第76章 AROUND OUR HOUSE(2)

Towards dusk the passers-by became more gorgeous.The men broke out in all the colours of the rainbow -or at least of the trade-room,-and both men and women began to be adorned and scented with new flowers.A small white blossom is the favourite,sometimes sown singly in a woman's hair like little stars,now composed in a thick wreath.With the night,the crowd sometimes thickened in the road,and the padding and brushing of bare feet became continuous;the promenades mostly grave,the silence only interrupted by some giggling and scampering of girls;even the children quiet.At nine,bed-time struck on a bell from the cathedral,and the life of the town ceased.At four the next morning the signal is repeated in the darkness,and the innocent prisoners set free;but for seven hours all must lie -I was about to say within doors,of a place where doors,and even walls,are an exception -housed,at least,under their airy roofs and clustered in the tents of the mosquito-nets.Suppose a necessary errand to occur,suppose it imperative to send abroad,the messenger must then go openly,advertising himself to the police with a huge brand of cocoa-nut,which flares from house to house like a moving bonfire.Only the police themselves go darkling,and grope in the night for misdemeanants.

I used to hate their treacherous presence;their captain in particular,a crafty old man in white,lurked nightly about my premises till I could have found it in my heart to beat him.But the rogue was privileged.

Not one of the eleven resident traders came to town,no captain cast anchor in the lagoon,but we saw him ere the hour was out.

This was owing to our position between the store and the bar -the SANS SOUCI,as the last was called.Mr.Rick was not only Messrs.

Wightman's manager,but consular agent for the States;Mrs.Rick was the only white woman on the island,and one of the only two in the archipelago;their house besides,with its cool verandahs,its bookshelves,its comfortable furniture,could not be rivalled nearer than Jaluit or Honolulu.Every one called in consequence,save such as might be prosecuting a South Sea quarrel,hingeing on the price of copra and the odd cent,or perhaps a difference about poultry.Even these,if they did not appear upon the north,would be presently visible to the southward,the SANS SOUCI drawing them as with cords.In an island with a total population of twelve white persons,one of the two drinking-shops might seem superfluous:but every bullet has its billet,and the double accommodation of Butaritari is found in practice highly convenient by the captains and the crews of ships:THE LAND WE LIVE IN being tacitly resigned to the forecastle,the SANS SOUCI tacitly reserved for the afterguard.So aristocratic were my habits,so commanding was my fear of Mr.Williams,that I have never visited the first;but in the other,which was the club or rather the casino of the island,I regularly passed my evenings.It was small,but neatly fitted,and at night (when the lamp was lit)sparkled with glass and glowed with coloured pictures like a theatre at Christmas.The pictures were advertisements,the glass coarse enough,the carpentry amateur;but the effect,in that incongruous isle,was of unbridled luxury and inestimable expense.Here songs were sung,tales told,tricks performed,games played.The Ricks,ourselves,Norwegian Tom the bar-keeper,a captain or two from the ships,and perhaps three or four traders come down the island in their boats or by the road on foot,made up the usual company.The traders,all bred to the sea,take a humorous pride in their new business;'South Sea Merchants'is the title they prefer.'We are all sailors here'-'Merchants,if you please'-'SOUTH SEA Merchants,'-was a piece of conversation endlessly repeated,that never seemed to lose in savour.We found them at all times simple,genial,gay,gallant,and obliging;and,across some interval of time,recall with pleasure the traders of Butaritari.There was one black sheep indeed.I tell of him here where he lived,against my rule;for in this case I have no measure to preserve,and the man is typical of a class of ruffians that once disgraced the whole field of the South Seas,and still linger in the rarely visited isles of Micronesia.He had the name on the beach of 'a perfect gentleman when sober,'but I never saw him otherwise than drunk.The few shocking and savage traits of the Micronesian he has singled out with the skill of a collector,and planted in the soil of his original baseness.He has been accused and acquitted of a treacherous murder;and has since boastfully owned it,which inclines me to suppose him innocent.His daughter is defaced by his erroneous cruelty,for it was his wife he had intended to disfigure,and in the darkness of the night and the frenzy of coco-brandy,fastened on the wrong victim.The wife has since fled and harbours in the bush with natives;and the husband still demands from deaf ears her forcible restoration.The best of his business is to make natives drink,and then advance the money for the fine upon a lucrative mortgage.'Respect for whites'is the man's word:

'What is the matter with this island is the want of respect for whites.'On his way to Butaritari,while I was there,he spied his wife in the bush with certain natives and made a dash to capture her;whereupon one of her companions drew a knife and the husband retreated:'Do you call that proper respect for whites?'he cried.

At an early stage of the acquaintance we proved our respect for his kind of white by forbidding him our enclosure under pain of death.

Thenceforth he lingered often in the neighbourhood with I knew not what sense of envy or design of mischief;his white,handsome face (which I beheld with loathing)looked in upon us at all hours across the fence;and once,from a safe distance,he avenged himself by shouting a recondite island insult,to us quite inoffensive,on his English lips incredibly incongruous.