Wherein I describe the Harem Cave—Oriental Picturesqueness and
Mohammedan Faith in its Bald State
IN this chapter I will take the reader to one of the many beautiful
caverns of natural subterranean architecture that are to be found in the
Marquesan Group, both in the mountain districts and by the shore.
In one of these caverns a certain group of Malay Indians had their
stronghold, where they lured the semi-civilised native girls.
It will be obvious that I can give no more than a meagre account of all
that followed the betrayal of Waylao, and in reference to Pauline’s
acquaintance with Abduh, which I hinted at in the close of the preceding
chapter, I do not wish to do more than paint a picture in chameleon
colours of the incidents connected with her infatuation for the
aforesaid abomination.
Neither do I make these remarks because I have any inward qualms as to
my method of placing the facts of the case before my reader. My doubts
are absolutely nil. I know that a man reigns king over the dominions of
his own book if he dips his pen in his own ink—the molten centre of his
own experiences.
When Waylao reached the Indian’s side she looked into his eyes as though
she would read his soul. But I suppose that the instincts of woman
failed her in the supreme moment and she did not appear to doubt the
veracity of his explanation. I can well imagine that his voice was
musical and sounded divinely truthful. How could she be expected to
doubt so noble, so manly-looking a lover?
Most of us place our confidence in the most unworthy objects. It’s a
pity that faith, which Providence lends us, is not double-sighted in
women—and in men too.
It was at this meeting that the Indian persuaded the girl to go with him
to the cavern.
“Must I go?” she said fearfully.
There was no light of mercy in that masterful gaze, as the girl
hesitated, seeking to fathom the truth with her own poor, blinded eyes.
Her innocent glamour had created that thing that stood before her, clad
in Oriental silken swathings, a coiled turban on its head. It
represented the embodied god of her romantic dreams.
The deceit of that spittoon-like skull triumphed. He led her away into
the shadows, just as the devil in Eden led happy Eve. But he took no
risks—he held her tightly by the wrist, and repeatedly reassured the
girl by tender pressures.
They were off to the Mohammedan mosque, the harem cavern by Temoria. It
will be hard to piece together the scene in that hell of passion, and
describe all that Waylao must have felt as she fell beneath that
Nemesis—the hand of her own idolatry and the power of Islam.
The remorse and the tears and the sorrow which followed she confessed to
Father O’Leary long after. But that is not to be written yet, and
sometimes I wish that I may never tell it.
The memory of that girl’s story and her weeping voice now seems as far
away as the stars which flashed in the vault over the windy tips of
those bread-fruit trees by Tai-o-hae. I could almost tell Waylao’s
thoughts as she crept by that man’s side, on to her fate. I will attempt
to describe all that followed.
“Ta’ala [come], O Hassan Marah, ta’ala!” whispered that Calcutta
cut-throat as he led the girl along the forest track. They had reached
the sea. Between the tree trunks the waves were distinctly visible. It
was a beautiful spot that surrounded that secret temple of Mohammed
worshippers. As Waylao tripped beside the tempter her sandalled feet
brushed the carpet of forest flowers. She was proud of those sandals. I
must admit they looked well, fastened to her feet with red ribbon from
the little Islamic carpet bag.
“Marah [wifey], I take thee to where thou shalt see many wonders; but
remember that I love thee as man never loved maid before. Also, forget
not that thou art now a child of Mohammed. Think not that whatever thou
seest is anything else but what it is!” (I can imagine that he smiled
grimly here at the thought of uttering so great a truth!)
Then he continued: “Remember, O child of beauty, that our humble mosque,
which is but a symbol of the Almighty Prophet’s creed, is the Mecca of
all our happiness; and all that happens therein is symbolical of all
that happens.”
The foregoing is a fair example of Indian Mohammedan lore as dabbled in
by its preachers in the islands.
They had now reached the shore. For miles along the coast by the serried
lines of giant bread-fruits and palms shone the blue lagoons that
reflected reefs of stars.
As though a ghost had crept from the forest to warn Waylao, her shadow
crept in front of her. Abduh’s monstrous silhouette also dodged in front
of him, so grotesque, so hideous that it might well have been the true
index of his mind expressed in his shadow to warn the mad girl. Suddenly
they arrived at the hollow in the volcanic rock. It was the entrance to
the mosque. Once in ages past that great cavern by the sea had been
moulded by Nature’s volcanic passion—and now the children of those wild
lands were lured into those old bowels wherein glowed the passions of a
greater hell. An old-time Chinese opium den, joss-house or fan-tan den
in ’Frisco or George Street, Sydney, was a positive holy citadel
compared with that cavernous hole of debauchery and Mohammedanistic
religion.
Waylao trembled with fright. The Indian, taking no risks, still clutched
her arm like some monstrous spider, as she looked behind her, stared
over her shoulder in fear. Then they entered that hollow doorway and
left the moonlit seas outside. The Indian, still clutching her arm, bent
his turbaned head as he passed beneath the low roof of that subterranean
passage, that harem cave of Mohammedanism in Southern Seas. Did her
heart flutter and all hope die as she entered there? God only knows.
Most likely she would have escaped if the man had not held her.
No sooner had they entered that tunnel-way than she heard the murmur of
singing harem beauties and the mumblings of far-off encores. Sounds of
ribald heathenish _himees_ (Marquesan cannibal songs) came to her
astonished ears, accompanied with faint whiffs of opium and scented gin.
Ah me! Had I and my old shellbacks had the slightest idea or hint of all
that happened in that cavern, methinks there would have been a mighty
rumpus between shellbackism and the Mohammedanistic propaganda one dark
night. Several pious Indians would have been seen floating seaward on
the next tide, with their skulls cracked.
Such an Island Night Entertainment was not to be found in the length and
breadth of the North and South Pacific as that one in the underworld.
Had Robert Louis Stevenson known of such a cavern, what a book we should
have had to-day.
The scene that met Waylao’s eyes as she emerged from that tunnel-way was
like some wildly exaggerated orgy of the heathen days.
I who stood in that hellish hole of past iniquity when the great crash
came which overthrew that inferno can well explain the scene that met
her eyes.
It was a large cavern, the rugged walls glittering with stalactites, a
roof adorned with scintillating festoons mirrored in the silent pool
waters that divided that subterranean temple’s floor.
The pool was left by each tide’s rise, forming a kind of underworld blue
lagoon of exquisite beauty. At the glassy bottom waved fern-like
seaweeds, clinging to beautiful twisting arms of vermilion-hued and
alabaster coral. The water was as clear as the purest crystal. Just
overhead, dangling from the roof, hung glimmering oil lamps that threw
flickering shadows into the far corners of the subterranean chamber. The
mirrored flames in those waters touched the red corals and gave a
blood-red hue which added to the mystery of that wide, rocky hollow. It
seemed that the waters blushed at the scenes they reflected in their
translucent depths, the dusky harem beauties who danced beneath those
hanging lamps.
The turbaned plantation gentry who inhabited those headquarters had
erected a _pae-pae_ at the far end of the chamber, where rose the roof
to the height of about eight feet. It was on this _pae-pae_ (stage) that
the newly converted native girls, or newly wedded brides, sang their
farewells to Christianity and went through those rhythmical swervings
and indescribable postures that so delighted the eyes of their swarthy
Eastern masters.
It was one of these sights that met Waylao’s eyes as she entered that
harem temple. A wedding dance was in full swing. The blue lagoon was
shining like a vast mirror beneath the hanging lamps and faithfully
reflected the shadows of festival dancers. At the far end, by the rocky
walls, where the roof sloped down to barely a man’s height, were several
rough wooden tables. Round these tables sat Indian and Chinese settlers
playing a kind of fan-tan, smoking and drinking with joss-house
liberality.
It will not be libellous to state that several of them were escapees
from Fijian law. On mats close by squatted several Marquesan chiefs who
had entered that holy order. They were a wild crew, and much that
happened in their midst can be better imagined than described. Several
Marquesan maids, dressed in Oriental robes of gauzy design, were on the
platform dancing some kind of can-can. The winds of heaven creeping in
from the moonlit sea outside quite innocently abetted that lascivious
scene; their unseen, shifting fingers touched the swaying girls, threw
the unloosed robes right out from their feet, and then once again let
them cling to the dancing, voluptuous figures.
The handsome faces of the dancers were aglow with pride as their excited
masters shouted: “Kattar rheyrak!”
These girls were the wives of the Malay Indians. There seemed more wives
than husbands knocking about, but that is explained by the fact that the
creed of the Great Mecca Prophet allowed a man four wives to go on with
ere he reached Elysium.
On a dais sat four aged, pock-marked marabouts reading the Koran. Their
long beards pointed ever and anon to the cavern’s roof as some holy
simile came from their lips.
As Waylao gazed with astonishment on the scene, a swarthy old Indian
mongrel, under the influence of liquor, prostrated himself before her.
Abduh gave him a nudge in the ribs with his boot and the old _roué_ at
once ceased pouring forth praises to the virtues of Mohammed’s beard.
“O mine Ayishah, O beautiful Marah, drink!” whispered the alluring voice
of Waylao’s Oriental hubby. The girl’s head swam with fear. She had
already repented coming to that hell. The sights that she witnessed
reminded her of all that she had thrown aside for the sake of her
infatuation. The heaven that the great Potter had mixed in her own
elemental clay blushed to her throat’s dusky whiteness. The natural
beauty of the girl’s face was intensified by the half-shrinking appeal
of her eyes and expression. To see her standing there with the bit of
pink ribbon fluttering at her throat, the hibiscus flowers in her pretty
hair, must have made even the engrossed cut-throats at the card-tables
stare for a moment and forget their tricks.
The sight of those dancing, full-blooded Marquesan girls on that
_pae-pae_ sickened her. Nor was it to be wondered at. Those tawny
figures of perfect grace swayed their limbs with pride, yes, surveyed
their own symmetrical proportions as the brass leg bangles jingled and
the glass jewels flashed as their limbs swung roofward in response to
the encores of Islamic delight.
Abduh’s voice pleaded passionately for his wishes. Indeed Waylao
recovered so much that she even smiled at the admiration that was so
evident in the eyes of the men about her.
“Marhabba!” (“Welcome!”) cried those young Islamic knuts as they stood
up from their gaming tables, threw their shoulders back, screwed their
heads sideways and surveyed the comely half-caste girl. Some went too
far. Abduh saw the look of realisation leap into her eyes. She looked
terrified.
“Something must be done at once: this will never do,” was his mental
reflection.
“Drink, Marah!” The voice was insinuating and sweet. Hardly knowing what
she did, Waylao let the innocent-looking coco-nut-shell goblet linger at
her lips. Then she gazed helplessly at his masterful eyes, half in
wonder. The jovial yellow boys from the Malay Archipelago, and the Sudan
and Calcutta reprobates clinked their mugs. “Allah be with thee!” they
murmured.
Somehow even their voices were hushed. It almost seemed that even they
saw the shame of it all, that so fair a creature should fall into the
spider-like clutch of that abomination.
Waylao blushed again. It was not the blush of shame, but the warmth of
vanity and the feverish effects of that potion, the wretched ecstasy of
morphine and gin, as those handsome men fell at her feet and paid
obeisance to her beauty. Did she dream? What was this wonderful worship
that made her feel she was some heathen queen, as that crew of flushed
faces whispered praise into her ears?
“Mebsoot! Mebsoot!” called the Marquesan girls. “Blessed be the great
Mahomeys!” It was the one little bit of Indian language that they had
learnt. Even the fine eyes of those abandoned native girls expressed
wonder at seeing so white a woman in that hellish abode.
The drug began its work, Waylao’s brain became delirious. Gin, morphine
and innocence mixed together had more enchantment in it than morphine,
gin and downright wickedness! Abduh Allah suddenly shone before her eyes
with such resplendent beauty that she lifted his hand and kissed it
before them all. The pock-marked old marabouts nudged each other in the
ribs and the younger villains exchanged glances. A treat was in store
for them.
If Benbow, her father, had entered at that moment, that cavern would
have experienced the greatest volcanic eruption of its history. Alas!
Benbow was at sea or in some island seaport telling of his past
experiences, how he had captured pretty girls in the blackbirding days,
filled his hold up to the brim with that quivering cargo, battened them
down and then, singing with his wild crew _For Those in Peril on the
Sea_ (his favourite hymn), put to sea.
Waylao quite forgot her father. Her mother’s old legendary creed was
true after all. Was she not in some wonderful underworld, some heathen
shadow-land? Were not goddesses and god-like men at her feet—worshipping
her? Her very innocence, her strange, poetic brain, made beautiful
creations of those abandoned native girls as they danced like faery
shadows around her.
It may seem unbelievable, but Waylao, to the call of a host of
impassioned pleadings, stood on the _pae-pae_ and began to dance; but
not as the others. Even those dissolute men gazed intensely, half
sobered by the exquisite beauty, the rhythmical movements of her perfect
figure. The winds crept in and stirred her bronzed tresses and their
crown of vermilion forest flowers: she lifted her robe delicately and
sang to her shadow in the lagoon at her feet. It was a unique sight, a
new experience to all in that cave as she danced and chanted. What was
that faint, ineffable glimmer that silently struck the still water? It
was a pale light, a streak from heaven, moonlight piercing through a
chink just overhead in the cavern’s rocky roof. That faint glimmer
streamed upon her mass of entangled hair, and lit her eyes with some
wild, half-etherealised light. As she danced on, it seemed the very
poetry, the grace of her movements appealed to these better qualities
which exist in the hearts of even the worst of men. As they watched the
earnest expression of her face, the cavern hollows became silent, except
for the twanging of bamboo flutes accompanying her wild melody. Those
swarthy, bearded scoundrels stood like unto awestruck figures of carven
stone, expressing artistic surprise. The devil in them was touched by
the magic of beauty in its finest form—the girl’s innocence.
Waylao chanted on. The liquor fumes began to work to their full extent.
With arms outspread, she danced along the _pae-pae_, her head close
against the rocky roof. Nearer and nearer she glided, step by step, till
with a cry she reached Abduh Allah’s side and swooned into his extended
arms.
As soon as the breathless, staring crew recovered from their
astonishment, the cavern echoed and re-echoed the encore: “Hasan! Kattar
rheyrak!” (“Beautiful! Oh, thanks!”)
The four grey-bearded marabouts who were squatting on the mats of the
dais opposite the _pae-pae_ lifted their eyes and turbaned heads; so
overcome were they with envious admiration that their pointed beards
were level with the rugged roof as they once again gasped out in sombre
syllables: “Allah! O Mohammed’s beard! Bless its growth!”
Suddenly realisation flashed through Waylao’s brain. She stared with
fright on the swarthy crowd of uplifted faces around her. Ere the men
had fathomed the meaning of her terror, she had broken away. Like one
demented she swept by them and, eluding their clutching hands, fled out
of that cavern, back to the sight of heaven and the moonlit seas.
It is no wish of mine to dwell on the terrors, the abominations of that
Indian Night Entertainment of Eastern Sensualism. All that I am out to
tell is of the temptation that came to Benbow’s daughter. And so I have
painted to the best of my ability all that is fit to tell of the scene
and happenings in that harem cave near Tai-o-hae: a scene that is common
enough in the Indian lines—as they call them—in Fiji and other
plantation settlements which are the glory-holes of emigrant
Mohammedanism in the South Seas. To this day the missionaries curse
those swarthy men, who, I have been told, were not true Indians, but a
mongrel race from the Malay Archipelago. However that may be, Abduh had
lived in Calcutta, and they were all Mohammedans.
I may as well say and have done with it that Pauline was also lured into
that cavern of iniquity. She too had crept behind that mockery in the
shape of man, Abduh, expecting to see something that corresponded with
her girlish conception of paradise. I do not wish to dwell on all that
_she_ confessed to me; suffice it to say that Pauline swiftly saw
through the veiled curtain that hid the monstrous inclinations of that
human spider and his crew.
Thank heaven! he failed to pounce upon her innocence then. She too had
lifted that vile potion to her lips, but had shattered the goblet,
untouched, in fragments at his feet.
Those swashbucklers at the card-tables, flushed with drink and thoughts
of the prize that seemed almost in their clutches, had also put forth
their vile talons to stay her flight; but she was too swift for them as
she sped from that sensual hollow by the seas, her soul ablaze with
fear.
Such is a portion of the history of those much-admired caves and
subterranean passages of the Marquesan Group, caverns where the tourist
doubtless enters to take a snapshot of Nature’s transcendent beauty of
coral, flowers and ferns, little dreaming of the secret they held for
the guile of men years ago.
I believe that these caverns were also used as Chinese opium dens. The
French authorities had issued an edict forbidding the traffic in opium
because of its demoralising influence on the native population. But
still the trade prospered in secret, natives inhaling the dreamy
narcotic, from Tai-o-hae to Papeete. The penalty for smugglers was a
heavy fine, but if the culprit had not the wherewithal he was discharged
with a caution, for the official exchequer was too poor to keep them in
the calaboose, which was always full of successful aspirants who yearned
to live, under Government protection, a life of comparative luxury and
ease.
It was hinted that the French officials of that time were not above
accepting bribes in the way of cash and maids, for Abduh Allah’s harem
cave was strangely immune from the vigilant eye of the law.
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