Mackay turned to one of his guides, and the man explained that the noise came from a village a little farther down the valley. A young hunter had returned with a Chinaman's head, and his friends were rejoicing over it. The merrymaking sounded to the visitors more like the howling of a pack of fiends, for it bore no resemblance to any human sounds they had ever heard.
Fortunately they were invited to stop at the nearer village and were not compelled to take part in the horrible celebration. They were taken at once to the chief's house. It was the best in the village, and boasted of a floor, made of rattan ropes half an inch thick. All along the outside wall, under the eaves, hung a row of gruesome ornaments, heads of the boar and deer and other wild animals killed in the chase, and here and there mingled with them the skulls of Chinamen. The house held one large room, and, as it was a cold evening, a fire burned at either end of it. At one end the men stood chatting, at the other the women squatted. The visitors were invited to sit by the men's fire. There were several beds along the wall, two of which were offered to the strangers. But they were not prepared to remain for the night, and had decided to start back before the shadows fell.
The whole village came to the chief's house and crowded round the newcomers, men first, women and children on the outskirts, and dogs still farther back. Several men came forward and claimed Mackay as a friend. They touched their own breasts and then his, in salutation, grinning in a most friendly manner. The young missionary was at first puzzled, then smiled delightedly. They were some of the poor fellows to whom he had given quinine the evening before in the valley.
This greeting seemed to encourage the others. They became more friendly and suddenly one man who had been circling round the visitors touched the back of Mackay's head and exclaimed, "They do not wear the cue! They are our kinsmen." From that moment they were treated with far greater kindness, and on several other visits that Mackay made to the head-hunters, they always spoke with interest of him as kinsman.
But all danger was not over. The savages were still suspicious, and at any moment the newcomers might excite them. So they decided to start back at once, while every one was in a friendly mood. They made presents to the chief and some of his leading men; and left with expressions of good-will on both sides.
By evening they had reached the valley where they had first met the savages and here they prepared to spend the night. They had no sooner kindled their fires than from the darkness on every side shadowy forms silently emerged,—the savages come to visit them! They glided out of the black forest into the ring of firelight and squatted upon the ground until fully five hundred dusky faces looked out at the travelers from the gloom. It was rather an unpleasant situation, there in the depths of the forest, but Mackay turned it to good account. First he and Captain Bax made presents to the headmen and they were as pleased as children to receive the gay ornaments and bright cloth the travelers gave them. And then Mackay called their interpreter to his side and they stood up together, facing the crowd. Speaking through his interpreter, the missionary said he wished to tell them a story. These mountain savages were veritable children in their love for a story, as they were in so many other ways, and their eyes gleamed with delight.
It was a wonderful story he told them, the like of which they had never heard before. It was about the great God, who had made the earth and the people on it, and was the Father of them all. He told how God loved everybody, because they were his children. Chinese, white men beyond the sea like himself and Captain Bax, the people of the mountains,—all were God's children. And so all men were brothers, and should love God their Father and each other. And because God loved his children so, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to live among men and to die for them. He told the story simply and beautifully, just as he would to little children, and these children of the forest listened and their savage eyes grew less fierce as they heard for the first time of the story of the Savior.
The next day, after a toilsome journey, the travelers reached the plain below. They had made their dangerous trip and had escaped the head-hunters, but as fierce an enemy was lying in wait for both, an enemy that in Formosa devours native and foreigner alike. Captain Bax was the first to be attacked. All day, as they descended the mountain, the rain came down in torrents, a real Formosan rain that is like the floodgates opening. The travelers were drenched and chilly, and just as they emerged from the forest Captain Bax succumbed to the enemy. Malaria had smitten him.
Shaking with chills and then burning with fever, he was placed in a sedan-chair and carried the remainder of the way, three days' journey, to the coast, where the medical attendants on board his ship cured him. Mackay was feeling desperately ill all the way across the plain, but with his usual determination he refused to give in until he almost staggered across the threshold of his home.
The house had been closed in his absence. It was now damp and chilly and everything was covered with mold. He lay down in his bed, alternately shivering with cold and burning with fever. In the next room A Hoa, who had gone to bed also, heard his teeth chattering and came to him at once. It was a terrible thing to the young fellow to see his dauntless Kai Bok-su overcome by any kind of force. It seemed impossible that he who had cured so many should become a victim himself. A Hoa proved a kind nurse. He stayed by the bedside all night, doing everything in his power to allay the fever. His efforts proved successful, and in a few days the patient was well. But never again was he quite free from the dreaded disease, and all the rest of his life he was subject to the most violent attacks of malaria, a terrible memento by which he was always to remember his first visit to the headhunters.