By Reef and Palm - George Lewis Becke (novels in english .TXT) 📗

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."

Warren looked steadily at him for a moment, and then glanced at his outstretched hand.

"The pleasure isn't mutual, blarst you, Mr Motley," he said coldly, and he put his hand in his pocket.

The supercargo took a step nearer to him with a savage glare in his blue eyes.