The captain of the schooner was a man of a type common enough in the South Seas, rough, good-humoured, and coarsely handsome.
After dinner the two men sat over their whisky and talked and smoked. Mrs. Lambert, always an invalid, had gone to her room, but Loisé, book in hand, lay on a sofa and seemed to read. But she did not read, she listened. She had caught a word or two uttered by the dark-faced, black-bearded skipperwords that filled her with vague memories of long ago. And soon she heard namesnames of men, white and brown, whom she had known in that distant, almost forgotten and savage childhood.
When the seaman rose to leave and extended his tanned, sinewy hand to the beautiful Miss Lambert, and gazed with undisguised admiration into her face, he little thought that she longed to say, Stay and let me hear more. But she was conventional enough to know better than that, and that her adopted parents would be genuinely shocked to see her anything more than distantly friendly with such a man as a common trading captaineven though that man had once been one of Lamberts most trusted men. Still, as she raised her eyes to his, she murmured softly, We will be glad to see you again, Captain Lemaire. And the dark-faced seaman gave her a subtle, answering glance.
All that night she lay awakeawake to the child memories of the life that until now had slumbered within her. From her opened bedroom window she could see the dulled blaze of the citys lights, and hear ever and anon the hoarse and warning roar of a steamers whistle. She raised herself and looked out upon the waters of the harbour. A huge, black mass was moving slowly seaward, showing only her masthead and side-lightssome ocean tramp bound northward. Again the boom of the whistle sounded, and then, by the quickened thumping of the propeller, the girl, knew that the tramp had rounded the point and was heading for the open sea.
She lay back again on the pillow and tried to sleep. Why couldnt she sleep, she wondered. She closed her eyes. The branches of the pine that grew close to her window rustled and shook to a passing breath of wind, and her eyes opened again. How strangely, though, it sounded to-night, and how her heart was thumping! Again the white lids drooped and half closed again, and the pine branches waved and soughed gently to the breeze.
And then the dead grey of the wall of the room changed to a bright, shimmering whitethe white of an island beach as it changes, under the red flush of the morn, from the shadows of the night to a broad belt of gleaming silverand the sough of the pine-tree by the window deepened into the humming music of the trade-wind when it passes through the sleeping palms, and a million branches awake trembling to its first breaths and shake off in pearly showers the dews of the night. Again she raced along the clinking sand with her childish, half-naked companions, and heard the ceaseless throb of the beating surf upon the windward reef, and saw the flash of gold and scarlet of a flock of parrakeets that with shrill, whistling note, vanished through the groves of cocoa-nuts as they sped mountain wards. Then her latent native soul awoke and made her desperate.
Ere two days had passed she was missing, and six weeks later a little white-painted schooner hove-to off one of the Paumotu Group, lowered a boat, and landed her amongst the wondering natives.
The dark-faced, black-bearded man who steered the boat held her hand a moment ere he said good-bye.
It is not too late, Loisé.
She raised her face and laughed scornfully.
To go back? To go back to hear the old man who was a father and the good woman who was a mother to me, tell me that they hated and despised me! And then quick, scalding tears.
The mans face flushed. No, not that, but, with an oath, look here, if youll come with me Ill head the schooner for Tahiti, and as soon as she swings to her anchor we will be ashore and married.
She shook her head. Let me go, Captain Lemaire. Whatever comes to me, tis I alone who must answer for it. And sogood-bye.
She stood and watched the boat hoisted to the davits, and saw the schooner slowly gather way, and then glide past and disappear round the palm-crowned point. Then she turned with streaming eyes and choking voice to the brown-skinned people that stood around her, and spoke to them in her mothers tongue.
So ended the sixteen years life of the beautiful Miss Lambert and began that of Loisé, the half-blood.
LOISÉ, THE HALF-BLOODThere was a wild rush of naked, scurrying feet, and a quick panting of brown bosoms along the winding path that led to Baldwins house at Rikitea. A trading schooner had just dropped anchor inside the reef, and the runners, young lads and girlshalf-naked, lithe-limbed and handsomelike all the people of the thousand isles, wanted to welcome Baldwin the Trader at his own house door.
Two of thema boy and girlgained the traders gate ahead of their excited companions, and, leaning their backs against the white palings, mocked the rest for their tardiness in the race. With one arm around the girls lissom waist, the boy, Maturei, short, thickset, muscular, and the bully of the village, beat off with his left hand those who sought to displace them from the gate; and the girl, thin, créole-faced, with soft, red-lipped mouth, laughed softly at their vexation. Her gaily-coloured grass waist girdle had broken, and presently moving the boys protecting arm, she tried to tie the band, and as she tied it she rattled out oaths in English and French at the score of brown hands that sought to prevent her.
Hui! Hui!! Away, ye fools, and let me tie my girdle, she said in the native tongue. Tis no time now for such folly as this; for, see, the boat is lowered from the ship and in a little time the master will be here.
The merry chatter ceased in an instant and every face turned towards the schooner, and a hundred pair of curious eyes watched. Then, one by one, they sat down and waited; all but the two at the gate, who remained standing, the boys arm still wound round the girls waist.
The boat was pulling in swiftly now, and the click-clack of the rowlocks reached the listening ears of those on shore.
There were two figures in the stern, and presently one stood up, and taking off his hat, waved it towards the shore.
A roar of welcome from the thronging mass of natives that lined the beach drowned the shrill, piping treble of the children round the gate, and told sturdy old Tom Baldwin that he was recognised, and scarce had the bow of the boat ploughed into the soft sand of the beach when he was seized upon and smothered with caresses, the men with good-natured violence thrusting aside the women and forming a body-guard to conduct him and the young man with him from the boat to the house. And about the strange white man the people thronged with inquiring and admiring glances, for he was big and strong-lookingand that to a native mind is better than all else in the world.
With joyous, laughing clamour, the natives pressed around the white men till the gate was reached, and then fell back.
The girl stepped forward, and taking the traders hand, bent her forehead to it in token of submission.
The key of this thy house, Tâmu, she murmured in the native tongue, as she placed it in his hand.
Enter thou first, Loisé, and he waved it away.
A faint smile of pleasure illumined her face; Baldwin, rough and careless as he was, was yet studious to observe native custom.
The white men followed her, and then in the open doorway Baldwin stopped, turned, and raised his hand, palm outwards, to the throng of natives without.