I think I could have borne up better under my misfortunes had I not suffered so much from loneliness in that far-off place; for, with the exception of half a dozen sottish traders, and a missionary and his wife named Small, there was not another white on the island to keep me company. The Smalls lived in snug missionary comfort at the other end of the bay, with half a dozen converts to do their work and attend to a nestful of young Smalls; and though they had parted, as it seemed to me, with all the principles of Christianity, they still retained enough religious prejudice to receive me (when I once ventured to make a formal call on them) with the most undisguised rudeness and hostility. Small gave me to understand that I was a sort of moral monster who, with gold and for my own wicked purpose, had parted a wife from her husband. It appeared, according to Mr. Small, that I had blasted two fair young lives, as well as condemned my own soul to everlasting perdition; and he promised the active interference of the next man-of-war. On my attempting to make my position in the matter a little clearer, the reverend gentleman began to take such an offensive tone that it was all I could do to leave his house without giving freer vent to my indignation than words alone sufficed. Indeed, I was angry enough to have kicked him down his own missionary steps, and made him in good earnest the ill-used martyr he pretended to be in his reports home.
With the traders I fared even worse, for the discreditable reports about me had become so well established that I was exposed by them to constant jokes and innuendoes, as well as to a friendliness that was more distasteful than the missionary’s pronounced ill will. It was spread about the beach, and carried thence, I suppose, to every corner of the group, that Bo was a half-white of exquisite beauty, for whose possession I had paid her husband a sum to stagger the imagination, and that, unable to repel my loathsome embraces, she was now taking refuge in a premature death.
I doubt whether there was in the wide Pacific a man so depressed, so absolutely crushed and miserable, as I was during the course of those terrible days on Yap. Had it not been for the shame of the thing, I believe I would have sailed away on the first ship that offered, whatever the port to which she was bound, and would have quitted my unhappy prisoner at any hazard. But, to do me justice, I was incapable of treating any woman so badly, particularly such a sick and helpless creature as Bo was fast becoming. I had now begun, besides, to suspect another name for her complaint, and to see before me a situation more ambiguous and mortifying than any of which I had dreamed. My household was threatened with the advent of another member!
The idea of Bo and I both leaving together never struck my mind until the opportune arrival of the Fleur de Lys, bound for Ruk, suddenly turned my thoughts in a new direction. With feverish haste I calculated the course of the Ransom, the barque in which the Beautiful Man had been promised his passage to Sydney, and it seemed that with any kind of luck I might manage to intercept her in the Fleur de Lys by a good three days. Of course I knew a sailing-ship was ill to count upon, and that a favourable slant might bring her in a week before me or delay her for an indefinite time beyond the date of my arrival; but the chance seemed too good a one to be thrown away, and I lost no time in making my arrangements with Captain Brice of the schooner. When I explained the matter to Bo with signs that she could not misunderstand, she became instantly galvanised into a new creature, and ate a two-pound tin of beef on the strength of the good news.
I never grudged a penny of what it cost me to leave Yap, though I was stuck for three months’ rent by the cormorant who said he owned my house, besides having to pay an extortionate sum to Captain Brice for our joint passage. But what was mere money in comparison to the liberty I saw before me—that life of blissful independence in which there should be no Bo, no dark shadow across my lonely hearth, no sleepless nights and apprehensive days, no monkey, no parrot! I trod the deck of the Fleur de Lys with a light step, and I think Bo and I began to understand each other for the first time. For once she even smiled at me, and insisted on my accepting a beadwork necktie she had embroidered for the monkey. If there was a worm in the bud, a perpetual and benumbing sense of uneasiness that never left me, it was the thought that the Beautiful Man might have slipped away before us; and I never looked over our foaming bows but I wondered whether the Ransom was not as briskly ploughing her way to Sydney, leaving me to face an unspeakable disaster on the shores of Ruk. But it was impossible to be long despondent in that pleasant air, with our little vessel heeling over to the trades and the water gurgling musically beneath our keel. Indeed, I felt my heart grow lighter with every stroke of the bell, with every twist of the patent log; and each day, when our position was pricked out on the chart, I felt a sense of fresh elation as the crosses grew towards Ruk. Nor was Bo a whit behind me in her cheerfulness, for she, too, livened up in the most wonderful manner, playing checkers with the captain, exercising her pets on the open deck, and romping for an hour at a stretch with the kanaka cabin-boy.
By the time we had raised the white beaches of our port, the whole ship’s company, from the captain to the cook, were in the secret of our race, and as eager as I was myself to forestall the Ransom in the lagoon. When we entered the passage and opened out the head-station beyond, there was a regular cheer at the sight of our quest at anchor; for it was by so narrow a margin that I had cut off the Beautiful Man’s retreat, and intercepted the vessel that was to carry him away. Coming up under the Ransom, we made a mooring off her quarter; and among the faces that lined up to stare at us from her decks, I had the satisfaction of recognising the frizzled red beard of our departing friend. On perceiving us, he waved his hand in the jauntiest manner, and replied to Bo’s screams of affection by some words in Pingalap which effectually shut up that little person. She was still crying when we bundled her into the boat, bag and baggage, monkey, parrot, and camphor-wood chest; and pulling over to the barque, we deposited her, with all her possessions, on the disordered quarter-deck of the Ransom. The Beautiful Man sauntered up to us with an affectation of airy indifference, and languidly taking the pipe from his mouth, he had the effrontery to ask me if I, too, were bound for Sydney.
Resisting my first impulse to kick him, I controlled myself sufficiently to say that I was not going to Sydney—telling him at the same time that I washed my hands of Bo, whom I had now the satisfaction of returning to him.
“My word!” he said, “you don’t think I’m going to tyke her?”
“That’s your affair,” said I, moving off.
“Oh, I s’y!” he cried in consternation, attempting, as he spoke, to lay a detaining hand on my sleeve. But I jerked it off, and stopping suddenly in my walk towards the gangway, I gave him such a look that he turned pale and shrank back from me.