The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton

  CHAPTER XIV

  "_Te fanua, te fanua! te fanua umi, umi lava!_" ("Land, land! a long,long land!")

  As we, the "watch below"--Niabon, Tepi, and myself--heard Tematau's loudcry, we sat up, and saw a long, dark line pencilled on the horizon rightahead, which we knew was the great lonely atoll named Providence Islandon the charts, and called Ujilon by the natives of the North-WesternPacific.

  It was daylight of the sixth day out from Kusaie, and as I stood up toget a better view of the land I was well satisfied.

  "We have done well," I said exultantly to Lucia, who was steering:"three hundred and forty miles in five days--with a two-knot currentagainst us all the way!"

  Saw a barque lying on the reef 182]

  I did not know my way into Ujilon Lagoon, for I had never been therebefore, so I now had some trouble in picking up one of the two passageson the south side of the great atoll. At seven o'clock, just as we wereentering it, we saw a barque lying on the reef about half a mile awayto the northward. She was a good lump of a vessel--apparently of aboutseven or eight hundred tons, and the remnants of some of her uppercanvas still fluttered to the breeze. We could discern no sign of lifeabout her, nor were any boats visible; but we had no time to examineher just then, so sailed on across the lagoon, and, instead of droppinganchor, ran gently on to the beach of a densely wooded island, for thewater was not only as smooth as glass, but very deep, the "fall" fromthe edge of the beach being very steep.

  In an hour we had lightened the boat sufficiently to float her along anarrow waterway, which wound a sinuous course through the solid coralrock into a little basin or natural dock, where we could board her ateither low or high water, without wetting our feet, though she had aclear fathom of water under her keel.

  The lagoon seemed alive with large and small fish--none of which, Niabonsaid, were poisonous, like two thirds of those of the MarshallIsland atolls, and the beaches and sand-flats were covered with smallgolden-winged plover, who displayed not the slightest fear of ourpresence, letting us approach them within a few yards, then rising andsettling down again. From where we were we could see but seven of thechain of fifteen islands which comprised the atoll; all of these werethickly covered with coco palms, bearing an enormous crop of nuts, andhere and there groves of jack-fruit and pandanus broke the monotonousbeauty of the palms by their diversity of foliage.

  No traces of natives were visible, though I knew that there were afew--about thirty all told--for the redoubtable Captain Bully Hayes, whoclaimed Ujilon as his own, and whose brig was the first ship to enterthe lagoon, had I knew established friendly intercourse with them. Twoyears before, I had met the famous captain at Anchorite's Islands--tothe north of the Admiralty Group--when he had given me a description ofUjilon and its marvellous fertility, and had tried to induce me togo there with him with a gang of natives, and make oil for him. Butalthough he made me a most liberal offer--he was a most delightful manto talk to, was the "South Sea pirate"--I did not trust him well enough,despite his merry, laughing blue eyes, jovial voice and handsome face,for he was a man who could be all things to all men; and the blue eyessometimes went black, and the smooth, shapely hand that was for everstroking the long flowing beard, liked too well to feel a trigger in thecrook of its forefinger. So I laughingly declined his offer--even when,as an extra inducement, he pointed out to me a very handsome youngMarshall Island girl, who would do the station honours for me at Ujilon.

  "All right, Mr. Sherry," he said, "please yourself;" and then overanother bottle of wine, he gave me some further particulars about thegreat atoll, and told me of how it had taken him two months to get intocommunication with the few inhabitants; and of the particular island onwhich their village was concealed amid a dense grove of pandanus palms.But that was two years ago, and I had forgotten much that he had toldme. However, as I intended to remain at Ujilon for two or three days,it was likely that we might come across them--they were very quiet andinoffensive people, so there was no danger to be apprehended from ameeting.

  By noon we had our temporary camp made comfortable, and were havingdinner when five natives made their appearance--three men and twowomen--coming towards us in a canoe. They landed without the slightesthesitation, and sat down with us; but we found that they spoke theMarshall Island dialect, which none of us but Niabon could speak,and she but slightly. However, we managed to worry along, and to oursurprise learned that Hayes had been at the island in his famous brig,the _Leonora_, only a month before, and that for a year and six monthspreviously, seventy Line Island natives had been working on the islandsunder the supervision of a white man, making oil for the captain, butmost of them, and the white man as well, had left the atoll in the brig,for Hayes had been so well pleased with the result of their work that heinvited forty of the seventy to come on board and go with him to Ponape,in the Carolines, for a month's recreation and "feasting" on thatbeautiful island.

  He had sailed 188]

  So with forty of his sturdy Line Islanders, and seven hundred barrelsof coco-nut oil, he had sailed; and now, said our five friends, he wouldsoon be back--perhaps in two days--perhaps in ten, or twenty, or more,for how could one tell what the winds would be? He was a good man, wasthe captain, but hot and sudden in his anger, over-fond of women whowere good to look at, and cruel to those who sought to cross his desire;but generous--always generous--and kind to those who were weak andill, giving them good medicine and rich food; tins of the red rich fishcalled _samani_ which came from his own country, and biscuit and breadsuch as white men eat. Ah, he was a good man was "Puli Ese" (BullyHayes).

  "Ask them about the wretched ship on the reef," I said to Niabon,repeating the first question I had tried to put to them, but which theydid not answer, so eager were they to tell us about Captain Hayes andthemselves; "ask them all about her--when did she run ashore, and whereare the crew?"

  Ah, the ship, the great ship! they replied. She had run up on the reefone night four moons ago, when the sky was bright and clear, and thewind blew strongly; and when in the morning they discerned her from thevillage, the white man had two boats manned to go to her assistance, butas the boats approached, two cannons fired heavy balls at them from thedeck of the ship; and although the white man (Hayes's trader) tiedhis handkerchief to an oar and held it upright, the people on the shipcontinued to fire on the boats with the big cannons, and with muskets,and then, when one man was hit by a bullet and died quickly, the whiteman cursed those on the ship for fools, and turned the boats shorewardagain, saying that those on board could perish before he would try tohelp them again. By sunset three boats, filled with men, had left theship and sailed to the south. In the morning the white man (whom I knewfrom their description of him to be a well-known and decent South Seatrader named Harry Gardiner) boarded the ship and began to remove allthat was of value on shore. Her hold was filled with all sorts of goodsin barrels and cases, and when "Puli Ese" came, three months later, hewas well pleased, not only for the seven hundred barrels of oil, butwith the many things that had been gotten from the wrecked ship.

  We promised our new friends to come up to their village--where they andabout twenty of their fellow islanders lived with the remainder of BullyHayes's Line Island contingent--on the following day, and sent them awaywith a few trifling presents. As they said they could walk back, and Iwanted to have a look at the wreck, they cheerfully agreed to let theircanoe remain with us.

  About four in the afternoon, as the heat of the sun began to relax, Idetermined to set out in the canoe. Tematau and Tepi had gone across tothe weather side of the island with my gun to shoot plover and frigatebirds, of which latter, so the natives had told us, there were greatnumbers to be found on the high trees to windward. Lucia and Niabon wereresting in the shade, but the latter, when she saw me pushing the canoeinto the water, asked me to let her come also.

  "Yes, of course; and you too, Lucia. Won't you come as well?" I said.

  "No, Jim. I feel very lazy, and I'm always so afraid of canoes," shesaid with a smile, "an
d do be careful and not be capsized; look at allthose horrid sharks swimming about--I can see nearly twenty of them fromwhere I am sitting."

  Both Niabon and I laughed at her fears--the sharks were not man-eaters,as we knew by their black-tipped fins, though the species were dangerouswhen bad weather made the fish on which they preyed scarce; then theybecame vicious and daring enough, and would at times actually tear theoars out of the hands of a boat's crew. However, Lucia would not come,saying she would await the return of the men and pluck the plover whichthey were sure to bring back with them.

  "Very well, Lucia," I said, "we'll leave you to yourself. I _must_ havea look at the barque, and find out her name. Wrecks have always had anattraction for me; and, besides that, I want to get a sheet or two ofcopper to nail over our stem, which was badly hurt when we ran ashore inApamama Lagoon."

  In another minute or two Niabon and I started, she sitting for'ard and Iaft. The wind had died away, and the surface of the lagoon was as smoothas glass, and, through the crystal-clear water, we could discern theglories of the gorgeously-hued coral forest below. Is there such anothersight in all the world as is revealed when you look down upon the bottomof a South Sea atoll.

  *****

  Ah, no, there cannot be! And here as I write, there is before me thecold German Ocean, heaving and tumbling; grey, grim, and sullen under adulled and leaden sky, and snowflakes beat and beat incessantly uponthe opened windows of my room. Out upon the moor there is a flock ofsnow-white seagulls, driven to land by the wild weather, and as I gazeat them, fluttering to and fro, their presence seems to creep into myheart, and their wild, piping notes to say, "You will go back, you willgo back, and see some of us again; not here, under cold skies, but wherethe bright sun for ever shines upon a sea of deepest blue."

  *****

  For half an hour or more we paddled in silence over the smooth watersof that sweet lagoon, the bow of the canoe kept steadily on towards thewrecked barque; and as I looked at the graceful figure of my companion,with her dark, glossy hair flowing over her back and swaying to andfro with every stroke, and saw the graceful poise of her head, and thebackward sweep of her two little hands as she plunged her paddle intothe water, and withdrew it swiftly and noiselessly, I felt that I couldnot, I must not delay in asking her to be my wife. Not that her physicalbeauty had so wrought upon my feelings--I was above that, I thank God,and a level brain--but because I felt that I loved her, ay, honestly_loved_ her, and that she was a good and true woman, and our union wouldbe a happy one.

  It took us much longer than we anticipated in coming up to the strandedship, or rather to the inside edge of the reef on which she lay, highand dry, half a mile further to seaward. Taking my hammer and a bluntchisel--to prize off a sheet of copper--we made the canoe fast to acoral boulder, and set off across the reef, which gave forth astrong but sickly odour caused by the heat of the sun acting on themany-coloured and many-shaped marine organisms and living coral.

  Niabon, whose feet were protected by strong _takka_ (sandals woven ofcoco-nut fibre), stepped lightly and swiftly on before me; I with myheavy boots crushing into the brittle, delicate, and sponge-like coral,startling from their sunbaths hundreds of black and orange-bandedsea-snakes--reptiles whose bite is as deadly as that of a rattlesnake,but which hastened out of our way almost as soon as they heard ourfootsteps. Here and there we had to turn aside to avoid deep pools, someof which, though not more than ten fathoms in width, were as blue as theocean beyond, their rocky walls starting sheer up from their bases tothe crust of the reef.

  At last we reached the ship 194]

  At last we reached the ship, and stood under her bowsprit. She wasstanding almost upright, wedged in tightly between three huge boulders,one on her port, and two on her starboard side, and I saw that she hadstruck with great violence, for just abreast of her foremast there was ajagged hole through which we could see into her lower hold. The nativeshad told us that there had been an unusually high tide when she ranashore, and had it not been for her bringing up against the boulders,she might have torn her way over the reef into the lagoon, as she wasunder a strong press of sail, and the sea was smooth, and the starsshining brightly. Most of her copper had been stripped off by Hayes, butlater on I found all I wanted by crawling under the bilge, and prizingoff a few undamaged sheets.

  "Let us find out her name before we go on board," I said to mycompanion. "She's a foreigner, I'm sure."

  Walking round to her stern we looked up and saw her name, _AgostinoRombo, Livorno_, painted in white letters.

  "Ah, I thought she was a foreigner, Niabon. I fancy we shall find astrong smell of garlic as soon as we get on deck."

  Turning up along the port side, we soon found an easy way of getting onboard, for just abreast of the mainmast Hayes's Chinese carpenters hadcut down the main deck from the water-ways to the bilge, so as to givefree access to the upper and lower holds.

  We first examined the lower hold, which contained about two hundred tonsof New Caledonian nickel ore, and which, valuable as it was, Hayes hadnot troubled about removing. In the 'tween deck there was nothing toshow of what the main portion of her cargo had consisted--everything hadbeen removed, and only great piles of dunnage remained, and I came tothe conclusion that the _Agostino Rombo_ of Leghorn had been bound fromsome Australian port to China with a general cargo, when her incapableskipper ran her ashore--to Bully Hayes's satisfaction and benefit.

  Ascending from the dark and silent 'tween decks, where our footsteps andvoices echoed and re-echoed as though we were walking and speaking insome mountain cavern, we ascended to the main deck into the fresh, sweetdaylight, though the sun was now low down on the western sky, and thefirst thing that attracted our attention was a lengthy notice on themainmast, carefully and neatly painted on a sheet of copper. And as Iread it, I could but laugh at Captain Hayes's natural American businessinstincts, combined with his usual humorous mendacity--

  "Notice to Wrecking Parties.

  "I, William Henry Hayes, master and owner of the brig _Leonora_, ofShanghai, hereby notify all and sundry that the barque _Agostino Rombo_,of Leghorn, as she now lies on this reef, has been purchased by me fromCaptain Pasquale Lucchesi, and any person attempting to remove any ofher deck-houses, spars, anchors, or cables, or certain nickel ore inthe lower hold, are liable to be indicted for piracy. But all anchors,cables, and ground tackle generally may be removed on payment of 250dols. to my native agent on this island."

  From the main deck we ascended to the poop, and went below into thenow darkening cabin, which we found was gutted of everything of value,except the captain's and officers' bedding, which had been tossed asideby Hayes and his crew, and which even the natives of Ujilon had regardedas too worthless to take away, though many a poor sailor man, shiveringin northern seas, would have clutched at them as eagerly as a Jewpawnbroker would clutch at a necklace of pearls or a diamond-set tiara.The panelling of the main cabin was painted in white and gold, andpresented a very handsome appearance, and on the door of every stateroomwas an exceedingly well-painted picture of some saint renowned inhistory--evidently the owners of the _Agostino Rombo_ were of piousminds. Underneath one of these pictures, that of St. Margaret ofHungary, was scribbled in pencil, "Maggie is my fancy. Frank Hussey,mate brig _Leonora_."

  I scratched out the ribald words with my knife, and then we went upthrough the companion to the poop, and looked along the deserted deck,whose once white planking was now cracking and discolouring under thefierce rays of the torrid sun, to which it had been exposed for fourmonths.

  We sat down together on a seat, which was placed for-ard of theskylight, and gazed at the lofty masts and spars, which, denuded of alltheir running gear, stood out stark, grim, and mournful against the raysof a declining sun. On the fore-topgallant yard a frigate bird and hismate stood, oblivious of our presence, and looking shoreward at thelong, long line of verdure clothing the islets four miles away.

  "Simi," said Niabon, clasping her little brown hands together at theback of her
head, and leaning against the skylight, "we must return tothe canoe ere the tide riseth, for, see, the sun is low down, and Luciawill think that some harm hath befallen us if we delay."

  She spoke in Samoan, the language she generally used when we were alone,for she could express herself better in it even than in English, so shesaid, though both Lucia and myself had often told her, not banteringly,that her English was sweet to hear.

  "Heed not the sinking sun, Niabon," I replied, in the same language,"the tide will not yet cover the reef for an hour or more, and the nightwill be bright and clear.... Niabon, turn thy face to me."

  I took her hand and drew her closer to me.

  "Niabon, I love thee. I have loved thee since the time when thou firstsaidst to me, 'Shall I give thee sleep?' And for ever since hast thoubeen in my mind. See, I have loved no other woman as I love thee, and itis my heart's desire to make thee my wife."

  She drew herself away from me with blazing eyes.

  "Thy wife, thy wife! Simi, what madness is this? Hast thou no eyes tosee? Is thy mind so dull that thou dost not know that Lucia hath lovedthee, and that even at this moment her heart acheth for thy return. Dostthou not _know?_"

  "I care not for her but as a friend," I said hotly; "'tis thee alone Idesire. Thou art always in my mind, and I will be good and true to thee,Niabon; for I love thee well. Be my wife. Together thee and I----"

  The angry light in her eyes died out, and she placed her cheek to mine.

  "Simi, I care more for thee than for any one in the world, save Lucia,and Lucia hath all my heart and all my love. And she so loves thee,Simi--she so loves thee that it is her heart's desire to be thy wife....Come, dear friend, let us return and forget all but that Lucia awaits."

  She passed her hand softly over my face, pressed her lips to myforehead, and then I followed her down from the silent deck on to thereef, and thence onwards to the canoe.