“It’s a canoe, sir,” he reported as he rose to his feet beside me, “and there’s people aboard her—natives—four or five, I sh’d say, though I didn’t stop to count ’em; and I’m blest if I know whether they’re alive or dead, but I think there must be life in one of ’em at least, for when I jumped into her I stumbled over one, and I thought I heard a groan.”
“Well,” said I, “I hope we have been in time to save the poor beggars. I suspect that they belong to the island that is visible from the crater, about a hundred miles to the south-west of us, and that they were caught in the gale and blown out to sea. If so, they have been at sea three whole nights and two days, drenched all the time with the flying spray, buffeted with the wind, and labouring hard all the while to keep their cockleshell of a craft afloat. And these islanders are not very tough when it comes to facing prolonged exposure of that kind.”
We got the catamaran round and headed her for the island, with the canoe in tow, the carpenter having been thoughtful enough to light a fire on the beach to serve as a guide to us; and a quarter of an hour later we were ashore again, with Cunningham, Chips, and Sails tenderly lifting five natives out of the half-swamped canoe and laying them on the sand, close to the fire, while Murdock and I secured the catamaran. By the time that we had done this, Cunningham had got to work upon the new arrivals, in two of whom he found signs of life, while the other three he pronounced doubtful. Then, under his directions, we each took a body, which we proceeded vigorously to chafe and slap with our bare hands, varying the treatment with occasional attempts to administer a little stimulant, with the object of restoring the suspended circulation of the blood; and eventually—not to dwell at unnecessary length upon this episode—we succeeded in restoring two of them, but the remaining three defied our utmost efforts, although we worked at them until late into the night. Then, having bountifully fed the two survivors, we left them to dispose of themselves as they would for the night, and retired to our cavern.
Chapter Fourteen.
Mokalua and Vati.
When we turned out on the following morning our two resuscitated savages were nowhere to be seen, and the bodies of the three dead had also vanished; but a glance in the direction of the beach showed that they were still somewhere on the island, for their canoe lay hauled up on the sand, alongside the catamaran, where we had left her on the previous night, and the prints of their naked feet on the sand indicated that they had made some three or four journeys to the eastern extremity of the bay. We therefore concluded that the two were performing the obsequies of their departed companions, and made no endeavour to discover their whereabouts, taking it for granted that they would reappear when they had disposed of their dead to their satisfaction. While we were partaking of breakfast a big cloud of smoke arose from the woods situated at the eastern extremity of the bay, causing us to surmise that the dead were at that moment undergoing the process of cremation; but we made no attempt to investigate, leaving the savages to their own devices for that day, and proceeding to the shipyard as usual immediately after breakfast.
Shortly after midday our two savages hove in sight, making their way down the cliff path to the shipyard, having evidently followed the path over the plateau which we had beaten in our frequent passages to and fro between the two bays. They displayed no fear of us, approaching us without the slightest hesitation, but exhibiting more curiosity than any natives with whom I had thus far been brought into contact. They seemed to be filled with astonishment at the whiteness of our skins when, following our usual custom, we discarded our scanty clothing and plunged into the sea for a few minutes before partaking of our midday meal; and did not appear to be able to understand how it was that, while our faces, necks, hands, and arms were almost as dark as their own skins, the remaining portions of our bodies, ordinarily protected from the sun by our clothing, should be so very much lighter. They were not oppressed by any feeling of false modesty or bashfulness, but examined us minutely at close quarters, jabbering together with the utmost animation all the while and lightly running their fingers over our arms and necks, with the apparent purpose of finding the join in the differently coloured portions of our skin.
This was all very well, of course, and sufficiently amusing to all concerned; but now that these two savages had come to us we quite intended to make use of them, and allow them to work for their living. Therefore, as soon as we had resumed our clothing, Murdock undertook the task of making known our intentions and wishes to our dusky friends. And the way he did it was amusing enough. In common with others of his kind he had repeatedly been brought into contact with foreigners of various nationalities, both civilised and savage, but he had one simple method of communicating with them all, a method which he was firmly convinced must be efficacious in exact proportion to the measure of intelligence possessed by the persons with whom he desired to communicate; and that method was to speak to the stranger in broken English! For example, he proposed to set these two natives to the task of collecting fuel for the purpose of cooking the fish which Chips and Sails were about to catch for our midday meal by going offshore a short distance in the catamaran; and the way he did it was something like this.