第 20 页

Kilau Minga’s house was situate at no great distance to the northward of the temple, and we reached it in the course of a few minutes. It occupied a plot of ground of exactly the same dimensions as all the others, but the house itself was considerably bigger than either of the others, consisting apparently of two large rooms, with an annex, which I conjectured to be a kitchen, attached to its rear. Its exterior was also more elaborately decorated than either of the others. I noticed that, as in the other houses we had passed, its floor was raised some two feet off the ground, which I at first supposed was done for the purpose of keeping out the rain in the wet season, but upon my mentioning this idea to my blood-brother he informed me that it was not so, but the houses were built in this fashion to exclude ants and other pests from the interior, and he showed me how this was managed by stepping each of the main posts in a pool of water, which the ants could not cross.

Upon entering what appeared to be the chief apartment of the house we were much surprised to discover that some at least of the refinements of civilised life were by no means unknown. There were, for instance, a table, several chairs and a sort of couch in the room, while the floor was covered with beautifully fine matting. The interior walls were decorated with carvings which, in the present case, consisted of pictures of hunting and fishing scenes; while, immediately opposite the main entrance door there hung suspended from stout pegs, a formidable war club, the head of which was studded with sharks’-teeth; several spears, with barbed heads made from the bone of some animal much bigger than any that I had seen thus far on the island; and a pair of beautifully carved canoe paddles.

The table which was innocent of a cloth of any kind, was laid for eight, namely, the seven of us from the tower and as I correctly supposed, Kilau Minga. But the “laying” was primitive, consisting merely of eight “plates”—as I imagined them to be—formed of great flat shells, somewhat like the shells of an oyster, while the centre-piece was a great nautilus shell containing flowers, of which these people seemed to be particularly fond.

At a sign from Kilau Minga we sat, I being on his right, with ’Thea next to me. The party being seated, the chief uttered a call, whereupon two women entered, one of them bearing upon a roughly-made wooden dish a bounteous supply of roast fish, while her companion bore upon a similar dish a quantity of roasted bread fruit cut in slices. These comestibles were first offered to Kilau Minga, who signed the women to begin with me, which they did, passing round the table and ultimately returning to the chief, who was last served. There were, as might be expected, neither knives nor forks, nor anything in place of them, and I was for a moment rather nonplussed as to how to help myself, until Oldroyd, perceiving my difficulty, remarked—

“Use your fingers, old chap; they were made long before forks came into fashion.”

This was sensible advice, and I acted upon it, the others following my example.

The next course consisted of roasted birds cut into convenient portions, accompanied by a dish of yams; and this was followed by a service of fruit of various descriptions, some of them new to us. Thus far we had been offered nothing to drink, but after the fruit had been passed round for the first time two other women entered, one of whom carried a wooden tray upon which were arranged a number of drinking cups formed of cocoanut-shells set in beautifully carved wooden stands shaped like birds’ claws, while the other bore a large, handsomely-shaped earthen jar containing an amber-coloured liquid which gave forth a wine-like and distinctly inviting fragrance. This was served to us in the cocoanut-shell cups aforesaid, and proved to be exceedingly palatable, its flavour being somewhat similar to that of Chianti; indeed we christened it by that name without further ado.

This concluded the banquet, which we all agreed reflected great credit upon Kilau Minga in his character of host; and then, as we rose from the table, the chief invited us to go down to the beach to inspect the fleet of canoes.

These we found to be very clumsy, indifferently-modelled craft, ranging in length from about sixteen feet to forty feet over all, with a beam of from three to four feet. They were each made out of a solid tree-trunk; and when I asked for details of their construction I was informed that, after selecting a suitable tree and felling it, the builder proceeded first to shape it in accordance with his requirements and his personal views on the subject of naval architecture; and when the log had been shaped to his satisfaction he proceeded to hollow it out, first by building fires along its top length, and so gradually charring the interior wood away, and then completing it by cutting away the remaining wood. The mention of cutting naturally raised the question of tools, whereupon the chief led us to a part of the beach where several men were engaged in laboriously constructing a canoe, when we saw that they were using rude axes and adzes, the heads of which consisted of large shells, somewhat like oyster shells, possessing the valuable property that one edge was almost as keen as a razor, and so extremely hard that it was almost impossible to injure it. This particular craft was only just began, the log indeed being, so far, only of very rudimentary shape: I therefore took it upon myself to offer, chiefly by means of sketches on the sand, certain suggestions for the improvement of the model, these consisting for the most part in the fining of the lines, fore and aft. These suggestions were received with respect and eagerness, and were—as I subsequently learned—carried into effect, with satisfactory results to the owner.

The afternoon was by this time well advanced, and it behoved us to make a start if we wished to reach home before darkness overtook us; we therefore took leave of our host who, in bidding us farewell, explained that the morning’s ceremony not only made him and me blood-brothers but also created me a chief second in power and authority only to himself. He was at much pains also to make us clearly understand that war between his people and ourselves was henceforth impossible, and he wound up by saying that, since we were now friends, he and his people hoped that we would all, or as many of us as felt so inclined, visit the village as often as we pleased, staying as long as we pleased, and being assured of a hearty welcome from everybody. This was handsome treatment, and we responded by assuring the chief that we would not fail to call, from time to time.

The conclusion of peace with the natives upon so firm a basis and such satisfactory terms was a source of the utmost satisfaction to us all, and especially to the girls, for we felt that we could now go over the island, individually or collectively, without fear of molestation; moreover it was a pleasant change as well as—we all agreed—an act of sound diplomacy to visit the village from time to time and so cement the good relations between the natives and ourselves.

One result of our increased intercourse with the natives was the discovery that they possessed not the remotest knowledge of the use of sails, due in part no doubt to the fact that they were without the means to manufacture sail cloth. They had looms of a sort, it is true, but they were small, clumsy and very primitive machines, capable only of turning out narrow strips of a coarse kind of cloth, made from the fibre of a certain plant, and produced with the utmost difficulty at a vast expenditure of time. I was seized by an insatiable longing to teach our new friends the art of sailing, and with this object I one day took Wilkinson and Dartnell, the two seamen, down to the cove where our boat still lay concealed, and, rigging her, sailed her round to the smaller lagoon, to the delight and admiration of the natives. It was the first time they had beheld a craft more scientifically modelled and constructed than their own canoes, and it was amusing to watch the eagerness with which they examined every detail of her, and their wonder and admiration generally. But what, after all, appealed to them most strongly was the fact that she could be made to go from any one point to any other by the power of the wind alone. Like most savages, they were by no means enamoured of hard work, and the paddling of their crudely modelled canoes was hard work, without a doubt; it is not to be wondered at, therefore, that every mother’s son of them expressed anxiety to be taught the new art without delay, while Wilkinson and Dartnell were so eager to impart instruction that they suggested the boat should be left at the village, under their charge, for greater facility of instruction. And to this proposal I innocently enough assented, not in the least foreseeing what would be the outcome of it.

The enlightenment came about a fortnight later when, upon visiting the Basin to see how matters were going generally, I was accosted by Wilkinson and Dartnell, our two seamen, who somewhat sheepishly informed me that they had decided to settle permanently on the island and to marry—and would I be pleased to tie the knot for them.

“Settle on the island! Marry!” I ejaculated. “Why, men, what on earth can you be thinking about? What has happened to put this folly into your heads?”

“Beggin’ your pardon, Mr Massey,” returned Wilkinson who had assumed the rôle of chief spokesman, “but where do the ‘folly’ come in? To us two sailormen it looks to be the most sensible thing we can do. Are we ever goin’ to get a chance to leave this here h’island? It don’t look much like it, do it, sir? We’ve been ashore here now—well, gettin’ on for the best part of a year, accordin’ to my reckonin’, and not so much as the ghost of a sail have hove up above the ’orizon durin’ the whole of that time. And we—Dartnell and I—argues that if no ships have come along durin’ that time, they ain’t likely to come along at all. And if no ships comes along, how are we goin’ to get away? Are we to go in the boat? I reckon not. I doubts if there’s e’er a one of us as ’d care to go through such another time as we had in her; no, not if we was certain sure of comin’ out all right at the end. You as’t the Doctor, Mr Massey—and his darter—as’t Mr Oldroyd and Mr Mason, and hear what they says about it.

“Very well, then; what Dartnell and I says is this: if we can’t get off the h’island we’ve just got to stay on it; and if we’ve got to stay on it we might as well settle down and be comfortable—and that’s what we’ve made up our minds to do. We’ve got up alongside of a couple of fine handsome gals who seems quite agreeable to be spliced, and we’ve been talkin’ to the chief about it and, so far as we can understand ’im, he’ll be glad enough to have us—in fact he’ve promised to give each of us a plot of land and all the help we wants to build our two houses—and that’s just about clinched it.”

“But,” said I, “you surely have not given as much consideration as you ought to this idea of yours. Your decision appears to have been very hastily arrived at. You have only been among these savages about a fortnight, and yet here you are talking seriously about marrying and settling down among them—throwing in your lot with them for the remainder of your lives. I think you scarcely realise the seriousness of the decision. Suppose, for instance, that a ship should come along—as one may any day. Would you, under such circumstances, still decide to remain on the island, or would you not rather jump at the chance of returning to civilisation? Have you no relatives at home whom you would be glad to rejoin?”

“No, sir, we haven’t,” was the answer. “Dartnell and me are both of us h’orphans, without kith and kin, so far as we knows of, so there’s nothing of that sort to make us want to get back to the old country. And what else is there to make us want to go back? We’re both of us just plain, common sailormen, with nothin’ ahead of us but a sailorman’s life if we was to go back, and that’s a hard enough life. But if we settle down here among these people—who, beggin’ your pardon, Mr Massey, ain’t by no means such savages as you seems to think ’em—what do we get? Why a life of ease and comfort; no hard work—no turnin’ out in the middle of your watch below to go aloft and reef taups’ls in a gale o’ wind and gettin’ wet through, mayhap, while doin’ it; no standin’ at the wheel for a couple o’ hours at a stretch with the icy wind freezin’ the very marrer of your bones; no two hours’ stretch on the fo’c’sle-head keepin’ a look-out on a pitch-black night, with the spray flyin’ over yer with every pitch of the ship into a head sea; no toilin’ at the pumps in a leaky old hooker; no mates hazin’ of a man night and day if he don’t happen to do things to their likin’!”

I could not but admit that, looking at the matter from the two men’s point of view, they had made out a fair case; yet it seemed unnatural that Englishmen—even of the comparatively uneducated class to which Wilkinson and Dartnell belonged—should seriously contemplate throwing in their lot and allying themselves by marriage with a people who, whatever their good points, were just heathens and savages; and I did not hesitate to say as much in pretty plain language to them. But I soon saw that the men had made up their minds to go their own way: they disclaimed any intention to desert us, assuring me that they would consider themselves as much as ever under my orders in all essential matters—although they did not hesitate to remind me that the wreck of the Andromeda made free men of them, and they wound up by saying that if I declined to “splice” them, they must get a priest to do the job, but that they would very much prefer that one of us should do it.

I returned to the ruins, to find that everybody excepting the Doctor was absent. As for Shirley-Winthrop, he was still busy, pottering about down below in the temple, laboriously engaged in sketching the paintings on the walls. And very beautifully he was doing it, too, for he possessed great artistic skill, and it happened that among the contents of his daughter’s trunk a sketch block and a box of water-colours had been found: the Doctor therefore was happy, despite the fact that he was compelled to work by the inadequate light of a single smoky, evil-smelling lamp. He was too deeply absorbed in his work to give anything like the concentrated attention I desired to what I had to say; also he was of too unpractical a turn of mind to be of much assistance to me, therefore after patiently listening for a little while to a learned dissertation as to the probable origin of the people who had built the temple and produced the paintings upon its walls, I left him to pursue his labours, undisturbed.

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Chapter Fourteen: A Derelict.

It was while the affairs were in this tranquil condition that one of the natives who, by arrangement between Kilau Minga and myself, had been set to maintain a daily watch for ships, from the summit of the crater, came down to the ruins, while we were all sitting down to breakfast, exclaiming—