Chapter V: Ashore on a Cannibal Island

One day, what seemed a beautiful green cloud appeared in the north-west. It seemed to hang ’twixt sea and horizon.

Teenie was convinced it was fairy-land. It was no cloud, however. A peep through the captain’s long glass brought into view not only the tall cocoanut trees with their waving tops, but the trees and bushes beneath, and the coral sands, on which numerous black and semi-nude figures were running about, and even pointing to the ship.

“This island I knew well,” said Antonio, “many years ago. But there seems to be more people on it now.”

“Indeed, sir!” said Mr. Webber.

The captain handed him the glass.

“And they are armed too,” said Archie Webber, “with guns and clubs. Will it not be dangerous to land?”

“My dear Mr. Mate, land we must, and will subdue them by--well, by kindness or the reverse. The clubs are ugly weapons if they get to close quarters. As to the guns, they come, I think, from Birmingham; and if they aim at us we are perfectly safe. If they shoot at random, well, one or two of us might bite the sand accidentally.

“Then,” he added, “they would have a feast.”

“What, sir, you don’t mean to say they are cannibals?”

“They are nothing less or more.

“But,” he continued, “there is a lagoon in yonder isle of St. Peter[8] in which shells lie more thickly strewn than leaves on a garden path in autumn. This beautiful isle has probably never been visited by white men, except perhaps the Queensland pirates, who carry the natives off by force, and make ‘free slaves’ of them.”

“Pirates?”

“I call them so. Oh, Mr. Webber, did you only know one-half the cruelties perpetrated by these nefarious murdering traders, you’d long for the grave to close over you and shut you out from a blood-stained world.”

The island seemed to come nearer and still more near, and its beauties were soon revealed as one glorious whole, one magnificent Elysium.

Just at that moment a little hand was laid on Antonio’s arm.

There stood Teenie, looking up with pleading smile into his face.

“Well, dearie?”

“Oh, please, Captain ’Tonio, _can_ I go into the foretop to look at fairy-land?”

“Yes, dearie, but no farther.”

Next moment she and the big monkey, Dosie, were swarming up the rigging, and it would have been difficult to say which went the quicker.

She had a belt around her shoulder, and suspended thereto Miss Leona’s lorgnettes.

She turned them on the lovely green island, and every minute a look of joy and delight o’erspread her pretty face, which flushed with pleasure.

“O my! Jacko,” she cried, putting one arm over the monkey’s shoulder. “I _is_ glad I runned away. We’s got to fairy-land at last!”

Then she put the lorgnettes to his eyes, and the creature, with a wisdom that was almost human, pretended to look through, if he did not do so in reality.

“Ach! Ach! Ach!” he cried.

“Yes,” said Teenie, “it is really a fairy-land, only--heigho! all the fairies is black, and they has nasty guns.”

Teenie was infinitely more happy now than she had been for weeks. She was a thorough wanderer at heart, and had she known Tennyson’s poems, she might have quoted him thus:--

“How delightful
To burst all links of habit--then to wander far away
On from island unto island, at the gateways of the day.
Larger constellations burning; mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade, and palms of cluster, knots of Paradise.

* * * * *

Droops the heavy blossomed bower, hangs the heavy fruited trees;
Summer isles of Eden, lying in dark purple spheres of sea.”

Truly this fairy-land of Teenie’s was beautiful beyond compare--hills green-wooded to the top, rolling woods and feathery palms, a blue or opal sea, breaking in long snowy wavelets, or on the silvery coral sand; a land of languor, a land in which a poet might laze in the bright sunshine, and dream his happy life away.

But--ah! the “but” is to come.

Nearer and nearer to this strange isle of beauty crept the _Zingara_; but finally, with two men in the chains to take soundings, and a hand in the foretop to look out for shoal water, she bore more to the west, as if to leave the island.

Antonio had no such intention. Having gone some miles, he went round one, and returning, struck the island on the north side, where there was, and is of course, a lovely land-locked bay; and here the anchor was lot go, and the bonnie barque swung to the tide.

From this bay, strange to say, there was a kind of natural canal leading from the sea right into the centre of the island, when it spread out into a deep and splendid lagoon, almost circular, fringed with cocoanut trees, banana trees, and glorious palms. Not far from the other end of the lagoon was the house of the chief himself. If he was still alive, and had not abdicated, then Antonio was sure of a hearty welcome, for the two had been very friendly in days gone by.

Antonio had gone below, and was partaking of some luncheon in the company of little Teenie and Barclay Stuart. As usual, the former was plying him with questions, as to the fun they would have with the black fairies on this fairy island.

Presently Archie, the first mate, entered, to make a startling report.

“There is a great din on shore, sir,” he said, in a low voice; “boats are collecting in scores, and I fear, sir, that they are about to attempt boarding us.”

“I don’t think they will try that, mate,” said Antonio; “but anyhow, get up the boarding netting, call all hands, and serve out arms, and get ready the war-rocket apparatus. If they want to fight, we shall of course oblige them, but I would far rather land in peace.”

“All right, sir.”

And Archie Webber went quickly away to obey orders.

In half-an-hour all was ready for peace or for war.

And none too soon. The sea ’twixt the coral sands and the ship was now covered with light canoes filled with armed savages.

In truth they looked a bloodthirsty and terrible lot. As they swept nearer and nearer to the vessel, they divided their flotilla into two, with the evident intention of attacking both on the port side and the starboard.

Miss Leona had received strict injunction to remain below with Teenie.

And now Antonio quietly walked up to the bridge, and with his field-glasses quizzed the advancing boats.

To his great joy and relief, one of the very first boats, a larger and more pretentious one than any of the others, contained an old friend.

“Lolo! Lolo! don’t you know me?” shouted the captain from the bridge.

Lolo was a great chief, the king’s prime-minister in a way of speaking, and he had visited and dwelt in Valparaiso, so could talk fairly good English.

“Ha!” he cried, “me is delightee so vely much, me could weep the tears of joy. We come to takee yer ship; now we not shall do. We not eatee nobody now. Ha, ha!”

Down Lolo threw his long strong shield, his spear and awful club.

Then he stood up, and gathered the other canoes around him.

He spoke in a strange and musical language to the savages.

And every head was bowed.

No sooner had he finished, than all appearance of hostility was at an end.

A rope ladder was thrown down the side, and in a minute more Lolo and the captain were shaking hands on the quarter-deck, for the days of auld lang syne.

Antonio bade the mate and our boy heroes get up coloured cotton and beads, and distribute a yard or two of the former, and a handful of the latter, to every canoe.

Thus was a bloodless victory ensured, and a welcome more hearty than even Antonio himself could have expected.

Meanwhile he and Lolo held a long confab on deck, where they drank sherbet together, and smoked cigars of peace.

Yes, the king was alive, Lolo told the captain, and how delighted he would be to see him.

Antonio handed Lolo a watch.

“For you,” he said.

Lolo’s eyes sparkled with delight.

“For _me_!” he repeated; “poor Lolo all unworthy is!”

“And the king?” he added.

“I have much fine present for him, Lolo.”

“And here, dear old Lolo, we shall stop a year, to load up with sponges, pearl-shell, and pearls.”

“Oh, these the king has in abundance, and will sell. And our boys they shall fishee for you, and dive; bling up the plenty much good shell.”

Then he emitted a startling whoop that would have raised envy in the breast of a Mexican cow-boy.

“I shout,” he explained, “’cause I is too happy to live. Byme-bye, the black men of Vra-fou come here, makee war on us. You help to killee all, all. Then too much plenty good feast.”

The boats and skiffs were soon all dispersed, and the savage warriors went back in peace to their own little grass huts in the clumps of cocoa-nut trees.

Then, when everything was arranged on board the _Zingara_, a boat was called away, and leaving Archie Webber, the mate, in charge, down the ladder tripped Captain Antonio, Barclay, and Davie Drake.

They had just got seated, and were about to shove off, when on the companion-ladder was heard the pattering of little feet, and next moment in jumped Teenie herself, and seated herself beside Barclay.

“Oh, dearie,” cried Antonio, “I fear I cannot let you come. I fear----”

“_I_ doesn’t fear,” cried the little sailor maiden, “and I’se going, so _that’s_ settled. Sailor men, s’ove off.”

They laughed and obeyed.

Lolo was to be their guide and safeguard. He was evidently _facile princeps_ in this beautiful isle of the sea.

Perhaps there was a good deal of the martinet or tyrant as well as savage about Lolo. He was a finely formed man; tall, brown-skinned, and rather handsome. Probably he belonged to some other and distant island, for he possessed not the large mouth and thick lips that, as a rule, distinguish the natives of Polynesia.

But every muscle in his body stuck out like knots and cords, and seemed as hard as the mainstay of a full-rigged ship.

Pride is a characteristic of nearly all savages, more particularly if they are chiefs. Lolo was no exception.

While passing through the beautiful canal-like opening that led into the broad blue lagoon, Lolo regaled his listeners with stories of his own deeds of valour and prowess.

Barclay and Davie, though they pretended to be listening, were more taken up with the beauties of nature. The narrow inlet was--

“O’erhung with wild woods thickening green.”

In every branch or leaf of feathery palm, in every frond of great tree fern that bent down to kiss the water, there was one bird or more. Kingfishers of the most gorgeous hues flitted silently here and there, or, like chips of rainbow, they suddenly darted from their perches, and dived into the water, to be seen no more.

“I say,” said Barclay to Davie, “couldn’t we do some glorious bird’s-nesting here?”

Davie Drake’s eyes sparkled at the very thought of it.

“And some nice fishing,” added Teenie.

“Yes,” Lolo was saying; “suppose one man ’ffend me, I cut he head off, plenty too much quick.”

“Too quick to be pleasant, _I_ should think,” said Davie Drake; “for the man I mean.”

“Oh, how nice!” cried Teenie, “and does all, all the blood come out, Mr. Lolo?”

“Yes, Missie, yes, and the body he tumble down. All same, I put head on pole, and stickee he ’longside my hut.”

“And are the men in this island still cannibals?” asked Barclay.

“They cookee, and eatee foh true, the men they kill in de fight, what you call enemy. No eat island man.”

“Would they eat me?” said Teenie innocently.

Lolo put his hand on the child’s arm as if to judge of her condition.

Barclay longed to throttle him.

“I not like discourage you,” he said. “No, I not do that thing; in two tree year, plaps, you be fit. Great warrior not care eat much baby. Makee he heart soft.”

Teenie was satisfied.

Lolo now broke off into a dissertation on the merits and delights of man’s flesh as food. He had a wonderful flow of language, for the subject was altogether to his taste.

It would be too horrible to read or write all he said, but I must tell you that his was a savage eloquence worthy of a better cause, and that made the blood of even the rough sailors in the boat run cold as they listened to him.

If you have not yet read Elia’s (Lamb’s) eulogy on a roast sucking pig, do so by all means. Elia was eloquent, but Lolo on his subject could have given him twenty points out of the hundred, and beaten him easily.

Even Antonio was at last obliged to change the subject. It became too gruesome.

But by this time they were nearly across the lagoon, and soon they landed.

The king’s hut, or shall we say palace, was built on a small hill, and stood inside a compound composed of cocoa-nut matting.

The way to it led up through a beautiful avenue of flowery trees, the perfume from which hung heavy on the air all around.

And this avenue, which was of smooth green grass, was lined with the king’s armed and savage soldiery on both sides, and all the way up.

Our heroes had never seen so terrible a display, such cruel-looking broadswords and strangely shaped axe-like clubs. Higher up and nearer to the gates these soldiers were women of bloodthirsty and fearful aspect. It must be confessed that both Barclay and Davie were far from easy in their minds, and would have given a good deal to be back in their ship.

Antonio was quite unconcerned; and nodded and bowed to many of the under-chiefs, whom he had know in days gone by.

But Teenie was delighted at all she saw. She looked up into the warriors’ faces, and even patted them as she passed along, till, grim as they were, they were fain to smile.

She came to one warrior, an old friend of Antonio’s, who was more wildly dressed than any of the others, and wore strings of gay beads, and armlets, necklets, and bangles of beautiful coral around waist and limbs.

Right through the septum of his nose, extending across both cheeks, was a small dagger.

Teenie confronted him, examined his bangles, his shield, and fingers. Then she looked up in his face, and innocently remarked--

“Is you a big chief?”

He nodded and laughed.

“Oh, and you _is_ handsome too. I should like to be dressed just like you, and fight plenty everywhere.”

* * * * *

The king himself was a perfect Saul as to height and strength; handsome in face rather than otherwise, and almost white.

He met the little party in the tent, all smiles and strange ejaculations.

He took Antonio’s hand, bent down, and spat in it, a compliment common in these islands.

Barclay hoped he wouldn’t spit in his. But the daring wee Teenie took the king to book at once.

“Oh, you nasty big king,” she cried, “what for you spit in po’ ’Tonic’s hand.”

The king heard not, but led the captain away into the darkness of the great tent, and seated him on a couch or daïs covered with mats of grass cloth, and with pillows stuffed with a species of soft grass.

The rest followed, and seated themselves as best they could.

Then slaves entered with trays of delightful fruit, and trays with red glasses, and bottles containing Indian sherbet.

Teenie began to think the king a very nice man now, and so she told him, merely adding that he must not be naughty again, else he would be sent to school to learn manners.

The king was better dressed than any of his chiefs or followers. He wore a costume that was almost Arab-like--the long white under-garment, and the belt in which pistols were stuck; the cloak of camel’s hair, only on state occasions, and the gilded turban.

“May I ask you, King,” said Barclay, “how you procured that beautiful costume?”

“Oh,” he said, “I come back from far counteree. Much fine dings dere. But, my good friend Glasseye here, he buy me one two clothes all same as dis.”

The king also wore a naked sword, half as broad again as a newspaper column, and sharp on both edges.

As he sat beside Antonio, talking, he held in his left hand a massive spear as tall as a weaver’s beam.

I must confess, however, that I never have seen a weaver’s beam, but it must, by all accounts, be a big bit of wood.

The irrepressible Teenie came softly up and stood by the king’s knee. He smiled, and gently patted her head. Then she quietly disengaged his hand, finger after finger, from the spear, which she took immediate possession of. She made a bridle from two pieces of string, then mounted her fiery wooden horse, and, laughing merrily, rode out and away, straight down the green avenue with it.

She met many savages.

They were savage no more, when they beheld that little madcap, with her merry laughing face and cheeks so rosy, making a horse of the king’s favourite spear.

This spear was in reality his sceptre, but that didn’t matter one little iota to Teenie.

Barclay Stuart, with a quaking heart, had followed his little sweetheart, as he called her, but presently lost sight of her. But she soon returned again.

“O Barclay,” she cried exultantly, “what a day I _is_ having!”

Well, if there really was any danger to be apprehended at the hands of these cannibal savages, Teenie’s very innocence protected her therefrom.

“Oh, I _is_ so tired, Mr. King,” she said, as she restored the spear to his majesty.

And the good-natured monarch smiled.

“Neber hab I saw,” he said, “so brave and pletty a chile befoh.”