Jack landed in Oa Bay, the possessor, except for the clothes upon his
back, of nothing but his rugged health, his stout heart, and a
determination to make good his footing with his new friends. He
remembered drawing apart from the others, as the welcoming throng came
down to greet them in the dusk, forlornly struggling with his
embarrassment and the penetrating sense of his own helplessness and
isolation. Would he ever forget, standing there as he did, unremarked,
solitary, shivering in his rags, the soft hand that felt through the
darkness for his own, the voice so gentle, low, and sweet that whispered
to him, "Come, Jack, you my white mans now!"
This was the beginning of Jack's new life. He became a member of the
chief's family, sleeping with the others at night on the outspread mats,
and taking his share, by day, of all the work and play of the little
Samoan village. He weeded _taro_, he carried stones for the building of
the new church, he helped to lay out nets, he speared fish, he played
cricket and _ta ti'a_. By nature neither an idler nor a shirk, he was
consumed, besides, with a desire to repay the kindness and hospitality
of his hosts; and the old chief, his friend from the start, now became
his captain, to whom he rendered the unquestioning obedience of a
seaman. And old Faalelei, whose loose authority was often disregarded by
his own subjects, delighted in the possession of this stalwart white, so
willing, so eager, so ingenious in the mending of boats and nets--a man
to whom the mechanism of a gun had no secrets, and in whose hands a
single hatchet became a tool chest.
Living thus among the only mild, courteous, and refined people he had
ever known, Jack insensibly altered and improved. His loud voice grew
softer, his boisterous laugh less explosive, and his rough ways gave
place to a clumsy imitation of Samoan good manners. Little by little the
uncouth sailor patterned himself on the model of his new friends, and
he, whose every second word had been an oath, whose only repartee a
blow, now set himself to learn the most ceremonious language in the
world, and the only one, perhaps, in which one cannot swear!
And Fetuao? When he had first taken up his abode in Faalelei's house he
had never doubted, seeing the girl's extravagant affection for him, and
knowing the laxity of the native people, that it would not be long
before he might form with her one of those irregular connections so
common in the islands; and, indeed, it grew daily more plain to him that
he had but to ask to have. But Jack, not a little to his own
astonishment, and stirred by undreamed-of instincts and undreamed-of
scruples, put the idea from him with a hesitation he could hardly
explain to himself. In his wicked and lawless past he had known every
kind of woman but a good woman; he had seen, in a thousand water-side
dives, every variety of feminine degradation and feminine shame, and had
sounded in his time all the squalid depths of sailor vice. With the
memory of these unspeakable contrasts, Fetuao's freshness, purity, and
beauty shone with a sort of angelic brightness. No, by God, she should
never come to harm through him; and, clenching his huge hands together,
he would repeat these words to himself when he sometimes felt his
resolution falter. For the sailor, who never until then had known a
modest woman, who had starved his whole life long for what his money
could never buy, whose heart at thirty was as virgin as a boy's, now
found himself moved by a sublime passion for the only creature that had
ever loved him.
For she did love him; of that, indeed, he had never the need to reassure
himself; and in the knowledge of her love he became, almost in spite of
himself, a better man. In her girlish self-abandonment Fetuao lacked the
artifices which older women would have used; she never thought to guard
herself, or to coquette with him. At night, as they walked hand in hand
about the village, or sat close together on some log or boat, she would
take his arm and draw it around her; she would lay her head against his
breast; she would press herself so close to him that he could hear her
beating heart. There was much of the mother in her love for him. He was
her great baby, to be caressed, kissed, crooned over, to be petted and
encouraged. Her tender laughter was always in his ears; she corrected
him as she might a child, with a sweet seriousness, and an implication
that his shame was hers whenever he blundered in Samoan etiquette; she
prompted him and pushed him through scenes of trying formality, and
drilled him assiduously in politeness.
In the moonlight, when they were alone together, she taught him how to
receive the _'ava_ cup; how to spill the libation to the gods; how to
invoke a proper blessing on the company. She taught him how to say "_O
susunga, lau susunga fo'i_," on entering a strange house; how to pull
the mat over his knee to express his fictitious dependence; how to join
in the chorus of "_Maliu mai, susu mai_" when others entered after him;
how, indeed, to comport himself everywhere with the finished courtesy of
a Samoan chief.
Thus the bright days passed, and months melted into months, and still
Jack remained an inmate of Faalelei's household. At first he had
accepted this strange life as a sort of holiday, never doubting but
that, in the end, he must turn his back on these pleasant people, and
see, from a dizzy yardarm, their exquisite island sink forever behind
him. The place thus possessed for him the charm of something he was
destined soon to lose, and he clung to it as a man clings to his fading
youth, with a sense that it is slipping from him. He sighed as he
thought of the forecastle that he knew somewhere awaited him; how he
would recall those still nights in Oa when he would be roused by the
boatswain's handspike on the hatch, and the hoarse cry of "All hands on
deck!"
One day, when he was out in Faalelei's boat, an accident occurred that
came very near to being the end of Jack. They were pursuing a school of
bonito, and Pulu, the chief's brother, was standing in the bow with a
stick of dynamite and was in the nick of letting it fly when it exploded
prematurely in his hand. Pulu was killed, the rickety old boat parted
and sank, and Jack, with his shoulder laid open to the bone, was towed
in by a neighboring canoe, and carried up to the house. They laid him on
the floor, pale and groaning, while the children ran out screaming for
Fetuao. She came in like a whirlwind, still wet from the river, and
threw herself on her knees beside him. With passionate imperiousness she
made the rest of the household wait upon her bidding as she busied
herself in stanching the flow of blood and in picking the splinters from
the wound. Jack knew how wont she was, in common with all Samoans, to
shrink from disagreeable sights. It touched him to see how love had
conquered her repugnance; nor could he resist a smile when she began to
tear her little wardrobe into bandages, those chemises and _lavalavas_
that she used to iron under the trees, and put away with such care into
the camphor-wood chest with the bell lock.
For the better part of a fortnight Jack lay where they had placed him on
the mats, undergoing, with intermissions of fever and delirium, the
tedious stages of convalescence. Fetuao seemed never to leave him,
attending to his wants, brushing away the flies, feeding and washing him
with an anxious solemnity that at times almost awed the sailor. Her
brilliant eyes, as black and limpid as some wild animal's, watched him
with an unceasing stare. He often wondered what was passing in her
graceful head as he lay looking up at her, too weak to speak, the drowsy
hours succeeding one another in an unbroken silence. Once, when he ran
his hand over his face and recollected with a pang how old and ugly he
must seem to her, she had understood the sigh that expressed his own
self-disgust, and had bent over and kissed him on the lips. From that
moment his love for her deepened into an emotion transcending anything
he had ever felt before. He saw now that to separate himself from her
would be to break both their hearts; that, for good or evil, he was hers
and she his; that fate had indeed joined them forever.
When at last he grew strong enough to walk, he went with her across to
the native pastor's house, where together they stood up before the Rev.
Tavita Singua and were married. This was the prelude to another and more
binding ceremony before the American Consul in Apia, whither they both
went in a canoe borrowed from Faalelei. The official books were
withdrawn from the safe and the thirty-six Americans in Samoa were
increased by two new names: "Jack Wilson, aged thirty-one, birthplace
Bath, Me., occupation seaman, present residence Oa Bay; and Fetuao
Wilson, supposed to be seventeen, daughter of Faalelei, chief of Oa Bay,
his lawful wife." (See Consular Marriage Record, p. 18.)
As he stood there before the consul, painfully conscious of his bare
feet, of his unkempt and ragged appearance, of the contrast between
himself and that benignant official, he timidly brought up the subject
of the fee. No doubt there is some kind of damage, he said, and might he
leave this ring--his mother's wedding ring--in pawn until he might earn
a little money and square the matter? The consul took the ring, looked
at it a moment without a word, and then in a rough, friendly way seized
Fetuao's hand and slipped it on her finger.
"I think it belongs here," he said.
"But the fee," said Jack.
"Oh, damn the fee!" said the consul.
With that he went into an inner office and returned with a sheepish air,
as of a man about to do something he was ashamed of.
"Here's ten dollars," he said. "Take it; it's a wedding present, you
know. I never married anybody before."
Jack refused the gift a little ungraciously, though his voice trembled
in doing so.
"Have a drink, then?" said the consul.
"No, I thank you, sir," Jack blurted out.
Embarrassment in a cloud descended on all three. The consul, like the
worthy fellow he was, wished to do something for these waifs, and his
eyes roved about the big, hot room in search of he knew not what. Jack
and Fetuao, no less ill at ease, stood close together and waited
submissively. Finally, noticing the new boat flag lying on his desk, the
consul took it up in both his hands. "Wilson," he said oratorically,
"this is my flag, and your flag, and it is now Mrs. Wilson's flag, for
I've made her as good an American as the pair of us. Take it along with
you, and if you have children, bring them up to love and honor Old Glory
as we do, and teach them at your knee what it stands for--freedom,
justice; and equal rights for every man born under it. And if there
should ever be any trouble here--war, riot, or any little
unpleasantness--just hoist it above your house, and its bright folds
will protect you as though the whole U-nited States army lay in a
mighty camp around you!"
Jack took the flag respectfully, much impressed by the consul's speech,
and tremendously pleased, besides, that Fetuao should see that an
American, even a common, low-down American seaman like himself, counted
for something in the official world. Would a Britisher, or one of those
stinking Dutchmen, have acted like this consul did? _His_ consul, by
God!--and his breast heaved with gratitude and patriotic fervor.
Afterwards, when Fetuao and he ate their lunch under a tree, he spread
out the consul's gift on the ground beside him, and the words freedom,
justice, and equal rights boomed sonorously in his ears. To Fetuao, in
her simplicity, the bunting appeared a sort of sanction or certificate
of their civil marriage; and when she returned home she explained that
it was all settled, the _faamasino_ having written their names in the
book and given them the _fua Ameleke_!