“At dawn, when the mortals awoke from sleep, sunrise was streaming through the grass roofs of their huts. As they all jumped up and gazed with astonishment at the sight they saw, the maidens, who had slept not far away, cried out: ‘Oh, how beautiful, to be sure!’ For, lo!—a flock of pretty fantoes (children) were peeping into their wondering eyes, laughing and clapping their tiny hands as they cried out: ‘Oh, we are your children; the gods and goddesses of Mbau have sent us to look after you!’
“After that the people multiplied on the island, till there were so many that some were obliged to go forth and dwell on other isles of the South Seas. And they were all happy for a long, long time, for they did not have time hanging on their hands, so they were not jealous, nor did they quarrel overmuch.”
“Tafola, me slo!” cried the children, as Tangalora finished his story.
Thereupon the old scribe hastened round with his coco-nut-shell goblet to make the usual collection. The children immediately threw in the coins which their mothers had given them, so that they might pay on a fair royalty basis for the wonders which the tattooed Homer of their isles had told them. I flung in two bits of silver; and, considering all that I had heard, it was cheap at the price. Then the children, giving a musical halloo that echoed through that small Olympus, scrambled out of the cavern and disappeared in the forest.
Tangalora entertained me right royally that night, not only by relating a lot of the fascinating storied history of heathenland, but because of his thoughtfulness: he slyly pulled a piece of sacking from an old barrel, and brought forth twelve bottles of sparkling Bass’s ale! Squatting there, on Tangalora’s best fibre mat, things took on quite a rosy look as I listened whilst the summer night grew old. Then I bade my host good-night and went outside in the open to rest. There’s a good deal of mythology in Bass’s ale: I know that much. When I had made my bed beneath the palms and carefully placed my quilt of moss over my tired frame, I distinctly saw the moon cheerfully wave a pale hand over the highest pinnacle of Vae’s mountain range. It did not seem strange that the midnight moon should laugh, and, sneezing, send a tiny spiral of mist across the clear sky. All was as it should be when a magnificent procession of mighty gods and goddesses from Poluto marched across my bedroom floor, and disappeared in the adjacent glooms ere I closed my eyes in sleep.
Referring to my diary and the scraps which I wrote down in those old days, I find the notes considerably mixed up, parts quite obliterated through my sea-chest getting washed about on sailing-ships. Many of the pages are missing. But my memory is good, and I can easily fill in the interminable gaps. Indeed, the best part of this book is being written within the sounds of the winds in the palms. The dark, sombre green of the tropic landscape stretches for miles and miles. There lies the expanse of the sapphire-hued ocean, ending far away in the pale saffron fires of the skyline’s sunset, as, in my imagination, I softly dip my pen into the magic foams that sparkle on the coral-dust sands at my feet and sigh with the coco-palms overhead.
I see by my notes that I have already recorded in my previous books[[4]] many of the incidents connected with my visit to Samoa at this period. And, having also previously related much that befell me on my first voyage to Nuka Hiva and Hiva oa, I have no alternative but to revert to the incidents of a very interesting experience which came to me after I had “jumped ship” in Fiji. And this I will do in the next chapter.
[4]. A Vagabond’s Odyssey; Wine-Dark Seas and Tropic Skies; Sailor and Beachcomber.