The Whispering Shell by Herman Howard Matteson Read online

  All-Story Weekly, May 8, 1920

  UNUI, at one time or another, had

  shell she had found.

  supplicated nearly all of the forty evil Now he knew. Hunui’s basket, filled

  H Polynesian gods. Hunui proposed to beyond capacity, spilling a shell here and wreak suitable vengeance upon Amanu, the there along the trail, had told the secret.

  five-minute diver. One by one, as the plan of This was the place of Hunui’s rich

  her revenge took definite form, she abandoned store. Amanu had come early, very early. By all the gods save two—-Tababa, the shark the custom, the place was his for the day, for god, and Mite O-fua, the god of the giant he had come first.

  mollusk that would close down its shell upon Hunui, black eyes glittering, breast

  a man’s hand or foot, and hold him until he heaving, watched from her hiding-place while drowned. To Tababa and to Mite O-fua the Amanu stood upon the brim of rock, made

  girl prayed every morning and evening, and ready. He wadded the fiber basket into a ball, made lavish votive offering.

  tucked it into his girdle. Then he lifted his face The thick gray of early morning still

  to the sky and uttered the diver’s propitiating hung over the sleeping village when Hunui prayer. He leaned from the edge of the cliff, crawled from the thatched hut, made her way dropped into the sea with a soft plash.

  through the pandang shrubbery to the edge of Hunui counted. One minute—two

  the sea. She surveyed the deserted beach, crept minutes.

  back into the wood, hid herself, waited.

  She moved from the covert of

  Presently she heard the thud of naked

  pandang, stole a step nearer the edge of the feet hurrying along the path. Amanu, the five-cliff.

  minute diver, for all his craft and cunning, was Three minutes. Any Polynesian will

  eager for the bait. Derided, humiliated because remain below water three minutes. Amanu

  a girl had beaten him at the diving, had for a was a five-minute diver, best diver of any fortnight piled up nightly before the chief a island of the far Tuamotus.

  greater take of pearl shell than he, Amanu had Four

  minutes.

  spied upon her to discover what bank of pearl A little nearer the edge of the cliff she

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  crept.

  wear his ship. A roller higher than its fellows Four minutes. Amanu was a diver; not

  buried the guiding coral hand. The

  a doubt of it.

  quartermaster spun the wheel a spoke too far.

  Four minutes and a half.

  The Faraway took a sheer, rose to the heave of Four minutes below had been the best

  a swell, flung itself upon the reef.

  that Hunui had ever been able to do.

  And there she balanced, grinding,

  Amanu had been below four and a

  turning. Almost, when the waves hogged the half, Five minutes. Five—

  Faraway at stem and stern, was she able to No swirl of water marked the return of

  slide from the reef, but when the waters sank the diver. Five minutes.

  the entire weight of ship and cargo rested Her lips parted, an image in bronze

  upon the fulcrum of sharp coral.

  save for the rhythmic lift and fall of the Creaking, groaning, the seams began

  counting hand, Hunui stood upon the cliff.

  to open. The old oak ribs began to fetch away.

  Five minutes.

  The masts began to roll in their steppings.

  Five minutes and a half. No diver of

  There came a series of higher waves,

  the whole Pacific had ever remained below so with the alternate deeper abyss. The old long, and lived.

  Faraway broke fairly in two, slid into deep Five minutes and a half.

  water, her fo’c’s’le within the reef, her after-Six

  minutes.

  part without.

  Hunui leaned from the edge of the

  Here and there a human figure spun

  cliff, stared into the depths of uneasy waters.

  madly for a moment in the vortex of a tide rip, Six minutes—more than six minutes.

  then went down with the sucking undertow.

  Hunui dropped from the rock, swam in

  One with a shock of red hair went

  under the overhang. In a moment she down, came up, went down. Clinging with one reappeared. She climbed the bank, flung her hand to a shattered bit of spar, he flailed the arms, burst into hysterical screams, ran to the waters with his free arm, fought his way out of woods, into the trail, and still ran, sobbing, the spume of breaking seas to the sirupy, laughing, to her hut.

  undulating smoothness that marked the

  In a corner of the hut, as if in a shrine, opening of the reef.

  rested a shell of the great mollusk, Mite O-fua.

  But the undertow caught him, sucked

  Before this Hunui flung herself, bowed her him under, flung him far back, whence again head to the earth, and uttered fervent thanks.

  he began to swim doggedly toward the haven of the lagoon.

  The government pilot books describe

  High upon the side of the pinnacle that

  Marutea Island as one of the most dangerous arose from the border of the lagoon stood a in the archipelago. Twenty miles long, the girl, a pointed conch shell clasped in her whole southwestern aspect is bordered by a hands. This was the eeo shell of the submerged reef. Only at the northwestern Polynesian maiden into which she whispers extremity of the island was there an opening her secrets, to which she lays her ear while it in the reef, and this was marked precariously whispers back the mystic answer.

  by a jutting bit of coral that looked like a dead A score of times had Hunui climbed

  man’s hand. More often than not even this the cliff to where she could be alone. At first small mark of guidance was awash in the seas.

  the eeo had been stupid, stubborn, and would The master of the tops’l schooner only drone back murmuring, inarticulate reply.

  Faraway, sighting the coral hand, began to Then, finally, the eeo began to speak in

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  words that were no more different from her was a man with hair of the color called by the own words than an echo differs from the voice islanders uraura.

  that provokes it.

  Recklessly Hunui slid down the

  But Hunui’s heart and mind were the

  declivity of the cliff, dragged an outrigger dreaming, imaginative heart and mind of the canoe to the surf, thrust it into the water, superstitious islander. The eeo had answered, swam alongside until it had topped the third twice and thrice had answered, and had said roller. Then she climbed over the rail, picked that he would come from the east, tall, strong, up the paddle.

  fair of skin, with flame-colored hair, a god to Paddling with all her wiry strength,

  be her very own.

  maneuvering the craft with all her sea-born Three times the eeo had answered cunning, she came finally to where she could Hunui. Exalted, light as a bird, she had hurried reach, seize the shock of uraura-colored hair.

  down the cliff side, had sped through the Careening the canoe, she drew him in.

  pandang to the open in the midst of the village Hers, all hers. The man god had come to her huts where Old Motu was beginning to thump from the east as the magic eeo shell had out the measure of the meke-meke dance with promised.

  the raau stick.

  Tenderly she gazed upon him where

  From across the circle of eager, his vast form lay huddled inertly against a laughing faces Amanu, the five-minute diver, thwart. What a wonder, that aureole of reddish had nodded for Hunui to come to his side.

  hair! Upon the backs of his hands and upon Often Amanu had boasted that what maiden of his face were tiny brown spots. His skin, the island he desired was his.

  where the neckband of his flannel shirt had Imperatively he bobbed his head been torn away, was as white as the flesh of a toward Hunui. She burst into shrill, derisive young coconut.

  laughter, seated herself on the opposite side of Hers, to be her very own. The eeo shell the ring, disposing her short lava-lava skirt had promised her. She had but gone into the about her graceful body.

  sea to claim her own.

  Publicly, Hunui had flouted Amanu,

  Billy Danner, able seaman, blinking up

  the five-minute diver. Amanu glowered, wonderingly at the thatch of a cone-shaped sulked; Hunui laughed, danced as she had roof above him, began to meditate painfully never danced before.

  that he had been badly stove up. He felt Every day the girl sought the cliff side, himself over tentatively, discovered that he the eeo shell clasped in her hands. She loved had cracked a rib amidships. Also he felt a bit to whisper over and again the words, to hear light in the tops.

  again the promise that he should come from But very shortly youth and an

  the east, tall, strong, fair of skin, with flame-amazingly robust constitution began to assert colored hair, a god to be her very own.

  themselves. If he could just stow a fairish From the cliff side, clapsing the eeo cargo of lobscouse and tea, and then have a shell to her bosom, Hunui had watched the good sleep, he would be quite all right.

  coming of
the Faraway.

  Lobscouse and tea are strangers to the

  Shrilly she had screamed when she had

  Tuamotun Island bill of fare. But roast pig and seen that the skipper had veered the ship a yams and sweet coconut milk are not.

  fatal fathom from the true course.

  A sweet, lisping voice sounded in

  In an instant the sea had broken its

  Billy’s ear. A firm hand supported his head.

  plaything. Fighting his way toward the lagoon He was eating three-finger poi, nibbling at

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  roast meat and yam, drinking milk through a worn to a piano polish. Here and there were hole gouged in the end of a coconut.

  bits of plank.

  It was rather dark in the hut. Billy

  A year seemed a mighty long time to

  wanted a look at his benefactress. Her voice wait. Anyway, the sight of the Oregon fir had was mighty promising. Billy palavered his made Billy homesick. Besides, they—that is, gratitude, started to rise, but the girl thrust him some one on that Oregon coast—before a year back upon the sleeping mat.

  was up would be mourning him as dead.

  There in the hut the big, young sailor

  The Maruteans possessed a few rude

  slept, ate, slept again.

  implements, and these Billy borrowed. With Then he crawled to the open, stood a

  infinite pains he began to fashion from a log a bit wabbly to his feet. A native girl with the keel for a ten-ton yawl.

  most wonderful, big, soft black eyes Billy Finally he got the keel laid, notched

  Danner had ever looked into, stood by for the ribs, and began to fashion the latter in smiling, appraising Billy’s great frame with an rude form. The ribs that he had set in place at air of proprietorship.

  sundown he found floating in the lagoon the Billy talked sign-talk to Hunui, who,

  following morning. The old adze and a saw-rather reluctantly, finally let herself toothed draw-knife rested upon the coral understand that the white man with the uraua-

  bottom in forty feet of water.

  colored hair desired speech with the chief of Billy bribed a native to recover the

  the village.

  tools for him. His unimaginative man’s wits It is amazing how lucidly one may

  pondering every explanation of the

  talk, under necessity, without words. Billy interference with his work but the right one, made the chief understand finally, and the he set the ribs back into place.

  chief answered. An iruwa pahi, or foreign In the morning the tools were again in

  ship, touched at Marutea Island once a year the lagoon, and the ribs afloat. Thrice was his sometimes. Sometimes it missed a year, or day’s work undone while he slept.

  two years.

  The fourth night, determined to bestow

  The

  Iruwa pahi was owned and upon some Marutean the drubbing of his life, skippered by a little, capering French trader Billy kept watch. A girl slipped from the from Papeete. The ship was a ten-ton schooner shelter of the pandang shrub, tore at the frame and picked up pearls, copra, and small logs of of the yawl like a fury, flung the ribs into the hard wood in exchange for calico, rum and ocean and the adze and the draw-knife after knives. The Frenchman had just been at them.

  Marutea, therefore would not come again for When Billy laid his broad hand upon

  many months.

  her quivering shoulder she gave a startled Billy Danner set himself to space out

  yelp. Then she flung her arms about Billy’s philosophically the waiting months. But time neck. Moaning, crying, she clung and clung.

  hung intolerably heavy. Why wait? Billy had One reiterated word he could detect in her ever been a man of action.

  sobbing, hysterical speech, and the word was Hunui trotting beside him, Billy had

  eeo.

  done the island. Where the open Pacific

  Feeling confoundedly foolish, deeply

  pounded the coral to powder much drift had thankful that it was night and no one looking accumulated. Here were fir logs that must on, Billy stood while Hunui, half crying, ran have traveled thousands of miles from the her fingers through his hair, saying over and Oregon coast, logs that the fretting waves had again, “Eeo, eeo. ”

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  Teetering to and fro with that bearlike

  knife, and set to work.

  awkwardness that comes upon a man Never again did Hunui disturb the timbers of embarrassed, Billy could only mutter: “I the slowly shaping craft. Always when he swear. Well, now, I swear.”

  ceased work there was ready for him smoking Then he began to understand. Gently

  hot yams, roasted meat, a bowl of pink, three-he released her grasp from about his neck, finger poi. When not engaged in gathering, or gave her round shoulder a little pat, striving to preparing food for the white man god, Hunui comfort her with: “There there— don’t you would sit in the edge of the pandang shrub, blow a clew, little matey.”

  supplicating the spirit of the eeo shell, To the respective owners Billy threatening it with direful punishment if it returned the adze and the haggle-toothed mocked her or played her false.

  draw-knife. He toiled no more at the ten-ton For five months jealousy had been

  yawl in which it had been his design to trade a festering in the heart of Amanu, the five-while in the Tahitis, then make into Papeete, minute diver, like the poisonous spine of the and traffic both ship and stores for French sea urchin in the heel of a fisherman. A dozen francs and Louis d’or, then for the Oregon times Amanu had sought to engage Hunui in coast. Then, the months of hurricanes coming talk, but she would stare at him with her big, on, the keel of the ship all but disappeared black eyes as if he were one she had never from view in the sand and broken coral seen before.

  washed over it by the seas.

  Amanu, reasoning that the white man

  Hunui followed him about like his was building a craft for two, and not for one, shadow. He had accumulated sufficient store came often to look on while the white man of the simple Polynesian dialect to understand scattered chips with the broad-bladed adze.

  now the miracle story of the eeo shell. But the Standing beside Billy, Amanu considered the wonder of it, the perplexing state of being height, the length of arm, the thickness of the regarded as a god gift to this girl with the big, white man’s wrist.

  wonderful black eyes, abided with him. He Amanu had the greater girth of chest

  would look at Hunui, who would smile and waist. That man who can remain below gloriously, then stare away over the sea while water five minutes has lung space. Amanu had he worried his thatch of red hair and muttered: the greater beam; Billy Danner length and

  “I swear. Now, I swear.”

  reach.

  But with the ceasing of the storms, the

  Once, in deadly earnest, though the

  resumption of the faithful, gentle trades, white man had taken it in fun, Amanu laid his stronger than ever there came upon him the hands upon Billy’s shoulders in the attitude longing for home. His manhood revolted at taken by the island wrestler.

  the lazy, pampered, voluptuary life that he had Billy whipped a hand beneath

  led.

  Amanu’s arm, seized the native’s chin, at the Playfully, Hunui had thrust a sprig of

  same time clasping the other hand into the the flaming, scarlet hibiscus over his ear. Like small of Amanu’s back. For all his struggles, a man caught in some shameful act, he Amanu bent backward, slowly backward.

  blustered an oath, hurled the flower to the Then Billy gave him a twist, a throw that sand, ran down the slope and with his bare landed him on his head spinning like a top.

  hands began hurling away the sand and silt Hunui, sitting in the edge of the

  that had buried the keel of the ten-ton yawl.

  pandang shrub, laughed shrilly. Fishermen, Again he borrowed adze and draw-standing upon the rocks near by, also laughed,