The palace of the governor of the Marquesas in the vale of
Atuona—Monsieur L’Hermier des Plantes, Ghost Girl, Miss Tail, and
Song of the Nightingale—_Tapus_ in the South Seas—Strange
conventions that regulate life—A South Seas Pankhurst—How women won
their freedom.
IN Mapuhi’s store, on the counter, taken from the cabin of the _County
of Roxburgh_, lay twenty-five pearls. They were of different values, two
or three magnificent in size, in shape, and in luster, the fruit of
Mapuhi’s tribe’s harvest in Takaroa Lagoon. He displayed them to me and
others the night before I was to sail with Lying Bill for the Marquesas
Islands. Aaron Mandel was about to buy them, and as the Parisian dealer
and Mapuhi discussed their worth, Bill, McHenry, Kopcke, Nimau, and
others added their opinions.
“If you paid for these pearls what they cost in suffering, and in
proportion to the earnings of a diver in his lifetime, you would offer
me ten times what you do,” said Mapuhi. “The white women who wear these
_poe_ can never know the dangers or the pain endured by our people. Two
have _aninia_, vertigo, and one has been made permanently deaf this
_rahui_.”
“I agree with you,” replied Mandel, “that nothing of money can balance
what you Paumotuans go through to gather shells, but in many parts of
the world divers of other races are doing the same. They don’t go as
deep as you do, because their waters are shallower, but they fix the
price for pearls. I have seen them from Ceylon to Australia, and I have
to meet their competition when I take these pearls to Paris where the
market is. Also, Mapuhi, the culture pearl is every year hurting our
trade more and more, and some day may make pearls so cheap that you will
get a third of what you do now. You remember the Taote of _Pukapuka!_”
“That was the devil’s magic, and it will not be again,” said Mapuhi.
“Man who loves and serves the true God will never interfere with his
secrets, but will accept what he offers for man’s struggles and
torments. The Taote was tempted by Satan, and his sin was terribly
punished.”
Mandel smiled.
[Illustration:
From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
A young palm in Atuona
]
[Illustration:
From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
Atuona valley and the peak of Temetiu
]
“Yes the Taote got a rough deal,” he admitted. “But his pearls made
another man’s fortune, and astonished all who saw them in Paris. Let me
tell you! Last year I visited three culture fields, and they are doing
wonderful things. The Japanese for many years only copied the methods of
the Chinese. They forced the fresh water mussel and the abalone to coat
with nacre substances they inserted within their folds, but they got no
pearls of the best size, shape, or luster. Now, Kokichi Mikimoto has
gone much further than anybody. I spent a week with him at his pearl
farm in the bay of Ago in the Inland Sea of Japan. The bay is a dozen
miles long and five wide, with an average depth of sixty feet, but it is
remarkably free from currents and severe storms. Mikimoto is a scientist
as was the _Taote_. He opens a three-year-old shell and lays a head of
nacre on the outer, shell-secreting skin of the oyster. This skin is
then dissected off the oyster and fitted about the bead like a sac. This
sac is then transplanted into the tissues of another oyster in its
shell, an astringent is sprinkled on the wound, and the second oyster is
planted in the prepared bed at anywhere from twenty-five to eighty feet.
It stays there from three to seven years, and then his girl diver brings
it up. Mind you, he has laid down suitable rocks in certain shallow
places, and when they are covered with oyster spat they are removed to
deeper beds and set out in order. It is these which are dissected at
three years of age, and the nuclei inserted in them. These beads are of
all colors, mother-of-pearl or pink or blue coral, and the pearls are of
the color, white or pink or blue, of the beads. The oysters often spit
them out, the starfish and octopus ravage the beds, and the red current
sometimes spoils everything for a year. They have similar farms in other
parts of Japan, and in Australia and Ceylon, but Mikimoto has done most.
He sells millions of pearls every year. Of course they are blisters and
so not orient or perfect, because the bead has touched the shell while
growing, and has not remained in the folds of the oyster. But I am
afraid, for I was told a few months ago that Mikimoto and others were
making perfect pearls. If they do they will ruin the market.”
“You can tell the difference between natural and culture pearls in any
case?” I asked.
“_Mais oui!_ If you cut open the grafted pearl you find the center a
bead or bit of coral, but in the true pearl the center is a grain of
sand, or a hollow formerly occupied by the tapeworm or parasite. Well,
you won’t make any money cutting pearls open, so we use the ultra-violet
ray. Most of Mikimoto’s pearls are about as big as French peas, and, as
I say, lack sphericity because of attachment to the inner shells. But,
mind you, his oysters are merely the avicule or wing-shelled kind, and
small. Here are these Paumotu shells from six to eighteen inches across
and the oysters in proportion. Think of what they might do, if they were
put to work by science and—”
“They were once,” broke in Kopcke. “My girl’s father knows all about
it.”
“I know much about it, too,” said Mandel; “and I have never known just
what to believe. I only know that some one sold a string of pearls in
Paris finer than any in the world, and they are now in New York.
“The Empress Eugénie’s necklace came from here, and so did Queen
Victoria’s five-thousand-pound pearl, but these were said to be finer.”
“For heaven’s sake!” I exclaimed. “Tell me what you do know of this
mysterious _Taote_ and his tragedy. Mapuhi has put the devil to work in
it. I have been hearing talk about it since I landed in Tahiti.”
“Come down to my shack,” said Kopcke, “and I will get old Tepeva a
Tepeva to tell you his part of it.”
“I will finish with Mapuhi,” Mandel said, “and will be along in ten
minutes.”
That the fixing of a price for the twenty-five pearls was not to be
concluded in public was evident, and so Kopcke, Lying Bill, and we
others sauntered to Kopcke’s hut. Nowhere do whites despise one another
as feelingly as in the South Seas. Their competition in business and in
love is so intimate and so acute that there are no distances nor
withholdings of emotion. The finesse and impersonal euchering of rivals
practised on mainlands is not copied in this hotter and more primitive
mart where adversaries are of ruder breed, and courtesy is considered
weakness. As we strolled under the palms to Kopcke’s house, McHenry said
to me, “This _Taote_, this doctor or magician they gab about, I knew
better than anybody else, an’ he was a bloomin’ queer ’un. I kept a
store at Penrhyn for years, and this fellow was around there studyin’
the lagoon. Everybody called him Doc, but whether he was a M.D. I don’t
know. He had a tool-chest, though, like a bloody sawbones, and could fix
a cut or saw off an arm fine. He had michaelscropes and all sorts o’
professor junk, an’ he was good-hearted, and had money enough, too.”
“I remember the fellow well,” Lying Bill interposed. “’E was a han’some
man, big as Landers, and dark as Llewellyn. ’E ’ad gold ’air, but never
wore a ’at, blow ’igh, blow low, an’ so ’is ’air was so bleedin’
sunburned, it was all colors. ’E was a furriner, an’ ’ad studied in
Germany,—if ’e wasn’t a German,—though ’e was a reg’ler pollyglut and
parlayed every lingo. ’E ’ad a ’ole chemist shop with ’im on Penrhyn. I
used to see ’im treatin’ the lepers and studyin’ oysters night an’ day.
At first, I thought he might be a buyer, an’ watched ’im, but he ’ad no
time for tradin’. In the divin’ season ’e was always around the lagoons,
an’ ’e’d look at every pearl and the shell it come out of. ’E was a
myst’ry, ’e was, an’ made no friends with anybody. The natives called
’im _Itataupoo Taote_, ’Atless Doctor. ’E played a deep game, ’e did.”
At Kopcke’s shack he made us welcome. Lamps were lighted, and cigarettes
and a black bottle of rum set on the counter.
“I’ll go and hunt up the old man to spin you the yarn,” said Kopcke, and
disappeared in the darkness of the outside. Mandel came before he
returned, and as the talk was still on the _Taote_ he gathered up his
thread of it.
“This magician’s name was Horace Sassoon, and he was of a rich and fine
family in England,” said Mandel. “I knew much about him because I cashed
his drafts more than once. He was a medical doctor, educated in Germany,
France, and England, and he had been seven or eight years in India.
While in Ceylon or the Arabian Gulf he investigated the pearl fisheries
and got interested in the processes of mother-of-pearl secretion by
oysters. I think he was a real savant, and that he had a strong interest
in the treatment of lepers by the chaulmoogra oil and the X-ray. He told
me that he wanted to endow a great institution in India, but that he was
unable to raise the funds. Me, I am credulous, but I believe the
institution was a beautiful woman who spent much money. He had an income
sent from Paris to Tahiti, and the drafts, not large, came through my
house. I would meet him, as you men did, in Papeete or in these atolls,
or Penrhyn, wherever there was diving, but I never suspected his game,
though three or four times he said to me, ‘I will have all the money I
need some day if I am right in my theories.’ I lost track of him, and
did not associate with him the big pearls that came to Paris until I saw
the pearl Woronick bought, and heard Tepeva a Tepeva’s account. I won’t
spoil it by repeating it, and anyhow, here he is himself!”
Kopcke entered with his girl and her father. The latter was a very big
man, the wreck of a giant. He was sadly afflicted; he would take a step,
and stop, and then his head would roll over on his shoulder. Each time
he started to move, he went through convulsive tremors as if winding
himself up for the next step—and I recognized the paralysis which seizes
the diver who has dived too often and too deep.
“_Maite rii, Tamahine!_ Go slow, daughter!” he was saying, as he seized
a post and let himself down to the floor, where he squatted.
“He was about the best diver in the group, but the bends have got him,”
said Kopcke.
“’E’s a Mormon,” Lying Bill blurted, “an’ ’e won’t touch the rum.” Bill
helped himself, stood the bottle before him, and began to doze.
“My father,” said Kopcke, “here is a _Marite_ from far across the sea,
who wants to know of your adventure with the _Taote_ who gave you the
pearl.”
Tepeva a Tepeva shaded his eyes with his hand and peered at me. “_Oia
ia!_ It is well!” he stuttered. His eyes fell upon the bottle, and
remained fastened upon it.
“Would not Tepeva a Tepeva wish to refresh himself?” I said quietly, and
passed the bottle to the cripple. He took it, weighed it, removed the
cork, smelt the contents, and poured out a shellful,—a third of a
pint,—tossed it off, smacked his lips as if it were cocoanut-milk, and
began to speak more freely.
“_Ea_, that _ramu_ is good. I do not drink it as a Mormon but because I
am weak. It is _makivi_, this thing I tell you. It is stranger than the
stick of Moses turning into a sea-snake. It costs me dear, as you see,
though it paid me well. I am as I am, a cracked canoe, because of it.
But I have my house, and all the debts of my family are paid, and I owe
Mapuhi a Mapuhi not a _sou_. It is good to be free. I was a diver at
Penrhyn for the British when I met the foreigner. He was a _Taote_. He
said that he was trying to cure the lepers. He had a wonderful medicine.
He did not let them drink it, but put it into their arms through a pipe.
But also he watched the diving. Doc, they called him, and he never
covered his head. But no man said _Itataupoo_ to him. He was no man to
laugh at. He spat his words and was done, but he would mend a broken
bone, or cure a coral cut or the wound of a swordfish. He looked through
a tube with a glass in it at blood from the lepers, and at pearls and
oysters. He had lamps that made a light like the blue sky. Through his
tube the water from our wells was as a fish-pond. Hours and hours he
watched the shells being opened, and every pearl he must see, and the
shell from which it came. I thought he searched for a pearl to charm the
leprosy. All through the _rahui_ he stayed in Penrhyn. He went to Tahiti
on the _Pani_. I was on the _Pani_, and much we talked about oysters and
the different lagoons.
“I came to Takaroa, my home. Months afterward the _Taote_ arrived here
in a ten-ton cutter. He had but one sailor, a Tahitian, Terii. They
lived in that house over there. I would not go into that house now for
ten tons of shell. It is _ihoiho_. When the moon is dark a spirit dances
there, the spirit of Mauraii. He was my cousin, and the _Taote_ hired
him to help the other man. One day the _Taote_ began to buy provisions,
a great quantity which were stored in the cutter with other big boxes,
as if for a long voyage. They sailed away, Terii and Mauraii, too.
‘Nuku-Hiva will see me next,’ said the _Taote_ to us all. That was a
lie, but I did not know it then. They went to Pukapuka. It is a little
atoll, toward the Marquesas, and far from any other island. Mauraii had
dived there, and the _Taote_ knew that. Five moons later the cutter
sailed into this lagoon. Mauraii was with the _Taote_, but Terii was
not. The _Taote_ paid Mauraii, and left in the cutter with another
sailor. For two years Mauraii lived without labor. For two years his
jaws remained tight as the jaws of the _pahua_. He spoke well of the
_Taote_, but he was afraid. When I asked him more about Terii, he would
not talk. Terii had eaten poisonous fish, he said once. He had trodden
on the _nohu_, he said another time. I knew Mauraii had not been to the
Marquesas. He was a Mormon, Mauraii, and he prayed like a man with a
secret.
“We forget soon, and it was four years when Patasy came in the _Potii
Taaha_, his own cutter. He was of Irélani, and drank much _ramu_. The
cutter was leaky, and Mauraii worked to calk the seams. Patasy gave him
hardly any money, but food, and night rum. Mauraii, with rum in him,
would now make many words to Patasy, and to me. He spoke of a secret
that lay between him and the _Taote_. He spoke of an oath he had sworn
on the book of Mormon and the picture of Birigahama Younga. He spoke of
something at Pukapuka that was growing bigger and bigger. The _Taote_
was in his native land, and would return soon, and they would both be
very rich. Mauraii’s talk was like a cloudy day that does not let one
see far. Sometimes I would ask him about Terii, who had gone with
Mauraii, and who had not come back. That would still his big
word-making. He would shake a little then, all over. He would say: ‘I
must not talk, Tepeva a Tepeva; I must not talk.’ But with more rum he
would talk. He was worried, though. He stopped going to the temple; he
lived on Patasy’s cutter. Often I saw him lying on the deck, full of
drink.
“One night he came to my house late. His heart was very heavy. He had
been drinking with Patasy, and he had done something wrong. He cursed
Patasy. He said that Patasy had forced him to do evil—that he, Mauraii,
had taken an oath, and that now, this night, he had broken it. It would
bring him harm. The _Taote_ was coming back soon. Mauraii shook when he
said that, shook just as he did when I would ask him what had become of
the companion who had gone with him to Pukapuka and had never come back.
“_E mea au!_ I am not the man to search the heart of a brother for what
should be hidden. But having broken his oath and told his secret to
Patasy, I thought it right he should tell it to me. But he would say no
more. And he sailed away alone with Patasy.
“For many weeks we heard nothing more of Mauraii. Then from sailors who
came from Tahiti we heard that he and Patasy had returned to Papeete in
a month. Then we heard that Patasy had sold his cutter and had taken
steamship away to his own country. He never came back.
“Mauraii stayed in Papeete. Every little while we heard about him. He
had much money, and he was drinking all day in the Paris rum store, and
dancing the nights with the Tahiti Magadalenas in the Cocoanut House.
“When Mauraii had spent all his money the French Government brought him
back to Takaroa, and he was mad. Something had broken in his belly,
where the thinking-parts are. He would sit all day, looking at the
lagoon and saying nothing. Never did he say anything. Sometimes he would
shake all over. And all the time his back was bent as if some one was
coming from behind to strike him.
“It was a long time after this that the _Taote_ returned, on the
_Moana_. He came first to my house. He asked me where Mauraii was, and I
told him Mauraii was here, but was _maamaa_, that he was possessed of
the demon. He asked me if it was a talking demon, if it made Mauraii say
everything there was in his head. I told him it was the other way. The
poor man said nothing, but sat by the lagoon all day, and was fed and
cared for by the women.
“‘Let us go to see Mauraii!’ he said. He was angry, and I was afraid,
and I went with him. I knew where Mauraii would be, and I pointed him
out. He was sitting in the shade of a _purau_ tree, looking at the
lagoon. The _Taote_ went to him and spoke to him. Mauraii fell flat, and
then he crawled about the sand, and shouted to me not to let the _Taote_
kill him, _too_. This made him more angry, and he said that Mauraii was
really _maamaa_, and that nothing could be done for him. Mauraii ran to
his house when he had turned his back. After the _Moana_ had gone on her
way to Nuku-Hiva, the _Taote_ asked me if I could go with him to another
island. I did not want to go. If I had not gone, I would not be as I am,
but then I would not have my house, and all the debts paid of my family.
“I said that I had work here. But he said he would be gone but a couple
of weeks, and that he would give me ten _taras_ a day, and that I would
have no hard work. Mapuhi and Nohea were absent. No white elders were
here to advise me. Finally I said I would go, though when I looked at
Mauraii and saw what he was, I was afraid. He said we must take Mauraii
with us. We had hard work to get Mauraii on the cutter. When we did,
which was at night, we put him in the hold and closed the hatch and
sailed out of the pass. It was my own cutter, but the _Taote_ had
provided food, and his big boxes were in the hold with Mauraii.
“Once outside the reef, the _Taote_ said he would go almost due east,
and that Pukapuka was our island. I said that Pukapuka had no people on
it, and he said that was true. I said that Pukapuka was closed to the
diving, and he said that was true. But we went on toward Pukapuka. When
we slid the cover off the hatch to the hold, Mauraii came up, and when
he saw we were at sea and that the _Taote_ was so near him, he shivered
like a diver who has had a struggle with a shark. I thought he would
leap into the water, and often he looked at it with longing. But the
_Taote_ talked to him strongly, and put medicine in his arm.
“We steered and trimmed sail by turn. The wind was fair, and we reached
Pukapuka in five days. We had a hard time to get the boxes ashore. There
is no pass, and you cannot reach the lagoon from the sea. We had brought
a small boat lashed on the deck, and this we carried to the lagoon. It
took us a day to move it, and we made Mauraii help. The man had changed
since we landed on Pukapuka. He was not wild, but _taata ravea paari_.
He was cunning. He smiled to himself sometimes in an evil way. We were
no sooner on the lagoon than the _Taote_ ordered me and that madman to
build a hut and to rest ourselves for a day.
“Pukapuka had not a man upon it. It is like a cocoanut-shell, round all
about, and the lagoon deep, and full of yellow shell with yellow pearls.
There are no poison fish in the water, as in some other islands. I
thought of that, and of the man who had been here with Mauraii and had
never come back. I was afraid. The _Taote_ could make Mauraii sleep and
sleep with one touch of a silver pipe on his arm. I was afraid.
“The island is loved by the birds; it was their time for nesting, and
the air was filled with them. That was the only sound. The _Taote_ wore
no hat, though the sun upon the coral was as stones heated to cook fish.
When we had rested a day, the _Taote_, who had been most of the hours
upon the lagoon, spoke to me of our mission, and we three rowed a little
distance until I judged we were in water of seventeen fathoms.
“‘It is long,’ said the _Taote_. ‘It is five years since I was here, but
I am sure of the spot. There was a cocoanut-tree that hid the village if
I rowed from that rock we put there on shore, due west, five _umi_.
There is the cocoanut, and it hides the huts the divers live in when the
lagoon is open.’
“You see how quiet this lagoon is? Well, that lagoon of Pukapuka was ten
times more still. It made me shake as had Mauraii. But now he did not
shake. He was all brightness, and his eyes were shining, though he said
not a word.
“The _Taote_ took the _titea mata_ and looked into the water. He could
see little; his eyes were not strong. I went into the water, took the
_titea mata_, stuck my head into it and gazed down into the sea.
“‘Do you see shell, large shell?’ he asked quickly, like a man who knows
what is in a place.
“‘I see shell,’ I said.
“‘Then dive and bring it up,’ he commanded.
“I said the prayer to Adam and to Birigahama Younga. I breathed long,
and I went down. There was in my heart a fear of something strange. The
bottom was at seventeen fathoms, a jungle of coral as big as the trees
in Tahiti, with black caves and large flowers and sponges, and also many
of the _pahua_, the great shell which closes like a trap and can drown a
man. Dropping straightaway, I swam upon a ledge raised above the floor
of the lagoon. There was a pair of shells, very large. But where there
had been many, only this single pair remained. I moved along the ledge,
and found that scores had been ripped from the same bed. A diver sees
easily where shells have been.
“‘Robbed!’ I said to myself. ‘There has been a thief here.’ Pukapuka had
been closed to diving for six years, and it was forbidden to remove a
shell. I swam over the face of the ledge, and was sure I had the sole
remaining pair of this bed. I rose to the surface with them.”
The _Taote_ was hanging over the boat with his head in the _titea mata_,
watching me as I came up. As I hung on the boat to breathe, I saw
Mauraii regarding him with a hateful eye, and I shook my fist at the
fool. The foreigner took the shell quickly, and opened it, pulled the
oyster out into a bowl, and searched it. Then with a little cry he held
up a pearl, a _poe matauiui_, big and like a ball, as shiny as an eye.
Bigger it was than any pearl I have ever seen. It was perfect in shape,
and with a skin like the gleam of the sun on the lagoon. What Mauraii
had said of the _Taote_ growing things to make him rich came to my mind,
as I saw this wonder-pearl shining in the _Taote’s_ hand. The foreigner
for a moment was as mad as Mauraii, and, taking hold of that man’s hand,
shook it and shook it.
“‘Ah, Mauraii,’ he shouted, ‘now we are paid for those weeks of hell
here! You shall have enough to eat and drink always.’
“He laughed and clapped Mauraii on the shoulder, and the _maamaa_
laughed foolishly, and began to dance in the boat. We had to pull him
down, or he would have overturned it.
“‘There are more than a hundred pearls like that,’ said the _Taote_. ‘I
am richer than King Mapuhi, ten times as rich, and I can make all I
want. I made it. I worked and worked to find out, and Mauraii put the
things in the shell. I am a _te Tumu_!’
“I did not like that. _Te Tumu_ is the creator. It is wrong to boast
like that. And where was Terii, who had gone with Mauraii from Takaroa
to Pukapuka? He would share in no wealth. And the madman beside me—what
happiness left for him?
“‘_I teienei_,’ said the _Taote_, as he rubbed the pearl. ‘Go down and
bring up as many as you can. When we did the sowing, I worked in a
diver’s dress. I have that machine in those boxes on the cutter. Maybe
we should get it, for we will want more seed.’
“‘There are no more shells in that bed,’ I said. ‘This was the only one
there.’
“‘No more shells there!’ he screamed. ‘You are mad like this fellow. We
found a hundred and seven there, and we planted seed in each one. Each
of them has a pearl as fine as this.’
“He tried to be gentle again, though he sweated. He tried to explain. He
had discovered the secret of the pearl; he had planted something in each
shell as one might a cocoanut-sprout in the earth. There was much I did
not understand, for no man had ever tried such blasphemy. The God that
made these lagoons had wrapped them in the unknown, and had made pearls
the dispensation of His will.
“‘Whatever was done here by you,’ I said, ‘there are no more shells in
that _tiamaha_. I searched it all about.’
“He tried to laugh, but failed, and he looked at Mauraii.
“‘A hundred and seven shells! It took us weeks,’ he said. ‘That was the
number, Mauraii?’
“The man possessed of the devil nodded his head and really laughed. It
was an evil laugh.
“‘A hundred and seven, and one—this one—makes a hundred and six,’ said
he. He smiled, and I went cold. I knew that before he went mad, Mauraii
did not know how to count. The devil was in him.
“The _Taote_ breathed hard. ‘Tepeva a Tepeva,’ he said, ‘go down again.
It is possible that this is not the bed. We placed a small anchor beside
it. Look for that. I worked seventeen years for this day.’
“Again I went into the water, and to the bottom. I found the place where
I had pried off the oyster with the great pearl. Digging in the sand and
ooze, I found the anchor. I saw plainly the empty cups of the oysters
that had been, and I counted them roughly and made them about a hundred.
I stayed a full minute and a half, and I hated to go up. I did not like
to meet that wise man looking at me in a terrible way when he should see
me empty-handed. But I had to go. I was exhausted when I reached the
sunlight, and until I had gained my breath and my blood was quiet, I did
not turn to the _Taote_.
“‘No more shell?’ he said quietly. ‘You are lying! You are lying! You
are trying to cheat me. Look out! Look out! Ask Mauraii what I did
to—but the shell are there. I can see them with the glass. Come, we will
get the diving-machine.’
“He cursed me, and said I was trying to steal his wealth. What he saw
through the _titea mata_ was the gleam of the _pahua_, the great shell
the priests use for holy water. I said no more, and with Mauraii went to
the beach. It was night when we had brought the machine to the boat, and
we returned to the cutter for food. I shall not forget that night. The
foreigner could not sleep, and he talked to me. He talked as if he had a
fever. He said he had tried for years to find out what made pearls in
oysters, and to do the work of God. While others had made small ones
that clung to the shell, he alone had found the way to put in the shells
large beginnings for the oysters to cover. He had chosen Pukapuka
because it had a lagoon without a pass, and so free from currents, and
because it was closed to diving and no one lived there. No one knew of
it, he said—no one but himself and Mauraii.
“I thought of Patasy, of the _Potii Taaha_. Of what Mauraii had told me
when in rum. Of his going away with Patasy and coming back to Tahiti,
there to drink and dance in the Cocoanut House.
“But I said nothing, for I was afraid. Mauraii had slept ashore. In the
morning we found him praying and singing by the lagoon. We went out in
the boat, and set up the diving-machine, and the _Taote_ told me to put
on the dress.
“‘I and Mauraii will work the pump,’ he said. ‘You stay down ten minutes
at least, and search the bottom all about there. Maybe we were mistaken
in the exact spot.’ He spoke like a good friend, now.
“I had said nothing about the anchor, because I was afraid. I sank down
to the bottom, and first looked that the air came freely and that I was
not entangled. Then I walked about and saw that a diver had been there.
The whole bank had been gathered. The one shell had escaped merely
because the thief had so willed it. I sat down and waited for the ten
minutes to go, and I wished I was in Takaroa. Pukapuka Lagoon had many
sharks. In the years that had passed since the last diving season they
had grown big. When I was still, they came by me, and through the
glasses I saw their ugly faces staring at me. I frightened them away
with the air from my wrist, or I clapped my hands in a diver’s way. I
had my back to the rock bank. At last a signal came on the rope, and I
had to let them pull me up.”
Tepeva a Tepeva’s voice was weak. He poured himself the last drink of
rum. Kopcke had gone to attend to the loading and Lying Bill was snoring
on the floor.
“Slowly they lifted me, but it seemed to me like a second.
“What look the _Taote_ had, I do not know. I did not turn to him until
my helmet was unscrewed, and I had taken off the coat. Without meeting
his eyes, I said, ‘No shells.’
“‘No shells! My God!’ he said. ‘Are you blind? Did you not the first
time bring up this? Mauraii knows well there are a hundred and six more.
Is not that true, Mauraii?’ he said, coaxingly.
“The madman laughed. ‘A hundred and six more,’ he replied; ‘and to hell
with Patasy.’
“This moment the eyes of the _Taote_ met me. He was shivering, as
Mauraii had shivered when he left Takaroa.
“‘Give me the helmet!’ he ordered. ‘Help me put it on. I will know. I
will know!’
“He put the pearl in a purse, and the purse in a pocket of the
diving-coat. A knife was in his belt. I fastened the coat and the belt
and tied the strings at the wrist. I put the lead weights on his breast
and back, and lowered him into the water. Before I screwed the helmet
tight, I said to him: ‘Go slowly! Walk carefully! Don’t bend too low!’
“Mauraii fed the pump as I let out the line, and when I felt the weight
of the line, I took the pump myself. Now, a man like me, who has dived
with the machine for years, knows every motion of the line.
The _Taote_ was not moving slowly and cautiously. He stopped, and for
five minutes there was little motion.
“_Aueo!_” I thought. He has found the robbed bank, and the anchor. He
knows the truth. He will come up now. What will I do? He will be
terrible.
“Suddenly I felt a drag at the rope, swift and hard; not the steady pull
of walking.
“He has fallen, tripped and fallen, and cannot get up! That was my
thought.
“‘Mauraii,’ I said, ‘you man the pump alone. Go smoothly! If you fail, I
will kill you!’
“I leaped in, and swam straight down. The foreigner was on the bottom,
lying on his face. I raised his body, light as a shell in that depth.
There was a great rip in the front of the coat. The air rushed from it,
but there was no motion of his body. The knife in his hand had been used
to destroy himself. He had seen the work of the thief and had cut open
the coat. The devil of despair had done that with him.
“A diver thinks quickly. I could not bring him to the top unless Mauraii
aided. I signaled by the rope. There was no reply. The air was not being
pumped. It had stopped as I lifted him. Mauraii had left his duty. I had
one chance. I might unscrew the heavy helmet, and cut the leads and
carry him, with the aid of the line, to the surface. He might not be
dead yet. I seized the helmet, cut the hose, and began to turn the metal
helmet. As I did so, I saw a shadow over my head, and laid hold of my
knife. It was not a shark. It was Mauraii. He was dancing and smiling,
dancing and smiling, as in the Cocoanut House in Papeete. He slowly
settled down in the water. He took hold of me as I twisted at the
helmet, and he smiled at me, and danced on a ledge of coral. Below this,
I saw one of those giant _pahua_. _Aue! Marite!_ This pair was as long
as I am, and as deep as my legs. The great animal in it had opened his
doors to eat, and as Mauraii leaped about in his mad dancing from rock
to rock, he stepped into the jaws of the _pahua_. _Aue!_ They closed as
the jaws of the turtle upon the fish, and held the fool as if he was
buried. He was fast to the knees, and fell over upon me as I worked at
the helmet, his head hanging down by my feet.
“My lungs were bursting, my heart beating my breast. I had been more
than three minutes a hundred feet below the air. I had been using my
strength. I pushed the fool away. Suddenly I felt my leg seized, and the
grip of teeth upon my flesh. I sprang up, pulling at the rope to give me
force, and calling on Adam for help.
“Minutes it was before I could crawl into the boat. I lay there many
minutes before I could stand up. The blood was upon my leg, and the
marks of teeth. They were not the teeth of a fish, but of a man. I
prayed for guidance. The _Taote_ was dead, and Mauraii, too. What could
I do for them? Nothing! Yet I heard a whisper in my ear to go down. I
slipped into the water and swam to the bottom. I never touched the sand.
I saw the bodies of the _Taote_ and Mauraii fought over by a dozen
sharks. I had prayed, and I had a knife in my hand. Even a shark fears a
bold man. I struck at them right and left and reached the ledge where
the _Taote_ lay. I slashed at the coat and cut away the pocket. The
water was red with blood about me, but I shot up past the sharks with
the purse, and reached the boat. I took the oars and rowed as fast as I
could to shore. There I knelt and thanked Adam and Ietu Kirito for my
life.
“I ran across the reef and swam to the cutter. I cut away the anchor and
raised the sail and left the abode of the demon. Fakaina I reached in
two days; and, with a Takaroa man who was there, I put the cutter about
and sailed for home.
“What does the Book say? In the midst of life we are in death. I had
stayed under too long in the lagoon of Pukapuka. Like a thunderbolt came
on me the diver’s sickness—and I am as I am.”
Lying Bill had been awake for several minutes.
“You did mighty well,” he commented. “You saved the pearl and the Doc’s
money for yourself. There’s three men et up by sharks. You sold the
pearl to Woronick for twenty-five thousand francs.... And by the bloody
star of Mars, you’ve drunk all the rum while I’ve been asleep! Come on,
O’Brien! Let’s get the bloomin’ ’ell out of ’ere to the schooner! We’ve
got to sail at sun-up for the Marquesas.”
Tepeva a Tepeva, the man stricken by the bends, was still squatting on
the floor immersed in his pregnant memories when I shook his hand, and
went to bid good-by to my friends of the atolls where life is harder but
simpler and sweeter than elsewhere in the world. Mapuhi and Nohea rubbed
my back, and commended me to God. The wind was fluttering wildly the
fronds of the cocoanut-trees, and the surf was heavy as we rowed through
the passage and moat and struck the breakers on the outer reef. From the
sea for a few minutes the lanterns in the houses were like fireflies in
the cane, but soon the darkness hid them, and I saw only the black
shadow of the _motus_, and the gleam of the foaming crests of the waves
in the faint starlight. I lay down on a mat by the steering-wheel of the
_Fetia Taiao_, and dreamed of the _Taote_ and the dancing Mauraii in the
trap of the giant _pahua_.
I awoke with the cries of the sailors raising the mainsail, and the
motion of the vessel through the water. We were off with a fair wind for
the Land of the War Fleet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------