CHAPTER II
THE BAN
I came on the verandah just before the sun rose on the morrow. My housewas the last on the east; there was a cape of woods and cliffs behindthat hid the sunrise. To the west, a swift cold river ran down, andbeyond was the green of the village, dotted with cocoa-palms andbreadfruits and houses. The shutters were some of them down and someopen; I saw the mosquito bars still stretched, with shadows of peoplenew-awakened sitting up inside; and all over the green others werestalking silent, wrapped in their many-coloured sleeping clothes likeBedouins in Bible pictures. It was mortal still and solemn and chilly,and the light of the dawn on the lagoon was like the shining of a fire.
But the thing that troubled me was nearer hand. Some dozen young men andchildren made a piece of a half-circle, flanking my house: the riverdivided them, some were on the near side, some on the far, and one on aboulder in the midst; and they all sat silent, wrapped in their sheets,and stared at me and my house as straight as pointer dogs. I thought itstrange as I went out. When I had bathed and come back again, and foundthem all there, and two or three more along with them, I thought itstranger still. What could they see to gaze at in my house, I wondered,and went in.
But the thought of these starers stuck in my mind, and presently I cameout again. The sun was now up, but it was still behind the cape ofwoods. Say a quarter of an hour had come and gone. The crowd wasgreatly increased, the far bank of the river was lined for quite away--perhaps thirty grown folk, and of children twice as many, somestanding, some squatted on the ground, and all staring at my house. Ihave seen a house in the South Sea village thus surrounded, but then atrader was thrashing his wife inside, and she singing out. Here wasnothing: the stove was alight, the smoke going up in a Christian manner;all was shipshape and Bristol fashion. To be sure, there was a strangercome, but they had a chance to see that stranger yesterday, and took itquiet enough. What ailed them now? I leaned my arms on the rail andstared back. Devil a wink they had in them! Now and then I could see thechildren chatter, but they spoke so low not even the hum of theirspeaking came my length. The rest were like graven images: they staredat me, dumb and sorrowful, with their bright eyes; and it came upon methings would look not much different if I were on the platform of thegallows, and these good folk had come to see me hanged.
I felt I was getting daunted, and began to be afraid I looked it, whichwould never do. Up I stood, made believe to stretch myself, came downthe verandah stair, and strolled towards the river. There went a shortbuzz from one to the other, like what you hear in theatres when thecurtain goes up; and some of the nearest gave back the matter of a pace.I saw a girl lay one hand on a young man and make a gesture upward withthe other; at the same time she said something in the native with agasping voice. Three little boys sat beside my path, where I must passwithin three feet of them. Wrapped in their sheets, with their shavedheads and bits of top-knots, and queer faces, they looked like figureson a chimney-piece. A while they sat their ground, solemn as judges. Icame up hand over fist, doing my five knots, like a man that meantbusiness; and I thought I saw a sort of a wink and gulp in the threefaces. Then one jumped up (he was the farthest off) and ran for hismammy. The other two, trying to follow suit, got foul, came to groundtogether bawling, wriggled right out of their sheets mother-naked, andin a moment there were all three of them scampering for their lives andsinging out like pigs. The natives, who would never let a joke slip,even at a burial, laughed and let up, as short as a dog's bark.
They say it scares a man to be alone. No such thing. What scares him inthe dark or the high bush is that he can't make sure, and there might bean army at his elbow. What scares him worst is to be right in the midstof a crowd, and have no guess of what they're driving at. When thatlaugh stopped, I stopped too. The boys had not yet made their offing,they were still on the full stretch going the one way, when I hadalready gone about ship and was sheering off the other. Like a fool Ihad come out, doing my five knots; like a fool I went back again. Itmust have been the funniest thing to see, and, what knocked me silly,this time no one laughed; only one old woman gave a kind of pious moan,the way you have heard Dissenters in their chapels at the sermon.
"I never saw such fools of Kanakas as your people here," I said once toUma, glancing out of the window at the starers.
"Savvy nothing," says Uma, with a kind of disgusted air that she wasgood at.
And that was all the talk we had upon the matter, for I was put out, andUma took the thing so much as a matter of course that I was fairlyashamed.
All day, off and on, now fewer and now more, the fools sat about thewest end of my house and across the river, waiting for the show,whatever that was--fire to come down from heaven, I suppose, and consumeme, bones and baggage. But by evening, like real islanders, they hadwearied of the business, and got away, and had a dance instead in thebig house of the village, where I heard them singing and clapping handstill, maybe, ten at night, and the next day it seemed they hadforgotten I existed. If fire had come down from heaven or the earthopened and swallowed me, there would have been nobody to see the sportor take the lesson, or whatever you like to call it. But I was to findthat they hadn't forgot either, and kept an eye lifting for phenomenaover my way.
I was hard at it both these days getting my trade in order and takingstock of what Vigours had left. This was a job that made me pretty sick,and kept me from thinking on much else. Ben had taken stock the tripbefore--I knew I could trust Ben--but it was plain somebody had beenmaking free in the meantime. I found I was out by what might easilycover six months' salary and profit, and I could have kicked myself allround the village to have been such a blamed ass, sitting boozing withthat Case instead of attending to my own affairs and taking stock.
However, there's no use crying over spilt milk. It was done now, andcouldn't be undone. All I could do was to get what was left of it, andmy new stuff (my own choice) in order, to go round and get after therats and cockroaches, and to fix up that store regular Sydney style. Afine show I made of it; and the third morning when I had lit my pipe andstood in the doorway and looked in, and turned and looked far up themountain and saw the cocoa-nuts waving and posted up the tons of copra,and over the village green and saw the island dandies and reckoned upthe yards of print they wanted for their kilts and dresses, I felt as ifI was in the right place to make a fortune, and go home again and starta public-house. There was I, sitting in that verandah, in as handsome apiece of scenery as you could find, a splendid sun, and a fine, fresh,healthy trade that stirred up a man's blood like sea-bathing; and thewhole thing was clean gone from me, and I was dreaming England, whichis, after all, a nasty, cold, muddy hole, with not enough light to seeto read by; and dreaming the looks of my public, by a cant of a broadhigh-road like an avenue, and with the sign on a green tree.
So much for the morning; but the day passed and the devil any one lookednear me, and from all I knew of natives in other islands I thought thisstrange. People laughed a little at our firm and their fine stations,and at this station of Falesa in particular; all the copra in thedistrict wouldn't pay for it (I had heard them say) in fifty years,which I supposed was an exaggeration. But when the day went, and nobusiness came at all, I began to get downhearted; and, about three inthe afternoon, I went out for a stroll to cheer me up. On the green Isaw a white man coming with a cassock on, by which and by the face ofhim I knew he was a priest. He was a good-natured old soul to look at,gone a little grizzled, and so dirty you could have written with him ona piece of paper.
"Good day, sir," said I.
He answered me eagerly in native.
"Don't you speak any English?" said I.
"French," says he.
"Well," said I, "I'm sorry, but I can't do anything there."
He tried me a while in the French, and then again in native, which heseemed to think was the best chance. I made out he was after more thanpassing the time of day with me, but had something to communicate, and Ilistened the harder. I heard the names of Adams a
nd Case and ofRandall--Randall the oftenest--and the word "poison," or something likeit, and a native word that he said very often. I went home, repeating itto myself.
"What does fussy-ocky mean?" I asked of Uma, for that was as near as Icould come to it.
"Make dead," said she.
"The devil it does!" says I. "Did you ever hear that Case had poisonedJohnny Adams?"
"Every man he savvy that," says Uma, scornful-like. "Give him whitesand--bad sand. He got the bottle still. Suppose he give you gin, you notake him."
Now I had heard much the same sort of story in other islands, and thesame white powder always to the front, which made me think the less ofit. For all that, I went over to Randall's place to see what I couldpick up, and found Case on the doorstep, cleaning a gun.
"Good shooting here?" says I.
"A1," says he. "The bush is full of all kinds of birds. I wish copra wasas plenty," says he--I thought, slyly--"but there don't seem anythingdoing."
I could see Black Jack in the store, serving a customer.
"That looks like business, though," said I.
"That's the first sale we've made in three weeks," said he.
"You don't tell me?" says I. "Three weeks? Well, well."
"If you don't believe me," he cries, a little hot, "you can go and lookat the copra-house. It's half empty to this blessed hour."
"I shouldn't be much the better for that, you see," says I. "For all Ican tell, it might have been whole empty yesterday."
"That's so," says he, with a bit of a laugh.
"By the by," I said, "what sort of a party is that priest? Seems rathera friendly sort."
At this Case laughed right out loud. "Ah!" says he, "I see what ails younow. Galuchet's been at you." _Father Galoshes_ was the name he went bymost, but Case always gave it the French quirk, which was another reasonwe had for thinking him above the common.
"Yes, I have seen him," I says. "I made out he didn't think much of yourCaptain Randall."
"That he don't!" says Case. "It was the trouble about poor Adams. Thelast day, when he lay dying, there was young Buncombe round. Ever metBuncombe?"
I told him no.
"He's a cure, is Buncombe!" laughs Case. "Well, Buncombe took it in hishead that, as there was no other clergyman about, bar Kanaka pastors,we ought to call in Father Galuchet, and have the old man administeredand take the sacrament. It was all the same to me, you may suppose; butI said I thought Adams was the fellow to consult. He was jawing awayabout watered copra and a sight of foolery. 'Look here,' I said, 'you'repretty sick. Would you like to see Galoshes?' He sat right up on hiselbow. 'Get the priest,' says he, 'get the priest; don't let me die herelike a dog!' He spoke kind of fierce and eager, but sensible enough.There was nothing to say against that, so we sent and asked Galuchet ifhe would come. You bet he would. He jumped in his dirty linen at thethought of it. But we had reckoned without Papa. He's a hard-shellBaptist, is Papa; no Papists need apply. And he took and locked thedoor. Buncombe told him he was bigoted, and I thought he would have hada fit. 'Bigoted!' he says. 'Me bigoted? Have I lived to hear it from ajackanapes like you?' And he made for Buncombe, and I had to hold themapart; and there was Adams in the middle, gone luny again, and carryingon about copra like a born fool. It was good as the play, and I wasabout knocked out of time with laughing, when all of a sudden Adams satup, clapped his hands to his chest, and went into horrors. He died hard,did John Adams," says Case, with a kind of a sudden sternness.
"And what became of the priest?" I asked.
"The priest?" says Case. "O! he was hammering on the door outside, andcrying on the natives to come and beat it in, and singing out it was asoul he wished to save, and that. He was in a rare taking, was thepriest. But what would you have? Johnny had slipped his cable: no moreJohnny in the market; and the administration racket clean played out.Next thing, word came to Randall the priest was praying upon Johnny'sgrave. Papa was pretty full, and got a club, and lit out straight forthe place, and there was Galoshes on his knees, and a lot of nativeslooking on. You wouldn't think Papa cared that much about anything,unless it was liquor; but he and the priest stuck to it two hours,slanging each other in native, and every time Galoshes tried to kneeldown Papa went for him with the club. There never were such larks inFalesa. The end of it was that Captain Randall was knocked over withsome kind of a fit or stroke, and the priest got in his goods after all.But he was the angriest priest you ever heard of, and complained to thechiefs about the outrage, as he called it. That was no account, for ourchiefs are Protestant here; and, anyway, he had been making troubleabout the drum for morning school, and they were glad to give him awipe. Now he swears old Randall gave Adams poison or something, and whenthe two meet they grin at each other like baboons."
He told the story as natural as could be, and like a man that enjoyedthe fun; though, now I come to think of it after so long, it seemsrather a sickening yarn. However, Case never set up to be soft, only tobe square and hearty, and a man all round; and, to tell the truth, hepuzzled me entirely.
I went home and asked Uma if she were a Popey, which I had made out tobe the native word for Catholics.
"_E le ai!_" says she. She always used the native when she meant "no"more than usually strong, and, indeed, there's more of it. "No goodPopey," she added.
Then I asked her about Adams and the priest, and she told me much thesame yarn in her own way. So that I was left not much further on, butinclined, upon the whole, to think the bottom of the matter was the rowabout the sacrament, and the poisoning only talk.
The next day was a Sunday, when there was no business to be looked for.Uma asked me in the morning if I was going to "pray"; I told her she betnot, and she stopped home herself with no more words. I thought thisseemed unlike a native, and a native woman, and a woman that had newclothes to show off; however, it suited me to the ground, and I made theless of it. The queer thing was that I came next door to going tochurch after all, a thing I'm little likely to forget. I had turned outfor a stroll, and heard the hymn tune up. You know how it is. If youhear folk singing, it seems to draw you: and pretty soon I found myselfalongside the church. It was a little, long, low place, coral built,rounded off at both ends like a whale-boat, a big native roof on the topof it, windows without sashes and doorways without doors. I stuck myhead into one of the windows, and the sight was so new to me--for thingswent quite different in the islands I was acquainted with--that I stayedand looked on. The congregation sat on the floor on mats, the women onone side, the men on the other, all rigged out to kill--the women withdresses and trade hats, the men in white jackets and shirts. The hymnwas over; the pastor, a big buck Kanaka, was in the pulpit, preachingfor his life; and by the way he wagged his hand, and worked his voice,and made his points, and seemed to argue with the folk, I made out hewas a gun at the business. Well, he looked up suddenly and caught myeye, and I give you my word he staggered in the pulpit; his eyes bulgedout of his head, his hand rose and pointed at me like as if against hiswill, and the sermon stopped right there.
It isn't a fine thing to say for yourself, but I ran away; and if thesame kind of a shock was given me, I should run away again to-morrow. Tosee that palavering Kanaka struck all of a heap at the mere sight of megave me a feeling as if the bottom had dropped out of the world. I wentright home, and stayed there, and said nothing. You might think I wouldtell Uma, but that was against my system. You might have thought I wouldhave gone over and consulted Case; but the truth was I was ashamed tospeak of such a thing, I thought every one would blurt out laughing inmy face. So I held my tongue, and thought all the more; and the more Ithought, the less I liked the business.
By Monday night I got it clearly in my head I must be tabooed. A newstore to stand open two days in a village and not a man or woman come tosee the trade was past believing.
"Uma," said I, "I think I am tabooed."
"I think so," said she.
I thought a while whether I should ask her more, but it's a bad idea toset natives up wi
th any notion of consulting them, so I went to Case. Itwas dark, and he was sitting alone, as he did mostly, smoking on thestairs.
"Case," said I, "here's a queer thing. I'm tabooed."
"O, fudge!" says he "'tain't the practice in these islands."
"That may be, or it mayn't," said I. "It's the practice where I wasbefore. You can bet I know what it's like; and I tell it you for a fact,I'm tabooed."
"Well," said he, "what have you been doing?"
"That's what I want to find out," said I.
"O, you can't be," said he; "it ain't possible. However, I'll tell youwhat I'll do. Just to put your mind at rest, I'll go round and find outfor sure. Just you waltz in and talk to Papa."
"Thank you," I said, "I'd rather stay right out here on the verandah.Your house is so close."
"I'll call Papa out here, then," says he.
"My dear fellow," I says, "I wish you wouldn't. The fact is, I don'ttake to Mr. Randall."
Case laughed, took a lantern from the store, and set out into thevillage. He was gone perhaps a quarter of an hour, and he looked mightyserious when he came back.
"Well," said he, clapping down the lantern on the verandah steps. "Iwould never have believed it. I don't know where the impudence of theseKanakas'll go next; they seem to have lost all idea of respect forwhites. What we want is a man-of-war--a German, if we could--they knowhow to manage Kanakas."
"I _am_ tabooed, then?" I cried.
"Something of the sort," said he. "It's the worst thing of the kind I'veheard of yet. But I'll stand by you, Wiltshire, man to man. You comeround here to-morrow about nine, and we'll have it out with the chiefs.They're afraid of me, or they used to be; but their heads are so big bynow, I don't know what to think. Understand me, Wiltshire; I don't countthis your quarrel," he went on, with a great deal of resolution, "Icount it all of our quarrel, I count it the White Man's Quarrel, andI'll stand to it through thick and thin, and there's my hand on it."
"Have you found out what's the reason?" I asked.
"Not yet," said Case. "But we'll fix them down to-morrow."
Altogether I was pretty well pleased with his attitude, and almost morethe next day, when we met to go before the chiefs, to see him so sternand resolved. The chiefs awaited us in one of their big oval houses,which was marked out to us from a long way off by the crowd about theeaves, a hundred strong if there was one--men, women, and children. Manyof the men were on their way to work and wore green wreaths, and it putme in thoughts of the 1st of May at home. This crowd opened and buzzedabout the pair of us as we went in, with a sudden angry animation. Fivechiefs were there; four mighty stately men, the fifth old and puckered.They sat on mats in their white kilts and jackets; they had fans intheir hands, like fine ladies; and two of the younger ones wore Catholicmedals, which gave me matter of reflection. Our place was set, and themats laid for us over against these grandees, on the near side of thehouse; the midst was empty; the crowd, close at our backs, murmured, andcraned, and jostled to look on, and the shadows of them tossed in frontof us on the clean pebbles of the floor. I was just a hair put out bythe excitement of the commons, but the quiet, civil appearance of thechiefs reassured me, all the more when their spokesman began and made along speech in a low tone of voice, sometimes waving his hand towardsCase, sometimes towards me, and sometimes knocking with his knuckles onthe mat. One thing was clear: there was no sign of anger in the chiefs.
"What's he been saying?" I asked, when he had done.
"O, just that they're glad to see you, and they understand by me youwish to make some kind of complaint, and you're to fire away, andthey'll do the square thing."
"It took a precious long time to say that," said I.
"O, the rest was sawder and _bonjour_ and that," said Case. "You knowwhat Kanakas are."
"Well, they don't get much _bonjour_ out of me," said I. "You tell themwho I am. I'm a white man, and a British subject, and no end of a bigchief at home; and I've come here to do them good, and bring themcivilisation; and no sooner have I got my trade sorted out than they goand taboo me, and no one dare come near my place! Tell them I don't meanto fly in the face of anything legal; and if what they want's a present,I'll do what's fair. I don't blame any man looking out for himself, tellthem, for that's human nature; but if they think they're going to comeany of their native ideas over me, they'll find themselves mistaken. Andtell them plain that I demand the reason of this treatment as a whiteman and a British subject."
That was my speech. I know how to deal with Kanakas: give them plainsense and fair dealing, and--I'll do them that much justice--theyknuckle under every time. They haven't any real government or any reallaw, that's what you've got to knock into their heads; and even if theyhad, it would be a good joke if it was to apply to a white man. It wouldbe a strange thing if we came all this way and couldn't do what wepleased. The mere idea has always put my monkey up, and I rapped myspeech out pretty big. Then Case translated it--or made believe to,rather--and the first chief replied, and then a second, and a third, allin the same style, easy and genteel, but solemn underneath. Once aquestion was put to Case, and he answered it, and all hands (bothchiefs and commons) laughed out aloud, and looked at me. Last of all,the puckered old fellow and the big young chief that spoke first startedin to put Case through a kind of catechism. Sometimes I made out thatCase was trying to fence and they stuck to him like hounds, and thesweat ran down his face, which was no very pleasant sight to me, and atsome of his answers the crowd moaned and murmured, which was a worsehearing. It's a cruel shame I knew no native, for (as I now believe)they were asking Case about my marriage, and he must have had a toughjob of it to clear his feet. But leave Case alone; he had the brains torun a parliament.
"Well, is that all?" I asked, when a pause came.
"Come along," says he, mopping his face; "I'll tell you outside."
"Do you mean they won't take the taboo off?" I cried.
"It's something queer," said he. "I'll tell you outside. Better comeaway."
"I won't take it at their hands," cried I. "I ain't that kind of a man.You don't find me turn my back on a parcel of Kanakas."
"You'd better," said Case.
He looked at me with a signal in his eye; and the five chiefs looked atme civilly enough, but kind of pointed; and the people looked at me, andcraned and jostled. I remembered the folks that watched my house, andhow the pastor had jumped in his pulpit at the bare sight of me; and thewhole business seemed so out of the way that I rose and followed Case.The crowd opened again to let us through, but wider than before, thechildren on the skirts running and singing out, and as we two white menwalked away they all stood and watched us.
"And now," said I, "what is all this about?"
"The truth is, I can't rightly make it out myself. They have a down onyou," says Case.
"Taboo a man because they have a down on him!" I cried. "I never heardthe like."
"It's worse than that, you see," said Case. "You ain't tabooed--I toldyou that couldn't be. The people won't go near you, Wiltshire, andthere's where it is."
"They won't go near me? What do you mean by that? Why won't they go nearme?" I cried.
Case hesitated. "Seems they're frightened," says he in a low voice.
I stopped dead short. "Frightened?" I repeated. "Are you gone crazy,Case? What are they frightened of?"
"I wish I could make out," Case answered, shaking his head. "Appearslike one of their tomfool superstitions. That's what I don't cotton to,"he said. "It's like the business about Vigours."
"I'd like to know what you mean by that, and I'll trouble you to tellme," says I.
"Well, you know, Vigours lit out and left all standing," said he. "Itwas some superstition business--I never got the hang of it; but it beganto look bad before the end."
"I've heard a different story about that," said I, "and I had bettertell you so. I heard he ran away because of you."
"O! well, I suppose he was ashamed to tell the truth," says Case; "Iguess he thought it
silly. And it's a fact that I packed him off. 'Whatwould you do, old man?' says he.--'Get,' says I, 'and not think twiceabout it.' I was the gladdest kind of man to see him clear away. Itain't my notion to turn my back on a mate when he's in a tight place,but there was that much trouble in the village that I couldn't see whereit might likely end. I was a fool to be so much about with Vigours. Theycast it up to me to-day. Didn't you hear Maea--that's the young chief,the big one--ripping out about 'Vika'? That was him they were after.They don't seem to forget it, somehow."
"This is all very well," said I, "but it don't tell me what's wrong; itdon't tell me what they're afraid of--what their idea is."
"Well, I wish I knew," said Case. "I can't say fairer than that."
"You might have asked, I think," says I.
"And so I did," says he. "But you must have seen for yourself, unlessyou're blind, that the asking got the other way. I'll go as far as Idare for another white man; but when I find I'm in the scrape myself, Ithink first of my own bacon. The loss of me is I'm too good-natured. AndI'll take the freedom of telling you you show a queer kind of gratitudeto a man who's got into all this mess along of your affairs."
"There's a thing I am thinking of," said I. "You were a fool to be somuch about with Vigours. One comfort, you haven't been much about withme. I notice you've never been inside my house. Own up now; you had wordof this before?"
"It's a fact I haven't been," said he. "It was an oversight, and I amsorry for it, Wiltshire. But about coming now, I'll be quite plain."
"You mean you won't?" I asked.
"Awfully sorry, old man, but that's the size of it," says Case.
"In short, you're afraid?" says I.
"In short, I'm afraid," says he.
"And I'm still to be tabooed for nothing?" I asked.
"I tell you you're not tabooed," said he. "The Kanakas won't go nearyou, that's all. And who's to make 'em? We traders have a lot of gall, Imust say; we make these poor Kanakas take back their laws, and take uptheir taboos, and that whenever it happens to suit us. But you don'tmean to say you expect a law-obliging people to deal in your storewhether they want to or not? You don't mean to tell me you've got thegall for that? And if you had, it would be a queer thing to propose tome. I would just like to point out to you, Wiltshire, that I'm a tradermyself."
"I don't think I would talk of gall if I was you," said I. "Here's aboutwhat it comes to, as well as I can make out: None of the people are totrade with me, and they're all to trade with you. You're to have thecopra, and I'm to go to the devil and shake myself. And I don't know anynative, and you're the only man here worth mention that speaks English,and you have the gall to up and hint to me my life's in danger, and allyou've got to tell me is you don't know why!"
"Well, it _is_ all I have to tell you," said he. "I don't know--I wish Idid."
"And so you turn your back and leave me to myself. Is that theposition?" says I.
"If you like to put it nasty," says he. "I don't put it so. I saymerely, 'I'm going to keep clear of you; or, if I don't, I'll get indanger for myself.'"
"Well," says I, "you're a nice kind of a white man!"
"O, I understand; you're riled," said he. "I would be, myself. I canmake excuses."
"All right," I said, "go and make excuses somewhere else. Here's my way,there's yours!"
With that we parted, and I went straight home, in a hot temper, andfound Uma trying on a lot of trade goods like a baby.
"Here," I said, "you quit that foolery! Here's a pretty mess to havemade, as if I wasn't bothered enough anyway! And I thought I told you toget dinner!"
And then I believe I gave her a bit of the rough side of my tongue, asshe deserved. She stood up at once, like a sentry to his officer; for Imust say she was always well brought up, and had a great respect forwhites.
"And now," says I, "you belong round here, you're bound to understandthis. What am I tabooed for, anyway? Or, if I ain't tabooed, what makesthe folks afraid of me?"
She stood and looked at me with eyes like saucers.
"You no savvy?" she gasps at last.
"No," said I. "How would you expect me to? We don't have any suchcraziness where I come from."
"Ese no tell you?" she asked again.
(_Ese_ was the name the natives had for Case; it may mean foreign, orextraordinary; or it might mean a mummy apple; but most like it was onlyhis own name misheard and put in a Kanaka spelling.)
"Not much," said I.
"Damn Ese!" she cried.
You might think it funny to hear this Kanaka girl come out with a bigswear. No such thing. There was no swearing in her--no, nor anger; shewas beyond anger, and meant the word simple and serious. She stood therestraight as she said it. I cannot justly say that I ever saw a womanlook like that before or after, and it struck me mum. Then she made akind of an obeisance, but it was the proudest kind, and threw her handsout open.
"I 'shamed," she said. "I think you savvy. Ese he tell me you savvy, hetell me you no mind, tell me you love me too much. Taboo belong me," shesaid, touching herself on the bosom, as she had done upon ourwedding-night. "Now I go 'way, taboo he go 'way too. Then you get toomuch copra. You like more better, I think. _Tofa, alii_," says she inthe native--"Farewell, chief!"
"Hold on!" I cried. "Don't be in such a hurry."
She looked at me sidelong with a smile. "You see you get copra," shesaid, the same as you might offer candies to a child.
"Uma," said I, "hear reason. I didn't know, and that's a fact; and Caseseems to have played it pretty mean upon the pair of us. But I do knownow, and I don't mind; I love you too much. You no go 'way, you no leaveme, I too much sorry."
"You no love me," she cried, "you talk me bad words!" And she threwherself in a corner of the floor, and began to cry.
Well, I'm no scholar, but I wasn't born yesterday, and I thought theworst of that trouble was over. However, there she lay--her back turned,her face to the wall--and shook with sobbing like a little child, sothat her feet jumped with it. It's strange how it hits a man when he'sin love; for there's no use mincing things--Kanaka and all, I was inlove with her, or just as good. I tried to take her hand, but she wouldnone of that. "Uma," I said, "there's no sense in carrying on like this.I want you stop here, I want my little wifie, I tell you true."
"No tell me true," she sobbed.
"All right," says I, "I'll wait till you're through with this." And Isat right down beside her on the floor, and set to smooth her hair withmy hand. At first she wriggled away when I touched her; then she seemedto notice me no more; then her sobs grew gradually less, and presentlystopped; and the next thing I knew, she raised her face to mine.
"You tell me true? You like me stop?" she asked.
"Uma," I said, "I would rather have you than all the copra in the SouthSeas," which was a very big expression, and the strangest thing was thatI meant it.
She threw her arms about me, sprang close up, and pressed her face tomine in the island way of kissing, so that I was all wetted with hertears, and my heart went out to her wholly. I never had anything so nearme as this little brown bit of a girl. Many things went together, andall helped to turn my head. She was pretty enough to eat; it seemed shewas my only friend in that queer place; I was ashamed that I had spokenrough to her: and she was a woman, and my wife, and a kind of a babybesides that I was sorry for; and the salt of her tears was in my mouth.And I forgot Case and the natives; and I forgot that I knew nothing ofthe story, or only remembered it to banish the remembrance; and Iforgot that I was to get no copra, and so could make no livelihood; andI forgot my employers, and the strange kind of service I was doing them,when I preferred my fancy to their business; and I forgot even that Umawas no true wife of mine, but just a maid beguiled, and that in a prettyshabby style. But that is to look too far on. I will come to that partof it next.
It was late before we thought of getting dinner. The stove was out, andgone stone-cold; but we fired up after a while, and cooked each a dish,helping and hindering each
other, and making a play of it like children.I was so greedy of her nearness that I sat down to dinner with my lassupon my knee, made sure of her with one hand, and ate with the other.Ay, and more than that. She was the worst cook, I suppose, God made; thethings she set her hand to, it would have sickened an honest horse toeat of; yet I made my meal that day on Uma's cookery, and can never callto mind to have been better pleased.
I didn't pretend to myself, and I didn't pretend to her. I saw that Iwas clean gone; and if she was to make a fool of me, she must. And Isuppose it was this that set her talking, for now she made sure that wewere friends. A lot she told me, sitting in my lap and eating my dish,as I ate hers, from foolery--a lot about herself and her mother andCase, all which would be very tedious, and fill sheets if I set it downin Beach de Mar, but which I must give a hint of in plain English, andone thing about myself, which had a very big effect on my concerns, asyou are soon to hear.
It seems she was born in one of the Line Islands; had been only two orthree years in these parts, where she had come with a white man, who wasmarried to her mother and then died; and only the one year in Falesa.Before that they had been a good deal on the move, trekking about afterthe white man, who was one of those rolling stones that keep going roundafter a soft job. They talk about looking for gold at the end of arainbow; if a man wants an employment that'll last him till he dies, lethim start out on the soft-job hunt. There's meat and drink in it too,and beer and skittles, for you never hear of them starving, and rarelysee them sober; and as for steady sport, cock-fighting isn't in the samecounty with it. Anyway, this beachcomber carried the woman and herdaughter all over the shop, but mostly to out-of-the-way islands, wherethere were no police, and he thought, perhaps, the soft job hung out.I've my own view of this old party; but I was just as glad he had keptUma clear of Apia and Papeete and these flash towns. At last he struckFale-alii on this island, got some trade--the Lord knows how!--muddledit all away in the usual style, and died worth next to nothing, bar abit of land at Falesa that he had got for a bad debt, which was what putit in the minds of the mother and daughter to come there and live. Itseems Case encouraged them all he could, and helped to get their housebuilt. He was very kind those days, and gave Uma trade, and there is nodoubt he had his eye on her from the beginning. However, they had scarcesettled, when up turned a young man, a native, and wanted to marry her.He was a small chief, and had some fine mats and old songs in hisfamily, and was "very pretty," Uma said; and, altogether, it was anextraordinary match for a penniless girl and an out-islander.
At the first word of this I got downright sick with jealousy.
"And you mean to say you would have married him?" I cried.
"_Ioe_, yes," said she. "I like too much!"
"Well!" I said. "And suppose I had come round after?"
"I like you more better now," said she. "But, suppose I marry Ioane, Ione good wife. I no common Kanaka. Good girl!" says she.
Well, I had to be pleased with that; but I promise you I didn't careabout the business one little bit. And I liked the end of that yarn nobetter than the beginning. For it seems this proposal of marriage wasthe start of all the trouble. It seems, before that, Uma and her motherhad been looked down upon, of course, for kinless folk andout-islanders, but nothing to hurt; and, even when Ioane came forward,there was less trouble at first than might have been looked for. Andthen, all of a sudden, about six months before my coming, Ioane backedout and left that part of the island, and from that day to this Uma andher mother had found themselves alone. None called at their house, nonespoke to them on the roads. If they went to church, the other women drewtheir mats away and left them in a clear place by themselves. It was aregular excommunication, like what you read of in the Middle Ages, andthe cause or sense of it beyond guessing. It was some _tala pepelo_, Umasaid, some lie, some calumny; and all she knew of it was that the girlswho had been jealous of her luck with Ioane used to twit her with hisdesertion, and cry out, when they met her alone in the woods, that shewould never be married. "They tell me no man he marry me. He too much'fraid," she said.
The only soul that came about them after this desertion was Master Case.Even he was chary of showing himself, and turned up mostly by night; andpretty soon he began to table his cards and make up to Uma. I was stillsore about Ioane, and when Case turned up in the same line of business Icut up downright rough.
"Well," I said, sneering, "and I suppose you thought Case 'very pretty'and 'liked too much'?"
"Now you talk silly," said she. "White man, he come here, I marry himall-e-same Kanaka; very well, then he marry me all-e-same white woman.Suppose he no marry, he go 'way, woman he stop. All-e-same thief, emptyhand, Tonga-heart--no can love! Now you come marry me. You bigheart--you no 'shamed island-girl. That thing I love you for too much. Iproud."
I don't know that ever I felt sicker all the days of my life. I laiddown my fork, and I put away "the island-girl"; I didn't seem somehow tohave any use for either, and I went and walked up and down in the house,and Uma followed me with her eyes, for she was troubled, and smallwonder! But troubled was no word for it with me. I so wanted, and sofeared, to make a clean breast of the sweep that I had been.
And just then there came a sound of singing out of the sea; it sprang upsuddenly clear and near, as the boat turned the headland, and Uma,running to the window, cried out it was "Misi" come upon his rounds.
I thought it was a strange thing I should be glad to have a missionary;but, if it was strange, it was still true.
"Uma," said I, "you stop here in this room, and don't budge a foot outof it till I come back."