第58章 A HOUSE TO LET IN A LOW ISLAND(3)

It must tell,instead,of our house,where,toward seven at night,the catechist came suddenly in with his pleased air of being welcome;armed besides with a considerable bunch of keys.These he proceeded to try on the sea-chests,drawing each in turn from its place against the wall.Heads of strangers appeared in the doorway and volunteered suggestions.All in vain.Either they were the wrong keys or the wrong boxes,or the wrong man was trying them.

For a little Taniera fumed and fretted;then had recourse to the more summary method of the hatchet;one of the chests was broken open,and an armful of clothing,male and female,baled out and handed to the strangers on the verandah.

These were Francois,his wife,and their child.About eight a.m.,in the midst of the lagoon,their cutter had capsized in jibbing.

They got her righted,and though she was still full of water put the child on board.The mainsail had been carried away,but the jib still drew her sluggishly along,and Francois and the woman swam astern and worked the rudder with their hands.The cold was cruel;the fatigue,as time went on,became excessive;and in that preserve of sharks,fear hunted them.Again and again,Francois,the half-breed,would have desisted and gone down;but the woman,whole blood of an amphibious race,still supported him with cheerful words.I am reminded of a woman of Hawaii who swam with her husband,I dare not say how many miles,in a high sea,and came ashore at last with his dead body in her arms.It was about five in the evening,after nine hours'swimming,that Francois and his wife reached land at Rotoava.The gallant fight was won,and instantly the more childish side of native character appears.They had supped,and told and retold their story,dripping as they came;the flesh of the woman,whom Mrs.Stevenson helped to shift,was cold as stone;and Francois,having changed to a dry cotton shirt and trousers,passed the remainder of the evening on my floor and between open doorways,in a thorough draught.Yet Francois,the son of a French father,speaks excellent French himself and seems intelligent.

It was our first idea that the catechist,true to his evangelical vocation,was clothing the naked from his superfluity.Then it came out that Francois was but dealing with his own.The clothes were his,so was the chest,so was the house.Francois was in fact the landlord.Yet you observe he had hung back on the verandah while Taniera tried his 'prentice hand upon the locks:and even now,when his true character appeared,the only use he made of the estate was to leave the clothes of his family drying on the fence.

Taniera was still the friend of the house,still fed the poultry,still came about us on his daily visits,Francois,during the remainder of his stay,holding bashfully aloof.And there was stranger matter.Since Francois had lost the whole load of his cutter,the half ton of copra,an axe,bowls,knives,and clothes -since he had in a manner to begin the world again,and his necessary flour was not yet bought or paid for -I proposed to advance him what he needed on the rent.To my enduring amazement he refused,and the reason he gave -if that can be called a reason which but darkens counsel -was that Taniera was his friend.His friend,you observe;not his creditor.I inquired into that,and was assured that Taniera,an exile in a strange isle,might possibly be in debt himself,but certainly was no man's creditor.

Very early one morning we were awakened by a bustling presence in the yard,and found our camp had been surprised by a tall,lean old native lady,dressed in what were obviously widow's weeds.You could see at a glance she was a notable woman,a housewife,sternly practical,alive with energy,and with fine possibilities of temper.Indeed,there was nothing native about her but the skin;and the type abounds,and is everywhere respected,nearer home.It did us good to see her scour the grounds,examining the plants and chickens;watering,feeding,trimming them;taking angry,purpose-like possession.When she neared the house our sympathy abated;when she came to the broken chest I wished I were elsewhere.We had scarce a word in common;but her whole lean body spoke for her with indignant eloquence.'My chest!'it cried,with a stress on the possessive.'My chest -broken open!This is a fine state of things!'I hastened to lay the blame where it belonged -on Francois and his wife -and found I had made things worse instead of better.She repeated the names at first with incredulity,then with despair.A while she seemed stunned,next fell to disembowelling the box,piling the goods on the floor,and visibly computing the extent of Francois's ravages;and presently after she was observed in high speech with Taniera,who seemed to hang an ear like one reproved.

Here,then,by all known marks,should be my land-lady at last;here was every character of the proprietor fully developed.Should I not approach her on the still depending question of my rent?Icarried the point to an adviser.'Nonsense!'he cried.'That's the old woman,the mother.It doesn't belong to her.I believe that's the man the house belongs to,'and he pointed to one of the coloured photographs on the wall.On this I gave up all desire of understanding;and when the time came for me to leave,in the judgment-hall of the archipelago,and with the awful countenance of the acting Governor,I duly paid my rent to Taniera.He was satisfied,and so was I.But what had he to do with it?Mr.

Donat,acting magistrate and a man of kindred blood,could throw no light upon the mystery;a plain private person,with a taste for letters,cannot be expected to do more.