“You will find the Samoan boy honest and even hardworking,” Hines told us when he called on the cottage on the second day. “Though, like all the natives, he can behave like a child, and may decide one day he is done with his labor for you, and move away to the opposite side of the island without remembering to collect wages!”
I had tried to ask Davenport why he would have accepted an arrangement with such a loathsome man as Hines. I was certain he gave us as remote a location as possible to spite me. But the bookaneer had become all but silent—discourteous, even—since we’d reached the harbor, and made it perfectly clear he was not about to give me any explanation, at least not a meaningful one.
Our morning ritual began the day after our arrival. We took our horses out along a narrow stream until reaching a group of trees heavy with bananas and coconuts. Occasionally we could spot a Samoan boy or two in the distance across the stream, sometimes tending a herd of a few dozen cows. The boys, like our own man Cipaou, seemed strong and agile and wore colorful kilts, called lavalavas, made of island bamboo and whatever other materials they had learned to obtain from tree bark. Davenport would indicate to Cipaou what he wanted, at which point Cipaou would pull himself up on the tree with terrific strength and use a large blade to slash down the selected fruit. We would then store these in our baskets.
On the fourth morning, I woke with a momentary confusion about where I was. Sleeping on a pile of soft mats on the floor, in the style of the natives, did not help my patience, nor did Samoa’s stifling humidity. I stumbled across the room and opened the door because leaving it open every few hours was the best way to give the cockroaches, spiders, and death’s-head moths egress, since they found ways inside regardless. Davenport was lying facedown on the floor on two of the other mats, which served not only as our beds but also as our dining surface, our writing desks, and, well, the entirety of our furniture.
“Davenport,” I called softly, tapping his shoulder.
I had to nudge him twice more before he lifted his head. “The boy is here?”
“Not yet. I wanted to talk before Cipaou arrives.”
He pushed himself up on his elbows and worked against a tiger’s yawn. “Talk then, Fergins.”
I was interrupted by Cipaou’s whistle, announcing that he was waiting on our verandah. A half hour earlier than the day before, but then again, the natives did not have watches or clocks. Whites often return to Europe or America from Samoa and say the natives do not know how to work. This is not so. They do their work, and well. They merely do not work on a schedule and see no reason to.
“Ready the horses, if you will,” Davenport called out to the servant, who knew a little English. “What is it you wanted to say, Fergins?”
“I was only thinking. We have bananas to feed the whole British consulate of Samoa, Davenport. Yet we hardly stray from our strip of land and have only been in the village of Apia twice since our arrival, without making any inquiries either time about Stevenson or learning anything about anything. Perhaps if you send me on an errand to the village today, I can see what I can gather.”
“Maybe you believe I have contracted island fever.”
I changed my approach. “Davenport, you were the one who wished me to observe this mission with great attention, in order to record your methods. Right?”
He would admit nothing of the kind, but did give me a more satisfying reply. “If we seek out Stevenson and he learns we did, then he is far more likely to scrutinize us and our purpose. A white man secluded in a land like this must keep a suspicious and careful outlook to protect himself—an island on an island, as Hines described Stevenson. That is why we must have him find us instead of the other way.”
“But how would he find us? Why would he bother? We have hardly seen another human being since our arrival, besides our dear Cipaou, have barely talked to those we have seen, and this blasted cottage Hines stuck us in is nowhere near Stevenson’s house.”
He acknowledged my facts to be true and, raising his puckish eyes, seemed about to say more when Cipaou whistled again. “Wait a minute while I dress,” he said to me, “then I will finish explaining myself.” But he never did finish; whether forgetting or never intending to, I could not say. We spent the afternoon strolling the clearings of the forest, slicing coconuts and storing the milk before helping Cipaou prepare a fire for dinner, which would consist of pink crayfish caught from our stream. That was the closest thing we had to meat. I nearly choked to death trying to get it down. I was too exhausted at the end of the day to make any further complaint.
The next morning we were in the same fields when there was a distant sound, the sound of galloping. Having isolated ourselves, and having passed the time by listening to Cipaou’s stories of thieves, evil ghosts, and runaway cannibals populating the island, the very idea of other beings now caused me alarm. Even Cipaou seemed to have his ears pinned back.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Peace, Fergins,” Davenport said, then: “Cipaou, good fellow, do not worry, all is well. Continue without us, if you please; we will catch up soon.” Cipaou reluctantly left us alone. Davenport now turned to me and said, “I expected three or four horses, and from the sound of it, there are only two.”
“You expected?”
He gave a brief grin.