Grief's schooner, the _Cantani_, had passed the Pillar Rocks at the
entrance two hours before and crept up the harbour to the whispering
flutters of a breeze that could not make up its mind to blow. It was
a cool, starlight evening, and they lolled about the poop waiting till
their snail's pace would bring them to the anchorage. Willie Smee, the
supercargo, emerged from the cabin, conspicuous in his shore clothes.
The mate glanced at his shirt, of the finest and whitest silk, and
giggled significantly.
“Dance, to-night, I suppose?” Grief observed.
“No,” said the mate. “It's Taitua. Willie's stuck on her.”
“Catch me,” the supercargo disclaimed.
“Then she's stuck on you, and it's all the same,” the mate went on. “You
won't be ashore half an hour before you'll have a flower behind your
ear, a wreath on your head, and your arm around Taitua.”
“Simple jealousy,” Willie Smee sniffed. “You'd like to have her
yourself, only you can't.”
“I can't find shirts like that, that's why. I'll bet you half a crown
you won't sail from Fitu-Iva with that shirt.”
“And if Taitua doesn't get it, it's an even break Tui Tulifau does,”
Grief warned. “Better not let him spot that shirt, or it's all day with
it.”
“That's right,” Captain Boig agreed, turning his head from watching the
house lights on the shore. “Last voyage he fined one of my Kanakas out
of a fancy belt and sheath-knife.” He turned to the mate. “You can let
go any time, Mr. Marsh. Don't give too much slack. There's no sign of
wind, and in the morning we may shift opposite the copra-sheds.”
A minute later the anchor rumbled down. The whaleboat, already hoisted
out, lay alongside, and the shore-going party dropped into it. Save for
the Kanakas, who were all bent for shore, only Grief and the supercargo
were in the boat. At the head of the little coral-stone pier Willie
Smee, with an apologetic gurgle, separated from his employer and
disappeared down an avenue of palms. Grief turned in the opposite
direction past the front of the old mission church. Here, among
the graves on the beach, lightly clad in _ahu's_ and _lava-lavas_,
flower-crowned and garlanded, with great phosphorescent hibiscus
blossoms in their hair, youths and maidens were dancing. Farther on,
Grief passed the long, grass-built _himine_ house, where a few score
of the elders sat in long rows chanting the old hymns taught them by
forgotten missionaries. He passed also the palace of Tui Tulifau, where,
by the lights and sounds, he knew the customary revelry was going
on. For of the happy South Sea isles, Fitu-Iva was the happiest. They
feasted and frolicked at births and deaths, and the dead and the unborn
were likewise feasted.
Grief held steadily along the Broom Road, which curved and twisted
through a lush growth of flowers and fern-like algarobas. The warm air
was rich with perfume, and overhead, outlined against the stars, were
fruit-burdened mangoes, stately avocado trees, and slender-tufted palms.
Every here and there were grass houses. Voices and laughter rippled
through the darkness. Out on the water flickering lights and soft-voiced
choruses marked the fishers returning from the reef.
At last Grief stepped aside from the road, stumbling over a pig that
grunted indignantly. Looking through an open door, he saw a stout and
elderly native sitting on a heap of mats a dozen deep. From time to
time, automatically, he brushed his naked legs with a cocoa-nut-fibre
fly-flicker. He wore glasses, and was reading methodically in what Grief
knew to be an English Bible. For this was Ieremia, his trader, so named
from the prophet Jeremiah.
Ieremia was lighter-skinned than the Fitu-Ivans, as was natural in a
full-blooded Samoan. Educated by the missionaries, as lay teacher he had
served their cause well over in the cannibal atolls to the westward. As
a reward, he had been sent to the paradise of Fitu-Iva, where all were
or had been good converts, to gather in the backsliders. Unfortunately,
Ieremia had become too well educated. A stray volume of Darwin, a
nagging wife, and a pretty Fitu-Ivan widow had driven him into the ranks
of the backsliders. It was not a case of apostasy. The effect of Darwin
had been one of intellectual fatigue. What was the use of trying to
understand this vastly complicated and enigmatical world, especially
when one was married to a nagging woman? As Ieremia slackened in his
labours, the mission board threatened louder and louder to send him back
to the atolls, while his wife's tongue grew correspondingly sharper. Tui
Tulifau was a sympathetic monarch, whose queen, on occasions when he was
particularly drunk, was known to beat him. For political reasons--the
queen belonging to as royal stock as himself and her brother commanding
the army--Tui Tulifau could not divorce her, but he could and did
divorce Ieremia, who promptly took up with commercial life and the lady
of his choice. As an independent trader he had failed, chiefly because
of the disastrous patronage of Tui Tulifau. To refuse credit to that
merry monarch was to invite confiscation; to grant him credit was
certain bankruptcy. After a year's idleness on the beach, leremia had
become David Grief's trader, and for a dozen years his service had
been honourable and efficient, for Grief had proven the first man who
successfully refused credit to the king or who collected when it had
been accorded.
Ieremia looked gravely over the rims of his glasses when his employer
entered, gravely marked the place in the Bible and set it aside, and
gravely shook hands.
“I am glad you came in person,” he said.
“How else could I come?” Grief laughed.
But Ieremia had no sense of humour, and he ignored the remark.
“The commercial situation on the island is damn bad,” he said with great
solemnity and an unctuous mouthing of the many-syllabled words. “My
ledger account is shocking.”
“Trade bad?”
“On the contrary. It has been excellent. The shelves are empty,
exceedingly empty. But----” His eyes glistened proudly. “But there are
many goods remaining in the storehouse; I have kept it carefully
locked.”
“Been allowing Tui Tulifau too much credit?”
“On the contrary. There has been no credit at all. And every old account
has been settled up.”
“I don't follow you, Ieremia,” Grief confessed. “What's the
joke?--shelves empty, no credit, old accounts all square, storehouse
carefully locked--what's the answer?”
Ieremia did not reply immediately. Reaching under the rear corner of the
mats, he drew forth a large cash-box. Grief noted and wondered that
it was not locked. The Samoan had always been fastidiously cautious in
guarding cash. The box seemed filled with paper money. He skinned off
the top note and passed it over.
“There is the answer.”
Grief glanced at a fairly well executed banknote. “_The First Royal Bank
of Fitu-Iva will pay to bearer on demand one pound sterling_,” he read.
In the centre was the smudged likeness of a native face. At the bottom
was the signature of Tui Tulifau, and the signature of Fulualea, with
the printed information appended, “_Chancellor of the Exchequer._”
“Who the deuce is Fulualea?” Grief demanded. “It's Fijian, isn't
it?--meaning the feathers of the sun?”
“Just so. It means the feathers of the sun. Thus does this base
interloper caption himself. He has come up from Fiji to turn Fitu-Iva
upside down--that is, commercially.”
“Some one of those smart Levuka boys, I suppose?”
Ieremia shook his head sadly. “No, this low fellow is a white man and
a scoundrel. He has taken a noble and high-sounding Fijian name and
dragged it in the dirt to suit his nefarious purposes. He has made Tui
Tulifau drunk. He has made him very drunk. He has kept him very drunk
all the time. In return, he has been made Chancellor of the Exchequer
and other things. He has issued this false paper and compelled the
people to receive it. He has levied a store tax, a copra tax, and a
tobacco tax. There are harbour dues and regulations, and other taxes.
But the people are not taxed--only the traders. When the copra tax was
levied, I lowered the purchasing price accordingly. Then the people
began to grumble, and Feathers of the Sun passed a new law, setting
the old price back and forbidding any man to lower it. Me he fined two
pounds and five pigs, it being well known that I possessed five pigs.
You will find them entered in the ledger. Hawkins, who is trader for
the Fulcrum Company, was fined first pigs, then gin, and, because he
continued to make loud conversation, the army came and burned his store.
When I declined to sell, this Feathers of the Sun fined me once more and
promised to burn the store if again I offended. So I sold all that was
on the shelves, and there is the box full of worthless paper. I shall
be chagrined if you pay me my salary in paper, but it would be just, no
more than just. Now, what is to be done?”
Grief shrugged his shoulders. “I must first see this Feathers of the Sun
and size up the situation.”
“Then you must see him soon,” Ieremia advised. “Else he will have an
accumulation of many fines against you. Thus does he absorb all the
coin of the realm. He has it all now, save what has been buried in the
ground.”