A TREACHEROUS CHIEF.
Turner and Cobb, the two companions who survived with me the wreck of
the Molly Asthore, were absent from Ramáka when Hot-Water died. They
were away on a visit to the sandalwood coast, on the island of Vanua
Levu, with a party of natives. About three weeks had elapsed from the
date of the consignment of our friendly old chief to the earth when they
returned in a large double canoe, bringing the joyful intelligence that
an English-manned barque from the East Indies, named the Sarah Jane, was
at Bua, trading with the natives, her chief object being to obtain a
cargo of sandalwood for the China market. Captain Jackson, of the Sarah
Jane, having lost two men in a skirmish with the natives in Natewa Bay,
was short-handed, and he had expressed his desire to ship Turner, Cobb,
and myself for the voyage to China.
I had now been two years in the country. I spoke the language fluently,
and had become thoroughly accustomed to the native mode of life. The
intense desire to return to a civilised land, and the fellowship of
white people, which afflicted me during the first few weeks of my
enforced residence in the islands, had gradually worn off. I had not
only become reconciled to my fate—I liked it. And what would become of
Lolóma if I said farewell to Fiji? She could not accompany me to the
home of the white man, and to part from her was impossible. When I
listened to her beguiling voice, looked into her frank and tender eyes,
and watched the gay, pretty toss of her head, in fresh, unconscious
coquetry, or gazed upon the fiery langour of her embrowned limbs, the
idea of separation became intolerable.
A few days after the return of Turner and Cobb from Vanua Levu, the
Sarah Jane put into the port of Ramáka to take on board a quantity of
yams, which had been promised in a message sent to her captain by
Bolatha. I stepped once more on an English ship. As I listened to brief,
fragmentary accounts of the most striking events that had occurred in
Europe during the past two years, and to some items of Sydney news (for
the vessel had called there only two months back), strange reflections
crowded upon my mind, and I felt that the spirit of civilisation was
strong within me. However, the authorities against whom I had
transgressed in Sydney were still in power, and it would not do for me
to return there at present.
The delight Lolóma felt in inspecting the cordage and fittings, the
hold, the forecastle, and the cuddy of a real ship, was unbounded. Her
sunny-natured disposition was all aglow with happiness. Life never
seemed to her to be more a merry and gladsome frolic than it did that
day. It was pleasure enough to be in the sun and laugh like the rippling
torrent as it leaps from stone to stone.
Bolatha paid a visit of state to the Sarah Jane, accompanied by a large
number of his retainers, and exchanged presents with the captain. As he
carefully inspected the various quarters of the vessel, I noticed the
covetous gleam which fired his eye, and boded no good to the Englishmen.
On the following day, Captain Jackson was invited by Bolatha to a grand
meke (song and dance) given in his honour. He had been treated with a
great show of friendliness, and, nothing doubting, he went ashore
unarmed, accompanied by two of his sailors. The barque was left in
charge of the mate and the remainder of the crew. Turner and Cobb, who
had already taken up their abode on the vessel, were also on board.
In the midst of the shore festivities, of which I was an idle spectator,
Lolóma ran to me in intense excitement, saying she had overheard the
chiefs talking, and that the ship was to be captured, and all the white
men, including myself, slain. I started to my feet with the intention of
secretly giving warning to Jackson, but I was too late. Before I had
gone three paces, Jackson, and the two sailors who accompanied him, were
clubbed from behind, and I was near enough to see that the blows were
fatal. At the same moment, by a preconcerted signal, the ship was
attacked. She was surrounded with canoes, whose occupants had been
trading with the sailors in a friendly way. Her decks were also covered
with natives. Suddenly an onslaught was made with clubs, spears, and
bows and arrows. The white men were taken unawares, but they were prompt
in resistance. Turner and Cobb were luckily below at dinner, and sitting
within reach of the arm-rack. The sailors on deck had vigorously laid
about them with belaying pins, sheath-knives, and capstan-bars; and
Turner and Cobb’s steady firing of musketry through the skylight soon
cleared the decks of Fijians, with the exception of seven who lay dead.
As soon as Turner and Cobb gained the deck, and fired upon the canoes,
the whole flotilla retreated in disorder. The well-planned attempt to
capture the vessel had failed. The casualties on the side of the
Europeans were two sailors badly wounded.
At this time I was running my fleetest with Lolóma to the cavernous
retreat in which I had waited for the crocodile to make his appearance.
Pausing on rising ground to take breath, I was overjoyed to see that the
attack on the barque, which lay half a mile from the shore, had aborted.
I now believed that by making a detour, and gaining possession of a
small canoe, I could paddle on board in the night time without much
difficulty.
In the evening we were imprisoned by an unexpected event—a sudden
thunderstorm of great violence. There was a premonitory hollow uproar in
the higher regions of the air, and then the storm broke with magnificent
fury on the flank of the mountain range which backed the town. Monarchs
of the wood, held in the python-folds of enormous creepers, were
levelled. The atmosphere was filled with branches driven before the
wind, and they added to the noise of the sweeping ruin. Then the gloom
was pierced with vivid flashes of forked lightning, tracing deep
fissures in the clouds; the thunder leaped from peak to peak with its
salvos of flying artillery; and the storm plunged through space,
enacting a direful tragedy. No wonder that at such a time the Fijians
picture to themselves their war-god riding on the whirlwind and
directing the storm. Lolóma clung to me in wild affright.
The sea rolled mountainously towards my hiding-place. As it hurled
itself against the crags, the concussion was terrific—the tumult
deafening. The earth seemed to tremble beneath me. After nightfall the
storm abated, leaving the atmosphere filled with electricity. Streams of
electric fire exploded in every direction. The fretting and churning sea
was filled with a dazzling blaze of phosphorescence; rocks in this
mysterious realm were bathed with strange splendours, forming dancing
phantoms in a scene of weird revelry. The kelps and sea-weeds were stars
and comets—the waters cast up on the hill-side were gleaming rivulets in
their return. Away to the horizon stretched an ocean of molten metal,
changing with lambent flames of green, blue, and white; and on this
ghastly welter of coloured fire was projected the shadow of the hulk of
the Sarah Jane, whose silent spars reeled among the sheafs of vivid
flame. On the shore the subsiding waves rippled beneath the mangrove
bushes, flooding them with an unearthly pale light. More than once a
globe of fire descended from the inky clouds, and on reaching the sea
burst into a shower of sparks. Whenever I caught sight of the ship on
which my fortunes depended, she was dragging heavily at her anchor
chains; and she often seemed, from the constant play of the lightning
upon her spars, to be on fire in a dozen different places at once.
Slowly the strange and terrifying aspect of the lava-sea faded away,
giving place to the blackness of night.
It was long, however, before the electrical disturbance of the
atmosphere completely subsided. With the first streak of day, I
clambered up the irregular face of the rocky promontory which had given
me shelter, and gained the table-land at its summit. The trees
occasionally emitted livid wavering flames, similar to those of St.
Elmo’s light. Their appearance was accompanied by a crackling sound,
like that of the burning of wet powder. I found that when I touched
these flames, the light clung to me without causing any sensation.
Marvelling much at this phenomenon, I turned my face to the ocean, being
anxious about the safety of the barque. At that moment a party of
Bolatha’s men, lying in ambush to take me prisoner, rushed upon me. I
was too quick for them, and rapidly gained the summit of a small rocky
eminence from which I could look down upon them. Carrying my
flame-tipped fingers to my head, which was uncovered, I was suddenly
illuminated by an electric aureola, and presented the appearance of a
glorified saint. On beholding this strange transformation, the Fijians
ran off, screaming with terror. Before they were out of ear-shot I heard
them shout, partly from conviction, and partly with the view of
propitiating the newly-found deity, “The Child of the Hurricane is a God
indeed!”