I lead a Gaff-house Orchestra—News of Waylao—The Matafas—Tamafanga’s
Love Songs—My Sacred Gift to my Host and Hostess—I sail with
Tamafanga for Nuka Hiva—The Storm—The End of Tamafanga’s
Quest—Celestial Protection for Bugs
AFTER the Knut and his camera left me I became slightly depressed.
I see by the entry in my diary of that date that I had just got five
shillings in my exchequer when I decided to leave Suva.
Other entries show that I made several efforts to trace Waylao, also
that it was necessary to fall back on my musical accomplishments in
order to exist on something more appetising than coco-nuts. There’s
nothing like an empty stomach to make a man play the violin in public.
The romance and glory of Southern Seas are apt to fade away before the
grey dawn of cold hunger. I vividly recall the engagements that I
secured, and the white barbarian ladies as they lifted their delicate
mumus. It is true enough that those ridis reached to their ankles; but I
soon sickened of the amorous flutterings of those diaphanous, gaudy
robes as the figures they swathed whirled and swished beneath the
lamplit halls of that Suva gaff-house.
I half made up my mind to go back to England and settle down.
Why roam the world? Why seek further for my missing comrade? What could
I do if I discovered her? I could not alter things or change her evil
destiny. Such were my reflections as I stuck to my job, and led the
scratch orchestra in that gaff-house after roaming the world in search
of fame and fortune.
I thought of the sunless, songless skies of England. I pictured my
home-coming and the sight on the faces of my family on the wharf, when
I, the prodigal son, returned from wanderings in distant lands to
retrieve the family’s fortunes. I had many misgivings as to the
reception of myself and my worldly goods, which make the show in rhyme
as follows:—
Oh! hear of my dreams of long ago, when I seized the splendid chance,
When I sailed across the homeless seas for the isles of dim romance!
Away to the lands of far-away, to the dim great Make-believe:
And what was the fortune that I made—what deeds did I achieve?
(Though goodly was my heritage to the ends of all the earth)
Though I sang wild songs as our ship rolled home, O men, hear of my
worth—
Weighed down with rhymes and fearful crimes, sun-tanned and deadly
sane,
Face yellowish-brown—one bad half-crown and a monkey on a chain!
Such was my success. Even the monkey died before I left Suva. But I was
rich in experience.
The very sight of ugly Suva city, with its wooden dwarf houses, stinks
and mosquitoes, inspired me to seek for change.
Then it came again like a fever raging in my blood; it was the call of
the wild, echoing through my dreams. As I lay unsleeping in the
vermin-haunted bunk of that wretched hovel wherein I dwelt, that call in
my blood seemed somehow to echo from the lost Waylao’s sorrow.
I arose like one in a dream. I would seek the wilds, the forest and seas
again, and only dream of England’s skies.
Such were the reflections that I recall as I look back across the track
of the years to my glorious vagabond pilgrimage, back to the sun-kissed
bosom of the wilds, back to the starlit, tropical nights of eyes and
fragrant lips, to the sea foams, the scented, dusky hair of my beloved
South—my love of other days.
In looking back, how different seem the dreams that were once ours. The
present seems a daub, it has no perspective of its own, it is like the
raw colours of the aspiring artist ere he spreads them on the canvas and
the picture slowly shapes itself from his creating brain. How beautiful
are the paintings of rosy horizons of TO-MORROWS—how transfigured, how
rare and beautiful are those wonderful masterpieces of—SAD YESTERDAYS.
Ah! Waylao, you are the embodied phantom of my dreams. To-day I sit in
sorrow and mix my colours, and toil away as I paint you, both as you
were and as you appear now. You are my impassioned mistress of the
South. In dreams I gaze into your starlit eyes; I breathe through your
dishevelled, scented tresses, and sing into your shell-like ears the
songs that I loved.
Ah! Waylao, outcast of the mysterious South, our lips have met in
comradeship as we wept together—not you and I alone, but with all your
race.
You once loved the songs of my homeland, as I once loved and cherished
the wild, impassioned songs of your sunny isles. Ambushed in your warm,
impulsive clasp, I have heard the moaning waves wailing, breaking over
the coral reefs, tossing their arms with laughter, like the dusky
children of those wild shores. You have haunted me in long, long dreams
through the night, as I slept by the banyans of the moonlit shore.
Soft-footed you crept out of the shadows and sang your magical melodies
into my sleeping ears. And Pauline would come too, the beloved maid of
the Western Seas. Ah, how oft did she creep up the moonlit shores to lie
in my arms as I slept, and sing the dear homeland songs through my
dreams—dreams of England.
Do I speak in enigmas? Few may understand all that I mean, nor do I wish
them to understand.
Ah! Pauline, how your eyes haunted me in those sleepless nights of the
far-away years; and still they haunt me—yes, with all the songs that
once you sang to me. I often wonder if I _imagined_ that shadow of
yourself, that ran singing beside me as I tramped, and sailed from isle
to isle, on those knight-errant quests, searching for Waylao.
It seemed too vivid to be only a dream when I awoke in the lonely nights
of the forest dark and heard you whisper in my ears, calling me back to
Tai-o-hae.
I know that even Waylao was haunted by thoughts of you, of your pale,
beautiful face; for did you not sing those songs to us as we three sat
by the lagoon near your drunken English father’s home?
Where are those songs now—songs that made me feel the glorious romance
of all that I dreamed long ago, ere I put out my hands to clutch the
stars and plucked—dead leaves?
* * * * *
I must not dream. I recall how depressed I felt when I left that
gaff-hole. My only companion, who shared my lodgings, was a strange old
man, a retired sailor and trader. He would lie in bed beside me cursing
all living and dead missionaries the whole night long. I never
discovered the cause of this intense hatred of his for those
much-maligned men. Each night he knelt beside our sleeping-couch and
prayed fervently.
“Why do you pray, since you are always cursing everybody, and especially
missionaries?” I inquired curiously, as he fell on his knees.
He lifted his wrinkled physiognomy, gazed solemnly upon me, and said:
“Boy, I pray to my Maker each night, begging Him to save me from ever
becoming religious!”
The foregoing is about all that I remember of that sarcastic old man. I
bade him farewell, and left those lodgings. Then I went down to the few
trading boats in Suva Harbour, hoping to secure a berth on one that was
bound for the Marquesas Group. One three-masted schooner was almost
ready to leave for sea. She was bound for Apia (Samoa). Whilst waiting
to see the skipper, who was ashore, I strolled into the forecastle, and
so by the merest chance heard the sailors talking about an interesting
incident of the previous voyage. Their conversation was about a pretty
girl—a stowaway.
One may easily imagine my eagerness as I immediately inquired and found
beyond a doubt that I had come across news of Waylao.
Yes, on that very schooner Waylao had stowed away after arriving back in
Suva from her mad journey up to N——.
I gathered, from all that the sailors told me, that Waylao had arrived
back in Suva a fearful wreck. Having tramped nearly all the way round
the coast from N—— her feet were bleeding. Indeed, when the kindly
sailors had discovered the girl huddled away on deck, they were
horrified at her condition.
As I found out after, it was very probable that, had not a native woman
in Suva taken pity on the girl, fed her and given her some decent
clothing, she would most likely have given up all hope and ended her
life.
Though this kindly disposed Fijian woman had done all that her meagre
resources would allow her to do for the distressed castaway, still,
Waylao had been inconsolable. As the old Fijian herself told me, all
that the girl seemed to want was to get on a boat that was bound for
Nuka Hiva. It was this strong and natural yearning for home that took
her to the ships. It appeared, from her own story, that as she stood
beside the schooner _H——_ she had asked some native children where the
boat was bound for. On hearing that it was bound for Samoa, and then on
to the far Marquesan Isles, she had stowed away. It was not a difficult
matter in those days, for girls so seldom stowed away that one could
wander aboard without causing suspicion.
Waylao took good care not to hide in the vessel’s hold this time, for
they found her peeping with frightened eyes behind some orange-cases on
deck ere they had been to sea forty-eight hours.
“How was it? Tell me all about it?” said I to the sailor who had
discovered the girl.
“Why, we had just got out to sea, when I was a-standing on deck talking
to my mate there. ‘What’s that?’ says I, as I ’eard a rustling behind
the deck cargo.
“‘Rats!’ he says to me. Then I looks round and, strike me lucky! if I
didn’t see a pair of the prettiest frightened eyes peeping up at me
through the chink of an empty orange-case!
“Well, I looks down at them ’ere eyes, and says to my mate: ‘Strike me
lucky! if it ain’t a beautiful gal, a stowaway—and, phew! what eyes!
Hallo, missie! W’ere yer sprung from?’ says I. The skipper was at that
moment tramping to and fro on the poop. He’s a nasty old man, so as she
gazed up at us, me and my mate sees how things were, so I whispers to
her and says: ‘Keep still, girl, till the Old Man’s out of sight, and
we’ll slip you into the forecastle!’
“It wasn’t long before we saw our chance. ‘Come on, missie,’ says I.
Gawd! you oughter ’ave seen her blood-stained feet, as we sneaked across
the deck and into the boatswain’s cabin, for we had taken him into our
confidence.
“You should ’ave seen that poor devil’s grateful eyes as we trimmed her
up, gave her food and did our level best to make her comfortable.”
As the sailor spoke, I saw Waylao’s eyes quite plain enough.
“What happened then?” I said, as we walked ashore, for that sailor and I
became pally.
In the little saloon near the wharf at Suva we sat together as he
continued to tell all that I was so deeply anxious to hear.
It wanted deeper duplicity, a greater actor than I, to disguise my
interest in that unknown stowaway girl, as I drew out all I could from
that unsophisticated sailorman.
Suddenly he looked at me steadily; then, giving me a confidential,
half-serious wink, he said:
“Trust me for keeping mum—you knows more about that gal than I do! Eh,
mate?”
“Well, you’re right there, but it’s not exactly as you may think. I,
like you, met her at sea as a stowaway.”
Saying this, I at once proceeded to tell him how we had discovered
Waylao on the _Sea Swallow_.
He looked almost incredulously at me as I told him as much as I wished
to tell; but my manner eventually quite convinced him.
It was then I heard that when Waylao had arrived at Samoa the boatswain
had slipped her ashore and left her in the care of two natives that he
knew well. Samoans they were, Mr and Mrs Matafa.
One can hunt the world over and not find better-hearted men than real
sailormen. I learnt that the boatswain had made a collection amongst the
crew for the benefit of the homeless castaway. Indeed they had done all
in their power to cheer her up and alleviate her distress and stop the
tears that came when she discovered that the schooner was not going on
to the Marquesas. They had assured Waylao that many boats left Apia
Harbour bound for Hivaoa and Nuka Hiva.
The old Samoan couple, the Matafas, had welcomed Waylao with open arms.
It so happened that they had lost a daughter who, had she lived, would
have been about Waylao’s age. The old boatswain told me that the
superstitious natives looked at the girl with astonishment in their
eyes, and wailed: “Ah, ’tis her, our lost child, our beautiful daughter;
the great gods have sent this wonderfully beautiful girl across the seas
to us.” Then they had both fallen on their knees and thanked the great
god Pulutu. Ah! Matafas, you dear old blessed heathens of the South, I
thank the great God of this Infinite Universe of Inscrutable Wonder that
you did not turn out like the sweet, Christian Pinks—the pious old
humbugs of Suva township.
I called on the Matafas long after my first visit, just as I had called
on the old hag Pink. But I did not hurt the old heathen chief’s heart,
or his dear wife’s. What did I do? Ah, well I remember the look on their
faces as I said that the great heathen gods watched over them; and she,
the strange girl who had crept out of the seas to their arms, awaited
their coming to the halls of shadow-land. It was then that they wailed
like two children, laid their sinful heathen heads on the bench of their
little parlour and wept. But I must not go ahead of all that I have set
out to tell.
As soon as that sailor had told me all about Waylao’s adventures, and
acquainted me with the fact that she was stopping in Samoa, I made up my
mind to get a berth if possible on the same boat. I was rewarded with
success, for when the _H——_ sailed out of Suva Harbour I was on board.
I see by my diary notes that we had a very rough passage across, and did
not arrive at Apia till we were a week overdue.
It was after sunset when we anchored in that crescent-shaped harbour off
Apia. I vividly remember the scene, and hubbub of the clamouring natives
as they swarmed about our schooner in their strange, outrigged canoes.
Samoa is a kind of Italy of the Southern Seas. The people of those
palm-clad isles seem to be ever singing. They sing as they paddle, they
sing as they toil, they sing as they beg and in their huts, or under the
palms, they sing themselves to sleep.
The very speech of the Samoans is sweet and musical. Their fine eyes
beam with lustrous light, as though, in making them, God touched their
vision with a little spare starlight. I never saw such physiques, the
Marquesans excepted. Clambering out of their outrigged canoes on to the
shore, or stalking beneath the coco-palms, they looked like bronzed
Grecian statues of shapely Herculean art, statues that could come down
from their pedestals and roam beneath the forest palms at will.
It was late that night when I at last got ashore. In the distance
glimmered a few dim lights in Apia’s old township, and as I walked under
the palms I heard the guttural voices of the Germans who passed by going
back to their ship in the bay.
I will not weary my reader over the trouble I had to find the home of
the Matafas who dwelt near Apia. When the old Samoan chief, under whose
protection the boatswain of the _H——_ had placed Waylao, lifted his
hands and looked despairingly at me, I could have dropped from
disappointment.
“Ah, the beautiful, strange girl from the big waters, she gone!” he
said, when I eventually let out the reason for my coming to his humble
little homestead. I must admit that at first I wondered if the old chief
was deceiving me, but as he stood there, under the flamboyant tree, he
looked earnest enough, and so my disappointment was complete.
It was some time before I could get out of the old native exactly all
that had occurred, for, like all his race, he beat about the bush in all
manner of ways ere he came to the main point. But so as not to beat
about the bush myself, I will say at once that Waylao had stopped with
them for three weeks; and one morning when they had gone to awaken her
they found she had flown.
Old Matafa was a Samoan of the good old school. Although Christianised
and extremely devout in his exclamations about the new creed, still,
deep in his heart, he nursed the old memories of the heathen gods.
The great South Seas’ deities, Pulutu and Tama and Tangaloa (god of the
skies), were words that ever came from his lips in the form of oaths
whilst talking to me. He rejoiced in the title of O Le Tui Atua, which
meant that he was an erstwhile chief of the highest and most sacred
rank. His little hut home was not far from the native village of Satufa.
I had seldom seen a finer or more majestic-looking chief than Matafa.
When I first interviewed him, he rose from his squatting mat and stood
erect before me. His chest swelled out to its full proportions, so that
the armorial bearings of an elaborate tattoo were shown to their best
advantage. As I told him the cause of my visit his face grew serious,
his eyes gazed at me curiously. When he quite understood me, he went to
his hut door and called out: “Tamafanga! Tamafanga!” In a few moments a
handsome Samoan youth came rushing out of the little hut that was just
opposite the Matafas’ homestead.
“Tamafanga, you read that and tell me what it say.”
Tamafanga, who had been taught English in the mission classes, took the
note that had been given me by the boatswain of the _H——_, and slowly
read it. When he had at length translated it into the Samoan tongue for
the benefit of the old chief, Matafa’s manner completely changed. In a
moment he was all attention and looked at me with deep respect.
“Alofa! Papalagi!” said he, at once offering me a squatting mat.
Evidently he and that old boatswain were good pals. Probably the former
had promised a tip to Matafa and had told him also that I was a true
friend of Waylao’s.
As soon as I had taken up a squatting position on the great high chief
mat, the old man called out: “Fafine! Matafa!” Then for my special
hearing he said aloud, in English: “Mrs Matafa! ’Tis I who calls you, I
your husband the great chief, O Le Tui Atua!”
Ere the echoes of the old Samoan’s voice had died away, I heard a
shuffling in the next compartment, that was separated from the main hut,
then an old, but still handsome native woman toddled into the hut and
obsequiously approached the great “O Le Tui Atua.”
Ah! she was a dear old soul, and though much wrinkled she still revealed
in her tawny face the sad afterglow of her feminine beauty of other
years. Though her eyes were sunken and weary-looking, they still
retained much of the sweetness of the old light, the light that had long
ago beamed on the face of her great chief, Matafa.
When the old chief had told her why I was there she lifted her arms to
the roof and wailed. By the light of the small coco-nut-oil lamp I saw
how genuine was her grief over the disappearance of Waylao. Though that
old mouth was quite toothless, and the amorous curves that had once
imparadised the heart of Matafa were shrivelled, still, I discerned the
tremulous quiver of sincere emotion on her lips.
As I sat there with my legs crossed, and while the youth Tamafanga eyed
me earnestly, the chief and his faithful wife told me their sad tale,
how Waylao had come to them like some strange spirit girl out of the
seas. Wail after wail trembled from their lips as they described how the
girl had entered their desolate hearts and the great sorrow they
experienced when they found that their beautiful visitor had flown.
They told me how they had rushed about like two demented people,
searching far and wide for the girl.
“Tell me more,” said I, as the old chiefess wiped her eyes and wailed.
“Ah! white mans, she always crying and saying that she want to go back
across the seas to her peoples. We both much kind to her and say: ‘You
stop here and belonger to the great Matafas. We love you because you
like our beautiful daughter who die long ago. Perhaps _you her_, come
back?’”
So mournfully rambled on the native woman as she told me over and over
again all they had said to Waylao in their pleadings that she might stop
with them and become as a daughter.
While all this gabbling was in progress, Tamafanga lifted his eyes to
the roof of the hut and sighed. I gazed at him. He was a handsome youth,
and by all his actions and impulsive remarks it was easy to see how his
heart was where Waylao was concerned.
I see by my diary that I stopped at the Matafas’ for nearly three months
before I got a ship again. In that period I learnt almost everything
that was to be known about the missing castaway.
It appeared that in the short time that Waylao had lived with the
Matafas she had become known to all their friends and many of the
village folk near by. By degrees I learnt that Waylao had been looked
upon by the native girls and youths as some beautiful spirit girl from
the Langi of Polotu (Samoan Elysium). For though the young natives were
all Christianised, they still had great faith in their beautiful poetic
mythology, and were extremely superstitious. Nor is it to be wondered
at, when people of the civilised cities believe in fortune-telling,
spiritualistic séances and _Old Moore’s Almanack_!
Tamafanga and I became great friends. By night, when the old Matafas
were snoring in the next compartment, we would sit together smoking. It
was then that I discovered that Tamafanga was never tired of talking of
the beautiful stranger—Waylao.
He told me how she would sit by the Matafas’ hut door and sing her
native songs as she watched the sunset far away at sea. While Waylao
sang and the old Matafas listened with joy, native girls and handsome
youths would creep out from the shadow of the forest bamboos and
coco-palms to gaze on the lovely stranger.
“See how beautiful she is! It is only a goddess that could have so
beautiful a skin—that is neither white nor brown as our own. Besides,
who but a daughter of the great god Tangaloa could sing so beautifully?”
So did the superstitious Samoan girls argue as they listened to Waylao
as she sang to drown the bitterness of her misery.
It appeared that she had become very attached to those pretty children
of the forest. Indeed they too had come to love her in the little while
that she stayed amongst them. As she sang they crept up to the hut,
lifted her hands and knelt by her and placed hibiscus blossoms in her
hair. Indeed Matafa’s hut had become a sort of Mecca of romance.
While I was with the Matafas, a native _fau va’a_ (canoe builder)
suddenly called on the old chief and told him that a canoe was missing
from the beach for quite three weeks. It was this bit of news that upset
the lot of us, for we all felt certain that the culprit who had taken
the little craft was Waylao. And when the news came to that little
primitive household, Mrs Matafa wailed. I, too, felt heavy at heart and
Matafa, who had never tired of searching and inquiring, was as much
upset as his wife, while Tamafanga squatted on his mat, put his handsome
chin on his knees and cried like an infant.
I tried hard to cheer them up, but it was a wretched, futile effort on
my part, for I felt sure that Waylao had drifted away to sea and
perished. Whether she had gone off deliberately or not, I could not tell
then, but, soon enough, the reader shall know exactly what occurred.
Indeed I heard the whole matter from the girl’s lips when——. But it is
not here that I must tell that sad tale.
When Matafa saw my grief he gazed at me intently; then he arose from his
mat and, giving me a gentle nudge, passed out into the night. In a
moment I followed the chief out into the brilliant moonlight. As I stood
by him, leaning against a coco-palm smoking, he looked about him
carefully, to see that no eavesdroppers were near.
This secretive manner caused a great hope to spring up in my breast that
perhaps he knew something about Waylao and was about to divulge it. Then
the old chief sidled up to me and looked about once again, as my heart
beat high with hope. Inclining his head, he whispered into my ear:
“Master, O great Papalagi, art thou sorry for the girl?”
“I am,” said I most fervently, not comprehending the meaning of Matafa’s
mysterious manner. Then he continued:
“You say nothing, but _I_ understand, O Papalagi, allee samee! You now
very sorry. ’Tis you, O white mans, who would ask the beautiful girl
whom we have lost to forgive you—and be your _fafaine_ [wife]?”
In a flash I saw through the old native’s meaning.
“It is not that way that the wind blows, O great O Le Tui Atua,” I said
sternly, as the chief regarded me interrogatively. Then I proceeded: “I
am a white man. Do you think that one of my race would be guilty of that
which you have so vilely insinuated?” Though I said this, I felt sadly
amused at the old fellow’s suspicions. But he took my reply seriously,
my manner convincing him of his mistake.
“O noble white mans, I am ole Samoan fool. To doubt a white man’s honour
proves that I am still heathen.”
“Wail not, O noble Matafa, O great chief, say not that you deserve
death, for it has been known, even in my country, that such-and-such a
man has betrayed a maid.”
Poor old Matafa was delighted when I took his hand and truly forgave
him. After that confidential talk we became true pals, indeed he opened
his heart to me. He would never tire of talking about Waylao—in some
ways he was worse than Tamafanga.
“Ah, white mans,” he would say, “I did peep through the chink of the
screen that divided our chamber from the beautiful Waylao’s, and never
did I see so sweet a sleeping goddess.” Then he would twirl his fingers,
as he rolled a cigarette, and sigh heavily as though his heart said:
“Why should old eyes dare admire the beauty of a maid? Has not Mrs
Matafa been a good and faithful wife?”
Poor Matafa, he was truly virtuous, good to the backbone. He possessed
the inherent virtue of the highest races of mankind; for,
notwithstanding his reflections, he would never really have done any
harm to the unfortunate girl beneath his roof.
I did my best to cheer up my kind hosts. I recall how I took them to a
festival one night. It was some kind of carnival near Safuta Harbour,
and was very similar to the festival scenes which I have already
described in my Marquesan reminiscences. The memory of it all seems to
be some dim recollection of a wonderful faeryland of song. For the
Samoans are the greatest singers on earth. As the dancers whirled about
on the stage platform, their figures were lit up by a hundred
coco-nut-oil lamps that hung on the branches of the bread-fruits.
Tamafanga and I strolled about, half wondering if we would meet Waylao
amongst that hilarious mass of dusky beings. Though we had inquired
everywhere and heard that a canoe was missing the same night as Waylao
had disappeared, still, we had hopes that she might have returned to the
isle again.
Those picturesque Samoan maids looked more like fairies than earthly
beings, as they crept out of the shade of the moonlit palms to stare at
us. I never remember a more bewitching sight than when the sea wind
tossed up their masses of glorious, coral-lime-dyed hair. But some did
not use the dye that turned their naturally dark tresses to a bright
golden hue, and this made a delightful contrast as they strolled about
in groups together, rich scarlet blossoms in their tresses and adorning
their delicate tappa gowns.
Tamafanga would never cease singing as he roamed by my side. He had
heard me play the violin and so thought that I was never so happy as
when he sang to me. I recall how he took me up into the most beautiful
parts near Apia to show me the scenery. I often stood on those slopes by
night and watched the dim lamps far below on Apia’s only street. As I
write I seem to live again in the past. Once more Tamafanga and I stand
together beneath the palms and watch the stars shining over the distant
sea. All the birds of the forest are silent, only the songs of a few
sailors in the beach shanty break the stillness. As I dream on, Vaea’s
mountain-peak rises to the skies as the moon looms up far out at sea.
Only the beautiful tavau-trees and plumed palms move as the sea winds
touch them. As I watch, that height is no longer a mountain, it is the
vast, solitary tomb of Robert Louis Stevenson. Far below, old Vailima
(his late Samoan home) still has a light shining in its lonely verandah
window; shadows still move in those wooden walls which he had built, but
the master is far away up there, high above the Road Of The Loving
Heart, fast asleep in that mighty tomb, as through the windows of heaven
shine his eternal lamps—the stars.
Tamafanga sings by my side. I can see the ineffable, greenish flush of
the dim sea horizons. By Mulinuu Point lie a few schooners, their canvas
sails hanging like broken wings in the moonlit, windless air.
I am now alone, for I have sent Tamafanga down into Apia town to buy a
little gift for the kind-hearted Matafas. As I stand there, awaiting my
friend’s return, I recall all that has been and all that must have been
in days gone by. It is on those wild shores, kissed by the whitened
surfs, that the old Samoan kings met and discussed their various rights
to the throne. I think of the laughter of the white men and their wives
in that big wooden house in the hills. It was there where the Great
Tusitala (writer of stories) welcomed the men who came across the seas
to visit him.
As I still dream on and look about on the glorious light of the night
skies, I seem to breathe in the very poetry of nature. Over my head the
beautiful bread-fruit trees and plumed palms wave their richly adorned
branches. The deep, primeval silence, only disturbed by the cry of the
solitary _Mamoa uli_ bird, seems to steal into my very being. I can
smell the wild, rich odour of the forest, as the night’s faint breath
steals from the hollows, laden with scented whiffs from the decaying
tropical flowers and the damp undergrowth, that, a few hours before, was
pierced by glorious sunlight and musical with bees. Suddenly I hear the
sound of soft-footed feet, then a burst of song—it is Tamafanga. He has
returned with the present.
When we arrived back again at the hut, old Matafa and his wife rushed to
the door to greet me.
“Matafa,” I said, “you have befriended her whom I loved, and so I now
give unto thee that which the gods have sent you, through the tenderness
of my heart.” With delight they both stared at me, their eyes were
alive, shining with gratitude as they put forth their hands and clutched
the _O le oloa_ (sacred gift)—a bottle of the best unsweetened gin. I
felt that it was wrong to give them that stimulant after the fifty years
of missionaries’ supreme efforts. But they were old, and I knew that
even old people in the countries where the missionaries hailed from like
and need a little invigorating stimulant to buck them up when they can
ever hear that prophetic tapping—thump! thump!—as the kind gravedigger
pats the soil down, nicely and neatly over their old, tired heads and
cold hearts.
We were all feeling sad that night, for I had at last secured a berth on
a full-rigged ship that lay out in Apia Harbour. She was bound for Nuka
Hiva and San Francisco.
I had promised the Matafas that I would return again some day.
“Cheer up,” I said, and I told them that I had some idea that I would
find the beautiful girl Waylao back in Nuka Hiva. At that they clapped
their hands with delight, and then, alas! the reaction set in and they
wept.
As we all sat there, and they imbibed the contents of that bottle of
gin, Tamafanga sang to us. He reminded me very much of my dear dead
comrade Hermionæ the Marquesan. As he sang, and the lights burnt low,
his eyes shone with light, for he was happy with the thought that he was
going away on the big sea with me. For Tamafanga had gone on board the
_Rockhampton_ directly he heard that I had got a berth and asked for a
job as deck hand—and had secured one.
The Matafas were very sorry to find that he was going with me; but I had
promised to look after him and he had promised them that, if he ever saw
Waylao in Hivaoa, he would persuade her to return to them.
As we sat there together, for the last night, for the ship sailed next
day, the old Matafas sobbed as their Tamafanga sang. His song was one of
longing, for his head was full of the romantic idea that he was going
away across the big seas to search for the beautiful Waylao. This is how
it ran:
“O eyes of the night, O voice of the winds,
Beautiful are the dreams of love.
Sweet are the sounds of deep-moving waters
And the sight of the stars over the mountains:
But, oh, how glorious is the light of a maiden’s eyes!
Eyes that we cannot see—only remember.”
So did the handsome Samoan sing as I played the violin in that little
hut by Salufata village. As the night grew old, the Matafas laid their
heads on the table and wailed: “O noble white mans, bring back to us the
beautiful white girl, the stranger that came to us from out of the
seas.”
I slept little that night as I lay beside Tamafanga in the little room
next to the Matafas, who, thanks to the unsweetened gin, slept soundly.
I was anxious to get back to Tai-o-hae. I thought of Grimes, I longed to
hear his cheery voice again and to see the old faces. “What had happened
when Benbow came back and heard all about Waylao? Was the old cottage
still on the slope with its little chimney smoking as of old? Did old
Lydia still watch for Waylao’s return, or was the girl back there?” Such
were my reflections as I lay on that mat, sleepless, in Matafa’s hut.
Next day, when I went aboard the s.s. _Rockhampton_, the crew stared
with astonishment to see my obsequious retinue, for Mr and Mrs Matafa
had made up their minds to come and see us off. I did my best to
dissuade them, but it was no use—come they would!
As I strode up the gangway from the outrigger canoe that took us out,
Tamafanga followed close behind me, carrying my violin. Behind him came
the Matafas. Mrs Matafa’s arms were crammed with bunches of bananas and
other delicious fruits. Old Matafa had attired himself in his full
costume of sacred chiefdom. He was bare to the waist, but about his
loins was the gorgeous swathing that represented the Samoan’s royal
insignia of knighthood. I must say he looked a handsome old fellow as he
jumped down on the sailing-ship’s deck and stalked majestically behind
me, carrying his huge war-club which, decorated with many jewels, showed
his high degree. The sailors, mostly Yankees, grinned from ear to ear as
I wished the chief and his wife good-bye.
“Clear off!” shouted the chief mate as the tug took us in hand.
When the Matafas saw that we were really off they commenced wailing in a
most pathetic manner. Tamafanga prostrated himself at their feet and
wailed too. It was nothing much to see those old Samoans wail and cry
out, beating their hands all the time in anguish, for they mostly do
that kind of thing when they bid anyone farewell.
The chief mate caught poor Tamafanga by the fold of his old coat and
told him to “get off and do his work.”
Mr and Mrs Matafa stood up in the outrigged canoe and waved their hands
till our ship rounded the point, and we put out to sea. So did I leave
Apia, with Tamafanga as a shipmate, bound for Nuka Hiva.
We had not been to sea more than two days when they put Tamafanga in the
galley to help the cook. They found that he was no earthly use on deck.
He was for ever singing, but the cook was a good fellow and did not seem
to mind so long as Tamafanga washed the pans and peeled the spuds
properly. He had a bunk amidships, near mine in the deckhouse. He sang
all night long, as well as all through the day. Indeed he never seemed
to want to sleep.
“Tamafanga,” I said, “it’s true that you know that I am fond of music,
but do you think that it’s right to sit on the side of my bunk singing
when I am trying to get to sleep?”
He hung his head and looked like a whipped hound as I said that to him.
I felt more ashamed at heart than he did, as I added quickly:
“Tamafanga, I know that your voice is beautiful, but it is really
necessary to sleep when I come below. I am not a Samoan, I am only a
sleepy-headed white man, see? Tamafanga, old pal, that makes all the
difference.”
“Master, I promise that I will only sing four hours in the evening, as
you wish,” and then, saying this to me, he burst into song on the spot,
though he promised to sing no more that night.
All the sailors liked Tamafanga. One night they gave him some rum. They
deceived him by saying: “Tamafanga, you sing so beautifully that we have
decided to give you this nice stuff, which is specially prepared for the
voice. You will sing like a blackbird after you drink that.”
“What’s a blackbird?” said he.
“You’ll hear and know I guess,” said the sailor, as he coaxed and, at
length, lured Tamafanga to drink the grog.
After he had taken that potion, he clapped his hands and sang till the
forecastle echoed with song and wild laughter.
I am afraid I laughed too, for poor Tamafanga had never drunk rum
before, and I never saw a fellow dance and somersault as he did that
night. Suddenly he went on his knees before me and sang a weird song,
ending up with an extemporisation to Waylao’s eyes.
Ah! Tamafanga, when I think of all that happened after, my heart bleeds.
Next morning he had a face as long as a fiddle. The cook offered him
some rum as a pick-me-up, but he shook his head fiercely. Wise youth!
The events of that voyage are fixed in my memory, I do not think
anything on earth will make me forget all that happened.
A week after we left Apia we were becalmed for many days. The heat was
terrific. The pitch in the seams of the deck planks boiled and oozed
out, and stuck to our bare feet as we trod the deck.
Tamafanga seemed to be the only one who was cool: he cast off his old
seaman’s coat that he had bought at a store in Apia and reverted back to
the primitive lava-lava. To tell the truth I envied that scanty attire.
If we had been the only two on board as we lay becalmed in that
infinite, glassy ocean I should have dressed in exactly the same
fashion.
After the first week of calm, a slight breeze came up after sunset and
filled the sails, dragging us along about three or four knots, but at
sunrise, up came the steaming vapours and down poured the terrific
windless heat from the sky.
The skipper trod the poop all day long, staring fiercely at the sky
looking for wind. At length the weather improved, and we had a genuine
trade-sky over us, just one or two wraith-like clouds sailing across
illimitable blue as, with all sails set, we followed them as we rolled
once more across the vast liquid blue, below.
I recall the glorious tropical day that preceded the change in the
weather—and such a change! The wind dropped again, the air was hot,
almost thick with silence. As night fell, the sky pulsed with the
ethereal energy of a thousand thousand stars. Suddenly it came—crash!
The storm seemed to break over that vast, silent tropic sea like an
explosion: as though some terrific cataclysm had occurred out in the
solar system and blown the western horizon out. I fancied I heard the
tumultuous tottering of the heavens as that midnight hurricane smashed
down upon us.
“All hands on deck! Shorten sail! Aye there! Let go!” Boom! Crash! Then
came muffled orders that the wind slashed into a thousand pieces ere
they got clear from the Old Man’s lips (he was an old man, too; a grand
white beard, wrinkled, sun-tanned face alight with keen, grey eyes).
As we clung aloft, she gave a lurch to windward. A flash of brilliant
lightning split the heavens in twain. It lit up the sea. Ye gods, what a
sight! It was like some vast Arctic Ocean of mountainous, pinnacled
icebergs adrift, dancing with mad, chaotic delight, as they travelled
away to the east! As that flash came, I saw the heads of my comrades,
their figures clinging on in a row up there high aloft. We looked like
puppets clinging on a long stick that was dancing about up in the sky of
that inky, black night.
I felt my cap go. The wind ripped my hair, it seemed as though a
fiercely thrust knife had whipped out of space and scalped me.
Someone who clung just near me muttered a laboured oath. Then a voice,
that seemed to be out somewhere in space, said: “Now we sha’n’t be
long!” “Stow yer gab, yer son of a gun,” said another sepulchral voice
out in the black infinity. Crash! We felt the vessel shiver as the seas
broke over, then she lurched to windward. I felt sure that she was
turning turtle. Up she came and righted herself as we grabbed the folds
of the straining canvas in our fists. The flapping canvas and the
rigging bellowed like monstrous living beings as we all clung aloft, far
away up there in the chaos. Suddenly I clung on like grim death. I felt
certain that the world had suddenly shifted its orbit and had taken a
headlong plunge into infinite space. I turned my head and looked over my
shoulder; though the night was pitch black I saw it rise—a thundering,
boiling mass of ocean ablaze with phosphorescent light. Up—up—it came.
The _Rockhampton_ shivered and crouched like a hunted, frightened stag
of the ocean. Crash! We had pooped a sea! A mountain of seething,
boiling water rushed along the deck and swept to the galley. I felt the
stern sink to the weight of the water as the jib-boom stabbed the sky.
Another crash; the galley had been swept away and had crashed overboard
like matchwood. The masts shivered, the night moaned. I clung to the
fold of the sail with my fist, yes, tight with fright. I think if I had
gone before my Maker that next moment—as I expected to—I should have
still been clutching that little bit of dirty, wet canvas in my hand—the
last remnant of sweet mortality!
I heard a faint cry: it came from somewhere out in the storm-stricken
night. What was it, I wondered. It seemed to stab my heart. Then the
terrific roar of the night, the moan of the seas below and the thunder
of the winds aloft, blew all my faculties away into infinity like dust.
Suddenly the hurricane’s first mighty passion blew itself out.
We all stood on deck, huddled, looking into each other’s faces.
“Are you men all there?” roared the skipper.
“Aye, aye, sir!”
At first we had thought that the cook had gone overboard with his
galley, but he had just gone into the forecastle to turn in when the
storm came down on us, so was he saved.
Suddenly I felt as though God had given me a tremendous thump on the
heart. “Where’s Tamafanga?” I yelled.
The seas were still roaring and racing along, across the world, like
triumphant mountains, bound for the south-east. Far overhead the stars
were flashing and glittering in the wet, blue pools of the midnight sky.
“Tamafanga!” I yelled again.
“Tamafanga!” came like a husky echo from the bearded throats of the men
just by me.
Then a voice said: “Tamafanga was asleep on the cook’s bench in the
galley. He felt the cold, and lay down to sleep with some old sacks over
him!”
The galley was miles astern, lost on those mountainous seas!
The huddled sailormen looked pale and haggard. The moon shone through a
wrack of cloud, just for a moment, as they all turned their heads and
gazed astern into that vast, angry, tomb-like night. Their eyes looked
glassy with sorrow. It was the beautiful link between the white man and
the brown man. There it shone, terribly sad on those haggard, ghastly
faces.
“God Almighty!” I gasped, realising the truth.
All the crew answered my exclamation like an echo, it sounded
reverential and full of sorrow.
Tamafanga, the beautiful singer, handsome Tamafanga of the South
Seas—where was he?
“Tamafanga!” I yelled again, as I felt like some wild madman, not
knowing what to do or realising to the full how hopeless was my call to
that wild night of storm-swept seas. Then I cried like a child. The next
night and the next night—I wept again as I lay in my bunk. Ah! Why be
ashamed that I loved dear, singing Tamafanga?
Brother or sister, believe me, I would not have wept half so much had a
king lain down to rest in that bit of old sacking, to awaken far away on
those relentless, mountainous seas of the night, miles and miles astern.
The whole crew missed Tamafanga, I never heard so many genuine regrets.
The cook hardly spoke for two days, only puffed his pipe, stared from
the extemporised galley at the sea and murmured: “Well! Well!”
But why be sad? It’s done now, long years ago. Fate got its whack of
sorrow out of Tamafanga, so I suppose we must smile and be cheered at
the thought that Destiny did a cowardly act and was happy in doing it.
There is little more worth recording about that unfortunate passage.
After Tamafanga ceased singing, and went to the bottom of the Pacific to
await the trump of doom, I became depressed, though, of course, I had no
right to be. Depression over the loss of something that has nothing to
do with the materialistic side of one’s own existence is a sign of
mental disorder.
But I must admit that the crew of the _Rockhampton_ were all tarred with
the same brush, and when I played the violin in the forecastle it was
very obvious that they all missed Tamafanga’s voice.
The weather following that hurricane was gloriously fine for the rest of
the voyage. The days crept out of eternity and shone like vast blue
mirrors between the tropical nights of twinkling myriads of stars.
I do not think I had a good sound sleep throughout the whole passage to
Nuka Hiva. It was the saddest, the most uncomfortable voyage I ever
experienced in those parts. The _Rockhampton_ was one of the old, wooden
clipper ships, the sailors said that she was built of bug teak—some kind
of a tropical hard wood that bred bugs. True enough, those insects
fairly lifted me out of my bunk, turned me over and sought the tenderest
spots. It may sound blasphemous, but I believe that Providence watches
over the interests of bugs.
The instincts of those semi-human things was truly marvellous. Attacked
viciously all night by them, we would search by daylight—and never find
one. They migrated through the deck cracks into the hold during the day.
At night I would creep into my berth and sight thousands of pairs of
tiny reddish whiskers (South Sea bugs grow beards) twiddling through the
deck cracks. We kept a strong light on so as to make them think that it
was broad daylight. But do you think that they were gulled? Not they!
Though storms raged, though men wept, though romantic Tamafanga, with
his sweet songs, was swept into the raging seas of eternity—we arrived
off Tai-o-hae and not a bug lost!
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