Island Nights Entertainments | Page 7

friend, the Papists got some good ideas too; and tha' 's
one of 'em. You take my advice, and whenever you come across Uma
or Fa'avao or Vigours, or any of that crowd, you take a leaf out o' the
priests, and do what I do. Savvy?" says he, repeated the sign, and
winked his dim eye at me. "No, SIR!" he broke out again, "no Papists
here!" and for a long time entertained me with his religious opinions.
I must have been taken with Uma from the first, or I should certainly
have fled from that house, and got into the clean air, and the clean sea,
or some convenient river - though, it's true, I was committed to Case;
and, besides, I could never have held my head up in that island if I had
run from a girl upon my wedding- night.
The sun was down, the sky all on fire, and the lamp had been some
time lighted, when Case came back with Uma and the negro. She was
dressed and scented; her kilt was of fine tapa, looking richer in the
folds than any silk; her bust, which was of the colour of dark honey,
she wore bare only for some half a dozen necklaces of seeds and
flowers; and behind her ears and in her hair she had the scarlet flowers
of the hibiscus. She showed the best bearing for a bride conceivable,
serious and still; and I thought shame to stand up with her in that mean
house and before that grinning negro. I thought shame, I say; for the
mountebank was dressed with a big paper collar, the book he made
believe to read from was an odd volume of a novel, and the words of
his service not fit to be set down. My conscience smote me when we
joined hands; and when she got her certificate I was tempted to throw
up the bargain and confess. Here is the document. It was Case that
wrote it, signatures and all, in a leaf out of the ledger:-
This is to certify that Uma, daughter of Fa'avao of Falesa, Island of - ,

is illegally married to Mr. John Wiltshire for one week, and Mr. John
Wiltshire is at liberty to send her to hell when he pleases.
JOHN BLACKAMOAR. Chaplain to the hulks.
Extracted from the Register by William T. Randall, Master Mariner.
A nice paper to put in a girl's hand and see her hide away like gold. A
man might easily feel cheap for less. But it was the practice in these
parts, and (as I told myself) not the least the fault of us white men, but
of the missionaries. If they had let the natives be, I had never needed
this deception, but taken all the wives I wished, and left them when I
pleased, with a clear conscience.
The more ashamed I was, the more hurry I was in to be gone; and our
desires thus jumping together, I made the less remark of a change in the
traders. Case had been all eagerness to keep me; now, as though he had
attained a purpose, he seemed all eagerness to have me go. Uma, he
said, could show me to my house, and the three bade us farewell
indoors.
The night was nearly come; the village smelt of trees and flowers and
the sea and bread-fruit-cooking; there came a fine roll of sea from the
reef, and from a distance, among the woods and houses, many pretty
sounds of men and children. It did me good to breathe free air; it did
me good to be done with the captain and see, instead, the creature at my
side. I felt for all the world as though she were some girl at home in the
Old Country, and, forgetting myself for the minute, took her hand to
walk with. Her fingers nestled into mine, I heard her breathe deep and
quick, and all at once she caught my hand to her face and pressed it
there. "You good!" she cried, and ran ahead of me, and stopped and
looked back and smiled, and ran ahead of me again, thus guiding me
through the edge of the bush, and by a quiet way to my own house.
The truth is, Case had done the courting for me in style - told her I was
mad to have her, and cared nothing for the consequence; and the poor
soul, knowing that which I was still ignorant of, believed it, every word,
and had her head nigh turned with vanity and gratitude. Now, of all this
I had no guess; I was one of those most opposed to any nonsense about
native women, having seen so many whites eaten up by