On the night preceding my last day with the old missionary Mabau, the native girl, came to him as sunset was fading over the seas. As the shadows crept and thickened around the hermit’s home a noise of naked feet in the jungle grass disturbed us. A gentle tap at the door revealed Mabau’s dusky face. I understood little that she said, for she spoke in her own language to my host, but I saw by her eyes and trembling lips that she was sorely troubled. After hearing the Father’s advice she became calmer, and falling on her knees kissed his extended hand and bearded face as a child would kiss its father; then, without speaking a word, she ran off swiftly into the forest.
The old missionary asked me many questions as to where I was staying, upon which I told him of Mr Bones. Hearing this, he gravely shook his head and scanned me solemnly. “You look an honest lad and well able to take care of yourself,” he said; and then I explained to him how I had left my ship at S—— because I could not stand a drunken crew, and that was the true reason for my accepting the Organization’s hospitality. From him I heard that a week or so before I arrived a fugitive had appeared at the Organization and the second day after had shot himself. Bones had hastily called on the Father, who delivered the Sacrament to the dying man, who, ere his breath ceased, made his confession. The Father did not reveal the facts to me, but I heard them from the lips of a high-caste Fijian with whom I stayed between my visits to the Organization’s shanty. For after the first few days I only called upon Mr Bones as a visitor, taken there through my adventurous spirit, and for the novelty of associating with old villains and seeing the sad fugitives who arrived from the far-off cities of the world.
That night as I lay by my hermit host I watched him as he quietly slept on his sleeping-mat; moonlight streamed through the tiny window hole and revealed his careworn, bearded face. Still as death he lay as the breeze crept into the open door and stirred the few grey hairs above his lofty brow. The beating of the seas on the shore sounded at intervals and died away; the shadow leaves of the palms outside moved gently over the wooden moonlit walls, over his grey-bearded face and crossed hands. I felt that I was back in the Middle Ages, in some mysterious mediæval monastery, instead of in that heathen land of dying crime and bloodthirsty cannibalism, where but a few years before Thakambau, the warrior king, who now lay in the grave not far off at Bau, sailed forth from the creeks below to give battle to rival kings, accompanied by his armada of outrigged canoes. As I dreamed I heard the restless seas below, I saw those primitive fleets of canoes fading in the sunset, filled with dark, savage, patriotic faces, and the stalwart cannibal king leaning on his war-club and gazing proudly as he stood eyeing the canoes of his warriors paddling along to meet the tribal foe. It was almost unbelievable how swiftly change, through the coming of the white men, had overthrown the cannibalistic festivals and heathen customs: at Levuka, Viti Levu and Suva church spires were rising where the bokai feast and fierce songs once broke the silence; from native homes now come the strumming of cheap German pianos and lotu songs sung by mouths that a few years before had eaten those they had loved.
At daybreak Father Anster, the old missionary, rose and prepared breakfast, after which he took his flute from the shelf and played one tune over and over again continually; and the old featherless parrot in the cage tried desperately to repeat the notes through its tuneless beak and, to tell the truth, made as much mess of the melody as my host did; for though he had music in his soul, his lips were unable to express it. There he sat, holding the flute to his aged lips and blowing away; and though I know he must now be dead, hallowed dust somewhere near that spot where I saw him years ago, still I can see him sitting by his little doorway, and see the kind look in his eyes as I bade him farewell and passed away into the forest, with the thought and promise to see him again in a few days.
As I strolled along under the palms and big tropical trees I fell into deep thought; everything was silent, except a few birds singing to the sunset, which they could spy from the topmost boughs whereon they sat. Suddenly I was startled by hearing a noise, and crossing the gullies I went down a steep slope and peeped through the jungle thickets of bamboo beneath the coco-palms to see what was about, and there, romping in the deep fern grass, was a flock of naked native children, tiny wild faces, boys and girls. As I watched my foot slipped. In a moment they all looked up and their bright eyes spied me. Like a drove of rabbits off they bolted, their little brown shoulders and tossing heads of frizzly hair just reaching the fern-tops as they raced away and faded in the distant forest gloom, frightened out of their lives. A stream of sunset out seaward crept through the wind-blown forest boughs and glinted over them as they ran, till they looked like tiny wood-elves racing across fairyland! I never saw such a pretty sight. In fun I ran after them, and two little stragglers left behind, seeing me run, screamed; then through the bushes in front of me suddenly poked the heads of mop-haired mothers and fierce dark men. I had come across a native village!
At first I felt a bit frightened; but as soon as those wild-blooded parents saw my white face and youthful look they smiled, for their instincts are swift and true. I stepped into the village, and soon we were all good comrades. It was there that I met a missionary who lived not far off, and was adviser and preacher to the native village. He was a good man at heart, but extremely bigoted, and when I asked him about Father Anster he yawned and evaded my questions, told me that he was considered a mild kind of lunatic. I did not argue the point, but nevertheless I saw the way the wind blew and thought a good deal. I realised there was no love lost between my old host and the new missionaries, who did not care for hermits who toiled and lived completely by themselves.
The hot season was at its height, and not till the sun had set and the sea winds gently blew over the isle did I feel comfortable. One is forcibly reminded when travelling in the South Sea Isles that the natives in complete undress are utilising their own skins to the best advantage: often I envied them their scanty sulu (loin-cloth), as my white duck trousers and shirt flopped and steamed with perspiration as I sweated onwards. I stayed for several hours at the village I had stumbled across. Round the native huts the evening fires blazed as squatting by stone bowls the families ate their supper; dipping their fingers into the steaming mixture, they pushed worm-like stuff into their dark mouths. The toothless old chiefs and mothers were waited on by the children, who often sulkily helped them, hastily pushing what looked like long white worms, that hung from the aged mouths, in between the mumbling lips.
Close by, in one of the conical, thatched dens, loudly wailed a windy harmonium, played by a young aspirant for musical fame. The selling of harmoniums in the South Seas in those days was a paying business: a native would work for three years on a plantation, without wages, to possess one of those instruments of torture, and a family that possessed one obtained a social distinction equal to the Order of the Bath in Great Britain. It was the celebrated High Chief Volka who owned this particular terrible thing.
While the huddled natives chattered and gorged over their calabashes of hot mystery this chief led me round and proudly showed me the sights. Sunset had died, and the stars were beginning to peep through the dusky velvet blue skies that could be seen in many patches above the scattered waveless palms and banyan-trees. Chief Volka was a true survival of the barbaric age, six feet in height, scarred and tattooed from his brow to his knees. He had lost one eye in battle, and the other, through double use, bulged considerably. Leading me into his ancestral halls—three thatched rooms—he stood beside me, as his mop-head touched the low roof, and pointed to a ponderous war-club that hung on the wooden wall. Round it was a grim collection of spear-headed weapons. Standing by my side, with his shoulders majestically lifted and his chest blown out, he proudly told me of the wounds that implement had inflicted, and of the many lives it had, with sudden force, sent hastily to heathen-land. His one eye flashed with revived memories, and then that old veteran of some past Fijian Waterloo told me how his civilised tribe had exterminated the uncivilised foe in a mighty battle, and of the benefit the great victory had conferred upon humanity. For did not the victory overthrow tribal men who ate their wounded on holy days?—thus angering the gods by not keeping them in pickle till the Fijian Lent had passed!
He stood there, drawn up to his full height, his shrivelled but erstwhile muscular arm outstretched, as he told me of the overthrow of tribes on neighbouring isles who had aspired to dominate the whole Fijian Group by militarism. With forgivable pride he took down the huge club that had brought the ambitious leader of the hated hordes to the earth with a smashed skull. It was a mighty weapon, and the bare-skinned youth beside him gazed upon it with awestruck eyes as I said: “And what happened after that victory?” “We had ten years of great peace, many feasts and many wives, and our gods were pleased till came your race and overthrew them.” And then he continued in this wise: “Alas, our great civilisation has passed away; revered customs, creeds and mighty histories of my race are forgotten with the old winds. Ah, your white race tramples on our old dynasty of supreme goodness!”