CHAPTER VI

THE TOTEM

'They won't eat us now, will they, Mr. Grinson?' said Meek in a whisper, hopefully.

Grinson swore.

'Not after them biscuits, Mr. Grinson?' Meek persisted.

'Stow it, can't you?' growled Grinson. 'This ain't a time for jokes.'

Meek was so much astonished at being accused of joking that his jaw dropped, and he eyed the boatswain sadly. His expression turned to anguish as he listened to the low-toned conversation between Hoole and Trentham.

'We 're fairly in the cart,' said the former. 'See any way out?'

'No. We 're still alive. They might have killed us--those spears!'

'Better if they had, perhaps. Waiting is the deuce!'

'If we could only speak to them!'

'Try right now. Perhaps some of them know pidgin.'

'You boys belongina this place?' began Trentham in loud tones. 'You savvy English fella? English he like him black fella man too much, come this place look out black fella man, no fighting black fella man.'

The natives had stopped jabbering.

'You savvy all same what English fella man he say?' Trentham asked.

There was no answer. The Papuans, squatting in a line, gave an inarticulate grunt, then resumed their talk.

'No good!' said Trentham. 'They evidently haven't been to the ports. Very little chance for us with savages of the interior.'

'What are they waiting for, then? Look, that's the fellow we saw a while ago.'

The young native whom they had seen examining their tracks came out of the gloom, stood before the squatting men, and spoke to them. They stared at the four prisoners and grunted; the speaker disappeared among the trees.

'He 's left them on guard, and gone to report at headquarters,' said Trentham. 'A brief respite.'

'Till the rising of the moon, I suppose. Well, old boy, I hope it 'll be short--and both together.'

Trentham was silent. He had had many anxious moments since the Raider's first shell had flown screaming over the deck; but it was with a shock of a totally different kind that he now found himself looking with open eyes upon the imminence of death. To a man in health death is unrealisable. But he remembered those hideous figures on the beach, the pig's squeal, and he shuddered.

There was barely light enough to distinguish the savages from their surroundings; but it seemed to him, from their general appearance, that they were of the same tribe as the dancers--possibly they were the dancers themselves. In that case, baulked of one victim, they were only too likely to make the most of the four who had now fallen into their hands. It was not to be hoped that they would relax their watchfulness. Would their leader return at the rising of the moon?

Complete darkness enwrapped them. The blacks talked on endlessly, breaking at times into boisterous laughter.

'Have you tried the knots, Grinson?' Trentham asked.

'Did that first go off, sir,' replied the boatswain in doleful accents. 'I couldn't have tied 'em better myself.'

Each of the prisoners had in fact already wriggled and strained at his bonds, with total unsuccess.

They lay silent again. Presently Grinson let out a torrent of expletives with something like his old vigour. The others questioned him.

'Skeeters!' he cried furiously. 'They 're all over me, and I can't rub my nose.'

Hitherto insects had troubled them little, and the advent of mosquitoes was likely to enhance their physical discomfort.

'I guess we 're near water,' remarked Hoole; 'perhaps that stream we saw running into the bay. Have the mosquitoes bit you, Trentham?'

'Not yet.'

'Nor me. They 've taken a fancy for Grinson.'

'I 'm willing they should have a bite at me,' said Meek, 'if so be they 'd let Mr. Grinson alone.'

Grinson swore again; in his present mood Meek's devotion was only less irritating than the stabs of the insects.

A glint of moonlight stole through the trees, and revealed the faces of some of the natives--ugly faces of rusty black, daubed with red and white. The prisoners felt their heart-beats quicken. But though the moonbeams lengthened the savages made no move, nor did their leader return.

The hours dragged on. One after another the four men slumbered uneasily, waking with sudden starts and tremors, always to hear the harsh voices of their guards. Towards morning they slept heavily, and were only awakened by the touch of hands upon their legs. In the dim greenish light they saw that the savages had been rejoined by the young man who had left them in the evening, and by another native resembling him, but a good deal older, wearing a high plume of feathers. The bonds about the prisoners' legs were released; they were hauled to their feet, and the two leaders made signs that they were to march. So cramped that they could scarcely move their limbs, they followed their leaders; the Papuan guards, all armed with spears, tramping in single file behind them.

'Your poor face is all swollen, Mr. Grinson,' said Meek, with a look of commiseration.

'Shut _your_ face!' growled the boatswain ill-temperedly.

With their arms still bound firmly to their sides, the prisoners, faint with hunger, stumbled through the forest, at the heels of the two leaders, along a well-worn track. It crossed deeply wooded ravines, shallow streams; wound round steep bluffs on which no trees grew. Presently they came to a wide clearing where naked children were running about, and women were busy with cooking. At their appearance, men came scrambling down ladders from the trees beyond, exchanged a few excited words with their escort, and, shouting with delight, joined themselves to the party.

'Quite a Roman triumph,' said Hoole with a sickly smile.

'Roman?' said Trentham, roused from the listlessness into which he had fallen. 'Those fellows in front might almost be Romans, bar the colour.'

'They 're a better breed than the crowd behind. Don't look like cannibals.'

'D' ye hear that?' Meek whispered to Grinson. 'Mr. Hoole says they ain't cannibals.'

'Mr. Hoole won't be the fust,' growled the boatswain.

Meek was half a minute or so in seeing the connection between Grinson's reply and his own statement. When light dawned, he contemplated the boatswain's rotundity with mournful composure.

The procession was swelled by accretions from two more villages during the next hour. Some of the new-comers pressed close to the prisoners, now almost overcome by heat, hunger, and weariness, and discussed them excitedly. Hoole and Trentham walked on with nonchalant disregard; Meek wore a deprecating look; Grinson turned upon them a truculent countenance, disfigured by the mosquitoes' attentions.

Another hour had passed; the captives were on the verge of collapse, even Grinson's face had lost its ruddy hue, when, emerging from the forest, they found themselves in a clearing several acres in extent, divided off into plots on which crops of various kinds were growing. Beyond stood a line of neatly thatched huts, and in the distance was what appeared to be a closely built stockade. A broad road ran through the midst of the settlement. At the approach of the procession, now some sixty strong, women and children flocked from the fields and gathered, wondering spectators, on the road, and men sprang up from the ground in front of the huts, and hastened to meet the new-comers.

The elder of the two leaders turned round and shouted a few words. All but ten of the Papuans halted. The ten continued their march behind the prisoners, through a lane between two of the huts, until they arrived at a narrow gateway in the stockade. This, on nearer view, proved to be a formidable wall of pandanus trunks cemented with earth, and with an earthen parapet that bore a strange resemblance to the machicolations of a mediaeval castle.

The gate was thrown open; the two leaders, the prisoners, and their escort passed through, and the scene that met the white men's eyes filled them with astonishment. On either side stood a row of neat wooden houses with gabled roofs and long window openings. The woodwork showed crude attempts at decoration in red and white. In the centre was a larger, loftier building than the rest, also of wood, but constructed like a rough imitation of a castle keep.

Within this inner enclosure there were none but men, all of good stature, well proportioned, and with the arched nose and straight hair which the prisoners had remarked in the two leaders of the procession. In colour they were a bright bronze, contrasting forcibly with the lustreless black of the Papuan escort.

A few yards from the central building the prisoners were halted, and the young leader went forward alone, disappearing within an arched doorway. In a few minutes he returned, accompanied by a tall old man with white hair and wrinkled brow, naked like the others, except for a broader loin-cloth and a heavy gold chain, curiously wrought, about his neck.

'"The noblest Roman of them all!"' quoted Hoole, under his breath. 'Where on earth are we?'

The apprehensions of all the prisoners, were for the moment smothered by surprise and wonderment.

At the appearance of the old man in the doorway, the ten Papuans fell on one knee, like courtiers before a king. The chief gazed fixedly at the white men, appraising them one after another. A cruel smile dawned upon his face--a smile that in an instant revived in the prisoners the worst of their fears. During the march Trentham had buoyed himself with the hope that these natives of a higher type might turn out to be friendly; the hope died within him now. The chief had evidently heard all about the prisoners from the young man who had visited him during the night. He had now come to pronounce their doom.

'Rhadamanthus,' murmured Hoole. 'Try him with pidgin, Trentham. He hasn't heard our defence.'

'Chief, we English fella,' cried Trentham. 'Come this side look out black fella man; no fighting this time.'

The old man beckoned to one of the men who had come from the houses right and left, and now stood spectators of the scene. The man came forward, and after the chief had addressed a few words to him in his own tongue, he said to Trentham:

'White fella man no belongina this place. White fella man come this place, make fire houses belongina black fella man, fight black fella man all same too much; white man he belongina die.'

Trentham understood from this that he and his friends were supposed to be connected with the white men who had recently burnt the tree village and ill-treated the natives.

'We no belongina bad fella man,' he hastened to explain. 'Like you fella, no like bad fella come ship stop this place; ship no belongina me.'

The interpreter translated to the chief, who listened with a derisive air, shrugged his shoulders, and threw out his hands, and made answer:

'Chief he say all belongina gammon: you come all same place other white fella man, no look out good alonga him. He finish talk alonga you.'

'The Huns have queered our pitch,' said Trentham to Hoole, with a wry smile. 'We are at their mercy.'

'Wish I had my hands free,' said Hoole. 'What's the end to be?'

One of the Papuans, with every sign of humility, was addressing the chief. Into the old man's eyes crept the cruel smile which had already caused the prisoners to shiver. He spoke a few words; the Papuans sprang up gleefully, crowded about the white men, and jabbered with excitement. They gave scarcely a glance at Meek, who stood in his usual drooping attitude, open-eyed with fright. They stared critically at the two younger men, seemed to dispute for a few moments, then turned to Grinson and began to poke him in the ribs. The boatswain glared, cursed, kicked, only to be caught by the leg and thrown to the ground. Hoole and Trentham made a movement towards him, but were instantly seized by the natives standing by. After a vain struggle, Grinson lay inert. The Papuans hauled him to his feet, and marched him away towards the gate.

'Good-bye, Mr. Trentham; good-bye, Mr. Hoole!' he shouted. 'So long, Ephraim, me lad! The anchor's weighed. Remember me.'

Pale to the lips, the three others watched the chief as he followed the indomitable seaman with his eyes. When the gate was shut he turned to the young native who had first discovered the white men, and spoke to him, using, as it appeared to Trentham, a dialect differing somewhat from that in which he had addressed the Papuan and the interpreter. Now and then it had a nasal quality that reminded Trentham of French, and presently he caught a word or two that sounded like debased forms of French words he knew.

A drowning man will catch at a straw, and Trentham, incredible though it appeared that the natives hereabout should be familiar with French, as a last hope determined to try the effect of a word or two in that language.

'_Monsieur parle francais?_' he said, using the first phrase that occurred to him, and anxiously watching the chief.

Both the old man and the young looked at him with astonishment.

'_Monsieur parle francais?_' he repeated.

'_Oui, flancais,_' said the chief, and went on speaking in a gibberish which, though it had a French intonation, was utterly incomprehensible to Trentham.

'_Nous sommes amis des Francais,_' he said.

'_Oui, amis,_' echoed the chief, and talked on. Then, apparently seeing that Trentham was bewildered, he called up the interpreter, and spoke to him in the Papuan dialect he had formerly used.

'Chief he say you savvy him talk, say you come this place belongina ship. What for come this place?'

Trentham almost despaired of finding his resources of pidgin English suffice to explain the situation of himself and his companions. But conscious how much depended on him, he did his best.

'Me belongina English ship; bad fella belongina another ship, he fighting me, no more ship. He no like white fella man; come fight this time black fella belongina all place. English fella man like Flansai fella, no like Toitsche fella--you savvy all same?'

He clenched his fist, and shook it in the direction where he supposed the Raider to lie. The explanation, translated, seemed to excite the chief, who turned to his young compatriot and entered into an animated discussion with him.

While they were still talking, the gate in the wall was once more thrown open, and to the white men's utter amazement, Grinson marched in at the head of a procession of his captors. His arms were unbound, his face was wreathed in smiles, his body was bare to the waist.

'Ahoy, messmates!' he cried at the top of his voice, rather hoarsely. 'Beg pardon, young gents, but I mean to say--oh, cripes! Ephraim, me lad, I never thought I 'd see you again, 'cept as a ghost. Am I drunk? No, but I 'm darned merry, which I mean to say--I say, old cock,' turning to a Papuan, 'get me a drink--get us all a drink, and we 'll drink your health and say no more about it.' He raised his arm, and kissed a spot just below his shoulder. 'Kiss it too, ugly mug! Come on, all you lubbers, kiss it, or I 'll never love you no more!'

And to his friends' amazement the Papuans came to him one by one, and reverently kissed the spot, Grinson beaming on them.

'That's right! It tickles, and I don't like your ugly nose bones, but you 've good 'earts. No, you don't--once is enough,' he cried to a man who offered the salute a second time.

'"When I was young and had no sense!"--no, blamed if it wasn't the most sensiblest thing ever I did, and that's saying something.' He had now come up to his amazed companions. 'There it is--that's what done it. "A sweet little cherub what sits up aloft,"--beg pardon, sir, I feels like singing all the time. That's what done it!' He displayed his arm, on which was the blue tattooed effigy of a bird of paradise. 'They peeled off my shirt, and there was I looking for 'em to plunge the knife into my bare bussum, when dash me if they didn't start back with horror like as if I 'd the smallpox--and me vaccinated, too, twice, on this very arm. 'Twas the bird what done it, like the strawberry mark what proved to the Marchioness of Mayfair that the dustman was her long-lost son and heir, stole from his cradle by the lady's maid she 'd sacked for swilling of her eau de colony. The ugly mugs take me for a long-lost brother, and dash me if I ain't the best-looking of the family, Ephraim, me lad.'

While the hilarious mariner was reeling off his yarn, the Papuans had explained to the chief that, having discovered on his arm the image of the totem of their tribe, they had brought him back, to exchange him for one of the other prisoners, unless they too should prove to be sacrosanct. To their intense discontent, the chief had refused to allow them even to examine the arms of the three men; and while Trentham and his companions were still digesting the astounding story told by Grinson, the crestfallen savages stole out of the gate in sullen ill-humour.