On the following morning Dillon made an unsuccessful attempt to recover the bones of the Europeans. A native flourished the thigh bones of the first mate, but refused to part with them, saying that they were to be made into sail-needles.
The canoes had set sail for Bau with some fifty of their company wounded. They had not communicated with the ship, and had therefore left behind two Europeans and a number of their women. The ship sailed the same day, and being unable to land her native passengers at Bau, carried them on to New South Wales. Buschart and a Lascar were, however, landed at Tucopia, where they were found thirteen years afterwards, and were instrumental in the discovery of the remains of De la Pérouse’s ill-fated expedition.
So gross an insult as the slaughter of two of the Vunivalu’s brothers could not go unpunished. On the return of the canoes the indignation in Bau was intense. A strong expedition was at once fitted out, and before the end of the year Wailea was in ashes, and Vonasa and half his tribe had followed their victims to Naicobocobo. Many were slain in the sack of the town, but a few were carried captive to Bau to glut the vengeance of Vunivalu himself. There, at the mercy of their captors, they died such a death as amply avenged the chiefs who fell at Wailea.
Thus did Charles Savage, the Swede, meet a death in harmony with his stormy life, and with the fate that he had brought upon so many others. His works followed him. Epic poems, now half-forgotten, were composed in his honour. With the descendants of the people among whom he lived he has almost attained the dignity of a legendary hero, and but for their conversion to Christianity he would undoubtedly have been given a place in their Pantheon. He is remembered while all that is left of the gigantic and heroic Dillon is the name of the little hill that saved his life in Wailea Bay. Though the tragedy itself is almost forgotten, the knoll is still called Koroi-Pita (Peter’s Hill). Through Savage, Bau rose to a rank among her sister tribes that she never forfeited. When the growing intercourse with foreigners demanded the recognition of Fiji as a people obeying acknowledged leaders, Bau fell naturally into the place of sovereign over all her rival States, and as possessing power to cede to England the territory of all for the common good. Therefore in time to come, when some historian, weary of seeking an untried field for his pen, turns to Fiji, he will, in valuing the political forces that have led to this end, give a leading place to the deeds of Charles Savage, the first colonist.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
