Part 10

She was as changeable as a little child, and had humors, too, of tenderness and contrition, when she would put her arms round her husband's neck and be-darling him, saying, "I love you! I love you!" and bemoan her contrariness and the fact that she was white. For though she was born and bred with us, she felt she was not of our race; and sometimes she would say to Malamalama when he reproached her, "Sell me to one of the captains for a whaleboat and let me go." But Malamalama only loved her the more, and his handsome face grew sullen and angry as he threatened again to kill her if she misbehaved.

Now when Professor No No came to live with us on the lagoon, Salesa was beside herself with curiosity, and heaped presents on Billy Hindoo in order to learn about his master. But Billy Hindoo knew nothing but his own stutter, and though he took the presents and came constantly to Salesa's house, very little in the way of information was accomplished. At last, greatly daring, Salesa arrayed herself in her finest clothes, and with servants carrying gifts of pigs and chickens, went down to the lagoon to pay a visit to the stranger. She found Professor No No sitting at his table, looking at dead fish through bits of glass, and he never turned round as the party halted at the taboo line and coughed deprecatorily in order to attract his attention. Then Salesa, who feared neither devil nor man, took the baskets in her arms and stepped across the taboo, saying in a voice of sweetness, "Professor No No! Professor No No!"

He sprang from the table and rushed at her, waving his arms, and screaming as was his wont, "No, no! No, no!" while she, overcome with terror, dropped the gifts and fled like a sea mew on the wings of the wind. That night all Uvea joked about her discomfiture, while she sat in her house and cried, and Billy Hindoo was invited everywhere to tell the story in the antics that served him in the place of a tongue. But once Salesa had set her heart on a thing she never faltered nor turned aside; and though she waited and waited, it was not as one conquered or resigned. When the quarrel came between Billy Hindoo and his master, she saw the means, in Professor No No's desolation and abandonment, of obtaining the satisfaction of her purpose. For the white man, thus left to himself, grew increasingly dirty and uncared for; and his camp, once so clean under the care of Billy Hindoo, became as a pigsty of empty cans and bottles. Nothing therein was washed, and the savor of Professor No No and his camp blew noisomely across the taboo line as one walked to leeward.

One day, after spying out that he had already sailed out for more fish to look at through bits of glass, Salesa crept into the settlement and began to make it clean again. She carried away all the tins and bottles; she swept the disordered grass; she entered the professor's tent, filling his water-bottles, making his bed and decorating it with flowers and _laumaile_. Then, as she had so often watched Billy Hindoo from a distance, she spread the table with a clean cloth, and on it she placed a bottle of beer and a tin of sardines under a wire netting and three ship's biscuits in a row. Then she went back and hid in the undergrowth, waiting and waiting, like a warrior in an ambush.

But Professor No No made no sign as he landed from his boat, nor did he seem to perceive that anything unusual had taken place in the time he had been gone. He drank the bottle of beer and ate the sardines and biscuit, never troubling himself whence they had come; and while Salesa waited and waited with a suffocating heart, he looked at dead fish through bits of glass. But day by day she returned to his camp with the assiduity of a mother to her nursing child; and by degrees growing bolder with custom, she no longer watched until Professor No No had departed, but moved here and there about his land, secure by reason of his blindness and preoccupation. Like a wild animal to whom one approaches with gentleness and precaution, thus it was with Professor No No in the hands of Salesa. First he saw her only at a distance as she cleaned and swept; then a little closer as she spread his table and laid out his bottle of beer and the sardines and biscuit; then it came about that she even touched him with impunity, and sat beside him in a chair as he continued to look at dead fish through bits of glass. At last she dared to speak, telling him softly the names of the dead fish, which he wrote down in a little book, and informing him also that her name was Salesa, and that she loved him.

And she, so defiant and proud, became as another person; so that she was kind not only to Professor No No, but to others whom she had previously treated with contumely. She carried the white man's packages when he went abroad, his photograph box and all manner of apparatus and tools, and the bottle of beer and the sardines for his well-being, never heeding the sun nor the fiery sand. She sat with him daily in his boat, baiting his hooks and catching fish likewise, and grew wise also in looking at them through bits of glass, so that he no longer ran at her and cried, "No, no!" when she touched his things. On the contrary, her wisdom increased in such matters, becoming in time even as his own, so that she also took photographs, and hammered off pieces of coral from the reef, and grew excited over little, common, worthless fish that stung you if you touched them.

It is not to be supposed that Malamalama watched with any equanimity this increasing friendship between Professor No No and his wife, or that the constant tale of scandal and evil-doing fell on heedless ears. He beat Salesa repeatedly with a stick, and she bit him in return all over his beautiful body; and their fine house, once the envy of all Uvea, reechoed distressfully with screams and blows. But the madness of a woman for a man is not thus to be set aside, and the more Malamalama beat her with a stick, the more ardent grew her love for Professor No No; and when he talked with her and argued, she would answer unabashed that whites were whites and Kanakas were Kanakas, and that it was ill to mix the oil and water of the races.

"But he is overgrown with hair like a dog," said Malamalama, "except on his head, which glistens like a sting ray in the sun, and he is altogether hideous and frightening. It is not reasonable that anyone should prefer him to me."

"But there is that in his head which makes him beautiful," said Salesa.

"Lo! I have things in my head also," said Malamalama, "and I pass my life, besides, like a man, diving for shell, and cutting copra on my property, and attending to the affairs of the church where I am deacon, and finding everywhere a better employment than that of looking at dead fish through bits of glass."

"Malamalama," said Salesa, "divorce me and let me go, and take thy choice of all the maids of Uvea in my stead. Professor No No loves me not, but I am his bondslave in love, and care for no other man but him."

Now this was very good advice, and the chief would have done well to follow it. But there is in men a pride about their women that blinds their eyes to sense, and Malamalama, instead of heeding, grew, on the contrary, morose and willful. He listened more greedily than ever to Billy Hindoo, and to the tales the nigger brought him constantly of Salesa's misdoing; for Billy Hindoo was crazed with anger against his master, and against the woman who had so successfully supplanted him, and was eager to revenge himself on both. And one day he brought not only a new tale, but a bottle of gin he had managed to pilfer from the camp of Professor No No.

Malamalama began to drink the gin, and the more he drank the more he began to feel the aching of his spirit. He stopped the passers-by and told them of his wrongs; he rolled over in the road, so that he was all dirty, calling out curses on his wife and Professor No No. He cried and cried, and staggered about and shouted, and rushed hither and thither, exclaiming, "I will kill them! I will kill them!" And all the while he drank of the gin with an increasing fury, so that he went at last and got his rifle and four boxes of cartridges and walked unsteadily toward the lagoon, weeping and laughing and beating the air with his loaded gun. And I, then only a little child, followed him at a distance, wondering and mocking with the others.

Now on this occasion it happened that Salesa was away in the boat, and Professor No No, all alone, was sitting at his table and looking at dead fish through bits of glass. Malamalama stopped at the taboo line, not daring to cross it, and withheld, besides, by the notice on the tree; and he was so tipsy with the gin that he could barely shout, nor hold the gun up to his shoulder. But he fired, as straight as he could, in the direction of Professor No No, and shattered a glass barrel of dead fish at his elbow. Professor No No leaped in the air, so that at first we thought, erroneously, that he had been hurt; and he ran this way and that, dodging the bullets from Malamalama's gun. He seemed to believe that the taboo gave him protection, for, instead of bolting into the undergrowth, he raced around and around in a circle, and then inside this tent and that, so that it was laughable to watch him popping in and out like a terrified rat. And Malamalama, so overcome with gin that he could barely see, fired and fired and fired from the four boxes of his cartridges. Then, when all was finished, he rose and went home, while the children crowded the line and shouted, "Professor No No, art thou dead?"

That night there was a meeting of the ancients in the speak-house, and all the culprits were there under guard to receive a judgment. Malamalama was fined one dollar for being drunk and fifteen dollars for firing unwarrantably at Professor No No; and Professor No No was fined fifteen dollars for having won Salesa from her husband; and Billy Hindoo was fined fifteen dollars for having given the gin to Malamalama and for the mischief he had caused with his lying tongue; and Salesa was surrendered to the matrons of the village to receive a lashing for her misconduct. Then Tanielu, the pastor, prayed that God's wrath might be averted from so wicked a village, and made a beautiful parable about the Garden of Eden and the serpent.

One might have thought that this would have healed the matter, and that a punishment so nearly equal would have been submitted to with humility and grace. But, on the contrary, the quarrel went from bad to worse, so that Tanielu, the pastor, would say sorrowfully from the pulpit that Uvea was like another hell, but with four devils instead of one. Malamalama, once a pillar of the church, was degraded from the rank of deacon and expelled, becoming speedily dissolute and abandoned, opening his house for forbidden dances, and taking new wives in shameless succession; and Salesa, her pretty body red with stripes, found no consolation whatever in her white darling, who ran at her repellingly, shouting "No, no!" like a lion; and Billy Hindoo, of whom everyone had tired on account of his light fingers and calumniating tongue, grew increasingly burdensome to his adopted family, and spent most of his time in stoning Professor No No from a safe distance and demanding his wages even to that day, together with a passage at once to the white country.

During this season no ship at all came to Uvea, though Professor No No watched unceasingly for one, and likewise Billy Hindoo, and likewise Malamalama, the chief; and Tanielu prayed and prayed and prayed without end, "Lord, send Thou speedily a vessel and rid us of these intruders." The white man, for all his wisdom, was cowardly beyond belief, and so fearful of Malamalama that the sight of Salesa made him tremble forthwith with apprehension. And she, repelled by her husband and dependent on the bounty of those that despised her, became as one lost to all propriety, and would run at Professor No No and clasp him in her arms and cherish him, he fighting and resisting with all his might, crying "No, no!" in a terrible voice. Were he to unmoor his boat, lo! she was there swimming in its wake and demanding to be taken in, lest she drown; were he to sit down and quietly look at dead fish through bits of glass, lo! there also was she beside him in a chair; were he to slumber in a shady place during the afternoon, he would awake with his head in her lap or with her kisses against his lips.

So weak, indeed, was his heart, that he was not even grateful for her assistance against Billy Hindoo, who came constantly, this day and that, with unfailing regularity, to throw stones at his former master and cry threateningly, "Hi, yi! give me wages even to this day, and return me to the white country according to thy covenant." Then it was that Salesa would throw stones back again, or would hide in the bushes and try to strike the nigger with a knife, saying in mockery as she sprang at him, "Hi, yi! take that!" And once she came to him so close that she slashed him across the breast, and he hastened bleeding before the ancients and vociferously complained. Then she was whipped again by the matrons, and Billy Hindoo was fined for throwing stones, and Professor No No was fined yet a second time for stealing away Malamalama's wife, and Malamalama was fined for leading a life of infamy and riot, and Tanielu said again from the pulpit, "Hasten, Lord, or Thy servants perish!"

Thus the days passed in unending strife and bitterness, terrible now to be recalled. When Malamalama took a new wife, the former wife's family would lie in wait and try to kill him; and other husbands, before exemplary and well conducted, growing restive to see him so successful in his unbridled wickedness, took in their turn the pick of the village maids, propagating hatred and disorder the like of which had never before been known in Uvea. Then the drought came, and the young nuts shriveled on the trees, and the sky, as far as one's eye could reach, remained like shining copper, without a breath. It was plainly seen that God, in anger, was laying His hand heavily on Uvea; and lo! He spoke through the pastor Tanielu, saying, "Repent, repent, or else ye perish!"

There was a great meeting of the ancients in the speak-house; and one ancient spoke for Malamalama, and another ancient spoke for Salesa, and another ancient spoke for Professor No No, and still another ancient spoke for Billy Hindoo; and the whole matter was inquired into from the first day and debated in turn by all the ancients, and a final judgment at length arrived at. Malamalama was confirmed in his latest marriage, swearing with his hand on the Holy Book that in future he would cease his evil and cling to her, giving a fine mat by way of reparation to each of her predecessors; and Salesa was declared divorced from Malamalama, and she and Professor No No were ordered to marry themselves forthwith before the pastor Tanielu; and Billy Hindoo was commanded to go back to his master and remain within the taboo line under pain of death, and an ancient was appointed to visit him daily to lash him if he misbehaved even in the smallest matter; and then the whole meeting prayed first for rain, and then that God might send a ship.

When the new arrangement was with difficulty explained to the white man, he was as one crazed, waving his arms and screaming out "No, no!" without cessation; and he persisted thus, to the scandal of everyone, until Tanielu, losing patience, struck him like that on the head and married him immediately to Salesa, whose face shone with contentment and happiness. In this manner Professor No No and Salesa and Billy Hindoo were escorted homeward to their camp; and then everyone breathed with relief and congratulated one another on so peaceful and satisfactory a settlement.

But the ancients were still in their places when Salesa returned, saying that Professor No No had repulsed her; and behind her was Billy Hindoo, equally repulsed, who said his master refused to pay him his wages to that day or to send him back at once to the white country according to the covenant; and behind them both was Professor No No with his head tied in a towel, where the pastor had hurt him, cursing and reviling like a maniac.

Then the ancients held another meeting; and lo! it was a secret meeting; and Tanielu spoke for God, and everyone made speeches in turn; and it was recalled, with eloquent outbursts, how peaceful and happy Uvea had been in the days preceding Professor No No's arrival. There were some who wanted to have him killed as a punishment; and others who voted against Salesa, saying it was she who was at fault; and still others who burned with resentment against Billy Hindoo, declaring that he was the worst of all. Thus, like a battle rolling to and fro, Salesa, Professor No No, and Billy Hindoo were each in turn imperiled; and when day broke, their fate, though they knew it not, had been finally settled by the ancients.

Professor No No's boat was carried by twenty men from the lagoon shore, where it lay, over to the ocean beach; and with it was borne sardines and biscuit and beer from the white man's store; and the glass barrels were emptied, many of them, of their dead fish, being washed and refilled with fresh water from the spring, and their glass tops fastened tightly with cocoanut sinnet. Then, when everything had been made ready, Billy Hindoo was forced to seat himself in the bow of the boat; and in the stern were put Salesa and Professor No No, side by side, the center being filled with the cargo of provisions and water.

And Salesa laughed and joked with the men, begging them to take out Billy Hindoo, or to give him a boat of his own; and saying wildly, when denied, that she was going where none might whip her now, to find a beautiful island whereon to live with her husband. But the white man was convulsed with fear, and said nothing in the making ready of the boat, not even "No, no" when Salesa put her arms round him and kissed him again and again on the lips; and Billy Hindoo shook like a wet dog in the bow, whimpering, "Hi, yi! me British subject! me no likey!" babbling deliriously besides of his wages even to that day, and of the unfulfilled covenant with its passage to the white country in a ship.

Then the sail was hoisted and the sheet put into Salesa's hand; and in this wise the boat was shoved into deep water, and her bow headed straight to seaward. Then Tanielu fell on his knees and prayed that Uvea might be delivered forever and ever of such an infliction; and the young men formed a line with their rifles, ready to shoot if the voyagers showed the least sign of coming back; and across the waves one could see Salesa supporting Professor No No as the boat lay over in the wind, and her mocking laughter was borne back to us. And we waited and waited and waited as it became a diminishing speck against the sky; and waited and waited and waited until it disappeared. Then, lo! there were explosions of thunder and lightning, and the rain descended in torrents, and the little children all threw off their clothes and ran about rejoicing in the wet, while the elders looked at one another, and said, "Lo, Uvea is delivered!"

CAPTAIN ELIJAH COE

Puna Punou lies in 14th South exactly, though the writer keeps back the longitood for reasons that will soon be understood by the gentle reader--if the gentle reader is patient and won't skip. Not that there is any buried treasure there, or any foolishness of that kind; it's girls mostly, and pearl shell and cocoanuts, that Puna Punou produces, and you don't need no chart with red crosses from my dying hands to find any of them. But Mrs. Tweedie is still alive, and likewise Elijah Coe, and I'd be acting like the son of a sea cook if I did a hand's turn to hurt either. Of course it's an old story now, going back to the days before the bottom had dropped out of copra, and there was still money to be made in beach-la-mar and fungus. Oh, my, yes! a long time ago, before steam ever got into the Group, before law and order and compulsory vaccination, and an hour and a half of Deputy Commissioner every nine months.

It was always a mighty fine island to look at, rising sheer from the sea to basaltic cliffs, and high needlelike pinnacles, and forested solid from the water's edge to almost the top; and off the main settlement of Fale a Lupo there was good holding ground in six fathoms. A tidy little island, indeed, and I'd never raise it of a dawn, and all its palms and beaches and little basket-work houses peeping out of the deep shade, but I'd feel glad all over again that it was there, and breathe in the fragrant smell of it like a child happy at getting home from school. I guess the people there helped a lot, too, for they were the handsomest in the Pacific, and it was a regular port of call for the whalers to take in green stuff, girls, fresh water, and firewood.

In the old days it was the Rev. John Geer who ran the missionary mill, and taught the heathen to put their pennies in the plate and wear pants--not that they ever did the last to any alarming extent, except in the annual reports that were sent back to be printed East; while Mrs. Geer she homeopathed the island and inculcurated the principles of female virtoo in the young. But after twenty-one years of it the Geers returned home to Connecticut, and the Tweedies were landed from the _Olive Branch_ barkentine, to take their places in that section of the world's vineyard.