Bent-Axe, the King’s Lieutenant, was furious when he found his soldiers deserting him. He reminded them that he was born in the daytime, and was therefore a great warrior; and, moreover, that he was invulnerable, not only against white men, but against gods, being the possessor of god-armour.
It will be as well to explain here that one of the most wonderful elfin tribes of Cannibal-land is a marine tribe, remarkable for two things—its population, which defies arithmetic, and the depth of mystery, which, as the Fijian imagines, inwraps it. Its people are a sort of demigods, known in many places as “Children of Water,” or “Water Babies.” Some of the poets and legend-mongers speak of them as the “People of the Plain,” and “God-soldiers,” i.e., soldiers, who, on great occasions, are specially favoured by the gods, and in their turn are able to help landsmen in their battles with their own species. They are believed to be more nearly related to gods than men; and the former, in consequence of that nearer relationship, have made them war-proof—living fortifications in fact—against which no weapon whatever can prevail. From this belief arose numbers of professional men who gave it forth to the world that they likewise were favoured with this close connexion with the gods, and had thereby gained possession of the grand secret by which any hero going out to meet his foe, might be so clothed with “god-armour,” as to cause arrows to glance aside, clubs to fall harmlessly, and spears to lose their piercing power.
Turner and Cobb blazed away, and the enemy rapidly melted in presence of the sulphurous charm. Bent-Axe, however, advanced, club in hand, to the spot where I stood, perfectly drunk with passion; his heavy brow was corrugated with anger; his large nostrils were distended, and fairly smoking; his eyeballs blazed red like a lighted coal when blown upon; and his foam-covered mouth wore a murderous and contemptuous grin.
I raised my musket, and called on him to surrender.
“When the shell of the giant-oyster shall have perished by reason of years, still will my hatred of you be hot,” roared the savage.
“The white man,” said I “is merciful. He knows his power, but does not wish to exercise it.”
“You are like the kaka,”[[17]] tauntingly responded Bent-Axe, “you only speak to shout your own name.”
[17]. The onomatopoetic name for parrot in Fiji.
He swung his massive club aloft to fell me, and I discharged my weapon at his breast. When the smoke cleared away, the savage was gone, but his club lay at my feet, and it was stained with blood.
Big-Wind withdrew his forces behind a rampart of brushwood six feet thick, and his men, with renewed courage, waving long streamers from the battlements, shouted defiance to the foe. Under the direction of Hot-Water, a huge fascine of boughs and dried leaves tied together with sinnet, was constructed. His soldiers rolled it before them in the complete security of its shelter. When it reached the rampart, a light was applied. The fascine burst into flames, and in a few minutes the brushwood fence had disappeared with it. A volley from the white men’s muskets completed the discomfiture of the enemy.