and the schooner was under
way before I set my foot on shore at Falesa.
I had a glass or
two on board; I was just off a long cruise, and the ground heaved under me like
a ship's deck. The world was like all new painted; my foot went along to music;
Falesa might have been Fiddler's Green, if there is such a place, and more's
the pity if there isn't! It was good to foot the grass, to look aloft at the
green mountains, to see the men with their green wreaths and the women in their
bright dresses, red and blue. On we went, in the strong sun and the cool
shadow, liking both; and all the children in the town came trotting after with
their shaven heads and their brown bodies, and raising a thin kind of a cheer
in our wake, like crowing poultry.
"By-the-bye,"
says Case, "we must get you a wife."
"That's
so," said I; "I had forgotten."
There was a crowd
of girls about us, and I pulled myself up and looked among them like a Bashaw.
They were all dressed out for the sake of the ship being in; and the women of
Falesa are a handsome lot to see. If they have a fault, they are a trifle broad
in the beam; and I was just thinking so when Case touched me.
"That's
pretty," says he.
I saw one coming
on the other side alone. She had been fishing; all she wore was a chemise, and
it was wetted through. She was young and very slender for an island maid, with
a long face, a high forehead, and a shy, strange, blindish look, between a
cat's and a baby's.
"Who's
she?" said I. "She'll do."
"That's
Uma," said Case, and he called her up and spoke to her in the native. I
didn't know what he said; but when he was in the midst she looked up at me
quick and timid, like a child dodging a blow, then down again, and presently
smiled. She had a wide mouth, the lips and the chin cut like any statue's; and
the smile came out for a moment and was gone. Then she stood with her head
bent, and heard Case to an end, spoke back in the pretty Polynesian voice,
looking him full in the face, heard him again in answer, and then with an
obeisance started off. I had just a share of the bow, but never another shot of
her eye, and there was no more word of smiling.
"I guess
it's all right," said Case. "I guess you can have her. I'll make it
square with the old lady. You can have your pick of the lot for a plug of
tobacco," he added, sneering.
I suppose it was
the smile stuck in my memory, for I spoke back sharp. "She doesn't look
that sort," I cried.
"I don't
know that she is," said Case. "I believe she's as right as the mail.
Keeps to herself, don't go round with the gang, and that. O no, don't you
misunderstand me - Uma's on the square." He spoke eager, I thought, and
that surprised and pleased me. "Indeed," he went on, "I
shouldn't make so sure of getting her, only she cottoned to the cut of your
jib. All you have to do is to keep dark and let me work the mother my own way;
and I'll bring the girl round to the captain's for the marriage."
I didn't care for
the word marriage, and I said so.
"Oh, there's
nothing to hurt in the marriage," says he. "Black Jack's the
chaplain."
By this time we
had come in view of the house of these three white men; for a negro is counted
a white man, and so is a Chinese! a strange idea, but common in the islands. It
was a board house with a strip of rickety verandah. The store was to the front,
with a counter, scales, and the poorest possible display of trade: a case or
two of tinned meats; a barrel of hard bread; a few bolts of cotton stuff, not
to be compared with mine; the only thing well represented being the contraband,
firearms and liquor. "If these are my only rivals," thinks I, "I
should do well in Falesa." Indeed, there was only the one way they could
touch me, and that was with the guns and drink.
In the back room
was old Captain Randall, squatting on the floor native fashion, fat and pale,
naked to the waist, grey as a badger, and his eyes set with drink. His body was
covered with grey hair and crawled over by flies; one was in the corner of his
eye - he never heeded; and the mosquitoes hummed about the man like bees. Any
clean-minded man would have had the creature out at once and buried him; and to
see him, and think he was seventy, and remember he had once commanded a ship,
and come ashore in his smart togs, and talked big in bars and consulates, and
sat in club verandahs, turned me sick and sober.
He tried to get
up when I came in, but that was hopeless; so he reached me a hand instead, and
stumbled out some salutation.
"Papa's
pretty full this morning," observed Case. "We've had an epidemic
here; and Captain Randall takes gin for a prophylactic - don't you, Papa?"
"Never took
such a thing in my life!" cried the captain indignantly. "Take gin
for my health's sake, Mr. Wha's-ever-your- name - 's a precautionary measure."
"That's all
right, Papa," said Case. "But you'll have to brace up. There's going
to be a marriage - Mr. Wiltshire here is going to get spliced."
The old man asked
to whom.
"To
Uma," said Case.
"Uma!"
cried the captain. "Wha's he want Uma for? She come here for his health,
anyway? Wha' 'n hell's he want Uma for?"
"Dry up,
Papa," said Case. "'Tain't you that's to marry her. I guess you're
not her godfather and godmother. I guess Mr. Wiltshire's going to please
himself."
With that he made
an excuse to me that he must move about the marriage, and left me alone with
the poor wretch that was his partner and (to speak truth) his gull. Trade and
station belonged both to Randall; Case and the negro were parasites; they
crawled and fed upon him like the flies, he none the wiser. Indeed, I have no
harm to say of Billy Randall beyond the fact that my gorge rose at him, and the
time I now passed in his company was like a nightmare.
The room was
stifling hot and full of flies; for the house was dirty and low and small, and
stood in a bad place, behind the village, in the borders of the bush, and
sheltered from the trade. The three men's beds were on the floor, and a litter
of pans and dishes. There was no standing furniture; Randall, when he was
violent, tearing it to laths. There I sat and had a meal which was served us by
Case's wife; and there I was entertained all day by that remains of man, his
tongue stumbling among low old jokes and long old stories, and his own wheezy
laughter always ready, so that he had no sense of my depression. He was nipping
gin all the while. Sometimes he fell asleep, and awoke again, whimpering and
shivering, and every now and again he would ask me why I wanted to marry Uma.
"My friend," I was telling myself all day, "you must not come to
be an old gentleman like this."
It might be four
in the afternoon, perhaps, when the back door was thrust slowly open, and a
strange old native woman crawled into the house almost on her belly. She was
swathed in black stuff to her heels; her hair was grey in swatches; her face
was tattooed, which was not the practice in that island; her eyes big and
bright and crazy. These she fixed upon me with a rapt expression that I saw to
be part acting. She said no plain word, but smacked and mumbled with her lips,
and hummed aloud, like a child over its Christmas pudding. She came straight
across the house, heading for me, and, as soon as she was alongside, caught up
my hand and purred and crooned over it like a great cat. From this she slipped
into a kind of song.
"Who the
devil's this?" cried I, for the thing startled me.
"It's
Fa'avao," says Randall; and I saw he had hitched along the floor into the
farthest corner.
"You ain't
afraid of her?" I cried.
"Me
'fraid!" cried the captain. "My dear friend, I defy her! I don't let
her put her foot in here, only I suppose 's different to- day, for the
marriage. 's Uma's mother."
"Well,
suppose it is; what's she carrying on about?" I asked, more irritated,
perhaps more frightened, than I cared to show; and the captain told me she was
making up a quantity of poetry in my praise because I was to marry Uma.
"All right, old lady," says I, with rather a failure of a laugh,
"anything to oblige. But when you're done with my hand, you might let me
know."
She did as though
she understood; the song rose into a cry, and stopped; the woman crouched out
of the house the same way that she came in, and must have plunged straight into
the bush, for when I followed her to the door she had already vanished.
"These are
rum manners," said I.
"'s a rum
crowd," said the captain, and, to my surprise, he made the sign of the
cross on his bare bosom.
"Hillo!"
says I, "are you a Papist?"
He repudiated the
idea with contempt. "Hard-shell Baptis'," said he. "But, my dear
friend, the Papists got some good ideas too; and tha' 's one of 'em. You take
my advice, and whenever you come across Uma or Fa'avao or Vigours, or any of
that crowd, you take a leaf out o' the priests, and do what I do. Savvy?" says
he, repeated the sign, and winked his dim eye at me. "No, SIR!" he
broke out again, "no Papists here!" and for a long time entertained
me with his religious opinions.
I must have been
taken with Uma from the first, or I should certainly have fled from that house,
and got into the clean air, and the clean sea, or some convenient river -
though, it's true, I was committed to Case; and, besides, I could never have
held my head up in that island if I had run from a girl upon my wedding- night.
The sun was down,
the sky all on fire, and the lamp had been some time lighted, when Case came
back with Uma and the negro. She was dressed and scented; her kilt was of fine
tapa, looking richer in the folds than any silk; her bust, which was of the
colour of dark honey, she wore bare only for some half a dozen necklaces of
seeds and flowers; and behind her ears and in her hair she had the scarlet
flowers of the hibiscus. She showed the best bearing for a bride conceivable,
serious and still; and I thought shame to stand up with her in that mean house
and before that grinning negro. I thought shame, I say; for the mountebank was
dressed with a big paper collar, the book he made believe to read from was an
odd volume of a novel, and the words of his service not fit to be set down. My
conscience smote me when we joined hands; and when she got her certificate I
was tempted to throw up the bargain and confess. Here is the document. It was
Case that wrote it, signatures and all, in a leaf out of the ledger:-
This is to certify
that Uma, daughter of Fa'avao of Falesa, Island of - , is illegally married to
Mr. John Wiltshire for one week, and Mr. John Wiltshire is at liberty to send
her to hell when he pleases.
JOHN BLACKAMOAR. Chaplain to the hulks.
Extracted from the Register by William T. Randall, Master Mariner.
A nice paper to
put in a girl's hand and see her hide away like gold. A man might easily feel
cheap for less. But it was the practice in these parts, and (as I told myself)
not the least the fault of us white men, but of the missionaries. If they had
let the natives be, I had never needed this deception, but taken all the wives
I wished, and left them when I pleased, with a clear conscience.
The more ashamed
I was, the more hurry I was in to be gone; and our desires thus jumping
together, I made the less remark of a change in the traders. Case had been all
eagerness to keep me; now, as though he had attained a purpose, he seemed all
eagerness to have me go. Uma, he said, could show me to my house, and the three
bade us farewell indoors.
The night was
nearly come; the village smelt of trees and flowers and the sea and
bread-fruit-cooking; there came a fine roll of sea from the reef, and from a
distance, among the woods and houses, many pretty sounds of men and children.
It did me good to breathe free air; it did me good to be done with the captain
and see, instead, the creature at my side. I felt for all the world as though
she were some girl at home in the Old Country, and, forgetting myself for the
minute, took her hand to walk with. Her fingers nestled into mine, I heard her
breathe deep and quick, and all at once she caught my hand to her face and
pressed it there. "You good!" she cried, and ran ahead of me, and
stopped and looked back and smiled, and ran ahead of me again, thus guiding me
through the edge of the bush, and by a quiet way to my own house.
The truth is,
Case had done the courting for me in style - told her I was mad to have her,
and cared nothing for the consequence; and the poor soul, knowing that which I
was still ignorant of, believed it, every word, and had her head nigh turned
with vanity and gratitude. Now, of all this I had no guess; I was one of those
most opposed to any nonsense about native women, having seen so many whites
eaten up by their wives' relatives, and made fools of in the bargain; and I
told myself I must make a stand at once, and bring her to her bearings. But she
looked so quaint and pretty as she ran away and then awaited me, and the thing
was done so like a child or a kind dog, that the best I could do was just to
follow her whenever she went on, to listen for the fall of her bare feet, and
to watch in the dusk for the shining of her body. And there was another thought
came in my head. She played kitten with me now when we were alone; but in the
house she had carried it the way a countess might, so proud and humble. And
what with her dress - for all there was so little of it, and that native enough
- what with her fine tapa and fine scents, and her red flowers and seeds, that were
quite as bright as jewels, only larger - it came over me she was a kind of
countess really, dressed to hear great singers at a concert, and no even mate
for a poor trader like myself.
She was the first
in the house; and while I was still without I saw a match flash and the
lamplight kindle in the windows. The station was a wonderful fine place, coral
built, with quite a wide verandah, and the main room high and wide. My chests
and cases had been piled in, and made rather of a mess; and there, in the thick
of the confusion, stood Uma by the table, awaiting me. Her shadow went all the
way up behind her into the hollow of the iron roof; she stood against it
bright, the lamplight shining on her skin. I stopped in the door, and she
looked at me, not speaking, with eyes that were eager and yet daunted; then she
touched herself on the bosom.
"Me - your
wifie," she said. It had never taken me like that before; but the want of
her took and shook all through me, like the wind in the luff of a sail.
I could not speak
if I had wanted; and if I could, I would not. I was ashamed to be so much moved
about a native, ashamed of the marriage too, and the certificate she had
treasured in her kilt; and I turned aside and made believe to rummage among my
cases. The first thing I lighted on was a case of gin, the only one that I had
brought; and, partly for the girl's sake, and partly for horror of the
recollections of old Randall, took a sudden resolve. I prized the lid off. One
by one I drew the bottles with a pocket corkscrew, and sent Uma out to pour the
stuff from the verandah.
She came back
after the last, and looked at me puzzled like.
"No
good," said I, for I was now a little better master of my tongue.
"Man he drink, he no good."
She agreed with
this, but kept considering. "Why you bring him?" she asked presently.
"Suppose you no want drink, you no bring him, I think."
"That's all
right," said I. "One time I want drink too much; now no want. You
see, I no savvy I get one little wifie. Suppose I drink gin, my little wifie he
'fraid."
To speak to her
kindly was about more than I was fit for; I had made my vow I would never let
on to weakness with a native, and I had nothing for it but to stop.
She stood looking
gravely down at me where I sat by the open case. "I think you good
man," she said. And suddenly she had fallen before me on the floor.
"I belong you all-e-same pig!" she cried.
CHAPTER II - THE BAN.
I came on the
verandah just before the sun rose on the morrow. My house was the last on the
east; there was a cape of woods and cliffs behind that hid the sunrise. To the
west, a swift cold river ran down, and beyond was the green of the village,
dotted with cocoa-palms and breadfruits and houses. The shutters were some of
them down and some open; I saw the mosquito bars still stretched, with shadows
of people new-awakened sitting up inside; and all over the green others were
stalking silent, wrapped in their many-coloured sleeping clothes like Bedouins
in Bible pictures. It was mortal still and solemn and chilly, and the light of
the dawn on the lagoon was like the shining of a fire.
But the thing
that troubled me was nearer hand. Some dozen young men and children made a
piece of a half-circle, flanking my house: the river divided them, some were on
the near side, some on the far, and one on a boulder in the midst; and they all
sat silent, wrapped in their sheets, and stared at me and my house as straight
as pointer dogs. I thought it strange as I went out. When I had bathed and come
back again, and found them all there, and two or three more along with them, I
thought it stranger still. What could they see to gaze at in my house, I
wondered, and went in.
But the thought
of these starers stuck in my mind, and presently I came out again. The sun was
now up, but it was still behind the cape of woods. Say a quarter of an hour had
come and gone. The crowd was greatly increased, the far bank of the river was
lined for quite a way - perhaps thirty grown folk, and of children twice as
many, some standing, some squatted on the ground, and all staring at my house.
I have seen a house in a South Sea village thus surrounded, but then a trader
was thrashing his wife inside, and she singing out. Here was nothing: the stove
was alight, the smoke going up in a Christian manner; all was shipshape and
Bristol fashion. To be sure, there was a stranger come, but they had a chance
to see that stranger yesterday, and took it quiet enough. What ailed them now?
I leaned my arms on the rail and stared back. Devil a wink they had in them! Now
and then I could see the children chatter, but they spoke so low not even the
hum of their speaking came my length. The rest were like graven images: they
stared at me, dumb and sorrowful, with their bright eyes; and it came upon me
things would look not much different if I were on the platform of the gallows,
and these good folk had come to see me hanged.
I felt I was
getting daunted, and began to be afraid I looked it, which would never do. Up I
stood, made believe to stretch myself, came down the verandah stair, and
strolled towards the river. There went a short buzz from one to the other, like
what you hear in theatres when the curtain goes up; and some of the nearest
gave back the matter of a pace. I saw a girl lay one hand on a young man and
make a gesture upward with the other; at the same time she said something in
the native with a gasping voice. Three little boys sat beside my path, where, I
must pass within three feet of them. Wrapped in their sheets, with their shaved
heads and bits of top-knots, and queer faces, they looked like figures on a
chimney- piece. Awhile they sat their ground, solemn as judges. I came up hand
over fist, doing my five knots, like a man that meant business; and I thought I
saw a sort of a wink and gulp in the three faces. Then one jumped up (he was
the farthest off) and ran for his mammy. The other two, trying to follow suit,
got foul, came to ground together bawling, wriggled right out of their sheets
mother-naked, and in a moment there were all three of them scampering for their
lives and singing out like pigs. The natives, who would never let a joke slip,
even at a burial, laughed and let up, as short as a dog's bark.
They say it
scares a man to be alone. No such thing. What scares him in the dark or the
high bush is that he can't make sure, and there might be an army at his elbow.
What scares him worst is to be right in the midst of a crowd, and have no guess
of what they're driving at. When that laugh stopped, I stopped too. The boys
had not yet made their offing, they were still on the full stretch going the
one way, when I had already gone about ship and was sheering off the other.
Like a fool I had come out, doing my five knots; like a fool I went back again.
It must have been the funniest thing to see, and what knocked me silly, this
time no one laughed; only one old woman gave a kind of pious moan, the way you
have heard Dissenters in their chapels at the sermon.
"I never saw
such fools of Kanakas as your people here," I said once to Uma, glancing
out of the window at the starers.
"Savvy
nothing," says Uma, with a kind of disgusted air that she was good at.
And that was all
the talk we had upon the matter, for I was put out, and Uma took the thing so
much as a matter of course that I was fairly ashamed.
All day, off and
on, now fewer and now more, the fools sat about the west end of my house and
across the river, waiting for the show, whatever that was - fire to come down
from heaven, I suppose, and consume me, bones and baggage. But by evening, like
real islanders, they had wearied of the business, and got away, and had a dance
instead in the big house of the village, where I heard them singing and
clapping hands till, maybe, ten at night, and the next day it seemed they had
forgotten I existed. If fire had come down from heaven or the earth opened and
swallowed me, there would have been nobody to see the sport or take the lesson,
or whatever you like to call it. But I was to find they hadn't forgot either,
and kept an eye lifting for phenomena over my way.
I was hard at it
both these days getting my trade in order and taking stock of what Vigours had
left. This was a job that made me pretty sick, and kept me from thinking on
much else. Ben had taken stock the trip before - I knew I could trust Ben - but
it was plain somebody had been making free in the meantime. I found I was out
by what might easily cover six months' salary and profit, and I could have
kicked myself all round the village to have been such a blamed ass, sitting
boozing with that Case instead of attending to my own affairs and taking stock.
However, there's
no use crying over spilt milk. It was done now, and couldn't be undone. All I
could do was to get what was left of it, and my new stuff (my own choice) in
order, to go round and get after the rats and cockroaches, and to fix up that
store regular Sydney style. A fine show I made of it; and the third morning
when I had lit my pipe and stood in the door-way and looked in, and turned and
looked far up the mountain and saw the cocoanuts waving and posted up the tons
of copra, and over the village green and saw the island dandies and reckoned up
the yards of print they wanted for their kilts and dresses, I felt as if I was
in the right place to make a fortune, and go home again and start a public-house.
There was I, sitting in that verandah, in as handsome a piece of scenery as you
could find, a splendid sun, and a fine fresh healthy trade that stirred up a
man's blood like sea-bathing; and the whole thing was clean gone from me, and I
was dreaming England, which is, after all, a nasty, cold, muddy hole, with not
enough light to see to read by; and dreaming the looks of my public, by a cant
of a broad high-road like an avenue, and with the sign on a green tree.
So much for the
morning, but the day passed and the devil anyone looked near me, and from all I
knew of natives in other islands I thought this strange. People laughed a
little at our firm and their fine stations, and at this station of Falesa in
particular; all the copra in the district wouldn't pay for it (I had heard them
say) in fifty years, which I supposed was an exaggeration. But when the day
went, and no business came at all, I began to get downhearted; and, about three
in the afternoon, I went out for a stroll to cheer me up. On the green I saw a
white man coming with a cassock on, by which and by the face of him I knew he
was a priest. He was a good-natured old soul to look at, gone a little
grizzled, and so dirty you could have written with him on a piece of paper.
"Good day,
sir," said I.
He answered me
eagerly in native.
"Don't you
speak any English?" said I.
"French,"
says he.
"Well,"
said I, "I'm sorry, but I can't do anything there."
He tried me
awhile in the French, and then again in native, which he seemed to think was
the best chance. I made out he was after more than passing the time of day with
me, but had something to communicate, and I listened the harder. I heard the
names of Adams and Case and of Randall - Randall the oftenest - and the word
"poison," or something like it, and a native word that he said very
often. I went home, repeating it to myself.
"What does
fussy-ocky mean?" I asked of Uma, for that was as near as I could come to
it.
"Make
dead," said she.
"The devil
it does!" says I. "Did ever you hear that Case had poisoned Johnnie
Adams?"
"Every man
he savvy that," says Uma, scornful-like. "Give him white sand - bad
sand. He got the bottle still. Suppose he give you gin, you no take him."
Now I had heard
much the same sort of story in other islands, and the same white powder always
to the front, which made me think the less of it. For all that, I went over to
Randall's place to see what I could pick up, and found Case on the doorstep,
cleaning a gun.
"Good
shooting here?" says I.
"A 1,"
says he. "The bush is full of all kinds of birds. I wish copra was as
plenty," says he - I thought, slyly - "but there don't seem anything
doing."
I could see Black
Jack in the store, serving a customer.
"That looks
like business, though," said I.
"That's the
first sale we've made in three weeks," said he.
"You don't
tell me?" says I. "Three weeks? Well, well."
"If you
don't believe me," he cries, a little hot, "you can go and look at
the copra-house. It's half empty to this blessed hour."
"I shouldn't
be much the better for that, you see," says I. "For all I can tell,
it might have been whole empty yesterday."
"That's
so," says he, with a bit of a laugh.
"By-the-bye,"
I said, "what sort of a party is that priest? Seems rather a friendly
sort."
At this Case
laughed right out loud. "Ah!" says he, "I see what ails you now.
Galuchet's been at you." - FATHER GALOSHES was the name he went by most,
but Case always gave it the French quirk, which was another reason we had for
thinking him above the common.
"Yes, I have
seen him," I says. "I made out he didn't think much of your Captain
Randall."
"That he
don't!" says Case. "It was the trouble about poor Adams. The last
day, when he lay dying, there was young Buncombe round. Ever met
Buncombe?"
I told him no.
"He's a
cure, is Buncombe!" laughs Case. "Well, Buncombe took it in his head
that, as there was no other clergyman about, bar Kanaka pastors, we ought to
call in Father Galuchet, and have the old man administered and take the
sacrament. It was all the same to me, you may suppose; but I said I thought
Adams was the fellow to consult. He was jawing away about watered copra and a
sight of foolery. 'Look here,' I said, 'you're pretty sick. Would you like to
see Goloshes?' He sat right up on his elbow. 'Get the priest,' says he, 'get
the priest; don't let me die here like a dog!' He spoke kind of fierce and
eager, but sensible enough. There was nothing to say against that, so we sent
and asked Galuchet if he would come. You bet he would. He jumped in his dirty
linen at the thought of it. But we had reckoned without Papa. He's a hard-
shell Baptist, is Papa; no Papists need apply. And he took and locked the door.
Buncombe told him he was bigoted, and I thought he would have had a fit.
'Bigoted!' he says. 'Me bigoted? Have I lived to hear it from a jackanapes like
you?' And he made for Buncombe, and I had to hold them apart; and there was
Adams in the middle, gone luny again, and carrying on about copra like a born
fool. It was good as the play, and I was about knocked out of time with
laughing, when all of a sudden Adams sat up, clapped his hands to his chest,
and went into the horrors. He died hard, did John Adams," says Case, with
a kind of a sudden sternness.
"And what
became of the priest?" I asked.
"The priest?"
says Case. "O! he was hammering on the door outside, and crying on the
natives to come and beat it in, and singing out it was a soul he wished to
save, and that. He was in a rare taking, was the priest. But what would you
have? Johnny had slipped his cable; no more Johnny in the market; and the
administration racket clean played out. Next thing, word came to Randall the
priest was praying upon Johnny's grave. Papa was pretty full, and got a club,
and lit out straight for the place, and there was Galoshes on his knees, and a
lot of natives looking on. You wouldn't think Papa cared - that much about
anything, unless it was liquor; but he and the priest stuck to it two hours,
slanging each other in native, and every time Galoshes tried to kneel down Papa
went for him with the club. There never were such larks in Falesa. The end of
it was that Captain Randall knocked over with some kind of a fit or stroke, and
the priest got in his goods after all. But he was the angriest priest you ever
heard of, and complained to the chiefs about the outrage, as he called it. That
was no account, for our chiefs are Protestant here; and, anyway, he had been
making trouble about the drum for morning school, and they were glad to give
him a wipe. Now he swears old Randall gave Adams poison or something, and when
the two meet they grin at each other like baboons."
He told this
story as natural as could be, and like a man that enjoyed the fun; though, now
I come to think of it after so long, it seems rather a sickening yarn. However,
Case never set up to be soft, only to be square and hearty, and a man all
round; and, to tell the truth, he puzzled me entirely.
I went home and
asked Uma if she were a Popey, which I had made out to be the native word for
Catholics.
"E LE
AI!" says she. She always used the native when she meant "no"
more than usually strong, and, indeed, there's more of it. "No good
Popey," she added.
Then I asked her
about Adams and the priest, and she told me much the same yarn in her own way.
So that I was left not much farther on, but inclined, upon the whole, to think
the bottom of the matter was the row about the sacrament, and the poisoning
only talk.
The next day was
a Sunday, when there was no business to be looked for. Uma asked me in the
morning if I was going to "pray"; I told her she bet not, and she
stopped home herself with no more words. I thought this seemed unlike a native,
and a native woman, and a woman that had new clothes to show off; however, it
suited me to the ground, and I made the less of it. The queer thing was that I
came next door to going to church after all, a thing I'm little likely to
forget. I had turned out for a stroll, and heard the hymn tune up. You know how
it is. If you hear folk singing, it seems to draw you; and pretty soon I found
myself alongside the church. It was a little long low place, coral built,
rounded off at both ends like a whale-boat, a big native roof on the top of it,
windows without sashes and doorways without doors. I stuck my head into one of
the windows, and the sight was so new to me - for things went quite different
in the islands I was acquainted with - that I stayed and looked on. The
congregation sat on the floor on mats, the women on one side, the men on the
other, all rigged out to kill - the women with dresses and trade hats, the men
in white jackets and shirts. The hymn was over; the pastor, a big buck Kanaka,
was in the pulpit, preaching for his life; and by the way he wagged his hand,
and worked his voice, and made his points, and seemed to argue with the folk, I
made out he was a gun at the business. Well, he looked up suddenly and caught
my eye, and I give you my word he staggered in the pulpit; his eyes bulged out
of his head, his hand rose and pointed at me like as if against his will, and the
sermon stopped right there.
It isn't a fine
thing to say for yourself, but I ran away; and if the same kind of a shock was
given me, I should run away again tomorrow. To see that palavering Kanaka
struck all of a heap at the mere sight of me gave me a feeling as if the bottom
had dropped out of the world. I went right home, and stayed there, and said
nothing. You might think I would tell Uma, but that was against my system. You
might have thought I would have gone over and consulted Case; but the truth was
I was ashamed to speak of such a thing, I thought everyone would blurt out
laughing in my face. So I held my tongue, and thought all the more; and the
more I thought, the less I liked the business.
By Monday night I
got it clearly in my head I must be tabooed. A new store to stand open two days
in a village and not a man or woman come to see the trade was past believing.
"Uma,"
said I, "I think I'm tabooed."
"I think
so," said she.
I thought awhile
whether I should ask her more, but it's a bad idea to set natives up with any
notion of consulting them, so I went to Case. It was dark, and he was sitting
alone, as he did mostly, smoking on the stairs.
"Case,"
said I, "here's a queer thing. I'm tabooed."
"O,
fudge!" says he; "'tain't the practice in these islands."
"That may
be, or it mayn't," said I. "It's the practice where I was before. You
can bet I know what it's like; and I tell it you for a fact, I'm tabooed."
"Well,"
said he, "what have you been doing?"
"That's what
I want to find out," said I.
"O, you
can't be," said he; "it ain't possible. However, I'll tell you what
I'll do. Just to put your mind at rest, I'll go round and find out for sure.
Just you waltz in and talk to Papa."
"Thank
you," I said, "I'd rather stay right out here on the verandah. Your
house is so close."
"I'll call
Papa out here, then," says he.
"My dear
fellow," I says, "I wish you wouldn't. The fact is, I don't take to
Mr. Randall."
Case laughed,
took a lantern from the store, and set out into the village. He was gone perhaps
a quarter of an hour, and he looked mighty serious when he came back.
"Well,"
said he, clapping down the lantern on the verandah steps, "I would never
have believed it. I don't know where the impudence of these Kanakas 'll go
next; they seem to have lost all idea of respect for whites. What we want is a
man-of-war - a German, if we could - they know how to manage Kanakas."
"I am
tabooed, then?" I cried.
"Something
of the sort," said he. "It's the worst thing of the kind I've heard
of yet. But I'll stand by you, Wiltshire, man to man. You come round here
to-morrow about nine, and we'll have it out with the chiefs. They're afraid of
me, or they used to be; but their heads are so big by now, I don't know what to
think. Understand me, Wiltshire; I don't count this your quarrel," he went
on, with a great deal of resolution, "I count it all of our quarrel, I
count it the White Man's Quarrel, and I'll stand to it through thick and thin,
and there's my hand on it."
"Have you
found out what's the reason?" I asked.
"Not
yet," said Case. "But we'll fix them down to-morrow."
Altogether I was
pretty well pleased with his attitude, and almost more the next day, when we
met to go before the chiefs, to see him so stern and resolved. The chiefs
awaited us in one of their big oval houses, which was marked out to us from a
long way off by the crowd about the eaves, a hundred strong if there was one -
men, women, and children. Many of the men were on their way to work and wore
green wreaths, and it put me in thoughts of the 1st of May at home. This crowd
opened and buzzed about the pair of us as we went in, with a sudden angry
animation. Five chiefs were there; four mighty stately men, the fifth old and
puckered. They sat on mats in their white kilts and jackets; they had fans in
their hands, like fine ladies; and two of the younger ones wore Catholic
medals, which gave me matter of reflection. Our place was set, and the mats
laid for us over against these grandees, on the near side of the house; the
midst was empty; the crowd, close at our backs, murmured and craned and jostled
to look on, and the shadows of them tossed in front of us on the clean pebbles
of the floor. I was just a hair put out by the excitement of the commons, but
the quiet civil appearance of the chiefs reassured me, all the more when their
spokesman began and made a long speech in a low tone of voice, sometimes waving
his hand towards Case, sometimes toward me, and sometimes knocking with his
knuckles on the mat. One thing was clear: there was no sign of anger in the
chiefs.
"What's he
been saying?" I asked, when he had done.
"O, just
that they're glad to see you, and they understand by me you wish to make some
kind of complaint, and you're to fire away, and they'll do the square
thing."
"It took a
precious long time to say that," said I.
"O, the rest
was sawder and bonjour and
that," said Case. "You know what Kanakas are."
"Well, they
don't get much bonjour out of
me," said I. "You tell them who I am. I'm a white man, and a British
subject, and no end of a big chief at home; and I've come here to do them good,
and bring them civilisation; and no sooner have I got my trade sorted out than
they go and taboo me, and no one dare come near my place! Tell them I don't
mean to fly in the face of anything legal; and if what they want's a present,
I'll do what's fair. I don't blame any man looking out for himself, tell them,
for that's human nature; but if they think they're going to come any of their
native ideas over me, they'll find themselves mistaken. And tell them plain
that I demand the reason of this treatment as a white man and a British
subject."
That was my
speech. I know how to deal with Kanakas: give them plain sense and fair
dealing, and - I'll do them that much justice - they knuckle under every time.
They haven't any real government or any real law, that's what you've got to
knock into their heads; and even if they had, it would be a good joke if it was
to apply to a white man. It would be a strange thing if we came all this way
and couldn't do what we pleased. The mere idea has always put my monkey up, and
I rapped my speech out pretty big. Then Case translated it - or made believe
to, rather - and the first chief replied, and then a second, and a third, all
in the same style, easy and genteel, but solemn underneath. Once a question was
put to Case, and he answered it, and all hands (both chiefs and commons)
laughed out aloud, and looked at me. Last of all, the puckered old fellow and
the big young chief that spoke first started in to put Case through a kind of
catechism. Sometimes I made out that Case was trying to fence, and they stuck
to him like hounds, and the sweat ran down his face, which was no very pleasant
sight to me, and at some of his answers the crowd moaned and murmured, which
was a worse hearing. It's a cruel shame I knew no native, for (as I now
believe) they were asking Case about my marriage, and he must have had a tough
job of it to clear his feet. But leave Case alone; he had the brains to ran a
parliament.
"Well, is
that all?" I asked, when a pause came.
"Come
along," says he, mopping his face; "I'll tell you outside."
"Do you mean
they won't take the taboo off?" I cried.
"It's
something queer," said he. "I'll tell you outside. Better come
away."
"I won't
take it at their hands," cried I. "I ain't that kind of a man. You
don't find me turn my back on a parcel of Kanakas."
"You'd
better," said Case.
He looked at me
with a signal in his eye; and the five chiefs looked at me civilly enough, but
kind of pointed; and the people looked at me and craned and jostled. I
remembered the folks that watched my house, and how the pastor had jumped in
his pulpit at the bare sight of me; and the whole business seemed so out of the
way that I rose and followed Case. The crowd opened again to let us through,
but wider than before, the children on the skirts running and singing out, and
as we two white men walked away they all stood and watched us.
"And
now," said I, "what is all this about?"
"The truth
is I can't rightly make it out myself. They have a down on you," says
Case.
"Taboo a man
because they have a down on him!" I cried. "I never heard the
like."
"It's worse
than that, you see," said Case. "You ain't tabooed - I told you that
couldn't be. The people won't go near you, Wiltshire, and there's where it
is."
"They won't
go near me? What do you mean by that? Why won't they go near me?" I cried.
Case hesitated.
"Seems they're frightened," says he, in a low, voice.
I stopped dead
short. "Frightened?" I repeated. "Are you gone crazy, Case? What
are they frightened of?"
"I wish I
could make out," Case answered, shaking his head. "Appears like one
of their tomfool superstitions. That's what I don't cotton to," he said.
"It's like the business about Vigours."
"I'd like to
know what you mean by that, and I'll trouble you to tell me," says I.
"Well, you
know, Vigours lit out and left all standing," said he. "It was some
superstition business - I never got the hang of it but it began to look bad
before the end."
"I've heard
a different story about that," said I, "and I had better tell you so.
I heard he ran away because of you."
"O! well, I
suppose he was ashamed to tell the truth," says Case; "I guess he
thought it silly. And it's a fact that I packed him off. 'What would you do,
old man?' says he. 'Get,' says I, 'and not think twice about it.' I was the
gladdest kind of man to see him clear away. It ain't my notion to turn my back
on a mate when he's in a tight place, but there was that much trouble in the
village that I couldn't see where it might likely end. I was a fool to be so
much about with Vigours. They cast it up to me to- day. Didn't you hear Maea -
that's the young chief, the big one - ripping out about 'Vika'? That was him
they were after. They don't seem to forget it, somehow."
"This is all
very well," said I, "but it don't tell me what's wrong; it don't tell
me what they're afraid of - what their idea is."
"Well, I
wish I knew," said Case. "I can't say fairer than that."
"You might
have asked, I think," says I.
"And so I
did," says he. "But you must have seen for yourself, unless you're
blind, that the asking got the other way. I'll go as far as I dare for another
white man; but when I find I'm in the scrape myself, I think first of my own
bacon. The loss of me is I'm too good-natured. And I'll take the freedom of
telling you you show a queer kind of gratitude to a man who's got into all this
mess along of your affairs."
"There's a
thing I am thinking of," said I. "You were a fool to be so much about
with Vigours. One comfort, you haven't been much about with me. I notice you've
never been inside my house. Own up now; you had word of this before?"
"It's a fact
I haven't been," said he. "It was an oversight, and I am sorry for
it, Wiltshire. But about coming now, I'll be quite plain."
"You mean
you won't?" I asked.
"Awfully
sorry, old man, but that's the size of it," says Case.
"In short,
you're afraid?" says I.
"In short,
I'm afraid," says he.
"And I'm
still to be tabooed for nothing?" I asked
"I tell you
you're not tabooed," said he. "The Kanakas won't go near you, that's
all. And who's to make 'em? We traders have a lot of gall, I must say; we make
these poor Kanakas take back their laws, and take up their taboos, and that,
whenever it happens to suit us. But you don't mean to say you expect a law
obliging people to deal in your store whether they want to or not? You don't
mean to tell me you've got the gall for that? And if you had, it would be a
queer thing to propose to me. I would just like to point out to you, Wiltshire,
that I'm a trader myself."
"I don't
think I would talk of gall if I was you," said I. "Here's about what
it comes to, as well as I can make out: None of the people are to trade with
me, and they're all to trade with you. You're to have the copra, and I'm to go
to the devil and shake myself. And I don't know any native, and you're the only
man here worth mention that speaks English, and you have the gall to up and
hint to me my life's in danger, and all you've got to tell me is you don't know
why!"
"Well, it IS
all I have to tell you," said he. "I don't know - I wish I did."
"And so you
turn your back and leave me to myself! Is that the position?" says I.
"If you like
to put it nasty," says he. "I don't put it so. I say merely, 'I'm
going to keep clear of you; or, if I don't, I'll get in danger for myself.'
"
"Well,"
says I, "you're a nice kind of a white man!"
"O, I
understand; you're riled," said he. "I would be myself. I can make
excuses."
"All
right," I said, "go and make excuses somewhere else. Here's my way,
there's yours!"
With that we
parted, and I went straight home, in a hot temper, and found Uma trying on a
lot of trade goods like a baby.
"Here,"
I said, "you quit that foolery! Here's a pretty mess to have made, as if I
wasn't bothered enough anyway! And I thought I told you to get dinner!"
And then I
believe I gave her a bit of the rough side of my tongue, as she deserved. She
stood up at once, like a sentry to his officer; for I must say she was always
well brought up, and had a great respect for whites.
"And
now," says I, "you belong round here, you're bound to understand
this. What am I tabooed for, anyway? Or, if I ain't tabooed, what makes the
folks afraid of me?"
She stood and
looked at me with eyes like saucers.
"You no
savvy?" she gasps at last.
"No,"
said I. "How would you expect me to? We don't have any such craziness
where I come from."
"Ese no tell
you?" she asked again.
(ESE was the name
the natives had for Case; it may mean foreign, or extraordinary; or it might
mean a mummy apple; but most like it was only his own name misheard and put in
a Kanaka spelling.)
"Not
much," said I.
"D-n
Ese!" she cried.
You might think
it funny to hear this Kanaka girl come out with a big swear. No such thing.
There was no swearing in her - no, nor anger; she was beyond anger, and meant
the word simple and serious. She stood there straight as she said it. I cannot
justly say that I ever saw a woman look like that before or after, and it
struck me mum. Then she made a kind of an obeisance, but it was the proudest
kind, and threw her hands out open.
"I
'shamed," she said. "I think you savvy. Ese he tell me you savvy, he
tell me you no mind, tell me you love me too much. Taboo belong me," she
said, touching herself on the bosom, as she had done upon our wedding-night.
"Now I go 'way, taboo he go 'way too. Then you get too much copra. You
like more better, I think. TOFA, ALII," says she in the native -
"Farewell, chief!"
"Hold
on!" I cried. "Don't be in such a hurry."
She looked at me
sidelong with a smile. "You see, you get copra," she said, the same
as you might offer candies to a child.
"Uma,"
said I, "hear reason. I didn't know, and that's a fact; and Case seems to
have played it pretty mean upon the pair of us. But I do know now, and I don't
mind; I love you too much. You no go 'way, you no leave me, I too much
sorry."
"You no
love, me," she cried, "you talk me bad words!" And she threw
herself in a corner of the floor, and began to cry.
Well, I'm no
scholar, but I wasn't born yesterday, and I thought the worst of that trouble
was over. However, there she lay - her back turned, her face to the wall - and
shook with sobbing like a little child, so that her feet jumped with it. It's
strange how it hits a man when he's in love; for there's no use mincing things
- Kanaka and all, I was in love with her, or just as good. I tried to take her
hand, but she would none of that. "Uma," I said, "there's no
sense in carrying on like this. I want you stop here, I want my little wifie, I
tell you true."
"No tell me
true," she sobbed.
"All
right," says I, "I'll wait till you're through with this." And I
sat right down beside her on the floor, and set to smooth her hair with my
hand. At first she wriggled away when I touched her; then she seemed to notice
me no more; then her sobs grew gradually less, and presently stopped; and the
next thing I knew, she raised her face to mime.
"You tell me
true? You like me stop?" she asked.
"Uma,"
I said, "I would rather have you than all the copra in the South
Seas," which was a very big expression, and the strangest thing was that I
meant it.
She threw her
arms about me, sprang close up, and pressed her face to mine in the island way
of kissing, so that I was all wetted with her tears, and my heart went out to
her wholly. I never had anything so near me as this little brown bit of a girl.
Many things went together, and all helped to turn my head. She was pretty
enough to eat; it seemed she was my only friend in that queer place; I was
ashamed that I had spoken rough to her: and she was a woman, and my wife, and a
kind of a baby besides that I was sorry for; and the salt of her tears was in
my mouth. And I forgot Case and the natives; and I forgot that I knew nothing
of the story, or only remembered it to banish the remembrance; and I forgot
that I was to get no copra, and so could make no livelihood; and I forgot my
employers, and the strange kind of service I was doing them, when I preferred
my fancy to their business; and I forgot even that Uma was no true wife of
mine, but just a maid beguiled, and that in a pretty shabby style. But that is
to look too far on. I will come to that part of it next.
It was late
before we thought of getting dinner. The stove was out, and gone stone-cold;
but we fired up after a while, and cooked each a dish, helping and hindering
each other, and making a play of it like children. I was so greedy of her
nearness that I sat down to dinner with my lass upon my knee, made sure of her
with one hand, and ate with the other. Ay, and more than that. She was the
worst cook I suppose God made; the things she set her hand to it would have
sickened an honest horse to eat of; yet I made my meal that day on Uma's
cookery, and can never call to mind to have been better pleased.
I didn't pretend
to myself, and I didn't pretend to her. I saw I was clean gone; and if she was
to make a fool of me, she must. And I suppose it was this that set her talking,
for now she made sure that we were friends. A lot she told me, sitting in my
lap and eating my dish, as I ate hers, from foolery - a lot about herself and
her mother and Case, all which would be very tedious, and fill sheets if I set
it down in Beach de Mar, but which I must give a hint of in plain English, and
one thing about myself which had a very big effect on my concerns, as you are
soon to hear.
It seems she was
born in one of the Line Islands; had been only two or three years in these
parts, where she had come with a white man, who was married to her mother and
then died; and only the one year in Falesa. Before that they had been a good
deal on the move, trekking about after the white man, who was one of those
rolling stones that keep going round after a soft job. They talk about looking
for gold at the end of a rainbow; but if a man wants an employment that'll last
him till he dies, let him start out on the soft-job hunt. There's meat and
drink in it too, and beer and skittles, for you never hear of them starving,
and rarely see them sober; and as for steady sport, cock-fighting isn't in the
same county with it. Anyway, this beachcomber carried the woman and her
daughter all over the shop, but mostly to out-of-the-way islands, where there
were no police, and he thought, perhaps, the soft job hung out. I've my own
view of this old party; but I was just as glad he had kept Uma clear of Apia
and Papeete and these flash towns. At last he struck Fale-alii on this island,
got some trade - the Lord knows how! - muddled it all away in the usual style,
and died worth next to nothing, bar a bit of land at Falesa that he had got for
a bad debt, which was what put it in the minds of the mother and daughter to
come there and live. It seems Case encouraged them all he could, and helped to
get their house built. He was very kind those days, and gave Uma trade, and
there is no doubt he had his eye on her from the beginning. However, they had
scarce settled, when up turned a young man, a native, and wanted to marry her.
He was a small chief, and had some fine mats and old songs in his family, and
was "very pretty," Uma said; and, altogether, it was an
extra-ordinary match for a penniless girl and an out-islander.
At the first word
of this I got downright sick with jealousy.
"And you
mean to say you would have married him?" I cried.
"IOE,
yes," said she. "I like too much!"
"Well!"
I said. "And suppose I had come round after?"
"I like you
more better now," said she. "But, suppose I marry Ioane, I one good
wife. I no common Kanaka. Good girl!" says she.
Well, I had to be
pleased with that; but I promise you I didn't care about the business one
little bit. And I liked the end of that yarn no better than the beginning. For
it seems this proposal of marriage was the start of all the trouble. It seems,
before that, Uma and her mother had been looked down upon, of course, for
kinless folk and out-islanders, but nothing to hurt; and, even when Ioane came
forward, there was less trouble at first than might have been looked for. And
then, all of a sudden, about six months before my coming, Ioane backed out and
left that part of the island, and from that day to this Uma and her mother had
found themselves alone. None called at their house, none spoke to them on the
roads. If they went to church, the other women drew their mats away and left
them in a clear place by themselves. It was a regular excommunication, like
what you read of in the Middle Ages; and the cause or sense of it beyond
guessing. It was some TALA PEPELO, Uma said, some lie, some calumny; and all
she knew of it was that the girls who had been jealous of her luck with Ioane
used to twit her with his desertion, and cry out, when they met her alone in
the woods, that she would never be married. "They tell me no man he marry
me. He too much 'fraid," she said.
The only soul
that came about them after this desertion was Master Case. Even he was chary of
showing himself, and turned up mostly by night; and pretty soon he began to
table his cards and make up to Uma. I was still sore about Ioane, and when Case
turned up in the same line of business I cut up downright rough.
"Well,"
I said, sneering, "and I suppose you thought Case 'very pretty' and 'liked
too much'?"
"Now you
talk silly," said she. "White man, he come here, I marry him
all-e-same Kanaka; very well then, he marry me all-e-same white woman. Suppose
he no marry, he go 'way, woman he stop. All-e-same thief, empty hand,
Tonga-heart - no can love! Now you come marry me. You big heart - you no 'shamed
island-girl. That thing I love you for too much. I proud."
I don't know that
ever I felt sicker all the days of my life. I laid down my fork, and I put away
"the island-girl"; I didn't seem somehow to have any use for either,
and I went and walked up and down in the house, and Uma followed me with her
eyes, for she was troubled, and small wonder! But troubled was no word for it
with me. I so wanted, and so feared, to make a clean breast of the sweep that I
had been.
And just then
there came a sound of singing out of the sea; it sprang up suddenly clear and
near, as the boat turned the headland, and Uma, running to the window, cried
out it was "Misi" come upon his rounds.
I thought it was
a strange thing I should be glad to have a missionary; but, if it was strange,
it was still true.
"Uma,"
said I, "you stop here in this room, and don't budge a foot out of it till
I come back."
