The Call Of The South

Sui was to accompany me to the top of the range, and then return, as otherwise he would be in hostile territory.

By four o’clock in the afternoon we had gained a clear spot on the crest of the range, from where we had a most glorious view of the south coast imaginable. Three thousand feet below us were the russet-hued thatched roofs of the houses of Siumu Village; beyond, the pale green water that lay between the barrier reef and the mainland, then the long curving line of the reef itself with its seething surf, and, beyond that again, the deep, deep blue of the Pacific, sparkling brightly in the westering sun.

Leaning my gun against one of the many buttresses of a mighty masa’oi tree, I was drinking in the beauty of the scene, when we heard the shrill, cackling scream of a mountain cock, evidently quite near. Giving the boy my gun, I told him to go and shoot it; then sitting down on the carpet of leaves, I awaited his return with the bird, half-resolved to spend the night where I was, for I was very tired and began to feel the premonitory chills of an attack of ague.

In ten minutes the sound of a gun-shot reverberated through the forest aisles, and presently I heard Sui returning. He was running, and holding by its neck one of the biggest mountain cocks I ever saw. As he ran, he kept glancing back over his shoulder, and when he reached me and threw down gun and bird, I saw that he was trembling from head to foot.

“What is the matter?” I asked; “hast seen an aitu vao (evil spirit of the forest)?”

“Aye, truly,” he said shudderingly, “I have seen a devil indeed, and the marrow in my bones has gone—I have seen Te-bari, the Tâfito."7

I sprang to my feet and seized him by the wrist.

“Where was he?” I asked.

“Quite near me. I had just shot the wild moa vao (mountain cock) and had picked it up when I heard a voice say in Samoan—but thickly as foreigners speak: ‘It was a brave shot, boy’. Then I looked up and saw Te-bari. He was standing against the bole of a masa’oi tree, leaning on his rifle. Round his earless head was bound a strip of ie mumu (red Turkey twill), and as I stood and trembled he laughed, and his great white teeth gleamed, and my heart died within me, and–”

I do not want to disgust my readers, but truth compels me to say that the boy there and then became violently sick; then he began to sob with terror, stopping every now and then to glance around at the now darkening forest aisles of grey-barked, ghostly and moss-covered trees.

“Sui,” I said, “go back to your home. I have no fear of Te-bari.”

In two seconds the boy, who had faced rifle fire time and time again, fled homewards. Te-bari the outlaw was too much for him.

Personally I had no reason to fear meeting the man. In the first place I was an Englishman, and Te-bari was known to profess a liking for Englishmen, though he would eagerly cut the throat of a German or a Samoan if he could get his brawny hands upon it; in the second place, although I had never seen the man, I was sure that he would have heard of me from some of his fellow islanders on the plantations, for during my three years’ “recruiting” in the Kingsmill and Gilbert Groups, I have brought many hundreds of them to Samoa, Fiji and Tahiti.

Something of his story was known to me. He was a native of the great square-shaped atoll of Maiana, and went to sea in a whaler when he was quite a lad, and soon rose to be boat-steerer. One day a Portuguese harpooner struck him in the face and drew blood—a deadly insult to a Line Islander. Te-bari plunged his knife into the man’s heart. He was ironed, and put in the sail-locker; during the night three of the Portuguese sprang in upon him and cut off his ears. A few days later when the ship was at anchor at the Bonin Islands, Te-bari freed himself of his handcuffs and swam on shore Early on the following morning one of the boats was getting fresh water. She was in charge of the fourth mate—a Portuguese black. Suddenly a nude figure leapt among the men, and clove the officer’s head in twain with a tomahawk.

One day Te-bari reappeared among his people at Maiana and took service with a white trader, who always spoke of him as a quiet, hardworking young man, but with a dangerous temper when roused by a fancied wrong. In due time Te-bari took a wife—took her in a very literal sense, by killing her husband and escaping with her to the neighbouring island of Taputeauea (Drummond’s Island). She was a pretty, graceful creature of sixteen years of age. Then one day there came along the German labour brig Adolphe seeking “blackbirds” for Samoa, and Te-bari and his pretty wife with fifty other “Tâfitos” were landed at one of the plantations in Upolu.

Young Madame Te-bari was not as good as she ought to have been, and one day the watchful husband saw one of the German overseers give her a thick necklace of fine red beads. Te-bari tore them from her neck, and threw them into the German’s face. For this he received a flogging and was mercilessly kicked into insensibility as well When he recovered he was transferred to another plantation—minus the naughty Nireeungo, who became “Mrs.” Peter Clausen. A month passed, and it was rumoured “on the beach” that “No-Ears,” as Te-bari was called, had escaped and taken to the bush with a brand-new Snider carbine, and as many cartridges as he could carry, and Mr. Peter Clausen was advised to look out for himself. He snorted contemptuously.

Two young Samoan “bucks” were sent out to capture Te-bari, and bring him back, dead or alive, and receive therefor one hundred bright new Chile dollars. They never returned, and when their bodies were found in a deep mountain gully, it was known that the earless one was the richer by a sixteen-shot Winchester with fifty cartridges, and a Swiss Vetterli rifle, together with some twist tobacco, and the two long nifa oti or “death knives,” with which these valorous, but misguided young men intended to remove the earless head of the “Tâfito pig” from his brawny, muscular shoulders.

Te-bari made his way, encumbered as he was with his armoury, along the crest of the mountain range, till he was within striking distance of his enemy, Clausen, and the alleged Frau Clausen—née Nireeungo. He hid on the outskirts of the plantation, and soon got in touch with some of his former comrades. They gave him food, and much useful information.

One night, during heavy rain, when every one was asleep on the plantation, Te-bari entered the overseer’s house by the window. A lamp was burning, and by its light he saw his faithless spouse sleeping alone. Clausen—lucky Clausen—had been sent into Apia an hour before to get some medicine for one of the manager’s children. Te-bari was keenly disappointed. He would only have half of his revenge. He crept up to the sleeper, and made one swift blow with the heavy nifa oti Then he became very busy for a few minutes, and a few hours later was back in the mountains, smoking Clausen’s tobacco, and drinking some of Clausen’s corn schnapps.

When Clausen rode up to his house at three o’clock in the morning, he found the lamp was burning brightly. Nireeungo was lying on the bed, covered over with a quilt of navy blue. He called to her, but she made no answer, and Clausen called her a sleepy little pig. Then he turned to the side table to take a drink of schnapps—on the edge of it was Nireeungo’s head with its two long plaits of jet-black hair hanging down, and dripping an ensanguined stream upon the matted floor.

Clausen cleared out of Samoa the very next day. Te-bari had got upon his nerves.

The forest was dark by the time I had lit a fire between two of the wide buttresses of the great tree, and I was shaking from head to foot with ague. The attack, however, only lasted an hour, and then came the usual delicious after-glow of warmth as the blood began to course riotously through one’s veins and give that temporary and fictitious strength accompanied by hunger, that is one of the features of malarial fever.

Sitting up, I began to pluck the mountain cock, intending to grill the chest part as soon as the fire was fit. Then I heard a footstep on the leaves, and looking up I saw Te-bari standing before me.

“Ti-â ka po” (good evening), I said quietly, in his own language, “will you eat with me?”

He came over to me, still grasping his rifle, and peered into my face. Then he put out his hand, and sat down quietly in front of me. Except for a girdle of dracaena leaves around his waist he was naked, but he seemed well-nourished, and, in fact, fat.

“Will you smoke?” I said presently, passing him a plug of tobacco and my sheath knife, for I saw that a wooden pipe was stuck in his girdle of leaves. He accepted it eagerly.

“Do you know me, white man?” he asked abruptly, speaking in the Line Islands tongue.

I nodded. “You are Te-bari of Maiana. The boy was frightened of you and ran away.”

He showed his gleaming white teeth in a semi-mirthful, semi-tigerish grin. “Yes, he was afraid. I would have shot him; but I did not because he was with you. What is your name, white man?”

I told him.

“Ah, I have heard of you. You were with Kapitan Ebba (Captain Ever) in the Leota?”

He filled his pipe, lit it, and then extended his hand to me for the halt-plucked bird, and said he would finish it Then he looked at me inquiringly.

“You have the shaking sickness of the western islands. It is not good for you to lie here on the leaves. Come with me. I shall give you good food to eat, and coco-nut toddy to drink.”

I asked him where he got his toddy from, as there were no coco-nut trees growing so high up in the mountains. He laughed.

“I have a sweetheart in Siumu. She brings it to me. You shall see her to-night. Come.”

Stooping down, he lifted me up on his right shoulder as if I were a child, and then, with his own rifle and my gun and bag and the mountain cock tucked under his left arm, he set off at a rapid pace towards one of the higher spurs of the range. Nearly an hour later I found myself in a cave, overlooking the sea. On the floor were a number of fine Samoan mats and a well-carved aluga (bamboo pillow).

I stretched myself out upon the mats, again shivering with ague, and Te-bari covered me over with a thick tappa cloth. Then he lit a fire just outside the cave, and came back to me.

“You are hungry,” he said, as he expanded his big mouth and grinned pleasantly. Then from the roof of the cave he took down a basket containing cold baked pigeons, fish and yams.

I ate greedily and soon after fell asleep. When I awoke it seemed to be daylight—in reality it was only a little past midnight, but a full bright moon was shining into the cave. Seated near me were my host and a young woman—the “sweetheart”. I recognised her at once as Sa Laea, the widow of a man killed in the fighting a few months previously. She was about five and twenty years of age, very handsome, and quiet in her demeanour. As far as I knew she had an excellent reputation, and I was astonished at her consorting with an outlawed murderer. She came over and shook hands, asked if I felt better, and should she “lomi-lomi” (massage) me. I thanked her and gladly accepted her offer.

An hour before dawn she bade me good-bye, urging me to remain, and rest with her earless lover for a day or two, instead of coming on to Siumu, where there was an outbreak of measles.

“When I come to-morrow night,” she said, “I will bring a piece of kava root and make kava for you.”

The news about the measles decided me. I resolved to at least spend another day and night with my host. He was pleased.

Soon after breakfast he showed me around. His retreat was practically impregnable. One man with a supply of breech-loading ammunition could beat off a hundred foes. On the roof of the cave was a hole large enough to let a man pass through, and from the top itself there was a most glorious view. A mile away on the starboard hand, and showing through the forest green, was a curving streak of bright red—it was the road, or rather track, that led to Siumu. We filled our pipes, sat down and talked.

How long had he lived there? I asked. Five months. He had found the cave one day when in chase of a wild sow and her litter. Afraid of being shot by the Siumu people? No, he was on good terms with them. Very often he would shoot a wild pig and carry it to a certain spot on the road, and leave it for the villagers. But he could not go into the village itself. It was too risky—some one might be tempted to get those hundred Chile dollars from the Germans. Food? There was plenty. Hundreds of wild pigs in the mountains, and thousands of pigeons. The pigs he shot with his Snider, the pigeons he snared, for he had no shot gun, and would very much like to have one. Twice every week Sa Laea brought him food. Tobacco too, sometimes, when she could buy it or beg it from the trader at Siumu. Sometimes he would cross over to the northern watershed and catch a basketful of the big speckled trout which teem in the mountain pools. Some of these he would send by Sa Laea to the chief of Siumu, who would send him in return a piece of kava, and some young drinking coconuts as a token of good-will. Once when he went to fish he found a young Samoan and two girls about to net a pool. The man fired at him with his pigeon gun and the pellets struck him in the chest. Then he (Te-bari) shot the man through the chest with his Winchester. No, he did not harm the girls—he let them run away.

Sa Laea was a very good girl. Whenever he trapped a manu-mea (the rare Didunculus, or tooth-billed pigeon) she would take it to Apia and sell it for five dollars—sometimes ten. He was saving this money. When he had forty dollars he and Sa Laea were going to leave Samoa and go to Maiana. Kapitan Cameron had promised Sa Laea to take them there when they had forty dollars. Perhaps when his schooner next came to Siumu they would have enough money, etc.

During the day I shot a number of pigeons, and when Sa Laea appeared soon after sunset we had them cooked and ready. We made a delicious meal, but before eating the lady offered up the usual evening prayer in Samoan, and Te-bari the Earless sat with closed eyes like a saint, and gave forth a sonorous A-mene! when his ladylove ceased.

I left my outlaw friend next morning. Sa Laea came with me, for I had promised to buy him a pigeon gun (costing ten dollars), a bag of shot, powder and caps. I fulfilled my promise and the woman bade me farewell with protestations of gratitude.

A few months later Te-bari and Sa Laea left the island in Captain Cameron’s schooner, the Manahiki. I trust they “lived happily ever afterwards”.