Suddenly a strange, weird cry pealed over the water from the native village, a cry that to him was mysterious, as well as mournful and blood-chilling.
The four natives who pulled the boat had rested on their oars the instant they heard the cry, and with alarm and deep concern depicted on their countenances were looking toward the shore.
What is it, boys? said Brice in English.
Before the native to whom he spoke could answer, the long, loud wailing cry again burst forth.
Some man die, said the native who pulled stroke-oar to Bricehe was the only one who knew English.
Then Brice, following the looks of his crew, saw that around the white paling fence that enclosed Baldwins house was gathered a great concourse of natives, most of whom were sitting on the ground.
Give way, boys, he said, with an instinctive feeling of fear that something dreadful had happened. In another five minutes the boat touched the sand and Brice sprang out.
Maturei alone, of all the motionless, silent crowd that gathered around the house, rose and walked down to him.
Oh, white man, Tâmu is dead!
He felt the shock terribly, and for a moment or two was motionless and nerveless. Then the prolonged wailing note of grief from a thousand throats again broke out and brought him to his senses, and with hasty step he opened the gate and went in.
With white face and shaking limbs Loisé met him at the door and endeavoured to speak, but only hollow, inarticulate sounds came from her lips, and sitting down on a cane sofa she covered her face with her robe, after the manner of the people of the island when in the presence of death.
Presently the door of Baldwins room opened, and the white-haired old priest came out and laid his hand sympathetically on the young mans arm, and drew him aside.
He told him all in a few words. An hour before daylight Loisé and the boy Maturei had heard the old trader breathing stertorously, and ere they could raise him to a sitting position he had breathed his last.
Heart disease, the good Father said. And he was so careless a man, was M. Baldwin. And then with tears in his eyes the priest told Brice how, from the olden times when Baldwin, pretending to scoff at the efforts of the missionaries, had yet ever been their best and truest friend.
And now he is dead, M. Brice, and had I been but a little sooner I could have closed his eyes. I was passing in my boat, hastening to take the mission letters to the Malolo when I heard the tagi (the death wail) of the people here, and hastening ashore found he had just passed away.
Sick at heart as he was, the young man was glad of the priests presence, and presently together they went in and looked at the still figure in the bedroom.
When they returned to the front room they found Loisé had gone.
She was afraid to stay in the house of death, said Maturei, and has gone to Vehaga (a village eight miles away), and these are her words to the Father and to the friend of TârauNaught have I taken from the house of Tâmu, and naught do I wantand then she was gone.
The old priest nodded to BriceNative blood, native blood, M. Brice. Do not, I pray you, misjudge her. She only does this because she knows the village feeling against her. She does not belong to this island, and the people here resented, in a quiet way, her marriage with my old friend. She is not cruel and ungrateful as you think. It is but her way of showing these natives that she cares not to benefit by Baldwins death. By and by we will send for her.
After Baldwin had been buried and matters arranged, Brice and the priest, and a colleague from the Mission, read the will, and Brice found himself in possession of some two or three thousand dollars in cash and as much in trade. The house at Rikitea and a thousand dollars were for Loisé.
He told the Fathers to send word over to Vehaga and tell Loisé that he only awaited her to come and take the house over from him. As for himself he would gladly accept their kind invitation to remain at the Mission as their guest till the schooner returned.
The shock of his friends death had all but cured him of his passion, and he felt sure now of his own strength.
But day after day, and then week after week passed, and no word came from Vehaga, till one evening as he leant over the railing of the garden, looking out upon the gorgeous setting of the sun into the ocean, Maturei came paddling across the smooth waters of the harbour, and, drawing his canoe up on the beach, the boy approached the white man.
See, he said, Loisé hath sent thee this.
He unrolled a packet of broad, dried palm leaves, and taking from it a thick necklet of sweet-smelling kurahini buds, placed it in Brices hand.
He knew its meaningit was the gift of a woman to an accepted lover.
The perfume of the flowers brought back her face to him in a moment. There was a brief struggle in his mind; and then home, friends, his future prospects in the great outside world, went to the wall, and the half-blood had won.
Slowly he raised the token and placed it over his head and round his neck.
In the morning she came. He held out his hand and drew her to him, and looking down into her eyes, he kissed her. Her lips quivered a little, and then the long lashes fell, and he felt her tremble.
Loisé, he said simply, will you be my wife?
She glanced up at him, fearfully.
Would you marry me?
His face crimsonedYes, of course. You were his wife. I cant forget that. And, besides, you said once that you loved me.
They were very happy for five or six years down there in Rikitea. They had one child born to thema girl with a face as beautiful as her mothers.
Then a strange and deadly epidemic, unknown to the people of Rikitea, swept through the Paumotu Group, from Pitcairn Island to Marutea, and in every village, on every palm-clad atoll, death stalked, and the brown people sickened and shivered under their mat coverings, and died. And from island to island, borne on the very breath of the trade-wind, the terror passed, and left behind it empty, silent clusters of houses, nestling under the cocoanuts; and many a whale-ship beating back to the coast of South America, sailed close in to the shore and waited for the canoes to come off with fruit and vegetables; but none came, for the canoes had long months before blistered and cracked and rotted under the fierce rays of the Paumotu sun, and the owners lay dead in their thatched houses; for how could the dead bury the dead?
It came to Rikitea, and Harry Brice and the priests of the Mission went from village to village trying by such means as lay in their power to allay the deadly scourge. Brice had seen his little girl die, and then Loisé was smitten, and in a few days Brice saw the imprint of death stamped upon her features.
As he sat and watched by her at night, and listened to the wild, delirious words of the fierce fever that held her in its cruel grasp, he heard her say that which chilled his very hearts blood. At first he thought it to be but the strange imaginings of her weak and fevered brain. But as the night wore on he was undeceived.
Just as daylight began to shoot its streaks of red and gold through the plumed palm-tops, she awoke from a fitful and tortured slumber, and opened her eyes to gaze upon the haggard features of her husband.
Loisé, he said, with a choking voice, tell me, for Gods sake, the truth about Baldwin. Did you kill him?
She put her thin, wasted hands over her dark, burning eyes, and Brice saw the tears run down and wet the pillow.