'Is there likely to be any difficulty?'
'Not if you handle him right."
'Captain Wainwright, I should be infinitely obliged if you would help me through the whole of this business. There must be no misunderstanding, no disagreement, no time lost.'
'Of course I will, sir. But it is I that am obliged: your Mr Bentley's mate is caulking our red whale-boat at this moment, and he himself is fashioning a new rider. Perhaps, sir, if you were to show me what you have in the way of trade-goods I could pick out a reasonable return for what you are about to be given. Pakeea told me to the last yard of tapa.'
They were turning over the adzes, axes, beads, glass balls, printed cotton, brass and pewter basins, when a pahi put off from the shore, paddled by girls and commanded by an immensely stout middle-aged woman. 'That is Tereo's sister,' said Wainwright. 'A jolly old soul. It might be as well to rig a bosun's chair.'
A jolly old soul she doubtless was, for the habitual expression of her face had lined it with smiling and laughter; but at present, as she was lowered gently to the deck, she behaved with a natural and impressive gravity. Three of her maidens ran nimbly up the side to join her; they too wore clothes from knee to shoulder, being, as Wainwright whispered in Jack's ear, women of high birth, related to the great families of Tongataboo. They were taller and a lighter brown than the cheerful bare-bosomed girls in the pahi, and they too were grave. They spread out the presents - bolts of tapa cloth, dark red, orange and its natural fawn, made from bark; young hogs confined in matting; baskets of live chickens and dead wildfowl, which included a purple coot and some rails that made Martin stiffen like a setter; billets of sandalwood; baked dogs; sugar-cane, fruit and berries; and two clubs made of a hard, dark wood with a sperm-whale's tooth set in each formidable head. The frigate's crew stood on the forecastle or along the gangways, some few leering at the paddlers or exchanging nods and becks with those they had met the night before, but most watching in silent admiration.
Jack said to Wainwright 'Please tell her that I am profoundly grateful for the chief's magnificent presents; that presently I shall do myself the honour of waiting on him with an offering of our own, necessarily less beautifully attended; that I shall ask his leave to water in his island and to trade with his people for victuals; and that at present I beg that she and these young ladies will walk into the cabin. Pray make it as elegant as you can.'
Wainwright certainly made it longer and probably more elegant, for the South-Seas speakers of the Surprise were seen to nod approvingly at several passages; and at the close the chief's sister turned a benevolent face on Jack. He escorted them to the cabin, where Wainwright seated them according to the Polynesian etiquette and Jack gave each a bunch of red feathers and some other little presents. The feathers in particular were very well received; the madeira that followed less so. Their looks of pleased anticipation changed to one of astonishment, in some cases alarm. But after a stunned moment the polite smiles returned and although they were a little artificial the meeting ended with expressions of kindness and esteem on either side.
Shortly after the pahi had left for the shore Jack followed it, his coxswain and bargemen in their best; and about an hour after his return, successful in all points, Stephen first appeared on deck. Admittedly he had slept late, and he had been long delayed in the sick-berth, yet even so he was astonished to see the sun so high and the day so bright, the ship such a hive of activity, the beach so thronged with people and dashed with colour: for in this brilliant light even a pyramid of coconuts on the white coral strand with aquamarine sea in front and the green of palms and gardens behind, was a fine living tawny brown: to say nothing of the heaps of bananas, yams, breadfruit, taro roots and leaves, the baskets of shining fish. He stared and stared again. A pahi came in, the men and women of its crew all singing; they turned their broad, elaborate, beautifully-built craft round the ship in the light breeze in the most seamanlike fashion, avoiding her cables (she was now moored fore and aft) and running up on the beach to unload yet more fish. A flight of medium-sized parrots he could not identify passed over the gardens beyond the strand: a green, fast-flying pigeon. But the Surprise was a busy ship: the great water-casks were already coming aboard, rising up from the launch, swaying in over the deck with many a cry of Ail together - way-oh - handsomely, there - God damn your eyes and limbs, Joe - half an inch, half an inch, half an inch forward, mate and vanishing down the main hatchway to muffled but sometimes more passionate cries far below.
And water was not all by any means. It had been agreed between Jack and Tereo that all trading should take place on shore, in order to avoid the complexity of business with fifty canoes at once, and the market was spread out, wide, handsome and remarkably varied. The Surprise's chief kinds of trade-goods, tools and everything metal; bottles and everything glass; cloth and the much valued hats; gauds, beads and trinkets, were in barrels with a seaman sitting on each; the bartering was carried out first by Wainwright, who set some kind of a standard, and then on that basis by the more knowing Surprises. Their purchases flowed aboard in a steady stream, to be received by Mr Adams, his steward, Jack-in-the-Dust, Jemmy Ducks where poultry was concerned, and Weightman, the ship's butcher, where it was a question of hogs.
These creatures had been arriving in ones and twos since well before Stephen was afoot, rather small, razor-backed, long-legged, dark and hairy swine, inexpressibly welcome to the little girls. They were the same as the hogs of their native Sweeting's Island in appearance, voice and above all smelclass="underline" they brought back times past with such force that both girls wept, spoke to them in the Melanesian they had almost entirely forgotten, and comforted them in their distress - they were penned on the forecastle until there should be time to enlarge the quarters below where yesterday's hogs were kept, and the animals were both anxious and frightened. Yet those below were in a still more wretched state, and when they heard and smelt others of their kind overhead they set up a hideous din: this too was perfectly familiar to Emily and Sarah. They ran to Jemmy Ducks and told him the creatures were starved; they were calling out for food. For a great while Jemmy, who was much taken up with his chickens, put them off, saying that hogs was butcher's business; but at last they pestered him so that in a lull he went up to Weightman, one of the very few thoroughly disagreeable men aboard, and suggested that the hogs below sounded hungry. He received the abuse he expected - who did he think he was, telling the barky's butcher about hogs? Did Weightman tell Jemmy Ducks how to look after his fucking hens? Or turtles? Turtles, kiss my arse. In any case, the hogs below had been fed; had been offered every goddam thing the ship contained, from bread to tobacco, passing by a prime bucket of swill. And would they touch it? No, squire, they would not. And Weightman would be buggered if he offered them anything again: they should be salted and put up while there was still any flesh on their bones; and if Jemmy Ducks did not like it, why, he could do the other thing.