"What's the name matter?" the supercargo demanded, taking advantage ofspeech to pause with arms shoved into the sleeves of the undershirt."There it is, right under our nose, and old Parlay is there with thepearls."
"Who see them pearl?" Hermann queried, looking from one to another.
"It's well known," was the supercargo's reply. He turned to thesteersman: "Tai-Hotauri, what about old Parlay's pearls?"
The Kanaka, pleased and self-conscious, took and gave a spoke.
"My brother dive for Parlay three, four month, and he make much talkabout pearl. Hikihoho very good place for pearl."
"And the pearl-buyers have never got him to part with a pearl," thecaptain broke in.
"And they say he had a hatful for Armande when he sailed for Tahiti,"the supercargo carried on the tale. "That's fifteen years ago, and he'sbeen adding to it ever since--stored the shell as well. Everybody's seenthat--hundreds of tons of it. They say the lagoon's fished clean now.Maybe that's why he's announced the auction."
"If he really sells, this will be the biggest year's output of pearls inthe Paumotus," Grief said.
"I say, now, look here!" Mulhall burst forth, harried by the humidheat as much as the rest of them. "What's it all about? Who's the oldbeachcomber anyway? What are all these pearls? Why so secretious aboutit?"
"Hikihoho belongs to old Parlay," the supercargo answered. "He's got afortune in pearls, saved up for years and years, and he sent the wordout weeks ago that he'd auction them off to the buyers to-morrow. Seethose schooners' masts sticking up inside the lagoon?"
"Eight, so I see," said Hermann.
"What are they doing in a dinky atoll like this?" the supercargo wenton. "There isn't a schooner-load of copra a year in the place. They'vecome for the auction. That's why we're here. That's why the little_Nuhiva's_ bumping along astern there, though what she can buy is beyondme. Narii Herring--he's an English Jew half-caste--owns and runs her,and his only assets are his nerve, his debts, and his whiskey bills.He's a genius in such things. He owes so much that there isn't amerchant in Papeete who isn't interested in his welfare. They go out oftheir way to throw work in his way. They've got to, and a dandy stunt itis for Narii. Now I owe nobody. What's the result? If I fell down ina fit on the beach they'd let me lie there and die. They wouldn't loseanything. But Narii Herring?--what wouldn't they do if he fell in a fit?Their best wouldn't be too good for him. They've got too much moneytied up in him to let him lie. They'd take him into their homes andhand-nurse him like a brother. Let me tell you, honesty in paying billsain't what it's cracked up to be."
"What's this Narii chap got to do with it?" was the Englishman'sshort-tempered demand. And, turning to Grief, he said, "What's all thispearl nonsense? Begin at the beginning."
"You'll have to help me out," Grief warned the others, as he began. "OldParlay is a character. From what I've seen of him I believe he's partlyand mildly insane. Anyway, here's the story: Parlay's a full-bloodedFrenchman. He told me once that he came from Paris. His accent is thetrue Parisian. He arrived down here in the old days. Went to tradingand all the rest. That's how he got in on Hikihoho. Came in trading whentrading was the real thing. About a hundred miserable Paumotans livedon the island. He married the queen--native fashion. When she died,everything was his. Measles came through, and there weren't more than adozen survivors. He fed them, and worked them, and was king. Now beforethe queen died she gave birth to a girl. That's Armande. When she wasthree he sent her to the convent at Papeete. When she was seven or eighthe sent her to France. You begin to glimpse the situation. The bestand most aristocratic convent in France was none too good for the onlydaughter of a Paumotan island king and capitalist, and you know the oldcountry French draw no colour line. She was educated like a princess,and she accepted herself in much the same way. Also, she thought she wasall-white, and never dreamed of a bar sinister.
"Now comes the tragedy. The old man had always been cranky and erratic,and he'd played the despot on Hikihoho so long that he'd got the ideain his head that there was nothing wrong with the king--or the princesseither. When Armande was eighteen he sent for her. He had slews andslathers of money, as Yankee Bill would say. He'd built the big house onHikihoho, and a whacking fine bungalow in Papeete. She was to arrive onthe mail boat from New Zealand, and he sailed in his schooner to meether at Papeete. And he might have carried the situation off, despite thehens and bull-beasts of Papeete, if it hadn't been for the hurricane.That was the year, wasn't it, when Manu-Huhi was swept and elevenhundred drowned?"
The others nodded, and Captain Warfield said: "I was in the _Magpie_that blow, and we went ashore, all hands and the cook, _Magpie_ and all,a quarter of a mile into the cocoanuts at the head of Taiohae Bay--andit a supposedly hurricane-proof harbour."
"Well," Grief continued, "old Parlay got caught in the same blow, andarrived in Papeete with his hatful of pearls three weeks too late. He'dhad to jack up his schooner and build half a mile of ways before hecould get her back into the sea.
"And in the meantime there was Armande at Papeete. Nobody called on her.She did, French fashion, make the initial calls on the Governor and theport doctor. They saw her, but neither of their hen-wives was at home toher nor returned the call. She was out of caste, without caste, thoughshe had never dreamed it, and that was the gentle way they broke theinformation to her. There was a gay young lieutenant on the Frenchcruiser. He lost his heart to her, but not his head. You can imaginethe shock to this young woman, refined, beautiful, raised like anaristocrat, pampered with the best of old France that money could buy.And you can guess the end." He shrugged his shoulders. "There was aJapanese servant in the bungalow. He saw it. Said she did it with theproper spirit of the Samurai. Took a stiletto--no thrust, no drive,no wild rush for annihilation--took the stiletto, placed the pointcarefully against her heart, and with both hands, slowly and steadily,pressed home.
"Old Parlay arrived after that with his pearls. There was one single oneof them, they say, worth sixty thousand francs. Peter Gee saw it, andhas told me he offered that much for it. The old man went clean off fora while. They had him strait-jacketed in the Colonial Club two days----"
"His wife's uncle, an old Paumotan, cut him out of the jacket and turnedhim loose," the supercargo corroborated.
"And then old Parlay proceeded to eat things up," Grief went on. "Pumpedthree bullets into the scalawag of a lieutenant----"
"Who lay in sick bay for three months," Captain Warfield contributed.
"Flung a glass of wine in the Governor's face; fought a duel with theport doctor; beat up his native servants; wrecked the hospital; broketwo ribs and the collarbone of a man nurse, and escaped; and went downto his schooner, a gun in each hand, daring the chief of police and allthe gendarmes to arrest him, and sailed for Hikihoho. And they say he'snever left the island since."
The supercargo nodded. "That was fifteen years ago, and he's neverbudged."
"And added to his pearls," said the captain. "He's a blithering oldlunatic. Makes my flesh creep. He's a regular Finn."
"What's that?" Mulhall inquired.
"Bosses the weather--that's what the natives believe, at any rate. AskTai-Hotauri there. Hey, Tai-Hotauri! what you think old Parlay do alongweather?"
"Just the same one big weather devil," came the Kanaka's answer. "Iknow. He want big blow, he make big blow. He want no wind, no windcome."
"A regular old Warlock," said Mulhall.
"No good luck them pearl," Tai-Hotauri blurted out, rolling his headominously. "He say he sell. Plenty schooner come. Then he make bighurricane, everybody finish, you see. All native men say so."
"It's hurricane season now," Captain War-field laughed morosely."They're not far wrong. It's making for something right now, and I'dfeel better if the _Malahini_ was a thousand miles away from here."
"He is a bit mad," Grief concluded. "I've tried to get his point ofview. It's--well, it's mixed. For eighteen years he'd centred everythingon Armande. Half the time he believes she's still alive, no
t yet comeback from France. That's one of the reasons he held on to the pearls.And all the time he hates white men. He never forgets they killed her,though a great deal of the time he forgets she's dead. Hello! Where'syour wind?"
The sails bellied emptily overhead, and Captain Warfield grunted hisdisgust. Intolerable as the heat had been, in the absence of wind itwas almost overpowering. The sweat oozed out on all their faces, and nowone, and again another, drew deep breaths, involuntarily questing formore air.
"Here she comes again--an eight point haul! Boom-tackles across! Jump!"
The Kanakas sprang to the captain's orders, and for five minutes theschooner laid directly into the passage and even gained on the current.Again the breeze fell flat, then puffed from the old quarter, compellinga shift back of sheets and tackles.
"Here comes the _Nuhiva_" Grief said. "She's got her engine on. Look ather skim."
"All ready?" the captain asked the engineer, a Portuguese half-caste,whose head and shoulders protruded from the small hatch just for'ard ofthe cabin, and who wiped the sweat from his face with a bunch of greasywaste.
"Sure," he replied.
"Then let her go."
The engineer disappeared into his den, and a moment later the exhaustmuffler coughed and spluttered overside. But the schooner could not holdher lead. The little cutter made three feet to her two and was quicklyalongside and forging ahead. Only natives were on her deck, and the mansteering waved his hand in derisive greeting and farewell.
"That's Narii Herring," Grief told Mulhall. "The big fellow at thewheel--the nerviest and most conscienceless scoundrel in the Paumotus."
Five minutes later a cry of joy from their own Kanakas centred all eyeson the _Nuhiva_. Her engine had broken down and they were overtakingher. The _Malahini's_ sailors sprang into the rigging and jeered as theywent by; the little cutter heeled over by the wind with a bone in herteeth, going backward on the tide.
"Some engine that of ours," Grief approved, as the lagoon opened beforethem and the course was changed across it to the anchorage.
Captain Warfield was visibly cheered, though he merely grunted, "It'llpay for itself, never fear."
The _Malahini_ ran well into the centre of the little fleet ere shefound swinging room to anchor.
"There's Isaacs on the _Dolly_," Grief observed, with a hand wave ofgreeting. "And Peter Gee's on the _Roberta_. Couldn't keep him away froma pearl sale like this. And there's Francini on the _Cactus_. They'reall here, all the buyers. Old Parlay will surely get a price."
"They haven't repaired the engine yet," Captain Warfield grumbledgleefully.
He was looking across the lagoon to where the _Nuhiva's_ sails showedthrough the sparse cocoa-nuts.
II
The house of Parlay was a big two-story frame affair, built ofCalifornia lumber, with a galvanized iron roof. So disproportionatewas it to the slender ring of the atoll that it showed out upon thesand-strip and above it like some monstrous excrescence. They of the_Malahini_ paid the courtesy visit ashore immediately after anchoring.Other captains and buyers were in the big room examining the pearls thatwere to be auctioned next day. Paumotan servants, natives of Hikihoho,and relatives of the owner, moved about dispensing whiskey and absinthe.And through the curious company moved Parlay himself, cackling andsneering, the withered wreck of what had once been a tall and powerfulman. His eyes were deep sunken and feverish, his cheeks fallen in andcavernous. The hair of his head seemed to have come out in patches, andhis mustache and imperial had shed in the same lopsided way.
"Jove!" Mulhall muttered under his breath. "A long-legged Napoleon theThird, but burnt out, baked, and fire-crackled. And mangy! No wonder hecrooks his head to one side. He's got to keep the balance."
"Goin' to have a blow," was the old man's greeting to Grief. "You mustthink a lot of pearls to come a day like this."
"They're worth going to inferno for," Grief laughed genially back,running his eyes over the surface of the table covered by the display.
"Other men have already made that journey for them," old Parlay cackled."See this one!" He pointed to a large, perfect pearl the size of a smallwalnut that lay apart on a piece of chamois. "They offered me sixtythousand francs for it in Tahiti. They'll bid as much and more for itto-morrow, if they aren't blown away. Well, that pearl, it was found bymy cousin, my cousin by marriage. He was a native, you see. Also, hewas a thief. He hid it. It was mine. His cousin, who was also mycousin--we're all related here--killed him for it and fled away in acutter to Noo-Nau. I pursued, but the chief of Noo-Nau had killed himfor it before I got there. Oh, yes, there are many dead men representedon the table there. Have a drink, Captain. Your face is not familiar.You are new in the islands?"
"It's Captain Robinson of the _Roberta_," Grief said, introducing them.
In the meantime Mulhall had shaken hands with Peter Gee.
"I never fancied there were so many pearls in the world," Mulhall said.
"Nor have I ever seen so many together at one time," Peter Gee admitted.
"What ought they to be worth?"
"Fifty or sixty thousand pounds--and that's to us buyers. InParis----" He shrugged his shoulders and lifted his eyebrows at theincommunicableness of the sum.
Mulhall wiped the sweat from his eyes. All were sweating profuselyand breathing hard. There was no ice in the drink that was served, andwhiskey and absinthe went down lukewarm.
"Yes, yes," Parlay was cackling. "Many dead men lie on the tablethere. I know those pearls, all of them. You see those three! Perfectlymatched, aren't they? A diver from Easter Island got them for me insidea week. Next week a shark got him; took his arm off and blood poison didthe business. And that big baroque there--nothing much--if I'moffered twenty francs for it to-morrow I'll be in luck; it came out oftwenty-two fathoms of water. The man was from Raratonga. He broke alldiving records. He got it out of twenty-two fathoms. I saw him. And heburst his lungs at the same time, or got the 'bends,' for he died in twohours. He died screaming. They could hear him for miles. He was the mostpowerful native I ever saw. Half a dozen of my divers have died of thebends. And more men will die, more men will die."
"Oh, hush your croaking, Parlay," chided one of the captains. "It ain'tgoing to blow."
"If I was a strong man, I couldn't get up hook and get out fast enough,"the old man retorted in the falsetto of age. "Not if I was a strong manwith the taste for wine yet in my mouth. But not you. You'll all stay, Iwouldn't advise you if I thought you'd go, You can't drive buzzards awayfrom the carrion. Have another drink, my brave sailor-men. Well, well,what men will dare for a few little oyster drops! There they are, thebeauties! Auction to-morrow, at ten sharp. Old Parlay's selling out, andthe buzzards are gathering--old Parlay who was a stronger man in his daythan any of them and who will see most of them dead yet."
"If he isn't a vile old beast!" the supercargo of the _Malahini_whispered to Peter Gee.
"What if she does blow?" said the captain of the _Dolly_. "Hikihoho'snever been swept."
"The more reason she will be, then," Captain Warfield answered back. "Iwouldn't trust her."
"Who's croaking now?" Grief reproved.
"I'd hate to lose that new engine before it paid for itself," CaptainWarfield replied gloomily.
Parlay skipped with astonishing nimbleness across the crowded room tothe barometer on the wall.
"Take a look, my brave sailormen!" he cried exultantly.
The man nearest read the glass. The sobering effect showed plainly onhis face.
"It's dropped ten," was all he said, yet every face went anxious, andthere was a look as if every man desired immediately to start for thedoor.
"Listen!" Parlay commanded.
In the silence the outer surf seemed to have become unusually loud.There was a great rumbling roar.
"A big sea is beginning to set," some one said; and there was a movementto the windows, where all gathered.
Through the sparse cocoanuts they gazed seaward. An orderly successionof huge smooth s
eas was rolling down upon the coral shore. For someminutes they gazed on the strange sight and talked in low voices, and inthose few minutes it was manifest to all that the waves were increasingin size. It was uncanny, this rising sea in a dead calm, and theirvoices unconsciously sank lower. Old Parlay shocked them with his abruptcackle.
"There is yet time to get away to sea, brave gentlemen. You can towacross the lagoon with your whaleboats."
"It's all right, old man," said Darling, the mate of the _Cactus_, astalwart youngster of twenty-five. "The blow's to the southward andpassing on. We'll not get a whiff of it."
An air of relief went through the room. Conversations were started, andthe voices became louder. Several of the buyers even went back to thetable to continue the examination of the pearls.
Parlay's shrill cackle rose higher.
"That's right," he encouraged. "If the world was coming to an end you'dgo on buying."
"We'll buy these to-morrow just the same," Isaacs assured him.
"Then you'll be doing your buying in hell."
The chorus of incredulous laughter incensed the old man. He turnedfiercely on Darling.
"Since when have children like you come to the knowledge of storms? Andwho is the man who has plotted the hurricane-courses of the Paumotus?What books will you find it in? I sailed the Paumotus before the oldestof you drew breath. I know. To the eastward the paths of the hurricanesare on so wide a circle they make a straight line. To the westward herethey make a sharp curve. Remember your chart. How did it happen thehurricane of '91 swept Auri and Hiolau? The curve, my brave boy, thecurve! In an hour, or two or three at most, will come the wind. Listento that!"