Impressionistic Scene in Nuka Hiva—Tissemao listens to the Luring Voice of a Cuttle-fish—The Love-Stricken Cuttle-fish—When Crabs are Brave. THE pagan city of Nuka Hiva was silent. The tired sentinel stars were creeping homeward. Dawn had already arisen from her silvery couch, her soft robe, cut out of the warm western winds, wrapped around her, her sandals dipped in light as she stood on the skyline, a few stars still plucking her dusky hair. Then that wonderful enchantress, who awakens the ages, stepped tiptoe across the horizon’s shadow hills, the echoes of her footfalls winging the silence of the tropic seas. Those echoes, colliding with the granite hills of South Sea fairy-land, rustled the magical shadows of the sylvan hollows, then, touching the winged nymphs and petals of the flamboyants and ndrala blossoms, sped onward into the deeper glooms of the forests. An aged cockatoo who had spent its best years as a vassal of the god Atua Mao, looked sidelong at the golden gleams of the eastern sky and called out hoarsely:
“Talofa! Aloah! Awake, O birds of the forest! Morn is here! Arise!”
Now, all this happened in full view of a little heathen village by a mossy slope near Tai-o-hae. And who was it could see so strange a fairy-land in the birth of a new day breaking across the ranges? It was Tissemao, the Marquesan maid!
Tissemao was up very early that morning. She had 266been with her little brother Noko-noko, fishing for reatos in the blue lagoon by the bay. And Noko, burdened with fishy wealth, had hurried back home to his village hut that stood in the shadows of the mountains of Atnana, leaving his sister alone. As Tissemao dangled her feet in the cool waters of the ocean the golden light was stealing from the eyes of sunrise; it touched the surface of the big moani ali (ocean) that shone like a mighty mirror that stretched to the horizon. Suddenly Tissemao felt something pull at her toes which were dangling in the sea. Looking down to see what it could be, she gave a cry of surprise. And no wonder; for a Cuttle-fish poked its head out of the sea, and said:
“I’m so sorry to disturb you, Tissemao, but we’ve all been swimming about here a long time, for we can see your shadow in the waters, and really it is very beautiful.”
Tissemao blushed to hear such praise. Looking down, she saw that it was quite correct, for there, in the water, shone her image as clear as though it was mirrored in a sheet of glass. Clad in her coloured tappa holaku (short chemise), hibiscus flowers in her mass of dusky hair, she really did make a pretty picture.
The Cuttle-fish, putting on its sweetest smile, said:
“Would you like to come down here and see the wonders of the great world under the sea?”
For a long time Tissemao hesitated, then she said:
“Why, Mr. Cuttle-fish, you must remember I’m not like you; I should soon die for the want of breath under the sea.”
“Oh dear, no!” said the artful Cuttle-fish, shaking its head slowly at the idea of such a ridiculous suggestion.
But very soon, hearing that there were so many strange 267and beautiful things under the sea, Tissemao, with the Cuttle-fish’s kind help, slid down gently into the deep water!
Directly she got beneath the surface, the Cuttle-fish seized her tightly by the arm, and said fiercely:
“Come on! now I’ve got you!”
Poor Tissemao was frightened out of her life as she felt the clutch of the Cuttle-fish as it dragged her down, down. It seemed such a long time ere she touched the bottom of the ocean. Still the Cuttle-fish clutched her, and breathed heavily, like one who had gained a rich prize and dreaded to lose it. Dragging her along the ocean floor, he came to a cavern. For a moment the Cuttle-fish looked round, then took her in. This cavern was lit up by a faint glimmer from the light of the sun that was shining up over the sea. As Tissemao looked round, the Cuttle-fish said:
“I am all that’s beautiful; if you expect to see anything more beautiful than a cuttle-fish, you are very, very much mistaken.”
Saying this, it lifted its ugly face and tried to assume a fascinating smile.
But it was no good. Tissemao would have none of it, but simply said:
“Let me get away; let me go up into my village again, will you?”
The old Cuttle-fish got into an awful rage at hearing Tissemao plead so, for he had fallen deeply in love with her.
Now it so happened, and by the merest chance too, that the Cuttle-fish was terrifying Tissemao, trying to frighten her into subjection, when a very old Crab happened to be walking by the Cuttle-fish’s cavern door. The Crab distinctly caught sight of Tissemao looking up with terror-stricken eyes at the Cuttle-fish.
268“Ho ho!” he muttered to himself; “so he’s at it again, is he!”
Now, this old Crab was good-hearted, one of the respectable kind. And, knowing the reputation the Cuttle-fish had as a roué of the worst type, he at once determined to thwart the Cuttle-fish in his endeavours to attempt to hurt so sweet a maid as Tissemao. So he gently looked round the corner of the cavern door, and said:
“Good afternoon.”
In a moment the vicious Cuttle-fish rushed to the door, so that its bulk could artfully hide Tissemao from the intruder’s eyes.
The old Crab, seeing through the ruse and not wishing to let the Cuttle-fish know that it had seen Tissemao, artfully put its claw to its mouth, then, yawning, said:
“Oh dear, my eyes are so bad lately, really I can’t see anything at all.” Then it looked straight into the Cuttle-fish’s eyes, and continued: “I suppose you feel very lonely here in this cave of yours?”
The Cuttle-fish, like all things of a wicked type, had no brains at all, and so was completely taken in. And the Crab, chuckling to itself, went safely on its way as quickly as possible round the corner, to consider what was best to do to extricate Tissemao from her awful position.
In a moment it had made its mind up. Going up to a large cavern that stood in its own grounds to the south-west of the mighty forests of sea-weeds, it lifted its claws and gently knocked at the door. In a moment it opened, and a great Sword-fish thrust its tremendous spiked nose out, and said:
“Hallo! What’s up now? I was just having a nap; you are the second person who has knocked at my door this afternoon and disturbed me.”
269The old Crab bowed, and apologized profusely as it saw the Sword-fish’s angry face. Then the Crab said:
“I have come to you, knowing wel............