By Reef and Palm

L >> Louis Becke >> By Reef and Palm

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

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

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

"Curse you, you brute!" shouted Enderby through the wild noise of the
hissing rain, "where is your wife? Are you going to let her lie there
without a drink?"

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

* * * * *

At daylight the boat was close in to the land, and Langton, in his
cool, cynical fashion, told his wife and Enderby to finish up the last
of the meat and biscuit--for if they capsized getting through into the
lagoon, he said, they would never want any more. He had eaten all he
wanted unknown to the others, and looked with an unmoved face at
Enderby soaking some biscuit in the tin for his wife. Then, with the
ragged sail fluttering to the wind, Langton headed the boat through the
passage into the glassy waters of the lagoon, and the two tottering
men, leading the woman between them, sought the shelter of a thicket
scrub, impenetrable to the rays of the sun, and slept. And then for a
week Enderby went and scoured the reefs for food for her.

* * * * *

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

"Thirty or so--perhaps forty."

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I saw it all," she answered.

"I swear to you, Mrs Lan----" (the name stuck in his throat) "I never
meant it. As God is my witness, I swear it. If we ever escape from here
I will give myself up to justice as a murderer."

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

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

And, by the irony of fate, the Enderbys (that isn't their name) are now
living in a group of islands where there's quite a trade done in
turtle, and whenever a ship's captain comes to dine with them they
never have the local dish--turtle eggs--for dinner. "We see them so
often," Enderby explains, "and my wife is quite tired of them."

LONG CHARLEY'S GOOD LITTLE WIFE

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

We started weighing and shipping the copra next day. After finishing
up, the solemn Charley invited the skipper and supercargo to remain
ashore till morning. His great trouble, he told us, was that he had not
yet secured a wife, "a reg'lar wife, y'know." He had, unluckily, "lost
the run" of the last Mrs Charley during his absence at another island
of the group, and negotiations with various local young women had been
broken off owing to his having run out of trade. In the South Seas, as
in the civilised world generally, to get the girl of your heart is
usually a mere matter of trade. There were, he told us with a
melancholy look, "some fine Nukunau girls here on a visit, but the one
I want don't seem to care much about stayin', unless all this new trade
fetches her."

"Who is she?" enquired the skipper.

"Tibakwa's daughter."

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

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

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

"Where's Tirau?" asked the trader.

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

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

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

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

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

"She's cottoned!" exclaimed Charley.

* * * * *

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

"Good-bye, Tirau!" we said.

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

THE METHODICAL MR BURR OF MADURO

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

Now, the Marshall Island women much resented this. Since Ned's wife had
died, ten years previously, the women, backed by the chiefs, had made
most decided, but withal diplomatic, assaults upon his celibacy. The
old men of his village had respectfully and repeatedly reminded him
that his state of singleness was not a direct slight to themselves as
leading men alone. If he refused to marry again he surely would not
cast such a reflection upon the personal characters of some two or
three hundred young girls as to refuse a few of them the position of
honorary wives PRO TEM., or until he found one whom he might think
worthy of higher honours. But the slow-thinking, methodical trader only
opened a bottle of gin, gave them fair words and a drink all round, and
absolutely declined to open any sort of matrimonial negotiations.

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

"Le-jennabon."

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

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

"'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers.'

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

"'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers.'

"Some of the girls laughed and whispered to Le-jennabon. She shook her
head, and looked around timorously. Plain enough, wasn't it? Presently
the boy creeps up to the fence, and drops over a wreath of yellow
blossoms. The girls laughed. One of them picked it up, and offered it
to Le-jennabon. She waved it away. Then, again, the cub outside sang
softly--

"'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers,'

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

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

He shook his head slowly.

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

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