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Part of the pile rattled down upon the planks of the wharf, and the Maori and his pupil stopped singing and stared at me as if they were much surprised at finding any one within hearing distance. The wharf had appeared deserted, and I gave them a start by crawling from underneath the awning I had made from the copra bag.
I fooled him first by making believe I wanted copra, which of course I knew he wouldn't hear of couldn't, in fact; and whenever he showed fight, I trotted out the copra, and that man dived! I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so I've got the blooming lot in specie all but two short bills on 'Frisco. And the sum?
Here, when the tide was high, sailed boats lay to be loaded; when the tide was low, the boats took ground some half a mile away, and an endless series of natives descended the pier stair, tailed across the sand in strings and clusters, waded to the waist with the bags of copra, and loitered backward to renew their charge.
Not one of us had cause for complaint, nor one of the eighty-five deck passengers either. All had done well, and all were looking forward to a rest-off and a good time in Papeete. Of course the Petite Jeanne was overloaded. he was only seventy tons, and she had no right to carry a tithe of the mob she had on board. Beneath her hatches she was crammed and jammed with pearl shell and copra.
Of course we could get no labour, being all as good as tabooed, and the two women and I turned to and made copra with our own hands. It was copra to make your mouth water when it was done I never understood how much the natives cheated me till I had made that four hundred pounds of my own hand and it weighed so light I felt inclined to take and water it myself.
For the following three or four months, the brig cruised among the other islands of the Western Carolines, buying copra and turtle-shell in considerable quantities; for the much-maligned "Bully," despite his moral obliquity of vision in his commercial dealings with the merchants of Tahiti and other Polynesian ports, yet possessed the confidence of the wild Caroline Islanders to a remarkable degree.
Not jest copra an' pearl-shell, but cotton an' rubber." "A king and his kingdom," suggested the girl. "Aye, an' mebbe a queen to go with it," replied Lund, his eyes wide open in a look that made the girl flush and Rainey feel the hidden issue that he felt was bound to come, rising to the surface. "That's a man's life," went on Lund.
Their savage hearts were ever in their own atoll, the home to which the native clings so passionately, and their eyes were dark with hopeless longing. No doubt they would die soon, as so many do when exiled, but Grelet's copra crop would profit first.
He spent his evenings poring over accounts, or making endless calculations based on cheaper freights for copra and on the possible maximum and minimum market prices for that staple of commerce. His days were spent out on the plantation. He undertook more clearing of bush; and clearing and planting went on, under his personal supervision, at a faster pace than ever before.
Hans, however, was the "warmest" man of the two, and thought he should be the honoured man, especially as he had the larger quantity of copra and other island produce to sell Packenham. Both men were very good friends at that moment, and had been so for years past.
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