The Strange White Woman of Majuro by Louis Becke
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The Strange White Woman of Majuro
Louis Becke
A group of four men were seated upon a trader's veranda at Majuro, one of the Marshall Islands. They were smoking and talking about old times. The night was brilliantly moonlight, and the hulland spars of a little white-painted brig that lay anchored in the lagoon about a mile distant from the trader's house stood out as clearly and distinct as if she were but fifty yards away from where they sat. Three of the men present were visitors-Bob Packenham the captain, Harvey the mate, and' Denison the supercargo of the Indiana; the fourth was the trader himself-a grizzled old wanderer of past sixty, with a skin like unto dark leather, and a frame that, old as he was, showed he was still as active and vigorous as when he had first landed on Majuro atoll thirty years before.
It was long past midnight, and the old trader's numerous halfcaste family had turned in to sleep some hours before. The strange, wondrous beauty of the night, and the pleasure of listening to old Charlie Waller's talk of the early days in the Marshalls when every white man lived like a prince, and died in his boots from a bullet ora spear, had tempted the visitors to send their boat back to the ship and accept Charlie's invitation to remain till breakfast next morning. It so happened that the old man had just been talking about a stalwart son of his who had died a few months previously, and Packenham and Denison, to whom the lad had been well known, asked his father where the boy had been buried.
'In there, ' replied the old man, pointing to a small white-walled enclosure about a stone's throw from w