"And you mean to say you would have married him?"I cried.
"IOE,yes,"said she."I like too much!"
"Well!"I said."And suppose I had come round after?""I like you more better now,"said she."But,suppose I marry Ioane,I one good wife.I no common Kanaka.Good girl!"says she.
Well,I had to be pleased with that;but I promise you I didn't care about the business one little bit.And I liked the end of that yarn no better than the beginning.For it seems this proposal of marriage was the start of all the trouble.It seems,before that,Uma and her mother had been looked down upon,of course,for kinless folk and out-islanders,but nothing to hurt;and,even when Ioane came forward,there was less trouble at first than might have been looked for.And then,all of a sudden,about six months before my coming,Ioane backed out and left that part of the island,and from that day to this Uma and her mother had found themselves alone.None called at their house,none spoke to them on the roads.If they went to church,the other women drew their mats away and left them in a clear place by themselves.It was a regular excommunication,like what you read of in the Middle Ages;and the cause or sense of it beyond guessing.It was some TALAPEPELO,Uma said,some lie,some calumny;and all she knew of it was that the girls who had been jealous of her luck with Ioane used to twit her with his desertion,and cry out,when they met her alone in the woods,that she would never be married."They tell me no man he marry me.He too much 'fraid,"she said.
The only soul that came about them after this desertion was Master Case.Even he was chary of showing himself,and turned up mostly by night;and pretty soon he began to table his cards and make up to Uma.I was still sore about Ioane,and when Case turned up in the same line of business I cut up downright rough.
"Well,"I said,sneering,"and I suppose you thought Case 'very pretty'and 'liked too much'?""Now you talk silly,"said she."White man,he come here,I marry him all-e-same Kanaka;very well then,he marry me all-e-same white woman.Suppose he no marry,he go 'way,woman he stop.All-e-same thief,empty hand,Tonga-heart -no can love!Now you come marry me.You big heart -you no 'shamed island-girl.That thing I love you for too much.I proud."I don't know that ever I felt sicker all the days of my life.Ilaid down my fork,and I put away "the island-girl";I didn't seem somehow to have any use for either,and I went and walked up and down in the house,and Uma followed me with her eyes,for she was troubled,and small wonder!But troubled was no word for it with me.I so wanted,and so feared,to make a clean breast of the sweep that I had been.
And just then there came a sound of singing out of the sea;it sprang up suddenly clear and near,as the boat turned the headland,and Uma,running to the window,cried out it was "Misi"come upon his rounds.
I thought it was a strange thing I should be glad to have a missionary;but,if it was strange,it was still true.
"Uma,"said I,"you stop here in this room,and don't budge a foot out of it till I come back."CHAPTER III.THE MISSIONARY.
AS I came out on the verandah,the mission-boat was shooting for the mouth of the river.She was a long whale-boat painted white;a bit of an awning astern;a native pastor crouched on the wedge of the poop,steering;some four-and-twenty paddles flashing and dipping,true to the boat-song;and the missionary under the awning,in his white clothes,reading in a book,and set him up!
It was pretty to see and hear;there's no smarter sight in the islands than a missionary boat with a good crew and a good pipe to them;and I considered it for half a minute,with a bit of envy perhaps,and then strolled down towards the river.
From the opposite side there was another man aiming for the same place,but he ran and got there first.It was Case;doubtless his idea was to keep me apart from the missionary,who might serve me as interpreter;but my mind was upon other things.I was thinking how he had jockeyed us about the marriage,and tried his hand on Uma before;and at the sight of him rage flew into my nostrils.
"Get out of that,you low,swindling thief!"I cried.
"What's that you say?"says he.
I gave him the word again,and rammed it down with a good oath.
"And if ever I catch you within six fathoms of my house,"I cried,"I'll clap a bullet in your measly carcase.""You must do as you like about your house,"said he,"where I told you I have no thought of going;but this is a public place.""It's a place where I have private business,"said I."I have no idea of a hound like you eavesdropping,and I give you notice to clear out.""I don't take it,though,"says Case.
"I'll show you,then,"said I.
"We'll have to see about that,"said he.
He was quick with his hands,but he had neither the height nor the weight,being a flimsy creature alongside a man like me,and,besides,I was blazing to that height of wrath that I could have bit into a chisel.I gave him first the one and then the other,so that I could hear his head rattle and crack,and he went down straight.
"Have you had enough?"cried I.But he only looked up white and blank,and the blood spread upon his face like wine upon a napkin.
"Have you had enough?"I cried again."Speak up,and don't lie malingering there,or I'll take my feet to you."He sat up at that,and held his head -by the look of him you could see it was spinning -and the blood poured on his pyjamas.
"I've had enough for this time,"says he,and he got up staggering,and went off by the way that he had come.
The boat was close in;I saw the missionary had laid his book to one side,and I smiled to myself."He'll know I'm a man,anyway,"thinks I.