第2章 THE BEACH OF FALESA.(2)

Case used me like a gentleman and like a friend,made me welcome to Falesa,and put his services at my disposal,which was the more helpful from my ignorance of the native.All the better part of the day we sat drinking better acquaintance in the cabin,and Inever heard a man talk more to the point.There was no smarter trader,and none dodgier,in the islands.I thought Falesa seemed to be the right kind of a place;and the more I drank the lighter my heart.Our last trader had fled the place at half an hour's notice,taking a chance passage in a labour ship from up west.The captain,when he came,had found the station closed,the keys left with the native pastor,and a letter from the runaway,confessing he was fairly frightened of his life.Since then the firm had not been represented,and of course there was no cargo.The wind,besides,was fair,the captain hoped he could make his next island by dawn,with a good tide,and the business of landing my trade was gone about lively.There was no call for me to fool with it,Case said;nobody would touch my things,everyone was honest in Falesa,only about chickens or an odd knife or an odd stick of tobacco;and the best I could do was to sit quiet till the vessel left,then come straight to his house,see old Captain Randall,the father of the beach,take pot-luck,and go home to sleep when it got dark.

So it was high noon,and the schooner was under way before I set my foot on shore at Falesa.

I had a glass or two on board;I was just off a long cruise,and the ground heaved under me like a ship's deck.The world was like all new painted;my foot went along to music;Falesa might have been Fiddler's Green,if there is such a place,and more's the pity if there isn't!It was good to foot the grass,to look aloft at the green mountains,to see the men with their green wreaths and the women in their bright dresses,red and blue.On we went,in the strong sun and the cool shadow,liking both;and all the children in the town came trotting after with their shaven heads and their brown bodies,and raising a thin kind of a cheer in our wake,like crowing poultry.

"By-the-bye,"says Case,"we must get you a wife.""That's so,"said I;"I had forgotten."

There was a crowd of girls about us,and I pulled myself up and looked among them like a Bashaw.They were all dressed out for the sake of the ship being in;and the women of Falesa are a handsome lot to see.If they have a fault,they are a trifle broad in the beam;and I was just thinking so when Case touched me.

"That's pretty,"says he.

I saw one coming on the other side alone.She had been fishing;all she wore was a chemise,and it was wetted through.She was young and very slender for an island maid,with a long face,a high forehead,and a shy,strange,blindish look,between a cat's and a baby's.

"Who's she?"said I."She'll do."

"That's Uma,"said Case,and he called her up and spoke to her in the native.I didn't know what he said;but when he was in the midst she looked up at me quick and timid,like a child dodging a blow,then down again,and presently smiled.She had a wide mouth,the lips and the chin cut like any statue's;and the smile came out for a moment and was gone.Then she stood with her head bent,and heard Case to an end,spoke back in the pretty Polynesian voice,looking him full in the face,heard him again in answer,and then with an obeisance started off.I had just a share of the bow,but never another shot of her eye,and there was no more word of smiling.

"I guess it's all right,"said Case."I guess you can have her.

I'll make it square with the old lady.You can have your pick of the lot for a plug of tobacco,"he added,sneering.

I suppose it was the smile stuck in my memory,for I spoke back sharp."She doesn't look that sort,"I cried.

"I don't know that she is,"said Case."I believe she's as right as the mail.Keeps to herself,don't go round with the gang,and that.O no,don't you misunderstand me -Uma's on the square."He spoke eager,I thought,and that surprised and pleased me.

"Indeed,"he went on,"I shouldn't make so sure of getting her,only she cottoned to the cut of your jib.All you have to do is to keep dark and let me work the mother my own way;and I'll bring the girl round to the captain's for the marriage."I didn't care for the word marriage,and I said so.

"Oh,there's nothing to hurt in the marriage,"says he."Black Jack's the chaplain."By this time we had come in view of the house of these three white men;for a negro is counted a white man,and so is a Chinese!a strange idea,but common in the islands.It was a board house with a strip of rickety verandah.The store was to the front,with a counter,scales,and the poorest possible display of trade:a case or two of tinned meats;a barrel of hard bread;a few bolts of cotton stuff,not to be compared with mine;the only thing well represented being the contraband,firearms and liquor."If these are my only rivals,"thinks I,"I should do well in Falesa."Indeed,there was only the one way they could touch me,and that was with the guns and drink.

In the back room was old Captain Randall,squatting on the floor native fashion,fat and pale,naked to the waist,grey as a badger,and his eyes set with drink.His body was covered with grey hair and crawled over by flies;one was in the corner of his eye -he never heeded;and the mosquitoes hummed about the man like bees.

Any clean-minded man would have had the creature out at once and buried him;and to see him,and think he was seventy,and remember he had once commanded a ship,and come ashore in his smart togs,and talked big in bars and consulates,and sat in club verandahs,turned me sick and sober.

He tried to get up when I came in,but that was hopeless;so he reached me a hand instead,and stumbled out some salutation.

"Papa's (1)pretty full this morning,"observed Case."We've had an epidemic here;and Captain Randall takes gin for a prophylactic -don't you,Papa?""Never took such a thing in my life!"cried the captain indignantly."Take gin for my health's sake,Mr.Wha's-ever-your-name -'s a precautionary measure."