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Title: The Hurricane
Coauthor: Nordhoff, Charles (1887-1947)
Coauthor: Hall, James Norman (1887-1951)
Date of first publication: 1936
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Triangle Books, 1938
Date first posted: 27 November 2016
Date last updated: 27 November 2016
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1378

This ebook was produced by Al Haines, Cindy Beyer,
Mark Akrigg & the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada
Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.
All of the author's original text has been included.






                                 _THE_
                              _HURRICANE_

                        _BY_ CHARLES NORDHOFF &
                           JAMES NORMAN HALL





                          _To our old friend_

                              EDWARD WEEKS




                             The Hurricane




                               Chapter I


Scattered over a thousand miles of ocean in the eastern tropical
Pacific, below the Equator, lies a vast collection of coral islands
extending in a general northwesterly, southeasterly direction across ten
degrees of latitude. Seventy-eight atolls, surf-battered dykes of coral,
enclosing lagoons, make up this barrier to the steady westward roll of
the sea. Some of the lagoons are scarcely more than salt-water ponds;
others, like those of Rangiroa and Fakarava, are as much as fifty miles
long by twenty or thirty across. The _motu_, or islets, composing the
land, are threaded at wide intervals on the encircling reef. The smaller
ones are frequented by sea fowl which nest in the pandanus trees and
among the fronds of scattered coconut palms. Others, enchantingly green
and restful to sea-weary eyes, follow the curve of the reef for many
miles, sloping away over the arc of the world until they are lost to
view. But whatever their extent, one feature is common to all: they are
mere fringes of land seldom more than a quarter of a mile in width, and
rising only a few feet above the sea which seems always on the point of
overwhelming them.

There is no other group of islands so remote from any continent. The
inhabitants, few in number, are Polynesians, with the cheerful dignity
of their race; but the loneliness, the enforced simplicity, and the
precariousness of life faced with the perpetual menace of the sea have
made them sturdy and resourceful, and have implanted in them an abiding
sense of the tragic nature of man's fate. They have both the hardihood
and the enduring fear of those whose mother, the Sea, is ever at their
doorsteps. None know so well the peace and beauty of her kindly moods.
To none is her unescapable and mindless majesty revealed, at times, with
more awe-inspiring grandeur.

Their own collective name for their half-drowned homelands is _Tuamotu_:
Islands of the Distant Sea. Geographers, and the few white men who visit
them, call them the Low, or Dangerous, Archipelago.

****

Late on an afternoon in October, a two-masted schooner entered the pass
at the western end of the island of Manukura. She was a broad-beamed
vessel of ninety tons, with a native crew, and the manner in which she
was conned through the coral shoals within the lagoon revealed that her
captain, himself a Polynesian, was no stranger to the place. The sails
had been lowered at the entrance, and the ship proceeded with her engine
at half-speed toward an islet that extended eastward from the passage
for a distance of two miles or more. A quarter of an hour later the
engine was reversed, and the vessel, losing way, was brought to anchor
near the end of a ruined pier of coral slabs.

The breeze, which had become lighter with the descending sun, died away
completely. Night had now fallen and the constellations of the Southern
Hemisphere sparkled in a cloudless sky. In the starlight, the fringe of
near-by land was a narrow ribbon of black, dividing two immensities. No
sound came from the beach, nor was there any sign along the whole extent
of it of human habitation. To the east and south, Manukura Lagoon seemed
to stretch away to infinity, to be metamorphosed at last into sound: a
faint, unceasing thunder, without beginning or end, as though somewhere,
at a vast distance, the stream of Time itself were pouring over the
brink of an abyss.

The vessel lay motionless; no creak of block or rudder could be heard.
Two men, seated at a table on the afterdeck, their faces thrown into
clear relief by the light of a lantern hanging from the boom, seemed
awed and hushed by a silence so profound. They had finished dinner, and
now, with their chairs pushed back, they were gazing out over the
starlit water, each engaged in his own reflections. Dr. Kersaint had
been medical officer of the Tuamotu Group for more than fifteen years.
He was a Breton, in late middle life, short, stout and active, with a
closely clipped gray beard. His bald head glimmered in the lamplight,
and his blue eyes, behind gold-rimmed spectacles, were kindly and
shrewd. His companion, Vernier, was a younger man, about thirty; lean,
sallow of complexion, with a sensitive, rather melancholy face.

Presently the silence was shattered by the shrill complaining of blocks
as one of the ship's boats was lowered from its davits, and a moment
later the captain, clad only in a waistcloth, appeared within the circle
of lamplight and spoke to the doctor, in the native tongue. Kersaint
turned to his companion.

"They're going to Motu Tonga, across the lagoon, for a night of
fishing," he said. "They will return about dawn. Would you care to join
them?"

Vernier shook his head. "Not to-night, Doctor. Thank him for me, will
you? I'm much too comfortable to move."

Kersaint turned to the captain and they spoke together for a moment;
then the latter, with a nod to his passengers, went forward, climbed
down into the boat, and took the long steering sweep, while four of his
men ran out their oars. The boat moved off, shadowy in the starlight,
the two men gazing after it in silence until the creaking of the
oarlocks died away.

"A striking-looking fellow, this captain of ours," Vernier remarked, at
length. "There must be good blood in his veins. I've been interested in
the way he handles his vessel; his men, too, for that matter. They seem
to know by instinct what he wants done."

"You will discover, when you know these people better, that they can
converse without words, conveying their meaning in a glance, a slight
movement of the head, or a lifting and lowering of the eyebrows."

"Have you known him long?"

"The captain? A good many years, now."

"Does he understand navigation? I've not seen him take a sight since we
left the Marquesas."

"Oh, yes. He passed an excellent examination for his certificate. But he
knows this part of the Pacific as well as the sea birds themselves. You
observed how precisely he made his landfall?"

Vernier nodded. "You like these people, Doctor; that's plain," he
remarked.

"I do, though I'm not blind to their failings. Five years hence you
shall tell me what you think of them. I predict that, comparing them
with all the races you've known, it will not be the Polynesians who
suffer in the final estimate."

"Five years hence! God forbid that I should be buried here as long as
that!"

Kersaint smiled. "You say that feelingly," he replied.

The cabin boy came aft to clear the table; the two men rose to resume
their steamer chairs by the rail, and to light their pipes. Vernier
stood for a moment, gazing toward the near-by land.

"Five years...." he repeated. "I hope not. Doctor, let me speak
frankly. I go where the Government sends me and try to do my duty. Thus
far I have had two posts, wretched places up rivers in equatorial
Africa. But I assure you that in neither of them have I had so profound
a sense of loneliness and desolation as I was conscious of when
approaching the land this afternoon. The sparse vegetation, the great
heaps of broken coral, like bleaching bones, a few forlorn coconut palms
scattered here and there... small wonder the place is uninhabitable.
Five years among such islands? Wish me better luck, in heaven's name!"

"You have entered your new province through the back door," Kersaint
replied. "Had we come from Tahiti instead of the Marquesas, we should
have touched at several islands which are fairer examples of the
Tuamotu. I can understand your feeling about Manukura as you see it now;
yet it was once a rich island, as atolls go, and well populated. It will
be peopled again when soil has had time to form."

"And when will that be?"

"Five hundred years hence, perhaps."

"A longish time to wait!"

"To a European. Down here we measure time by a different rule--in tens
and scores of generations. You've heard of de Laage, perhaps?"

"De Laage? No, I don't think so."

"In his time Manukura was the seat of the administration. The Residency
stood yonder, on the beach, not a quarter of a mile from where we're
anchored. There was a fine church, and a flourishing village, as pretty
as any in the Group."

"It seems incredible. What happened, a hurricane?"

"One of the worst that ever crossed this region."

The two men puffed at their pipes in a silence deepened rather than
broken by a muffled, unceasing vibration in the air, registering on the
remote background of consciousness: the sound of distant breakers
thundering over miles of desolate reef. Reclining in his chair, Kersaint
stared into the sky, bright with stars for which he knew only Polynesian
names. Takurua was low in the east; he recognized Matariki, Tangi-Rio
Aitu, and Pipiri-Ma, the Twins. They had shone on Manukura ages before
human feet had pressed its sands, had stood as beacons to guide the
Polynesian explorers, fifteen hundred years ago. They had witnessed the
discovery and settlement of the island centuries before white men had
found it, and had seen it devastated in a single night. Some day their
light would again filter softly down through groves of coconut palms and
glimmer on the roofs of men's dwellings where now were only bleached
coral and patches of thin parched shrub. For a moment the doctor had an
odd sense of existence outside of time. He turned his head.

"You are thinking that I must be a very poor doctor or a very foolish
one to have remained out here fifteen years."

"Not that," Vernier protested; "but you will forgive me if I wonder how
any European could be content for so long. I'm curious, I confess."

"I quite understand. The explanation is simple: I love these islands.
They are barren and inhospitable, if you like, compared with the high
volcanic islands to the westward, but where else is there to be found
such beauty, such peace, such remoteness from the world of our times?
These are advantages that appeal strongly to me. There are more than
sixty inhabited islands in the Group, with a total population of about
five thousand. Being the only medical officer, you will perceive that I
am able to be of some use. I've had opportunities to go elsewhere, but
when it came to the point of decision, I've always discovered that I
wanted to stay. No doubt the authorities think me slightly mad."

"You were through the war?"

Dr. Kersaint chuckled quietly. "It's plain from that question that you
agree with them."

"Don't misunderstand me, Doctor," his companion remonstrated. "It was a
quite natural question."

"To be sure it was. Yes, I had passed my thirty-fifth birthday when the
Armistice was signed. You must have been in your teens at that time, but
no doubt you remember it as vividly as I myself."

"I recall my keen disappointment that it all ended just as I was ready
to take part. What fools boys can be!"

"Men of my generation had had more than enough. The world in which our
youth was passed was in ruins. We were too old to take much interest in
the shaping of a new one, and still too young to fold our hands and do
nothing. We had to go on living, somehow. As I look back to those days,
it seems to me that what most of us wanted was merely the privilege of
retiring from chaos. We could at least hope to build up something
resembling order and decency in our own lives. That, certainly, was what
I wished to do, and I didn't in the least care how far I might have to
go in search of the opportunity. I had spent four years in base
hospitals, advanced hospitals, and front-line dressing stations. By the
time the war was over I had a knowledge of my trade which I hoped never
to use again."

"I can well understand that."

"There was nothing, then, to prevent my ordering my life as I chose. The
only near relative I had remaining was an uncle at the Ministry of
Colonies. We were, naturally, drawn more closely together across the
gaps made in the family circle. He was one of the kindest of men, well
along in his sixties at that time, with an administrative, non-political
position at the Ministry. Governments rose and fell, but he remained at
his post undisturbed, to instruct incoming members in their routine
duties. Although he had never been out of France, he had a profound
knowledge of our colonial possessions. I went to him for advice, telling
him that I wanted a post as medical officer in some backwater colony as
far removed as possible from Europe. My uncle was sympathetic, but he
had a very delicate sense of what was fitting in his position. He would
not lift a finger to help me. However, he promised that when he learned
of a vacancy which he thought would suit me, he would let me know."

Dr. Kersaint broke off. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had no intention of
launching out into my family history. This can interest you very
little."

"On the contrary," his companion replied. "Please continue. Your uncle
was as good as his word, evidently."

"Very well then.... Yes, he was, although he must have leaned over
backward to avoid any action savoring of nepotism. A year passed and I
was still waiting. At last came a laconic message, dictated, as I knew,
by my uncle. I can recall the exact wording of it: 'If the doctor who
wished to bury himself in the remotest of all colonies is still of the
same mind, he is informed that an opportunity for interment now presents
itself on the opposite side of the globe.' Under this was a note in my
uncle's hand, asking me to call at ten the following morning.

"I was there on the stroke of the hour. A huge map of the Pacific hung
on one wall of my uncle's _bureau_. He pointed out the Tuamotu
Archipelago--I had never heard of it until that moment--and then
proceeded to give me the bleakest possible account of conditions there.
The inhabitants, he said, lived upon coconuts and fish. The islands,
only a few feet above sea level, were frequently devastated by
hurricanes. The few white men sent out in administrative positions were
authentically buried for the period of their service. Once there, they
were all but forgotten, and lost opportunities for advancement that came
as a matter of course to those in more important colonies. But
advancement was the least of my concerns, and the more my uncle tried to
dissuade me, the more convinced I became that the Tuamotu was the post I
sought. I got it almost for the asking. It seems that no one else wanted
it."

"And you're quite contented? You've never regretted..." Vernier broke
off, leaving the sentence unfinished. Dr. Kersaint rose, knocked out his
pipe against the rail, and again settled himself comfortably in his
chair.

"Never," he replied. "I've not had the slightest desire to return to
Europe. It's not easy to explain. You'll grant that a satisfactory life
must be based on reality? Well, I find reality here."

"Reality!" exclaimed the younger man. "When we leave this place I shall
find it hard to believe that the island exists at all! I scarcely know
why, but even more than Africa this disquiets me, puts me on the
defensive. On such crumbs of land man seems so helpless--so hopelessly,
microscopically small. Tropical jungles are bad enough, but Nature
typified by such an ocean... it is too powerful. It numbs the
imagination."

"But Nature _is_ powerful, my dear Vernier! I know: we try to forget it,
and at home, where we herd together, thousands to the square mile, we
very nearly succeed. But all our efforts to thwart her, to harness her,
must come to nothing in the end."

"You believe, then, that our science will get us nowhere; that we shall
never emancipate ourselves; that progress is an illusion, in short?"

"Progress aims at a steadily increasing security. I'm not saying that it
is not a worthy end to strive toward, but think what we lose in the
pursuit of it! And security is not enough; far from it! The people of
these islands have been taught better. They live in the present,
enjoying the simple occurrences of each day as it comes. They waste
little time in planning for the future, for at any moment Nature may
decide to take a hand. And they are happy, I think."

"I hope so," said Vernier with a wry smile. "Certainly, you should be a
good judge of that. You must know these people as few outsiders do."

"I like them, at least, and speak their language. Situated as I am, with
almost no intercourse with the outer world, one comes to take great
interest in simple things: the happenings of village life, the little
tragedies and comedies that develop here as well as elsewhere. In
Polynesia, a doctor is a privileged person even more than at home;
everyone, from the children to the great-grandparents, open their hearts
to him. I divert myself by looking on, by listening to all that they
tell me, until I can piece together each small drama, complete from
beginning to end."

"Theirs is existence reduced to its simplest terms, I should think."

"So it is, and we Frenchmen are supposed to care little for life
stripped down to the essentials. I may be eccentric in this respect, but
I find it unfailingly refreshing. I am no believer in the noble savage
of Jean Jacques, yet to my mind there is an elemental fineness in lives
like these, free from the petty concerns that debase our lives at home.
Greed, parsimony, avarice, scarcely exist among them. Thrift, which we
elevate to a virtue, is a term of ridicule here. A virtue? This
acquisitive storing up for the future which the peasant shares with the
squirrel?"

"Have a care, Doctor!" Vernier put in with a good-humored laugh. "I
shall begin to doubt you a fellow countryman."

"Don't take an elderly crank too seriously. I have changed, no doubt of
it, but I fancy the war had more to do with that than the atolls."

He paused. "Are you sleepy?" he asked, presently.

"Not in the least."

"I've a mind to give you a glimpse of your new province in advance. In
my mail, at Atuona, I found a letter informing me that Madame de Laage
was dead. She was a remarkable woman; I had the greatest respect for
her. Save myself, she was the last surviving European who played a part
in a series of events in which I took deep interest. Would you care to
hear the story?"

"I'd like nothing better."

"It concerns the hurricane which desolated Manukura, but bound up with
that was a most unusual little drama which came under my own
observation. You will understand that I didn't gather the details all at
once, but before I was done, I knew everything that had happened, and, I
imagine, very nearly as it occurred. The situation, like most of our
troubles and perplexities, was man-made, but Nature furnished the
solution in the end. Very well, then:--"




                               Chapter II


This schooner was built just before the war. The people of Manukura took
an almost proprietary interest in her, for her frames and knees of
_tohonu_ wood were cut out by them to Captain Nagle's order, and
freighted, by cutter, to the shipyard at Tahiti. A remarkable wood,
_tohonu_; it grows only on the Low Islands, and the scent of it when
freshly sawn attracts butterflies for miles around. It is proof against
dry rot, and grows harder and harder with age. It is twenty-one years
since the _Katopua_ was launched, and so far as her frames go, she is
good for fifty more. At any rate, she has outlasted her skipper.

Nagle was an Englishman. He came out here in early youth, one of those
unusual men who succeed in eradicating all traces of nationality. He
spoke French fluently, though with a strong twang of the Midi. His
compatriots supposed him an American, and Americans, an Englishman.
Hearing his voice on deck, on a dark night, the natives of neighboring
groups had more than once mistaken him for a Tuamotu man. His
seamanship, more than his appearance or speech, proclaimed his English
birth.

He began his career as cook on a brig belonging to the Maison Brander,
trading to the west coast of South America, in the days when Chile
dollars circulated all through this part of the world. Cook, sailor,
quartermaster, mate, captain--he climbed the steps easily. He had
resolved to own and operate his own vessel in the Tuamotu, and his
schooner, when finally launched, represented the savings of more than
twenty-five years at sea.

Like every skipper in these parts, he had a favorite island where he
enjoyed a monopoly of trade, and to which he hoped to retire some day.
The people of Manukura regarded Captain Nagle as one of themselves.
Twice each year, with a regularity that never failed, the _Katopua_
sailed into the lagoon, bringing flour, rice, tobacco, tinned beef,
prints, cutlery, and other things for Tavi's store, and loading the one
hundred tons of copra bagged and waiting for him in the sheds by the
landing place. Nagle's memory was remarkable. He knew everyone on the
island, children included: what woman was expecting a baby; which child
was to be confirmed at the church; what people had relatives on other
islands, and the relationship between them. He was given innumerable
commissions each time he sailed, and these, no matter how small, he
would execute faithfully, without profit to himself. He would match a
yard of lace for a grandmother or buy a particular color of ribbon in
the Papeete shops for one of the girls. In return for his many services,
there was nothing within the people's power to give that Nagle might not
have had for the asking.

It was natural that a Manukura crew should man the schooner. Like all
Low Islanders, they made splendid seamen, once they got the hang of the
ropes and compass. The best of the lot was Terangi, a lad of sixteen
when Nagle took him aboard a few weeks before Germany declared war.

The men of the Tuamotu were not conscripted for service overseas, but
the blood of warlike chiefs flowed in Terangi's veins, and once he had
visited Tahiti and seen the drilling and departure of the troops, all
the captain's influence was needed to prevent the lad from volunteering.
Young as he was, he was well grown and strong beyond his years; he might
have passed anywhere for eighteen or nineteen. The boy was of a type
occasionally to be found among the _ariki_ class: thin-lipped and
aquiline in feature, and as courageous and trustworthy as he was
good-natured.

Nagle had long known Terangi's mother, Mama Rua, a widow whose other
children had scattered to distant islands, which is often the case in
the Tuamotu, for the people are careful about inbreeding. He had had
many a talk with the slender gray-haired woman and had opened his mind
to her as to his hopes for Terangi. He would take the lad to sea, teach
him his trade, and turn over the schooner and the business to him when
he himself was ready to retire. The boy, of course, was told nothing of
all this. Like others, he went to sea when he was old enough, and it
struck him as natural that a portion of the ancestral land should be
allotted to the captain, who would some day build a house upon it and
live there.

The war years passed with only two ripples of excitement: the bombarding
of Papeete by the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, and the stir caused by
Count von Luckner's raider, the _Seeadler_. Aside from these not
over-serious reminders, the war might have been waged upon another
planet. Copra, as you know, is a valuable source of glycerine, and the
brisk demand for explosives was good business down here. The captain's
views on war, which were somewhat in advance of his time, he took good
care to keep to himself; but since men were fools enough to insist upon
slaughtering one another, he saw no reason why George Nagle should stand
aside and let others reap a harvest from a sowing which was none of his
own.

When the fighting was over and the nations began to contemplate the
ruins of the world they had wrecked, Nagle had built up a substantial
balance at the Banque de L'Indo-Chine, and Terangi was the _Katopua's_
mate.

He was twenty-one at that time: a handsome, light-skinned fellow, not
tall, but already noted for his activity and strength. When the schooner
touched at atolls without passes, where the boats were loaded on the
outer reef, he could walk a hundred yards over the rough coral of the
shallows with four sixty-kilo bags of copra on his back. Most sailors
carry two; three are considered a load for a powerful man. There is no
more exhausting, back-breaking work in the world than that of loading
copra schooners. Terangi thrived on it, and found time between whiles to
become a thorough seaman. He handled the vessel as well as the captain
himself. As I have said, he was a modest fellow, without a hint of
arrogance in his character, but he had a sense of dignity not to be
affronted without risk. It was at this time that he got into trouble
that was to have most serious results.

The _Katopua_ had returned to Papeete with a load of copra, and one
afternoon when the work for the day was over, Terangi, with two others
of Nagle's men, was sharing a bottle of beer at Duval's, a place near
the waterfront frequented by seamen, planters, and the like. Nagle
himself was there at a near-by table and saw what happened. The monthly
steamer from Sydney was in port and the bar crowded with the usual
customers, together with passengers from the steamer, stretching their
legs ashore. Presently a paunchy, red-faced man came in and stood by the
door for a moment, looking for a vacant table. He was a good deal the
worse for liquor and wanted more. He had a sweaty, boozy face which he
mopped with a dirty handkerchief as he glared truculently around the
room, as though defying everyone in it to refuse to make a place for
him. There were no chairs vacant, but he didn't mean to lower his sense
of his own importance by standing up at the bar. Of a sudden he walked
over to the table where Terangi and his friends were sitting and ordered
them away from it. His manner said as plainly as words could have done:
"I'm white. You're not. Get out!"

Polynesians are obliging and courteous folk. If the man had asked for a
seat with even an approach to decency he would have had a place made for
him at once. But he wanted the whole table to himself. Two of the boys
got up, but Terangi didn't move. He paid no attention to the fellow and
went on quietly drinking his beer. The Colonial, for so he was, was wild
at being so coolly ignored, and by a "nigger" at that, as he called him.
He swung his arm at full length and caught Terangi a clap on the face
with his beefy paw that nearly knocked him out of his seat.

Terangi sprang to his feet and gave the fellow a blow straight from the
shoulder, with the full strength of his powerful right arm, and there
was no open hand at the end of it. It was precisely what the animal
deserved, and there was no one present who did not think so.
Unfortunately for Terangi, the man's jaw was broken. When he regained
consciousness he was taken to the hospital and there proceeded to make
no end of a disturbance. He was a British subject. He demanded his
rights. Little as he deserved to be, it seems that he was a man of
considerable authority at home--a Labourite politician or some such
thing. Wireless messages passed back and forth. The British consul had,
of course, been called in, and the result was that Terangi was made the
victim of political expediency. He was had up for assault and battery,
and despite the efforts made in his behalf by Captain Nagle and others,
he was given six months in jail.

The captain was hot with anger at the result, but he took good care not
to let Terangi see it. He went to visit him in the prison a few days
before the schooner sailed, counseling him in a fatherly way, and urging
upon him the necessity of taking his punishment quietly and cheerfully.
Terangi was too strong, that was all. The next time he hit a man who
imposed upon him, he must take care not to break his jaw. Six months
would quickly pass. Nagle would explain matters to Marama, the young
wife Terangi had married six weeks before, and deliver the little gifts
the husband had purchased to take home. Terangi listened and seemed to
approve of the well-meant advice, but Nagle was anything but confident
of the impression he had made. Knowing the men of the Tuamotu, and
Terangi in particular, he had little hope that he would submit to prison
discipline.

His forebodings were soon justified. On the day the schooner sailed he
learned that Terangi had gotten away the night before. The chief of
police with some of his men came to search the schooner as they were
about to cast off from the wharf. He was courteous and apologetic about
it. It was a natural inference that Terangi might have stowed away on
board, though the _commissaire_ knew Captain Nagle well enough to be
sure that he would not have connived at such business, and felt pretty
certain that the boy would avoid anything that might involve Nagle with
the law. After a thorough search of the _Katopua_ he again apologized
and went ashore.

That was the first of a long series of escapades. Terangi was caught
within a fortnight, for he was still over-trustful of his fellow men.
For centuries past there has been no love lost between the Tahitians and
the Low Islanders. A pig hunter far up the Punaruu Valley made Terangi
welcome in his little camp, fed him, and soon discovered who he was. The
hunter invited him down to his house on the beach and betrayed him to
the police while he slept. The warden at that time, a thoroughly decent
fellow, let him off with fifteen days solitary confinement, the lightest
of the disciplinary measures under the circumstances. And he talked to
the boy like an uncle, saying precisely what Nagle had said.

Solitary confinement leaves its mark on anyone; to a man of Terangi's
kind it was torture. He endured five days of it before he broke the lock
of his cell and escaped to the hills once more. He was caught after a
chase of several weeks, and a year was added to his sentence. His first
escape had been from the road gang. Breaking jail was an offense of a
different category and could not be lightly passed over. When he next
escaped he took with him a military rifle from the guardhouse, with a
supply of ammunition. Life in the uninhabited interior of Tahiti was not
easy. He wanted a weapon for shooting wild pigs, but the authorities, of
course, took a different view of his reasons. They believed that he
meant to defend himself. He was becoming something of a legendary figure
by this time, and now that he was known to be armed, it was easy to
fancy him a desperado, a menace on the mountain trails. When he was
retaken, five more years were added to his sentence.

There is no need of going into the details of his adventures during this
period. It is enough to say that, during the next five years, he escaped
eight times. He showed an ingenuity and a fierceness of determination in
getting away that were new to the experience of the police. He could be
kept in prison only by methods too inhumane to be practised steadily,
and the authorities bore in mind the trivial nature of the offense that
had brought him there in the first place. Vain attempts were made to cow
him by threats. As soon as he was given a measure of freedom within the
walls, he would find a means of getting outside them. The Tahitians,
although they betrayed him time after time, had a secret admiration for
him, and he became a hero to every small boy on the island. The
_gendarmes_ who were compelled to hunt him in wild and difficult country
saw him in a different light, as did those higher up. He was making a
laughingstock of authority. Meanwhile, he had accumulated a total
sentence of sixteen years.

Although he felt keenly the injustice of his first imprisonment, he was
too much of a man to hoard up bitterness. He knew that his captors were
doing no more than their duty and nursed no resentment toward them. But
he had to be free, whatever the cost.

On each of Captain Nagle's infrequent visits to Tahiti, he had gone at
once to the jail in the hope of seeing Terangi; but what with escapes to
the mountains and the fact that visitors were not permitted to see those
in solitary confinement, three years passed without his having so much
as a glimpse of the prisoner. Meanwhile, a new warden had arrived from
France, one of those just men, as coldly impersonal as the Law itself.
At last, more than four years after the affair in Duval's bar, Nagle
learned, at the wharf, that Terangi, after his latest escape, was once
more in custody. Nagle went straight to the Governor, over the warden's
head, and was granted permission to see him.

His reception at the prison, under these circumstances, was a chilly
one. It was clear from the warden's manner that there was to be no more
nonsense about this Terangi matter; no more making a mock of authority.
He took the Governor's note, glanced at it, bowed coldly, and led the
way to Terangi's cell. There was a new iron-studded door of hardwood,
four inches thick, equipped with a formidable series of locks.

The cell was about eight feet square and lighted by a single small
window, high in the wall. Terangi was tethered by one leg, the chain
attached to his ankle, shackled to a heavy ringbolt set into the floor
of stone. He had altered little, outwardly, save that he was now a man,
fully matured, but Nagle was conscious of a profound inward change. All
the joy of life had gone out of him, and there was a sombre look in his
eyes. Nagle scarcely trusted himself to speak; he took Terangi's hand
and held it between his own. The warden stood in the doorway, looking
on.

If Terangi was moved, he showed no sign of it. He had himself well in
hand. When the silence was broken, he asked for news of his wife and
mother, and of the little daughter he had never seen. Nagle pulled
himself together and contrived to answer with some show of cheerfulness,
but he was soon aware that Terangi was as eager to close the interview
as the warden himself. Nagle left the prison in a gloomy frame of mind.

There was a stir on Tahiti when Terangi escaped once more. It happened
about three months after Nagle's visit. The new warden had been
over-sanguine about breaking Terangi's spirit. He kept him in solitary
confinement until he seemed thoroughly subdued, and then gave him tastes
of liberty when traps were laid: apparent chances to escape which the
prisoner was too wary to take advantage of. At last he was permitted to
have his hour of exercise without shackles, in the prison yard.

He was enjoying his brief walk up and down the yard late one afternoon
when the road gang was brought in. There were two guards inside and two
others came in with the prisoners. The gatekeeper had unlocked the heavy
door and the last of the prisoners had been checked in when Terangi made
his dash. For a moment the guards were numb with astonishment, and five
seconds leeway was all that Terangi required. The man at the gate jerked
out his revolver and fired as Terangi seized his wrist. The others were
coming on the run, afraid to shoot. A heavy blow over the heart knocked
the gatekeeper out, and before another shot could be fired, Terangi was
outside.

Papeete cemetery lies in a valley on the opposite side of the road a
little beyond the prison. He sprinted among the gravestones with half a
dozen men in chase, firing as they ran, plunged into the bush at one
side of the valley, and was gone. It was a most sensational escape, in
broad daylight, but this final break was accompanied by tragedy. When
they picked up the gateman he was dead; it seems that he had a weak
heart. Once again, Terangi had struck too hard.

Capturing him, after his repeated escapes in the past, had become a kind
of grim sport to the police, a game they played with ever-increasing
skill, and they had no doubt that they would soon have him in their
hands again. Tahiti, as you may know, is made up of a large peninsula
and a small one, connected by the low narrow isthmus of Taravao. They
hunted him like a hare on Tahiti-Nui, raising the villages with offers
of reward. As a matter of policy, for the benefit of the native
population, the government let its intentions with respect to the
fugitive be known. As soon as he was caught, he was to be sent to the
penal colony at Cayenne, in French Guiana, and there would be no more
escaping for Terangi, ever.

Keen-eyed men were posted on the ridges, the valleys were scoured by
boar hunters with their dogs, and on one occasion, at long range across
the valley of Vairaharaha, he bounded through the fern in plain view for
more than a hundred yards, under a heavy fire. Slowly and relentlessly
he was hunted from one refuge to another and driven toward the Taravao
Isthmus. There they made certain of taking him, and a large posse of
trackers was stationed to seize him when he attempted to cross to the
smaller peninsula. But once more he eluded them. Choosing a black, rainy
night, he managed to slip through the chain of pursuers to conceal
himself among the wooded ridges and untrodden peaks beyond Teahaupoo,
the wildest, most inaccessible region of all Tahiti. But he could flee
no farther. He was hemmed in on three sides by the sea, and approaching
from the northwest came a small army of pursuers led by the police. It
was a hard search but a thorough one; no coign of the rocks was left
unexplored. The net was drawn closer and closer, but when at last it was
closed at the extremity of the island, the quarry was not in it. Terangi
had vanished as though he had melted into the mists that hang over those
wild and gloomy mountains. No one had seen him nor had a sign of him
been found.




                              Chapter III


There were four European residents on Manukura at this time: de Laage,
the Administrator, and his wife; Father Paul, and myself. The first, in
point of length of residence, was Father Paul. He had come out to the
Tuamotu as a youth fresh from the seminary and had spent more than fifty
years in the Group without ever having returned to France. He was one of
those transparently good old men, so often found in the service of the
Roman Catholic Church, whose obscure and devoted lives the world never
hears of, but which mean so much to the little flocks they serve. He
came from peasant stock in a mountain village near the Spanish border,
and his education had been strictly clerical. In his childhood he had
been taught to believe in all sorts of ghosts and devils. He found
hierarchies of these awaiting him on Manukura, where the natives were
nothing if not superstitious. They were very close to being heathen in
those days; in fact, they had never before had a missionary stationed
amongst them. Father Paul met this situation in a characteristic way. He
developed a curious sort of worship, Christian, to be sure, but with a
generous mixture of paganism in it. This had nothing to do with basic
doctrines, of course. Those he held fast to and taught his people to do
the same. They had the deepest love and veneration for him, and he was
worthy of it. He accepted the teachings of the Church with the
unquestioning simplicity of a child. It is common, in our day, to speak
slightingly of these devoted souls. Bigots they may be, in the sense of
adhering to one system of belief and excluding all others; but their
lives will not suffer in comparison with those of men who believe in
nothing, not even in themselves. The world does well to make room for
its Father Pauls.

His church, which he had planned and built, largely with his own hands,
stood midway in the village. There had gone into it the simplicity of
his own nature and the beauty inherent in his faith. It was a coral-lime
structure, capable of holding the entire population of one hundred and
fifty, with narrow Gothic windows and a little bell tower, all so
perfectly proportioned that I doubt whether the best ecclesiastical
architect in Europe would have found anything to criticize. It was truly
astonishing that an old peasant priest should have worked with such
rightness of instinct.

Although in his late seventies, he had the vigor of a man much younger.
He had never been ill in his life; with his duties--he was spiritual
guide to the natives of half a dozen islands--he had no time to be. His
courage, which was as remarkable as his industry, came in part, no
doubt, from radiant, unfailing health, but it was based upon his
absolute trust in God. Of the six islands under his charge, the nearest,
Amanu, was fifty miles away; the farthest, Puka Puka, lay at a distance
of more than one hundred and fifty. His only means of visiting his
widely scattered parishioners was a small half-decked cutter. She was a
stoutly built, seaworthy boat, but when I tell you that she was only
sixteen feet over all, with a five-foot beam, you will understand that
it required hardihood to make long voyages in so tiny a craft. Low
Islanders are thorough seamen and anything but timid folk, but even they
shook their heads over what they considered the father's recklessness.
His only companion on these voyages was a fourteen-year-old lad, Mako,
one of the sons of Tavi, the storekeeper, who trusted in him as
implicitly as the priest trusted in God. They would set out in all kinds
of weather and be absent, often, for a month or six weeks together. In
the course of time the natives became convinced that the priest was,
indeed, an instrument in Divine hands. Nothing could harm him or those
under his protection.

One afternoon in March--this was in 1925--the priest and Mako were
returning to Manukura from the island of Hao, which lies about
seventy-five miles to the southwest. They had left Hao the afternoon
before and were still some thirty miles from home. Their galley was a
tin-lined box filled with sand which they kept on their half deck in
good weather. Mako had prepared supper, after which the father had lain
down for an hour or two of sleep.

Mako sat at the tiller humming softly to himself, keeping an eye on the
compass and scanning the horizon from time to time. Now and then he
would catch glimpses of noddy terns, alone, or in flocks of half a dozen
or more, flying landward from their day's fishing far offshore. They
were Manukura terns and would be alighting on Motu Atea or Motu Tonga in
an hour's time. With a breeze so light, the father and he could scarcely
hope to reach the pass before dawn. Nevertheless, they were moving. The
little cutter was sensitive to the faintest breath of air.

The sun had set and the sea was bright with the blurred reflections of
fluffy, fair-weather clouds, glimmering softly in the afterglow.
Glancing off to the left, Mako's attention was attracted by a black
object floating on the surface of the water, half a mile or more off the
course the cutter was following. At that distance it looked scarcely
larger than a match stick and would not have been remarked by one less
keen-sighted than a Polynesian boy. Mako kept his eye turned steadily in
that direction. Now he would lose sight of it for a moment; then it
would reappear riding over the long smooth undulations of the sleeping
sea; then he would lose it once more. There was something curious in its
appearance; it seemed to rest a little too high in the water for a bit
of water-soaked wood made heavier still with barnacles. There was a
projection, an excrescence of some sort; if the object was a tree, it
might be the fragment of a limb broken off close to the trunk. Of a
sudden the lad's eyes widened in astonishment. He bent his head and
peered under the deck where Father Paul was stretched out on a thin
mattress, asleep.

"Father! Father Paul!"

The old priest stirred and raised his head. "Yes; what is it, my son?"

"There's something off to leeward! Come quickly, Father!"

Aroused by the boy's manner, the priest crawled back to the cockpit and
stood gazing in the direction Mako indicated. Dusk was gathering rapidly
and in the half-light a moment or two passed before he made out the
object.

"You have sharp eyes, my lad. I see it now. What is it, a log?"

"No, Father."

"_aha nei!_ What, then?"

"A canoe, capsized. I think there's a man clinging to it."

"A man? Impossible!"

"I saw him move; I'm certain of it. He lifted his arm."

Quickly the priest took the tiller while Mako slacked away a little on
the sheet. They bore down directly on the object.

"Lad, so it is!" the priest exclaimed, incredulously. "He sees us, I
think! Stand by, now, to grasp his arm!"

Both stared ahead, scarcely believing the evidence of their eyes. The
canoe floated bottom up. The outrigger was gone and the man clinging to
the hull was half sitting, half lying astride of it. In the dusk they
could make out little save that he was bare-headed and all but naked.
The priest hailed him when they were within a few yards, but there was
no reply. The cutter was brought into the wind directly alongside. Mako
was a strong lad. He seized the man's outstretched arm as he slid off
the canoe and drew him to the cutter's side; then, seeing that he was
too far spent even to cling to the gunwale, he leaned far over and
dragged him into the cockpit.

Leaving the tiller, Father Paul was on his knees beside him at once. For
the next half-hour they worked over him, giving him coconut water, a few
swallows at a time. He was in a pitiable condition from thirst and
exhaustion. His hair was long and matted and his cheeks covered with
beard. It was not until Mako lit the lantern that the man was
recognized. It was Terangi. He had been picked up at a spot--if one may
speak of a spot in mid-ocean--nearly six hundred miles from Tahiti. That
distance he had covered in a small outrigger canoe such as the natives
use for fishing inside their lagoons. If I have failed, thus far, to
give you an adequate conception of Terangi's character, this simple
statement of fact will suffice.

He was utterly spent, and presently, without once having spoken, he fell
into a heavy sleep. Between them, they managed to push him under the
shelter of the deck. Mako remained squatting beside him throughout the
night while the priest sat at the tiller. Shortly after sunrise, the boy
climbed the mast and caught sight of the palms on Motu Atea, the islet
that curves around the eastern end of Manukura lagoon, twenty miles
distant from the village islet. It was barely within view; the blurred
irregular line of the highest trees could just be seen breaking the line
of the horizon. The priest then ordered Mako to lower and furl the
sails.

They waited, the cutter drifting, throughout the morning. The day was
far spent when Terangi awoke. Mako prepared food for him and he ate
ravenously, saying little this while. Father Paul's one indulgence was
his pipe, a meerschaum with a quaintly carved bowl at the end of a long
stem. It held a full ounce of tobacco. He lit this while Terangi was at
his meal, watching with deep concern and quietly waiting for the man to
speak. Mako attended to his wants with an air of awestruck devotion,
almost with the reverence with which he assisted Father Paul at Mass. If
Terangi was a hero to the boys of Tahiti, you can imagine what his fame
was among those of his own island. They had long since heard, of course,
of his many escapes and his encounters with the police. Mako, having
been the means of saving his life, had a heart filled with happiness. To
sit near him, to serve him, to be noticed by him, were privileges so
great that he could have found no words with which to express his
gratitude. No more than the priest had he recovered from his
astonishment of the night before, but he had the ingrained courtesy of
his race. It was Terangi's privilege to satisfy their curiosity or to
refrain from speaking, as he chose.

When he had finished his meal, the lad rolled a cigarette for him. The
man smoked as he had eaten, in silence, with keen enjoyment. Then he
turned to the priest.

"Life is good, Father," he said. "I little believed, last night, that I
should see the sun of another day."

The priest nodded. "It was Mako who spied you."

Without turning his head, Terangi laid a hand on the boy's knee. "I saw
you at a distance of two miles--three, perhaps. I feared that you would
pass to windward of me on the course you followed. I could do nothing;
my strength was gone. Two days and a night I had been clinging to the
canoe. The outrigger was badly damaged. I had tied it together as well
as I could; then I was again capsized in a heavy squall. There was no
repairing the outrigger that time. I could do nothing but wait for the
end."

"_Nofea mai o?_"

"From Tahiti."

"You have come from Tahiti? Alone? In that tiny canoe?"

"Yes, Father."

"Terangi _Tan_!" Mako exclaimed softly. All the lad's capacity for
wonder, awe, devoted love, was implicit in the exclamation.

"I came by Mehetia, Anaa, Haraiki, Reitoru, Tahr. I had no compass. I
steered by the sun and the stars. I made a little sail of copra sacking.
It is six weeks since I left Tahiti. No one has seen me at any island. I
landed on the _motu_ far from the village islets. When the weather
favored, I went on again. It has been a weary time."

That is as much as Terangi ever told of his voyage, as remarkable an
exploit, I dare say, as one man has ever accomplished in such a tiny,
unseaworthy craft. Mehetia, his first island, is about sixty miles from
the nearest coast of Tahiti. Anaa, the second, is two hundred miles
farther on, and Haraiki the same distance beyond Anaa. Luck was with
him, of course, until his final misfortune, and Terangi was too good a
seaman to take unnecessary chances, but one needs vastly more than luck
to make such a passage as that. Polynesians are still great historians,
and Terangi's voyage is known now, both in song and in story, from one
end of Oceania to the other. It is worthy to pass into the legends of
the race.

But to get on with the story----He did not speak again for some time,
but sat with his hands clasped loosely, staring at the deck beneath his
feet. The old priest gazed at him compassionately, observing the gaunt
face, the eyes terribly inflamed by sea water, but more than this, the
sombre indomitable expression within them.

"Where are we, Father?" he asked, presently.

The priest pointed to the north. "Manukura is there, just over the
horizon."

"And you are waiting here for...?"

"For you. For night, if you would have it so."

"I escaped from prison three months ago. You knew, on Manukura?"

The priest shook his head. "We have had no news since the _Katopua_ last
came. She is expected again soon."

Terangi was again long silent. At length the priest laid a hand on his
shoulder. "My son," he said, "I first saw you an hour after your birth.
I watched you grow from babyhood to manhood. All the events of your life
have been open to me. You trust me?"

"I do, Father. Wait before you speak further. When I escaped this last
time, a guard of the prison was killed."

"By you?"

"Yes. He was at the gate of the prison yard. The gate was open to let
the prisoners enter who had been working on the roads. It was a chance.
I rushed at the guard. He fired his pistol at me and missed. I struck
him on the chest, with my fist. Who would believe that such a blow could
kill? But so it was. The man was dead when they took him up. This I
learned when hiding in the mountains."

"You were innocent of the wish to kill him?"

"As innocent as I am of the wish to kill Mako. The man had befriended me
more than once. I wished only to escape."

"It is a grievous sin, but with God, the intent is all. He can forgive
heavier ones in those who truly repent."

"But that will not give life to a murdered man, and so it will be judged
by those who sent me to prison. If I am caught, I shall be sent to a
place they call Cayenne. Where it is I do not know, except that it is
far away. And those who are sent there never come back."

"Terangi..."

"Yes, Father?"

"No one knows that you have left Tahiti?"

"No one save you and Mako; that is certain. They must be searching the
mountains for me still; but it may be suspected, by this time, that I
have escaped elsewhere."

"What would you do now?"

"I would see my wife once more, and my mother, and the child that I have
never seen. Then let what will come. The little daughter is mine?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"I have been eager to believe it. There has been no one else, then?"

"Never! Your wife has thought of no one but you."

"Six years is a long time, and she is young. I could understand if..."

The priest interrupted him sternly. "Never, I tell you! You do her an
injustice to hold such a thought!"

"I wished only to make sure."

"You do not know your wife."

"And what time have I had to know her? We were but six weeks married
when I was put into the prison."

Father Paul's stern expression softened to one of compassion. He had no
struggle with his conscience in deciding what his attitude toward the
fugitive should be. Secular law was one thing, Divine law another. He
had nothing to do with the first, everything to do with the second, and
he believed, as did everyone else on Manukura, except the Administrator,
that Terangi was a deeply wronged man. Secular law could be implacably,
inhumanly just. So it had been in Terangi's case, but he well knew that
de Laage took a different view of the matter. The father had little hope
that the Administrator could be kept long in ignorance of Terangi's
presence on the island. In a place where everything was known, and
quickly known, concealment would be enormously difficult. There was no
man or woman on the island who would not guard the secret as carefully
as himself, but the children in their innocence might easily betray him.
To avoid this possibility it would be best that none should know save
Terangi's nearest relatives: his wife and mother; Fakahau, the chief,
his father-in-law; and Fakahau's brother, Tavi. The priest was careful
to impress upon Terangi the great need for caution.

"I have been a hunted man too long to be blind to the danger," he
replied. "I shall be taken again, that is certain; but I shall have some
weeks, even months, perhaps, before they learn where I have hidden. The
Administrator is now on Manukura?"

"No; but he is expected to return with the _Katopua_. He has been
visiting the islands to the south."

They then proceeded to discuss plans for the immediate future, and it
was decided that Terangi should conceal himself on Motu Tonga, an
uninhabited islet eight miles across the lagoon from the settlement.
Father Paul would inform only those mentioned of Terangi's arrival; the
family could then take counsel as to what was best to be done. Sail was
now gotten on the cutter. A little before sunset they raised the land,
but night had long since fallen before they were coasting along the
lonely reefs of Motu Tonga. Mako ransacked the scanty supplies on board,
preparing a little bundle of things for Terangi's immediate needs: a
waterproof tin containing matches and tobacco, a _pareu_, a bed quilt, a
clasp knife, various other articles. These he rolled into a tight bundle
covered with a piece of matting, and Terangi fastened it with a cord,
high on his shoulders. The priest steered the cutter to within a few
hundred yards of the reef. Great combers were breaking across it, but
Low Island folk are as much at home in the surf as the fish themselves,
and a night and a day of rest had restored Terangi's strength. When they
had run midway along the islet he shook hands with his rescuers, slipped
over the cutter's side, and struck out for the land. In the faint
starlight he was soon lost to view, but they waited until they heard a
distant halloo from the beach. The cutter then stood off to the
northeast, and at dawn entered the pass by the village islet.




                               Chapter IV


You will agree that chance had played a sorry trick upon those two young
people. I am speaking of Terangi and his wife. Father Paul had told the
barest truth in assuring Terangi of Marama's loyalty. She was sixteen at
the time of their marriage, and all through the years of his
imprisonment she had lived for the day when she would have him at home
again. As year followed year and the Manukura folk learned of the
appalling sentence he had piled up by his repeated attempts to escape,
most of them gave up all hope of his return, but not Marama. She gloried
in his unconquerable spirit and loved and respected him the more for
what some of the older people called his stubborn foolishness. Other
young men would have liked nothing better than to take the absent
husband's place, but none of them dared tell her so. However, when it
became known that Terangi had sixteen years to serve, several hesitant
offers were made to Marama. They were refused with vigorous scorn.

She came, as did Terangi, from the best blood of the Archipelago. For
all the chaotic social conditions that followed the European conquest of
Polynesia, pride of birth was not lost amongst its people. It was not an
empty pride; in ancient times the best men _were_ the best men, and that
is true to-day. Fakahau, Marama's father, was first on Manukura because
he was the natural leader of his people, as his father and grandfather
had been before him. The office of chief, under French rule, is
elective, but the business of choosing one on Manukura was a mere
formality. It would have been unthinkable that anyone except Fakahau
could have been chosen. It is curious to reflect upon the antiquity of
some of these Low Island families. That of the chief traced its descent
back through more than forty generations. Terangi, too, was of the
_ariki_ class; his family was second in distinction only to that of
Marama.

She was a handsome girl, the elder of Fakahau's two daughters. Her skin
was a light olive and her rippling, copper-colored hair framed the oval
of her face to perfection. You observe that I speak of her with a
certain enthusiasm. During my years out here, traveling from island to
island, I have had time to become a connoisseur, middle-aged and
heart-free, let me add, in types of Polynesian beauty. I have yet to
find a girl worthy to be compared with Marama.

Tita, her little daughter, was six years old at this time. I have spoken
of the unkindness of chance in separating the young parents so soon
after their marriage. This was more than made up to them in the manner
in which the family was reunited. Father Paul was not able to inform
Marama of Terangi's return. As it happened, she had gone to Motu Tonga
two or three days earlier, and was there when Terangi swam ashore.

Motu Tonga was the wildest and loneliest of the lands on Manukura reef.
No copra was produced on this islet, which was left in its natural
state. Its coconut palms were self-sown, growing as nature would have
them among thickets of _purau_ and the screw pine. The undergrowth was,
in most parts, sparse and scattered: vines and hardy, shrublike trees
found what nourishment they could in the coral sand, but toward the
centre of the islet were several magnificent _tou_ and _pukatea_ trees,
huge in size and centuries old, that had been growing there in heathen
times. Motu Tonga had been the site of the ancient settlement, but after
European discovery and with the coming of the trade in copra and pearl
shell, the village had been moved to the more accessible islet by the
pass.

Marama had gone, with Tita, to gather a particular kind of snail shell
found in the coral sand of Motu Tonga. The work of gathering these
shells would have been considered tedious by most women; but those of
Manukura, having leisure in abundance, loved the occupation, and from
these almost microscopic shells, of various colors, they made beautiful
_hei_, the shell wreaths worn by atoll folk on their pandanus hats, both
as a decoration and to keep them from blowing away on windy days. They
sometimes went in parties on these excursions, half a dozen women
together. They would take food and bedding with them, build little
shelters of fronds to sleep under, and divide their time between fishing
and shell gathering. It was a distraction in their lives, of which they
never tired. As often as not they would go alone, or with some of their
children, as Marama had done on this occasion.

She and her daughter suited that lonely landscape. They gave it
significance; the sea birds themselves were not more at home in it than
those two. I like to think of them there, as they were on the day of
Terangi's arrival. Marama was in complete ignorance of his presence, of
course; they had long been asleep when he swam in through the breakers,
nor had they seen Father Paul's cutter at dawn the following morning. It
was Tita who discovered her father. Marama was preparing their breakfast
over a fire on the outer beach and Tita had wandered off by herself
along the shallows of the reef to the westward. Presently she came
running back, too excited for speech; not frightened, but in a child's
state of hushed astonishment when it sees something it can't account
for. After some questioning the mother learned that what had been seen
was a man, asleep, not far from their camp.

"But who, Tita?"

"I don't know," the child replied.

"You must know! Is it Rongo? Or Maviri? Or Tamatoa?"

Tita shook her head at each of these suggestions. "It's no one," she
said. "Just a man, an ugly man."

Marama was puzzled by the child's replies no less than by her manner. In
a settlement so small as Manukura, everyone is known; no child of six
would have been at a loss to name any man or woman in it.

"You saw his face?" she then asked.

Tita nodded. "It is covered with hair, like Father Paul's. I could see
only a little. Then I ran away."

The mother, who had been kneeling by the fire, rose to her feet. "Come,
show me where he is," she said. Taking Tita's hand, she crossed the long
slope of the outer beach and followed it westward for several hundred
yards. Presently the child drew back. "He's there," she whispered,
pointing to a clump of bushes a little distance before them. "Don't go,
Mother! Perhaps it's a _varua ino_!"

A century of contact with Europe has done little to lessen native
superstition; they still believe in spirits, both good and bad. An evil
spirit is known as a _varua ino_. Father Paul believed in them as
implicitly as did the natives themselves, but he had taught them that a
good Catholic need have no fears in their presence. To make the sign of
the Cross was to draw a charmed circle about one which no evil spirit
could pass. The mother now did this and Tita the same. The child clung
tightly to her hand as they moved soundlessly toward the screen of bush
and peered through it. Terangi was stretched out on the sand, asleep,
just beyond. He was lying on his side, his face turned toward them.
Marama recognized him at once.

I leave you to imagine her astonishment and joy, but she didn't cry out
or try to waken him. Somehow, Terangi had come home. She didn't question
herself as to how this miracle had taken place, although she scanned the
beach for the sight of a canoe. He was sleeping like the dead, and the
gaunt face covered with beard, the hollow eyes deep in their sockets,
told her all that she needed to know of the sufferings he had gone
through. Laying a finger on Tita's lips, she seated herself with the
child in her lap, where they could look at him. Tita's curiosity was,
naturally, great, and she could see from the expression on her mother's
face that there was nothing to fear.

"Who is it?" she whispered.

"Your father, Tita. He has wanted to come home all these years, ever
since you were a tiny baby. I have told you that, often."

"I know; and the wicked men on Tahiti wouldn't let him."

"But now at last he has come."

"Who brought him? Did he come alone?"

"Hush! I don't know. He is very tired. We mustn't disturb him. He will
tell us when he wakes up."

The sun was well above the horizon by this time, and at first the low
bush shaded him. Before the light could strike his face, Marama gathered
an armful of pandanus leaves and quickly plaited them, making a little
screen which she propped up at his side to shelter him. Tita became
restless. Her father was a mere name to her and she was evidently
disappointed at this first view of him. She was glad when her mother
sent her off to play along the beach.

It was midmorning when Terangi stirred and opened his eyes. Marama was
sitting beside him, facing him. He stared at her vacantly; then he sat
up, scarcely believing in her presence. She was not a large woman,
anything but the Amazonian type. On the contrary, she was what might
have been called petite in figure, but now she got to her knees and
gathered him in as a mother might have done, holding his head against
her shoulder. She was too profoundly stirred for tears and clung to him
with a combined fierceness and tenderness, as though he were a child
rather than a man--a child who had come to her for protection. She was
bare-footed, bare-legged, dressed in the simple island fashion, in a
flowered _pareu_ fastened across her breast and reaching to her knees,
and her hair fell loosely over her arms and shoulders. Terangi was naked
save for a pair of ragged dungarees, chopped off at the knee, in which
he had swum ashore.

Neither of them could find words, at first. Terangi put back her hair
and held her face lightly between his hands, gazing into it as though he
would never have done. Then he found his voice.

"Marama, we are here, we two. I must speak the words to make sure, after
so many years."

"We three," she replied.

"_aha?_"

"We three," and she pointed to where Tita was wading through the
salt-water pools a hundred yards distant. She called to the child, who
came running toward them and halted at a little distance, gazing
solemnly at her father, with curious, appraising eyes. After a little
urging she consented to sit in his lap and he stroked her dark hair and
felt her sturdy arms and legs as though trying to convince himself of
her reality.

They remained there for half an hour or longer, too happy for much talk,
but making tentative efforts now and then to build bridges of words
across the abyss of time, nearly six years deep, that had separated
them. Tita helped. Despite her father's beard and his forlorn, unkempt
appearance, her feeling of strangeness and disapproval soon vanished,
and she prattled away as though he had always been with them.

Marama got quickly to her feet. "How hungry you must be! I have half a
dozen fine _tinga-tinga_ which I caught early this morning, and a tin of
beef, and rice and hard biscuits from Tavi's store. I was ready to cook
our breakfast when Tita came to tell me a very ugly man was asleep on
the beach here."

Words soon came easily to both. They talked like two children,
interrupting one another, as they returned to Marama's camp. Her hut was
a lean-to such as fishermen make for shelter on the uninhabited islets,
open toward the sea, which was ruffled to the deepest blue by the fresh
southeast wind. Some coconut husks were smouldering in front of the hut.

Marama gathered up a handful of leaves and dry sticks and placed them on
the coals. Terangi fetched water from a small well, three or four feet
deep. In the Low Islands, there are such shallow wells on most of the
large _motu_, and they are used, chiefly, for washing clothes. The water
is brackish at the bottom, but, after a rainfall, quite fresh on top.
Marama tasted it. "Only a little salt," she said. "It will do well for
the rice." An iron pot was hung over the fire and, while the water was
heating, she broiled the fish on the coals beneath. Terangi climbed a
near-by palm and threw down a dozen green drinking nuts. When the rice
was cooked, Marama emptied into the pot a tin of beef that had been
opened and left to simmer at the edge of the fire. She stirred the
savory mess well so that the juices and the rich gravy of the meat
should be thoroughly mixed with the rice.

Terangi sniffed the fragrant steam. "How good it smells!" he said. But
for all their hunger, when the meal was ready they set it aside to cool,
having the native dislike for hot food. When they began, they ate
slowly, with keen relish, talking little until the needs of the body had
been satisfied. The meal was a ritual with them, as it is with most
people where food in any variety is scarce. They know the pleasure of
anticipation and the sharp delight of eating.

Marama gave him the news concerning their families and of the changes
that had taken place during the years he had been absent: who had died,
who married, what children had been born, and their names. Terangi then
told her of his voyage, passing over it as briefly as he had in telling
Father Paul, and how he had been picked up by the priest and Mako.
Marama questioned him eagerly concerning the details, but soon gave
over, seeing how unwilling he was to speak of that weary time. He said
little of Tahiti and his experiences there, nor did he speak of the
future. Like other men of his race, he had the precious faculty of
recognizing present happiness and the wisdom to seize upon it, without
forethought or afterthought. Women, whatever the race, are more
practical; nevertheless, Marama said nothing of plans throughout the
day. It was not until late that evening that she brought these matters
forward. Tita was asleep, and they were lying on a mat, under the stars.

"We must speak of what is to be done," she said. "You have a plan,
perhaps?"

Terangi was long in replying; then he said: "I have come home. I have
you and Tita, and I shall see my mother once more. I shall stay as long
as I can..."

"And then, what?"

"You know as well as I," he replied, sombrely. "They will find me."

She sat up, taking his hand and holding it fiercely between her own.
"Find you? Never! Believe that as I do! Believe it for Tita's sake if
not for mine!"

Terangi shook his head. "I shall not blind myself to what will come. I
shall be taken again. Soon or late they will come here. I know them too
well."

The hopelessness in his voice chilled the girl's heart. She caught a
glimpse, through his eyes, of an inexorable thing called the Law, from
which there was no escape. To her, it assumed the shape of Monsieur de
Laage: cold, courteous, impersonal. She shuddered inwardly at the
thought of the glance of those blue eyes which saw so much, which seemed
to read one's very heart. She feared that, strive as she might, her
manner would betray Terangi's presence to the Administrator. One thing
was certain: she must avoid meeting him, face to face, for as long as
she could.

"What of this, Terangi?" she asked, presently. "The _Katopua_ is coming
soon. Captain Nagle will go south this voyage, and east as far as
Mangareva. We three could hide in the hold before she sails. The sailors
are all Manukura boys. The captain could put us ashore at one of the
unpeopled islands: Tematangi, or Maria, perhaps."

"He must not be told."

"Why not? He would help us. You are like a son to him. My own father
could not have been kinder to me than he has been all the years you have
been away."

"Think of the danger to him. He is a man of importance and well thought
of by those at the seat of government. If it became known, great trouble
would come to him. We must not call on him for help. He would give it
gladly, to his own hurt."

"It need never be known."

"You deceive yourself, Marama. And even on Tematangi or Maria we would
not be safe for long. Vessels sometimes call at those islands for
firewood or to fish. They would be certain to find us. The sailors on
most of the schooners are men from Tahiti. They are treacherous people
and would like nothing better than to betray me. Every time I have been
caught, a Tahiti man has told the police where I was hiding. There is a
reward of five thousand francs for him who betrays me again. I saw the
notice posted on a tree in Tautira." He broke off again and was silent
for some time. "Let us speak no more of this," he added. "We have this
little time together. Let us not spoil it by thinking of what is to
come."

They were in the midst of this conversation when they were startled by a
low hail such as the natives use when approaching others unnoticed.
Terangi sprang to his feet, but there was no time for concealment, nor
was there need for it. The man was within a dozen yards of them. It was
Fakahau, the chief, and with him Mama Rua, Terangi's mother.

She was a slender woman of sixty, with thick white hair which she wore
in a single braid down her back. She was as resolute in character as her
son, but the gentleness, the wistfulness, of age was in her face.
Terangi was her only son, and all the love of her heart was centred upon
him. The deep anxiety and grief she had suffered during his imprisonment
had aged her beyond her years, but while she felt keenly the wrong that
had been done him and the cruelty of his prolonged punishment, her
spirit had been neither crushed nor embittered by it.

Marama ran forward to meet her; then she walked aside with her father,
leaving Terangi alone with his mother for a while. Presently they
rejoined them. A stranger, looking on at the meeting, would not have
guessed its significance. Tuamotu folk, particularly the men, are not
demonstrative at moments when their deepest emotions are engaged.
Fakahau's pride in his son-in-law was as boundless as his admiration for
his courage and resourcefulness, and Terangi, ever since his father's
death, had looked upon the chief in the light of a parent; but the two
men greeted one another as casually as though they had last met only the
day before. Mama Rua clung to her son for a time, her head on his
shoulder. Then she drew back, brushing away her tears.

"Enough, my son," she said. "It has done me good to weep a little. Now
we must talk. We have little time. We must return to the settlement at
dawn. Marama, you and Tita are to come with us."

"To-morrow, at dawn!" Marama exclaimed.

Her father spoke. "You can stay no longer now. The reason is plain.
There must be no suspicion of Terangi's presence here."

"But such a thing will not be thought of," Terangi replied.

"Even if it were, there is no man or woman on Manukura who would not
shield him as eagerly as ourselves," Marama put in. "They would bite
their tongues out rather than betray Terangi."

Her father nodded. "It is true," he said, "but think how much safer and
better it will be if none save ourselves know."

"That is impossible," Marama replied. "Such a secret cannot be kept.
Others are certain to learn of it."

"If Terangi were to stay on Manukura it would be impossible. Elsewhere
he may be safe. You shall go with him, you and Tita."

Terangi looked up quickly. "Go? Where?" he asked.

"Listen well, Terangi," said the chief. "This plan we three have made:
your mother, Tavi, and I. No time is to be lost, for the _Katopua_ has
been expected this week past. The Administrator will come back with her.
You should be gone before he arrives. It is your freedom alone that
matters. If the wind favors, you must go the moment our preparations can
be made."

"But where?"

"To Fenua Ino."

"To Fenua Ino? We three, alone?" Marama asked, in dismay.

"You would not wish to be left behind?" Mama Rua asked quietly.

"Never!" the girl replied. "Where Terangi goes, I go, but I had not
thought of Fenua Ino. It is no more than a name of ill-omen to me. What
Manukura man has seen it except from the sea? Who has ever set foot upon
it?"

"Terangi's grandfather has, and my father, and I with them," Fakahau
replied. "I was young, then, no older than you are now. It is not an
evil place for all its name, and only eighty miles from here. Some old
trouble happened there, so long ago that neither my father nor my
father's father knew what it was. But this I know: some of our people
lived there in times long past. Then the island was abandoned; they came
to Manukura, bringing the bones of their dead, save those of one man who
was my ancestor. The land was made forbidden, and so it has remained
through all the years."

"I have passed the place a dozen times on the _Katopua_," Terangi
remarked, "but none of us ever landed there. Captain Nagle told me that
he himself has never done so. There are two small _motu_ on the reef and
nothing more. The rest is bare coral washed over by the sea, mile after
mile after mile. There is said to be an islet in the centre of the
lagoon, but no such land is shown on the chart. If it exists, it lies at
too great a distance to be seen from the reef."

"The land exists, and you shall go to it," said Fakahau. "It was there
the people lived in the ancient days. It was there I went with my father
and your grandfather; they wished to bring home the bones of our
ancestor who had been left behind. My father knew where he had been
buried and we found him."

"How great is the land?" Terangi asked.

"A score of families might live on it. It is good land, higher than any
of the _motu_ of Manukura. There is a narrow crooked passage through the
reef on the northern side; a canoe can be taken inside, but no schooner
could pass. The lagoon is full of shoals for a distance of a mile or
more; then you have deep water to the islet, which lies almost in the
centre of the lagoon. On a calm day it is a three hours' paddle from the
nearest point on the reef."

Marama and Terangi listened with intense interest. The girl's eyes shone
with a new light; as for Terangi, he was another man. He said nothing,
now, of waiting for what must come.

"The very place!" he exclaimed.

"No white man has ever been told of the islet," said Fakahau. "Once you
are safely there, you can live with your mind at peace. You will never
be found. You need have no fear of the place. The ancient tapu had never
been removed, but this was done by my father at the time of our visit."

"Why, then, was it never made known?" Marama asked.

"My father and Terangi's grandfather had their reasons, no doubt.
Perhaps they thought it best that the land should remain a forbidden
place in the eyes of all our people. I will not say," he added, gravely,
"that they may not have been given foreknowledge of the need there would
be for a refuge there for one of our family, in years to come. So, at
least, it has happened. We may well be grateful to them for their
silence."

"A lonely place," Terangi said, musingly. "We should see no one from
year's end to year's end. For that I am prepared. But Marama and
Tita..."

"Lonely? We three together?" Marama replied. "Have no fears. We shall be
happy where you are."

"You could not come with us, Mother?" Terangi asked, hesitatingly. "But
no," he added quickly. "We should not think of it. The life would be too
hard at your age."

His mother made no reply for some time, except to take his hand,
stroking it gently. "It is what I would wish," she said, "but it is not
to be.... Terangi, I knew that you were to come home, though I did
not speak of it to Marama. I wished her happiness to be unlooked for,
and so it was. Your father came to me in a dream, twenty-six nights ago.
There is no doubting what the dead tell us; least of all, such a man as
your father. He told me that I should see you here, on Motu Tonga. A
little time only, and for the last time."

"And what more?"

"He told me that I should be with him soon, very soon. It is true. I
know it. I feel it," she added quietly.

Her two children, son and daughter-in-law, listened, awestruck and
profoundly moved. Low Island folk believe as implicitly in certain kinds
of dreams as Europeans believe in what appears before their open eyes.
Who am I to say that such belief is absurd, the foolish credulity common
to primitive folk? I have seen too many of their dream prophecies
fulfilled not to have, to say the least, an open mind in these matters.
They know, as we do, that some dreams are mere nonsense, without
significance; but when their loved dead appear and speak to them,
telling them what is to come, there is no doubt in their minds as to the
truth of what they are told. If they remember their words and are
convinced, upon awaking, that no mistake has been made in recalling
them, they act upon them with the same quiet assurance with which we
accept any of the certainties of life. So it was with Mama Rua in this
instance. She believed in her approaching death no less firmly than she
had believed in Terangi's homecoming; and her listeners believed with
her. Fakahau had already been told of the dream, and his confirmation
only added to the certainty of the revelation as it affected the others.

They were silent for some time, each of them engaged in his own
reflections. Marama was the first to speak again.

"You have yet to say, Father, how Tita and I are to go with Terangi. How
can our absence be explained?"

"This too we have thought of. It is a hard thing.... We can see but
one way. It must be believed that you and Tita have been drowned."

"Drowned...!"

"This can be arranged so that none shall suspect. When all is ready, you
and Tita shall come again to Motu Tonga. A reason for the return can
easily be found. Two or three days later, when I know that you three
have gone, I shall send here after you. Some of your clothing shall be
found and the canoe in which you came, in such a way that all shall
believe."

"Truly believe? Our own people?" Marama asked.

"They must, at first," Mama Rua replied. "Our kinsmen alone shall know
the truth; it must be disclosed to no one else. Later, perhaps, others
may be told, but not now; not until some years have passed. For
Terangi's safety, nothing must be known, lest some careless word should
betray him. Even now I could wish that Mako did not know. Good lad that
he is, there is danger. He is too young to be trusted with such a
secret."

"You have told Father Paul of this plan?" Terangi asked.

"No," said Fakahau. "He would not wish to be told, of that I am sure. It
is best for the father's sake that we keep him clear, from this time on,
of any knowledge of what we do. He will suspect, but will be saved from
the burden of knowing. For the same reasons, Captain Nagle shall not be
told."

"We shall need many things on Fenua Ino," said Terangi.

"You shall go in my great canoe," said Fakahau, "which I will suppose
has gone adrift and out the pass. Tavi is now preparing the things you
will most need. There will be room for a good store of food and
supplies: tools, canvas, rope, pots and pans, clothing, bedding--nothing
shall be forgotten; you can depend upon us to see to that. At some
future time I shall find means to visit you, never fear."

"When must we go?" asked Marama.

"You and the child must return here the day after to-morrow, in a small
canoe. The village should witness your departure, thinking that you come
again for shell gathering. That night the large sailing canoe will be
loaded and ready and Mako will sail it across. For your sakes I dare not
come again. The canoe is too heavy to draw across the reef and launch
through the breakers. You must go out through the passage after the moon
has set. I need not tell Terangi to keep as far as possible to the
westward in approaching the pass. If on that night the wind should not
favor, you must wait here until it does."

"Short is the time we have together," said Marama, sadly. "I am thinking
of you, Mother, and Terangi. This one night and no more."

Mama Rua took the girl's hand. "My child, it must be so," she said. "If
I could have my way you would be gone before the new day comes."




                               Chapter V


Fakahau had not been mistaken in urging the need for haste. Not that he
considered the immediate danger serious; but he wished to have Terangi
safely away from Manukura before the Administrator's return. This was
not to be, however. The _Katopua_ was sighted the following morning.

The coming of Captain Nagle's schooner was the great event in island
life. I used to catch something of the excitement myself. For at least a
week before she was expected, every youngster on the island would be on
the lookout for her. They would post themselves in the tops of the
tallest coconut palms along the outer beaches and remain there for
hours, each one eager to give the first shrill hail: "_Te pahi! Te
pahi!_" that would be taken up from mouth to mouth and quickly passed
along the entire length of the settlement. On that day all work was
suspended. The women would get into their best finery and the men don
their Sunday suits of white drill, and long before the schooner appeared
in the pass, everyone on the island would be assembled at the landing
place. The vessel brought bags of mail from distant relatives and
friends, and the _parau-api_--the news. The members of her crew, from
Captain Nagle to the cabin boy, well understood what was expected of
them. They gathered the details of every event, no matter how trifling,
that happened in the island world, and knew how to make the most of
their stories. The events of the greater world beyond aroused only a
feeble interest on Manukura. What the people wanted most to hear was
about old Paki of Fakarava, who had married a gay young wife; about the
Hikueru man who had found a pearl worth fifty thousand francs; about the
woman of Marokau whose arm had been bitten off by a shark; about
Terangi's latest escape. These topics of conversation, elaborated in the
most meticulous detail, were made to last a full six months.

The _Katopua_ carried to the world's markets all the copra that the
island produced, and everything consumed there--save coconuts and
fish--was fetched in her capacious hold. Food, clothing, building
materials, tools of every sort, the very tree cotton that filled the
mattresses on which the people slept, came from Tahiti. The Manukurans
could live--had lived for centuries--with none of these things, but
copra made them rich, and what they earned, they spent. Some of the
elders used to find it wearisome to exhaust their credits at Tavi's
store, but the young men and women had no such difficulty. The day after
the schooner came, there would be shelves filled with gay new prints,
tins of beef and salmon and fruit; behind the counters were barrels of
flour, cases of tea, coffee, tobacco, rice, and, in the long showcases,
cutlery and jewelry of all sorts: knives, scissors, flash lamps,
brooches, rings, and ear pendants of nine-karat gold. Stocks were
usually low by the time of the schooner's next visit, but when Tavi was
sold out, as had happened more than once in the past, his clients
returned to the simple life of their ancestors in a care-free manner
which proved how little, at bottom, imported luxuries meant to them.

The return of the Administrator made this latest arrival of the
_Katopua_ an event of more than usual importance. Fakahau was in the
forefront of the crowd, wearing the tricolor sash of his office, with
his brother, Tavi, beside him, and Madame de Laage on his right hand. De
Laage had been absent for three months, and as the vessel was threading
her way through the shoals we could see him with his binoculars leveled
upon his wife. The moment they were alongside, he stepped over the rail
and greeted her in his usual courteous, smiling manner. His pleasures
and his duties were performed with the same unalterable respect for
decorum; he was not the man to make a public display of his more
intimate feelings. After a word or two with Madame de Laage, he turned
to the chief. I could see how surprised he was not to find Father Paul
present. He liked all the events of life to fall into their customary
places, and Father Paul's absence on schooner day was, indeed,
extraordinary; such a thing had not happened within memory.
Nevertheless, de Laage proceeded as usual, shaking hands and chatting
for a moment with Fakahau, Tavi, and myself, then standing with Madame
de Laage while all the men and women of the island came forward to
welcome him home. This ceremony concluded, he retired to the Residency.

It may be well, at this point, to give you a clearer picture of de
Laage. He was a tall, spare man, with prominent blue eyes, a bald spot
at the crown of his head, and a large, straw-colored moustache. There
was Flemish blood in him. In temperament he resembled the English rather
than the French type of administrator. He believed in the _mission
civilatrice_, in education on European lines for the natives, in the
necessity for maintaining white prestige. A devout Roman Catholic and a
Royalist under the skin, he regarded science as a kind of heresy,
liberal thinking with aversion, and politics as a game for the vulgar.
He was not ambitious. The fact that he had remained in the Tuamotu for
eighteen years--a post extremely distasteful to him--sufficiently
indicates that he was not moved by a desire to get on in life, and no
doubt the authorities at home were glad to have so dependable a man in
the position. He was guided by another motive than the wish to rise: a
sense of duty, lofty, stern, and rigid; it dominated every act of his
life. As for his integrity, no man, white or native, had ever questioned
it.

His reading was confined almost entirely to _L'Action Franaise_, to
which he was the only subscriber in this part of the world. Immense
bundles of the little Royalist daily reached him twice a year when the
schooner came in. These he arranged in order of dates, and each morning,
when he sat down to his fruit, eggs, and coffee, he opened "to-day's"
newspaper, then anywhere between six and eight months old. The shelf in
his office contained all the books he possessed: a few volumes of law,
manuals for the guidance of officials, and one arid-looking tome on the
Science of Administration, which was a kind of Bible for him.

In a place like this, successful administration consists in stopping
trouble before it starts, and the official must know, above all, what is
going on. He is the judge of the land court, for one thing, and since
there is a good deal of litigation about land, the titles to which are
based upon genealogy, it is essential to have some idea of the rights of
each case in advance. The best administrator, in a way, is the best
listener, and the native--even the exceptional man who knows a little
French--will speak his thoughts only in his own tongue. To work with an
interpreter is to learn only what the interpreter desires one to learn.
After his eighteen years in the Group, de Laage did not know eighteen
words of the language--at any rate, he was never heard to pronounce
them. The truth is that he was a born _chef de bureau_. Without his
wife, he could never have made a success of his job.

When he went to the war, in 1914, Madame de Laage remained on Manukura.
Officially, there was no Administrator; actually, she carried out her
husband's duties so capably that the islands have never been better
governed. Only a handful of white men have mastered the language of the
Tuamotu: an ancient, beautiful, highly inflected speech, capable of
infinite shades of meaning. Madame de Laage spoke it fluently, with a
lack of accent that was positively startling when one glanced at the
speaker. Small enough to be called doll-like, with a gift for dress that
always made her fresh and charming, even on a cutter voyage, she looked
like a girl in her twenties until one saw her face. Even then one would
hardly have guessed her age within ten years. The tropical sun seemed
powerless to harm her complexion; she preserved her fresh coloring well
into middle life, but it was her eyes that first attracted attention.
They were dark, almost black, and alight with intelligence and interest
in the world.

Most women in her position would have expired of loneliness and ennui,
but her life, I am sure, was truly happy. I doubt whether she was ever
bored with her own companionship; she had too many resources within
herself for that. She was an excellent musician and never tired of her
piano, which she herself kept in tune. Unlike her husband, she was a
great reader, and the books in their library were all hers. A sister in
Paris kept her supplied with postwar fiction, drama, biography, and the
like, but her tastes were not confined to general literature. She had a
fine collection of works on Polynesia, from the eighteenth-century
volumes of exploration to modern treatises on anthropology, botany, on
the fish in the lagoons and the shells to be picked up along the reefs.

In character, the man and wife were as unlike as the books each read. In
his honest, straightforward way, de Laage looked up to his superiors and
down on those he considered beneath him. Madame de Laage looked neither
up nor down, regarding all men and women as fellow human beings,
interesting and worthy of respect. She could go into any house on
Manukura and spend an agreeable evening with the women, joining in their
tasks and taking part in discussions of village affairs as though she
had been born on the island. She could weave a hat or a pandanus mat
with the best of them, or design and sew one of the native patchwork
quilts. She never wearied of exploring the minds of her companions, for
the differences of outlook which usually act as barriers between races
were to her no barriers at all. I am sure that she looked forward
without pleasure to the day when her husband would be transferred to
another field, or, failing that, be pensioned off at last to return to
France.

She was his superior in many respects, and must have been aware of the
fact. I believe that she was genuinely fond of him; it may have been
because he had such need of her. Certainly, there was no question of his
love. He was a lonely man, intensely reserved; all the warmth of his
nature was centred upon his wife. When away from her he suffered
tortures of anxiety. I have made voyages with him when my heart went out
to him on this account. Not that he made a show of his concern; but
knowing him as I did, I also knew how utterly lost and miserable he felt
when absent from home.

It was their custom, on the day the schooner came, to have Father Paul,
Captain Nagle, and myself to dinner with them. I went with the captain
that evening, rather earlier than usual. Madame de Laage appeared in the
doorway to receive us, and a moment later her husband stepped out on the
verandah in the mess jacket to which he never failed to change for
dinner. He informed us that Father Paul had sent word asking to be
excused.

"It's extraordinary!" he added. "I've never known him to miss one of our
dinners in all the years we have been here. And he was not at the wharf
this morning. Have you seen him, Doctor? He's not ill?"

I replied that I had seen him at work in his garden early in the
afternoon.

"I'm profoundly glad that he is not to come this evening," Madame de
Laage said, feelingly. "Eugene, have you told them the news?"

The Administrator sighed. "I have not wanted to think of it," he said.
"I have spared Captain Nagle thus far, but you will both have to share
it with us, soon or late. I may as well tell you at once. It is this: in
the bag of mail you brought for me from Tahiti, Captain, I found a
letter from the Bishop. He has set me a task... a task, he frankly
admits, that he has no heart for. In a word, Father Paul's Order has
recalled him to France."

Madame de Laage turned to me. "Think of it, Dr. Kersaint! What
stupidity! What injustice to uproot Father Paul after all these years!
It will kill him! I know it! What can Monseigneur be thinking of to
consent to such a cruel thing!"

"It is not a question of consent on the Bishop's part," de Laage
replied. "He realizes as we all do what this will cost Father Paul. You
must know how the religious Orders are administered. The discipline is
almost military; commands from headquarters must be obeyed without
discussion. The Bishop tells me that he wrote a four-page letter to
Father Paul, attempting to soften the shock, and then tore it up. He has
passed on to me the task of delivering these harsh orders with whatever
words of comfort I can summon."

Captain Nagle was as shocked as myself at the news. As for Madame de
Laage, she could scarcely keep back the tears as we spoke of it. She
perceived much more vividly than her husband the full cruelty of the
situation. For more than fifty years, Manukura and the half-dozen
neighboring islands had been Father Paul's world. Never in all that time
had he even gone so far afield as Tahiti. No man could have lived a
happier, more useful life. Now he was to be deprived of his church, his
garden, of his work in which all his heart was centred, and of his last
well-earned pleasure which he regarded with serene anticipation: being
laid to rest, by his children, as he called them, in the coral sand of
the island he loved.

"But why should they want him in Paris?" Madame de Laage asked. "He
shan't go! We mustn't let him go! Eugene, don't let him know! There must
be a way to prevent such an unkind plan from being carried out."

"I have no doubt they have excellent reasons for wishing his return,"
her husband replied. "What possible justification would I have for
failing to deliver to Father Paul the commands of his Order? He would
not thank me for such mistaken officiousness in his behalf. No; much as
he will hate to go, he is a soldier of the Church. His duty is to obey."

Madame de Laage was silent for a moment. "It is true," she replied,
wretchedly. "He will have to be told, but don't let it be at once.
Captain, you mean to call again here before returning to Tahiti?"

"Yes," said Nagle; "I am going to Mangareva this voyage. I shall be back
at Manukura in a month's time."

"Then wait, Eugene, until the _Katopua_ returns before telling Father
Paul! This will give him one more month of happiness."

"Nothing is to be gained by putting off unpleasant tasks," her husband
replied. "The Bishop asked me to let the father know at my earliest
convenience."

"Please, for my sake," his wife urged. "The delay won't matter in the
least, since he can't go in any case until the schooner returns."

She pleaded with him so earnestly that the Administrator consented to
the delay, but it was plain that he was disturbed about it.

A moment later Arai came to announce that dinner was on the table. She
was a girl of sixteen, a younger daughter of Fakahau, and lived at the
Residency in a relationship peculiar to Polynesia: half servant, half
companion and friend to Madame de Laage. For all their pride of birth,
Polynesians are the most democratic of people. No tasks are considered
menial, and a chief's daughter could serve at the Administrator's table
without any loss of dignity or prestige. I learned long afterward that
Arai knew of Terangi's return; in fact, all the immediate members of the
two families had been informed, but there was nothing in her manner on
this evening that could have betrayed the presence of the secret she
shared.

It was natural that our talk, during the course of the meal, should have
drifted to Terangi's latest escape. The whole island was, of course,
discussing it; I had heard but little else throughout the day. The
Administrator informed us that he had received a communication on the
subject from the Governor of Tahiti.

"Terangi has been playing the very devil there," he announced gravely.
"He has become a thoroughly dangerous and intractable prisoner and the
authorities are determined to capture him. I am aware, Captain Nagle,
that he was once your _protg_. It may be that the question is an
unfair one; nevertheless, I shall ask it. Do you think there is a chance
of his making his way here?"

I have no doubt that Nagle thought, secretly, that there was an
excellent chance, but he was not to be caught off his guard.

"You don't believe, Monsieur de Laage, that he would compromise me by
stowing away on my ship?" he asked, smiling.

"Never!" Madame de Laage put in warmly. "I know him too well to suspect
that."

"I am certain that he could never do it with your consent," de Laage
replied, "but I can't share your belief in this young man's delicacy of
feeling. Your sailors are all Manukura boys. They would gladly conceal
him aboard, if they could do so without your knowledge."

"The police on Tahiti share your belief," Nagle replied, drily. "They
made a thorough search of my ship before we left Papeete. It isn't the
first time by any means. They even examined my large sea chest and the
drawers under my bunk."

"Don't imagine for a moment that I suspect that you would connive at the
business. You would do me a great injustice if you supposed that. I am
thinking of the natives of the Tuamotu. They would shield him on any of
the atolls. Granted that he could not hide in the _Katopua_, it strikes
me that he might work his way out here little by little, traveling from
island to island in cutters or sailing canoes. He would certainly
attempt this if it were at all possible."

Captain Nagle shook his head. "He would have come long since if there
had been any chance of it," he replied.

I observed that Arai, who was serving the fish course, was listening
with all her ears. Madame de Laage gave her husband a glance that missed
its mark, for he went on:--

"The Governor wrote to put me on my guard. It's astonishing where
Terangi can have got to. He escaped more than three months ago and
Tahiti has been searched from end to end without result. Not only
Tahiti: all of the other islands of the Society Group have been
thoroughly combed without a trace of the man being found. The police
believe that he has somehow gotten clear of the Archipelago. They
suspect that he is already somewhere in the Tuamotu and that Manukura is
his goal. They've had more than enough of this incorrigible fellow. He
has made a mock of all lawful authority. I thoroughly agree with them.
Such things can't be permitted. Cayenne is the only place for such
characters. The Governor informs me that he is to be sent there when he
is taken again."

An awkward pause followed. De Laage realized of a sudden that his zeal
had led him to say more than he should have in Captain Nagle's presence.
He took advantage of the silence to fill the glasses once more, and we
were soon speaking of other matters.




                               Chapter VI


Manukura village was deep in the profound slumber of the hour before the
dawn. The booming of the breakers along the outer reef, now loud, now
muted in the flaws of the light breeze, thundered an unceasing
accompaniment to the people's dreams, a sound of which they would only
have become aware had it ceased. High among the fronds of the palms,
noddy terns perched with their young, croaking with long-drawn, muffled
tones. Here and there, behind the outdoor kitchens, swine grunted
softly, rooting in the soft coral sand for left-overs from the evening
meal. A flock of curlews, on their annual flight to their Arctic
breeding grounds in Asia or North America, passed overhead with lonely
piping cries. Presently, far off at the eastern end of the islet, a
rooster crowed, and cock after cock took up the challenging call. The
colony of _maina_ birds roosting in the _purau_ tree behind the de
Laages' dwelling wakened all at once and burst into a chorus of whistles
and twitterings. Slowly the gray light from beyond the horizon gave
place to the flush of dawn.

In two houses of the settlement there had been little sleep that night.
Both the chief and his brother, Tavi, had been busy with the
preparations for Terangi's departure. There had been need for the
greatest secrecy in this matter, and the work of collecting the supplies
had taken place in the small hours of the morning; they were stored,
well concealed, in the canoe shed belonging to Fakahau. All the
preparations were now completed. It remained only to wait for another
night, when Mako would sail the great canoe to Motu Tonga. By the dawn
of the third day, Terangi, Marama, and their daughter would be out at
sea, their canoe well below the circle of Manukura's horizons.

For all his sleepless night, Tavi was at his place behind the counter of
his store at the usual time. Trade was always brisk after the
_Katopua's_ arrival, and for an hour or two in the early morning it was
as much as Tavi and his older children could do to take care of the
eager press of customers. Tavi was a huge man, like Fakahau, with thick
black hair lightly sprinkled with gray. He was a true cosmopolitan,
having left Manukura in boyhood. He had spent many years at sea and
there were few large ports, the world over, that he had not visited; but
he had returned home at last to marry a Manukura woman, well content
with what he had seen and learned of the ways of other peoples. He was a
man of fine intelligence, a shrewd observer, and could have missed
little, during his roving life, worthy of attention. I used to spend
evenings without number in Tavi's company. A more amusing and
interesting companion would have been difficult to find.

No man on the island took a greater interest in Terangi, or had been so
thoroughly pleased to learn of his many escapes from prison and the
ceaseless trouble he had given to the police of Tahiti. He was as proud
of his niece's husband as though he had been a blood relative, and
Fakahau himself was not more determined that he should never again fall
into the hands of authority. On this morning, when the press of business
for the day was over, Tavi set out along the village street in the
direction of the cemetery.

The houses of Manukura were scattered for a mile or more along a single
wide roadway that followed the curve of the lagoon beach. There was not
a prettier village in the whole of the Archipelago, nor one in which the
inhabitants took greater pride. They kept it scrupulously clean; fallen
fronds and leaves were carefully swept up and burned each day, and owing
to the sparseness of the undergrowth, one had a series of charming
views. The Residency stood at the far western end of the village, near
the passage into the lagoon. It stood in its own grounds a hundred yards
from its nearest neighbor. Tavi's store and dwelling, a low square
building of wood, with a verandah in front, faced the lagoon beach near
the coral pier where the schooner was moored. Some little distance
farther to the east was the chief's house, and across the road from it
the little thatched home of Mama Rua. Beyond this again was a depression
in the land which crossed the islet from north to south. It had been
made, evidently, by some great storm in the past, and as the ground was
moist and swampy there, a footbridge had been erected over it. On the
opposite side stood the church, and here another path branched northward
to the cemetery.

Manukura's dead slept in a lonely plot of ground by the outer beach,
three hundred yards distant from the church. The place had been a sacred
one long before Commodore Byron's discovery of the island, for the
temple of the old god, Tangaroa, stood there, and three ancient
_pukatea_ trees near by had been planted in his honor. No trace remained
of the heathen temple; its stones were now incorporated in the walls of
the church, but something of the ancient atmosphere of sacredness seemed
still to linger in the air, as if the heathen god's presence were
tolerated by the God of Father Paul.

The fringing reef was little more than a stone's throw distant, where,
all day long, the smoke of the breakers drifted away to leeward, shot
through with rainbow lights, half veiling the surf when the swell was
high. Save for the old trees and the greenish gloom beneath them, the
burying ground was all white: the coral sand, the low wall that
surrounded it, the blossoms of the flowering shrubs, the headstones of
the dead--even the ghost terns that sailed back and forth like tiny
voiceless spirits were as white as snow. No sound of life in the village
reached this place. In the cool of the early morning or evening,
husbands or wives or mothers would come to spend an hour beside some
grave, deriving pleasure from a sense of the physical closeness of those
they loved. Despite the thunderous silence and something eerie in the
air, Manukura cemetery was not an unhappy place.

Here it was that Tavi found Fakahau standing with Mama Rua at her family
burial plot, directing the labors of two young men. They had finished
digging a grave and were now erecting above it a little roof, supported
on four posts, to keep out the sun and rain. Close by, sheltered with a
roof of corrugated iron, long since red with rust, was the tomb of Mama
Rua's husband. The headstone was a slab of whitewashed cement,
inscribed: "Nui Matokia, 1868-1919." The headstone of another grave was
so weathered that the inscription was barely decipherable: "Terangi
Matokia, 1881." Terangi's grandfather lay here, born in pagan times when
no man knew his age. Three or four women were buried in the same plot,
as well as two children who had died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.

Tavi joined the little group in silence, looking on as the chief
directed the work of the two young men. A European unacquainted with
Polynesians would have found something fantastic in the scene, had he
known the circumstances, but none of those present considered it in that
light, nor did the rest of the Manukura folk. All knew by this time that
the spirit of Mama Rua's husband had appeared to her in a dream, telling
her of the imminence of her death, and they no more doubted that the
prophecy would be fulfilled than they doubted the rising of tomorrow's
sun. It was fitting that the members of her family should proceed at
once to make ready her last resting place.

"Let the posts be painted white," Mama Rua was saying; "and it is time
that the roof over my husband's grave was changed. You will see to this,
Fakahau?"

The chief nodded as he laid a hand on the old woman's shoulder. "Come
and sit in the shade, Mama. The sun grows over-warm."

"Nui has waited long for you, Mama," said Tavi. "Can he not wait a
little longer?"

She shook her head as they walked slowly to the nearest tree and seated
themselves there, out of hearing of the men at work on the grave. "No,"
she said; "I have seen my boy as I was told that I should. My time is at
hand. I would see him once more, if I could," she added wistfully. "It
is hard, having so little time with him after all these years. A few
hours--no more! I must be content with that."

"Shall we wait another day?" Tavi suggested. "I could send a small canoe
to-night, to fetch him over. You could meet him at the far end of the
islet when all are sleeping."

The old woman shook her head. "The risk would be too great," she
replied, firmly. "They must go to-night, as we have planned....
Fakahau, I should like the singing to be at your house."

"It shall be done," said the chief. "Where is Marama? She has Tita with
her?"

"She will not let the child out of her sight. There will be little
danger on that account. It is your son I fear, Tavi. Mako has the secret
in his eyes."

"I have cautioned him well," said Tavi. "He is not to leave the house
this day."

"Coffee! Was that on the list?" Mama Rua asked, abruptly, after a moment
of silence.

"Yes," said Tavi. "Nothing has been forgotten, Mama. Set your mind at
rest. The coffee is with the other things, well packed in a small cask."

"There is room and to spare in the big canoe," said Fakahau. "Every tool
they will need can be taken. Sugar, rice, flour--they will not lack even
such things for many months."

Mama Rua sat with her hands clasped lightly in her lap, gazing to the
north across the great empty desert of the sea. She sighed and shook her
head. "It is a hard choice for them," she said. "I am thinking of your
daughter rather than my son. A lonely life it will be for her and Tita."

"My daughter's place is with her husband," said Fakahau. "We must not
grieve for them. They are young and strong. They have their child, and
others will come."

"One thing you have not thought of, Tavi," said Mama Rua. "Let Marama's
frigate bird be taken with them. When it returns we shall know that they
have arrived safely."

"Aye, that will be well," said Tavi. "I will catch it when I return to
the village."

They broke off their talk as they observed Madame de Laage approaching.
The chief stood up to greet her. She seated herself beside Mama Rua, who
took her hand between her own, stroking it gently. For all her years on
Manukura and her knowledge of its inhabitants, Madame de Laage had never
been able to accustom herself to the native attitude toward death. The
realization that Terangi's mother, bright and active for her years, had
decided to die and was supervising the preparation of her own grave
inspired in her an emotion bordering upon horror. She had seen others,
old men and women, apparently in the best of health, do the same. The
sudden cessation of the will to live, and the calm acceptance of what
they believed was their fate, were incomprehensible to a European.
Strangest of all, there was nothing morbid in the native character;
certainly, despite the teachings of Christianity, their thoughts were
never shadowed by the problem of evil, nor by reflections concerning the
cruelty and the futility of life. Mama Rua wanted to be with her
husband, that was all. Now that he had called her, she would go, and
willingly.

"You have your husband," she said, as she continued stroking Madame de
Laage's hand. "Should he go before you, you will understand."

Her old friend's gentle voice and the touch of her hand brought a sudden
dimness to Madame de Laage's eyes. "Aye, Mama," she replied, softly;
"_tei iao_. You know what is best. Perhaps I understand, a little."

She then spoke quietly of other matters with these old friends, but soon
rose to go, perceiving with her woman's intuition that they wished to be
alone. As she walked slowly back along the path to the church, a
realization came to her of the immense remoteness of her life from that
she had known as a girl, in Europe. What would her sister in Paris think
of such a scene as that she had just witnessed? How fantastic life would
seem to her in these scattered island worlds! But not more so than the
islands themselves, minute ringed shoals, microscopic in size, compared
with the vast ocean round about.

She halted before Father Paul's small coral-lime house which stood not
far from the church, built against the wall that surrounded his garden.
The door to his little reception room stood open; there was no one
within. She went on to the gate leading into the garden and looked in.

Madame de Laage loved this place, as indeed we all did. The garden was a
truly remarkable one to be found on a low-island. The work of creating
it had been a labor of love with Father Paul over nearly half a century.
Tropical fruits and flowers common to the high islands will not grow on
the atolls unless planted in high-island earth. Little by little, with
extraordinary patience, zeal, and skill, the father had fashioned a
little paradise, two acres in extent, sheltered from the sea winds by a
wall eight feet high. Captain Nagle had had his share in the work; he
never came to Manukura without bringing the priest two or three tons of
rich volcanic earth, in copra bags, from Tahiti or the Marquesas. Mixed
with humus and coral sand, this made the best of soils. It was like
entering another world to pass from Manukura in its natural state into
Father Paul's garden. He was a born horticulturist. His breadfruit,
lime, and orange trees were as fine as any to be seen on the high
islands. He had laid out paths, shaded with banana and papaia trees,
flower beds, small lawns, and arbors covered with flowering vines whose
fragrance had never before perfumed the air of a low island. There was
nothing throughout the Archipelago to be compared with this garden, and
it was typical of its creator that its fruits were reserved for his
parishioners: the children, the old, the sick. His reward, and he found
it ample, had been the joy of making it, and continued to be the joy of
improving it.

Madame de Laage found him hard at work there, his rusty old _soutane_
tucked up under its cord, helping as well as overseeing some boys who
were mixing a heap of rich reddish soil with decayed coconut husks and
coral sand, preparatory to filling a five-foot hole that had been dug
near the wall.

"Here you find me, my child," he said, looking up at her approach. "See
what a fine cargo of earth Captain Nagle has brought me. I am planting a
young avocado in this spot. I have never yet tried one on Manukura."

"It is certain to thrive, Father, under your care," Madame de Laage
replied.

"Let us hope so. If it does half as well as this mango, I shall be well
content. Have you seen finer fruit than these on Tahiti?" He pointed to
a basket containing half a dozen fruit, on a bench near by. "They are
for Tavi's daughter, she who will soon have her child. Will you take
them to her on your way home? But keep one for yourself."

"She shall have all. There could be no kinder gift. Women's appetites
are fickle at such a time. You are always thinking of others, Father."

"Nonsense! I have had more pleasure in growing them than she or you
could have in eating them. Come, sit you down, my daughter. My old bones
are stiff; I need rest. You look sad, or do I imagine this? You have had
no bad news in your letters from France?"

"I have come from the cemetery," Madame de Laage replied. "Mama Rua is
there, with Fakahau. Her grave is ready. Will she die, Father?"

"But it is certain," the priest replied, quietly. "You have seen it
happen with our old people before."

"I know; but it is so strange, so unnecessary, so..."

"So unnatural, you would say. I do not think so. What is natural is not
only what we Europeans know. I have lived on Manukura too long to
believe that."

"But she is so full of life. I can't believe it possible that we are to
lose her."

"She knows, and she will go as she says. The thought of death troubles
you now. It will not be so when you are old like Mama Rua and me. I too
have my grave ready." He smiled as he pointed with the stem of his long
pipe to a shady corner of his garden where, in fact, Father Paul's own
grave had long since been made. "You see? I am a true native; I ought to
be, after so many years. Like the others, I wish to be prepared. But I
shall not go soon. No, no! Not for many years. I shall live to be one
hundred. And I could wish to live one hundred more!"

"You have no desire to go home again?"

"Home?"

"To France. To see our dear country once more."

The old man shook his head, quietly. "What should I do there, my child?
I should die of homesickness at home, as you call it. No; the wish of my
heart is to close my life here where I have labored for fifty-five
years. But what a talk of graves and dying we have had! And here is my
fine young avocado tree to plant!"

****

The Administrator had spent all of that day at his desk. Over the large,
immaculate table where he worked hung a portrait in oils of his father,
a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War, in the uniform of a colonel of
infantry. The old gentleman, who bore a striking likeness to his son,
stood with a hand on his sword, the upper part of the figure in sharp
relief against a curtain of velvet, looped back to give a glimpse of a
smoke-dimmed battle scene. De Laage had commanded a battalion of the
same regiment in 1918, and on the opposite wall his own photograph in
his major's uniform faced the portrait painted in a more romantic age.
There was only one other picture in the room: a double-page in color
from _L'Illustration_, in a narrow frame of dark wood. It was entitled,
"The Caf de la Paix in War Time," and imparted to me, at least, the
very breath and spirit of those stirring days. It was one of those hazy,
autumn afternoons at the hour just before the lights began to twinkle on
the streets. The _kiosque_ of a news vendor was in the foreground, with
the crowded pavement and the famous terrace beyond, where soldiers of
all the Allied armies were sipping their drinks at the little tables.

Whether or not this picture aroused any emotion in de Laage, I can't
say. I never heard him speak of it. In his office his mind was, I think,
wholly engrossed in his work. He took deep pleasure in making his
reports, worded in polished, academic French, and written without a
blemish in his fine, regular hand. His returns on vital statistics, on
the imports and exports of the Archipelago, on transfers of land and the
proceedings of the various land courts over which he presided, were
positive works of art. He may have known that the fate of these
masterpieces was but transitory: to be glanced at by some clerk who
would jot down a hasty notation before consigning them to the central
archives. If so, the thought was not permitted to interfere with the
satisfaction he derived in composing them. His office was a refuge from
disturbing reflections of whatever kind. When he closed the door and
glanced about him at the rows of manuals on their shelves, his
letterpresses, the chairs for visitors aligned along one wall, the files
where at a moment's notice he could lay his hand upon any one of a
thousand papers, and the inexhaustible supply of official forms and
writing materials stowed away in drawers for each size and kind, he felt
the pleasure of a creator contemplating the small ordered world he has
made.

Outside of his office, unoccupied with routine tasks, he was less sure
of himself. There were decisions to be made, judgments to be given on
matters still in their fluid state, that had not yet solidified for
comfortable handling in reports of things past and done with. The
Bishop's letter concerning Father Paul was such a matter. Neither he nor
his wife referred to it again, either at dinner or later during their
evening on the verandah, where he smoked his cheroot while she played
through the new music she had received from France. Nevertheless, the
conviction that he had been remiss in his duty worried him profoundly.
He should have informed Father Paul at once, as the Bishop had
requested, but he had promised his wife to withhold the news until the
_Katopua_ returned. His word to her would have to be kept.

He retired at ten, slept badly for an hour or two, and found himself
wide-awake once more, still thinking of Father Paul. Liking and
respecting the priest as he did, every day of delay would make the task
of telling him the harder, and he was deeply grieved, as much upon his
wife's account as upon his own, at thought of the change that would be
brought into the life of their little community by the departure of the
priest. Who would be sent to replace him? One thing was certain: whoever
came, he could never fill the place of Father Paul.

Endeavoring to dismiss these unpleasant thoughts from his mind, he fell
to thinking of Terangi and what the Governor had written concerning him.
Was it possible that the fellow might find his way back to Manukura? He
would try, certainly. All of his people were here. Nagle was a
thoroughly honest man. It wasn't likely that Terangi could succeed in
stowing away on his schooner, but all the Tuamotu people were making a
hero of him; a cutter would be placed at his disposal at any island of
the Group. It would be a simple matter to land a solitary passenger on
one of the remote Manukura islets and sail away, leaving no one the
wiser. Compounding a felony meant nothing to these people where one of
their own race was concerned. It was bad, this lack of respect for the
law, due, no doubt, to slackness in administration. De Laage tossed
restlessly in his bed, wondering whether he himself were not in part
responsible for the native attitude toward authority. Had he been too
easy-going in his own administrative policies? That, certainly, had been
the case on Tahiti with respect to the enforcement of police and prison
regulations. Terangi's numerous escapes, apparently at will, offered
convincing proof of the fact. Justice should be well tempered with
firmness in dealing with the inhabitants of all these islands. They were
only too ready to take advantage of what they considered weakness on the
part of the authorities.

De Laage consulted his watch by the light of his flash lamp. It was past
one o'clock. He rose, dressed, stepped out on the verandah, and then
proceeded along the path that led by the outer beach, away from the
village. It was a beautiful night, cool and cloudless. He hoped that a
three-mile walk to the eastern end of the islet and back along the
lagoon beach would ensure a sound sleep upon his return.

The path was a lonely one; there was not a house of any sort along the
outer beach, from one end of the islet to the other, but on so small a
place there were trails everywhere, and this one was used by the men
when fishing along the reefs, and often by the women when going to wash
clothes after a rainfall, in the pools of fresh water among the rocks.
The moon was well down toward the horizon, and de Laage was conscious of
a feeling of solemn pleasure as he watched the silvery light flashing
along the concave mirrors of the combers as they rose to crash down on
the reef. There was a certain beauty in a low-island land and seascape
on such a night: that he admitted; but there had been opportunity in his
eighteen years of atoll service to enjoy it well past the point of
weariness. How many times had he taken this same walk on just such
nights? Not often, in late years; that was true. In fact, considering
the matter, he could not remember having left the grounds of the
Residency, after dinner, during the past year and more.

In half an hour he had almost reached the end of the islet. Crossing
over to the lagoon side, he seated himself on the beach to watch the
setting moon, and remained there for some time, enjoying a vacancy of
mind refreshing and soothing after his troubled reflections of the hour
before. Turning his head presently for an idle glance across the islet,
he observed that someone was approaching from the direction of the
village. It was a lad who moved at the quick, shuffling trot of the
heavily burdened, and who carried a pole over his shoulder with a
five-gallon kerosene tin hanging at either end. The Administrator
straightened his back and turned to regard the intruder with an intent
stare. The policeman in him was suddenly very wide-awake. What could
this young fellow be doing at such an hour? What was he carrying in
those tins? Water, of course; they were used for nothing else, but who
could want water carried here?

The lad passed in the moonlight without perceiving the watcher, and
disappeared in the shadows of a thicket farther along the beach. De
Laage arose and followed him.

He came upon him as he was setting down his burden alongside a large
sailing canoe, concealed among the trees at the water's edge. Suddenly
aware that he was not alone, the boy gave a violent start and seemed
half-minded to make a run for it. His expression of terror further
aroused the Administrator's suspicions. He glanced at his face, revealed
in the moonlight, and recognized him at once. It was Mako, the young son
of Tavi, who had for some time been acting as the sailor and deck hand
on Father Paul's cutter.

"What are you doing here?" the Administrator asked. The boy made no
reply. De Laage bent forward to look into the canoe. It had been packed
with supplies of various kinds: axes, fishing spears, cooking utensils,
bedding, with boxes and bundles carefully stowed away in all the
available space. De Laage struck a match to examine the contents of the
canoe more carefully. It contained a surprising assortment of things. He
turned brusquely to the boy and repeated: "What are you doing here?"

Still there was no reply.

"Can't you speak? Tell me where you are going."

Mako hesitated and finally said, without raising his eyes: "To Motu
Atea, monsieur."

The Administrator stared down at him. The copra cutting on Motu Atea had
been finished well before the _Katopua's_ arrival and the people had
returned home. Why should this boy be preparing to go there at such an
hour and with such a cargo?

"To Motu Atea? For what purpose?... Why are you going there?"

Mako made no reply, but continued to stand with his head down, staring
at the ground between his feet. Impatient at his stubborn and nervous
silence, de Laage ordered harshly: "Come with me."

He went along the path at a rapid walk, the boy following. It never so
much as occurred to de Laage that he might run away, nor, in his terror
and anguish of mind, did the thought occur to Mako. His awe of the
Administrator was far too great to permit the slightest disobedience of
his orders.

De Laage's mind was busy as he walked. A strange business, this. What
the devil could the boy be up to? The chief himself had told him that
the last of the copra makers had returned from Motu Atea the week
before. Why then should this boy be going there? He was lying,
evidently; but for what purpose? What reason could he have.... All at
once a stupefying thought crossed his mind. Terangi! By heavens, could
it be possible? Was the fellow on Manukura, concealed on one of the
islets? Why not? His wife was here, all his people were here. Who else
would be so glad to shield him? There had been ample time, after these
many weeks, for him to reach home. His complete disappearance from
Tahiti could only mean that he had gotten clean away. De Laage felt a
shiver passing down his spine. Good God! If this were true, they might
make him the laughingstock of the colony: an administrator ignorant of
the fact that a notorious criminal was hidden at the very seat of
government, on an island whose land area was scarcely greater than a
large farm!

The village was profoundly silent as they passed its scattered houses.
Here and there a dim light showed through the chinks in the thatch, from
a kerosene lamp turned low, left burning as a protection against evil
spirits, but the inmates were sleeping. Not so, however, in the house of
Mama Rua. Marama was crouched near the door, left slightly ajar,
watching for Mako's return. Hearing footsteps crunching over the coral
gravel, she opened the door an inch or two wider. The forms of the two
passers-by were indistinct in the starlight, but as they passed the
house she had them in clear relief for an instant against the surface of
the lagoon. With her keen sight she recognized them at once. She gave a
little gasp of horror as she closed the door softly.

"Mama!" she exclaimed in a whisper. "_Au_, Mama!"

The old woman crept forward in the darkness to her daughter-in-law's
side. "What is it? Who passed? There were two."

"Monsieur de Laage! He has Mako with him!"

"_aha?_"

"It was Monsieur de Laage! I couldn't mistake him!" She sprang to her
feet. "I must tell Father!"

Mama Rua gave an exclamation of anguish, pressing her hands tightly
together. "Wait, child! He may know nothing. Follow them! Keep well
hidden! Hide by a window and listen. Make haste! I will tell your
father."

Next moment Marama was gone, running lightly in the shadows alongside
the road.

Followed by the terrified Mako, de Laage reached his house, stepped
softly on to the verandah, entered his office, and lit the lamp. He
placed a chair for the boy so that the light would shine full in his
face and motioned him to sit there. He seated himself in his swivel
chair, with his back to the lamp. The lad gave him a brief
terror-stricken glance and then sat with his hands tightly clasped,
gazing at the floor.

"Your name is Mako, eh?" the Administrator began, in the dry,
inquisitorial manner he knew so well how to assume. "Now, Mako, I want
the truth. Where were you going with that canoe?"

The lad made no answer.

"You shall not leave this room until you have told me, understand that,"
de Laage went on, "and it will be the worse for you if you keep me
waiting long. Answer me! For whom were those things in the canoe? Who
told you to put them there?"

An agonized silence was the only reply. As the Administrator sprang to
his feet, feigning more anger than he felt, the door opened and Madame
de Laage appeared, in her kimono.

"What is it, Eugene?" she asked.

He explained briefly, and then said: "Since I have had the misfortune to
waken you, perhaps you will stop for a minute and help me. It may be
that this boy understands less French than I supposed. Be good enough to
ask him in his own language where he was going. Tell him there is no
good in his lying. I will have the truth!"

Madame de Laage turned to Mako, smiled encouragingly, and questioned him
in a gentle voice. He tried to meet her eyes, but could not, and
answered briefly, in a whisper almost inaudible.

"He says he was going to Motu Atea."

"Nonsense! So he told me. I'll have no more of this! He understands
French as well as yourself. _Tiens!_ I'll soon have the truth!"

Swinging about in his chair once more, he faced the boy sternly.

"Look me in the face, Mako! Look up, I say!" Slowly the lad raised his
head. "For whom were those things in the canoe?"

Mako opened his mouth, but no words came. He tried to lower his gaze,
but the Administrator's eyes held his in a kind of hypnotic spell. The
expression on his face, revealed in the full light of the lamp, was
pitiful.

"Shall I answer for you?" de Laage asked, sternly. "Shall I tell you for
whom they were designed?" He paused, subjecting the lad's face to a
merciless scrutiny. "For Terangi! He is here! You know it!"

The expression on Mako's face was enough. If the boy had written and
signed a statement of all he knew, of all he had hoped to accomplish,
the confession could scarcely have been more complete.

Marama, who had been crouching outside the open window, sank down with
her head in her arms at the mention of Terangi's name. In an instant she
had overcome her agitation. She stole down the verandah steps, passed
through the gate like a shadow, and ran toward her father's house at a
pace few of the young men of the village could have equaled.

The Administrator glanced at his wife. His face was impassive; what went
on in his mind was another matter.

"When did he come?" he then asked. "Answer me, boy! How did he get
here?"

Mako was at the end of his self-possession. He mumbled in a voice,
terrified and indistinct: "On the cutter."

"The cutter? Whose cutter? Germaine, what cutters have come in since I
have been away?"

"Only Father Paul's."

De Laage gave a gasp of dismay. He turned sharply to Mako, taking the
boy's chin in his hand, raising his head until he could look him full in
the face. "Mako, do you mean to tell me that Terangi came here with you,
on Father Paul's cutter?"

The lad made no reply.




                              Chapter VII


Mako sat huddled in his chair, a look of unutterable misery and
desolation upon his face. Madame de Laage herself was profoundly
distressed. You can imagine her astonishment upon learning what the boy
had been forced to betray. As she glanced at her husband, she was
conscious of a feeling almost of hatred for him, and of loathing for
herself as his instrument. With her warm heart and quick intelligence,
she was able to visualize the misery that would be brought into the
lives of Terangi's family--the grief that everyone on the island would
feel at his recapture. And yet, what else could the Administrator have
done? He could hardly be expected to close his eyes and allow an escaped
prisoner to go his ways.

De Laage halted and turned to Mako.

"You will remain in this room," he said, "until you have my permission
to leave it."

The lad made no reply. "You understand, Mako?" Madame de Laage asked,
gently, addressing him in the native tongue. There was a look of piteous
appeal in his eyes as he glanced up at her. He gave a barely perceptible
nod and again stared at the floor.

"Madame de Laage will stay here with you," the Administrator added.
"Understand! You will be severely punished if you disobey me!"

Mako's heart was so numbed with despair at what he had been forced to
disclose that the warning was quite needless. There could be no saving
Terangi now: that he knew. The harm was done.

De Laage called his wife outside the room for a moment, shutting the
door behind them.

"I'm sorry, my dear," he said. "There is no help for it. I must ask you
to remain with him. If the boy should bolt, let me know at once. You can
send Arai. But no... that won't do. You will have to come yourself. I
shall be at Father Paul's."

"You need have no fears," Madame de Laage replied. "I know Mako. He will
do as I say."

The Administrator was a man of unalterable habit, scrupulously exact in
performing all the little routine duties of life. He rose, customarily,
at precisely six o'clock, arrayed himself in an old-fashioned bathing
costume of blue flannel, put on his dressing gown and slippers, and
stepped out to the lagoon beach. There he would swim clumsily for
fifteen minutes, a few yards offshore, and then return to his bathroom,
a small detached building containing a fresh-water shower, connected
with the dwelling house by a covered passageway. Fresh water is precious
on all the low islands and limited to what rain water is caught from
those houses provided with tin roofs. On Manukura there were three
cement reservoirs: a large communal one which received the water from
the roof of the church, another at the chief's house, and a third, a
one-thousand-gallon tank, at the Residency, supposed to be for the use
of the Administrator's family alone. But he was as unselfish as he was
just and precise in the performance of his duties, and in times of
scarcity the water in his reservoir was for the use of all the village,
in carefully rationed quantities, according to the size of the household
needing it. His own received no more than the others. Even in times of
plenty, when the tank was full to overflowing, he limited himself to two
gallons for his morning shower, drawing off in a pitcher this amount,
which he placed in the container overhead. But first he would shave,
using a pint of water for this purpose. He had a razor case, lined with
black velvet, in which were seven razors, one for each day of the week.
He had, I am sure, a secret contempt for any man who used a safety
razor, and took pride in the fact that he shaved without a mirror. His
hand was as steady as a rock, and I must do him the credit to say that
no barber could have made a better job of it. This task finished, he
would have his shower and dress for the new day in white ducks, well
starched and crackling. One of the trials of Madame de Laage's life,
upon their first coming to Manukura, had been to find a native woman who
could launder her husband's clothes to his satisfaction, and a maid who
would lay out a fresh suit in the evening, precisely where and in the
manner in which he wished to find it.

These matters are by the way. I speak of them to give you a side view of
his character. Little things were as important to him as large ones.
Don't mistake me; I am not poking fun at him. I had great respect for
him, and I will venture to say that, during the war, France had no more
dependable and fearless battalion commander throughout her armies. He
brought the same trustworthy, unimaginative qualities with him as
Administrator of the Tuamotu. Had it not been so, he would, certainly,
on this particular morning, have proceeded at once with his
investigation, without making his usual careful toilet for the coming
day.

He may, in fact, have omitted the sea bath, but that was the only
omission. Having left Madame de Laage, he shaved, had his two-gallon
shower, and dressed carefully and methodically in the fresh suit Arai
had laid out for him the previous evening. It was still dark. He put on
his sun helmet and was about to take his electric flash lamp, but
thought better of this. The village was asleep, and he wished no one to
be aroused and curious as to his movements until he had seen Father
Paul. It did not occur to him, apparently, that there could be any
immediate danger of Terangi's escape.

He was unspeakably shocked at what he had learned from Mako. That the
priest should have brought Terangi, a fugitive from justice, to Manukura
without immediately reporting the man's presence was a breach of faith
inconceivable to the Administrator. In fact, he could scarcely believe
it possible. Might not Mako, in his confusion, have assented to
something that had no basis in truth? He had put the direct question to
him. In his terror, the boy might have replied without knowing what it
was he had affirmed, and, growing more confused, have been unable to
correct the mistake. The Administrator recalled that, some years before,
three Manukura boys had been caught making off with a small cutter
belonging to one of their fathers. Their purpose had been to sail to
Tahiti, to see the sights of the great capital. They had heard of motor
cars, of motion pictures, of many marvelous things unknown on Manukura.
They had wanted to see them for themselves, and were not in the least
daunted by the thought of a 600-mile voyage. Mako had had a wide
experience in sailing from island to island with Father Paul. He was a
bold lad and might easily be the ringleader in another madcap boyish
venture. The large canoe was provisioned as though for just such a
voyage.

De Laage halted. It might be that. It might well be that. He was
uncertain whether to go on or to turn back for a further questioning of
Mako. Then he recalled the boy's manner, the anguish and terror in his
face. No, it _must_ be that Terangi was here. And had not Father Paul
avoided him ever since his return? For the first time in years he had
not come to dinner at the Residency.

The Administrator proceeded toward the church, crossing the depression
in the land that almost divided the islet on the footbridge made of two
squared coconut logs laid side by side. For all his disturbed mind, he
had time for a moment of annoyance that Fakahau had not yet replaced the
broken handrail. Before his departure from Manukura, months before, he
had asked that this be done. He made a mental note of the matter. That
handrail was to be made usable before another day had passed.

Upon reaching Father Paul's little house, he hesitated for a moment, and
then knocked firmly. The priest, like most elderly men, slept lightly,
and was aroused at once. He got into his threadbare old _soutane_, put
on his straw slippers, lighted his lamp, and came to the door, searching
his mind as he did so as to which member of his flock might have need of
his services at such an hour. He gave no outward indication of surprise
upon finding the Administrator standing on the doorstep. As he entered,
de Laage apologized for the untimely visit. His manner was
administratorial--polite, but coldly formal and punctilious; it was not
his customary manner in speaking with Father Paul. The priest brought
forward his only easy chair and then seated himself on a wooden stool by
his writing table. The little reception room was austere in its
simplicity. The walls were whitewashed and bare save for a crucifix and
a framed lithograph of Leo XIII which hung over the table. The only
furniture consisted of the easy chair, the wooden stool, a bench for
visitors, and the table holding an unshaded kerosene lamp.

A few perfunctory remarks passed, followed by a moment of awkward
silence. De Laage cleared his throat.

"I must explain to you the purpose of this call," he began. "Late this
evening, being unable to sleep, I walked to the far end of the _motu_.
While there I chanced to see the boy, Mako, pass with two large tins of
water on a carrying pole. I was curious as to what he could be doing at
that hour and followed him. I found him placing the tins in the large
sailing canoe belonging to the chief. The canoe was loaded with supplies
and provisions of all sorts. The boy was greatly confused at my
questions and made replies which I knew were false. I took him with me
to the Residency and questioned him further. The confession he as good
as made to me is incredible."

He paused. Father Paul sat with one sturdy brown hand resting lightly on
the table, his childlike blue eyes regarding de Laage steadily. The
Administrator's gaze was fixed upon the portrait of Pope Leo.

"And the confession was...?" the priest asked.

"That the escaped prisoner, Terangi, had been brought to this island in
your cutter."

"It is true," the priest remarked, quietly.

"You are telling me that the prisoner is now at liberty, on Manukura?
May I ask why I have not been informed?"

"Monsieur l'Administrateur, a priest of the Church has duties to perform
that differ from your own. Such a duty is concerned here."

De Laage's pale face flushed and he stared at the priest incredulously.

"He may, then, consider it his duty to harbor a fugitive, a murderer, no
less; to set at defiance the just laws of the State and those who are
sworn to enforce them?"

"He may, under certain circumstances."

"And what are those circumstances?"

There was a note of appeal in the father's voice as he replied.
"Monsieur de Laage, I have known Terangi his life long. I have known his
parents and their parents before them. In all its branches, there is no
family throughout the Archipelago more worthy of respect. This son,
Terangi, is a deeply wronged young man. How he left Tahiti I do not
know. I picked him up at sea, in my cutter, thirty miles from Manukura.
He was clinging to a capsized canoe; the outrigger was gone. He had been
clinging there for two days and a night. He had made a voyage of nearly
six hundred miles in that small canoe that he might see his mother, his
wife, and his little daughter. Those are the circumstances. Would you
have had me give him up?"

"This deeply wronged young man, as you call him, has only himself to
blame for the severity of his punishment. I am your fellow countryman;
your Administrator, as you are my priest. I am your parishioner no less
than he. What of the wrong you do to me?"

"The wrong...?"

"I am here to enforce the law; and yet you would keep this fugitive in
hiding, at the very seat of the administration. If he succeeds in
escaping elsewhere, I shall be held responsible, and justly so. It will
be a blot upon my record that I shall never be able to remove. It may,
quite possibly, mean the end of my career."

"I had not thought of that, my friend," the priest replied gently, after
a moment of silence. "I am much to blame, and I ask your forgiveness.
And yet, even if I had remembered, I could have done no other than I
have done. But there shall be no blot upon your record. If a wrong has
been committed, the fault is mine, and I shall take it upon myself."

The Administrator rose abruptly. "Father Paul, I will ask you one
question," he replied, coldly. "Where is Terangi Matokia?"

"I do not know."

"You know that he is on Manukura?"

"I know that he _was_ here; that I brought him here. But where he is now
I do not know."

The Administrator took up his helmet, and, with a slight formal bow to
the priest, turned and left the room.

****

You will understand that neither Fakahau nor Tavi had been idle during
this time. At the moment when the Administrator passed in the street,
with Mako, the chief and his brother had been upon the point of setting
out for the end of the _motu_. The chief was waiting in the darkness at
his house, with Tita asleep in his arms, when Marama came back from the
Residency. They set out at once for the end of the _motu_ where the
canoe was moored. They reached the place in a quarter of an hour and by
that time Fakahau had told his daughter what she must do. Their
farewells were of the briefest. Marama clung to her father for a moment,
then took her place in the stern of the canoe. The sail was quickly
raised and made fast. Tita, awake now, puzzled to know what was
happening, took her place beside her mother. Noiselessly, Fakahau pushed
the canoe out into deep water, the light breeze caught the sail, and the
long slim craft glided rapidly away to the south'ard. The chief stood in
waist-deep water, looking after it until it vanished in the darkness.
Wading ashore, he struck into a dim path that led through the groves
inland, at some distance from the lagoon beach.

Dark as it was under the palms, he kept to the path by instinct, walking
swiftly. Far down the _motu_ he could see a light burning at the
Residency. As he approached the settlement, he saw a second light appear
in Father Paul's house and immediately guessed the reason for it. Mata,
his wife, was waiting for him, in a small thatched hut that stood behind
the chief's European dwelling. He entered by the doorway in the north
end and called softly. Mata crossed the room and took his arm. "They
have gone?" she asked quickly.

"Yes. The wind is at east, and light. There will be no danger of
capsizing. Marama can handle the canoe as well as a man. They will be on
Motu Tonga in less than an hour."

"And what then?" The chief could detect the note of intense anxiety in
his wife's voice. "The Administrator knows that Terangi is here! The
pass will be watched. Even though it were not, day will break before
they could reach it."

"There is only one thing that can be done, and that I have arranged.
Terangi and Marama will sink the canoe off the beach at Motu Tonga, in
such a place that none could find it. Their supplies they will bury in
the sand. The Administrator will search every _motu_ along the reef,
that is sure. And he will find no trace of them--nothing."

"But what of themselves?... _Au!_ I know! _Te Rua!_"

"They will hide there," said Fakahau. "He may search Motu Tonga, all the
_motu_, until he is weary. He will never find them. Later, we can decide
what is best to be done."

Mata seized her husband's arm. "Nothing could be better! He will believe
they have escaped; gone elsewhere."

"What else can he believe? We will wait and see what he will do then."

They broke off their whispered conference upon hearing a knocking at the
front door of their main house. Fakahau knew that knock, and the precise
frame of mind of the man who thus announced himself. Under ordinary
circumstances, he would immediately have put on his white trousers and
coat, but in this instance he wanted it to appear that he had not
recognized the summoner. He whispered to Mata: "Call out."

"_Ko vai tera?_" she demanded, shrilly, as though asking which of her
neighbors might be making so untimely a call. The only reply was a
repetition of the double knock, even louder than before.

Fakahau waited no longer. He went as he was, barefoot and dressed only
in his _pareu_. Mounting the steps to his back verandah, he went along
the hallway that divided the main dwelling house and lighted the lamp
that hung from the ceiling in his front parlor.

Fakahau's European house was the pride of Manukura. Although he and his
family spent little time in it, much preferring the cool native dwelling
in the back yard, he felt that it was his duty as chief, for the honor
and dignity of his people, to have exotic possessions worthy of his
estate. His _salon_ was a spacious, high-ceilinged room filled with
ornate furniture: chairs and sofas upholstered in red and green plush,
and tables with the tortured legs common in France a generation and more
ago. Cheval mirrors stood in the corners, and others, gilt-framed and
quite as large, hung from the walls. There were, also, oil paintings
representing rustic scenes in Europe: stags that had proudly halted to
pose for the artist against snowy backgrounds, French youths and maidens
of the sixties and seventies, boating upon lakes or sitting pensively in
gardens. I believe that Captain Nagle had bought the lot of them for
Fakahau at an auction sale in Tahiti. Opposite the _salon_ was a
sumptuous state bedroom that had never been occupied by anyone save the
Bishop on his single visit to Manukura. The bed was eight feet long and
six wide and held a kapok mattress at least three feet thick. Have you
ever slept on--or, better, in--an untufted kapok mattress? Probably not.
There is nothing hotter in this world, nor, probably, in the next. The
hopeful guest is rather pleased by the feel of it at first, as it
snuggles itself around his weary body; then he sinks deeper and deeper
and the sweat begins to pour out. Within half an hour, granted that he
has been able to endure it for so long, he finds himself lying in a deep
puddle of his own perspiration, for kapok is wonderfully water-tight;
and once the "give" has been taken up, there is nothing harder to lie
upon. It is like being set in a bed of gradually solidifying cement. I
can imagine what a glorious night the Bishop must have had. I was here
at the time of his visit, and I recall that, the following day, he went
through his round of duties and sat through the elaborate feast prepared
for him with a decidedly glassy look in his eyes.

Forgive the digression. I can't help smiling, inwardly, when I think of
Fakahau's state bedroom. But when I think of him and Mata, and that I
shall never see them again, the smile vanishes. Two more admirable
persons never lived.

Fakahau, having lighted the lamp, lost no time in going to the door. He
wished, by his manner, to express surprise upon seeing who his visitor
was, but this was lost on de Laage, who strode into the hallway and then
halted, as in duty bound, until the chief should show him into the
_salon_.

During the brief walk to the chief's house, there had been time to put a
stern check upon his emotions. He was appalled, no less, at what he
considered Father Paul's disloyalty, so deeply disturbed and angry that
he felt it necessary to close the interview at once. He might have said
something regrettable, beneath the dignity of an administrator to give
voice to; and however unworthy the priest, his position must be
respected. There was now no doubt in de Laage's mind that all Manukura,
save only himself and his wife, had known of Terangi's return. He
believed that Captain Nagle himself must have known as he sat at his
table at dinner, the evening before. If Father Paul could shield this
escaped criminal it could hardly be expected that Nagle would have a
more scrupulous standard of honor. As for Fakahau, the man's
father-in-law, it would be futile to ask him where Terangi was hidden.
It was to be assumed that he knew. The line of action to be taken was
clear-cut. By the time he had reached the chief's door, he knew what
this should be.

Fakahau was a giant in stature, six feet four and a half, with strength
in proportion to his size. De Laage was a tall man, but he looked like a
stripling beside the chief. Secretly he resented this contrast so
unfavorable to the representative of France. He would have much
preferred a smaller man for chief, one with less native dignity; but he
had been compelled to resign himself to the fact that Manukura would
have no other.

"Be seated, please," he said.

Fakahau did so, apologizing at the same time for his waistcloth. He
spoke excellent French, having been reared in the household of a former
administrator who, upon discovering his intelligence, took great pains
to teach him. Polynesians have a language of courtesy equal to our own,
and the chief was able to translate the forms of it with an ease that
had always surprised de Laage. At this moment, it seemed the very
language of subtle dissimulation. His heart was filled with anger, and
it shocked him that a man should be able to hide so well his true
thoughts and feelings. He listened coldly as Fakahau bridged the
awkwardness of the moment. The first light of dawn was beginning to
filter through the groves outside, although it was not yet strong enough
to dim the light of the lamp. De Laage drew out his watch, consulted it,
and held it in his hand as he spoke.

"I wish you to assemble all the people, excepting the small children, by
the _himin_ house within half an hour's time," he said. "Every man and
woman, the young people as well. No one is to be excused. You will also
have all the canoes collected and drawn up on the beach near by. Dress
and attend to this matter immediately. When you have done so, I will
inform you and the others of my reason for wishing it."

He then rose and, with a slight cold nod to the chief, walked out of the
room.




                              Chapter VIII


The village was waking as de Laage left the chief's house. He walked to
the beach and looked out over the lagoon. It lay empty to the gaze as
far as he could see, placid and shimmering in the pale light of early
morning. If Terangi was hidden on the village islet, de Laage was
determined that he should not leave it unseen. He tore a leaf from his
pocketbook and wrote a note to his wife, telling her of what he had
arranged and asking her to send his binoculars. He sent the note by a
lad who had just appeared from a near-by house, and walked slowly up and
down the beach until the boy returned.

Meanwhile, Fakahau had promptly carried out the Administrator's orders.
Messengers had been sent in both directions, and within a quarter of an
hour all the settlement was astir. Until this morning, you will
understand, Terangi's presence on the island was known to none of the
natives outside his own family. By the time the people had assembled at
the _himin_ house, everyone knew it--that is, all of the adults. There
was no longer the possibility of secrecy, nor the need for it. Realizing
this, Fakahau had seen to it that the news should be spread, not only
that Terangi had come home, but that he was hidden, with his wife and
daughter, in the cave they all knew on Motu Tonga. The Polynesian method
of disseminating news is as swift as it can be secretive when there is
need for secrecy. For all my years in the Archipelago, I do not yet know
just how they manage this sort of thing. Little is said, but by slight
gestures, glances, the intonation of the voice as they make elliptical
comments to one another, everything is told. The chief well knew the
loyalty of his people. There was no danger that any of them would search
with the intent of discovering Terangi's hiding place.

All the canoes were being assembled; young men and boys were paddling
them in from both sides to the beach near the _himin_ house where they
were drawn up in a long line, around fifty in all, taking large and
small together. There were a dozen large sailing canoes, and two reef
boats, each capable of holding a dozen men, which were used for the
transport of copra from the various islets. De Laage paced the beach,
watching over this carrying out of his orders, but speaking to no one.
The chief, now dressed in an immaculate suit of white duck, wearing the
sash of his office and with a broad-brimmed pandanus hat on his head,
was among the men, superintending the alignment of the canoes which were
drawn up for inspection. In the background, among the groves, the women
and children and older people were gathered. You can imagine the
astonishment felt by all at the news that had passed so swiftly amongst
them, but had you seen their faces you would not have guessed at the
emotion they so quietly concealed. In so far as any outward indication
was concerned, they might have assembled there before going to church
for one of their customary services. Only the children were in a state
of excitement. They realized that something was up, but didn't, of
course, know what it was.

Father Paul was present, but the Administrator gave no sign of having
noticed him. I should like to have known what his thoughts were at that
moment. Close as my contact with him was, I was never able to get upon
terms even approaching intimacy with him. I suppose that he felt as
warmly toward Father Paul as he could feel toward any man, yet I doubt
whether the father knew him much better than I. He was not a man of
delicate perceptions, but I sometimes felt, as I did on this occasion,
that he was conscious of a vague irritation at his lack of rapport with
the people he governed. He didn't in the least understand them. He may
have admitted this to himself, sometimes, in the innermost secrecy of
thought.

When all the canoes had been brought in, Fakahau reported to de Laage,
who walked down the line, counting them and carefully scrutinizing each
one. The large sailing canoe belonging to the chief was missing, of
course. He remarked it, but said nothing.

The _himin_ house is a place of public meeting in Polynesia. On
Manukura it was a pretty structure rounded at the ends and open at the
sides; the roof of pandanus-leaf thatch was supported on pillars of
_tohonu_ wood. It was fifty feet long by twenty-five broad and the floor
of coral sand was covered with mats. All the grown-ups now assembled
there, and de Laage mounted the small platform, the chief beside him to
act as interpreter. I was present that morning, not merely as an
onlooker but as an unwilling participant in what followed. I was
completely in the dark as to the purpose of this early gathering.
Naturally, the natives had not informed me of the news the chief had
passed on to them, and although de Laage had greeted me upon my arrival,
he had not explained why he wanted me there. He merely asked me to sit
with him and the chief on the platform. Captain Nagle alone was not
present. De Laage was not devoid of tact, and he well knew how Nagle
felt toward Terangi, who stood almost in the relationship of a son to
him. The captain may have known, by this time, what was afoot, but
throughout the whole of this day he remained aboard his schooner.

I was glad to accept de Laage's invitation, for a panorama of Manukura
faces always interested me. I liked to let my glance wander from one to
another, comparing them and the gathering as a whole with similar
assemblies I had seen on other islands of the Group. There are, often,
striking contrasts between the people of one island and those of
another, so marked, even in these days, that one is led to believe that
they are of different racial stock. That is the opinion of many
ethnologists with respect to Polynesians in general. They recognize
among the different groups at least four divergent racial types. There
is no reason why this should not be so. These islands were peopled by
successive waves of migrants from the West. When one remembers their
ancient home, which was, almost certainly, India, and the many
archipelagos that must have been halting places on their eastward
migrations, the mixture of bloods is easily accounted for.

Whenever de Laage addressed the village as a whole, he spoke to them
directly, as though assuming that they understood French. Fakahau would
stand at his side, a little behind him. When a perceptible halt was
made, the chief would know that he was expected to translate what had
just been said. De Laage's face was stern and his manner impressive. He
spoke briefly, informing the gathering that the escaped prisoner,
Terangi, was somewhere hidden on Manukura. He did not accuse the people
of knowing it, or assume by his manner that they must know of it. He
spoke of Terangi's stubborn intractability as a prisoner, of his many
escapes, made possible, he said, by the leniency toward him of the
authorities on Tahiti. He had grossly abused their kindness. His
original sentence was six months. Had he quietly submitted to it, he
would have been free long since. By his willful foolishness he had
increased this sentence by many years. At his last escape he had killed
a prison guard. This fugitive the government was determined to
recapture; if necessary they would dispatch the gunboat, stationed at
Papeete, to apprehend him. Whatever the attitude of Manukura might be
toward him, it was the solemn duty of every man and woman to assist
their Administrator in his recapture. A search of the atoll was now to
be made, and he expected them to fulfill that duty.

The people listened in deepest silence, and when de Laage had finished,
not a question was asked, not a comment made. I observed Tavi, who sat
directly below the platform, his hands clasped over his huge solid
belly; he was listening with the placid attention he might have given to
one of Father Paul's sermons. The others were as quietly attentive. De
Laage then dismissed them, to await his orders outside. It was then that
he asked my assistance in making the search. He himself would lead the
party to search the village islet. If Terangi were not found here, he
would proceed along the northern reefs to Motu Atea. He asked me to take
charge of a second party to go along the opposite side of the atoll, by
way of Motu Tonga. He regretted having to commandeer my services, but
there was no one else he could trust, and two search parties were
essential if Terangi was to be caught.

Never have I had such an unpleasant task. It was outside my province as
a medical officer, and my sympathies were all with Terangi. But I could
not refuse, although, technically, I would have been justified in doing
so. The Administrator was in a difficult situation. The search had to be
made, and no native could be put in charge of either party. The chief
was to remain behind, in the settlement.

There were twenty-five in my party, men and youths together. We set out
for Motu Tonga in the two reef boats. Each rowed six oars, but there was
a good breeze and we proceeded under sail. Tavi was with me and his
son-in-law, Farani, a lad of twenty. After five years on Manukura I knew
everyone, of course. I was "_Taot_"--Doctor--to all of them, and they
had come to accept me without reserve. It went sorely against the grain
with me to be sent on such an expedition as this. I well knew how they
loathed it. Nevertheless, I was bound that our work should be done
thoroughly.

There was a charming cove at the western end of Motu Tonga, on the
lagoon side. It was the customary landing place. We reached it in an
hour and a half. I smile as I look back to that morning and see myself
there with my men gathered around me. Ceremonial plays a great part in
native life, and a little speech-making is the preliminary to all
communal activity. I was rather pleased with myself at the forthright,
straight-from-the-shoulder manner in which I addressed my men. I told
them that Terangi was certain to be caught. There was no escaping the
long arm of the law. Whatever we, as individuals, might think of the
injustice of his imprisonment, we should only harm him by the attempt to
shield him. Ours was an unpleasant task, but, as the Administrator had
said, if we failed to perform it, the Governor of Tahiti would order the
man-of-war stationed there to come to Manukura. Failure in our duty
would only postpone a little the evil day for Terangi, and so forth, and
so forth. I must have talked for a good five minutes. The Administrator
himself would have highly approved of this Voice of Duty speaking
through the mouthpiece of his medical officer.

Then we got on with the duty itself. I extended my men in a single line,
stretching across the _motu_ from ocean to lagoon beach. I took my
position toward the centre and behind it, so that I could make sallies
to one side and the other, keeping my eye upon them all; and I had my
binoculars so that I could bring the more distant men directly before
me. I was surprised at the thoroughness with which they went about the
business; more particularly, at Tavi's hearty coperation. They really
did search, and carefully. They beat every small thicket; examined each
of the old _tou_ and _pukatea_ and _purau_ trees. These, with the
scattered coconut palms, were the most likely hiding places, and I saw
to it that they were well explored as we proceeded. Between, were clumps
of scrub, none of which were missed, but the islet, for the most part,
was free from thick undergrowth and you had clear views across the
four-hundred-yard extent from the inner to the outer beach. I flattered
myself that I was an efficient, painstaking leader of a search party.
Although I kept close watch, I saw no footprints in the sand, except
those I judged to be our own. I could not, of course, be everywhere at
once, but by the time we had reached the eastern end of Motu Tonga, I
was convinced that Terangi was not there.

I had left four boys to sail the reef boats to that end of the islet.
They were awaiting us, and we immediately set out, just inside the reef,
in the direction of Motu Atea. "Atea"--it is a name I love, meaning
"distant," "far-off," and well suited to the islet that enclosed the
extreme eastern end of Manukura lagoon. It lies, as I may have said,
twenty miles from the village islet, and is not visible from Motu Tonga.
Between the two islets is mile after mile of bare reef where the long
rollers of the Pacific batter themselves into foam and wind-driven
spray. There are many unforgettable sights to be seen in a world so rich
and varied as ours, but I know of none more memorable, and more
awe-inspiring, than the view, from a small boat or canoe, of the surf
piling over the reefs of a coral island. The best vantage point is from
within the lagoon, close to the reef. There is no long feathering of the
seas as they approach. On all low islands, the slope of the outer reef
is scarcely a slope at all; it descends with astonishing steepness into
the depths. The soundings only a short distance offshore are in hundreds
of fathoms, and a mile beyond, the lead must descend a thousand before
fetching bottom. For this reason the combers are almost upon you before
they break, and the thread of the reef, often no more than fifteen or
twenty yards across, seems no protection at all.

On the morning of our search, there was a surprisingly heavy surf along
the reef. I call it surprising, for there had been no wind to account
for it. The men in my boat were as glad as myself to have some topic of
conversation other than Terangi; we discussed the surf, trying to
account for the huge swell that had set in.

"It's not from the south'ard," Maunga said. "You can see that for
yourself, Doctor."

Old Kauka, who was sitting beside me at the tiller, nodded.

"_._ It'll be heavier than this along the northern reefs. That's where
it's coming from: northeast. There's been dirty weather off there."

Tavi fancied himself as a weather prophet, and I must do him the justice
to say that his predictions were usually accurate.

"Has been?" he replied. "My belief is that we have it to come. Shouldn't
wonder if we were held up two or three days on Motu Atea before we can
get back to the settlement. See how the wind's veering round. It's due
west, now. If it keeps on like this it'll kick up a heavy sea inside the
lagoon."

Tavi was right, although I had not before noticed the change in the
wind. It was blowing straight from the west, and we were running before
it briskly. Far ahead of us, inconceivably lonely against the vast
background of the sea, was a tiny _motu_ which the natives called
Frigate Bird Islet. At the rate we were going it didn't take us long to
come abreast. It was about three hundred yards long by one hundred
across. Two ancient coconut palms, a few scattered _miki-miki_ and
pandanus trees, and some clumps of low green bush made up the vegetation
of the islet. I loved this place. When I first came to Manukura, and it
seemed that I could never have enough of solitude, I used to go there,
alone, and stay for three or four days at a time. It lies sixteen miles
from the village, diagonally across the lagoon. I would cross in a small
sailing canoe with food and water on board, and a small tent to shelter
me from the midday sun. The heat was terrific from eleven until four,
but I put up with that for the sake of the early mornings and
evenings--above all, the nights.

I don't know whether you're a lover of poetry? I am; always have been.
During the war it was my unfailing consolation in a world gone mad save
for the poets. You may think it strange, but I love English poetry
better than our own. Ours has a subtlety, a perfection in the expression
of complicated shades of thought, which their poets are sometimes
foolish enough to try to imitate. Why should they try when they have
their own inimitable virtues? Beauty--the thing itself, gushed out of
the hearts of their best poets as limpid as spring water, and what is
poetry without it? The other virtues count for nothing. But what I was
about to say is that during the darkest period of the war--the early
spring of 1918--a young English lieutenant, badly wounded,--I had sawed
off both legs for him,--gave me a book of verse, recently published, by
a man named Hodgson, Ralph Hodgson. I was first struck by that; couldn't
imagine a fellow with such a name being anything but a grocer or a bus
driver. But it has no significance in this case. There was one poem that
particularly appealed to me. It was called "The Song of Honor," and it
ended with these lines:--

                I stood and stared; the sky was lit,
                The sky was stars all over it,
                I stood, I knew not why,
                Without a wish, without a will,
                I stood upon that silent hill
                And stared into the sky until
                My eyes were blind with stars, and still
                I stared into the sky.

So it was with me on my lonely nights on Frigate Bird Islet, except that
there was no hill to stand on. I lay on my back on that tiny island,
with all the Pacific around me and the whole vault of the heavens
arching over me, and stared myself half-blind with stars. I shouldn't
wonder if I've been a bit queer ever since my first experience there. No
doubt you have felt the impact in a different way during your African
service. It's not unpleasant--at least, I don't find it so. But it
is--what shall I say?--chastening.

I'm forgetting Terangi. We didn't find him on Frigate Bird Islet. From
any signs that appeared, man might never have set foot there since the
day of creation. What we did find were the tracks of a huge turtle which
had laid her eggs there not earlier than the night before. What a loss
was that! If there is anything Low Islanders love it is turtle steak. At
times when they were caught, on Manukura, all the village made holiday,
and nothing more was done until the successive turtle feasts were over.
These feasts are survivals from heathen times when turtle was the only
meat, except sea fowl, which Tuamotu folk had. My men forgot Terangi in
the keenness of their disappointment at arriving too late to capture
this one. However, they filled a five-gallon tin with the eggs, which we
carried with us.

We had another small islet to search and then nothing but five more
miles of surf-battered reef until we reached Motu Atea. With a fresh
following wind we made excellent time and landed at the southern end of
the large islet at half-past three in the afternoon. The Administrator
had instructed me to begin the search at this end. If his party did not
find Terangi on the village islet, they were to proceed directly to Motu
Atea and work from the northern end toward my own. There were no lands
along the entire stretch of the northern reef between the settlement and
Motu Atea.

We proceeded slowly, and the men showed the same surprising willingness
to search. I began to think that either the Administrator's speech or my
own, or both together, had taken effect, and that the men realized the
futility of any attempt on Terangi's part to escape. Presently we came
to a coral-cement storehouse used for tools and supplies of various
kinds for the needs of the community when making copra on this islet. On
the rafters were laid fish spears, spare outrigger booms and masts for
the sailing canoes, and there were cases of beef, balls of sinnet cord,
spools of line, blocks, sail twine, tar, paint, and the like. Manukura
folk had abundant supplies of this sort. Unlike many Polynesians, they
took great care of their possessions, particularly all the gear for
their canoes, which they kept in perfect order. Several hundred spare
copra bags were stacked in a corner. Having made certain that Terangi
was not concealed here, we proceeded northward and, two hours later, met
de Laage's party near the centre of the islet.

Terangi had not been found. De Laage walked aside with me while the
members of the two parties gathered on the beach, squatting on their
haunches, native fashion, to await further orders. I was sweaty and
bedraggled, but the Administrator was nearly as immaculate as he had
been early that morning. He never perspired, even on the hottest days. I
often wondered, in a manner half-envious, half-professional, if there
wasn't something amiss with his pores.

He was greatly upset, in his calm way, over our double failure, and
questioned me closely as to the method of procedure I had taken with my
party. He had confidence in me, that I knew; but feared that my men
might have found opportunities to skimp the search. I set his mind to
rest on that point. He too had been surprised at the apparent
willingness of the men to find Terangi if he was to be found.

"There is only one explanation," he said, with an air of finality. "They
know that he has escaped--left the island."

"You are convinced that he was not missed on the village islet?" I
asked.

"Wholly convinced," he replied. "Even the church was examined. This I
could not have done, had not the priest himself suggested it."

Never before had I heard him refer to Father Paul except by name. His
speaking of him as "the priest" showed me how deeply the father lay
under his displeasure.

"Not only is Terangi gone, but he has taken his wife and child with
him," he continued. "The large canoe belonging to the chief is missing.
They have gone, the three of them. More than likely he was close by when
I discovered the boy, Mako, putting supplies into the canoe. While I was
questioning the boy at the Residency, he must have gathered up wife and
child and sailed out of the pass in the darkness."

A stern reproach to himself, for not having foreseen and forestalled
this possibility, was implied in his manner.

"We must return to the settlement immediately," he said. "There is only
one thing to be done. I must commandeer the _Katopua_ and proceed with
the search, elsewhere."

"Where shall you go?" I asked.

"First, to Amanu. I can almost promise myself that he will be found
there. He would sail for the nearest island. With the threatening
weather now making up, he would not dare go elsewhere. He may be
compelled to remain at Amanu for several days before he can push on. In
any case, I shall seize him at one of four islands: Amanu, Hao, Aki Aki,
or Vahitahi."

I confess that I was no more eager than the men to return at once to the
village. We had had a hard day and very little to eat, and the thought
of paddling and rowing up the twenty-mile lagoon in the teeth of the
wind was anything but a pleasant one. It had veered round a bit more,
toward the southwest, but there was not enough of a slant to enable us
to use our sails. But the Administrator put aside the suggestions of
Tavi and Kauka that we should delay our departure a little. Nor would he
come with my party in one of the reef boats, much more comfortable to
travel in, in such a heavy sea as had now made up. He preferred to
remain with his own party.

As we set out, the sun was just setting in a weird-looking sky, overcast
with a dirty yellowish haze through which the last light of day shone
wanly. We made headway slowly. The sailing canoes, with their high
sides, are awkward to paddle, and we soon left them far behind. But when
we were no more than half an hour from Motu Atea, the wind chopped
around to full southwest. It was welcomed with joy by the weary men. We
made sail, thinking how lucky we were, but immediately we had, the wind
died away to the lightest of airs, not enough to give our heavily laden
boats steerageway. Down came the sails and out went the oars once more.
The men rowed in disgruntled silence, broken only by the solid thud of
the waves against our bow, each one like a brusque, powerful hand,
checking our little way as it passed. "_Ho_, lads! _Ho!_" said Tavi.
"Put your backs into it. It won't be for long."

"_ahahoia!_" one of the rowers exclaimed. I have always loved that
mouth-filling native expression, which means so many different things,
according to the inflection of the voice from the mouth that it filled.
It expresses astonishment, dismay, incredulity, anger, vexation--almost
any shade of emotion can be voiced with the one word. On this occasion
it meant: "It's all very well for you to say '_Ho_' you fat
storekeeper! Why don't you do a little rowing yourself? And what do you
mean, it won't be for long? Only until to-morrow morning!"

But Tavi had not gained his reputation as a weather prophet without
deserving it. Presently the wind sprang up again, from due east, this
time, and it blew more and more freshly. Tavi said nothing, but it
amused me to see the expression on his face. There was pride in it, and
supreme contempt for the _ahahoia_ exploder as he turned to me and
remarked: "It will come full circle, Doctor, before it's done, but we'll
be at the village long before that. I don't like the look of the sky,"
he added as he took the sheet.

Now we tore along at a splendid clip. The other reef boat was just
abreast of us and we made a race of it, the men shouting taunting
comments as one or the other gained a little advantage. And then came
the canoes that we had left so far behind, with their great wings
spread, their wakes creamy white, and their sharp bows sending the spray
high in air. We were doing a good seven knots, but the four of them
passed us, one after the other, as though we were standing still. In a
stiff breeze, a Tuamotu canoe will sail at from twelve to fifteen knots.
They made a splendid sight as they passed, men on the outrigger runways,
ready to shift at a second's notice to the hull side or the outrigger
side as the strong gusty wind heeled them down. Those at the steering
paddles leaned against their huge blades, but all had time to yell
derisively at us as they went seething by. Ten minutes later they were
lost to view in the gathering dusk.




                               Chapter IX


The northwest wind grew stronger during the night, making up in squalls
that drummed furiously on de Laage's tin roof. These were followed by
sudden calms, while sheet lightning played along the horizon and the
rising sea made itself heard along the reef. Dawn revealed low gray
clouds scudding above a leaden sea, and palm tops whipping and thrashing
to the gusts.

De Laage was up before his usual time. On the way to his bathroom he
stopped for a glance at the gauge on his water tank which he found had
been filled by the night's rains. Then he peered at the recording
barometer in its case. The glass stood a little low, yet at a level more
or less normal for this time of year. No doubt this was only another of
the northeasters the natives call _faarua_, which would blow itself out
in a day or two. The equinox was at hand; one always expected uncertain
weather at that time. When he had shaved and dressed, he joined his wife
in the dining room, where coffee was already on the table.

"You still mean to go, Eugene?" she asked anxiously.

"I must," he replied.

"But what of the weather? It looks threatening to me."

"Nothing but a northeaster. Has Arai taken my note to Captain Nagle?"

"Yes. He's coming."

A moment later they saw the captain turn in at the gate. Another heavy
squall drove down from the north. The captain halted on the verandah to
remove his oilskins and sou'wester hat. De Laage stepped to the door to
meet him.

"Come in, Captain. I'm sorry to trouble you so early. Germaine, pour the
Captain a cup of coffee."

"I can do with a second cup this morning. A wet night, eh? There'll be
water and to spare in the tanks this morning."

"How does it look to you?"

"The weather? Nothing to worry about. My glass is at twenty-nine
eighty."

The Administrator nodded with a chilly smile. "I'll come straight to the
point, Captain. I've asked you to come here to tell you that I must
commandeer your schooner in the name of the Government. I may need her
for a week, or a fortnight."

"This is a bit sudden," Nagle replied ruefully. "I'd expected to leave
for Fakahina to-morrow."

"The need is sudden," de Laage replied. "You shall lose nothing by this,
of course. When can you be ready to sail?"

"Where do you wish to go?"

"To Amanu, first, and I hope only there. You will guess my errand. I
must find Terangi. If he is not at Amanu we shall have to visit the
neighboring islands as well."

The captain was silent for a moment. "I'll take you, of course," he
said. "A man can't argue with the Government. We've nothing more to
unload. I can be ready when you like."

"Then I shall be aboard in half an hour's time, if that's not hurrying
you too much?"

Madame de Laage accompanied her husband to the dock. They found Tavi
awaiting them there, with a cage of laths in which squatted a full-grown
frigate bird. It was a strange and beautiful creature, smoothly
feathered in black, shaded with chocolate, with a long, hooked beak and
round unwinking eyes of velvet brown in which glittered pupils black as
ink. De Laage often took one of Tavi's tame frigate birds on his tours
of the Group, in case he wished to send a letter home. Tavi carried the
cage aboard while the Administrator turned to bid good-bye to his wife.
"I shall soon be back, my dear," he said in his matter-of-fact voice.
"Don't wait to see us out of the pass. There's another squall coming;
you've just time to reach the house."

A quarter of an hour later, with her engine going and her foresail set,
the _Katopua_ was headed for the passage, heeling a little to the gusts.

****

In a hidden nook among the piled-up bags of copra in his father's shed,
poor little Mako had passed a night of misery such as only adolescents
know. He had not tasted food since the day before and had slept only in
snatches broken by troubled dreams. He felt that he could never again
show his face in the village, and longed heartily to die. Twice during
the previous afternoon he had heard his mother calling him, but had made
no response. He had heard the sounds of the schooner's departure, and
peeping through a chink in the wall had seen her set sail. He knew that
Terangi had not been caught. Now, seeing that the schooner was gone,
with the Administrator on board, he felt a thrill of hope. All at once
he realized that he was starving, crawled out of his retreat, and stole
cautiously to his mother's outdoor kitchen, where he found a loaf of
bread and a leaf-wrapped package of baked fish. He was eating hastily
when his mother appeared from the store.

"_aha nei!_" she exclaimed. "Where have you been? Come to the store.
Fakahau is there in search of you. We told him you were not here."

"What does he want of me?"

"He did not say."

"Let him continue to think that I am not here."

"_Atira!_" Marunga exclaimed, impatiently. "Is he not the chief? Come!"

With sullen eyes and dragging feet, Mako followed his mother into the
store. His face burned with shame as the chief came forward and laid a
hand on his shoulder.

"The fault was not yours, Mako," he said. "That we know. Think of it no
more. You know where they are to be found. You shall go and tell them
that Monsieur has gone. He will be absent for a week, at least."

The boy swallowed hard and shook his head. "I cannot."

"You can and you shall," his father put in. "Fakahau is right; it is
fitting that you should be the messenger." He turned to his brother.
"But will they be in the cave?"

"Yes," said Fakahau. "I told Marama that they were not to stir out of it
until I sent them word. Now go, Mako. Off with you."

Much as he dreaded meeting Terangi, Mako knew that he would have to go.
He chose a light canoe and cut a green coconut frond, making it fast,
upright, for a sail. Scarcely anyone was aware of his departure, for the
stormy weather had driven most of the people indoors. Sitting at his
steering paddle, while the strong northeast wind sent the canoe tearing
through the chop, Mako half forgot his troubles in the exhilaration of
speed. In less than an hour he had drawn his light craft up on the beach
at Motu Tonga. Near the eastern end of the islet, an ancient storm had
torn great blocks of coral from the reef and piled them, wedged together
in disorder, over a part of the old reef in the lagoon. Beneath this
species of roof, weighing hundreds of tons, and now decomposing on the
surface and overgrown with coarse grass, lay the cave. Light and air
filtered down through chinks between the boulders, and the only entrance
was a hole a fathom deep in the lagoon. In heathen times, when Manukura
was raided by war canoes from neighboring islands, the women and
children had taken refuge in this place, which was called "Te Rua." Its
existence was a secret never disclosed to outsiders. Not even Father
Paul had been told of the cave.

Mako stripped off his shirt, tucked up his _pareu_, and pulled down the
diving goggles held on his head by an elastic band. He drew in a series
of long breaths as he waded out to where the coral dropped away
vertically in a submarine cliff. Then, half expelling the air from his
lungs, he plunged into the lagoon.

He perceived the entrance at once: a green cavern where a tall man might
have stood upright without touching the coral overhead. Propelling
himself with a diver's long, deliberate strokes, he entered the cavern
and rose into Te Rua's black, still pool.

"_Ko vai tera?_" Mako shivered at the sound of Terangi's voice.

"It is I, Mako," he replied.

"Come, we are here." A match flared, disclosing Terangi's erect figure,
and Marama and Tita seated on the ledge. Then the match winked out,
leaving the boy blind until his eyes grew accustomed to the faint light
in the cave. With a sinking heart, he swam to where Terangi stood and
pulled himself up on the clean dry sand of the ledge.

"Well?" said Terangi.

"Fakahau sent me. Monsieur has gone with the schooner to Amanu. He will
not return before a week is up. Terangi..."

Mako could say no more. He sat huddled with his hands around his knees.
He could not see the kindly expression in Terangi's eyes as he looked at
him.

"Mako, do you remember the cigarette you made for me four days ago, in
the cutter? It was my first smoke in many weeks. And before I swam
ashore you gave me your tin of tobacco with your papers and matches. I
have it here. Your hands are wet. Shall I make a cigarette for you?"

The boy was unable to speak for the joy and relief he felt. Marama
patted his shoulder. "We know, Mako," she said. "What could any boy have
done confronted by such a man? There is no anger in Terangi's heart, nor
in mine. Come, let us get out of here."

Six-year-old Tita was the first to go. She was like a fish in the water,
but her mother was close beside her as she dived. Terangi and Mako
followed, and a few moments later they were all on the beach. Terangi
glanced at the windward horizon and shrugged his shoulders as he glanced
at Marama. She proceeded to dig out their buried property from its
hiding place in the sand, while Mako helped Terangi to float the sunken
canoe. It was filled with lumps of coral and lay in two fathoms of
water. After they had dived repeatedly, each time removing a stone or
two, the canoe rose to the surface and they pulled it ashore. Presently
they had collected all their hidden possessions.

"You can go nowhere in such weather," Mako ventured to remark.

"We must be patient," Terangi replied. "The storm will blow itself out
in two or three days."

"Where shall you go then?" the lad asked, wishing next moment that he
had not spoken. Terangi gave Marama a warning glance.

"It will be best to hide on one of the islands to leeward until the
trade wind sets in strong and true. Then, perhaps, we shall sail to
Rakahanga or Manihiki, or some other British island far to the west."

"Aye, that will be best," Mako replied eagerly. "There, Terangi, they
could never find you!"

"Come, you two," said Marama. "We must hasten to make a hut. Mako, cut
the fronds. I will plait them while Terangi puts up the framework."

****

The weather grew steadily worse. The wind hauled slightly to the north,
blowing with ever-increasing force, and by late afternoon a heavy swell
began to roll in from the northeast. The squalls had ceased; the trees
swayed and bent to the wind which hummed through the streaming palms
with an ever-rising note, while a procession of dark ragged clouds
scudded by close overhead. Alone at the Residency, Madame de Laage had
made fast all the doors and windows save those on the south side. The
thought of her husband at sea worried her, and she admitted to herself
that she was equally worried because of Terangi and his family. They
had, undoubtedly, gotten through the pass during the dark hours of the
day before, and must have reached Amanu long since if they had gone that
way; but Madame de Laage was by no means so sure as her husband that
Amanu was their destination. Although she had said nothing to him about
it, she thought it more likely that Terangi would leave both Amanu and
Hao to leeward and make for more distant islands: Paraoa or Ahunui.
Paraoa, as she knew, was an uninhabited island belonging to the people
of Hao; it would afford an excellent temporary refuge, but if they had
gone that way the canoe would still be at sea. She shuddered at the
thought of a sailing canoe being abroad in such weather. They would be
lost if they capsized; Terangi and Marama alone could never right so
large a canoe.

For the tenth time that day she stepped out to the sheltered south
verandah to peer at the glass. Though it was not yet five o'clock, it
was already so dark that she was obliged to return for her flashlight.
She carefully studied the little wavering line on the coordinate paper.
Instead of the customary slight rise after four o'clock, the barometer
had continued to drop, and now stood at 29:50, the lowest she had ever
seen it on Manukura. She tapped the case slightly; the instrument
responded by dropping to 29:45.

The barometer at the Residency was the only one on the island. I myself
called to consult it at this time, and found Madame de Laage still
bending over the glass. Although far from easy in mind, I did my best to
reassure her, saying that while we were probably in for a gale, there
was no reason for believing that anything worse was on the way. There
would be time to think of that if the glass should drop below
twenty-nine. "You need have no fears for the _Katopua_," I added. "Long
before this time, Nagle will have her safe at anchor inside Amanu
lagoon."

Outwardly, Madame de Laage was calm enough, but I knew that she was
anything but reassured. She insisted on making me some tea, and while we
were drinking it, in the dining room, questioned me about hurricanes. I
told her what I had learned from my books on meteorology.

How these tropical revolving storms originate is still largely a matter
of conjecture, but the places of their origin are well known: the belts
of doldrums on either side of the Line. Hurricanes revolve
counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, clockwise in the Southern,
and it is believed, with some reason, that this is due to the trade
winds blowing in toward the Equator from northeast and southeast. In the
region of the Tuamotu, these storms nearly always come out of the north.
Some travel only a few miles in the course of a day; others move
southward at a speed the fastest ship could not equal. I discussed these
matters with Madame de Laage in a manner of scientific detachment, but I
refrained from mentioning one thing that was beginning to disquiet me:
the fact that a steadily increasing wind from one quarter, accompanied
by a dropping glass, indicates, in the case of a hurricane, that the
observer is squarely on its track.

At that time, however, I did not seriously believe that we were in
danger. I had seen other storms, as bad as this, blow themselves out
within thirty-six hours, with no greater damage than a few trees
uprooted and a cookhouse or two blown down. There were acres of tall old
coconut palms around the village which must have been planted fifty
years before: proof that hurricanes were by no means common here. To be
sure, they had swept other islands of the Group much more recently. I
had often heard the natives speak of the great storms of 1903 and 1906.
That of 1906 had all but destroyed Hikueru and its neighboring islands,
and had done great damage to the Society Group as well. But Manukura
seemed to be out of the zone of most of these storms. I reminded Madame
de Laage of the island's long immunity, and despite the low barometer,
she herself was not, I think, seriously worried. At the moment, she was
much more concerned about Mama Rua than about the weather. The day
before, when we were searching the island for Terangi, his mother had
taken to her bed, and when I saw her, not twelve hours later, I had no
doubt that she was dying. I made shift to take her pulse and found it
alarmingly weak. I should have been glad to give her a stimulant, but
refrained even from suggesting this. The people were willing to call
upon me at most times, but I well knew that, in this case, my services
were not wanted, least of all by the dying woman.

Upon leaving the Residency, I returned to Tavi's for supper; I had taken
my meals with his family ever since coming to Manukura. I found him
alone in the store.

"You have heard, Doctor?" he asked. "Mama Rua is going. Father Paul has
been sent for. She will not live through the night."

Tavi's wife, Marunga, came in at this moment. She had just returned from
Mama Rua's house and told us that, because of the storm, they had taken
the old woman to the chief's house; her own small dwelling was not felt
to be safe in such a wind. The rising storm, the expected death, and the
fact that Hitia, their married daughter, was nearly at the point of
confinement, made Marunga more than usually garrulous. Hitia had had
certain warnings an hour or two earlier. This was her first baby; she
was a little frightened, and believed the pains signalized the child's
immediate birth. Under these conditions, Tavi and I made a hasty meal. I
examined the girl, who lived with her parents, and made sure that there
was no immediate need for me. I had her mother put some kettles of water
on to boil; then Tavi and I set out for the chief's house.

It was a boisterous night and no mistake! The narrow beam from my flash
lamp seemed to make the surrounding gloom the more profound. The palms
were thrashing furiously in the gusts, and fronds and clusters of nuts
came thumping down on all sides; we narrowly missed being hit half a
dozen times. Most of the village was gathered at the chief's; little
groups crouched in the darkness, in the lee of Fakahau's cement
reservoir, or in the shelter of the house itself. Two kerosene lamps on
the south verandah flickered and flared, casting leaping shadows across
the roadway, and a bright light burned in the state bedroom.

Terangi's mother was lying there, under a _tifaifai_ spotless and
freshly ironed. She looked no larger than a child in that immense bed.
Tavi and I tiptoed up the steps to the verandah. Madame de Laage was
already present, the chief having sent for her. The wide porch was
thronged with friends and relatives, waiting in deep silence. I had a
glimpse of Father Paul in his robes, beside the bed, and presently we
heard his voice, rising above the sounds of wind and sea: "Repeat after
me... 'I confess to Almighty God--to blessed Mary, ever Virgin--to
blessed Michael the Archangel--to blessed John the Baptist--to the holy
apostles Peter and Paul....'"

The words of that solemn ritual, heard under those circumstances, on an
island so far removed from the ancient home of the Christian faith, made
a bizarre impression upon me. We could hear, by snatches, Father Paul's
voice, but Mama Rua's responses, if any were made, were lost. So strong
in me was the doubting European that, even at that moment, I could not
share the belief of the hushed throng of villagers, waiting for the end.
Nevertheless, within an hour's time the end had come.




                               Chapter X


My house was a tongue-and-groove cottage not far from the chief's. It
was cozy enough in my bedroom, with the lamp burning and the windows
closed, although the frail building shook with each gust of wind. I blew
out the lamp at ten and made an effort to sleep, but my thoughts
returned to Mama Rua. Was it possible that the minds of primitive people
possessed a power over the body that our harassed civilized minds had
lost? Like most white men in this part of the world, I had been witness
to certain events difficult to explain. When the chief of Amanu lost his
life in a reef boat which overturned in the breakers, the people of
Manukura knew of his death and all the attendant circumstances a month
before the schooner brought the news. I can hazard no opinion as to how
this was communicated; I can only vouch for the fact. Strange
divinations were of fairly common occurrence, but Mama Rua's death
impressed me above and beyond this kind of thing. That a human being,
apparently in normal health, should be able to die merely by wishing it
shocked as well as irritated the medical man in me.

From Terangi's mother my thoughts wandered to her unfortunate son. In
those days I knew nothing of the cave on Motu Tonga. I shared de Laage's
opinion that Terangi had slipped away in the night and made off to
leeward. Poor devil! By this time he was either ashore at some island
where he was certain to be caught, or drowned, together with his wife
and child. I inclined to the latter possibility, and even went so far as
to hope, for his sake, that it might be true. Presently I got up, lit my
lamp once more, and took down the dullest novel I possessed.

It was past three when I awoke. I opened the door which gave on the
south verandah and perceived at once that the wind had increased. The
moon was well past the meridian--now bright, now dimmed by scudding
clouds. Between the gusts I heard wild bursts of singing. They were
holding a wake for Mama Rua as they always did for the dead.

I dressed, blew out my lamp, and returned to the chief's house, keeping
an anxious eye on the bending, thrashing palms. The old woman, dressed
in a gown of black satin with a mother-of-pearl brooch at her breast,
lay in state in the chief's _salon_. The candles burning at her head and
feet guttered and flared in the eddies of wind that found their way
through the cracks under the doors. None but the watchers were in the
room: Mata, the chief's wife, a middle-aged woman who was a niece of
Mama Rua, and two grandmothers with snow-white hair. Fakahau's
plush-upholstered chairs were ranged in their customary places along the
walls; the watchers sat cross-legged on the floor, on either side of the
bier. The other people were in the rooms beyond and the leeside verandah
was packed. It was here the singers sat, in two long lines, their faces
dimly illuminated by two lanterns hanging overhead. Sleeping children
lay with their heads in their mothers' laps, and some of the women
suckled babies as they sang. One could feel the earnestness of the
singers and the solemn pleasure they took in carrying out the dead
woman's wishes with respect to these last rites.

You have not yet heard native singing. The taste for it must be
acquired, no doubt. I well remember my first experience of it, aboard
Nagle's schooner on a bright starlit night far out at sea. There were
thirty or forty Tuamotu folk, both men and women, aboard, going to a
native festival at Makemo. One evening they gathered on the forward
deck, and of a sudden broke into one of their _pari pari fenua_--the
ancient songs of the land. I am, perhaps, rather susceptible to the
emotions stirred by music. On this occasion I was not able to decide
what the emotions were. Astonishment bordering upon incredulity was, I
fancy, foremost; never before had I heard singing in the least
resembling this. Beyond anything else Polynesian it convinced me of the
centuries of isolation from other branches of the human family that must
have been necessary to evolve anything so unique. Their harmonies, at
first, are more than strange to European ears, but they have an
intricate beauty of their own which becomes more and more fascinating
the oftener one hears it. At least, so it has been in my case. I doubt
whether such music could be written in our notation. I know that Madame
de Laage, who was a thoroughly competent musician, made many efforts to
take down some of the Manukura songs, and at last gave up the attempt as
hopeless.

Manukura was celebrated throughout the Archipelago, both for its songs
and for its singers. Many of the people, the men in particular, had
magnificent voices, but all could sing and sing well. They had an
extraordinary ear for pitch. No instrument of any kind accompanied the
voices, but they could begin and carry through one of their long
choruses without the slightest flaw in key.

The singing went on throughout the night, now plaintive, now wildly
exultant, each hymn ending in the same fashion, with a deep humming of
the basses, brought to an abrupt and simultaneous stop, followed by a
long-drawn exhalation of breath, like a sigh, in which both men and
women joined. All this while the wind was making the house tremble and
the roar of the surf along the northern reefs was deeper and louder than
I had ever before heard it; the ground shook under our feet at the
impact of the seas. During one of the intervals I spoke of these
portents to Fakahau. He answered me absent-mindedly. Like the other
singers, he was rapt out of himself, stirred by the emotions evoked by
these ancient songs of his race.

Dawn was breaking when Madame de Laage returned. When she had paid her
respects to the dead, she came to where I was sitting.

"I'm becoming frightened, Doctor," she said, in a low voice. She smiled
as she spoke, but I could see that she was seriously worried. "Do you
know what the barometer reads? Twenty-eight seventy! And the wind is
growing stronger every minute."

The news of the barometer gave me a shock that I took care to conceal.
In these latitudes, the glass varies from 30:15 down to 29:70, the
latter during the rainy season when the wind comes from the northwest.
It now stood a full inch lower, and the weather was not westerly, but
north to northeast. I would have been much easier in mind had the wind
shifted one way or the other, for that would have been a sign that the
storm was to pass to the east, or west. But it held steady at
north-by-east. If a hurricane were on the way, it was headed straight
for Manukura.

The singing came to an end as Father Paul appeared, followed by two
young men bearing a coffin of rough pine boards over which had been
tacked a cotton sheet. When the body had been laid in it, the father
placed a crucifix in the cold hands and made a sign to the chief. All
Manukura filed into the room, each man and woman bidding Mama Rua
farewell. None were dry-eyed and several of the older women wept in the
Biblical sense, lifting up their voices. The pallbearers then shouldered
the coffin and led the procession to the church. A more ominous-looking
daybreak I have never seen. The clouds streaming southward were of a
dull greenish purple shading to gray where they veiled the rising sun.
As we entered the church the bell began to toll: a sound faint and
solemn, snatched away by the wind. When the brief service was over we
set out for the burial ground on the outer beach.

It was as much as we could do to make our way to windward against that
mighty torrent of air; nevertheless, all came, the young people helping
the old. Another song was sung as Mama Rua was lowered into her grave,
but standing to windward I could scarcely hear the voices, and for the
moment I had eyes and ears for nothing but the sea. The spray came
flying down wind in sheets that drenched us like rain, concealing the
reef for long moments, but when it cleared we had glimpses of long gray
ridges running in at an appalling height, thundering across the reef and
up the beach far beyond high-water mark. Where we stood we were scarcely
two feet above the level reached by those huge combers.

A thrill of fear seemed to communicate itself in an instant to that
lonely group of human beings gazing anxiously seaward as Father Paul
pronounced the Eternal Rest. Although we had heard the deepening roar of
the surf throughout the night, none, I think, realized until that moment
how high the sea had risen. We now filed quickly past the grave, each
one leaning far over as the holy water was sprinkled, in a hopeless
effort to prevent its being carried away by the wind. Then the people,
as though moved by a common instinct, turned their backs to the sea and
hurried toward the settlement. I remained with Father Paul, Fakahau, and
Tavi, while the grave was hastily filled. We crouched behind the low
wall of the burying ground, watching the seas piling higher and higher
up the beach, almost at the foot of the wall itself. Never before had a
low island appeared to me so incredibly low, so pitiably insecure. I
felt a thrust of fear at my heart at the thought that this narrow
causeway, no more than four hundred yards wide, was our only refuge.

Close as we stood to one another, we had to shout to make ourselves
heard. Tavi had his hands cupped around his eyes, gazing northward
through the flying scud. Presently he turned his head. "Have you
noticed?" he yelled. "All the sea birds are gone. That's a bad sign.
They know there's something coming."

I had not remarked the fact until Tavi called our attention to it, but
it was true. Manukura's colony of sea fowl had disappeared: noddy terns,
boobies, frigate birds, all had fled before the storm. This was
something that had never happened before during my time on the island.

I put my lips to the chief's ear. "What do you think, Fakahau? Will the
sea cover the land?"

"It may," he shouted back. "A great storm is upon us, that is certain.
It may be the _matangi hurifenua_."

Nothing could be more expressive than this native term for hurricane,
for the words mean: "The wind that overturns the land."

"The church will stand, however strong the wind," said Father Paul. He
spoke with a quiet confidence which I envied him but could not share.
The task of filling the grave was now finished. "Come," he said. "We can
do no more for our poor friend here. We must now think of the living."

I still have a vivid picture in my mind of the village islet as it
appeared on that morning, the palms bent far over and their tattered
fronds streaming out as stiff as boards in the wind. Perpetual clouds of
spray from the reef half concealed the land, and through them one had
glimpses of men and women running here and there along the village
street, carrying their children from one refuge to another, while others
worked desperately in an effort to anchor down their flimsy thatched
dwellings with ropes fastened to near-by trees. I saw one small house go
skittering over an open space until it was brought up against two palm
boles, where it burst apart and vanished in thirty seconds. Several
other houses had already blown away and their contents were scattered
far and wide over the lagoon. It was soon evident to all that the
thatched dwellings would go, and the people were hastily gathering up
bundles of their belongings and taking refuge in the church, the chief's
house, and Tavi's store.

The air was filled with flying dbris, the most dangerous at this time
being clusters of coconuts torn loose from the palms. When I reached
Tavi's house, a lad was brought in with a broken arm, and for the next
half-hour I was busy setting the bone--a clean fracture, luckily--and
binding on the splints.

I had just finished this task when I heard faint cries from the beach. A
crowd of people gathered in the lee of Tavi's copra shed were gazing
southward across the lagoon. Not half a mile out, a sailing canoe,
close-hauled, on the port tack, was footing it up to the settlement. Her
sail was double-reefed; her outrigger, scarcely touching the water,
supported three human figures far out on the boom. The man at the
steering paddle was leaning against it with all his strength, handling
the flying canoe with the quick, certain gestures of the seaman born. An
exclamation went up from the people around me: "Terangi!"

It was a splendid sight. Heeling far over to starboard, despite the
counterbalancing weight of those on the boom, the canoe seemed to gather
itself and rise, skimming the flat wind-torn surface of the lagoon like
a racing hydroplane. Full and by as she was, she was footing it at all
of fourteen knots.

Close to the pier, Terangi gave a heave on his paddle and the canoe shot
up into the wind. The outrigger came smacking down; Marama, Tita, and
Mako sprang inboard, and the sail slatted wildly as half a dozen people
rushed into the shallows to give their aid. Leaving the canoe to them,
Terangi waded ashore with his daughter in his arms, followed by his wife
and Mako. An old woman took him by the shoulders with both hands, giving
a wailing cry as she did so. "_Au_, Terangi! You have come too late!
She is dead, your mother! Dead and buried!"

Terangi glanced swiftly from face to face of those who awaited him and
read the confirmation in their eyes. Others, Fakahau amongst them, were
hastening up. The chief, without a word, led the way into Tavi's store,
the rest of us following.

To say that I was astonished at the appearance of Terangi and his family
would be an understatement. I could scarcely believe my eyes. That was
my first view of the man, for you will remember that he had been a
prisoner during the whole of my time on Manukura. It was evident that
the canoe must have come from Motu Tonga, but I did not then try to
explain to myself how it had gotten there, or where Terangi and his
family had hidden during our search for him.

A moment later, Tavi's store was filled with the chief men of the
island, and the windows and doors were crowded with women and children
and the younger people, looking at Terangi with all their eyes. Whatever
his thoughts with respect to the news he had just heard, he put them to
one side. He raised his hand for silence.

"There is no time for many words," he said. "A great storm is at hand.
Our highest land is on Motu Tonga, and the width of the lagoon shelters
it from the north. I have come to tell you to reef the sails of your
canoes and take refuge on Motu Tonga; but those who will go must go at
once. In an hour's time it may be too late."

There was a hum of talk and argument as he sat down. Some were for
taking his advice. Others could not, or would not, yet believe that a
hurricane was upon us. Presently Fakahau stood up, his deep voice making
itself plainly heard above the tumult of wind and sea.

"Terangi has spoken," he said. "He has crossed from Motu Tonga at great
risk to warn us of the danger. Let none of you mistake! We shall need
what refuge our lands can offer us. The moon will be full to-night. The
worst will not come until then. My belief is that the sea will rise and
overwhelm the land where we are, but my place is here with those who are
too old to be moved. It is for each man to choose what he will do for
his family, but let those who will go to Motu Tonga set sail at once.
There is no time to be lost."

The chief then sent young men in both directions along the village
street to inform the others. No commands were given, for, at such times
as this, the decision as to what should be done was left to the heads of
the families. Meanwhile, the whole of the northern sky was covered with
a black squall that came upon us with incredible swiftness. The wind
increased almost to hurricane force, driving the rain before it in
horizontal sheets impossible to face. When it had passed, the first of
the canoes made ready to cross the lagoon. It contained an entire
family, with a heap of food and bedding under a tarpaulin amidships.
Half a dozen neighbors held the little vessel bow to the wind, while the
triple-reefed sail slatted wildly. The father, at the steering paddle,
made a sign to the others; the released canoe bore off, while the sail
filled with a violence that made the slender mast bend like a fishing
rod. She tore away to leeward, and a moment later had vanished in the
rain.

Canoe after canoe followed during the next hour. I admired the courage
of those who went in them; nothing could have induced me to take such a
chance. But the wind was gathering strength with every moment, and it
was soon clear that the risk of the eight-mile crossing had become too
great for further attempts. Nevertheless, one last canoe was ready to
go, despite the warnings of the others, Terangi among them.

"It is now too late," he said earnestly. "The hurricane is upon us. You
will sail her under if you make the attempt."

But the man whose family it contained was not to be deterred. His wife
and three children and the wife's father were already in their places.
He took up his steering paddle, shouting to those holding the canoe to
let go. Seeing that further argument was useless, they did so. The small
craft moved swiftly away from the scanty shelter of the land, yawing
wildly as it tore over the smoking waters. Those on the beach gazed
after it in anguish, the women wringing their hands. A curtain of rain
obscured it for a moment; then we caught a brief glimpse of it about a
mile distant. As it rose to the crest of a sea, a gust of wind caught
the sail broadside. A cry went up from the watchers as the canoe heeled
over and capsized. Then we saw it no more.




                               Chapter XI


After the church, Tavi's store was the most substantial building on the
island, and by early afternoon most of the families at the western end
of the village had taken refuge there. An hour before, I had gone with
Farani, Tavi's son-in-law, to fetch Madame de Laage and Arai, who were
still at the Residency. While they were gathering up a bundle of spare
clothing, I took the opportunity to consult the glass once more. It was
so dark that I could scarcely make out the track of the little pen. I
perceived with a kind of horror that the instrument stood at 28:01, a
figure which meant, almost literally, the end of the world in these
parts. There was no longer the slightest doubt of what was coming.

It was a full quarter of a mile from the Residency to Tavi's store. How
we covered the distance I scarcely know, for the force of the wind was
incredible. Tavi, with three or four men to help him, was working
desperately against time, making preparations for weathering the storm.
He was overhauling a couple of hundred fathoms of new Manilla line which
he passed rapidly through his hands as he examined it for flaws.
Outside, others were chopping down coconut palms on the beach a little
to the east of the house. The force of the gale was such that the trees
came crashing down to leeward after only a few strokes of the axe,
leaving stumps four or five feet high. To these stumps Tavi now
proceeded to make fast a pair of bridles with a thirty-fathom hawser
attached to the middle of each. His plan was to ride out the storm, with
any friends or neighbors he could persuade to join him, in his
double-ended reef boats, which would lie to bridles side by side, about
twenty yards apart. They were heavily built, seaworthy boats, and would
hold a dozen people each. The stumps to which the bridles were made fast
were the best of anchors, with their innumerable tough, fibrous roots
spreading wide and deep in the coral soil, and to ease the strain on his
gear, Tavi sprung his cables with the heavy kedge anchors from the
boats, bent on in the shallows about twenty yards from the beach.

Within an hour's time these preparations were completed and the boats
left to ride to the bridles. Then Tavi took Madame de Laage and me
aside. There was no doubt of his deep earnestness as he urged us to stay
with him and his family and trust our lives to his keeping.

"This will be such a storm as Manukura has not known within the memory
of its people," he said. "Stay with us, Madame, you and the Doctor! The
sea is still rising. By to-night it will cover the land. We have room,
for a score in the boats, but few are willing to come. They trust to the
palms. Give no heed to them. Come with us, you two!"

Madame de Laage shook her head. "No, Tavi. It may be as you say, but I
am terrified at thought of the boats. I put greater trust in Father
Paul's church."

Tavi laid a hand appealingly on her arm. "Madame, I was through the
hurricane on Manihiki, in 1913, when there was no land in sight from
evening to the break of day. Those of us who spent the night in boats,
anchored as mine are anchored, lived. All those on the land were lost."

But Madame de Laage was not to be persuaded. As for myself, I was wholly
of her opinion that the church with its thick walls of masonry was the
safest refuge the island offered. Nevertheless, I felt that my place was
with Tavi and his family, for the birth of Hitia's child could not be
long delayed. Tavi was too generous to speak of this matter at such a
moment, but I well knew that he wanted me there, in case the child
should come. I told him that I would return as soon as I had seen Madame
de Laage safely to the church.

We were interrupted by a young man who burst into the room, his body
streaming with rain. "The sea!" he exclaimed. "It is crossing the land
at the low place! Father Paul says make haste, those who are going to
the church!"

There were, perhaps, a score of people huddled in Tavi's leeside
verandah, still uncertain as to what they should do. News of the rising
sea now startled them into action. They gathered up their children and a
variety of small packages done up in _pareus_ and set out for the
church. I had gone only a short distance with Madame de Laage when we
were met by Fakahau coming in search of us. A group of natives were
already gathered on the westward side of the bit of low-lying ground I
have spoken of that crossed the island from north to south. The old
footbridge had already been swept away and a stout hawser was now
stretched across the place, as a hand rope, between the boles of two
coconut palms. Several young men were stationed here to assist the women
and children in crossing. Terangi was among those on the farther side.
Madame de Laage stopped short at sight of him; then her glance met mine.
I knew as well as if she had spoken what her thoughts were. Both
astonishment and relief were in her glance, but when she again looked
toward Terangi there was no light of recognition in her eyes. She was
determined not to see him.

We had come to that place none too soon. As we stood on the bank another
wall of water shoulder-high, carrying with it an indescribable mass of
dbris, came foaming through the depression from the outer beach. It
filled the gully from bank to bank. As the wave receded, draining away
into the lagoon, Fakahau took Madame de Laage in his arms and rushed
across, the rest of us following him. We squattered through the shallows
like wounded ducks and all had reached the farther bank before another
wave came.

We entered the church through the small southern door, and the sudden
quiet, in the shelter of the three-foot wall of masonry, was startling.
Nearly all of the women and children of the island were assembled there,
with Father Paul and a sprinkling of old people too feeble to be of
assistance outside. The candles had been lighted on the altar and the
small flames cast leaping shadows on the walls. The heavy door at the
north end of the church had been closed and made fast and several men
were now barricading it with bags of sand. The tall Gothic windows
admitted only a faint gray light, and lanterns were burning here and
there on the benches where the old people sat.

The priest came forward at once when he saw us. He took Madame de
Laage's hand. "Thank God you are safely here, my child!" he exclaimed
fervently. "I have been anxious. Had you not come I would have gone for
you myself!"

After a word with the priest I again went outside, where there was work
for every able-bodied man. The native is not an imaginative person, and
like all optimists he puts off until the last moment his preparations to
meet trouble or danger of whatever kind; but in his casual manner he
generally succeeds in being ready when the time comes. The hurricane was
almost upon them before the men of Manukura began to choose the palms in
which they hoped to see it through.

Both the young and the old palms were passed by in making the choice.
The trees selected were those from thirty-five to forty feet high, with
well-established root systems and no rotten spots in the boles. Men were
swarming into the trees, lopping off the fronds with their bush knives,
leaving a cluster of stout butts about a yard in length, with a few
fathoms of rope tied to each cluster to assist them in climbing into the
trees when the time came. It was wild work with the trees swaying
crazily and the heavy lopped-off fronds flying down wind. Ropes were
stretched below, from tree to tree, which would give the people a
handhold should a wave breach over the land while they were making their
way to their perches aloft. Life lines were also carried, waist-high,
through the groves, and from the church to two giant _purau_ trees, each
of them capable of holding a dozen people among its branches.

I had been lending a hand here and there with the others, but the chief
now warned me that I must return to Tavi's house at once if I was to go
at all. I was of the same mind, and I confess that I little relished the
prospect of the journey back. I ran into the church once more to take
leave of Madame de Laage and Father Paul. The priest was going about
among the members of his flock, helping mothers with their small
children and directing the work of the men who were arranging benches
along the wall so that the old people might lie upon them in some
comfort. His manner was as calm as if it had been a bright summer's day
outside; he even made a little joke as he chided a young mother who had
burst into frightened hysterical sobbing. "There, my child," he said,
patting her shoulder reassuringly. "_Fakaoti ki te oti_--enough of
premonitions of death. You are safe here. God will not desert us." I was
cheered by that quiet, confident voice, and deeply regretted the
necessity for leaving those solid sheltering walls.

My farewells were of the briefest. At the door I turned for a last
glance back into the church. The roar of the wind in the belfry, the
huddled groups of women and children in the flickering candlelight, and
the white-bearded priest in his worn _soutane_ moving from group to
group, cheering them all by his presence, made a powerful impression
upon my mind.

Fakahau and Terangi were awaiting me outside. It was strange, at such a
moment, how Terangi and I took each other for granted. We might have
been friends of many years' standing. Fakahau put his lips close to my
ear.

"Terangi's going with you, Doctor," he yelled. "Urge Tavi for my sake to
bring his family here. He will be lost if he trusts to the boats! They
can never ride through such a storm as this! Go now, you two!"

We waited for a moment, watching the waves sweeping through the gully,
each one carrying earth and sand with it into the lagoon. Then Terangi
touched my arm. He led the way at a run out of the shelter of the church
and was carried half a dozen yards to leeward before he could bend his
body and adjust himself to the force of the wind. As I followed him,
clutching desperately at the boles of the palms, I gave no thought to
flying dbris. What I now feared was being blown away like an autumn
leaf. The danger was real, I assure you. Terangi had chosen the moment
well. Three or four great waves had swept through the gully, and when we
reached the bank, the water was no more than waist-deep. Even so, I
would have been carried by the current into the lagoon had it not been
for Terangi's quick eye and powerful arm.

Crouching low and holding fast to whatever came to hand, we at last
reached the store. Glancing down the road, I perceived with amazement
that the Residency no longer existed. Nothing remained of it save the
whitewashed pillars of masonry upon which the house had rested. As for
Tavi's house, the whole of the weather side of the roof was gone and I
expected the rest of it to disappear even as I looked at it. He had
gathered his family on the verandah in the lee of the building. One of
the boats with its forlorn little cargo of human freight already rode to
her bridle; the other was made fast in shallow water close to the beach.
Watching our chance, Terangi and I ran for the shelter of the wall. Tavi
grasped my arm and pulled me in beside him. "We were about to go without
you," he yelled. "We've no more than time." I shouted the chief's
message into his ear.

He shook his head resolutely. "To the church? Never! It will go, Doctor.
There will be nothing left ashore by nightfall."

An instant later Terangi was gone. Before he had proceeded thirty yards
we lost sight of him in a blinding torrent of rain.

We dared wait no longer in the lee of that shaking house; the walls
threatened to collapse at any moment. My heart went out to Hitia. You
can imagine the poor girl's condition with her child still unborn, but
hurricanes take no account of our human troubles. Tavi had her well
wrapped in an oilskin. He now picked up his daughter and ran with her to
the boat, the rest of us following. We waded through the shallows and
pulled ourselves over the gunwale, one by one. The mooring was cast off,
and with four men at the hawser we slacked away gingerly until we rode
to our bridle alongside the other boat. No sooner had we done so than
several sheets of corrugated iron, torn from the roof of the store, went
hurtling past not a dozen yards above our heads. There could be no more
dangerous missiles; men have been known to be cut in two by them. Tavi
yelled a warning, but we all saw our danger and threw ourselves flat on
the bottom of the boat, between the thwarts. At that moment the land was
once more blotted out by a tremendous horizontal squall of rain.

****

In the midst of a tropical revolving storm, one contends not only with
huge waves and winds of a hundred miles an hour and more, but with a
considerable rise in the level of the sea itself, caused by the sharp
drop in atmospheric pressure. That part of the village islet where the
church stood was, perhaps, a foot higher than the land elsewhere, but it
was not long before the great volume of water being hurled over the
reefs began to gain on this highest ground. What happened ashore at this
time I did not, of course, know until all was over, but I shall tell of
it here in the light of my later knowledge.

Terangi got safely back to the church. By that time all the people had
taken shelter within it save for the chief and half a dozen men who were
crouched outside by the southern door. None spoke of what they feared,
but the same thought was in every man's mind. They had done what they
could. Nothing now remained but to wait to learn the sea's will with
them. The roar of the surf piling over the reefs only four hundred yards
away stunned and deafened them, and the sheets of spray flying high over
the church concealed the land from their view. Now and then one of the
men would peer to windward around the corner of the building, but there
was nothing to be seen in that direction save a few of the nearer palms,
ragged fronds still clinging to them, bent far over in the torrent of
air that was half flying water.

Presently their bodies, sensitive to every warning of increasing menace,
felt through the ground on which they rested the shock of an impact
mightier than any that had preceded it, and soon a shallow wave, only a
few inches deep, came licking along the sides of the building, slender
tongues of water sinking into the sand around their feet. Terangi turned
his head to glance at the chief, who was staring straight in front of
him. They waited, each man eager to ignore what his eyes had seen,
unwilling to acknowledge that the great enemy, the Sea, had come at
last. Another wave followed, only a little deeper than the first, but
this one was carried farther, pouring in tiny runlets into the lagoon.
Then came a succession of small waves, smoking, hissing, harried by the
wind, spreading rapidly fanwise as they advanced, making narrow channels
in the sand before they sank from sight.

Terangi leaned over and shouted into the chief's ear: "You have seen,
Fakahau? And the eye of the storm is yet far off. The church will go."

The chief nodded. The two men got to their feet and entered the church,
followed by the others. The building was raised about six inches above
the ground, but tongues of water had already found their way in at both
doors and were spreading rapidly over the floor, reflecting the light
from lamps and candles. Mothers with their children gathered round them
gazed at the sight, their hearts numb with terror. They sat on the
benches with their feet drawn up under them, as though they believed
that they might be safe so long as the water did not touch them. Father
Paul was standing under the altar with a sobbing child in his arms. The
chief touched his shoulder.

"Father, the church is no longer safe," he said. "We must take to the
palms."

"No, my son," the priest replied calmly. "I built this church with God's
help, to withstand wind and sea. It will not fail us."

"Come, Father," Terangi added earnestly. "I have a place ready for you
in one of the _purau_ trees. The sea already covers the land and is
rising fast. Soon there will be no choice. Those who remain here will be
caught without hope of escape."

Imagine the scene: the roaring wind adding its tumult to that of the
sea, the water rising, even as they spoke, until it was ankle-deep over
the floor of the church. And imagine, if you can, the unshakable trust
of the old priest in God's mercy. He was not to be moved, for all the
earnest pleading of those who lacked his faith. But he would have none
stay with him against their will. He now stood on one of the benches to
speak to his people, who crowded close to hear what he would say.

"My children, the chief believes that our church is no longer safe. I do
not share his belief. God sees us. Our need He knows. He will not suffer
us to be lost. But I would have you do as you think best for your
safety. Those who would take refuge in the trees must go now, and may
God bless and save you all!"

So great was the people's trust in Father Paul that many decided to stay
in the church. It was, in fact, the only possible decision for some of
the old people, too feeble to endure exposure to the full force of wind
and rain. The leave-takings of that moment, as they were described to me
later, must have been heart-rending, as affecting to those who went out
into the storm as to those who remained behind, for none of them but
knew how desperate were their chances, whether they should go or stay.
Those who were to go crowded about the door at the south end of the
church as though unable to proceed farther, reluctant to forsake the
last comfort remaining to them--that of numbers. It was Terangi and the
chief together who roused them into action. Taking up his child in one
arm, with Marama clinging to the other, Terangi made a run for the
nearer of the life lines which had been stretched from two palms near
the entrance of the church to the old _purau_ trees about forty yards to
windward. Immediately they lost sight of everything save the lines to
which they clung. The waves sweeping across the land were now knee-deep.
They fought their way to windward, scarcely able to breathe in the
torrents of rain and flying spray that lashed across their faces. They
did not catch sight of their tree until they had all but reached it.
Thick gnarled limbs branched from the trunk only a few feet above the
ground. Marama scrambled up first, Terangi following close behind with
Tita. They climbed to a great fork, a full fifteen feet above the
ground. Tita was wrapped in an old oilskin coat which covered her
completely except for a small opening through which she could breathe.
Handholds of rope had already been prepared at the most likely perches,
but Terangi secured his daughter with two or three turns of stout line
that held her against the leeward side of the trunk. Marama was secured
in the same manner close beside the child, so that she could hold her in
her arms. Freeing one arm for a moment, she drew her husband's head
close and shouted into his ear: "Madame de Laage!" Terangi nodded,
climbed quickly down the tree, and disappeared once more in the
direction of the church.

The scene there was one of the wildest confusion. The roofing iron of
the steeply pitched roof was ripping off sheet by sheet, and as Terangi
entered by the small door on the lagoon side of the building, the tall
Gothic window in the northern wall was burst in with a crash of rending
wood and splintering glass. The candles had been snuffed out the moment
the roof had started to go, and the only light now left burning was a
hurricane lantern that Father Paul had set in a sheltered place under
the altar. The chief, too, had returned to the church to give aid to
others, having placed Mata, his wife, and their two younger children in
one of the _purau_ trees. Peering through the dim light, Terangi caught
sight of Madame de Laage seated on a bench against the wall. He
perceived at once that she was keeping herself under control by a firm
effort of the will. Some of the women had given way to hysteria and were
moaning and crying, their heads in their arms.

"You must come with me, Madame," he shouted brusquely. "Your place is in
the _purau_ tree with my wife and child. It is your only chance."

She gazed up at him, incapable of speech. Taking her arm, he raised her
to her feet. "Come," he repeated, and led her quickly to the door. She
accompanied him blindly, like a woman walking in her sleep.

She drew back involuntarily when she perceived what awaited them
outside, but Terangi took a firm grip on her wrist. "Don't be
frightened," he shouted. "The water isn't deep. Bend low!... Now!"

They ran for the life lines, but had no more than reached them when
Terangi saw that he had started too soon. A wall of foaming water,
hidden by the flying spray, was sweeping down upon them from the north,
dashing high among the boles of the palms. He seized the woman's hands,
clenched them on the line, and braced himself for the shock. Madame de
Laage's hair, plaited in a single thick braid which had been coiled on
her head, had fallen during their brief run from the church; Terangi
seized it just as the wave was upon them and settled to a mighty grip on
the line with his left hand.

Both lost their footing in the swirl of waters that swept over them. The
strain was too much for Madame de Laage. She felt her hands torn from
the rope and fetched up with a shock that seemed almost to tear the
scalp from her head. Terangi held on grimly, and when the force of the
wave had spent itself seized the woman in one arm. Holding fast to the
life line with the other, he gained the shelter of the tree.

When he had Madame de Laage well secured in the crotch of a limb twelve
feet from the ground, Terangi took his place beside his wife and child.
He had done what he could, and now his place was with those under his
care. The rain had ceased for the moment, and in the wild gray light of
evening they could see for a distance of twenty or thirty yards,
perhaps, on either side of them. A dozen people had taken refuge in this
same tree, and there were as many more in the other _purau_ a little to
the west of them. There would have been room for others, but most of
those who had left the church put greater trust in the coconut palms.
Through the clouds of spray, Madame de Laage caught glimpses of those
near by, wedged in among the lopped-off butts of the fronds, and of
isolated figures clinging desperately to the boles as they climbed
aloft. Some of the people behaved with a strange perversity. Perhaps
they believed that the storm had reached its height, refusing to admit
that there might be worse to come. The native mind works in curious
ways. They feared, it may be, that the final surrender of taking refuge
in the palms would raise to greater fury the elements against them. At
any rate, many of the young and able-bodied still remained below,
holding fast to the ropes in little clusters as the combers swept over
the land. Those in the trees peered down at them, straining their eyes
in the uncertain light, shouting anguished warnings which were lost in
the tumult of the wind. Against her will, Madame de Laage kept her eyes
fixed on one group of five small dark figures who succeeded in
maintaining their hold as comber after comber swept over them. They
could not or would not, it seemed, seek the safety of the trees.
Horrified at the sight, she closed her eyes for a moment. When she
looked again they were gone.

Night now descended upon Manukura, an hour of roaring darkness which
preceded the rising of the moon.




                              Chapter XII


The two reef boats were moored, as I have said, about twenty yards apart
and thirty from the beach. One held six. Ah Fong, our old Chinese baker,
was among them, as were Mako and a married sister of Marunga, with her
husband and their small daughter. There were eight in ours: Tavi, his
wife, their boy Taio, their daughter Hitia, with her husband, Farani,
Arai, a man named Kauka, and myself.

By moonrise the rain began to fall in earnest. I have witnessed many
tropical downpours, but the tons of water that descended upon Manukura
that night were something new to my experience. "Descended" is not the
word. It was driven against us and into us like knife blades; like iron
pellets. The sides of the boat afforded a little shelter, but even so
our bodies beneath our clothing were tortured by the force of it.
Imagine what it must have been for those who took refuge in the trees,
exposed to the full force of those assaults.

You will understand that we were not sitting up in the boat. We lay flat
on the bottom, between and under the thwarts. Arai, Hitia, and her
mother were in the bow, Tavi, Taio, and I amidships, and the other two
aft. A piece of canvas large enough to have covered the women was torn
from our hands as we were trying to place it around them. They wore
oilskin coats and lay side by side on a mattress that had been reduced
to sodden pulp by the rain.

The moon was at the full, suffusing the clouds that raced across it with
ashy light. It would emerge through tattered shreds of vapor, affording
us glimpses of minute black dots that were people, two or three
together, clinging to the frond butts of the palms. For all that the
fronds had been chopped off to lessen the purchase of the wind, the
palms were bent far to leeward, vibrating like steel wires to the stress
of the mighty force that held them so. Now and then one of them would
snap off, halfway up the bole, and the upper part hurtle away, high
overhead, riding the hurricane like a bit of straw. I saw one palm top
in which were three people vanish in this manner.

Lying as we did, so close to the beach, we were fairly safe from flying
wreckage. I saw the last of Tavi's house go. The walls collapsed and
vanished in the winking of an eye. It was an uncanny sight. Before you
could have pronounced two words, the foundations on which the house had
stood were swept bare. Not long afterward the chief's house followed,
with its mirrors, its upholstered chairs and sofas, oil paintings, huge
guest bed--in an instant there was nothing left save the cistern of
masonry against which the great seas breaching across the islet dashed
and foamed.

But the church still stood, and a lonely, desolate sight it was! As
though I had them before my eyes, I could see the little group inside,
protected thus far from the full force of the wind, but with spray and
solid water driving through the broken windows and doors, the children
clinging in terror to their mothers as the combers hurled themselves
against the thick walls. I thanked God that I had taken Tavi's advice.
The building was doomed. Father Paul himself must have known it by this
time. Nothing else remained of Manukura village. The very land itself
had all but disappeared beneath the seas that swept the islet from the
north. In the swiftly changing light, now bright, now dim, only the
trees could be seen, and the church with its gleaming white walls. It
gave the impression of sinking slowly, as the seas, a fathom and more
deep, swept around it, meeting beyond in great bursts of spray. Then it
would appear to rise a little, as though buoyant, to meet the onset of
the next wave. And all this while, above the tumult of the hurricane, we
could hear, at times, the faint clanging of the bell, tolled by the
wind. Its tones, remarkably sweet and clear, reached us as faintly,
almost, as imagined sound. It was the voice of that night, in so far as
things human were concerned, and a desolate voice it was!

Trees were going down on all sides, many with people in them. It was
unbelievable that those which might be able to withstand the wind could
survive the battering of the sea. And yet the stumps to which the boats
were moored held fast. We rode the seas well. The great force of them
was broken before they swept into the lagoon.

Rain and sea forced us to bail constantly, and for this purpose we used
three brand-new chamber pots of enameled iron. They came from Tavi's
store. In our haste in leaving for the boats he had suddenly remembered
the need we would have for bailers, and had seized upon the first things
that came to hand. They served our purpose well. Being smooth and
rounded and provided with good handles, the wind could not tear them out
of our grasp. Even so, bailing that boat was work as exhausting as I
have ever done in my life. We could not rise to our knees without being
sprawled headlong over one another by the force of the wind. One vivid
picture remaining to me from that night is of Tavi, crouched and facing
aft, his broad back to the wind, taking his turn at bailing. Of a sudden
a fiendish gust threw him at full length, but he held fast to the
chamber pot. I can still see him so, his face turned toward me, with an
expression of incredulity upon it that was faintly comical, even in our
terrible situation. His lips were moving, but no sound of his voice
reached me. We could only communicate by signs.

It was at this time that a picture flashed into my mind of the quiet,
comfortable _bureau_ at the Ministry of Colonies, in Paris, and of my
uncle and myself standing before the wall map on the morning when he
tried to dissuade me from accepting the post in the Tuamotu Archipelago.
I could hear him saying: "Another drawback, my dear nephew: those
islands are sometimes visited by hurricanes, and from all accounts, they
are most unpleasant things to encounter." The words kept repeating
themselves in their appalling inadequacy. Unpleasant! But what could my
uncle, who had spent the better part of forty years in that sheltered
room, be expected to know of hurricanes? He dealt in statistics, not in
the naked truths of life.

The nakedness of a hurricane's truth is not revealed at once. You think
you are seeing it within an hour after the wind comes, but your
experience of the pitiless majesty of nakedness is enlarged from moment
to moment. It must have been toward three in the morning that we saw the
real thing. We had been bailing hard and had the boat clear of water to
the battens. Tavi and I were lying side by side. He gripped my arm, and
at the same moment I was aware of something more coming. It was that
strange, immediate awareness of deeper menace one had during the war,
when, as one lay under an intensive bombardment, scores and hundreds of
the enemy's guns were suddenly added to those already in action.
Intensity was intensified beyond all conceivable limits. So it was here.

The island, what little remained of it, disappeared from view. Raising
my head to the level of the gunwale and shielding my eyes with my hand,
I looked sidewise along what had been the beach. There was nothing to be
seen--nothing: no church, no trees, no sign of any sort to show that
land had ever been there. In that dim light, with the air filled with
flying scud, it was impossible, of course, to see more than a few yards,
but I didn't think of this at the moment. I thought we had gone adrift.
I believed this in despite of reason which told me that it couldn't be
so, else we should have been immediately engulfed. Then came a deluge of
rain that made the others seem light by comparison. We bailed without
daring to halt for an instant, although the ones without bailers could
do no more than throw up the water with their cupped hands and let the
wind take it. I was at the end of my strength when the rain slackened
and ceased, but Tavi and Kauka worked on as though their powers of
endurance were inexhaustible. Tavi was a big man, weighing well over two
hundred pounds. He gave the impression of fatness rather than strength,
and it was not until you felt one of those huge arms or legs that you
realized how mistaken the first impression was. The boat was once more
cleared of water, and with the passing of that deluge the light
increased. Presently, for a few moments, the moon was shining in an all
but cloudless sky.

Moonlight... the full moon... what suggestions of peace, of
serenity, are in the words! There can be nothing more beautiful in
nature than a coral island, on a windless night, under the light of the
full moon, but I leave you to imagine the desolation of the scene we now
beheld. I looked first toward the church, and where it had stood there
was nothing but the endless procession of combers. No vestige of it
remained above the waste of moonlit water. The whole of the village
islet was like one of those great mid-ocean shoals so feared by
mariners, except that there was still evidence that land had been there.
Hundreds of palms were down, but others yet stood, with men, women, and
children in them. I should never have believed that the coconut palm had
such resilient strength. The stems of those that remained were bent in
what seemed impossible arcs, but the sea was their great enemy, washing
away their holding ground so that the wind could take them. So many had
gone that I could now see for the first time one of the old _purau_
trees that stood near the church. It was a superb old tree, with a trunk
four feet in diameter, and seemed a contemporary of the island itself. I
could make out several people clinging to what remained of it, but at
that distance it was impossible to recognize them. The other _purau_
tree that had stood near by was gone.

We lived from moment to moment. None of us believed that we could
survive the night, but we clung to life as all animals do. I crawled
forward to where Marunga and Hitia lay, fearing and more than half
expecting that Hitia's child might have been born within the past
half-hour. She lay on her side, between Arai and her mother. Her eyes
were closed and her drawn face told me of the pain she was in. Marunga
tried to shout some message to me, but I could hear nothing. She shook
her head, indicating that there was no immediate need for me.

Something was amiss in the other boat. We saw the men crouched in the
bow, trying to pull themselves closer to their mooring. We couldn't at
first make out what they wanted to do; then we saw that one thick strand
of their Manilla line had parted. I have looked on at many pitiable
scenes in my time, particularly during the war, but on none more
heart-sickening than this. The break in the rope was not more than ten
feet from the bow of the boat, and they were trying desperately to heave
in that small length of line. But what could three men do against the
combined strength of wind and sea? Had they been straining at the
mooring line of the _Normandie_ the attempt could not have been more
useless. And we could do nothing but look on. At last they gave up.

I was spared the anguish of helpless watching. Hitia's labor came on at
this time. Once, during the war, I delivered a peasant woman in the
cellar of a shell-wrecked farmhouse, at a moment when French and German
troops were fighting with bombs and bayonets for the heaps of brick
rubble overhead. I had established a first-aid dressing station in the
cellar only that morning, and there were a dozen badly wounded men lying
on the floor. How this woman chanced to be among them I never knew, but
there she was, and she gave birth to her child in the midst of all that
horror. It was a girl, a superb child. I was tying up the umbilical cord
when a bayoneted German pitched down the stairway at my feet. He had
been stabbed through the belly. I remember thinking: I shall never again
have an obstetrical case under such conditions as these. A doctor should
have known better than to make so rash a statement. Life can show a
diabolical ingenuity, at times, in varying even its most commonplace
occurrences.

Until Hitia's child came, I was able to put aside, as a physician must
and can, thought of everything except the matter in hand. I don't say
that I forgot that we were in the midst of a hurricane. That would have
been impossible, God knows! But I was conscious of a feeling of
something like peace--a core of quietness in my heart. You will
understand if ever you've had work to do that had to be done, no matter
what the conditions; even though you knew that you might not survive the
accomplishment of it.

Marunga sat in the bow, facing aft, so that her body gave some
protection from wind and sea. Hitia lay with her head in her mother's
lap. Few white women could have survived such an ordeal; for one thing,
their labor would have been more prolonged and the exposure would have
killed them. Hitia's child was born within the half-hour. Marunga was
prepared to take it the moment I could pass it to her. She had brought,
inside her oilskin coat, a folded cotton quilt. Wrapping the infant in
this, she opened her dress and placed it next her body, rebuttoning her
dress and the oilskin coat. I had scarcely finished with Hitia when land
and sea were blotted out in another deluge of rain. When it had passed,
I saw that the other boat was gone. No trace of her, nor of those who
had been in her, was ever found.

I shall not speak further of the events of that night. There were none,
unless the stupefying forces of wind and sea may be called events. It
would be futile to attempt to give you any conception of either. When
day broke, the sea was at its height, and the only land visible was a
mound of coral fragments which had been heaped up among the stumps of
the coconut palms, close to the lagoon beach. The mound remains to this
day, an adequate memorial of a hurricane's strength. Some of the
boulders are tons in weight, fragments torn from the outer reef and
carried by the sea across the land. Had it not been for the refuge
afforded by that heap of coral dbris, I should have been dead these ten
years past.

We reached it by one of those freakish chances which are the result of
the most delicate balancing of forces. The wind abated about seven in
the morning, and in a time incredibly short it fell away to a dead calm.
I mean precisely that: not a breath of air stirred. The sky above us
cleared until it was of the serenest blue, but far away, on the rim of
the horizon, we were encircled by banks of cloud that looked hideous in
the morning light. A more ominous spectacle could not be imagined.

For hours we had been beaten and battered almost out of our senses by
wind and rain. The sudden assault of silence, of profound, sunlit
tranquillity, was stupefying. We were not prepared for it, and when we
spoke, we still shouted to one another. Tavi almost deafened me by
yelling into my ear: "We've not seen the last of it, Doctor! There's
more to come!"

I had little doubt of that. Every sign indicated that Manukura lay
directly in the path of the hurricane, that we were now passing through
the centre of it and should soon have the wind again, as strong as
before, but from the opposite direction. Meanwhile, our situation was
perilous. One of the lines of our bridle had carried away, and it seemed
only a matter of minutes until the other would go. We swung at an angle,
now that the wind had gone, wallowing over the seas in constant danger
of being swamped. Tavi and Kauka, at the oars, managed to save us half a
dozen times. Farani and I bailed for our lives. Our only hope--and a
forlorn one it was--seemed to be to reach, somehow, the mound of
fragments heaped upon the beach.

Then came the freakish chance of which I have spoken. All through the
night the seas had been pouring over the northern reefs along the
twenty-mile length of Manukura lagoon. This great excess of water sought
what outlets it could find, with the result that a mighty current was
setting out through the pass. This kept swinging us sidewise into the
combers sweeping across the land. This clash of forces, from east and
north, made a confusion of waters terrifying to see: whirlpools, eddies,
crosscurrents, wave meeting wave at every conceivable angle. Tavi and
Kauka were all but helpless with exhaustion when this chaos united for
an instant, seemingly with the benevolent purpose of saving the lives of
eight forlorn human beings--nine, in fact, including the newborn child.
A mound of water like a small pyramid leaped up of a sudden, and we were
swept toward the beach. Tavi had his wits about him. He yelled to Kauka
to pull in his oar and plied his own with all the strength he had left.
Our line was just long enough to permit us to swing, broadside on,
against the heap of coral, and the boat was set down between two
boulders--set down gently and left stranded there! It was a miracle, no
less!

For a moment we stared at one another stupidly. Such a stroke of luck
put a strain upon what sanity remained to us. Then we scrambled out in
desperate haste. Tavi and I lifted Hitia while the other men flung out
the mattress and leaped after it. We had no more than gotten out of the
boat when another wave carried it away again. The rope soon parted, and
we saw the little craft that had served us so well swept at incredible
speed toward the pass.

The mound on which we were perched was no larger than a good-sized room.
Twice, during the next half-hour, huge fragments of coral came rolling
and grinding across the land to crash into it, but the impacts seemed
only to wedge the tighter those beneath us.

We were hard put to find places of safety, for the top of the mound was
no more than six feet above the reach of the sea. The mattress was
flattened into a crevice so that Hitia could manage to lie upon it with
her knees drawn up. Marunga and Arai crouched on either side of her, and
the rest of us took what shelter we could find. Through gaps amongst the
slabs of rock we could see the foaming water beneath, but the view that
chilled the heart was to the north, across the drowned land. It required
courage to look in that direction for more than a few seconds at a time,
for the seas, lifting their backs as they approached the reef, seemed to
rise higher than the mound to which we clung. But we had the width of
the islet between them and us as they broke, and the brunt of their
force was spent before they swept round our refuge and on into the
lagoon. A few palms still stood, some leaning far over, their holding
ground all but washed away. I counted five in which people were
discernible, but who they were it was impossible to say. Both of the old
_purau_ trees that had stood near the church were gone.

How long our respite from the wind lasted, I do not know. Half an hour,
perhaps, although the time seemed infinitely long. In the midst of it
there happened as strange an incident, I dare say, as ever took place
during a hurricane. You can picture our numbed, pitiable plight.
Fortunately, we were numbed in an emotional sense as well as physically.
We had a dull realization of the extent of the disaster. We knew that
there were few survivors excepting ourselves, but nothing of the pain of
loss could come home to us then.

Farani had somehow wormed himself into a hole just below where his wife
was lying. Only his head and shoulders emerged. He peered toward his
mother-in-law with bloodshot eyes.

"Where is the child, Mother?" he asked.

"Here," Marunga replied, glancing down at her bosom.

"What is it, a boy or a girl?"

Marunga stared at him and then at me. "Which is it, Doctor?" she asked.
There was something truly comical in the shamefaced manner in which she
spoke. Her daughter's first child; her own first grandchild, and she
didn't know its sex!

Nor could I tell her. I must have noticed at the moment of birth, but
the recollection had gone clean out of my head. It can't have happened
often, in the history of childbirth, that the attending physician, the
midwife and grandmother, the parents themselves, have been ignorant of
the sex of a child a full hour after it has come into the world. But not
many of humanity's infants have chosen to arrive in the midst of a
hurricane. Under the circumstances, there was, perhaps, some excuse for
our ignorance.

Hitia, who had been lying as inert as a corpse on the sodden mattress,
raised herself to a sitting position and gazed wildly at her mother.
"Don't you know which it is?" she cried. "You haven't got it! It's dead!
It's dead! You left it in the boat!"

The poor girl was herself half dead and all but out of her senses. Never
shall I forget the tenderness in Marunga's voice as she bent over her.

"No, no, my daughter! It is here, living!"

Quickly she dried her hands on her hair, fumbling in her haste to
unfasten the garments over her breast. She thrust in a strong brown hand
and felt her way within the wrappings covering the mite against her
bosom.

"A son! You have a little son!" she exclaimed, her face beaming. And
then, in that desolate spot, the sea drenching us with spray and
threatening at any moment to drown us, we distinctly heard a faint wail.
I tell you, it was something to be remembered! That minute human sound
made itself heard against the thundering tumult of the vast Pacific.

"There, Hitia! You heard him?" Tavi half shouted, bending over his
daughter. "A warrior! A man child!"

I scarcely know how it was, but at that moment we seemed to feel a faint
thrill of hope, all save Hitia, perhaps, who was lying with her head in
her arms, her body shaking with hysterical sobs. The tiny voice of the
hour-old child certainly had something to do with it. If the most
helpless of living creatures could survive what we had gone through...
Tavi, whose face was swollen almost past recognition, turned his
bleared eyes toward mine, and smiled.

"You've a good place there, Doctor?" he asked. "Hold fast, you and Taio,
when the wind comes again. We'll fight through yet!"




                              Chapter XIII


And so we did. We survived, but after a further experience of a
hurricane's wrath that I shall pass over with the briefest possible
mention. It was worse than that in the boat. I don't like to think of
it, even at this distance of time.

We had made what preparations we could for the wind from the south,
wedging ourselves amongst the boulders until we were almost a part of
the mound itself. Tavi sat astride of one rock, his arms around another,
bent over Hitia so that he could shield her body with his own. Arai was
behind him on the same rock, with her arms around his waist. Marunga had
worked her way beneath an overhanging rock that later proved a godsend
in shielding her and the infant from the worst of the rain. She lay on
her side well wrapped in the oilskin coat. Taio and I crouched in the
same niche made by two flat slabs leaning against one another, and Kauka
and Farani were a few feet to the right of us.

We had taken shelter on the north side of the mound, where we were not
able to see the wall of blackness mounting the sky, but the swiftly
fading light warned us of what was coming. Wind and rain struck us at
the same instant, and now we suffered everything that those in the trees
had been exposed to. I soon reached the point of half-strangled,
stupefied exhaustion when my only wish was that the agony might end, one
way or another. An hour must have passed before there was the least
slackening of the deluge. Meanwhile, the hurricane from the south,
encountering the sea from the north, aroused a chaos of waters beyond
anything I had imagined as possible. Pyramids of water leaped up,
crashed against one another, subsided, and rose again. Once our mound
was swept clean over by such a wave, and Arai would have been carried
with it had not Tavi reached back and grasped her by the hair. I doubt
whether we could have survived another such assault.

By the middle of the afternoon, we knew that we had seen the worst, and
at nightfall the hurricane left us, moving southward like the monster it
was, in search of new lands to lay waste. The stars came out in a
cloudless sky, and when the moon, one night past the full, rose, its
mild light revealed as pitiable a scene of desolation as could have been
found the world over. One might well have said that Manukura had ceased
to exist. The village islet, certainly, had been destroyed as a
habitation for man. From our mound of rocks we looked down upon...
upon... what shall I call that moon-blanched corpse of an island? It
bore no resemblance to the place we had known. Nothing remained to show
where the village had been. The sea had half devoured the land itself,
and what had been one islet was now two, divided by a channel swept
clean to the reef bed, and a full fifty yards wide.

The few tortured coconut palms that had survived could not have been
more spent with the struggle than ourselves. Not a soul was to be seen
in any of them. Their forlorn attitudes were like our own. But we lived,
and never had the gift of life seemed more precious to me than at the
moment when I knew, definitely, that it was still mine to enjoy; that
the word "to-morrow" once more possessed a meaning for me. I knew where
I should be upon some early "to-morrow," the earliest available: upon a
vessel bound for Tahiti, where I would immediately apply for a transfer
of post. No more coral islands for me--never, never again! How quickly
one forgets!

Not one of those in Tavi's boat was lost. The miracle was that Hitia's
child survived. The grandmother was to be thanked for that, and Tavi's
sou'wester, which had covered them both.

We were marooned on the mound for some hours after the wind left us, for
a great surf still bombarded the reef. It was impossible to stretch our
cramped limbs; nevertheless, Hitia and Arai slept, as did Farani and
Taio. When exhausted, the young can take their rest no matter what the
conditions.

At last, Tavi, Kauka, and I climbed slowly down from our refuge. The
water was still knee-deep in places, but the sea was fast subsiding and
the land--what remained of it--gradually emerged. We made our way
slowly, in silence, along the lagoon beach, over barricades of prostrate
palm trunks, spongy fronds, coral fragments and dbris indescribable,
peering around us hesitatingly, afraid of what we might find caught in
the wreckage under our feet. We had not gone far when we came upon the
first victim of the sea, and a gruesomely comic one it was. A fat pig
had been left stranded against one of the few remaining foundation posts
of Tavi's store. Half-way over its head was wedged a metallic funeral
wreath such as Tavi had kept on display among his varied merchandise,
with the beaded inscription upon it: "_Priez pour Lui_." Kauka was the
first to see it, and, somehow, we were not able to summon up even a
smile at the sight. We were too weary, too appalled by the silence and
desolation of the place, to appreciate the sardonic humor of a
hurricane.

I was even too weary to be hungry, although we had not tasted food since
the early morning of the previous day. Not so my companions. The
Polynesian attitude toward food is a wholesome one: emotions are not
permitted to interfere with meals. Tavi and Kauka made a careful search
of the region where the store had stood, and at last found a case of
tinned beef half buried in the sand. One end had been splintered open,
but there remained more than two dozen tins. We returned to the others
with this prize.

Tavi had matches in a waterproof tin, but the wreckage about us was too
sodden to permit the building of a fire. We set to work clearing a place
where we might at least stretch out on the sand; then we climbed the
mound once more, where Marunga was the only one awake. Her whole thought
was centred upon the grandchild against her bosom. When we had helped
her down, we returned for the others. They lay in the same huddled
positions, and hard work we had to rouse them. Tavi carried Hitia down
on his back. The girl showed superb courage. Not a whimper had come from
her in all this time except for the moment when she thought her child
was dead.

We gathered around Kauka, who was opening the tins of beef with his
clasp knife. The smell of the meat aroused my appetite, then. We ate in
silence, ravenously, like animals--there was a full pound tin for each.
The moment we had finished, the younger ones stretched out on the sand,
lying close together for warmth, and, for all their wet clothing,
immediately fell asleep again. Marunga was desperately weary, but she
would not sleep lest she might injure the baby, nor would she let anyone
else hold him. Tavi, Kauka, and I sat side by side, saying little, and
that little in hushed voices. Before us lay the moonlit lagoon, but not
the peaceful reef-protected lake of numberless nights of the past. It
seemed to be stirred to its depths, and still felt the conflicting
forces that had harried it for so long; but these were fast uniting in
one: a mighty boiling current sweeping westward through the pass,
carrying wreckage that had been scattered over the twenty-mile extent of
the lagoon. Trees, boards, fronds, countless thousands of coconuts,
rushed by and on to the open sea at a speed that made our bleared eyes
dizzy. What else the torrent carried with it we were mercifully spared
the sight of.

I was on the point of dozing, my forehead resting on my updrawn knees,
when I was roused by a cry that sent the blood tingling to the roots of
my hair. It came from the eastward, very faint, as though from a vast
distance, but it was the unmistakable halloo of a human voice. Marunga
crouched beside us with a moan of fear. Old Kauka shivered and moved
closer to Tavi, who had raised his head at the sound, gazing in the
direction from which it seemed to come. The thunder of the surf was all
but incessant, but in a momentary silence between the long-drawn roar of
the combers, we again heard that faint, eerie call. It might have been
the voice of some ancient spirit of the land, wailing over the new
desolation.

"A spectre, perhaps," Kauka whispered shakily. We waited, listening with
all our ears, and presently heard it once more. Tavi scrambled to his
feet. "No," he said. "It is a man. Come!"

Up to this time it had not occurred to any of us that there might be
other survivors on the islet. No one, we thought, save on the pile of
boulders that had sheltered us, could have survived the turmoil of
waters that followed the shift of wind to the south. We had seen none in
the few standing palms visible from where we were, and I scarcely need
say that no trees had since been left unexamined on that part of the
islet accessible to us. There were not more than a score of them all
told.

We followed Tavi in the bright moonlight eastward to the wide channel
that now divided the islet. It was brimming to the banks, and the
current running through from seaward would have been too powerful for
the strongest swimmer. We followed the bank toward the outer beach,
hoping to find a possible crossing place, but there was none. There was
nothing to do but wait until the sea should subside still further.

Meanwhile, we had called out again and again, and at last we heard an
answering hail, and spied a forlorn figure with a child in one arm. At
that distance we could not make out who it was, nor was it possible,
owing to the surf, to carry on even the briefest of shouted
conversations. I returned to fetch my small medicine kit and informed
Marunga of what we had seen. Then I rejoined Tavi and Kauka, but dawn
was breaking before we could venture to cross the gully. Tavi went
first, holding my kit above his head with one hand. We could wade part
way; then it was necessary to swim, and Kauka and I were all but carried
into the lagoon before we gained the opposite bank.

A man, his wife, and their five-year-old son were there. His left arm
was broken above the elbow, and the woman, who was barely conscious, had
been wounded by flying dbris. The child was uninjured. They had gone
through the storm in a coconut palm which the father pointed out to us.
It had been so nearly uprooted by the sea that it now leaned with its
top not a dozen feet above the ground. I gave both father and mother a
stiff tot of brandy and would have administered first-aid at once. But
he knew of three others still in the palms, two of them certainly alive,
but too weak to descend. "We can wait," he said dully. "The others
first."

We soon found them, for there were few palms to examine. One was a
middle-aged woman, who replied to our hails in a faint voice. Kauka
climbed up to her and lowered her by the rope with which she had been
lashed to the tree. She was unhurt, but in a pitiable state of
exhaustion. The second was a young man who had been shockingly wounded
on the foundations of a house, when a wave had dashed him from one of
the life lines. Nevertheless, he had succeeded in making his way to a
palm and climbed it. He was in great pain when we got him down. In a
third palm we found a woman and her small son, both dead from exposure.
The lad, who was about three years old, had been made fast to his mother
by the long braids of her hair. Kauka lowered them to us; then we heard
him give an exclamation of dismay. He came quickly down the palm bole,
holding to the dead woman's rope with one hand and braking himself with
his bare feet. In his right hand he held one of the closed baskets of
plaited fronds called _oini_. We gathered round as he opened it. Snugly
wrapped in a bit of blanket with an outer covering of oilcloth lay a
child of four or five months, sleeping as peacefully as though in its
mother's arms.

"It was made fast to a frond butt," Kauka said, brokenly. "I thought it
was a basket of food and was about to throw it down!"

These six were the only survivors we found, making, with ourselves,
fifteen in all. Manukura's population had been one hundred and
fifty-six. Of this number, between twenty and thirty had gone to Motu
Tonga, but of all those on the village islet, six score at least, only
these few remained.

I had enough to do during the next few hours. We gathered the wounded on
a stretch of level sand near the beach, and after a deal of whittling
and shaving with a clasp knife, a fire was kindled and we soon had a
good blaze going. I got to work, dressing, bandaging, and setting broken
bones, with Tavi as my able assistant. We had just finished our task
when Kauka called our attention to a sea bird circling over the lagoon,
so high that we could scarcely make it out. It was the first we had seen
since the storm, and we watched it soaring back and forth as though in
search of the green land that had once been its home.

"Shouldn't wonder if it was one of my own tame birds," said Tavi,
shading his eyes as he gazed upward. He walked to a spit of beach and
stood there, uttering a peculiar high-pitched call as he waved his arm
back and forth over his head. The bird dived steeply, and we soon
perceived it to be a man-o'-war hawk.

"It's mine," said Tavi, as he caught sight of a red streamer fluttering
out from its wing; "the one I sent with the _Katopua_."

The great bird came sailing in across the lagoon to perch on Tavi's
outstretched arm.

"So it is!" Kauka exclaimed. "He's brought a message with him. There's
something tied to his leg."

It was a tiny cylinder enclosed in a scrap of oilcloth. Tavi drew out
the bit of paper and passed it to me. The message was in de Laage's
hand, addressed to his wife, and was headed: "Off Hao. Two A.M. March
21st."

"A hurricane is coming," de Laage had written. "Captain Nagle believes
the centre will pass close to Manukura. It may reach you to-night.
Inform the chief at once. He will know what measures to take. Place
yourself under his orders. Take care of yourself for my sake, and have
no fears for us. We are hove-to in the lee of the land."

Tavi translated the message for Kauka.

"He's a poor messenger, your bird," Kauka remarked, grimly, after a
moment of silence.

"He knew better than to try to fly home in the teeth of such a wind,"
said Tavi. "More than likely he's been all the way to Tahiti since he
left the _Katopua_. Sea birds will make for the high islands if they
can't fly out of a hurricane."

"'In the lee of Hao,'" Kauka repeated, in a puzzled voice. "What would
Captain Nagle be doing there?"

I was thinking of the same thing. Hao had a fine pass into the lagoon,
and the obvious thing, it seemed to me, would have been to anchor
inside.

"I see how it was," said Tavi. "They must have left Amanu for Hao and
got there too late to risk going in. There would have been a great sea
breaking across the passage by that time. So they went round to the lee
and hove-to outside.... Where will they be now?" he added, shaking
his head. "There would have been no lee to the south of the island after
the wind shifted."

"They're lost," said Kauka. "Good boat that she is, no schooner could
have lived through it. Aye, lost with all hands, and so we'll find,
sooner or later."

That was my belief, but Tavi would not give up hope. "Captain Nagle's no
ordinary seaman," he said. "He's been through two hurricanes that I know
of; not as bad as this one, but bad enough! He'll have put out oil bags.
No, there's a chance. If any skipper could ride it out, he could."

Tavi clung to every shred of hope that had any justification in reason,
and heartened the others in every way possible. He was a tower of
strength to all of us. I don't know what we should have done without him
during those first days after the storm. He had cause enough for anguish
of mind. Beside his son, Mako, lost in the other reef boat, a score of
near relatives were gone: a younger brother, two married sisters, with
their families--cousins, nephews, nieces; but he kept his grief locked
in his heart. Mako had been the apple of his father's eye, but he never
spoke of him. If ever he gave way to his feelings it was not in the
presence of the others. Marunga was as brave as her husband. She, too,
was related, by blood or marriage, to half the families of Manukura, and
bitterly she must have mourned for them in secret. But no one saw her
grief. It was fortunate for her that she had her daughter and the tiny
grandchild to cherish at this time. Arai was the most pitiable of the
survivors. For more than a week the poor girl was half out of her senses
and went here and there, searching for the body of Madame de Laage.

After the sea went down, we gathered on the east side of the old gully,
and made our camp near the place where Father Paul's garden had been.
That green shaded place, the work of nearly half a century, had been
wholly destroyed; not one of the old priest's fruit trees remained; but
owing to the wall that had enclosed it, the earth had not been washed
away there to the same extent as elsewhere.

Father Paul's body was among those we recovered. It lay half buried in
the sand at the northeast corner of the church, or what had been the
church: no more than an angle of broken masonry, a foot or two high. We
buried him as near as we could to the spot he had long before chosen as
his resting place. All those who could took part in the simple service.
Marunga then wept for the first time. She sat on the ground, her
grandchild in her arms, and gave way freely to her tears. Old Kauka made
the prayer, and never have I heard one more fitting to the occasion, or
one delivered with more simplicity and dignity than his. I knew what
none of those present knew: that the vast evil of the hurricane had not
been without its small burden of good, with respect to Father Paul. He
would never know, now, of the letter from the Bishop. His life had
closed as he wished, on the island he so dearly loved.

We found the church bell the following day, a few inches of its rim
showing on one side above the sand. It had been ordered, many years
before, from a famous foundry in Belgium, and had been the pride of the
old priest's heart. The sight of it made me shiver, for I could not
think of its music as I had heard it on many a peaceful morning or
evening of the past, calling the people to service. I seemed to catch
once more the faint desolate tolling that we had heard in the boat,
above the howling of the wind and the roar of the surf. Tavi and Farani
were as fearful as myself of hearing that sound again. They dug away the
sand with careful hands, making certain that the clapper should not
touch the rim. When all was clear, the bell was attached to a pole and
we managed to carry it to the site of Father Paul's grave. It was Tavi's
idea that it should be placed there. A tripod of heavy poles was erected
to hold it; then a little shelter of roofing iron was placed over it.
Thatch would not have been permanent enough, and this pitiful roof of
battered tin was built as a token of respect. The bell was hung at last,
and during all the labor of swinging it in place no faintest sound was
permitted to come from it; but that evening, Tavi's son, Taio, by
accident, I think, caused the clapper to touch the rim. The faint clang
aroused an emotion in me that I could scarcely endure, and Tavi threw
back his head as though he had been struck in the face. He sprang to his
feet and ordered Taio away from the place. The clapper was then muffled
so that there could be no repetition of the sound, so terrible for us.

On the afternoon of the fourth day after the storm, Tavi and I were
returning to our camp from the outer beach. It had been a bad time for
all, occupied, largely, with a search for the dead. Fortunately, most of
them had been carried away by the sea, but twenty or thirty bodies had
been found caught in the wreckage, and the work of burying them devolved
upon Tavi, Kauka, Farani, and myself. Not only humans; there were also
carcasses of pigs, dogs, cats, and fowls to be put out of sight beneath
the sand. At last the task was ended. Madame de Laage's body was not
recovered, and it was on this afternoon that Tavi told me I need have no
fear of our finding it.

"I had best tell you, Doctor," he said. "I had hoped to spare you, but
you are certain to be asked about her when you go to Tahiti."

I gave him a quick glance. He seated himself on a fallen palm and
motioned me to a place beside him. "There is no reason why the others
should know," he said. "I would spare my niece in particular. You know
how Arai felt toward Madame de Laage. I believe she would go out of her
mind if she learned what I shall tell you.

"While you and Marunga were in the bow of the reef boat," he went on,
"at the time when Hitia's child came, the second of the old _purau_
trees near the church was swept away. You must have seen it, a little
earlier, holding on by the last of its roots. A great wave tore it loose
and swept it into the lagoon. Rain hid it then and I saw no more until
it was carried past us, not half a dozen yards aft of the boat. The
current was taking it straight for the passage. Madame de Laage was in
that tree."

"Madame de Laage! Good God!" I exclaimed. "No, Tavi. She was in the
church, for I left her there."

Tavi shook his head. "You may have left her there, but I saw her in the
tree. I had a clear view as it was carried past us. She had on a red
dress--you remember? I recognized her by that, for one thing. Terangi
and his wife and child were in the tree with her. I'm certain of it. I
couldn't have been mistaken. I know Terangi. He would not be foolish
enough to stay in the church. He would place his wife and child where
there would be a chance for life, and he must have taken Madame de Laage
with them."

"Were there others in the tree?" I asked.

"Yes. Half a dozen at least. Some of the limbs were above water with
people clinging to them--Marunga's brother, Petero, for one, but I don't
want her to know. They were carried out to sea, that's certain, and
drowned there." He rose to his feet. "Well, I've told you," he said.
"Let us speak of it no more."

I lay long awake that night, after the others were sleeping. You will
understand my horror of the place at that time, my earnest desire to
leave the Tuamotu for good and all. Kauka was right, I thought: there
was small chance that the _Katopua_ could have lived through such a
storm. When could we expect another vessel? The Government would surely
learn of the hurricane before long and send out to investigate. We might
expect rescuers within two or three months--an eternity to wait. Tavi's
attitude astonished me: he had resolved to stay with his family on
Manukura, and old Kauka was of the same mind. The native clings to his
homeland, no matter what happens. As long as there is a palm left and a
bit of sandy soil under his feet, there he will stay. Only death can
shake him loose from the home of his ancestors.

I was convinced that the inhabitants of our three huts were the only
survivors of the storm. We had no canoes left, nor the means of building
one, to search the other islets, but there had been no reply to our
smoke signals from Motu Tonga, eight miles distant. Before the
hurricane, its palm tops had been visible from the settlement, but
nothing now showed above the rim of the horizon. If the sailing canoes
had reached their goal, it seemed likely that all those who had landed
had lost their lives. To far-away Motu Atea, where no one was living at
the time, I did not give a thought.

Dawn was in the east when I awoke. Tavi was bending over me, his hand on
my shoulder. I stood up, rubbing my eyes, and he beckoned me to the
beach without a word. The others were already assembled there. In the
middle of the passage, towed at a snail's pace by one of her boats with
six men at the oars, was the _Katopua_. Her mainmast was gone; only the
splintered stump, the height of a man, remained. Two preventer backstays
of Manilla led from the foremast hounds to the rail. Her bulwarks had
been carried away all along the port side and for a space of ten yards
or more on the starboard side. She looked what she was: a floating
wreck. In the increasing light, I made out Captain Nagle at the wheel,
and de Laage in his white helmet by his side.

Half an hour may have passed before the schooner was at anchor near our
three wretched huts. Not a word was spoken during this time. We stared
at the two men on the afterdeck and they stared at us and at the land
beyond. What they felt, as dawn gave place to day and they perceived, in
the pitiless morning sunlight, the state of the islet and the silent
group awaiting them on the beach, I leave to your imagination. The boat
drew alongside the schooner and Nagle and de Laage climbed down into
her.

Still in silence, they were rowed ashore. The Administrator's face
looked ten years older, but I observed that he was freshly shaven. I
stepped forward to greet him. He moved toward me mechanically, but with
his usual erect carriage. He raised his helmet as he bowed to the
others, and then turned to me.

"All?" he asked, hoarsely.

I nodded, unable to summon up words.

"Madame de Laage...?"

I shook my head.

He made a motion for me to follow him out of earshot of the rest. If for
a moment he lost command of himself as he walked ahead, he gave no sign
of it as he turned to question me.

I told him briefly all that had occurred, and of how Madame de Laage had
been swept away on the _purau_ tree with Terangi and the others. You
will believe that I divulged these details reluctantly, but he
questioned me closely and I was obliged to tell him all that Tavi had
told me. He showed neither interest nor surprise at the mention of
Terangi's name. After a short silence, he asked me what measures I had
taken for the welfare of the survivors and whether anything of value had
been found among the wreckage. When I told him that his safe had been
recovered, I thought I perceived an almost imperceptible flicker of
interest cross his haggard face. We returned to the beach, where I
exchanged a silent handclasp with Captain Nagle. His arm was in a sling,
and although he made light of the injury, I found that his left hand had
been badly crushed in one of the boom-tackle blocks. No one had been
lost on the _Katopua_. Nagle had no wish to speak of their experiences,
nor did I question him about them at that time.

When I had dressed his injured hand, I rowed out to the schooner. The
Administrator's rubber-gasketed safe had been taken on board. From among
the papers in a small drawer, he drew out a list of the inhabitants of
Manukura, made for the census taken a few months earlier. Sitting at the
messroom table, his pen in his hand, and a well-filled inkstand in front
of him, de Laage was again ready for duty. There was something grimly
pathetic in the sight of him, clinging to a straw of statistics in the
midst of this sea of disaster and death.

"The names of the survivors, if you please, Doctor," he said in a dull
voice. I gave him the brief list, my own among them, and after each, in
his clear hand, he wrote the word, "_Vivant_." Then, reading from the
sheet of discolored paper Tavi and I had filled in with names the day
before, I gave him the long roll of those who were lost. After each of
these he made the notation, "_Disparu_," in a hand that did not tremble
even when it wrote: "De Laage, Germaine Anne Marie." There had been
three members of the Matokia family on the island, and presently,
between two of them, he set down the name of Terangi, and marked him as
lost. When the melancholy task was ended he turned to me.

"Those who went to Motu Tonga remain unaccounted for. We must go there
as soon as Captain Nagle can get his engine to run."

"I fear that we shall find none living," I replied. "There has been no
reply to our smoke signals."

"We can hope, at least. If the engine is not ready by afternoon I shall
go in the reef boat." He hesitated, clearing his throat before he spoke
again.

"I sent my wife a message when we knew the storm was at hand.
Can you... can you tell me if it was received?"

I told him of the frigate bird's return after the hurricane. De Laage
listened quietly, his chin in one hand, gazing at the table before him.
There was little in his manner to indicate it, but I well knew that, if
ever I had seen a heartbroken man, he was there before me.

I was about to take leave of him when Tavi appeared in the companionway.
He set down on the floor a well-filled copra sack, sodden with rain and
sea water. De Laage raised his head and glanced at him questioningly.

"I thought I'd better bring you this at once," Tavi explained. "My boy,
Taio, found it. It's Ah Fong's money."

"You have done precisely right," the Administrator replied. "Ah Fong's
money, you say?"

"He always kept it in a sack in the chest under his bed. Taio found the
sack in a puddle of water. I doubt if anything can be saved except the
coins."

At de Laage's request, Tavi shook the contents out on the floor. I was
thinking of my last view of Ah Fong, clinging with the others to the
half-parted mooring line of the other reef boat a few moments before
they were all drowned. He had been the only Chinaman on Manukura, and
had lived there so long that only the middle-aged could remember the
days before they ate bread. He had no relatives that anyone knew of, but
like all his countrymen in exile, his dream had been to return home to
spend his old age in comfort, and lay his bones, at the end, in the soil
of his native province. The dream was upon the point of being realized
when the hurricane came: he had expected to leave Manukura with the next
departure of the _Katopua_.

There could have been no more pitiful memorial to a lifetime of patient
toil than the heap of water-soaked currency before us. It would have
been lost forever had it not been for a flour sack full of small copper
and silver coins that must have prevented the treasure from being
carried into the lagoon. Carefully wrapped in other small bags were
bundles of notes of the Banque de L'Indo-Chine, in denominations of
five, twenty, and one hundred francs. A mess they were, and no mistake;
of all the bits of salvage gathered up since the storm, this seemed to
me the most useless. But the Administrator had a great reverence for
money, particularly for the money of others, entrusted to his care.
Before he was done, he had dried, separated, and pieced together every
bank note that was not pulp, and delivered the lot at the Treasury, in
Papeete. Ah Fong's fortune amounted to between eighteen and nineteen
thousand francs. What finally became of it I never learned.

On the same afternoon, the _Katopua's_ engine being still out of repair,
the Administrator set out in the reef boat for Motu Tonga. He took with
him only Kauka and four sailors from the schooner. I had my injured to
care for, and Tavi was left in charge of our skeleton islet.

We stood looking after the boat until it had dwindled to a speck on the
broad surface of the lagoon.




                              Chapter XIV


I must now go back a little. When the sun rose over Manukura on the
morning immediately following the hurricane, his light disclosed a
scene, far off the land, as strange and desperate, perhaps, as any to be
discerned that day upon the circling earth.

Only the lightest of airs ruffled the surface of the sea, still agitated
by a long, heaving swell from the north. The village islet lay below the
circle of the horizon. Out on the open Pacific, a long way beyond the
reefs of Motu Atea, floated the wreck of a great _purau_ tree. The hard
wood was far from buoyant, and though the trunk lay at an angle of
forty-five degrees, the shattered roots, as thick as a man's body, were
visible in the clear water a full two fathoms down. The lower limbs were
also deeply submerged, and lashed to them, in postures that betrayed
only too vividly their final agonies, were the bodies of three women, a
child, and a man. But the tree supported its living as well as its dead.

As the sun rose clear of the horizon in a sky which gave promise of a
still, hot day, the man perched upon one of the upper branches began to
cast off the line which held him fast to the bole. He was a long time at
this task. His fingers were so stiff that he could scarcely use them.
His face was almost unrecognizable, and his eyes, puffed nearly shut,
were suffused with blood. The man was Terangi.

Wedged at the base of a thick limb adjoining his own were his wife and
child. At the base of another limb a little below them, which now stood
almost vertically, owing to the slant of the trunk, Madame de Laage hung
motionless, her head to one side. She was held in place by a rope passed
under her arms and around the thick stem of the tree.

Panting with his slight exertion, Terangi was at last free to turn a
little so that his body might best absorb the life-giving warmth of the
sun. Half an hour passed before he trusted his strength sufficiently to
move farther. Marama and Tita were alive, he knew; but he feared that
Madame de Laage had died during the night. His first effort to speak
produced only a rattling in his throat, but at length he was able to
call to his wife. She raised her head and turned to look up at him with
eyes as bloodshot as his own. With the greatest caution Terangi climbed
down beside them. "You can hold fast?" he asked. Marama nodded, and he
began to fumble at the knots in the rope which held her. Tita, who had
been completely muffled in her father's oilskin coat and held close to
her mother during the night, had suffered far less than her parents, but
she was trembling with cold. Marama stripped off the child's clothing
and her own, to the waist, until the sun had restored some heat to their
bodies. With the same slow, cautious movements, Terangi climbed down to
Madame de Laage. He felt her pulse, which was still beating feebly.
While he was trying to make her position a little easier, she opened her
eyes, but without recognition. Terangi shook his head, as he glanced up
at Marama.

Their perch was not ten feet above the water. The sea beneath was of a
deep, vivid blue, shot through with shafts of sunlight, and as clear as
the waters of an Alpine lake. Marama glanced at what was below,
shuddering at the sight.

"Could we not cast them off?"

Terangi shook his head. "The tree might turn."

Both well understood the horror of their predicament. The tree floated
in a delicate state of balance. Should sharks come to tear at the dead
beneath, it might easily happen that the living would be added to the
feast. They had neither food nor water. Meanwhile, they seemed to be in
the grip of a sluggish current, moving eastward. The nearest land in
that direction was the island of Tatakoto, one hundred miles distant. It
was conceivable that the tree might fetch up on one of the reefs of that
island. Granted that it did, Terangi well knew that they would be dead
of thirst before that time.

He climbed to the highest limb that would support him and peered to the
westward. The sea in every direction was littered with wreckage:
uprooted trees, palm fronds--all the dbris of a great storm. Marama,
too, was standing, gazing in the same direction.

"You see?" she asked.

"Something... I am not sure."

She pointed. "Motu Atea is there."

"How far?"

"Two miles, perhaps."

Terangi made out a piece of plank floating near the tree. He lowered
himself into the water and soon swam back, pushing it before him. Then,
seating himself on the trunk below Madame de Laage, with his back to a
broken limb, he made a determined effort to paddle toward the land. The
plank was a stout one-by-six, a fathom long, and he put all his
returning strength into the work; but at the end of a quarter of an hour
he perceived that it was useless: the tree had not moved ten yards.

Marama looked toward Madame de Laage, hanging inert in her lashings, and
then at her husband.

"Will she live?"

"Perhaps."

Who can say what their thoughts may have been at that moment? Both
Terangi and his wife were strong swimmers. Under ordinary conditions, a
two-mile swim would have been nothing for them, and Tita could cling to
her father's back. Even in their weakened condition, with bits of
wreckage to buoy them up they would have had little difficulty in
reaching the land. But Madame de Laage could not have been taken. To the
westward lay Motu Atea and safety. To the eastward, the open sea and the
most horrible of deaths for all. If the alternatives were considered,
they did not speak of them. They remained where they were.

Presently Terangi spoke again. "Stop with her, you two. I will swim to
the land. Perhaps I shall find a canoe. If not, poles to make a raft."

"Go quickly," Marama said, her voice trembling. She handed up the
oilskin coat in which the child had been wrapped. "Make it fast to the
limb above there. It will give you something to steer by."

Terangi did this. He then stripped off his clothes, handing the garments
down to Marama. Each knew what the other was thinking. The chances of
finding a canoe ashore were small indeed. Hours would pass before any
sort of raft could be made and paddled off from shore, and night might
have fallen by that time. Where would the tree have drifted? How was he
to find it again?

Tita stood on the limb beside her mother, her sturdy little body exposed
to the sun. As her father was climbing slowly down to lower himself into
the water, she gave a little cry: "_A hio na!_ Look, Father!" She
pointed to the north.

"What is it?"

"A canoe. Now do you see?"

As the swell lifted them high, Terangi sighted along his daughter's
outstretched arm. With his inflamed eyes he could not, at first, make
out the object, but Marama saw it. They stared northward until the swell
lifted it again, and this time the mother was convinced. Terangi
immediately struck out, in the direction Marama indicated, glancing back
often for bearings on the tree; then he himself saw the canoe. Toward
the end he lost it, and treaded water, gazing before him anxiously while
half a dozen broad-backed swells passed beneath him. When he saw it
again, the canoe was not fifty yards distant, floating bottom-up.

As he came alongside he saw that it was uninjured and would easily hold
them all. It must have been carried away, he thought, when the waves
began to breach the land, and was swept through the pass by the current.
He seized the outrigger and dove with it, righting the canoe. Swimming
to the after end, he forced it deep under water, and released it with a
strong forward push. The dugout shot away from his hands, and as it
righted itself on the surface, a cascade of water spilled out. Then,
with a series of carefully timed forward and backward jerks, he sent
half of the water remaining alternately over bow and stern before he
climbed gingerly aboard. Rapid strokes of his plank disposed of what
remained in the bilges. It required little time for him to reach the
tree once more.

No word was spoken. The mother and child climbed down and seated
themselves while Terangi held the canoe. Then, gently and carefully, he
unknotted the rope holding Madame de Laage and lowered the unconscious
woman into Marama's arms.

They placed her amidships, pushed away from the tree, and headed for the
land.

When they had gone a little way, Marama reached out to grasp a floating
frond. She broke the midrib in two and paddled with the butt.

They were close to the breakers now: great oily swells that thundered
over the reef in cataracts of white. They backed water, Terangi glancing
over his shoulder, waiting a favorable moment as the seas lifted and
passed beneath them. With a quick command to his wife, he dashed his
plank into the sea. Both paddled with all their strength. The canoe rose
high and shot forward with the crest of the wave, straight and true
through the turmoil of broken water--over the reef and across the
shallow fringing lagoon beyond. At the last moment, the outrigger struck
a rock and the slender booms were splintered; but they were safe.
Terangi sprang out into waist-deep water, seized the canoe before it
could swamp, and guided it to the beach. He carried Madame de Laage to a
stretch of smooth shaded sand; then he and Marama hauled up the canoe.

It was nearly midday. Gathering a few palm fronds, they plaited and
fastened them together with strips of bark, making a small shelter from
the sun. They carried Madame de Laage beneath it, and Marama knelt
beside her, chafing her hands and wrists. At last the white woman opened
her eyes and gazed blankly before her. She gave a moan of pain as Marama
lifted her a little while Terangi placed an armful of dry frond
leaflets, covered by his shirt, under her head for a pillow.

A few moments later, Marama and Tita were themselves asleep at her side.
Terangi sat near by, his chin in his palms, staring out over the sea.
After a long time he stretched himself out on the sand beside his wife.




                               Chapter XV


Those four people--three adults and a child--in their loneliness, with
their memories of what they had suffered in common, were drawn together
by ties that seemed closer than those of blood. They were as isolated on
Motu Atea as though they had been the only human beings left in
existence. They believed this might well be the case, in so far as the
inhabitants of Manukura were concerned. At the time when their tree was
swept away, they had thought themselves the last survivors of the
village islet. It was barely possible that some of those who had taken
refuge on Motu Tonga might still be living, but after their own
experience it seemed foolish to hope.

Madame de Laage recovered slowly. She was so exhausted, so stunned, at
first, that she had only a blurred memory of what had happened. She
recalled the moment when the sea had torn loose the last remaining roots
of the tree, but almost nothing of what had followed. Gradually, in
spite of her efforts to keep them back, other memories returned: of the
tree, adrift, far from land; of Marama calling to her, as though from a
great distance; of Terangi's swollen face and bloodshot eyes as he
peered at her from the limb to which he clung.

When she was stronger, Marama told her, briefly, where they were and how
they had reached the land. She and her husband cared for her with a
tenderness that touched Madame de Laage profoundly. She well knew what
she owed this devoted, heroic pair: no less than the gift of life
itself.

The sleeping sea, the blue sky overhead, the warm sunshine, tempered by
a gentle breeze from the southeast, were those of Nature in her most
kindly mood, contrasting sardonically with the wrecked and ruined land
around them. Of the many thousands of palms that had once flourished on
Motu Atea, all were down save two or three hundred which had been
sheltered to some extent in the very centre of the island. The
storehouse stood at this place, a low building of masonry, built half
underground. Its roof was gone, and the sea, washing in through the
broken door, had filled the place with sand, but Terangi had discovered,
by digging, that most of the stores within were intact. The work of
recovering them brought him relief from his thoughts, and Tita was with
him to shout her delight at each new treasure disclosed. Little by
little, he brought them forth: two cases of tinned meat, a twenty-pound
tin of pilot biscuits, axes, bush knives, iron for making fish
spears--even a chest of old clothing that had been the property of the
chief. He unpacked the garments with stony eyes: dungarees and worn
cotton shirts, dresses that had belonged to Mata. With Tita to help him,
he dried these things in the sun, and took them to the hut where Madame
de Laage reclined on the sand.

It was noon on the third day when Terangi fetched the bundle of
clothing. When they had had their meal of bully beef, ship's bread, and
young coconuts, he set out, with Tita, to continue his work of repairing
the canoe. Tita ran on ahead of her father, her tattered frock and dark
hair fluttering in the wind. Madame de Laage was seized with a feeling
of almost unendurable anguish as she looked after the lonely little
figure. How many of Manukura's children were left? None, probably, save
Tita. It was inconceivable that any others could have survived.

Marama, on her knees near by, had begun to sort out the bundle of
clothing; their own garments had been reduced to rags by the storm. She
unfolded a dress which both recognized; it had belonged to Marama's
mother. The two women turned toward one another instinctively. Tears
sprang into Madame de Laage's eyes, though she strove hard to keep them
back. Of a sudden, Marama put her head in her arms and burst into a
dreadful passion of weeping, giving way, at last, to the full, desolate
intensity of her grief. With her heart wrung by emotion and tears
streaming down her cheeks, Madame de Laage took the younger woman in her
arms. Marama clung to her fiercely.

After a long time, the girl raised her head. "_Tirara_--it is finished,"
she said, in a dull voice. "They are dead--all dead. Weeping will not
bring them back."

"We can hope, Marama," Madame de Laage replied. But in her heart, she
had no hope; no more than the others. All must be dead. Her husband and
Captain Nagle? No small vessel ever built could have lived through such
a storm. No; they, too, were lost.

Madame de Laage felt an immense pity for the girl beside her, whom the
catastrophe had robbed to such an appalling extent. She had lost
parents, sisters, brothers, relatives, friends--the very community of
which she had been one of many closely knit parts had ceased to exist, a
little world destroyed within a few hours.

That same afternoon, striving to divert the girl's thoughts from
memories so overwhelmingly painful, Madame de Laage began to speak of
herself. She and her husband had long planned to take a year's leave in
France; they were to have gone within a few months' time. Now she
herself would go, to live with a widowed sister in Paris, who was very
dear to her. Marama listened sadly, holding her hand between her own.
She felt drawn closer than ever to her companion whom she loved and
trusted as deeply as though she had been an elder sister. After a brief
silence she began to speak, in the toneless voice of one for whom the
future holds nothing. Casting reserve aside, she told her story as if it
had all happened long ago, in another world. She told how Terangi had
been picked up at sea by Father Paul and Mako, and of his landing on
Motu Tonga. She told how she and Tita had found him there, and of the
happy reunion of their little family; of the plans made for their escape
to Fenua Ino. Nothing was kept back. She told of the cave, Te Rua, where
they had hidden during the search, and how they had concealed the canoe
and its contents. The girl of twenty-two spoke like some ancient crone
who recalls old scenes and the faces of friends long since dead and
gone. As she went on, staring out over the sea, her listener was
conscious of the immeasurable gulf which separated the present from the
past, so close together in time.

She broke off. Madame de Laage made no comment. Marama turned to her
with a hopeless light in her eyes.

"And now... what will happen?" she asked. "They will come here when
they learn of the storm. The Governor of Tahiti will send out the
warship perhaps, and they will find us here. Will they take Terangi?"

"God forbid!" Madam de Laage exclaimed, in a low voice.

"But they will," Marama replied. "Then I shall have only Tita. Yes, they
will take him; that is certain. Terangi thinks so. And I shall never see
him again!"

The sun was low in the west when the girl rose to her feet. "We have
now--this little time to be with him, Tita and I," she said. "I must
lose none of it."

Madame de Laage looked after the girl's figure with dim eyes, as she
made her way along the wide outer beach, crossed by the grotesque
shadows of a few palms that had survived the storm. Marama's story had
impressed her powerfully. She forgot her own situation--everything save
the possible fate of the young couple to whom she owed so profound a
debt. What would happen to them? What _could_ happen to them? Her heart
misgave her as she considered the matter. She well knew how the
authorities on Tahiti felt toward Terangi. She had seen the letter to
her husband from the Governor. That letter left no doubt as to the
Government's intentions. Terangi was to be recaptured at all costs, and
sent to Guiana as an example to others of the Government's attitude
toward such incorrigible offenders. Might not the severity of his
sentence be mitigated, in consideration of his conduct toward the
Administrator's wife? It was a possibility extremely doubtful. Madame de
Laage saw little reason to hope that anything she might say or do in his
behalf would alter the decision, as to his punishment, when he should be
retaken.

He must not be retaken! There was only one way for Terangi and Marama:
they must carry out their original plan. The instinct of the natives had
been unerring when they chose Fenua Ino as a refuge. After eighteen
years in the Group, Madame de Laage knew no more of the place than its
name. She had heard her husband speak of it, but he had been ignorant,
she was certain, of any land there save the small bird islets on the
reef.

There was no other refuge for them--none. Supposing that Eugene were
alive, and that he returned to find them on Motu Atea.... What would
he do? She knew only too well what he would do. He would be grateful to
the preserver of his wife, but mere gratitude could never overcome his
boundless and inflexible respect for the law. As for saying nothing and
conniving at Terangi's escape, that would be unthinkable in a man of
Eugene's kind.

Poor Eugene! She felt a fresh pang as she realized once more that he
must be dead, and a faint sense of guilt that the pang was not a sharper
one. Had she really loved him? No--her feeling toward him had been of
another kind: affection, a tenderness half maternal. He had needed her,
and she had not needed him. He had been a part of her life, but she was
too honest with herself not to admit that her life could go on with no
sense of irreparable loss. Now he was dead--drowned. Well, he had not
been a forced witness of horrors such as she had passed through. She
thought of the moment when the other _purau_ tree had been carried away
before her eyes, with Fakahau and Mata and other dear friends in its
branches, and of the sudden collapse of the north end of the church
under the onslaught of an enormous sea. She drew in her breath sharply.
That chapter of memories must be sealed, if possible, forever.

Madame de Laage rose to her feet. The others had returned and were
making preparations for the evening meal. Marama was breaking sticks of
firewood and Terangi was scaling some fish he had speared. Tita was
wading along the shallows close by. All at once the silence was broken
by the child's clear voice: "_Papa!  pahi!_"

Terangi sprang up to stare in the direction indicated by the child, who
danced with excitement as she pointed to the northeast. Low on the
horizon, reflecting the level rays of the sun, the peak of a sail was
visible, and the upper portion of a single mast. With the light
southeasterly breeze, the vessel seemed headed to pass along the
northern side of Manukura. Terangi, who had been joined by the two
women, stared long and earnestly before he spoke.

"I can't make her out," he declared, with a puzzled shake of the head.
"If she is the _Katopua_, then her mainmast is gone. The topmast and the
peak of the sail resemble hers. It might be a cutter from Tatakoto."

Madame de Laage placed a hand on his arm. "But it may be the _Katopua_?"
she asked in an uncertain voice. "There is some hope of that, you say?"

"Aye, it is like her foresail."

Quickly, Terangi began to gather the materials for a large fire: fronds,
driftwood--whatever was closest to hand. He turned to ask Marama for the
tin of matches. Madame de Laage perceived his intention.

"Wait!" she exclaimed. "You want to signal her?"

"Yes. Within two hours I will have a boat on the reef."

"No, no! You must not! Give me the matches!"

She spoke earnestly, imperiously. Terangi turned to regard her with a
bewildered expression in his eyes.

"You are thinking of me," she went on, rapidly. "Think of yourselves!
If, by good fortune, she is the _Katopua_, my husband will be alive and
on board. If it is a cutter, you will be recognized and reported among
the living. Marama has told me of the plan you had. You must carry it
out, Terangi. Go to Fenua Ino! When they come here, I shall say nothing.
All men will believe you dead."

Terangi gave his wife a quick glance. The almost imperceptible lifting
of her eyebrows told him all that he wanted to know.

"You mean that we are to take the canoe and go yonder," he asked, with a
nod to the east, "while you remain here?"

"Yes."

He shook his head.

"If that is the _Katopua_, she will be inside the lagoon by daybreak.
All of the _motu_ are certain to be visited. I shall be all right. You
must not think of that, but go."

Terangi regarded her with an expression in his eyes that Madame de Laage
never forgot. "Aye, we will go," he said. "I will make all ready. When a
vessel is sighted in the lagoon, we shall say farewell."

****

On the afternoon of the second day after the one-masted vessel had
passed, Terangi and Madame de Laage were on the outer beach. The canoe
was drawn up in the sand near by, ready to be launched. Terangi had
completed the repairs. The outrigger and both booms had been broken, and
their sinnet fastenings carried away. The making of new cordage, from
coconut-husk fibre, had been a tedious task, but with his wife to help
him in odd moments it was at last accomplished, and the new outrigger
assembled and lashed with bright yellow plait.

There had been little rest for any of them during the past two days.
While Terangi was at work on the canoe, Madame de Laage and Marama had
examined the supplies to be taken, but their chief task had been to
eradicate all traces of the presence, on Motu Atea, of anyone save
Madame de Laage herself. This had been no small task, and it could not,
of course, be perfectly carried out; but they had accomplished much. No
one, seeing the ruined storehouse, would have believed that it had been
entered since the storm. Rubbish of all sorts had been piled in there,
as though left by the sea. With palm fronds they covered the tracks of
footprints, and were careful, thereafter, to walk on the fronds
themselves. Madame de Laage directed this work with the eye of an artist
and a realist, and she did it well. The wreckage strewn everywhere by
the hurricane had been a great help. There were few spots, even on the
beaches, where the print of a foot would show.

On this afternoon, Marama had gone to the lagoon beach, to keep watch.
Madame de Laage sat on the sand, with Tita in her lap, while Terangi
husked a sea store of young coconuts which lay in windrows where the sea
had left them. The other supplies to be taken were already stowed away
on board the canoe. To the white woman, they seemed pitifully
inadequate: a bundle of clothing, a light mast and sail made of copra
bags, axes, bush knives, a spade, fishing tackle, a kettle, a couple of
pots, and a small supply of tinned food. Terangi had made a pair of
paddles from driftwood. They were none too stout, but would answer, he
thought.

He believed that the vessel they had sighted was a cutter and that the
_Katopua_ was lost. But he encouraged Madame de Laage to hope that the
schooner had been seen, and went about his preparations for departure as
though she might arrive at any moment. When he had husked the last of
the coconuts and stored them in the canoe, he turned to Madame de Laage.

"We are ready, now," he said. "There is nothing more to be done."

"I am glad," she replied. "Have you thought of this, Terangi?" she
remarked, a moment later. "Your little land at Fenua Ino may have
suffered as badly as Manukura."

"I have no fear of that," he said. "It lies well beyond the path of the
storm. But we would go, nevertheless. We could manage to live."

"It distresses me to think of you in so lonely a place, and going with
so little."

He glanced down at the canoe. "It is enough for those of my race. What
could be lonelier than this land where all are dead?"

He turned his head quickly to glance across the island. Marama was
running toward them, her hair flying in the wind. She was gasping for
breath as she drew near. "Make haste!" she cried. "A boat... There is
a white man in the stern! My eyes were dazzled by the sun... They are
within a mile!"

Terangi sprang to the canoe. Madame de Laage strained with the others
and Tita threw her small strength against the stern. When the dugout
floated on the shallow waters inside the reef, the white woman stooped
to take up Tita, pressing her cheek against the child's as she lifted
her over the side. Terangi was already seated, aft, paddle in hand. She
stooped to kiss his forehead and bade Marama farewell with a quick and
tender embrace. The girl took her place in the bow, and the canoe glided
away toward the reef.

Madame de Laage stood at the water's edge, watching intently as they
pulled the canoe through the wash of the sea on the reef, waited their
chance, and shot out through the breakers beyond. Terangi gave a sweep
of his paddle to meet an incoming wave, and she felt her heart contract
as she saw the thin haft snap in his hands. But they were beyond the
breakers now. Marama glanced back and tossed her paddle to Terangi, who
began to propel the little vessel away from land with powerful strokes.
Madame de Laage turned away blindly.

As she crossed the islet to the lagoon beach, four hundred yards
distant, she rehearsed numbly in her mind the story she had prepared.
Her presence alone on Motu Atea would have to be explained to someone.
She scarcely dared hope that the man might be her husband. Would the
canoe be seen? Half dazed by conflicting emotions, she hurried on. She
perceived the boat while she was still some distance from the barren
shore of the lagoon.

It was moving slowly, parallel to the beach, and a quarter of a mile
off. The men at the oars pulled with an air of weariness. A sixth man,
dressed in white and wearing a sun helmet, stood in the stern, scanning
the beach through binoculars. She recognized her husband instantly, and
longed to wave, to cry out, but could not.

Slowly the glasses swept the shore line until the motionless woman came
within their range of vision. She saw her husband's tall figure grow
rigid. The men ceased to row and turned to stare in her direction. Next
moment they were pulling at top speed toward the beach, the creak of the
straining oarlocks clearly audible in the evening calm. She gained
control of herself and went forward to meet them.

The Administrator sprang out into water knee-deep and took his wife in
his arms, unable, at first, even to pronounce her name. They clung to
each other in silence. Through her own tears, she saw that his eyes were
wet.

"Thank God!... Thank God!" he murmured, brokenly. "You are unhurt?
Where are the others?"

She shook her head. "I am alone."

"Alone!" he exclaimed. He drew a deep breath. Then, supporting his wife,
his arm around her waist, he led her a little distance inland, beyond
view of the sailors at the boat. They sat down on the trunk of a fallen
palm.

"It is a miracle, Germaine! You reached this place alone? Would it
distress you to tell me... Or later on, perhaps."

She shook her head and began to speak with her eyes on the ground. "I
was in a _purau_ tree, lashed fast in an upper fork. I was swept away,
and carried out the passage. During the night I lost consciousness. When
I revived at dawn, the tree was on the reef yonder. I managed to free
myself and make my way ashore. The others were drowned when the tree
turned. I do not know how long I slept. The sun was overhead when I
awoke, and the tree had been carried away at high tide."

De Laage listened to this remarkable story without a change of
expression, holding his wife's hand between his own. He bent over to
kiss her tenderly.

"We will speak no more of this," he said. "You must try to erase it from
your mind."

After a time, he told her of the survivors on the village islet, and
that all who had gone to Motu Tonga had been lost. When the first wave
of emotion had subsided, he rose. "Wait here and rest, my dear. I hate
to leave you, even for a moment, but I have work to do."

"Where are you going?"

"I must look over the palms standing yonder while it is still daylight.
It will be necessary, I think, to move the people down here."

"Leave it till to-morrow, Eugene."

"No--we must return to-night. You will sleep comfortably in the stern."

"I am not tired. I will go with you," she said. They walked slowly to
the north, while Madame de Laage told him that the scattered clumps of
palms inland had not been seriously damaged by the wind. From what he
had said of the other islets, this would be the only place for Tavi and
the rest. She halted to direct his attention to various trees, doing all
in her power to gain time for those in the canoe. "We have come far
enough," she added. "Let us go back to the boat." But de Laage was not
to be diverted from his tour of inspection. In spite of his profound
happiness and gratitude for his wife's preservation, he felt that there
was mystery here. He had seen the print of a child's foot in the sand,
and presently observed, in another place, the unmistakable footprint of
a man. They passed through a small grove of palms, the once graceful
fronds splintered and bedraggled by the storm.

While de Laage was estimating their numbers, his wife took the
opportunity for an anxious glance out to sea. They were within full view
of it now. Nearly three quarters of an hour must have passed. Even
though paddling alone, Terangi must be out of sight, or nearly so, by
this time. The sun was almost touching the horizon and the evening was
beautifully calm, though there was a strong easterly swell. De Laage was
counting the palms in his methodical way, making notations in his
pocketbook. He glanced up, caught his wife unaware, and followed her
gaze seaward.

Two miles or more distant, on the heaving waters to the east, a small
dark object appeared and was gone. De Laage kept his eyes turned in that
direction. His wife perceived with anguish that he was fumbling for his
binoculars.

"I am hungry, Eugene," she said, quickly. "Come, let us go back to the
boat."

"One moment. There's something off there..."

"I saw it--only a floating log. Come!"

She tugged lightly at his sleeve, but he repeated "One moment," and
began to focus the binoculars. She waited in helpless terror, while he
gazed out steadily with the glasses at his eyes. A wild hope came to her
that the wave which had lifted the dugout into view might have been
higher than the rest and that it would not reappear, but once more she
saw the tiny object clearly outlined against the sky.

De Laage drew back his head with a barely perceptible jerk. A large
canoe appeared within the circle of wrinkled sea framed by his glasses.
She was headed east; a man paddled astern, there was a child amidships,
and a woman in the bow, who made shift to paddle with a bit of
driftwood. The little vessel with her cargo of fugitives sank out of
sight. De Laage knew as surely as if they had been at his side who those
people were.

Then he did the one big thing of his career. Slowly he returned the
glasses to the case slung from his shoulder. His eyes did not meet those
of his wife.

"You were right, Germaine," he said, casually. "It was only a drifting
log."




                                Epilogue


IT was long past midnight. The sky was cloudless, and Manukura Lagoon a
vast black mirror to reflect the stars. The schooner lay motionless to a
slack cable, while the unceasing murmur of the breakers on the
encircling reef seemed to enclose a silence even deeper than that of the
open sea. Far away across the dark water, Kersaint perceived a twinkling
spark of light.

"The captain's returning," he observed. "They've lighted a torch to make
their way through the shoals."

Vernier nodded. After a short pause, he asked: "What happened to the de
Laages?"

The doctor stuffed his pipe with coarse _scaferlati_ and struck a match,
which burned with a clear, vertical flame. He lit his pipe and tossed
the match over the side. The faint hiss, as it struck the water, was
clearly audible.

"Madame de Laage showed no outward signs of what she had been through,"
he said; "but you can imagine the state she was in. Her husband sent her
to Tahiti at once, to stop with friends. There are good solid mountains
behind the town, rising to a height of seven thousand feet. Then, when
he had established the administration on Fakarava, he applied for leave,
long overdue, and transfer to another post. At the end of their year in
France, they were sent to Guiana, where he was made secretary to the
Governor. He died of fever, eighteen months later. His wife went to live
with her sister, in Paris.

"I was acting Administrator on Fakarava when I received a long letter
from her. She told me of her husband's death, and how, when he had first
accompanied the Governor on a tour of the convict settlement of Cayenne,
she had felt that he had been secretly glad not to have been the means
of adding one more to the poor devils imprisoned there. That, I am sure,
was an unintentional revelation on her part. She knew her husband.
Secretly glad! My God!

"After that, writing guardedly, without mentioning Terangi by name, she
told me the whole of the story, and informed me that in all probability
he and his family were alive on Fenua Ino. You can imagine my amazement.
She ended by saying that she was determined to procure for Terangi the
pardon he so richly deserved. The real object of her letter was to
inquire as to ways and means. I replied at once, enclosing a letter of
introduction to my uncle at the Ministry, and advising her to tell him
the story from beginning to end.

"Captain Nagle had brought Madame de Laage's letter, and sailed with my
reply. The schooner was tied up in Fakarava lagoon for a week, and Nagle
spent every evening ashore with me. You will know how sorely I was
tempted to inform him of what I had learned. He believed Terangi dead,
of course. One evening I came very close to telling him; but, upon
reflection, it seemed best to wait. I felt in my heart that Madame de
Laage would succeed, but one couldn't be sure, of course.

"Nearly twelve months passed before my patience was rewarded. The
_Katopua_ dropped anchor just before noon that day, and Nagle himself
fetched my bag of mail ashore. I persuaded him to stop to lunch, and as
we shared a bottle of beer on the verandah, I asked his permission to
glance at my letters. The first that caught my eye bore the official
seal of the Governor, a new man just out from France. I tore it open. It
contained a full pardon for Terangi Matokia, and a note from His
Excellency, instructing me to have the pardon delivered with the
greatest possible dispatch--'if such a place exists,' the note ended.
'The harbor master informs me that no land is charted in the lagoon.'

"I told Nagle, then--all that I knew, and handed him the pardon with the
Governor's note. I left him alone for a little while, pretending to be
busy with other matters. When I returned, he was still perusing the two
documents; he must have read them over half a dozen times.

"There was no holding him. He threw business to the winds and we set
sail that afternoon. We went first to Manukura. Tavi and his family were
still there, managing to live, somehow, on Motu Atea. Old Kauka was with
them. The other survivors had gone elsewhere, to islands where they had
relatives.

"I had not visited Manukura since the hurricane; you will understand
that, for a long time, I had a horror of this place. We reached the
island on the morning of our third day out. It was dead calm, and it
took the _Katopua_ three hours to chug down the twenty-mile length of
the lagoon. I need not speak of my emotions as we passed the old village
islet.

"Nagle had visited the atoll from time to time out of sheer kindness of
heart. Tavi was unable to buy anything and had no copra to sell. He and
his family must have had a thin time of it. It was from Tavi that I
learned, afterward, of the cases of beef and salmon, the bags of flour,
rice, and the like, that Nagle left ashore on each of his visits. There
was no danger of starvation, of course. There were enough uninjured
palms to provide them with coconuts, and Manukura has always been a
great island for fish.

"We dropped anchor off Motu Atea at noon. Before we had slacked away,
Tavi and Marunga were on board, followed by the entire population of the
island, who made a load for two small canoes. Tavi's smile of welcome
grew even broader when he perceived me on deck. He gripped my hand with
a sincerity of pleasure there was no mistaking. Marunga enveloped me in
a vast embrace, setting down a child of two years, the offspring of
their old age. While I talked with her, Nagle drew Tavi aside. Hitia and
Arai were the next to greet me. I was called upon to admire three
children, the eldest a handsome lad of four who had made his bow to the
world during that fearful night in the boat. Farani was there, and young
Taio, now a sturdy fellow of fifteen, and his father over again. They
shook my hand warmly, with bashful grins. I have never been more deeply
touched at a meeting.

"A moment later Tavi came striding aft, his face beaming like the rising
sun. He was so excited that he could scarcely speak, but he managed to
boom out: 'O Terangi-ma! They live, and the Government has pardoned
him!' I will leave to your imagination the amazement, the delight, this
announcement produced; the rapid questions, followed by the somewhat
surprising assurance that Terangi and his family had reached Fenua Ino
in safety and were to be found there now. I was not so certain, but,
naturally, kept my misgivings to myself. It was decided at once that all
of them should go with us, and that we should set sail as soon as a few
small belongings could be fetched from shore.

"They weren't long in making ready. It was still daylight when we went
out the passage; then the engine was stopped and we proceeded under
sail, with a light westerly breeze. There was little sleep on board that
night. I went below about ten and endeavored to read in my cabin, but
found that I could not fix attention on my book. The voices of the
natives came down through the open skylight. The mate and the sailors
off watch were discussing with the Manukura folk the adventures of
Terangi from boyhood to his probable state at the present time. They
took it absolutely for granted that we should find the little family
alive and well on the morrow. Old Marunga's voice rose above the others
in tones of extraordinary animation, coming now and then to dramatic
pauses, ending with a resounding slap of both hands on her knees. Eight
bells had sounded when I fell asleep at last, with the voice of Marunga
growing fainter in my ears.

"We hove-to off Fenua Ino at one o'clock on the following afternoon.
Save for the encompassing reef, the atoll is very imperfectly laid down
on the charts. The lagoon is nearly circular, and about nineteen miles
across. The afternoon was calm, and the reef itself scarcely discernible
in the gentle wash of the sea. The only bits of land in sight were the
two tiny islets, neither more than half an acre in extent, with
scattered scrub and the vivid green of the _pohue_ creeper along the
beaches. The boat passage was close to where we lay, but no man on board
had been inside. Nothing was here to tempt the utilitarian white man,
and the natives had always shunned the place because of their legends of
some old unhappiness.

"Leaving the schooner in charge of the mate, with instructions to stand
off and on, Nagle ordered his two reef boats overside and we piled in.
Nagle would deny none of the Manukurans the pleasure of joining in the
search. Tavi took command of one boat; I went with the skipper in the
other. The passage proved shallow and very crooked, but we had no
trouble in getting inside. A mass of coral shoals extended eastward for
a mile or more; we were an hour in getting clear. Then, with deep blue
water under us, we set out at a smart pace. After a time, the faint line
of breakers on the encircling reef dropped away out of sight, as did the
two low islets to the south. Propelled by the powerful arms of the
oarsmen, we glided over this lake of smooth salt water, which seemed to
stretch away to infinite distances on all sides, rippling gently to the
light west wind. The sun was well down when I heard a shout from the
other boat: '_Te motu!_' We scrambled to our feet.

"I saw the land at once, the familiar atoll landfall: a series of slight
irregularities on the horizon, made up of palm tops seen from afar. The
men at the oars pulled on steadily. The sun was almost touching the
horizon when we drew near the land.

"The islet seemed to be about a hundred and fifty acres in extent, and
was covered with young coconuts, above which towered many tall old
palms. We rowed toward a small indentation on the western side. A babble
of talk went up as we rounded a point and perceived at the head of the
cove a canoe drawn up under a low thatched shed. 'They are here!... I
knew it!... He has sighted us and gone to hide!' One or two of them
glanced accusingly at my white official helmet.

"At that moment, Terangi stepped out of a thicket and stood awaiting us.
Tita, now a girl of ten years, stood at his side, as wild and lovely as
some Polynesian nymph. A small boy of three was half hidden behind his
father, who held a younger child in his arms. What his thoughts were, it
would be hard to conjecture; at any rate, the children forced him to put
aside any thought of escape. His attitude was one of stern, dignified
submittal to a fate which had overtaken him at last. No word was spoken
till our boat's keel grated on the sand. It was Tavi, behind us, who
broke the silence.

"'Where is Marama?' he asked, hoarsely.

"Terangi shook his head with a barely perceptible movement. Nagle pushed
past us and sprang out into the shallows. He grasped Terangi by the
shoulders and then embraced him with a hug like that of a bear.

"I shall say no more of that first hour. We were all profoundly stirred,
and there was much to talk over, much to explain. The deep happiness of
Tavi and his clan was sobered by the loss of Marama, who had died in
childbirth the year before. Terangi received the news of his pardon
calmly, and led the way in the dusk to his house. Marama's grave was
close by, bordered with white shells and surmounted by a rough-hewn
cross.

"We sat long that evening, in the light of a fire of coconut husks. The
next morning, with Terangi as our guide, Nagle and I made a tour of the
islet. It was remarkable to see what one man could accomplish in a
little more than four years. He had cleared and planted the entire
island and had better than seven thousand young coconut palms coming on.
He had found the _puraka_ taro of the low islands growing wild, and had
planted beds of it, digging down to the level where the ground is
perpetually moist. His house, though small, was as pretty a thatched hut
as I have seen, with its rafters made fast with ornamental sinnet
lashings. One could see the work of Marama's hands, and Tita's, in the
shrubbery planted around it.

"The island looked so promising, in fact, that, at Terangi's suggestion,
Tavi and his family made up their minds to stop there for good, provided
that Nagle would let them have one of his boats to enable them to go
back and forth to Manukura when they wished. The captain agreed. Late
that evening we boarded the schooner, and the settlers of Fenua Ino
pulled back into their lagoon. And that's the whole of the story, save
that Nagle, poor chap, was drowned the same year, in a capsized-boat at
Fakahina, one of the worst reef landings in the Archipelago."

Dr. Kersaint stretched his arms wide and yawned. In the silence, the
voices of the returning fishermen were heard. The boat came alongside.
The native captain climbed on board, carrying a heavy string of fish.
Seeing that the two white men were still up, he came aft to display his
catch. A sailor followed with a lantern and held it aloft so that its
light shone down on the burnished sides of parrot fish and trevally.
Vernier looked, rather, at the captain's powerful torso and his lined
and rugged face. "A magnificent-looking fellow," he thought.

"You've been lucky, as usual," the doctor remarked.

The captain nodded, with a grave smile, and turned to go forward.

Kersaint rose. "I've kept you up till all hours," he said. "You must
forgive a garrulous old man."

"...But tell me one thing! Is Terangi still on his island?" Vernier
asked.

"No. He's been at sea ever since his pardon came. Nagle left him the old
_Katopua_ in his will. He's her skipper now."

                                THE END





BY CHARLES NORDHOFF AND JAMES NORMAN HALL
     FALCONS OF FRANCE
     MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY
     MEN AGAINST THE SEA
     PITCAIRN'S ISLAND
     THE HURRICANE

BY CHARLES NORDHOFF
     THE PEARL LAGOON
     THE DERELICT






[End of The Hurricane,
by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall]
