His cousin, Ratu Pope, was a famous character in Fiji, and was always intimate with Sukuna, whom he admired prodigiously. By nature a sportsman, in youth he was a great cricketer. He was schooled at the Methodist College in Sydney, but had the accent of the English country gentleman. His athletic figure was impressive in the short, white sulu, above sturdy bare legs and feet; from the hips up he dressed in the British tradition, sports coat for the morning, dinner jacket or tails for ceremonial occasions—much as the well-born Highlander wears his kilt with all the conventional fixings.
He had the charm and wit which we associate with exiled kings. When the Duke of Windsor visited Fiji as Prince of Wales he was delighted with Pope. Pope was, by courtesy, banished for many years to Mbau, the enchanting island his wise ancestors had chosen for their capital; soft winds cool it, blow away mosquitoes; above the royal bure looms a great rock, the little Gibraltar where Grandfather Thakombau was supposed to have been hemmed in before he gave his domain to England. Governor Sir Eyre Hutson decided to exile Pope because he had rather innocently defaulted. As chief of his province he had been Assistant District Commissioner, hence a tax collector. It was his free-hearted Melanesian generosity that put him on a bad spot: When you have money, spend it on your people and your friends. Generosity is godlike, stinginess is for the worms. Let me tell it in Pope’s own way:—
“I had no trouble at all collecting the silly taxes. Tax gathering is a royal prerogative. So the Government sent me up a little iron safe, to put the money in, you understand. Well, months went by and one day a chap from the Government came in a launch—rather a blighter, I thought. We had a spot of whisky and a cigar and he said, ‘Ratu, the tide’s turning and I must be pushing on. I’ve called, you know, to take back that tax money.’ I said, ‘I’m rather afraid, old boy, that I can’t lay my hands on it now.’ He seemed a bit miffed and said, ‘But didn’t we send you an iron safe to put it in?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘it’s over there in the corner. If you look at it you’ll see that the door’s wide open.’”
Royal prerogative had scattered the money in several ways—but always for the good of the people of Mbau. Ratu Pope had set up shower baths in all the village houses, and built a reservoir to supply fresh water. The reservoir remained dry while an offended Government interned Pope on his ancestral isle—until he paid the bill. “It’s only a few hundred pounds,” he complained, laughing at himself, “and as all I have is invested in rather poor coconuts, I’ll be Methuselah, I fancy, before I’m free again.” However, a relenting Government allowed him to come to Suva to see the cricket matches—he’d have died without that. Also they let him meet the tourist boats, the best possible advertisement for the Fiji Islands.
When the late Martin Egan and his traveling partner Wallace Irwin were his guests at Mbau, in 1927, they brought back stories that illustrated Pope’s quick come-back. One night they were sitting by lantern light under the breadfruit trees, smoking the long Coronas Pope adored. He said, “It’s a bit tiresome, being cooped up here. One longs for travel. I am very fond of the National Geographic Magazine.” He called for copies, turned to a back page. “I think I prefer your clever advertisements. Look at this, for instance”—showing the New York Life Insurance Company’s stock advertisement, the one with the modest skyscraper. “My word, it seems to go up twenty-five or thirty stories!” Martin Egan told him that Al Smith and his pals were building a skyscraper that would be about a hundred stories high. Pope objected, “But doesn’t one get blood pressure, going so high in a lift?” Egan said that everybody in New York had high blood pressure so what was the difference?
Ratu Pope looked at him gravely. “That fellow Frederick O’Brien who wrote the White Shadows twaddle visited me last year. When he left I wondered if all Americans were such damned liars.”
He showed his guests Thakombau’s cannibal temple, the one he preserved for sentiment’s sake. The shaggy thing, on a base of high stone terraces, is immensely out of scale with the low village houses. Pope took an honest pride in the deeds of his grandfather, much as Grant’s descendants might in the surrender at Appomattox. He pointed out a hole in the ground, right in front of the temple, and said, “The stone of sacrifice used to stand here. It was built rather like a very wide gravestone, with a depression in the top for the—er—victim’s head. I gave it to our local church to use as a baptismal font. Would you like to hear the ceremony of a cannibal execution? Grandfather sat on the second tier and the people formed a semicircle below. Around the stone the priests drew lots as to whether the poor fellow was to be buried or—er—eaten. The latter usually won, I’m afraid. It was purely economic, you see. Well, four powerful executioners came along carrying the victim lashed to a plank. They held him in the correct position, and when Grandfather gave the word they would bash the fellow’s head smartly against the stone. They were so very skillful that I doubt if the poor chap even felt it.”
That was Ratu Pope, playboy king who spoke up-to-date King’s English, liked American magazines, excelled at cricket, brought European ideas to a cannibal capital, and then....
Late in 1936 he was taken to the hospital in Suva, far gone with diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver. He should have had faith in the British doctors; he knew them all, and respected their work. As he weakened he called for his wife, Andi Torika, and whispered, “I have been bewitched. They have put a draunikau on me.” His wife nodded. But who was working the black magic? Pope whispered, “My cousin Sukuna.”
The accusation, by way of native grapevine telegraph, soon reached the ears of Ratu Sukuna, who was horrified. Why in the world would he want to put a draunikau on good old Pope? What silly nonsense! They had been pals ever since they were knee-high. Sukuna went straight to Ratu Pope’s bedside. A gifted speaker with a feeling for the niceties of language, he sat beside the dying man and strove with him, gently. At last Pope nodded and asked forgiveness. No, Sukuna could not have brought about the evil spell. But somebody had paid a witch doctor for this draunikau. Yes, agreed Sukuna, and went sadly away from the man who had been cursed—by somebody.