Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories

III

“Are you going over to Halaliko to-night, Prout?” asked Sherard, walking up to where his manager and Marie sat enjoying the cool of the evening. He threw himself in a cane chair beside them and puffed away at his cheroot, playing the while with the little Mercedes.

“Yes, I might as well go to-night and see how the Burtons have got on,” and Prout arose and went to the stables.

Sherard remained chatting with Marie till Prout returned, and then, raising his hat to her, bade them good-night.”

“Don’t let Burton entice you to Halaliko, Prout,” he said with a laugh; “he knows that your time here is nearly up.”

Prout laughed too. “I don’t think that Marie would like me to give up Kalahua for Halaliko—would you, old girl?”

She shook her head and smiled. “No, indeed, Mr. Sherard. I am too happy here to ever wish to leave.”

Whistling softly to himself, Prout rode along the palm-bordered winding track. It was not often he was away from Marie, but he meant to take his time this evening. It was nearly five miles to Burton’s plantation at Halaliko, and half an hour would finish his business there. He knew that, as soon as he left, Marie would tell the native servant to go to her bed in the coolie lines, and then she would herself retire; and when he returned he would find her lying asleep with her baby beside her.

To the right the road wound round a great jagged shoulder of rocky cliff, and clung to it closely; for on the left there yawned a black space, the valley of Maunahoehoe, and, as he rode, Prout could see the glimmer of the natives’ fires below—fires that, although they were but distant a few hundred feet, seemed miles and miles away.

A slight sound that seemed to come from the face of the cliff above him caused him to look upwards, and the next instant a heavy stone struck him slantingly on the side of his head. Without a sound he fell to the ground, staggered to his feet, and then, failing to recover himself, vanished over the sloping side of the cliff into the valley beneath.

A shadowy, supple figure clambered down from the inky blackness of cliff that overhung the road, and peered over the valley of Maunahoehoe. It was Moreno, the Chilian.

“Better than a knife after all; Holy Virgin, he’s gone now, and I forgive him for all the blows he struck me.”

Long before daylight, Prout, with his face and shoulders covered with gory stains, staggered into the native village at Maunahoehoe and asked the people to lend him a horse to take him back to Kalahua.

When within half a mile of Kalahua, almost fainting from loss of blood and exhaustion, he pulled up his horse at a hut on the borders of the estate and got off. There were some five or six natives inside, and they started up with quick expressions of sympathy when they saw his condition.

“Give me a weapon, O friends,” he said. “Some man hath tried to kill me.”

A short squat native smiled grimly, reached to the rafters of the dwelling, and took down a heavy carbine, which he loaded and then handed to the white man.

“‘Tis Moreno who hath hurt thee,” said the native; “at midnight he rode by here in hot haste.”

With the native supporting him, Prout rode along the road to the Estate gates.

As he reeled through he heard a faint cry.

In another minute he was on the verandah and looking through the French lights into Marie’s dimly-lighted bedroom. An inarticulate cry of anguish burst from him. Sherard and his wife were together.

Steadying himself against a post he took aim at the trembling figure of his wife, and fired. She threw up her arms and fell upon her face, and then Sherard, pistol in hand, dashed out and met him.

Ere he could draw the trigger, Prout swung the heavy weapon round, and the stock crashed into the traitor’s brain.

“It is the death of a dog,” said the native, spurning the body with his naked foot.

She was dying fast when Prout, with love and hate struggling for mastery in his frenzied brain, stood over her.

“He took my child away from me,” she said.... “He said he would kill her before me,… and it was to save her. Only for that I would have died first. Oh, Ned, Ned–”

Then with a look of unutterable love from her fast-dimming eyes, she closed them in death.

That was why Prout, after two years of madness in a prison, had stepped on board Hetherington’s schooner and asked the captain to take him away somewhere—he cared not where—so that he could be away from the ken of civilised and cruel mankind and try and forget the dreadful past.

IV.

They are a merry-hearted, laughter-loving race, the people of white-beached Nukutavau, with whom the trader lived. To them the grave-faced, taciturn man, who cared not to listen to their songs or to watch their wild dances on the moonlit beach—as had been the custom of those white men who had dwelt on the island before him—was but as one afflicted with some mental disease, and therefore to be both pitied and feared. At first, indeed, when he had landed, carrying his child in his arms, to bargain with Patiaro, the chief, that the people should build him a house, the women of the island had clustered around him as he stepped out of the boat, and with smiles upon their faces, extended their arms to him for the child. But no answering smile lit up the man’s rugged features, though, to avoid the appearance of discourtesy (to which all island races are so keenly sensitive) he gave the infant into the keeping of old Malineta, the mother of the chief.

Patiaro, the chief, holding the stranger’s right hand in both his own, looked searchingly into his calm, deep-set eyes with that dignified curiosity which, while forbidding a native to put a direct question to an utter stranger, yet asks it by the expression of his face. But Prout, whose anxious glance followed the movements of the grey-haired mother of the chief, as she pressed his child to her withered bosom, seemed to notice not his questioning look.

Following the stranger’s gaze, the chief broke the silence:

“‘Tis my mother, ariki papalagi.2 who carries thy child—Malineta, the mother of Patiaro, the chief of Nukutavau, he who now speaks to thee. And I pray thee have no fear for the little one.”

The quiet, dignified courtesy with which the chief addressed him recalled the white man to himself, and a pleasant smile lit up the native’s features when the stranger answered him in Tokelau—the lingua franca of the equatorial isles of the Pacific—north and south.

“Nay, I fear not for the child, Patiaro, chief of Nukutavau, but yet it may not be well for her to be taken to the village awhile; for with thee and thy people doth it rest whether the child and I remain here, or return to the ship and seek some other island whereon I may build my house and live in peace. And I will pay thee that which is fair and just for house and land.”

But in those days, before too much civilisation had brought these simple people deadly disease, Christianity, and the knowledge of the great Pit of Fire, the brown men thought much of a white man; and so Patiaro, the chief, made haste to answer:

“Let the child go with my mother, and tell thou the men in the boat that everything thou desirest of me and my people to do shall be done. Five rainy seasons have come and gone since a white man has lived here; so I pray thee, stay.”

The white man inclined his head; then he turned and walked to the boat, and spoke to the captain of the little vessel which, to bring him to the island, had dropped her anchor just outside the current-swept passage of the lagoon.

“I am remaining here, Captain Hetherington. Will you let your men put my gear out on the beach?”

Hetherington, the skipper, looked at his passenger curiously, and then answered:

“Cert’nly. But I’m real sorry you are leaving us, I don’t want to pry inter any man’s business, and you know these islands as well as I do; but I guess I wouldn’t stay here if I war you. Why, it won’t pay a man to stay and trade on a bit of a place like this,” and he cast a deprecatory look around him.

The trader made him no answer, and the skipper of the schooner, ordering his crew to take out his passenger’s goods and carry them to the village, stepped ashore, and held out his hand to the chief, whose fine, expressive features showed some signs of fear that the captain’s remarks were intended to dissuade the stranger from remaining on the island.

Motioning to the white men to follow him, the stalwart young chief led the way to the fale kaupale, or council-house of the village, where food and young coconuts for drinking were brought in and placed before them by the young women.

Sitting directly in front of his guests, the chief served them with food with his own hands, in token of his desire for friendship and to do them honour, and then quietly withdrew to direct the natives who were carrying the trader’s goods up from the boat to his own house, further back in the village.

“I would wish ter remark, mister,” said the American skipper as he pulled out his pipe and commenced to fill it, “thet, ez a rule, I don’t run any risk ev bustin’ myself with enthoosiastic admiration fer Britishers in general—principally because they air the supporters of er low-down, degradin’ system ev Government, which hez produced some bloody wars and sunk my schooner the Mattie Casey, with a cargo of phosphates valued et four thousand dollars.”

“It was a heavy loss to you, Captain Hetherington, but you surely do not dislike all Englishmen because the Alabama sunk your vessel?” said the trader, with a melancholy smile, whilst his restless eye sought the village houses to discern the movements of the chief’s mother with his child.

The American pulled his long, straggling beard meditatively. “Wal, I don’t know, they’re a darned mean crowd anyway.” And then, with a sudden change of manner, “Say, look here, mister; hev yew finally made up your mind ter remain on this island among a lot ev outrageous, unclothed, ondelikit females, whar every prospeck pleases an’ on’y man is vile; or air yew game ter come in pardners with me in the schooner an’ run her in the sugar trade between ‘Frisco and Honolulu?”

Prout grasped the old man’s hand, but shook his head.

“You are a generous man, Captain Hetherington, but I cannot do it. I am no seaman, and, what is more to the point, I have no money to put into the venture.”

“Thet’s jest it,” the American answered quickly, “but yew hev a long head—fer a Britisher, a darned long head—an’ I reckon yew an’ me will pull together bully; so jes’ tell the chief here to get the traps back inter the boat again, an’ yew an’ me an’ little Mercedy will get aboard agin–”

“No, no, no,” and the trader rose to his feet and walked quickly to and fro—“no, Hetherington; I cannot do as you wish. Here, among these islands, it is my wish to live; and here, or on such another island as this, and among such wild, uncivilised beings, must I die.”

“So?” and the hard-featured American raised his shaggy eyebrows interrogatively. “Waal, I reckon yew regulates your own affairs ter your own fancy; but look here, mister,” and the kindly ring in the old skipper’s voice appealed to the man before him—“what about little Mercedy? Yew ain’t agoin’ to let thet pore child grow up among naked, red-skinned savages, hey?”

A deep flush overspread the trader’s face, and then it paled again, and he ceased his hurried, agitated walk.

“Hetherington!… do not, I implore you, say another word to me on the subject. It is better for me to remain here with my little Mercedes.... So, here, give me that honest hand of yours and leave me.... But, stop, I forgot,” and he thrust his hand into a large canvas pouch that hung suspended from his shoulder, “I did indeed forget this, Captain; but forget the kindness that you have shown to me and my child during the four months I have been with you, I never can.”

The Yankee skipper’s face was visibly perturbed as he heard the jingle of money in the canvas pouch, and he worked his jaws violently, while his heavy, bushy brows met together as if he were in deep study, and uneasy mutterings escaped from his lips. Suddenly he rose and left his companion.

As he shambled away to the far end of the council-house, he caught sight of a number of native women and children advancing towards himself and his passenger. Foremost among them was the old woman Malineta, her lean and wrinkled face wreathed in smiles, for the white man’s child, whom she still carried, had placed one arm around her neck. As she drew near the American, the little one smiled and made as if she wished to go to him, or to her father who stood near by.

Holding out his arms to the child, the skipper took her from the old woman, and then he turned to Prout.

“Say, I’ve jest been reckonin’ up an’ I make out yew hev been jest four months aboard o’ my hooker thar, an’ I reckon thet twenty dollars a month ain’t more’n a fair an’ square deal.”

Again the red flush mantled to the trader’s brow. “No, no, Hetherington. I am poor, but not so poor that I should insult you by such an insignificant sum as that. Two hundred and fifty dollars I can give you easily, and freely and willingly,” and advancing to the captain he offered him a number of twenty-dollar gold pieces.

An angry “Pshaw!” burst from the captain. He thrust the proffered money aside, and then, with his leathern visage working in strange contortions, he walked quickly outside, and sitting down upon an old unused canoe, bent his grizzled head, and strained the child to his bosom. And presently Prout and the natives heard something very like the sound of a sob.

Then, as if ashamed of his emotion, he suddenly rose, and kissing the child tenderly, gave her back to the woman Malineta. Then he turned to Prout.

“Waal, I guess I’ll be goin’.... Naow, jest yew put them air cursed dollars back again. It’s jest like yew darned Britishers, ter want ter shove money inter a man’s hand, jest like ez if he war a nigger, an’ hadn’t a red cent ter buy a slice of watermelon with,” and then all his assumed roughness failed him, and his eyes grew misty as he grasped the Englishman’s hand for the last time.

“Thet thar Mercedy.... Why, I hed sich a little mite once....” and he chewed fiercely at the fresh plug he had thrust into his cheek.

“Dead?” queried Prout, softly.

“Yes; diphthery. Yew see it came about th’ way. When I got back ter Cohoes—thet’s whar I belong—after that cussed pirut Semmes sunk my hooker, an’ ‘Riar sees me standin’ in front ev her without givin’ her any warnin’ I was comin’, she gets that skeered that she drops kerwallop on the floor, an’ when she come to, an’ heerd that the Mattie Casey was gone, waal, thet jest sorter finished her. Waal, she hung on ter life fur a year or so, kep’ getting more powerful weak in the intelleck every day; an’ when she died, my little Hope was on’y four years old. An’ Hope died when I was away servin’ in the Iroquois lookin’ fur Semmes,… an’ I ain’t got no one else to keer fur me naow.... Waal, goodbye, Prout; I guess I’ll beat up ter windward of this grewp, and then make a bee-line fur Honolulu.”

In another minute he had shambled down to the boat, and as the sun sank below the line of coconuts on the lee side of Nukutavau, the schooner swept away into the darkness. Then Prout, taking the little girl in his arms, followed old Malineta to the house of Patiaro the chief, and again took up the thread of his lonely existence.

Four years had come and gone. In his quiet house, under the shadow of the ever-rustling palms, Prout lay upon his rough couch of coarse mats, and little Mercedes stood beside him with her tiny hand upon his death-dewed forehead.

The missionary ship had just anchored in the lagoon, and Patiaro and his men had paddled off to her, so that, save for the low murmur of voices of women and children in the houses near by, the village lay silent.

Weeping softly, the child placed her tender cheek against the rugged face of the dying man, and whispered:

“What is it, my father, that aileth thee?”

He drew her slender figure to him with his failing hands and kissed her with pallid lips, and then Prout the trader gave up the battle of life.

MRS. CLINTON