One day he accepted an invitation from the old French priest to pay a visit to the Mission. He went away quietly one morning, and then wrote to Baldwin.
Ten miles is a good long way off, he thought. Ill be all right in a week or sothen Ill come back and be a fool no longer.
The priest liked the young man, and in his simple, hospitable way, made much of him. On the evening of the third day, as they paced to and fro on the path in the Mission garden, they saw Baldwins boat sail up to the beach.
See, said the priest, with a smile, M. Baldwin will not let me keep you; and Loisé comes with him. So, so, you must go, but you will come again? and he pressed the young Englishmans hand.
The sturdy figure of the old trader came up through the garden; Loisé, native fashion, walking behind him.
Knitting his heavy white eyebrows in mock anger he ordered Brice to the boat, and then extending his hand to the priestI must take him back, Father; the Malolo sails to-morrow, and the skipper is coming ashore to-night to dinner, to say good-bye; and, as you know, Father, Im a silly old man with the whisky bottle, and Ill get Mr. Brice to keep me steady.
The tall, thin old priest raised his finger warningly and shook his head at old Baldwin and then smiled.
Ah, M. Baldwin, I am very much afraid that I will never make you to understand that too much of the whisky is very bad for the head.
With a parting glass of wine they bade the good Father good-bye, and then hoisting the sail, they stood across for Rikitea. The sun had dipped, and the land-breeze stole softly down from the mountains and sped the boat along. Baldwin was noisy and jocular; Brice silent and ill at ease.
Another hours run and Baldwin sailed the boat close under the trading schooners stern. Leaning over the rail was the pyjama-clad captain, smoking a cigar.
Now then, Harding, bawled the old trader, dont forget to be up to time, eight oclock.
Come aboard, and make out your order for your trade, you noisy old Areoi devil, said Harding. Youll make it out ashore, eh? No fear, I wont trust you, you careless, forgetful old dog. So just lay up alongside, and Ill take you ashore in half an hour.
By Jupiter, I mustnt forget the order, and Baldwin, finding he could not inveigle the captain ashore just then, ran the boat alongside the schooner and stepped over her railGo on, Brice, my lad. Ill soon be with you. Give him some whisky or beer, or something, Loisé, as soon as you get to the house. He looks as melancholy as a ghost.
As the boats crew pushed off from the schooner, Brice came aft to steer, and placing his hand on the tiller it touched Loisés. She moved aside to make room for him, and he heard his name whispered, and in the darkness he saw her lips part in a happy smile.
Then, still silent, they were pulled ashore.
From his end of the house he heard a soft footfall enter the big room, and then stop. She was standing by the table when, soon after, he came out of his room. At the sound of his footstep she turned the flame of the shaded lamp to its full height, and then raised her face and looked at him. There was a strange, radiant expectancy in her eyes that set his heart to beat wildly. Then he remembered her husbandhis friend.
I suppose Tom wont be long, he began, nervously, when she came over to him and placed her hand on his sleeve. The slumbrous eyes were all aglow now, and her bosom rose and fell in short, quick strokes beneath her white muslin gown.
Why did you go away? she said, her voice scarce raised above a whisper, yet quivering and tremulous with emotion.
He tried to look away from her, trembling himself, and not knowing what to say.
Ah, she said, speak to me, answer me; why dont you say something to me? I thought that once your eyes sought mine in the boatthen as she saw him still standing awkward and silent, all her wild passion burst outBrice, Brice, I love you, I love you. And you, you hate me. He tried to stop her.
Her voice sank again. Oh, yes, yes; you hate me, else why would you go away without one word to me? Baldwin has told you ofofof something. It is all true, quite true, and I am wicked, wicked; no woman could have been worseand you hate me.
She released her hold upon his arm, and walking over to the window leant against it and wept passionately.
He went over to her and placed his hand upon her shoulder.
Look here, Loisé, Im very, very sorry I ever came here in the Maloloher shaking figure seemed to shrink at the wordsfor I love you too, but, Loiséyour husband was my fathers oldest friendand mine.
The oval, tear-swept face was dangerously close to his now, and set his blood racing again in all the quick, hot madness of youth.
What is that to me? she whispered; I love you.
Brice shut his fists tightly and thenfatal mistaketried to be angry and tender at the same moment.
Ah, but Loisé, you, as well as I, know that among English people, for a man to love his friends wife
Again the low whisperWhat is that to meand you? You love me, you say. And, we are not among English people. I have my mothers heartnot a cold English heart.
Loisé, Baldwin is my friend. He looks upon me as his son, and he trusts meand trusts you.... I could never look him in the face again.... If he were any other man I wouldnt care, or if, if
She lifted her face from his shoulder. Then you only lied to me. You dont love me!
That made him reckless. Love you! By God. I love you so that if you were any other mans wife but his He looked steadily at her and then, with gentle force, tried to take her arm from his neck.
She knew now that he was the stronger of the two, and yet wished to hear more.
Brice, dear Brice, she bent his head down to her lips, if Baldwin died would you marry me?
The faintly murmured words struck him like a shot; she still holding her arms around him, watched his face.
He kissed her on the lips. I would marry you and never go back to the world again, he answered, in the blind passion of the moment.
A hot, passionate kiss on his lips and she was gone, and Brice, with throbbing pulses and shame in his heart, took up his hat and went out upon the beach. He couldnt meet Baldwin just then. Other mens wives had never made him feel such a miserable scoundrel as did this reckless half-blood with the scarlet lips and starry eyes.
That night old Baldwin and the captain of the Malolo got thoroughly drunk in the orthodox and time-honoured Island business fashion. Brice, afraid of making an ass of himself, was glad to get away, and took the captain on board at midnight in Baldwins boat, and at the mates invitation remained for breakfast.
At daylight the mate got the Malolo under weigh, the skipper, with aching head, sitting up in his bunk and cursing the old traders hospitality.
When the vessel was well outside the reef, Brice bade him good-bye, and getting his boat alongside started for the shore.
I willI mustclear out of this, he was telling himself as the boat swept round the point of the passage on the last sweep of the ocean swell. I cant stay under the same roof with him day after day, month after month, and not feel my folly and her weakness. But where the deuce I can get to for five months till the schooner comes back, I dont know. Theres the Mission, but that is too close; the old fellow would only bring me back again in a week.
Suddenly a strange, weird cry pealed over the water from the native village, a cry that to him was mysterious, as well as mournful and blood-chilling.
The four natives who pulled the boat had rested on their oars the instant they heard the cry, and with alarm and deep concern depicted on their countenances were looking toward the shore.
What is it, boys? said Brice in English.
Before the native to whom he spoke could answer, the long, loud wailing cry again burst forth.
Some man die, said the native who pulled stroke-oar to Bricehe was the only one who knew English.
Then Brice, following the looks of his crew, saw that around the white paling fence that enclosed Baldwins house was gathered a great concourse of natives, most of whom were sitting on the ground.
Give way, boys, he said, with an instinctive feeling of fear that something dreadful had happened. In another five minutes the boat touched the sand and Brice sprang out.
Maturei alone, of all the motionless, silent crowd that gathered around the house, rose and walked down to him.
Oh, white man, Tâmu is dead!
He felt the shock terribly, and for a moment or two was motionless and nerveless. Then the prolonged wailing note of grief from a thousand throats again broke out and brought him to his senses, and with hasty step he opened the gate and went in.
With white face and shaking limbs Loisé met him at the door and endeavoured to speak, but only hollow, inarticulate sounds came from her lips, and sitting down on a cane sofa she covered her face with her robe, after the manner of the people of the island when in the presence of death.
Presently the door of Baldwins room opened, and the white-haired old priest came out and laid his hand sympathetically on the young mans arm, and drew him aside.
He told him all in a few words. An hour before daylight Loisé and the boy Maturei had heard the old trader breathing stertorously, and ere they could raise him to a sitting position he had breathed his last.
Heart disease, the good Father said. And he was so careless a man, was M. Baldwin. And then with tears in his eyes the priest told Brice how, from the olden times when Baldwin, pretending to scoff at the efforts of the missionaries, had yet ever been their best and truest friend.
And now he is dead, M. Brice, and had I been but a little sooner I could have closed his eyes. I was passing in my boat, hastening to take the mission letters to the Malolo when I heard the tagi (the death wail) of the people here, and hastening ashore found he had just passed away.
Sick at heart as he was, the young man was glad of the priests presence, and presently together they went in and looked at the still figure in the bedroom.
When they returned to the front room they found Loisé had gone.
She was afraid to stay in the house of death, said Maturei, and has gone to Vehaga (a village eight miles away), and these are her words to the Father and to the friend of TârauNaught have I taken from the house of Tâmu, and naught do I wantand then she was gone.
The old priest nodded to BriceNative blood, native blood, M. Brice. Do not, I pray you, misjudge her. She only does this because she knows the village feeling against her. She does not belong to this island, and the people here resented, in a quiet way, her marriage with my old friend. She is not cruel and ungrateful as you think. It is but her way of showing these natives that she cares not to benefit by Baldwins death. By and by we will send for her.
After Baldwin had been buried and matters arranged, Brice and the priest, and a colleague from the Mission, read the will, and Brice found himself in possession of some two or three thousand dollars in cash and as much in trade. The house at Rikitea and a thousand dollars were for Loisé.
He told the Fathers to send word over to Vehaga and tell Loisé that he only awaited her to come and take the house over from him. As for himself he would gladly accept their kind invitation to remain at the Mission as their guest till the schooner returned.
The shock of his friends death had all but cured him of his passion, and he felt sure now of his own strength.
But day after day, and then week after week passed, and no word came from Vehaga, till one evening as he leant over the railing of the garden, looking out upon the gorgeous setting of the sun into the ocean, Maturei came paddling across the smooth waters of the harbour, and, drawing his canoe up on the beach, the boy approached the white man.
See, he said, Loisé hath sent thee this.
He unrolled a packet of broad, dried palm leaves, and taking from it a thick necklet of sweet-smelling kurahini buds, placed it in Brices hand.
He knew its meaningit was the gift of a woman to an accepted lover.
The perfume of the flowers brought back her face to him in a moment. There was a brief struggle in his mind; and then home, friends, his future prospects in the great outside world, went to the wall, and the half-blood had won.
Slowly he raised the token and placed it over his head and round his neck.
In the morning she came. He held out his hand and drew her to him, and looking down into her eyes, he kissed her. Her lips quivered a little, and then the long lashes fell, and he felt her tremble.
Loisé, he said simply, will you be my wife?
She glanced up at him, fearfully.
Would you marry me?
His face crimsonedYes, of course. You were his wife. I cant forget that. And, besides, you said once that you loved me.
They were very happy for five or six years down there in Rikitea. They had one child born to thema girl with a face as beautiful as her mothers.
Then a strange and deadly epidemic, unknown to the people of Rikitea, swept through the Paumotu Group, from Pitcairn Island to Marutea, and in every village, on every palm-clad atoll, death stalked, and the brown people sickened and shivered under their mat coverings, and died. And from island to island, borne on the very breath of the trade-wind, the terror passed, and left behind it empty, silent clusters of houses, nestling under the cocoanuts; and many a whale-ship beating back to the coast of South America, sailed close in to the shore and waited for the canoes to come off with fruit and vegetables; but none came, for the canoes had long months before blistered and cracked and rotted under the fierce rays of the Paumotu sun, and the owners lay dead in their thatched houses; for how could the dead bury the dead?
It came to Rikitea, and Harry Brice and the priests of the Mission went from village to village trying by such means as lay in their power to allay the deadly scourge. Brice had seen his little girl die, and then Loisé was smitten, and in a few days Brice saw the imprint of death stamped upon her features.
As he sat and watched by her at night, and listened to the wild, delirious words of the fierce fever that held her in its cruel grasp, he heard her say that which chilled his very hearts blood. At first he thought it to be but the strange imaginings of her weak and fevered brain. But as the night wore on he was undeceived.
Just as daylight began to shoot its streaks of red and gold through the plumed palm-tops, she awoke from a fitful and tortured slumber, and opened her eyes to gaze upon the haggard features of her husband.
Loisé, he said, with a choking voice, tell me, for Gods sake, the truth about Baldwin. Did you kill him?
She put her thin, wasted hands over her dark, burning eyes, and Brice saw the tears run down and wet the pillow.