In a flash Waylao saw through the deception. Rimbo in turn perceived that the girl had discovered his duplicity. The trick was quite obvious for, as he jumped, the tassels of his lava-lava caught in a splinter that existed on that wooden deity’s anatomy. His tawny brow creased into a mass of wrinkles that went right up to the dome of his bald head.
Perceiving the look of fright and intense realisation on the girl’s face, his deified majesty fell from him. The shock he received was evident. He had lost all hope of receiving his bribe of rum. Mrs Ranjo would heap curses on his sinful head; call him an ass; she would think he had betrayed her. He would lose the commission that he always received from his multitudes of confessional clients, bribes secured from the superstitious children of the forest, old-time chiefs, aged women, love-sick girls and aspiring youths who crept with hopes and aspirations to that heathen confessional box, that had been doomed as illegal by the French officials. The evil fate that eventually befell Rimbo was undeserved.[[3]] Indeed his guilt in nowise could be compared to that of the heathen crystal-gazers and mercenary quacks of the civilised cities. A sense of shame came to Waylao. In a moment she had realised the madness of her superstition.
With a cry of despair she rose to her feet, looked for a second into Rimbo’s fierce eyes, then, clutching her mother’s soap, fled away into the forest!
“Gawd blimy! if that don’t beat the band!—a bewtiful gal like that ’ere too.” Simultaneously with this ejaculation a coco-nut caught the old heathen priest crash on the hindpart!
[3]. Rimbo was eventually caught red-handed by the gendarmes. His idols were destroyed, and he was imprisoned in the calaboose. His captors found half-a-ton of Oriental silks, tappa cloth, muskets, old coins, cloths and Waterbury watches in his hut, besides many bottles of various spirits and tinned foods. It was hinted that he had a hiding-place elsewhere. He was eventually shot, whilst attempting to escape from the calaboose, by a gendarme.
He had started after Waylao in full pursuit. No doubt he was terror-stricken at the thought that the girl might seek the missionaries and the local white men and tell them of his idols and his duplicity.
As the coco-nut struck the old chap, his long legs seemed to suddenly leap skyward. Down he came, smash into the deep, ferny-flowered carpet of the forest floor. It was then that Grimes and I stole out of the shadows behind the buttressed banyans. We had been unseen witnesses of the whole business.
For a moment the old priest stared at us as though his last hour had come. I felt sorry. We swiftly reassured him that no further harm would come to him from us. Indeed we were both intensely curious to speak to the old fellow. It was something new to our experience. With the swift instinct of his race he saw that our attitude was not hostile, and his manner became child-like as he endeavoured to please us. I pretended that we had only that moment come on the scene, and he seemed much relieved at this information. For a while he tried to explain to us that the old wooden effigy we were staring at had been mysteriously placed there by some enemy who wished to get him into trouble with the French officials.
Grimes and I assured him that whoever had done so dastardly a trick deserved condign punishment.
The Marquesans are like children and, strange as it may seem, the old prophet felt that he had convinced us of his innocence. Had he seen the Cockney wink that Grimes gave me, I am sure that he would not have given us his confidence as he did. He took us into his hut, quite a spacious dwelling, crammed with piles of tinned meat, bottles of oil, old knives, razors, springless clocks and cases of bottles of spirit, etc. This hoard was no doubt part of the spoil, the fee that he demanded from his credulous clients—superstitious native girls, youths, and even white men at times!