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Walter E. Traprock - The Cruise of the Kawa
After several days of idyllic life in our mountain paradise we felt the returning urge of our various
ambitions.
"Kippy, my dear," I said, "I think we ought to be going."
Sweet soul that she was! that they all were, these beautiful women of ours! Anything we proposed was
agreeable to them. As we trooped down the mountain singing, our merry chorus shook the forest glades
and literally brought down the cocoanuts.
Whinney was not alone in his scientific discoveries for on the return trip Babai suddenly gave a cry of
delight and the next instant had climbed with amazing agility to the top of a towering palm whence she
returned bearing a semi-spheric bowl of closely woven grass in which lay four snow-white, polka-dotted
cubes, the marvelous square eggs of the fatu-liva!
"Kopaa kopitaa aue!" she cried. "Hide them. Quickly, away!"
I knew the danger, of which my temple still bore the scar. Concealing our find under our taa-taa
we scraped and slid over the faulted and tilted strata to which Whinney had referred until we reached the
beach. High above us I could hear the anguished cry of the mother fatu-liva vainly seeking her
ravished home and potential family.
The marking of the eggs is most curious and Whinney took a photograph of them (see ) when we reached
the yawl. It is an excellent picture though Whinney, with the raptiousness of the scientist, claims that one
of the eggs moved.
Just before we left the mountain beach my own radiant Daughter of Pearl and Coral made a discovery
which in the light of after events was destined to play an important part in our adventures. Kippiputuona,
my own true mate, there is something ironically tragic in the thought that the simple blue flower which
you plucked so carelessly from the cliff edge and thrust into your hair would some day - but again, I
anticipate.
We had reached the yawl, which we made a sort of half-way house and were chatting with Captain
Triplett. Whinney was repeating parts of his talk and I noticed that Triplett's attention was wandering.
His eye was firmly fixed on the flower in Kippy's hair. That called my attention to it and I saw that
whenever my wife turned her head the blossom of the flower slowly turned in the opposite direction.
Suddenly Triplett interrupted Whinney to say in a rather shaky voice, "Mrs. Traprock, if you please,
would you mind facin' a-stern."
I motioned to Kippy to obey, which she would have done anyway.
"An' now," said the Captain, "kindly face forrard."
Same business.
The flower slowly turned on Kippy's head!
Stretching forth a trembling hand, Triplett plucked the blossom from Kippy's hair!
You can only imagine the commotion which ensued when I tell you that, in the Filberts, for a man to
pluck a flower from a woman's hair means only one thing. Poor Kippy was torn between love of me and
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