CHAPTER XXXII
The stranger again arrives in the valley--Singular interview with him--Attempt to escape--Failure--Melancholy situation--Sympathy of Marheyo.
"Marnoo, Marnoo pemi!" Such were the welcome sounds which fell upon my earsome ten days after the event related in the preceding chapter. Once morethe approach of the stranger was heralded, and the intelligence operatedupon me like magic. Again I should be able to converse with him in my ownlanguage; and I resolved, at all hazards, to concert with him some scheme,however desperate, to rescue me from a condition that had now becomeinsupportable.
As he drew near, I remembered with many misgivings the inauspicioustermination of our former interview; and when he entered the house, Iwatched with intense anxiety the reception he met with from its inmates.To my joy, his appearance was hailed with the liveliest pleasure; andaccosting me kindly, he seated himself by my side, and entered intoconversation with the natives around him. It soon appeared, however, thaton this occasion he had not any intelligence of importance to communicate.I inquired of him from whence he had last come? He replied, from Pueearka,his native valley, and that he intended to return to it the same day.
At once it struck me that, could I but reach that valley under hisprotection, I might easily from thence reach Nukuheva by water; and,animated by the prospect which this plan held out, I disclosed it in a fewbrief words to the stranger, and asked him how it could be bestaccomplished. My heart sunk within me when, in his broken English, heanswered me that it could never be effected. "Kannaka no let you gonowhere," he said, "you taboo. Why you no like to stay? Plenty moee-moee(sleep)--plenty ki-ki (eat)--plenty whihenee (young girls). Oh, very goodplace, Typee! Suppose you no like this bay, why you come? You no hearabout Typee? All white men afraid Typee, so no white men come."
These words distressed me beyond belief; and when I again related to himthe circumstances under which I had descended into the valley and soughtto enlist his sympathies in my behalf, by appealing to the bodily misery Iendured, he listened to me with impatience, and cut me short byexclaiming, passionately, "Me no hear you talk any more; by by Kannaka getmad, kill you and me too. No, you see he no want you to speak to me atall?--you see--ah! by by you no mind--you get well, he kill you, eat you,hang you head up there, like Happar Kannaka. Now you listen--but no talkany more. By by I go;--you see way I go. Ah! then some night Kannaka allmoee-moee (sleep)--you run away--you come Pueearka. I speak PueearkaKannaka--he no harm you--ah! then I take you my canoe Nukuheva, and you norun away ship no more." With these words, enforced by a vehemence ofgesture I cannot describe, Marnoo started from my side, and immediatelyengaged in conversation with some of the chiefs who had entered the house.
It would have been idle for me to have attempted resuming the interview soperemptorily terminated by Marnoo, who was evidently little disposed tocompromise his own safety by any rash endeavours to ensure mine. But theplan he had suggested struck me as one which might possibly beaccomplished, and I resolved to act upon it as speedily as possible.
Accordingly, when he arose to depart, I accompanied him, with the natives,outside of the house, with a view of carefully noting the path he wouldtake in leaving the valley. Just before leaping from the pi-pi, he claspedmy hand, and, looking significantly at me, exclaimed, "Now you see you dowhat I tell you--ah! then you do good;--you no do so--ah! then you die." Thenext moment he waved his spear in adieu to the islanders, and, followingthe route that conducted to a defile in the mountains lying opposite theHappar side, was soon out of sight.
A mode of escape was now presented to me; but how was I to avail myself ofit? I was continually surrounded by the savages; I could not stir from onehouse to another without being attended by some of them; and even duringthe hours devoted to slumber, the slightest movement which I made seemedto attract the notice of those who shared the mats with me. In spite ofthese obstacles, however, I determined forthwith to make the attempt. Todo so with any prospect of success, it was necessary that I should have atleast two hours' start before the islanders should discover my absence;for with such facility was any alarm spread through the valley, and sofamiliar, of course, were the inhabitants with the intricacies of thegroves, that I could not hope, lame and feeble as I was, and ignorant ofthe route, to secure my escape unless I had this advantage. It was also bynight alone that I could hope to accomplish my object, and then only byadopting the utmost precaution.
The entrance to Marheyo's habitation was through a low narrow opening inits wicker-work front. This passage, for no conceivable reason that Icould devise, was always closed after the household had retired to rest,by drawing a heavy slide across it, composed of a dozen or more bits ofwood, ingeniously fastened together by seizings of sinnate. When any ofthe inmates chose to go outside, the noise occasioned by the removing ofthis rude door awakened everybody else; and on more than one occasion Ihad remarked that the islanders were nearly as irritable as more civilizedbeings under similar circumstances.
The difficulty thus placed in my way I determined to obviate in thefollowing manner. I would get up boldly in the course of the night, and,drawing the slide, issue from the house, and pretend that my object wasmerely to procure a drink from the calabash, which always stood withoutthe dwelling on the corner of the pi-pi. On re-entering I would purposelyomit closing the passage after me, and trusting that the indolence of thesavages would prevent them from repairing my neglect, would return to mymat, and waiting patiently until all were again asleep, I would then stealforth, and at once take the route to Pueearka.
ABOUT MIDNIGHT I AROSE AND DREW THE SLIDE]
The very night which followed Marnoo's departure, I proceeded to put thisproject into execution. About midnight, as I imagined, I arose and drewthe slide. The natives, just as I had expected, started up, while some ofthem asked, "Arware poo awa, Tommo?" (where are you going, Tommo?) "Wai,"(water,) I laconically answered, grasping the calabash. On hearing myreply they sank back again, and in a minute or two I returned to my mat,anxiously awaiting the result of the experiment.
One after another the savages, turning restlessly, appeared to resumetheir slumbers, and, rejoicing at the stillness which prevailed, I wasabout to rise again from my couch, when I heard a slight rustling--a darkform was intercepted between me and the doorway--the slide was drawn acrossit, and the individual, whoever he was, returned to his mat. This was asad blow to me; but as it might have aroused the suspicions of theislanders to have made another attempt that night, I was reluctantlyobliged to defer it until the next. Several times after I repeated thesame manoeuvre, but with as little success as before. As my pretence forwithdrawing from the house was to allay my thirst, Kory-Kory, eithersuspecting some design on my part, or else prompted by a desire to pleaseme, regularly every evening placed a calabash of water by my side.
Even under these inauspicious circumstances I again and again renewed theattempt; but when I did so, my valet always rose with me, as if determinedI should not remove myself from his observation. For the present,therefore, I was obliged to abandon the attempt; but I endeavoured toconsole myself with the idea, that by this mode I might yet effect myescape.
Shortly after Marnoo's visit I was reduced to such a state, that it waswith extreme difficulty I could walk, even with the assistance of a spear,and Kory-Kory, as formerly, was obliged to carry me daily to the stream.
For hours and hours, during the warmest part of the day, I lay upon mymat, and while those around me were nearly all dozing away in carelessease, I remained awake, gloomily pondering over the fate which it appearednow idle for me to resist. When I thought of the loved friends who werethousands and thousands of miles from the savage island in which I washeld a captive--when I reflected that my dreadful fate would for ever beconcealed from them, and that, with hope deferred, they might continue toawait my return long after my inanimate form had blended with the dust ofthe valley, I could not repress a shudder of anguish.
How vividly is impressed upon my mind every minute feature of the scenewhich met my view during those long days of suffering and sorrow. At myrequest my mats were always spread directly facing the door, oppositewhich, and at a little distance, was the hut of boughs that Marheyo wasbuilding.
Whenever my gentle Fayaway and Kory-Kory, laying themselves down besideme, would leave me awhile to uninterrupted repose, I took a strangeinterest in the slightest movements of the eccentric old warrior. Allalone, during the stillness of the tropical mid-day, he would pursue hisquiet work, sitting in the shade and weaving together the leaflets of hiscocoa-nut branches, or rolling upon his knee the twisted fibres of bark toform the cords with which he tied together the thatching of his tinyhouse. Frequently suspending his employment, and noticing my melancholyeye fixed upon him, he would raise his hand with a gesture expressive ofdeep commiseration, and then, moving towards me slowly, would enter ontip-toes, fearful of disturbing the slumbering natives, and, taking thefan from my hand, would sit before me, swaying it gently to and fro, andgazing earnestly into my face.
Just beyond the pi-pi, and disposed in a triangle before the entrance ofthe house, were three magnificent bread-fruit trees. At this moment I canrecall to my mind their slender shafts, and the graceful inequalities oftheir bark, on which my eye was accustomed to dwell, day after day, in themidst of my solitary musings. It is strange how inanimate objects willtwine themselves into our affections, especially in the hour ofaffliction. Even now, amidst all the bustle and stir of the proud and busycity in which I am dwelling, the image of those three trees seems to comeas vividly before my eyes as if they were actually present, and I stillfeel the soothing quiet pleasure which I then had in watching, hour afterhour, their topmost boughs waving gracefully in the breeze.