Kitabı oku: «Tessa», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XI

The two canoes were manned by some of the crew of the Motutapu together with six natives of Pikirami; one was steered by Harvey, the other by Huka the Savage Islander; and as they paddled along within a few feet of each other the crews laughed and jested in the manner inherent to all the Malayo-Polynesians when intent on pleasure.

That morning Harvey, tiring of the inaction of the past three days, had eagerly assented to a proposal made by Huka that they should make a trip round the lagoon, and spend a day or two away from the village, fishing and shooting. Several young Pikirami natives at once launched two of their best canoes, and placed them at Harvey’s and Atkins’s service, and offered to go with the party and do all the paddling, cooking, etc.

“Ay,” said Nena the head-man, a little wizen-faced but kindly-eyed old fellow, whose body was so deeply tatooed in broad vertical bands that scarcely a strip of brown skin could be seen—“ay, ye must take my young men; for are ye not our guests, ye, and the brown sailor men as well? and they shall tend on ye all. That is our custom to strangers who have come to us as friends.”

Preparations were at once made for a start, and Harvey went to tell Tessa, whom he found in the house allotted to her, listening to Atkins, who was planning some improvements in the interior so as to add to her comfort.

“I wish I could go with you, Harvey,” said Tessa with a bright smile; “it would be like the old days in Ponapé, with you and my brothers. How long will you be away?”

“Perhaps two days. Will you come, Atkins?”

“Not me! The less salt water I see and the less rain-water I feel for another week the better I’ll like it. Besides, I’m going to do a bit of carpentering work for Miss Remington. We may have to hang out here for a month before that Dutch schooner comes along, and I’m just going to set to work and make Miss Remington comfy. And if you had any sense, Harvey, you’d stay under shelter instead of trying to get another dose of shakes by going out and fooling around in a canoe.”

Harvey laughed. “There’s no more fever for me, Atkins. I’m clear of it. That little boat trip of ours has knocked it clean out of my bones, and if you don’t believe me, I’m willing to prove it by getting to the top of that coconut-tree outside there in ten seconds’ quicker time than you can do it.”

The boat voyage had certainly done him good, and although he had by no means thoroughly recovered his strength, his cheeks had lost their yellow, haggard look, and his eyes were bright with returning health. Atkins, who knew that Tessa was to become his wife, looked first at him and then at her with sly humour twinkling in his honest grey eyes. Then he took his pipe out of his pocket and put it in his mouth.

“Well, I’ll come back by and by. Two is company, and three is none. The sooner I go, the better you’ll like it, and the sooner you go, Harvey, the sooner I can get to work;” and so saying he walked out.

Tessa’s dark eyes danced with fun as she walked backwards from Harvey, and leaning against the thatched side of the house, put her finger to her lips. “What a beautiful sensible man he is, isn’t he, Harvey?”

“He’s a man after my own heart, Tessa,” and then Maoni, who sat smoking a cigarette in a corner of the room, discreetly turned her back as certain sibilant sounds were frequently repeated for a minute or two.

“Harvey, you sinner,” she whispered, “I don’t like you a bit. Really and truly I don’t.... Now, now, no more.... Maoni can hear you, I’m sure. The idea of your going away for two days—two whole days—and marching calmly up to me and telling me of it in such a rude, matter-of-fact manner. You are unkind.... Don’t.... I don’t like you, Harvey… I’ll tell father that you went away and left me for two whole days—to go fishing and pig-shooting, and poor Mr. Atkins had to look after me, and… oh, Harvey, Harvey, isn’t it lovely! Father will be so glad, and so will Carmela and Jack, and Librada and Ned. Harvey dear, I do hope your sisters will like me. Perhaps they will think I am only a native girl.... Oh, do be careful, I can see Maoni’s back shaking. She knows you’re kissing me, I’m sure.”

“Don’t care if she does; don’t care if she sees me kissing you, like this, and this, and this; don’t care if Atkins sees us.”

Her low, happy laugh sounded like the trill of a bird. “Harvey dear, do you remember the day when we went to Róan Kiti in Ponapé—when you were sailing the Belle Brandon for father?”

Harvey didn’t remember, but, like a sensible lover, said he did, and emphasised his remembrance in a proper manner.

“Well, now, listen… Oh, you horrid fellow, why do you look at me as if I were a baby! Now, I shan’t tell you anything at all.... There, don’t pretend to be sorry, for you know… oh, Harvey dear, I must tell you.”

“Tell me, dearest.”

“That’s a good boy, a good would-be-climbing-a-coconut-tree youth, who wanted to show off before poor Atkins who told me just now that you were ‘the whitest man in the South Seas.’ He did really.”

“Atkins is ‘an excellent good man,’ and you are the sweetest and most beautiful girl in all the wide, wide Pacific. Come, tell me what it is that you must tell me.”

“I’ll tell you if you don’t kiss me any more. Maoni’s eyes can see round her shoulders, I believe. I do wish she wasn’t here.... Well, that day when you and I were climbing up the mountain-path you let a branch swing back—you careless thing—and it hit me in the face and hurt me terribly, and you took me up in your arms and kissed me. Oh, Harvey, don’t you remember? Kissed me, just because I was crying like a baby. Harvey dear, I was only fourteen then, but I loved you then—that was the real, very beginning of it all, I think. And then I went away to school to San Francisco, and you went away—and I suppose you never thought one little bit about me again.”

“Indeed I did, Tess” (here was a silent but well-employed interlude); “I often thought of you, dear, but not as a lover thinks. For in those days you were to me only a sweet child (if Maoni wasn’t here I’d pick you up and nurse you), a sweet, sweet little comrade whose dear, soft eyes used to smile into mine whenever I stepped into your father’s house, and–”

“Oh, Harvey, Harvey! I have never, never forgotten you. There! and there! and there! I don’t care if Maoni, or any one, or all the world sees me,” and she flung her soft arms round his neck and kissed him again and again in the sheer abandonment of her innocent happiness. “But you really love me now, Harvey, don’t you? And oh, Harvey dear, where shall we live? And your sisters… if they don’t like me?”

Harvey stroked her soft hair, and pressed his lips to her cheeks.

“They won’t like you, Tess. They’ll just love you—and they’ll make me jealous.”

Again her happy laugh trilled out. “How lovely!… Harvey dear?”

“Yes, Tess.”

“I want to tell you something—something that only mother knows, something about me—and a man.”

Harvey looked smilingly into her deep, tender eyes, half-suffused with tears.

“Go ahead, dear.”

“Go ahead, indeed! You rough, rude sailor! Any one would think I was a man by the way you speak to me… But, Harvey dear, listen… there was a man who wanted to marry me.”

Harvey was all attention at once. “Sit down here, little woman, and tell me who the–”

“Sh! Don’t swear, or I won’t tell you anything, not anything at all, about it.... Harvey dear, why do you want to go away fishing? Stay here, and help poor Mr. Atkins.”

“Who was the man, Tess?”

“Are you really, really going away for two whole days?”

“I am, sweet.”

“Harvey dear, I’ll tell you all about it. You won’t be angry?”

“All depends. Who was the man?”

His laughing eyes belied his assumed sternness of visage, for in her eyes there shone a light so serenely pure that he knew he had naught to dread.

“A very, very nice man, sir. Now try and guess who it was?”

“Old Schuler, the fat German trader at Yap.”

“Oh, you wretch, Harvey! He’s been married three times, and has dozens and dozens of all sorts of coloured children.... Now there! Guess again or I’ll twist this side of your moustache until I make you cry.... Harvey dear, who was the girl whose photograph was over your bunk in father’s schooner?”

“I forget. Most likely it was my sister Kate,” was the prompt reply.

“I don’t believe you, Mr. Harvey Carr. But I’ll find out all about you by and by. You’ll have to just tell me everything. Now guess again.”

“The captain of the Lafayette. He asked each of your sisters to marry him, I know, and I suppose you followed in turn as soon as you began to wear long dresses.”

“That horrible man! We all hated him. No, indeed, it was somebody better than the captain of a whaler.”

“Don’t be so superior, Tess. Your brother Ned hopes to be skipper of a whaler some day.”

“But Ned is very good-looking, and–”

“So was old Ayton before he lost his teeth, and one eye, and began ‘ter chaw terbacker’ and drink Bourbon by the gallon.... Beauty is only skin deep, my child.”

“Oh, you, you—I don’t know what to call you, but I do know that I have a round turn of your moustache in my hand, and could make you go on your knees if I liked. Now guess again; you’re getting ‘warmer,’ because it—he I mean—is a captain. Quick, and don’t struggle so. I mean to keep you here just as long as I please.”

“Well, then, old Freeman. He’s a captain, or was one about a hundred years ago, when he was much younger than he is now.” (Freeman was a nonogenerian settler on Ponapé and a neighbour of Tessa’s father.)

“Don’t be so silly! I’ve a great mind not to tell you at all, but as you haven’t whimpered when I pulled your moustache I shall tell you—it—he, I mean—was Captain Reade, of the United States ship Narrangansett. Now!”

Then all her raillery vanished in a moment. “He was a great friend of father’s, you know, Harvey; and first he asked father, and father said I was too young, and then when I was leaving school in San Francisco to come home he wrote to me and asked me if he could come and see me. And he did come, and asked me to marry him.”

“And you really didn’t care for him, Tessa?”

“Not a bit. How could I? Harvey, I never, never thought about anybody in the world but you,” and she looked into his face with swimming eyes as he pressed his lips to hers. “There, I’ll let you go now, dear. I can hear Huka and the others coming for you. But Harvey dear, don’t stay away for two whole days.”

An hour after leaving the village the canoes turned aside into a small narrow bay on one of the larger islands. The water was of great depth, from sixty to seventy fathoms, though the bay itself was in no part wider than a hundred yards. A solid wall of coral enclosed it on three sides, rising sheer up from the deep blue, and its surface was now bared and drying fast under the rays of the sun, for the rain had cleared off, and the sky was a vault of unflecked blue once more.

The natives had told Harvey and Roka that this bay was a spot famed as the haunt of a huge species of rock-cod called pura, some of which, they said, “took two strong men to lift,” and they were greatly pleased when they found that both the white man and Roka knew the pura well, and had eagerly assented to Harvey’s proposition that they should spend an hour or two in the place, and try and get one or two of the gigantic fish; as they had the necessary tackle—thick, six-plaited lines of coir fibre, with heavy wooden hooks such as are used for shark-fishing by the natives of the equatorial and north-west islands of the Pacific.

Had Harvey and his companions been ten minutes later in turning aside to enter the bay they would have been seen by Chard and Hendry ere they descended the coral mound at the north end of the lagoon, and much of this tale would not have been told. For had the destroyers of poor Oliver and his crew discovered the canoes they probably would at once have launched their boat again, and have put to sea, or at least prepared themselves for an attack. But great events so often come of small things.

For nearly an hour Harvey, Roka, and Huka fished for pura from the coral ledges, but without success. They had baited their hooks with flying-fish, as was the practice of the Pikirami people.

“Master,” said Roka presently to Harvey, “never have I had good luck with flying-fish when fishing for pura in mine own land of Manhiki. ‘Tis a feke¹ that the pura loveth.”

“Ay, Roka, feke is a good bait for the pura and all those great fish which live deep down in their fale amu” (houses of coral). “Let us seek for one on the outer reef. Then we shall return here. It is in my heart to show these our good friends of Pikirami that there is one white man who can catch a pura.”

Roka showed his white teeth in an approving smile. “Thou art a clever white man, and can do all those things that we brown men can do. Malua hath told me that there is no one like thee in all the world for skill in fishing and many things. Let us go seek feke.”

The rest of their party—the men from the Motutapu and the Pikirami people—were busily employed in preparations for cooking, some making ready an oven of red-hot stones, others putting up fish and chickens in leaf wrappers, and Malua and two Pikirami youths of his own age were husking numbers of young drinking-nuts.

Telling his native friends that he would return in an hour or two, or as soon as he had caught some feke. Harvey set off, accompanied by Roka and Huka, the latter carrying a heavy turtle-spear, about five feet in length from the tip of its wide arrow-headed point to the end of the pole of ironwood.

Turning to the eastward, they struck into the cool shade of the narrow strip of forest which clothed the island from the inner lagoon beach to the outer or weather side, and Harvey at once began to search among the small pools on the reef for an octopus, Huka with Roka going on ahead with his turtle-spear. In the course of a quarter of an hour they were out of sight of each other.

For some time Harvey, armed with a light wooden fish-spear, carefully examined the shallow pools as he walked along over the reef, and after he had progressed about a mile he at last saw one of the hideous creatures he sought lying on the white sandy bottom of a circular hole in the reef, its green malevolent eyes looking upward at the intruder. In an instant he thrust the spear through its horrible marbled head, and drew it out upon the rocks, where he proceeded to kill it, a task which took him longer than he anticipated; then carrying it back to the shore, he threw the still quivering monster upon a prominent rock and set out again in search of another, intending to follow his native comrades, who were in hopes of striking a turtle.

As he tramped over the reef, crushing the living, many-coloured coral under his booted feet, his eyes were arrested by some objects lying on the bottom of a deep pool. He bent down and looked carefully—five magnificent orange cowries were clinging closely together upon a large white and sea-worn slab of dead coral.

An exclamation ot pleasure escaped from him as he saw the great size and rich colouring of these rare and beautiful shells.

“What a lovely present for Tessa!” he thought; and taking off his shirt he dived into the clear water and brought them up one by one. Then with almost boyish delight he placed them beside him on the reef, and looked at them admiringly.

“Oh you beauties!” he said, passing his hand over their glossy backs; “how delighted Tessa will be! No one else has ever had the luck to find five such shells together. I’m a tagata manuia lava,² as Malua says.”

He picked the shells up carefully, put them into his wide-brimmed leaf hat, which he then tied up in his shirt, and taking his spear again made towards the shore, too pleased at his good fortune to trouble any further about another feke and only anxious to let Roka and Huka see his prizes.

Half-way to the shore he paused and looked along the curving line of beach to see if either of them were in sight; then from behind a vine-covered boulder not fifty yards away a rifle cracked, and he fell forward on his face without a cry.

CHAPTER XII

Soon after they had left Harvey the Manhikian and Huka parted, each preferring to take his own way, Roka laughingly telling his comrade that although he, Roka, had no spear, he would bring back a turtle.

“In my land of Manihiki we trouble not about spears. We dive after the turtle and drag them ashore.”

“Thou boaster,” replied the Savage Islander good-naturedly, as he stepped briskly down the hard, white sand towards the water, his sturdy, reddish-brown body naked to the waist, and his brawny right arm twirling the heavy turtle-spear about his head as if it were a bamboo wand. “I go into the lagoon, whither goest thou?”

Roka pointed ahead. “Along the beach towards the islet with the high trees. May we both be lucky in our fishing.”

In a few minutes he was out of sight and hearing of his shipmate, for the beach took a sudden curve round a low, densely-verdured point, on the other side of which it ran in an almost straight line for a mile. Suddenly he paused and shaded his eyes with his hand as he caught sight of a dark object lying on the sand.

“‘Tis a boat,” he muttered, and in another moment he was speeding towards it. When within a few hundred yards he stopped and then crouched upon his hands and knees, his dark eyes gleaming with excitement.

“It is the captain’s boat,” he said to himself, as lying flat upon his stomach he dragged himself over the sand into the shelter of the low thicket scrub which fringed the bank at high-water mark. Once there, he stood up, and watched carefully. Then stripping off his clothes and throwing them aside, he sped swiftly along an old native path, which ran parallel to the beach, till he was abreast of the boat. Then he crouched down again and listened. No sound broke the silence except the call of the sea-birds and the drone of the surf upon the reef.

He waited patiently, his keen eyes searching and his quick ear listening; then creeping softly along on his hands and knees again, he examined the sandy soil. In a few minutes his search was rewarded, for he came across the footmarks of Chard and the captain, leading to the vine-covered boulders under the shelter of which they had made their camp. Following these up, he was soon at the place itself, and examining the various articles lying upon the ground—provisions, clothing, the roll of charts, sextant. Leaning against the rocky wall was a Snider carbine. He seized it quickly, opened the breach, and saw that it was loaded; then he made a hurried search for more cartridges, and found nearly a dozen tied up in a handkerchief with about fifty Winchesters. These latter he quickly buried in the sand, and then with his eyes alight with the joy of savage expectancy of revenge, he again sought and found the tracks of the two men, which led in the very direction from which he had come.

To a man like Roka there was no difficulty in following the line which Hendry and the supercargo had taken; their footsteps showed deep in the soft, sandy soil, rendered the more impressionable by the heavy downfall of rain a few hours before. And even had they left no traces underfoot of their progress, the countless broken branches and vines which they had pushed or torn aside on their way through the forest were a sure guide to one of Nature’s children, whose pursuit was quickened by his desire for vengeance upon the murderers of his brother and his shipmates.

Pushing his way through a dense strip of the tough, thorny scrub called ngiia, he suddenly emerged into the open once more—on the weather side of the island. First his eye ran along the sand to discover which way the footsteps trended; they led southwards towards a low, rugged boulder whose sides and summit were thickly clothed with a thick, fleshy-leaved creeper. Beyond that lay the bare expanse of reef, along which he saw Harvey Carr was walking towards the shore, unconscious of danger. And right in his line of vision he saw Chard, who, kneeling amid the foliage of the boulder, was covering Harvey with his rifle; in another instant the supercargo had fired, Roka dropped on one knee and raised his Snider carbine, just as Sam Chard turned to Hendry with a smile upon his handsome, evil face, and waved his hand mockingly towards the prone figure of Harvey.

“That’s one more to the good, Louis–” he began, when Roka’s carbine rang out, and the supercargo spun round, staggering, and then fell upon his hands and knees, with the blood gushing in torrents from his mouth.

Hendry, taking no heed of anything but his own safety, dashed into the undergrowth and disappeared.

Running past Chard, rifle in hand, the Manhikian launched a curse at the groaning man, who heard him not in his agony. Leaping from pool to pool over the rough, jagged coral, which cut and tore his feet and legs, the seaman sprang to Harvey’s aid, and a hoarse sob of joy burst from him when he saw that he was not dead.

“My thigh is broken, Roka. Carry me to the shore quickly, and then haste, haste, good Roka, and warn the others. These men of Pikirami are traitors. Haste thee, dear friend, if ye be a good man and true, and help to save the woman who is dear to me.”

Tearing off the sleeves of Harvey’s shirt, Roka, as he answered, bound them tightly over the wound to stay the flow of blood. “Nay, master, ‘tis not the men of Pikirami. ‘Tis the captain and the tuhi tuhi³ who have done this to thee. Nay, question me no more… so, gently, let me lift thee.”

He raised Harvey up in his mighty arms as if he were a child, his right hand still grasping the Snider carbine, and carried him carefully to the beach. There he laid him down for a while.

“Stay not here with me, Roka of Manhiki,” said Harvey, trying hard to speak calmly, though he was suffering the greatest agony from his wound—“stay not here, but run, run quickly, so that there may be no more murder done. Leave me here.... Tell the sua alii⁴ to get the people together and hunt and slay those two men. Give them no mercy.”

“No mercy shall they have,” said the Manhikian grimly; “so rest thee content for a little while.... Aue!”

He sprang to his feet, carbine in hand, for from out the thickset jungle there emerged a thing of horror to look upon.

Chard, leaning upon his Winchester, was staggering down to the beach, with his lower jaw shot away. He came blindly on towards the man he had sought to murder, gasping and groaning. Then he saw Roka, dropped his Winchester, threw up his hands, and tried to speak.

Roka walked up to him.

“‘Tis better for thee to die quickly,” he said.

The supercargo swayed to and fro, and mutely held out both hands to Harvey as if imploring help or forgiveness.

Roka drew back, and planted his left foot firmly in the sand, as he placed the muzzle of his carbine against Chard’s breast, and Chard, grasping the barrel in his left hand to steady himself, bent his dreadful face upon his chest.

As the loud report reverberated through the leafy forest aisles there came the sound of rushing feet, and Malua and the rest of the crew of the Motutapu, together with the six Pikirami natives, burst through the undergrowth, and gazed in wonder at the scene before them—Harvey lying on the sand, Roka with his still-smoking rifle in his hand, standing over the dead body of Chard.

Too weak from loss of blood to answer Malua’s weeping inquiries, Harvey yet managed to smile at him, and indicate Roka by a wave of his hand. Then the Manhikian spoke.

“No time is there now to tell ye all. Run back, some of ye, to the sua alii Atkins, and tell him that I have killed the man Chard, but that the captain hath escaped. Get thee each a rifle and follow him. He hath fled towards his boat, which lieth on the little island with the high trees. Follow, follow quickly, lest he drag the boat into the water and sail away. Slay him. Let his blood run out. And tell the sua alii Atkins and the white girl that Harfi hath been sorely hurt, but is well, and will not die, for it is but a broken bone.”

Five or six men darted off, while the rest, under Roka’s directions, quickly made a litter for Harvey, and placed him upon it.

“Art thou in pain, master?” asked the giant Manhikian tenderly, as the bearers lifted the wounded man.

“Ay, but let me smoke so that the pain may go. And one of ye go to where I fell on the reef and bring me the five pule,⁵ lest when the tide cometh in they be lost.”

Roka himself ran off, picked up the hat and shells and brought them back; then he gave the word to march.

Half-way through the forest they were met by Atkins and Tessa, who were accompanied by the entire population of the village, except those of the young men who had set off in pursuit of Hendry.

“I’m all right, Tessa,” said Harvey; “it’s only a broken bone. Atkins, old man, don’t look so worried. You can set it easily enough. Good man, you’ve brought some rum, I see, and ‘I willna say no,’ as poor Morrison used to say.”

Atkins, whose hand was shaking with excitement, for he thought that perhaps Harvey was mortally wounded and was only assuming cheerfulness, gave him a stiff tot of rum.

“Here’s luck to you, Atkins. Tessa dear, don’t cry. Atkins will fix me up in a brace of shakes as soon as we get to the village. And look here, Tess. See what I found upon the reef.”

Long before sunset Harvey was sleeping quietly in the head-man’s house, with Tessa and Maoni watching beside him. Atkins had carefully set the broken limb with broad splints of coconut-spathe; and, proud and satisfied with his work, was pacing to and fro outside the house, smoking his pipe.

Presently Latour and Malua appeared, and the Frenchman beckoned to the second mate.

“What is it, steward?”

“Huka has just come back, sir. He wants to see you. The captain is dead.”

“Thank God for that. Where did they get him?”

“Huka will tell you, sir. Here he is.”

The Savage Islander stepped forward, and raised his hand in salute, with a smile of pride upon his lips.

“I been kill him,” he said in his broken English; “I was come along back to meet Mr. Harvey, when I hear the guns. And then I see the captain come, running quick. He have Winchester in his hand, and when he see me he stop. He fire two, three times at me. Then I run up to him, and I drive my turtle spear through him, and he fall down and I put my foot on his mouth, and he die.”

Atkins slapped him on the shoulder. “Good man you, Huka! Stay here a moment, and I’ll bring you a big drink of rum. Then we must go and bury both the swine.”

Three weeks later the Sikiana sailed into the lagoon, and the “good little Dutch skipper,” of whom Harvey had spoken, had him brought on board and placed in his bunk for the voyage to Ponapé.

“My tear Mees Tessa,” he said, “Mr. Carr haf dold me dat your fader vill gif me five hundred dollar ven ve get to Ponapé. If der Sikiana vas mein own ship I vould dake you und Mr. Carr and der second mate und all your natives to Ponapé for nodings; for your fader vas a good man to me, und Harvey Carr vas a good man to me ven I sailed mit him in the Belle Brandon. But you must invide old Westphalen to the wedding.”

“Indeed we shall, captain.”

“And me too, miss?” asked Atkins, with a sly twinkle in his eye.

“And you too, of course, dear, dear Atkins, so good, brave, and true. There, look, Harvey, I am going to kiss Mr. Atkins.”

“God bless you both, miss,” said the mate huskily.