Willatopy

“ I am a grown man and very rich. I would have built a very fine hut for you on my island, and I would have taken one of my girls to be your maiden."
"You are not very old, Willatopy, and it will be better fun for you not to be married just yet. My own fine big husband would not wish me to take another one, not even you."
"No," assented Willatopy, true to the strictly monogamous code of the Straits. "One time, one husband. But it is a great pity. You are very beautiful, and I love you. The Skipper he called me a nigger, Madame, but you do not call me a nigger." ”

“ One's views upon the sanctity of human life change with the circumstances. I do not hold it crime to slay Clifford if the killing of him would save Willatopy. But it would be a postponement, that is all. Other poachers would find him out and we should not then be at hand to interpose for his protection. There is an alternative which appeals to me more strongly. Clifford is away toiling through the woods yonder. Willatopy is here with us. Suppose, while he sleeps, that we send in for my camp gear, ship it on board, cast off our moorings, and sail immediately for England. ”

“ You philandered with the pretty pale-skinned Widow Toppys. She responded to your advances. It is of no use for you to shake your head. I know men, men of your susceptible age, and I know widows. I am one myself. Am I not always sweetly responsive to your fascinating middle-aged sex? You aroused the jealousy of Willatopy, and he, a wise and dutiful son—who also appears to understand, widows—put you to rout with his spear. Never again dare you appear on the Island of Willatopy. ”

“ Besides myself there is only one white woman in the yacht and she is my maid and at my strict orders. I can appreciate the danger of alcohol for him, but surely a boy like Willatopy—whose eyes are blue as the sky at dawn—has already experienced the seductions of sex?"
"No," emphatically declared Robert Grant. "Where there are no clothes there is no curiosity, and where there is no conscious shame, there is no viciousness. Willatopy in the hands of an unscrupulous white woman would become a devil. Drink and debased white women are the man-eating tigers in the path of his life ”

“ A shark must attack its prey belly upwards, and strike from below; if its mouth were in its snout like a crocodile's it would be a much more dangerous foe. The shark rolled over and struck upwards. Willatopy's head vanished, his brown body curled over lazily, and he dived exactly as a dolphin dives. A long swooping flash downwards. The shark broke the surface where Willie's head had been, and Willatopy reappeared where the black fin had been. Shark and boy had changed places, and, if Madame had been nearer, she might have seen the grin spread out on Willatopy's face. ”

“ I was bringing him to England to put him in his place, and yet I am glad that Fate interposed. White blood drags down more than it uplifts. Willatopy in his own island, before the fatal knowledge of his succession reached him, was a simple, gallant, charming boy. Would to God that so he could have remained. But those very qualities, which made him so admirable as a savage youth, dragged him into the pit of degeneracy. ”

“ If you do not work properly, I shall throw you overboard. The sharks will get you."
"As your lordship pleases," responded John Clifford.
Madame, frowning deeply, watched the two figures—the lord marching ahead with the villein humbly following—embark in Willatopy's collapsible boat, and row out to the yawl, which lay at anchor at the head of the bay. Willatopy would sail her in or out over the bar when the tide was high, though even he dared not push her through the rollers which broke on the bar when the water was at its lowest. ”

“ He perked up a little, tried to brush the sand from his sleeves and spoke.
"I am John Clifford, managing clerk to Chudleigh, Caves, Caves, and Chudleigh, solicitors, of St. Mary Axe."
"Another lawyer!" cried Madame, and broke into peal after peal of rippling laughter. "Another lawyer! And once again that wonderful perspicuous Willatopy has chased a lawyer to the sea with a fish spear. Willatopy, I forgive you. What a happy world it would be if all men had your instinct for vermin and had from the first adopted your methods of extermination." ”

“ He could think of no sentence more illuminating.
"I am not—everybody—or anybody," replied Marie with dignity. "I am a French lady, as good a lady as Madame Gilbert. When a man makes love, as you have done, to a French lady, she naturally thinks that he intends to marry her."
This was far over Willatopy's head. It is the woman who proposes marriage in the Straits, and [Pg 219] the man who, after fall consideration, gives or withholds his assent. An amour, such as this one of his with Marie, had nothing to do with marriage as he understood it. A man married so that his wife might work for him. ”

“ The stern rose and rose until Willatopy, standing upright, and clutching the edge of the thwart with his bare, prehensile toes, towered over Madame's wet head. The surf all around boiled and roared and foamed over the gunwale. Madame low down got the worst of it, and wished that she had left that drenched linen coat in her cabin. The bathing dress was enough for decency, and was meant to be wetted. Down the hill of foaming water they raced faster, much faster, than they had climbed it, and always the line held true. Willatopy was always ready. ”

“ Marie, sitting there grinding her teeth, felt that she could hate Willatopy as savagely as a day or two ago she had loved him. If she had not also feared him, almost as much as she feared Madame Gilbert, she would have let loose her vixenish rage. It was perhaps a little late, but, as a new weapon, she affected a judicious propriety.
"I should not have met you—like this, Willie, if I had doubted your intention to marry me. White women, especially French women, are not like brown girls. They regard their—reputation. ”

“ Time passed, the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, the launch rolled lazily in the back wash of the Pacific swell, but Willatopy went on oblivious playing his turtle. He could not increase the strain lest the line be torn out of the remora's back. I cannot believe, in spite of Willie's assurances to Madame, that the remora itself really enjoyed the sport. A small fish with a string tied round its tail—and also rove through a hole in its back—and perpetually hauled upon by a heavy check winch, could not have been wholly comfortable. ”

“ When Madame speaks like that there lives not a man so insensible as to disregard her. Willatopy passed a hand in rather a bewildered way across his eyes, and turned his chair round towards her. Then, in a stiff, automatic fashion, he rose to his feet and murmured: "I beg your pardon, Madame Gilbert."
She entered the room, and sat down on the sofa.
"Be seated, Willie, I want to talk with you. No," she added sternly to John Clifford, who was sliding out by the farther door. "Stay where you are, lawyer. Sit." She snapped out the word as one gives an order to a dog, and Clifford sat. ”

“ You are kept out of them by villains,' said he. 'My father was a White Chief,' said I, 'but I am just Willatopy.' 'No,' said he, 'you are the Lord of Tops Ham, the Home of the Toppys. Your father is dead, and your uncle is dead. You are now the Lord. Come home to England with me, and I will get you all your rights.' Then I knew that the white rat lied, for why should a man come all the way from England to get his rights for a stranger? I remember what my father said that the English devoured one another. This English man wanted to draw me away from my Island that he might kill and eat me. ”

“ It is because Willatopy here in his own Tops Island is so artless and attractive a creature, that I dread the effect of his transfer to England and his succession to what still is, even in these democratic days, an eminence ringed about with peculiar and dangerous temptations. Let me give you the opinion of a man—one of your own countrymen, Sandy—who knew the father well, and feels the gravest apprehensions lest the son should come to utter wreck. ”

“ But Lord Topsham is not, and will not be, your pilot."
"Well, well," muttered Madame as she watched him go, "I could not have believed that my boy Willatopy would so quickly turn into an insufferable fool. So he is too proud now even to pilot the Humming Top. Soon he will be too proud to sail his own yawl. His pride will come down with a pretty hard bump upon the unkindly soil of England. That is some comfort."
She sent for Ching, and told him the latest of Lord Topsham's incarnations. "He is now much too fine a gentleman to navigate a steam yacht. ”

“ Wholly unscrupulous, it was nothing to him that a brave human soul should be lost. Willatopy was in his eyes not a human soul, but a much-desired client. After having been won over and despoiled in the interests of St. Mary Axe, the Twenty-Eighth Lord of Topsham might go to the Devil as fast as he pleased. The more he could be prevailed upon to dip into the Toppys estates—no great property by modern standards—the larger would be the profits of Chudleigh, Caves, Caves, and Chudleigh, poachers and speculators in law. ”

“ I have grave fears lest even now John Clifford has drawn Willatopy away to Thursday Island, thence to take ship for England."
"For my part," declared Ewing, "I doubt the accuracy of Madame Gilbert's prognostications. They do not carry conviction to my astute mind. The change over is too sudden. That he will ultimately be prevailed upon to depart for his English lordship I make no manner of doubt. But not yet. He is a good boy. He has a great respect and affection for you, Madame. He worships you, Madame, as a gracious white goddess. As we all do, we all do. ”

“ I have some others in this suit case."
"Clothes?" cried Willatopy contemptuously. "It is always clothes with you foolish white people. When I go with Madame in a boat she makes me wear my trousers, though I throw them off when I plunge into the water. Madame will never swim like Joy and Cry if she always wears that tight blue bathing dress. Now that I am a great English Lord, all men and women shall be my servants, and shall do what I command. Put on your foolish trousers, white man, and come with me. ”

“ For in the course of time his son, insularly known as Willatopy, inherited the title and became twenty-eighth (no less) Baron of Topsham. Mr. Copplestone does not realise the vast difference between light comedy and broad farce, but apart from this substantial reservation I can vouch that his yarn of Madame Gilbert's Cannibal (Murray) is deftly spun. Should you decide to follow the famous Madame Gilbert when she visits the island where the twenty-eighth baron lived you will witness a lively and unusual entertainment. ”

“ We are weak men, but there is nothing sinful in our love for you. Ching here, says little though he thinks a lot; and I say, maybe, more even than I think. But, believe me, Madame, we both of us love you from your bonny red hair to your dainty feet—which twinkle so sweetly over the sand when you come from your bath—and we would lay down our lives to presairve you from har-r-m. Willatopy would not have gone away to England without asking for your leave and bidding you farewell. ”

“ Then: "Mankind," observed she sententiously to the stars which twinkled yet heeded not, "Mankind was never grateful to its true benefactors. And mankind never changes. But next time, Willie, please put the sucker back in the water before it is dead. It might come in useful another time."
[Pg 246]
CHAPTER XVI WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS
That was the last of Madame Gilbert's happy days in Tops Island. Before twenty-four hours had gone by, the storm burst which whirled Willatopy as we have known him out of my story. In his place remained Lord Topsham. ”

“ You are a better man than I am a woman. You are well rid of me, even as an associate."
"I shall not claim the Barony of Topsham," said he. "My son, when his day shall dawn, may succeed if he will—it is his lawful right. But I shall go to my grave as Sir John Toppys. Your hand has given me the Barony, but my hand, no less resolute than yours, refuses the gift."
"You are right," said she thoughtfully. "You with your yacht and I with my automatic have slain Willatopy, and we cannot either of us accept the price of blood. I am glad that you will never sit in the poor lad's place." ”

“ There had been no starving yelps from the beach, and though she had despatched her steward to look for the little stranger, the man of food had returned with his supplies undevoured. None of the sailors had seen the black-coated intruder, and Madame began to hope that Willatopy, true to his instincts, had completed the despatch of John Clifford, and had consigned his remains to his brother sharks of the bay. Madame, I regret to say, has no respect for the lives of those whom she dislikes. ”

“ He would offer your head to his mistress as a gage d'amour, for no man is of any account in the South Seas as a lover until he has at least one bleeding head to show for his affection. The Island of Willatopy is closed to you; no more will you exchange sweet nothings about the weather with the fair and frail Widow Toppys. But to me all is open. If you and your accomplice the Wigan Baronet are willing to pay my expenses on a scale adequate to a profiteer in war material, I will set sail for the island home of the Twenty-Eighth Baronet. ”

“ When the lower drag-rope caught and strained, Willatopy directed both boats to anchor, and cried out to his sisters in native dialect. What he said in words Madame did not know, but what he meant was instantly made plain. Up leapt the three Topys, away went trousers and banana-skin petticoats, and the three of them, bare as when they were born, and revelling in their supreme sea skill, streaked [Pg 149] overboard. The one dark body and the two light ones flashed over the gunwale, and took the water like seals. ”