“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.
[Illustration: PINEAPPLE PLANTATION, FIJI]
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.