Island Nights Entertainments | Page 6

He tried to get up when I came in, but that was hopeless; so he reached
me a hand instead, and stumbled out some salutation.
"Papa's (1) pretty full this morning," observed Case. "We've had an
epidemic here; and Captain Randall takes gin for a prophylactic - don't
you, Papa?"
"Never took such a thing in my life!" cried the captain indignantly.
"Take gin for my health's sake, Mr. Wha's-ever-your- name - 's a
precautionary measure."
"That's all right, Papa," said Case. "But you'll have to brace up. There's
going to be a marriage - Mr. Wiltshire here is going to get spliced."
The old man asked to whom.
"To Uma," said Case.
"Uma!" cried the captain. "Wha's he want Uma for? 's he come here for
his health, anyway? Wha' 'n hell's he want Uma for?"
"Dry up, Papa," said Case. "'Tain't you that's to marry her. I guess
you're not her godfather and godmother. I guess Mr. Wiltshire's going
to please himself."
With that he made an excuse to me that he must move about the
marriage, and left me alone with the poor wretch that was his partner
and (to speak truth) his gull. Trade and station belonged both to
Randall; Case and the negro were parasites; they crawled and fed upon
him like the flies, he none the wiser. Indeed, I have no harm to say of
Billy Randall beyond the fact that my gorge rose at him, and the time I

now passed in his company was like a nightmare.
The room was stifling hot and full of flies; for the house was dirty and
low and small, and stood in a bad place, behind the village, in the
borders of the bush, and sheltered from the trade. The three men's beds
were on the floor, and a litter of pans and dishes. There was no standing
furniture; Randall, when he was violent, tearing it to laths. There I sat
and had a meal which was served us by Case's wife; and there I was
entertained all day by that remains of man, his tongue stumbling among
low old jokes and long old stories, and his own wheezy laughter always
ready, so that he had no sense of my depression. He was nipping gin all
the while. Sometimes he fell asleep, and awoke again, whimpering and
shivering, and every now and again he would ask me why I wanted to
marry Uma. "My friend," I was telling myself all day, "you must not
come to be an old gentleman like this."
It might be four in the afternoon, perhaps, when the back door was
thrust slowly open, and a strange old native woman crawled into the
house almost on her belly. She was swathed in black stuff to her heels;
her hair was grey in swatches; her face was tattooed, which was not the
practice in that island; her eyes big and bright and crazy. These she
fixed upon me with a rapt expression that I saw to be part acting. She
said no plain word, but smacked and mumbled with her lips, and
hummed aloud, like a child over its Christmas pudding. She came
straight across the house, heading for me, and, as soon as she was
alongside, caught up my hand and purred and crooned over it like a
great cat. From this she slipped into a kind of song.
"Who the devil's this?" cried I, for the thing startled me.
"It's Fa'avao," says Randall; and I saw he had hitched along the floor
into the farthest corner.
"You ain't afraid of her?" I cried.
"Me 'fraid!" cried the captain. "My dear friend, I defy her! I don't let
her put her foot in here, only I suppose 's different to- day, for the
marriage. 's Uma's mother."
"Well, suppose it is; what's she carrying on about?" I asked, more
irritated, perhaps more frightened, than I cared to show; and the captain
told me she was making up a quantity of poetry in my praise because I
was to marry Uma. "All right, old lady," says I, with rather a failure of
a laugh, "anything to oblige. But when you're done with my hand, you

might let me know."
She did as though she understood; the song rose into a cry, and stopped;
the woman crouched out of the house the same way that she came in,
and must have plunged straight into the bush, for when I followed her
to the door she had already vanished.
"These are rum manners," said I.
"'s a rum crowd," said the captain, and, to my surprise, he made the
sign of the cross on his bare bosom.
"Hillo!" says I, "are you a Papist?"
He repudiated the idea with contempt. "Hard-shell Baptis'," said he.
"But, my dear