“Let’s follow him!” said O’Hara.
Without discussion or hesitation we crept under the coco-palms after Tapee.
It seemed as though we had, in some mysterious way, left the civilized world, and with one footstep walked across a thousand years into the dark ages. Tapee stood before us, in a space in the forest, waving his thin arms and chanting into the lapping wooden ears of a monstrous idol! Though the old native was six feet in height, he appeared diminutive as he stood in front of that dilapidated wooden image. Its big, goggling, glass eyes seemed to stare right over Tapee’s head, gazing mockingly at us! We instinctively held our breath as we stood there exposed to view, for so real did the eyes look that we fancied that It had observed us. Then we dodged back into the shadows, for Tapee had started careering about in the frantic capers of some heathen rite.
“He’s a heathen idol-worshipper!” whispered my comrade.
Then we received another surprise, for out of the shadows, just by us, in response to Tapee’s weird cry of “Awaie! Awaie!” sprang what appeared to be a Tahitian fairy figure! It was a native girl. She was dressed up in some old heathen-time costume. Her mass of hair was of bronze-gold colour, and fell down in luxuriant waves which streamed over her neck and shoulders in attractive contrast to the bright sun-varnished hue of her smooth skin. Her tresses were thickly adorned with flowers, and she wore a barbarian kind of raiment, the tasseled folds of which reached down to her knees. (It was a style similar to that which I had seen worn at the tribal festivals in New Guinea and the Solomon Isles). In a moment she too was careering round the idol in company with old Tapee, as she chanted a himine.
“O Loa!” whispered Tapee, as he turned about and stared into the forest shadows, as though he wondered if we were near enough to hear the girl’s loud singing. O’Hara moved forward.
“Keep out of sight; let us see it all,” I whispered, in at the same time pulling him back by the coat-tail into the shadows. Tapee had commenced to dance again. Then the girl fell on her knees before the big image, and began to beat her body with her hands in a heathen-like manner.
To my sorrow Tapee suddenly turned round and observed us peeping from the bamboo thicket. He looked frightened out of his life.
“Oh, Masser, you no tell Flenchmans that me worship idols? Me know where pearls are, and ’tis this nicer idol who tell Tapee where pearls are found.”
My comrade only stared, hardly knowing what the old native was driving at, till he continued: