The Tapu Of Banderah
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“Oh, no, sir. I no forget you,” said the native, civilly enough, but without warmth. “How are you, Cap’en Bilker?”
“Sh’, don’t call me that, Bandy. I’m Captain Sykes now.”
“Yes?” and Banderah’s face at once assumed an expression of the most hopeless stupidity. “All right, Cap’en Sike. Come inside an’ sit down.”
“Right, my boy,” said Bilker genially, fumbling in his coat pocket, and producing a large flask of rum, “I’ve brought you a drink, Bandy; and I want to have a yarn with you.”
“All right,” and taking the flask from the captain’s hand without deigning to look at it, he passed it on to one of his wives. “What you want talk me about, Cap’en? You want me to get you some native for work on plantation?” and he smiled slily.
“No, no, Bandy. Nothing like that I don’t run a labour ship now. I’m a big fellow gentleman now. I’m captain of that yacht.”
The chief nodded, but said nothing. He knew Captain “Sykes” of old, and knew him to be an undoubted rascal. Indeed, about ten years before the cunning blackbirder captain had managed to take thirty of Banderah’s people away in his ship without paying for them; and the moment the chief recognised the sailor he set his keen native brain to work to devise a plan for getting square with him. And he meant to take deadly vengeance.
“Banderah, old man,” and the captain laid one hand on the chiefs naked knee, “I meant to pay you for those men when I came back next trip. But I was taken by a man-of-war,” here Bilker crossed his wrists to signify that he had been handcuffed; “taken to Sydney, put me in calaboose—ten years.”
“You lie,” said Banderah quietly, but with a danger spark in his eye, “man-o’-war no make you fas’ for a long time after you steal my men. Plenty people tell me you make two more voyage; then man-o’-war catch you an’ make you fas’.”
“Don’t you believe ‘em, Banderah,” began the ex-blackbirder, when the chief interrupted him—
“What you do with my brother?” he said suddenly; “he die too, in Fiji?”
The white man’s face paled. “I don’t know, Banderah. I didn’t know your brother was aboard when my mate put the hatches on. I thought he had gone ashore. I never meant to take him away to Fiji anyway.”
“All right; never mind that. But what you want talk to me about?” And then, as if to put his visitor at his ease, he added, “You dam rogue, me dam rogue.”
“Yes, yes,” assented Captain Bilker cheerfully; “but look here now, Bandy, I’m not only going to pay you for those men I took, but give you a lot of money as well—any amount of money; make you a big, rich chief; big as Maafu Tonga.1 But I want you to help me.”
“You speak me true?” inquired the chief.
“I swear it,” answered the captain promptly, extending his hand, which, however, Banderah did not appear to see.
“All right,” he said presently, after a silence of a few moments; then making a sign for his women and slaves to withdraw to the further end of the room, so that their muttered talk might not disturb the white man and himself, he lit his pipe and said, “Go on, tell me what you want me to do, Cap’en.”
“Look,” said the ex-blackbirder, laying a finger on the chiefs arm and speaking in a low voice, “these two white men on board the yacht have got any amount of money, gold, sovereigns—boxes and boxes of it They stole it; I know they stole it, although I didn’t see them do it.”
Banderah nodded his huge, frizzy head. “I savee. These two fellow rogue, all same you an’ me.”
“See, now, look here, Banderah. I mean to have that gold, and I want you to help me to get it. As soon as these men on board are dead I will give you a thousand golden sovereigns—five thousand dollar. Then I’ll go away in the schooner. Now, listen, and I’ll tell you how to do it. The Yankee and Peter are going to help.”
Then Captain Bilker, alias Sykes, unfolded his plan as follows: Banderah was to entice De Vere and his friend some miles into the interior, where there was a large swamp covered with wild-fowl. Here they were to be clubbed by Banderah and his people, and the bodies thrown into the swamp. Then Bilker, accompanied by Schwartzkoff and Burrowes, were to go on board the schooner and settle the mate and the white steward.
“How much sovereign you goin’ to give Peter and Missa Burrowes?” asked Banderah.
“Five hundred,” answered Bilker; “five hundred between them. But I will give you a thousand.”
“You no ‘fraid man-o’-war catch you by and by?” inquired Banderah.
“No. Who’s going to tell about it? You and your people won’t.”
“What ‘bout Missa Blount? What ‘bout mission’ry?”
Bilker grinned savagely. “Peter and Burrowes say they will kill Blount if I give them another five hundred sovereigns.”
“What ‘bout mission’ry and mission’ry woman?”
For a moment or two Bilker, crime-hardened villain as he was, hesitated. Then he raised his head and looked into the dark face of the native chief. Its set, savage expression gave him confidence.
“Plenty missionaries get killed. And, all the man-o’-war captains know that the Mayou bush-men2 are very savage. Some day—in about a week after I have gone away in the schooner, you will take the missionary and his wife to the little bush town, that Peter and Burrowes tell me he goes to sometimes. They will sleep there that night. You and some of your people will go with them and sleep in the same house with them. You do that sometimes, Banderah, eh?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
This was perfectly true. The bush tribes on Mayou, although at war with Banderah and his coast tribes, yet occasionally met their foes in an amicable manner at a bush village called Rogga, which had been for many decades a neutral ground. Here Banderah and his people, carrying fish, tobacco, and bamboos filled with salt water,3 would meet small parties of bush people, who, in exchange for the commodities brought by Banderah, would give him yams, hogs, and wild pigeons. At several of these meetings Mr. Deighton had been present, in the vain hope that he might establish friendly relations with the savage and cannibal people of the interior.
“Well,” resumed the ruffian, “you will sleep at Rogga with the missionary and his wife. In the morning, when you and your people awake, the missionary and his wife will be dead. Then you will hurry to this place; you will go on board the man-of-war and tell the captain that the bad bushmen killed them when they were asleep.”
“I savee. Everybody savee Mayou man-a-bush like kill white men.”
“That’s it, Bandy. No one will say you did it.”
“What ‘bout Peter an’ Burrowes? Perhaps by and by those two fellow get mad with me some day, and tell man-o’-war I bin kill three white man and one white woman.”
“Banderah,” and Bilker slapped him on the shoulder, “you’re a damned smart fellow! There’s no mistake about that. Now look here, I want you to get another thousand sovereigns—the thousand I am going to give to Burrowes and Peter. And after the man-a-bush have killed the missionary and his wife, they are coming down to the beach one night soon after, and will kill the two white men. Then there will be no more white men left, and you’ll be the biggest chief in the world—as big as Maafu Tonga.”
A curious smile stole over the grim features of the chief.
“By God! Cap’en, you savee too much; you dam fine man altogether.”
“Well, look here now, Banderah. Are you going to do it?”
“Yes, I do it right enough.”
“When?”
“To-mollow.”
“To-morrow will do. And, look here, Bandy, I’m going to give you ten sovereigns each for the men I took away from you.”
“All right,” answered the chief, “now you go away. I want go and look out for some good men come along me to-mollow.”
“Right you are, Banderah. Take plenty good men. You know what to do—white men walk along swamp to shoot duck, then one, two,” and Captain Bilker made a motion with his right hand that was perfectly comprehensible to the chief.
Banderah sat perfectly quiet on his mat and watched the captain return to Burrowes’ house, from where a short time after he emerged, accompanied by his two fellow-conspirators. Then the three of them hailed the schooner. A boat put off and took them on board.
An hour or two later Blount returned along the beach from Lak-a-lak, and walked slowly up the path to his house. Just as he entered the door the sounds of revelry came over to him from the schooner, whose lights were beginning to glimmer through the quick-falling darkness of the tropic night. Some one on board was playing an accordion, and presently he caught the words of a song—
“Remember, too, the patriots’ gore That flecked the streets of Baltimore; Maryland, my Maryland.”
“Burrowes only sings that when he’s very drunk,” he said to himself, as he sat down to drink a cup of coffee brought to him by his eldest daughter Taya. “No doubt he and that anointed sweep Bilker are having a very happy time together.”
“Father,” said the girl in the native tongue, as he put down his cup, “Banderah is here. He came but now, and will not come inside, but waits for thee in the copra-house, lest he be seen talking to thee.”
“What the devil is wrong?” muttered Blount, as without waiting to touch the coffee prepared for him he went outside to the copra-house.
In half an hour he and the native chief came out together, and as they stood for a minute in the broad streak of light that streamed out from the lamp on the table in the big room, Taya, who sat in the doorway, saw her father’s face was set and stern-looking.
“Shed thou no blood, Banderah,” he said in the native tongue, “not even that of these two dogs who have eaten and drunk in my house for four years.”
“Challi,4 that is hard. Already are my people thirsty for the blood of this dog of a captain—he who stole thirty and one of my people. And because of my brother, who was stolen with them, have I promised them vengeance. But the other two who are with him on the ship I will spare.”
“As you will. And as for these two dogs who have planned to kill me, with them I shall deal myself. If, when the schooner saileth away from here, these men go not with her, then shall I shoot them dead.”
“Good,” and then grasping the white man’s hand, the chief pressed his nose to his, and vanished in the darkness.
IV ~ “DEATH TO THEM BOTH!”
Early on the following morning Messrs. de Vere and Morcombe-Lycett—the latter being now quite recovered—informed Mr. and Mrs. Deighton that, having heard from the two traders there was good shooting at the big swamp, they were going there under the guidance of Banderah and a party of natives; and shortly after breakfast the chief, accompanied by a number of his people, appeared.
“I will send with you two of my best men,” said Mr. Deighton, indicating a couple of his pet converts, who stood by dressed for the occasion in white starched shirts and black coats, but minus trousers, of which garments the pet converts had divested themselves, knowing that they should have to wade through the swamp.
But suddenly, to the missionary’s astonishment, Banderah, with a savage look, bade them stay where they were. He had, he said, plenty of men, and did not need Mr. Deighton’s servants.
Presently the two yachting gentlemen, arrayed in a very stylish sporting get-up, appeared with their breach-loaders and cartridge-belts, and waving their hands gracefully to the missionary and his wife, disappeared with Banderah and his dark-skinned companions into the dense tropical jungle, the edge of which was within a very short distance of the mission station.
For about an hour the Honourable Morcombe-Lycett and Mr. de Vere, with Banderah leading the way, walked steadily onward through the jungle. Not a word was spoken among the natives who followed close at their heels, and Banderah himself, in answer to their frequent questions, replied only by monosyllables..
At last they came out of the stifling heat of the thick jungle, and saw before them a great reedy swamp, the margin fringed by a scanty growth of cocoanut and pandanus palms. Out upon the open patches of water, here and there showing upon the broad expanse of the swamp, they saw large flocks of wild duck feeding and swimming about, betraying not the slightest fear at their approach.
“By Jove, Baxter,” said Mr. de Vere to his friend, “looks good enough, doesn’t it? I wonder if these blasted niggers will go in for us.”
“Of course they will. But let us have a drink first. Here, you, bring us that basket. I wonder what sort of tucker old Godliness has given us. He’s not a bad sort of an ass. His wife, too, isn’t bad.”
“Bah,” and Mr. de Vere twirled his long, yellow moustache, “you’re always finding out something nice in the face of every woman you come across. Wait until we get up to Japan; then you can amuse yourself with a new type of woman. Be a bit of a change for you after the Melbourne and Sydney peroxided-hair beauties. Here, nigger, give me that corkscrew.”
“I say, Dalton,” suddenly remarked his friend, “‘pon my soul I believe we are making a mistake in going to Japan. You may be sure that we’ll have a lot of trouble awaiting us there.”
“Not a bit of it Before we get there every one will have read the cable news that we have been seen in Callao, and no one in Yokohama will ever think of associating Mr. Herbert de Vere and the Honourable Morcombe-Lycett—just arrived from Manila via Singapore in the Spanish mail-steamer—with—er—hum—the two gentlemen who arrived at Callao from Tahiti, after successfully diddling the Australian financial public of thirty thousand quid.”
“But what are we going to do with the schooner at Manila?”
“Sell her, my innocent! Sell her to our esteemed friend, Mr. Moses Steinberg, who has assisted me in previous financial transactions—before I had the pleasure of meeting my present valued colleague, the Honourable Mr. Morcombe-Lycett—and who is now taking care to inform the world that we are living in South America.”
“And how are we going to account for our boxes of sovereigns? Two mining speculators don’t usually carry about heavy sums in gold.”
“All managed, my boy. My friend, Mr. Moses Steinberg, will see to that. The ten thousand sovereigns will be valuable gold specimens from Queensland, and will be placed on board the North German Lloyd’s steamer at Singapore for safe conveyance to London, where you and I, my dear boy, will follow it And there also we shall find, I trust, an additional sum of fifteen thousand lying to our credit—the proceeds of our honest toil.”
“What are you going to do with Sykes?”
“Give him £500 and tell him to hold his tongue. He’s a thundering rascal, and we must pay to shut his mouth.”
Then the two proceeded to discuss their lunch, and as they ate and drank and talked and laughed, Banderah and three or four of his men whispered together.
“Seize them from behind and bind them tightly,” said the chief, “but kill them not, for that I have promised to Challi.”
The Honourable Morcombe-Lycett had just finished his last glass of bottled beer and wanted to smoke. He had taken out his cigar-case, and, wondering at the sudden silence which had fallen upon their native guides, turned round to see where they were, and saw swiftly advancing upon himself and his companion some half a dozen stalwart natives. In that momentary glance he read danger, and quick as lightning—for he was no coward—he seized his loaded gun, which lay beside him, and fired both barrels one after another, at not ten yards’ range.
A chorus of savage yells answered the shots, as two of the natives fell, but ere he could reload or Dalton could fire there came a fierce rush of all the dark-skinned men upon them, and, struggling madly for their lives, they were borne down.
And then the lust of slaughter overcame their fierce assailants, and despite Banderah and two or three of his most trusted men, a club was raised and fell swiftly upon the white, fair forehead of “Mr. de Vere” as he sought to tear away his hands from the vice-like grasp of two huge natives who held them.
“Death to them both!” cried a thin-faced, wrinkled old man named Toka; “hutu:5 for the lives of the thirty and one.” Then springing out from the rest, he swung a short-handled, keen-bladed hatchet over his head, and sank it into the brain of the wretched Baxter.
“Stand thou aside, Banderah, son of Paylap,” screamed the old man, waving the bloody hatchet fiercely at him. “I, old Toka, the priest, will to-day again show the men of Mayou how to drink the blood and eat the flesh of the long pigs the gods have given into our hands,” and again he buried the weapon in Baxter’s breathless body. And as Banderah looked at the old man’s working face, and saw the savage mouth, flecked with foam, writhing and twisting in horrible contortions, and then saw the almost equally dreadful visages of the rest of his men, he knew that the old, old lust for human flesh had come upon them.
So, with the one idea of saving Blount and the missionary and his wife, he turned and fled through the forest towards the beach.
V ~ THE TAPU OF BANDERAH
The Rev. Wilfrid and Mrs. Deighton were at lunch, talking about the genial manners and other qualifications of their guests, when suddenly they heard a rapid step on the verandah, and Blount dashed into the room.
His face was white with excitement, and they saw that he carried his revolver in his hand.
“What in heaven’s name is wrong, Mr. Blount? Why are you armed–”
“For God’s sake don’t ask me now! Our lives are in danger—deadly, imminent danger. Follow me to my house!”
“But, my dear sir,” began Mr. Deighton, “I do not see—I fail–”
“Man, don’t talk! Do you think I do not know what I am saying? Your two friends are both murdered. Banderah is now at my house, too exhausted to tell me more than to come and save you.”
“Dear, dear me! Oh, this is dreadful! Let us, Alice, my dear, seek Divine–”
“You fool!” and the trader seized the missionary by the arm as he was about to sink upon his knees. “Stay here and pray if you like—and get your throat cut In ten—in five minutes more, every native except Banderah will be here ready to burn and murder. I tell you, man, that our only chance of safety is to reach my house first, and then the schooner. Come, Mrs. Deighton. For God’s sake, come!”
Pushing past the missionary, he seized Mrs. Deighton by the hand and descended the steps. They had scarcely gone two hundred yards when they heard a strange, awful cry peal through the woods; and Mr. Deighton shuddered. Only once before had he heard such a cry, and that was when, during the early days of the mission, he had seen a native priest tear out the heart of a victim destined for a cannibal feast, and hold it up to the people.
Suddenly little Mrs. Deighton gasped and tottered as they hurried her along; she was already exhausted. Then Deighton stopped.
“Mr. Blount… go on by yourself. We have not your strength to run at this speed. I will help my wife along in a minute or two. Some of the mission people will surely come to our aid.”
“Will they?” said Blount grimly. “Look for yourself and see; there’s not a soul in the whole village. They have gone to see–” and he made an expressive gesture.
Mr. Deighton groaned. “My God, it is terrible!—” then suddenly, as he saw his wife’s deathly features, his real nature came out “Mr. Blount, you are a brave man. For God’s sake save my dear wife! I am too exhausted to run any further. I am too weak from my last attack of the fever. But we are only a quarter of a mile away from your house now. Take her on with you, but give me your revolver. I can at least cover your retreat for a time.”
Blount hesitated, then giving the weapon to the missionary, he lifted the fainting woman in his arms, and said—
“Try and come on a little; as soon as I am in sight of the house your wife will be safe; you must at least keep me in sight.”
As the trader strode along, carrying the unconscious woman in his strong arms, the missionary looked at the weapon in his hand, and shuddered again.
“May God forgive me if I have done wrong,” he muttered. “But take the life of one of His creatures to save my own I never will. Yet to save hers I must do it.”
Then with trembling feet but brave heart he walked unsteadily along after the trader and his burden. So far, no sound had reached him since that one dreadful cry smote upon his ear, and a hope began to rise in his breast that no immediate danger threatened. A short distance away, embowered among the trees, was the house of Burrowes. The door was closed, and not a sign of life was discernible about the place.
“Heavens, were they asleep?” He had heard that Burrowes and the German had been carousing all the morning with the captain of the Starlight. Likely enough they were all lying in a drunken slumber. “God, give me strength to warn them,” he said to himself; and then with a last glance at Blount and his wife, he resolutely turned aside and began to ascend the hill.
But before he gained the summit, Blount had reached the fence surrounding his house, and Banderah and Taya and her two young brothers, rifles in hand, met the trader.
“Quick, take her!” and he pushed Mrs. Deighton into Taya’s arms and looked back.
“My God! he’s going up to Burrowes’ house! Come, Banderah,” and he started back again, “he’ll be speared or shot before he gets there.”
Just as the missionary reached the door and began in feeble, exhausted tones to call out, Blount and the chief caught up to him, and seizing his hands dragged him away again down the hill.
“Don’t bother about them, they are all on board,” was all Blount said. And there was no time to talk, for now fierce cries were heard in the direction of the mission house, and Blount and Banderah, looking back, saw black, naked figures leap over the low stone wall enclosing the missionary’s dwelling and disappear inside.
“Just in time,” muttered the trader, as dragging Mr. Deighton between them they gained the house, and sat the missionary down beside his wife, who with a cry of thankfulness threw her arms about his neck and then quietly fainted.
For nearly half an hour Blount, with Banderah and the missionary by his side, looked out through the windows and saw the natives plundering and wrecking the mission house and the dwellings of Schwartzkoff and Burrowes. A mile away, motionless upon the glassy waters of the harbour, lay the schooner, with her boat astern, and every now and then Blount would take a look at her through his glass.
“I can’t see a soul on deck,” he said to Mr. Deighton. “I heard that Peter and Burrowes went off this morning with the captain, all pretty well drunk. Would to God I knew what is best to do! To go on board would perhaps mean that those ruffians would shoot us down before we were alongside. No, we’ll stay here and take our chance. Banderah says he feels pretty sure that he can protect us from his own people. They’d never dare to hurt him; and I think that will steady them a bit,” and he pointed to the fence, upon which, at intervals, were tied green cocoanut boughs. These had just been placed there by Banderah himself, and meant that the house was tapu—it and all in it were sacred.
“God grant it may!” said Mr. Deighton, and looking at the mystic sign, the use of which he had so often tried to put down as a silly, heathenish practice, he felt a twinge of conscience.
At last the work of plunder was over, and then Blount saw a swarm of black, excited savages, led by two or three “devil-doctors” or priests, advance towards the house. At the same moment Banderah, looking seaward, saw that the boat had left the schooner and was pulling ashore. He was just about to point her out to the trader when, for some reason, he changed his mind, turned away, and joined his white friends at the other end of the room.
Following the lead of the “devil-doctors,” who, stripped to the waist, and with their heads covered with the hideous masks used in their incantations, looked like demons newly arisen from the pit, the yelling swarm of natives at last reached the fence outside Blount’s house; and Mr. Deighton, with an inward groan, saw among them some of his pet converts, stark naked and armed with spears and clubs.
Leaping and dancing with mad gyrations, and uttering curious grunting sounds as their feet struck the ground, the devil-doctors at last came within a few feet of the gate in the trader’s fence. Then, suddenly, as they caught sight of a branch of cocoanut leaf twisted in and around the woodwork of the gate, they stopped their maddened whirl as if by magic; and upon those behind them fell the silence of fear.