White Shadows in the South Seas Part 39

Higher we went, and were level with the jagged ridge of the Faeone mountains toward the north, and could look through the pierced mountain, Laputa; through the hole, _tehavaiinenao_, that is like a round window to the sky, framed in black, about which legends are raised. Orivie smiled indulgently as I explained to him that that hole was made by sea-currents when Laputa was under the ocean. He knew that a certain warrior, half G.o.d and half man, threw his spear through the mountain once upon a time.

We came then to the veriest pitch of the journey, like the roof of the world, and it was necessary to crawl about another ledge that permitted a perpendicular view of 2500 feet, so desperate in its attraction that had I known the name of that saint who is the patron of alpenstock buyers I would have offered him an _ave_. This was the apex. Once safely past it, the trail went downward to a plateau.

I caught up with Orivie and the horse, and my muscles so rejoiced at the change of motion in descent that almost involuntarily I took a few steps of a jig and uttered the first verses of "I Only Had Fifty Cents." Mosses and ferns by the billion covered every foot of the small plateau. There were no trees. The trail was a foot deep in water, like an irrigation ditch. One still might easily break one's neck. And I reflected that Pere Olivier crosses many times a year between Oomoa and Hanavave, in his black soutan and on his weary horse, in all weathers, alone; it is a fact to treasure for recalling when one hears all missionaries included in the accusation of selfishness that springs so often to the lips of many men.

We reached the plane of cocoanuts, and I asked Orivie to fetch down a couple, after essaying to perform that feat myself and failing dismally besides scratching my nose and hands. Bare feet are a requisite--bare and tough as leather. The Marquesans cut notches in the trees after they reach maturity, to make the climbing easier, a custom they have in many parts of Asia, but not in Tahiti. These footholds are made every three feet on opposite sides. They are cut shallowly, inclining downward and outward, in order not to wound the wood of the tree or to form pockets in which water would collect and rot it. With these aids they climb with ease, using a rope of _purau_ bark tied about the wrists, and by these they pull themselves from notch.

I have seen a child of six years reach the top of a sixty-foot tree in a minute or so, and I have seen a man or woman stop on the way, fifty feet from the earth, and light a cigarette. Slim, fat, chiefs or commoners, all learn this knack in infancy. Men who puff along the road because of their bulk will attain the branches of a palm with the agility of monkeys.

Orivie had no notches to a.s.sist him, but tied his ankles together with a piece of tough vine, leaving about ten inches of play, and with this band, pressed tightly against the tree, giving firm support while his arms, clasping the trunk above, drew him upward a yard at a time, he was at the crest of a fifty-foot tree in a minute, and threw down two drinking nuts. They were as big as foot-b.a.l.l.s and weighed about five pounds each. We had no knife, but broke in the tops with stones, and holding up the shining green nuts, let the wine flow down our throats. Never was a better thirst-quencher or heartener! The hottest noon on the hottest beach, when the coral burns the feet, this nectar is cool. After the most arduous climb, when lungs and muscles ache with weariness, it freshens strength and lifts the spirit.

By the cocoanut-grove ran a level stream shaded with panda.n.u.s, and following it, we commenced again to mount on a pathway arched by small trees, down which the stream coursed. The cocoanuts fell away as we went up the ridge and emerged upon a tableland covered with ferns, some green and some dead and dry, carpeting the flat expanse as far as eye could see with a mat of lavender, the green and the brown melting into that soft color.

We were further on the broad roof on the mountains, in the middle now and not on the edge, so we ran and galloped and shouted. Wild horses fled from us, and we heard the grunt of boar in the fern thickets. The fan-palms, dwarfs, but graceful, intermingled with magnificent tree-ferns, while above them curved the _huetu_, the immense mountain plantain, called _fei_ in Tahiti, where they are the bread of the people; they have ribbed, emerald leaves, as big as a man. Feeders of dark people in many lands for thousands of years, theirs is the same golden fruit I had eaten at breakfast with Pere Olivier, three thousand feet below. They grow only in the mountains, and the men who bring them into the villages have feet shaped like a hand spread out to its widest, with toes twisted curiously by climbing rocks and grasping roots for support.

The rain began to fall again, and the wind came stronger, but now we were going down in earnest. The sea shone again, but it was on the Oomoa side. We pa.s.sed under trees hung with marvelous orchids, the _puaauetaha_, Orivie said, parasitic vines related to the vanilla as the lion is related to the kitten, cousins, but with little family likeness.

The trail became very dangerous at this point, a rocky slide, with steps a foot or two apart like uneven stairs, and all a foot, or sometimes two, under running water. I jumped and slid and slipped, following the unhappy plunging horse. Darkness came on quickly with the blinding rain, and the descent was often at an angle of forty-five degrees, over rocks, eroded hills, along the edge of a precipice. I fell here, and saved myself by catching a root in the trail and pulling myself up again. I would have dropped upon the roof of the gendarme's house a thousand feet below.

We heard the sound of the surf, and letting the horse go, Orivie led me, by that sense we surrender for the comforts of civilization, down the bed of a cascade to the River of Oomoa, which we waded, and then arrived at Grelet's house. We had come thirteen miles. I was tired, but Orivie made nothing of the journey.

Covered with mud as I was, I went to the river and bathed in the rain and, returning to the house, looked after my health. A half ounce of rum, a pint of cocoanut-milk from a very young nut, the juice of half a lime just from the tree, two lumps of sugar, and I had an invigorating draught, long enough for a golf player after thirty-six holes, and delicate enough for a debutante after her first cotillion. The Paumotan boys and Pae looked on in horror, saying that I was spoiling good rum.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

Return in a canoe to Atuona; Tetuahunahuna relates the story of the girl who rode the white horse in the celebration of the fete of Joan of Arc in Tai-o-hae; Proof that sharks hate women; steering by the stars to Atuona beach.

The canoe we had followed to Hanavave stopped in Oomoa on its way to Hiva-oa, my home, for I had bargained with Tetuahunahuna, its owner, for my conveyance to Atuona. Grelet would eventually have transported me, but so great was his aversion to leaving Fatu-hiva that I felt it would be asking too much of him. He reminded me that Kant, the great metaphysician, had lived eighty years in his birthplace and never stirred more than seven miles from it.

The canoe had come to Hanavave to bring back two young women. One was dark, a voluptuous figure in a pink satin gown over a lace petticoat. A leghorn hat, trimmed with sh.e.l.ls and dried nuts, sat coquettishly upon her ma.s.ses of raven hair. Upon her neck, rounded as a young cocoanut-tree, was a necklace of pearls that an empress might have envied her, had they been real and not the synthetic gift of some trader. Small and shapely feet, bare, peeped from under her filmy frills. Her eyes were the large, limpid orbs of the typical Marquesan, like sepia, long-lashed; her nose straight and perfect, her mouth sensuous and demanding. Ghost Girl, her name signified, and she flitted about the islands like a sprite.

"She levies tribute on all whom she likes," said Grelet. "Her devotions are rum and tobacco." On meeting me she squatted and spat through her fingers to show her thirst, as do all Marquesans whose manners have not been corrupted by strangers.

The other girl, younger, in a scarlet tunic with a wreath of hibiscus flowers on her head, startled me by appearing with all her body that I could see colored a brilliant yellow. She had decked herself for the journey with a covering of _ena_-paste, perfumed with saffron, a favorite cosmetic of island beauties.

The sun was white on Oomoa beach as we came down to it from the grateful shade of Grelet's plantation. Against the blinding glimmer of it the half-naked boatsmen, bearing bunches of bananas, dozens of drinking nuts, bread, and wine, the gifts of my host, were dark silhouettes outlined against the blue sea.

Behind them walked Tetuahunahuna. Calm, unburdened, and without a tattoo mark on his straight brown body, he looked the commander of men that he was, a man whose word none would think to question or to doubt. Indifferent alike to the dizzying heat and to the admiring glances of the women, he set at once to ordering the loading of the boat that lay upon the sands beyond the reach of the breakers.

A dozen women lounged in the ancient public place beneath the banian tree, a mighty platform of black stone on which the island women had sat for centuries to watch their men come and go in canoes to the fishing or to raids on neighboring bays, and where for decades they have awaited the landing of their white sailor lovers.

"_Tai, menino!_ A pacific sea!" they called to us as we pa.s.sed them, and their eyes followed with envy the progress of Ghost Girl and Sister of Anna.

The boat was already well loaded when I reached it. The fermented breadfruit wrapped in banana-leaves, the pig dug from the pit that morning and packed in sections of bamboo, the calabashes of river water, the bananas and drinking nuts, were all in place. With difficulty my luggage was added to the cargo, and we found cramped places for ourselves and bade farewell to Grelet, while the oarsmen held the boat steady at the edge of the lapping waves. Tetuahunahuna, watching the breakers, gave a quick word of command, and we plunged through the foam.

The boat leaped and pitched in the flying spray. The oarsmen, leaping to their places, struck out with the oars. A sharp "_Haie!_"

of alarm rose behind me, and I saw that an oar had snapped. But Tetuahunahuna, waist-deep in the water at our stern, gave a mighty push, and we were safely afloat as he clambered over the edge and stood dripping on the steersman's tiny perch, while the men, holding the boat head-on to the rolling waves, drove us safely through to open water.

Outside the bay they put by their oars and we waited for a breeze to give the signal for hoisting mast and sail. The beach lay behind us, a narrow line of white beyond the whiter curve of surf. The blue sky burned above us, and to the far shimmering horizon stretched the blue calm of a windless sea.

We rolled idly, the sun scorching us. In an hour I was so hot that I began to wonder if I could endure the torment. The buckle on my trousers burned my flesh, and I could not touch my clothes without pain. The Marquesans lay comfortably on the seats and bundles, enjoying their panda.n.u.s-leaf cigarettes. Every few moments the bow-oar skillfully rolled one, took a few puffs and handed it to the next man, who, after taking his turn, pa.s.sed it down the waiting line.

From time to time Tetuahunahuna, squatting in the stern, made a sign, and a fresh cigarette pa.s.sed untouched through eight hands to his.

He smoked serenely, gazing at the smooth swells of water and waiting with inexhaustible patience for the wind. At his feet the fifteen-year-old girl, Sister of Anne, disposed her saffron-colored body upon oars laid across the thwarts and slept. Ghost Girl, beside me, laid her glossy head in my lap to doze more comfortably.

Jammed against the unyielding thwarts, I pa.s.sed miserable hours, unable to move more than a few inches in the narrow s.p.a.ce. At noon, with the vertical eye of the evil sun staring down upon us, my clothes were so hot that I had to hold them off my body. I meditated leaping into the ocean and swimming awhile. Ghost Girl saw my intention when I stirred, and pulled me back beside her.

"_Mako!_" she cried. "_Puaa hae!_" She pointed to starboard. A gray fin moved slowly through the water twenty feet away. "A shark, and a wicked beast he is!" She reached to pick up an opened cocoanut and tossed some of the milk over her shoulder to appease the demon.

"_Mako!_" she repeated. "_Puaa hae!_"

"_Requin!_" echoed Tetuahunahuna in French. "The devil of the Marquesas!"

"But you are not afraid of them. You swim where they are," said I.

"Few of us are bitten by sharks," said Tetuahunahuna, sizing up a puff of wind that brought a faint hope. It died, and he continued.

"We are often in the sea, and do not fear the _mako_ enough to make us weak against him. I have killed many with a knife. I have tied ropes about their bellies and made them feel silly as we pulled them in. I have tickled their bellies with the point of the knife that slit them later. They are awkward, they must turn over to bite, and they are afraid of a man swimming. But they are devils, and hate women. They do not like men, but women they will go far to kill."

He took the cigarette Ghost Girl handed him and, squatting on the rudder deck, looked at me to see if I were interested. Wretched as I felt, I returned his glance, and said "_Tiatohoa?_" which means, "Is that so?" and showed that I was attentive.

"It is so," he replied. "There are reasons for this. In times before the memory of man a shark-G.o.d was deceived by a woman. In his anger he overturned an island, but this did not appease his hate. Since that time all sharks have preyed on women."

Sister of Anne moved restlessly in her sleep and put her _ena_-covered feet across my knees, feet as hot as an iron pump-handle on a July noon.

"_Hakaia!_" exclaimed Ghost Girl, and hung the feet over the side.

"Sharks will let men live to kill women," Tetuahunahuna resumed.

"There are many proofs of this, but most convincing is a happening that every one in Tai-o-hae and Nuka-hiva knows, because it happened only a few years ago. I saw that happening."

I looked at him with attention, and after a few puffs of smoke he continued.

"You may think, you who use the Iron Fingers That Make Words, that the shark does not know the difference between men and women. I have seen it, and I will tell you honestly. I have thought often of it, for all who live in Tai-o-hae know that woman, and her foster-sister sits there with the _ena_ upon her. She does not lie in the cemetery, this girl of whom I speak, nor is her body beside that of her fathers in the _ua tupapau_. Her name was Anna, a name for your country, _fenua Menike_, for her father was captain of a vessel with three masts that came from Newbeddifordima.s.s, a place where all the Menike ships that hunt the whale came from. Her mother was O Take Oho, of the valley of Hapaa, whose father was eaten by the men of Tai-o-hae in the war with that white captain, Otopotee.

"_Ue!_ Those big ships that hunt the whale come no more. The _paaoa_ spouts with none to strike him. Standireili makes the lanterns burn in Menike land, and they send it here in tipoti, the big cans. The old days are gone.

"The father of Anna saw her first when she was one year old and could barely swim. He came in his ship from Newbeddifordima.s.s, and he said that it was for the last time, for the whaling was done. He was a young man, strong and a user of strong words, but he looked with pride on the little Anna, and kept her with her with her mother on his ship for many weeks, while the men of the ship danced with the girls. He would bathe on the beach in the bay of Tai-o-hae, and the little Anna would swim to him through the deep water. He gave her a small silver box with a silver chain, for the _tiki_ of Bernadette, on the day that he sailed away.

"He did not come again to Tai-o-hae, nor Atuona, nor Hanavave. We heard that he traded with Tahiti, and had given up the chase of the _paaoa_. I have never been in Tahiti. They say that it is beautiful and that the people are joyous. They have all the _namu_ they can drink. The government is good to them." Tetuahunahuna sighed, and looked at my bag, in which was the bottle of rum Grelet had given me.

I poured a drink into the cocoanut-sh.e.l.l Ghost Girl had emptied, and gave it to him. "_Kaoha!_" he said and, having swallowed the rum, went on.

"When Anna had fourteen years she was _mot kanahua_, as beautiful as a great pearl. She was tall for her age as are the daughters of the great. Her hair was of red and of gold, like that of t.i.tihuti of Autuona. Her eyes were the color of the _mio_, the rosewood when freshly cut, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s like the milk-cocoanut husked for drinking.

"Many young men, Marquesan men and all the white men, and George Washington, the black American, tried to capture Anna, but Pere Simeon, the priest, had given her to the blessed Maria Peato, and the Sisters guarded her carefully. From the time she played naked on the beach she wore the tiki of Bernadette in the silver box given her by her father, and she said the prayers Pere Simeon taught her from the book. She wore a blue _pareu_, and that was strange, for only old people, and few of them, wear any but the red or yellow loin-cloth. But blue, said little Anna, is the color of Maria Peato, mother of Christ."