Pautoe

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Title:     Pautoe
Author: Louis Becke [More Titles by Becke]

"Please, good White Man, wilt have me for _tavini_ (servant)?"

Marsh, the trader, and the Reverend Harry Copley, the resident missionary on Motumoe, first looked at the speaker, then at each other, and then laughed hilariously.

A native girl, about thirteen years of age, was standing in the trader's doorway, clad only in a girdle of many-hued dracaena leaves. Her long, glossy black hair fell about her smooth red-brown shoulders like a mantle, and her big, deer-like eyes were filled with an eager expectancy.

"Come hither, Pautoe," said the missionary, speaking to the girl in the bastard Samoan dialect of the island. "And so thou dost want to become servant to Marsi?"

Pautoe's eyes sparkled.

"Aye," she replied, "I would be second _tavini_ to him. No wages do I want, only let him give me my food, and a mat upon which to sleep, and I shall do much work for him--truly, much work."

The missionary drew her to him and patted her shoulder.

"Dost like sardines, Pautoe?"

She clasped her hands over her bosom, and looked at him demurely from underneath her beautiful long-lashed eyes, and then her red lips parted and she showed her even, pearly teeth as she smiled.

"Give her a tin of sardines, and a biscuit or two, Marsh," said the parson, "she's one of my pupils at the Mission House. You remember Bret Harte's story, _The Right Eye of the Spanish Commander_, and the little Indian maid Paquita? Well, this youngster is my Paquita. She's a most intelligent girl." He paused a moment and then added regretfully: "Unfortunately my wife dislikes her intensely--thinks she's too forward. As a matter of fact a more lovable child never breathed."

Marsh nodded. He was not surprised at Mrs. Copley disliking the child, for she--a thin, sharp-vis-aged and austere lady of forty years of age--was childless, and older than her cheerful, kind-hearted husband by twelve years. The natives bore her no love, and had given her the contemptuous nickname of _Le Matua moa e le fua_--"the eggless old hen".

Marsh himself told me this story. He and I had been shipmates together in many cruises until he tired of the sea, and, having saved a little money, started business as a trader among the Equatorial Islands--and I lost a good comrade and friend.

"I wish you would take the child, Marsh," said the missionary presently. "She is an orphan, and----"

"I'll take her, of course. She can help Leota, I daresay, and I'll give her a few dollars a month. But why isn't she dressed in the usual flaming style of your other pupils--skirt, blouse, brown paper-soled boots, and a sixpenny poke bonnet with artificial flowers, and otherwise made up as one of the 'brands plucked from the burning' whose photographs glorify the parish magazines in the old country?"

Copley's blue-grey eyes twinkled. "Ah, that's the rub with my wife. Pautoe won't 'put 'em on'. She is not a native of this island, as you can no doubt see. Look at her now--almost straight nose, but Semitic, thin nostrils, long silky hair, small hands and feet. Where do you think she hails from?"

"Somewhere to the eastward--Marquesas Group, perhaps."

"That is my idea, too. Do you know her story?"

"No. Who is she?"

"Ah, that no one knows. Early one morning twelve or thirteen years ago--long before I came here--the natives saw a small topsail-schooner becalmed off the island. Several canoes put off, and the people, as they drew near the vessel, were surprised and alarmed to see a number of armed men on deck, one of whom hailed them, and told them not to come on board, but that one canoe only might come alongside. But the natives hesitated, till the man stooped down and then held up a baby girl about a year old, and said:--

"'If you will take this child on shore and care for it I will give you a case of tobacco, a bag of bullets, two muskets and a keg of powder, some knives, axes and two fifty-pound tins of ship biscuit. The child's mother is dead, and there is no woman on board to care for it.'

"For humanity's sake alone the natives would have taken the infant, and said so, but at the same time they did not refuse the offer of the presents. So one of the canoes went alongside, the babe was passed down, and then the presents. Then the people were told to shove off. A few hours later a breeze sprang up, and the schooner stood away to the westward. That was how the youngster came here."

"I wonder what had occurred?"

"A tragedy of some sort--piracy and murder most likely. One of the natives named Rahili who went out to the vessel, was an ex-sailor, who spoke and could also read and write English well, and he noticed that although the schooner was much weather-worn as if she had been a long while at sea, there was a newly-painted name on her stern--_Meta_. That in itself was suspicious. I sent an account of the affair to the colonial papers, but nothing was known of any vessel named the _Meta_. Since then the child had lived first with one family, and then another. As I have said, she is extremely intelligent, but has a curiously independent spirit--'refractory' my wife calls it--and does not associate with the other native girls. One day, not long ago, she got into serious trouble through her temper getting the better of her. Lisa, my native assistant's daughter is, as I daresay you know, a very conceited, domineering young lady, and puts on very grand airs--all these native teachers and their wives and daughters are alike with regard to the 'side' they put on--and my wife has made so much of her that the girl has become a perfect female prig. Well, it seems that Pautoe refused to attend my wife's sewing class (which Lisa bosses) saying that she was going out on the reef to get crayfish. Thereupon Lisa called her a _laakau tafea_ (a log of wood that had drifted on shore) and Pautoe, resenting the insult and the jeers and laughter of the other children, seized Mademoiselle Lisa by the hair, tore her blouse off her and called her 'a fat-faced, pig-eyed monster'."

Marsh laughed. "Description terse, but correct."

"The deacons expelled her from school, and ordered her a whipping, but the chief and I interfered, and stopped it."

The trader nodded approval. "Of course you did, Copley; just what any one who knows you would expect you to do. But although I am quite willing to give the child a home, I can't be a schoolmaster to her."

"Of course not. You are doing more than any other man would do for her."

Twelve months had passed, and Marsh had never had reason to regret his kindness to the orphan. To him she was wonderfully gentle and obedient, and from the very first had acceded to his wish to dress herself in semi-European fashion. The trader's household consisted of himself and his two servants, a Samoan man named Ali (Harry) and his wife, Leota. For some years they had followed his fortunes as a trader in the South Seas, and both were intensely devoted to him. A childless couple, Marsh at first had feared that they would resent the intrusion of Pautoe into his home But he was mistaken; for both Ali and Leota had but one motive for existence, and that was to please him--the now grown man, who eleven years before, when he was a mere youth, had run away from his ship in Samoa, and they had hidden him from pursuit And then when "Tikki" (Dick) Marsh, by his industrious habits, was enabled to begin life as a trader, they had come with him, sharing his good and his bad luck with him, and serving him loyally and devotedly in his wanderings throughout the Isles of the Pacific. So, when Pautoe came they took her to themselves as a matter of duty; then, as they began to know the girl, and saw the intense admiration she had for Marsh, they loved her, and took her deep into their warm hearts. And Pautoe would sometimes tell them that she knew not whom she loved most--"Tikki" or themselves.

Matters, from a business point of view, had not for two years prospered with Marsh on Motumoe. Successive seasons of drought had destroyed the cocoanut crop, and so one day he told Copley, who keenly sympathised with him, that he must leave the island. This was a twelvemonth after Pautoe had come to stay with him.

"I shall miss you very much, Marsh," said the missionary, "miss you more than you can imagine. My monthly visits to you here have been a great solace and pleasure to me. I have often wished that, instead of being thirty miles apart, we were but two or three, so that I could have come and seen you every few days."

Then he added: "Poor little Pautoe will break her heart over your going away".

"But I have no intention of leaving her behind, Copley. I am not so hard pressed that I cannot keep the youngster. I am thinking of putting her to school in Samoa for a few years."

"That is very generous of you, Marsh. I would have much liked to have taken her into my own house, but--my wife, you know."

Two weeks later Marsh left the island in an American whaleship, which was to touch at Samoa There he intended to buy a small cutter, and then proceed to the Western Pacific, where he hoped to better his fortunes by trading throughout the various islands of the wild New Hebrides and Solomon Groups.

During the voyage to Samoa he one day asked Pautoe if she would not like to go to school in Samoa with white and half-caste girls, some of her own age, and others older.

Such an extraordinary change came over the poor child's face that Marsh was astounded. For some seconds she did not speak, but breathed quickly and spasmodically as if she were physically exhausted, then her whole frame trembled violently. Then a sob broke from her.

"Be not angry with me, Tikki,... but I would rather die than stay in Samoa,... away from thee and Ali and Leota. Oh, master----" she ceased speaking and sobbed so unrestrainedly that Marsh was moved. He waited till she had somewhat calmed herself, and then said gravely:--

"'Twill be a great thing for thee, Pautoe, this school. Thou wilt be taught much that is good, and the English lady who has the school will be kind----"

"Nay, nay, Tikki," she cried brokenly, "send me not away, I beseech thee. Let me go with thee, and Ali and Leota, to those new, wild lands. Oh, cast me not away from thee. Where thou goest, let me go."

Marsh smiled. "Thou art another Ruth, little one. In such words did Ruth speak to Naomi when she went to another country. Dost know the story?"

"Aye, I know the story, and I have no fear of wild lands. Only have I fear of seeing no more all those I love if thou dost leave me to die in Samoa."

Again the trader smiled as he bade her dry her tears.

"Thou shalt come with us, little one Now, go tell Leota."

For many months Marsh remained in Apia, unable to find a suitable vessel. Then, not caring to remain in such a noisy and expensive port--he rented a native house at a charmingly situated village called Laulii, about ten miles from Apia, and standing at the head of a tiny bay, almost landlocked by verdant hills. So much was he pleased with the place, that he half formed a resolution to settle there permanently, or at least for a year or two.

Ali and Leota were delighted to learn this, for although they were willing to go anywhere in the world with their beloved "Tikki," they, like all Samoans, were passionately fond of their own beautiful land, with its lofty mountains and forests, and clear running streams.

And Pautoe, too, was intensely happy, for to her Samoa was a dream-land of light and beauty. Never before had she seen mountains, except in pictures shown her by Mr. Copley or Marsh, and never before had she seen a stream of running water. For Motumoe, where she had lived all her young life, was an atoll--low, flat, and sandy, and although densely covered with coco palms, there were but few other trees of any height And now, in Samoa, she was never tired of wandering alone in the deep, silent forest, treading with ecstasy the thick carpet of fallen leaves, gazing upwards at the canopy of branches, and listening with a thrilled delight to the booming notes of the great blue-plumaged, red-breasted pigeons, and the plaintive answering cries of the ring-doves. Then, too, in the forest at the back of the village were ruins of ancient dwellings of stone, build by hands unknown, preserved from decay by a binding net-work of ivy-like creepers and vines, and the haunt and resting-place of the wild boar and his mate, and their savage, quick-footed progeny. And sometimes she would hear the shrill, cackling scream of a wild mountain cock, and see the great, fierce-eyed bird, half-running, half-flying over the leaf-strewn ground. And to her the forest became a deep and holy mystery, to adore and to love.

Quite near to Laulii was another village--Lautonga, in which there lived a young American trader named Lester Meredith--like Marsh, an ex-sailor. He was an extremely reserved, quiet man, but he and Marsh soon became friends, and they exchanged almost daily visits. Meredith, like Marsh, was an unmarried man, and one day the local chief of the district jocularly reproached them.

"Thou, Tikki, art near to two-score years, and yet hast no wife, and thou, Lesta, art one score and five and yet live alone. Why is it so? Ye are both fine, handsome men, and pleasing to the eyes of women."

Marsh laughed. "O Tofia, thou would-be matchmaker! I am no marrying man. Once, indeed, I gave my heart to a woman in mine own country of England, but although she loved me, her people were both rich and proud, and I was poor. So she became wife to another man."

Pautoe, who was listening intently to the men's talk, set her white teeth, and clenched her shapely little hands, and then said slowly:--

"Didst kill the other man, Tikki?"

Marsh and Meredith both laughed, and the former shook his head, and then Tofia turned to Meredith:--

"Lesta, hast never thought of Maliea, the daughter of Tonu? There is no handsomer girl in Samoa, and she is of good family. And she would like to marry thee."

Meredith smiled, and then said jestingly, "Nay, Tofia, I care not for Maliea. I shall wait for Pautoe. Wilt have me, little one?"

The girl looked at him steadily, and then answered gravely:--

"Aye, if Tikki is willing that I should. But yet I will not be separated from him."

"Then you and I will have to become partners, Meredith," said Marsh, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

A few days after this Meredith returned from a visit to Apia.

"Marsh," he said to his friend, "I think it would be a good thing for us both if we really did go into partnership, and put our little capitals together. Are you so disposed?"

"Quite. There is nothing I should like better."

"Good. Well, now I have some news. I have just been looking at a little schooner in Apia harbour. She arrived a few days ago, leaking, and the owner will sell her for $ 1,800. She will suit us very well. I overhauled her, and except that she is old and leaks badly, from having been ashore, she is well worth the money. You and I can easily put her on the beach here, get at the leak, and recopper her at a cost of a few hundred dollars. We can have her ready for sea in three weeks. You, Ali and myself can do all the work ourselves."

Marsh was delighted, and in less than an hour the two men, accompanied by Ali and Tofia, were on the way to Apia, much to the wonder of Leota and Pautoe, who were not then let into the secret--the newly-made partners intending to give them a pleasant surprise.

On boarding the little craft, Marsh was much pleased with her, and during the day the business of transferring the vessel to her new owners was completed at the American Consulate, the money paid over, and the partners put in possession.

The same evening, Ali, a splendid diver, succeeded in finding and partly stopping the main leak, which was on the bilge on the port side, and preparations were made to sail early in the morning for Laulii.

The partners were seated in the little cabin, smoking, and talking over their plans for the future, when the former master and owner of the schooner came on board to see, as he said, "how they were getting on".

He was a good-natured, intelligent old man, and had had a life-long experience in the South Seas. By birth he was a Genoese, but he was intensely proud of being a naturalised British subject, and, from his youth, having sailed under the red ensign of Old England. Marsh and Meredith made him very welcome, and he, being mightily pleased at having sold _The Dove_ (as the schooner was called), and also having dined exceedingly well at the one hotel then in Apia, became very talkative.

"I can tell you, gentlemen, that _The Dove_, although she is not a new ship, is as strong and sound as if she were only just built. I have had her now for nearly thirteen years, and have made my little fortune by her, and I could kiss her, from the end of her jibboom to the upper rudder gudgeon. But I am an old man now, and want to go back to my own country to die among my people--or else"--and here he twisted his long moustaches and laughed hilariously--"settle down in England, and become a grand man like old General Rosas of South America, and die pious, and have a bishop and a mile-long procession at my funeral."

The partners joined the old sailor in his laugh, and then Marsh said casually, and to make conversation:--

"By-the-way, Captain, where did you buy _The Dove?_"

"I didn't buy her, my bold breezy lads. And I didn't steal her, as many a ship is stolen in the South Seas. I came by her honestly enough."

"A present?" said Meredith interrogatively.

"Wrong, my lad--neither was she a present" Then the ancient squared his broad shoulders, helped himself to some refreshment (more than was needed for his good) and clapping Marsh on the shoulder, said: "I'll tell you the yarn, my lads--for you are only lads, aren't you? Well, here it is:--

"About twelve or thirteen years ago I was mate of a San Francisco trading brig, the _Lola Montez_, and one afternoon, when we were running down the east coast of New Caledonia, we sighted a vessel drifting in shore--this very same schooner. The skipper of the brig sent me with a boat's crew to take possession of her--for we could see that no one was on board.

"I boarded her and found that her decks had been swept by a heavy sea--which, I suppose, had carried away every one on board. I overhauled the cabin, but could not find her papers, but her name was on the stern--_Meta_."

Marsh started, and was about to speak, but the old skipper went on:--

"During the night heavy weather came on, and the _Lola Montez_ and the _Meta_ parted company. The _Lola_ was never heard of again--she was old and as rotten as an over-ripe pear, and I suppose her seams opened, and she went down.

"So I stuck to the _Meta_ brought her to Sydney, and re-named her _The Dove_. And she's a bully little ship, I can tell you. I think that she was built in the Marquesas Islands, for all her knees and stringers are of _ngiia_ wood (_lignum vitae_) cut in the Marquesan fashion, and set so closely together that any one would think she was meant for a Greenland whaler. Then there is another thing about her that you will notice, and which makes me feel sure that she was built by a whaleman, and that is the carvings of whales on each end of the windlass barrel, and on every deck stanchion there are the same, although you can hardly see them now--they are so much covered up by yearly coatings of paint for over a dozen years."

Meredith rose suddenly from his seat. "You'll excuse me, but I feel tired, and must turn in." The visitor took the hint, and did not stay. Wishing the partners good luck, he got into his boat, and pushed off for the shore. Then Meredith turned to Marsh, and said quietly:--"Marsh, I know that you can trust Ali, but what of Tofia?"

"He's all right, I think. But what is the matter?" "I'll let you know presently. But first tell Tofia that he had better go on shore to sleep. You and I are going to have a quiet talk, and then do a little overhauling of this cabin."

Wondering what possibly was afoot, Marsh got rid of the friendly chief by asking him to go on shore and buy some fresh provisions, but not to trouble about bringing them off until daylight, as he and his partner were tired, and wanted to turn in.

Leaving Ali on deck to keep watch, the two men went below, and sat down at the cabin table.

"Marsh," began the young American, "I have a mighty queer yarn to tell you--I know that this schooner, once the _Meta_, and now _The Dove_, was originally the _Juliette_, and was built by my father at Nukahiva in the Marquesas. Now, I'll get through the story as quickly as possible, but as I don't want to be interrupted I'll ask Ali not to let any chance visitor come aboard to-night."

He went on deck, and on returning first filled and lit his pipe in his cool, leisurely manner, and resumed his story.

"My father, as I one day told you, was a whaling skipper, and was lost at sea about thirteen years ago--that is all I ever did say about him, I think. He was a hard old man, and there was no love between us, so that is why I have not spoken of him. He used me very roughly, and when my mother died I left him after a stormy scene. That was eighteen or nineteen years ago, and I never saw him again.

"When my poor mother died, he sold his ship and went to the Marquesas Islands, and opened a business there as a trader. He had made a lot of money at sperm whaling; and, I suppose, thought that as I had left him, swearing I never wished to see him again, that he would spend the rest of his days in the South Seas--money grubbing to the last.

"Sometimes I heard of him as being very prosperous. Once, when I was told that he had been badly hurt by a gun accident, I wrote to him and asked if he would care for me to come and stay with him. This I did for the sake of my dead mother. Nearly a year and a half passed before I got an answer--an answer that cut me to the quick:--

"'I want no undutiful son near me. I do well by myself'.

"Several years went by, and then when I was mate of a trading schooner in the Fijis I was handed a letter by the American Consul. It was two years old, and was from my father--a long, long letter, written in such a kindly manner, and with such affectionate expressions that I forgave the old man all the savage and unmerited thrashings he had given me when I sailed with him as a lad.

"In this letter he told me that he wanted to see me again--that made me feel good--and that he had built a schooner which he had named _Juliette_ after my mother, who was a French _Canadienne_. He described the labour and trouble he had taken over her, the knees and stringers of _ngiia_ wood, and the carvings of sperm whales he had had cut on the windlass butts and stanchions. Then he went on to say that he had been having a lot of trouble with the French naval authorities, who wanted to drive all Englishmen and Americans out of the group, and had made up his mind to leave the Marquesas and settle down again either in Samoa or Tonga, where he hoped I would join him and forget how hardly he had used me in the past.

"The gun accident, he wrote, had rendered him all but blind, and he had engaged a man named Krause, a German, as mate, and to navigate the _Juliette_ to Tonga or Samoa. Krause, he said, was a man he did not like, nor trust; but as he was a good sailor-man and could navigate, he had engaged him, as he could get no one else at Nukahiva.

"With my father were a party of Marquesan natives--a chief and his wife and her infant, and two young men. The schooner's crew were four Dagoes--deserters from some ship. He did not care about taking them, but had no choice.

"Some ten days before the German and the crew came on board, my father secretly took all his money--$8,000 in gold--and, aided by the Marquesan chief, made a secure hiding-place for it by removing the skin in the transoms, and then packing it in oakum and wedging each package in between the timbers. Then he carefully relaid the skin, and repainted the whole. He said, 'If anything happens to me through treachery, no one will ever discover that money, although they will get a couple of thousand of Mexican silver dollars in my chest'.

"Well, the _Juliette_ sailed, and was never again heard of.

"That brings my story to an end, and if this is the _Juliette_, and the money has not been taken, it is within six feet of us--there," and he pointed calmly to the transoms.

Marsh was greatly excited.

"We shall soon see, Meredith. But first let me say that I am sure that this is your father's missing schooner, and that she is the vessel that thirteen years ago called at Motumoe, and those who sailed her sent Pautoe on shore when she was an infant."

Then he hurriedly related the story as told to him by Mr. Copley.

Meredith nodded. "No doubt the missionary was right and my father's fears were well-founded. I suppose the German and the Dagoes murdered him and the four Marquesans. Krause, of course, would know that my poor father had money on board. And I daresay that the Dagoes spared the child out of piety--their Holy Roman consciences wouldn't let 'em cut the throat of a probably unbaptised child. Now, Marsh, if you'll clear away the cushions and all the other gear from the transoms, I'll get an auger and an axe, and we'll investigate."

Rising from his seat in his usual leisurely manner, he went on deck, and returned in a few minutes with a couple of augers, an axe, two wedges, and a heavy hammer.

Marsh had cleared away the cushions and some boxes of provisions, and was eagerly awaiting him.

Meredith, first of all, took the axe, and, with the back of the head, struck the casing of the transoms.

"It's all right, Marsh. Either the money, or something else is there right enough, I believe. Bore away on your side."

The two augers were quickly biting away through the hard wood of the casing, and in less than two minutes Marsh felt the point of his break through the inner skin, and then enter something soft; then it clogged, and finally stuck. Reversing the auger, he withdrew it, and saw that on the end were some threads of oakum and canvas, which he excitedly showed to his partner, who nodded, and went on boring in an unmoved manner, until the point of his auger penetrated the planking, stuck, and then came a sound of it striking loose metal. The wedges were then driven in between the planking, and one strip prised off, and there before them was the money in small canvas bags, each bag parcelled round with oakum, which was also packed tightly between the skin and timbers, forming a compact mass.

Removing one bag only, Marsh placed it aside, then they replaced the plank, plugged the auger holes, and hid the marks from view by stacking the provision cases along the transoms.

Ali was called below, and told of the discovery. He, of course, was highly delighted, and his eyes gleamed when Meredith unfastened the bag, and poured out a stream of gold coin upon the cabin table.

That night the partners did not sleep. They talked over their plans for the future, and decided to take the schooner to San Francisco, sell her, and buy a larger vessel and a cargo of trade goods. Meredith was to command, and Tahiti in the Society Group was to be their headquarters. Here Marsh (with the faithful Ali and Leota, and, of course, Pautoe) was to buy land and form a trading station, whilst the vessel was to cruise throughout the South Seas, trading for oil, pearl-shell and other island produce.

Soon after daylight the anchor of the _Juliette_ was lifted and she sailed out of Apia harbour, and by noon, Leota and Pautoe were astonished to see the little craft bring-to abreast of Laulii village, and Marsh and Meredith come on shore.

Later on in the day, when the house was free of the kindly, but somewhat intrusive native visitors, the partners told the strange story of the _Juliette_ to Leota and Pautoe, and of their plans for the future.

"Pautoe," said Meredith, "in three years' time will you marry me, and sail with me in the new ship?"

"Aye, that will I, Lesta. Did I not say so before?"

[The end]
Louis Becke's short story: Pautoe

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