A SAD EVENT.
I was so thoroughly tired that I fell asleep at once, and slept soundly;
and when I woke it was already broad daylight, and as I opened my eyes I
saw a tall form bending over me with a face painted red and white in
broad, horizontal stripes, and thought that cannibals were coming to
kill and eat me.
I sprang up with a yell, and called to Tom and Bill that our hour was
come, and that I was being killed. However, I was relieved by the
painted face which had so frightened me relaxing into a broad grin, and
hearing Calla say, for it was he,—
“What for you make big bobbery all same man die? Me Calla.”
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and looked round. Tom was sitting by Bristol
Bob’s side, who was tossing restlessly on his bed and groaning, and Bill
was at the door of the hut washing himself.
Calla had come over from the mainland of Aneitou to inquire after us,
and to say that his father, Wanga, wished us to come over to his village
in the course of the day.
I got up and went over to where Bristol Bob was lying, followed by
Calla, who, looking at him, said,—
“What make him sick? Plenty time him drink no be like this.”
Tom explained as well as he was able how we had found that the patient
was wounded, and the subsequent treatment, and how he had drunk a whole
bottle of spirits.
“Make see what thing make hole,” said Calla.
Tom, after some little hunting about, found the splinter of bone which
he had cut out in the corner of one of his pockets, and gave it to
Calla, who examined it eagerly.
After some minutes he said, pointing to the wounded man,—
“Him lib for die. Piece along of him inside.”
“What!” said Tom; “is there a bit inside him yet?”
“You watch,” said Calla; and giving a whistle, a man who had come over
to the little islet with him came into the hut.
To him Calla said something, and he went away, but presently returned,
bringing with him a quiver made of basket-work ornamented with shells
and sharks’ teeth, which he gave to Calla, who opened it and carefully
drew an arrow tipped with a splinter of bone, and putting the piece that
had been cut out of Bristol Bob by it, said,—
“You see make same here,” pointing to the middle of the head of the
arrow.
Looking carefully, we saw that the bone tip in its entirety was about
four inches long, and beautifully worked up, so that the end of it, for
more than an inch, was scarcely thicker than a pin, and that then it was
cut nearly through.
“You see him piece?” pointing to this long thin part. “Live along Bob.
Him die for sure. Plenty bad.”
“Can’t we cut it out as we did the other?” asked Bill.
“No pican white man,” said Calla. “Him along a bone. No can see or
catch.”
This sentence of death passed upon the poor fellow affected us very
much, and we were intensely disgusted when Calla quite coolly proposed
to knock him on the head at once, as he would suffer great pain, and
would not again recover consciousness, or, as Calla put it, “Peak along
man sabey it.”
To this, of course, we would not consent, and also told Calla that we
could not leave the wounded man to go and see his father.
Calla seemed very much displeased about this, and said,—
“Make plenty bobbery along man no lib. He no fit for kiki. What you
want?” But seeing that we were determined to remain, he went away and
left us to ourselves.
“Not much civilization about that fellow,” I said. “Although he makes
out he ‘live along of white man plenty time,’ I believe he’s just as big
a cannibal as the rest of them.”
“Yes,” said Tom. “And though he may think for a time of our having saved
his life, if it runs with his interests to kill us after a time, he will
do so.”
In this we afterwards found we wronged poor Calla.
“Well, mate,” I said, “what are we to do?”
“Why, first and foremost, we must look after this poor fellow, and when
he’s dead, bury him decent like; and after that we must see about
getting away. I daresay somewhere down these islands we may find a
missionary settlement or a decent trader; anyways, we mustn’t let these
people think we’re going, or they’ll find means to stop us. Now, one of
you go and find the old woman that gave us supper last night, and make
her understand we should like some breakfast.”
I went out to look for the woman, and found that now several men had
come to the island, who were the husbands of the women we had seen the
day before; and one of them, who possessed a very scanty stock of
English, informed me he was “Massa’s bos’n,” and that the others were
his “sailor men.”
Bos’n, as he was always called, when I said we wanted “kiki,” called to
some women, and I soon had the satisfaction of seeing the cooking
operations in full progress, and then followed Bos’n to a place where he
was evidently very anxious that I should come.
Judge of my surprise, on reaching the spot, which was on the shore of
the islet, to find, under a thatched roof which covered her, and in a
dock cut out of the coral rock, a cutter of about seven tons, with a
mast fitted to lower and raise like that of a Thames barge, and with all
her sails, spars, and rigging carefully stowed and in good order.
In such a craft I knew that one could easily make a voyage of almost any
distance; and lifting up a hatch that covered a sort of well, I found
that her below-deck arrangements were as good as those above, and that
she had a couple of eighteen-gallon casks for storing water, while on
her deck were ring-bolts and fittings for a small gun—doubtless the one
which Bristol Bob had taken with him in the war-canoe in the fight
against the people of Paraka.
Full of this discovery, I hastened back to the hut, and told my
companions of it. They were both delighted, and said that we should, if
necessary, be able to make our escape in her more comfortably and easily
than in our old craft, which was but a clumsy contrivance after all.
While we were talking, Bristol Bob raised himself up in his bed, and
said,—
“Hallo! Who are you, and what d’ye want? What ship d’ye come from?”
Tom at once asked him if he did not remember the fight of the day
before, and his being wounded. After some time he said he did, and then
Tom told him of what Calla said about his wound.
“Well, just have a look, will you? But I expects I has my walking ticket
anyways.”
Tom took the dressings off the wound; but it was now so painful that
Bristol Bob refused to allow him to probe it properly or handle it, so
he put fresh dressings on.
Bristol Bob now said,—
“I don’t suppose I have long to live, and I had best spin my yarn to you
afore I go. You have come from an island away to windward, where you
landed after being left adrift in your boat. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” said Tom; “and people had been there before, and one man’s
skeleton we buried. Some of the others had been buried, and the rest had
evidently gone away long before.”
“Well,” said Bristol Bob, “I’ve been here at Aneitou now a matter of
seven year, and have traded a bit. But those people who were on that
island ran their boat ashore on Paraka before ever I came here, and all
of them were eaten up; and only because I have been useful to these
people by making trade for them have I escaped being eaten. Now, listen.
There’s a tidy boat of mine on the island here, and aboard of her you
may go ’most anywheres; and if you leaves here and steers WSW. by
compass—there’s a compass in my sea-chest—you will, after about ten
days, get to an island called Leviji, where there are missionaries. You
must mind and not land anywhere before, unless you make out white men
ashore; and even then it’s best not, for many a beach-comber is as bad
as any savage among them. You will know the missionaries’ island by its
having a mountain with two separate peaks rising up to the same height
in the middle.”
“Well, well,” said Tom, “don’t you trouble about that now. We shall
manage for ourselves. But what can we do for you now?”
“Nothing, lad, except give me a drink of water. My mouth and throat is
that parched I can scarce speak.”
Tom held a gourd to the sick man’s lips, who drank eagerly, and then
said,—
“Thanks, lad. I was even once like you; but my life has been a sad and
bitter one, and now it’s ending, there’s no hope for me.”
“Don’t say that,” answered Tom. “I ain’t learned to say much, but one
thing I’m certain of, that in the Bible forgiveness is promised to all.”
“How, now? Forgiveness for me? No, lad, I’m too bad for that.”
“Listen,” said Tom, and getting the tattered Bible we had found in the
dead man’s hut on Ring Island, he read to Bristol Bob the glorious
promises of the Christian religion, and also prayed with him, Bill and I
kneeling down with him and joining in the prayers.
After we had finished, Bristol Bob said he felt happier, and trusted
that he indeed had found mercy, and asked again for water to drink. But
when Tom held a pannikin to his mouth, he was seized with a convulsive
shuddering, and dashed it away.
We tried to pour some into his mouth, but all our efforts were
fruitless, and we had, after some time, to give up the attempt.
“I know what it is, boys,” said poor Bob. “I’ve seen a many die from
these arrow wounds. I don’t know what it is, whether it’s the poison of
the bone arrow or what, but it’s an awful death. I may have a short time
during which I can speak, and I will tell you all I can how to get
away.”
The poor fellow now told us of his magazine, of his visit to which
during the night he had neither remembrance nor idea, and said that,
besides the powder in the two boxes, we should find some beads and
corals of considerable value, a small bag of pearls, and about seventy
pounds in money. This, he told us, we could keep for ourselves; and
then, as soon as he was dead, he begged us to bury him out at sea, so
that he could not be dug up and eaten; and that done, he advised us to
get away to Leviji as quick as we could. He also said that we were to
trust none of the natives, not even Calla, with our plans; but if we had
to employ any one, that it should be Bos’n, who he said he thought was
the best man on the islands.
While he was speaking, he was often interrupted by convulsive attacks,
which at last became so continuous and so bad that he could no longer
talk. Of the scene of horror that ensued while he was wrestling with the
frightful disease of tetanus, or lockjaw, I will say nothing—the
remembrance of it is even now too dreadful to me; but when, an hour
before sunset, he died, we all felt that it was a happy release.
In his storeroom we found some canvas and needles, and as soon as his
body was cold, Tom set to work and sewed him up in a seaman’s shroud,
and lashed some heavy rocks to his feet to sink his body to the bottom
of the sea.
Before all was ready, the night had nearly passed, and we lay down to
rest for a while, intending, as soon as we woke, to carry the dead body
down to the _Escape_, and, paddling her out into the bay, commit it to
the deep, in accordance with the wishes Bristol Bob had expressed while
still able to speak.
We had not slept long before we were awaked by Calla, who, as soon as
the sun had risen, had come over to the little island with a party of
armed men to insist upon our going over to the mainland to see his
father, Wanga.
We all said that we would go as soon as we had buried the dead man, but
not before; but Calla said that we were to come at once, and that the
dead body should be brought along with us.
To this we strongly objected, and when Calla told some men to take up
the body and carry it away, Tom knocked the foremost of them down. The
others, seeing how their comrade had been treated, were about to strike
at Tom with their tomahawks; but Bill and I, seizing our muskets,
presented them at Calla, and said that if a single blow were struck we
would shoot him.
Tom, too, got his musket, and said that what the dead man had wished
should be carried out, and that he would die before he was prevented.
Calla, who seemed to have not overmuch heart in the business, and was,
as was afterwards proved, less of a savage than his countrymen, said
something to them in his own language, on which they sulkily withdrew,
while he tried to prevent our being angry at what had occurred. He
said,—
“You sabe Bristol Bob him live along o’ we plenty long time—seven yam
time. Him be all one same chief, same my fader Wanga. Make plenty one
big bobbery for him die. No kiki he.”
“Never mind, Calla,” Bob said. “We have to do as he told us, and we are
going to bury him in the sea.”
“Plenty much queer white man. No care for man kiki he. Fish kiki he say
plenty good.”
“Never mind, Calla. We shall do what he said; and afterwards, if your
father wants to see us, we will come over to him.”
Calla left us and went away with his men, and we could see that he had
plenty of trouble in controlling them; and indeed, if he had not been
the son of the great chief of the island, I doubt not that he would have
been unable to do so.