Chapter IV: On the Cannibal Isle

Stransom, the old blackbirder, was a go-ahead kind of fellow, and as bold as a lion. He was just the man who would “make a spoon or spoil a horn”--“do a deed or perish in the attempt.” There was no fear of failure in his heart.

About a couple of hours before sunset he stuck his revolvers in his belt, nodded to those he was leaving behind, and beckoned to Tootaker to follow him into the canoe. A few minutes after this the white man and the friendly savage stood together in a woodland glade.

“I can trust Tootaker?”

“Tootaker will die for master. Not false, true, true!”

This in the language of the islanders.

“Lead me through the woods, Tootaker. I would speak with your chief.”

The guide darted forward. Stransom looked at his revolvers. He meant to shoot that guide through the head if he exhibited even a trace of treachery or fear. The only thing to dread in this wood was the snakes. Creatures of marvellous beauty, small, slender, green or crimson, they crept and twined everywhere. Among the reeds by pools, in the pools themselves, and in the branches of the trees, Stransom had often to dash them aside with his brown hands. Yet beautiful though they were, a single bite would mean an agonising death.

This jungle was a most intricate one. The trees did not grow from roots underground: the roots were above, so that one had to climb over them, or creep under them. It was a swamp and a labyrinth combined, and if Tootaker had wished to be unfaithful, he had a good chance now, even in spite of Stransom’s revolvers. But the white man had won his affection; and, above all, the wondrous beauty of the child Peggy had so stolen around his savage heart, that he had lost all desire to live longer among his own people.

The sun was almost down before they got clear of the forest. They were on a bare green hill now, and far below on the east side of the island they could see the waving cocoa-palms and the green banana banks near to which the savages dwelt.

“Halt!” cried Stransom.

Then he took out a long piece of rope and tied the guide’s arms to his side and his wrists to one another, bidding the wondering Tootaker watch exactly how it was done. Tootaker had cute eyes, and he needed them to follow this wondrous intricacy of knot.

“Now,” said Stransom, laughing, “pull your hands apart.”

Tootaker did so, and to his amazement every knot was instantly loosed and the rope fell to the ground.

“Now bind me, Tootaker.”

The black was a little awkward at first, but he soon managed the whole trick.

By this time the moon had risen, and in less than half an hour Tootaker marched with bold strides into the camp, and right up to the great kraal of the king, leading a white captive, apparently bound and helpless.

There were shouts of savage joy, but Tootaker held up his hand authoritatively and commanded silence. The natives followed as far as the verandah of the palace, but on being told that he and his captive must first hold chik-chak with the chief, they retired.

Critical moments followed. Stransom was staking his life and the life of all on board the _Vulture_ on one bold stroke. If it failed--well, after all, people have only once to die!

But Tootaker had been well instructed how to play his part, and forgot nothing.

The king was squatting on a daïs, from which he did not rise, but received Tootaker with great joy, and asked him question after question, while with bowed head Stransom stood before the throne. He smiled to himself though, when he heard this cannibal king telling Tootaker how his body was to be cut up, and what joints should be roasted for the royal table, and what apportioned to his under-chiefs and people. The king evidently intended that all the most toothsome and appetising portions of Stransom’s body should fall to his own share.

“Now,” cried the king, “bring him here that I may drink the white man’s blood.”

He seized an ugly knife as he spoke. But he certainly was not prepared for what followed. With a sharp kick Stransom struck the knife from the savage hand, and next moment he stood before him a free man armed with a revolver in each hand. Stransom spoke hurriedly now, but with excellent effect.

“One loud word, King Karoo, and you are a dead man.”

Their eyes met. The king cowered before his captive.

“Ah, you know me now? I am Stransom the blackbirder. How you came here I know not, but you were chief of the Luttoo Isles, five hundred miles to the west, and you and your fellows massacred every man of the brig _Ranger_. Don’t be afraid, old friend. I was her captain, and the only man saved.”

“I saved you!” cried the king, excitedly, as he glanced down the barrel of that revolver in evident dread that it might go off. “I saved you!”

“Yes, you thundering old scoundrel, you saved me, to be tortured and thus made more tender, and so to serve as a side dish for your own table. But, listen! I did not come here to have revenge and kill you! Your people did nothing wrong in massacring the blackbirders. They had come to drag you into bondage worse than slavery. I would have done the same had I been in your place. No, I don’t come now to take revenge, else I’d shoot you like a rabbit right off. I’m no longer a blackbirder.”

Then in far simpler language he told the story of the storm, the mutiny, and the desertion of the ship, and the wreck.

“The blackbirders will come to your island by and by, but if you now make friends with the remainder of my people we will give you and your fellows and your women wonderful gifts and beautiful beads. See, here are some of them.”

He emptied his pockets as he spoke, of strings of beads that quite dazzled the savage king.

“Oh-h-h!” he cried, “and you will give me all this?”

“Yes, if you will come with me to-night, at once, through the moonlight in your big canoe to the creek where lies our ship.”

“And you will not kill me and eat me?”

“Eat you, King Karoo! I’d be precious hungry before I touched a morsel of such a tough old rascal as you. Be true to me as Tootaker has been, and you and your island will be spared when the great ship comes. For I can save you.”

“You are a white devil?” asked the king.

“Angel or devil, I’ll keep my word. Now, which do you choose, death or life?”

And Karoo bent his head in submission, only begging leave to take in his boat ten trusty warriors.

Stransom, by way of reply, coolly counted the number of chambers in his revolvers, going round them with his finger-tips--“One life, two lives, three lives,” etc., up to ten; then he nodded and smiled.

* * * * *

Neither Fitzroy nor his boy were easy enough in their minds to-night to sleep.

The moon was at its height, when suddenly Ralph started up and bayed in anger. A huge war-canoe had swept round the point and was entering the creek.

The big gun was directed at it immediately.

“Who goes there? Speak quick, or I fire!”

“All right, Fitz. It’s Stransom. Prepare to receive royalty.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Gourmand, seizing his big bass instrument which had been made specially for him, and wound right round his shoulder like a Highlander’s plaid. The mouthpiece of it was so big that Willie could get inside easily. He blew a blast that would have awakened the dead.

When with considerable difficulty, for he was very fat, the old king got up the side, and saw Gourmand, he started back and nearly went heels over head into the sea again.

“Don’t be afraid, old boy,” said Stransom, hitting him a smack on the back that almost took his breath away. “That’s only one of my little boys.”

Then Stransom gave Tootaker orders not to let anyone else up the side, for savages are arrant thieves, and took the king below to the saloon. The king’s eyes were now like bull’s eyes with amazement mingled with fear.

But Stransom made him sit down, and gave him a stiff glass of whisky. Hand in hand with Willie, Peggy herself came in, all smiles. Stransom introduced them.

“Two babies,” he said, “just three days old.”

Johnnie entered next.

“Born four days ago,” said Stransom, coolly.

“How do, old block? Delighted, I’m sure!”

The king took Johnnie’s extended hand, but holloed with pain immediately after, for the athletic boy had given him what he called an artistic squeeze. It was artistic enough, anyhow, to make the blood ooze from under his nails. No wonder he holloed.

Meanwhile Fitzroy entertained the men in the canoe. They ate like ogres of the good things handed down to them--a bushel of biscuits and about fifteen pounds of salt beef. Fitzroy could see them, their stomachs swelling even in the moonlight. Then he threw them down beads, and coloured cloth.

They fought over this till they nearly capsized the great war-canoe. But the fittest survived: the rest were _hors de combat_ between the thwarts.

The king had more whisky!

He grew happy and fought all his battles over again, and told of all the wondrous cannibal feasts he had taken part in. He even volunteered a song, though he had no more music in him than a carrion crow.

He had some more whisky, and was then induced to go on deck, and walk forward, or rather totter, gibbering all the time like a blithering idiot. Here he lay down, and Fitzroy threw a tarpaulin over him.

Tootaker stood sentry over his king all night, and the savage emperor was a different man in the morning, and a sadder.

But in this strange way was friendship established between the white men and this terrible tribe of cannibals.