WILD JUSTICE
WILD JUSTICE
STORIES OF THE SOUTH SEAS
BY
LLOYD OSBOURNE
AUTHOR OF "BABY BULLET"
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: MCMXXI
Copyright, 1906, 1921, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
Deep in every heart there seems to be a longing for a more primitiveexistence; and though in practice it is often an illusion, the SouthSeas lend themselves better to such dreams than any other part of theworld. There are fewer races more attractive than the Polynesians.Frank, winning, gay and extraordinarily well-mannered, the higher typesare often remarkably good-looking, and scarcely darker than SouthernEuropeans. Some aspects of their life are truly poetic. Half naked, withflowers in their hair, and just sufficient work to keep them in superbphysical condition, they have an almost unlimited leisure to share withthe wayfarer in their midst. And dirt, that greatest of all humanbarriers, is nonexistent. No people are cleaner; none have so intense apersonal self-respect. One wonders sometimes whether it is not the whiteman who is the savage, and these in some ways his superiors.
I went to the Pacific when I was a boy of twenty, remaining there till Iwas twenty-eight. For two years I sailed in various ships, visiting notonly all the principal groups, but stopping at many a lost littleparadise like Manihiki, Nieue or Gente Hermosa, which lie so lonely andapart that the rare stranger is greeted with open arms. Then, settledin Samoa, I learned the language as only the very young can learn it,[Pg vi]and incidentally had a small part in the civil wars of that period. Iwas brought into intimate contact with many powerful chiefs, and becameso wholly a Samoan that I once barely escaped assassination. I certainlyhave some claim to know South Sea life from the inside—from thenative's side—and this must be my excuse for the present volume.
That my stories should deal so often with the loves of white men andbrown women is inevitable. The white man and the brown girl—that is theoldest story in the South Seas and the newest. The children of the sunare very easy-going; their standards are not our standards; they livefor the moment, and love as lightly. It is often the white man whosuffers, and not the maid with the sparkling eyes and radiant smile. Hemay take regrets away with him; perhaps one of those inner wounds thatnever heal, while she marries a native missionary and lives happily everafterwards. Polynesians always live happily ever afterwards, no mat