Ori-a-Ori sat at the head and I beside him. His venerable countenance bore a smile of delight in being in such jovial company, and he answered the quips and drank the toasts as if a youth. I was leaving early in the afternoon, and the banquet was begun before midday. We had hardly reached the dessert when the accordions burst into the allegro airs of the adapted songs of America and Europe. Between them speeches of friendship were addressed to me by the chief and others, and I sorrowfully replied. Choti gave the key-note to our mutual regrets at my leaving by quoting the letter in Tahitian written by Ori-a-Ori to Rui at Honolulu long ago:
I make you to know my great affection. At the hour when you left us, I was filled with tears; my wife, Rui Telime, also, and all of my household. When you embarked I felt a great sorrow. It is for this that I went up on the road, and you looked from that ship, and I looked at you on the ship with great grief until you had raised the anchor and hoisted the sails. When the ship started I ran along the beach to see you still; and when you were on the open sea I cried out to you, "Farewell, Louis"; and when I was coming back to my house I seemed to hear your voice crying, "Rui, farewell." Afterwards I watched the ship as long as I could until the night fell; and when it was dark I said to myself, "If I had wings I should fly to the ship to meet you, and to sleep amongst you, so that I might be able to come back to sh.o.r.e and to tell to Rui Telime, "I have slept upon the ship of Teriitera."" After that we pa.s.sed that night in the impatience of grief. Towards eight o"clock I seemed to hear your voice, "Teriitera--Rui--here is the hour for putter and tiro (cheese and syrup)." I did not sleep that night, thinking continually of you, my very dear friend, until the morning; being then still awake, I went to see Tapina Tutu on her bed, and alas, she was not there. Afterwards I looked into your rooms; they did not please me as they used to do. I did not hear your voice saying, "Hail, Rui"; I thought then that you had gone, and that you had left me. Rising up, I went to the beach to see your ship, and I could not see it. I wept, then, until the night, telling myself continually, "Teriitera returns into his own country and leaves his dear Rui in grief, so that I suffer for him, and weep for him." I will not forget you in my memory. Here is the thought: I desire to meet you again. It is my dear Teriitera makes the only riches I desire in this world. It is your eyes that I desire to see again. It must be that your body and my body shall eat together at one table: there is what would make my heart content. But now we are separated. May G.o.d be with you all. May His word and His mercy go with you, so that you may be well and we also, according to the words of Paul.
The chief listened throughout the message with his eyes empty of us, conjuring a vision of the Rui who so far back had won his heart; and when Choti had concluded, Ori-a-Ori lifted his gla.s.s, and said, "Rui e Maru!" coupling me in his affection with the dim figure of his sweet guest of the late eighties.
The last toast was to my return.
"You have eaten the fei in Tahiti nei, and you will come back,"
they chanted.
Raiere drove me in his cart to Taravao, where I had arranged for an automobile to meet me. At Mataiea I was clasped to the bosom of Haamoura, and spent a few minutes with the Chevalier Tetuanui. They could not understand us cold-blooded whites, who go long distances from loved ones. My contemplated journey to the Marquesas Islands was to them a foolish and dangerous labor for no good reason.
The trip to Papeete from Mataiea by motor-car took only an hour and a half, and I was in another world, on the camphorwood chest at the Tiare hotel, by five o"clock.
"Mais, Brien, you long time go district!" exclaimed Lovaina. "What you do so long no see you? I think may be you love one country vahine!"
She rubbed my back, and said that Lying Bill, who had been at the Tiare for luncheon, hoped to sail in two days. McHenry was to go with us as a pa.s.senger on the schooner. Everybody knew everybody"s business. Lovaina suddenly bethought herself of a richer morsel of gossip. She struck her forehead.
"My G.o.d! how long you been? You not meet that rich uncle of David from America? You not hear about that turribil thing?"
She was on the point of beginning her narrative when the telephone rang, and she was called away. I knew I would catch the before-dinner groups at the Cercle Bougainville, and walked there, waving my hand or speaking to a dozen acquaintances on the route. I climbed the steep stairs, and at the first table saw Fung Wah, a Chinese immigrant importer and pearl merchant, with Lying Bill, McHenry, Hallman, and Landers, the latter only recently back from Auckland. I was immediately aware of the sad contrast with Tautira. The club-room looked mean and tawdry after so many weeks among the cocoas and breadfruits; the floor, tables, and chairs ugly compared with the gra.s.s, the puraus, the roses, and the gardenias, the endearing environment of that lovely village. The white men before me had as hard, unsympathetic faces as the Asiatic, who was reputed to deal in opium as well as men and women and jewels.
Yet their welcoming shout of fellowship was pleasant, despite a note of derision for my staying so long away from the fleshpots of Papeete. Pincher and McHenry were themselves lately arrived, but evidently had learned of my absence from Lovaina.
"What did you do? Buy a vanilla plantation?" asked McHenry.
"Vanilla, h.e.l.l!" said Hallman, whose harp had one string, "he"s been having his pick of country produce."
Lying Bill said:
"Well, you"d better pack your chest for the northern islands to-morrow if you"re goin" with the Fetia Taiao. We"11 be off for Atuona and Hallman"s tribe of cannibals nex" mornin"."
I sat down and quaffed a Doctor Funk, and then inquired idly:
"Where"s David?"
"David!" said Hallman. "For G.o.d"s sake! don"t dig into any graves!"
""E"s a proper ghoul, "e is," Lying Bill said sarcastically. ""E thinks you"re a mejum!"
They all stared at me as if I were crazy, and I felt myself in an atmosphere of mystery, in which I had broached a distasteful subject. I wondered what it could be, but determined to know at all hazards, reckoning on no fine feelings to hurt.
"What is the secret?" I asked. "I"ve been away a few months, and haven"t heard the news. Has David run off with Miri or Caroline?"
Was this what Lovaina was bursting with?
They all remained quiet, until McHenry, with an oath, blurted out:
"What the h.e.l.l"s the good of all this b.l.o.o.d.y silence? He"s been away and don"t know." Then turning to me, he slapped me on the shoulder and bawled:
"We"ll have a drink on you, O"Brien! David blew his brains out on Llewellyn"s doorstep just after we left for the Marquesas. Joseph, bring one all around!"
As if at his word Llewellyn came up the stairs. His countenance was blacker than usual, his eyes more than half closed under their clouds of brows. His shoulders drooped, and he thumped his stick on the floor of the club as he came toward us. I felt certain that he detected something in the air--a sudden cessation of talk or a strained att.i.tude on our part. He drooped heavily into a chair, and banged his stick on his chair-leg.
"Joseph," he called, "give me a Doctor Funk. Quick! No, make it straight absinthe."
Our own drinks were coming by now, and as the steward stirred about, Llewellyn for the first time saw me.
"h.e.l.lo! Where did you come from? I thought you had gone back to the States."
"I"ve been past the isthmus," I replied, "and I haven"t seen a soul or heard a word in that time. What"s this terrible thing about young David?"
Llewellyn"s arm jerked convulsively toward his body and knocked his gla.s.s from the table.
"Joseph, for G.o.d"s sake, bring me a drink! Bring me a double absinthe!"
Joseph fetched the drink hurriedly, and stopped to pick up the broken gla.s.s.
"Mon dieu!" snapped Llewellyn, "you can do that afterward. Clear out!"
Then he turned to me, and his eyes contracted into mere black gleams as he asked:
"Are you like all these others? By G.o.d! I was pa.s.sing the opium den here a few minutes ago, and I heard Hip Sing say something like that: What have I to do with David? Was I responsible for his death? Any man can come to your front door and kill himself. He was a friend of mine. I didn"t see much of him before he died; I was busy with the vanilla."
Llewellyn swept us with an inclusive glance.
"Now you fellows have got to stop bringing up this David matter when I come in here, or I"ll quit this club."
Hallman answered him, spitefully:
"For Heaven"s sake, Llewellyn, I never heard a living soul mention David before, except at first, when there was so much curiosity. You"re bughouse."
Fung Wah sat there, his small, astute eyes, in a saffron face, fixed alternately upon the speakers, with an appraising grimace but half-veiled. And as he sipped his grenadine syrup and soda water, he admired his three-inch thumbnail, the token of his rise from the estate of a half-naked coolie in Quan-tung to equality with these Taipans, the whites of Tahiti. He may or may not have known what rumors there were, but wanting the good-will of all influential residents in his widening scheme for money-making, he tried to soften the asperities of the interchange:
"Wa"ss mallah, Mis" Le"llyn?" he asked. "Ev"ybody fliend fo"
you. n.o.body makee tlouble fo" you "bout Davie. My think "m dlinkee too muchee, too muchee vahine, maybe play cart, losee too muchee flanc. He thlinkee mo" bettah finish."
The words of Fung Wah were poison in the ears of Llewellyn. He leaned forward and, raising his forefinger, pointed it at the Chinese.
"Aue! You hold your d.a.m.ned yellow mouth!" he said huskily. "I"ll get out of the islands if you people keep up this any longer. I"m sick of it all. That old liar Morton has made my good name black in Tahiti. Everybody knows the Llewellyns. G.o.d d.a.m.n him! I ought to have killed him when he threatened me in the Tiare!"
He took my untouched gla.s.s of Dr. Funk, and gulped the mixture, nervously. Then he stood up unsteadily.
"I don"t get any sleep," he said, as if to himself, wearily. "I"m going to my shop and lie down."
He moved heavily down the stairs, and we breathed relief.
"Too muchee Pernoud!" Fung Wah commented.