Front matter (continued 4)

For a moment, while I waited in suspense, my uncle puffed meditatively at his cigar. His eyes were half closed and he seemed scarcely to have heard what I had said. Suddenly, with a shrug of his shoulders, he spoke.

"Very well, Charlie—see what you can do. But take care of yourself. Remember that I'd rather lose the Tara and all the shell than have anything happen to you! It's the devil to have to sit here helpless while those scoundrels sail away with our property. I was beginning to believe they held the winning cards! You've a level head, old man; this plan of yours has a chance of working out, I should say. Can you really squeeze through that porthole? By Jove! I'd give something to have the laugh on our friend Herr Schmidt!"

Before he had finished I was at the door. "Raita!" I whispered; and when I heard her answering voice, I told her that I planned to escape through the porthole and swim ashore. Knowing her hatred of Schmidt, I confided the fact that we were going to attack the schooner that night, and begged her to leave a rope's end hanging over the stern. The girl was all eager excitement. The blood of a fierce and vengeful people ran in her veins.

"Guk!" she exclaimed. "Maybe you kill Schmidt, eh? Me too much happy! Stop aboard now. That other man—tell him when plenty dark me get axe from galley. He watch porthole, eh? Suppose you come aboard—he break door, go help kill Schmidt! Guk! Me like see that!"

"It's lucky you made friends with her," remarked my uncle quizzically, when Raita was gone; "I should dislike to have that young lady for an enemy! Well, if she doesn't forget that axe, I'll do my best to entertain her!"

XII "BOARDERS!"

The sun went down that night behind banks of crimson clouds, which grew black as twilight gave place to darkness and blotted out the young moon sinking in the west. The evening was calm, but the night promised to be a stormy one. The Tara still lay broadside to the beach and a close watch informed us that Tua had not left the islet. My time had come.

Our chief concern was to make no sound which might give the alarm to the sharp ears of the savage on watch. Pulling together the curtains of the lower berth and muffling the operation in blankets to avoid the slightest noise, we tore a sheet into strips and braided a length of clumsy cord. Then in the upper berth my uncle knotted our rope to one of my ankles, and very gently and cautiously I began to squirm my way out through the porthole. It was a tighter fit than I had supposed; after a twist or two it seemed to me that I could neither move forward nor go back. I was naked save for a pair of swimming trunks, and several square inches of my skin remained on the porthole's sharp brass rim, but at last I was through, hanging by one leg with my head and arms in the water. Knowing that the least splash would bring Kwala instantly to the side, my uncle lowered me little by little into the lagoon, until I lay motionless in the black water and the end of the cord fell into my outstretched hand. I undid the knot, heard Uncle Harry's faintly breathed "Good luck!" and dove without a sound. It was not yet fully dark and I feared that the black man's eyes might discern my head in the reflections of the sunset. Thirty yards nearer the shore I rose to the surface and expelled the breath gently from my lungs. All was quiet aboard the Tara. I had neither been seen nor heard.

I landed under an overhanging thicket of hibiscus, in a little cove where Marama and I kept our canoe hauled up. There were no lights in the doorways that I passed, but when I came to Maruia's house I found the population of the islet assembled there, women and children outside and the divers in the house, surrounding Maruia and Schmidt's mate who sat in earnest conversation on the floor. The light of a lamp shone on the pair and I saw that Tua's face wore an expression of dejection and perplexity. A murmur of astonishment went up as I arrived, and indeed I must have presented a strange appearance—wet, nearly naked, bleeding in a dozen places. Maruia rose and put an arm about me, patting my bare shoulder softly.

"Ah, Tehare," she said, "you have escaped from that wicked man—that is good. And Seroni, your uncle?" I told her how we had been imprisoned in the stateroom, and how I had escaped through the porthole, too small for the broader shoulders of a man. Then I asked for news of Marama.

"He is here," she answered, leading me to her bed, screened off with mats in a corner of the spacious room; "see, he sleeps, and we must not wake him. He followed the western shore on foot, hastening to warn Seroni, but when he came here it was too late. His feet are cut to ribbons by the coral and the sun has given him a fever; I have bandaged his wounds and brewed a tea of herbs. But come—there are other things of which we must speak." She led me back through the crowd and pointed to Tua.

"This man is my foster son," she said, "a good man, but he serves an evil master. He brings us a message from that German that we must go to the far end of the islet while our shell and Seroni's is carried away. Tua is greatly troubled in his mind. He has signed papers and the white man's laws are strict. Furthermore those men are fierce and wary; they are armed with rifles, while we have none. What are we to do?"

I turned to the mate. "Saving Schmidt and the black and Rairi," I asked him, "are the others of the Cholita's crew good men?"

"I know them all," he replied, "and they are like others of their kind, neither good nor bad. But like me, they are in fear of Schmidt and of the white man's prison."

"Listen, then," I went on, "and I will show you how to act the part of honest men. Schmidt is indeed an evil captain and to stand by him means prison in the end. My own ears have heard him say that after he has stolen our pearls and our shell he plans to sell the schooner and leave you deserted and friendless in a foreign land. Take warning, therefore, while there is time. You have heard of Seroni—Maruia will tell you whether he or Schmidt is the more to be trusted. Give heed to my words, then. Schmidt and that dog Rairi await your coming on the Cholita. Go to them now and tell them that you have delivered their message; that the people will obey, being unarmed and in fear of the rifles. In a little while those two men will go to the Tara, where they will sleep this night. Once they are gone, arouse the crew softly without showing lights, and talk to them in the forecastle, telling them what I have said. Remember that you on the Cholita need run no risks: only lie quietly if there are noises from the other schooner. In the morning the Tara will be ours and those three men our prisoners. Seroni will see to it that no man of you is wrongly accused. The truth is that the Government will praise you for having refused to aid a captain who is no better than a robber. Think of old Pahuri, whose blood is on your decks—is that the work of honest men?"

"Aye, and this!" A deep voice rang out as Fatu rose from the dark corner where he had been lying, and pointed downward with a gigantic outstretched arm. Then for the first time I saw Ivi, grinning at me over a shoulder done up in blood-soaked rags. "It is well said that Rairi is a dog," Fatu went on. "If I had my hands on his throat once more, I would not let go so soon!" An angry murmur went up from the divers; I perceived that the moment was ripe for my proposal.

"Who will come with me this night," I asked—"who will follow Fatu to capture the Tara and to set Seroni free?" Ofai sprang from his seat at Ivi's side. The divers crowded about me eagerly to hear my plan.

"We shall need only six or seven of the strongest," I told them. "Let us give Tua time to return and deliver his message, and then, when Rairi and the bearded captain have gone back to the Tara to sleep we will swim out without noise, climb softly on deck, and take them by surprise. Only one man will be on watch; Seroni waits our coming to break down the door with an axe that will be given him."

While I lay on a mat, discussing our plan with Maruia and the others, Tua took leave of us. I felt a reasonable confidence that he would play his part and keep his men from interfering on behalf of Schmidt. Maruia's blood was up; she was keen to go with us and it was not easy to persuade her to stay behind. An hour dragged by—another—another—it was nearly midnight when I gave the word to set out. Each man was naked save for a breechclout; our bodies were well rubbed with coconut oil, and we carried the long keen knives used for clearing bush.

The moon had set long since, and black clouds blotted out the stars. A stir of air from the south caused the palms to rustle and sigh uneasily. We were in for a squall. I saw that unless the wind grew strong enough to rouse the sleepers on the Tara, the weather was in our favor: the squall would put the watcher off his guard and drown the slight noises of our approach. Presently the wind was sweeping in gusts across the lagoon, driving a fine rain into our faces. The schooner must be facing the south, with her stern toward shore.

"I think there will be a line astern," I told the men crouching beside me under the dripping hibiscus trees, "and Fatu and I will go aboard that way. You others must swim to the bow without a sound and climb up by the chain or by the jib-boom stay. We will allow you time to get aboard. Wait by the forecastle till you hear the alarm given and then come aft to take them by surprise. As I told you, there will be only one man on watch, and Fatu alone can handle him. We must not use our knives unless they drive us to it. Come—it is time we set out—this squall will drown the noise of our approach."

"Yes," put in Fatu, whose closest friend was Pahuri, the old engineer, "let us go quickly! My hands yearn for the feel of Rairi's throat!"

I led the way into the water, deeper and deeper, till we were swimming in the black lagoon. We seemed an hour in reaching the Tara, anchored no more than four hundred yards offshore. The little waves slapped against my face and the rain stung my eyes. At last, when I was wondering if we had taken the wrong direction, the clouds broke and the stars shone out, disclosing the dim outlines of the Tara close ahead and Schmidt's schooner, riding at anchor a hundred yards away. At that moment a man appeared on deck,—whether Schmidt or Rairi I could not make out,—carrying a lantern in his hand. He made the lantern fast to the main boom and left it hanging there. Then he drew a deck-chair into the circle of faint light, and sat down, facing the schooner's bow.

With Fatu close behind, I swam under the overhang of the stern, and next moment my hand touched a heavy rope, trailing overboard from the rail. The half-caste girl had kept her word. The others were clustering about us, and as the wind was still strong I ventured to whisper fresh instructions there in the schooner's lee. "The rope is here," I told them softly; "do not hurry about getting aboard. Give that man time to settle down quietly in his chair. Be ready to come running aft in five minutes."

I had not reckoned on Fatu's impatience, nor on the native vagueness about time. My companion was roused as I had never seen him before. For a little while, with the greatest difficulty, I restrained his eagerness, but finally he shook my hand off his shoulder and began to pull his huge body up the rope, hand over hand. I followed: there was nothing else to do. The wind was still blowing strongly from the south.

Fatu reached the rail in an instant, heaved himself aboard with uncanny agility, and dropped to the deck without a sound. I was desperately slow in following, for I was tired and chilled, and my arms were not trained to sailors' work. When at last my head rose above the rail, I saw that the giant was stealing toward the unconscious man in the deck-chair, creeping forward with a stealthy swiftness in the shadow of the binnacle. The lantern, flickering in gusts of wind, cast a dim yellow light on the scene. Then my hand slipped on the wet rail, and I fell thumping to the deck.

I was on my feet in an instant, but the man in the chair was quicker still. It was Schmidt, and his senses must have been keen as those of a savage, for his eye was on me before I had taken a step, and the rifle came to his shoulder with a snap. In the same instant Fatu leaped at him from behind the binnacle, springing like a monstrous cat—but the spring was a breath too late. I saw a bright tongue of flame, heard a crashing report, and felt a great blow on my leg—a shock that spun my body about and sent me sprawling to the deck. I lay there sick and numb, yet keenly alive to every detail of the scene that followed: a swift drama stamped indelibly on my memory.

Fatu seized the rifle with a single mighty wrench, tore it from Schmidt's hands and sent it flying overboard, then his arms closed about the German's body. Schmidt was a very strong and active man. His foot went out behind the leg of his antagonist; he twisted his body with the movement of a skilled wrestler, and the pair came crashing to the deck. But Fatu's grip never relaxed and I knew that in the hug of those mighty arms Schmidt's moments of consciousness were numbered. He seemed to realize it too, and his right hand, free from the elbow down, began to move painfully toward the holster at his belt, where I saw the gleam of an ivory pistol-butt. Then I heard my uncle's axe thundering at the stateroom door, and the shouts of the divers, climbing over the bows.

I raised my eyes, hoping to see the natives running aft. I glanced back at the wrestlers and saw Raita there beside them—a slender, crouching figure in white, her face framed in waves of dusky hair. She had drawn Schmidt's revolver in the nick of time, and held it cocked in her hand.

But Kwala, the black savage, who must have been sleeping on the forward hatch, still had a part to play. In the second while Raita crouched there, fiercely seeking her chance to kill, there was another streak of flame, and the report of another rifle-shot. The girl sank down on the deck. I saw the shock-headed savage blinking in the lamplight while a wisp of smoke eddied from the muzzle of his Winchester. Then, with fierce shouts and a rush of bare feet on deck, the divers were on him, and he went down in a smother of brown arms and legs.

For an instant, Raita lay where she had fallen, but though she was dying, hatred of the German gave strength for the last act of her life. "Guk!" I heard her exclaim with a weak fierceness, as her hand went out to take up the pistol a second time. By chance it had not gone off when she had dropped it. With a wavering hand she aimed it at Schmidt's temple and pulled the trigger. A third shot rang out above the tumult—Schmidt's body quivered and relaxed—Fatu rose slowly to his feet.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man standing at the companionway. It was Rairi, an expression of angry astonishment on his handsome, sullen face.

He glanced swiftly about him, seemed to arrive at a decision, and bounded across the deck. Before I could cry out, he was over the rail and into the lagoon.

The appearance of my uncle, dressed in a scarlet waistcloth and brandishing an axe, smothered the shout on my lips.

"Eh, Fatu!" he cried, as his eye fell on the gigantic figure of the mate. "Have you got them safe? Where's Charlie?"

"Here!" I said in a weak voice, and next moment he was bending over me. "Schmidt shot me in the leg. He's dead, I think, and so is that poor girl. Ofai and the divers have the black man—look—they're tying him now! And Rairi—he dove over the side a second before you came on deck! Quick! Send someone after him!"

At my words Fatu sprang away to lower a boat. When my uncle had made sure that Schmidt and the woman were dead and that the black was safely bound, he took me in his arms and carried me below to dress my wound. He laid me on the lounge in the saloon, turned up the lamp and bent over my wounded leg, his face wearing an expression I had never seen. Then he straightened his back with a great sigh of relief.

"Well, old fellow," he said, patting my bare shoulder, "you've given me a scare! But you're not badly hurt: the bullet has passed through the muscle of your thigh without touching the bone. Hurts like the deuce, eh? That won't last long—we'll have you on foot within a month!"

He made me drink a glass of brandy, the first I had tasted: burning stuff that made me cough and ran through my veins like fire. I was weak from loss of blood, and when he had staunched the bleeding and bandaged the wound with wet compresses, I fell into an uneasy sleep.

It was later that I was told of the happenings of that night: how one of the divers swam ashore to tell the people that Seroni was free; how a great fire was built on the beach and a fleet of canoes put off to swarm about the Tara; and how her decks were crowded with brown men and their women and children, all eager to shake my uncle's hand. It was a night of rejoicing. A fire was built in the galley to brew huge pots of tea, and cases of bully beef and ship biscuit were opened on deck.

The morning found me feverish and in pain with the stiffening of my wound. Old Maruia had installed herself in my stateroom. The season was over, she declared; she had earned enough for one year, and now she was going to nurse me till I was well. I was eating the gruel she had prepared, when I looked up and saw my uncle standing in the splintered doorway, a long cigar in his mouth.

"It's tough luck to be laid up this way!" he remarked, "Hurts, eh? It will for a few days. But you've a first-class nurse; I reckon she'll have you in a steamer-chair inside of a fortnight! I didn't know how many friends you had ashore—the whole lot of them were asking after you last night—Eh, Maruia, don't let him move that leg!

"About Rairi," he went on—"he got clean away. A Paumotu boy in the water on a dark night is a hard proposition to catch! We don't know which way he swam, of course; we'll search the two islands on the east side of the lagoon to-day. I'm leaving now; the boats will follow along the beach to the pass and meet us there to-night. With fifteen men we'll be able to comb the bush so that a dog couldn't pass us! If we don't get him to-day, we'll try the west side to-morrow—You've guessed why I'm going to so much trouble? Yes, he's gotten away with your pearls!

"This morning, when the excitement was over, I made an inventory of the things in the safe. The door was open; Schmidt had left everything in place, only taking the precaution to lock the inner door. I found the key in his pocket. He never knew about the Twins—I told you how I saw Rairi steal them under his eyes. I was losing hope of coming out of this affair so well. I owe you a lot, old man; I'll try to repay part of it by getting your pearls for you. We'll catch Rairi, never fear! Schmidt and the girl were buried this morning. He was a man, that German, though he had the morals of a wolf! It's odd—but there was something I almost liked about him—It takes courage to play a game like his, and he might have succeeded if he'd been a little less contemptuous of the natives he's abused so long. I wonder who he really was! I'm sorry the girl was killed—I would have sent her home. She couldn't have been more than twenty, poor child—a forlorn way to die. The black is in irons aboard the other schooner, where he's not popular with the crew!"

When my uncle had gone I sent a man ashore for Marama, and presently he was installed in the upper berth, a mass of bandages about his swollen feet. It was good to see my friend once more.

"I do not know where Rairi is now," he said, when Maruia had left us to smoke her cigarette on deck, "but if he was barefoot when he went overboard, he will be in no shape to run away! Aué! That dry coral is sharp underfoot! When I escaped from the Cholita, I had one thought in mind; to get to Seroni quickly, to warn him and bring help to you. I landed close to the village of the copra-makers and there was an old canoe on the beach, but when I took thought, I saw that the day would break before I reached the Tara, and that I would run a risk of being picked up again by that bearded captain who is now dead, so I traveled the length of the western island afoot. The sun was high when the time came to swim, and I was faint with pain and loss of blood—the coral cuts deep! If I had been stronger I would have gone directly to the Tara, for I had no suspicion that Rairi's boat had come to her in the night. Fatu was the first man I saw on shore; he told me of the shooting, of Ivi's wound, and how Seroni was a prisoner on his own schooner. All that day I lay in great pain, and my head was light with the sun."

At midday Maruia dressed our wounds and brought up food, and we dozed through the long warm afternoon. It was evening when my uncle returned with his weary men. They had scoured the eastern islands from end to end without finding so much as a footprint.

Next day, when they searched the long island on the western side of the lagoon, the story was the same, though one of the divers claimed to have found the half obliterated tracks of a man on a stretch of muddy beach. That night my uncle went to bed with scarcely a word; I could see that he was discouraged, mystified, and very tired. Marama and I were silent for a long time after the others had gone to bed. Finally the native boy spoke.

"Are you asleep?" he asked in his own tongue.

"No," I whispered back; "I lie here thinking."

"And I too. Listen, for there is something in my mind. First of all, know that Rairi is not a stranger on this land of Iriatai. His mother was a woman of the island—one of the wild people the French soldiers came to take away. And when he was a boy he came here to labor at the copra-making, with the woman who lived here before Seroni's coming. There are true words! Knowing all this, I have tried to put myself in his place. He has our pearls—pearls of great value, for which a man would endure hardships and long months of waiting. The question in his mind must be: 'Where shall I hide myself till the schooners are gone and I can steal a canoe to chance a passage to the nearest land?' Where, indeed? The three islands about the lagoon are long, but they are flat and narrow. The bush is thick in places, but not too thick to be searched as one searches for a dropped fishhook in a canoe. Where, then? Listen, and I will tell you—in the Cave of the Shark! Is it not possible that in his boyhood Rairi found the cavern even as we found it, or that the woman Turia showed it to him as an ancient sacred place? He would believe that no other man on the island knew of it; that he might lie hidden there for months, stealing out by night to catch fish and to gather coconuts for food and drink. I tell you that the thought of losing our pearls has weighed like a lump of lead on my stomach, but now I feel hope!"

When my uncle had returned that evening, discouraged and empty-handed, I had felt the full bitterness of disappointment—the hopeless collapse of all my dreams. After all, our hopes had been absurd; a three or four mile swim at night was a risky business, even for a native. Perhaps Rairi had been seized with cramps; perhaps a roving shark had picked him up. In reality, the chances were against his being alive. But now, as the possibility of the cave grew large in my mind, I could scarcely wait for the morning, to tell my uncle of Marama's idea. Eight bells struck. It was midnight, and the soft breathing in the upper berth told me that Marama was asleep. He had a wholesome lack of nerves, and to him the loss of the pearls meant no more than a passing disappointment. In his eyes, money was not a thing that mattered greatly—if one had none of it, one did without; if one's pockets were full, it was pleasant to spend. I envied him, for with me it was far different.

Hour after hour I lay there, wakeful with anxiety and the fever of my wound, while the round ship's clock in the saloon struck off the bells. The glimmer of dawn was in the stateroom when at last I fell asleep.

Maruia woke us with a tray of breakfast, steaming hot from the galley. The sun was high, and glancing through the door, I could see my uncle, bending over some papers at his table. My head was heavy with lack of sleep, but the fever seemed gone and the pain in my leg diminished. I called to Uncle Harry and he rose at the sound of my voice.

"Well, boys," he said, smiling in at us, with a hand on either side of the doorway, "had a good night? I was for letting you sleep, but the old lady thought it was time you were eating breakfast." I told him what Marama had suggested the night before, and his eyes lit up with a brilliant gleam of interest.

"I believe you've hit it!" he exclaimed. "That's the one place we haven't searched. I remember now Schmidt's saying that, as a boy, Rairi had lived on Iriatai. I lay awake half the night puzzling over this business—I was beginning to believe that the man must have been taken by a shark. But we must waste no time; I'm off now for a look at this cave of yours. Wish me good luck!"

The hours of that day dragged past with interminable slowness. I grew depressed as time went on: perhaps we had been unduly sanguine the night before; the thread supporting our hopes was a slender one, after all. Even if Rairi were found, he might have lost the pearls or hidden them. Marama laughed at my fears, refusing to share in my renewed depression. At noon the old woman brought us lunch and we ate with good appetites, for by now we were on the way to recovery. Afterward, when she had cleared the things away, I fell into a dreamless and refreshing sleep.

It was late afternoon when I awoke. There was a hail from the deck and the sound of a boat, bumping against the schooner's side. Next moment my uncle ran down the companionway and burst into our stateroom, a smile on his lips and in the dark brilliance of his eyes. Without a word he placed in my hands a small tin box—a box that I had seen before. I opened it with a beating heart, and there, side by side in their nest of damp cotton-wool, were the Marama Twins! The native boy, gazing down over the side of his berth, gave a shrill whoop of joy.

"It was a tame affair," remarked my uncle, when he had answered our first rapid questions, but your cave is certainly a curious place. We had no difficulty in finding the entrance. I led the way in, with Fatu, Ofai, and a couple of others close behind. Whew! That's a bit of a swim before you can come up to blow! I had warned the men to make no noise; it was possible that Rairi might have clung to the six-shooter I had seen at his belt, and good ammunition is almost waterproof. Presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, I made out the idol and the heathen altar, and then, on the ledge a little to one side, the huddled figure of a man. It was Rairi—his eyes were open and he had been watching us all the time. He's a plucky scoundrel; when I was standing over him wondering why he had not moved, he shook his head and grinned at me as he made an effort to hold up his right arm, blackened and horribly swollen out of shape. 'I glad you come!' he said in a weak voice. He was burning with fever.

"Then he told me what had happened. Swimming across the lagoon in the dark, he had run squarely on a patch of the purple coral, the poisonous kind that cuts like a razor-edge. He managed to get to the cave before the wounds stiffened, but next morning, when daylight began to appear through the cranny in the rock, he realized that it was all up with him unless help came. Both legs and his right arm are frightfully infected—I'm not sure that we can pull him through. Well, if he dies, it will save the Government from supporting him in jail! The pearls were in the pocket of his dungarees—he handed them to me of his own accord. We had the deuce of a time getting him out to the boat; he'd have been drowned if Fatu hadn't been along!"

XIII TAHITI

There is little more to tell of our days at Iriatai. For a fortnight, while I lay bored and convalescent in a steamer-chair, the diving went on. Then each man's share of the shell was laid out for my uncle's inspection, sacked, weighed, and loaded in the Tara's hold. There were a hundred and twenty tons of it, of a quality unknown in the lagoons of the Eastern Pacific, and Uncle Harry was jubilant over our good luck. His safe held a little fortune in pearls, and the divers had others they were keeping to sell on their own account.

A day came at last when the village on the islet was dismantled; when the people crowded our decks, noisy and gay with the joy of being homeward-bound; when the Tara, deeply laden, turned her sharp bows toward the pass, away from the anchorage which had been our home so long.

Pahuri was at his accustomed place in the engine-room—the old man had soon recovered from the rough handling he had endured. Ivi, with his left arm in a sling, was the hero of the forecastle; the divers never tired of discussing the memorable night when he had received his wound, and I could see that in the future the story would be passed from island to island, growing to epic proportions as the years went by. Marama and I had thriven under Maruia's care; his feet were healed by now, and I was able to get about the deck, though my leg still gave me an occasional twinge.

The Cholita, with Tua in command and our two prisoners stowed away below, followed us southward toward the pass. Rairi was out of danger at last, after days of raging fever when there seemed small chance that he would live. The copra-makers had been on Iriatai for more than a year, and Schmidt's schooner halted off their village to take them aboard and load the twenty tons of copra stacked under the shed on the beach.

Outside the pass, when the Tara dipped her nose into the long Pacific swell, I lay alone on the after deck, gazing back at the line of palm-tops that was Iriatai, fast disappearing beyond the slope of the world. I thought of Schmidt, sleeping forever under a wooden cross on the deserted islet; of the woman in the shallow coral grave beside him, the half-savage girl he had stolen from her home in the far-off Carolines—Raita, who had been my friend, and whose hand, at the last, had ended his strange life. I felt a lump in my throat, as I realized that in all probability my eyes would never again rest on Iriatai, this dot of land, immeasurably lonely and remote.

A week later we dropped anchor in Faatemu Bay. The other schooner had gone on to Tahiti and would await us there. The village hummed with the excitement of our arrival; there were long stories to be told, friends and relatives to be greeted, and good fortune to be shared. Forty pigs were killed for the feast that Taura, the gray-haired chief, gave in our honor. Fat old Hina welcomed me like a mother, with easy native tears. I had not forgotten her kindness, and on the last day I tendered my parting gift: two handsome pearls—one for her, and one for my former playmate, Marama's little sister. When the Tara sailed out through the Nao Nao Passage and I went below, I found my stateroom littered with their presents—fans, hats, baskets, wreaths of bright-colored shell.

Marama and his father accompanied us to Tahiti. At dawn of the second day I was awakened by my uncle's voice, calling me on deck to see the land. The schooner was slipping through a calm gray sea, running before a light breeze from the north, and a glimmer along the horizon told of the approaching day. Close on our starboard beam, and so unreal that I half-expected the vision to fade before my eyes, I saw the fantastic pinnacles of Eimeo. Tahiti lay straight before the Tara's bows—faint, lofty outlines rising from the sea to disappear in veils of cloud. We were standing side by side at the rail, and at last my uncle spoke.

"This is my home-coming," he said quietly. "To me, that island is the most beautiful thing in all the world."

At ten o'clock we were opposite the pass, and I saw for the first time the little island port of Papeete: the masts of trading-schooners rising along the docks; the warehouses and the line of sheds for freight; the narrow, shaded streets running inland from the waterfront; the background of green, jagged mountains, cleft by the Fautaua Gorge.

A crowd gathered while the Tara docked. There were shouted greetings in native, in English, and in French. As the schooner was warped alongside and the gangplank came out, the people began to stream aboard. The Cholita had brought news of our coming, with the story of our gold-lipped shell and Schmidt's attempted piracy. My uncle had given Tua a letter to the authorities, turning over the schooner and the prisoners to the Government, exonerating the crew, and giving a detailed account of the affair. The news had caused a stir in this peaceful and remote community; we refused a dozen invitations to lunch, and Uncle Harry was forced to tell the story twenty times—to traders, to officials, to his own agents in Papeete—before his friends would give him peace. And through it all I heard a chorus of exclamations at the gold-lipped shell.

I spent the afternoon wandering about the town. It was all new and strange to me: the strolling bands of sailors, the Chinese shops, the houses with their deep, cool verandas shaded by exotic trees. At four o'clock I met my uncle by appointment at the bank. He took me to a private room upstairs, and as he opened the door a man rose and came toward us with outstretched hand. He was small and dapper—a shade too well dressed. His nose was long, and his black eyes bright and beady as shoe-buttons; his radiant smile, under a little waxed moustache, disclosed teeth like the pearls in which he dealt.

"Monsieur Sikorsky," murmured my uncle, "my nephew, Charles."

"It is a pleasure," said the Jew, shaking my hand warmly, "to meet the nephew of my old friend. I have been aboard the Tara this afternoon and have heard much of you! They told me you had been diving with the natives—a wonderful experience, young man, but dangerous, hein? Ah, those sharks—those great man-eating fish—it is épouvantable!" He shuddered delicately, offered my uncle a cigarette from a case of tortoise-shell, and blew out a cloud of perfumed smoke.

"Yes," he went on, "Monsieur Selden has told me how old Maruia's kinsman was taken by the tonu, and how you dove down to the cave for the old oysters your native boy had seen. And he said that if I came here this afternoon you might show me the matched pearls you found that day."

"I have them here," put in my uncle, drawing the familiar tobacco-tin from his pocket. "We'll show them to Sikorsky, eh? Perhaps he'll want to make you an offer." He drew up three chairs about a table close to the window, and pulled back the blinds to admit the afternoon sunlight into the room. Then he opened the little box and laid the pearls side by side on the green tablecloth.

"Well, what do you think of them?" he asked. "You've never seen a finer matched pair, eh?"

For a moment Sikorsky lost his urbane composure. His black eyes glittered and his hand trembled a little as he reached out to take up the pearl nearest him. As he turned it over and over in his palm, admiring the perfection of its form and the play of light on its flawless surfaces, he muttered to himself in a language I had never heard. Presently he laid down the first pearl and took up the other for examination; rose to fetch a black leather case from a corner of the room; laid out his jeweler's scales and measuring instruments. Without a word to us, he weighed and measured to his satisfaction, took out writing-materials and covered a sheet of paper with the figures of a complex calculation. Then he took up the pearls for a last glance, and leaned back, lighting another of his perfumed cigarettes.

"There is no need of beating about the bush," he said. "You know pearls, Selden—such a pair does not turn up twice in a lifetime. They would make a gift for an empress! It has been a privilege to see them, even though nothing comes of it. If they were mine, I would go hungry before I would part with them!"

"What are they worth?" asked my uncle.

"Ah, that is hard to say—they are for sale?"

"Yes, at a price; I would buy them myself if I could afford to own such luxuries."

"I will make you an offer, then, though the responsibility is more than I am authorized to take. They are matched almost to the weight of a hair—Let me see—for one of them, alone, I could safely offer you twelve thousand dollars. Double that for the matching—forty-eight thousand for the pair—Yes—I will make my offer fifty thousand."

He raised his hand as my uncle was about to speak.

"That is a fair offer," went on the Jew, "I assure you, a long time might elapse before my firm could find a purchaser. I would not make it except that they love fine pearls as I do. But if you think that this is not enough, name your own price and give me time to wire my people in Paris. One thing I ask of you as an old friend: show them to no one else till I have had my chance!"

"A fair enough offer, I should say," remarked my uncle, as he put the pearls in their box and rose to leave. "I must go down to the schooner now; my nephew and I will talk over your price to-night. Can you meet us here after breakfast to-morrow? We'll let you know our decision in the morning."

The pearl-buyer ushered us to the door and bowed us out with another radiant smile.

That evening, when we were sitting alone on the balcony of our hotel, Uncle Harry told me something of the Jew. "If you met Sikorsky at home," he said; "you'd think he was a little counter-jumper, but as a matter of fact there's no squarer or more decent fellow in this part of the world. I've known him for years. He speaks half a dozen languages and has been in most of the odd corners of the earth. What do you think of his offer? In your place I'd be inclined to accept. I doubt, in fact, if the Twins would fetch much more. One might take them abroad, of course, and find some rich fancier who would pay twice as much, but peddling jewels is not in our line. What do you say?"

"Oh, let's accept his offer!" I exclaimed. I had been thinking of nothing else since our visit to the bank. Half of fifty thousand dollars seemed a tremendous sum to me.

"Very well," said Uncle Harry with a smile. "To-morrow will be a great day for Marama and the old man!"

He drew from his pocket the familiar case of worn brown leather and selected a cigar. When it was drawing to his satisfaction he tossed the match into the street and cocked his feet against the railing of the balcony.

"I've good news," he remarked. "We have a week before your steamer sails. I want you to see my place in the country. When does your school begin? The first of October? That's good—you'll be home in plenty of time. Now about the money; it's yours to do with as you like, of course, but let me give you a bit of advice. If I were you, I'd turn the bulk of it over to your father—he's in need of cash, and a few thousands would put the Santa Brigida on its feet. It will be yours eventually; stick by the land, old fellow—it doesn't pay to knock about the world as I have done. By the way, there'll be something coming to you from your lay in the season's work, though it will look small beside Sikorsky's check. Well, it's getting late—time we were turning in."

In the morning, when we had finished breakfast, we met the pearl-buyer at the bank. Half an hour later, as we shook hands and strolled out the door, I carried in the inner fold of my pocketbook a draft for twenty-five thousand dollars, on a San Francisco banking house. We found Marama and his father aboard the schooner. Their eyes were bright with wonder when my uncle told them of the bargain he had made, and they were glad to accept his offer to look after the money for them, letting them draw on him whenever they were in need of funds.

"I'm having some friends to dinner to-morrow," he told me as we walked down the gangplank. "We must be getting out to Fanatea now. My boat got in early this morning—come along and have a look at her."

She was lying a quarter of a mile down the beach, moored to the sea-wall under the old trees bordering the avenue. On her narrow stern I saw the word "Marara" lettered in gold, and her lean lines and the six great exhaust-pipes standing in a row left no doubt that she could show the speed of her namesake, the flying fish. A native in a suit of oily overalls sprang ashore to greet us and smiled when I spoke to him in his own tongue.

"What do you think of her?" asked my uncle. "Isn't she a beauty? I built her myself—every plank. That's a French engine—ninety horsepower—and it drives her at better than twenty knots!"

The mechanician fetched our bags from the hotel. We took our places in the cockpit, the spray-hood was raised, the anchor came up, and the stern line was cast off. The deep-throated roar of the exhaust brought a little crowd to the quay while the man turned up grease cups and oiled a bearing here and there. He raised his head and glanced at my uncle with the odd native lift of the eyebrows which means "All ready!" The motor burst into a deeper and a fiercer roar; my uncle took the wheel and pulled back the lever of the clutch. The boat quivered and sprang forward swiftly, heading for the docks where the stevedores were dropping their wheelbarrows to watch. She swept around the harbor in a great curve, turned seaward, and headed out through the pass, her bows parting the waves in sheets of spray. Outside the reef we swung southward toward Fanatea, twenty miles off.

An hour later I saw a break in the white line of the reef. As we sped in through the gap, the huge blue combers, with spray whipping back from their crests, raced in on either side of us to topple and crash in thundering foam.

"There's Fanatea!" shouted my uncle, pointing to a long white house at the end of an avenue of pahns.

A path, bordered by ornamental palms, led from the pier to my uncle's house, set on a rise of land a quarter of a mile beyond. The plantation had a long frontage on the beach and extended inland, across the rich alluvial flat, up into the hills. More than two hundred acres were planted with coconuts,—stately young palms in rows ten yards apart,—and lines of fencing divided the land into paddocks, where I saw fat cattle grazing belly-deep in grass.

The house was long and low, plastered with burned coral from the lagoon. The veranda overlooked a matchless view of dark-green foreshore, placid lagoon, white reef, and sparkling sea. Far off across the channel the horizon was broken by Eimeo's jagged peaks. Deep, cool, and airy, the veranda was my uncle's living-room, and at the windward end, in a great glassed-in bay, I found his collection of idols, weapons, and native implements. That night, when the Chinese houseboy rang the gong, I scarcely knew Uncle Harry in pumps, flannel trousers, and a smart white dinner-coat. It was his custom to potter about all day on the plantation, bush-knife in hand and clad only in a cotton pareu; but when evening came and he had had his bath, he never failed to appear immaculate at the dinner hour.

"This is the only home I have," he remarked as we sat down, "and when I'm here I make a little effort to keep up appearances. It saves me from becoming a savage. I have a good many friends scattered about the island—I visit them sometimes and they often come here. As I told you, a few of them will be out to-morrow: Sikorsky is coming and a couple of Government men. Old Jackson said he would come, too—he's my agent here; by the way, he's reserved a deck cabin for you on the steamer. Maruia is the most famous cook on the island—she's promised to come out to superintend the kitchen."

Maruia arrived early the next afternoon, and when she had shaken hands with us she went straight to the back of the house, where the Fanatea people, who stood in awe of such a rich and celebrated character, sprang this way and that to do her bidding.

The motor-boat had gone to town, and just before sunset I heard the hoarse bellow of her exhaust and saw her moving swiftly across the lagoon toward the pier. When he had presented me to his guests, my uncle took the Frenchmen in charge and left me with old Mr. Jackson and Sikorsky. The gold-lipped shell and his adventure with Schmidt had made Uncle Harry the hero of the hour, and since the Jew had showed the Marama Twins to several of his friends, I found myself an object of interest to these older men. But Mr. Jackson, a gaunt old Englishman with friendly eyes and an enormous white moustache, knew how to put me at my ease.

"A beautiful pair of pearls," he remarked when we were walking into the dining-room; "they'll make a sensation in Paris! Sikorsky showed them to me last night; he's planning to take the next boat north, on his way to France. Told me how you found them, too—the tonu and all the rest of it. Bad brutes, those tonus—one nearly had me when I was a lad. Forty years ago, that was—I'm getting old, eh? In those days I was supercargo aboard a schooner of the Maison Brander. We were lying becalmed inside the pass at Mangareva, and in spite of what the natives said, I thought I'd have a bit of a swim. In the nick of time I saw the brute coming up at me—a great spiny, mottled beast, with a mouth like an open door. We were towing a boat, by good luck—I went over her stern so fast I scraped half the skin off my chest!"

"He's off!" said my uncle, at the other end of the table. "Mr. Jackson's our champion spinner of yarns, Charlie; he's a true artist, and you mustn't believe everything he says!"

The old man chuckled—they were friends of many years standing. "I'll promise not to do any more talking," he said. "I'm hungry, and I can tell by that salad of shrimps that old Maruia is somewhere about. Lucky man! How did you persuade her to officiate?"

An hour later, when the Chinese boy had brought coffee, one of the Frenchmen pushed back his chair and rose. He was the treasurer of the colony, a stout, middle-aged man, with keen dark eyes and a close-cropped beard.

"First of all," he said, with a friendly smile at my uncle, "permit me to thank you for an excellent dinner, such as I know how to appreciate. Nor must we forget Maruia, whose skill in her art I have known for so many years. And now let me propose the health of our host, whose discovery of gold-lipped shell in the Paumotus marks an addition to the resources of the colony. To Monsieur Selden, then, whose enterprise has earned the Government's warm thanks!"

My uncle rose as the Treasurer sat down.

"Monsieur Durand has been more than kind," he said. "And speaking of Maruia, she has been good enough to offer to entertain us this evening. You all know the old-time native songs, and how rarely one hears them nowadays. She has composed an uté on our diving-season at Iriatai. I think she is waiting for us on the veranda—bring your coffee along."

We found her in the bay-window, examining a piece of tapa cloth. She seemed known to all the company and perfectly at ease, addressing Mr. Jackson in native and the others in fluent French. Her hair, which was brushed back loosely, was fastened with a pearl-studded clasp at the nape of her neck; golden earrings were in her ears, and she wore a flowing gown of thin black silk. I could scarcely believe that this was the old savage beside whom I had dived day after day, the fierce creature who had leaped overboard, spear in hand and muttering a heathen prayer, to avenge her nephew's death.

I sat down between Mr. Jackson and Sikorsky, on a long lounge covered with a scarlet-bordered mat. Beyond the railing of the veranda a score of natives squatted on the grass.

Maruia took her place cross-legged on the floor, and a boy placed in her hands a great piano-accordion, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. In the silence which proved the interest of her audience, she drew out the bellows and let her fingers play over the stops. Then I heard for the first time the music of the uté—a wild minor melody, stirring, exultant, heathen, and profoundly sad. Suddenly she began to sing, in a high-pitched wail, a song such as our ancestors must have sung in the firelight, centuries before history dawned. Here and there I could catch a word,—enough to piece together the story the verses told,—but the language was full of imagery and many of the words were of the ancient tongue which only a few of the older people understood. She sang of how the Tara came to Faatemu and sailed away to Iriatai; of how Seroni killed the old god in the form of a shark; and of the temple in the cave; of the strange shell with lips like gold, such as no man in the Paumotus had seen; of her nephew's death, and how Teura had been avenged; of Schmidt and the fight aboard the schooner, when the woman from a far land was killed.

All this sounds commonplace enough, as I read over the words I have set down, but there was something far from commonplace in the quality of the woman's voice, in the wild imagery of her words, in the primitive and stirring cadences of her song. At last the music died away, and Maruia leaned back with a sigh as she snapped the hooks of her accordion.

We were silent for a time, and then my uncle spoke. He turned to Mr. Jackson.

"It's curious," he observed—"the spell of those old songs!" The trader looked up at him, raising his snowy eyebrows in the native gesture of assent.

"Either there's real art in a thing of that kind," he answered, "or I've become a savage after forty years!"

The Jew had not moved once while Maruia sang. The perfumed cigarette, forgotten between his fingers, had burned out. The old man's words seemed to rouse him from a reverie.

"Ah, gentlemen," he said, more seriously than I had heard him speak before, "make no mistake—the essence of all art is in such a song! So our old Hebrew minstrels sang, long before my people's captivity in Egypt! So, perhaps, the Greek bards sang of the fall of Troy!"

As the next day was Sunday, we persuaded our guests to stop over, and it was late afternoon when we took our places in the motor-boat, slipped out through the pass, and headed north along the reef. The breeze had died away and the Marara drove through a long, gentle swell, running in from the west. I was beginning to understand my uncle's love of the island: on such an evening, it was impossible to believe that any part of the world could be more beautiful. Beyond the line of breakers the lagoon lay like a mirror in the sunset calm, and I saw the smiling coastal land, with its coconut and breadfruit groves, sheltered at the mouths of valleys which pierced the lofty wooded hills. Out to the west, half hidden in clouds all rosy and edged with gold, Eimeo rose from unruffled waters. A long spit of land ran out to sea ahead of us.

"Point Venus," remarked my uncle, leaning over to speak in my ear. "The speck of white at the end is the lighthouse, the only one in this part of the world. It is built on the site of Captain Cook's observatory; he came here, you know, to observe the transit of Venus in 1769. He was a wonderful man—have you read the account of his voyages? Ah, you've a treat ahead! His ship anchored in Matavai Bay, this side of the point, and he named the group the Society Islands, in honor of the Royal Society, which sent him out. Sometimes I wish I could have lived in those days, when there were still islands left to discover—"

We were turning into the pass. Half an hour later we had bidden our guests good-night, and the Marara was speeding homeward in the dusk.

My week at Fanatea passed with the swiftness of a dream, and the day came all too soon when I said good-bye to the people of the plantation and stepped aboard the boat for the last time. As we entered the pass at Papeete, I saw the mail steamer from New Zealand lying alongside the dock, hideous and huge beside the trim sailing vessels of the port. She was to carry me to San Francisco.

We went aboard at once to look up my stateroom and inquire at what hour the steamer would sail. The captain, a gray-haired Englishman, with a red face and a great jutting stomach, tightly buttoned in a double-breasted coat of drill, was an old friend of my uncle's. He called us to his quarters by the bridge.

"Hello, Selden," he said, "they tell me you've had a row with old Thursday Island. He was done in, eh? Good job, to my way of thinking! An odd bloke; gentleman born, I should say, but a hard case, and crook as they make 'em! I knew him out in the Solomons, in ninety-eight." He turned to me, holding out an enormous hairy hand.

"I've heard about you, young man," he rumbled. "You're the lad who found Sikorsky's pearls, eh? He's going north with us. They're aboard now, safe in the purser's strongbox. I'll tell the chief steward to put you at my table. We'll be sailing by three o'clock."

We lunched aboard the Tara that day, and when the meal was finished my uncle and I sat talking in steamer-chairs on deck. "It's hard to see you go, old fellow," he said, "I'll be lonely without you; but don't forget that you're coming down again. I wish I could go north with you now—I'd give something to be there when your father hears of our good luck, and sees how tall and strong you've grown! But I'll be up next year without fail; perhaps I'll bring the Tara, and you'll see Marama and the rest of them again. I've always wanted a cruise down the Lower Californian coast, to have a look at those Mexican islands and bays. Give my love to your father and mother, and to Marion—tell them how glad I am that they let you come with me. This is for your sister, by the way; take good care of it—perhaps you'd better put it in the purser's safe." He handed me a little plush-lined jewel-case, opening it to display a string of beautifully graduated pearls.

"I've been collecting them for several years," he went on with a smile. "Marion is the only niece I have, and I hope this will give her pleasure for a long time to come. But it's time you were getting aboard—the men are up forward, waiting for you to say good-bye."

I felt a lump in my throat as I shook hands with them, one after the other: Ofai, Ivi with his bandaged arm, Pahuri, Fatu, and the cook. Marama and the chief of Faatemu were standing with Maruia on the dock.

"My heart is heavy to-day," said Marama, as I took his hand, "but Seroni has promised that shall go with him when next he sails away to your land. Perhaps it will not be long before we meet."

"Come back to us one day," said the old woman. "Your welcome will be warm, for your friends are many in these islands!"

"E, parau mau," put in Taura, in his deep voice. "Those are true words!"

The ship was whistling for the last time. Half laughing and half vexed at the delay, my uncle seized my arm to drag me away from the group of kind native friends. As we pushed our way through the crowd about the gangplank, the sailors were casting off the lashings. Uncle Harry grasped my hand.

"Time you were aboard," he said. "Good-bye, old man."

The gangplank came up, lines were cast off, and the propeller began to churn. I stood by the rail, gazing down at the faces of friends among the crowd ashore, while the steamer backed, turned, and headed for the open sea. A handkerchief fluttered on the Tara's deck; her ensign dipped gracefully in a farewell salute. All at once a feeling of sadness came over me—I turned my eyes away from the land, walked blindly to my stateroom, and closed the door.

That evening, when the bugle announced the dinner hour, I went on deck and gazed back across the calm sea astern. The far-away peaks of Tahiti and Eimeo stood like faint blue clouds on the line where sea met sky—lands of enchanted memory, fast disappearing in the fading light.