The sea rolled mountainously towards my hiding-place. As it hurled itself against the crags, the concussion was terrific—the tumult deafening. The earth seemed to tremble beneath me. After nightfall the storm abated, leaving the atmosphere filled with electricity. Streams of electric fire exploded in every direction. The fretting and churning sea was filled with a dazzling blaze of phosphorescence; rocks in this mysterious realm were bathed with strange splendours, forming dancing phantoms in a scene of weird revelry. The kelps and sea-weeds were stars and comets—the waters cast up on the hill-side were gleaming rivulets in their return. Away to the horizon stretched an ocean of molten metal, changing with lambent flames of green, blue, and white; and on this ghastly welter of coloured fire was projected the shadow of the hulk of the Sarah Jane, whose silent spars reeled among the sheafs of vivid flame. On the shore the subsiding waves rippled beneath the mangrove bushes, flooding them with an unearthly pale light. More than once a globe of fire descended from the inky clouds, and on reaching the sea burst into a shower of sparks. Whenever I caught sight of the ship on which my fortunes depended, she was dragging heavily at her anchor chains; and she often seemed, from the constant play of the lightning upon her spars, to be on fire in a dozen different places at once. Slowly the strange and terrifying aspect of the lava-sea faded away, giving place to the blackness of night.
It was long, however, before the electrical disturbance of the atmosphere completely subsided. With the first streak of day, I clambered up the irregular face of the rocky promontory which had given me shelter, and gained the table-land at its summit. The trees occasionally emitted livid wavering flames, similar to those of St. Elmo’s light. Their appearance was accompanied by a crackling sound, like that of the burning of wet powder. I found that when I touched these flames, the light clung to me without causing any sensation. Marvelling much at this phenomenon, I turned my face to the ocean, being anxious about the safety of the barque. At that moment a party of Bolatha’s men, lying in ambush to take me prisoner, rushed upon me. I was too quick for them, and rapidly gained the summit of a small rocky eminence from which I could look down upon them. Carrying my flame-tipped fingers to my head, which was uncovered, I was suddenly illuminated by an electric aureola, and presented the appearance of a glorified saint. On beholding this strange transformation, the Fijians ran off, screaming with terror. Before they were out of ear-shot I heard them shout, partly from conviction, and partly with the view of propitiating the newly-found deity, “The Child of the Hurricane is a God indeed!”
CHAPTER XXVII.
FAREWELL TO CANNIBAL-LAND.
As soon as the natives were well out of sight, I made my way to the coast, accompanied by Lolóma. Reaching the beach in the rear of a narrow headland, which shut out the town from view, we took possession of a small canoe, which was lying unoccupied on the sand, and, launching the frail skiff, we were soon on our way to the ship, which would be within half a mile as soon as we rounded the headland referred to. When we reached the point, a double canoe, with its huge mat sail, and full of armed men, shot out from the river side, and gave chase. It seemed that Bolatha had taken extraordinary precautions to prevent my escape. The sea was smooth, with a light breeze blowing, and Lolóma and I, paddling vigorously, were making good headway. Had the double canoe got the wind on her quarter, she would have overhauled us in a very short time, but fortunately she was obliged to make “boards,” and the tacking manœuvre being slowly executed, we forged ahead. The light wind shifting a couple of points, however, the double canoe gained a distinct advantage. Our only chance now was to be observed by the barque, and to get within the protection of her muskets. We strained every nerve. The prow of our light skiff cut through the vari-coloured surface of the water like a knife ripping up a piece of silk. The occupants of the large canoe were within thirty yards, and I saw them stringing their bows. I also saw, to my unspeakable satisfaction, that we were observed from the Sarah Jane. Another three minutes, and her fire would send the miscreants to the right-about. I rose in the little canoe, and shouted derisively at our pursuers. They saw the situation, and saluted us with a flight of arrows. At the same moment three musket-shots from the barque laid low two of the cannibals, and the big canoe was put about.
The tension of the moment was so great that I had not noticed that several of the arrows struck our canoe, though most of them fell short. Turning my head (for in paddling I sat with my back to my companion) to cheer Lolóma with the prospect of speedy safety, I saw that the paddle had fallen from her hand, and that, with an expression of intense pain in her usually merry face, she was endeavouring to pull from her bosom a bone-headed arrow which had pierced her. I drew out the envenomed shaft, and she fainted. The life stream flowed from her side, in spite of all that I could do to stanch the wound, which was clearly mortal. Seeing our distress, three of the sailors in the barque put off in a boat to our assistance. Lolóma was tenderly lifted into it, and I followed, hardly knowing what I did. The canoe was allowed to drift away.
Laid on a mattress on the deck of the barque, Lolóma revived for a few minutes. Her eyelids opened, quivering with a sweet surprise, as of one not knowing what had happened, and what was the meaning of the saddened group around her. They closed again, and she lay dreaming soft and warm, and smiling in her dream as I had so often seen her in happy days. Once more she moved. The tear-drops gemmed her eyes dark fringes; her lips parted, and, bending low, I heard the faintly whispered words which to the Fijian mind convey a whole world of pathos which cannot be reproduced in English: “Au sa lako! Dou sa tiko!” (Literally, “I go! You remain!”) Her necklace of pink shells, fresh from the ebbing wave, burst asunder with the last movement which shuddered through her frame, and her little sea-born treasures rolled upon the deck. They would never be strung together again. So also was the silver cord of her life for ever broken. Her spirit had flown like that of a flower, whose existence is all too short. I turned my face seaward, and looked out into the gray moaning world of waters. The gulls were solemnly rocking on the heaving billows of the barren, dreary, ever-restless main, and all the light seemed to have gone out of the heavens.
Lolóma was buried next day in deep water, just inside the reef. The ship’s carpenter made a coffin, which was heavily shotted, and her remains were lovingly decorated with gay flowers which the maidens of Ramáka had brought on board two days before. As her body was committed to the deep, to find its resting place among the branching coral and brilliant marine growths, the sky was draped in sables—its changing splendours were gone; the monotonous lap of the water was a dirge, the screech of the sea-bird was a knell. The cocoanut tufts on the beach were waving dismally like funereal plumes, when an immense wave dashed upon the barrier with the roar of a thunder-clap, sending a vast column of foam into the air. The sun showed himself with sudden brightness through the clouds, and the sifted spray was shot with all the prismatic hues. Now I remembered the Fijian belief that when the reef roars louder than usual it is a sign that the newly departed spirit has been borne to the future world on a rainbow.
All our ammunition being exhausted, it was impossible to punish Bolatha and his abettors for the murder of Jackson and the two sailors; but, by threatening to take the ship close in shore and destroy the town, we obtained possession of the bodies and buried them at sea. They were thus saved from the cannibal oven, and from the disinterment and indignities they would have suffered had we committed them to the earth.
Turner navigated the ship to Calcutta, where her owners gave him the command, and he completed the voyage to China to dispose of the sandalwood on board, Cobb and myself accompanying him as second and third officers. Years elapsed before I again saw my old home in Sydney. I wrote to my father from Calcutta, but the letter miscarried, and I had long been mourned as dead. My youthful escapade had been forgotten, and there was no more respected merchant in the city than Joe Whitley, whose liberation from gaol I secured in so illegal a way.