I seek Waylao—The Heart of Fiji—I discover Traces of the
Fugitive—The Bathing Parade—The Knut’s Indiscretion—A Submerged
Toilette—The Knut as Travelling Companion—A Philosopher—A Noumea
Nightmare—The Knut meets his Fate
AFTER my interview with Mr and Mrs Pink I strode away, hardly knowing
where I went to, I was so upset about Waylao’s disappearance. I slept
out beneath some palm-trees just outside of Suva township; or it would
be more correct to say that I _rested_ out, for I did more thinking than
sleeping. Ere dawn came and the swarms of mosquitoes had finished their
repast on my sweating frame I had made up my mind to go in search of
Waylao.
It was a glorious daybreak, the brilliant sunrise streaming through my
branched roof, and the tiny _réveillé_ of the tuneful bush birds acted
like a strong stimulant on my worried mind.
Before the sun was up over the ocean’s rim I had tramped two or three
miles. I was on my way to N——, the native village where Waylao’s
relatives were supposed to live. I felt quite sure that the outcast girl
must have gone that way. Nor was I mistaken, for I had not gone far on
my journey when I heard news of her.
It was wild country that I had to pass through. One could hunt the
Pacific Isles and not find grander or more desolate scenery than those
mountainous districts I crossed. I had a little money in my possession,
and this fact considerably eased my journey, for I got a kindly native
to paddle me up the Rewa river for quite five miles. After that
beneficial lift I tramped it through the forest-lands, but I was not
very lonely, for as I passed by the palm-sheltered native villages the
children came rushing forth from the huts. They gazed inquisitively at
me, then shouted “Vinaka! Papalagi!” and tried to steal the brass
buttons off my tattered seafaring suit. They looked like dusky imps as I
passed through those forest glooms, roofed by the giant bread-fruit
trees.
As I rested by the dusty track two little mahogany-hued beggars stole
out of the shadows with their hands outstretched—they had brought me
oranges and wild _feis_ (bananas), fancying that I was hungry. Nor were
they mistaken in their fancy, for I had had nothing to eat since the
last nightfall.
As I ate the gift of fruit, they clapped their hands and then
somersaulted with delight. “Vinaka! White mans!” they screamed, as they
rushed off back to the hut villages to show their frizzly headed mothers
the brass button that I had given them.
I stayed in that village that night. My feet were very sore, and I could
not manage to get along without rest.
I felt pretty gloomy as I sat by the huts of those wild people,
wondering what was best to do, as I slashed the multitudes of flies and
mosquitoes away. Suddenly one of the dancing kiddies stood before me and
said: “Marama, beautiful white womans, come likee you, Signa tamba
[Sunday].” In a moment I was alert, and on inquiring of the chiefs who
squatted by me, I heard that Waylao had sought rest in that very
village.
In a moment all the Fijian maids were standing round me, gabbling like
Babylon, telling me how the pretty Marama had crept out of the forest.
Seeing my intense interest in all that they attempted to tell me, they
lifted their soft brown feet up and, with their eyes looking very
sorrowful, intimated plainer than by word of mouth how Waylao had come
amongst them in dilapidated shoes, footsore and weary.
“Your wahine?” said one pretty little maid as she put her finger to her
coral-hued lips and grinned.
“No,” I said, as I shook my head, and then at finding that Waylao was
not my wife, they gazed with deeper interest.
“You after Marama? She belonger you? Runs away from you? You love, she
no love you?”
To please those pretty Fijian beauties, I placed my hand on my heart and
sighed. I shall never forget the great murmur that went up from that
flock of dusky mouths, or the gaze of those dark eyes that gleamed at
the thought of some romance in the arrival of the travelling maid, her
disappearance—and then my coming on the scene. Directly those old chiefs
found that I was after the girl that they had befriended a few days
before they became intensely excited. Up they jumped like mighty puppets
on a string that had just been violently pulled by some hidden humorist.
For a while I could not think—so loud, so plaintive were the comments of
those dusky warriors.
“Me give nice Marama food!” “Me give ’ers nice coco-nut milk,” said
another. So did they clamour about me, praising Waylao’s beauty. Twenty
terra-cotta-coloured old hags lifted their hands to heaven and praised
the glory of Waylao’s eyes. The head chief of the village prostrated
himself at my feet. I knew too well that all this praise and servility
to my person was because they wanted to get paid for anything that they
may have done or pretended to have done for Waylao’s sake. It relieved
my feelings a good deal to find that she had had their sympathy. I felt
that they had, anyhow, done their best.
They were very savage-looking beings, dressed in the sulu only, tattooed
and scarred by old tribal battles; but their savagery—like
civilisation—was only skin deep. When they told me that several of the
village youths had given up their employment on the sugar plantations so
that they could paddle Waylao up the river in a canoe, I took the old
chiefs and chiefesses aside and, though I had only got a pound or so, I
gave them the cash that I had intended to pay the pious, Christianised
Pinks.
I see by my diary that I arrived at N—— the following evening. N—— was
as wild a village as one could find in this world. Besides the native
population, it was inhabited by the emigrant settlers who worked on the
sugar and coffee plantations. These settlers were mostly Indians from
the Malay Archipelago—Singapore, Malacca, Mandalay and Martaban. Indeed
the first knowledge I received that I was in the vicinity of the village
was when three pretty Malabar maids jumped out of a clump of bamboos and
greeted me in a strange tongue. I inquired of them the nearest way to
the village that I was seeking.
One, a very pretty girl, dressed in a costume of many colours, could
speak a little English. As soon as I had explained to her, she led the
way, jumping along the track in front of me like a forest nymph. It was
this Malabar girl who led me into the presence of the tribal chief. I
think he was called the Buli. Anyway, he was a decent old fellow, could
speak my language remarkably well and at once invited me into his
homestead. I think this man (who was a half-caste) was a kind of
missionary, and hailed from the mission station Maton Suva, down near
the town of Rewa.
As soon as I described Benbow’s daughter to him, he became interested.
Then I gathered from him that Waylao had arrived there in a destitute
condition a week or so before. It appeared that she had made inquiries
for the relatives that old Lydia had blown about so much, only to find
that they had never existed, or were dead and forgotten long ago.
Waylao’s disappointment and grief had filled the Buli and the native
girls with compassion. They had done their best to cheer her up, had
even invited her to stop in the village. Notwithstanding this
hospitality, she had suddenly disappeared from their midst two days
after her arrival. On going to the hut that they had prepared specially
for the castaway girl, they found that she had flown. None knew the way
of her going, for she had slipped away in the dead of night. I still
recall my disappointment over the result of my long tramp to N——. I must
admit that I could not blame the girl for leaving that semi-pagan
citadel of the forest.
I imagined how she would feel sitting by those huts with her new-made
friends, how the gloom and the wild mystery of her surroundings must
have depressed her. Even _I_ felt the distance from home; indeed I could
have half believed that I stood away back in some world of the darkest
ages. The stars were out in their millions when I left my host and
wandered into the village. I never saw such a sight as I witnessed that
night. Notwithstanding the guttural voices, the strange hubbub of
foreign tongues, the dim tracks and the little huts with their
coco-nut-oil lamps glimmering at the doors, I felt that I stood in some
phantom village. It seemed that representative types of all the ancient
nations flitted around me. The strange odour of dead flowers and
sandalwood intensified the magic of the scene, as the hubbub of the
Babylonian-like rabble hummed in my ears. Through the forest glooms
wandered soft, bright eyes, fierce eyes, alert eyes, hard faces, long
faces, short faces, sardonic and cynical faces. Some had thick lips,
some thin, with bodies sun-varnished, tattooed and magnificent, or
white-splashed, shapely and graceful; others were disease-eaten. Like
happy phantoms the girls rushed by, the symmetry and grace of their
tawny limbs exposed as the Oriental jewellery from the magical carpet
bag jingled on their arms and legs. Some of them were graceful, pretty
girls, others voluptuous-lipped, their eyes alight with greed and
jealousy as they revealed their charms, and sought the approval of
likely customers.
At first I thought that some native carnival was in progress, but it was
not so. It was simply the natives and the mixed emigrants jumbling and
tumbling about together. Many of these emigrants were Indians who dwelt
in hovels just outside the village. These hovels were called the Indian
Lines. The men who inhabited them were mostly Mohammedans, swarthy men
who made converts from the Fijians.
One of my supreme gifts is insatiable curiosity, consequently I can
assert that the scenes I witnessed almost outrivalled the orgies of the
harem cave near Tai-o-hae. The Christian missionaries had done good work
in Fiji for many years. It was they who abolished cannibalism and
idol-worship, but as far as the ultimate result of their labours was
concerned, they might as well have never moved a finger. For those
Fijians were revelling in a sensual creed of emigrant Mohammedanism.
Sickening of the sights that I witnessed just outside that village, I
went back to that semi-pagan citadel. All the conical-shaped huts were
sheltered by tall, feathery palms, clumps of scarlet ndrala and
bread-fruits. At different points crowds of natives were collected,
listening to the different lecturers who aspired to propagate their
special views much the same as the chapel-goers of the civilised cities.
One tawny, aged chief stood on a huge rum barrel yelling forth the
manifold virtues of the olden heathen creed. As I strolled by, the
listening crowd cheered him: “Vinaka! Te rum! Vinaka soo-lo!” they
shouted. A little farther off, yet again another lecturer who roared
forth the glory of Mohammed. In his hand he waved the Fijian Koran.
Outside the village stores, elevated on a tree stump, stood the village
poet, yelling forth _vers libre_ and singing legendary chants of the
stars and winds in the tree-tops. One old chief, who was tattooed from
head to feet, his tawny face wrinkled like the parchment of a broken
drum, stood on a large gin-case. He was a kind of South Sea Caliban. As
he stood waving his long, tattooed arms and shouting to his followers
who were assembled in that tiny forum, he spotted my white face. “Down
with the heathen papalagi!” he shouted. Then he glared scornfully at the
turbaned Indian men who stood about him, and on the native maids who
suckled babies with tiny, fierce, Indian-like faces.
“Down with the Mohametbums!” he yelled over and over again.
I never saw such a wise-looking old Fijian as he looked. I can fancy I
hear him now as I dream, as he stands there shouting:
“Down with papalagis! Fiji for the Fijians!”
They were not bad people when left to themselves. Indeed they had
already successfully overthrown the curse of militarism that had crushed
their isle during Thakombau’s terrible reign. In their huts, hard by,
hung the old war-clubs. Only those mighty weapons and a few bleached
skulls told of the pre-Christian days.
But I must not digress too much, for I have a long way to go yet. I only
stayed in that village one night. At daybreak I was up with the flocks
of green parrots that swept across the sky, whirling like wheels of
screaming feathers as they left their homes in the mountains.
I made up my mind to go straight back to Suva. I had got it into my head
that Waylao must have gone that way, possibly to inquire for me, to see
if I had turned up after she had been thrown out of the Pinks’
establishment.
I felt like some wandering Jew as I tramped along by the seashore.
Notwithstanding that I was alone, I forgot my immediate sorrows, for I
felt that I was seeing the world, and the scenery that I saw around me
was very beautiful. It was a lovely day. The inland mountains rose till
their distant peaks seemed to pierce the blue vault of heaven. Lines of
plumed palms and picturesque bread-fruits stretched for miles and miles.
On the slopes grew the ndrala-trees, covered with scarlet blossoms.
Along the shores gleamed the blue lagoons, shining like mirrors as the
swell from the calm sea broke into sheafs of iridescent foam by the
coral reefs. It seemed incredible that only a few years before the
death-drums of the cannibal tribes had echoed through that paradise of
silent, tropical forest.
As I tramped onward, my reflections were suddenly disturbed by a sight
that one could not easily forget. Just below the forest-clad slopes
stood a covey of nude native girls. Their tawny bodies were glistening
in the sunlight as they emerged one by one from the depths of the lagoon
by the shore. I was so near that I saw their brown, shapely, graceful
bodies steaming in the hot sunlight. In their wet masses of unloosed
hair still clung faded hibiscus blossoms of the day before, stuck in the
thick folds by large tortoise-shell combs. They were having their
morning bath. Though I knew well that it was wrong of me to remain
concealed in the bamboo bush, still I remained there. As they stood
chattering and laughing, thinking that they were quite unobserved, a
young white man, of the “knut” type, emerged from the coco-palms just
opposite them. I saw at a glance that he was a tourist. He had a camera
with him. Directly he spotted that sight he made a frenzied effort to
place the camera on its tripod, and so get a snapshot that did not crop
up every day.
At this moment I too came out and revealed myself. As the native girls
caught sight of us, they gave a frightened scream. They could not blush,
for Nature, in their fashioning, had already made them, at their birth,
blush from their head to their perfect toes, a terra-cotta hue.
“Lako tani! Lako tani!” (“Go away!”) they shouted. Lo! ere we could
believe our eyesight, up went twenty pairs of pretty nut-brown
feet—splash! they had all dived back into the lagoon.
The Knut fixed his eyeglass and gasped out: “Well, I nevah!”
The covey of frightened girls had disappeared, gone to the bottom of the
deep lagoon.
“Good Lord! they’ve drowned themselves,” was his horrified ejaculation
as I came up to him. It was true enough, there was no sight of a head on
the water; only a bubbling on the glassy surface, as though a fearful
death-struggle was in progress beneath.
“You’ve done it now!” said I. “Fijian girls are so modest that sooner
than be spied upon at such a moment they would die. They are as modest
as white women.”
“No!” was his awestruck comment as he stared at the water beyond the
coral reefs just in front of us. His eyeglass dropped from his eye; he
gave another horrified exclamation at the thought of those beautiful,
dusky Eves committing suicide through his curiosity.
It was at this moment that a slight commotion became visible in the
centre of the lagoon; then up poked a mass of dishevelled hair, a pair
of sparkling dark eyes and a set of pearly teeth. Next moment up came
another, then three more—till in a few seconds they all clambered,
splashing, ashore. There they stood, a flock of graceful, soft, tawny
shining bodies sparkling in the sunlight, each one modestly attired in
her pretty _sulu_ (fringed loin-cloth). They had snatched up their
scanty attire ere they had dived into the lagoon in order to arrange
their toilettes in its secret depths.
The Knut refixed his eyeglass, thanking God as I helped him on with his
coat, for he had prepared to dive after his victims.
The Knut, the girls and I became quite pally. I helped him arrange them
in an artistic row. We placed hibiscus blossoms in their frizzy masses
of hair, and extra girdles of flowers about their shoulders. One never
saw a prettier sight than those girls as they stood there laughing and
steaming in the sunlight. I often look in the South Sea novels and
reminiscent books in hopes that I may see the photographs that we took
of them. It was quite a trade in those days to travel the South Seas
taking snapshots of maidens having their morning bath!
That Knut and I became very friendly after that little episode.
“Been this way long?” said I.
“Two weeks, deah bhoy,” he responded in the cheeriest manner.
I took to him like a shot. When he had told me of his history, explained
in fullest detail his blue-blooded ancestry and close connection to
Charles I. of England, I casually remarked that I never saw anyone who
so resembled my great-great-great-grandfather, King James of Scotland,
as he did.
“You’ve got his brow to a T. Blessed if you’re not the dead spit of his
painting that hangs in my ancestral halls, the other side of the world,
in Kent. It’s the eyes that I can’t quite place. You see, it’s like
this. When Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the first Admiral of England, gave the
painting to my aunt (who was related to the Guelphs, the present
reigning family of the English throne) it had the eyes quite distinct,
but, on being told that they resembled mine, I pointed to the canvas,
and lo! my fingers went right through the eyes. I was a kiddie then, so
I cannot recall what they were really like.”
I never saw a Knut stare through an eyeglass like he did as I gave him
the foregoing information. He wasn’t a bad sort, for he took my hand in
good comradeship, and, mutually satisfied with each other’s pedigree, we
had fine times together.
On finding that he was going down to Suva, I at once accepted his
invitation to accompany him. I must say he cheered me up; he seemed to
find amusement in everything. We took several photographs on the way
that first day. When he heard me inquiring from the natives if they had
seen a half-caste girl, he fixed his eyeglass firmly and peered at me
curiously—then nudged me in the ribs. I did not tell him all that
worried me, but he too began to help me in my inquiries. In fact I saw
that he was curious about the affair. One can imagine my astonishment
when he suddenly said, “Heigho! Wait a minute,” then, opening his
haversack, pulled out a photo of Waylao.
“Good heavens!” was all I could get out, as I stared in astonishment at
the beautiful face.
“You don’t mean to say that’s _her_, deah bhoy? Damn it all!”
Then he told me how he had met a girl, several days before, resting on
the rocks near Rewa town. Struck by the singular beauty of her face, he
had taken a snapshot of her.
“Did you speak to her? Did you ask her if she was going to the Pinks’?”
I almost yelled. For a moment he looked at me as though he thought I had
gone mad, then said: “Who the devil are the Pinks, deah bhoy?”
For a moment I glared at him; then the absurdity of it all came to me,
and we both smiled.
I explained to him as much as I thought necessary.
“Quite romantic, old bhoy,” he said, as I told him about Waylao stowing
away on the _Sea Swallow_, and how she had been kicked out of the pious
Pinks’ establishment.
He was a good-hearted fellow, for though he chaffed me a bit about it, I
saw that he would have gone a deal out of his way to help me to find the
castaway girl. I will not tell how deeply I dreamed of that girl. In
imagination I saw her tramping along those wild tracks, homeless,
friendless, and full of misery. All thought of securing a berth on a
ship, or doing anything whatsoever for myself, vanished. One resolve
remained, and that was to scour the Pacific till I met Waylao.
She was no longer Waylao the stowaway to me. She had become something
wonderfully beautiful and mysterious, the poetry, the romance of
existence. It was a strange madness: the very memory of her eyes seemed
to be photographed on the retina of my own eyes, and to send a poetic
light over the wild landscape that I tramped across. I heard her voice
in the music of the birds that sang around us. The sorrow that reigned
in the heart of that homeless girl was mine also.
I was not what the world calls in love. It was a wild, romantic passion
that came to me. I became a child again. I heard the robin singing to
God high up in the poplar-trees just outside the little bedroom
window—the room wherein I slept, a child. Romance existed after all. It
was as real as the starving crows that faded across the snow-covered
hills into the sunset, as real as the tiny, secret candle gleam on the
magic page of the old torn novel by my bedside. The glorious poetry of
childhood was true.
But away mad dreams!
I recall how the Knut and I tramped across those wild miles. We cheered
ourselves up by singing part songs. _Who killed Cock Robin?_ was our
favourite melody. The first night we stayed at a small settlement near
Namara, a native village. We met a strange old man at this spot. He
lived in a hut by a palm-sheltered lagoon, slept on a fibre mat, native
style, only wore a large beard and pants, and on his head a stitched
banana-leaf hat. He was an ex-sailor. At first I took him for some
mighty philosopher, some modern Montaigne out there in Fiji,
unacknowledged and alone. But soon his wise sayings and growlings on
life palled on us. He tried to impress the Knut and me that he was some
kind of a mixture between François Villon and the wise Thoreau, with a
splash of Darwin thrown in. I recall his hatchet-like face. His drooping
nose seemed to be commiserating with his upper lip as he artfully drank
water and chewed dirty brown bread. On his table were piled the works of
the philosophers: Montaigne’s _Essays_, Diogenes, Thoreau’s _Meditations
in the Forest_, J. J. Rousseau’s _Confessions_, Darwin, and many more
standard works. He spoke much about the beauties of Nature, of birds’
songs and the beauty of flowers. And I believe he _was_ a clever old
man. His eyes shone with delight as the Knut and I praised him and bowed
our heads in complete humility as he uttered tremendous phrases. In the
corner of his hut stood a secret barrel of Fijian rum. It was neatly
covered with a pail, but my keen nasal organ smelt it out. The natives
told us that sometimes the old man got terribly drunk and danced like a
madman by the door of his hut, to their extreme delight. He was, withal,
a fine specimen of civilised man living under utterly new conditions in
a strange country. Such men I have often met—ex-sailors, ex-convicts,
ex-poets, ex-divines, authors and musicians—but seldom have they given
one the slightest hint, by their mode of thought or their way of living,
of their erstwhile calling during their life in civilised countries. Men
change completely. Environment makes all the difference. Undress the
artist, take the hope of praise for his enthusiastic efforts from him,
make him a tribal chief, and lo! his mental efforts are reversed. Some
primitive tribe applauds his ferocious, cannibalistic appetite, his
cruelty, his merciless, sardonic grin as some harem wife shrieks at the
stake. And he who, by God’s mercy, escaped the British gallows, roams
some South Sea forest and finds himself; becomes a poet, the wonders of
Nature, the music of the Ocean turning his exiled thoughts near to
tears. Experience has shown me that the inherent truth and goodness of
men is mostly hidden, and they learn by artifice that which leads them
to the gallows. But to return to my ex-sailor. He gave us a bed on the
floor, and made us comfortable; but we never had a wink of sleep all
night. He seemed delighted to get someone to listen to his philosophy.
He had evidently been living alone for a long time with his thoughts, so
we got the benefit of the great flood that burst forth from his
long-closed lips.
After we left that old sailor philosopher we walked two miles and then
fell fast asleep under the palms, and made up for the night’s
philosophy.
That evening we arrived at a little township near the mouth of the Rewa
river. Having had so little sleep the night before, the Knut took
comfortable lodgings with a white settler, a Frenchman.
As the evening wore on, we discovered that he had been a surveillant at
Ile Nou, the convict settlement off Noumea. He was a pleasant man
enough, but I could not help thinking of the power that had once been
his. He seemed to take a delight in telling terrible anecdotes about his
profession.
As he shrugged his shoulders and murmured, “Sapristi! Mon dieu!” we both
looked at him, horror expressed in our eyes.
“Mine tere friens, I but do my duties,” he said, as he saw the shocked
look on our faces.
As he continued telling us of those wretched convicts, I stared into the
little hearth fire that merrily flickered as it cooked our supper, and I
saw dawn breaking away over the seas as the waves lifted the limbs of
that silent figure, and laved the sad face of the dead escapee convict
girl of Nuka Hiva.
That surveillant’s happy wife and their little girl, staring at me with
wondering eyes, only intensified the pathos of the scene that my
imagination had conjured up.
I also had been to Noumea and seen those poor convicts, the dead still
toiling in chains, while some were fast asleep under their little cross
in the cemetery just by: “Ici repose Mercedes ——. Decede l’age——.” O
terrible, nameless epitaphs!
Ah! reader, have you read _The Prisoner of Chillon_? Yes? Well, you may
consider it a passionate poem of reflective longing as compared to the
great unwritten poem about the prisoners of Noumea. If Byron had been
able to see Noumea he would never have worried about Greece or Chillon,
but would have sat down and outrivalled Dante’s _Inferno_ with a New
Caledonian Inferno—I’ll swear.
I’ve seen the slaves of conventionality incarcerated in the strongholds
of Christian cities; dragged through London in the prison-van—called the
workman’s train—handcuffed by the official grip of the twelve
commandments of the book of civilisation, their dead eyes staring, still
alive, and the grip of iron-mouthed starvation of the soul and body on
their brows and limbs. But that sight was as nothing compared to the
wretchedness of those poor wretches in Noumea who had failed to comply
with the laws of equity and justice of La Belle France.
“They look like convicts, don’t they? It’s printed on their faces!” said
a comrade of mine, once, as we were led, by the officials, down that
terrible Madame Tussaud’s of the South Seas—a monstrous show where the
figures stood before one with blinking, glassy eyes, men stone dead,
standing upright in their shrouds, undecayed, though buried for years!
“Yes, they do look like convicts,” said I, wondering what I would look
like with head shaved, face saffron-hued, front teeth knocked out by
some zealous official, an infinity of woe in my eyes, No. 1892 on the
lapel of my convict suit, my back bent with what memories. Yes, I felt
that I should be slightly changed. I felt I should not have looked like
a saint. I had some idea that I should be an extremely vicious-looking
convict. But there, why worry? They have never _caught_ me at anything
yet.
But to return to our French host. That night my comrade and I slept in a
little off-room together. It was pitch dark in that stuffy chamber. My
friend went to sleep soon after he had finished his cigarette and I was
left alone with my thoughts, that strayed to the convict settlement in
La Nouvelle.
I imagined that I saw the convict prisoner awaiting his last sunrise: I
saw the gloomy corridors that lead out to the presence of that vast
tin-opener, that knife that lifts the hatchway of immortality with one
swift slide—the guillotine.
I saw the convict’s haggard face and trembling figure as he stood, at
last, before that dreadful cure for insomnia. There he stood, awaiting
death, as the dawn crept higher and higher on the sea’s horizon. Already
the pale eastern flush had struck the palms on the hill-tops of that
isle and lit up the faces of the huddled surveillants who awaited the
fall of the knife.
Yes, I saw that scene. The thought of the headless body and the blood
was nothing to me. It was the victim’s agony, the thought of the mind’s
attempt to grasp, to comprehend, its extermination, then the last
thought of—God knows who. It was this that made my heart go out to him,
for I knew that I might have been in his place if I had had his same
chances.
As these things haunted my brain, the world took on a nightmare form. In
that strange, intense reality that comes to one in dreams, when things
are more vivid than when we are awake, I felt all that convict’s
thoughts—I became _him_.
I looked on the world for the last time. They led me forth: I heard the
last bird singing in the coco-palms. I felt that I deserved death by
that atrocious blade; I could not remember the crime, but it was
sufficient that I had displeased Man. The knife looked down at me,
wriggled, seemed to grin and clink out in this wise:
“Ha! Ha! Ha! Thou hast displeased thy fellow-beings—they who never
sinned—thou must die!”
In some mysterious way my mother, Pauline and Waylao became mixed up,
became one personality. I looked into those eyes for the last time.
“Will you remember me?” I sobbed, as I clasped some figure of infinite
beauty in my arms. Then I gazed at the rising sun, for with the first
sight of its rim on the horizon I must die.
God Almighty! the signal came—the day was born. They clutched me. I gave
a terrible yell. “Mon dieu! Merci! Merci!” It was my last appeal to man
on earth, my last yell—in vain.
Crash went my foot, bang went my fist as I struck out. Then I heard the
Knut’s eyeglass clink on his little bed-rail as he stuck it on and tried
to peer at me through the gloom. Ah! What music was in the sound of that
little clink of the eyeglass.
“It’s nothing, dear old pal,” said I, as I felt an intense affection for
his presence. “I was only dreaming of those native girls in the lagoon.”
As I said this, I heard him yawn and snuggle down in the sheet again, to
sleep. Then he drawled out sleepily: “What figures they had, what
virginal curves, dear bhoy; no wonder that you dream of them. I hope the
plates will turn out well.” Then he murmured “Good-night.”
“Good-night,” I responded, then I too fell asleep.
* * * * *
I see by my diary that my tourist friend’s heart belied his cold-looking
monocle considerably, for here’s the entry of that date:
“R—— gave me £5. Feel very wealthy. Left French ex-official’s homestead
and started on our tramp towards Suva. Came across several groups of
huts under the bread-fruit trees by place called Na Nda. The inhabitants
worked on the sugar plantations some distance away. They were a very
cheerful community and greeted my comrade and I with loud cheers of
‘Vinaka!’ and other joyous Fijian salutations. I suppose they guessed
that my pal had plenty of cash. He’s dressed like a nabob: grey, fluffy
suit, tremendous white collar and a pink tie. Also wears yellow boots. I
think it was the eyeglass that inspired respect even more than the
neck-tie.
“We stopped at these little native villages for the rest of the day and
all night. Had wonderful experiences with the camera; caught more girls
bathing—little mites about three or four years of age. We stood the
camera up on its tripod and told them to stand in a row. They thought
that the camera was some terrible three-legged cannon—all suddenly
rushed away with fright, screaming. Took a splendid photograph of them
in flight, ere they disappeared under the forest palms.
“Saw thousands of red land crabs near the banks of the lagoons. As we
approached they marched away in vast battalions and entrenched
themselves in rock crevices.
“Had late dinner with a native chief and his wife. Nice old chap, had
intelligent face; if his lips had not been quite so thick he would have
resembled Gladstone, the great English statesman. R—— and I squatted on
mats before him in the native fashion and ate fish and stewed fruit off
little wooden platters. Delicious repast; couldn’t stand the _kava_
(native wine) offered us; we spat it out, much to host’s disgust.
[Illustration: BANANA PLANTATION, FIJI]
“A pretty Fijian girl, who was supposed to be connected by blood to some
great Tongan prince, came in from the hut opposite and proved most
entertaining. She sang native melodies to us and danced.
“R—— said she would make a fortune at the Tivoli. She was dressed in a
robe made of the finest material, fastened on by a girdle of grass and
flowers. The robe just reached to her knees. R—— said that the knees
alone were worth photographing. He is full of sunny humour. She got a
splinter in one of her toes. R—— fixed his monocle on and probed away at
the toe till he got it out. Never saw such perfect feet, olive-brown and
as soft as velvet. Terrible hot night; tried to sleep out beneath some
palm-trees; made a beautiful bed of moss and grass but couldn’t sleep.
Both jumped up and found that a modern semi-heathen, semi-Christian
ceremony was in progress. It’s what they called the Meke dance, I think.
R—— and I crept under the palms to see the sight. It was a magical scene
to see those maids and handsome Fijian youths dressed in their barbaric,
picturesque costumes as they did a barbaric two-step.
“We got into conversation with some of the old chiefs who were squatting
in a semicircle gazing on the dance.
“They told us that it wasn’t a barbarian dance at all, but simply the
anniversary of the time when they were converted. As the night wore on
the elders got convivial and drank kava out of a large calabash and
joined in that extraordinary religious ceremony. Many of the
thanksgiving high kicks made my pal hold on to me tightly and gasp. We
felt quite sure that something must go, either a joint get out of its
socket or a limb snap. The little Fijian kiddies that were watching my
comrade stare through his eyeglass screamed with delight and danced
around us. They thought he was some kind of an English idol. The grand
finale of that festival is indescribable.
“All I can say of the impression left on my memory is, that it seemed to
be some kind of ecclesiastical can-can, some strange potpourri of
Catholicism, Protestantism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism and reminiscent
heathenism flavoured with a dash of revelry.
“_Sunday._—Arrived at Suva. Went up to the Parade and made inquiries,
hoping to hear something of Waylao. All I could hear was the voice of Mr
and Mrs Pink singing in the mission-room that adjoined their store.
“‘You holy beggars!’ I thought to myself. ‘I pray God that I may never
become religious.’
“My comrade took me up to the White Hotel. Had a good time as far as
times go when you’ve trouble on your mind.
“Cannot make out what has become of Waylao. Wondering if she has
committed suicide. Feel down in the mouth.
“I feel lost without seeing Waylao. She’s my romance.”
* * * * *
I see by my next entry in my diary that the Knut left Suva on the
following Wednesday, so that we were together for three days on arriving
at Suva. I was very sorry to part with him; he was a good friend and
cheered me up by his entertaining ways. Ere he left me he got slightly
infatuated with a tourist girl he had met on the Victoria Parade. She
had dropped her handkerchief and he picked it up. I recall her well. She
was a horsey-looking being. Her name was Julia. The last I saw of them
together was on the highroad near Suva. He was ogling Julia through his
glass ogle as he strolled by her side. I hope he got well out of his
love dilemma, for though he was a good chap, he did not strike me as one
who would care for so serious-looking a catch as Miss Julia. Though he
sneered at my romantic ways, he was really full of sentiment. I remember
he helped me get my violin out of pawn, and then made me sit up all
night playing sentimental songs of the homeland.
I never saw him again after he left Suva. Probably a further account of
his doings can be found in some published book of South Sea
Reminiscences. I know that he intended to write down his adventures in
the South Seas, and include as illustrations those photographs that I
have described.
I sometimes wonder if I am in his book. If so, I suppose he has got me
down as some mysterious individual full of romance; one who tried to
convince him that he was a prince travelling incognito, searching for a
dusky princess.
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