I perceived from the beginning that there was something queer about the trip, for Sasa, usually so communicative, could scarcely be induced to speak of it at all; and then when she did it was with such a parade of mystery and reserve that I felt myself completely baffled. However, like the jossers in the poem, it wasn't for me to reason why, and so I obediently ran about the beach, did what I was bidden, and discreetly asked no questions. I confess, though, that on the day itself my curiosity began to reach the breaking point, when I was told, with gentle impressiveness, that I was to remain in my house till the minute of nine forty-five, pull off quietly to the Nukanono, board her by the fore chains, and crouch there in the bow till I was told to get up!
It was a glorious moonlight night as I got into Joe's boat and saw the Nukanono across the bay, her loosened sails flapping in the first faint breath of the land breeze, and her booms sparkling from end to end with Chinese lanterns. The water was like black glass, the outer reefs were silent, and the downpouring air from the mountains was fragrant with moso'oi, and so warm and scented against the cheek that I doubt not but what you could have smelled Upolu ninety miles to leeward. As we drew nearer, the sound of girls' laughter, the tuning of musical instruments, the hum and talk and gayety of a large company, floated over to us from the schooner's deck, wonderfully mellowed by the intervening water and (as it seemed to me) softened into a sort of harmony with the night itself.
However, I did not allow these reflections to put me off my duty or make me forgetful of the strict commands I had previously received from Sasa. I came up softly under the bow of the Nukanono, dismissed Joe in a whisper, and climbed silently to my appointed station. I had not been there a minute when I felt Sasa's hand on my shoulder and heard her say softly in my ear, "Malie," which in Samoan means good or well done. Then she slipped away, and I heard her with sweet imperiousness ordering about the crew and bidding them slip the moorings. We had hardly got steerage-way when I heard a commotion aft, a choking, angry voice, that sounded through the hubbub like Silver Tongue's, a quick, fierce, violent struggle, and then suddenly the companion hatch went shut with a bang. Even as it did so the fore-hatch followed with a crash, and everybody began to cheer. From below there rose the sound of thumping, smothered Teutonic protests, and a long, poignant, and unmistakably feminine wail.
"All finish, captain," said Sasa, coming up to me cheerfully.
"Would you mind telling me what it's all about?" I asked.
"Just a little tongafiti to bring loving hearts together," said Sasa. "They threw Silver Tongue down the after hatchway, while me and the girls we pushed Rosalie down the forehold. There they are, all alone in the dark, with five hours to make it up!"
I could not help laughing at Sasa's plan, especially when under my feet I began to hear more frenzied thumping and more feminine wails. Then I recollected there wasn't five feet of headroom below, and that the place, even with the hatches off, was hot enough to boil water in.
"They'll die down there, Sasa," I said.
"No fear," said Sasa. "Rosalie is half Samoa, and as for Silver Tongue—if he get roast like his own bread nobody care a banana."
"But, Sasa—" I protested.