Waylao’s Ancestors—Lodging Hunting—Mr and Mrs Pink—I turn Missionary—Piety at Home—My Disastrous Accident—My Tardy Recovery

ITHINK it will be best now to leave my diary alone and go on in the old way.

I see by the last entry that Waylao had some mad idea of going up to Naraundrau, which was a native town not far from the coast and the source of the Rewa river. She thought that she would come across some of her mother’s royal-blooded relatives there. I told her that possibly her mother had exaggerated about the greatness of her people, or that perhaps, even if it was true, they were all dead, or slaving on the sugar plantations. But it was no good: she had some idea that she was descended from the great King Thakombau and that his palatial halls still existed up at Naraundrau.

In my previous visit to Fiji I had met descendants of that Bluebeard of the South Seas, for such he was. He was a bloodthirsty cannibal in his earlier days, but in his old age became converted to the Christian faith. He had strangled dozens of maids and wives in his day for the cannibalistic orgies. But his later years had been renowned for his devoutness, though it was hinted by the old chiefs that his heart still clung fondly to the old beliefs and the heathen gods. Indeed it was rumoured that ere he died he gave minute instructions for several huge war-clubs and a large barrel of the best rum to be buried in his grave with him. “For,” said he, “if I am denied to enter shadow-land because I’ve deserted the old gods, I say, if the great white God denies my entry into paradise—why, what matters, can I not fight my way in?”

A week after Thakombau’s death a terrible thunderstorm broke over the district of Bau, where he was buried. The natives round those parts were horror-struck. They looked up at the lightnings and hid in the caves in their terror: they swore that the great cannibal king, Thakombau, had been denied by the great white God, and that, drunk with the rum and armed with his mighty clubs, he was fighting his way into the white man’s heaven—with all his dead heathen warriors behind him.

I see by the next entry in my diary that I secured lodgings for Waylao near Victoria Parade, Suva township. It was a snug room situated just over Pink’s general stores. The population round that part was pretty mixed in those days. Not far from Pink’s stores stood White’s hotel. It was there where the swells from the Australian cities stayed when touring with their cameras and notebooks for details of wild life in the Southern Seas.

I introduced myself to old Mrs Pink as a missionary. She was a whiskery-faced old woman, with suspicious, blinking eyes that were weak and appeared to be always shedding tears.

I took her aside and said: “Madam Pink, I’m a missionary, my heart is my profession, and if you are kind to this girl whom I wish to place in your charge till she discovers her friends who live at Vauna Leveu, the members of my denomination will amply reward you, above that which I will pay you.”

I recall how the old woman glanced at Waylao with one eye cocked sideways, and then surveyed me critically. That look said a good deal, and I don’t mind confessing that I felt a strong desire to pull the old girl’s whiskers out by the roots.

Then old Pink, her husband, arrived on the scene. He, too, was a stiff-whiskered-looking old man. His face was very tanned, his beard was scraggy and of reddish hue. Indeed his physiognomy looked like a large, fibrous coco-nut that had twinkling eyes peeping out of its shell.

I sat in their little back parlour, and when I gave them enough money to pay for Waylao’s board and lodging for a week, they almost wept. The old woman went into the next room and sobbed out loud enough for me to hear:

“Them ’ere missionaries are hangels, ’elping the ’elpless—and the fallen.”

I fancied I heard the smothered chuckle as old Pink nudged her in the ribs, as he, too, took the hint from his wily spouse and wailed out: “Gawd’s anointed they is, them who ’elps the ’elpless.”

“I’m getting on in my missionary work, with appreciation like this,” thought I, as I heard those hypocrites fawning over Waylao, calling her endearing names as they took her upstairs.

After I had seen Waylao comfortably settled I went for a stroll. As one may imagine, I was very worried about everything. But I was philosophical in those days, and felt that I could fight the pious world with my sleeves tucked up.

That same night I met Waylao, as arranged, at the end of the Parade. I did not care to call at her lodgings, for I saw, plain enough, that the Pinks did not believe a word that I said.

Ah! how I recall that meeting, the last time I was to see her for many a weary day. I little dreamed of the tragedy, the awful fate, that was to befall that wretched girl ere we two met again.

It was a lovely night. She looked very pretty as she stood before me, attired in her calico gown. She had taken my hint and dressed as well as possible. And as we stood there beneath the thick palm-trees I admired the red sash that swathed her waist and the small tanned shoes that I had spotted at Pink’s stores and bought for her. She wore no hat, nor did she need one in that terrific heat. Her hair fairly shone, gleaming in the moonlight, as we stood there.

“Waylao, what’s to be done?” I said. Then I continued by saying that I thought that it would be far better for her to attempt to return to her people than to look for help elsewhere. As gently as possible I hinted that I would get a job and so help her to get a passage by one of the trading boats that went almost weekly to Hivaoa and Nuka Hiva.

I recall the very voices of the singing natives that went pattering by on the way to the tribal village just outside of Suva township. The outcast girl looked so wretched as I spoke on that I could not express all that I felt when she still persisted in her mad idea to seek her mother’s relatives.

At length I got her promise to remain at the Pinks’ establishment until I could get information about those relatives of hers.

The next day I went down to Suva Harbour and boarded several ships, for I had it in my mind that if any of the trading vessels were going to the Marquesas, I would send a letter to Father O’Leary. I knew that he would help where others might fail. I also knew that a letter from the old Catholic priest to any of the skippers would get a passage on tick for a girl who was Benbow’s daughter.

I did not like to go back on Waylao, or do anything that she did not approve; but I felt in my heart that I was attempting to do the very best for her.

“Man proposes and God disposes.” I say this because the very thing that happened at this period was, as far as I can see, the worst thing that could have happened. It’s like this: I had been aboard a schooner, and finding that she was bound for Hivaoa, I had decided to wait about till the captain returned. He was ashore for a while. Full of hope that my scheme would work well, and that I would get Waylao a passage home, I hurried down the gangway, slipped, sprained my ankle. Providence also arranged that my head should come such a crack on the iron stanchion as I fell that I remained unconscious for five days. I say five days, but it was two weeks or more ere I could think coherently.

I was taken in by a medical man who lived four miles out of Suva. I will not go into detail about my illness, all that I suffered when at length I recovered my senses; how I tried to remember if Waylao was a dream or someone I had met in the flesh. As the days wore on, Mrs Pink’s whiskered face loomed in front of my dreams. “It’s real enough,” thought I; “no diseased imagination could fashion a face like that.” Then Old Man Pink took a settled shape. I heard him wailing about the goodness of things, and men ’elping the ’elpless.

When at length I realised the truth of everything, I was in a fearful state of mind. What would Waylao think of my sudden absence? Would she think that I had given her the slip—left her to her fate after all my tender expressions, all that I said beneath those coco-palms on Suva Parade?