Vaiti

“ I don't pretend to be any navigator, but I do know the course for Papeëte."
"What you think not matter," said Vaiti, rolling up the chart. "Make him eight bell. You go take wheel; I ki-ki [dinner] , then I take him."
"What's the course?" demanded the mate eagerly.
"Nor'-west by west," answered Vaiti, going into her cabin, and slamming the door against Harris's open-mouthed questions.
An Aitutaki boy with a chain of red berries in his hair, and a scarlet and yellow "pareo" (kilt) for all clothing, brought up the dinner. ”

“ Tai, following her, brought a sack of hideously smelling carrion, and dumped it down on the deck. The mate's eyes glistened.
"I find great lot lying on reef," said Vaiti, with an apparent calmness that might have deceived any one who knew her less accurately than the mate. "I think been there two week. C'lismas Island, he one week away, good weather. Papalangi C'lismas Island belong plenty diving gear. You see?"
"Rather!" said Harris gloomily. "Game up, eh?"
"I think you no man at all," spat Vaiti suddenly, swinging into the cabin. ”

“ The crew, driven previously to the verge of frenzy by her gruesome threats, became entirely frantic during the eloquent peroration that followed her address to Harris. They ran up and down the deck; they shrieked, they prayed, they besought. Vaiti, with the eye of a hunter watching a quarry almost driven to bay, kept a keen look-out through all her fiery eloquence, and just at the moment when the men seamed driven to the highest point of human endurance, turned to the mate with a triumphant cry.
"Now, Alliti! he all right by'n-by: I no shoot myself, I think. ”

“ You not remember Charley's in Apia?"
"I'd forgotten Samoa," said Harris, in a more cheerful tone, picking up the marlinspike, and going to work again, as if revived by Vaiti's arithmetic.
"A miss is as good as a mile, for all me, specially when it's nine hundred mile," remarked the gloomy boatswain. "Couldn't you manage to talk about something rather less 'arrowing to a man's insides?"
"I'd like to know why she's going skull-huntin' to Friday Island, then," said the mate, casting a cautious glance at Vaiti, who was scarcely out of ear-shot, up on the deck-house. ”

“ She turned upon the witch-doctor and laughed in his face. Then she stretched out her hand, and Pita's leaped into it, warm and strong, and together they stepped over the threshold of the cave.
The man outside cursed them, slowly and with relish.
"Shall we not kill him?" asked Pita.
"There is no use," said Vaiti. "It is plain to me that all the tribe know, and they trust to the dangers of the place, whatever these may be. This island is at the very end of the world, it is true, and strange things may happen here." ”

“ Vaiti tossed it to Pita, and the two began their walk, barefoot, swift and silent, casting a quick glance every now and then among the weirdly stilted stems of the lonely pandanus groves as they went.
"They are all down with the Sybil—it is safer now than it would be at night," said Pita. "Vaiti, if we get these things, and sell them for much money in Sitani, you and I will leave the Sybil when she next goes to Atiu; and you shall be queen of Atiu and I shall be king, and we shall eat roast pork and 'uakari' every day." ”

“ Vaiti, her mind charged full with watchful suspicion, felt that sudden small, sick thrill that is the forerunner of the thought—"I wish I hadn't!" Afterwards, when she came to think matters over, she knew that it was because Donahue had made the mistake of bringing out the chart before the terms had been discussed, which was an improbable sort of thing to do. In such moments, however, one does not think, one only feels. Still, the warning was unmistakable, and Vaiti made as if to rise, intending to plead sudden illness and get out on deck. ”

“ By degrees the house filled up with interested natives all eager for gossip and chatter; and to Vaiti, pulling steadily at her cigar, and maintaining the grave, unsmiling demeanour proper to a princess of Atiu and a great Belitani chieftain's daughter, the drawing out of the secret she wanted was as easy as spinning sinnet out of cocoanut husk. ”

“ I misremember if I tould you."
"You did, more nor once, and you was jolly well served right by her," candidly replied the mate. "The yarn's all right, I suppose, and the paste necklace is good business; but where does this Vaiti come in?"
"Quit lookin' at her, ye —— fool, and give me a light for me poipe. Talk easy, can't you.... Why, she knows more navigation than most men that's got a master's ticket, and she's as vain of it as a paycock. And that's how I'll have her. Always get a woman t'rough her consate, me boy, especially if her eyes are too sharp in common. ”

“ Neumann sobbing in a fat, frightened heap on the floor, and Vaiti, silent but stormy, packing up her camphorwood box to depart.
Neumann, being afraid of Saxon's possible anger, tried to keep her, but she laughed in his face, and went on packing. There was an empty native house—little more than a palm-leaf hut, once tenanted by a Chinese trader—standing by the road about halfway through the great casuarina forest; a lonely, ramshackle place, used and wanted by nobody. There and there only Vaiti would go, taking mats and cooking pots with her, to stay until her father came back. ”

“ Then Vaiti, suddenly flinging her arms high above her head, with her light muslin dress fluttering in the wind and all her magnificent hair falling to her knees, burst into such a flood of speech as made the two hard-bitten Englishmen on the poop open eyes of stolid amaze. There is no language in the world so full of eloquent possibilities as the Maori tongue—even in the somewhat debased and altered type that is current among the islands. And, hidden away somewhere in the strange nature of this strange thing in woman's shape, there was more than a touch of the true witch wildness and fire. ”

“ Vaiti walked beside him, looking straight ahead. Had Donahue's wish been granted, he would have thought somewhat less of his own acuteness. She did suspect. A man, in her case, would have been convinced by the reasonable aspect of the whole affair. Vaiti, being a woman, with sea-anemone tentacles of instinct floating and tingling all about the steady centres of reason in her mind, was convinced, and vet not convinced. ”

“ Harris, humming "Good-bye, Dolly Gray," took the wheel over. If he had any doubts as to Vaiti's purpose, the vigour of her language would have dispersed them. Vaiti never swore unless she was exceedingly in earnest.
The trawl-net and the tangle of Manila were hanging over the stern, held up by a single rope. Vaiti glided to the rail, holding a sharp knife in her hand— ("I always did think she kept one somewhere among her frilligigs," commented Harris silently, as he caught the flash of the steel) —and waited, still as a statue. ”

“ She may eat till she falls asleep, and then wake up to eat. Ah, it is a good thing for the princess who marries the King, whichever she may be!"
"I think you will be thirsty if you talk so much," said Vaiti rather rudely. "I am thirsty myself with only listening to you. Go and make some kava for me."
Mrs. Neumann, who had been rather proud to have Vaiti staying with her—since her rank as a princess of Atiu counted for a good deal among the island races—began to dislike her visitor soon after this, and to wish her well away. ”

“ The mate jumped to his feet, and answered Vaiti's sharp hail in person, a deprecating smile spreading like spilt treacle all over his face as he came up to her, cap in hand. Vaiti took her cigar out of her mouth, and looked at him for a minute without speaking. The Sybil rolled on the towering swell like a captured beast trying to beat its brains out against a wall, but Saxon's Maori daughter stood as steady as the slender main-mast upon the reeling deck. Harris smiled more than ever, and turned the marlinspike about in his hands, looking a little foolish. ”

“ Now, every one who has ever been in the Islands knows that these two actions are significant of courtship. Pita was courting Vaiti, as everybody knew—Pita, a mere deck hand, who had been taken on at wild Atiu, in the Cook Islands, because he was a relation of Saxon's dead native wife. Very handsome was Pita, very young and tall and broad-shouldered, wily and fierce like all the Atiuans, but smooth and pleasant of countenance. Were not the men of Atiu nicknamed "meek-faced Atiuans," even in the days, only a generation gone, when they were the cruellest and most warlike of cannibals and pirates? ”

“ It was a revelation and a martyrdom to Vaiti. What were her muslin frocks and her ten new hats at a whole pound apiece compared to this? And the vision of money saved up faded away for the time being before the vision of one such frock—only one—belonging to her. Life could surely offer nothing more.
Of this, naturally, she said nothing to Pita, merely relating the matter of the skulls in as few words as possible. Pita, for his part, made no comment, but took a couple of revolvers out of the boat and thrust one into his belt, handing the other to the girl. ”

“ Then he returned to the lamp-lit room, where Vaiti sat smoking and waiting.
"I am yours, high chieftainess; I am yours," he repeated, rubbing his hands together and cackling.
"What is this thing they tell about a devil that stays upon the road to Mua, and comes out at night-time?" asked Vaiti carelessly, looking over Sona's head at the wall.
Sona shut up his eyes very tight, and shook his shaggy little head from side to side.
"If you ask the good misinari doctor, he will tell you," he answered. "As for me, I have nothing to do with devils. I am a very old man, and I want to go to heaven. ”

“ Vaiti had been listening as she swung along, now casting a glance of approval at the handsome lad while he spoke cunningly of the schooner she should command, now shooting out her lip a little, and slashing impatiently with her knife at the young cocoanut fronds. Suddenly, looking very straight ahead, she interrupted.
"Pita, you talk too fast. There are things you do not know. Tell me, is your heart strong within you?"
"It is strong," answered the island Maori.
"Then listen. There is a devil in the cave."
"I do not believe in devils. I am misinari, and go to church five times on Sundays ”

“ Vaiti, who had not heard of this little affair before, saw her chance.
"No good you speak alonga that fellow way," she said, using the bêche-de-mer talk that some of the Tannese understood; for Vaiti, like many half-castes, could handle almost any dialect or corruption of a dialect, though she could not speak decent English or French. "I savvy plenty, you eatum one fellow white man. By'n by, big fellow man-of-war come, shoot you all-a-same one pig, all-a-same one blind box [flying fox] , burn altogether house belong you. Very good you come alonga Saxon ship, go Queensland ”

“ Vaiti took another cigar.
"What does your misinari say?" she asked. "He is not the right sort of misinari, it is true, but still, he should know more about devils than the traders."
"Our good misinari was not here when it happened," replied Sona in a pious tone. "It was the doctor misinari. Our own good misinari says that devils cannot do harm to any but bad men."
Vaiti reflected, her eyes on the floor. She really had some respect, in an odd, upside-down kind of way, for missionary opinion. It is bred in the bone with the younger generation of Eastern Pacific islanders. ”

“ Saxon sat up against his pillows in five minutes, clear-headed though weak, and asked if the Sybil had not sighted the Delgadas yet.
"Listen, father," said Vaiti, speaking fluently in the low, soft tongue that the two had used together all her life—the Maori language Saxon had first learned from the pretty brown girl, dead this many years, whom he had stolen from her South Sea island to sail the blue Pacific at his side in the days of long ago. "Listen. There is little time, and we are in great need. We came to the reef, and the shell was there truly, but a strange ship had been before us. ”

“ But Vaiti, while she saw and admired the loveliness of the scene, also recognised its barrenness as only an islander could. No fruit, no roots, little fresh water—nothing, in fact, but cocoanut and pandanus kernels, eked out by a little fish.... The lepers must often go hungry.
The hot day turned suddenly chill as Vaiti recalled those blind, snatching, handless arms. They came of a cannibal race, these Vaka folk. What if she had not waked? What if, wearied as she well might be, she slept too long and too soundly in the night that was to come? ”

“ It was possible to make oneself heard.
"I tell you, that thing Alliti see 'long Niué, he one dead man. Captain schooner Ikurangi—same I making tart [chart] all wrong, so he go drown, he and him mate. You think it good thing one dead man he go walk along Niué, looking me?"
"A cat may look at a king," said Harris, who had realised that no fighting was afoot, and therefore was very brave just now. "Besides, that red-head man wasn't no ghost—he borrowed a pouchful of tobacco off of me, and never paid it back."
"What sort that man?" demanded Vaiti. ”

“ She knew, none better, that a ship's papers are her character, her "marriage-lines" of respectability. Without them a vessel is an illegitimate, furtive creature, every man's hand against her, every official eye turned coldly upon her. Vaiti would have liked very well to get hold of the Ikurangi's.
But, careless as Donahue was, the papers were not to be found in the little deck cabin which he used as a chart-room. Vaiti, disappointed, took one of the charts and began studying the position of the ship, with a view to finding out the name of the island off which they were lying. ”