The Frenchman’s Pearl.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 26, 25 June 1913, Page 7

The Frenchman ’s Pearl.

A Hoodoo Gem of the South Seas.

By

JAMES COWAN.

yy r MONGST the many Pacific 1 I Islands trading vessels which JI used to sail in and out of the port of Auckland, there was,many years ago, a craft that carried to some of Us along the waterfront a special and peculiar flavour of South Sea romance, to which her name, her history,

her nationality, and her vocation each contributed. The facts that she possessed Island flavours of another sort, amongst which that of stale and bilge-watery Copra was the most insistent and unmistakable, and that the white men in her crew frequently swore that they didn't know whether they or the cockroaches owned the sleeping-bunks, did not prevail over the general atmosphere of romantic maritime adventure. Her name was the Nautilus, and she flew the Chilian flag; she was a brigantine of something over two hundred tons, a black-painted square-sterned oil fabric of obviously American build; loftily sparred, and despite her age and leakiness a fast sailer. Although she traded under the colours of Chili, she was really a French vessel; her owner was a veteran Franco-Italian whose headquarters were on the far away coral group of Mangareva, or the Gambier Islands, half-way between New Zealand and the coast ot South America; and the Nautiljis traded chiefly for that French-ruled archipelago to Tahiti and Auckland, with an occasional run across to \ alparaiso. Her work lay amongst the pearl-shell islands, and many hundreds of thousands ot pounds’ worth of shell, and pearls, too, the ancient hooker carried in her time. Once she had been a crack mail liner between Tahiti and San Francisco, and she was reputed to have made a phenomenally’ fast run between those places with despatches at the time of tin- Francotierman War in 1870. She left her bones at last on a coral reef in the dangerous Paumotus, the Low Archipelago. And it was a voyage or two before that last fatal one of hers that she brought to Auckland the old French sailor-trader Pierre Libeau and his “ hoodoo ” pearl. Men with strange experiences and curious stories landed from the Island yessels those days, and Libeau was one of them. He was a lean little fellow wth a tropic-bronzed face and a spikey moustache. Once, as he told me, he had been a soldier, then a sailor, then he took to “ beach-combing,” ami had spent many years in the Eastern Pacific groups; from the high-peaked Societies and Marquesas to the low-lying atolls of the reef-infested Paumotus. Now he had made a sufficient fortune, mostly , out of pearlshell' with pearls as a sideline, and was off home to his beautiful France, for pearlshelling was no longer what it was. And in the ship-chandler’s store, where the Island schooner men used to gather in those times, sitting around on boxes and coils of rope and anything that eame handy, Libeau one day talked pearl-lagoon with half a dozen other South Sea skippers and traders. After a while, he put his hands into the breast pocket of his coat ami took out a tin matchbox. Opening •this, he displayed to view, carefully packed in cotton-wool, a pearl that made liis companions gape in astonishment. It was a splendidly lustrous and symmetrical gem, and of' great size, quite half an inch in diameter; from its centre, whichever wav vou viewed it. came numberless rays of light,, radiating from a luminous' point. H glowed with light, as if all tin sunshine of the South Seas had penetrated to its home in the. coralringed lagoon, and imbued it. with the pure crystalline brightness of the tropics. When the pearl had gone round the group, evoking exclamations of admiration from .the Island men, Libeau returned it to his pocket, “That pearl’s worth nil of two thou .sand dollars,” he said. " Ami 1 bought it three month* ago Irqm.ir Kanaka sailor belonging to the Nautilus for tit

teen dollars in American gold and a little 1 Swiss musical alarm clock. But, if t 1 had liked, I could have got it for even : less; the native was anxious to get rid 1 of it. Because, messieurs, it’s hoodoo 1 that's what the Yankees would call it — ’ hoodoo. Do you know what that is ? Bewitched—the evil eye! Thate what hoodoo is—the old West Indian nigger 1 word. Well, the I’aumotuans have thenown word for it, but it means, the-same thing—it’s unlucky, and to have it for long is fatal.” ‘ “What the Maoris call ‘makutu,’ 1 suppose,” said one man, an old schooner captain who had a Maori wife. “ But how is it, then,” asked another,/ “ that you’re toting it round with you. Mister Lee Bow ? Isn’t it risky?” “I won’t have it much longer,” re- . plied the Frenchman, with a smile. “1 came up to Auckland partly to get rid of it. But I wanted to show it to some of you Island men first, before I take it to the Bank. And if you like I’ll tell you the store. Some of you perhaps will say it's all one of those native cock-and-bull yarns; still, there’s something in it. or I wouldn't have the pearl now.” This was the slow the little Frenchman told, as it had been toll to'him by Vaeran, the brown sailor on the 2\autilue, on the beach in the Fakarava Lagoon. , . The history of the pearl, so far as was known to mortal men. began a year previously, in the lagoon at Rikitea. whien is a famous pearl-shelling place, m the Gambier Islands. A trader and schooner-owner there had a number of natives, amongst whom happened to be Vaerau himself, diving for shell in the calm reef-circled waters. It often happened. unless the white man was very vigilant that the natives secreted the pearls found in the great oysters when they were opened. And so it chanced, while the' “papalangi’s” back was turned, a Mangareva man, in opening with ins long keen knife a peculiarly shaped shell—it was exactly like a heart, and was nearly black in colour—discovered tins beautiful pearl. Ho instantly slipped it into his mouth. When he reached his hut he showed it to his wife and to \ aerau. who was her brother, and the three debated wavs ami means of disposing of it. It would be impossible to do so in Rikitea. because the gendarme would very quickly be called in to arrest the seller on suspicion of having stolen it from the “papalangi’s” shell'. Nor would it be possible to sell it to the captain of the Nautilus, the regular trader to Rikitea, for the same reason. So the diver waited. He went no more a-diving for the white man, and always he carried the peail with him, tied up in a cunning fashion in the plaited fibre girdle which he wore about his waist to fasten his print lavalava.” One day. about a. . week later, tins Mangareva man went out to the reetentrance in his little outrigger canoe, fishing. He never returned. The canoe, capsized, with a broken outrigger, was found floating in the lagoon next day. There were marks on the frail timbers’ as of huge and savage teeth. And a day or two after that a great shark, one of the man-eating kind, was caught by a party of native men who were out in a whaleboat searching for further signs of the missing man. Towing the sea-beast to the beach, they opened him, as was the custom, to see what his belly contained. And there, in the monster shark’s maw, they found one of the Mangareva man’s bands, recognisable by the tattoo marks on it, and his fibre girdle. That was nil. The girdle was returned to the wailing widow, and she tangi-d over it, the relic of her loved one. ’Ami presently, bethinking herself of the pearl, she opened the girdle, and there she found it. Now, the thought came to the woman that the theft of this so lovely pearl was the thing which led the shark-god to attack the canoe and kill and, eat her husband. Tlierefofe Site was' desperate

with desire to rid her of the pearl. She could easily have thrown it into the lagoon again, hut some strange feeling, some unforeseen power, prevented her. She could uot destroy it; she must part with it, by gift or Garter, Jo some living person. Mysterious fears crept over her as she looked upon it, for it seemed alive and malignant. She told Vaerau of her feelings. He offered to take the pearl, and -sell it in Tahiti if he could, for he was about to sail as a sailor in the Nautilus, and the first port would be Papeete. So off sailed Vaerau, bearing the pearl. On the voyage to Tahiti he showed the gem to the boatswain of the brigantine, a French-Tahitian half-caste. This man, after some bargaining, purchased the pearl for 50doi, which Vaerau was very glad to get, particularly so as he had reason to fear the gendarmes in Papeete. I hat very night the boatswain fell overboard from the forecastle-head and was drowned or, rather, the sharks got him, for there was a rush of horrible Hashing forms to the spot where he fell, before the ship could be brought to the wind And a boat lowered. Now, here happened a. strung thing. No sooner did the news of the boatswain’s fate spread through the ship than Vaerau, happening to put his hand in the pocket of his dungaree trousers, pulled out the pearl which he had given to the other man a few hours before! Of course, it would be said at once that Vaerau had quietly stolen the pearl back again as soon as lie heard the boatswain was gone. But he swore to the French trader that ho did not. The pearl was bewitched, this was evident ; otherwise how could it convey itself to his pocket in an instant of time from the dead sailor’s locked sea-chest ? Vaerau, very’ much puzzled and worried, now decided to give. the pearl away to anyone who would take it in Papeete, if he could not safely sell it. The first man whom Vaerau met, on landing from his ship on the Papeete beach, was an acquaintance of his, a Tahiti native, something of a chief and a man of money. To him, eagerly, he showed the pearl. At once the Tahitian bought it. taking Vaerau to his house and paying him GOdol for it. The purchaser, secretly rejoicing at his bargain —for he knew something of pearls and tli/'ir value—took the sailor to his home and generously entertained him. and to his family lu>showed the beautiful seagern. It fascinated the brown people, and none more so than white-haired old Malama, the mother of the Tahiti man’s wife. She was by repute a ‘‘wise woman,” a seeress, and a reader of omens. She gazed long and earnestly at the pearl. Then said she: "It is evil ; it is possessed by a malignant spirit, an aitu. The waves of light move outwards like the arms of an octopus! Take it and cast it into the sea, lest it bewitch us all ! But the son-in-law laughed, and bade the old woman cease her foolish heathen pratings-: and lie shut the pearl up again in a little box. and he feasted the sailor Vaerau. and there was no more talk of casting the pearl into the sea. Ihe old “wise woman” crouched in her corner of the big thatched house, and watched hei son-in-law and the sailor with sorrowful eves, but spoke not a word.

Next morning the Tahitian saddled his horse and rode into the town to call upon an English merchant when he knew with intent to sell him the pearl. Vaerau. who' had stayed in the house all night, tarried a while with the family, for it was pleasant there, ami they much of him. I • K ‘ n * le M ‘ out'along the road tinder the coeoanuts, intending to walk leisurely into the town and rejoin his ship. But he had not gone far when, to his astonishment and alarm, he met. the riderless horse trotting back along the path. Catching it and mounting, lie rode quieklv along, ami there he found, presently.' lying on the roadside, his friend the Tahiti man; his nock was broken! and in his outstretched hand he held the little box that held the pearl. Vaerau. amazed, and sorrowing greatly, managed to lift the dead man on to the horse, and then some natives from a near-by house joining him, he led the horse back to the house he had just left. And before the weeping family he laid the pearl; it was theirs. But they would not touch it; it was accursed. “Go!” shrieked old Malania. “Go! and take your death dealing thing back to the •deep sea. Take it, and never let us look upon your face again!" That was Vaerau’s first and last at-

tempt to sell the pearl in Papeete. llhad a pocketful of dollars, and th* pearl he wanted not. Biit he, like th* woman on the beach at Rikitea, felt e mysterious disinclination to rid himself of it by dropping it into the sea. Vae ran was a businesslike sort of Kanaka by reason of his many voyagings, am! was not usually ridden by superstitious forebodings. Still he had now sold the “hoodoo” pearl twice, and he felt he’e be a lot happier without it. So, one day, when he went into the Frenchman Pierre Libeau’s store in the Paumotus and found the trader about to give up business and sail for Auckland and Eu rope, he produced the pearl, and, when he had told its story, asked the tradei if he would buy and lake the risk. Anc Libeau jumped at it. ‘'•'That was three months ago." said the little Frenchman, as he made an end of his yarn. “And coming up from the Islands, poor \ aerau came to grief fell from aloft when he was furling the fore-royal and got smashed up stone dead on the forecastle head. I don’t know who got his dollars or his Swismusical clock. But I’ve got the pearl and I’m not dead yet. Still, I’m taking no risks. It’s going into the Bank oi New Zealand this afternoon, and it will be in a Paris dealer’s hands in six weeks, and I don’t want to see it again/