in; but month followed month and no such ship came. He rose rapidly
from the post of chief armourer to be the king’s first minister, and
took to himself a woman of the place to be his wife. Ships put in
for provisions or to recruit labourers for the South American guano
islands; and as the king’s adviser, his services to the captains were
paid for, and the money hoarded. So three years slipped over his head,
and a ship put in at last wanting provisions, and bound to Levuka to
fill up with oil. Allen helped the captain to get his provisions, and
sold him his stock of pearl-shell, taking in part payment a passage for
himself, his native wife, and her niece. The ship got under weigh, and
stood on and off the island till nightfall, and Allen, guided by the
riding light, paddled off under cover of the darkness, and cast his
canoe adrift; for his royal patron had found him useful, and was prone
to secure his own comfort without due regard to the inclination of his
dependents. At Levuka he found that his countrymen were busy developing
the country with muskets and gunpowder. If a tribe would live it must
have as many firearms as its neighbours, and to obtain them it would
sell as much land as the foreigner wanted. And so, for ten muskets and
a keg of powder, Allen became the possessor of Boot Island, and the
vendor, pitying his simplicity, was ready to sell him two other rocky
islands on the same terms.
He stood at last, as he had often dreamed, upon the beach where his
treasure was buried, and watched the little dinghy labouring out
towards the cutter, which presently swooped down upon it and bore it
away, running free towards the west. Then he turned to the two women,
who sat patiently by the pile of cases on the beach, and pointed to
the spot where they had made their camp-fires more than three years
ago. They left him to gather sticks, and he passed quickly round the
point that hid the _dilo_-tree under which he had buried the box. It
was just as he remembered it, save that the ground bore no sign of
ever having been disturbed. The creeping vine that lives between soil
and sand covered the place with a thick carpet of shiny leaves, and no
mound could now be traced. He tried to picture the spot as he had last
seen it--the flickering torchlight, the scared faces of the shipwrecked
sailors, and the blood-stained sand--but the bright sun threw a
checker-work of shade through the branches, and a fresh trade-wind bore
the smell of the sea to his nostrils, so that the picture would not fit
the frame, and the memory seemed less real to him than a nightmare.
Surely he had dreamed that Benion’s shattered body was buried here! If
it was true, where was the grave? and how could the whole place look
so bright and peaceful? But the box--that could have been no dream! It
was for that that he had come, and he must find it. He went resolutely
and stood against the gnarled trunk. Standing thus, as he had stood on
the night of the wreck, the box must be buried at his feet, but there
was nothing to show that the treasure and its silent guardian lay there
together. He stooped and tore away the matted vine, and the coral sand,
dulled with vegetable mould, lay bare. Yes, there was a slight swelling
of the sand here, but so slight that he could scarcely believe that
anything lay beneath it. Some one must have found and stolen it! With a
terrible sinking of the heart, that drove out all power of reasoning,
he fell on his knees and tore away the yielding sand with his fingers.
At the fourth plunge his heart stopped, for his hand struck against
something hard. He plunged it lower, hoping to feel the square corner,
but the thing was round and unfamiliar to the touch. A little lower,
and his fingers were beneath it, and with a fierce curiosity he tore it
upwards from its sandy bed. It threw the coarse sand from its slippery
sides, and lay inert--a shattered skull, with a patch of hair still
adhering to it! Allen sat staring with wide eyes at the grinning face
as it perched knowingly on a hillock of sand, and then, as it slid
over and rolled down towards him, he shrieked yell after yell of mad
laughter, and the women, running in the direction of the sound, found
him so.
THE HERMIT OF BOOT ISLAND.
It was past three o’clock when we cast off the buoy at Mango, and let
the schooner go free before the “trade.” It was blowing fresh, but she
was travelling faster than the seas themselves, and was as steady as a
rock. At dusk we were abreast of a precipitous island, steep, too, on
all sides but one, which ran off to a sloping point like the toe of a
boot. The skipper was gazing earnestly at the dark line of shore.
“That’s Boot Island,” he said, in answer to my question; “and the other
you can just make out to the nor’ward they call Shoe Island. If there
was a light on that point I’d have to go in. The old devil that lives
there’s as crank as a March hatter, and I promised I’d go in if he
made a fire on the beach as I was passing. You see he might be sick or
something, and no one’d ever know. Nothing but a bird could land on
this side in weather like this. You’ve got to lie on and off on the
lee side and send a boat ashore. There’s no anchorage. He’s getting
very crank. Bickaway, the storekeeper, sent a boat last week for his
_copra_, but he wouldn’t let him land because it was Saturday. Said he
was getting ready for Sunday. The old beggar knew well enough that the
boat was chokeful of trade, and he and his women hadn’t enough clothes
to cover themselves decently. Bickaway yelled to him that his _copra_
would be rotten before another boat came, but he stood on the beach
and waved him off. Said that he couldn’t land before Tuesday, because
on Monday he’d be meditating. No, he can’t starve. The women take good
care of that. Bickaway saw a fine patch of pumpkins and _kumalas_,
besides cocoa-nuts. He won’t catch fish, because he says it’s wicked
to take life. There’s only the two women on the place besides him--his
woman and her niece; and he must be pretty rough on them at times, or
the girl wouldn’t have swum all the way to Shoe Island, and got picked
up by the niggers. They brought her back, too, in their boat, and the
old chap let them land, and gave them half his _kumala_ crop--he, that
don’t like niggers, least of all the Yathata niggers! They say he’s a
Yankee, but no one knows for certain. I suppose I’m the only white
man as ever got into his house, and that was five years ago. Oh! it’s
a long yarn, and not worth telling. I was ‘_beech-de-mar-ing_’ at the
back of Taveuni. Hadn’t had any luck, and one of the niggers belonging
to Yathata--that’s Shoe Island yonder--says, ‘Why don’t you try
Yathata, and the white man’s island?’ So I went over there in a boat I
had, and worked her over the reef at spring-tide in very calm weather.
I’d heard a lot about old Simpson, that he wouldn’t let any one fish
his reefs, because the island was his; but I meant to fish whether or
no, as the nigger told me that the reef swarmed with teat-fish, and
the Chinamen in Levuka were giving fifty-five pounds a ton. As soon as
we let go the anchor, the old devil came out of a lean-to he’d knocked
together of packing-cases and rusty iron. He was the damnedest old
scarecrow you ever see, with a white beard down to his belt, a filthy
old shirt, and blue dungaree pants. I made the boys haul the anchor
short and keep lifting it, so as she dragged in, and I stood up in the
stern pretending to read a book I had.”
The crest of a big sea surging past us lopped on deck, drenching us to
the knees.
“_Uli!_” shouted the skipper to the native steersman. “Here! _Soro na
sila_, some of you!” and as they slacked off the sheet he drew me aft
out of the waist, and continued.
“Well, as soon as we touched, I jumped out and waited for him.
“‘What have you come for?’ says he.
“‘Stress of weather and short provisions,’ I says. Then he stood
looking at me for about a minute, while I opened my book again. After
a bit he turned round, and went into his lean-to. When he’d gone in I
come up to the door. There was a mat or two on the bed-place, but the
floor was bare gravel, and the table an old packing-case nailed on two
sticks stuck in the ground.
“‘What d’yer want?’ he says, when I looked in.
“‘Nothing,’ says I, and sat down in the doorway. After a bit he says,
‘To-day’s the third of June, and a Thursday, else you couldn’t have
landed. Who’s Governor now?’
“‘Des Vœux,’ I says.
“‘Never heard of him,’ says he; ‘thought Gordon was. What’s _copra_?’
“‘Ten pound five in Levuka.’
“‘Then I’ll get eight pound here,’ says he. ‘I see boats and steamers
go past most weeks, but I don’t hear much news. When are you going?’
“I wasn’t going to let on about the _beech-de-mar_ racket, so I opens
my book and sings ‘Rock of Ages cleft for me.’ Soon as I begun he comes
out and stands looking at me. I only knew one verse, but I kep’ on
and sung it three times over, keeping as near as I could to the tune,
and he kep’ looking at me all the time as solemn as a cockroach. When
I done it three times I sang Amen, and he went back into the shanty.
Then I took off my hat and knelt up with my hands clasped as if I
was praying to myself. Soon as I got up he says, ‘Come in, will yer,
and sit down a bit?’ and then he calls his woman and begins talking
Tokelau to her, and she fetched in a dish of hot _kumalas_ the old
devil had been keeping back till he thought I’d go. Then she got some
eggs and took ’em off to the cook-house, and the old beggar sat on the
bed all the time and said he’d wait till I’d done. But just as I’d
got hold of a _kumala_ he says, ‘Aren’t you going to say grace?’ a
bit suspicious-like, and I says, ‘Of course I am, but I always takes
hold of the food first;’ so I holds up the _kumalas_ over my head, and
says, ‘For what we’re going to receive, Amen.’ But when we’d done
dinner we were good friends, and he’d told me all about his soul, and
asked after mine; and he sends the girls off with _kumalas_ for my
boys. Then I says that idleness is a bad thing, and I’d like ’em to
do a little fishing on the reef at low tide, and he says, ‘But you
wouldn’t have them take life?’
“‘Certainly not,’ I says. ‘I wouldn’t kill a fish, not if it jumped
into my pocket and I was starving, but with _beech-de-mar_ it’s
different, for being a slug he ain’t got feelings, and even Darwin
ain’t sure that he ain’t a vegetable.’
“‘That’s so,’ says the old beggar. ‘Well, as long as they don’t fish on
Saturday or Sunday or Monday I don’t mind.’
“Well, by Friday night we’d got all the fish worth picking up on the
lee side, and I got away on the Saturday, and promised I’d call in if I
was passing, and there was a fire on the beach,--‘You might be wanting
something, or be sick,’ I says.
“‘If I’m sick,’ he says, ‘I shan’t light a fire, for the Lord ’ll
provide.’
“Barring religion, the old devil wasn’t so very cranky, except about a
sort of fence he’d got under a _dilo_-tree. I thought it was a grave,
and went to look at it, but he come running after me with his eyes half
out of his head, and pulled me away by the arm. I suppose his woman had
had a kid that had died, and he’d got it buried there. Perhaps it’s
that that made him cranky. Well, there’s no fire on the beach, so if
he’s alive he don’t want anything.”
THE WARS OF THE FISHING-ROD.
Far up the great river there once dwelt three clans in brotherly love,
planting on the same lands, and giving their women to one another in
marriage. Brothers in arms they were, and staunch allies whenever the
hordes of Tholo made a descent upon them; nor could the elders remember
any interruption in their friendship except once, when the pigs of
Valekau destroyed the yam-gardens of Rara, and their owners would make
no reparation. But this was long ago, and the tradition had become
misty.
Rara stood upon a high bluff on a bend of the river, precipitous
on three sides, and protected on the fourth by two ditches and an
earthwork. Valekau, sprung from the same ancestors and worshipping
the same gods, was built upon a lower hill a mile away, and set back
from the river-bank. It needed no protection but a war-fence on the
crest of the hill, and the gate was an arch formed by the roots of a
great banian-tree, so narrow that one warrior only could pass it at a
time. Tovutovu lay in the plain on the other side of the river. Five
ditches encircled it, having war-fences between each, and the gates
were cunningly devised, so that he who would enter must encompass the
town three times between the palisades before he could pass all the
gates, for none was opposite to the other. Tovutovu had not the same
gods as Rara, having descended later from the mountains to the plain.
But in peace-time they planted together, and the women fished _kais_ in
the common fishing-ground; and when the _lali_ beat for war, the young
men painted their faces and lay in ambush together, and the women and
children hid together in the forest behind Rara.
Now strange things began to be brought up the river. First there
were rumours of foreigners who came up from the ocean in canoes like
islands for bigness. This, they thought, was but another lie of their
enemies, the coast-people. Next Seru of Rara brought a thing more solid
than rumour--an adze made of a hard substance that cut deep into the
toughest wood which the stone adze only chipped. The man who gave it
in Kasava told him that it was the least of the strange things the
foreigners had brought, and that the foreigners had white skins like
lepers, and covered them up with bark-cloth, being ashamed to show
aught but their faces because of the colour. Also their noses were as
long as bananas, and they spoke with women’s voices.
Thenceforward the young men made many journeys down the river as far as
they dared, and brought back with them other strange things--cloth not
made from bark, but of a substance that could be washed without injury,
and iron of many shapes that could be beaten out between two stones
into adze-blades; and one of them brought back a tale of a devil the
foreigners had which thundered, and every time it thundered a man fell
dead, pierced through the body with an unseen spear. There was much
striving between the clans to possess these strange things, and they
were begged of the young men, and begged again of him to whom they were
given, so that they passed from one to another until each of the elders
had called them his. But they all yearned to possess the devil of the
foreigners that thundered, and the young men made many journeys hoping
to possess one, and returned with many things, but always without this
devil that they wanted. And one day when the youths of Rara returned
from down the river, the young man Bativundi came running to the elders
of Valekau as they sat at sunset in the great _bure_.
“The youths of Rara have returned from below, and it is said that they
have brought with them a wonderful thing with which the foreigners take
fish. It is a stick that grows long at will, as a bamboo shoots up from
the ground; and from the top there comes a string, having at the end a
fly with a hook hidden in its belly. This is the way of it. A man holds
the stick in his hand and waves it, and the stick, being pliable, makes
the fly dance upon the water; and whether it be magic, or whether the
fish be befooled, I know not, yet they bite the fly and are pierced
with the hook, and so drawn to land. No such thing has been seen in our
land, for one man between sunrise and mid-day can take more fish than
all Valekau can eat.”
“_Kombo!_” cried the elders. “Let us send an embassy to Rara to beg
this stick that we may eat fish and live.”
So on the morrow Nkio took a root of _yangona_ in his hand and went to
Rara, saying, “I am come to beg the stick with which fish are taken.
It is the word of the chiefs of Valekau, your relations, that I beg
this stick.”
Now the men of Rara had touched the _yangona_-root, and clapped their
hands, and they sat silent as if not knowing what answer to make.
But at last one of them said, “Be not angry, Nkio, but return to
Valekau, saying, ‘We are a poor land, and it is difficult to grant your
request.’” So Nkio returned and spoke as he had been bidden.
Valekau sat in council, and their hearts were grieved. Did Rara weigh
their friendship so lightly that they wantonly refused a gift begged
with the proper ceremonies? It was a gross insult. Rara esteemed them
as slaves, things of no account, to be flouted at will; but they should
know that a long peace does not blunt the spears nor paralyse the arms
of Valekau. The bodies of their youths were not gross with slothful
ease, nor the limbs of their elders stiff with wallowing on the mats.
This insult must be paid for! But how? Then spoke Bonawai, the Odysseus
of the tribe, versed in all the wiles and craft that bring a people to
greatness--_Bonawai na dau vere_, Bonawai the schemer.
“Hearken!” he said, contracting his brows until his wicked eyes gleamed
like fire-sticks. “Rara is a stronghold set upon a hill, and the young
men within it are as the _kai_-shells about the cooking-places for
multitude, and they have Wanganivanua and Tumbanasolo, both terrible in
war. If a man would climb the hill on this side, surely his body would
be like a _balawa_-tree at the cross-roads, at which the boys throw
their reeds, so thick would it be stuck with spears; and if we lie in
ambush for their women when they dig the yams, and bring the bodies
home to be baked, we should not triumph long, for they would come upon
us at first cock-crow, and if they feared to scale the war-fence, they
would bind balls of lighted _masi_ to their spear-heads and throw
them into the thatch to windward, and while we were scurrying about
foolishly, like ants whose nest the digging-stick has probed, striving
to extinguish the fire, they would leap the fence and club us in the
darkness from behind. For I know the men of Rara how crafty and subtle
they are in wiles of war; yet there is none among them so crafty as
I. Now listen! Across the river are the men of Tovutovu. Let us send
to them, saying, ‘Come! You are our brothers. In Rara there is much
plunder, and women fair to look upon, and the men are puffed up with
pride,--living as they do in so strong a fortress,--and call you and us
their slaves. They have, besides, a certain stick--a magic contrivance
of the foreigners--that takes fish until a man wearies of holding it.
This we begged of them that we might give it to you, but they, knowing
our intention, refused. Therefore, come! Let us wipe them out, and
we will divide the spoil and the dead bodies and the slave-women as
becomes chiefs.’ And if it happen that Rara be too strong for us, and
we be repulsed, then we will send whales’ teeth to them, saying, ‘The
men of Tovutovu seduced us, but if ye will, we will join you and cross
the river and club these strangers of Tovutovu, dividing the spoil and
the dead bodies as becomes chiefs.’ These are my words to you!”
And the elders cried, “_Vinaka, Vinaka!_” and clapped their hands.
Then an embassy was chosen,--Mawi, the left-handed, and Waleka, the
orator,--and they took a whale’s tooth and crossed over to Tovutovu in
the night, and spoke the words of Bonawai as they had been bidden. And
the elders of Tovutovu took the whale’s tooth in token that they would
do the behest of which it was an emblem; and the young men prepared
black paint for their faces, and streamers of smoked _masi_ for their
elbows, and turbans, and dyed rushes for leg-ornaments, and arrayed
themselves for war. And they came out into the square in the evening
before the elders and the women, and boasted, looking very terrible
with their weapons. And one ran forward and smote the earth thrice
with his club, so that it trembled, and he cried, “Fear not, aged men,
this club is your shield!” And another took his place, and gnashed his
teeth, crying, “My name is ‘Man-eater.’ The corpses of Rara are my
food!” And another cried, “My arms rest only when I am clubbing!” And
another, “Lead me on, for I bark for human flesh!”
So they became exceeding bold with their boasting, each vying with
the other, and the maidens saw their valour and admired them, and the
elders laughed, crying, “Well done!” And towards evening the words of
Bonawai came to them, bidding them cross over under cover of the night
and attack Rara from the front at first cock-crow, for Valekau would
yield them the place of honour, and themselves attack from the forest.
So when evening was come they crossed the river at the bend where the
bananas are, and came out into the yam-gardens. Here two old women
of Rara were carrying home loads of firewood on their backs, fearing
nothing, for it was peace-time; but when they saw the blackened faces
of the warriors and the weapons they shrieked loudly, and threw down
their burdens to run towards Rara. But the army of Tovutovu set upon
them, and Rasolo, being swiftest of foot, reached them first, and
slew them with his throwing-club as they lay upon the ground crying
for mercy, and shielding their heads with their hands. Then they went
to Valekau to wait until the moon set. And about midnight the men of
Valekau left them and climbed into the forest, so as to descend upon
Rara from behind, and intercept the fugitives, saying, “Let us attack
just before the birds awake, for then is sleep heaviest upon men.”
[Illustration: “_Rasolo, being swiftest of foot, reached them first,
and slew them with his throwing-club._”]
So before the first cock crowed the men of Tovutovu crept up the hill
from all sides, and the army of Valekau crawled down the ridge in the
forest to attack the war-fence at the back of the fortress; but ere
they reached it a green parrot heard them, and flew shrieking to its
mates, “Awake, awake!” and a man of Rara, who chanced to be without,
said within himself, “A green parrot never cries save when alarmed by
men, and men are not abroad at this hour save for some evil,” so he
cried to his fellows in the great _bure_, “There is war! Make ready!”
And they, suddenly awakened, snatched every man a weapon, and ran
hither and thither in the darkness, not knowing what they did. And the
women shrieked, and the children wailed, and there was a great uproar.
And when the men of Valekau heard it they leapt into the ditch, caring
nothing for the sharp stakes, and tore down the war-fence, and thrust
fire-sticks into the thatch of the houses, and the wind from the forest
fanned the glow into a flame, and the thatch was ignited so that it
became as light as day. The men of Rara stopped not to strike at them,
but fled down the hill towards the river like a mountain torrent after
rain; and as the torrent sweeps away the dead wood that has choked its
bed, so they bore down the army of Tovutovu before them, who, thinking
themselves attacked, struck at them and fled, leaving the way clear.
And so eager were the men of Valekau for plunder, that not one pursued,
and all escaped but some women and children who knew not whither to
flee. So Rara was burned, and their yam-gardens destroyed, and the
army of Valekau carried away the plunder and the dead bodies, and
shared them with Tovutovu as became chiefs. But though they searched
diligently, yet they did not find the cause of the war--the stick
with which fish are taken; and they sent to Tovotovu, saying, “If we
had found it, it should have been your portion; but the Kai Rara are
crafty, and must have buried it. Yet we send you bodies for the oven.”
Thus was Rara wiped out, and Valekau and Tovutovu divided the spoil.