Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas

by Lloyd Osbourne

"So did I try to make it," he said, "for no shark could have been more cruel than thee to me, nor any bat more blind to worth, and because I had neither lands nor family thou drovest me forth with contempt."

"It was the insufficiency of the two dollars, O'olo," she protested, "and not that of my love, which was unbounded; and if I merited punishment for what seemed right to me, have I not received it, and atoned a thousand times over for my fault? Did Viliamu gain me for all his wealth and position, or did Carl the half-caste take me to wife? I was truer to thee than ever thou wast to me, and nightly I wept, and held the memory of thee in my arms, like a mother whose babe is dead. And this I will do, if thou wilt return to jail, and break the covenant of thy freedom—I will marry thee, and go live with thee in Siosi's house, and forfeit rank and honor and the regard of all, reckoning them as naught in the comparison of thy love."

At this O'olo could hardly keep back his tears, so greatly was he overcome; and his hand met Evanitalina's and clasped on hers, and his chest shook like one grief-stricken at the death of a near relation. He had learned many things since he had become bad, and knew better than before the gulf that lay between an eat-bush like himself and a member of the renowned I'i family. Our Lord in the desert was not more tempted by the kingdoms of the world than he at that moment by Evanitalina, who was offering herself in all her young beauty for his delight.

But resolutely he put the devil behind him, saying: "I will not have thee stoop to me, so that persons shall mock at thy choice, and the parable of the pearl and the nameless-animal shall be repeated in the Taufusi swamp. No! I shall make of this war a ladder, and reach glory or die and to that I am determined as never was man before. If I come back it shall be as one famous for prowess, bearing heads that I have taken, and with chiefs eager to adopt me. Thus shall I return, an eat-bush no longer nor despised, but a David who has slain his Goliath, with the multitude applauding, and the greatest of the Tuamasanga vying to give me the title of their son. Or, if not that, then shall I claim the land God withholds not from every man, nay, not from the poorest or the lowest, and the name of that land is the grave."

At this Evanitalina sobbed, and clung pitifully to O'olo, and pressed his head to her bosom, unmindful of decorum, and so consumed by misery she was like a person in a fit. O'olo, too, was suffocated with sadness, for it seemed a dreadful thing to die and be cast blood-stained into a pit, he that was so handsome, and in the flood of his youth, with perhaps his dissevered head tossing in the air amid shouts and triumph. Indeed, so lost was he in wretchedness that he was taken unawares by Samuelu on his way inland from a deacons' meeting, who, convulsed, seized a coconut branch, and ran at him, crying: "Let there be a going, thou worthless one! Fly, thou of the Belial family, and be quick with it, else I shall whip thee hence like a cur!" And with that he whipped and whipped at O'olo, departing, for the Tongan was too mannerly to strike a clergyman, and one so greatly his senior, though his spirit smarted worse than his body at the insult. Thus he passed from the sight of Evanitalina, like a horse being chased from a bread-fruit plantation, with no time to look back, or wave with his hand a last greeting.

He marched the same day with the Vaiala contingent under the high-chief Asi, and that night, shivering on the wet ground, O'olo had his first taste of war. As to it he had many misconceptions, not reckoning on the severity of the rule, or the trifling importance attached to a Tongan, however lionlike his heart. He saw that he was one of many, a grain in a heap of sand, who might at an order be kept in the rear, and never hear the whistle of a bullet, or earn the chance of distinction. In the army, too, little thought was taken of food, so that one banana was given for breakfast, and for dinner a coconut, which O'olo found hard, he having always been a hearty eater, and accustomed to palusami and luxuries. The monotony also, was unendurable, especially when the tobacco was gone, and one was forbidden to move, being condemned to sit hungry and distressed for a whole day at a time, sucking a white stone by way of alleviation. To O'olo a white stone was very insufficient for nourishment, and so he tried grass and weeds like Nebuchadnezzar, to the undoing of his stomach, which dissatisfied, was afflicted with cramps, so that he rolled and rolled in pain, and lamented loudly, till Asi cried out: "Make that Tongan to cease from bellowing, or else the enemy will surely discover us!"

But let it not be said that O'olo was womanish or afraid, for on the contrary he thirsted for battle like King David, whom he took for his example, and his repining was due to the backwardness of his rulers and the tightness of their leash. When at last the advance was ordered on the Mataafa stronghold he was noticeable for his leaps of joy; and while others wore an anxious appearance and showed uncertainty in their walk, O'olo sang with exultation, and stepped out as though on his way to a feast.

The stronghold was of stone, and had been used by the Germans for the retaining of cattle, and stood solitary on a hill with the land falling away on every side. As it flashed and sparkled with the Mataafa fire it was seen by O'olo to be a place not easy to capture, with much loss to be experienced before ax could cross ax, and knife meet knife, in the final charge; so that, with wisdom, he shot little in order not to tire himself, and hugged the ground in a manner suggestive of terror rather than boldness, for to be killed here was useless and foreign to his purpose, fame resting in the fort, and there the heads to be taken. Thus, when they sprang up at the call, he was unfatigued, with cartridges still in his gun, and wind in his body, and up the hill he raced with swiftness, so that scarcely two of his companions matched pace with him, and those who had cried: "Coward, coward!" panted in his rear, and perceived it was a hero they had mocked.

Nor at the gateway was there any slackening of Tongan valor, and over it O'olo scrambled, undeterred by rifle and ax, so that it was a miracle that he stayed alive as he dropped within, even as Daniel into the lion's den, beset by twenty, and he alone. It was like a tempest and he in the center, and for lightning was the flame of the guns, and for thunder the roar of their explosion, and for the raging sea the crash of blows, given and taken, and the sobbing breath of men. Here the Tongan rock withheld the enemy, while the army of the Government rolled over the wall in a resistless torrent, and with tumult and fury beset the Mataafas until they fled. Now, O'olo, with coolness, had already marked an old chief of towering stature and magnificent appearance as the one whose head he would take, unwishful of a boy's, or that of a person of no importance, and him he pressed hard in the rout, and at last laid low with the butt of his weapon, straddling his body, and prepared to hack at his throat with his knife.

The old chief, whose hurt had not bereft him of his senses, begged piteously for his life in a voice choked by the weight of O'olo on his chest, and troubled by the imminence of death; offering first ten cans of biscuit, and then twenty, and then property and fine mats in quantities unstinted. But O'olo, although it was like a beautiful dream come true, dallied with the killing, being squeamish in regard to it, and needing a space to confirm his resolution, he saying with derision: "Thou pig-faced person, thou hast not the property thou namest, and even wert thou the Lord of the earth, yet still would I take thy head!" To which the fallen warrior made answer: "I am Tangaloa, the high-chief of Leatatafili, in Savai'i, and the property I speak of is no myth, and all of it thine if thou wilt spare me." To which O'olo replied: "And when I should claim it, verily thou wouldst forget thy covenant, and order thy young men to chastise me forth, they laughing at the cheat, and I with neither head nor property, and the back of me lacerated with blows!" Then the old chief fell into a great tremble, repeating: "No, no," his flesh shrinking on his bones, and horror in his face; and as O'olo looked down at him, making motions with his knife, the Tongan's thought was suddenly moved into a new direction, and lo, it was like a burning torch in a cavern, so bright it was in the darkness of his previous purpose, he saying: "Oh, Tangaloa, there is a price, and that is my adoption as thy son, and to that wilt thou pledge thyself in an oath before God?" To which, overjoyed, the venerable warrior consented with impetuosity, crying out that he would do so, and seeing in the proposal the high-chief-hand of God, for had not his own son lately died?