the pacific has many industries but none more appealing to the imagination than the old sandalwood trade, a perfumed business that died when copra found its own, before the novelist and the soap boiler came to work the sea of romance, before the b. p. boats churned its swell or honolulu learned to talk the language of san francisco.
in those days levua showed above the billowing green of the breadfruit, the seaward nodding palms, and the tossing fronds of the dracænas, a belt, visible from the sea, where the sandalwood trees grew and flourished. trees like the myrtle, many branched and not more than a foot thick in the trunk, with a white deliciously perfumed wood deepening to yellow at the root.
sanders, the trader of levua who exported this timber, paid for it in trade goods, so many sticks of tobacco at five cents a stick, so many coloured beads or pieces of hoop iron wherewith to make knives, for a tree. he paid this price to tahuku the chief of the tribe and he paid nothing for the work of tree felling, barking, and cutting the wood into billets. tahuku arranged all that. he was the capitalist of levua, though his only capital was his own ferocity and cunning, the trees rightfully belonged to all. the billets already cut and stored in go-downs were rafted across the lagoon in fragrant heaps to the kermadec and shot on board from hand to hand, piled on deck and then stowed in the hold, a slow business watched by le moan with uncomprehending eyes. she knew nothing of trade. she only knew what sru had promised her, that soon, very soon, the ship would turn and go south to find karolin once again. she believed him because he spoke the truth and she had an instinct for the truth keen as her instinct for direction, so she waited and watched whilst the cargo came leisurely and day by day and week by week, the cargo bound for nowhere, never to be sold, never to be turned into incense, beads, fancy boxes and cabinets; the cargo only submitted to by the powers that had taken command of the kermadec and her captain, because until the cargo was on board, the ship would not take on her water and her sea-going stores in the shape of bananas and taro.
down through the paths where the great tree ferns grew on either side and the artu and jack-fruit trees cast their shadows, came the men of levua, naked, like polished mahogany, and bearing the white perfumed billets of sandalwood; as they rafted them across the diamond-clear emerald-green water to where the kermadec stood in the sapphire blue of twelve fathoms their songs came and went on the wind, the singers unconscious that all the business of that beach was as futile as the labour of ants or the movement of shadows, made useless by the power of the pearl le moan carried behind her left ear.
the night before sailing, the water and fruit were brought on board and peterson went ashore to have supper with sanders taking rantan with him. carlin remained behind to look after the ship.
it was a lovely evening, the light of sunset rose-gold on the foam of the reefs and gilding the heights of levua, the trees and the bursting torrent whose far-off voice filled the air with a mist of sound. carlin, leaning on the rail, watched the boat row ashore, sru at the stern oar, peterson steering. he watched peterson and the mate walk up the beach and disappear amongst the trees; they had evidently given orders that the boat was to wait for them on the beach, for, instead of returning, sru and his men squatted on the sands, lit their pipes and fell to playing su-ken, tossing pebbles and bits of coral in the air and catching them on the backs of their hands.
carlin lit his pipe. what he was watching was more interesting than any stage play, for he knew that the hour had struck, that the water and stores were on board and the ship due to raise her anchor at sunrise.
he stood with his eyes fixed on the beach. the trader’s house and store lay only a few hundred yards back among the trees and the native village quarter of a mile beyond and close to the beginning of the sandalwood groves; would any trouble in the trader’s house be heard by the people of the village? he put this question to himself in a general way and the answer came “no.” not unless shots were fired; but then without shooting—how—how—how?
how what?
he did not enter into details with himself. he stood watching the men on the beach and then he saw sru as if suddenly tired of the game they were playing, rise up, stretch himself and stroll towards the boat. near the boat a fishing canoe was beached and sru having contemplated the boat for a minute or so turned his attention to the canoe. he examined the outrigger, pressed his foot on it and then bending over the interior picked out something—it was a fish spear with a single barb. carlin remembered that rantan on landing had looked into the canoe, as though from curiosity or as if to make sure there was something in it. who could tell?
the fish spear seemed to interest sru. he poised it as if for a throw, examined the barb and then, spear in hand, came back to the fellows who were still playing their game and sat down. carlin saw him exhibiting the spear to them, poised it, talking, telling no doubt old stories of fish he had killed on the reef at soma; then, as if tired, he threw the thing on the sand beside him and lay back whilst the others continued their endless game.
then came dark and the steadily increasing shower of starlight till the coal sack showed in the milky way like a hole punched in marble and the beach like a beach in ghost-land, the figures on it clearly defined and especially now the figure of sru, who had suddenly risen as though alarmed and was standing spear in hand.
then at a run he made for the trees and vanished.
carlin turned away from the rail and spat. the palms of his hands were sweating and something went knock, knock, knock, in his ears with every beat of his heart. the kanakas on board were down in the foc’sle from which a thin island voice rose singing an endless song, the deck was clear only for the figure of le moan—and carlin, half crazy with excitement, not daring to look towards the beach, walking like a drunken man up and down began to shout and talk to the girl.
“hi, you kanaka girl,” cried carlin, “something up on the beach—lord god! she can’t talk, why can’t you talk, hey? whacha staring at me dumb for? rouse the chaps forward, we’ll be wantin’ the anchor up” ... he went to the foc’sle head and kicked—calling to the hands below to tumble up, tumble up, and to hell with their singing for there was something going on on the beach. ruining everything, himself included, if they had been a white crew; then making a dash down to the saloon he beat and smashed at the store cupboard where he knew the whiskey was kept, beat with his naked fists till the panels gave and he tore them out, and breaking the neck of a whiskey bottle, drank with bleeding lips till a quarter of the bottle was gone.
then he sat at the table still clutching the bottle by the neck but himself again. the nerve crisis had passed suddenly as it had come.
yes, there was something going on upon the beach that night when, as le moan and the crew crowding to the port rail watched, the figure of rantan suddenly broke from the trees and came running across the sands towards the boat followed by sru.
she heard the voice of sru shouting to the boat kanakas: “tahuku has slain the white man, the trader and pete’son have been slain.” she saw the boat rushed out into the starlit water and as it came along towards the ship, she saw some of the crew rush to the windlass and begin heaving the anchor chain short whilst others fought to get the gaskets off the jib and raise the mainsail. already alarmed by carlin the words of sru completed the business. tahuku was out for killing and as they laboured and shouted, carlin hearing the uproar on deck, put the whiskey bottle upstanding in a bunk and came tumbling up the ladder and almost into the arms of rantan who came tumbling over the rail.
