THE PERUVIAN SLAVERS
About north-west from turbulent and distracted Samoa lie a group of eight low-lying coral atolls, called the Ellice Islands. Fifty years ago, when the white cotton canvas of the ships of the American whaling fleet dotted the blue of the Pacific from the west coast of South America to the bleak and snow-clad shores of the Siberian coast, these lonely islands were perhaps better known than they are now, for then, when the smoky flames of the whaleships' try works lit up the night-darkened expanse of the ocean, and the crackling of the furnace fires and the bubble of the boiling oil made the hardy whalemen's hearts grow merry, many a white man, lured by the gentle nature and amiable character of the Ellice Islanders, had built his house of thatch under the shadow of the rustling palms, and dwelt there in peace and happiness and overflowing plenty. Some of them were traders—men who bartered their simple wares, such as red Turkey twill, axes, knives, beads, tobacco, pipes, and muskets, for coconut oil and turtle shell. Others were wild, good-for-nothing runaways from whaleships, who then were generally known as “beach-combers”—that is, combing the beach for a living—though that, indeed, was a misnomer, for in those days, except one of these men was either a murderer or a tyrant, he did not “comb” for his living, but simply lived a life of luxurious, sensuous ease among the copper-coloured people with whom he dwelt. He had, indeed, to be of a hard and base nature to incur the ill-will or hostility of the denizens of the eight islands.
Twenty years had passed, and, save for a few wandering sperm whalers, the great fleet of the olden days had vanished; for the Civil War in America had borne its fruit even put upon the placid Pacific, and Waddell, in the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah, had swept northwards from Australia, bent on burning every ship that flew the hated Stars and Stripes. So, with fear in their hearts, the Yankee whaling skippers hurried into neutral ports for shelter; and not a day too soon, for the rebel war-vessel caught four of them at Ponapé Island, burnt them and went up to the Arctic to destroy the rest.
Then followed years of quiet, for only a very few of the whaleships returned, and, one by one, most of the white men wandered away to the far distant isles of the north-west, taking their wives and families with them, till there were but five or six remaining in the whole Ellice Group.
Among those who sailed away one day in a whale-ship was a trader named Harry. His surname was never known. To his fellow white men and the natives of the island of Nukufetau on which he lived he was simply “Harry”; to those of the other islands of the group he was Hari Tino Kéhé, Big Harry.
It was not that he was wearied of the monotony of his existence on Nukufetau that had led Harry to bid his wife and two children farewell, but because that he had heard rumours of the richness in pearl-shell and turtle-shell of the far distant isles of the Pelew Group, and desired to go there and satisfy himself as to the truth of these sailors' tales; for he was a steady, honest man, although he had run away from his ship, a Sydney sandal-wooding vessel; and during his fifteen years' residence on Nukufetau he had made many thousands of dollars by selling coconut oil to the Sydney trading ships, and provisions to the American whalers. A year after his arrival on the island he had married a native woman named Te Ava Malu (Calm Waters). She was the daughter of the chief's brother, and brought her husband as her dowry a long, narrow strip of land richly covered with countless thousands of coco-palms, and it was from these groves of coconuts that Harry had earned most of the bright silver dollars, which, in default of a strong box, he had headed up in a small beef keg and buried under the gravelled floor of his thatched dwelling-house.
Children had been born to him—two fair-skinned, dark-eyed, and gentle-voiced girls, named Fetu and Vailele. The elder, Fetu (The Star), was a quiet, reserved child, and had her father's slow, grave manner and thoughtful face. The younger, Vailele (Leaping Water), was in manner and her ever merry mood like her name, for she was a restless, laughing little maid, full of jest and song the whole day long.
When the time came for Big Harry to say farewell, he called to him his wife and the two girls—Fetu was fourteen, and Vailele twelve—and, bidding them lower down the door of plaited thatch so that they might not be observed, he unearthed the keg of dollars, and, knocking off the two topmost hoops, took out the head. Then he took out nine hundred of the bright, shining coins, and, placing them in the lap of Te Ava Malu, quickly headed up the keg again, and put it back in its hiding-place.
“Listen now to me, O wife and children,” said he in the native tongue. “See this money now before us. Of the nine hundred dollars I shall take seven hundred; for it is to my mind that if these tales I hear of these far-off islands be true, then shall I buy from the chiefs there a piece of land, and get men to build a house for me; and if all goeth well with me, I shall return here to Nukufetau within a year. Then shall we sail thither and dwell there. And these other two hundred dollars shalt thou keep, for maybe a ship may come here, and then thou, Te Ava Malu, shalt go to thy father and place them in his hand, and ask him to go to the ship and buy for me a whaleboat, which, when we leave this land together, we shall take with us.”