By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories. Becke Louis
brown, old, wrinkled face as he heard my voice—for I was lying down in the sitting-room, smoking my after-supper pipe—as he answered in the island dialect that he was well, but that his house was in darkness and he, being lonely, had come over to sit with me awhile.
"That is well, Pâkía, for I too am lonely, and who so good as thee to talk with when the mind is heavy and the days are long, and no sail cometh up from the sea-rim? Come, sit here within the doorway, for the night wind is chill; and fill thy pipe."
He came inside as I rose and turned up the lamp so that its light shone full on his bald, bronzed head and deeply tatooed arms and shoulders. Laying down his polished staff of temana wood, he came over to me, placed his hand on my arm, patted it gently, and then his kindly old eyes sought mine.
"Be not dull of heart, taka taina . 1 A ship will soon come—it may be to-morrow; it must be soon; for twice have I heard the cocks crow at midnight since I was last here, three days ago. And when the cocks crow at night-time a ship is near."
"May it be so, Pâkía, for I am weary of waiting. Ten months have come and gone since I first put foot on this land of Nukufetau, and a ship was to have come here in four."
He filled his pipe, then drawing a small mat near my lounge, he squatted on the floor, and we smoked in silence, listening to the gentle lapping of the lagoon waters upon the inner beach and the beating, never-ceasing hum of the surf on the reef beyond. Overhead the branches of the palms swayed and rustled to the night-breeze.
Presently, as I turned to look seaward, I caught the old man's dark eyes fixed upon my face, and in them I read a sympathy that at that time and place was grateful to me.
"Six months is long for one who waits, Pâkía," I said. "I came here but to stay four months and trade for copra; then the ship was to call and take me to Ponapé, in the far north-west. And Ponapé is a great land to such a man as me."
" Etonu! Etonu! I know it. Thrice have I been there when I sailed in the whaleships. A great land truly, like the island called Juan Fernandez, of which I have told thee, with high mountains green to the summits with trees, and deep, dark valleys wherein the sound of the sea is never heard but when the surf beats hard upon the reef. Ah! a fine land—better than this poor motu , which is as but a ring of sand set in the midst of the deep sea. Would that I were young to go there with thee! Tell me, dost know the two small, high islands in the ava 2 which is called Jakoits? Hast seen the graves of two white men there?"
"I know the islands well; but I have never seen the graves of any white men there. Who were they, and when did they die?"
"Ah, I am a foolish old man. I forget how old I am. Perhaps, when thou wert a child in thy mother's arms, the graves stood up out of the greensward at the foot of the high cliff which faces to the south. Tell me, is there not a high wall of rock a little way back from the landing beach?… Aye!… that is the place … and the bones of the men are there, though now great trees may grow over the place. They were both good men—good to look at, tall and strong; and they fought and died there just under the cliff. I saw them die, for I was there with the captain of my ship. We, and others with us, saw it all."
"Who were they, Pâkía, and how came they to fight?"
" One was a trader, whose name was Preston; he lived on the mainland of Ponapé, where he had a great house and oil store and many servants. The name of the other man was Frank. They fought because of a woman."
"Tell me the story, Pâkía. Thou hast seen many lands and many strange things. And when ye come and sit and talk to me the dulness goeth away from me and I no longer think of the ship; for of all the people on this motu , to thee and Temana my servant alone do I talk freely. And Temana is now at church."
The old man chuckled. "Aye, he is at church because Malepa, his wife, is so jealous of him that she fears to leave him alone. Better would it please him to be sitting here with us."
I drew the mat curtain across the sitting-room window so that we could not be seen by prying eyes, and put two cups, a gourd of water, and some brandy on the table. Except my own man, Temana, the rest of the natives were intensely jealous of the poor old ex-sailor and wanderer in many lands, and they very much resented his frequent visits to me—partly on account of the occasional glass of grog which I gave him, and partly because he was suspected of still being a tagata po-uriuri, i.e. , a heathen. This, however, he vigorously denied, and though Maréko, the Samoan teacher, was a kind-hearted and tolerant man for a native minister, the deacons delighted in persecuting and harassing the ancient upon every possible opportunity, and upon one pretext or another had succeeded in robbing him of his land and dividing it among his relatives; so that now in his extreme old age he was dependent upon one of his daughters, a woman who herself must have been past sixty.
I poured some brandy into the cups; we clicked them together and said, "May you be lucky" to each other. Then he told me of Solepa.
"There were many whaleships came to anchor in the three harbours of Ponapé in those days. They came there for wood and water and fresh provisions, before they sailed to the cold, icy seas of the south. I was then a boat-steerer in an English ship—a good and lucky ship with a good captain. When we came to Ponapé we found there six other whaleships, all anchored close together under the shelter of the two islets. All the captains were friends, and the few white men who lived on shore were friends with them, and every night there was much singing and dancing on board the ships, for, as was the custom, every one on board had been given a Ponapé girl for wife as long as his ship stayed there; and sometimes a ship would be there a long time—a month perhaps.
"The trader who lived in the big house was one of the first to come on board our ship; for the captain and he were good friends. They talked together on the poop deck, and I heard the trader say that he had been away to Honolulu for nearly a year and had brought back with him a young wife.
" 'Good,' said my captain, 'to-night I shall come ashore and drink manuia! 3 to ye both.'
"The trader was pleased, and said that some of the other captains could come also, and that he had sent a letter to the other trader, Frank, who lived on the other side of the island, bidding him to come and greet the new wife. At these words the face of Stacey—that was my captain's name, became dark, and he said—
"'You are foolish. Such a man as he is, is better away from thy house—and thy wife. He is a manaia , an ulavale 4 . Take heed of my words and have no dealings with him.'
"But the man Preston only laughed. He was a fool in this though he was so clever in many other things. He was a big man, broad in the shoulders with the bright eye and the merry laugh of a boy. He had been a sailor, but had wearied of the life, and so he bought land in Ponapé and became a trader. He was a fair-dealing man with the people there, and so in three or four years he became rich, and bought more land and built a schooner which he sent away to far distant islands to trade for pearl-shell and loli (beche-de-mer). Then it was that he went to Honolulu and came back with a wife.
"That day ere it became dark I went on shore with my captain; some of the other captains went with us. The white man met them on the beach, surrounded by many of his servants, male and female. Some were of Ponapé, some from Tahiti, some from Oahu, and some from the place which you call Savage Island and we call Niué. As soon as the captains had stepped out upon the beach and I had bidden the four sailors who were with me to push off to return to the ship, the trader, seeing the tatooing on my arms, gave a shout.
" 'Ho,' he cried, turning to my captain, 'whence comes that boat-steerer of thine? By the markings on his arms and chest he should be from the isles of the Tokelau.'
"My captain laughed. 'He comes from near there. He is of Nukufetau.'
"Then let him stay on shore to-night, for there are here with me a man and a woman from Nanomaga; they can talk together. And my wife Solepa, too, will be well pleased to see him, for her mother was a Samoan, and this man can talk to her in her mother's tongue.'
"'So I too went up
Literally, "clear crony."
Port.
Happiness.
A libertine, profligate.