The White Waterfall, Page 2

  CHAPTER I

  THE SONG OF THE MAORI

  There is a Tongan proverb which tells us that only fools and childrenlie awake during hours that could be devoted to slumber, and it is awise proverb when you judge it from a Polynesian standpoint. No specialpreparations are required for slumber in the last haunts of Romance, andas one does not lose caste by dozing in public, the South Sea dwellersees no reason for remaining awake when he could be peacefully sleeping.The shade of a palm tree furnishes an ideal resting place, and if a dogfight occurs in the grass-grown street, he becomes a box-seat spectatorwithout moving from his couch. Levuka, the second largest town in theFijis, was dozing on the afternoon of December 14, 1905, and I decidedto follow the example set by the inhabitants. The thermometer in theshack at the end of the wharf registered 98 degrees, but the picturesquelittle town, with its white and vermilion-tinted houses, looked restfuland cool. The hot, still atmosphere weighed down upon the Pacific,ironing out the wind ruffles till the ocean resembled a plain of glass,in which the Union Company's steamer _Navua_, from Auckland, appeared tobe stuck fast, as if the glassy sea had suddenly hardened around herblack hull.

  A thin strip of shadow huddled close to a pile of pearl shell at the endof the wharf, and I doubled myself up and attempted to sleep. Buthardwood planks don't make an ideal resting place. Besides, the rays ofsun followed the strip of shadow around the pile, and each time Islipped into a doze I would be pricked into wakefulness. At last,maddened by the biting rays, I collected half a dozen copra bags,splintered a piece of _kauri_ pine, and after rigging up one bag as anawning, I spread the others on the planks and fell asleep.

  But another disturbing element awakened me from a short slumber. Fromthe sea end of the deserted wharf came a big, greasy Maori and afuzzy-headed Fijian, and their words went out into the silence likesound projectiles. The Maori had such a high-pitched voice that Ithought, as I rolled over restlessly, he would only have to raise it alittle to make them hear him up in Sydney, eighteen hundred miles away.It was one of those voices that fairly cavort over big distances, and Iburied my head in the shell as the pair came closer.

  It was useless to attempt to shut out that voice. I stuffed a piece ofbag into the ear that wasn't jammed against the pearl shell, but thenoise of that fool talking fairly sizzled in my brain. Finally I gave upall hopes of trying to sleep till the pair had left the wharf, and I layupon my back as they came slowly up the sun-bitten structure.

  It was only when I gave up all thoughts of sleep that I recognized thatthe Maori was talking English. Up to that moment I thought the pair werearguing in some unfamiliar tongue, but suddenly their conversationgripped me, and I strained my ears to listen.

  "There's the white waterfall," chanted the Maori.

  "Yes, the white waterfall," repeated the Fijian.

  "An' you go along sixty paces."

  "To the right?" questioned the Fijian.

  "No! To the left, you fool!" screamed his companion.

  "All right, you go to the left," muttered the rebuked one. "An' that'sthe way to heaven!" cried the Maori.

  "The way to heaven," echoed the Fijian; then the two lifted up theirvoices and chanted:

  "That's the way to heaven, That's the way to heaven, That's the way to heaven out Of Black Fernando's hell."

  The incident stirred my curiosity. If I had only heard the words of thechant I would not have puzzled my brain to determine their meaning, butit was the manner in which the Maori instructed his friend as to thedirection in which one must walk from the white waterfall that made meinterested. I turned the words over in my mind as I watched them saunterslowly toward me. Black Fernando's hell and the white waterfall wereplaces that I had never heard of. I thought of all the missionary hymnsthat I had ever listened to afloat and ashore, but the lines that thepair had chanted were not familiar.

  The two walked on in silence for a few minutes after they had lifted uptheir voices in the chant, then the Maori began to cross-question hiscompanion concerning the information he had just given him.

  "How many paces?" he asked.

  "Sixty," answered the Fijian.

  "To the right, isn't it?"

  "Yes, to the right," stammered the learner. "You fool nigger!" screamedthe instructor. "It is to the left, pig! Do you hear me? You must go tothe left from the white waterfall! Oh, you blinded fool! you make mesick! Sing it now with me!"

  The Fijian, who was apparently afraid of the bully, hurried to obey theorder, and I wondered as I listened.

  "Sixty paces to the left," squeaked the Fijian.

  "Sixty paces to the left," roared the Maori. "Now together!"

  "That's the way to heaven, That's the way to heaven, That's the way to heaven out Of----"

  I was the cause of the interruption. I lifted myself into a sittingposition, and the movement disturbed the heap of shell. Part of the pilerattled down upon the planks of the wharf, and the Maori and his pupilstopped singing and stared at me as if they were much surprised atfinding any one within hearing distance. The wharf had appeareddeserted, and I gave them a start by crawling from underneath the awningI had made from the copra bag. The Maori wore a dirty khaki coat, with apair of trousers reaching to his knees, while the Fijian, instead ofbeing short-rigged in shirt and sulu, sported a full suit of duck."Good afternoon, boss," said the Maori, trying to wipe the look ofsurprise from his face with a grin. "Mighty hot afternoon, isn't it,boss?"

  "It is," I answered. "If I knew where that white waterfall is I'd go andstand under it for a few minutes."

  The small Fijian gave a little gurgle of surprise and looked up at hisbig teacher, who regarded me with eyes of wonder.

  "What white waterfall, boss?" he asked blandly.

  "The one you were singing about," I cried.

  The Maori smiled sweetly. "We weren't singing about a white waterfall,boss," he spluttered. "I just guess you were asleep an' dreamedsomething."

  That didn't improve my temper. I had an edge on the fellow on account ofthe high-powered voice he owned, so when he suggested that I had beendreaming, I climbed to my feet so that I could make my words moreimpressive when I started to tell him my opinion of his bluff.

  The action startled the Fijian. He had an idea that I was going to usethe piece of _kauri_ pine upon his head, so he gave a yell and startedfull speed up the wharf toward the town. The Maori stood his ground fora minute, then he made a face to express his contempt for me and boltedafter his mate. I stared at his bare legs walloping the planks, andfeeling certain that I had lost all chance of finding out where thewhite waterfall and Black Fernando's hell were situated, I found a newshadow patch and lay down again.

  I fell asleep and dreamed that I was chasing those two islanders in anendeavour to find out the meaning of their mysterious chant, but just asI had overtaken the pair, some one gripped my arm and shook me gently.

  When I opened my eyes I looked up into the face of a good-looking youngfellow of about two and twenty years, who was smiling broadly as if hethought it a great joke to wake a man out of a sound sleep on a hotafternoon.

  "Are you Jack Verslun?" he asked.

  I nodded. It was too warm to use words recklessly.

  "Pierre the Rat sent me after you," he continued.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "I have a berth for you," he answered. "I'm from _The Waif_. The matedied on the run down from Sydney, and Captain Newmarch sent me ashore tohunt up some one for his perch. Do you want it?"

  "Where are you bound?" I asked.

  "Manihiki group."

  "What for?"

  "Science expedition under the direction of Professor Herndon of SanFrancisco."

  I sat up and looked across the stretch of water at _The Waif_, and theyoung fellow waited patiently. I knew the yacht. An English baronet hadbrought the vessel out from Cowes to Brisbane, but he had made the pacetoo hot in the Colonies. Out in Fortitude Valley one night the keeper ofa saloon fired a bullet into his aristocratic head, and _The Waif_ wasaucti
oned. She had taken a hand in a number of games after that. A fastyacht is a handy vessel south of the line, and some queer tales weretold about the boat that had once shown her heels to the crackerjacks inthe Solent. But I couldn't afford to be particular at that moment.Levuka isn't the spot where a man can pick and choose, so I wiped theshell grit from my drill suit and told myself that I had better acceptthe berth instead of waiting in expectation of something better turningup. Pierre the Rat, who ran "The Rathole," where penniless seamen andbeachcombers lodged, was my creditor, and when Pierre was verysolicitous in obtaining employment for one of his boarders, it was amighty good intimation that the boarder's credit had reached