“Don’t ask me!” shrugged Tsuda waggishly. “Don’t blame me for any of these damn kind of thing! You see such go on all the time. No telling—gn—what a lot of damn heathen ideas I’ve had to put out of their heads! By golly tried to tell me once the earth rest on the back of a fish, and when he wiggle that make earthquakes! But they’re toned down a whole lot since then. It was a time in Paromushir you see an Ainu woman give suck to a bear cub. But no more. No sir!” He shook his head a little sadly. “These fellows haven’t got the pep they used to have—not by a God-damn! All mixed up with Russian and Japanese. No good—no good.” He looked really mournful over the undoubted decay of this lost tribe on which he had lavished his affection so many years.
Tsuda had succeeded, when the Imperial summons came from Tōkyō ordering all the Kurile Ainu down to a convenient pen at Shikotan, in concealing a whole tribe up in the remote mountains of Paromushir, becoming himself a sort of perpetual king over them. It was wild and daring—yes, a work of genius, clearly, though Tsuda’s affection was never without its ulterior motive. There had been a lucrative business in salmon, which by this novel method he acquired gratis. And then—Utterbourne.
Yes, Utterbourne had come along with Hagen’s Island fresh in mind, and the problem of cheap labour as yet unsolved, he had plucked Tsuda out of the brawl in Yezo; had looked at him with eyes half closed, in his quizzical poising way; had hinted discreetly about gold, much gold. A few months later Tsuda led his Ainu tribe down out of the mountains and into the hold of the Star of Troy, whose prow was turned toward the dreamy south.
Hagen’s Island—a fugitive, lost tribe: what an inspiration to bring them together! In truth, it had been one of the Captain’s very finest flashes.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A TOUGH OLD BIRD AND THE KEY OF PARADISE
I
Sometimes the glowing mystery of her new island home seemed to rush upon Stella and make her a little faint.
“Ferd, dear,” she said breathlessly, “who would ever have dreamed of our coming to a place like this?”