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Prologue
IN THE MARQUESAS.
It was about three o'clock of a winter's afternoon in
Tai-o-hae, the French capital and port of entry of the
Marquesas Islands. The trades blew strong and squally;
the surf roared loud on the shingle beach; and the fifty-ton
schooner of war, that carries the flag and influence of
France about the islands of the cannibal group, rolled at
her moorings under Prison Hill. The clouds hung low and
black on the surrounding amphitheatre of mountains; rain
had fallen earlier in the day, real tropic rain, a waterspout
for violence; and the green and gloomy brow of the mountain
was still seamed with many silver threads of torrent.
In these hot and healthy islands winter is but a name. The
rain had not refreshed, nor could the wind invigorate, the
dwellers of Tai-o-hae: away at one end, indeed, the
commandant was directing some changes in the residency
garden beyond Prison Hill; and the gardeners, being all
convicts, had no choice but to continue to obey. All other folks
slumbered and took their rest: Vaekehu, the native queen, in
her trim house under the rustling palms; the Tahitian
commissary, in his beflagged official residence; the merchants,
in their deserted stores; and even the club-servant in the club,
his head fallen forward on the bottle-counter, under the map of
the world and the cards of navy officers. In the whole length of
the single shoreside street, with its scattered board houses
looking to the sea, its grateful shade of palms and green jungle
of puraos, no moving figure could be seen. Only, at the end of
the rickety pier, that once (in the prosperous days of the
American rebellion) was used to groan under the cotton of John
Hart, there might have been spied upon a pile of lumber the
famous tattooed white man, the living curiosity of Tai-o-hae.
His eyes were open, staring down the bay. He saw the
mountains droop, as they approached the entrance, and break
down in cliffs; the surf boil white round the two sentinel islets;
and between, on the narrow bight of blue horizon, Ua-pu
upraise the ghost of her pinnacled mountain tops. But his mind
would take no account of these familiar features; as he dodged
in and out along the frontier line of sleep and waking, memory
would serve him with broken fragments of the past: brown
faces and white, of skipper and shipmate, king and chief,
would arise before his mind and vanish; he would recall old
voyages, old landfalls in the hour of dawn; he would hear again
the drums beat for a man-eating festival; perhaps he would
summon up the form of that island princess for the love of
whom he had submitted his body to the cruel hands of the
tattooer, and now sat on the lumber, at the pier-end of
Tai-o-hae, so strange a figure of a European. Or perhaps from
yet further back, sounds and scents of England and his
childhood might assail him: the merry clamour of cathedral
bells, the broom upon the foreland, the song of the river on the
weir.
It is bold water at the mouth of the bay; you can steer a ship
about either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the
rocks. Thus it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and
dreaming, he was startled into wakefulness and animation by
the appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet. Two
more headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had
scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some hundred tons,
had luffed about the sentinel and was standing up the bay,
close-hauled.
The sleeping city awakened by enchantment. Natives appeared
upon all sides, hailing each other with the magic cry "Ehippy"
--ship; the Queen stepped forth on her verandah, shading her
eyes under a hand that was a miracle of the fine art of tattooing;
the commandant broke from his domestic convicts and ran into
the residency for his glass; the harbour master, who was also
the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison Hill; the seventeen
brown Kanakas and the French boatswain's mate, that make up
the complement of the war-schooner, crowded on the forward
deck; and the various English, Americans, Germans, Poles,
Corsicans, and Scots--the merchants and the clerks of
Tai-o-hae--deserted their places of business, and gathered,
according to invariable custom, on the road before the club.
So quickly did these dozen whites collect, so short are the
distances in Tai-o-hae, that they were already exchanging
guesses as to the nationality and business of the strange vessel,
before she had gone about upon her second board towards the
anchorage. A moment after, English colours were broken out
at the main truck.
"I told you she was a Johnny Bull--knew it by her headsails,"
said an evergreen old salt, still qualified (if he could anywhere
have found an owner unacquainted with his story) to adorn
another quarter-deck and lose another ship.
"She has American lines, anyway," said the astute Scots
engineer of the gin-mill; "it's my belief she's a yacht."
"That's it," said the old salt, "a yacht! look at her davits, and the
boat over the stern."
"A yacht in your eye!" said a Glasgow voice. "Look at her red
ensign! A yacht! not much she isn't!"
"You can close the store, anyway, Tom," observed a
gentlemanly German. "Bon jour, mon Prince!" he added, as a
dark, intelligent native cantered by on a neat chestnut. "Vous
allez boire un verre de biere?"
But Prince Stanilas Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human
creature on the island, was riding hot-spur to view this
morning's landslip on the mountain road: the sun already
visibly declined; night was imminent; and if he would avoid
the perils of darkness and precipice, and the fear of the dead,
the haunters of the jungle, he must for once decline a hospitable
invitation. Even had he been minded to alight, it presently
appeared there would be difficulty as to the refreshment
offered.
"Beer!" cried the Glasgow voice. "No such a thing; I tell you
there's only eight bottles in the club! Here's the first time I've
seen British colours in this port! and the man that sails under
them has got to drink that beer."
The proposal struck the public mind as fair, though far from
cheering; for some time back, indeed, the very name of beer
had been a sound of sorrow in the club, and the evenings had
passed in dolorous computation.
"Here is Havens," said one, as if welcoming a fresh topic.
"What do you think of her, Havens?"
"I don't think," replied Havens, a tall, bland, cool-looking,
leisurely Englishman, attired in spotless duck, and deliberately
dealing with a cigarette. "I may say I know. She's consigned
to me from Auckland by Donald & Edenborough. I am on my
way aboard."
"What ship is she?" asked the ancient mariner.
"Haven't an idea," returned Havens. "Some tramp they have
chartered."
With that he placidly resumed his walk, and was soon seated in
the stern-sheets of a whaleboat manned by uproarious Kanakas,
himself daintily perched out of the way of the least maculation,
giving his commands in an unobtrusive, dinner-table tone of
voice, and sweeping neatly enough alongside the schooner.
A weather-beaten captain received him at the gangway.
"You are consigned to us, I think," said he. "I am Mr. Havens."
"That is right, sir," replied the captain, shaking hands. "You
will find the owner, Mr. Dodd, below. Mind the fresh paint on
the house."
Havens stepped along the alley-way, and descended the ladder
into the main cabin.
"Mr. Dodd, I believe," said he, addressing a smallish, bearded
gentleman, who sat writing at the table. "Why," he cried, "it
isn't Loudon Dodd?"
"Myself, my dear fellow," replied Mr. Dodd, springing to his
feet with companionable alacrity. "I had a half-hope it might
be you, when I found your name on the papers. Well, there's no
change in you; still the same placid, fresh-looking Britisher."
"I can't return the compliment; for you seem to have become a
Britisher yourself," said Havens.
"I promise you, I am quite unchanged," returned Dodd. "The
red tablecloth at the top of the stick is not my flag; it's my
partner's. He is not dead, but sleepeth. There he is," he added,
pointing to a bust which formed one of the numerous
unexpected ornaments of that unusual cabin.
Havens politely studied it. "A fine bust," said he; "and a very
nice-looking fellow."
"Yes; he's a good fellow," said Dodd. "He runs me now. It's
all his money."
"He doesn't seem to be particularly short of it," added the other,
peering with growing wonder round the cabin.
"His money, my taste," said Dodd. "The black-walnut
bookshelves are Old English; the books all mine,--mostly
Renaissance French. You should see how the beach-combers
wilt away when they go round them looking for a change of
Seaside Library novels. The mirrors are genuine Venice; that's
a good piece in the corner. The daubs are mine--and his; the
mudding mine."
"Mudding? What is that?" asked Havens.
"These bronzes," replied Dodd. "I began life as a sculptor."
"Yes; I remember something about that," said the other. "I
think, too, you said you were interested in Californian real
estate."
"Surely, I never went so far as that," said Dodd. "Interested? I
guess not. Involved, perhaps. I was born an artist; I never took
an interest in anything but art. If I were to pile up this old
schooner to-morrow," he added, "I declare I believe I would try
the thing again!"
"Insured?" inquired Havens.
"Yes," responded Dodd. "There's some fool in 'Frisco who
insures us, and comes down like a wolf on the fold on the
profits; but we'll get even with him some day."
"Well, I suppose it's all right about the cargo," said Havens.
"O, I suppose so!" replied Dodd. "Shall we go into the
papers?"
"We'll have all to-morrow, you know," said Havens; "and
they'll be rather expecting you at the club. C'est l'heure de
l'absinthe. Of course, Loudon, you'll dine with me later on?"
Mr. Dodd signified his acquiescence; drew on his white coat,
not without a trifling difficulty, for he was a man of middle age,
and well-to-do; arranged his beard and moustaches at one of
the Venetian mirrors; and, taking a broad felt hat, led the way
through the trade-room into the ship's waist.
The stern boat was waiting alongside,--a boat of an elegant
model, with cushions and polished hard-wood fittings.
"You steer," observed Loudon. "You know the best place to
land."
"I never like to steer another man's boat," replied Havens.
"Call it my partner's, and cry quits," returned Loudon, getting
nonchalantly down the side.
Havens followed and took the yoke lines without further
protest. "I am sure I don't know how you make this pay," he
said. "To begin with, she is too big for the trade, to my taste;
and then you carry so much style."
"I don't know that she does pay," returned Loudon. "I never
pretend to be a business man. My partner appears happy; and
the money is all his, as I told you--I only bring the want of
business habits."
"You rather like the berth, I suppose?" suggested Havens.
"Yes," said Loudon; "it seems odd, but I rather do."
While they were yet on board, the sun had dipped; the sunset
gun (a rifle) cracked from the war-schooner, and the colours
had been handed down. Dusk was deepening as they came
ashore; and the Cercle Internationale (as the club is officially
and significantly named) began to shine, from under its low
verandas, with the light of many lamps. The good hours of the
twenty-four drew on; the hateful, poisonous day-fly of
Nukahiva, was beginning to desist from its activity; the
land-breeze came in refreshing draughts; and the club men
gathered together for the hour of absinthe. To the commandant
himself, to the man whom he was then contending with at
billiards--a trader from the next island, honorary member of the
club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee war-ship--
to the doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to the
opium farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of
commerce, or the chances of shipwreck and desertion, had
stranded on the beach of Tai-o-hae, Mr. Loudon Dodd was
formally presented; by all (since he was a man of pleasing
exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of talk,
whether in French or English) he was excellently well received;
and presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a
table at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centre-piece
of a voluble group on the verandah.
Talk in the South Seas is all upon one pattern; it is a wide
ocean, indeed, but a narrow world: you shall never talk long
and not hear the name of Bully Hayes, a naval hero whose
exploits and deserved extinction left Europe cold; commerce
will be touched on, copra, shell, perhaps cotton or fungus; but
in a far-away, dilettante fashion, as by men not deeply
interested; through all, the names of schooners and their
captains, will keep coming and going, thick as may-flies; and
news of the last shipwreck will be placidly exchanged and
debated. To a stranger, this conversation will at first seem
scarcely brilliant; but he will soon catch the tone; and by the
time he shall have moved a year or so in the island world, and
come across a good number of the schooners so that every
captain's name calls up a figure in pyjamas or white duck, and
becomes used to a certain laxity of moral tone which prevails
(as in memory of Mr. Hayes) on smuggling, ship-scuttling,
barratry, piracy, the labour trade, and other kindred fields of
human activity, he will find Polynesia no less amusing and no
less instructive than Pall Mall or Paris.
Mr. Loudon Dodd, though he was new to the group of the
Marquesas, was already an old, salted trader; he knew the
ships and the captains; he had assisted, in other islands, at the
first steps of some career of which he now heard the
culmination, or (vice versa) he had brought with him from
further south the end of some story which had begun in
Tai-o-hae. Among other matter of interest, like other arrivals in
the South Seas, he had a wreck to announce. The John T.
Richards, it appeared, had met the fate of other island
schooners.
"Dickinson piled her up on Palmerston Island," Dodd
announced.
"Who were the owners?" inquired one of the club men.
"O, the usual parties!" returned Loudon,--"Capsicum & Co."
A smile and a glance of intelligence went round the group; and
perhaps Loudon gave voice to the general sentiment by
remarking, "Talk of good business! I know nothing better than
a schooner, a competent captain, and a sound, reliable reef."
"Good business! There's no such a thing!" said the Glasgow
man. "Nobody makes anything but the missionaries--dash it!"
"I don't know," said another. "There's a good deal in opium."
"It's a good job to strike a tabooed pearl-island, say, about the
fourth year," remarked a third; "skim the whole lagoon on the
sly, and up stick and away before the French get wind of you."
"A pig nokket of cold is good," observed a German.
"There's something in wrecks, too," said Havens. "Look at that
man in Honolulu, and the ship that went ashore on Waikiki
Reef; it was blowing a kona, hard; and she began to break up
as soon as she touched. Lloyd's agent had her sold inside an
hour; and before dark, when she went to pieces in earnest, the
man that bought her had feathered his nest. Three more hours
of daylight, and he might have retired from business. As it
was, he built a house on Beretania Street, and called it for the
ship."
"Yes, there's something in wrecks sometimes," said the
Glasgow voice; "but not often."
"As a general rule, there's deuced little in anything," said
Havens.
"Well, I believe that's a Christian fact," cried the other. "What
I want is a secret; get hold of a rich man by the right place, and
make him squeal."
"I suppose you know it's not thought to be the ticket," returned
Havens.
"I don't care for that; it's good enough for me," cried the man
from Glasgow, stoutly. "The only devil of it is, a fellow can
never find a secret in a place like the South Seas: only in
London and Paris."
"M'Gibbon's been reading some dime-novel, I suppose," said
one club man.
"He's been reading _Aurora Floyd_," remarked another.
"And what if I have?" cried M'Gibbon. "It's all true. Look at
the newspapers! It's just your confounded ignorance that sets
you snickering. I tell you, it's as much a trade as underwriting,
and a dashed sight more honest."
The sudden acrimony of these remarks called Loudon (who
was a man of peace) from his reserve. "It's rather singular,"
said he, "but I seem to have practised about all these means of
livelihood."
"Tit you effer vind a nokket?" inquired the inarticulate German,
eagerly.
"No. I have been most kinds of fool in my time," returned
Loudon, "but not the gold-digging variety. Every man has a
sane spot somewhere."
"Well, then," suggested some one, "did you ever smuggle
opium?"
"Yes, I did," said Loudon.
"Was there money in that?"
"All the way," responded Loudon.
"And perhaps you bought a wreck?" asked another.
"Yes, sir," said Loudon.
"How did that pan out?" pursued the questioner.
"Well, mine was a peculiar kind of wreck," replied Loudon. "I
don't know, on the whole, that I can recommend that branch of
industry."
"Did she break up?" asked some one.
"I guess it was rather I that broke down," says Loudon. "Head
not big enough."
"Ever try the blackmail?" inquired Havens.
"Simple as you see me sitting here!" responded Dodd.
"Good business?"
"Well, I'm not a lucky man, you see," returned the stranger. "It
ought to have been good."
"You had a secret?" asked the Glasgow man.
"As big as the State of Texas."
"And the other man was rich?"
"He wasn't exactly Jay Gould, but I guess he could buy these
islands if he wanted."
"Why, what was wrong, then? Couldn't you get hands on him?"
"It took time, but I had him cornered at last; and then----"
"What then?"
"The speculation turned bottom up. I became the man's bosom
friend."
"The deuce you did!"
"He couldn't have been particular, you mean?" asked Dodd
pleasantly. "Well, no; he's a man of rather large sympathies."
"If you're done talking nonsense, Loudon," said Havens, "let's
be getting to my place for dinner."
Outside, the night was full of the roaring of the surf. Scattered
lights glowed in the green thicket. Native women came by
twos and threes out of the darkness, smiled and ogled the two
whites, perhaps wooed them with a strain of laughter, and went
by again, bequeathing to the air a heady perfume of palm-oil
and frangipani blossom. From the club to Mr. Havens's
residence was but a step or two, and to any dweller in Europe
they must have seemed steps in fairyland. If such an one could
but have followed our two friends into the wide-verandahed
house, sat down with them in the cool trellised room, where the
wine shone on the lamp-lighted tablecloth; tasted of their exotic
food--the raw fish, the breadfruit, the cooked bananas, the roast
pig served with the inimitable miti, and that king of delicacies,
palm-tree salad; seen and heard by fits and starts, now peering
round the corner of the door, now railing within against
invisible assistants, a certain comely young native lady in a
sacque, who seemed too modest to be a member of the family,
and too imperious to be less; and then if such an one were
whisked again through space to Upper Tooting, or wherever
else he honored the domestic gods, "I have had a dream," I
think he would say, as he sat up, rubbing his eyes, in the
familiar chimney-corner chair, "I have had a dream of a place,
and I declare I believe it must be heaven." But to Dodd and his
entertainer, all this amenity of the tropic night and all these
dainties of the island table, were grown things of custom; and
they fell to meat like men who were hungry, and drifted into
idle talk like men who were a trifle bored.
The scene in the club was referred to.
"I never heard you talk so much nonsense, Loudon," said the
host.
"Well, it seemed to me there was sulphur in the air, so I talked
for talking," returned the other. "But it was none of it
nonsense."
"Do you mean to say it was true?" cried Havens,--"that about
the opium and the wreck, and the blackmailing and the man
who became your friend?"
"Every last word of it," said Loudon.
"You seem to have been seeing life," returned the other.
"Yes, it's a queer yarn," said his friend; "if you think you would
like, I'll tell it you."
Here follows the yarn of Loudon Dodd, not as he told it to his
friend, but as he subsequently wrote it.
THE YARN.
Content of Prologue [Robert Louis Stevenson's novel: The Wrecker]
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