/^'^
 
 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
 
 Books by 
 W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM 
 
 NOVELS 
 
 Theatre 
 The Narrow Corner Cakes and Ale 
 
 Ashenden The Painted Veil 
 
 The Moon and Sixpence Of Human Bondage 
 
 Mrs Craddock Liza of Lambeth 
 
 SHORT STORIES 
 
 Cosmopolitans Ah King 
 First Person Singular The Casuarina Tree 
 The Trembling of a Leaf East and West 
 
 TRAVEL 
 
 On a Chinese Screen Don Fernando 
 The Gentleman in The Land of the 
 The Parlour Blessed Virgin 
 
 PLAYS 
 
 For Services Rendered A Man of Honour 
 
 The Bread-winner Penelope 
 
 The Sacred Flame Jack Straw 
 
 Sheppey Lady Frederick 
 
 The Constant Wife The Tenth Man 
 
 The Circle Landed Gentry 
 
 The Explorer The Unknown 
 
 Mrs Dot Smith 
 
 Our Betters The Land of Promise 
 Six Comedies
 
 THE TREMBLING 
 OF A LEAF 
 
 BY 
 
 W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM 
 
 MCMXXXIX 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & CoMPANY, InC. 
 
 New York
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 CL 
 
 COPYRIGHT, I92I 
 
 BT DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, IMC. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 TO 
 
 BERTRAM ALANSON
 
 V extreme felicile a peine siparee par 
 une feuille tremblante de Vextreme 
 desespoiff n'est-ce pas la vie? 
 
 Sainte-Beuve.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I The Pacific i3 
 
 II Mackintosh iS 
 
 III The Fall of Edward Barnard ... 66 
 
 IV Red "S 
 
 V The Pool 148 
 
 VI Honolulu . . . . , 205 
 
 VII Rain 241 
 
 VIII Envoi 302
 
 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF
 
 THE TREMBLING 
 OF A LEAF 
 
 The Pacific 
 
 THE Pacific is inconstant and uncertain like 
 the soul of man. Sometimes it Is grey like 
 the English Channel off Beachy Head, with a heavy 
 swell, and sometimes it Is rough, capped with white 
 crests, and boisterous. It is not so often that it is 
 calm and blue. Then, Indeed, the blue Is arrogant. 
 The sun shines fiercely from an unclouded sky. The 
 trade wind gets Into your blood and you are filled 
 with an Impatience for the unknown. The billows, 
 magnificently rolling, stretch widely on all sides 
 of you, and you forget your vanished youth, with 
 its memories, cruel and sweet, In a restless. Intol- 
 erable desire for life. On such a sea as this Ulysses 
 sailed when he sought the Happy Isles. But there 
 are days also when the Pacific is like a lake. The 
 sea Is flat and shining. The flying fish, a gleam of 
 shadow on the brightness of a mirror, make little 
 fountains of sparkling drops when they dip. There 
 are fleecy clouds on the horizon, and at sunset they 
 take strange shapes so that It Is Impossible not to
 
 14 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 believe that you see a range of lofty mountains. 
 They are the mountains of the country of your 
 dreams. You sail through an unimaginable si- 
 lence upon a magic sea. Now and then a few gulls 
 suggest that land is not far off, a forgotten island 
 hidden in a wilderness of waters; but the gulls, the 
 melancholy gulls, are the only sign you have of it. 
 You see never a tramp, with its friendly smoke, no 
 stately bark or trim schooner, not a fishing boat 
 even: it is an empty desert; and presently the empti- 
 ness fills you with a vague foreboding.
 
 n 
 
 Mackintosh 
 
 HE splashed about for a few minutes In the sea; 
 it was too shallow to swim in and for fear of 
 sharks he could not go out of his depth; then he 
 got out and went into the bath-house for a shower. 
 The coldness of the fresh water was grateful after 
 the heavy stickiness of the salt Pacific, so warm, 
 though it was only just after seven, that to bathe in 
 it did not brace you but rather increased your lan- 
 guor; and when he had dried himself, slipping into a 
 bath-gown, he called out to the Chinese cook that he 
 would be ready for breakfast in five minutes. He 
 walked barefoot across the patch of coarse grass 
 which Walker, the administrator, proudly thought 
 was a lawn, to his own quarters and dressed. This 
 did not take long, for he put on nothing but a shirt 
 and a pair of duck trousers and then went over to his 
 chief's house on the other side of the compound. 
 The two men had their meals together, but the 
 Chinese cook told him that Walker had set out on 
 horseback at five and would not be back for another 
 hour. 
 
 Mackintosh had slept badly and he looked with 
 distaste at the paw-paw and the eggs and bacon 
 which were set before him. The mosquitoes had 
 
 \5
 
 IC THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 been maddening that night; they flew about the net 
 under which he slept in such numbers that their 
 humming, pitiless and menacing, had the effect of a 
 note, infinitely drawn out, played on a distant or- 
 gan, and whenever he dozed off he awoke with a 
 start in the belief that one had found Its way inside 
 his curtains. It was so hot that he lay naked. He 
 turned from side to side. And gradually the dull 
 roar of the breakers on the reef, so unceasing and 
 so regular that generally you did not hear it, grew 
 distinct on his consciousness, its rhythm hammered 
 on his tired nerves and he held himself with clenched 
 hands in the effort to bear It. The thought that 
 nothing could stop that sound, for it would con- 
 tinue to all eternity, was almost Impossible to bear, 
 and, as though his strength were a match for the 
 ruthless forces of nature, he had an insane impulse 
 to do some violent thing. He felt he must cling to 
 his self-control or he would go mad. And now, 
 looking out of the window at the lagoon and the 
 strip of foam which marked the reef, he shuddered 
 with hatred of the brilliant scene. The cloudless 
 sky was like an inverted bowl that hemmed it in. 
 He lit his pipe and turned over the pile of Auck- 
 land papers that had come over from Apia a few 
 days before. The newest of them was three weeks 
 old. They gave an Impression of incredible dull- 
 ness. 
 
 Then he went into the office. It was a large, 
 bare room with two desks in it and a bench along 
 one side. A number of natives were seated on 
 this, and a couple of women. They gossip'^d while
 
 MACKINTOSH 17 
 
 they waited for the administrator, and when Mack- 
 intosh came in they greeted him. 
 
 ''Talofa n." 
 
 He returned their greeting and sat down at his 
 desk. He began to write, working on a report 
 which the governor of Samoa had been clamouring 
 for and which Walker, with his usual dilatoriness, 
 had neglected to prepare. Mackintosh as he made 
 his notes reflected vindictively that Walker was late 
 with his report because he was so illiterate that he 
 had an invincible distaste for anything to do with 
 pens and paper; and now when It was at last ready, 
 concise and neatly official, he would accept his subor- 
 dinate's work without a word of appreciation, with 
 a sneer rather or a gibe, and send It on to his own 
 superior as though it were his own composition. 
 He could not have written a word of It. Mack- 
 intosh thought with rage that if his chief pencilled 
 in some insertion it would be childish in expression 
 and faulty in language. If he remonstrated or 
 sought to put his meaning into an intelligible phrase, 
 Walker would fly into a passion and cry: 
 
 "What the hell do I care about grammar? 
 That's what I want to say and that's how I want 
 to say it." 
 
 At last Walker came In. The natives surrounded 
 him as he entered, trying to get his immediate at- 
 tention, but he turned on them roughly and told 
 them to sit down and hold their tongues. He 
 threatened that if they were not quiet he would 
 have them all turned out and see none of them 
 that day. He nodded to Mackintosh.
 
 18 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 *'Hulloa, Mac; up at last? I don't know how 
 you can waste the best part of the day in bed. You 
 ought to have been up before dawn hke me. Lazy 
 beggar." 
 
 He threw himself heavily into his chair and 
 wiped his face with a large bandana. 
 
 "By heaven, I've got a thirst." 
 
 He turned to the policeman who stood at the 
 door, a picturesque figure in his white jacket and 
 lava-lava, the loin cloth of the Samoan, and told 
 him to bring kava. The kava bowl stood on the 
 floor in the corner of the room, and the policeman 
 filled a half coconut shell and brought it to Walker. 
 He poured a few drops on the ground, murmured 
 the customary words to the company, and drank 
 with relish. Then he told the policeman to serve 
 the waiting natives, and the shell was handed to 
 each one in order of birth or importance and emp- 
 tied with the same ceremonies. 
 
 Then he set about the day's work. He was a lit- 
 tle man, considerably less than of middle height, 
 and enormously stout; he had a large, fleshy face, 
 clean-shaven, with the cheeks hanging on each side 
 in great dew-laps, and three vast chins; his small 
 features were all dissolved in fat; and, but for a 
 crescent of white hair at the back of his head, he 
 was completely bald. He reminded you of Mr 
 Pickwick. He was grotesque, a figure of fun, and 
 yet, strangely enough, not without dignity. His 
 blue eyes, behind large gold-rimmed spectacles, were 
 shrewd and vivacious, and there was a great deal 
 of determination In his face. He was sixty, but
 
 MACKINTOSH 19 
 
 his native vitality triumphed over advancing years. 
 Notwithstanding his corpulence his movements 
 were quick, and he walked with a heavy, resolute 
 tread as though he sought to impress his weight 
 upon the earth. He spoke in a loud, gruff voice. 
 
 It was two years now since Mackintosh had been 
 appointed Walker's assistant. Walker, who had 
 been for a quarter of a century administrator of 
 Talua, one of the larger islands in the Samoan 
 group, was a man known in person or by report 
 through the length and breadth of the South Seas; 
 and It was with lively curiosity that Mackintosh 
 looked forward to his first meeting with him. For 
 one reason or another he stayed a couple of weeks 
 at Apia before he took up his post and both at 
 Chaplin's hotel and at the English club he heard 
 innumerable stories about the administrator. He 
 thought now with irony of his interest in them. 
 Since then he had heard them a hundred times 
 from Walker himself. Walker knew that he was a 
 character, and, proud of his reputation, deliberately 
 acted up to it. He was jealous of his "legend" 
 and anxious that you should know the exact details 
 of any of the celebrated stories that were told of 
 him. He was ludicrously angry with anyone who 
 had told them to the stranger Incorrectly. 
 
 There was a rough cordiality about Walker which 
 Mackintosh at first found not unattractive, and 
 Walker, glad to have a listener to whom all he 
 said was fresh, gave of his best. He was good- 
 humoured, hearty, and considerate. To Mackin- 
 tosh, who had lived the sheltered life of a govern-
 
 20 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 mcnt official In London till at the age of thirty-four 
 an attack of pneumonia, leaving him with the threat 
 of tuberculosis, had forced him to seek a post in 
 the Pacific, Walker's existence seemed extraordi- 
 narily romantic. The adventure with which he 
 started on his conquest of circumstance was typical 
 of the man. He ran away to sea when he was fif- 
 teen and for over a year was employed in shovel- 
 ling coal on a collier. He was an undersized boy 
 and both men and mates were kind to him, but the 
 captain for some reason conceived a savage dislike 
 of him. He used the lad cruelly so that, beaten 
 and kicked, he often could not sleep for the pain 
 that racked his limbs. He loathed the captain with 
 all his soul. Then he was given a tip for some 
 race and managed to borrow twenty-five pounds 
 from a friend he had picked up in Belfast. He put 
 it on the horse, an outsider, at long odds. He had 
 no means of repaying the money if he lost, but 
 it never occurred to him that he could lose. He 
 felt himself in luck. The horse won and he found 
 himself with something over a thousand pounds in 
 hard cash. Now his chance had come. He found 
 out who was the best solicitor in the town — the col- 
 lier lay then somewhere on the Irish coast — went 
 to him, and, telling him that he heard the ship was 
 for sale, asked him to arrange the purchase for 
 him. The solicitor was amused at his small client, 
 he was only sixteen and did not look so old, and, 
 moved perhaps by sympathy, promised not only to 
 arrange the matter for him but to see that he made 
 a good bargain. After a little while Walker found
 
 MACKINTOSH 21 
 
 himself the owner of the ship. He went back to 
 her and had what he described as the most glori- 
 ous moment of his life when he gave the skipper 
 notice and told him that he must get off his ship in 
 half an hour. He made the mate captain and sailed 
 on the collier for another nine months, at the end 
 of which he sold her at a profit. 
 
 He came out to the islands at the age of twenty- 
 six as a planter. He was one of the few white men 
 settled in Talua at the time of the German occu- 
 pation and had then already some influence with 
 the natives. The Germans made him administra- 
 tor, a position which he occupied for twenty years, 
 and when the island was seized by the British he 
 was confirmed in his post. He ruled the island 
 despotically, but with complete success. The pres- 
 tige of this success was another reason for the in- 
 terest that Mackintosh took in him. 
 
 But the two men were not made to get on. Mack- 
 intosh was an ugly man, with ungainly gestures, a 
 tall thin fellow, with a narrow chest and bowed 
 shoulders. He had sallow, sunken cheeks, and his 
 eyes were large and sombre. He was a great 
 reader, and when his books arrived and were un- 
 packed Walker came over to his quarters and looked 
 at them. Then he turned to Mackintosh with a 
 coarse laugh. 
 
 "What in Hell have you brought all this muck 
 for?" he asked. 
 
 Mackintosh flushed darkly. 
 
 "I'm sorry you think it muck. I brought my 
 books because I want to read them."
 
 S8 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "When you said you'd got a lot of books coming 
 I thought there'd be something for me to read. 
 Haven't you got any detective stories?" 
 "Detective stories don't interest me." 
 "You're a damned fool then." 
 "I'm content that you should think so." 
 Every mall brought Walker a mass of periodical 
 literature, papers from New Zealand and magazines 
 from America, and it exasperated him that Mackin- 
 tosh showed his contempt for these ephemeral pub- 
 lications. He had no patience with the books that 
 absorbed Mackintosh's leisure and thought It only a 
 pose that he read Gibbon's Decline and Fall or 
 Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. And since he 
 had never learned to put any restraint on his tongue, 
 he expressed his opinion of his assistant freely. 
 Mackintosh began to see the real man, and under 
 the boisterous good-humour he discerned a vulgar 
 cunning which was hateful; he was vain and domi- 
 neering, and it was strange that he had notwith- 
 standing a shyness which made him dislike people 
 who were not quite of his kidney. He judged 
 others, naively, by their language, and if It was 
 free from the oaths and the obscenity which made 
 up the greater part of his own conversation, he 
 looked upon them with suspicion. In the evening 
 the two men played piquet. He played badly but 
 valngloriously, crowing over his opponent when he 
 won and losing his temper when he lost. On rare 
 occasions a couple of planters or traders would drive 
 over to play bridge, and then Walker showed him- 
 self in what Mackintosh considered a characteristic
 
 MACKINTOSH 23 
 
 light. He played regardless of his partner, call- 
 ing up in his desire to play the hand, and argued in- 
 terminably, beating down opposition by the loud- 
 ness of his voice. He constantly revoked, and when 
 he did so said with an ingratiating whine: "Oh, 
 you wouldn't count it against an old man who can 
 hardly see." Did he know that his opponents 
 thought it as well to keep on the right side of him 
 and hesitated to insist on the rigour of the game? 
 Mackintosh watched him with an icy contempt. 
 When the game was over, while they smoked their 
 pipes and drank whisky, they would begin telling 
 stories. Walker told with gusto the story of his 
 marriage. He had got so drunk at the wedding 
 feast that the bride had fled and he had never seen 
 her since. He had had numberless adventures, 
 commonplace and sordid, with the women of the 
 island and he described them with a pride in his 
 own prowess which was an offence to Mackintosh's 
 fastidious ears. He was a gross, sensual old man. 
 He thought Mackintosh a poor fellow because he 
 would not share his promiscuous amours and re- 
 mained sober when the company was drunk. 
 
 He despised him also for the orderliness with 
 which he did his official work. Mackintosh liked 
 to do everything just so. His desk was always tidy, 
 his papers were always neatly docketed, he could 
 put his hand on any document that was needed, and 
 he had at his fingers' ends all the regulations that 
 were required for the business of their administra- 
 tion. 
 
 •'Fudge, fudge," said Walker. "I've run this
 
 84 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 island for twenty years without red tape, and I 
 don't want it now." 
 
 "Does it make it any easier for you that when 
 you want a letter you have to hunt half an hour 
 for it?" answered Mackintosh. 
 
 "You're nothing but a damned official. But 
 you're not a bad fellow; when you've been out here 
 a year or two you'll be all right. What's wrong 
 about you is that you won't drink. You wouldn't 
 be a bad sort if you got soused once a week." 
 
 The curious thing w-as that Walker remained per- 
 fectly unconscious of the dislike for him which every 
 month increased in the breast of his subordinate. 
 Although he laughed at him, as he grew accus- 
 tomed to him, he began almost to like him. He 
 had a certain tolerance for the peculiarities of 
 others, and he accepted Mackintosh as a queer fish. 
 Perhaps he liked him, unconsciously, because he 
 could chaff him. His humour consisted of coarse 
 banter and he wanted a butt. Mackintosh's exact- 
 ness, his morality, his sobriety, were all fruitful 
 subjects; his Scot's name gave an opportunity for the 
 usual jokes about Scotland; he enjoyed himself thor- 
 oughly when two or three men were there and he 
 could make them all laugh at the expense of Mack- 
 intosh. He would say ridiculous things about him 
 to the natives, and Mackintosh, his knowledge of 
 Samoan still Imperfect, would see their unrestrained 
 mirth when Walker had made an obscene reference 
 to him. He smiled good-humouredly. 
 
 "I'll say this for you, Mac," Walker would say 
 in his gruff loud voice, "you can take a joke."
 
 MACKINTOSH 25 
 
 "Was It a joke?" smiled Mackintosh. "I didn't 
 know." 
 
 "Scots wha hae!" shouted Walker, with a bellow 
 of laughter. "There's only one way to make a 
 Scotchman see a joke and that's by a surgical opera- 
 tion." 
 
 Walker little knew that there was nothing Mack- 
 intosh could stand less than chaff. He would wake 
 in the night, the breathless night of the rainy sea- 
 son, and brood sullenly over the gibe that Walker 
 had uttered carelessly days before. It rankled. 
 His heart swelled with rage, and he pictured to him- 
 self ways in which he might get even with the bully. 
 He had tried answering him, but Walker had a gift 
 of repartee, coarse and obvious, which gave him 
 an advantage. The dullness of his intellect made 
 him impervious to a delicate shaft. His self-sat- 
 isfaction made it impossible to wound him. His 
 loud voice, his bellow of laughter, were weapons 
 against which Mackintosh had nothing to counter, 
 and he learned that the wisest thing was never to be- 
 tray his irritation. He learned to control himself. 
 But his hatred grew till it was a monomania. He 
 v/atchcd Walker with an insane vigilance. He fed 
 his own self-esteem by every instance of meanness 
 on Walker's part, by every exhibition of childish 
 vanity, of cunning and of vulgarity. Walker ate 
 greedily, noisily, filthily, and Mackintosh watched 
 him with satisfaction. He took note of the foolish 
 things he said and of his mistakes in grammar. He 
 knew that Walker held him in small esteem, and he 
 found a bitter satisfaction in his chief's opinion of
 
 26 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 him; It Increased his own contempt for the narrow, 
 complacent old man. And it gave him a singular 
 pleasure to know that Walker was entirely uncon- 
 scious of the hatred he felt for him. He was a fool 
 who liked popularity, and he blandly fancied that 
 everyone admired him. Once Mackintosh had 
 overheard Walker speaking of him. 
 
 "He'll be all right when I've licked him into 
 shape," he said. "He's a good dog and he loves 
 his master." 
 
 Mackintosh silently, without a movement of his 
 long, sallow face, laughed long and heartily. 
 
 But his hatred was not blind; on the contrary, it 
 was peculiarly clear-sighted, and he judged Walk- 
 er's capabilities with precision. He ruled his 
 small kingdom with efficiency. He was just and 
 honest. With opportunities to make money he was 
 a poorer man than when he was first appointed to 
 his post, and his only support for his old age was 
 the pension which he expected when at last he retired 
 from official life. His pride was that with an assist- 
 ant and a half-caste clerk he was able to administer 
 the island more competently than Upolu, the Island 
 of which Apia is the chief town, was administered 
 with Its army of functionaries. He had a few native 
 policemen to sustain his authority, but he made no 
 use of them. He governed by bluff and his Irish 
 humour. 
 
 "They Insisted on building a jail for me," he said. 
 "What the devil do I want a jail for? I'm not 
 going to put the natives in prison. If they do 
 wrong I know how to deal with them."
 
 MACKINTOSH 27 
 
 One of his quarrels with the higher authorities 
 at Apia was that he claimed entire jurisdiction over 
 the natives of his Island. Whatever their crimes he 
 would not give them up to courts competent to deal 
 with them, and several times an angry correspond- 
 ence had passed between him and the Governor at 
 Upolu. For he looked upon the natives as his 
 children. And that was the amazing thing about 
 this coarse, vulgar, selfish man; he loved the island 
 on which he had lived so long with passion, and he 
 had for the natives a strange rough tenderness 
 which was quite wonderful. 
 
 He loved to ride about the Island on his old grey- 
 mare and he was never tired of its beauty. Saun- 
 tering along the grassy roads among the coconut 
 trees he would stop every now and then to admire 
 the loveliness of the scene. Now and then he 
 would come upon a native village and stop while 
 the head man brought him a bowl of kava. He 
 would look at the little group of bell-shaped huts 
 with their high thatched roofs, like beehives, and 
 a smile would spread over his fat face. His eyes 
 rested happily on the spreading green of the bread- 
 fruit trees. 
 
 "By George, it's like the garden of Eden." 
 
 Sometimes his rides took him along the coast 
 and through the trees he had a glimpse of the wide 
 sea, empty, with never a sail to disturb the loneli- 
 ness; sometimes he climbed a hill so that a great 
 stretch of country, with little villages nestling among 
 the tall trees, was spread out before him like the 
 kingdom of the world, and he would sit there for
 
 28 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 an hour in an ecstasy of delight. But he had no 
 words to express his feelings and to relieve them 
 would utter an obscene jest; it was as though his 
 emotion was so violent that he needed vulgarity to 
 break the tension. 
 
 Mackintosh observed this sentiment with an icy 
 disdain. Walker had always been a heavy drinker, 
 he was proud of his capacity to see men half 
 his age under the table when he spent a night in 
 Apia, and he had the sentimentality of the toper. 
 He could cry over the stories he read in his maga- 
 zines and yet would refuse a loan to some trader in 
 difficulties whom he had known for twenty years. 
 He was close with his money. Once Mackintosh 
 said to him: 
 
 "No one could accuse you of giving money away." 
 He took it as a compliment. His enthusiasm 
 for nature was but the drivelling sensibility of the 
 drunkard. Nor had Mackintosh any sympathy 
 for his chief's feelings towards the natives. He 
 loved them because they were in his power, as a 
 selfish man loves his dog, and his mentality was on 
 a level with theirs. Their humour was obscene and 
 he was never at a loss for the lewd remark. He 
 understood them and they understood him. He 
 was proud of his influence over them. He looked 
 upon them as his children and he mixed himself in 
 all their affairs. But he was very jealous of his 
 authority; if he ruled them with a rod of iron, 
 brooking no contradiction, he would not suffer any 
 of the white men on the island to take advantage 
 of them. He watched the missionaries suspiciously
 
 MACKINTOSH 29 
 
 and, If they did anything of which he disapproved, 
 was able to make hfe so unendurable to them that 
 if he could not get them removed they were glad 
 to go of their own accord. His power over the na- 
 tives was so great that on his word they would refuse 
 labour and food to their pastor. On the other 
 hand he showed the traders no favour. He took 
 care that they should not cheat the natives; he saw 
 that they got a fair reward for their work and their 
 copra and that the traders made no extravagant 
 profit on the wares they sold them. He was merciless 
 to a bargain that he thought unfair. Sometimes the 
 traders would complain at Apia that they did not get 
 fair opportunities. They suffered for it. Walker 
 then hesitated at no calumny, at no outrageous lie, 
 to get even with them, and they found that If they 
 wanted not only to live at peace, but to exist at all, 
 they had to accept the situation on his own terms. 
 More than once the store of a trader obnoxious to 
 him had been burned down, and there was only the 
 appositeness of the event to show that the adminis- 
 trator had instigated it. Once a Swedish half- 
 caste, ruined by the burning, had gone to him and 
 roundly accused him of arson. Walker laughed in 
 his face. 
 
 "You dirty dog. Your mother was a native and 
 you try to cheat the natives. If your rotten old 
 store is burned down it's a judgment of Providence; 
 that's what it is, a judgment of Providence. Get 
 out." 
 
 And as the man was hustled out by two native po- 
 licemen the administrator laughed fatly.
 
 80 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "A judgment of Providence." 
 
 And now Mackintosh watched him enter upon 
 the day's work. He began with the sick, for 
 Walker added doctoring to his other activities, and 
 he had a small room behind the office full of drugs. 
 An elderly man came forward, a man with a crop 
 of curly grey hair, in a blue lava-lava, elaborately 
 tatooed, with the skin of his body wrinkled like a 
 wine-skin. 
 
 "What have you come for?" Walker asked him 
 abruptly. 
 
 In a whining voice the man said that he could not 
 eat without vomiting and that he had pains here 
 and pains there. 
 
 "Go to the missionaries," said Walker. "You 
 know that I only cure children." 
 
 "I have been to the missionaries and they do me 
 no good." 
 
 "Then go home and prepare yourself to die. 
 Have you lived so long and still want to go on liv- 
 ing? You're a fool." 
 
 The man broke into querulous expostulation, but 
 Walker, pointing to a woman with a sick child in her 
 arms, told her to bring it to his desk. He asked her 
 questions and looked at the child. 
 
 "I will give you medicine," he said. He turned 
 to the half-caste clerk. "Go into the dispensary 
 and bring me some calomel pills." 
 
 He made the child swallow one there and then 
 and gave another to the mother. 
 
 "Take the child away and keep it warm. To- 
 morrow it will be dead or better."
 
 MACKINTOSH 31 
 
 He leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe. 
 
 "Wonderful stuff, calomel. I've saved more 
 lives with it than all the hospital doctors at Apia 
 put together." 
 
 Walker was very proud of his skill, and with the 
 dogmatism of ignorance had no patience with the 
 members of the medical profession. 
 
 "The sort of case I like," he said, "is the one 
 that all the doctors have given up as hopeless. 
 When the doctors have said they can't cure you, I 
 say to them, 'come to me.' Did I ever tell you about 
 the fellow who had a cancer?" 
 
 "Frequently," said Mackintosh. 
 
 "I got him right in three months." 
 
 "You've never told me about the people you 
 haven't cured." 
 
 He finished this part of the work and went on 
 to the rest. It was a queer medley. There was 
 a woman who could not get on with her husband and 
 a man who complained that his wife had run away 
 from him. 
 
 "Lucky dog," said Walker. "Most men wish 
 their wives would too." 
 
 There was a long complicated quarrel about the 
 ownership of a few yards of land. There was a 
 dispute about the sharing out of a catch of fish. 
 There was a complaint against a white trader be- 
 cause he had given short measure. Walker lis- 
 tened attentively to every case, made up his mind 
 quickly, and gave his decision. Then he would lis- 
 ten to nothing more; if the complainant went on 
 he was hustled out of the office by a policeman.
 
 88 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 Mackintosh listened to it all with sullen irritation. 
 On the whole, perhaps, it might be admitted that 
 rough justice was done, but it exasperated the 
 assistant tliat his chief trusted his instinct rather 
 than the evidence. He would not listen to reason. 
 He browbeat the witnesses and when they did not 
 see what he wished them to called them thieves and 
 liars. 
 
 He left to the last a group of men who were sit- 
 ting in the corner of the room. He had deliber- 
 ately ignored them. The party consisted of an old 
 chief, a tall, dignified man with short, white hair, 
 in a new lava-lava, bearing a huge fly wisp as a badge 
 of office, his son, and half a dozen of the important 
 men of the village. Walker had had a feud with 
 them and had beaten them. As was characteristic 
 of him he meant now to rub in his victory, and be- 
 cause he had them down to profit by their helpless- 
 ness. The facts were peculiar. Walker had a pas- 
 sion for building roads. When he had come to 
 Talua there were but a few tracks here and there, 
 but in course of time he had cut roads through the 
 country, joining the villages together, and it was 
 to this that a great part of the island's prosperity 
 was due. Whereas in the old days it had been im- 
 possible to get the produce of the land, copra chiefly, 
 down to the coast where it could be put on schoon- 
 ers or motor launches and so taken to Apia, now 
 transport was easy and simple. His ambition was 
 to make a road right round the island and a great 
 part of it was already built.
 
 MACKINTOSH SS 
 
 "In two years I shall have done it, and then I can 
 die or they can fire me, I don't care." 
 
 His roads were the joy of his heart and he made 
 excursions constantly to see that they were kept in 
 order. They were simple enough, wide tracks, 
 grass covered, cut through the scrub or through 
 the plantations; but trees had to be rooted out, rocks 
 dug up or blasted, and here and there levelling had 
 been necessary. He was proud that he had sur- 
 mounted by his own skill such difficulties as they 
 presented. He rejoiced in his disposition of them 
 so that they were not only convenient, but showed 
 off the beauties of the island which his soul loved. 
 When he spoke of his roads he was almost a poet. 
 They meandered through those lovely scenes, and 
 Walker had taken care that here and there they 
 should run in a straight line, giving you a green vista 
 through the tall trees, and here and there should 
 turn and curve so that the heart was rested by the 
 diversity. It was amazing that this coarse and 
 sensual man should exercise so subtle an ingenuity 
 to get the effects which his fancy suggested to him. 
 He had used in making his roads all the fantastic 
 skill of a Japanese gardener. He received a grant 
 from headquarters for the work but took a curious 
 pride in using but a small part of it, and the year 
 before had spent only a hundred pounds of the 
 thousand assigned to him. 
 
 "What do they want money for?" he boomed. 
 "They'll only spend it on all kinds of muck they 
 don't want; what the missionaries leave them, that 
 is to say."
 
 84 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 For no particular reason, except perhaps pride 
 in the economy of his administration and the desire 
 to contrast his efficiency with the wasteful methods 
 of the authorities at Apia, he got the natives to do 
 the work he wanted for wages that were almost 
 nominal. It was owing to this that he had lately 
 had difficulty with the village whose chief men now 
 were come to see him. The chief's son had been 
 in Upolu for a year and on coming back had told 
 his people of the large sums that were paid at Apia 
 for the public works. In long, idle talks he had 
 inflamed their hearts with the desire for gain. He 
 held out to them visions of vast wealth and they 
 thought of the whisky they could buy — it was dear, 
 since there was a law that it must not be sold to 
 natives, and so it cost them double what the white 
 man had to pay for it — they thought of the great 
 sandal-wood boxes in which they kept their treas- 
 ures, and the scented soap and potted salmon, the 
 luxuries for which the Kanaka will sell his soul; 
 so that when the administrator sent for them and 
 told them he wanted a road made from their village 
 to a certain point along the coast and offered them 
 twenty pounds, they asked him a hundred. The 
 chief's son was called Manuma. He was a tall, 
 handsome fellow, copper-coloured, with his fuzzy 
 hair dyed red with lime, a wreath of red berries 
 round his neck, and behind his ear a flower like 
 a scarlet flame against his brown face. The upper 
 part of his body was naked, but to show that he 
 was no longer a savage, since he had lived in Apia, 
 he wore a pair of dungarees instead of a lava-
 
 MACKINTOSH 35 
 
 lava. He told them that if they held together the 
 administrator would be obliged to accept their 
 terms. His heart was set on building the road and 
 when he found they would not work for less he 
 would give them what they asked. But they must 
 not move; whatever he said they must not abate 
 their claim; they had asked a hundred and that they 
 must keep to. When they mentioned the figure, 
 Walker burst into a shout of his long, deep-voiced 
 laughter. He told them not to make fools of 
 themselves, but to set about the work at once. Be- 
 cause he was in a good humour that day he prom- 
 ised to give them a feast when the road was fin* 
 ished. But when he found that no attempt was 
 made to start work, he went to the village and 
 asked the men what silly game they were playing. 
 Manuma had coached them well. They were quite 
 calm, they did not attempt to argue — and argument 
 is a passion with the Kanaka — they merely shrugged 
 their shoulders: they would do it for a hundred 
 pounds, and if he would not give them that they 
 would do no work. He could please himself. 
 They did not care. Then Walker flew into a pas- 
 sion. He was ugly then. His short fat neck 
 swelled ominously, his red face grew purple, he 
 foamed at the mouth. He set upon the natives 
 with invective. He knew well how to wound and 
 how to humiliate. He was terrifying. The older 
 men grew pale and uneasy. They hesitated. If 
 it had not been for Manuma, with his knowledge 
 of the great world, and their dread of his ridicule,
 
 B« THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 they would have yielded. It was Manuma who an- 
 swered Walker. 
 
 "Pay us a hundred pounds and we will work.'* 
 Walker, shaking his fist at him, called him every 
 name he could think of. He riddled him with 
 scorn. Manuma sat still and smiled. There may 
 have been more bravado than confidence in his 
 smile, but he had to make a good show before the 
 others. He repeated his words. 
 
 "Pay us a hundred pounds and we will work." 
 They thought that Walker would spring on him. 
 It would not have been the first time that he had 
 thrashed a native with his own hands; they knew his 
 strength, and though Walker was three times the 
 age of the young man and six inches shorter they 
 did not doubt that he was more than a match for 
 Manuma. No one had ever thought of resisting 
 the savage onslaught of the administrator. But 
 Walker said nothing. He chuckled. 
 
 "I am not going to waste my time with a pack 
 of fools," he said. "Talk it over again. You 
 know what I have offered. If you do not start 
 in a week, take care." 
 
 He turned round and walked out of the chief's hut. 
 He untied his old mare and it was typical of the re- 
 lations between him and the natives that one of the 
 elder men hung on to the off stirrup while Walker 
 from a convenient boulder hoisted himself heavily 
 into the saddle. 
 
 That same night when Walker according to his 
 habit was strolling along the road that ran past his 
 house, he heard something whizz past him and with.
 
 MACKINTOSH 37 
 
 a thud strike a tree. Something had been thrown 
 at him. He ducked instinctively. With a shout, 
 "Who's that"? he ran towards the place from 
 which the missile had come and he heard the sound 
 of a man escaping through the bush. He knew it 
 was hopeless to pursue in the darkness, and besides 
 he was soon out of breath, so he stopped and made 
 his way back to the road. He looked about for 
 what had been thrown, but could find nothing. It 
 was quite dark. He went quickly back to the house 
 and called Mackintosh and the Chinese boy. 
 
 "One of those devils has thrown something at me. 
 Come along and let's find out what it was." 
 
 He told the boy to bring a lantern and the three 
 of them made their way back to the place. They 
 hunted about the ground, but could not find what 
 they sought. Suddenly the boy gave a guttural cry. 
 They turned to look. He held up the lantern, and 
 there, sinister in the light that cut the surrounding 
 darkness, was a long knife sticking into the trunk of 
 a coconut tree. It had been thrown with such force 
 that it required quite an effort to pull it out. 
 
 "By George, if he hadn't missed me I'd have been 
 in a nice state." 
 
 Walker handled the knife. It was one of those 
 knives, made in imitation of the sailor knives 
 brought to the islands a hundred years before by 
 the first white men, used to divide the coconuts 
 in two so that the copra might be dried. It was 
 a murderous weapon, and the blade, twelve inches 
 long, was very sharp. Walker chuckled softly. 
 
 "The devil, the impudent devil."
 
 88 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 He had no doubt it was Manuma who had flung 
 the knife. He had escaped death by three inches. 
 He was not angry. On the contrary, he was in high 
 spirits; the adventure exhilarated him, and when 
 they got back to the house, calling for drinks, he 
 rubbed his hands gleefully. 
 
 "I'll make them pay for this!" 
 
 His little eyes twinkled. He blew himself out 
 like a turkey-cock, and for the second time within 
 half an hour insisted on telling Mackintosh every 
 detail of the affair. Then he asked him to play 
 piquet, and while they played he boasted of his in- 
 tentions. Mackintosh listened with tightened lips. 
 
 "But why should you grind them down like this?" 
 he asked. "Twenty pounds is precious little for the 
 work you want them to do." 
 
 "They ought to be precious thankful I give them 
 anything." 
 
 "Hang it all, it's not your own money. The gov- 
 ernment allots you a reasonable sum. They won't 
 complain if you spend it." 
 
 "They're a bunch of fools at Apia." 
 
 Mackintosh saw that Walker's motive was merely 
 vanity. He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "It won't do you much good to score off the fel- 
 lows at Apia at the cost of your life." 
 
 "Bless you, they wouldn't hurt me, these people. 
 They couldn't do without me. They worship me. 
 Manuma is a fool. He only threw that knife to 
 frighten me." 
 
 The next day Walker rode over again to the vil' 
 lage. It was called Matautu. He did not get off
 
 MACKINTOSH 39 
 
 his horse. When he reached the chief's house he 
 saw that the men were sitting round the floor in a 
 circle, talking, and he guessed they were discussing 
 again the question of the road. The Samoan huts 
 are formed in this way: Trunks of slender trees 
 are placed in a circle at intervals of perhaps five 
 or six feet; a tall tree is set in the middle and from 
 this downwards slopes the thatched roof. Venetian 
 blinds of coconut leaves can be pulled down at 
 night or when it is raining. Ordinarily the hut is 
 open all round so that the breeze can blow through 
 freely. Walker rode to the edge of the hut and 
 called out to the chief. 
 
 "Oh, there, Tangatu, your son left his knife in a 
 tree last night. I have brought it back to you." 
 
 He flung it down on the ground in the midst of 
 the circle, and with a low burst of laughter ambled 
 off. 
 
 On Monday he went out to see if they had started 
 work. There was no sign of it. He rode through 
 the village. The inhabitants were about their ordi- 
 nary avocations. Some were weaving mats of the 
 pandanus leaf, one old man was busy with a kava 
 bowl, the children were playing, the women went 
 about their household chores. Walker, a smile on 
 his lips, came to the chief's house. 
 
 "Talofa-U;' said the chief. 
 
 "Talofa," answered Walker. 
 
 Manuma was making a net. He sat with a ciga- 
 rette between his lips and looked up at Walker with 
 a smile of triumph.
 
 40 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "You have decided that you will not make the 
 road?" 
 
 The chief answered. 
 
 "Not unless you pay us one hundred pounds." 
 
 "You will regret it." He turned to Manuma. 
 "And you, my lad, I shouldn't wonder if your back 
 was very sore before you're much older." 
 
 He rode away chuckling. He left the natives 
 vaguely uneasy. They feared the fat sinful old 
 man, and neither the missionaries' abuse of him nor 
 the scorn which Manuma had learnt in Apia made 
 them forget that he had a devilish cunning and that 
 no man had ever braved him without in the long 
 run suffering for it. They found out within twenty- 
 four hours what scheme he had devised. It was 
 characteristic. For next morning a great band of 
 men, women, and children came into the village and 
 the chief men said that they had made a bargain with 
 Walker to build the road. He had offered them 
 twenty pounds and they had accepted. Now the 
 cunning lay in this, that the Polynesians have rules 
 of hospitality which have all the force of laws; an 
 etiquette of absolute rigidity made it necessary for 
 the people of the village not only to give lodging to 
 the strangers, but to provide them with food and 
 drink as long as they wished to stay. The Inhabitants 
 of Matautu were outwitted. Every morning the 
 workers went out in a joyous band, cut down trees, 
 blasted rocks, levelled here and there and then In 
 the evening tramped back again, and ate and drank, 
 ate heartily, danced, sang hymns, and enjoyed 
 life. For them it was a picnic. But soon their
 
 MACKINTOSH 41 
 
 hosts began to wear long faces; the strangers had 
 enormous appetites, and the plantains and the 
 bread-fruit vanished before their rapacity; the alli- 
 gator-pear trees, whose fruit sent to Apia might sell 
 for good money, were stripped bare. Ruin stared 
 them in the face. And then they found that the 
 strangers were working very slowly. Had they re- 
 ceived a hint from Walker that they might take 
 their time? At th's rate by the time the road was 
 finished there would not be a scrap of food in the 
 village. And worse than this, they were a laugh- 
 ing-stock; when one or other of them went to some 
 distant hamlet on an errand he found that the story 
 had got there before him, and he was met with 
 derisive laughter. There is nothing the Kanaka can 
 endure less than ridicule. It was not long before 
 much angry talk passed among the sufferers. 
 Manuma was no longer a hero; he had to put up 
 with a good deal of plain speaking, and one day 
 what Walker had suggested came to pass: a heated 
 argument turned into a quarrel and half a dozen 
 of the young men set upon the chief's son and gave 
 him such a beating that for a week he lay bruised 
 and sore on the pandanus mats. He turned from 
 side to side and could find no ease. Every day or 
 two the administrator rode over on his old mare and 
 watched the progress of the road. He was not a 
 man to resist the temptation of taunting the fallen 
 foe, and he missed no opportunity to rub into the 
 shamed inhabitants of Matautu the bitterness of 
 their humiliation. He broke their spirit. And one 
 morning, putting their pride in their pockets, a figure
 
 48 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 of speech, since pockets they had not, they all set out 
 with the strangers and started working on the road. 
 It was urgent to get it done quickly if they wanted 
 to save any food at all, and the whole village joined 
 in. But they worked silently, with rage and morti- 
 fication in their hearts, and even the children toiled 
 in silence. The women wept as they carried away 
 bundles of brushwood. When Walker saw them 
 he laughed so much that he almost rolled out of 
 his saddle. The news spread quickly and tickled 
 the people of the island to death. This was the 
 greatest joke of all, the crowning triumph of that 
 cunning old white man whom no Kanaka had ever 
 been able to circumvent; and they came from dis- 
 tant villages, with their wives and children, to look 
 at the foolish folk who had refused twenty pounds 
 to make the road and now were forced to work for 
 nothing. But the harder they worked the more 
 easily went the guests. Why should they hurry, 
 when they were getting good food for nothing and 
 the longer they took about the job the better the 
 joke became? At last the wretched villagers could 
 stand it no longer, and they were come this morning 
 to beg the administrator to send the strangers back 
 to their own homes. If he would do this they prom- 
 ised to finish the road themselves for nothing. For 
 him it was a victory complete and unqualified. They 
 were humbled. A look of arrogant complacence 
 spread over his large, naked face, and he seemed 
 to swell in his chair like a great bullfrog. There 
 was something sinister in his appearance, so that
 
 MACKINTOSH 43 
 
 Mackintosh shivered with disgust. Then In his 
 booming tones he began to speak. 
 
 "Is It for my good that I make the road? What 
 benefit do you think I get out of It? It is for you, 
 so that you can walk in comfort and carry your 
 copra In comfort. I offered to pay you for your 
 ,work, though It was for your own sake the work 
 jvas done. I offered to pay you generously. Now 
 you must pay. I will send the people of Manua back 
 to their homes If you will finish the road and pay 
 the twenty pounds that I have to pay them." 
 
 There was an outcry. They sought to reason with 
 him. They told him they had not the money. But 
 to everything they said he replied with brutal gibes. 
 Then the clock struck. 
 
 "Dinner time," he said. "Turn them all out." 
 
 He raised himself heavily from his chair and 
 walked out of the room. When Mackintosh followed 
 him he found him already seated at table, a napkin 
 tied round his neck, holding his knife and fork in 
 readiness for the meal the Chinese cook was about 
 to bring. He was in high spirits. 
 
 "I did 'em down fine," he said, as Mackintosh sat 
 down. "I shan't have much trouble with the roads 
 after this." 
 
 "I suppose you were joking," said Mackintosh 
 icily. 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" 
 
 "You're not really going to make them pay 
 twenty pounds?" 
 
 "You bet your life I am." 
 
 "I'm not sure you've got any right to."
 
 44 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Ain't you? I guess I've got the right to do 
 any damned thing I like on this island." 
 
 "I think you've bulHed them quite enough." 
 Walker laughed fatly. He did not care what 
 Mackintosh thought. 
 
 "When I want your opinion I'll ask for it." 
 Mackintosh grew very white. He knew by bit- 
 ter experience that he could do nothing but keep 
 silence, and the violent effort at self-control made 
 him sick and faint. He could not eat the food that 
 was before him and with disgust he watched Walker 
 shovel meat into his vast mouth. He was a dirty 
 feeder, and to sit at table with him needed a strong 
 stomach. Mackintosh shuddered. A tremendous 
 desire seized him to humiliate that gross and cruel 
 man; he would give anything in the world to see 
 him in the dust, suffering as much as he had made 
 others suffer. He had never loathed the bully with 
 such loathing as now. 
 
 The day wore on. Mackintosh tried to sleep 
 after dinner, but the passion in his heart prevented 
 him; he tried to read, but the letters swam before 
 his eyes. The sun beat down pitilessly, and he 
 longed for rain; but he knew that rain would bring 
 no coolness; it would only make it hotter and more 
 steamy. He was a native of Aberdeen and his heart 
 yearned suddenly for the icy winds that whistled 
 through the granite streets of that city. Here he 
 was a prisoner, imprisoned not only by that placid 
 sea, but by his hatred for that horrible old man. 
 He pressed his hands to his aching head. He would 
 like to kill him. But he pulled himself together.
 
 MACKINTOSH 45 
 
 He must do something to distract his mind, and 
 since he could not read he thought he would set his 
 private papers in order. It was a job which he had 
 long meant to do and which he had constantly put 
 off. He unlocked the drawer of his desk and took 
 out a handful of letters. He caught sight of his 
 revolver. An impulse, no sooner realised than set 
 aside, to put a bullet through his head and so es- 
 cape from the intolerable bondage of life flashed 
 through his mind. He noticed that in the damp 
 air the revolver was slightly rusted, and he got an 
 oil rag and began to clean it. It was while he was 
 thus occupied that he grew aware of someone slink- 
 ing round the door. He looked up and called: 
 
 "Who is there?" 
 
 There was a moment's pause, then Manuma 
 showed himself. 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 The chief's son stood for a moment, sullen and 
 silent, and when he spoke it was with a strangled 
 voice. 
 
 "We can't pay twenty pounds. We haven't the 
 money." 
 
 "What am I to do?" said Mackintosh. "You 
 heard what Mr Walker said." 
 
 Manuma began to plead, half in Samoan and 
 half in English. It was a sing-song whine, with the 
 quavering intonations of a beggar, and it filled 
 Mackintosh with disgust. It outraged him that the 
 man should let himself be so cmshed. He was a 
 pitiful object.
 
 46 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "I can do nothing," said Mackintosh irritably, 
 "You know that Mr Walker is master here." 
 
 Manuma was silent again. He still stood in the 
 doorway. 
 
 "I am sick," he said at last. "Give me some medi- 
 cine." 
 
 "What is the matter with you?" 
 
 "I do not know. I am sick. I have pains in 
 my body." 
 
 "Don't stand there," said Mackintosh sharply. 
 "Come in and let me look at you." 
 
 Manuma entered the little room and stood before 
 the desk. 
 
 "I have pains here and here." 
 
 He put his hands to his loins and his face as- 
 sumed an expression of pain. Suddenly Mackin- 
 tosh grew conscious that the boy's eyes were rest- 
 ing on the revolver which he had laid on the desk 
 when Manuma appeared in the doorway. There 
 was a silence between the two which to Mackintosh 
 was endless. He seemed to read the thoughts 
 which were in the Kanaka's mind. His heart beat 
 violently. And then he felt as though something 
 possessed him so that he acted under the com- 
 pulsion of a foreign will. Himself did not make 
 the movements of his body, but a power that was 
 strange to him. His throat was suddenly dry, and 
 he put his hand to it mechanically in order to help 
 his speech. He was impelled to avoid Manuma's 
 eyes. 
 
 "Just wait here," he said, his voice sounded as 
 though someone had seized him by the windpipe,
 
 MACKINTOSH 47 
 
 "and I'll fetch you something from the dispensary." 
 
 He got up. Was it his fancy that he staggered 
 a little? Manuma stood silently, and though he 
 kept his eyes averted, Mackintosh knew that he was 
 looking dully out of the door. It was this other 
 person that possessed him that drove him out of the 
 room, but it was himself that took a handful of 
 muddled papers and threw them on the revolver in 
 order to hide it from view. He went to the dis- 
 pensary. He got a pill and fxjured out some blue 
 draught into a small bottle, and then came out into 
 the compound. He did not want to go back into his 
 own bungalow, so he called to Manuma. 
 
 "Come here." 
 
 He gave him the drugs and Instructions how to 
 take them. He did not know what It was that 
 made it impossible for him to look at the Kanaka. 
 While he was speaking to him he kept his eyes on 
 his shoulder. Manuma took the medicine and slunk 
 out of the gate. 
 
 Mackintosh went Into the dining-room and 
 turned over once more the old newspapers. But 
 he could not read them. The house was very still. 
 Walker was upstairs in his room asleep, the Chinese 
 cook was busy in the kitchen, the two policemen were 
 out fishing. The silence that seemed to brood over 
 the house was unearthly, and there hammered In 
 Mackintosh's head the question whether the revolver 
 still lay where he had placed it. He could not 
 bring himself to look. The uncertainty was hor- 
 rible, but the certainty would be more horrible 
 still. He sweated. At last he could stand the
 
 48 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 silence no longer, and he made up his mind to 
 go down the road to the trader's, a man named 
 Jervis, who had a store about a mile away. He 
 was a half-caste, but even that amount of white 
 blood made him possible to talk to. He wanted 
 to get away from his bungalow, with the desk Ut- 
 tered with untidy papers, and underneath them 
 something, or nothing. He walked along the road. 
 As he passed the fine hut of a chief a greeting was 
 called out to him. Then he came to the store. 
 Behind the counter sat the trader's daughter, a 
 swarthy broad-featured girl in a pink blouse and a 
 white drill skirt. Jervis hoped he would marry her. 
 He had money, and he had told Mackintosh that 
 his daughter's husband would be well-to-do. She 
 flushed a little when she saw Mackintosh. 
 
 "Father's just unpacking some cases that have 
 come in this morning. I'll tell him you're here." 
 
 He sat down and the girl went out behind the 
 shop. In a moment her mother waddled in, a huge 
 old woman, a cniefess, who owned much land in her 
 own right; and gave him her hand. Her mon- 
 strous obesity was an offence, but she managed to 
 convey an impression of dignity. She was cordial 
 without obsequiousness; affable, but conscious of 
 her station. 
 
 "You're quite a stranger, Mr Mackintosh. 
 Teresa was saying only this morning: 'Why, we 
 never see Mr Mackintosh now.' " 
 
 He shuddered a little as he thought of himself 
 as that old native's son-in-law. It was notorious 
 that she ruled her husband, notwithstanding his
 
 MACKINTOSH 49 
 
 white blood, with a firm hand. Hers was the au- 
 thority and hers the business head. She might be 
 no more than Mrs Jervls to the white people, but 
 her father had been a chief of the blood royal, and 
 his father and his f athef'^s father had ruled as kings. 
 The trader came in, small beside his imposing wife, 
 a dark man with a black beard going grey, in ducks, 
 with handsome eyes and flashing teeth. He was very 
 British, and his conversation was slangy, but you 
 felt he spoke English as a foreign tongue; with his 
 family he used the language of his native mother. 
 He was a servile man, c;-inglng and obsequious. 
 
 "Ah, Mr Mackintosh, this is a joyful surprise. 
 Get the whisky, Teresa; Mr Mackintosh will have 
 a gargle with us." 
 
 He gave all the latest news of Apia, watching 
 his guest's eyes the while, so that he might know 
 the welcome thing to say. 
 
 "And how is Walker? We've not seen him just 
 lately. Mrs Jervls is going to send him a sucking- 
 pig one day this week." 
 
 "I saw him riding home this morning," said 
 Teresa. 
 
 "Here's how," said Jervls, holding up his whisky. 
 
 Mackintosh drank. The two women sat and 
 looked at him, Mrs Jervls in her black Mother 
 Hubbard, placid and haughty, and Teresa, anxious 
 to smile whenever she caught his eye, while the 
 trader gossiped insufferably. 
 
 "They were saying in Apia it was about time 
 Walker retired. He ain't so young as he was.
 
 50 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 Things have changed since he first come to the 
 islands and he ain't changed with them." 
 
 "He'll go too far," said the old chiefess. "The 
 natives aren't satisfied." 
 
 "That was a good joke about the road," laughed 
 the trader. "When I told them about it in Apia 
 they fair split their sides with laughing. Good 
 old Walker." 
 
 Mackintosh looked at him savagely. What did 
 he mean by talking of him in that fashion? To a 
 half-caste trader he was Mr Walker. It was on 
 his tongue to utter a harsh rebuke for the imperti- 
 nence. He did not know what held him back. 
 
 "When he goes I hope you'll take his place, Mr 
 Mackintosh," said Jervis. "We all like you on the 
 island. You understand the natives. They're edu- 
 cated now, they must be treated differently to the 
 old days. It wants an educated man to be adminis- 
 trator now. Walker was only a trader same as 
 I am." 
 
 Teresa's eyes glistened. 
 
 "When the time comes if there's anything anyone 
 can do here, you bet your bottom dollar we'll do it. 
 I'd get all the chiefs to go over to Apia and make a 
 petition." 
 
 Mackintosh felt horribly sick.. It had not struck 
 him that if anything happened to Walker it might 
 be he who would succeed him. It was true that no 
 one in his official position knew the island so well. 
 He got up suddenly and scarcely taking his leave 
 walked back to the compound. And now he went
 
 MACKINTOSH 51 
 
 straight to his room. He took a quick look at his 
 desk. He rummaged among the papers. 
 
 The revolver was not there. 
 
 His heart thumped violently against his ribs. He 
 looked for the revolver everywhere. He hunted in 
 the chairs and in the drawers. He looked desper- 
 ately, and all the time he knew he would not find 
 it. Suddenly he heard Walker's gruff, hearty voice. 
 
 "What the devil are you up to, Mac?" 
 
 He started. Walker was standing in the door- 
 way and instinctively he turned round to hide what 
 lay upon his desk. 
 
 "Tidying up?" quizzed Walker. "IVe told 'era 
 to put the grey in the trap. I'm going down to 
 Tafoni to bathe. You'd better come along." 
 
 "All right," said Mackintosh. 
 
 So long as he was with Walker nothing could 
 happen. The place they were bound for was about 
 three miles away, and there was a fresh-water pool, 
 separated by a thin barrier of rock from the sea, 
 which the administrator had blasted out for the na- 
 tives to bathe in. He had done this at spots round 
 the island, wherever there was a spring; and the 
 fresh water, compared with the sticky warmth of the 
 sea, was cool and invigorating. They drove along 
 the silent grassy road, splashing now and then 
 through fords, where the sea had forced its way 
 in, past a couple of native villages, the bell-shaped 
 huts spaced out roomily and the white chapel in the 
 middle, and at the third village they got out of the 
 trap, tied up the horse, and walked down to the pool. 
 They were accompanied by four or five girls and
 
 $t THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 a dozen children. Soon they were all splashing 
 about, shouting and laughing, while Walker, in a 
 lava-lava, swam to and fro like an unwieldy por- 
 poise. He made lewd jokes with the girls, and they 
 amused themselves by diving under him and wrig- 
 gling away when he tried to catch them. When he 
 was tired he lay down on a rock, while the girls and 
 children surrounded him; it was a happy family; and 
 the old man, huge, with his crescent of white hair 
 and his shining bald crown, looked like some old 
 sea god. Once Mackintosh caught a queer soft look 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "They're dear children," he said. "They look 
 upon me as their father." 
 
 And then without a pause he turned to one of 
 the girls and made an obscene remark which sent 
 them all into fits of laughter. Mackintosh started 
 to dress. With his thin legs and thin arms he made 
 a grotesque figure, a sinister Don Quixote, and 
 Walker began to make coarse jokes about him. 
 They were acknowledged with little smothered 
 laughs. Mackintosh struggled with his shirt. He 
 knew he looked absurd, but he hated being laughed 
 at. He stood silent and glowering. 
 
 "If you want to get back in time for dinner you 
 ought to come soon." 
 
 "You're not a bad fellow, Mac. Only you're a 
 fool. W^hen you're doing one thing you always want 
 to do another. That's not the way to live." 
 
 But all the same he raised himself slowly to his 
 feet and began to put on his clothes. They saun- 
 tered back to the village, drank a bowl of kava with
 
 MACKINTOSH 58 
 
 the chief, and then, after a joyful farewell from all 
 the lazy villagers, drove home. 
 
 After dinner, according to his habit. Walker, 
 lighting his cigar, prepared to go for a stroll. Mack- 
 intosh was suddenly seized with fear. 
 
 "Don't you think It's rather unwise to go out at 
 night by yourself just now?" 
 
 Walked stared at him with his round blue eyes. 
 
 "What the devil do you mean?" 
 
 "Remember the knife the other night. You've 
 got those fellows' backs up." 
 
 "Pooh! They wouldn't dare." 
 
 "Someone dared before." 
 
 "That was only a bluff. They wouldn't hurt me. 
 They look upon me as a father. They know that 
 whatever I do Is for their own good." 
 
 Mackintosh watched him with contempt in his 
 heart. The man's self-complacency outraged him, 
 and yet something, he knew not what, made him 
 insist. 
 
 "Remember what happened this morning. It 
 wouldn't hurt you to stay at home just to-night. 
 I'll play piquet with you." 
 
 "I'll play piquet with you when I come back. 
 The Kanaka isn't born yet who can make me alter 
 my plans." 
 
 "You'd better let me come with you." 
 
 "You stay where you are." 
 
 Mackintosh shrugged his shoulders. He had 
 given the man full warning. If he did not heed It 
 that was his own lookout. Walker put on his 
 hat and went out. Mackintosh began to read; but
 
 54 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 then he thought of something; perliaps it would be 
 as well to have his own whereabouts quite clear. He 
 crossed over to the kitchen and, inventing some pre- 
 text, talked for a few minutes with the cook. Then 
 he got out the gramophone and put a record on it, 
 but while it ground out its melancholy tune, some 
 comic song of a London music-hall, his ear was 
 strained for a sound away there in the night. At 
 his elbow the record reeled out its lou'dness, the 
 words were raucous, but notwithstanding he seemed 
 to be surrounded by an unearthly silence. He heard 
 the dull roar of the breakers against the reef. He 
 heard the breeze sigh, far up, in the leaves of the 
 coconut trees. How long would it be? It was 
 awful. 
 
 He heard a hoarse laugh. 
 
 "Wonders will never cease. It's not often yoi'v 
 play yourself a tune, Mac." 
 
 Walker stood at the window, red-faced, bluff and 
 jovial. 
 
 "Well, you see I'm alive and kicking. What were 
 you playing for?" 
 
 Walker came in. 
 
 "Nerves a bit dicky, eh? Playing a tune to keep 
 your pecker up?" 
 
 "I was playing your requiem." 
 
 "What the devil's that?" 
 'Alf o' bitter an' a pint of stout." 
 
 'A rattling good song too. I don't mind how 
 often I hear it. Now I'm ready to take your 
 money off you at piquet." 
 
 They played and Walker bullied his way to vic« 

 
 MACKINTOSH 55 
 
 tory, bluffing his opponent, chaffing him, jeering at 
 his mistakes, up to every dodge, browbeating him, 
 exulting. Presently Mackintosh recovered his 
 coolness, and standing outside himself, as it were, 
 he was able to take a detached pleasure in watch- 
 ing the overbearing old man and in his own cold 
 reserve. Somewhere Manuma sat quietly and 
 awaited his opportunity. 
 
 Walker won game after game and pocketed his 
 winnings at the end of the evening in high good 
 humour. 
 
 "You'll have to grow a little bit older before you 
 stand much chance against me, Mac. The fact is I 
 have a natural gift for cards." 
 
 "I don't know that there's much gift about it 
 when I happen to deal you fourteen aces." 
 
 "Good cards come to good players," retorted 
 Walker. "I'd have won if I'd had your hands." 
 
 He went on to tell long stories of the various 
 occasions on which he had played cards with notori- 
 ous sharpers and to their consternation had taken 
 all their money from them. He boasted. He 
 praised himself. And Mackintosh listened with 
 absorption. He wanted now to feed his hatred; and 
 everything Walker said, every gesture, made him 
 more detestable. At last Walker got up. 
 
 "Well, I'm going to turn in," he said with a loud 
 yawn. "I've got a long day to-morrow." 
 
 "What are you going to do?" 
 
 "I'm driving over to the other side of the island. 
 I'll start at five, but I don't expect I shall get back 
 to dinner till late."
 
 56 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 They generally dined at seven. 
 
 "We'd better make it half past seven then.*^ 
 
 *'I guess it would be as well." 
 
 Mackintosh watched hhn knock the ashes out 
 of his pipe. His vitality was i*ude and exuberant. 
 It was strange to think that death hung over him. 
 A faint smile flickered in Mackintosh's cold, gloomy 
 eyes. 
 
 "Would you like me to come with you?" 
 
 "What in God's name should I want that for? 
 I'm using the mare and she'll have enough to do 
 to carry me; she don't want to drag you over thirty 
 miles of road." 
 
 "Perhaps you don't quite realise what the feel- 
 ing is at Matautu. I think it would be safer if I 
 came with you." 
 
 Walker burst into contemptuous laughter. 
 
 "You'd be a fine lot of use in a scrap. I'm not 
 a great hand at getting the wind up." 
 
 Now the smile passed from Macintosh's eyes 
 to his lips. It distorted them painfully. 
 
 "Ouem deus vidt perdere prius dementat." 
 
 "What the hell is that?" said Walker. 
 
 "Latin," answered Mackintosh as he went out. 
 
 And now he chuckled. His mood had changed. 
 He had done all he could and the matter was in 
 the hands of fate. He slept more soundly than 
 he had done for w^eeks. When he awoke next 
 morning he went out. After a good night he found 
 a pleasant exhilaration in the freshness of the early 
 air. The sea was a more vivid blue, the sky more 
 brilliant, than on most days, the trade wind was
 
 "MACKINTOSH a? 
 
 fresh, and there was a ripple on the lagoon as the 
 breeze brushed over it like velvet brushed the wrong 
 way. He felt himself stronger and younger. He 
 entered upon the day's work with zest. After lunch- 
 eon he slept again, and as evening drew on he had 
 the bay saddled and sauntered through the bush. 
 He seemed to see it all with new eyes. He felt 
 more normal. The extraordinary thing was that 
 he was able to put Walker out of his mind alto- 
 gether. So far as he was concerned he might never 
 have existed. 
 
 He returned late, hot after his ride, and bathed 
 again. Then he sat on the verandah, smoking his 
 pipe, and looked at the day declining over the la- 
 goon. In the sunset the lagoon, rosy and purple 
 and green, was very beautiful. He felt at peace 
 with the world and with himself. When the cook 
 came out to say that dinner was ready and to ask 
 whether he should wait, Mackintosh smiled at him 
 with friendly eyes. He looked at his watch. 
 
 "It's half-past seven. Better not wait. One 
 can't tell when the boss'U be back." 
 
 The boy nodded, and in a moment Mackintosh 
 saw him carry across the yard a bowl of steaming 
 soup. He got up lazily, went into the dining-room, 
 and ate his dinner. Had it happened? The uncer- 
 tainty was amusing and Mackintosh chuckled in the 
 silence. The food did not seem so monotonous as 
 usual, and even though there was Hamburger steak, 
 the cook's invariable dish when his poor invention 
 failed him, it tasted by some miracle succulent and 
 spiced. After dinner he strolled over lazily to his
 
 58 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 bungalow to get a book. He liked the intense still- 
 ness, and now that the night had fallen the stars 
 were blazing in the sky. He shouted for a lamp 
 and in a moment the Chink pattered over on his 
 bare feet, piercing the darkness with a ray of light. 
 He put the lamp on the desk and noiselessly slipped 
 out of the room. Mackintosh stood rooted to the 
 floor, for there, half hidden by untidy papers, was 
 his revolver. His heart throbbed painfully, and he 
 broke into a sweat. It was done then. 
 
 He took up the revolver with a shaking hand. 
 Four of the chambers were empty. He paused a 
 moment and looked suspiciously out into the night, 
 but there was no one there. He quickly slipped four 
 cartridges into the empty chambers and locked the 
 revolver in his drawer. 
 
 He sat down to wait. 
 
 An hour passed, a second hour passed. There 
 was nothing. He sat at his desk as though he were 
 writing, but he neither wrote nor read. He merely 
 listened. He strained his ears for a sound travel- 
 ling from a far distance. At last he heard hesi' 
 tating footsteps and knew it was the Chinese cook. 
 
 ••Ah-Sung," he called. 
 
 The boy came to the door. 
 
 "Boss velly late," he said. "Dinner no good." 
 
 Mackintosh stared at him, wondering whether he 
 knew what had happened, and whether, when he 
 knew, he would realise on what terms he and 
 Walker had been. He went about his work, sleek, 
 silent, and smiling, and who could tell his thoughts?
 
 MACKINTOSH 59 
 
 "I expect he's had dinner on the way, but you 
 must keep the soup hot at all events." 
 
 The words were hardly out of his mouth when 
 the silence was suddenly broken Into by a confusion, 
 cries, and a rapid patter of naked feet. A number 
 of natives ran into the compound, men and women 
 and children; they crowded round Mackintosh and 
 they all talked at once. They were unintelligible. 
 They were excited and frightened and some of them 
 were crying. Mackintosh pushed his way through 
 them and went to the gateway. Though he had 
 scarcely understood what they said he knew quite 
 well what had happened. And as he reached the 
 gate the dog-cart arrived. The old mare was being 
 led by a tall Kanaka, and In the dog-cart crouched 
 two men, trying to hold Walker up. A little crowd 
 of natives surrounded it. 
 
 The mare was led Into the yard and the natives 
 surged In after it. Mackintosh shouted to them to 
 stand back and the two policemen, sprang suddenly 
 from God knows where, pushed them violently 
 aside. By now he had managed to understand that 
 some lads who had been fishing, on their way back 
 to their village had come across the cart on the 
 home side of the ford. The mare was nuzzling 
 about the herbage and In the darkness they could 
 just see the great white bulk of the old man sunk 
 between the seat and the dashboard. At first they 
 thought he was drunk and they peered In, grinning, 
 but then they heard him groan, and guessed that 
 something was amiss. They ran to the village and 
 called for help. It was when they returned, accom-
 
 60 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 panled by half a hundred people, that they dis- 
 covered Walker had been shot. 
 
 With a sudden thrill of horror Mackintosh asked 
 himself whether he was already dead. The first 
 thing at all events was to get him out of the cart, 
 and that, owing to Walker's corpulence, was a diffi- 
 cult job. It took four strong men to hft him. 
 They jolted him and he uttered a dull groan. He 
 was still alive. At last they carried him into the 
 house, up the stairs, and placed him on his bed. 
 Then Mackintosh was able to see him, for in the 
 yard, lit only by half a dozen hurricane lamps, 
 everything had been obscured. Walker's white 
 ducks were stained with blood, and the men who 
 had carried him wiped their hands, red and sticky, 
 on their lava-lavas. Mackintosh held up the lamp. 
 He had not expected the old man to be so pale. His 
 eyes were closed. He was breathing still, his pulse 
 could be just felt, but it was obvious that he was 
 dying. Mackintosh had not bargained for the 
 shock of horror that convulsed him. He saw that 
 the native clerk was there, and in a voice hoarse 
 with fear told him to go into the dispensary and get 
 what was necessary for a hypodermic injection. 
 One of the policemen had brought up the whisky, 
 and Mackintosh forced a little into the old man's 
 mouth. The room was crowded with natives. 
 They sat about the floor, speechless now and terri- 
 fied, and every now and then one wailed aloud. It 
 was very hot, but Mackintosh felt cold, his hands 
 and his feet were like ice, and he had to make a 
 violent effort not to tremble in all his limbs. He
 
 MACKINTOSH «X 
 
 did not know what to do. He did not know if 
 Walker was bleeding still, and if he was, how he 
 could stop the bleeding. 
 
 The clerk brought the hypodermic needle. 
 
 "You give it to him," said Mackintosh. "You're 
 more used to that sort of thing than I am." 
 
 His head ached horribly. It felt as though all 
 sorts of little savage things were beating inside it, 
 trying to get out. They watched for the effect of 
 the injection. Presently Walker opened his eyes 
 slowly. He did not seem to know where he was. 
 
 "Keep quiet," said Mackintosh. "You're at 
 home. You're quite safe." 
 
 Walker's lips outlined a shadowy smile. 
 
 "They've got me," he whispered. 
 
 "I'll get Jervis to send his motor-boat to Apia 
 at once. We'll get a doctor out by to-morrow after- 
 noon." 
 
 There was a long pause before the old man an- 
 swered, 
 
 "I shall be dead by then." 
 
 A ghastly expression passed over Mackintosh's 
 pale face. He forced himself to laugh. 
 
 "What rot ! You keep quiet and you'll be as right 
 as rain." 
 
 "Give me a drink," said Walker. "A stiff one." 
 
 With shaking hand Mackintosh poured out 
 whisky and water, half and half, and held the glass 
 while Walker drank greedily. It seemed to restore 
 him. He gave a long sigh and a little colour came 
 into his great fleshy face. Mackintosh felt ex-
 
 62 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 traordlnarily helpless. He stood and stared at the 
 old man. 
 
 •'If you'll tell me what to do I'll do it," he said. 
 
 "There's nothing to do. Just leave me alone. 
 I'm done for." 
 
 He looked dreadfully pitiful as he lay on the 
 great bed, a huge, bloated, old man; but so wan, so 
 weak, it was heart-rending. As he rested, his mind 
 seemed to grow clearer. 
 
 "You were right, Mac," he said presently. "You 
 warned me." 
 
 "I wish to God I'd come with you." 
 
 "You're a good chap, Mac, only you don't drink." 
 
 There was another long silence, and it was clear 
 that Walker was sinking. There was an internal 
 haemorrhage and even Mackintosh in his ignorance 
 could not fail to see that his chief had but an hour 
 or two to live. He stood by the side of the bed 
 stock still. For half an hour perhaps Walker lay 
 with his eyes closed, then he opened them. 
 
 "They'll give you my job," he said, slowly. "Last 
 time I was in Apia I told them you were all right. 
 Finish my road. I want to think that'll be done. 
 All round the island." 
 
 "I don't want your job. You'll get all right." 
 
 Walker shook his head wearily. 
 
 "I've had my day. Treat them fairly, that's the 
 great thing. They're children. You must always 
 remember that. You must be firm with them, but 
 you must be kind. And you must be just. I've 
 never made a bob out of them. I haven't saved a
 
 MACKINTOSH 69 
 
 hundred pounds in twenty years. The road's the 
 great thing. Get the road finished." 
 
 Something very like a sob was wrung from Mack- 
 intosh. 
 
 "You're a good fellow, Mac. I always liked 
 you." 
 
 He closed his eyes, and Mackintosh thought that 
 he would never open them again. His mouth was 
 so dry that he had to get himself something to 
 drink. The Chinese cook silently put a chair for 
 him. He sat down by the side of the bed and 
 waited. He did not know how long a time passed. 
 The night was endless. Suddenly one of the men 
 sitting there broke Into uncontrollable sobbing, 
 loudly, like a child, and Mackintosh grew aware 
 that the room was crowded by this time with natives. 
 They sat all over the floor on their haunches, men 
 and women, staring at the bed. 
 
 "What are all these people doing here?" said 
 Mackintosh. "They've got no right. Turn them 
 out, turn them out, all of them." 
 
 His words seemed to rouse Walker, for he opened 
 his eyes once more, and now they were all misty. 
 He wanted to speak, but he was so weak that 
 Mackintosh had to strain his ears to catch what he 
 said. 
 
 "Let them stay. They're my children. They 
 ought to be here." 
 
 Mackintosh turned to the natives. 
 
 "Stay where you are. He wants you. But be 
 silent." 
 
 A faint smile came over the old man's white face.
 
 ei THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Come nearer," he said. 
 
 Macklntos'i bent over him. His eyes were closed 
 and the words he said were like a wind sighing 
 through the fronds of the coconut trees, 
 
 "Give me another drink. I've got something to 
 say." 
 
 This time Mackintosh gave him his whisky neat. 
 Walker collected his strength in a final effort of will. 
 
 "Don't make a fuss about this. In 'ninety-five 
 when there were troubles white men were killed, and 
 the fleet came and shelled the villages. A lot of 
 people were killed who'd had nothing to do with it. 
 They're damned fools at Apia. If they make a 
 fuss they'll only punish the wrong people. I don't 
 want anyone punished." 
 
 He paused for a while to rest. 
 
 "You must say it was an accident. No one's to 
 blame. Promise me that." 
 
 "I'll do anything you like," whispered Mackin- 
 tosh. 
 
 "Good chap. One of the best. They're children. 
 I'm their father. A father don't let his children 
 get into trouble if he can help it." 
 
 A ghost of a chuckle came out of his throat. It 
 was astonishingly weird and ghastly. 
 
 "You're a religious chap, Mac. What's that 
 about forgiving them? You know." 
 
 For a while Mackintosh did not answer. His lips 
 trembled. 
 
 "Forgive them, for they know not what they do?" 
 
 ""That's right. Forgive them. I've loved them, 
 you know, always loved them."
 
 MACKINTOSH 65 
 
 He sighed. His lips faintly moved, and now 
 Mackintosh had to put his ears quite close to them 
 in order to hear. 
 
 "Hold my hand," he said. 
 
 Mackintosh gave a gasp. His heart seemed 
 wrenched. He took the old man's hand, so cold and 
 weak, a coarse, rough hand, and held It in his own. 
 And thus he sat until he nearly started out of his 
 seat, for the silence was suddenly broken by a long 
 rattle. It was terrible and unearthly. Walker was 
 dead. Then the natives broke out with loud cries. 
 The tears ran down their faces, and they beat their 
 breasts. 
 
 Mackintosh disengaged his hand from the dead 
 man's, and staggering like one drunk, with sleep he 
 went out of the room. He went to the locked 
 drawer in his writing-desk and took out the re- 
 volver. He walked down to the sea and walked 
 into the lagoon; he waded out cautiously, so that he 
 should not trip against a coral rock, till the water 
 came to his arm-pits. Then he put a bullet through 
 his head. 
 
 An hour later half a dozen slim brown sharks 
 were splashing and struggling at the spot where he 
 feU.
 
 Ill 
 
 The Fall of Edward Barnard 
 
 B AXEMAN HUNTER slept badly. For a 
 fortnight on the boat that brought him from 
 Tahiti to San Francisco he had been thinking of the 
 story he had to tell, and for three days on the train 
 he had repeated to himself the words in which he 
 meant to tell it. But in a few hours now he would 
 be in Chicago, and doubts assailed him. His con- 
 science, always very sensitive, was not at ease. He 
 was uncertain that he had done all that was possible, 
 It was on his honour to do much more than the pos- 
 sible, and the thought was disturbing that, in a mat- 
 ter which so nearly touched his own interest, he had 
 allowed his interest to prevail over his quixotry. 
 Self-sacrifice appealed so keenly to his imagination 
 that the inability to exercise it gave him a sense of 
 disillusion. He was like the philanthropist who with 
 altruistic motives builds model dwellings for the 
 poor and finds that he has made a lucrative in- 
 vestment. He cannot prevent the satisfaction he 
 feels in the ten per cent which rewards the bread 
 he had cast upon the waters, but he has an awkward 
 feeling that it detracts somewhat from the savour 
 of his virtue. Bateman Hunter knew that his heart 
 was pure, but he was not quite sure how steadfastly, 
 
 66
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 67 
 
 when he told her his story, he would endure the 
 scrutiny of Isabel Longstaffe's cool grey eyes. They 
 were far-seeing and wise. She measured the stand- 
 ards of others by her own meticulous uprightness 
 and there could be no greater censure than the cold 
 silence with which she expressed her disapproval of 
 a conduct that did not satisfy her exacting code. 
 There was no appeal from her judgment, for, having 
 made up her mind, she never changed it. But 
 Bateman would not have had her different. He 
 loved not only the beauty of her person, slim and 
 straight, with the proud carriage of her head, but 
 still more the beauty of her soul. With her truth- 
 fulness, her rigid sense of honour, her fearless out- 
 look, she seemed to him to collect in herself all that 
 was most admirable in his countrywomen. But he 
 saw in her something more than the perfect type of 
 the American girl, he felt that her exquisiteness was 
 peculiar in a way to her environment, and he was 
 assured that no city In the world could have produced 
 her but Chicago. A pang seized him when he re- 
 membered that he must deal so bitter a blow to her 
 pride, and anger flamed up In his heart when he 
 thought of Edward Barnard. 
 
 But at last the train steamed in to Chicago and 
 he exulted when he saw the long streets of grey 
 houses. He could hardly bear his impatience at 
 the thought of State and Wabash with their crowded 
 pavements, their hustling traffic, and their noise. 
 He was at home. And he was glad that he had 
 been born in the most important city in the United 
 States. San Francisco was provincial, New York
 
 68 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 was effete; the future of America lay in the develop- 
 ment of its economic possibilities, and Chicago, by 
 its position and by the energy of its citizens, was 
 destined to become the real capital of the country. 
 
 "I guess I shall live long enough to see it the 
 biggest city in the world," Bateman said to himself 
 as he stepped down to the platform. 
 
 His father had come to meet him, and after a 
 hearty handshake, the pair of them, tall, slender, 
 and well-made, with the same fine, ascetic features 
 and thin lips, walked out of the station. Mr Hun- 
 ter's automobile was waiting for them and they got 
 in. Mr Hunter caught his son's proud and happy 
 glance as he looked at the street. 
 
 "Glad to be back, son?" he asked. 
 
 "I should just think I was," said Bateman. 
 
 His eyes devoured the restless scene. 
 
 "I guess there's a bit more traffic here than In 
 your South Sea island," laughed Mr Hunter. "Did 
 you like it there?" 
 
 "Give me Chicago, dad," answered Bateman. 
 
 "You haven't brought Edward Barnard back with 
 you." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "How was he?" 
 
 Bateman was silent for a moment, and his hand- 
 some, sensitive face darkened. 
 
 "I'd sooner not speak about him, dad," he said 
 at last. 
 
 "That's all right, my son. I guess your mother 
 will be a happy woman to-day." 
 
 They passed out of the crowded streets in the
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 69 
 
 Loop and drove along the lake till they came to 
 the imposing house, an exact copy of a chateau on the 
 Loire, which Mr Hunter had built himself some 
 years before. As soon as Bateman was alone In 
 his room he asked for a number on the telephone. 
 His heart leaped when he heard the voice that an- 
 swered him, 
 
 "Good-morning, Isabel," he said gaily. 
 
 "Good-morning, Bateman." 
 
 "How did you recognise my voice?" 
 
 "It is not so long since I heard it last. Besides, 
 I was expecting you." 
 
 "When may I see you?" 
 
 "Unless you have anything better to do perhaps 
 you'll dine with us to-night." 
 
 "You know very well that I couldn't possibly have 
 anything better to do." 
 
 "I suppose that you're full of news?" 
 
 He thought he detected in her voice a note of 
 apprehension. 
 
 "Yes," he answered. 
 
 "Well, you must tell me to-night. Good-bye." 
 
 She rang off. It was characteristic of her that 
 she should be able to wait so many unnecessary 
 hours to know what so immensely concerned her. 
 To Bateman there was an admirable fortitude in 
 her restraint. 
 
 At dinner, at which beside himself and Isabel no 
 one was present but her father and mother, he 
 watched her guide the conversation into the channels 
 of an urbane small-talk, and it occurred to him that 
 in just such a manner would a marquise under the
 
 70 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 shadow of the guillotine toy with the affairs of a 
 day that would know ho morrow. Her delicate 
 features, the aristocratic shortness of her upper lip, 
 and her wealth of fair hair suggested the marquise 
 again, and It must have been obvious, even if it 
 were not notorious, that In her veins flowed the best 
 blood in Chicago. The dining-room was a fitting 
 frame to her fragile beauty, for Isabel had caused 
 the house, a replica of a palace on the Grand Canal 
 at Venice, to be furnished by an English expert in 
 the style of Louis XV; and the graceful decoration 
 linked with the name of that amorous monarch en- 
 hanced her loveliness and at the same time acquired 
 from it a more profound significance. For Isabel's, 
 mind was richly stored, and her conversation, how- 
 ever light, was never flippant. She spoke now of the 
 Musicale to which she and her mother had been in 
 the afternoon, of the lectures which an English 
 poet was giving at the Auditorium, of the political 
 situation, and of the Old Master which her father 
 had recently bought for fifty thousand dollars In 
 New York. It comforted Bateman to hear her. 
 He felt that he was once more In the civilised world, 
 at the centre of culture and distinction; and certain 
 voices, troubling and yet against his will refusing to 
 still their clamour, were at last silent In his heart. 
 
 "Gee, but it's good to be back In Chicago," he 
 said. 
 
 At last dinner was over, and when they went out 
 of the dining-room Isabel said to her mother: 
 
 "I'm going to take Bateman along to my den. 
 We have various things to talk about."
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 71 
 
 "Very well, my dear," said Mrs Longstaffe. 
 "You'll find your father and me In the ISIadame du 
 Barry room when you're through." 
 
 Isabel led the young man upstairs and showed 
 him into the room of which he had so many charm- 
 ing memories. Though he knew it so well he could 
 not repress the exclamation of delight which it al- 
 ways wrung from him. She looked round with a 
 smile. 
 
 "I think it's a success," she said. "The main, 
 thing is that it's right. There's not even an ash* 
 tray that isn't of the period." 
 
 "I suppose that's what makes it so wonderful. 
 Like all you do it*s so superlatively right." 
 
 They sat down in front of a log fire and Isabel 
 looked at him with calm grave eyes. 
 
 "Now what have you to say to me?" she asked. 
 
 "I hardly know how to begin." 
 
 "Is Edward Barnard coming back?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 There was a long silence before Bateman spoke 
 again, and with each of them it was filled with 
 many thoughts. It was a difficult story he had to 
 tell, for there were things in it which were so of- 
 fensive to her sensitive ears that he could not bear 
 to tell them, and yet in justice to her, no less than 
 in justice to himself, he must tell her the whole 
 truth. 
 
 It had all begun long ago when he and Edward 
 Barnard, still at college, had met Isabel Longstaffe 
 at the tea-party given to Introduce her to society. 
 They had both known her when she was a child
 
 ya THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 and they long-legged boys, but for two years she 
 had been in Europe to finish her education and it 
 was with a surprised delight that they renewed 
 acquaintance with the lovely girl who returned. Both 
 of them fell desperately in love with her, but Bate- 
 man saw quickly that she had eyes only for Ed- 
 ward, and, devoted to his friend, he resigned him- 
 self to the role of confidant. He passed bitter mo- 
 ments, but he could not deny that Edward was 
 worthy of his good fortune, and, anxious that noth- 
 ing should impair the friendship he so greatly 
 valued, he took care never by a hint to disclose his 
 own feelings. In six months the young couple were 
 engaged. But they were very young and Isabel's 
 father decided that they should not marry at least 
 till Edward graduated. They had to wait a year. 
 Bateman remembered the winter at the end of which 
 Isabel and Edward were to be married, a winter of 
 dances and theatre-parties and of informal gaieties 
 at which he, the constant third, was always present. 
 He loved her no less because she would shortly be 
 his friend's wife; her smile, a gay word she flung 
 him, the confidence of her affection, never ceased to 
 delight him; and he congratulated himself, some- 
 what complacently, because he did not envy them 
 their happiness. Then an accident happened. A 
 great bank failed, there was a panic on the exchange, 
 and Edward Barnard's father found himself a ruined 
 man. He came home one night, told his wife that 
 he was penniless, and after dinner, going into his 
 study, shot himself. 
 
 A week later, Edward Barnard, with a tired,
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 73 
 
 white face, went to Isabel and asked her to release 
 him. Her only answer was to throw her arms 
 round his neck and burst Into tears. 
 
 "Don't make it harder for me, sweet," he said. 
 
 "Do you think I can let you go now? I love 
 you." 
 
 "How can I ask you to marry me? The whole 
 thing's hopeless. Your father would never let you. 
 I haven't a cent." 
 
 "What do I care? I love you." 
 
 He told her his plans. He had to earn money at 
 once, and George Braunschmidt, an old friend of 
 his family, had offered to take him into his own 
 business. He was a South Sea merchant, and he 
 had agencies in many of the islands of the Pacific. 
 He had suggested that Edward should go to Tahiti 
 for a year or two, where under the best of his man- 
 agers he could learn the details of that varied trade, 
 and at the end of that time he promised the young 
 man a position in Chicago. It was a wonderful 
 opportunity, and when he had finished his explana- 
 tions Isabel was once more all smiles. 
 
 "You foolish boy, why have you been trying to 
 make me miserable?" 
 
 His face lit up at her words and his eyes flashed. 
 
 "Isabel, you don't mean to say you'll wait for 
 me?" 
 
 "Don't you think you're worth it?" she smiled. 
 
 "Ah, don't laugh at me now. I beseech you to 
 be serious. It may be for two years." 
 
 "Have no fear. I love you, Edward. When 
 you come back I will marry you."
 
 74 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 Edward's employer was a man who did not like 
 delay and he had told him that If he took the 
 post he offered he must sail that day week from 
 San Francisco. Edward spent his last evening with 
 Isabel. It was after dinner that Mr Longstaffe, 
 saying he wanted a word with Edward, took him 
 into the smoking-room. Mr Longstaffe had accepted 
 good-naturedly the arrangement which his daughter 
 had told him of and Edward could not imagine 
 what mysterious communication he had now to make. 
 He was not a little perplexed to see that his host 
 was embarrassed. He faltered. He talked of 
 trivial things. At last he blurted it out. 
 
 "I guess you've heard of Arnold Jackson," he 
 said, looking at Edward with a frown. 
 
 Edward hesitated. His natural truthfulness 
 obliged him to admit a knowledge he would gladly 
 have been able to deny. 
 
 "Yes, I have. But it's a long time ago. I guess 
 I didn't pay very much attention." 
 
 "There are not many people in Chicago who 
 haven't heard of Arnold Jackson," said Mr Long- 
 staffe bitterly, "and if there are they'll have no 
 difficulty in finding someone who'll be glad to tell 
 them. Did you know he was Mrs Longstaffe's 
 brother?" 
 
 "Yes, I knew that." 
 
 "Of course we've had no communication with him 
 for many years. He left the country as soon as 
 he was able to, and I guess the country wasn't 
 sorry to see the last of him. We understand he 
 lives m Tahiti. My advice to you is to give him a
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 75 
 
 wide berth, but If you do hear anything about him 
 Mrs Longstaffe and I would be very glad if you'd 
 let us know." 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 "That was all I wanted to say to you. Now I 
 daresay you'd like to join the ladies." 
 
 There are few families that have not among their 
 members one whom, if their neighbours permitted, 
 they would willingly forget, and they are fortunate 
 when the lapse of a generation or two has invested 
 his vagaries with a romantic glamour. But when 
 he is actually alive, if his peculiarities are not of 
 the kind that can be condoned by the phrase, "he is 
 nobody's enemy but his own," a safe one when the 
 culprit has no worse to answer for than alcoholism 
 or wandering affections, the only possible course is 
 silence. And it was this which the Longstaffes had 
 adopted towards Arnold Jackson. They never 
 talked of him. They would not even pass through 
 the street in which he had lived. Too kind to make 
 his wife and children suffer for his misdeeds, they 
 had supported them for years, but on the under- 
 standing that they should live in Europe. They did 
 everything they could to blot out all recollection of 
 Arnold Jackson and yet were conscious that the story 
 was as fresh in the public mind as when first the 
 scandal burst upon a gaping world. Arnold Jack- 
 son was as black a sheep as any family could suffer 
 from. A wealthy banker, prominent in his church, a 
 philanthropist, a man respected by all, not only for 
 his connections (in his veins ran the blue blood of 
 Chicago), but also for his upright character, he was
 
 re THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 arrested one day on a charge of fraud; and the 
 dishonesty which the trial brought to light was not 
 of the sort which could be explained by a sudden 
 temptation; it was deliberate and systematic. Arnold 
 Jackson was a rogue. When he was sent to the 
 penitentiary for seven years there were few who 
 did not think he had escaped lightly. 
 
 When at the end of this last evening the lovers 
 separated it was with many protestations of devo- 
 tion. Isabel, all tears, was consoled a little by her 
 certainty of Edward's passionate love. It was a 
 strange feeling that she had. It made her wretched 
 to part from him and yet she was happy because 
 he adored her. 
 
 This was more than two years ago. 
 
 He had written to her by every mail since then, 
 twenty-four letters in all, for the mail went but once 
 a month, and his letters had been all that a lover's 
 letters should be. They were intimate and charm- 
 ing, humorous sometimes, especially of late, and 
 tender. At first they suggested that he was home- 
 sick, they were full of his desire to get back to 
 Chicago and Isabel; and, a little anxiously, she wrote 
 begging him to persevere. She was afraid that he 
 might throw up his opportunity and come racing 
 back. She did not want her lover to lack endurance 
 and she quoted to him the lines : 
 
 "/ could not love thee, dear, so much. 
 Loved I not honour more." 
 
 But presently he seemed to settle down and it 
 made Isabel very happy to observe his growing en-
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 77 
 
 thusiasm to introduce American methods into that 
 forgotten corner of the world. But she knew him, 
 and at the end of the year, which was the shortest 
 time he could possibly stay in Tahiti, she expected 
 to have to use all her influence to dissuade him from 
 coming home. It was much better that he should 
 learn the business thoroughly, and if they had been 
 able to wait a year there seemed no reason why 
 they should not wait another. She talked it over 
 with Bateman Hunter, always the most generous 
 of friends (during those first few days after Ed- 
 ward went she did not know what she would have 
 done without him), and they decided that Edward's 
 future must stand before everything. It was with 
 relief that she found as the time passed that he 
 made no suggestion of returning. 
 
 "He's splendid, isn't he?" she exclaimed to Bate- 
 man. 
 
 "He's white, through and through." 
 
 "Reading between the lines of his letter I know 
 he hates it over there, but he's sticking it out be- 
 cause . . ." 
 
 She blushed a little and Bateman, with the grave 
 smile which was so attractive in him, finished the 
 sentence for her. 
 
 "Because he loves you." 
 
 "It makes me feel so humble," she said. 
 
 "You're wonderful, Isabel, you're perfectly won- 
 derful." 
 
 But the second year passed and every month 
 Isabel continued to receive a letter from Edward, 
 and presently it began to seem a httle strange that
 
 78 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 he did not speak of coming back. He wrote as 
 though he were settled definitely in Tahiti, and what 
 was more, comfortably settled. She was surprised. 
 Then she read his letters again, all of them, several 
 times; and now, reading between the lines indeed, 
 she was puzzled to notice a change which had es- 
 caped her. The later letters were as tender and as 
 delightful as the first, but the tone was different. 
 She was vaguely suspicious of their humour, she had 
 the instinctive mistrust of her sex for that unaccount- 
 able quality, and she discerned in them now a flip- 
 pancy which perplexed her. She was not quite cer- 
 tain that the Edward who wrote to her now was 
 the same Edward that she had known. One after- 
 noon, the day after a mail had arrived from Tahiti, 
 when she was driving with Bateman he said to her: 
 
 "Did Edward tell you when he was sailing?" 
 
 "No, he didn't mention it. I thought he might 
 have said something to you about it." 
 
 "Not a word." 
 
 "You know what Edward is," she laughed in 
 reply, "he has no sense of time. If it occurs to you 
 next time you write you might ask him when he's 
 thinking of coming." 
 
 Her manner was so unconcerned that only Bate- 
 man's acute sensitiveness could have discerned in 
 her request a very urgent desire. He laughed 
 lightly. 
 
 "Yes. I'll ask him. I can't imagine what he's 
 thinking about." 
 
 A few days later, meeting him again, she noticed 
 that something troubled him. They had been much
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 79 
 
 together since Edward left Chicago; they were both 
 devoted to him and each in his desire to talk of the 
 absent one found a willing listener; the consequence 
 was that Isabel knew every expression of Bateman's 
 face, and his denials now were useless against her 
 keen instinct. Something told her that his harassed 
 look had to do with Edward and she did not rest 
 till she had made him confess. 
 
 "The fact is," he said at last, "I heard In a round- 
 about way that Edward was no longer working for 
 Braunschmldt and Co., and yesterday I took the op- 
 portunity to ask Mr Braunschmldt himself." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Edward left his employment with them nearly a 
 year ago." 
 
 "How strange he should have said nothing about 
 itl" 
 
 Bateman hesitated, but he had gone so far now 
 that he was obliged to tell the rest. It made him 
 feel dreadfully embarrassed. 
 
 "He was fired." 
 
 "In heaven's name what for?" 
 
 "It appears they warned him once or twice, and 
 at last they told him to get out. They say he was 
 lazy and incompetent." 
 
 "Edward?" 
 
 They were silent for a while, and then he saw 
 that Isabel was crying. Instinctively he seized her 
 hand. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, don't, don't," he said. "I can't 
 bear to see it."
 
 80 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 She was so unstrung that she let her hand rest In 
 his. He tried to console her. 
 
 "It's incomprehensible, Isn't It? It's so unlike Ed- 
 ward. I can't help feeling there must be some mis- 
 take." 
 
 She did not say anything for a while, and when 
 she spoke it was hesitatingly. 
 
 "Has it struck you that there was anything queer 
 in his letters lately?" she asked, looking away, her 
 eyes all bright with tears. 
 
 He did not quite know how to answer. 
 
 "I have noticed a change in them," he admitted. 
 "He seems to have lost that high seriousness which 
 I admired so much in him. One would almost think 
 that the things that matter — well, don't matter." 
 
 Isabel did not reply. She was vaguely uneasy. 
 
 "Perhaps In his answer to your letter he'll say 
 when he's coming home. All we can do is to wait 
 for that." 
 
 Another letter came from Edward for each of 
 them, and still he made no mention of his return; 
 but when he wrote he could not have received Bate- 
 man's enquiry. The next mail would bring them 
 an answer to that. The next mail came, and Bate- 
 man brought Isabel the letter he had just received; 
 but the first glance of his face was enough to tell 
 her that he was disconcerted. She read It through 
 carefully and then, with slightly tightened lips, read 
 it again. 
 
 "It's a very strange letter," she said. "I don't 
 quite understand It."
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 81 
 
 "One might almost think that he was joshing 
 me," said Bateman, flushing. 
 
 "It reads like that, but it must be unintentional. 
 That's so unlike Edward." 
 
 "He says nothing about coming back." 
 
 "If I weren't so confident of his love I should 
 think ... I hardly know what I should think." 
 
 It was then that Bateman had broached the 
 scheme which during the afternoon had formed 
 itself in his brain. The firm, founded by his father, 
 in which he was now a partner, a firm which manu- 
 factured all manner of motor vehicles, was about to 
 establish agencies in Honolulu, Sidney, and Well- 
 ington; and Bateman proposed that himself should 
 go instead of the manager who had been suggested. 
 He could return by Tahiti; in fact, travelling from 
 Wellington, it was inevitable to do so; and he could 
 see Edward. 
 
 "There's some mystery and I'm going to clear it 
 up. That's the only way to do it." 
 
 "Oh, Bateman, how can you be so good and 
 kind?" she exclaimed. 
 
 "You know there's nothing in the world I want 
 more than your happiness, Isabel." 
 
 She looked at him and she gave him her hands. 
 
 "You're wonderful, Bateman. I didn't know 
 there was anyone in the world like you. How can 
 I ever thank you?" 
 
 "I don't want your thanks. I only want to be 
 allowed to help you." 
 
 She dropped her eyes and flushed a little. She 
 was so used to him that she had forgotten how hand-
 
 82 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 5ome he was. He was as tall as Edward and as 
 well made, but he was dark and pale of face, while 
 Edward was ruddy. Of course she knew he loved 
 her. It touched her. She felt very tenderly to- 
 wards him. 
 
 It was from this journey that Bateman Hunter 
 was now returned. 
 
 The business part of it took him somewhat longer 
 than he expected and he had much time to think of 
 his two friends. He had come to the conclusion that 
 it could be nothing serious that prevented Edward 
 from coming home, a pride, perhaps, which made 
 him determined to make good before he claimed the 
 bride he adored; but it was a pride that must be 
 reasoned with. Isabel was unhappy. Edward must 
 come back to Chicago with him and marry her at 
 once. A position could be found for him in the 
 works of the Hunter Motor Traction and Automo- 
 bile Company. Bateman, with a bleeding heart, 
 exulted at the prospect of giving happiness to the 
 two persons he loved best in the world at the cost 
 of his own. He would never marry. He would be 
 godfather to the children of Edward and Isabel, 
 and many years later when they were both dead he 
 would tell Isabel's daughter how long, long ago he 
 had loved her mother. Bateman's eyes were veiled 
 with tears when he pictured this scene to himself. 
 Meaning to take Edward by surprise he had not 
 cabled to announce his arrival, and when at last he 
 landed at Tahiti he allowed a youth, who said he 
 was the son of the house, to lead him to the Hotel 
 de la Fleur. He chuckled when he thought of his
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 83 
 
 friend's amazement on seeing him, the most unex- 
 pected of visitors, walk into his office. 
 
 "By the way," he asked, as they went along, "can 
 you tell me where I shall find Mr. Edward Bar- 
 nard?" 
 
 "Barnard?" said the youth. "I seem to know 
 the name." 
 
 "He's an American. A tall fellow with light 
 brown hair and blue eyes. He's been here over two 
 years." 
 
 "Of course. Now I know who you mean. -You 
 mean Mr Jackson's nephew." 
 
 "Whose nephew?" 
 
 "Mr Arnold Jackson." 
 
 "I don't think we're speaking of the same per- 
 son," answered Bateman, frigidly. i 
 
 He was startled. It was queer that Arnold Jack- 
 son, known apparently to all and sundry, should live 
 here under the disgraceful name in which he had been 
 convicted. But Bateman could not imagine whom 
 It was that he passed off as his nephew. Mrs Long- 
 staffe was his only sister and he had never had a 
 brother. The young man by his side talked volubly 
 in an English that had something in it of the in- 
 tonation of a foreign tongue, and Bateman, with a 
 sidelong glance, saw, what he had not noticed be- 
 fore, that there was in him a good deal of native 
 blood. A touch of hauteur involuntarily entered 
 into his manner. They reached the hotel. When 
 he had arranged about his room Bateman asked to 
 be directed to the premises of Braunschmidt & Co. 
 They were on the front, facing the lagoon, and,
 
 84 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 glad to feel the solid earth under his feet after eight 
 days at sea, he sauntered down the sunny road to the 
 water's edge. Having found the place he sought, 
 Bateman sent in his card to the manager and was 
 led through a lofty barn-like room, half store and 
 half warehouse, to an office in which sat a stout, 
 spectacled, bald-headed man. 
 
 "Can you tell me where I shall find Mr Edward 
 Barnard? I understand he was in this office for 
 some time." 
 
 "That is so. I don't know just where he is." 
 
 "But I thought he came here with a particular 
 recommendation from Mr Braunschmidt. I know 
 Mr Braunschmidt very well." 
 
 The fat man looked at Bateman with shrewd, 
 suspicious eyes. He called to one of the boys in 
 the warehouse. 
 
 "Say, Henry, where's Barnard now, d'you know?" 
 
 "He's working at Cameron's, I think," came the 
 answer from someone who did not trouble to move. 
 
 The fat man nodded. 
 
 "If you turn to your left when you get out of here 
 you'll come to Cameron's in about three minutes." 
 
 Bateman hesitated. 
 
 "I think I should tell you that Edward Barnard 
 is my greatest friend. I was very much surprised 
 when I heard he'd left Braunschmidt & Co." 
 
 The fat man's eyes contracted till they seemed 
 like pin-points, and their scrutiny made Bateman so 
 uncomfortable that he felt himself blushing. 
 
 "I guess Braunschmidt & Co. and Edward Barn-
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 85 
 
 ard didn't see eye to eye on certain matters," he 
 replied. 
 
 Bateman did not quite like the fellow's manner, so 
 he got up, not without dignity, and with an apology 
 for troubling him bade him good-day. He left the 
 place with a singular feeling that the man he had 
 just interviewed had much to tell him, but no in- 
 tention of telling it. He walked in the direction 
 indicated and soon found himself at Cameron's. 
 It was a trader's store, such as he had passed half 
 a dozen of on his way, and when he entered the 
 first person he saw, in his shirt sleeves, measuring 
 out a length of trade cotton, was Edward. It gave 
 him a start to see him engaged in so humble an oc- 
 cupation. But he had scarcely appeared when Ed- 
 ward, looking up, caught sight of him, and gave 
 a joyful cry of surprise. 
 
 "Bateman I Who ever thought of seeing you 
 here?" 
 
 He stretched his arm across the counter and 
 wrung Bateman's hand. There was no self-con- 
 sciousness in his manner and the embarrassment was 
 all on Bateman's side. 
 
 "Just wait till I've wrapped this package." 
 
 With perfect assurance he ran his scissors across 
 the stuff, folded it, made it into a parcel, and handed 
 it to the dark-skinned customer. 
 
 "Pay at the desk, please." 
 
 Then, smiling, with bright eyes, he turned to 
 Bateman. 
 
 "How did you show up here? Gee, I am delighted
 
 86 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 to see you. Sit down, old man. Make yourself 
 at home." 
 
 "We can't talk here. Come along to my hotel. 
 I suppose you can get away?" 
 
 This he added with some apprehension. 
 
 "Of course I can get away. We're not so business- 
 like as all that in Tahiti." He called out to a Chinese 
 who was standing behind the opposite counter. "Ah- 
 Ling, when the boss comes tell him a friend of mine's 
 just arrived from America and I've gone out to have 
 a drain with him." 
 
 "All-light," said the Chinese, with a grin. 
 
 Edward slipped on a coat and, putting on his 
 hat, accompanied Bateman out of the store. Bate- 
 man attempted to put the matter facetiously. 
 
 "I didn't expect to find you selling three and a half 
 yards of rotten cotton to a greasy nigger," he 
 laughed. 
 
 "Braunschmidt fired me, you know, and I thought 
 that would do as well as anything else." 
 
 Edward's candour seemed to Bateman very sur- 
 prising, but he thought it indiscreet to pursue the 
 subject. 
 
 "I guess you won't make a fortune where you 
 are," he answered, somewhat dryly. 
 
 "I guess not. But I earn enough to keep body 
 and soul together, and I'm quite satisfied with 
 that." 
 
 "You wouldn't have been two years ago." 
 
 "We grow wiser as we grow older," retorted 
 Edward, gaily. 
 
 Bateman took a glance at him. Edward was
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 87 
 
 dressed in a suit of shabby white ducks, none too 
 clean, and a large straw hat of native make. He 
 was thinner than he had been, deeply burned by the 
 sun, and he was certainly better looking than ever. 
 But there was something in his appearance that 
 disconcerted Bateman. He walked with a new 
 jauntiness; there was a carelessness in his demean- 
 our, a gaiety about nothing in particular, which Bate- 
 man could not precisely blame, but which exceedingly 
 puzzled him. 
 
 "I'm blest if I can see what he's got to be so 
 darned cheerful about," he said to himself. 
 
 They arrived at the hotel and sat on the terrace. 
 A Chinese boy brought them cocktails. Edward 
 was most anxious to hear all the news of Chicago 
 and bombarded his friend with eager questions. His 
 interest was natural and sincere. But the odd thing 
 was that it seemed equally divided among a multi- 
 tude of subjects. He was as eager to know how 
 Bateman's father was as what Isabel was doing. He 
 talked of her without a shade of embarrassment, 
 but she might just as well have been his sister as 
 his promised wife; and before Bateman had done 
 analysing the exact meaning of Edward's remarks 
 he found that the conversation had drifted to his 
 own work and the buildings his father had lately 
 erected. He was determined to bring the conversa- 
 tion back to Isabel and was looking for the occasion 
 when he saw Edward wave his hand cordially. A 
 man was advancing towards them on the terrace, but 
 Bateman's back was turned to him and he could not 
 see him.
 
 88 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Come and sit down," said Edward gaily. 
 
 The new-comer approached. He was a very tall, 
 thin man, in white duclcs, with a fine head of curly 
 white hair. His face was thin too, long, with a large, 
 hooked nose and a beautiful, expressive mouth. 
 
 "This is my old friend Bateman Hunter. I've 
 told you about him," said Edward, his constant smile 
 breaking on his lips. 
 
 "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr Hunter. I used 
 to know your father." 
 
 The stranger held out his hand and took the 
 young man's in a strong, friendly grasp. It was not 
 till then that Edward mentioned the other's name. 
 
 "Mr Arnold Jackson." 
 
 Bateman turned white and he felt his hands grow 
 cold. This was the forger, the convict, this was 
 Isabel's uncle. He did not know what to say. He 
 tried to conceal his confusion. Arnold Jacks<i*?- 
 looked at him with twinkling eyes. 
 
 "I daresay my name is familiar to you." 
 
 Bateman did not know whether to say yes or no, 
 and what made it more awkward was that both 
 Jackson and Edward seemed to be amused. It was 
 bad enough to have forced on him the acquaintance 
 of the one man on the island he would rather have 
 avoided, but worse to discern that he was being made 
 a fool of. Perhaps, however, he had reached this 
 conclusion too quickly, for Jackson, without a pause, 
 added: 
 
 "I understand you're very friendly with the Long- 
 staffes. Mary Longstaffe is my sister." 
 
 Now Bateman asked himself if Arnold Jackson
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 89 
 
 could think him ignorant of the most terrible scandal 
 that Chicago had ever known. But Jackson put 
 his hand on Edward's shoulder. 
 
 "I can't sit down, Teddie," he said. "I'm busy. 
 But you two boys had better come up and dine tO" 
 night." 
 
 "That'll be fine," said Edward. 
 
 "It's very kind of you, Mr Jackson," said Bate- 
 man, frigidly, "but I'm here for so short a time; 
 my boat sails to-morrow, you know; I think if you'll 
 forgive me, I won't come." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense. I'll give you a native dinner. My 
 wife's a wonderful cook. Teddie will show you the 
 way. Come early so as to see the sunset. I can give 
 you both a shake-down if you like." 
 
 "Of course we'll come," said Edward. "There's 
 always the devil of a row in the hotel on the night 
 a boat arrives and we can have a good yarn up at 
 the bungalow." 
 
 "I can't let you off, Mr Hunter," Jackson con- 
 tinued with the utmost cordiality. "I want to hear 
 all about Chicago and Mary." 
 
 He nodded and walked away before Bateman 
 could say another word. 
 
 "We don't take refusals in Tahiti," laughed Ed- 
 ward. "Besides, you'll get the best dinner on the 
 island" 
 
 "What did he mean by saying his wife was a good 
 cook? I happen to know his wife's in Geneva." 
 
 "That's a long way off for a wife, isn't it?" said 
 Edward. "And it's a long time since he saw her. I 
 guess it's another wife he's talking about."
 
 90 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 For some time Bateman was silent. His face was 
 set in grave lines. But looking up he caught the 
 amused look in Edward's eyes, and he flushed 
 darkly. 
 
 "Arnold Jackson is a despicable rogue," he said. 
 
 "I greatly fear he is," answered Edward, smiling. 
 
 "I don't see how any decent man can have any- 
 thing to do with him." 
 
 "Perhaps I'm not a decent man." 
 
 "Do you see much of him, Edward?" 
 
 "Yes, quite a lot. He's adopted me as his 
 nephew." 
 
 Bateman leaned forward and fixed Edward with 
 his searching eyes. 
 
 "Do you like him?" 
 
 "Very much." 
 
 "But don't you know, doesn't everyone here know, 
 that he's a forger and that he's been a convict? He 
 ought to be hounded out of civilised society." 
 
 Edward watched a ring of smoke that floated 
 from his cigar into the still, scented air. 
 
 "I suppose he is a pretty unmitigated rascal," he 
 said at last. "And I can't flatter myself that any 
 repentance for his misdeeds offers one an excuse for 
 condoning them. He was a swindler and a hypo- 
 crite. You can't get away from it. I never met 
 a more agreeable companion. He's taught me 
 everything I know." 
 
 "What has he taught you?" cried Bateman in 
 amazement. 
 
 "How to live." 
 
 Bateman broke into ironical laughter.
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 91 
 
 "A fine master. Is it owing to his lessons that 
 you lost the chance of making a fortune and earn 
 your living now by serving behind a counter in a 
 ten cent store?" 
 
 "He has a wonderful personality," said Edward, 
 smiling good-naturedly. "Perhaps you'll see what I 
 mean to-night." 
 
 "I'm not going to dine with him if that's what 
 you mean. Nothing would induce me to set foot 
 within that man's house." 
 
 "Come to oblige me, Bateman. We've been 
 friends for so many years, you won't refuse me a 
 favour when I ask it." 
 
 Edward's tone had in It a quality new to Bate- 
 man. Its gentleness was singularly persuasive. 
 
 "If you put it like that, Edward, I'm bound to 
 come," he smiled. 
 
 Bateman reflected, moreover, that it would be as 
 well to learn what he could about Arnold Jackson. 
 It was plain that he had a great ascendency over 
 Edward, and if it was to be combated it was neces- 
 sary to discover in what exactly it consisted. The 
 more he talked with Edward the more conscious he 
 became that a change had taken place in him. He 
 had an instinct that It behooved him to walk warily, 
 and he made up his mind not to broach the real pur- 
 port of his visit till he saw his way more clearly. 
 He began to talk of one thing and another, of his 
 journey and what he had achieved by It, of politics 
 In Chicago, of this common friend and that, of their 
 days together at college. 
 
 At last Edward said he must get back to his work
 
 02 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 and proposed that he should fetch Bateman at five 
 so that they could drive out together to Arnold 
 Jackson's house. 
 
 "By the way, I rather thought you'd be living at 
 this hotel," said Bateman, as he strolled out of the 
 garden with Edward. "I understand it's the only 
 decent one here." 
 
 "Not I," laughed Edward. "It's a deal too 
 grand for me. I rent a room just outside the town. 
 It's cheap and clean." 
 
 "If I remember right those weren't the points 
 that seemed most important to you when you lived 
 in Chicago." 
 
 "Chicago!" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by that, Edward. 
 It's the greatest city in the world." 
 
 "I know," said Edward. 
 
 Bateman glanced at him quickly, but his face was 
 inscrutable. 
 
 "When are you coming back to it?" 
 
 "I often wonder," smiled Edward. 
 
 This answer, and the manner of it, staggered 
 Bateman, but before he could ask for an explanation 
 Edward waved to a half-caste who was driving a 
 passing motor. 
 
 "Give us a ride down, Charlie," he said. 
 
 He nodded to Bateman, and ran after the ma- 
 chine that had pulled up a few yards in front. Bate- 
 man was left to piece together a mass of perplexing 
 impressions. 
 
 Edward called for him in a rickety trap drawn 
 by an old mare, and they drove along a road that
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 93 
 
 ran by the sea. On each side of it were plantations, 
 coconut and vanilla; and now and then they saw a 
 great mango, its fruit yellow and red and purple 
 among the massy green of the leaves; now and then 
 they had a glimpse of the lagoon, smooth and blue, 
 with here and there a tiny islet graceful with tall 
 palms. Arnold Jackson's house stood on a little 
 hill and only a path led to it, so they unharnessed 
 the mare and tied her to a tree, leaving the trap by 
 the side of the road. To Bateman it seemed a 
 happy-go-lucky way of doing things. But when they 
 went up to the house they were met by a tall, hand- 
 some native woman, no longer young, with whom 
 Edward cordially shook hands. He introduced Bate- 
 man to her. 
 
 "This is my friend Mr Hunter. We're going to 
 dine with you, Lavina." 
 
 "All right," she said, with a quick smile. "Arnold 
 ain't back yet." 
 
 "We'll go down and bathe. Let us have a couple 
 of pareos." 
 
 The woman nodded and went into the house. 
 *'Who is that?" asked Bateman. 
 "Oh, that's Lavina. She's Arnold's wife." 
 Bateman tightened his lips, but said nothing. In 
 a moment the woman returned with a bundle, which 
 she gave to Edward; and the two men, scrambling 
 down a steep path, made their way to a grove of 
 coconut trees on the beach. They undressed and 
 Edward showed his friend how to make the strip 
 of red trade cotton which is called a parco into a 
 very neat pair of bathing-drawers. Soon they were
 
 94 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 splashing in the warm, shallow water. Edward was 
 in great spirits. He laughed and shouted and sang. 
 He might have been fifteen. Bateman had never 
 seen him so gay, and afterwards when they lay on 
 the beach, smoking cigarettes, in the limpid air, 
 there was such an irresistible light-heartedncss in 
 him that Bateman was taken aback. 
 
 "You seem to find life mighty pleasant," said he. 
 
 "I do." 
 
 They heard a soft movement and looking round 
 saw that Arnold Jackson was coming towards them. 
 
 **I thought I'd come down and fetch you two boys 
 back," he said. "Did you enjoy your bath, Mr 
 Hunter?" 
 
 "Very much," said Bateman. 
 
 Arnold Jackson, no longer in spruce ducks, wore 
 nothing but a pareo round his loins and walked bare- 
 foot. His body was deeply browned by the sun. 
 With his long, curling white hair and his ascetic 
 face he made a fantastic figure in the native dress, 
 but he bore himself without a trace of self-conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 "If you're ready we'll go right up," said Jack- 
 son. 
 
 "I'll just put on my clothes," said Bateman. 
 
 "Why, Teddie, didn't you bring a pareo for your 
 friend?" 
 
 "I guess he'd rather wear clothes," smiled Ed- 
 ward» 
 
 "I certainly would," answered Bateman, grimly, 
 as he saw Edward gird himself in the loincloth and
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 95 
 
 stand ready to start before he himself had got his 
 shirt on. 
 
 *'Won't you find it rough walking without your 
 shoes?" he asked Edward. "It struck me the path 
 was a trifle rocky." 
 
 "Oh, I'm used to it." 
 
 "It's a comfort to get into a pareo when one gets 
 back from town," said Jackson. "If you were going 
 to stay here I should strongly recommend you to 
 adopt it. It's one of the most sensible costumes I 
 have ever come across. It's cool, convenient, and 
 inexpensive." 
 
 They walked up to the house, and Jackson took 
 them into a large room with white-washed walls and 
 an open ceiling in which a table was laid for dinner. 
 Bateman noticed that it was set for five. 
 
 "Eva, come and show yourself to Teddie's friend, 
 and then shake us a cocktail," called Jackson. 
 
 Then he led Bateman to a long low window. 
 
 "Look at that," he said, with a dramatic gesture. 
 "Look well." 
 
 Below them coconut trees tumbled down steeply 
 to the lagoon, and the lagoon in the evening light 
 had the colour, tender and varied, of a dove's breast. 
 On a creek, at a little distance, were the clustered 
 huts of a native village, and towards the reef was a 
 canoe, sharply silhouetted, in which were a couple of 
 natives fishing. Then, beyond, you saw the vast 
 calmness of the Pacific and twenty miles away, airy 
 and unsubstantial like the fabric of a poet's fancy, 
 the unimaginable beauty of the island which is called
 
 96 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 Murea. It was all so lovely that Bateman stood 
 abashed. 
 
 "I've never seen anything like it," he said at 
 last. 
 
 Arnold Jackson stood staring in front of him, and 
 in his eyes was a dreamy softness. His thin, thought- 
 ful face was very grave. Bateman, glancing at it, 
 was once more conscious of its intense spirituality. 
 
 "Beauty," murmured Arnold Jackson. "You sel- 
 dom see beauty face to face. Look at it well, Mr 
 Hunter, for what you see now you will never see 
 again, since the moment is transitory, but It will be 
 an imperishable memory in your heart. You touch 
 eternity." 
 
 His voice was deep and resonant. He seemed to 
 breathe forth the purest idealism, and Bateman had 
 to urge himself to remember that the man who spoke 
 was a criminal and a cruel cheat But Edward, as 
 though he heard a sound, turned round quickly. 
 
 "Here is my daughter, Mr Hunter." 
 
 Bateman shook hands with her. She had dark, 
 splendid eyes and a red mouth tremulous with 
 laughter; but her skin was brown, and her curling 
 hair, rippling down her shoulders, was coal black. 
 She wore but one garment, a Mother Hubbard of 
 pink cotton, her feet were bare, and she was crowned 
 with a wreath of white scented flowers. She was a 
 lovely creature. She was like a goddess of the 
 Polynesian spring. 
 
 She was a little shy, but not more shy than Bate- 
 man, to whom the whole situation was highly em- 
 barrassing, and it did not put him at his ease to see
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 9? 
 
 this sylph-like thing take a shaker and with a prac- 
 tised hand mix three cocktails. 
 
 "Let us have a kick in them, child," said Jack- 
 son. 
 
 She poured them out and smiling delightfully 
 handed one to each of the men. Bateman flattered 
 himself on his skill in the subtle art of shaking cock- 
 tails and he was not a little astonished, on tasting 
 this one, to find that it was excellent. Jackson 
 laughed proudly when he saw his guest's involuntary 
 look of appreciation. 
 
 "Not bad, is it? I taught the child myself, and 
 In the old days in Chicago I considered that there 
 wasn't a bar-tender in the city that could hold a 
 candle to me. When L had nothing better to do in 
 the penitentiary I used to amuse myself by thinking 
 out new cocktails, but when you come down to brass- 
 tacks there's nothing to beat a dry Martini." 
 
 Bateman felt as though someone had given him 
 a violent blow on the funny-bone and he was con- 
 scious that he turned red and then white. But be- 
 fore he could think of anything to say a native boy 
 brought in a great bowl of soup and the whole party 
 sat down to dinner. Arnold Jackson's remark 
 seemed to have aroused In him a train of recollec- 
 tions, for he began to talk of his prison days. He 
 talked quite naturally, without malice, as though he 
 were relating his experiences at a foreign university. 
 He addressed himself to Bateman and Bateman was 
 confused and then confounded. He saw Edward's 
 eyes fixed on him and there was in them a flicker of 
 amusement. He blushed scarlet, for it struck him
 
 98 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 that Jackson was making a fool of him, and then 
 because he felt absurd — and knew there was no 
 reason why he should — he grew angry. Arnold 
 Jackson was impudent — there was no other word 
 for it — and his callousness, whether assumed or not, 
 was outrageous. The dinner proceeded. Bateman 
 was asked to eat sundry messes, raw fish and he knew 
 not what, which only his civility induced him to 
 swallow, but which he was amazed to find very good 
 eating. Then an incident happened which to Bate- 
 man was the most mortifying experience of the eve- 
 ning. There was a little circlet of flowers in front 
 of him, and for the sake of conversation he hazarded 
 a remark about It. 
 
 "It's a wreath that Eva made for you," said 
 Jackson, "but I guess she was too shy to give it 
 you." 
 
 Bateman took it up in his hand and made a polite 
 little speech of thanks to the girl. 
 
 "You must put it on," she said, with a smile and 
 a blush. 
 
 "I? I don't think ni do that." 
 
 "It's the charming custom of the country," said 
 Arnold Jackson. 
 
 There was one in front of him and he placed it 
 on his hair. Edward did the same. 
 
 "I guess I'm not dressed for the part," said Bate- 
 man, uneasily. 
 
 "Would you like a pareof said Eva quickly. 
 I'll get you one In a minute." 
 
 "No, thank you. I'm quite comfortable as I 
 
 ilT' 
 
 am.
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 99 
 
 <(( 
 
 'Show him how to put it on, Eva," said Edward. 
 
 At that moment Bateman hated his greatest 
 friend. Eva got up from the table and with much 
 laughter placed the wreath on his black hair. 
 
 "It suits you very well," said Mrs Jackson. 
 "Don't it suit him, Arnold?" 
 
 "Of course it does." 
 
 Bateman sweated at every pore. 
 
 "Isn't it a pity it's dark?" said Eva. "We could 
 photograph you all three together." 
 
 Bateman thanked his stars it war He felt that 
 he must look prodigiously foolish in his blue serge 
 suit and high collar — very neat and gentlemanly — 
 with that ridiculous wreath of flowers on his head. 
 He was seething with indignation, and he had never 
 in his life exercised more self-control than now when 
 he presented an affable exterior. He was furious 
 with that old man, sitting at the head of the table, 
 half-naked, with his saintly face and the flowers on 
 his handsome white locks. The whole position was 
 monstrous. 
 
 Then dinner came to an end, and Eva and her 
 mother remained to clear away while the three men 
 sat on the verandah. It was very warm and the 
 air was scented with the white flowers of the night. 
 The full moon, sailing across an unclouded sky, made 
 a pathway on the broad sea that led to the bound- 
 less realms of Forever. Arnold Jackson began to 
 talk. His voice was rich and musical. He talked 
 now of the natives and of the old legends of the 
 country. He told strange stories of the past, stories 
 of hazardous expeditions into the unknown, of love
 
 100 THE TRKMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 and death, of hatred and revenge. He told of the 
 adventurers who had discovered those distant 
 islands, of the sailors who, settling in them, had 
 married the daughters of great chieftains, and of 
 the beach-comhers who had led their varied lives on 
 those silvery shores. Bateman, mortified and 
 exasperated, at first listened sullenly, but presently 
 some magic in the words possessed him and he sat 
 entranced. The mirage of romance obscured the 
 light of common day. Had he forgotten that Arnold 
 Jackson had a tongue of silver, a tongue by which 
 he had charmed vast sums out of the credulous pub- 
 lic, a tongue which very nearly enabled him to escape 
 the penalty of his crimes? No one had a sweeter 
 eloquence, and no one had a more acute sense of 
 dimax. Suddenly he rose. 
 
 "Well, you two boys haven't seen one another for 
 a long time. I shall leave you to have a yam. 
 Teddle will show you your quarters when you want 
 to go to bed." 
 
 "Oh, but I wasn't thinking of spending the night, 
 Mr Jackson," said Bateman. 
 
 "You'll find It more comfortable. We'll see that 
 you're called In good time." 
 
 Then with a courteous shake of the hand, stately 
 as though he were a bishop in canonicals, Arnold 
 Jackson took leave of his guest. 
 
 "Of course I'll drive you back to Papeete if you 
 like," said Edward, "but I advise you to stay. It's 
 bully driving In the early morning." 
 
 For a few minutes neither of them spoke. Bate- 
 man wondered how he should begin on the conversa*
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 101 
 
 tion which all the events of the day made him think 
 more urgent. 
 
 "When are you coming back to Chicago?" he 
 asked, suddenly. 
 
 For a moment Edward did not answer. Then he 
 turned rather lazily to look at his friend and smiled. 
 
 "I don't know. Perhaps never." 
 
 "What in heaven's name do you mean?" cried 
 Bateman. 
 
 "I'm very happy here. Wouldn't it be folly to 
 make a change?" 
 
 "Man alive, you can't live here all your life. This 
 is no life for a man. It's a living death. Oh, Ed- 
 ward, come away at once, before it's too late. I've 
 felt that something was wrong. You're infatuated 
 with the place, you've succumbed to evil influences, 
 but it only requires a wrench, and when you're free 
 from these surroundings you'll thank all the gods 
 there be. You'll be like a dope-fiend when he's 
 broken from his drug. You'll see then that for two 
 years you've been breathing poisoned air. You can't 
 imagine what a relief it will be when you fill your 
 lungs once more with the fresh, pure air of your 
 native country." 
 
 He spoke quickly, the words tumbling over one 
 another in his excitement, and there was in his voice 
 sincere and affectionate emotion. Edward was 
 touched. 
 
 "It is good of you to care so much, old friend." 
 
 "Come with me to-morrow, Edward. It was a 
 mistake that you ever came to this place. This is no 
 life for you."
 
 102 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "You talk of this sort of life and that. How do 
 you think a man gets the best out of life?" 
 
 "Why, I should have thought there could be no 
 two answers to that. By doing his duty, by hard 
 work, by meeting all the obligations of his state and 
 station." 
 
 "And what is his reward?" 
 
 "His reward is the consciousness of having 
 achieved what he set out to do." 
 
 "It all sounds a little portentous to me," said 
 Edward, and in the lightness of the night Bateman 
 could see that he was smiling. "I'm afraid you'll 
 think I've degenerated sadly. There are several 
 things I think now which I daresay would have 
 seemed outrageous to me three years ago." 
 
 "Have you learnt them from Arnold Jackson?" 
 asked Bateman, scornfully. 
 
 "You don't like him? Perhaps you couldn't be 
 expected to. I didn't when I first came. I had just 
 the same prejudice as you. He's a very extraordi- 
 nary man. You saw for yourself that he makes 
 no secret of the fact that he was in a penitentiary. 
 I do not know that he regrets it or the crimes that 
 led him there. The only complaint he ever made 
 in my hearing was that when he came out his health 
 was impaired. I think he does not know what re- 
 morse is. He is completely unmoral. He accepts 
 everything and he accepts himself as well. He's 
 generous and kind." 
 
 "He always was," interrupted Bateman, "on 
 other people's money." 
 
 "I've found him a very good friend. Is It un-
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 103 
 
 natural that I should take a man as I find him?" 
 
 "The result is that you lose the distinction be- 
 tween right and wrong." 
 
 "No, they remain just as clearly divided in my 
 mind as before, but what has become a little con- 
 fused in me is the distinction between the bad man 
 and the good one. Is Arnold Jackson a bad man 
 who does good things or a good man who does bad 
 things? It's a difficult question to answer. Per- 
 haps we make too much of the difference between 
 one man and another. Perhaps even the best of 
 us are sinners and the worst of us are saints. Who 
 knows?" 
 
 "You will never persuade me that white is black 
 and that black is white," said Bateman. 
 
 "I'm sure I shan't, Bateman." 
 
 Bateman could not understand why the flicker 
 of a smile crossed Edward's lips when he thur 
 agreed with him. Edward was silent for a minuts 
 
 "When I saw you this morning, Bateman," h^ 
 said then, "I seemed to see myself as I was two 
 years ago. The same collar, and the same shoes, 
 the same blue suit, the same energy. The same 
 determination. By God, I was energetic. The 
 sleepy methods of this place made my blood tingle. 
 I went about and everywhere I saw possibilities 
 for development and enterprise. There were for- 
 tunes to be made here. It seemed to me absurd 
 that the copra should be taken away from here 
 in sacks and the oil extracted in America. It would 
 be far more economical to do all that on the spot, 
 with cheap labour, and save freight, and I saw al-
 
 104 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 ready the vast factories springing up on the island. 
 Then the way they extracted it from the coconut 
 seemed to me hopelessly inadequate, and I invented 
 a machine which divided the nut and scooped out 
 the meat at the rate of two hundred and forty an 
 hour. The harbour was not large enough. I made 
 plans to enlarge it, then to form a syndicate to buy 
 land, put up two or three large hotels, and bunga- 
 lows for occasional residents; I had a scheme for 
 improving the steamer service in order to attract 
 visitors from California. In twenty years, instead 
 of this half French, lazy little town of Papeete I 
 saw a great American city with ten-story build« 
 ings and street-cars, a theatre and an opera house, a 
 stock exchange and a mayor." 
 
 "But go ahead, Edward," cried Bateman, spring- 
 ing up from the chair in excitement. "You've got 
 the ideas and the capacity. Why, you'll become the 
 richest man between Australia and the States." 
 
 Edward chuckled softly. 
 
 "But I don't want to," he said. 
 
 "Do you mean to say you don't want money, big 
 money, money running into millions? Do you know 
 what you can do with it? Do you know the power 
 it brings? And if you don't care about it for your- 
 self think what you can do, opening new channels 
 for human enterprise, giving occupation to thou- 
 sands. My brain reels at the visions your words 
 have conjured up." 
 
 "Sit down, then, my dear Bateman," laughed Ed- 
 ward. "My machine for cutting the coconuts will 
 always remain unused, and so far as I'm concerned
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 105 
 
 street-cars shall never run in the idle streets of 
 Papeete." 
 
 Bateman sank heavily into his chair. 
 
 "I don't understand you," he said. 
 
 "It came upon me little by little. I came to like 
 the life here, with its ease and its leisure, and the 
 people, with their good-nature and their happy smil- 
 ing faces. I began to think. I'd never had time 
 to do that before. I began to read." 
 
 "You always read." 
 
 "I read for examinations. I read in order to 
 be sble to hold my own in conversation. I read 
 for instruction. Here I learned to read for pleas- 
 ure. I learned to talk. Do you know that conver- 
 sation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But 
 it wants leisure. I'd always been too busy before. 
 And gradually all the life that had seemed so im- 
 portant to me began to seem rather trivial and 
 vulgar. What is the use of all this hustle and 
 this constant striving? I think of Chicago now 
 and I see a dark, grey city, all stone — it is like 
 a prison — and a ceaseless turmoil. And what 
 does all that activity amount to? Does one get 
 there the best out of life? Is that what we come 
 into the world for, to hurry to an office, and work 
 hour after hour till night, then hurry home and 
 dine and go to a theatre? Is that how I must 
 spend my youth? Youth lasts so short a time, Bate- 
 man. And when I am old, what have I to look 
 forward to? To hurry from my home in the morn- 
 ing to my office and work hour after hour till 
 night, and then hurry home again, and dine and go
 
 106 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 to a theatre? That may be worth while if you make 
 a fortune; I don't know, it depends on your nature; 
 but if you don't, is it worth while then? I want 
 to make more out of my life than that, Bateman." 
 
 "What do you value in life then?" 
 
 "I'm afraid you'll laugh at me. Beauty, truth, 
 and goodness." 
 
 "Don't you think you can have those in Chicago?" 
 
 "Some men can, perhaps, but not I." Edward 
 sprang up now. "I tell you when I think of the 
 life I led in the old days I am filled with horror," 
 he cried violently. "I tremble with fear when I 
 think of the danger I have escaped. I never knew 
 I had a soul till I found it here. If I had remained 
 a rich man I might have lost it for good and all." 
 
 "I don't know how you can say that," cried Bate- 
 man indignantly. "We often used to have discus- 
 sions about it." 
 
 "Yes, I know. They were about as effectual as 
 the discussions of deaf mutes about harmony. I 
 shall never come back to Chicago, Bateman." 
 
 "And what about Isabel?" 
 
 Edward walked to the edge of the verandah and 
 leaning over looked intently at the blue magic of the 
 night. There was a slight smile on his face when he 
 turned back to Bateman. 
 
 "Isabel is infinitely too good for me. I admire 
 her more than any woman I have ever known. She 
 has a wonderful brain and she's as good as she's 
 beautiful. I respect her energy and her ambition. 
 She was born to make a success of life. I am en-i 
 tirely unworthy of her."
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 101 
 
 "She doesn't think so." 
 
 "But you must tell her so, Bateman." 
 
 "I?" cried Bateman. "I'm the last person who 
 could ever do that." 
 
 Edward had his back to the vivid light of the 
 moon and his face could not be seen. Is it possi- 
 ble that he smiled again? 
 
 "It's no good your trying to conceal anything 
 from her, Bateman. With her quick intelligence 
 she'll turn you inside out in five minutes. You'd 
 better make a clean breast of it right away." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean. Of course I shall 
 tell her I've seen you." Bateman spoke in some 
 agitation. "Honestly I don't know what to say to 
 her." 
 
 "Tell her that I haven't made good. Tell her 
 that I'm not only poor, but that I'm content to be 
 poor. Tell her I was fired from my job because I 
 was idle and inattentive. Tell her all you've seen to- 
 night and all I've told you." 
 
 The idea which on a sudden flashed through 
 Bateman's brain brought him to his feet and in un- 
 controllable perturbation he faced Edward. 
 
 "Man alive, don't you want to marry her?" 
 
 Edward looked at him gravely. 
 
 "I can never ask her to release me. If she wishes 
 to hold me to my word I will do my best to make 
 her a good and loving husband." 
 
 "Do you wish me to give her that message, 
 Edward? Oh, I can't. It's terrible. It's never 
 dawned on her for a moment that you don't want
 
 108 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 to marry her. She loves you. How can I Inflict 
 such a mortification on her?" 
 
 Edward smiled again. 
 
 "Why don't you marry her yourself, Bateman? 
 You've been in love with her for ages. You're per- 
 fectly suited to one another. You'll make her very 
 happy." 
 
 "Don't talk to me like that. I can't bear it." 
 
 "I resign in your favour, Bateman. You are the 
 better man." 
 
 There was something in Edward's tone that made 
 Bateman look up quickly, but Edward's eyes <vere 
 grave and unsmiling. Bateman did not know what 
 to say. He was disconcerted. He wondered 
 whether Edward could possibly suspect that he had 
 come to Tahiti on a special errand. And though 
 he knew it was horrible he could not prevent the 
 exultation in his heart. 
 
 "What will you do if Isabel writes and puts an 
 end to her engagement with you?" he said, slowly. 
 
 "Survive," said Edward. 
 
 Bateman was so agitated that he did not hear the 
 answer. 
 
 "I wish you had ordinary clothes on," he said, 
 somewhat irritably. "It's such a tremendously seri- 
 ous decision you're taking. That fantastic costume 
 of yours makes it seem terribly casual." 
 
 "I assure you, I can be just as solemn in a pareo 
 and a wreath of roses, as in a high hat and a cut- 
 away coat." 
 
 Then another thought struck Bateman. 
 
 "Edward, it's not for my sake you're doing this?
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 109 
 
 I don't know, but perhaps this is going to make a 
 tremendous difference to my future. You're not 
 sacrificing yourself for me? I couldn't stand for 
 ffhat, you know." 
 
 "No, Bateman, I have learnt not to be silly and 
 sentimental here. I should like you and Isabel to 
 be happy, but I have not the least wish to be un- 
 happy myself." 
 
 The answer somewhat chilled Bateman. It 
 seemed to him a little cynical. He would not have 
 been sorry to act a noble part. 
 
 "Do you mean to say you're content to waste your 
 life here? It's nothing less than suicide. When 
 I think of the great hopes you had when we left 
 college it seems terrible that you should be content 
 to be no more than a salesman in a cheap-John 
 store." 
 
 "Oh, I'm only doing that for the present, and I'm 
 gaining a great deal of valuable experience. I have 
 another plan in my head. Arnold Jackson has a 
 small island in the Paumotas, about a thousand 
 miles from here, a ring of land round a lagoon. He's 
 planted coconut there. He's offered to give it me." 
 
 "Why should he do that?" asked Bateman. 
 
 "Because if Isabel releases me I shall marry his 
 daughter." 
 
 "You?" Bateman was thunderstruck. "You 
 can't marry a half-caste. You wouldn't be so crazy 
 as that." 
 
 "She's a good girl, and she has a sweet and gentle 
 nature. I think she would make me very happy." 
 
 "Are you in love with her?"
 
 110 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "I don't know," answered Edward reflectively. 
 "I'm not In love with her as I was in love with Isa- 
 bel. I worshipped Isabel. I thought she was the 
 most wonderful creature I had ever seen. I was 
 not half good enough for her. I don't feel like that 
 with Eva. She's like a beautiful exotic flower that 
 must be sheltered from bitter winds. I want to pro- 
 tect her. No one ever thought of protecting Isabel. 
 I think she loves me for myself and not for what I 
 may become. Whatever happens to me I shall never 
 disappoint her. She suits me." 
 
 Bateman was silent. 
 
 "We must turn out early in the morning," said 
 Edward at last. "It's really about time we went to 
 bed." 
 
 Then Bateman spoke and his voice had in it a 
 genuine distress. 
 
 "I'm so bewildered, I don't know what to say. 
 I came here because I thought something was wrong. 
 I thought you hadn't succeeded in what you set 
 out to do and were ashamed to come back when 
 you'd failed. I never guessed I should be faced 
 with this. I'm so desperately sorry, Edward. I'm 
 so disappointed. I hoped you would do great things. 
 It's almost more than I can bear to think of you 
 wasting your talents and your youth and your chance 
 in this lamentable way." 
 
 "Don't be grieved, old friend," said Edward. "I 
 haven't failed. I've succeeded. You can't think 
 with what zest I look forward to life, how full 
 it seems to me and how significant. Sometimes, 
 when you are married to Isabel, you will think of me.
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 111 
 
 I shall build myself a house on my coral island and 
 I shall live there, looking after my trees — getting 
 the fruit out of the nuts in the same old way that 
 they have done for unnumbered years — I shall grow 
 all sorts of things in my garden, and I shall fish. 
 There will be enough work to keep me busy and 
 not enough to make me dull. I shall have my books 
 and Eva, children, I hope, and above all, the infinite 
 variety of the sea and the sky, the freshness 
 of the dawn and the beauty of the sunset, and the 
 rich magnificence of the night. I shall make a garden 
 out of what so short a while ago was a wilderness. 
 I shall have created something. The years will 
 pass insensibly, and when I am an old man I hope 
 that I shall be able to look back on a happy, simple, 
 peaceful life. In my small way I too shall have lived 
 in beauty. Do you think it is so little to have enjoyed 
 contentment? We know that it will profit a man 
 little if he gain the whole world and lose his soul. 
 I think I have won mine." 
 
 Edward led him to a room in which there were 
 two beds and he threw himself on one of them. In 
 ten minutes Bateman knew by his regular breathing, 
 peaceful as a child's, that Edward was asleep. But 
 for his part he had no rest, he was disturbed in 
 mind, and it was not till the dawn crept into the 
 room, ghostlike and silent, that he fell asleep. 
 
 Bateman finished telling Isabel his long story. 
 He had hidden nothing from her except what he 
 thought would wound her or what made himself 
 ridiculous. He did not tell her that he had been 
 forced to sit at dinner with a wreath of flowers round
 
 112 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 his head and he did not tell her that Edward was 
 prepared to marry her uncle's half-caste daughter 
 the moment she set him free. But perhaps Isabel 
 had keener intuitions than he knew, for as he went 
 on with his tale her eyes grew colder and her lips 
 closed upon one another more tightly. Now and 
 then she looked at him closely, and if he had been 
 less intent on his narrative he might have wondered 
 at her expression. 
 
 "What was this girl like?" she asked when he fin- 
 ished. "Uncle Arnold's daughter. Would you say 
 there was any resemblance between her and me?" 
 
 Bateman was surprised at the question. 
 
 "It never struck me. You know I've never had 
 eyes for anyone but you and I could never think 
 that anyone was like you. Who could resemble 
 you?" 
 
 "Was she pretty?" said Isabel, smiling slightly 
 at his words. 
 
 "I suppose so. I daresay some men would say 
 she was very beautiful." 
 
 "Well, it's of no consequence. I don't think we 
 need give her any more of our attention." 
 
 "What are you going to do, Isabel?" he asked 
 then. 
 
 Isabel looked down at the hand which still bore 
 the ring Edward had given her on their betrothal. 
 
 "I wouldn't let Edward break our engagement 
 because I thought it would be an incentive to him. 
 I wanted to be an inspiration to him. I thought 
 if anything could enable him to achieve success it 
 was the thought that I loved him. I have done
 
 THE FALL OF EDWARD BARNARD 113 
 
 all I could. It's hopeless. It would only be weak- 
 ness on my part not to recognise the facts. Poor 
 Edward, he's nobody's enemy but his own. He was 
 a dear, nice fellow, but there was something lack- 
 ing in him, I suppose it was backbone. I hope he'll 
 be happy." 
 
 She slipped the ring off her finger and placed it 
 on the table. Bateman watched her with a heart 
 beating so rapidly that he could hardly breathe. 
 
 "You're wonderful, Isabel, you're simply wonder- 
 ful." 
 
 She smiled, and, standing up, held out her hand 
 to him. 
 
 "How can I ever thank you for what you've done 
 for me?" she said. "You've done me a great serv- 
 ice. I knew I could trust you." 
 
 He took her hand and held it. She had never 
 looked more beautiful. 
 
 "Oh, Isabel, I would do so much more for you 
 than that. You know that I only ask to be allowed 
 to love and serve you." 
 
 "You're so strong, Bateman," she sighed. "It 
 gives me such a delicious feeling of confidence." 
 
 "Isabel, I adore you." 
 
 He hardly knew how the inspiration had come 
 to him, but suddenly he clasped her in his arms, and 
 she, all unresisting, smiled into his eyes. 
 
 "Isabel, you know I wanted to marry you the 
 very first day I saw you," he cried passionately. 
 
 "Then why on earth didn't you ask me?" she 
 replied. 
 
 She loved him. He could hardly believe it was
 
 114 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 true. She gave him her lovely lips to kiss. And as 
 he held her in his arms he had a vision of the works 
 of the Hunter Motor Traction and Automobile 
 Company growing in size and importance till they 
 covered a hundred acres, and of the millions of 
 motors they would turn out, and of the great col- 
 lection of pictures he would form which should beat 
 anything they had in New York. He would wear 
 horn spectacles. And she, with the delicious pres- 
 sure of his arms about her, sighed with happiness, 
 for she thought of the exquisite house she would 
 have, full of antique furniture, and of the concerts 
 she would give, and of the thes dansants, and the 
 dirmers to which only the most cultured people would 
 come. Bateman should wear horn spectacles. 
 "Poor Edward," she sighed.
 
 IV 
 
 Red 
 
 THE skipper thrust his hand Into one of his 
 trouser pockets and with difficulty, for they 
 were not at the sides but In front and he was a 
 portly man, pulled out a large silver watch. He 
 looked at it and then looked again at the declining 
 sun. The Kanaka at the wheel gave him a glance, 
 but did not speak. The skipper's eyes rested on the 
 island they were approaching. A white line of foam 
 marked the reef. He knew there was an opening 
 large enough to get his ship through, and when 
 they came a little nearer he counted on seeing it. 
 They had nearly an hour of daylight still before 
 them. In the lagoon the water was deep and they 
 could anchor comfortably. The chief of the village 
 which he could already see among the coconut 
 trees was a friend of the mate's, and it would be 
 pleasant to go ashore for the night. The mate came 
 forward at that minute and the skipper turned to 
 him. 
 
 "We'll take a bottle of booze along with us and 
 get some girls in to dance," he said. 
 
 "I don't see the opening," said the mate. 
 
 He was a Kanaka, a handsome, swarthy fellow, 
 with somewhat the look of a later Roman emperor, 
 
 "5
 
 116 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 inclined to stoutness; but his face was fine and clean- 
 cut. 
 
 "I'm dead sure there's one right here," said the 
 captain, looking through his glasses. "I can't un- 
 derstand why I can't pick it up. Send one of the 
 boys up the mast to have a look." 
 
 The mate called one of the crew and gave him 
 the order. The captain watched the Kanaka climb 
 and waited for him to speak. But the Kanaka 
 shouted down that he could see nothing but the un- 
 broken line of foam. The captain spoke Samoan 
 like a native, and he cursed him freely. 
 
 "Shall he stay up there?" asked the mate. 
 
 "What the hell good does that do?" answered 
 the captain. "The blame fool can't see worth a cent. 
 You bet your sweet life I'd find the opening if I was 
 up there." 
 
 He looked at the slender mast with anger. It 
 was all very well for a native who had been used 
 to climbing up coconut trees all his life. He was 
 fat and heavy. 
 
 "Come down," he shouted. "You're no more use 
 than a dead dog. We'll just have to go along the 
 reef till we find the opening." 
 
 It was a seventy-ton schooner with paraffin aux- 
 iliary, and it ran, when there was no head wind, 
 between four and five knots an hour. It was a 
 bedraggled object; it had been painted white a very 
 long time ago, but it was now dirty, dingy, and 
 mottled. It smelt strongly of paraffin and of the 
 copra which was its usual cargo. They were within 
 3. hundred feet of the reef now and the captain
 
 RED 117 
 
 told the steersman to run along it till they came 
 to the opening. But when they had gone a couple 
 of miles he realised that they had missed it. He 
 went about and slowly worked back again. The 
 white foam of the reef continued without interrup- 
 tion and now the sun was setting. With a curse 
 at the stupidity of the crew the skipper resigned 
 himself to waiting till next morning. 
 
 "Put her about," he said. "I can't anchor here." 
 
 They went out to sea a little and presently it was 
 quite dark. They anchored. When the sail was 
 furled the ship began to roll a good deal. They 
 said in Apia that one day she would roll right over; 
 and the owner, a German-American who managed 
 one of the largest stores, said that no money was 
 big enough to induce him to go out in her. The 
 cook, a Chinese in white trousers, very dirty and 
 ragged, and a thin white tunic, came to say that 
 supper was ready, and when the skipper went into 
 the cabin he found the engineer already seated at 
 table. The engineer was a long, lean man with a 
 scraggy neck. He was dressed in blue overalls and 
 a sleeveless jersey which showed his thin arms ta- 
 tooed from elbow to wrist. 
 
 "Hell, having to spend the night outside," said 
 the skipper. 
 
 The engineer did not answer, and they ate their 
 supper in silence. The cabin was lit by a dim oil 
 lamp. When they had eaten the canned apricots 
 with which the meal finished the Chink brought them 
 a cup of tea. The skipper lit a cigar and went on 
 the upper deck. The island now was only a darker
 
 118 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 mass against the night. The stars were very bright. 
 The only sound was the ceaseless breaking of the 
 surf. The skipper sank into a deck-chair and 
 smoked idly. Presently three or four members of 
 the crew came up and sat down. One of them 
 had a banjo and another a concertina. They be- 
 gan to play, and one of them sang. The native 
 song sounded strange on these instruments. Then 
 to the singing a couple began to dance. It was 
 a barbaric dance, savage and primeval, rapid, with 
 quick movements of the hands and feet and con- 
 tortions of the body; it was sensual, sexual even, but 
 sexual without passion. It was very animal, direct, 
 weird without mystery, natural in short, and 
 one might almost say childlike. At last they grew 
 tired. They stretched themselves on the deck and 
 slept, and all was silent. The skipper lifted him- 
 self heavily out of his chair and clambered down 
 the companion. He went into his cabin and got out 
 of his clothes. He climbed into his bunk and lay 
 there. He panted a little in the heat of the night. 
 But next morning, when the dawn crept over the 
 tranquil sea, the opening in the reef which had eluded 
 them the night before was seen a little to the east 
 of where they lay. The schooner entered the la- 
 goon. There was not a ripple on the surface of 
 the water. Deep down among the coral rocks you 
 saw little coloured fish swim. When he had an- 
 chored his ship the skipper ate his breakfast and 
 went on deck. The sun shone from an unclouded 
 sky, but in the early morning the air was grateful 
 and cool. It was Sunday, and there was a feeling
 
 RED 119 
 
 of quietness, a silence as though nature were at 
 rest, which gave him a peculiar sense of comfort. 
 He sat, looking at the wooded coast, and felt lazy 
 and well at ease. Presently a slow smile moved 
 his lips and he threw the stump of his cigar into 
 the water. 
 
 "I guess I'll go ashore," he said. "Get the boat 
 out." 
 
 He climbed stiffly down the ladder and was rowed 
 to a little cove. The coconut trees came down to 
 the water's edge, not in rows, but spaced out wrth 
 an ordered formality. They were like a ballet of 
 spinsters, elderly but flippant, standing in affected 
 attitudes with the simpering graces of a bygone 
 age. He sauntered idly through them, along a 
 path that could be just seen winding its tortuous 
 way, and it led him presently to a broad creek. 
 There was a bridge across it, but a bridge con- 
 structed of single trunks of coconut trees, a dozen 
 of them, placed end to end and supported where 
 they met by a forked branch driven into the bed 
 of the creek. You walked on a smooth, round 
 surface, narrow and slippery, and there was no sup- 
 port for the hand. To cross such a bridge re- 
 quired sure feet and a stout heart. The skipper 
 hesitated. But he saw on the other side, nestling 
 among the trees, a white man's house; he made up 
 his mind and, rather gingerly, began to walk. He 
 watched his feet carefully, and where one trunk 
 joined on to the next and there was a difference 
 of level, he tottered a little. It was with a gasp 
 o^ relief that he reached the last tree and finally
 
 120 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 set his feet on the firm ground of the other side. 
 He had been so intent on the difficult crossing that 
 he never noticed anyone was watching him, and it 
 was with surprise that he heard himself spoken to. 
 
 "It takes a bit of nerve to cross these bridges 
 when you're not used to them." 
 
 He looked up and saw a man standing in front 
 of him. He had evidently come out of the house 
 which he had seen. 
 
 "I saw you hesitate," the man continued, with a 
 smile on his lips, "and I was watching to see you 
 fall in." 
 
 "Not on your life," said the captain, who had now 
 recovered his confidence. 
 
 "I've fallen in myself before now. I remember, 
 one evening I came back from shooting, and I fell 
 in, gun and all. Now I get a boy to carry my gun 
 for me." 
 
 He was a man no longer young, with a small 
 beard, now somewhat grey, and a thin face. He 
 was dressed in a singlet, without arms, and a pair 
 of duck trousers. He wore neither shoes nor socks. 
 He spoke English with a slight accent. 
 
 "Are you Neilson?" asked the skipper. 
 
 "I am." 
 
 "I've heard about you. I thought you lived some- 
 wheres round here." 
 
 The skipper followed his host into the little 
 bungalow and sat down heavily in the chair which 
 the other motioned him to take. While Neilson 
 went out to fetch whisky and glasses he took a look 
 round the room. It filled him with -amazement.
 
 RED 121 
 
 He had never seen so many books. The shelves 
 reached from floor to celling on all four walls, and 
 they were closely packed. There was a grand plane 
 littered with music, and a large table on which books 
 and magazines lay In disorder. The room made him 
 feel embarrassed. He remembered that Neilson 
 was a queer fellow. No one knew very much about 
 him, although he had been In the Islands for so 
 many years, but those who knew him agreed that 
 he was queer. He was a Swede. 
 
 "You've got one big heap of books here," he said, 
 when Neilson returned. 
 
 *'They do no harm," answered Neilson with a 
 smile. 
 
 "Have you read them all?" asked the skipper. 
 
 "Most of them." 
 
 "I'm a bit of a reader myself. I have the Satur- 
 day Evening Post sent me regler." 
 
 Neilson poured his visitor a good stiff glass of 
 whisky and gave him a cigar. The skipper volun- 
 teered a little information. 
 
 "I got in last night, but I couldn't find the open- 
 ing, so I had to anchor outside. I never been this 
 run before, but my people had some stuff they 
 wanted to bring over here. Gray, d'you know him?" 
 
 "Yes, he's got a store a little way along." 
 
 "Well, there was a lot of canned stuff that he 
 wanted over, an' he's got some copra. They 
 thought I might just as well come over as lie Idle 
 at Apia. I run between Apia and Pago-Pago mostly, 
 but they've got smallpox there just now, and there's 
 nothing stirring."
 
 122 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 He took a drink of his whisky and lit a cigar. 
 He was a taciturn man, but there was something 
 in Neilson that made him nervous, and his nervous- 
 ness made him talk. The Swede was looking at him 
 •with large dark eyes in which there was an expres- 
 sion of faint amusement. 
 
 "This is a tidy little place you've got here." 
 
 "I've done my best with it." 
 
 "You must do pretty well with your trees. They 
 look fine. With copra at the price it is now. I 
 had a bit of a plantation myself once, in Upolu 
 it was, but I had to sell it." 
 
 He looked round the room again, where all those 
 books gave him a feeling of something incompre- 
 hensible and hostile. 
 
 "I guess you must find it a bit lonesome here 
 though," he said. 
 
 "I've got used to it. I've been here for twenty- 
 five years." 
 
 Now the captain could think of nothing more to 
 say, and he smoked in silence. Neilson had ap- 
 parently no wish to break it. He looked at his 
 guest with a meditative eye. He was a tall man, 
 more than six feet high, and very stout. His face 
 was red and blotchy, with a network of little pur- 
 ple veins on the cheeks, and his features were sunk 
 into its fatness. His eyes were bloodshot. His 
 neck was buried in rolls of fat. But for a fringe 
 of long curly hair, nearly white, at the back of his 
 head, he was quite bald; and that immense, shiny 
 surface of forehead, which might have given him 
 a false look of intelligence, on the contrary gave
 
 RED 123 
 
 him one of peculiar imbecility. He wore a blue 
 flannel shirt, open at the neck and showing his fat 
 chest covered with a mat of reddish hair, and a very- 
 old pair of blue serge trousers. He sat in his chair 
 in a heavy ungainly attitude, his great belly thrust 
 forward and his fat legs uncrossed. All elasticity 
 had gone from his limbs. Neilson wondered idly 
 what sort of man he had been in his youth. It 
 was almost impossible to imagine that this creature 
 of vast bulk, had ever been a boy who ran about. 
 The skipper finished his whisky, and Neilson pushed 
 the bottle towards him. 
 
 "Help yourself." 
 
 The skipper leaned forward and with his great 
 hand seized it. 
 
 "And how come you in these parts anyways?" 
 he said. 
 
 "Oh, I came out to the islands for my health. 
 My lungs were bad and they said I hadn't a year 
 to live. You see they were wrong." 
 
 "I meant, how come you to settle down right 
 here?" 
 
 "I am a sentimentalist." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 Neilson knew that the skipper had not an idea 
 what he meant, and he looked at him with an ironical 
 twinkle in his dark eyes. Perhaps just because the 
 skipper was so gross and dull a man the whim seized 
 him to talk further. 
 
 "You were too busy keeping your balance to no- 
 tice, when you crossed the bridge, but this spot is 
 generally considered rather pretty."
 
 J24 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "It's a cute little house you've got here." 
 *'Ah, that wasn't here when I first came. There 
 was a native hut, with its beehive roof and its pil- 
 lars, overshadowed by a great tree with red flowers; 
 and the croton bushes, their leaves yellow and red 
 and golden, made a pied fence around it. And 
 then all about were the coconut trees, as fanciful 
 as women, and as vain. They stood at the water's 
 edge and spent all day looking at their reflections. 
 I was a young man then — Good Heavens, it's a 
 quarter of a century ago — and I wanted to enjoy 
 all the loveliness of the world in the short time al- 
 lotted to me before I passed into the darkness. I 
 thought it was the most beautiful spot I had ever 
 seen. The first time I saw it I had a catch at my 
 heart, and I was afraid I was going to cry. I wasn't 
 more than twenty-five, and though I put the best 
 face I could on it, I didn't want to die. And some- 
 how it seemed to me that the very beauty of this 
 place made it easier for me to accept my fate. I 
 felt when I came here that all my past life had 
 fallen away, Stockholm and its University, and 
 then Bonn: it all seemed the life of somebody else, 
 as though now at last I had achieved the reality 
 which our doctors of philosophy — I am one myself, 
 you know — had discussed so much. 'A year,' I cried 
 to myself. 'I have a year. I will spend it here 
 and then I am content to die.' 
 
 "We are foolish and sentimental and melodra- 
 matic at twenty-five, but if we weren't perhaps we 
 should be less wise at fifty."
 
 RED 125 
 
 **Now drink, my friend. Don't let the nonsense 
 I talk interfere with you." 
 
 He waved his thin hand towards the bottle, and 
 the skipper finished what remained in his glass. 
 
 "You ain't drinking nothin'," he said, reaching 
 for the whisky. 
 
 "I am of a sober habit," smiled the Swede. "I 
 intoxicate myself in ways which I fancy are more 
 subtle. But perhaps that is only vanity. Anyhow, 
 the effects are more lasting and the results less 
 deleterious." 
 
 "They say there's a deal of cocaine taken in the 
 States now," said the captain. 
 
 Neilson chuckled. 
 
 "But I do not see a white man often," he con- 
 tinued, "and for once I don't think a drop of whisky 
 can do me any harm." 
 
 He poured himself out a little, added some soda, 
 and took a sip. 
 
 "And presently I found out why the spot had 
 such an unearthly loveliness. Here love had tar- 
 ried for a moment like a migrant bird that happens 
 on a ship in mid-ocean and for a little while folds 
 its tired wings. The fragrance of a beautiful pas- 
 sion hovered over it like the fragrance of hawthorn 
 in May in the meadows of my home. It seems to 
 me that the places where men have loved or suf- 
 fered keep about them always some faint aroma 
 of something that has not wholly died. It is as 
 though they had acquired a spiritual significance 
 which mysteriously affects those who pass. I wish 
 I could make myself clear." He smiled a little.
 
 126 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Though I cannot Imagine that if I did you would 
 understand." 
 
 He paused. 
 
 "I think this place was beautiful because here 
 had been loved beautifully." And now he shrugged 
 his shoulders. "But perhaps it is only that my aes- 
 thetic sense is gratified by the happy conjunction 
 of young love and a suitable setting." 
 
 Even a man less thick-witted than the skipper 
 might have been forgiven if he were bewildered by 
 Neilson's words. For he seemed faintly to laugh 
 at what he said. It was as though he spoke from 
 emotion which his intellect found ridiculous. He 
 had said himself that he was a sentimentalist, and 
 when sentimentality is joined with scepticism there 
 is often the devil to pay. 
 
 He was silent for an instant and looked at the 
 captain with eyes in which there was a sudden per- 
 plexity. 
 
 "You know, I can't help thinking that I've seen 
 you before somewhere or other," he said. 
 
 "I couldn't say as I remember you," returned 
 the skipper. 
 
 "I have a curious feeling as though your face 
 were familiar to me. It's been puzzling me for 
 some time. But I can't situate my recollection in 
 any place or at any time." 
 
 The skipper massively shrugged his heavy shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 "It's thirty years since I first come to the islands. 
 A man can't figure on remembering all the folk 
 he meets in a while like that."
 
 RED 127 
 
 The Swede shook his head. 
 
 "You know how one sometimes has the feeling 
 that a place one has never been to before is strangely 
 familiar. That's how I seem to see you." He gave 
 a whimsical smile. "Perhaps I knew you in some 
 past existence. Perhaps, perhaps you were the mas- 
 ter of a galley in ancient Rome and I was a slave 
 at the oar. Thirty years have you been here?" 
 
 "Every bit of thirty years." 
 
 "I wonder if you knew a man called Red?" 
 
 "Red?" 
 
 "That is the only name I've ever known him by. 
 I never knew him personally. I never even set eyes 
 on him. And yet I seem to see him more clearly 
 than many men, my brothers, for instance, with 
 whom I passed my daily life for many years. He 
 lives in my imagination with the distinctness of 
 a Paolo Malatesta or a Romeo. But I daresay 
 you have never read Dante or Shakespeare?" 
 
 "I can't say as I have," said the captain. 
 
 Neilson, smoking a cigar, leaned back in his chair 
 and looked vacantly at the ring of smoke which 
 floated in the still air. A smile played on his lips, 
 but his eyes were grave. Then he looked at the 
 captain. There was in his gross obesity something 
 extraordinarily repellent. He had the plethoric self- 
 satisfaction of the very fat. It was an outrage. It 
 set Neilson's nerves on edge. But the contrast be- 
 tween the man before him and the man he had in 
 mind was pleasant. 
 
 "It appears that Red was the most comely thing 
 you ever saw. I've talked to quite a number of
 
 128 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 people who knew him in those days, white men. 
 and they all agree that the first time you saw him 
 his beauty just took your breath away. They called 
 him Red on account of his flaming hair. It had a 
 natural wave and he wore it long. It must have 
 been of that wonderful colour that the pre-Raphael- 
 ites raved over. I don't think he was vain of it, 
 he was much too ingenuous for that, but no one 
 could have blamed him if he had been. He was tall, 
 six feet and an inch or two — in the native house 
 that used to stand here was the mark of his height 
 cut with a knife on the central trunk that supported 
 the roof — and he was made like a Greek god, broad 
 in the shoulders and thin in the flanks; he was like 
 Apollo, with just that soft roundness which Praxit- 
 eles gave him, and that suave, feminine grace which 
 has in it something troubling and mysterious. His 
 skin was dazzling white, milky, like satin; his skin 
 was like a woman's." 
 
 "I had kind of a white skin myself when I was 
 a kiddie," said the skipper, with a twinkle in his 
 bloodshot eyes. 
 
 But Neilson paid no attention to him. He was 
 telling his story now and interruption made him im- 
 patient. 
 
 "And his face was just as beautiful as his body. 
 He had large blue eyes, very dark, so that some 
 say they were black, and unlike most red-haired 
 people he had dark eyebrows and long dark lashes. 
 His features were perfectly regular and his mouth 
 was like a scarlet wound. He was twenty." 
 
 On these words the Swede stopped with a certain
 
 RED 129 
 
 sense of the dramatic. He took a sip of whisky. 
 
 "He was unique. There never was anyone more 
 beautiful. There was no more reason for him than 
 for a wonderful blossom to flower on a wild plant. 
 He was a happy accident of nature. 
 
 "One day he landed at that cove into which you 
 must have put this morning. He was an American 
 sailor, and he had deserted from a man-of-war in 
 Apia. He had induced some good-humoured native 
 to give him a passage on a cutter that happened to 
 be sailing from Apia to Safoto, and he had been 
 put ashore here in a dugout. I do not know why 
 he deserted. Perhaps life on a man-of-war with 
 its restrictions irked him, perhaps he was in trouble, 
 and perhaps it was the South Seas and these ro- 
 mantic islands that got into his bones. Every now 
 and then they take a man strangely, and he finds 
 himself like a fly in a spider's web. It may be that 
 there was a softness of fibre in him, and these green 
 hills with their soft airs, this blue sea, took the 
 northern strength from him as Delilah took the 
 Nazarite's. Anyhow, he wanted to hide himself, 
 and he thought he would be safe in this secluded 
 nook till his ship had sailed from Samoa. 
 
 "There was a native hut at the cove and as he 
 stood there, wondering where exactly he should turn 
 his steps, a young girl came out and invited him to 
 enter. He knew scarcely two words of the native 
 tongue and she as little English. But he under- 
 stood well enough what her smiles meant, and her 
 pretty gestures, and he followed her. He sat down 
 on a mat and she gave him slices of pineapple to
 
 180 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 eat. I can speak of Red only from hearsay, but 
 I saw the girl three years after he first met her, 
 and she was scarcely nineteen then. You cannot 
 imagine how exquisite she was. She had the pas- 
 sionate grace of the hibiscus and the rich colour. 
 She was rather tall, slim, with the deUcate features 
 of her race, and large eyes like pools of still water 
 under the palm trees; her hair, black and curling, 
 fell down her back, and she wore a wreath of scented 
 flowers. Her hands were lovely. They were so 
 small, so exquisitely formed, they gave your heart- 
 strings a wrench. And in those days she laughed 
 easily. Her smile was so delightful that it made 
 your knees shake. Her skin was like a field of ripe 
 corn on a summer day. Good Heavens, how can I 
 describe her? She was too beautiful to be real. 
 
 *'And these two young things, she was sixteen and 
 he was twenty, fell in love with one another at first 
 sight. That is the real love, not the love that comes 
 from sympathy, common interests, or intellectual 
 community, but love pure and simple. That is the 
 love that Adam felt for Eve when he awoke and 
 found her in the garden gazing at him with dewy 
 eyes. That is the love that draws the beasts to 
 gne another, and the Gods. That is the love that 
 makes the world a miracle. That is the love which 
 gives life its pregnant meaning. You have never 
 heard of the wise, cynical French duke who said 
 that with two lovers there is always one who loves 
 and one who lets himself be loved; it is a bitter 
 truth to which most of us have to resign ourselves; 
 but now and then there are two who love and two
 
 RED 131 
 
 who let themselves be loved. Then one might fancy 
 that the sun stands still as it stood when Joshua 
 prayed to the God of Israel. 
 
 "And even now after all these years, when I 
 think of these two, so young, so fair, so simple, 
 and of their love, I feel a pang. It tears my heart 
 just as my heart is torn when on certain nights I 
 watch the full moon shining on the lagoon from 
 an unclouded sky. There is always pain in the con- 
 templation of perfect beauty. 
 
 "They were children. She was good and sweet 
 and kind. I know nothing of him, and I like to 
 think that then at all events he was ingenuous and 
 frank. I like to think that his soul was as comely 
 as his body. But I daresay he had no more soul 
 than the creatures of the woods and forests who 
 made pipes from reeds and bathed in the mountain 
 streams when the world was young, and you might 
 catch sight of little fawns galloping through the 
 glade on the back of a bearded centaur. A soul 
 is a troublesome possession and when man developed 
 it he lost the Garden of Eden. 
 
 "Well, when Red came to the island It had re- 
 cently been visited by one of those epidemics which 
 the white man has brought to the South Seas, and 
 one third of the inhabitants had died. It seems that 
 the girl had lost all her near kin and she lived now 
 in the house of distant cousins. The household con- 
 sisted of two ancient crones, bowed and wrinkled, 
 two younger women, and a man and a boy. For 
 a few days he stayed there. But perhaps he felt 
 himself too near the shore, with the possibility that
 
 IS2 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 he might fall in with white men who would reveal 
 his hiding-place; perhaps the lovers could not bear 
 that the company of others should rob them for an 
 instant of the delight of being together. One morn- 
 ing they set out, the pair of them, with the few things 
 that belonged to the girl, and walked along a grassy 
 path under the coconuts, till they came to the creek 
 you see. They had to cross the bridge you crossed, 
 and the girl laughed gleefully because he was afraid. 
 She held his hand till they came to the end of the 
 first tree, and then his courage failed him and he 
 had to go back. He was obliged to take off all 
 his clothes before he could risk it, and she carried 
 them over for him on her head. They settled down 
 in the empty hut that stood here. Whether she 
 had any rights over it (land tenure is a compli- 
 cated business in the islands), or whether the owner 
 had died during the epidemic, I do not know, but 
 anyhow no one questioned them, and they took 
 possession. Their furniture consisted of a couple 
 of grass-mats on which they slept, a fragment of 
 looking-glass, and a bowl or two. In this pleasant 
 land that is enough to start housekeeping on. 
 
 *'They say that happy people have no history, and 
 certainly a happy love has none. They did nothing 
 all day long and yet the days seemed all too short. 
 The girl had a native name, but Red called her 
 Sally. He picked up the easy language very quickly, 
 and he used to lie on the mat for hours while she 
 chattered gaily to him. He w^as a silent fellow, 
 and perhaps his mind was lethargic. He smoked 
 incessantly the cigarettes which she made him out
 
 RED 133 
 
 of the native tobacco and pandanus leaf, and he 
 watched her while with deft fingers she made grass 
 mats. Often natives would come in and tell long 
 stories of the old days when the island was dis- 
 turbed by tribal wars. Sometimes he would go fish- 
 ing on the reef, and bring home a basket full of 
 coloured fish. Sometimes at night he would go out 
 with a lantern to catch lobster. There Vv'ere plan- 
 tains round the hut and Sally would roast them 
 for their frugal meal. She knew how to make de- 
 licious messes from coconuts, and the breadfruit 
 tree by the side of the creek gave them Its fruit. 
 On feast-days they killed a little pig and cooked It 
 on hot stones. They bathed together in the creek; 
 and In the evening they went down to the lagoon 
 and paddled about In a dugout, with its great out- 
 rigger. The sea was deep blue, wine-coloured at 
 sundown, like the sea of Homeric Greece; but in 
 the lagoon the colour had an Infinite variety, aqua- 
 marine and amethyst and emerald; and the setting 
 sun turned it for a short moment to liquid gold. 
 Then there was the colour of the coral, brown, white, 
 pink, red, purple; and the shapes It took were mar- 
 vellous. It was like a magic garden, and the hurry- 
 ing fish were like butterflies. It strangely lacked 
 reality. Among the coral were pools with a floor of 
 white sand and here, where the water was dazzling 
 clear, it was very good to bathe. Then, cool and 
 happy, they wandered back in the gloaming over the 
 soft grass road to the creek, walking hand in hand, 
 and now the mynah birds filled the coconut trees 
 with their clamour. And then the night, with that
 
 134 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 great sky shining with gold, that seemed to stretch 
 more widely than the skies of Europe, and the soft 
 airs that blew gently through the open hut, the long 
 night again was all too short. She was sixteen and 
 he was barely twenty. The dawn crept in among the 
 wooden pillars of the hut and looked at those lovely 
 children sleeping in one another's arms. The sun hid 
 behind the great tattered leaves of the plantains so 
 that it might not disturb them, and then, with play- 
 ful malice, shot a golden ray, like the outstretched 
 paw of a Persian cat, on their faces. They opened 
 their sleepy eyes and they smiled to welcome an- 
 other day. The weeks lengthened into months, and 
 a year passed. They seemed to love one another 
 as — I hesitate to say passionately, for passion has 
 in it always a shade of sadness, a touch of bitterness 
 or anguish, but as whole heartedly, as simply and 
 naturally as on that first day on which, meeting, 
 they had recognised that a god was in them. 
 
 "If you had asked them I have no doubt that they 
 would have thought it impossible to suppose their 
 love could ever cease. Do we not know that the 
 essential element of love Is a belief in its own eter- 
 nity? And yet perhaps in Red there was already 
 a very little seed, unknown to himself and unsus- 
 pected by the girl, which would in time have grown 
 to weariness. For one day one of the natives from 
 the cove told them that some way down the coast 
 at the anchorage w^as a British whaling-ship. 
 
 " 'Gee,' he said, 'I wonder if I could make a trade 
 of some nuts and plantains for a pound or two of 
 tobacco.'
 
 RED 135 
 
 "The pandanus cigarettes that Sally made him 
 with untiring hands were strong and pleasant enough 
 to smoke, but they left him unsatisfied; and he 
 yearned on a sudden for real tobacco, hard, rank, 
 and pungent. He had not smoked a pipe for many 
 months. His mouth watered at the thought of it. 
 One would have thought some premonition of harm 
 would have made Sally seek to dissuade him, but 
 love possessed her so completely that it never oc- 
 curred to her any power on earth could take him 
 from her. They went up into the hills together and 
 gathered a great basket of wild oranges, green, but 
 sweet and juicy; and they picked plantains from 
 around the hut, and coconuts from their trees, and 
 breadfruit and mangoes; and they carried them down 
 to the cove. They loaded the unstable canoe with 
 them, and Red and the native boy who had brought 
 them the news of the ship paddled along outside the 
 reef. 
 
 "It was the last time she ever saw him. 
 
 "Next day the boy came back alone. He was all 
 in tears. This is the story he told. When after 
 their long paddle they reached the ship and Red 
 hailed it, a white man looked over the side and told 
 them to come on board. They took the fruit they 
 had brought with them and Red piled it up on the 
 deck. The white man and he began to talk, and 
 they seemed to come to some agreement. One of 
 them went below and brought up tobacco. Red 
 took some at once and lit a pipe. The boy imitated 
 the zest with which he blew a great cloud of smoke 
 from his mouth. Then they said something to him
 
 18G THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 and he went into the cabin. Through the open 
 door the boy, watching- curiously, saw a bottle 
 brought out and glasses. Red drank and smoked. 
 They seemed to ask him something, for he shook 
 his head and laughed. The man, the first man who 
 had spoken to them, laughed too, and he filled Red's 
 glass once more. They went on talking and drink- 
 ing, and presently, growing tired of watching a sight 
 that meant nothing to him, the boy curled himself 
 up on the deck and slept. He was awakened by a 
 kick; and, jumping to his feet, he saw that the ship 
 was slowly sailing out of the lagoon. He caught 
 sight of Red seated at the table, with his head rest- 
 ing heavily on his arms, fast asleep. He made a 
 movement towards him, intending to wake him, but 
 a rough hand seized his arm, and a man, with a 
 scowl and words which he did not understand, 
 pointed to the side. He shouted to Red, but in a 
 moment he was seized and flung overboard. Help- 
 less, he swam round to his canoe which was drifting 
 a little way off, and pushed it on to the reef. He 
 climbed in and, sobbing all the way, paddled back to 
 shore. 
 
 "What had happened was obvious enough. The 
 whaler, by desertion or sickness, was short of hands, 
 and the captain when Red came aboard had asked 
 him to sign on ; on his refusal he had made him drunk 
 and kidnapped him. 
 
 "Sally was beside herself with grief. For three 
 days she screamed and cried. The natives did what 
 they could to comfort her, but she would not be 
 comforted. She would not eat. And then, ex-
 
 RED 187 
 
 hausted, she sank into a sullen apathy. She spent 
 long days at the cove, watching the lagoon, in the 
 vain hope that Red somehow or other would man- 
 age to escape. She sat on the white sand, hour after 
 hour, with the tears running down her cheeks, and 
 at night dragged herself wearily back across the 
 creek to the little hut where she had been happy. 
 The people with whom she had lived before Red 
 came to the island wished her to return to them, 
 but she would not; she was convinced that Red 
 would come back, and she wanted him to find her 
 where he had left her. Four months later she was 
 delivered of a still-born child, and the old woman 
 who had come to help her through her confinement 
 remained with her in the hut. All joy was taken 
 from her life. If her anguish with time became less 
 intolerable it was replaced by a settled melancholy. 
 You would not have thought that among these peo- 
 ple, whose emotions, though so violent, are very 
 transient, a woman could be found capable of so 
 enduring a passion. She never lost the profound 
 conviction that sooner or later Red would come back. 
 She watched for him, and every time someone 
 crossed this slender little bridge of coconut trees 
 she looked. It might at last be he." 
 
 Neilson stopped talking and gave a faint sigh. 
 
 "And what happened to her in the end?" asked 
 the skipper. 
 
 Neilson smiled bitterly. 
 
 "Oh, three years afterwards she took up with an- 
 other white man." 
 
 The skipper gave a fat, cynical chuckle.
 
 1«8 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "That's generally what happens to them," he 
 said. 
 
 The Swede shot him a look of hatred. He did 
 not know why that gross, obese man excited in him 
 so violent a repulsion. But his thoughts wandered 
 and he found his mind filled with memories of the 
 past. He went back five and twenty years. It was 
 when he first came to the island, weary of Apia, 
 with its heavy drinking, its gambling and coarse sen- 
 suality, a sick man, trying to resign himself to the 
 loss of the career which had fired his imagination 
 with ambitious thoughts. He set behind him reso- 
 lutely all his hopes of making a great name for him- 
 self and strove to content himself with the few poor 
 months of careful life which was all that he could 
 count on. He was boarding with a half-caste trader 
 who had a store a couple of miles along the coast 
 at the edge of a native village; and one day, wan- 
 dering aimlessly along the grassy paths of the coco- 
 nut groves, he had come upon the hut in which Sally 
 lived. The beauty of the spot had filled him with 
 a rapture so great that it was almost painful, and 
 then he had seen Sally. She was the loveliest crea- 
 ture he had ever seen, and the sadness in those dark, 
 magnificent eyes of hers affected him strangely. The 
 Kanakas were a handsome race, and beauty was not 
 rare among them, but it was the beauty of shapely 
 animals. It was empty. But those tragic eyes were 
 dark with mystery, and you felt In them the bitter 
 complexity of the groping, human soul. The trader 
 told him the story and it moved him.
 
 RED 139 
 
 "Do you think he'll ever come back?" asked Neil- 
 
 son. 
 
 No fear. Why, it'll be a couple of years before 
 the ship is paid off, and by then he'll have forgotten 
 all about her. I bet he was pretty mad when he 
 woke up and found he'd been shanghaied, and I 
 shouldn't wonder but he wanted to fight somebody. 
 But he'd got to grin and bear it, and I guess in 
 a month he was thinking it the best thing that had 
 ever happened to him that he got away from the 
 island." 
 
 But Neilson could not get the story out of his 
 head. Perhaps because he was sick and weakly, the 
 radiant health of Red appealed to his imagination. 
 Himself an ugly man, insignificant of appearance, 
 he prized very highly comehness in others. He had 
 never been passionately in love, and certainly he had 
 never been passionately loved. The mutual attrac- 
 tion of those two young things gave him a singular 
 delight. It had the ineffable beauty of the Abso- 
 lute. He went again to the little hut by the creek. 
 He had a gift for languages and an energetic mind, 
 accustomed to work, and he had already given much 
 time to the study of the local tongue. Old habit 
 was strong in him and he was gathering together 
 material for a paper on the Samoan speech. The 
 old crone who shared the hut with Sally invited him 
 to come in and sit down. She gave him kava to 
 drink and cigarettes to smoke. She was glad to 
 have someone to chat with and while she talked he 
 looked at Sally. She reminded him of the Psyche 
 m the museum at Naples. Her features had the
 
 liO THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 same clear purity of line, and though she had borne 
 a child she had still a virginal aspect. 
 
 It was not till he had seen her two or three times 
 that he induced her to speak. Then it was only to 
 ask him if he had seen in Apia a man called Red. 
 Two years had passed since his disappearance, but 
 it was plain that she still thought of him incessantly. 
 
 It did not take Neilson long to discover that he 
 was in love with her. It was only by an effort of 
 will now that he prevented himself from going every 
 day to the creek, and when he was not with Sally 
 his thoughts were. At first, looking upon himself 
 as a dying man, he asked only to look at her, and 
 occasionally hear her speak, and his love gave him 
 a wonderful happiness. He exulted in its purity. 
 He wanted nothing from her but the opportunity to 
 weave around her graceful person a web of beautiful 
 fancies. But the open air, the equable temperature, 
 the rest, the simple fare, began to have an unex- 
 pected effect on his health. His temperature did 
 not soar at night to such alarming heights, he 
 coughed less and began to put on weight; six months 
 passed without his having a hsemorrhage; and on a 
 sudden he saw the possibility that he might live. 
 He had studied his disease carefully, and the hope 
 dawned upon him that with great care he might 
 arrest its course. It exhilarated him to look for- 
 ward once more to the future. He made plans. It 
 was evident that any active life was out of the ques- 
 tion, but he could live on the islands, and the small 
 income he had, insufficient elsewhere, would be am- 
 ple to keep him. He could grow coconuts; that
 
 RED I-ii 
 
 would give him an occupation; and he would send 
 for his books and a piano; but his quick mind saw 
 that in all this he was merely trying to conceal from 
 himself the desire which obsessed him. 
 
 He wanted Sally. He loved not only her beauty, 
 but that dim soul which he divined behind her suf- 
 fering eyes. He would intoxicate her with his pas- 
 sion. In the end he would make her forget. And 
 in an ecstasy of surrender he fancied himself giving 
 her too the happiness which he had thought never 
 to know again, but had now so miraculously achieved. 
 
 He asked her to live with him. She refused. He 
 had expected that and did not let it depress him, 
 for he was sure that sooner or later she would yield. 
 His love was irresistible. He told the old woman of 
 his wishes, and found somewhat to his surprise that 
 she and the neighbours, long aware of them, were 
 strongly urging Sally to accept his offer. After all, 
 every native was glad to keep house for a white man, 
 and Neilson according to the standards of the island 
 was a rich one. The trader with whom he boarded 
 went to her and told her not to be a fool ; such an op- 
 portunity would not come again, and after so long 
 she could not still believe that Red would ever re- 
 turn. The girl's resistance only increased Neilson's 
 desire, and what had been a very pure love now 
 became an agonising passion. He was determined 
 that nothing should stand in his way. He gave 
 Sally no peace. At last, worn out by his persistence 
 and the persuasions, by turns pleading and angry, 
 of everyone around her, she consented. But the 
 day after when, exultant, he went to see her he found
 
 142 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 that In the night she had burnt down the hut in 
 which she and Red had lived together. The old 
 crone ran towards him full of angry abuse of Sally, 
 but he waved her aside; it did not matter; they would 
 build a bungalow on the place where the hut had 
 stood. A European house would really be more 
 convenient if he wanted to bring out a piano and 
 a vast number of books. 
 
 And so the little wooden house was. built in which 
 he had now lived for many years, and Sally became 
 his wife. But after the first few weeks of rapture, 
 during which he was satisfied with what she gave 
 him he had known little happiness. She had yielded 
 to him, through weariness, but she had only yielded 
 what she set no store on. The soul which he had 
 dimly glimpsed escaped him. He knew that she 
 cared nothing for him. She still loved Red, and 
 all the time she was waiting for his return. At a. 
 sign from him, Neilson knew that, notwithstanding 
 his love, his tenderness, his sympathy, his generos- 
 ity, she would leave him without a moment's hesi- 
 tation. She would never give a thought to his dis- 
 tress. Anguish seized him and he battered at that 
 impenetrable self of hers which sullenly resisted him. 
 His love became bitter. He tried to melt her heart 
 with kindness, but it remained as hard as before; 
 he feigned indifference, but she did not notice it. 
 Sometimes he lost his temper and abused her, and 
 then she wept silently. Sometimes he thought she 
 was nothing but a fraud, and that soul simply an 
 invention of his own, and that he could not get into 
 the sanctuary of her heart because there was no
 
 RED 143 
 
 sanctuary there. His love became a prison from 
 which he longed to escape, but he had not the 
 strength merely to open the door — ^that was all it 
 needed — and walk out into the open air. It was 
 torture and at last he became numb and hopeless. 
 In the end the fire burnt itself out and, when he 
 saw her eyes rest for an instant on the slender bridge, 
 it was no longer rage that filled his heart but impa- 
 tience. For many years now they had lived to- 
 gether bound by the ties of habit and convenience, 
 and it was with a smile that he looked back on his 
 old passion. She was an old woman, for the women 
 on the islands age quickly, and if he had no love 
 for her any more he had tolerance. She left him 
 alone. He was contented with his piano and his 
 books. 
 
 His thoughts led him to a desire for words. 
 
 *'When I look back now and reflect on that brief 
 passionate love of Red and Sally, I think that per- 
 haps they should thank the ruthless fate that sepa- 
 rated them when their love seemed still to be at its 
 height. They suffered, but they suffered in beauty. 
 They were spared the real tragedy of love." 
 
 "I don't know exactly as I get you," said the 
 skipper. 
 
 "The tragedy of love is not death or separation. 
 How long do you think it would have been before 
 one or other of them ceased to care? Oh, it is 
 dreadfully bitter to look at a woman whom you have 
 loved with all your heart and soul, so that you felt 
 you could not bear to let her out of your sight, and 
 realise that you would not mind if you never saw
 
 144 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 her again. The tragedy of love is indifference." 
 
 But while he was speaking a very extraordinary 
 thing happened. Though he had been addressing 
 the skipper he had not been talking to him, he had 
 been putting his thoughts into words for himself, 
 and with his eyes fixed on the man in front of him 
 he had not seen him. But now an image presented 
 itself to them, an image not of the man he saw, but 
 of another man. It was as though he were looking 
 into one of those distorting mirrors that make you 
 extraordinarily squat or outrageously elongate, but 
 here exactly the opposite took place, and in the 
 obese, ugly old man he caught the shadowy glimpse 
 of a stripling. He gave him now a quick, searching 
 scrutiny. Why had a haphazard stroll brought him 
 just to this place? A sudden tremor of his heart 
 made him slightly breathless. An absurd suspicion 
 seized him. What had occurred to him was im- 
 possible, and yet it might be a fact. 
 
 "What is your name?" he asked abruptly. 
 
 The skipper's face puckered and he gave a cun- 
 ning chuckle. He looked then malicious and hor- 
 ribly vulgar. 
 
 "It's such a damned long time since I heard it 
 that I almost forget it myself. But for thirty years 
 now in the islands they've always called me Red." 
 
 His huge form shook as he gave a low, almost 
 silent laugh. It was obscene. Neilson shuddered. 
 Red was hugely amused, and from his bloodshot 
 eyes tears ran down his cheeks. 
 
 Neilson gave a gasp, for at that moment a woman 
 came in. She was a native, a woman of somewhat
 
 RED 145 
 
 commanding presence, stout without being corpu- 
 lent, dark, for the natives grow darker with age, 
 with very grey hair. She wore a black Mother 
 Hubbard, and its thinness showed her heavy breasts. 
 The moment had come. 
 
 She made an observation to Neilson about some 
 household matter and he answered. He wondered 
 if his voice sounded as unnatural to her as it did 
 to himself. She gave the man who was sitting in 
 the chair by the window an indifferent glance, and 
 went out of the room. The moment had come and 
 gone. 
 
 Neilson for a moment could not speak. He was' 
 strangely shaken. Then he said: 
 
 "I'd be very glad if you'd stay and have a bit 
 of dinner with me. Pot luck." 
 
 •T don't think I will," said Red. "I must go 
 after this fellow Gray. I'll give him his stuff and 
 then I'll get away. I want to be back in Apia to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "I'll send a boy along with you to show you the 
 way." 
 
 "That'll be fine." 
 
 Red heaved himself out of his chair, while the 
 Swede called one of the boys who worked on the 
 plantation. He told him where the skipper wanted 
 to go, and the boy stepped along the bridge. Red 
 prepared to follow him. 
 
 "Don't fall in," said Neilson. 
 
 "Not on your life." 
 
 Neilson watched him make his way across and 
 when he had disappeared among the coconuts h^
 
 146 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 looked still. Then he sank heavily in his chair. 
 Was that the man who had prevented him from 
 being happy? Was that the man whom Sally had 
 loved all these years and for whom she had waited 
 so desperately? It was grotesque. A sudden fury 
 seized him so that he had an instinct to spring up and 
 smash everything around him. He had been 
 cheated. They had seen each other at last and had 
 not known it. He began to laugh, mirthlessly, and 
 his laughter grew till it became hysterical. The 
 Gods had played him a cruel trick. And he was 
 old now. 
 
 At last Sally came in to tell him dinner was ready. 
 He sat down in front of her and tried to eat. He 
 wondered what she would say if he told her now 
 that the fat old man sitting in the chair was the 
 lover whom she remembered still with the passion- 
 ate abandonment of her youth. Years ago, when 
 he hated her because she made him so unhappy, he 
 would have been glad to tell her. He wanted to 
 hurt her then as she hurt him, because his hatred 
 was only love. But now he did not care. He 
 shrugged his shoulders listlessly. 
 
 "What did that man want?" she asked presently. 
 
 He did not answer at once. She was old too, a 
 fat old native woman. He wondered why he had 
 ever loved her so madly. He had laid at her feet 
 all the treasures of his soul, and she had cared noth- 
 ing for them. Waste, what waste ! And now, when 
 he looked at her, he felt only contempt. His pa- 
 tience was at last exhausted. He answered her ques- 
 tion.
 
 RED 147 
 
 "He's the captain of a schooner. He's come 
 from Apia." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He brought me news from home. My eldest 
 brother is very ill and I must go back." 
 
 "Will you be gone long?" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders.
 
 The Pool 
 
 WHEN I was introduced to Lawson by Chap- 
 lin, the owner of the Hotel Metropole at 
 Apia, I paid no particular attention to him. We 
 were sitting in the lounge over an early cocktail and 
 I was listening with amusement to the gossip of 
 the island. 
 
 Chaplin entertained me. He was by profession 
 a mining engineer and perhaps it was characteristic 
 of him that he had settled in a place where his pro- 
 fessional attainments were of no possible value. It 
 was, however, generally reported that he was an ex- 
 tremely clever mining engineer. He was a small 
 man, neither fat nor thin, with black hair, scanty 
 on the crown, turning grey, and a small, untidy mous- 
 tache; his face, partly from the sun and partly from 
 liquor, was very red. He was but a figurehead, 
 for the hotel, though so grandly named but a frame 
 building of two storeys, was managed by his wife, a 
 tall, gaunt Australian of five and forty, with an 
 imposing presence and a determined air. The lit- 
 tle man, excitable and often tipsy, was terrified of 
 her, and the stranger soon heard of domestic quar- 
 rels in which she used her fist and her foot in order 
 
 148
 
 THE POOL 149 
 
 to keep him in subjection. She had been known after 
 a night of drunkenness to confine him for twenty- 
 four hours to his own room, and then he could be 
 seen, afraid to leave his prison, talking somewhat 
 pathetically from his verandah to people in the 
 street below. 
 
 He was a character, and his reminiscences of a 
 varied life, whether true oj not, made him worth 
 listening to, so that when Lawson strolled in I was 
 inclined to resent the interruption. Although not 
 midday, it was clear that he had had enough to 
 drink, and it was without enthusiasm that I yielded 
 to his persistence and accepted his offer of another 
 cocktail. I knew already that Chaplin's head was 
 weak. The next round which in common politeness 
 I should be forced to order would be enough to make 
 him lively, and then Mrs Chaplin would give me 
 black looks. 
 
 Nor was there anything attractive in Lawson's 
 appearance. He was a little thin man, with a long, 
 sallow face and a narrow, weak chin, a prominent 
 nose, large and bony, and great shaggy black eye- 
 brows. They gave him a peculiar look. His eyes, 
 very large and very dark, were magnificent. He was 
 jolly, but his jollity did not seem to me sincere; it 
 was on the surface, a mask which he wore to deceive 
 the world, and I suspected that it concealed a mean 
 nature. He was plainly anxious to be thought a 
 "good sport" and he was hail-fellow-well-met; but, 
 I do not know why, I felt that he was cunning and 
 shifty. He talked a great deal in a raucous voice, 
 and he and Chaplin capped one another's stories
 
 150 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 of beanos which had become legendary, stories of 
 ^'wet" nights at the English Club, of shooting expe- 
 ditions where an incredible amount of whisky had 
 been consumed, and of jaunts to Sydney of which 
 'iheir pride was that they could remt Tiber nothing 
 from the time they landed till the time they sailed. 
 A. pair of drunken swine. But even in their intoxi- 
 :ation, for by now after four cocktails each, neither 
 was sober, there was a great difference between 
 Chaplin, rough and vulgar, and Lawson: Lawson 
 might be drunk, but he was certainly a gentleman.. 
 
 At last he got out of his chair, a little unsteadily. 
 
 "Well, I'll be getting along home," he said. "See 
 you before dinner." 
 
 "Missus all right?" said Chaplin. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He went out. There was a peculiar note in the 
 monosyllable of his answer which made me look up. 
 
 "Good chap," said Chaplin flatly, as Lawson went 
 out of the door Into the sunshine. "One of the 
 best. Pity he drinks." 
 
 This from Chaplin was an observation not with- 
 out humour. 
 
 "And when he's drunk he wants to fight people." 
 
 "Is he often drunk?" 
 
 "Dead drunk, three or four days a week. It's the 
 island done it, and Ethel." 
 
 "Who's Ethel?" 
 
 "Ethel's his wife. Married a half-caste. Old 
 Brevald's daughter. Took her away from here. 
 Only thing to do. But she couldn't stand it, and 
 now they're back again. He'll hang himself one of
 
 THE POOL 151 
 
 these days, If he don't drink himself to death before. 
 Good chap. Nasty when he's drunk." 
 
 Chaplin belched loudly. 
 
 "I'll go and put my head under the shower. I 
 oughtn't to have had that last cocktail. It's always 
 the last one that does you In." 
 
 He looked uncertainly at the staircase as he made 
 up his mind to go to the cubby hole in which was 
 the shower, and then with unnatural seriousness 
 got up. 
 
 "Pay you to cultivate Lawson," he said. "A well 
 read chap. You'd be surprised when he's sober. 
 Clever too. Worth talking to." 
 
 Chaplin had told me the whole story In these 
 few speeches. 
 
 When I came In towards evening from a ride 
 along the seashore Lawson was again in the hotel. 
 He was heavily sunk In one of the cane chairs in 
 the lounge and he looked at me with glassy eyes. 
 It was plain that he had been drinking all the after- 
 noon. He was torpid, and the look on his face was 
 sullen and vindictive. His glance rested on me for 
 a moment, but I could see that he did not recognise 
 me. Two or three other men were sitting there, 
 shaking dice, and they took no notice of him. His 
 condition was evidently too usual to attract atten- 
 tion. I sat down and began to play. 
 
 "You're a damned sociable lot," said Lawson 
 suddenly. 
 
 He got out of his chair and waddled with bent 
 knees towards the door. I do not know whether
 
 152 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 the spectacle was more ridiculous than revolting. 
 When he had gone one of the men sniggered. 
 
 "Lawson's fairly soused to-day," he said. 
 
 "If I couldn't carry my liquor better than that," 
 said another, "I'd climb on the waggon and stay 
 there." 
 
 Who would have thought that this wretched ob- 
 ject was in his way a romantic figure or that his 
 life had in it those elements of pity and terror which 
 the theorist tells us are necessary to achieve the 
 effect of tragedy? 
 
 I did not see him again for two or three days. 
 
 I was sitting one evening on the first floor of the 
 hotel on a verandah that overlooked the street when 
 Lawson came up and sank, into a chair beside me. 
 He was quite sober. He made a casual remark 
 and then, when I had replied somewhat indifferently, 
 added with a laugh which had in it an apologetic 
 tone: 
 
 "I was devilish soused the other day." 
 
 I did not answer. There was really nothing to 
 say. I pulled away at my pipe in the vain hope of 
 keeping the mosquitoes away, and looked at the na- 
 tives going home from their work. They walked 
 with long steps, slowly, with care and dignity, and 
 the soft patter of their naked feet was strange to 
 hear. Their dark hair, curling or straight, was 
 often white with lime, and then they had a look 
 of extraordinary distinction. They were tall anc^^ 
 finely built. Then a gang of Solomon Islanders, in- 
 dentured labourers, passed by, singing; they were 
 shorter and slighter than the Samoans, coal black,
 
 THE POOL 153 
 
 with great heads of fuzzy hair dyed red. Now and 
 then a white man drove past in his buggy or rode 
 into the hotel yard. In the lagoon two or three 
 schooners reflected their grace in the tranquil water. 
 
 "I don't know what there is to do in a place like 
 this except to get soused," said Lawson at last. 
 
 "Don't you like Samoa?" I asked casually, for 
 something to say. 
 
 "It's pretty, isn't it?" 
 
 The word he chose seemed so inadequate to de- 
 scribe the unimaginable beauty of the island, that 
 I smiled, and smiling I turned to look at him. I was 
 startled by the expression in those fine sombre eyes 
 of his, an expression of intolerable anguish; they be- 
 trayed a tragic depth of emotion of which I should 
 never have thought him capable. But the expres- 
 sion passed away and he smiled. His smile was 
 simple and a little naive. It changed his face so that 
 I wavered in my first feeling of aversion from him. 
 
 "I was all over the place when I first came out," 
 he said. 
 
 He was silent for a moment. 
 
 "I went away for good about three years ago, 
 but I came back." He hesitated. "My wife wanted 
 to come back. She was born here, you know." 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 He was silent again, and then hazarded a remark 
 about Robert Louis Stevenson. He asked me ii I 
 had been up to Vailima. For some reason he was 
 making an effort to be agreeable to me. He began 
 to talk of Stevenson's books, and presently the con* 
 versation drifted to London.
 
 154 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "I suppose Covent Garden's still going strong," 
 he said. "I think. I miss the opera as much as any- 
 thing here. Have you seen Tristan and Isolde?" 
 
 He asked me the question as though the answer 
 were really Important to him, and when I said, a 
 little casually I daresay, that I had, he seemed 
 pleased. He began to speak of Wagner, not as a 
 musician, but as the plain man who received from 
 him an emotional satisfaction that he could not an- 
 alyse. 
 
 "I suppose Bayreuth was the place to go really," 
 he said. "I never had the money, worse luck. But 
 of course one might do worse than Covent Garden, 
 all the lights and the women dressed up to the nines, 
 and the music. The first act of the JValkiire^s all 
 right, isn't it? And the end of Tristan. Golly!" 
 
 His eyes were flashing now and his face was lit 
 up so that he hardly seemed the same man. There 
 was a flush on his sallow, thin cheeks, and I forgot 
 that his voice was harsh and unpleasant. There 
 was even a certain charm about him. 
 
 "By George, I'd like to be in London to-night 
 Do you know the Pall Mall restaurant? I used to 
 go there a lot. Piccadilly Circus with the shops all 
 lit up, and the crowd. I think it's stunning to stand 
 there and watch the buses and taxis streaming along 
 as though they'd never stop. And I like the Strand 
 too. What are those Hnes about God and Charing 
 Cross?" 
 
 I was taken aback. 
 
 *'Thompson's, d'you mean?" I asked. 
 
 I quoted them.
 
 THE POOL 155 
 
 ^And ivhen so sad, thou canst not sadder, 
 Cry, and upon thy so sore loss 
 Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder 
 Pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross. 
 
 ft 
 
 He gave a faint sigh. 
 
 "I've read The Hound of Heaven. It's a bit of 
 all right." 
 
 "It's generally thought so," I murmured. 
 
 "You don't meet anybody here who's read any- 
 thing. They think it's swank." 
 
 There was a wistful look on his face, and I 
 thought I divined the feeling that made him come 
 to me. I was a link with the world he regretted 
 and a life that he would know no more. Because 
 not so very long before I had been in the London 
 which he loved, he looked upon me with awe and 
 envy. He had not spoken for five minutes perhaps 
 when he broke out with words that startled me by 
 their intensity. 
 
 "I'm fed up," he said. "I'm fed up." 
 
 "Then why don't you clear out?" I asked. 
 
 His face grew sullen. 
 
 "My lungs are a bit dicky. I couldn't stand an 
 English winter now." 
 
 At that moment another man joined us on the 
 verandah and Lawson sank into a moody silence, 
 
 "It's about time for a drain," said the new- 
 comer. "Who'll have a drop of Scotch with me? 
 Lawson?" 
 
 Lawson seemed to arise from a distant world. 
 He got up.
 
 15G THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 *'Let's go down to the bar," he said. 
 
 When he left me I remained with a more kindly 
 feeling towards him than I should have expected. 
 He puzzled and interested me. And a few days 
 later I met his wife. I knew they had been married 
 for five or six years, and I was surprised to see that 
 she was still extremely young. When he married 
 her she could not have been more than sixteen. She 
 was adorably pretty. She was no darker than a 
 Spaniard, small and very beautifully made, with 
 tiny hands and feet, and a slight, lithe figure. Her 
 features were lovely; but I think what struck me 
 most was the delicacy of her appearance; the half- 
 caste as a rule have a certain coarseness, they seem 
 a little roughly formed, but she had an exquisite 
 daintiness which took your breath away. There was 
 something extremely civilised about her, so that it 
 surprised you to see her in those surroundings, and 
 you thought of those famous beauties who had set 
 all the world talking at the Court of the Emperor 
 Napoleon III. Though she wore but a muslin frock 
 and a straw hat she wore them with an elegance 
 that suggested the woman of fashion. She must 
 have been ravishing when Lawson first saw her. 
 
 He had but lately come out from England to man- 
 age the local branch of an English bank, and, reach- 
 ing Samoa at the beginning of the dry season, he 
 had taken a room at the hotel. He quickly made 
 the acquaintance of all and sundry. The life of the 
 island is pleasant and easy. He enjoyed the long 
 idle talks in the lounge of the hotel and the gay 
 evenings at the English Club when a group of fel-
 
 THE POOL 157 
 
 lows would play pool. He liked Apia straggling 
 along the edge of the lagoon, with its stores and 
 bungalows, and its native village. Then there were 
 week-ends when he would ride over to the house of 
 one planter or another and spend a couple of nights 
 on the hills. He had never before known freedom 
 or leisure. And he was intoxicated by the sunshine. 
 When he rode through the bush his head reeled a 
 little at the beauty that surrounded him. The coun- 
 try was indescribably fertile. In parts the forest 
 was still virgin, a tangle of strange trees, luxuriant 
 undergrowth, and vine; it gave an impression that 
 was mysterious and troubling. 
 
 But the spot that entranced him was a pool a 
 mile or two away from Apia to which in the evenings 
 he often went to bathe. There was a little river 
 that bubbled over the rocks in a swift stream, and 
 then, after forming the deep pool, ran on, shallow 
 and crystalline, past a ford made by great stones 
 where the natives came sometimes to bathe or to 
 wash their clothes. The coconut trees, with their 
 frivolous elegance, grew thickly on the banks, all 
 clad with trailing plants, and they were reflected in 
 the green water. It was just such a scene as you 
 might see in Devonshire among the hills, and yet 
 with a difference, for it had a tropical richness, a 
 passion, a scented languor which seemed to melt the 
 heart. The water was fresh, but not cold; and it 
 was delicious after the heat of the day. To bathe 
 there refreshed not only the body but the soul. 
 
 At the hour when Lawson went, there was not 
 a soul and he lingered for a long time, now float*
 
 158 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 ing idly in the water, now drying himself in the 
 evening sun, enjoying the solitude and the friendly 
 silence. He did not regret London then, nor the 
 life that he had abandoned, for life as it was seemed 
 complete and exquisite. 
 
 It was here that he first saw Ethel. 
 
 Occupied till late by letters which had to be fin- 
 ished for the monthly sailing of the boat next day, 
 he rode down one evening to the pool when the 
 light was almost failing. He tied up his horse and 
 sauntered to the bank. A girl was sitting there. 
 She glanced round as he came and noiselessly slid 
 into the water. She vanished like a naiad startled 
 by the approach of a mortal. He was surprised 
 and amused. He wondered where she had hidden 
 herself. He swam downstream and presently saw 
 her sitting on a rock. She looked at him with un- 
 curious eyes. He called out a greeting in Samoan. 
 
 "Talofar 
 
 She answered him, suddenly smiling, and then let 
 herself into the water again. She swam easily and 
 her hair spread out behind her. He watched her 
 cross the pool and climb out on the bank. Like 
 all the natives she bathed in a Mother Hubbard, 
 and the water had made it cling to her slight body. 
 She wrung out her hair, and as she stood there, un- 
 concerned, she looked more than ever like a wild 
 creature of the water or the woods. He saw now 
 that she was half-caste. He swam towards her 
 and, getting out, addressed her in English. 
 
 "You're having a late swim."
 
 THE POOL 159 
 
 She shook back her hair and then let it spread 
 over her shoulders in luxuriant curls. 
 
 **I like it when I'm alone," she said. 
 
 "So do I." 
 
 She laughed with the childlike frankness of the 
 native. She slipped a dry Mother Hubbard over 
 her head and, letting down the wet one, stepped out 
 of it. She wrung it out and was ready to go. She 
 paused a moment irresolutely and then sauntered 
 off. The night fell suddenly. 
 
 Lawson went back to the hotel and, describing her 
 to the men who were in the lounge shaking dice for 
 drinks, soon discovered who she was. Her father 
 was a Norwegian called Brevald who was often 
 to be seen in the bar of the Hotel Metropole drink- 
 ing rum and water. He was a little old man, knotted 
 and gnarled like an ancient tree, who had come out 
 to the islands forty years before as mate of a sail- 
 ing vessel. He had been a blacksmith, a trader, a 
 planter, and at one time fairly well-to-do; but, ruined 
 by the great hurricane of the nineties, he had now 
 nothing to live on but a small plantation of coco- 
 nut trees. He had had four native wives and, as 
 he told you with a cracked chuckle, more children 
 than he could count. But some had died and some 
 had gone out into the world, so that now the only 
 one left at home was Ethel. 
 
 "She's a peach," said Nelson, the supercargo of 
 the Moana. "I've given her the glad eye once or 
 twice, but I guess there's nothing doing." 
 
 "Old Brevald's not that sort of a fool, sonny," 
 put in another, a man called Miller. "He wants a
 
 IGO THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 son-in-law who's prepared to keep him in comfort 
 for the rest of his life." 
 
 It was distasteful to Lawson that they should 
 speak of the girl in that fashion. He made a re- 
 mark about the departing mail and so distracted 
 their attention. But next evening he went again 
 to the pool. Ethel was there; and the mystery of 
 the sunset, the deep silence of the water, the lithe 
 grace of the coconut trees, added to her beauty, giv- 
 ing it a profundity, a magic, which stirred the heart 
 to unknown emotions. For some reason that time 
 he had the whim not to speak to her. She took no 
 notice of him. She did not even glance in his di- 
 rection. She swam about the green pool. She dived, 
 she rested on the bank, as though she were quite 
 alone : he had a queer feehng that he was invisible. 
 Scraps of poetry, half forgotten, floated across his 
 memory, and vague recollections of the Greece he 
 had negligently studied in his school days. When 
 she had changed her wet clothes for dry ones and 
 sauntered away he found a scarlet hibiscus where 
 she had been. It was a flower that she had worn 
 in her hair when she came to bathe and, having taken 
 it out on getting into the water, had forgotten or 
 not cared to put in again. He took it in his hands 
 and looked at it with a singular emotion. ^ He had 
 an instinct to keep it, but his sentimentality irritated 
 him, and he flung it away. It gave him quite a little 
 pang to see it float down the stream. 
 
 He wondered what strangeness It was in her na- 
 ture that urged her to go down to this hidden pool 
 when there was no likelihood that anyone should
 
 THE POOL lei 
 
 be there. The natives of the islands are devoted 
 to the water. They bathe, somewhere or other, 
 every day, once always, and often twice; but they 
 bathe in bands, laughing and joyous, a whole family 
 together; and you often saw a group of girls, dap- 
 pled by the sun shining through the trees, with the 
 half-castes among them, splashing about the shal- 
 lows of the stream. It looked as though there were 
 in this pool some secret which attracted Ethel 
 against her will. 
 
 Now the night had fallen, mysterious and silent, 
 and he let himself down in the water softly, in or- 
 der to make no sound, and swam lazily in the warm 
 darkness. The water seemed fragrant still from 
 her slender body. He rode back to the town under 
 the starry sky. He felt at peace with the world. 
 
 Now he went every evening to the pool and every 
 evening he saw Ethel. Presently he overcame her 
 timidity. She became playful and friendly. They 
 sat together on the rocks above the pool, where the 
 water ran fast, and they lay side by side on the ledge 
 that overlooked it, watching the gathering dusk en- 
 velop it with mystery. It was inevitable that their 
 meetings should become known — in the South Seas 
 everyone seems to know everyone's business — and 
 he was subjected to much rude chaff by the men at 
 the hotel. He smiled and let them talk. It was not 
 even worth while to deny their coarse suggestions. 
 His feelings were absolutely pure. He loved Ethel 
 as a poet might love the moon. He thought of her 
 not as a woman but as something not of this earth. 
 She was the spirit of the pool.
 
 162 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 One day at the hotel, passing through the bar, he 
 saw that old Brevald, as ev^er in his shabby blue 
 overalls, was standing there. Because he was 
 Ethel's father he had a desire to speak to him, so 
 he went in, nodded and, ordering his own drink, 
 casually turned and invited the old man to have one 
 with him. They chatted for a few minutes of local 
 affairs, and Lawson was uneasily conscious that the 
 Norwegian was scrutinising him with sly blue eyes. 
 His manner was not agreeable. It was sycophantic, 
 and yet behind the cringing air of an old man who 
 had been worsted in his struggle with fate was a 
 shadow of old truculence. Lawson remembered that 
 he had once been captain of a schooner engaged in 
 the slave trade, a blackbirder they call it in the 
 Pacific, and he had a large hernia in the chest which 
 was the result of a wound received in a scrap with 
 Solomon Islanders. The bell rang for luncheon. 
 
 "Well, I must be off," said Lawson. 
 
 "Why don't you come along to my place one 
 time?" said Brevald, in his wheezy voice. "It's 
 not very grand, but you'll be welcome. You know 
 Ethel." 
 
 "I'll come with pleasure." 
 
 "Sunday afternoon's the best time.'* 
 
 Brevald's bungalow, shabby and bedraggled, stood 
 among the coconut trees of the plantation, a little 
 away from the main road that ran up to Vailima. 
 Immediately around it grew huge plantains. With 
 their tattered leaves they had the tragic beauty of 
 a lovely woman in rags. Everything was slovenly 
 and neglected. Little black pigs, thin and high-
 
 THE POOL 163 
 
 backed, rooted about, and chickens clucked noisily 
 as they picked at the refuse scattered here and there. 
 Three or four natives were lounging about the ver- 
 andah. When Lawson asked for Brevald the old 
 man's cracked voice called out to him, and he found 
 him in the sitting-room smoking an old briar pipe, 
 
 "Sit down and make yerself at home," he said. 
 "Ethel's just titivating." 
 
 She came in. She wore a blouse and skirt and 
 her hair was done in the European fashion. Al- 
 though she had not the wild, timid grace of the girl 
 who came down every evening to the pool, she 
 seemed now more usual and consequently more ap- 
 proachable. She shook hands with Lawson. It was 
 the first time he had touched her hand. 
 
 "I hope you'll have a cup of tea with us," she 
 said. 
 
 He knew she had been at a mission school, and 
 he was amused, and at the same time touched, by 
 the company manners she was putting on for his 
 benefit. Tea was already set out on the table and in 
 a minute old Brevald's fourth wife brought in the 
 tea-pot. She was a handsome native, no longer very 
 young, and she spoke but a few words of English. 
 She smiled and smiled. Tea was rather a solemn 
 meal, with a great deal of bread and butter and a 
 variety of very sweet cakes, and the conversation 
 was formal. Then a wrinkled old woman came in 
 softly. 
 
 "That's Ethel's granny," said old Brevald, noisily 
 spitting on the floor. 
 
 She sat on the edge of a chair, uncomfortably,
 
 \G-i> THE TREMBLING Of A LEAF 
 
 so that you saw it was unusual for her and she 
 would have been more at ease on the ground, and 
 remained silently staring at Lawson W'th fixed, 
 shining eyes. In the kitchen behind the bungalow 
 someone began to play the concertina and two or 
 three voices were raised in a hymn. But they sang 
 for the pleasure of the sounds rather than from 
 piety. 
 
 When Lawson walked back to the hotel he was 
 strangely happy. He was touched by the higgledy- 
 piggledy way in which those people lived; and in 
 the smiling good-nature of Mrs Brevald, in the little 
 Norwegian's fantastic career, and In the shining 
 mysterious eyes of the old grandmother, he found 
 something unusual and fascinating. It was a more 
 natural life than any he had known, it was nearer to 
 the friendly, fertile earth; civilisation repelled him 
 at that moment, and by mere contact with these 
 creatures of a more primitive nature he felt a 
 greater freedom. 
 
 He saw himself rid of the hotel which already 
 was beginning to irk him, settled in a little bungalow 
 of his own, trim and white, in front of the sea so 
 that he had before his eyes always the multicoloured 
 variety of the lagoon. He loved the beautiful island. 
 London and England meant nothing to him any 
 more, he was content to spend the rest of his days 
 in that forgotten spot, rich in the best of the world's 
 goods, love and happiness. He made up his mind 
 that whatever the obstacles nothing should prevent 
 him from marrying Ethel. 
 
 But there were no obsta<:les. He was always wel«
 
 THE POOL 165 
 
 come at the Brevalds' house. The old man was 
 ingratiating and Mrs Brevald smiled without ceas- 
 ing. He had brief glimpses of natives who seemed 
 somehow to belong to the establishment, and once 
 he found a tall youth in a lava-lava, his body tat- 
 tooed, his hair white with lime, sitting with Brevald, 
 and was told he was Mrs Brevald's brother's son; 
 but for the most part they kept out of his way. Ethel 
 was delightful with him. The light in her eyes when 
 she saw him filled him with ecstasy. She was charm- 
 ing and naive. He listened enraptured when she 
 told him of the mission school at which she was edu- 
 cated, and of the sisters. He went with her to the 
 cinema which was given once a fortnight and danced 
 with her at the dance which followed it. They came 
 from all parts of the island for this, since gaieties 
 are few in Upolu; and you saw there all the society 
 of the place, the white ladies keeping a good deal 
 to themselves, the half-castes very elegant in Amer- 
 ican clothes, the natives, strings of dark girls in 
 white Mother Hubbards and young men in unac- 
 customed ducks and white shoes. It was all very 
 smart and gay. Ethel was pleased to show her 
 friends the white admirer who did not leave her side. 
 The rumour was soon spread that he meant to marry 
 her and her friends looked at her with envy. It was 
 a great thing for a half-caste to get a white man 
 to marry her, even the less regular relation was bet- 
 ter than nothing, but one could never tell what it 
 would lead to; and Lawson's position as manager 
 of the bank made him one of the catches of the 
 island. If he had not been so absorbed in Ethel he
 
 16« THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 would have noticed that many eyes were fixed on him 
 curiously, and he would have seen the glances of 
 the white ladies and noticed how they put their 
 heads together and gossiped. 
 
 Afterwards, when the men who lived at the hotel 
 were having a whisky before turning in, Nelson 
 burst out with: 
 
 "Say, they say Lawson's going to marry that 
 girl." 
 
 "He's a damned fool then," said Miller. 
 
 Miller was a German-American who had changed 
 his name from Miiller, a big man, fat and bald- 
 headed, with a round, clean-shaven face. He wore 
 large gold-rimmed spectacles, which gave him a 
 benign look, and his ducks were always clean and 
 w^hlte. He was a heavy drinker, invariably ready 
 to stay up all night with the "boys," but he never 
 got drunk; he was jolly and affable, but very shrewd. 
 Nothing interfered with his business; he represented 
 a firm in San Francisco, jobbers of the goods sold 
 in the islands, calico, machinery and what not; and 
 his good-fellowship was part of his stock-in-trade. 
 
 "He don't know what he's up against," said Nel- 
 son. "Someone ought to put him wise." 
 
 "If you'll take my advice you won't interfere in 
 what don't concern you," said Miller. "When a 
 man's made up his mind to make a fool of himself, 
 there's nothing like letting him." 
 
 "I'm all for having a good time with the girls 
 out here, but when it comes to marrying them — this 
 child ain't taking any, I'll tell the world." 
 
 Chaphn was there, and now he had his say.
 
 THE POOL 167 
 
 "I've seen a lot of fellows do it, and it's no 
 good." 
 
 "You ought to have a talk, with him, Chaplin," 
 said Nelson. "You know him better than anyone 
 else does." 
 
 "My advice to Chaplin is to leave it alone," said 
 Miller. 
 
 Even in those days Lawson was not popular and 
 really no one took enough interest in him to bother. 
 Mrs Chaplin talked it over with two or three of the 
 white ladies, but they contented themselves with say- 
 ing that it was a pity; and when he told her definitely 
 that he was going to be married it seemed too late 
 to do anything. 
 
 For a year Lawson was happy. He took a bunga- 
 low at the point of the bay round which Apia is 
 built, on the borders of a native village. It nestled 
 charmingly among the coconut trees and faced the 
 passionate blue of the Pacific. Ethel was lovely as 
 she went about the little house, lithe and graceful 
 like some young animal of the woods, and she was 
 gay. They laughed a great deal. They talked non- 
 sense. Sometimes one or tvvo of the men at the 
 hotel would come over and spend the evening, and 
 often on a Sunday they would go for a day to some 
 planter who had married a native; now and then 
 one or other of the half-caste traders who had 
 a store in Apia would give a party and they went 
 to it. The half-castes treated Lawson quite differ- 
 ently now. His marriage had made him one of 
 themselves and they called him Bertie. They put 
 their arms through his and smacked him on the back.
 
 168 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 He liked to see Ethel at these gatherings. Her 
 eyes shone and she laughed. It did him good to see 
 h.°r radiant happiness. Sometimes Ethel's relations 
 would come to the bungalow, old Brevald of course, 
 and her mother, but cousins too, vague native women 
 in Mother Hubbards and men and boys in lava- 
 lavas, with their hair dyed red and their bodies 
 elaborately tattooed. He would find them sitting 
 there when he got back from the bank. He laughed 
 indulgently. 
 
 "Don't let them eat us out of hearth and home," 
 he said. 
 
 "They're my own family. I can't help doing 
 something for them when they ask me." 
 
 He knew that when a white man marries a native 
 or a half-caste he must expect her relations to look 
 upon him as a gold mine. He took Ethel's face In 
 his hands and kissed her red lips. Perhaps he could 
 not expect her to understand that the salary which 
 had amply sufficed for a bachelor must be managed 
 with some care when It had to support a wife and 
 a house. Then Ethel was delivered of a son. 
 
 It was when Lawson first held the child in his 
 arms that a sudden pang shot through his heart. 
 He had not expected it to be so dark. After all it 
 had but a fourth part of native blood, and there 
 was no reason really why it should not look just 
 like an English baby; but, huddled together in his 
 arms, sallow, its head covered already with black 
 hair, with huge black eyes, It might have been a 
 native child. Since his marriage he had been Ignored 
 by the white ladies of the colony. When he came
 
 THE POOL 169 
 
 across men In whose houses he had been accustomed 
 to dine as a bachelor, they were a little self-con- 
 scious with him ; and they sought to cover their em- 
 barrassment by an exaggerated cordiality. 
 
 "Mrs Lawson well?" they would say. "You're 
 a lucky fellow. Damned pretty girl." 
 
 But if they were with their wives and met him 
 and Ethel they would feel it awkward when their 
 wives gave Ethel a patronising nod. Lawson had 
 laughed. 
 
 "They're as dull as ditchwater, the whole gang 
 of them," he said. "It's not going to disturb my 
 night's rest If they don't ask me to their dirty 
 parties." 
 
 But now It Irked him a little. 
 
 The little dark baby screwed up Its face. That 
 wzs his son. He thought of the half-caste children 
 in Apia. They had an unhealthy look, sallow and 
 pale, and they were odiously precocious. He had 
 seen them on the boat going to school In New 
 Zealand, and a school had to be chosen which took 
 children with native blood In them; they were 
 huddled together, brazen and yet timid, with traits 
 which set them apart strangely from white people. 
 They spoke the native language among themselves. 
 And when they grew up the men accepted smaller 
 salaries because of their native blood; girls might 
 marry a white man, but boys had no chance; they 
 must marry a half-caste like themselves or a native. 
 Lawson made up his mind passionately that he would 
 take his son away from the humiliation of such a 
 life. At whatever cost he must get back to Europe.
 
 170 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 And when he went in to see Ethel, frail and lovely 
 in her bed, surrounded by native women, his de- 
 termination was strengthened. If he took her away 
 among his own people she would belong more com- 
 pletely to him. He loved her so passionately, he 
 wanted her to be one soul and one body with him; 
 and he was conscious that here, with those deep 
 roots attaching her to the native life, she would al- 
 ways keep something from him. 
 
 He went to work quietly, urged by an obscure 
 instinct of secrecy, and wrote to a cousin who was 
 partner in a shipping firm in Aberdeen, saying that 
 his health (on account of which like so many more 
 he had come out to the islands) was so much bet- 
 ter, there seemed no reason why he should not re- 
 turn to Europe. He asked him to use what influence 
 he could to get him a job, no matter how poorly 
 paid, on Deeside, where the climate was particularly 
 suitable to such as suffered from diseases of the 
 lungs. It takes live or six weeks for letters to get 
 from Aberdeen to Samoa, and several had to be 
 exchanged. He had plenty of time to prepare Ethel. 
 She was as delighted as a child. He was amused to 
 see how she boasted to her friends that she was go- 
 ing to England; it was a step up for her; she would 
 be quite English there; and she was excited at the 
 interest the approaching departure gave her. When 
 at length a cable came offering him a post in a bank 
 in Kincardineshire she was beside herself with joy. 
 
 When, their long journey over, they were settled 
 in the little Scots town with its granite houses Law- 
 son realised how much it meant to him to live once
 
 THE POOL 171 
 
 more among his own people. He looked back on 
 the three years he had spent in Apia as exile, and 
 returned to the life that seemed the only normal one 
 with a sigh of relief. It was good to play golf 
 once more, and to fish — to fish properly, that was 
 poor fun In the Pacific when you just threw In your 
 line and pulled out one big sluggish fish after an- 
 other from the crowded sea — and It was good to 
 see a paper every day with that day's news, and to 
 meet men and women of your own sort, people you 
 could talk to; and it was good to eat meat that was 
 not frozen and to drink milk that was not canned. 
 They were thrown upon their own resources much 
 more than in the Pacific, and he was glad to have 
 Ethel exclusively to himself. After two years of 
 marriage he loved her more devotedly than ever, 
 he could hardly bear her out of his sight, and the 
 need In him grew urgent for a more Intimate com- 
 munion between them. But It was strange that after 
 the first excitement of arrival she seemed to take less 
 interest In the new life than he had expected. She 
 did not accustom herself to her surroundings. She 
 was a little lethargic. As the fine autumn darkened 
 into winter she complained of the cold. She lay 
 half the morning in bed and the rest of the day on 
 a sofa, reading novels sometimes, but more often 
 doing nothing. She looked pinched. 
 
 "Never mind, darling," he said. "You'll get 
 used to It very soon. And wait till the summer 
 comes. It can be almost as hot as In Apia." 
 
 He felt better and stronger than he had done for 
 years.
 
 172 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 The carelessness with which she managed her 
 house had not mattered in Samoa, but here it was 
 out of place. When anyone came he did not want 
 the place to look untidy; and, laughing, chaffing 
 Ethel a little, he set about putting things in order. 
 Ethel watched him indolently. She spent long hours 
 playing with her son. She talked to him in the 
 baby language of her own country. To distract 
 her, Lawson bestirred himself to make friends among 
 the neighbours, and now and then they went to little 
 parties where the ladies sang drawing-room ballads 
 and the men beamed in silent good nature. Ethel 
 was shy. She seemed to sit apart. Sometimes Law- 
 son, seized with a sudden anxiety, would ask her 
 if she was happy. 
 
 "Yes, I'm quite happy," she answered. 
 
 But her eyes were veiled by some thought he could 
 not guess. She seemed to withdraw into herself so 
 that he was conscious that he knew no more of her 
 than when he had first seen her bathing in the pool. 
 He had an uneasy feeling that she was concealing 
 something from him, and because he adored her it 
 tortured him. 
 
 "You don't regret Apia, do you?" he asked her 
 once. 
 
 "Oh, no — I think it's very nice here." 
 
 An obscure misgiving drove him to make dis- 
 paraging remarks about the island and the people 
 there. She smiled and did not answer. Very rarely 
 she received a bundle of letters from Samoa and 
 then she went about for a day or two with a set, 
 pale face.
 
 THE POOL 173 
 
 "Nothing would induce me ever to go back there," 
 he said once. "It's no place for a white man." 
 
 But he grew conscious that sometimes, when he 
 was away, Ethel cried. In Apia she had been 
 talkative, chatting volubly about all the little details 
 of their common life, the gossip of the place; but 
 now she gradually became silent, and, though he 
 increased his efforts to amuse her, she remained 
 listless. It seemed to him that her recollections of 
 the old life were drawing her away from him, and 
 he was madly jealous of the Island and of the sea, 
 of Brevald, and all the dark-skinned people whom 
 he remembered now with horror. When she spoke 
 of Samoa he was bitter and satirical. One evening 
 late In the spring when the birch trees were bursting 
 into leaf, coming home from a round of golf, he 
 found her not as usual lying on the sofa, but at the 
 window, standing. She had evidently been waiting 
 for his return. She addressed him the moment he 
 came Into the room. To his amazement she spoke 
 In Samoan. 
 
 "I can't stand It. I can't live here any more. I 
 hate it. I hate it." 
 
 "For God's sake speak in a civilised language," 
 he said irritably. 
 
 She went up to him and clasped her arms around 
 his body awkwardly, with a gesture that had In it 
 something barbaric 
 
 "Let's go away from here. Let's go back to 
 Samoa. If you make mc stay here I shall die. I 
 want to go home." 
 
 Her passion broke suddenly and she burst Into
 
 174 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 tears. His anger vanished and he drew her down 
 on his knees. He explained to her that it was im- 
 possible for him to throw up his job, which after 
 all meant his bread and butter. His place in Apia 
 was long since filled. He had nothing to go back 
 to there. He tried to put it to her reasonably, the 
 inconv^eniences of life there, the humiliation to which 
 they must be exposed, and the bitterness it must 
 cause their son. 
 
 "Scotland's wonderful for education and that sort 
 of thing. Schools are good and cheap, and he can 
 go to the University at Aberdeen. I'll make a real 
 Scot of him." 
 
 They had called him Andrew. Lawson wanted 
 him to become a doctor. He would marry a white 
 woman. 
 
 "I'm not ashamed of being half native," Ethel 
 said sullenly. 
 
 "Of course not, darling. There's nothing to be 
 ashamed of." 
 
 With her soft cheek against his he felt incredibly 
 weak. 
 
 "You don't know how much I love you," he said. 
 "I'd give anything in the world to be able to tell 
 you what I've got in my heart." 
 
 He sought her lips. 
 
 The summer came. The highland valley was 
 green and fragrant, and the hills were gay with the 
 heather. One sunny day followed another in that 
 sheltered spot, and the shade of the birch trees was 
 grateful after the glare of the high road. Ethel 
 spoke no more of Samoa and Lawson grew less
 
 THE POOL 175 
 
 nervous. He thought that she was resigned to her 
 surroundings, and he felt that his love for her was 
 60 passionate that it could leave no room in her heart 
 for any longing. One day the local doctor stopped 
 him in the street. 
 
 *'I say, Lawson, your missus ought to be careful 
 how she bathes in our highland streams. It's not 
 like the Pacific, you know." 
 
 Lawson was surprised, and had not the presence 
 of mind to conceal the fact. 
 
 "I didn't know she was bathing." 
 
 The doctor laughed. 
 
 "A good many people have seen her. It makes 
 them talk a bit, you know, because it seems a rum 
 place to choose, the pool up above the bridge, and 
 bathing isn't allowed there, but there's no harm in 
 that. I don't know how she can stand the water." 
 
 Lawson knew the pool the doctor spoke of, and 
 suddenly it occurred to him that in a way it was 
 just like that pool at Upolu where Ethel had been 
 in the habit of bathing every evening. A clear high- 
 land stream ran down a sinuous course, rocky, 
 splashing gaily, and then formed a deep, smooth 
 pool, with a little sandy beach. Trees overshadowed 
 it thickly, not coconut trees, but beeches, and the 
 !^un played fitfully through the leaves on the 
 Sparkling water. It gave him a shock. With his 
 imagination he saw Ethel go there every day and 
 undress on the bank and slip into the water, cold, 
 colder than that of the pool she loved at home, and 
 for a moment regain the feeling of the past. He 
 saw her once more as the strange, wild spirit of
 
 176 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 the stream, and it seemed to him fantastically that 
 the running water called her. That afternoon he 
 went along to the river. He made his way cautiously 
 among the trees and the grassy path deadened the 
 sound of his steps. Presently he came to a spot 
 from which he could see the pool. Ethel was sitting 
 on the bank, looking down at the water. She sat 
 quite still. It seemed as though the water drew her 
 irresistibly. He wondered what strange thoughts 
 wandered through her head. At last she got up, 
 and for a minute or two she was hidden from his 
 gaze; then he saw her again, wearing a Mother 
 Hubbard, and with her little bare feet she stepped 
 delicately over the mossy bank. She came to the 
 water's edge, and softly, without a splash, let her- 
 self down. She swam about quietly, and there was 
 something not quite of a human being in the way 
 she swam. He did not know why it affected him 
 so queerly. He waited till she clambered out. She 
 stood for a moment with the wet folds of her dress 
 clinging to her body, so that its shape was outlined, 
 and then, passing her hands slowly over her breasts, 
 gave a little sigh of delight. Then she disappeared. 
 Lawson turned away and walked back to the vil- 
 lage. He had a bitter pain in his heart, for he 
 knew that she was still a stranger to him and his 
 hungry love was destined ever to remain unsatis- 
 fied. 
 
 He did not make any mention of what he had 
 seen. He ignored the incident completely, but he 
 looked at her curiously, trying to divine what was 
 in her mind. He redoubled the tenderness with
 
 THE POOL 17 
 
 which he used her. He sought to make her forget 
 the deep longing of her soul by the passion of his 
 love. 
 
 Then one day, when he came home, he was 
 astonished to find her not in the house. 
 
 "Where's Mrs Lawson?" he asked the maid. 
 
 "She went into Aberdeen, Sir, with the baby," 
 the maid answered, a little surprised at the question. 
 "She said she would not be back till the last train." 
 
 "Oh, all right." 
 
 He was vexed that Ethel had said nothing to him 
 about the excursion, but he was not disturbed, since 
 of late she had been in now and again to Aberdeen, 
 and he was glad that she should look at the shops 
 and perhaps visit a cinema. He went to meet the 
 last train, but when she did not come he grew sud- 
 denly frightened. He went up to the bedroom and 
 saw at once that her toilet things were no longer 
 in their place. He opened the wardrobe and the 
 drawers. They were half empty. She had bolted. 
 
 He was seized with a passion of anger. It was' 
 too late that night to telephone to Aberdeen and 
 make enquiries, but he knew already all that his 
 enquiries might have taught him. With fiendish 
 cunning she had chosen a time when they were 
 making up their periodical accounts at the bank 
 and there was no chance that he could follow her. 
 He was imprisoned by his work. He took up a 
 paper and saw that there was a boat sailing for 
 Australia next morning. She must be now well on 
 the way to London. He could not prevent the sobs 
 that were wrung painfully from him.
 
 178 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 'Tve done everything in the world for her," he 
 cried, "and she had the heart to treat me like this. 
 How cruel, how monstrously cruel!" 
 
 After two days of misery he received a letter from 
 her. It was written in her school-girl hand. She 
 had always written with difficulty: 
 
 Dear Bertie: 
 
 I couldn't stand it any more. I'm going back home. 
 Good-bye. 
 
 Ethel. 
 
 She did not say a single word of regret. She 
 did not even ask him to come too. Lawson was 
 prostrated. He found out where the ship made its 
 first stop and, though he knew very well she would 
 not come, sent a cable beseeching her to return. He 
 waited with pitiful anxiety. He wanted her to send 
 him just one word of love; she did not even answer. 
 He passed through one violent phase after another. 
 At one moment he told himself that he was well rid 
 of her, and at the next that he would force her to 
 return by withholding money. He was lonely and 
 wretched. He wanted his boy and he wanted her. 
 He knew that, whatever he pretended to himself, 
 there was only one thing to do and that was to follow 
 her. He could never live without her now. All his 
 plans for the future were like a house of cards and 
 he scattered them with angry impatience. He did 
 not care whether he threw away his chances for the 
 future, for nothinn: in the world mattered but that 
 he should get Ethel back again. As soon as he could 
 he went into Aberdeen and told the manager of his
 
 THE POOL 179 
 
 bank that he meant to leave at once. The manager 
 remonstrated. The short notice was inconvenient. 
 Lawson would not listen to reason. He was deter- 
 mined to be free before the next boat sailed; and 
 it was not until he was on board of her, having sold 
 everything he possessed, that in some measure he 
 regained his calm. Till then to those who had come 
 in contact with him he seemed hardly sane. His 
 last action in England was to cable to Ethel at Apia 
 that he was joining her. 
 
 He sent another cable from Sydney, and when at 
 last with the dawn his boat crossed the bar at Apia 
 and he saw once more the white houses straggling 
 along the bay he felt an im^mense relief. The doc- 
 tor came on board and the agent. They were both 
 old acquaintances and he felt kindly towards their 
 familiar faces. He had a drink or two with them 
 for old times' sake, and also because he was desper- 
 ately nervous. He was not sure if Ethel would be 
 glad to see him. When he got into the launch and 
 approached the wharf he scanned anxiously the little 
 crowd that waited. She was not there and his heart 
 sank, but then he saw Brevald, in his old blue 
 clothes, and his heart warmed towards him. 
 
 "Where's Ethel?" he said, as he jumped on shore. 
 
 "She's down at the bungalow. She's hving with 
 us." 
 
 Lawson was dismayed, but he put on a jovial air. 
 
 "Well, have you got room for me? I daresay 
 it'll take a week or two to fix ourselves up." 
 
 "Oh, yes, T guess we can make room for you." 
 
 After passing through the custom-house they went
 
 180 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 to the hotel and there Lawson was greeted by sev» 
 eral of his old friends. There were a good many 
 rounds of drinks before it seemed possible to get 
 away and when they did go out at last to Brevald's 
 house they were both rather gay. He clasped Ethel 
 in his arms. He had forgotten all his bitter thoughts 
 in the joy of beholding her once more. His mother- 
 in-law was pleased to see him, and so was the old, 
 wrinkled beldame, her mother; natives and half- 
 castes came in, and they all sat round, beaming on 
 him. Brevald had a bottle of whisky and everyone 
 who came was given a nip. Lawson sat with his 
 little dark-skinned boy on his knees, they had taken 
 his English clothes off him and he was stark, with 
 Ethel by his side in a Mother Hubbard. He felt 
 like a returning prodigal. In the afternoon he went 
 down to the hotel again and when he got back he was 
 more than gay, he was drunk. Ethel and her mother 
 knew that white men got drunk now and then, it 
 was what you expected of them, and they laughed 
 good-naturedly as they helped him to bed. 
 
 But in a day or two he set about looking for a 
 job. He knew that he could not hope for such a 
 position as that which he had thrown away to go to 
 England; but with his training he could not fail to 
 be useful to one of the trading firms, and perhaps in 
 the end he would not lose by the change. 
 
 "After all, you can't make money in a bank," he 
 said. "Trade's the thing." 
 
 He had hopes that he would soon make himself 
 so indispensable that he would get someone to take
 
 THE POOL 181 
 
 him Into partnership, and there was no reason why 
 in a few years he should not be a rich man. 
 
 "As soon as I'm fixed up we'll find ourselves a 
 shack," he told Ethel. "We can't go on living 
 here." 
 
 Brevald's bungalow was so small that they were 
 all piled on one another, and there was no chance of 
 ever being alone. There was neither peace nor 
 privacy. 
 
 "Well, there's no hurry. W^e shall be all right 
 here till we find just what we want." 
 
 It took him a week to get settled and then he 
 entered the firm of a man called Bain. But when 
 he talked to Ethel about moving she said she wanted 
 to stay where she was till her baby was born, for 
 she was expecting another child. Lawson tried to 
 argue with her. 
 
 "If you don't like it," she said, "go and live at 
 the hotel." 
 
 He grew suddenly pale. 
 
 "Ethel, how can you suggest that I" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "What's the good of having a house of our own 
 when we can live here." 
 
 He yielded. 
 
 When Lawson, after his work, went back to the 
 bungalow he found it crowded with natives. They 
 lay about smoking, sleeping, drinking kava; and 
 they talked incessantly. The place was grubby and 
 untidy. I lis child crawled about, playing with native 
 children, and it heard nothing spoken but Samoan. 
 He fell into the habit of dropping into the hotel on
 
 182 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 his way home to have a few cocktails, for he could 
 only face the evening and the crowd of friendly 
 natives when he was fortified with liquor. And all 
 the time, though he loved her more passionately 
 than ever, he felt that Ethel was slipping away from 
 him. When the baby was born he suggested that 
 they should get into a house of their own, but Ethel 
 refused. Her stay in Scotland seemed to have 
 thrown her back on her own people, now that she 
 was once more among them, with a passionate zest, 
 and she turned to her native ways with abandon. 
 Lawson began to drink more. Every Saturday night 
 he went to the English Club and got bhnd drunk. 
 
 He had the peculiarity that as he grew drunk he 
 grew quarrelsome and once he had a violent dispute 
 with Bain, his employer. Bain dismissed him, and 
 he had to look out for another job. He was Idle 
 for two or three weeks and during these, sooner 
 than sit in the bungalow, he lounged about in the 
 hotel or at the English Club, and drank. It was 
 more out of pity than anything else that Miller, 
 the German-American, took him into his office; but 
 he was a business man, and though Lawson's 
 financial skill made him valuable, the circumstances 
 were such that he could hardly refuse a smaller 
 salary than he had had before, and Miller did not 
 hesitate to offer it to him. Ethel and Brevald blamed 
 him for taking it, since Pedersen, the half-caste, 
 offered him more. But he resented bitterly the 
 thought of being under the orders of a half-caste. 
 When Ethel nagged him he burst out furiously: 
 
 "I'll see myself dead before I work for a nigger.'*
 
 THE POOL 183 
 
 "You may have to," she said. 
 
 And in six months he found himself forced to this 
 final humiliation. The passion for liquor had been 
 gaining on him, he was often heavy with drink, and 
 he did his work badly. Miller warned him once or 
 twice and Lawson was not the man to accept remon- 
 strance easily. One day in the midst of an alterca- 
 tion he put on his hat and walked out. But by no^ 
 his reputation was well known and he could find no 
 one to engage him. For a while he idled, and then 
 he had an attack of delirium tremens. When he re- 
 covered, shameful and weak, he could no longer 
 resist the constant pressure and he went to Pedersen 
 and asked him for a job. Pedersen was glad to 
 have a white man in his store and Lawson's skill at 
 figures made him useful. 
 
 From that time his degeneration was rapid. The 
 white people gave him the cold shoulder. They 
 were only prevented from cutting him completely by 
 disdainful pity and by a certain dread of his angry 
 violence when he was drunk. He became extremely 
 susceptible and was always on the lookout for 
 affront. 
 
 He lived entirely among the natives and half- 
 castes, but he had no longer the prestige of the white 
 man. They felt his loathing for them and they re- 
 sented his attitude of superiority. He was one of 
 themselves now and they did not see why he should 
 put on airs. Brevald, who had been ingratiating 
 and obsequious, now treated him with contempt. 
 Ethel had made a bad bargain. There were dis- 
 graceful scenes and once or twice the two men came
 
 184 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 to blows. When there was a quarrel Ethel took 
 the part of her family. They found he was better 
 drunk than sober, for when he was drunk he would 
 lie on the bed or on the floor, sleeping heavily. 
 
 Then he became aware that something was being 
 hidden from him. 
 
 When he got back to the bungalow for the 
 wretched, half native supper which was his evening 
 meal, often Ethel was not in. If he asked where 
 she was Brevald told him she had gone to spend the 
 evening with one or other of her friends. Once he 
 followed her to the house Brevald had mentioned 
 and found she was not there. On her return he 
 asked her where she had been and she told him 
 her father had made a mistake; she had been to 
 so-and-so's. But he knew that she was lying. She 
 was in her best clothes; her eyes were shining, and 
 she looked lovely. 
 
 "Don't try any monkey tricks on me, my girl," he 
 said, "or I'll break every bone in your body."' 
 
 "You drunken beast," she said, scornfully. 
 
 He fancied that Mrs Brevald and the old grand- 
 mother looked at him maliciously and he ascribed 
 Brevald's good-humour with him, so unusual those 
 days, to his satisfaction at having something up his 
 sleeve against his son-in-law. And then, his sus- 
 picions aroused, he imagined that the white men 
 gave him curious glances. When he came into the 
 lounge of the hotel the sudden silence which fell 
 upon the company convinced him that he had been 
 the subject of the conversation. Something was 
 going on and everyone knew it but himself. He was
 
 THE POOL 185 
 
 seized with furious jealousy. He believed that Ethel 
 was carrying on with one of the white men, and he 
 looked at one after the other with scrutinising eyes; 
 but there was nothing to give him even a hint. He 
 was helpless. Because he could find no one on whom 
 definitely to fix his suspicions, he went about like a 
 raving maniac, looking for someone on whom to vent 
 his wrath. Chance caused him in the end to hit 
 upon the man who of all others least deserved to 
 suffer from his violence. One afternoon, when he 
 was sitting in the hotel by himself, moodily, Chaplin 
 came in and sat down beside him. Perhaps Chaplin 
 was the only man on the island who had any sym- 
 pathy for him. They ordered drinks and chatted 
 a few minutes about the races that were shortly to 
 be run. Then Chaplain said: 
 
 "I guess we shall all have to fork out money for 
 new dresses." 
 
 Lawson sniggered. Since Mrs. Chaplin held the 
 purse-strings if she wanted a new frock for the occa- 
 sion she would certainly not ask her husband for the 
 money. 
 
 "How is your missus?" asked Chaplin, desiring 
 to be friendly. 
 
 "What the hell's that got to do with you?" said 
 Lawson, knitting his dark brows. 
 
 "I was only asking a civil question." 
 
 "Well, keep your civil questions to yourself." 
 
 Chaplin was not a patient man; his long residence 
 in the tropics, the whisky bottle, and his domestic 
 affairs had given him a temper hardly more under 
 control than Lawson's.
 
 186 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Look here, my boy, when you're in my hotel you 
 behave hke a gentleman or you'll find yourself in 
 the street before you can say knife." 
 
 Lawson's lowering face grew dark and red. 
 
 "Let me just tell you once for all and you 
 can pass it on to the others," he said, panting with 
 rage. "If any of you fellows come messing round 
 with my wife he'd better look out." 
 
 "Who do you think wants to mess around with 
 your wife?" 
 
 "I'm not such a fool as you think. I can see a 
 stone wall in front of me as well as most men, and 
 I warn you straight, that's all. I'm not going to put 
 up with any hanky-panky, not on your life." 
 
 "Look here, you'd better clear out of here, and 
 come back when you're sober." 
 
 "I shall clear out when I choose and not a minute 
 before," said Lawson. 
 
 It was an unfortunate boast, for Chaplin in the 
 course of his experience as a hotel-keeper had ac- 
 quired a peculiar skill in dealing with gentlemen 
 whose room he preferred to their company, and the 
 words were hardly out of Lawson's mouth before he 
 found himself caught by the collar and arm and 
 hustled not without force into the street. He 
 stumbled down the steps into the blinding glare of 
 the sun. 
 
 It was in consequence of this that he had his first 
 violent scene with Ethel. Smarting with humiliation 
 and unwilling to go back to the hotel, he went home 
 that afternoon earlier than usual. He found Ethel 
 dressing to go out. As a rule she lay about in a
 
 THE POOL 187 
 
 Mother Hubbard, barefoot, with a flower in her 
 dark hair; but now, in white silk stockings and high- 
 heeled shoes, she was doing up a pink muslin dress 
 which was the newest she had. 
 
 "You're making yourself very smart," he said. 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "Fm going to the Crossleys." 
 
 "I'll come with you." 
 
 "Why?" she asked coolly. 
 
 "I don't want you to gad about by yourself all 
 the time." 
 
 "You're not asked." 
 
 "I don't care a damn about that. You're not go- 
 ing without me." 
 
 "You'd better lie down till I'm ready." 
 
 She thought he was drunk and if he once settled 
 himself on the bed would quickly drop off to 
 sleep. He sat down on a chair and began to smoke 
 a cigarette. She watched him with increasing irrita- 
 tion. When she was ready he got up. It happened 
 by an unusual chance that there was no one in the 
 bungalow. Brevald was working on the plantation 
 and his wife had gone into Apia. Ethel faced him. 
 
 "I'm not going with you. You're drunk." 
 
 "That's a lie. You're not going without me." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and tried to pass 
 him, but he caught her by the arm and held her. 
 
 "Let me go, you devil," she said, breaking into 
 Samoan. 
 
 "Why do you want to go without mc? Haven't 
 I told you I'm not going to put up with any monkey 
 tricks?"
 
 188 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 She clenched her fist and hit him in the face. He 
 lost all control of himself. All his love, all his 
 hatred, welled up in him and he was beside him- 
 self. 
 
 "I'll teach you," he shouted. "I'll teach you." 
 
 He seized a riding-whip which happened to be 
 under his hand, and struck her with it. She 
 screamed, and the scream maddened him so that 
 he went on striking her, again and again. Her 
 shrieks rang through the bungalow and he cursed 
 her as he hit. Then he flung her on the bed. She 
 lay there sobbing with pain and terror. He threw 
 the whip away from him and rushed out of the room. 
 Ethel heard him go and she stopped crying. She 
 looked round cautiously, then she raised herself. 
 She was sore, but she had not been badly hurt, and 
 she looked at her dress to see if it was damaged. 
 The native women are not unused to blows. What 
 he had done did not outrage her. When she looked 
 at herself in the glass and arranged her hair, her 
 eyes were shining. There was a strange look in 
 them. Perhaps then she was nearer loving him than 
 she ha*d ever been before. 
 
 But Lawson, driven forth blindly, stumbled 
 through the plantation and suddenly exhausted, 
 weak as a child, flung himself on the ground at the 
 foot of a tree. He was miserable and ashamed. 
 He thought of Ethel, and in the yielding tenderness 
 of his love all his bones seemed to grow soft within 
 him. He thought of the past, and of his hopes, 
 and he was aghast at what he had done. He wanted 
 her more than ever. He wanted to take her in his
 
 THE POOL 189 
 
 arms. He must go to her at once. He got up. He 
 was so weak that he staggered as he walked. He 
 went Into the house and she was sitting in their 
 cramped bedroom In front of her looking-glass. 
 
 "Oh, Ethel, forgive me. I'm so awfully ashamed 
 of myself. I didn't know what I was doing." 
 
 He fell on his knees before her and timidly 
 stroked the skirt of her dress. 
 
 "I can't bear to think of what I did. It's awful. 
 I think I was mad. There's no one in the world I 
 love as I love you. I'd do anything to save you 
 from pain and I've hurt you. I can never forgive 
 myself, but for God's sake say you forgive me." 
 
 He heard her shrieks still. It was unendurable. 
 She looked at him silently. He tried to take her 
 hands and the tears streamed from his eyes. In 
 his humiliation he hid his face in her lap and his 
 frail body shook with sobs. An expression of utter 
 contempt came over her face. She had the native 
 woman's disdain of a man who abased himself be- 
 fore a woman. A weak creature I And for a mo- 
 ment she had been on the point of thinking there 
 was something in him. He grovelled at her feet like 
 a cur. She gave him a little scornful kick. 
 
 "Get out," she said. "I hate you." 
 
 He tried to hold her, but she pushed him aside. 
 She stood up. She began to take off her dress. She 
 kicked off her shoes and slid the stockings off her 
 feet, then she slipped on her old Mother Hubbard. 
 
 "Where are you going?'"' 
 
 "What's that got to do with you? I'm going 
 down tf) the pool."
 
 190 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Let me come too," he said. 
 
 He asked as though he were a child. 
 
 "Can't you even leave me that?" 
 
 He hid his face in his hands, crying miserably, 
 while she, her eyes hard and cold, stepped past him 
 and went out. 
 
 From that time she entirely despised him; and 
 though, herded together in the small bungalow. Law- 
 son and Ethel with her two children, Brevald, his 
 wife and her mother, and the vague relations and 
 hangers-on who were always in and about, they had 
 to live cheek by jowl, Lawson, ceasing to be of any 
 account, was hardly noticed. He left in the morn- 
 ing after breakfast, and came back only to have 
 supper. He gave up the struggle, and when for 
 want of money he could not go to the English Club 
 he spent the evening playing hearts with old Brevald 
 and the natives. Except when he was drunk he 
 was cowed and listless. Ethel treated him like a 
 dog. She submitted at times to his fits of wild pas- 
 sion, and she was frightened by the gusts of hatred 
 with which they were followed; but when, after- 
 wards, he was cringing and lachrymose she had 
 such a contempt for him that she could have spat 
 in his face. Sometimes he was violent, but now she 
 was prepared for him, and when he hit her she 
 kicked and scratched and bit. They had horrible 
 battles in which he had not always the best of it. 
 Very soon it was known all over Apia that they got 
 on badly. There was little sympathy for Lawson, 
 and at the hotel the general surprise was that old 
 Brevald did not kick him out of the place.
 
 THE POOL 191 
 
 "Brevald's a pretty ugly customer," said one of 
 the men. "I shouldn't be surprised if he put a bullet 
 into Lawson's carcass one of these days." 
 
 Ethel still went in the evenings to bathe in the 
 silent pool. It seemed to have an attraction for 
 her that was not quite human, just that attraction 
 you might imagine that a mermaid who had won a 
 soul would have for the cool salt waves of the sea; 
 and sometimes Lawson went also. I do not know 
 what urged him to go, for Ethel was obviously irri- 
 tated by his presence; perhaps it was because in 
 that spot he hoped to regain the clean rapture which 
 had filled his heart when first he saw her; per- 
 haps only, with the madness of those who love them 
 that love them not, from the feeling that his 
 obstinacy could force love. One day he strolled 
 down there with a feeling that was rare with him 
 now. He felt suddenly at peace with the world. 
 The evening was drawing in and the dusk seemed to 
 cling to the leaves of the coconut trees like a little 
 thin cloud. A faint breeze stirred them noiselessly. 
 A crescent moon hung just over their tops. He 
 made his way to the bank. He saw Ethel in the 
 water floating on her back. Her hair streamed out 
 all round her, and she was holding in her hand a 
 large hibiscus. He stopped a moment to admire 
 her; she was like Ophelia. 
 
 "Hulloa, Ethel," he cried joyfully. 
 
 She made a sudden movement and dropped the 
 red flower. It floated idly away. She swam a 
 stroke or two till she knew there was ground within 
 her depth and then stood up.
 
 192 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Go away," she said. "Go away." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Don't be selfish. There's plenty of room for 
 both of us." 
 
 "Why can't you leave me alone? I want to be by 
 myself." 
 
 "Hang it all, I want to bathe," he answered, 
 good-humouredly. 
 
 "Go down to the bridge. I don't want you 
 here." 
 
 "I'm sorry for that," he said, smiling still. 
 
 He was not in the least angry, and he hardly 
 noticed that she was in a passion. He began to take 
 off his coat. 
 
 "Go away," she shrieked. "I won't have you 
 here. Can't you even leave me this? Go away." 
 
 "Don't be silly, darling." 
 
 She bent down and picked up a sharp stone and 
 flung it quickly at him. He had no time to duck. 
 It hit him on the temple. With a cry he put his 
 hand to his head and when he took it away it was 
 wet with blood. Ethel stood still, panting with 
 rage. He turned very pale, and without a word, 
 taking up his coat, went away. Ethel let herself 
 fall back into the water and the stream carried her 
 slowly down to the ford. 
 
 The stone had made a jagged wound and for 
 some days Lawson went about with a bandaged 
 head. He had invented a likely story to account 
 for the accident when the fellows at the club asked 
 him about it, but he had no occasion to use it. No 
 one referred to the matter. He saw them cast sur-
 
 THE POOL 193 
 
 reptitious glances at his head, but not a word was 
 said. The silence could only mean that they knew 
 how he came by his wound. He was certain now 
 that Ethel had a lover, and they all knew who it was. 
 But there was not the smallest indication to guide 
 him. He never saw Ethel with anyone; no one 
 showed a wish to be with her, or treated him in a 
 manner that seemed strange. Wild rage seized him, 
 and having no one to vent it on he drank more and 
 more heavily. A little while before I came to the 
 island he had had another attack of delirium tre- 
 mens. 
 
 I met Ethel at the house of a man called Caster, 
 who lived two or three miles from Apia with a native 
 wife. I had been playing tennis with him and when 
 we were tired he suggested a cup of tea. We went 
 into the house and in the untidy living-room found 
 Ethel chatting with Mrs Caster. 
 
 "Hulloa, Ethel," he said, "I didn't know you 
 were here." 
 
 I could not help looking at her with curiosity. 
 I tried to see what there was in her to have excited 
 in Lawson such a devastating passion. But who 
 can explain these things? It was true that she was 
 lovely; she reminded one of the red hibiscus, the 
 common flower of the hedgerow in Samoa, with 
 its grace and its languor and its passion; but what 
 surprised me most, taking into consideration the 
 story I knew even then a good deal of, was her 
 freshness and simplicity. She was quiet and a little 
 shy. There was nothing coarse or loud about her; 
 she had not the exuberance common to the half-
 
 194 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 caste; and it was almost impossible to believe that 
 she could be the virago that the horrible scenes be- 
 tween husband and wife, which were now common 
 knowledge, indicated. In her pretty pink frock and 
 high-heeled shoes she looked quite European. You 
 could hardly have guessed at that dark background 
 of native life in which she felt herself so much more 
 at home. I did not imagine that she was at all in- 
 telligent, and I should not have been surprised if a 
 man, after living with her for some time, had found 
 the passion which had drawn him to her sink into 
 boredom. It suggested itself to me that in her 
 elusiveness, like a thought that presents itself to 
 consciousness and vanishes before it can be captured* 
 by words, lay her peculiar charm; but perhaps tha^ 
 was merely fancy, and if I had known nothing about 
 her I should have seen in her only a pretty little 
 half-caste like another. 
 
 She talked to me of the various things which they 
 talk of to the stranger in Samoa, of the journey, and 
 whether I had slid down the water rock at Papaseea, 
 and if I meant to stay in a native village. She talked 
 to me of Scotland, and perhaps I noticed in her a 
 tendency to enlarge on the sumptuousness of her 
 establishment there. She asked me naively if I knew 
 Mrs This and Mrs That, with whom she had been 
 acquainted when she lived in the north. 
 
 Then Miller, the fat German-American, came in. 
 He shook hands all round very cordially and sat 
 down, asking In his loud, cheerful voice for a whisky 
 and soda. He was very fat and he sweated pro- 
 fusely. He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and
 
 THE POOL 195 
 
 wiped them; you saw then that his little eyes, benev- 
 olent behind the large round glasses, were shrewd 
 and cunning; the party had been somewhat dull till 
 he came, but he was a good story-teller and a jovial 
 fellow. Soon he had the two women, Ethel and 
 my friend's wife, laughing delightedly at his sallies. 
 He had a reputation on the island of a lady's man, 
 and you could see how this fat, gross fellow, old 
 and ugly, had yet the possibility of fascination. His 
 humour was on a level with the understanding of 
 his company, an affair of vitality and assurance, 
 and his Western accent gave a peculiar point to 
 what he said. At last he turned to me: 
 
 "Well, if we want to get back for dinner we'd 
 better be getting. I'll take you along in my machine 
 if you like." 
 
 I thanked him and got up. He shook hands with 
 the others, went out of the room, massive and strong 
 in his walk, and climbed into his car. 
 
 "Pretty little thing, Lawson's wife," I said, as 
 we drove along. 
 
 "Too bad the way he treats her. Knocks her 
 about. Gets my dander up when I hear of a man 
 hitting a woman." 
 
 We went on a little. Then he said: 
 
 "He was a darned fool to marry her. I said so 
 at the time. If he hadn't, he'd have had the whip 
 hand over her. He's yaller, that's what he is, 
 yaller." 
 
 The year was drawing to Its end and the time ap- 
 proached when I was to leave Samoa. My boat was 
 scheduled to sail for Sydney on the fourth of Janu-
 
 196 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 ary. Christmas Day had been celebrated at the 
 hotel with suitable ceremonies, but it was looked 
 upon as no more than a rehearsal for New Year, 
 and the men who were accustomed to foregather in 
 the lounge determined on New Year's Eve to make 
 a night of it. There was an uproarious dinner, after 
 which the party sauntered down to the English Club, 
 a simple little frame house, to play pool. There 
 was a great deal of talking, laughing, and betting, 
 but some very poor play, except on the part of 
 Miller, who had drunk as much as any of them, all 
 far younger than he, but had kept unimpaired the 
 keenness of his eye and the sureness of his hand. He 
 pocketed the young men's money with humour and 
 urbanity. After an hour of this I grew tired and 
 went out. I crossed the road and came on to the 
 beach. Three coconut trees grew there, like three 
 moon maidens waiting for their lovers to ride out 
 of the sea, and I sat at the foot of one of them, 
 watching the lagoon and the nightly assemblage of 
 the stars. 
 
 I do not know where Lawson had been during the 
 evening, but between ten and eleven he came along 
 to the club.' He shambled down the dusty, empty 
 road, feeling dull and bored, and when he reached 
 the club, before going into the billiard-room, went 
 into the bar to have a drink by himself. He had a 
 shyness now about joining the company of white 
 men when there were a lot of them together and 
 needed a stiff dose of whisky to give him confidence. 
 He was standing with the glass in his hand when 
 Miller came in to him. He was in his shirt sleeves
 
 THE POOL 197 
 
 and still held his cue. He gave the bar-tender a 
 glance. 
 
 "Get out, Jack," he said. 
 
 The bar-tender, a native in a white jacket and a 
 red lava-lava, without a word slid out of the small 
 room. 
 
 "Look here, I've been wanting to have a few 
 words with you, Lawson," said the big American. 
 
 "Well, that's one of the few things you can have 
 free, gratis, and for nothing on this damned island." 
 
 Miller fixed his gold spectacles more firmly on his 
 nose and held Lawson with his cold determined 
 eyes. 
 
 "See here, young fellow, I understand you've been 
 knocking Mrs Lawson about again. I'm not going 
 to stand for that. If you don't stop it right now I'll 
 break every bone of your dirty little body." 
 
 Then Lawson knew what he had been trying to 
 find out so long. It was Miller. The appearance of 
 the man, fat, bald-headed, with his round bare face 
 and double chin and the gold spectacles, his age, his 
 benign, shrewd look, like that of a renegade priest, 
 and the thought of Ethel, so slim and virginal, filled 
 him with a sudden horror. Whatever his faults 
 Lawson was no coward, and without a word he hit 
 out violently at Miller. Miller quickly warded the 
 blow with the hand that held the cue, and then with 
 a great swing of his right arm brought his fist down 
 on Lawson's ear. Lawson was four inches shorter 
 than the American and he was slightly built, frail 
 and weakened not only by illness and the enervating 
 tropics, but by drink. He fell like a log and lay
 
 198 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 half dazed at the foot of the bar. Miller took off 
 his spectacles and wiped them with his handker- 
 chief. 
 
 "I guess you know what to expect now. You've 
 had your warning and you'd better take it." 
 
 He took up his cue and went back into the billiard- 
 room. There was so much noise there that no one 
 knew what had happened. Lawson picked himself 
 up. He put his hand to his ear, which was singing 
 still. Then he slunk out of the club. 
 
 I saw a man cross the road, a patch of white 
 against the darkness of the night, but did not know 
 who it was. He came down to the beach, passed 
 me sitting at the foot of the tree, and looked down. 
 I saw then that it was Lawson, but since he was 
 doubtless drunk, did not speak. He went on, walked 
 irresolutely two or three steps, and turned back. 
 He came up to me and bending down stared in my 
 face. 
 
 *'I thought it was you," he said. 
 
 He sat down and took out his pipe. 
 
 "It was hot and noisy in the club," I volunteered. 
 
 "Why are you sitting here?" 
 
 "I was waiting about for the midnight mass at 
 the Cathedral." 
 
 "If you like I'll come with you." 
 
 Lawson was quite sober. We sat for a while 
 smoking in silence. Now and then in the lagoon 
 was the splash of some big fish, and a little way out 
 towards the opening in the reef was the light of a 
 schooner. 
 
 "You're sailing next week, aren't you?" he said.
 
 THE POOL 199 
 
 •Tes." 
 
 "It would be jolly to go home once more. But I 
 could never stand it now. The cold, you know." 
 
 "It's odd to think that in England now they're 
 shivering round the fire," I said. 
 
 There was not even a breath of wind. The balmi- 
 ness of the night was like a spell. I wore nothing 
 but a thin shirt and a suit of ducks. I enjoyed the 
 exquisite languor of the night, and stretched my 
 limbs voluptuously. 
 
 "This isn't the sort of New Year's Eve that 
 persuades one to make good resolutions for the fu- 
 ture," I smiled. 
 
 He made no answer, but I do not know what train 
 of thought my casual remark had suggested in him, 
 for presently he began to speak. He spoke in a 
 low voice, without any expression, but his accents 
 were educated, and it was a relief to hear him after 
 the twang and the vulgar intonations which for some 
 time had wounded my ears. 
 
 "I've made an awful hash of things. That's 
 obvious, isn't it? I'm right down at the bottom of 
 the pit and there's no getting out for me. 'Black 
 as the pit from pole to pole.' " I felt him smile as 
 he made the quotation. "And the strange thing is 
 that I don't see how I went wrong." 
 
 I held my breath, for to me there is nothing more 
 awe-inspiring than when a man discovers to you 
 the nakedness of his soul. Then you see that no 
 one is so trivial or debased but that in him is a spark 
 of something to excite compassion. 
 
 "It wouldn't be so rotten if I could see that It was
 
 200 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 all my own fault. It's true I drink, but I shouldn't 
 have taken to that if things had gone differently. 
 I wasn't really fond of liquor. I suppose I ought 
 not to have married Ethel. If I'd kept her it would 
 be all right. But I did love her so." 
 
 His voice faltered. 
 
 "She's not a bad lot, you know, not really. It's 
 just rotten luck. We might have been as happy as 
 lords. When she bolted I suppose I ought to have 
 let her go, but I couldn't do that — I was dead stuck 
 on her then; and there was the kid." 
 
 "Are you fond of the kid?" I asked. 
 
 "I was. There are two, you know. But they 
 don't mean so much to me now. You'd take them 
 for natives anywhere. I have to talk to them in 
 Samoan." 
 
 "Is it too late for you to start fresh? Couldn't 
 you make a dash for it and leave the place?" 
 
 "I haven't the strength. I'm done for." 
 
 "Are you still in love with your wife?" 
 
 "Not now. Not now." He repeated the two 
 words with a kind of horror in his voice. "I haven't 
 even got that now. I'm down and out." 
 
 The bells of the Cathedral were ringing. 
 
 "If you really want to come to the midnight mass 
 we'd better go along," I said. 
 
 "Come on." 
 
 We got up and walked along the road. The 
 Cathedral, all white, stood facing the sea not with- 
 out impressiveness, and beside it the Protestant 
 chapels had the look of meeting-houses. In the road 
 wcYt two or three cars, and a great number of traps,
 
 THE POOL 201 
 
 and traps were put up against the walls at the side. 
 People had come from all parts of the island for 
 the service, and through the great open doors we 
 saw that the place was crowded. The high altar 
 was all ablaze with light. There were a few whites 
 and a good many half-castes, but the great majority 
 were natives. All the men wore trousers, for the 
 Church has decided that the lava-lava is indecent. 
 We found chairs at the back, near the open door, 
 and sat down. Presently, following Lawson's eyes, 
 I saw Ethel come in with a party of half-castes. 
 They were all very much dressed up, the men in 
 high, stiff collars and shiny boots, the women in 
 large, gay hats. Ethel nodded and smiled to her 
 friends as she passed up the aisle. The service 
 began. 
 
 When it was over Lawson and I stood on one 
 side for a while to watch the crowd stream out, then 
 he held out his hand. 
 
 "Good-night," he said. "I hope you'll have a 
 pleasant journey home." 
 
 "Oh, but I shall see you before I go." 
 
 He sniggered. 
 
 "The question is if you'll see me drunk or sober." 
 
 He turned and left me. I had a recollection of 
 those very large black eyes, shining wildly under the 
 shaggy brows. I paused irresolutely. I did not feel 
 sleepy and I thought I would at all events go along 
 to the club for an hour before turning in. When I 
 got there I found the billiard-room empty, but half- 
 a-dozen men were sitting round a table in the lounge, 
 playing poker. Miller looked up as I came in.
 
 202 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Sit down and take a hand," he said. 
 
 "All right." 
 
 I bought some chips and began to play. Of course 
 it is the most fascinating game in the world and my 
 hour lengthened out to two, and then to three. 
 The native bar-tender, cheery and wide-awake 
 notwithstanding the time, was at our elbow to sup- 
 ply us with drinks and from somewhere or other he 
 produced a ham and a loaf of bread. We played on. 
 Most of the party had drunk more than was good 
 for them and the play was high and reckless. I 
 played modestly, neither wishing to win nor anxious 
 to lose, but I watched Miller with a fascinated in- 
 terest. He drank glass for-glass with the rest of the 
 company, but remained cool and level-headed. His 
 pile of chips increased in size and he had a neat little 
 paper in front of him on which he had marked 
 various sums lent to players in distress. He beamed 
 amiably at the young men whose money he was 
 taking. He kept up interminably his stream of jest 
 and anecdote, but he never missed a draw, he never 
 let an expression of the face pass him. At last the 
 dawn crept into the windows, gently, with a sort of 
 deprecating shyness, as though it had no business 
 there, and then it was day. 
 
 "Well," said Miller, "I reckon we've seen the 
 old year out in style. Now let's have a round of 
 jackpots and me for my mosquito net. I'm fifty, 
 remember, I can't keep these late hours." 
 
 The morning was beautiful and fresh when we 
 stood on the verandah, and the lagoon was like a 
 sheet of multicoloured glass. Someone suggested a
 
 THE POOL 20S 
 
 dip before going to bed, but none cared to bathe 
 in the lagoon, sticky and treacherous to the feet. 
 Miller had his car at the door and he offered to take 
 us down to the pool. We jumped in and drove along 
 the deserted road. When we reached the pool it 
 seemed as though the day had hardly risen there 
 yet. Under the trees the water was all in shadow 
 and the night had the effect of lurking still. We 
 were in great spirits. We had no towels or any 
 costume and in my prudence I wondered how we 
 were going to dry ourselves. Kone of us had 
 much on and it did not take us long to snatch off 
 our clothes. Nelson, the little supercargo, was 
 stripped first. 
 
 "I'm going down to the bottom," he said. 
 
 He dived and in a moment another man dived too, 
 but shallow, and was out of the water before him. 
 Then Nelson came up and scrambled to the side. 
 
 "I say, get me out," he said. 
 
 "What's up?" 
 
 Something was evidently the matter. His face 
 was terrified. Two fellows gave him their hands 
 and he slithered up. 
 
 "I say, there's a man down there." 
 
 "Don't be a fool. You're drunk." 
 
 "Well, if there isn't I'm in for D. T's. But I tell 
 you there's a man down there. It just scared me 
 out of my wits." 
 
 Miller looked at him for a moment. The little 
 man was all white. He was actually trembling. 
 
 "Come on, Caster," said Miller to the big Aus- 
 tralian, "we'd better go down and see."
 
 204 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "He was standing up," said Nelson, "all dressed. 
 I saw him. He tried to catch hold of me." 
 
 "Hold your row," said Miller. "Are you 
 ready?" 
 
 They dived in. We waited on the bank, silent. 
 It really seemed as though they were under water 
 longer than any men could breathe. Then Caster 
 came up, and Immediately after him, red in the face 
 as though he were going to have a fit, Miller. They 
 were pulling something behind them. Another man 
 jumped In to help them, and the three together 
 dragged their burden to the side. They shoved it up. 
 Then we saw that It was Lawson, with a great stone 
 tied up in his coat and bound to his feet. 
 
 "He was set on making a good job of it," said 
 Miller, as he wiped the water from his short- 
 sighted eyes.
 
 VI 
 
 Honolulu 
 
 THE wise traveller travels only in imagination. 
 An old Frenchman (he was really a Savo- 
 yard) once wrote a book called Voyage autour de 
 ma Chambre. I have not read it and do not even 
 know what it is about, but the title stimulates my 
 fancy. In such a journey I could circumnavigate 
 the globe. An eikon by the chimneypiece can take 
 me to Russia with its great forests of birch and its 
 white, domed churches. The Volga is wide, and af: 
 the end of a straggling village, in the wine-shop, 
 bearded men in rough sheepskin coats sit drinking. 
 I stand on the little hill from which Napoleon first 
 saw Moscow and I look upon the vastness of the 
 city. I will go down and see the people whom I 
 know more intimately than so many of my friends, 
 Alyosha, and Vronsky, and a dozen more. But my 
 eyes fall on a piece of porcelain and I smell the acrid 
 odours of China. I am borne In a chair along a 
 narrow causeway between the padi fields, or else I 
 skirt a tree-clad mountain. My bearers chat gaily 
 as they trudge along in the bright morning and 
 every now and then, distant and mysterious, I hear 
 the deep sound of a monastery bell. In the streets 
 of Peking there is a motley crowd and it scatters to 
 
 205
 
 206 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 allow passage to a string of camels, stepping deli- 
 cately, that bring skins and strange drugs from the 
 stony deserts of Mongolia. In England, in Lon- 
 don, there are certain afternoons in winter when 
 the clouds hang heavy and low and the light is so 
 bleak, that your heart sinks, but then you can look 
 out of your window, and you see the coconut trees 
 crowded upon the beach of a coral island. The sand 
 is silvery and when you walk along in the sunshine 
 it is so dazzling that you can hardly bear to look 
 at it. Overhead the mynah birds are making a great 
 to-do, and the surf beats ceaselessly against the reef. 
 Those are the best journeys, the journeys that you 
 take at your own fireside, for then you lose none of 
 your illusions. 
 
 But there are people who take salt in their coffee. 
 They say it gives it a tang, a savour, which is peculiar 
 and fascinating. In the same way there are certain 
 places, surrounded by a halo of romance, to which 
 the inevitable disillusionment which you must ex- 
 perience on seeing them gives a singular spice. You 
 had expected something wholly beautiful and you 
 get an impression which is infinitely more compli- 
 cated than any that beauty can give you. It is like 
 the weakness in the character of a great man which 
 may make him less admirable but certainly makes 
 him more interesting. 
 
 Nothing had prepared me for Honolulu. It is so 
 far away from Europe, it is reached after so long a 
 journey from San Francisco, so strange and so 
 charming associations are attached to the name, that 
 at first I could hardly believe my eyes. I do not know
 
 HONOLULU 207 
 
 that I had formed in my mind any very exact picture 
 of what I expected, but what I found caused me a 
 great surprise. It Is a typical western city. Shacks 
 are cheek by jowl with stone mansions; dilapidated 
 frame houses stand next door to smart stores with 
 plate glass windows; electric cars rumble noisily 
 along the streets; and motors, Fords, Bulcks, Pack- 
 ards, line the pavement. The shops are filled with 
 all the necessities of American civilisation. Every 
 third house is a bank and every fifth the agency of 
 a steamship company. 
 
 Along the streets crowd an unimaginable assort- 
 ment of people. The Americans, Ignoring the cli- 
 mate, wear black coats and high, starched collars, 
 straw hats, soft hats, and bowlers. The Kanakas, 
 pale brown, with crisp hair, have nothing on but a 
 shirt and a pair of trousers; but the half-breeds 
 are very smart with flaring ties and patent-leather 
 boots. The Japanese, with their obsequious smile, 
 are neat and trim in white duck, while their women 
 walk a step or two behind them, In native dress, with 
 a baby on their backs. The Japanese children, in 
 bright coloured frocks, their little heads shaven, look 
 like quaint dolls. Then there are the Chinese. The 
 men, fat and prosperous, wear their American 
 clothes oddly, but the women are enchanting with 
 their tightly-dressed black hair, so neat that you feel 
 it can never be disarranged, and they are very clean 
 in their tunics and trousers, white, or powder blue, 
 or black. Lastly there are the Filipinos, the men in 
 huge straw hats, the women in bright yellow muslin 
 with great puffed sleeves.
 
 208 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 It is the meeting-place of East and West. The 
 very new rubs shoulders with the immeasurably old. 
 And if you have not found the romance you expected 
 you have come upon something singularly intriguing. 
 All these strange people live close to each other, 
 with different languages and different thoughts; they 
 believe in different gods and they have different 
 values; two passions alone they share, love and 
 hunger. And somehow as you watch them you have 
 an impression of extraordinary vitality. Though the 
 air is so soft and the sky so blue, you have, I know 
 not why, a feeling of something hotly passionate 
 that beats like a throbbing pulse through the crowd. 
 Though the native policeman at the corner, stand- 
 ing on a platform, with a white club to direct the 
 traffic, gives the scene an air of respectability, you 
 cannot but feel that it is a respectability only of the 
 surface; a little below there is darkness and mystery. 
 It gives you just that thrill, with a little catch at the 
 heart, that you have when at night in the forest the 
 silence trembles on a sudden with the low, insistent 
 beating of a drum. You are all expectant of I 
 know not what. 
 
 If I have dwelt on the incongruity of Honolulu, it 
 is because just this, to my mind, gives its point to 
 the story I want to tell. It is a story of primitive 
 superstition, and it startles me that anything of the 
 sort should survive in a civilisation which, if not 
 very distinguished, is certainly very elaborate. I 
 cannot get over the fact that such incredible things 
 should happen, or at least be thought to happen, 
 right in the middle, so to speak, of telephones, tram-
 
 HONOLULU 209 
 
 cars, and daily papers. And the friend who showed 
 me Honolulu had the same incongruity which I felt 
 from the beginning was its most striking character- 
 istic. 
 
 He was an American named Winter and I had 
 brought a letter of introduction to him from an ac- 
 quaintance in New York. He was a man between 
 forty and fifty, with scanty black hair, grey at the 
 temples, and a sharp-featured, thin face. His eyes 
 had a twinkle in them and his large horn spectacles 
 gave him a demureness which was not a little divert- 
 ing. He was tall rather than otherwise and very 
 spare. He was born in Honolulu and his father 
 had a large store which sold hosiery and all such 
 goods, from tennis racquets to tarpaulins, as a man 
 of fashion could require. It was a prosperous bus?- 
 ness and I could well understand the indignation of 
 Winter pere when his son, refusing to go into it, 
 had announced his determination to be an actor. 
 My friend spent twenty years on the stage, some- 
 times in New York, but more often on the road, for 
 his gifts were small; but at last, being no fool, he 
 came to the conclusion that it was better to sell sock- 
 suspenders in Honolulu than to play small parts in 
 Cleveland, Ohio. He left the stage and went into 
 the business. I think after the hazardous existence 
 he had lived so long, he thoroughly enjoyed the 
 luxury of driving a large car and living in a beauti- 
 ful house near the golf-course, and I am quite sure, 
 since he was a man of parts, he managed the busi- 
 ness competently. Hut he could not bring himself 
 entirely to break his connection with the arts and
 
 210 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 since he might no longer act he began to paint. He 
 took me to his studio and showed me his work. It 
 was not at all bad, but not what I should have ex- 
 pected from him. He painted nothing but still life, 
 very small pictures, perhaps eight by ten; and he 
 painted very delicately, with the utmost finish. He 
 had evidently a passion for detail. His fruit pieces 
 reminded you of the fruit in a picture by Ghirlan- 
 dajo. While you marvelled a little at his patience, 
 you could not help being impressed by his dexterity. 
 I imagine that he failed as an actor because his ef- 
 fects, carefully studied, were neither bold nor broad 
 enough to get across the footlights. 
 
 I was entertained by the proprietary, yet ironical 
 air with which he showed me the city. He thought 
 in his heart that there was none in the United States 
 to equal it, but he saw quite clearly that his attitude 
 was comic. He drove me round to the various 
 buildings and swelled with satisfaction when I ex- 
 pressed a proper admiration for their architecture. 
 He showed me the houses of rich men. 
 
 "That's the Stubbs' house," he said. "It cost a 
 hundred thousand dollars to build. The Stubbs are 
 one of our best families. Old man Stubbs came here 
 as a missionary more than seventy years ago." 
 
 He hesitated a little and looked at me with twin- 
 kling eyes through his big round spectacles. 
 
 "All our best families are missionary families," 
 he said. "You're not very much in Honolulu unless 
 your father or your grandfather converted the 
 heathen." 
 
 "Is that so?"
 
 HONOLULU 211 
 
 "Do you know your Bible?" 
 
 "Fairly," I answered. 
 
 "There is a text which says: The fathers have 
 eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on 
 edge. I guess it runs differently in Honolulu. The 
 fathers brought Christianity to the Kanaka and the 
 children jumped his land." 
 
 "Heaven helps those who help themselves," I 
 murmured. 
 
 "It surely does. By the time the natives of this 
 island had embraced Christianity they had nothing 
 else they could afford to embrace. The kings gave 
 the missionaries land as a mark of esteem, and the 
 missionaries bought land by way of laying up treas- 
 ure in heaven. It surely was a good investment. 
 One missionary left the business — I think one may 
 call it a business without offence — and became a land 
 agent, but that is an exception. Mostly it was their 
 sons who looked after the commercial side of the 
 concern. Oh, it's a fine thing to have a father who 
 came here fifty years ago to spread the faith." 
 
 But he looked at his watch. 
 
 "Gee, it's stopped. That means it's time to have 
 a cocktail." 
 
 We sped along an excellent road, bordered with 
 red hibiscus, and came back into the town. 
 
 "Have you been to the Union Saloon?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "We'll go there." 
 
 I knew it was the most famous spot in Honolulu 
 and I entered it with a lively curiosity. You get 
 to it by a narrow passage from King Street, and in
 
 212 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 the passage are offices, so that thirsty souls may 
 be supposed bound for one of these just as well as 
 for the saloon. It is a large square room, with three 
 entrances, and opposite the bar, which runs the 
 length of it, two corners have been partitioned off 
 into little cubicles. Legend states that they were 
 built so that King Kalakaua might drink there with- 
 out being seen by his subjects, and it is pleasant to 
 think that in one or other of these he may have sat 
 over his bottle, a coal-black potentate, with Robert 
 Louis Stevenson. There is a portrait of him, in 
 oils, in a rich gold frame; but there are also two 
 prints of Queen Victoria. On the walls, besides, 
 are old line engravings of the eighteenth century, 
 one of which, and heaven knows how it got there, 
 is after a theatrical picture by De Wilde; and there 
 are oleographs from the Christmas supplements of 
 the Graphic and the Illustrated London News of 
 twenty years ago. Then there are advertisements of 
 whisky, gin, champagne, and beer; and photographs 
 of baseball teams and of native orchestras. 
 
 The place seemed to belong not to the modern, 
 hustling world that I had left in the bright street 
 outside, but to one that was dying. It had the 
 savour of the day before yesterday. Dingy and 
 dimly lit, it had a vaguely mysterious air and you 
 could imagine that it would be a fit scene for shady 
 transactions. It suggested a more lurid time, when 
 ruthless men carried their lives in their hands, and 
 violent deeds diapered the monotony of life. 
 
 When I went in the saloon (vas fairly full. A 
 group of business men stood together at the bar.
 
 HONOLULU 213 
 
 discussing affairs, and in a corner two Kanakas were 
 drinking. Two or three men who might have been 
 store-keepers were shaking dice. The rest of the 
 company plainly followed the sea; they were cap- 
 tains of tramps, first mates, and engineers. Behind 
 the bar, busily making the Honolulu cocktail for 
 which the place was famous, served two large half- 
 castes, in white, fat, clean-shaven and dark skinned, 
 with thick, curly hair and large bright eyes. 
 
 Winter seemed to know more than half the com- 
 pany, and when we made our way to the bar a little 
 fat man in spectacles, who was standing by himself, 
 offered him a drink. 
 
 "No, you have one with me, Captain," said 
 Winter. 
 
 He turned to me. 
 
 "I want you to know Captain Butler." 
 
 The little man shook hands with me. We began 
 to talk, but, my attention distracted by my surround- 
 ings, I took small notice of him, and after we had 
 each ordered a cocktail we separated. When we had 
 got into the motor again and were driving away. 
 Winter said to me : 
 
 "I'm glad we ran up against Butler. I wanted 
 you to meet him. What did you think of him?" 
 
 "I don't know that I thought very much of him 
 at all," I answered. 
 
 "Do you believe in the supernatural?" 
 
 "I don't exactly know that I do," I smiled. 
 
 "A very queer thing happened to him a year or 
 two ago. You ought to have him tell you about it," 
 
 "What sort of thing?"
 
 2U THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 Winter did not answer my question. 
 
 "I have no explanation of it myself," he said. 
 "But there's no doubt about the facts. Are you 
 interested in things hke that?" 
 
 "Things hke what?" 
 
 "Spells and magic and all that." 
 
 "I've never met anyone who wasn't." 
 
 Winter paused for a moment. 
 
 "I guess I won't tell you myself. You ought to 
 hear it from his own lips so that you can judge. 
 How are you fixed up for to-night?" 
 
 "I've got nothing on at all." 
 
 "Well, I'll get hold of him between now and 
 then and see if we can't go down to his ship." 
 
 Winter told me something about him. Captain 
 Butler had spent all his life on the Pacific. He had 
 been in much better circumstances than he was now, 
 for he had been first officer and then captain of A 
 passenger-boat plying along the coast of California, 
 but he had lost his ship and a number of passengers 
 had been drowned. 
 
 "Drink, I guess," said Winter. 
 
 Of course there had been an enquiry, which had 
 cost him his certificate, and then he drifted further 
 afield. For some years he had knocked about the 
 South Seas, but he was now in command of a small 
 schooner which sailed between Honolulu and the 
 various islands of the group. It belonged to a 
 Chinese to whom the fact that his skipper had no 
 certificate meant only that he could be had for 
 lower wages, and to have a white man in charge 
 was always an advantage.
 
 HONOLULU 215 
 
 And now that I had heard this about him I took 
 the trouble to remember more exactly what he was 
 like. I recalled his round spectacles and the round 
 blue eyes behind them, and so gradually recon- 
 structed him before my mind. He was a little man, 
 without angles, plump, with a round face like the 
 full moon and a little fat round nose. He had fair 
 short hair, and he was red-faced and clean shaven. 
 He had plump hands, dimpled on the knuckles, and 
 short fat legs. He was a jolly soul, and the tragic 
 experience he had gone through seemed to have left 
 him unscarred. Though he must have been thirty- 
 four or thirty-five he looked much younger. But 
 after all I had given him but a superficial attention, 
 and now that I knew of this catastrophe, which had 
 obviously ruined his life, I promised myself that 
 when I saw him again I would take more careful 
 note of him. It is very curious to observe the differ- 
 ences of emotional response that you find in different 
 people. Some can go through terrific battles, the 
 fear of imminent death and unimaginable horrors, 
 and preserve their soul unscathed, while with others 
 the trembling of the moon on a solitary sea or the 
 song of a bird in a thicket will cause a convulsion 
 great enough to transform their entire being. Is 
 it due to strength or weakness, want of imagination 
 or instability of character? I do not know. When 
 I called up in my fancy that scene of shipwreck, 
 with the shrieks of the drowning and the terror, 
 and then later, the ordeal of the enquiry, the bitter 
 grief of those who sorrowed for the lost, and the 
 harsh things he must have read of himself in the
 
 216 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 papers, the shame and the disgrace, it came to me 
 with a shock to remember that Captain Butler had 
 talked with the frank obscenity of a schoolboy of 
 the Hawaiian girls and of Ewelei, the Red Light 
 district, and of his successful adventures. He 
 laughed readily, and one would have thought he 
 could never laugh again. I remembered his shining, 
 white teeth; they were his best -feature. He began 
 to interest me, and thinking of him and of his gay 
 insouciance I forgot the particular story, to hear 
 which I was to see him again. I wanted to see him 
 rather to find out if I could a little more what sort 
 of man he was. 
 
 Winter made the necessary arrangements and 
 after dinner we went down to the water front. The 
 ship's boat was waiting for us and we rowed out. 
 The schooner was anchored some way across the 
 harbour, not far from the breakwater. We came 
 alongside, and I heard the sound of a ukalele. We 
 clambered up the ladder. 
 
 "I guess he's in the cabin," said Winter, leading 
 the way. 
 
 It was a small cabin, bedraggled and dirty, with 
 a table against one side and a broad bench all round 
 upon which slept, I supposed, such passengers as 
 were ill-advised enough to travel in such a ship. 
 A petroleum lamp gave a dim light. The ukalele 
 was being played by a native girl and Butler was 
 loUing on the seat, half lying, with his head on her 
 shoulder and an arm round her waist. 
 
 "Don't let us disturb you, Captain," said Winter, 
 facetiously.
 
 HONOLULU Sir 
 
 "Come right in," said Butler, getting up and 
 shaking hands with us. "What'll you have?" 
 
 It was a warm night, and through the open door 
 you saw countless stars in a heaven that was still 
 almost blue. Captain Butler wore a sleeveless under- 
 shirt, showing his fat white arms, and a pair of in- 
 credi'bly dirty trousers. His feet were bare, but on 
 his curly head he wore a very old, a very shapeless 
 felt hat. 
 
 "Let me introduce you to my girl. Ain't she a 
 peach?" 
 
 We shook hands with a very pretty person. She 
 was a good deal taller than the captain, and even 
 the Mother Hubbard, which the missionaries of a 
 past generation had, in the interests of decency, 
 forced on the unwilling natives, could not conceal 
 the beauty of her form. One could not but suspect 
 that age would burden her with a certain corpulence, 
 but now she was graceful and alert. Her brown 
 skin had an exquisite translucency and her eyes were 
 magnificent. Her black hair, very thick and rich, 
 was coiled round her head in a massive plait. When 
 she smiled in a greeting that was charmingly natural, 
 she showed teeth that were small, even, and white. 
 She was certainly a most attractive creature. It 
 was easy to see that the captain was madly in love 
 with her. He could not take his eyes off her; he 
 wanted to touch her all the time. That was very 
 easy to understand; but what seemed to me stranger 
 was that the girl was apparently in love with him. 
 There was a light in her eyes that was unmistakable, 
 and her lips were slightly parted as though in a sigh
 
 218 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 of desire. It was thrilling. It was even a little 
 moving, and I could not help feeling somewhat in 
 the way. What had a stranger to do with this love- 
 sick pair? I wished that Winter had not brought 
 me. And it seemed to me that the dingy cabin was 
 transfigured and now it seemed a fit and proper 
 scene for such an extremity of passion. I thought I 
 should never forget that schooner in the harbour of 
 Honolulu, crowded with shipping, and yet, under 
 the immensity of the starry sky, remote from all the 
 world. I liked to think of those lovers sailing off 
 together in the night over the empty spaces of the 
 Pacific from one green, hilly Island to another. A 
 faint breeze of romance softly fanned my cheek. 
 
 And yet Butler was the last man in the world 
 with whom you would have associated romance, and 
 it was hard to see what there was in him to arouse 
 love. In the clothes he wore now he looked podgier 
 than ever, and his round spectacles gave his round 
 face the look of a prim cherub. He suggested rather 
 a curate who had gone to the dogs. His conversa- 
 tion was peppered with the quaintest Americanisms, 
 and it is because I despair of reproducing these that, 
 at whatever loss of vividness, I mean to narrate the 
 story he told me a little later in my own words. 
 Moreover he was unable to frame a sentence with- 
 out an oath, though a good-natured one, and his 
 speech, albeit offensive only to prudish ears, in print 
 would seem coarse. He was a mirth-loving man, 
 and perhaps that accounted not a little for his suc- 
 cessful amours; since women, for the most part 
 frivolous creatures, are excessively bored by the
 
 HONOLULU 219 
 
 seriousness with which men treat them, and they 
 can seldom resist the buffoon who makes them laugh. 
 Their sense of humour is crude. Diana of Ephesus 
 is always prepared to fling prudence to the winds 
 for the red-nosed comedian who sits on his hat. I 
 realised that Captain Butler had charm. If I had 
 not known the tragic story of the shipwreck I should 
 have thought he had never had a care in his life. 
 
 Our host had rung the bell on our entrance and 
 now a Chinese cook came in with more glasses and 
 several bottles of soda. The whisky and the cap- 
 tain's empty glass stood already on the table. But 
 when I saw the Chinese I positively started, for he 
 was certainly the ugliest man I had ever seen. He 
 was very short, but thick-set, and he had a bad 
 limp. He wore a singlet and a pair of trous- 
 ers that had been white, but were now filthy, and, 
 perched on a shock of bristly, grey hair, an old tweed 
 deer-stalker. It would have been grotesque on any 
 Chinese, but on him it was outrageous. His broad, 
 square face was very flat as though it had been 
 bashed in by a mighty fist, and it was deeply pitted 
 with smallpox; but the most revolting thing in 
 him was a very pronounced harelip which had never 
 been operated on, so that his upper lip, cleft, went 
 up in an angle to his nose, and in the opening was 
 a huge yellow fang. It was horrible. He came in 
 with the end of a cigarette at the corner of his 
 mouth, and this, I do not know why, gave him a 
 devilish expression. 
 
 He poured out the whisky and opened a bottle of 
 soda.
 
 220 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Don't drown it, John," said the captain. 
 
 He said nothing, but handed a glass to each of 
 us. Then he went out. 
 
 "I saw you lookin' at my Chink," said Butler, 
 with a grin on his fat, shining face. 
 
 "I should hate to meet him on a dark night," I 
 said. 
 
 "He sure is homely," said the captain, and for 
 some reason he seemed to say it with a peculiar 
 satisfaction. "But he's fine for one thing, I'll tell 
 the world; you just have to have a drink every time 
 you look at him." 
 
 But my eyes fell on a calabash that hung against 
 the wall over the table, and I got up to look at it. 
 I had been hunting for an old one and this was bet- 
 ter than any I had seen outside the museum. 
 
 "It was given me by a chief over on one of the 
 islands," said the captain, watching me. "I done 
 him a good turn and he wanted to give me something 
 good." 
 
 "He certainly did," I answered. 
 
 I was wondering whether I could discreetly make 
 Captain Butler an offer for it, I could not imagine 
 that he set any store on such an article, when, as 
 though he read my thoughts, he said: 
 
 "I wouldn't sell that for ten thousand dollars." 
 
 "I guess not," said Winter. "It would be a crime 
 to sell it." 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 "That comes into the story," returned Winter. 
 "Doesn't it, Captain?" 
 
 "It surely does."
 
 HONOLULU 221 
 
 "Let's hear it then." 
 
 "The night's young yet," he answered. 
 
 The night distinctly lost its youth before he 
 satisfied my curiosity, and meanwhile we drank a 
 great deal too much whisky while Captain Butler 
 narrated his experiences of San Francisco in the old 
 days and of the South Seas. At last the girl fell 
 asleep. She lay curled up on the seat, with her face 
 on her brown arm, and her bosom rose and fell 
 gently with her breathing. In sleep she looked sul- 
 len, but darkly beautiful. 
 
 He had found her on one of the islands in the 
 group among which, whenever there was cargo to 
 be got, he wandered with his crazy old schooner. 
 The Kanakas have little love for work, and the 
 laborious Chinese, the cunning Japs, have taken the 
 trade out of their hands. Her father had a strip of 
 land on which he grew taro and bananas and he had 
 a boat in which he went fishing. He was vaguely 
 related to the mate of the schooner, and it was he 
 who took Captain Butler up to the shabby little 
 frame house to spend an idle evening. They took 
 a bottle of whisky with them and the ukalele. The 
 captain was not a shy man and when he saw a 
 pretty girl he made love to her. He could speak the 
 native language fluently and it was not long before 
 he had overcome the girl's timidity. They spent the 
 evening singing and dancing, and by the end of it 
 she was sitting by his side and he had his arm round 
 her waist. It happened that they were delayed on 
 the island for several days and the captain, at no 
 time a man to hurry, made no effort to shorten his
 
 222 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 stay. He was very comfortable in the snug little 
 harbour and life was long. He had a swim round 
 his ship in the morning and another in the evening. 
 There was a chandler's shop on the water front 
 where sailormen could get a drink of whisky, and 
 he spent the best part of the day there, playing 
 cribbage with the half-caste who owned it. At night 
 the mate and he went up to the house where the 
 pretty girl lived and they sang a song or two and 
 told stories. It was the girl's father who suggested 
 that he should take her away with him. They dis- 
 cussed the matter in a friendly fashion, while the 
 girl, nestling against the captain, urged him by the 
 pressure of her hands and her soft, smiling glances. 
 He had taken a fancy to her and he was a domestic 
 man. He was a little dull sometimes at sea and it 
 would be very pleasant to have a pretty little creature 
 like that about the old ship. He was of a practical 
 turn too, and he recognised that it would be useful 
 to have someone around to darn his socks and look 
 after his linen. He was tired of having his things 
 washed by a Chink who tore everything to pieces; 
 the natives washed much better, and now and then 
 when the captain went ashore at Honolulu he liked 
 to cut a dash in a smart duck suit. It was only a 
 matter of arranging a price. The father wanted two 
 hundred and fifty dollars, and the captain, never a 
 thrifty man, could not put his hand on such a sum. 
 But he was a generous one, and with the girl's soft 
 face against his, he was not inclined to haggle. He 
 offered to give a hundred and fifty dollars there and 
 then and another hundred in three months. There
 
 HONOLULU 223 
 
 was a good deal of argument and the parties could 
 ilot come to any agreement that night, but the idea 
 had fired the captain, and he could not sleep as well 
 as usual. He kept dreaming of the lovely girl and 
 each time he awoke it was with the pressure of her 
 soft, sensual lips on his. He cursed himself in the 
 morning because a bad night at poker the last time 
 he was at Honolulu had left him so short of ready 
 money. And if the night before he had been in love 
 with the girl, this morning he was crazy about her. 
 
 "See here. Bananas," he said to the mate, "I've 
 got to have that girl. You go and tell the old man 
 I'll bring the dough up to-night and she can get fixed 
 up. I figure we'll be ready to sail at dawn." 
 
 I have no idea why the mate was known by that 
 eccentric name. He was called Wheeler, but though 
 he had that English surname there was not a drop 
 of white blood in him. He was a tall man, and 
 well-made though inclined to stoutness, but much 
 darker than is usual in Hawaii. He was no longer 
 young, and his crisply curling, thick hair was grey. 
 His upper front teeth were cased in gold. He was 
 very proud of them. He had a marked squint and 
 this gave him a saturnine expression. The cap- 
 tain, who was fond of a joke, found in it a constant 
 source of humour and hesitated the less to rally him 
 on the defect because he realised that the mate was 
 sensitive about it. Bananas, unlike most of the 
 natives, was a taciturn fellow and Captain Butler 
 would have disliked him if it had been possible for 
 a man of his good nature to dislike anyone. He 
 liked to be at sea with someone he could talk to, he
 
 SM THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 was a chatty, sociable creature, and it was enough 
 to drive a missionary to drink to live there day after 
 day with a chap who never opened his mouth. He 
 did his best to wake the mate up, that is to say, he 
 chaffed him without mercy, but it was poor fun to 
 laugh by oneself, and he came to the conclusion that, 
 drunk or sober. Bananas was no fit companion for a 
 white man. But he was a good seaman and the cap- 
 tain was shrewd enough to know the value of a mate 
 he could trust. It was not rare for him to come 
 aboard, when they were sailing, fit for nothing but to 
 fall into his bunk, and it was worth something to 
 know that he could stay there till he had slept his 
 liquor off, since Bananas could be relied on. But 
 he was an unsociable devil, and it would be e treat 
 to have someone he could talk to. That girl would 
 be fine. Besides, he wouldn't be so likely to get 
 drunk when -he went ashore if he knew there was a 
 little girl waiting for him when he came on board 
 again. 
 
 He went to his friend the chandler and over a 
 peg of gin asked him for a loan. There were one 
 or two useful things a ship's captain could do for 
 a ship's chandler, and after a quarter of an hour's 
 conversation in low tones (there is no object in 
 letting all and sundry know your business), the cap- 
 tain crammed a wad of notes in his hip-pocket, and 
 that night, when he went back to his ship, the girl 
 went with him. 
 
 What Captain Butler, seeking for reasons to do 
 what he had already made up his mind to, had anti- 
 cipated, actually came to pass. He did not give up
 
 HONOLULU 225 
 
 drinkincr, but he ceased to drink to excess. An 
 evening with the boys, when he had been away 
 from town two or three weeks, was pleasant enough, 
 but it was pleasant too to get back to his little girl; 
 he thought of her, sleeping so softly, and how, when 
 he got into his cabin and leaned over her, she would 
 open her eyes lazily and stretch out her arms for 
 him: it was as good as a full hand. He found he 
 was saving money, and since he was a generous man 
 he did the right thing by the little girl: he gave her 
 some silver-backed brushes for her long hair, and a 
 gold chain, and a reconstructed ruby for her finger. 
 Gee, but it was good to be alive. 
 
 A year went by, a whole year, and he was not 
 tired of her yet. He was not a man who analysed 
 'his feelings, but this was so surprising that it forced 
 itself upon his attention. There must be something 
 very wonderful about that girl. He couldn't help 
 seeing that he was more wrapped up in her than ever, 
 and sometimes the thought entered his mind that it 
 might not be a bad thing if he married her. 
 
 Then, one day the mate did not come in to din- 
 ner or to tea. Butler did not bother himself about 
 his absence at the first meal, but at the second he 
 asked the Chinese cook: 
 
 "Where's the mate? He no come tea?" 
 
 **No wantchce," said the Chink. 
 
 "He ain't sick?" 
 
 "No savvy." 
 
 Next day Bananas turned up again, but he was 
 more sullen than ever, and after dinner the captain 
 asked the girl what was the matter with him. She
 
 22G THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 smiled and shrugged her pretty shoulders. She told 
 the captain that Bananas had taken a fancy to her 
 and he was sore because she had told him off. The 
 captain was a good-humoured man and he was not 
 of a jealous nature; it struck him as exceeding funny 
 that Bananas should be in love. A man who had a 
 squint like that had a precious poor chance. When 
 tea came round he chaffed him gaily. He pretended 
 to speak in the air, so that the mate should not be 
 certain that he knew anything, but he dealt him some 
 pretty shrewd blows. The girl did not think him 
 as funny as he thought himself, and afterwards she 
 begged him to say nothing more. He was surprised 
 at her seriousness. She told him he did not know 
 her people. When their passion was aroused they 
 were capable of anything. She was a little fright- 
 ened. This was so absurd to him that he laughed 
 heartily. 
 
 "If he comes bothering round you, you just 
 threaten to tell me. That'll fix him." 
 
 "Better fire him, I think." 
 
 "Not on your sweet life. I know a good sailor 
 when I see one. But if he don't leave you alone I'll 
 give him the worst licking he's ever had." 
 
 Perhaps the girl had a wisdom unusual in her 
 sex. She knew that It was useless to argue with a 
 man when his mind was made up, for it only in- 
 creased his stubbornness, and she held her peace. 
 And now on the shabby schooner, threading her way 
 across the silent sea, among those lovely islands, was 
 enacted a dark, tense drama of which the fat little 
 captain remained entirely ignorant. The girl's re-
 
 HONOLULU 227 
 
 slstance fired Bananas so that he ceased to be a man, 
 but was simply blind desire. He did not make love 
 to her gently or gaily, but with a black and savage 
 ferocity. Her contempt now was changed to hatred 
 and when he besought her she answered him with 
 bitter, angry taunts. But the struggle went on si- 
 lently, and when the captain asked her after a little 
 while whether Bananas was bothering her, she lied. 
 
 But one night, when they were in Honolulu, he 
 came on board only just in time. They were sailing 
 at dawn. Bananas had been ashore, drinking some 
 native spirit, and he was drunk. The captain, row- 
 ing up, heard sounds that surprised him. He 
 scrambled up the ladder. He saw Bananas, beside 
 himself, tr>'ing to wrench open the cabin door. He 
 was shouting at the girl. He swore he would kill 
 her if she did not let him in. 
 
 "What in hell are you up to?" cried Butler. 
 
 The mate let go the handle, gave the captain a 
 look of savage hate, and vithout a word turned 
 away. 
 
 "Stop here. What are you doing with that 
 
 door?" 
 
 The mate still did not answer. He looked at him 
 with sullen, bootless rage. 
 
 "I'll teach you not to pull any of your queer stuff 
 with me, you dirty, cross-eyed nigger," said the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 He was a good foot shorter than the mate and no 
 match for him, but he was used to dealing with na- 
 tive crews, and he had his knuckle-duster handy. 
 Perhaps it was not an instrument that a gentleman
 
 228 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 would use, but then Captain Butler was not a gentle- 
 man. Nor was he in the habit of dealing with 
 gentlemen. Before Bananas knew what the captain 
 was at, his right arm had shot out Tind his fist, with 
 its ring of steel, caught him fair and square on the 
 jaw. He fell like a bull under the pole-axe. 
 
 "That'll learn him," said the captain. 
 
 Bananas did not stir. The girl unlocked the cabin 
 door and came out. 
 
 ♦'Is he dead?" 
 
 "He ain't." 
 
 He called a couple of men and told them to carry 
 the mate to his bunk. He rubbed his hands with 
 satisfaction and his round blue eyes gleamed behind 
 his spectacles. But the girl was strangely silent. She 
 put her arms round him as though to protect him 
 from invisible harm. 
 
 It was two or three days before Bananas was on 
 his feet again, and when he came out of his cabin 
 his face was torn and swollen. Through the dark- 
 ness of his skin you saw the livid bruise. Butler 
 saw him slinking along the deck and called him. The 
 mate went to him without a word. 
 
 "See here. Bananas," he said to him, fixing his 
 spectacles on his slippery nose, for it was very hot. 
 "I ain't going to fire you for this, but you know 
 now that when I hit, I hit hard. Don't forget It and 
 don't let me have any more funny business." 
 
 Then he held out his hand and gave the mate 
 that good-humoured, flashing smile of his which 
 was his greatest charm. The mate took the out- 
 stretched hand and twitched his swollen lips into a
 
 HONOLULU 229 
 
 devilish grin. The incident in the captain's minj 
 was so completely finished that when the three of 
 them sat at dinner he chaffed Bananas on his appear- 
 ance. He was eating with difficulty and, his swollen 
 face still more distorted by pain, he looked truly a 
 repulsive object. 
 
 That evening, when he was sitting on the upper 
 deck, smoking his pipe, a shiver passed through the 
 captain. 
 
 "I don't know what I should be shiverin' for on 
 a night like this," he grumbled. "Maybe I've gotten 
 a dose of fever. I've been feelin' a bit queer all 
 day." 
 
 When he went to bed he took some quinine, and 
 next morning he felt better, but a little washed out, 
 as though he were recovering from a debauch. 
 
 "I guess my liver's out of order," he said, and he 
 took a pill. 
 
 He had not much appetite that day and towards 
 evening he began to feel very unwell. He tried the 
 next remedy he knew, which was to drink two or 
 three hot whiskies, but that did not seem to help him 
 much, and when in the morning he surveyed himself 
 in the glass he thought he was not looking quite the 
 thing. 
 
 "If I ain't right by the time we get back to Hono- 
 lulu I'll just give Dr Dcnby a call. He'll sure fix 
 me up." 
 
 He could not eat. He felt a great lassitude in 
 all his limbs. He slept soundly enough, but he 
 awoke with no sense of refreshment; on the con- 
 trary he felt a peculiar exhaustion. And the ener«.
 
 2S0 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 getic little man, who could not bear the thought of 
 lying in bed, had to make an effort to force himself 
 out of his bunk. After a few days he found it im- 
 possible to resist the languor that oppressed him, 
 and he made up his mind not to get up. 
 
 "Bananas can look after the ship," he said. "He 
 has before now." 
 
 He laughed a little to himself as he thought how 
 often he had lain speechless in his bunk after a night 
 with the boys. That was before he had his girl. 
 He smiled at her and pressed her hand. She was 
 puzzled and anxious. He saw that she was con- 
 cerned about him and tried to reassure her. He had 
 never had a day's illness in his life and in a week 
 at the outside he would be as right as rain. 
 
 "I wish you'd fired Bananas," she said. "I've 
 got a feeling that he's at the bottom of this." 
 
 "Damned good thing I didn't, or there'd be no 
 one to sail the ship. I know a good sailor when I 
 see one." His blue eyes, rather pale now, with the 
 whites all yellow, twinkled. "You don't think he's 
 trying to poison me, little girl?" 
 
 She did not answer, but she* had one or two talks 
 with the Chinese cook, and she took great care with 
 \he captain's food. But he ate little enough now, 
 and it was only with the greatest difficulty that she 
 persuaded him to drink a cup of soup two or three 
 times a day. It was clear that he was very ill, he 
 was losing weight quickly,* and his chubby face was 
 pale and drawn. "He suffered no pain, but merely 
 grew every day weaker' and more languid. He was 
 wasting away. The round trip on this occasion
 
 HONOLULU 231 
 
 lasted about four weeks and by the time they came 
 to Honolulu the captain was a little anxious about 
 himself. He had not been out of his bed for more 
 than a fortnight and re-lly he felt too weak to get 
 up and go to the doctor. He sent a message asking 
 him to come on board. The doctor examined him, 
 but could find nothing to account for his condition. 
 His temperature was normal. 
 
 "See here, Captain," he said, "I'll be perfectly 
 frank with you. I don't know what's the matter 
 with you, and just seeing you like this don't give 
 me a chance. You come into the hospital so that 
 we can keep you under observation. There's nothing- 
 organically wrong with you, I know that, and my 
 impression is that a few weeks in hospital ought to 
 put you to rights." 
 
 "I ain't going to leave my ship." 
 
 Chinese owners were queer customers, he said; 
 if he left his ship because he was sick, his owner 
 might fire him, and he couldn't afford to lose his job. 
 So long as he stayed where he was his contract safe- 
 guarded him, and he had a first-rate mate. Besides, 
 he couldn't leave his girl. No man could want a 
 better nurse; if anyone could pull him through she 
 would. Every man had to die once and he only 
 wished to be left in peace. He would not listen to 
 the doctor's expostulations, and finally the doctor 
 gave in. 
 
 "I'll write you a prescription," he said doubtfully, 
 "and see if it does you any good. You'd better stay 
 in bed for a while." 
 
 "There ain't much fear of my getting up. doc,"
 
 232 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 answered the captain. "I feel as weak as a cat." 
 But he believed in the doctor's prescription as 
 little as did the doctor himself, and when he was 
 alone amused himself by lighting his cigar with it. 
 He had to get amusement out of something, for his 
 cigar tasted like nothing on earth, and he smoked 
 only to persuade himself that he was not too ill to. 
 That evening a couple of friends of his, masters of 
 tramp steamers, hearing he was sick came to see him. 
 They discussed his case over a bottle of whisky and 
 a box of Philippine cigars. One of them remem- 
 bered how a mate of his had been taken queer just 
 like that and not a doctor in the United States had 
 been able to cure him. He had seen in the paper 
 an advertisement of a patent medicine, and thought 
 there'd be no harm in trying it. That man was as 
 strong as ever he'd been in his life after two bottles. 
 But his illness had given Captain Butler a lucidity 
 which was new and strange, and while they talked 
 he seemed to read their minds. They thought he 
 was dying. And when they left him he was afraid. 
 The girl saw his weakness. This was her oppor- 
 tunity. She had been urging him to let a native doc- 
 tor see him, and he had stoutly refused; but now she 
 entreated him. He listened with harassed eyes. 
 He wavered. It was very funny that the American 
 doctor could not tell what was the matter with him. 
 But he did not want her to think that he was scared. 
 If he let a damned nigger come along and look at 
 him, it was to comfort her. He told her to do what 
 she liked. 
 
 The native doctor came the next night. The
 
 HONOLULU 2SS 
 
 captain was lying alone, half awake, and the cabin 
 was dimly lit by an oil lamp. The door was 
 softly opened and the girl came in on tip-toe. 
 She held the door open and some one slipped 
 in silently behind her. The captain smiled at 
 this mystery, but he was so weak now, the smile 
 was no more than a glimmer in his eyes. The doctor 
 was a little, old man, very thin and very wrinkled, 
 with a completely bald head, and the face of a 
 monkey. He was bowed and gnarled like an old 
 tree. He looked hardly human, but his eyes were 
 very bright, and in the half darkness, they seemed 
 to glow with a reddish light. He was dressed 
 filthily in a pair of ragged dungarees, and the upper 
 part of his body was naked. He sat down on his 
 haunches and for ten minutes looked at the 
 captain. Then he felt the palms of his hands and 
 the soles of his feet. The girl watched him with 
 frightened eyes. No word was spoken. Then he 
 asked for something that the captain had worn. The 
 girl gave him the old felt hat which the captain used 
 constantly and taking it he sat down again on the 
 floor, clasping it firmly with both hands; and rock- 
 ing backwards and forwards slowly he muttered 
 some gibberish in a very low tone. 
 
 At last he gave a little sigh and dropped the hat. 
 He took an old pipe out of his trouser pocket and 
 lit it. The girl went over to him and sat by his side. 
 He whispered something to her, and she started 
 violently. For a few minutes they talked in hurried 
 undertones, and then they stood up. She gave him 
 money and opened the door for him. He slid out
 
 231 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 as silently as he had come in. Then she went over 
 to the captain and leaned over him so that she could 
 speak into his ear. 
 
 "It's an enemy praying you to death." 
 
 "Don't talk fool stuff, girlie," he said impatiently. 
 
 "It's truth. It's God's truth. That's why the 
 American doctor couldn't do anything. Our people 
 can do that. I've seen it done. I thought you were 
 safe because you were a white man." 
 
 "I haven't an enemy." 
 
 "Bananas." 
 
 "What's he want to pray me to death for?" 
 
 "You ought to have fired him before he had a 
 chance." ^ 
 
 "I guess if I ain't got nothing more the matter 
 with me than Bananas' hoodoo I shall be sitting up 
 and taking nourishment in a very few days." 
 
 She was silent for a while and she looked at him 
 intently. 
 
 "Don't you know you're dying?" she said to him 
 at last. 
 
 That was what the two skippers had thought, but 
 they hadn't said it. A shiver passed across the cap« 
 tain's wan face. 
 
 "The doctor says there ain't nothing really the 
 matter wM:h me. I've only to lie quiet for a bit and 
 I shall be all right." 
 
 She put her lips to his ear as if she were afraid 
 that the air itself might hear. 
 
 "You're dying, dying, dying. You'll pass out with 
 the old moon." 
 
 "That's something to know."
 
 HONOLULU 235 
 
 "You'll pass out with the old moon unless Bananas 
 dies before," 
 
 He was not a timid man and he had recovered 
 already from the shock her words, and still more 
 her vehement, silent manner, had given him. Once 
 more a smile flickered in his eyes. 
 
 "I guess I'll take my chance, girlie." 
 
 "There's twelve days before the new moon." 
 
 There was something in her tone that gave him 
 an idea. 
 
 "See here, my girl, this is all bunk. I don't be- 
 lieve a word of it. But I don't want you to try any 
 of your monkey tricks with Bananas. He ain't a 
 beauty, but he's a first-rate mate." 
 
 He would have said a good deal more, but he 
 was tired out. He suddenly felt very weak and 
 faint. It was always at that hour that he felt worse. 
 He closed his eyes. The girl watched him for a 
 minute and then slipped out of the cabin. The moon, 
 nearly full, made a silver pathway over the dark 
 sea. It shone from an unclouded sky. She looked 
 at it with terror, for she knew that with its death 
 the man she loved would die. His life was In her 
 hands. She could save him, she alone could save 
 him, but the enemy was cunning, and she must be 
 cunning too. She felt that someone was looking 
 at her, and without turning, by the sudden fear that 
 seized her, knew that from the shadow the burning 
 eyes of the mate were fixed upon her. She did not 
 know what he could do; if he could read her 
 thoughts she was defeated already, and with a des- 
 perate effort she emptied her mind of all content.
 
 286 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 His death alone could save her lover, and she could 
 bring his death about. She knew that if he could 
 be brought to look into a calabash in which was 
 water so that a reflection of him was made, and the 
 reflection were broken by hurtling the water, he 
 would die as though he had been struck by lightning; 
 for the reflection was his soul. But none knew 
 better than he the danger, and he could be made to 
 look only by a guile which had lulled his least sus- 
 picion. He must never think that he had an en- 
 emy who was on the watch to cause his destruction. 
 She knew what she had to do. But the time was 
 short, the time was terribly short. Presently she 
 reahsed that the mate had gone. She breathed 
 more freely. 
 
 Two days later they sailed, and there were ten 
 now before the new moon. Captain Butler was ter- 
 rible to see. He was nothing but skin and bone, 
 and he could not move without help. He could 
 hardly speak. But she dared do nothing yet. She 
 knew that she must be patient. The mate was cun- 
 ning, cunning. They went to one of the smaller 
 islands of the group and discharged cargo, and now- 
 there were only seven days more. The moment had 
 come to start. She brought some things out of the 
 cabin she shared with the captain and made them 
 into a bundle. She put the bundle in the deck cabin 
 where she and Bananas ate their meals, and at din- 
 ner time, when she went in, he turned quickly and 
 she saw that he had been looking at it. Neither 
 of them spoke, but she knew what he suspected. 
 She was making her preparations to leave the ship.
 
 HONOLULU 237 
 
 He looked at her mockingly. Gradually, as though 
 to prevent the captain from knowing what she was 
 about, she brought everything she owned into the 
 cabin, and some of the captain's clothes, and made 
 them all into bundles. At last Bananas could keep 
 silence no longer. He pointed to a suit of ducks. 
 
 "What are you going to do with that?" he asked. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "I'm going back to my island." 
 
 He gave a laugh that distorted his grim face. 
 The captain was dying and she meant to get away 
 with all she could lay hands on. 
 
 "What'll you do if I say you can't take those 
 •things? They're the captain's." 
 
 "They're no use to you," she said. 
 
 There w^as a calabash hanging on the wall. It 
 was the very calabash I had seen when I came into 
 the cabin and which we had talked about. She 
 took it down. It was all dusty, so she poured water 
 into it from the water-bottle, and rinsed it with 
 h'^r fingers. 
 
 "What are you doing with that?" 
 
 "I can sell it for fifty dollars," she said. 
 
 "If you want to take it you'll have to pay me." 
 
 "What d'you want?" 
 
 "You know what I want." 
 
 She allowed a fleeting smile to play on her lips. 
 She flashed a quick look at him and quickly turned 
 away. He gave a gasp of desire. She raised her 
 shoulders in a little shrug. With a savage bound 
 he sprang upon her and seized her in his arms. Then 
 ahe laughed. She put her arms, her soft, round
 
 S88 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 arms, about his neck, and surrendered herself to 
 him voluptuously. 
 
 When the morning came she roused him out of 
 a deep sleep. The early rays of the sun slanted into 
 the cabin. He pressed her to his heart. Then he 
 told her that the captain could not last more than 
 a day or two, and the owner wouldn't so easily find 
 another white man to command the ship. If Ba- 
 nanas offered to take less money he would get the 
 job and the girl could stay with him. He looked 
 at her with love-sick eyes. She nestled up against 
 him. She kissed his lips, in the foreign way, in the 
 way the captain had taught her to kiss. And she 
 promised to stay. Bananas was drunk with happi- 
 ness. 
 
 It was now or never. 
 
 She got up and went to the table to arrange her 
 hair. There was no mirror and she looked into 
 the calabash, seeking for her reflection. She tidied 
 her beautiful hair. Then she beckoned to Bananas 
 to come to her. She pointed to the calabash. 
 
 "There's something in the bottom of it," she 
 said. 
 
 Instinctively, without suspecting anything. Ba- 
 nanas looked full into the water. His face was 
 reflected in it. In a flash she beat upon it violently, 
 with both her hands, so that they pounded on the 
 bottom and the water splashed up. The reflection 
 was broken in pieces. Bananas started back with 
 a sudden hoarse cry and he looked at the girl. She 
 was standing there with a look of triumphant ha- 
 tred on her face. A horror came into his eyes.
 
 HONOLULU 239 
 
 His heavy features were twisted in agony, and with 
 a thud, as though he had taken a violent poison, he 
 crumpled up on to the ground. A great shudder 
 passed through his body and he was still. She leaned 
 over him callously. She put her hand on his heart 
 and then she pulled down his lower eye-lid. He 
 was quite dead. 
 
 She went into the cabin in which lay Captain But- 
 ler. There was a faint colour in his cheeks and he 
 looked at her in a startled way. 
 
 "What's happened?" he whispered. 
 
 They were the first words he had spoken for 
 forty-eight hours. 
 
 "Nothing's happened," she said. 
 
 "I feel all funny." 
 
 Then his eyes closed and he fell asleep. He slept 
 for a day and a night, and when he awoke he asked 
 for food. In a fortnight he was well. 
 
 It was past midnight when Winter and I rowed 
 back to shore and we had drunk innumerable 
 whiskies and sodas. 
 
 "What do you think of it all?" asked Winter. 
 
 "What a question! If you mean, have I any ex- 
 planation to suggest, I haven't." 
 
 "The captain beheves every word of it." 
 
 "That's obvious; but you know that's not the 
 part that interests me most, whether it's true or 
 not, and what it all means; the part that interests 
 me is that such things should happen to such peo- 
 ple. I wonder what there is in that commonplace 
 little man to arouse such a passion in that lovely 
 creature. As I watched her, asleep there, while he
 
 «40 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 was telling the story I had some fantastic idea about 
 the power of love being able to work miracles." 
 
 "But that's not the girl," said Winter. 
 
 "What on earth do you mean?" 
 
 "Didn't you notice the cook?" 
 
 "Of course I did. He's the ugliest man I ever 
 saw." 
 
 "That's why Butler took him. The girl ran 
 away with the Chinese cook last year. This is a 
 new one. He's only had her there about two 
 months." 
 
 "Well, I'm hanged." 
 
 "He thinks this cook is safe. But I wouldn't 
 be too sure in his place. There's something about 
 a Chink, when he lays himself out to please a woman 
 she can't resist him."
 
 Rain 
 
 IT was nearly bed-time and when they awoke next 
 morning land would be in sight. Dr Macphail 
 lit his pipe and, leaning over the rail, searched 
 the heavens for the Southern Cross. After two 
 years at the front and a wound that had taken 
 longer to heal than it should, he was glad to settle 
 down quietly at Apia for twelve months at least, 
 and he felt already better for the journey. Since 
 some of the passengers were leaving the ship next 
 day at Pago-Pago they had had a little dance that 
 evening and in his ears hammered still the harsh 
 notes of the mechanical piano. But the deck was 
 quiet at last. A little way off he saw his wife In 
 a long chair talking with the Davidsons, and he 
 strolled over to her. When he sat down under 
 the light and took off his hat you saw that he had 
 very red hair, with a bald patch on the crown, and 
 the red, freckled skin which accompanies red hair; 
 he was a man of forty, thin, with a pinched face, 
 precise and rather pedantic; and he spoke with a 
 Scots accent in a very low, quiet voice. 
 
 Between the Macphails and the Davidsons, who 
 were missionaries, there had arisen the intimacy of 
 shipboard, which is due to propinquity rather than 
 
 2dl
 
 242 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 to any community of taste. Their chief tie was 
 the disapproval they shared of the men who spent 
 their days and nights in the smoking-room playing 
 poker or bridge and drinking. Mrs Macphail was 
 not a little flattered to think that she and her hus- 
 band were the only people on board with whom the 
 Davidsons were willing to associate, and even the 
 doctor, shy but no fool, half unconsciously acknow- 
 ledged the compliment. It was only because he 
 was of an argumentative mind that in their cabin at 
 night he permitted himself to carp. 
 
 "Mrs Davidson was saying she didn't know how 
 they'd have got through the journey if it hadn't 
 been for us," said Mrs Macphail, as she neatly 
 brushed out her transformation. "She said we were 
 really the only people on the ship they cared to 
 know." 
 
 "I shouldn't have thought a missionary was such 
 a big bug that he could afford to put on frills." 
 
 "It's not frills. I quite understand what she 
 means. It wouldn't have been very nice for the 
 Davidsons to have to mix with all that rough lot in 
 the smoking-room." 
 
 "The founder of their religion wasn't so exclu- 
 sive," said Dr Macphail with a chuckle. 
 
 "I've asked you over and over again not to joke 
 about religion," answered his wife. "I shouldn't 
 like to have a nature like yours, Alec. You never 
 look for the best in people." 
 
 He gave her a sidelong glance with his pale, blue 
 eyes, but did not reply. After many years of mar- 
 ried life he had lea rned that it was more conducive
 
 RAIN 243 
 
 to peace to leave his wife with the last word. He 
 v/as undressed before she was, and climbing into the 
 upper bunk he settled down to read himself to sleep. 
 
 When he came on decic next morning they were 
 close to land. He looked at it with greedy 
 eyes. There was a thin strip of silver beach rising 
 quickly to hills covered to the top with luxuriant 
 vegetation. The coconut trees, thick and green, 
 came nearly to the water's edge, and among them 
 you saw the grass houses of the Samoans; and here 
 and there, gleaming white, a little church. Mrs 
 Davidson came and stood beside him. She was 
 dressed in black and wore round her neck a gold 
 chain, from which dangled a small cross. She was 
 a little woman, with brown, dull hair very elabo- 
 rately arranged, and she had prominent blue eyes 
 behind invisible pince-nez. Her face was long, 
 like a sheep's, but she gave no impression of fool- 
 ishness, rather of extreme alertness; she had the 
 quick movements of a bird. The most remarkable 
 thing about her was her voice, high, metallic, and 
 without inflection; it fell on the ear with a hard 
 monotony, irritating to the nerves like the pitiless 
 clamour of the pneumatic drill. 
 
 "This must seem like home to you," said Dr 
 Macphail, with his thin, difficult smile. 
 
 "Ours are low islands, you know, not like these. 
 Coral. These are volcanic. We've got another 
 ten days' journey to reach them." 
 
 "In these parts that's almost like being in the 
 next street at home," said Dr Macphail facetiously. 
 
 "Well, that's rather an exaggerated way of put-
 
 244i THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 ting it, but one does look at distances differently 
 in the South Seas. So far you're right." 
 
 Dr Macphail sighed faintly. 
 
 "I'm glad we're not stationed here," she went 
 on. "They say this is a terribly difficult place to 
 work in. The steamers' touching makes the peo- 
 ple unsettled; and then there's the naval station; 
 that's bad for the natives. In our district we 
 don't have difficulties like that to contend with. 
 There are one or two traders, of course, but we 
 take care to make them behave, and if they don't we 
 make the place so hot for them they're glad to go." 
 
 Fixing the glasses on her nose she looked at the 
 green island with a ruthless stare. 
 
 "It's almost a hopeless task for the missionaries 
 here. I can never be sufficiently thankful to God 
 that we are at least spared that." 
 
 Davidson's district consisted of a group of islands 
 to the North of Samoa; they were widely separated 
 and he had frequently to go long distances by canoe. 
 At these times his wife remained at their head- 
 quarters and managed the mission. Dr. Macphail 
 felt his heart sink when he considered the efficiency 
 with which she certainly managed it. She spoke 
 of the depravity of the natives in a voice which 
 nothing could hush, but with a vehemently unctuous 
 horror. Her sense of delicacy was singular. Early 
 in their acquaintance she had said to him: 
 
 "You know, their marriage customs when we 
 first settled in the islands were so shocking that I 
 couldn't possibly describe them to you. But I'll tell 
 Mrs Macphail and she'll tell you."
 
 RAIN 245 
 
 Then he had seen his wife and Mrs Davidson, 
 their deck-chairs close together, in earnest conver- 
 sation for about two hours. As he walked past 
 them backwards and forwards for the sake of exer- 
 cise, he had heard Mrs. Davidson's agitated whis- 
 per, like the distant flow of a mountain torrent, and 
 he saw by his wife's open mouth and pale face that 
 she was enjoying an alarming experience. At night 
 in their cabin she repeated to him with bated breath 
 all she had heard. 
 
 "Well, what did I say to you?" cried Mrs David- 
 son, exultant, next morning. "Did you ever hear 
 anything more dreadful? You don't wonder that 
 I couldn't tell you myself, do you? Even though 
 you are a doctor." 
 
 Mrs Davidson scanned his face. She had a dra- 
 matic eagerness to see that she had achieved the 
 desired effect. 
 
 "Can you wonder that when we first went there 
 Car hearts sank? You'll hardly believe me when I 
 tell you it was impossible to find a single good girl 
 in any of the villages." 
 
 She used the word good in a severely technical 
 manner. 
 
 "Mr Davidson and I talked it over, and we made 
 up our minds the first thing to do was to put down 
 the dancing. The natives were crazy about danc- 
 ing." 
 
 "I was not averse to it myself when I was a 
 young man," said Dr Macphail. 
 
 "I guessed as much when I heard you ask Mrs 
 Macphail to have a turn with you last night. I
 
 246 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 don't think there's any real harm if a man dances 
 with his wife, but I was relieved that she wouldn't. 
 Under the circumstances I thought it better that 
 we should keep ourselves to ourselves." 
 
 "Under what circumstances?" 
 
 Mrs Davidson gave him a quick look through her 
 pince-nez, but did not answer his question. 
 
 "But among white people it's not quite the same," 
 she went on, "though I must say I agree with Mr 
 Davidson, who says he can't understand how a hus- 
 band can stand by and see his wife in another man's 
 arms, and as far as I'm concerned I've never danced 
 a step since I married. But the native dancing is 
 quite another matter. It's not only immoral In 
 itself, but it distinctly leads to immorality. How- 
 ever, I'm thankful to God that we stamped it out, 
 and I don't think I'm wrong In saying that no one 
 has danced In our district for eight years." 
 
 But now they came to the mouth of the harbour 
 and Mrs Macphail joined them. The ship turned 
 sharply and steamed slowly In. It was a great land- 
 locked harbour big enough to hold a fleet of battle- 
 ships; and all around It rose, high and steep, the 
 green hills. Near the entrance, getting such breeze 
 as blew from the sea, stood the governor's house 
 In a garden. The Stars and Stripes dangled lan- 
 guidly from a flagstaff. They passed two or three 
 trim bungalows, and a tennis court, and then they 
 came to the quay with its warehouses. Mrs David- 
 son pointed out the schooner, moored two or three 
 hundred yards from the side, which was to take 
 them to Apia. There was a crowd of eager, noisy,
 
 RAIN 247 
 
 and good-humoured natives come from all parts of 
 the island, some from curiosity, others to barter 
 with the travellers on their way to Sydney; and 
 they brought pineapples and huge bunches of ba- 
 nanas, tapa cloths, necklaces of shells or sharks' 
 teeth, kava-hovj\s>^ and models of war canoes. Amer- 
 ican sailors, neat and trim, clean-shaven and frank 
 of face, sauntered among them, and there was a lit- 
 tle group of officials. While their luggage was being 
 landed the Macphails and Mrs Davidson watched 
 the crowd. Dr Macphail looked at the yaws from 
 which most of the children and the young boys 
 seemed to suffer, disfiguring sores like torpid ulcers, 
 and his professional eyes glistened when he saw for 
 the first time in his experience cases of elephantiasis, 
 men going about with a huge, heavy arm or dragging 
 along a grossly disfigured leg. Men and women 
 wore the lava-lava. 
 
 "It's a very indecent costume," said Mrs David- 
 son. "Mr Davidson thinks it should be prohibited 
 by law. How can you expect people to be moral 
 when they wear nothing but a strip of red cotton 
 round their loins?" 
 
 "It's suitable enough to the climate," said the 
 doctor, wiping the sweat off his head. 
 
 Now that they were on land the heat, though it 
 was so early in the morning, was already oppres- 
 sive. Closed in by its hills, not a breath of air 
 came in to Pago-Pago. 
 
 "In our islands," Mrs Davidson went on in her 
 high-pitched tones, "we've practically eradicated the 
 lava-lava. A few old men still continue to wear it,
 
 248 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 but that's all. The women have all taken to the 
 Mother Hubbard, and the men wear trousers and 
 singlets. At the very beginning of our stay Mr 
 Davidson said in one of his reports: the inhabitants 
 of these islands will never be thoroughly Christian- 
 ised till every boy of more than ten years is made 
 to wear a pair of trousers." 
 
 But Mrs Davidson had given two or three of her 
 birdlike glances at heavy grey clouds that came float- 
 ing over the mouth of the harbour. A few drops 
 began to fall. 
 
 "We'd better take shelter/' she said. 
 
 They made their way with all the crowd to a 
 great shed of corrugated iron, and the rain began 
 to fall in torrents. They stood there for some time 
 and then were joined by Mr Davidson. He had 
 been polite enough to the Macphails during the 
 journey, but he had not his wife's sociability, and 
 had spent much of his time reading. He was a 
 silent, rather sullen man, and you felt that his af- 
 fability was a duty that he imposed upon himself 
 Christianly; he was by nature reserved and even 
 morose. His appearance was singular. He was 
 very tall and thin, with long limbs loosely jointed; 
 hollow cheeks and curiously high cheek-bones; he 
 had so cadaverous an air that it surprised you to 
 notice how full and sensual were his lips. He wort? 
 his hair very long. His dark eyes, set deep in their 
 sockets, were large and tragic; and his hands with 
 their big, long fingers, were finely shaped; they gave 
 him a look of great strength. But the most strik- 
 Vig thing about him was the feeling he gave you
 
 RAIN 24S 
 
 of suppressed fire. It was Impressive and vaguely 
 troubling. He was not a man with whom any in- 
 timacy was possible. 
 
 He brought now unwelcome news. There was 
 an epidemic of measles, a serious and often fatal 
 disease among the Kanakas, on the island, and a case 
 had developed among the crew of the schooner 
 which was to take them on their journey. The sick 
 man had been brought ashore and put in hospital 
 on the quarantine station, but telegraphic instruc- 
 tions had been sent from Apia to say that the 
 schooner would not be allowed to enter the harbour 
 till it was certain no other member of the crew was 
 affected. 
 
 "It means we shall have to stay here for ten days 
 at least." 
 
 "But I'm urgently needed at Apia," said Dr Mac- 
 phail. 
 
 "That can't be helped. If no more cases develop 
 on board, the schooner will be allowed to sail with 
 white passengers, but all native traffic is prohibited 
 for three months." 
 
 "Is there a hotel here?" asked Mrs Macphail. 
 
 Davidson gave a low chuckle. 
 
 "There's not." 
 
 "What shall we do then?" 
 
 "I've been talking to the governor. There's a 
 trader along the front who has rooms that he rents, 
 and my proposition Is that as soon as the rain lets 
 up we should go along there and see what we can 
 do. Don't expect comfort. You've just got to be
 
 250 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 thankful If we get a bed to sleep on and a roof over 
 our heads." 
 
 But the rain showed no sign of stopping, and at 
 length with umbrellas and waterproofs they set out. 
 There was no town, but merely a group of official 
 buildings, a store or two, and at the back, among 
 the coconut trees and plantains, a few native dwell- 
 ings. The house they sought was about five min- 
 utes' walk from the wharf. It was a frame house 
 of two storeys, with broad verandahs on both floors 
 and a roof of corrugated iron. The owner was 
 a half-caste named Horn, with a native wife sur- 
 rounded by little brown children, and on the ground- 
 floor he had a store where he sold canned goods 
 and cottons. The rooms he showed them were al- 
 most bare of furniture. In the Macphails' there 
 was nothing but a poor, worn bed with a ragged mos- 
 quito net, a rickety chair, and a washstand. They 
 looked round with dismay. The rain poured down 
 without ceasing. 
 
 "I'm not going to unpack more than we actually 
 need," said Mrs Macphail. 
 
 Mrs Davidson came into the room as she was 
 unlocking a portmanteau. She was very brisk and 
 alert. The cheerless surroundings had no effect on 
 her. 
 
 "If you'll take my advice you'll get a needle and 
 cotton and start right in to mend the mosquito net," 
 she said, "or you'll not be able to get a wink of 
 sleep to-night." 
 
 "Will they be very bad?" asked Dr Macphail. 
 
 "This is the season for them. When you're
 
 RAIN 251 
 
 asked to a party at Government House at Apia 
 you'll notice that all the ladies are given a pillow- 
 slip to put their — their lower extremities in." 
 
 "I wish the rain would stop for a moment," said 
 Mrs Macphail. "I could try to make the place com- 
 fortable with more heart if the sun were shining." 
 
 "Oh, if you wait for that, you'll wait a long time. 
 Pago-Pago is about the rainiest place In the Pa- 
 cific. You see, the hills, and that bay, they attract 
 the water, and one expects rain at this time of year 
 anyway." 
 
 She looked from Macphail to his wife, standing 
 helplessly in different parts of the room, like lost 
 souls, and she pursed her lips. She saw that she 
 must take them in hand. Feckless people like that 
 made her impatient, but her hands itched to put 
 everything in the order which came so naturally 
 to her. 
 
 "Here, you give me a needle and cotton and Pll 
 mend that net of yours, while you go on with your 
 unpacking. Dinner's at one. Dr Macphail, you'd 
 better go down to the wharf and see that your heavy 
 luggage has been put in a dry place. You know 
 what these natives are, they're quite capable of stor- 
 ing it where the rain will beat in on it all the time." 
 
 The doctor put on his waterproof again and went 
 downstairs. At the door Mr Hern was standing 
 in conversation with the quartermaster of the ship 
 they had just arrived in and a second-class passenger 
 whom Dr Macphail had seen several times on board. 
 The quartermaster, a little, shrivelled man, ex- 
 tremely dirty, nodded to him as he passed.
 
 »» 
 
 252 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "This is a bad job about the measles, doc," 
 said. "I see you've fixed yourself up already." 
 
 Dr Macphail thought he was rather familiar, 
 but he was a timid man and he did not take offence 
 easily. 
 
 "Yes, we've got a room upstairs.' 
 
 "Miss Thompson was sailing with you to Apia, 
 so I've brought her along here." 
 
 The quartermaster pointed with his thumb to 
 the woman standing by his side. She was twenty- 
 seven perhaps, plump, and in a coarse fashion pretty. 
 She wore a white dress and a large white hat. Her 
 fat calves in white cotton stockings bulged over 
 the tops of long white boots in glace kid. She 
 gave Macphail an ingratiating smile. 
 
 "The feller's tryin' to soak me a dollar and a 
 half a day for the meanest sized room," she said 
 in a hoarse voice. 
 
 "I tell you she's a friend of mine, Jo," said the 
 quartermaster. "She can't pay more than a dollar, 
 and you've sure got to take her for that." 
 
 The trader was fat and smooth and quietly 
 smiling. 
 
 "Well, if you put it like that, Mr Swan, I'll see 
 what I can do about it. I'll talk to Mrs Horn and 
 if we think we can make a reduction we will." 
 
 "Don't try to pull that stuff with me," said Miss 
 Thompson. "We'll settle this right now. You 
 get a dollar a day for the room and not one bean 
 
 more." 
 
 Dr Macphail smiled. He admired the effrontery 
 with which she bargained. He was the sort of man
 
 RAIN 253 
 
 who always paid what he was asked. He preferred 
 to be over-charged than to haggle. The trader 
 sighed. 
 
 "Well, to oblige Mr Swan I'll take It." 
 
 "That's the goods," said Miss Thompson. 
 "Come right in and have a shot of hooch. I've 
 got some real good rye in that grip if you'll bring 
 it along, Mr Swan. You come along too, doctor." 
 
 "Oh, I don't think I will, thank you," he an- 
 swered. "I'm just going down to see that our lug- 
 gage is all right." 
 
 He stepped out into the rain. It swept in from 
 the opening of the harbour in sheets and the op- 
 posite shore was all blurred. He passed two or 
 three natives clad in nothing but the lava-lava, with 
 huge umbrellas over them. They walked finely, 
 with leisurely movements, very upright; and they 
 smiled and greeted him in a strange tongue as they 
 went by. 
 
 It was nearly dinner-time when he got back, and 
 their meal was laid in the trader's parlour. It was 
 a room designed not to live in but for purposes of 
 prestige, and it had a musty, melancholy air. A 
 suite of stamped plush was arranged neatly round 
 the walls, and from the middle of the ceiling, pro- 
 tected from the flies by yellow tissue paper, hung 
 a gilt chandelier. Davidson did not come. 
 
 "I know he went to call on the governor," said 
 Mrs Davidson, "and I guess he's kept him to din- 
 
 oer. 
 
 A little native girl brought them a dish of Flam-
 
 254 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 burger steak, and after a while the trader came up 
 to see that they had everything they wanted. 
 
 "I see we have a fellow lodger, Mr Horn," said 
 Dr Macphail. 
 
 "She's taken a room, that's all," answered the 
 trader. "She's getting her own board." 
 
 He looked at the two ladies with an obsequious 
 air. 
 
 "I put her downstairs so she shouldn't be 
 in the way. She won't be any trouble to you." 
 
 "Is it someone who was on the boat?" asked 
 Mrs Macphail. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am, she was in the second cabin. She 
 was going to Apia. She has a position as cashier 
 waiting for her." 
 
 "Oh I" 
 
 When the trader was gone Macphail said: 
 
 "I shouldn't think she'd find it exactly cheerful 
 having her meals in her room." 
 
 "If she was in the second cabin I guess she'd 
 rather," answered Mrs Davidson. "I don't exactly 
 know who it can be." 
 
 "I happened to be there when the quartermaster 
 brought her along. Her name's Thompson," 
 
 "It's not the woman who was dancing with the 
 quartermaster last night?" asked Mrs Davidson. 
 
 "That's who it must be," said Mrs Macphail. "I 
 wondered at the time what she was. She looked 
 rather fast to me." 
 
 "Not good style at all," said Mrs Davidson. 
 
 They began to talk of other things, and after 
 dinner, tired with their early rise, they separated
 
 RAIN 255 
 
 and slept. When they awoke, though the sky was 
 still grey and the clouds hung low, it was not rain- 
 ing and they went for a walk on the high road 
 which the Americans had built along the bay. 
 
 On their return they found that Davidson had 
 just come in. 
 
 "We may be here for a fortnight," he said 
 irritably. "I've argued it out with the governor, 
 but he says there is nothing to be done." 
 
 "Mr Davidson's just longing to get back to his 
 work," said his wife, with an anxious glance at him^ 
 
 "We've been away for a year," he said, walking 
 up and down the verandah. "The mission has been 
 in charge of native missionaries and I'm terribly 
 nervous that they've let things slide. They're good 
 men, I'm not saying a word against them, God-fear- 
 ing, devout, and truly Christian men — their Chris- 
 tianity would put many so-called Christians at home 
 to the blush — but they're pitifully lacking in energy. 
 They can make a stand once, they can make a stand 
 twice, but they can't make a stand all the time. If 
 you leave a mission in charge of a native mission- 
 ary, no matter how trustworthy he seems, in course 
 of time you'll find he's let abuses creep in." 
 
 Mr Davidson stood still. With his tall, spare 
 form, and his great eyes flashing out of his pale 
 face, he was an impressive figure. His sincerity 
 was obvious in the fire of his gestures and in his 
 deep, ringing voice. 
 
 "I expect to have my work cut out for me. I 
 shall act and I shall act promptly. If the tree is 
 rotten it shall be cut down and cast Into the flames."
 
 256 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 An3 in the evening after the high tea which was 
 their last meal, while they sat in the stiff parlour, 
 the ladies working and Dr Macphail smoking his 
 pipe, the missionary told them of his work in the 
 islands. 
 
 "When we went there they had no sense of sin 
 at all," he said. "They broke the commandments 
 one after the other and never knew they were doing 
 wrong. And I think that was the most difficult part 
 of my work, to instil into the natives the sense of 
 sin." 
 
 The Macphails knew already that Davidson had 
 Worked in the Solomons for five years before he 
 met his wife. She had been a missionary in China, 
 and they had become acquainted in Boston, where 
 they were -both spending part of their leave to at- 
 tend a missionary congress. On their marriage they 
 had been appointed to the islands in which they 
 had laboured ever since. 
 
 In the course of all the conversations they had 
 had with Mr Davidson one thing had shone out 
 clearly and that was the man's unflinching courage. 
 He was a medical missionary, and he was liable to 
 be called at any time to one or other of the islands 
 in the group. Even the whaleboat is not so very 
 safe a conveyance in the stormy Pacific of the wet 
 season, but often he would be sent for in a canoe, 
 and then the danger was great. In cases of illness 
 or accident he never hesitated. A dozen times he 
 had spent the whole night baling for his life, and 
 more than once Mrs Davidson had given him up for 
 lost.
 
 RAIN 257 
 
 "I'd beg him not to go sometimes," she said, "or 
 at least to wait till the weather was more settled, 
 but he'd never listen. He's obstinate, and when 
 he's once made up his mind, nothing can move him." 
 
 "How can I ask the natives to put their trust in 
 the Lord if I am afraid to do sc myself?" cried 
 Davidson. "And I'm not, I'm not. They know 
 that if they send for me in their trouble I'll come 
 if it's humanly possible. And do you think the 
 Lord is going to abandon me when I am on his 
 business? The wind blows at his bidding and the 
 waves toss and rage at his word." 
 
 Dr Macphail was a timid man. He had never 
 been able to get used to the hurtling of the shells 
 over the trenches, and when he was operating in 
 an advanced dressing-station the sweat poured from 
 his brow and dimmed his spectacles in the effort he 
 made to control his unsteady hand. He shuddered 
 a little as he looked at the missionary. 
 
 "I wish I could say that I've never been afraid," 
 he said. 
 
 "I wish you could say that you believed in God," 
 retorted the other. 
 
 But for some reason, that evening the mission- 
 ary's thoughts travelled back to the early days he 
 and his wife had spent on the islands. 
 
 "Sometimes Mrs Davidson and I would look at 
 one another and the tears would stream down our 
 cheeks. We worked without ceasing, day and night, 
 and we seemed to make no progress. I don't know 
 what I should have done without her then. When
 
 258 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 I felt my heart sink, when I was very near despair, 
 she gave me courage and hope." 
 
 Mrs Davidson looked down at her work, and a 
 slight colour rose to her thin cheeks. Her hands 
 trembled a little. She did not trust herself to speak. 
 
 *'We had no one to help us. We were alone, 
 thousands of miles from any of our own people, 
 surrounded by darkness. When I was broken and 
 weary she would put her work aside and take the 
 Bible and read to me till peace came and settled 
 upon me like sleep upon the eyelids of a child, and 
 when at last she closed the book she'd say: 'We'll 
 save them in spite of themselves.' And I felt strong 
 again in the Lord, and I answered: 'Yes, with 
 God's help I'll save them. I must save them.' " 
 
 He came over to the table and stood in front 
 of it as though it were a lectern. 
 
 "You see, they were so naturally depraved that 
 they couldn't be brought to see their wickedness. 
 We had to make sins out of what they thought were 
 natural actions. We had to make it a sin, not only 
 to commit adultery and to lie and thieve, but to ex- 
 pose their bodies, and to dance and not to come to 
 church. I made it a sin for a girl to show her bosom 
 and a sin for a man not to wear trousers." 
 
 "How?" asked Dr Macphail, not without sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "I instituted fines. Obviously the only way to 
 make people realise that an action is sinful is to 
 punish them if they commit it. I fined them if they 
 didn't come to church, and I fined them if they 
 danced. I fined them if they were improperly
 
 RAIN 259 
 
 dressed. I had a tariff, and every sin had to be paid 
 for either in money or work. And at last I made 
 them understand." 
 
 "But did they never refuse to pay?" 
 
 "How could they?" asked the missionary. 
 
 "It would be a brave man who tried to stand up 
 against Mr Davidson," said his wife, tightening her 
 lips. 
 
 Dr. Macphail looked at Davidson with troubled 
 eyes. What he heard shocked him, but he hesitated 
 to express his disapproval. 
 
 "You must remember that in the last resort I 
 could expel them from their church membership." 
 
 "Did they mind that?" 
 
 Davidson smiled a little and gently rubbed his 
 hands. 
 
 "They couldn't sell their copra. When the men 
 fished they got no share of the catch. It meant 
 something very like starvation. Yes, they minded 
 quite a lot." 
 
 "Tell him about Fred Ohlson," said Mrs Da- 
 vidson. 
 
 The missionary fixed his fiery eyes on Dr Mac- 
 phail. 
 
 "Fred Ohlson was a Danish trader who had been 
 in the islands a good many years. He was a pretty 
 rich man as traders go and he wasn't very pleased 
 when we came. You see, he'd had things very much 
 his own way. He paid the natives what he liked 
 for their copra, and he paid in goods and whiskey. 
 He had a native wife, but he was flagrantly un- 
 faithful to her. He was a drunkard. I gave him
 
 SCO THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 a chnnce to mend his ways, but he wouldn't take It, 
 He laughed at me." 
 
 Davidson's voice fell to a deep bass as he said 
 the last words, and he was silent for a minute or 
 two. The silence was heavy with menace. 
 
 "In two years he was a ruined man. He'd lost 
 everything he'd saved in a quarter of a century. 
 I broke him, and at last he was forced to come 
 to me like a beggar and beseech me to give him 
 a passage back to Sydney." 
 
 "I wish you could have seen him when he came 
 to see Mr Davidson," said the missionary's wife. 
 "He had been a fine, powerful man, with a lot 
 of fat on him, and he had a great big voice, but 
 now he was half the size, and he was shaking all 
 over. He'd suddenly become an old man." 
 
 With abstracted gaze Davidson looked out into 
 the night. The rain was falling again. 
 
 Suddenly from below came a sound, and David- 
 son turned and looked questioningly at his wife. 
 It was the sound of a gramophone, harsh and loud, 
 wheezing out a syncopated tune. 
 
 "What's that?" he asked. 
 
 Mrs Davidson fixed her pince-nez more firmly 
 on her nose. 
 
 "One of the second-class passengers has a room 
 in the house. I guess it comes from there." 
 
 They listened in silence, and presently they heard 
 the sound of dancing. Then the music stopped, and 
 they heard the popping of corks and voices raised 
 in animated conversation. 
 
 "I daresay she's giving a farewell party to hef
 
 RAIN 261 
 
 friends on board," said Dr Macphall. "The ship 
 sails at twelve, doesn't it?" 
 
 Davidson made no remark, but he looked at his 
 watch. 
 
 "Are you ready?" he asked his wife. 
 
 She got up and folded her work. 
 
 "Yes, I guess I am," she answered. 
 
 "It's early to go to bed yet, isn't it?" said the 
 doctor. 
 
 "We have a good deal of reading to do," ex« 
 plained Mrs Davidson. "Wherever we are, we 
 read a chapter of the Bible before retiring for the 
 night and we study it with the commentaries, you 
 know, and discuss it thoroughly. It's a wonderful 
 training for the mind." 
 
 The two couples bade one another good night. 
 Dr and Mrs Macphail were left alone. For two 
 or three minutes they did not speak. 
 
 "I think I'll go and fetch the cards," the doctor 
 said at last. 
 
 Mrs Macphail looked at him doubtfully. Her 
 conversation with the Davidsons had left her a 
 little uneasy, but she did not like to say that she 
 thought they had better not play cards when the 
 Davidsons might come in at any moment. Dr 
 Macphail brought them and she watched him, 
 though with a vague sense of guilt, while he laid 
 out his patience. Below the sound of revelry con- 
 tinued. 
 
 It was fine enough next day, and the Macphails, 
 condemned to spend a fortnight of idleness at Pago- 
 Pago, set about making the best of things. They
 
 262 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 went down to the quay and got out of their boxes 
 a number of books. The doctor called on the chief 
 surgeon of the naval hospital and went round the 
 beds with him. They left cards on the governor. 
 They passed Miss Thompson on the road. The 
 doctor toolc off his hat, and she gave him a "Good 
 morning, doc," in a loud, cheerful voice. She was 
 dressed as on the day before, in a white frock, 
 and her shiny white boots with their high heels, her 
 fat legs bulging over the tops of them, were strange 
 things on that exotic scene. 
 
 "I don't think she's very suitably dressed, I must 
 say," said Mrs Macphail. "She looks extremely 
 common to me." 
 
 When they got back to their house, she was on 
 the verandah playing with one of the trader's dark 
 children. 
 
 "Say a word to her," Dr Macphail whispered to 
 his wife. "She's all alone here, and it seems rather 
 unkind to ignore her." 
 
 Mrs Macphail was shy, but she was in the habit 
 of doing what her husband bade her, 
 
 "I think we're fellow lodgers here," she said, 
 rather foolishly. 
 
 "Terrible, ain't it, bein' cooped up In a one-horse 
 burg like this?" answered Miss Thompson. "And 
 they tell me I'm lucky to have gotten a room. I 
 don't see myself livin' In a native house, and that's 
 what some have to do. I don't know why they 
 don't have a hotel." 
 
 They exchanged a few more words. Miss 
 Thompson, loud-voiced and garrulous, was evi-
 
 RAIN 263 
 
 dently quite willing to gossip, but Mrs Macphail 
 had a poor stock of small talk and presently she 
 said: 
 
 *'Well, I think we must go upstairs." 
 
 In the evening when they sat down to their high- 
 tea Davidson on coming in said: 
 
 "I see that woman downstairs has a couple of 
 sailors sitting there. I wonder how she's gotten 
 acquainted with them." 
 
 "She can't be very particular," said Mrs David- 
 son. 
 
 They were all rather tired after the idle, aimless 
 
 day. 
 
 "If there's going to be a fortnight of this I don't 
 know what we shall feel like at the end of it," said 
 Dr Macphail. 
 
 "The only thing to do is to portion out the day 
 to different activities," answered the missionary^ "I 
 shall set aside a certain number of hours to study 
 and a certain number to exercise, rain or fine — in 
 the wet season you can't afford to pay any atten- 
 tion to the rain — and a certain number to recrea- 
 tion." 
 
 Dr Macphail looked at his companion with mis- 
 giving. Davidson's programme oppressed him. 
 They were eating Hamburger steak again. It 
 seemed the only dish the cook knew how to make. 
 Then below the gramophone began. Davidson 
 started nervously when he heard it, but said noth- 
 ing. Men's voices floated up. Miss Thompson's 
 guests were joining in a well-known song and pres- 
 ently they heard her voice too, hoarse and loud.
 
 264 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 There was a good deal of shouting and laughing. 
 The four people upstairs, trying to make conversa- 
 tion, listened despite themselves to the clink, of 
 glasses and the scrape of chairs. More people had 
 evidently come. Miss Thompson was giving a party. 
 
 "I wonder how she gets them all in," said Mrs 
 Macphail, suddenly breaking into a medical conver- 
 sation between the missionary and her husband. 
 
 It showed whither her thoughts were wandering. 
 The twitch of Davidson's face proved that, though 
 he spoke of scientific things, his mind was busy in 
 the same direction. Suddenly, while the doctor was 
 giving some experience of practice on the Flanders 
 front, rather prosily, he sprang to his feet with 
 a cry. 
 
 "What's the matter, Alfred?" asked Mrs Da- 
 vidson. 
 
 "Of course I It never occurred to me. She's out 
 of Iwelei." 
 
 "She can't be." 
 
 "She came on board at Honolulu. It's obvious. 
 And she's carrying on her trade here. Here." 
 
 He uttered the last word with a passion of in» 
 dignation. 
 
 "What's Iwelei?" asked Mrs Macphail. 
 
 He turned his gloomy eyes on her and his voice 
 trembled with horror. 
 
 "The plague spot of Honolulu. The Red Light 
 district. It was a blot on our civilisation." 
 
 Iwelei was on the edge of the city. You went 
 down side streets by the harbour, in the darkness, 
 across a rickety bridge, till you came to a deserted
 
 RAIN 265 
 
 road, all ruts and holes, and then suddenly you 
 came out into the light. There was parking room 
 for motors on each side of the road, and there were 
 saloons, tawdry and bright, each one noisy with its 
 mechanical piano, and there were barbers' shops and 
 tobacconists. There was a stir in the air and a 
 sense of expectant gaiety. You turned down a nar- 
 row alley, either to the right or to the left, for the 
 road divided Iwelei into two parts, and you found 
 yourself in the district. There were rows of little 
 bungalows, trim and neatly painted in green, and 
 the pathway between them was broad and straight. 
 It was laid out like a garden-city. In its respectable 
 regularity, its order and spruceness, it gave an im- 
 pression of sardonic horror; for never can the search 
 for love have been so systematised and ordered. The 
 pathways were lit by a rare lamp, but they would 
 have been dark except for the lights that came from 
 the open windows of the bungalows. Men wandered 
 about, looking at the women who sat at their win- 
 dows, reading or sewing, for the most part taking 
 no notice of the passers-by; and like the women they 
 were of all nationalities. There were Americans, 
 sailors from the ships in port, enlisted men off the 
 gunboats, sombrely drunk, and soldiers from the 
 regiments, white and black, quartered on the island; 
 there were Japanese, walking in twos and threes; 
 Hawaiians, Chinese in long robes, and Filipinos in 
 preposterous hats. They were silent and as it were 
 oppressed. Desire is sad. 
 
 "It was the most crying scandal of the Pacific," 
 exclaimed Davidson vehemently. "The mission-
 
 266 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 aries had been agitating against it for years, and 
 at last the local press took it up. The police re- 
 fused to stir. You know their argument. They 
 say that vice is inevitable and consequently the best 
 thing is to localise and control it. The truth is, 
 they were paid. Paid. They were paid by the 
 saloon-keepers, paid by the bullies, paid by the 
 women themselves. At last they were forced to 
 move." 
 
 "I read about it In the papers that came on 
 board in Honolulu," said Dr Macphail. 
 
 "Iwelei, with its sin and shame, ceased to exist on 
 the very day we arrived. The whole population 
 was brought before the justices. I don't know why 
 I didn't understand at once what that woman was." 
 
 "Now you come to speak of it," said Mrs Mac- 
 phail, "I remember seeing her come on board only 
 a few minutes before the boat sailed. I remember 
 thinking at the time she was cutting it rather fine." 
 
 "How dare she come here !" cried Davidson in- 
 dignantly. "I'm not going to allow it." 
 
 He strode towards the door. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" asked Macphail. 
 
 "What do you expect me to do? I'm going to 
 stop it. I'm not going to have this house turned 
 into — into . . ." 
 
 He sought for a word that should not offend the 
 ladies' ears. His eyes were flashing and his pale 
 face was paler still in his emotion. 
 
 "It sounds as though there were three or four 
 men down there," said the doctor. "Don't you think 
 it's rather rash to go in just now?"
 
 RAIN 267 
 
 The missionary gave him a contemptuous look 
 and without a word flung out of the room. 
 
 "You know Mr Davidson very little if you think 
 the fear of personal danger can stop him In the per- 
 formance of his duty," said his wife. 
 
 She sat with her hands nervously clasped, a spot 
 of colour on her high cheek bones, listening to what 
 was about to happen below. They all listened. They 
 heard him clatter down the wooden stairs and throw 
 open the door. The singing stopped suddenly, but 
 the gramophone continued to bray out its vulgar 
 tune. They heard Davidson's voice and then the 
 noise of something heavy falling. The music 
 stopped. He had hurled the gramophone on the 
 floor. Then again they heard Davidson's voice, 
 they could not make out the words, then Miss 
 Thompson's, loud and shrill, then a confused clam- 
 our as though several people were shouting together 
 at the top of their lungs. Mrs Davidson gave a 
 little gasp, and she clenched her hands more tightly. 
 Dr Macphall looked uncertainly from her to his 
 wife. He did not want to go down, but he won- 
 dered if they expected him to. Theu there was 
 something that sounded like a scuffle. The noise 
 now was more distinct. It might be that Davidson 
 was being thrown out of the room. The door 
 was slammed. There was a moment's silence and 
 they heard Davidson come up the stairs again. He 
 went to his room. 
 
 "I think I'll go to him," said Mrs Davidson. 
 
 She got up and went out. 
 
 *'If you want me, just call," said Mrs Macphail,
 
 268 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 and then when the other was gone: "I hope he 
 isn't hurt." 
 
 "Why couldn't he mind his own business?" said 
 Dr Macphail. 
 
 They sat in silence for a minute or two and then 
 they both started, for the gramophone began to play 
 once more, defiantly, and mocking voices shouted 
 hoarsely the words of an obscene song. 
 
 Next day Mis Davidson was pale and tired. 
 She complained of headache, and she looked old 
 and wizened. She told Mrs Macphail that the mis- 
 sionary had not slept at all; he had passed the night 
 in a state of frightful agitation and at five had got 
 up and gone out. A glass of beer had been thrown 
 over him and his clothes were stained and stinking. 
 But a sombre fire glowed in Mrs Davidson's eyes 
 when she spoke of Miss Thompson. 
 
 "She'll bitterly rue the day when she flouted Mr 
 Davidson," she said. "Mr Davidson has a won* 
 derful heart and no one who is in trouble has ever 
 gone to him without being comforted, but he has 
 no mercy for sin, and when his righteous wrath is 
 excited he's terrible." 
 
 "Why, what will he do?" asked Mrs Macphail. 
 
 "I don't know, but I wouldn't stand in that crea- 
 ture's shoes for anything in the world." 
 
 Mrs Macphail shuddered. There was something 
 positively alarming in the triumphant assurance of 
 the little woman's manner. They were going out 
 together that morning, and they went down the 
 stairs side by side. Miss Thompson's door was
 
 RAIN 269 
 
 open, and they saw her In a bedraggled dressing- 
 gown, cooking something in a chafing-dish. 
 
 "Good morning," she called. "Is Mr Davidson 
 better this morning?" 
 
 They passed her in silence, with their noses in the 
 air, as if she did not exist. They flushed, however, 
 when she burst into a shout of derisive laughter. 
 Mrs Davidson turned on her suddenly. 
 
 "Don't you dare to speak to me," she screamed. 
 "If you insult me I shall have you turned out of 
 here." 
 
 "Say, did I ask Mr Davidson to visit with me?'* 
 
 "Don't answer her," whispered Mrs Macphail 
 hurriedly. 
 
 They walked on till they were out of earshot. 
 
 "She's brazen, brazen," burst from Mrs David- 
 son. 
 
 Her anger almost suffocated her. 
 
 And on their way home they met her strolling 
 towards the quay. She had all her finery on. Her 
 great white hat with its vulgar, showy flowers was 
 an affront. She called out cheerily to them as she 
 went by, and a couple of American sailors who 
 were standing there grinned as the ladles set their 
 faces to an Icy stare. They got in just before the 
 rain began to fall again. 
 
 "I guess she'll get her fine clothes spoilt," said 
 Mrs Davidson with a bitter sneer. 
 
 Davidson did not come in till they were half 
 way through dinner. He was wet through, but he 
 would not change. He sat, morose and silent, re- 
 fusing to eat more than a mouthful, and he stared
 
 270 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 at the slanting rain. When Mrs Davidson told 
 him of their two encounters with Miss Thompson 
 he did not answer. His deepening frown alone 
 showed that he had heard. 
 
 "Don't you think we ought to make Mr Horn 
 turn her out of here?" asked Mrs Davidson. "We 
 can't allow her to insult us." 
 
 "There doesn't seem to be any other place for 
 her to go," said Macphail. 
 
 "She can live with one of the natives." 
 
 "In weather like this a native hut must be a rather 
 uncomfortable place to live in." 
 
 "I lived in one for years," said the missionary. 
 
 When the little native girl brought in the fried 
 bananas which formed the sweet they had every 
 day, Davidson turned to her. 
 
 "Ask Miss Thompson when it would be conve- 
 nient for me to see her," he said. 
 
 The girl nodded shyly and went out. 
 
 "What do you want to see her for, Alfred?" 
 asked his wife. 
 
 "It's my duty to see her. I won't act till I've 
 given her every chance." 
 
 "You don't know what she is. She'll insult you." 
 
 "Let her insult me. Let her spit on me. She 
 has an immortal soul, and I must do all that is in 
 my power to save it." 
 
 Mrs Davidson's ears rang still with the harlot's 
 mocking laughter. 
 
 "She's gone too far." 
 
 "Too far for the mercy of God?" His eyes lit 
 up suddenly and his voice grew mellow and soft.
 
 RAIN 271 
 
 "Never. The sinner may be deeper in sin than 
 the depth of hell itself, but the love of the Lord 
 Jesus can reach him still." 
 
 The girl came back with the message. 
 
 "Miss Thompson's compliments and as long as 
 Rev. Davidson don't come in business hours she'll 
 be glad to see him any time." 
 
 The party received it in stony silence, and Dr 
 Macphail quickly effaced from his lips the smile 
 which had come upon them. He knew his wife 
 would be vexed with him if he found Miss Thomp- 
 son's effrontery amusing. 
 
 They finished the meal in silence. When it was 
 over the two ladies got up and took their work, 
 Mrs Macphail was making another of the innumer- 
 able comforters which she had turned out since the 
 beginning of the war, and the doctor lit his pipe. 
 But Davidson remained in his chair and with ab- 
 stracted eyes stared at the table. At last he got 
 up and without a word went out of the room. They 
 heard him go down and they heard Miss Thomp- 
 son's defiant "Come in" when he knocked at the 
 door. He remained with her for an hour. And Dr 
 Macphail watched the rain. It was beginning to get 
 on his nerves. It was not like our soft English rain 
 that drops gently on the earth; it was unmerciful 
 and somehow terrible; you felt in it the malignancy 
 of the primitive powers of nature. It did not pour, 
 it flowed. It was like a deluge from heaven, and 
 it rattled on the roof of corrugated iron with a 
 steady persistence that was maddening. It seemed 
 to have a fury of its own. And sometimes you
 
 272 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 felt that you must scream If it did not stop, and 
 then suddenly you felt powerless, as though your 
 bones had suddenly become soft; and you were mis- 
 erable and hopeless. 
 
 Macphail turned his head when the missionary 
 came back. The two women looked up. 
 
 "I've given her every chance. I have exhorted 
 her to repent. She is an evil woman." 
 
 He paused, and Dr Macphail saw his eyes darken 
 and his pale face grow hard and stern. 
 
 "Now I shall take the whips with which the Lord 
 Jesus drove the usurers and the money changers out 
 of the Temple of the Most High." 
 
 He walked up and down the room. His mouth 
 was close set, and his black brows were frowning. 
 
 "If she fled to the uttermost parts of the earth 
 I should pursue her." 
 
 With a sudden movement he turned round and 
 strode out of the room. They heard him go down- 
 stairs again. 
 
 "What is he going to do?" asked Mrs Macphail. 
 
 "I don't know." Mrs Davidson took off her 
 pince-nez and wiped them. "When he is on the 
 Lord's work I never ask him questions." 
 
 She sighed a little. 
 
 "What is the matter?" 
 
 "He'll wear himself out. He doesn't know what 
 it is to spare himself." 
 
 Dr Macphail learnt the first results of the mis- 
 sionary's activity from the half-caste trader in 
 whose house they lodged. He stopped the doctor
 
 RAIN 273 
 
 when he passed the store and came out to speak 
 to him on the stoop. His fat face was worried. 
 
 "The Rev. Davidson has been at me for letting 
 Miss Thompson have a room here," he said, "but 
 I didn't know what she was when I rented it to her. 
 When people come and ask if I can rent them a 
 room all I want to know is if they've the money 
 to pay for it. And she paid me for hers a week 
 in advance." 
 
 Dr Macphail did not want to commit himself. 
 
 "When all's said and done it's your house. 
 We're very much obliged to you for taking us in 
 at all." 
 
 Horn looked at him doubtfully. He was not cer- 
 tain yet how definitely Macphail stood on the mis- 
 sionary's side. 
 
 "The missionaries are in with one another," he 
 said, hesitatingly. "If they get it In for a trader 
 he may just as well shut up his store and quit." 
 
 "Did he want you to turn her out?" 
 
 "No, he said so long as she behaved herself he 
 couldn't ask me to do that. He said he wanted to 
 be just to me. I promised she shouldn't have no 
 more visitors. I've just been and told her." 
 
 "How did she take it?" 
 
 "She gave me Hell." 
 
 The trader squirmed in his old ducks. He had 
 found Miss Thompson a rough customer. 
 
 "Oh, well, I daresay she'll get out. I don't sup- 
 pose she wants to stay here if she can't have any- 
 one in." 
 
 "There's nowhere she can go, only a native house,
 
 27t THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 and no native'll take her now, not now that the 
 missionaries have got their knife in her." 
 
 Dr Macphail looked at the falling rain. 
 
 "Well, I don't suppose it's any good waiting for 
 it to clear up." 
 
 In the evening when they sat in the parlour Da- 
 vidson talked to them of his early days at college. 
 He had had no means and had worked his way 
 through by doing odd jobs during the vacations. 
 There was silence downstairs. Miss Thompson was 
 sitting in her little room alone. But suddenly the 
 gramophone began to play. She had set it on in 
 defiance, to cheat her loneliness, but there was no 
 one to sing, and it had a melancholy note. It 
 was like a cry for help. Davidson took no notice. 
 He was in the middle of a long anecdote and with- 
 out change of expression went on. The gramo« 
 phone continued. Miss Thompson put on one reel 
 after another. It looked as though the silence of 
 the night were getting on her nerves. It was breath- 
 less and sultry. When the Macphails went to bed 
 they could not sleep. They lay side by side with 
 their eyes wide open, listening to the cruel singing 
 of the mosquitoes outside their curtain. 
 
 "What's that?" whispered Mrs Macphail at last. 
 
 They heard a voice, Davidson's voice, through 
 the wooden partition. It went on with a monot- 
 onous, earnest Insistence. He was praying aloud. 
 He was praying for the soul of Miss Thompson. 
 
 Two or three days went by. Now when they 
 passed Miss Thompson on the road she did not 
 greet them with ironic cordiality or smile; she
 
 RAIN 275 
 
 passed with her nose In the air, a sulky look on her 
 painted face, frowning, as though she did not see 
 them. The trader told Macphail that she had tried 
 to get lodging elsewhere, but had failed. In the 
 evening she played through the various reels of her 
 gramophone, but the pretence of mirth was obvious 
 now. The ragtime had a cracked, heart-broken 
 rhythm as though it were a one-step of despair. 
 When she began to play on Sunday Davidson sent 
 Horn to beg her to stop at once since it was the 
 Lord's day. The reel was taken off and the house 
 was silent except for the steady pattering of the rain 
 on the iron roof. 
 
 'T think she's getting a bit worked up," said the 
 trader next day to Macphail. "She don't know 
 what Mr Davidson's up to and it makes her scared." 
 
 Macphail had caught a glimpse of her that morn- 
 ing and it struck him that her arrogant expression 
 had changed. There was in her face a hunted 
 look. The half-caste gave him a sidelong glance. 
 
 *T suppose you don't know what Mr Davidson 
 is doing about it?" he hazarded. 
 
 ♦'No, I don't." 
 
 It was singular that Horn should ask him that 
 question, for he also had the idea that the mission' 
 ary was mysteriously at work. He had an impres- 
 sion that he was weaving a net around the woman, 
 carefully, systematically, and suddenly, when every- 
 thing was ready would pull the strings tight. 
 
 "He told me to tell her," said the trader, "that 
 if at any time she wanted him she only had to send 
 and he'd come."
 
 270 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "What did she say when you told her that?'* 
 
 "She didn't say nothing. I didn't stop. I just 
 said what he said I was to and then I beat it. I 
 thought she might be going to start weepin'." 
 
 *'I have no doubt the loneliness is getting on her 
 nerves," said the doctor. "And the rain — that's 
 enough to make anyone jumpy," he continued irri- 
 tably. "Doesn't it ever stop in this confounded 
 place?" 
 
 "It goes on pretty steady in the rainy season. We 
 have three hundred inches in the year. You see, 
 it's the shape of the bay. It seems to attract the 
 rain from all over the Pacific." 
 
 "Damn the shape of the bay," said the doctor. 
 
 He scratched his mosquito bites. He felt very 
 short-tempered. When the rain stopped and the 
 sun shone, it was like a hothouse, seething, humid, 
 sultry, breathless, and you had a strange feeling 
 that everything was growing with a savage violence. 
 The natives, bhthe and childlike by reputation, 
 seemed then, with their tattooing and their dyed 
 hair, to have something sinister in their appear- 
 ance; and when they pattered along at your heels 
 with their naked feet you looked back instinctively. 
 You felt they might at any moment come behind 
 you swiftly and thrust a long knife between your 
 shoulder blades. You could not tell what dark 
 thoughts lurked behind their wide-set eyes. They 
 had a little the look of ancient Egyptians painted 
 on a temple wall, and there was about them the 
 terror of what is immeasurably old. 
 
 The missionary came and went. He was busy^
 
 RAIN 277 
 
 but the Macphails did not know what he was doing. 
 Horn told the doctor that he saw the governor 
 every day, and once Davidson mentioned him. 
 
 "He looks as if he had plenty of determination," 
 he said, "but when you come down to brass tacks 
 he has no backbone." 
 
 "I suppose that means he won't do exactly what 
 you want," suggested »lhe doctor facetiously. 
 
 The missionary did not smile. 
 
 "I want him to do what's right. It shouldn't be 
 necessary to persuade a man to do that." 
 
 "But there may be differences of opinion about 
 what is right." 
 
 "If a man had a gangrenous foot would you have 
 patience with anyone who hesitated to amputate it?" 
 
 "Gangrene is a matter of fact." 
 
 "And Evil?" 
 
 What Davidson had done soon appeared. The 
 four of them had just finished their midday meal, 
 and they had not yet separated for the siesta which 
 the heat imposed on the ladies and on the doctor. 
 Davidson had little patience with the slothful habit. 
 The door was suddenly flung open and Miss Thomp- 
 son came in. She looked round the room and then 
 went up to Davidson. 
 
 "You low-down skunk, what have you been saying 
 about me to the governor?" 
 
 She was spluttering with rage. There was a mo- 
 ment's pause. Then the missionary drew forward 
 a chair. 
 
 "Won't you be seated. Miss Thompson? I've 
 been hoping to have another talk with you."
 
 278 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "You poor low-life bastard." 
 
 She burst into a torrent of insult, foul and in- 
 solent. Davidson kept his grave eyes on her. 
 
 "Fm indifferent to the abuse you think fit to heap 
 on me, Miss Thompson," he said, "but I must beg 
 you to remember that ladies are present." 
 
 Tears by now were struggling with her anger. 
 Her face was red and swollen as though she were 
 choking. 
 
 "What has happened?" asked Dr Macphail. 
 
 "A feller's just been in here and he says I gotter 
 beat it on the next boat." 
 
 Was there a gleam in the missionary's eyes? 
 His face remained impassive. 
 
 "You could hardly expect the governor to let you 
 stay here under the circumstances." 
 
 "You done it," she shrieked. "You can't kid me. 
 You done it." 
 
 "I don't want to deceive you. I urged the gov- 
 ernor to take the only possible step consistent with 
 his obligations." 
 
 "Why couldn't you leave me be? I wasn't doin' 
 you no harm." 
 
 "You may be sure that if you had I should be the 
 last man to resent it." 
 
 "Do you think I want to stay on in this poor 
 imitation of a burg? I don't look no busher, do I?" 
 
 "In that case I don't see what cause of com- 
 plaint you have," he answered. 
 
 She gave an inarticulate cry of rage and flung 
 out of the room. There was a short silence. 
 
 "It's a relief to know that the governor has acted
 
 RAIN 279 
 
 at last," said Davidson finally. "He's a weak man 
 and he shilly-shallied. He said she was only here 
 for a fortnight anyway, and if she went on to Apia 
 that was under British jurisdiction and had nothing 
 to do with him." 
 
 The missionary sprang to his feet and strode 
 across the room. 
 
 "It's terrible the way the men who are In au- 
 thority seek to evade their responsibility. They 
 speak as though evil that was out of sight ceased to 
 be evil. The very existence of that woman Is a 
 scandal and it does not help matters to shift It to 
 another of the islands. In the end I had to speak 
 straight from the shoulder." 
 
 Davidson's brow lowered, and he protruded his 
 firm chin. He looked fierce and determined. 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" 
 
 "Our mission Is not entirely without influence at 
 Washington. I pointed out to the governor that it 
 wouldn't do him any good If there was a complaint 
 about the way he managed things here." 
 
 "When has she got to go?" asked the doctor, 
 after a pause. 
 
 "The San Francisco boat Is due here from Syd- 
 ney next Tuesday. She's to sail on that." 
 
 That was In five days' time. It was next day, 
 when he was coming back from the hospital where 
 for want of something better to do Macphail spent 
 most of his mornings, that the half-caste stopped 
 him as he was going upstairs. 
 
 "Excuse me, Dr Marnhail. Miss Thompson's sick. 
 Will you have a look at her.''
 
 280 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 Horn led him to her room. She was sitting in 
 a chair Idly, neither reading nor sewing, staring in 
 front of her. She wore her white dress and the 
 large hat with the flowers on it. Macphall noticed 
 that her skin was yellow and muddy under her pow- 
 der, and her eyes were heavy. 
 
 "I'm sorry to hear you're not well," he said. 
 
 "Oh, I ain't sick really. I just said that, because 
 I just had to see you. I've got to clear on a boat 
 that's going to 'Frisco." 
 
 She looked at him and he saw that her eyes were 
 suddenly startled. She opened and clenched her 
 hands spasmodically. The trader stood at the door, 
 listening. 
 
 "So I understand," said the doctor. 
 
 She gave a little gulp. 
 
 "I guess it ain't very convenient for me to go to 
 *Frisco just now. I went to see the governor yes- 
 terday afternoon, but I couldn't get to him. I saw 
 the secretary, and he told me I'd got to take that 
 boat and that was all there was to it. I just had 
 to see the governor, so I waited outside his house 
 this morning, and when he come out I spoke to 
 him. He didn't want to speak to me, I'll say, but 
 I wouldn't let him shake me off, and at last he said 
 he hadn't no objection to my staying here till the 
 next boat to Sydney if the Rev. Davidson will stand 
 for it." 
 
 She stopped and looked at Dr Macphall anx- 
 iously. 
 
 "I don't know exactly what I can do," he said.
 
 RAIN 281 
 
 "Well, I thought maybe you wouldn't mind ask- 
 ing him. I swear to God I won't start anything 
 here if he'll just only let me stay. I won't go out 
 of the house if that'll suit him. It's no more'n a 
 fortnight." 
 
 "I'll ask him." 
 
 "He won't stand for it," said Horn. "He'll have 
 you out on Tuesday, so you may as well make up 
 your mind to it." 
 
 "Tell him I can get work in Sydney, straight stuff, 
 I mean. 'Tain't asking very much." 
 
 "I'll do what I can." 
 
 "And come and tell me right away, will you? 
 I can't set down to a thing till I get the dope one 
 way or the other." 
 
 It was not an errand that much pleased the doc- 
 tor, and, characteristically perhaps, he went about 
 it indirectly. He told his wife what Miss Thompson 
 had said to him and asked her to speak to Mrs 
 Davidson. The missionary's attitude seemed rather 
 arbitrary and it could do no harm if the girl were 
 allowed to stay in Pago-Pago another fortnight. 
 But he was not prepared for the result of his diplo- 
 macy'. The missionary came to him straightway. 
 
 "Mrs Davidson tells me that Thompson has been 
 speaking to you." 
 
 Dr Macphail, thus directly tackled, had the shy 
 man's resentment at being forced out into the open. 
 He felt his temper rising, and he flushed. 
 
 "I don't see that it can make any difference If 
 she goes to Sydney rather than to San Francisco,
 
 282 THE TRExMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 and so long as she promises to behave while she's 
 here it's dashed hard to persecute her." 
 
 The missionary fixed him with his stern eyes. 
 
 "Why is she unwilling to go back to San Fran- 
 asco.f^ 
 
 "I didn't enquire," answered the doctor with some 
 asperity. "And I think one does better to mind 
 one's own business." 
 
 Perhaps it was not a very tactful answer. 
 
 "The governor has ordered her to be deported 
 by the first boat that leaves the island. He's only 
 done his duty and I will not interfere. Her presence 
 is a peril here." 
 
 "I think you're very harsh and tyrannical." 
 
 The two ladies looked up at the doctor with some 
 alarm, but they need not have feared a quarrel, 
 for the missionary smiled gently. 
 
 "I'm terribly sorry you should think that of me, 
 Dr Macphail. Believe me, my heart bleeds for that 
 unfortunate woman, but I'm only trying to do my 
 duty." 
 
 The doctor made no answer. He looked out of 
 the window sullenly. For once it was not raining 
 and across the bay you saw nestling among the trees 
 the huts of a native village. 
 
 "I think I'll take advantage of the rain stopping 
 to go out," he said. 
 
 "Please don't bear me malice because I can't ac> 
 cede to your wish," said Davidson, with a melan- 
 choly smile. "I respect you very much, doctor, and 
 I should be sorry if you thought ill of me." 
 
 "I have no doubt you have a sufficiently good
 
 RAIN 283 
 
 opinion of yourself to bear mine with equanimity," 
 he retorted. 
 
 "That's one on me," chuckled Davidson. 
 
 When Dr Macphail, vexed with himself because 
 he had been uncivil to no purpose, went downstairs, 
 Miss Thompson was waiting for him with her door 
 ajar. 
 
 "Well," she said, "have you spoken to him?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm sorry, he won't do anything," he an- 
 swered, not looking at her in his embarrassment. 
 
 But then he gave her a quick glance, for a sob 
 broke from her. He saw that her face was white 
 with fear. It gave him a shock of dismay. And 
 suddenly he had an idea. 
 
 "But don't give up hope yet. I think it's a shame 
 the way they're treating you and I'm going to see 
 the governor myself." 
 
 "Now?" 
 
 He nodded. Her face brightened. 
 
 "Say, that's real good of you. I'm sure he'll let 
 me stay if you speak for me. I just won't do a 
 thing I didn't ought all the time I'm here." 
 
 Dr Macphail hardly knew why he had made up 
 his mind to appeal to the governor. He was per- 
 fectly indifferent to Miss Thompson's affairs, but 
 the missionary had irritated him, and with him tem- 
 per was a smouldering thing. He found the gov- 
 ernor at home. He. was a large, handsome man, 
 a sailor, with a grey toothbrush moustache; and he 
 wore a spotless uniform of white drill. 
 
 "I've come to see you about a woman who's lodg-
 
 284 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 Ins: in the same house as we are," he said. "Her 
 name's Thompson." 
 
 "I guess I've heard nearly enough about her, Dr 
 Macphail," said the governor, smiling. "I've given 
 her the order to get out next Tuesday and that's 
 all I can do." 
 
 "I wanted to ask you if you couldn't stretch a 
 point and let her stay here till the boat comes in 
 from San Francisco so that she can go to Sydney. 
 I will guarantee her good behaviour." 
 
 The governor continued to smile, but his eyes grew 
 small and serious. 
 
 "I'd be very glad to oblige you, Dr Macphail, 
 but I've given the order and it must stand." 
 
 The doctor put the case as reasonably as he could, 
 but now the governor ceased to smile at all. He 
 listened sullenly, with averted gaze. Macphail saw 
 that he was making no impression. 
 
 "I'm sorry to cause any lady inconvenience, but 
 she'll have to sail on Tuesday and that's all there 
 is to it." 
 
 "But what difference can it make?" 
 
 "Pardon me, doctor, but I don't feel called upon 
 to explain my official actions except to the proper 
 authorities." 
 
 Macphail looked at him shrewdly. He remem.. 
 bered Davidson's hint that he had used threats, and 
 in the governor's attitude he read a singular em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 "Davidson's a damned busybody," he said hotly. 
 
 "Between ourselves, Dr Macphail, I don't say 
 that I have formed a very favourable opinion of
 
 RAIN 285 
 
 Mr Davidson, but I am bound to confess that he 
 was within his rights in pointing out to me the dan- 
 ger that the presence of a woman of Miss Thomp- 
 son's character was to a place like this where a 
 number of enlisted men are stationed among a na- 
 tive population." 
 
 He got up and Dr Macphail was obliged to do 
 so too. 
 
 "I must ask you to excuse me. I have an en- 
 gagement. Please give my respects to Mrs Mac- 
 phail." 
 
 The doctor left him crest-fallen. He knew that 
 Miss Thompson would be waiting for him, and un- 
 willing to tell her himself that he had failed, he 
 went into the house by the back door and sneaked 
 up the stairs as though he had something to hide. 
 
 At supper he was silent and ill-at-ease, but the 
 missionary was jovial and animated. Dr Macphail 
 thought his eyes rested on him now and then with 
 triumphant good-humour. It struck him suddenly 
 that Davidson knew of his visit to the governor 
 and of its ill success. But how on earth could he 
 have heard of it? There was something sinister 
 about the power of that man. After supper he saw 
 Horn on the verandah and, as though to have a 
 casual word with him, went out. 
 
 "She wants to know if you've seen the governor," 
 the trader whispered. 
 
 "Yes. He wouldn't do anything. I'm awfully 
 sorry, I can't do anything more." 
 
 "I knew he wouldn't. They daren't go against 
 the missionaries."
 
 286 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "What are you talking about?" said Davidson 
 affably, coming out to join them. 
 
 "I was just saying there was no chance of your 
 getting over to Apia for at least another week," 
 said the trader glibly. 
 
 He left them, and the two men returned into 
 the parlour. Mr Davidson devoted one hour after 
 each meal to recreation. Presently a timid knock 
 was heard at the door. 
 
 "Come In," said Mrs Davidson, in her sharp 
 voice. 
 
 The door was not opened. She got up and opened 
 it. They saw Miss Thompson standing at the 
 threshold. But the change in her appearance was 
 extraordinary. This was no longer the flaunting 
 hussy who had jeered at them in the road, but a 
 broken, frightened woman. Her hair, as a rule so 
 elaborately arranged, was tumbling untidily over her 
 neck. She wore bedroom slippers and a skirt and 
 blouse. They were unfresh and bedraggled. She 
 stood at the door with the tears streaming down 
 her face and did not dare to enter. 
 
 "What do you want?" said Mrs Davidson 
 harshly. 
 
 "May I speak to Mr Davidson?" she said in 
 a choking voice. 
 
 The missionary rose and went towards her. 
 
 "Come right in. Miss Thompson," he said in 
 cordial tones. "What can I do for you?" 
 
 She entered the room. 
 
 "Say, I'm sorry for what I said to you the other
 
 RAIN 287 
 
 day an' for — for everythin' else. I guess I was a 
 bit lit up. I beg pardon." 
 
 "Oh, it was nothing. I guess my back's broad 
 enough to bear a few hard words." 
 
 She stepped towards him with a movement that 
 was horribly cringing. 
 
 "You'v^e got me beat. I'm all in. You won't 
 make me go back to 'Frisco?" 
 
 His genial manner vanished and his voice grew 
 on a sudden hard and stern. 
 
 "Why don't you want to go back there?" 
 
 She cowered before him. 
 
 "I guess my people live there. I don't want them 
 to see me like this. I'll go anywhere else you say." 
 
 "Why don't you want to go back to San Fran- 
 
 CISCO .'* 
 
 "I've told you." 
 
 He leaned forward, staring at her, and his great, 
 shining eyes seemed to try to bore into her soul. 
 He gave a sudden gasp. 
 
 "The penitentiary." 
 
 She screamed, and then she fell at his feet, clasp- 
 ing his legs. 
 
 "Don't send me back there. I swear to you be- 
 fore God I'll be a good woman. I'll give all 
 this up." 
 
 She burst into a torrent of confused supplica- 
 tion and the tears coursed down her painted cheeks. 
 He leaned over her and, lifting her face, forced 
 her to look at him. 
 
 "Is that it, the penitentiary?" 
 
 "I beat it before they could get me," she gasped.
 
 288 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "If the bulls grab me It's three years for mine." 
 
 He let go his hold of her and she fell in a heap 
 on the floor, sobbing bitterly. Dr Macphail 
 stood up. 
 
 "This alters the whole thing," he said. "You 
 can't make her go back when you know this. Give 
 her another chance. She wants to turn over a new 
 leaf." 
 
 "I'm going to give her the finest chance she's ever 
 had. If she repents let her accept her punishment." 
 
 She misunderstood the words and looked up. 
 There was a gleam of hope in her heavy eyes. 
 
 "You'll let me go?" 
 
 "No. You shall sail for San Francisco on Tues- 
 day." 
 
 She gave a groan of horror and then burst into 
 low, hoarse shrieks which sounded hardly human, 
 and she beat her head passionately on the ground. 
 Dr Macphail sprang to her and lifted her up. 
 
 "Come on, you mustn't do that. You'd better go 
 to your room and lie down. I'll get you something." 
 
 He raised her to her feet and partly dragging 
 her, partly carrying her, got her downstairs. He 
 was furious with Mrs Davidson and with his wife 
 because they made no effort to help. The half-caste 
 was standing on the landing and with his assistance 
 he managed to get her on the bed. She was moan- 
 ing and crying. She was almost insensible. He 
 gave her a hypodermic injection. He was hot and 
 exhausted when he went upstairs again. 
 
 "I've got her to lie down."
 
 KAIN 289 
 
 The two women and Davidson were in the same 
 positions as when he had left them. They could 
 not have moved or spoken since he went. 
 
 "I was waiting for you," said Davidson, in a 
 strange, distant voice. "I want you all to pray 
 with me for the soul of our erring sister." 
 
 He took the Bible off a shelf, and sat down at the 
 table at which they had supped. It had not been 
 cleared, and he pushed the tea-pot out of the way. 
 In a powerful voice, resonant and deep, he read 
 to them the chapter in which is narrated the meeting 
 of Jesus Christ with the woman taken in adultery. 
 
 "Now kneel with me and let us pray for the soul 
 of our dear sister, Sadie Thompson." 
 
 He burst into a long, passionate prayer in which 
 he implored God to have mercy on the sinful woman. 
 Mrs Macphail and Mrs Davidson knelt with cov- 
 ered eyes. The doctor, taken by surprise, awk- 
 ward and sheepish, knelt too. The missionary's 
 prayer had a savage eloquence. He was extraor- 
 dinarily moved, and as he spoke the tears ran 
 down his cheeks. Outside, the pitiless rain fell, fell 
 steadily, with a fierce malignity that was all too 
 human. 
 
 At last he stopped. He paused for a moment and 
 said: 
 
 "We will now repeat the Lord's prayer." 
 
 They said it and then, following him, they rose 
 from their knees. Mrs Davidson's face was pale 
 and restful. She was comforted and at peace, but
 
 290 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 the Maq)hails felt suddenly bashful. They did not 
 know which way to look. 
 
 "I'll just go down and see how she is now," said 
 Dr Macphail. 
 
 When he knocked at her door it was opened for 
 him by Horn. Miss Thompson was in a rocking- 
 chair, sobbing quietly. 
 
 "What are you doing there?" exclaimed Mac- 
 phail. "I told you to lie down." 
 
 "I can't lie down. I want to see Mr Davidson." 
 
 "My poor child, what do you think is the good 
 of it? You'll never move him." 
 
 "He said he'd come if I sent for him." 
 
 Macphail motioned to the trader. 
 
 "Go and fetch him." 
 
 He waited with her In silence while the trader 
 went upstairs. Davidson came in. 
 
 "Excuse me for asking you to come here," she 
 said, looking at him sombrely. 
 
 "I was expecting you to send for me. I knew 
 the Lord would answer my prayer." 
 
 They stared at one another for a moment and 
 then she looked away. She kept her eyes averted 
 when she spoke. 
 
 "I've been a bad woman. I want to repent." 
 
 "Thank God! thank God! He has heard our 
 prayers." 
 
 He turned to the two men. 
 
 "Leave me alone with her. Tell Mrs Davidson 
 that our prayers have been answered." 
 
 They went out and closed the door behind them. 
 
 "Gee whizz," said the trader.
 
 RAIN 291 
 
 That night Dr Macphail could not get to sleep 
 till late, and when he heard the missionary come 
 upstairs he looked at his watch. It was two o'clock. 
 But even then he did not go to bed at once, for 
 through the wooden partition that separated their 
 rooms he heard him praying aloud, till he himself, 
 exhausted, fell asleep. 
 
 When he saw him next morning he was surprised 
 at his appearance. He was paler than ever, tired, 
 but his eyes shone with an inhuman fire. It looked 
 as though he were filled with an overwhelming joy. 
 
 "I want you to go down presently and see Sadie," 
 he said. "I can't hope that her body is better, but 
 her soul — her soul is transformed." 
 
 The doctor was feeling wan and nervous. 
 
 "You were with her very late last night," he said. 
 
 "Yes, she couldn't bear to have me leave her." 
 
 "You look as pleased as Punch," the doctor said 
 irritably. 
 
 Davidson's eyes shone with ecstasy. 
 
 "A great mercy has been vouchsafed me. Last 
 night I was privileged to bring a lost soul to the 
 loving arms of Jesus." 
 
 Miss Thompson was again In the rocking-chair. 
 The bed had not been made. The room was in dis- 
 order. She had not troubled to dress herself, but 
 wore a dirty dressing-gown, and her hair was tied 
 in a sluttish knot. She had given her face a dab 
 with a wet towel, but it was all swollen and creased 
 with crying. She looked a drab. 
 
 She raised her eyes dully when the doctor came 
 in. She was cowed and broken.
 
 292 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "Where's Mr Davidson?" she asked. 
 
 "He'll come presently if you want him," an- 
 swered Macphail acidly. "I came here to see how 
 you were." 
 
 "Oh, I guess I'm O. K. You needn't worry about 
 that." 
 
 "Have you had anything to eat?" 
 
 "Horn brought me some coffee." 
 
 She looked anxiously at the door. 
 
 "D'you think he'll come down soon? I feel as 
 if it wasn't so terrible when he's with me." 
 
 "Are you still going on Tuesday?" 
 
 "Yes, he says I've got to go. Please tell him to 
 come right along. You can't do me any good. He's 
 the only one as can help me now." 
 
 "Very well," said Dr Macphail. 
 
 During the next three days the missionary spent 
 almost all his time with Sadie Thompson. He joined 
 the others only to have his meals. Dr Macphail 
 noticed that he hardly ate. 
 
 "He's wearing himself out," said Mrs Davidson 
 pitifully. "He'll have a breakdown if he doesn't 
 take care, but he won't spare himself." 
 
 She herself was white and pale. She told Mrs 
 Macphail that she had no sleep. When the mis- 
 sionary came upstairs from Miss Thompson he 
 prayed till he was exhausted, but even then he did 
 not sleep for long. After an hour or two he got 
 up and dressed himself, and went for a tramp along 
 the bay. He had strange dreams. 
 
 "This morning he told me that he'd been dream-
 
 RAIN 293 
 
 ing about the mountains of Nebraska," said Mrs 
 Davidson. 
 
 "That's curious," said Dr Macphail. 
 
 He remembered seeing them from the windows 
 of the train when he crossed America. They were 
 like huge mole-hills, rounded and smooth, and they 
 rose from the plain abruptly. Dr Macphail remem- 
 bered how it struck him that they were like a 
 woman's breasts. 
 
 Davidson's restlessness was intolerable even to 
 himself. But he was buoyed up by a wonderful 
 exhilaration. He was tearing out by the roots the 
 last vestiges of sin that lurked in the hidden cor- 
 ners of that poor woman's heart. He read with 
 her and prayed with her. 
 
 "It's wonderful," he said to them one day at sup- 
 per. "It's a true rebirth. Her soul, which was 
 black as night, is now pure and white like the new- 
 fallen snow. I am humble and afraid. Her re- 
 morse for all her sins is beautiful. I am not worthy 
 to touch the hem of her garment." 
 
 "Have you the heart to send her back to San 
 Francisco?" said the doctor. "Three years in an 
 American prison. I should have thought you might 
 have saved her from that." 
 
 "Ah, but don't you see? It's necessary. Do you 
 think my heart doesn't bleed for her? I love her 
 as I love my wife and my sister. All the time that 
 she is in prison I shall suffer all the pain that she 
 suffers." 
 
 "Bunkum," cried the doctor impatiently. 
 
 **You don't understand because you're blind.
 
 £94 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 She's sinned, and she must suffer. I know what 
 she'll endure. She'll be starved and tortured and 
 humiliated. I want her to accept the punishment 
 of man as a sacrifice to God. I want her to accept 
 it joyfully. She has an opportunity which is of- 
 fered to very few of us. God is very good and 
 very merciful." 
 
 Davidson's voice trembled with excitement. He 
 could hardly articulate the words that tumbled pas- 
 sionately from his lips. 
 
 "All day I pray with her and when I leave her 
 I pray again, I pray with all my might and main, 
 so that Jesus may grant her this great mercy. I 
 want to put in her heart the passionate desire to 
 be punished so that at the end, even if I offered 
 to let her go, she would refuse. I want her to feel 
 that the bitter punishment of prison is the thank- 
 offering that she places at the feet of our Blessed 
 Lord, who gave his life for her." 
 
 The days passed slowly. The whole household, 
 intent on the wretched, tortured woman down- 
 stairs, lived in a state of unnatural excitement. She 
 was like a victim that was being prepared for the 
 savage rites of a bloody idolatry. Her terror 
 numbed her. She could not bear to let Davidson 
 out of her sight; it was only when he was with her 
 that she had courage, and she hung upon him with 
 a slavish dependence. She cried a great deal, and 
 she read the Bible, and prayed. Sometimes she was 
 exhausted and apathetic. Then she did indeed look 
 forward to her ordeal, for it seemed to offer an 
 escape, direct and concrete, from the anguish she
 
 RAIN 295 
 
 was enduring. She could not bear much longer the 
 vague terrors which now assailed her. With her 
 sins she had put aside all personal vanity, and she 
 slopped about her room, unkempt and dishevelled, 
 :n her tawdry dressing-gown. She had not taken 
 off her night-dress for four days, nor put on stock- 
 ings. Her room was littered and untidy. Mean- 
 while the rain fell with a cruel persistence. You 
 felt that the heavens must at last be empty of water, 
 but still it poured down, straight and heavy, with 
 a maddening iteration, on the iron roof. Every- 
 thing was damp and clammy. There was mildew 
 on the walls and on the boots that stood on the 
 floor. Through the sleepless nights the mosquitoes 
 droned their angry chant. 
 
 "If it would only stop raining for a single day It 
 wouldn't be so bad," said Dr Macphail. 
 
 They all looked forward to the Tuesday when the 
 boat for San Francisco was to arrive from Syd- 
 ney. The strain was intolerable. So far as Dr 
 Macphail was concerned, his pity and his resent- 
 ment were alike extinguished by his desire to be rid 
 of the unfortunate woman. The inevitable must 
 be accepted. He felt he would breathe more freely 
 when the ship had sailed. Sadie Thompson was to 
 be escorted on board by a clerk in the governor's 
 office. This person called on the Monday evening 
 and told Miss Thompson to be prepared at eleven in 
 the morning. Davidson was with her. 
 
 "I'll see that everything is ready. I mean to 
 come on board with her myself." 
 
 Miss Thompson did not speak.
 
 296 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 When Dr Macphail blew out his candle and 
 crawled cautiously under his mosquito curtains, he 
 gave a sigh of relief. 
 
 "Well, thank God that's over. By this time to- 
 morrow she'll be gone." 
 
 *'Mrs Davidson will be glad too. She says he's 
 wearing himself to a shadow," said Mrs Macphail. 
 "She's a different woman." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Sadie. I should never have thought it pos- 
 sible. It makes one humble." 
 
 Dr Macphail did not answer, and presently he 
 fell asleep. He was tired out, and he slept more 
 soundly than usual. 
 
 He was awakened in the morning by a hand 
 placed on his arm, and, starting up, saw Horn by 
 the side of his bed. The trader put his finger on 
 his mouth to prevent any exclamation from Dr Mac- 
 phail and beckoned to him to come. As a rule he 
 wore shabby ducks, but now he was barefoot and 
 wore only the lava-lava of the natives. He looked 
 suddenly savage, and Dr Macphail, getting out of 
 bed, saw that he was heavily tattooed. Horn made 
 him a sign to come on to the verandah. Dr Mac- 
 phail got out of bed and followed the trader out. 
 
 "Don't make a noise," he whispered. "You're 
 wanted. Put on a coat and some shoes. Quick." 
 
 Dr Macphail's first thought was that something 
 had happened to Miss Thompson. 
 
 "What is it? Shall I bring my instruments?" 
 
 "Hurry, please, hurry." 
 
 Dr Macphail crept back Into the bedroom, put on
 
 RAIN 297 
 
 a waterproof over his pyjamas, and a pair of rubber- 
 soled shoes. He rejoined the trader, and together 
 they tiptoed down the stairs. The door leading 
 out to the road was open and at it were standing 
 half a dozen natives. 
 
 "What is it?" repeated the doctor. 
 
 "Come along with me," said Horn. 
 
 He walked out and the doctor followed him. 
 The natives came after them in a little bunch. They 
 crossed the road and came on to the beach. The 
 doctor saw a group of natives standing round some 
 object at the water's edge. They hurried along, a 
 couple of dozen yards perhaps, and the natives 
 opened out as the doctor came up. The trader 
 pushed him forwards. Then he saw, lying half in 
 the water and half out, a dreadful object, the body 
 of Davidson. Dr Macphail bent down — he was not 
 a man to lose his head in an emergency — and turned 
 the body over. The throat was cut from ear to 
 ear, and in the right hand was still the razor with 
 which the deed was done. 
 
 "He's quite cold," said the doctor. "He must 
 have been dead some time." 
 
 "One of the boys saw him lying there on his way 
 to work just now and came and told me. Do you 
 think he did it himself?" 
 
 "Yes. Someone ought to go for the police." 
 
 Horn said something in the native tongue, and 
 two youths started off. 
 
 "We must leave him here till they come," said 
 the doctor.
 
 S98 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 "They mustn't take him into my house. I won't 
 have him in my house." 
 
 "You'll do what the authorities say," replied the 
 doctor sharply. "In point of fact I expect they'll 
 take him to the mortuary." 
 
 They stood waiting where they were. The trader 
 took a cigarette from a fold in his lava-lava and 
 gave one to Dr Macphail. They smoked while 
 they stared at the corpse. Dr Macphail could not 
 understand. 
 
 "Why do you think he did It?" asked Horn. 
 
 The doctor shrugged his shoulders. In a little 
 while native police came along, under the charge of 
 a marine, with a stretcher, and immediately after- 
 wards a couple of naval officers and a naval doc- 
 tor. They managed everything in a businesslike 
 
 manner. 
 
 "What about the wife?" said one of the officers. 
 
 "Now that you've come I'll go back to the hous^ 
 and get some things on. I'll see that it's broken 
 to her. She'd better not see him till he's been fixed 
 up a little." 
 
 "I guess that's right," said the naval doctor. 
 
 When Dr Macphail went back he found his wife 
 nearly dressed. 
 
 "Mrs Davidson's in a dreadful state about her 
 husband," she said to him as soon as he appeared. 
 "He hasn't been to bed all night. She heard him 
 leave Miss Thompson's room at two, but he went 
 out. If he's been walking about since then he'll 
 be absolutely dead."
 
 RAIN 299 
 
 Dr Macphall told her what had happened and 
 asked her to break the news to Mrs Davidson. 
 
 "But why did he do it?" she asked, horror- 
 stricken. 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 '•But I can't. I can't." 
 
 "You must." 
 
 She gave him a frightened look and went out. 
 He heard her go into Mrs Davidson's room. He 
 waited a minute to gather himself together and 
 then began to shave and wash. When he was dressed 
 he sat down on the bed and waited for his wife. 
 At last she came. 
 
 "She wants to see him," she said. 
 
 "They've taken him to the mortuary. We'd bet- 
 ter go down with her. How did she take it?" 
 
 "I think she's stunned. She didn't cry. But she's 
 trembling like a leaf." 
 
 "We'd better go at once." 
 
 When they knocked at her door Mrs Davidson 
 came out. She was very pale, but dry-eyed. To 
 the doctor she seemed unnaturally composed. No 
 word was exchanged, and they set out in silence down 
 the road. When they arrived at the mortuary Mrs 
 Davidson spoke. 
 
 "Let me go in and see him alone." 
 
 They stood aside. A native opened a door for 
 her and closed it behind her. They sat down and 
 waited. One or two white men came and talked to 
 them in undertones. Dr Macphail told them again 
 what he knew of the tragedy. At last the door was
 
 300 THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF 
 
 quietly opened and Mrs Davidson came out. Si- 
 lence fell upon them. 
 
 "I'm ready to go back now," she said. 
 
 Her voice was hard and steady. Dr Macphail 
 could not understand the look in her eyes. Her pale 
 face was very stern. They walked back slowly, 
 never saying a word, and at last they came round the 
 bend on the other side of which stood their house. 
 Mrs Davidson gave a gasp, and for a moment they 
 stopped still. An incredible sound assaulted their 
 ears. The gramophone which had been silent for 
 so long was playing, playing ragtime loud and harsh* 
 
 "What's that?" cried Mrs Macphail with horror. 
 
 "Let's go on," said Mrs Davidson. 
 
 They walked up the steps and entered the hall. 
 Miss Thompson was standing at her door, chatting 
 with a sailor. A sudden change had taken place 
 in her. She was no longer the cowed drudge of 
 the last days. She was dressed in all her finery, 
 in her white dress, with the high shiny boots over 
 which her fat legs bulged in their cotton stockings; 
 her hair was elaborately arranged; and she wore 
 that enormous hat covered with gaudy flowers. Her 
 face was painted, her eyebrows were boldly black, 
 and her lips were scarlet. She held herself erect. 
 She was the flaunting quean that they had known 
 at first. As they came in she broke into a loud, 
 jeering laugh; and then, when Mrs Davidson in- 
 voluntarily stopped, she collected the spittle in her 
 mouth and spat. Mrs Davidson cowered back, and 
 two red spots rose suddenly to her cheeks. Then, 
 covering her face with her hands, she broke away
 
 RAIN 301 
 
 and ran quickly up the stairs. Dr Macphail was 
 outraged. He pushed past the woman into her 
 room. 
 
 "What the devil are you doing?" he cried. "Stop 
 that damned machine." 
 
 He went up to it and tore the record off. She 
 turned on him. 
 
 "Say, doc, you can that stuff with me. What 
 the hell are you doin' in my room?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" he cried. "What d'you 
 mean .'' 
 
 She gathered herself together. No one could de- 
 scribe the scorn of her expression or the contemptu- 
 ous hatred she put into her answer. 
 
 "You men! You filthy, dirty pigsl You're all 
 the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigsl" 
 
 Dr Macphail gasped. He understood.
 
 VIII 
 
 WHEN your ship leaves Honolulu they hang 
 leis round your neck, garlands of sweet 
 smelling flowers. The wharf is crowded and the 
 band plays a melting Hawaiian tune. The people 
 on board throw coloured streamers to those stand- 
 ing below, and the side of the ship is gay with the 
 thin lines of paper, red and green and yellow and 
 blue. When the ship moves slowly away the stream- 
 ers break softly, and it is like the breaking of human 
 ties. Men and women are joined together for a 
 moment by a gaily coloured strip of paper, red and 
 blue and green and yellow, and then life separates 
 them and the paper is sundered, so easily, with a 
 little sharp snap. For an hour the fragments trail 
 down the hull and then they blow away. The flow- 
 ers of your garlands fade and their scent is oppres- 
 sive. You throw them overboard. 
 
 THE END 
 
 303
 
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