CHAPTER X.

A DESPERATE STRUGGLE.

“Certain, sir, me speak Englis’; me live along a white man two yam time; me talky all proper.” And then, as if to prove his intimate acquaintance with our language, he gave a volley of oaths, which for piquancy and nautical flavour it would be hard to surpass.

“Here, stow that, mate; we want no swearing in this craft.”

“Hi! what? You be missionally man—no speak ’trong? Englis’ man, ’Mellican man, he speak people so.”

“Never mind; just talk without any Englis’ man or ’Mellican man palaver, as you call it. Who are you?”

“Me? Why, me be one big man, son one chief. Fader he name Wanga; me him name Calla. Fader he lib along of there,” pointing to the island we were steering for. “Aneitou him name. One white he stay there comprar[3] copra, bechmer, shell—all kind. Now one moon and one bit, me come to here for find copra, slug, sandalwood, and make plenty trade what time mountain he blow. Dem island nigger say he be me, and catch me” (and on his fingers he counted carefully). “Two ten and two men live along of me. Plenty kiki. Kiki one and two ten, and then come where him boy come. Kill one man, two man, and make right kill me, when white boy he shoot, and nigger he tumble so.”

“Well, now, in your island—Aneitou, you call it—you say there’s a white man.”

“One man live there many yam time, and what time ship come plenty square gin. My! den he drink.”

“When does a ship come?”

“Sometime one yam time, sometime two, sometime three yam time.”

“You see, mates, there’s a chance. A ship looks in once in one, two, or three years; and I suppose this white man is some drunken old beach-comber. Anyway, we won’t be eaten there,” said Tom.

“What are you looking at, Johnny,” interrupted Bill, for he noticed that Calla was evidently anxiously looking at the island we had left.

“Be still, white man. Man flog war-drum for fight. Me look see where war-canoe come.”

“What?” we cried all together; “a war-canoe in chase of us! Do you see one?”

“No, me no see; but me sabey what time man flog war-drum, all same that. Plenty soon all man go for war-canoe.”

We had not noticed any sound; but now, listening intently, we could catch a few weird notes drifting down the wind towards us.

“Him plenty bad,” said Calla. “Him call five plenty big canoe. One canoe him have men four ten, five ten; come along plenty quick.”

“I hope the wind’ll hold, lads,” said Tom; “these big canoes go as fast as a ship with stuns’ls both sides.”

Though we were tired, we got out our paddles and oar, and rigged up another mat or two as studding-sails, so as to make as much headway as possible, and get within sight of Aneitou, whose people Calla told us would send out their canoes to meet those from the volcanic island, if they saw them coming.

We paddled and pulled, taking turns to steer, Calla doing yeoman service at a paddle; but after an hour or so, during which we had made some ten or twelve miles, and were about half-way across, we could hear the sounds of the war-drums astern of us. Calla laid in his paddle, and wanted to climb up our mast; but Tom pulled him down, for fear of capsizing the boat.

“Me want see how many canoe come. Plenty big chief live along of they. Big drum, big god, they bring in canoe.”

“Never mind now, Johnny; wait a bit. We’ll be able to see them from the deck soon. Paddle away.”

We kept on, straining every nerve, and the breeze fortunately freshening we made good way towards Aneitou; but the sound of the war-drums of our pursuers became louder and louder, and soon Calla, jumping up again, declared he could see them coming, and made us understand that before ever we could reach Aneitou they would be up with us.

“But, I say, Johnny,” I asked, “where are your canoes from your island? They must hear the drums now.”

Calla answered, “That live for true; but s’pose hear drum—man run one side, where canoe he be, and men make get bow and spear, make long time.”

“Give way, lads,” said Tom. “It’s no use wasting our breath talking. The nearer we get to this fellow’s island, the better chance we have. It’s a bad business, Sam, that you let that musket fall overboard. We have none now for Calla, who could use one well.”

Tom, when he had said this, paddled away some time in silence, Bill pulling the oar, and I steering; but the sound of the drums of our pursuers came nearer, and at last Tom said, “I can stand this no longer,” and laying in his paddle looked to the loading of our muskets, and cutting up some bullets into quarters he put them in on the top of the ordinary charge, and saw that the flints were properly fixed and touch-holes clear.

When he had done this he stood up and said, “I can see the canoes now. There are five, as Calla said—great big double ones; and besides the men paddling, there are a lot of chaps up on a great platform amidships.”

“How long before they’ll be up with us?” I asked. “Can we fetch Aneitou before they catch us?”

Tom looked round and said, “I scarcely dare say that. There’s a point as runs out, where maybe we might do it; but there’s such a surf a-tumbling on it as would smash up us and the _Escape_, and all belonging to us.”

“Have a good look, mate, and see if there mayn’t be a break in the surf,” I said.

Calla, who had been listening to what we were saying, now got up and stood alongside Tom, and pointed out what to him had been undistinguishable—half a dozen black spots falling and rising on the surface of the sea near the point.

“There, them be Aneitou canoe. White man he come along of them.”

“How can you tell?” said Tom.

“Me sabey him canoe.” And then looking to windward at our pursuers, Calla said, “Now plenty soon big corroboree. Aneitou men and Paraka men” (Paraka was the name of the volcanic island) “come all one time to we.”

“Pull away lads, pull away,” cried Tom; “as Calla says, we shall be saved yet, though I must own I thought at one time we should be caught. I own it ain’t so much the being killed I don’t like, as the being eaten after.”

“Why, what difference can that make?” said Bill and I together.

“Why, I don’t know as it makes any difference, but I owns as I should like to be buried shipshape and Bristol fashion, sewed up in a hammock with a twenty-four pound shot at my feet and a stitch through my nose.”

As we pulled along after this discussion, the drums of our pursuers sounded closer and closer; and presently, mingled with their deep boom, we could hear the war-song of the men who occupied their fighting-decks.

I looked round and saw astern of us, not more than five hundred yards away, the five great double canoes, with their lofty prows ornamented with human hair, skulls, and mother-of-pearl, while high up on their platforms, surrounded by warriors armed with spears and bows, were the sacred drums, on which fellows fantastically painted in white, red, and yellow were vigorously beating a kind of tune, to which the paddles kept time, making their strange craft fly through the water.

As far as I could make out, there were about thirty paddles in each of the canoes, and some twenty warriors on the platform; so that fifty men, as Calla had said, were about the complement of each canoe.

“O Tom,” I said, “do shoot at them; they’re so close.”

“Not yet, mate; wait a bit. We shouldn’t do them no harm now, and every inch brings us nearer to Calla’s friends. Hark! don’t you hear their drums and war-song now?”

Certainly the sound came up to us against the wind, and looking in that direction I saw the six canoes Calla had said were coming to our relief paddling up against wind and sea in a smother of foam, while from a pole on board one of them there floated a tiny flag, which I could not distinguish.

Calla, when he heard the sound of the drums and songs of his fellow-islanders, laid in his paddle, and seizing on an axe and knife commenced a dance in which he defied his late captors, accompanying it with screeches and howls of which I should have thought no human throat could be capable.

Closer and closer drew the canoes from Paraka, but still faster did we run down on those from Aneitou; and before Tom thought it well to open fire on our pursuers, we were passing through the fleet of our friends. And on the deck of the one on which we had seen the pole and flag, which we now made out to be an English red ensign, we could see mounted a small cannon, and standing by its breech a white man with a lighted match in his hand.

He hailed us as we passed to shorten sail and round to, and, if we had muskets, to open fire on the men of Paraka; and almost immediately his cannon rang out, pouring death and destruction amid the crew of the biggest of his opponents’ canoes.

We doused the mats we had as studding-sails, and took in our other sails; but by the time we had done so, we were at least a quarter of a mile from the two fleets of canoes, which had now met and grappled, and all whose occupants were by this time engaged in deadly conflict.

“Well, mates,” said Tom, “I suppose we must go and lend a hand. There’s hot work going on there, and it’s only fair that we should help those who came out to help us.”

No urging on his part was necessary, and we buckled to to pull back to where the fight was going on; but before we could reach the scene of conflict the fortune of the day had declared pretty decisively in favour of our friends.

The canoe which carried the white man had riddled one of the hulls of the double canoe carrying the leader of the men of Paraka, and in sinking it had so dragged down its twin that the whole fabric had capsized, and her crew, or such of them as were still alive, were struggling in the water.

Calla was mad with desire for fight, and it was not long before we got up near to the canoes. At first Tom thought it would be best to lay off and use our muskets, but we could not distinguish friend from foe; so, arming ourselves with trade hatchets stuck in our belts, we laid our boat alongside the canoe on board which the Englishman was, and springing on board, made our painter fast round one of her stern heads, and then forced our way to where our countryman was fighting at the head of his followers. But by the time we had reached him the men of Paraka had had enough, and two of their canoes, which were able to do so, sought safety in flight.

The others remained in the hands of the men of Aneitou, who secured such of the occupants as were still alive with lashings of sinnet, and then looked after their own dead and wounded.

Some of the Paraka men seemed to prefer to trust themselves to the waves to remaining in the hands of their enemies; but they gained little by doing so, for volleys of arrows were fired at them as they swam, and some of the more eager of the warriors of Aneitou plunged into the water in pursuit, and the conflict which had ended in the canoes began afresh in the sea.

Calla, with cries of joy, rushed to an old man, who was in full war-paint, and whose necklaces and bracelets of shells and beads and lofty head-dress of feathers seemed to denote a chief, and who held in his hand a rugged club, clotted with brains and gore, and kneeling down before him began a long and voluble speech, pointing the while to the two fugitive canoes.

The old chief was none other than Calla’s father, Wanga, and he raised up his son, and calling to some of his men gave orders which we could not understand, but of which the purport was soon evident, for the two least damaged of the canoes of Aneitou were hastily manned with unwounded crews, and their fighting-decks filled with warriors, among whom Calla took a prominent position, being easily distinguished, he alone being unadorned with war-paint; and soon these two were darting over the waves in pursuit of the beaten and flying men of Paraka.

While this was going on, we were speaking to the white man, who, when we came to where he was standing, said, “Why, where on earth did ye drop from? A shipwreck, I s’pose. How long ago? Ye’ve rigged that craft of yours up on some island.”

Tom told him our story in as few words as he could, and said how thankful we were to have met him, and be rescued from being killed, cooked, and eaten, which would doubtless have been our fate if we had fallen into the hands of the Paraka cannibals.

“That ’ud be about your lot anywheres here, for all of ’em eat men; only as how as you’ve brought off Calla, and his father’s a big man in his island, you may be safe for a time.”

“Well, but how do you live among them? Why haven’t they eaten you?”

“Oh, I’ve been too useful to ’em for ’em to want to eat me; and, besides, an old shellback such as I am would be too tough to make anything but soup of. But now, mates, let’s be getting home again; and when we come to my shanty, which is just behind the point where the canoes came from, we can have a palaver, and overhaul all our logs. I’ll come along of you in your craft and pilot you in. Can you stow a couple or four black fellows and their paddles? They’ll help you along.”

We eagerly agreed to the help of the natives, who with their great carved paddles certainly added much to our speed.

[3] Buy.