The Strange White Woman of Majuro | Page 2

would come up of an evening and join us.
'One night he told us that a canoe had come from Mili'-an island about three days' sail to the leeward of Waller's place' and reported that a ship had passed quite close to their island about a week before. At first I thought it was my vessel coming up from Sydney, but Rotau said it was not a brig, but a three-masted ship with yards on all her masts. Well, at first I thought it was a whaler, but then remembered that it was fully four months too late in the year for a blubber-hunter to be around. Then it occurred to me that it might be some English ship going to China or the East Indies from the colonies; but I wondered why she was beating to the eastward if that were the case.
'Well, after we had sat talking for a while, my wife called the children in and put them to sleep, and Rotau and I and his wives sat outside a bit longer, smoking. All the rest of the natives had gone away, and the beach was deserted. It was a moonlight night, almost as bright as it is tonight, and the sea was a smooth as a millpond; so smooth, in fact, that there was not even a break upon the reef, and the trade wind having died away, there was not the sound of a leaf stirring in the palm grove, and only just the lip-lap, lip-lap of the water in the lagoon as it swished up the sandy beach.
'We had been sitting like this for about half an hour when Nera, my wife, just as she was coming out of the door to join us, gave a cry.
' " Te kaibuke! Look at the ship!"
'I jumped up and looked, and there, sure enough, was a big ship just showing round the point and close in-at least, not more than a mile away from the reef. She showed up so plainly on the surface of the water that I could see that she was under all canvas--except her royals and such.
'For a moment I was a bit scared, remembering that there was not a breath of wind, and yet seeing her moving; then I remembered the current, and knew that she must have run up to the land from the westward, before dark, perhaps, and that as soon as the breeze had died away the current, which runs about four knots off the weatherside of the island, had caught her and was now moving her along. Even by the moonlight I could see that she was a fine-looking ship; and by her sheer, high bows, white painted deckhouses, and cut of her sails, I took her to be either a Yankee or a British North American.
'I always kept my whaleboat ready in those days, and, after looking at her for a bit and seeing she was steadily drifting along to the northeast and would be out of sight by morning, I made up my mind to board her. But just as I had asked Rotau to get one of his women to hunt up a boat's crew, he sang out, "Listen; I hear a boat!"
'In another moment or two I heard it, plain enough-click, clack; click, clack-and at the same time saw that the ship was heading away, from the land.
' "That's queer, " I thought. And then Rotau, who, like all natives, had better eyes than most white men, said that she had three boats out towing.
' "Ah, " I thought, "the captain has got frightened at the current, and, as he can't anchor where he is, he's sending in a boat to try and find a place where he can let go till morning and is towing off the land meanwhile."
' I knew the ship was right enough, and could not get clear into any danger, as the current would take her clear of the land in another hour or so; so we all went down to the point to see where the boat was coming.
'As I said, there wasn't even so much as a bit of froth on the reef, and, being high water, no one a stranger to a coral reef would know it was there till he was going over it in a boat and looked over the side. We had just got down to the point when we saw the boat close to. She was being pulled very quickly by four hands, and made a devil of a row coming through the water.
The man who was steering was standing up, and I saw that his cap was off, and his face showed white and ghastly in the moon-light.
'As soon as she was within a hundred yards of the beach I hailed