Back at the Charity Organization—Mabau—A Fugitive Bank Manager
arrives—How the Organization secured Funds—English
Refugees—Departure—Native Burial—A New Sect—With Bones again—Another
Fugitive and his Experiences—Galloway’s Tall Hat—The Death of
Mabau—The Haunted Wreck
I RETURNED once more to the Organization rooms, so tired that I fell
asleep without delay, and not until next morning was I introduced to
several members whom I had not seen before. My toothless friend was
mumbling away to an old “shellback,” who in turn was striving to outdo
his comrade’s experiences on land and sea. “Glad to see yer,” said the
old salt, as Bones introduced me. I returned the compliment and shook
his extended hand warmly. He was the life of the place, and not pleasant
life either, for he had an old cornet, and in the middle of the night
would lift his face to the low roof and blow some wretched tune on it
over and over again. One night there was a fight, for as he played and
sang and rolled his eyes to the ceiling a boot struck him behind the
ear; one of the members had lost his temper and thrown it. The incident
caused a fearful hubbub, the cornet got smashed to bits and one or two
of the bunks broken down. Bones came in, pointed a revolver at the
fighters and threatened to shoot, and I believe he would have done so if
they had not quieted down. They were a rough crew, and I made up my mind
to get away from the place at the first opportunity. Many strange things
I heard, some of which I will tell you.
Next day as I sat alone reflecting in the Organization’s gloomy room I
heard Mabau just outside wailing a native chant of love-sickness. She
had peeled the “spuds” and finished the domestic duties, for which Bones
gave her ample wages.
“What did the kind white missionary say, Mabau?” I whispered softly to
her, as Bones and two scrubby-faced villains puffed their pipes and
shuffled a pack of cards on the bench.
Looking up with affectionate eyes that gazed at me steadily for a little
time and then dropped as she sighed, she answered: “He say pray to white
God; go to your people, and if your Vituo no love you quickly find him
who will love you.” And as she said this to me she gazed into my eyes in
an appealing way that made me sorry for her.
“Come this way, Mabau,” I said, and she followed me like a little child,
till out of earshot she sat under the coco-palms behind the Organization
hut. I took her there because I wanted to be alone with her to advise
her for her own sake. I liked Mabau exceedingly, for I saw in her
something deeper than I had noticed in most native girls. Sitting by me
in the jungle fern, with her chin on her knees, she lifted her eyes to
me and sang a weird love chant. “Wail O—Wa—O, Mio” it sounded, as she
sang tenderly her beseeching plaint.
“Why do you sing, Mabau?” I asked. “Is it the wicked Vituo that makes
you so sad?”
“Vituo I hate,” she answered fiercely. “I will kill him, and the white
man will be my friend.” But I shook my head and told her not to kill
Vituo, but go to her own people, and as I spoke I pointed to the forest.
Obediently as a child she rose, and before moving away gave me a shell
comb from her hair. I accepted it and smiled kindly at her, for I felt
sorry for the brown, forlorn girl. Then with pattering bare feet she
went down the forest track, wailing. I went back to the Organization
room and practised my violin, as I always did for several hours every
day, both on land and sea.
I think it was that same night that a portly gentleman looking like a
bank manager came down the river from Suva and hastily entered the door,
talking hurriedly to Mr Bones. Opening a little bag he gave him a bundle
of what appeared to be banknotes, and so placed himself under the
protection of the Organization flag. He was fashionably dressed in a
tall hat and frock-coat, the tail of which had a singed hole in it, as
though he had been shot at at close quarters. Rubbing his hands
genially, as though with great relief, he looked round the secluded room
and then asked me if I were English, and inquired if many of my
countrymen resided in those parts. My reply allayed his anxiety on that
point. He had a big, round, clean-shaven, red face; grey locks protruded
from beneath the rim of his tall hat, and fitted his brow and neck so
nicely that it was easy to see that he wore a wig. His expression was
like his hair, false; his was a face that could look jolly and
lascivious, or sedate, at will, or even appear deeply thoughtful and
religious should occasion require. Intensely preoccupied, he sat looking
at newspaper cuttings, and with a vacant stare said “Em—em,” as I spoke
to him. The natives and the scenery round had no interest for him; some
life-and-death business had hastened him our way. He stopped only two
nights and then left by the next ’Frisco steamer, bound for some port
outside the reach of the extradition treaty. I was glad to see him go.
Every time anyone opened the door he started so that it got on my
nerves. Once when Bones suddenly opened the door with a crash, on
purpose, I believe, he gave a leap and lifted the lid of the emergency
barrel, upsetting the mugs of rum and causing the whole Organization to
swear as one man. As he jumped in I quickly put the lid on before he
could lower his shoulders and head, and crash went his tall hat, while I
heard a muffled oath beneath the lid. The emergency barrel was a huge
ship’s beef-barrel, which stood behind the door, and in it new members
of the Organization hid when the overseas police arrived. A cave beneath
the floor was a secret known to old members only.
It was a mystery to me how these preoccupied fugitives from justice got
to know of Bones’s establishment. My mystification was dispelled by one
of the old officials, who let me into the secret, telling me more than
he should have done, as he swallowed rum and became loquacious. It
appeared that Bones boarded the boats as they arrived at Suva, Vanu Levu
or Lakemba, interviewed passengers and spotted likely customers. With
years of research and experience he had developed a bloodhound’s
instinct for twigging uneasy fugitives, and by devious artifices managed
to give them the hint and let them know that he was the man who
understood difficult positions, and was willing to be a faithful friend
to all those who yearned to remain unknown.
I also learnt that Bones was not above the ruse of getting a confederate
on board the boat, who would pose as a detective and suddenly turn round
and scrutinise any suspicious passenger, and so deliberately frighten
him into hurriedly leaving the ship. By a prearranged signal, when the
native canoes brought the flying fugitive ashore, the Organization
officials arrested him! Those who confessed offhand were given the
straight hint that their captors were not beyond accepting a bribe and
letting the prisoner escape. If they had no money Bones behaved well to
them, put them up for a time, then shipped them off at the first chance.
Those who had managed to bring wealth with them gave Bones a liberal
bribe, and you can imagine it was no hard job to get it out of them. Men
from all parts of the world sought the South Seas as a hiding-place;
some came to save their necks, many to escape penal servitude. The
Charity Organization of the South Seas was not far behind its namesakes
in Europe. It was a paying concern, and though the method on which it
was conducted was risky and strange, it was run on lines of truth and
charity; stolen money only was accepted, the guilty were punished by
being robbed, and help was given to the fallen, who were taken in, fed,
and finally guided on the road to seclusion and security. Assuredly it
did not reverse its creed, as the organizations of Western seas do,
where bent old men on tottering feet tap at the door of charity and,
apologising for being old, start to earn the crust of charity by lifting
the pick-axe and breaking stones—stones as hard as the hearts of the
British officials who waddle with fatness and the wealth screwed out of
insane charity-givers.
I could tell many distressing details of that South Sea hospitality;
fiction pales into insignificance beside the realities, the tragic
dramas of life that came to that old shanty. I could tell you how men
fell through the lure of gold, and the temptation to appear wealthy and
respectable, in the cities of a civilisation that so often defeats its
own purpose; for how often men fall in their ambition to gain the good
opinion of those who only _appear_ better than themselves.
The unpractical passion of love also brought much wealth to the South
Sea Organization’s exchequer. I remember one middle-aged gentleman whose
manner brought to that degraded forest homestead a flavour of English
society. With him, in the tastefully laid-out little room, wept a girl,
obviously brought up in English respectability. She was a pretty,
blue-eyed girl, but her face had aged with grief and remorse and the
thought of motherhood. Mabau was her ever-tender maid and companion. The
bond of sympathy that linked the brown and the white woman together
expressed something that had an intense note of poetry in it. Mabau’s
wild intuition read the girl’s sorrow and remorse. The two women, so far
removed from each other by blood and education, through mutual grief and
instinct became equal. Softly Mabau stroked her white sister’s face, and
she in turn caressed the brown girl, who also was fast approaching
motherhood.
I asked no questions of her male companion as he and I together strolled
across the landscape. I led him to the native villages, and did my best
to interest him and take him out of himself during the three days that
he stayed with Bones. We conceived a mutual liking for each other, and
he took me sufficiently into his confidence to let me know that they
were on the way to South America.
I saw them both off by the s.s. —— from Suva. Mabau carried the white
girl’s things to the boat. As they stood on the ship’s deck they waved
their hands to us, and we stood watching the frail girl, clinging to the
man’s arm, as the vessel moved away and the tropical sunset flooded the
seas. We stared till the ship was a speck on the waste of waters. So
disappeared those outcasts on the horizon, together with their passion
and its fruits, bound for another land, fading from our sight for ever.
Mabau cried bitterly. I felt very sad also as we went down the river,
and the hut looked more lonely than ever to me after they left.
I only stayed with Bones as a visitor, and several times went off to
Lakemba and the various isles of the group, visiting Thombo and the
Eastern Isles, also Yasawa, Kandavu and the native villages inland from
Vana Levu, in the Bua district. Some of the natives owned profitable
plantations, planted chiefly with coco-palms for the produce of copra
and food for domestic use.
I often roamed those barbaric lands quite alone, and used to stand and
reflect as I gazed through the wooded landscape; the solitude seemed so
peaceful, but my dreams would conjure up pictures of the hot-footed,
bloodthirsty tribes on the warpath long ago. Swarthy bodies and
mop-heads moving through those glooms to charge the ambushed rival
tribe, finally bringing their victims to the ovens that fizzled the
“long pig.”
Where now the cattle roam at leisure, nibbling the covatu grass and
milk-fern of the cleared pastures, once towered thickly wooded forest
slopes of tropic fern and coco-palms. Patches of those forests still
remain. In those old glooms I roamed and spent many happy and exciting
times, for among them still stood native villages of semi-savage
peoples; many of them clung to old heathen beliefs and sneered as they
passed the den wherein moaned the wailing harmonium. Fierce fights often
raged among the population, for they were a mixed party, many of them
being emigrant islanders from the Gilbert, Ellice and Samoan Groups.
I used to wander about those old native villages, undecided whether to
go to Australia or to get a berth on one of the trading-boats bound for
Honolulu, and so make my way to San Francisco. The weather was very hot,
the thermometer reaching 95°. As I sat in the shade beneath the trees,
above my head chuckled peculiar, migratory birds, pruning their wings
and whistling to the infinite blue above their topmost bough, which
swayed gently to the welcome sea breeze that blew inland. It was there
that I saw a native funeral; a Fijian girl had died. I watched the
thatched den’s door open, as swarthy men, with bowed, lamenting heads,
bore on their shoulders the square-shaped coffin. It was sunset and the
burying-hour. The whole village started wailing, beating their breasts
and naked thighs as they moved on in the grotesque but sad procession.
One old woman, the great-grandmother, I think, led the way to the native
cemetery. It was a mournful sight, and a novel one for Western eyes, for
their grief seemed real! By a lonely forest track the procession
stopped, and there, in the shade of a mighty group of banyan-trees, was
the grave. Loudly the mourners started to wail, and the old woman and
the girls fell flat on their faces and grovelled on the forest turf,
wailing a Fijian lament, while the male mourners drank kava from little
pots to keep their spirits up. To my astonishment the old woman was
lowered into the grave first. She stretched her body out, feigning death
so well that her naked limbs and corpulent, brown frame looked stiff
with _rigor mortis_. Four powerful chiefs, two at her head and two at
the middle, slowly lowered her into the tomb.
Then came forward one who I presumed was the high priest and, standing
on the brink of the grave, he lifted his hands towards the skies and
called on the gods to take the living spirit of the old woman into the
land of death to look after the soul of the dead girl. As the high
priest yawned and finished his speech he walked away, and maidens cast
flowers on to the living body below. For a moment I thought that the old
woman was to be buried alive, but to my relief I saw her dark, skinny
fingers hastily emerge and cling to the grave’s brink, as up came her
head and she leapt out on all-fours.
Then the lid of the coffin, wherein lay the dead girl, was lifted, and
the mourners each in turn gazed upon the face and wailed. I did not
look, for the sight depressed me, and I hurried away. This method of
burial, and the ceremony which I have described, was an old custom
modified, a method employed by a new sect, a creed which was based half
on heathenism and half on Christianity, similar to the many crank
offspring creeds of Europe to-day.
After staying in Suva for two or three days, idling and boarding the few
trading schooners in the harbour, I went back to the Den of Mystery
presided over by Mr Bones. As I entered the Organization door I saw,
through the wreaths of tobacco smoke, the villainous, unshaved profiles
of the gay officials, as bending over the long bench they shuffled
cards, swore and drank rum. As they welcomed me their fierce,
suspicious, wrinkled brows smoothed out again. I had left my violin with
them and, though I had been absent several days, it stood on the shelf
over their heads as I had left it. They called on me for a solo as I sat
down and smoked, but when I responded to their wish a terrible discord
began, for the player of the smashed cornet joined in and put my ear
out; his time and tune faculties were nil. When I stopped he still blew
on, puffing out tunelessness. As the night advanced yarns began, and I
heard experiences of those rough men, and truly truth is stranger than
fiction. Much that I heard is unprintable, not so much because of its
subject and expressive thought as from the fact that in Bones’s
hospitable establishment I received trust that once betrayed would bring
dire disaster on fugitives who are still hiding, or have relatives of
high standing in England and elsewhere.
Among others there was one weird-faced fellow there at that time. He
looked thin and ill, but had been handsome in his day, and often through
his rough accent came a different utterance, that of an educated man.
Over his bunk were the photographs of a girl and of two old people.
Something in his life had played havoc with him, for secret grief had
prematurely wrinkled his brow and face. His eyes were clear, blue and
earnest-looking. All the men took to him, for he was willing enough, and
when they chaffed him he smiled good-naturedly and revealed the
expression that had lit his face up as a boy.
Bones had picked him up adrift at sea whilst he was on a trip to Tonga
in a schooner. The man had stowed away on a boat at Sydney that was
bound for South America. The detectives had got wind of his being
aboard; he had hidden himself between decks among the massed cargo,
bales of wool. After the second day at sea the detectives, who were
aboard, came down into the hold to see if they could discover his
whereabouts. Without water, and with only a few biscuits to nibble at in
his huddled confinement, he suffered agonies. It was almost stifling up
on deck under the tropical sun, but down deep in the ship’s hold he was
almost suffocated, and the droves of hungry ship rats smelt his sweating
body and viciously attacked him in the inky darkness.
“Often I had half a mind to give myself up,” said he, “for the cursed
vermin bit at my legs as I beat with my hands to keep them from eating
at my face. I dared not sleep; indeed, as I dozed off once or twice I
felt them pushing along under the legs of my trousers, and their rough
tongues, like tiny saws, licked at the beads of cold sweat that broke
out all over me.” As he continued, the game of cards along the bench
ceased; all hands became still with interest. Mabau, who crouched near
my feet, gave a deepening blush as I gazed at her squatting on the floor
beside me. She was gazing at Vituo’s photograph, which he had had taken
in Suva.
Proceeding with his story, as we puffed our pipes silently he continued:
“Suddenly I heard a creaking noise forward; the bulk-head doors were
opening! Peeping between the bales of cargo, I saw the flash of a
bull’s-eye lantern; they were crawling over the cargo searching for me!
The human bloodhounds nearly trod on my body as they flashed their
lanterns over the gloom and crept past me in the dark. In a second I saw
my chance. I noiselessly worked my body backwards, as they were
searching the cargo right ahead. Half dead I got through the bulkhead
door and stood on deck.
“It was night; the stars lit the skies overhead and the funnel belched
out reddened smoke that rolled astern. She was cutting across the
Pacific at fourteen knots. How I drank in the fresh air as I crept up by
the stokehold grating. Hiding myself by the funnel, I gazed up; there
was the bridge, and to and fro walked the captain and chief mate.
Presently I heard voices on deck; they were back from their search.
“He’s not down there,” one of them shouted. The skipper leaned over the
bridge rails. “You are on the wrong tack, I guess,” he shouted back. “I
wish they were,” thought I, and at that moment I heard their footsteps
coming up the gangway towards me.
“I held my breath; they flashed their lanterns about; one of them nearly
brushed against me as I watched. A pain shot through my head; my God, I
was done for! I clapped my hand to my mouth to save myself and muffle
the sound. With a smothering throb it came; I gave forth a tremendous
sneeze! It betrayed me. In an instant I seized the wooden grating by the
bridge gangway and leapt to the lower deck. I heard the crashing and
throbbing of the engines, as for a moment I stood by the galley
port-hole and resolved on the next step. Gripping the grating tightly, I
clambered on to the bulwark and dived into the Pacific! I felt the
thunder and swirl of the screw as the revolving blades just missed me,
and I was sucked down by the churning waters. Still clutching the
grating I came up to the surface and, resting my arms on it, gazed at
the ship. She was still thundering on, fading under the stars; I saw her
go, racing away. Evidently they had not dreamed that I had jumped
overboard.
“The cool waters refreshed me considerably. For a long while I could see
the mast-head light of the ship, and then I was alone at sea. Daybreak
crept over the world of waters and like a flood of fire the sunrise
burst up through the sky; like a speck I bobbed about. Flocks of
sea-birds sighted me and hovered overhead, then came down, their legs
hanging loosely, as they tried to peek my eyes out! I beat about with my
hands. As I got on to the grating, seeing that I was alive, they
shrieked and wheeled away.
“The hot sun rose; I became delirious with thirst and, unable to help
myself, drank sea-water. At sunset I half fell asleep as I lay on the
grating, my legs in the water. I cursed that sneeze that had placed me
in such a plight. In the night the moon rose. I was raving with
delirium; somehow that sneeze became embodied in human shape; my
delirious imagination saw it! There in the shivering moonlit water it
swam round me! Nearer and nearer its grinning, demon face came; it
seemed frog-like and half human. Dressed in a small red plush coat it
hissed at the grating and peeped at me with blue, human eyes! I watched;
the Universe crashed overhead. I waited my opportunity. It came. I
seized that sneeze by the throat, tripped and squeezed the life out of
its vile body, then flung it back into the moonlit waters. Once again it
turned and came swimming back towards me, climbed up and grinned at me!
Once more I gripped it and threw it over the side. It disappeared, and
the dark fin of a grey-nosed shark slowly rose. Reality crept into my
brain. I pulled my legs up on to the grating, which was awash with my
weight. I waited for death and shouted. I knew that fin was real enough
and only a miracle could save me; and it did, for my cry was heard. A
passing schooner spotted me across the night, and Bones there threw the
rope that saved me.”
“Right enough,” said Bones, as he knocked the ash from his pipe. Then
all the hands filled their mugs with rum and clinked them together, and
the contents, with one swallow, disappeared.
* * * * *
Such were some of the various experiences I heard from the lips of those
men. Almost everything connected with the Organization had an exciting
history attached to it; aye, from pretty Mabau to the tall hat that hung
on a peg by the emergency barrel. I think I will tell you the history of
that hat just as I heard it from Bones.
It appeared that in earlier days, before Bones had made the hiding
profession into a fine art, and one which easily amassed wealth, his
means of running the show and replenishing the food and rum casks were
not as kindly and humane as the arresting scheme, with the final relief
of the victim on getting his bribe accepted—a bribe that often
astonished Bones by its generosity, for the shabbiest fugitives were
generally the richest and the guiltiest.
Well, to proceed. That immaculate tall hat had brought the Organization
in much money. When trading-ships called in at Suva and the surrounding
isles Bones would go aboard and negotiate for the part purchase of the
general cargo; and he did well; for, though he or his representative had
no ready money, they would manage to dupe the skipper or supercargo by
giving them a false bill or an I.O.U. from some firm of repute, who knew
nothing whatever of Bones and his clever crew. Attired in a frock-coat
and that tall hat, they commanded the necessary trust and respect.
Galloway, the Yankee who worked the business personally, managed to get
a surprising amount of credit. Scores of harmoniums, musical-boxes and
miscellaneous clothes were got hold of through the Yankee’s smartness.
The whole business was run on fine, strategic lines. After a good deal
Galloway would lie low and lend the hat and frock-coat to a confederate.
Soon, however, in spite of their care, a breath of suspicion blew across
the South Seas. Skippers told each other to look out.
“You see that hole in the rim of the hat,” said Bones, pointing his
thumb to what looked like a bullet hole; “that d——d place cost me a cool
thousand pounds.” Then: “You see that ’ole, don’t you? Well, when
Galloway’s pal went aboard a schooner in Lakemba he stands on deck and
makes a deal for five hundred clocks—natives would give their souls for
a clock—and a thousand tins of meat stuff; in fact almost everything
that we wanted. Well, he gives the skipper his I.O.U., seemingly made
out and signed by a settler who was well known for his wealth and
integrity in Fiji; but, as he stood on deck and signalled to the natives
overside to bring the boats alongside to take the first load of stuff
away, the skipper, who had previously been done, spied the same hole in
that tall hat which he had noticed when Galloway duped him. So he says:
‘Before you take the stuff away have a whisky?’ and then says,
sudden-like: ‘You’ve got your pal’s old hat on; what’s become of him?
I’ve still got his I.O.U.’ Galloway’s pal at this looked uncomfortable,
and the skipper kept the ball rolling, for he whips a revolver out of
his pocket, and as H—— bolts over the side the old curse fires, bang!
H——'s ear was blown off. So ended the I.O.U. trade, and H—— left those
parts with his ear missing. Then he made a fortune through kidnapping
native girls in the Solomon and Marquesan Groups, and got on so well
that he purchased a schooner, and ten years ago called this way and
invited us on board. As we drank in the saloon aft we heard the general
cargo of naked native girls and youths wailing under the floor decks as
they called for grub! I took mercy on half-a-dozen girls next morning as
H—— got them on deck and paraded them for my inspection. I bought them
and sold three to the sailors of a German man-o’-war, and their
missionary gave me a good price for the other three.”
So Bones rambled on, telling me much which I have left out as being
unprintable and, worse—too true to enlarge upon! The traffic in native
girls for immoral purposes was common in the early days, and still is
to-day, but it is carried on now by more disguised methods; indeed, most
of the crimes that were rampant in the old days are worse than ever, for
they are carried on with deeper guile, as missionaries, earnest men
enough, leave the sorrow and sin of their own lands to spread hypocrisy
over the South Seas. For the natives are clever, and with education
simply learn the duplicity of the white race; loudly they sing the lotu
hymns as they grin in their hearts over the change in things for the
better!
Now I am approaching the end of my stay in Fiji. I had my few belongings
packed, for I had been promised a berth aboard the _Frigate Bird_, that
lay in Suva harbour and was due to leave in a few days. It had been a
swelteringly hot day. I had told Mabau that I was going away, and from
her learnt that Vituo had completely thrown her over and was much in
love with the white woman who had stayed at Suva. Tears gleamed in her
eyes as she realised that I should soon be going, and as I sat and
played the violin to the men who had befriended me while I was hard up
she looked up at me like a whipped dog, with beseeching eyes, and I felt
very sorry for her.
At sunset I walked with Bones under the coco-palms down by the river. It
was to be my last night. The smell of the decaying ferns and rotting
oranges in the jungle grass came in sweet, damp drifts as the cool
evening breeze sprang up. In the trees a few birds sang, and from
far-off came the sound of the tribal drums beating the sunset out, and
the stars to the skies, over the native village a mile away. I had the
night before been to Naraundrau to bid farewell to the old missionary.
He had crossed his hands on his breast and blessed me, then laid his
hands on my shoulders, gazed into my face and said: “Farewell, my son;
the blessing of God be with you.” I left him as a son would a father,
with sadness in my soul for his age, and in my sorrow I seemed to hear a
noise beating in my heart—like toiling shovels that day by day deepened
his grave.
As I stood by the river slope with Bones we heard the paddling of a
canoe, and round the bend came Mabau to wish me farewell. She appeared
very excited as she jumped ashore. Early moonrise bathed the pool waters
as she stood beneath the palms and to our surprise said: “Vituo is dead;
I kill him.” As she told us this she lifted her hands to the sky and
wailed. We tried to calm her, but it was no use; we only gathered that
Vituo, her faithless lover, had died by her hand. Still I can see her
figure, mirrored in the water of the moonlit pool, as she wailed,
swaying her blood-stained hands and singing a death chant that sounded
like this when translated:
“O winds of night I call, I call,
Across the hills of sleep;
Let Mabau to silence fall
For ever into sleep.”
Then gazing over her shoulder she rushed off into the jungle, and Bones
and I hurried after her. Through the trees we saw her running. Then she
reached the sea. “What’s she up to?” said Bones, as we sighted the
shore. Out on the edge of the promontory, like some carved goddess, she
stood, appealing to the skies with lifted arms as she wailed a primitive
note of sorrow. Moonlight revealed her stricken, dusky face. Up went her
arms for a moment in perfect stillness, then she dived! Bones and I
rushed over the reefs; neither of us had time to think that she might
take her own life. Stumbling into the shallow water by the rocks, we
reached the promontory and the spot where she went in. I dived and Bones
followed me. Round and round we swam, moving the liquid depths, as the
imaged stars twinkled and faded. “Mabau! Mabau!” we called, then we each
dived, scrambled and felt for her. No sight or sign of life appeared;
the dark waters had taken her young life away.
An hour later Bones and I crept back to the den, wretched and sad. We
did not speak; we still had a faint hope that she might have swum round
the promontory point, eluded us and be still alive. I could not sleep,
and at daybreak we started off together. As we reached the fatal spot
sunrise was creeping over the Pacific. Out on the extreme edge of the
promontory we stood side by side and looked down into the clear depths,
searching; for on the water floated her ridi, made from a pretty piece
of coloured silk, a present to her from the white girl who had stayed at
the Organization room. I knew it had been worn to please Vituo, whose
despicable conduct had caused his own death and that of Mabau.
Suddenly Bones said: “Look!” and pointed for a moment. I hardly dared to
gaze at the spot where he pointed, and then in perfect silence we
looked. On the sandy bottom, deep down in the water, by a boulder of red
and white coral, was Mabau, her eyelids apart as she stared fixedly up
through the clear, crystal depth. The first sunbeams stained the water
by her brown figure. The South Seas wild blackbird sang joyously in the
coco-palms, and the sails of the outbound schooner that caught the tide
faded on the horizon.
At sunset next day I bade Bones good-bye and sailed on the _Frigate
Bird_.
* * * * *
For three months I sailed among the islands in a trading schooner and
then left it at Hiva-oa, where I stayed for three weeks. I was a bit
downcast, and employed my time by hard study on the violin. There was an
old wrecked schooner on the reefs, and at night I used to creep down
into her hold and practise. I was ambitious to be a great violinist. For
a while I was in my element in that ship’s hold, and then the natives
heard my fiddle wailing and were frightened out of their lives, thinking
that the wreck was haunted by evil spirits. I was innocent enough of it
all as I played away night after night, until, looking through the
port-hole in the bright moonlight, I heard a jabbering noise and saw
hordes of natives on the beach, watching and creeping about as I played!
Then a man came aboard the wreck and shouted down the hold: “Halloa
there!” and told me that all his hired natives were packing up and
leaving for other islands, as they all thought when my violin wailed
that the old wreck was haunted by spirits of heathen gods. So I lost my
chance of being alone with my aspirations in the South Seas and once
more got a schooner and went off to Honolulu and other islands.
I managed, by being careful, to save some money from my ship and musical
engagements, for I was abstemious, and devoted my spare time to music
and reading. I made several acquaintances among the crews of the ships
that traded among the islands, many of whom were young Englishmen who
had left the mail-boats and the deep-sea liners to earn more money on
trading-boats and see the islands and the Australian cities. I also got
to know many German and Colonial sailors. The North German Lloyd
mail-ships arrived in Sydney weekly, and the hands would leave and get
jobs on the small boats running to Samoa and elsewhere in the Pacific
Isles.
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