A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      Pacific Tales (1897)
Author:     Louis Becke
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Language:   English
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Title:      Pacific Tales (1897)
Author:     Louis Becke





TO

MY TRUE FRIEND AND GOOD COMRADE,

TOM DE WOLF,

I DEDICATE THESE TALES.

IN MEMORY OF THOSE OLDEN DAYS

WHEN UNDER STRANGE SKIES WE SAILED TOGETHER

IN WEATHER FOUL AND FAIR.


Savage Club,
London, April 15, 1896.



CONTENTS

AN ISLAND MEMORY: ENGLISH BOB

IN THE OLD, BEACHCOMBING DAYS

MRS. MALLESON'S RIVAL

PRESCOTT OF NAURA

CHESTER'S "CROSS"

HOLLIS'S DEBT: A TALE OF THE NORTH-WEST PACIFIC

THE ARM OF LUNO CAPÁL

IN A SAMOAN VILLAGE

COLLIER: THE "BLACKBIRDER"

IN THE EVENING

THE GREAT CRUSHING AT MOUNT SUGAR-BAG

THE SHADOWS OF THE DEAD

"FOR WE WERE FRIENDS ALWAYS"

NIKOA

THE STRANGE WHITE WOMAN OF MADURO

THE OBSTINACY OF MRS. TATTON

DR. LUDWIG SCHWALBE, SOUTH SEA SAVANT

THE TREASURE OF DON BRUNO







AN ISLAND MEMORY: ENGLISH BOB


There was once a South Sea Island supercargo named Denison who had
a Kanaka father and mother.  This was when Denison was a young man.
His father's name was Kusis; his mother's Tulpé.  Also, he had
several brown-skinned, lithe-limbed, and big-eyed brothers and
sisters, who made much of their new white brother, and petted and
caressed and wept over him as if he were an ailing child of six
instead of a tough young fellow of two-and-twenty who had nothing
wrong with him but a stove-in rib and a heart that ached for home,
which made him cross and fretful.

But Denison hasn't got much to do with this story, so all I need
say of him is that he had been the supercargo of a brig called the
Leonora; and the Leonora had been wrecked on Strong's Island in the
North Pacific; and Denison had quarrelled with the captain, whose
name was "Bully" Hayes; and so one day he said goodbye to the
roystering Bully and the rest of his shipmates, and travelled
across the lagoon till he came to a sweet little village named
Leassé, and asked for Kusis, who was the head man thereof.

"Give me, O Kusis, to eat and drink, and a mat whereon to sleep;
for I have broken apart from the rest of the white men who were
cast away with me in the ship, and there is no more friendship
between us.  And I desire to live here in peace."

Then Kusis, who was but a stalwart savage, nude to his loins, and
tattooed from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, lifted
Denison up in his brawny arms, and carried him into his house, and
set him down on a fine mat; and Tulpé, his wife, and Kinia, his
daughter, put food before him on platters of twisted cane, and bade
him eat.

Then, when the white man slept, Kusis called around him the people
of Leassé and told them that that very day a messenger had come to
him from the King and said that the white man who was coming to
Leassé was to be as a son to him, "for," said the King, "my stomach
is filled with friendship for this man, because when he was rich
and a supercargo he had a generous hand to us of Strong's Island.
But now he is poor, and hath been sick for many months, so thou,
Kusis, must be father to him and give him all that he may want."

So that is how Denison came to stay at Leassé, and lived on the fat
of the land in the quiet little village nestling under the shadows
of Mont Buáche, while up at Utwe Harbour on the south side of the
island, Bully Hayes and his crew of swarthy ruffians drank and
robbed and fought and cut each others' throats, and stole women
from the villages round about, and turned an island paradise into a
hell of base and wicked passions.  But though Leassé was but ten
miles from Utwe, none of the shipwrecked sailors ever came there,
partly because Captain Hayes had promised Denison that his men
should not interfere with Leassé, and partly because the men
themselves all liked Denison, and did NOT like the Winchester rifle
he owned.

And as he grew stronger and joined the villagers in their huntings
and fishings, they made more and more of him, but yet watched his
movements with a jealous eye, lest he should grow tired of them and
go back to the other white men.

Leassé, as I have said, was but a little village--not quite thirty
houses--and stood on gently undulating ground at the foot of a
mountain, whose sides were clothed with verdure and whose summit at
dawn and eve was always veiled in misty clouds.  And so dense was
the foliage of the mountain forest of "tamanu" and "masa'oi" that
only here and there could the bright sunlight pierce through the
leafy canopy and streak with lines of gold the thick brown carpet
of leaves covering the warm red soil beneath.  Sometimes, when the
trade wind had died away and the swish and rustle of the tree-tops
overhead had ceased, one might hear the faint murmur of voices in
the village far below, or the sharp screaming note of the mountain
cock calling to his mate, and now and then the muffled roar of the
surf beating upon its coral barrier miles and miles away.

But down from the gloomy silence of the mountain there led a narrow
path that followed the winding course of a little stream, which in
places leapt from shelves of hard black rock into deep pools
perhaps fifty feet below, and then swirled and danced over its
pebbly bed till it sprang out joyously from its darkened course
above into the bright light and life of the shining beach and the
tumbling surf and sunlit, cloudless sky of blue that ever lay
before and above the dwellers in Leassé village.

Right in front of the village ran a sweeping curve of yellow beach,
with here and there a clump of rocks, whose black, jagged outlines
were covered with mantles of creepers and vines green and yellow,
in which at night-time the snow-white tropic birds came to roost
with clamorous note.  Back from the beach stood groves of pandanus
and breadfruit and coconuts, whose branches sang merrily all day
long to the sweep of the whistling trade wind, but drooped
languidly at sunset when it died away.

Straight before the door of Denison's house of thatch there lay a
wide expanse of placid, reef-bound sea, pale-greenish in its
shallower portions near the shore, but deepening into blue as it
increased in depth toward the line of foaming surf that ever roared
and thundered upon the jagged coral wall which flung the sweeping
billows back in clouds of misty spume.  Half a mile away, and
shining like emeralds in the bright rays of the tropic sun, lay two
tiny islets of palms that seemed to float and quiver on the glassy
surface in the glory of their surpassing green.

At dusk, when the shadows of the great mountain fell upon the
yellow curve of beach, and the coming night enwrapped the silent
aisles of the forest, the men of Leassé would sit outside their
houses and smoke and talk, whilst the women and girls would sing
the songs of the old bygone days when they were a strong people
with spear and club in hand, and the mountain-sides and now
deserted bays of Strong's Island were thick with the houses of
their forefathers.

                          * * * * *

One evening, as Kusis, with Tulpé, his wife, and Kinia, his
daughter, sat with Denison on a wide mat outspread before the
doorway of their house, listening to the beat of the distant surf
upon the reef, and watching the return of a fleet of fishing
canoes, they were joined by a half-caste boy and girl who lived in
a village some few miles further along the coast.  The boy was
about twelve years of age, the girl two or three years older.
Denison had one day met them, and they had taken him with them to
their mother's house.  She was a woman of not much past thirty, and
the moment the white man entered had greeted him warmly, and
pointing to some muskets, cutlasses, and many other articles of
European manufacture that hung from the beams overhead, said:
"See, those were my husband's guns and swords."

"Ahé, and was he a white man?"

"Aye," the woman answered proudly, as she brought Denison a mat to
sit upon, "a white man, and, like thee, an Englishman.  But it is
two years now since he died under the spears of the men of Yap,
when he led other white men to the attack on the great fort in the
bay there.  Ah, he was a brave man!  And then I, who saw him die,
came back here with my children to Leassé to live, for here in this
very house was I born, and this land that encompasseth it is mine
by inheritance."

From that day Denison and the two half-caste children became sworn
friends, and twice or thrice a week the boy and girl would walk
over to see him, and stay the night so as to accompany him fishing
or shooting on the following day.  The boy was a sturdy, well-built
youngster, with a skin that, from constant exposure to the sun, was
almost as dark as that of a full-blooded native; but the girl was
very light in complexion, with those strangely deep, lustrous eyes
common to women of the Micronesian and Polynesian people--eyes in
whose liquid depths one may read the coming fate of all their race,
doomed to utter extinction before the inroads of civilisation with
all its deadly terrors of insidious and unknown disease.  Unlike
her brother, who either could not or pretended he could not,
understand English, Tasia both understood and spoke it with some
fluency, for, with her mother and brother, she had always
accompanied her father in his wanderings about the Pacific, and had
mixed much with white men of a certain class--traders, pearl-
shellers, and deserters from whaleships and men-of-war.

For some minutes Kusis and his white friend smoked their pipes in
silence, whilst Tulpé and the two girls sat a little apart from
them, talking in the soft, almost whispered tones peculiar to the
Malayan-blooded women of the Caroline Islands, and looking at some
boys who were boxing with the half-caste lad near by.

"Ha!" said Tasia to the two men, with a laugh, "see those foolish
boys trying to fight like English people."

"What know you of how English people fight, Tasia?" asked Denison.

The girl arched her pretty black brows.  "Much.  I have seen my
father fight--and he was the greatest fighter in the world."

"Truly?"

"Truly.  Is it not so, Kusis?"

"Aye," said Kusis, turning to Denison, "he was a great fighter with
his hands as well as with musket and sword.  Tell him, Tasia, of
how thy father fought at Ebon."

                          * * * * *

"When I was but ten years old there came to Lela Harbour on this
island a great English fighting ship, and my father, who had run
away from just such another ship long years before in a country
called Kali-fo-nia, became troubled in his mind, and hid himself in
the forest till she had gone.  When he returned to his house, he
said--pointing to many letters and tattoo marks on his breast and
arms--'Only because of these names written on my skin have I lived
like a wild boar in the woods for three days; for see, this name
across my breast, were it seen by the people of the man-of-war,
would bring me to chains and a prison, and I should see thee no
more.'  And so, because he feared that another man-of-war might
come here, he had the whole of his breast, back, and arms tattooed
very deeply, after the fashion of Strong's Island, so that the old
marks were quite hidden.  Yet even then he was still moody, and at
last he took us away with him in a whaleship to an island called
Ebon, ten days' sail from here.  And here for a year we lived,
although the people were strange to us, and their language and
customs very different to ours.  As time went on, the Ebon people
began to think much of my father, because of his great bodily
strength and courage in battle, for they were at war among
themselves, and he was ever foremost in fighting for Labayan, the
chief under whose protection we lived.

"One day a great American warship came into the lagoon of Ebon, and
many of the sailors came ashore and got drunk, and as they
staggered about the village, frightening the women and children,
one of them, hearing that my father was a white man, came to him as
he sat quietly in his house, gave him foul words, and then said--

"'Come out and fight, thou tattooed beast, who calleth thyself a
white man.'

"There were many sailors gathered outside the house, and these,
because my father took no heed of the drunken man's words, but bade
him go away, called out that he was but a beach-combing coward and
had no white blood in him, else would he take up the challenge.

"Then Bob--for that was my father's name--put a loaded musket in my
mother's hand, and said:  'I must fight this man; but stand thou at
the door, and if any one of the others seeks to enter the house,
fear not to shoot him dead.'  Then he stepped out to the sailors,
and said--

"'Why must I fight this man?  What quarrel hath he with me, or I
with him?  And I shall not fight with a man when he is "tamtrunk"
and cannot stand straight on his feet.'

"'Fight him,' they answered, 'else shall we pull thy house down and
beat thee for an English cur.'

"And then I heard the sound of blows, and could see that Bob and
the man who challenged him were fighting.  Presently I heard the
sound of a man falling, and the blue-coated sailors gave a great
cry, and I saw my father standing alone in the ring.  At a little
distance lay the American, whose body was supported by two of his
friends.  His head had sunk forward on his chest, and those about
him said to my father, 'His jaw is broken.'

"My father laughed--'Whose fault is that?  Ye forced me to fight,
and I struck him but once.  Is there no one man among ye who can do
better than he?  'Tis a poor victory for an Englishman to break the
jaw of a man who thought he could fight, but could not.'  Then he
mocked them, and said they were 'skitas' (boasters) like all the
'Yankeese'; for now he was angry, and his eyes were like glowing
coals.

"But they were not all 'skitas,' for two or three stepped out and
wanted to fight him, but the others stayed them, and said to my
father:  'Nay, no more now; go back to thy wife; but to-morrow
night we shall bring a man from the other watch on board the ship
whom we will match against thee.'  Then they lifted up the man with
the broken jaw, and carried him away.

"In the morning there came to our house two sailors bearing a
letter, which my father read.  It said that there would come ashore
that night the best fighting man of the ship, who would fight him
for one hundred dollars in silver money.

"Now thirteen silver dollars was all the money my father had, so he
went to Labayan the chief, who had a strong friendship for him, and
read him the letter.  'Lend me,' said he, 'seven-and-thirty dollars,
and I will fight this man; and if I be beaten and the fifty dollars
are lost, then shall I give thee a musket and five fat hogs for the
money lent me.'

"Now, Labayan could not refuse my father, so without a word he
brought him the money and placed it in his hands, and said:  'Take
it, O Papu the Strong, and if it be that thou art beaten in the
fight, then I forgive thee the debt--it is God's will if this man
prove the stronger of the two.'

                          * * * * *

"At sunset two boats filled with men came ashore.  Four score and
six were they altogether, for my mother and I counted them as they
walked up from the beach to the great open square in front of the
chief's house.  All round the sides of the square were placed mats
for them to sit upon, and presently baked fish and fowls to eat and
young coconuts to drink were put before them by the people, who
were gathered together in great numbers, for the news of the fight
had gone to every village on the island, and they all came to see.
As darkness came on, hundreds of torches were lit, and held up by
the women and boys.

"By and by, when the sailors had finished eating, Labayan and his
two wives came out and sat down at one end of the square, and my
mother and I sat with them.  And then, as fresh torches were lit,
so that the great square became as light as day, a man rose up from
among the white men and stepped into the centre.

"'Where is the man?' he said.

"'Here,' answered my father, pushing his way through the swarm of
people who stood tightly packed together behind the sitting white
men, 'and here is my money'; and he held out a small bag.

"'And here is ours,' said some of the sailors, coming forward, and
the money was placed in Labayan's hands.  Then one of them opened a
bottle of grog, and my father and the other man each drank some.
Then they stripped to their waists.  My father was thought to be a
very big and strong man; but when Labayan and his people saw the
other man take off his jumper and shirt, and beheld his great hairy
chest and muscles that stood out like the roots of a tree when they
protrude from the ground, they murmured.  'He will kill Papu,' they
said.

"So Labayan cried, 'Stop!' and standing up and speaking very
quickly, said:  'O Papu, there must be no fight!  But tell all
these white men that the man they have brought to fight thee shall
have the money that is in my hands.  And tell them also--so that
they shall not be vexed--that the women and girls shall dance for
them here in the square till sunrise.'

"My father laughed and shook his head, but told the white men
Labayan's words, and they too laughed.

"'Nay, Labayan,' said my father, 'fight I must, or else be shamed.
But have no fear; this will be a long fight, but I am the better of
the two.  I know this man; he is an Englishman like myself, and a
great fighter.  But he does not know me now; for it is many years
since he saw me last.'  And then he and the sailor shook each other
by the hand; and then began the fight.

"Ah! it was terrible to look at, and soon I began to tremble, and I
hid my face on my mother's bosom.  Once I heard a loud cry from the
assembled people, and looking up saw my father stagger backwards
and fall.  But only for a moment, and as he rose again the white
men clapped their hands and shouted loudly; and again I hid my face
as the two met again, and the sounds of their blows and their
fierce breathing seemed like thunder in my ears.

"Presently they rested awhile, and now the torches blazed up again,
and, as the women saw that the face of the big man was reddened
with blood which ran down his body, their hearts were filled with
pity, a great wailing cry broke from them, and they ran up to
Labayan and besought him to bid the fight to cease.  But the white
men said it must go on.

"As the two men rested, sitting on the knees of two of the sailors,
they each drank a little grog--just a mouthful.  Then they stood up
again, staggering about like drunken men; and my mother and I, with
many other women, ran into Labayan's house and wept together--for
we could no longer look.  Suddenly we heard a great cry of triumph
from the assembled people, but the white men were silent.  Then
Labayan called to us to come and see.  So we ran out into the
square again.

"The big white man lay upon a mat, but he was horrible to look at,
and we turned our faces away.  My father sat near him, held up by
Labayan and one of the white sailors, and lying beside his open
hand were the two bags of money.  But his eyes were closed, and he
breathed heavily.

"As the people--white and brown--thronged around the big man to see
if he were dead, we heard the tramp of marching men, and a score of
sailors carrying muskets, with swords fastened to their muzzles,
came across the square.  They were led by two officers, who held
drawn swords in their hands.

"'What is this?' said he who was leader, sternly, looking first at
one and then at another of the white sailors.  Then they told him,
and said it had been a fair fight.

"'Back to the boats, every man,' he said, 'but first carry this
dying man into a house, where he must lie till the doctor comes to
him.'  And then, when this was done, the armed men drove the others
down to the boats, and the square became dark and deserted.

"My father was but little hurt, and all that night he sat beside
the man he had fought, who lay sick for many days in Labayan's
house.  Every morning the doctor from the ship came to see him, and
other white men came as well.  At last he got better, and then he
and my father had a long talk together, and shook each other's
hands, and became as brothers.  Then the boat came for him, and the
beaten man bid us all farewell and went away.

"That night my father told us that this man, who was named Harry,
had once been a friend of his, and they had served the Queen of
England together in the same man-of-war, and, like him, had run
away from the ship.  And as soon as my father met him face to face
in the square he knew him, 'and,' said he, 'it came hard to me to
fight a man who was once my friend, and was still my countryman,
but yet it had to be done to shame those boasting "Yankeese," who
are but "skitas."'"

                          * * * * *

And now, as I think of Tasia's story, there springs upon my memory
the tale of the fight told of in "The Man from Snowy River," where
an Australian station manager, fresh from England, fought a
terrible fight with an intruding drover.  So, only changing four
words of "Saltbush Bill," and with all apologies--


Now the sailor fought for a money prize with a scowl on his bearded
  face,
But the trader fought for his honour's sake and the pride of the
  English race.




IN THE OLD, BEACH-COMBING DAYS


A white, misty rain-squall swept down the mountain pass at the head
of Lêla Harbour, plashed noisily across the deep waters of the land-
locked bay and whirled away seaward.

Standing upon jutting ledges of the inner or harbour reef, a number
of brown-skinned women and children were fishing.  The tide was low
and the water smooth, and as the fishers shook the raindrops from
off their black tresses and shining skins of bronze they laughed
and sang and called out to one another across the deep reef-pools.

"Ai-e-eh!" cried a tall, slender girl, naked to her hips, around
which she wore, like her older and younger companions, a broad,
woven sash of gaily-coloured banana fibre--"ai-e-eh! 'tis a cold
rain, but now will the fish bite fast, and I shall take me home a
heavier basket than any of ye here;" and then she deftly swung her
long bamboo rod over the pool on whose rugged brink she stood.

"Tah!  Listen to her!" called out a round-faced, merry-eyed little
woman who fished on the other aide.  "Listen to Niya the Wisehead!
She hath not yet caught a fish, and now boasteth of the great
basketful she will take home!  Get thee home for thy father's seine
net, for thou canst not catch anything with thy rod;" and the
speaker, with a good-humoured laugh, took a small fish out of the
basket that hung at her side and threw it at the girl.

Niya, too, laughed merrily as she ducked her head and twisted her
lithe young body sideways, and the fish, flying past her face,
struck a boy who stood near to her in the back.

He swung round, and with mock ferocity hurled the fish back at she
who threw it.

"That for thee, fat-faced Tulpé; and would that it had gone into
thy big mouth and down thy throat and choked thee!  Then would thy
husband call me friend, and seek out another wife; for, look thou,
Tulpé, thou art getting old and ugly now."

A loud shriek of laughter from Niya, a merry, mocking echo from
those about her, joined in with Tulpé's own good-natured chuckle,
and then, flinging down their rods and baskets, they sprang into
the water one after another and played and laughed and gambolled
like the children they were all in heart if not in years.

By and by the sun came out, hot and fierce, and the women and
children, rods in hand and baskets on backs, made homewards to
their village across the broken surface of the reef.  Right before
them it lay, a cluster of some two or three score of grey-thatched,
saddle-backed houses, with slender sharp-pointed gables at either
end.

Nearest to the beach and distinguishable from the others by its
great size was the dwelling of Togusa, the chief of Lêla Harbour.
At a distance of fifty feet or so from its canework sides a low
wall of coral slabs surrounded it on four sides, with gateways at
back and front.  Within, the walled-in space was covered with snow-
white pebbles of broken coral, save where a narrow pathway led from
the front gateway to the open doorway of the house.

On came the fishers, the older of the women walking first in twos
and threes, the young girls and boys following in a noisy, laughing
crowd.  But as they drew nearer to the low stone wall their
babbling laughter died away, and they spoke to each other in
lowered tones.  For it had ever been the custom of Kusaie* to speak
in a whisper in the presence of a chief, and Togusa, chief of Lêla,
was master of the lives of four thousand of the people.  Other
chiefs were there on Kusaie who lived at Utwe and Mout and Leassé,
and whose people exceeded in numbers those of the chief of Lêla,
but none were there whose name was so old and whose fame in battle
would compare with his.


* Strong's Island, the eastern outlier of the Caroline Archipelago.


So, with softened steps and bodies bent, the women entered through
the narrow gateway one by one and knelt down in front of the door
in the manner peculiar to the women of the Caroline Islands,
bringing their thighs together and turning their feet outward and
backward.  Apart from them, and clustering together, were the boys,
each sitting cross-legged with outspread hands upon the pebbled
ground.  And then all, women, girls, and boys, bent their eyes to
the ground and waited.

Presently there came to the open doorway of the chief's house an
old, white-haired woman, who supported her feeble steps with a
stick of ebony wood.  For a moment or two she looked at the people
assembled before her, and then a girl who followed her placed upon
the canework verandah of the house a broad, white mat, and spread
it out for her to sit upon.  Slowly the old woman stooped her time-
worn frame and sat, and then the slave-girl crouched behind her,
and, with full, luminous eyes, looked over her mistress's shoulder.

Suddenly the dame raised her stick and tapped it twice on the cane
work floor, and then, with a quick, soundless motion, the fishers
rose, and with bent heads and stooping bodies crept up near to her
and laid their baskets of fish silently at her feet.

But though they spoke not themselves, each one as she or he placed
a basket down looked at Sipi, the slave, and made a slight movement
of the lips, and Sipi, in a low voice and looking straight before
her, murmured the giver's name to the old woman.

"'Tis the gift of Kinio, the wife of Nara, to Seaa, the mother of
Togusa the King."

"'Tis the gift of Leja, the daughter of Naril, to Seaa, the mother
of the King."

And so, one by one, they laid down their tribute till the offering
was finished and they had crept back again to the place where they
had first awaited old Seaa's coming, and now they sat and waited
for the King's mother to speak.

"Come hither, Niya."

At the sound of the old woman's voice the girl Niya came quickly
out from amongst her companions and sat down beside the piled-up
baskets of fish.

"Count thee out ten fish for Togusa the King, ten each for his
wives, and two for Sipi, the slave."

With deft hands the girl did the old dame's bidding and placed the
fish side by side upon narrow leaf platters brought to her by the
young slave-girl.

"Good," said old Seaa, smiling at the girl, for Niya was niece to
Sikra, and Sikra was one of the King's most trusted warriors and
nephew to old Seaa.

"Good child.  And now, tell the people that Togusa the King is
sick, and so comes not out to-day to see their offerings of
goodwill to him and his house.  So let them away to their homes,
taking with them all the fish they have brought save these fifty
and two here before me."

Again the women crept up, and each taking up her basket again
walked slowly away through the gateway and disappeared among the
various houses.  But Niya, at a sign from the King's mother,
remained, and sat down beside Sipi, the slave.

By and by, with much stamping of feet and singing a loud chorus,
came a party of men, tall, stalwart fellows, stripped to their
waists, with their long black hair tied up in a knob at the back of
their heads.  As they reached the gate their song ceased, and each
man placed the basket of taro or yams he carried at the feet of the
old dame.  From each basket the girl Niya, at old Seaa's command,
took one taro and a small yam for the King's household; then the
men, picking up the baskets again, followed the women into the
village.

So for another hour came parties of men and women and children,
brown, healthy, strong and vigorous, carrying their daily offerings
to the King of fish and fowl and wild pigeons, and baked pigs and
young coconuts, and bananas and other fruits of the rich and
fertile Kusaie.

Then, when the last of them had come and gone, the slave-girl Sipi
put a small conch shell to her lips and blew a note, and men and
women--slaves like herself--appeared from the rear of the house and
carried the baskets away to the King's cook-houses.

                          * * * * *

This was the daily life of Lêla.  At the very break of dawn, when
the trees and grass were heavy with the dews of the night, and the
flocks of mountain parrots screamed shrilly at the rising sun and
the wild boar scurried away to his forest lair, the people were up
and at work among their plantations or out upon the blue expanse of
Lêla Harbour in their canoes.  For though there was no need for
them to do but the merest semblance of toil, yet it was and always
had been the custom of the land for each family to bring a daily
gift of food to the King.  Sometimes if a whaleship lay outside the
harbour the King would take all they brought, to sell to the ship
in exchange for guns and powder, and bright Turkey red cloth; but
beyond this he took but little of all that they gave him day after
day.  They were a happy, contented race, and their land was a land
of wondrous fertility and smiling plenty.

                          * * * * *

Sometimes, even in those far-off days, a whale-ship cruising north-
westwards to the Moluccas, or the coast of Japan, would sail close
in, back her mainyard and send her boats ashore and wait till they
returned laden to the gunwales with turtle, yams and fruit.  Dearly
would the crew--as they gazed upon the bright beaches and the
thickly-clustered groves of palms amid which nestled the gray roofs
of thatch--have liked the ship to have sailed in, and heard the
cable rattle through the hawse-pipes as her anchor plunged through
the glassy depths of Lêla Harbour.  But Lêla was seldom entered by
a ship of any size.  Her boats might come in if the captain so
choose, and the rough, reckless seamen might wander to and fro
among the handsome, brown-skinned people and make sailors' love to
the laughing Kusaie maidens till the ship fired a gun for them to
return; but the ship herself dared not enter.  Not that there was
danger of treachery from the people, but because of the narrow,
tortuous passage and the fierce, swift current that ever eddied and
swirled through its reef-bound sides.  Once, indeed, in those olden
days the captain of an English whaleship, that lay-to outside, had
seen a small schooner lying snugly moored abreast of the King's
house, and had boldly sailed his own ship in and anchored beside
the little trading vessel.  In a week a dozen of his crew had
deserted, lured away from the toils of a sailor's life by the
smiles of the Kusaie girls.  Then he tried to get away before he
lost any more men.  Three times he tried to tow his ship out with
her five boats, and thrice, to the secret joy of the Kusaie people
and his crew, had he to return and anchor again; at the fourth
attempt the ship struck and went to pieces on the reef.

In those wild days, and for long years afterwards, there were some
five or six white men living on Kusaie.  They were of that class of
wanderers who are to be met with even now among the little known
Caroline and Pelew Groups and on some of the isolated islands of
the North Pacific.  Of those that lived on Kusaie, however, our
story has to do with but one, an old and almost decrepid sailor
named Charles Westall, who then lived at Lêla under the protection
of Togusa, as he had lived under the protection of that chief's
father thirty years before.  With those white men who lived in the
three other districts of the island he had had no communication for
nearly ten years, although he was separated from them but half a
day's journey by boat or canoe; not that he did not desire to see
them, but simply because the intense jealousy that prevailed
between the various native chiefs who ruled over these districts
made visiting a matter of danger and possible bloodshed.  Each
chief was extremely jealous of his white protégé, who, although he
was exceedingly well treated and lived on the fat of the land, was
yet kept under a friendly but rigid surveillance lest he should be
tempted to leave his own district and settle in another.

Westall, therefore, as his years and infirmities increased,
resigned himself to the knowledge that except when a ship might
call at Lêla, he would not be likely to ever converse again in his
mother tongue with men of his own colour.  He was, although an
uneducated man, one of singular energy and discernment, and had
during his forty years' residence on the island acquired a
considerable influence over the chief Togusa and the leading native
families.  He was by trade a ship's carpenter, and, attracted by
the intelligence of the natives and the professions of friendship
made to him by Togusa's father, had deserted from his ship to live
among them.  Unlike many of his class, he was neither a drunkard
nor a ruffian; and eventually marrying a daughter of one of the
minor chiefs of Lêla, he had settled down on the island for a
lifelong residence.  As the years went by and his family increased,
so did his status and influence with the natives, and at the time
of our story he lived in semi-European style in Lêla village, about
a stone's throw from the house of Togusa.  He had now some twenty
or thirty children by his five wives--for in accordance with native
custom he had to increase the number of his wives as his wealth and
influence grew--and these had mostly intermarried with natives of
pure blood, so that in course of years the old English sailor's
household resembled that of some Scriptural patriarch who was
honoured in the land.

Early in the morning on the day following the scene described at
the King's house, old Westall was sitting outside his boatshed
smoking his pipe and watching some of his white-brown grand-
children at play, when a young native girl came quickly along the
groves of breadfruit and coconut and called out that she had news
for him--a ship, she said, was in sight.

"Come thou inside, little one," said the old sailor, kindly,
speaking in the Kusaie tongue.  (Indeed he had but seldom occasion
to speak English.)

The girl was Niya, the niece of Sikra, and was betrothed to Ted,
one of old Westall's younger sons.  She was about fifteen or so,
and was possessed of that graceful carriage and those faultlessly
straight features common to women of the Micronesian Islands.

Seating herself on the ground beside the old man, and, in
accordance with native fashion, not deigning to notice her lover,
who was that moment at work in his father's boatshed, the girl told
Westall that she and some other girls had seen a small white-
painted ship about four miles off, making towards Lêla.

The old sailor's face instantly became troubled and he called to
his son to come to him.

"Ted," said the old man, speaking in English, "that mission ship
has come at last, and now there's goin' to be a bit of trouble.
You see if there won't."

Edward Westall, a short, thick-set youth of twenty, with a darker
complexion than that of the girl who sat at his father's feet,
leant upon the adze he carried and said in his curious broken
English:  "How you know she's mission'ry?  Has you ever seen
mission'ry ship?"

"No," replied the old man, shortly; "an' I don't want to see one.
But I know it's a mission'ry ship.  She's painted white, an' I
heard from Captain Deaver of the Hattie K. Deaver that there was a
mission ship at Honolulu two years ago, an' she was painted white,
an' was comin' here right through this group, blarst her!"

"Well, an' what you goin' to do?  You think Togusa goin' to let a
mission'ry come ashore an' live?"

"That's just what I don't know, boy.  Togusa likes the white men,
an' maybe he may take to these Yankee psalm-singers.  An' if he
does, it just means that you an' me an' all the rest of us will
have to clear out of here and seek for a livin' elsewheres.  They
is hungry beggars, these mission'ries, and drives every other white
man away from wherever they settles down.  An' I'm gettin' too old
now to be badgered about by people like them."

"W'y don' you go and tell Togusa to keep 'em from comin' ashore?"

The old man shook his head.  "No good, boy.  I managed to block one
mission'ry from landing here--that feller that came here in the
Shawnee whaler when you was a babby--an' I've always been telling
Togusa that it will be a bad day for him when he lets one of them
come here, but," and he shook his head again, "he's a weak man, and
just like a child.  His father was another sort, an' had a head
chock full o' sense."

For a moment the old seaman seemed sunk in thought, and then
suddenly aroused himself.

"Ted," he said, "just you go along with Niya to her uncle Sikra and
tell him an' Jorani an' the other big chiefs to come here an' have
a talk with me.  Togusa is sick, an' so I can't get in to see him."

Throwing down his adze, the young half-caste beckoned to the girl
to rise and come with him.  With that passive obedience common
among women of her race when spoken to by a man, the girl instantly
rose and followed her betrothed husband, who, from the broad blue
stripes of tattooing that covered his naked arms and thighs, would
never have been taken for anything else but a pure-blooded native.

Then old Westall, still wearing a troubled look upon his brown and
wrinkled face, walked slowly back to his thatched dwelling and sat
down to wait for the native chiefs to talk with them over the
danger that--from his point of view--menaced them all.

                          * * * * *

Four miles away the mission brig--for such indeed was the strange
ship--was sailing slowly along the precipitous northern coast of
the island.  On the poop deck were four clerical gentlemen clothed
in heavy black, and each bore in his face an expression of great
interest as the various points of the beautiful island opened to
their view.

Seated a little apart from the others, as befitted his position and
dignity as their leader, was the Reverend Gilead Bawl.  He was a
man of nearly six feet in height, with shaven upper lip and white
beard, and his eyes, keen, cold and gray, had for the past ten
minutes been bent over a copy of the Scriptures, outspread upon his
huge knees.

Of his four colleagues all that need be said is that in manner of
speech, dress, and appearance generally they were minor editions of
the Reverend Bawl.  They were but strangers in the Islands, having
only arrived at Honolulu from Boston six months previously and had
been selected by their principal--the Reverend Gilead--to accompany
him on his present mission.

Presently Mr. Bawl closed the book and rising from his seat walked
up to the captain, who was anxiously scrutinising the line of reef
along which the mission brig was sailing.

"Friend," said he, placing his hand with condescending familiarity
on the captain's shoulder, and speaking in soft, gentle tones, "it
hath pleased Gawd to bless us with a prosperous v'yage to this, the
first cawner of the Vineyard, and ere we sail into the haven before
us and ventoor our lives among the ragin' heathen, it would be well
for us to stay the ship awhile while the brethren and myself,
together with the mariners of this chosen bark, render up our
offerins' of praise and thanksgivin' for the manifold mercies
vouchsafed to us upon the stormy ocean."

A subdued murmur of approval came from one of the younger
missionaries, who, clasping his hands together, gazed with a rapt
expression at Mr. Bawl.

The captain of the brig looked and felt uncomfortable.  "Jest as
you please, sir, but I would like to get the ship to an anchor as
quickly as possible.  I've never been here before and this Strong's
Islander we have brought with us seems kinder stupid, and I really
believe the creature doesn't know enough for me to take the ship in
by his directions.  I guess he's a fool--"

The missionary's face assumed a loftily severe expression.

"Captain Branden, you surprise me--nay, more, you pain me.  This
young man"--and he placed his large, coarse hand on the head of an
undersized native, clothed like himself, in a long black coat and
wearing a stovepipe hat with a wide, battered rim--"you do, indeed,
pain me when you speak of this pious young man--one of Gawd's
ministers--as a fool."

The native he indicated, who, twelve months before, had been one of
the crew of an American whaleship, but was now the Reverend Purity
Lakolalai, turned a dull, stupid face upon the captain, and,
encouraged by the protecting glance of his white leader, muttered
something under his breath.

"Well, I meant no offence, Mr. Bawl; but I feel somewhat anxious
about getting to an anchor as soon as possible."

"Captain Branden," said the missionary, pompously, "it is my wish
and the wish of the brethren with me that we offer up supplication
for the success of our cause.  Will you kindly call the mariners to
the stern of the ship, so that they may join with us in devotional
exercises befittin' the occasion?"

The master of the brig nodded; and muttering the words "darned rot"
under his breath gave the order for the crew to lay aft.

It is necessary to explain that the presence of the Reverend Mr.
Bawl and his brethren was largely due to the fact that twelve
months previously the Reverend Purity Lakolalai--then a native
sailor--had run away from his ship at Honolulu.  He was a low-caste
Strong's Islander, and spoke whaleship English fluently.  By some
means he came under the notice of the Reverend Gilead, who,
learning that he was a native of Kusaie, immediately set about his
conversion, with the result that Lakolalai, being in a certain
sense a man of the world and deeply sensible of the material
advantages to be derived from his new friends, expressed the
deepest grief at his own and his countrymen's ignorance of the
truths of the gospel.  In the course of a week or two reports were
sent home to Boston that, by a marvellous dispensation of
Providence, an intelligent young "chief" had been rescued from the
degrading life of a whaler's foc's'cle, and had "greatly moved" the
American brethren at Honolulu by his pictures of the hopeless
savagery and sinful customs of his people.  Furthermore, he had
become "concerned" for his soul's welfare, and was now at that time
"eagerly imbibing the Truth with tears of thankfulness."  As a
natural corollary to this intelligence subscriptions were asked for
to send out a band of brethren to plant the Word on the heathen
field of Kusaie.  In due course the subscriptions and brethren
came, and then followed the imposing function of ordaining
Lakolalai, formerly a slave and a "burning brand," a minister of
the American Board of Missions.  Then came the departure of the
mission brig from Honolulu with the missionary party just
described.

An hour afterward, the devotions concluded, the brig sailed into
Lêla Harbour and dropped anchor off the King's house.

                          * * * * *

At eight o'clock next morning nearly a thousand natives were
assembled on the gravelled space in front of the King's house, all
waiting to see the white strangers land.  Already a rumour had gone
forth that they were the bearers of a message from a great king to
their own chief Togusa, but who the white king was and what the
message was about none knew.

In a few minutes a boat left the ship and rowed to the beach, and
four white men, wearing stovepipe hats and carrying white
umbrellas, stepped out and walked up to the King's gateway; at
their heels followed Mr. Lakolalai, dressed in exactly the same
manner, and carrying, in addition to his umbrella, a large, heavy
volume.

At the entrance to the King's grounds the party halted, and then
some discussion took place between them and Brother Lakolalai, who
seemed inclined to fall back.

"'Tis but the weakness of the flesh," said Mr. Bawl to his
brethren; "our brother is somewhat afraid of venturing into the
presence of this pore heathen king."

"Yes," said Brother Lakolalai, with emphasis, and, in his
excitement, reverting to his whaleship English.  "Me 'fraid.  You
see, I no belong to Lêla; I belong to Utwe--on other side of this
island.  By ---- I afraid to go inside King's house here.  He d----
big king and break my head."

A pained look came into the brethren's eyes, but the Reverend
Gilead at any rate was not wanting in courage, and seizing the
Reverend Purity Lakolalai by the arm he drew him along with him.
Followed by the brethren, they ascended the steps that led up to
the King's house, and in another moment were inside.

The room was a very large one, capable of holding half the
population of the village.  At the further end, seated upon mats,
were the leading chiefs.  Above them, lying upon a slightly raised
couch, was Togusa, the sick chief.  He was a man of about thirty,
with a thick jet-black beard and pale features, and his countenance
showed traces of recent illness.

The moment the missionaries entered, the natives, who were gathered
outside, followed them in, the men sitting on one side of the room,
the women on the other.  As soon as Mr. Bawl and his brethren had
approached within a few feet of the King, the missionary motioned
to his companions to stop, and advanced alone with hand
outstretched.

"You are King Togusa; I am the Reverend Gilead Bawl, and I bring
you peace beyond price an' a message from the King ev Kings."

The sick chief shook his head feebly in return, and failing to
understand Mr. Bawl's remark, inquired in broken English if he had
"come to buy pigs and yams."

"Not pigs, my dear brother, nor yet yams; but souls;" and the
Reverend Gilead smiled benignantly, and then with the rest of the
brethren sat down upon the rude stool to which the King motioned
them.  The Reverend Purity Lakolalai, however, sat quite apart from
them, on the floor, with a very uneasy expression on his face.

For a moment or so Togusa spoke in an undertone to his chiefs.  He
was anxious to learn the motive of the white men's visit, and felt
that his limited knowledge of English was not equal to the task of
carrying on a conversation with them.  Presently, however, his eye
lighted up when he saw, coming through the doorway, the old white
man, Westall, who was attended by four or five of his half-caste
sons.

"Tell Challi* to come and talk to these men in their own tongue,"
he said to one of those of his chiefs who sat about him.


* Charlie.


Dressed in his seamen's suit of blue dungaree, and holding his
broad palm-leaf hat in his hand, the old seaman advanced through
the crowded room, and first greeting the King and chiefs in the
native language, he turned to the missionaries.

"Good-day, gentlemen.  My name is Charlie Westall.  I live here.
The King wishes me to ask you what is your business and in what way
he can serve you.  You see, gentlemen, he doesn't speak but little
English, and so he wishes me to talk for him."

Then the Reverend Gilead Bawl, rising to his feet, extended his
right hand, and pointing a large forefinger at the old white man,
spoke.

"Old man, I hev' heerd of you.  You are one of those unfor'nit
persons who are out of the Lord's fold, and whose dangerous and
pernicious example to these pore heathens has done sich harm.  You
may tell the King from me that I cannot talk to him through such a
wicked man as you air."

Old Westall laughed a soft, sarcastic laugh.  "Thank ye, sir, I'll
tell him that," and then, turning to the King, he said--

"The white men have come here to give thee and thy people a new
religion; but he will not talk of it to thee, O Togusa, by my
lips."

"Why is that?" said the King, mildly, his dark eyes moving
alternately from the face of the missionary to that of the old
white man.

"Because, he sayeth, I am a bad and wicked man, and have taught
thee and thy people evil."

The King's eyes flashed angrily, and he made a movement as if he
would spring from his couch, but in an instant he was calm again.

"That is well, Challi.  Let him, then, if he mistrusts thee, find
some one else to tell me of his business here in Kusaie."

"The King, sir," said old Westall, again addressing himself to the
missionary, "says that he is willing to hear what you have to say--
if not through me, then through any one of you or your ship's
company who can speak his language."

The calm, quiet tones of the old seaman, covering, as it did the
rage and contempt he felt for the person addressed, deceived not
only the Reverend Mr. Bawl and his colleagues, but their coloured
brother, the Reverend Purity Lakolalai as well.  He now stepped
forward, Bible in one hand, stovepipe hat in the other.  An
encouraging smile on Mr. Bawl's face gave him courage to proceed.

Then, in the midst of a dead and ominous silence, the native
minister addressed the King.  His speech was a curious one, and not
at all one that even Mr. Bawl, with all his ministerial pedantry
and silly pomposity, would have approved of had he known its gist.
First, he warned the King and his people of the wrath to come if
they continued in heathenism; secondly, that old Westall and all
other white men but missionaries would be taken away by a man-of-
war, and cast into a lake of burning fire called Hell; thirdly,
that the good and chosen people lived at Honolulu only, and the
Reverend Gilead Bawl was a very rich man, and the friend of the
President of the United States and God; fourthly, that if Togusa
would cast away his idols, and keep but one wife, and take the
missionaries to his bosom, that he would not be taken away to the
lake of fire with the bad white men, but when he died his soul
would be taken in a man-of-war to Honolulu first, and then to
Boston, to live with God and President Andrew Jackson; fifthly,
that he, Lakolalai, had been a very bad man, but now he had been
"washed" and was filled with a powerful "ejon" (witchcraft) which
would make him live for ever.

With his chin supported on his right hand the King of Lêla listened
with unmoved countenance to the native minister's speech.  Then,
when he had finished, he turned to Sikra, his favourite chief.

"Who is this man?" he asked, and at the savage energy of his tones
the native minister quailed.

"He is Lakolalai, a pig (a slave) from Utwe.  He went away from
here two years ago."

"Good," and a grim smile stole over the King's features.  "Thou
hast heard what he has said, and the lies he has told me.  Does he
and these foolish white men think that I, Togusa, who ever since my
birth have known white men, have not heard of these wizards they
call missionaries, who would steal the hearts of my people from
their gods, and make slaves of them to the god who rules over the
lake of fire--bah!" and he spat fiercely on the ground, and then
shook his hand threateningly at the missionaries.  "Away from here
I tell thee.  I have heard of thee and know of thy wizardry.  Shall
I, Togusa, be a like fool to Kamehameha of Hawaii* and yield up my
country and my wives and my slaves to such dogs as thee?  Go, get
thee away to some other land while thy lives are yet safe.  But
yet"--and here he shot a quick glance at old Westall--"shalt thou
stay here awhile and see how Togusa shall do justice upon this dog
of Utwe, this Lakolalai, who comes into the presence of the King of
Lêla and threatens him with the vengeance of the Christ God, and
the Lake of Boiling Fire.  Take him, men of Lêla, and bind him like
as a hog is bound for the slaughter."


* The King of the Hawaiian Islands.


But with a wild, despairing cry the native minister had thrown
himself at the King's feet, and was pleading for mercy, while from
the assembled crowd of people there came a low, savage murmur--the
desire for vengeance upon a slave who had insulted their King.

"Gentlemen"--and old Westall advanced to the now alarmed
missionaries--"you had better get aboard again.  I bear you no ill-
will for the hard words you have spoken, but you have come upon a
fool's errand.  The King will have no missionaries here."

"Shameless and wicked old man," said one of the younger
missionaries, "would you incite these raging heathens to deeds of
bloodshed?  Think you that we, the ministers of God, are to be
lightly turned away by threats?  No!" and with a firm hand he
grasped Gilead Bawl by the arm.  "I for one shall not desert my
Master, but cheerfully give up my life for the Cause."

With a contemptuous smile old Westall turned away from him and
walked over to and stood beside the King.  Then he raised his hand.

"Gentlemen, you have had your say.  Now let me have mine.  There is
no danger to any of you--at least to any of you who are white.  But
listen; for forty years I have lived here among these people, and
as long as I do live here no mission'ry shall ever set foot again
on this island.  These natives may all go to hell as you say, but
that is none of your business--they've been goin' there cheerful
enough for the last five hundred years.  Now, don't be afraid, no
one is going to hurt you, but the King wants to ask you a question
or two before you go."

With a pale face, but a certain amount of resolution in his cold
gray eyes, the Reverend Gilead Bawl stepped out from the others and
spoke again to the King.

"Beware, O Togusa, of this old man.  He is a bad man," and then he
suddenly ceased as the King raised himself upon his tattooed and
naked arm.

"Christ-man, answer me this.  This dog here"--and he pointed
scornfully at the grovelling figure of the native minister--"this
dog sayeth that he will live for ever by reason of the new faith he
hath gotten from thee."

"Man," said the missionary, springing forward, after old Westall
had interpreted the King's words, "I implore you, nay, command you,
on peril of the loss of your immortal soul, to give this unhappy
heathen my true answer.  Tell him that Lakolalai, God's minister,
will have eternal life hereafter, even if these godless heathens
now take his life."

Then Westall turned to the King.

"The Christ-man sayeth, O Togusa, that this man, Lakolalai, will
have life for ever."

"Ha," said Togusa, "now shall we see if this be true."

Two men advanced, and seizing the native minister, stood him upon
his trembling feet.

"Stand aside, gentlemen, if you please," said old Westall quietly
to the missionaries.  They moved aside, and then Togusa, calling to
Sikra, the chief, pointed to the wretched Lakolalai.

"Take thou thy spear, Sikra, and thrust it through this man's body.
And if he live, then shall I believe that he will live for ever."

And Sikra, with a fierce smile, seized his heavy, ebony wood spear,
and as he raised his right hand and poised the weapon, the men who
held Lakolalai's arms suddenly stretched them widely apart.

The spear sped from Sikra's hand, and spinning through the
convert's body, fell near the feet of the Reverend Gilead Bawl and
his brethren at the other end of the room.

                          * * * * *

In another hour the mission ship was under weigh again, and old
Westall was seated at home smoking his pipe and playing with his
grandchildren, and smiling inwardly as he glanced seaward and saw
the white sails of the brig far away to the westward.

But, after all, the visit of the mission ship was long remembered
by the people of Kusaie, and for their wickedness were they sorely
afflicted; for the garments of the late Reverend Purity Lakolalai
were given by Togusa to one of his favourite slaves, who soon
afterwards died of measles, and in less than a month seven hundred
other godless heathens followed him, and old Charlie Westall, with
Ted and Niya his wife, and his maid-servants and man-servants and
all that was his cleared away from the disease-stricken island, and
sailed in search of a new land called Ponape, which lieth far to
the westward.




MRS. MALLESON'S RIVAL


Jim Malleson lived on Tarawa, one of the Gilbert Islands, in
Equatorial Polynesia.  He was a tall, thin, melancholy looking man,
with pale blue eyes and a straggling sandy beard that grew upon his
long chin in a half-hearted, indefinite sort of way.  His trading
station was situated at the most northerly point of the whole atoll--
a place where the thin strip of low-lying sandy soil that belted
the blue waters of Tarawa Lagoon was narrowed down to a few hundred
yards in width--barely sufficient, one would imagine, to prevent
the thundering breakers that flung themselves against the weather
side of the island from hurtling through the thinly-growing coconut
and pandanus groves, and pouring over into the calm waters of the
inland sea, carrying everything, including Malleson's ramshackle
house, before them.  Denison, the supercargo of the Indiana, had,
indeed, mentioned the possibility of such an occurrence to Malleson
one day, and offered to shift him further down the lagoon, but his
offer was declined--he was quite satisfied, he said, to stay where
he was and take his chance.

For some unknown reason Malleson, although on perfectly friendly
terms with the four or five other white men who lived on Apiang,
the nearest island in the Gilbert Group to Tarawa, yet seldom
associated with them.  He was the only white man on Tarawa, and,
although the two islands are not a day's sail apart, he had never
raised energy enough to sail his boat over to Apiang and return the
many visits he had had from the traders there.  But, in spite of
his owl-like solemnity, he was not by any means unsociable, and
would occasionally unbend to a certain extent.  One curious thing
about him was that, although he had now been living alone on Tarawa
for two years, he had never been married.  Now, for a trader to
remain single was, in native eyes, extremely undignified, and not
calculated to raise him in public estimation; any white man who
could show such a disregard of the conventionalities of native life
and custom, necessarily became an object of suspicion to the native
mind.  However, as he was a quiet, non-interfering man, who
quarrelled with no one, conducted himself with the strictest
propriety, and refrained from cheating in the pursuit of his
business, he gradually begat confidence and respect among the
fierce, warlike Tarawans; so much so that at the end of two years
he had become the most prosperous trader in the Gilbert Group, and
his huge, ill-built storehouse was generally filled to bursting
with copra (dried coconut) and sharks' fins whenever a trading ship
entered the lagoon and dropped anchor off his station.  So steadily
did his business and his reputation for fair dealing increase with
the natives, that, after a time, fleets of canoes would visit
Tarawa, coming, some from Marakei, fifty miles to the north, and
some from the great lagoon island of Apamama, a hundred miles to
the south-east, bringing with them their produce of dried coconut
to be exchanged with the white man for coloured prints, calicoes,
arms, tobacco, and liquor.

The white men living on Apiang and the other atolls in the group
could not but experience a feeling of vexation that Malleson, who,
as they said, was the laziest man in the South Seas, should divert
so much custom and so many dollars from their islands to his.  Day
after day they would see large sailing canoes filled with dried
coconut and other native produce sailing past their very doors
bound to Malleson's place; but being on the whole a decent lot of
men, they bore their successful rival no ill-will, accepted matters
(after a time) philosophically, and lived in the hopes of Malleson
being found cheating by the natives, and either getting himself
tabooed from further trading, or being warned off the island by the
chiefs.

So one day, after business jealousies had quite subsided, they
again manned their boats and visited him, and, knowing that many
months had passed since a ship had called at Tarawa, they bore with
them the gift of friendship peculiar to the country--some half a
dozen or so of Hollands gin--in order to cheer up his lonely
existence by endeavouring to make him drunk.  But in this they had
always failed on previous occasions, for the more liquor he
consumed the more melancholy and owl-like of visage he became.
They had all also, individually and severally, endeavoured to
induce Malleson to give up his single life and permit them or one
of the chiefs of Tarawa to find him a suitable wife from among the
many hundreds of young marriageable girls on the island.  But their
kindly intentions proved unavailing, for Malleson distinctly
declared his intention of remaining as he was, and put some little
warmth into his manner of declaring that rather than have a native
wife forced upon him, he would barricade his house.

"I don't want any native wife, boys," he would say, solemnly.  "I
dessay you chaps mean well, an' wouldn't see me marry a girl as
wasn't no good, an' means to try and make me feel more comfortable;
but I ain't agoin' to do it."

But a plot against his further celibacy had been formed, not, it
must be mentioned, without ulterior views by one of the
participants therein, Mr. Andy O'Rourke, a genial, rollicking
trader on the island of Apiang.  He was agent for a firm trading in
opposition to Malleson's employers, had a large half-caste family,
and a very extensive native connection generally, both socially and
in business, and for a long time past had cogitated upon the
possibility of joining his fortunes with those of his successful
rival, to his own particular advantage financially, and that of
Malleson from a domestic point of view.  In short, he intended to
get Malleson married, and had already made up his mind that Tera,
his wife's sister, was eminently calculated to fill the position of
Mrs. Jimmy Malleson.  But to avoid any suspicion of underhand work
he determined to so arrange matters that no one of his fellow-
traders should ever suspect that he had any preconceived idea of
making Malleson his brother-in-law, and set about his plans in a
thoroughly open, genial Irish manner.

He had, therefore, proposed that on the present trip to Malleson's
they should as a matter of conjugal and family duty take their
wives, children, and relatives with them.

"We ought to give the women a run over to Malleson's, boys," he
said, when the trip was first proposed.  "It's the gogo (mutton-
bird) season over at Tarawa just now, and the women and children
would enjoy themselves fine getting the eggs and birds.  You'll
bring your wife, Davy, won't you?  Tom French's missus is coming,
and a couple of his daughters; and my wife wants to bring her
sister with her.  What d'ye say, boys?"

So over they came, each trader sailing his own boat, and carrying
with him his native wife and half-caste family, all bent upon
having a thoroughly good time at Tarawa, for the people of the two
islands were now at peace.  Seated aft in Andy's boat, between his
wife and himself, was the pretty Tera, who had been well tutored by
her sister Lebonnai in the part she was to play in captivating the
heart of Malleson.  And although Tera had frankly admitted that she
had looked to get a handsomer and younger husband than the one her
brother-in-law designed for her, she was a dutiful girl, and
consented to sacrifice herself upon the altar of family affection
with resigned and unobtrusive cheerfulness.

As the boats, with their snow-white sails bellying out to the trade-
wind, sped along over the long ocean swell, Davy Walsh, whose boat
was nearest, called out to Andy (they were all sailing close
together)--

"I wonder how old Malleson's piggy-wiggy is getting on?"

A general laugh followed, for Malleson's affection for his pig was
a source of continual amusement to his fellow-traders.

                          * * * * *

About a year after he had landed on Tarawa, a passing Puget Sound
lumber ship, bound to the Australian colonies, had hove-to off
Malleson's place for an hour or two.  He had boarded her, and in
exchange for some young coconuts and bananas, the American skipper
had presented him with a pig of the male sex, informing him that
the animal was of a high lineage in the porcine line.  Malleson had
been much struck with the promising proportions and haughty but
reserved demeanour of the creature as it poked about the deck, and
at once conceived the idea of improving the breed of pigs on the
island--not, of course, from disinterested motives, but as a means
of adding to his income.

As time went on the pig grew and throve amazingly, and the fame of
the beast spread throughout the Gilbert Group; and Malleson's
anticipations with regard to his own profit in possessing such an
animal were amply verified.  Natives from outlying villages, and
finally from islands a hundred miles distant, came to look at his
pig, and a deputation of leading old men (i.e., the village
councillors) from Apiang visited Malleson with the object of
conveying the pig, as a friendly loan, to their august master, the
King.  But to this he would not consent, pointing out politely, but
firmly withal, the risks attendant upon carrying such a valuable
animal in an open canoe a distance of forty miles; besides that, he
had become attached to the creature, he said, and would be lonely
without him.  The deputation thanked the trader, and withdrew.

                          * * * * *

As the visitors' boats sailed across the lagoon, and brought-to in
front of Malleson's dilapidated dwelling, the trader came out of
his house, and walked down the beach to meet them; and Andy
O'Rourke noted with envy that Malleson's storehouses, the doors of
which were wide open, were full to bursting of copra.

"Come up to the house," said the melancholy-looking man, shaking
hands with them all in a limp sort of manner.  "My boys (servants)
will bring your traps up out o' the boats; but"--and here he
glanced dejectedly at the women--"I'm afraid that my house is too
small to hold you all.  Perhaps the women and children wouldn't
mind sleepin' in my boathouse just for to-night.  To-morrow I can
get a house run up for 'em."

"That's all right, old chap," said Andy, slapping his solemn-
visaged host on the back; "but, if you don't mind, Lebonnai and her
sister will stay with me in your house.  You see, Tera--that's her
coming up now--was a bit seasick coming over, and my wife got a
touch of the sun; they are both complaining a bit.  However, they
won't trouble you much.  Just let 'em have a corner to themselves."

"'Tain't much of a place for women," said Malleson, disconsolately,
as he looked at his dirty, untidy sitting-room, with its floor
covered with ragged, worn-out mats, and then at Lebonnai and Tera,
tall, stately, and graceful in their white muslin gowns and broad
Panama hats.  "You see, I does my own cookin', and on'y straightens
up onst a week or so.  But I'll get some o' the village women to
come in and clean up the place a bit."

"No, you won't, old man," said Andy cheerfully; "my wife has
brought plenty of sleeping-mats, and she and Tera--a smart girl is
Tera--will soon fix up a place."  Andy now had an opening to let
Malleson see what a handy girl Tera was, and what an excellent
housewife she would make.

So, while the wily Andy and Tom French, Dave Walsh, and Pedro
Calice sat outside with Malleson, and smoked and drank lager beer
and gin, pretty Tera, whose mind was full of the possibilities of
becoming Mrs. Malleson and pleasing her sister and brother-in-law,
hustled her sister about, and set to work.  First of all, though,
she took off her starched muslin gown, and hung it up carefully,
revealing her shapely figure (clothed in but a short skirt of pink
print) in the most innocent and natural manner possible.  Then for
the next ten minutes she and Lebonnai were busily engaged in
dragging out the dirty old mats, and replacing them with clean ones
brought from the boats, clearing off the awful collection of empty
salmon and sardine tins from the soiled table, and touching up the
room here and there and everywhere.

"He's very old-looking, and hath weak, watery eyes," whispered Tera
to her sister, who was carrying out a basket full of débris to
throw away on the beach.

"Speak low, thou little fool; he may hear thee.  And what if he is
old and watery-eyed?  Is he not a white man and rich, and with a
good character?"

Tera shrugged her smooth, rounded shoulders, and went on sweeping,
glancing now and then at the long, awkward figure of her
prospective husband.

"Well, old man," said Davy, addressing his host, "how's business,
and how's the pig?"

"Come an' see him," answered Malleson with unusual promptitude;
"he's lookin' fine."

The traders exchanged sly, amused glances, but at once rose and
followed him to a little compactly built pig-pen of thick coconut
logs, which was sheltered from sun and rain by a wide roof of
pandanus thatch.  Inside, on a bed of clean grass, lay an enormous
black and white boar pig, asleep.

This was "Brian."

"He don't like bein' disturbed too soon after his breakfast," said
Malleson, as the four men bent over the fence and gazed at the
recumbent animal; "he gets mad sometimes, an' don't eat."

"Is that so?" said French, with an appearance of deep interest.

"Yes.  You see he's got very reg'lar habits, an' don't like bein'
worried after a meal.  But any way, as you chaps don't see him
often, I'll wake him."

Hoisting one of his long legs over the low coconut fence, the
trader got into the pen, and slapping the huge beast gently on the
rump, called, "Brian, Brian, get up, old man; it's on'y me an'
Andy, an' Tom French an' Davy Walsh."

Brian wouldn't move, but his thick, hideous lip gave a slight
quiver.

"He wants a lot o' coaxin', don't he?" said Malleson, with a faint
blink of amusement, and then he began to scratch the monster's back
with his forefinger.  This partially roused the object of his
solicitude, who gave vent to a grunt of enjoyment, and lifting one
hind leg slightly, pushed it out astern; then with another and
fainter grunt he lay quiet again.

"Won't he stand up?" queried Andy.

"No, not now.  But we'll come back when it gets a bit cooler.  He
enjoys the wind when it's a bit westerly, like it is now, and
generally stands up in the corner there to get a sniff--there, d'ye
see that little port-hole I've cut?  Well, he likes looking through
that sometimes, watching the village pigs cruisin' about on the
beach.  I've been givin' him cooked fish lately.  Don't believe in
raw fish for him--heats his blood too much an' gives him a kind o'
nightmare."

"Just so," said Davy, sympathetically; "makes him cry out in his
sleep I suppose.  Well, he's looking all right, anyway."

                          * * * * *

"Come along the beach for a bit of a stroll," said Andy O'Rourke to
Malleson that night.  The other two men had turned in, and Andy had
been waiting for a chance to have a quiet talk to his host.  As
they went out Andy pointed to the recumbent figures of Mrs. Andy
and her sister, who were apparently sound asleep at the end of the
sitting-room, and said--

"They look all right and comfy, don't they?"

They did look all right, and even the owl-like, watery-eyed
Malleson smiled approvingly.  One of Tera's soft, rounded arms
supported her sister's head, and her face rested against her bosom.
As the men's footsteps disturbed the coral gravel that was spread
over the path outside the house, the younger woman pretended to
awake, rose, and followed them.

"Anti," she called in the native language, "tell the white man that
if he will give me a piece of soap, Lebonnai and I shall wash his
clothes in the morning."  (Result of prompting from Lebonnai
aforesaid during the night.)

Of course, Malleson understood the native tongue, and as he walked
away with Andy he said that Tera "was a good-hearted girl to
trouble about his dirty clothes."

"She is that.  Look here, old man, she's a regular star of a girl.
Now, I ain't going to beat about the bush.  I brought her here
thinking you might take a likin' to her, and marry her.  She'll be
a fine wife for you, and make you comfortable.  What do you say?
She's willin' enough, and there ain't a better-mannered girl
anywhere in the Gilbert Group; an' what's more, there isn't any
scandal about her."

Malleson made no reply for a minute or two.  Then he began filling
his pipe.  After he had lighted it he spoke.

"Look here, Andy, I'll just tell you the whole thing.  I'd be
willin' enough, but the fact is I'm a married man.  My old woman is
livin' in Auckland.  She's got a rotten temper, an' to make things
worse, she took up with some o' these here wimmen suffrage wimmen,
and used to jaw the head off herself tellin' me what a degradin'
beast I was to live with.  Well, things went on from bad to worse,
until one day I seed in the paper as Mrs. James Malleson had said
at a meetin' that she too had an unthinkin' husband as hadn't got
no intelligence.  That just finished me.  I cleared out from her,
and came down here with Captain Peate to start tradin'.  That was
two year ago.  I send her money every six months by the schooner,
but, although I won't ever go back to her again, I ain't a-goin' to
marry no native women.  It's bigamy."

"No, it ain't.  Not down in the islands anyway.  Why, it ain't
respectable for a man to be livin' by himself, as you are.  You can
marry Tera right enough.  Who's agoin' to know that you've a wife
in New Zealand."

"I would, and Peate would.  And besides that I ain't a-goin' to do
anything like that.  My wife's a holy terror, but, at the same
time, I know she's an honest woman, and I won't wrong her that
way."

Andy gave a long whistle of astonishment.  "Well, just as you like,
old man; but you beat anything I ever saw as a trader.  You ought
to get a billet as a missionary.  And do you mean to keep on livin'
like this, all alone?"

"Yes.  Why not?  I'm all right.  I'm doin' pretty well, and Brian
takes up a lot of my time when business is dull.  How do you think
he's lookin'?"

                          * * * * *

A week later pretty, black-browed Tera went away with her sister--
still single.  As the boats sailed from the white beach Malleson
stood in his doorway and waved his hand in farewell.

"She's a pretty little creatur'," he said as he watched the boats
heeling over to the breeze, "an' as merry as a lark.  I wonder if
Brian would ha' took to her?"

                          * * * * *

Sometimes the village children would come near to Brian's sty, and
ask Malleson to let them give the creature a young coconut, knowing
full well that the pleased trader would reward them individually by
a present of a ship biscuit in return.  At dusk Malleson, carrying
a huge wooden bowl full of tender coconut pulp and milk, would give
the pig his last meal for the day, and then stand and lean over the
fence and gaze admiringly down, as Brian thrust his round, pink
snout into the repast.

Sometimes also Malleson, although naturally a modest man, could not
but feel a proud swell of bosom, when, in the bright moonlight
nights, he would look and see perhaps thirty or forty natives from
the far end of the island, standing around the pig pen, rifles in
hand, discussing the magnificent proportions and money value of its
slumbering tenant.

                          * * * * *

A year went by, and then one day the Indiana sailed into the
lagoon.  The captain and Denison the supercargo soon came ashore
and met Malleson standing on the beach.

"How are you, Malleson?  Got much for me this trip?"

"About ninety tons of copra, Captain Peate.  Did you bring me those
two bags of maize for the pig?"

"D---- your old pig, man!  But of course I've brought it.  And I'm
going to take you back with me this trip."

"Why?" asked Malleson, wonderingly.

"Because I've seen Mrs. Malleson, and had a long yarn with her.
Here's a letter to you from her.  The fact is, Malleson, she's
fretting about you, and wants you to come back.  She told me it was
all her fault, but that if you come back she'll be a different
woman, and leave politics and woman suffrage alone."

Malleson opened and read his wife's letter, and then looked with a
troubled expression into the captain's face.

"Well," he sighed, "I s'pose I must go.  I can't stay away from my
lawful wife now she's goin' to turn over a new leaf, and quit
jawin' and naggin'.  Can you put Brian somewhere below?  I wouldn't
let him make the voyage on deck!  We might get bad weather on the
trip--it's just comin' on for the hurricane season now."

The skipper gazed at Malleson in wrathful astonishment.

"Curse your infernal beast of a pig!  I'm not going to have the
brute aboard my ship.  I'll buy him from you, if you like, and give
him to my Kanaka crew to eat."

Malleson laughed uneasily.  "You're fond of your joke, Captain.
However, we can arrange about him by and by, after the copra is
bagged and shipped."

"Arrange be hanged!  D'ye think I'm going to carry a confounded pig
as a passenger?  Perhaps you'd like to bring him in the cabin?  It
might be 'arranged,' though," he continued with bitter sarcasm.
"Denison and the mate and myself could sleep in the hold--that is,
if the pig wouldn't find the cabin too close for him when we lose
the south-east trades."

Malleson turned away indignantly.  He did not see anything to make
fun of in his anxiety for Brian.  Yet he went off, feeling that
Peate would relent before the day was out.  But his face fell when,
later on in the day, Captain Peate told him plainly that he could
not possibly take the pig, not even on deck.

"Sell him to the natives," suggested Denison, who was standing
near.

Malleson gave an indignant reply.  He never used bad language, but
it was very evident that he was greatly angered at the captain's
refusal to even have a deck house built for the pig's accommodation.
However, in the course of the day he had an interview with the local
chief; then he went back to Peate.

"I've arranged with the chief about Brian.  He's promised me that
when I come back next trip I'll find Brian all right, and well
cared for."

"When you come back!  What in the name of Heaven are you coming
back to this wretched place for?  The 'missus' won't hear of it."

"She'll have to hear of it; and what's more, if she doesn't like to
come back with me, she can stay behind.  I mean to come back, and
live here.  I'm doin' pretty well, and don't see why I should give
up my business to please her.  I might have got married native
fashion, an' been more comfortable, but wouldn't do it--it was
against my conscience.  At the same time, if you'll change your
mind, an' will take the pig away with me in the Indiana, I might
settle down again in New Zealand, an' try pig-farmin'."

"Oh, all right; please yourself," said the skipper, shortly.  "I'd
take the pig, if I could, but I can't.  We've none too much room
aboard now, and I can't build a deck house for such a hulking beast
as your cursed old pig."

Shortly after dawn next morning Malleson was ready.  He had spent
an hour or so in meditation over the pig pen, fed Brian for the
last time, and taken a tender farewell of him.  And, as he now
stepped out of his house for the last time, he gave the chief a
parting injunction.

"See that he eateth nothing but that which is given him by thine
own hand, my friend; and that his bed be made with very little,
smooth pebbles, covered over with much soft, fine grass; a big
stone among them doth both hurt and anger him when he lieth down to
sleep."

Then as Malleson and the captain walked down to the beach, the
people stood around, and called out in their guttural tongue:  Tíak
ápo, Tími (Good-bye, Jimmy); and the trader, with a last look
towards the pigsty, stepped into the boat.

Suddenly a hideous sound--a combination of a snort of rage and a
squeal of terror--smote upon his ear, and in an instant he had
jumped out, and made toward the pig pen.  Just as he came in view
of the lowly structure he saw a number of native children
disappearing round the back of his storehouses, and Teban, the
chief, in swift pursuit, shouting out threats of vengeance.

In a few minutes the chief returned and explained matters to the
agitated Malleson, who was now in the pen, rubbing the pig's
cheeks, and asking him what was the matter.  It seemed that the
moment Malleson had got into the boat a rude little boy had thrust
a sharpened fish-spear into Brian's snout to make Brian squeal.

Teban swore by the shades of his father and two uncles to find the
culprit and beat him.

Malleson didn't answer him for awhile.  His feelings overpowered
him.  Presently he got out of the pen and walked down the beach to
the boat.

"Come on, man, come on," called the captain, impatiently, "we'll
never get away at this rate."

"Look here, captain, I've changed my mind about goin'.  Sling my
traps out again, will you?  You can tell the old woman that I was
glad to hear from her, an' if she likes to come down here to me
with you next trip, I'll try and make her comfortable, an' be a
good husban' to her. . . .  But it's no use, I can see, trusting
Brian with these natives.  He's trembling now like a asping leaf.
Some d----d boy has just been proddin' the poor fellow in the nose
out o' pure devilment."

And then shaking hands with the disgusted skipper, the grief-
stricken man hurried back to solace and soothe the angry feelings
of his beloved pig.

                          * * * * *

Malleson is now living in a swell weather-board house at Tarawa,
with his lawful wife; and Brian has "took" to Mrs. Malleson.




PRESCOTT OF NAURA


I


About three or four hundred miles to the westward of the Kingsmill
Group, and situated twenty-five miles south of the equator, is an
isolated island, with a teeming population of noisy, intractable
savages.  It is called by the people Naura, and to the white
traders and seamen who frequent that little-visited part of the
South Pacific, is known as Pleasant Island.  At the present time it
is under the jurisdiction of the Imperial German Commissioner of
the Marshall Islands, having been included in the German-protected
area in the Pacific in 1884.  Since that time the social conditions
and habits of the people have changed but little, save for one
important particular--their German masters try to keep a tight rein
upon their blood-letting proclivities, and the seven clans with
which the island is peopled are no longer allowed to slaughter each
other with a free hand; and everything they buy is made in Germany.

But even under the government of a civilised nation, life to-day
among the wild denizens of Naura is full of exciting incident, for
there is but one German official on the island, and sometimes the
old fighting leaven becomes too strong and the seven clans shoot
merrily away at each other over their stone boundary walls.  Then a
report goes to the Commissioner at Jaluit, and by and by a German
man-of-war comes down and her captain chides the people, who
promise, like the children they are, not to be wicked any more, but
to lay aside their rifles--and make copra for the German trading
firm--else they won't get any more English tinned beef and American
tobacco made in Germany.

But thirty or forty years ago Pleasant Island was a wild place
indeed.  The ships of the American whaling fleet that in those days
sailed from one end of the Pacific to the other, called there often
enough, but every man on board, save those working the ship, held a
musket or a cutlass in his hand as long as the vessel lay off and
on at the island.  For bad enough as the natives were, the white
men who lived with them were worse.  Among them were men who would
have thought no more of cutting off a ship and murdering all hands
than they would of shooting a native of the island.  And it was on
Pleasant Island that Robert Prescott had cast his lot when he ran
away from the brig Clarkston, of Sydney.  This vessel when cruising
through the New Hebrides Group had found him at Vaté, where he was
living with the natives.

In those times captains of whalers and sandal-wooding ships picked
up many such wandering white men as this man among the islands and
asked no questions from whence they came.  And although the captain
of the Clarkston had a good idea that Prescott was one of a gang of
escaped Tasmanian convicts, he cheerfully accepted his statement
that he had run away from the Rifleman, a London whaler, and
acceded to his wish to give him a passage to Pleasant Island.

Three months after, Prescott, then an immensely powerful young man,
and notorious for his violent temper, landed on the island, and was
greeted with much enthusiasm by some eight or ten white
beachcombers, most of whom had known him when, as their associate,
he was engaged in the laborious occupation of hauling timber at
Port Arthur under the supervision of the unappreciative prison
officials who "bossed" the chain gang.

Among the hardened criminals who escorted their newly-found comrade
to the village in which four or five of them lived in rude, drunken
luxury, was an old New South Wales convict named Jasper Dale, whose
brute strength and pre-eminence in every imaginable kind of
villainy had led to his tacit installation as leader, not only of
the majority of the white renegades of Naura, but of one of the
most powerful of the natives clans.

With such a man as this for his friend, Prescott--himself a man of
the most ferocious courage and cruel nature--soon became a person
of influence among the natives, and ere long he and Dale came to
open enmity with the other beach-combers, who one by one withdrew
themselves to the protection of the chiefs other clans.

                          * * * * *

A year or two previous to the arrival of Prescott on the island,
Dale had taught the natives how to make an ardent spirit from the
sap of the inflorescence of the coconut palm; and it was no unusual
sight to see the whole male population of one village, maddened by
drinking this "toddy," as it was called, sally forth from their
houses of thatch, and, led by their particular white man, engage in
bloody combat with the people of the next village.  In these
encounters Dale had always taken the leadership of the fighting-men
of his clan, and his prowess in war led him to be treated with the
greatest consideration by his native friends.  Before Prescott's
arrival he had already given further distinction to his name by
shooting dead a fellow beach-comber named Lawson, and carrying off
his wife to his already ample harem.  The savage spirit in which
Prescott emulated him in deeds of bloodshed proved his eminent
fitness as a lieutenant, and it was this partiality that Dale
evinced for him that led to the rupture with the other white men.

For some time neither Prescott nor Dale came into actual collision
with their former associates till one day an ex-convict named
Cassidy, with three other whites and two hundred natives at his
back, maddened, like himself, with drinking sour toddy, burst upon
the village in which Dale and Prescott lived and began firing into
and burning the houses right and left.  Seizing his musket at the
first alarm Prescott had taken his stand in front of his house, and
the first shot he fired struck Cassidy, and killed him on the spot.
The loss of their leader made the attacking party retreat, and the
two friends, flushed with their victory, that night held high revel
with their native friends in the maniapa, or council-house, of
their village, and planned the utter destruction of their former
colleagues.

Their native allies entered eagerly into the scheme, and it was
finally agreed upon that if they and their two white men succeeded
in exterminating the others, that the island should be divided into
two districts--one for Dale, the other for Prescott; and after long
discussion it was decided to make an attack in two days' time upon
a village in which six of the white men lived.

But their plans were thrown suddenly out of gear by an unlooked-for
event--next morning at daylight they saw lying-to, close in shore,
a large ship, which, by the number of boats and men she carried, it
was easy to see was a whaler.

Dale and Prescott, calling loudly to their native friends to come
with them in force and board the ship before they were anticipated
by the other white men on the island, were just preparing to start,
when, to their disgust, they saw that a whaleboat, in which were
their former companions, had already reached the ship.

"Curse them!" said Dale, with a fearful oath, to his crime-stained
partner, "Klinermann, Ashton, and Cow-faced Bob and the others have
got to windward of us this time.  They'll buy all the spare arms
and ammunition they can get, and then sail in and wipe us two out."

"Never!" said Prescott, passionately, as his hand gripped a pistol
savagely.  "I tell you, Dale, that if you stand by me we will yet
be masters here."

"What is the use of it?" said Dale.  "Even if we do wipe 'em out,
we can't expect to live here for ever.  I tell you, man, that
there's bound to be a man-o'-war here before long--and you know
what that means"; and with a hideous grimace he pointed to his
throat.  "The System* ain't agoin' to let us chaps live in clover
down here."


* The Convict System of New South Wales.


Sitting down on an upturned canoe the man Prescott gazed moodily
out upon the placid ocean towards the whaleship as she slowly stood
out seawards with the shore boat in tow.  Suddenly he sprang up,
and with clenched hands and working features strode to and fro
under the waving plumes of the palm trees.

"Dale," he said, suddenly, and his voice was husky and hoarse with
emotion, "you know me.  I tell you that if you will stand by me we
will see Europe or America in another twelve months.  O God, man!
O God!  I must get somewhere away from these cursed men-o'-war, or
I'll go mad."

"Spit it out, then," said Dale, with a savage light in his eye.  "I
ain't the cove to go back on a man.  Wot d'ye want to do?"

"Come here," said Prescott, clutching his arm and drawing him into
the deserted native council-house.

For nearly half an hour the two men talked, and then separated as
they saw the whaleship shorten her canvas and heave to, and the
boat, crowded with white men, pull for the shore.

                          * * * * *

In the boat there were seven white men belonging to the island and
four others from the ship.  These four useless, dissolute creatures
had been told by the captain of the whaleship that as he no longer
wanted them on board they might go on shore and stay there.  Fired
with the desire of leading a lazy, sensuous life among the wild
people of Pleasant Island, they had eagerly accepted the invitation
of the seven beach-combers to "come ashore and live like fighting-
cocks."

As the boat drew in to the beach the man who steered, a tall,
slender young fellow named Beverley, suddenly uttered an expression
of alarm, and pointed to the figures of their two former comrades
who were seated on the shore, apparently awaiting their arrival.
Behind them were some three or four hundred natives belonging to
the village in which the seven beach-combers lived.

"By God, boys," said young Beverley, "there's Prescott and Dale
right among our people, sitting down on the beach as if they
belonged here--and as if Prescott hadn't shot poor Cassidy less
than twelve hours ago."

"What does it matter, Bev.?" hiccupped a crime-hardened ruffian
named Greenhaugh; "they're in our village, and if they meant
mischief our natives would have made short work of 'em.  Tell you
what it is, boys.  Dale ain't a bad cove, neither is Prescott--
they've come round to make it up with us.  An' I votes we makes it
up an' has a howlin' drunk all round, and treats each other like
gentlemen."

The hospitable sentiments of Mr. Greenhaugh were well received by
his companions, and as soon as the boat touched the beach the
eleven white men left her to be hauled up by the natives and
advanced in drunken, rollicking good-humour to the two men who
awaited them.

"Hallo, Beverley," said Prescott, advancing, "you chaps got to
windward of me and Dale this time in getting aboard the ship first.
Well, never mind, we aren't going to quarrel over it, are we, Dale?
But what we do want to say is this: we ain't going to bear no
malice for what happened yesterday.  Cassidy got wiped out.  We
ain't going to deny it.  I wiped him out, an' if you other chaps,"
pointing to the other three men who had followed Cassidy in the
previous day's encounter, "hadn't cleared mighty smart, you'd have
all been wiped out too by our crowd.  And so what I say is this,
let us make friends again and live quiet and peaceablelike.  You,
Beverley, are married to a sister of my wife; so here's my hand,
and let bygones be bygones."

"Right you are, Prescott.  I don't want no fighting, and I wouldn't
join in the row yesterday.  I have no grudge against you," and so
saying young Beverley held out his hand.  In a few moments the
others followed his example.

"Well, look here, boys," said Dale, meditatively, "our house at the
other village is a bigger one than yours.  We've got plenty of
grog, and why can't you chaps all come up to our village, and we'll
have a blazin' spree, and drink repose to poor Cassidy's foolish
soul?"

"Yes, come on, lads," said Prescott; "we'll make it up to-night,
and besides that, we can talk business"; and he looked meaningly at
Beverley, who, though so young, he knew possessed great influence
over the other men.

Half an hour's walk brought them to Prescott and Dale's village,
and then, surrounded by a tumultuous and excited crowd of
Prescott's native friends, the thirteen white men entered his
house, and were made welcome by his and Dale's wives.  A case of
gin was passed out to the natives, and, to show that no treachery
was intended towards their guests, Prescott commanded the people to
bring all their arms--muskets, clubs and spears--into his house,
and lay them down on the matted floor.

Less cruel and treacherous than their white associates, the natives
instantly complied, and in a few minutes the floor of the beach-
combers' house was covered with weapons.  As soon as the natives
had withdrawn to their huts, which were within a few hundred yards
of Dale and Prescott's house, the latter opened a couple of bottles
of liquor, and pouring the fiery contents into coconut shells
handed it round to the company.

Throwing off all disguise, Prescott strode into the middle of the
room, and drinking off his liquor spoke.

"Boys," he said, and his bright blue eyes glittered and sparkled
with cruel lustre, "Dale and I didn't ask you here just to get
drunk.  Did we, Dale?"

"No," said Dale, with a fierce laugh as he drained off his liquor
and dashed the empty coconut shell to the ground.  "We asked you
coves here to see if you had any grit in yer, an' was game for a
bold stroke."

"What d'ye want us for, then, d--n yer?" said Greenhaugh, the most
reckless of the lot.  "D'ye want us to sing a hymn for poor Ted
Cassidy?"

"This is what we want," said Prescott, and advancing to the table
he spread out both hands upon it.  "Here we are, thirteen men, all
got arms, and plenty of niggers to back us up--and there's a ship
to be had for very little trouble.  Now do you understand?"

For a moment no one answered him, and then Beverley with his brown
arms folded across his brawny chest, advanced to Prescott.

"What do you mean, Prescott--cutting off?"

The ex-convict nodded, and then gazed with keen anxiety into the
young man's face.  The rest of the men looked from one to the
other, but no words escaped their lips.

Dashing his hand upon the table the young beach-comber looked into
the dark and lowering face of Prescott.

"Look here, Bob Prescott, if you brought us here to try and work
this dodge you've made a mistake.  I may be a d----d scoundrel, but
I'm not going to murder a ship's crew for the sake of what is
aboard the ship," and turning fiercely to the other men who sat
silent at the table.  "And if any man among you chaps listens to
such a thing, by God, I'll go to the ship and tell the skipper!"

Five or six of the men sprang to their feet, and in eager tones
assured the speaker that they would not entertain the idea.  And
then Prescott, with simulated drunken hilarity, clapped Beverley on
the back, and swore that his suggestion was only a joke.

"Get another bottle of grog, Terátiko," he said to his native wife,
at the same time shooting a glance of terrible meaning towards
Dale.

"I'll get it, Bob," said Dale, going to a partitioned-off part of
the house, where the liquor was kept.  As he stepped past Prescott
he muttered--

"Come in with me;" and then in a loud voice he asked him to come
and show him where the grog was.

The moment they entered the partitioned room the man Dale whispered--

"What are you going to do?"

"Look," said Prescott, with an oath, as he pointed out through the
window seaward, "do you see that ship?  Well, only for these
chicken-hearted dogs that ship would be ours to-night.  But they
won't do it.  And I say that if we can't get away in that ship
those eleven chaps in there will wipe us out like we wiped out
Cassidy."

"Well," said Dale, in a hoarse whisper, "I SAY, WHAT ARE YOU
A'GOIN' TO DO?"

With a swift glance at his companion, Prescott took a bottle of
liquor from a case and handed it to Dale.

"Quick--take this out and open it for them.  But mind, don't drink
anything yourself from the next bottle when I bring it in."

In a moment or two the white men heard Prescott calling to his
wives to bring in some food, and Greenhaugh, with a drunken laugh,
staggered to his feet, and said he would assist the ladies to bring
in the dinner.

"Sit down, you fool," said Beverley, the youngest and least
ruffianly of the seven beach-combers, "haven't you got enough sense
to keep quiet in this place?" and he pointed to the muskets,
cutlasses, and knives that were lying upon the floor.  "Do you
think that because we have got all these muskets here that we are
safe?  Bah, you drunken fool!"

Steadying himself at the doorway, Greenhaugh boastingly asserted
that he for one was afraid of neither their hosts nor the natives,
and then, meeting an answering look in some of his comrades' faces,
he let his caution vanish.

"What's to keep us from shootin' 'em both now?" he said, lurching
up to Beverley again, and speaking in a husky whisper.

At that moment Prescott entered the room, and his quick ear caught
Beverley's answer--

"Shoot him yourself if you want to; but you're not going to do it
now.  I like fair play.  He's acting fair and square now to us, and
I ain't going in for any underhand shooting."

"Here, boys," said Prescott, advancing to the table, followed by a
number of women carrying leaf platters of baked fish and pork;
"here's some 'chuck.'  But let's have another drink first;" and
going to the latticed-in store room he took out a bottle of liquor
from the case and set it upon the table.

Little did the unfortunate victims of his dreadful treachery know
that the food which this monster had placed before them had been
impregnated with a deadly poison.  Possibly Prescott might have
relented at the last moment but for the conversation he had
overheard between Beverley and Greenhaugh, which steeled him in his
murderous resolution.

Presently a native woman, instructed by Prescott, came to the door
and called to Dale.

"What is it?" said the ex-convict, going outside to where the woman
stood.

"Pápu (Bob) says you are not to eat any food, and to watch him."

Dale nodded and returned inside, and then the coconut shells of
liquor were passed round again.  Without the slightest hesitation
Prescott poured some out for himself and drank it off, and then,
looking steadily at his colleague, passed the shell to his
neighbour.  Instantly Dale surmised that he had changed his mind
about administering the poison in the liquor, and he too drank
some.

Then, waited upon by their two murderers, the wretched men began to
eat.

Suddenly, as if inspired with a happy idea, Dale remarked, "Why
didn't Davy Terris come with you chaps?"

Beverley laughed.  "He had a hand in that job of Cassidy's."

"Why, that's nothing," said Dale, with rough good-humour; "d----d
if I don't walk down to his place and bring him here."

"By hell, yes," assented Prescott, "and I'll go with you.  We'll
all be friends now, boys;" and picking up his hat he strode out
with Dale, and took the path that led towards the village in which
the man Terris lived.  As they went off he called back to his
guests not to spare the "chuck," as there were plenty more fish and
fowls being cooked, and that Terris, Dale, and himself would eat
together.

                          * * * * *

The awful scene that followed within a few minutes after these two
friends had left the house may be imagined, but not described.  On
seven of them the poison soon took deadly effect, and within half
an hour their writhing figures had stiffened cold in death.  Of the
four others, Beverley and a seaman from the whaler were least
affected, and, although unable to walk, managed to crawl to
different portions of the room, where they lay in agony so terrible
that the listening and wondering natives, hundreds of yards away,
were moved to pity, and besought the two white men to go and put an
end to their misery.

With terrible imprecations the beach-combers held the natives back,
and waited for another half an hour, till all was silent.  Then
together they entered the house, and presently the natives, who
were still forbidden to enter, heard three shots--the death knell
of the poor wretches who were still alive.

                          * * * * *

Two or three years passed.

Of the fate of Dale nothing was ever known, but the subsequent
career of the wretch Prescott was well known to many an island
trader.  Filled with horror at the deed the white men had
perpetrated, the natives of the island withdrew their countenance
entirely from them, and, some months afterwards, Prescott was
forced by them to go on board the American whaler Gideon Hauling.
The captain refused to take him further than Ocean Island, a small
spot a few hours' sail from Pleasant Island.  Eight months
afterwards he again returned to Pleasant Island in the London
whaler Eleanor (all these latter particulars I take from the log of
an old Sydney shipmaster, Captain Beckford Simpson, of the barque
Giraffe, in a report to the Nautical Magazine of 1840), but with
cries of horror and disgust the natives repulsed him from landing.
Where he went to after this was not known, but in 1843 Captain
Stokes, of the whaler Bermondsey, reported having seen him in
chains at San Juan d'Apra, in Guam; and this was subsequently
confirmed by Captain Bunker, of the Elizabeth.  Whether he had
committed some fresh crime, or had merely been given up to the
Spanish authorities by some ship as a runaway convict from New
South Wales, does not appear.  How he escaped from Guam is not
known.

For twenty years this tiger in human form lived a wandering life
among the islands of the North-West Pacific, and then disappeared
from that part of the South Seas, to re-appear among the French
islands of the Society and Paumotu groups.  But the tale of his
great crime followed him.  Only a man of his utterly callous nature
could have survived many years of such an existence.  There was
hardly an island in the Pacific which he had not sought out in the
vain hope of finding refuge from the story of his black past.


                             II


Five years ago a trader named Watson was staying at the Waitemata
Hotel, in Auckland, slowly recovering from the terrible malarial
fever of New Guinea, contracted eighteen months previously in
Orangerie Bay.  He did not know one single person in the city of
Auckland that he could call a friend, and time hung heavily upon
him.  Only that it was a matter of physical impossibility for him
to get about, he would have returned to the islands weeks before.
Knowing no one, and taking no interest in local matters, he eagerly
read the shipping news in the morning papers, to see if any vessels
had arrived from the South Sea Islands; for the best part of his
life had been spent in the various groups of the South and North
Pacific, and the name of not only every vessel and captain engaged
in the island trade from Tonga to New Guinea was familiar to him as
his own, but the personality of every trader as well.

One morning he saw notified the arrival of a schooner from the
island of Aitutaki, in the Cook's Group.  The name of her captain
at once recalled to memory his cheery face and rude good-nature
when Watson and he were shipmates in the Queensland labour trade
eight years before.

He wrote a note and sent it on board, and in the evening the
skipper came up to the hotel.  They had much to say to each other,
and for nearly an hour talked of old times and friends in the
Solomons and New Hebrides Group, of which part of the Pacific the
skipper declared he had had enough.  "A murderous low-down crowd of
niggers," he said, with a cheerful smile, drawing up the coat-
sleeve of his right arm and showing Watson a most extraordinary
thing in the way of inartistic butchery of the human form.  "Look
at that, my son.  Don't it look like as if the flesh had been
parcelled round the bone in strips?  The niggers did that for me at
Bougainville two years ago.  I was rushed on the beach, and my boat
backed out before I could get down to her; my boat's crew had gone
back on me--planned with the natives that I should be killed!
Three of them jumped overboard when they saw that I was wading off,
and made for the shore, leaving only a sooty black devil of a Buka
Buka boy in the boat.  He stood his ground, although he was only a
slip of a lad.  He was too frightened to try and shoot me, but the
moment I got my hand on the gunwale of the boat he commenced
slicing the flesh off my arm, from the wrist down, with his sheath-
knife.  He didn't want to kill me, only stop me getting into the
boat.  Only that my mate saw the row from the schooner I'd have
been killed in the end, sure enough.  She was about a couple of
hundred fathoms away, and he and the crew commenced firing over
towards the boat, so as to scare the boy away.  It did scare him,
too, for as the first ball hummed by him he jumped over on the
other side and dived ashore, leaving me just able to crawl aboard
and fall unconscious in the bottom of the boat.  And I don't tackle
the Solomon Islands any more, my son."

"Well," said Watson, "you're in a nice quiet trade now, among the
Christianised and 'saved' kanakas of the Cook Group, where the once
shocking heathen goes about clothed and in his right mind."

"Aye," grinned the old skipper, "they do, the dirty beggars.  Once
a kanaka gets 'saved,' and wears European clothing, he gets very
filthy in his habits, and won't wash himself, and puts on such a
look of greasy saintliness that there's no living on the same
island with them--unless you chew off the same plug as the white
missionary.  So it's no wonder that so many of these old white
traders among the eastern islands are shoving out to the westward,
where they can at least live without interference from the white-
chokered gentry.  I've got an old fellow aboard now, passenger with
me.  He's come up here to get away to New Ireland, or the Admiralty
Group, via Samoa."

"What is his name?"

"Collier--Mike Collier.  He's a tough old warrior, nearly seventy,
I think.  He's been trading for the Tahiti people in the Gambiers,
he tells me, but says the French missionaries and he didn't hit it,
so he's going west again.  He's a nice, pleasant old fellow,
doesn't drink, but is a bit queer in his ways."

"Old age," suggested Watson.

"Not exactly; but he won't come ashore and live.  He says he'll
wait till he gets a passage to Samoa.  Says he likes the smell of
the copra in the hold, and doesn't like mixing with shore people.
So I've agreed to let him stay aboard till we're ready for sea
again; then he'll have to shift and go to a pub."

The trader saw Captain Ross several times after this, and on each
occasion he mentioned that old Mike still remained on board, and
had not yet put foot ashore.  "However," added Ross, "he'll have to
clear out tomorrow, as I'm bound to get away in the forenoon."

"Send him here," said Watson; "he'll be a good mate for me, and the
place is quiet enough."

"Right," said Ross, "I'll bring him up to-night."

Sitting in his bedroom after dinner, smoking his pipe, Watson heard
Captain Ross's gruff, good-humoured voice on the stairs.  He was
speaking to some one whom Watson at once surmised was the eccentric
old trader from the Gambiers.  Presently, in answer to something
the skipper had said, he heard the stranger speak.

"Yes, there are a good many stairs, Captain."

The sound of the man's voice--querulous from age--struck the trader
like a shot.  He remembered when and where he had heard it last.
In a few seconds more they entered.  Watson had not yet lit the
gas, and the room was in comparative darkness.

"Are you in, Watson?" said Captain Ross.  "Here's old Mr. Collier
come to see you.  Can you get him a room?"

"Come in, Captain," replied the trader, striking a match and
lighting the gas.  "How are you, sir?" and he nodded to the old
trader, who had quietly seated himself at the further end of the
room.  He had his own reasons for not shaking hands with him.  "Oh,
yes, you'll get a room here.  Sit down, Ross, and I'll send for
something to drink."

But the skipper was in a hurry and would not stay, and shaking
hands with the old man and Watson he bade them goodbye, and hurried
away downstairs.

Until now the sick trader had not had an opportunity of looking at
his visitor.  Turning towards him after bidding the captain
goodbye, he caught the stranger's eye fixed upon him.

He was a short but broad-shouldered and muscular man, with a mass
of wavy white hair overhanging his temples, which, with the rest of
his face and neck, were burnt by long, long years of wandering
under the torrid sun of Polynesia to the deepest bronze.  His face
was cleanly shaven, and were it not for the whiteness of his hair
would have seemed absolutely youthful, so free was it from the
lines and indentations of advanced age.  And--a fitting
accompaniment to the broad, square jaw and firm, determined mouth--
his eyes were of a bright steely blue, and met the trader's in a
calm, assured, but yet irritating and aggressive manner.

For a moment or two they looked at each other steadily, and then,
leaning back in his chair, the old man placed his dark, sunburnt
hands on his knees and laughed.

"Well, young fellow, you'll know me next time, I hope."

The cold, sneering inflexion of his tones irritated the trader.  It
was a direct challenge.

"I know you as it is," he answered.  "You are Prescott of Naura."

In an instant the stranger leapt up, stood beside Watson, and
seized his hands in a vice-like grip, and the trader heard his
teeth grind savagely, and felt his hot, panting breath upon his
cheek.

"Yes," he said, in a low, savage voice, "I am Prescott, from
Pleasant Island, and I'll strangle you like a dog if you tell it to
any one else."

Suddenly he let go Watson's hands.

"Look here, you're a sick man, and I'm not going to take advantage
of it.  Now listen to me.  I am an old man, and life isn't worth
much to me.  But, look here--what harm have I ever done you?"

"None," said Watson, "nor have I any evil intentions towards you.
Whatever you have done does not concern me personally."

The old man sat down again, and bent his fierce blue eyes upon the
ground.  For a minute or so he remained silent, then he sprang to
his feet and paced the room rapidly.

"Where did you see me before?" he asked.

"At Callie Harbour, in the Admiralty Group," replied Watson.  "You
came on board the Dancing Wave to see Captain Leeman about buying
some tobacco from him.  I was the supercargo."

"Ha!  I remember you.  And where is Leeman now?"

"Dead," answered Watson.  "He died in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and
was buried on Adolphus Island."

The old man nodded.  Then he stopped short in his walk.

"Are you a poor man?"

"What the devil does that matter to you?" answered Watson, shortly.

He turned away and picked up a small portmanteau that he had
brought with him, opened it and took out a small canvas bag and
threw it contemptuously on the table.

"Those are sovereigns--good English sovereigns.  Will they buy your
silence, and let an old and hunted man escape to some unknown spot
where he may die in peace?"

"You may go," said Watson, "and take your sovereigns with you.
Murderer and fiend as you are, I cannot give you up to justice.
The witnesses of your horrible crime are all dead.  But I would
like to see you hanged."

He looked at the trader intently for half a minute, and then taking
up the bag of sovereigns dropped it back into the portmanteau,
closed, locked, and strapped it.  Then again he paced to and fro
like a tiger in a cage.

"Do you know ALL about me?" he said, suddenly, in a strangely harsh
voice.

"A good deal," replied the younger man.

Again he laughed savagely.  "And yet you won't give me away to the
white men!"

"Don't you call yourself a white man?" said Watson.

"No," he growled back, "I am not a white man.  The cat took all of
the white man out of me at Port Arthur; and for fifty years I have
lived with kanakas, and I am a kanaka now--backbone and soul."

Without a word of farewell he picked up his portmanteau, passed
through the door, and went downstairs.

Watson, looking out through the window into the street, presently
saw his short, square-set figure appear upon the footpath.  For a
moment or two he stood under the glare of a gas-lamp, then, with a
quick, active step, he strode across the street and was lost to
view.




CHESTER'S "CROSS"


The Montiara, trading schooner, had finished taking in her stores,
and hauled out to an anchorage in Honolulu Harbour, ready to start
on one of her usual trading cruises to the Caroline Group.  The
captain, accompanied by his supercargo, had gone ashore again to
the British Consulate for his papers, letters, &c, leaving the two
mates in charge to amuse themselves till his return by playing cut-
throat euchre with some of the brown-skinned kanaka crew--for they
were a sociable lot aboard the Montiara, and, when he first joined
the ship, had given young Denison, the supercargo, much cause for
reflection.  This, however, was his second voyage; and he now knew
that "Tarawa Bob" and "Rotumah Tom," two huge, soft-hearted, hard-
fisted able seamen, whose light brown skins were largely
illustrated by fantastic devices in blue and vermilion, were the
respective brothers-in-law of the gentlemen who officiated as first
and second mates of the schooner--Messrs. Joe Freeman and Pedro do
Ray.  And if, occasionally, their superior position made these
officers in times of emergency address their tattooed brethren-in-
law in vigorous and uncomplimentary language, emphasised by a knock-
down blow, no ill-will was either felt on one side nor engendered
on the other.  Therefore, in moments of relaxation, when the ship
lay at anchor and there was nothing to do, the two white men seated
on one side of the skylight and the two brown on the other, with a
large bottle of Hollands gin between them, would endeavour to rook
each other at cards.  Sometimes, too, Denison had witnessed further
proof of the camararderie existing between all the hands for'ar'd
and the two mates, when the latter, overflowing with generosity and
strong drink, would invite their coloured shipmates to come ashore
and paint the town red.  All these things surprised Denison--for he
was very young then, and came from a religious family.  But he
gained experience later on, when he sailed with Packenham in the
brig Indiana, as you will see in another story.

So with a parting admonition to his officers to let no one go
ashore, and to heave short at four o'clock, as soon as they saw him
coming down the wharf, old Hunter, the grizzled skipper and owner
of the little schooner, had shoved off and pulled in to the pretty
palm-embowered town nestling under the shadows of Diamond Head.

"How are you, Hunter?" said the Consul, as soon as the captain and
Denison entered his office.  "I'm glad you've come in just now.
I've had a visitor--a lady from San Francisco.  She arrived here
yesterday by the Moses Taylor; wants to know if I can get her a
passage down to the Caroline Group."

"The deuce!" said Hunter.  "_I_ can't take her in the Montiara.
And what on earth does she want to go down there for?  Is she a she-
mission'ry?"

The Consul laughed at the sour expression on the old seaman's face;
then he became grave.

"No, she's not a missionary, Hunter, and I really do wish you could
see your way clear to take her--she seems terribly anxious."

"But, man, I can't.  My cabin is only a small one, and there's my
two mates and Mr. Denison here, besides myself, to occupy all the
room, which is very little.  But if she's not a she-mission'ry,
what in thunder does she want down in the Carolines?"

The Consul shrugged his shoulders.  "I can only tell you that she's
a lady--mind, Hunter, a LADY--a widow, I suppose, as she has a
little boy with her--and she is now staying at the hotel.  She told
me her name--here it is," and he took up a card--"Mrs. Hilda Weston--
and that she hurried down here from San Francisco in the mail-boat
to catch the Morning Star, missionary brig.  But, as you know, the
Morning Star sailed for the Carolines a week ago."

"And I hope she may get piled up there," growled old Hunter, who
did not love missionaries, "and the snufflebusting crowd of thieves
on board of her go to the bottom with her."

"Well," resumed the Consul, "that seemed to upset her greatly.  It
seems that she had been promised, and counted upon, a passage in
the missionary brig.  What was she to do? she asked, when I told
her that the Morning Star would not be back here and sail again for
the Carolines for another six months.  Then I thought of you.  It
struck me that you might manage to fix her and the little boy a
berth somehow.  She has plenty of money--that I can vouch for; said
she would pay as much as five hundred dollars for a passage, and
not complain of any discomfort."

Hunter looked first at the Consul and then at Denison doubtfully,
and then shook his head.  A hundred pounds was a nice little sum
for a passage that would only take fourteen or fifteen days, and
yet it could not be done.  The one small deck-house of the schooner
was occupied by his officers' wives, and it wouldn't be fair to
turn them out of it to sleep on deck.  Joe and Pedro wouldn't mind,
provided a financial reason were adduced for THEIR benefit, but the
women would, and so would the ladies' brothers, who would sulk over
the indignity--kanaka sailors have some blessed privileges over
those of the ordinary British sailor-man.

"Here, take her card," said the Consul, "and go and see her
yourself.  You may, perhaps, be able to make arrangements in some
way.  Anyway, she seems very anxious to meet you, and I gave her my
promise that you would call."

"Oh, did you?" grumbled Hunter.  "Well, here you are, Denison, YOU
go and see her--you look so nice and pretty in that white duck suit
of yours, that I wouldn't think of going myself.  And look here,
sonny, tell her that I can't possibly give her a passage down this
trip, but will the next, in about four months from now.  That will
be two months sooner than the Morning Star.  But, wait a minute--
find out what island she wants to go to, and if it is anywhere this
side of Ponape I'll land her there for £50--that's about a fair
thing."

                          * * * * *

Denison had waited five minutes in a sitting-room of the hotel when
she came in--a pretty, fair-haired woman, with deep, wistful hazel
eyes.  Her face was deathly pale, and Denison's heart somehow went
out to her in quick sympathy--there was such an underlying sadness
in her looks.

"I am Mrs. Weston," she said in a voice that quivered with
trembling excitement, as she motioned the young man to resume his
seat, "but surely you are not the captain of the Montiara?" as the
hazel eyes took in his youthful appearance.

"No, madam.  My name is Denison.  I am the supercargo."  And then
he gave her the skipper's message.

A quick mist came into the dark eyes, and she pressed her hand to
her throat.  Then she found her voice.

"Four months is a long time to wait; but it cannot be helped, I
suppose," and she turned her face away from him and seemed to look
out over the blue waters of the harbour, but Denison saw heavy
tears falling upon a native fan that she held in her hand.

Presently she rose, went to the window and stood there in silence
for a few minutes, gazing seaward.  Then, with the traces of tears
still upon her face, she came back to her seat and said with a
brave smile--

"You must think me very childish to show my disappointment so much;
but I AM oh, so very, very disappointed.  When I left California I
was told that I should be in plenty of time for the Morning Star;
but unfortunately the Moses Taylor broke down when half-way, and we
arrived eight days late, to find the missionary ship had gone.  But
when I heard that there was a trading schooner to sail in a few
days I thought--"  Again her eyes filled, and Denison bent his head
and pretended not to notice.  He felt deeply sorry, but could not
venture to tell her so.  Then he rose to go, but she begged him to
remain a little while.

"Please don't go for a few minutes," she murmured, and then smiled.
"I am sure you are English, are you not?  Ah, I thought so.  I am
an Englishwoman, but have lived so long in America that I like to
meet an Englishman.  Every one in Honolulu is American, I think,
and I have felt very lonely here."  Then her courage seemed to
rise, and bending forward she asked--

"Mr. Denison, is there ANY use at all in my appealing to your
captain to give me a passage in his vessel.  I told Mr. Roche, the
Consul, that I would willingly pay £100; but I shall gladly pay
more.  I will give £200--more--if that amount is not enough."

Denison shook his head.  "I am indeed very sorry to say so, Mrs.
Weston, but it is impossible for us to take you down this trip.  In
the first place we are already short of room, and in the second we
call at the Marshall Group for thirty or forty deck passengers--
native divers we are taking down to the Carolines.  No white woman
could possibly live on board the same ship with such a noisy lot."

She sighed deeply.  "I MUST be content to wait then.  Now, Mr.
Denison, may I ask you if you will tell me something about the
Caroline Islands?"

"With pleasure--that is, all I CAN tell you.  I have only made one
voyage there--in fact, the present will be only my second voyage in
this part of the Pacific."

She looked at him for an instant, and then with a violent rush of
colour suffusing her face from temple to throat asked--

"Do you know Mr. Tom Chester--one of the traders living down
there?"

"Where does he live--I mean at what particular island.  There are
many hundreds of islands in the Eastern and Western Carolines."

"On Las Matelotas--that is, he did so three or four years ago.  He
is very dark--and fond of singing."

Now Denison did know the man she spoke of--knew him well, and
hardly knew what to say.  Most supercargoes do not care about
giving information concerning traders to utter strangers--so many
of them have reasons for burying themselves in the Pacific Islands.
And he knew that old Hunter thought much of the man, and would not
like his supercargo giving even this beautiful young creature any
information about him, so he hesitated ere he answered.

"I may know him.  I cannot say for certain."

"This is Mr. Chester," she said, quickly, and before he knew it he
was holding a photograph in his hand.  The woman watched him
keenly.

Denison recognised it immediately as the man he knew as Tom Chester--
mata uli, the dark-faced, as the Las Matelotas people called him.

He was about to lie, and say, "I don't know him," but, looking up,
he met her deep, earnest eyes--and failed.

"Yes, I know him," he said; "he is one of our traders.  He is well
known down there, and liked.  Is he a friend of yours?"

"Yes"; and again the red flush leapt to her face, "a very dear
friend," and then with a curious, shaking intonation, "I am very
anxious to see him.  He is my cousin.  I have not seen him for four
or five years.  My husband died six months ago in America, and
there are family matters which Mr. Chester must be consulted about,
and--and a great many things demand his attention.  I--that is, my
late husband and my relatives have written to him several times
during the past three years, but the letters no doubt never reached
him.  We only knew that he was somewhere in the South Sea Islands,
and the letters were directed to the care of the Consuls at the
various ports.  From one of these we eventually heard that a Mr.
Chester had a trading station at Las Matelotas, in the Western
Carolines.  And so, in despair of communicating with him by letter,
I--that is, his and my relatives, consented to my coming out here
to him."

Denison bowed, but said nothing, and she went on hurriedly:  "I had
not the faintest idea of what a task I was undertaking.  I really
imagined that any part of the South Sea Islands could be reached in
a few days