The priest and the man with the gold circlet, whom I took to be a chief,
now met, and, fixing their eyes on me, held a conversation of which,
naturally, I understood nothing. I maintained an unmoved demeanour, and,
by way of showing my indifference, and also of impressing the natives
with the superiority of our civilization, I took out and wound up my
watch, which, I was glad to find, had not been utterly ruined by the salt
water. Meanwhile the priest was fumbling in his casket, whence he
produced a bundle of very ragged and smoky old bits of parchment and
scraps of potsherds. These he placed in the hands of his attendants, who
received them kneeling. From the very bottom of the casket he extracted
some thin plates of a greyish metal, lead, I believe, all mouldy,
stained, and ragged. Over these he pored and puzzled for some time,
trying, as I guessed, to make out something inscribed on this curious
substitute for writing-paper. I had now recovered my presence of mind,
and, thinking at once to astonish and propitiate, I drew from my pocket,
wiped, and presented to him my spectacles, indicating, by example, the
manner of their employment. No sooner did he behold these common
articles of every-day use, than the priest's knees began to knock
together, and his old hands trembled so that he could scarcely fix the
spectacles on his nose. When he had managed this it was plain that he
found much less difficulty with his documents. He now turned them
rapidly over, and presently discovered one thin sheet of lead, from which
he began to read, or rather chant, in a slow measured tone, every now and
then pausing and pointing to me, to my hat, and to the spectacles which
he himself wore at the moment. The chief listened to him gravely, and
with an expression of melancholy that grew deeper and sadder till the
end. It was a strange scene.
I afterwards heard the matter of the prophecy, as it proved to be, which
was thus delivered. I have written it down in the language of the
natives, spelling it as best I might, and I give the translation which I
made when I became more or less acquainted with their very difficult
dialect. {23a} It will be seen that the prophecy, whatever its origin,
was strangely fulfilled. Perhaps the gods of this people were not mere
idols, but evil spirits, permitted, for some wise purpose, to delude
their unhappy worshippers. {23b} This, doubtless, they might best do by
occasionally telling the truth, as in my instance. But this
theory--namely, that the gods of the heathen are perhaps evil and
wandering spirits--is, for reasons which will afterwards appear, very
painful to me, personally reminding me that I may have sinned as few have
done since the days of the early Christians. But I trust this will not
be made a reproach to me in our Connection, especially as I have been the
humble instrument of so blessed a change in the land of the heathen,
there being no more of them left. But, to return to the prophecy, it is
given roughly here in English. It ran thus:--"But when a man, having a
chimney pot on his head, and four eyes, appears, and when a sail-less
ship also comes, sailing without wind and breathing smoke, then will
destruction fall upon the Scherian island." Perhaps, from this and other
expressions to be offered in a later chapter, the learned will be able to
determine whether the speech is of the Polynesian or the Papuan family,
or whether, as I sometimes suspect, it is of neither, but of a character
quite isolated and peculiar.
The effect produced on the mind of the chief by the prophecy amazed me,
as he looked, for a native, quite a superior and intelligent person. None
of them, however, as I found, escaped the influence of their baneful
superstitions. Approaching me, he closely examined myself, my dress, and
the spectacles which the old priest now held in his hands. The two men
then had a hurried discussion, and I have afterwards seen reason to
suppose that the chief was pointing out the absence of certain important
elements in the fulfilment of the prophecy. Here was I, doubtless, "a
man bearing a chimney on his head" (for in this light they regarded my
hat), and having "four eyes," that is, including my spectacles, a
convenience with which they had hitherto been unacquainted. It was
undeniable that a prophecy written by a person not accustomed to the
resources of civilization, could not more accurately have described me
and my appearance. But the "ship without sails" was still lacking to the
completion of what had been foretold, as the chief seemed to indicate by
waving his hand towards the sea. For the present, therefore, they might
hope that the worst would not come to the worst. Probably this
conclusion brought a ray of hope into the melancholy face of the chief,
and the old priest himself left off trembling. They even smiled, and, in
their conversation, which assumed a lighter tone, I caught and recorded
in pencil on my shirt-cuff, for future explanation, words which sounded
like aiskistos aneer, farmakos, catharma, and Thargeelyah. {25} Finally
the aged priest hobbled back into his temple, and the chief, beckoning me
to follow, passed within the courtyard of his house.