White Shadows in the South Seas

by Frederick O'Brien

Here, but a few feet from the spot where the gay young Frenchman fell, the jungle had covered his tomb. Fifty thousand Marquesans have died to bring peace to the soul of that corvette commander who so jauntily flourished his cane in the faces of the wondering savages. Iotete would better have endured the pranks of brutal sea-adventurers, perhaps. This mausoleum was the seal of French occupancy.

Farther down the hill we came upon the first church built in the Marquesas. It was a small wooden edifice bearing a weatherbeaten sign in French, “The Church of the Mother of God.” Above the shattered doors were two carven hearts, a red dagger through one and a red flame issuing from the other. A black cross was fixed above these symbols, which Vanquished Often and Exploding Eggs regarded with respect. To the Marquesan these are all tiki, or charms, which have superseded their own.

Beside the decaying church stood a refectory far gone in ruin, that once had housed a dozen friars. Breadfruit-, mango- and orange-trees grew in the tangled tall grass, and the garden where the priests had read their breviaries was a wilderness of tiger-lilies. Among them we found empty bottles of a “Medical Discovery,” a patent medicine dispensed from Boston, favored in these islands where liquor is tabooed by government.

Seventh Man, coming up the trail to meet us, found us looking at them. He lifted one and sniffed it regretfully.

“Prenty strong,” he said. “Make drunkee. Call him Kennedee. He cost much. Drinkee two piece you sick three day.” He smiled reminiscently, and once more I thought of that day when the unfortunate gendarme had surprised the orgiasts in the forest and lost his nose. The chief accompanied us down the trail.

“My brother of grandfather have first gun in Marquesas,” he said with meaning when I spoke of the days of Halley. “One chief Iotete have prenty trouble Menike whaleman. He send for French admiral help him. Captiane Halley come with sailor. Frenchman he never go 'way.” Again his teeth gleamed in a smile. “My brother of grandfather have gun long time in hills,” he added cryptically.

Too soon the time came when I must return to my own paepae in Atuona. Vanquished Often wept at my decision, and Mrs. Seventh Man rubbed my nose long with hers as she entreated me to remain in the home she had given over to me. The chief, finding remonstrance useless, volunteered to accompany me on my return, and one midnight woke me to be ready when the wind was right.

We went down the trail through wind and darkness, the chief blowing a conch-shell for the crew. In the straw shanty where my hosts had spread their mats that I might have the full occupancy of their comfortable home, we found Mrs. Seventh Man making tea for me. Vanquished Often sat apart in the shadow, her face averted, but when my cocoanut-shell was filled with the streaming brew she sprang forward passionately and would let no hand but hers present it to me.

All day it had been raining, and the downpour rushed from the eaves with a melancholy sound as we sat in the lantern-lighted dimness drinking from the shells. The crew came in one by one, their naked bodies running water, their eyes eager for a draught of the tea, into which I put a little rum, the last of the two litres. Squall followed squall, shaking the hut. At half-past two, in a little lull which Neo guessed might last, we went out to the rain-soaked beach, launched the canoe, and paddled away.

My last sight of Vait-hua was the dim line of surf on the sand, and beyond it the slender figure of Vanquished Often holding aloft a lantern whose rays faintly illumined against the darkness her windblown white tunic and blurred face.