r the
afterguard. So aristocratic were my habits, so commanding was my fear of
Mr. Williams, that I have never visited the first; but in the other,
which was the club or rather the casino of the island, I regularly
passed my evenings. It was small, but neatly fitted, and at night (when
the lamp was lit) sparkled with glass and glowed with coloured pictures
like a theatre at Christmas. The pictures were advertisements, the glass
coarse enough, the carpentry amateur; but the effect, in that
incongruous isle, was of unbridled luxury and inestimable expense. Here
songs were sung, tales told, tricks performed, games played. The Ricks,
ourselves, Norwegian Tom the bar-keeper, a captain or two from the
ships, and perhaps three or four traders come down the island in their
boats or by the road on foot, made up the usual company. The traders,
all bred to the sea, take a humorous pride in their new business; "South
Sea Merchants" is the title they prefer. "We are all sailors
here"--"Merchants, if you please"--"_South Sea_ Merchants,"--was a piece
of conversation endlessly repeated, that never seemed to lose in savour.
We found them at all times simple, genial, gay, gallant, and obliging;
and, across some interval of time, recall with pleasure the traders of
Butaritari. There was one black sheep indeed. I tell of him here where
he lived, against my rule; for in this case I have no measure to
preserve, and the man is typical of a class of ruffians that once
disgraced the whole field of the South Seas, and still linger in the
rarely visited isles of Micronesia. He had the name on the beach of "a
perfect gentleman when sober," but I never saw him otherwise than
drunk. The few shocking and savage traits of the Micronesian he has
singled out with the skill of a collector, and planted in the soil of
his original baseness. He has been accused and acquitted of a
treacherous murder; and has since boastfully owned it, which inclines me
to suppose him innocent. His daughter is defaced by his erroneous
cruelty, for it was his wife he had intended to disfigure, and, in the
darkness of the night and the frenzy of coco-brandy, fastened on the
wrong victim. The wife has since fled and harbours in the bush with
natives; and the husband still demands from deaf ears her forcible
restoration. The best of his business is to make natives drink, and then
advance the money for the fine upon a lucrative mortgage. "Respect for
whites" is the man's word: "Wh