“Tell him I’m a leading seaman, sir,” went on Bill, who of course understood not a word of what Amatua was saying, and whose red, tired face still showed his indignation.
“The old women say that a great evil is about to befall us,” said Amatua, gravely, entirely disregarding Bill. “Everybody is talking of it, your Highness, even the wise minister from Malua College, Toalua, whose wisdom is like that of Solomon. There’s to be a storm from the north—a storm that will break the ships into ten thousand pieces, and line the beach with dead. Last night I could not sleep for thinking of Bill. Then I said to myself, ‘I will lose Bill for two days in the woods, and then he won’t be drowned at all.’ But Bill is wise, and made the sun guide him back to the right road. Then I made Bill bathe, and tried to steal his clothes. But Bill looked and looked and looked, and when he found them he thought I was a very bad boy.”
The stranger laughed, and translated all this long explanation to Bill.
“Goodness gracious!” said Bill. “Do you mean that the kid believes this fool superstition, and was trying to save me from the wreck?”
“That’s it,” said the stranger. “I’ve known Amatua for a long time, and I think he’s a pretty square boy.”
“Why, bless his little heart,” said the sailor, catching up the boy in his arms, “I might have known he couldn’t mean no harm! I tell you, we’ve been like father and son, me and Am has, up to this little picnic. But just you say to him, sir, that, storm or no storm, Bill’s place is the post of duty, and that he’d rather die there than live to be disgraced.”
But the white man had other work to do than translating for Bill and Amatua. He rode off and left them to trudge along on foot. Half an hour later they reached the beach, and saw the ships-of-war tugging heavily at their anchors. The weather looked dark and threatening, and a leaden surf was pounding the outer reefs. It appeared no easy matter to get Bill into the boat that was awaiting him, for she was full of men bound for the ship, and difficult to manage in the ebb and sweep of the seas. Bill’s face grew stern as he stared before him. He walked to the end of the wharf, and took a long, hawk-like look to seaward, never heeding the shaking woodwork nor the breakers that wet him to the knees. There was something ominous to Amatua in the sight of those deep-rolling ships and the piercing brightness of their ensigns and signal-flags. He was troubled, too, to see Bill so reckless in wetting his beautiful blue trousers and reducing his sliding feet, as the natives call shoes, his lovely patent-leather, silk-laced se’evae, to a state of pulp. He tried to draw him back, and pointed to the shoes as a receding wave left them once more to view. But Bill only laughed,—not one of his big hearty laughs, but the ghost of a laugh,—and a queer look came into his blue eyes. He walked slowly back to the boat, which was still rising and falling beside the wharf with its load of silent men. Suddenly he ran his hand into his pocket, and almost before Amatua could realise what it all meant, he felt Bill’s watch in his hand, and a round heavy thing that was unmistakably a dollar, and something soft and silken that could be nothing else than the sailor’s precious handkerchief. A second later Bill was in the boat, the tiller under his arm, while a dozen backs bent to drive him seaward. Amatua stood on the wharf and cried. He forgot the watch and the dollar and the silk handkerchief; he thought only of Bill,—his friend Bill,—the proud chief who would rather die at his post than find a coward’s place on shore. “Come back, Bill,” he cried, as he ran out to the end of the wharf, never caring for the waves that were dashing higher and higher. But the boat held on her course, dipping into the seas or rising like a storm-bird on some cresting comber until she vanished at last behind the towering Trenton.
Amatua did not sob for long. He was a practical boy, and knew that it could not help Bill,—poor Bill!—who already had all the salt water he cared about. So Amatua made his way back to land, and sought out a quiet spot where he could look at his new treasure and calculate on the most profitable way of spending his dollar. You could not say that the dollar burned a hole in his pocket, for Amatua did not use pockets, and his only clothes consisted of a little strip of very dingy cotton; but he was just as anxious to spend it as an American boy with ten pockets. First he looked at the watch. It was a lovely watch. It was none of your puny watches such as white ladies wear, but a thumping big chief of a watch, thick and heavy, with a tick like a missionary clock. It was of shining silver, and the back of it was all engraved and carved with ships and dolphins. Bill had shown it to him a hundred times when they had strolled about the town, or had gone, hand in hand, in search of many a pleasant adventure. It brought the tears to Amatua’s eyes to recall it all, and he pushed the watch aside to have a look at the handkerchief. This was another old friend. It was of the softest, thickest silk, such as girls delight in, all red and green and blue and yellow, like the colours of a rainbow.
There was nothing small about Bill. Even the dollar seemed bigger and fatter than any Amatua had seen; but then it must be remembered that dollars had seldom come his way. Oh, that dollar! How was he to spend it so that it would reach as far as two dollars?—a financial problem every one has had to grapple with at some time or another.
He was well up in the price of hardtack. The price fluctuated in Apia—all the way from twelve for a quarter up to eighteen for a quarter. Quality did not count; at any rate, Amatua was not one of those boys who mind a little mustiness in their hardtack, or that slight suspicion of rancid whale-oil which is a characteristic of the cheaper article. Hardtack was hardtack, and eighteen were better than twelve. Here was one quarter gone, and hardtack made way for soap. Yes, he must have soap. Even yesterday old Lu’au had said: “War is a terrible thing. It makes one’s heart shake like a little mouse in one’s body. But lack of soap is worse than war. You can get used to war; but who ever got used to going without soap?” Yes, there must be soap to gladden old Lu’au. This meant another quarter.