I slept well on towards four o'clock in the afternoon, and when I
awakened I found the house deserted by all but my man Tepi, who was
seated cross-legged near me with a cup containing my fever mixture
beside him. He held it up to me silently.
Even before I raised myself to drink I felt that I was a stronger man,
physically and mentally, than I had been six hours previously, and my
veins no longer seemed as if they were filled with liquid fire. I drank
the mixture and then looked about me, and saw that every ensanguined
trace of the tragedy which had occurred a few hours before had been
removed. The coarse and somewhat worn matting which had covered the
floor had been taken away and replaced by new squares, and the room
presented the usual neat and orderly appearance in which it was always
kept by Tepi and my other servant.
“Master,” said Tepi, “art hungry?”
“Aye,” I replied, “I would eat; but first tell me of the dead man. Who
hath taken him away?”
The man, instead of answering me in a straightforward manner, bent his
head and muttered something I could not hear.
I jumped off my couch and went outside, and the first person I ran
against was my cook, an old grizzled fellow of about sixty years of age
named Pai. He was carrying a freshly-killed fowl in his hand, looked
at me in an unconcerned manner as if nothing had occurred, and asked me
would I have it broiled or boiled.
“As you will,” I said impatiently. “Tell me, Pai, whither have they
taken the dead white man?”
He made a peculiar and significant gesture--one that is not often used,
but when it is it implies that certain matters or things must not be
further alluded to, but must be for ever buried in oblivion. I put my
hand on his tough, naked, and wrinkled shoulder, and again repeated my
question.
“I know of no dead white man,” he replied, looking me steadily in the
face, and yet answering me in his usual respectful manner. Then he sat
down beside the low stone wall surrounding the house, and began to pluck
the fowl, casually remarking that it was fat for its age.
Somewhat puzzled at the reticence of my servants, I walked across my
compound towards the native village, which, as I have before mentioned,
was some distance from my house, and as I walked I felt at every
footstep a renewed bodily vigour, and almost unconsciously I took out my
pipe, filled it, and began to smoke with an enjoyment denied to me for
many months.
The day was gloriously bright and cool, and the westering sun on my
right hand shone on a sea of the deepest blue, whose placid bosom was
dotted by a fleet of canoes with their mat sails spread to the now
gentle trade wind, cruising to and fro catching flying fish. This seemed
strange to me, bearing in mind the events of the past few hours. The
death of a white man, even from natural causes, was of itself generally
a matter of such importance to the natives of any of the mid-Pacific
isles, that their daily avocations were suspended, and the house of the
deceased man would not only be surrounded on the outside by a circle
of people sitting on their mats and awaiting their turn to enter and
express their condolences with his wife or children, but filled inside
as well.
The first houses I passed on the outskirts of the village were occupied
only by women and children, who all gave me their usual cheerful
greeting of _Tiakapo, Simi!_ (“Good-day, Jim”) and one or two of them
added a few words of congratulation upon my improved appearance, and
then calmly went on with their work, such as mat-making, mending fishing
nets, cooking, etc., but no one of them gave the slightest indication of
even having heard that anything unusual had occurred.
[Illustration: Directed my steps towards the great open-sided moniep
062]
Crossing the village square--if it could be so called--I directed my
steps towards the great open-sided _moniep_, or council house, from
which came the sound of many voices, talking in the vociferous manner
common to all natives of the Gilbert and Kingsmill groups. As I drew
near I saw that there were about twenty men seated inside, smoking, card
playing, or making cinnet for fishing lines by twisting up the strands
of coco-nut fibre on their naked thighs. As they heard my footsteps on
the gravel, their conversation dropped a little, but they all gave me
_Tiakapo!_ as usual, invited me to enter and sit down and smoke, and
then went on with either their work or their pastime.
“Now,” I thought, as I sat down on the mat brought to me, “I shall
get these fellows to tell me the meaning of all this reticence about the
disposal of Krause's body.”
For some minutes I smoked in silence and took the opportunity of looking
at my hosts. They were all either middle-aged or old men, and were all
known to me personally, especially one old bald-headed fellow named
Kaibuka--“The Ship.”
In his younger days this Kaibuka had acquired an evil reputation for
being the instigator and leader of cutting-off attacks on whaleships and
trading vessels, and his performances had gained him such _kudos_ and
respect from his savage associates that now in his old age he was the
most influential of the three principal head men of the whole lagoon.
Like all the others present, he wore but the usual _airiri_, or girdle
of grass, round his loins, and his dark reddish-brown body was covered
from head to waist with the scars of wounds received in earlier years.
Each of his ear-lobes, pierced in infancy, had from long years of
continuous distention by means of rolls of pandanus leaf, become so
pendulous that they now hung loosely upon his shoulders in two great
bights of thin flesh as thick as a lead pencil, though one of them had
twisted in it a long stick of tobacco and a spare pipe. He was not,
however, a bad-looking old ruffian, and his shining bald head, still
perfect teeth, and extremely Jewish cast of features gave him quite a
distinctive appearance from the younger men, whose long coarse hair, cut
away across the forehead and hanging loosely down on their shoulders and
backs, made their fierce, savage faces appear as if they looked at you
from a moving frame of black. They certainly were a wild-looking lot,
but their appearance somewhat belied their dispositions--at least as
far as I was personally concerned. We had always got along very well
together both socially and in business, and I was well aware that whilst
they disliked and mistrusted Krause they placed implicit confidence in
me.
Putting down my pipe on the mat beside me, I told old Kaibnka that I
desired to talk to them.
There was a dead silence at once.
“_E rai rai_” (“Good”), he said.
“Kaibuka,” I said, “hath the dead white man been taken to his wife?”
He looked stolidly at me for an instant, and then answered with an air
of intense surprise.
“Dead white man! What dead white man, Simi? _I_ know of none. We saw no
dead white man!”
“Aye, we know of none,” echoed the others in unison.
I began to feel both angry and uncomfortable, and showed it: but for
the moment I was too puzzled to do more than stare at them each in turn.
They looked straight before them as if their faces were so many stone
jugs--they had about as much expression.
Again I addressed myself to Kaibnka.
“Why do ye make this pretence? Thou thyself, Kaibnka, and thou, Berau,
were, with many others, in my house when his dead body lay on the floor.
Why are ye all so silent? And whither have the girl Niâbon and Tematau
gone?”
This time I got an answer--to my last question, at any rate.
“Niâbon and Tematau have gone across the lagoon in a canoe. They desired
to talk with the white man's wife. In a little time, as darkness falls,
they will return to thee.”
“Did _they_ take the dead man with them, then?” I persisted.
The old fellow met my inquiring glance quite calmly. “I know of no dead
man, Simi.”
I glared angrily at them all round, and then for a moment wondered if
they were all crazy or I alone was wrong in my head. I was rising to
my feet with an exclamation of anger at their obstinacy when the old
bald-head motioned me to stay. Then at a sign from him all the others
gathered up their _impedimenta_ and quietly went off in Tarions
directions, leaving us alone.
“Simi,” he said, coming swiftly over and crouching in front of me, “be
wise. Ask no one of the white man who was here yesterday; for no one
will tell thee but Niâbon. There is death in store for many, many
people, if ye heed not my words. Go back to thy house, and be patient
and wait, and ask naught of any one but Niâbon of what is past. Wouldst
thou see this land soaked in blood because of _one_ man?”
He spoke in such curious, whispered tones, and kept his keen hawk-like
face so close to mine that I saw he was in deadly earnest.
“Promise me, Simi. Promise me to rest in thy house and wait for Niâbon.”
“As you will, I shall wait.”
I walked slowly back to my house and took a stiff glass of grog to
steady my nerves, which were beginning to feel a little upset.
“It's time I got out of this place,” I thought, as, lighting my pipe,
I went down to my boat again and busied myself in taking out all her
fittings, examining and replacing them again.
When I returned to the house for my supper it was quite dark, and just
as my lamp was lit Niâbon entered.