The Call Of The South Part 24

"Sometimes I heard of him as being very prosperous. Once, when I was told that he had been badly hurt by a gun accident, I wrote to him and asked if he would care for me to come and stay with him. This I did for the sake of my dead mother. Nearly a year and a half pa.s.sed before I got an answer--an answer that cut me to the quick:--

"'I want no undutiful son near me. I do well by myself'.

"Several years went by, and then when I was mate of a trading schooner in the Fijis I was handed a letter by the American Consul. It was two years old, and was from my father--a long, long letter, written in such a kindly manner, and with such affectionate expressions that I forgave the old man all the savage and unmerited thrashings he had given me when I sailed with him as a lad.

"In this letter he told me that he wanted to see me again--that made me feel good--and that he had built a schooner which he had named _Juliette_ after my mother, who was a French _Canadienne_. He described the labour and trouble he had taken over her, the knees and stringers of _ngiia_ wood, and the carvings of sperm whales he had had cut on the windla.s.s b.u.t.ts and stanchions. Then he went on to say that he had been having a lot of trouble with the French naval authorities, who wanted to drive all Englishmen and Americans out of the group, and had made up his mind to leave the Marquesas and settle down again either in Samoa or Tonga, where he hoped I would join him and forget how hardly he had used me in the past.

"The gun accident, he wrote, had rendered him all but blind, and he had engaged a man named Krause, a German, as mate, and to navigate the _Juliette_ to Tonga or Samoa. Krause, he said, was a man he did not like, nor trust; but as he was a good sailor-man and could navigate, he had engaged him, as he could get no one else at Nukahiva.

"With my father were a party of Marquesan natives--a chief and his wife and her infant, and two young men. The schooner's crew were four Dagoes--deserters from some ship. He did not care about taking them, but had no choice.

"Some ten days before the German and the crew came on board, my father secretly took all his money--$8,000 in gold--and, aided by the Marquesan chief, made a secure hiding-place for it by removing the skin in the transoms, and then packing it in oak.u.m and wedging each package in between the timbers. Then he carefully relaid the skin, and repainted the whole. He said, 'If anything happens to me through treachery, no one will ever discover that money, although they will get a couple of thousand of Mexican silver dollars in my chest'.

"Well, the _Juliette_ sailed, and was never again heard of.

"That brings my story to an end, and if this is the _Juliette_, and the money has not been taken, it is within six feet of us--there," and he pointed calmly to the transoms.

Marsh was greatly excited.

"We shall soon see, Meredith. But first let me say that I am sure that this is your father's missing schooner, and that she is the vessel that thirteen years ago called at Motumoe, and those who sailed her sent Pautoe on sh.o.r.e when she was an infant."

Then he hurriedly related the story as told to him by Mr. Copley.

Meredith nodded. "No doubt the missionary was right and my father's fears were well-founded. I suppose the German and the Dagoes murdered him and the four Marquesans. Krause, of course, would know that my poor father had money on board. And I daresay that the Dagoes spared the child out of piety--their Holy Roman consciences wouldn't let 'em cut the throat of a probably unbaptised child. Now, Marsh, if you'll clear away the cushions and all the other gear from the transoms, I'll get an auger and an axe, and we'll investigate."

Rising from his seat in his usual leisurely manner, he went on deck, and returned in a few minutes with a couple of augers, an axe, two wedges, and a heavy hammer.

Marsh had cleared away the cushions and some boxes of provisions, and was eagerly awaiting him.

Meredith, first of all, took the axe, and, with the back of the head, struck the casing of the transoms.

"It's all right, Marsh. Either the money, or something else is there right enough, I believe. Bore away on your side."

The two augers were quickly biting away through the hard wood of the casing, and in less than two minutes Marsh felt the point of his break through the inner skin, and then enter something soft; then it clogged, and finally stuck. Reversing the auger, he withdrew it, and saw that on the end were some threads of oak.u.m and canvas, which he excitedly showed to his partner, who nodded, and went on boring in an unmoved manner, until the point of his auger penetrated the planking, stuck, and then came a sound of it striking loose metal. The wedges were then driven in between the planking, and one strip prised off, and there before them was the money in small canvas bags, each bag parcelled round with oak.u.m, which was also packed tightly between the skin and timbers, forming a compact ma.s.s.

Removing one bag only, Marsh placed it aside, then they replaced the plank, plugged the auger holes, and hid the marks from view by stacking the provision cases along the transoms.

ali was called below, and told of the discovery. He, of course, was highly delighted, and his eyes gleamed when Meredith unfastened the bag, and poured out a stream of gold coin upon the cabin table.

That night the partners did not sleep. They talked over their plans for the future, and decided to take the schooner to San Francisco, sell her, and buy a larger vessel and a cargo of trade goods. Meredith was to command, and Tahiti in the Society Group was to be their headquarters.

Here Marsh (with the faithful ali and Leota, and, of course, Pautoe) was to buy land and form a trading station, whilst the vessel was to cruise throughout the South Seas, trading for oil, pearl-sh.e.l.l and other island produce.

Soon after daylight the anchor of the _Juliette_ was lifted and she sailed out of Apia harbour, and by noon, Leota and Pautoe were astonished to see the little craft bring-to abreast of Laulii village, and Marsh and Meredith come on sh.o.r.e.

Later on in the day, when the house was free of the kindly, but somewhat intrusive native visitors, the partners told the strange story of the _Juliette_ to Leota and Pautoe, and of their plans for the future.

"Pautoe," said Meredith, "in three years' time will you marry me, and sail with me in the new ship?"

"Aye, that will I, Lesta. Did I not say so before?"

CHAPTER XXVIII ~ THE MAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING

The Man Who Knew Everything came to Samoa in November, when dark days were on the land, and the nearing Christmas time seemed likely to be as that of the preceding one, when burning villages and the crackle of musketry, and the battle cries of opposing factions, engaged in slaughtering one another, turned the once restful and beautiful Samoa into a h.e.l.l of evil pa.s.sions, misery and suffering. For the poor King Malietoa was making a game fight with his scanty and ill-armed troops against the better-armed rebel forces, who were supplied, _sub rosa_, with all the arms and ammunition they desired by the German commercial agents of Bismarck, who had impressed upon that statesman the necessity of making Samoa the base of German trading enterprise in the South Seas by stirring up rebellion throughout the group to such an extent that Germany, under the plea of humanity, would intervene--buy out the British and American interests, and force the natives to accept a German protectorate.

At this time the white population of Apia numbered about two hundred, of whom one half were Germans--the rest were princ.i.p.ally English and Americans. For two years past a very bitter feeling had existed between the staff of the great German trading firm, and the British and American community. The latter had their places of business in Apia, and the suburb of Matautu, the Germans occupied the suburb of Matafele, and although there was a business intercourse between the people of the three nationalities, there was absolutely none of a social character.

The British and American traders and residents were supporters of King Malietoa, the Germans backed up the rebel party, and the natives themselves were equally divided into pro-British, and pro-Germans.

At this time--when the Man Who Knew Everything arrived in Samoa from New Zealand--I was living on sh.o.r.e. The vessel in which I was employed as "recruiter" in the Kanaka labour trade was laid up in Apia harbour. Two months previously we had brought a cargo of native labourers from the Gilbert Islands to be indentured to the cotton planters in Samoa, and finding the country in such a disturbed state, with business paralysed, and no further demand for a fresh cargo of Kanaka "recruits," we decided to pay off most of the ship's company, and let the brigantine lie up till the end of the rainy and bad weather season--from the end of November till March, The skipper and a few of the native crew remained on board, but I took up my quarters on sh.o.r.e, at a little Samoan village named Lelepa--two miles from Apia. Here I was the "paying guest" of our boatswain--a stalwart native of the island of Rarotonga. He had sailed with me on several vessels during a period of some years; and on one of our visits to Apia had married a Samoan girl of a good family.

Having much spare time on my hands I occupied it in deep-sea fishing and shooting, and in making boat voyages along the coast, visiting a number of native villages, where I was well-known to the people, who always made me and my boat's crew very welcome--for the Samoans are naturally a most hospitable race, and love visiting and social intercourse. On these excursions Marama (the native boatswain) and some other of the ship's crew sometimes came with me; on other occasions my party would be made up of the two half-caste sons of the American Consul, two or three Samoans and myself.

Towards the end of November there arrived from Auckland (N.Z.) the trading schooner _Dauntless_. She brought one pa.s.senger whose acquaintance I soon made, and whom I will call Marchmont. He was a fine, well-set-up young fellow of about five and twenty years of age, and I was delighted to find that he was a good all-round sportsman--I could never induce any of the white traders or merchants of Apia to join me in any of my many delightful trips. Marchmont was making a tour through the Pacific Islands, partly on business, and partly on pleasure. He was visiting the various groups on behalf of a Liverpool firm, who were buying up land suitable for cotton-growing, and was to spend two months in Samoa.

He and I soon made arrangements for a series of fishing and shooting trips along the south coast of Upolu, where the country was quiet, and as yet undisturbed by the war. But, although Marchmont was a most estimable and companionable man in many respects, he had some serious defects in his character, which, from a sportsman's point of view, were most objectionable, and were soon to bring him into trouble. One was that he was most intensely self-opinionated, and angrily resented being contradicted--even when he knew he was in the wrong; another was his bad temper--whenever he did anything particularly foolish he would not stand a little good-natured "chaff"--he either flew into a violent rage and "said things" or sulked like a boy of ten years of age. Then, too, another regrettable feature about him was the fact that he, being a young man of wealth, had the idea that he should always be deferred to, never argued with upon any subject, and his advice sought upon everything pertaining to sport. These unpromising traits in his character soon got him into hot water, and before he had been a week in Samoa he was nicknamed by both whites and natives "Misi Ulu Poto--masani mea uma,"--"Mr. Wise Head--the Man Who Knows Everything". The term stuck--and Marchmont took it quite seriously, as a well-deserved compliment to his abilities.

My new acquaintance, I must mention, had a most extensive and costly sporting outfit--all of it was certainly good, but much of it quite useless for such places as Samoa and other Polynesian Islands. Of rifles and guns he had about a dozen, with an enormous quant.i.ty of ammunition and fittings, bags, water-proofing, tents, fishing-boots, spirit stoves, hatchets in leather covers, hunting knives, etc., etc.; and his fishing gear alone must have run into a tidy sum of money. This latter especially interested me, but there was nothing in it that I would have exchanged for any of my own--that is, few-deep-sea fishing, a sport in which I was always very keen during a past residence of fifteen years in the South Seas. When I showed my gear to Marchmont he criticised it with great cheerfulness and freedom, and somewhat irritated me by frequently e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. "Bosh!" when I explained why in fishing at a depth of 100 to 150 fathoms for a certain species of _Ruvettus_ (a nocturnal-feeding fish that attains a weight of over 100 lb.) a heavy wooden hook was always used by the natives in preference to a steel hook of European manufacture. I saw that it was impossible to convince him, so dropped the subject; and showed him other gear of mine--flying-fish tackle, barb-less pearl-sh.e.l.l hooks for bonito, etc., etc He "bosh-ed" nearly everything, and wound up by saying that he wondered why people of sense accepted the dicta of natives in sporting matters generally.

"But I imagine that they do know a little about such things," I observed.

"Bosh!--they pretend to, that's all. Now, I've never yet met a Kanaka who could show me anything, and I've been to Tonga, Fiji and Tahiti."

Early one morning, I sent off my whaleboat with Marama in charge to proceed round the south end of Upolu, and meet Marchmont and me at a village on the lee side of the island named Siumu, which is about eighteen miles distant from, and almost opposite to Apia, across the range that traverses the island. An hour or so later Marchmont and I set out, accompanied by two boys to carry our game bags, provisions, etc. Each of them wore suspended from his neck a large white cowrie sh.e.l.l--the Samoan badge of neutrality--for we had to pa.s.s first through King Malietoa's lines, and then through those of the besieging rebel forces.

It was a lovely day, and in half an hour we were in the delightful gloom of the sweet-smelling mountain forest. In pa.s.sing through King Malietoa's trenches, the local chief of Apia, Se'u Manu, who was in command, requested me to stay and drink kava with him. Politeness required consent, and we were delayed an hour; this made the Man Who Knew Everything very cross and rather rude, and the stalwart chief (afterwards to become famous for his magnanimous conduct to his German foes, when their squadron was destroyed in the great _Calliope_ gale of March, 1889) looked at him with mild surprise, wondering at his discourtesy. However, his temper balanced itself a little while after leaving the lines, when he brought down a brace of fine pigeons with a right and left shot, and a few minutes later knocked over a mountain c.o.c.k with my Winchester. It was a very clever shot--for the wild c.o.c.k of Samoa, the descendant of the domestic rooster, is a hard bird to shoot even with a shot gun--and my friend was much elated. He really was a first-cla.s.s shot with either gun or rifle, though he had had but little experience with the latter.

A few miles farther brought us to the little mountain village of Tagiamamanono. It was occupied by the rebel troops from the Island of Savai'i. Their chiefs were very courteous, and, of course, we were asked to "stay and rest and drink kava". To refuse would have been looked upon as boorish and insulting, so I cheerfully acquiesced, and Marchmont and I were escorted to a large house, where I formally presented him to our hosts as a traveller from "Peretania," whom I was "showing around Samoa". Any man of fine physique attracts the Samoans, and a number of pretty girls who were preparing the kava cast many admiring glances at my friend, and commented audibly on his good looks.

Presently, as we were all smoking and exchanging compliments in the high-flown, stilted Samoan style, there entered the house a strapping young warrior, carrying a wickerwork cage, in which were two of the rare and famous _Manu Mea_ (red-bird) of Samoa--the _Didunculus_ or tooth-billed pigeon. These were the property of the young chief commanding the rebel troops, and had simply been brought into the house as a mark of respect and attention to Marchmont and me. Money cannot always buy these birds, and the rebel chief looked upon them as mascottes. No one but himself, or the young man who was their custodian, dared touch them, for a Samoan chief's property--like his person--is sacred and inviolate from touch except by persons of higher rank than himself. I hurriedly and quietly explained this to Marchmont.

"Bosh! Look here! You tell him that I want to buy those birds, and will give him a sovereign each for them."

"I shall do no such thing. I know what I am talking about, and you don't. Fifty sovereigns would not buy those birds--so don't say anything more on the subject. If you do, you will give offence--and these Samoans are very touchy."

"Bah--that's all bosh, my dear fellow. Any way, I'll give five pounds for the pair," and to my horror, and before I could stay him, he took out five sovereigns, and "skidded" them along the matted floor towards the chief, a particularly irascible young man named Asi (Sandalwood).

"There, my friend, are five good English sovereigns for your birds. I suppose I can trust you to send them to the English Consul at Apia for me. Eh?"

There was a dead silence. Asi spoke English perfectly, but hitherto, out of politeness, had only addressed me in Samoan. His eyes flashed with quick anger at Marchmont, then he looked at me reproachfully, made a sign to the custodian of the birds, and rising proudly to his feet, said to me in Samoan:--

"I will drink kava with you alone, friend. Will you come to my own house," and he motioned me to precede him. Never before had I seen a naturally pa.s.sionate man exhibit such a sense of dignity and self-restraint under what was, to him, a stupid insult.

I turned to Marchmont: "Look what you have done, confound you for an a.s.s! If you are beginning this way in Samoa you will get yourself into no end of trouble. Have you no sense?"

"I have sense enough to see that you are making a lot of fuss over nothing. Tell the beastly savage that he can keep his wretched birds. I would only have wrung their necks and had them cooked."