IV
When Hayes and I quarrelled, the American trader, "Harry," who hadhitherto stood by "Bully" sided with me, with the result that Hayespassionately declared that both of us were at the bottom of a conspiracyto lower his prestige and lessen his authority, not only with the otherwhite men but with the natives as well. This was an utterly unfoundedaccusation, for we liked the man, but did not like the way in which hehad treated the deputation of Strong's Islanders, who protested againsthis permitting the continual abduction of young Kusaiean girls bymembers of his crew.
I had brought the deputation to him, for Harry and myself were _personagrata_ with the natives, who all knew that Hayes had a great likingfor us. But to my astonishment and indignation, "Bully" turned on mefuriously, called me a meddlesome young fool, prefixing the "fool" withsome very strong adjectives, and then, losing all control of himself,he sprang at one of the members of the deputation--the youngestand strongest--and lifting him up in his arms, literally forced theunfortunate young man out of the house--not by the door, but through theside, tearing a hole in the thin lattice woodwork big enough to admit abollock. The remainder of the deputation at once retired, and, as Ihave mentioned in the previous chapter, "Bully" and myself parted, eachdeeply incensed.
Harry, who had a large following of wild, intractable PleasantIslanders, all of whom were armed with Snider rifles, moved over to theopposite shore of Utwe Harbour with "the three Graces and the fourthchucked in," promising to come and see me at Leasse after he had"settled down a bit."
My reason for removing to Leasse was that I knew the place very wellthrough frequent visits there, and Eusis, the head man or chief, hadconstantly pressed me to come there and live; so a few hours after myquarrel with Hayes I made a start, accompanied by two Strong's Islandersnamed Sru and Nana, both of whom came from Leasse, and were delightedthat I was leaving Utwe to come to their own village.
They assured me that I was doing wisely in leaving the captain, that thepeople of Leasse would gladly receive me, and that I would find greatpig-hunting and pigeon-shooting among the dense forests that lay at theback of the village.
Our way lay over the waters of a deep but winding lagoon, which fromUtwe to Coquille Harbour is bounded on the ocean side by a chain ofnarrow, thickly wooded, and fertile islets, the haunt of myriads ofsea-birds and giant robber crabs. This chain of islets lay on our lefthand; on our right the steep, forest-clad mountains of Strong's Islandrose abruptly from the still waters of the lagoon. The lagoon itselfaveraged about a mile in width, and here and there, dotted upon itsplacid, glassy surface, were tiny isolated islets of perhaps not morethan an acre in extent, but covered with a dense mass of the loveliestverdure imaginable, from the centre of which rose a group of half adozen or so of stately coco-nut palms. Each islet was encircled by asnow-white beach, descending abruptly to the water, the great depth ofwhich enabled us to paddle within a foot or so of the shore.
We had left Utwe just after daylight, and though the trade-wind wasblowing freshly outside and we could hear the thunder of the oceanrollers pounding on the outside reef beyond the encircling chain ofislets half a mile away, scarcely the faintest breath of air disturbedthe blue depths of the lagoon. The canoe was light and our three paddlessent her over the waters at a great rate. My two companions were bothyoung men, and, unlike most of the people of Strong's Island, who area reserved and melancholy race, they laughed and sang merrily to thestrokes of their red-stained paddles.
Here and there, as we skimmed along the shore of the forest-cladmountains of the mainland, we would pass a village of six or sevenhouses, and the small-made, light-complexioned folk would, as they heardthe sound of our voices, come out and eagerly beseech us to come in "andeat and rest awhile."
But pleased as I would have been to have landed and accepted theirhospitality--for I was known to every native on the island--my crewurged me not to delay so early on our journey. Sometimes, however, thesekindly-hearted people would not be denied, and boys and girls would runparallel to our canoe along the beach and implore Sru and Nana and the"white man" to stay "just a little, just a very, very little time, andtell them the news from Utwe."
And then, as we rested on our paddles and talked, under pretence ofgetting closer to us they would dash into the water and seizing thegunwales of the canoe laughingly insist upon our coming ashore andentering their cool houses, and indeed it was hard to resist theirblandishments. Then, once we were inside, they would tell us that theywould not let us go till we had eaten and drunk a little.
A little! Basket after basket of cooked fish, crayfish, pigeons, bakedpork, bunches of bananas and kits of oranges and heaps of lusciouspineapples would be placed before us, and they seemed absolutely painedat my inability to eat more than a few mouthfuls. All the men at theseisolated villages were away at Leasse or elsewhere in the vicinity ofCoquille Harbour, and the women and young girls pretended to be verymuch frightened at being left by themselves for a couple of days.They were afraid, they said, that Captain Hayes's wild Pleasant Islandnatives might come up the lagoon and harry their villages--wouldn't westay with them till their husbands and brothers came back?
Now, we knew all this was nonsense. There was no fear of the PleasantIslanders' boats coming up the lagoon to these little villages whenthere was richer prey nearer at hand, so we only laughed. Many of theyoung boys and girls were of great personal beauty, and, indeed, so weremany of the young unmarried women, but their light skins were stainedand disfigured by the application of turmeric. At one of these placesour pretty tormentors played us a trick. While we were in a house andhaving kava prepared in the Micronesian fashion, by pounding the greenroot into a hollowed stone, the girls carried our canoe up bodily fromthe beach and hid it in a clump of breadfruit trees about two hundredyards away. When we bade goodbye to the elder women, who had given usthe kava, and walked down to the beach the canoe was gone.
"Here, you girls," said Nana, "where is our canoe? Don't play thesefoolish tricks; the white man must get to Leasse before darkness setsin."
But the imps only laughed at us, and for some minutes we had a greatgame with them, chasing them about. At last we tired of this, and,lighting our pipes, sat down to smoke under a great banyan, whosebranches reached far out over the white beaches. One of the children,a merry-eyed girl of ten, with long hair that almost touched her knees,was a bit of a humorist, and told us that we might as well stay for thenight, as the canoe was gone for ever.
"Where to?" we asked.
"Up there," she answered, with the gravest countenance imaginable,pointing skyward. "A big kanapu (fish eagle) was soaring overhead, andsuddenly swooped down and seized it in his claws and flew away into theblue with it."
At last, however, they came back, carrying the canoe among them, andwith much laughter dropped it into the water. Then they filled it withas many young drinking coco-nuts and as much fruit as we could stow,and bade us farewell, running along the beach with us till a high, steepbluff shut them off from following us any further.
By and by, as we paddled along, the sun began to get pretty hot, and wekept in as close as possible under the shade of the steep shores of themainland. Overhead was a sky of matchless, cloudless blue, and sailingto and fro on motionless wing were numbers of tropic birds, their longscarlet retrices showing in startling contrast to their snow-white bodyplumage. All round about us turtle would rise every now and then, andtaking a look at us, sink out of sight again. From the dense mountainforest, that earlier in the morning had resounded with the heavy boomingnote of the great grey pigeons and the cooing note of the little purpledoves, not a sound now came forth, for the birds were roosting in theshade from the heat of the sun. Half a mile or so away, through a breakin the chain of low islets, we could see the tumbling blue of the ocean,and over the tree-tops the white spume of the breakers as they leaptupon the iron-bound coast.
We made fast our canoe to a jutting point of rock and rested awhile andsmoked. The tide was on the flow, and as the water came swirling andedd
ying in from the great passage in the reef five miles away, therecame with it countless thousands of fish of the mullet species, seekingtheir food among the mangrove creeks and flats that lay behind us. Theydid not swim in an orderly, methodical fashion, but leapt and spun anddanced about as if thrown up out of the water by some invisible powerbeneath. Sometimes they would rise simultaneously, thousands at a time,and, taking a leap, descend again with an extraordinary noise. Then,quick as lightning, they would make three or four such leaps insuccession with the regularity and precision of machinery. Hovering andfluttering above them on tireless wing were numbers of sea-birds, whichever and again darted down amongst them and rose with hoarse, triumphantnote, prey in mouth.
We lay resting quietly till the incoming tide had spent its strength,and then once more pushed out into the transparent depths of the lagoon.Bight ahead of us, after another hour's paddling, lay a long, gleamingpoint of sand covered with a grove of palms; beyond that a wide sweep ofpale green shallow water; beyond that again the wild tumble and fret ofthe surf on the barrier reef.
Laying down our paddles--for we were now in shallow water--we took upour three long canoe poles, and striking them on the hard, sandy bottomin unison we sent the canoe spinning round to the point, and as werounded it there lay before us the brown roofs of the village of Leassenestling under the shade of its groves. This was, as I have said, to bemy home for many long but happy months.