“Accordingly, in three days my sister returned to Aleipata, where old Malesa, faithful to his word, handed her the curse he had been so assiduously preparing. Ah, Siosi, the reading of it was enough to make one’s blood run cold, and palsy the hand that held the written sheet. The little Pig-face was cursed outside and inside, in this world and the next world, part by part, so that nothing was forgotten, even to the lobes of her ears and the joints of her toes. There was nothing of her but what was to be scorched with fire, torn away with pincers, scratched, pierced, and destroyed with pointed sticks; lo, she would scream for death while the sharks fought for her dismembering flesh and squid sucked out her eyes, no one being at hand to give her the least assistance. Java smiled as she read the curse aloud, and took counsel with Tu, the brave and handsome, who had agreed to nail it to Patsy’s door.
“It was black night when Tu made the attempt, holding the paper in his mouth like a dog as he climbed the scratching wall of wire. At every moment Java and I expected to hear the explosion of a gun or some sudden sound of awakening from within the devil-house; yet nothing reached our ears but the beating of our own anxious hearts. After a long while we heard Tu whispering in the darkness beside us, and our first thought was that he had failed. But we were wrong, for Tu had succeeded in every way, and that with the utmost secrecy and skill. Then we went and lay behind a big bush about a hundred fathoms inland of the house, so that we might see with advantage what was to happen in the morning; and Java and I petted Tu, and talked to him sweetly, for he had a brave heart, and his handsome body was everywhere torn with the points of wire.
“Panga! Siosi, never was a dawn so slow to come as the one we then waited for, nor any so bitter and chill. Our teeth clicked in our heads, and though we lay closer together than a babe to its nursing mother, or soldiers to one another in the bush, we nearly died with the cold, like people in the White Country. When at last the sun rose in a haze like that of blood and smoke commingled, we felt, indeed, that the curse was already at work; for the air turned sultry beyond all believing, so that we breathed suffocatingly, and endured the taste of matches in our throats and mouths. Tu said prayers—very good prayers and long, which he had learned in the missionary college before he had been expelled; all of them about the beauty of holiness and well-doing. But Java attended to none of these things, nor seemed to care whether we ourselves lived or died, for her eyes were ever on Patsy’s house.
“Patsy himself was the first to come out, leaving the door open behind him, so that the curse was unluckily hidden from his view. He had clubs in his hands, which he twirled in the air as his manner was every morning for the strengthening of his arms. After a few movements he called out to the little Pig-face, saying, ‘Sina, Sina,’ like that. ‘Come out to thy work, thou idle one.’ Thereupon she too appeared, rubbing her eyes, and in her hands were two clubs like those of Patsy’s. But instead of leaving open the door, as her partner had done, she closed it with a push of her hand, and lo, the curse shone white upon it like a splash of lime on a dark cloth. At the sight of it she shrieked to Patsy, and together, side by side, they read what was there written, clinging to each other with fainting hearts.
“When Patsy had read it to an end, he uttered a great, mocking laugh, and struck the paper with his club, so that the whole house shook, and old Ta’a came tumbling out like a scared rat. Then he laughed again until the whole bay reëchoed round, and every time he laughed his voice grew more shrill and screaming, like that of a woman in a fit. But there was no laughter at all in the little Pig-face, who went and lay down in the sand, hiding her eyes with her hands. And old Ta’a, the thief, the evil-hearted, the out-islander, she tore down the curse with derisive shoutings, and danced on it a shameful dance which is prohibited by the church. But for all that, we could see that she and Patsy were greatly discountenanced, as well they might have been; for who could read such a curse without trembling, or regard with calm the smoky air now thick with the smell of matches? As for the little Pig-face, she was helped inside the house like a drowning person from the sea, for her legs would no longer carry her, and she could not breathe for very terror. The clubs were left untouched where they had fallen; and when Patsy and Ta’a had carried Sina into the devil-house they shut the door and locked themselves within.
“I don’t know how long it was after this that we lay still spying from our ti’a, but it seemed to me like the space of many hours. For my part, I should have gladly returned home, for I was gnawed with hunger, and stiff with the cold night watching; so also was Tu, who spoke piteously of his love for Java, and how it might be the means, through this lawless dabbling with the unseen world, of cutting him off in his prime. But so rock-like was Java’s heart, so fierce the flame of her revenge, that she had no compassion for this beautiful young man, nor a single word for the comfort of his spirit. With her burning eyes fixed on Patsy’s house, she lay motionless on the ground like a dead person, her only thought to see the curse accomplished.
“Suddenly we were startled by a peal of thunder; low at first, and then tumultuously rising, which, with repeated explosions like those of cannon, seemed to shake the island to its bottommost roots. We jumped to our feet, clinging wildly to one another, while the earth shook under us like the sea, and the skies above were rent with a thousand burstings. Even as we stood there, swaying and horror-stricken, I felt Java’s fingers tighten on my arm and heard her voice in my ear, crying, ‘Look, look!’ And behold! what did I see but Patsy’s house rising in the air and darting seaward at the tail of the great rope, which, hand over fist, the devil was now pulling in from hell. The rope was covered with long, green sea-grass, and all manner of curious shells, which sparkled and twisted in the sun; and it went thus in jumps, like the crackling of a mighty whip; and with every jerk the house skimmed forward like a boatswain-bird, showing us at a broken window the faces of the accursed, who with frenzied movements climbed the one above the other, striving to escape like a tangle of worms in a pot, each one pushing away the other, until at last the water closed over them all. And from that day to this, Siosi, nothing has ever been seen of Ta’a, nor of Sina, nor of the devil’s white man.”