The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas Part 5

Mrs. Traprock, of whom I can even now write only with deep emotion, was an exquisite creature, constructed in accordance with the best South Sea specifications in every particular. Sw.a.n.k and Whinney were equally fortunate. We would not have traded wives for ten tons of copra though Moolitonu, who was my best man, explained that this was perfectly possible in case we were not satisfied.

The gayest of wedding breakfasts followed at which all the ushers behaved in the orthodox manner after which we were conducted to our individual trees with appropriate processional and epithalamic chorals.

The ladies' singing society had composed for the occasion a special ode which ran as follows:

Hooio-hoaio uku kai unio, Kipiputuonaa aaa t.i.ti huti, O tefi tapu, O eio hoki Hoio-hooio ona haasi tui.

This was set to a slow five-eighths rhythm. A crude translation of the words, lacking entirely the onomatopoetic quality of the original goes something like this:

Stay, O stay, Moon in your ascending!

Daughter of Pearl and Coral to the Moon up-goes, Stay, O stay, Moon with light unending, Coral, Pearl and Moonlight, guard them from falling cocoanuts.

I should stand convicted of ingrat.i.tude if I did not here and now pay tribute to the sound common-sense of Captain Triplett at whose instigation we had embarked upon this our great adventure. As Triplett had predicted, ere a few days had pa.s.sed we found awakening within us the fires of ambition which had sunk lower and lower in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s during our two weeks of carousing. We were now responsible married men. We wanted to do something to take our places in the community.

I began to scribble furtively on the back of an old ma.n.u.script--the book of an operetta I had once written, a musical version of _Les Miserables_ called "Jumping Jean," in reference to which one of the New York producers, Dillingham, I think, wrote me: "You have out-Hugo-ed Hugo; this is more miserable than _Les Miserables_ itself!" I noticed also that Sw.a.n.k began to use his atelier jargon of "tonal values" and "integrity of line," while Whinney showed up one morning in the village circle with a splendid blossom of the bladder-campion (_Silene latifolia_) pinned to the center of his helmet.

It was doubtless this renaissance of mental activity that reminded us of the Kawa and of William Henry Thomas. Great heavens, what would he think of us? Here nearly a month had elapsed, we were mostly married and had never given him a thought. We were filled with compunction. On top of this Triplett came to us with the announcement that Baahaabaa had informed him that we might expect a big wind about this time. Remembering what we had been through the Captain was worried about our tight little craft.

"He allows," said Triplett, jerking his thumb at the chief, "that we orter git the Tree-with-Wings in out'er the wet. The question is, where be she?"

I explained our anxieties to Ablutiluti who, after a glance at Moolitonu's diagrammatic shoulder blades, immediately set out along a winding path to the sh.o.r.e. I was surprised at the shortness of the distance. A half-hour's walk brought us to the beach and there lay the Kawa as handy as you please. She had been considerably tidied up since our departure. Our blanket-sail had been stowed and between the dingey-oars, which were rigged fore-and-aft, stretched a rope of _eva-eva_ from which, to our surprise, hung an undershirt and a dainty feminine _rigolo_. But no sign of William Henry Thomas. In vain we shouted, "Kawa ahoy!" and hurled lumps of coral. All was mysteriously quiet.

Triplett finally pulled out his Colt and, being a dead shot, drilled the undershirt through the second b.u.t.ton. This had the desired effect.

Our crew almost immediately appeared on deck and shouted peevishly, "Hey there, quit it."

I will not repeat what we said in reply as this is a book for the home, but it had a surprising result.

"Is _that_ so?" yelled William Henry Thomas and proceeded to step jauntily over the rail and _walk_ in our direction. I knew he couldn't swim a stroke and yet here he was, performing an apparent miracle right in our faces. Then it suddenly dawned on me--he was walking on the coral branches!

It was not a particularly pleasant interview.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lupoba-Tilaana, Mist on the Mountain]

[Ill.u.s.tration Note: LUPOBA-TILAANA. MIST ON THE MOUNTAIN

Readers of the text may have noticed that animal life plays a very unimportant part in the life of the Filbertines. Exception must be made in the case of a magnificent ooka-snake, the only one on the islands, which was the proudest possession of lovely Lupoba, who later became the wife of Herman Sw.a.n.k. The ooka-snake lives entirely upon cocoanut milk which gives him a gentle disposition admirably adapted for petting. Mr. Sw.a.n.k has confessed that his wife's fondness for the creature stirred in him a very real jealousy which, in view of the charming testimony of her portrait, we can well understand. A painting of Mrs. Sw.a.n.k by her husband has recently been purchased by the Corcoran Art Gallery of Washington, D.C.]

After apologizing for our absence, which we attributed to illness, we broke the news as gently as possible that we were married.

"Well," said William Henry Thomas, "so be I ... the lady's on board."

"You old land-crab!" blazed Whinney. "Who married you?"

"She did," he replied.

"But who performed the ceremony?" asked Sw.a.n.k.

"Me," answered William Henry.

In vain we tried to explain the necessity of proper rites. His only rejoinder was, "You're too late."

But what made our sailor-man maddest was the information that the yawl had to be moved.

"Here I be as snug as a bug in a rug," he stormed, "an' you go gallivantin' round marrying an' what all, an' now you show up an boost me out. Its e-viction, that's what it is, e-viction."

This was a long speech for William Henry Thomas; fortunately it was his last. While he was delivering it I heard a slight splash and turned just in time to see a seal-like form slip over the Kawa's counter and disappear. I watched in vain for her reappearance. Doubtless like all Filbertines she could stay under water for hours at a time. After that Thomas sullenly did Triplett's bidding and half-heartedly a.s.sisted in the work of getting the Kawa into the atoll.

It was an arduous task. For four days we labored, working our vessel close in sh.o.r.e opposite a clearing in the forest, where the outer island was not more than quarter of a mile wide and free from trees.

Instructed by Triplett, we paved the highway to the lagoon with cocoanuts. Our wives and friends thinking it was a game, a.s.sisted us.

If they had known it was work they would, of course, have knocked off immediately. And then the promised storm broke and I saw Triplett's plan.

It was such a storm as this, undoubtedly, that had struck us on July 4th. This time, crouched in the shelter of the near-by trees, clinging to the matted _haro_, we were free to watch a stupendous spectacle.

Triplett alone went aboard and lashed himself to the improvised steering post. Our sail had been stretched and rigged with hundreds of yards of _eva-eva_, in addition to which four large _taa-taas_ were lashed along the scuppers.

In less time than it takes to tell, the wind had risen to super-hurricane force. Suddenly Baa-haabaa let out a yell of warning and pointed seaward. Rushing toward us at lightning speed was a wall of white water, sixty feet high! In a trice we were all in the treetops, my wife hauling me after her with praiseworthy devotion. All, did I say? All but Triplett. He was sublime. Then for the first time I knew that he was, in truth, our chief. Waving his free arm at the advancing maelstrom, he yelled defiance. Then this towering seawall hit him square in the stern.

I caught one fleeting glimpse of the Kawa gallantly riding the foam. An instant later she was flung with a tremendous crash far down the leafy lane. Fully half the distance she must have gone in that first onslaught. The last eighth-of-a-mile she ground her way through a torrent of sea and cocoanuts. The forest rang with the bellowing wind, the snapping coral branches and the screams of the whistling-trout fighting vainly against the current. What a plan was Triplett's! The cocoanuts, being movable, rolled with the flood and actually acted as ball bearings. Without them our craft must certainly have burst asunder.

The storm pa.s.sed as quickly as it had come and by the time we had clambered to the ground and rushed across the atoll there lay our tight little darling, peacefully at anchor in the still waters of the lagoon, with Triplett on her quarter-deck immersed in the New Bedford "Argus."

CHAPTER VI

Marital memories. A pillow-fight on the beach. A deep-sea devil.

The opening in the atoll. Sw.a.n.k paints a portrait. The fatu-liva bird and its curious gift. My adventure with the wak-wak. Saved!

I shall never forget a day when my bride and I sat on the edge of the lagoon after our matinal dip in its pellucid waters. It was a perfect September morn. So was she.

"My dear," I said suddenly, "Hatiaa Kappa eppe taue."

It sounds like a college fraternity but really means, "My woodlark, what is your name?"

I had been married over a week and I did not know my wife's name.

"Kippiputuonaa," she murmured musically.

"Taro it.i.ti aa moieha ephaa lihaha?" I questioned, which, freely translated, is "What?"

"Kippiputuonaa."

Then, throwing back her head with its superb aureole of hair she softly crooned the words and music of the choral which the community chorus had sung on our wedding night.

Hooio-hooio uku hai unio Kippiputunonaa aaa t.i.ti huti O tefi tapu, O eio hoki Hooio-hooio, one naani-tui

How it all came back to me! Leaning towards her, I gently pressed the lobe of her ear with my chin, the native method of expressing deep affection. Her dusky cheeks flushed and with infinite shyness she lifted her left foot and placed it on my knee. Tattooed the length of the roseleaf sole in the graceful ideographic lettering of the islands I read--

"Kippiputuonaa," (Daughter of Pearl and Coral).