Four years had come and gone since the day that Challis, with a dull
and savage misery in his heart, had, cursing the love-madness which
once possessed him, walked out from his house in an Australian city
with an undefined and vague purpose of going "somewhere" to drown his
sense of wrong and erase from his memory the face of the woman who, his
wife of not yet a year, had played with her honour and his. So he
thought, anyhow.
* * * * *
You see, Challis was "a fool"--at least so his pretty, violet-eyed wife
had told him that afternoon with a bitter and contemptuous ring in her
voice when he had brought another man's letter--written to her--and
with impulsive and jealous haste had asked her to explain. He was a
fool, she had said, with an angry gleam in the violet eyes, to think
she could not "take care" of herself. Admit receiving that letter? Of
course! Did he think she could help other men writing silly letters to
her? Did he not think she could keep out of a mess? And she smiled the
self-satisfied smile of a woman conscious of many admirers and of her
own powers of intrigue.
Then Challis, with a big effort, gulping down the rage that stirred
him, made his great mistake. He spoke of his love for her. Fatuity! She
laughed at him, said that as she detested women, his love was too
exacting for her, if it meant that she should never be commonly
friendly with any other man.
* * * * *
Challis looked at her steadily for a few moments, trying to smother the
wild flood of black suspicion aroused in him by the discovery of the
letter, and confirmed by her sneering words, and then said quietly, but
with a dangerous inflection in his voice--
"Remember--you are my wife. If you have no regard for your own
reputation, you shall have some for mine. I don't want to entertain my
friends by thrashing R----, but I'm not such a fool as you think. And
if you go further in this direction you'll find me a bit of a brute."
Again the sneering laugh--"Indeed! Something very tragic will occur, I
suppose?"
"No," said Challis grimly, "something damned prosaic--common enough
among men with pretty wives--I'll clear out."
"I wish you would do that now," said his wife, "I hate you quite
enough."
Of course she didn't quite mean it. She really liked Challis in her own
small-souled way--principally because his money had given her the
social pleasures denied her during her girlhood. With an unmoved face
and without farewell he left her and went to his lawyer's.
A quarter of an hour later he arose to go, and the lawyer asked him
when he intended returning.
"That all depends upon her. If she wants me back again, she can write,
through you, and I'll come--if she has conducted herself with a
reasonable amount of propriety for such a pretty woman."
Then, with an ugly look on his face, Challis went out; next day he
embarked in the LADY ALICIA for a six months' cruise among the islands
of the North-west Pacific.
* * * * *
That was four years ago, and to-day Challis, who stands working at a
little table set in against an open window, hammering out a ring from a
silver coin on a marline-spike and vyce, whistles softly and
contentedly to himself as he raises his head and glances through the
vista of coconuts that surround his dwelling on this lonely and almost
forgotten island.
"The devil!" he thinks to himself, "I must be turning into a native.
Four years! What an ass I was! And I've never written yet--that is,
never sent a letter away. Well, neither has she. Perhaps, after all,
there was little in that affair of R----'s.... By God! though, if
there was, I've been very good to them in leaving them a clear field.
Anyhow, she's all right as regards money. I'm glad I've done that. It's
a big prop to a man's conscience to feel he hasn't done anything mean;
and she likes money--most women do. Of course I'll go back--if she
writes. If not--well, then, these sinful islands can claim me for their
own; that is, Nalia can."
* * * * *
A native boy with shaven head, save for a long tuft on the left side,
came down from the village, and, seating himself on the gravelled space
inside the fence, gazed at the white man with full, lustrous eyes.
"Hallo, TAMA!" said Challis, "whither goest now?"
"Pardon, Tialli. I came to look at thee making the ring. Is it of soft
silver--and for Nalia, thy wife?"
"Ay, O shaven-head, it is. Here, take this MASI and go pluck me a young
nut to drink," and Challis threw him a ship-biscuit. Then he went on
tapping the little band of silver. He had already forgotten the violet
eyes, and was thinking with almost childish eagerness of the soft glow
in the black orbs of Nalia when she should see his finished handiwork.
The boy returned with a young coconut, unhusked. "Behold, Tialli. This
nut is a UTO GA'AU (sweet husk). When thou hast drunk the juice give it
me back, that I may chew the husk which is sweet as the sugar-cane of
Samoa," and he squatted down again on the gravel.
* * * * *
Challis drank, then threw him the husk and resumed his work. Presently
the boy, tearing off a strip of the husk with his white teeth, said,
"Tialli, how is it that there be no drinking-nuts in thy house?"
"Because, O turtle-head, my wife is away; and there are no men in the
village to-day; and because the women of this MOTU [Island or country.]
I have no thought that the PAPALAGI [Foreigner] may be parched with
thirst, and so come not near me with a coconut." This latter in jest.
"Nay, Tialli. Not so. True it is that to-day all the men are in the bush
binding FALA leaves around the coconut trees, else do the rats steal up
and eat the buds and clusters of little nuts. And because Nalia, thy
wife, is away at the other White Man's house no woman cometh inside the
door."
Challis laughed. "O evil-minded people of Nukunono! And must I, thy
PAPALAGI, be parched with thirst because of this?"
"FAIAGA OE, Tialli, thou but playest with me. Raise thy hand and call
out 'I thirst!' and every woman in the village will run to thee, each
with a drinking-nut, and those that desire thee, but are afraid, will
give two. But to come inside when Nalia is away would be to put shame
on her."
* * * * *
The white man mused. The boy's solemn chatter entertained him. He knew
well the native customs; but, to torment the boy, he commenced again.
"O foolish custom! See how I trust my wife Nalia. Is she not even now
in the house of another white man?"
"True. But, then, he is old and feeble, and thou young and strong. None
but a fool desires to eat a dried flying-fish when a fresh one may be
had."
"O wise man with the shaven crown," said Challis, with mocking good
nature, "thou art full of wisdom of the ways of women. And if I were
old and withered, would Nalia then be false to me in a house of another
and younger white man?"
"How could she? Would not he, too, have a wife who would watch her? And
if he had not, and were NOFO NOA (single), would he be such a fool to
steal that the like of which he can buy--for there are many girls
without husbands as good to look on as that Nalia of thine. And all
women are alike," and then, hearing a woman's voice calling his name,
he stood up.
"Farewell, O ULU TULA POTO (Wise Baldhead)," said Challis, as the boy,
still chewing his sweet husk, walked back to the native houses clustered
under the grove of PUA trees.
* * * * *
Ere dusk, Nalia came home, a slenderly-built girl with big dreamy eyes,
and a heavy mantle of wavy hair. A white muslin gown, fastened at the
throat with a small silver brooch, was her only garment, save the folds
of the navy-blue-and-white LAVA LAVA round her waist, which the
European-fashioned garment covered.
Challis was lying down when she came in. Two girls who came with her
carried baskets of cooked food, presents from old Jack Kelly, Challis's
fellow-trader. At a sign from Nalia the girls took one of the baskets
of food and went away. Then, taking off her wide-brimmed hat of FALA
leaf, she sat down beside Challis and pinched his cheek.
"O lazy one! To let me walk from the house of Tiaki all alone!"
"Alone! There were two others with thee."
"Tapa Could I talk to THEM! I, a white man's wife, must not be too
familiar with every girl, else they would seek to get presents from me
with sweet words. Besides, could I carry home the fish and cooked fowl
sent thee by old Tiaki? That would be unbecoming to me, even as it
would be if thou climbed a tree for a coconut,"--and the daughter of
the Tropics laughed merrily as she patted Challis on his sunburnt
cheek.
Challis rose, and going to a little table, took from it the ring.
"See, Nalia, I am not lazy as thou sayest. This is thine."
The girl with an eager "AUE!" took the bauble and placed it on her
finger. She made a pretty picture, standing there in the last glow of
the sun as it sank into the ocean, her languorous eyes filled with a
tender light.
Challis, sitting on the end of the table regarding her with half-amused
interest as does a man watching a child with a toy, suddenly flushed
hotly. "By God! I can't be such a fool as to begin to LOVE her in
reality, but yet ... Come here, Nalia," and he drew her to him, and,
turning her face up so that he might look into her eyes, he asked:
"Nalia, hast thou ever told me any lies?"
The steady depths of those dark eyes looked back into his, and she
answered:
"Nay, I fear thee too much to lie. Thou mightst kill me."
"I do but ask thee some little things. It matters not to me what the
answer is. Yet see that thou keepest nothing hidden from me."
The girl, with parted lips and one hand on his, waited.
"Before thou became my wife, Nalia, hadst thou any lovers?"
"Yes, two--Kapua and Tafu-le-Afi."
"And since?"
"May I choke and perish here before thee if I lie! None."
Challis, still holding her soft brown chin in his hand, asked her one
more question--a question that only one of his temperament would have
dared to ask a girl of the Tokelaus.
"Nalia, dost thou love me?"
"Aye, ALOFA TUMAU (everlasting love). Am I a fool? Are there not Letia,
and Miriami, and Eline, the daughter of old Tiaki, ready to come to
this house if I love any but thee? Therefore my love is like the
suckers of the FA'E (octopus) in its strength. My mother has taught me
much wisdom."
A curious feeling of satisfaction possessed the man, and next day
Letia, the "show" girl of the village, visiting Challis's store to buy
a tin of salmon, saw Nalia, the Lucky One, seated on a mat beneath the
seaward side of the trader's house, surrounded by a billowy pile of
yellow silk, diligently sewing.
"Ho, dear friend of my heart! Is that silken dress for thee? For the
love of God, let me but touch it. Four dollars a fathom it be priced
at. Thy husband is indeed the king of generosity. Art thou to become a
mother?"
"Away, silly fool, and do thy buying and pester me not."
* * * * *
Challis, coming to the corner of the house, leant against a post, and
something white showed in his hand. It was a letter. His letter to the
woman of violet eyes, written a week ago, in the half-formed idea of
sending it some day. He read it through, and then paused and looked at
Nalia. She raised her head and smiled. Slowly, piece by piece, he tore
it into tiny little squares, and, with a dreamy hand-wave, threw them
away. The wind held them in mid-air for a moment, and then carried the
little white flecks to the beach.
"What is it?" said the bubbling voice of Letia, the Disappointed.
"Only a piece of paper that weighed as a piece of iron on my bosom. But
it is gone now."
"Even so," said Letia, smelling the gaudy label on the tin of salmon in
the anticipative ecstasy of a true Polynesian, "PE SE MEA
FA'AGOTOIMOANA (like a thing buried deep in ocean). May God send me a
white man as generous as thee--a whole tin of SAMANI for nothing! Now
do I know that Nalia will bear thee a son."
* * * * *
And that is why Challis the Doubter has never turned up again.
"'TIS IN THE BLOOD"
We were in Manton's Hotel at Levuka-Levuka in her palmy days. There
were Robertson, of the barque ROLUMAH; a fat German planter from the
Yasawa Group; Harry the Canadian, a trader from the Tokelaus, and
myself.
Presently a knock came to the door, and Allan, the boatswain of our
brig, stood hat in hand before us. He was a stalwart half-caste of
Manhiki, and, perhaps, the greatest MANAIA (Lothario) from Ponape to
Fiji.
"Captain say to come aboard, please. He at the Consul's for papers--he
meet you at boat," and Allan left.
"By shingo, dot's a big fellow," said Planter Oppermann.
"Ay," said Robertson, the trading skipper, "and a good man with his
mauleys, too. He's the champion knocker-out in Samoa, and is a match
for any Englishman in Polynesia, let alone foreigners"--with a sour
glance at the German.
"Well, good-bye all," I said. "I'm sorry, Oppermann, I can't stay for
another day for your wedding, but our skipper isn't to be got at
anyhow."
The trading captain and Harry walked with me part of the way, and then
began the usual Fiji GUP.
"Just fancy that fat-headed Dutchman going all the way to Samoa and
picking on a young girl and sending her to the Sisters to get educated
properly! As if any old beach-girl isn't good enough for a blessed
Dutchman. Have you seen her?"
"No," I said; "Oppermann showed me her photo. Pretty girl. Says she's
been three years with the Sisters in Samoa, and has got all the virtues
of her white father, and none of the vices of her Samoan mammy. Told me
he's spent over two thousand dollars on her already."
Robertson smiled grimly. "Ay, I don't doubt it. He's been all round
Levuka cracking her up. I brought her here last week, and the
Dutchman's been in a chronic state of silly ever since. She's an
almighty fine girl. She's staying with the Sisters here till the
marriage. By the Lord, here she is now coming along the street! Bet a
dollar she's been round Vagadace way, where there are some fast Samoan
women living. 'Tis in the blood, I tell you."
The future possessor of the Oppermann body and estate WAS a pretty
girl. Only those who have seen fair young Polynesian half-castes--before
they get married, and grow coarse, and drink beer, and smoke like a
factory chimney--know how pretty.
Our boat was at the wharf, and just as we stood talking Allan sauntered
up and asked me for a dollar to get a bottle of gin. Just then the
German's FIANCEE reached us. Robertson introduced Harry and myself to
her, and then said good-bye. She stood there in the broiling Fijian sun
with a dainty sunshade over her face, looking so lovely and cool in her
spotless muslin dress, and withal so innocent, that I no longer
wondered at the Dutchman's "chronic state of silly."
Allan the Stalwart stood by waiting for his dollar. The girl laughed
joyously when Harry the Canadian said he would be at the wedding and
have a high time, and held out her soft little hand as he bade her
adieu and strolled off for another drink.
The moment Harry had gone Allan was a new man. Pulling off his straw
hat, he saluted her in Samoan, and then opened fire.
"There are many TEINE LALELEI (beautiful girls) in the world, but there
is none so beautiful as thou. Only truth do I speak, for I have been to
all countries of the world. Ask him who is here--our supercargo--if I
lie. O maid with the teeth of pearl and face like FETUAO (the morning
star), my stomach is drying up with the fire of love."
The sunshade came a little lower, and the fingers played nervously with
the ivory handle. I leant against a coconut tree and listened.
"Thy name is Vaega. See that! How do I know? Aha, how do I? Because,
for two years or more, whenever I passed by the stone wall of the
Sisters' dwelling in Matafele, I climbed up and watched thee, O Star of
the Morning, and I heard the other girls call thee Vaega. Oho! and some
night I meant to steal thee away."
(The rascal! He told me two days afterwards that the only time he ever
climbed the Mission wall was to steal mangoes.)
The sunshade was tilted back, and displayed two big, black eyes,
luminous with admiring wonder.
"And so thou hast left Samoa to come here to be devoured by this fat
hog of a Dutchman! Dost thou not know, O foolish, lovely one, that she
who mates with a SIAMANI (German) grows old in quite a little time, and
thy face, which is now smooth and fair, will be coarse as the rind of a
half-ripe bread-fruit, because of the foul food these swine of Germans
eat?"
"Allan," I called, "here's the captain!"
There was a quick clasp of hands as the Stalwart One and the Maid
hurriedly spoke again, this time in a whisper, and then the white
muslin floated away out of sight.
The captain was what he called "no' so dry"--viz. half-seas over, and
very jolly. He told Allan he could have an hour to himself to buy what
he wanted, and then told me that the captain of a steam collier had
promised to give us a tug out at daylight. "I'm right for the
wedding-feast after all," I thought.
* * * * *
But the wedding never came off. That night Oppermann, in a frantic
state, was tearing round Levuka hunting for his love, who had
disappeared. At daylight, as the collier steamed ahead and tautened our
tow-line, we could see the parties of searchers with torches scouring
the beach. Our native sailors said they had heard a scream about ten at
night and seen the sharks splashing, and the white liars of Levuka
shook their heads and looked solemn as they told tales of monster
sharks with eight-foot jaws always cruising close in to the shore at
night.
* * * * *
Three days afterwards Allan came to me with stolid face and asked for a
bottle of wine, as Vaega was very sea-sick. I gave him the wine, and
threatened to tell the captain. He laughed, and said he would fight any
man, captain or no captain, who meddled with him. And, as a matter of
fact, he felt safe--the skipper valued him too much to bully him over
the mere stealing of a woman. So the limp and sea-sick Vaega was
carried up out of the sweating foc'sle and given a cabin berth, and
Allan planked down two twenty-dollar pieces for her passage to the
Union Group. When she got better she sang rowdy songs, and laughed all
day, and made fun of the holy Sisters. And one day Allan beat her with
a deal board because she sat down on a band-box in the trade-room and
ruined a hat belonging to a swell official's wife in Apia. And she
liked him all the better for it.
* * * * *
The fair Vaega was Mrs Allan for just six months, when his erratic
fancy was captivated by the daughter of Mauga, the chief of Tutuila,
and an elopement resulted to the mountains. The subsequent and
inevitable parting made Samoa an undesirable place of residence for
Allan, who shipped as boatsteerer in the NIGER of New Bedford. As for
Vaega, she drifted back to Apia, and there, right under the shadow of
the Mission Church, she flaunted her beauty. The last time I saw her
was in Charley the Russian's saloon, when she showed me a letter. It
was from the bereaved Oppermann, asking her to come back and marry him.
"Are you going?" I said.
"E PULE LE ATUA (if God so wills), but he only sent me twenty dollars,
and that isn't half enough. However, there's an American man-of-war
coming next week, and these other girls will see then. I'll make the
PAPALAGI [foreign] officers shell out. TO FA, ALII [Good-bye]."