Let Mabau to silence fall
For ever into sleep.”
Then gazing over her shoulder she rushed off into the jungle, and Bones and I hurried after her. Through the trees we saw her running. Then she reached the sea. “What’s she up to?” said Bones, as we sighted the shore. Out on the edge of the promontory, like some carved goddess, she stood, appealing to the skies with lifted arms as she wailed a primitive note of sorrow. Moonlight revealed her stricken, dusky face. Up went her arms for a moment in perfect stillness, then she dived! Bones and I rushed over the reefs; neither of us had time to think that she might take her own life. Stumbling into the shallow water by the rocks, we reached the promontory and the spot where she went in. I dived and Bones followed me. Round and round we swam, moving the liquid depths, as the imaged stars twinkled and faded. “Mabau! Mabau!” we called, then we each dived, scrambled and felt for her. No sight or sign of life appeared; the dark waters had taken her young life away.
An hour later Bones and I crept back to the den, wretched and sad. We did not speak; we still had a faint hope that she might have swum round the promontory point, eluded us and be still alive. I could not sleep, and at daybreak we started off together. As we reached the fatal spot sunrise was creeping over the Pacific. Out on the extreme edge of the promontory we stood side by side and looked down into the clear depths, searching; for on the water floated her ridi, made from a pretty piece of coloured silk, a present to her from the white girl who had stayed at the Organization room. I knew it had been worn to please Vituo, whose despicable conduct had caused his own death and that of Mabau.
Suddenly Bones said: “Look!” and pointed for a moment. I hardly dared to gaze at the spot where he pointed, and then in perfect silence we looked. On the sandy bottom, deep down in the water, by a boulder of red and white coral, was Mabau, her eyelids apart as she stared fixedly up through the clear, crystal depth. The first sunbeams stained the water by her brown figure. The South Seas wild blackbird sang joyously in the coco-palms, and the sails of the outbound schooner that caught the tide faded on the horizon.
At sunset next day I bade Bones good-bye and sailed on the Frigate Bird.
For three months I sailed among the islands in a trading schooner and then left it at Hiva-oa, where I stayed for three weeks. I was a bit downcast, and employed my time by hard study on the violin. There was an old wrecked schooner on the reefs, and at night I used to creep down into her hold and practise. I was ambitious to be a great violinist. For a while I was in my element in that ship’s hold, and then the natives heard my fiddle wailing and were frightened out of their lives, thinking that the wreck was haunted by evil spirits. I was innocent enough of it all as I played away night after night, until, looking through the port-hole in the bright moonlight, I heard a jabbering noise and saw hordes of natives on the beach, watching and creeping about as I played!
Then a man came aboard the wreck and shouted down the hold: “Halloa there!” and told me that all his hired natives were packing up and leaving for other islands, as they all thought when my violin wailed that the old wreck was haunted by spirits of heathen gods. So I lost my chance of being alone with my aspirations in the South Seas and once more got a schooner and went off to Honolulu and other islands.
I managed, by being careful, to save some money from my ship and musical engagements, for I was abstemious, and devoted my spare time to music and reading. I made several acquaintances among the crews of the ships that traded among the islands, many of whom were young Englishmen who had left the mail-boats and the deep-sea liners to earn more money on trading-boats and see the islands and the Australian cities. I also got to know many German and Colonial sailors. The North German Lloyd mail-ships arrived in Sydney weekly, and the hands would leave and get jobs on the small boats running to Samoa and elsewhere in the Pacific Isles.