We were thirteen long weary days between Apamama Lagoon and Kusaie,
whose misty blue outline we hailed with delight when we first sighted it
early one afternoon, forty miles away.
Calms and light winds had delayed us greatly, for as we crawled further
northward, we were reaching the limit of the south-east trades, which,
at that time of the year, were very fickle and shifty. Not a single sail
of any description had we seen, though we kept a keen lookout night and
day; for, after being ten days out from Apamama, I began to feel anxious
about our position and would have liked to have spoken a ship, fearing
that the current, in such calm weather, would set us so far to the
westward that I should have difficulty in making the island if we once
got to leeward of it.
Day after day had passed with the same unvarying monotony--light winds,
a calm, then a brisker spell of the dying trades for a few hours, or a
day at most--then another calm lasting through the night, and so on.
But our spirits very seldom flagged, and we contrived to make the time
pass somehow. Lucia, whose face and hands were now browning deeply from
continuous exposure to the rays of a torrid sun worked with Niâbon at
dressmaking, for she had brought with her half a dozen bolts of print;
and, as they sewed, they would sometimes sing together, whilst I and my
two trusty men busied ourselves about the boat--scrubbing, scraping and
polishing inside and out, cleaning and oiling our arms; or, when a shoal
of bonita came alongside, getting out our lines and catching as many of
the blue and marbled beauties as would last us for a day or two. But our
chief relaxation, in which the two young women always joined us, was two
or three hours of “sailors' pleasure” i.e., overhauling all our joint
possessions, clothing, trade goods of all sorts, and carefully restowing
them in the boxes in which they were packed.
Tepi's wound by this time was quite healed--the bullet had gone clean
through the fleshy part of his arm, and then struck an oar which was
lashed to the rail. He had got a nail from me and drove it through the
lead into the wood--to be preserved as a memento of the fight.
On the evening of the day on which we sighted the blue peaks of
beautiful Kusaie, the sky began to look ugly to the eastward, and at
daylight it was blowing so hard, with such a dangerous sea, that I
decided not to attempt to enter the weather harbour--Port Lelé--though
that had been my intention, but to run round to the lee side to Coquille
Harbour, where we could renew our fresh provisions, spell a day or two,
and be among friends, for I knew the people of Kusaie pretty well.
We got into the smooth water of Coquille just in time, for no sooner had
we dropped anchor at the mouth of a small creek which debouched into the
harbour through a number of mangrove islets, than it commenced to blow
in real earnest, and terrific rain squalls drenched us through and made
us shiver with cold.
The natives, however, had seen us, and presently, as soon as the rain
ceased, three canoes appeared, each manned by five men. They welcomed us
very heartily and urged us to come to the village--which was less than
a quarter of a mile away. We were only too delighted to get ashore
again after thirteen days' confinement on our little craft, so hurriedly
packing a couple of boxes with dry clothing, and some articles for
presents for the people, we put on the cabin hatches, made everything
else snug on board, and half an hour later were all in the chiefs house,
warm and dry, and telling him and his family as much about ourselves as
we thought advisable.
As soon as it could be cooked, they brought us an ample meal of
hot baked fowls, pigeons, and fish, with a great quantity of
vegetables--taro, yams, breadfruit, and sweet potatoes. The very smell
of it, Tepi whispered to me, made his teeth clash together!
We remained with these hospitable people for four days. There was
nothing that they would not do for us--no trouble was too groat, no
labour was aught but a pleasure to them. They brought the _Lucia_
round to a small sandy beach near the village, discharged her, carried
everything up to the houses, and cleaned her thoroughly inside and out,
and then put her in the water again for us. When we bid them farewell
and sailed, the boat's deck was covered with baskets of freshly-cooked
food and a profusion of fruit, and Lucia and Niâbon were accompanied
on board by every woman and girl in the place, some of whom wept
unrestrainedly, and begged them not to venture their lives in such a
small boat, but to remain on the island till a ship touched there, bound
to the islands of the further north-west.
Before finally parting with our kind friends I gave them twenty pounds
of tobacco, which, though we had still four hundredweight left, was
still our most valuable trade article, and would have to be disbursed
carefully in future, and Lucia gave the chief's daughter a very handsome
gold ring of Indian manufacture, though at first the girl declined
accepting so valuable a present.
[Illustration: A glorious silver moon in the sky 174]
We lost sight of Kusaie within ten hours, for we had a slashing breeze,
which carried us along in great style, and all that night we sat up,
none of us caring to sleep, for there was a glorious silver moon in a
sky of spotless blue, and the sea itself was as a floor of diamonds.
Niâbon and Lucia, I must mention, had insisted on standing watch ever
since we had left Apamama, and they certainly helped us a lot, for both
could now steer very well, and took pleasure in it. The former, with
Tepi, was in my watch, the latter was with Tematau, who, like all
Eastern Polynesians, was a good sailor-man and could always be relied
upon.
We had now sailed over a thousand miles; and every day--every hour I
gained more confidence in myself, and the resolution to make one of the
greatest boat voyages across the Pacific had been ever strengthening
in my mind since the day I looked at Chart No. 780 in Krause's house at
Taritai.
What could I not do with such a boat and two such men as Tepi and
Tematau, after we had landed Lucia and Niâbon at Guam in the for north!
We would refit the boat, and then turn our faces south once more, and
sail back through the Western Carolines on to wild New Guinea--Dutch New
Guinea, and run along the coast till we came to one of the few scattered
Dutch settlements on the shores of that _terra incognita_. Tepi and
Tematau would stick to me--they had sworn to do so--had told me so in
whispers one bright night, as we three kept watch together and Lucia and
Niâbon slept.
Niâbon! What a strange strange girl she was! I should find it hard to
say goodbye to her, I thought; and then I felt my cheeks flush.
Say goodbye to her--part from her! Why should we part? Was I so much her
superior that I need be ashamed of asking her to be my wife? What was
I, anyway, but a broken man--a man whose father, my sole remaining
relative, had nearly twenty years before told me with savage contempt
that I had neither brains, energy, nor courage enough to make my way in
the world, thrown me a cheque for a hundred pounds, and sneeringly told
me to get it cashed at once, else he might repent of having given it
to me to squander among the loose people with whom I so constantly
associated. And I had never seen or heard from him, and never would. But
I had that cheque still, for there always was in me a latent affection
for the cold-faced, unsympathetic man who had broken my mother's heart,
not by open unkindness, but by what the head gardener whisperingly told
me (when she was lying dead, and I, sent for from college to attend the
funeral, went to his cottage to see him) was “silent, inwisible neglect,
Master James; silent, inwisible neglect. That's wot killed her.” For
the servants loved my poor mother--their opinion of my father they
discreetly kept to themselves. So I had kept the cheque, for burning
with resentment against him as I was at the time, I remembered the words
of my mother's last letter to me, written with her dying hand.
“Try hard to please him, James. He is very cold and stern, but I am sure
that, deep down in his heart, he loves you well.”
That letter, with the cheque inside it, was now yellowed, and the
writing faint, but I had kept them both. I would write to him some day,
I had thought, and send him back the cheque, and my mother's letter as
well, and then perhaps the hard old man would forgive me, and write and
say “Come.” But the years went by, and I never wrote, and now it was too
late, after fifteen had passed. Very likely he was dead, and had willed
his money to churches or hospitals, or some such charities, and I should
always be “Jim Sherry, the trader,” to the end of my days, and never
“James Shervinton, Esq., of Moya Woods, Donegal.”
Well, after all, what did it matter? I thought, as I held on to the
forestay, and looked at the now paling moon sinking low down on our lee,
as the glow of the coming sun tipped a bank of cloud to windward, with
a narrow wavering ribbon of shining gold. I had nothing at which to
grumble. My fifteen years of wandering had done me good, although I had
not saved money--money, that in my father's eyes brought, before eternal
salvation in the next world, primarily the beatitudes of some county
eminence in Ireland and British respectability generally in this. Unless
my father was still alive, and I could know he wanted to see me before
he died, I should never go home--not after fifteen years of South Sea
life.
Why should I not accept what Fate meant for me, and my own inclinations
told me that I was destined for? I was intended to be “Jim Sherry, the
trader,”--and I should ask “Niâbon, of Danger Island,” to be
“Jim Sherry's” wife. Why not. I had never cared for any woman before
except in a fleeting, and yet degrading manner--in a way which had left
no memories with me that I could look back upon with tender regrets.
She and I together might do great things in the South Seas, and found
a colony of our own. She had white blood in her veins--of that I
felt certain--and where Ben Boyd, of the old colonial days, failed to
achieve, I, with a woman like Niâbon for my wife, could succeed. Ben
Boyd was a dreamer, a man of wealth and of flocks and herds, in the
newly-founded convict settlement of New South Wales, and his dream
was the founding of a new state in the Solomon Islands, where he, an
autocratic, but beneficent ruler, would reign supreme, and the English
Government recognise him as a Clive, a Warren Hastings of the Southern
Seas. But the clubs of the murderous Solomon Islanders--the country
of the people in which he had already planned out vast achievements on
paper--battered out his brains almost under the guns of his beautiful
armed yacht, the _Wanderer_; and the name of Ben Boyd was now alone
remembered by a decayed village and a ruined lighthouse on the south
headland of Twofold Bay, in New South Wales, where, in the days of his
prosperity, he had erected it, as a guide to the numerous American and
English whaleships, which in those times traversed the Pacific from one
end to the other, and would, he imagined, eagerly avail themselves of
the quiet, landlocked harbour to repair and recruit, and sell their
cargoes of sperm oil. But they never came, and his dream was ended ere
his life was gone.
Yes, I would ask her, as soon as I had an opportunity of speaking to her
alone. It was true that she had once told me that she would never part
from Lucia--and Lucia had often spoken to me of their plans for the
future.
But, my vanity whispered, she would listen to me She cared for me, I was
sure, and would not long hesitate. We were certain to meet with at least
one missionary going through the Carolines, and he would many us. If we
did not, it would not matter--there were half a dozen Spanish priests
in Guam. Then after our marriage I would go on in the boat to Amboyna,
where I had a business friend, a rich trader--a man who liked and
trusted me, and who would give me a thousand, ay, two thousand pounds'
worth of trade goods for my pencilled I.O.U. in his notebook. Then I
would buy a little schooner, and sail with Niâbon to the islands of
the south-eastern Pacific, and begin trading. I would make Rapa, in
the Austral Group, my head station, or else Manga Reva in the southern
Paumotus--Niâbon should decide.
The low cloud to windward lifted, the red sun leapt from the sea-rim,
and then I felt a soft hand on my arm.
“What are you thinking of, Jim? I called you twice, but you did not
hear. I believe you were talking to yourself, for I twice saw you throw
out your arm as if you were speaking to some one.”
“I believe I was, Lucia,” I replied with a laugh. “I was day-dreaming.”
“Tell me, Jim,” she said softly, so softly that her voice sank to a
whisper.
“Not now, Lucia. Wait till we get to the next land.” And then in all
innocence I added, as I looked at her, “How bright and happy you look,
Lucia! I think you grow more beautiful every day.”
She lifted her eyes to mine for one instant, and I saw in them a light I
had never seen before.