Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas Part 1

Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas.

by Lloyd Osbourne.

PREFACE

Deep in every heart there seems to be a longing for a more primitive existence; and though in practice it is often an illusion, the South Seas lend themselves better to such dreams than any other part of the world. There are fewer races more attractive than the Polynesians.

Frank, winning, gay and extraordinarily well-mannered, the higher types are often remarkably good-looking, and scarcely darker than Southern Europeans. Some aspects of their life are truly poetic. Half naked, with flowers in their hair, and just sufficient work to keep them in superb physical condition, they have an almost unlimited leisure to share with the wayfarer in their midst. And dirt, that greatest of all human barriers, is nonexistent. No people are cleaner; none have so intense a personal self-respect. One wonders sometimes whether it is not the white man who is the savage, and these in some ways his superiors.

I went to the Pacific when I was a boy of twenty, remaining there till I was twenty-eight. For two years I sailed in various s.h.i.+ps, visiting not only all the princ.i.p.al groups, but stopping at many a lost little paradise like Manihiki, Nieue or Gente Hermosa, which lie so lonely and apart that the rare stranger is greeted with open arms. Then, settled in Samoa, I learned the language as only the very young can learn it, and incidentally had a small part in the civil wars of that period. I was brought into intimate contact with many powerful chiefs, and became so wholly a Samoan that I once barely escaped a.s.sa.s.sination. I certainly have some claim to know South Sea life from the inside--from the native's side--and this must be my excuse for the present volume.

That my stories should deal so often with the loves of white men and brown women is inevitable. The white man and the brown girl--that is the oldest story in the South Seas and the newest. The children of the sun are very easy-going; their standards are not our standards; they live for the moment, and love as lightly. It is often the white man who suffers, and not the maid with the sparkling eyes and radiant smile. He may take regrets away with him; perhaps one of those inner wounds that never heal, while she marries a native missionary and lives happily ever afterwards. Polynesians always live happily ever afterwards, no matter what happens.

Yet do not think I am disparaging them. They probably have as much to teach us as we them. Courtesy, kindliness, good humor, a charming acceptance of life, and if the need comes for it an intrepid courage, all these, and more, are theirs. As I see the faces of my old friends through the mist I feel an undying affection for them. I shared their lives, their secrets, their happy days and their tragic days "in the diamond morning of long ago." I was the confidant in many a runaway match; was the writer of war epistles that the bearer was directed to eat if pursuit grew too hot; I had a little domain of my own where my word was law--an "out-island" village, living in a perpetual feud with its neighbors. Was this really myself--this tall youth in the whale-tooth necklace and girded tappa marching with his brother chiefs in stately procession? Incredible--yet it was. Was it I whose hand was kissed by this stalwart warrior whom I see flinging himself from his horse and running towards me with the sun glinting on his cartridge-belt? Incredible--yet it was. Was it really I, at the helm of that boat, the leader of twenty young men who were to play cricket by day and dance by night, halfway round Upolu? Incredible--yet it was.

"Ina o mulumuluina o'u vae i le suasusu; na faapunaia mai foi e le papa tafe suauu mo a'u."

My publishers have been encouraged to reissue the present volume, enlarged by the addition of several new tales. Whatever their demerits may be, my stories are at least true to a picturesque and little known life that is fast pa.s.sing away.

LLOYD OSBOURNE

THE RENEGADE

I

It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and from her uneasy anchorage in the pa.s.s the German man-of-war struck the time, four bells. Overhead the sun shone fiercely through a mist of fire; below, the bay gave back a dancing glare; on the outer reef the long breakers foamed and tumbled, white as far as the eye could reach. From his perch beneath the bows of the _Northern Light_ a sailor, paint brush in hand, was slowly wearing out the day--a brown-bearded, straight-nosed, handsome man of thirty, his red s.h.i.+rt open to the waist, his bare arms stained with the drippings of his brush. Astride of his plank, which hung suspended in midair by a block and tackle at either end, the seaman faced the task that seemed to have no end. For a week he had been at it, patch by patch, working his way round the bark, while the bells had struck on the man-of-war and the sun had risen and set.

As he swept his brush across the blistered wall in front of him, he wondered moodily whether fate had nothing more in store for him than this. Was he to finish as he had begun, a common sailor, doing forever what others bade him?--painting other people's s.h.i.+ps, pulling other people's ropes, clinging at night on other people's yards to take in other people's sails, facing tempests and squalls, reefs, lee sh.o.r.es, and all the vicissitudes of the deep--for others! He laid down the brush beside him, and in a somber reverie looked toward Apia. His eyes scarcely took in the bigger buildings that were dotted here and there round the circ.u.mference of the beach: the stone cathedral, the great yellow warehouses of the Firm, the two hotels, the consulates, churches, and stores. What attracted him, what held him in a sort of spell, were the lesser roofs showing through the green of trees and gardens, the tiny cottages on the outskirts of the town, or others still farther back, scattered and solitary on the wooded hills. Was he, then, never to possess a house of his own nor a yard of earth? Was the sea, the accursed sea, to claim him till he died? What had he done, he asked himself, that others drew all the prizes and left him but the blanks--that they should stay ash.o.r.e and prosper--that they should marry and have children round them, while he drudged at sea alone? Those traders, clerks, saloon-keepers, those mechanics, carpenters, s.h.i.+pwrights, smiths, and stevedores, how he envied them! envied their houses, their wives, their children, their gardens, their soft and comfortable lives, everything that made them so different from himself; he, the outcast, with no home but his musty bunk; they, the poorest, kings beside him.

It was the sea, he said to himself--the sea, that took all and gave nothing; the sea, mother of all injustice and misery; the sea, whose service was to tie oneself to the devil's tail and whisk forever about the world, sweating in doldrums, freezing in snow squalls, hanging on to las.h.i.+ng yards, blinded, soaked, benumbed, the gale above, death below.

And yet even here there were some, no better indeed than he, who grasped the meager prizes that even the sea itself could not withhold; prizes that he could never hope to touch--the command of s.h.i.+ps, the right to tread the quarter-deck, the handle to one's name. How did they do it, these favored ones of fortune? How did Hansen, that stinking Dutchman, ever rise to be the master of the _Northern Light_?--and that swine Bates, the mate, who already had the promise of a s.h.i.+p?--and Knight, the second mate, a boy but twenty-two, yet whose foot was even now on the upward ladder.

"Jack Wilson," said the sailor to himself, "Jack Wilson, you're a fool!"

Having several times delivered himself of this sentiment, always with an increasing heartiness of self-contempt, he slapped on some more paint and began to whistle. But the whistle died away again, for a little house was peeping through the trees at him, and he remembered how he had seen it from the road, embowered in flowers, with the river flowing at its foot, a cool, snug, inviting little house, with green blinds, a pigeon cote, and a flight of steps descending to the bathing pool. How happy, no doubt, that fellar that owned it--a fellar with a regular job; a wife, maybe, and kids to swing in that there contraption under the mango; a fellar, as like as not, no better than himself; and yet----!

"Jack," he said huskily to himself, "how the h.e.l.l have you missed it all?"

"Women and drink," came the answer. "Women and drink, Jack, my boy."

In the course of his long and wandering life how often had he been paid off; how often had he felt his pockets heavy with the gold so arduously toiled for; how often had he vowed to himself that this time he would keep it! And had he kept it? Never!

There had been windfalls, too; money that had come easily; double handfuls of money that he had tossed in the air like a child, to see it glitter. Sixteen hundred dollars from a lucky whaling cruise; seven hundred dollars, his share for salvaging the derelict steamer _Sh.o.r.e Ditch_; sixty-six pounds eight and fourpence that the pa.s.sengers had raised for him when he saved the girl at Durban--that, and a gold medal, and a fancy certificate with the British and American flags intertwined.

That medal! It had gone for a round of drinks and five dollars for a wench. And the fancy certificate! Thunder! he had left it on the _Huascar_ when he had taken leg-bail of the Chilanean navy.

"Women and drink, Jack Wilson!"

That's where it has gone, every dollar of it. To the sharks and bloodsuckers of seaport towns; to the tawdry sisterhood that spun their nets for Jack ash.o.r.e; to those women that wheedled the seaman's last cent, and laughed to see him starving in the streets. It was for these he worked, then! It was for these he was even this minute painting the b.l.o.o.d.y bark; for rumsellers and harlots! He repeated the words to himself as he looked at his torn nails and blackened hands. For these--by G.o.d, for these! He felt within himself the welling of a great resolution, of a great revolt. He would reform. He would save his money.

He would live straight. When they were paid off at Portland there should be two hundred dollars coming to him--two hundred dollars, more or less.

He would put it in the bank, and get a shakedown in one of them model lodging houses. He would turn in at night with "Jesus, lover of my soul"

in worsted work above his blessed head, and in the morning he would plank down his fifteen cents and begin the day with gospel tea. He would be a man! Yes, sirree, a man! Not a hog!

Then in his mind's eye he saw himself rolling down the street, a girl on either arm, the gaslights dancing in his tipsy head. He would meet a s.h.i.+pmate and drop in somewhere for a drink; another s.h.i.+pmate and another drink; and then, the party growing as it went, a general adjournment to one of them hurdy-gurdies. Here they would dance and drink and sing and whoop it up like h.e.l.l, till--till--Yes, that's what would happen. That's what always happened. Them good resolutions always ended that way--in smoke. He had made them, man and boy, these fourteen years. He would make them, he supposed, until the day he died. And keep them? No; he was a hog; he would go on like a hog; he would die a hog--a durned, low, dirty, contemptible hog!

He spat in the water to emphasize his self-disgust, cursed the infernal sun, and then, dipping into the pot again, continued his job.

Turning round to rest his arms, he perceived, beneath the deep shade of the Matautu sh.o.r.e, the first sign of animation in that sleepy settlement. A crowd of natives were straggling out to a whaleboat that was apparently being made ready for sea. Men and girls were wading to it, with baskets of food, kegs of beef, a tin of biscuit, and a capacious chest. A couple of children bailed frantically in the stern sheets, while a shrill old woman slid over the gunwale with a live pig in her arms. Strange packages of _tapa_ cloth were carried out; bundles of mats, paddles, guns, a tin of kerosene, a huge stone for an anchor, a water demijohn, more pigs, a baby, and a parrakeet in a bamboo cage.

These were all thrown in, and stored with noisy good-humor and a dozen different readjustments. The baby, in turn, was given the bow, the stern, the center, as though nothing would satisfy it. A pig broke loose and was hilariously recaptured. A dejected, thin person, somewhat past middle years, in what seemed no costume but his native skin, retired sh.o.r.eward with the parrakeet. An old chief, his head white with lime, after a prolonged nose-rubbing with those on sh.o.r.e, marched out to the boat, carrying an umbrella above his stately head. There were more farewells in shallow water, more running to and fro; a brief reappearance of the undecided parrakeet. The young men took their places at the thwarts, the old chief settled the tiller on the rudder head, the women, girls, and children crowded in wherever they could, and then, amid shouts and cheers, the paddles dipped and the boat moved slowly seaward.

Wilson watched it all with sullen envy. How was it that these brown savages were free, and he barnacled to a slab-sided bark? Was he not a white man, and their superior? Did he not look down at them from the heights of the world's ruling race, kindly, tolerantly, contemptuously, as one does on children? And yet who had the best of it, by G.o.d? Listen to the dip of the paddles; hear the mellow chorus that times the rowers' strokes; not a care on board, not a face that was not smiling!

His white superiority! They might have it! His lonely and toiling life!

What fool among them would exchange with him? His wages? Look at _them_!

They had none and wanted none; and as like as not they were putting to sea without a dollar among the crowd. Civilization--h.e.l.l! He would give all his share of it for a place in that there boat, to drive a paddle with the rest of them; to be, what he wished to G.o.d he had been born, a durned Kanaka!

The whaleboat drew swiftly toward him as though to go beneath the bark on her way to the pa.s.s. The paddles leaped to a rousing song and crashed in unison on the slopping gunwales. Dip, swish, bang! and then the accentuated thunder of forty voices, the men's hoa.r.s.e and straining, the women's rich, falsetto, and musical. In the stern the old chief swayed with every rush of the boat, one sinewy hand clinched on the tiller, the other enfolding a little child. In the bow a handsome boy stood erect and graceful, throwing a rifle in the air and dancing to the song of his comrades. Dip, swish, bang! On they came with an increasing roar, the white water splas.h.i.+ng under their bow.

Wilson dropped his brush and looked on with open mouth. Great Caesar! he knew that old fellar in the stern. He had smoked pipes with him in the Samoa house by the bridge. And that girl there, who was waving and shaking her hand to him, that was little Fetuao, the daughter, who used to look at him so shyly and laugh when she met his eyes; little Fetuao, that he had given the dominoes to, and that dress from the Dutch firm, and them beads! Fetuao! Wasn't she pretty as she stood there in the boat calling to him; so slim and straight, with her splendid hair flying in the wind, and her brown bosom open to the sun! Pretty! My G.o.d, she was a spanking beauty, that girl!

The boat came to a stop beneath him; the paddles backed, and Wilson, with some embarra.s.sment, received the stare of the whole party below.

"Poor white mans work all time!" exclaimed Fetuao, standing on a thwart to raise her head to the level of his foot.

"Like h.e.l.l!" said Jack.

"Kanaka more better," said the girl.

"A d.a.m.n sight!" agreed Jack.

"Jack," said Fetuao, "I go home now, and never see you no more. Good-by, Jack!"

She raised her little hand, which the sailor clasped in his big one. Her tender, troubled eyes met his own; her mouth quivered; her fingers tightened on his palm.

"Jack," she said suddenly, "you come along us, Jack."

"Do you mean it, puss?" he said eagerly. "Do you mean it?"

"Oh, Jack, you come, too," she pleaded.

"You come--that's good!" cried the old chief.

Jack, in a dream, looked above him and met the sour glances of Hansen and Bates, whom the noise had brought to the s.h.i.+p's rail; then he looked below into the girlish face upraised to his. For better or worse, his resolution was taken. They might keep his chest; they might keep his wages; their stinking s.h.i.+p might sink or swim for all he cared. They were welcome to what Jack Wilson left behind him, for Jack Wilson at last was FREE! He dropped lightly into the boat beside Fetuao, and with one arm around her naked waist he shouted to the natives to shove off.

"_Fo'e!_" cried the chief, and the paddles moved again.