It was no use. I threw down my pen, tossed my unfinished letters on the floor, and went out with murder in my heart. The mail was due in a day or two, and I had neglected all my relations and friends for so long that they must have had every reason for thinking me dead. But not a word could I write.
There was a native singing on the beach below the hotel: the day was hot and windless, and one could hear every sound. No one who has ever lived in Papua will want to be told why I could not go on with my mail.
For the benefit of those who have not, I may explain that, of all maddening sounds ever invented by the malice or ingenuity of man, Papuan solo-singing is a long way the worst. The choral singing is noisy and not very musical, but it lacks the brain-destroying texture of the solo. An idle Papuan native (and a Papuan is always idle, unless some one is making him work) seems able to pass away half a day, at any time, chanting his own autobiography, and the history of his immediate friends, in a long-drawn nasal howl that holds one note till you feel the very substance of your brain giving way under its hideous boring—and then takes a sudden gimlet twist.
At this point you get up, saying things that in all likelihood do no credit to your education and upbringing, and throw the twelve-pound clam-shell that probably ornaments the veranda, right at the furry head of the singer. A clam-shell has a row of sharp points on its edge, and it is extremely solid. As a rule, it penetrates far enough to convey your wishes. If it does not, or if the singer takes it for an encore and goes on again, you can generally find a tomahawk somewhere about the house.
But on this occasion the singer was invisible, down on the beach, and out of clam-shot, also out of boot, stove-lifter, jug, and tomahawk shot. The only thing was to go and find him.... Down the stairs, through the bar, and out across the glaring sandy street, where the shadows of the palms were faint and feeble, in the cruel midday sun.... The scrap of bush that shaded the sea-beach concealed me as I stole along. I meant to catch him at it.
“Yah-yah aaaaaaaaaaah-yah, yah-yah aaaaaah, yah-ah, yah-ah!” burst forth another preliminary yell. I halted for a minute to locate the sound. The singer took breath, and went on in a tone that bored through one’s ears exactly as a dentist’s drill bores when it is coming down on the nerve of a tooth. The words were distinguishable now, in spite of the chanting manner. I caught a sentence as I drew near.
“Good Lord!” I said to myself, and straightened up, all idea of vengeance disappearing from my mind like the foam on the Straits when a southeaster flings it ashore. The man was singing in a dialect that I knew—the usual bald recitative about various native affairs. But there was something in this recitative that concerned me very nearly, or I was much mistaken. I stood and listened. At first I could only hear the word for “sorcerer” coming in again and again, mingled with “Kata-Kata”—the name of the district where we had been first met with the wonderful diamond that the Marquis and I were now pursuing. Then the chanting became clearer:
“Aaaaa-yah, Mo is dead, Mo is dead and buried, and his spirit walks about and bites men as they sleep. Aaaaaaah-yah!
“Aaaaa-yah, ah-yah, yah, Mo, the great sorcerer, did not take his charm. Ah-yah, ah-yah, he took it before, and he did not die. Aaaaaa! when he did not take it, he died.
“Aaah, aaaaah, ah-yah, the brother of Mo will not die: the brother of Mo will take it. Aaaaah! Aaaah! Aaaah!”