In those days Marama and I were accounted among the skilled fishermen
of the island, and a few weeks after we explored the shark's cave, we
decided to make an expedition after a fish seldom captured in the South
Seas--the dolphin, or dorado, which the natives called _mahimahi_. He
is a noble fish, swift, predatory, and difficult of approach, a rover
of the open sea, where his pursuit requires no small degree of
hardihood and skill. And the dolphin's flesh is delicate above all
other fish--a feast for island kings before the white man came.
Pahuri, the Tara's wrinkled engineer, gave us the idea of
dolphin-fishing: we were listening to his yarns one night when he
chanced to speak of the mahimahi.
"Aye," he said, as he twisted a bit of tobacco in a pandanus-leaf,
"there is one fish that you have never caught! How many men on this
island have tasted of the dolphin? Not you--nor you?" We shook our
heads.
"When I was a boy in the Cook Islands," he went on reminiscently, "that
fish was often in the oven at my father's house. In those days the men
had not grown lazy and timid, clinging to the land. For it needs a man
to bring the dolphin home: he is not to be found in a few fathoms of
water close to shore! The mahimahi is the swiftest of all fish and the
most beautiful, with his colors of blue and green, changing like flame.
He ranges far out to sea in little bands--three or four males and as
many females together. You will know them apart easily, for the male
will often weigh a hundred pounds, while his mate is never more than
half his size. How can you find the dolphin? Listen and I will tell
you--I have forgotten more of fishing-lore than these others will know
in all their lives!
"Paddle offshore a mile, two miles, three miles, and wait in the early
morning calm, when the birds fly out to feed. When you see the
_itatae_, the small, pure white tern, watch carefully! Remember that
the brown noddy-tern, which follows the bonito, never circles above the
mahimahi. But if you see four or five white birds circling low and
fast above the waves, hasten to that place and make ready for the
dolphin-fishing. As for bait, flying-fish is good, but I will tell you
a secret. Above all other food, the mahimahi loves the lobster! Take
with you the white meat from the tails of the lobsters, and when your
canoe is close to the birds throw this bait into the water directly
under them. Then watch closely and you will see the dolphin dart up
from the depths like a living flame! Let your baited hook sink slowly
and presently a fish will seize it, but you must handle him gently, for
he is very swift and strong. If one is taken, the others will stay
about the canoe, and you will catch them all. You are going to try? I
would go with you if I had time--it is work from daybreak to darkness!"
That night we made torches of dried coconut-leaves, bound in long
bundles, and paddled out to the reef separating the two islands north
of camp. There was a new moon, by good luck--the best time of the
month for lobsters and other dwellers on the barrier. We wore
rope-soled shoes to protect our feet from the sharp spines of sea
urchins, and when we had anchored the canoe in shallow water we walked
abreast along the outer edge of the reef, brightly illuminated by our
torches. When a comber toppled and crashed, sending a foaming rush of
water across the coral, we halted and waited till the water cleared in
the interval before the next breaker came rolling in. Then we walked
slowly, bending to scan each weedy crevice and hole. Sometimes a
lobster darted like a flash from his refuge and was gone; sometimes the
torchlight reflected from a pair of stalk-eyes betrayed our quarry in
time for us to press a foot down on the lobster's back, seize him
warily from behind, and toss him into the gaping sack. In an hour we
had more than we could use.
The stars were shining and there was only the faintest glimmer of dawn,
when we dragged our canoe over the reef and shot out seaward through
the breakers. Gradually, as we left Iriatai behind us, the eastern sky
paled, grew luminous, flushed a rosy pink. The sea changed from black
to gray, and from gray to blue--a new day had begun. Around the vast
circle of the horizon, saving in the west, where masses of dark cloud
towered to a great height, light scattered trade-wind clouds hung above
the line where sea met sky.
"I do not like the look of the weather," remarked Marama, glancing
westward; "there is wind in those clouds, and if they draw nearer we
must return in haste. But the sea is calm, so let us go about our
fishing for an hour or two."
We were perhaps four miles offshore. The palms of Iriatai lay like a
low smudge along the horizon to the south of us. Singly and in twos
and threes, the birds had left their roosting-places ashore and were
flying this way and that over the sea, on the lookout for schools of
fish. There were boobies and noddy terns in plenty, and a few of the
small snow-white terns on which we kept a special watch. Suddenly, a
quarter of a mile from us, a pair of noddies began to circle and dive;
other birds came flapping hastily from all directions, and soon
hundreds of them were wheeling and plunging through the air.
"Bonito," said my companion, heading the canoe toward the school. "Let
us make sure of not returning empty-handed!"
It was an old game to me, but one of which I never wearied. We bent
our backs and dug our paddles into the sea. The light canoe flew over
the swells at a pace that left a wake of foam. I heard Marama drop his
paddle; knew that he had turned to face the stern and taken the long
bamboo pole from its place on the outrigger-supports. "_Hoe! Hoe!_"
he cried. "Paddle your hardest--the school is turning, and in a moment
we shall be among them!"
Now the birds were all about us, and the sea was alive with the small
fish on which birds and bonito feed, leaping and flashing by thousands
in a frenzy of fear. A bonito leaped with a heavy plunge, close to the
canoe--another--another; next moment an acre of sea was churned into
foam as they fell upon their prey like wolves. I was in the bow place,
and now my efforts were redoubled, for everything depended on keeping
the canoe in rapid motion. Marama was seated on the stern thwart,
facing the rear. In his right hand he held the butt of the rod, braced
against the thwart. As the sun was bright, he had selected a dark
lure,--a piece of greenish-black mother-of-pearl, fashioned in the
shape of a four-inch minnow,--and it skittered along behind us in an
extraordinary lifelike way. Cupping his left hand, Marama leaned over
the side and began to throw water over the lure, five yards astern--a
custom believed to attract the fish. I heard a shout--a fat bonito
came tumbling through the air and thumped into the bottom of the canoe.
Next instant the hook was free and over the side again, and the native
boy was calling: "Paddle! Paddle! You are letting them draw away from
us!" For a quarter of an hour, with aching muscles and a dry throat, I
held the canoe on the outskirts of the school. At last the pace became
too much for me, and I dropped my paddle as the rearmost birds left us
in their wake.
We sank into the bottom of the canoe and lay there panting. Marama was
worn out, for bonito-fishing is a strenuous sport. In fifteen minutes,
after paddling five hundred yards at racing speed, he had hooked and
swung into our canoe nearly a score of fish, averaging seven or eight
pounds each! It was still calm, and the dugout rose and fell gently on
the swell as we lay there resting. The bank of black clouds was moving
imperceptibly toward us, blotting out the horizon with an ominous
violet gloom. It was time that we went home and I was about to speak
when I saw Marama was pointing eastward.
"The dolphin!" he exclaimed, as my eye caught the glint of half a dozen
small white birds circling rapidly above the sea. "Shall we paddle out
yonder for a try, or shall we leave the mahimahi for another day?"
"Let us chance it," I suggested. "Pahuri knows, and from what he said
there must be dolphin yonder. It may be a long time before we see the
white birds circle again!"
We were young and far from prudent. In spite of the approaching
squall, we headed the canoe away from land and strained at our paddles
anew. When first sighted, the birds were not more than half a mile
distant, but they were moving slowly away from us, and twice, before we
caught up, the fish must have sounded, for the terns ceased their
feeding and flew about uncertainly till they fell to circling again.
At last the birds were diving fearlessly about the canoe--beautiful
little creatures, smaller than a pigeon, with pointed wings and dark,
incurious eyes. Remembering Pahuri's advice, I baited my hook and
stood up in the bow to throw out morsels of lobster. Then I swung the
line around my head and cast far out in front of the canoe.
"_Te mahimahi!_" cried Marama excitedly; and I saw a great fish,
gleaming with the colors of a fire opal, dart up from the depths, seize
a morsel of bait, and disappear. At that instant the line tautened
with a jerk that cut the skin of my hand: I was fast to my first
dolphin.
He seemed strong as a wild horse. Fathom after fathom of line hissed
over the gunwale and into the sea, at a speed that brought a shout to
Marama's lips. Then the fish turned and shot up to the surface,
rushing this way and that--a streaking flame of azure in the sea. As
the line shortened, Marama leaned over the side, long-handled gaff in
hand. The dolphin was growing weary; still fighting, but at a slowing
pace, he passed close to the side of the canoe--and the native boy's
arm shot out. The dugout lurched and nearly capsized as he brought the
fish alongside, the gaff deep-buried in the gleaming back. A stroke of
the club, a dying quiver, and we seized gills and tail to drag the fish
aboard, exclaiming in excited admiration at the play of gorgeous color
on his sides.
I had forgotten the impending squall, and now, as I glanced back toward
Iriatai, I saw that there was no land in sight. Sea and sky were
merged in a thick gloom; the air stirred uneasily; the black clouds
were almost overhead. Marama was cutting short lengths of fishline to
make fast the loose articles in the canoe; the fish-blub, the baler,
the gaff. He passed me a bit of line. "Tie one end to the thwart and
the other to your paddle," he said, "and remember that if we swamp
there will be no cause for fear--there is small chance that the sharks
will find us. Three times have I been swamped at sea, and each time we
lay in the water till the waves had calmed, and reached the land
without mishap. Look well to the outrigger-lashings forward there--a
turn of line might make them more secure."
I doubt if any other type of craft as small and light would have
weathered what our canoe went through in the half hour that followed.
Long before the wind reached us we could hear the moaning sound of it
and see an unbroken line of white advancing across the face of the sea.
Then, after a sharp preliminary gust, the squall was on us, shrieking
and raving out of the west.
A spume of torn salt water, white and stinging like sleet, drove from
crest to crest of the seas, mingling with horizontal sheets of rain
which blinded us as we fought desperately to hold the plunging canoe
bow-on. It was then that I began to realize the wonderful
seaworthiness of the Polynesian canoe--light, sharp, and high-sided,
balanced by its outrigger of hibiscus wood, buoyant as cork. In riding
such a sea there were sudden fierce strains on outrigger and
outrigger-poles--strains which would have snapped the tough wood in an
instant, save for its strong and flexible cinnet-lashings. Each time a
sea came rearing high above us the bow tossed up to meet the slope of
broken water--rose up and up, surmounted the wave, and plunged into the
seething trough beyond.
"Bale!" Marama was shouting in a voice that came to me faintly above
the screaming of the wind. "Bale, or we shall be swamped!"
As I leaned back to take up the baler I saw that the canoe was a third
full of water--mingled sea water and rain. I set to work in a panic,
while Marama fought to hold us head-on to the seas, with clenched teeth
and a steady eye ahead. Working at top speed to throw the water out, I
perceived with a sinking heart that the task was beyond his strength;
we had done our best, but in another moment the canoe would fill and
swamp. Three times, with a sweep of the paddle that knotted his
muscles as though cast in bronze, Marama saved us by a miracle. A
white-crested roller seized us with a fierce caprice, spinning the
canoe about. Marama's paddle dug deep to swing our bows to meet the
oncoming sea and then, with a crackling sound audible above the wind,
the haft of hard black wood snapped clean in two.
Next moment the wave burst over the gunwale, and we were struggling in
the sea.
[Illustration: _Next moment the wave burst over the gunwale, and we
were struggling in the sea._]
For a time I felt that the end was near. The water was warm and I was
clinging to the outrigger-pole, but it seemed impossible to breathe. I
think I should have suffocated, without my long experience of diving at
Iriatai. My eyes were filled with water, and each time I strove to get
a breath, the sea broke over me to fill my nose and mouth. Little by
little I learned to watch my chance, to fill my lungs hastily at
moments when I could get a gulp of air.
Marama worked his way along the gunwale of the swamped canoe and took
hold beside me, on the forward outrigger pole. The buoyant wood
supported our bodies in the water, and our weight at the forward end
held the long hull bow-on. The clouds were breaking to the west; the
squall was passing suddenly as it had come. The ocean was calming
rapidly, steep breaking seas giving place to a long swell, though for
the time being there could be no thought of baling the canoe. Before
long we were able to speak of our predicament, and I remember that
neither of us mentioned sharks, the subject uppermost in both our
minds. It is curious that the white man, like his savage cousins,
brown or black, is still the prey of an ancient instinct of the race:
Never speak of the evil thing you dread!
If the sharks had found us that day, our end would have been a sudden
and a ghastly one.
Toward noon the sun shone out through the last of the storm clouds and
the sea had gone down so much that Marama made ready for an attempt to
get the water out of our canoe. "You have seen it done at Faatemu," he
said; "I will watch the waves carefully till our chance comes--and then
you must do your best!"
We swam aft and took our places on either side of the stern, holding
the canoe head-on while two or three long swells rolled by. Then, at
the beginning of a lull, the native boy gave the signal, and we put all
our weight on the stern, sinking it deep. "Now!" cried Marama, and we
dove down, pushing it still deeper and thrusting forward as our hands
let go their hold. The canoe shot into the air, leaping forward as the
light wood bounded to the surface; the hull smacked down on the sea,
and a rush of water tumbled forward and poured in a cascade over the
bows. Piloted by Marama's skilled hands, she took the next swell
without shipping a cupful, her gunwale four or five inches clear of the
sea.
"Hold on with one hand and bale with the other," ordered my companion,
"and I will swim forward to keep her head-on till she is dry."
There were still a good fifty gallons of water and my task was a weary
one, but at last she floated high and one after the other we clambered
in gingerly over the stern. Without a word Marama stood up, balancing
himself with one bare foot on either gunwale as he gazed out intently
to the west.
"There is no land in sight," he said.
I felt no great concern at his words, for I believed the squall could
not have carried us many miles offshore and though we had only one
paddle between us, a few hours would bring us within sight of the palms
of Iriatai. I learned afterward that we were in the clutch of one of
the uncharted currents of the Paumotus--a current which swept around
the north end of Iriatai and was carrying us farther and farther into
the vast stretch of ocean between the coral islands and the South
American coast.
Toward three o'clock, while I paddled and Marama scanned the empty line
of the horizon from his perch in the bows, he gave a sudden shout. "_E
pahi!_--a ship!" he cried, and presently I made her out, a two-masted
schooner, hull down in the north. Could it be the Tara, come out in
search of us? But no--this was not the first time we had spent a day
away from camp; by evening my uncle would begin to feel anxiety, but
for the present he would think we had been caught in the squall and
forced to land--a stove-in canoe, perhaps, and a weary journey on foot
through thorny bush and over sharp and broken rocks.
A light steady breeze ruffled the sea that afternoon, and anxious
minutes passed before we made certain that the schooner was heading
south. When she was still miles away I saw that she was not the Tara.
She carried a pair of lofty topsails, a rare sight in these seas; and
unlike the schooners in the island trade, the stranger's mainsail
sported a gaff, cocked at a jaunty yachting angle. As she came closer,
her towering canvas drawing every ounce of power from the air, she made
a picture to delight more critical eyes than mine. The Tara had a
sturdy beauty of her own, but she was a "bald-headed" schooner, without
topmasts, and she would have had the look of a barge beside the tall,
graceful vessel approaching us, skimming the sea like a cup-defender
under her press of sail.
Presently she was within hailing-distance and we saw her native crew
along the rail. The brown men began to shout questions at us, after
the fashion of their race: Who were we--whence did we come--where were
we going? Then I heard a command, in a roaring voice that made the
sailors spring to their posts. The schooner shot into the wind with a
crisp shiver of canvas, bobbing and ducking into the head sea as she
moved forward and lost way close alongside. Lines were passed down,
strong hands came out to help us; the next moment our canoe lay on deck
and we were standing beside it, surrounded by good-natured islanders
who were chattering, gesticulating, grinning with flashes of their
white teeth.
Again the roaring voice boomed out from astern: "Back the
fore-staysail! Eh, Tua! Send the Kanaka forward and bring the white
boy aft to me!"
Tua, the mate, a tall native with a handsome determined face, touched
my arm. Walking aft while the schooner filled away again, I had my
first look at the helmsman, a white man of herculean build. He wore a
suit of drill, freshly starched and ironed, snowy yachting-shoes, and a
Panama of the finest weave. The lower part of his face was concealed
by heavy moustaches and a thick blond beard, but the skin above his
cheek-bones was smooth as a woman's. His eyes were of a blue I have
never seen before nor since: dark and sparkling when his humor was
good--in anger, glittering with the cold glare of ice. In some subtle
way the eyes reflected the man's whole personality, at once virile,
magnetic, daring, unscrupulous, and cruel. But I was young and his
cordial manner disarmed me; for the time, my eyes were not open to the
evil in our rescuer. He smiled and stretched out a hand to me--an
enormous hand with fingers like so many bananas.
"Well, young man," he said, his deep voice and the order of his words
carrying a foreign hint, "from where are you come? In that direction,
South America is the nearest land!"
I had asked for water as I stepped aboard, and now a black man with a
great shock of hair came aft to hand me a pitcher and a glass. The
captain watched me, smiling behind his beard as I drank the water to
the last drop. Finally I set down the glass.
"Excuse me, sir," I said, "I was very thirsty! It was lucky for us
that you happened to pick us up. We went fishing this morning and our
canoe was swamped in a squall. Afterward, when the clouds passed, the
land was out of sight, and we've been paddling ever since." He glanced
down at a chart unrolled before him on the cockpit floor.
"From Iriatai you are come, then," he remarked. "That is strange, for
the island is marked as uninhabited. Well, it is not far out of my
course--I am bound for Mangareva to load shell."
His courteous manner and lack of curiosity made me feel that it would
be boorish to be reticent. I had no suspicion that he was feeling me
out for information. And my uncle had nothing to conceal.
"My name is Selden," I told him, "and I have been on the island several
mouths. My uncle, Henry Selden, has leased Iriatai from the Government
and planted coconuts. Last year he discovered a patch of shell in the
lagoon, and the French have granted him a season's diving-rights."
I was going to say more, but a sudden sound interrupted my words. The
ship's bell rang out two sharp and measured beats, paused, and sounded
twice again. It was six o'clock. The watch was changing, and at a
word from the captain the tall mate came aft to take the wheel.
"Keep a man aloft," the skipper said. "It grows dark, but within half
an hour you will raise the land." He turned to me. "Come below," he
suggested, "you will be hungry after your day at sea. When we have
dined, I shall be interested to hear more of your island."
He followed me down to the saloon, where the table was set with shining
glass and porcelain. A young woman rose as we appeared, a slender,
graceful girl, with sullen eyes and a great bruise disfiguring one pale
brown cheek. She wore a loose gown of scarlet silk; crescents of gold
were in her ears; and her dark hair, dressed in a single braid thick as
a man's arm, hung to her knees. I learned afterward that she was a
half-caste from the Carolines. The captain spoke to her and glanced at
me.
"Madame Schmidt," he said in introduction; and as I took her hand, I
realized suddenly how I must have appeared. It was months since
scissors had touched my hair, which stood on my head like a Fijian's,
tangled and bleached by the sun. My skin was tanned to a sort of
saddle-color, and I was naked save for the torn and faded pareu about
my waist. The captain seemed to divine my thought.
"Eh, Raita!" he ordered, "get out for our guest some clean clothes. He
will feel more at ease."
I slipped into a stateroom to put on the garments the woman laid out
for me: an enormous pair of trousers I rolled up at the bottom, and a
coat in which Marama and I could have buttoned ourselves with room to
spare. The meal was served by the captain's body servant, the black,
shock-headed savage I had seen on deck. He was an evil-looking
creature, like some fierce ape masquerading in a sailor's clothes.
Several times during the meal Schmidt gave him orders in an outlandish
jargon I had never heard, and once, when the captain told him to fetch
wine, he asked his master a question in a shrill chatter, grimacing
with his eyebrows like a monkey. The woman ate sullenly, without once
raising her eyes; when she had finished, she rose and left us without a
word.
It was still daylight outside, but the swinging lamp above the table
was lit, and under its light I had an opportunity to study the features
of my host. I began to change my first opinion of him, for the
scrutiny was not reassuring: the more I looked, the more he puzzled me
and the less I trusted him. When the black man set cups of coffee
before us Schmidt began to question me. How long had we been on
Iriatai? How many divers were at work? Was there plenty of shell?
Was its quality good? Had we been lucky with pearls? But by now I was
on my guard, and returned evasive answers, feigning the stupidity of
weariness--a deception which did not require much acting on my part. A
long-drawn shout from above brought us suddenly to our feet.
"Land ho!"
When I came on deck the western sky was glowing with a fiery sunset,
and under the crimson clouds I could make out the long dark line of
Iriatai. Puzzled and vaguely uneasy in my mind, I was leaning on the
rail when my eye fell on a handsome dinghey, slung on davits close to
where I stood. Her stern was toward me, and there, neatly lettered on
the bright varnished wood, I saw the word, "Cholita." So Schmidt's
vessel was called Cholita--a pretty name for a pretty schooner--and
then I remembered with a sudden start. My thoughts flashed back to the
morning when I had paddled out to breakfast with my uncle in Faatemu
Bay--to his account of Thursday Island Schmidt. My uncle's words came
back to me: "His schooner's as pretty as her reputation is black, and
the way he handled her was a treat to watch."
So this was the Cholita, and I was the guest of the famous Thursday
Island Schmidt!
I felt a touch on my shoulder, Marama was beside me, a serious
expression on his face. "Listen!" he said in a hurried whisper; "I
must go forward before the captain returns. If we approach the land
to-night, let us slip overboard and swim ashore. Seroni must be
warned, for I think that there is evil afoot. Do you remember Rairi,
the Tara's cook who tried to kill old Pahuri that night on our passage
south? He is aboard--I have seen him, though his face was turned away
from me. He has been ordered to keep out of your sight. This schooner
was bound for Iriatai before she picked us up. The mate, who is a good
man and beginning to fear for himself, has told me as much."
The captain was approaching with a noiseless step; when I glanced up he
was not four yards off. He halted and looked at Marama in angry
astonishment. "Get forward," he bellowed, in a voice that made the
sailors turn their heads, "_verdammt_ Kanaka cheek!" He turned to me,
the former suavity gone from his manner. "And you," he ordered--"go
below!"
I obeyed him, choking with anger and a sense of impotence. The
half-caste girl was sitting on the lounge, she had been sewing, but now
her hands were clenched and her work lay where it had dropped to the
floor. There was a look of apprehension in her eyes. When she saw
that I was alone she beckoned me with a swift gesture.
"Come here, boy--me want talk with you," she whispered in quaint broken
English. "Me hear Schmidt say 'Go below'--he too much bad man! _Guk_!
Me hate him!--Suppose we go near land tonight, me jump overboard, swim
ashore. You come too--we go hide in bush."
Her fierce eyes blazed as she pointed to the bruise on her cheek.
"Schmidt do that yesterday," she went on. "Me like kill him, but too
much 'fraid! Before, me think him good man. My father white man--same
you. Me, my mother, live Ponape, Caroline Island. One day Cholita
come--everybody think Schmidt good man--spend plenty money--have good
time. Every day he come my house. By and by he say: 'To-morrow I go
'way; you my friend--give me orange, pig, drinking-coconut. To-night
you bring old woman aboard--we have big _kaikai_.' My mother think he
good man--we go. Schmidt bring us aboard schooner--we eat, play
accordion, have good time. Pretty soon hear noise on deck. My mother
stand up. 'What that?' she say. Then Kwala hold old woman--Schmidt
throw me in stateroom--lock door. Outside reef he throw my mother in
canoe--tell her go ashore. Porthole open--me hear old woman
crying--Guk! Schmidt never let me go ashore. In Tahiti--Noumea--me
'fraid--he say suppose me swim ashore, send police fetch."
Her quick ear caught the sound of a footstep on deck and she signaled
me hurriedly to move away. Next moment Schmidt came down the
companionway, glancing at the woman sharply. Without a word he
motioned me into the stateroom, slammed the door behind me, and turned
the key.
I heard Raita's voice raised in protest, and the captain's gruff reply.
Then the companionway creaked under his weight as he went on deck again.
Until now I had viewed the Cholita and her master in an adventurous
light; but as I lay there in the dark behind a locked door I began to
feel anxious and a little afraid. Little by little, as realization
grows at such a time, I put together the scattered recollections in my
mind: what my uncle had said of Schmidt; the half-caste girl's story;
the presence aboard the Cholita of Rairi, our former cook; the old
letter, telling of the gold-lipped shell in Iriatai lagoon; Rairi's
stealthy visit to the Tara after his discharge; Schmidt's treatment of
me; Marama's words, and the brutal stopping of our conversation. There
was small room for doubt--each detail fitted perfectly into the story
taking form in my mind.
While the schooner lay alongside the Papeete wharf (I thought),
discharging the load of shell of which my uncle had spoken, Rairi must
have made the acquaintance of Schmidt. Our one-time cook had looked
through the papers snatched up in hope of doing my uncle an injury, and
had come upon Turia's letter, written to her son. It was a chance in a
thousand, but how was Rairi to make use of it? Then, meeting Schmidt
and knowing something of his character from gossip along the
waterfront, the vengeful Paumotan must have seen his opportunity. A
few cautious questions to feel out his man, increasing confidence, the
final disclosure of Turia's old letter--and the compact made. It would
be a daring bit of robbery in these modern days; I wondered how Schmidt
could hope to keep out of trouble in the long run. He might scuttle
the Tara, of course, and leave us marooned on Iriatai, but our
whereabouts was known to many people, and before many months had passed
someone was bound to set out with a schooner to see what had become of
us. But he was a resourceful scoundrel, from all I had heard; he must
have weighed his chances before embarking on such a piece of barefaced
piracy. And robbery was the Cholita's errand. I knew it now as surely
as if Schmidt had disclosed his plans to me.
As I lay there in the berth, tired and frightened, I began to blame
myself for not having played a more cunning game. Now that my chance
had gone, I saw that I might have played the part of a talkative and
unsuspecting lad, answered Schmidt's questions freely, and perhaps have
kept my liberty until we drew near the land. Then I might have gone
overboard in the darkness, made my way to my uncle and given him
warning of the Cholita's approach. Now it was too late. They would
take the Tara by surprise. There might be bloodshed. A terrible
thought flashed into my mind--Uncle Harry stretched out on his
schooner's deck--
I sat up in the berth, clenching my hands. I had no dearer friend in
the world. But at last excitement and weariness overcame my anxious
thoughts, and I fell into a dreamless sleep.
When I awoke the morning sun was shining through my porthole, and
looking out, I saw that we lay close to the beach, just inside the pass
of Iriatai. A noise of thumping and scrubbing overhead told me that
the decks were being washed down. We were at anchor, I knew, for the
schooner lay motionless, though the current at this place was strong.
An hour passed and as I craned my neck out the port I saw the Cholita's
dinghey approaching us from the north. The handsome little boat drew
near and I saw Rairi in the stern, a Winchester across his knees and a
bandolier of cartridges over one shoulder. Schmidt's shock-headed
black was at the oars and at his feet a man lay in the bottom of the
dinghey--an elderly native, bound hand and foot, his gray head matted
with blood and unsheltered from the sun. It was Pahuri--I knew with a
sudden breathlessness that they had taken the Tara and that Rairi was
enjoying a savage's revenge.
The dinghey passed out of my sight around the schooner's stern. I
heard the thump of a body flung down roughly on the after deck, Rairi's
voice raised in a sharp command, and the creak of the davit-blocks as
the boat was hoisted to the rail. Then, for a long time, all was
quiet. Rairi had gone below for a rest and a nap, leaving the black on
guard, for most of the crew were new men whom neither Rairi nor Schmidt
would trust too far. Finally the silence was broken by a weak
voice--old Pahuri begging monotonously for water. Heavy steps came aft
over my head and I heard the mate order the black man to give water to
his prisoner. But the savage chattered a refusal in his own uncouth
tongue; he had a rifle and he was under orders from Rairi, so Tua
strode forward angrily, muttering to himself. Then suddenly I heard a
rapid whispering at the keyhole of my door. It was Raita.
"Eh, boy!" she said, "listen--you asleep?"
"No," I whispered back.
"Last night," she went on, "Schmidt take your schooner--Rairi bring
back old man he no like. I sorry that man--head hurt--too much blood.
Rairi leave him in sun--no give water. Schmidt stop aboard your
schooner--suppose wind come up, Cholita go there. Native boy, your
friend, swim ashore last night. Me think go too, then think no--me
stop aboard, maybe help you. Ah--me hear Rairi--me go!"
I heard her move away, quickly and softly, from the door. Her words
added little to my anxiety, for Pahuri's presence told me that Schmidt
had captured the Tara, but the thought of my uncle tortured me: Where
was he--captured, wounded, perhaps dead? I glanced out the porthole.
The palms were swaying to the first of the trade wind, heralded by long
blue streaks outside the pass. Presently there were sounds of activity
on deck; shouting and creaking of blocks as they hoisted the foresail,
the deep-voiced chant of the sailors at the windlass. Then, heeling a
little to the freshening breeze, the Cholita filled away on the port
tack, turned to leeward as she gathered way, and slacked off for the
long run across the lagoon.
When we drew near the islet, toward midday, I saw that the Tara's
anchorage had been changed: she was lying fully a quarter of a mile off
shore. Eight bells struck as we rounded into the wind beside her; I
heard the anchor plunge overboard and the prolonged rattle of the
chain. Then the bellowing voice of Schmidt hailed us, shouting orders
and instructions. A moment later the key turned in the lock of my door
and Rairi entered to grasp me by the arm.
"Come," he said roughly, "Schmidt want you aboard Tara!"
He half dragged me up the companionway and across the deck, where I had
a glimpse of our engineer lying bound in the sun, his gray hair clotted
with blood. Rairi motioned me into the dinghey alongside, sprang in
after me and signed to the oarsman to pull us across to the Tara.
Schmidt was standing by the rail.
"Where's the Kanaka boy?" he asked.
"Swim ashore last night; maybe shark take him--no matter."
"Let him go--no harm can he do us. Wait for me."
I clambered over the rail in obedience to Schmidt's gesture, and he
followed me below. My uncle's stateroom was open and in great
disorder. We halted opposite the door of my own cabin. The German
drew from his belt a heavy Colt's revolver, cocked it, unlocked the
door quickly, and pushed me inside. As I stood there, dazzled by the
bright light of the porthole, I heard the key turn behind me, and then
my uncle's quizzical voice.
"Well, old fellow," he remarked, "it's good to see you safe and sound.
We seem a bit down on our luck, eh?"
He was lying in my berth, quietly puffing one of his long, thin cigars.