Long ago, two sea captains named Edward and Ferdinand were close friends who worked together and often travelled across the sea. They trusted each other and spent many evenings talking about their work, their plans and the lives they hoped to build. Although they were friends, each man had his own ideas about what would make a good marriage.
One evening, while they were eating together, their conversation turned to marriage. Ferdinand asked Edward what kind of woman he would choose if he decided to marry.
Edward thought for a moment before answering.
“If I ever marry,” he said, “I would marry a poor girl.”
Ferdinand laughed at the answer. He could not understand why his friend would deliberately choose a woman without wealth.
“As for me,” Ferdinand replied, “if I marry, I will choose the most beautiful and wealthy woman in the world.”
The two men laughed and eventually ended their conversation. Neither realised that their words would soon become connected to a painful test of marriage, friendship and trust.
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Some time later, Edward travelled to Seychelles. During his stay, he visited the area around Port Glaud. While walking through the countryside, he came across a young woman working with her mother on a cassava plantation.
The girl was poor and simply dressed, but Edward immediately noticed her beauty.
More importantly, he was drawn to her gentle manner.
He approached the girl and her mother and told them that he wished to marry her.
The mother was astonished.
She could hardly believe that a sea captain would want to marry her daughter after meeting her only once. She explained that they were poor and that her daughter had little to offer a wealthy or successful man.
Edward was not concerned.
He had already made his decision.
He wanted the girl because of who she was, not because of what her family possessed.
Eventually, her mother agreed.
Edward took the young woman into town so that she could have proper clothes for the marriage. He bought clothing for her and her mother, along with everything needed for the wedding. A month later, the two were married.
For a while, they lived happily together.
Edward was deeply attached to his new wife. But his work required him to return to sea.
Before leaving, he promised his wife that he would return for her after three months.
He also gave her a special locket.
The locket contained a heart bearing his name.
“Keep this carefully,” he told her. “It is a reminder of me while I am away.”
His wife treasured it.
The next day, Edward left Seychelles and returned to his work.
When he arrived, Ferdinand noticed that something had changed. Edward seemed quieter than usual.
Ferdinand asked him what had happened.
Edward told him about his journey to Seychelles and his marriage to a beautiful but poor young woman.
Ferdinand remembered their conversation from months earlier.
His friend had kept his promise.
But instead of being happy for Edward, jealousy began growing inside him.
He had heard that Edward had found a beautiful wife, and he wanted to see her for himself.
The next day, Ferdinand travelled to Seychelles.
After arriving, he asked around until he discovered where Edward’s wife lived.
He then paid a man thirty rupees to steal something valuable from the woman’s home.
At the time, thirty rupees was a considerable amount of money, so the man readily accepted.
He watched the house and waited for an opportunity.
Eventually, Edward’s wife went to bathe. Before entering the bathroom, she removed the locket Edward had given her and placed it nearby.
The thief climbed over the wall, took the locket and escaped.
When the young woman returned, the locket was gone.
She searched everywhere.
She became frightened because she knew how important it was to her husband.
She worried that Edward would become angry when he discovered that the locket had disappeared.
But she had no idea that someone had deliberately stolen it.
The thief took the locket to Ferdinand.
Ferdinand wrapped it carefully and smiled.
He believed he now possessed the perfect weapon.
When he returned to Edward, the two captains sat together as they usually did.
Ferdinand casually asked Edward about his wife.
Edward spoke proudly.
“My wife is one of the most faithful women in the world,” he said. “I am completely certain that she would never betray me.”
Ferdinand waited for the perfect moment.
Then he produced the locket.
“Do you recognise this?”
Edward immediately recognised it.
His expression changed.
“That is my locket. Where did you get it?”
Ferdinand looked at him and delivered the lie he had carefully prepared.
“Your faithful wife gave it to me.”
Edward was devastated.
Instead of questioning how Ferdinand had obtained the locket, he allowed suspicion to take control of him.
He returned to Seychelles.
When he arrived, he behaved calmly in front of his wife’s mother. He told her that he had decided to take his wife back with him earlier than planned because he could not bear to remain separated from her.
The young woman was happy to see her husband, although she was worried about the missing locket.
She wanted to tell him what had happened.
But fear stopped her.
She remembered how important the locket was to him and feared that he would become angry.
She therefore remained silent.
Edward and his wife said goodbye to her mother and left by speedboat.
For a while, everything seemed normal.
Then, far from the shore, Edward ordered his wife to put on her wedding dress.
She was confused.
“Why should I put on my wedding dress now?” she asked.
Edward repeated the order.
She obeyed.
Then he told her to climb into a small floating raft attached to the boat.
The young woman became frightened.
She asked why he wanted her to leave the boat.
Edward refused to answer.
When she resisted, he forced her into the raft and cut the rope.
The small raft drifted away.
The young woman cried and begged him to stop.
But Edward continued his journey without looking back.
Alone in the middle of the sea, the young woman faced a terrible struggle.
At night, she suffered from the cold.
She had little food.
She caught flying fish that landed in the raft and ate them.
When rain came, she collected the water to drink.
She eventually removed her wedding dress and put on a sailor’s garment that had been left in the raft.
Days became weeks.
Weeks became months.
Yet she survived.
Eventually, the raft reached another shore.
By chance, two young men were celebrating their birthday near the sea when they noticed it approaching.
They expected to find a boy inside because of the sailor’s clothing.
Instead, they discovered the exhausted young woman.
They took her home.
Their mother welcomed her and considered her a gift sent to her sons.
Because everyone believed that she was a young man, she was given a place to sleep alone.
This allowed her to keep her identity secret.
The two young men worked for Captain Edward.
They eventually helped their new friend obtain work in Edward’s household.
The young woman now found herself close to the husband who had believed her false accuser.
Every day, she saw Edward.
He did not recognise her.
She remained disguised as a young man and quietly observed him.
She still loved him, but she feared revealing herself.
Eventually, she became ill.
The mother of the two young men entered her room and discovered the truth.
She realised that the supposed young man was actually a woman.
The young woman then told her entire story.
The mother was shocked.
She asked whether she wanted to return to Edward.
The young woman said yes, but she was afraid that Edward might kill her if he discovered that she had survived.
The woman promised to help.
She went to Edward and told him that his wife was still alive.
Edward could hardly believe her.
He had spent a long time believing that his wife had died at sea.
When he finally saw her, he was overwhelmed with emotion.
His wife told him everything that had happened.
She explained how the locket had disappeared, how Ferdinand had used it to deceive him and how she had survived alone at sea.
Edward was devastated by what he had done.
He realised that his wife had been innocent all along.
He had trusted his friend more than the woman he had promised to love.
He also understood that Ferdinand’s jealousy had nearly destroyed an innocent life.
Edward decided that Ferdinand had to answer for what he had done.
He arranged a test involving several rows of women.
Ferdinand was ordered to identify Edward’s wife.
He searched the first row.
She was not there.
He searched the second.
Still nothing.
He continued until he reached the final row.
He insisted that Edward’s wife was not among them.
Then Edward stepped forward.
He recognised his wife immediately.
He had finally understood that the woman he had accused had never betrayed him.
Instead, she had survived an ordeal created entirely by jealousy and deception.
Edward confronted Ferdinand and condemned him for destroying the peace of their marriage.
Ferdinand’s plan had failed.
His jealousy had not only endangered Edward’s wife but had also destroyed the friendship between the two captains.
Edward and his wife were reunited, but their experience left them with a lesson they would never forget.
A marriage cannot survive when suspicion is allowed to replace trust.
A friendship cannot survive when jealousy becomes more important than loyalty.
And evidence cannot be called truth simply because it appears convincing.
The locket had been real.
The accusation had been false.
The suffering had been real.
But the supposed betrayal had never happened.
The young woman had remained faithful throughout everything.
She had survived the sea, loneliness and abandonment, and eventually found her way back to the man she loved.
Her story became a reminder that innocence may sometimes be buried beneath lies, but truth has a way of finding its way back to the surface.
The greatest tragedy was not that Edward had been deceived.
It was that he had failed to trust the person who deserved his trust most.
And the greatest lesson was simple:
Before destroying someone’s life because of an accusation, make certain that you have discovered the truth.
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Moral Lesson
Jealousy can destroy friendship and marriage, while false accusations can cause terrible injustice. Trust should be supported by honest communication, careful investigation and fairness.
Knowledge Check
1. What did Edward say about the kind of woman he wanted to marry?
Edward said he would rather marry a poor girl than choose a woman because of her wealth.
2. Why did Edward choose the poor young woman he met in Seychelles?
He was attracted to her beauty and character and did not consider her family’s poverty a reason not to marry her.
3. What did Ferdinand steal from Edward’s wife?
He arranged for a thief to steal the special locket Edward had given his wife. The locket carried Edward’s name.
4. How did Ferdinand use the stolen item to deceive Edward?
Ferdinand showed Edward the locket and falsely claimed that Edward’s wife had given it to him, making Edward believe that she had been unfaithful.
5. How did Edward’s wife survive after she was sent away at sea?
She survived in the small raft by catching flying fish for food and collecting rainwater for drinking. She eventually reached another shore.
6. What finally proved that Edward’s wife had never betrayed him?
Her survival allowed her to reveal what had actually happened. She explained how the locket had been stolen and how Ferdinand had used it to create a false accusation. Ferdinand’s deception was eventually exposed, proving that she had been innocent.
Source
Adapted from “Laenn antre de Kaptenn” (The Enmity Between Two Sea Captains), a Seychellois Creole folktale attributed to Paul Pool of Mont Buxton and preserved through the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) Radio archive.
