Chapter 22

What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands

The vessel was the Parki, of Lahina, a village and harbor on the
coast of Mowee, one of the Hawaian isles, where she had been
miserably cobbled together with planks of native wood, and fragments
of a wreck, there drifted ashore.

Her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the
tallest and goodliest looking gentleman in all the Sandwich Islands.
With a mixed European and native crew, about thirty in number (but
only four whites in all, captain included), the Parki, some four
months previous, had sailed from her port on a voyage southward, in
quest of pearls, and pearl oyster shells, sea-slugs, and other
matters of that sort.

Samoa, a native of the Navigator Islands, had long followed the sea,
and was well versed in the business of oyster diving and its
submarine mysteries. The native Lahineese on board were immediately
subordinate to him; the captain having bargained with Samoa for their
services as divers.

The woman, Annatoo, was a native of a far-off, anonymous island to
the westward: whence, when quite young, she had been carried by the
commander of a ship, touching there on a passage from Macao to
Valparaiso. At Valparaiso her protector put her ashore; most
probably, as I afterward had reason to think, for a nuisance.

By chance it came to pass that when Annatoo's first virgin bloom had
departed, leaving nothing but a lusty frame and a lustier soul,
Samoa, the Navigator, had fallen desperately in love with her. And
thinking the lady to his mind, being brave like himself, and
doubtless well adapted to the vicissitudes of matrimony at sea, he
meditated suicide--I would have said, wedlock--and the twain became
one. And some time after, in capacity of wife, Annatoo the dame,
accompanied in the brigantine, Samoa her lord. Now, as Antony flew to
the refuse embraces of Caesar, so Samoa solaced himself in the arms
of this discarded fair one. And the sequel was the same. For not
harder the life Cleopatra led my fine frank friend, poor Mark, than
Queen Annatoo did lead this captive of her bow and her spear. But all
in good time.

They left their port; and crossing the Tropic and the Line, fell in
with a cluster of islands, where the shells they sought were found in
round numbers. And here--not at all strange to tell besides the
natives, they encountered a couple of Cholos, or half-breed
Spaniards, from the Main; one half Spanish, the other half quartered
between the wild Indian and the devil; a race, that from Baldivia to
Panama are notorious for their unscrupulous villainy.

Now, the half-breeds having long since deserted a ship at these
islands, had risen to high authority among the natives. This