It was years ago that he came to Uvea (said little Nofo, as we sat side
by side on a derelict spar and watched the sun go down into the
lagoon)--years and years and years ago, when I was an unthinking child
and knew naught of men nor their crooked hearts. He was a chief, of wild
and strange appearance, with a black beard half covering his piglike
face; a thin, bent, elderly chief, with hairy hands, and a head on which
there was nothing at all, and teeth so loose in his mouth that at night
he laid them in a cup beside him. He was landed from a ship that
forthwith sailed and was never seen again--he and three tents, and a
boat and innumerable boxes, all numbered from one to a thousand, and a
nigger named Billy Hindoo to care for him and cook.
The Government gave him a piece of land next the lagoon, where he
pitched his tents and lived; and they put a taboo round the land so that
none might cross, and also a notice on a board, saying, "Be careful of
the white man." Here he unpacked his things, and arranged a place for
Billy Hindoo, and another place, open at the sides, where at a table he
was daily served with sardines and bottled beer. He was named Professor,
and his occupation, unlike that of all other white men, was to look at
dead fish through bits of glass. He was a man of no kindness nor
accomplishments, meanly solitary, and, in spite of two pairs of
spectacles worn the one on the other, he was almost blind besides. Were
you to come near him, he would scream out, "No, no!" Were you even to
touch his bits of glass, or finger his sticky shadow pictures in the
pool, he would run at you, crying, "No, no!" Were you to approach him as
he bathed in the lagoon, marveling at his unsightliness, he would beat
the water like one delirious, and scream again, "No, no!" So, in time,
his name became changed from Professor into No No, or, as many called
him in one word, Professor No No; and we all grew to hate him, as did
also Billy Hindoo, who was generous and loving, and gave away
unstintedly sardines and biscuit to those he favored.
But Professor No No, unexpectedly returning in his boat with a new dead
fish no bigger than that (a fish, too, of so little worth that one
couldn't eat it without feeling ill for the succeeding week), discovered
Billy Hindoo dividing a tin of biscuit among the girls with whom he had
made friends. The rage of Professor No No was without limit, and he ran
at Billy Hindoo and choked him with his hairy hands, and beat him over
the body with a stick, and drove him away with execrations. Then he sat
down at the table and drank bottled beer, and held up the fish to his
blind eyes, and at intervals shouted out, "No, no; No, no," as we all
crowded about the taboo line, watching and wondering.
The next day Billy Hindoo came back, but Professor No No repelled him
with a stick, having counted the beer and the sardines and the biscuit,
and found many missing. Then Billy Hindoo sought a place in the house of
Tamua, and being a man of subtle mind, though without paper on which to
write, carved the date of his rejection on a tree, together with the
names of witnesses who had seen him struck. He would fain have brought
suit against his master before the ancients, but they were afraid of
men-of-war, and thought it ill to interfere. But the anger of Billy
Hindoo surpassed that of a woman whose man has cast her off; and,
baffled in one direction, he redoubled his efforts in another, telling
tales about Professor No No that made the strongest shudder to hear
them; how, indeed, he was Antichrist, and that his coming to Uvea had
been foretold in Revelations. Whether this was true or false, it was
evident that Professor No No believed not in God; for it was seen he
went never to church, and remembered (when strangers asked him if he
were a missionary) that he would grow beside himself and roar, "No,
no!" snorting like a suffocating person.
Now there lived in the village a chief named Malamalama, a young man who
owned a fine house and much land, and was withal so handsome and gay
that there was scarce a woman but whose eyes shone at the sight of him.
And Malamalama's wife was named Salesa, and the strange thing about
Salesa was that she was white. Her father had been a _papalangi_, and
her mother (who came from another island to the southward) a half-white;
and Salesa, the child of the two, was fairer than either, and a girl,
besides, of wonderful beauty. It was this that found her favor in
Malamalama's sight, for she was without family, and what Kanaka blood
she possessed was that of slaves; but the chief must needs have his way,
being a man of imperious temper and willful under advice; and so the
little out-islander was married to him and elevated to the rank of
chieftainess.
Then her arrogance and pride, previously concealed by the humbleness of
her station, broke out with the fierceness of consuming flames. Were you
to pass her on the road and say, "_Talofa, Salesa_," she often deigned
not to return your greeting; and when people came to her house she did
not like, she would say to them, "Go away," like that, so that everyone
was insulted and retired with darkened faces. Of course, she was not
utterly without friends, women of contemptible spirit who fawned on her
like dogs, saying, "Lo, is she not beautiful?" But they were only a
handful, and by degrees grew less and less, for she was as mean with her
property as Professor No No, and made the most trifling returns for pigs
or costly presents. So in time she was left alone in her fine house, and
though she had a sewing machine and a musical box, and goldfish in a
glass jar, and an umbrella with a glittering handle, she spent her days
in yawning, and her nights in telling Malamalama what a fool she had
been to marry him.
After the manner of men, Malamalama's love increased in the proportion
of her disdain, and there was nothing he would not do to try and please
her. He took her on board every succeeding ship, and remained for hours
in the trade room while she spent the price of many tons of copra and
pearl shell in filling a chest with purchases, saying, in her
presumptuous way, "Give me twenty fathoms of this; give me forty fathoms
of the other. This silk is good, lo! I will take a bolt." And
Malamalama, who perhaps wanted an anchor for his boat, or a little,
tiny, trifling pea-soupo of paint, had perforce to do without either,
and paddle ashore again, poorer, indeed, than many of his serfs and
dependents.
On these occasions also Salesa showed a lawless deportment among the
whites that put her good name in jeopardy and caused many to wonder and
gossip. She would sit at the cabin table and drink beer and eat
sardines, saying saucily, "Me white mans, too," as she joked and laughed
with the captains and supercargoes. Or, if some one put his head down
the hatchway, she would call out, "Oh, the Kanaka dog! Go 'way, you
peeping Kanaka dog!" Whereat the whites would slap her on the back, and
it was said they even placed her on their knees and kissed her. Be that
true or false, Malamalama grew to hate the sight of a ship; and
sometimes, when he and Salesa went on board together, he showed her a
sharp knife, and said, "Be careful, you wicked white woman, or I shall
kill you."
She was as changeable as a little child, and had humors, too, of
tenderness and contrition, when she would put her arms round her
husband's neck and be-darling him, saying, "I love you! I love you!" and
bemoan her contrariness and the fact that she was white. For though she
was born and bred with us, she felt she was not of our race; and
sometimes she would say to Malamalama when he reproached her, "Sell me
to one of the captains for a whaleboat and let me go." But Malamalama
only loved her the more, and his handsome face grew sullen and angry as
he threatened again to kill her if she misbehaved.
Now when Professor No No came to live with us on the lagoon, Salesa was
beside herself with curiosity, and heaped presents on Billy Hindoo in
order to learn about his master. But Billy Hindoo knew nothing but his
own stutter, and though he took the presents and came constantly to
Salesa's house, very little in the way of information was accomplished.
At last, greatly daring, Salesa arrayed herself in her finest clothes,
and with servants carrying gifts of pigs and chickens, went down to the
lagoon to pay a visit to the stranger. She found Professor No No sitting
at his table, looking at dead fish through bits of glass, and he never
turned round as the party halted at the taboo line and coughed
deprecatorily in order to attract his attention. Then Salesa, who feared
neither devil nor man, took the baskets in her arms and stepped across
the taboo, saying in a voice of sweetness, "Professor No No! Professor
No No!"
He sprang from the table and rushed at her, waving his arms, and
screaming as was his wont, "No, no! No, no!" while she, overcome with
terror, dropped the gifts and fled like a sea mew on the wings of the
wind. That night all Uvea joked about her discomfiture, while she sat in
her house and cried, and Billy Hindoo was invited everywhere to tell the
story in the antics that served him in the place of a tongue. But once
Salesa had set her heart on a thing she never faltered nor turned aside;
and though she waited and waited, it was not as one conquered or
resigned. When the quarrel came between Billy Hindoo and his master,
she saw the means, in Professor No No's desolation and abandonment, of
obtaining the satisfaction of her purpose. For the white man, thus left
to himself, grew increasingly dirty and uncared for; and his camp, once
so clean under the care of Billy Hindoo, became as a pigsty of empty
cans and bottles. Nothing therein was washed, and the savor of Professor
No No and his camp blew noisomely across the taboo line as one walked to
leeward.
One day, after spying out that he had already sailed out for more fish
to look at through bits of glass, Salesa crept into the settlement and
began to make it clean again. She carried away all the tins and bottles;
she swept the disordered grass; she entered the professor's tent,
filling his water-bottles, making his bed and decorating it with flowers
and _laumaile_. Then, as she had so often watched Billy Hindoo from a
distance, she spread the table with a clean cloth, and on it she placed
a bottle of beer and a tin of sardines under a wire netting and three
ship's biscuits in a row. Then she went back and hid in the undergrowth,
waiting and waiting, like a warrior in an ambush.
But Professor No No made no sign as he landed from his boat, nor did he
seem to perceive that anything unusual had taken place in the time he
had been gone. He drank the bottle of beer and ate the sardines and
biscuit, never troubling himself whence they had come; and while Salesa
waited and waited with a suffocating heart, he looked at dead fish
through bits of glass. But day by day she returned to his camp with the
assiduity of a mother to her nursing child; and by degrees growing
bolder with custom, she no longer watched until Professor No No had
departed, but moved here and there about his land, secure by reason of
his blindness and preoccupation. Like a wild animal to whom one
approaches with gentleness and precaution, thus it was with Professor No
No in the hands of Salesa. First he saw her only at a distance as she
cleaned and swept; then a little closer as she spread his table and laid
out his bottle of beer and the sardines and biscuit; then it came about
that she even touched him with impunity, and sat beside him in a chair
as he continued to look at dead fish through bits of glass. At last she
dared to speak, telling him softly the names of the dead fish, which he
wrote down in a little book, and informing him also that her name was
Salesa, and that she loved him.
And she, so defiant and proud, became as another person; so that she was
kind not only to Professor No No, but to others whom she had previously
treated with contumely. She carried the white man's packages when he
went abroad, his photograph box and all manner of apparatus and tools,
and the bottle of beer and the sardines for his well-being, never
heeding the sun nor the fiery sand. She sat with him daily in his boat,
baiting his hooks and catching fish likewise, and grew wise also in
looking at them through bits of glass, so that he no longer ran at her
and cried, "No, no!" when she touched his things. On the contrary, her
wisdom increased in such matters, becoming in time even as his own, so
that she also took photographs, and hammered off pieces of coral from
the reef, and grew excited over little, common, worthless fish that
stung you if you touched them.
It is not to be supposed that Malamalama watched with any equanimity
this increasing friendship between Professor No No and his wife, or that
the constant tale of scandal and evil-doing fell on heedless ears. He
beat Salesa repeatedly with a stick, and she bit him in return all over
his beautiful body; and their fine house, once the envy of all Uvea,
reechoed distressfully with screams and blows. But the madness of a
woman for a man is not thus to be set aside, and the more Malamalama
beat her with a stick, the more ardent grew her love for Professor No
No; and when he talked with her and argued, she would answer unabashed
that whites were whites and Kanakas were Kanakas, and that it was ill to
mix the oil and water of the races.
"But he is overgrown with hair like a dog," said Malamalama, "except on
his head, which glistens like a sting ray in the sun, and he is
altogether hideous and frightening. It is not reasonable that anyone
should prefer him to me."
"But there is that in his head which makes him beautiful," said Salesa.
"Lo! I have things in my head also," said Malamalama, "and I pass my
life, besides, like a man, diving for shell, and cutting copra on my
property, and attending to the affairs of the church where I am deacon,
and finding everywhere a better employment than that of looking at dead
fish through bits of glass."
"Malamalama," said Salesa, "divorce me and let me go, and take thy
choice of all the maids of Uvea in my stead. Professor No No loves me
not, but I am his bondslave in love, and care for no other man but him."
Now this was very good advice, and the chief would have done well to
follow it. But there is in men a pride about their women that blinds
their eyes to sense, and Malamalama, instead of heeding, grew, on the
contrary, morose and willful. He listened more greedily than ever to
Billy Hindoo, and to the tales the nigger brought him constantly of
Salesa's misdoing; for Billy Hindoo was crazed with anger against his
master, and against the woman who had so successfully supplanted him,
and was eager to revenge himself on both. And one day he brought not
only a new tale, but a bottle of gin he had managed to pilfer from the
camp of Professor No No.
Malamalama began to drink the gin, and the more he drank the more he
began to feel the aching of his spirit. He stopped the passers-by and
told them of his wrongs; he rolled over in the road, so that he was all
dirty, calling out curses on his wife and Professor No No. He cried and
cried, and staggered about and shouted, and rushed hither and thither,
exclaiming, "I will kill them! I will kill them!" And all the while he
drank of the gin with an increasing fury, so that he went at last and
got his rifle and four boxes of cartridges and walked unsteadily toward
the lagoon, weeping and laughing and beating the air with his loaded
gun. And I, then only a little child, followed him at a distance,
wondering and mocking with the others.
Now on this occasion it happened that Salesa was away in the boat, and
Professor No No, all alone, was sitting at his table and looking at dead
fish through bits of glass. Malamalama stopped at the taboo line, not
daring to cross it, and withheld, besides, by the notice on the tree;
and he was so tipsy with the gin that he could barely shout, nor hold
the gun up to his shoulder. But he fired, as straight as he could, in
the direction of Professor No No, and shattered a glass barrel of dead
fish at his elbow. Professor No No leaped in the air, so that at first
we thought, erroneously, that he had been hurt; and he ran this way and
that, dodging the bullets from Malamalama's gun. He seemed to believe
that the taboo gave him protection, for, instead of bolting into the
undergrowth, he raced around and around in a circle, and then inside
this tent and that, so that it was laughable to watch him popping in and
out like a terrified rat. And Malamalama, so overcome with gin that he
could barely see, fired and fired and fired from the four boxes of his
cartridges. Then, when all was finished, he rose and went home, while
the children crowded the line and shouted, "Professor No No, art thou
dead?"
That night there was a meeting of the ancients in the speak-house, and
all the culprits were there under guard to receive a judgment.
Malamalama was fined one dollar for being drunk and fifteen dollars for
firing unwarrantably at Professor No No; and Professor No No was fined
fifteen dollars for having won Salesa from her husband; and Billy Hindoo
was fined fifteen dollars for having given the gin to Malamalama and for
the mischief he had caused with his lying tongue; and Salesa was
surrendered to the matrons of the village to receive a lashing for her
misconduct. Then Tanielu, the pastor, prayed that God's wrath might be
averted from so wicked a village, and made a beautiful parable about the
Garden of Eden and the serpent.
One might have thought that this would have healed the matter, and that
a punishment so nearly equal would have been submitted to with humility
and grace. But, on the contrary, the quarrel went from bad to worse, so
that Tanielu, the pastor, would say sorrowfully from the pulpit that
Uvea was like another hell, but with four devils instead of one.
Malamalama, once a pillar of the church, was degraded from the rank of
deacon and expelled, becoming speedily dissolute and abandoned, opening
his house for forbidden dances, and taking new wives in shameless
succession; and Salesa, her pretty body red with stripes, found no
consolation whatever in her white darling, who ran at her repellingly,
shouting "No, no!" like a lion; and Billy Hindoo, of whom everyone had
tired on account of his light fingers and calumniating tongue, grew
increasingly burdensome to his adopted family, and spent most of his
time in stoning Professor No No from a safe distance and demanding his
wages even to that day, together with a passage at once to the white
country.
During this season no ship at all came to Uvea, though Professor No No
watched unceasingly for one, and likewise Billy Hindoo, and likewise
Malamalama, the chief; and Tanielu prayed and prayed and prayed without
end, "Lord, send Thou speedily a vessel and rid us of these intruders."
The white man, for all his wisdom, was cowardly beyond belief, and so
fearful of Malamalama that the sight of Salesa made him tremble
forthwith with apprehension. And she, repelled by her husband and
dependent on the bounty of those that despised her, became as one lost
to all propriety, and would run at Professor No No and clasp him in her
arms and cherish him, he fighting and resisting with all his might,
crying "No, no!" in a terrible voice. Were he to unmoor his boat, lo!
she was there swimming in its wake and demanding to be taken in, lest
she drown; were he to sit down and quietly look at dead fish through
bits of glass, lo! there also was she beside him in a chair; were he to
slumber in a shady place during the afternoon, he would awake with his
head in her lap or with her kisses against his lips.
So weak, indeed, was his heart, that he was not even grateful for her
assistance against Billy Hindoo, who came constantly, this day and that,
with unfailing regularity, to throw stones at his former master and cry
threateningly, "Hi, yi! give me wages even to this day, and return me to
the white country according to thy covenant." Then it was that Salesa
would throw stones back again, or would hide in the bushes and try to
strike the nigger with a knife, saying in mockery as she sprang at him,
"Hi, yi! take that!" And once she came to him so close that she slashed
him across the breast, and he hastened bleeding before the ancients and
vociferously complained. Then she was whipped again by the matrons, and
Billy Hindoo was fined for throwing stones, and Professor No No was
fined yet a second time for stealing away Malamalama's wife, and
Malamalama was fined for leading a life of infamy and riot, and Tanielu
said again from the pulpit, "Hasten, Lord, or Thy servants perish!"
Thus the days passed in unending strife and bitterness, terrible now to
be recalled. When Malamalama took a new wife, the former wife's family
would lie in wait and try to kill him; and other husbands, before
exemplary and well conducted, growing restive to see him so successful
in his unbridled wickedness, took in their turn the pick of the village
maids, propagating hatred and disorder the like of which had never
before been known in Uvea. Then the drought came, and the young nuts
shriveled on the trees, and the sky, as far as one's eye could reach,
remained like shining copper, without a breath. It was plainly seen that
God, in anger, was laying His hand heavily on Uvea; and lo! He spoke
through the pastor Tanielu, saying, "Repent, repent, or else ye perish!"
There was a great meeting of the ancients in the speak-house; and one
ancient spoke for Malamalama, and another ancient spoke for Salesa, and
another ancient spoke for Professor No No, and still another ancient
spoke for Billy Hindoo; and the whole matter was inquired into from the
first day and debated in turn by all the ancients, and a final judgment
at length arrived at. Malamalama was confirmed in his latest marriage,
swearing with his hand on the Holy Book that in future he would cease
his evil and cling to her, giving a fine mat by way of reparation to
each of her predecessors; and Salesa was declared divorced from
Malamalama, and she and Professor No No were ordered to marry themselves
forthwith before the pastor Tanielu; and Billy Hindoo was commanded to
go back to his master and remain within the taboo line under pain of
death, and an ancient was appointed to visit him daily to lash him if he
misbehaved even in the smallest matter; and then the whole meeting
prayed first for rain, and then that God might send a ship.
When the new arrangement was with difficulty explained to the white man,
he was as one crazed, waving his arms and screaming out "No, no!"
without cessation; and he persisted thus, to the scandal of everyone,
until Tanielu, losing patience, struck him like that on the head and
married him immediately to Salesa, whose face shone with contentment and
happiness. In this manner Professor No No and Salesa and Billy Hindoo
were escorted homeward to their camp; and then everyone breathed with
relief and congratulated one another on so peaceful and satisfactory a
settlement.
But the ancients were still in their places when Salesa returned, saying
that Professor No No had repulsed her; and behind her was Billy Hindoo,
equally repulsed, who said his master refused to pay him his wages to
that day or to send him back at once to the white country according to
the covenant; and behind them both was Professor No No with his head
tied in a towel, where the pastor had hurt him, cursing and reviling
like a maniac.
Then the ancients held another meeting; and lo! it was a secret meeting;
and Tanielu spoke for God, and everyone made speeches in turn; and it
was recalled, with eloquent outbursts, how peaceful and happy Uvea had
been in the days preceding Professor No No's arrival. There were some
who wanted to have him killed as a punishment; and others who voted
against Salesa, saying it was she who was at fault; and still others who
burned with resentment against Billy Hindoo, declaring that he was the
worst of all. Thus, like a battle rolling to and fro, Salesa, Professor
No No, and Billy Hindoo were each in turn imperiled; and when day broke,
their fate, though they knew it not, had been finally settled by the
ancients.
Professor No No's boat was carried by twenty men from the lagoon shore,
where it lay, over to the ocean beach; and with it was borne sardines
and biscuit and beer from the white man's store; and the glass barrels
were emptied, many of them, of their dead fish, being washed and
refilled with fresh water from the spring, and their glass tops fastened
tightly with cocoanut sinnet. Then, when everything had been made ready,
Billy Hindoo was forced to seat himself in the bow of the boat; and in
the stern were put Salesa and Professor No No, side by side, the center
being filled with the cargo of provisions and water.
And Salesa laughed and joked with the men, begging them to take out
Billy Hindoo, or to give him a boat of his own; and saying wildly, when
denied, that she was going where none might whip her now, to find a
beautiful island whereon to live with her husband. But the white man was
convulsed with fear, and said nothing in the making ready of the boat,
not even "No, no" when Salesa put her arms round him and kissed him
again and again on the lips; and Billy Hindoo shook like a wet dog in
the bow, whimpering, "Hi, yi! me British subject! me no likey!" babbling
deliriously besides of his wages even to that day, and of the
unfulfilled covenant with its passage to the white country in a ship.
Then the sail was hoisted and the sheet put into Salesa's hand; and in
this wise the boat was shoved into deep water, and her bow headed
straight to seaward. Then Tanielu fell on his knees and prayed that Uvea
might be delivered forever and ever of such an infliction; and the young
men formed a line with their rifles, ready to shoot if the voyagers
showed the least sign of coming back; and across the waves one could see
Salesa supporting Professor No No as the boat lay over in the wind, and
her mocking laughter was borne back to us. And we waited and waited and
waited as it became a diminishing speck against the sky; and waited and
waited and waited until it disappeared. Then, lo! there were explosions
of thunder and lightning, and the rain descended in torrents, and the
little children all threw off their clothes and ran about rejoicing in
the wet, while the elders looked at one another, and said, "Lo, Uvea is
delivered!"