Part 10

It was an old game to me, but one of which I never wearied. We bent our backs and dug our paddles into the sea. The light canoe flew over the swells at a pace that left a wake of foam. I heard Marama drop his paddle; knew that he had turned to face the stern and taken the long bamboo pole from its place on the outrigger-supports. "_Hoe! Hoe!_" he cried. "Paddle your hardest--the school is turning, and in a moment we shall be among them!"

Now the birds were all about us, and the sea was alive with the small fish on which birds and bonito feed, leaping and flashing by thousands in a frenzy of fear. A bonito leaped with a heavy plunge, close to the canoe--another--another; next moment an acre of sea was churned into foam as they fell upon their prey like wolves. I was in the bow place, and now my efforts were redoubled, for everything depended on keeping the canoe in rapid motion. Marama was seated on the stern thwart, facing the rear. In his right hand he held the butt of the rod, braced against the thwart. As the sun was bright, he had selected a dark lure,--a piece of greenish-black mother-of-pearl, fashioned in the shape of a four-inch minnow,--and it skittered along behind us in an extraordinary lifelike way. Cupping his left hand, Marama leaned over the side and began to throw water over the lure, five yards astern--a custom believed to attract the fish. I heard a shout--a fat bonito came tumbling through the air and thumped into the bottom of the canoe. Next instant the hook was free and over the side again, and the native boy was calling: "Paddle! Paddle! You are letting them draw away from us!" For a quarter of an hour, with aching muscles and a dry throat, I held the canoe on the outskirts of the school. At last the pace became too much for me, and I dropped my paddle as the rearmost birds left us in their wake.

We sank into the bottom of the canoe and lay there panting. Marama was worn out, for bonito-fishing is a strenuous sport. In fifteen minutes, after paddling five hundred yards at racing speed, he had hooked and swung into our canoe nearly a score of fish, averaging seven or eight pounds each! It was still calm, and the dugout rose and fell gently on the swell as we lay there resting. The bank of black clouds was moving imperceptibly toward us, blotting out the horizon with an ominous violet gloom. It was time that we went home and I was about to speak when I saw Marama was pointing eastward.

"The dolphin!" he exclaimed, as my eye caught the glint of half a dozen small white birds circling rapidly above the sea. "Shall we paddle out yonder for a try, or shall we leave the mahimahi for another day?"

"Let us chance it," I suggested. "Pahuri knows, and from what he said there must be dolphin yonder. It may be a long time before we see the white birds circle again!"

We were young and far from prudent. In spite of the approaching squall, we headed the canoe away from land and strained at our paddles anew. When first sighted, the birds were not more than half a mile distant, but they were moving slowly away from us, and twice, before we caught up, the fish must have sounded, for the terns ceased their feeding and flew about uncertainly till they fell to circling again. At last the birds were diving fearlessly about the canoe--beautiful little creatures, smaller than a pigeon, with pointed wings and dark, incurious eyes. Remembering Pahuri's advice, I baited my hook and stood up in the bow to throw out morsels of lobster. Then I swung the line around my head and cast far out in front of the canoe.

"_Te mahimahi!_" cried Marama excitedly; and I saw a great fish, gleaming with the colors of a fire opal, dart up from the depths, seize a morsel of bait, and disappear. At that instant the line tautened with a jerk that cut the skin of my hand: I was fast to my first dolphin.

He seemed strong as a wild horse. Fathom after fathom of line hissed over the gunwale and into the sea, at a speed that brought a shout to Marama's lips. Then the fish turned and shot up to the surface, rushing this way and that--a streaking flame of azure in the sea. As the line shortened, Marama leaned over the side, long-handled gaff in hand. The dolphin was growing weary; still fighting, but at a slowing pace, he passed close to the side of the canoe--and the native boy's arm shot out. The dugout lurched and nearly capsized as he brought the fish alongside, the gaff deep-buried in the gleaming back. A stroke of the club, a dying quiver, and we seized gills and tail to drag the fish aboard, exclaiming in excited admiration at the play of gorgeous color on his sides.

I had forgotten the impending squall, and now, as I glanced back toward Iriatai, I saw that there was no land in sight. Sea and sky were merged in a thick gloom; the air stirred uneasily; the black clouds were almost overhead. Marama was cutting short lengths of fishline to make fast the loose articles in the canoe; the fish-blub, the baler, the gaff. He passed me a bit of line. "Tie one end to the thwart and the other to your paddle," he said, "and remember that if we swamp there will be no cause for fear--there is small chance that the sharks will find us. Three times have I been swamped at sea, and each time we lay in the water till the waves had calmed, and reached the land without mishap. Look well to the outrigger-lashings forward there--a turn of line might make them more secure."

I doubt if any other type of craft as small and light would have weathered what our canoe went through in the half hour that followed. Long before the wind reached us we could hear the moaning sound of it and see an unbroken line of white advancing across the face of the sea. Then, after a sharp preliminary gust, the squall was on us, shrieking and raving out of the west.

A spume of torn salt water, white and stinging like sleet, drove from crest to crest of the seas, mingling with horizontal sheets of rain which blinded us as we fought desperately to hold the plunging canoe bow-on. It was then that I began to realize the wonderful seaworthiness of the Polynesian canoe--light, sharp, and high-sided, balanced by its outrigger of hibiscus wood, buoyant as cork. In riding such a sea there were sudden fierce strains on outrigger and outrigger-poles--strains which would have snapped the tough wood in an instant, save for its strong and flexible cinnet-lashings. Each time a sea came rearing high above us the bow tossed up to meet the slope of broken water--rose up and up, surmounted the wave, and plunged into the seething trough beyond.

"Bale!" Marama was shouting in a voice that came to me faintly above the screaming of the wind. "Bale, or we shall be swamped!"

As I leaned back to take up the baler I saw that the canoe was a third full of water--mingled sea water and rain. I set to work in a panic, while Marama fought to hold us head-on to the seas, with clenched teeth and a steady eye ahead. Working at top speed to throw the water out, I perceived with a sinking heart that the task was beyond his strength; we had done our best, but in another moment the canoe would fill and swamp. Three times, with a sweep of the paddle that knotted his muscles as though cast in bronze, Marama saved us by a miracle. A white-crested roller seized us with a fierce caprice, spinning the canoe about. Marama's paddle dug deep to swing our bows to meet the oncoming sea and then, with a crackling sound audible above the wind, the haft of hard black wood snapped clean in two.

Next moment the wave burst over the gunwale, and we were struggling in the sea.

For a time I felt that the end was near. The water was warm and I was clinging to the outrigger-pole, but it seemed impossible to breathe. I think I should have suffocated, without my long experience of diving at Iriatai. My eyes were filled with water, and each time I strove to get a breath, the sea broke over me to fill my nose and mouth. Little by little I learned to watch my chance, to fill my lungs hastily at moments when I could get a gulp of air.

Marama worked his way along the gunwale of the swamped canoe and took hold beside me, on the forward outrigger pole. The buoyant wood supported our bodies in the water, and our weight at the forward end held the long hull bow-on. The clouds were breaking to the west; the squall was passing suddenly as it had come. The ocean was calming rapidly, steep breaking seas giving place to a long swell, though for the time being there could be no thought of baling the canoe. Before long we were able to speak of our predicament, and I remember that neither of us mentioned sharks, the subject uppermost in both our minds. It is curious that the white man, like his savage cousins, brown or black, is still the prey of an ancient instinct of the race: Never speak of the evil thing you dread!

If the sharks had found us that day, our end would have been a sudden and a ghastly one.

Toward noon the sun shone out through the last of the storm clouds and the sea had gone down so much that Marama made ready for an attempt to get the water out of our canoe. "You have seen it done at Faatemu," he said; "I will watch the waves carefully till our chance comes--and then you must do your best!"

We swam aft and took our places on either side of the stern, holding the canoe head-on while two or three long swells rolled by. Then, at the beginning of a lull, the native boy gave the signal, and we put all our weight on the stern, sinking it deep. "Now!" cried Marama, and we dove down, pushing it still deeper and thrusting forward as our hands let go their hold. The canoe shot into the air, leaping forward as the light wood bounded to the surface; the hull smacked down on the sea, and a rush of water tumbled forward and poured in a cascade over the bows. Piloted by Marama's skilled hands, she took the next swell without shipping a cupful, her gunwale four or five inches clear of the sea.

"Hold on with one hand and bale with the other," ordered my companion, "and I will swim forward to keep her head-on till she is dry."

There were still a good fifty gallons of water and my task was a weary one, but at last she floated high and one after the other we clambered in gingerly over the stern. Without a word Marama stood up, balancing himself with one bare foot on either gunwale as he gazed out intently to the west.

"There is no land in sight," he said.

I felt no great concern at his words, for I believed the squall could not have carried us many miles offshore and though we had only one paddle between us, a few hours would bring us within sight of the palms of Iriatai. I learned afterward that we were in the clutch of one of the uncharted currents of the Paumotus--a current which swept around the north end of Iriatai and was carrying us farther and farther into the vast stretch of ocean between the coral islands and the South American coast.

Toward three o'clock, while I paddled and Marama scanned the empty line of the horizon from his perch in the bows, he gave a sudden shout. "_E pahi!_--a ship!" he cried, and presently I made her out, a two-masted schooner, hull down in the north. Could it be the Tara, come out in search of us? But no--this was not the first time we had spent a day away from camp; by evening my uncle would begin to feel anxiety, but for the present he would think we had been caught in the squall and forced to land--a stove-in canoe, perhaps, and a weary journey on foot through thorny bush and over sharp and broken rocks.

A light steady breeze ruffled the sea that afternoon, and anxious minutes passed before we made certain that the schooner was heading south. When she was still miles away I saw that she was not the Tara. She carried a pair of lofty topsails, a rare sight in these seas; and unlike the schooners in the island trade, the stranger's mainsail sported a gaff, cocked at a jaunty yachting angle. As she came closer, her towering canvas drawing every ounce of power from the air, she made a picture to delight more critical eyes than mine. The Tara had a sturdy beauty of her own, but she was a "bald-headed" schooner, without topmasts, and she would have had the look of a barge beside the tall, graceful vessel approaching us, skimming the sea like a cup-defender under her press of sail.

Presently she was within hailing-distance and we saw her native crew along the rail. The brown men began to shout questions at us, after the fashion of their race: Who were we--whence did we come--where were we going? Then I heard a command, in a roaring voice that made the sailors spring to their posts. The schooner shot into the wind with a crisp shiver of canvas, bobbing and ducking into the head sea as she moved forward and lost way close alongside. Lines were passed down, strong hands came out to help us; the next moment our canoe lay on deck and we were standing beside it, surrounded by good-natured islanders who were chattering, gesticulating, grinning with flashes of their white teeth.

Again the roaring voice boomed out from astern: "Back the fore-staysail! Eh, Tua! Send the Kanaka forward and bring the white boy aft to me!"

Tua, the mate, a tall native with a handsome determined face, touched my arm. Walking aft while the schooner filled away again, I had my first look at the helmsman, a white man of herculean build. He wore a suit of drill, freshly starched and ironed, snowy yachting-shoes, and a Panama of the finest weave. The lower part of his face was concealed by heavy moustaches and a thick blond beard, but the skin above his cheek-bones was smooth as a woman's. His eyes were of a blue I have never seen before nor since: dark and sparkling when his humor was good--in anger, glittering with the cold glare of ice. In some subtle way the eyes reflected the man's whole personality, at once virile, magnetic, daring, unscrupulous, and cruel. But I was young and his cordial manner disarmed me; for the time, my eyes were not open to the evil in our rescuer. He smiled and stretched out a hand to me--an enormous hand with fingers like so many bananas.

"Well, young man," he said, his deep voice and the order of his words carrying a foreign hint, "from where are you come? In that direction, South America is the nearest land!"

I had asked for water as I stepped aboard, and now a black man with a great shock of hair came aft to hand me a pitcher and a glass. The captain watched me, smiling behind his beard as I drank the water to the last drop. Finally I set down the glass.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, "I was very thirsty! It was lucky for us that you happened to pick us up. We went fishing this morning and our canoe was swamped in a squall. Afterward, when the clouds passed, the land was out of sight, and we've been paddling ever since." He glanced down at a chart unrolled before him on the cockpit floor.

"From Iriatai you are come, then," he remarked. "That is strange, for the island is marked as uninhabited. Well, it is not far out of my course--I am bound for Mangareva to load shell."

His courteous manner and lack of curiosity made me feel that it would be boorish to be reticent. I had no suspicion that he was feeling me out for information. And my uncle had nothing to conceal.

"My name is Selden," I told him, "and I have been on the island several mouths. My uncle, Henry Selden, has leased Iriatai from the Government and planted coconuts. Last year he discovered a patch of shell in the lagoon, and the French have granted him a season's diving-rights."

I was going to say more, but a sudden sound interrupted my words. The ship's bell rang out two sharp and measured beats, paused, and sounded twice again. It was six o'clock. The watch was changing, and at a word from the captain the tall mate came aft to take the wheel.

"Keep a man aloft," the skipper said. "It grows dark, but within half an hour you will raise the land." He turned to me. "Come below," he suggested, "you will be hungry after your day at sea. When we have dined, I shall be interested to hear more of your island."

He followed me down to the saloon, where the table was set with shining glass and porcelain. A young woman rose as we appeared, a slender, graceful girl, with sullen eyes and a great bruise disfiguring one pale brown cheek. She wore a loose gown of scarlet silk; crescents of gold were in her ears; and her dark hair, dressed in a single braid thick as a man's arm, hung to her knees. I learned afterward that she was a half-caste from the Carolines. The captain spoke to her and glanced at me.

"Madame Schmidt," he said in introduction; and as I took her hand, I realized suddenly how I must have appeared. It was months since scissors had touched my hair, which stood on my head like a Fijian's, tangled and bleached by the sun. My skin was tanned to a sort of saddle-color, and I was naked save for the torn and faded pareu about my waist. The captain seemed to divine my thought.

"Eh, Raita!" he ordered, "get out for our guest some clean clothes. He will feel more at ease."

I slipped into a stateroom to put on the garments the woman laid out for me: an enormous pair of trousers I rolled up at the bottom, and a coat in which Marama and I could have buttoned ourselves with room to spare. The meal was served by the captain's body servant, the black, shock-headed savage I had seen on deck. He was an evil-looking creature, like some fierce ape masquerading in a sailor's clothes. Several times during the meal Schmidt gave him orders in an outlandish jargon I had never heard, and once, when the captain told him to fetch wine, he asked his master a question in a shrill chatter, grimacing with his eyebrows like a monkey. The woman ate sullenly, without once raising her eyes; when she had finished, she rose and left us without a word.

It was still daylight outside, but the swinging lamp above the table was lit, and under its light I had an opportunity to study the features of my host. I began to change my first opinion of him, for the scrutiny was not reassuring: the more I looked, the more he puzzled me and the less I trusted him. When the black man set cups of coffee before us Schmidt began to question me. How long had we been on Iriatai? How many divers were at work? Was there plenty of shell? Was its quality good? Had we been lucky with pearls? But by now I was on my guard, and returned evasive answers, feigning the stupidity of weariness--a deception which did not require much acting on my part. A long-drawn shout from above brought us suddenly to our feet.

"Land ho!"

When I came on deck the western sky was glowing with a fiery sunset, and under the crimson clouds I could make out the long dark line of Iriatai. Puzzled and vaguely uneasy in my mind, I was leaning on the rail when my eye fell on a handsome dinghey, slung on davits close to where I stood. Her stern was toward me, and there, neatly lettered on the bright varnished wood, I saw the word, "Cholita." So Schmidt's vessel was called Cholita--a pretty name for a pretty schooner--and then I remembered with a sudden start. My thoughts flashed back to the morning when I had paddled out to breakfast with my uncle in Faatemu Bay--to his account of Thursday Island Schmidt. My uncle's words came back to me: "His schooner's as pretty as her reputation is black, and the way he handled her was a treat to watch."

So this was the Cholita, and I was the guest of the famous Thursday Island Schmidt!

I felt a touch on my shoulder, Marama was beside me, a serious expression on his face. "Listen!" he said in a hurried whisper; "I must go forward before the captain returns. If we approach the land to-night, let us slip overboard and swim ashore. Seroni must be warned, for I think that there is evil afoot. Do you remember Rairi, the Tara's cook who tried to kill old Pahuri that night on our passage south? He is aboard--I have seen him, though his face was turned away from me. He has been ordered to keep out of your sight. This schooner was bound for Iriatai before she picked us up. The mate, who is a good man and beginning to fear for himself, has told me as much."

The captain was approaching with a noiseless step; when I glanced up he was not four yards off. He halted and looked at Marama in angry astonishment. "Get forward," he bellowed, in a voice that made the sailors turn their heads, "_verdammt_ Kanaka cheek!" He turned to me, the former suavity gone from his manner. "And you," he ordered--"go below!"

I obeyed him, choking with anger and a sense of impotence. The half-caste girl was sitting on the lounge, she had been sewing, but now her hands were clenched and her work lay where it had dropped to the floor. There was a look of apprehension in her eyes. When she saw that I was alone she beckoned me with a swift gesture.

"Come here, boy--me want talk with you," she whispered in quaint broken English. "Me hear Schmidt say 'Go below'--he too much bad man! _Guk_! Me hate him!--Suppose we go near land tonight, me jump overboard, swim ashore. You come too--we go hide in bush."

Her fierce eyes blazed as she pointed to the bruise on her cheek.

"Schmidt do that yesterday," she went on. "Me like kill him, but too much 'fraid! Before, me think him good man. My father white man--same you. Me, my mother, live Ponape, Caroline Island. One day Cholita come--everybody think Schmidt good man--spend plenty money--have good time. Every day he come my house. By and by he say: 'To-morrow I go 'way; you my friend--give me orange, pig, drinking-coconut. To-night you bring old woman aboard--we have big _kaikai_.' My mother think he good man--we go. Schmidt bring us aboard schooner--we eat, play accordion, have good time. Pretty soon hear noise on deck. My mother stand up. 'What that?' she say. Then Kwala hold old woman--Schmidt throw me in stateroom--lock door. Outside reef he throw my mother in canoe--tell her go ashore. Porthole open--me hear old woman crying--Guk! Schmidt never let me go ashore. In Tahiti--Noumea--me 'fraid--he say suppose me swim ashore, send police fetch."

Her quick ear caught the sound of a footstep on deck and she signaled me hurriedly to move away. Next moment Schmidt came down the companionway, glancing at the woman sharply. Without a word he motioned me into the stateroom, slammed the door behind me, and turned the key.

I heard Raita's voice raised in protest, and the captain's gruff reply. Then the companionway creaked under his weight as he went on deck again.

Until now I had viewed the Cholita and her master in an adventurous light; but as I lay there in the dark behind a locked door I began to feel anxious and a little afraid. Little by little, as realization grows at such a time, I put together the scattered recollections in my mind: what my uncle had said of Schmidt; the half-caste girl's story; the presence aboard the Cholita of Rairi, our former cook; the old letter, telling of the gold-lipped shell in Iriatai lagoon; Rairi's stealthy visit to the Tara after his discharge; Schmidt's treatment of me; Marama's words, and the brutal stopping of our conversation. There was small room for doubt--each detail fitted perfectly into the story taking form in my mind.