I first saw Cribb through the bottom of a gin glass. I was on the veranda of Aggie Grey’s, feet up on the railing, passing another long hot morning. It was steaming hot as always, but Aggie’s is the coolest place in Apia, with its wide verandas and white Victorian gingerbread. The street and buildings outside were lost in a white-hot glare, but inside it was as cool and dark as a cave. The big fans swished pleasantly overhead, powered by a maze of belts. The heavy typhoon shutters were propped up high to let the trade wind blow right through the bar.

I was savoring the refreshing sensation of the ice bumping on my moustache when Cribb came down the street, his white Panama passing just beneath my feet. He turned and came up the wide steps onto the veranda. He glanced over at me and I lowered my glass to get a look at him, but he had already disappeared into the darkness within.

A few moments later he reappeared with a drink. He stood looking out to sea where a half-dozen assorted vessels rode at anchor like so many kites on strings in the transparent water. He wiped his clinking glass across his forehead.

I took the opportunity to look him over. He was dressed much as I was, in a loose cotton shirt and white ducks, not scrupulously clean; and worn rope-soled deck shoes. I guessed him to be perhaps fifteen years older than I, though it was hard to tell. Not much more than forty, I supposed. He was of less than average height but very brown and fit looking, with broad shoulders and wiry arms. I remember thinking at once that I wouldn’t want to pick a fight with him, though I had the edge on him in both height and weight.

His face was creased at the corners of his eyes from long exposure to the tropical sun, and the hand that gripped the drink was broad and callused. A seaman, I decided immediately, especially the way his eyes moved appraisingly over the two little schooners anchored just outside the reef.

He turned suddenly and caught me watching him. I nodded and would have looked politely away, but his remarkable eyes caught and held me. They were a singularly clear ice blue, the color of water over a shallow reef, and so pale in his bronzed face that they seemed behind it; withdrawn, distant, as if they looked out on a different world. They had a strange watery quality I’d occasionally seen in some old alcoholics, but there was no hint of that weakness in his cool stare.

He walked over to my table and sat down uninvited. I dropped my feet from the railing and turned to face him. Close-up, his eyes were even more unsettling. They had a delicacy that was almost feminine, but his mouth and jaw had a grim clench that belied any softness. I guessed that he kept a sensuous nature tightly reined. His voice when he spoke was just as controlled.

"Do you know that schooner?" he asked, his voice low and even with a strong Queensland accent.

"Which one?" I replied innocently, though I knew perfectly well. "The green one?"

He snorted softly. "That kanaka-built tub is so old and slow she’d be lucky to get to Pago before the worms took her. No, I mean the white one."

"I know her," I said, volunteering nothing till I had caught his drift. "What about her?"

"I like her look," he said with another pull at his drink. She looks strongly made, but that rig is a bit old-fashioned. That big main boom would be a job to handle in a blow. Built in the Baltic by the look of that bluff bow and sheer, maybe thirty years ago?"

"Copenhagen, 1886," I confirmed. I was impressed, but maybe I was supposed to be. He could have asked around. Lots of people know Melia.

"Is she well-found? Have they been taking care of her?"

"Well enough. Her frames are sound and she stays dry enough."

"Know who owns her?"

"Yes," I said, turning to catch his reaction. "I do."

He looked at me with surprise. I’m young to be a skipper, much less an owner, and I look even younger. He looked me over the way he had Melia, then back out at her. I thought she looked pretty fine, though I was painfully aware of the rust streaking from her chainplates.

"What work’s she do?" he asked after a few minutes.

I shrugged, trying to look casual, professional. "Whatever comes along. Trading mostly. Fiji, Tonga, New Hebrides. I take out the usual trade goods: tinned food, medical supplies, building materials; I bring back copra, sandalwood, sometimes beche-de-mer."

"Does she pay her way?"

"Mostly."

I kept my answers laconic, playing the line, waiting to see what bait he would take. Truth to tell, my last trip had been a disaster, but I sure wasn’t going to tell him that. I’d stowed a load of copra that hadn’t been properly dried and it was rancid and worthless when I tried to unload it. It was a beginner’s mistake, but the story got around. It didn’t help business. I’d been on the beach in Samoa for six months. I’d eaten all my credit in Pago Pago and it was wearing very thin in Apia. I had about given up hope of getting another grubstake. I kept watching him, trying to read what he was after.

He watched me just as carefully. He knew how to play the game too, and I wondered uncomfortably how much he knew about me. He sipped slowly at his drink.

"Is she for hire?" he asked finally.

I almost sighed aloud. I’d been afraid he wanted to buy her, and I was in no position to refuse any offers. I tried not to let my relief show.

"Could be. What sort of charter?"

"I want to go to Kao."

"Kao?" I asked in surprise. "You mean in Tonga? What the hell for? There’s nothing there."

"Just me, no cargo," he said, pointedly ignoring my question. "Two or three days ashore, a week at most. The use of a boat and someone to row."

"You know Kao is uninhabited?" I asked, wondering if he had the name right. Kao is one of the Ha’apai group in Tonga, five hundred miles south. It’s a high island, but very small and with no good anchorages.

He nodded. "I know. Can you take me there? I can hand and steer."

"We’d need another hand," I said. "She’s too much for two men if it comes on to blow."

"I’ll give you two hundred dollars," he said. "You find the hand. Get somebody who can cook, unless you do." I suppressed a smile. I had been about to say one twenty. For two hundred I could get three cooks, but it wouldn’t hurt to do some haggling.

"We’ll need food, water, supplies…" I began.

He pulled out five fifty-dollar bills and pushed them across the table to me. "This should cover everything."

Whisking the money quickly out of sight, I smiled for the first time. I put out my hand. "Looks like we have a deal. My name’s Jake York."

He shook my hand briefly. "Jonas Cribb," he replied, already looking away toward Melia. I started to ask him what he’d like to drink, but he cut me off. "When can we get under way?"

"Oh. Well, I can get a man today, and I can order the supplies. We should be able to sail tomorrow."

"How about tonight?"

"Tonight? Well, I..., yes, I suppose we might be able to...."

"Good. I’ll see you on the beach around sunset, Captain."

He stood up, and I jumped up to shake his hand again, but he was already going down the steps.

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully as I watched him disappear. Strange bird, I thought. Why in the deuce would he want to get to Kao in such a hurry? But then I rubbed the fifties together in my pocket. What did I care? He’d just given me five weeks’ pay for three weeks’ work. He wasn’t paying me to ask him questions.

I hurried down to the old government pier. Simi was working on his boat, as he always was. The old cutter was hauled out on a row of rough coconut logs half buried in the sand, and Simi was crouched under the stern, using a broken screwdriver to gouge the coral from the rudder pintles.

"Simi!" I shouted as I jumped down onto the sand. "Malo e lelei."

"Siaki," he smiled when he saw me. "Fefe hake?" His long thick hair was speckled with coral and weed.

"Simi, I’ve got a charter. I need a crew, right away. Can you come? Two or three weeks at the most. I’ll pay you two dollars a day."

He grinned, flipped the screwdriver into the sand, and got up without a backward glance. Good old Simi - always ready to go. And why not? His life employed was identical to his life unemployed. At least my boat sometimes moved.

"Where are we going?" he asked as we clambered up the seawall.

"Kao," I said.

He looked at me in surprise. I shrugged. "He pays, we go."

Simi pulled a face of distaste. I was surprised.

"Why? What’s wrong with Kao? Is it tapu?" Many places are taboo, either for religious reasons or because something evil had once happened there, but I had never heard any such stories about Kao.

He shook his head. "No. It’s just not a good place."

"Why is it a bad place if it’s not tapu?" I persisted, but he just shrugged. People didn’t go there, was all he would say. But he had no objection to making the voyage. We hauled my old boat out of the thatched boat shed and dragged it down the beach. I told him to go aboard Melia and start cleaning up, I’d be along later with the supplies.

I walked on down to Schmidt’s place, on a dusty street a block back from the beach. It was a sagging old building with a few rusty anchors and blocks in the window. A bell jingled tinnily when I opened the door.

It was a typical chandlery - a jumbled collection of bits and pieces from a hundred ill-fated ships, a combination wrecker’s yard and marine pawnshop. The place was empty of custom, as usual. The Germans were still heartily disliked by the locals since the German occupation of Samoa during the war. Schmidt was the least political of men and knew little of what happened outside his doors, but his business suffered nonetheless.

"Schmidt!" I shouted. "Where are you, you old squarehead? You’ve got a customer."

Schmidt came out from a back room, still chewing and wiping his fingers on his pants. He was round and bald and seemed to be constantly soaked with sweat. He peered out at me in the dim light.

"Ja? Oh, it’s just you, Chake. I tought it was someone with money."

"I have money, Schmidt," I said, pulling a big double block off a shelf and tossing it on the scarred old wooden floor. "I have a charter."

"Oh, ja?" he said. "Und vere are you off to now, Chake?"

"Tonga. Help me with this line. I need a cable of it."

He helped me roll a hundred-fathom coil of new sisal line out beside the block. "Trading again? I can not gif you any more credit."

"No, some bloke wants a ride to Kao. I need two dead-eyes, for two-inch line."

He rummaged in an old packing crate covered with red Korean characters. One deadeye bounced to the floor as he burrowed into the assortment within.

"Kao? Neffer heard of it."

"It’s small, just the tip of a volcano. Uninhabited."

He emerged with a second deadeye. "Den who vants to go dere? Vot else?"

"Crabb, I think he said. Looks like a seaman himself. Never laid eyes on him before, but he paid up front, so I don’t care if he’s Kaiser Bill. I’ll need food for three men for three weeks. The usual tucker - beans, rice, whiskey, flour, tomato sauce, rum, salt beef, biscuit, gin, and some more whiskey. No wait, he’s an Aussie, better make it a couple cases of beer."

Schmidt had started away, but then turned back.

"An Auzzie, you say? Vot’s he look like?"

"Short, strong, mid-forties, dark hair. And wild blue eyes like ice."

"Cribb," he said.

I looked up from a box of thimbles and beckets I was going through. "Yeah, Cribb. Do you know him?"

"I’ve seen him once, a long time ago. Heard more."

"What did you hear?"

"He lived here, years ago, before der var."

"Yeah? Doing what?"

"Like you, running a schooner. Trading."

I stopped my digging. "Really? He worked a schooner? What happened?"

Schmidt shook his head. "Someting of a mystery. He went out on a run, took his vife and baby along, and neffer came back. Everybody tought he vas dead. Then a year or two later he shows up alone, no boat, no vife. He shut up his business, closed up his house, mit all der furniture still in it, and went away again. No one ever knew vot happened. Must haff been twenty years ago now, when I first came here. I wonder why he comes back now?"

"I don’t know, and it’s none of my business," I said. "But he wants to leave tonight, so get me that grub."

"Ja, ja. Six months on the beach and now ever’ting is a big hurry." But he promised to get everything together and have the stuff down to the beach in two hours. With most chandlers I’d have stayed to watch every barrel being packed. More than one ship has cracked a barrel a week out to find two inches of salt pork on top of a barrel of sand. But old Schmidt had always been square with me and had given me credit after no one else would, so I left him to it.

I went down to the sail loft and picked up the spare jib and stays’l I’d hocked there, then paid two boys to lug them down to the beach for me. I got back to the beach in time to see Schmidt and two big Samoans unloading a wagon at the tideline. Simi had already seen them and was rowing in.

I hired Schmidt’s teamsters to help Simi and me take the stuff out to Melia and stow it. We had the big stuff out in two trips. I left Simi aboard to stow the rest of it while I rowed the Samoans ashore. I paid Schmidt and he was driving away when Cribb appeared, walking fast and carrying only a duffel. I saw Schmidt turn and stare at him, but Cribb paid no attention.

"Ready, Captain?" he said as I reached shore.

"Ready, Mr. Cribb."

He waded out and tossed his duffel into the boat, gave her a shove, and tumbled in. "Right, let’s go."

I swung her around and rowed back. He sat in the sternsheets and looked over my shoulder at Melia. When we reached her, he scrambled up the chains without a word. I pulled around to the stern. Without waiting to be told, he went aft and lowered the falls to me. I hooked on, then climbed aboard. Together we hoisted away, swung the boat inboard, and lashed it in place. I could tell by the easy way we worked together without speaking that he was an experienced hand. No problem on that score then.

I shouted down the skylight. "How’s it going, Simi? All stowed?"

Simi’s head appeared in the scuttle. "‘Osi, Siaki." He looked up at our passenger.

"This is Mr. Cribb, Simi. Mr. Cribb, this is Simi Falekovi, foremast hand, cook, and a friend of mine." I watched him to see his reaction. Most white men in these parts didn’t acknowledge the islanders as equals. I’d found that I could tell a lot about a man from the way he dealt with the natives.

He held out his hand to Simi.

"Malo e lelei, Simi," he said, and I noticed that he used the Tongan greeting instead of the Samoan "Talofa." Not many white men could distinguish a Tongan from a Samoan, or perhaps he’d just noticed the Tongan consonants in Simi’s name. In any case, it was the right thing to say to Simi. His broad face broke into a gleaming smile as they shook hands.

"My name’s Jonas Cribb, Captain" he said. "People just call me Cribb."

"Glad to have you aboard." I was pleased to see him starting to open up - I’d been afraid he wasn’t going to say two words the whole trip. A seventy-foot schooner is a small place to not get along with somebody in. But he was distracted, already looking away.

"We’d better get under way if we’re to clear the reef before dark," he said.

My hackles rose a bit. I wasn’t used to anybody telling me what to do on my own schooner. But he was right, of course; the sun was almost touching the horizon. Besides, he was paying for this trip. I gulped and held my tongue.

"Right. Simi, get the hook up and down. Uh... Cribb, if you could, uh, set the...."

But Cribb was gone. Looking forward, I saw him beside the foremast, casting off the jib halyards. I watched a moment to satisfy myself that he was doing the right things, then went to the wheel.

"Up’n’down," called Simi from the windlass. The jib rattled up the stay and fluttered in the light breeze. Cribb belayed the halyard and started raising the stays’l.

"Break her out," I shouted to Simi, and heard the pawls clanking rapidly.

"Anchor’s aweigh," called Simi.

I threw the wheel hard to port. She hesitated, then began to make sternway. The bow swung slowly to starboard and the jib filled with a thump. I felt Melia heel slightly and begin to get under way, the water rippling along her sides. The sun turned the sails blood red. Cribb and Simi set the mains’l, and I sheeted her home as they went forward for the fores’l. Melia leaned into the first swells. I smiled to myself. It was good to feel her alive again.

We were clear of the reef by dark. The wind was light, and it was after midnight before we rounded Upolu and entered Apolima Strait. The full moon, now high, gave us plenty of light for the passage, and we were in open water again before it sank behind Mount Silisili on Savai’i. I shaped our course sou’sou’west.

Once clear of the land, Simi went below as he had the forenoon watch. I turned the wheel over to Cribb and went forward. We were running fair with the wind under our port quarter, and I kept an eye and ear out for the luff of the jib as she rolled. Cribb knew what he was doing, all right. He kept her full and bye and the mainsheet never slackened enough to jerk when she rolled. I sighted the Cross beyond the forestay and watched how he held his course. He put the helm down slightly as she rose to a swell, then paid off as she slid away, so the bowsprit swept back and forth across our rhumb line. Now and again I caught a glimpse of his face in the glow of the binnacle. Remembering what Schmidt had told me, I wondered what thoughts he had, taking a schooner out of Apia again after all these years. Satisfied that the Melia was in safe hands, I turned in and slept better than I usually do the first night out.

By morning only the highest peaks of Samoa showed astern. The wind was still fair, and the voyage settled into the usual tradewind passage: fresh steady breeze, big rolling seas, and hundreds of puffy white clouds dotting the immense dome of the sky. We kept busy working on the schooner. She had been getting minimal care for far too long, and the tropics are not kind to unmaintained vessels. Simi spent much of his time just as he does ashore: scraping, caulking, and painting the longboat. I overhauled and tarred the standing rigging. Cribb did whatever I asked of him without complaint, and I often came across him whipping a frayed rope-end or busy with palm and needle, sewing on a loose jib hank. It pleased me to see a thousand little things finally being set right as the days passed.

While Cribb was agreeable enough, he spoke very little and seemed to prefer working alone. I wondered about him. If Schmidt’s tales were true, he couldn’t have been much more than twenty at the time, very young to be master of his own vessel. I was very curious to hear his account of the story, but it was abundantly clear he didn’t want to talk. I tried to start conversations with him a number of times, but he wouldn’t be drawn out. I confess I even offered him drinks in the hope it would loosen his tongue, but he drank very moderately. After a few tries I gave it up and left him alone.

In the evenings Simi and I would smoke and yarn for hours, swapping stories. Simi knew hundreds of the old Polynesian legends I loved so well, especially tales of the great kings and warriors of the old days. Like most Tongans, he could name all his ancestors back for centuries and he would tell you stories about them as if he had talked to them just the other day. Cribb sometimes sat with us and listened silently, but more often he went out on the bowsprit and smoked alone.

We passed Niuatoputapu the second day out and raised the peaks of Vava’u two days later. I bore off to the westward a couple of points, as I didn’t want to get amongst the islands of western Vava’u at night. The dozens of islands rise so suddenly out of deep water that their sides are undercut by the waves like so many mushrooms. The water is so deep that in daylight a steamer can pass in safety between two islands barely wider than her beam, but the archipelago is treacherous on a dark night, as there is no warning sound of surf.

At first light Vava’u was behind us and the turquoise glow in the southern sky hinted at the vast reefs and shoals of the Ha’apai group just over the horizon. Dead ahead rose the perfect little cone of Kao, silhouetted against the much larger peak of Tofua beyond. As I watched it, I felt the schooner’s motion change and heard the creaking of the mainsheet block. Looking aft, I saw Cribb altering course, falling off another point or two to the west. I started aft to complain about his changing course without consulting me, but I waited until she’d been trimmed on her new course. He was steering to pass along the northern coast of the island, just what I had intended.

Roused by the change, Simi rose from where he’d been sleeping in the lee waist and came forward to trim the heads’ls. He nodded to me, studied Kao for a moment, then went aft to relieve, first himself, then Cribb. Cribb came forward.

"There’s a small cove on the southwest side," he said. "It’s a fairly open anchorage, but if the trades hold steady you should be all right. There’s some coral heads, though, so keep to starboard as you go in. There’s not much room to swing."

I nodded. He obviously knew the place better than I - I hadn’t even been aware that Kao had an anchorage. I decided to have a stern line ready to take ashore if needed. Cribb and I manhandled the new sisal line out of the lazarette. I set Cribb to putting an eyesplice into the bitter end while I overhauled the ground tackle. By the time we were both finished, we had rounded the northern tip of Kao and hauled our wind to the south.

The water is deep all around Kao, so I ran close inshore down the western coast. Most of the shore was a sheer wall of jagged black lava with an overhanging mass of jungle above. Near the northern end the big swells swept in unobstructed and threw themselves on the unyielding basalt in spectacular thundering explosions. In some places the waves rebounded to form outgoing breakers, only to crash headlong into the next comber in glittering rainbows of spray.

Once into the lee of the island, the seas diminished dramatically. Simi went up to the foretop to watch for shoals. I had Cribb furl the fores’l and stays’l, and we ghosted along in light airs. As I watched the passing shoreline, I wondered again what possible errand Cribb could have here. He certainly couldn’t want to stroll around; the island was covered with thick impenetrable growth, and I had as yet seen neither landing nor clearing. In my early days in the tropics I had once or twice made the mistake of trying to climb some picturesque peak, and had come back exhausted, muddy, bleeding, and considerably wiser. Now my motto was: If there’s no trail, don’t climb it.

Cribb climbed into the weather rigging, intently scanning the passing shore. We rounded a small point and saw another rocky peninsula beyond, both of them trailing off into long chains of jagged rocks and foam. A few leagues to the south rose the steep slopes of Tofua. I realized we must be nearly to the end of Kao already.

"This is the one, Captain," called Cribb, pointing into the shallow bight between the two points.

I scanned the little cove dubiously. Cribb hadn’t lied; it was a poor refuge, one I wouldn’t ordinarily hazard, but we had seen no better.

"Simi!" I shouted. "How does it look?"

"Faka’ofa’ofa. Beautiful."

"Tau o. Let’s go." I put the helm down and the schooner pointed her bowsprit into the cove.

"Mr. Cribb, get the lead from the forescuttle and arm it, if you will." He did so, pressing a wad of tallow into the hollow at the bottom of the lead, then clambered over to stand in the lee fore chains.

We drifted silently into the cove, barely making way. I was nervous, scanning for any change of color in the water ahead. Once between the headlands, the water was glassy smooth. A narrow beach lined the head of the cove, and I could make out a small waterfall tumbling out of the trees onto the sand. I headed for it.

Nearer and nearer crept that white strand, and still no sign of bottom. In these waters, the bottom is clearly visible at sixty feet or more. When about half a cable from shore, I had Cribb heave the lead. It whirled and arced out ahead of us. Cribb hauled it in as we passed over it. He examined the tallow.

"And a half eighteen! Hard bottom." he called.

Over a hundred feet still. I kept on, my heart in my mouth.

"Simi?"

"I see bottom now, but very deep. Some coral heads way off to starboard."

Cribb swung the lead again.

"By the mark ten! Dead coral pieces."

We were getting too close for comfort, but I didn’t want to anchor that deep in such a narrow cove. The beach disappeared until I thought it must be right under the bowsprit. Cribb heaved the lead again. Finally, just as I was ready to swing her about, he called out, "By the deep six! White sand."

"Looks good, Siaki," called Simi.

"Let go!" I shouted, spinning the wheel to bring her up into the wind. Simi slid down the forestay and helped Cribb drop the hook. The chain rattled out with a roar and a cloud of rust. The schooner lost way, stopped, drifted back. We felt the gentle tug as she caught. Simi stood on the chain, feeling its motion with his feet.

"Holding," he reported. I looked around, made mental notes of some range bearings to check for drift. It was tight, but should be all right if the wind stayed where it was. I decided against the stern line. We secured the ship, then gathered aft.

"Kao, Mr. Cribb," I said.

I didn’t know if he heard me. He was standing at the starboard rail, peering intently at the long rugged headland on the east side of the cove.

"Lower the boat, if you will, Captain," he said, turning suddenly to me.

Simi and I readied and lowered the boat. I was so damnably curious about what Cribb wanted to do ashore that I determined to go with him, somewhat against my better judgement.

"Simi, you stay aboard," I said. "If she drags, get some sail on and get out of the cove. Don’t try to anchor again by yourself. Stand off and on within sight of the cove. We’ll row out and you can pick us up outside. Understood?"

His face lit with a white smile. "‘Io, Siaki," he grinned. "‘Oku au alu ki ‘Eua."

I laughed with him. "No, don’t sail her home to ‘Eua. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days marooned on Kao. No one ever comes here."

"Once a year a man from Mounga’one comes to cut copra," said Cribb unexpectedly. We looked at him, not quite sure if he were joining our joke or not. But Cribb was all business, dropping his duffel into the boat and clambering down. Our smiles disappeared. I took my place at the oars and Simi cast us off. I swung the boat for the beach.

"No, not to the beach. I want to go over there, by those rocks."

I looked where he pointed, to the jagged row of rocks that extended from the western headland.

"We can’t land there…" I began, but he cut me off.

"I don’t want to land yet. Humor me, Captain."

I swung the boat around. Over Cribb’s shoulder I saw Simi sitting on the taffrail. He held out his arms in an obvious question. I just rowed.

I studied Cribb’s face as I pulled across the cove. He wasn’t looking at me, but over my shoulder at the rocks ahead. His face was grim and set. Whatever his business here, he took no pleasure in it. I felt again that his silence was not that of a normally taciturn man, but that his emotions were held in check by an effort of will. He was not a cold fish, but a plugged volcano. No one would call me a timid man, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to ask him outright how he knew so damned much about such a remote and worthless place.

He directed me with nods of his head as we crossed the cove. Looking over my shoulder now and again, I saw we were headed for a jumble of pointed rocks like snaggled teeth, about halfway out from the headland. Soon I could hear the hissing of the swells surging around the rocks. I swung the boat around to get a look. Cribb looked back and forth from the headland to the end of the rocks, then back to the opposite point. I realized he was checking bearings. Then he pointed along the rocks toward the shore.

"About ten fathoms that way, Captain. By that big flat rock."

I saw where he pointed and pulled until we lay a few yards from a wide slab of basalt that just covered in the bigger swells. I swung us stern to so I could keep her off. Cribb studied the surrounding rocks, then leaned over the side and peered into the water. After several minutes, he looked at me.

"Thank you, Captain. Now just hold this position for a few minutes, if you will. I hope I won’t be gone long." With that he quickly stripped off his clothes, put on a pair of shell goggles like the pearl divers wear, and slipped over the side. Taking a long bush knife in his hand, he took three or four deep breaths, then wheeled and plunged like a porpoise.

Completely mystified, I watched him descend, his white feet winking behind him. He was deep - eight to ten fathoms, I guessed, when he approached a large triangular rock and began to chop and dig at it with his knife. Clouds of mud swirled around him, but I could see him swing his body around and use his legs and back to wrench something loose. Then he was coming straight up at me, carrying something long and dark.

He broke surface next to the boat with a great rasping gasp. I realized he was pushing himself to stay down so long. I didn’t know many white men who could make that dive. He hung by his elbows over the bulwark as he caught his breath. He threw his catch into the boat at my feet. I bent to examine it as he clambered over the transom. Although black and rank with weeds, it was clearly a plank of wood. My curiosity could no longer be contained.

"You came all this way for that?" I blurted out. "What the hell is it?"

Cribb looked at me, still gasping for breath. The goggles had cut deep circles around his eyes, making him look much older. He reached into the boat and flipped the thing over. Beneath the grime it was white with flowing black letters. He scraped it with the back of his blade, rubbed at it with his thumbs, then rinsed it over the side. He handed it back to me.

"Marama," I read aloud.

"My ship," he said in a hoarse croak. "Tops’l schooner, 67 feet between parallels, built in Auckland in ‘69, all of kauri pine." He pulled himself aboard.

I looked at the broken end of the plank. Beneath the growth, the kauri was as clean and white as the day it was cut fifty years ago. I had a sudden image of a broken plank with the name Melia on it. I turned and looked at my schooner riding serenely at anchor and felt a surge of affection for her. That lovely swanlike thing was at once my home, my livelihood, and my sole possession. I tried to imagine how it would feel to lose her. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

"That’s a Fijian name, isn’t it?" I said at last, handing him back the plank.

He nodded. "It means ‘woman’, but it is also a term of respect. It means a woman as a woman should be: strong, beautiful, and wise in the ways of her people."

"A good name for a ship."

His fingers traced the gracefully formed letters. "A good name as well for the woman who painted it," said Cribb in a low voice, and he pressed the slimy plank against his chest. Mud and weed trickled down his legs.

Embarrassed, I looked away. Suddenly I was sorry I had brought him here. It was not a healthy thing for a man to come back to the scene of his loss like this. Across the cove, I could see Simi sitting on the scuttle, watching us through the field glasses, no doubt wondering what the hell we were doing. The swells surged around us, causing me to dip an oar now and then to keep us off the rocks. I waited a long time. Finally I had to speak.

"Are we done here?"

He looked up at me sharply, must have read the pity on my face.

"No!" he snapped. "Did you think I’d come back here just to mourn over her bones? "

I shrugged. "Why did you come back then?"

"For one reason only."

He dropped into the water, filled his lungs with air, and plunged down again. This time I saw him wriggle into the hole he had made and disappear. I waited one minute, two. I became anxious for his safety. A sick feeling thrilled through me. Perhaps he didn’t intend to come back - perhaps he had come back to die in his beloved schooner. I was peering down, wondering if I could get down that far, when he shot into view and kicked wildly for the surface. He was carrying something in his hands. Just before he reached the surface, his kicking slowed, and he went limp. He broke the surface and lay still. I gave one long pull, then dropped the oars and reached for him. Grasping his hair, I pulled his face from the water. He vomited, then sucked in air. He still held a black object against his chest. When I tried to pull him aboard, he pushed a wooden box into my hands first. I set it down, then dragged him over the transom. By then we were dangerously close to the rocks, and I had to pull hard to get us clear.

When I looked at him again, Cribb was slumped over the thwart. He looked like a corpse. His eyes bulged from an ashen gray face, and his lips were blue. The breath rasped in and out of his mouth. At last he sat up weakly and looked at me.

"Give me the box," he wheezed.

I passed it to him. It was about six inches square, with a plain hinged lid and a rusty iron keyhole. He held the box between his feet and set to work trying to pry it open with his bush knife. His movements were clumsy and erratic, and I was afraid he was going to cut himself.

"Here, let me," I said, taking the knife and box from his hands. He looked up at me sharply, but did not resist. I worked the edge of the knife under the lid, then slammed the butt of the oar down on it. The lid splintered open, and my feet were buried in a slimy black mass of rotted paper and cloth and a double handful of round balls. I picked one up and rinsed it clean. It was a deep lustrous gray-black sphere as big around as the end of my thumb. I washed off two more just like it.

"My God," I whispered at last. "I’ve never seen such pearls. And their color, so perfectly matched. Where did they come from?"

"I got them in Kapingamarangi."

"There’s no pearl shell in Kapinga."

"No, they weren’t picked there. No one knew where they came from originally. They’d been lost there, in a wreck. No survivors."

"They seem to have an unfortunate habit," I said. "Let’s hope the pattern isn’t repeated." I meant it as a joke, but he didn’t smile.

We sat there in the bottom of that boat like two small boys, washing each pearl and placing it carefully on a handkerchief. Each was subtly different, and we exclaimed over several that were particularly large or perfect. There was something hypnotic about the repetitious handling of such wondrous and valuable things. Talk about a fortune through your fingers!

Just as we collected the last one, we were startled from our reverie by a blast on a conch horn. A glance toward Melia showed the danger. The peak above was hidden in a dense gray wall of rain that swept down toward us.

"Line squall," said Cribb. "Looks like a bad one."

I leaped to the oars with a curse and started pulling. "Must have come from the nor-east. No way to see it coming." Cribb was hurriedly tying the pearls up in the handkerchief and stuffing them in his pocket. Then he joined me at the oars. Catspaws were already fluttering the water around us, and the roar of the rain on the palm fronds was like an onrushing train. We were only a quarter of the way back when a cool breeze struck us, followed almost immediately by strong gusting wind and a deluge of rain.

There was nothing else to do. I swung the bow toward the beach and we pulled like mad for shore. For a few minutes we were blinded by rain so heavy it was difficult to breathe. One particularly strong gust cleared it enough for us to catch a glimpse of Melia scudding toward the entrance, Simi on the foredeck setting the storm stays’l. I had every confidence in Simi, but I dearly wished I could be aboard my ship.

There was no time to long after her, for we were in real danger ourselves. The chop was getting up against us and we were shipping a lot of water over the bows. We both pulled like demons, and soon felt the lift and surge of breakers under us. There was no picking a good wave; we just drove her through. Suddenly we were rushing headlong toward what we hoped was the sandy beach. Cribb shipped his oars and let me handle the steering unimpeded. I held her head for what seemed like hours, then suddenly she broached to port as the wave caught her stern. But by then its strength was nearly spent, and we were roughly shoved broadside onto the sand.

Instantly we were both out and dragging the boat above the tideline. We stood panting there in the rain, looking at each other. We looked around glumly at our surroundings. We were on a pocket beach. Perhaps thirty yards back of the line of trees, towering black cliffs rose to disappear into the flying murk overhead.

Suddenly Cribb laughed; a sharp, bitter bark. "I can’t believe it. I’ve been marooned twice in my life, both times on the same beach." Then he clutched his pants pocket and pulled out the bundle of pearls. "But at least this time I’ve got the pearls, and company, and a boat."

We dragged the boat further up the beach, then rolled it over and crawled underneath. It was cramped, but a wonderful relief from the relentless pelting we’d been suffering outside.

The rain lasted perhaps three hours, then ceased as if switched off, and we heard it hissing away out to sea. We scrambled out and climbed onto some rocks nearby. There was no sign of Melia. I told myself not to worry, but there was nothing to be done in any case. We agreed we would wait for Simi to beat back up to us. If he were not back in two days, we would try to row to Tofua - a matter of six or seven miles of open sea. It would be tiring but should be safe enough on a mild day. We were not overly concerned for our own safety, and we agreed as we talked that Simi should not have had too difficult a time avoiding Tofua and heaving to to ride out the squall. Squalls often bring violent winds, but they are so short-lived that the sea doesn’t have time to build up. Winds alone are little danger to a well-handled boat, and Simi knew what he was about. We didn’t envy him the job of beating back dead to windward single-handed, though - he’d get no sleep and precious little rest for a day or two.

We walked the length of the beach, a matter of two hundred yards. As Cribb pointed out, there wasn’t a hope of climbing the precipitous walls of the cove. As well as being nearly vertical, they were carpeted in slimy wet red clay and a thick growth of fern and impenetrable scrub. The one stream fell from a height of sixty feet directly onto the sand. It made a delightful shower, but offered no means of escape. Without a boat, Cribb had been trapped there helpless for over six months. I thought how much more anxious I would feel if I didn’t know we had the boat. Cribb must have felt the same thing, for we both hurried back to the boat to haul her further up the beach and secure her painter to a tree. On the way, Cribb pointed out a bower in the scrub.

"See that hole? That was my home and castle for the better part of a year."

"Far from the better part of that year, I imagine." We propped the boat on its side, bottom to weather, then packed sand around it for a windbreak. We felt like two boys building a sandcastle together. There is something oddly intimate in the cooperative labor of building a camp. I felt close to this perfect stranger. We never spoke of feelings between us, so perhaps it was only on my part, but I think not. Cribb at least opened up for the first time. After hardly speaking during the passage, he suddenly opened up floodgates. And as he talked I realized that the waters had been pent up more than just this last week.

We scraped out a pit under the boat to give us more headroom, and gathered some driftwood. Cribb proved most adept at rubbing up a fire, native-fashion, in just a few minutes. Soon the sun was going down, and we crawled in beside a warm fire. We chattered on for a while, and then a comfortable silence fell. Finally I just had to ask him straight out.

"Do you mind telling me how it happened?"

He sat silent for a long moment more, then gave an audible sigh. He began to speak without taking his eyes from the flames.

"We were coming back from Efate in the New Hebrides, bound for Pangai, over there in Lifuka." He gestured over the southern promontory, now quickly darkening. "I had two Tongan boys, teenagers, for crew, and my wife Marama and our baby Teissa were aboard - we’d visited her family in Lau on the voyage out, to show off Teissa. We were excited - we had stumbled across the pearls purely by luck and had gotten them for a fraction of their worth. We were talking of building a new house in Apia, with a nursery for little Teissa. Everything seemed to be working out.

"It was a beautiful day, but with an odd pearly sheen to the sky. The glass had been falling, slowly but progressively for days. The wind was fresh and steady, but it had backed throughout the forenoon, then suddenly veered through east to stand steady at sou’east by south."

"Bad signs."

He nodded. "We knew it was coming, in fact had been trying to outrun it for days, but now it was clear we were in for a beating. I decided to try for Neiafu in Vava’u; it’s got the best harbor in Tonga."

"There’s no safety at Lifuka in a typhoon," I agreed.

"We rounded Tofua and brought up for Vava’u. We could see it, not twenty miles ahead - that big flat-topped mountain, what’s it called?"

"Telea."

He stopped, and looking at his face I knew he was seeing those peaks again, representing safety so close at hand.

"It struck like a hammer," he went on after a few minutes. "Just at sunset, like a giant hand swatting us from the surface of the sea. Knocked us flat before we could take a step. Blew out all we had up - jib and double-reefed main - carried away the main gaff, and sprung the foremast. The jib boom was gone, along with half the bulwarks. One boat was stove in, the companion scuttle was smashed, and plenty of water was sloshing about down below. Marama brought Teissa up on deck and they held on in the lee of the cabin. We were being carried nor’west, toward Tofua.

"The boys and I managed to get the storm trys’l on the main, and it’ll give you some idea of the wind if I tell you it took three good hands over to hours to get it set. With that and a triple-reefed fore stays’l, we tried to claw off the land.

"It took all night, under increasingly appalling conditions. The ship was taking a terrible beating, especially with that sprung foremast thrashing about. We managed to get clear of Tofua, but still had Kao to contend with. I considered the strait between Tofua and Kao, but as you may imagine, I was very desirous of not having to drift through it at night, backward, disabled, and in a typhoon. I kept at it, intent on weathering the eastern side of Kao. There’s plenty of sea room beyond, we could heave her to with her head under her wing, give her some relief, and perhaps even get a preventer on that foremast. But with that decision made, there was no rest for Marama, or for us."

He looked up at the stars. I wondered what I would have done in his place.

"I’ve always wondered since if I shouldn’t have hove to then and tried the strait. We might have made it. But I’d never been through the strait, and I had no detailed chart of the area. I thought we should be able to clear Kao. I was wrong." He paused again.

"You have to go by your feelings," I said. "You don’t have time to reason it out." It sounded lame, but it’s the truth - every skipper knows that.

"We nearly made it," he went on. "For a while I thought we had. But then the damned wind kept backing. Kao was right astern by then, a black triangle against the black sky, and growing steadily larger. Soon it was clear there was no hope. Even driving the sticks out of her, we were being swept onto the island.

"I delayed as long as I dared, but at six bells in the night watch I ordered Sefo and Pita to lower the remaining boat. I lashed the helm and went to help them. God knows it was a job for three men in that sea. Then I told Marama to take the child and the boys and try to row clear of the island. I was going to stay aboard and try to save the schooner if I could.

"She wouldn’t do it. She knew the chances as well as I, and she said she wanted to die with me. I was adamant. I told her if they could get the bow up into the wind and keep it there, they might still be able to clear the island. She might be ready to die, I said, but what about Teissa - she’s only a baby. Could we pass up the slightest chance of saving her?

"She was frantic that I go with her, but I said that the schooner was everything we had, I couldn’t just leave her to smash on the rocks. What would become of us if we lost her? Perhaps the wind would change and I would still get clear. But she wouldn’t listen. Sefo and Pita wouldn’t get in the boat either. Who could blame them in that sea? But I was convinced it was their only chance, and every moment they delayed the island crept nearer. I was shouting at them, ordering them, begging them to get into the boat."

He looked over at me, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. I poked at the fire, waited.

"They were both screaming, but I couldn’t hear them for the wind, or perhaps I couldn’t have done it. My wife had Teissa all wrapped up in a bundle of blankets. I reached over and I tore the baby out of her arms, then turned and dropped that little warm bundle into the boat as it rose on a swell. Marama was past me and over the rail before I could lower my arms. As she bent over the child, I cast off the painter. For a second I held the end of the line. Then, God help me, I threw it into the sea.

"I had one glimpse of Marama’s face as she turned up toward me, realizing what I had done. The wind blew her long hair across her face. Her mouth was open, shouting something to me, but I’ll never know what it was. Then they were gone, swept away into the darkness. A moment later I saw them on top of the next sea. Marama was aft at the tiller, and the bow was into the wind. I swallowed with pride in her. I knew she wouldn’t lose her head. Then they slid over into the trough beyond, and I never saw them again."

His voice cracked, but he made a visible effort to control it.

"I went back and lashed myself to the wheel. There was no chance now to clear Kao to the east, but I thought that if I put her on the port tack we might yet make the strait. We tried to tack three times, but couldn’t get her across. Finally in desperation I threw the helm up and we wore ship. She nearly rolled over as we went about. For a moment I was dangling from the wheel like a rag doll, the masts in the water. Then we were around.

"Hour after hour I fought that wind. I was like a madman, raging and cursing and sobbing into it. The boys had lost heart completely and were just cowering under the taffrail, but I fought that storm with every atom of my strength. It was like a living adversary trying to destroy us. It seemed to me that if I could force the storm to waste some of its force against me, perhaps there would be just that much less to use against that cockleshell of a boat out there.

"I made some progress - Kao was gradually slipping past. We entered the strait, and I began to hope that we would clear it yet. But she had too much water in her. We were drifting back too fast. We would have made it but for that one promontory out there. She was still driving hard, putting her shoulder into it, when I felt the surge lift her stern and throw her backwards. She struck right there where we found her today.

"This cove didn’t look like this that night. It was blacker than the devil’s balls, but from what I could see, we were in the middle of a boiling cauldron. Nothing but white water as far as you could see. The breakers were going right over that line of rocks out there.

"She struck at three bells in the morning watch. She came down very hard on something - might have been that flat rock. At the first blow the main mast come out of her. The boom crashed down right past my ear and carried away the taffrail as it went overboard. It must have taken the lads at the same time. I never knew when they went.

He was silent for a few minutes. The flood of words had left him breathless, agitated. It was as if by telling the story here where it had happened he was reliving it all again. When he spoke again I had to lean close to catch his words.

"It’s a terrible thing to feel your ship die," he whispered. "She fought it - she held together as the seas lifted her and threw her down again and again. The foremast went over, and I could hear ribs cracking even over the wind and surf. Then one big cruel bastard of a wave lifted her high, swept her right over the first rocks, and threw her like an egg shell against those murdering black teeth up there. That broke her back, and she broke up quickly after that. She was dead then, I could feel it. But even then those seas wouldn’t let her rest. They kept coming and coming and coming, until there was no ship anymore, just a bunch of splintered timbers washing over the rocks.

"And me amongst it all, bobbing around with the rest of the wreckage. My lifeline had parted. I smashed against something, and felt ribs cracking. First Marama, and now me, I thought. Now it’s my turn. Suddenly I felt calm. I was so tired. I relaxed and floated, waiting for the end. I was tossed about like a log for what seemed like hours. Then I felt my feet brush sand. The next wave rolled me up on this beach. The next wave took me out, but then threw me higher. Hardly thinking, I clawed at the sand and pulled myself out of the water. I crawled up into the trees and fell asleep, not twenty yards from where we sit.

"I slept as if I were dead. When I awoke, the typhoon was gone. So was everything else. The sky was clear and blue, the sun shone down. It was just like this - another peaceful day in paradise, but with a huge sea still running. Wreckage bobbed in the cove and lined the shore. I searched the length of the cove, but never found any sign of the Tongan boys or of my wife and child.

"My despair was complete. I felt as if all my insides had been torn out. For the first few days I made no effort to save myself - I just wanted to join my family as soon as possible. But the will to endure is strong. Food was no problem. Various stores from the ship had come ashore relatively undamaged, and as you can see there are plenty of coconuts. There’s some mango, papaya, and breadfruit in the bush. Fish are plentiful in the cove. That stream is sweet. I built a rough lean-to in that bower by the falls.

"Weeks passed without a sign of life. My ribs healed. I settled into my new solitude as if in a nightmare that never ended. With no one to talk to about my agony, there was no release for it. It burned and festered within me like a boil, never giving me a moment’s peace. My nights were haunted by Marama’s upturned face in the boat. There had been no time for farewells, no embrace, no time to try to tell her what she had meant to me. Over and over I saw her lips move. What had she said? Was it goodbye, Godspeed? Or was she cursing me with what might be her last breath? Did she understand why I had done it? How could I live without knowing if she ever understood? And above all else, what had become of them? That tiny boat, containing everything I loved in the world - where was it now? Were they capsized and lost, or smashed on some nameless rocks? Or, worst of all, were they right now drifting in the sun, the life gradually ebbing from their bodies while I lay comfortably in the shade with food and drink heaped around me? I tell you, it was more than I could bear. But I couldn’t think of anything to do. I had no tools, not even my knife. All I could do was to sit and wait. And wait I did.

"It was nearly eight months before a small sailing dugout appeared. They landed in the cove and were frightened when I rushed out of the brush toward them. It was a father and his two sons come over from Mounga’one to cut copra.

"They took me back with them, and I begged a ride on a native sloop over to Lifuka, then to Nuku’alofa. After a few months, I took a job as hand on a steamer bound to Samoa. I had clung to a hope that she was there waiting for me, but the house was just as we had left it. I closed it up and worked my way to Auckland, over a year since going ashore. All that time I was trying to decide what to do with my life. Even had I the means, I had no interest in going back into trading. The islands had lost their appeal. Their soft beauty mocked me with memories of what I had lost, and their illusion of gentleness belied their cruelty.

"I went inland, away from the sea. I drifted from one sheep station to another, helping with the shearing mostly. But I never felt close to the men I worked with. What had we to say to each other? I sought solitude. I kept wandering south, to smaller and smaller settlements, until I found myself out in the fjordlands. The place suited my mood - hard, rockbound, stormy and gray. One needs a boat to get about out there, so I built myself one. A man commented on it one day, and I agreed to build him one. Eventually I set up a little shop. I did very well. The work suited me - I worked alone and rarely had visitors. I’ve been at it ever since."

Drained at last of his burden, he lay on his side in the sand, his fingers tracing the letters on the broken trail board from his schooner. I looked from his face out at the placid beauty of the little cove, glistening now in the moonlight.

"Why did you come back after all these years? Was it just the pearls?"

"I’m not sure. I grew weary of my life there. Day and night, my mind was always back here. I went over every moment of that night a thousand times, wondering what I could have done differently. And of course there were the pearls. I had made no attempt to recover them during my months here, had given them little thought. But now they began to prey on my mind. They were a link to her, a part of her. She had loved them when she first saw them; for their beauty and because they represented all our hopes for the future. If she hadn’t found them that day in Kapinga we would never have been near Kao. My thoughts kept circling around the pearls, year after year. Eventually I sold my business and headed north again. Perhaps with the pearls I could go back to Australia, set myself up there. There was a vague sense that if I could return to the scenes of my childhood, before the wreck, before Marama, perhaps I could somehow find rest."

"And perhaps in Kao you could lay her ghost to rest as well?"

"No, that will never leave me. And I do not want it banished. It is all that is left to me of her. It is the only one who has shared my solitude all these years."

We sat on in silence, and eventually I heard him breathing heavily. I looked out at the water for many hours before I too fell asleep. When we awoke the sun was shining. We climbed the rocks again. Far out toward Tofua we could make out a tiny sail. It was Simi, beating back to pick us up, but it would be many hours yet.

I climbed a coconut and cut down several drinking nuts while Cribb made a palm frond basket and filled it with mussels from the rocks. We cooked them native-style in an earth oven. I wanted something to say to him, but could think of nothing. We spoke little throughout the day. I had the impression that he felt uncomfortable in my company. I suspected that I was the only person who ever knew his full story.

We watched Melia approaching. She passed out of sight on each tack, but each time she appeared she was a little closer. She was still two or three miles out as night fell. I guessed Simi would beat up as close as he dared in the dark, then heave to and run in for us at first light. We made a dinner of mangos and plantains, built up the fire in case Simi could see it, and turned in.

We were up on the rocks before first light, waving a burning brand to give him his bearings. Soon after dawn, Melia swept around the eastern headland, stepping along well under light canvas. I thought she was a beautiful sight, with the sun just breaking to turn her sails to gold. She tacked into the cove, and we bounded down to launch the boat. In a few moments we were heading out through the surf, in considerably easier conditions than before.

We got out with no more than a wetting from the spray. I pulled hard to the head of the cove, where I estimated Simi would bring her to on his next tack. After a few minutes I turned to look back, and there was Melia ghosting toward us. I rested on the oars while Simi brought her head up only a few yards away. Cribb caught hold of the main chains as she went by and had no trouble holding on. A moment later, and Simi’s face appeared over the rail.

"Malo e lelei," he grinned down at us. "Did you have a nice stay in Tonga?" His lined face and stubbled beard hinted at his exhaustion.

Cribb and I scrambled aboard and tied the boat astern. Then we dashed forward and dropped the anchor. To our relief, it caught and held the first try. Simi collapsed on the house as Cribb and I furled sail. I went below and fixed up a good hearty breakfast, and we all fell to with a will. We took a few minutes to relate our adventures, then Simi crept off to bed.

Cribb and I spent most of the day fixing some minor damage caused by the squall. All in all, she’d done quite well. And so had Simi, we agreed - more than one vessel with a full crew has gone down in a bad line squall.

Simi arose at three in the afternoon and ate breakfast again. Then we all sat smoking on the foredeck as the heat went out of the day. Conversation turned to the imposing cliffs around us.

"I spent days trying to find a way up those walls," said Cribb. "I think not even a kanaka could get up there."

"That’s a compliment with an edge to it, Simi," I said. "What do you say?"

"For a Samoan, impossible - for a Tongan, perhaps."

"I don’t believe it," I said. "No one could climb that."

He looked up at the cliffs surrounding us. I think he was half-afraid we would challenge him. "Well, I only said perhaps. Perhaps not. But Tongans have been ashore on Kao a few times. Up into the interior."

"Really? How?" Cribb and I asked together.

"There’s a small cove on the side toward Vava’u, much smaller even than this, and with no shelter and no anchorage. But there is a small beach, no longer than this schooner, where a canoe can land. A sure-footed man can follow the stream to the top of the cliffs."

"What’s up there?"

He shrugged. "More brush, I guess."

"Charming place," I muttered. "Why do they bother?"

"Various reasons. A band of refugees from Vava’u lived up there for a time during the civil war."

"From what I’ve heard of Finau, I don’t blame them," said Cribb.

"Who’s Finau?" I asked.

"Finau ‘Ulukalala Feletoa - he was the chief who united the three kingdoms of Tonga. The ancestor of the present King George Tupou."

"His half brother Tupouto’a was the king’s great-grandfather," explained Simi, with a genealogical precision so typically Tongan. "It was a long and bloody civil war. It went on for many years. Many people died. Many famous chiefs: Tupouniua, Maealiuaki, Takai…"

"Finau was a gifted public speaker," said Cribb. "His speeches were very flowery and inspiring. Tongans love that. And he was a clever and opportunistic military man, but a tyrant," said Cribb. "His cruelty is still remembered."

"Yes," said Simi enthusiastically. "One time he invited all the other major chiefs to a feast, then had them seized and taken to an uninhabited island...."

"I don’t want to hear this," I said.

"He had them tied to posts on the beach and let the crabs eat them. Some lasted more than a week."

"I knew I didn’t want to hear it," I groaned.

"Another time he caught some men he thought were enemy raiders, only it turned out later they weren’t, and they took these sharpened clam shells and…"

"Fine, enough about the beloved founding father of your country," I interrupted. "What else do you know about Kao?"

Simi shook his head. "It is not often spoken of. People do not come here often."

"Yes, you said that back in Apia," I said. "Why is that?"

He shrugged. "There is nothing here. As you see, there are only a few dozen coconuts here. Only a very poor man would come all the way for so small a crop. And there is no other reason to come here. A place so undesirable becomes known as a place to avoid. And there are a few ghost stories about it."

"Good," I said. "There always are. Such as?"

"Well, there’s supposed to be a princess buried somewhere on top."

"Is that likely?"

He shrugged. "It’s possible. The story is that she was pregnant by the wrong man - her brother, the man expected to become the next king of Ha’apai."

"Frowned upon in Tongan society, I presume?"

"They would both have been killed. To ensure utter secrecy, he brought her here to deliver the child. She died in childbirth, the child was stillborn, and he buried them both in a royal langi up there somewhere. No one ever knew if the whispers had been true."

"Whispers about the incest?"

"And that maybe the baby might not have been born dead. Even that he killed them both."

"Oh, so. And now she’s a ghost?" I said.

Simi nodded sagely. "It’s said that she walks the cliff tops carrying her dead baby. Many have seen her."

"Do you believe it, Simi?"

"I think I do believe this one. It was just another old legend until many years later, when she was seen again by some men fishing. They made the sign of the cross at her and hurried away, but later they talked some other men into going back with them. Sure enough, they saw her too - a woman leaping about on the cliffs like a goat, carrying a child. When she saw them she disappeared into the brush. She was seen several more times over the next few years, and again later by some Niuans who had never even heard the legend of the Fefine of Kao."

"That’s quite a story," I said. "Did anyone ever land to try to find her?"

"You don’t know the interior of this island. It was clear she didn’t want to be approached. If someone doesn’t want to be found, Kao is the perfect place."

I looked up at the dense jungle draped over the edge of the cliffs.

"Was she ever seen again?"

Simi shook his head. "Not that I ever heard. There were some that thought she was gone forever, that she had found rest."

"Why?"

"Well, before she had always tried to hide when she was spotted. But the Niuans said she was just standing there at the edge, looking sadly down at them. She looked like a real princess of the old days, they said - tall and proud, with long hair that blew around her, wearing a dress of sewn ti leaves like they used to wear. But she didn’t have the baby any more. The old women said that her ghost had at last accepted the baby’s death, and that she would soon follow it to Pulotu."

"When did all this happen?" said Cribb, and I noticed a hardness in his voice. I looked over at him. His face was working under some great emotion.

Simi looked at him in surprise. "I don’t know. Maybe two hundred years ago."

"Not the legend. I mean the woman on the cliffs. When was she last seen?"

"Not that long ago - I talked to one of the men who saw her myself. Twelve, maybe fifteen years ago, I’d say."

"Where was that?"

"On the other side of the island, near the little cove I told you about."

"I want to go there."

Simi glanced over at me. "There’s no anchorage, and it’s a difficult landing."

Cribb turned to me. "Captain, this schooner is still under my charter, is it not?"

"It is."

"Then I wish to go ashore at this other cove."

I considered for a few minutes. I didn’t think much of the idea - I’d seen quite enough of Kao already, and I didn’t want to risk being marooned again. To tell the truth, I wasn’t altogether happy having those twice-wrecked pearls aboard at all. I determined to stand firm. "I won’t leave Melia with only one man aboard again."

"I can take the boat ashore myself."

I didn’t like the idea, but I could think of no good objection. I shrugged.

"All right. We’ll go around first thing in the morning."

"Thank you, Captain." He turned without a word and went aft. Simi looked at me in puzzlement and I could only shrug. I didn’t feel I could tell him what Cribb had told me on shore.

We slept on deck that night. The complete absence of wind made it stifling below decks, and I didn’t trust the anchor in case it blew up. The night passed calmly, however, and we were up at dawn. Simi fixed us breakfast, then we upped sails and hook and slipped slowly from the cove, trailing the boat astern.

The wind was very light, and it was more than an hour before we rounded the southeast point of the island and turned north. Kao was even more forbidding on this side, with the big trade swells crashing on the mossy cliffs.

From this angle there was no sign of an opening anywhere along the eastern side. But Simi insisted it was there. We made short tacks, staying close to shore in light and unsteady airs. We had nearly reached the northern end when Simi pointed.

"Ko ia! ‘I hena."

"In where?"

"See that reddish ridge? Just to the right."

"You call that a cove? That’s a crack!"

"There’s sand just behind the fold of the ridge."

We were soon at the indicated spot. The opening was invisible from a cable’s distance, but as we passed the little promontory we looked back and caught a glimpse of yellow sand in the shadows.

"Helm alee!" I called. "We’re coming up into the wind. Mr. Cribb, I will pick you up at sunset tonight."

Cribb climbed down into the boat and cast off without a word. Simi and I got her under way on the port tack. When I looked back there was no sign of the boat.

We spent the day beating out toward Mounga’one then had a glorious run back down to Kao. We arrived back at the cove just before sunset. Cribb was not to be seen. We stood off and on, waiting for him to appear. As dusk fell Simi sounded the conch. The mournful blast echoed from the cliffs, but there was no reply. We shouted for him until dark, then stood offshore until dawn. I was cursing Cribb for a fool all night. And myself.

In the morning we brought up just outside the cove and again called for him. The day was very fine, with only the lightest breeze and the sea nearly calm. The morning wore on, and my irritation increased.

"Damn his eyes, where is the idiot?" I ranted. "And where’s my boat?" Finally in mid afternoon I’d had enough. I stripped off my shirt.

"Simi, keep her off and on until I get back. I’m going to see what’s what."

"Okay, boss. Keep an eye on the sharks."

I slipped over the side and swam into the cove. When I rounded the little promontory I could see the boat hauled up high on the beach. I bodysurfed onto the beach and walked up to it. There was no sign of Cribb. I shouted for him a few times, but without a reply.

What was I to do? I couldn’t just leave him. I resolved to climb up as far as the top of the cliff. If he wasn’t there, there was no point in trying to search the whole island. I’d have to leave him. Perhaps the authorities in Pangai would send out a search party.

Muttering very unkind things about Cribb, I scrambled over the rocks toward the little stream at the head of the cove. It tumbled down a narrow ravine choked with ferns and creepers, and it was not a pleasant climb in that heat. I was covered in mud and insect bites and in a foul mood by the time I pulled myself out of the gully.

I lay panting in the long grass and nerved myself to step out to the edge of the precipice. When I did, the Melia looked like a toy boat below me. I shouted to Simi and he looked up and waved.

Where the devil was Cribb? Looking around, I saw a very faint and overgrown trail leading up into the trees. Grumbling, I stumped off up the trail.

I had gone no more than a hundred yards when I came into a small clearing. Obviously someone had lived here a long time ago. A dilapidated lean-to of yellowed palm fronds slumped against the bole of a large koa tree, and a pit nearby marked an old ‘umu earth oven. A pile of shells gave evidence of many meals eaten there.

The sound of falling water caught my attention. The stream tumbled along one side of the clearing, falling over a boulder and dropping into a small pool. It was a lovely spot, and I walked over to quench my thirst. I knelt beside the pool and drank deeply. Suddenly I stopped and stared into the shadows on the other side. There among the brambles was a grave. I sprang across the stream and knelt beside it.

It was a Tongan grave - a rectangular mound of white sand outlined in standing stones. The mound was pitifully small, and on top of it a little cross of sticks bound with strands of long black hair was thrust into the sand. I could see where the cross had been lying in the sand for a long time. Someone had recently set it back up.

I sat beside the grave and pondered that little cross for a long time. Finally I knew it was time to start back. I stood up to shout for him one last time, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to disturb the silence. I turned to begin the long climb down.