Tom Wallis: A Tale of the South Seas

'Just what I said. Your husband wasn't likely to stay long at Port Kooringa. He would naturally try to get back to Samoa, where he had his trading station, as soon as he possibly could, if only to settle up his business before going to sea again. Now I shouldn't be a bit surprised if we hear that he has been there, and we'll know where he's gone to. Perhaps he may be there when we arrive.'

The wife's eyes lit up, and again a smile illumined her beautiful face. 'Ah, Captain Herrendeen, how you talk! If I were strong enough, I would just get up and dance with you and Solepa and Mr. Wallis. I'm a girl again to-day, and don't care what I do. Come here, Tom-I guess I won't say "Mr." any more-now stoop. Why, you're as tall as a man, and I shouldn't do it, but I just shall!' and putting her hands on Tom's cheeks, she kissed him half a dozen times, much to the amusement of Herrendeen and Solepa, the latter clapping her hands and crying, 'Malie, malie! Ua fia fia lau lotu, seula misi!'[6 - 'Good, good! Your heart is glad, dear mistress!']

'Yes, Solepa. My heart is glad. So glad that I think sometimes everything is but a happy dream, and that to-morrow I shall awake to sorrow again,' said Mrs. Casalle, in English, as she raised her face to the captain.

'Well, I reckon when you look at me, Mrs. Casalle, and Tom, and Bill Chester here, and hear those darned old pumps agoing again, and have to eat salt pork and beans again for dinner, you'll conclude it isn't a dream,' said Herrendeen, with a kindly smile; 'and with this wind we can lay up pretty close to Fotuna, and ought to be there by to-morrow night, and then, while we're getting at this blamed leak, you can rest ashore, and try and pick up a bit. Ten days of a beat-if we have to beat-will bring us to Samoa, and then, Mrs. Casalle, if your husband is there, you just shall have a dance with me.'

'Indeed I shall. You, and Tom here, and you, Mr. Chester, and Mr. Burr, and every one on this ship who has been kind to me-and every one hasbeen kind to me-shall dance me off my feet.' She spoke merrily, but her voice trembled nevertheless, and ended in something like a sob, as she lay back on the lounge, and looked at them with eyes filled with happy tears.

By this time the boat had been hoisted in, and presently Maori Bill, lifting his cap to Mrs. Casalle, went down to the main deck, and picking up a bunch of young coco-nuts, brought them up on the poop, and placed them at Solepa's feet.

'These are for thee, O maid with the star-like eyes!' he said gravely to her in Samoan, 'but first let me offer one to the white lady.'

Mrs. Casalle started, and smiled as she heard him speak in Samoan, and then took from him and drank part of a nut which he opened and presented to her. Then she asked Tom to come below. 'You can stay here, Solepa,' she said in English to the girl, 'until I call you.'

Maori Bill, although usually slow of speech, was no laggard in love-making. Leaning against the fife-rail, he set to work without delay.

'From what part of Samoa do ye come?' he asked.

'From Leone in Tutuila, where my mistress lives. Why do ye ask?'

'Because thou must be my wife. I love thee. When we get to Samoa I shall ask for thee.'

'I shall say "No,"' said the girl, looking at him from the corner of her eye as she raised a coconut to her lips.

'Why? Am I ill-favoured? I will make thee a good husband. Many will envy thee.'

'Aue! Hear the man talk!' and Solepa rolled her eyes up at the sky. 'Tell me, how came ye to speak my tongue so well?'

'Such things are easy to me,' said Bill, affably; 'when we are married I shall teach thee to speak good English. We shall marry in Apia at the mission church; then thou shalt go to Tutuila with thy mistress, and wait till I return from Sydney. I have money saved up there. Then when I return I will buy a cutter, and trade on the coast. Hast many poor relations?'

'Not many.'

'That is good. It is a bad thing for a wife to have people who eat up her husband's substance. But yet I am not a mean man.'

'Why dost thou want me for wife?' said the girl, edging a little nearer to him, and looking up at his stalwart figure.

'Because I am a widower, and I have some money saved, and want to live in mine own house again. My dead wife was a girl of Thikombia in Fiji.'

'Pah!' said Solepa, turning down her lips in contempt. 'Ou te inoino fafine Viti, e matapua'a.'[7 - 'Fiji women disgust me, they are so ugly.']

'True, very true,' said Bill, diplomatically, 'many of them be ugly; but she was not. She was beautiful; but yet not so beautiful as thee, Solepa.'

He took a silver ring off his little finger, and, stooping down, lifted her left hand.

'It is large for even the largest of thy fingers,' he said, placing it on; 'but when we get to Apia I shall buy thee one of gold. Art content to promise me?'

Solepa nodded placidly. 'Ay, I am content to wed thee; but not content to leave the white lady. I would be always tavini tausi tama (nurse) to her.'

Bill waved his hand magnificently. 'It may be that I shall let thee remain to serve her while I go to sea. But I cannot tell now. Try and please me, and all will be well.'

Then, filling his pipe, he strolled for'ard, to announce his engagement to Charlie, for whom he had conceived a liking.

During the morning Mrs. Casalle gave Tom an interesting account of her home in Leone Bay, on the Island of Tutuila. She had an ardent admiration of the Samoans generally, and of the girl Solepa she spoke in terms of absolute affection. 'She saved my life over and over again that dreadful night, Tom; for although I can swim unusually well for a white woman, I was dulled and paralyzed with fear. Then, when we reached Elizabeth Reef, she tended and nursed me back to life again, for I really was at the verge of death from exhaustion and grief. I do hope the poor girl's brother Salu was one of the boat's crew which reached Port Kooringa. She has fretted and grieved in silence, and until this morning has hardly mentioned his name, for fear it would add a fresh poignancy to my own constant and unhappy reflections.' She paused awhile, and then resumed, in brighter tones-

'And so, after all your own strange adventures, you are still bent on a sailor's life? Would it not be delightful if you could sail with my husband? He, of course, now that the Bandolier is lost, must get another ship.'

'I should be only too glad,' answered Tom, 'especially if Captain Casalle continues in the South Seas.'

'Well, we shall know before many months-perhaps weeks-are past. Of course you will have to go home first. Then you must come to us in Samoa. Now tell me something about that strange man, Captain Hayes. I have often heard of him from the natives, who always speak well of him. He sometimes visits Apia with a cargo of natives, but our home is sixty miles from there, so neither my husband nor myself have ever seen him.'

'He knew of Captain Casalle by name,' said Tom, who then gave her a description of Hayes himself, his ship's company, and the fight on board. Then he told her all about old Sam and his wonderful brig, at which she was greatly amused.

'I should like to meet the dear old fellow,' she exclaimed.

During the night the wind worked round two or three points, and enabled the barque to lay a direct course for Fotuna, and at daylight Singavi Harbour was plainly in sight, with the yellow-thatched huts peeping out among the bright green of the cocoa-palms.

As soon as the Adventurer was safely moored, the French priest whom Tom had met previously came on board. The old man was both surprised and pleased to see him again, and told him he had done wisely in returning to the island, instead of going on the boat to Fiji. Then Captain Herrendeen introduced him to Mrs. Casalle, briefly telling him her story. The priest was very sympathetic, and at once urged her and Tom to take up their abode at the mission until the Adventurer was ready for sea again.

'You need rest, oh, very much rest, and change of food, so that you may become strong again. And next to my own house there is a small school-house which you shall use as your own. It shall be made as comfortable as possible. We shall be most pleased. You are the first white lady we have seen at Fotuna for ten-no, twelve-years, and my people will be proud, I do assure you. Now I shall not delay, but return at once to prepare for you;' and hurriedly shaking hands with them, he bustled off ashore again.

By this time the decks were filled with natives of both sexes, all of whom crowded round Mrs. Casalle and Solepa, and gave utterance to expressions of sympathy, when the latter, speaking in Samoan, told them what had befallen her mistress and herself. Presents of fruit were brought to them in such profusion that within an hour or two the after deck was completely covered.

Early in the afternoon the mission boat came alongside, to take Mrs. Casalle, Solepa, and Tom to the mission station at Alō, as the journey over the mountain paths would have been more than the former could have accomplished. The Singavi people, however, who were jealous of Alō securing the tamaitai papalagi[8 - White lady.] as a guest, urged her not to go in the boat, but let them carry her through the mountain forest on a litter. At length, after a violent dispute between the two parties, the Singavi natives gave way, on it being pointed out to them by Maori Bill that although the white lady, Tom, and the Samoan girl were going to Alō, the ship would remain at Singavi, and prove a considerable source of profit to them, as their services would be required to help in heaving her down. This ended matters satisfactorily, and bidding the kind-hearted captain and his officers good-bye for the present, Tom and Mrs. Casalle went off in the boat, the brown-skinned crew of which at once struck up a canoe song as they plunged their long, narrow-pointed canoe-paddles into the water.

'I'll come and see you in a few days,' called out Herrendeen, as the boat shot out through the opening in the reef.

Before starting to heave down the ship, came the tedious task of discharging over three hundred barrels of oil, and rafting them ashore; then the barque was taken in close under a rocky bluff, which offered excellent facilities to carry out the work in water as calm as a mill pond, and as clear as the purest crystal. The started butt-end was found and repaired, the ship righted again, and preparations made for re-shipping the oil by the morning of the fifth day.

That afternoon Herrendeen visited the mission house, where he found Mrs. Casalle and Solepa busy at work with two or three young native women, making dresses out of some more modestly coloured prints than those she had been able to obtain on the Adventurer, which were of the very brightest hue, being intended only for disposal to the colour-loving natives of the Moluccas, and other islands where the captain usually called to buy provisions during his cruise.

'We'll be ready for sea in another week,' he said, looking at his passenger with undisguised admiration. 'Why, Mrs. Casalle, my officers won't know you again, you look-' He was about to say 'so beautiful,' but stopped himself in time.

'Ten years younger, Captain Herrendeen, I hope you were going to say, but I'll be content if you say five,' she broke in, with a laugh. 'Have you seen Father Serge yet?'

'No, I came to see you first, of course; but here he comes. Where is Tom?'

Mrs. Casalle nodded her pretty head half a dozen times in rapid succession, and threw up her hands in affected indignation.

'Away, of course. He's never here between daylight and dark. If he's not out pig-hunting in the forest, he's away fishing in the middle of the ocean between here and Alofi. He's just deserted me altogether. Is not that so, father?' she said to the old priest, who with another Marist priest as old as himself just then entered the house to greet the captain.

'He is what you call a rambler, a rambler! Oh yes, a great rambler; but he is a good boy, madame, a good boy. Now will you not come with us, so that we may show our friend here all over our mission station?'

Just before supper at the mission house that evening, Tom, brown-faced, dirty, and panting, came staggering up the pebbled path with a turtle on his shoulder.

'We got three,' he said triumphantly, putting the creature down on the verandah, – 'and this is only the smallest. Hallo, captain, how are you?'

'Tom Wallis, you ought to have been born a Red Indian or a Samoan,' said Mrs. Casalle, laughingly.