In the Eastern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Chapter Fourteen.

Carried off by savages.

I do not know whether a more than usually substantial supper made us sleep sounder than we were wont to do, but the sun had already risen when, the next morning, I started up, hearing as I fancied some strange noises near us. My two companions were still asleep on their bamboo couches on either side of the hut. The noises seemed to me like human voices. Oliver and Macco must have heard them also, for directly afterwards they also started up, and looked about them with a somewhat startled expression of countenance.

We sprang to the door of the hut. On opening it, we saw directly below it a number of dark-skinned savages, almost destitute of clothing, some of them having huge black mop heads, while others had simply thick woolly hair. From this I knew them at once, as well as from their strongly-marked, ferocious features, to be Papuans, or inhabitants of New Guinea. They seemed as much surprised at seeing us as we were at seeing them, and shouted out to us in a language we of course could not understand. By their signs, however, we knew that they were telling us to come down to them. This, from their unprepossessing appearance, we were not well-disposed to do. Probably they supposed we possessed fire-arms, and were therefore unwilling to approach nearer. They had just landed, we knew, from seeing two long, low canoes with high stems and sterns rudely carved and surmounted by plumes of feathers. A row of mother-of-pearl shells apparently ornamented each side of the gunwale. The men were armed with bows and arrows and huge clubs. Some of them also had spears in their hands, but we saw no guns among them. This was satisfactory. However, from their numbers we knew too well that they could easily overpower us, if they had evil intentions.

Again they shouted to us, and we shouted in return, putting out our hands, and making other signs to show that we desired to be friends. They only answered by still louder shouts, some of them apparently laughing at our appearance. They now began to approach, one party coming up on one side, one on another, and a third in the centre. We still held our post, hoping that they might not come to extremities. We thought, too, that perhaps, seeing three people at the door, they might suppose others were within, and not be aware of how far superior they were in force to us. As they advanced they discovered our brush-turkey pen, and, greatly to our distress, some of them instantly stooped over, and began to seize the birds, and to fasten them by their legs round their waists. Others rushed at the body of the kangaroo, which hung by the legs to the branch of a tree, and immediately began cutting it up, each man appropriating a portion.

“I hope they will be content with robbing us, and go away,” said Oliver.

“I am afraid not,” I answered. “They will soon find how few we are to oppose them, and will not be content until they carry off everything we possess, even if they do not kill us. They mean mischief, depend on that.”

The savages having searched about, and finding nothing else on which to lay their hands, approached still nearer our hut.

“If they attack us we will sell our lives dearly,” I said to Oliver.