CHAPTER VI

THE BIG NUMBERS SEE THEMSELVES ON THE SCREEN

Early on the morning of the show, we got the whaleboats to work and took all my projection machinery ashore. Soon I had everything set up, ready for the show. But when I tried out the projector to see if it was shipshape, I found that my generator was out of order. Work as I would, I could not get a light. I was blue and discouraged. I had been looking forward to this show for two years, and now, apparently, it was not going to come off. Imagine going back several hundred thousand years and showing men of the Stone Age motion-pictures of themselves. That is what I had planned to do. For the men of Malekula are in the stage of development reached by our own ancestors long before the dawn of written history. Through my pictures of them, I had carried New York audiences back into the Stone Age. Now I wanted to transport the savages into 1919—and my generator would not work.

The projector was worked by man-power. Two men on each side turned the handles attached to the machinery that should produce the magic light; but though my boys ground patiently all afternoon, not a glimmer showed. Finally, I gave up and motioned them to stop. They misunderstood me and, thinking that I wanted them to turn faster, went to work with redoubled energy. The miracle happened—the light flashed on. In my excitement, I forgot my supper.

The beach was already crowded with savages. I had thought they might be curious about my machinery. But they scarcely looked at it. They just squatted on the sands with their guns clutched tight in their hands. No women and only three or four children accompanied them. In spite of my promise of tobacco, they had not quite trusted my invitation and they were on the lookout for foul play. By dark they were restless. They had received no tobacco. They did not understand all this preparation that culminated in nothing. They wanted action.

I saw that the show must begin at once; so I tested everything once more. Since I had no idea how the pictures would be received, I stationed armed guards at each side of the screen and around the projector, at points from which they could cover the audience. Then I tried to persuade my visitors to sit in front of the projector, where they would get a good view of the screen. They were now thoroughly suspicious and would not stay where I put them. They wanted to keep an eye on me. They were so uneasy that I expected to see them disappear into the bush at any moment. But Osa saved the situation. She took Nagapate by the arm and made him sit down beside her. The rest of the savages gathered about them. Then the show began.

First, a great bright square flashed on the screen. Then came a hundred feet of titles. The attention of the natives was divided between the strange letters and the rays of white light that passed above their heads. They looked forward and up and back toward me, jabbering all the time. Then slowly, out of nothing, a familiar form took shape on the screen. It was Osa, standing with bent head. The savages were silent with amazement. Here was Osa sitting at Nagapate’s side—and there she was on the screen. The picture-Osa raised her head and winked at them. Pandemonium broke loose. “Osa—Osa—Osa—Osa,” shouted the savages. They roared with laughter and screamed like rowdy children.

I had been afraid that my guests would be frightened and bolt at the first demonstration of my “magic,” but they had been reassured by the familiar sight of Osa. Now they were ready for anything. I showed them a picture of Osa and me as we left the Astor Hotel in New York. Then I showed them the crazy thousands that had crowded New York streets on Armistice Day. I followed this picture with glimpses of Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Tokyo, and Sydney. Nagapate told me afterward that he had not known there were so many white people in all the world and asked me if the island I came from was much larger than Malekula. I showed in quick succession, steamers, racing automobiles, airplanes, elephants, ostriches, giraffes. The savages were silent; they could not comprehend these things. So I brought them nearer home, with pictures taken on Vao, Santo, and other islands of the New Hebrides.

Now it was time for the great scene. I instructed Paul in turning the crank of the projector and put Stephens and Perrole in charge of the radium flares. I myself took my stand behind my camera, which was trained on the audience. A hundred feet of titles—then Nagapate’s face appeared suddenly on the screen. A great roar of “Nagapate” went up. At that instant the radium lights flashed on, and I, at my camera, ground out the picture of the cannibals at the “movies.” True, about two thirds of the audience, terrified by the flares, made precipitately for the bush. But Nagapate and the savages around him sat pat and registered fear and amazement for my camera. In about two minutes the flares burned out. Then we coaxed back to their places the savages that had fled. I started the reel all over and ran it to the end amid an uproar that made it impossible for me to make myself heard when I wanted to speak to Osa. Practically every savage pictured on the screen was in the audience. In two years they had not changed at all, except, as Osa said, for additional layers of dirt. As each man appeared, they called out his name and laughed and shouted with joy. Among the figures that came and went on the screen was that of a man who had been dead a year. The natives were awe-struck. My magic could bring back the dead!

Midway in the performance I turned the projection handle over to Mazouyer and joined the audience. Osa was crying with excitement. And there was a lump in my own throat. We had looked forward a long time to this.

When the show was over, a great shout went up. The savages gathered into groups and discussed the performance, for all the world as people do “back home.” Then they crowded about us, demanding their pay for looking at my pictures! As I gave them their sticks of tobacco, each grunted out the same phrase—whether it meant “Fine,” or “Thank you,” or just “Good-bye,” I do not know.

While we packed our apparatus, the natives cut bamboo and made rude torches. When all were ready, they lighted their torches at the fire that burned on the beach, and then they set off in single file up the trail. We said good-bye to Perrole and Stephens, who were to sail for Santo that night, and prepared to go aboard Paul’s cutter. He had difficulty in getting his engine started, and while he worked with it, Osa and I sat on the beach, watching the torches of the Big Numbers people as they filed up hill and down dale the long eight miles to their village. The night was so dark that we could not see anything except the string of lights that wound through the black like a fiery serpent. The head disappeared over the top of the hill. Half an hour later, the tail wriggled out of sight. Then the engine kicked off.