By Reef and Palm, Page 2

  CHALLIS THE DOUBTER

  The White Lady And The Brown Woman

  Four years had come and gone since the day that Challis, with a dulland savage misery in his heart, had, cursing the love-madness whichonce possessed him, walked out from his house in an Australian citywith an undefined and vague purpose of going "somewhere" to drown hissense of wrong and erase from his memory the face of the woman who, hiswife of not yet a year, had played with her honour and his. So hethought, anyhow.

  * * * * *

  You see, Challis was "a fool"--at least so his pretty, violet-eyed wifehad told him that afternoon with a bitter and contemptuous ring in hervoice when he had brought another man's letter--written to her--andwith impulsive and jealous haste had asked her to explain. He was afool, she had said, with an angry gleam in the violet eyes, to thinkshe could not "take care" of herself. Admit receiving that letter? Ofcourse! Did he think she could help other men writing silly letters toher? Did he not think she could keep out of a mess? And she smiled theself-satisfied smile of a woman conscious of many admirers and of herown powers of intrigue.

  Then Challis, with a big effort, gulping down the rage that stirredhim, made his great mistake. He spoke of his love for her. Fatuity! Shelaughed at him, said that as she detested women, his love was tooexacting for her, if it meant that she should never be commonlyfriendly with any other man.

  * * * * *

  Challis looked at her steadily for a few moments, trying to smother thewild flood of black suspicion aroused in him by the discovery of theletter, and confirmed by her sneering words, and then said quietly, butwith a dangerous inflection in his voice--

  "Remember--you are my wife. If you have no regard for your ownreputation, you shall have some for mine. I don't want to entertain myfriends by thrashing R----, but I'm not such a fool as you think. Andif you go further in this direction you'll find me a bit of a brute."

  Again the sneering laugh--"Indeed! Something very tragic will occur, Isuppose?"

  "No," said Challis grimly, "something damned prosaic--common enoughamong men with pretty wives--I'll clear out."

  "I wish you would do that now," said his wife, "I hate you quiteenough."

  Of course she didn't quite mean it. She really liked Challis in her ownsmall-souled way--principally because his money had given her thesocial pleasures denied her during her girlhood. With an unmoved faceand without farewell he left her and went to his lawyer's.

  A quarter of an hour later he arose to go, and the lawyer asked himwhen he intended returning.

  "That all depends upon her. If she wants me back again, she can write,through you, and I'll come--if she has conducted herself with areasonable amount of propriety for such a pretty woman."

  Then, with an ugly look on his face, Challis went out; next day heembarked in the LADY ALICIA for a six months' cruise among the islandsof the North-west Pacific.

  * * * * *

  That was four years ago, and to-day Challis, who stands working at alittle table set in against an open window, hammering out a ring from asilver coin on a marline-spike and vyce, whistles softly andcontentedly to himself as he raises his head and glances through thevista of coconuts that surround his dwelling on this lonely and almostforgotten island.

  "The devil!" he thinks to himself, "I must be turning into a native.Four years! What an ass I was! And I've never written yet--that is,never sent a letter away. Well, neither has she. Perhaps, after all,there was little in that affair of R----'s.... By God! though, ifthere was, I've been very good to them in leaving them a clear field.Anyhow, she's all right as regards money. I'm glad I've done that. It'sa big prop to a man's conscience to feel he hasn't done anything mean;and she likes money--most women do. Of course I'll go back--if shewrites. If not--well, then, these sinful islands can claim me for theirown; that is, Nalia can."

  * * * * *

  A native boy with shaven head, save for a long tuft on the left side,came down from the village, and, seating himself on the gravelled spaceinside the fence, gazed at the white man with full, lustrous eyes.

  "Hallo, TAMA!" said Challis, "whither goest now?"

  "Pardon, Tialli. I came to look at thee making the ring. Is it of softsilver--and for Nalia, thy wife?"

  "Ay, O shaven-head, it is. Here, take this MASI and go pluck me a youngnut to drink," and Challis threw him a ship-biscuit. Then he went ontapping the little band of silver. He had already forgotten the violeteyes, and was thinking with almost childish eagerness of the soft glowin the black orbs of Nalia when she should see his finished handiwork.

  The boy returned with a young coconut, unhusked. "Behold, Tialli. Thisnut is a UTO GA'AU (sweet husk). When thou hast drunk the juice give itme back, that I may chew the husk which is sweet as the sugar-cane ofSamoa," and he squatted down again on the gravel.

  * * * * *

  Challis drank, then threw him the husk and resumed his work. Presentlythe boy, tearing off a strip of the husk with his white teeth, said,"Tialli, how is it that there be no drinking-nuts in thy house?"

  "Because, O turtle-head, my wife is away; and there are no men in thevillage to-day; and because the women of this MOTU [Island or country.]I have no thought that the PAPALAGI [Foreigner] may be parched withthirst, and so come not near me with a coconut." This latter in jest.

  "Nay, Tialli. Not so. True it is that to-day all the men are in the bushbinding FALA leaves around the coconut trees, else do the rats steal upand eat the buds and clusters of little nuts. And because Nalia, thywife, is away at the other White Man's house no woman cometh inside thedoor."

  Challis laughed. "O evil-minded people of Nukunono! And must I, thyPAPALAGI, be parched with thirst because of this?"

  "FAIAGA OE, Tialli, thou but playest with me. Raise thy hand and callout 'I thirst!' and every woman in the village will run to thee, eachwith a drinking-nut, and those that desire thee, but are afraid, willgive two. But to come inside when Nalia is away would be to put shameon her."

  * * * * *

  The white man mused. The boy's solemn chatter entertained him. He knewwell the native customs; but, to torment the boy, he commenced again.

  "O foolish custom! See how I trust my wife Nalia. Is she not even nowin the house of another white man?"

  "True. But, then, he is old and feeble, and thou young and strong. Nonebut a fool desires to eat a dried flying-fish when a fresh one may behad."

  "O wise man with the shaven crown," said Challis, with mocking goodnature, "thou art full of wisdom of the ways of women. And if I wereold and withered, would Nalia then be false to me in a house of anotherand younger white man?"

  "How could she? Would not he, too, have a wife who would watch her? Andif he had not, and were NOFO NOA (single), would he be such a fool tosteal that the like of which he can buy--for there are many girlswithout husbands as good to look on as that Nalia of thine. And allwomen are alike," and then, hearing a woman's voice calling his name,he stood up.

  "Farewell, O ULU TULA POTO (Wise Baldhead)," said Challis, as the boy,still chewing his sweet husk, walked back to the native houses clusteredunder the grove of PUA trees.

  * * * * *

  Ere dusk, Nalia came home, a slenderly-built girl with big dreamy eyes,and a heavy mantle of wavy hair. A white muslin gown, fastened at thethroat with a small silver brooch, was her only garment, save the foldsof the navy-blue-and-white LAVA LAVA round her waist, which theEuropean-fashioned garment covered.

  Challis was lying down when she came in. Two girls who came with hercarried baskets of cooked food, presents from old Jack Kelly, Challis'sfellow-trader. At a sign from Nalia the girls took one of the basketsof food and went away. Then, taking off her wide-brimmed hat of FALAleaf, she sat down beside Challis and pinched his cheek.

  "O lazy one! To let me walk from the house of Tiaki all alone!"

  "Alone! There were two others with thee."

  "Tapa Could I talk to THEM! I, a white man's wife, must not be toofamiliar with every girl, else they would seek to get presents from mew
ith sweet words. Besides, could I carry home the fish and cooked fowlsent thee by old Tiaki? That would be unbecoming to me, even as itwould be if thou climbed a tree for a coconut,"--and the daughter ofthe Tropics laughed merrily as she patted Challis on his sunburntcheek.

  Challis rose, and going to a little table, took from it the ring.

  "See, Nalia, I am not lazy as thou sayest. This is thine."

  The girl with an eager "AUE!" took the bauble and placed it on herfinger. She made a pretty picture, standing there in the last glow ofthe sun as it sank into the ocean, her languorous eyes filled with atender light.

  Challis, sitting on the end of the table regarding her with half-amusedinterest as does a man watching a child with a toy, suddenly flushedhotly. "By God! I can't be such a fool as to begin to LOVE her inreality, but yet ... Come here, Nalia," and he drew her to him, and,turning her face up so that he might look into her eyes, he asked:

  "Nalia, hast thou ever told me any lies?"

  The steady depths of those dark eyes looked back into his, and sheanswered:

  "Nay, I fear thee too much to lie. Thou mightst kill me."

  "I do but ask thee some little things. It matters not to me what theanswer is. Yet see that thou keepest nothing hidden from me."

  The girl, with parted lips and one hand on his, waited.

  "Before thou became my wife, Nalia, hadst thou any lovers?"

  "Yes, two--Kapua and Tafu-le-Afi."

  "And since?"

  "May I choke and perish here before thee if I lie! None."

  Challis, still holding her soft brown chin in his hand, asked her onemore question--a question that only one of his temperament would havedared to ask a girl of the Tokelaus.

  "Nalia, dost thou love me?"

  "Aye, ALOFA TUMAU (everlasting love). Am I a fool? Are there not Letia,and Miriami, and Eline, the daughter of old Tiaki, ready to come tothis house if I love any but thee? Therefore my love is like thesuckers of the FA'E (octopus) in its strength. My mother has taught memuch wisdom."

  A curious feeling of satisfaction possessed the man, and next dayLetia, the "show" girl of the village, visiting Challis's store to buya tin of salmon, saw Nalia, the Lucky One, seated on a mat beneath theseaward side of the trader's house, surrounded by a billowy pile ofyellow silk, diligently sewing.

  "Ho, dear friend of my heart! Is that silken dress for thee? For thelove of God, let me but touch it. Four dollars a fathom it be pricedat. Thy husband is indeed the king of generosity. Art thou to become amother?"

  "Away, silly fool, and do thy buying and pester me not."

  * * * * *

  Challis, coming to the corner of the house, leant against a post, andsomething white showed in his hand. It was a letter. His letter to thewoman of violet eyes, written a week ago, in the half-formed idea ofsending it some day. He read it through, and then paused and looked atNalia. She raised her head and smiled. Slowly, piece by piece, he toreit into tiny little squares, and, with a dreamy hand-wave, threw themaway. The wind held them in mid-air for a moment, and then carried thelittle white flecks to the beach.

  "What is it?" said the bubbling voice of Letia, the Disappointed.

  "Only a piece of paper that weighed as a piece of iron on my bosom. Butit is gone now."

  "Even so," said Letia, smelling the gaudy label on the tin of salmon inthe anticipative ecstasy of a true Polynesian, "PE SE MEAFA'AGOTOIMOANA (like a thing buried deep in ocean). May God send me awhite man as generous as thee--a whole tin of SAMANI for nothing! Nowdo I know that Nalia will bear thee a son."

  * * * * *

  And that is why Challis the Doubter has never turned up again.