“Did you notice that girl at all?” and he inclined his head towards the
door of the sitting-room.
The young man nodded.
Then the candid Baldwin told him her history. “I can't defend my own
position. I am no better than most traders--you see it is the custom
here, neither is she worse than any of these half-blooded Paumotuans. If
I married a native of this particular island I would only bring trouble
on my head. I could not show any preference for any particular girl for
a wife without raising the bitterest quarrels among some of the leading
chiefs here. You see, as a matter of fact, I should have married as soon
as I came here, twenty years ago; then the trouble would have been over.
But I didn't. I can see my mistake now, for I am getting old pretty
fast;... and now that the missionaries are here, and I do a lot of
business with them, I think us white men ought to show them some kind of
respect by getting married--properly married--to our wives.”
Brice laughed. “You mean, Baldwin, they should get married according to
the rites of the Roman Catholic Church?”
“Aye,” the old trader assented. “Now, there's Loisé, there--a clever,
intelligent, well-educated girl, and as far as money or trade goes,
as honest as the day. Can I, an old white-headed fool of sixty, go to
Australia and ask any _good_ woman to marry me, and come and live down
here? No.”
He smoked in silence awhile, and then resumed.
“Yes; honest and trustworthy she is, I believe; although the white
blood in her veins is no recommendation. If ever you should live in the
islands, my lad--which isn't likely--take an old fool's advice and never
marry a half-caste, either in native fashion or in a church with a brass
band and a bishop as leading features of the show.”
*****
Loisé came to them. “Will you take coffee, Tâmu?” she asked, standing
before them with folded hands.
The trader bent his head, and as the girl with noiseless step glided
gracefully away again he watched her.
“I think I will marry her, Brice. Sometimes when the old Marist priest
comes here he makes me feel d----d uncomfortable. Of course he is too
much of a gentleman--although he is a sky-pilot--to say all he would
like to say, but every time he bids me good-bye he says--cunning old
chap--'And think, M. Baldwin, her father, bad as he was, was a _white
man!_”
The young man listened in silence.
“I don't think I will ever go back to civilisation again, my lad--I am
no use there. Here I am somebody--there I am nobody; so I think I'll
give the old Father a bit of a surprise soon.” Then with his merry,
chuckling laugh--“and you'll be my best man. You see, it won't make any
difference to you. Nearly all that I have, when I peg out, will go to
you--the son of my old friend and shipmate.”
A curious feeling shot through Brice's heart as he murmured his thanks.
The recital of the girl's history made him burn with hot anger against
her. He had thought her so innocent. And yet the old trader's words,
“I've almost made up my mind to marry her,” seemed to dash to the ground
some vague hope, he knew not what.
*****
That night he lay on a soft mat on Baldwin's verandah and tried to
sleep. But from between the grey-reds of the serried line of palms that
encompassed the house on all but the seaward side, a pale face with
star-like eyes and ruby lips looked out and smiled upon him; in the
distant and ever varying cadences of the breaking surf he heard the
sweet melody of her voice; in the dazzling brilliancy of the starry
heavens her haunting face, with eyes alight with love, looked into his.
“D------n!” He rose from his couch, opened the gate, and went out along
the white dazzle of the starlit beach. “What the devil is the matter
with me? I must be drunk--on two or three nips of whisky.... What a
glorious, heavenly night!... And what a grand old fellow Baldwin is!...
And I'm an infernal scoundrel to think of her--or a d------d idiot, or a
miserable combination of both.”
*****
In a few days two things had happened. Baldwin had married Loisé, and
Brice was madly in love with her and she with him. Yet scarcely a word
had passed between them--he silent because of genuine shame at the
treachery of his thoughts to the old man; she because she but bided her
time.
One day he accepted an invitation from the old French priest to pay a
visit to the Mission. He went away quietly one morning, and then wrote
to Baldwin.
“Ten miles is a good long way off,” he thought. “I'll be all right in a
week or so--then I'll come back and be a fool no longer.”
The priest liked the young man, and in his simple, hospitable way, made
much of him. On the evening of the third day, as they paced to and fro
on the path in the Mission garden, they saw Baldwin's boat sail up to
the beach.
“See,” said the priest, with a smile, “M. Baldwin will not let me keep
you; and Loisé comes with him. So, so, you must go, but you will come
again?” and he pressed the young Englishman's hand.
The sturdy figure of the old trader came up through the garden; Loisé,
native fashion, walking behind him.
Knitting his heavy white eyebrows in mock anger he ordered Brice to the
boat, and then extending his hand to the priest--“I must take him back,
Father; the _Malolo_ sails to-morrow, and the skipper is coming ashore
to-night to dinner, to say good-bye; and, as you know, Father, I'm a
silly old man with the whisky bottle, and I'll get Mr. Brice to keep me
steady.”
The tall, thin old priest raised his finger warningly and shook his head
at old Baldwin and then smiled.
“Ah, M. Baldwin, I am very much afraid that I will never make you to
understand that too much of the whisky is very bad for the head.”
With a parting glass of wine they bade the good Father good-bye, and
then hoisting the sail, they stood across for Rikitea. The sun had
dipped, and the land-breeze stole softly down from the mountains and
sped the boat along. Baldwin was noisy and jocular; Brice silent and ill
at ease.
Another hour's run and Baldwin sailed the boat close under the trading
schooner's stern. Leaning over the rail was the pyjama-clad captain,
smoking a cigar.
“Now then, Harding,” bawled the old trader, “don't forget to be up to
time, eight o'clock.”
“Come aboard, and make out your order for your trade, you noisy old
_Areoi_ devil,” said Harding. “You'll 'make it out ashore,' eh? No
fear, I won't trust you, you careless, forgetful old dog. So just lay up
alongside, and I'll take you ashore in half an hour.”
“By Jupiter, I mustn't forget the order,” and Baldwin, finding he could
not inveigle the captain ashore just then, ran the boat alongside the
schooner and stepped over her rail--“Go on, Brice, my lad. I'll soon be
with you. Give him some whisky or beer, or something, Loisé, as soon as
you get to the house. He looks as melancholy as a ghost.”
As the boat's crew pushed off from the schooner, Brice came aft to
steer, and placing his hand on the tiller it touched Loisé's. She moved
aside to make room for him, and he heard his name whispered, and in the
darkness he saw her lips part in a happy smile.
Then, still silent, they were pulled ashore.
*****
From his end of the house he heard a soft footfall enter the big room,
and then stop. She was standing by the table when, soon after, he came
out of his room. At the sound of his footstep she turned the flame of
the shaded lamp to its full height, and then raised her face and looked
at him. There was a strange, radiant expectancy in her eyes that set his
heart to beat wildly. Then he remembered her husband--his friend.
“I suppose Tom won't be long,” he began, nervously, when she came over
to him and placed her hand on his sleeve. The slumbrous eyes were all
aglow now, and her bosom rose and fell in short, quick strokes beneath
her white muslin gown.
“Why did you go away?” she said, her voice scarce raised above a
whisper, yet quivering and tremulous with emotion.
He tried to look away from her, trembling himself, and not knowing what
to say.
“Ah,” she said, “speak to me, answer me; why don't you say something to
me? I thought that once your eyes sought mine in the boat”--then as she
saw him still standing awkward and silent, all her wild passion burst
out--“Brice, Brice, I love you, I love you. And you, you hate me.” He
tried to stop her.
Her voice sank again. “Oh, yes, yes; you hate me, else why would you go
away without one word to me? Baldwin has told you of--of--of something.
It is all true, quite true, and I am wicked, wicked; no woman could have
been worse--and you hate me.”
She released her hold upon his arm, and walking over to the window leant
against it and wept passionately.
He went over to her and placed his hand upon her shoulder.
“Look here, Loisé, I'm very, very sorry I ever came here in the
_Malolo_”--her shaking figure seemed to shrink at the words--“for I love
you too, but, Loisé--your husband was my father's oldest friend--and
mine.”
The oval, tear-swept face was dangerously close to his now, and set his
blood racing again in all the quick, hot madness of youth.
“What is that to me?” she whispered; “I love you.”
Brice shut his fists tightly and then--fatal mistake--tried to be angry
and tender at the same moment.
“Ah, but Loisé, you, as well as I, know that among English people, for a
man to love his friend's wife----”
Again the low whisper--“What is that to me--and you? You love me, you
say. And, we are not among English people. I have my mother's heart--not
a cold English heart.”
“Loisé, Baldwin is my friend. He looks upon me as his son, and he trusts
me--and trusts you.... I could never look him in the face again.... If
he were any other man I wouldn't care, or if, if----”
She lifted her face from his shoulder. “Then you only lied to me. You
don't love me!”
That made him reckless. “Love you! By God. I love you so that if you
were any other man's wife but his-------” He looked steadily at her and
then, with gentle force, tried to take her arm from his neck.
She knew now that he was the stronger of the two, and yet wished to hear
more.
“Brice, dear Brice,” she bent his head down to her lips, “if Baldwin
died would you marry me?”
The faintly murmured words struck him like a shot; she still holding her
arms around him, watched his face.
He kissed her on the lips. “I would marry you and never go back to the
world again,” he answered, in the blind passion of the moment.
A hot, passionate kiss on his lips and she was gone, and Brice, with
throbbing pulses and shame in his heart, took up his hat and went out
upon the beach. He couldn't meet Baldwin just then. Other men's wives
had never made him feel such a miserable scoundrel as did this reckless
half-blood with the scarlet lips and starry eyes.
*****
That night old Baldwin and the captain of the _Malolo_ got thoroughly
drunk in the orthodox and time-honoured Island business fashion. Brice,
afraid of “making an ass of himself,” was glad to get away, and took
the captain on board at midnight in Baldwin's boat, and at the mate's
invitation remained for breakfast.
At daylight the mate got the _Malolo_ under weigh, the skipper, with
aching head, sitting up in his bunk and cursing the old trader's
hospitality.
When the vessel was well outside the reef, Brice bade him good-bye, and
getting his boat alongside started for the shore.
“I will--I must--clear out of this,” he was telling himself as the boat
swept round the point of the passage on the last sweep of the ocean
swell. “I can't stay under the same roof with him day after day, month
after month, and not feel my folly and her weakness. But where the deuce
I can get to for five months till the schooner comes back, I don't know.
There's the Mission, but that is too close; the old fellow would only
bring me back again in a week.”
*****
Suddenly a strange, weird cry pealed over the water from the native
village, a cry that to him was mysterious, as well as mournful and
blood-chilling.
The four natives who pulled the boat had rested on their oars the
instant they heard the cry, and with alarm and deep concern depicted on
their countenances were looking toward the shore.
“What is it, boys?” said Brice in English.
Before the native to whom he spoke could answer, the long, loud wailing
cry again burst forth.
“Some man die,” said the native who pulled stroke-oar to Brice--he was
the only one who knew English.
Then Brice, following the looks of his crew, saw that around the
white paling fence that enclosed Baldwin's house was gathered a great
concourse of natives, most of whom were sitting on the ground.
“Give way, boys,” he said, with an instinctive feeling of fear that
something dreadful had happened. In another five minutes the boat
touched the sand and Brice sprang out.
Maturei alone, of all the motionless, silent crowd that gathered around
the house, rose and walked down to him.
“Oh, white man, Tâmu is dead!”
*****
He felt the shock terribly, and for a moment or two was motionless and
nerveless. Then the prolonged wailing note of grief from a thousand
throats again broke out and brought him to his senses, and with hasty
step he opened the gate and went in.
With white face and shaking limbs Loisé met him at the door and
endeavoured to speak, but only hollow, inarticulate sounds came from
her lips, and sitting down on a cane sofa she covered her face with her
robe, after the manner of the people of the island when in the presence
of death.
Presently the door of Baldwin's room opened, and the white-haired old
priest came out and laid his hand sympathetically on the young man's
arm, and drew him aside.
He told him all in a few words. An hour before daylight Loisé and the
boy Maturei had heard the old trader breathing stertorously, and ere
they could raise him to a sitting position he had breathed his last.
Heart disease, the good Father said. And he was so careless a man, was
M. Baldwin. And then with tears in his eyes the priest told Brice how,
from the olden times when Baldwin, pretending to scoff at the efforts of
the missionaries, had yet ever been their best and truest friend.
“And now he is dead, M. Brice, and had I been but a little sooner I
could have closed his eyes. I was passing in my boat, hastening to take
the mission letters to the _Malolo_ when I heard the_ tagi_ (the death
wail) of the people here, and hastening ashore found he had just passed
away.”
Sick at heart as he was, the young man was glad of the priest's
presence, and presently together they went in and looked at the still
figure in the bedroom.
When they returned to the front room they found Loisé had gone.
“She was afraid to stay in the house of death,” said Maturei, “and has
gone to Vehaga” (a village eight miles away), “and these are her words
to the Father and to the friend of Târau--'Naught have I taken from the
house of Tâmu, and naught do I want'--and then she was gone.”
The old priest nodded to Brice--“Native blood, native blood, M. Brice.
Do not, I pray you, misjudge her. She only does this because she knows
the village feeling against her. She does not belong to this island,
and the people here resented, in a quiet way, her marriage with my old
friend. She is not cruel and ungrateful as you think. It is but her
way of showing these natives that she cares not to benefit by Baldwin's
death. By and by we will send for her.”
*****
After Baldwin had been buried and matters arranged, Brice and the
priest, and a colleague from the Mission, read the will, and Brice found
himself in possession of some two or three thousand dollars in cash and
as much in trade. The house at Rikitea and a thousand dollars were for
Loisé.
He told the Fathers to send word over to Vehaga and tell Loisé that
he only awaited her to come and take the house over from him. As for
himself he would gladly accept their kind invitation to remain at the
Mission as their guest till the schooner returned.
The shock of his friend's death had all but cured him of his passion,
and he felt sure now of his own strength.
*****
But day after day, and then week after week passed, and no word came
from Vehaga, till one evening as he leant over the railing of the
garden, looking out upon the gorgeous setting of the sun into the ocean,
Maturei came paddling across the smooth waters of the harbour, and,
drawing his canoe up on the beach, the boy approached the white man.
“See,” he said, “Loisé hath sent thee this.”
He unrolled a packet of broad, dried palm leaves, and taking from it a
thick necklet of sweet-smelling _kurahini_ buds, placed it in Brice's
hand.
He knew its meaning--it was the gift of a woman to an accepted lover.
The perfume of the flowers brought back her face to him in a moment.
There was a brief struggle in his mind; and then home, friends, his
future prospects in the great outside world, went to the wall, and the
half-blood had won.
Slowly he raised the token and placed it over his head and round his
neck.
*****
In the morning she came. He held out his hand and drew her to him, and
looking down into her eyes, he kissed her. Her lips quivered a little,
and then the long lashes fell, and he felt her tremble.
“Loisé,” he said simply, “will you be my wife?”
She glanced up at him, fearfully.
“Would you marry me?”
His face crimsoned--“Yes, of course. You were his wife. I can't forget
that. And, besides, you said once that you loved me.”
*****
They were very happy for five or six years down there in Rikitea. They
had one child born to them--a girl with a face as beautiful as her
mother's.
Then a strange and deadly epidemic, unknown to the people of Rikitea,
swept through the Paumotu Group, from Pitcairn Island to Marutea, and
in every village, on every palm-clad atoll, death stalked, and the brown
people sickened and shivered under their mat coverings, and died. And
from island to island, borne on the very breath of the trade-wind, the
terror passed, and left behind it empty, silent clusters of houses,
nestling under the cocoanuts; and many a whale-ship beating back to the
coast of South America, sailed close in to the shore and waited for the
canoes to come off with fruit and vegetables; but none came, for the
canoes had long months before blistered and cracked and rotted under
the fierce rays of the Paumotu sun, and the owners lay dead in their
thatched houses; for how could the dead bury the dead?
It came to Rikitea, and Harry Brice and the priests of the Mission went
from village to village trying by such means as lay in their power to
allay the deadly scourge. Brice had seen his little girl die, and then
Loisé was smitten, and in a few days Brice saw the imprint of death
stamped upon her features.
*****
As he sat and watched by her at night, and listened to the wild,
delirious words of the fierce fever that held her in its cruel grasp,
he heard her say that which chilled his very heart's blood. At first
he thought it to be but the strange imaginings of her weak and fevered
brain. But as the night wore on he was undeceived.
Just as daylight began to shoot its streaks of red and gold through
the plumed palm-tops, she awoke from a fitful and tortured slumber, and
opened her eyes to gaze upon the haggard features of her husband.
“Loisé,” he said, with a choking voice, “tell me, for God's sake, the
truth about Baldwin. _Did you kill him?_”
She put her thin, wasted hands over her dark, burning eyes, and Brice
saw the tears run down and wet the pillow.