"Was it you that"s been hanging around that white fella girl b"long missionary--that"s dared lift your dog"s eyes to her?"
He crouched like a beast, ferine--all the obscure and diabolic pa.s.sion of him ready to spring.
"No, Mahrster."
Gregson glared at him steadily.
"What did you want of that boat?"
"Me like"m go fish," said Motauri.
The trader sat back again, plying his billowy silk handkerchief.
"The trouble with me--" he said, reflectively, "I can"t believe my own eyes; that"s the trouble with me. And how could I believe "em?" he inquired, with almost a plaintive note. "Such things don"t happen. They can"t. Why--what kind of a man are you? Black, I believe--leastways brown. And she--_she_--
"A Kanaka. If not you, then another. A Kanaka! To know her, be near her--touch her--play all manner of pretty, cuddlin" tricks around her--to--to kiss her, maybe! To crush her up in his arms--!" The words came away from him hot and slow, from under half-shut eyes. "And I"ve sat here behind them slats and watched her go by and wished I might crawl where her little feet could walk on me....
"How should one of your sort have the cursed impudence to think of such things? What have you got to do with heaven? Could _you_ see anything in that blind-like look sideways--and hair so smooth over the ear? Do you know what level eyebrows and a fullish underlip mean--hey? Do you? A lip like a drop of blood--
"What did you want that boat for?" he cried, in a terrible voice.
"Me like"m go fish," said Motauri.
"I tell you one thing, you don"t leave here till I"m sure. There"s something rotten going on. I smell it. I"m on the track, and I"ll never give up--never give up. Right now I"ve got the mission path watched by my own men. n.o.body gets up or down without my knowing it--to-night or ever. D"y" mind that, before I screw the thumbs off you to make you talk?"
It was then that he heard the slight, sobbing breath in his gallery, the rattle of his slatted door that brought him to his feet and bounding across the room. Reaching into the darkness he dragged out the eaves-dropper--whose poor knees had simply given like paper, whose desperate effort to save herself had thrown her against the jamb and betrayed her--Miss Matilda....
"You--!" said Gregson. "You--!"
He dropped her by the threshold and started away from her with spread fingers and fallen jaw. For a time only the sound of his labored breathing filled the silence and the three stayed so, the woman collapsed against a chair, Motauri swaying and winking stupidly and Gregson, struck dumb, incredulous, empurpled at first and then slowly paling. Without a word he spun on his heel, returned to the table and poured himself a drink and tossed it off.
"Respectability!" he said, in the tone of conversation, caught his collar and ripped it loose. "By Heaven!" he cried, and wrung his great hands. "What am I going to do now? What am I going to do?"
His wandering glance lighted on the rope"s end on the table-top, and he coiled it in his hand. He began to walk to and fro before them. His face was ghastly, his bloodshot blue eyes were set like jewels. Now he stopped before Motauri and looked him up and down curiously. Laughter took him like a hiccup: laughter not good to hear: but he left off as quickly. He came back and stood over the cowering figure on the floor.
"And you"re the thing that was too good for me!"
He let his gaze possess her deliberately, noting each stain and smirch, her disordered dress and loosened hair, and pitiful, staring face.
"Well, you"re not too good now," he said, wetting his lips. "No--you"re none too good! You"ll marry me to-morrow--and you"ll crawl on your knees to have me. And that father of yours--that sniveling old hypocrite--he"ll crawl to make the lines, if I choose....
"When I think how I"ve dreamed of you! How I"ve lived through days and nights of perdition, wanting you--you sweet, cold, white saint you--and a devil after all!
"To think how I"ve schemed and trembled and trembled and waited, afraid to say a word or make a move lest I"d queer any chance. Me--a common trader with a native wife that wouldn"t die. And you up there on the hill so prim and fine. A missionary"s daughter. Too respectable to touch! And what are you now--that"s been out in the night--?"
He whirled around and the maddened, jealous rage and hate rose up in his soul like sc.u.m on a dark pool.
"With a n.i.g.g.e.r!" he screamed.
All his strength was behind the tiller-rope. It slashed Motauri over the face so that the red welt seemed to spurt. As he lifted his arm to repeat, with a strangled cry Motauri leapt upon him and the rest was fury. They fought baresark, interlocked and silent, spinning from side to side of the room. Gregson had the weight and the thews and the cunning. He kept the other"s clutch away from his throat and maneuvred toward the table. As they reeled against it, he put forth a mighty effort, tore off Motauri and hurled him away for an instant--long enough to grab the revolver.
"_n.i.g.g.e.r_--I said!"
But in the very gasp he choked. The weapon raised for a chopping, pointblank shot, dropped over his shoulder. He rocked, pressing at his heart, frowned heavily once, and fell crashing forward....
"Hokoolele! Hokoolele--! Up and make haste!"
Miss Matilda lifted her face from her hands.
"Let us hurry while there is time," urged Motauri, thickly. "No one has seen or heard us yet. His boat-shed is open. We are safe!"
"Go away from me!" said Miss Matilda.
"What do you say?" he stammered. "Come. n.o.body will stop us. n.o.body will know anything, about us--"
She fended him off with a gesture of instinctive loathing....
"Please go--"
"But you cannot stay here! It would be a very evil thing for you if you were found in this house. It must never be known you were here at all."
"Don"t touch me!" That seemed the only important thing.
"Hokoolele--what of the golden chain of love between us? Come with me now!"
"I was mad. I was blind. It is judgment!"
He regarded her sorrowfully, but sternly too.
"You mean you do not want me any more?"
"No--!" she moaned, in the stupor of horror and despair. And then the brown man, the native, whose blood had been roused by every agency that can stir wild blood to frenzy--by love and shame, by drink, by battle and triumph--then Motauri, the high chief, struck unerringly to the heart of the matter and made his swift decision by his own primitive lights. Recovering her shawl he wrapped it about her tightly, caught her up once more w.i.l.l.y-nilly in his arms and bore her away from that sinister place by force....
She was lying on a bench in the veranda of her father"s house and her father himself was calling her name, when she came to herself.
"Matilda, I"m speaking to you! Where are you?"
He came through the window of her room.
"Gracious me!--have you been sleeping out there?"
She could only stare at him and down at the twisted shawl about her, for it seemed it must be so, she had only been sleeping--with what dreams!
But his next words showed her the truth.