Part 9

Why should these thoughts come to me now? I asked myself, uneasily. Could that villainous-looking giant below have had anything to do with the disappearances? Lying prone, I peered cautiously through the trap, striving to see what was going on below. Indistinctly I saw the big man fill his tin cup three times and drain it off, muttering the while. Then, struck by a sudden inspiration, I went back to the bed, pulled off my coats, and heaped them up in a bundle on the bed to resemble as much as possible a sleeping form. Next I took off my boots and hat and placed them also in such a position, partly covered with the blankets, as to suggest the idea that, worn out with fatigue, I had thrown myself down to sleep fully clothed. Then I blew out the light and, keeping the bottle in my hand, crept again to the opening by the ladder head.

What I saw made my blood, which was chilly already, go colder yet.

The big man was taking off his overcoat. He threw it to the floor, and from his waist detached a belt from which dangled a heavy revolver and a long bowie-knife. The latter he drew from its sheath, running his thumb caressingly along the edge; then he laid it on the table.

Crossing the room he returned with an iron bar about three feet long. I heard it ring as he dumped it down on the table near the knife.

Then, tossing off more whisky--this time from the demi-john--he snatched up the bar and lantern and unsteadily approached the ladder. So my half-formed suspicions were correct; he meant to murder me!

With my heart beating like a sledge-hammer, I silently crouched behind the bed.

Never, if I live to be a hundred, shall I forget the next few minutes. He emerged through the opening, tiptoed to the bed, swung up the bar, and with a dull thwack brought it down just where my head might have lain. Again and yet again he thrashed and beat the tumbled clothes. Then, as he paused, from my place of concealment I squirted the whisky from the syringe straight into his eyes. Dropping the bar, he staggered and rubbed at his eyes, swearing horribly. As he reeled, half blinded, I sprang up and brought the bottle down with all my strength on his head, at the same time giving him a sideways push that sent him crashing through the opening to the floor below.

I was trembling in every limb with excitement, but I managed to get my boots, hat, and coats on.

Then I cautiously descended. I had no doubt that the fall had killed him, but I felt no pity; it was either his life or mine. Greatly to my surprise, however, the giant was still breathing. He lay huddled up at the ladder-foot, with blood on and about him. I tied his hands with a rope, and then, turning him on his chest, cut away the back part of his flannel shirt collar with his own villainous bowie-knife. Next, taking the small phial of vitriol from my case, I spilt a few drops on the back of his bare neck. The awful burning partly restored his senses, and he moaned. I had no compunction, but proceeded to tear the visored cap from his head.

I have never seen such a fiendish face in all my wanderings! The lower part was covered with a thick jet-black beard and moustache, but the face, taken altogether, was that of a murderer--the most horrible, wolfish-looking visage I have ever gazed on. Like a cornered wolf, even as he slowly revived he struggled and snapped to break the cords that bound him, cursing savagely in his semi-drunken frenzy.

Many a man would have shot him out of hand with his own weapon; but I could not bring myself to that. I had left an indelible mark on him, however, that he would carry with him to the grave, and should we ever meet again there could be no disguising those awful eyes and his enormous proportions. But, unless I killed or disabled him, it was obviously unsafe to remain in the cabin. The storm had now ceased, so taking the villain’s revolver, and leaving him struggling to unfasten his bonds, I set out to try to find my way to the Fort, hoping against hope that I should soon sight some familiar landmark.

How long I blundered over the snow before I lost consciousness I do not know, but I remember it flashed upon me once that this was the dawn of Christmas Eve! Then I felt myself getting drowsier and drowsier.

When I recovered my senses it had to be explained to me how I came to be in bed back at my old quarters at Fort Hayes, minus two toes, which I had bequeathed to “Jack Frost” during my stroll over the snow-clad prairies.

A merciful Providence and three friendly Utes had found me and brought me in. If it had not been for Black Cloud, one of the three Indians, and a pretty big chief in his way, this story would never have been told. He was the means of saving my life, and I thankfully presented him with the big revolver I had taken from the rascal at the hut.

Guided by Black Cloud, some of the boys and scouts a few days later located the spot where the Indians had found me unconscious, slowly freezing to death. From there they hunted in all directions, and at last found the two-storeyed hut--empty.

It was miles from the way I ought to have taken when I left the trapper’s shack, which showed that trying to guide my poor old horse was the worst thing I could have done.

Later, when the weather broke and I was able to get about, I got two of the boys to ride over to the hut with me.

My tale had sent search-parties scouring the countryside to try to run the would-be murderer down, but they never got him. What made the settlers and the sheriff more than keen to catch him was the gruesome discovery the two scouts and I made at the hut--three male skeletons, with their skulls smashed in, roughly buried in the earth! I thought of the iron bar and shuddered at my narrow escape.

Three years after I happened to stroll into a crowded court-house in San Jaleta, Southern Texas. A man was on trial for the murder of a lonely rancher, and seemed likely to be acquitted, for the evidence was too slight to convict him. There was no doubt that the motive of the crime had been robbery; and there was no doubt, when I’d had a good look at the prisoner, as to who he was. He was clean-shaven now, but, nevertheless, I remembered those awful eyes. Making my way to the front, I asked permission to give evidence for the prosecution.

After I had told my story--although it took five men to master the prisoner--the sheriff at last laid bare the scar on the neck where my vitriol had branded him the night of the storm.

Some of the crowd in court were pretty well worked up over the manner in which the lonely ranchman had been done to death, and the tale I told did not help to calm them. That night the jail at San Jaleta was “held up” by an armed mob, and when the sun rose it shone down on the body of a giant dangling from a telegraph pole at the end of a lariat.

That’s my story, and every word of it is true. I am afraid it’s taken a bit long in the telling, but I never hear the wind howling and moaning on a Christmas Eve as it does to-night without thinking of that other Christmas Eve on the Kansas plains so many years ago.

A White Woman in Cannibal-Land.

BY ANNIE KER.

Some incidents of a lady’s life in the wilds of New Guinea. Miss Ker went out to Papua--as the country is now called--attached to a mission, and describes the many strange, amusing, and exciting experiences she encountered during her seven years’ sojourn among the natives, who, not so very long ago, were always fighting and much addicted to cannibalism--a practice which still prevails among the wild tribes of the unexplored interior.

II.

In many Papuan villages the visiting magistrates have raised one of the chief men to the rank of local policeman, rewarding him with the princely salary of ten shillings per annum (usually paid in tobacco) and two uniforms. The latter consist of a neckless tunic with long sleeves, and a strip of dark blue cloth covering the wearer from waist to knee. A flaming red belt lends colour to the costume.

The Wedau policeman lived a peaceful life on the whole, though when an energetic magistrate swooped suddenly down on the village the functionary’s life was, for the time being, scarcely worth living. Luckily, the magistrate’s little vessel could be seen directly it rounded the cape and long before it had crossed the bay, so that there was time for preparations. Women set frantically to work with handfuls of stiff stalks, which served as brooms, and swept fallen leaves into heaps, which were immediately burned. Children buzzed backwards and forwards, carrying loads of stones and rubbish, which they threw into the swamp on the beach. “Gabemani” (Government) had ordered it to be filled in long ago, but the villagers preferred swarms of malaria-disseminating mosquitoes rather than exerting themselves to do away with the cause of them.

The magistrate would find the village suspiciously neat and clean, and after trying a few cases of petty theft would sail away satisfied, leaving the policeman to distribute small portions of the tobacco he had received and to enjoy his hard-earned rest.

Another of the officer’s duties was to make journeys into the interior and capture murderers, when such were heard of, and convey them down the coast to Samarai to be tried. I saw one insignificant-looking little man on his way to jail, whom I knew to have committed a cruel murder. A white man named Sexton, a “fossicker,” whom we had entertained at the mission station, had gone a few miles inland in quest of gold. One day, while seated at his midday meal, he was seized from behind and his throat cut. It seemed that a native of the village had died while working for a white man; therefore, in accordance with Papuan ideas of justice, the next man of that race who came along had to be slain in revenge for the native’s life.

The first photograph shows a house at Wamira where I lived for seven months soon after my arrival in Papua. The missionary for whom it was built was going on furlough, and during her absence I was in charge there. It was situated on the edge of a coral cliff which rose straight up out of the sea, so that the Pacific Ocean was, so to speak, at the door. Close by was another house, used as a dormitory for the village girls who came as boarders to the mission. There was also a boys’ dormitory and a kitchen. This kitchen one day caught fire and was burnt to the ground in a very little while. I rushed in and saved the pudding from the oven, while the pupil-teacher, a Papuan boy, brought out our tin of kerosene before it ignited. The kitchen was the only building that suffered, and the villagers promptly built me a new one for five shillings, labour and materials included! From this it will be obvious that there is not much scope for a fire-insurance agent in Papua.

My house was divided into two apartments, a bed and a sitting room, and was built of native timber, the walls being composed of plaited coco-leaf and the roof of grass. The floor was made of slender strips of wood laid side by side, and, though airy, was anything but durable. It was slightly discomposing to see a small boy enter at the doorway and then suddenly disappear through a gap in the floor, though, having sufficient presence of mind to spread out his arms, he was able to hold himself in that position until someone could rescue him. For windows I had openings in the leaf walls, closed when necessary by means of wooden shutters.

Soon after I took charge the girls became much alarmed on account of some midnight visitor who, they said, had tried to get into their house. The natives were inclined to think the intruder was a prowling “bariawa,” or spirit, and there were frightened faces and hushed voices among them as night fell. Unfortunately, I was a heavy sleeper, and was usually only roused by the girls’ shrieks after their mysterious visitor had left. A few of the elder boys sat up one night, but saw nothing. Some barbed wire was sent me, and complicated and formidable entanglements were constructed between the girls’ house and mine. Soon after they had been placed there, however, when we were congratulating ourselves that we were safe at last, a little village child who was playing near fell over the wire and severely injured himself, so I had to order the entanglement to be taken away. One of the missionaries then lent me a revolver, but I am sure I should never have been able to use it, even on a spirit. However, I showed it to the old chief, and published the news of my acquisition, and soon afterwards we were relieved to find that our mysterious visitor came no longer.

Another source of excitement at Wamira was a kind of madness which attacked a man now and again, a state of exaltation somewhat resembling the Malay “amok.” At first the victim only sat in the house suffering from “heat in the heart.” Then, after muttering unintelligibly, he would seize a handful of spears, rush out of the house, and career wildly through the villages, flinging the spears to right and left and shouting as he ran. Women would come shrieking to my house and take refuge inside the fence, hoping to be safe with the “foreigner.” Once one of these half-crazed men, exhausted after an attack, came up the path and demanded water. I gave him some particularly nauseous medicine, which he drank greedily, afterwards asking for more. On another occasion one of them, who had already aimed a spear at a villager, came on to the school, where the pupil teacher and I had our flock of fifty or sixty children. Seeing him approaching, however, we hastily closed and barricaded the doors, standing the siege until the old chief influenced our would-be assailant to withdraw.

When my predecessor returned to her work a somewhat similar house to the one I have described was built for me at Wedau, where I remained for nearly two years. Ordinary village houses are built in very much the same style: they possess only one room, and the supporting piles are higher. The means of access to the interior is a sloping pole. These odd “staircases” have slight notches cut in them, which afford very slight purchase for a shod foot, though the nimble natives run up and down them easily enough.

While I was living at Wamira news was brought of a murder in the hills. The girl who came to tell me said that her uncle had taken a journey there to obtain betel-nut. On the way he heard voices and promptly hid himself. From his place of concealment he saw two men attacking a third. One held the victim’s arms while the other cut his throat with a “gatigati” (long knife). As he did so the dying man cried, “Au dobu, au dobu!” (“Oh, my home!” or, literally, village). The hidden onlooker, being a Papuan, did not dream of interfering. His “skin trembled,” he said, and he hastily made his way back to safety.

The village policeman went out to capture the miscreants, and was successful in bringing one to punishment. The crime, it was discovered, had been committed for a very simple reason. The dead man had been visiting a sick friend, who was the murderer’s brother. The invalid received every kindness from his friend, but eventually, in the course of nature, died. Therefore, argued the murderer, it was clear that the visitor had bewitched the sick man and caused his death, and his own life must necessarily be forfeited.

The hill-folk generally only came into prominence through committing murders or other crimes. Being removed from the coast, and able to hide in many obscure caves and lurking-places, they naturally stood less in awe of the power of Government than the coastal tribes.

One day we were visited by two hill-women who had run away from their husbands. Their bodies were covered with hideous raised scars, the result, they assured us, of spear-thrusts inflicted on them by their inhuman partners. They were in much fear of being pursued, but were given shelter for the night at Dogura, the head station on the hill behind Wedau, where I was living.

That same evening I was startled by cries from the village. The natives called to me to bring my lantern, and I ran down to find the place in an uproar. The men were rushing about, searching and looking up in the trees, while the women were huddled together, talking excitedly. I managed to make out that the husbands of the two fugitives had traced them as far as Wedau. One of the men had lurked outside a house in the village, and, so a woman averred, would have speared her as she came out, thinking her to be his missing wife. Fortunately for herself, however, she spoke, and he, knowing her by her voice to be a Wedauan, ran off in the darkness.

The villagers searched in vain, and the tumult subsided, but rumours soon reached us that the baffled husbands were collecting a force and intended to visit the head station at night and carry off the recalcitrant wives by force.

It was not thought safe for me to sleep alone in the village, so I went up the hill to add one more to the crowded house. Our girl boarders were packed in dozens into the different bedrooms, having forsaken their native dormitories for the night, and I was accommodated with a cane lounge. It was not furnished with mosquito curtains, and I decided by morning that even the hill men’s spears could scarcely be sharper than the bites of the vicious insects. No invaders arrived, however, so we put the story of their intended raid down as an idle rumour. The women stayed with us for some weeks and then slipped away. Some months later a policeman from up the coast told me that the brothers of one of the injured wives had taken summary vengeance on her husband, who paid for his cruelty with his life.

We got excellent drinking water from a little stream, though care was necessary in selecting the place from which to draw it, as the village pigs were only too apt to bathe indiscriminately. The natives used water-bottles made from hollowed coco-nut shells, fitted with a stopper of twisted leaves, and carried six or seven at a time in a netted bag suspended from the head. One of my girls, with a fine disregard for proportion, styled them “New Guinea tanks.”

The natives of Papua have some very curious superstitions, giving rise to barbarous customs. For instance, a woman gave birth to twin boys. The mother died, and the villagers, coming to the conclusion that the infants were accursed, decided to bury the hapless babies alive on the woman’s grave! This terrible deed would actually have been carried out had not a native who had come under mission influence told his teacher what was intended before it was too late. The missionary was thus able to save the little mites, who were taken care of by a nurse. She is seen in the annexed photograph with “Tommy” and “Teddy” when they were a year or two old. Other babies, for various superstitious reasons, have been killed at birth or hung in trees to die a slow and terrible death from starvation.

A favourite pastime with the village boys was sailing model boats, which were surprisingly well made. The picture at the bottom of the page shows lads sailing their “sikunas” (schooners) at a Papuan “Serpentine,” for all the world like youngsters at home.

Favourite sports, though their object was utilitarian enough, are fish-spearing and pig-hunting. The natives are wonderfully quick in detecting the presence of a fish under the surface, and the many-pronged fish-spear, shooting violently downwards, is more often than not recovered with a brightly-coloured victim impaled upon it. The snapshot above shows a group of Papuans, spear in hand, watching for fish in the shallow water.

The lower picture shows a number of fishing-nets hung up to dry. These are made, of course, by the natives themselves. The twine is woven from the peelings of liquorice-stalks netted together, the floats are light pieces of wood, and the sinkers are cockle shells in which holes have been bored.

Pig-hunting is carried out in a very thorough fashion. Stout nets are placed across the forest paths and clearings, and one party of natives then beat the jungle, driving the game before them, while the spearmen wait, as seen in the photograph, for the arrival of the quarry.

Although stationed in a village, I often took short trips to other places, travelling either by canoe or whale-boat. The native canoes are made of logs, hollowed out with much labour, having an outrigger attached and a small platform lashed between the two at either end. This the passengers--myself and often Maebo, my little girl friend--shared with the cargo. Canoes were of many shapes, varying according to the tribe of the maker. Canoe travelling was idyllic in calm weather. Sometimes a turtle would lift his lazy head and take a long look at us before diving, and we could gaze far down into the depths of the crystal water and watch brilliantly-hued fish disporting themselves among the branches of still more dazzlingly-tinted coral, while the golden sunlight filtered mistily down in cloudy rays. The crews paddled well, and we crossed the bay in fine style, the men being quite content with a penny each as wages.

But, alas! it was very different in rough weather. Tired and hungry, perhaps several miles from my destination, the captain would call to me, “Misika (my native name), you’ll have to get out and go by the beach, for the wind is rising.” My heart would sink, and I would beseech him to make the crew paddle on; but the wind caught us up, and the waves broke mercilessly over the little vessel, which was hugging the shore. Then, perforce, after a thorough drenching, I got out, the canoe was hauled up, and we tramped wearily home, the captain carrying me over the streams on his back. This was rather a pleasant mode of crossing; but when the stream was very deep I had to sit on the boy’s shoulders and hold on to his chin, which--I speak from bitter experience--is a very unsafe position. Once, with myself thus perched on high, we attempted to cross a wide river at the mouth of which some natives were fishing with a drag-net. It so happened that when we reached mid-stream--I holding only too insecurely to a wobbly chin--something very special, I don’t know what, occurred in connection with the fish, and we were ordered to remain where we were! It seemed impossible, but there I remained, clinging desperately to my human steed, until the slow old fishermen had gathered their net in and--to my rather malicious satisfaction--discovered not a single fish in the meshes.