Kitabı oku: «By Reef and Palm», sayfa 6

"Then they all trooped below, and took me with them—me, with my husband's blood not yet dried on my hands and bosom. They made me get liquor for them to drink, and they drank and laughed, and Motley put his bloodied hand around my waist and kissed me, and the others laughed still more.

"In a little while Riedermann and the mate were so drunken that no words came from them, and they fell on the cabin floor. Then Motley, who could stand, but staggered as he walked, came and sat beside me and kissed me again, and said he had always loved me; but I pointed to the blood of my husband that stained my skin and clotted my hair together, and besought him to first let me wash it away.

"'Wash it there,' he said, and pointed to his cabin.

"'Nay,' said I, 'see my hair. Let me then go on deck, and I can pour water over my head.'

"But he held my hand tightly as we came up, and my heart died within me; for it was in my mind to spring overboard and follow my husband.

"He called to one of the Tafito men to bring water, but none came; for they, too, were drunken with liquor they had stolen from the hold, where there was plenty in red cases and white cases—gin and brandy. "But my two countrymen were sober; one of them steered the ship, and the other stood beside him with an axe in his hand, for they feared the Tafito men, who are devils when they drink grog.

"'Get some water,' said Motley, to Juan—he who held the axe; and as he brought it, he said, 'How is it, tattooed dog, that thou art so slow to move?' and he struck him in the teeth, and as he struck he fell.

"Ah! that was my time! Ere he could rise I sprang at him, and Juan raised the axe and struck off his right foot; and then Liro, the man who steered, handed me his knife. It was a sharp knife, and I stabbed him, even as he had stabbed my husband, till my arm was tired, and all my hate of him had died away in my heart.

"There was quick work then. My two countrymen went below into the cabin and took Motley's pistol from the table; … then I heard two shots.

"GUK! He was a fat, heavy man, that Riedermann, the captain; the three of us could scarce drag him up on deck and cast him over the side, with the other two.

"Then Juan and Liro talked, and said: 'Now for these Tafito men; they, too, must die.' They brought up rifles, and went to the forepart of the schooner, where the Tafito men lay in a drunken sleep, and shot them dead.

"In two more days we saw land—the island we have left but now, and because that there were no people living there—only empty houses could we see—Juan and Liro sailed the schooner into the lagoon.

"We took such things on shore as we needed, and then Juan and Liro cut away the topmasts and towed the schooner to the deep pool, where they made holes in her, so that she sank, away out of the sight of men.

"Juan and Liro were kind to me, and when my child was born, five months after we landed, they cared for me tenderly, so that I soon became strong and well.

"Only two ships did we ever see, but they passed far-off like clouds upon the sea-rim; and we thought to live and die there by ourselves. Then there came a ship, bringing back the people who had once lived there. They killed Juan and Liro, but let me and the child live. The rest I have told you.... How is this captain named? … He is a handsome man, and I like him."

We landed Nerida at Yap, in the Western Carolines. A year afterwards, when I left the PALESTINE, I heard that Packenham had given up the sea, was trading in the Pelew Group, and was permanently married, and that his wife was the only survivor of the ill-fated ALIDA.

THE CHILEAN BLUEJACKET

A Tale Of Easter Island

Alone, in the most solitary part of the Eastern Pacific, midway between the earthquake-shaken littoral of Chili and Peru, and the thousand palm-clad islets of the Low Archipelago, lies an island of the days "when the world was young." By the lithe-limbed, soft-eyed descendants of the forgotten and mysterious race that once quickened the land, this lonely outlier of the isles of the Southern Seas is called in their soft tongue Rapanui, or the Great Rapa.

A hundred and seventy years ago Roggewein, on the dawn of an Easter Sunday, discerned through the misty, tropic haze the grey outlines of an island under his lee beam, and sailed down upon it.

He landed, and even as the grim and hardy old navigator gazed upon and wondered at the mysteries of the strange island, so this day do the cunning men of science, who, perhaps once in thirty years, go thither in the vain effort to read the secret of an all-but-perished race. And they can tell us but vaguely that the stupendous existing evidences of past glories are of immense and untold age, and show their designers to have been coeval with the builders of the buried cities of Mexico and Peru; beyond that, they can tell us nothing.

Who can solve the problem? What manner of an island king was he who ruled the builders of the great terraced platforms of stone, the carvers of the huge blocks of lava, the hewers-out with rudest tools of the Sphinx-like images of trachyte, whose square, massive, and disdainful faces have for unnumbered centuries gazed upwards and outwards over the rolling, sailless swell of the mid-Pacific?

And the people of Rapa-nui of to-day? you may ask. Search the whole Pacific—from Pylstaart, the southern sentinel of the Friendlies, to the one-time buccaneer-haunted, far-away Pelews; thence eastward through the white-beached coral atolls of the Carolines and Marshalls, and southwards to the cloud-capped Marquesas and the sandy stretches of the Paumotu—and you will find no handsomer men or more graceful women than the light-skinned people of Rapa-nui.

Yet are they but the survivors of a race doomed—doomed from the day that Roggewein in his clumsy, high-pooped frigate first saw their land, and marvelled at the imperishable relics of a dead greatness. With smiling faces they welcomed him—a stranger from an unknown, outside world, with cutlass at waist and pistol in hand—as a god; he left them a legacy of civilisation—a hideous and cruel disease that swept through the amiable and unsuspicious race as an epidemic, and slew its thousands, and scaled with the hand of Death and Silence the eager life that had then filled the square houses of lava in many a town from the wave-beaten cliffs of Terano Kau to Ounipu in the west.

Ask of the people now, "Whence came ye? and whose were the hands that fashioned these mighty images and carved upon these stones?" and in their simple manner they will answer, "From Rapa, under the setting sun, came our fathers; and we were then a great people, even as the ONEONE [sand] of the beach.... Our Great King was it, he whose name is forgotten by us, that caused these temples and cemeteries and terraces to be built; and it was in his time that the forgotten fathers of our fathers carved from out of the stone of the quarries of Terano Kau the great Silent Faces that gaze for ever upward to the sky.... AI-A-AH! … But it was long ago.... Ah! a great people were we then in those days, and the wild people to the West called us TE TAGATA TE PITO HENUA (the people who live at the end of the world) .... and we know no more."

And here the knowledge and traditions of a broken people begin and end.

I

A soft, cool morning in November, 187-. Between Ducie and Pitcairn Islands two American whale-ships cruise lazily along to the gentle breath of the south-east trades, when the look-out from both vessels see a third sail bearing down upon them. In a few hours she is close enough to be recognised as one of the luckiest sperm whalers of the fleet—the brig POCAHONTAS, of Martha's Vineyard.

Within a quarter of mile of the two ships—the NASSAU and the DAGGET—the newcomer backs her foreyard and hauls up her mainsail. A cheer rises from the ships. She wants to "gam," I.E. to gossip. With eager hands four boats are lowered from the two ships, and the captains and second mates of each are soon racing for the POCAHONTAS.

The skipper of the brig, after shaking hands with his visitors and making the usual inquiries as to their luck, number of days out from New Bedford, etc., led the way to his cabin, and, calling his Portuguese steward, had liquor and a box of cigars brought out. The captain of the POCAHONTAS was a little, withered-up old man with sharp, deep-set eyes of brightest blue, and had the reputation of possessing the most fiery and excitable temper of any of the captains of the sixty or seventy American whale-ships that in those days cruised the Pacific from the West Coast of South America to Gaum in the Ladrones.

After drinking some of his potent New England rum with his visitors, and having answered all their queries, the master of the POCAHONTAS inquired if they had seen anything of a Chilian man-of-war further to the eastward. No, they had not.

"Then just settle down, gentlemen, for awhile, and I'll tell you one of the curiousest things that I ever saw or heard of. I've logged partiklars of the whole business, and when I get to Oahu (Honolulu) I mean to nar-rate just all I do know to Father Damon of the Honolulu FRIEND. Thar's nothing like a newspaper fur showin' a man up when he's been up to any onnatural villainy, and thinks no one will ever know anything about it. So just take hold and listen."

The two captains nodded, and he told them this.

Ten days previously, when close in to barren and isolated Sala-y-Gomez, the POCAHONTAS had spoken the Chilian corvette O'HIGGINS, bound from Easter Island to Valparaiso. The captain of the corvette entertained the American master courteously, and explained his ship's presence so far to the eastward, by stating that the Government had instructed him to call at Easter Island, and pick up an Englishman in the Chilian service, who had been sent there to examine and report on the colossal statues and mysterious terraces of that lonely island. The Englishman, as Commander Gallegos said, was a valued servant of the Republic, and had for some years served in its Navy as a surgeon on board EL ALMIRANTE COCHRANE, the flag-ship. He had left Valparaiso in the whale-ship COMBOY with the intention of remaining three months on the island. At the end of that time a war vessel was to call and convey him back to Chili. But in less than two months the Republic was in the throes of a deadly struggle with Peru—here the commander of the O'HIGGINS bowed to the American captain, and, pointing to a huge scar that traversed his bronzed face from temple to chin, said, "in which I had the honour to receive this, and promotion"—and nearly two years had elapsed ere the Government had time to think again of the English scientist and his mission. Peace restored, the O'HIGGINS was ordered to proceed to the island and bring him back; and as the character of the natives was not well known, and it was feared he might have been killed, Commander Gallegos was instructed to execute summary justice upon the people of the island, if such was the case.

But, the Chilian officer said, on reaching the island he had found the natives to be very peaceable and inoffensive, and, although much alarmed at the appearance of his armed landing party from the corvette, they had given him a letter from the Englishman, and had satisfied him that Dr Francis – had remained with them for some twelve months only, and had then left the island in a passing whale-ship, and Commander Gallegos, making them suitable presents, bade them good-bye, and steamed away to Valparaiso.

This was all the polite little commander had to say, and, after a farewell glass of wine, his visitor rose to go, when the captain of the corvette casually inquired if the POCAHONTAS was likely to call at the island.

"I ask you," he said in his perfect English, "because one of my ship's company deserted there. You, senor, may possibly meet with him there. Yet he is of no value, and he is no sailor, and but a lad. He was very ill most of the time, and this was his first voyage. I took him ashore with me in my boat, as he besought me eagerly to do so, and the little devil ran away and hid, or was hidden by the natives."

"Why didn't you get him back?" asked the captain of the POCAHONTAS.

"That was easy enough, but"—and the commander raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders—"of what use? He was no use to the corvette. Better for him to stay there, and perhaps recover, than to die on board the O'HIGGINS and be thrown to the blue sharks. Possibly, senor, you may find him well, and it may suit you to take him to your good ship, and teach him the business of catching the whale. My trade is to show my crew how to fight, and such as he are of no value for that."

Then the two captains bade each other farewell, and in another hour the redoubtable O'HIGGINS, with a black trail of smoke streaming astern, was ten miles away on her course to Valparaiso.

A week after the POCAHONTAS lay becalmed close in to the lee side of Rapa-nui, and within sight of the houses of the principal village. The captain, always ready to get a "green" hand, was thinking of the chances of his securing the Chilian deserter, and decided to lower a boat and try. Taking four men with him, he pulled ashore, and landed at the village of Hagaroa.

II

Some sixty or seventy natives clustered round the boat as she touched the shore. With smiling faces and outstretched hands they surrounded the captain, and pressed upon him their simple gifts of ripe bananas and fish baked in leaves, begging him to first eat a little and then walk with them to Mataveri, their largest village, distant a mile, where preparations were being made to welcome him formally. The skipper, nothing loth, bade his crew not to go too far away in their rambles, and, accompanied by his boatsteerer, was about to set off with the natives, when he remembered the object of his visit, and asked a big, well-made woman, the only native present that could speak English, "Where is the man you hid from the man-of-war?"

There was a dead silence, and for nearly half a minute no one spoke. The keen blue eyes of the American looked from one face to another inquiringly, and then settled on the fat, good-natured features of Varua, the big woman.

Holding her hands, palms upwards, to the captain, she endeavoured to speak, and then, to his astonishment, he saw that her dark eyes were filled with tears. And then, as if moved with some sudden and sorrowful emotion, a number of other women and young girls, murmuring softly in pitying tones, "E MATE! E MATE!" ["Dead! Dead!"] came to his side, and held their hands out to him with the same supplicating gesture.

The captain was puzzled. For all his island wanderings and cruises he had no knowledge of any Polynesian dialect, and the tearful muteness of the fat Varua was still unbroken. At last she placed one hand on his sleeve, and, pointing land-ward with the other, said, in her gentle voice, "Come," and taking his hand in hers, she led the way, the rest of the people following in silence.

For about half a mile they walked behind the captain and his boatsteerer and the woman Varua without uttering a word. Presently Varua stopped, and called out the name of "Taku" in a low voice.

A fine, handsome native, partly clothed in European sailor's dress, stepped apart from the others and came to her.

Turning to the captain, she said, "This is Taku the Sailor. He can speak a little English and much Spanish. I tell him now to come with us, for he has a paper."

Although not understanding the relevancy of her remark, the captain nodded, and then with gentle insistence Varua and the other women urged him on, and they again set out.

A few minutes more, and they were at the foot of one of the massive-stoned and ancient PAPAKU, or cemeteries, on the walls of which were a number of huge images carved from trachyte, and representing the trunk of the human body. Some of the figures bore on their heads crowns of red tufa, and the aspect of all was towards the ocean. At the foot of the wall of the PAPAKU were a number of prone figures, with hands and arms sculptured in low relief, the outspread fingers clasping the hips.

About a cable length from the wall stood two stone houses—memorials of the olden time—and it was to these that Varua and the two white men, attended now by women only, directed their steps.

The strange, unearthly stillness of the place, the low whispers of the women, the array of colossal figures with sphinx-like faces set to the sea, and the unutterable air of sadness that enwrapped the whole scene, overawed even the unimaginative mind of the rough whaling captain, and he experienced a curious feeling of relief when his gentle-voiced guide entered through the open doorway the largest of the two houses, and, in a whisper, bade him follow.

A delightful sense of coolness was his first sensation on entering, and then with noiseless step the other women followed and seated themselves on the ground.

Still clasping his hand, Varua led him to the farther end of the house, and pointed to a motionless figure that lay on a couch of mats, covered with a large piece of navy-blue calico. At each side of the couch sat a young native girl, and their dark, luminous eyes, shining star-like from out the wealth of black, glossy hair that fell upon their bronzed shoulders, turned wonderingly upon the stranger who had broken in upon their watch.

Motioning the girls aside, Varua released her hold of the white man's hand and drew the cloth from off the figure, and the seaman's pitying glance fell upon the pale, sweet features of a young white girl.

But for the unmistakable pallid hue of death he thought at first that she slept. In the thin, delicate hands, crossed upon her bosom, there was placed, after the manner of those of her faith, a small metal crucifix. Her hair, silky and jet black, was short like a man's, and the exquisitely-modelled features, which even the coldness of death had not robbed of their beauty, showed the Spanish blood that, but a few hours before, had coursed through her veins.

Slowly the old seaman drew the covering over the still features, and, with an unusual emotion stirring his rude nature, he rose, and, followed by Varua, walked outside and sat upon a broken pillar of lava that lay under the wall of the PAPAKU.

Calling his boatsteerer, he ordered him to return to the beach and go off to the ship with instructions to the mate to have a coffin made as quickly as possible and send it ashore; and then, at a glance from Varua, who smiled a grave approval as she listened to his orders, he followed her and the man she called Taku into the smaller of the two houses.

Round about the inside walls of this ancient dwelling of a forgotten race were placed a number of seamen's chests made of cedar and camphor wood—the LARES and PENATES of most Polynesian houses. The gravelled floor was covered with prettily-ornamented mats of FALA (the screw-palm).

Seating herself, with Taku the Sailor, on the mats, Varua motioned the captain to one of the boxes, and then told him a tale that moved him—rough, fierce, and tyrannical as was his nature—to the deepest pity.

III

"It is not yet twenty days since the fighting PAHI AFI (steamer) came here, and we of Mataveri saw the boat full of armed men land on the beach at Hagaroa. Filled with fear were we; but yet as we had done no wrong we stood on the beach to welcome. And, ere the armed men had left the boat, we knew them to be the SIPANIOLA from Chili—the same as those that came here ten years ago in three ships, and seized and bound three hundred and six of our men, and carried them away for slaves to the land of the Tae Manu, and of whom none but four ever returned to Rapa-nui. And then we trembled again."

(She spoke of the cruel outrage of 1862, when three Peruvian slave-ships took away over three hundred islanders to perish on the guano-fields of the Chincha Islands).

"The chief of the ship was a little man, and he called out to us in the tongue of Chili, 'Have no fear,' and took a little gun from out its case of skin that hung by his side, and giving it to a man in the boat, stepped over to us, and took our hands in his.

"'Is there none among ye that speak my tongue?' he said quickly.

"Now, this man here, Taku the Sailor, speaketh the tongue of Chili, but he feared to tell it, lest they might take him away for a sailor; so he held his lips tight.

"Then I, who for six years dwelt with English people at Tahiti, was pushed forward by those behind me and made to talk in English; and lo! the little man spoke in your tongue even as quick as he did in that of Chili. And then he told us that he came for Farani [Frank].

"Now this Farani was a young white man of PERETANIA (England), big and strong. He came to us a year and a half ago. He was rich, and had with him chests filled with presents for us of Rapa-nui; and he told us that he came to live a while among us, and look upon the houses of stone and the Faces of the Silent that gaze out upon the sea. For a year he dwelt with us and became as one of ourselves, and we loved him; and then, because no ship came, he began to weary and be sad. At last a ship—like thine, one that hunts for the whale—came, and Farani called us together, and placed a letter in the hands of the chief at Mataveri, and said: 'If it so be that a ship cometh from Chili, give these my words to the captain, and all will be well.' Then he bade us farewell and was gone.

"All this I said in quick words, and then we gave to the little fighting chief the letter Farani had written. When he had counted the words in the letter, he said: 'BUENO, it is well,' and called to his men, and they brought out many gifts for us from the boat—cloth, and garments for men and women, and two great bags of canvas filled with tobacco. AI-A-AH! many presents he gave us—this because of the good words Farani had set down in the letter. Then the little chief said to me, 'Let these my men walk where they list, and I will go with thee to Mataveri and talk with the chief.'

"So the sailors came out of the boats carrying their guns and swords in their hands, but the little chief, whose AVAGUTU (moustache) stuck out on each side of his face like the wings of a flying-fish when it leaps in terror from the mouth of the hungry bonito, spoke angrily, and they laid their guns and swords back in the boats.

"So the sailors went hither and thither with our young men and girls; and, although at that time I knew it not, she, who now is not, was one of them, and walked alone.

"Then I, and Taku the Sailor, and the little sea-chief came to the houses of Mataveri, and he stayed awhile and spoke good words to us. And we, although we fear the men of Chili for the wrong they once did us, were yet glad to listen, for we also are of their faith.

"As we talked, there came inside the house a young girl named Temeteri, whom, when Farani had been with us for two months, he had taken for wife; and she bore him a son. But from the day that he had sailed away she became sick with grief; and when, after many months, she told me that Farani had said he would return to her, my heart was heavy, for I know the ways of white men with us women of brown skins. Yet I feared to tell her he lied and would return no more. Now, this girl Temeteri was sought after by a man named Huarani, the son of Heremai, who desired to marry her now that Farani had gone, and he urged her to question the chief of the fighting ship, and ask him if Farani would return.

"So I spoke of Temeteri. He laughed and shook his head, and said: 'Nay, Farani the Englishman will return no more; but yet one so beautiful as she,' and he pointed to Temeteri, 'should have many lovers and know no grief. Let her marry again and forget him, and this is my marriage gift to her,' and he threw a big golden coin upon the mat on which the girl sat.

"She took it in her hand and threw it far out through the doorway with bitter words, and rose and went away to her child.

"Then the little captain went back to the boat and called his men to him, and lo! one was gone. Ah! he was angry, and a great scar that ran down one side of his face grew red with rage. But soon he laughed, and said to us: 'See, there be one of my people hidden away from me. Yet he is but a boy, and sick; and I care not to stay and search for him. Let him be thy care so that he wanders not away and perishes among the broken lava; he will be in good hands among the people of Rapa-nui.' With that he bade us farewell, and in but a little time the great fighting ship had gone away towards the rising sun.

"All that day and the next we searched, but found not him who had hidden away; but in the night of the second day, when it rained heavily, and Taku (who is my brother's son) and I and my two children worked at the making of a KUPEGA (net), he whom we had sought came to the door. And as we looked our hearts were filled with pity, for, as he put out his hands to us, he staggered and fell to the ground.

"So Taku—who is a man of a good heart—and I lifted him up and carried him to a bed of soft mats, and as I placed my hand on his bosom to see if he was dead, lo! it was soft as a woman's, and I saw that the stranger was a young girl!

"I took from her the wet garments and brought warm clothes of MAMOE (blankets), and Taku made a great fire, and we rubbed her cold body and her hands and feet till her life came back to her again, and she sat up and ate a little beaten-up taro. When the night and the dawn touched she slept again.

"The sun was high when the white girl awoke, and fear leapt into her eyes when she saw the house filled with people who came to question Taku and me about the stranger. With them came the girl Temeteri, whose head was still filled with foolish thoughts of Farani, her white lover.

"I went to the strange girl, put my arm around her, and spoke, but though she smiled and answered in a little voice, I understood her not, for I know none of the tongue of Chili. But yet she leaned her head against my bosom, and her eyes that were as big and bright as Fetuaho, the star of the morning, looked up into mine and smiled through their tears.

"There was a creat buzzing of talk among the women. Some came to her and touched her hands and forehead, and said: 'Let thy trembling cease; we of Rapa-nui will be kind to the white girl.'

"And as the people thronged about her and talked, she shook her head and her eyes sought mine, and hot tears splashed upon my hand. Then the mother of Temeteri raised her voice and called to Taku the Sailor, and said: 'O Taku, thou who knowest her tongue, ask her of Farani, my white son, the husband of my daughter.'

"The young girls in the house laughed scornfully at old Pohere, for some of them had loved Farani, who yet had put them all aside for Temeteri, whose beauty exceeded theirs; and so they hated her and laughed at her mother. Then Taku, being pressed by old Pohere, spoke in the tongue of Chili, but not of Temeteri.

"Ah! She sprang to her feet and talked then! and the flying words chased one another from her lips; and these things told she to Taku:– She had hidden among the broken lava and watched the little captain come back to the boat and bid us farewell. Then when night came she had crept out and gone far over to the great PAPAKU, and lay down to hide again, for she feared the fighting ship might return to seek her. And all that day she lay hidden in the lava till night fell upon her again, and hunger drove her to seek the faces of men. In the rain she all but perished, till God brought her feet to this, my house.

"Then said Taku the Sailor: 'Why didst thou flee from the ship?'

"The white girl put her hands to her face and wept, and said: 'Bring me my jacket.'

"I gave to her the blue sailor's jacket, and from inside of it she took a little flat thing and placed it in her bosom.

"Again said old Pohere to Taku: 'O man of slow tongue, ask her of Farani.' So he asked in this wise:

"'See, O White Girl, that is Pohere, the mother of Temeteri, who bore a son to the white man that came here to look upon the Silent Faces; and because he came from thy land, and because of the heart of Temeteri, which is dried up for love of him, does this foolish old woman ask thee if thou hast seen him; for long months ago he left Rapa-nui. In our tongue we call him Farani.'

"The girl looked at Taku the Sailor, and her lips moved, but no words came. Then from her bosom she took the little flat thing and held it to him, but sickness was in her hand so that it trembled, and that which she held fell to the ground. So Taku stooped and picked it up from where it lay on the mat, and looked, and his eyes blazed, and he shouted out 'AUE!' for it was the face of Farani that looked into his! And as he held it up in his hand to the people, they, too, shouted in wonder; and then the girl Temeteri cast aside those that stood about her, and tore it from his hand and fled.

"'Who is she?' said the white girl, in a weak voice to Taku; 'and why hath she robbed me of that which is dear to me?' and Taku was ashamed, and turned his face away from her because of two things—his heart was sore for Temeteri, who is a blood relation, and was shamed because her white lover had deserted her; and he was full of pity for the white girl's tears. So he said nought.

"The girl raised herself, and her hand caught Taku by the arm, and these were her words: 'O man, for the love of Jesu Christ, tell me what was this woman Temeteri to my husband?'

"Now Taku the Sailor was sore troubled, and felt it hard to hurt her heart, yet he said: 'Was Farani, the Englishman, thy husband?'

"She wept again, 'He was my husband.'

"'Why left he one as fair as thee?' said Taku, in wonder.

"She shook her head. 'I know not, except he loved to look upon strange lands; yet he loved me.'

"'He is a bad man,' said Taku. 'He loved others as well as thee. The girl that fled but now with his picture was wife to him here. He loved her, and she bore him a son.'