mare’s nests on his servant’s part.
“The _tala_ is a true one, Zosimus,” he said. “Even now the pastor
of Faleapuni is praying with a loud voice in the room of the sick,
tussling with the devil, while the family shrieks and is distracted.
The hand of God lies heavy upon her, and they say she will die; her
face scorches the touch like a hot lamp, and she talks constantly the
words of devils.”
Zosimus made a gesture of annoyance; at any other time he would have
reproved Filipo for retailing such heathenish fables, and reopened a
discussion that had continued between them for upward of thirty years;
but his solicitude for Wesley Cook monopolized every thought, and he
allowed his servant’s words to pass unchallenged.
“But her sickness?” he demanded. “How first did it come upon her?”
“It was thus,” returned Filipo: “thy grieving heart was known of God,
and when he looked down at that costly feast to which neither the
minister nor his wife would deign to come--”
“Stop!” cried the priest. “This is the talk of an untattooed boy. Have
I not told thee a thousand times that sickness has invariably a cause?”
“The maids say that last week she had a long talk with her husband,”
said Filipo, “and together they quarrelled until she talked loud and
fierce, like a German, and he cried and cried, and threw himself on
the mats. Then she went out of the house, and to her there was neither
umbrella nor coat, though it rained; and she walked, uselessly, all the
way to Faleapuni, so burned her heart with anger; and when she returned
she was trembling with the cold so that her teeth went thus. Then she
went to bed, and vomited terribly, and every time she breathed, it
hurt her chest so that she said, ‘Ugh! ugh!’ like a man sorely wounded
on the field. Then the minister came to her and tried to talk and
bedarling her; but she mocked at him, and said her heart was in the
White Country. After that she began to talk the devil-stuttering which
is not understandable of man.”
Father Zosimus’s jaw fell, and he looked about him like a man on the
brink of some great resolve.
“She was never the same after the day of the feast,” said Filipo.
The priest put on his yellow oilskin, and placing a bottle of brandy in
one pocket, he grasped the bunched umbrella that was his inseparable
companion. Thus prepared to face the elements and carry succour to the
sick, he made his way into the open and ascended the hill towards the
mission-house. His face tingled under the lash of the wind and rain as
he struggled on, dodging the nuts that occasionally shot across his
path like cannon-balls; and when at last he reached his goal in safety,
he was surprised to see the curtains pulled down within, and to find no
one to answer his repeated knocks.
He was emboldened to turn the knob and enter, which he did
hesitatingly, not knowing what reception awaited him. At the end of
the hall a half-open door let out a flood of lamplight, betraying one
room, at least, in which he might expect to find some member of the
household. On the bed beside the wall Mrs. Cook lay in disordered
bedclothes, her glassy eyes upturned in delirium, her face yellow
and pinched almost beyond recognition, one thin arm on the pillow
beneath her head, the other thrown limply across the sheet. Not far
from her, in shabby dressing-gown and slippers, Wesley himself was
asleep in a canvas chair, sunk in the deep oblivion that follows an
all-night watch. On the floor two native girls slumbered in boluses
of matting, their heads side by side on a bamboo pillow. The priest
stole softly to the bed and looked down on Mrs. Cook’s face; but there
was no understanding in the bright, troubled glance that met his own,
no coherence in the whispered words she repeated to herself. He was
angered to think of his own ignorance and helplessness as he stood the
brandy on the littered table beside the copy of “Simple Remedies for
the Home,” and studied the woman with renewed anxiety. In truth, she
looked grievously ill. Sixty miles of wild water and mountainous seas
separated them from Apia and the only doctor in the group; he shivered
as he caught the wail of the wind without, and saw in mind the breakers
that were thundering against their iron coast.
He fell on his knees and prayed, and then went out into the air again,
his mind made up to a desperate measure. He now took another path, one
that led him across the village to Tuisunga’s stately house. It was
nearly filled with chiefs and speaking-men, ranged round in a great
circle, and the high-pitched, measured periods of an orator could
be heard above the wind and the pelting rain. On his approach there
burst out a chorus of “_Maliu mai, susu mai, ali’i Zosimo_”; and he
bent under the eaves and made his way, half crouching, to a place by
Tuisunga’s side. The eyes of all the party turned on him with surprise,
and there was a little burst of expectation, broken only by the
embittered hawking of the interrupted orator.
“Your Majesty Tuisunga, chiefs, and speaking-men of Fangaloa,” began
Zosimus, “be not angry with me for disturbing this meeting. I have just
come from the house of mourning, where God’s hand lies heavy upon your
pastor’s wife, so that she is like to die. It is my thought that we
take a boat and go with all expedition for the German doctor in Apia.”
“Chief Zosimus,” answered Tuisunga, “the gentlemen you see before you
have been discussing this very matter. We are agreed that if the lady
is to live, we must seek help at once from the wise white man in Apia,
though the storm is heavy upon us, and the risk more than bullets in
the fighting line. But what boat can live in such a gale, save one that
is strong indeed, and well wrought? Our man-of-war that pulls forty
oars is with Forster to be mended; my own whaler is too old and rotten
for so bold a _malanga_; the others we possess are small and useless.”
“There is Ngau’s boat,” said the priest, with a flash of his eyes
towards a sullen-looking old chief. “It is new, and strong like a ship
of two masts.”
Ngau’s withered face hardened. A titter ran round the assembled chiefs.
“That is the knot,” said Tuisunga; “it is not the will of Ngau to give
his boat, lest it be cast away.”
“Not to save the life of a dying woman?” demanded Father Zosimus.
“Ngau is accustomed to the white man’s way,” said Tuisunga. “He is
mean, and his heart is like a stone.”
All eyes turned to Ngau, who stared back, defiant and unabashed.
“If he has a white man’s heart, we will treat him to the white man’s
law,” cried Zosimus. “We will take his boat by force.”
“But it is Ngau’s boat,” said Tuisunga.
“It is Ngau’s boat,” echoed the chiefs.
“And thou wilt let the woman die?” cried Father Zosimus.
“It is Ngau’s boat,” said Tuisunga.
“What dost thou want for the boat?” demanded the priest.
“Five dollars and a tin of biscuit,” replied Ngau, promptly; “and if it
be wrecked, one hundred and twelve dollars, a water-bottle, and a coil
of rope as thick as a man’s thumb.”
“I will take it on myself,” said Father Zosimus. “I am poor; I belong
to a faith that thou deridest; yet my heart is not weak and fearful
like thine. I will answer for thy boat, Chief Ngau, before all these
gentlemen as witnesses.”
“_O le tino tupe lava_ [hard money]” inquired Ngau, “to be put in my
hand before the young men touch my boat?”
“I have not so much,” cried the priest. “I have not money in my house
like drinking-nuts. It comes this month, and that a little at a time.
But I tell thee truly, I will pay thee every _seni_.”
The owner of the boat shook his head.
“I want one hundred and twelve dollars,” he said, “a water-bottle, and
a coil of rope as thick as my thumb.”
“Why dost thou call thyself chief of this village, Tuisunga?” demanded
the priest. “The only chief I see here is Ngau. He speaks: we obey. It
matters not what I want, or what thou wishest, or whether the pastor’s
wife lies dying. It is his Majesty Ngau who is King of Fangaloa. Thy
power is no stronger than that of an untattooed boy.”
“But it is Ngau’s boat,” said Tuisunga, looking very black.
“Zosimus,” said Ngau, “they tell me thou hast costly things in thy
church--cups of silver, two silver candlesticks, each heavy as a gun,
and a silver cross on which there is the image of Jesus. Bring these
to me, together with five dollars of hard money and the musical box
that sounds so sweetly of an evening, and I will hold them for the
price of my boat. If it be cast, thou shalt pay me, from time to time,
one hundred and twelve dollars, a water-bottle, and a coil of rope as
thick as a man’s thumb, and when the contract is finished I will give
thee back the precious things. But if no harm befall the boat, I shall
return them at once, and the price of it will be five dollars and a tin
of biscuit.”
“Thou shalt have them,” cried Father Zosimus; “and if thou hadst said,
‘Zosimus, take an axe and strike off thy right hand,’ that also would I
have done. A life is more to me than dollars in a bag, Chief Ngau. Of
thee, Tuisunga, one only is the question I desire to ask: When I bring
back my precious things according to the will of Ngau, how may I be
sure, indeed, that thou wilt not claim another price for the crew?”
The chief hung his head. “We are not all like Ngau,” he returned.
In half an hour the priest was back, with Filipo at his heels, the arms
of both filled with well-wrapped packages. Father Zosimus laid his
burden on the floor, and began to pluck away the _siapo_ that enfolded
it.
“Stop!” cried Tuisunga.
The priest desisted with a look of angry wonder, as though some fresh
imposition were to be laid upon him.
“Zosimus,” said Tuisunga, “since thou left us, these gentlemen and
myself have been looking down into our hearts. They are black and
pig-like, and we feel ashamed before thee. It would be a mock and an
everlasting disgrace to Fangaloa wert thou to sacrifice thy holy things
to the meanness of the pig-face Ngau. We have taken counsel together in
thine absence, and this is our decision: The boat shall be taken from
Ngau, and not one _seni_ shall be paid him, nor shall a water-bottle
be given, nor a coil of rope; and if his boat be cast away, well,
it is God’s will. Furthermore, Ngau’s house shall be burned and his
plantation destroyed for a punishment, and thou shalt have him (if thou
shouldst so high-chief will) to make of him a Catholic; for Ngau has
been expelled from the Protestant religion, and his communion ticket
has been taken from him as one unworthy.”
Father Zosimus said nothing, but his eyes gleamed like coals of fire as
he hurriedly put his treasures in order for their return; in a trice
Filipo was scudding away with them down the hill, to the mirth of all
the chiefs, some of whom shouted after him derisively to make haste.
“When are we to start?” asked the priest. “If it be thy high-chief
will, the sooner the better.”
“But thou canst not go,” said Tuisunga. “Thou art old and unfit.”
“No man is too old to serve God,” returned the priest.
There rose a murmur of dissent from the assembled chiefs. The old man
would be a dead weight in the boat; by carrying a priest they would
infallibly bring down the anger of God upon them all; even the whites
who cared for naught but money dreaded to sail with a _faifeau_.
“This is foolish talk,” said Tuisunga. “Do we not need Zosimus to talk
for us in Apia? Do we not know the ways of whites, and their disdain
and pride? Who will speak to the German doctor? Everywhere we shall be
disregarded and mocked at. We will say that the wife of Tutumanaia is
dying, and behold, they will answer with contumely. ‘There is no such
minister,’ for we know not his name in the foreign stutter.”
“Let us start,” cried Father Zosimus. “We have no time to waste.”
On the rocky beach they found the boat had already been drawn from the
shed and made ready by the young men. Ngau’s house, which stood close
by the landing, was packed with his relatives and family, who looked
out from beneath the eaves with lowering faces. The sea was white as
far as the eye could reach, and was bursting furiously against the
coast and into the half-moon of the bay, while overhead, and against
the obliterated sky-line, the wild clouds drove stormily to leeward.
The young men looked troubled, and old Tuisunga himself was lost in
gloom as he studied the breakers that seemed about to engulf them.
Father Zosimus alone was calm and unconcerned in the busy tumult of
their making ready; for was not God beside him, with the blessed
saints? Bidding Filipo tell the minister of their errand, he took his
seat without a tremor when the young men lined themselves beside the
gunwales, and began to drive the boat slowly into the water.
There was a yell as she floated off. The young men sprang to their
paddles, while Tuisunga seized the steering-oar in his sinewy
hands. They rode dry over the first wave, then dug into the next bow
foremost, and rose half swamped. The third was a huge comber, green as
bottle-glass, steep as a park wall, which shot up before them and raced
shoreward with a smoking crest. There was a convulsive scurry among the
crew; a roar from the crowded beach; as Tuisunga, standing full upright
in the stern, and swaying with every jerk of the paddles, headed the
boat into the boiling avalanche. The whaler rose like a cork, darted
her nose high in air, and for one awful moment seemed to stand on
end. When Father Zosimus opened his eyes, she was speeding seaward on
something like an even keel, sixteen eager paddles driving her past
the point where the breakers sprang. But working out of the bight,
they lost the shelter it gave them, and began to feel, for the first
time, the unrestrained fury of the gale. There was a frightful sea
running; the boat took in water at every turn; and though the wind was
favourable, they could not take advantage of it at once. A rag of sail
was raised at last, and a straight course laid for Apia, while half the
crew rested and the other half baled. But no boat could run before such
a sea as followed them. They had one narrow escape, then another by a
hair’s-breadth; and as they tried to turn, a great black wave suddenly
caught and smothered them beneath mountains of water. The crew rose
laughing and shouting to the surface, but one grey head was missing.
Father Zosimus had received his martyr’s crown.
FRENCHY’S LAST JOB
FRENCHY’S LAST JOB
My health at college having shown signs of giving way, Uncle George
had been kind enough to advance the means for my passage to Brisbane,
Australia, and back, in order to carry out the doctor’s recommendation
for a long sea-voyage. I scarcely think the good man intended me to
go steerage in a cargo-boat, which I did to make my money last; and
I imagine he would have been anything but pleased if he could have
seen me on the eve of starting from Brisbane itself for the South Sea
Islands with twelve tons of assorted merchandise. Indeed, I was not a
little surprised at myself, and at times in the long night watches I
blubbered like a baby at my own venturesomeness. But with me, though my
people at home did not know it, college had been a failure. I sometimes
wondered whether I was unusually dull, or my companions at that
inhospitable northern university were above the normal intelligence;
but whatever the cause, I know only that I was unable to keep the pace
that was set me to follow.
And here I was, with my heart in my mouth, starting on a career of
my own choosing, the lessee of a trading station on an island called
Tapatuea! More I knew not, beyond the fact that I was to receive a
moiety of any profits I might earn, and had bound myself to stay
where I was put for the space of three years. Considering my age and
inexperience, this was a most liberal arrangement, and I have never
ceased wondering since how my employers, Messrs. John Cæsar Bibo & Co.,
were ever dragooned into adding me to their forces. I say “dragooned”
advisedly, for it was due entirely to my good friend Henry Mears, the
shipping broker of Lonsdale Place, that I happened to be engaged, in
spite of the firm’s most strenuous protest. Mears had taken to me from
the day I first wandered into his office by an accident; and from that
time down to the sailing hour of the _Belle Mahone_ there was nothing
he would not do to serve me. I am not sure that he was financially
interested in the firm of John Cæsar Bibo & Co., but he always acted
as though his was the controlling voice in its affairs, and he was the
only man I ever knew who dared stand up to Old Bee, as we called him.
This last-named, the directing spirit of a business that spread its net
over half the islands of the Pacific, was a grim, taciturn individual
of an indeterminable age,--it was variously reckoned from seventy to a
hundred and ten,--who made periodical descents into Mears’s office, and
sat closeted there for hours. His presence always inspired constraint,
and the sight of his ancient, sallow cheek was enough to thin the ranks
of the broker’s clients--shipmasters and supercargoes for the most
part, not all of them sober, and none, apparently, able to look Old Bee
in the eye.
I shall never forget my introduction to the great man.
“This is a nice boy, Mr. Bibo, sir,” said Mears, indicating me with a
cast of his eye.
“Oh!” said Old Bee.
“I want him to have that Tapatuea store,” said Mears.
“You mean the easterly one, where Bob killed the Chinaman?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I’ll see him in hell first,” said Old Bee.
I thought this ended the matter for good, and said as much to Mears
when John Cæsar had departed. But my friend was far from being cast
down.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “I count it as good as settled.”
This was more than I could say, and I had no cause to change my mind on
my next meeting with Old Bee.
“I’m putting twelve tons of stuff aboard for the Tapatuea store,” said
Mears, “and I’ve told Young Hopeful, here, that you’ll keep a berth for
him.”
“The devil!” said Old Bee, and went straight on with the business he
had in hand.
The next day the broker signed my contract by virtue of some power of
attorney he possessed for Bibo & Co.
“If he backs out now, you can sue him for damages,” he said cheerfully.
I was in a tremble when I next met my employer. It was near our sailing
time, and he was in a violent hurry. He threw down a paper on the desk
and told Mears it was the list of things he had put by for the last.
“Send some one along for them,” he said, “some one that knows how to
keep his mouth shut. I’ve clean forgot all that business of the King of
Pingalap’s: the breech-loading cannon I promised him from Hudson’s, and
those damned guinea-fowls, and that cylinder for his musical box!”
“Here’s one of your own men,” said Mears. “You know young Bence?”
“Good God, that child!” cried the old man. “Didn’t I tell you I
wouldn’t have him?”
“Pity you hadn’t spoken before,” said the broker, with surprise. “I
only signed his contract yesterday.”
Old Bee regarded me sourly.
“I don’t understand the joke,” he said.
“Oh, come, come. He’s twenty-two if he’s a day,” said Mears, adding
four years to my age; “and as to being young, I dare say he’ll get over
it.”
“What’s he done, that you’re so keen to get him off?” said Old Bee,
still eyeing me with strong disfavour. “However, as you have made it
your business to push him down my throat, I suppose I’ve got to bolt
him.”
“He’d sue you like a shot if you didn’t,” said Mears. “With that
contract in his pocket he’s regularly got you in his power.”
This view of the situation made even Old Bee smile, and caused Mears
to laugh outright. For me it was scarcely so entertaining; never in my
life had I felt so small or insignificant, though I plucked up courage
when the great man handed me his list and bade the broker count me out
sixty sovereigns. This showed that in some small measure I must have
won his good opinion, a conviction that was still further strengthened
by his departure, when, in the excitement and flurry of the moment, he
even shook me by the hand.
A few days after this conversation I found myself at sea, a regularly
enrolled trader of the firm’s, and one of the after-guard of the
bark _Belle Mahone_, Captain Mins. We were bound, according to the
timehonoured formula, “for the island of Guam or any other port the
master may so direct.” I presume there are ships that actually do
go to Guam,--if, indeed, there be such a place at all,--but it has
never been my fate to come across one. Our Guam was like the rest,
a polite fiction to cover up our track and leave a veil of mystery
over our voyage. Besides John Cæsar Bibo, with whom I have already
made you acquainted, there were three others in our little company
astern. Captain Mins was a short, bullnecked man of fifty, with abrupt
manners and a singularly deliberate way of speech, due perhaps to some
impediment of the tongue. This lent to his utterance a gravity almost
judicial, and gave an added force to the contradiction which was his
only conversational counter. Jean Bonnichon, or “Frenchy,” as we called
him, was one of the firm’s traders returning to the Islands after a
brief holiday. He, like Mins, was short and thick-set, but with this
ended all resemblance between them. Bonnichon’s story was that he had
come of a wealthy family in Normandy; and it was indubitable (from the
papers he had in his possession) that he had served as an officer of
horse-artillery in the French army. What he had done to leave it no
one precisely knew, nor was our curiosity satisfied by the conflicting
explanations he himself was at pains to give. As a soldier of fortune
in the Old World, with the Turks, the Bulgarians, and finally with the
Arabs of Sus, he had sunk lower and lower, until he had come at last to
Australia, there to sink lower still.
Six years of colonial life, followed by seven on the island of Apaiang,
had transformed Frenchy into one of those strange creatures without a
country. Under the heel of adversity the Frenchman had been completely
stamped out of him; only some fragments of the army officer remained;
the bulging chest, the loud, peremptory voice, the instant obedience
to any one he counted his superior. He annoyed Old Bee excessively by
leaping to his feet whenever our employer addressed him, a military
habit so ingrained that he was quite unable to break himself of it.
Intended for deference, its effect on John Cæsar (the most fidgety
and preoccupied of patriarchs) was to drive him into one of his
sudden tempers, when woe betide the man who dared to first address
him. Adam Babcock, a humble, silent creature, completed the number
of our mess. He was the mate of the ship, and took his meals alone
after we had quitted the table, a forlorn arrangement that is usual
in small vessels. He was so completely null in our life that I have
some difficulty in recollecting him at all. He had seen misfortunes, I
remember, and had certainly come down very much in the world, for he
was the only person aft who treated me with the least consideration.
On one occasion he even called me “sir,” and gave me a present of some
shells.
With Frenchy I was soon on terms of shipboard acquaintance, but for the
others I might have been invisible, for all they ever noticed me. Old
Bee, for the matter of that, seldom spoke to any one, and the sight of
his bilious cheek would have daunted, I believe, the most incorrigible
bore in London. We saw little of him save at meal-times, for he was
perpetually busy in his cabin, adding up figures, or stamping on his
copying-book like a dancing dervish. I am at a loss to say what his
labours were all about; they were, and always have been, to me the
cause of unceasing amazement. I was not sorry, however, that Old Bee
kept so much to himself, for I feared him like the plague, and never
felt comfortable within the range of his bloodshot eyes. It fell to
Frenchy and the captain to keep the ball of conversation rolling, which
they did by disputing with each other on every topic that came up. Were
the captain, with some warmth, to make a statement, it was just as
certain to be met by Frenchy’s great horse-laugh and shrill, jeering
contradiction. They could agree on nothing, whether it was the origin
of the Russo-Turkish war or the way the natives cook devil-fish. No
provocation was too unimportant to set them at each other’s throats, no
slight too trivial to be ignored.