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III.

"Little did I think when we sailed into Metalanien Harbour how near I should be to the great mystery several times in a few weeks. I had spent piles of money in laying in stocks of 'trade' as presents; shawls, looking glasses, cheap jewellery, turkey-red, and perfumes, for I intended making friends with the king and big chiefs if money would do it. And I did so. The king made much of me, the queen and royal ladies vied with each other in petting me and wheedling presents out of my cases. With the King I became so great a favourite that we interchanged the blood-bond. With him I went to see the stupendous ruin of the ancient walls, and many an awe-struck and solemn thought came to me there as I drifted along the old canals or pondered in the shadows of the cyclopean walls, on which the dense tropical verdure rooted in luxuriance. I found that my wish to sail for Ualan was possible to gratify, for Alo, the youngest daughter of the king, was to proceed thither in a few day's time, an envoy from the chief of Lele in Ualan then being in Ponapè to remind the king of a half-forgotten betrothal promise. Lifu, the chief who had borne the message, was a stalwart, sinewy man of fierce page 20and stern countenance. I could not help thinking, as I watched the burning glances he threw at the young princess, that the old story of Lancelot and Guinevere was to be re-enacted on a humbler stage, except that the passion of the envoy did not seem by any means to be returned by the princess, who shrank visibly when he showed her any personal attention. As the days went on the preparations came to an end, and the party prepared to cross the waters. A large canoe was loaded with the presents for the chief of Ualan, and these presents, together with my remaining boxes of trade, were stowed away in the vessel, with pigs, fowls, yams, and taro as provisions."

"Was it a wooden canoe like that of the Maoris?" asked Nelly.

"Not at all," said Jack; "it was larger, and was made of little planks lashed together with sinnet, and neatly fastened. Before we started the king gave precise directions how I should greet the aritoi, or priests, whom I wished to conciliate, and he told his daughter that as I was going among a savage people over which she would have authority, be would look to her to cover me, as his dear brother, with her influence, and that I was to be saved and cared for even at the sacrifice of her life. We took our places in the canoe, poor little Alo covered with wreaths of flowers, but with tears on her face coursing through her colour-decoration. She and four of her girls took their station between the stern and 'midships, twenty men, also decorated with wreaths, as paddlers took their places. Lifu and the Ualan men were in the bows. Amid songs of farewell and loud music of the native flutes and drums we left the harbour, and the bow was turned to the south-east. The great crab's-claw sail was hoisted, and with a light page 21breeze, under a blazing sky, we began our journey. All day we lay in the canoe, I smoking my pipe lazily under a kind of awning rigged up for the protection of the girls; and we talked and sang to try and distract Alo's melancholy. I think that we should have succeeded, but away forward was lying the form of Lifu, his body and face hidden beneath a mat of fala, but his moody eyes watching ceaselessly above the embroidered edge.

"'I do not like that man,' Alo said to me; 'I hate him. He has said that though I am married to the king I shall be his sweetheart, and shall have no other lover. I am afraid.'

"I told her that the first thing she must do would be to use her influence with her bridegroom to get Lifu sent away to some other place, and this she assented to as the wisest course. As it grew towards evening the sky began to darken down towards the point to which we were steering. The natives commenced to look at one another uneasily, and to whisper together in an ominous way. They lowered the great sail, and I gathered from their agitation that there was a storm brewing and danger ahead. Just then, with a slight sucking sound, there arose right across the bow an immense triangular fin, big as the dorsal fin of a sunfish, and lying near the surface of the water was the back of an enormous shark. It was a perfect giant of its species, I could not have believed in a creature so huge — it seemed more like a whale than a shark. The utmost fright and dismay seized the natives. They dropped their paddles and howled, 'The shark-god! the shark-god!' The face of the chief who was steering reflected the general consternation, and in response to the common cry to return, he struck the water with a blow of his paddle to turn the head of the canoe aside so as not to page 22strike the sacred fish. Instantly, on seeing the action, Lifu leapt up in his place at the bows, apparently maddened at the thought of returning.

"'You shall not go back — you shall not,' he cried; 'by all the gods of Ualan you shall keep on till we get to Lele. I have sworn it, you shall keep on!'

"A tumult of cries broke out from the Ponapè men, but as the steersman still struck the water sideways to turn the canoe, Lifu drew a short axe from his girdle and rushed aft, followed by his two men. A Ponapè native raised his paddle to bar the way, but was struck down by a blow through the brain, and falling with the back of his knees against the gunwale, went overboard. The Ponapè crew seized their weapons and drove the others back, one of the assailants following the first victim over the side. Suddenly the vessel received a tremendous shock which almost upset the craft, and threw us all down. It was given in the fierce rush of the shark, or of two of them — for another as huge had joined its mate — and in a second we were in the midst of a churning of blood and foam, with the sea-tigers rending the bodies of the slain. Maddened with the blood-taste they lashed up and down, plunging through the water. The sight and the concussion stopped the fight on board, but Lifu, tearing off his garment, was screaming with rage in the bow, and swearing that unless we went on he would drive his feet through the frail timbers and send us all to the sharks. By that time I had got my back up properly, so I covered him with my revolver and told him that if he wagged a toe I would fill him full of holes. Seeing that I meant it, the beast sulkily sat down, and his man lay down by him. We turned the canoe for Ponapè, but by that time the storm was down upon us and the darkness too.

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All that night under the storm we drove along, only guided by glimpses that the lightning gave us of the distant land. We laboured and toiled at the paddles hour after hour, the girls and I too, for half the crew were baling and madly striking out the water from the bilge with side-strokes of the paddles. And always as we tore along, beside us or behind us flashed and played the gleaming silver bodies of the two sea-devils, waiting for us in case of accidents. At last it came to the hour of dawn, and through a rift in the clouds and mist we saw the far peak of Tolocolme in Ponapè. That seemed to send Lifu crazy again, and, rising erect with a shriek, he leapt up and came down with both feet through the fragile timbers. The canoe, already half waterlogged, seemed to fill in a moment, and we were instantly all out in the water. It was pretty rough, that plunge into the black water, with the sharply-blown spray of the brine driving along and smothering one's nose and mouth. And the big sharks round, too. Close up I heard the chief of the canoe cry out, 'A ring for Alo! a guard for the king's daughter!' I felt someone clasp my arm as I swam. It was Alo, who ranged close alongside, and sent two of her girls round to the other side of me. I can swim well for an Englishman, but these girls were fish-swimmers from the cradle, like most island women. The splashing of so many in the water at first frightened the sharks, and they kept swimming about outside the company, but growing bolder at last, made a rush which scattered us for a moment.

"'I wish your body was not so white, Tiake,' said Alo, as we swam.

"'I suppose they'll go straight for me, won't they?' I said.

"'Not while we can give ourselves for you,' Alo page 24answered. 'You are mine; I have sworn to keep you safely.'"

"Oh, Jack!" said Nelly; "you haven't told me true. You vowed you never loved any one until you saw me, and I feel sure that she loved you and you loved her."

"Not I," answered he. "She was a true, brave girl, as good as gold, but I never saw her except she was daubed all over face and body with yellow turmeric. White men do fall in love with the pale brown beauties of the South Seas, but although they have delicate features and slight figures, these yellow girls up in the Carolines paint themselves so extra yellow that one could almost as easily fall in love with a mustard-pot. No, I didn't love her, but she saved me twice. As the sharks grew bolder, and we closed our circle in swimming, the chief cried out, 'Takino! an offering for the god!' and then one of the men, Takino, stopped his stroke and waited — for the shark. Again the chief cried out, naming another, and that other stayed. More sharks had joined in the chase, attracted by the smell of blood in the water, and man by man all went, the old chief himself facing his death with a sad cry of farewell to the daughter of his king. I was by this time exhausted, but we had passed through one of the gaps in the fringing reef, and were close to the shore. Alo swam with one hand and her feet, while with the other hand she helped to buoy me; on the other side was one of her girls also assisting, while the other two girls swam behind us. There was another rush. Alo called out the name of one of the girls, and she folded her arms and stayed. Alas! so did a second, but in a moment more we were in the break of the water, and I felt myself hurled forward on to the rocks with a force which knocked the breath out of me. Then I was hauled along, cut page 25and wounded by the sharp rocks and sharper shellfish, till I reached a place of safety.

There I lay exhausted, and on opening my eyes found myself being tended by Alo and her maid, who, having been well accustomed to the surf, had escaped better than I had. They busied themselves in binding bruised green leaves upon my smarting cuts until the burning pain was assuaged. Then the princess told me that she and her attendant must leave me and try to pass through the dense forest in the hope of getting help at some village of her people and bringing assistance to me. With many little pats of consolation they left me, and I fell instantly into a heavy sleep of exhaustion, which must have lasted several hours. I awoke from a dream in which I fancied myself as the heretical centre-figure in some old Spanish auto da fe, with the flaming faggots round me. Little wonder, for the tropical sun was high in the heavens, and the bush in whose shadow I had been left, no longer acted as a refuge from the sickening rays. The heavier forest was at some little distance, and towards its shade I dragged myself wearily along, my stiffened and smarting body letting me know at every step of the exertion and scarification it had endured. When I neared the larger trees I saw among them a portion of an ancient wall still standing among the undergrowth, and in this was a dark hole which looked entrancing as a retreat from the white glare outside as I dragged my heavy feet past the entrance and a few yards within. I balanced myself with wavering footsteps in the gloom, which to my unaccustomed eyes seemed of night itself, when suddenly a man's form rose erect almost at my feet, and struck a blow at me with some weapon. As the figure rose I involuntarily stepped back, and catching my foot in a page 26ground vine, I fell face upwards—luckily for me, since the force of my opponent's blow descending vertically on my forehead, was lessened by my yielding descent. The weight of the stroke brought my enemy down on top of me, and in another moment we were grappling fiercely together. With one quick glance I saw that it was Lifu, who had in some manner escaped a sea-death, but the blood running into my eyes blinded me, and his unwounded strength was too great for my weakened muscles to resist. I called out with all my might again and again as I tried to hold the hand grasping the tomahawk, but at last he got his knees on my arm, and though I twisted as much as I could, he struck me once more with the tomahawk. The blade fell horizontally on my forehead, but my writhing and tossing my head about prevented the stroke falling true; the edge turned on the skull, and, though it made an ugly cut, it did not finish me off as my friend hoped. The next instant Alo with half-a-dozen men dashed into the crypt and pinioned my assailant, which they did very roughly, with many kicks and blows. The party which Alo was bringing to my assistance had heard my outcry as I struggled, and were not a moment too soon. They bound up my head and took me to Metalanieu, where I was looked after till I was sound and well again.

"I managed to get a passage to Australia in a German schooner of the Godefroi's, which put into Ponapè. I never tried again to get to Ualan. I was becoming tired of the weary search, and my fad is worked out. I don't want more knowledge now, dear; I know you, that is enough for me. I have bored you awfully with my long yarn, but that is really the end of it."

"You wicked boy," answered Nelly, "you are too humble altogether. Uriah Heep, I will reward you by page 27saying that I love to hear everything you have done and all that you have seen. I think that the tide is high enough now to have covered the mud-flats, so take your oars and let us move along to the fishing-grounds."