Several times Mabau came to see us, but Vituo did not keep his promises. She would stand at the Organization door for hours watching the sunset fade over the hills, and then with staring eyes look down the long white track, where once he had so eagerly come singing, to fall into her arms. Bones and I, and even old Enoch, would strive to cheer her up. I used to play the violin and get her to sing with her soft, plaintive voice some of the lotu hymns, and so in this way divert her mind from thinking of her faithless lover. For, to tell the truth, Vituo was now only interested in a white woman who was staying at Suva. Bones knew of this, and told me all about it, and so we all felt deeply sorry for Mabau. In my heart I hated the treacherous half-caste for his heartless behaviour. Time was going on, and Mabau’s open disgrace fast approaching, and, as Bones said, it would not be well for her, or Vituo either, when the truth was out. The old chief, her father, still had a huge war-club which was the equivalent of Fijian law, and there was no telling what might happen when her condition was no longer a secret. Poor Mabau! I still remember her melancholy as I made her sing while I played the low notes on the violin, for she could follow easily the chords on the G string, but as the bow travelled up the scale to the higher notes her ear seemed to fail her. It was interesting to listen to her wild voice, which so easily sang melodies in the minor key, though as soon as I played in the major key her voice seemed to grip hold of the notes and slowly drift the strain from the major to the minor.
One night we were suddenly surprised by one of our companions appearing at the Organization door with two new members. They were dark-looking men; one was extremely handsome and very polite, indeed almost courtly in his salutations as he gently brushed the mug’s rim and swallowed the proffered rum. Enoch, Mabau and I, sitting on our tubs, watched them intently as they stood side by side and spoke in broken English to Bones, who seemed quite satisfied with their credentials, for they were escaped convicts from Numea. They were unshaved and very disreputable-looking, but after a wash, shave and brush-up were considerably changed for the better, and I discovered that they were as gentle and intelligent as they looked. Reviere, the younger—that was not his real name—had, in a fit of jealousy, shot a rival in Paris, and so had been transported to New Caledonia, the French penal settlement, from where convicts often escaped to live exiled lives in the islands or Australian cities.
Reviere fell in love with Mabau. He and I became very good friends, and though I told him of Vituo and all the trouble, still he gazed upon Mabau as she softly sang with eyes that seemed never to tire of gazing in her direction.
Reviere had been exiled in a convict prison for over five years, and Mabau being the first woman whom he had spoken to since he escaped from incarceration, his infatuation for the Fijian maid was not so surprising as it would have been under normal circumstances. Alas, though Mabau approved of his tenderness to her, and seemed somewhat flattered at his admiring gaze, she did not encourage him; for, notwithstanding the undress costume of the islanders and the looseness of the sexes in the native villages, Fijian maids were as modest as, and if anything more faithful to their lovers than, the maids of civilised lands sometimes are.
Dart Valley, Lake Wakatipu, N.Z.
For two nights Mabau disappeared, and Bones being away on a trading trip, Reviere and I left the Organization officials playing dominoes and drinking rum and went off south of the Rewa river exploring; for we had heard that the natives were having high sprees inland and that the Meke festival dances were in full swing.
It was nearly dusk as we wandered along by the tropical palms and fern that grew thickly by the tiny track which we followed. Going across a pine-apple plantation we once more got on to the native road, and before the stars in heaven were at their brightest we emerged from the thick bush growth and entered a clearing that extended to the native village homesteads that stood under the palms and banyans across the flat.
It was a wonderful sight that appeared before us; for the old chieftains, and native women also, were dressed in war costume, their bodies swathed in bandages of grass and flowers, and as they danced wildly they made the scene impressively weird. The general musical effect sounded like a Wagnerian orchestra being played out of tempo and tune, but the legendary atmosphere was perfect. It also possessed the barbarian note of Wagnerian music, which so wonderfully expresses the German nature and shows that Wagner was a genius for true expression and anticipation.
The moon came up and intensified the barbaric atmosphere that pervaded the excited village. From the hut doors peeped the tiny dark faces of the native children, who applauded with vigour the escapades of their old grandmother or grandfather, who, back once again in the revived memories of heathen days, threw their skinny legs skyward and did many grotesque movements that seemed impossible to old age and the stern decorum which those little children had erstwhile been used to from their august parents. Round the space, to the primitive music of thumped wooden drums (lais) and the hooting of bamboo reeds, they whirled; and then suddenly the vigorous antics would cease and all would start walking round in a circle, as the maids, almost nude, except for a blossom or a little grass tied about them, joined in, opened their thick-lipped mouths in unison and chanted some old strain that smacked more of heathenism than of the Christianity which most of them were supposed to have embraced. Under the coco-palms hard by sat several old women who dealt in South Sea witchcraft. I never saw such pathetically hideous old hags as they were. Their faces wrinkled up to a breathing-map of sin and vice as they put their fingers to their shrivelled lips and warned the innocent girls of sorrows to come, foretelling dire disaster, or the reverse, to those who appealed to them for prophecies.