Mystic Isles of the South Seas Part 8

Lovaina had occasionally called me Dixey, and had explained that I was the "perfec' im'ge" of a man of that name, and that he owned a little cutter which traded to Raiaroa, on which atoll he lived. I walked like him, was of the same size, and had the "same kin' funny face."

She piqued my curiosity, and so when I found him at the round table of the Polonsky-Llewellyn group at the Cercle Bougainville, I looked him over narrowly. His name was Dixon,--Lovaina never got a name right,--an Englishman, a wanderer, with an Eton schooling, short, solidly built, with a bluff jaw and a keen, blue eye. He was not good-looking. He had learned the nickname given me, and was in such a happy frame of mind that he ordered drinks for the club.

"I'm lucky to be here at all," he said seriously. "I have a seven-ton cutter, and left the Paumotus four days ago for Papeete. We had eight tons of copra in the hold, filling it up within a foot of the hatch. Eight miles off Point Venus the night before last, at eleven o'clock, we hoped for a bit of wind to reach port by morning. It was calm, and we were all asleep but the man at the wheel, when a waterspout came right out of the clear sky,--so the steersman said,--and struck us hard. We were swamped in a minute. The water fell on us like your Niagara. Christ! We gave up for gone, all of us, the other five all kanakas. We heeled over until the deck was under water,--of course we've got no freeboard at all,--and suddenly a gale sprung up. We pulled in the canvas, but to no purpose. Under a bare pole we seemed every minute to be going under completely. We have no cabin, and all we could do was to lay flat on the deck in the water, and hold on to anything we could grab. The natives prayed, by G.o.d! They 're Catholics, and they remembered it then. The mate wanted to throw the copra overboard. I was willing, but I said, 'What for? We're dead men, and it'll do no good. She can't stand up even empty.' We stayed swamped that way all night, expecting to be drowned any minute, and I myself said to the Lord--I was a chorister once--that if I had done anything wrong in my life, I was sorry--"

"But you knew you had?" I interposed.

"Of course I did, but I wasn't going to rub it in on myself in that fix. I knew He knew all about me. My father was a curate in Devon. Well, we pulled through all right, because here I am, and the copra's on the dock. What do you think--the wind died away completely, and we had to sweep in to Papeete."

I touched his gla.s.s with mine. He was very ingenuous, a four-square man.

"Did the prayers have anything to do with your pulling through and saving the copra?" I questioned, curious.

"I don't know. I didn't make any fixed promises. I was b.l.o.o.d.y well scared, and I meant what I said about being sorry. But that's all gone. Let's drink this up and have another. Joseph!"

Helas! the waterspout did not harm my twin half so much as the rum-spout, which soon had him three sheets in the wind and his rudder unmanageable. When I went down the rue de Rivoli that night to the Cercle Militaire, he had drifted into the Cocoanut House, and was sitting on a fallen tree telling of the storm to a woman in a scarlet gown with a hibiscus-blossom in her hair. I got him by the arm, and with an expressed desire to know more of the details of the escape, steered him to the Annexe, where he had a room.

A good sort was Dixon. He had in the Paumotus a little store, a dark mother-girl of Raiaroa who waited for him, and a new baby. He had been only a year in the group. He referred to "my family" with honest pride.

The captains of the Lurline and the O. M. Kellogg were at the club. The Lurline was twenty-seven years old, and the Kellogg, too, high up in her teens, if not twenties. Their skippers were Americans, the Kellogg's master as dark as a negro, burned by thirty years of tropical sun.

"I used to live in Hawaii in the eighties," he said. "I used to pa.s.s the pipe there in those days. There'd be only one pipe among a dozen kanakas, and each had a draw or so in turn. They have that custom in the Marquesas, too, and so had the American Indians."

I walked with the Kellogg's skipper to his vessel, moored close to the quay in front of the club. He gave an order to the mate, who told him to go to sheol. The mate had been ash.o.r.e.

"Come aboard," cried the mate, "and I will knock your block off."

The whole waterfront heard the challenge. Stores were deserted to witness the imminent fight.

The dark-faced captain ascended the gang-plank, and walked to the forecastle head, where the mate was directing the making taut a line.

"Now," said the skipper, a foot from the mate, "knock!"

The mate hesitated. That would be a crime; he would go to jail and the captain would be delighted.

The master taunted him:

"Knock my block off! Touch my block, and I'll whip you so your mother wouldn't know you, you dirty, drunken, son of a sea-cook!"

The mate looked at him angrily, but uncertainly. He heard the laughter and the cheers of the bystanders on the quay and in the embowered street. He looked down at the deck, and he caught sight of a capstan-bar, which he gazed at longingly. Any blow would send him to prison, but why not for a sheep instead of a lamb?

He hesitated, and lifted his eyes to the black brow of the skipper, lowering within touch.

"Make fast your line about that cannon!" said the master, sharply.

The sailors waited joyfully for the fray, and the Raratonga stevedores on other vessels stopped their work. But nothing happened.

"Aye, aye, sir," said the mate, and shouted the order to the men ash.o.r.e. The captain regarded him balefully, muttered a few words, and returned to the club for a Dr. Funk. That medical man ranked here above Colonel Rickey, who invented the gin-rickey in America.

Herr Funk was better known in the Cercle Bougainville than Charcot or Lister or Darwin. The doctor part of the drink's name made it seem almost like a prescription, and often, when amateurs sought to evade a second or third, the old-timers laughed at their fears of ill results, and said:

"That old Doctor Funk knew what he was about. Why, he kept people alive on that mixture. It's like mother's milk."

Chapter VII

The Noa-Noa comes to port--Papeete en fete--Rare scene at the Tiare Hotel--The New Year celebrated--Excitement at the wharf--Battle of the Limes and Coal.

The Noa-Noa came in after many days of suspense, during which rumors and reports of war grew into circ.u.mstantial statements of engagements at sea and battles on land. A mysterious vessel was said to have slipped in at night with despatches for the governor. All was sensation and canard, on dit and oui dire, and all was proved false when the liner came through the pa.s.sage in the reef. Nothing had happened to disturb the peace of nations, but a dock strike in Auckland had tied up the s.h.i.+p. The relief of mind of the people of Papeete caused a wave of joy to pa.s.s over them. Business men and officials, tourists who expected to leave for America and the outside world on the Noa-Noa, overflowed with evidence of their delight. The consuls of the powers met at the Cercle Militaire the governor, and laughed hectically at the absurd balloon of t.i.ttle-tattle which had been p.r.i.c.ked by the Noa-Noa's facts. There had been absolutely nothing to the rumors but the fears or the antipathies of nationals in Tahiti.

It was the holiday season, the New Year at hand, and, moreover, there was added cause for rejoicing in the safety of the Saint Michel, a French-owned inter-island steams.h.i.+p which had been missing six weeks. She had left one of the Paumotu atolls and failed to reach her next port, thirty miles away. Rumor had sent her to the bottom. She was a crank vessel, with a perpetual list, and a roll of twenty-five degrees in the quietest sea; the dread of all compelled by affairs to take pa.s.sage on her.

"She's sunk; rolled over too much, and turned turtle," was the verdict at the Cercle Bougainville. Her agents had sent the Cholita, a small power schooner, to go over the Saint Michel's course, and find trace of her, if possible. Imagine the excitement along the waterfront when, almost coincident with the sighting of the Noa-Noa, the Saint Michel appeared, pulled by the Cholita. Familiar faces of pa.s.sengers appeared on her deck as she made fast to the quay, holding cigarettes as if they had waked up after a night in their own beds. The Cholita had found the Saint Michel at the Marquesas Islands, whither she had drifted after losing her rudder on a rock. After a month lying inert at the Marquesas, the Cholita had taken hold and dragged the crippled Saint back to Papeete.

The joy and surprise of the families and friends of the pa.s.sengers and the crew must have the vent usual here, and what with the Noa-Noa's crew of amateur sailors, firemen, and yachtsman, and six licensed captains, taking the places of the strikers, the town was filled with pleasure-seekers. A high ma.s.s of thanksgiving at the cathedral was followed by a day of explanations, anathemas upon the owners of the Saint Michel, and the striking labor-unions, and of music, dancing, and toasts.

New Year's eve, two picture shows, hulas, and the festivities of the wedding of Cowan, the prize-fighter, brought in a throng from the districts to add to the Papeete population and the voyagers.

The streets were a blaze of colored gowns and flower-crowned girls and women. The quays were lined with singing and playing country folk. Small boats and canoes were arriving every few minutes during the afternoon with natives who preferred the water route to the Broom Road. Cowan was a favorite boxer, and shortly to face the noted Christchurch Kid, of Christchurch, New Zealand, whose fist was described on the bill-boards as "a rock thrown by a mighty slinger." Cowan, a half-Polynesian, was beloved for his island blood, and was marrying into a Tahitian family of note and means. The nuptials at the church were preceded by a triumphal procession of the bride and groom in an automobile, with a score of other cars following, the entire party gorgeously adorned with wreaths,--hei in Tahitian,--and the vehicles lavishly decorated with sugar-cane and bamboo ta.s.sels. The band of the cinema led the entourage, and played a free choice of appropriate music, "Lohengrin" before the governor's palace, and "There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night" as they pa.s.sed Lovaina's. The company sang l.u.s.tily, and toasts to the embracing couple were drunk generously from spouting champagne-bottles as the cortege circled the princ.i.p.al streets.

There was rare life at Lovaina's, for besides all the diners in ordinary and extraordinary in the salle-a-manger, Stevens, the London stockbroker, had a retired table set for the American, British, and German consuls, and their wives. The highest two officials of France in this group, Messieurs, l'Inspecteurs des Colonies, were there, eating solemnly alone, as demanded by their exalted rank, and their mission of criticism. They glanced down often at their broad bosoms to see that their many orders were on straight, to note the admiration of lesser officialdom, and to make eyes at the women. Their long and profuse black beards were hidden by their napkins, which all Frenchmen of parts hereabouts tuck in their collars, and draw up to their mouths, a precaution which, when omitted, is seen to have been founded on an etiquette utilitarian and esthetic.

The company was complex. At a table opposite me sat the juge inferieur and the daughter of the Chinese cook at the Hotel Central, a smart, slender woman with burning eyes, and with them, in full uniform, were two French civil officials, who wore, as customary, clothes like soldiers. One unfamiliar with their regalia might mistake, as I did, a pharmacist for an admiral. Mary, the cook's half-Tahitian daughter, was in elaborate European dress, with a gilded barret of baroque pearls in her copious, ebon tresses, and with red kid shoes buckled in silver and blister pearls.

The son of Prince Hinoe, who would have been the King of Tahiti had the dynasty continued to reign, had a dozen chums at a table, oafs from seventeen to twenty, and with the fish course they began to chant. The captain of the Saint Michel was with Woronick, the pearl-buyer, who had made the fearful trip to the Marquesas with him. There was Heezonorweelee, as the natives call the Honorable Walter Williams, the most famous dentist within five thousand miles, and the most distinguished white man of Tahiti; Landers; Polonsky; David; McHenry; Schlyter, the Swedish tailor; Jones and Mrs. Jones, the husband, head of a book company in Los Angeles; a Barbary Coast singer and her man; a demirep of Chicago and her loved one; three Tahitian youths with wreaths; the post-office manager, and with him the surgeon of the hospital; a notary's clerk, the governor's private secretary; the administrateur of the Marquesas Islands, Margaret, Lurline and Mathilde, Lena, and Lucy, lovely part-Tahitian girls who clerked in stores; the Otoman, chauffeur for Polonsky; English tourists; Nance, the California capitalist; and others.

Curses upon Saint Michel, threats of damage suits for fright and delay, laughable stories of the mistakes of the volunteer crew of the Noa-Noa; discussions of the price of copra, mingled with the chants of the native feasters and ribald tales. The Tiare girls, all color and sparkle, exchanged quips with the male diners, patted their shoulders, and gigglingly fought when they tried to take them into their laps.

In the open porch, Lovaina, gaily adorned, her feet bare, but a wreath of ferns on her head, sped the dishes and the wine. She kept the desserts before her and cut portions to suit the quality of her liking for each patron.

"Taporo e taata au ahu" said Atupu.

"The lime and the tailor," that means, and identified Landers and Schlyter. Landers was the "lime" because a former partner of his establishment exported limes, and Landers succeeded to his nickname. Landers and Schlyter were good customers, so they got larger slices of dried-apple pie.

Chappe-Hall, being bidden farewell on his leaving for Auckland, was apostrophizing Tahiti in verse, all the stanzas ending in "And the glory of her eyes over all." There were b.u.mpers and more, and "Bottoms up," until a slat-like American woman bounced off the veranda with her sixth course uneaten to complain to Lovaina that her hotel was no place for a Christian or a lady. Lovaina almost wept with astonishment and grief, but kept the champagne moving toward the Chappe-Hall table as fast as it could be cooled, meanwhile a.s.suring the scandalized guest that nothing undecorous ever happened in the Tiare Hotel, but that it were better it did than that young men should go to evil resorts for their outbursts.

"My place respectable," Lovaina said dignifiedly. "I don' 'low no monkey bizeness. Drinkin' wine custom of Tahiti. Make little fun, no harm. If they go that Cocoanut House, get in bad."

Lovaina told me all about it. She was quite hurt at the aspersions upon her home, and entered the dining-room in a breathing spell to sit at my table, a rather unusual honor I deeply felt. I pledged my love for her in Pol Roger, but she would have nothing but water.

"I no drink these times," she explained. "Maybe some day I do again. Make fat people too much bigger. That flat woman from 'Nited States, ain't she funny? I think missionary."

From the screened area in which the consuls dined with the broker one heard:

"Here's to the king, G.o.d bless him!" "Hoch der Kaiser!" "Vive la Republique!" "The Stars and Stripes!" as the gla.s.ses were emptied by the consuls and their wives and host.

Lovaina had taken up the rug in the parlor, and a graphophone ground out the music for dancing. Ragtime records brought out the Otoman, a San Franciscan, bald and coatless. He took the floor with Mathilde, a chic, pet.i.te, and graceful half-caste, and they danced the maxixe. David glided with Margaret, Landers led out Lucy, and soon the room was filled with whirling couples. A score looked on and sipped champagne, the serving girls trying to fill the orders and lose no moment from flirtation. On the camphor-wood chest four were seated in two's s.p.a.ce.