T was quite the most wonderful thing Felisi had ever seen, even in her short but eventful career. The launch—a noble affair of white enamel and glittering brass—swung gracefully into the cove, and, churning the indigo water into a white lather with its reversed propeller, came to rest like a great hurricane bird poised on the gently-heaving bosom of the Pacific.
Out of the world it had come, the great world of Levuka, and perhaps beyond, into this little coral beach of Luana, for what purpose only the Great Spirit knew. Felisi squatted at the edge of the family taro patch, the handle of the heavy hoeing knife resting in her listless hand, watching it all wide-eyed.
"This is it," came a voice, clear as a bell, over the water. "Yes, I'm sure this is it; I marked it by the forked palm yonder."
Now, Felisi understood this, or, at any rate, the drift of it. Had she not sold imitation pink coral on the wharf at Levuka? And was not Levuka the centre of the world, where, when the steamer came in, people were so many that the wharf, the street, and the giant houses swarmed with them like fish in the rock pools at low tide? Strange people they were, especially the women, covered with unnecessary clothes and trailing brightly-hued veils in their wake. They spoke in harsh, high-pitched voices, too, and seemed for ever restless; but their money—ah, their money flowed from them like a stream of quicksilver, that only needed diverting into the right channels, by means of pink coral or necklaces of seed, to make one wealthy beyond belief.
"What a darling!" one of these women had said on the wharf, catching sight of Felisi in her modest blue wrapper. "My dear, look at the child's hair! And such eyes!" Felisi had suffered the mauling that followed—the stroking of her hair and velvety skin—with becoming modesty, but she had learnt that she was a "darling," that she possessed hair and eyes, and that they and a reed basket of worthless coral netted her matiquali (tribe) five shillings. Oh, it was wonderful what could be learnt in Levuka! After it, Luana was a tomb.
People had begun to move under the wide awning of the launch, and presently a native dived cleanly from the bows. The water was up to his neck, and he slowly dragged the launch nearer shore. When he had waded waist deep, he backed against the gunwale, and a man in white ducks, with his trousers rolled to the knee, climbed on his shoulders and was carried ashore. Another white man followed in like manner, and they both stood on the wet sand, directing the natives as they landed bundles of all shapes and sizes neatly sewn in green rot-proof canvas. It seemed to Felisi that the entire merchandise of Levuka had been shipped to Luana for some inscrutable reason.
"I think that's the lot," said the taller of the two visitors, a gaunt man with remarkably thin legs and large feet, and a kind though careworn face.
"Yes, Sir John, that is all," replied the other. He was short and pink, and perspiring freely.
"Then you may as well get on with it."
The tall man turned and strolled along the beach, stopping now and then to burrow into the wet sand with his toes,and unearth the queer live things that lived there. Every now and then, too, he would fling his arms wide above his head, and let them fall to his sides with a sigh of deep satisfaction. It was as though he had been cramped, and was now rejoicing in his freedom. He was doing just what Felisi had seen her brother do—the one who stole the canoe—when he came out of Levuka gaol into the sunlight. Her heart went out to the tall man with thin legs and big feet.
And the other? Undoubtedly he was mad. He trotted this way and that in the hot sand, until his pink face turned to red and then to purple. He was trying to make the natives hurry, which, of course, was not only impossible, but ridiculous. Were there not three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, each one of which was equally suitable for unpacking green bundles? Nevertheless, he continued to hurry himself, and to such purpose that, before the sun had sunk into the sea, a green village had sprung into being on the edge of the beach under the palms—nothing less. It appeared that each bundle contained a house, or something appertaining to a house, and now it was all in place.
The miracle-worker, mopping his solar as he went, crossed the beach to his companion, who was sitting dabbling his large feet in a rock pool.
"All is now ready, Sir John," he said.
"Ah, good!" answered the tall man, leaning forward and picking up a soldier crab between finger and thumb.