White Shadows in the South Seas Part 42

Catching _varo_ calls for much patience and dexterity. I never succeeded in landing one, but Teata would often skip back to the sands of the beach with a string of them. Six would make a good meal, with bread and wine, and they are most enjoyable hot, though also most dangerous.

"Begin their eating by sucking one cold," warned Exploding Eggs when presiding over my first feast upon the twelve-inch centipedes.

"If he does not grip you inwardly, you may then eat them hot and in great numbers."

Many white men can not eat the _varo_. Some lose appet.i.te at its appearance, its likeness to a gigantic thousand-leg, and others find that it rests uneasy within them, as though each claw, or tooth of the comb, viciously stabbed their interiors. I found them excellent when wrapped in leaves of the _hotu_-tree and fried in brown b.u.t.ter, and they were very good when broiled over a fire on the beach. One takes the beastie in his fingers and sucks out the meat. Beginners should keep their eyes closed during this operation.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

Court day in Atuona; the case of Daughter of the Pigeon and the sewing-machine; the story of the perfidy of Drink of Beer and the death of Earth Worm who tried to kill the governor.

The Marquesan was guaranteed his day in court. There was one judge in the archipelago and one doctor, and they were the same, being united in the august person of M. L'Hermier des Plantes, who was also the pharmacist. The jolly governor, in his twenties, with medical experience in an African army post and in barracks in France, was irked by his judicial and administrative duties, though little troubled by his medical functions, since he had few drugs and knew that unless these were swallowed by the patient in his presence they would be tried upon the pigs or worn as an amulet around the neck.

Faithful to his orders, however, the judge sat upon the woolsack Sat.u.r.days, unless it was raining or he wished to shoot _kuku_.

One Sat.u.r.day morning, being invited to breakfast at the palace, I strolled down to observe the workings of justice. Court was called to order in the archives room of the governor's house. The judge sat at a large table, resplendent in army blue and gold, with cavalry boots and spurs, his whiskers shining, his demeanor grave and stern.

Bauda, clerk of the court, sat at his right, and Peterano, a native catechist, stood opposite him attired in blue overalls and a necklace of small green nuts, ready to act as interpreter.

Each defendant, plaintiff, prisoner, and witness was sworn impressively, though no Bible was used; which reminded me that in Hongkong I saw a defendant refuse to handle a Bible in court, and when the irate English judge demanded his reasons, calmly replied that the witness who had just laid down the book had the plague, and it was so proved.

The first case was that of a Chinese, member of the Shan-Shan syndicate which owned a store in Atuona. He was charged with shooting _kukus_ without a license. There were not many of these small green doves left in the islands, and the governor, whose favorite sport and delicacy they were, was righteously angered at the Chinaman's infraction of the law. He fined the culprit twenty dollars, and confiscated to the realm the murderous rifle which had aided the crime.

The Shan-Shan man was stunned, and expostulated so long that he was led out by Flag, the gendarme, after being informed that he might appeal to Tahiti. He was forcibly put off the veranda, struggling to explain that he had not shot the gun, but had merely carried it as a reserve weapon in case he should meet a Chinese with whom he had a feud.

A sailor of the schooner _Roberta_, who had stolen a case of absinthe from Captain Capriata's storeroom aboard and destroyed the peace of a valley to which he took it as a present to a feminine friend, was fined five dollars and sentenced to four months' work on the roads.

The criminal docket done, civil cases were called. The barefooted bailiff, Flag, stole out on the veranda occasionally to take a cigarette from the inhabitants of the valley of Taaoa, who crowded the lawn around the veranda steps. All save Kahuiti, they had come over the mountains to attend in a body a trial in which two of them figured--the case of Santos vs. Tahiaupehe (Daughter of the Pigeon).

Santos was a small man, born in Guam, and had been ten years in Taaoa, having deserted from a ship. He and I talked on the veranda in Spanish, and he explained the desperate plight into which love had dragged him. He adored Tahaiupehe, the belle of Taaoa. For months he had poured at her feet all his earnings, and faithfully he had labored at copra-making to gain money for her. He had lavished upon her all his material wealth and the fierce pa.s.sion of his Malay heart, only to find her disdainful, untrue, and, at last, a runaway. While he was in the forest, he said, climbing cocoanut-trees to provide her with luxuries, she had fled his hut, carrying with her a certain "Singaire" and a trunk. He was in court to regain this property.

"_Ben Santos me Tahaiupehe mave! A mai i nei!_" cried Flag, pompously.

The pair entered the court, but all others were excluded except me.

As a distinguished visitor, waiting to breakfast with the judge and the clerk, I had a seat.

The Daughter of the Pigeon, comely and voluptuous, wore an expression of brazen bitterness such as I have seen on the faces of few women. A procuress in Whitechapel and a woman in America who had poisoned half a dozen of her kin had that same look; sneering, desperate, contemptuous, altogether evil. I wondered what experiences had written those lines on the handsome face of Daughter of the Pigeon.

Ben Santos was sworn. Through the interpreter he told his sad tale of devotion and desertion and asked for his property. The Singaire had been bought of the German store. He had bought it that Daughter of the Pigeon might mend his garments, since she had refused to do so without it. He had not given it to her at all, but allowed her the use of it in consideration of "love and affection" he swore.

Daughter of the Pigeon glared at the unhappy little man with an intensity of hatred that alarmed me for his life. She took the stand, malevolently handsome in finery of pink tunic, gold ear-rings, and necklace of red peppers, barefooted, bare-armed, barbaric. She spat out her words.

"This man made love to me and lived with me. He gave me the sewing-machine and the trunk. He is a runt and a pig, and I am tired of him. I left his hut and went to the house of my father. I took my Singaire and my trunk."

"Ben Santos," inquired the judge, with a critical glance at Daughter of the Pigeon, "What return did you make to this woman for keeping your house?"

"I provided her food and her dresses," stammered the little man.

"Food hangs from trees, and dresses are a few yards of stuff," said the surgical Solomon. "The fair ones of the Marquesas do not give themselves to men of your plainness for _popoi_ and muslin robes.

You are a foreigner. You expect too much. The preponderance of probability, added to the weight of testimony, causes the court to believe that this woman is the real owner of the sewing-machine and the trunk. It is so adjudged."

"_La mujer es una diabola, pero me gusto mucho_," said Santos to me, and sighed deeply. "The woman is a devil, but I like her very much."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tahaiupehe, Daughter of the Pigeon, of Taaoa]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Nataro Puelleray and wife He is the most learned Marquesan and the only one who knows the language and legends thoroughly]

The unfortunate Malay got upon his horse and, his soul deep in the swamp of jealousy, departed to resume his copra-making.

Court adjourned. The judge, the clerk, and the interpreter, Daughter of the Pigeon, and I toasted the blind G.o.ddess in rum, the sun being very hot on the iron roof. Bauda and I stayed to breakfast at eleven o'clock, and the governor permitted me to look through the _dossier_ of Daughter of the Pigeon. This record is kept of all Marquesans or others resident in the islands; each governor adds his facts and prejudices and each newcoming official finds the history and reputation of each of his charges set down for his perusal. In this record of Daughter of the Pigeon I found the reason for the malevolent character depicted by her face.

The men of the hills have a terrible custom of capturing any woman of another valley who goes alone in their district. Grelet's first companion was caught one night by forty, who for punishment built the ten kilometres of road between Haniapa and Atuona. Many Daughters, the beautiful little leper, when thirteen years old was a victim of seventeen men, some of whom were imprisoned. Daughter of the Pigeon had had a fearful experience of this kind. It had seared her soul, and Santos was paying for his s.e.x.

In feud times this custom was a form of retaliation, as the slaying of men and eating them. It has survived as a sport. Lest horror should spend itself upon these natives of the islands, I mention that in every state in our union similar records blacken our history.

War's pages from the first glimmerings to the last foul moment reek with this deviltry. British and French at Badajoz and Tarragona, in Spain, left fearful memories. Occident and Orient alike are guilty.

This crime s.m.u.tches the chronicle of every invasion. It is part of the degradation of slums in all our cities, a sport of hoodlum gangs everywhere. In the Marquesas it is a recognized, though forbidden, game, and has its retaliatory side. Time was when troops of women have revenged it in strange, savage ways.

This unsubmissive and aggressive att.i.tude of Marquesan women was brought home to me this very afternoon after the trial, when Daughter of the Pigeon came galloping up to my cabin. She reined in her horse like a cowboy who had la.s.soed a steer and, throwing the bridle over the branch of an orange-tree, tripped into my living-room, where I was writing.

Without a word she put her arms around me, and in a moment I was enacting the part of Joseph when he fled from Potiphar's wife. With some muscular exertion I got her out of the house at the cost of my shirt. Puafaufe (Drink of Beer), a chief of Taaoa, appeared at this moment, while I was still struggling with her upon my _paepae_.

"_Makimaki okioki i te!_ An ungovernable creature!" he commented, shaking his head, and looking on with interest as she again attacked me vigorously, to the danger of my remaining shreds of garments.

Chivalry is not a primitive emotion, but it dies hard in the civilized brain, and I was attempting the impossible. Fending her off as best I could, I conjured the chief by the red stripe on the sleeve of his white jacket, his badge of office, to rescue me, for Madame Bapp was now on her _paepae_, craning her fat neck, and I had no mind to be laughed at by my own tint.

The chief, however, maintained the impartial att.i.tude of the bystander at a street fight. Smothered in the embraces of Daughter of the Pigeon, covered with embarra.s.sment, I struggled and cursed, and had desperately decided to fling her bodily over the eight-foot wall of the _paepae_ into the jungle, when another arrival dashed up the trail. This was the brother of Daughter of the Pigeon.

It was evident that my cabin had been appointed as a rendezvous, though I had no acquaintance with any of my three visitors. A suspicion was born in my dull brain. To make it surety, I grasped my feminine wooer by wrists and throat and thrust her into the arms of the chief with a stern injunction to hold her. Then, without hint of my intention, I hastened into the house and brought forth the demijohn and cocoanut-sh.e.l.ls.

The amorous fury of Daughter of the Pigeon melted into grat.i.tude, and after two drinks apiece the company galloped away, leaving me to repair tattered garments and thank my stars for my supply of _namu_.

But the end of court-day was not yet. I had barely fallen into my first slumber that night when I was awakened by the disconsolate Shan-Shan man, who came humbly to present me with a half-pound doughnut of his own making, and to beg my intercession with the governor for the return of his gun. He reiterated tearfully that he had not meant to shoot _kukus_ with it, that he had not done so, that he desired it only in order to be able to take a pot-shot at the offending countryman in the village. He urged desperately that the other Chinese still possessed a gun well oiled and loaded. He a.s.serted even with tears that he had all respect and admiration for the white man's law. But he wanted his gun, and he wanted it quickly.

I calmed him with the twice-convenient _namu_, and after promising to explain the situation to the governor, I sat for some time on my _paepae_ in the moonlight, talking with the unhappy convict.

Without prompting he divulged to me that my suspicions had been correct; Drink of Beer had himself instigated the raid of the bold Daughter of the Pigeon upon my rum. Drink of Beer, it appeared, was known in the islands for many feats of successful duplicity. One had nearly cost the life of Jean Richard, a young Frenchman who worked for the German trader in Taka-Uka.

"Earth Worm was a man of Taaoa," said my guest, sitting cross-legged on my mats, his long-nailed, yellow fingers folded in his lap.

"He was nephew of Pohue-toa, eater of many men. Earth Worm was arrested by Drink of Beer and brought before the former governor, Lailheugue, known as Little Pig.

"Drink of Beer said that Earth Worm had made _namu enata_, the juice of the flower of the palm that makes men mad. Earth Worm swore that he had done no wrong. He swore that Drink of Beer had allowed him, for a price, to make the _namu enata_, and that Drink of Beer had said this was according to the law. But when he failed to pay again, Drink of Beer had arrested him.

"Drink of Beer said this not true. He wore the red stripe on his sleeve; therefore the governor Little Pig said that Earth Worm lied, and sent him to prison for a year.

"Now Earth Worm was an informed man, a son of many chiefs, and himself resolved in his ways. He said that he would speak before the courts of Tahiti, and he would not go in shame to the prison. At this time that governor was finished with his work here and was departing on a ship to Tahiti, and Earth Worm with hate in his heart, embarked on that ship, saying nothing, but thinking much.

"He lived forward with the crew, and said nothing, but thought.

Others spoke to him, saying that he would not profit by the journey to Tahiti where the word of the governor was powerful, but he did not reply. The men of the crew wished Earth Worm to kill the governor, for every Marquesan hated him, and he had done a terrible thing for which he deserved death.

"There had been an aged gendarme who fell ill because of a curse laid on him by a _tahuna_. He was dying. This governor took from his box in the house of medicines a sharp small knife, and with it he cut the veins of a Marquesan who had done some small wrong against the law and lay in jail. He bound this man by the arm to the gendarme who was dying, and through the cut the blood ran into the gendarme's veins. His heart sucked the blood from the body of the Marquesan like a vampire bat of the forest, and he lay bound, feeling the blood go from him. The village knew that this was being done, and could do nothing but hate and fear, for it was the governor who had done it.