In Summer Isles

Front matter

popular 3s. 6&. IRovels. Mrs. John Foster. By Charles Granville. The King of the Mountains. By Eomond About. Mr. Blake of Newmarket. By E. H. Cooper. The Outspan. By J. P. Fitzpatrick. A Pinchbeck Goddess. By Alice M. Kipling. The Reds of the Midi. By Felix Gras. Stories for Ninon. By Emile Zola. The Tower of Taddeo. By Ouida. The O'Connors of Ballinahinch. By Mrs. Hungerford. The Justification of Andrew Lebrun. By Frank Barrett. A Comedy of Masks. By E. Dowson and A. Moore. Appassionata. By Elsa D'Esterre-Keeling. Ell's Daughter. By J. H. Pearce. Inconsequent Lives. By J. H. Pearce. Her Own Folk. By Hector Malot. Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon. By Hall Caine. A Marked Man. By Ada Cambridge. The Three Miss Kings. By Ada Cambridge. A Little Minx. By Ada Cambridge. Not AU in Vain. By Ada Cambridge.

A Knight of the White Feather. By Tasma. Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill. By Tasma. The Penance of Portia James. By Tasma. The Copperhead. By Harold Frederic. The Return of the O'Mahony. By Harold Frederic. In the Valley. By Harold Frederic. The Surrender of Margaret Bellarmine. By Adeline Sergeant. The Story of a Penitent Soul. By Adeline Sergeant. Nor Wife, nor Maid. By Mrs. Hungerford. The Hoyden. By Mrs. Hungerford. Mammon. By Mrs. Alexander. Daughters of Men. By Hannah Lynch. A Romance of the Cape Frontier. ByBF.RTRAM Mitford. 'Tween Snow and Fire. By Bertram Mitford. Oriole's Daughter. By Jessie Fothergill. The Master of the Magicians. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward. The Head of the Firm. By Mrs. Riddell. A Conspiracy of Silence. By G. Colmore. A Daughter of Music. By G. Colmore.

According to St. John. By Amelie Rives. Kitty's Father. By Frank Barrett. A Question of Taste. By Maarten Maartens. Come Live with Me and be My Love. By Robert Buchanan. London: WM. HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford St., W.C BY BURTON DIBBS LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN A 11 rights reserved CONTENTS. PAGE A LOTUS-EATER - ... J A half-caste's HEART - - - 109 THE PSALM-SINGER - - . 123 A VENUS IN BRONZE - - - ' But evermore Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Then someone said, " We will return no more ;" And all at once they sang, " Our island home Is far beyond the wave ; we will no longer roam." ' Tennyson.

Chapter I

We were sitting in the smoking-room of the little Island steamer, which was doing her beggarly seven knots against a wholesome south-east Trade. She was making a lot of fuss about it, the screw racing as the stern rose out of the water and her bluff bows ploughed into the waves, which flung, every now and again, a shower of spray with a vicious ' swish ' against the deck-house. The crowd of deck-passengers — Tongans and Samoans mostly — sought shelter further aft, and huddled under their Tappa quilts. There were five of us in the smoking-room — a scientist, a commercial traveller, a couple of tourists and myself. 1—2 The commercial traveller told of his attempts at flirtation with a Rotumah girl. ' I reckon,' he said, ' I'm pretty good at business ; I can gener ally sell a man what he doesn't want, which is the best proof of that ; but for a genuine business turn, commend me to that girl.

I made some remarks of a complimentary nature for a start. ' " Me want bokkis,"* said the girl. ' " All right, you shall have a bokkis," I said ; and I continued the conversation, giving it a slightly amatory turn. ' " Me want bokkis all the same here," said the girl, and she went through the motions of playing a concertina. '"Yes, yes," I said, "you shall get your (colonial) accordeon," and I pulled off a kiss, on the strength of which she wanted " Brother longa tommy-hawk, f he come, he go." ' " Now look here, young woman," I said, " I'm not a universal provider, I'm only a soft goods man." I believe Whiteley could not have sup plied her wants, if I had gone on with that flirta tion.' * Box. t Probably a saw. He rose to go, and, dodging a heavy shower of spray, ran along the slippery deck. ' I must confess,' said the scientist, after the commercial traveller had gone, 'that I have never yet understood the peculiar charm which these Island women are said to possess, nor the strange infatuation which, undoubtedly, some white men have for Island life.

Personally, I look upon this infatuation as a kind of disease, due to a morbid state of mind. A friend of mine, a young fellow of infinite ability and great culture, is at present living in Samoa, with the natives and as a native, and if what I hear is correct, he has married a Samoan girl. Now Adverb Smith ' I pricked up my ears ; that name took me back fifteen years at least, and brought to my mind a scene which had been enacted very many miles away. Adverb Smith hated mathematics ; he never got through his Euclid without being caned, but one day, as the result of some chaff, he made a bet that he would escape a caning at the next mathematical class. There was a good deal of excitement in the school over that wager, and there was much betting among the boys themselves as to whether he would succeed or no. ' I'll give you fellows a run for your money,' he promised those who backed him, and he spent all his play-hours and his next half-holiday in poring over Mr. Potts' book.

The eventful day arrived, and after several fellows, whose minds were utterly engrossed with their bets, had made a ghastly hash of one or two propositions, Smith's turn came. The master might have spared us his cry of ' Silence !' as the lad rose in his place and proceeded to the black board ; you could have heard a pin fall. The master grasped his cane, and Smith with a trembling hand picked up a piece of chalk. He stumbled a little at first over the enunciations and the base AB was very shaky, but, as he proceeded, his voice grew firm and he completed the figure with a certain dilettantism. The master put down his cane and Adverb Smith went on with the proof. The excitement of the class was intense as their schoolfellow neared the finish. ' He's coming down the straight now,' whispered a boy of a sporting turn, ' and he looks a winner all over.' I can see Adverb Smith, as I saw him then, standing before the blackboard, a fair, curly haired English schoolboy, rather more slightly moulded, perhaps, than most boys of his age, and wearing a short jacket, which made his legs, in their gray knickerbockers and stockings, appear abnormally long.

He was terribly in earnest, and his cheeks were as white as the deep linen collar which extended well on to his shoulders. ' Therefore,' he said, almost grandiloquently, ' the angle BDC is greater than the angle BDC, and equal to it,' and then, the temptation to use an adverb proving irresistible, or the humour of the thing suddenly striking him, he added in a semi-confidential tone, ' which is too absurd.' ' This is not a burlesque !' roared the master, as he picked up his cane. The blows rained below the all-too-short jacket, and when the boy turned to resume his seat his big blue eyes were filled with tears ; not on account of the caning — he had unflinchingly stood a hundred such before — but because of his failure. This was too much for us, and we did a thing which, we were afterwards told, was subversive of all discipline, and entirely without precedent in the history of the school.

We gave three ringing cheers for Adverb Smith. And so Adverb Smith was in Samoa. All my plans were thrown to the four winds, and immediately on my arrival at Apia I took boat for the little Island of Manono, where he was then staying. I should have passed as an utter stranger the gray-headed, gray-bearded man, with a slight stoop, who was leaning on a long staff. ' That is the foreign chief whom you seek,' said my guide. ' Adverb Smith !' I exclaimed. He turned his dreamy blue eyes towards me, and then I recognised him. The story which is told in the following chapters is his story, which I have tried to tell as he told it to me in the guest-house of the little village of Salua, on the beach which faces the rising sun.

Chapter II

I had been twelve hours in Apia, said Adverb Smith, twelve such long and weary hours that I looked regretfully out to sea, where the steamer which had landed me had already disappeared. It was hot — the sort of heat which made me think that Apia was an excellent place to serve an apprenticeship in for another place — one that is not marked on the charts. The white people, too, whom I had met were, according to each one's expressed opinion of the others, eminently suited to the climate. They had bored me intensely with all the scandals of the place. Such an one had flogged a Samoan woman to death, and had thrown her child to the pigs ; another had beaten his native wife with the buckle-end of his strap, and for three days the good lady had gone about the beach exhibiting her wounds. I did experience a certain amount of satisfaction on hearing that she had retaliated with such effect that, during those days of exhibition, the husband had been obliged to remain indoors ; a third had generally carried on such ' top-ropes ' that his wife's people had taken her away, and he was now sending kegs of ' Pulamakou '* to the natives to induce them to bring her back.

And so on, till I positively cursed at having struck such a place. I picked up a Blue-book, and amused myself for a time by making calculations as to how many bottles of wine, spirits and beer the white population — it is forbidden to supply drink to the natives — annually drank per head, and, after making a liberal allowance for such spirits as might be used for outward application, I arrived at a very favourable estimate of the drinking powers of the white residents. I turned to look for another diversion ; an exceedingly tall and handsome native was walk ing along the beach. I signed to him to come up to the balcony of the hotel ; he might not be such * Salt beef. a ruffian as his white brethren. He came and listened attentively to my troubles. ' Come to my village,' he said, ' you will like it ; it is the most beautiful in Samoa, and there are no Papalangi* there, except the priests.' I jumped at his invitation. ' When can we go ? — now V I asked.

He pointed to the sea ; the Trade was lifting the manes of the sea-horses as they raced madly down the coast. ' We could not face that sea in an open boat,' he said, ' and part of the way is outside the reef; but we could get away in the evening. The wind will be down, and the tide will suit then.' We went out to buy some stores for the trip, and afterwards dined at the hotel. A fellow came in and nudged me. ' Excuse me, sir,' he said, ' but there is a heavy fine for giving drink to the natives.' He was the man that had told me the pig and the baby scandal. I was in no mood to consider what, after all, might have been intended as a friendly hint as other than a piece of impertinence. * Foreigners. ' This chief is my guest, sir,' I said severely, ' and no law shall interfere with my ideas of hospitality.' The chief put his glass on one side, and I saw that I had made him my friend. ' And please to understand, sir,' I continued, addressing the fellow, whose name, by the way, was Causton, ' that when I require your advice or your company I shall send for you.' The fellow looked rather surprised, and sneaked off.

But if I had made a friend, I had also made an enemy ; for in due course Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, on the information of Causton, fined me heavily for giving liquor to a native, and invited me to have a whisky-and-soda on the broad verandah of the Consulate. I had several, if I remember rightly, and, under the influence of the Consular whisky, I went out and rubbed the informer's nose in the gutter. No, I am hardly correct ; there was no gutter. I rubbed it in the mud, which for all practical purposes suited equally well. I was again summoned before the Consul, fined, and invited to dinner. He was a splendid specimen of a young Englishman, and I could not help admiring how he sought to temper justice with hospitality. His prawn curry But I am going ahead too fast. I spent the evening at the hotel, while the chief — by the way, he was a high chief — engaged a crew.

The place was full of Germans, who kept on saying ' Prosit ' to each other as they raised their long glasses of lager to their lips, and were hard at it when I left. The chief, whose name was Fiavonga, handed me into the stern-sheets of the boat, and as we went out with the draw-back, the natives shipped their oars, and we were soon well under weigh. We grounded several times inside the reef, but eventually got into deeper water, and the crew, settling down steadily to their work, began to sing. They sang of being at peace with a great power, of wars, of love, and of dances. The boat, propelled by lusty strokes, forged ahead at a great rate, despite the fact that she was dangerously overcrowded. Native boats, however, invariably are. It was glorious coasting by moonlight. The capes grew bolder, the lights on the shore became fewer, and the land breeze blew fresh upon our beam.

Someone suggested hoisting the sail, but the crew would not hear of it, and they put in some extra good work with their oars. I listened to the songs, some deep and bass, some sweet and low, some short and sharp, some with the languid swing of a slow waltz. I felt the boat rise and fall to the ocean swell as she passed through a passage in the reef and flung a shower of golden spray from her bows. The shore was soon but a dark undulating line on our quarter, and, feeling chilly, I drew my rug over my knees, and dropped off to sleep. When I awoke, the sun was melting the mists on the wooded hills and shining on a sea of oil ; the long rollers rose and fell ; there was no break save a slight splash as they lapped the iron-bound coast. The chief said I had been using atrocious language in my sleep.

Possibly I had, for I had been sleeping in an uncomfortable position, and my experiences at Apia were still new. As we neared the land I looked over the side, and gazed through the transparent blue water on the gardens of growing coral over which we passed. I looked up at the mountains covered with the densest foliage to their very summits ; I saw the black rocks which rose perpendicularly from the sea to their overhanging mantles of green ; I saw the brown houses of the natives nestling among the palms beyond the line of silver sand. ' We get out here,' said the chief, as the boat grated on the beach ; ' there is a bathing-place here.' We plunged into a basin walled in by black stones, and disported ourselves in the cool clear water. I have heard fellows talk of bathing in champagne ; I have never done so, but I fancy the experience would be the same, if there were enough of it, and the wine were slightly frappe.

The chief, with a few powerful strokes, led the way into a deep cavern in the black rock, and, after swimming some yards, we turned. The light stealing in at the jagged mouth turned the pebbles on the sandy bottom to diamonds. We walked in the deep shadow of the silent bush to the village. A girl rose in the guest house and came out to meet us. Evidently she did not expect us, for as she came she settled her brown Tappa loin-cloth, her only garment, and, holding it with one hand, she took mine in the other and led me into the house, where she ordered a mat to be spread for me to sit on. She was the taupo, or village maiden, and a very dignified and reserved personage she was. I believe she was considered a great beauty by the Samoans. But I had no eyes for her after another girl had entered, a girl with wavy black hair twisted carelessly on top of her shapely head, brown eyes which ever seemed to laugh, and lips — well, in a white woman they might almost have been called sensual, but they were well shaped, and, parting, disclosed two rows of pearly teeth.

Her carriage was erect, her figure was symmetry itself, and there was a glow of health on her light brown skin. Her name was Leata. I was rather dis appointed that she did not sit down to breakfast with us. The taupo alone of the girls partook of the meal with us, whilst Leata and the other girls watched us from the other side of the house, ready, however, at once to attend to our wants. I filled my pipe after breakfast, and Leata came over and lit it. She bared her knee to roll a cigarette, which, after a puff or two, she passed on to someone else. ' Lomi lomi ?'* she asked ; and she drew nearer to me and ran her delicate fingers lightly over my forehead. She pillowed my head on her lap and extended her operations to my temples, whilst two girls massaged my legs. All this was very soothing, and, with the soft voices of the girls, lulled me to sleep.

When I awoke the girls had gone, a piece of ' siapo,'f neatly folded, was under my head, and a snow-white quilt of the same material covered me. The house had been decorated whilst I slept. The thirty and odd posts which supported the low-eaved roof were twined with creepers, and the yellow thatch inside was gay with flowers. I bathed in the tepid water of the lagoon, whose surface reflected the dense foliage and the sky, mottled with clouds lit up with the glories * ' Lomi lomi ' means to massage. t Tappa-cloth. of the setting sun. I bathed also in a fresh water pool ; for the Samoans have a word, with no complimentary import, for one who neglects to use fresh water after a sea-bath. The girls had been cooking whilst I slept, and brought many kinds of tasty foods on mats, which they laid upon a wide space covered with banana leaves and the flowers of the scarlet hybiscus.

And if they had been to the oven, the girls had been to the toilet, too ; for they wore wreaths and necklaces, and their sleek bodies shone again. I looked over to Leata from time to time, but whilst she was always ready to attend to my wants, and guessed them in a moment, she never returned my glances. I drew a ring from my finger and gave it to her. She touched her fore head with it as she thanked me sweetly, but she passed the ring on, almost without looking at it, and everyone in the house had a wear of the ring till it reached a white-haired old lady, with whom it stayed, at any rate for that evening. But Samoans are unsatisfactory people to give presents to : they invariably puss them on.

Chapter III

We visited several villages in the vicinity ; many and willing hands carried our baggage, or rather mine, whilst the chief and I followed with Leata along the bush paths, where the boughs with their loads of vines and orchids interlaced over head. Brightly-plumaged birds flitted before us ; there were swift, clear streams gurgling over their pebbly beds, where the prawns lurked in the deeper pools, and the fish confidingly swam up to us as we crossed. There were many pleasant places, where Leata and I rested, whilst the chief, taking my breech loader, went off to shoot pigeons ; and at the end of the journey there was always a bowl of kava to be drunk with a certain amount of ceremony, a new mat to lounge on, and someone to ' lomi lomi ' me whilst food was being prepared. We bathed in the shady pools to the silvery 2—2 laughter of the girls, and we plunged from cliffs into the deep water below.

Leata in a coloured ' lava lava,' which she kept in position with one hand— the other she held above her head — was grace itself, as she jumped from heights which made me dizzy to look from. The chief had sent to Apia for a boy who could speak a little English, to act as an interpreter, and with the lad's assistance I began my court ship. I asked Leata for a kiss, and she unhesi tatingly bent forward and lightly touched the tip of my nose with hers. I tried to teach her an embrace on stage methods, but she thought that I wanted to wrestle, and came near to giving me a fall. I next tried a kiss on the lips ; it was leanga* she said, and she made a saucy little grimace. A caress even she did not seem to understand. I consulted with the chief, who offered to settle matters pretty quickly : he would tell Leata to love me, it was his right, he said, and then all would be well.

It was bad enough to have to do one's courting with the assistance of an inter - * Bad. preter, but to bring in another party, who was to command the lady to love me, was not in accord ance with my ideas ; and I surprised the good chief by not only declining, but forbidding his aid. So with no other ally than Tiai — that was the boy's name — I continued the siege of the lady's heart. I have serious doubts, however, as to how the youngster performed the duties of an inter preter, for often my most impassioned sentences were received with a smile by Leata, and her smile was reflected in the intelligent eyes of the boy. ' She say,' said Tiai, when on one occasion I caught him laughing, ' she love you very much.' ' But, Tiai,' I expostulated, ' how can you say such a thing ! She said nothing at all.' ' All the same,' replied the boy reassuringly, ' bimeby she say that.' I threatened to report him to the chief, to wring his neck, to slay him without benefit of clergy ; but he linked his arm in mine, and looking up appealingly at me, assured me that he was my friend.

As time wore on, however, I began to make headway, and our courtship ran on accepted lines, It was a dream. I seemed to have gone back to childhood. It was always play — and with such a playmate and in such a playground ! There were bright colours, sweet perfumes, broad leaves, drooping palms ; there were high mountains, on whose peaks the gray clouds loved to linger; there were running streams and bold dashing water falls, which fell in masses of white foam over the black rocks into the deep, shady pools many feet below. There was singing, there was laughter — the laughter which knows not the conventionalisms of civilization, the laughter which is the free, the spontaneous outburst of a joyous people ; and there was ever the distant chant of the sea on the reef. It was a dream — and there was an awakening.

An envelope, stamped with many stamps and marked with many postmarks, was brought to me from Apia one day. It contained a letter from my mother, and had evidently been posted to reach me in Australia. Someone had been good enough to inform the dear old soul that I was in danger of being captivated by a colonial girl, with whom I had had a mild — a very mild — flirtation, simply ' pour passer le temps.' The letter implored me not to marry ' out there,' which is now getting quite a stock ex pression at home, and implies a great deal more than it says. Of course, I should never dream of marrying ' out there,' that was too absurd ; and I contrasted, much to the Australian's disadvantage, the over-dressed, colonial society girl with Leata, who was sitting at that moment in the guest house plaiting a fine mat, and who, by the way, was certainly not over-dressed.

But if so contemptuous a term as ' out there ' was to be applied to a marriage to an educated white lady, sprung from the same race as myself, I hardly liked to think what would be said of a marriage to an Island girl. I began to consider my position. I was under a spell, and had forgotten for the time my country and my friends. My mother's letter had attacked that spell, but it had not broken it : that remained for me to do, and I must pluck up strength and courage before, by marrying Leata, I had forged a fetter which would bind me to perpetual exile. For I could not take Leata back with me — that was out of the question ; she would have been exposed to a thousand and one slights and insults, which I should have felt keenly. I knew that there was a certain amount of moral cowardice in my reasoning : I felt it when Leata raised her large dark eyes from her work and smiled.

But that smile showed me the danger of remaining, and I hastened my departure. ' I had received a letter,' I said ; ' I must go.' I could not find courage to tell the whole truth. I talked of sending presents to this person and to that, so as, if possible, to avoid any question as to my return, but such a question was inevitable ; and coming, as it did, from the lips of Leata, I was again a coward, and basely promised to return. ' Will you come and see me off?' I asked. ' No,' she replied ; ' I shall go away and weep.'

Chapter IV

My parting with Leata was to me a cruel wrench. I fancy that she felt it too, but, after all, it was for the best, I argued, that we should part. I sat, taciturn and moody, in the stern of the boat as she sped before a fresh Trade towards Apia. The hills bathed in the bright light of the afternoon sun, the palms bending to the breeze, the white line of breakers on the reef, no longer interested me. I had one thought, one desire — to leave Samoa for ever. I found, how ever, on my arrival at Apia, that there would not be a steamer leaving for some three or four weeks, and after I had given vent to my feelings in suitable language, I determined to make my exile as agreeable as possible. The memory of Leata, too, had to be blotted out, and with these ends in view I plunged into the society of the European and half-caste residents of Apia.

My earlier experiences had been unfortunate. I now found many interesting and charming people in and about Apia, and, although the Causton episodes were expensive, I was really, though perhaps indirectly, indebted to him for an introduction into Apian society ; and I was also indebted to the same gentleman for the immense amount of diversion which the feud betwTeen us and our partisans afforded me. Causton was a copra-buyer, who possessed a considerable amount of influence on the beach, though he was perhaps the best hated man in the island, and was horse-whipped once a month by either one or the other of the stalwart brothers of a half-caste belle to whose hand he aspired. I was hailed as an ally by the brothers, with whom I drank a great deal more than was abso lutely necessary for my well-being, and more than once we sallied forth breathing defiance and fumes of bad whisky to look for Causton.

At such times he and his followers sulked in their tents or otherwise carefully avoided us, and we swaggered back to the hotel to drink more whisky and con fusion to the copra-buyer. There was then at the back of Apia a dancing hall, where the half-castes used to assemble weekly to dance the maddest of quadrilles — the sixth figure was de rigueur — the fastest of polkas, and a variety of old-fashioned, but vigorous dances, which one seldom, if ever, sees nowadays in a programme at Home. I enjoyed more than one dance there, notwithstanding the climate, and I have still a pleasant recollection of a walk home by moonlight with a bevy of bare-headed, laughter loving Afitasis* through the fields of the broad leaved taro and the long avenues of palms. Now, it pleased the beauteous Laurina to go to these dances, and it would have pleased Mr. Causton to have been present also ; but it did not please the brothers that he should, and he was duly blackballed when his name came before the committee for an invitation.