But Tomi looked at other things besides. He was a white man on Opahiki, which had never seen a white man before. He was the white man. So he took due notice that there was pearl shell in the lagoon, and there could be copra from the coconut palms, and there might be sea cucumbers in the waters off the beaches. It could be planted more thickly to coconut palms, and it could be carefully tended, and with due attention to quality and packing it would amount to a gold mine to a man who owned it. Tomi considered that as its discoverer he was its logical proprietor. He made plans in his own mind for this thing and that. For a store, which would contain brass beds and alarm clocks and corned beef in cans and perfume and other desirable objects. It would be a typical white trader’s store. He, Tomi, would be the white trader. This was manifestly the destiny for which he had been cast on Opahiki.
BUT with no timber or tools to build a boat, it was not possible in any way to set about the furtherance of his destiny. It must wait until a white man’s ship somehow touched at Opahiki and Tomi had made good his claim to proprietorship.
But it was intolerable to dream of destiny and make no progress at all toward its fruit. So when Tomi had been on Opahiki for a certain short time, he called the elders of the island together. He was still emaciated, still bony, still a living evidence of the privations he had undergone. But he frowned portentously at the elders of the native population.
“I am a white man,” he told them severely. “And therefore you must build me a house of my own in which to live.”
The elders did not debate the matter. It was less trouble to build a house than to argue about it, on Opahiki. So a day or two later the village became subject to a sudden burst of energy. The small children watched over the still smaller ones. The middle-sized ones fetched materials. The grownups built Tomi a house and had a very pleasant party and a feast to boot, all in one day.
When Tomi took up residence in his own house, the conviction that fate had sent him here grew stronger. Was he not a white man on Opahiki? The white man on Opahiki?
Sitting upon the palm-thatched veranda of his house, Tomi felt a vast satisfaction sweep over his whole being.
But there was Tehina. She had discovered him and felt that she owned him. Daily she came to the house which was the newest evidence that Tomi was the white man of Opahiki. Her costume was, by ordinary, a single wrapping of native-made bark cloth. To her, the round slim perfection of her body was so completely a matter of course that she did not even try to fascinate Tomi by the display of it. Even her long and lustrous hair—there were golden glints in it sometimes—appeared to be more of a nuisance than a conscious means of allure. Yet there could be no question but that she tried to fascinate Tomi.
He did not notice because he was very much absorbed in his new status as a white man on Opahiki. He woke in the morning with the boom of the surf in his ears, and there was a soft humming sound near by. That was Tehina, waiting for him to wake up. Sitting on the absurd veranda of his house. Perhaps combing her hair with a native-made comb. Perhaps rearranging the morning flowers in its dark mass. Waiting patiently, singing softly and wordlessly to herself.
When he rose and went outside, she smiled at him. She had brought him fruit, or some other item of food neatly wrapped in green leaves. Tomi took the offering as a tribute to his white skin and superior status. But Tehina watched gravely while he breakfasted, and then followed him down to the beach to swim.
There were other folk there, to whom Tomi gave reserved greetings befitting his dignity as a white man. There portly, serene warriors who had never known battle because of the isolation of Opahiki. Matrons who took their morning swim in a sea and in a costume that would affright a Channel swimmer. Children who splashed and dived and swam, squealing joyously, with much the zest and quite all the ease of seals. And there was Tehina.
But Tomi was probably more aware of Paki or Rakamoana than of Tehina, at first. They were girls of Tehina’s age who regarded him with an intense curiosity. Actually, they were Tehina’s bosom friends and inspected Tomi with the absorbed curiosity maidens bestow upon the object of an intimate’s affections. Paki was plump and vivacious and giggled constantly. Rakamoana was slim to the point of leanness and had as nearly an embittered expression as was to be found on Opahiki. Tomi noticed them because they regarded him intently and talked about him in so low a tone that he could not hear. And Paki giggled. But neither made any overture toward a closer acquaintance, and Tomi’s dignity prevented him from seeming to notice them.
IT WAS an idyllic existence, nevertheless. No man could fail to luxuriate, to expand in such an atmosphere as surrounded Tomi. He was the white man of the island. He had no worries for the present, and he had high if vague hopes for the future. He toiled not, neither did he spin. And Tehina worshiped him humbly.
She served him, and watched him, and was with him perpetually, and she had no faintest notion that he had caught himself wishing that her skin, instead of golden, had been a doughy white. But even Tomi could not spend all his time remembering that he was the white man of Opahiki. Her lithe contours—and she could not possibly have understood either the fact or any explanation of the white race’s attitude toward clothing—her lithe contours were always before his eyes. The instinctive grace of her movements. The lift of her head and eyes as she looked up when he spoke to her. Her smile. And there inevitably came a warm and moonlit night when Tomi was not sleepy, and he looked out between palm-tree trunks at the moonlit lagoon, and found himself thinking about Tehina’s smile, and the curve of Tehina’s throat, and the soft smoothness of Tehina’s cheek.
He suddenly remembered the different ways that Tehina looked at him. Sometimes gravely. Sometimes maternally. And sometimes—oftentimes, it seemed suddenly to Tomi, staring through the moonlight—oftentimes she looked at him as if she were wistfully perplexed. And Tomi found himself thinking excitedly, all alone in the tropic night, that perhaps it was because he had scrupulously refrained from laying so much as the tip of his little finger upon her.
Tomi’s grandmother had been daughter to a Rutiaro cannibal chief. And Tomi was practically white, but there was a dark strain within him so that he could understand.
Tomi trembled eagerly. But then he remembered. He had no gaudy woven stuffs with which to deck Tehina, and that is an invariable custom among white men who take native wives or mistresses. And Tomi was, of course, the white man on Opahiki. To omit that ceremonial lavishness would be somehow to fall short of the conduct expected of white men.
But then he thought of something. His eagerness made it serve. He slipped to the ground from the veranda of his house. He ran through the striped shadows of the palm trees toward the house in which Tehina lived. He paused below it. Then he tossed a coral pebble to the roof.
How Tehina knew that he had thrown it, no man can tell. But a little later she came into view in the moonlight, smiling. Tomi beckoned to her. She came instantly, unquestioningly, to his side. Her breath came faster than usual. He took her by the hand and led her to the wide outer beach.
They were alone in a vast booming solitude of sea and stars and incandescent moonlight, with palm trees shadowy behind them.
“Tehina,” said Tomi eagerly. “Tehina, I am a white man. And therefore soon I shall give you much cloth and pretty things to wear. This I shall do, and soon, because I am a white man. But meanwhile I wish to tell you that I love you—”
Tehina smiled up at him, with the trade wind blowing her hair about her shoulders. She was all slim, warm, soft shapeliness. And she pressed closer to him, her eyes shining, when he put his arms about her.
And while the moon still shone, and the stars still glowed in a dazzling sky, and while the surf still roared and the breakers towered fathoms high upon the barrier reef; while they still clung to each other in the moonlight, the white man’s ship came in.
Tehina saw it first. She saw a red light among the lurid sparklings of the moonlight. It was far away toward the horizon. She had never seen a red light be
fore and she cried out.
“Tomi! Tomi! Is it—is it a spirit?”
“It is a white man’s ship,” said Tomi.
He made a queer gesture. He knew—and bitterly—that after all his grand-mother had been daughter to a Rutiaro cannibal chief. And he was the white man on Opahiki for exactly as long as there was no other white man there. His teeth clenched and he frowned formidably at the distant red light. He willed desperately for it to go on, oblivious to Opahiki lying under the tropic moon.
But presently a green light twinkled into view. The ship was coming about. He watched, and both lights remained visible. The distant ship was bearing directly for the island.
It was pure accident, of course. Opahiki had gone undiscovered for three hundred years. It might easily go undiscovered forever. The men on this ship could not know of the island’s existence. But it came on and on until Tomi could actually pick out the dark speck which was her moon-shadowed sails. And then, quite suddenly she sheered off. The white line of the island’s breakers, or their booming noise, had been noted on board.
Then there came a few minutes of apparent indecision, but presently her intentions became unpleasantly clear to Tomi. She would stand off and on until dawn.
Tomi knew bitterness when he was sure. More than bitterness. He began to know something close to fear.
WHEN dawn came, at the first red glow the schooner came into the lagoon with an auxiliary engine putt-putt-putting loudly and sending frightened sea birds aloft in swarms.
She moved cautiously, with the light behind her. There was a man aloft on the lookout for coral heads. A small gun glittered unpleasantly forward. There was a stink of rotted pearl shell about her. And she came steadily across the sapphire-blue lagoon and dropped anchor off the village. Her crew broke out arms.
Tomi was the white man of Opahiki. A certain course of conduct was expected of him. He went savagely down to the inner beach and prepared to launch a one-man canoe. There was nothing else to do. But Tehina came forward and smiled at him. She tugged at a larger one. Paki came forward to help, too. Then Rakamoana, lean and sinewy, brought paddles.
“The men are frightened,” said Rakamoana scornfully. “We will take you, Tomi.”
Tomi hesitated, and then saw a light. For him—presumably a white man—to paddle himself out to this schooner would be a confession. But to go in state, with paddlers, might just possibly make him seem the proprietor as well as the discoverer of the island. So he nodded, and presently went out from the shore as kings and chiefs were wont to do, the three girls paddling him and looking at the schooner with only half-fearful curiosity.
The schooner was the Wanderer, of which Tomi knew. It was Bully Wayne’s ship, a pearler, and Bully Wayne’s exploits were not subject matter for Sunday-school lessons. Tomi stiffened his backbone as the schooner drew near. No one at all could have told that he was uneasy. Tehina looked at him and was comforted, and Paki was reassured, and Rakamoana was encouraged. They even followed him, curiously, to the deck of the schooner. Which was unwise. They stood there, staring amazedly about, while the crew of Bully Wayne’s pearling schooner looked at them.
TOMI talked to Bully Wayne alone, down in the cabin. It was still early. A cabin lamp burned smokily in its gimbals and the reek of kerosene added itself to the other and less pleasant odors of the schooner. But Tomi did not notice. He talked gravely—with his heart pumping—saying that he had discovered Opahiki and was its proprietor.
“Proprietor, hell!” said Bully Wayne. “What I want to know is, is there shell in the lagoon?”
Tomi felt the blood leave his face. He said that there was some shell. Bully Wayne would have found it out anyhow. He went on:
“You can talk to these natives,” said Bully Wayne. “You’ll be useful. How many guns ashore?”
Tomi admitted that there were none. But he wanted to say—
“All right,” grunted Bully Wayne. “You go on shore. Tell ’em that Bully Wayne is in the lagoon. Know me, eh? Tell ’em I want divers, an’ I’m goin’ to have ’em. I’m goin’ to clean up the shell in the lagoon an’ they’ll feed mean’ my crew while they get it up. And we’ll want some women too—”
Tomi’s voice raised a little in pitch. But the island was uncharted. It had never been found before, and it might be a hundred years before another white man’s ship came. Bully Wayne, with an armed crew, could do just exactly as he pleased. But Tomi spoke.
“I can’t, eh?” said Bully Wayne. He laughed. “You’ll see. Go ashore an’ tell ’em what I’ve said. Divers, grub, an’ women. If I send a boat’s crew ashore with rifles, they’ll wish I hadn’t!”
There was a sort of uproar overhead. There was a cry of rage. Rakamoana. Men laughed. Paki squealed. Bully Wayne glanced upward and grinned.
“Get out o’ here!” he grunted. “There’s some fun up on deck. We’ll keep these girls you had, for a while. Move! I want to get that pretty one for myself.”
Tomi barred his way. Words choked in his throat. He had been the white man on Opahiki. And now this—
“Out o’ the way!” snapped Bully Wayne.
He struck Tomi in the face and thrust past him. He had called Tomi a name which means, literally, half-caste. But also it carries the imputation of ille-gitimacy and other even less pleasant things. And last—especially in the tone which Bully Wayne used—it means “nigger.”
Bully Wayne said it and struck Tomi and swung on the ladder leading to the deck. He left Tomi behind his back. And Tomi’s teeth showed suddenly and he sprang.
There was a cry from above deck. An anguished, terrible cry. It was one word, burst from the lips of Tehina.
“Tomi!”
BUT Tomi was terribly busy. There were thumping noises in the cabin.
Bumpings. Tomi was not even partly a white man, for a time. He was pure savage, pure ferocity, while he strangled Bully Wayne into non-resistance. Then he stood up, panting. He bent and took Bully Wayne’s revolver. Then he took down another revolver belt from the wall, and a rifle with bandoliers of ammunition beside it. Then he turned to the smoking, still-burning oil lamp in its gimbaled bracket. He smashed the lamp upon the table, and oil dripped over everything and caught fire.
The cry came again; breathless and desperate.
“Tomi!” the voice choked. “Tomi!”
It was a cry such as a girl might utter to a white man, when in desperate need.
Tomi went up the ladder.
It was all very improbable. The in-habitants of Opahiki, looking on fear-fully from the shore, heard screamings. Then they heard shots. But the schooner lay at anchor, motionless, and the shots had no meaning on Opahiki. They did see Rakamoana, shrieking rage, rise from the deck to seize a marlinespike and strike a man down. They saw Paki, squealing, dive overboard with a man dragged after her by his own clutching fingers. And they saw Tomi suddenly fled from, and Tehina clinging to him, and they saw Tomi pointing a stick at the men while the meaningless harsh noises of shots came ashore. Other men pointed sticks at Tomi, too. And then smoke came up from the schooner’s belly.
The schooner lay sedately at anchor while howlings and shots arose from her decks, and while smoke came first from her cabin, and then from her hold. And then, very suddenly indeed, there was a gush of flame from her hatches and a towering pillar of fire shot upward for twenty feet and more. It was her fuel store. And then there was uproar on her deck, but the flame continued and the smoke grew thicker. Presently, instead of a schooner upon the glassy, sapphire-blue lagoon, there was only the reeking center of a vast column of evil-smelling smoke. And the sound of battle came from it.
BUT then the canoe came fumbling out of that smoke, with Tehina and Rakamoana paddling it. It did not continue to the shore. It hovered off the floating mass of vapor. Presently a dot appeared in the water. A man, swimming. Tomi shot him. Another dot. Yet another. No others came for a long time, and Tomi wavered where he sat. His practically white skin was streaked with red.
Then ther
e was a booming noise and sparks flew upward through the stinking fog. Then a vast hissing sound. And then, slowly, the smoke lifted from the surface of the water and there were only small charred objects floating there.
The canoe ventured among those floating fragments. But Tomi suddenly collapsed like a sack of meal. And the girl in the stern turned yearningly toward him, but the other girl cried out at her and pointed to another swimming speck, far away. And they chased down that speck and the two girls hit at it with their paddles until it sank.
Then they came swiftly toward the shore. Rakamoana, in the bow, looked more bitter and more savage than ever before. Tehina wept bitterly as she padled. And when they reached the shore, Tomi was seen to be many times wounded by mysterious weapons.
The inhabitants of Opahiki were dazed, though Paki had told them much after her swim ashore. But as Tehina sobbed over Tomi, lying inertly in the canoe, he opened his eyes. He said thickly:
“Are they all dead?”
Tehina sobbed. But Rakamoana said fiercely:
“Every one, Tomi!”
And new strength seemed somehow to come into Tomi. He drew a deep breath, and if he winced at the pain of it, no man saw him.
“Then—then—” his voice grew strong almost to normal. “I am a white man. And therefore you must—”
This is the story of Tomi, who is the white man on Opahiki, though his grandmother was a daughter of a Rutiaro cannibal chief.
THE GENERAL WAS AN HONEST MAN
I MET the General and his wife, and heard the beginning of this tale, one night out in the center of a tropic river with jungle on either side and a blanket of stars overhead. It began most promisingly.
The captain of the boat, whose name was Garrison, swore softly in my ear as I looked down at the card game. It was deep night and he’d come out of the pilothouse of the boat, and stopped where I leaned on the upper-deck rail. We were headed upstream on a river in a republic whose name does not matter. The boat’s Diesel engine drummed softly below decks. The water overside was black as ebony and glossy as oil, with the wavering reflections of stars on it. But over to eastward a whitehot moon was rising, and the jungle beneath it was sheer darkness, and the noises that came out of it were not pretty. There was utter savagery all around.
The Fourth Murray Leinster Page 14
