Away out upon the wide Northern Pacific there is a group of three little
islands. They are so very, very small that you need not seek to discover
them on the map of the Pacific Ocean; but if any of you have a chart of
the North or West Pacific, then you would easily be able to find them.
Run your eye up north, away past the Equator, in the direction of China,
and you will see, to the north of New Guinea, a large cluster of islands
named the “Caroline Islands,” some of which are named, but most are
not--only tiny dots no bigger than a pin's head serve to mark their
position. Perhaps, however--if you get a German chart--you may see one
of the largest of the small dots marked “Pingelap,” and Pingelap is the
name of the largest of the three little islands of my story; the others
are called Tugulu and Takai.
Now, although Pingelap and Tugulu and Takai are so close together that
at low tide one may walk across the coral reef that encircles the whole
group from one island to another, yet are they lonely spots, for there
is no other island nearer than Mokil, which is ninety miles away.
But yet, although the three islands are so small, a great number of
natives live upon them--between four and five hundred. There is only one
village, which is on Pingelap, and here all the people lived. The island
itself is not more than two miles in length, and in no place is it
more than a quarter of a mile in width; and Tugulu and Takai are still
smaller. And from one end to the other the islands are covered with a
dense verdure of cocoanut palms, with scarcely any other tree amongst
them, so that when seen from the ship two or three miles away, they
look exactly like a belt of emerald surrounding a lake of silver, for
in their centre is a beautiful lagoon surrounded on three sides by the
land, and on the west protected from the sweeping ocean rollers by a
double line of coral reef stretching from little Takai to the south end
of Pingelap.
There are hundreds of beautiful islands in the Pacific, but not any
one of them can excel in beauty lonely little Pingelap. There are two
reefs--an outer and an inner. Against the outer or ocean reef huge
seas for ever dash unceasingly on the windward side of the island, and
sometimes, in bad weather, will sweep right over the coral and pour
through the shallow channel between Tugulu and Pingelap; and then the
calm, placid waters of the lagoon will be fretted and disturbed until
fine weather comes again. But bad weather is a rare event in those seas,
and usually the lagoon of Pingelap is as smooth as a sheet of glass.
And all day long you may see children paddling about in canoes, crossing
from one shining beach to another, and singing as they paddle, for they
are a merry-hearted race, the people of these three islands, and love to
sing and dance, and sit out in front of their houses on moonlight nights
and listen to tales told by the old men of the days when their islands
were reddened with blood. For until fifteen years before, the people
of Pingelap and Tugulu were at bitter enmity, and fought with and
slaughtered each other to their heart's delight. And perhaps there would
have soon been none left to tell the tale, but that one day an American
whaleship, called the _Cohasset_ touched there to buy turtle from
Sralik, the chief of Pingelap, and Sralik besought the captain to give
him muskets and powder and ball to fight the Tugulans with.
So the captain gave him five muskets and plenty of powder and bullets,
and then said--
“See, Sralik; I will give you a white man too, to show you how to shoot
your enemies.”
And then he laughed, and calling out to a man named Harry, he told him
to clear out of the ship and go and live ashore and be a king, as he was
not worth his salt as a boatsteerer.
And so this Harry Devine, who was a drunken, good-for-nothing,
quarrelsome young American, came ashore with Sralik, and next day he
loaded the five muskets and, with Sralik, led the Pingelap people over
to Tugulu. There was a great fight, and as fast as Sralik loaded a
musket, Harry fired it and killed a man. At last, when nearly thirty had
been shot, the Tugulu people called for quarter.
“Get thee together on Takai,” called out Sralik, “and then will we talk
of peace.”
Now Takai is such a tiny little spot, that Sralik knew he would have
them at his mercy, for not one of them had a musket.
As soon as the last of the Tugulu people had crossed the shallow channel
that divides Tugulu from Takai, the cunning Sralik with his warriors
lined the beach and then called to the Tugulans--
“This land is too small for so many.”
And then Harry, once the boatsteerer and now the beachcomber, fired his
muskets into the thick, surging mass of humanity on the little 'islet,
and every shot told. Many of them, throwing aside their spears and
clubs, sprang into the water and tried to swim over to Pingelap across
the lagoon. But Sralik's men pursued them in canoes and clubbed and
speared them as they swam; and some that escaped death by club or spear,
were rent in pieces by the sharks which, as soon as they smelt the blood
of the dead and dying men that sank in the quiet waters of the lagoon,
swarmed in through a passage in the western reef. By and by the last of
those who took to the water were killed, and only some eighty or ninety
men and many more women and children were left on Takai, and the five
muskets became so hot and foul that Harry could murder no longer, and
his arm was tired out with slaughter.
All that night Sralik's warriors watched to see that none escaped, and
at dawn the hideous massacre began again, and club, spear, and musket
did their fell work till only the women and children were left. These
were spared. Among them was Ninia, the wife of Sikra, the chief of
Tugulu. And because she was young and fairer than any of the others, the
white man asked her of Sralik for his wife. Sralik laughed.
“Take her, O clever white marn--her and as many more as thou carest for
slaves. Only thou and I shall rule here now in this my island.”
So Harry took her and married her according to native custom, and Ninia
was his one wife for nearly fifteen years, when one day he was quietly
murdered as he lay asleep in his house with his wife and two children;
and although Sralik wept loudly and cut his great chest with a shark's
teeth dagger, and offered sacrifices of turtle flesh to the white
man's _jelin_, Ninia his wife and many other people knew that it was by
Sralik's orders that Harry had been killed, for they had quarrelled
over the possession of a whaleboat which Harry had bought from a passing
ship, and which he refused to either sell or give to Sralik.
However, Sralik was not unkind to Ninia, and gave her much of her
dead husband's property, and told her that he would give her for an
inheritance for her two daughters the little islet--Takai.
And there in the year 1870 Ninia the widow, and Ninia her eldest
daughter (for on Pingelap names of the first-born are hereditary) and
Tarita, the youngest, went to live. With them went another girl, a
granddaughter of the savage old Sralik. Her name was Ruvani. She was
about eleven years of age, and as pretty as a gazelle, and because of
her great friendship for Ninia--who was two years older than she--she
had wept when she saw the mother and daughters set out for Takai.
Fierce-hearted Sralik coming to the doorway of his thatched hut heard
the sound of weeping, and looking out he saw Ruvani sitting under the
shade of some banana trees with her face hidden in her pretty brown
hands.
When he learned the cause of her grief his heart softened, and drawing
his little grand-daughter to him, patted her head, and said--
“Nay, weep not, little bird. Thou too shalt go to Takai; and see,
because of thee my heart shall open wide to Ninia and her daughters, and
I will give her four slaves--two men and two women--who shall toil for
you all. And when thou art tired of living at Takai, then thou and thy
two playmates shall come over here to me and fill my house with the
light of thy eyes.”
So that is how Ninia, the widow of the wandering white man, and her
two daughters and their friend came to live at the little islet called
Takai.