IV

“Buck Slane had landed, he and four of his men, and every man with a

Winchester.

“Tawela and her crowd were round them, all friendly as pie and wagging

their tails, and so busy pretending to be innocent and God-fearing

Kanakas they didn’t notice us till we were almost on them; for a

moment I thought they were going to show fight, but when they saw the

guns in our hands they boiled down.

“I clapped my gun to Tawela’s head, and called Buck to tie her hands

behind her—we hadn’t time to say good-day to each other, just

that—and Buck, tumbling to the truth of the matter, whips a big

pocket handkerchief from his pocket, and one of his men does the

binding. As he was binding her he says, ‘Look at her hands,’ and

there, sure enough, was blood dried on her hands, the blood of Sellers

calling out for revenge.

“Then, whilst the crowd stood quiet, I gave Buck the facts in four

words. He made a signal with his arms to the schooner, and off comes

another boat with the mate and four more Kanakas, all armed.

“Then Buck took command, and leaving Tawela with a chap and orders to

blow her brains out if she so much as sneezed, we drove that whole

crowd along the beach right to the break of the lagoon and left them

there with four gunmen covering them. Then we came back.

“We searched round and found what was left of Sellers among the

bushes, then we set to.

“‘They’re unfortunate heathens,’ says Buck, ‘but they’ve got to be

taught,’ and with that he set fire to Tawela’s house with his own

hands. We burnt every house, we smashed everything we could smash, and

we broke the canoes to flinders, fishing gear and spears and

everything went, so there was nothing left of that population but the

people.

“That will learn them,’ says Buck. Then he collected his men, and

bundling Tawela into a boat with a parcel of pink coral we found in a

shack back of her house, we pushed off. Ridley, the mate, was for

shooting her—seeing the evidence on her hands—and slinging the body

in the lagoon, but Buck said he was going to give her a decent trial

when our minds were cool, and there was lots of time, anyway, after

we’d put out. Buck, ever since his business with Sru, had been against

doing things in a hurry, specially when it came to killing, so she was

had on board and given in charge of two of the Kanaka crew. Then we

got the hook up and out we put.

“The Kanakas were still herded at the end near the break, and as we

passed through, knowing we’d got their Queen on board, they all set up

a shout, ‘Tawela, Tawela’ like the crying of sea gulls, and that was

the last we heard of them.

“Then, with the ship on her course, and the Kanaka bo’sun in charge of

the deck, we got down to the cabin and started our court-martial.

“She deserved hanging, there were no two words about that. And I

reckon it was more superstition about killing a woman than humanity,

but maybe I’m wrong; anyhow, Buck brought out his idea, which was to

take her to Sydney and have her tried there.

“We’d been going at it for an hour or so, when the mate was called on

deck and comes back in a minute or two in a tearing rage.

“‘That wild cat,’ says he, ‘has been asking for food and won’t eat

bully beef; says anything that comes out of a shell is tabu to her,

turtle or oysters or shell fish, and she reckons canned stuff is the

same since it’s in a tin shell. I expect she’s had lots of experience

in canned stuff seeing all the ships she’s wrecked. What’s to be done

with her?’

“‘Give her biscuits,’ says Buck, ‘and there’s lots of bananas on

board.’

“Off the mate goes and back he comes to the conference, but we could

fix up nothing that night, Buck still holding out for a proper trial

at Sydney, and we pointing out that English or American law would be

sure to let a woman escape. It stood like that till next morning, when

Buck, coming down to breakfast, says: ‘Boys, I’ve got an idea.’

V

“He’d struck an idea in the night of how to dispose of Tawela. Buck

had a fine knowledge of the Kanaka mind, and when he’d explained his

idea to us I allowed it was a peach, if what he said was true.

“Have you ever heard tell of the Swatchway—the Scours some call it?

It’s an island, or more truly speaking a big lump of reef with half a

dozen cocoanut trees on it lying south of the Australs about four

hundred and fifty miles from the steamer track between Auckland and

Tahiti. It’s got reefs round it all spouting like whales, and ships’

captains give it a big wide berth.

“Well, Buck’s plan was to land Tawela on the Scours; there’s water

there according to the Pacific Directory, and Buck said he wasn’t

going to maroon her without grub. He’d give her six months’

grub—canned. Bully beef and so on with biscuits in tins. If she

starved herself to death in the middle of plenty then it wouldn’t be

our fault. He said he’d come back in six months, and if she was alive

he’d take her back home, said she was only an ignorant Kanaka and he

reckoned six months’ punishment would fill the bill, and if she chose

to kill herself, why, then it would be Providence not us that did the

business.

“Ridley, at first go off, flew out against this till Buck quieted him,

asking who was master of the schooner, and whether he wanted to be

logged for insubordination; the course was changed to sou’-sou’-west

and two days later we raised the Scours.

“There were six cocoanut trees there, all bearing, so we cut them down

and brought the nuts on board, then we landed Tawela and her

provisions with a can opener, showing her how to use it. There was a

fresh water pond in the coral, so she couldn’t want for water, and

there we left her.

“We made for Suva and sold that coral, not getting near the price we

thought to, and then we ran a cargo to Auckland.

“I’d noticed for some time Buck wasn’t the man he used to be, and one

night it come out. ‘I’ve got something on my mind,’ he says, ‘it’s

that dam Kanaka. Can’t help thinking about her. My conscience is clear

enough,’ he says, ‘for she deserved her gruel, but I can’t help

thinking of her—wonder if she’s dead.’

“‘Oh, it’s ten to one she’s either broke her tabu or some ship has

taken her off by this,’ I says to ease him, for I saw that being a

good-hearted chap, and imaginative as most Irishmen are, the thing was

hitting him as it never hit me.

“Buck shakes his head and falls back into himself and says no more,

and time goes on, till one day when we were on the run to Papeete with

a mixed cargo, seeing that the chap was making an old man of himself

over the business, I says, ‘S’pose we run down to the Scours now

instead of on the voyage back as you’d fixed, and see what’s become of

that woman?’

“His face lit up, but he pretended to hang off for a while; then he

falls in with the idea, and we shifted the helm, raising the place

four days later and dropping anchor outside the reefs four months and

eight days from the time we’d left it.

“There wasn’t a sign to be seen of anyone on the island, so Buck tells

me to take a boat and look; he hadn’t the heart to go himself and said

so, plump, and off I put, leaving the boat’s crew with the boat on the

beach and tramping across the coral on the look-out for signs.

“I found the canned stuff. There had evidently been a big wind and

blown the stuff about, and I found it here and there, but not one

empty can could I find or one that had been opened, then, in a dip of

the coral I found a skull, the black hair still sticking to it, and a

backbone and ribs—the birds make a skeleton of a corpse in no time on

a place like that; I reckon I could have found the whole skeleton if

I’d hunted, but I didn’t. I put back for the schooner and came on

board laughing.

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘she’s done us. You and your talk of Kanakas not

breaking their tabu; why, half the tins are opened and empty, and

she’s gone, took off by some ship.’

“‘Thank God,’ says Buck.

“That lie of mine lifted the black dog right off his back, and to his

dying day he never knew he’d killed that woman as sure as if he’d shot

her with a gun. He was as cheerful as a magpie all the rest of that

voyage, and so was I. You see I’d heard Sellers screaming whilst those

brutes were doing him in and Buck hadn’t.

“That’s all I know about tabu, but it’s first-hand knowledge, personal

experience as you might say.”

He ceased, and through the night came the voices of fish spearers from

the reef and the far rumble of the surf, and from the back premises

the voice of Tahori singing some old song of an Island world whose

brilliancy breaks sometimes to reveal the strangest phantoms from the

Past.