Presently the dancers emerged in a long, snake-like line from a group of trees. The heads of the women, crowned by their great puff-balls of black hair, swayed to the rhythm of the music. So did the leis of flowers swinging from their shoulders, and full skirts patterned in black, white and brown. By then each Elder had beside him a tin of black tobacco and a piece of dried banana leaf for rolling cigarettes. Courteously, they passed bowls of yaggona from one to another.
Now and then there came a precisely-measured series of hand-claps from the singers, or the guitars temporarily ceased, to allow the lali drum and stumping bamboos to dictate more clearly the intricate steps of the dancers. Like European ballet, each meke demonstrated in dumb show a particular theme; but, being a stranger to their customs, Gregory could not have told what their actions were meant to portray had not James explained to him in a low-voiced running commentary.
Later, six young girls came and sat in a line in front of James, then performed a different type of dance. It consisted of swaying their bodies while gracefully gesturing with their arms and outspread fingers. It was a delightful performance and recalled to Gregory the dances he had seen when in Bangkok. But there the Thai dancers had the advantage of displaying their beautiful sinuous bodies in the nude, but for jewelled belts, sandals and breast ornaments, and wore high, pointed, pagoda-like gilded helmets.
Shortly before midnight, James stood up. Complete silence fell while obeisances were made by everyone. There followed three ear-shattering claps as Gregory followed him into the bure.
All the house servants were still outside, joining in renewed singing that had now become universal. In the great, lofty chamber only one benzine lamp had been left burning; so, for a moment, in the dim light, they did not notice a figure seated cross-legged on the floor.
The figure rose. It was a man: tall, gaunt, his face painted black, and dressed in barbaric splendour. Round the blackened face there was a complete aureole of white hair. From well back on the forehead it descended unbroken in bushy side-whiskers to a rounded beard. The sight of it at once reminded Gregory of the pictures he had seen of King Thakobau.
The old man made the customary genuflection to his Ratu, but as he rose, the light was sufficient for Gregory to see that on his face there was a mocking smile.
Abruptly James addressed him. His reply was soft-voiced, but held a tone of insolence. Turning to Gregory, James said, ‘This is Roboumo, of whom I have told you. He has come here to talk to us about the wreck.’
Roboumo made a slight bow to Gregory and broke into pidgin French. ‘Monsieur Salut. Have heard about. Interested in wreck too, yes? My spies very good. Learn everything. Others also wish Spanish gold. But no!’
The deep-set eyes in the wrinkled, leathery face took on a malignant glare. ‘Frenchmens from Tahiti. They come here, make much plan. My spies, they listen. Frenchmens say, “With gold we make Revika tourist trap. Build hotel. Surf-boarding. Deep-sea fish. Motor ride to waterfall. Make place for golf play. Plenty Americans, they come. We make much rich.” But when I told, I say No! No! No! Will not have. To get gold from sea divers must have. I send the word. Divers not work. Diver work and I destroy him. White Witch will curse.’
So that, thought Gregory, is the answer to the riddle that has been puzzling me all day.
The tall, skinny old witch-doctor went on, ‘The Frenchmens send Portuguese man to me. He argue; offer much money. I will not take. He very angry. He say I go to hell, he get divers from Fiji. I tell him, “Do that and the White Witch place curse of death on you. Forget gold or you live only till full moon. Full moon come, death strike you down”.’
A moment after he had ceased speaking Roboumo uttered a high-pitched chuckle. Then he said, ‘I have power to overlook Portuguese. You know that, Ratu. He seeks divers, I learn it. Then next week he dead.’ Turning to Gregory, he added, This warning also for you. Leave bad gold where it lie. Try to get and White Witch curse you same as Portuguese man from Brazil.
14
Midnight at the Grave
Without another word, the lean, sinewy old man turned away and, his naked feet making hardly a sound on the mats, disappeared through the rear door of the bure.
‘A nasty bit of work if ever there was one,’ Gregory remarked. ‘Anyhow, we know now why the divers refused to work for Lacost, de Carvalho and Co. How is this likely to affect us? Do you think the divers will refuse to work for you?’
James gave an unhappy nod. ‘I’m afraid so. The poor fellows will find themselves between the devil and the deep sea. They will feel terribly bad about refusing me, but they won’t dare defy Roboumo. And there is another thing. In view of his threat to have the White Witch curse us, I don’t think I’d now be prepared to go on.’
‘My dear James!’ Gregory’s voice was a trifle sharp. ‘You really surprise me. It is understandable that ignorant natives should be intimidated by such threats, but not an educated man like you.’ As he spoke, he moved towards the drink table and added, ‘May I help myself to a brandy-and-soda?’
‘By all means. I’m sorry that, owing to custom, you’ve had to drink yaggona all the evening. It has very little kick in it, but it suits my people. They have no head for spirits, so I publicly discourage the drinking of them. In fact, in some Melanesian islands they are still prohibited altogether, because the “dragon” whisky and “crocodile” gin the traders used to sell them led to so many outbreaks of violence. But to get back to Roboumo. I feel that we must take his threat seriously.’
‘All right, but let’s examine it critically. What evidence have you that these spells really work?’
‘Plenty. And there is no doubt at all that the vuniduvas, as the sorcerers are called, can overlook people when separated from them by great distances. They often produce information about happenings in the outer islands here that they could not possibly have known by normal means. And sometimes it is to do good. For instance, last year one of them told a servant of mine that he must buy certain medicines and take them at once to the small island where his family lived because his young son had had a serious accident. Of course, I at once gave him leave to go, and when he returned a fortnight later he told me that the sorcerer had been quite right. The boy had fallen from a tree while collecting coconuts, injured his leg and the wound had become infected. If it had not been treated within a few days he would have died.’
Gregory shrugged. ‘That’s fair enough. Thought transference has been scientifically proved, and distant vision is a form of it. But being capable of putting a curse on a person so that he dies is a very different matter.’
‘It happens, though. Here witchcraft is called drau-ni-kau, and it is still widely practised. Men who have money will pay a big sum to a vuniduva to put a death curse on a really hated enemy. The victim simply weakens and dies. Then the man who has caused the curse to be put on him goes to his grave in the middle of the night and drives several sharp stakes down into the body, to prevent the spirit from returning to haunt him. I have several times seen such stakes in the graves of newly-dead.’
‘I’m not doubting your beliefs, James, and, in spite of the fact that for the purposes of the war I once had to take a Satanist into partnership, I don’t really know that much about the occult. But it is generally held to be a fact that curses do not work on people who are convinced that they will have no effect. How, otherwise, could comparatively few white men have subjugated many thousands of Negroes in Africa? Or the people here in the South Seas, for that matter? The witch-doctors would have killed them off in no time. Anyway, I don’t believe for one moment that Roboumo and his White Witch have the power to kill me by occult means. And it was I the old badhat threatened, not you.’
True, it was to you that he actually spoke his threat; but only, I imagine, because he knows I would not be able to tackle the job if you withdrew your financial backing. If he finds that you refuse to be intimidated I think it certain that his next step will be to threaten me, in the hope that I have enough say in mat
ters to make you throw in your hand.’
‘And would you?’
‘I hardly know,’ James murmured miserably.
‘Now listen, my boy.’ Gregory spoke firmly but kindly. ‘You know very well that this gold means nothing to me. If I had another sixty years to live I couldn’t spend all the money I already have. In any case, I had meant to make my share of it over to you. But what does matter is not allowing either de Carvalho or Lacost to get the better of us. The one double-crossed us and the other did his best to kill us. And I’ll bet you any money you like that neither of those tough eggs is going to get the jitters because that old buffoon has said that he’ll have a magic put on them. In a week or so they will be back here with Fijian divers and going to work. The very idea of allowing those blackguards to lift the stuff in front of my eyes makes me as mad as a hatter. But this is your party, and I do appreciate that, your ancestry being different from mine, we have inherited very different mental reactions to certain possibilities. So if you’d rather that we chucked in our hands I’ll agree, and think none the worse of you. Now: which is it to be?’
James hesitated for only a moment, then he said, ‘You have been so very good to me. I can’t let you down. You may be right, that your disbelief in the White Witch’s powers will turn her curse aside. Anyhow, I’m game to go through with it.’
‘Good man.’ Gregory reached up and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Then we had best not let the grass grow under our feet. I suggest that first thing tomorrow you find out if the divers here are willing to defy Roboumo and work for us. If they are, we keep the clear lead we have over the enemy. If they refuse, the enemy already has a lead of several days over us; so the sooner we can get to Fiji ourselves and collect some divers the better our chance of catching up.’
‘I’ll have myself called early and go down to the town with Aleamotu’a. Between us we can see several of the men, and I should be able to let you know the form at breakfast. While I am down there I’ll call in at the church and arrange for candles to be burned to my patron saint every day from now on for your protection.’
‘Thanks, that’s very good of you.’ Gregory had no great faith himself in the efficacy of burning candles, but he was strongly of the opinion that anyone who had could, by so doing, draw down spiritual strength and powerful influences to aid any good purpose. After a moment he added:
‘I did not know that you were a Roman Catholic.’
‘Oh, yes,’ James replied cheerfully. ‘Most people in the Nakapoa group are now at least nominally Catholics, although probably three-quarters of them pay only lip service to that religion. You see, the Catholic Fathers and the Protestant missionaries arrived in the South Seas at about the same period. Both, inspired by their faiths, set extraordinary examples of courage and self-denial. Here, owing to the influence of France, the Fathers ultimately triumphed. But in the Fijis the Methodists proved more successful; perhaps because they brought their wives with them.’
‘What difference did that make?’ Gregory enquired with interest.
‘For one thing, that they should have wives at all made them seem more natural and human to the natives. For another, their women, both British and American, showed remarkable bravery. With the sweat pouring off them, as it must have seeing the layers of clothes they persisted in wearing, and bitten by myriads of mosquitoes, they still went out to nurse the sick and browbeat the natives into abandoning barbaric customs.
‘In the middle of the last century cannibalism was still rife in all these islands. Before his conversion to Christianity King Thakobau boasted of having eaten meat from over a thousand corpses. He employed a whole tribe of warriors from the island of Beqa to do nothing else but kidnap people to supply his cooking ovens. Against all odds the missionaries and their wives fought with the greatest tenacity to persuade him to stop eating human flesh, and prevent a Chief’s widows from being strangled and buried with him when he died.’
‘Do the Chiefs still practice polygamy?’ Gregory asked.
James shook his head. ‘Not since they accepted Lotu, as Christianity is called. Many of them in the outer islands still keep concubines; but not the High Chiefs such as the Ratus of Fiji.’
‘And how about yourself? Attached to the household of such a fine specimen of manhood I should have expected there to be half a dozen pretty young women.’
‘There were four,’ James admitted with a smile. ‘But on the morning of our arrival I sent them away. I should have, in any case, when I married, as I expected to do, a Princess of the royal families of either Fiji or Tonga. But since I met Olinda in Brazil my thoughts are all of her. I have no desire for any other woman, although it seems that the chances of making her my wife are very slender.’
‘I fear that is so. As she is a Roman Catholic, that rules out a divorce. I suppose, though, as she has no children, she might manage to get an annulment?’
‘Even if de Carvalho consented—which I am sure he would not—that would prove a long and costly business. As things are, I fear it is equally out of the question.’
By then it was past one o’clock. Gregory yawned and stood up. ‘Since you will be getting up early in the morning I think we’d best get to bed.’ From the garden there continued to come the sound of low, rather mournful, singing, and he added, ‘They are still at it out there. What time will they pack up?’
James looked rather surprised. ‘They won’t. That is, not until dawn. Later, when the yaggona begins to make them a little tipsy, the singing will get a bit ragged. But the idea is that they should sing us into pleasant dreams, and they are thoroughly enjoying themselves.’
When they met for breakfast James said, ‘It is as I feared. Between us, Aleamotu’a and I saw five of our best divers, and they all refused to play. None of them acknowledged that it was because they had been threatened by Roboumo. They made various excuses—not well enough themselves, a member of their family very ill, the loss of a job which, if they threw it up, they might not get back later on, and so on.’
Gregory nodded. Then it has come to a race between ourselves and the others. Immediately after breakfast we’ll get off a telegram to Hunt’s to send a private aircraft to fetch us and to engage rooms for us at the Grand Pacific.’
‘No!’ James shook his big mop of hair. ‘It’s no good our going to Suva. The natives on Viti Levu, with very few exceptions, don’t go in any more for diving as a living. They can make more money working in the hotels, driving trucks and acting as casual labourers for the shopkeepers. We must go to the outer islands to get the type of man we want. Probably the best are to be found in the Lau Group. But that is two hundred miles to the east of the main island; and we’ll have to go in a big launch to pick them up. It would be much quicker to go to the Yasawas, on this side of Viti Levu. They are no great distance from Lautoka, and you could ask Hunt’s to engage a big launch for us there.’
A message to that effect was duly written out and sent down by a runner to the telegraph office. They then collected their towels and went out to have a dip in the pool. When Gregory had walked the few yards from his bedroom bure to the main one he had noticed that the sky was overcast and that there was a slight drizzle; but as they went out into the garden he was amazed at the complete change of scene from the previous day. The distant islands could no longer be seen, neither could the horns of the big bay. The sea was no longer a deep blue, nor the sky a vault of azure. For the limited distance that could now be seen beyond the harbour, the sea was grey; the yellow had gone out of the palm fronds and they now looked a darkish green. Water dripped dismally from the big, shiny leaves of the nearest trees and much of the colour seemed to have left the flowers. Altogether, it was a gloomy and depressing scene.
Remarking on the change from the two previous days, Gregory asked, ‘Is it often like this?’
‘Oh, yes.’ James shrugged. ‘Sometimes it dries up in a few hours; at others the rain goes on for weeks. When the breeze drops, as it has now, and the humidity increases,
it can become very unpleasant. But we are quite used to it and everyone continues to work or go for a swim just the same.’
Gregory spent the morning reading, while James went down to the town and saw to numerous business affairs. He returned with a reply from Hunt’s: an aircraft would arrive to pick them up at 1500 hours approximately, rooms had been booked for them at the Cathay Hotel, Lautoka, and arrangements about a launch were being made for them there.
Having lunched off a ‘fish plate’—which consisted of delicious fresh crab meat, walu, the best local fish, and big prawns, followed by fruit, they were driven in the jeep down to the little airport. The weather had not improved and on the lower levels the mist was so thick that they feared the pilot might not be able to find the landing strip. But James had flares lit, and the aircraft came down safely only a quarter of an hour after its E.T.A.
Soon after they had taken off they passed out of the clouds and caught a glimpse of Tujoa’s peak rising above them. Their journey was then uneventful. Hunt’s had a car ready to meet them at Nandi, and by half past six they were at the Cathay Hotel, Lautoka.
After dinner there that evening Gregory said:
‘I’ve been thinking, James, about the next few days. As I don’t speak Fijian, I should not be the least help to you in arranging with the petty Chiefs in the islands for the hire of divers; and the Mamanucas lie only a little to the south of the Yasawas. By now Manon has probably given up all hope of ever seeing me again, but I’m sure she would be pleased to; so I’d like you to drop me off on her island.’
The White Witch of the South Seas Page 26
