midst of a cavern of unspeakable ruin the ghastly throat gaped vacant.
Two handless, rotting stumps of arms waved blindly
about—feeling—feeling....
Could it hear? Some instinct told the girl that it could. Softly as a
snake she writhed out of the reach of those terrible groping arms.
It did hear. It sprang blindly forward—it snatched.
With one leap Vaiti was on her feet. Never looking back, she fled down
the open beach, the sand spurting behind her as she ran. She heard a
dull padding in her rear at first; it soon grew faint, but she ran on
blindly, long after it had died away—ran, while the sun climbed over the
horizon and cast down handfuls of burning gold on her uncovered
head—ran, while the beach grew parchment-white and dazzled back the heat
into her face like an open furnace—ran till at last her over-driven body
gave way, and the sand spun round and the sky turned red before her
eyes. Then only she staggered into the shade and dropped down upon a
green mattress of convolvulus creeper to rest.
And now, when she had leisure to think and strength to cast off the
haunting horror of that inhuman face, she knew what Donahue had done.
This was not Bilboa, the uninhabited guano island that she had feared.
This was infinitely worse—it was Vaka, the leper isle!
She remembered that she had once heard a dim rumour of Vaka and its
ghastly leper people—the remnant of a plague-smitten tribe long ago
forcibly exiled there from one of the fierce western groups. No ships
ever called at this graveyard of the living; it was supposed that the
cocoanuts and fish of the island provided sufficient food for the
people, and no one cared to run the chance of their stowing away and
escaping, especially as they were known to be both daring and
treacherous on occasion. Donahue had indeed laid his plans well for the
most hideous revenge that the heart of man or devil could conceive. A
few weeks or months in this charnel-house of horrors, where the very air
must reek of contagion, and what would it avail her if, after all, some
stray, storm-driven vessel should rescue the castaway? Better, then,
that she should stay and die among the other nameless nightmare horrors
that walked these stricken shores.
No! Vaiti, sitting cross-legged on the netted vines and staring grimly
out to sea, then and there took resolve that such a fate should not be
hers.... Sharks were uncertain, if you really wanted them; but the
stick of dynamite she had taken from the mate’s cabin was safe and sure.
If she failed in using it for the special purpose she had planned, she
would put it in her mouth and light the fuse.... There would be no more
trouble after that. And as for the flies—one did not feel them, of
course, when one was dead.
All the same, she did not mean to die if she could avoid it, and, as the
first step towards helping herself, she knocked some nuts off a young
palm, and took her breakfast off the refreshing water and juicy meat.
Then she cut a length of bush rope, looped it round the tallest palm in
sight, and set her feet inside the loop, so that she could work herself
up to the top of the tree, monkey-on-stick fashion, leaning against the
rope. When she got into the crown of the palm she knelt among the
leaves, holding on tightly, and looked right and left over the island.
It was a pure atoll, an irregular circle of feather palms lying on the
sea like a great green garland set afloat. The inner lagoon was several
square miles in extent, but the land was not more than a few hundred
yards wide at any point, and there was no soil to speak of. The palms,
the scanty, pale green scrub, the mop-headed pandanus trees, the
trailing creepers, all sprang out of pure white coral gravel and sand.
The scene was lovely as only a coral atoll can be—the jewel-green water
of the inner lagoon, shaded with vivid reflections of lilac and pale
turquoise, the stately circled palms, the wide, white beach enclasping
all the island like a frame of purest pearl, the burning blue of the
surrounding sea, all combined to form a picture bright as fairyland and
sparkling as an enamelled gem set upon a velvet shield.
But Vaiti, while she saw and admired the loveliness of the scene, also
recognised its barrenness as only an islander could. No fruit, no
roots, little fresh water—nothing, in fact, but cocoanut and pandanus
kernels, eked out by a little fish.... The lepers must often go hungry.
The hot day turned suddenly chill as Vaiti recalled those blind,
snatching, handless arms. They came of a cannibal race, these Vaka
folk. What if she had not waked? What if, wearied as she well might
be, she slept too long and too soundly in the night that was to come?
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE TURNING OF THE TABLES*
She looked narrowly about the island, hoping to discover the place where
the lepers lived. A cluster of small, miserable huts, on the far side
of the lagoon, attracted her attention. It seemed not more than half a
mile from the spot where she had spent the night. The best fishing
grounds she judged, by the look of the shore, to be near the village.
She was therefore, no doubt, several miles from their usual haunts.
So far, so good. Where was the schooner? It lay to her left about a
mile out at sea, close to a small, uninhabited, sandy islet. Vaiti
supposed that the men were cutting wood and looking for water. She saw
one or two black dots on the shore, recognisable by their blue dungaree
clothing, and strained her eyes eagerly to see if the dinghy had been
pulled up on the sand, for in this lay her only chance. If they brought
the boat up on the beach, to repair her where wood could be had without
going to the atoll itself (Vaiti would have wagered that the _Ikurangi_
did not carry a splinter outside of the galley fuel), then the schooner
would probably stop overnight. In that case she could carry out her
plans. Otherwise ... there was always the dynamite.
The dinghy was ashore, drawn well up on the beach.
She drew a breath of relief, and slid down the tree again. Now she
could wait till night with an easy mind.
All day she hid in the tangle of young palm and low-growing scrub that
clustered about the foot of the loftier trees. Once she saw a couple of
the lepers pass by in the distance, evidently looking for something.
These had eyes, and she crept closer into the shelter of the scrub till
they were gone. Then she came cautiously out, and plucked long sheets
of the fine pale-brown natural matting that protects the young shoot of
the cocoanut, to cover up her white dress, for the scrub was dangerously
thin, in that staring overhead sun. She did not venture down to the sea
to fish, but fed upon cocoanuts during the day.
Night came at last—night and coolness, with big stars shining in the
lagoon, and a gentle breeze stirring among the palms. About midnight,
as near as she could guess, Vaiti came out of her shelter and prepared
for action.
She took off her clothes, and fastened about her waist a petticoat of
the dark-coloured cocoanut matting which she had stitched together
during the day. So habited, with her olive skin and black hair, she
knew that she was invisible in the darkness of the night. She fastened
the dynamite, and a box of matches, into the coil of hair on the top of
her head, stuck her knife into the waist of her petticoat, and walked
down the beach into the warm, dark sea.
She knew very well that the outer side of an atoll commonly swarms with
sharks, but the risk did not trouble her. There was something a good
deal worse to face on the island than any number of sharks. Heading for
the distant light of the schooner, she swam through the starry water
with the low, dog-like island paddle that can cover such marvellous
distances—keeping her head well out, and quietly taking her time.
It was a long swim, but it ended at last, and the schooner rose up
before her in the water, black and silent, and shifting ever so little
upon the swell of the incoming tide. The stars made little trickles of
light upon her wet, dark hull. Two boats lay alongside—the dinghy,
freshly mended and watertight, and the whaleboat, loaded with wood and
cocoanuts. After the slovenly fashion of the _Ikurangi_, they had left
the boats until the morning to hoist inboard, seeing that it was dead
calm in the lee of the islet.
This was more than Vaiti had hoped for, and it made her task easy. She
cut the dinghy’s painter, got into the boat, and muffled the oars with a
strip or two torn from her petticoat. Then she put the dynamite into
the whaleboat, cut and attached a good long fuse, set a match to it, and
saw that the tiny red spark was steadily eating its way along, before
she pulled off from the ship. She towed the whaleboat after her a little
way, and then let it go thirty or forty yards from the ship. It was not
her desire to wreck the schooner at Vaka Island, and possibly let loose
her enemies upon the atoll; rather she wished the ship well out of the
way before any disaster should overtake her. The charts would most
probably ensure that matter. The destruction of the boat was only
intended to secure her own possession of the dinghy.
She had scarcely reached the shore before a loud explosion boomed out
across the water, and immediately after lights began to stir on board
the schooner. Vaiti worked with coolness and speed, knowing that it was
not likely, though possible, that any one would swim ashore. From her
eyrie in the coco-palm she had noted a deep, narrow creek running up
from the lagoon—a mere crack in the coral, but wide enough to admit a
small boat, taken in with care. There was just enough light from the
stars to enable her to find the place, and run the boat up on the sand
at the end, into the heart of a tangle of leaves and creepers that
entirely concealed it. For safety’s sake, she cut a few more armfuls of
trailing vines from the shore, and buried the boat two or three feet
deep, so that neither from the sea nor the land could it possibly be
seen.
As she worked, she could hear shouts and cries, made faint by distance,
coming across the water from the schooner. She could imagine the scene
that would take place on board when they found themselves boatless. Some
of the native crew—not Donahue or the mate; they would never face the
sharks—would probably swim ashore to-morrow to investigate. Well, let
them!
Having finished the concealing of the dinghy, she got into it herself,
put on her clothes again, drew the tangled creepers well over her, and
went calmly to sleep, secure that no one could find her unless she chose
to be found.
All the same, she was very cautious about getting up the next morning,
and looked carefully between the leaves before she ventured out of her
hiding-place. She covered up her light dress with the cocoanut canvas,
and then climbed a palm to look about.
People were moving hurriedly about the decks of the schooner; something
seemed to be going on. As she watched, she saw two natives, clad only
in loin-cloths, stand up on the bulwarks, ready to dive. In another
moment they had flashed down into the sea, small as ants to sight at
that distance, but perfectly clear to Vaiti’s sea-trained eyes. Then
the dark specks began to make their way across the water. The sun was
newly risen, the sea was still a mirror of molten gold, and the tiny
black heads stood out sharply on its surface. Vaiti set her teeth as
she watched them creeping on. They were island men, of her mother’s own
race, and they had done her no harm. And ... the longer a vessel lies
at anchor in equatorial latitudes, the more certain it is that sharks
will gather round her—even if there has been no explosion in the water
alongside to kill the fish and collect the tigers of the sea from far
and near.
Vaiti looked away, and began desperately to count the nuts clustered
among the palm-fronds at her feet.... How many were there?
Ten—fifteen—twenty——
A long, despairing shriek tore across the water. She put her fingers in
her ears and buried her face in the leaves. Yet, all the same, she
heard a second cry, short and sudden, and quickly ended. There was
nothing more. She lifted her face again, her teeth set tight into her
lower lip. The two black heads were gone.
“No one will come ashore to-day,” she said, with a shiver. Something
seemed to stab her, as she thought of that doctored chart in the
schooner’s deck cabin. The reefs on the course to South America were
hundreds of miles from shore—the ship had no boats—and the native crew
must suffer with the villainous captain and mate, if the disaster that
she had plotted so carefully should come about.... There would be
sharks there, too, when the ship broke up....
The crystal-gold of the sea turned dim before Vaiti’s eyes. It was only
a mist of tears that lay between, but to the girl’s excited imagination
it seemed like the spreading and darkening stain of blood.
Careless of whether she was seen or not, she slid down the tree and
rushed into the scrub, where she sat down upon the sand and cried like a
mere nervous schoolgirl. The sun was past the zenith when she lifted her
head again; the schooner had put out to sea, and lay, a far-off snowy
speck, upon the blue horizon.
Vaiti stood up, flung back her hair, and cast the trouble from her. She
could not afford to grieve over the inevitable now; there was too much
to do. The boat had to be prepared and provisioned, and that was not
the work of a moment.
She husked and opened a number of large cocoanuts, and removed the
insides. She then cut a quantity of young palm-leaves, and plaited them
into baskets, which she filled with the cocoanut meat. Afterwards she
cut down dozens of young green nuts for drinking, husked them to save
space, and slung them together in bunches with strips of their own
fibre. This done, she hid the provisions in the boat, and set about her
own supper, as it was almost dark.
Nourishing food she felt she must have, if she was to get through with
her enterprise, but she dared not attract attention to herself by going
out torch-fishing on the reef. However, there were certain holes in the
ground about the roots of the palms that to her experienced eye promised
something better than fish.
She dug a fire-hole in the gravel at the end of the gully where she had
hidden the boat, lined it with stones, and made a fire, looking well to
it that no gleam should be visible from above. When the stones were
beginning to heat, she took a piece of palms-leaf in her hand, hid
herself in the bush, and waited, still as a rock.
By-and-by there was a faint scuffling among the roots of the trees, and
a shadowy thing began climbing up the trunk of a palm. Vaiti waited
till it had disappeared in the crown of the tree, and then climbed after
it to a point about ten feet from the top, where she tied her strip of
leaf round the trunk and came down again.
Thump! thump! Two cocoanuts fell to the earth. The crab (for it was a
cocoanut crab of the biggest and fiercest kind) was getting his supper.
Now he would come down the tree, rip open the nuts with his formidable
claws, and enjoy the contents.
Slowly he began to back down the palm, his sensitive tail ready to tell
him when he had touched earth and might safely let go. And now it was
that Vaiti’s trap (a well-known native trick) proved his undoing. The
belt of dry leaflets round the tree tickled his tail, he promptly let
go, and fell with a crash seventy feet through air on to the pile of
coral lumps that Vaiti had heaped up at the foot of the tree.
The girl picked him up, badly injured and unable to use his claws (which
were big enough to crack her ankle), and put an end to him with a clever
stroke of her knife. He proved to be two feet long in the body alone,
and of a fine blue and red colour, as seen in the dim light of the fire.
She put him on the heated stones, wrapped in leaves, buried him until
cooked, and then enjoyed a hot supper that an epicure might have envied.
Strengthened by the good food, she worked on late into the night,
catching more crabs, whose meat she hoped she could dry in the sun,
making a rough sail out of the bed-sheet she had carried away from the
schooner, twisting sinnet plait out of cocoanut husk for ropes, cutting
and trimming a small pandanus for the mast. She had all her plans laid,
and knew what she meant to do. Her present position was about five
hundred miles from the Marquesas, and the south-east trades would be in
her favour. With lines for fishing, a beaker full of fresh water on
board (she had found that in the dinghy when she took it away),
cocoanuts to help out with, and plenty of crab to dry, she hoped that
she might manage to reach the islands before her strength or her food
gave out. Greater voyages had been done many a time in mere canoes, and
the dinghy was a large boat of its kind, strong, well built, and new.
If she failed—well, any death, any horror that the wide seas could hold
was better than Vaka Island.
All being ready, she lay down and slept till dawn—a somewhat restless
sleep, for it was full of wandering dreams, and all the dreams took one
shape: Donahue’s schooner, snared by the lying chart, rushing helpless
to her end, with the green-eyed tigers of the sea hovering ever about
the reefs, and waiting ... waiting....
* * * * *
“I don’t think the patient can see any one,” said the nurse doubtfully.
The big, yellow-haired sailor took off his hat and stepped up on to the
verandah. It was a very beautiful verandah. You could see most of Suva
Bay from it, and half the tumbled purple peaks of Fiji’s wonderful
mountains lying across the harbour.
“If you could stretch a point, ma’am,” said the sailor, “it might be as
well for him. I’ve got good news.”
“About his daughter?” asked the nurse. She, like every one else in
Suva, was deeply interested in this especial patient’s story. He had
come to Suva in his own schooner, the _Sybil_, several weeks before,
furious with rage and despair at the loss of his daughter, and eager to
demand assistance from the High Commissioner of the Western Pacific,
although it seemed by no means clear in what manner Her Majesty’s
representative could aid him. Before the matter had even been
discussed, however, he had fallen seriously ill of sunstroke and
excitement combined, and had been sent to hospital, with rather a bad
chance of recovery. He was just turning the corner now, and the
nurse—who could not but admire his rather weather-beaten good looks and
romantic history—regarded him as her most interesting patient.
“Yes, it’s about his daughter,” answered the sailor. “I’m the mate of
the _Sybil_, ma’am; Harris is my name. Perhaps you’d kindly read this.”
He held out a long slip of printed paper, containing a _résumé_ of the
cables for the day—Suva’s substitute for a daily paper.
The nurse took it, and read:
“The missing daughter of Edward Saxon, owner and master of the trading
schooner _Sybil_, has at last reappeared. Her fate has excited much
interest and conjecture all over the Pacific. She arrived in Sydney
yesterday on board the cable-ship _Clotho_, by which she was picked up
on the 2nd instant, in an open boat, alone, and two hundred miles from
any land. She had experienced bad weather, and was much exhausted for
want of food, but declared herself capable, if it had been necessary, of
reaching the nearest island group unaided. She had been carried away,
as was surmised, by the captain of the island schooner _Ikurangi_, who
marooned her on a remote leper island, Vaka, and then sailed for South
America. Revenge for the loss of a pearl-shell bed of disputed
ownership is said to have been the motive of this unparalleled outrage.”
“He shall have it at once,” said the nurse cordially. “It’ll do him more
good than our medicines.”
* * * * *
The story was a popular one in the hospital for months after, and it had
not been quite forgotten when, towards the close of the hot season, a
Sydney paper furnished the last chapter of the tale. Saxon’s late nurse
read it aloud to the others at afternoon tea, and they all agreed (not
knowing how Vaiti’s fingers had cogged the dice of chance) that it was a
wonderful Providence and a real judgment. The item read:
“THE LAST OF AN OCEAN ROMANCE.
“News comes via Tahiti from Nukahiva, Marquesas Islands, of the arrival
of a shipwrecked crew on a raft, six weeks ago. They were the survivors
of a disaster that destroyed the notorious schooner _Ikurangi_ whose
master, it will be remembered, kidnapped and marooned the daughter of a
British captain some months ago. The schooner, after leaving the
island, sailed for Callao, but was wrecked on an uncharted reef three
days east of Vaka, and went to pieces. The crew escaped on a raft, and
underwent great suffering in their efforts to reach land. The captain
and mate were drowned.”
“And serve them right, too!” said the audience.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*THE WHITE MAN OF NALOLO*
“By Jove! it’s a white man,” said Saxon, checking like a pointer on the
threshold of the low dark doorway.
“Certainly. Very pleased to meet you,” observed the figure on the mats.
It was sitting cross-legged, clad only in a waist-cloth, and the house
was a Fijian chief-house in a mountain village three days’ journey from
the nearest white settlement—but the thing squatted on the mats was
undoubtedly white, and—English? Well, no; Saxon thought no. The phrase
was American in flavour. He stepped across the threshold, and came a
little way in, relieved in mind. When you have been dead and buried
among the islands for a quarter of a century it is much pleasanter not
to run the risk of meeting other ghosts (with university accents,
tea-coloured families, and a preference for modest retirement on steamer
days) who may possibly have been alive together with you before....
Before.... The word means much in that vast Pacific world, sepulchre of
so many lost hopes and forgotten lives. We do not, in the Islands,
cultivate curiosity as a virtue, since it would be likely to bring
rather more than virtue’s own reward after it. We do not ask cross
questions, because the crooked answers might involve questions of
another sort. And when overfed, sanguineous passengers from smart
liners happen along and tell us, as a new and excellent joke, that the
proper formula for receiving an introduction in the Islands is: “Glad to
meet you, Mr. So-and-so; what were you called _before_?” we smile an
acid smile, and pretend we are amused....
Saxon was very tired, having walked thirty miles that day, and very
hungry, being out of luck, and more or less on the tramp. But I think,
tired as he was, he would have found another village to rest in if the
derelict white on the mats had spoken with the shibboleth of his own
class and country.
As things were, the look of the house pleased him, and he came in and
folded himself up on the mats. The other man noted that he selected a
“tabu kaisi” mat (a kind strictly forbidden to all but chiefs or
whites), and that he looked hopefully towards the kava bowl.
“Not the first time you’ve stopped under a pandanus roof, I guess?” he
remarked.
“No,” said Saxon. “Whose house is this?”
“Mine,” said the stranger. “Make yourself at home.”