Island Nights Entertainments | Page 3

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Island Nights' Entertainments - Robert Louis Stevenson. 1905 Edition.
Scanned and proofed by David Price [email protected]
Contents: The Beach of Falesa A south sea bridal The Ban The
Missionary Devil-work Night in the bush The Bottle Imp The Isle of
voices

THE BEACH OF FALESA.

CHAPTER I
. A SOUTH SEA BRIDAL.
I SAW that island first when it was neither night nor morning. The
moon was to the west, setting, but still broad and bright. To the east,
and right amidships of the dawn, which was all pink, the daystar
sparkled like a diamond. The land breeze blew in our faces, and smelt
strong of wild lime and vanilla: other things besides, but these were the
most plain; and the chill of it set me sneezing. I should say I had been
for years on a low island near the line, living for the most part solitary
among natives. Here was a fresh experience: even the tongue would be
quite strange to me; and the look of these woods and mountains, and
the rare smell of them, renewed my blood.
The captain blew out the binnacle lamp.
"There!" said he, "there goes a bit of smoke, Mr. Wiltshire, behind the
break of the reef. That's Falesa, where your station is, the last village to
the east; nobody lives to windward - I don't know why. Take my glass,
and you can make the houses out."

I took the glass; and the shores leaped nearer, and I saw the tangle of
the woods and the breach of the surf, and the brown roofs and the black
insides of houses peeped among the trees.
"Do you catch a bit of white there to the east'ard?" the captain
continued. "That's your house. Coral built, stands high, verandah you
could walk on three abreast; best station in the South Pacific. When old
Adams saw it, he took and shook me by the hand. 'I've dropped into a
soft thing here,' says he. - 'So you have,' says I, 'and time too!' Poor
Johnny! I never saw him again but the once, and then he had changed
his tune - couldn't get on with the natives, or the whites, or something;
and the next time we came round there he was dead and buried. I took
and put up a bit of a stick to him: 'John Adams, OBIT eighteen and
sixty-eight. Go thou and do likewise.' I missed that man. I never could
see much harm in Johnny."
"What did he die of?" I inquired.
"Some kind of sickness," says the captain. "It appears it took him
sudden. Seems he got up in the night, and filled up on Pain-Killer and
Kennedy's Discovery. No go: he was booked beyond Kennedy. Then he
had tried to open a case of gin. No go again: not strong enough. Then
he must have turned to and run out on the verandah, and capsized over
the rail. When they found him, the next day, he was clean crazy -
carried on all the time about somebody watering his copra. Poor John!"
"Was it thought to be the island?" I asked.
"Well, it was thought to be the island, or the trouble, or something," he
replied. "I never could hear but what it was a healthy place. Our last
man, Vigours, never turned a hair. He left because of the beach - said
he was afraid of Black Jack and Case and Whistling Jimmie, who was
still alive at the time, but got drowned soon afterward when drunk. As
for old Captain Randall, he's been here any time since eighteen-forty,
forty-five. I never could see much harm in Billy, nor much change.
Seems as if he might live to be Old Kafoozleum. No, I guess it's
healthy."
"There's a boat coming now," said I. "She's right in the pass; looks to
be a sixteen-foot whale; two white men in the stern sheets."
"That's the boat that drowned Whistling Jimmie!" cried the Captain;
"let's see the glass. Yes, that's Case, sure enough, and the darkie.
They've got a gallows bad reputation, but you know what a place the

beach is for talking. My belief, that Whistling Jimmie was the worst of
the trouble; and he's gone to glory, you see. What'll you bet they ain't