O’NEIL’S OPINION
“Say, Jack,” Bill Marley exclaimed, as he and Boatswain’s Mate Jack
O’Neil, both sailormen from the U. S. S. “Sitka,” ambled slowly along
the beach road of Ukula, “where are we going to get off in this row
everybody seems to think is going to start when Judge Lindsay tells
Kataafa to climb down from his tinsel throne and take to the tall
timbers?”
Jack O’Neil posed before his shipmates as an oracle upon Kapuan
affairs. He had survived the wreck of an American war-ship in the great
hurricane nearly ten years before, and had lived in Ukula many months
until relief ships could come from the United States.
“I don’t just know, Bill,” he replied thoughtfully. “These Herzovinians
always did mix things up so that it was only a guess what was going
to happen next. You see,” he added confidentially, “the Kapuan firm
has annexed about all the land along the coast, and in the valleys
of this and other islands, and owning all this land they don’t like
to ‘kowtow’[22] to a brown king with a topknot of false hair on his
cranium, and a grass mat slung careless like about his waist line.
Kapua for the Herzovinians is what they want, and they’ve had that idea
stuck in their heads for a good many years.”
“Well,” replied Marley, “what do we care? Haven’t we got enough land on
our hands? Look at all the bad lands out west there in the states which
we haven’t got no use for, and then all the land in the Philippines
that our little brown brother is fighting us to keep for himself. Ain’t
we got enough trouble without stirring it up way down here south of the
equator?”
“What do you know about politics?” O’Neil exclaimed severely. “Come
on into Mary Hamilton’s shack, and we’ll get her to ‘buscar’[23] some
nice green cocoanuts, and I’ll tell you a little Kapuan history that’ll
put you wise to this intricate situation. I can only tell you, Bill,”
O’Neil added playfully, “but I can’t give you the brains to understand.”
Marley smiled good-naturedly. “I don’t know as you’re so all fired
smart,” he replied. “When I’ve wasted as many years as you have, I
suppose I’ll know almost as much as you do.” Marley was nearly ten
years O’Neil’s junior.
“Go to it!” O’Neil exclaimed admiringly. “You ain’t entirely dead, are
you? Don’t be a music box all your life, Bill, that’s my advice to
you. Play yourself sometimes. There’s nothing like a little friendly
argument to keep the brain well greased up. Now you know, or you ought
to know at any rate, that a gun that ain’t worked every day will get
all gummed up. That’s the way it is with our brains if they ain’t
worked. I was afraid,” he ended, “your head had drawn a sweetbread
instead of a brain.”
Mary Hamilton welcomed them to her home. Both sailormen apparently
were old friends of this accomplished woman. In spite of her name she
was not a “papalangi.” Old Captain Alexander Hamilton, whose record
in the islands was good but not entirely spotless, had taken Mele to
wife some fifteen years before, and not many years after this happy
event, sailed his small trading schooner out of Ukula harbor never
to return. Some had said that “Alex” was living happily in the Fiji,
but Mele, or Mary, as most every one called her, believed that he and
his vessel had met disaster in a big storm at sea. Mary had finally
remarried, this time to a chief of her own race. Captain Hamilton had
owned considerable property in Ukula, all of which had come to Mary;
so despite being a widow, she had been sought by many powerful chiefs.
Mary was a linguist. She spoke both English and Herzovinian fluently
and was as popular with one faction as with the other.
“How’s it for a couple of cocoanuts?” O’Neil asked.
Mary nodded graciously and called loudly in Kapuan for the fruit.
Several girls came shyly forward and hospitably attended to the
comforts of their guests. Mary sat on her mat facing the squatting
sailors, and smilingly watched them quench their tropical thirst with
the refreshing juice, drunk from the green cocoanut itself, out of
a small hole cut dexterously in the soft shell by two strokes from a
heavy knife used for the purpose.
“Mary and I can tell you lots of history of these islands that never
has been written in books,” O’Neil said proudly after he had smacked
his lips and thrown the empty cocoanut shell among others in the corner
of the house. “Mary’s present husband was fighting once with Kataafa
against the Herzovinians. How’s he going to fight this time?” O’Neil
asked suddenly.
Mary put a shapely finger to her lips.
“I figure that he’s got to go against his old chief. Mary Hamilton’s
husband never could fight against the Americans.” O’Neil’s voice was
persuasively commanding.
Mary shook her head and patted her sailor friend affectionately on the
shoulder.
“Fa’a Kapua,” she replied. “Husband maybe fight on one side, wife still
stay friend with other side.”
“That’s the Kapuan custom all right,” O’Neil hastened to say, “but
that ain’t the kind of friends we’re looking for. We want you and the
old man too on our side; for, Mary, we’re going to be on the right
side. We ain’t looking for land. We ain’t swiping native property and
refusing to give it back. But hold on,” he added interrupting himself,
“I promised to give Bill here a lesson in Kapuan history. You correct
me, Mary,” he said, “if I wander from the truth. In spinning yarns
these days if you just tell things that happened and don’t invent some,
your audience’ll go to sleep before your eyes.
“The king that just passed over to the ‘happy fishing grounds,’” O’Neil
began, “was a long time ago, when first made king, no friend of the
Herzovinians, so they kidnapped him and sent him into exile. A native
chief named Samasese was put in the ‘chair’ by our friends in the
Kapuan firm, and this same chief Kataafa then declared war on Samasese.
Kataafa licked the king’s army through the town from one end to the
other. I saw the fight;--went along with ’em, and had to make a hundred
yards in ten seconds flat, getting to cover when the Herzovinian
war-ship opened fire on Kataafa’s warriors. If she hadn’t come to
Samasese’s help, Kataafa would have run him clean over the point of
Kulinuu into the sea.
“Those certainly were warm times. Eh, Mary?” O’Neil exclaimed
enthusiastically. “We had a skipper named O’Malley in command of the
old corvette ‘Wyoming.’ Stevenson, the great writer, was living then in
that big bungalow you can see on the hill back of the town, and he got
lots of good material for his books out of the way O’Malley handled the
situation.
“O’Malley didn’t care who was king, only he didn’t cotton to the
high-handed way the Herzovinians were running things and asking
nobody’s consent,” the sailor continued, his Irish blue eyes sparkling
with joy at the remembrance. “Samasese was ‘treed’ at Kulinuu and
Kataafa with several thousand warriors was surrounding him. There was
an American beachcomber named Blacklock who owned a house just outside
of the Samasese lines. One night a party of natives from Kulinuu broke
into his house to get some grub to eat. They scared Blacklock nearly
into a fit. The same night he got on board the ‘Wyoming’ and told
a horrible story of brutality to O’Malley. The American commander
landed his sailors the next day and encamped at the outraged house.
The ‘Wyoming’ anchored in a position to shell the Samasese forts at
Kulinuu. O’Malley, then, all day long wagged his Irish tongue as if it
was mounted on a swivel and run by a six cylinder gasoline motor. All
Ukula said that at sunrise the next day, unless Samasese dug out of
Kulinuu O’Malley sure was going to use the king’s camp for his annual
target practice.
“The next morning there wasn’t anything alive at Kulinuu except dogs
and pigs. Samasese skinned out during the night, and was landed by a
Herzovinian war-ship’s boats down the coast there about six miles.”
O’Neil took a deep breath and brushed an insistent fly off his
forehead. “Kataafa wasn’t a bit frightened at Herzovinia,” he continued
admiringly; “he’s a great fighter, Bill, I can tell you, and if we
get into a row with him there’s going to be something doing. Kataafa
then got a good start and went up against Samasese good and hard. A
sad thing for old ‘Kat.’ Some of his warriors tore down a couple of
painted Herzovinian flags and used them for ‘lava-lavas.’ The outraged
commodore swore vengeance and declared war on the spot. Kataafa had to
run and get his men into a fort before the Herzovinian sailors attacked
him. He was just about snugly fixed when a war-ship came trailing along
close to the reef to bombard this fort and the native town all around
it. Just behind this ship came O’Malley’s ship, the ‘Wyoming,’ and the
game old Irishman was on the bridge. He wore riding leggins, a sign
that he was going to surprise somebody, and an angelic smile was spread
all over his face. When the Herzovinian ship stopped and began to lower
her gun ports and run out her guns for business, we followed suit. I
thought we’d be on the reef, sure. O’Malley ran the ‘Wyoming’ inside
the other war-ship and hung there between her and Kataafa’s fort.
“The other ship made all kinds of foxy moves, but O’Malley covered the
plate all the time.
“It was nearly sunset when we heard a voice pipe up from the other
ship. Everybody knew it was the commodore who was talking.
“‘I’m going to open fire on my enemy in that town yonder in about five
minutes. Kindly chase yourself.’” O’Neil glanced at Mary for a few
seconds. “Those weren’t the exact words, maybe, but that was what was
meant, anyway.
“Captain O’Malley’s smile got bigger. He took off his white helmet and
waved it encouragingly.
“‘Go ahead,’ he returned. ‘I’m in the front row and have paid for my
ticket. Money won’t be refunded at the box office this time.’”
“What happened?” Bill Marley exclaimed eagerly. “Did you have a scrap?”
“Did we have war with Herzovinia ten years ago?” O’Neil asked
contemptuously. “No! of course we didn’t, or even you’d ’a’ heard of it.
“The other ship gave up the game at sunset and we followed her back to
Ukula,” O’Neil continued after Marley’s interruption had been settled.
“A few days later the commodore tried a new stunt: to disarm the
natives this time. The Herzovinians landed at night on the big
plantation of Vaileli. The Kataafa warriors got news that they were
coming from some women in Ukula. I’ll bet,” he said insinuatingly,
“that Mary Hamilton can tell you who the women were.”
Mary smiled. “I was blamed,” she replied. “My second husband was with
Kataafa and I arrived a few hours before the sailors landed.”
O’Neil nodded. “Yes,” he said, “and there was an American who also was
accused by the other side of carrying the news. Anyway, the Kataafa
warriors attacked the Herzovinian sailors. Surprised them, killed about
twenty and wounded twice as many. It was an awful shock to us all, and
showed us we had been playing too close to a playful volcano. Such a
thing had never occurred before. We thought the natives would not dare
to raise their hands against the whites.
“I was on board another ship then; the ‘Wyoming’ had gone home to be
paid off,” O’Neil continued after an impressive silence. “The worst of
it all was that the heads were cut off the poor sailors. It gave us
all cold shivers. We had thought the Kapuans were just good-natured
children, and we found them heartless, brutal savages.--Excuse me,
Mary,” he apologized. “I’m not inventing now. That’s the plain truth.
When your people get really excited you ain’t civilized. You’re a lot
of Apache Indians on the war-path.
“I don’t know what would have happened if the hurricane hadn’t come at
that time. We found ourselves all on the beach and our ships wrecks.
Over a hundred or more sailors were drowned, and the natives, both
Kataafa and Samasese, came and risked their lives many times to save
us out there clinging to the wreckage. Mighty near every man saved
owed his life to the natives. That sort of patched things up. We lived
ashore for several months, and every one was as friendly as you please.
You wouldn’t have known there ever had been a war.
“Lots of things, I reckon,” he added finally, “have happened since I
have been away, but what makes me laugh is to see the Herzovinians
falling all over themselves to make friends with this Kataafa, and we,
who were his best friends then, falling all over ourselves to call him
all the bad names we can think of.
“It all goes to prove, Bill, and you can take this from me without any
sugar,” O’Neil exclaimed, “that friendships among natives are only good
business deals. There ain’t no sentiment mixed up in it.
“What’s all that row about out there?” O’Neil suddenly exclaimed,
rising and going in haste to look out. He saw several native policemen
grasping firmly a thin white man who was protesting vigorously.
“That’s Missi Stump,” Mary Hamilton cried aghast. “What is Johnny Upolu
arresting him for?”
“I’m going to find out,” O’Neil said determinedly. He did not like
to see a white man in the clutch of the natives. To O’Neil’s mind it
lowered all the whites in the eyes of the Kapuans to permit such a
thing as this.
Before Johnny Upolu and his two assistants could recover from the
onslaught, the big sailor, followed closely by one a little smaller
but as impetuous, had attacked their captive, and the policemen were
sitting in the sandy road.
Johnny scowled darkly. A crowd had gathered, and like all crowds the
Kapuans at once sided against the officers of the law, and were making
insulting remarks to the discomfited chief of police.
“What do you mean by arresting an innocent man?” O’Neil exclaimed when
Johnny Upolu had risen to his feet. “What’s this island coming to,
anyway? Now, you just beat it.”
Johnny coaxed a smile upon his face.
“Got a warrant,” he said, producing a large certificate and showing it
to O’Neil and the crowd.
O’Neil glanced contemptuously at the official paper. He could not read
a word, but he recognized the design of the seal.
“Take that out to Kataafa at Kulinuu,” O’Neil said. “That don’t go
here. You’ve got to have either a lion or another breed of bird on your
warrant to do business with us.”
O’Neil considered the matter settled. His arm linked under that of
Stump, they reëntered the house. The chief of police did not follow.
An American sailorman on liberty was, to his mind, a dangerous object
to meddle with. It was a kind of explosive mixture which might go off
upon contact.
O’Neil had never met Stump, but he sized him up as accurately as if he
had been personally acquainted.
“You’re from the ‘Talofa,’” O’Neil said as Mary called for more
cocoanuts and Stump composed his ruffled garments. “Why ain’t you in
her now? She’s off on a pleasure cruise with a foreign nobleman.”
Stump wagged his head knowingly. “The ‘Talofa’ ain’t the breed to go on
any pleasure cruise,” he answered. “‘Bully’ Scott’s got something on
board that he didn’t just like to put ashore in Ukula. I’ve been hiding
in the ‘bush.’ I saw her go, so I started to find our consul to get my
rights.”
“Who’s been abusing you except Johnny Upolu?” O’Neil asked. “Your
countenance does look as if it had met a hard round object. Who did it?”
“‘Bully’ Scott,” Stump replied bitterly. “But I’m quit of him now.
He’ll never get me on his ship again if I can help it.”
“Stop swinging all over the compass,” O’Neil said rebukingly, “and
steady down on some course. We want to hear what you got to say.”
Stump laughed a mirthless laugh. “That’s what I did,” he exclaimed.
“I steered her into Ukula when old man Scott thought he was heading
straight for Saluafata. Fixed the compass, you see. Oh, it’s a great
trick.”
O’Neil began to understand. “So Scott didn’t intend coming in here last
night?” he asked.
“Not he,” Stump declared joyfully. “He was loaded with ‘blacks’ and
guns.”
“That’s where you’re dead wrong, then,” O’Neil explained, “for he has
landed everything and a foreign count has hired the schooner.”
Stump gazed in wonder at the speaker.
“You don’t seem to know ‘Bully’ Scott,” he said. “Them guns are in the
schooner and he’s going to land them to-night at Saluafata.”
“Come with me,” O’Neil commanded taking Stump by the arm. “You ought to
know if any one does. What we’ve got to do is to put our captain wise
at once. Is Scott an Englishman?” O’Neil asked.
“Not he!” Stump exclaimed. “He’s an American. Comes from ‘Frisco’; and
the ‘Talofa’ was stolen at Hongkong from a Chinaman.”
As they passed Klinger’s store, Stump stopped to eye the boxes still
piled on the porch of the store.
He shook his head as he continued behind the two men-of-war’s men.
“Nope, them guns must be on the schooner,” he said to himself.
At the landing they met the two midshipmen, who had returned from their
picnic and were waiting to return to the “Sitka.”
O’Neil explained the situation.
Johnny Upolu had followed his liberated captive at a safe distance, and
now seeing the two officers, respectfully approached, holding out the
warrant to Phil, and indicating Stump with his finger.
The lad examined it carefully.
“What has he done?” Phil inquired. “This warrant must be respected,
anyway.” He turned to Stump. “I’ll see the captain at once, and you
being an American, he will ask to have you released if you have
committed no crime.”
Johnny Upolu put his hand on the prisoner’s shoulder and led him
quietly toward the jail. A few yards had been traveled when Stump
stopped and called.
“May I speak to you a moment, sir, in private?”
Phil joined him, and the policeman moved away a few feet.
“Keep these here things for me,” he said. “You can show ’em to your
skipper.”
Phil received a package of soiled letters and put them into his pocket.
Upon arrival on board the midshipmen went at once to Commander
Tazewell’s cabin. They found him deep in thought.
“I have just left the consul’s house,” the commander said after waving
the lads to seats. “He tells me all the natives believe that the guns
have been landed. The Herzovinian consul a few days ago said he would
help to prevent a war, and to-day he writes to the American and English
consul that he must reserve his decision until Judge Lindsay has given
his judgment. Kataafa was summoned by Judge Lindsay to appear before
him at one o’clock to-day and he deliberately waited two hours before
he appeared, a Kapuan way of showing his independence. It all looks
ominous,” he added ruefully.
Phil began at once to tell of the native council at Jumping Rock and
the “tonga-fiti” decided for that night. He also called in O’Neil, who
had been waiting outside the cabin, and that worthy told in picturesque
language the story of Stump.
“Here are some letters this man Stump gave me, and said I could show
them to you, sir,” Phil said after O’Neil had completed his narrative.
Commander Tazewell examined the much soiled and torn correspondence,
while the lads and O’Neil waited in silent interest to learn of their
purport.
“These corroborate the very thing I have been anxious to prove,”
Commander Tazewell exclaimed joyfully. “Scott’s a full fledged
American. He cleared from Suva in the Fiji under the American flag.
There’s the paper,” handing to Phil an English colonial document.
“What’s this?--a clipping from an English paper,” he added wonderingly.
“Schooner ‘Ta-Li’ stolen by a Yankee pirate.”
“Stump said Captain Scott had stolen the ‘Talofa’ in Hongkong,” O’Neil
said quietly.
Commander Tazewell glanced quickly over the remaining letters.
“Stump has brought us the evidence too late,” he said disappointedly,
spreading out a letter on his desk. “The guns are paid for,” he read
aloud. “Godfried and Company, our agents, will load them upon demand
from you. Remember, you take them to Saluafata at night and send word
to me on arrival.” Commander Tazewell stopped reading, and gazed off
wistfully. “That was from Klinger to Scott. He’ll be unloading them
to-night,” he added, “unless they are already in the Kapuan firm’s
store. If I’d had these letters this morning, I’d have sunk the
‘Talofa’ before I would have permitted her to leave the harbor, foreign
flag and all, until after I had given the vessel a thorough search.”