By Reef and Palm

L >> Louis Becke >> By Reef and Palm

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* * * * *

"I made her walk in front of me. Every time she dropped the head I
slewed her round and made her lift it up again. And the old cook-devil
trotted astern o' us. When we came close to the town, I says to
Le-jennabon:

"'Do you want to live?'

"'Yes,' says she, in a voice like a whisper.

"'Then sing,' says I, 'sing loud--

"'Marriage hides the tricks of lovers,'

And she sang it in a choky kind of quaver.

"There was a great rush o' people ter see the procession. They stood in
a line on both sides of the path, and stared and said nothin'.

"Presently we comes to where all the Likieb chief's people was
quartered. They knew the head and ran back for their rifles, but my
crowd in the village was too strong, and, o' course, sided with me, and
took away their guns. Then the crowd gathers round my place, and I
makes Le-jennabon hold up the head and sing again--sing that devil's
chant.

"'Listen,' I says to the people, 'listen to my wife singing a love
song.' Then I takes the thing, wet and bloody, and slings it into the
middle of the Likieb people, and gave Le-jennabon a shove and sent her
inside."

* * * * *

I was thinking what would be the best thing to say, and could only
manage "It's a bad business, Ned."

"Bad! That's where you're wrong," and, rising, Ned brushed the sand off
the legs of his pyjamas. "It's just about the luckiest thing as could
ha' happened. Ye see, it's given Le-jennabon a good idea of what may
happen to her if she ain't mighty correct. An' it's riz me a lot in the
esteem of the people generally as a man who hez business principles."

A TRULY GREAT MAN

A Mid-Pacific Sketch

Then the flag of "Bobby" Towns, of Sydney, was still mighty in the
South Seas. The days had not come in which steamers with brass-bound
supercargoes, carrying tin boxes and taking orders like merchants'
bagmen, for goods "to arrive," exploited the Ellice, Kingsmill, and
Gilbert Groups. Bluff-bowed old wave-punchers like the SPEC, the LADY
ALICIA and the E. K. BATESON plunged their clumsy hulls into the
rolling swell of the mid-Pacific, carrying their "trade" of knives,
axes, guns, bad rum, and good tobacco, instead of, as now, white
umbrellas, paper boots and shoes, German sewing-machines and fancy
prints--"zephyrs," the smartly-dressed paper-collared supercargo of
to-day calls them, as he submits a card of patterns to Emilia, the
native teacher's wife, who, as the greatest Lady in the Land, must have
first choice.

* * * * *

In those days the sleek native missionary was an unknown quantity in
the Tokelaus and Kingsmills, and the local white trader answered all
requirements. He was generally a rough character--a runaway from some
Australian or American whaler, or a wandering Ishmael, who, for reasons
of his own, preferred living among the intractable, bawling, and
poverty-stricken people of the equatorial Pacific to dreaming away his
days in the monotonously happy valleys of the Society and Marquesas
Groups.

* * * * *

Such a man was Probyn, who dwelt on one of the low atolls of the Ellice
Islands. He had landed there one day from a Sydney sperm whaler with a
chest of clothes, a musket or two, and a tierce of twist tobacco; with
him came a savage-eyed, fierce-looking native wife, over whose bared
shoulders and bosom fell long waves of black hair; with her was a child
about five years old.

The second mate of the whaler, who was in charge of the boat, not
liking the looks of the excited natives who swarmed around the
newcomer, bade him a hurried farewell, and pushed away to the ship,
which lay-to off the passage with her fore-yard aback. Then the
clamorous people pressed more closely around Probyn and his wife, and
assailed them with questions.

So far neither of them had spoken. Probyn, a tall, wiry, scanty-haired
man, with quiet, deep-set eyes, was standing with one foot on the
tierce of tobacco and his hands in his pockets. His wife glared
defiantly at some two or three score of reddish-brown women who crowded
eagerly around her to stare into her face; holding to the sleeve of her
dress was the child, paralysed into the silence of fright.

* * * * *

The deafening babble and frantic gesticulations were perfectly
explicable to Probyn, and he apprehended no danger. The head man of the
village had not yet appeared, and until he came this wild license of
behaviour would continue. At last the natives became silent and parted
to the right and left as Tahori, the head man, his fat body shining
with coconut oil, and carrying an ebony-wood club in his hand, stood in
front of the white man and eyed him up and down. The scrutiny seemed
satisfactory. He stretched out his huge, naked arm, and shook Probyn's
hand, uttering his one word of Samoan--"TALOFA!" [Lit., "My love to you",
the Samoan salutation] and then, in his own dialect, he asked: "What is
your name, and what do you want?"

"Sam," replied Probyn. And then, in the Tokelau language, which the
wild-eyed people around him fairly understood, "I have come here to
live with you and trade for oil"--and he pointed to the tierce of
tobacco.

"Where are you from?"

"From the land called Nukunono, in the Tokelau."

"Why come here?"

"Because I killed an enemy there."

"Good!" grunted the fat man; "there are no twists in thy tongue; but
why did the boat hasten away so quickly?"

"They were frightened because of the noise. He with the face like a
fowl's talked too much"--and he pointed to a long, hatchet-visaged
native, who had been especially turbulent and vociferous.

* * * * *

"Ha!" and the fat, bearded face of Tahori turned from the white man to
him of whom the white man had spoken--"is it thee, Makoi? And so thou
madest the strangers hasten away! That was wrong. Only for thee I had
gone to the ship and gotten many things. Come hither!"

Then he stooped and picked up one of Probyn's muskets, handed it to the
white man, and silently indicated the tall native with a nod. The other
natives fell back. Niabong, Probyn's wife, set her boy on his feet, put
her hand in her bosom and drew out a key, with which she opened the
chest. She threw back the lid, fixed her black eyes on Probyn, and
waited.

Probyn, holding the musket in his left hand, mused a moment. Then he
asked:

"Whose man is he?"

"Mine," said Tahori; "he is from Oaitupu, and my bondman."

"Hath he a wife?"

"Nay; he is poor, and works in my PURAKA [A coarse species of taro (ARUM
ESCULENTUM) growing on the low-lying atolls of the mid-Pacific.] field!"

"Good," said Probyn, and he motioned to his wife. She dived her hand
into the chest and handed him a tin of powder, then a bullet, a cap,
and some scraps of paper.

Slowly he loaded the musket, and Tahori, seizing the bondman by his
arm, led him out to the open, and stood by, club in hand, on the alert.

Probyn knew his reputation depended on the shot. He raised his musket
and fired. The ball passed through the chest of Makoi. Then four men
picked up the body and carried it into a house.

* * * * *

Probyn laid down the musket and motioned again to Niabong. She handed
him a hatchet and blunt chisel. Tahori smiled pleasantly, and, drawing
the little boy to him, patted his head.

Then, at a sign from him, a woman brought Niabong a shell of sweet
toddy. The chief sat cross-legged and watched Probyn opening the tierce
of tobacco. Niabong locked the box again and sat upon it.

"Who are you?" said Tahori, still caressing the boy, to the white man's
wife.

"Niabong. But my tongue twists with your talk here. I am of Naura
(Pleasant Island). By-and-by I shall understand it."

"True. He is a great man, thy man," said the chief, nodding at Probyn.

"A great man, truly. There is not one thing in the world but he can do
it."

"E MOE [true]," said the fat man, approvingly; "I can see it. Look you, he
shall be as my brother, and thy child here shall eat of the best in the
land."

Probyn came over with his two hands filled with sticks of tobacco.

"Bring a basket," he said.

A young native girl slid out from the coconut grove at Tahori's
bidding, and stood behind him holding a basket. Probyn counted out into
it two hundred sticks of tobacco.

"See, Tahori. I am a just man to thee because thou art a just man to
me. Here is the price of him that thou gavest to me."

Tahori rose and beckoned to the people to return. "Look at this man. He
is a truly great man. His heart groweth from his loins upwards to his
throat. Bring food to my house quickly, that he and his wife and child
may eat. And to-morrow shall every man cut wood for his house, a house
that shall be in length six fathoms, and four in width. Such men as he
come from the gods."

THE DOCTOR'S WIFE

Consanguinity--From A Polynesian Standpoint

"Oho!" said Lagisiva, the widow, tossing her hair back over her
shoulders, as she raised the heavy, fluted tappa mallet in her thick,
strong right hand, and dealt the rough cloth a series of quick
strokes--"Oho!" said the dark-faced Lagisiva, looking up at the White
Man, "because I be a woman dost think me a fool? I tell thee I know
some of the customs of the PAPALAGI (the white foreigners). Much wisdom
have ye in many things; but again I tell thee, O friend of my sons,
that in some other things the people of thy nation--ay, of all white
nations, they be as the beasts of the forest--the wild goat and
pig--without reason and without shame. TAH! Has not my eldest son, Tui
Fau, whom the white men call Bob, lived for seven years in Sini
(Sydney), when he returned from those places by New Guinea, where he
was diver? And he has filled my ears with the bad and shameless customs
of the PAPALAGI. ISA! I say again thy women have not the shame of ours.
The heat of desire devoureth chastity even in those of one blood!"

"In what do they offend, O my mother?"

"AUE! Life is short; and, behold, this piece of SIAPO [The tappa cloth of
the South Seas, made from the bark of the paper mulberry.] is for
a wedding present, and I must hurry; but yet put down thy gun and
bag, and we shall smoke awhile, and thou shalt feel shame while I tell
of one of the PAPALAGI customs--the marrying of brother and sister!"

"Nay, mother," said the White Man, "not brother and sister, but only
cousins."

"ISA! [an expression of contempt]" and the big widow spat scornfully on
the ground, "those are words--words. It is the same; the same is the
blood, the same is the bone. Even in our heathen days we pointed the
finger at one who looked with the eye of love on the daughter of his
father's brother or sister--for such did we let his blood out upon the
sand. And I, old Lagisiva, have seen a white man brought to shame through
this wickedness!"

"Tell me," said the White Man.

* * * * *

"He was a FOMA'I (doctor), and rich, and came here because he desired
to see strange places, and was weary of his life in the land of the
PAPALAGI. So he remained with us, and hunted the wild boar with our
young men, and became strong and hardy, and like unto one of our
people. And then, because he was for ever restless, he sailed away once
and returned in a small ship, and brought back trade and built a store
and a fine house to dwell in. The chief of this town gave him, for
friendship, a piece of land over there by the Vai-ta-milo, and thus did
he become a still greater man. His store was full of rich goods, and he
kept many servants, and at night-time his house was as a blaze of fire,
for the young men and women would go there and sing and dance, and he
had many lovers amongst our young girls.

"I, old Lagisiva, who am now fat and dull, was one. Oho, he was a man
of plenty! Did a girl but look out between her eyelashes at a piece of
print in the store, lo! it was hers, even though it measured twenty
fathoms in length--and print was a dollar a fathom in those days. So
every girl--even those from parts far off--cast herself in his way,
that he might notice her. And he was generous to all alike--in that
alone was wisdom.

* * * * *

"Once or twice every year the ships brought him letters. And he would
count the marks on the paper, and tell us that they came from a woman
of the PAPALAGI--his cousin, as you would call her--whose picture was
hung over his table. She was for ever smiling down upon us, and her
eyes were his eyes, and if he but smiled then were the two alike--alike
as are two children of the same birth. When three years had come and
gone a ship brought him a letter, and that night there were many of us
at his house, men and women, to talk with the people from the ship.
When those had gone away to their sleep, he called to the chief, and
said:--

"'In two days, O my friend, I set out for my land again; but to return,
for much do I desire to remain with you always. In six months I shall
be here again. And there is one thing I would speak of. I shall bring
back a white wife, a woman of my own country, whom I have loved for
many years.'

"Then Tamaali'i, the chief, who was my father's father, and very old,
said, 'She shall be my daughter, and welcome,' and many of us young
girls said also, 'She shall be welcome'--although we felt sorrowful to
lose a lover so good and open-handed. And then did the FOMA'I call to
the old chief and two others, and they entered the store and lighted
lamps, and presently a man went forth into the village, and cried
aloud: 'Come hither, all people, and listen!' So, many hundreds came,
and we all went in and found the floor covered with some of everything
that the white man possessed. And the chief spoke and said:

"'Behold, my people, this our good friend goeth away to his own country
that he may bring back a wife. And because many young unmarried girls
will say, "Why does he leave us? Are not we as good to look upon as
this other woman?" does he put these presents here on the ground and
these words into my mouth--"Out of his love to you, which must be a
thing that is past and forgotten, the wife that is coming must not know
of some little things--that is PAPALAGI custom.'"

"And then every girl that had a wish took whatever she fancied, and the
white man charged us to say naught that would arouse the anger of the
wife that was to come. And so he departed.

* * * * *

"One hundred and ten fat hogs killed we and roasted whole for the feast
of welcome. I swear it by the Holy Ones of God's Kingdom--one hundred
and ten. And yet this white lily of his never smiled--not even on us
young girls who danced and sang before her, only she clung to his arm,
and, behold, when we drew close to her we saw it was the woman in the
picture--his sister!

"And then one by one all those that had gathered to do him honour went
away in shame--shame that he should do this, wed his own sister, and
many women said worse of her. But yet the feast--the hogs, and yams,
and taro, and fish, and fowls--was brought and placed by his doorstep,
but no one spake, and at night-time he was alone with his wife, till he
sent for the old chief, and reproached him with bitter words for the
coldness of the people, and asked: 'Why is this?'

* * * * *

"And the old man pointed to the picture over the table, and said: 'Is
this she--thy wife?'

"'Ay,' said the White Man.

"'Is she not of the same blood as thyself?'

"'Even so,' said he.

"'Then shalt thou live alone in thy shame,' said the old man; and he
went away.

"So, for many months, these two lived. He found some to work for him,
and some young girls to tend his sister, whom he called his wife,
whilst she lay ill with her first child. And the day after it was born,
some one whispered: 'He is accursed! the child cries not--it is dumb.'
For a week it lived, yet never did it cry, for the curse of wickedness
was upon it. Then the white man nursed her tenderly, and took her away
to live in Fiji for six months. When they came back it was the same--no
one cared to go inside his house, and he cursed us, and said he would
bring men from Tokelau to work for him. We said naught. Then in time
another child was born, and it was hideous to look upon, and that also
died.

* * * * *

"Now, there was a girl amongst us whose name was Suni, to whom the
white woman spoke much, for she was learning our tongue, and Suni, by
reason of the white woman's many presents, spoke openly to her, and
told her of the village talk. Then the white woman wept, and arose and
spoke to the man for a long while. And she came back to Suni, and said:
'What thou hast told me was in my own heart three years ago; yet,
because it is the custom of my people, I married this man, who is the
son of my father's brother. But now I shall go away.' Then the white
man came out and beat Suni with a stick. But yet was his sister, whom
he called his wife, eaten up with shame, and when a ship came they went
away, and we saw her not again. For about two years we heard no more of
our white man, till he returned and said the woman was dead. And he
took Suni for wife, who bore him three children, and then they went
away to some other country--I know not where.

* * * * *

"I thank thee many, many times, O friend of my sons. Four children of
mine here live in this village, yet not a one of them ever asketh me
when I last smoked. May God walk with thee always for this stick of
tobacco."

THE FATE OF THE ALIDA

Three years ago, in an Australian paper, I read something that set me
thinking of Taplin--of Taplin and his wife, and the fate of the ALIDA.
This is what I read:--

"News has reached Tahiti that a steamer had arrived at Toulon with two
noted prisoners on board. These men, who are brothers named Rorique,
long ago left Tahiti on an island-trading trip, and when the vessel got
to sea they murdered the captain, a passenger, the supercargo (Mr
Gibson, of Sydney), and two sailors, and threw their bodies overboard.
The movers in the affair were arrested at Ponape, in the Caroline
Islands. The vessel belonged to a Tahitian prince, and was called the
NUROAHITI, but its name had been changed after the tragedy. The accused
persons were sent to Manilla. From Manilla they appear now to have been
sent on to France."

[NOTE BY THE AUTHOR.--The brothers Rorique were sentenced to imprisonment
for life at Brest in 1895.]

In the year 1872 we were lying inside Funafuti Lagoon, in the Ellice
Group. The last cask of oil had been towed off to the brig and placed
under hatches, and we were to sail in the morning for our usual cruise
among the Gilbert and Kingsmill Islands.

Our captain, a white trader from the shore, and myself, were sitting on
deck "yarning" and smoking. We lay about a quarter of a mile from the
beach--such a beach, white as the driven snow, and sweeping in a great
curve for five long miles to the north and a lesser distance to the
south and west. Right abreast of the brig, nestling like huge birds'
nests in the shade of groves of coconut and bread-fruit trees, were the
houses of the principal village in Funafuti.

Presently the skipper picked up his glasses that lay beside him on the
skylight, and looked away down to leeward, where the white sails of a
schooner beating up to the anchorage were outlined against the line of
palms that fringed the beach of Funafala--the westernmost island that
forms one of the chain enclosing Funafuti Lagoon.

"It's Taplin's schooner, right enough," he said. "Let us go ashore and
give him and his pretty wife a hand to pack up."

* * * * *

Taplin was the name of the only other white trader on Funafuti besides
old Tom Humphreys, our own man. He had been two years on the island,
and was trading in opposition to our trader, as agent for a foreign
house--our owners were Sydney people--but his firm's unscrupulous
method of doing business had disgusted him. So one day he told the
supercargo of their vessel that he would trade for them no longer than
the exact time he had agreed upon--two years. He had come to Funafuti
from the Pelews, and was now awaiting the return of his firm's vessel
to take him back there again. Getting into our boat we were pulled
ashore and landed on the beach in front of the trader's house.

"Well, Taplin, here's your schooner at last," said old Tom, as we shook
hands and seated ourselves in the comfortable, pleasant-looking room.
"I see you're getting ready to go."

Taplin was a man of about thirty or so, with a quiet, impassive face,
and dark, deep-set eyes that gave to his features a somewhat gloomy
look, except when he smiled, which was not often. Men with that
curious, far-off look in their eyes are not uncommon among the lonely
islands of the wide Pacific. Sometimes it comes to a man with long,
long years of wandering to and fro; and you will see it deepen when, by
some idle, chance word, you move the memories of a forgotten past--ere
he had even dreamed of the existence of the South Sea Islands and for
ever dissevered himself from all links and associations of the outside
world.

* * * * *

"Yes," he answered, "I am nearly ready. I saw the schooner at daylight,
and knew it was the ALIDA."

"Where do you think of going to, Taplin?" I asked.

"Back to the Carolines. Nerida belongs down that way, you know; and she
is fretting to get back again--otherwise I wouldn't leave this island.
I've done pretty well here, although the people I trade for are--well,
you know what they are."

"Aye," assented old Humphreys, "there isn't one of 'em but what is the
two ends and bight of a--scoundrel; and that supercargo with the yaller
moustache and womany hands is the worst of the lot. I wonder if he's
aboard this trip? I don't let him inside my house; I've got too many
daughters, and they all think him a fine man."

* * * * *

Nerida, Taplin's wife, came out to us from an inner room. She was a
native of one of the Pelew Islands, a tall, slenderly-built girl, with
pale, olive skin and big, soft eyes. A flowing gown of yellow
muslin--the favourite colour of the Portuguese-blooded natives of the
Pelews--buttoned high up to her throat, draped her graceful figure.
After putting her little hand in ours, and greeting us in the Funafuti
dialect, she went over to Taplin, and touching his arm, pointed out the
schooner that was now only a mile or so away, and a smile parted her
lips, and the star-like eyes glowed and filled with a tender light.

I felt Captain Warren touch my arm as he rose and went outside. I
followed.

* * * * *

"L----," said Warren, "can't we do something for Taplin ourselves?
Isn't there a station anywhere about Tonga or Wallis Island that would
suit him?"

"Would he come, Warren? He--or, rather, that pretty wife of his--seems
bent upon going away in the schooner to the Carolines."

"Aye," said the skipper, "that's it. If it were any other vessel I
wouldn't care." Then suddenly:

"That fellow Motley (the supercargo) is a damned scoundrel--capable of
any villainy where a woman is concerned. Did you ever hear about old
Raymond's daughter down at Mangareva?"

I had heard the story very often. By means of a forged letter
purporting to have been written by her father--an old English trader in
the Gambier Group--Motley had lured the beautiful young half-blood away
from a school in San Francisco, and six months afterwards turned her
adrift on the streets of Honolulu. Raymond was a lonely man, and
passionately attached to his only child; so no one wondered when,
reaching California a year after and finding her gone, he shot himself
in his room at an hotel.

* * * * *

"I will ask him, anyway," I said; and as we went back into the house
the ALIDA shot past our line of vision through the coco-palms, and
brought up inside the brig.

"Taplin," I said, "would you care about taking one of our stations to
the eastward? Name any island you fancy, and we will land you there
with the pick of our 'trade' room."

"Thank you. I would be only too glad, but I cannot. I have promised
Nerida to go back to Babelthouap, or somewhere in the Pelews, and
Motley has promised to land us at Ponape, in the Carolines. We can get
away from there in one of the Dutch firm's vessels."

"I am very sorry, Taplin----" I began, when old Captain Warren burst in
with--"Look here, Taplin, we haven't got much time to talk. Here's the
ALIDA'S boat coming, with that (blank blank) scoundrel Motley in it.
Take my advice. Don't go away in the ALIDA." And then he looked at
Nerida, and whispered something.

A red spark shone in Taplin's dark eyes, then he pressed Warren's hand.

"I know," he answered, "he's a most infernal villain--Nerida hates him
too. But you see how I am fixed. The ALIDA is our only chance of
getting back to the north-west. But he hasn't got old Raymond to deal
with in me. Here they are."

* * * * *

Motley came in first, hat and fan in hand. He was a fine-looking man,
with blue eyes and an unusually fair skin for an island supercargo,
with a long, drooping, yellow moustache. Riedermann, the skipper, who
followed, was stout, coarse, red-faced, and brutal.

"How are you, gentlemen?" said Motley affably, turning from Taplin and
his wife, and advancing towards us. "Captain Riedermann and I saw the
spars of your brig showing up over the coconuts yesterday, and
therefore knew we should have the pleasure of meeting you."

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