The Call Of The South by George Lewis Becke (i read book .TXT) 📕

a sixteen-shot Winchester with fifty cartridges, and a Swiss Vetterli rifle, together with some twist tobacco, and the two long _nifa oti_ or "death knives," with which these valorous, but misguided young men intended to remove the earless head of the "Tafito pig" from his brawny, muscular shoulders.

Te-bari made his way, encumbered as he was with his armoury, along the crest of the mountain range, till he was within striking distance of his enemy, Clausen, and the alleged Frau Clausen--_nee_ Nireeungo. He hid on the outskirts of the plantation, and soon got in touch with some of his former comrades. They gave him food, and much useful information.

One night, during heavy rain, when every one was asleep on the plantation, Te-bari entered the overseer's house by the window. A lamp was burning, and by its light he saw his faithless spouse sleeping alone. Clausen--lucky Clausen--had been sent into Apia an hour before to get some medicine for one of the manager's children. Te-bari was keenly disappointed. He would only have half of his revenge. He crept up to the sleeper, and made one swift blow with the heavy _nifa oti_ Then he became very busy for a few minutes, and a few hours later was back in the mountains, smoking Clausen's tobacco, and drinking some of Clausen's corn schnapps.

When Clausen rode up to his house at three o'clock in the morning, he found the lamp was burning brightly. Nireeungo was lying on the bed, covered over with a quilt of navy blue. He called to her, but she made no answer, and Clausen called her a sleepy little pig. Then he turned to the side table to take a drink of schnapps--on the edge of it was Nireeungo's head with its two long plaits of jet-black hair hanging down, and dripping an ensanguined stream upon the matted floor.

Clausen cleared out of Samoa the very next day. Te-bari had got upon his nerves.

*****


The forest was dark by the time I had lit a fire between two of the wide buttresses of the great tree, and I was shaking from head to foot with ague. The attack, however, only lasted an hour, and then came the usual delicious after-glow of warmth as the blood began to course riotously through one's veins and give that temporary and fictitious strength accompanied by hunger, that is one of the features of malarial fever.

Sitting up, I began to pluck the mountain cock, intending to grill the chest part as soon as the fire was fit. Then I heard a footstep on the leaves, and looking up I saw Te-bari standing before me.

"_Ti-a ka po_" (good evening), I said quietly, in his own language, "will you eat with me?"

He came over to me, still grasping his rifle, and peered into my face. Then he put out his hand, and sat down quietly in front of me. Except for a girdle of dracaena leaves around his waist he was naked, but he seemed well-nourished, and, in fact, fat.

"Will you smoke?" I said presently, passing him a plug of tobacco and my sheath knife, for I saw that a wooden pipe was stuck in his girdle of leaves. He accepted it eagerly.

"Do you know me, white man?" he asked abruptly, speaking in the Line Islands tongue.

I nodded. "You are Te-bari of Maiana. The boy was frightened of you and ran away."

He showed his gleaming white teeth in a semi-mirthful, semi-tigerish grin. "Yes, he was afraid. I would have shot him; but I did not because he was with you. What is your name, white man?"

I told him.

"Ah, I have heard of you. You were with Kapitan Ebba (Captain Ever) in the _Leota?_"

He filled his pipe, lit it, and then extended his hand to me for the halt-plucked bird, and said he would finish it Then he looked at me inquiringly.

"You have the shaking sickness of the western islands. It is not good for you to lie here on the leaves. Come with me. I shall give you good food to eat, and coco-nut toddy to drink."

I asked him where he got his toddy from, as there were no coco-nut trees growing so high up in the mountains. He laughed.

"I have a sweetheart in Siumu. She brings it to me. You shall see her to-night. Come."

Stooping down, he lifted me up on his right shoulder as if I were a child, and then, with his own rifle and my gun and bag and the mountain cock tucked under his left arm, he set off at a rapid pace towards one of the higher spurs of the range. Nearly an hour later I found myself in a cave, overlooking the sea. On the floor were a number of fine Samoan mats and a well-carved _aluga_ (bamboo pillow).

I stretched myself out upon the mats, again shivering with ague, and Te-bari covered me over with a thick _tappa_ cloth. Then he lit a fire just outside the cave, and came back to me.

"You are hungry," he said, as he expanded his big mouth and grinned pleasantly. Then from the roof of the cave he took down a basket containing cold baked pigeons, fish and yams.

I ate greedily and soon after fell asleep. When I awoke it seemed to be daylight--in reality it was only a little past midnight, but a full bright moon was shining into the cave. Seated near me were my host and a young woman--the "sweetheart". I recognised her at once as Sa Laea, the widow of a man killed in the fighting a few months previously. She was about five and twenty years of age, very handsome, and quiet in her demeanour. As far as I knew she had an excellent reputation, and I was astonished at her consorting with an outlawed murderer. She came over and shook hands, asked if I felt better, and should she "lomi-lomi" (massage) me. I thanked her and gladly accepted her offer.

An hour before dawn she bade me good-bye, urging me to remain, and rest with her earless lover for a day or two, instead of coming on to Siumu, where there was an outbreak of measles.

"When I come to-morrow night," she said, "I will bring a piece of kava root and make kava for you."

The news about the measles decided me. I resolved to at least spend another day and night with my host. He was pleased.

Soon after breakfast he showed me around. His retreat was practically impregnable. One man with a supply of breech-loading ammunition could beat off a hundred foes. On the roof of the cave was a hole large enough to let a man pass through, and from the top itself there was a most glorious view. A mile away on the starboard hand, and showing through the forest green, was a curving streak of bright red--it was the road, or rather track, that led to Siumu. We filled our pipes, sat down and talked.

How long had he lived there? I asked. Five months. He had found the cave one day when in chase of a wild sow and her litter. Afraid of being shot by the Siumu people? No, he was on good terms with _them_. Very often he would shoot a wild pig and carry it to a certain spot on the road, and leave it for the villagers. But he could not go into the village itself. It was too risky--some one might be tempted to get those hundred Chile dollars from the Germans. Food? There was plenty. Hundreds of wild pigs in the mountains, and thousands of pigeons. The pigs he shot with his Snider, the pigeons he snared, for he had no shot gun, and would very much like to have one. Twice every week Sa Laea brought him food. Tobacco too, sometimes, when she could buy it or beg it from the trader at Siumu. Sometimes he would cross over to the northern watershed and catch a basketful of the big speckled trout which teem in the mountain pools. Some of these he would send by Sa Laea to the chief of Siumu, who would send him in return a piece of kava, and some young drinking coconuts as a token of good-will. Once when he went to fish he found a young Samoan and two girls about to net a pool. The man fired at him with his pigeon gun and the pellets struck him in the chest. Then he (Te-bari) shot the man through the chest with his Winchester. No, he did not harm the girls--he let them run away.

Sa Laea was a very good girl. Whenever he trapped a _manu-mea_ (the rare _Didunculus_, or tooth-billed pigeon) she would take it to Apia and sell it for five dollars--sometimes ten. He was saving this money. When he had forty dollars he and Sa Laea were going to leave Samoa and go to Maiana. Kapitan Cameron had promised Sa Laea to take them there when they had forty dollars. Perhaps when his schooner next came to Siumu they would have enough money, etc.

During the day I shot a number of pigeons, and when Sa Laea appeared soon after sunset we had them cooked and ready. We made a delicious meal, but before eating the lady offered up the usual evening prayer in Samoan, and Te-bari the Earless sat with closed eyes like a saint, and gave forth a sonorous _A-mene!_ when his ladylove ceased.

I left my outlaw friend next morning. Sa Laea came with me, for I had promised to buy him a pigeon gun (costing ten dollars), a bag of shot, powder and caps. I fulfilled my promise and the woman bade me farewell with protestations of gratitude.

A few months later Te-bari and Sa Laea left the island in Captain Cameron's schooner, the _Manahiki_. I trust they "lived happily ever afterwards".



CHAPTER XX ~ "THE DANDIEST BOY THAT EVER STOOD UP IN A BOAT"

Nine years had come and gone since I had last seen Nukutavake and its amiable brown^skinned people, and now as I again stepped on shore and scanned the faces of those assembled on the beach to meet me, I missed many that I had loved in the old, bright days when I was trading in the Paumotus. For Death, in the hideous shape of small-pox, had been busy, taking the young and strong and passing by the old and feeble.

It was a Sunday, and the little isle was quiet--as quiet as the ocean of shining silver on which our schooner lay becalmed, eight miles beyond the foaming surf of the barrier reef.

Teveiva, the old native pastor, was the first one to greet me, and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he spoke to me in his native Tahitian, bade me welcome, and asked me had I come to sojourn with "we of Nukutavake, for a little while".

"Would that it were so, old friend. But I have only come on shore for a few hours, whilst the ship is becalmed--to greet old friends dear to my heart, and never forgotten since the days I lived among ye, nigh upon a half-score years ago. But, alas, it grieves me that many are gone."

A low sob came from the people, as they pressed around their friend of bygone years, some clasping my hands and some pressing their faces to mine And so, hand in hand, and followed by the people, the old teacher and I walked slowly along the shady path of drooping palms, and came to and entered the quiet