Denison, the supercargo of the _Indiana_ was always reproaching
Packenham, the skipper, for getting the ship into trouble by his
inconsiderate and effusive good-nature--“blind stupidity,” Denison
called it. And whenever Packenham did bring trouble upon himself or the
ship's company by some fresh act of glaring idiotcy, he would excuse
himself by saying that it wouldn't have happened if Nerida had been with
him that trip. Nerida was Packenham's half-caste Portuguese wife. She
was a very small woman, but kept her six-foot husband in a state of
placid subjection and also out of much mischief whenever she made a
cruise in the _Indiana_. Therefore Denison loved her as a sister, and
forgave her many things because of this. Certainly she was a bit of a
trial sometimes to every living soul on board the brig, but then all
skippers' wives are that, even when pure white. And Nerida's doings
would make a book worth reading--especially by married women with
gadabout husbands like Packenham. But on this occasion Nerida was not
aboard, and Denison looked for trouble.
*****
For four days and nights the little _Indiana_ had leapt and spun along,
before a steady southerly gale, rolling like a drunken thing a-down the
for'ard slopes of mountain seas, and struggling gamely up again with
flattened canvas from out the windless trough; a bright, hot sun had
shone upon her swashing decks from its slow rosy dawn to its quick
setting of fiery crimson and blazing gold; and at night a big white moon
lit up an opal sky, and silvered the hissing froth and smoky spume that
curled in foaming ridges from beneath her clean-cut bows.
The brig was bound from Auckland to Samoa and the islands of the
north-west, and carried a cargo of trade goods for the white traders who
hoisted the _Indiana's_ house-flag in front of their thatched dwellings.
Packenham thought a good deal of this flag--it bore the letters R. P. in
red in a yellow square on a blue ground--until one day Hammerfeld, the
German supercargo of the _Iserbrook_, said it stood for Remorseless
Plunderer. Some one told this to Packenham, and although he gave the big
Dutchman a bad beating for it, the thing travelled all over the South
Seas and made him very wroth. So then he got Nerida to sew another half
turn in red to the loop of the P, and thereby made it into a B.
“That'll do fine,” he said to Denison. '“Bob Packenham' instead of
'Robert Packenham,' eh?”
“Ye-s,” answered, Denison thoughtfully, “I daresay it will be all
right.” And a month later, when Captain Bully Hayes came on board the
_Indiana_ in Funafuti Lagoon, he gravely told Packenham that a lot of
people were saying the letters stood for “Bloody Pirate.”
But all this has nothing to do with this story.
As I have said, the brig was running before a stiff southerly gale.
Packenham came on deck, and flinging his six feet of muscular manhood
upon the up-ended flaps of the skylight, had just lit his cigar when
Alan the bos'un came aft and said that the peak of Tutuila was looming
high right ahead, thirty miles away.
“Bully old ship!” said the skipper, “give the _Indiana_ a good breeze
that catches her fair and square in the stern and she'll run like a
scared dog with a tin-pot tied to his tail. Denison, you sleepy beast,
come up on deck and look at Samoa the Beautiful, where every prospect
pleases and only the German trader is vile.”
And so as he and Denison sat aft on the skylight drinking their
afternoon coffee and smoking their Manilas, and the brown-skinned native
crew sat below in the dark and stuffy foc's'le and gambled for tobacco,
the _Indiana_ foamed and splashed and rolled before the gale till she
ran under the lee of the land into a sea of transparent green, whose
gentle rollers scarce broke in foam as they poured over the weed-clad
ledges of the barrier-reef into the placid waters or the islet-studded
lagoon encompassing the mainland about the village of Sa Lotopa.
Then as some of the merry-hearted kanaka crew ranged the cable, and
others ran aloft to clew-up the sails, Packenham steered the brig
between a narrow reef-bound passage till she brought up abreast a
sweeping curve of sandy beach, shining white under the wooded spurs of
a mountain peak two thousand feet above. Back from the beach and showing
golden-brown among the sunlit green lay the thatched houses of a native
village, and as the brig came head to wind, and the cable clattered
through the hawse-pipes, the brown-skinned people ran joyously down to
their canoes and swarmed off to the ship. For they all knew Pakenami the
_kapeni_, and Tenisoni the supercargo, and Alan the half-caste bos'un,
and the two mates, and the Chinaman cook, and every one else on board,
and for years past had laughed and joked and sang and hunted the wild
boar with them all; and sometimes lied to and robbed and fought with
them, only to be better friends than ever when the white men came
back again, and the skipper and Denison made the young men presents
of meerschaum pipes and condemned Snider rifles; and Alan the Stalwart
“asked” every fourth girl in the village when he got drunk at a dance
and denied it when sober, yet paid damages like an honourable man (2
dols, in trade goods for each girl) to the relatives.
In a few minutes the first batch of canoes reached the ship, and the
occupants, men, women, and children, clambered up the brig's side, and
then rushed aft to the poop to rub noses with Packenham and Denison,
after the custom of the country, and then for a time a wild babble of
voices reigned.
“Hallo, Iakopo, how are you!” said the skipper, shaking hands with a
fat-faced, smiling native, who was clad in a white duck suit, and was
accompanied by a pretty, dark-eyed girl; “how's the new church getting
on? Nearly finished, is it. Well, I didn't forget you. I've brought you
down the doors and windows from Auckland.”
Iakopo (_Anglicè_ Jacob), who was the local teacher and rather a
favourite with the _Indiana's_ company, said he was very glad. He
was anxious to get the church finished before the next visit of the
missionary ship, he said. That vain fellow Pita, the teacher at Leone
Bay, had been boasting terribly about _his_ church, and he (Iakopo)
meant to crush him utterly with these European-made doors and windows,
which his good friend Pakenami had brought him from Nui Silani.
“You bet,” said the skipper; “and what's more, I'll help you to take the
shine out of Pita. I'll fix the doors and windows for you myself,” and
he winked slily at the teacher's daughter, who returned it as promptly
as any Christian maiden, knowing that Nerida wasn't on board, and that
she had nothing to fear.
“I wish to goodness that fellow hadn't come aboard,” grumbled Denison to
Packenham, after the missionary and his daughter had gone ashore. “Peter
Deasy and the Dutchman don't like it, I can see, or they would have been
aboard before now. No white man likes boarding a ship _after_ a native
teacher, and both these fellows are d----d touchy. The chances are that
they won't come aboard at all to-day.”
“That's true,” said the captain thoughtfully; “I didn't think of that.”
(He never did think.) “Shall I go ashore first, and smooth down their
ruffled plumage?”
Denison said he thought it would be a good thing to do. Deasy and the
Dutchman (_i.e._, the German) were both independent traders, who had
always bought their trade goods from and sold their produce to the
_Indiana_ for years past, and were worth humouring. So Packenham went
ashore, leaving Denison to open out his wares in the brig's trade room
in readiness for the two white men.
*****
Now both Peter Deasy and Hans Schweicker were feeling very sulky--as
Denison imagined--and at that moment were talking to each other across
the road from their respective doorways, for their houses were not far
apart. They had intended boarding the ship the moment she anchored, but
abandoned the idea as soon as they saw the teacher going off. Not
that they disliked Iakopo personally, but then he was only a low-class
native, and had no business thrusting himself before his betters. So
they sat down and waited till Denison or the captain came ashore.
Peter wore a pair of clean white moleskins and a bright pink print shirt
covered with blue dogs; and as the lower portion of this latter garment
was hanging outside instead of being tucked inside his moleskins, quite
a large number of dogs were visible. Hans, dressed in pyjamas of a green
and yellow check, carefully starched, smoked a very bad German cigar;
Deasy puffed a very dirty clay dhudeen.
Presently one of Hans's wife's numerous relatives ran up to him, and
told him that the captain was coming ashore, and the atmosphere at once
cleared a little. Deasy was the elder trader, and by right of custom
expected the skipper would come to his house first. Hans, however, was
the “warmest” man of the two, and thought _he_ should be the honoured
man, especially as he had the larger quantity of copra and other island
produce to sell Packenham. Both men were very good friends at that
moment, and had been so for years past. They had frequently
lied manfully on each other's behalf when summoned before the
Deputy-Commissioner for selling arms and ammunition to the natives.
But while in social matters--such as getting drunk, circumventing the
missionaries, and making fools of her Majesty's representatives--the two
were in perfect and truly happy accord, they were often devoured
with the bitterest business jealousies, and their wives and relatives
generally shared this feeling with them. And as Mrs. Deasy and Mrs.
Schweicker each had a large native following who all considered
_their_ white man was the better of the two, the question of commercial
supremacy between Peter Deasy and Hans Schweicker was one of much local
importance.
As the word was passed along that the captain was coming, the female
inmates of the two houses each surrounded their respective head, and
looked anxiously over his shoulders at the approaching visitor.
Deasy's wife had put on her best dress; so had Schweicker's.
Pati-lima--otherwise Mrs. Peter Deasy--who was a huge eighteen stone
creature, with a round good-humoured face and a piping childish voice,
had arrayed her vast proportions in a flowing gown of Turkey-red twill,
and the radiant glory thereof had a pleasing and effective background in
the garments of her three daughters, who were dressed in 'green, yellow,
and blue respectively. Manogi--Mrs. Schweicker--who had no children,
and was accounted the prettiest woman in Samoa, was clothed, like her
husband, in spotless white, and her shining black tresses fell in a wavy
mantle down to her waist. Unlike Pati-lima's daughters, whose heads were
encircled by wreaths of orange blossoms, Manogi wore neither ornament
nor decoration. She knew that her wavy hair drooped gracefully down her
clear-cut, olive-hued face like the frame of a picture, and set off her
bright eyes and white teeth to perfection; and that no amount of orange
blossoms could make her appear more beautiful. So in the supreme and
blessed consciousness of being the best-dressed and best-looking
woman in the whole village, she sat behind her husband fanning herself
languidly, and scarce deigning to answer the Deasy girls when they spoke
to her.
Presently the boat touched the beach. The captain jumped out, shook
hands with a number of natives who thronged around him, and stepped
along the path. Half-way between the white men's houses was the
unfinished church, and near to that the teacher's house, embowered in a
grove of orange and lemon trees. As Packenham walked along he looked
up the road, smiled and nodded at the Deasy and Schweicker crowd, then
deliberately turned to the left and walked into the teacher's dwelling!
And Manogi and all the Deasy women saw Miriamu, the teacher's daughter,
come to the open window and make a face at them in derision. Peter and
Schweicker looked at each other in speechless indignation.
“The swape av the wurruld!” and Deasy dashed his pipe down at his feet
and smashed it in small pieces, “to go to a native's house first an'
white min sthandin' awaitin' his pleasure. By the sowl av' me mother,
Hans, devil a foot does he put inside my door till he explains phwat he
manes by it.”
“Shoost vat you mide expeg from a new chum!” replied Hans, who had lived
in Australia. Then they both went back to their respective houses to
await events.
Now Packenham meant no harm, and had not the faintest idea he was giving
offence. But then, as Denison said, he never would think. Yet on this
occasion he had been thinking. Iakopo had told him that he had collected
enough money to pay for the doors and windows right away, and then
Packenham, who knew that this would surprise and please Denison, told
the teacher that he would call for the money when he came ashore.
“Come to my father's house first--before you go to the white men's,”
said Iakopo's daughter, with a side look at the captain. She hated all
the Deasy girls and Manogi in particular, who had “said things” about
her to Denison, and knew that they would feel furiously jealous of her
if Packenham called at her father's house first. And Packenham said he
would do so.
Half an hour passed, and then the skipper having been paid the money by
the teacher, and having smoked a couple of cigarettes rolled for him by
Miriamu, said he must go. And Miriamu, who wanted to triumph over the
Deasy girls and Manogi, said she would come too. On the Scriptural
principle of casting bread upon the waters she had given Packenham some
presents--a fan, a bottle of scented coconut-oil, and two baked fowls.
These she put into a basket and told her little brother to bring
along--it would annoy the other girls.
During this time Deasy and Hans had been talking over the matter, and
now felt in a better temper. Manogi had said that Denison was a more
important man than Packenham. _He_ wouldn't have gone into the teacher's
house first; and then most likely Miriamu, who was no better than she
ought to be, had called the captain in.
“Why let this vex thee?” she said, “this captain for ever forgetteth
_faà Samoa_ (Samoan custom), and hath been beguiled by Miriamu into her
father's house.”
After awhile Deasy and Hans agreed with her, and so when Packenham came
up to them with outstretched hand, they greeted him as usual; but their
women-folk glared savagely at Miriamu, who now felt frightened and stuck
close to the captain.
“Bedad, it's hot talking here in the sun,” said Deasy, after Packenham
had shaken hands with Mrs. Deasy and Mrs. Hans and the girls, “come
inside, captain, and sit down while I start my people to fill the copra
bags and get ready for weighing.”
“Veil, I don't call dot very shentlemanly gonduck,” grunted Hans, who,
naturally enough, wanted _his_ copra weighed first so that he could get
away on board the brig and have first pick of Denison's trade room.
Deasy fired up. “An' I tell ye, Hans, the captain's going to plase
himself intoirely. Sure he wouldn't turn his back on my door to plase a
new man like you---”
Manogi pushed herself between them: “You're a _toga fiti_ man (schemer),
Paddy Deasy,” she said in English, with a contemptuous sniff.
“Yes,” added Hans, “you was no good, Deasy; you was alvays tarn
shellous----”
“An' you're a dirty low swape av a Dutchman to let that woman av yours
use a native wor-rud in the captain's hearin',” and Deasy banged
his fellow-trader between the eyes, as at the same moment Manogi and
Pati-lima sprang at each other like fiends, and twined their hands in
each other's hair. Then, ere Manogi's triumphant squeal as she dragged
out a handful of the Deasy hair had died away, half a dozen young lady
friends had leapt to her aid, to be met with cries of savage fury by the
three Misses Deasy, and in ten seconds more the whole lot were fighting
wildly together in an undistinguishable heap, with Deasy and the
Dutchman grasping each other's throats underneath.
Packenham jumped in on top of the struggling mass, and picking up three
women, one after another, tossed them like corks into the arms of
a number of native men who had now appeared on the scene, and were
encouraging the combatants; but further movement on his part was
rendered impossible by Miriamu, who had clasped him round the waist and
was imploring him to come away. For a minute or so the combat continued,
and then the tangle of arms, legs, and dishevelled hair was heaved up in
the centre, and Deasy and Hans staggered to their feet, glaring murder
and sudden death at each other.
Freeing himself from the grasp of the minister's daughter, who at once
leapt at Manogi, Packenham seized Schweicker by the collar, and was
dragging him away from Deasy when he got a crack on the side of his head
from Manogi's mother, who thought he meant to kill her son-in-law,
and had dashed to the rescue with a heavy tappa mallet. And then, as
Packenham went down like a pithed bullock, there arose a wild cry from
some one that the white captain was being murdered. Denison heard it,
and with five of the _Indiana's_ crew, armed with Winchester rifles, he
jumped into the boat and hurried ashore.
By this time some thirty or forty stalwart Samoans, under the direction
of the teacher, had flung themselves upon the women who were still
rending each other in deadly silence, and in some way separated them.
Packenham was lying apart from the rest, his head supported by a
white-haired old native who was threatening every one present with the
bloody vengeance of a man-of-war. Deasy and Hans were seated on the
sward, still panting and furious. Deasy had one black eye; Hans had two.
“Are yez satisfied, Dutchy?” inquired Deasy.
“Shoost as mooch as you vas!” answered the German.
*****
Now here the matter would have ended, but just at that time Pati-lima,
who was being fanned by a couple of her friends, caught sight of the
slight figure of Manogi, her white muslin gown torn to ribbons and her
bosom heaving with excitement. Her beautiful face, though white with
rage, was un-marred by the slightest scratch, while Pati-lima's was
deeply scored by her enemy's nails. This was hard to bear.
Raising herself on one elbow, Mrs. Deasy pointed contemptuously to
Manogi's husband and called out--
“Ah, you conceited Manogi! Take home thy German _pala-ai_ (coward). My
man hath beaten him badly.”
“Thou liest, thou great blubbering whale,” was the beauty's scornful
reply; “he could beat such a drunkard as thy husband any day.”
The two women sprang to their feet, and were about to engage again when
Denison ran in between them, and succeeded in keeping them apart. Deasy
and Hans looked on unconcernedly.
“What is all this?” said Denison to Packenham.
Packenham groaned, “I don't know. An old woman hit me with a club.”
“Serve you right. Now then, Deasy, and you, Hans, send all these women
away. I thought you had more sense than to encourage such things,”
and then Denison, who excelled in vituperative Samoan, addressed the
assemblage, and told the people to go home.
Still glaring defiance, the two factions slowly turned to leave the
field, and again all would have been well but for Manogi, who was
burning to see the thing out to its bitter end. So she had her try.
Pati-lima came from Manono, the people of which island eat much
shell-fish, and suffer much in consequence from the sarcastic allusions
of the rest of the Samoan people. And they don't like it, any more than
a Scotsman likes his sacred haggis being made the subject of idiotic
derision. So as the two parties moved off, Manogi faced round to
Pati-lima.
“Pah! _Manono ai foli_” (Manono feeds on shellfish).
“_Siamani vao tapiti elo_” (Germans gorge on stinking cabbage) was the
quick retort of Mrs. Deasy, who pointed scornfully at Manogi's husband,
and instantaneously the whole assemblage, male and female, were
engaged in hideous conflict again, while Denison and his boat's crew,
“Wond'ring, stepped aside,” and let them fight it out.
What the result would have been had not the encounter been stopped
is hard to say; but in the midst of this second struggle the young
yellow-haired local chief bounded into the fray, and smote right and
left with a heavy club, ably seconded by Denison and his men and lakopo.
The appearance of the chief was, however, enough--the opposing factions
drew off from each other and retired, carrying their wounded with them.
*****
“What a brace of detestable ruffians!” said Captain De Groen, of her
Majesty's ship _Dawdler_, to Denison a day or two afterwards. The doctor
of the man-of-war had gone ashore to patch up the wounded, and Denison
had been telling the commander how the affair occurred.
Now Captain De Groen was wrong. Both Deasy and Schweicker were as decent
a pair of men as could be found in the Pacific--that is to say, they did
no harm to a living soul except themselves when under the influence of
liquor, which was not infrequent. But it was all Packenham's fault. Had
he kept clear of the teacher's house, Deasy and Hans would not have felt
affronted, Manogi and Pati-lima would not have said nasty things to each
other, and Denison would not have been reported upon officially by her
Majesty's High Commissioner for the Western Pacific as a person who,
“with a Mr. Packenham, master of the brig _Indiana_, incited the native
factions of Sa Lotopa to attack each other with murderous fury.”