John Frewen, South Sea Whaler Part 12

"Just another minute, Hutton," said Villari, as he, Mrs. Raymond, and the Samoan girl all returned to the cabin together. The latter at once picked up the sleeping Loise, and her mother, as she wrapped her in a shawl, heard Villari rouse the girl Serena and tell her to awaken her mistress, and presently she heard his voice speaking to Mrs. Marston telling her not to be alarmed, but he feared the schooner might founder at any moment, and that he was sending her and Mrs. Raymond on sh.o.r.e.

"Very well, Mr. Villari," she heard her friend say. "Have you told Mrs.

Raymond?"

"Yes," he replied. "She is getting ready now--in fact, she _is_ ready."

Then he returned to Mrs. Raymond's door, and met her just as she was leaving the cabin with the nurse and child.

"Can I help you, Amy?" asked the planter's wife as she looked into Mrs.

Marston's cabin.

"No, dear. I did not quite undress, and I'll be ready in a minute. Baby is fast asleep. Is Loise awake?"

"No, I'm glad to say. Olivee has her."

"Please come on, Mrs. Raymond," said Villari, somewhat impatiently; "go on, Olivee, with the little girl."

He let them precede him, and almost before she knew it, Mrs. Raymond found herself with the nurse and child in the boat, which was at once pushed off and headed for the sh.o.r.e.

"Stop, stop!" cried the poor lady, clutching the mate by the arm. "Mrs.

Marston is coming."

"Can't wait," was the gruff rejoinder, and then, to her horror and indignation, she saw that the boat's crew were pulling as if their lives depended on their exertions.

"Shame, shame!" she cried wildly. "Are you men, to desert them! Oh, if you have any feelings of humanity, turn back," and, rising to her feet, she shouted out at the top of her voice, "Captain Villari, Captain Villari, for G.o.d's sake call the boat back!"

But no notice was taken, and a feeling of terror seized her when the brutal Hutton bade her "sit down and take it easy."

As Villari stood watching the disappearing boat Mrs. Marston, followed by the girl Serena carrying her baby, came on deck.

"What is wrong?" she asked anxiously. "Why has the boat gone? What does it mean?" and Yillari saw that she was trembling.

"Return to your cabin, Mrs. Marston. No harm shall come to you.

To-morrow morning I shall tell you why I have done this."

A glimmering of the truth came to her, and she tried to speak, but no words came to her lips, as in a dazed manner she took the infant from Serena, and pressing it tightly to her bosom stepped back from him with horror, contempt, and blazing anger shining from her beautiful eyes.

"Go below, I beg you," said Villari huskily. "Here, girl, take this, and give it to your mistress when you go below," and he placed a loaded Colt's pistol in the girl's hand. "No one shall enter the cabin till to-morrow morning. You can shoot the first man who puts his foot on the companion stairs."

CHAPTER XVIII

A hot, blazing, and windless day, so hot that the branches of the coco-palms, which at early morn had swished and merrily swayed to the trade wind, now hung limp and motionless, as if they had suffered from a long tropical drought instead of merely a few hours' cessation of the brave, cool breeze, which for nine months out of twelve for ever made symphony in their plumed crests.

On the shady verandah of a small but well-built native house Amy Marston was seated talking to an old, snowy-haired white man, whose bright but wrinkled face was tanned to the colour of dark leather by fifty years of constant exposure to a South Sea sun.

"Don't you worry, ma'am. A ship is bound to come along here some time or another, an' you mustn't repine, but trust to G.o.d's will."

"Indeed I try hard not to repine, Mr. Manning. When I think of all that has happened since that night, seven months ago, I have much for which to thank G.o.d. I am alive and well, my child has been spared to me, and in you, on this lonely island, I have found a good, kind friend, to whom I shall be ever grateful."

"That's the right way to look at it, ma'am. Until you came here I had not seen a white woman for nigh on twenty years, and when I did first see you I was all a-trembling--fearing to speak--for you looked to me as if you were an angel, instead of----"

"Instead of being just what I was--a wretched, half-mad creature, whom your kindness and care brought back to life and reason."

The old man, who even as he sat leant upon a stick, pointed towards the setting sun, whose rays were shedding a golden light upon the sleeping sea.

"Whenever I see a thing like that, Mrs. Marston, I feel in my heart, deep, deep down, that G.o.d is with us, and that I, Jim Manning, the old broken-down, poverty-stricken trader of Anouda, has as much share in His goodness and blessed love as the Pope o' Borne or the Archbishop o'

Canterbury. See how He has preserved you, and directed that schooner to drift here to Anouda, instead of her going ash.o.r.e on one of the Solomon Islands, where you and all with you would have been killed by savage cannibals and never been heard of again."

Amy Marston left her seat, came over to the old man, and kneeling beside him, placed her hands on his.

"Mr. Manning, whenever a ship does come, will you and your sons come away with me to Samoa, and live with me and the kind friends of whom I have told you. Ah, you have been so good to me and my baby that I would feel very unhappy if, when a ship comes and I leave Anouda, you were to stay behind. I am what is considered a fairly rich woman----"

"G.o.d bless you, my child--for you are only a child, although you are a widow and have a baby--but you must not tempt me. I shall never leave Anouda. I have lived here for five-and-thirty years, and shall die here.

I am now past seventy-six years of age, and every evening when the sun is setting, as it is setting now, I sit in front of my little house and watch it as I smoke my pipe, and feel more and more content and nearer to G.o.d. Now, Mrs. Marston, I must be going home. Where is Lilo?''

"Out on the reef somewhere, fishing. Serena and the baby are in the breadfruit grove behind the village. I sent them there, as it is cooler than the house. I shall walk over there for them before it becomes too dark. Ah, here comes the breeze at last."

"Lilo is a good boy, a good boy," said the old man as he rose and held out his hand; "he is very proud of calling himself your _tausea_,{*} and that he 'sailed' the _Lupetea_ so many hundreds of miles."

* Protector.

"He is indeed a good boy. I do not think we should ever have reached land had it not been for him."

As the bent figure of the old trader disappeared along the path that led to his own house, which was half a mile away, Mrs. Marston reseated herself, and with her sunbrowned hands folded in her lap, gazed dreamily out upon the gla.s.sy ocean, and gave herself up to reverie.

When, in an agony of fear, she had obeyed Villari's request to go below, she had locked herself in her own cabin, and after putting her infant to sleep, had sat up with the girl Serena, waiting for the morning. The pistol which the Italian had given her she laid upon the little table, and Serena, who knew of Villari's infatuation for her mistress, sat beside her with a knife in her hand.

"I cannot shoot with the little gun which hath six shots, lady," said the girl, "but I can drive this knife into his heart."

Half an hour pa.s.sed without their being disturbed, and then they heard Villari call out to let draw the head sheets, and in a few minutes the schooner was running before a sharp rain squall from the northward. As they sat listening to the spattering of the rain on the deck above, one of the skylight flaps was lifted, and, to their joy, their names were called by the boy Lilo.

"Serena, Ami! 'Tis I, Lilo. Do not shoot at me," he cried, and at the same moment Villari came to the skylight and said--

"The boy wants to stay below with you, Mrs. Marston. I did not know he was on board till a little while ago." Then the flap was lowered, and they saw no more of him till the morning.

The delight of Lilo at finding Mrs. Marston and Serena together was unbounded, and for some minutes the boy was so overjoyed at seeing them again, that even Mrs. Marston, terrified and agitated as she was at Villari's conduct, had to smile when he took her feet in his hands and pressed them to his cheek. As soon as his excitement subsided, he told them of what had occurred after he had been put down into the foc'sle.

About a quarter of an hour after the boat had gone, the scuttle was opened, and one of the sailors who were left on board told him to come up on deck. Villari was at the wheel, and was in a very bad temper, for he angrily demanded of the two seamen what they meant by keeping him on board, instead of sending him on sh.o.r.e in the boat. One of the men, who was called "Bucky" and who had evidently been drinking, made Villari a saucy answer, and said that he had kept the boy below with a view to making him useful. The mate, he said, "knew all about it," and Villari had better "keep quiet." In another moment Villari knocked him senseless with a belaying pin, and then, ordering the other man to let draw the head sheets, put the helm hard up, and the schooner stood away from the land, just as a rain squall came away from the northward. As soon as Bucky became conscious, Villari spoke to him and the other seaman, cautioned them against disobedience, and said that if they did their duty, he would divide a hundred pounds between them when the schooner reached Noumea in New Caledonia. The men then asked him whether he meant to leave the mate and the other four hands behind?

"Yes, I do," he replied, "that is why I am giving you fifty pounds each.

But if you try on any nonsense with me, I'll shoot you both. Now go for'ard and stand by to hoist the squaresail as soon as the squall dies away--this boy will lend a hand."

As soon as the squaresail was set, Villari told Lilo to call down the skylight to Mrs. Marston.