On the way back to Suva Tom told me about the Cave Man. "The chap is probably the strongest man in Fiji," he said, "and as stupid as he is powerful. Several years ago one of the Australian overseers at the Rewa sugar plantation took him in hand and taught him that trick of protecting his face by turning down his hair-mop, and since then he has stood up against the champion heavyweight of every warship that has come to Suva without being knocked out. Several of the careless ones have fared quite as badly as you did, and one of them, who had floored him with a lucky poke, he later got hold of, threw down and started to chew to pieces. That broken nose you gave him was the worst damage he ever received, and he would probably have started a cannibal feast off your limp anatomy if the Mbuli and the rest of us hadn't crowded him off."
The Roku Kandavu Levu came to Suva shortly before our departure and paid us several visits on the yacht. We found him a most engaging and likable fellow and an especial enthusiast on yachting. He is a graduate of the University of Sydney, and in speech, manners, tastes—in everything, in fact, but colour, hair and dress—is thoroughly British. His yacht, a fine 40-footer which he sails himself, is the fastest craft in the islands. He displayed great interest in our cruise, and expressed himself as determined to build a staunch schooner and embark on a similar one as soon as opportunity offered.
The Roku's dress is a unique compromise between the native and the foreign. He wears the shirt, collar, tie and coat, and carries the inevitable stick, of the Britisher, but goes bare-footed and covers his legs with nothing but the common native sulu, a yard and a half of print which is tucked in at the waist and falls to the knees. From the waist up he is apparelled faultlessly enough to parade Piccadilly or Broadway; from the waist down carelessly enough to suit the laziest Kanaka that ever lolled away a noonday under a coconut tree. It was the latter portion of his "combination suit" which came near to causing serious trouble on the occasion of his first visit to Lurline.
From the hour of our arrival in Suva harbour the sailors had been much bothered in their work by an endless succession of fruit peddlers and curio venders who made the sale of their stocks an excuse for loafing about the yacht. The Commodore was finally forced to order that there should be no more visiting by unaccredited natives except during the noon hour and early in the evening, the enforcement of which ruling was being looked after by the mate with great enthusiasm. By the free use of his glass and megaphone and his rapidly expanding vocabulary of "Beche-de-Mer" English he had, to his great pride and satisfaction, succeeded in keeping intruders at a distance for several days, so that it was with no ordinary rush of indignation that he greeted, one busy afternoon, the sight of a pair of muscular brown legs moving leisurely by a port—the mate was below at the time—as they carried their owner up the brass-railed starboard gangway, which, incidentally, was especially tabu for natives.
At the same moment that a deep-chested roar of "Hare, you dam'd Kanaka!" came booming out upon the still afternoon air, the Commodore was beaming welcome from the head of the gangway to the stately head and shoulders of the handsome and dignified Roku Kandavu Levu who, escorted by several prominent British officials, had come off in the Governor's launch for his initial call. We managed to check the rush of the infuriated mate at the foot of the cabin companionway and sober him with some forceful pantomime and a peep at the Governor's launch through a convenient port, but the echo of that "Hare, you dam'd Kanaka!" kept ringing in our ears through the whole fifteen minutes of an unusually stiff call.
We never learned whether or not the Roku comprehended for whom the mate's forcible orders were intended, but if he failed to discern that they were aimed at his royal self it was largely due to the resourceful Claribel's cheerful chirrup of "The worthy Chief seems to be having more trouble than usual with curio venders today. Speaking of curios—won't Your Highness please tell me if this shark's tooth necklace which I bought yesterday is really genuine?"