CHAPTER XXXIII

Return in a canoe to Atuona; Tetuahunahuna relates the story of the girl who rode the white horse in the celebration of the féte of Joan of Arc in Tai-o-hae; Proof that sharks hate women; steering by the stars to Atuona beach.

The canoe we had followed to Hanavave stopped in Oomoa on its way to Hiva-oa, my home, for I had bargained with Tetuahunahuna, its owner, for my conveyance to Atuona. Grelet would eventually have transported me, but so great was his aversion to leaving Fatu-hiva that I felt it would be asking too much of him. He reminded me that Kant, the great metaphysician, had lived eighty years in his birthplace and never stirred more than seven miles from it.

The canoe had come to Hanavave to bring back two young women. One was dark, a voluptuous figure in a pink satin gown over a lace petticoat. A leghorn hat, trimmed with shells and dried nuts, sat coquettishly upon her masses of raven hair. Upon her neck, rounded as a young cocoanut-tree, was a necklace of pearls that an empress might have envied her, had they been real and not the synthetic gift of some trader. Small and shapely feet, bare, peeped from under her filmy frills. Her eyes were the large, limpid orbs of the typical Marquesan, like sepia, long-lashed; her nose straight and perfect, her mouth sensuous and demanding. Ghost Girl, her name signified, and she flitted about the islands like a sprite.

"She levies tribute on all whom she likes," said Grelet. "Her devotions are rum and tobacco." On meeting me she squatted and spat through her fingers to show her thirst, as do all Marquesans whose manners have not been corrupted by strangers.

The other girl, younger, in a scarlet tunic with a wreath of hibiscus flowers on her head, startled me by appearing with all her body that I could see colored a brilliant yellow. She had decked herself for the journey with a covering of ena-paste, perfumed with saffron, a favorite cosmetic of island beauties.

The sun was white on Oomoa beach as we came down to it from the grateful shade of Grelet's plantation. Against the blinding glimmer of it the half-naked boatsmen, bearing bunches of bananas, dozens of drinking nuts, bread, and wine, the gifts of my host, were dark silhouettes outlined against the blue sea.

Behind them walked Tetuahunahuna. Calm, unburdened, and without a tattoo mark on his straight brown body, he looked the commander of men that he was, a man whose word none would think to question or to doubt. Indifferent alike to the dizzying heat and to the admiring glances of the women, he set at once to ordering the loading of the boat that lay upon the sands beyond the reach of the breakers.

A dozen women lounged in the ancient public place beneath the banian tree, a mighty platform of black stone on which the island women had sat for centuries to watch their men come and go in canoes to the fishing or to raids on neighboring bays, and where for decades they have awaited the landing of their white sailor lovers.

"Tai, menino! A pacific sea!" they called to us as we passed them, and their eyes followed with envy the progress of Ghost Girl and Sister of Anna.

The boat was already well loaded when I reached it. The fermented breadfruit wrapped in banana-leaves, the pig dug from the pit that morning and packed in sections of bamboo, the calabashes of river water, the bananas and drinking nuts, were all in place. With difficulty my luggage was added to the cargo, and we found cramped places for ourselves and bade farewell to Grelet, while the oarsmen held the boat steady at the edge of the lapping waves. Tetuahunahuna, watching the breakers, gave a quick word of command, and we plunged through the foam.

The boat leaped and pitched in the flying spray. The oarsmen, leaping to their places, struck out with the oars. A sharp "Haie!" of alarm rose behind me, and I saw that an oar had snapped. But Tetuahunahuna, waist-deep in the water at our stern, gave a mighty push, and we were safely afloat as he clambered over the edge and stood dripping on the steersman's tiny perch, while the men, holding the boat head-on to the rolling waves, drove us safely through to open water.

Outside the bay they put by their oars and we waited for a breeze to give the signal for hoisting mast and sail. The beach lay behind us, a narrow line of white beyond the whiter curve of surf. The blue sky burned above us, and to the far shimmering horizon stretched the blue calm of a windless sea.

We rolled idly, the sun scorching us. In an hour I was so hot that I began to wonder if I could endure the torment. The buckle on my trousers burned my flesh, and I could not touch my clothes without pain. The Marquesans lay comfortably on the seats and bundles, enjoying their pandanus-leaf cigarettes. Every few moments the bow-oar skillfully rolled one, took a few puffs and handed it to the next man, who, after taking his turn, passed it down the waiting line.

From time to time Tetuahunahuna, squatting in the stern, made a sign, and a fresh cigarette passed untouched through eight hands to his. He smoked serenely, gazing at the smooth swells of water and waiting with inexhaustible patience for the wind. At his feet the fifteen-year-old girl, Sister of Anne, disposed her saffron-colored body upon oars laid across the thwarts and slept. Ghost Girl, beside me, laid her glossy head in my lap to doze more comfortably.

Jammed against the unyielding thwarts, I passed miserable hours, unable to move more than a few inches in the narrow space. At noon, with the vertical eye of the evil sun staring down upon us, my clothes were so hot that I had to hold them off my body. I meditated leaping into the ocean and swimming awhile. Ghost Girl saw my intention when I stirred, and pulled me back beside her.

"Mako!" she cried. "Puaa hae!" She pointed to starboard. A gray fin moved slowly through the water twenty feet away. "A shark, and a wicked beast he is!" She reached to pick up an opened cocoanut and tossed some of the milk over her shoulder to appease the demon. "Mako!" she repeated. "Puaa hae!"

"Requin!" echoed Tetuahunahuna in French. "The devil of the Marquesas!"

"But you are not afraid of them. You swim where they are," said I.

"Few of us are bitten by sharks," said Tetuahunahuna, sizing up a puff of wind that brought a faint hope. It died, and he continued. "We are often in the sea, and do not fear the mako enough to make us weak against him. I have killed many with a knife. I have tied ropes about their bellies and made them feel silly as we pulled them in. I have tickled their bellies with the point of the knife that slit them later. They are awkward, they must turn over to bite, and they are afraid of a man swimming. But they are devils, and hate women. They do not like men, but women they will go far to kill."

He took the cigarette Ghost Girl handed him and, squatting on the rudder deck, looked at me to see if I were interested. Wretched as I felt, I returned his glance, and said "Tiatohoa?" which means, "Is that so?" and showed that I was attentive.

"It is so," he replied. "There are reasons for this. In times before the memory of man a shark-god was deceived by a woman. In his anger he overturned an island, but this did not appease his hate. Since that time all sharks have preyed on women."

Sister of Anne moved restlessly in her sleep and put her ena-covered feet across my knees, feet as hot as an iron pump-handle on a July noon.

"Hakaia!" exclaimed Ghost Girl, and hung the feet over the side.

"Sharks will let men live to kill women," Tetuahunahuna resumed. "There are many proofs of this, but most convincing is a happening that every one in Tai-o-hae and Nuka-hiva knows, because it happened only a few years ago. I saw that happening."

I looked at him with attention, and after a few puffs of smoke he continued.

"You may think, you who use the Iron Fingers That Make Words, that the shark does not know the difference between men and women. I have seen it, and I will tell you honestly. I have thought often of it, for all who live in Tai-o-hae know that woman, and her foster-sister sits there with the ena upon her. She does not lie in the cemetery, this girl of whom I speak, nor is her body beside that of her fathers in the ua tupapau. Her name was Anna, a name for your country, fenua Menike, for her father was captain of a vessel with three masts that came from Newbeddifordimass, a place where all the Menike ships that hunt the whale came from. Her mother was O Take Oho, of the valley of Hapaa, whose father was eaten by the men of Tai-o-hae in the war with that white captain, Otopotee.

"Ue! Those big ships that hunt the whale come no more. The paaoa spouts with none to strike him. Standireili makes the lanterns burn in Menike land, and they send it here in tipoti, the big cans. The old days are gone.

"The father of Anna saw her first when she was one year old and could barely swim. He came in his ship from Newbeddifordimass, and he said that it was for the last time, for the whaling was done. He was a young man, strong and a user of strong words, but he looked with pride on the little Anna, and kept her with her with her mother on his ship for many weeks, while the men of the ship danced with the girls. He would bathe on the beach in the bay of Tai-o-hae, and the little Anna would swim to him through the deep water. He gave her a small silver box with a silver chain, for the tiki of Bernadette, on the day that he sailed away.

"He did not come again to Tai-o-hae, nor Atuona, nor Hanavave. We heard that he traded with Tahiti, and had given up the chase of the paaoa. I have never been in Tahiti. They say that it is beautiful and that the people are joyous. They have all the namu they can drink. The government is good to them." Tetuahunahuna sighed, and looked at my bag, in which was the bottle of rum Grelet had given me.

I poured a drink into the cocoanut-shell Ghost Girl had emptied, and gave it to him. "Kaoha!" he said and, having swallowed the rum, went on.

"When Anna had fourteen years she was mot kanahua, as beautiful as a great pearl. She was tall for her age as are the daughters of the great. Her hair was of red and of gold, like that of Titihuti of Autuona. Her eyes were the color of the mio, the rosewood when freshly cut, and her breasts like the milk-cocoanut husked for drinking.

"Many young men, Marquesan men and all the white men, and George Washington, the black American, tried to capture Anna, but Père Simeon, the priest, had given her to the blessed Maria Peato, and the Sisters guarded her carefully. From the time she played naked on the beach she wore the tiki of Bernadette in the silver box given her by her father, and she said the prayers Père Simeon taught her from the book. She wore a blue pareu, and that was strange, for only old people, and few of them, wear any but the red or yellow loin-cloth. But blue, said little Anna, is the color of Maria Peato, mother of Christ."

The others were listening curiously. Ghost Girl crossed herself and muttered, "Kaoha, Maria Peato!"

"When she had fourteen years, then, Anna was different from all other girls on these beaches. All men sighed for her, but she was one who would not follow the custom of our girls since always. She was made different by her mother, by the prayers of Père Simeon, and by something strange in her kuhane--what do you say? Soul. She cared nothing for drink or pipi, the trinkets girls adore. She spoke of herself always as the daughter of a Menike captain, a father who would come for her and take her away. Her mother had kept this always in her mind, and Anna never joined the dances.

"Her mother, who lived on the beach and waited for the sailors, saw her seldom, for Père Simeon had taken Anna away, and kept her in the nuns' house, and they guarded her. He had put a tapu upon her."

I sat up suddenly, struck by a memory. "It was she who rode the white horse, and bore the armor of Joan in the great parade?"

"It was she. The nuns would have had her live in the nun's house forever, and become one of them. But Anna told me on the beach when she came hiding to see her mother, that she would live in the nuns' house only until her Menike father came to take her away. She kept the tiki of Bernadette in its silver box upon her neck, and it was her god to whom she said her prayers."

"Epo!" I said, sitting up, dumfounded. "Go on, Tetuahunahuna. Tell me more."

"There came the great day of the blessed Joan," said Tetuahunahuna, after tasting a fresh cigarette. "There were drums and chants, and rum for all. Père Simeon took away the rum, alas! and only the Menike sailors on the ships could have enough. Anna wore a garment that shone like the sun on the waves, and sat upon a white horse, riding from the mission to the House of Lepers on the beach. Père Simeon walked before her carrying the tiki of the Sacrament, and there were banners white as the new web of the cocoanut. Anna did not look to right or to left as she sat upon the horse, but when she stood on the sand by the House of Lepers, she looked long at a new ship in the bay.

"Anna said that this ship might be that of her white father, but the name was different, and this ship was not from Newbeddifordimass. She said she would swim to this ship to see her father, but her mother said no. Her mother told her that the waters were full of sharks, and that not even a tiki of Bernadette would save her. Then came the nuns, and took Anna away. Anna wept as she went with them, for she desired to stay and look at the ship.

"That night the boats of the ship could not land on the beach of Tai-o-hae, for the sea was too great, so that they came and went from Peikua, the staircase in the rocks. The sailors had leave to do what they wished and they had plenty of rum given them by the captain who was born that day forty years before. I went then to the ship to drink the captain's rum and to buy tobacco. I am of Hiva-oa, and the ship was large, and new to me."

Tetuahunahuna's gesture brought quickly to him a fresh cigarette, and he savored its rank smoke with satisfaction. The slender canoe swung like a hammock in the long, sluggish rollers. The sun blazed pitilessly upon us, and no slightest ruffle of white broke the surface of the calm, unrelenting sea that held us prisoner.

"At night there was nobody on the ship not drunk. Some of the men had seized several women on the road that leads to Tai-o-hae, and had forced them to the boat and carried them aboard. Among these women was Anna, who had fled from the nuns to seek word of her father. She fought like a wild woman of the hills when they held her in jest to make her swallow the rum, but the strong ship men conquered her, and the sound of their laughter and her cries was so great that the captain himself came forward. When he saw her he claimed her as the youngest, as is the custom.

"She went with him weeping. When they came to his cabin, we heard her crying aloud to Maria Peato. We heard the shouts of the captain, enraged, subduing her with blows. There was much rum, and the women were dancing. There was much noise, but I had drunk little, having just come to the ship, and I heard the crying and weeping of Anna."

"After a time came Anna, running across the deck. It was a large vessel, and it was a dark night. The captain pursued her. She climbed the rigging, and the captain ordered two men to go aloft and bring her to him.

"Every one came to look, with yells and with songs. The sailors climbed after her, and she went higher and higher, until near the top of that tall mast, taller than the greatest cocoanut-tree in Atuona. There she held to the wood, calling upon Maria Peato. The captain was like a man mad with namu. He called to the sailors to climb higher. But when one reached to take her by the foot, she threw herself into the air and fell a great distance into the water.

"The captain cried that he would give four litres of rum to the man that brought her back. Some ran to get the boat, others dived after her. I was one of these.

"I have said that it was a black night. When in the water we could get no sight of her. Then on the ship one turned a bright lantern on the sea, and all of us saw her arm as it was raised to swim. She was a hundred feet before us, and swimming with great swiftness. The sailors meantime had set out in the boat, but they had drunk much rum, and rowed around and around. We three men swimming in the beams of the lantern came closer to her at every stroke.

"Almost my hand was upon her, when the largest shark I have ever seen rose beside her. You know it is at night that these devils look for their prey. Anna saw the mako at the same moment, and made a great splashing. I heard her call out the name of Bernadette the Blessed.

"The men with me turned about, but I kept on. I cried to the boat to hurry to us. I could see the mako turn in the water, as he must do to take anything into his mouth. I kicked him and I struck him, and I cursed him by the name of Manu-Aiata, the shark god. If I had had a knife I could have killed him easily.

"But, Menike, I could do nothing. He did not want me. The boat came, but not in time. I saw the devil take her in his jaws as the wild boar takes a bird that is helpless, and I felt him descend into the depths of the sea. I could do nothing."

A cat's-paw stole across the sea from the southeast, the boat rolled hard, and Tetuahunahuna sprang erect.

"A toi te ka! Make sail!" he said.

They raised the slender mast, a rose-wood tree, roughly shaped in the forest, and fastened it to either thwart with three ropes. Through a ring at its head was passed the lift, and the sail of mats, old and worn, was set, men and women all fastening the strings to the boom. Two sheets were used, one cleated about five feet from the rudder, the other at the disposition of the steersman, who let out the boom according to the wind.

The breeze sprang up and died, and sprang up again. At last the deathly calm, the sickening heat, were over, and we sped across the freshening waves.

Mast and sail out of the way, we stretched ourselves in the boat with more comfort, enjoying the cooling current of air. Tetuahunahuna, the sheet in his hand, squatted again on his narrow perch.

"You returned to that ship when the boat picked you up?" I asked.

"Aue!" he replied. "The captain was crazed with anger. He cursed me, and said that the girl has swum ashore."

"'No, the shark has taken Anna,' I said. 'She will look for her white father no more.'

"The captain had a glass of rum at his mouth, but he put it down. He would have me tell him again her name. When I did so, he shook as if with cold, and he swallowed the rum quickly.

"'Where was she born?' he said next.

"'At Hapaa. Her mother is O Take Oho, whose father was eaten by the men of Tai-o-hae,' I said, and looking at his face I saw that his eyes were the color of the mio, the rosewood when freshly cut.

"The captain went to his cabin, and soon he leaped up the stairs, falling over the thing they look at to steer the ship, and there, lying on the deck, he cried again and again that I had done wrong not to tell him earlier.

"He held in his hand the tiki, the silver box that Anna had always worn about her neck, that her father had given her.

"He was like a wild bull in the hills, that ship's captain, when he arose, roaring and cursing me. I feared that he would shoot me, for he had a revolver in his hand and said that he would kill himself. But he did not.

"A Marquesan who was as hateful to himself would have eaten the eva, but this man had not the courage, with all his cries. I swam ashore when he became maddened as a kava drinker who does not eat. The mother of Atuona, whom I told in Tai-o-hae, went to see him, but he did not know her, and she took the tiki from his cabin when she found him praying to it. He was paea, his stomach empty of thought. When the ship left, he was tied with the irons they have for sailors, and the second chief sailed the vessel."

The Ghost Girl shook the ena-covered maiden.

"Oi vii!" she said petulantly. "Take in your feet. Do you want the mako to eat them? Do you not remember your sister?"

The shark still moved a few fathoms away.

We were now in the open sea, with forty miles to go to the Bay of Traitors. The boat lay over at an angle, the boom hissed through the water when close-hauled, and when full-winged, its heel bounced and splashed on the surface, as we made our six knots. There was twice too much weight in the canoe, but these islanders think nothing of loads, and for hours the company sat to windward or on the thwart while we took advantage of every puff of wind that blew. The six oarsmen took turns in bailing, using a heavy carved wooden scoop, but in the frequent flurries the waves poured over the side.

The island of Fatu-hiva faded behind us, and raised Moho-Tani, the Isle of Barking Dogs, a small, but beautifully regular, islet, like a long emerald. No soul dwells there. The Moi-Atiu clan peopled it before a sorcerer dried up the water sources. A curse is upon it, and while the cocoanuts flourish and all is fair to the eye, it remains a shunned and haunted spot.

Tahuata, that lovely isle of the valley of Vait-hua, rose on our left, with the cape Te hope e te keko, a purple coast miles away, which as the dusk descended grew darker and was lost. The shadowy silhouettes of the mountains of Hiva-oa projected themselves on the horizon.

Night fell like a wall, and nothing was to be seen but the glow of the pipe that passed as if by spirit hands around our huddled group. The head of Ghost Girl was on my knees, and among the sons and daughters of cannibals peace enveloped me as at twilight in a grove. More in tune with the moods of nature, the rhythm of sea and sky, the breath of the salt breeze, than we who have sold our birthright for arts, these savages sat silent for a little while as if the spirit of the hour possessed their souls.

Then the stars began to take their places in heaven to do their duty toward the poor of earth, and I saw the bright and inspiring faces of many I knew. The wind shifted and freshened, the sail was drawn nearer, and our speed became perilous. The waves grew, but Tetuahunahuna, seeing nothing, but feeling with sheet and helm the temper of changing air and water, kept the canoe's prow steady, and the men, in emergencies, threw themselves half over the starboard gunwale. I was on the edge of the steersman's perch, enjoying the mist of the flying spray and watching the stars appear one by one.

Tetuahunahuna pointed toward the northern sky.

"Miope! I steer by the star the color of the rosewood tree," he said. There was our own Mars, redder than the sunsets over Mariveles. Northwest he was, this god of war and fertility, and our bow beacon. Turning and gazing toward Fatu-hiva I saw the Southern Cross, low in the sky, brilliant, and splendid.

"Mataike fetu!" Ghost Girl named the constellation. "The Small Eyes."

"Miope has rivers like Taka-Uku and Atuona," I said, relying on the alleged canals of Mars to save my soul. "I have seen through a karahi mea tiohi i te fetu, the Mirror Thing Through Which One Looks At The Stars, long as a tree and big around as a pig. Miope has people upon it."

"Are they Marquesans?"

"They must be Marquesans for there are islands," I replied.

"And popoi and pigs?" demanded the ena-perfumed one.

"Namu? Have they rum?" whispered the Ghost Girl, and nestled closer, remembering that soon we would be at my own house.

I had confidence in Tetuahunahuna's stars. The Polynesians have always had an excellent working knowledge of the heavens and were deeply interested in astronomy. They knew the relative positions of the stars, their changes and phases. They predicted weather changes accurately, and kept in their memories periodicity charts so that they are able to form estimates of what will be, by considering what has been. They had a wonderful art of navigation, considering that they had no compass, sextant, or other instrument, and that their vessels were always comparatively small. The handling of canoes, like swimming, is instinctive with them, and no white ever compares with them in skill.

Our boat doubled Point Teachoa, and we were in the Bay of Traitors. The wind suddenly fell flat, and we rowed several miles to the beach. A score of lights moved about on the dark waters of the bay, and fishermen shouted to us to come to them. We found Great Fern, my landlord, with Apporo, Broken Plate with the Vagabond, and they had several canoes full of fish. They were delighted at my return, and rubbed noses with me over the gunwales.

Getting ashore at the stone steps of Taka-Uka was a task worthy of such boatsmen, in the darkness, the sea beating madly against the cliffs. Tetuahunahuna listened to the smashing waves and peered for the blacker outlines of the stairway and the faint gleam of the foam. The boat approached; the sea leaped to break it against the rocks. The steersman held it a second, and in that second you had to leap. It is touch and go, and heaven help you! If you miss, you fall into the sea, or the boat crushes you against the rocks. The swell sweeps the place you land on, and you must ascend quickly to safety or find hold against the suck of the retiring water.

Tetuahunahuna ran to the nearest house for a lantern and poles, and while two remained in the boat to hold it off the rocks, the others carried my luggage to Atuona. I took the lead in a drizzling rain, carrying the light, mighty glad to stretch my legs after more than a dozen hours of cramp. Passing the house of the chief-of-police, I heard laughter and the clink of glasses. Bauda halted me with a leveled revolver, thinking we were a rum-smuggling gang. That brave African soldier was ever dramatic, and D'Artagnan could not have struck a finer attitude as he thrust the gun in my face and called out, "Halte là!"

"Ah, c'est le Yahnk' Doodl'. Mais tonnerre de dieu, you have been away a long time!"