The Rajah at once took Gabrielle within. Heaven only knows what the white girl went through before the Rajah realised that it was no brown woman he had in his vile power. There had been considerable trouble before he was finally vanquished and sent about his business; he had done his best before leaving to become friendly with the girl again. He knew by her desperate act in jumping overboard on the Bird of Paradise that she was quite likely to attempt to take her life again. The look in her eyes spoke volumes to him. He told off two of the old ki-ki chiefs, ordering them to keep strict watch over that wooden building where she was imprisoned. So the two barbarian sentinels grunted and smoked by the door and Gabrielle lay down on the thick sleeping mats and tried to rest.
On the second night the Rajah once more crept into her chamber. He fell on his knees. He swore she was his beloved spouse in the eyes of God and the heathen apostles of his own heathen land. He began chanting and making weird passes, swearing all the while that the idols of the tambu temple had been placed in the glow of the moonbeams and had spoken.
“They have teller me to come to thee. They say that you must giver yourself up to me and to my gods. You understand?”
Gabrielle looked in wonder at the man as he fell at her feet, groaning and wailing. He even wept. She saw the tears in his eyes.
“Gabri-e-arle. I lover th-ee. Thou art my own, my putih bunga,” he repeated over and over again. He pressed hot kisses on her face. But the girl struggled and overcame him. Then he diverted her attention and swiftly placed his old ki-ki drugs in her water goblet. Drugging was, and is, the highest art in New Guinea, and so he had little fear of the results not being according to his requirements. Then he went away. He had not been gone an hour before Gabrielle was startled by hearing the sound of jabbering outside the tambu door. She could distinctly hear a pleading voice, as though some native woman wailed and talked to the sentinels. Then the silence returned, but to her surprise the tappa curtains of her little chamber were suddenly thrown aside, and a strange-looking native woman stood before her. It was Maroshe, the late divorced! She held no stiletto in her hand. No malignant gleam of hatred shone in her eyes; only a weary look of sorrow as she stood before Gabrielle. The unexpected visitor fell on her knees and at once began to chant and mumble mysteriously, as though she thought Gabrielle understood all the magic of her land.
Gabrielle noticed the note of appeal in her voice. She at once took heart and bade her rise.
“What’s the matter? What you want?” said Gabrielle, as she tried to speak to the wailing woman in pidgin-English and made many gesticulations. At last the white girl seemed to understand.
It was wonderful how swiftly the souls of two women of different races fathomed each other’s secrets, peered into each other’s eyes and read all that they wanted to read.
Gabrielle’s sorrow had probably brought to the fore the old instincts with which Nature originally endowed the human races so that they might scent danger before it was actually upon them.
Maroshe it seemed could speak a little pidgin-English, and so the two women were able before long to understand the exact position of things. Then the native girl, for she was not much more than a girl, kissed Gabrielle’s hands, fell prone and touched her feet in grovelling subjection. Tears came into Gabrielle’s eyes as she realised the woman’s sorrow and observed the swift glance of delight in her eyes as she heard that she, the white girl, was a most unwilling prisoner in the tambu marriage chamber. “I comer gain. Me goer now, nicer, whi ladi. You no putih bunga. Ah!” she said.