The White Witch of the South Seas Read online

  ‘Forty per cent.’

  Gregory gave a sudden smile. ‘In the event of success, the other sixty per cent might make you a very rich man.’

  The Ratu shook his head. ‘It is not for myself that I wish to do this, but for my people. For many centuries they lived happily, the produce of our islands supplying their simple wants. But that is so no longer. As is the case in many Pacific islands, we are being swamped by immigrants from India. The Hindus are clever and industrious. Already they have bought up much of my people’s agricultural land. This has led to the dispossessed then being exploited by the Indians, and having to work for a pittance which buys them barely enough food to live. Still worse, soon they will outnumber the islanders and by their majority vote have laws passed that will turn us into an underprivileged minority.’

  ‘Indeed! That really is a bad business. It is quite shocking that an immigrant race should become the masters. Surely the French Government will give your people some form of protection?’

  ‘No. I have pleaded with them to give us a new Constitution, similar to that which the British are about to institute in Fiji, but they have remained deaf to my appeals.’

  ‘What sort of Constitution are the British giving the Fijians?’

  ‘They have been faced with the same problem as my people. The Indians there already outnumber the natives. But in future, however the population may vary, the Indians and the Fijians will have the same number of representatives in the Assembly. In addition, half a dozen or so representatives are to be elected by the British and members of other races living in the islands, and that small block will hold the balance of power; so, however much the numbers of the Fijian natives decline, their rights will always be protected.’

  Gregory nodded. ‘That seems very sound. But, tell me: should you succeed in raising a fortune from the galleon, how would that enable you to prevent the Indians from exploiting your people?’

  ‘I would use the money to modernise our native industries,’ Ratu James replied eagerly. ‘There are good markets in Australia, New Zealand and America for many of our products. But at present most of them are still made by hand. Given money, I could buy machinery which would greatly increase the quantity that could be turned out. That would lead to a greater demand for raw materials and so provide employment at a fair wage for natives who would otherwise be exploited by the Indians. I would also like to build a fruit-canning factory and a refrigeration plant for the export of prawns and other shellfish with which our coasts abound.’

  Regarding the handsome young man with admiration, Gregory said, ‘I think your ideas laudable and your plans for carrying them out excellent—if only that treasure can be raised. Perhaps you would care to tell me now about the man you have come to Rio to see, in the hope that he will finance you.’

  ‘Why not? He is Valentim Mauá de Carvalho. His second name comes from his mother—a descendant of the great industrialist and associate of the Rothschilds, who flourished in Dom Pedro II’s reign. The Emperor made him a Viscount and the whole family is still extremely rich. Senhor Valentim owns many properties and he likes the South Seas, so he keeps a fine yacht at Fiji in Suva harbour. From time to time he cruises among the islands. A few months ago he visited the Nakapoa Group and I entertained him and his wife in Revika, the capital of Tujoa, our largest island.’ Ratu James paused to raise his eyes and give a sigh. ‘The Senhora de Carvalho is a most lovely girl—or perhaps I should say woman although she is not much older than myself.’

  Much amused, Gregory asked, ‘And how old are you?’

  ‘I am twenty-three. But to continue. Some weeks ago, this idea came to me of helping my people by salvaging the gold. I searched my mind for a means to raise capital, but could not think of one. Then the wealth of de Carvalho recurred to me and I wrote to him. He replied that I should come to Rio, and we would discuss the matter. I came. He was greatly interested, and we have had several talks. The last was three days before the beginning of the flood. He said then that those of his financial associates whom he had approached had not proved enthusiastic, but he would think the matter over. He was shortly leaving Rio on a business trip to Guatemala, but he will be back at his country estate, up at Vassouras, by now. He and his charming wife live there for most of the hot season and he invited me to spend Saturday night up there with them. By then, he said, he would be able to give me a definite answer.’

  ‘I see,’ said Gregory thoughtfully. ‘Then, if his pals are reluctant to come in with him, he might welcome the idea of taking me as a partner.’

  The young Ratu leaned forward eagerly. ‘Exactly. The thought came to me immediately you said that you might be prepared to put up some of the money. Your offer might even make the difference between his turning me down or agreeing to back me. You see, he was very keen to start with, and has only become doubtful because others have poured cold water on the idea.’

  ‘How far from Rio is Vassouras?’

  ‘About sixty miles, I think.’

  ‘One could drive that distance in two or three hours, so it might be an idea if I hired a car and went up with you. I’m not suggesting foisting myself on the de Carvalhos for the night. I would drive back the same day. But I’d like to meet de Carvalho and my personal word that I was prepared to help finance you would carry more weight than your just telling him that you had found someone willing to do that. What do you think?’

  ‘It is an excellent idea. At the height of the flood, most of the telephone lines were out of action, but by now many of them will have been repaired. I will try to get through to him this evening and ask if I may bring you with me.’

  When they parted, Gregory felt that he had received a real tonic from the youthful enthusiasm of his young guest, and James was filled with admiration for the knowledge and savoir faire of his much-travelled host. This mutual attraction led to their taking leave of each other as though they were old friends.

  That evening James rang up to say that he had succeeded in getting through to de Carvalho and that the financier would be pleased for Gregory also to spend the Saturday night at his fazenda. Gregory then insisted that he should hire the car to take them, and it was agreed that they should set off from the Copacabana Palace at nine o’clock on the Saturday morning.

  The call had come through while Gregory was dining with Manon in the restaurant. When he returned to their table he told her only that on Saturday he was going up-country on a business matter, so would be away that night and most of Sunday.

  At that she pouted. But, with a laugh, he reminded her that she had lunched with friends and for the next few days had accepted several other invitations. Swiftly she decided that she would be wise to reverse her policy and remain with him as much as possible, so minimising the risk of his becoming interested in anyone else.

  The Wellesleys had rung Gregory up several times to enquire about his injured ankle and, now that the floods had subsided, they were to lunch with him the following day. Manon made a fourth, and once more they enjoyed the brilliant sunshine on the terrace round the swimming pool, making a jolly party.

  During the meal Hugo said that he had failed to trace Gregory’s rescuer, to which Gregory replied, ‘Please don’t bother further.’ But when the girls left them to powder their noses he told Hugo briefly about the Ratu James and the project of salvaging the gold from the Spanish galleon. Then he went on:

  ‘Do you happen to know this chap Mauá de Carvalho, or anything about him?’

  ‘I’ve met him at functions a few times,’ the Colonel answered, ‘but that is all. It is quite true that he is very rich and dabbles in all sorts of ventures. But I suggest that if you do go into partnership with him you should employ the Embassy lawyer to draw up the contract. The Brazilians are most likeable people, and the great majority of the businessmen I know are entirely honest. But, as in every other country, some of the big financiers here pull a fast one at times, and in a speculation to retrieve sunken treasure you can’t be too careful.’


  ‘Thanks; I’ll certainly do that.’ As Gregory spoke, the two girls emerged from the hotel and Hugo remarked with a smile, ‘You seem to be making the running very well with our little French friend.’

  Gregory laughed. ‘You’ve said it, chum. It’s a pity her complexion is so sallow and that her chin is inclined to recede. But she is devilish chic, highly intelligent and great fun.’

  In the afternoon the Wellesleys took Gregory and Manon for a drive through the lovely jungle forests outside Rio. The leaves of the colossal tropical trees displayed a great variety of shape and colour, and giant butterflies—bright blue, red, orange and yellow—flitted about the roads along which they drove.

  The following day, although Gregory was still using a crutch, his ankle was mending so well that, as a change from the luxury of the Copacabana, he took Manon to lunch at a typical Brazilian middle-class restaurant called the Churrasaria Gaucha. From a passage, having a narrow cactus garden on one side, they entered an area two-thirds of which was shaded from the sky only by awnings. In the centre there was a round thatched grill, and all the way down one side a food counter at which people perched on high stools were helping themselves from a great variety of dishes. But there were also scores of tables, some seating as many as twenty people. These tables being occupied entirely by men, one or other of whom was constantly on his feet addressing the others, were evidently used for club lunches. At another big table beyond the grill a wedding breakfast was in progress; frequent toasts were being drunk there, followed by much cheering. The babel of sound was such that one could hardly hear oneself speak and the place was so packed with people of all shades of colour that Gregory and Manon had to share a table with two enormously fat, colourfully-garbed Negro women.

  As they could neither read the menu nor find a waiter who could interpret it for them, they had to take pot luck. When the dishes they had chosen arrived they proved so highly spiced that they only toyed with them, and made up on fruit and ices. The quality of the wine, as is nearly always the case with those produced in Brazil, was negligible; but so also was the bill.

  Manon did not attempt to hide the fact that she found the atmosphere of the place far from congenial, but Gregory only laughed at her. The motley throng of poor, but laughing, noisy, cheerful people, the men nearly all in shirt-sleeves, represented, he felt, the real Brazil, and it pleased him to see them enjoying themselves.

  Later in the afternoon they drove right through the city to visit the National Museum, formerly the Royal Palace, which stood in the centre of a very fine park. Gregory had hoped to see a fine collection of the gorgeous featherwork cloaks once made by the Brazilian Indians, but there were few exhibits and those were disappointing. He had also expected to see cases filled with shrunken human heads, but could find none. When he asked one of the curators about this, the official told him that the heads had been withdrawn from public exhibition, but he kindly offered to take them to the gallery in which they were stored.

  There he produced from a drawer a dozen or more of these gruesome relics. Certain tribes of Indians, believing that to retain the heads of enemies they had killed gave them special powers, had developed the practice of boning these and shrinking them by filling the resulting cavity of flesh with hot sand. This reduced the size of the heads, some of which still had remnants of hair and beards, to the size of very small coconuts. The extraordinary thing was that the shape of the noses, lips and other features had been retained, so that people who had known them in life could have recognised them.

  On Saturday, Gregory and James duly set off for Vassouras. At first the way wound up through jungle-clad slopes. Before they had gone far they feared they might never reach their destination, for every few miles there had been a landslide and the road was partially blocked; but the Brazilian Government was dealing with the situation most efficiently. Wherever a landslide had occurred there were bulldozers and gangs of men shovelling hundreds of tons of yellow earth off the road and down the slope opposite that from which it had fallen. At these places there was one-way traffic and the car had to crawl or skid through half a mile or more of greasy mud, but their driver was a good man. He also spoke enough English to point out to them places of interest along the way.

  About twenty miles out of Rio they had climbed high enough to leave the jungle behind and entered an area of lofty, wooded slopes running down to broad lakes, so that in places the road formed a causeway between hundreds of acres of still water. On leaving this delightfully picturesque district they came to a town, to get through which they had to make a considerable detour, in order to reach a bridge that spanned a wide river. The river was still a torrent, the yellow waters lapping the fairway of the bridge, and all the houses along the low river-front were still half submerged by the flood.

  They had done about two-thirds of their journey when their driver pointed out a house just visible through the trees on a hill-top to the right of the road, and said, ‘The fazenda of Dom Pedro Enrique.’

  ‘He is the Pretender to the throne, is he not?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘Yes; he and his cousin, who live in Petropolis, are Pretenders equally,’ the man replied. ‘Both very popular.’

  ‘It speaks well for the broadmindedness of a Republican Government to allow Pretenders to reside in their own country,’ Gregory remarked.

  Ratu James took up the subject. ‘The Brazilians are most tolerant people. Their Government even goes so far as to pay respect to the two Pretenders. At every State function they are invited to be present.’ After a moment he asked, ‘Do you know much of the history of Brazil?’

  ‘Not much,’ Gregory admitted. ‘Only that in the early days both the French and Dutch endeavoured to oust the Portuguese, but failed. Then for some two hundred years it became a neglected colony ruled from Lisbon. If I remember, it was the Napoleonic wars which led to the Braganza monarchs taking refuge here.’

  ‘That’s right.’ James nodded his head, crowned with the enormous halo of soft, black hair. ‘It was the British who pushed Dom Joao, the Prince Regent who was then ruling Portugal in the name of the mad Queen Maria I, into coming here instead of remaining on and becoming a puppet of the French when they invaded his country in 1807.

  ‘As a result of the French Revolution, there had, some years before, been a movement here to break away from Portugal and achieve independence. The revolutionaries were known as the Minas group. They were intellectuals and several of them were poets of some distinction. Their leader was a Lieutenant named Joaquim José da Silva Xavier; but occasionally he practised dentistry, so he was given the nickname of “The Toothpuller”. The conspiracy was discovered and he was hanged and quartered, but the Brazilians still honour him as a great patriot and “Toothpuller Day” is celebrated as a national holiday.

  ‘The arrival of Dom Joao and his court set Brazilian independence back for thirty-three years, and even after that the country remained a monarchy for a further thirty-four. But perhaps I am boring you with all this?’

  ‘No, no,’ replied Gregory. “Please go on.’

  ‘Well then, squeezed into some forty vessels, fifteen thousand Portuguese nobles and their servants set out as refugees. After fifty-two ghastly days they landed in Brazil and made their way to Rio. Naturally, they hated the primitive conditions they found here, but gradually they settled down and with excellent results for Brazil. Formerly no trade had been allowed with any nation except Portugal. Dom Joao opened the ports to all nations. He established a printing press, started the iron and textile industries and encouraged the arts and sciences.

  ‘In due course, the mad Queen died. Dom Joao became King. Napoleon had been defeated and by 1820 it became clear that if Portugal was to be prevented from becoming a Republic, Dom Joao must return and occupy his throne. But he left his heir apparent, Dom Pedro, in Brazil. Unfortunately, the Prince had been badly brought up. He was a kind-hearted young man and wanted to be a good ruler, but he was unstable, dissipated and a neurotic.

  ‘Not lon
g after Dom Joao had returned to Lisbon his Government began to restore the old restrictions on Brazilian commerce and advancement. Then a despatch arrived, ordering Dom Pedro to come to Europe to complete his education. He received the despatch on the bank of the Ipiranza river. Having read it, he rebelled, drew his sabre and cried, “Independence or Death!” This became known as the Grito, or “Cry of Ipiranza”, and led, in this strange way, to Brazil becoming independent of her mother country.

  ‘Dom Pedro was proclaimed Emperor, but he reigned for only nine years. On his father’s death, he became the titular King of Portugal. Being averse to leaving Brazil, he ceded the crown to his daughter, Maria da Gloria; but his younger brother, Miguel, contested his right to do so and civil war broke out. Pedro sailed for Europe to champion his daughter’s cause, leaving behind, as Regent of Brazil, a son of only five years, who became Pedro II.’

  ‘He became a most unusual monarch, didn’t he?’ Gregory put in.

  ‘He did indeed. Physically, he was imposing.’ Ratu James paused to smile. ‘He was six foot four, nearly as tall as myself. But mentally, for Royalty, he was outstanding—far in advance of his times and capable of speaking many languages. He held liberal views and gave his people a generous Constitution. After thirty years of rule he felt free to travel. Leaving his heir apparent, the Princess Isobel, as Regent, he went incognito as Dom Pedro da Alcantara to Europe, the United States, Egypt and the Holy Land, mixing with their people as a modern Haroun el Raschid. But, of course, wherever he went his real identity was known. He sought out and talked with every great literary celebrity of his time, visited synagogues and held learned discussions in Hebrew with their Rabbis. Everywhere he was admired and respected for his good humour, boundless energy and as the most learned monarch of his day.

  ‘Back in Brazil, with the aid of Mauá, he established banks, started railways and encouraged the investment of foreign capital; but his one failing was that, although he had given Brazil a Constitution, he continued to rule as virtually an autocratic monarch.