Dwala: A romance

by George Calderon

They invited him with gestures to taste the dishes of fruit which lay about him; and he did so, to their great joy. The village had all turned out by now; torches flared and smoked on every side; and it was in a blaze of light and through a thick avenue of men, women and children that the Colonel was at last conducted to the temple which had been prepared for him. The noise of conchs and drums had no more terrors for him now, and he watched the dances with an intensity of interest that threw him at last into a state of hypnotic coma.

The village slept late next morning. When the Colonel awoke he went out, from force of habit, to prepare breakfast. The guardians who slept on the threshold sat up and watched his movements awhile in stupid amazement; his quiet exit by the window had failed at first to rouse them.

He was working impatiently and irritably: he was afraid of being late; nothing was in its place. There was no axe to chop the wood; he had to break it with his hands. There were no matches, no tins of beef. It took all the gestures of all the priests to make him understand that he must not work. In time he grew used to being waited on by others; he grew used to obeisances and reverence. It was a new interest, and not more puzzling than most things. One thing disturbed him. Outside the temple was posted the Royal Minstrel, who played only one tune on his pipe—the Royal Tune. At first the Colonel had been delighted with this tune, and had made the minstrel play it to him from morning till night. But he grew tired of it. Whenever he opened the door, or even so much as showed his head at a window, the minstrel fired off this thing; when he went outside the village on any errand the minstrel followed him playing it. It maddened him, and at last he broke the pipe over the minstrel’s head and slunk back into his temple, and was very miserable for the rest of the day. But the people were delighted with this kingly trait, and the minstrel sold the pieces for a large price.

A strict watch was kept over his movements at first for fear he should escape; but after a while this was relaxed, and he used to roam at will in the forest. He usually returned at night, but not always. He visited the gold-diggings, but was alarmed by the look of the diggers, who reminded him of the American; he was afraid they would put him into a hutch. In another part of the forest he found a white man with a large family. The women and children were greatly frightened; but the man invited him into the house and told him he was a Missionary. The Colonel stayed there two days, and was converted to Christianity.

Meanwhile the tribe was preparing for war. The women were sealed up hermetically in huts; the warriors danced and rubbed their muscles with mowa juice; and late one night they disappeared silently with shields and spears among the trees. Next day they appeared again, exultant, with loads of booty; the white men had been utterly routed.

The stupefaction of the succeeding orgies was partially dispelled after many days by the frenzy of inspired minstrels, who proclaimed the imminence of the second Golden Age, and the permanent establishment of the wise and beneficent empire of the great Prince Dwala, Him-of-Two-Names, over the whole of the island, and those eyots beyond which constituted the rest of the habitable world.

The power of actual motion was finally restored by the rattle of musketry in the grey light of one dawn, and the snapping of twigs overhead, followed by the appearance of men in khaki among the trees. Unarmed and unprepared, the villagers fled into the forest beyond, and not a soul remained but the old Dreamer, who was seeking new visions in the quiet recesses of his sleeping apartment, and the Colonel, who ensconced himself comfortably in the sago-tree to watch this new human phenomenon. Horses crouched and snorted, dragging guns up the last slope, with a cluster of men straining at each wheel; infantrymen advanced and halted and turned at a shouted word; and the Colonel sat and looked on as at a new dance performed for his amusement. He was delighted at the burning of the huts, which made the biggest flame he had ever seen; but he grew tired at last of the long pauses in the ballet; so he climbed down to the tank and splashed water over the officers.

IV

The royal prisoner was royally housed. After the jolting journey in the sultry covered wagon, to the steady tramp of the marching soldiers, and the frightened crying of the old Dreamer who crouched beside him, it was pleasant to be in these spacious rooms, to look from under the sun-blinds into the leafy garden, to sit on the wet stones and dabble in the black pool in the hall.

Prince Dwala was shut up in the Old Residence while the Colonial Office made up its mind what was to be done with him. Compassionate ladies sent him baskets full of flowers. The rest of the prisoners—the Dreamer and a rabble of braves hunted down in the hills—were huddled away in the jail.