II: _Mr. Pottle and the South-Sea Cannibals_
Sec.1
Mr. Pottle was a barber, but also a man of imagination, and as his handswent through their accustomed motions, his mind was far away, recallingwhat he had read the night before.
"Bright Marquesas sunlight glinted from the cutlass of the intrepid explorer as with a sweep of his arm he brought the blade down on the tattooed throat of the man-eating savage."
Mr. Pottle's errant mind was jerked back sharply from the South Seas toGranville, Ohio, by a protesting voice.
"Hey, Pottle, what's bitin' you? You took a slice out o' my Adam's applethat time."
Mr. Pottle, with apologetic murmurs, rubbed the wound with an alumstick; then he dusted his victim with talcum powder, and gave thepatented chair a little kick, so that its occupant was shot boltupright.
"Bay rum?" asked Mr. Pottle, professionally.
"Nope."
"Dandruff-Death?"
"Nope."
"Sweet Lilac Tonic?"
"Nope."
"Plain water?"
"Yep."
"Naked savages danced and howled round the great pot in which the trussed explorer had been placed. The cannibal chief, fire-brand in hand, made ready to ignite the fagots under the pot. It began to look bad for the explorer."
Again a shrill voice of protest punctured Mr. Pottle's day-dream.
"Hey, Pottle, come to life! You've went and put Sweet Lilac Tonic on me'stead of plain water. I ain't going to no coon ball. You've gone andsmelled me up like a screamin' geranium."
"Why, so I have, so I have," said Mr. Pottle, in accents of surprise andcontrition. "Sorry, Luke. It'll wear off in a day or two. Guess I mustbe gettin' absent-minded."
"That's what you said last Saddy when you clipped a piece out o' VirgilOverholt's ear," observed Luke, with some indignation. "What's bitin'you, anyhow, Pottle? You used to be the best barber in the county beforeyou took to readin' them books."
"What books?"
"All about cannibals and explorers and the South-Sea Islands," answeredLuke.
"They're good books," said Mr. Pottle warmly. His eyes brightened. "Ijust got a new one," he said. "It's called 'Green Isles, BrownMan-Eaters, and a White Man.' I sat up till two readin' it. It's aboutthe Marquesas Islands, and it's a darn' excitin' book, Luke."
"It excited you so much you sliced my Adam's apple," grumbled Luke,clamping on his rubber collar. "You had better cut out this foolreadin'."
"Don't you ever read, Luke?"
"Sure I do. 'The Mornin' News-Press' for week-days, 'The P'lice Gazette'when I come here to get shaved Saddy nights, and the Bible for Sundays.That's readin' enough for any man."
"Did you ever read 'Robinson Crusoe'?"
"Nope, but I heard him."
"Heard him? Heard who?"
"Crusoe," said Luke, snapping his ready-tied tie into place.
"Heard him? You couldn't have heard him."
"I couldn't, hey? Well, I did."
"Where?" demanded Mr. Pottle.
"Singin' on a phonograph," said Luke.
Mr. Pottle said nothing; Luke was a regular customer, and in successfulmodern business the customer is always right. However, Mr. Pottle seizeda strop and by his vigorous stroppings silently expressed his disgust ata man who hadn't heard of "Robinson Crusoe," for Robinson was one of Mr.Pottle's deities.
When Luke reached the door, he turned.
"Say, Pottle," he said, "if you're so nutty about these here South SeaIslands, why don't you go there?"
Mr. Pottle ceased his stropping.
"I am going," he said.
Luke gave a dubious hoot and vanished. He did not realize that he hadheard Mr. Pottle make the big decision of his life.
Sec.2
That night Mr. Pottle finished the book, and dreamed, as he had dreamedon many a night since the lure of the South Seas first cast a spell onhim, that in a distant, sun-loved isle, bright with greens and purples,he reclined beneath the _mana-mana-hine_ (or umbrella fern) on his own_paepae_ (or platform), a scarlet _pareu_ (or breech-clout) about hismiddle, a yellow _hibiscus_ flower in his hair, while the _kukus_ (orsmall green turtle-doves) cooed in the branches of the _pevatvii_ (orbanana-tree), and _Bunnidori_ (that is, she, with the Lips of Love), atawny maid of wondrous beauty, played softly to him on the ukulele. Thetantalizing fragrance of a bowl of _popoi_ (or pudding) mingled in hisnostrils with the more delicate perfume of the golden blossoms of the_puu-epu_ (or mulberry-tree). A sound in the jungle, a deep _boom! boom!boom!_ roused him from this reverie.
"What is it, O Bunnidori?" he asked.
"'Tis a feast, O my Pottle, Lord of the Menikes (that is, white men),"lisped his companion.
"Upon what do the men in the jungle feast, O plump and pleasing daughterof delight?" inquired Mr. Pottle, who was up on Polynesian etiquette.
She lowered her already low voice still lower.
"Upon the long pig that speaks," she whispered.
A delicious shudder ran down the spine of the sleeping Mr. Pottle, forfrom his reading he knew that "the long pig that speaks" means--man!
For Mr. Pottle had one big ambition, one great suppressed desire. It wasthe dearest wish of his thirty-six years of life to meet a cannibal, areal cannibal, face to face, eye to eye.
Next day he sold his barber's shop. Two months and seventeen days laterhe was unpacking his trunk in the tiny settlement of Vait-hua, in theMarquesas Islands, in the heart of the South Seas.
The air was balmy, the sea deep purple, the nodding palms and giantferns of the greenest green were exactly as advertised; but when thefirst week or two of enchantment had worn off, Mr. Pottle owned to acertain feeling of disappointment.
He tasted _popoi_ and found it rather nasty; the hotel in which hestayed--the only one--was deficient in plumbing, but not in fauna. Thenatives--he had expected great things of the natives--were remarkablylike underdone Pullman porters wrapped in bandana handkerchiefs. Theywere not exciting, they exhibited no inclination to eat Mr. Pottle orone another, they coveted his pink shirt, and begged for a drink fromhis bottle of Sweet Lilac Tonic.
He mentioned his disappointment at these evidences of civilization toTiki Tiu, the astute native who kept the general store.
Mr. Pottle's mode of conversation was his own invention. From the bookshe had read he improvised a language. It was simple. He gave Englishwords a barbaric sound, usually by suffixing "um" or "ee," shouted themat the top of his voice into the ear of the person with whom he wasconversing, and repeated them in various permutations. He addressed TikiTiu with brisk and confident familiarity.
"Helloee, Tiki Tiu. Me wantum see can-balls. Can-balls me wantum see. Mesee can-balls wantum."
The venerable native, who spoke seventeen island dialects and tongues,and dabbled in English, Spanish, and French, appeared to apprehend hismeaning; indeed, one might almost have thought he had heard thisquestion before, for he answered promptly:
"No more can-balls here. All Baptists."
"Where are can-balls? Can-balls where are? Where can-balls are?"demanded Mr. Pottle.
Tiki Tiu closed his eyes and let blue smoke filter through his nostrils.Finally he said:
"Isle of O-pip-ee."
"Isle of O-pip-ee?" Mr. Pottle grew excited. "Where is? Is where?"
"Two hundred miles south," answered Tiki Tiu.
Mr. Pottle's eyes sparkled. He was on the trail.
"How go there? Go there how? There go how?" he asked.
Tiki Tiu considered. Then he said:
"I take. Nice li'l' schooner."
"How much?" asked Mr. Pottle. "Much how?"
Tiki Tiu considered again.
"Ninety-three dol's," he said.
"Goodum!" cried Mr. Pottle, and counted the proceeds of 186 hair-cutsinto the hand of Tiki Tiu.
"You take me to-mollow? To-mollow you take me? Me you take to-mollow?To-mollow? To-mollow? To-mollow?" asked Mr. Pottle.
"Yes," promised Ti
ki Tiu; "to-mollow."
Mr. Pottle stayed up all night packing; from time to time he referred tomuch-thumbed copies of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Green Isles, BrownMan-Eaters, and a White Man."
Tiki Tiu's nice li'l' schooner deposited Mr. Pottle and his impedimentaon the small, remote Isle of O-pip-ee; Tiki Tiu agreed to return for himin a month.
"This is something like it," exclaimed Mr. Pottle as he unpacked hiscamera, his ukulele, his razors, his canned soup, his heating outfit,and his bathing-suit. Only the wild parrakeets heard him; save for theircalls, an ominous silence hung over the thick foliage of O-pip-ee. Therewas not the ghost of a sign of human habitation.
Mr. Pottle, vaguely apprehensive of sharks, pitched his pup-tent far upon the beach; to-morrow would be time enough to look for cannibals.
He lay smoking and thinking. He was happy. The realization of a life'sambition lay, so to speak, just around the corner. To-morrow he couldturn that corner--if he wished.
He squirmed as something small nibbled at his hip-bone, and he wonderedwhy writers of books on the South Seas make such scant mention of theinsects. Surely they must have noticed the little creatures, which had,he discovered, a way of making their presence felt.
He wondered, too, now that he came to think of it, if he hadn't been alittle rash in coming alone to a cannibal-infested isle with no weaponsof defense but a shot-gun, picked up at a bargain at the last minute,and his case of razors. True, in all the books by explorers he had read,the explorer never once had actually been eaten; he always lived towrite the book. But what about the explorers who had not written books?What had happened to them?
He flipped a centipede off his ankle, and wondered if he hadn't beenjust a little too impulsive to sell his profitable barber-shop, to comemany thousand miles over strange waters, to maroon himself on the lonelyIsle of O-pip-ee. At Vait-hua he had heard that cannibals do not fancywhite men for culinary purposes. He gave a little start as he lookeddown at his own bare legs and saw that the tropic sun had alreadytinted them a coffee hue.
Mr. Pottle did not sleep well that night; strange sounds made his eyesfly open. Once it was a curious scuttling along the beach. Peeping outfrom his pup-tent, he saw half a dozen _tupa_ (or giant tree-climbingcrabs) on a nocturnal raid on a cocoanut-grove. Later he heard the bignuts come crashing down. The day shift of insects had quit, and thenight shift, fresh and hungry, came to work; inquisitive vampire batsbutted their soft heads against his tent.
At dawn he set about finding a permanent abode. He followed a smallfresh-water stream two hundred yards inland, and came to a coral cave bya pool, a ready-made home, cool and, more important, well concealed. Hespent the day settling down, chasing out the bats, putting upmosquito-netting, tidying up. He dined well off cocoanut milk and cannedsardines, and was so tired that he fell asleep before he could changehis bathing-suit for pajamas. He slept fairly well, albeit he dreamedthat two cannibal kings were disputing over his prostrate form whetherhe would be better as a ragout or stuffed with chestnuts.
Waking, he decided to lie low and wait for the savages to showthemselves, for he knew from Tiki Tiu that the Isle of O-pip-ee was notmore than seven miles long and three or four miles wide; sooner or laterthey must pass near him. He figured that there was logic in this plan,for no cannibal had seen him land; therefore he knew that the cannibalswere on the isle, but they did not know that he was. The advantage washis.
Sec.3
For days he remained secluded, subsisting on canned foods, cocoanuts,_mei_ (or breadfruit), and an occasional boiled baby _feke_ (or youngdevil-fish), a nest of which Mr. Pottle found on one furtive moonlightsally to the beach.
Emboldened by this sally and by the silence of the woods, Mr. Pottlemade other expeditions away from his cave; on one he penetrated fullyfive hundred yards into the jungle. He was prowling, like a CooperIndian, among the _faufee_ (or lacebark-trees) when he heard a soundthat sent him scurrying and quaking back to his lair.
It was a faint sound that the breezes bore to him, so faint that hecould not be sure; but it sounded like some far-off barbaric instrumentmingling its dim notes with those of a human voice raised in a weird,primeval chant.
But the savages did not show themselves, and finding no cannibals bynight, Mr. Pottle grew still bolder; he ventured on short explorationsby day. He examined minutely his own cove, and then one morning creptover a low ledge and into the next cove. He made his way cautiouslyalong the smooth, white beach. The morning was still, calm, beautiful.Its peace all but drove thoughts of cannibals from his mind. He came toa strip of land running into the sea; another cove lay beyond. Mr.Pottle was an impulsive man; he pushed through the _keoho_ (orthorn-bushes); his foot slipped; he rolled down a declivity and into thenext cove.
He did not stay there; he did not even tarry. What he saw sent himdashing through the thorn-bushes and along the white sand like ahundred-yard sprinter. In the sand of the cove were many imprints ofnaked human feet.
A less stout-hearted man than Mr. Pottle would never have come out ofhis cave again; but he had come eight thousand miles to see a cannibal.An over-mastering desire had spurred him on; he would not give up now.Of such stuff are Ohio barbers made.
Sec.4
A few days later, at twilight, he issued forth from his cave again.Around his loins was a scarlet _pareu_; he had discarded hisbathing-suit as too civilized. In his long, black hair was a yellow_hibiscus_ flower.
Like a burglar, he crept along the beach to the bushy promontory thathid the cove where the foot-prints were, he wiggled through the bush, heslid down to the third beach, and crouched behind a large rock. Thebeach seemed deserted; the muttering of the ocean was the only sound Mr.Pottle heard. Another rock, a dozen feet away, seemed to offer betterconcealment, and he stepped out toward it, and then stopped short. Mr.Pottle stood face to face with a naked, brown savage.
Mr. Pottle's feet refused to take him away; a paralysis such as one hasin nightmares rooted him to the spot. His returning faculties took inthese facts: first, the savage was unarmed; second, Mr. Pottle hadforgotten to bring his shot-gun. It was a case of man to man-eater.
The savage was large, well-fed, almost fat; his long black hair fringedhis head; he did not wear a particularly bloodthirsty expression;indeed, he appeared startled and considerably alarmed.
Reason told Mr. Pottle that friendliness was the best policy.Instinctively, he recalled the literature of his youth, and how BuffaloBill had acted in a like circumstance. He raised his right hand solemnlyin the air and ejaculated, "How!"
The savage raised his right hand solemnly in the air, and in the sametone also ejaculated, "How!" Mr. Pottle had begun famously. He saidloudly:
"Who you? You who? Who you?"
The savage, to Mr. Pottle's surprise, answered after a brief moment:
"Me--Lee."
Here was luck. The man-eater could talk the Pottle lingo.
"Oh," said Mr. Pottle, to show that he understood, "you--Mealy."
The savage shook his head.
"No," he said; "Me--Lee. Me--Lee." He thumped his barrel-like chest witheach word.
"Oh, I see," cried Mr. Pottle; "you Mealy-mealy."
The savage made a face that among civilized people would have meant thathe did not think much of Mr. Pottle's intellect.
"Who you?" inquired Mealy-mealy.
Mr. Pottle thumped his narrow chest.
"Me, Pottle. Pottle!"
"Oh, you Pottle-pottle," said the savage, evidently pleased with his ownpowers of comprehension.
Mr. Pottle let it go at that. Why argue with a cannibal? He addressedthe savage again.
"Mealy-mealy, you eatum long pig? Eatum long pig you? Long pig youeatum?"
This question agitated Mealy-mealy. He trembled. Then he nodded his headin the affirmative, a score of rapid nods.
Mr. Pottle's voice faltered a little as he asked the next question.
"Where you gottum tribe? You gottum tribe where? Tribe you gottumwhere?"
Mealy-mealy cons
idered, scowled, and said:
"Gottum velly big tribe not far. Velly fierce. Eatum long pig. EatumPottle-pottle."
Mr. Pottle thought it would be a good time to go, but he could think ofno polite excuse for leaving. An idea occurred to Mealy-mealy.
"Where your tribe, Pottle-pottle?"
His tribe? Mr. Pottle's eyes fell on his own scarlet _pareu_ and thebrownish legs beneath it. Mealy-mealy thought he was a cannibal, too.With all his terror, he had a second or two of unalloyed enjoyment ofthe thought. Like all barbers, he had played poker. He bluffed.
"My tribe velly, velly, velly, velly, velly, velly big," he cried.
"Where is?" asked Mealy-mealy, visibly moved by this news.
"Velly near," cried Mr. Pottle; "hungry for long pig; for long pighungry----"
There was suddenly a brown blur on the landscape. With the agility of anape, the huge savage had turned, darted down the beach, plunged into thebush, and disappeared.
"He's gone to get his tribe," thought Mr. Pottle, and fled in theopposite direction.
When he reached his cave, panting, he tried to fit a cartridge into hisshot-gun; he'd die game, anyhow. But rust had ruined the neglectedweapon, and he flung it aside and took out his best razor. But nocannibals came.
He was scared, but happy. He had seen his cannibal; more, he had talkedwith him; more still, he had escaped gracing the festal board by asnake's knuckle. He prudently decided to stay in his cave until thesails of Tiki Tiu's schooner hove in sight.
Sec.5
But an instinct stronger than fear drove him out into the open: hisstock of canned food ran low, and large red ants got into his flour. Heneeded cocoanuts and breadfruit and baby _fekes_ (or young octopi). Heknew that numerous succulent infant _fekes_ lurked in holes in his owncove, and thither he went by night to pull them from their homes.Hitherto he had encountered only small _fekes_, with tender tentaclesonly a few feet long; but that night Mr. Pottle had the misfortune toplunge his naked arm into the watery nest when the father of the familywas at home. He realized his error too late.
A clammy tentacle, as long as a fire hose, as strong as the arm of agorilla, coiled round his arm, and his scream was cut short as the giantdevil-fish dragged him below the water.
The water was shallow. Mr. Pottle got a foothold, forced his head abovewater, and began to yell for help and struggle for his life.
The chances against a nude Ohio barber of 140 pounds in a wrestlingmatch with an adult octopus are exactly a thousand to one. The giant_feke_ so despised his opponent that he used only two of his eightmuscular arms. In their slimy, relentless clutch Mr. Pottle felt hisstrength going fast. As his favorite authors would have put it, "itbegan to look bad for Mr. Pottle."
The thought that Mr. Pottle thought would be his last on this earth was,"I wouldn't mind being eaten by cannibals, but to be drowned by a trickfish----"
Mr. Pottle threshed about in one final, frantic flounder; his strengthgave out; he shut his eyes.
He heard a shrill cry, a splashing in the water, felt himself clutchedabout the neck from behind, and dragged away from the _feke_. He openedhis eyes and struggled weakly. One tentacle released its grip. Mr.Pottle saw by the tropic moon's light that some large creature was doingbattle with the _feke_. It was a man, a large brown man who with a busyax hacked the gristly limbs from the _feke_ as fast as they wrappedaround him. Mr. Pottle staggered to the dry beach; a tentacle was stillwound tight round his shoulder, but there was no octopus at the otherend of it.
The angry noise of the devil-fish--for, when wounded, they snarl likekicked curs--stopped. The victorious brown man strode out of the waterto where Mr. Pottle swayed on the moonlit sand. It was Mealy-mealy.
"Bad fishum!" said Mealy-mealy, with a grin.
"Good manum!" cried Mr. Pottle, heartily.
Here was romance, here was adventure, to be snatched from the jaws, soto speak, of death by a cannibal! It was unheard of. But a disquietingthought occurred to Mr. Pottle, and he voiced it.
"Mealy-mealy, why you save me? Why save you me? Why you me save?"
Mealy-mealy's grin seemed to fade, and in its place came another lookthat made Mr. Pottle wish he were back in the anaconda grip of the_feke_.
"My tribe hungry for long pig," growled Mealy-mealy. He seemed to betrembling with some powerful emotion. Hunger?
Mr. Pottle knew where his only chance for escape lay.
"My tribe velly, velly, velly hungry, too," he cried. "Velly, velly,velly near."
He thrust his fingers into his mouth and gave a piercing school-boywhistle. As if in answer to it there came a crashing and floundering inthe bushes. His bluff had worked only too well; it must be the fellowman-eaters of Mealy-mealy.
Mr. Pottle turned and ran for his life. Fifty yards he sped, and thenrealized that he did not hear the padding of bare feet on the sandbehind him or feel hot breath on the back of his neck. He dared to casta look over his shoulder. Far down the beach the moonlight showed him aflying brown figure against the silver-white sand. It was Mealy-mealy,and he was going in the opposite direction as fast as ever his legswould take him.
Surprise drove fear temporarily from Mr. Pottle's mind as he watched thebig cannibal become a blur, then a speck, then nothing. As he watchedMealy-mealy recede, he saw another dark figure emerge from the bushwhere the noise had been, and move slowly out on the moon-strewn beach.
It was a baby wild pig. It sniffed at the ocean, squealed, and trottedback into the bush.
As he gnawed his morning cocoanut, Mr. Pottle was still puzzled. He wasafraid of Mealy-mealy; that he admitted. But at the same time it wasquite clear that Mealy-mealy was afraid of him. He was excited and morethan a little gratified. What a book he could write! Should he call it"Cannibal-Bound on O-pip-ee," or, "Cannibals Who have almost Eaten Me"?
Tiki Tiu's schooner would be coming for him very soon now,--he'd losttrack of the exact time,--and he would be almost reluctant to leave theisle. Almost.
Mr. Pottle had another glimpse of a cannibal next day. Toward evening hestole out to pick some supper from a breadfruit-tree not far from hiscave, a tree which produced particularly palatable _mei_ (orbreadfruit).
He drew his _pareu_ tight around him and slipped through the bushes; ashe neared the tree he saw another figure approaching it with equalstealth from the opposite direction; the setting sun was reflected fromthe burnished brown of the savage's shoulders. At the same time Mr.Pottle spied the man, the man spied him. The savage stopped short,wheeled about, and tore back in the direction from which he had come.Mr. Pottle did not get a good look at his face, but he ran uncommonlylike Mealy-mealy.
Sec.6
Mr. Pottle thought it best not to climb the _mei_-tree that evening; hereturned hastily to his cave, and finished up the breakfast cocoanut.
Over a pipe he thought. He was pleased, thrilled by his sight of acannibal; but he was not wholly satisfied. He had thought it would beenough for him to get one fleeting glimpse of an undoubted man-eater inhis native state, but it wasn't. Before he left the Isle of O-pip-ee hewanted to see the whole tribe in a wild dance about a bubbling pot.Tiki Tiu's schooner might come on the morrow. He must act.
He crept out of the cave and stood in the moonlight, breathing theperfume of the jungle, feeling the cool night air, hearing the mellownotes of the Polynesian nightingale. Adventure beckoned to him. Hestarted in the direction Mealy-mealy had run.
At first he progressed on tiptoes, then he sank to all fours, andcrawled along slowly, pig-wise. On, on he went; he must have crept morethan a mile when a sound stopped him--a sound he had heard before. Itwas faint, yet it seemed near: it was the sound of some primitivemusical instrument blending with the low notes of a tribal chant. Itseemed to come from a sheltered hollow not two dozen yards ahead.
He crouched down among the ferns and listened. The chant was croonedsoftly in a deep voice, and to the straining ears of Mr. Pottle itseemed vaguely familiar, like a song heard in dreams. The words camethrough the thick tangle of j
ungle weeds:
"Eeet slon ay a teep a ari."
Mr. Pottle, fascinated, wiggled forward to get a look at the tribe. Likea snake, he made his tortuous approach. The singing continued; he saw afaint glow through the foliage--the campfire. He eased himself to thecrest of a little hummock, pushed aside a great fern leaf and looked.
Sitting comfortably in a steamer-chair was Mealy-mealy. In his big brownhands was a shiny banjo at which he plucked gently. Near his elbow foodwith a familiar smell bubbled in an aluminum dish over a trimcanned-heat outfit; an empty baked-bean can with a gaudy label laybeside it. From time to time Mealy-mealy glanced idly at a pinkperiodical popular in American barber-shops. The song he sang to himselfburst intelligibly on Mr. Pottle's ears--
"It's a long way to Tipperary."
Mealy-mealy stopped; his eye had fallen on the staring eyes of Mr.Pottle. He caught up his ax and was about to swing it when Mr. Pottlestood up, stepped into the circle of light, pointed an accusing fingerat Mealy-mealy and said:
"Are you a cannibal?"
Mealy-mealy's ax and jaw dropped.
"What the devil are you?" he sputtered in perfect American.
"I'm a barber from Ohio," said Mr. Pottle.
Mealy-mealy emitted a sudden whooping roar of laughter.
"So am I," he said.
Mr. Pottle collapsed limply into the steamer-chair.
"What's your name?" he asked in a weak voice.
"Bert Lee, head barber at the Schmidt House, Bucyrus, Ohio," said thebig man. He slapped his fat, bare chest. "Me--Lee," he said, and laughedtill the jungle echoed.
"Did you read 'Green Isles, Brown Man-Eaters, and a White Man'?" askedMr. Pottle, feebly.
"Yes."
"I'd like to meet the man who wrote it," said Mr. Pottle.
The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon, and other humorous tales Page 2