Ralph Stock

“ The woman was extraordinarily beautiful. Her skin was like milk, and her hair was the colour of gold. Could anything be more alluring? Yet Sirjohnnie did not want to leave Luana! Felisi knew it as surely as that the sun shone, and Lady Truscott wondered what made the child smile.
To Felisi this woman represented "law"—"the law that makes people do what they don't want to." Looking into the woman's face, she recalled to mind a fish—a fish which may be handled in a certain way, but which, if applied roughly to human flesh, causes the victim to die in agony within an hour. ”

“ So we make law, plenty law—law written down for us by other people, and law we make for ourselves—and sometimes we obey it, because we think that is the way to progress, and sometimes we disobey it, so that we can get ahead of the other fellah. That's our life. Funny, Felisi, isn't it?"
Felisi admitted that it was.
"Law," she echoed. "Law make no plenty by an' by?"
Sirjohnnie changed the position of his legs.
"Yes," he said, "it does rather limit one's time. It is made to make us do things that we don't want to. And even you have your law, Felisi," he added quickly. ”

“ It was Sirjohnnie's first hurricane, that was clear. Go back! To what? Felisi led the way along the edge of the cliff.
"Gad!" said Sirjohnnie, looking over at the starlit water thrashing the foot of the cliff. "It's driven the sea clean over the beach. I wonder——"
His voice trailed away, and he hurried on in silence.
At the edge of the cove they stopped and stood side by side, looking down on where the beach had been. There was none. The green village had been wiped from the face of Luana as cleanly as a drawing from a slate. The beach was now a bay of foaming water. ”

“ Sirjohnnie laughed.
"You're right," he said; "that part of it is very, very poor. But, you see, the people who made these pictures have never been here. They don't know, poor devils."
"Poor devils," repeated Felisi, with faithful intonation.
At this point Mandri entered with the coffee. Apparently he saw nothing, and placed the cup on the camp-table and withdrew. But he carried into the kitchen a mental picture of Sir John Truscott, P.E.Z.S., leaning over a lamp-lit table, his grizzled head close to a cascade of blue-black hair relieved by a flaming hibiscus blossom. ”

“ The water was up to his neck, and he slowly dragged the launch nearer shore. When he had waded waist deep, he backed against the gunwale, and a man in white ducks, with his trousers rolled to the knee, climbed on his shoulders and was carried ashore. Another white man followed in like manner, and they both stood on the wet sand, directing the natives as they landed bundles of all shapes and sizes neatly sewn in green rot-proof canvas. It seemed to Felisi that the entire merchandise of Levuka had been shipped to Luana for some inscrutable reason. ”

“ Still through her hair Felisi saw him lead the white man to a tiny pool, unwrap the square of oiled silk, and toss in a piece of vine. She heard the distant murmur of Sir Johnnie's voice discoursing gleefully on the result, and saw the white man examining the vine through a glass. The natives and the pink man were already carrying the tin-lined cases and the jars down from the cliff to the launch. Then she became aware that the woman had taken a seat on a rock, and was beckoning to her. ”

“ Then he dropped the spear and sank into the water, hugging his foot and saying things that Felisi did not quite understand, but which she seemed to remember having heard in Levuka.
She went to him, but he brushed her aside and continued his stalking. "I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it," he kept muttering, as he wallowed round the trap. The determination of the man! "It's the reflection," he told himself aloud—"of course, it's the reflection. When you think a fish is there, it isn't. ”

“ Felisi allowed an agonised pause to ensue. Mandri needed a lesson.
"Stove—him all right," she conceded at last. "By an' by plenty more saqa?"
Sirjohnnie shook his head. "Not for me, I'm afraid. By an' by plenty work."
"Work?"
"Yes. I've got so much work to do, and so little time to do it in, that it almost frightens me."
Felisi found herself on the verge of solving a problem that had always puzzled her.
"Plenty work, plenty time?" she suggested.
"Yes, for you lucky people," sighed Sirjohnnie.
"Why no plenty time for-you-lucky-people?" mimicked Felisi. ”

“ Sirjohnnie, who seemed to have gone into a trance—he had a knack of doing this, Felisi noticed—turned aside and disappeared into the dim interior. Felisi followed Mandri to the kitchen, and squatted outside, as a woman should. The Tongan naturally treated her as non-existent. Nevertheless, a scullery maid has her uses, and he allowed Felisi to cook the saqa, wrapped in banana leaf, Island fashion. ”

“ At the fish-trap—a simple affair of volcanic rock boulders built in a square, so that, when the tide receded, fish were left behind—she picked up a spear from the rocks and waded waist-deep, holding it aloft. The tall man watched her, entranced, and Felisi knew it, and took care that the poise of her arms and head and shoulders were all that could be desired. Had she not the reputation of "a darling" to live up to? ”

“ There was no need for him to say any more. "Laws are made to make us do things that we don't want to." Felisi had been at some pains to understand those words, but their meaning was quite clear to her by now. Sirjohnnie did not want to leave Luana! ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1962, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 61 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”