In a most gallant style the five canoes came straight into the bay, and brought-to within a few hundred fathoms of our ship, and the first thing we noticed was a number of decapitated heads hanging over the sides of each craft, as boat-fenders are hung over the gunwale of a boat. This was intended to impress the White Men.
We certainly were impressed, but were yet quite ready to make short work of our visitors if they attempted mischief. Our ship's high freeboard alone would have made it very difficult for them to rush us, and the crew were so well-armed that, although we numbered but twenty-eight, we could have wiped out over five hundred possible assailants with ease had they attempted to board and capture the ship.
Some of the leaders of this party of pirates came on board our vessel, and Morel and I soon established very friendly relations with them. They told us that they had been two months out from their own territory (in Dutch New Guinea) had raided over thirty villages, and taken two hundred and fifteen heads, and were now returning home—well satisfied.
Morel and I went on board one of the great canoes, and were received in a very friendly manner, and shown many heads—some partly dried, some too fresh, and unpleasant-looking.
These head-hunting pirates were not cannibals, and behaved in an extremely decorous manner when they visited our ship. A finer, more stalwart, proud, self-possessed, and dignified lot of savages—if they could be so termed—I had never before seen.
They left Krauel bay two days later, without interfering with the people on shore, and Morel and I shook hands, and rubbed noses with the leading head-hunters, when we said farewell.
CHAPTER XXVII ~ PAUTÔE
“Please, good White Man, wilt have me for tavini (servant)?”
Marsh, the trader, and the Reverend Harry Copley, the resident missionary on Motumoe, first looked at the speaker, then at each other, and then laughed hilariously.