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The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom




(1888)
Country of origin: Australia Australia
Available texts by the same author here Dokument


XXX. The Coming Home of the Fleet.

   "IF an apology will serve, General, here's my hand, and I beg your pardon and grant your grace."
   "No, sir, apology won't do, you have insulted me on your own deck and served me a shabby trick, leaving me behind--a confoundedly savage trick, and what is an apology?"
   "I am sorry, General, but--"
   "Sorry be----"
   And the General glared over at the half-tipsy skipper, as he brought his hand with a military smash down on the frail table in the house of Toto, making the glasses spin again, and the table to stagger like a drunken man.
   It was the afternoon after the entry into Hula, and the General, in high dudgeon, had been paddled ashore by Ila. His honour had been outraged and himself made of little consequence, having had to breakfast with the engineer's assistant only, all the others being ashore, where they had stopped after landing.
   The General panted for the blood of a foe, having been disappointed the night previously, and now he bore down in full war panoply upon the poor old skipper, who, having been freely passing about cups, felt amiably inclined towards all men.
   The remainder of the hill-tribe were now confined in Toto's house, which had been transformed for the present into a prison, where they were waiting to be moved on board the Thunder and taken to Moresby, to be tried according to Colonial law for their attempted raid.
   Toto had come out much better from the affair than even he had dared, volatile though he was, to hope; through the dark hours of morning he sat in the saloon with the General, drinking bottled stout and whisky with him, each one capping the other's account of daring adventures with some tale more wonderful, until at last, when day dawned, it revealed the General lying on his back on the cabin floor, snoring profoundly, and dreaming doubtless of noble actions, while the gentle steward picked up the bottles and counted them carefully over. There being no one on board left to contradict him, he marks down on his slips some extra bottles; which done, he arranges his slips of paper and waits patiently on the waking of the great man, in order to present him with them and so render him happy.
   It is this opportune moment which Toto takes for slipping into one of the canoes alongside and paddling himself ashore.
   He avoids the groups of natives, male and female, who are busily engaged clearing the street from the dead, carrying those who have been friends into their own houses to wait the burial, and hustling the despised carcases of foemen up to the Dobu House to be dealt with afterwards as the chief and his white brothers will decide.
   Meeting Kupatele, he gleans all the news from her, how Mavaraiko, the chief, and Kamo have both been severely wounded, and now lie together, nursed by Rea.
   "But Kamo is an outlaw?"
   "Oh, no; Kamo is the general favourite and hero of the hour; he has wiped out his faults with many lives. Ah! he is a big man now, my little Toto."
   "Indeed!" sneers Toto.
   "Yes; indeed, the Kavanah loves him as much as Rea does. You ought to have seen him fight last night, while you were running away; like an old warrior's, his club spun round, he saved the life of our chief when he would have been slain, taking the blow upon his own arm, poor fellow, but he is badly hurt, and it will take Rea her full month of waiting before they marry, nursing him round."
   "But what about me in all this?"
   "Ah, you, they all laugh too much when the name of Toto is mentioned."
   "Kupatele," cried Toto, seizing her arm, "you have told upon me."
   "No, Toto, there were other eyes besides mine."
   "Ah, true, then all my chances are gone?"
   "Go away for a while, Toto, the great white Kavana of Moresby has heard of you and wants to see you, so the Beretana say."
   "You would like me to go, Kupatele, wouldn't you?" said Toto with a leer of suspicion.
   "No, Toto," faltered poor Kupatele.
   "You fear lest I might tell your husband how you got the beads, Kupatele?"
   "No, Toto, you would not."
   "But I might, you know, if I was not a good fellow."
   "But you are a good fellow, Toto."
   "Kupatele, will you do what I ask you, if I promise to go away, and never come back?"
   "Yes, Toto," eagerly replied the young woman.
   "Then come to my house to-night, and I will give you something to rub on Kamo's wound to make it better."
   Kupatele started back with a sudden horror in her usually laughing eyes, while Toto watched her with a sinister grin which revealed all his discoloured fangs.
   "I shall look out for you, at the time you used to come, after the sun has gone down."
   "No, Toto--not that."
   "If you are not with me by the time the moon rises, I will come to your house and see your husband."
   "I will come."
   Kupatele had a stern, white face as she said the last words, and turned away without another word, walking steadily up the village, while Toto, with a long look after her, went in the direction of his own house.
   Kupatele went on straight until she came upon a group of native women who were gathered about the well discussing the events of the night before. There were one or two amongst them whom she had in former days met in Toto's house of call.
   "Have you seen Honkowa?" she asked of them.
   "Poor Honkowa, she is down in her hut weeping for her man who was killed last night."
   Kupatele went over to the hut owned by Honkowa, and entering, sat down to weep.
   "Honkowa, we are friends?"
   "Yes, Kupatele, but you know how we acted towards him who lies dead," and the poor widow covered her head and sobbed bitterly.
   "It was Toto who made us what we are."
   "Ay, always Toto, yet he is alive and unwounded."
   "Would it not be well if Toto was dead?"
   The women look earnestly on one another, then they fall to whispering quickly.
   "Will they not all help us if we do it?"
   "All the women who know him as we do, will," replied Hankowa.
   "You get them together when they come to weep, and tell them what I have said, and bring them down to where the stream runs into the sea; I'll lure him out."
   The widow returns to her task of weeping over her husband, while Kupatele goes back home with her filled water-can.
   Toto finds his house occupied by the white party of the Thunder, and exerts himself with great success to play the host; from a secret hiding--place he produces some bottles of fiery gin, the Torres Straits special brand beloved of divers, and getting a few young cocoa-nuts, busied himself making grog for the company and ingratiating himself in their good graces.
   "They say you can sing Kanaka hymns, Toto?" asked Bowman.
   "Yes, sir, anything you like."
   "Sing us a hymn," cries the Captain, and Toto gravely takes his well--thumbed hymn-book, and seating himself cross-legs on the floor, sings to them "The happy land."
   "You are a sad blackguard, Toto," says Bowman.
   "I think so, sir, very fair, all that same."
   "And a great coward, Toto."
   "Not a coward, sir, me very brave, like--like--"
   Toto cannot hit upon a fair example all of a moment, Danby helps him.
   "Like the Captain over there, eh?"
   "No, sir," said Toto, making a droll face, and pointing over to where the Thunder lay moored, "like the General!"
   A universal burst of laughter followed this sally of Toto, and he was at once established as a favourite.
   They all sat drinking and talking until about midday, at which hour the gallant soldier made his appearance, sullen and disdainful.
   "Have a tot, General?" asked Bowman, pushing the bottle towards him as he entered, but the General made no direct answer, stalking proudly over to the broad bamboo couch, upon which he flung himself with a force which made the wall shake, muttering under his moustache something about "low-bred cads."
   "He is angry with you, Captain," remarked Danby; "I think you ought to apologise."
   The skipper, now more than half-seas over, cocked his bleary blue eye in the direction of the couch, and stammered,--
   "Cartainly, if it is necessary. I say, old cock of the walk, if so be as I have offended you in any way, tip us your fin, and say that score's wiped out, and a drink, and make friends."
   The General rose from his couch, and walking over to the table, said sternly,--
   "Captain MacAndrews, you have offended me."
   "Holy Moses, what more can a man do except say he is sorry after he has asked your pardon, ye stiff-necked old rebel; will ye take my hand?"
   And the Captain put forth a horny and not overclean paw.
   "No, sir, I will not take your hand."
   "Then, if it is fighting you want, I am your Moses; name your place and weapons, General--pistols, swords, Gatling-guns or scissors, I won't say no, only one condition I ask, which is, that this is to be none of your Frenchified sham battles."
   The General stared upon him till his small grey orbs seemed to be starting from his head, while the old tar kept two lobster eyes rolling and blinking at him in return.
   "Captain MacAndrews--"
   "Ay, you may stare with your military goggles, and so can I. Look on, my hearty, but hear my conditions; let us fix a spot, to-morrow, or now if you like, I'm willing, only two of us must not come back, it's a chopping up job, and no blamed nonsense."
   "Captain MacAndrews," continued the General in set tones, "I do not know whether you are in jest or in earnest--"
   "Dead earnest, by Moses," hiccuped the Captain.
   "If in jest, let me tell you, sir, that it is in very bad taste--damned bad taste--on your part to joke on such a subject with a man of my experience, but if in earnest--I say--if in earnest--"
   The General paused and paled visibly, as he hastily turned away.
   "But I don't think you can be in earnest, so I shall let the matter drop, and say no more about it."
   The company smiled broadly at this characteristic termination of the quarrel, and poured out a fresh supply of gin and cocoa-nut, to conceal their mouths, while the Captain sank back on his seat and went on to inform Danby of a challenge he once had in South America, the result of which had been to him six months in a Mexican jail.



   Inside the chief's house was a picture of mingled pleasure and sorrow, for Kamo and the father of his love lay helpless on the one mat, while Rea and Putitai were kept busy running under the direction of some of the wise old women of the tribe, who were pounding and boiling, and chewing at the healing herbs.
   Rea no longer capricious and wayward, but moving about with soft feet, touching where she could with gentle fingers the hot skin of the fevered Kamo, and silently crying, hardly knowing whether misery at his danger, or happiness at having him near her filled her the most, for Toto seemed now like an evil dream which had passed away and left no trace behind.
   A subdued light filled the inside of the hut, and where the wounded men lay the air from the sea stole in at the back and out from the front like a gentle sigh; while in the centre, where the old women squatted, were the earthenware pots ranged about a low wood fire; an aromatic smell pervaded the apartment, the perfume peculiar to native houses and articles.
   In some of the other huts throughout the village, the same scene is taking place, men lying passive on the mats and old women nursing them.
   In others the matting is drawn before the doorways where death has come upon them, while the processions of young women are going from house to house to take their allotted time of lamentation in each abode of desolation.
   The men who have escaped are also hard at work, digging graves in the sand in front of each of the closed doorways. We know all who have lost a relation from the black and grease which they have just bedaubed themselves with, and few are free from these sombre suits of mourning.
   Weeping inside the houses where the graves are dug or being dug, and inside one a group of women who have been misled, and who are now shedding bitterly repentant tears, and between the tears plotting vengeance against their destroyer.
   The afternoon shadows are getting very long from the posts of the houses, when the Captain, affectionately leaning on the arm of the complacent Toto, with the General bringing up the rear, staggered out upon the beach to enjoy the cooling westerly breeze, and see the burials, which will soon take place.
   Kupatele coming along at that moment attracts the Captain's amorous eye, and he makes a lunge towards her, which she laughingly evades, sending him full butt against the son of Mars. Both reel for a moment, then sink down on the soft sands face downwards across each other, making of themselves a fair sign of Christianity in that pagan land.
   As Kupatele glides past Toto, he says, "Remember--"
   To which she replies with the smile still upon her face, from the ridiculous downfall she has witnessed, "I will not forget, Toto."
   And so she passes into the full glare of the setting sun, seeming to grow enlarged as she walks from him along the beach, and resembling a dark phantom in front of a background of crimson and gold.
   "The Lakatois are coming!" Toto hears a boy shouting as he speeds past him at this moment with his welcome tidings towards the village, and, leaving his prostrate white friends to lie where they have fallen, he runs down to the water's edge, and leaping into a small catamaran, pulls out to the open sea to meet the fleet.
   Joy in the midst of lamentation, for all know that upon this advent all their future mouths depend. "Have they been successful?" is the shout from all, as the dead are forgotten by all except those most nearly bereaved, while the shores are lined with rushing figures of men, women, and children, seeking their own individual canoes, and pushing forth to meet the bold traders who have been to distant fields west.
   A golden ocean, dotted over with black spots, as the catamarans shoot out to meet the larger vessels.
   "They are coming! they are coming!" are the distant cries which reach Danby, Bowman, and the explorer, and force them to the platform to see what causes the excitement.
   Past Round Head they drive with their brown, double swallow-tail--shaped sails nearly bent cross-ways, and looking purple in that golden distance--twenty large sailing-vessels have joined in that daring venture from different villages of the east.
   Nearer they come with their pennons flying wildly, and the laden decks swarming with figures. Like Greek galleys they look as they bulge out russet and madder purple against those western flames.
   A successful passage. The small canoes are crowding round the two Lakatois belonging to Hula, and the dark figures are bending over to help up the forms of sisters, wives, and mothers, as they speed along with their shoal of small empty fry towing behind.
   Bird-like they enter the bay, their allies following in their wake, sheathing their huge sails as they gracefully bring up to anchor beside the dark hull of the less decorated steamship Thunder.
   Then a mighty shout goes up from the shore and from the sea, which seems to rend the heavens, as the fierce bloodshot eye of day sinks behind the dark blue line of waters, leaving the sky crowded with strange shapes, like clawing dragons and monsters of scarlet, orange and smoky russet, with an upper space of gold and silver wings floating over an immensity of deepening azure.
   The dead lie unburied that night in the huts, for the living have come again after a separation which has seemed like death, and their wants must be attended to.
   To-night they must all rejoice over their victory on shore and successful undertakings at sea--all except the widows, perhaps, who do not intrude upon the general joy, but shut themselves more closely in with their unwelcome dead.
   To-morrow all will join in the lamenting, as to-night they join in the feast and song.



   Toto makes a capital jailor as well as host; his kind generally excel in the social arts; they know how valuable it is from a business point of view, and have not sufficient sensitiveness or intensity of character to be otherwise than plausible at all times.
   He looked after his prisoners according to their necessities, and gave them with their food comfort to digest it, not knowing when he might want them as friends.
   "The Beretana Kavana like brave men, and you are brave, never fear, me see you all right with him, he great friend of mine, and will soon send you back, if I ask him, with lots of presents to your wives."
   Toto passed from his captives like an angel of light, leaving behind him a radiance of hope. Of course it was all lies, but it pleased them and made them think kindly of Toto, and he liked to please all men when he could, without hurting himself.
   As a host he was equally successful, adroit in keeping peace all round; he kept even the General in a genial mood, consenting to be his butt and buffoon, while at the droll faces he made the others laugh with him and turned the coarse, blunt jokes of the General against himself. The skipper needed no finesse, for he was slumbering since they had brought him in, with the unconscious calmness of a baby.
   Adroit also in knowing just where to stop with his filthy inuendoes, he had said to Danby, seeing him young, and thinking him vicious, "I show you fine girl if you like, to-night," when, seeing a cold shade gather over the brow of that young gentleman, hastened at once to correct himself by adding--"She come to sell bau-bau, by-and-by."
   The General was expatiating as usual, when in his cups, on the injustice done him by governments in general, and the Colonial Government in particular, while the rest were sitting sipping their grog after supper and smoking, taking without remark the General's abuse, while Toto hovered about like a ministering angel, ready and plastic to agree with all, when the back door opened quietly and the dark colourless face of Kupatele showed itself for a moment to Toto, and vanished back again to the night.
   Toto looked swiftly round, and seeing that no one had noticed this incident, quietly slipped through the half-open door and drew it gently behind him.
   An hour afterwards they were still sitting as Toto had left them--the others silent and hazy, and the General braying out his political tirade--when once more the door opened to admit the gentle face and tall thin form of the Kanaka teacher who had replaced Toto at Hula after the latter's flagrant misdemeanour. This poor man had only recovered from a severe attack of fever, his wife at present lying very sick, and was now on his way to ask the white men for medicine, as he was short of it. He came forward to the light with a frightened air and said,--
   "White fellow lying dead in the stream outside."
   All jumped to their feet except the sleeping Captain. The explorer had left them early in the evening to go aboard; could it be he?
   Without a word they all followed after the frightened teacher to where the stream emptied itself into the sea; a dirty, muddy little stream, sluggishly crawling down through the sands a few yards from the house, ankle deep, which any one could have jumped over without wetting his feet.
   The young moon was up still, but it did not cast enough light to distinguish white man from brown, but the clothing on that prostrate figure lying with face upwards was that of a European. The teacher had turned him over as he passed.
   Danby took the legs and Bowman and the teacher the shoulders, and together they bore it to the chamber in which they had been drinking. Down by the village they were holding their feast and sending back sounds of rejoicing.
   Into the light, and then they saw who it was.
   "Toto!"
   The comic man and general favourite, with staring, lack-lustre eyes and gaping mouth chock full of the slime and mud of that shallow stream.


Chapter 31 >