For seventeen days we made good progress to the north-west, though we
met with such very heavy weather when between Minto Breakers Beef, and
the island of Oraluk, that I had to run back to the latter place for
shelter, and all but missed it. Although so small, it is very fertile,
and the natives were very hospitable, Niâbon and Lucia being given a
room in the chief's house, and I and my two men were given a house to
ourselves, where we were very comfortable during our stay of four days,
though unable to get about on account of the pouring rain, which hardly
ceased for an hour. The chief's house was quite near to that in which we
were quartered, so I spent a good deal of my time there, for although
I cannot say that I was really in love with my future wife, her gentle
endearments, and the happiness that shone in her dark eyes when I was
with her gave me a certain restfulness, and I was well content.
We had long since decided as to our future. After our marriage she
was to stay with her sister, or with my friends, the Otano's, on Guam,
whilst I made my way to my friend at Amboyna, and got him to provide me
with such an amount of trade goods that when I returned to Guam I should
be in a position to at once begin trading operations either in the
Marianas, with Guam for my headquarters, or else choose some suitable
place in the Caroline Archipelago. The boat, I had no doubt, I could
sell at San Luis d'Apra, or San Ignacio, and this I intended to do if
a fair price was offered me. Then I would take passage in one of the
Spanish trading schooners to Manila, and from there I could easily get
to Amboyna; and all going well, it was more than likely that my friend
would lend or sell me on easy terms, one of his own small trading
vessels, for he had half a dozen or more employed throughout the
Moluccas, and on the coast of the Phillipine Islands.
On the second day after our arrival on Oraluk, the rain cleared off
for an hour, and I went over to the chief's house, and found Lucia
conversing in Spanish with some native women who could speak it
brokenly, for years before there had been a Jesuit mission on the
island, but it had been abandoned, and the two priests, after a stay of
five years, had gone back to Manila. Niâbon was not in the house--she
had gone into the forest with some of the young girls, Lucia said, as
she bade me come in and sit down.
“She is a strange girl, Lucia. She seems to love to be in the forest, or
walking on the cliffs or mountain tops. I wish I knew the true story of
her life.”
Lucia shook her head. “She will not tell it, Jim, and I am sure she
does not like to be questioned even by me. But yet she _has_ told me a
little, and there can be no harm in my telling you--I am sure she would
not mind.”
“No, why should she mind?”
“She told me that her very first memories of her childhood go back to
when she was a child of six at Manhiki. She lived alone with her mother
in a little hut quite apart from the other people. Even then she says
she knew that her mother was a 'witch-woman' and was greatly feared
by the natives, who yet came to her for charms and medicines. Who her
mother was she does not know--but she is quite certain that she was a
full-blooded Polynesian, though not a native of Manhiki. Her father she
had never seen, nor had her mother ever made even the faintest allusion
to him, and Niâbon herself had never dared question her on the subject.
She told me, however, that she imagined he was a white man.”
“I am almost sure he was,” I said; “she certainly is not a full-blooded
native.”
“I am sure of it too. But she does not like to be thought anything but a
pure native. Why, I cannot tell, and have never asked her her reasons.”
“Is her mother still living?”
“I do not know and do not like to ask her. She told me that she, her
mother, and Tematau had left Manhiki and wandered through the islands of
the South Pacific for many years. Tematau she says is a blood relation.
He only took service as head boatman with Krause so as to be near
her, for from the very first day she saw me, she determined to live at
Taritai. And we have always been the closest friends.”
“I know she loves you very dearly,” I said, as I rose to return to my
house, for just then we saw Niâbon herself coming through the village
accompanied by a number of young women.
We left Oraluk with a slashing breeze, which we held for eight days, the
boat doing splendid work, and on the morning of the tenth day we sighted
Guam, forty miles away, and looming blue against the sky line.
“Three thousand miles,” I cried exultingly, “three thousand miles,
Lucia--in fact, nearer three thousand two hundred.”
Her dark eyes filled with tears as she pressed my hand and looked at the
home of her childhood, and even Niâbon showed some trace of excitement
as she bent her glance upon the great mound of land.
I opened our one remaining bottle of wine which had been reserved
for this auspicious day, and we shared it between us, whilst Tepi and
Tematau were each given a stiff glass of grog.
“Blow, good breeze, blow,” I cried, “blow steady and strong.”
“Blow, good wind, blow steady and true,” echoed my two men, as I eased
off the main sheet, and the boat went faster through the water, and made
a seething wake.
As we were so well to windward of the island, I determined to head for
Cape Ritidian, its north-west point, as from there I could easily pick
up Port Taro-fofo, where, so Lucia assured me, we should find a pilot
to take us down the coast to Port San Luis. Not having a chart of the
island made it necessary for me to be cautious, but Lucia was quite sure
that from Cape Ritidian we should have no trouble in running down the
coast to Tarafofo--a port with which she was quite familiar, for she had
been there on many occasions with her father. The anchorage was good,
and there was a small town at the head of the harbour, where supplies
could be obtained.
“That will do us nicely, then,” I said; “we may as well spell there for
a few days and get well rested. Oh, won't it be glorious to feel solid
earth under foot once more after the last ten weary days!” “Oh Jim, the
very thought of stepping on shore again makes my veins thrill. Oh, the
great lovely green mountain forest, and the calls of the birds and the
sweet sound of falling water--it is heaven to think of being there, in
such a beautiful country after so many, many days upon the sea! Ah, you
will love Guam, Jim! You cannot help it--it is the fairest, sweetest
land in all the world, I think.”
Her enthusiasm infected me to some degree, and bending forward to her, I
whispered,--
“Is there a church at Tarafofo, Lucia?”
A vivid blush dyed her sweet face from neck to brow.
“Yes,” she answered, so softly that I could scarce hear her, “there has
always been a church there for a hundred years. It was once plundered
and burned by pirates, so one of the priests told me when I was a
child.”
The breeze held good with us, and at four in the afternoon we ran in
under Cape Ritidian and brought to half a cable away from the shore,
which presented an aspect of the loveliest verdured hills and valleys
imaginable, fringed with a curving snow-white beach, along which were
scattered a few native houses, surrounded by plantations of bananas and
papaw trees.
Presently a boat came off manned by natives dressed in very bright
colours. They all spoke Spanish and at once offered to pilot us down to
Tarafofo Harbour, which, they said, we could enter at any time, day or
night; we accepted their services, and they came aboard, veered their
boat astern, and by nightfall we came to an anchor in a small, but safe
and exceedingly beautiful harbour.
Here more of the country people came on board, late as it was, and
pressed us to sleep on shore, telling us that there were some very
comfortable houses in the village, which was situated two miles up
the Tarafofo river. Then one of the visitors recognised Lucia, and now
invitations poured in upon us from all sides, and finally Lucia and
Niâbon, accompanied by Tematau, went ashore with them, leaving Tepi and
myself on board.
“Good-night, Jim dear,” said Lucia, as she was about to get into the
shore boat, “you will come on shore early, won't you? I don't like your
staying behind, but you and Tepi will perhaps get a good night's rest
now that three of us will be out of the way. I should never go to sleep
if I stayed on board to-night. I am so excited.”
I stooped and kissed her little upturned face, and in another moment she
was in the boat, which at once pushed off into the darkness and made for
shore.
“Good-night, again,” both she and Niâbon cried, and Tematau also called
out _Tiâkâpo_!
“Good-night, good-night,” I shouted, swaying our boat lantern in
farewell. “_Tiâkâpo, Tematau_. May you all sleep well.”
They made some merry laughing response, in which they were joined by
their hosts, and then Tepi and I were alone.
We put on the cabin hatches, spread out our sleeping mats and made
ourselves comfortable for the night, and after half an hour's smoke, we
fell asleep too tired to talk.
*****
À little after midnight the cool breeze suddenly died away, and both
Tepi and myself awoke almost at the same moment.
“The air hath grown hot, and is hard to breathe, master,” said the big
man “I fear a storm is near.”
It had indeed become very hot and stifling, but on looking at the
barometer, I saw there was no change, and so felt no concern, for we
were in an excellent position, no matter how hard, and from where it
might blow. In half an hour or so, a few heavy splashes of rain fell,
then a sudden shower, which necessitated us lifting off the hatch and
going into the cabin, and it was then that Tepi complained to me of a
severe headache, from which I was also beginning to suffer.
I had just struck a match to take another look at the glass, when
suddenly the boat began to tremble violently, and then gave such a
sudden jerk at her cable that I fell forward on my face.
“_Mafuie! Mafuie!_” (“Earthquake! earthquake!”) cried Tepi in
terror-stricken tones, as he clutched the coamings and looked seaward.
“Oh, Simi, look, look! The sea, the sea! We perish!”
May God spare me from ever seeing such another sight! A black towering
wall of water was rushing towards the boat, and ere I could frame my
lips to utter an appeal for mercy to the Almighty it was upon us, and
lifting us up on the summit of its awful crest, hurled us shoreward to
destruction. Then I remembered no more.
[Illustration: Lifting us up on the summit of its awful crest 212]
*****
Two weeks later I awoke to life and misery in a wide, low-ceiled room.
Tepi, with his arm in a sling, was bending over me, and sitting beside
my bed were two padres.
“Where am I, good fathers?” I asked.
“In San Ignacio, my son,” replied the elder of the two. “God has spared
you and this Indian sailor of yours to render thanks to Him and the Holy
Virgin for His mercy.”
“And where are my friends--the two girls and Tematau? Tell me, Tepi!
Tell me,” I said, with a dull terror at my heart. “Why do you shake and
hide your face?” Then I turned to the priests.
“For God's sake, tell me, gentlemen,” and I clutched the hand of the one
nearest to me.
“In Paradise, my son. They and three hundred other poor souls rendered
up their lives to God thirteen days ago. Scarcely a score of people in
Tarafofo escaped.”
The shock was too much for me, and I fell back again.
*****
As soon as I was strong enough for the journey I visited the scene, and
was shown, on the spot where once the church had stood, a bare, grim
mound. Underneath it lay all that was mortal of Lucia, Niàbon, Tematau,
and three hundred others, who had in one swift moment been sent to
eternity that dreadful night. Some of the few survivors, who, under the
direction of a priest, and the Governor of San Ignacio, were erecting a
tall wooden cross at the foot of the great grave, led me to the site of
the house in which my dear companions had met their deaths. Nine other
people were in the house when it fell and buried the sleepers, and the
agony must have been short for them all.
The tidal wave which accompanied the earthquake had hurled the boat and
Tepi and myself for many hundreds of yards inland. I was picked up in
the boat herself, stunned and severely injured. Tepi was carried into
a rice field, and although his arm was broken, he at once set out
in search of me, and the faithful fellow had come with me when I was
carried in a bullock cart to San Ignacio, where the doctor and priests
had brought me round after two weeks' dangerous illness.
Before leaving Guam I spent two months with my friend José Otano,
who tried hard to make me stay with him. At his house poor Lucia's
heart-broken sister came to see me very often, and I bade her farewell
with genuine sorrow.
Then one day Tepi and I turned our faces once more to the islands of the
south--and so the story of my strange adventure is told.