Have you ever tried to manage a South Sea canoe, a thing not much
wider than a skiff, with mast and sail out of all proportion to the
beam, yet made possible because of the outrigger?
The outrigger, a long skate-shaped piece of wood, is supposed to
stabilize the affair; it is always fixed to port and is connected to
the canoe proper in two chief ways, either by a pole fore and aft or
by a central bridge of six curved lengths of wood to which the mast
stays are fixed; there are subsidiary forms with three outrigger
poles, with two outrigger poles and a bridge, but it was in a canoe of
the pure bridge type that Bud Davis and William Harman found
themselves afloat in the Pacific, making west with an unreliable
compass, a dozen and a half drinking nuts, a breaker of water and food
for a fortnight.
They had been shot out of a pearl lagoon by the rightful owner and
robbed of two double handfuls of pearls which they had collected in
his absence. Given the offer of a canoe to go to the devil in or
honest work at two dollars a day with board and lodging free, they had
chosen the canoe.
They could work; they had worked like beavers for months and months
collecting those pearls, but they weren’t going to work for wages.
“No, sir,” said Harman, “I ain’t come down to that yet. Billy Harman’s
done signin’ on to be sweated like a gun-mule and hove in the harbour
when he’s old bones; the beach is good enough for him if it comes to
bed-rock.”
It had certainly come to bed-rock now this glorious morning, two days
out and steering into the face of the purple west, the great sun
behind them just risen and leaning his chin on the sea line.
Harman was at the steering paddle, Davis forward. They had breakfasted
on cold water and bananas, and Billy was explaining to Davis exactly
the sort of fools they had been, not in refusing work and good grub
and pay, but in having failed to scrag Mandelbaum, the pearl man.
“Oh, shut up,” said Davis, “you’re always going back on things, and
you haven’t it in you to scrag a chicken, anyhow; always serving out
that parson’s dope about it not paying to run crooked.”
“Nor it don’t,” said the moralist. “There ain’t enough mugs in the
world, as I’ve told you more than twice. I don’t say there ain’t
enough, but they’re too spread about—now if you could get them all
congeriated into one place, I wouldn’t be behind you in waltzing in
with a clear conscience an’ takin’ their hides—but there ain’t such a
place—— ’Nother thing that queers the pitch is the way sharps let on
to be mugs. Look at Clayton.”
“What about Clayton?”
“Well, look at him. In we sails to that pearl shop and there we finds
him on the beach. Looked like the king of the mugs, didn’t he, with
his big, round face and them blue-gooseberry eyes. ‘Here’s a sealed
lagoon for you,’ says he, ‘I’m done with it; got all the pearls I want
and am only wishful to get away; take it for nix, I only want your
ship in exchange, and we fall to the deal and off he goes.’
“We didn’t know he’d sailed off with all his pardner’s pearls, did we?
And when his pardner, Mandelbaum, turns up and collars our takin’s,
and kicks us out in this durned canoe after we’d been workin’ months
and months, our pitch wasn’t queered—was it? And all by a sharp got
up to look like a sucker and be d——d to him. Well, I hopes he’ll fry
in blazes if he ain’t drowned before he cashes them pearls. I ain’t
given to cursin’, but I could curse a hole in this dished canoe when I
thinks of the hand we give him by fallin’ into his trap and the trick
he served us by settin’ it.”
“MIND!” yelled Davis.
Harman, in his mental upset, had neglected his steering, and the canoe
paying off before the wind nearly flogged the mast out as Davis let go
the sheet.
There are two sure ways of capsizing a South Sea canoe—letting the
outrigger run under too deep and letting it tip into the air. They
nearly upset her both ways before matters were righted, then pursuing
again the path of the flying fish, the little canoe retook the wind,
tepid and sea-scented and blowing out of the blue north-west.
An hour after sunrise next morning Davis, on the look-out, saw a
golden point in the sky away to the south of west. It was the cloud
turban of Motul. A moment later Harman saw it too.
“Lord! it’s a high island,” cried he. “I thought there was nuthin’ but
low islands in these parts. Where have we been driftin’ to?”
“I don’t know,” replied Davis. “Mind your steering, it’s land, that’s
all I want.”
“Oh, I ain’t grumblin’,” said Harman. He got her a point closer to the
wind and steered, keeping the far-off speck on the port bow. The
breeze freshened and the stays of the mast, fastened to the outrigger
grating, twanged while the spray came inboard now and then in dashes
from the humps of the swell, yet not a white cap was to be seen in all
the vast expanse of water, the great sea running with a heave in the
line of Humboldt’s current from south to north, but without a foam
gout to break the ruffled blue.
At noon Motul had lost its turban of cloud, but now it stood, a great
lumping island moulded out of mountains, scarred with gulleys down
which burst forests and rainbow falls, for Motul was green with the
recent rains and its perfume met them ten miles across the sea.
There seemed no encircling reef, just a line of reef here and there,
beyond which lay topaz and aquamarine sheets of water bathing the feet
of the great black cliffs of Motul.
“Ain’t a place I’d choose for a lee shore,” said Billy, “but this
canoe don’t draw more than a piedish, and I reckon we can get her in
most anywhere across the reefs. Question is where do them cliffs
break?”
They kept a bit more to the south, and there sure enough was the big
break where the cliffs seem smashed with an axe and where the deep
water comes in, piercing the land so that you might anchor a
battleship so close that the wild cliff-hanging convolvulus could
brush its truck and fighting tops.
“We can’t make it before dark,” said Billy.
“Don’t matter,” said Davis.
It didn’t; although the moon had not risen, the stars lit Motul and
the great dark harbour that pierces the land like a sword.
The breeze had almost fallen dead as they came in, nothing but the sea
spoke, breaking on the rocks and lipping up the cliffs, where screw
pines clung and the great datura trumpets blew in the silver light.
Then as they stole across the water of the harbour, the dying breeze
laying glittering fans before them, they saw, right ahead on the shore
where the dark cliffs drew away, lights twinkling and dancing like
fireflies, lights standing and moveless, lights crawling like
glowworms. It was Amaho, the chief village of Motul, and the lights
were the lights of the houses, the fish spearers, the lovers and the
wayfarers of the chief town of Paradise.
For Motul is Paradise in all things that relate to the senses of
sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch, and its people are part of
their environment. Here there are no ugly women and few old people,
here bathing is perpetual as summer, and summer is never oppressive.
Here everything grows that is of any use in the tropics.
The pineapples of Motul are as white inside as sawn deal, yet you can
almost eat them with a spoon, and their flavour beats that of the
Brazilian pineapple, the English hothouse and the pine of Bourbon;
they have fig bananas with a delicate golden stripe unobtainable
elsewhere, and passion fruit with a vanilla flavour only to be found
at Motul.
Also there are girls.
Harman and his companion, faced with the lights of the town,
determined not to land till morning. They dropped their stone killick
in six-fathom water, ate the last of their bananas, turned on their
sides and fell asleep to be awakened by the dawn, a dawn of many
colours standing against the far horizon on a carpet of rose and fire.
Then, all of a sudden, tripping across the sea, she pulled up a
curtain and the sun hit Amaho, the bay, the beach, and the anchored
canoes, including the stranger canoe that had arrived during the
night.
“Look,” said Harman, “they’ve spotted us.” He pointed to the beach,
where a crowd was gathering, a crowd with faces all turned seaward.
Children were running along the sands, calling their elders out of
houses to come and look, and now heads of swimmers began to dot the
water and girls with flowers in their dark hair came towards the
canoe, swimming with the effortless ease of fish; girls, young men,
and boys, the whole population of Amaho seemed to have taken to the
sea, and with them Davis held converse in broken _bêche de mer_, while
Harman gloomily considered the “skirts.”
I think Harman’s dislike of womenfolk had less to do with misogyny
pure and simple than with a feeling, born from experience, that women
tend to crab deals and interfere with the progress of prosperity, just
as it is coming along to you by devious, not to say crooked paths.
There was nothing in the way of any possible deal looming before them
this morning. All the same, the ingenuous Harman did not relax or
unbend in the least before this vision of friendly mermaids, one of
whom was boldly now grasping the starboard gunnel with a wet hand
while another, to port, was engaged in putting a leg over the
outrigger.
“They’re a friendly lot,” said Davis over his shoulder to the other.
“Ain’t much to be done here as far as I can see, no shell nor turtle,
and they’re too lazy to make copra, but it’s a good place to rest in
and refit.”
“It’ll be a good place to drown in if that piece don’t get off the
outrigger,” said Harman.
“Well, what’s your opinion, shall we shove her in?”
“Aye, shove her in,” said Harman, and, getting up the anchor, they
took to the paddles, making for the beach with an escort of swimmers
ahead, to port, to starboard and astern.
It was the girl on the outrigger that did the business, a wild-eyed,
elfish-looking, yet beautiful individual, divorced from the humdrum
civilized scheme of things as Pan or Puck. She only wanted horns and a
little fur trimming or a small addition of wings to have done for
either.
As it was, she nearly did for Mr. Harman. In some miraculous way an
affinity exhibited itself between these two, an attraction drew one
towards the other, so that at the end of a week if you had seen Billy
anywhere about by himself, sitting on the beach or lying in the shade
of the trees, you would ten to one have found Kinie—that was her
name—not far off.
She had attached herself like a dog to the man, and Billy after a
while, and towards the end of the first week, found himself drifting
far from his old moorings.
He and Davis had built themselves a house in forty-eight hours and
food was on every hand; they had no cares or worries, no taxes,
eternal summer and the best fishing south of California, bathing,
boating, yet they were not happy; at least, Davis was not.
Civilization, like savagery, breeds hunters, and your hunter is not
happy when he is idle; there was nothing to be shot at here in the way
of money, so Davis was not happy. Harman, dead to the beauty around
him, might have shared the discontent of the other, only for Kinie.
She gave him something to think about.
Drowsing one day under a bread-fruit tree, a squashy fruit like a
custard apple fell on his head, and, looking up, he saw Kinie among
the leaves looking down at him. Next moment she was gone. Bread-fruit
trees don’t grow apples like that; she must have carried it there to
drop it on him, a fact which, having bored itself into Mr. Harman’s
intelligence, produced a certain complacency. He had been in her
thoughts.
An hour or two later, sitting by the edge of the beach, she came and
sat near him, dumb and stringing coloured pieces of coral
together—anything coloured seemed to fascinate her—and there they
sat, saying nothing, but seemingly content till Davis hove in sight
and Kinie, gathering up her treasures, scampered off.
“You and that gal seem mighty thick,” said Davis. “Blest if you aren’t
a contradiction, always grumbling about petticoats and saying they
bring you bad luck, and set you ashore—and look at you.”
“I give you to understand, Bud Davis, I won’t be called no names, not
by no man,” replied the other. “It ain’t my fault if the girl comes
round and there ain’t no harm in her comin’.”
“Well, you’ve picked the prettiest of the lot, anyhow,” said Davis.
“Don’t go telling me, girls are girls and men are men; but we’ll leave
it there. It’s no affair of mine. _I’m_ not grumbling.”
On he walked, leaving the outraged Harman on the sands, speechless
because unable to explain, unable to explain even to himself the
something between himself and the wildly beautiful, charming, yet
not-quite-there Kinie.
The fascination he exercised upon her would have been even more
difficult to explain. Davis was younger and better-looking. Davis had
made advances to her which Harman had never done, yet she avoided
Davis, never dropped custard apples on his head or sat by him
stringing bits of coral or followed him at a distance through the
woods.
Nor did she ever try to steal Davis’ pocket-handkerchief.
Harman possessed a blazing parti-coloured bandana handkerchief. It was
silk, and had cost him half a dollar at Mixon’s at the foot of Third
Street, which adjoins Long Wharf. It was his main possession. He used
it not as handkerchiefs are used, but as an adjunct to conversation as
your old French marquis used his snuff-box. Stumped for words or in
perplexity, out would come the handkerchief to be mopped across his
brow.
Kinie from the first had been fascinated by this handkerchief. She
wanted it. One day he lost it, and an hour later she flashed across
his vision with it bound around her head. He chased her, recaptured
it, reduced her to sulks for twenty-four hours, and a few days later
she boldly tried to steal it again. Then she seemed to forget all
about it; but do women ever forget?
One morning some two months after they had landed, Davis, coming out
of the house, found the beach in turmoil. Girls were shading their
eyes towards the sea, and young fellows getting canoes in order for
launching, while children raced along the sands screaming the news or
stood fascinated like the girls, and, like them, gazing far to sea.
A ship had been sighted, and there she was on the far-rippled blue,
the tepid wind blowing her to life and growth, the sun lighting her
sails and turning them to a single triangular pearl.
Nothing could be more beautiful than the far ship on the far sea with
the near sea all broken to flashing sapphire, the whole picture framed
between the verdurous cliffs of the harbour entrance and lit by the
entrancing light of morning.
But Davis had no eye for the beauty of the picture, he turned, ran
back to the house, and fetched out Harman.
“Fore and aft rig, maybe eighty or a hundred ton, maybe a bit less,”
said Harman, “makin’ dead for the beach. Say, Bud, we been fools.
Here’s a ship and never a plan to meet her with, nor a story to tell
her.”
“Well, what’s the odds?” said Davis. “We’re shipwrecked, or, if you
like it better, we skipped from a whaler. What are you bothering
about? We’ve nothing to hide, only the _Douro_, and we’ve got rid of
her. You’ve never thought of that, B. H. You’ve always been going on
about Clayton getting the better of us by skipping off with those
pearls in exchange for the _Douro_; hasn’t it ever got into your thick
head that since we as good as stole the hooker, he did us a good turn
by taking her? There’s not a port he could bring her into without
being had, and I’ll bet my back teeth he’s jugged by this, him and his
pearls.”
“If he is,” said Harman, “I’ll never say a word against the law
again.”
Then they hung silent and the ship grew. The wind held steady, then it
faded, great smoke-blue spaces showing on the sea; then it freshened,
blowing from a new quarter, and the stranger, shifting her helm, payed
off on the starboard tack. She showed now to be ketch-rigged.
“I’ve always been agin’ the law,” went on Mr. Harman, “but if the law
puts that blighter in chokee, I’ll take the first lawyer I meet by the
fist. I will so. I’ll say to him, you’re a man an’ brother, law or no
law.”
“Oh hang the law!” cried Davis, whose face had turned purple, and
whose eyes were straining at the ship. “Look at her. Can’t you see
what she is? She’s the _Douro_!”
Harman’s hand flew up to shade his eyes. He stood for twenty seconds,
then he gave a whoop and made as if to run to the sea edge, where the
canoes were preparing to put out.
Davis caught him by the arm and pulled him back.
“Who are you holdin’?” cried Harman. “Let me get at the blighter!
Leave me loose or I’ll give you the bashin’ I have in me fist for him.
Leave me loose, you——”
But Davis, undaunted and deaf to all protests, drove him steadily back
amongst the trees and then made him sit down to hear reason.
“That chap would wipe the deck with you,” said Davis. “There’s more
ways of killing a dog than by kicking him. What we’ve got to do is lay
low and wait our chance, get him ashore off his ship, and leave the
rest to me.”
“Well, if I can get my fists on him, that’s all _I_ want,” said
Harman. “I don’t want more than that.”
“I do,” replied the other. “I want those pearls. Now skip down to the
house and fetch up all the grub you can find. We’ve got to keep hid
till things develop. That’s our strong point: him not knowing we’re
here.”
“And do you mean to say the Kanakas won’t tell him?” asked Harman.
“Well, suppose they do, suppose they say there are two white men on
the island, how’s he to know it’s us? The Kanakas don’t know our names
or where we’ve come from. Now, skip!”
Harman went off, and returned laden. They made their camp under a tree
by a spring, covering the food over with bread-fruit leaves to keep
the robber crabs from getting at it, then they settled themselves down
to watch and listen.
They heard the anchor go down, and Harman, who climbed the tree to a
point where a view of the harbour could be glimpsed between the
leaves, reported that the _Douro_ was at anchor two cable-lengths from
the shore and swinging to the tide, that the canoes were all round
her, and that a chap in white was leaning over her rail.
“Looks like Clayton,” said he. “Now he’s left the rail, and they’re
swinging out a boat. He’s comin’ ashore. Now he’s in the boat. Yes,
that’s him sure enough; know him anywhere by the way he carries
himself, crawled over into the boat like a cat, he did. Yes, it’s him;
I can see his face now, all but his b’iled gooseberry eyes. Comin’
ashore, are you? Well, I’ll be there to meet you.”
He came swarming down only to be received into the arms of Davis, that
is to say, Reason.
“Coming on for night I don’t say no,” said Davis; “we may be able to
take the ship and get out with her, but there’s no use in a free fight
on the beach in the broad light of day with all his boat crew to back
him. I’ve got an idea—it’s coming into my head bit by bit—and it’s
this, the crew know us.”
“Well, they ought to, since we captained them once,” said Harman. “But
what about it?”
“Just this, you know what Kanakas are. If we can knock Clayton on the
head sudden to-night and get off without too much fuss, we’ve only got
to step on board and drop the anchor-chain and put out. The Kanakas
won’t object. Seeing us come on board again, and taking over the ship,
they’ll think it’s all in the day’s work and done by arrangement with
Clayton.”
“That ain’t a bad idea if we can do it,” said Harman; “we’ll have to
scrag him so that he don’t squeal, and do it without fittin’ him out
for a mortuary. I ain’t a particular man, but I’ve an objection to
corpses.”
“Oh, rot!” said Davis. “You’ve got to stow that bilge if you want to
make out in this business. You’ll be going about next with flowers in
your hair like those Kanaka girls. I ain’t going to hit to kill. If I
get the chance of hitting at all. I’m going to put him to sleep,
that’s all; if he never wakes up the world will be none the wiser nor
the worse. Hullo! What’s that?”
It was Kinie, her face showed peeping at them through the branches
which her little brown hands were holding back.
“Scat!” cried Harman, shaken out of all other considerations but the
thought that she had discovered their whereabouts and might give them
away. “Off with you, and back to the village—and if you let a word
out of you——”
Before he could finish the branches swayed, and Kinie was gone.
“After her!” cried Davis. “Get hold of her and tell her to spy on the
chap, and give us news of what’s going on. Hump yourself!”
Harman, getting on his feet, started off in pursuit, and Davis found
himself alone. He could hear the wash of the beach and the far-off
voices of the village, and as he sat, putting things together in his
mind, the main question that kept recurring was whether Clayton would
put out after taking on fruit and water, or whether he would stay.
After that came the question of the pearls. It was six months now
since the day he sailed from the atoll, and he was still tinkering
about amongst the lesser islands; what had he done with the pearls? He
had evidently been to no port of importance where he might have sold
them, and if there was reason in anything, there was reason in the
supposition that they were on board the _Douro_.
Davis chuckled to himself at the thought. The thing was so simple.
Once Clayton was put out of count nothing could be easier than to row
off, seize the ketch and put out with her—the Kanaka crew knew both
him and his companion. Davis chuckled at the thought that these same
Kanakas had been through the same process before when he and Harman
had “nicked” the _Araya_.
“And I bet you,” he said to himself as he lay listening to the sounds
of the beach and village, “I bet you they don’t know they’ve been as
good as stolen twice, or that me and Billy aren’t part owners in the
show, turning up now and then to take command, and give the other
chaps a rest.” He chuckled at the thought, and then Harman came back
through the trees, having interviewed Kinie.
The wayward one had shown surprising grip of the situation and
readiness to assist. Yes, she would watch the white man with the red
face, and find out whether he was taking water on board that day, and
if not how long he was likely to stay; promising this she had run off.
“And she’ll do it,” said Harman.
They had some food and smoked and drowsed in the warm, dark hot-house
atmosphere of the woods, now silent as death with noon.
Then somewhere about two o’clock the branches parted and the charming,
sprite-like face of the girl looked in upon their slumbers.
She had brought news. The big canoe was not taking water that day nor
fruit. It might stay many days, also the big man had been bidden to a
banquet by the village, and the feast was to take place on the edge of
dark. They were preparing the palm toddy now and killing chickens and
two pigs. Listen! She held up a finger and they could hear the far-off
clucking of chickens being chased only to be choked. The pigs, clubbed
senseless, had uttered no complaint.
Then the branches swayed, and she was gone.
“This is good,” said Davis. “That chap is sure to get drunk on the
palm toddy, and so we’ll be saved the bother of knocking him out.”
“Seems like Providence, don’t it?” said Mr. Harman. “If you tell me
there ain’t such a thing, I tell you that there is—flat. Look at us,
brought here and landed as careful as baskets of eggs, and look at
Clayton sent after us to be skinned, ain’t that Providence?”
“Oh, close up!” said Davis. “You get arguing when a chap ought to be
thinking. Wait till he is skinned before you talk of Providence. We
haven’t got the hide yet.”
“No, but we will,” replied the other, settling himself for a snooze.
Towards dark, awakened by Davis, he went off through the trees to
prospect.
Then blackness came as if turned on with a switch, blackness that
gradually died to starlight as the eyes grew accustomed to the change.
Starlight that filled the woods with the eeriest forms made of foliage
and shadow, while here and there stars and constellations hung
themselves amidst the branches—the Cross in a tamarisk tree and
Canopus on the top bough of a screw pine.
To Davis, watching and meditating, suddenly appeared Harman,
breathless.
“We’re dished,” cried the latter, “dished lovely! The _Douro_ crowd
are ashore down to the ship’s cat, and they’re all stuffin’ themselves
and fillin’ up with the drink.”
Davis whistled.
“Haven’t they left an anchor watch on her?”
“Devil a one!” said Harman. “She’s watching herself. Well, what do you
say to that?”
Davis said nothing for a moment.
It was impossible to take the ketch away without the crew. Of course,
he and Harman could have taken her out, but he knew better than ever
to dream of facing the Pacific in a vessel of that tonnage with only
another pair of hands to help him. He had been through the experience
years ago; he knew what it was for two men to take on a ten-men’s job.
No, the canoe was better than that, infinitely.
“Billy,” said he suddenly, “buck up! We aren’t done. Can’t you see,
the chap is so certain sure there’s no one here to harm or meddle with
him, he’s let all his crew come ashore? Well, as sure as he’s done
that, he’s left the pearls on board.”
Harman fell to the idea at once.
“You mean us to skip in the canoe with them?”
“Yep,” said the other.
Harman considered for a bit in silence, while the sounds of the
festival on the beach came on the new-risen wind from the sea.
He had sworn never to enter a canoe again, the prospect was hateful;
yet there was one bright spot in it, a spot as big as a sun—Clayton’s
face on waking next morning to find the pearls gone!
He sprang to his feet.
“Kim on,” said he, “we’ve gotta get water, grub, and nuts aboard her.
The breaker’s lying back of the house. I’ll attend to the water; you
can bring this stuff down and c’llect all you can from the
houses—b’nanas and such-like. Hump yourself!”
Their canoe lay on the beach to the right of the village; it was fit
and seaworthy for the very good reason that the native boys had been
using it for sailing and fishing, and when Davis came on to the beach
he found Harman stowing the water-breaker, the only figure visible,
for the whole village was congregated where the great feast was going
on in the break amidst the trees.
They were running no risks. They wanted food for a fortnight, and they
took it—took it from the deserted houses and from the trees where the
pandanus drupes hung in the starlight and the great banana clusters
stood like golden candelabra waiting to be lit.
Then they pushed off, and the harbour took them and the night, against
which stood the _Douro_, swinging to the outgoing tide on a taut
anchor-chain.
The ladder was down, and as they came alongside, Harman, who was to
commit the burglary, clutched it, sprang on deck, and lowering the
anchor-light vanished with it down the cabin companion-way.
Davis, with his hand on the ladder and rocked by the almost
imperceptible swell, contemplated the night and the far beach. He
could see the glow of the fire amidst the trees, and now, just as the
moon rose above the sea-line, sending its silver across the harbour,
his keen eye caught a form moving amongst the beached canoes.
A moment later something ruffled the water. A canoe had put off. He
saw the flash of a paddle, and for a second the idea that Clayton had
sensed danger and was on the pounce crossed his mind, only to be
instantly dismissed. It was Kinie. He knew it instinctively and at
once. Kinie, who never drank palm toddy and who looked as though her
food were mushrooms and moonbeams, had discovered their canoe gone.
Very likely had been watching them getting it away and was coming out
to prospect.
At that moment the light reappeared on deck, and Harman at the rail.
“Bud,” cried Harman, “she’s bustin’ with trade, cabin full, and I’ll
bet the hold’s full to the hatches! That blighter must have been
peddlin’ his pearls for trade goods, but I’ve got the balance, a dozen
big ’uns. I broke his locker open and there they were. Got ’em in me
pocket. Steady the blistered canoe whiles I get in.”
He dropped into the canoe, and they pushed off. Then he sighted Kinie,
who was coming up fast, so close now that the water drops showed
flashing from her paddle.
“It’s that girl,” said Davis, “confound her! We only wanted this to
kibosh us. I swear by the big horn spoon I’ll flatten her out with a
paddle if she squeals or gives the show away! I will, b’ gosh!”
But Kinie showed no signs of any desire to give the show away. She
manœuvred her canoe so that it came gently beside theirs, stem towards
stern, so that her outrigger did not prevent her from clasping their
gunnel. Kinie had come to say good-bye. She had watched them
provisioning without knowing exactly why they were doing so, then they
had put off, and she had recognized that they were leaving for good.
Seeing them hanging on to the ship, she had taken heart and put off
herself, and now, patting Harman on the shoulder with her little hand,
she was looking at him with the eyes of a dog, while he, slipping one
huge arm round her, was patting her back and telling her to be a good
girl and to get back to the shore quick.
“_Aroya manu_, Kinie. We’re off—we’re goin’ away. See you again
maybe, soon. There, don’t be holdin’ me. Well, you’re askin’ for it.”
“Oh, close up or you’ll be capsizing the canoe,” cried Davis. “Shove
her off—Now paddle for all you’re worth. Mind! the outrigger is
lifting.”
The canoes parted and the moonlit waving water came between them like
a river, then, driven by tide and paddle, they passed the shadows of
the cliffs at the harbour mouth, and Harman, looking back, saw the
glow of the festival fire like a topaz beyond the silver-satin of the
harbour water, and against the glow the canoe of Kinie making for the
shore.
Outside they ran up the sail while astern Motul, with its hills and
dark forests, lay like a cloud on the water, visible all night,
dwindling to a speck in the dawn, destroyed utterly by the sun as he
rose beyond it, flooding the sea with fire.
“Well, here’s another blessed day,” said Harman, as he took his trick
with the steering paddle, “and that chap will be wakin’ just now with
a palm-toddy head on him to find we’ve done him, but he won’t never
know it’s us, worse luck. Anyhow, he’ll have his headache. There ain’t
nothin’ to beat a palm-toddy head unless maybe samshu, but, samshu or
palm toddy, drink don’t pay, nor Bourbon, nor Champagne—it don’t pay.
I’m not sayin’ if a chap could get drunk and stay drunk I wouldn’t be
the first to jine in, but it’s the wakin’ up—— Oh, _d——n_
petticuts!”
He had put his hand in his pocket for the handkerchief, at that moment
flaunting itself on Motul beach around the brows of its proud
possessor.
“Mind your steering!” cried Davis. “What ails you? Mind your paddle or
we’ll be over.”
“Me handkerchief’s gone,” cried the distracted Harman. “She’s took it.
Twice she nicked it from me before, and I ought to ha’ known—she’ll
have flung them away, for it’s only the rag she wanted—buzzed them
into the harbour most like. They were tied in the corner of it and
she’d ha’ thought them stones—ten thousand dollars’ worth of——”
“Pearls!” cried Davis, “you aren’t talking of the pearls!”
Towards sunset, steering into the golden remote and unknown west, the
dejected Harman, breaking an all-day silence, perked up a bit and
became almost cheerfully philosophic.
“The only good p’int about all this business,” said he, “the one
bright p’int——”
“Oh, shut up,” said Davis, “you and your p’ints.”