The Call Of The South Part 22

In a most gallant style the five canoes came straight into the bay, and brought-to within a few hundred fathoms of our ship, and the first thing we noticed was a number of decapitated heads hanging over the sides of each craft, as boat-fenders are hung over the gunwale of a boat. This was intended to impress the White Men.

We certainly were impressed, but were yet quite ready to make short work of our visitors if they attempted mischief. Our ship's high freeboard alone would have made it very difficult for them to rush us, and the crew were so well-armed that, although we numbered but twenty-eight, we could have wiped out over five hundred possible a.s.sailants with ease had they attempted to board and capture the ship.

Some of the leaders of this party of pirates came on board our vessel, and Morel and I soon established very friendly relations with them. They told us that they had been two months out from their own territory (in Dutch New Guinea) had raided over thirty villages, and taken two hundred and fifteen heads, and were now returning home--well satisfied.

Morel and I went on board one of the great canoes, and were received in a very friendly manner, and shown many heads--some partly dried, some too fresh, and unpleasant-looking.

These head-hunting pirates were not cannibals, and behaved in an extremely decorous manner when they visited our ship. A finer, more stalwart, proud, self-possessed, and dignified lot of savages--if they could be so termed--I had never before seen.

They left Krauel bay two days later, without interfering with the people on sh.o.r.e, and Morel and I shook hands, and rubbed noses with the leading head-hunters, when we said farewell.

CHAPTER XXVII ~ PAUToE

"Please, good White Man, wilt have me for _tavini_ (servant)?"

Marsh, the trader, and the Reverend Harry Copley, the resident missionary on Motumoe, first looked at the speaker, then at each other, and then laughed hilariously.

A native girl, about thirteen years of age, was standing in the trader's doorway, clad only in a girdle of many-hued dracaena leaves. Her long, glossy black hair fell about her smooth red-brown shoulders like a mantle, and her big, deer-like eyes were filled with an eager expectancy.

"Come hither, Pautoe," said the missionary, speaking to the girl in the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Samoan dialect of the island. "And so thou dost want to become servant to Marsi?"

Pautoe's eyes sparkled.

"Aye," she replied, "I would be second _tavini_ to him. No wages do I want, only let him give me my food, and a mat upon which to sleep, and I shall do much work for him--truly, much work."

The missionary drew her to him and patted her shoulder.

"Dost like sardines, Pautoe?"

She clasped her hands over her bosom, and looked at him demurely from underneath her beautiful long-lashed eyes, and then her red lips parted and she showed her even, pearly teeth as she smiled.

"Give her a tin of sardines, and a biscuit or two, Marsh," said the parson, "she's one of my pupils at the Mission House. You remember Bret Harte's story, _The Right Eye of the Spanish Commander_, and the little Indian maid Paquita? Well, this youngster is my Paquita. She's a most intelligent girl." He paused a moment and then added regretfully: "Unfortunately my wife dislikes her intensely--thinks she's too forward.

As a matter of fact a more lovable child never breathed."

Marsh nodded. He was not surprised at Mrs. Copley disliking the child, for she--a thin, sharp-vis-aged and austere lady of forty years of age--was childless, and older than her cheerful, kind-hearted husband by twelve years. The natives bore her no love, and had given her the contemptuous nickname of _Le Matua moa e le fua_--"the eggless old hen".

Marsh himself told me this story. He and I had been shipmates together in many cruises until he tired of the sea, and, having saved a little money, started business as a trader among the Equatorial Islands--and I lost a good comrade and friend.

"I wish you would take the child, Marsh," said the missionary presently.

"She is an orphan, and----"

"I'll take her, of course. She can help Leota, I daresay, and I'll give her a few dollars a month. But why isn't she dressed in the usual flaming style of your other pupils--skirt, blouse, brown paper-soled boots, and a sixpenny poke bonnet with artificial flowers, and otherwise made up as one of the 'brands plucked from the burning' whose photographs glorify the parish magazines in the old country?"

Copley's blue-grey eyes twinkled. "Ah, that's the rub with my wife.

Pautoe won't 'put 'em on'. She is not a native of this island, as you can no doubt see. Look at her now--almost straight nose, but Semitic, thin nostrils, long silky hair, small hands and feet. Where do you think she hails from?"

"Somewhere to the eastward--Marquesas Group, perhaps."

"That is my idea, too. Do you know her story?"

"No. Who is she?"

"Ah, that no one knows. Early one morning twelve or thirteen years ago--long before I came here--the natives saw a small topsail-schooner becalmed off the island. Several canoes put off, and the people, as they drew near the vessel, were surprised and alarmed to see a number of armed men on deck, one of whom hailed them, and told them not to come on board, but that one canoe only might come alongside. But the natives hesitated, till the man stooped down and then held up a baby girl about a year old, and said:--

"'If you will take this child on sh.o.r.e and care for it I will give you a case of tobacco, a bag of bullets, two muskets and a keg of powder, some knives, axes and two fifty-pound tins of ship biscuit. The child's mother is dead, and there is no woman on board to care for it.'

"For humanity's sake alone the natives would have taken the infant, and said so, but at the same time they did not refuse the offer of the presents. So one of the canoes went alongside, the babe was pa.s.sed down, and then the presents. Then the people were told to shove off. A few hours later a breeze sprang up, and the schooner stood away to the westward. That was how the youngster came here."

"I wonder what had occurred?"

"A tragedy of some sort--piracy and murder most likely. One of the natives named Rahili who went out to the vessel, was an ex-sailor, who spoke and could also read and write English well, and he noticed that although the schooner was much weather-worn as if she had been a long while at sea, there was a newly-painted name on her stern--_Meta_.

That in itself was suspicious. I sent an account of the affair to the colonial papers, but nothing was known of any vessel named the _Meta_.

Since then the child had lived first with one family, and then another.

As I have said, she is extremely intelligent, but has a curiously independent spirit--'refractory' my wife calls it--and does not a.s.sociate with the other native girls. One day, not long ago, she got into serious trouble through her temper getting the better of her.

Lisa, my native a.s.sistant's daughter is, as I daresay you know, a very conceited, domineering young lady, and puts on very grand airs--all these native teachers and their wives and daughters are alike with regard to the 'side' they put on--and my wife has made so much of her that the girl has become a perfect female prig. Well, it seems that Pautoe refused to attend my wife's sewing cla.s.s (which Lisa bosses) saying that she was going out on the reef to get crayfish. Thereupon Lisa called her a _laakau tafea_ (a log of wood that had drifted on sh.o.r.e) and Pautoe, resenting the insult and the jeers and laughter of the other children, seized Mademoiselle Lisa by the hair, tore her blouse off her and called her 'a fat-faced, pig-eyed monster'."

Marsh laughed. "Description terse, but correct."

"The deacons expelled her from school, and ordered her a whipping, but the chief and I interfered, and stopped it."

The trader nodded approval. "Of course you did, Copley; just what any one who knows you would expect you to do. But although I am quite willing to give the child a home, I can't be a schoolmaster to her."

"Of course not. You are doing more than any other man would do for her."

Twelve months had pa.s.sed, and Marsh had never had reason to regret his kindness to the orphan. To him she was wonderfully gentle and obedient, and from the very first had acceded to his wish to dress herself in semi-European fashion. The trader's household consisted of himself and his two servants, a Samoan man named ali (Harry) and his wife, Leota.

For some years they had followed his fortunes as a trader in the South Seas, and both were intensely devoted to him. A childless couple, Marsh at first had feared that they would resent the intrusion of Pautoe into his home But he was mistaken; for both ali and Leota had but one motive for existence, and that was to please him--the now grown man, who eleven years before, when he was a mere youth, had run away from his ship in Samoa, and they had hidden him from pursuit And then when "Tikki" (d.i.c.k) Marsh, by his industrious habits, was enabled to begin life as a trader, they had come with him, sharing his good and his bad luck with him, and serving him loyally and devotedly in his wanderings throughout the Isles of the Pacific. So, when Pautoe came they took her to themselves as a matter of duty; then, as they began to know the girl, and saw the intense admiration she had for Marsh, they loved her, and took her deep into their warm hearts. And Pautoe would sometimes tell them that she knew not whom she loved most--"Tikki" or themselves.

Matters, from a business point of view, had not for two years prospered with Marsh on Motumoe. Successive seasons of drought had destroyed the cocoanut crop, and so one day he told Copley, who keenly sympathised with him, that he must leave the island. This was a twelvemonth after Pautoe had come to stay with him.

"I shall miss you very much, Marsh," said the missionary, "miss you more than you can imagine. My monthly visits to you here have been a great solace and pleasure to me. I have often wished that, instead of being thirty miles apart, we were but two or three, so that I could have come and seen you every few days."

Then he added: "Poor little Pautoe will break her heart over your going away".

"But I have no intention of leaving her behind, Copley. I am not so hard pressed that I cannot keep the youngster. I am thinking of putting her to school in Samoa for a few years."

"That is very generous of you, Marsh. I would have much liked to have taken her into my own house, but--my wife, you know."

Two weeks later Marsh left the island in an American whaleship, which was to touch at Samoa There he intended to buy a small cutter, and then proceed to the Western Pacific, where he hoped to better his fortunes by trading throughout the various islands of the wild New Hebrides and Solomon Groups.

During the voyage to Samoa he one day asked Pautoe if she would not like to go to school in Samoa with white and half-caste girls, some of her own age, and others older.

Such an extraordinary change came over the poor child's face that Marsh was astounded. For some seconds she did not speak, but breathed quickly and spasmodically as if she were physically exhausted, then her whole frame trembled violently. Then a sob broke from her.

"Be not angry with me, Tikki,... but I would rather die than stay in Samoa,... away from thee and Ali and Leota. Oh, master----" she ceased speaking and sobbed so unrestrainedly that Marsh was moved. He waited till she had somewhat calmed herself, and then said gravely:--