CHAPTER XXXIII.
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 ear some ten days after the events related in
the preceding chapter. Once more the approach of the stranger
was heralded, and the intelligence operated upon me like magic.
Again I should be able to converse with him in my own language;
and I resolved at all hazards to concert with him some scheme,
however desperate, to rescue me from a condition that had now
become insupportable.
As he drew near, I remembered with many misgivings the
inauspicious termination of our former interview; and when he
entered the house, I watched with intense anxiety the reception
he met with from its inmates. To my joy, his appearance was
hailed with the liveliest pleasure; and accosting me kindly, he
seated himself by my side, and entered into conversation with the
natives around him. It soon appeared, however, that on 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
his protection, I might easily from thence reach Nukuheva by
water; and animated by the prospect which this plan held out,
I disclosed it in a few brief words to the stranger, and asked
him how it could be best accomplished. My heart sunk within
me when in his broken English he answered me that it could
never be effected. "Kannaka no let you go no where," he said;
"you taboo. Why you no like to stay? Plenty moee-moee
(sleep)—plenty ki-ki (eat)—plenty whihenee (young girls)—
Oh, very good place Typee! Suppose you no like this bay,
why you come? You no hear about Typee? All white men
afraid Typee, so no white men come."
These words distressed me beyond belief; and when I again
related to him the circumstances under which I had descended
into the valley, and sought to enlist his sympathies in my behalf
by appealing to the bodily misery I endured, he listened to
me with impatience, and cut me short by exclaiming passionately,
"Me no hear you talk any more; by by Kannaka get mad, kill
you and me too. No you see he no want you to speak to me
at all?—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 talk any more. By by I go;—
you see way I go.—Ah! then some night Kannaka all moee-moee
(sleep)—you run away, you come Pueearka. I speak
Pueearka Kannaka—he no harm you—ah! then I take you my
canoe Nukuheva—and you no run away ship no more." With
these words, enforced by a vehemence of gesture I cannot describe,
Marnoo started from my side, and immediately engaged
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 so peremptorily terminated by Marnoo, who was
evidently little disposed to compromise his own safety by any
rash endeavours to ensure mine. But the plan he had suggested
struck me as one which might possibly be accomplished, and I
resolved to act upon it as speedily as possible.
Accordingly, when he rose to depart, I accompanied him with
the natives outside of the house, with a view of carefully noting
the path he would take in leaving the valley. Just before leaping
from the pi-pi he clasped my hand, and looking significantly
at me, exclaimed, "Now you see—you do what I tell you—ah!
then you do good;—you no do so—ah! then you die." The
next moment he waved his spear in adieu to the islanders, and
following the route that conducted to a defile in the mountains
lying opposite the Happar side, was soon out of sight.
A mode of escape was now presented to me, but how was I to
avail myself of it? I was continually surrounded by the savages;
I could not stir from one house to another without being attended
by some of them; and even during the hours devoted to slumber
the slightest movement which I made seemed to attract the notice
of those who shared the mats with me. In spite of these obstacles,
however, I determined forthwith to make the attempt. To do so
with any prospect of success, it was necessary that I should have
at least two hours' start before the islanders should discover my
absence; for with such facility was any alarm spread through
the valley, and so familiar, of course, were the inhabitants with
the intricacies of the groves, that I could not hope, lame and
feeble as I was, and ignorant of the route, to secure my escape
unless I had this advantage. It was also by night alone that I
could hope to accomplish my object, and then only by adopting
the utmost precaution.
The entrance to Marheyo's habitation was through a low
narrow opening in its wicker-work front. This passage, for no
conceivable reason that I could 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 of wood, ingeniously fastened
together by seizings of sinnate. When any of the inmates chose
to go outside, the noise occasioned by the removing of this rude
door awakened every body else; and on more than one occasion
I had remarked that the islanders were nearly as irritable as more
civilized beings under similar circumstances.
The difficulty thus placed in my way I determined to obviate
in the following 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 was merely to procure a drink from the calabash,
which always stood without the dwelling on the corner of
the pi-pi. On re-entering I would purposely omit closing the
passage after me, and trusting that the indolence of the savages
would prevent them from repairing my neglect, would return to
my mat, and waiting patiently until all were again asleep, I
would then steal forth, and at once take the route to Pueearka.
The very night which followed Marnoo's departure, I proceeded
to put this project into execution. About midnight, as I
imagined, I rose and drew the slide. The natives, just as I had
expected, started up, while some of them asked, "Arware poo
awa, Tommo?" (where are you going, Tommo?) "Wai"
(water) I laconically answered, grasping the calabash. On
hearing my reply 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
resume their slumbers, and rejoicing at the stillness which prevailed,
I was about to rise again from my couch, when I heard a
slight rustling—a dark form was intercepted between me and the
doorway—the slide was drawn across it, and the individual, whoever
he was, returned to his mat. This was a sad blow to me;
but as it might have roused the suspicions of the islanders to have
made another attempt that night, I was reluctantly obliged to
defer it until the next. Several times after I repeated the same
manœuvre, but with as little success as before. As my pretence
for withdrawing from the house was to allay my thirst,
Kory-Kory, either suspecting some design on my part, or else
prompted by a desire to please me, regularly every evening
placed a calabash of water by my side.
Even under these inauspicious circumstances I again and again
renewed the attempt; but when I did so my valet always rose
with me, as if determined I should not remove myself from his
observation. For the present, therefore, I was obliged to abandon
the attempt; but I endeavoured to console myself with the
idea that by this mode I might yet effect my escape.
Shortly after Marnoo's visit I was reduced to such a state,
that it was with 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 my mat, and while those around me were nearly all dozing
away in careless ease, I remained awake, gloomily pondering
over the fate which it appeared now idle for me to resist, when I
thought of the loved friends who were thousands and thousands
of miles from the savage island in which I was held a captive,
when I reflected that my dreadful fate would for ever be concealed
from them, and that with hope deferred they might continue
to await my return long after my inanimate form had
blended with the dust of the valley—I could not repress a shudder
of anguish.
How vividly is impressed upon my mind every minute feature
of the scene which met my view during those long days of suffering
and sorrow! At my request my mats were always spread
directly facing the door, opposite which, and at a little distance,
was the hut of boughs that Marheyo was building.
Whenever my gentle Fayaway and Kory-Kory, laying themselves
down beside me, would leave me awhile to uninterrupted
repose, I took a strange interest in the slightest movements of the
eccentric old warrior. All alone during the stillness of the tropical
mid-day, he would pursue his quiet work, sitting in the shade
and weaving together the leaflets of his cocoa-nut branches, or
rolling upon his knee the twisted fibres of bark to form the cords
with which he tied together the thatching of his tiny house.
Frequently suspending his employment, and noticing my melancholy
eye fixed upon him, he would raise his hand with a gesture
expressive of deep commiseration, and then moving towards me
slowly would enter on tip-toes, fearful of disturbing the slumbering
natives, and, taking the fan from my hand, would sit before
me, swaying it gently to and fro, and gazing earnestly into my
face.
Just beyond the pi-pi, and disposed in a triangle before the
entrance of the house, were three magnificent bread-fruit trees.
At this moment I can recal to my mind their slender shafts, and
the graceful inequalities of their bark, on which my eye was accustomed
to dwell day after day in the midst of my solitary
musings. It is strange how inanimate objects will twine themselves
into our affections, especially in the hour of affliction.
Even now, amidst all the bustle and stir of the proud and busy
city in which I am dwelling, the image of those three trees seems
to come as vividly before my eyes as if they were actually present,
and I still feel the soothing quiet pleasure which I then had
in watching hour after hour their topmost boughs waving gracefully
in the breeze.
