by Ruskin Bond
But the woman remained standing by; and when the last rank had passed, she made a sign to me to begone, pointing urgently and vehemently towards the sandhills. I rose, and was in the act of starting off, when, chancing to look towards the receding army, I saw that the creature whose nose and chin were painted yellow, had left the ranks and came running towards us; and on that, I stood still: perhaps, I saw instinctively that flight would not serve against so swift a runner; perhaps, my courage failed. It failed indeed, when he came near enough for me to see his face, gleaming in the moonlight; for it was set in a look of appalling ferocity; and my skull ached in horrid anticipation as I saw his long axe brandished terribly as if his very hand itched to deal the blow that should cleave it.
When he came up, however, he stood and began to harangue the woman in savage tones. But she, stepping quickly between us, confronted him in silence. She was the most majestic, barbaric, and imperious-looking figure that it is possible to conceive. Nor, would she so much as vouchsafe to answer a word; and presently, with a fierce exclamation that sounded like a threat, he turned, not without dignity, and set off to rejoin the army, running as swiftly as he had come.
Then again, the woman signified flight; and this time I fled, running across the plain like mad, and scrambling desperately up the unstable slopes. Yet, had I but small fear of pursuit, concluding, from a sudden and loud conclamation of savage voices, that the opposing armies were now embroiled. I was much mistaken—as I knew presently, when, on perceiving that the voices were nearer, I looked sideways back as I came upon a high sandhill, about half-way to the sea, and saw, with a dreadful shrinking at heart, a great multitude pursuing me, being those very armies by whose conflict I had trusted to make my escape. A panic terror seized hold of me then; and I went staggering and plunging blindly in the sand. My limbs kept giving under me; my feet felt as heavy as lead. The ship was in sight, and but two sandhills separated me from the shore; but the pursuers were scarcely a quarter of a mile away, and gained upon me every minute. Suddenly they began to utter, all together and repeatedly, an eerie and exceeding mournful cry, "Haere mai," it came, "Haere mai, haere mai"; a great, weird, floating, wailing cry. The night was full of it. The mountains echoed it.
But I heard it as a deadly summons; and when a figure moved in the shadow of an adjacent sandhill and made a spring towards me, the ghostly bright moonlight changed to thick darkness, and, the wailing became a roaring as the sound of many waters about my ears. The figures clutched hold of me even as I swooned, and I heard a voice that I seemed to know.
When I came to myself, I was sensible of a chill of water about my body and splashing up upon my face, and, of being borne along through inky black, breaking waves. Close in front of me was the ship, her masts and sails towering; and spurts of pistol fire came from the low-sunk decks where the men crowded, shooting off their pistols. I turned my head—to look straight into the eyes of Captain Blythe!
His face was stern-set with effort; but he gasped out a word of assurance to me as he gave a mighty stroke. Two or three more brought us close under the ship, at the place where the bulwarks were broken away, and we were hauled speedily on board. I was so weak at first that I had to support myself by the bulwarks. But the Captain appeared to recover his strength and his command in the same moment; and the first thing he did was to stop the firing. "To make enemies of them were madness!" cried he. "Hold your pistols ready, men; but don't fire unless I bid ye."
He spoke with a sternness that prevented all demur, and, at the same time, controlled the men from panic. The shore was thronged with a seething, dusky multitude, from whose clutches, apparently, we had escaped but very narrowly. They stood gazing upon us; some of them waving spears or staves or axes. I observed that they formed two separate parties which appeared to have consorted, the members of one party being not daubed with paint.
Suddenly, on the nearer shore, there fell a commotion as the throng opened right and left to admit of the passage of a tall, gaunt figure (being a head and shoulders taller than anyone near), who, in common with the rest, was naked except for his great kilt. He came, stepping stately and slow, bearing a long, slender, pointed stick; and was followed by an old, small, wizened form—yet strong and wiry-looking withal—who held one of those battledore-shaped axes. Their dark faces, plain in the moonlight, looked fierce and grim; and they bore themselves with a remarkable statuesque carriage of their plumed heads. They took their stations together beside the waves; and, when the small, wizened figure had waved his axe (which he did very haughtily)—as a signal to the crowd to withdraw still further—and a wide space was made for them, in a silence broken only by the splash of the gentle breakers, he began to address us, speaking—or rather, roaring—in a harsh, deep voice, running up and down, meantime, about ten paces in either direction, and brandishing his axe. What he said was quite unintelligible to us; yet, ever and again, I caught, or imagined I caught, a word or a phrase that sounded like a sort of barbarous English.
He ended with the strange wailing cry, thrice repeated, that had filled the night as I fled among the sandhills. "Haere mai! Haere mai!" he wailed, making a gesture of beckoning to us, but with the palm of his hand held downwards. The other followed suit; and at the third repetition he lifted his long stick and waved it in the air; whereupon the multitude cried as with one voice, "Haere mai! Haere mai! Haere mai!"
It was more weird and impressive than I can tell; and, as it ceased, dying in the distance with a great, ghostly echo, from high up in the mountains there boomed forth that dreadful groaning sound which had frightened us in the beginning at our coming to land.
The men, lining the bulwarks, stood perfectly spell-bound; as I did also. But the orator waited evidently for some response; and, standing up in a breach of the bulwarks, Captain Blythe made him a low bow. Immediately, upon a wave of the axe, those who stood in the forefront of the crowd sank down in a crouching posture; but the two chiefs (as we took them to be) remained arrogantly standing. The wizened chief turned, and spoke a word. Almost immediately after, two or three savages set off running along the shore to a small shed, which, lying in the shadow of a great boulder, had slipped our notice. They hauled out a canoe, and returned, dragging it swiftly over the sand to the chiefs, who, when a man had taken his place to paddle, got in also.
And then, a terrible thing happened. The tall chief, who had seated himself in the stern, suddenly rose up, pointing vehemently with his stick at something in the bottom of the canoe. But, having looked upon it, the other leaped clean ashore over the side. The three savages who had brought the canoe stood ready to launch her; and, one after another, he seized them by the hair, and thrust with great blows at their temples with the point of his axe; so that they fell flat upon the sand, and lay still.
It was a most dreadful sight. Our men cried aloud at it. All together they cried, cursing and swearing. One, indeed, lifted his pistol to take aim at that murderous savage. But the Captain was on the alert; and, stepping swiftly to the man, "Don't fire!" cried he," not on your life! Do you wish to destroy us?"
The chief himself began to address the crowd, running up and down as before and brandishing his axe, venting upon them, apparently, the dregs of his spleen. Then, moving along the front, he proceeded to muster a company of twenty or thirty of them; and they marched away towards the canoe-shed, the chiefs walking on their flank beside the sea, to disappear from view beyond the great boulder, which stood at an elbow of the shore. The rest remained where they were, gazing at us, chattering among themselves, or shouting to us, smiling, gesticulating, waving staves, axes, or clubs. But they left a clear space about the canoe and the corpses.
Thus half an hour passed, while we watched, waiting for we knew not what; and now, remembering so tardily the woman who had twice intervened to save my life, I looked to see if I could spy her in the throng; but I could not. I wondered, too, what was become of the seaman who had escaped when I was taken in the wood. Suddenly, an enormous canoe, painted brigh
t red, and having a very high, carved prow, came sweeping round the promontory, driven by fully twenty paddles; and the two chiefs sat in the stern. Steering close to the shore, scarcely beyond the breaking waves, she came swiftly on, intending, evidently, to board us on the landward side; so that our men made ready to fire their pistols in case the Captain gave them the word.
He never gave them the word; for, when the canoe had brought alongside, with surprising speed and precision, and was made fast with lashings, the wizened chief arose, and climbed over upon our main deck, coming alone, with fearless dignity. His greenstone axe hung suspended from his wrist; and he held a long staff of black wood, with a big, carved head. So, he crossed the deck, stepping stately and slow, his kilt rustling, the crisp, curled strips like pipe stems. His face looked extraordinary, being completely tattooed (as those permanent devices on sailors' arms) in a grotesque and harmonious pattern of curving, spiralling lines, arching upon his high, sheer forehead, circling under his eyes, and sweeping from the nostrils of his aquiline nose down on either side of his chin, curling about his lips, and running in scrolls upon his cheeks. His white hair hung matted in a sort of mane, with two feathers stuck at the back; and from his ear there dangled the dried skin of a purple bird.
I felt horror for the savage who had perpetrated those barbarous murders; and, the men regarded him under lowering brows.
Yet, his sunken, bright, sloe-black eyes beamed and glowed with a look that I can only describe as a prodigious and animal good-humour. He advanced to the Captain, smiling upon him, for all the world, as a benevolent elder might smile upon a little child. "Haere mai!" said he, "haere mai! hoe mai! hoe mai! e te pa-ke-ha, haere mai!"
"Haere mai!" said I at a venture. The Captain turned, and looked sternly at me; but the face of the chief was wreathed in a smile that spread as a great ripple. Then, stepping to me, before ever I knew what he was going to do, he bent forward and began to rub his nose against mine.
It was an attention, needless to tell, which was very unwelcome to me; and, recoiling from him, I retreated to the bulwarks. On this, the men, who stood round, burst out laughing. But there arose in the canoe a great roaring of many threatening voices; and, gripping his axe, the chief looked fiercely and haughtily round, glaring positively like a tiger. What the upshot of it had been I know not, had not the Captain acted with that address and readiness in which he seemed never to be wanting. He immediately threw himself into an appearance of the most violent anger with me and with the men, dissembling so well as to deceive all of us, raging up and down the deck, tearing at his beard, gnashing his teeth, rolling his eyes. The astounded men quailed before him; and the chief stared at him, astonished out of his rage. And, awakened by the clamour, our moon-struck mate, Wallis, who had lain quiet until now, began, of a sudden, to rave as a dog howls at a noise. At length, stepping close up to me, the Captain said in a low, urgent voice, "Do as I bid you, lad! At once, cast yourself flat on your face before him!"
This I performed without a moment's pause; and a great shout as of approbation arose from the canoe. When, at a word from the Captain, I got to my feet, the chief was evidently appeased. He smiled again, and began to talk in his strange tongue. The Captain returned his smile, but kept shaking his head to intimate that he did not understand, and the more he did so the more eagerly talkative the chief became.
The madman, meanwhile, continued to rave; and the chief, pointing to where he lay bound under the bulwarks, evidently enquired concerning him. The Captain answered by tapping his forehead. The chief seemed to understand, for, he kept nodding. Yet, he continued to point to the maniac, and suddenly cried out wildly.
"Him mad," answered the Captain, and the chief nodded vehemently, now muttering.
"Him lunatic," said the Captain, making his last endeavour, and pointed from Wallis to the moon with an expressive gesture.
For a moment the chief looked puzzled. Then, with a cry as of great wonder, he shook his head backwards and forwards repeatedly, and, stepping to the raving maniac, stood gazing earnestly at him for a long time, every now and again looking up to the moon.
The moon was setting. As it set, Wallis grew calmer, relapsing into lethargy.
The chief signified presently, with a sweep of his long staff, that we should all go over into the canoe, and when the Captain demurred, pointing to Wallis, he stepped to the bulwarks on the landward side; then, setting his hands to his mouth trumpet-like, holloed out an order in a harsh, grating voice that might have been heard half a mile away. A number of savages immediately set off running swiftly towards the sandhills; whereupon, turning about, he crossed his hands upon his staff, let his chin sink at rest upon them, and stood as if waiting.
We waited also. The Captain, erect by the bulwarks, a pistol in one hand, the other stroking his long beard, his eyes sunken in the shadow of his knit brows, stood as a man poised betwixt thought and action. The men, also holding pistols, stood lounging about the deck, some of them smoking their pipes, discoursing in low voices as their eyes roved from the canoe to the shore, to the statuesque figure of the chief, or to the Captain. The mate, Wallis, lay quiet on his mattress. The voices of the savages came in a confused roaring as they chatted together in the canoe and on the shore.
Thus, about half an hour passed, when the party of savages appeared upon the sandhills, bearing between them a stretcher, or palanquin upon their shoulders; and, as they brought it to the shore, to set it down there, the chief turned to the Captain, and lifting his staff, pointed with it from the mate to the palanquin, and stood waving from the ship to the canoe.
Then the Captain made up his mind, and gave the command. So, having lowered the maniac into the canoe, we all climbed over into her, and were set on shore.
It was the hour before dawn then, and darkly in the waning starlight those strange savages environed us, with confused and barbarous voices, yet seemed fantastical and remote. They did not press upon us or jostle us. Nor, did they stare upon us, as our yokel English are wont to stare at strange and far-come foreigners. Their forbearing courtesy, indeed, was of a piece with the dignity of bearing remarked in the two chiefs, and, though in a lesser degree, observable in all.
We were to go on a journey inland. So much, with expressive gestures, the wizened chief gave us to understand. And, when the maniac, Wallis, had been lifted into the palanquin, we set forth, going in a body with the chiefs, and accompanied by the whole multitude, who began to be very merry, talking and laughing together. Yet, when the maniac, on a sudden, began to rave very violently (being troubled, I suppose, by his rough passage over the sandhills), they fell silent, even those on the outskirts, and a hush and tension came over them as of awe. But the bearers were ready to set their burden upon the ground were it not for the fierce, restraining presence of the wizened chief. The maniac was no less than a demon to them, and they proceeded, indeed, in great trepidation.
Having gone the distance of about three miles, first over a sandy plain, then over undulating country set with dusky clumps of bush, we approached that great, ramified mountain range which had been visible from the ship, now reared in gloom and majesty above us, and began to ascend a great fern-clad hill that rose to the level of the wooded spurs. The maniac was quiet now; and the savages chattered and laughed in the darkness, gay and tireless as a troop of holiday-makers. At last, when our men had begun to murmur for the toil of the way and for hunger (their thirst they had quenched at a stream), there appeared above us a steep terrace. A ladder depended from it, and having mounted it, we saw, about the summit of the hill, a great fence, or palisade, prodigiously high and strong, being made of the trunks of large trees whole. A shrill clamour proceeded faintly from beyond as of the voices of women and children, accompanied by the barking of dogs. Dawn was come, and the gigantic pales loomed weird and sinister in the wan light, higher pales at intervals being shaped at their tops as hideous human heads, with their tongues hanging out.
There was a ditch in the terrace, about six feet
deep, with a drawbridge over it, which we crossed, passing thence, through a narrow entry in the palisade, over a second ditch with a second palisade beyond it, through that over a third drawbridge, and thence beyond a third palisade. Whereupon we found ourselves upon a sort of village green, luridly and smokily lit with torchlights and with fires. Long, wooden houses stood clustered round it and about, having thatched, sloping roofs, which overhung very handsome porticoes, or verandahs, carved in scrolls and grotesque figures that gleamed weird and dreadful in the lurid light; while at the apex of every roof there stood a hideous mask below an image bestuck with feathers. Three or four of these houses were very large.
So much I saw vaguely, having eyes rather for the inhabitants of the place, women and children, for the most part, who came crowding about us, crying the melancholy "Haere mai!" And, an ancient woman, who sat doubled on the roof of a hut near us, was wailing it most drearily, rocking her bent body in a rhythm. The crone's voice was broken and bitter beyond tears; and I thought that doubtless, some dreadful calamity was fallen upon these people.
Yet, the younger women, at least, seemed to be dressed rather for joy than for sorrow, having garlands of flowers in their flowing dark hair. They wore very handsome, long, woven cloaks, with hanging strips, and some of them were even comely, and almost as light of skin as Europeans. But their lips and chins were blue with tattoo-marks; which put me in mind of the woman who had saved my life beside the wood. I was looking for her among them, when the throng who had accompanied us, on a sudden, made a rush forward, sweeping us along with them towards one of the great houses that stood at the farther end of the green.
But, having spoken briefly to the bearers of the maniac (directing them, I suppose, where to take him), the wizened chief drew the Captain and myself apart, and led the way to another large house. This we entered, bending singly in a very low doorway within the verandah, to find ourselves in a sort of hall, dimly illuminated by a fire, and to be confronted by the most horrid and affrighting figure that imagination of man, or of devil, could conceive.