At that moment I had not the slightest suspicion that the load that bumped behind them, tightly wrapped up, as it parted the tall grasses and flowers as they hurried along, was the dead body of some fallen enemy, otherwise I am quite sure that I should have made a bolt for it, but possibly my slow comprehension saved my life, for however fast I ran I doubt if I could have out-run a South Sea savage.
How well do I remember that terrible journey through the forest, as overhead sang the trade-wind in the palms and giant trees, and the sunset died away and the mysterious glooms around became deeper mysteries. Hot and dejected I followed those stalwart bare men, twenty behind me and twenty in front, as their naked feet hurried in single file toward the terrible “place” where that “thing” was to be cooked! And I, the hired musician, trembled as the hot breath of the tall savage just behind me blew down my neck as he dragged his burden along on that sweltering hot night. I have played the violin in many ball-rooms and fêtes since that long-ago night, but never once have I played without that terrible picture (which I am now going to tell you of) rising before my eyes. It seemed miles to me before they stopped. Great heaven, they were dressed up for the occasion! Some of them were smeared with whitish stuff, and three of them—women!—were got up like idols. One was a young and attractive-looking type of South Sea womanhood. She walked two ahead of me and I remember her well as she did not look so fierce as the others and the thought came to my mind that I could look to her for sympathy if they wanted to kill me. Women are women the world over, and down in my heart I blessed the soft curves of that female frame as she moved along in front of me, turning her head from time to time to gaze steadfastly into my eyes. Several times I thought of making a sudden dive into the forest. If I had done so I feel quite sure the reader would never have read this autobiography.
In between two great plateaux they stopped and the chief that led them gave two bird-like calls among the hills, and presently the bush parted gently and out poked frizzly heads. More of them to attend that feast! One was a terrible-looking fellow; his head looked like a huge coco-nut with fat lips on it and a tuft of quills on the top. He glared at me and spoke viciously to the others. How my heart thumped! I felt my face turn grey and my lips go dry as I gave a sickly smile to that awful man to let him see that I was perfectly agreeable to all that they were doing and to all that they might do, and in an inspiration I started to play the fiddle and laughed hysterically. I do not mind telling you that I was in a terrible funk and to this day I do not like the look of men who have coco-nut-shaped heads, so horrified and cowed was I by that chief who muttered to the others and swayed his club to and fro and several times half lifted it as though to brain me! And all this I am telling you is so terribly true that I don’t know how to proceed with all that happened, whether to describe my feelings or what my eyes saw. But there, whoever you are, you can place yourself in my predicament, and if you have a good imagination feel a faint echo of my despair of that night of long ago.
Overhead hung the bright moon in the vault of night as the busy hands of that fierce tribe gathered and piled up the wood fire as in the hot embers frizzled the “Long Pig.” There are some details of cooking odours which I must leave out. I cannot describe all, it was too hellish to describe. Round and round that terrible fire they whirled like some ghastly nightmare of the dead in hell, lifting their chins skywards and chanting thanksgiving to their ancient gods, and I heard the rattle of the threaded shells that adorned the bodies of the wild women as they too sang in shrill voices. I played away as fast as I could on my violin the repeated intervals of those minor strains, keeping time to that terrible dance, the perspiration pouring down my face as I tore away at the only two strings on my instrument. There they were, a ring of swarthy faces around me, as they suddenly stopped all hushed as the nightbird in the forest said “Wail-wail-tu-tu-wail-wail,” and they started on their haunches to devour their “meal.” And as the forest wind blew the dying, flickering firelight over their faces I thought I would presently awake from some ghastly nightmare, so terrible was the sight and so unreal-looking were the surroundings conjured up in my own brain by the knowledge of what that big dish joint consisted of, for they themselves as they sat there swallowing away looked quite innocent and peaceful, and they even offered up a prayer to their gods in devoted thanks for that supper, just the very same as tiny white children who put their hands together and thank God for their feast of the poor murdered four-legged creatures of the field. I pretended to join in the prayer and muttered out some noises, but I could not under any pretence eat. I really think that I would have died sooner than eat of that joint. How I got out of it I don’t know, but I did, and I put down my escape to the quantity of diners at the festivity and their greediness.
As I sat there in that den of the forest I thought of my people in England, in a respectable London suburban home, calmly going about their household duties, singing and playing the piano, and the afternoon “At Home,” small talk and whispering, while I sat on a little dead tree stump in the South Sea Isle with my heart thumping like a funeral march drum, as about fifty naked savage cannibals gnawed the bones of that inhuman and yet human feast! I thought of my father’s offices in London, as he sat editing the adventurous books for that publishing house wherefrom sprang out to the hands of the schoolboys the Highway Men, Red Indians and Spring Heeled Jacks, etc.,[[2]] that fired the heads of the boys of my schooldays with the mad adventurous spirit to go to sea and seek adventure in far lands, and I cursed these books, for it was through them that I was sitting there, wondering every moment if those terrible men would suddenly take a fancy to me, knock my skull in and prepare me for the next meal!
[2]. Work which was very distasteful to my father. He, having a refined literary taste, was a critic of poetry, and wrote several critical works, including Shelley and his Writings.
But no such thing happened. As soon as they had finished they all crept silently away into the forest to their several homes to sleep off the effects of that orgy. They were men of the interior, and even the true Samoans do not agree with cannibalism, but the Island was in a fever then; they had been prepared for war some time before and those cannibals had come over from some other group.
I took my first opportunity and leapt away into the wooded country and arrived next day at Hornecastle’s hut. I kept my mouth closed, for had I told of that terrible night they would have known that I had split and I should have been doomed; and so I followed the good old proverb that “a still tongue shows a wise head.” And I was pleased that I did hold my tongue, for while I was drinking in a saloon in Apia with Hornecastle, the night following my terrible fright and dread of being eaten, a German started cursing and told us how he had hung a prize pig up in his store and, when he went in the morning, to cut it up for joints, he found it missing; the natives had stolen it, and crept into the forest, and probably roasted it and had a glorious feast, and as I listened to his details I started to wonder if the load that my friends of the night before had dragged through the forest to the midnight feast could have possibly been his stolen pig!—and all the horror of that secret feast the outcome of my own suspicions. I said nothing, and to this day my suspicions each way are equal.
Thank goodness that under the influence of education and the work of the missionaries the terrible appetite which I have just described has long since died out. The white man in the South Seas has done that much good. You must remember that I am writing under the still clinging atmosphere that my mind inhaled when I was a lad, of an age when we are apt to look upon those who are mediators with the Supreme as men who are, or should be, very different to other men, and consequently their natural failings were greatly magnified to my onlooking eyes. And so my remarks and musings, considered from this aspect, do not treat harshly the men who went out to the South Seas to reform their brethren, but simply show the futility, the uselessness of mortals attempting to reform, to better the spiritual conditions of those who are born of Mother Earth as they themselves are. After all we are all of us only like little children clambering and crying at the skirts of creation, some with white faces and some with black faces, and if the black-faced children, in their innocence, laugh and cry over their little idol-dolls and are pleased with them, why should the white-faced children try to steal their dolls and smash the lot up and make them unhappy by offering them an idol in exchange which they cannot see and which is too big for them to carry if they could see it. And moreover, what more do the white children know than the black ones?
I knew a Samoan chief who was a kind of philosopher of his race, and I was much struck by his remarks and wisdom as he used to sit squatting by his hut and talk to me of the old days. He was not a true-blooded Samoan, but came from the Marquesan group and had once been a king before the heavy tramp of civilisation came his way. He would tell me wonderful tales of his time, many of which, when I think of them now, seem almost incredible, but they were true enough and some day I intend to devote my time to writing them down for publication. They alluded a good deal to cannibalistic orgies and terrible battles for the love of the women of those times, wild dances round their monstrous idols, idols that sang and voiced forth terrible prophecies, that made the warriors of those Isles do most outrageous things to their enemies and to their children and daughters. As he sat there squatting and told me many things I would turn “all chicken flesh,” as people say, and watch his grim wrinkled face and twinkling eyes reveal the smouldering passions that flamed in the dark age of his time. Under the influence of that old king’s memories I wrote the following poem just as he would have written it, and approved of it too if he could only see it; in fact it is just what he really said, word for word, but I have rhymed it in my own way.