The Trembling of a Leaf: Little Stories of the South Sea IslandsMaugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset)
General
The Trembling of a Leaf: Little Stories of the South Sea Islands
Maugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset)
Oceania -- Fiction
"What'll you do if I say you can't take those things? They're the
captain's."
"They're no use to you," she said.
There was a calabash hanging on the wall. It was the very calabash I had
seen when I came into the cabin and which we had talked about. She took
it down. It was all dusty, so she poured water into it from the
water-bottle, and rinsed it with her fingers.
"What are you doing with that?"
"I can sell it for fifty dollars," she said.
"If you want to take it you'll have to pay me."
"What d'you want?"
"You know what I want."
She allowed a fleeting smile to play on her lips. She flashed a quick
look at him and quickly turned away. He gave a gasp of desire. She
raised her shoulders in a little shrug. With a savage bound he sprang
upon her and seized her in his arms. Then she laughed. She put her arms,
her soft, round arms, about his neck, and surrendered herself to him
voluptuously.
When the morning came she roused him out of a deep sleep. The early rays
of the sun slanted into the cabin. He pressed her to his heart. Then he
told her that the captain could not last more than a day or two, and the
owner wouldn't so easily find another white man to command the ship. If
Bananas offered to take less money he would get the job and the girl
could stay with him. He looked at her with love-sick eyes. She nestled
up against him. She kissed his lips, in the foreign way, in the way the
captain had taught her to kiss. And she promised to stay. Bananas was
drunk with happiness.
It was now or never.
She got up and went to the table to arrange her hair. There was no
mirror and she looked into the calabash, seeking for her reflection. She
tidied her beautiful hair. Then she beckoned to Bananas to come to her.
She pointed to the calabash.
"There's something in the bottom of it," she said.
Instinctively, without suspecting anything, Bananas looked full into the
water. His face was reflected in it. In a flash she beat upon it
violently, with both her hands, so that they pounded on the bottom and
the water splashed up. The reflection was broken in pieces. Bananas
started back with a sudden hoarse cry and he looked at the girl. She was
standing there with a look of triumphant hatred on her face. A horror
came into his eyes. His heavy features were twisted in agony, and with
a thud, as though he had taken a violent poison, he crumpled up on to
the ground. A great shudder passed through his body and he was still.
She leaned over him callously. She put her hand on his heart and then
she pulled down his lower eye-lid. He was quite dead.
She went into the cabin in which lay Captain Butler. There was a faint
colour in his cheeks and he looked at her in a startled way.
"What's happened?" he whispered.
They were the first words he had spoken for forty-eight hours.
"Nothing's happened," she said.
"I feel all funny."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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