By Reef and Palm by George Lewis Becke (read more books .txt) 📕

/> "Ah! She sprang to her feet and talked then! and the flying words chased one another from her lips; and these things told she to Taku:-- She had hidden among the broken lava and watched the little captain come back to the boat and bid us farewell. Then when night came she had crept out and gone far over to the great PAPAKU, and lay down to hide again, for she feared the fighting ship might return to seek her. And all that day she lay hidden in the lava till night fell upon her again, and hunger drove her to seek the faces of men. In the rain she all but perished, till God brought her feet to this, my house.

"Then said Taku the Sailor: 'Why didst thou flee from the ship?'

"The white girl put her hands to her face and wept, and said: 'Bring me my jacket.'

"I gave to her the blue sailor's jacket, and from inside of it she took a little flat thing and placed it in her bosom.

* * * * *


"Again said old Pohere to Taku: 'O man of slow tongue, ask her of Farani.' So he asked in this wise:

"'See, O White Girl, that is Pohere, the mother of Temeteri, who bore a son to the white man that came here to look upon the Silent Faces; and because he came from thy land, and because of the heart of Temeteri, which is dried up for love of him, does this foolish old woman ask thee if thou hast seen him; for long months ago he left Rapa-nui. In our tongue we call him Farani.'

* * * * *


"The girl looked at Taku the Sailor, and her lips moved, but no words came. Then from her bosom she took the little flat thing and held it to him, but sickness was in her hand so that it trembled, and that which she held fell to the ground. So Taku stooped and picked it up from where it lay on the mat, and looked, and his eyes blazed, and he shouted out 'AUE!' for it was the face of Farani that looked into his! And as he held it up in his hand to the people, they, too, shouted in wonder; and then the girl Temeteri cast aside those that stood about her, and tore it from his hand and fled.

"'Who is she?' said the white girl, in a weak voice to Taku; 'and why hath she robbed me of that which is dear to me?' and Taku was ashamed, and turned his face away from her because of two things--his heart was sore for Temeteri, who is a blood relation, and was shamed because her white lover had deserted her; and he was full of pity for the white girl's tears. So he said nought.

"The girl raised herself, and her hand caught Taku by the arm, and these were her words: 'O man, for the love of Jesu Christ, tell me what was this woman Temeteri to my husband?'

"Now Taku the Sailor was sore troubled, and felt it hard to hurt her heart, yet he said: 'Was Farani, the Englishman, thy husband?'

"She wept again, 'He was my husband.'

"'Why left he one as fair as thee?' said Taku, in wonder.

"She shook her head. 'I know not, except he loved to look upon strange lands; yet he loved me.'

"'He is a bad man,' said Taku. 'He loved others as well as thee. The girl that fled but now with his picture was wife to him here. He loved her, and she bore him a son.'

"The girl's head fell on my shoulder, and her eyes closed, and she became as dead; and lo! in a little while, as she strove to speak, blood poured from her mouth and ran down over her bosom.

"'It is the hand of Death,' said Taku the Sailor.

* * * * *


"Where she now lies, there died she, at about the hour when the people of Vaihou saw the sails of thy ship.

"We have no priest here, for the good father that was here three years ago is now silent [i.e. dead]; yet did Taku and I pray with her. And ere she died she said she would set down some words on paper; so Alrema, my little daughter, hastened to Mataveri, and the chief sent back some paper and VAI TUHI (ink) that had belonged to the good priest. So with weak hand she set down some words, but even as she wrote she rose up and threw out her hands, and called out: 'Francisco! Francisco!' and fell back, and was dead."

* * * * *


IV

The captain of the POCAHONTAS dashed the now fast-falling tears from his eyes, and with his rough old heart swelling with pity for the poor wanderer, took from Taku the sheet of paper on which the heart-broken girl's last words were traced.

Ere he could read it a low murmur of voices outside told him his crew had returned. They carried a rude wooden shell, and then with bared heads the captain and boatsteerer entered the house where she lay.

Again the old man raised the piece of navy blue cloth from off the sweet, sad face, and a heavy tear dropped down upon her forehead. Then, aided by the gentle, sympathetic women, his task was soon finished, and two of his crew entered and carried their burden to its grave. Service there was none--only the prayers and tears of the brown women of Rapa-nui.

* * * * *


Ere he said farewell the captain of the whale-ship placed money in the hands of Varua and Taku. They drew back, hurt and mortified. Seeing his mistake, the seaman desired Varua to give the money to the girl Temeteri.

"Nay, sir," said Varua, "she would but give me bitter words. Even when she who is now silent was not yet cold, Temeteri came to the door of the house where she lay and spat twice on the ground, and taking up gravel in her hand cast it at her, and cursed her in the name of our old heathen gods. And as for money, we here in Rapa-nui need it not. May Christ protect thee on the sea. Farewell!"

* * * * *


The captain of the POCAHONTAS rose and came to the cabin table, and motioning to his guests to fill their glasses, said--

"'Tis a real sad story, gentlemen, and if I should ever run across Doctor Francis, I should talk some to him. But see here. Here is my log; my mate, who is a fancy writist, wrote it at my dictation. I can't show you the letter that the pore creature herself wrote; that I ain't going to show to any one."

The two captains rose and stood beside him, and read the entry in the log of the POCAHONTAS.

"November 28, 187-.

This day I landed at Easter Island, to try and obtain as a 'green' hand a young Chilian seaman who, the captain of the Chilian corvette O'HIGGINS informed me, had run away there. On landing I was shown the body of a young girl, whom the natives stated to be the deserter. She had died that morning. Buried her as decently as circumstances would permit. From a letter she wrote on the morning of her death I learned her name to be Senora Teresa T----. Her husband, Dr Francis T----, was an Englishman in the service of the Chilian Republic. He was sent out on a scientific mission to the island, and his wife followed him in the O'HIGGINS disguised as a blue-jacket. I should take her to have been about nineteen years of age.

"SPENCE ELDRIDGE, MASTER.
"MANUAL LEGASPE, 2ND OFFICER.
"Brig POCAHONTAS, of Martha's Vineyard, U.S.A."

"Well, that's curious now," said the skipper of the NASSAU; "why, I knew that man. He left the island in the KING DARIUS, of New Bedford, and landed at Ponape in the Caroline Group, whar those underground ruins are at Metalanien Harbour. Guess he wanted to potter around there a bit. But he got inter some sorter trouble among the natives there, an' he got shot."

"Aye," said the captain of the DAGGET, "I remember the affair. I was mate of the JOSEPHINE, and we were lying at Jakoits Harbour when he was killed, and now I remember the name too. Waal, he wasn't much account, anyhow."

* * * * *


Ten years ago a wandering white man stood, with Taku the Sailor, at the base of the wall of the great PAPAKU, and the native pointed out the last resting-place of the wanderer. There, under the shadow of the Silent Faces of Stone, the brave and loving heart that dared so much is at peace for ever.


BRANTLEY OF VAHITAHI


One day a trading vessel lay becalmed off Tatakoto, in the Paumotu Archipelago, and the captain and supercargo, taking a couple of native sailors with them, went ashore at dawn to catch some turtle. The turtle were plentiful and easily caught, and after half a dozen had been put in the boat, the two white men strolled along the white hard beach. The captain--old, grizzled, and grim--seemed to know the place well, and led the way.

* * * * *


The island is very narrow, and as they left the beach and gained the shade of the forest of coconuts that grew to the margin of high-water mark, they could see, between the tall, stately palms, the placid waters of the lagoon, and a mile or so across, the inner beach of the weather side of the island.

For a quarter of a mile or so the two men walked on till the widest part of the island was reached. Here, under the shadow of some giant PUKA trees, the old skipper stopped and sat down on a roughly hewn slab of coral, the remains of one of those MARAE or heathen temples that are to be found almost anywhere in the islands of Eastern Polynesia.

"I knew this place well, once," he said, as he pulled out his pipe. "I used to come here when I was sailing one of Brander's vessels out of Tahiti. As we have done now we did then--came here for turtle. No natives have lived here for the past forty years. Did you ever hear of Brantley?"

"Yes," answered the supercargo, "but he died long ago, did he not?"

"Aye, he died here, and his wife and sister too. They all lie here in this old MARAE."

And then he told the story of Brantley.

* * * * *


I

It was six years since Brantley, with his companions in misery, had drifted ashore at lonely Vahitahi in the Paumotu Group, and the kindly-hearted people had gazed with pitying horror upon the dreadful beings that, muttering and gibbering to each other, lay in the bottom of the boat, and pointed with long talon-like fingers to their burnt and bloody thirst-tortured lips.

* * * * *


And now as he sits in the doorway of his thatched house, and gazes dreamily out upon the long curve of creamy beach and wind-swayed line of palms that fringe the leeward side of his island home, Brantley passes a brown hand slowly up and down his sun-bronzed cheek, and thinks of the past.

He was so full of life--of the very joy of living--that