chiefly in consuming the food brought to him by his uncomplaining and
despised hosts, who, if they ever came as visitors to his island,
would be kept from starvation by his vassals. But comfortable though
he was, his visit had to be curtailed owing to the natural difficulty
in reanimating pigs and fowls that have been cooked and eaten. The
morning’s presentation of food had been meagre, and the excuse that the
land was in famine was conveyed to Nambuto’s household. There was no
help for it. The great canoe was unburied from the pile of leaves that
had sheltered it from the burning sun, and hauled down to the water’s
edge; the great mat sail was spread upon the sand, while deft fingers
replaced the broken threads with new sinnet; and the word went forth
that she would put to sea when next the wind was fair.
Raluve came earlier than usual that morning, and, to Vere’s surprise,
alone. She walked straight up to the chair where he was sitting, and
said, “I have come to take leave.”
“Why, where are you going to?” he asked.
“To our land. And I must take leave quickly, lest they be angry with me
for coming.”
She spoke hurriedly--almost roughly--and held out her hand with averted
face. Vere sprang to his feet, and slammed the door of his hut.
“You can’t go like this, Raluve, until I know all about it. Why didn’t
you tell me yesterday?”
“It is Nambuto’s decision. I have only just been told. But the canoe is
all prepared, and they will sail to-day, for the wind is fair.”
Vere felt bitterly disappointed. He had almost forgotten that her
mind, like the colour of her skin, must be different from his. He had
taken her seriously, and made a chum of her, and here she was going
back to her own people without a word of regret. He now remembered how
one-sided their intimacy had been. She had listened patiently to all
his confidences, but had told him nothing about herself in return.
Well, it had been a pleasant dream, and of course it was common-sense
that the awakening must come. What could he, an educated Englishman,
have to do with her, the future wife of a savage? This was not even to
be his adopted country. Of course he must say good-bye to her, and let
his dream fade into the squalid reality of his life. But he felt angry
with himself and her.
“Why should they be angry with you?” he asked indifferently, as he put
out his hand.
“Because my people are like beasts,” she answered indignantly, “and
there have been many words about us, and Nambuto is angry, and has
spoken evil to me. Look! I will hide nothing from you.” And then
she told him her whole story, lapsing into her own dialect in her
excitement, so that he could not follow her: how she had been betrothed
to Nambuto against her will; how Vere was the only friend she had ever
had, for the men of her nation knew not what friendship with a woman
could be; how she would now have to go with them, and be insulted by
them all, with none to protect her, or be her friend.
“_Isa_,” she cried, “you are a white man, and know everything, and I am
a black woman and ignorant: tell me of some medicine, that I may drink
and die! I cannot bear my life.”
Then all Vere’s better qualities rose to drag him down. All the
chivalry in him was stirred. He was not going to see this girl bullied,
and on his account. Whatever the consequences might be, he must protect
her. A worse man would have wisely reflected that native customs are
best left alone, and that, after all, the prospect painted by Raluve
was not so very terrible--for a native woman. But prudence does not
wed with youth, and to Vere, who had already begun to lose the sense
of proportion, her fate seemed horrible. The average man needs one
month in the great world for every five in the islands to correct his
perspective, and to realise the utter insignificance of himself and
his surroundings, otherwise he will infallibly come to believe that it
matters whether or not the coral foundations of the islands crumble
away, and the whole colony, executive machinery and all, go to the
bottom of the Pacific in the next hurricane.
Vere’s fluency astonished himself. He found the words without looking
for them. The figure at his feet on the mats was so limp and helpless,
so hard to reassure by comforting words, that he threw aside all
caution in his promises. So they sat on till the pattern of the
sunlight through the reed walls crept across the floor-mats, and began
to climb the opposite wall, dyeing Raluve’s bowed head with red gold
streaks. Suddenly they heard a woman’s voice in the road calling her
name, and in another moment one of her women looked in at the door
breathless, saying, “I am dead of looking for you. The chief sent me.
We sail to-morrow, and it is his word that you come at once.”
Raluve looked at Vere appealingly. “There will be much anger shown to
me,” she said; “how shall it be? Am I to go?”
We never know the turning-points in our lives at the time; and so Vere,
following that which supplies healthy-minded men with a substitute for
a conscience, his own inclination--said, “Do not go. If they are angry
come to me.”
When she had gone and the light had faded, he began to feel very
uncomfortable. He had encouraged her in resisting her own people, and
he was, after all, quite powerless to prevent them from ill-treating
her. Ugly stories crossed his mind of the doings of the old heathen
days, of the outrage and torture inflicted even on women when they
resisted the chiefs. Perhaps even at that very moment the storm was
breaking on her. The suspense was becoming unbearable when he heard a
smothered cough at the door. In the dim light a woman pushed a crumpled
note into his hand and vanished into the darkness. It was Raluve’s
first letter to him. The writing was in pencil, childish but clear, for
Raluve had been taught by the missionary’s wife.
“I am most pitiable,” she wrote. “Nambuto has spoken evil of me before
our people and the people of this place, and I am despised. But this is
nothing, for they sail to-morrow. Only I fear lest they do something to
me by force, and I go to hide in the forest. I will come back when they
return. And another thing, Nambuto spoke evil of you also. I send my
love to you.--R.”
[Illustration: “_The canoe was afloat, and laden with such of the
low-borns’ household gods as their aristocratic visitors thought worth
taking away._”]
Next morning there was a hue and cry. The canoe was afloat, and laden
with such of the low-borns’ household gods as their aristocratic
visitors thought worth taking away. The mat-sail was bent, and ready
to be hoisted, but Raluve was nowhere to be found. The palm-groves
around the village resounded with her name, and four of the crew of
the canoe even went so far as to stand shouting her name in front of
Vere’s house. This was hard to bear. Then one of them struck up in
a sing-song tone an extempore verse, which the rest received with a
burst of coarse laughter. This too was very hard to bear. Then another
cried, “Lady Raluve, are there not white men in our own land?” And this
being too hard to be borne, the wit saw the flash of white clothes, and
found himself dazed upon his back in the grass, with the sensation of
having had his face crushed in, while his three companions were in full
flight up the read. And Vere returned to his hut relieved in feelings,
but with a curious sense of having been degraded to a lower rank of
humanity where he stood upon the same level with half-naked savages
who wrangle and fight over their women. Two hours later, his fat
good-natured landlord, passing his door, volunteered the information
that the canoe had sailed. Being a wise man, he said nothing about the
missing girl, the great topic of village scandal, and thereby earned
Vere’s confidence.
Now it is not to be supposed that Raluve could escape from annoyance
with the departure of her people. These happy isles are no more free
from the love of scandal than is civilised Europe. A people endowed
with the love of social converse, and without any legitimate object
for discussion, naturally falls back upon the topics most dear to the
frequenters of small European watering-places. Such a prize as the
reputation of a chief woman, hitherto unsmutched, to tear to pieces,
would not glut the carrion-crows of this small district for many weeks.
And with the knowledge that Raluve had earned her chief’s displeasure,
all respect for her rank vanished; for they shared with a certain class
of society journal the gloating triumph that only rank and character
tottering from its pedestal can properly awaken. So when Raluve quietly
returned to the village to take up her abode with the chief’s wife, she
found that it would need all her strength to live the scandal down.
Deeply wounded as she was to find that by her own act she had earned
the scorn of a people she had been trained to despise, her courage soon
returned to her, and she gave back scorn for scorn. But she lived
on with her one friend, the village chief’s wife, a woman of her own
island and her own clan; and as the days passed, and the scandal became
stale, she began to take her proper place among them.
Vere was not allowed to escape scathless. The village scandal had
of course leaked out among the few Europeans of the place, and as
they were precluded from comparing notes with one another, not being
on speaking terms for the most part, each one supplied the details
according to the richness of his individual fancy. The principal
storekeeper’s wife told her daughter that he was an unprincipled young
man; and the damsel, having heard all the details from her native
_confidante_, who did the family washing, examined Vere as he passed
with redoubled interest. The missionary bowed coldly, and his wife
cut him dead. But, worst of all, Commissioner Austin felt it his duty
to have his say in a stammering speech, which began, “I don’t pretend
to be a particularly moral man myself, but----” and got no further,
because Vere, who knew very well what was coming, was short in the
temper, and replied with heat, “Mr Austin, I am a _very_ moral man, and
I always mind my own business,” which, as a rejoinder, was coarse and
unwarrantable, and offended his well-meaning chief past redemption. He
felt very sore and angry with the world that chose to regard what he
felt to be the fruit of his nobler self as a mere boyish escapade, and
he hardened his heart into a defiant resolve to keep his promise to
Raluve, and let the world say what it pleased. Probably if the world
had left them alone, or if either of them had been a coward, Vere would
not have become--well, what he now is.
The next six weeks taught Vere some new things. He learned, for
instance, that a brown-skinned girl has much the same kind of heart
inside her as her white sisters; that, when in love, she will say
and do all that has been said or done by a highly civilised woman,
save only that she is more simple, and less tamed by conventionality;
that love counts no cost, and asks only to be free from artificial
restraint, and utterly careless of the future. His life for the past
six weeks had been like some perfect dream that fears no awakening.
Memories of home, the throb of the great world, the ambitions of his
boyhood, touched him like the murmur in the ears of one who, standing
in some silent wood, seems to hear the roar of the city he has just
left. How often in a lifetime can any of us pause and say, “This
is perfect; I ask for nothing more”? We can no doubt remember many
perfect moments in our lives, because we have forgotten the little
vexations,--that we had the toothache, and our account was overdrawn;
for it is the petty worries and the cares of civilised life that
prevent our happy moments from being quite perfect. The _tempo felice_
was never quite so happy as we think, nor the _miseria_ quite so
wretched. But Vere’s life was happy enough to be worth paying for.
He had met Raluve every day, and had come to look on life as quite
impossible without her. Sometimes they had met at a trysting-place of
Raluve’s choosing in the forest, where a great _tavola_-tree barred
the entrance into a narrow gorge in the hills. Sometimes they had
wandered on moonlight nights along the sandy beach; and once Raluve had
plunged, laughing, into the warm sea, daring him to follow her, and had
swam to the little islet that lay a few hundred yards from the shore.
But once, as they sat talking beneath the _tavola_-tree, Raluve had
clutched his arm, listening to some distant sound, and a few moments
later a man had crashed through the underwood and stopped a few yards
from the tree, hidden from them by the great trunk. Then Vere prepared
himself for battle, but the intruder crashed off again in another
direction. Thereafter Raluve declared their trysting-tree unsafe, and
the island became their regular place of meeting. There had once been
a house on the point, but nothing was left to mark the spot but a
number of oleander-trees, and a patch of couch-grass which the sheep
had trimmed down. Here at least they were safe from intrusion, for they
could see any boat upon the starlit strait that divided them from the
shore long before it could land. And to make their safety surer, they
swam off independently after night had fallen. Vere told the girl the
story of Hero and Leander, and she thereafter would laughingly wave a
smouldering branch among the oleanders as a signal to Vere to bind his
clothes on his head and swim across to her.
But the awakening came at last. One morning a cutter anchored bringing
the mails from headquarters. Besides his usual home letters, there was
an oblong official envelope addressed to him. The letter was short.
Somebody had the honour to request that he would report himself at
headquarters at his earliest convenience, with the view of taking
up an appointment as magistrate of another district. So here was
his promotion before he expected it. Three months ago it would have
delighted him, now it seemed the worst misfortune that could befall
him. To leave this place meant giving up Raluve, for it was out of the
question that she could go with him, unless he caused a scandal that
would cost him his appointment. And yet what prevented him from shaping
his life as he chose? He had only desired promotion to shorten the time
of his exile, and life with Raluve was no longer like exile, for he had
eaten of the lotus, and the smell of the reef had entered into his soul.
Never did the sea seem so cold, nor the island so distant, as on that
night. A light rain was falling, and the smell of the oleander-flowers
was carried to Vere by the light wind as he swam; and while he waded
ashore shivering, Raluve came out from the shadows to meet him.
“E Kalokalo, I am dead with waiting. I waved my brand, but you did not
see it, and now it has gone out. And I began to fear, thinking of the
woman you told me of, who saw her lover’s dead body washed up at her
feet.”
“Am I late? I was reading letters that the cutter brought--letters from
_papalangi_.”
“From your own people? E Kalokalo, you have never told me of them. Some
day they will make you throw me aside, and you will take a _marama_ of
your own land to wife.”
“What is this foolishness, Raluve? Who has put foolish words into your
mouth?”
“I thought they were foolish words, but now I know they are true.
Alika----”
“Alika is a foolish old woman. What did she tell you?”
“She said, ‘Raluve, this white man loves you. You are fortunate, for
the white men love better than our men; but for all that he will leave
you, and return to his own people, taking one of them in marriage.’ And
when I grew angry she said, ‘Did Kaiatia keep Lui, the German, though
she bore him two children? And why does Alisi go about Lakeba like a
hen with half her feathers plucked out?’ Then I knew that her words
were true; for Lui has a white woman for wife now, and Alisi was beaten
by her people because of Tomu, the trader, and he left her, saying he
would return, and did not. And one day you will leave _me_, Kalokalo.”
Vere said nothing, feeling her eyes upon him in the dim light.
“But I will know whether it shall be so,” she went on. “Sit down: no,
not there on the grass, but on the sand. Now see,” she said, taking up
an empty cocoa-nut shell, “when I spin this cup it shall fall toward
one of us. If it falls toward you, then you will leave me, and marry
one of your people; and if it fall toward me---- See, it spins. _Mana
dina!_ Ah, faithless one, it topples like Kata, the kava-drinker!”
The shell reeled, lurched, and fell toward the girl, rolling away on
its side from between them. Raluve’s hands fell to her side.
“Nay; but the shell spoke the truth,” said Vere, laughing.
But the girl had become serious.
“It is a heathen game, and we ought not to have done it, therefore it
lied. And if you doubt that it lied, I will take a Bible to-morrow, and
swear that I will never leave you. Then if I swear falsely, I shall die
as Ana did, when she swore she did not burn down Finau’s house. But you
will leave me, and it is right; for you are my chief, and I am a black
woman, and I could not bear that you should be despised by your people
because of me. What is she like, Kalokalo?”
“Who?”
“The woman you will marry. She must be a great lady like the Governor’s
wife, not like the _maramas_ of Levuka, who are angry, and have harsh
voices. I hate them: but you would never take one of them?”
“And what would you do if I married, Raluve?”
“I would be your wife’s servant if she would let me; but if you left me
for one of my own people----” She caught her breath, and half-started
up. He thought she was excited by her own speech, but her face was
set, and her body tense. She was listening. “Somebody is coming,” she
whispered. Vere strained his ears, but could hear nothing but the faint
hiss of the sand as the tiny waves sucked it back.
“I hear nothing,” he said.
She put her hand on his mouth, and rose upon her knees, looking
seawards. After some seconds she stooped.
“There are no other double canoes but Nambuto’s. I can hear the _sua_,
four of them, therefore it is a double canoe. They are sculling against
the wind, and may land here. Come, let us swim across.”
But while Vere still hesitated, scarcely believing her, the quiet air
was pierced by the deep note of a conch-shell from the sea.
“It is Nambuto,” she said, excitedly. “_Vonu?_ No, they do not blow
like that for _vonu_” (turtle).
It was too late to think of swimming ashore. In another moment the
beach would be alive with men. Raluve drew Vere back into the shadow
of the oleanders, and made him lie down lest his white face should be
seen. He could see her crouching at the edge of the sand. Gradually
he began to distinguish a dull rhythmical beat, and the girl drew
back into the shadow. The sound grew louder, and then he saw a dark
mass emerging from the night, which took the shape of a great canoe,
creeping inshore against the light land-breeze which had just sprung
up. It glided on noiselessly, save for the rhythmical blow of the _sua_
as they rocked from side to side in the sockets, while the figures of
the four scullers stood out in sharp _silhouette_ against the sky-line.
It passed so close to the point of the island that Vere could have
thrown a biscuit on to the deck, and could hear every word spoken by
those on board. When it had passed on to the beach, Vere realised how
great had been the strain to Raluve.
“Nambuto is there; I heard his voice. What shall I do?”
It seemed a small matter to Vere whether Nambuto came back or not. He
could not realise that this girl by his side, who thought and spoke so
rationally, was still one of her own people, bound to fear what they
feared, and to respect the customs that had become stronger than law to
them. That she, an affianced chief woman, should prefer a white man to
a man of her own race, was as great a social crime as it would be were
a countrywoman of ours to tolerate an Indian rajah.
Meanwhile the party had landed from the canoe, and the voices on the
beach were silent. Raluve thought she had heard her name called in
the direction of Vere’s house; but they waited until the cocks had
crowed in the village, and a few sleepy birds had begun twittering in
the trees on the island. It was the safest hour for their return: the
natives, roused in the night, would sleep late that morning. Still
Raluve feared to take a direct course to the shore, and, calling to
Vere to follow her, waded through the shallow water and struck out,
steering a diagonal course towards the shore opposite Vere’s house.
The water was brilliantly phosphorescent, and her body seemed to be
clothed in polished silver as she swam. Every stroke of her arms and
feet scattered a shower of diamonds that flashed a moment and vanished
in the black water; and from before her hundreds of fish, taking her
for an enemy, shot away, leaving a dull train of fire behind them like
shooting-stars in a dark sky. It was a long swim, for it was high tide;
but as they waded ashore, tired and out of breath, the beach seemed
deserted. There was only the dark shelter of the trees to be gained,
and they were safe. They stopped a moment on the sand to put on the
clothes they had tied round their heads, and then hurried up towards
the trees. But before they reached them there was a shout from the bush
just in front of them, answered by two voices further off in different
directions.
“They have seen us,” said Raluve, hurriedly. “Run away, Kalokalo. I
will wait for them here.”
But Vere had no idea of running away, and stood his ground by her side.
There was the sound of a man crashing through the bushes, and a native
ran into the open and stood before them. It was Nambuto.
There was silence for some moments. Raluve stood facing him with
heaving breast, while Vere clenched his fists, and drew nearer to
her. The chief broke the silence with the most insulting word in his
language. Vere did not understand the word, but the man’s tone and
Raluve’s passionate indignation were enough for him.
“You scoundrel!” he cried in English from between his set teeth; “how
dare you speak to her like that?”
Nambuto, expecting a blow, put up both hands to defend his face, and
Vere, mistaking the gesture in the dim light, thought he was about to
strike him. In a moment Nambuto was reeling backwards, stunned with a
heavy blow between the eyes, and as he fell he shouted a few words at
the top of his voice.
“Run, Raluve, and hide yourself,” cried Vere.
“Come with me,” she answered; “he has called his men, and they will
kill you.”
She tried to drag him into the trees, for they could hear voices and
the crashing of the undergrowth, as Nambuto’s men ran in the direction
of their chief’s voice.
“Run and hide yourself,” cried Vere again, excitedly pushing her into
the shadow of the trees. He had just time to reach the trunk of a great
_dilo_-tree, and put his back against it, when five men ran out on to
the beach where Nambuto sat rubbing his eyes as if stupefied.
“Seize the white man!--he has struck me,” he cried.
They came upon Vere cautiously, for he was a formidable object for
unarmed natives to tackle. “Quick, a stick,” cried one, and ran to pick
up a rough worm-eaten piece of drift-wood. He dodged the first blow
and knocked down one of them, who tried to run in under his guard, but
the second blow struck his shoulder, and he fell. Before he could rise
they were upon him, trampling and stamping the breath out of his body.
But help was near. Raluve had run to the nearest house, and it was that
of Vere’s landlord and particular friend. But she outstripped him, and
was among Vere’s assailants, raging like a tigress, long before he came
up. It is no easy matter to quiet savages when their blood is once up;
but her prestige among them was still great, and one after another
they slunk off before her indignant flow of invective. She was almost
terrible in her anger, as a woman can only be when she is defending
some one she loves.
I once saw a woman, meek, cowed, and dispirited with the years of
slavery called marriage among these people, divorced from her husband,
who beat her. She did not seem to have a soul above her yam-patch, nor
could she be stirred to a show of interest by the announcement of her
freedom. Her child, an ill-favoured brat, eruptive with sores, sat by
her side, and when she heard that it was to be taken from her, even
that woman became terrible in her indignation.