The White Witch of the South Seas gs-11

by Dennis Wheatley

  Kalabo came in and made smiling obeisance. He was a huge man, as tall as and much broader than his Ratu, with a pouffe of black hair that must have measured close on eighteen inches from side to side. James spoke rapidly to him in the sing song native tongue, then told Gregory:

  `I have ordered him to send four of my men to guard the

  Frenchmen and give them food. It will be quite unnecessary to remove them from the hangar, at least until our next weekly aircraft is due in, and that will not be for the next three days. Kalabo will also send his aunt down to the telegraph office. She is the mother of the operator there and, should a message come in from General Ribaud, we shall know its contents long before it reaches the Resident:

  Gregory did not even think of questioning the decision to leave the two Frenchmen in the hangar. Since they had arrived at the bure, James seemed to have become a different person. Although he was still in the travel stained Western suit that he had worn for over two months, he had acquired an air of immense dignity. Even his movements and the tone of his voice had altered. About him there was an aura of complete self assurance and unchallengeable authority.

  In a bedroom bure to which another servant shortly afterwards conducted Gregory he found laid out for him a set of native clothes, and, in the adjacent bathroom, a safety razor, clean hairbrushes and everything else he might need. He lay for a long time in a tepid bath, then dressed. The colourful shirt, evidently one of James', was much too large for him; but the sulu, a form of kilt, was easily adjustable.

  Having had to make do for many weeks on monotonous prison fare, they tremendously enjoyed an enormous breakfast. While they ate, James told Gregory that, at least concerning the gold, their luck was in. Contrary to expectations, despite their having been out of action for two months, no attempt to salvage it had so far been made. Through his servants James had obtained the following information.

  The professional diver Hamie Baker, who had been engaged by Gregory in Fiji, had arrived with his salvaging apparatus in the second week of February. He had put up at the Bonne Cuisine, a guest house down on the harbour, and had remained there ever since, evidently awaiting instructions. Another professional diver, named Philip Macauta, bringing salvaging equipment from Tahiti, had arrived shortly after Baker and had also taken a room at the Bonne Cuisine.

  But his employer, Lacost, and the other Colons had not put in an appearance until nine days previously. They had turned up in a battered seagoing launch named the Pigalle and, according to the island grapevine, one of them had let it out, during a drunken evening ashore, that Lacost and one of the others had only recently completed a two month prison sentence after having been caught smuggling drugs from Mexico into Tahiti. Soon after their arrival they had taken their launch and equipment out to the sunken Maria Ameba; but, having no licence, they had been warned off by the Resident and his Sergeant of gendarmes.

  Lacost had defied them and refused to leave the site. The following day, de Carvalho had arrived in the Boa Viagem. He had brought no salvaging equipment with him, but had gone out to view the wreck. Both parties had then returned to harbour and two days ago both had sailed, it was thought, for Fiji.

  In the light of the scanty information available, to find an explanation for these movements was not possible. It might be that Lacost, having sent his diver Macauta down to the wreck, had found there was no quantity of gold in her, after all. But if so why had he defied the Resident's order to leave the site, yet left after de Carvalho had gone out to it? Again, why, although the Colons had sailed from Revika in the

  Pigalle two days before, had they left Macauta and their salvaging equipment behind? And, biggest question of all, why should Lacost and de Carvalho have lingered in Revika for several days, then sailed on the same day for Fiji?

  Only one thing was clear. If there was treasure in the wreck, it was still there; so, if James chose to ignore the fact that he had no licence, his rivals had left him a free field to send divers down right away to get it, provided Ribaud took no steps against him in the next few days. And James had made it clear that, regarding himself as the rightful owner of the gold, that was what he meant to do.

  When they had finished their meal Gregory said, `First things first. For the time being we must forget the gold and try to stave off Ribaud. While I was in my bath I did some pretty hard thinking, and if you'll give me a pencil and paper I'll draft a telegram I want to get off to him.'

  From a fine old walnut Dutch bureau James produced

  Gregory's requirements. After writing for a few minutes Gregory picked up the paper and read out

  `Your two compatriots deprived of clothes by natives here. Suggest you send replacements by air. Am arranging agreed transfer of money to Credit Lyonnaise 44 Boulevard St. Germain. Do you wish Charles Lorraine be informed of transaction? Expect reply by 1800 hours. Dantès.'

  James gave him a puzzled look. `I can't make head nor tail of it.'

  `I'll interpret,' Gregory grinned. `The two compatriots are, of course, Fournier and Joubert. You, anyhow, are a native of this island and that's good enough. Ribaud is an old Secret Service hand and so am I. When such types get hold of an enemy, and have no means of handing him over to someone else who will keep him for a while from becoming dangerous, it is common practice to take away his clothes and shoes. Then, even if he does break out from wherever he had been locked up, it is difficult for him get very far or persuade anyone he happens to meet that he is not a lunatic. Ribaud knows that one as well as I do, so he'll jump to it that you and I debagged his two boys and left them to cool their heels in the nude.

  `Having done that, it's obvious that at any time it suited us we could give them back their clothes. So “replacements” does not mean other sets of uniforms for them, but that Ribaud should send us our belongings. He'll get that one, too.

  'Then there is the transfer of money. As I told you, I did not actually blackmail Ribaud; but when he had agreed to arrange our escape I offered to send quite a substantial sum of money to his bank in Paris. He accepted and gave me the address of his bank. It would have been round about four thousand pounds, but I felt that he would have earned it if he rigged matters with his police and had flown us to Tujoa.

  `As things turned out, we've got to hand it to him as a conscientious servant of the French Republic. To make certain that we did not blow the gaff about the Russians and their rockets on Yuloga he attempted to send us back there, and leave it to them to see to it that we had no chance to talk. And he knew that little gesture would cost him the four thousand he might have pocketed if he had really connived at our escape.

  `But now I am blackmailing him good, hard and proper. Only Fournier and Joubert believe us to be criminals and knew that he meant to give us back to the Russians. The other boys, all the police, obviously believed that they had been given the job of ensuring that we should escape because we were members of the Deuxième Bureau who had got ourselves into a fix. '

  `If there is an investigation and they are questioned, having no axe to grind they will tell what they believe to be the truth and say that they were simply obeying the General's orders.

  `If I send four thousand pounds to Ribaud', bank in Paris ' nobody will be able to contest the fact that he has received a large sum of money from me. And in certain circumstances somebody might require him to explain why I did so. In this telegram I have asked my old pal if he wishes Charles Lorraine to be informed of this transaction. Charles, of course, is General de Gaulle. You will remember that he took the double cross of Lorraine as his symbol for the Free French. Ribaud will pick that one up as swiftly, as I would drop a red hot coal.

  `So, you see, he will be faced with a choice. Either he lets sleeping dogs lie and refrains for good from any attempt to have you and me arrested, or he will be called on to explain why he instructed his police to arrange our escape, and accepted a big bribe for doing so. I've given him until six o'clock this evening to make up his mind. Now, whether he gives in or, more maddened th
an ever by my threat, decides to go all out to get us, lies in the lap of the gods.'

  13

  Enter the White Witch

  `He must give in; he must!' James cried, as Gregory sat back. `He'll be ruined if he doesn't. But why are you signing the telegram “Dantès”?'

  `Oh, that's because I can't use my own name. You and I have become notorious in Noumea; so, if I did, everyone there through whose hands the message passed would know that we are in Tujoa. Then, like it or not, Ribaud would be forced to do his utmost to recapture us. Dantès was the hero of Dumas Pere's famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo. He was imprisoned on an island, in the Chateau d'If, and his getting away from it is the best known escape story in all French literature. The name is by no means an uncommon one, so it won't ring a bell with anyone on Ribaud's staff, but it will with him.'

  The young Ratu's eyes showed schoolboy hero worship. `What a man you are!' he exclaimed after a moment. `No wonder you succeeded in fooling Himmler and the Gestapo all through the war. This is absolutely brilliant. The telegram gives nothing away to anyone who may read it. But to Ribaud its meaning will be as clear as crystal. He's got to let me go or be dismissed with ignominy as a corrupt official.'

  `I hope you are right,' Gregory replied soberly. `But we can't count our chickens yet. Ribaud is both a tough egg and an honest man. He may decide to face the music. You see, he just might get himself in the clear if he told the truth and brought Fournier and Joubert to witness that all the time his real intentions had been to return us to the Russians.'

  `Even then it would be difficult to laugh off that big bribe.'

  `Yes. It's that on which I am counting. So I want to send another telegram, when we send this, to my bank in New York. It will be an instruction, verified by a code word that only they and I know, to pay that four thousand into Ribaud's bank with the least possible delay, and to inform him by highest priority cable that it has been paid in.'

  `Then you really mean to send the money?'

  `Certainly. When he learns that it has actually been paid in that may prove the deciding factor.'

  `It is a lot of money. And you are in no great danger, so you are really paying it out to save me. I must try to pay you back later on.'

  `You'll do nothing of the sort,' Gregory replied sharply. `It is my good fortune that my splendid old patron looked on me as a son and left me the greater part of his millions. The greatest pleasure money can bring is to be able to give help and pleasure to those one loves. And, dear James, I've become quite fond of you. In fact, I'd have liked to have you for a son. But for God's sake don't count on this. Ribaud is as clever as I am. Perhaps cleverer. He may pull a fast one on us yet. To know where we stand we'll have to wait until maybe nearly six o'clock.'

  Pausing for a moment, Gregory yawned, then he went on, `We must get those two telegrams off at once, and hope that the one to Ribaud will reach him before he has committed himself in any way such as sending a signal to your Resident here to have us arrested. Now I'm for bed. The past twelve hours would have proved a pretty severe strain on any chap of my age. And I'm no exception.'

  James shook his head. `I'm sorry; terribly sorry. But I must ask you to stick it out for another few hours. Now that I have returned to Tujoa, I cannot possibly avoid the official ceremony of welcome. It is timed for eleven o'clock. My Council of Elders will assemble in our Meeting House to renew their homage. The fact that you have arrived here with me as my guest cannot possibly be disguised. They will wish to welcome you, too, and to refuse their formal welcome would be looked on as terribly discourteous. Please Father, if I may call you so, do not refuse me in this.'

  Gregory smiled wryly. `To have to stay up when they want to go to bed is the sort of price Princes must pay for being Princes. Of course I understand, my son. And I am entirely at your disposal. I'll go to my room now, and anyhow snatch an hour or two of sleep. Have me called a quarter of an hour before we have to start, and I shall be honoured to attend you.'

  At a quarter to eleven Gregory rejoined James in the main bure. The young Ratu was now wearing his ceremonial robes. Except for a collar of thin ivory tusks, he was naked to the waist, round which was bound an elaborately patterned sash of tape cloth. Over his sulu there were concertina like strips of brightly coloured material, from his upper arms there hung a long cloak, and round his ankles there were fringes of coconut fibre; his feet were bare.

  Gregory was congratulating him on his striking appearance when another man joined them. He was about thirty, as tall as James, with a splendid figure and noble features. When he had made his obeisance James introduced them. `This is Aleamotu'a, my friend and herald; and this is Mr. Sallust, with whom my heart is one, for he has brought me safely through many perils.'

  From that of a subservient courtier, Aleamotu'a's manner changed at once to that of an equal. Smiling, he shook Gregory firmly by the hand and said in excellent English, 'I am happy to meet you, Mr. Sallust. That you have served my Prince so well places every Nakapoan in your debt. And should the occasion arise I claim the right to be the first to honour that obligation.'

  Gregory returned his smile. `The Ratu makes too much of what I have done, and he omits to tell you that he has twice saved my life; so it is I who am the debtor.'

  Leaving the bure, they walked down through the garden until they reached another plateau situated just above the town. In the centre stood the Meeting House, a large, open sided, palm thatched building. On both sides of the approach to it several hundred Tujoans were seated: the men in front, the women behind, all completely silent. Holding himself very erect and with a firm step, James strode forward, his hands clasped behind his back. Gregory and Aleamotu'a dropped to the rear. As though at a given signal the whole crowd suddenly gave voice, beginning with a low murmur and rising to a fierce, tremendous shout. It was the tams greeting, given only as a sign of allegiance to Paramount Chiefs.

  Inside the Meeting House the Council of Elders were seated cross legged round the walls. At the far end two chairs had been placed for James and Gregory. When they ' entered the house the Elders broke into a low chant of welcome; then, as the newcomers took their seats, silence fell and the men who were to play the principal parts in the ceremony came forward to make obeisance.

  The ceremony began with the presentation of three whale teeth, each by a different official, who made a short speech. On accepting the teeth, James handed them to Aleamotu'a, who was standing beside him. There followed the preparations for the age old communion rite. This was the same as that which Gregory had witnessed while staying with Manon on her island, but more elaborate. The taps mats that carpeted the floor were removed from a space in front of the Ratu and in the clearing the tanoa bowl with its attached string of cowrie shells in which the yaggona drink was to be mixed, set down. In the bowl was already heaped the powdered root and on it lay a bundle of hibiscus fibre for straining the liquid. Behind the man who was to mix the drink crouched a row of others, clad in grass skirts and with blackened faces, who were to act as° cup bearers. Two warriors then appeared, carrying over their shoulders long, thick tubes of bamboo. At a sign from the yaggona maker they removed plugs from the top of the bamboos, tipped them up and poured into the bowl two streams of clear water. With intense concentration the mixer went to work, dipping and raising his hands rhythmically. There came a single wailing cry, then all the Elders joined in a melancholy chant punctuated by perfectly timed hand clapping…

  Impressed as Gregory was with the solemnity of the ritual, half his mind was given to wondering how Ribaud would react to the `Dantès' telegram. Yet as he glanced about him he felt sure that no one else present was giving a single thought o anything ether than the mystic yaggona mixing.

  Despite the danger in which James still stood, it appeared quite certain that he was not. With grave attention his gaze was fixed on the bowl and his handsome face had taken on a spiritual quality. Clearly he was completely at peace, his Body unmoving but relaxed, his mind elevated above al
l mundane matters. The Elders too, intensely dignified, although many of them were wearing worn European jackets only partially hidden by the leis of sweet scented leaves pound their necks, sat utterly still, their eyes riveted on the reparation of the sacred brew.

  At length the mixing was completed. The bundle of hibiscus fibre was thrown aside, the chanting stopped, a silence fell, unbroken even by the rustle of a grass skirt. The premier cup bearer came forward and received with both hands the first coconut half shell of yaggona. Approaching the Ratu, he held the cup with arms fully extended and lowered `his body until his knees were doubled under him. The low chant began again. The man poured the drink into James' own beautifully ornamented cup, then squatted before him. Lifting the cup, James drained it in one gulp, then threw it back towards the yaggona bowl. 'Matha! Matha!' shouted the assembly, clapping their cupped hands throe times in rhythm.

  The Ratu was offered, and accepted, a second cup. James received his portion next, then Aleamotu'a and afterwards, in order of rank, everyone else in the assembly. As each draught went down, everyone clapped three times, then the drinker clapped three times in response.

  The atmosphere of tension continued until the last cupful had been drained, then a change took place. Everyone continued to behave with decorum, but became at ease as, with. obvious appreciation of good things to come, they watched the food for the feast being carried in. There were roast sucking pigs, yams and breadfruit, two turtles and scores of chickens, baskets of mangoes, pawpaws, big tangerines and other fruit. A wizened Elder made a speech apologising for the poorness of the fare, to which Aleamotu'a replied on the Ratu's behalf praising its quality and abundance.

  It would have been against protocol for the Ratu to remain. A generous portion of the best food was set aside to be taken up to his bure. Walking slowly and with great dignity between the rows of kneeling Elders, he took his departure, followed by Gregory and Aleamotu'a.