by OMNICAdmin
Adventure, 2nd September, 1917
ROUCHED miserably in the long
she was fleeing.
grass, Kalputa, the Melanesian
On the outer edge of the canefields
C woman, loosened her blue wrapper and but a short distance above the surf-at the throat and removed it carefully back beaten beach she saw the trading station. It over her shoulder. The blood had stopped
was a tiny bungalow with stilty legs and a
running from the deep wound above the
low white oblong roof. Through the paw-
armpit, and her shoulder was beginning to
paw trees behind the station she saw the
swell.
long-legged houses of the Fijians, and the
Hurriedly she broke leaves from the
villagers moving about their daily tasks.
yellow bush beside her, squeezed them into
When she again turned her eyes to
a thick pad and laid it on the wound, tying the trading station, Kalputa saw Captain
it with long strips of cloth torn from the
Barker, the only American trader on Flenga
hem of her skirt. Then she let her young
Island, crash across the palm-thatched
head fall on her knees, moaning in a cold,
veranda and around to the grove of paw-
frightened way.
paw trees, brandishing a long knife. He was Her big melancholy eyes did not
over six feet, and wide across the chest.
look at the sun as it rose over the tall green Kalputa knew that he was looking for her,
coconut -palms above the beach nor at .the
and she sprang to her feet and fled toward
smoke which curled thin and blue from
the gray-green forest on the far end of the under the deep thatched roofs beyond the
island.
canefields; but she went on moaning and
Because of the pain in her shoulder
wailing, her voice full of terror. It was not she had found the way difficult the minute
until the bronze sea-hawks, hovering and
she left the station. Many times during the veering above the calm blue sea in front of long chill-hour that comes just before dawn her, noisily resumed their fishing that she she had crouched among the thick tufts of
lifted her head and looked back at the place cane-grass or beneath a yam bush, her head
Adventure
2
falling on her knees, too full of-pain to go drinking, and immediately he broke into a
on.
paroxysm of rage, striking her in the face
Always, as she crouched in a small
with his iron-hard fist. Then all her love for blue heap, a vague sort of fear came over
him went out like a candle in the wind.
her. For she could not help wondering what
After that life in the trading station
her people, to whom she was fleeing, changed.. More than once Kalputa thought would say and do to her when she told
of running away—of going back either to
them that after enduring Captain Barker’s
the mission house at Suva, where she had
abuse for two years she had at last revolted studied for seven months, or to her people
and run away.
who lived in the village around by the
Of all the people in her home forest. But she had endured Captain Barker village she feared most Old Lu the sorcerer.
until the night before.
It was he who, for five sticks of traders’
When he insisted upon her drinking
tobacco, had brought about her marriage
French rum with him, she said that rum
with Captain Barker the day the captain
made her sick and she wanted no more of
walked down the white coral gravel of the
it. Then he grew ugly and, in the struggle
village street, looking for a wife. Never did that followed, slashed her above the armpit a Flenga Island woman revolt and run away
with His Canario knife. She lay on the floor when a white man abused her; always she
in the store-room until just before dawn.
submitted to her fate and said nothing. But And now, no matter what the
not so with Kalputa.
consequences might be, she would not go
At one time she had been happy
back to him—not even if he came after her.
with Captain Barker. That was after he had
She was positive of that.
sold his schooner and stocked a trading
The hush of noon was on all the
station on the island, with her as his wife village when Kalputa limped into the main
and go-between or agent among the street which lay beneath the burning sun natives.
like a wide river of white fire. On the edge She watched the business grow in
of the village she stopped in front of a
its fair way; wore blood-red hibiscus thatched-roof house built high in the air on blossoms in her black hair, and a pearl-long thin piles and looked about her.
shell necklace to delight him; and gleefully It was the lonely hour; of Flenga
clapped her tiny bronze hands when, at
Island. There was not a sign of life. The
night on the veranda in the silver villagers were either asleep in their brown moonlight, he talked of taking her to houses or at rest in the shade of the forest.
Sydney some time and from there up to the
In the giant coconut-palms on either side of States “to show her the world.”
the street the leaves hung motionless. The
Her man-child came toward the end
native dogs slept in the dark shadows
of that period. He lived only four weeks.
beneath the house; and the tame parrots and They buried the thin little brown baby in
cockatoos had ceased their screaming in the the grove of paw-paw trees in the rear of
windows and disappeared to drowse under
the station.
the eaves.
One night before the rainy season
No sounds came from the forest,
set in, Captain Barker came through the
while beneath the implacable sky the sea
lone grove and found Kalputa there, crying
dazzled like a mirror. And in the tall white in the blue-gray twilight. He had been sails of the three schooners lying far out in
The Hurricane
3
the lagoon there was not a breath of wind.
doorway and saw hanging above the arch a
tightly netted white string bag. It was half AS KALPUTA turned to the verandaless
full and almost bursting. Her brown, bosom
house of her people, her face was all eyes
heaving, she crawled across the floor and
and fear. She entered the glaring sandy
looked at the bag scrutinizingly. She
yard and stopped at the foot of the bamboo
touched it lightly with the tip of her tiny ladder which reached to the low doorway
finger. Instantly something leaped in the
of the house.
bag, violently twisting itself over and over.
The next instant, afraid of what her
Kalputa’s eyes rounded with horror, and
people might say and do to her, she moved
she sucked her lips against her teeth.
away, then stopped suddenly a
s she saw
She dragged herself back to the
almost at the end of the street one house
wall. With her face pressed in her thin
that was higher than any of the others.
arms, she lay on the floor, sobbing
Above its door were carved birds and piteously and shivering in every limb, like sharks, and on the very top of the roof was a fallen palm-leaf. She knew now that she
a skull whiter than the belly of a fish.
was doomed—that, try as hard as she
Kalputa knew that this was the might, she could not run away from the house in which Old Lu the sorcerer lived,
“touch of death” in the bag as she had from and it frightened her so, that she hastily
Captain Barker. For the bag was a
turned back to the house of her people. She sorcerer’s, and there was in the village but climbed the ladder and crawled in through
one person to whom it belonged.
the low doorway.
Kalputa wished that she had hidden
There was light enough in the house
in the canefields or among the mangrove
for Kalputa to look about her. At the first trees on the edge of the swamp until night.
glance she saw that her people were not
Then she could have crept down to the jetty there. As she crawled across the flimsy
and paddled across the lagoon to one of the flooring of palm-sheath and sat with her
trading schooners. She knew that she
slender back to the wall, she told herself would not have found it difficult to hide
that they were, in all probability, at rest among the copra and the bundles of sugar-with the other villagers in the cool shade of cane until the schooner reached Suva.
the forest. She turned the pad on the wound Presently she began to wonder if
above the armpit. Then she looked slowly
she could run away from the “touch of
about the lonely room.
death” in the bag. Maybe she had been
The place was high and almost wrong in thinking that she could not, she empty. Behind her was a window partly
told herself. The next moment she asked a
covered with overhanging thatch, through
question: Why couldn’t some sort of harm
which a soft light filtered. There was also a befall the “touch of death” and the one to
window beside the door. On the floor lay
whom it belonged?
mats and big wooden sleeping pillows, and
But she remembered with a start
on the walls hung war spears and shields of that when noon came with its scorching
a faraway time. A white cockatoo, looking
white heat Old Lu the sorcerer carefully
ghostly in the dim light, drowsed on a
hung the charm-bag in the house he was
beam above Kalputa.
nearest and went to bathe in the tar-black
Kalputa fastened her eyes on it for a
bottomless pool in the forest. She felt that minute or more, then lowered them to the
Old Lu would be returning for the bag at
Adventure
4
any minute.
Kalputa
screamed.
As she crawled to her feet and
“Ooo!” exclaimed Old Lu the
parted the overhanging thatch on the sorcerer, snatching up the reptile and window, Kalputa heard the island waken
dropping, it into the bag. “Ooo! Ooo!”
from its midday nap. On the edge of the
He turned his black sparks of eyes
forest a cockatoo screeched, screeched, and saw Kalputa crouching fearfully screeched. The men, women and little beneath the window. He recognized her children returning from the bush chattered
immediately and broke into an ugly grin.
in a faint chorus. A dog stirring out from
“Kalputa ’ere?” he asked in pidgin
shelter somewhere down the village street
English, his voice growing loud and brassy.
barked. The leaves in the palm-tree heads
“What Kalputa wantum? Cap’n Barker
rustled dryly. And....
’ere?”
Kalputa heard a sound different
He frowned at her from under his
from all the others. It made her drop to her sullen brow and slipped a clawful of betel-hands and knees, afraid and shivering all
nut into his frog-mouth.
over. Some one was scuttling up the ladder.
Kalputa made no answer, but
The next second Old Lu the watched Old Lu spit big mouthfuls of gory sorcerer bolted in through the low door,
juice at a crack in the floor. Then she
like a rat. He was a small wiry old man
lowered her eyes to the charm-bag and saw
with skin as brown and tough as leather
a way of procuring his help.
and all shining with coconut-oil. His mouth
“Kalputa go Suva tonight,” she
was long and deep like a frog’s and his
said, as she stared into the face of the
sparse black hair was twisted into a mat on sorcerer, rapidly constructing her daring
the very top of his head. Except for a
scheme. “Capt’in Barker him have things at
scarlet loin-cloth, he wore no clothes. Suva. Him ’fraid boat capt’in no come bac’
Crushed tightly in one long black-nailed
wi’ things. Him say Kalputa, ‘Kalputay go
claw was some betel-nut he had brought
Suva tonight. Bling bac’ flenty things.’
from the forest.
Him say things to bling.
Kalputa, trembling with fear,
“Then him say, ‘Kalputa, find Old
watched him reach for the charm-bag. He
Lu. Him give Kalputa two charm-stone out
squatted on a mat and opened the bag,
bag. Maybe all time water big an’ boat turn tumbling the contents on to the floor.
down. Maybe shark behin’ boat when boat
Instantly the “touch of death” turn down. Shark him eat Kalputa. Boat no sprang almost to the ceiling and buried its turn down when Kalputa have two charm-mouth hungrily in the white breast of the
stone.’”
sleeping cockatoo. The bird gave a wild
She watched Old Lu cram another
screech and fluttered dizzily in a circle.
chew of betel-nut into his cheek, and heard Then it fell to the floor, breathing through him rattle the stones in the bag.
its bill. In another minute it was dead.
“Old Lu savvy? Two stone!”
With white jaws open, the “touch of
Kalputa was certain that she would succeed
death” came down among the quartz in getting the charm-stones. “Capt’n Barker crystals, bits of carved wood, lizards’ tails him give Old Lu flerity salt an’ tobac’o.
and odd-shaped stones; then leaped again.
Savvy? Two stone, flenty salt an’ tobac’o!”
It was a thick black snake with yellow
For a minute or more Old Lu did
rings extending half-way up its back.
not reply. He remembered painfully that
The Hurricane
5
while trying one morning at the station to
His shirt and wrinkled white ducks
get two more handfuls of salt before he
were covered with dust, and his leather-
would enter into a certain deal Captain tanned face was perspiring. As he looked Barker had kicked him off the veranda.
angrily first at the house and then at the
He was more than doubtful about
forest behind the village, his eyes
glittered the proposition now before him, and like polished dark blue marbles.
wanted to say “No savvee,” but the thought
His arms were not folded across his
of salt and tobacco was too good to wide chest as was his habit of standing relinquish from his mind for even a minute, when talking to any one, but they hung at
especially when Captain Barker’s wife the sides of his huge body, their heavy fists assured him that they were his for two
doubled to strike Old Lu at any instant. He charm-stones.
looked menacingly at the sorcerer, his
“Old Lu sawee,” he said at last,
lower lip dropping until it exposed teeth as working two small white stones out of the
white as a dog’s.
bag. Then he scuttled across the floor.
Kalputa saw Old Lu gesticulating
“Two stone, flenty salt an’ wildly. He waved his hands in a queer sort tobac’o!”
of a way and pointed momentarily to the
With a piece of burned wood he
farther end of the forest. His voice was
drew a dark circle on the floor, and laid the loud enough for Kalputa to hear it.
stones in the center of it. He crawled to the
“Kalputa no com’ ’ere in mornin’.
opposite side of the circle, whispering Kalputa go ’way to forest.” Old Lu moved mysteriously in Melanesian. Then he to one side of the street. “Old Lu savvee erased the circle, picked up the stones he
place Kalputa hide in forest. Cap’n Barker, had charmed and turned to hand them to
give Old Lu ten stick tobac’o an’ flenty
Kalputa who had watched the weird salt. Then Old Lu show Cap’n Barker place performance, breathlessly.
Kalputa hide.”
Kalputa listened for Captain
SUDDENLY his face grew very dark, and
Barker’s reply. It was a quick glance at the he shot such a look of hate at Kalputa that houses on either side of the street, she saw.
she drew into the corner and crouched very