“You’ll have to go to the reef for that,” said one; “iron don’t float.”
With the few tools they had saved from the wreck the repairs of the boat made rapid progress. Three days passed, and though they had been on half rations, their little stock of bread unspoilt by the salt water was running short. At the most it would last them five days, and they must allow three for the voyage to the westward. On the third day, therefore, the last plank was roughly nailed into its place, and caulked with strips torn from their clothing, a rough sail was contrived from the schooner’s jib, and provisions and water were prepared for their start upon the morrow.
Benion had had alternate fits of deep dejection and impotent fury since the destruction of the schooner. He spoke to no one, and would not eat his ration of biscuit though he drank his water greedily. At times he would start up, kneeling on the sand andshaking his fist at the sky and sea, shouting blasphemies learned at the diggings but forgotten till now; at others he lay for hours, face downwards, on the sand, pillowing his head upon his arm. The men thought him mad and avoided him, and Allen was glad of any excuse for keeping away from him. But on the day before the projected start he had shown no violence, but had lain motionless on the ground hour after hour. They discussed him over the fire at night.
“A chap as won’t eat, and has the jimmies, ain’t long for this world,” said the boatswain, summing up.
“Wish he’d look sharp about it,” growled another; “we don’t want chaps seein’ snakes aboardthatcraft.” And he pointed to the boat. Allen had been the first to notice Benion’s change of manner, and it filled him with something like remorse. But it was too late to turn back now. After all, if the box had been really lost, as it well might have been, Benion would have had to bear his loss, and he must learn to bear it now. Besides, perhaps he would tell him if they got safe out of the island. Yes; he would tell him, but not now while he was in this state. But however he tried to comfort himself, he was too uneasy to lie down withthe other men, who were laying in a stock of sleep for their journey on the morrow. In the dim light of the stars he could see, just beyond the shadow of the trees, a figure sitting on the sand looking seaward, and could hear a few broken words brought to him by the night breeze. He could feel, though he could not see, the fierce eyes with a life’s longing written in them. He got up once intending to go and speak to Benion, but abandoned the idea before he reached him, so terrible did he seem in his despair; so he lay down watching him, and trying to drive back his better feelings. About midnight he was almost dozing when he sprang into wakefulness at the sound of his own name coupled with a horrible blasphemy. Benion was kneeling erect, his right arm extended seawards and clutching the back of his neck with his left, declaiming passionately. Suddenly he turned, and falling on his hands and knees, began to crawl towards the tree under which the captain and officers of the ship were asleep. He passed into the shadow of the trees, and for a moment was lost to sight. A horrible fear seized Allen that he was mad and intended to kill some one, but uncertainty prevented him from moving. A ray of light from one of the fires faintly illumined the tree-trunk, and into this thecrawling figure emerged from the darkness. Yes; it must be murder that he intended, for now he saw him grasp the captain’s gun that was leaning against the tree, but before he could start forward he was crawling away as swiftly and noiselessly as he had come, dragging the gun after him. Then it was not murder of another but of himself. Now he was out again on the sand, and scuffling along the beach upon his left foot and his right knee, nearly as fast as a man could walk. Allen was too horrified to act—he could only watch the receding figure with terror and bewilderment; and with that strange perversity of humour it crossed his mind how funny Benion looked scuffling along with his gun over his shoulder. But when the figure disappeared behind a protruding tree, he yielded to the impulse to follow and watch him. Perhaps he did not mean to kill himself after all. He came out upon the sands, keeping in the shadow of the trees, and near enough to Benion to distinguish his figure in the dim light. After going a couple of hundred yards the hobbling figure became more distinct, and Allen saw that he had stopped. There was not more than twenty yards between them, and he sought for a deeper shadow in which to stand. Just before him was a tree with low widespreadingbranches, that threw the trunk into profound darkness. He crept towards it, lifting his feet high and planting them softly on the sand. Something struck him as familiar in the trunk as he neared it. Yes. Surely it was the tree under which the box was buried! Had Benion halted there by chance, or because he knew the spot? He turned to look for him, and saw that he was creeping towards the tree on the other side of the trunk. Then he must know the spot, and he had brought the gun to defend him from interference. Allen would have run away but for the fear of being overheard. Benion was on his knees now not five yards from him. He could hear his labouring breath, and the rustle of the sand as he dragged his wounded leg over it. As he came up Allen moved so as to keep the tree between them. He stopped at the very edge of the pile of sand and vines that hid the box, and sat down. How did he know so well that it was there without feeling for it? He was going to dig it up with his hands! He must get his breath first, though. Was this the time to rest when any of the men might interrupt him? But no, he was not resting, he was doing something. He was measuring the distance with his gun, pushing the butt forward in the sand, so; or was he going to dig withit that he leaned forward and put his foot against the trigger-guard as a fulcrum? Good God! No; his head is against the muzzle! “Benion!”
Before the blinding flash had left his eyes, or the report ceased echoing along the cliff, Allen was kneeling beside his partner, whose head—as much as was left of it—was pillowed on the box for which he had died. But only for a moment. The awful shock, while it numbed his senses, brought him realisation of his own danger. The report must have aroused the men by the fire, and if they found him there they might suspect foul play. What mattered the treasure beside such a danger? Leaving the body as it was, he tore through the undergrowth straight inland to the base of the cliff, and groped his way along the rocks so as to pass to the rear of the camp. His naked feet were torn and bleeding from his headlong rush through the bush, but his mind was too intent upon the sounds from the beach to heed the pain. He heard the voices of men in motion, and a loud shout from the direction of theivi-tree. Then they had found the body! They would bring it back to the camp, and he would be missed; perhaps they had even seen his footsteps! If he would escapesuspicion he must mix with the men before they had time to notice his absence. He began to run again and burst out of the bush, heated and breathless, at a spot beyond the camp. He slackened his pace when he saw the fire, but a glance told him that it was deserted. There was a confused murmur from the direction of thedilo-tree, and he pressed on in the hope of joining the others unnoticed in the darkness. A few of the men were waving smouldering brands snatched from the fire to fan them into flame, the rest were stooping and craning over each other’s shoulders to look at something in the middle of the circle. Allen, striving to suppress his panting breath, pressed forward like the others, but his labouring lungs would not obey him.
“Why, mate, who the —— been chasing you? You’re blowing like a black-fish.”
“What is it?” asked Allen between his gasps.
“Your mate, Benion, with a hole in his head that you can put your foot into. Why, where have you been?”
Some of the men turned round to look at him, and in the faint light he was not a prepossessing object. His face and hair were dripping with sweat, thoughthe skin was ghastly white, and his distended nostril and heaving chest showed how fear and physical effort had told upon him.
“Looks as if he could tell us something about it,” muttered one of them.
But Allen roughly forced his way through them, and fell on his knees beside the captain, who was giving directions for lifting the body.
“Benion!” he cried. “Good God! Why could he have done it?”
His distress was so evident that his words turned their thoughts in a new direction.
“After all, the pore devil had the jimmies,” said the boatswain, “and like as not he kicked the trigger off with his foot: must have got a clip on the head as we went ashore.”
The gun was still lying where it fell—the muzzle resting on the dead man’s shoulder, and the butt on the sand beside his right knee. The position was so consistent with the idea of suicide, that they at once adopted it.
“Well, it’s no good moving him till daylight,” said the captain. “Some of you get a bit of sailcloth to cover him with, and let’s leave him as he is untilthe morning. Now, my lads, turn in and get what sleep you can, for we must be away at sun-up;” and he led the way back to the camp, followed by most of the men. Allen went with them and lay down, pretending to sleep rather than undergo the questions he thought might follow.
They were all astir before daybreak. The captain called Allen, as being Benion’s fellow-passenger, and asked him whether he knew of anything that would account for the suicide.
“He had a box,” replied Allen, “in which he kept all our money. It was lost in the schooner, and when he found that it was gone he lost his head, as you saw.”
“Where were you when the thing happened?”
“I had left the camp on the other side. When I heard the gun go off I ran in and found you round the body. When I left, Benion was sitting here on the beach as he had been all day.”
“H’m! You must have been a long time away,” said the captain, turning to give orders about stowing the stores in the boat. Then taking with him the mate and such of the sailors as were not employed, he walked to thedilo-tree followed by Allen. At itsfoot a sailcloth was spread, which had roughly taken the shape of the body it covered. In the grey light Allen could see that one end of it was stained red and caked hard. The captain saw it too, and said, “Don’t uncover the poor devil; dig the hole here, and we’ll lift him into it just as he is.”
Four sailors armed with bits of broken plank began to scrape up the sand so as to form a hollow trench, and as the mound at the back grew higher, the sand slipped down and met the pile Allen had made round the buried chest. In a few moments a shallow trench had been dug, and they lifted the stiff body still covered and lowered it gently into the rough grave.
“Hats off!” said the captain, gruffly, as he stepped to the side of the grave. “Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. We commit his body to the earth, in sure and certain hope that at the last day he will rise again.”
It was all that he could remember of the Burial Service, and he said it defiantly as a man who does his duty regardless of the ridicule he may provoke, and dropped a handful of the coral sand upon the canvas.
“Now shovel in the sand,” he said, roughly; “we’ve done all we can for the poor chap.”
Allen was staring on the box. The creepers and sand he had thrown upon it had taken the square form of the lid, and he could scarcely believe that they had not seen it. But there were blood-stains on it. He ran forward and shovelled the loose sand over them with his hands so quickly that the work was done before another could come to his assistance.
Two hours later the crowded boat was running free, and the island, with its fellow to the northward, had taken definite shape.
“We must give it a name,” said the mate. “What’s it to be?”
“It looks mighty like a boot from this side,” said the boatswain; “and the island to the nor’ward’s like a shoe. Let’s call it Boot Island.”
So Boot Island it was called.
How they reached Levuka at last, and parted company in that budding centre of idleness and cheap liquor—some to work their passages to Sydney, and others to scatter over the group—need not be relatedhere. To get away from something that lay on the beach at Boot Island was Allen’s one desire. Drink is said to drown memories, so he tried drinking; but it would not wash away certain dull red stains on a background of white sand. And on the morning after the debauch the body and mind are too weak to resist an angry past: besides, what might not a man say when he was drunk? To move anyhow, anywhere, were better than this. So he became a wanderer. But the human mind is fashioned mercifully, and blunts with use. If the body be healthy, there is no impression, however strong, that will not wear away with time. He shipped in a whaler, but almost before the high land had melted into the clouds he wished himself back again. He found so many excuses for himself, and as poor Benion had killed himself, what good could the box do him lying on the beach in Boot Island? The first man who landed would find it and take it away, whereas, if he had it, he would keep only his own share, and send the rest to Benion’s widow. He left the ship at the first island they touched. It chanced to be Apemama in the Line Islands, whose king, having vanquished most of the neighbouring atolls, and sighing for other worlds toconquer, eagerly welcomed a white man who could mend his three “Tower” muskets.
LEVUKA
LEVUKA.
He would stay there, he thought, until a vessel bound for Levuka put 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 tribewould 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 thedilo-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 theblood-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 plungedit 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.
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 couldland 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 hiscopra, 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 hiscoprawould 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 andkumalas, 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 hiskumalacrop—he, that don’t like niggers, least of all the Yathata niggers! They say he’s a Yankee, butno 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’scopra?’
“‘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 thebeech-de-marracket, 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 hotkumalasthe 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 akumalahe 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 thekumalasover 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 withkumalasfor 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 withbeech-de-marit’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 adilo-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.”
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 protectionbut 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 fishedkaisin the common fishing-ground; and when thelalibeat 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 whogave 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 returnedwith 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 greatbure.
“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 ofyangonain his hand and went to Rara, saying, “I am come tobeg 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 theyangona-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 thekai-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 abalawa-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 lightedmasito 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 intoken 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 smokedmasifor 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 theriver 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.”
Rasolo, being swiftest of foot, reached them first
“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, “Agreen 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 greatbure, “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 carriedaway 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.
Now the people of Rara fled into the forest and dwelt there many days, eating wild yams, and seeking a place to flee to. And they sent messengers down the river to the chiefs of Korokula asking for protection, and leave to settle on their lands. And when the messengers returned they removed thither and built houses at Lawai, a little below Korokula, and their young men worked for Korokula, planting yams and bananas, and taking food in return until their own should be ripe. But the chiefs of Korokula oppressed them, saying, “These are fugitives. Are they not our slaves to do as we will with?” And they killed their pigs, and took their women as it pleased them. And the men of Rara murmured, but endured, not knowing whither to flee. But at last, on a certain day, a chief of Korokulawas thirsty, and had noyangona, and he said to his young men, “I have seen a great root growing on the house foundation of Dongai of Rara. Go and tear it up, and chew it here before me that we may drink.” And the men of Rara said among themselves, “They have killed our pigs, and taken our women, and we bore it. Now they tear up ouryangona. How can this be endured? Yet we are not strong enough to set upon them, for they are more numerous than we. Let us now send an atonement to Valekau, and ask for peace to rebuild our houses upon our own earth and upon the foundations of our ancestors.” So they took whales’ teeth, and sent them by the hand of a herald to Valekau. And when the elders of Valekau doubted whether they should take them, the crafty Bonawai counselled them, saying, “There is now peace, but we are few in number. What if the tribes above descend upon us? How shall we alone resist them? Let Rara return, for in war they will help us against our enemies, and in peace they will fear us and do our bidding. Of this the whales’ teeth are a token.” So they accepted the atonement, and the fugitives returned, and rebuilt their houses upon their own earth and upon the foundations of their ancestors. And Valekau made a greatfeast for them, and presented it with all the proper ceremonies in token that the past was forgotten.
Now, after many months, when the yams were ripe again, the men of Rara began to speak among themselves of how they might best repay the debt they owed to Valekau; and the elder, Dongai, counselled them, saying, “This Valekau is puffed up with pride, and all men hate them. It was but yesterday that I heard Tabuanisoro of Tovutovu say that his people were weary of their doings. Of ourselves we are too few to repay them, but if Tovutovu were our allies—— Let us therefore make a feast for them, and try them.” So they made a feast, and challenged Tovutovu to play attinkawith them. And the young men of Tovutovu brought theirulutoa[3]to thetinka-ground and were victorious. And in the evening, when the elders were drinkingyangonain the greatbure, Dongai spoke a parable to them. “The blue heron saw the rat eating fish that the tide had left, and he asked for it; but the rat said, ‘The gods sent this fish for me and mine, and they have given thee a long beak wherewith to catch fish in the pools where I cannot go.’ Then theblue heron was angry and spoke to the crab, saying, ‘This fellow is become a fish-eater and takes our food. Come, let us drive him out, and thy portion shall be the hole that he has made.’ So they came upon the rat in the night-time, and the crab nipped his tail and he fled. But the crab did not have his hole, for the blue heron took it. And he was puffed up with pride, and flapped his wings, and said to the crab, ‘My legs are longer than thine, therefore am I set a chief over thee. Bring me thy fish.’ Is this a true story, chiefs of Tovutovu?”
And they said, “Yes, it is true.”
And he said, “Now hear what the crab did. The rat came back and spoke to the crab, saying, ‘Why didst thou bite my tail? Did I refuse thee fish? If thou hadst asked me I would have given thee all my fish. My quarrel was with the blue heron, yet thou camest in the night and nipped my tail; and now the blue heron oppresses us both. But he sleeps at night. Now thou shalt go and seize him by the foot, and I will climb upon his back, and bite his neck, and he shall not fly away because thou shalt hold his foot between thy pincers. When he is dead we will share the fish of all the coast between us, but thou shalt have the greater share.’”
And for a space all looked upon the ground and picked at the mats with their fingers. Then Tambuanisoro said, “It is a good story, and also true!”
And on the morrow Rara and Tovutovu took the first-fruits of the yams to Valekau as men take the first-fruits to a great chief. And they said, “You are now our fortress and our head. These are the wretched first-fruits of our barren gardens, for you know that we are a poor people not meet to offer food to chiefs.” And then they piled the great yams high in the square, and bound live pigs beside the pile, and the men of Valekau accepted them, and their senses were dulled by the flattery. And they made a feast for their guests, and the ovens were opened about sunset, so they feasted until late in the night.
Then Dongai said, “It is yet day. Have you no dance? The dance is fitting when the men are filled with pig.”
And the elders of Valekau called to their young men to make ready, and Dongai said, “I will send our young men to the forest to get torches.” And he sent them, saying, “Go and make torches of reeds, and bring in secretly whatever the women have brought you from Rara.” And they went out into the road and calledsoftly, and the women came out of the reeds and gave them clubs hidden in bunches of dry reeds like torches; and the men cut reeds and made torches there and returned to the town, having in the right hands a lighted torch, and in the left the torch that hid their clubs. Then the men of Valekau danced before the chiefs a war-dance with spears and clubs, the elders beating the ground with the bamboo drums, and the chiefs of Rara and Tovutovu applauded, crying “Vinaka!” many times; but Dongai said, “This is well done, but my men know a stranger dance than this—a war-dance taught by the gods of the old time, but now forgotten.” And Bonawai laughed and said, “Veka.Do your young men know things that are forgotten, and can they surpass ours in the dance?” And Dongai said, “Who knows? Let them be tried. Only they have left their dresses and their weapons in Rara.”
So Bonawai called to the youths of Valekau, who stood panting and sweating behind the torches: “Take ye the torches, and give your clubs to these gods of Rara who can dance better than ye.” And the men of Rara took the clubs, and squatted four deep with the weapons poised, while the elders beat the drums andchanted. And the men of Valekau derided them, for their faces were not blacked for dancing.
Now the men of Ram had given their spare torches to the men of Tovutovu, and as they stood in the shadows behind the torches they stripped the reeds from the clubs and held them behind their backs. And suddenly the dancers rose with a great shout, and rushed forward with brandished clubs, making the earth tremble. Then they retreated, and again rushed forward, spreading in a line facing the elders of Valekau as they sat under the cocoa-nut palms, and as they whirled their clubs in the dance the leader cried “Ravu!” (strike), and they struck, but not in the air, for every man struck the head of the man before him. And the men of Tovutovu struck at the torchbearers from behind, and the rest fled, crying, “Treachery!” But when they reached the upper gate the men of Rara stood there, and cried, “Payment!” and when they would escape by the lower gate they found the men of Tovutovu there also, and in their madness they tore down the war-fence and leaped into the ditch, where many were impaled on the sharp stakes they themselves had set up. And the victors fired the houses, and ran hither and thither clubbing all they met; andhad it not been for the darkness surely none would have escaped, for the men of Rara pitied none save a few women they took alive for slaves, but ran about crying “Bring torches!” and slaying. So that night was calledMai-na-cina(bring torches), because of the cry of Rara as they were slaying. Thus was Valekau wiped out, and Rara and Tovutovu divided the spoil.
Now the men of Valekau fled to the forest, and they counted those who were missing, and mourned over them. And Bonawai said, “This has been a grievous night, and there must be payment for it, but not now, for many brave warriors are fallen, and many of ourkatikati,[4]therefore are we become as helpless as the straws whirled onward by a swift current. Let us flee to the caves, and dwell there until our way be plain.” So they dwelt many months in the caves, eating wild yams and bush-pigs.
And after many months the chiefs of Rara, whose mothers were Valekau women, said, “Let our vasu return, for it is a shame to us that our mothers’ folk should be rooting in the forest like wild boars. Also they are few, and cannot harm us.” And the chiefs of Tovutovu agreed. So messengers were sent to thecaves, saying, “Yourvasubid you return and fear not.”
So they returned and built houses upon their own earth and upon the foundations of their ancestors, only they did not repair their war-fences. And they planted yams, and dug them, and planted them again, and still there was peace; but Bonawai pondered deeply in those days how the payment might be accomplished.
Now they took their first-fruits to Rara in token of submission, and Bonawai presented them and said, “We are poor. All our chiefs are gone, and only we, the low-born, remain to bring this poor offering to you, our elder brothers. Payment has been made as is right; for between brothers ill-will is buried when payment has been made, and alliances are renewed for war against the stranger. But my words are too long already—Mana-e-dina!”
And the men of Rara answered, “Va-arewa-ia-ē,” and clapped their hands.
And that night Vasualevu of Rara, whose mother was a Valekau woman, spoke to hisvasu, and asked whether Bonawai’s words were double. And they said, “Yes. We had a quarrel with you about a certain stick with which fish are taken—a magic contrivance of theforeigners—and we burned your fortress, and you in turn burned ours. Thus there was payment as is fitting between brothers. But with these low-born of Tovutovu we had no quarrel, neither had ye, yet they burned both your town and ours, and baked the bodies of your relations, and even now they feed the pigs they took from Rara and Valekau. All this they did though they are not our brothers, but strangers. Shall not payment be taken for all these things?”
And Vasualevu told the elders of Rara that night as they lay in the greatbure, and Dongai said, “Are the words true or false? Surely they are true! What root of quarrel had we with this Tovutovu that they clubbed our women and burned our fortress? But for them we should not have been fugitives, oppressed of Korokula, for Valekau dared not to fight us alone. Even now, perhaps, they laugh at us in Tovutovu, and grow fat upon our pigs. Shall not payment be taken for all these things?”
And the elders said, “It is true. Let us send to Bonawai, the crafty, to devise a plan.”
So they sent a messenger to Valekau, and he said, “Go, tell the chiefs of Rara that I have seen their greatbure. It is ruinous, for the king-post is rotten. LetTovutovu cut them a new post.” Now this was true, for when theburewas burned the king-post was not consumed, and they rebuilt the house, using the old post.
So the chiefs of Rara sent to Tovutovu, saying, “Help us to rebuild our greatbure, for the post is rotten. We have seen avesi-tree seven fathoms long, and of great girth, which two men with outstretched arms cannot encompass. Let this be your work, for you are more numerous than we.”
And they said, “It is well.”
And every day the young men cut reeds and bamboos for the house in the plain across the river by Tovutovu, and cried to the people weeding their yams, “Our task is near finished; only the king-post is wanting.”
So the Tovutovu chiefs took the young men up the river to the greatvesi-tree, and lit a fire about it to burn up the sap, and cut it down with their adzes. Then they lopped off the branches, and cut a hole in the butt of the tree, and took vines as thick as a man’s thigh and passed them through the hole, and dragged the tree inch by inch on rollers till they got it into the river. And they made rafts of bamboo, and bound them to the sides of the tree to make it lighter. Andwhen night came on they camped on the river-bank, where they could hear the water swishing past the tree. And they sent a messenger to Rara, saying, “The tree is fallen!” This was for a sign to them to make ready for the feast, according to custom. And the messenger returned and said, “Drag the post to Vatuloaloa, where the river widens, and no farther; there we will make a feast, and bring the post to Rara on the morrow.”
So they toiled all the next day, dragging the post down the river, for there had been no rain, and the water was very shallow. And when they drew near Vatuloaloa they put on leaf girdles and blue conch-shells and chanted—