I arrive at the Organization—Bones and his Officials—Mabau, the
Maid—Chief Kaifa—Mabau in trouble—I advise her—Thakambau’s
Harem—Chief Kaifa on Christianity—Enoch—Escaped
Convicts—Music—Witchcraft—The Hermit Missionary
... While sweetly some
Play on soft flutes and lyres, I, by gum!
Beat with delight the big barbarian drum
Before this drama of the great Limelight
Of stars—and dancing shadows infinite.
THE best part of truth is hidden in the heart of humanity. How different
is that which we reveal from that which we think of in silence. Our
outward demeanour is civilisation; our hidden inward cravings are
barbarism. To some extent these pages will deal with the savage
instincts of the natives of tropical isles, and with men who have found
refuge in those lands far from the cities of the Western world.
To tell you of the semi-heathen is much akin to telling you of
ourselves, for are not the barbarian instincts which we all have within
us our own tiny, savage, dusky children? We chide them for their
waywardness, but do we not encourage them in secret, as the savage
outwardly does, expressing joyously that which we are ashamed of? One
has the virtue of truth and the other of polished deceit.
Notwithstanding this, I think civilisation the best of all possible
things. Truly, however, civilisation is built on a quicksand, and now
that the Fijian forest battles and cannibalistic feasts have become
fierce and gruesome history the great tribalistic clash of nations, in
full swing as I write, reveals more than words the relentless link that
binds white and brown men together.
Once when I was wandering in the Marquesan Group I suddenly came across
the ruins of an old cannibalistic amphitheatre standing lonely by the
forest palms. The stone cooling-shelves, whereon once lay the dead men
and women in hot weather, were still intact, but thickly overgrown with
moss and sheltered by bamboos; the festival arena and its surroundings
of artistic savagery were all gone; the barbarian log walls had fallen.
Wild tropical vines, smothered with wild flowers, thickly covered all
that tomb-like place, where savages once ate their foes and whirled in
the cannibalistic dance, revealing the shapes of the stone edifice, the
_pae-pae_,[15] the turrets and log walls. The savage tribes with their
sighs and laughter lay dead, silent dust in the forest hard by. I looked
up through that amphitheatre-shaped growth. It was night; I saw the
stars glimmering through the dark palms as the trade wind stirred them.
Now I think those vanished walls were as civilisation, and the green
clinging boughs remaining and revealing the amphitheatre’s shape sad
humanity clinging to the best it has left.
Footnote 15:
Altar.
The simile may not be perfect, but neither is anything that is human.
But I must ramble on my way, for I am now well on the road to my
reminiscences of Fiji.
Years ago, just off the Rewa river, which is navigable fifty or sixty
miles inland, there was a wooden shanty. It had two compartments; the
walls were made of coco-palm stems tied strongly together with wild
hemp. Situated at a lonely spot, surrounded by primeval vegetation,
coco-palms, backa-trees and wild, tropical, twining vines, it was
eminently suitable for the purpose for which it was used, for in its
snug rooms lived the men who were members of the Charity Organization of
the South Seas! The officials did not run the place on Western lines,
for it was a true home for the fallen: no questions were asked when
suddenly the hunted, haggard, unshaved face appeared; to be hunted was a
sufficient reference to enable the applicant to be at once enrolled as a
member. Twelve fierce-eyed, rough-looking men, attired in big-brimmed
hats and belted trousers, would greet the new arrival, and with the
instinct of bloodhounds stare, and reckon up the new visitor’s pedigree.
If he looked sufficiently villainous and haggard, and pathetically told
the woe of some criminal ambition that had been frustrated by the
vigilant eye of civilisation, he was immediately given the first grade
diploma, a tin mug of the best Fijian rum! If he still possessed any
part of the spoil he could have an extra mugful, for the Organization
was not a rich one. A little off-side room was artistically arranged; a
small looking-glass, brush and comb, and all those things that tell of
gentleness and frailness completed its furniture. There it was, silent,
clean, tenantless and ready, for often from other lands, with the spoil,
the missing man would arrive with the cause of his downfall weeping
beside him, and in there she slept!
No one could tell the individual histories of these men. It will be
sufficient to say that they were there.
Ere I proceed I must tell you that when I speak of the Organization’s
whereabouts I mislead you in the name only; the true vicinity
characteristically resembles my description. It is obvious that to be
faithful to those who befriended me I must be secretive in some of the
details which tell of this isle of the South Seas, where men sought, and
probably still seek, a harbour of refuge safe from the stern law of
civilised cities. To-day this institution exists and still carries on
its varied work of extreme humanity. The low-roofed den, the old bench
surrounded by the swarthy, unshaved faces of the secretive crew, like
bending shadows in tobacco smoke, breathing oaths as the cards are
shuffled, has disappeared; but still the game is carried on, though in
more magnificent style, for as the cities rise the aristocracy of crime
fortifies itself, becoming more guarded and respectable in outward
appearance. Be assured that I dip my pen in stern experience for that
which I tell you.
When you see these headlines in your daily paper, “Bank Manager
Disappears. Officials in the Dock”, “Mayor and Vicar Missing,” be sure
that the head of the Charity Organization of the South Seas has read the
Colonial cable in _The Marquesa News_ or _Apia Times_, and has rubbed
his hands with delighted expectation, and that his agents are watching
at the warden gates of the high sea ports of the tropic world. Forest
lands, caves and mountain fastnesses and unknown isles of security are
fast disappearing from the world as it becomes polite.
Where the bokai feast roared and revelled, and the Fijian war dancers in
the moonlight of other years whirled, in bloodthirsty revelry, by the
Rewa river, now rise the church spires! Where the ambushed tribe once
watched from the jungle with gleaming eyes pass austere university men
clad in gowns, with Bibles in their hands, to lecture on Christianity to
open-mouthed natives. So things have changed, and the heathenish creeds
of the old days faded, and it is my wish to give you one glimpse of that
which has been.
It was my lot to stay in the Organization I speak of. A mile off was a
small native village, where Mabau, a Fijian maid who helped Bones, the
Organization overseer, to keep the rooms clean and tidy, lived. Bones
was the descendant of one of those old Botany Bay convicts who, escaping
in a boat, put to sea, and eventually drifting ashore in Fiji, made
their homes there, and inculcated in the islanders’ minds the first
contempt for the white race: contempt which, by an age of vigorous
striving, missionaries have at last removed. Bones told me much of his
convict ancestor, who had been transported from England for stealing a
hammer, and so Bones was born in the South Seas. He had a firm, open
face, grey, English eyes and a Fijian mouth. He was a fairly
well-educated man, and though he looked rough, at heart was kind; he
kissed Mabau’s pretty face as though she were his own child. In fact
Bones in every way struck me as being most suitable for his job of
running a South Sea Charity Organization, which was run upon exactly
opposite lines to the charity organizations of the Western seas, where
the officials have stony eyes and steel-trap mouths. As I have told you,
Bones had neither; and as I sat by him and a strange bird in the
coco-tree sang to the sunset, I felt drawn to him, and told him more
than I would tell most men. It was a beautiful night; most of Bones’s
friends were away, some at work and some at sea on trading schooners.
Bones played the banjo and I the fiddle, and after indulging in some
European and native folk-songs he lit his pipe and I strolled off under
the palms.
It was on this night that I met Mabau again. Now Mabau was a Fijian maid
of rare beauty. She had shining dark eyes and a thick mop of hair; the
graceful curves of her bare brown body as she glided ’neath the sunlit
palms made many Fijian youths gaze enviously upon her. The Chief Kaifa,
her father, sat by his hut door; he had been one of the high chiefs of
Thakambau, the last of the Fijian kings. Kaifa was a majestic-looking
man; in spite of his thick lips he had fine features, with earnest eyes,
and was straight-figured as a coco-palm. As he sat there, dressed in his
native sulu, he smiled as I spoke to his daughter Mabau. I knew more of
her doings than he thought. She was a true daughter of Eve, for her
glance gave no hint whatever that we had met before.
For in my forest wanderings, about two days before the evening I have
mentioned, I had met Mabau. She did not know at first that I had
perceived her in a lonely spot. She knelt on her knees before a rotting,
cast-off wooden idol. Sunset had fired with red and gold the tops of the
coco-palms and forest trees; overhead a few birds were still whistling.
As I approached, and the dead scrub cracked beneath my feet, the
heathen-hearted little maid looked hastily over her bare shoulder and,
seeing me, arose swiftly, as though for flight. My voice must have had a
note in it that appealed to and reassured the guilty forest child, for I
called softly, and then smiled to let her know that from me no harm
should befall her. “Why do you pray to that wooden thing?” I said, and
then I gave the monstrous effigy a kick. With a frightened sigh she
looked up at me and said: “O Papalangi, I love Vituo the half-caste.”
Then with a blush she told me all, and it seemed that the soul of
innocence peered through her eyes and asked for mercy as she looked down
at herself and then up to me again, one hand resting on her brown
breast. I gazed silently and knew all. The perfidious Vituo had stolen
her heart.
“Me killee Vituo; your white God no help me, will he?” she said. I gazed
awhile and said: “Yes, He will, Mabau.” I would not have told this
thundering lie but for the fact that her appealing eyes awoke the best
that was in me, and it was my earnest wish to attempt to stay her from
inflicting any vengeance on her sinful lover which might bring sorrow to
her afterwards.
Encouraged by my kindness, and misunderstanding my gestures as I
endeavoured to explain that she should pray to the Christian God instead
of to the gods of her fathers, she suddenly lifted her arms and started
to chant into the wooden ears of the old idol again. On her knees she
went, swaying her body and arms gently all the while in the mystic,
Mebete charms. She sang on earnestly, and I gazed, astonished to see the
heathen age before my eyes and to feel my ear-drums vibrating to the
primeval lore of the South Seas. Through the forest boughs just overhead
crept the lingering rays of the dying sunset, and two golden streaks
fell slantwise over the praying maid’s brown body, glimmering in her
thick dark hair as her head moved to and fro while she chanted her
despair.
“Mabau,” I said, “where does Vituo live? Why not go and find him, tell
him of your love and offer your forgiveness; he will doubtless take you
to his arms.” In truth I felt this might be, for she was a comely and
pretty maid. At my saying this she answered in this wise: “O white mans,
I long die and go to Nedengi, or Mburanto the great goddess, who love
deceived maids and make gods of children.” Then, with a fierce look on
her dark face, and with heaving bosom, she continued: “Mburanto will
blow the breath of the big wind that will kill him, the wicked Vituo,
and then him once dead will love me again, for good is his soul, though
his body is whitish and wicked.” I saw the depth of her love flame in
her eyes, and I answered: “Mabau, go home, and I will pray to the white
God for you, and will see what can be done to bring this treacherous
Vituo back to you again.” At this, with delight, she rose to her feet,
her eyes and face shining and expressing pleasure at my promise; her
sulu-cloth of woven coco-nut fibre revealed her trembling thighs as,
with the impulsiveness of the Fijian temperament, she started to sing
and do the equivalent of a step-dance.
As I stood there, and the shadows of night thickened, I heard a voice,
and Mr Bones suddenly stepped from a clump of tall fern growth into the
clearing where we stood. “What’s up?” he said, and I knew then that he
had been watching the whole performance. Mabau, who knew him well,
started off, with feminine vivacity, to tell him all her trouble. He
knew her language, and so she was able swiftly to tell her tale. Now
Bones, as I have said before, was a decent fellow, and he listened
attentively all the while that she spoke. Then he turned towards me and
said: “Vituo is a treacherous skunk, and if he plays her false I will
see to it that he gets his deserts. Go home, Mabau, for old Kaifa will
be suspicious of your being out this late hour.” Off she went, and I had
not seen her again till this meeting by her parent Kaifa’s home, when I
digressed to tell you that, notwithstanding her greeting me as though I
were a stranger, nevertheless all that I have told you had happened
between us.
The chief, as I said, gave me a friendly greeting. I had seen him once
before, when he had called at Bones’s homestead and borrowed a mugful of
rum. He was a genuine survival of the old cannibalistic days: though he
had embraced Christianity as best calculated to serve his interests and
requirements, for the Protestant and Roman Catholic ecclesiastics were
very kind to him—he had embraced both the creeds—he still, deep in his
heart, clung tenaciously to old memories and the heathen mythologies of
his tribal ancestors.
By his side sat Mabau, busily weaving a new fringed sulu gown, with
varied patterns decorating its scantiness; for it was the Fiji fashion
to reveal as much as possible of the maid without her being accused of
being absolutely nude. His only surviving wife was a full-blooded
Fijian, and as I sat by his side she squatted on her haunches, busily
blowing, with her thick-lipped mouth, the embers of a tiny fire that
flickered into a thousand stars, to be scattered by her breath, as the
evening meal spluttered.
Chief Kaifa could speak excellent English, and as I stayed on, and the
hour became late, he told me many things of the old days, of dark
beliefs and also of the mighty cannibalistic warrior, Thakambau. As he
spoke, and the moon rose and lit the forest, his eyes brightened as the
old splendour thrilled him, and Mabau, who sat by us alone, for the old
wife had gone to bed in the hut near by, rested her chin on her hand and
looked up with sparkling eyes, listening eagerly, and I saw who
encouraged her and why she had prayed so earnestly to the old forest
idol.
“O white mans,” he said, lifting his dusky arms as he spoke, “the old
gods watch me to-night, and when I pass into shadow-land I shall be
great chief, for am I not still faithful to them? Do I not cling to
those who watched over my birth and gave me life?” As he spoke a strange
bird screamed afar off in the forest palms, and with his dark finger to
his lips he said: “Woi! Vanaka! the dead speak! and they who were
unfaithful to men and maids are being punished by the gods”; for ere he
finished many screams came to our ears, as a flock of migrating wings
flapped under the moon that was right overhead.
Mabau, who had heard this, clapped her hands with delight, and I knew
then that she had but little faith in Vituo’s promises; for I understood
from Bones that he had seen Vituo, and he had pledged his faithfulness
to poor Mabau. I say “poor Mabau” because this is no romance that I tell
you of, but simply an incident in the sad drama of life that came about
through Vituo’s unfaithfulness.
Much that Chief Kaifa told me that night, and on following nights that I
spent in his interesting company, still lives vividly in my memory, and
I think it will be interesting to tell here some things I heard
concerning the monstrous deeds of Thakambau ere the awful royal cannibal
embraced Christianity.
It appeared that Thakambau had six Fijian maids, who were kept in the
royal huts, sheltered and closely guarded by his high chiefs; and though
the missionaries had landed in the Fijian Group, and had even made homes
on the isle, he managed to keep all that which the old chief told me a
close secret. For some time these six maids formed his harem, and they
were proud of the royal favour. In time two of them became mothers, and
when the babies were six months old the high chiefs came in the dead of
night and took them away. As time wore on, and Thakambau sickened of the
secret tribal harem, the mothers disappeared one by one also—only a
scream disturbed the forest silence. Then the bokai ovens, wherein the
dead were roasted, were made hot, and great were the rejoicings of the
cannibalistic natives and the tribal grandees who were favoured by being
admitted and presented at the Court functions.
At last of the six erstwhile maids two only were left, and one night
they too disappeared and ceased to weep, and the harem huts were silent.
Nedengi, the great Fiji god, blessed all those who had joined in the
grand festival whereat the maids had been sacrificed; and as the
assembled tribe sat in the terrible forest arena, drinking kava and
gorging the dead, the Mebete spirits could be heard running, as their
shadow-feet sped across the midnight moonlit forest that surrounded the
bokai ovens; and the cannibals looked affrighted over their shoulders as
they heard the wailing cries of the souls of the dead mothers and maids
whom they were eating being pursued by the souls of dead warriors and
lustful old gods, who hungered after the shadows of beautiful dead
women!
“How terrible!” I suddenly gasped, being unable to control my utterance
as the old chief told me these things. Quickly he looked up at me, and
swiftly I recognised my mistake, for he was very proud of his dead king
and all the horror I have told you. Continuing, I said: “Thakambau was a
great warrior, and the mighty Nedengi approved of his doings, and
sanctioned them, as the white God does ours.”
Though I said that, the old fellow seemed to understand my feelings, and
looking at me half kindly and half fiercely, said: “Nedengi did not
sacrifice his own son! Nor does he send the helpless, blind souls of his
children to the bokai ovens of hell fires to burn in agony for eternity;
nor did he hide in the dark of ages. Why did your mighty one God not
come before? Why did He send you cursed whites to our isles to shout
lies, ravish our maids and steal our lands? Wao! Wao! Why smash our
idols? Show me this great white God! Where, where is this Thing you
prate about? Where?” Saying this, he lifted his eyes to the skies, and
so vehemently did he rattle on, and so many things did he say that
smacked of the truth, that for a moment I hung my head and felt as
though I were the heathen and he the Christian.
Bidding the fierce old fellow good-night, I went swiftly across the
flats, crept into the Home of the Fallen, by Rewa river, and slept.
It was the next day that I met the treacherous Vituo. Bones introduced
me to him, and as I nodded my friend gave me a wink and so I assumed
more politeness. I was much surprised by Vituo’s appearance, for though
he was a half-caste his complexion was almost European. Certainly he was
of a type which would appear handsome to Fijian womenkind, and from his
manner I saw at a glance that he was a mixture of the swashbuckler and
cavalier. I pitied little Mabau exceedingly, for she would, night after
night, come over to see us, and I knew that she came full of hope that
she might meet Vituo, who often came down the Rewa to help the traders,
and to take up cargoes of copra and many other things that grew on the
plantations which were cultivated and toiled over by the natives.
I stayed with Bones for some days; he was extremely kind to me, and I
was glad of the opportunity of getting a rest, and, moreover, the men
who lived with him were strange characters and extremely interesting.
Often new arrivals came, some with heavy beards and some clean shaven,
ostensibly for the purpose of disguise.
One old man, whose name was Enoch, was a quaint old chap and fondly
loved rum. I do not know what he had done in his native land—which I
believe was Australia—but at night he would shout in his sleep and,
suddenly awaking, sit up and gasp, and gaze with relief on the bunks
around him, wherein slept the weary heads of the fallen. Now Enoch was
very artful, for he found out that I was the rum-keeper and so it was my
duty to share out, and night after night I was obliged to get out of my
bed and give him tots of rum to allay the awful pain which a toothache
was giving him. For several nights this kind of thing went on. I advised
him at length to go to Suva and get the offensive molar pulled out, but
no, he would not hear of it. At last, after a wretched week of nights
disturbed by his groans and appeals for rum, I happened to tell him a
joke, and as he opened his mouth wide with laughter I saw to my disgust
that he was toothless!
Often I went out into the forest and, placing my music in the fork of a
tree, stood and practised my violin. The native children would hear, and
come peeping through the tall fern and grass to listen. They became my
little friends. I taught them to dance around me, and they screamed with
delight!
Several times Mabau came to see us, but Vituo did not keep his promises.
She would stand at the Organization door for hours watching the sunset
fade over the hills, and then with staring eyes look down the long white
track, where once he had so eagerly come singing, to fall into her arms.
Bones and I, and even old Enoch, would strive to cheer her up. I used to
play the violin and get her to sing with her soft, plaintive voice some
of the lotu hymns, and so in this way divert her mind from thinking of
her faithless lover. For, to tell the truth, Vituo was now only
interested in a white woman who was staying at Suva. Bones knew of this,
and told me all about it, and so we all felt deeply sorry for Mabau. In
my heart I hated the treacherous half-caste for his heartless behaviour.
Time was going on, and Mabau’s open disgrace fast approaching, and, as
Bones said, it would not be well for her, or Vituo either, when the
truth was out. The old chief, her father, still had a huge war-club
which was the equivalent of Fijian law, and there was no telling what
might happen when her condition was no longer a secret. Poor Mabau! I
still remember her melancholy as I made her sing while I played the low
notes on the violin, for she could follow easily the chords on the G
string, but as the bow travelled up the scale to the higher notes her
ear seemed to fail her. It was interesting to listen to her wild voice,
which so easily sang melodies in the minor key, though as soon as I
played in the major key her voice seemed to grip hold of the notes and
slowly drift the strain from the major to the minor.
One night we were suddenly surprised by one of our companions appearing
at the Organization door with two new members. They were dark-looking
men; one was extremely handsome and very polite, indeed almost courtly
in his salutations as he gently brushed the mug’s rim and swallowed the
proffered rum. Enoch, Mabau and I, sitting on our tubs, watched them
intently as they stood side by side and spoke in broken English to
Bones, who seemed quite satisfied with their credentials, for they were
escaped convicts from Numea. They were unshaved and very
disreputable-looking, but after a wash, shave and brush-up were
considerably changed for the better, and I discovered that they were as
gentle and intelligent as they looked. Reviere, the younger—that was not
his real name—had, in a fit of jealousy, shot a rival in Paris, and so
had been transported to New Caledonia, the French penal settlement, from
where convicts often escaped to live exiled lives in the islands or
Australian cities.
Reviere fell in love with Mabau. He and I became very good friends, and
though I told him of Vituo and all the trouble, still he gazed upon
Mabau as she softly sang with eyes that seemed never to tire of gazing
in her direction.
Reviere had been exiled in a convict prison for over five years, and
Mabau being the first woman whom he had spoken to since he escaped from
incarceration, his infatuation for the Fijian maid was not so surprising
as it would have been under normal circumstances. Alas, though Mabau
approved of his tenderness to her, and seemed somewhat flattered at his
admiring gaze, she did not encourage him; for, notwithstanding the
undress costume of the islanders and the looseness of the sexes in the
native villages, Fijian maids were as modest as, and if anything more
faithful to their lovers than, the maids of civilised lands sometimes
are.
[Illustration: DART VALLEY, LAKE WAKATIPU, N.Z.]
For two nights Mabau disappeared, and Bones being away on a trading
trip, Reviere and I left the Organization officials playing dominoes and
drinking rum and went off south of the Rewa river exploring; for we had
heard that the natives were having high sprees inland and that the Meke
festival dances were in full swing.
It was nearly dusk as we wandered along by the tropical palms and fern
that grew thickly by the tiny track which we followed. Going across a
pine-apple plantation we once more got on to the native road, and before
the stars in heaven were at their brightest we emerged from the thick
bush growth and entered a clearing that extended to the native village
homesteads that stood under the palms and banyans across the flat.
It was a wonderful sight that appeared before us; for the old
chieftains, and native women also, were dressed in war costume, their
bodies swathed in bandages of grass and flowers, and as they danced
wildly they made the scene impressively weird. The general musical
effect sounded like a Wagnerian orchestra being played out of tempo and
tune, but the legendary atmosphere was perfect. It also possessed the
barbarian note of Wagnerian music, which so wonderfully expresses the
German nature and shows that Wagner was a genius for true expression and
anticipation.
The moon came up and intensified the barbaric atmosphere that pervaded
the excited village. From the hut doors peeped the tiny dark faces of
the native children, who applauded with vigour the escapades of their
old grandmother or grandfather, who, back once again in the revived
memories of heathen days, threw their skinny legs skyward and did many
grotesque movements that seemed impossible to old age and the stern
decorum which those little children had erstwhile been used to from
their august parents. Round the space, to the primitive music of thumped
wooden drums (_lais_) and the hooting of bamboo reeds, they whirled; and
then suddenly the vigorous antics would cease and all would start
walking round in a circle, as the maids, almost nude, except for a
blossom or a little grass tied about them, joined in, opened their
thick-lipped mouths in unison and chanted some old strain that smacked
more of heathenism than of the Christianity which most of them were
supposed to have embraced. Under the coco-palms hard by sat several old
women who dealt in South Sea witchcraft. I never saw such pathetically
hideous old hags as they were. Their faces wrinkled up to a
breathing-map of sin and vice as they put their fingers to their
shrivelled lips and warned the innocent girls of sorrows to come,
foretelling dire disaster, or the reverse, to those who appealed to them
for prophecies.
Many of the maidens from the surrounding villages came running up the
bush track and delightedly joined in the circling ring of dancers. A few
of the latter, who belonged to the low-caste toiling natives, availed
themselves of the opportunity to show their figures off, and though the
majority of the dancers were innocent enough, in their way, these looser
ones swayed about and went through preposterous antics, endeavouring to
please the eyes of the semi-savage native men who squatted round as
sightseers. Great was their applause at frequent intervals, and deep the
pleasure of those women who eagerly sought to please the eyes of
prospective husbands.
Reviere and I stood watching this scene; neither of us spoke, so deeply
were we interested in all about us. Then I touched Reviere, and told him
to look behind him; there sat Mabau at the feet of a villainous-looking
old witch who, responding to her pleadings, was doubtless telling Mabau
how to win back Vituo’s love. There she sat, that artless, deceived
maid, rubbing together the magic sticks and repeating word for word all
that the old witch told her. It sounded in this wise: “O wao, we wao,
wai wai, O mio mio, mio mi”; and so on, over and over again. Poor little
Mabau, how fast she rubbed the magic sticks as, unperceived, Reviere and
I watched her from the shadows and the old crony picked her two black
front teeth with a bone skewer and thought over some new phrase for
Mabau and the other maids to repeat after her. Many maids appealed to
her and rubbed the sticks, some crossways and some downways, as they
thought of the bonny promised babies that would be theirs. Two ugly old
divorced wives, who had been foretold new husbands and children if they
rubbed the magic sticks the right way, rubbed and rubbed so hard that
their dark bodies were steaming with perspiration in the moonlight!
Neither of us approached Mabau as we watched; we saw why she had been
absent from us for two nights. We had no doubt that each night she had
sat at the black crone’s feet, listening to her prophecies and doing all
she told her to do with those bits of stick, while Vituo, away in Suva,
made love to the young white woman and thought no more of Mabau, who was
to bring down vengeance on his head for his sins.
Next night Mabau watched at the trysting-place for the old witch’s
prophecies to be fulfilled, but found that Vituo did not come as had
been foretold, so as she knew of an old and lonely missionary who lived
some eight miles from the spot where Reviere and I witnessed the native
fête, she told us that she would go and visit the good white man and see
if he could help her in her sorrow. Finding out from Bones where the
recluse lived, I, being deeply interested, went off the following
afternoon to see him. After four hours’ hard walking I inquired from
some natives, and following a track which was thickly covered with
thangi-thangi and drala growth, arrived at Naraundrau, which was
situated south-east of the Rewa river and not far from the seashore.
There in a secluded spot close by a stream was a small, neatly thatched
homestead. As I approached all seemed silent, deserted and overgrown;
the trees that shaded the hut-like home were heavy with thick,
human-hand-shaped leaves, which intensified the gloom and isolation. I
coughed purposely; the door opened, and there, framed in the doorway,
stood a tall, stooping, grey-bearded man of about seventy or
seventy-five years of age.
“Welcome, my son,” he said as I introduced myself, and he noticed that I
was tired, for the heat of the sun had been terrific and I was parched
with thirst. I had brought my violin with me for companionship and
safety; though I had great faith in the Organization officials, I did
not wish to tempt their integrity by leaving my instrument behind.
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