I persuaded Bo to give me some lessons in bread-making, and even
extorted from her, for a pound of beads paid in advance, the secret
of her dynamitic yeast; so that I, too, started a bomb-shell of my
own, and was half-way through a sack of flour before it finally dawned
upon me that here was an art that I was incapable of learning. Bread I
could certainly make, of a peculiarly stony character, but the trouble
(as Hinton said) was the digesting of it afterwards. Nor was I more
successful with my waffles, which glued themselves with obstinacy to
the iron, like oysters on a rocky bottom, requiring to be detached
in shreds by the aid of a knife. My efforts convulsed the Beautiful
Man, and were the means of leading him, through his own vainglory and
boastfulness, to perpetrate a basaltic lump of his own, the sight of
which doubled Bo up with laughter, and caused her to burst out in
giggles for a day afterwards. These attempts, of course, only enhanced
her own prowess as a cook, and Hinton was never tired of expatiating on
the lightness of her loaves and the melting quality of her cakes and
waffles, with a glitter in his eye that I knew well how to interpret.
One day my long-overdue ship appeared in sight, and, beating her
tedious way up the lagoon, dropped her anchor off the settlement.
Captain Mins gave me six hours to get aboard, and promised me, over an
introductory glass of square-face in the cabin, a speedy and prosperous
run to the westward. My packing was a matter of no difficulty, for I
had lived from day to day in the expectancy of a sudden call to start;
besides, in a country where pyjamas are the rule and even socks are
regarded as something of a superfluity, life reduces itself to first
principles and baggage disappears. In half an hour I was ready to shift
my things to the ship, only dallying a little longer to say farewell
to my friends and take one final glance at the old boat-house. My heart
misgave me when I looked, as I thought for the last time, at poor Bo in
the midst of her pets, threading beads with the same tireless industry;
while the Beautiful Man, at the farther end of the shed, was trying to
sell her to a new-comer off the barque, an evil-looking customer they
called Billy Jones’s Cousin.
Prompted (I have since supposed) by the devil, I called the little man
to where I stood and asked him peremptorily to name his lowest price
for Bo. He replied in a brisk, businesslike manner that he couldn’t
dream of letting her go for less than a hundred dollars.
“A hundred fiddlesticks!” I exclaimed. “Rather than see her abandoned
here to starve, I will take her for my servant and pay her ten dollars
a month.”
“Oh, she don’t need no money,” he said. “Just you hug and kiss her a
bit, and keep her going with beads and such-like, and she’ll work her
hands off to serve you. It’s a mug’s game to give a Kanaka money. W’y,
they ain’t no more fit for money than that monkey to navigate a ship.”
“See here, Hinton,” I said, “I have told you before that I did not come
up here to start a native establishment--least of all with a woman who
looks like Bo. But I’m ready to take her off your hands and pay her
good wages, and I don’t think you can be so contemptible as to stand in
her light.”
“Oh, I shan’t stand in her blooming light,” he said. “I’d sleep easier
to think I had left her in a comfortable home with a perfeck gentleman
such as you to tyke care of her. My word, I would, and the thought of
it will be a comfort to me in the privations of my humble lot; and I
trust you will believe me that it was in no over-reaching spirit that
I ventured to nyme my figger for the girl. But I put it to you, as
between man and man, won’t you spare me a few dollars as a sort of
token of your good will?”
“I’ll give you twenty-five dollars for her,” I said, “and not one penny
more.”
“My word,” he said, “you’re getting her cruel cheap!”
“Well, that’s my price,” I said.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t care to give her a half a year’s wages in
advance?” he inquired. “A little money in her hand might hearten her up
for the parting.”
“Hearten you up, you mean,” I said.
“I never was no haggler,” he said. “She’s yours, Mr. Logan, at
twenty-five dollars.”
“You go and talk to her a bit,” I said, “and try to explain things to
her, for I tell you I won’t take her at all if she is unwilling.”
It cut me to the heart to watch the poor girl’s face as the Beautiful
Man unfolded the plans for her future, and to see the way she looked at
me with increasing distress and horror. When she began to cry, I could
stand the sight no longer, and hurriedly left the place, feeling myself
a thorough-paced scoundrel for my pains. It was only shame that took
me back at last, after spending one of the most uncomfortable hours
of my life on the beach outside the shed. I found her sitting on her
chest, which apparently had been packed in hot haste by the Beautiful
Man himself. With the parrot in her lap and the monkey shivering beside
her, Bo presented the most woebegone picture. I don’t know whether he
had used the strap to her, or whether he had trusted, with apparent
success, to the torrents of Pingalap idiom which was still pouring
from his lips; but whatever the means he had used, the desired result,
at least, had been achieved; for the little creature had been reduced
to a stony docility, and, except for an occasional snuffle and an
indescribable choking in her throat, she made no sign of rebellion
when the Beautiful Man proposed that we should lose no further time
in taking her aboard the ship. Between us we lifted the camphor-wood
chest and set out together for the pier, Bo bringing up the rear with
the monkey and the parrot and a roll of sleeping-mats. If ever I felt a
fool and a brute, it was on this melancholy march to the lagoon, and I
tingled to the soles of my feet with a sense of my humiliation. My only
comfort, besides the support of an agitated conscience, was the intense
plainness of my prisoner, whose face, I assured myself, betrayed the
singleness and honesty of my intentions.
We put the chest in the corner of the trade-room, and made a little
nest for Bo among the mats she had brought with her; and leaving her
to tidy up the monkey with my hair-brush, the Beautiful Man and I
retreated to the cabin to conclude the terms of our contract. To my
surprise, he handed me a sheet of paper, made out in all appearance
like any bill for merchandise, and asked me, with the most brazen
assurance, to kindly settle it at my convenience. This was what I read:
W. J. Logan, Dr., to Henery Hinton:
1 Young Woman, cut price $25.00
1 Superior Congo Monkey 7.50
1 Choice Imported Parrot 4.50
1 Chest Fancy Female Wearing Apparel 40.00
7 Extra-size Special Kingsmill Mats 5.00
5 lbs. Best Assorted Beads 2.50
------
Total $84.50
I burst out into a roar of laughter, and without any waste of words I
told the Beautiful Man that he might carry the lady ashore again and
peddle her to some bigger fool than I, for I was clean sick of him and
her and the whole business, and though I still felt bound to give the
twenty-five dollars I had originally promised, he might go and whistle
for one cent more. Then, boiling over at the thought of his greed and
heartlessness, I let out at him without restraint, he trying to stem
the tide with “Oh, I s’y!” and “My word, Mr. Logan, sir!” until at last
I had to pause for mere lack of breath and expletives. He took this
opportunity to enter into a prolonged explanation, quavering for my
pardon at every second word, while he expatiated on the value of that
monkey and the parrot’s really phenomenal knowledge of the Pingalap
language. He was willing, seeing that I took the matter in such a
w’y, to pass over the girl’s duds (about which there might be some
question) and even give w’y about the mats, w’ich, as Gord saw him, had
cost eight dollars, Chile money, as he could prove by Captain Coffin
of the _Cape Horn Pigeon_, now w’aling in the Arctic Seas; but as to
the parrot and the monkey, he appealed to me, as between man and man,
to settle for them out of hand, as they were truly and absolutely his
own, and could not be expected to be lumped in with the price of the
girl. I grew so sick of the fellow and his whining importunity that I
counted out thirty-seven dollars from my bag, and told him to take or
leave them and give me a clean receipt. This he did with the greatest
good humour, having the audacity to shake my hand at parting, and make
a little speech wishing me all manner of prosperity and success.
I noticed, however, that he did not return to the trade-room, but
sneaked off the ship without seeing Bo again, and kept well out of
sight on shore until the actual moment of our sailing. When I went in
to pay a sort of duty call on my prisoner, I found her huddled up on
the mats and to all appearance fast asleep; and I was not a little
disappointed to find that she had not escaped in the bustle of our
departure. Now that I was her master in good earnest and irrevocably
bound to her for better or worse, I became a prey to the most dismal
misgivings, and cursed the ill-judged benevolence that had led me into
such a mess. And as for bread, the very sight of it was enough to
plunge me into gloom, and when we sat down that day to lunch I asked
the steward, as a favour, to allow me seamen’s biscuit in its stead.
Every few hours I carried food to Bo and tried to make her sit up and
eat; but, except for a little water, she permitted nothing to pass her
lips, but lay limp and apathetic on the square of matting. The monkey
and parrot showed more appetite, and gobbled up whole platefuls of
soup and stew and preserved fruit, which at first I left on the floor
in the hope that their mistress might be the less shy when my back was
turned. Finally I decided to remove the pets altogether, for they were
intolerably dirty in their habits, and I could not but think that Bo
would be better off without a frowsy parrot roosting in her hair and
a monkey biting her in play, especially as she was in the throes of
a deathly seasickness and powerless to protect herself. Getting the
parrot on deck was a comparatively simple matter, though he squawked a
good deal and talked loudly in the Pingalap language. At last I stowed
him safely away in a chicken-coop, where I was glad to see him well
trounced by some enormous fowls with feathered trousers down their
legs. But the monkey was not so lightly ravished from his mistress.
He was as strong as a man and extraordinarily vicious; in ten steps
I got ten bites, and came on deck with my pyjamas in blood and rags,
he screeching like a thousand devils and clawing the air with fury.
For the promise of a dollar I managed to unload him on old Louey, one
of the sailors of the ship, who volunteered to make a muzzle for the
brute, and tie him up until it was ready. But as I was still panting
with my exertions, and cursing the foolishness that had ever led me
into such a scrape, I heard from behind me a kind of heartbroken wail,
and turned to see Bo emerging from the trade-room door. I am ashamed
to say I trembled at the sight of her, for I recalled in a flash
what the Beautiful Man had said of her temper when aroused, and I
thought I should die of mortification were she to attack me now. But,
fortunately, such was not her intention, though her face was overcast
with reproach and indignation as she unsteadily stepped past me to
the coop, where, with a cry, she threw open the door and clasped the
parrot in her arms. Even as she did so, the trousered fowls themselves
determined to make a break for liberty, and finding the barrier
removed, they tumbled out in short order; and the ship happening at
that moment to dip to leeward, two of them sailed unhesitatingly
overboard and dropped in the white water astern. Subsequently I had
the pleasure of paying Captain Mins five dollars for the pair. Bo next
started for the monkey, which she took from old Louey’s unresisting
hands, and almost cried over it as she unbound the line that held him.
Having thus rescued both her pets, she retreated dizzily to the shelter
of the trade-room, where I found her, half an hour later, lying in
agony on the floor.
We were three days running down to Yap, and arrived there late one
afternoon just at the fall of dusk. On going ashore, I had the good
fortune to secure a little house which happened to be lying vacant
through the death of its last tenant; who, on the principle, I
suppose, of letting the tree lie where it falls, had been buried within
six feet of my front verandah. The following morning I moved my things
into my new quarters, Bo following me obediently ashore in the ship’s
boat, seated on the top of her chest. I soon got the trade-room into
shape for my work, unpacking my note-books, my little library, my
collector guns, my photographic and other apparatus, as well as my big
compound microscope with which I meant to perform scientific wonders
in a part of the world so remote and so little known. Busy in these
preparations, I managed to forget my slave and enjoy a few hours’
unalloyed pleasure. I was brought back to earth, however, by the sound
of her sobbing in the next room, where I rushed in to find her weeping
on her mats, with her face turned to the wall. I made what shift I
could to comfort her, talking to her as I might to a frightened dog,
though she paid no more attention to me than she did to the parrot,
who had raised its voice in an unending scream. At last, in despair,
and at my wits’ end to know what else to do, I put ten dollars in her
little claw, and tried to tell her that it was her first month’s wages
in advance. This form of consolation, if altogether ineffective in the
case of Bo herself, came in capitally to cheer the monkey, whom I heard
slinging the money out of the window, a dollar at a time, to the great
gratification of a crowd of natives outside.
All that day and all the following night Bo lay supinely on the mats,
and hardly deigned to touch more than a few morsels of the food I
prepared and brought her. The next morning, finding her still of the
same mind, I unpacked my flour and other stores, and ordered her, in
a rough voice, to get up and make bread. This she did, in a benumbed
sort of fashion, dripping tears into the dough and snuffling every time
I looked her way. The bread was all right when it was done, though it
stuck in my throat when I reflected on the price I had paid to get it,
and wondered how I was going to endure two long years of Bo’s society.
After a few weeks of this sort of housekeeping I began almost to wish
that I were dead, and the sight of the creature became so intolerable
to me that I hated to spend an unnecessary hour within my own house.
Instead of improving in health, or spirits, or in any other way, Bo
grew daily thinner and more woebegone and started a hacking cough,
which, she communicated, in some mysterious manner, to the monkey, so
that when one was still the other was in paroxysms, giving me, between
them, scarce a moment of peace or sleep. Of course I doctored them
both from my medicine-chest, and got the thanks I might reasonably
have expected: bites and lacerations from the monkey, and from Bo that
expression of hers that seemed to say, “Good God! what are you going
to do to me now?” I found it too great a strain to persevere with
the bread-making, and soon gave up all thought of turning her to any
kind of practical account; for what with her tears, her cough, and
her passive resistance to doing anything at all, save to titivate the
monkey with my comb and brush and wash him with my sponge, I would
rather have lived on squid and cocoanuts than anything of her making.
Besides, she really seemed to be threatened with galloping consumption;
for in addition to her cough, which grew constantly worse, she had
other symptoms which alarmed me. Among my stores were a dozen tins of
some mushy invalid food,--“Imperial something,” it was called,--with
which I manufactured daily messes for my patient, of the consistency
(and flavour) of white paint. If she at least failed to thrive on this,
it was otherwise with the monkey and the parrot, who fought over her
prostrate body for the stuff, and the former would snatch the cup from
his mistress’s very mouth.
I think I could have borne up better under my misfortunes had I not
suffered so much from loneliness in that far-off place; for, with the
exception of half a dozen sottish traders, and a missionary and his
wife named Small, there was not another white on the island to keep me
company. The Smalls lived in snug missionary comfort at the other end
of the bay, with half a dozen converts to do their work and attend to
a nestful of young Smalls; and though they had parted, as it seemed
to me, with all the principles of Christianity, they still retained
enough religious prejudice to receive me (when I once ventured to
make a formal call on them) with the most undisguised rudeness and
hostility. Small gave me to understand that I was a sort of moral
monster who, with gold and for my own wicked purpose, had parted a
wife from her husband. It appeared, according to Mr. Small, that I
had blasted two fair young lives, as well as condemned my own soul to
everlasting perdition; and he promised the active interference of the
next man-of-war. On my attempting to make my position in the matter a
little clearer, the reverend gentleman began to take such an offensive
tone that it was all I could do to leave his house without giving freer
vent to my indignation than words alone sufficed. Indeed, I was angry
enough to have kicked him down his own missionary steps, and made him
in good earnest the ill-used martyr he pretended to be in his reports
home.
With the traders I fared even worse, for the discreditable reports
about me had become so well established that I was exposed by them to
constant jokes and innuendoes, as well as to a friendliness that was
more distasteful than the missionary’s pronounced ill will. It was
spread about the beach, and carried thence, I suppose, to every corner
of the group, that Bo was a half-white of exquisite beauty, for whose
possession I had paid her husband a sum to stagger the imagination, and
that, unable to repel my loathsome embraces, she was now taking refuge
in a premature death.
I doubt whether there was in the wide Pacific a man so depressed, so
absolutely crushed and miserable, as I was during the course of those
terrible days on Yap. Had it not been for the shame of the thing,
I believe I would have sailed away on the first ship that offered,
whatever the port to which she was bound, and would have quitted my
unhappy prisoner at any hazard. But, to do me justice, I was incapable
of treating any woman so badly, particularly such a sick and helpless
creature as Bo was fast becoming. I had now begun, besides, to suspect
another name for her complaint, and to see before me a situation more
ambiguous and mortifying than any of which I had dreamed. My household
was threatened with the advent of another member!
The idea of Bo and I both leaving together never struck my mind until
the opportune arrival of the _Fleur de Lys_, bound for Ruk, suddenly
turned my thoughts in a new direction. With feverish haste I calculated
the course of the _Ransom_, the barque in which the Beautiful Man
had been promised his passage to Sydney, and it seemed that with any
kind of luck I might manage to intercept her in the _Fleur de Lys_ by
a good three days. Of course I knew a sailing-ship was ill to count
upon, and that a favourable slant might bring her in a week before me
or delay her for an indefinite time beyond the date of my arrival; but
the chance seemed too good a one to be thrown away, and I lost no time
in making my arrangements with Captain Brice of the schooner. When I
explained the matter to Bo with signs that she could not misunderstand,
she became instantly galvanised into a new creature, and ate a
two-pound tin of beef on the strength of the good news.
I never grudged a penny of what it cost me to leave Yap, though I was
stuck for three months’ rent by the cormorant who said he owned my
house, besides having to pay an extortionate sum to Captain Brice
for our joint passage. But what was mere money in comparison to the
liberty I saw before me--that life of blissful independence in which
there should be no Bo, no dark shadow across my lonely hearth, no
sleepless nights and apprehensive days, no monkey, no parrot! I trod
the deck of the _Fleur de Lys_ with a light step, and I think Bo and I
began to understand each other for the first time. For once she even
smiled at me, and insisted on my accepting a beadwork necktie she had
embroidered for the monkey. If there was a worm in the bud, a perpetual
and benumbing sense of uneasiness that never left me, it was the
thought that the Beautiful Man might have slipped away before us; and I
never looked over our foaming bows but I wondered whether the _Ransom_
was not as briskly ploughing her way to Sydney, leaving me to face
an unspeakable disaster on the shores of Ruk. But it was impossible
to be long despondent in that pleasant air, with our little vessel
heeling over to the trades and the water gurgling musically beneath
our keel. Indeed, I felt my heart grow lighter with every stroke of
the bell, with every twist of the patent log; and each day, when our
position was pricked out on the chart, I felt a sense of fresh elation
as the crosses grew towards Ruk. Nor was Bo a whit behind me in her
cheerfulness, for she, too, livened up in the most wonderful manner,
playing checkers with the captain, exercising her pets on the open
deck, and romping for an hour at a stretch with the kanaka cabin-boy.
By the time we had raised the white beaches of our port, the whole
ship’s company, from the captain to the cook, were in the secret of our
race, and as eager as I was myself to forestall the _Ransom_ in the
lagoon. When we entered the passage and opened out the head-station
beyond, there was a regular cheer at the sight of our quest at anchor;
for it was by so narrow a margin that I had cut off the Beautiful
Man’s retreat, and intercepted the vessel that was to carry him away.
Coming up under the _Ransom_, we made a mooring off her quarter; and
among the faces that lined up to stare at us from her decks, I had the
satisfaction of recognising the frizzled red beard of our departing
friend. On perceiving us, he waved his hand in the jauntiest manner,
and replied to Bo’s screams of affection by some words in Pingalap
which effectually shut up that little person. She was still crying
when we bundled her into the boat, bag and baggage, monkey, parrot,
and camphor-wood chest; and pulling over to the barque, we deposited
her, with all her possessions, on the disordered quarter-deck of the
_Ransom_. The Beautiful Man sauntered up to us with an affectation of
airy indifference, and languidly taking the pipe from his mouth, he had
the effrontery to ask me if I, too, were bound for Sydney.
Resisting my first impulse to kick him, I controlled myself
sufficiently to say that I was _not_ going to Sydney--telling him
at the same time that I washed my hands of Bo, whom I had now the
satisfaction of returning to him.
“My word!” he said, “you don’t think I’m going to tyke her?”
“That’s your affair,” said I, moving off.
“Oh, I s’y!” he cried in consternation, attempting, as he spoke, to
lay a detaining hand on my sleeve. But I jerked it off, and stopping
suddenly in my walk towards the gangway, I gave him such a look that he
turned pale and shrank back from me.
“Oh, I s’y!” he faltered, and allowed me to descend in quiet to my boat.
Most of that afternoon I spent in the schooner’s cabin, covertly
watching Bo from a port-hole. For hours she remained where I had
left her on the quarter-deck, seated imperturbably on her chest, the
monkey and parrot on either hand. As for the Beautiful Man, he, like
myself, had also disappeared from view, and was doubtless watching the
situation from some secure hiding-hole of his own. Bo was again and
again accosted by the officers of the ship, who alternately cajoled and
threatened her in their fruitless attempts to get her off the vessel.
But nothing was achieved until five o’clock, when the captain came
off from the station, and, in an off-with-his-head style, commanded
the presence of the Beautiful Man. I was too far off, of course, to
hear one word that passed between them, but the pantomime needed no
explanation, as Hinton cringed and the captain fumed, while Bo looked
on like a graven image in a joss-house. In the end Bo was removed
bodily from the ship to the shore, and landed, with her things, on the
beach, where, until night fell and closed round her, I could see her
still roosting on her box. Seriously alarmed, I began to experience the
most disquieting fears for the result, especially as I could perceive
the Beautiful Man lounging serenely about the barque’s deck, smoking a
cigar and spitting light-heartedly over her side. It made me more than
uneasy to see him afloat and her ashore; and the barque’s loosened sail
lying ready to open to the breeze warned me there was little time to
lose. It was some relief to my mind to learn from Captain Brice that
the barque was not due to sail before the morrow noon; but even this
short respite served to quicken my apprehension when I reflected on my
utter powerlessness to interfere. I passed a restless night, revolving
a thousand plans to hinder the Beautiful Man’s departure, and rose at
dawn in a state of desperation.