A Primal Woman

Something about the female of the species which most of us appreciate but seldom realize. It is a tragedy of first principles, but a tragedy that leaves us satisfied.

Utara lies northeast of Clermont Tonnerre, a high island out of trade tracks and the most lonely and beautiful in the Pacific.

Lygon sighted it first at dawn one clear, almost windless morning and from the deck of the Sarah Dodsley, a whaler, a year out from New Bedford.

They had taken the westward trail by Cape Verde round the Horn to New Zealand and up by the Kermadecs and then between the Gambiers and Low Archipelago. They were half full of oil, and an offense to the freshness of the morning, and Lygon, as he stood on the greasy deck with the perfumed land wind blowing on his face and the first rays of the sun touching the twin peaks of Utara, thought he saw paradise.

He was a gentleman, and whatever crime or foolishness had pursued him to New Bedford and chased him aboard the Sarah Dodsley had been paid for during the last year. The smoke of the try works, the hazing of the Yankee captain—no honest old whaling captain, but a slim, dried, sandy-haired east coaster—the clank of the cutting tackles, the very voices of his companions, had embittered his soul.

The Sarah Dodsley had run out of wood, that was why Captain Sellers had brought her up to Utara, but he had no intention of entering the lagoon. He hove to outside the reef and ordered three boats away, under the direction of the first mate.

Lygon was in the mate’s boat.

They found the break in the reef and entered the lagoon on the swell of the incoming tide. The level rays of the newly risen sun lit the white beach down to which trooped the trees—breadfruit and pendanus, artus and cocoa palms—overshot with flights of colored birds and whispered to by the morning wind.

On the beach where ten-inch waves were falling, half a dozen natives stood watching the oncoming boats, and now from a frame house half hidden in the grove to the right came the figure of a tall old man, a European, dressed in white clothes and carrying a gun resting on the crook of his arm.

The people of the island showed no sign of welcome to the newcomers, and as the boats beached they drew off to the right and stood silent, observant, and without motion in the shade of the trees.

“Friendly crowd,” said the mate. “Guess they don’t like whalers. Now, boys, out with the axes and look lively. Follow me, and you, Brown, stick to the boats and see those Kanakas don’t get handling the gear. If you have any trouble give a blow on this whistle.”

He handed over the whistle and, leading the axmen, walked up the beach and vanished in the woods.

Brown was the name Lygon was known by on the Sarah Dodsley .

Lygon had made his plan even as they were crossing the lagoon. He had expected to be among the woodcutters and he had planned to escape the moment they were among the trees. The post of boat tender made the thing more difficult, for the island crowd, headed by the old man with the gun, were watching him and seemingly with no friendly eyes.

He was not a moment in making up his mind. Leaving the boats to look after themselves, he walked up the burning white beach toward the Kanakas. As he came he noticed that the old man shifted his hold on the gun.

Within speaking distance he halted.

“What is it you want?” asked the man with the gun. He spoke with a French accent and Lygon, close to him, now took heart. Here was a man of his own class, a fine type of Frenchman, upstanding for all his years, and with a level, open gaze that compelled trust from all but the untrustworthy.

“I want to escape,” said he, speaking in French. “That ship is a whaler. I have been on her a year, and it’s either escape or death for me.”

“You are English,” said the other, “though you speak my language well, and a gentleman. What brought you on board her?”

“Foolishness,” said Lygon.

The old man was silent for a moment, gazing at him as if he would read his very soul. Then he spoke.

“We have had two whalers here,” said he, “and we want no more.”

“I can well understand that,” said Lygon.

“Those men are even now cutting down our trees without permission,” said the other. “Let them go beyond that——” He slipped his hand on the gun stock. It was a Winchester repeater.

Lygon nodded.

“They take even the lives and liberty of men,” said he, “just as they are taking your trees. You can understand why I want to escape.”

“My name is Captain Charles Jourdain,” said the old man, “and yours?”

“George Lygon—that is my real name—on board that ship of the infernal regions I was known by the name of Brown.” The old man looked at him again long and thoughtfully.

Then he turned on his heel. “Follow me,” said he.

Lygon followed him among the trees toward the house. As they passed the house door a little girl came out, the prettiest child in the world, a half-caste, with a flower of the scarlet hibiscus showing in the dusk of her hair.

“My little daughter,” said Captain Jourdain. Then to the child: “Kineia, the bad white men are still here. Listen, they are cutting our trees. Here is one we must hide from them. Should they come here you will say nothing of him.”

“Nothing, father,” said Kineia, gazing at the stranger with wide-pupiled eyes.

The captain led the way round to the storehouses. He was the sole trader on this island, working the business with his own schooner and through an agent in San Francisco. He passed the go-downs where copra was stored and led the way to a building behind them where he kept trade goods.

“You will be safe here,” said the captain, unlocking the door, “and Kineia will bring you some food. You could, of course, hide in the woods, but it is safer here—with the key in my pocket.”

Lygon went in and the captain turned the key on him.

Just at that moment the Yankee mate, coming out on the beach from among the trees, found Lygon gone. He was about to raise a hue and cry and call off the wood parties for a search, then he got command of himself. To search these woods would take a week, and if Lygon’s escape were known it might set an example to the others and half a dozen men might be lost. So instead of making a fuss, he told the others that “Brown” had been sent off to try and get fruit.

They did not know the truth of the matter till the wood was aboard and the Sarah Dodsley’s stern was turned to Utara, dark against a blazing sunset.