Maruia arrived early the next afternoon, and when she had shaken hands with us she went straight to the back of the house, where the Fanatea people, who stood in awe of such a rich and celebrated character, sprang this way and that to do her bidding.
The motor-boat had gone to town, and just before sunset I heard the hoarse bellow of her exhaust and saw her moving swiftly across the lagoon toward the pier. When he had presented me to his guests, my uncle took the Frenchmen in charge and left me with old Mr. Jackson and Sikorsky. The gold-lipped shell and his adventure with Schmidt had made Uncle Harry the hero of the hour, and since the Jew had showed the Marama Twins to several of his friends, I found myself an object of interest to these older men. But Mr. Jackson, a gaunt old Englishman with friendly eyes and an enormous white moustache, knew how to put me at my ease.
"A beautiful pair of pearls," he remarked when we were walking into the dining-room; "they'll make a sensation in Paris! Sikorsky showed them to me last night; he's planning to take the next boat north, on his way to France. Told me how you found them, too—the tonu and all the rest of it. Bad brutes, those tonus—one nearly had me when I was a lad. Forty years ago, that was—I'm getting old, eh? In those days I was supercargo aboard a schooner of the Maison Brander. We were lying becalmed inside the pass at Mangareva, and in spite of what the natives said, I thought I'd have a bit of a swim. In the nick of time I saw the brute coming up at me—a great spiny, mottled beast, with a mouth like an open door. We were towing a boat, by good luck—I went over her stern so fast I scraped half the skin off my chest!"
"He's off!" said my uncle, at the other end of the table. "Mr. Jackson's our champion spinner of yarns, Charlie; he's a true artist, and you mustn't believe everything he says!"
The old man chuckled—they were friends of many years standing. "I'll promise not to do any more talking," he said. "I'm hungry, and I can tell by that salad of shrimps that old Maruia is somewhere about. Lucky man! How did you persuade her to officiate?"
An hour later, when the Chinese boy had brought coffee, one of the Frenchmen pushed back his chair and rose. He was the treasurer of the colony, a stout, middle-aged man, with keen dark eyes and a close-cropped beard.
"First of all," he said, with a friendly smile at my uncle, "permit me to thank you for an excellent dinner, such as I know how to appreciate. Nor must we forget Maruia, whose skill in her art I have known for so many years. And now let me propose the health of our host, whose discovery of gold-lipped shell in the Paumotus marks an addition to the resources of the colony. To Monsieur Selden, then, whose enterprise has earned the Government's warm thanks!"
My uncle rose as the Treasurer sat down.
"Monsieur Durand has been more than kind," he said. "And speaking of Maruia, she has been good enough to offer to entertain us this evening. You all know the old-time native songs, and how rarely one hears them nowadays. She has composed an uté on our diving-season at Iriatai. I think she is waiting for us on the veranda—bring your coffee along."
We found her in the bay-window, examining a piece of tapa cloth. She seemed known to all the company and perfectly at ease, addressing Mr. Jackson in native and the others in fluent French. Her hair, which was brushed back loosely, was fastened with a pearl-studded clasp at the nape of her neck; golden earrings were in her ears, and she wore a flowing gown of thin black silk. I could scarcely believe that this was the old savage beside whom I had dived day after day, the fierce creature who had leaped overboard, spear in hand and muttering a heathen prayer, to avenge her nephew's death.