Part 13

Supper-time came, and Babcock and I had the table to ourselves; he was very garrulous and tiresome, and I suspect he had been nipping on the sly, for he giggled a lot, and sometimes talked foolishly to himself. Altogether I was sick of the ship and of Babcock and of my own company; and when I came on deck after supper, and saw the shore lights twinkling through the palms, and the torches of the fishers on the roof, I felt I could no longer control my impatience.

Slipping down the gangway, I signalled to one of the canoes that hung about the ship, and a few minutes later I was landed for the second time near old Tom Ryegate’s store. Needless to say, I gave it a wide berth, for the last thing I wished was to run across any of my shipmates. I was spied out by some little children playing tag in the dark, who took me by the hands and led me about the settlement. I was conducted into half a dozen houses, and given green nuts to drink, with here and there a present of a hat or a mat or some pearl-shells. I do not know how long I had been wandering about in this fashion--but it must have been nearer two hours than one--when I was suddenly startled by a roar of voices and a sound of scurrying feet. In an instant we were all rushing in the direction of the noise, falling and stumbling over one another in our excitement. At the church I found a crowd assembled, buzzing like bees, and crushing frantically against the unglazed windows for a sight of what was taking place within. I jostled my way round to the door, where I was surprised to find our brawny boatswain Johnny, together with several of our men, keeping the other natives at bay. They would have kept me out, too, if they had dared, but I pushed boldly past them and entered the building.

It was all but empty. At the farther end, by the light of a tawdry hanging lamp, I perceived that some sort of service or ceremony was in progress, and I was thunderstruck to recognise in the little congregation there assembled every member of the shore party. Old Bee and the captain were standing on one side, the latter smoking a cigar and spitting from time to time on the coral floor; next them, his benignant hair all awry, was Tom Ryegate, leaning unsteadily against the wall, and wiping his eyes on a trade handkerchief. A burly Kanaka whom I had no difficulty in recognising as Jimmy Upolu, the native pastor, was reciting something out of a book over the heads of Frenchy and a woman, who both knelt before him. Frenchy’s costume had suffered not a little since the morning; it was dirty and stained, and the collar of his coat was torn half-way down his back, as though some one had seized him there with a smutty hand. In an instant I seemed to see the whole thing. I ran forward with my heart in my mouth, and even as I did so there rose from the outside the strangled cry of a man, followed by a scuffle and the noise of blows.

The woman beside Frenchy sprang to her feet, and as she turned towards me I recognised the ashen face of Elsie Ryegate. Frenchy caught her in his arms, and swearing beneath his breath, forced her down again beside him; while the pastor, not a whit abashed, rattled on briskly with the service.

He soon came to an end, closing his book with a flourish, as much as to say the ceremony was over. Frenchy rose to his feet, still with one arm round Elsie’s waist.

“How much?” he asked.

Then old Tom Ryegate came staggering up, boo-hooing like a great baby. He wrung Frenchy’s hand; gave his daughter a slobbering kiss; and broke out into a whole rigmarole of how pleased he was to see her made an honest woman, by God, and married to a gentleman she could respeck and look up to. The girl herself might have been dead, for all the attention she paid to him or any one; but for Frenchy’s enfolding arm, I believe she would have fallen to the ground, for she was stony white, and shaking in a kind of chill. I could hear her teeth chatter, while Frenchy haggled with the pastor, and the trader went on with his endless gabble.

We all moved out of the church together, old Tom Ryegate stumbling along in the rear, making very poor weather of it in the dark. All at once he went sprawling over something, and we could hear him cursing to himself as he tried to get on his legs again.

“Now’s our chance, gentlemen all,” cried the captain, and off we set running for the beach, old Tom’s voice growing fainter and fainter in our rear. We tumbled pell-mell into the boat that was waiting for us, and shoved off into deep water amid a hullabaloo of laughter and cheers. Far behind us we could still hear the old fellow calling and swearing, and even when we drew up under the bark, I thought I could yet detect the faint echo of his voice. All this time Elsie herself had made no sound, and had submitted like a terror-stricken child to be led where Frenchy wished. But when she felt her feet on the gangway ladder, and saw above her head the tangled yards and rigging of the ship, she must have realised all at once what fate had in store for her, for she uttered a shuddering cry and began to sob. I stood up in the boat; I tried to say something of what I felt; I remember I called Frenchy a damned villain, and us no better for helping him.

“Stop that row!” cried the captain, giving me a punch in the ribs that made me gasp and turn sick. “I won’t have a word spoken against Mr. or Mrs. Bonnichon, and if I catch you at it again, you young whelp, I’ll lick you within an inch of your life. I won’t allow a mischief-maker on my ship, nor a dirty scandal-monger. Just you remember that, young gentleman.”

I went up the gangway in silence, humiliated and rebellious, to spend a sleepless night in plans of revenge. My heart seemed to burst with a sense of my powerlessness, and I turned and turned on my pillow in a fever. The morning found us beating up against a stiff trade-wind and a heavy sea, and at breakfast the captain had more than once to leave the table in order to see us through a squall. He and Old Bee were the only persons at that meal except myself, but neither commented on Frenchy’s absence or said a word about the events of yesterday. Indeed, I don’t think they exchanged three remarks in all, and these were about the weather. I could not help gazing from time to time at the door of Frenchy’s state-room; and once, in so doing, I encountered the captain’s baleful eye. I looked away hastily, and, I am ashamed to add, I trembled. Frenchy made no appearance at lunch, but towards three o’clock of the afternoon I saw him steal stealthily out and get a bottle of whisky and some biscuits, and then close his door again on our little world. I was struck afresh with his gross, evil look, and shrank, as one might from a wild beast, at the very sight of him.

The second day passed much as the first, though it found us lying better up to windward. Frenchy still kept away from the table, and I used to stare at his closed state-room door with an awful curiosity. My two companions were, if anything, more glum and uncommunicative than ever; and when I tried to draw out Babcock I found that his mouth also had been sealed. He would give me only snapping answers, and was painfully ill at ease in my presence. Lum had scalded himself twice in the galley, and was in no conversational mood; and when I tried to unbosom myself to him he cut me short with the remark that “white men were all same devil.”

We ran into Lascom in the morning of the third day, and by ten o’clock were at anchor off the settlement. Babcock at once hoisted out eight or nine tons of Frenchy’s stuff, most of it food for his year’s sojourn on the island, together with a lot of mess pork and biscuits for the Kanakas; and all hands were busy getting it into the whale-boat alongside. The captain and Old Bee were sitting side by side on the top of the house, the latter with a pocket full of papers and a portfolio desk across his knee. They were laughing together, and Mins was holding the ink-bottle in one hand. Lum was standing at the break of the poop, peeling potatoes and watching his bread, which was spread out on the hatch to rise. I could not stay still, but kept moving about in a state of frightful agitation, for I knew that Elsie and the Frenchman must soon appear.

Suddenly I heard a half-smothered oath, the shattering of glass, the rapid patter of naked feet. I turned, and there was Elsie Ryegate poised on the ship’s rail, her black hair flying to the wind, her bare arms outspread. She was over like a flash, and her feet had barely touched the water when Frenchy leaped after her. We all shouted and ran aft, the crew whooping like a pack of boys. The girl headed as straight as an arrow for the shore, but she had not swum twenty strokes before Frenchy was panting and blowing close behind her. Seeing, apparently, that she could not hope to escape, she turned and seemed to resign herself to capture. But as Frenchy tried to seize her by the hair, she swiftly threw both her arms round his neck, and with a tragic look of exultation she sank with him below.

Down, down they went, the puddled green water showing them vaguely beneath the surface, sometimes with a ghastly distinctness, sometimes with strange distortions of feature and limb. They rose at last, still struggling, still drowning each other, the girl’s arms clinched round the man’s neck, he spluttering horribly and trying to strike at her with his fist. Spellbound, we saw them sink again, their convulsed faces almost touching, their bodies writhing in agony. Mins let out a great roar and darted for the life-belt; there was a rush forward to cast off the whaler in which Frenchy’s stuff was being lightered; Old Bee screamed out, “Jump! jump!” to our boatswain, who was looking on transfixed, pointing madly at the bubbles that kept rising to the surface. Johnny made one step aft, and was just on the point of vaulting over the rail when Lum caught him squarely round the waist and held him like a vise. There was a short, violent struggle between them, and the Chinaman went down with a crash under the Kanaka. But by the time the latter was on his feet again the moment for his services had passed, for Frenchy’s body, still locked in Elsie Ryegate’s arms, drifted lifeless under our quarter. The captain pointed at it with an awe-stricken finger, and signalled the whale-boat where to pull.

The girl’s corpse was thrown on an old sail in the waist, and left there, naked and dripping, for the crew to gape at; while Frenchy was borne off by the captain, who, with streaming tears, worked over him for an hour in the trade-room. When Lum and I had recovered our wits, we drew the poor drowned creature into the galley, put hot bottles to her feet, rubbed her icy body with our hands, and held her up between us to the blazing fire. Lum blew into her mouth, worked her arms up and down, and exhausted a thousand ingenuities to call her back to life; but the little looking-glass he held so persistently to her lips remained to the end untarnished by a breath. We were compelled at last--though God knows how reluctantly--to give up all hope; and laying her gently in the Chinaman’s berth, we covered her beautiful face. Then I took occasion to ask Lum why he had prevented Johnny from diving overboard--Johnny who was a powerful swimmer and certain to have saved them.

“More better she die,” he said; and then, with a dramatic gesture, he pointed to the shore, and asked me in his broken English whether she could have endured a year of it with that man.

“More better she die,” he repeated, and regarded me with a deep solemnity.

There was not much dinner eaten that day, though one must needs be cooked and served. I looked fearfully into the trade-room, and saw Frenchy’s body stretched out on the counter, a towel drawn over his swarthy face. Lum and I closed the galley doors, and smoked countless cigarettes together in the semi-darkness, finding consolation in one another’s company. The tragedy hung heavy upon us both; and the knowledge that one of its victims lay but a yard away seemed to bring death close to us all; so that we trembled for ourselves and sat near together in a sort of horror. Towards three o’clock some one pounded violently at the door, and on Lum’s unlocking it, we found ourselves confronted by Johnny the boatswain.

He told us bluntly he wanted the girl’s body, to bury it ashore.

“Captain’s orders,” he said, with a nasty look at the Chinaman.

“You make two hole?” queried Lum--“two grave?”

“One, that’s all,” said Johnny, with a grin. “We bury them together, you China fool.”

“No, that you will not!” cried Lum, with a sudden flame in his almond eyes. “You can bury Frenchy, but me and Bence make hole for the girl.”

“No, you won’t,” cried Johnny, making a movement to force his way in; but Lum caught up the cleaver, and stood there, looking so incensed and defiant that the Kanaka was glad to move away. He went off, swearing all kinds of things, and we saw him afterwards complaining angrily to Old Bee.

But the Chinaman was in a fighting humour. It would have taken more than mere words to cow his spirit. He called me out on deck, and there, between us, we got the dinghy off the beds and launched her alongside the ship--without asking by your leave or anything--and pulled her round to the gangway ladder. Then, as I held her fast with the boat-hook, Lum went back, and reappeared a minute later with Elsie’s corpse in his arms. Settling it carefully in the bottom of the boat, her comely head resting on a bundle tied in yellow silk, the Chinaman took one of the oars and bade me pull with the other. Even as I did so I noticed the meat-cleaver bulging out his jumper and a six-shooter in the hind pocket of his jeans.

We headed for the shore about a mile above the settlement, and made a landing in a shallow cove. My companion lifted out the girl’s body and waded with it ashore, carrying the yellow bundle by his teeth like a dog. I followed him in silence as he passed into the scrub and tramped heavily towards the weather side of the island. We emerged on a wide and glaring beach, on which, as far as the eye could reach, a furious surf was thundering. Lum laid his burden down beneath the shade of a palm, and set himself to dig a grave with the cleaver. As he toiled the sweat rolled off him in great beads and his saturated clothes stuck to him as though he had been soaked in water. Once or twice he rested, wiping his hands and face on my handkerchief, and smoking the cigarette I rolled for him. It must have been a couple of hours before the grave was finished to his liking, for he was particular to have it deep and well squared. Then he opened the little bundle that had served so long for Elsie’s pillow, and took from it a roll of magenta-coloured silk, some artificial flowers, a packet of sweet-smelling leaves, and a number of red tissue-paper sheets printed with gilt Chinese characters. The silk he used to partly cover the bottom of the grave; the flowers and fragrant leaves were placed at the end where her head would lie; and all being thus ready for her last bed, the two of us lowered her sorrowfully into it. This done, Lum shrouded her in the remnant of the silk, and we filled up the grave together, shovelling the sand in with our hands.

Lum took the pieces of red tissue-paper, and laid some on the ground to mark the place, pinning a dozen more to the neighbouring shrubs and trees, where they fluttered in the boisterous trade. Some got away altogether and went scudding along the beach or out to sea, and one blew high in the air like a kite. Lum watched them for a while in silence, and then, with a sigh, turned about to recross the island.

“A week ago she little thought this would be her end,” I said, half to myself.

I shall never forget the look Lum gave me. The self-reproach and shame of it was too poignant for words.

“I think you and me all same coward,” he said.

THE DEVIL’S WHITE MAN

THE DEVIL’S WHITE MAN

We were all lying on the floor of Letonu’s big house, Tautala and I side by side, our heads both pillowed on the same bamboo. About us on the mats the whole family lay outstretched in slumber, save little Titi, who was droning on a jews’-harp, and my coxswain, George Leapai, who was playing a game of draughts with the chief. The air was hot and drowsy, and the lowered eaves let through streaks of burning sunshine, outlining a sort of pattern on an old fellow who moaned occasionally in his sleep.

“In the White Country,” said Tautala, “didst thou ever happen to meet a chief named Patsy?--a beautiful young man with sea-blue eyes and golden hair?”

“What was his other name?” I asked.

Tautala could not recall it, the foreign stutter being so unrememberable. Indeed, she doubted almost if she had ever heard it. “We called him Patsy,” she said, “and he used to tell us he was descended from a line of kings.”

“Wasn’t it O’ something?” I inquired.

No, she couldn’t remember. It was long ago, when she was a little child and knew nothing; but she had loved Patsy, and it was a sad day to her when the devil took him.

“Tell me about it,” I said. “I have never heard that _tala_.”

“Oh, it is a true story,” she said; “for was not my own sister Java married to Patsy, and did I not see it all with my own eyes, from the beginning even to the end? But thou must strengthen thyself to hear it, for it is a tale of sadness.”

“I will strive to bear it,” I replied.

“Well, it was this way,” she began. “Many years ago a steamer reached our bay, and it was neither a man-of-war, nor a trading-vessel, nor a ship of pleasuring; and the hold of it was filled with nothing but rope, miles and miles of rope, all of a single piece like a ball of great string; nor was the least piece of it for sale; no, not even though a ton of coprah were offered for a single fathom. The officers of the ship were most agreeable people, and so polite that, except for the colour of their skins, you would never think them white men at all; and the captain gave my father his photograph, and made for us a feast on board his ship, of sardines and tea, so that we were soon very friendly together and almost like members of one family. Then the captain begged my father’s permission to build a little house on the edge of the bay, which was no sooner asked than done; for behold, it was in measured pieces for the building. Farther inland, near the old _vi_-tree, another house was raised, this also of boards previously cut and prepared. Then the end of the big rope was carried to the beach-house in a boat, and made fast to all manner of strange _tongafiti_ within, some that ticked like clocks, and others that went ‘whir, whir,’ like a bird with a broken wing. Here, in the middle of it all, a shining chair was prepared for Patsy to sit in and a big desk for Patsy to write at. But to the inland house was brought his bed, and countless cases of sardines and pea-soup, and all the many things needed for the comfort and well-being of a white man.

“When all was thus ready to the captain’s liking, he blew his whistle and sailed out of the bay, leaving Patsy singly to take care of the end of the big rope. This Patsy did with assiduity, so that there was never a morning but found him sitting beside it, and seldom an afternoon or evening he did not visit it at intervals. Sometimes the rope would hold him there the whole night, saying without end, ‘click, click, whir, whir,’ as its manner was, so that I would fall asleep with the light of Patsy’s lamp in my eyes, and wake again at dawn to find it still burning; and if we went down to the shore, as we often did at first in our curiosity, we would see the white man lying asleep in his chair, his cold pipe on the table beside him. People asked one another the meaning of a rope so singular, and wondered ceaselessly as to the nature of Patsy’s concern with it. From all the villages expeditions came in crowded boats to behold the marvel with their own eyes, so that they, too, might hear it say ‘click, click, whir, whir,’ as its manner was, and stare the while at Patsy through the window. Songs were made about the rope, some of them gay, others grave and beautiful, with parables; it became a proverb hereabouts to say ‘as long as Patsy’s rope,’ meaning a thing without end, as the perpetual crying of a child, or the love of a maid for a man.

“Thou must not think, Siosi, that Patsy was not often asked the reason of his strange employment, and a thousand questions besides about the wonderful rope; but at first he knew nothing of our language, and when people would point at it and say, ‘click, click, whir, whir,’ in mockery of what it uttered continually, Patsy would only smile and repeat back to them, ‘click, click, whir, whir,’ so that nothing was accomplished. But he was so gentle and well-mannered, and so generous with his property, that one could hardly count him a white man at all; and those who had at first mistrusted his presence in our village began soon to love him like a relation. No music-box was sweeter than his voice, and often on a moonlight night the whole village would gather round his house to hear him sing, or to see him dance hornpipes on his verandah.

“One day, in a boat from Safotulafai, there arrived a native of this island who had long been absent, sailing in the white men’s ships. This man being, of course, familiar with the white stutter, it occurred to Nehemiah the pastor (who had long been troubled by the matter of the rope) that here, at last, was the means of learning the truth from Patsy. Whereupon a meeting of the village chiefs was summoned in the house of Nehemiah; and after a great deal of speech-making it was determined to wait on Patsy in a body, Tomasi, the seaman, going with them to interpret.

“Patsy was at his usual place beside the big rope, smoking his pipe and hearkening to the voice as it said ‘click, click, whir, whir,’ as its manner was. My father, Letonu, was the first to speak; then Nehemiah the pastor; Tomasi translating every word, as had been previously agreed. They both asked for an explanation of the great rope, and why it had been made fast to our island, and where it went to underneath the sea, and the reason of its continually saying ‘click, click, whir, whir.’

“Patsy took some thought to answer, and when at last he spoke, his words overwhelmed every one with astonishment and fear. It seemed that the devil was afraid that our village was becoming too good; for being himself so busy in Tonga and Fiji and the White Country, he could not give our place the proper oversight; and was mortified to see that every Aunu’u dead person went straight to heaven. Thereupon he had run this cable from hell, and had hired Patsy for a hundred dollars a month to warn him when anything bad was happening. Patsy explained that the great rope was like a dog: one pinched his tail here and he barked there; thus signals were exchanged, as had been earlier agreed upon, so that two barks meant A, and three meant B, and so on through the _alafapeta_.