On the night when Rajah Koo Macka sat in old Everard’s bungalow parlour and successfully threw dust in the ex-sailor’s eyes and opium and rum in Gabrielle’s tea, the Papuan half-caste’s ship lay out in the bay of Bougainville, ready to sail at a moment’s notice.

It may be difficult to believe that a white girl could be successfully kidnapped from her father’s homestead, carried half-a-mile across thick jungle to the shore, thrown into a boat and rowed out to a ship that was ready to carry her off to New Guinea; but however incredible it may seem, that’s exactly what did happen. And this business was accomplished by swarthy half-caste sailors who were experts at the kidnapping game. These kidnappers were men who had devoted their lives to stealing and enticing ignorant native girls, youths, children and native men from the Solomon Isles and elsewhere by hundreds, nay, thousands, carrying the boys and men off to be sold as cheap plantation labour, and the girls for the seraglios of heathen chiefs (and sometimes seraglios of white men) in remote isles of the North and South Pacific. And it was easy enough to carry on the slave trade in those parts, for the German officials of Bougainville cared little for their prestige so long as they received a sufficiently large bribe from the slave skippers who prowled along the coasts of Bougainville and Gualdacanar, etc. The old white-whiskered German missionary round at B—— made a tremendous fuss about the depredations of the tribal head-hunters who went off to the mountain villages to secure their terrible trophies, but the depredations of the kidnapping thugs, as they crept ashore and stole girls and youths from the villages, were broadly winked at.

And these remarks do not apply only to the Solomon Group, but also to islands as civilised as Samoa and Fiji. So Rajah Koo Macka and his type calmly carried on their hideous traffic almost in broad daylight. But still the Rajah, on the present occasion, felt that it would be a bit too risky to attempt to kidnap Gabrielle while the sun was up, since she was a sacred white maid. Old Everard was therefore honoured by that last visit from him under cover of night. For the Rajah was an experienced hand at the game. He had prowled round the isles of the Pacific from the Coral Sea to the tropic of Capricorn for years looking for good-looking native girls and men who would make profitable merchandise, and so had had many narrow squeaks, although he always carried a large assortment of religious tracts about with him to allay suspicion. One may easily imagine, therefore, that the Rajah did not look upon the kidnapping of a white girl as something very much outside the ordinary routine of his profession. Indeed, he well knew that white men by scores indulged in the blackbirding trade, sailing under the slave flag as they too prowled the Southern Seas kidnapping people of his race. And so, as far as the actual kidnapping of a white girl is concerned, he was only doing what the white men did themselves.

When at last old Everard lay in drunken insensibility on his settee the Rajah was master of the situation. His hired kidnappers were within call.

In the little that he had seen of Gabrielle he had realised perfectly that his old game of impassioned looks and hypocritical phrases were utterly useless where she was concerned. He soon realised that it was one thing to succeed in making a white girl fascinated by his handsome presence, but quite another to make her cast aside the elementary principles of her race. And so he had formulated his plans.

All that evening, while old Everard had been sitting in his arm-chair listening to the Papuan Rajah’s sombre denunciations of his sinful habits, and Gabrielle stared at his swarthy, handsome face, fascinated by its assumed noble expression, three stalwart Kanakas squatted patiently, as they smoked, not twenty yards from Everard’s bungalow. They were the forcible part of the Rajah’s go-ashore retinue, all muscular men. And as they sat there they wondered how much longer the Rajah was going to keep them waiting for one cursed Christian white girl, when they had kidnapped hundreds of native girls and strong men in half the time. But their patience, that greatest of virtues, was at last rewarded. First the solitary heathen kidnapping thugs saw shadows slip across the dim-lit bungalow window. “Ugh! Me savoo!” said the big man of giant mirth, as he got his strangling rope ready in case the expected victim was obstreperous. As the three thugs got ready for the fray the first act of the wicked drama was in full progress inside the parlour. Gabrielle was already swaying and clutching at the air as she felt the influence of some terrible sleep creeping over her. She fell towards the window and clutched at the curtains in her endeavour to awaken her father. But it was too late! The old ex-sailor only smiled in his sleep; but he must have heard the terrified cry of “Father! Father!” since he muttered “Gabby, go ter sleep!” And she did go to sleep!

The Rajah had fixed things up in no time and then appeared outside the bungalow with the unconscious girl in his arms. As he laid her gently down beneath the palms, the kidnappers crept out of the jungle thickets, stretched out their neat little rope ambulance (always carried for intractable patients) and bundled Gabrielle into its folds.

While this was going on Gob, a dwarf, kept watch, and Rajah Macka kept his eyes on his Papuan retinue. They were men of his own race, and he knew their vile instincts, for was he not one of them? And so he took good care not to let the girl out of his sight. When all was settled, and Gabrielle lay insensible, secure in the thug-ambulance, they lifted her carefully and hurried across the slopes, passing by the lagoon where she and Hillary had embarked in the canoe to go out to the three-masted derelict. It was on that very night that Hillary and Gabrielle were to meet each other, and the apprentice had kept the appointment, only to wait in vain for the girl’s appearance. But had he not in his usual impatience, walked a mile up the shore away from the trysting-place he could not have failed to see the kidnappers pass and so might have saved Gabrielle in a most dramatic fashion.

When Macka and his crew arrived on the shore they flung the girl into the waiting boat, and in less than an hour Gabrielle was a prisoner on board the Bird of Paradise.

Not even the violent bump of the boat against the vessel’s side disturbed Gabrielle ere they carried her helpless form up the rope gangway and on to the deck of the Rajah’s ship. When she awoke, that same night, she could hardly believe her senses. She looked across the gloomy, dim-lit room and thought she’d overslept herself. She fancied she had fallen asleep in her father’s parlour, for there was the settee in the corner—but why was he not on the settee? She noticed that it was still dark, only a dim oil-lamp burning, hanging strangely, it seemed, from the ceiling when it should have been standing on the table.

She rubbed her eyes and stared once more. Her bed seemed to move. What did it all mean? The settee was lined with blue plush; it should really have been a very shabby brown. She jumped to her feet and gave a scream as she spied the little port-holes on the starboard side just opposite her—she had realised the truth, that she was in the cuddy (saloon) of some vessel that was rolling along away at sea!

“Don’t, Gabriel-ar-le, solawa soo!” said a voice very softly.

It was the skipper of the Bird of Paradise—Rajah Koo Macka. He had been asleep in the cabin just near and had leapt from his bunk at hearing Gabrielle’s frightened scream.

“Where am I? Oh dear! Save me! What’s it all mean?” Even Gabrielle laid her hand on her fluttering heart as she muttered those words in a weak voice at finding herself out at sea in a ship’s cuddy instead of in the security of her home.

There was an intense note of appeal in the girl’s voice, such a note as would have touched the heart of the vilest of men, but Macka never moved a muscle. He had stolen so many girls, men and youths, watched their tears, heard their heartrending appeals, and thrown their bodies over the vessel’s side when they had died of terror and malaria down in the stinking, hot-fevered hold, that it seemed nothing awful to him to see a girl kneel before him and weep.

He was overjoyed that the girl was awake. He had quite thought that she had been doped too much and that there was a possibility of her never recovering sensibility again. As she stood before him, with the oil lamp swinging to and fro to the heave and roll of the flying ship, Gabrielle’s eyes, which had been agleam with fright, suddenly changed, and shone with a new strength. She had realised, with a woman’s unerring instinct, the uselessness of appealing to the man before her. As she steadily returned his gaze, the dark man saw the courage of her father’s race.

A cowed look leapt into his face. Even in that swift glance he had realised that all would not go as smoothly as he had anticipated. To steal helpless Papuans, Samoans, Marquesans, Tahitian maids, to defile them, pitch them overboard when they were dead or dying, and amuse himself by revolver shots at the poor, floating, bobbing bodies was one thing; but to steal a white girl and defile her was quite another. That much he realised most forcibly, for before he could realise anything more than that Gabrielle had rushed out of the cabin and bolted.

She raced along the ship’s rolling deck. She looked about her and called loudly in the dark, still hoping that one of the crew might be a white man. When she saw the fierce, mop-headed, dark-faced men rush out of the forecastle at hearing her terrified screams she almost collapsed in her despair. For one moment she stood still and gazed up at the bellying sails as they swayed along beneath the high moon. Nothing but the illimitable sky-lines gleamed around her. She heard the moan of the dark tossing ocean. She did not hesitate, not the slightest indecision preceded her act—splash! she had leapt overboard! It all happened in a few seconds. The Rajah and the mulatto mate at once gave orders for the crew to heave to and lower a boat. It seemed ages to the Rajah as the swarthy crew climbed slowly about like dusky ghosts, as though they had a century in which to fulfil his orders. At this moment the captain of the blackbirder (to give him his correct title) revealed his solitary virtue; he could see the girl’s struggling form in the dark waters astern. Not a sound came from the girl’s lips, only the tossing white hands were visible on the moon-lit waters—then they vanished—she had gone! In a second he had pulled off his coat and boots and plunged into the sea. The men of his race could swim like fish, and dive too, for they took to the water before they could toddle. Even as it was, the Rajah had to dive twice before he could grip hold of Everard’s daughter. He had a tremendous struggle to get the girl back on board, for the sea was a bit heavy that night. When he did get her on deck the half-caste mate and the crew stared on her prostrate figure in astonishment. She had been kept from their sight till then.

Lying there on the hatchway, her white face turned towards the sky, she looked like some angel who had mysteriously fallen from heaven and lay dead before them. They were a superstitious lot, and several of them began to moan some heathen death chant. Even the Rajah was strangely influenced at seeing that pallid face, the drenched, dishevelled hair, the curved, pale lips. The bluish tropical moonlight bathed her form like a wonderful halo. He looked at the watching crew, a fierce light in his eyes. In a moment they had all gone, slinking away. “Awaie!” he said to one who, bolder than the rest, looked back over his shoulder. And then, as the crew obeyed the mulatto mate’s orders to get the vessel under way once more, the Rajah lifted Gabrielle’s prostrate form and carrying her into the cuddy laid her down on the low saloon table. Grabbing a decanter, he poured a small drop of spirit between her lips. Then he closed the door so softly that only the sudden disappearance of the stream of light on the deck from the lamp inside told that the door had been closed.

They were alone, he and she—the frail, helpless girl in the vile power of passion and hypocrisy. For a second the Papuan Rajah gazed around the saloon. Even he was startled by the look on the swarthy face that gazed back on him from the long mirror—his own reflection. Stooping over the recumbent form, he gently rubbed her hands. They were cold and very limp. He began to think that it was too late, that she was dead. Gently pulling the wet bodice open, he slowly unfastened the blue strings of her underclothing. He gazed in silence on the curves of her breasts, which were faintly revealed to his eyes by the dim, swaying oil lamp. That fragile whiteness seemed to appeal even to him; the mute lips, the closed eyelids, the helpless attitude paralysed the dark cruelty of his natural self. And it is only, we must think, because God made all men, be they black or white, that he was loyal to the great trust that the irony of inscrutable Fate had placed in his hands—he of all men on earth.

The seas were beating against the vessel’s side as she lay there. The vessel pitched and rolled as once more it started on its course, and as it rolled the girl’s recumbent form moved and swayed to the lurch of the table. Her drenched bronze-gold hair fell in a mass to the cuddy floor, the brown-stockinged ankles fully revealed through the disarrangement of the soaking skirt.

Could anyone have peeped from the deck through the cuddy port-hole they would have seen the Rajah bending over the helpless girl. A strange fire flashed in his eyes as he gazed and gazed and gently rubbed where her heart lay. The gleam in his eyes died away, but still he watched, waiting anxiously. His face was set and wild looking. “Ar-a va loo!” (“She’s gone!”) he muttered. He tried to feel the pulse of the wrist, but he dropped it with a sigh. At last it came! His hand visibly trembled as he lifted her arms up and gently spread them away from her body. Then he put his ear to her heart and listened—there was a sound like a tiny echo coming from the remotest distance. Throb! throb! it came—Gabrielle’s soul was hovering between heaven and earth—in more senses than one. Then the throb ceased as though for an eternity of time, but once more it came—throb! throb! throb! And before the Rajah was prepared for it Gabrielle’s eyes were staring at him!

Instinctually the girl’s helpless fingers half clutched the wet fringe of her loosened bodice. And, strange as it may seem, the heathen Papuan even helped her cold fingers to close the delicate folds.

The instinctive action of the girl told him more of her true character than a thousand dissertations on racial codes, morals and inherent virtue could have done. In a flash he had realised that if he wanted to gain her respect it had to be gained by astute cunning based on strict emotional principles. Recovering his embarrassment, he rolled his eyes and blinked—which is the equivalent of a blush in New Guinea folk. He was really pleased to see that she was recovering. Immediately flinging himself on his knees, he sobbed out: “Oh Gabriel-ar-le, Marsoo cowan, nicer beauty voumna!” In his excitement he had lapsed into execrable pidgin-English. He heard her sigh. He fondled her hand. “’Tis I who saved you,” he murmured. He fancied that he was a hero. In his perverted ignorance he saw Gabrielle no longer a kidnapped girl on his ship, but a maiden whom he had saved from the cruel seas. He was bold enough to press her hand to his lips.

Gabrielle watched him. She was terribly ill, too dazed to protest. She was alone on the seas with this man and what could she do? Her final response to his miserable hypocrisy was to burst into a violent fit of weeping.

For three or four days she was quite unable to move. It was only through the careful nursing of the Malayan cabin-boy, a frizzly headed, bright-eyed little fellow, that she was at last encouraged to take food. He was a child, and so he appealed to Gabrielle. The very innocence of his eyes as he stared in delightful curiosity at her golden hair and white arms when he crept in with the food to her bunk cheered her as much as she could be cheered under such circumstances.

Sometimes she would lie there helpless and think that she was mad, strange fancies floating through her brain. And sometimes Macka would step softly into the dingy saloon and play on the melancholy organ that he had once used in his tribal mission-rooms. His voice would tremble with passionate appeal and subtle seductiveness as he breathed forth Malayan melodies that haunted Gabrielle’s ears. Those melodies had a terrible influence over the girl, and one night when the vessel was rolling wildly, being buffeted along before a typhoon, the girl screamed out from her bunk: “Stop! Stop! I’ll go mad if you sing that strange thing again!”

Then the Rajah ceased as obediently as a scolded child and softly crept away. He knew the potent magic of those heathen Malayan melodies! He knew! He knew! And when he had passed out on to the vessel’s deck Gabrielle called out: “Tombo! Tombo!” In a moment the little Papuan boy rushed into her cabin.

“Whater you wanter? Whater matter, nicer vovams?”

“Tombo, what’s that shadow-thing that runs about the deck at night? I saw it through the port-hole last night.” Then she said: “And I heard faint cries, wails. What was it? What does it all mean, Tombo?”

Tombo made no reply with his lips, but he softly nestled up against the girl and looked up into her eyes with terrible earnestness. Then he shook his head and said: “I looker after you, Misser Gaberlelle.” Suddenly the boy rushed from the girl’s side and out of the cuddy in fright.

Gabrielle listened and heard a scream: the Rajah had called the boy and, meeting him on the deck, had kicked him. The Papuan skipper had noticed that the kid was a bit too communicative with his kidnapped prisoner. Possibly he thought that the boy might let out the truth about the ship and give Gabrielle some hint as to why it sailed by night with all lights out, as it tacked on its course far off the beaten track of trading ships.

It was quite a week before Gabrielle ventured out of the small cuddy’s berth and entered the saloon. Even when she did so she was apparently so weak that she was obliged to secure the assistance of little Tombo, who held her hand as she wandered about. The Rajah immediately began his sinuous overtures and muttered violent protestations of love into her ears. At times the Papuan could hardly conceal his temper when the girl persistently pestered him with questions, asking him where the Bird of Paradise was bound for.

“You noa worry. You are all right. I take you across the seas and some days you go back to your peoples—when you lover me!” he would say, as he gave a look of deep meaning that the girl persistently pretended not to understand. He would not allow her to walk out on deck unless he were close by. His hungry eyes seemed ever on the alert. Probably he had a fixed idea in his brain that the girl would make another attempt to take her life. And still he swore most earnestly by the virtue of the Christian apostles that he had only kidnapped her from her father’s homestead because of his overpowering love for her.

“You know not what men of my race love like, what we would do for a white girl such as you, Gabri-ar-le,” he muttered, as he glanced sideways at her.

Gabrielle saw the look in those flashing eyes of his. She trembled as she realised how completely she was in his power, and how once she had been fascinated by his voice and his handsome mien. Even then, at times, she half believed that he had repented the wrong he had done her. And the girl was hardly to blame for her credulity, for he never tired of pouring his flamboyant rhetoric in Malayan vers libre into her ears. He had some mighty faith in his maudlin Mohammedanistic babblings over love, winds, seas, stars, night, God and death. He was as crammed with pretended artlessness as he was of villainy.

Sometimes the girl felt strangely calm. The religious element that brings faith and comfort to men and women in the direst moments of life was part of her special birthright. She became more resigned to her lot and even went so far as to read some of the old books that she had discovered in the cuddy locker. So did she endeavour to stifle her thoughts. Many, many times she thought of the apprentice. What did he think of her sudden absence from Bougainville, of her not turning up at the trysting-place by the lagoon? She thought of his impulsive nature. She guessed that he must have gone straight to her home to see what had become of her. She thought of a thousand things that he would do in his attempt to discover her whereabouts. She imagined how her father raved, and must still be raving, perhaps grieving over her disappearance. But she never dreamed of all that really happened after she had left Bougainville in the blackbirding ship. When she recalled the incidents of the old derelict lying on the rocks off Bougainville and of Hillary’s boyish but earnest declaration of love she trembled in her anguish. She remembered the look in his eyes, the wild, fond sayings that had come spontaneously to his lips. Then she laid her head down on the cuddy table and wept bitterly.

One night when the Bird of Paradise had been at sea about two weeks the heat was so terrific that she implored the Rajah to let her sit out on deck. He was obdurate and would not hear of such a thing. “No, no, putih bunga (white flower)” was his only reply, as he lapsed into the Malayan tongue, speaking as though to himself. Then he walked away and disappeared forward. In a moment Gabrielle made up her mind and had slipped out of the cuddy, determined to go on deck and breathe the cool night air. She almost cried out as she rushed, plomp! into the arms of the half-caste mate. “Savo, maro, Cowan, bunga,” whispered the burly mulatto, as he lost his mental balance at seeing the beauty of the girl. He caught her in his arms, clutched her flesh like some fierce animal, put his vile lips to her white throat and breathed hotly on her face. He tried to press his blubbery lips against her own. In a moment the girl had managed to release herself from that hateful clasp.

“What’s the matter, my pretty putih bunga, marva awaya?” said Koo Macka, suddenly coming up, as the mulatto mate slipped hastily along the deck out of sight.

“Nothing is the matter; I simply felt ill, faint; I’m better now,” said Gabrielle fearfully, as she swiftly realised that it would not do to make an enemy of the mulatto mate. For a moment the Rajah looked suspiciously around him, then he sternly ordered her to go back at once into the saloon.

And so it was that Gabrielle sat in her bunk that night and stared through the port-hole so that she might get a breath of the cool midnight breeze that drifted at intervals across the hot tropic seas.

The stars were shining in their thousands as she sat there watching and crying softly to herself. She could plainly see the bluish, ghost-like gleam of the horizon, far away, as she stared out of the cabin port-hole. It was then that she once more heard a mysterious wail coming from somewhere out in the silence of the night. Her lips went dry with fright as she gazed and listened in her terror. She distinctly observed a shadow slip across the deck. Then the wail came again and was followed by a deep, retching moaning and sounds of the hushed voices of men who were speaking in a strange language. “What does it all mean?” she muttered to herself, as once more her ears caught the indistinct utterances of agony. And still she listened and felt quite sure that what she heard was no trick of her imagination, but was some last appeal of helplessness to relentless men ere they strangled their victim. In the terror of all that she felt her overwrought brain became strangely calm. She sat quite still and watched in a dazed way, crouching in her bunk, her eyes peering through the port-hole. She gazed up at the swaying sails as they glided on beneath the stars. The wind had shifted to the south-west, for she saw the canvas veer and darken patches of starry sky as the yards went round and the crew aloft chanted some Malayan chantey. So weirdly bright was the tropic sky that the rigging and the forms of the toiling crew were distinctly outlined with the decks, sails, spars. She could even discern the long cracks of the deck planks as the ethereal light of far-off worlds pulsed in the sky and sent a glimmer down between the masts and sails. A fearful curiosity overcame the fright she first felt as she saw three stalwart, mop-headed men standing by the lifted hatchway amidships. The scene was directly along the deck facing the cuddy’s cabin port-hole from which she stared. The sight that met her astonished eyes made her tremble: the three swarthy, demon-like men were grabbing the bodies of the dead which were being passed up from the vessel’s fetid hold! Some of the crew were down below busily pushing those limp, pathetic figures up to the outstretched hands of those on deck. Gabrielle knew they were dead bodies, there was no mistaking their limpness as the heads of the silent forms fell first in one direction then in another. And still they pushed up the limp bodies of dead native girls and youths, and one by one passed them along to that crew of sea-thugs, who carelessly pushed them over the bulwarks into the sea! Gabrielle distinctly heard the splash as they fell.

She half fancied that she heard long-drawn groans coming from the direction of the sea. Nor was she mistaken, for they pitched the dying overboard too! The crew of slavers were not over-sensitive in such matters.

The girl was still staring, dumbfounded, when the men softly closed the hatchway over that terrible drama of life below. Then she heard the dull thuds of the locks being secured and rammed home. They even placed the thick canvas covering over the hatchway again and so closed the cracks that mercifully had let a breath of fresh air into that breathing mass of shrieking merchandise—kidnapped native girls, men and women! As soon as Gabrielle saw those demon undertakers steal away into the shadows towards the forecastle she realised that it was no nightmare, no horror of an imaginary world that she had felt and witnessed. It was all real enough. In a flash her brain had realised all that it really meant. She remembered how her own father had talked about the horrors of the blackbirding ships, and how the huddled victims died in the fetid hold. She recalled how he had even confessed that he too had once dabbled in the slave traffic. And as she remembered she saw herself as a child again, listening in wonder at her father’s knees as he proudly told his beachcomber guests of the “glorious good old blackbirding days.”

After seeing that sight Gabrielle became seriously ill, mentally as well as physically. She lay sleepless through the night and longed for forgetfulness. The scene she had witnessed as they cast the kidnapped dead into the sea had completely horrified her. In her mind over and over again she found herself counting the dead bodies she had seen thrown overboard. It took her that way. She had often heard the mission men talk about the cruelty of the kidnapping business, but it required such a sight as she had witnessed to make her realise the truth of what she had heard. True enough, it is hard for anyone to realise the horrors of the slave traffic till they see the actual results with their own eyes.

Possibly the great poet will never be born who could write the poem that would adequately describe the Brown Man’s Burden so that the Western world could read and realise that the White Man’s Burden is not the only one that men have to bear through spreading Western principles among the islands of remote seas.

Gabrielle got out of her bunk that same night and pushed every available article of furniture against her cabin door. She realised what she was in for. It was the first hint she had had that she was not the only wretched victim that trembled in fear on that ship. And as she lay sleepless, thinking of everything and of those trembling, terror-stricken girls and youths that made the cargo in the airless, fevered hold not twenty feet from her bunk, she half envied her own terrible position.

Next day when the Rajah noticed the look of horror in the girl’s eyes as he rattled off his vers libre he retired as gracefully as possible and quickly arrayed himself in his most attractive attire of Rajahship.

He placed the rich, scarlet-hued turban on his skull. He tied the yellow waist-sash about him so that the bow fell coquettishly down at his left hip. He even cleaned his teeth with cigar ash and manipulated an artistic curl at the ends of his dark moustache. Then he proceeded to haunt Gabrielle again. He read the Bible aloud; he put such well-simulated sincerity into his melodious voice that Gabrielle rubbed her eyes and half wondered if she had dreamed that terrible sight of the night before. As she sat at the low cuddy table and the dark man sat right opposite her with the knees of his long, thin legs bunched beneath the table, she listened to his splendid lies. He went so far as to tell her how he had a great reputation for good works, of how he roamed the seas searching to redress the wrongs done to helpless girls, men and native women! He swore that his ship roamed the South Seas expressly to attempt to put down slave traffic! He knew! he knew! that the girl had some inkling of the kind of vessel she was on.

“Gabrielle,” said he, “you knower not my troubles, and how when I do capture slave-ship I have to rescue the victims and put them down in the hold of this vessel till sucher time as I can take them to some isle where they can be safe till they are returned to their own people!”

“Could it be true?” was Gabrielle’s inward thought, as she watched the man’s face and saw nothing but the light of a proud achievement in his eyes. And it must be admitted that there was some truth in all that he told the girl about his reputation. For was it not well known from Apia to Dutch New Guinea that Rajah Koo Macka was a great Christian Rajah? And was it not true that he had been in receipt of thousands of pounds that had been collected through the kind medium of Christian societies who were interested in the noble endeavour to put down slave traffic in the South Seas? And who can deny the fact that thousands of men and women in England had unconsciously contributed towards the expenses incurred by the Rajah in fitting out his ship, the Bird of Paradise, for the sole purpose of abducting natives and for following his monstrous inclinations.

And there he sat in his cosy cuddy, a splendid example of the civilised, converted Papuan invested with a hideous power by weak-minded charity-givers who saw no just cause for their charity in their own country.

The Rajah was a living libel on true missionary work and on the reputation of the missionaries themselves. With others of his profession, he had often let his helpless merchandise out on hire into the hands of wealthy half-caste and sensual white men. And when native girls gave birth to half-caste children soon after their arrival on the sugar plantations as far away as Brisbane, the innocent missionaries got the blame for what had happened to the girls who had been contaminated after leaving their native isles. But all this is only a detail in the Rajah’s life. He was a genius in his way. No man living would have had the patience to talk and talk, and sing and chant as he did to his beautiful, helpless prisoner. God only knows how he got Gabrielle to believe in him again. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange when one thinks of her tender years and the mighty pretence of the astute Rajah. Night after night he came to her and went on his bended knees. Sometimes he held the Bible in his hand, babbled over its pages and said: “O Gabri-ar-le, give thy purest love unto me and I swear on this divine book that I will take thee back unto thy father.”

On hearing this Gabrielle’s heart leapt with hope. “Perhaps he isn’t all bad and has relented,” she thought. Then she glanced steadily into the Papuan’s eyes and said: “I swear that I will bear no ill-feeling towards you if you will only take me home again.” Then with that wonderful instinct that women reveal when in such a grievous pass, she added: “I can easily say that I was washed out to sea in a canoe that night and that your ship picked me up, and then no blame will be attached to you; you may even be rewarded. Will you take me back to Bougainville?” Saying this, she looked earnestly into the heathen’s eyes and continued: “Father was very drunk that night, you know; he heard or guessed nothing of all that happened; he wouldn’t dream of the truth.”

The man sat there silent, chin on hand, as he gazed steadily upon the girl. It was evident by the look in his eyes that he admired the clever way she had put the whole matter before him. Gabrielle mistook that look. Her heart fluttered. She felt like screaming in the ecstasy of hope that thrilled her in the thought that she might yet get back to Bougainville and see the young apprentice again. The man sat opposite her for a long while in thought, then he shook his head as though in response to his own reflections. He gave a cruel smile as he noticed the expression of delight in the girl’s eyes at the thought of getting out of his clutches. He rose to his feet and, giving her one of his lascivious looks, walked slowly out of the cuddy.

Gabrielle’s hopes faded. The reaction set in. Her despair was terrible as loneliness came to her heart. She went into her dismal berth. She was now left quite alone, for little sympathetic Tombo had ceased to come near her. She well knew that it wasn’t the little cabin-boy’s fault; he was ordered to keep out of the way.

“He’s a murderer, a cruel villain, a heathen—and once I thought he was a god among men, an apostle of beauty and truth.” So ran Gabrielle’s reflections as she sat alone and thought critically about the Rajah. She looked out of the port-hole. It was a brilliant moon-lit night. She saw the dark crew climbing aloft to reef the sails. She knew that the vessel had altered its course. The sight of everything depressed her terribly. There was something weird in the sight of those dark men toiling aloft as they sang their strange Malayan chanteys. She saw the shining clasp-knives between their teeth as their shadows dropped softly down onto the deck. Once more she heard the whistle blown to call the next watch. Then complete silence reigned. She had nearly gone off to sleep when once more she heard the wails and muffled screams. Though terrified at those sounds, she again peeped through the port-hole and watched. Again she heard the heart-rending moans. Again the awful dragging silence came as the hatchway was lifted. “Plomp! plomp! plomp! plomp!” She knew then that four more victims had been cast into the deep. She strained her neck and put her head right out of the port-hole. She saw the dusk of the burning tropic seas and the stars as the vessel kept steadily on its course, leaving the floating bodies in its wake.

The next day the Rajah came into the dismal cuddy several times and spoke to her, but she shrank instinctively from his presence. He noticed her manner and wondered. The girl’s uncongenial attitude did not rhyme in with the plans he had so nicely mapped out. But determination was his great virtue. He made many attempts to ingratiate himself. “Why you no liker me now?” he said, as he looked at her. She made no reply. In his excitement he mixed his language up so much that Gabrielle could hardly understand what he said. His mixture of pidgin-English and broken Biblical phrases made a kind of musical potpourri of exotic sensuousness that haunted the girl’s ears, reviving vivid memories of her own people and at the same time reminding her how far away she was from their protection.

“Gabri-ar-le, allow me,” he murmured in his soft, insinuating voice, as he leaned forward and stuck a small red frangipani blossom in the folds of her hair. It was a bloom from the pots of flowers that swung to and fro from the cuddy ceiling.

Gabrielle looked steadily at the man. A strange gleam was in his eyes. It was just after sunset. Already the eight members of the crew, who were devout sun-worshippers, had lain prone on the forecastle deck and murmured their dolorous chants to the last gold and purple glow of the departed day.

The stars were shining over the sea. It was almost calm. Every now and again came the muffled drum-like sounds of the heavy canvas sails that bellied out to the breath of the sleepy night wind, flopped, and fell loosely as the halyards rattled and the ship rolled to the glassy swell.

The Rajah had sat down at the low table, right opposite Gabrielle. His turban was tilted rakishly on one side. As he looked sideways, glancing poetically towards the deck roof, his firm, handsome, curved throat was certainly shown to advantage. He looked like some Byronic corsair. There was no denying that he was a handsome man of his type. He leaned gently towards Gabrielle, one hand on chin, continuing to gaze as though in sorrowful reflection over his shortcomings and the white girl’s sorrow resulting therefrom.

“Gabri-ar-le, I lover thee. You know not the ocean of my soul, how dark it is since your eyes should be the stars to shine over its darkness. Wilt love me a little, O white maiden?”

He still had his eyes fixed upon her in rapt admiration, eyes that moved up and down her form.

She looked beautiful indeed as she suddenly rose, stood there in the dim light, attired in her sarong-like bluish robe, the divided sleeves of which revealed her rounded arms. The broad scarlet sash, tied bow-wise at the left hip, fell negligently almost down to her ankle. A hot breath of sleepy wind crept through the cabin doorway, wafting the rich odours of exotic flowers that hung all along by the cuddy port-holes on the starboard side. The ship’s black cat suddenly whipped across the saloon, looked up into its master’s face with its yellow, burning orbs and then disappeared like a shadow.

Gabrielle trembled as she sought to answer the Rajah’s questions. She could faintly hear the tinkle of the weird zeirung as some dark man forward in the forecastle accompanied the mellow voice of someone who was singing a Malayan chantey.

“I felt that I liked you once, but I hate you now!” said Gabrielle impulsively. Then she added: “How could you expect me to like such as you, after all you’ve done?”

The Rajah gave a grin.

“I want you to take me back to my people,” the girl almost sobbed. Then she rose and began stealthily to move away from his presence; she had noticed the flushed, half-wild expression on his handsome face. She saw the fixed look of resolve in his eyes.

He swiftly put forth his hand and, catching hold of her fingers firmly, softly forced her to sit down once more in front of him.

For a moment he looked at her as though he was about to clasp her in his arms. Gabrielle’s heart thumped. She noticed that he sat on the side near the open door and so barred her progress should she attempt to make a bolt. She heard the voice of the man at the wheel humming words of an unknown tongue just over her head out on the poop. She knew that the Rajah’s mate was laid up with fever in the deckhouse amidships, and so she was quite alone with the Rajah.

“I know that I am only Pa-ooan. You no’ like me ’cause I dark man, eh? Wilt lover me, canst thou deny me, O maid of mine heart?”

Gabrielle knew by his lapse into Biblical pidgin-English that he was in an excited, treacherous state of mind; she also realised that it was wiser for her to attempt to mollify him.

“I don’t dislike the people of your race at all; it’s the wicked way that you kidnapped me that makes me hate you. Won’t you take me back to my people?”

Though she spoke with apparent calmness, her heart was thumping so violently that she half fancied he heard it beat. She instinctively knew why the man stared at her so. She noticed that he had not lit the hanging lamp in the usual way, either. Only the faint, flickering glimmers from the lantern that swung by the saloon door and the deck sent its gleams towards them. She could just discern the shadowy-like face of the Rajah sitting opposite her. His voice had become strangely soft and seductive, almost musical: “Do you lover me, one little much, pretty whiter girl?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered hastily in a hushed, frightened voice, hardly knowing what she did say, as she swiftly glanced around and realised her terrible helplessness in that cabin far away on the coral seas. No escape there for her! The glimmer of the seas outside the port-holes only gave her a deeper sense of loneliness, if that were possible. She heard the tramp! tramp! of the watch walking the poop just over their heads as they sat there.

“Let me go to my berth, I’m tired, I want to sleep,” she said softly, as she hastily rose to her feet. The state of her feelings was obvious. The Rajah could almost hear the fluttering of the girl’s heart in that soft, tremulous voice. Standing there with flushed face and her eyes staring with fright, she looked very beautiful. He put his hand out gently and leaned across the table towards her. In her fright she gripped his extended hand. Her hair had fallen down to her neck and shoulders, tumbling in a golden mass, as she lifted her hand and glanced wildly about her. It had been loosened from its neat coil by the flowers that the Rajah had stuck in the glossy folds. The heathen corsair’s vanity was so profound that he imagined the girl had deliberately made her tresses tumble in luring deshabille for his eyes.

A great fire leapt like a blown flame into the man’s eyes. And Gabrielle noticed it. She began to move backwards, very slowly, step by step, in the direction of her cabin door. One of her hands clutched her robe tightly against her trembling figure, as though she would not have him see the way her stealthy feet were moving from his presence. He too had swiftly risen from the cuddy table and was moving with a stealthy, cat-like step towards her. It was like some tragic scene in a drama as she moved backward, her eyes fixed on him, and he followed step by step over the cuddy floor. The girl’s pale face and frightened, alert eyes were reflected in the large saloon mirror as she crept round the table. His taller form sent a monstrous silhouette over the panelled walls, his turbaned head going right across the ceiling. And still she moved on.

Gabrielle had sought to mislead him as to her exact intentions. She made a rush, whipped into her cabin and slammed the door. Not till then did the Rajah realise his mistake in thinking that her tresses had fallen for his benefit.

A look of rage swept across his swarthy face at the way Gabrielle had baffled him. But he knew the way to play the game. In a second he had placed his mouth to the small grating circle that was in the top of her cabin door. “Gabri-ar-le, beloved mine, I do swear not to hurt you; let me comer in,” he whispered. “Why you rush away from me like that?” he added in an injured tone. He did not wish to raise his voice. He knew there was a possibility of the girl screaming when she realised the full import of his wishes. He had no desire that the crew should know that he was a rank outsider so far as the white girl’s affections were concerned. He had loved to walk the schooner’s deck, his chest swelling with that pride that dark men feel when a white woman is theirs; he also knew that his Kanaka crew envied him his saloon quarters, where they knew the lovely white girl dwelt.

“Don’t try to come in! You dare not! Leave me alone. I want to sleep,” replied Gabrielle, as he continued softly and persistently to knock at the cabin door.

He heard the trembling note of appeal in her voice. “I swear by the gods of my land and the stars of your own that should you open the door and let me kiss your hand no harm shall come to you.”

He heard Gabrielle smash something heavy against the door. It was the reply to his appeal. His voice took on a rougher tone, he was evidently getting impatient. “If you don’t let me in I’ll smash the door down; it’s my ship!” he said in a threatening undertone, then swiftly added: “But, sweeter girl, if you let me in I swear to keep my promise.”

Gabrielle glanced round her berth. Not a weapon was handy. She was trembling. “Perhaps he speaks the truth,” she thought.

“Won’t you go? We’ll speak to-morrow!” she said softly, as though she would appeal to his heart. Again he swore that he would not harm her.

Gabrielle looked in despair through the port-hole. For a moment she was half inclined to put her head out and scream. Then she thought of the hideous mulatto mate and the fierce Kanaka crew. She shuddered. What hope had she? Even as she realised the hopelessness of her position the Rajah’s booted foot crashed at the door.

Gabrielle hardly knew what she was doing as she flung the door open. “I believe you,” she said, as she stood there, just inside her cabin and gazed courageously into the man’s eyes. For a moment he was taken aback, but in another moment he had responded by hastily stepping forward.

Gabrielle was quite unprepared for his sudden outburst, notwithstanding all that had happened. He took her hand in his own. He pressed warm kisses on the soft white fingers. He became almost incoherent as he talked and told her how he had dreamed of her and seen her image in the great magical lagoons in his native land.

“The gods said that such as you would be mine. Yes, Gabri-ar-le, long years ago before you were born.”

He had seized her in a passionate clasp. The terrible magic of his vile personality began to work on the girl’s overwrought mind. “Go away! Go away!” she pleaded. But still he wailed on about his old gods, their magic and the wonders of his country. For a moment he leaned against the frame of the cabin door as though he were about to depart, but he did not go. He leaned forward and began to murmur a weird Papuan chant. His voice was peculiarly mellow and sweet. There was something melodiously caressing in the strain. Just for a moment his eyes softened, as though his heart was influenced by the music of his lips. It was only for a second, though, ere the tiger beast of his nature returned and once more he gazed unabashed at the girl, as only the low order of the dark races can gaze. He touched her fingers. His dark hands had begun to creep in a caressing way up her arms. His burning eyes still stared relentlessly into the terrified eyes of the girl. He would not vary that glance, no, not for one second, as he stared on triumphant, magnetising her soul by the eerie fire of his own.

“My beloved, putih bunga!” he murmured, as he noticed the look of terror fading away from the eyes that had looked up so appealingly into his.

Gabrielle’s face, ghastly pale but a moment before, now appeared strangely flushed, almost swarthy-looking. But even the Rajah looked startled as he saw the change in her expression, as she stood there dimly revealed by the light of the stars that gleamed through the little cabin’s port-hole. Standing there framed between her bunk and the slanting beam of the bulwark, her tumbled hair about her neck, she looked like some wonderful emblematic figure of spiritual beauty struggling against the temptation of passion. But still his hands stole stealthily up her arms and about her: now he softly touched the silky material of her blouse, his face within three inches of her own. His arms curved snake-wise over her shoulders. “Marlino sa wean, placer your lips to mine—quick, quick!” he whispered. His voice was hoarse with passion as he drew her near to him. “Putih bunga, mine! Ola savoo, beautiful!” he babbled. He felt the sighing heave and fall of her bosom. Gently but firmly he pressed her head slowly backwards, so that her face should be uplifted to his own. Even in the gloom he noticed that her eyes stared up at him as though in sleep. He leaned half fearfully forward and let his mouth touch her lips.

“Go! Go!” she wailed, as she tried to overcome the darkness that was sweeping her very life away. She fancied that a shadow had slipped out of the night to torture her soul. Again in some terrible rivalship of dark and mystery it sought to strangle her. She fancied she saw strange, wild eyes appealing to her, peering over the Rajah’s shoulder; but it was only the Rajah’s eyes she really saw.

He saw her eyelids quiver. He felt the wild throb of her bosom still; but he noticed that the limbs had ceased to tremble.

“She hath given herself unto me!” so ran a thought through his mind. He lost control of his acquired civilised astuteness and began to press impassioned kisses on her upturned mouth. He felt her arms clasp him in a responsive embrace.

“Putih! Mine!” he whispered, his voice hoarse with passion. Her scented tresses fell about his face. He fiercely pulled the fringe of her bodice open at the neck and pressed burning kisses on the whiteness of her throat.

“Don’t! Don’t!” she cried softly. But he held her the tighter; it was a merciless grip. She had begun to struggle. He was surprised at her strength as she suddenly put forth her arms, clutched him by the throat with one hand and with the other caught him by the shoulder and pushed. For a moment he made little effort to ward her off. Slowly, to her delight, she felt him going back, backwards towards her cabin door as she pushed in her frenzy. And still she struggled and still she felt his big form receding till his turbaned head was half-an-inch out of the door. She gave a smothered cry of delight; she was winning in that terrible encounter that was a struggle of life and death to her. Alas! she had not reckoned with the cunning of that Papuan kidnapper. He almost smiled as he allowed her to force him back yet a little more. Even she half wondered why she was winning so easily. Then out shot his hand; at last she had enabled him to reach and grip hold of the handle of the cabin-door that opened outwards into the saloon; in a moment he had pulled it to; crash! it went as he slammed it and pushed the bolt!

She and he were alone, shut in the cabin. They stood facing one another in the dusk, like two half-baffled figures. Only the stars faintly visible through the port-hole told of the ocean world outside as Gabrielle looked first at the dark form before her and then out into the night. She could not scream as he seized her in a tight clasp. Only a moment and she had ceased to struggle, was crying softly to herself as he pressed burning kisses on her face and drew her towards him.

He continued his love-making ill far into the night. Although the girl was completely in the Rajah’s power, he still showed an unaccustomed restraint. Heathen though he was, he could, when occasion demanded, hold his passions in reserve. They would be gratified later, he told himself, as he gloated over the defenceless girl. She would be even more at his mercy in his native coastal village, in his own private dwelling.

And still the stars shone over the wide ocean-way of night. Only the sounds of the swelling sails and their muffled flop! flop! broke the silence, as the vessel rose to the swell and rolled like a helpless derelict on the silent tropic seas. Tramp! tramp! went the watch over head. Then someone in the forecastle began to sing; it came faint but distinct, some old Malayan chantey drifting aft as the wide wings of the wind moved across that great world of waters.

It was night-time, and three days after the Rajah’s cowardly attack, when Gabrielle heard the Malayan sailors singing one of their weird chanteys in a cheerful voice. She at once looked through the port-hole of her berth, wherein she had made herself a willing prisoner, only allowing the Malayan cabin-boy Tombo to enter with her meals. She stared aloft. The vessel at that very moment was altering its course. She distinctly noticed the apparent movement of the stars as the dark canvas sails veered. Again she heard the gabble and hustle as the helm was put hard over. It looked just as though the moon had given a frightened skid across the sky. They had just let the hatchway down with a bang, had finished pitching the dead victims of the hold overboard. But still the Rajah shouted his orders. He was calling in a strange language. She tried to understand, but not a word was familiar to her. “What’s it all mean? Are we there?” she wondered, as she looked round her in despair. She gazed to the southward. Her heart gave a tremendous thump as she sighted, a long, low line of dark coast to the starboard. Then she knew that at last the Bird of Paradise lay off the dreaded coast of wild New Guinea.

Words cannot describe the misery of Gabrielle’s heart as she saw the coast-line of that strange, rugged land and realised that when once she was ashore there she would be completely in the Rajah’s power. It seemed to her that a great shadow from that mountainous world swept across the sea and struck her soul with despair as a solitary cloud, like a castaway’s raft, crept under the moon. Her hair fluttered to the cool night breeze, her fingers clutched the rim of the port-hole as she still stared towards that desolate, terrible coast-line. But had Gabrielle Everard been able to look astern and see across half-a-thousand miles what a sight would have cheered her despairing heart. She would have seen the Sea Foam dipping gracefully, bounding onward, travelling south-south-west across the coral sea beneath the tropic moon with all sail set, and Mango Pango dancing on deck, while the great Ulysses, with hand placed sentimentally on his heart, thundered out:

“Oh, I went down South for to see my Sal,

Singing Polly-wolly-doodle all the way!”

and Hillary, still full of romance and hope, playing the violin like some pagan god, accompanying each song the big man sang.