By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore by George Lewis Becke (the two towers ebook TXT) 📕

been intended that about midnight we should all go crayfishing in the shallow waters along the shore of the islets, but this idea had to be abandoned in consequence of the rain having soaked the coco palms--the dead branches of which are rolled and plaited into a cylindrical form and used as torches. The method of catching crayfish is very simple: a number of men, each carrying a kaulama torch about 6 feet in length in the left hand, and a small scoop net in the right, walk waist-high through the water; the crayfish, dazed by the brilliant light, are whipped up into the nets and dropped into baskets carried by the women and children who follow. They can only be caught on dark, moonless nights.

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When we returned to the village our spoils included besides a great number of fish, a few turtle and some young frigate birds. The latter were captured for the purpose of being tamed. I made many subsequent visits to the two islets, sometimes alone and sometimes with my native friends, and on each occasion I left these lovely little spots with a keen feeling of regret, for they are ideal resting-places to him who possesses a love of nature and the soul of a fisherman.



Mrs. MacLaggan's "Billy"

When Tom Denison was quite a young man he was earning a not too dishonest sort of a living as supercargo of a leaky old ketch owned by Mrs. Molly MacLaggan of Samoa, which in those days was the Land of Primeval Wickedness and Original and Imported Sin, Strong Drink, and Loose Fish generally. Captain "Bully" Hayes also lived in Samoa; his house and garden adjoined that of Mrs. MacLaggan, and at the back there was a galvanised iron cottage, inhabited by a drunken French carpenter named Leger, whose wife was a full-blooded negress, and made kava for Denison and "Bully" every evening, and used to beat Billy MacLaggan on the head with a pole about six times a day, and curse him vigorously in mongrel Martinique French. Billy MacLaggan was Mrs. Molly's male goat, and as notorious in Samoa as Bully Hayes himself.

I want to try and tell this story as clearly as possible, but there are so many people concerned, and so many things which really happened together, though each one seemed to come before the other a little and try and get into the general jumble, and every one was so confused, some fatuous people blaming the goat, and some Denison, who was generally disliked by the Germans, while Mrs. Molly said it was caused by the man with the bucket of milk, and Captain Hayes who had bribed him to do it, and nearly caused bloodshed, as the German officer who was insulted by Hayes had shot a lot of people in duels, or if he had not shot them he had stuck his sword into them in fifteen places, more or less.

Now let me explain: First of all there was Mrs. Molly, who was the hostess; then there was Hamilton, the Apia pilot and his wife; the manager of the big German firm at Matafale (he wore gold spectacles, and was very fond of Mrs. Molly, who was a widow); then there was Bully Hayes, and old Coe the American consul, and young Denison; all these were some of the local guests, and lived in Samoa, the rest were officers from a German man-of-war lying in port, and the usual respectable town loafers. Then there were Leger, the bibulous carpenter; 'Liza, his black wife; a white policeman named Thady O'Brien, and a loafing scoundrel of a Samoan named Mataiasi, called "Matty" for brevity, who was the public flogger, and milked Mrs. MacLaggan's herd of seven imported Australian cows; and lastly the goat, and about thirty or forty of Bully Hayes's crew, and as many Samoans, who came to look at the dancing and see what they could steal, Leger and his wife and the policeman and the town flogger had charge of the refreshment tables, which for the sake of coolness had been laid out upon the wide, back verandah, and handsomely decorated with pot plants and flags from the man-of-war, and blanc-manges and jellies, and tipsy cake, and cold roast pigeons and chickens were lying around as if they weren't worth two cents.

The big wholesale store, which formed part of Mrs. Molly's house and establishment, made a fine ballroom. All the barrels of whisky and Queensland rum, and the cases of lager beer and Holland's gin, had been stowed neatly on each side, and covered over with flags and orange blossoms by Denison and Bully Hayes and his men, and the orange blossoms killed the smell of the rum so much that strangers would have thought it was sherry.

Everything went on beautifully for the first two hours, and then Mrs. Molly asked Denison to take out a very pretty young half-caste lady and get her a drink of milk. When they reached the side table where the milk should have been, they found it all gone; but O'Brien the policeman said that Mataiasi had just started off to milk another cow.

Just then Hayes came out to the refreshment tables with a lady on his arm. She was thirsty, and so "Bully" opened a large bottle of champagne, and she and he and Denison and the young half-caste lady drank it; then they drank another, and all went oft together to see Mataiasi milking the cow, which was tied up to a coconut tree just outside the fence. The cow was a yellow cow, and was standing very quietly, and just beside her Billy MacLaggan (who caused all this trouble) was lying down, working his jaws to and fro and making curious, snorting sounds in the bright and gorgeous moonlight. I forgot to say that Wm. MacLaggan was the largest and ugliest goat ever known to the memory of man, and had been taught every vice and wickedness any goat could be taught, and it is as natural for a goat to imbibe sin as it is for him to eat a cactus, or a hedgehog, or a tract.

Hayes addressed the goat by his Christian name, and asked him how he did, and Billy looked at Hayes for a second or two out of his green, sharky eyes, then he rose in a dignified manner, and came over to him to be scratched under the chin. Then he blew himself out, snorted, and rubbed his horns against the captain's knee: and Hayes remarked to Denison that the poor beggar wanted a drink, and proposed to give him a "proper one."

The goat knew perfectly well what "drink" meant, and made his vicious tail quiver; then he followed them back to the house, and stood at the foot of the steps waiting for Hayes and Tom to come out again.

On the other side of the courtyard was Mrs. MacLaggan's laundry. The door was wide open and the place was in darkness, and no one took any notice when presently Tom sauntered out of the ballroom, picked up a large plateful of tipsy-cake, and, being kind to animals, gave a piece to William, who followed him into the laundry for the rest; then Hayes came in with a quart bottle of champagne, shut the door and struck a light. Then he opened the bottle of fizz and poured it out into a deep, enamelled starching-dish, and Billy MacLaggan drank thereof, and then raised his head, with his immoral-looking beard hanging in a sodden point like a wet deck-swab, and asked for more. That is, he asked as well as any Christian and civilised goat could ask, by standing up on his hind legs like a circus-horse and making strange, unearthly noises. Then he rammed his wicked old nose into the dish again, and pushed it all round the room, trying to sop up more liquor, which wasn't there, and trod on Denison's canvas-slippered foot, and knocked over the little tin kerosene oil lamp which was standing on the floor, and when Hayes, with loud and blasphemous remarks grabbed at the ironing-blanket of the laundry-table to extinguish the flames, he pulled the table down on the top of Denison and himself and the goat and everything, for the blanket was nailed on at the four corners, and when he was down on his hands and knees, the goat being exceedingly alarmed and half-drunk, and smelling his own hair burning, put his head down and charged at the universe in general, or anything else he could hit, and he hit Hayes fair on the temple with a noise like a ship's mainmast going by the board; then the people outside burst in the door, and the creature, with a bull-like bellow, charged out among them, and landed his bony head into the stomach of Mataiasi, who was carrying the bucket of milk, and was afraid to put it down when he saw him coming; then in some way the handle of the iron bucket got on Billy MacLaggan's horns, which simply made him thirst for gore, for he thought he was being made fun of because he was in liquor. With the bucket swinging and clattering and banging around, he made a dash up on the verandah, among the pretty muslin-clad ladies and white-duck suited men, creating havoc and destruction, and smelling of kerosene and burnt hair and ancient goat, and uttering horrible, blood-curdling bah-h-h-s, till he got into the card-table corner, and mistaking the wide glass window for an open door, he promptly jumped through it, and fell with a shower of glass outside on to the verandah again, where Thady O'Brien and the fat German with the spectacles fell on him, and tried to hold him down, and the spectacles were ground into dust and otherwise damaged, and some of the ladies endeavouring to escape out of the hideous melee fell with him, and then the goat struggled to his feet with the bucket squashed flat against his forehead, and his horns covered with lace, and tulle, and bits of kid gloves, and planted one of his cloven forefeet into the shirt-front of a German officer, and smashed his watch. Then with another roar of defiance he burst through and disappeared into the wilderness at the back of Mrs. MacLaggan's garden, where he was followed by Leger, the drunken carpenter, and his wife, and nineteen Samoans, all armed with rifles. The army fired at him for two hours, and about midnight returned and reported him riddled with bullets, whereupon Mrs. Molly, who was a little hysterical at the awful mess and wreckage caused by the brute, thanked them and gave them ten dollars.

Now it so happened that Billy MacLaggan was not killed at all, for about two o'clock in the morning, as Bully Hayes and Tom Denison were sitting on the verandah of the former's house at Matautu Point, drinking brandy and soda, and dabbing arnica bandages on their various contusions, Pilot Hamilton hailed them from the front gate. He had just left the dance with his wife, and was quite sober--for Samoa. He asked them to come on with him to his place, as Billy MacLaggan, he said, was lying down in Mrs. Hamilton's kitchen, and seemed poorly, and that he hoped Hayes would forgive the poor thing, which was only a dumb animal. So Hayes and Denison went and saw William, who was now sober and looked sorry. They dressed his wounds, and Tom Denison took him on board early in the morning, intending to take him to sea till