“Not I,”—said one of the small-canoe men, aside,—“I know only work on deck, my lads, and there I can serve ten bows.” Meaning by this last statement that he could keep ten of the enemy armed with bows and arrows, pretty fully employed.
The climbing had to be done, however; thus much was settled in the Prince’s brain beyond a doubt; as was this also, that as difficulties arise the men to battle with, and overcome them, will always be forthcoming. The numerous crowds of powerful sailors that now were gathered on the deck of the Ebbtide could not be without a man equal to the emergency of the hour. The poet here introduces us to that man. He was but a stripling, when compared with his great captain; but, in comparison with ordinary men, he was a man of might, being a “chip of the old block,” and brother of the Prince. He was known on board as the “Bat-o’-the-top-mast-head,” on account of his wonderful climbing powers, and his prehensile ability, which placed him side by side with the flying-fox, with whose habits and flesh the natives are perfectly familiar.
When this god-possessed giant sailor sprang from the crowd and clasped the mast with his hands, at the same time pressing the soles of his feet firmly against it, and curving his back outwards from it, in the true Fijian climbing attitude, quite a scene took place. The climber’s mother rushed forward to stop him from his foolhardy attempt, which she looked upon as the act of a madman. When her maternal fury was at its sublimest height she discharged at him volley after volley of the hardest epithets to be found in cannibal vocabularies. Such epithets are neither few nor weak. Then, as, a blighting climax, she told him that he was but a “baby,” in proof whereof she called all present to witness that the eruptive disease, which almost without exception afflicts young Fiji from 1 to 3 years old, was not yet dry on him!
Few minds could have stood this without recoiling. But the woman’s eloquence and impassioned manner failed utterly. She could not convince him that youth was incompatible with climbing ability. Indeed, he did not stay to ask whether it were or no; “for,” says the bard, “while his mother was yet speaking, he was gone; not climbing, but literally running up the mast!” And there was every reason why he should run, for the journey was not to be done in a day, as we shall presently see. The poet would have us not forget that this brother of Prince Hightide was distinguished by the possession of many powers besides that of climbing, one of which was a marvellous keenness of sight. His eyes could discover small objects hundreds of miles away! But let us follow the climber up the mast; or, better still, remain while he climbs, with the sailors on deck, who, in the meantime will continue sculling the vessel out to sea.
At the close of his first day’s work, the “Bat-o’-the-top-mast-head,” says, “I climbed, and climbed, and climbed all day. When at last I halted to rest and look about me, I saw that, far down on the tops of the screw-pine hills, and lower yet, it was blowing furiously. The iron-wood trees were bowing and falling before the wind, which, to our canoe, was only as a calm.”
At sea, and in a storm, there is nothing like cheerfulness, except calmness. These two should always go together at such times. Who does not like to hear the cheery song of our own jolly English tars, mingling with the noise of many waters and the roar of the hurtling gale? The cannibal sailor had his sea songs too, numbers of them.
Our model climber, now a day’s journey up, hidden in the thick darkness, with the storm howling beneath him, would not allow himself to feel lonely, but sang out into the night one of the cannibal-seaman’s songs, the chorus of which, delivered of course as a solo, was clearly heard on deck; as, indeed, it was intended to be, for the purpose of encouraging the hard-worked men who were kept propelling this floating island of a canoe, with their heavy sculls. He sang this chorus over and over again, without weariness, as Fijians only can sing a couplet, for half a night and longer, at a sitting, enjoying it more the last time than when they began. Why, a foreigner can hardly guess, for often the words seem to him to contain no meaning. But hark to the “Bat-o’-the-top-mast-head:”
“Scull away with a mighty hand;
Great is the calm on all the land!”
Whereas, it was blowing half a hurricane at the time. But what was that to a big ship and brave hearts? “Only a calm!” The “land is calm,” is the true Fijian nautical way of saying the “sea is calm” and “there is no wind.”