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I went along the same evening to talk it over with Tom Riley, the other trader in Manihiki, who, in spite of our being in opposition and all that, was more like my own born brother than a rival in business. We never let down the price of shell or copra on each other, and lined up shoulder to shoulder if a third party tried to break in, and so we had enough for both of us and a tidy bit over.
The first Christian missionaries landed in 1819. Elikana "I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care." Manihiki Island looked like a tiny anchored canoe far away across the Pacific, as Elikana glanced back from his place at the tiller.
He sang, meantime, quietly to himself an air that still rang in his ears, the tune that he and his brother islanders had sung in praise of the Power and Providence of God at the services on Manihiki.
Soon after they had left Harvey the Manhikian and Huka parted, each preferring to take his own way, Roka laughingly telling his comrade that although he, Roka, had no spear, he would bring back a turtle. "In my land of Manihiki we trouble not about spears. We dive after the turtle and drag them ashore."
From being the most orderly island in the Pacific, Manihiki slumped to be the worst; and it got such a name that ships were scared of coming near it; and once, when Tom and me went out in a whaleboat toward a becalmed German bark, hoping to raise a newspaper or a sack of potatoes, they opened fire on us and lowered two boats to tow away the ship.
"They are bound to run him down," said Tom. "A man that skips out with nothing, and a man that skips out with a quarter of a million, are in two different classes; and it wouldn't surprise me the least bit if there was six ships aiming for Manihiki simultaneous."
Only the other day, in the Marquesas, if a child conceived a distaste to any stranger, I am assured the stranger would be slain. And I shall have to tell in another place an instance of the opposite: how a child in Manihiki having taken a fancy to myself, her adoptive parents at once accepted the situation and loaded me with gifts.
He pictured himself shipping as third engineer at the Manihiki Islands or engaged for taking moving pictures of an aeroplane flight in Algiers. He had to get away from Zappism. He had to be out on the iron seas, where the battle-ships and liners went by like a marching military band. But he couldn't get started. Once beyond Sandy Hook, he would immediately know all about engines and fighting.
He and his six companions were sailing back over the thirty miles between Manihiki and Rakahanga, two of the many little lonely ocean islands that stud the Pacific like stars. They sailed a strange craft, for it cannot be called raft or canoe or hut. It was all these and yet was neither. Two canoes, forty-eight feet long, sailed side by side.
"I have a berth for you," he answered. "I'm from The Waif. The mate died on the run down from Sydney, and Captain Newmarch sent me ashore to hunt up some one for his perch. Do you want it?" "Where are you bound?" I asked. "Manihiki group." "What for?" "Science expedition under the direction of Professor Herndon of San Francisco."
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