The Ebbing Of The Tide. Becke Louis
and began that of Loisé, the half-blood.
There was a wild rush of naked, scurrying feet, and a quick panting of brown bosoms along the winding path that led to Baldwin’s house at Rikitea. A trading schooner had just dropped anchor inside the reef, and the runners, young lads and girls—half-naked, lithe-limbed and handsome—like all the people of the “thousand isles,” wanted to welcome Baldwin the Trader at his own house door.
Two of them—a boy and girl—gained the trader’s gate ahead of their excited companions, and, leaning their backs against the white palings, mocked the rest for their tardiness in the race. With one arm around the girl’s lissom waist, the boy, Maturei, short, thickset, muscular, and the bully of the village, beat off with his left hand those who sought to displace them from the gate; and the girl, thin, créole-faced, with soft, red-lipped mouth, laughed softly at their vexation. Her gaily-coloured grass waist girdle had broken, and presently moving the boy’s protecting arm, she tried to tie the band, and as she tied it she rattled out oaths in English and French at the score of brown hands that sought to prevent her.
“Hui! Hui!! Away, ye fools, and let me tie my girdle,” she said in the native tongue. “‘Tis no time now for such folly as this; for, see, the boat is lowered from the ship and in a little time the master will be here.”
The merry chatter ceased in an instant and every face turned towards the schooner, and a hundred pair of curious eyes watched. Then, one by one, they sat down and waited; all but the two at the gate, who remained standing, the boy’s arm still wound round the girl’s waist.
The boat was pulling in swiftly now, and the “click-clack” of the rowlocks reached the listening ears of those on shore.
There were two figures in the stern, and presently one stood up, and taking off his hat, waved it towards the shore.
A roar of welcome from the thronging mass of natives that lined the beach drowned the shrill, piping treble of the children round the gate, and told sturdy old Tom Baldwin that he was recognised, and scarce had the bow of the boat ploughed into the soft sand of the beach when he was seized upon and smothered with caresses, the men with good-natured violence thrusting aside the women and forming a body-guard to conduct him and the young man with him from the boat to the house. And about the strange white man the people thronged with inquiring and admiring glances, for he was big and strong-looking—and that to a native mind is better than all else in the world.
With joyous, laughing clamour, the natives pressed around the white men till the gate was reached, and then fell back.
The girl stepped forward, and taking the trader’s hand, bent her forehead to it in token of submission.
“The key of this thy house, Tâmu,” she murmured in the native tongue, as she placed it in his hand.
“Enter thou first, Loisé,” and he waved it away.
A faint smile of pleasure illumined her face; Baldwin, rough and careless as he was, was yet studious to observe native custom.
The white men followed her, and then in the open doorway Baldwin stopped, turned, and raised his hand, palm outwards, to the throng of natives without.
“I thank thee, friends, for thy welcome. Dear to mine ears is the sound of the tongue of the men of Rikitea. See ye this young man here. He is the son of my friend who is now dead—he whom some of ye have seen, Kapeni Paraisi” (Captain Brice).
A tall, broad-shouldered native, with his hair streaming down over his shoulders, strode up the steps, and taking the young man’s hand in his, placed it to his forehead.
“The son of Paraisi is welcome to Rikitea, and to me, the chief of Rikitea.”
There was a murmur of approval; Baldwin waved his hand again, and then, with Brice, entered the house.
Outside, the boy and girl, seated on the verandah steps, talked and waited for orders.
Said Maturei, “Loisé, think you that now Tâmu hath found thee to be faithful to his house and his name that he will marry thee according to the promise made to the priests at Tenararo when he first brought thee here?”
She took a thick coil of her shining black hair and wound it round and round her hand meditatively, looking out absently over the calm waters of the harbour.
“Who knows, Maturei? And I, I care not. Yet do I think it will be so; for what other girl is there here that knoweth his ways, and the ways of the white men as I know them? And this old man is a glutton; and, so that my skill in baking pigeons and making karri and rice fail me not, then am I mistress here.... Maturei, is not the stranger an evil-looking man?”
“Evil-looking!” said the boy, wonderingly; “nay, how canst thou say that of him?”
“What a jolly old fellow he is, and how these people adore him!” thought Brice, as they sat down to dinner. Two or three of the village girls waited upon them, and in the open doorway sat a vision of loveliness, arrayed in yellow muslin, and directing the movements of the girls by almost imperceptible motions of her palm-leaf fan.
Brice was strangely excited. The novelty of the surroundings, the wondrous, bright beauty of sea, and shore, and palm-grove that lay within his range of vision were already beginning to weave their fetal spell upon his susceptible nature. And then, again and again, his glance would fall upon the sweet, oval face and scarlet lips of the girl that sat in the doorway. Who was she? Not old Baldwin’s wife, surely! for had not the old fellow often told him that he was not married?… And what a lovely spot to live in, this Rikitea! By Jove, he would like to stay a year here instead of a few months only.... Again his eyes rested on the figure in the doorway—and then his veins thrilled—Loisé, lazily lifting her long, sweeping lashes had caught his admiring glance.
Brice was no fool with women—that is, he thought so, never taking into consideration that his numerous love affairs had always ended disastrously—to the woman. And his mother, good simple soul, had thought that the best means of taking her darling son away from unapproved-of female society would be a voyage to the islands with old Tom Baldwin!
Dinner was finished, and the two men were sitting out on the verandah smoking and drinking whisky, when Brice said, carelessly—
“I wonder you never married, Baldwin.”
The old trader puffed at his pipe for a minute or two ere he answered—
“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