“Let the papalangi be examined,” continued Bent-Axe. “On his right ankle you will see the mark of the doomed.”
Then I remembered, with a start, that I had that about me, known only to Bent-Axe, Lolóma, and myself, which would betray me into the skilfully-laid trap of this relentless savage. The previous day, in cutting a kau karo or itch-wood tree, a few drops of the sap, which is just like scalding water, fell upon my right ankle. I thought nothing of it, but soon afterwards severe itching pustules arose, and Bent-Axe saw me bathing the inflamed parts at a streamlet in the evening.
Big-Wind noticed my look of dismay and hesitation, and demanded an immediate explanation. I related the circumstance and was corroborated by Lolóma; but the priest examined the marks on my leg, and pronounced it a well-defined case of leprosy. It was determined that I should submit to be cured in the Fijian fashion, or that the marriage should not be consummated.
CHAPTER XV.
ORDEAL BY SMOKE.
The Fijian cure for leprosy is submission to the ordeal by smoke. It is like the old English ordeal by water in cases of suspected witchcraft. If the subject survived the experiment she was no witch; if she were drowned, as generally happened, she was a witch well got rid of.
Lepers in Fiji are cured or killed by smoke from the wood of the sinu ganga. This tree attains a height of 60ft., and is generally found in mangrove swamps. It bears minute green flowers arranged in catkins. When the tree is pierced, a white milk flows which is burning to the skin. The suspected leper is taken to a small empty house. Having been stripped naked, his body is rubbed all over with green leaves, and then buried in them. A small fire is lighted, and a few pieces of the sinu ganga are laid on it. Soon a thick black smoke begins to ascend. The patient is bound hand and foot, and drawn up over the fire by a rope fastened to his heels, leaving his head some 18in. from the ground, in the midst of the poisonous exhalations. The door is closed, the victim’s friends retire to a little distance, while he shouts and screams in the agony caused by the suffocating heat. The unfortunate wretch sometimes faints after a few minutes of this treatment. When the man is considered to be sufficiently smoked, the fire is put out, the slime is scraped from his body, and deep gashes are cut in his flesh with sharpened pearl-oyster shells, until the blood flows freely. He is then taken down and laid on the mats to await the result, which is sometimes death, and sometimes, strange to say, complete recovery.
I protested vehemently that I was no leper, and Lolóma joined her weeping remonstrances to mine, but without effect. The suspicion was too grave.
“I shall be avenged for this,” I cried, as I was hurried away, though I believed my hours were numbered. “I will come with the front of battle and the thunder of Britain, and Bent-Axe shall see if a white man can be tortured with impunity.”
“Every man is a wind in his own bay,” laughed the savage. “You are not in the land of the white man now, and your words are as idle as the sea-foam. To-morrow’s sun will see the fair Lolóma at rest in these arms.”
Smarting with rage, I was borne away to a native house, in which preparations for the ordeal I was to be subjected to had been made by the cunning priest and his friend the previous night. I was satisfied that it would not be their fault if I left the chamber alive. Soon the whole room was filled with smoke. I was triced up by the heels with my head dangling over the fire, and my two enemies and their assistants, being unable to bear the fumes any longer, left me. I knew that if possible, Lolóma would contrive my escape, but it took her a long time to divest herself of her gala trappings, in which she could not move, and the demons who plotted my destruction had laid their plans so well that I was in a fair way to be suffocated before a friendly hand could reach me.