Steering north-west from Samoa for six or seven hundred miles you will
sight the Ellice Group--low-lying, palm-clad coral atolls fringed on the
lee with shimmering sandy beaches. On the weather-side, exposed to the
long sweep of the ocean-rollers, there are but short, black-looking
reefs backed by irregular piles of loose, flat, sea-worn coral, thrown
up and accumulating till its surface is brushed by the pendant leaves of
the cocoanuts, only to be washed and swirled back seawards when the wind
comes from the westward and sends a fierce sweeping current along the
white beaches and black coral rocks alike.
*****
Twenty-three years ago these islands were almost unknown to any one save
a few wandering traders and the ubiquitous New Bedford whaler. But now,
long ere you can see from the ship's deck the snowy tumble of the surf
on the reef, a huge white mass, grim, square, and ugly, will meet your
eye--whitewashed walls of a distressful ghastliness accentuated by doors
and windows of the deadliest black. This cheerful excrescence on the
face of suffering nature is a native church.
The people have mostly assimilated themselves, in their manners and
mode of life generally, to the new order of things represented by the
fearful-looking structure aforementioned. That is to say, even as the
Tongan and Fijian, they have degenerated from a fierce, hardy, warlike
race into white-shirted, black-coated saints, whose ideal of a lovely
existence is to have public prayer twice a day on week-days and all day
on Sundays. To them it is a good thing to get half a dollar from the
white trader for a sick fowl--which, when bought, will be claimed by
another native, who will have the white man fined two dollars for
buying stolen property. Had the white man paid a dollar he had done
wisely--that coin sometimes goes far in the Tokelaus. For instance, the
truly unctuous native Christian may ask a dollar for two fowls, but
he will also lease out his wife for a similar amount. Time was, in the
Ellices, when the undue complaisance of a married woman meant a sudden
and inartistic compression of the jugular, or a swift blow from
the heavy, ebony-wood club of the wronged man. Nowadays, since the
smug-faced native teacher hath shown them the Right Way, such domestic
troubles are condoned by--a dollar. That is, if it be a genuine American
dollar or two British florins; for outraged honour would not accept the
cast-iron Bolivian money or the poor silver of Chili and Peru. And for a
dollar the native “Christian” can all but pay for a nicely-bound Bible,
printed in the Samoan tongue, and thus, no doubt, out of evil would come
good; for he could, by means of his newly-acquired purchase, picture to
his dusky mate the terrors that await those who look upon strange men
and _tupe fa'apupula_ (bright and shining money).
*****
But I want to tell about Kennedy. Kennedy the Boatsteerer he was called;
although twenty years had passed and gone since that day at Wallis
Island when he, a bright-eyed, bronze-faced lad--with the fighting-blood
of the old Puritan Endicotts running like fire through his veins despite
his New England bringing-up--ran his knife into a shipmate's heart and
fled for ever from all white associations. Over a woman it was, and only
a copper-coloured one at that; but then she was young and beautiful,
with dreamy, glistening eyes, and black, wavy hair, ornamented with a
wreath of orange-flowers and coil upon coil of bright-hued _seã seã_
berries strung together, hanging from her neck and resting upon her
dainty bosom.
*****
Standing at the doorway of his house, looking over the placid waters
at the rising sun, Kennedy folds his brawny arms across his bare,
sun-tanned chest and mutters to himself, in his almost forgotten
mother-tongue: “Twenty years, twenty years ago! Who would know me there
now? Even if I placarded my name on my back and what I did, 'taint
likely I'd have to face a grand jury for running a knife into a mongrel
Portuguee, way out in the South Seas a score of years ago.... Poor
little Talamãlu! I paid a big price for her--twenty years of wandering
from Wallis Island to the Bonins; and wherever I go that infernal story
follows me up. Well, I'll risk it anyhow, and the first chance that
comes along I'll cut Kanaka life and drinking ship's rum and go see
old dad and mum to home. Here, Tikena, you Tokelau devil, bring me my
toddy.”
A native, clad in his grass _titi_, takes from a wooden peg in the house
wall two shells of toddy, and the white wanderer takes one and drinks.
He is about to return the other to the man when two girls come up from
the beach with their arms around each other's waists, Tahiti fashion,
and one calls out with a laugh to “leave some in the shell.” This is
Laumanu, and if there is one thing in the world that Jake Kennedy cares
for above himself it is this tall girl with the soft eyes and lithe
figure. And he dreams of her pretty often, and curses fluently to think
that she is beyond his reach and is never likely to fill the place of
Talamãlu and her many successors. For Laumanu is _tabu_ to a Nuitao
chief--that is, she has been betrothed, but the Nuitao man is sixty
miles away at his own island, and no one knows when he will claim his
_avaga_. Then the girl gives him back the empty toddy-shell, and, slyly
pinching his hand, sails away with her mate, whereupon the susceptible
Kennedy, furious with long disappointment, flings himself down on his
bed of mats, curses his luck and his unsuspecting rival at Nuitao, and
finally decides not to spring a surprise on “dad and mum” by going “hum”
for a considerable number of years to come.
*****
Mr. Jake Kennedy at this time was again a widower--in the widest sense
of the word. The last native girl who had occupied the proud position of
_Te avaga te papalagi_ (the white man's wife) was a native of the
island of Maraki--a dark-skinned, passionately jealous creature, who had
followed his fortunes for three years to his present location, and then
developed _mal-du-pays_ to such an extent that the local priest and
devil-catcher, one Pare-vaka, was sent for by her female attendants.
Pare-vaka was not long in making his diagnosis. A little devil in the
shape of an octopus was in Tene-napa's brain. And he gave instructions
how to get the fiend out, and also further instructions to one of the
girl attendants to fix, point-upwards, in the sick woman's mat the
_foto_, or barb of the sting-ray. So when Kennedy, who, in his rough,
careless way, had some feint fondness for the woman who three years
ago he went mad over, heard a loud cry in the night and was told that
Tenenapa was dead, he did not know that as the sick woman lay on her
side the watchers had quietly turned her with her face to the roof,
and with the needle pointed _foto_ pierced her to the heart. And old
Pare-vaka rejoiced, for he had a daughter who, in his opinion, should
be _avaga_ to the wealthy and clever white man, who could _tori nui_ and
_sisi atu_ (pull cocoanuts and catch bonito) like any native; and this
Tenenapa--who was she but a dog-eating stranger from Maraki only fit
for shark's meat? So the people came and brought Kennedy the “gifts of
affliction” to show their sympathy, and asked him to take a wife from
their own people. And he asked for Laumanu.
*****
There was a dead silence awhile, and then a wild-looking creature with
long white hair falling around his shoulders like a cloak, dreading to
shame the _papalagi_ before so many, rose to his feet and motioned them
away. Then he spoke: “Forget the words you have said, and take for a
wife the girl from the house of Pare-vaka. Laumanu is _tabu_ and death
walks behind her.” But Kennedy sulked and wanted Laumanu or none.
And this is why he feels so bad to-day, and the rum-keg gives him no
consolation. For the sweet-voiced Laumanu always runs away from him
when he steps out from his dark little trade-room into the light,
with unsteady steps and a peculiar gleam in his black eye, that means
mischief--rude love to a woman and challenge to fight to a man.
Lying there on his mat, plotting how to get possession of the girl,
there comes to him a faint cry, gradually swelling in volume until every
voice in the village, from the full, sonorous tones of the men to the
shrill treble of the children, blend together: “_Te vaka motul! Te vaka
motu!_” (a ship! a ship!). Springing up, he strides out, and there,
slowly lumbering round the south-west end of the little island, under
cruising canvas only, he sees her. One quick glance shows her to be a
whaler.
In ten minutes Kennedy is in a canoe, flying over the reef, and in as
many more alongside and on deck. The captain is an old acquaintance, and
while the boats are sent ashore to buy pigs and poultry, Kennedy and
he have a long talk in the cabin. Then the skipper says, as he rises,
“Well, it's risky, but it's a smart way of earning five hundred dollars,
and I'll land you and the creature somewhere in the Carolines.”
The whaler was to lie off and on all night, or until such time as
Kennedy and the girl came aboard in a canoe. To avert suspicion, the
captain was to remain ashore with his boat's crew to witness a dance,
and, if all went well, the white man was to be aboard before him with
Laumanu and stow her away, in case any canoes came off with the boat.
*****
The dance was in full swing when Kennedy, stripped to the waist, with
a heavy bag of money in his left hand and a knife in his right, took
a long farewell of his house and stepped out into the silent groves of
coco-palms. A short walk brought him to a salt lagoon. On the brink he
stood and waited, until a trembling, voiceless figure joined him from
out the depths of the thick mangroves. Hand-in-hand they fled along
the narrow, sandy path till they reached the beach, just where a few
untenanted thatched huts stood on the shingle. Between these, covered
over with cocoanut branches, lay a canoe. Deftly the two raised the
light craft and carried it down to the water that broke in tender,
rippling murmurs on the white sand. And with Laumanu seated for'ard,
gazing out beyond into the blackness before them, he urged the canoe
seawards with quick, nervous strokes. Far away to the westward he could
see the dull glimmer of the whaleship's lights.
*****
The mate of the _Essex_ was leaning over the rail, drowsily watching
the phosphorescence in the water as the ship rolled gently to the ocean
swell, when a cry came from for'ard: “A heavy squall coming down, sir,
from the land!” And it did come, with a swift, fierce rush, and so
strong that it nearly threw the old whaler over on her beam-ends. In
the midst of the hum and roar of the squall some one in the waist of
the ship called out something about a canoe being alongside. The mate's
comment was brief but vigorous, and the matter was speedily forgotten.
Then the rain fell in torrents, and as the ship was made snug the watch
got under shelter and the mate went below to get a drink of rum, and
curse his captain for loafing ashore, watching naked women dancing.
***** Three miles further out a canoe was drifting and tossing about
with outrigger carried away. Now and then, as a big sea lifted her, the
stern would rise high out of the water and the sharp-nosed whaleback
for'ard go down as if weighted heavily. And it was--with a bag of
dollars lashed underneath. When in the early morning the whaleship
sighted the drifting speck, floating on the bosom of a now placid sea,
the thoughtful Down-East skipper--observant of the canoe's bows being
under water--lowered a boat and pulled over to it. He took the bag of
dollars and muttering something about “rather thinking he was kinder
acquainted with the poor man's people,” went back to the ship and stood
away on his course in pursuit of his greasy vocation.
*****
And Kennedy and the girl! Go some night and watch the dark-skinned
people catching flying-fish by the light of _au lama_ torches. Look over
the side of the canoe and see those swarms of grim, grey devils of the
tropic seas that ever and anon dart to the surface as the paddlers'
hands come perilously near the water, and wonder no longer as to the
fete of Kennedy the Boatsteerer and his Laumanu.