I must not dream. I recall how depressed I felt when I left that gaff-hole. My only companion, who shared my lodgings, was a strange old man, a retired sailor and trader. He would lie in bed beside me cursing all living and dead missionaries the whole night long. I never discovered the cause of this intense hatred of his for those much-maligned men. Each night he knelt beside our sleeping-couch and prayed fervently.
“Why do you pray, since you are always cursing everybody, and especially missionaries?” I inquired curiously, as he fell on his knees.
He lifted his wrinkled physiognomy, gazed solemnly upon me, and said:
“Boy, I pray to my Maker each night, begging Him to save me from ever becoming religious!”
The foregoing is about all that I remember of that sarcastic old man. I bade him farewell, and left those lodgings. Then I went down to the few trading boats in Suva Harbour, hoping to secure a berth on one that was bound for the Marquesas Group. One three-masted schooner was almost ready to leave for sea. She was bound for Apia (Samoa). Whilst waiting to see the skipper, who was ashore, I strolled into the forecastle, and so by the merest chance heard the sailors talking about an interesting incident of the previous voyage. Their conversation was about a pretty girl—a stowaway.
One may easily imagine my eagerness as I immediately inquired and found beyond a doubt that I had come across news of Waylao.
Yes, on that very schooner Waylao had stowed away after arriving back in Suva from her mad journey up to N——.
I gathered, from all that the sailors told me, that Waylao had arrived back in Suva a fearful wreck. Having tramped nearly all the way round the coast from N—— her feet were bleeding. Indeed, when the kindly sailors had discovered the girl huddled away on deck, they were horrified at her condition.
As I found out after, it was very probable that, had not a native woman in Suva taken pity on the girl, fed her and given her some decent clothing, she would most likely have given up all hope and ended her life.
Though this kindly disposed Fijian woman had done all that her meagre resources would allow her to do for the distressed castaway, still, Waylao had been inconsolable. As the old Fijian herself told me, all that the girl seemed to want was to get on a boat that was bound for Nuka Hiva. It was this strong and natural yearning for home that took her to the ships. It appeared, from her own story, that as she stood beside the schooner H—— she had asked some native children where the boat was bound for. On hearing that it was bound for Samoa, and then on to the far Marquesan Isles, she had stowed away. It was not a difficult matter in those days, for girls so seldom stowed away that one could wander aboard without causing suspicion.