The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas Part 11

It was a tragic trio which rea.s.sembled on the Kawa's deck as the late afternoon sun spread its golden hand across the lagoon. The purple shadow of the Mountain rested on our tiny craft but a shadow yet deeper shrouded our hearts. Each of us carried the consciousness of a terrible duty. We ought to leave the Filberts.

Broken-heartedly we talked over the situation.

"Getting worse," was Whinney's report. "Saw Baahaabaa scratching his leg this morning--probably got it."

Poor Baahaabaa, how my heart ached for him.

"We ought to leave," I said.

It was the first time any of us had dared state the hideous truth in plain words. They fell like lead on our spirits. Sw.a.n.k's sensitive soul was perhaps the most harrowed of all.

He sat moaning on the taffrail taking little or no part in the discussion. All at once he sprang up with blazing eyes.

"I can't do it!" he shouted. "I can't--and I won't. Blessed little Lupoba,--my Mist-on-the-Mountain. How can I desert you? How can we any of us desert our wives--let us stay, let us live, and, if we must, let us die. Love is more than life."

It was a powerful appeal. Overwrought as I was, I nearly succ.u.mbed to the false reasoning which was but the expression of my desire. And then once more the vision of those deadly inroads of disease rose before me.

"Whinney," I asked, "is there no cure for this awful thing? No ant.i.toxin?"

He shook his head sadly.

"We have been studying it for years. The only hope is in their complete isolation. If we stay here ... and a second epidemic breaks out....

"; he shrugged hopelessly and Sw.a.n.k buried his face in the bilge-sponge.

"Enough!" I said sternly. "Triplett, when can we leave?"

"Tonight, sir," he answered with his old subservience. "I've got her completely stored, watered and ready."

"Come on," I said shortly. "We must get William Henry Thomas."

We swam ash.o.r.e dejectedly, each, I know, contemplating suicide. For an hour we visited our friends. For them it was but a friendly call, for us the agony of parting.

Gentle, dignified Baahaabaa, shall I ever forget you as you stood with your hands resting on my shoulder, confidently expecting to see me on the morrow!--Merry Hitoia-Upa, kindly Ablutiluti, and Moolitonu, oh!

that I might send some message across the waste of waters to tell your loving hearts of the love which still kindles in mine.

We did not dare visit our wives.

At dusk, that our conference might be unnoticed, we found our way to the William Henry Thomas family tree.

He came down instantly. All his old deference was gone. Something in the straight look of his eye told me that his christening had worked a tremendous moral change in the man, but I was not prepared for its extent.

"Not me," he said briefly, when we explained the necessity of our departure. "Not by a d.a.m.n sight."

In vain we reasoned, urged and argued.

"Don't you want to go back to your own people?" asked Sw.a.n.k weakly.

A mocking laugh was the reply.

"My own people! Who was I among my own people? Just a bunch of first names--no last name at all. William Henry Thomas! That's a h.e.l.l of a bunch of names. Who am I here? Fatakahala--Flower of Darkness--I guess that'll be about all. Good night, gentlemen."

With the agility of a monkey he bounded up his tree and disappeared.

I stood at the foot of the tree and tried to argue further with him.

"Remember Henry James," I shouted. "Think of Charles Henry George."

It was in vain.

Sw.a.n.k started after him, but as he reached the floor-level a large _hola-nut_ struck him squarely on the top of the head and he fell back, stunned.

Still further depressed we made our way back to the Kawa, our hearts aching as with the hurt of burns, a dull, throbbing torture.

"Drink?" said Captain Triplett in his most treacly manner. He held out a cup of _lava-lava_, the most deadly beverage of the islands. It is mixed with phosphorus and glows and tastes like h.e.l.l-fire. I saw his plan and for once was grateful. We took the bowl from his hands and filed into the tiny cabin--each picking out a corner to fall in.

In silence we filled our sh.e.l.ls and raised them to our lips, the last thought of each of us for our lost loved ones!

Hours--perhaps days--later I was dimly aware of a soft sobbing sound near my ear. Was it Sw.a.n.k crying? And then I realized that it was the chuckling of water under the Kawa's counter as manned by the intrepid Triplett she merrily footed it over the wrinkled sea.

CHAPTEK X

Once more the "Kawa" foots the sea. Triplett's observations and our a.s.sistance. The death of the compa.s.s-plant. Lost! An orgy of desperation. Oblivion and excess. The "Kawa" brings us home. Our reception in Papeete. A celebration at the Tiare.

That Triplett's refitting of the Kawa had been thorough and seamanlike was amply proven by the speed with which she traveled under the favoring trades. When our saddened but still intrepid ship's company rea.s.sembled on our limited quarterdeck there was no sign of land visible in any direction. The horizon stretched about our collective heads like an enormous wire halo. It was as if the Filberts had never existed.

The captain alone was cheerful. Joy bubbled from that calloused heart of his in striking contrast to the gloom of his companions. Most of the time he was our helmsman, his eye c.o.c.ked aloft at the taut halyards of _eva-eva_, occasionally glancing from the sun to the compa.s.s-plant which bloomed in a sh.e.l.l of fresh water lashed to an improvised binnacle.

At regular intervals he took observations, figured the results, and jotted down our probable course on his chart. This doc.u.ment we could scarcely bear to look at for upon it our beloved island figured prominently. But the course of the Kawa interested us. It was a contradictory course and even Triplett seemed puzzled by the results of his calculations.

"Can't quite figger it out," he would mutter, lowering the astrolabe from its aim at the sun--"accordin' to this here jacka.s.s-quadrant we orter be dee-creesing our lat.i.tude--but the answer comes out different."

"Too much jacka.s.s and too little quadrant," snapped Sw.a.n.k, whose nerves were still like E strings.

Little by little, however, the calm of the great ocean invaded our souls and that well-known influence (mentioned in so many letters of consolation), "the hand of time," soothed the pain in our hearts. I think it was the quiet, self-contained Whinney who brought the most reasoned philosophy to bear on the situation.

"They will forget," he said one evening, as we sat watching the Double Cross slowly revolve about its axis. "We must remember that they are a race of children. They have no written records of the past, no antic.i.p.ations of the future. They live for the present. Childlike, they will grieve deeply, for a day maybe; then another sun will rise, Baahaabaa will give another picnic--" he sighed deeply.

"The tragedy of it is that their memories should be so short and ours so long," I commented.

"Yes," agreed Sw.a.n.k, "but I suppose we ought to be thankful. They were a wonderful people, it was a wonderful experience. And no matter what art-juries of the future may do to me, my pictures were a success in the Filberts."

Blessed old Sw.a.n.k, he always looked on the bright side of things!

Day by day matters mended--and our spirits rose. We began to think more and more of getting in touch with civilization. What a tale we should have to tell. How we should put it over the other explorers with their trite Solomons and threadbare Marquesas!

"Where do you think we'll land, Captain?" I asked Triplett.

"Hard to say," he answered, "accordin' to compa.s.s-plant I'm steerin'

a straight course for anywhere, but accordin' to the jacka.s.s (he had dropped the word "quadrant" since Sw.a.n.k's thrust) we're spinnin' a web round these seas from where we started to nowhere via where we be."