Ingrova, who had immediately realised how near the priest had been to letting out that he knew something about Gabrielle, astutely changed the conversation and begged Hillary and the priest to enter his palavana. In a moment Ingrova had bent his stalwart figure and entered the low doorway of his rather palatial hut. Hillary and priest followed.
The apprentice, who had never been inside a primitive homestead, was surprised as he entered the gloomy, tightly thatched dwelling-place of Ingrova. It was sheltered by the branches of two huge bread-fruits, was conical-shaped and had a large domed roof. The rooms were spacious, about twelve feet from wall to wall. Each room was lit up by primitive window holes. These windows had no glass in them, but were fashioned of twisted, interlaced bamboo twigs in a clever ornamental style, making them look like casements that opened on to feathery palm-trees. Indeed, often by night one could have peeped through those casements and seen the festival maidens dancing on the village green while rows of coco-nut-oil lamps twinkled from the palm and bread-fruit boughs. As the apprentice stared round the room, the dim light intensified the surroundings. They were strange ornaments, no mistake about that. On the wooden walls hung the human skulls and bones of the sad departed. Noticing Hillary’s curious stare as he regarded the beautifully polished skulls, many of which still had hair clinging to the bone, Ingrova waxed sentimental, stepped forward and took the smallest skull down from its nail. Pointing to the empty sockets with his dusky finger, the chief murmured in sombre tones: “Ah papalagi, ’twas in these holes where once sparkled like unto stars in the wind-blown lagoon the eyes of her who was my first parumpuan (wife).” Then he sighed, and continued: “’Tis true, O papalagi, that those eyes did once gaze and look kindly on him whom I did hate overmuch. But ’tis over now, these many years; and moreover, man, too, doth much which he no ought to do. And I say, O papalagi, does not the moon stare with kindness on more lagoons than one?”
As he said this the old chief made several magic passes with his forefinger, pushing it across and within the sockets as he sighed deeply. Then he proceeded: “Here, between these teeth, was the tongue that sang to me when my head was weary and mucher trouble did come to my peoples.” At this moment the old warrior looked sadly through the doorway and sighed. Once more he put forth his hands and took down the remaining portion of that delicate skeleton. Hillary gazed in intense wonder. He noticed that the white bones were fastened together with finest sennet, joined with great artistic dexterity, not a bone being out of place. His thoughts about Gabrielle for the time being had vanished, as the mystery of that hut clung like a shroud about him. “What’s that?” he murmured, as he gazed on the gruesome object that Ingrova held up before him. He felt shivery in the gloom, notwithstanding the tropical heat and the buzzing sand-flies.
As the two old hags who were squated on mats in the far corner of the room revealed their presence by giving a deep sigh, Ingrova proceeded: “Tis all that remains of her form, which I did lover overmuch. Look, O papalagi, here was her bosom; ’twas here that she gave unto my children nicer nourishing milk, children who now am great chiefs and chiefesses.”
Saying this, the warrior ran his fingers down the curves of the dead woman’s throat bones till he arrived at the tiny bones of the breast, then his finger swerved to the right, passed round by the ribs and moved downward towards the sharp white bones of the thighs.
“Good heavens!” was Hillary’s only audible comment, as he inwardly thanked God that white people did not keep their dead so that they could be inspected like grim photo albums on visiting days.
Ingrova gently hung up those sad heirlooms of his past affections on their several nails again. Hillary, who by now had entered into the tragic spirit of the weird homestead, pointed to the various gruesome remains and asked Ingrova whose were the fourteen skulls that hung on a kind of clothes-line that ran across the room, close to the roof. Even old Oom Pa sighed as he watched Ingrova take down each bleached skull and solemnly point to the empty sockets, telling of bright eyes and gabbling tongues that once made music, sang songs, and knew laughter and tears. One had been a great high priest who had died at the hands of the white men sooner than swerve from the spiritual path that he deemed the right one. He was one of the old Solomon Island martyrs. Hillary noticed that this special skull was high-domed, revealing by its protuberance the reverence that man has for higher things, and also imagination. The teeth were perfect. Another was quite flat-headed, the hair woolly and the eye-sockets small. After much preamble on Ingrova’s part, Hillary gathered that this skull belonged to the social reformer of the tribe. Yet another high-domed remnant had bulging bone brows, the skull being altogether curiously shaped. “Who was he, O mighty Ingrova?” said Hillary with a good deal of reverence.
Ingrova answered in this wise: “He was, O papalagi, the great witch-singer of these lands. It was in that little skull-hole where flamed the magic that sang unto us, telling the sorrow of the dying moons, and of the voices of wandering rivers and ocean caves. He looked through those holes” (here the chief pointed to the empty eye-sockets), “where stare the light of the stars, the sunsets and moonsets, when he did once stand beneath these very palms, by that doorway, and say to my tribe: ‘Man am no long to live, and, too, his love and joy oft depart ere his body go its way. All things must die, though the corals rise and the palms stand for ever before the eyes of day, man’s songs must cease and he got to sleep.’”
“Dear me! What a nice old fellow he must have been,” muttered Hillary.
Ingrova had gesticulated and spoken in such a way that he almost saw the sorrow of the poet’s long-dead eyes looking through the sockets of the skull.