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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24952-0.txt b/24952-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a6f036 --- /dev/null +++ b/24952-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1266 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Âmona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others, by Louis Becke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Âmona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others +From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other Stories" - 1902 + +Author: Louis Becke + +Release Date: March 29, 2008 [eBook #24952] +[Most recently updated: February 6, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÂMONA *** + + + + +Âmona; The Child; And The Beast + +From “The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other +Stories” + +By Louis Becke + +T. FISHER UNWIN, 1902 + LONDON + + ÂMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST + THE SNAKE AND THE BELL + SOUTH SEA NOTES + I + II + + + + +ÂMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST + + +Âmona was, as his master so frequently told him—accentuating the remark +with a blow or a kick—only “a miserable kanaka.” Of his miserableness +there was no doubt, for Denison, who lived in the same house as he did, +was a daily witness of it—and his happiness. Also, he was a kanaka—a +native of Niué, in the South Pacific; Savage Island it is called by the +traders and is named on the charts, though its five thousand sturdy, +brown-skinned inhabitants have been civilised, Christianised, and have +lived fairly cleanly for the past thirty years. + +Âmona and Denison had the distinction of being employed by Armitage, +one of the most unmitigated blackguards in the Pacific. He was a +shipowner, planter, merchant, and speculator; was looked upon by a good +many people as “not a bad sort of a fellow, you know—and the soul of +hospitality.” In addition, he was an incorrigible drunken bully, and +broke his wife’s heart within four years after she married him. Âmona +was his cook. Denison was one of his supercargoes, and (when a long +boat of drunkenness made him see weird visions of impossible creatures) +manager of the business on shore, overseer, accountant, and +Jack-of-all-trades. How he managed to stay on with such a brute I don’t +know. He certainly paid him well enough, but he (Denison) could have +got another berth from other people in Samoa, Fiji, or Tonga had he +wanted it. And, although Armitage was always painfully civil to +Denison—who tried to keep his business from going to the dogs—the man +hated him as much as he despised Âmona, and would have liked to have +kicked him, as he would have liked to have kicked or strangled any one +who knew the secret of his wife’s death and his child’s lameness. And +three people in Samoa did know it—Âmona, the Niué cook, Dr. Eckhardt, +and Denison. Armitage has been dead now these five-and-twenty +years—died, as he deserved to die, alone and friendless in an +Australian bush hospital out in the God-forsaken Never-Never country, +and when Denison heard of his death, he looked at the gentle wife’s +dim, faded photograph, and wondered if the Beast saw her sweet, sad +face in his dying moments. He trusted not; for in her eyes would have +shown only the holy light of love and forgiveness—things which a man +like Armitage could not have understood—even then. + +She had been married three years when she came with him to Samoa to +live on Solo-Solo Plantation, in a great white-painted bungalow, +standing amid a grove of breadfruit and coco-palms, and overlooking the +sea to the north, east, and west; to the south was the dark green of +the mountain-forest. + +“Oh! I think it is the fairest, sweetest picture in the world,” she +said to Denison the first time he met her. She was sitting on the +verandah with her son in her lap, and as she spoke she pressed her lips +to his soft little cheek and caressed the tiny hands. “So different +from where I was born and lived all my life—on the doll, sun-baked +plains of the Riverina—isn’t it, my pet?” + +“I am glad that you like the place, Mrs. Armitage,” the supercargo said +as he looked at the young, girlish face and thought that she, too, with +her baby, made a fair, sweet picture. How she loved the child! And how +the soft, grey-blue eyes would lose their sadness when the little one +turned its face up to hers and smiled! How came it, he wondered, that +such a tender, flower-like woman was mated to such a man as Armitage! + +Long after she was dead, Denison heard the story—one common enough. Her +father, whose station adjoined that of Armitage, got into financial +difficulties, went to Armitage for help, and practically sold his +daughter to the Beast for a couple of thousand pounds. Very likely such +a man would have sold his daughter’s mother as well if he wanted money. + + +As they sat talking, Armitage rode up, half-drunk as usual. He was a +big man, good-looking. + +“Hallo, Nell! Pawing the damned kid as usual! Why the hell don’t you +let one of the girls take the little animal and let him tumble about on +the grass? You’re spoiling the child—by God, you are.” + +“Ah, he’s so happy, Fred, here with me, and——” + +“Happy be damned—you’re always letting him maul you about. I want a +whisky-and-soda, and so does Denison—don’t you?” And then the Beast, as +soon as his wife with the child in her arms had left the room, began to +tell his subordinate of a “new” girl he had met that morning in Joe +D’Acosta’s saloon. + +“Oh, shut up, man. Your wife is in the next room.” + +“Let her hear—and be damned to her! She knows what I do. I don’t +disguise anything from her. I’m not a sneak in that way. By God, I’m +not the man to lose any fun from sentimental reasons. Have you seen +this new girl at Joe’s? She’s a Manhiki half-caste. God, man! She’s +glorious, simply glorious!” + +“You mean Laea, I suppose. She’s a common beacher—sailor man’s trull. +Surely you wouldn’t be seen ever speaking to _her?_” + +“Wouldn’t I! You don’t know me yet! I like the girl, and I’ve fixed +things up with her. She’s coming here as my nursemaid—twenty dollars a +month! What do you think of that?” + +“You would not insult your wife so horribly!” + +He looked at Denison sullenly, but made no answer, as the supercargo +went on: + +“You’ll get the dead cut from every white man in Samoa. Not a soul will +put foot inside your store door, and Joe D’Acosta himself would refuse +to sell you a drink! Might as well shoot yourself at once.” + +“Oh, well, damn it all, don’t keep on preaching. I—I was more in fun +than anything else. Ha! Here’s Âmona with the drinks. Why don’t you be +a bit smarter, you damned frizzy-haired man-eater?” + +Amona’s sallow face flushed deeply, but he made no reply to the insult +as he handed a glass to his master. + +“Put the tray down there, confound you! Don’t stand there like a +blarsted mummy; clear out till we want you again.” + +The native made no answer, bent his head in silence, and stepped +quietly away. Then Armitage began to grumble at him as a “useless +swine.” + +“Why,” said Denison, “Mrs. Armitage was only just telling me that he’s +worth all the rest of the servants put together. And, by Jove, he _is_ +fond of your youngster—simply worships the little chap.” + +Armitage snorted, and turned his lips down. Ten minutes later, he was +asleep in his chair. + + +Nearly six months had passed—six months of wretchedness to the young +wife, whose heart was slowly breaking under the strain of living with +the Beast. Such happiness as was hers lay in the companionship of her +little son, and every evening Tom Denison would see her watching the +child and the patient, faithful Âmona, as the two played together on +the smooth lawn in front of the sitting-room, or ran races in and out +among the mango-trees. She was becoming paler and thinner every day—the +Beast was getting fatter and coarser, and more brutalised. Sometimes he +would remain in Apia for a week, returning home either boisterously +drunk or sullen and scowling-faced. In the latter case, he would come +into the office where Denison worked (he had left the schooner of which +he was supercargo, and was now “overseering” Solo-Solo) and try to +grasp the muddled condition of his financial affairs. Then, with much +variegated language, he would stride away, cursing the servants and the +place and everything in general, mount his horse, and ride off again to +the society of the loafers, gamblers, and flaunting unfortunates who +haunted the drinking saloons of Apia and Matafele. + +One day came a crisis. Denison was rigging a tackle to haul a +tree-trunk into position in the plantation saw-pit, when Armitage rode +up to the house. He dismounted and went inside. Five minutes later +Amona came staggering down the path to him. His left cheek was cut to +the bone by a blow from Armitage’s fist. Denison brought him into his +own room, stitched up the wound, and gave him a glass of grog, and told +him to light his pipe and rest. + +“Àmona, you’re a _valea_ (fool). Why don’t you leave this place? This +man will kill you some day. How many beatings has he given you?” He +spoke in English. + +“I know not how many. But it is God’s will. And if the master some day +killeth me, it is well. And yet, but for some things, I would use my +knife on him.” + +“What things?” + +He came over to the supercargo, and, seating himself cross-legged on +the floor, placed his firm, brown, right hand on the white man’s knee. + +“For two things, good friend. The little fingers of the child are +clasped tightly around my heart, and when his father striketh me and +calls me a filthy man-eater, a dog, and a pig, I know no pain. That is +one thing. And the other thing is this—the child’s mother hath come to +me when my body hath ached from the father’s blows, and the blood hath +covered my face; and she hath bound up my wounds and wept silent tears, +and together have we knelt and called upon God to turn his heart from +the grog and the foul women, and to take away from her and the child +the bitterness of these things.” + +“You’re a good fellow, Âmona,” said Denison, as he saw that the man’s +cheeks were wet with tears. + +“Nay, for sometimes my heart is bitter with anger. But God is good to +me. For the child loveth me. And the mother is of God... aye, and she +will be with Him soon.” Then he rose to his knees suddenly, and looked +wistfully at the supercargo, as he put his hand on his. “She will be +dead before the next moon is _ai aiga_ (in the first quarter), for at +night I lie outside her door, and but three nights ago she cried out to +me: ‘Come, Amona, Come!’ And I went in, and she was sitting up on her +bed and blood was running from her mouth. But she bade me tell no +one—not even thee. And it was then she told me that death was near to +her, for she hath a disease whose roots lie in her chest, and which +eateth away her strength. Dear friend, let me tell thee of some +things... This man is a devil.... I know he but desires to see her die. +He hath cursed her before me, and twice have I seen him take the child +from her arms, and, setting him on the floor to weep in terror, take +his wife by the hand——” + +“Stop, man; stop! That’ll do. Say no more! The beast!” + +“_E tonu, e tonu_ (true, true),” said the man, quietly, and still +speaking in Samoan. “He is as a beast of the mountains, as a tiger of +the country India, which devoureth the lamb and the kid.... And so now +I have opened my heart to thee of these things——” + +A native woman rushed into the room: “Come, Âmona, come. _Misi Fafine_ +(the mistress) bleeds from her mouth again.” + +The white man and the brown ran into the front sitting-room together, +just as they heard a piercing shriek of terror from the child; then +came the sound of a heavy fall. + +As they entered, Armitage strode out, jolting against them as he +passed. His face was swollen and ugly with passion—bad to look at. + +“Go and pick up the child, you frizzy-haired pig!” he muttered hoarsely +to Amona as he passed. “He fell off his mother’s lap.” + +Mrs. Armitage was leaning back in her chair, as white as death, and +trying to speak, as with one hand she tried to stanch the rush of blood +from her mouth, and with the other pointed to her child, who was lying +on his face under a table, motionless and unconscious. + +In less than ten minutes, a native was galloping through the bush to +Apia for Dr. Eckhardt. Denison had picked up the child, who, as he came +to, began to cry. Assuring his mother that he was not much hurt, he +brought him to her, and sat beside the lounge on which she lay, holding +him in his arms. He was a good little man, and did not try to talk to +her when the supercargo whispered to him to keep silent, but lay +stroking the poor mother’s thin white hand. Yet every now and then, as +he moved or Denison changed his position, he would utter a cry of pain +and say his leg pained him. + +Four hours later the German doctor arrived. Mrs. Armitage was asleep; +so Eckhardt would not awaken her at the time. The boy, however, had +slept but fitfully, and every now and then awakened with a sob of pain. +The nurse stripped him, and Eckhardt soon found out what was wrong—a +serious injury to the left hip. + +Late in the evening, as the big yellow-bearded German doctor and +Denison sat in the dining room smoking and talking, Taloi, the child’s +nurse entered, and was followed by Amona, and the woman told them the +whole story. + +“_Misi Fafine_ was sitting in a chair with the boy on her lap when the +master came in. His eyes were black and fierce with anger, and, +stepping up, he seized the child by the arm, and bade him get down. +Then the little one screamed in terror, and _Misi Fafine_ screamed too, +and the master became as mad, for he tore the boy from his mother’s +arms, and tossed him across the room against the wall. That is all I +know of this thing.” + +Denison saw nothing of Armitage till six o’clock on the following +morning, just as Eckhardt was going away. He put out his hand, Eckhardt +put his own behind his back, and, in a few blunt words, told the Beast +what he thought of him. + +“And if this was a civilised country,” he added crisply, “you would be +now in gaol. Yes, in prison. You have as good as killed your wife by +your brutality—she will not live another two months. You have so +injured your child’s hip that he may be a cripple for life. You are a +damned scoundrel, no better than the lowest ruffian of a city slum, and +if you show yourself in Joe D’Acosta’s smoking-room again, you’ll find +more than half a dozen men—Englishmen, Americans and Germans—ready to +kick you out into the _au ala_” (road). + +Armitage was no coward. He sprang forward with an oath, but Denison, +who was a third less of his employer’s weight, deftly put out his right +foot and the master of Solo Solo plantation went down. Then the +supercargo sat on him and, having a fine command of seafaring +expletives, threatened to gouge his eyes out if he did not keep quiet. + +“You go on, doctor,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll let you know in the +course of an hour or two how Mrs. Armitage and the boy are progressing. +The seat which I am now occupying, though not a very honourable one, +considering the material of which it is composed, is very comfortable +for the time being; and”—he turned and glared savagely at Armitage’s +purpled face—“You sweep! I have a great inclination to let Eckhardt +come and boot the life out of you whilst I hold you down, you brute!” + +“I’ll kill you for this,” said Armitage hoarsely. + +“Won’t give you the chance, my boy. And if you don’t promise to go to +your room quietly, I’ll call in the native servants, sling you up like +the pig you are to a pole, and have you carried into Apia, where you +stand a good show of being lynched. I’ve had enough of you. Every +one—except your blackguardly acquaintances in Matafele—would be glad to +hear that you were dead, and your wife and child freed from you.” + +Eckhardt stepped forward. “Let him up, Mr. Denison.” + +The supercargo obeyed the request. + +“Just as you please, doctor. But I think that he ought to be put in +irons, or a strait-jacket, or knocked on the head as a useless beast. +If it were not for Mrs. Armitage and her little son, I would like to +kill the sweep. His treatment of that poor fellow Amona, who is so +devoted to the child, has been most atrocious.” + +Eckhardt grasped the supercargo’s hand as Armitage shambled off “He’s a +brute, as you say, Mr. Denison. But she has some affection for him. For +myself, I would like to put a bullet through him.” + +Within three months Mrs. Armitage was dead, and a fresh martrydom began +for poor Amona. But he and the child had plenty of good friends; and +then, one day, when Armitage awakened to sanity after a long drinking +bout, he found that both Amona and the child had gone. + +Nearly a score of years later Denison met them in an Australian city. +The “baby” had grown to be a well-set-up young fellow, and Amona the +faithful was still with him—Amona with a smiling, happy face. They came +down on board Denison’s vessel with him, and “the baby” gave him, ere +they parted, that faded photograph of his dead mother. + + + + +THE SNAKE AND THE BELL + + +When I was a child of eight years of age, a curious incident occurred +in the house in which our family lived. The locality was Mosman’s Bay, +one of the many picturesque indentations of the beautiful harbour of +Sydney. In those days the houses were few and far apart, and our own +dwelling was surrounded on all sides by the usual monotonous-hued +Australian forest of iron barks and spotted gums, traversed here and +there by tracks seldom used, as the house was far back from the main +road, leading from the suburb of St. Leonards to Middle Harbour. The +building itself was in the form of a quadrangle enclosing a courtyard, +on to which nearly all the rooms opened; each room having a bell over +the door, the wires running all round the square, while the front-door +bell, which was an extra large affair, hung in the hall, the “pull” +being one of the old-fashioned kind, an iron sliding-rod suspended from +the outer wall plate, where it connected with the wire. + +One cold and windy evening about eight o’clock, my mother, my sisters, +and myself were sitting in the dining-room awaiting the arrival of my +brothers from Sydney—they attended school there, and rowed or sailed +the six miles to and fro every day, generally returning home by dusk. +On this particular evening, however, they were late, on account of the +wind blowing rather freshly from the north-east; but presently we heard +the front-door bell ring gently. + +“Here they are at last,” said my mother; “but how silly of them to go +to the front door on such a windy night, tormenting boys!” + +Julia, the servant, candle in hand, went along the lengthy passage, and +opened the door. No one was there! She came back to the dining-room +smiling—“Masther Edward is afther playin’ wan av his thricks, ma’am——” +she began, when the bell again rang—this time vigorously. My eldest +sister threw down the book she was reading, and with an impatient +exclamation herself went to the door, opened it quickly, and said +sharply as she pulled it inwards— + +“Come in at once, you stupid things!” There was no answer, and she +stepped outside on the verandah. No one was visible, and again the big +bell in the hall rang! + +She shut the door angrily and returned to her seat, just as the bell +gave a curious, faint tinkle as if the tongue had been moved ever so +gently. + +“Don’t take any notice of them,” said my mother, “they will soon get +tired of playing such silly pranks, and be eager for their supper.” + +Presently the bell gave out three clear strokes. We looked at each +other and smiled. Five minutes passed, and then came eight or ten +gentle strokes in quick succession. + +“Let us catch them,” said my mother, rising, and holding her finger up +to us to preserve silence, as she stepped softly along the hall, we +following on tiptoe. + +Softly turning the handle, she suddenly threw the door wide open, just +as the bell gave another jangle. Not a soul was visible! + +My mother—one of the most placid-tempered women who ever breathed, now +became annoyed, and stepping out on the verandah, addressed herself to +the darkness— + +“Come inside at once, boys, or I shall be very angry. I know perfectly +well what you have done; you have tied a string to the bell wires, and +are pulling it. If you don’t desist you shall have no supper.” + +No answer—except from the hall bell, which gave another half-hearted +tinkle. + +“Bring a candle and the step-ladder, Julia,” said our now thoroughly +exasperated parent, “and we shall see what these foolish boys have done +to the bell-wire.” + +Julia brought the ladder; my eldest sister mounted it, and began to +examine the bell. She could see nothing unusual, no string or wire, and +as she descended, the bell swayed and gave one faint stroke! + +We all returned to the sitting room, and had scarcely been there five +minutes when we heard my three brothers coming in, in their usual way, +by the back door. They tramped into the sitting room, noisy, dirty, wet +with spray, and hungry, and demanded supper in a loud and collected +voice. My mother looked at them with a severe aspect, and said they +deserved none. + +“Why, mum, what’s the matter?” said Ted; “what _have_ we been doing +now, or what have we not done, that we don’t deserve any supper, after +pulling for two hours from Circular Quay, against a howling, black +north-easter?” + +“You know perfectly well what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of you +to play such silly tricks upon us.” + +Ted gazed at her in genuine astonishment. “Silly tricks, mother! What +silly tricks?” (Julia crossed herself, and trembled visibly as the bell +again rang.) + +My mother, at once satisfied that Ted and my other brothers really knew +nothing of the mysterious bell-ringing, quickly explained the cause of +her anger. + +“Let us go and see if we can find out,” said Ted. “You two boys, and +you, Julia, get all the stable lanterns, light them, and we’ll start +out together—two on one side of the house and two on the other. Some +one must be up to a trick!” + +Julia, who was a huge, raw-boned Irish girl, as strong as a working +bullock, but not so graceful, again crossed herself, and began to weep. + +“What’s the matter with you?” said Ted angrily. + +“Shure, an’ there was tirrible murders committed here in the ould +convict days,” she whimpered. “The polace sargint’s wife at Sint +Leonards tould me all about it. There was three souldiers murdered down +beyant on the beach, by some convicts, whin they was atin’ their +supper, an’ there’s people near about now that saw all the blood and——” + +“Stop it, you great lumbering idiot!” shouted Ted, as my eldest sister +began to laugh hysterically, and the youngest, made a terrified dart to +mother’s skirts. + +Ted’s angry voice and threatening visage silenced Julia for the moment, +and she tremblingly went towards the door to obey his orders when the +bell gave out such a vigorous and sustained peal that she sank down in +a colossal heap on the floor, and then went into violent hysterics. (I +assure my readers that I am not exaggerating matters in the slightest.) + +My mother, who was a thoroughly sensible woman, pushed the whole brood +of us out of the room, came after us, shut the door and locked it. +_She_ knew the proper treatment for hysterics. + +“Let her stay there, boys,” she said quietly, “she will hurt the +furniture more than herself, the ridiculous creature. Now, Ted, you and +your brothers get the lanterns, and the little ones and myself will go +into the kitchen.” + +We ran out into the stables, lit three lanterns, and my next eldest +brother and myself, feeling horribly frightened, but impelled to show +some courage by Ted’s awful threats of what he would do to us if we +“funked,” told us to go round the house, beginning from the left, and +meet him at the hall door, he going round from the right. + +With shaking limbs and gasping breath we made our portion of the +circuit, sticking close to each other, and carefully avoiding looking +at anything as we hurried over the lawn, our only anxiety being to meet +Ted as quickly as possible and then get inside again. We arrived on the +verandah, and in front of the hall-door, quite five minutes before Ted +appeared. + +“Well, did you see anything?” he asked, as he walked up the steps, +lantern in hand. + +“Nothing,” we answered, edging up towards the door. + +Ted looked at us contemptuously. “You miserable little curs! What are +you so frightened of? You’re no better than a pack of women and kids. +It’s the wind that has made the bell ring, or, if it’s not the wind, it +is something else which I don’t know anything about; but I want my +supper. Pull the bell, one of you.” + +Elated at so soon escaping from the horrors of the night, we seized the +handle of the bell-pull, and gave it a vigorous tug. + +“It’s stuck, Ted. It won’t pull down,” we said. + +“Granny!” said the big brother, “you’re too funky to give it a proper +pull,” and pushing us aside, he grasped the pendant handle and gave a +sharp pull. There was no answering sound. + +“It certainly is stuck,” admitted Ted, raising his lantern so as to get +a look upwards, then he gave a yell. + +“Oh! look there!” + +We looked up, and saw the writhing twisting, coils of a huge carpet +snake, which had wound its body round and round the bell-wire on top of +the wall plate. Its head was downwards, and it did not seem at all +alarmed at our presence, but went on wriggling and twisting and +squirming with much apparent cheerfulness. + +Ted ran back to the stables, and returned in a few seconds with a +clothes-prop, with which he dealt the disturber of our peace a few +rapid, but vigorous, blows, breaking its spine in several places. Then +the step-ladder was brought out, and Ted, seizing the reptile by the +tail, uncoiled it with some difficulty from the wire, and threw it down +upon the verandah. + +It was over nine feet in length, and very fat, and had caused all the +disturbance by endeavouring to denude itself of its old skin by +dragging its body between the bell-wire and the top of the wall. When +Ted killed it the poor harmless creature had almost accomplished its +object. + + + + +SOUTH SEA NOTES + + + + +I + + +That many animals, particularly cattle and deer, are very fond of salt +we all know, but it is not often that birds show any taste for it, or, +if so, the circumstance has not generally been noted. In 1881, however, +the present writer was residing on Gazelle Peninsula, the northern +portion of the magnificent island of New Britain in the South Pacific, +and had many opportunities of witnessing both cockatoos and wild +pigeons drinking salt water. I was stationed at a place called Kabaira, +the then “furthest-out” trading station on the whole island, and as I +had but little to do in the way of work, I found plenty of time to +study the bird-life in the vicinity. Parrots of several varieties, and +all of beautiful plumage, were very plentiful, and immense flocks of +white cockatoos frequented the rolling, grassy downs which lay between +my home and the German head-station in Blanche Bay, twenty miles +distant, while the heavy forest of the littoral was the haunt of +thousands of pigeons. These latter, though not so large as the Samoan, +or Eastern Polynesian bird, formed a very agreeable change of diet for +us white traders, and by walking about fifty yards from one’s door, +half a dozen or more could be shot in as many minutes. + +My nearest neighbour was a German, and one day when we were walking +along the beach towards his station, we noticed some hundreds of +pigeons fly down from the forest, settle on the margin of the water, +and drink with apparent enjoyment. The harbour at this spot was almost +land-locked, the water as smooth as glass without the faintest ripple, +and the birds were consequently enabled to drink without wetting their +plumage. My companion, who had lived many years in New Britain, told me +that this drinking of sea-water was common alike to both cockatoos and +pigeons, and that on some occasions the beaches would be lined with +them, the former birds not only drinking, but bathing as well, and +apparently enjoying themselves greatly. + +During the following six months, especially when the weather was calm +and rainy, I frequently noticed pigeons and cockatoos come to the salt +water to drink. At first I thought that as fresh water in many places +bubbled up through the sand at low tide, the birds were really not +drinking the sea-water, but by watching closely, I frequently saw them +walk across these tiny runnels, and make no attempt to drink. Then +again, the whole of the Gazette Peninsula is out up by countless +streams of water; rain falls throughout the year as a rule, and as I +have said, there is always water percolating or bubbling up through the +sand on the beaches at low tide. What causes this unusual habit of +drinking sea-water? + +Another peculiarity of the New Britain and New Ireland pigeon is its +fondness for the Chili pepper-berry. During three months of the year, +when these berries are ripe, the birds’ crops are full of them, and +very often their flesh is so pungent, and smells so strongly of the +Chili, as to be quite uneatable. + + +On all of the low-lying islands of the Ellice, Kings-mill and Gilbert +Groups, a species of snipe are very plentiful. On the islands which +enclose the noble lagoon of Funafuti in the Ellice Group, they are to +be met with in great numbers, and in dull, rainy weather, an ordinarily +good shot may get thirty or forty in a few hours. One day, accompanied +by a native lad, I set out to collect hermit crabs, to be used as fish +bait. These curious creatures are to be found almost anywhere in the +equatorial islands of the Pacific; their shell houses ranging in size +from a pea to an orange, and if a piece of coco-nut or fish or any +other edible matter is left out overnight, hundreds of hermits will be +found gathered around it in the morning. To extract the crabs from +their shells, which are of all shapes and kinds, is a very simple +matter—the hard casing is broken by placing them upon a large stone and +striking them a sharp blow with one of lesser size. My companion and +myself soon collected a heap of “hermits,” when presently he took one +up in his hand, and holding it close to his mouth, whistled softly. In +a few moments the crab protruded one nipper, then another, then its red +antennae, and allowed the boy to take its head between his finger and +thumb and draw its entire body from its shell casing. + +“That is the way the _kili_ (snipe) gets the _uga_ (crab) from its +shell,” he said. “The _kili_ stands over the _uga_ and whistles softly, +and the _uga_ puts out his head to listen. Then the bird seizes it in +his bill, gives it a backward jerk and off flies the shell.” + +Now I had often noticed that wherever hermit crabs were plentiful along +the outer beaches of the lagoon, I was sure to find snipe, and +sometimes wondered on what the birds fed. Taking up two or three +“hermits” one by one, I whistled gently, and in each case the creature +protruded the nippers, head and shoulders, and moved its antennæ to and +fro as if pleasurably excited. + +On the following day I shot three snipe, and in the stomachs of each I +found some quite fresh and some partly digested hermit crabs. The +thick, hard nippers are broken off by the bird before he swallows the +soft, tender body. + + +In a recent number of _Chambers’s Journal_ the present writer was much +interested in a short paragraph dealing with the commercial value of +the skin of the shark, and, having had many years’ experience as a +trader and supercargo in the South Seas, desires to add some further +information on a somewhat interesting subject. + +In all the equatorial islands of the North and South Pacific, shark +fishing is a very profitable industry to the natives, and every trading +steamer or sailing vessel coming into the ports of Sydney or Auckland +from the islands of the mid-Pacific, always brings some tons of shark +fins and tails and shark skins. The principal market for the former is +Hong Kong, but the Chinese merchants of the Australasian Colonies will +always buy sharks’ fins and tails at from 6d. to 11d. per lb., the fins +bringing the best price on account of the extra amount of glutinous +matter they contain, and the which are highly relished by the richer +classes of Chinese as a delicacy. The tails are also valued as an +article of food in China; and, apart from their edible qualities, have +a further value as a base for clear varnishes, &c.; and I was informed +by a Chinese tea-merchant that the glaze upon the paper coverings of +tea-chests was due to a preparation composed principally of the refuse +of sharks’ fins, tails, and skins. + +All the natives of the Gilbert, Kingsmill, and other Pacific equatorial +islands are expert shark fishermen; but the wild people of Ocean Island +(Paanopa) and Pleasant Island (Naura), two isolated spots just under +the equator, surpass them all in the art of catching jackshark. It was +the fortunate experience of the writer to live among these people for +many years, and to be inducted into the native method of +shark-catching. In frail canoes, made of short pieces of wood, sewn +together with coco-nut fibre, the Ocean Islanders will venture out with +rude but ingeniously contrived _wooden_ hooks, and capture sharks of a +girth (_not_ length) that no untrained European would dare to attempt +to kill from a well-appointed boat, with a good crew. + +Shark-catching is one of _the_ industries of the Pacific, and a very +paying industry too. Five-and-twenty years ago there were quite a dozen +or more schooners sailing out of Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands, to +the isolated atolls of the North Pacific—notably Palmyra and Christmas +Islands—where sharks could be caught by the thousand, and the crews, +who were engaged on a “lay,” like whalemen, made “big money”; many of +them after a six months’ cruise drawing 500 dollars—a large sum for a +native sailor. + +The work is certainly hard, but it is exciting, and the writer will +always remember with pleasure a seven months’ shark-fishing cruise he +once had in the North Pacific, the genial comrades—white men and +brown—and the bag of dollars handed over to him by the owners when the +ship was paid off in Honolulu. + + + + +II + + +It is not generally known, except to scientists and those who are +acquainted with the subject, that a large percentage of the various +species and varieties of sea snakes are highly venomous. These snakes +must not be confounded with the very numerous species of sea eels, +which, though exceedingly savage and armed with strong needle-pointed +teeth, are all non-venomous, though their bite produces high +inflammation if not at once properly attended to and cleansed by an +antiseptic. The sea snake is a true snake in many respects, having +either laminated scales or a thick corduroyed skin resembling +rudimentary scales. The head is flat, and the general structure of the +body similar to that of the land snake. Whether any of them possess the +true poison glands and fangs I do not know, for although I have killed +many hundreds of them I never took sufficient interest to make a +careful examination; and I was told by a Dutch medical gentleman, long +resident on the coast of Dutch New Guinea, and who had made some +investigation on the subject, that he had failed to discover any poison +sacs or glands in any one of the several snakes he had captured. Yet in +some instances he found what at first appeared to be the two long front +teeth common to venomous land snakes, but on detailed examination these +always proved to be perfectly solid; nevertheless a bite from one of +these sea serpents was generally regarded by the natives as fatal; in +my own experience I know of two such cases, one at the island of Fotuna +in the South Pacific, and the other in Torres Straits. + +In Sigavi Harbour, on Fotuna, there is a rock to which vessels +occasionally make fast their stern moorings. In the boat which I sent +away with a line to this rock were several boys, natives of the island, +who went with the crew for amusement. One of them, aged about ten, +jumped out of the boat, and in his hurry fell on his hands and knees, +right on top of a large black and white banded sea snake, which at once +bit him savagely on the wrist, causing the blood to flow from a score +of tiny punctures. The boy at once swam on shore to be treated by a +native; in the evening I heard he was suffering great agony, in the +morning the poor little fellow was dead. + +The second instance was near Raine Island, in Torres Straits. A +stalwart young Kanaka, one of the crew of a pearling lugger, was diving +for clam shells on the reef, when a snake about three feet in length +suddenly shot up from below within a foot of his face. In his anger and +disgust he unthinkingly struck it with his hand, and was quickly bitten +on the forefinger. A few hours later he was in a high fever, +accompanied with twitchings of the extremities; then tetanus ensued, +followed by death in forty-eight hours. + +Although these sea snakes are common to all tropical seas, they are +most frequent about the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. On any smooth +day they may be seen disporting themselves on the surface, or rising +suddenly from the depths, erect their heads and some inches of their +bodies clear from the water, gaze at the passing vessel, and then +swiftly disappear. In nearly all the Pacific Islands the natives hold +them in detestation and horror, and when one is seen lying coiled up on +a rock sunning itself or crawling over the surface of the reef in +search of food, a stone, accompanied by a curse, is always hurled at +it. In the Ellice Oroup, when catching flying-fish at night, one (or +more) of these horrid serpents is sometimes swept up in the scoop-net +before it can be avoided. They range from six inches to nearly four +feet in length, and all have one feature—a blunted tail-end. + +Quite recently much further light has been thrown on the subject by Sir +James Hector, of the Philosophical Society of Wellington, New Zealand. +At one of the Society’s meetings, held in April last, Sir James showed +several specimens of _hydrida_, some from Australasian Seas, others +from the Atlantic. The usual habitat of sea snakes, he said, were the +tropical seas generally, but some had been captured in the +comparatively cold waters of the New Zealand coast, at the Catlins +River. These latter were all yellow-banded; those from the islands of +the Fijian Oroup were black-banded, and those taken from the Australian +coast grey-banded. There were, he said, no fewer than seventy species, +which, without exception, were fanged and provided with glands +secreting a virulent poison. In some of the mountainous islands of the +South Pacific, such as Samoa, Fiji, &c, there were several species of +land snakes, all of which were perfectly harmless, and were familiar to +many people in Australia and New Zealand, through being brought there +in bunches of island bananas—it was singular, he thought, that the sea +snakes alone should be so highly venomous. “They were all characterised +by the flattened or blunted tail, which they used as a steer oar, and +were often found asleep on the surface of the water, lying on their +backs. In this state they were easily and safely captured, being +powerless to strike.” The present writer, who has seen hundreds of +these marine snakes daily for many years, during a long residence in +the Pacific Islands, cannot remember a single instance where he has +seen one of these dangerous creatures asleep _on the water_, though +they may frequently be found lying asleep on the coral reefs, exposing +themselves to the rays of a torrid sun. They usually select some knob +or rounded boulder, from the top of which, when awake, they can survey +the small pools beneath and discern any fish which may be imprisoned +therein. In such case they will glide down into the water with +astonishing rapidity, seize their prey, and after swallowing it, return +to their sun bath. The natives of the Paumotu Archipelago informed me, +however, that they are most active in seeking their prey at night-time, +and are especially fond of flying-fish, which, as is well known, is one +of the swiftest of all ocean fishes. The sea snakes, however, seize +them with the greatest ease, by rising cautiously beneath and fastening +their keen teeth in the fish’s throat or belly. A snake, not two feet +six inches in length, I was assured, can easily swallow a flying-fish +eight inches or ten inches long. + +With regard to their habit of lying asleep on their backs on the +surface of the water, it may be that Sir James Hector is alluding to +some particular species, but whether that is so or not Sir James’s +statement must of course be considered authoritative, for there is, I +believe, no higher authority on the subject in the world. Apropos of +these venomous marine serpents I may mention that the Rev. W. W. Gill +in one of his works states that he was informed by the natives of the +Cook’s Group that during the prevalence of very bad weather, when fish +were scarce, the large sea eels would actually crawl ashore, and ascend +the _fala_ (pandanus or screw-pine) trees in search of the small green +lizards which live among the upper part of the foliage. At first I +regarded this merely as a bit of native extravagance of statement, but +in 1882, when I was shipwrecked on Peru (or Francis Island), one of the +Gilbert Group, the local trader, one Frank Voliero, and myself saw one +of these eels engaged in an equally extraordinary pursuit. We were one +evening, after a heavy gale from the westward had been blowing for +three days, examining a rookery of whale birds in search of eggs; the +rookery was situated in a dense thicket scrub on the north end of the +island, and was quite two hundred yards from the sea-shore, though not +more than half that distance from the inside lagoon beach. The storm +had destroyed quite a number of young, half-fledged birds, whose bodies +were lying on the ground, and busily engaged in devouring one of them +was a very large sea eel, as thick as the calf of a man’s leg. Before I +could manage to secure a stick with which to kill the repulsive-looking +creature, it made off through the undergrowth at a rapid pace in the +direction of the lagoon, and when we emerged out into the open in +pursuit, ten minutes later, we were just in time to see it wriggling +down the hard, sloping beach into the water. Instinct evidently made it +seek the nearest water, for none of these large sea eels are ever found +in Peru Lagoon. + +Many of the rivers and lakes of the islands of the Western Pacific are +tenanted by eels of great size, which are never, or very seldom, as far +as I could learn, interfered with by the natives, and I have never seen +the people of either the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, or New Britain +touch an eel as food. The Maories, however, as is well known, are +inordinately fond of eels, which, with putrid shark, constitute one of +their staple articles of diet. + +In the few mountainous islands of the vast Caroline Archipelago, in the +North-western Pacific, eels are very plentiful, not only in the +numberless small streams which debouch into the shallow waters enclosed +by the barrier reefs, but also far up on the mountainsides, occupying +little rocky pools of perhaps no larger dimensions than an +ordinary-sized toilet basin, or swimming up and down rivulets hardly +more than two feet across. The natives of Ponapé, the largest island of +the Caroline Group, and of Kusaie (Strong’s Island), its eastern +outlier, regard the fresh-water eel with shuddering aversion, and +should a man accidentally touch one with his foot when crossing a +stream he will utter an exclamation of horror and fear. In the heathen +days—down to 1845-50—the eel (tôan) was an object of worship, and +constantly propitiated by sacrifices of food, on account of its +malevolent powers; personal contact was rigidly avoided; to touch one, +even by the merest accident, was to bring down the most dreadful +calamities on the offender and his family—bodily deformities, +starvation and poverty, and death; and although the natives of Strong’s +Island are now both civilised and Christianised, and a training college +of the Boston Board of Missions has long been established at Port Lelé, +they still manifest the same superstitious dread of the eel as in their +days of heathendom. I well remember witnessing an instance of this +terror during my sojourn on the island when I was shipwrecked there in +1874. I had taken up my residence in the picturesque little village of +Leassé, on the western or “lee” side, when I was one evening visited by +several of the ship’s company—a Fijian half-caste, a white man, and two +natives of Pleasant Island. At the moment they arrived I was in the +house of the native pastor—a man who had received an excellent +education in a missionary college at Honolulu, in the Hawaiian +Islands—instructing him and his family in the art of making _taka_, or +cinnet sandals, as practised by the natives of the Tokelau Group. Just +then the four seamen entered, each man triumphantly holding up a large +eel: in an instant there was a united howl of horror from the parson +and his family, as they made a rash for the door, overturning the lamp +and nearly setting the house on fire. In vain I followed and urged them +to return, and told them that the men had gone away and taken the +_tôan_ with them—nothing would induce them to enter the house that +night, and the whole family slept elsewhere. + +One singular thing about the eels on Strong’s Island is that they +hibernate, in a fashion, on the sides or even summits of the high +mountains, at an altitude of nearly two thousand feet. Selecting, or +perhaps making, a depression in the soft, moss-covered soil, the ugly +creatures fit themselves into it compactly and remain there for weeks +or even months at a time. I have counted as many as thirty of these +holes, all tenanted, within a few square yards. Some were quite +concealed by vegetable _débris_ or moss, others were exposed to view, +with the broad, flat head of the slippery occupant resting on the +margin or doubled back upon its body. They showed no alarm, but if +poked with a stick would extricate themselves and crawl slowly away. + +In the streams they were very voracious, and I had a special antipathy +to them, on account of their preying so on the crayfish—a crustacean of +which I was particularly fond, and which the natives also liked very +much, but were afraid to capture for fear their hands might come in +contact with the dreaded _tôan_. + +One afternoon I was plucking a pigeon I had just shot by the margin of +a mountain stream. After removing the viscera, I put the bird in the +water to clean it properly, and was shaking it gently to and fro, when +it was suddenly torn out of my hand by a disgustingly bloated, +reddish-coloured eel about four feet in length, and quickly swallowed. +That one pigeon had cost me two hours’ tramping through the +rain-soddened mountain forest, so loading my gun I followed the thief +down stream to where the water was but a few inches deep, and then blew +his head off. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÂMONA *** + +***** This file should be named 24952-0.txt or 24952-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/5/24952/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Âmona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others<br /> +From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other Stories" - 1902</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Louis Becke</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 29, 2008 [eBook #24952]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 6, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÂMONA ***</div> + +<h1>Âmona; The Child; And The Beast</h1> + +<h4>From “The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other +Stories”</h4> + +<h2 class="no-break">By Louis Becke</h2> + +<h5>T. FISHER UNWIN, 1902 <br /> <br /> LONDON</h5> + +<hr /> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">ÂMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE SNAKE AND THE BELL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">SOUTH SEA NOTES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">II</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>ÂMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST</h2> + +<p> +Âmona was, as his master so frequently told him—accentuating the remark +with a blow or a kick—only “a miserable kanaka.” Of his +miserableness there was no doubt, for Denison, who lived in the same house as +he did, was a daily witness of it—and his happiness. Also, he was a +kanaka—a native of Niué, in the South Pacific; Savage Island it is called +by the traders and is named on the charts, though its five thousand sturdy, +brown-skinned inhabitants have been civilised, Christianised, and have lived +fairly cleanly for the past thirty years. +</p> + +<p> +Âmona and Denison had the distinction of being employed by Armitage, one of the +most unmitigated blackguards in the Pacific. He was a shipowner, planter, +merchant, and speculator; was looked upon by a good many people as “not a +bad sort of a fellow, you know—and the soul of hospitality.” In +addition, he was an incorrigible drunken bully, and broke his wife’s +heart within four years after she married him. Âmona was his cook. Denison was +one of his supercargoes, and (when a long boat of drunkenness made him see +weird visions of impossible creatures) manager of the business on shore, +overseer, accountant, and Jack-of-all-trades. How he managed to stay on with +such a brute I don’t know. He certainly paid him well enough, but he +(Denison) could have got another berth from other people in Samoa, Fiji, or +Tonga had he wanted it. And, although Armitage was always painfully civil to +Denison—who tried to keep his business from going to the dogs—the +man hated him as much as he despised Âmona, and would have liked to have kicked +him, as he would have liked to have kicked or strangled any one who knew the +secret of his wife’s death and his child’s lameness. And three +people in Samoa did know it—Âmona, the Niué cook, Dr. Eckhardt, and +Denison. Armitage has been dead now these five-and-twenty years—died, as +he deserved to die, alone and friendless in an Australian bush hospital out in +the God-forsaken Never-Never country, and when Denison heard of his death, he +looked at the gentle wife’s dim, faded photograph, and wondered if the +Beast saw her sweet, sad face in his dying moments. He trusted not; for in her +eyes would have shown only the holy light of love and forgiveness—things +which a man like Armitage could not have understood—even then. +</p> + +<p> +She had been married three years when she came with him to Samoa to live on +Solo-Solo Plantation, in a great white-painted bungalow, standing amid a grove +of breadfruit and coco-palms, and overlooking the sea to the north, east, and +west; to the south was the dark green of the mountain-forest. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I think it is the fairest, sweetest picture in the world,” she +said to Denison the first time he met her. She was sitting on the verandah with +her son in her lap, and as she spoke she pressed her lips to his soft little +cheek and caressed the tiny hands. “So different from where I was born +and lived all my life—on the doll, sun-baked plains of the +Riverina—isn’t it, my pet?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad that you like the place, Mrs. Armitage,” the supercargo +said as he looked at the young, girlish face and thought that she, too, with +her baby, made a fair, sweet picture. How she loved the child! And how the +soft, grey-blue eyes would lose their sadness when the little one turned its +face up to hers and smiled! How came it, he wondered, that such a tender, +flower-like woman was mated to such a man as Armitage! +</p> + +<p> +Long after she was dead, Denison heard the story—one common enough. Her +father, whose station adjoined that of Armitage, got into financial +difficulties, went to Armitage for help, and practically sold his daughter to +the Beast for a couple of thousand pounds. Very likely such a man would have +sold his daughter’s mother as well if he wanted money. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +As they sat talking, Armitage rode up, half-drunk as usual. He was a big man, +good-looking. +</p> + +<p> +“Hallo, Nell! Pawing the damned kid as usual! Why the hell don’t +you let one of the girls take the little animal and let him tumble about on the +grass? You’re spoiling the child—by God, you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, he’s so happy, Fred, here with me, and——” +</p> + +<p> +“Happy be damned—you’re always letting him maul you about. I +want a whisky-and-soda, and so does Denison—don’t you?” And +then the Beast, as soon as his wife with the child in her arms had left the +room, began to tell his subordinate of a “new” girl he had met that +morning in Joe D’Acosta’s saloon. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shut up, man. Your wife is in the next room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let her hear—and be damned to her! She knows what I do. I +don’t disguise anything from her. I’m not a sneak in that way. By +God, I’m not the man to lose any fun from sentimental reasons. Have you +seen this new girl at Joe’s? She’s a Manhiki half-caste. God, man! +She’s glorious, simply glorious!” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean Laea, I suppose. She’s a common beacher—sailor +man’s trull. Surely you wouldn’t be seen ever speaking to +<i>her?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t I! You don’t know me yet! I like the girl, and +I’ve fixed things up with her. She’s coming here as my +nursemaid—twenty dollars a month! What do you think of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“You would not insult your wife so horribly!” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Denison sullenly, but made no answer, as the supercargo went on: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll get the dead cut from every white man in Samoa. Not a soul +will put foot inside your store door, and Joe D’Acosta himself would +refuse to sell you a drink! Might as well shoot yourself at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, damn it all, don’t keep on preaching. I—I was more +in fun than anything else. Ha! Here’s Âmona with the drinks. Why +don’t you be a bit smarter, you damned frizzy-haired man-eater?” +</p> + +<p> +Amona’s sallow face flushed deeply, but he made no reply to the insult as +he handed a glass to his master. +</p> + +<p> +“Put the tray down there, confound you! Don’t stand there like a +blarsted mummy; clear out till we want you again.” +</p> + +<p> +The native made no answer, bent his head in silence, and stepped quietly away. +Then Armitage began to grumble at him as a “useless swine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” said Denison, “Mrs. Armitage was only just telling me +that he’s worth all the rest of the servants put together. And, by Jove, +he <i>is</i> fond of your youngster—simply worships the little +chap.” +</p> + +<p> +Armitage snorted, and turned his lips down. Ten minutes later, he was asleep in +his chair. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Nearly six months had passed—six months of wretchedness to the young +wife, whose heart was slowly breaking under the strain of living with the +Beast. Such happiness as was hers lay in the companionship of her little son, +and every evening Tom Denison would see her watching the child and the patient, +faithful Âmona, as the two played together on the smooth lawn in front of the +sitting-room, or ran races in and out among the mango-trees. She was becoming +paler and thinner every day—the Beast was getting fatter and coarser, and +more brutalised. Sometimes he would remain in Apia for a week, returning home +either boisterously drunk or sullen and scowling-faced. In the latter case, he +would come into the office where Denison worked (he had left the schooner of +which he was supercargo, and was now “overseering” Solo-Solo) and +try to grasp the muddled condition of his financial affairs. Then, with much +variegated language, he would stride away, cursing the servants and the place +and everything in general, mount his horse, and ride off again to the society +of the loafers, gamblers, and flaunting unfortunates who haunted the drinking +saloons of Apia and Matafele. +</p> + +<p> +One day came a crisis. Denison was rigging a tackle to haul a tree-trunk into +position in the plantation saw-pit, when Armitage rode up to the house. He +dismounted and went inside. Five minutes later Amona came staggering down the +path to him. His left cheek was cut to the bone by a blow from Armitage’s +fist. Denison brought him into his own room, stitched up the wound, and gave +him a glass of grog, and told him to light his pipe and rest. +</p> + +<p> +“Àmona, you’re a <i>valea</i> (fool). Why don’t you leave +this place? This man will kill you some day. How many beatings has he given +you?” He spoke in English. +</p> + +<p> +“I know not how many. But it is God’s will. And if the master some +day killeth me, it is well. And yet, but for some things, I would use my knife +on him.” +</p> + +<p> +“What things?” +</p> + +<p> +He came over to the supercargo, and, seating himself cross-legged on the floor, +placed his firm, brown, right hand on the white man’s knee. +</p> + +<p> +“For two things, good friend. The little fingers of the child are clasped +tightly around my heart, and when his father striketh me and calls me a filthy +man-eater, a dog, and a pig, I know no pain. That is one thing. And the other +thing is this—the child’s mother hath come to me when my body hath +ached from the father’s blows, and the blood hath covered my face; and +she hath bound up my wounds and wept silent tears, and together have we knelt +and called upon God to turn his heart from the grog and the foul women, and to +take away from her and the child the bitterness of these things.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a good fellow, Âmona,” said Denison, as he saw that +the man’s cheeks were wet with tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, for sometimes my heart is bitter with anger. But God is good to me. +For the child loveth me. And the mother is of God... aye, and she will be with +Him soon.” Then he rose to his knees suddenly, and looked wistfully at +the supercargo, as he put his hand on his. “She will be dead before the +next moon is <i>ai aiga</i> (in the first quarter), for at night I lie outside +her door, and but three nights ago she cried out to me: ‘Come, Amona, +Come!’ And I went in, and she was sitting up on her bed and blood was +running from her mouth. But she bade me tell no one—not even thee. And it +was then she told me that death was near to her, for she hath a disease whose +roots lie in her chest, and which eateth away her strength. Dear friend, let me +tell thee of some things... This man is a devil.... I know he but desires to +see her die. He hath cursed her before me, and twice have I seen him take the +child from her arms, and, setting him on the floor to weep in terror, take his +wife by the hand——” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop, man; stop! That’ll do. Say no more! The beast!” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>E tonu, e tonu</i> (true, true),” said the man, quietly, and +still speaking in Samoan. “He is as a beast of the mountains, as a tiger +of the country India, which devoureth the lamb and the kid.... And so now I +have opened my heart to thee of these things——” +</p> + +<p> +A native woman rushed into the room: “Come, Âmona, come. <i>Misi +Fafine</i> (the mistress) bleeds from her mouth again.” +</p> + +<p> +The white man and the brown ran into the front sitting-room together, just as +they heard a piercing shriek of terror from the child; then came the sound of a +heavy fall. +</p> + +<p> +As they entered, Armitage strode out, jolting against them as he passed. His +face was swollen and ugly with passion—bad to look at. +</p> + +<p> +“Go and pick up the child, you frizzy-haired pig!” he muttered +hoarsely to Amona as he passed. “He fell off his mother’s +lap.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Armitage was leaning back in her chair, as white as death, and trying to +speak, as with one hand she tried to stanch the rush of blood from her mouth, +and with the other pointed to her child, who was lying on his face under a +table, motionless and unconscious. +</p> + +<p> +In less than ten minutes, a native was galloping through the bush to Apia for +Dr. Eckhardt. Denison had picked up the child, who, as he came to, began to +cry. Assuring his mother that he was not much hurt, he brought him to her, and +sat beside the lounge on which she lay, holding him in his arms. He was a good +little man, and did not try to talk to her when the supercargo whispered to him +to keep silent, but lay stroking the poor mother’s thin white hand. Yet +every now and then, as he moved or Denison changed his position, he would utter +a cry of pain and say his leg pained him. +</p> + +<p> +Four hours later the German doctor arrived. Mrs. Armitage was asleep; so +Eckhardt would not awaken her at the time. The boy, however, had slept but +fitfully, and every now and then awakened with a sob of pain. The nurse +stripped him, and Eckhardt soon found out what was wrong—a serious injury +to the left hip. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the evening, as the big yellow-bearded German doctor and Denison sat in +the dining room smoking and talking, Taloi, the child’s nurse entered, +and was followed by Amona, and the woman told them the whole story. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Misi Fafine</i> was sitting in a chair with the boy on her lap when +the master came in. His eyes were black and fierce with anger, and, stepping +up, he seized the child by the arm, and bade him get down. Then the little one +screamed in terror, and <i>Misi Fafine</i> screamed too, and the master became +as mad, for he tore the boy from his mother’s arms, and tossed him across +the room against the wall. That is all I know of this thing.” +</p> + +<p> +Denison saw nothing of Armitage till six o’clock on the following +morning, just as Eckhardt was going away. He put out his hand, Eckhardt put his +own behind his back, and, in a few blunt words, told the Beast what he thought +of him. +</p> + +<p> +“And if this was a civilised country,” he added crisply, “you +would be now in gaol. Yes, in prison. You have as good as killed your wife by +your brutality—she will not live another two months. You have so injured +your child’s hip that he may be a cripple for life. You are a damned +scoundrel, no better than the lowest ruffian of a city slum, and if you show +yourself in Joe D’Acosta’s smoking-room again, you’ll find +more than half a dozen men—Englishmen, Americans and Germans—ready +to kick you out into the <i>au ala</i>” (road). +</p> + +<p> +Armitage was no coward. He sprang forward with an oath, but Denison, who was a +third less of his employer’s weight, deftly put out his right foot and +the master of Solo Solo plantation went down. Then the supercargo sat on him +and, having a fine command of seafaring expletives, threatened to gouge his +eyes out if he did not keep quiet. +</p> + +<p> +“You go on, doctor,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll let you +know in the course of an hour or two how Mrs. Armitage and the boy are +progressing. The seat which I am now occupying, though not a very honourable +one, considering the material of which it is composed, is very comfortable for +the time being; and”—he turned and glared savagely at +Armitage’s purpled face—“You sweep! I have a great +inclination to let Eckhardt come and boot the life out of you whilst I hold you +down, you brute!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll kill you for this,” said Armitage hoarsely. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t give you the chance, my boy. And if you don’t promise +to go to your room quietly, I’ll call in the native servants, sling you +up like the pig you are to a pole, and have you carried into Apia, where you +stand a good show of being lynched. I’ve had enough of you. Every +one—except your blackguardly acquaintances in Matafele—would be +glad to hear that you were dead, and your wife and child freed from you.” +</p> + +<p> +Eckhardt stepped forward. “Let him up, Mr. Denison.” +</p> + +<p> +The supercargo obeyed the request. +</p> + +<p> +“Just as you please, doctor. But I think that he ought to be put in +irons, or a strait-jacket, or knocked on the head as a useless beast. If it +were not for Mrs. Armitage and her little son, I would like to kill the sweep. +His treatment of that poor fellow Amona, who is so devoted to the child, has +been most atrocious.” +</p> + +<p> +Eckhardt grasped the supercargo’s hand as Armitage shambled off +“He’s a brute, as you say, Mr. Denison. But she has some affection +for him. For myself, I would like to put a bullet through him.” +</p> + +<p> +Within three months Mrs. Armitage was dead, and a fresh martrydom began for +poor Amona. But he and the child had plenty of good friends; and then, one day, +when Armitage awakened to sanity after a long drinking bout, he found that both +Amona and the child had gone. +</p> + +<p> +Nearly a score of years later Denison met them in an Australian city. The +“baby” had grown to be a well-set-up young fellow, and Amona the +faithful was still with him—Amona with a smiling, happy face. They came +down on board Denison’s vessel with him, and “the baby” gave +him, ere they parted, that faded photograph of his dead mother. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>THE SNAKE AND THE BELL</h2> + +<p> +When I was a child of eight years of age, a curious incident occurred in the +house in which our family lived. The locality was Mosman’s Bay, one of +the many picturesque indentations of the beautiful harbour of Sydney. In those +days the houses were few and far apart, and our own dwelling was surrounded on +all sides by the usual monotonous-hued Australian forest of iron barks and +spotted gums, traversed here and there by tracks seldom used, as the house was +far back from the main road, leading from the suburb of St. Leonards to Middle +Harbour. The building itself was in the form of a quadrangle enclosing a +courtyard, on to which nearly all the rooms opened; each room having a bell +over the door, the wires running all round the square, while the front-door +bell, which was an extra large affair, hung in the hall, the “pull” +being one of the old-fashioned kind, an iron sliding-rod suspended from the +outer wall plate, where it connected with the wire. +</p> + +<p> +One cold and windy evening about eight o’clock, my mother, my sisters, +and myself were sitting in the dining-room awaiting the arrival of my brothers +from Sydney—they attended school there, and rowed or sailed the six miles +to and fro every day, generally returning home by dusk. On this particular +evening, however, they were late, on account of the wind blowing rather freshly +from the north-east; but presently we heard the front-door bell ring gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Here they are at last,” said my mother; “but how silly of +them to go to the front door on such a windy night, tormenting boys!” +</p> + +<p> +Julia, the servant, candle in hand, went along the lengthy passage, and opened +the door. No one was there! She came back to the dining-room +smiling—“Masther Edward is afther playin’ wan av his thricks, +ma’am——” she began, when the bell again rang—this +time vigorously. My eldest sister threw down the book she was reading, and with +an impatient exclamation herself went to the door, opened it quickly, and said +sharply as she pulled it inwards— +</p> + +<p> +“Come in at once, you stupid things!” There was no answer, and she +stepped outside on the verandah. No one was visible, and again the big bell in +the hall rang! +</p> + +<p> +She shut the door angrily and returned to her seat, just as the bell gave a +curious, faint tinkle as if the tongue had been moved ever so gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t take any notice of them,” said my mother, “they +will soon get tired of playing such silly pranks, and be eager for their +supper.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently the bell gave out three clear strokes. We looked at each other and +smiled. Five minutes passed, and then came eight or ten gentle strokes in quick +succession. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us catch them,” said my mother, rising, and holding her finger +up to us to preserve silence, as she stepped softly along the hall, we +following on tiptoe. +</p> + +<p> +Softly turning the handle, she suddenly threw the door wide open, just as the +bell gave another jangle. Not a soul was visible! +</p> + +<p> +My mother—one of the most placid-tempered women who ever breathed, now +became annoyed, and stepping out on the verandah, addressed herself to the +darkness— +</p> + +<p> +“Come inside at once, boys, or I shall be very angry. I know perfectly +well what you have done; you have tied a string to the bell wires, and are +pulling it. If you don’t desist you shall have no supper.” +</p> + +<p> +No answer—except from the hall bell, which gave another half-hearted +tinkle. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring a candle and the step-ladder, Julia,” said our now +thoroughly exasperated parent, “and we shall see what these foolish boys +have done to the bell-wire.” +</p> + +<p> +Julia brought the ladder; my eldest sister mounted it, and began to examine the +bell. She could see nothing unusual, no string or wire, and as she descended, +the bell swayed and gave one faint stroke! +</p> + +<p> +We all returned to the sitting room, and had scarcely been there five minutes +when we heard my three brothers coming in, in their usual way, by the back +door. They tramped into the sitting room, noisy, dirty, wet with spray, and +hungry, and demanded supper in a loud and collected voice. My mother looked at +them with a severe aspect, and said they deserved none. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, mum, what’s the matter?” said Ted; “what +<i>have</i> we been doing now, or what have we not done, that we don’t +deserve any supper, after pulling for two hours from Circular Quay, against a +howling, black north-easter?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know perfectly well what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of you to +play such silly tricks upon us.” +</p> + +<p> +Ted gazed at her in genuine astonishment. “Silly tricks, mother! What +silly tricks?” (Julia crossed herself, and trembled visibly as the bell +again rang.) +</p> + +<p> +My mother, at once satisfied that Ted and my other brothers really knew nothing +of the mysterious bell-ringing, quickly explained the cause of her anger. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go and see if we can find out,” said Ted. “You two +boys, and you, Julia, get all the stable lanterns, light them, and we’ll +start out together—two on one side of the house and two on the other. +Some one must be up to a trick!” +</p> + +<p> +Julia, who was a huge, raw-boned Irish girl, as strong as a working bullock, +but not so graceful, again crossed herself, and began to weep. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with you?” said Ted angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“Shure, an’ there was tirrible murders committed here in the ould +convict days,” she whimpered. “The polace sargint’s wife at +Sint Leonards tould me all about it. There was three souldiers murdered down +beyant on the beach, by some convicts, whin they was atin’ their supper, +an’ there’s people near about now that saw all the blood +and——” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop it, you great lumbering idiot!” shouted Ted, as my eldest +sister began to laugh hysterically, and the youngest, made a terrified dart to +mother’s skirts. +</p> + +<p> +Ted’s angry voice and threatening visage silenced Julia for the moment, +and she tremblingly went towards the door to obey his orders when the bell gave +out such a vigorous and sustained peal that she sank down in a colossal heap on +the floor, and then went into violent hysterics. (I assure my readers that I am +not exaggerating matters in the slightest.) +</p> + +<p> +My mother, who was a thoroughly sensible woman, pushed the whole brood of us +out of the room, came after us, shut the door and locked it. <i>She</i> knew +the proper treatment for hysterics. +</p> + +<p> +“Let her stay there, boys,” she said quietly, “she will hurt +the furniture more than herself, the ridiculous creature. Now, Ted, you and +your brothers get the lanterns, and the little ones and myself will go into the +kitchen.” +</p> + +<p> +We ran out into the stables, lit three lanterns, and my next eldest brother and +myself, feeling horribly frightened, but impelled to show some courage by +Ted’s awful threats of what he would do to us if we “funked,” +told us to go round the house, beginning from the left, and meet him at the +hall door, he going round from the right. +</p> + +<p> +With shaking limbs and gasping breath we made our portion of the circuit, +sticking close to each other, and carefully avoiding looking at anything as we +hurried over the lawn, our only anxiety being to meet Ted as quickly as +possible and then get inside again. We arrived on the verandah, and in front of +the hall-door, quite five minutes before Ted appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, did you see anything?” he asked, as he walked up the steps, +lantern in hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” we answered, edging up towards the door. +</p> + +<p> +Ted looked at us contemptuously. “You miserable little curs! What are you +so frightened of? You’re no better than a pack of women and kids. +It’s the wind that has made the bell ring, or, if it’s not the +wind, it is something else which I don’t know anything about; but I want +my supper. Pull the bell, one of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Elated at so soon escaping from the horrors of the night, we seized the handle +of the bell-pull, and gave it a vigorous tug. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s stuck, Ted. It won’t pull down,” we said. +</p> + +<p> +“Granny!” said the big brother, “you’re too funky to +give it a proper pull,” and pushing us aside, he grasped the pendant +handle and gave a sharp pull. There was no answering sound. +</p> + +<p> +“It certainly is stuck,” admitted Ted, raising his lantern so as to +get a look upwards, then he gave a yell. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! look there!” +</p> + +<p> +We looked up, and saw the writhing twisting, coils of a huge carpet snake, +which had wound its body round and round the bell-wire on top of the wall +plate. Its head was downwards, and it did not seem at all alarmed at our +presence, but went on wriggling and twisting and squirming with much apparent +cheerfulness. +</p> + +<p> +Ted ran back to the stables, and returned in a few seconds with a clothes-prop, +with which he dealt the disturber of our peace a few rapid, but vigorous, +blows, breaking its spine in several places. Then the step-ladder was brought +out, and Ted, seizing the reptile by the tail, uncoiled it with some difficulty +from the wire, and threw it down upon the verandah. +</p> + +<p> +It was over nine feet in length, and very fat, and had caused all the +disturbance by endeavouring to denude itself of its old skin by dragging its +body between the bell-wire and the top of the wall. When Ted killed it the poor +harmless creature had almost accomplished its object. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>SOUTH SEA NOTES</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>I</h2> + +<p> +That many animals, particularly cattle and deer, are very fond of salt we all +know, but it is not often that birds show any taste for it, or, if so, the +circumstance has not generally been noted. In 1881, however, the present writer +was residing on Gazelle Peninsula, the northern portion of the magnificent +island of New Britain in the South Pacific, and had many opportunities of +witnessing both cockatoos and wild pigeons drinking salt water. I was stationed +at a place called Kabaira, the then “furthest-out” trading station +on the whole island, and as I had but little to do in the way of work, I found +plenty of time to study the bird-life in the vicinity. Parrots of several +varieties, and all of beautiful plumage, were very plentiful, and immense +flocks of white cockatoos frequented the rolling, grassy downs which lay +between my home and the German head-station in Blanche Bay, twenty miles +distant, while the heavy forest of the littoral was the haunt of thousands of +pigeons. These latter, though not so large as the Samoan, or Eastern Polynesian +bird, formed a very agreeable change of diet for us white traders, and by +walking about fifty yards from one’s door, half a dozen or more could be +shot in as many minutes. +</p> + +<p> +My nearest neighbour was a German, and one day when we were walking along the +beach towards his station, we noticed some hundreds of pigeons fly down from +the forest, settle on the margin of the water, and drink with apparent +enjoyment. The harbour at this spot was almost land-locked, the water as smooth +as glass without the faintest ripple, and the birds were consequently enabled +to drink without wetting their plumage. My companion, who had lived many years +in New Britain, told me that this drinking of sea-water was common alike to +both cockatoos and pigeons, and that on some occasions the beaches would be +lined with them, the former birds not only drinking, but bathing as well, and +apparently enjoying themselves greatly. +</p> + +<p> +During the following six months, especially when the weather was calm and +rainy, I frequently noticed pigeons and cockatoos come to the salt water to +drink. At first I thought that as fresh water in many places bubbled up through +the sand at low tide, the birds were really not drinking the sea-water, but by +watching closely, I frequently saw them walk across these tiny runnels, and +make no attempt to drink. Then again, the whole of the Gazette Peninsula is out +up by countless streams of water; rain falls throughout the year as a rule, and +as I have said, there is always water percolating or bubbling up through the +sand on the beaches at low tide. What causes this unusual habit of drinking +sea-water? +</p> + +<p> +Another peculiarity of the New Britain and New Ireland pigeon is its fondness +for the Chili pepper-berry. During three months of the year, when these berries +are ripe, the birds’ crops are full of them, and very often their flesh +is so pungent, and smells so strongly of the Chili, as to be quite uneatable. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +On all of the low-lying islands of the Ellice, Kings-mill and Gilbert Groups, a +species of snipe are very plentiful. On the islands which enclose the noble +lagoon of Funafuti in the Ellice Group, they are to be met with in great +numbers, and in dull, rainy weather, an ordinarily good shot may get thirty or +forty in a few hours. One day, accompanied by a native lad, I set out to +collect hermit crabs, to be used as fish bait. These curious creatures are to +be found almost anywhere in the equatorial islands of the Pacific; their shell +houses ranging in size from a pea to an orange, and if a piece of coco-nut or +fish or any other edible matter is left out overnight, hundreds of hermits will +be found gathered around it in the morning. To extract the crabs from their +shells, which are of all shapes and kinds, is a very simple matter—the +hard casing is broken by placing them upon a large stone and striking them a +sharp blow with one of lesser size. My companion and myself soon collected a +heap of “hermits,” when presently he took one up in his hand, and +holding it close to his mouth, whistled softly. In a few moments the crab +protruded one nipper, then another, then its red antennae, and allowed the boy +to take its head between his finger and thumb and draw its entire body from its +shell casing. +</p> + +<p> +“That is the way the <i>kili</i> (snipe) gets the <i>uga</i> (crab) from +its shell,” he said. “The <i>kili</i> stands over the <i>uga</i> +and whistles softly, and the <i>uga</i> puts out his head to listen. Then the +bird seizes it in his bill, gives it a backward jerk and off flies the +shell.” +</p> + +<p> +Now I had often noticed that wherever hermit crabs were plentiful along the +outer beaches of the lagoon, I was sure to find snipe, and sometimes wondered +on what the birds fed. Taking up two or three “hermits” one by one, +I whistled gently, and in each case the creature protruded the nippers, head +and shoulders, and moved its antennæ to and fro as if pleasurably excited. +</p> + +<p> +On the following day I shot three snipe, and in the stomachs of each I found +some quite fresh and some partly digested hermit crabs. The thick, hard nippers +are broken off by the bird before he swallows the soft, tender body. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +In a recent number of <i>Chambers’s Journal</i> the present writer was +much interested in a short paragraph dealing with the commercial value of the +skin of the shark, and, having had many years’ experience as a trader and +supercargo in the South Seas, desires to add some further information on a +somewhat interesting subject. +</p> + +<p> +In all the equatorial islands of the North and South Pacific, shark fishing is +a very profitable industry to the natives, and every trading steamer or sailing +vessel coming into the ports of Sydney or Auckland from the islands of the +mid-Pacific, always brings some tons of shark fins and tails and shark skins. +The principal market for the former is Hong Kong, but the Chinese merchants of +the Australasian Colonies will always buy sharks’ fins and tails at from +6d. to 11d. per lb., the fins bringing the best price on account of the extra +amount of glutinous matter they contain, and the which are highly relished by +the richer classes of Chinese as a delicacy. The tails are also valued as an +article of food in China; and, apart from their edible qualities, have a +further value as a base for clear varnishes, &c.; and I was informed by a +Chinese tea-merchant that the glaze upon the paper coverings of tea-chests was +due to a preparation composed principally of the refuse of sharks’ fins, +tails, and skins. +</p> + +<p> +All the natives of the Gilbert, Kingsmill, and other Pacific equatorial islands +are expert shark fishermen; but the wild people of Ocean Island (Paanopa) and +Pleasant Island (Naura), two isolated spots just under the equator, surpass +them all in the art of catching jackshark. It was the fortunate experience of +the writer to live among these people for many years, and to be inducted into +the native method of shark-catching. In frail canoes, made of short pieces of +wood, sewn together with coco-nut fibre, the Ocean Islanders will venture out +with rude but ingeniously contrived <i>wooden</i> hooks, and capture sharks of +a girth (<i>not</i> length) that no untrained European would dare to attempt to +kill from a well-appointed boat, with a good crew. +</p> + +<p> +Shark-catching is one of <i>the</i> industries of the Pacific, and a very +paying industry too. Five-and-twenty years ago there were quite a dozen or more +schooners sailing out of Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands, to the isolated +atolls of the North Pacific—notably Palmyra and Christmas +Islands—where sharks could be caught by the thousand, and the crews, who +were engaged on a “lay,” like whalemen, made “big +money”; many of them after a six months’ cruise drawing 500 +dollars—a large sum for a native sailor. +</p> + +<p> +The work is certainly hard, but it is exciting, and the writer will always +remember with pleasure a seven months’ shark-fishing cruise he once had +in the North Pacific, the genial comrades—white men and brown—and +the bag of dollars handed over to him by the owners when the ship was paid off +in Honolulu. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>II</h2> + +<p> +It is not generally known, except to scientists and those who are acquainted +with the subject, that a large percentage of the various species and varieties +of sea snakes are highly venomous. These snakes must not be confounded with the +very numerous species of sea eels, which, though exceedingly savage and armed +with strong needle-pointed teeth, are all non-venomous, though their bite +produces high inflammation if not at once properly attended to and cleansed by +an antiseptic. The sea snake is a true snake in many respects, having either +laminated scales or a thick corduroyed skin resembling rudimentary scales. The +head is flat, and the general structure of the body similar to that of the land +snake. Whether any of them possess the true poison glands and fangs I do not +know, for although I have killed many hundreds of them I never took sufficient +interest to make a careful examination; and I was told by a Dutch medical +gentleman, long resident on the coast of Dutch New Guinea, and who had made +some investigation on the subject, that he had failed to discover any poison +sacs or glands in any one of the several snakes he had captured. Yet in some +instances he found what at first appeared to be the two long front teeth common +to venomous land snakes, but on detailed examination these always proved to be +perfectly solid; nevertheless a bite from one of these sea serpents was +generally regarded by the natives as fatal; in my own experience I know of two +such cases, one at the island of Fotuna in the South Pacific, and the other in +Torres Straits. +</p> + +<p> +In Sigavi Harbour, on Fotuna, there is a rock to which vessels occasionally +make fast their stern moorings. In the boat which I sent away with a line to +this rock were several boys, natives of the island, who went with the crew for +amusement. One of them, aged about ten, jumped out of the boat, and in his +hurry fell on his hands and knees, right on top of a large black and white +banded sea snake, which at once bit him savagely on the wrist, causing the +blood to flow from a score of tiny punctures. The boy at once swam on shore to +be treated by a native; in the evening I heard he was suffering great agony, in +the morning the poor little fellow was dead. +</p> + +<p> +The second instance was near Raine Island, in Torres Straits. A stalwart young +Kanaka, one of the crew of a pearling lugger, was diving for clam shells on the +reef, when a snake about three feet in length suddenly shot up from below +within a foot of his face. In his anger and disgust he unthinkingly struck it +with his hand, and was quickly bitten on the forefinger. A few hours later he +was in a high fever, accompanied with twitchings of the extremities; then +tetanus ensued, followed by death in forty-eight hours. +</p> + +<p> +Although these sea snakes are common to all tropical seas, they are most +frequent about the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. On any smooth day they may +be seen disporting themselves on the surface, or rising suddenly from the +depths, erect their heads and some inches of their bodies clear from the water, +gaze at the passing vessel, and then swiftly disappear. In nearly all the +Pacific Islands the natives hold them in detestation and horror, and when one +is seen lying coiled up on a rock sunning itself or crawling over the surface +of the reef in search of food, a stone, accompanied by a curse, is always +hurled at it. In the Ellice Oroup, when catching flying-fish at night, one (or +more) of these horrid serpents is sometimes swept up in the scoop-net before it +can be avoided. They range from six inches to nearly four feet in length, and +all have one feature—a blunted tail-end. +</p> + +<p> +Quite recently much further light has been thrown on the subject by Sir James +Hector, of the Philosophical Society of Wellington, New Zealand. At one of the +Society’s meetings, held in April last, Sir James showed several +specimens of <i>hydrida</i>, some from Australasian Seas, others from the +Atlantic. The usual habitat of sea snakes, he said, were the tropical seas +generally, but some had been captured in the comparatively cold waters of the +New Zealand coast, at the Catlins River. These latter were all yellow-banded; +those from the islands of the Fijian Oroup were black-banded, and those taken +from the Australian coast grey-banded. There were, he said, no fewer than +seventy species, which, without exception, were fanged and provided with glands +secreting a virulent poison. In some of the mountainous islands of the South +Pacific, such as Samoa, Fiji, &c, there were several species of land +snakes, all of which were perfectly harmless, and were familiar to many people +in Australia and New Zealand, through being brought there in bunches of island +bananas—it was singular, he thought, that the sea snakes alone should be +so highly venomous. “They were all characterised by the flattened or +blunted tail, which they used as a steer oar, and were often found asleep on +the surface of the water, lying on their backs. In this state they were easily +and safely captured, being powerless to strike.” The present writer, who +has seen hundreds of these marine snakes daily for many years, during a long +residence in the Pacific Islands, cannot remember a single instance where he +has seen one of these dangerous creatures asleep <i>on the water</i>, though +they may frequently be found lying asleep on the coral reefs, exposing +themselves to the rays of a torrid sun. They usually select some knob or +rounded boulder, from the top of which, when awake, they can survey the small +pools beneath and discern any fish which may be imprisoned therein. In such +case they will glide down into the water with astonishing rapidity, seize their +prey, and after swallowing it, return to their sun bath. The natives of the +Paumotu Archipelago informed me, however, that they are most active in seeking +their prey at night-time, and are especially fond of flying-fish, which, as is +well known, is one of the swiftest of all ocean fishes. The sea snakes, +however, seize them with the greatest ease, by rising cautiously beneath and +fastening their keen teeth in the fish’s throat or belly. A snake, not +two feet six inches in length, I was assured, can easily swallow a flying-fish +eight inches or ten inches long. +</p> + +<p> +With regard to their habit of lying asleep on their backs on the surface of the +water, it may be that Sir James Hector is alluding to some particular species, +but whether that is so or not Sir James’s statement must of course be +considered authoritative, for there is, I believe, no higher authority on the +subject in the world. Apropos of these venomous marine serpents I may mention +that the Rev. W. W. Gill in one of his works states that he was informed by the +natives of the Cook’s Group that during the prevalence of very bad +weather, when fish were scarce, the large sea eels would actually crawl ashore, +and ascend the <i>fala</i> (pandanus or screw-pine) trees in search of the +small green lizards which live among the upper part of the foliage. At first I +regarded this merely as a bit of native extravagance of statement, but in 1882, +when I was shipwrecked on Peru (or Francis Island), one of the Gilbert Group, +the local trader, one Frank Voliero, and myself saw one of these eels engaged +in an equally extraordinary pursuit. We were one evening, after a heavy gale +from the westward had been blowing for three days, examining a rookery of whale +birds in search of eggs; the rookery was situated in a dense thicket scrub on +the north end of the island, and was quite two hundred yards from the +sea-shore, though not more than half that distance from the inside lagoon +beach. The storm had destroyed quite a number of young, half-fledged birds, +whose bodies were lying on the ground, and busily engaged in devouring one of +them was a very large sea eel, as thick as the calf of a man’s leg. +Before I could manage to secure a stick with which to kill the +repulsive-looking creature, it made off through the undergrowth at a rapid pace +in the direction of the lagoon, and when we emerged out into the open in +pursuit, ten minutes later, we were just in time to see it wriggling down the +hard, sloping beach into the water. Instinct evidently made it seek the nearest +water, for none of these large sea eels are ever found in Peru Lagoon. +</p> + +<p> +Many of the rivers and lakes of the islands of the Western Pacific are tenanted +by eels of great size, which are never, or very seldom, as far as I could +learn, interfered with by the natives, and I have never seen the people of +either the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, or New Britain touch an eel as food. +The Maories, however, as is well known, are inordinately fond of eels, which, +with putrid shark, constitute one of their staple articles of diet. +</p> + +<p> +In the few mountainous islands of the vast Caroline Archipelago, in the +North-western Pacific, eels are very plentiful, not only in the numberless +small streams which debouch into the shallow waters enclosed by the barrier +reefs, but also far up on the mountainsides, occupying little rocky pools of +perhaps no larger dimensions than an ordinary-sized toilet basin, or swimming +up and down rivulets hardly more than two feet across. The natives of Ponapé, +the largest island of the Caroline Group, and of Kusaie (Strong’s +Island), its eastern outlier, regard the fresh-water eel with shuddering +aversion, and should a man accidentally touch one with his foot when crossing a +stream he will utter an exclamation of horror and fear. In the heathen +days—down to 1845-50—the eel (tôan) was an object of worship, and +constantly propitiated by sacrifices of food, on account of its malevolent +powers; personal contact was rigidly avoided; to touch one, even by the merest +accident, was to bring down the most dreadful calamities on the offender and +his family—bodily deformities, starvation and poverty, and death; and +although the natives of Strong’s Island are now both civilised and +Christianised, and a training college of the Boston Board of Missions has long +been established at Port Lelé, they still manifest the same superstitious dread +of the eel as in their days of heathendom. I well remember witnessing an +instance of this terror during my sojourn on the island when I was shipwrecked +there in 1874. I had taken up my residence in the picturesque little village of +Leassé, on the western or “lee” side, when I was one evening +visited by several of the ship’s company—a Fijian half-caste, a +white man, and two natives of Pleasant Island. At the moment they arrived I was +in the house of the native pastor—a man who had received an excellent +education in a missionary college at Honolulu, in the Hawaiian +Islands—instructing him and his family in the art of making <i>taka</i>, +or cinnet sandals, as practised by the natives of the Tokelau Group. Just then +the four seamen entered, each man triumphantly holding up a large eel: in an +instant there was a united howl of horror from the parson and his family, as +they made a rash for the door, overturning the lamp and nearly setting the +house on fire. In vain I followed and urged them to return, and told them that +the men had gone away and taken the <i>tôan</i> with them—nothing would +induce them to enter the house that night, and the whole family slept +elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +One singular thing about the eels on Strong’s Island is that they +hibernate, in a fashion, on the sides or even summits of the high mountains, at +an altitude of nearly two thousand feet. Selecting, or perhaps making, a +depression in the soft, moss-covered soil, the ugly creatures fit themselves +into it compactly and remain there for weeks or even months at a time. I have +counted as many as thirty of these holes, all tenanted, within a few square +yards. Some were quite concealed by vegetable <i>débris</i> or moss, others +were exposed to view, with the broad, flat head of the slippery occupant +resting on the margin or doubled back upon its body. They showed no alarm, but +if poked with a stick would extricate themselves and crawl slowly away. +</p> + +<p> +In the streams they were very voracious, and I had a special antipathy to them, +on account of their preying so on the crayfish—a crustacean of which I +was particularly fond, and which the natives also liked very much, but were +afraid to capture for fear their hands might come in contact with the dreaded +<i>tôan</i>. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon I was plucking a pigeon I had just shot by the margin of a +mountain stream. After removing the viscera, I put the bird in the water to +clean it properly, and was shaking it gently to and fro, when it was suddenly +torn out of my hand by a disgustingly bloated, reddish-coloured eel about four +feet in length, and quickly swallowed. That one pigeon had cost me two +hours’ tramping through the rain-soddened mountain forest, so loading my +gun I followed the thief down stream to where the water was but a few inches +deep, and then blew his head off. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + + + + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÂMONA ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 24952-h.htm or 24952-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/5/24952/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2805c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #24952 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24952) diff --git a/old/24952-8.txt b/old/24952-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..20f38ae --- /dev/null +++ b/old/24952-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1276 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of mona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others, by +Louis Becke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: mona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others + From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other + Stories" - 1902 + +Author: Louis Becke + +Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24952] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONA *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +MONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST + +Plus THE SNAKE AND THE BELL and SOUTH SEA NOTES + +From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other Stories" + +By Louis Becke + +T. FISHER UNWIN, 1902 + +LONDON + + + + +MONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST' + + +mona was, as his master so frequently told him--accentuating the remark +with a blow or a kick--only "a miserable kanaka." Of his miserableness +there was no doubt, for Denison, who lived in the same house as he did, +was a daily witness of it--and his happiness. Also, he was a kanaka--a +native of Niu, in the South Pacific; Savage Island it is called by the +traders and is named on the charts, though its five thousand sturdy, +brown-skinned inhabitants have been civilised, Christianised, and have +lived fairly cleanly for the past thirty years. + +mona and Denison had the distinction of being employed by Armitage, one +of the most unmitigated blackguards in the Pacific. He was a shipowner, +planter, merchant, and speculator; was looked upon by a good many people +as "not a bad sort of a fellow, you know--and the soul of hospitality." +In addition, he was an incorrigible drunken bully, and broke his wife's +heart within four years after she married him. mona was his cook. +Denison was one of his supercargoes, and (when a long boat of +drunkenness made him see weird visions of impossible creatures) manager +of the business on shore, overseer, accountant, and Jack-of-all-trades. +How he managed to stay on with such a brute I don't know. He certainly +paid him well enough, but he (Denison) could have got another berth from +other people in Samoa, Fiji, or Tonga had he wanted it. And, although +Armitage was always painfully civil to Denison--who tried to keep +his business from going to the dogs--the man hated him as much as he +despised mona, and would have liked to have kicked him, as he would +have liked to have kicked or strangled any one who knew the secret of +his wife's death and his child's lameness. And three people in Samoa did +know it--mona, the Niu cook, Dr. Eckhardt, and Denison. Armitage has +been dead now these five-and-twenty years--died, as he deserved to +die, alone and friendless in an Australian bush hospital out in the +God-forsaken Never-Never country, and when Denison heard of his death, +he looked at the gentle wife's dim, faded photograph, and wondered if +the Beast saw her sweet, sad face in his dying moments. He trusted +not; for in her eyes would have shown only the holy light of love +and forgiveness--things which a man like Armitage could not have +understood--even then. + +She had been married three years when she came with him to Samoa to live +on Solo-Solo Plantation, in a great white-painted bungalow, standing +amid a grove of breadfruit and coco-palms, and overlooking the sea +to the north, east, and west; to the south was the dark green of the +mountain-forest. + +"Oh! I think it is the fairest, sweetest picture in the world," she said +to Denison the first time he met her. She was sitting on the verandah +with her son in her lap, and as she spoke she pressed her lips to his +soft little cheek and caressed the tiny hands. "So different from where +I was born and lived all my life--on the doll, sun-baked plains of the +Riverina--isn't it, my pet?" + +"I am glad that you like the place, Mrs. Armitage," the supercargo said +as he looked at the young, girlish face and thought that she, too, with +her baby, made a fair, sweet picture. How she loved the child! And how +the soft, grey-blue eyes would lose their sadness when the little one +turned its face up to hers and smiled! How came it, he wondered, that +such a tender, flower-like woman was mated to such a man as Armitage! + +Long after she was dead, Denison heard the story--one common enough. +Her father, whose station adjoined that of Armitage, got into financial +difficulties, went to Armitage for help, and practically sold his +daughter to the Beast for a couple of thousand pounds. Very likely such +a man would have sold his daughter's mother as well if he wanted money. + +* * * * * + +As they sat talking, Armitage rode up, half-drunk as usual. He was a big +man, good-looking. + +"Hallo, Nell! Pawing the damned kid as usual! Why the hell don't you let +one of the girls take the little animal and let him tumble about on the +grass? You're spoiling the child--by God, you are." + +"Ah, he's so happy, Fred, here with me, and----" + +"Happy be damned--you're always letting him maul you about. I want a +whisky-and-soda, and so does Denison--don't you?" And then the Beast, as +soon as his wife with the child in her arms had left the room, began +to tell his subordinate of a "new" girl he had met that morning in Joe +D'Acosta's saloon. + +"Oh, shut up, man. Your wife is in the next room." + +"Let her hear--and be damned to her! She knows what I do. I don't +disguise anything from her. I'm not a sneak in that way. By God, I'm not +the man to lose any fun from sentimental reasons. Have you seen this +new girl at Joe's? She's a Manhiki half-caste. God, man! She's glorious, +simply glorious!" + +"You mean Laea, I suppose. She's a common beacher--sailor man's trull. +Surely you wouldn't be seen ever speaking to _her?_" + +"Wouldn't I! You don't know me yet! I like the girl, and I've fixed +things up with her. She's coming here as my nursemaid--twenty dollars a +month! What do you think of that?" + +"You would not insult your wife so horribly!" + +He looked at Denison sullenly, but made no answer, as the supercargo +went on: + +"You'll get the dead cut from every white man in Samoa. Not a soul will +put foot inside your store door, and Joe D'Acosta himself would refuse +to sell you a drink! Might as well shoot yourself at once." + +"Oh, well, damn it all, don't keep on preaching. I--I was more in fun +than anything else. Ha! Here's mona with the drinks. Why don't you be a +bit smarter, you damned frizzy-haired man-eater?" + +Amona's sallow face flushed deeply, but he made no reply to the insult +as he handed a glass to his master. + +"Put the tray down there, confound you! Don't stand there like a +blarsted mummy; clear out till we want you again." + +The native made no answer, bent his head in silence, and stepped quietly +away. Then Armitage began to grumble at him as a "useless swine." + +"Why," said Denison, "Mrs. Armitage was only just telling me that he's +worth all the rest of the servants put together. And, by Jove, he _is_ +fond of your youngster--simply worships the little chap." + +Armitage snorted, and turned his lips down. Ten minutes later, he was +asleep in his chair. + +***** + +Nearly six months had passed--six months of wretchedness to the young +wife, whose heart was slowly breaking under the strain of living with +the Beast. Such happiness as was hers lay in the companionship of her +little son, and every evening Tom Denison would see her watching the +child and the patient, faithful mona, as the two played together on the +smooth lawn in front of the sitting-room, or ran races in and out among +the mango-trees. She was becoming paler and thinner every day--the Beast +was getting fatter and coarser, and more brutalised. Sometimes he would +remain in Apia for a week, returning home either boisterously drunk or +sullen and scowling-faced. In the latter case, he would come into the +office where Denison worked (he had left the schooner of which he was +supercargo, and was now "overseering" Solo-Solo) and try to grasp the +muddled condition of his financial affairs. Then, with much variegated +language, he would stride away, cursing the servants and the place +and everything in general, mount his horse, and ride off again to the +society of the loafers, gamblers, and flaunting unfortunates who haunted +the drinking saloons of Apia and Matafele. + +One day came a crisis. Denison was rigging a tackle to haul a tree-trunk +into position in the plantation saw-pit, when Armitage rode up to the +house. He dismounted and went inside. Five minutes later Amona came +staggering down the path to him. His left cheek was cut to the bone by +a blow from Armitage's fist. Denison brought him into his own room, +stitched up the wound, and gave him a glass of grog, and told him to +light his pipe and rest. + +"mona, you're a _valea_ (fool). Why don't you leave this place? This +man will kill you some day. How many beatings has he given you?" He +spoke in English. + +"I know not how many. But it is God's will. And if the master some day +killeth me, it is well. And yet, but for some things, I would use my +knife on him." + +"What things?" + +He came over to the supercargo, and, seating himself cross-legged on the +floor, placed his firm, brown, right hand on the white man's knee. + +"For two things, good friend. The little fingers of the child are +clasped tightly around my heart, and when his father striketh me and +calls me a filthy man-eater, a dog, and a pig, I know no pain. That is +one thing. And the other thing is this--the child's mother hath come to +me when my body hath ached from the father's blows, and the blood hath +covered my face; and she hath bound up my wounds and wept silent tears, +and together have we knelt and called upon God to turn his heart from +the grog and the foul women, and to take away from her and the child the +bitterness of these things." + +"You're a good fellow, mona," said Denison, as he saw that the man's +cheeks were wet with tears. + +"Nay, for sometimes my heart is bitter with anger. But God is good to +me. For the child loveth me. And the mother is of God... aye, and she +will be with Him soon." Then he rose to his knees suddenly, and looked +wistfully at the supercargo, as he put his hand on his. "She will be +dead before the next moon is _ai aiga_ (in the first quarter), for at +night I lie outside her door, and but three nights ago she cried out to +me: 'Come, Amona, Come!' And I went in, and she was sitting up on +her bed and blood was running from her mouth. But she bade me tell no +one--not even thee. And it was then she told me that death was near +to her, for she hath a disease whose roots lie in her chest, and +which eateth away her strength. Dear friend, let me tell thee of some +things... This man is a devil.... I know he but desires to see her die. +He hath cursed her before me, and twice have I seen him take the child +from her arms, and, setting him on the floor to weep in terror, take his +wife by the hand----" + +"Stop, man; stop! That'll do. Say no more! The beast!" + +"_E tonu, e tonu_ (true, true)," said the man, quietly, and still +speaking in Samoan. "He is as a beast of the mountains, as a tiger of +the country India, which devoureth the lamb and the kid.... And so now I +have opened my heart to thee of these things----" + +A native woman rushed into the room: "Come, mona, come. _Misi Fafine_ +(the mistress) bleeds from her mouth again." + +The white man and the brown ran into the front sitting-room together, +just as they heard a piercing shriek of terror from the child; then came +the sound of a heavy fall. + +As they entered, Armitage strode out, jolting against them as he passed. +His face was swollen and ugly with passion--bad to look at. + +"Go and pick up the child, you frizzy-haired pig!" he muttered hoarsely +to Amona as he passed. "He fell off his mother's lap." + +Mrs. Armitage was leaning back in her chair, as white as death, and +trying to speak, as with one hand she tried to stanch the rush of blood +from her mouth, and with the other pointed to her child, who was lying +on his face under a table, motionless and unconscious. + +In less than ten minutes, a native was galloping through the bush to +Apia for Dr. Eckhardt. Denison had picked up the child, who, as he came +to, began to cry. Assuring his mother that he was not much hurt, he +brought him to her, and sat beside the lounge on which she lay, holding +him in his arms. He was a good little man, and did not try to talk +to her when the supercargo whispered to him to keep silent, but lay +stroking the poor mother's thin white hand. Yet every now and then, as +he moved or Denison changed his position, he would utter a cry of pain +and say his leg pained him. + +Four hours later the German doctor arrived. Mrs. Armitage was asleep; so +Eckhardt would not awaken her at the time. The boy, however, had slept +but fitfully, and every now and then awakened with a sob of pain. +The nurse stripped him, and Eckhardt soon found out what was wrong--a +serious injury to the left hip. + +Late in the evening, as the big yellow-bearded German doctor and Denison +sat in the dining room smoking and talking, Taloi, the child's nurse +entered, and was followed by Amona, and the woman told them the whole +story. + +"_Misi Fafine_ was sitting in a chair with the boy on her lap when the +master came in. His eyes were black and fierce with anger, and, stepping +up, he seized the child by the arm, and bade him get down. Then the +little one screamed in terror, and _Misi Fafine_ screamed too, and the +master became as mad, for he tore the boy from his mother's arms, and +tossed him across the room against the wall. That is all I know of this +thing." + +Denison saw nothing of Armitage till six o'clock on the following +morning, just as Eckhardt was going away. He put out his hand, Eckhardt +put his own behind his back, and, in a few blunt words, told the Beast +what he thought of him. + +"And if this was a civilised country," he added crisply, "you would be +now in gaol. Yes, in prison. You have as good as killed your wife +by your brutality--she will not live another two months. You have so +injured your child's hip that he may be a cripple for life. You are a +damned scoundrel, no better than the lowest ruffian of a city slum, and +if you show yourself in Joe D'Acosta's smoking-room again, you'll find +more than half a dozen men--Englishmen, Americans and Germans--ready to +kick you out into the _au ala_" (road). + +Armitage was no coward. He sprang forward with an oath, but Denison, who +was a third less of his employer's weight, deftly put out his right foot +and the master of Solo Solo plantation went down. Then the supercargo +sat on him and, having a fine command of seafaring expletives, +threatened to gouge his eyes out if he did not keep quiet. + +"You go on, doctor," he said cheerfully. "I'll let you know in the +course of an hour or two how Mrs. Armitage and the boy are progressing. +The seat which I am now occupying, though not a very honourable one, +considering the material of which it is composed, is very comfortable +for the time being; and"--he turned and glared savagely at Armitage's +purpled face--"You sweep! I have a great inclination to let Eckhardt +come and boot the life out of you whilst I hold you down, you brute!" + +"I'll kill you for this," said Armitage hoarsely. + +"Won't give you the chance, my boy. And if you don't promise to go to +your room quietly, I'll call in the native servants, sling you up like +the pig you are to a pole, and have you carried into Apia, where you +stand a good show of being lynched. I've had enough of you. Every +one--except your blackguardly acquaintances in Matafele--would be glad +to hear that you were dead, and your wife and child freed from you." + +Eckhardt stepped forward. "Let him up, Mr. Denison." + +The supercargo obeyed the request. + +"Just as you please, doctor. But I think that he ought to be put in +irons, or a strait-jacket, or knocked on the head as a useless beast. If +it were not for Mrs. Armitage and her little son, I would like to kill +the sweep. His treatment of that poor fellow Amona, who is so devoted to +the child, has been most atrocious." + +Eckhardt grasped the supercargo's hand as Armitage shambled off "He's a +brute, as you say, Mr. Denison. But she has some affection for him. For +myself, I would like to put a bullet through him." + +Within three months Mrs. Armitage was dead, and a fresh martrydom began +for poor Amona. But he and the child had plenty of good friends; and +then, one day, when Armitage awakened to sanity after a long drinking +bout, he found that both Amona and the child had gone. + +Nearly a score of years later Denison met them in an Australian city. +The "baby" had grown to be a well-set-up young fellow, and Amona the +faithful was still with him--Amona with a smiling, happy face. They came +down on board Denison's vessel with him, and "the baby" gave him, ere +they parted, that faded photograph of his dead mother. + + + + + + +THE SNAKE AND THE BELL + +When I was a child of eight years of age, a curious incident occurred in +the house in which our family lived. The locality was Mosman's Bay, one +of the many picturesque indentations of the beautiful harbour of Sydney. +In those days the houses were few and far apart, and our own dwelling +was surrounded on all sides by the usual monotonous-hued Australian +forest of iron barks and spotted gums, traversed here and there by +tracks seldom used, as the house was far back from the main road, +leading from the suburb of St. Leonards to Middle Harbour. The building +itself was in the form of a quadrangle enclosing a courtyard, on to +which nearly all the rooms opened; each room having a bell over the +door, the wires running all round the square, while the front-door bell, +which was an extra large affair, hung in the hall, the "pull" being one +of the old-fashioned kind, an iron sliding-rod suspended from the outer +wall plate, where it connected with the wire. + +One cold and windy evening about eight o'clock, my mother, my sisters, +and myself were sitting in the dining-room awaiting the arrival of my +brothers from Sydney--they attended school there, and rowed or sailed +the six miles to and fro every day, generally returning home by dusk. On +this particular evening, however, they were late, on account of the wind +blowing rather freshly from the north-east; but presently we heard the +front-door bell ring gently. + +"Here they are at last," said my mother; "but how silly of them to go to +the front door on such a windy night, tormenting boys!" + +Julia, the servant, candle in hand, went along the lengthy passage, +and opened the door. No one was there! She came back to the dining-room +smiling--"Masther Edward is afther playin' wan av his thricks, +ma'am----" she began, when the bell again rang--this time vigorously. My +eldest sister threw down the book she was reading, and with an impatient +exclamation herself went to the door, opened it quickly, and said +sharply as she pulled it inwards-- + +"Come in at once, you stupid things!" There was no answer, and she +stepped outside on the verandah. No one was visible, and again the big +bell in the hall rang! + +She shut the door angrily and returned to her seat, just as the bell +gave a curious, faint tinkle as if the tongue had been moved ever so +gently. + +"Don't take any notice of them," said my mother, "they will soon get +tired of playing such silly pranks, and be eager for their supper." + +Presently the bell gave out three clear strokes. We looked at each +other and smiled. Five minutes passed, and then came eight or ten gentle +strokes in quick succession. + +"Let us catch them," said my mother, rising, and holding her finger +up to us to preserve silence, as she stepped softly along the hall, we +following on tiptoe. + +Softly turning the handle, she suddenly threw the door wide open, just +as the bell gave another jangle. Not a soul was visible! + +My mother--one of the most placid-tempered women who ever breathed, now +became annoyed, and stepping out on the verandah, addressed herself to +the darkness-- + +"Come inside at once, boys, or I shall be very angry. I know perfectly +well what you have done; you have tied a string to the bell wires, and +are pulling it. If you don't desist you shall have no supper." + +No answer--except from the hall bell, which gave another half-hearted +tinkle. + +"Bring a candle and the step-ladder, Julia," said our now thoroughly +exasperated parent, "and we shall see what these foolish boys have done +to the bell-wire." + +Julia brought the ladder; my eldest sister mounted it, and began to +examine the bell. She could see nothing unusual, no string or wire, and +as she descended, the bell swayed and gave one faint stroke! + +We all returned to the sitting room, and had scarcely been there five +minutes when we heard my three brothers coming in, in their usual way, +by the back door. They tramped into the sitting room, noisy, dirty, +wet with spray, and hungry, and demanded supper in a loud and collected +voice. My mother looked at them with a severe aspect, and said they +deserved none. + +"Why, mum, what's the matter?" said Ted; "what _have_ we been doing +now, or what have we not done, that we don't deserve any supper, after +pulling for two hours from Circular Quay, against a howling, black +north-easter?" + +"You know perfectly well what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of you to +play such silly tricks upon us." + +Ted gazed at her in genuine astonishment. "Silly tricks, mother! What +silly tricks?" (Julia crossed herself, and trembled visibly as the bell +again rang.) + +My mother, at once satisfied that Ted and my other brothers really knew +nothing of the mysterious bell-ringing, quickly explained the cause of +her anger. + +"Let us go and see if we can find out," said Ted. "You two boys, and +you, Julia, get all the stable lanterns, light them, and we'll start out +together--two on one side of the house and two on the other. Some one +must be up to a trick!" + +Julia, who was a huge, raw-boned Irish girl, as strong as a working +bullock, but not so graceful, again crossed herself, and began to weep. + +"What's the matter with you?" said Ted angrily. + +"Shure, an' there was tirrible murders committed here in the ould +convict days," she whimpered. "The polace sargint's wife at Sint +Leonards tould me all about it. There was three souldiers murdered down +beyant on the beach, by some convicts, whin they was atin' their supper, +an' there's people near about now that saw all the blood and----" + +"Stop it, you great lumbering idiot!" shouted Ted, as my eldest sister +began to laugh hysterically, and the youngest, made a terrified dart to +mother's skirts. + +Ted's angry voice and threatening visage silenced Julia for the moment, +and she tremblingly went towards the door to obey his orders when the +bell gave out such a vigorous and sustained peal that she sank down in +a colossal heap on the floor, and then went into violent hysterics. (I +assure my readers that I am not exaggerating matters in the slightest.) + +My mother, who was a thoroughly sensible woman, pushed the whole brood +of us out of the room, came after us, shut the door and locked it. _She_ +knew the proper treatment for hysterics. + +"Let her stay there, boys," she said quietly, "she will hurt the +furniture more than herself, the ridiculous creature. Now, Ted, you and +your brothers get the lanterns, and the little ones and myself will go +into the kitchen." + +We ran out into the stables, lit three lanterns, and my next eldest +brother and myself, feeling horribly frightened, but impelled to show +some courage by Ted's awful threats of what he would do to us if we +"funked," told us to go round the house, beginning from the left, and +meet him at the hall door, he going round from the right. + +With shaking limbs and gasping breath we made our portion of the +circuit, sticking close to each other, and carefully avoiding looking at +anything as we hurried over the lawn, our only anxiety being to meet +Ted as quickly as possible and then get inside again. We arrived on the +verandah, and in front of the hall-door, quite five minutes before Ted +appeared. + +"Well, did you see anything?" he asked, as he walked up the steps, +lantern in hand. + +"Nothing," we answered, edging up towards the door. + +Ted looked at us contemptuously. "You miserable little curs! What are +you so frightened of? You're no better than a pack of women and kids. +It's the wind that has made the bell ring, or, if it's not the wind, +it is something else which I don't know anything about; but I want my +supper. Pull the bell, one of you." + +Elated at so soon escaping from the horrors of the night, we seized the +handle of the bell-pull, and gave it a vigorous tug. + +"It's stuck, Ted. It won't pull down," we said. + +"Granny!" said the big brother, "you're too funky to give it a proper +pull," and pushing us aside, he grasped the pendant handle and gave a +sharp pull. There was no answering sound. + +"It certainly is stuck," admitted Ted, raising his lantern so as to get +a look upwards, then he gave a yell. + +"Oh! look there!" + +We looked up, and saw the writhing twisting, coils of a huge carpet +snake, which had wound its body round and round the bell-wire on top +of the wall plate. Its head was downwards, and it did not seem at +all alarmed at our presence, but went on wriggling and twisting and +squirming with much apparent cheerfulness. + +Ted ran back to the stables, and returned in a few seconds with a +clothes-prop, with which he dealt the disturber of our peace a few +rapid, but vigorous, blows, breaking its spine in several places. Then +the step-ladder was brought out, and Ted, seizing the reptile by the +tail, uncoiled it with some difficulty from the wire, and threw it down +upon the verandah. + +It was over nine feet in length, and very fat, and had caused all the +disturbance by endeavouring to denude itself of its old skin by dragging +its body between the bell-wire and the top of the wall. When Ted killed +it the poor harmless creature had almost accomplished its object. + + + + + + +SOUTH SEA NOTES + + + + +I + +That many animals, particularly cattle and deer, are very fond of salt +we all know, but it is not often that birds show any taste for it, or, +if so, the circumstance has not generally been noted. In 1881, however, +the present writer was residing on Gazelle Peninsula, the northern +portion of the magnificent island of New Britain in the South Pacific, +and had many opportunities of witnessing both cockatoos and wild pigeons +drinking salt water. I was stationed at a place called Kabaira, the then +"furthest-out" trading station on the whole island, and as I had but +little to do in the way of work, I found plenty of time to study the +bird-life in the vicinity. Parrots of several varieties, and all of +beautiful plumage, were very plentiful, and immense flocks of white +cockatoos frequented the rolling, grassy downs which lay between my home +and the German head-station in Blanche Bay, twenty miles distant, while +the heavy forest of the littoral was the haunt of thousands of pigeons. +These latter, though not so large as the Samoan, or Eastern Polynesian +bird, formed a very agreeable change of diet for us white traders, and +by walking about fifty yards from one's door, half a dozen or more could +be shot in as many minutes. + +My nearest neighbour was a German, and one day when we were walking +along the beach towards his station, we noticed some hundreds of pigeons +fly down from the forest, settle on the margin of the water, and +drink with apparent enjoyment. The harbour at this spot was almost +land-locked, the water as smooth as glass without the faintest ripple, +and the birds were consequently enabled to drink without wetting their +plumage. My companion, who had lived many years in New Britain, told me +that this drinking of sea-water was common alike to both cockatoos and +pigeons, and that on some occasions the beaches would be lined with +them, the former birds not only drinking, but bathing as well, and +apparently enjoying themselves greatly. + +During the following six months, especially when the weather was calm +and rainy, I frequently noticed pigeons and cockatoos come to the salt +water to drink. At first I thought that as fresh water in many places +bubbled up through the sand at low tide, the birds were really not +drinking the sea-water, but by watching closely, I frequently saw them +walk across these tiny runnels, and make no attempt to drink. Then +again, the whole of the Gazette Peninsula is out up by countless streams +of water; rain falls throughout the year as a rule, and as I have said, +there is always water percolating or bubbling up through the sand on +the beaches at low tide. What causes this unusual habit of drinking +sea-water? + +Another peculiarity of the New Britain and New Ireland pigeon is its +fondness for the Chili pepper-berry. During three months of the year, +when these berries are ripe, the birds' crops are full of them, and very +often their flesh is so pungent, and smells so strongly of the Chili, as +to be quite uneatable. + +* * * * * + +On all of the low-lying islands of the Ellice, Kings-mill and Gilbert +Groups, a species of snipe are very plentiful. On the islands which +enclose the noble lagoon of Funafuti in the Ellice Group, they are to +be met with in great numbers, and in dull, rainy weather, an ordinarily +good shot may get thirty or forty in a few hours. One day, accompanied +by a native lad, I set out to collect hermit crabs, to be used as fish +bait. These curious creatures are to be found almost anywhere in the +equatorial islands of the Pacific; their shell houses ranging in size +from a pea to an orange, and if a piece of coco-nut or fish or any other +edible matter is left out overnight, hundreds of hermits will be found +gathered around it in the morning. To extract the crabs from their +shells, which are of all shapes and kinds, is a very simple matter--the +hard casing is broken by placing them upon a large stone and striking +them a sharp blow with one of lesser size. My companion and myself soon +collected a heap of "hermits," when presently he took one up in his +hand, and holding it close to his mouth, whistled softly. In a few +moments the crab protruded one nipper, then another, then its red +antennae, and allowed the boy to take its head between his finger and +thumb and draw its entire body from its shell casing. + +"That is the way the _kili_ (snipe) gets the _uga_ (crab) from its +shell," he said. "The _kili_ stands over the _uga_ and whistles softly, +and the _uga_ puts out his head to listen. Then the bird seizes it in +his bill, gives it a backward jerk and off flies the shell." + +Now I had often noticed that wherever hermit crabs were plentiful along +the outer beaches of the lagoon, I was sure to find snipe, and sometimes +wondered on what the birds fed. Taking up two or three "hermits" one +by one, I whistled gently, and in each case the creature protruded the +nippers, head and shoulders, and moved its antenn to and fro as if +pleasurably excited. + +On the following day I shot three snipe, and in the stomachs of each I +found some quite fresh and some partly digested hermit crabs. The thick, +hard nippers are broken off by the bird before he swallows the soft, +tender body. + +***** + +In a recent number of _Chambers's Journal_ the present writer was much +interested in a short paragraph dealing with the commercial value of the +skin of the shark, and, having had many years' experience as a +trader and supercargo in the South Seas, desires to add some further +information on a somewhat interesting subject. + +In all the equatorial islands of the North and South Pacific, shark +fishing is a very profitable industry to the natives, and every trading +steamer or sailing vessel coming into the ports of Sydney or Auckland +from the islands of the mid-Pacific, always brings some tons of shark +fins and tails and shark skins. The principal market for the former is +Hong Kong, but the Chinese merchants of the Australasian Colonies will +always buy sharks' fins and tails at from 6d. to 11d. per lb., the fins +bringing the best price on account of the extra amount of glutinous +matter they contain, and the which are highly relished by the richer +classes of Chinese as a delicacy. The tails are also valued as an +article of food in China; and, apart from their edible qualities, have a +further value as a base for clear varnishes, &c.; and I was informed +by a Chinese tea-merchant that the glaze upon the paper coverings of +tea-chests was due to a preparation composed principally of the refuse +of sharks' fins, tails, and skins. + +All the natives of the Gilbert, Kingsmill, and other Pacific equatorial +islands are expert shark fishermen; but the wild people of Ocean Island +(Paanopa) and Pleasant Island (Naura), two isolated spots just under the +equator, surpass them all in the art of catching jackshark. It was the +fortunate experience of the writer to live among these people for many +years, and to be inducted into the native method of shark-catching. In +frail canoes, made of short pieces of wood, sewn together with coco-nut +fibre, the Ocean Islanders will venture out with rude but ingeniously +contrived _wooden_ hooks, and capture sharks of a girth (_not_ length) +that no untrained European would dare to attempt to kill from a +well-appointed boat, with a good crew. + +Shark-catching is one of _the_ industries of the Pacific, and a very +paying industry too. Five-and-twenty years ago there were quite a dozen +or more schooners sailing out of Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands, to +the isolated atolls of the North Pacific--notably Palmyra and Christmas +Islands--where sharks could be caught by the thousand, and the crews, +who were engaged on a "lay," like whalemen, made "big money"; many of +them after a six months' cruise drawing 500 dollars--a large sum for a +native sailor. + +The work is certainly hard, but it is exciting, and the writer will +always remember with pleasure a seven months' shark-fishing cruise +he once had in the North Pacific, the genial comrades--white men and +brown--and the bag of dollars handed over to him by the owners when the +ship was paid off in Honolulu. + + + + +II + +It is not generally known, except to scientists and those who are +acquainted with the subject, that a large percentage of the various +species and varieties of sea snakes are highly venomous. These snakes +must not be confounded with the very numerous species of sea eels, +which, though exceedingly savage and armed with strong needle-pointed +teeth, are all non-venomous, though their bite produces high +inflammation if not at once properly attended to and cleansed by an +antiseptic. The sea snake is a true snake in many respects, having +either laminated scales or a thick corduroyed skin resembling +rudimentary scales. The head is flat, and the general structure of the +body similar to that of the land snake. Whether any of them possess the +true poison glands and fangs I do not know, for although I have killed +many hundreds of them I never took sufficient interest to make a careful +examination; and I was told by a Dutch medical gentleman, long resident +on the coast of Dutch New Guinea, and who had made some investigation on +the subject, that he had failed to discover any poison sacs or glands in +any one of the several snakes he had captured. Yet in some instances he +found what at first appeared to be the two long front teeth common to +venomous land snakes, but on detailed examination these always proved to +be perfectly solid; nevertheless a bite from one of these sea serpents +was generally regarded by the natives as fatal; in my own experience +I know of two such cases, one at the island of Fotuna in the South +Pacific, and the other in Torres Straits. + +In Sigavi Harbour, on Fotuna, there is a rock to which vessels +occasionally make fast their stern moorings. In the boat which I sent +away with a line to this rock were several boys, natives of the island, +who went with the crew for amusement. One of them, aged about ten, +jumped out of the boat, and in his hurry fell on his hands and knees, +right on top of a large black and white banded sea snake, which at once +bit him savagely on the wrist, causing the blood to flow from a score of +tiny punctures. The boy at once swam on shore to be treated by a native; +in the evening I heard he was suffering great agony, in the morning the +poor little fellow was dead. + +The second instance was near Raine Island, in Torres Straits. A stalwart +young Kanaka, one of the crew of a pearling lugger, was diving for clam +shells on the reef, when a snake about three feet in length suddenly +shot up from below within a foot of his face. In his anger and disgust +he unthinkingly struck it with his hand, and was quickly bitten on the +forefinger. A few hours later he was in a high fever, accompanied with +twitchings of the extremities; then tetanus ensued, followed by death in +forty-eight hours. + +Although these sea snakes are common to all tropical seas, they are most +frequent about the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. On any smooth +day they may be seen disporting themselves on the surface, or rising +suddenly from the depths, erect their heads and some inches of their +bodies clear from the water, gaze at the passing vessel, and then +swiftly disappear. In nearly all the Pacific Islands the natives hold +them in detestation and horror, and when one is seen lying coiled up on +a rock sunning itself or crawling over the surface of the reef in search +of food, a stone, accompanied by a curse, is always hurled at it. In the +Ellice Oroup, when catching flying-fish at night, one (or more) of these +horrid serpents is sometimes swept up in the scoop-net before it can be +avoided. They range from six inches to nearly four feet in length, and +all have one feature--a blunted tail-end. + +Quite recently much further light has been thrown on the subject by Sir +James Hector, of the Philosophical Society of Wellington, New Zealand. +At one of the Society's meetings, held in April last, Sir James showed +several specimens of _hydrida_, some from Australasian Seas, others +from the Atlantic. The usual habitat of sea snakes, he said, were the +tropical seas generally, but some had been captured in the comparatively +cold waters of the New Zealand coast, at the Catlins River. These latter +were all yellow-banded; those from the islands of the Fijian Oroup were +black-banded, and those taken from the Australian coast grey-banded. +There were, he said, no fewer than seventy species, which, without +exception, were fanged and provided with glands secreting a virulent +poison. In some of the mountainous islands of the South Pacific, such as +Samoa, Fiji, &c, there were several species of land snakes, all of which +were perfectly harmless, and were familiar to many people in Australia +and New Zealand, through being brought there in bunches of island +bananas--it was singular, he thought, that the sea snakes alone should +be so highly venomous. "They were all characterised by the flattened +or blunted tail, which they used as a steer oar, and were often found +asleep on the surface of the water, lying on their backs. In this state +they were easily and safely captured, being powerless to strike." The +present writer, who has seen hundreds of these marine snakes daily +for many years, during a long residence in the Pacific Islands, cannot +remember a single instance where he has seen one of these dangerous +creatures asleep _on the water_, though they may frequently be found +lying asleep on the coral reefs, exposing themselves to the rays of a +torrid sun. They usually select some knob or rounded boulder, from the +top of which, when awake, they can survey the small pools beneath and +discern any fish which may be imprisoned therein. In such case they will +glide down into the water with astonishing rapidity, seize their prey, +and after swallowing it, return to their sun bath. The natives of the +Paumotu Archipelago informed me, however, that they are most active +in seeking their prey at night-time, and are especially fond of +flying-fish, which, as is well known, is one of the swiftest of all +ocean fishes. The sea snakes, however, seize them with the greatest +ease, by rising cautiously beneath and fastening their keen teeth in the +fish's throat or belly. A snake, not two feet six inches in length, I +was assured, can easily swallow a flying-fish eight inches or ten inches +long. + +With regard to their habit of lying asleep on their backs on the surface +of the water, it may be that Sir James Hector is alluding to some +particular species, but whether that is so or not Sir James's statement +must of course be considered authoritative, for there is, I believe, no +higher authority on the subject in the world. Apropos of these venomous +marine serpents I may mention that the Rev. W. W. Gill in one of his +works states that he was informed by the natives of the Cook's Group +that during the prevalence of very bad weather, when fish were scarce, +the large sea eels would actually crawl ashore, and ascend the _fala_ +(pandanus or screw-pine) trees in search of the small green lizards +which live among the upper part of the foliage. At first I regarded this +merely as a bit of native extravagance of statement, but in 1882, when +I was shipwrecked on Peru (or Francis Island), one of the Gilbert Group, +the local trader, one Frank Voliero, and myself saw one of these eels +engaged in an equally extraordinary pursuit. We were one evening, +after a heavy gale from the westward had been blowing for three days, +examining a rookery of whale birds in search of eggs; the rookery was +situated in a dense thicket scrub on the north end of the island, and +was quite two hundred yards from the sea-shore, though not more than +half that distance from the inside lagoon beach. The storm had destroyed +quite a number of young, half-fledged birds, whose bodies were lying on +the ground, and busily engaged in devouring one of them was a very large +sea eel, as thick as the calf of a man's leg. Before I could manage to +secure a stick with which to kill the repulsive-looking creature, it +made off through the undergrowth at a rapid pace in the direction of the +lagoon, and when we emerged out into the open in pursuit, ten minutes +later, we were just in time to see it wriggling down the hard, sloping +beach into the water. Instinct evidently made it seek the nearest water, +for none of these large sea eels are ever found in Peru Lagoon. + +Many of the rivers and lakes of the islands of the Western Pacific are +tenanted by eels of great size, which are never, or very seldom, as far +as I could learn, interfered with by the natives, and I have never seen +the people of either the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, or New Britain +touch an eel as food. The Maories, however, as is well known, are +inordinately fond of eels, which, with putrid shark, constitute one of +their staple articles of diet. + +In the few mountainous islands of the vast Caroline Archipelago, in +the North-western Pacific, eels are very plentiful, not only in the +numberless small streams which debouch into the shallow waters enclosed +by the barrier reefs, but also far up on the mountainsides, +occupying little rocky pools of perhaps no larger dimensions than an +ordinary-sized toilet basin, or swimming up and down rivulets hardly +more than two feet across. The natives of Ponap, the largest island +of the Caroline Group, and of Kusaie (Strong's Island), its eastern +outlier, regard the fresh-water eel with shuddering aversion, and should +a man accidentally touch one with his foot when crossing a stream he +will utter an exclamation of horror and fear. In the heathen days--down +to 1845-50--the eel (tan) was an object of worship, and constantly +propitiated by sacrifices of food, on account of its malevolent powers; +personal contact was rigidly avoided; to touch one, even by the merest +accident, was to bring down the most dreadful calamities on the offender +and his family--bodily deformities, starvation and poverty, and death; +and although the natives of Strong's Island are now both civilised and +Christianised, and a training college of the Boston Board of Missions +has long been established at Port Lel, they still manifest the same +superstitious dread of the eel as in their days of heathendom. I well +remember witnessing an instance of this terror during my sojourn on the +island when I was shipwrecked there in 1874. I had taken up my residence +in the picturesque little village of Leass, on the western or "lee" +side, when I was one evening visited by several of the ship's company--a +Fijian half-caste, a white man, and two natives of Pleasant Island. At +the moment they arrived I was in the house of the native pastor--a +man who had received an excellent education in a missionary college at +Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands--instructing him and his family in the +art of making _taka_, or cinnet sandals, as practised by the natives +of the Tokelau Group. Just then the four seamen entered, each man +triumphantly holding up a large eel: in an instant there was a united +howl of horror from the parson and his family, as they made a rash for +the door, overturning the lamp and nearly setting the house on fire. In +vain I followed and urged them to return, and told them that the men had +gone away and taken the _tan_ with them--nothing would induce them to +enter the house that night, and the whole family slept elsewhere. + +One singular thing about the eels on Strong's Island is that they +hibernate, in a fashion, on the sides or even summits of the high +mountains, at an altitude of nearly two thousand feet. Selecting, or +perhaps making, a depression in the soft, moss-covered soil, the ugly +creatures fit themselves into it compactly and remain there for weeks or +even months at a time. I have counted as many as thirty of these holes, +all tenanted, within a few square yards. Some were quite concealed by +vegetable _dbris_ or moss, others were exposed to view, with the broad, +flat head of the slippery occupant resting on the margin or doubled back +upon its body. They showed no alarm, but if poked with a stick would +extricate themselves and crawl slowly away. + +In the streams they were very voracious, and I had a special antipathy +to them, on account of their preying so on the crayfish--a crustacean +of which I was particularly fond, and which the natives also liked very +much, but were afraid to capture for fear their hands might come in +contact with the dreaded _tan_. + +One afternoon I was plucking a pigeon I had just shot by the margin of a +mountain stream. After removing the viscera, I put the bird in the water +to clean it properly, and was shaking it gently to and fro, when it was +suddenly torn out of my hand by a disgustingly bloated, reddish-coloured +eel about four feet in length, and quickly swallowed. That one pigeon +had cost me two hours' tramping through the rain-soddened mountain +forest, so loading my gun I followed the thief down stream to where the +water was but a few inches deep, and then blew his head off. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of mona; The Child; And The Beast; And +Others, by Louis Becke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONA *** + +***** This file should be named 24952-8.txt or 24952-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/5/24952/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/24952-8.zip b/old/24952-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7211d93 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/24952-8.zip diff --git a/old/24952.txt b/old/24952.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e59c3a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/24952.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1276 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others, by +Louis Becke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others + From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other + Stories" - 1902 + +Author: Louis Becke + +Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24952] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONA *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +AMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST + +Plus THE SNAKE AND THE BELL and SOUTH SEA NOTES + +From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other Stories" + +By Louis Becke + +T. FISHER UNWIN, 1902 + +LONDON + + + + +AMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST' + + +Amona was, as his master so frequently told him--accentuating the remark +with a blow or a kick--only "a miserable kanaka." Of his miserableness +there was no doubt, for Denison, who lived in the same house as he did, +was a daily witness of it--and his happiness. Also, he was a kanaka--a +native of Niue, in the South Pacific; Savage Island it is called by the +traders and is named on the charts, though its five thousand sturdy, +brown-skinned inhabitants have been civilised, Christianised, and have +lived fairly cleanly for the past thirty years. + +Amona and Denison had the distinction of being employed by Armitage, one +of the most unmitigated blackguards in the Pacific. He was a shipowner, +planter, merchant, and speculator; was looked upon by a good many people +as "not a bad sort of a fellow, you know--and the soul of hospitality." +In addition, he was an incorrigible drunken bully, and broke his wife's +heart within four years after she married him. Amona was his cook. +Denison was one of his supercargoes, and (when a long boat of +drunkenness made him see weird visions of impossible creatures) manager +of the business on shore, overseer, accountant, and Jack-of-all-trades. +How he managed to stay on with such a brute I don't know. He certainly +paid him well enough, but he (Denison) could have got another berth from +other people in Samoa, Fiji, or Tonga had he wanted it. And, although +Armitage was always painfully civil to Denison--who tried to keep +his business from going to the dogs--the man hated him as much as he +despised Amona, and would have liked to have kicked him, as he would +have liked to have kicked or strangled any one who knew the secret of +his wife's death and his child's lameness. And three people in Samoa did +know it--Amona, the Niue cook, Dr. Eckhardt, and Denison. Armitage has +been dead now these five-and-twenty years--died, as he deserved to +die, alone and friendless in an Australian bush hospital out in the +God-forsaken Never-Never country, and when Denison heard of his death, +he looked at the gentle wife's dim, faded photograph, and wondered if +the Beast saw her sweet, sad face in his dying moments. He trusted +not; for in her eyes would have shown only the holy light of love +and forgiveness--things which a man like Armitage could not have +understood--even then. + +She had been married three years when she came with him to Samoa to live +on Solo-Solo Plantation, in a great white-painted bungalow, standing +amid a grove of breadfruit and coco-palms, and overlooking the sea +to the north, east, and west; to the south was the dark green of the +mountain-forest. + +"Oh! I think it is the fairest, sweetest picture in the world," she said +to Denison the first time he met her. She was sitting on the verandah +with her son in her lap, and as she spoke she pressed her lips to his +soft little cheek and caressed the tiny hands. "So different from where +I was born and lived all my life--on the doll, sun-baked plains of the +Riverina--isn't it, my pet?" + +"I am glad that you like the place, Mrs. Armitage," the supercargo said +as he looked at the young, girlish face and thought that she, too, with +her baby, made a fair, sweet picture. How she loved the child! And how +the soft, grey-blue eyes would lose their sadness when the little one +turned its face up to hers and smiled! How came it, he wondered, that +such a tender, flower-like woman was mated to such a man as Armitage! + +Long after she was dead, Denison heard the story--one common enough. +Her father, whose station adjoined that of Armitage, got into financial +difficulties, went to Armitage for help, and practically sold his +daughter to the Beast for a couple of thousand pounds. Very likely such +a man would have sold his daughter's mother as well if he wanted money. + +* * * * * + +As they sat talking, Armitage rode up, half-drunk as usual. He was a big +man, good-looking. + +"Hallo, Nell! Pawing the damned kid as usual! Why the hell don't you let +one of the girls take the little animal and let him tumble about on the +grass? You're spoiling the child--by God, you are." + +"Ah, he's so happy, Fred, here with me, and----" + +"Happy be damned--you're always letting him maul you about. I want a +whisky-and-soda, and so does Denison--don't you?" And then the Beast, as +soon as his wife with the child in her arms had left the room, began +to tell his subordinate of a "new" girl he had met that morning in Joe +D'Acosta's saloon. + +"Oh, shut up, man. Your wife is in the next room." + +"Let her hear--and be damned to her! She knows what I do. I don't +disguise anything from her. I'm not a sneak in that way. By God, I'm not +the man to lose any fun from sentimental reasons. Have you seen this +new girl at Joe's? She's a Manhiki half-caste. God, man! She's glorious, +simply glorious!" + +"You mean Laea, I suppose. She's a common beacher--sailor man's trull. +Surely you wouldn't be seen ever speaking to _her?_" + +"Wouldn't I! You don't know me yet! I like the girl, and I've fixed +things up with her. She's coming here as my nursemaid--twenty dollars a +month! What do you think of that?" + +"You would not insult your wife so horribly!" + +He looked at Denison sullenly, but made no answer, as the supercargo +went on: + +"You'll get the dead cut from every white man in Samoa. Not a soul will +put foot inside your store door, and Joe D'Acosta himself would refuse +to sell you a drink! Might as well shoot yourself at once." + +"Oh, well, damn it all, don't keep on preaching. I--I was more in fun +than anything else. Ha! Here's Amona with the drinks. Why don't you be a +bit smarter, you damned frizzy-haired man-eater?" + +Amona's sallow face flushed deeply, but he made no reply to the insult +as he handed a glass to his master. + +"Put the tray down there, confound you! Don't stand there like a +blarsted mummy; clear out till we want you again." + +The native made no answer, bent his head in silence, and stepped quietly +away. Then Armitage began to grumble at him as a "useless swine." + +"Why," said Denison, "Mrs. Armitage was only just telling me that he's +worth all the rest of the servants put together. And, by Jove, he _is_ +fond of your youngster--simply worships the little chap." + +Armitage snorted, and turned his lips down. Ten minutes later, he was +asleep in his chair. + +***** + +Nearly six months had passed--six months of wretchedness to the young +wife, whose heart was slowly breaking under the strain of living with +the Beast. Such happiness as was hers lay in the companionship of her +little son, and every evening Tom Denison would see her watching the +child and the patient, faithful Amona, as the two played together on the +smooth lawn in front of the sitting-room, or ran races in and out among +the mango-trees. She was becoming paler and thinner every day--the Beast +was getting fatter and coarser, and more brutalised. Sometimes he would +remain in Apia for a week, returning home either boisterously drunk or +sullen and scowling-faced. In the latter case, he would come into the +office where Denison worked (he had left the schooner of which he was +supercargo, and was now "overseering" Solo-Solo) and try to grasp the +muddled condition of his financial affairs. Then, with much variegated +language, he would stride away, cursing the servants and the place +and everything in general, mount his horse, and ride off again to the +society of the loafers, gamblers, and flaunting unfortunates who haunted +the drinking saloons of Apia and Matafele. + +One day came a crisis. Denison was rigging a tackle to haul a tree-trunk +into position in the plantation saw-pit, when Armitage rode up to the +house. He dismounted and went inside. Five minutes later Amona came +staggering down the path to him. His left cheek was cut to the bone by +a blow from Armitage's fist. Denison brought him into his own room, +stitched up the wound, and gave him a glass of grog, and told him to +light his pipe and rest. + +"Amona, you're a _valea_ (fool). Why don't you leave this place? This +man will kill you some day. How many beatings has he given you?" He +spoke in English. + +"I know not how many. But it is God's will. And if the master some day +killeth me, it is well. And yet, but for some things, I would use my +knife on him." + +"What things?" + +He came over to the supercargo, and, seating himself cross-legged on the +floor, placed his firm, brown, right hand on the white man's knee. + +"For two things, good friend. The little fingers of the child are +clasped tightly around my heart, and when his father striketh me and +calls me a filthy man-eater, a dog, and a pig, I know no pain. That is +one thing. And the other thing is this--the child's mother hath come to +me when my body hath ached from the father's blows, and the blood hath +covered my face; and she hath bound up my wounds and wept silent tears, +and together have we knelt and called upon God to turn his heart from +the grog and the foul women, and to take away from her and the child the +bitterness of these things." + +"You're a good fellow, Amona," said Denison, as he saw that the man's +cheeks were wet with tears. + +"Nay, for sometimes my heart is bitter with anger. But God is good to +me. For the child loveth me. And the mother is of God... aye, and she +will be with Him soon." Then he rose to his knees suddenly, and looked +wistfully at the supercargo, as he put his hand on his. "She will be +dead before the next moon is _ai aiga_ (in the first quarter), for at +night I lie outside her door, and but three nights ago she cried out to +me: 'Come, Amona, Come!' And I went in, and she was sitting up on +her bed and blood was running from her mouth. But she bade me tell no +one--not even thee. And it was then she told me that death was near +to her, for she hath a disease whose roots lie in her chest, and +which eateth away her strength. Dear friend, let me tell thee of some +things... This man is a devil.... I know he but desires to see her die. +He hath cursed her before me, and twice have I seen him take the child +from her arms, and, setting him on the floor to weep in terror, take his +wife by the hand----" + +"Stop, man; stop! That'll do. Say no more! The beast!" + +"_E tonu, e tonu_ (true, true)," said the man, quietly, and still +speaking in Samoan. "He is as a beast of the mountains, as a tiger of +the country India, which devoureth the lamb and the kid.... And so now I +have opened my heart to thee of these things----" + +A native woman rushed into the room: "Come, Amona, come. _Misi Fafine_ +(the mistress) bleeds from her mouth again." + +The white man and the brown ran into the front sitting-room together, +just as they heard a piercing shriek of terror from the child; then came +the sound of a heavy fall. + +As they entered, Armitage strode out, jolting against them as he passed. +His face was swollen and ugly with passion--bad to look at. + +"Go and pick up the child, you frizzy-haired pig!" he muttered hoarsely +to Amona as he passed. "He fell off his mother's lap." + +Mrs. Armitage was leaning back in her chair, as white as death, and +trying to speak, as with one hand she tried to stanch the rush of blood +from her mouth, and with the other pointed to her child, who was lying +on his face under a table, motionless and unconscious. + +In less than ten minutes, a native was galloping through the bush to +Apia for Dr. Eckhardt. Denison had picked up the child, who, as he came +to, began to cry. Assuring his mother that he was not much hurt, he +brought him to her, and sat beside the lounge on which she lay, holding +him in his arms. He was a good little man, and did not try to talk +to her when the supercargo whispered to him to keep silent, but lay +stroking the poor mother's thin white hand. Yet every now and then, as +he moved or Denison changed his position, he would utter a cry of pain +and say his leg pained him. + +Four hours later the German doctor arrived. Mrs. Armitage was asleep; so +Eckhardt would not awaken her at the time. The boy, however, had slept +but fitfully, and every now and then awakened with a sob of pain. +The nurse stripped him, and Eckhardt soon found out what was wrong--a +serious injury to the left hip. + +Late in the evening, as the big yellow-bearded German doctor and Denison +sat in the dining room smoking and talking, Taloi, the child's nurse +entered, and was followed by Amona, and the woman told them the whole +story. + +"_Misi Fafine_ was sitting in a chair with the boy on her lap when the +master came in. His eyes were black and fierce with anger, and, stepping +up, he seized the child by the arm, and bade him get down. Then the +little one screamed in terror, and _Misi Fafine_ screamed too, and the +master became as mad, for he tore the boy from his mother's arms, and +tossed him across the room against the wall. That is all I know of this +thing." + +Denison saw nothing of Armitage till six o'clock on the following +morning, just as Eckhardt was going away. He put out his hand, Eckhardt +put his own behind his back, and, in a few blunt words, told the Beast +what he thought of him. + +"And if this was a civilised country," he added crisply, "you would be +now in gaol. Yes, in prison. You have as good as killed your wife +by your brutality--she will not live another two months. You have so +injured your child's hip that he may be a cripple for life. You are a +damned scoundrel, no better than the lowest ruffian of a city slum, and +if you show yourself in Joe D'Acosta's smoking-room again, you'll find +more than half a dozen men--Englishmen, Americans and Germans--ready to +kick you out into the _au ala_" (road). + +Armitage was no coward. He sprang forward with an oath, but Denison, who +was a third less of his employer's weight, deftly put out his right foot +and the master of Solo Solo plantation went down. Then the supercargo +sat on him and, having a fine command of seafaring expletives, +threatened to gouge his eyes out if he did not keep quiet. + +"You go on, doctor," he said cheerfully. "I'll let you know in the +course of an hour or two how Mrs. Armitage and the boy are progressing. +The seat which I am now occupying, though not a very honourable one, +considering the material of which it is composed, is very comfortable +for the time being; and"--he turned and glared savagely at Armitage's +purpled face--"You sweep! I have a great inclination to let Eckhardt +come and boot the life out of you whilst I hold you down, you brute!" + +"I'll kill you for this," said Armitage hoarsely. + +"Won't give you the chance, my boy. And if you don't promise to go to +your room quietly, I'll call in the native servants, sling you up like +the pig you are to a pole, and have you carried into Apia, where you +stand a good show of being lynched. I've had enough of you. Every +one--except your blackguardly acquaintances in Matafele--would be glad +to hear that you were dead, and your wife and child freed from you." + +Eckhardt stepped forward. "Let him up, Mr. Denison." + +The supercargo obeyed the request. + +"Just as you please, doctor. But I think that he ought to be put in +irons, or a strait-jacket, or knocked on the head as a useless beast. If +it were not for Mrs. Armitage and her little son, I would like to kill +the sweep. His treatment of that poor fellow Amona, who is so devoted to +the child, has been most atrocious." + +Eckhardt grasped the supercargo's hand as Armitage shambled off "He's a +brute, as you say, Mr. Denison. But she has some affection for him. For +myself, I would like to put a bullet through him." + +Within three months Mrs. Armitage was dead, and a fresh martrydom began +for poor Amona. But he and the child had plenty of good friends; and +then, one day, when Armitage awakened to sanity after a long drinking +bout, he found that both Amona and the child had gone. + +Nearly a score of years later Denison met them in an Australian city. +The "baby" had grown to be a well-set-up young fellow, and Amona the +faithful was still with him--Amona with a smiling, happy face. They came +down on board Denison's vessel with him, and "the baby" gave him, ere +they parted, that faded photograph of his dead mother. + + + + + + +THE SNAKE AND THE BELL + +When I was a child of eight years of age, a curious incident occurred in +the house in which our family lived. The locality was Mosman's Bay, one +of the many picturesque indentations of the beautiful harbour of Sydney. +In those days the houses were few and far apart, and our own dwelling +was surrounded on all sides by the usual monotonous-hued Australian +forest of iron barks and spotted gums, traversed here and there by +tracks seldom used, as the house was far back from the main road, +leading from the suburb of St. Leonards to Middle Harbour. The building +itself was in the form of a quadrangle enclosing a courtyard, on to +which nearly all the rooms opened; each room having a bell over the +door, the wires running all round the square, while the front-door bell, +which was an extra large affair, hung in the hall, the "pull" being one +of the old-fashioned kind, an iron sliding-rod suspended from the outer +wall plate, where it connected with the wire. + +One cold and windy evening about eight o'clock, my mother, my sisters, +and myself were sitting in the dining-room awaiting the arrival of my +brothers from Sydney--they attended school there, and rowed or sailed +the six miles to and fro every day, generally returning home by dusk. On +this particular evening, however, they were late, on account of the wind +blowing rather freshly from the north-east; but presently we heard the +front-door bell ring gently. + +"Here they are at last," said my mother; "but how silly of them to go to +the front door on such a windy night, tormenting boys!" + +Julia, the servant, candle in hand, went along the lengthy passage, +and opened the door. No one was there! She came back to the dining-room +smiling--"Masther Edward is afther playin' wan av his thricks, +ma'am----" she began, when the bell again rang--this time vigorously. My +eldest sister threw down the book she was reading, and with an impatient +exclamation herself went to the door, opened it quickly, and said +sharply as she pulled it inwards-- + +"Come in at once, you stupid things!" There was no answer, and she +stepped outside on the verandah. No one was visible, and again the big +bell in the hall rang! + +She shut the door angrily and returned to her seat, just as the bell +gave a curious, faint tinkle as if the tongue had been moved ever so +gently. + +"Don't take any notice of them," said my mother, "they will soon get +tired of playing such silly pranks, and be eager for their supper." + +Presently the bell gave out three clear strokes. We looked at each +other and smiled. Five minutes passed, and then came eight or ten gentle +strokes in quick succession. + +"Let us catch them," said my mother, rising, and holding her finger +up to us to preserve silence, as she stepped softly along the hall, we +following on tiptoe. + +Softly turning the handle, she suddenly threw the door wide open, just +as the bell gave another jangle. Not a soul was visible! + +My mother--one of the most placid-tempered women who ever breathed, now +became annoyed, and stepping out on the verandah, addressed herself to +the darkness-- + +"Come inside at once, boys, or I shall be very angry. I know perfectly +well what you have done; you have tied a string to the bell wires, and +are pulling it. If you don't desist you shall have no supper." + +No answer--except from the hall bell, which gave another half-hearted +tinkle. + +"Bring a candle and the step-ladder, Julia," said our now thoroughly +exasperated parent, "and we shall see what these foolish boys have done +to the bell-wire." + +Julia brought the ladder; my eldest sister mounted it, and began to +examine the bell. She could see nothing unusual, no string or wire, and +as she descended, the bell swayed and gave one faint stroke! + +We all returned to the sitting room, and had scarcely been there five +minutes when we heard my three brothers coming in, in their usual way, +by the back door. They tramped into the sitting room, noisy, dirty, +wet with spray, and hungry, and demanded supper in a loud and collected +voice. My mother looked at them with a severe aspect, and said they +deserved none. + +"Why, mum, what's the matter?" said Ted; "what _have_ we been doing +now, or what have we not done, that we don't deserve any supper, after +pulling for two hours from Circular Quay, against a howling, black +north-easter?" + +"You know perfectly well what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of you to +play such silly tricks upon us." + +Ted gazed at her in genuine astonishment. "Silly tricks, mother! What +silly tricks?" (Julia crossed herself, and trembled visibly as the bell +again rang.) + +My mother, at once satisfied that Ted and my other brothers really knew +nothing of the mysterious bell-ringing, quickly explained the cause of +her anger. + +"Let us go and see if we can find out," said Ted. "You two boys, and +you, Julia, get all the stable lanterns, light them, and we'll start out +together--two on one side of the house and two on the other. Some one +must be up to a trick!" + +Julia, who was a huge, raw-boned Irish girl, as strong as a working +bullock, but not so graceful, again crossed herself, and began to weep. + +"What's the matter with you?" said Ted angrily. + +"Shure, an' there was tirrible murders committed here in the ould +convict days," she whimpered. "The polace sargint's wife at Sint +Leonards tould me all about it. There was three souldiers murdered down +beyant on the beach, by some convicts, whin they was atin' their supper, +an' there's people near about now that saw all the blood and----" + +"Stop it, you great lumbering idiot!" shouted Ted, as my eldest sister +began to laugh hysterically, and the youngest, made a terrified dart to +mother's skirts. + +Ted's angry voice and threatening visage silenced Julia for the moment, +and she tremblingly went towards the door to obey his orders when the +bell gave out such a vigorous and sustained peal that she sank down in +a colossal heap on the floor, and then went into violent hysterics. (I +assure my readers that I am not exaggerating matters in the slightest.) + +My mother, who was a thoroughly sensible woman, pushed the whole brood +of us out of the room, came after us, shut the door and locked it. _She_ +knew the proper treatment for hysterics. + +"Let her stay there, boys," she said quietly, "she will hurt the +furniture more than herself, the ridiculous creature. Now, Ted, you and +your brothers get the lanterns, and the little ones and myself will go +into the kitchen." + +We ran out into the stables, lit three lanterns, and my next eldest +brother and myself, feeling horribly frightened, but impelled to show +some courage by Ted's awful threats of what he would do to us if we +"funked," told us to go round the house, beginning from the left, and +meet him at the hall door, he going round from the right. + +With shaking limbs and gasping breath we made our portion of the +circuit, sticking close to each other, and carefully avoiding looking at +anything as we hurried over the lawn, our only anxiety being to meet +Ted as quickly as possible and then get inside again. We arrived on the +verandah, and in front of the hall-door, quite five minutes before Ted +appeared. + +"Well, did you see anything?" he asked, as he walked up the steps, +lantern in hand. + +"Nothing," we answered, edging up towards the door. + +Ted looked at us contemptuously. "You miserable little curs! What are +you so frightened of? You're no better than a pack of women and kids. +It's the wind that has made the bell ring, or, if it's not the wind, +it is something else which I don't know anything about; but I want my +supper. Pull the bell, one of you." + +Elated at so soon escaping from the horrors of the night, we seized the +handle of the bell-pull, and gave it a vigorous tug. + +"It's stuck, Ted. It won't pull down," we said. + +"Granny!" said the big brother, "you're too funky to give it a proper +pull," and pushing us aside, he grasped the pendant handle and gave a +sharp pull. There was no answering sound. + +"It certainly is stuck," admitted Ted, raising his lantern so as to get +a look upwards, then he gave a yell. + +"Oh! look there!" + +We looked up, and saw the writhing twisting, coils of a huge carpet +snake, which had wound its body round and round the bell-wire on top +of the wall plate. Its head was downwards, and it did not seem at +all alarmed at our presence, but went on wriggling and twisting and +squirming with much apparent cheerfulness. + +Ted ran back to the stables, and returned in a few seconds with a +clothes-prop, with which he dealt the disturber of our peace a few +rapid, but vigorous, blows, breaking its spine in several places. Then +the step-ladder was brought out, and Ted, seizing the reptile by the +tail, uncoiled it with some difficulty from the wire, and threw it down +upon the verandah. + +It was over nine feet in length, and very fat, and had caused all the +disturbance by endeavouring to denude itself of its old skin by dragging +its body between the bell-wire and the top of the wall. When Ted killed +it the poor harmless creature had almost accomplished its object. + + + + + + +SOUTH SEA NOTES + + + + +I + +That many animals, particularly cattle and deer, are very fond of salt +we all know, but it is not often that birds show any taste for it, or, +if so, the circumstance has not generally been noted. In 1881, however, +the present writer was residing on Gazelle Peninsula, the northern +portion of the magnificent island of New Britain in the South Pacific, +and had many opportunities of witnessing both cockatoos and wild pigeons +drinking salt water. I was stationed at a place called Kabaira, the then +"furthest-out" trading station on the whole island, and as I had but +little to do in the way of work, I found plenty of time to study the +bird-life in the vicinity. Parrots of several varieties, and all of +beautiful plumage, were very plentiful, and immense flocks of white +cockatoos frequented the rolling, grassy downs which lay between my home +and the German head-station in Blanche Bay, twenty miles distant, while +the heavy forest of the littoral was the haunt of thousands of pigeons. +These latter, though not so large as the Samoan, or Eastern Polynesian +bird, formed a very agreeable change of diet for us white traders, and +by walking about fifty yards from one's door, half a dozen or more could +be shot in as many minutes. + +My nearest neighbour was a German, and one day when we were walking +along the beach towards his station, we noticed some hundreds of pigeons +fly down from the forest, settle on the margin of the water, and +drink with apparent enjoyment. The harbour at this spot was almost +land-locked, the water as smooth as glass without the faintest ripple, +and the birds were consequently enabled to drink without wetting their +plumage. My companion, who had lived many years in New Britain, told me +that this drinking of sea-water was common alike to both cockatoos and +pigeons, and that on some occasions the beaches would be lined with +them, the former birds not only drinking, but bathing as well, and +apparently enjoying themselves greatly. + +During the following six months, especially when the weather was calm +and rainy, I frequently noticed pigeons and cockatoos come to the salt +water to drink. At first I thought that as fresh water in many places +bubbled up through the sand at low tide, the birds were really not +drinking the sea-water, but by watching closely, I frequently saw them +walk across these tiny runnels, and make no attempt to drink. Then +again, the whole of the Gazette Peninsula is out up by countless streams +of water; rain falls throughout the year as a rule, and as I have said, +there is always water percolating or bubbling up through the sand on +the beaches at low tide. What causes this unusual habit of drinking +sea-water? + +Another peculiarity of the New Britain and New Ireland pigeon is its +fondness for the Chili pepper-berry. During three months of the year, +when these berries are ripe, the birds' crops are full of them, and very +often their flesh is so pungent, and smells so strongly of the Chili, as +to be quite uneatable. + +* * * * * + +On all of the low-lying islands of the Ellice, Kings-mill and Gilbert +Groups, a species of snipe are very plentiful. On the islands which +enclose the noble lagoon of Funafuti in the Ellice Group, they are to +be met with in great numbers, and in dull, rainy weather, an ordinarily +good shot may get thirty or forty in a few hours. One day, accompanied +by a native lad, I set out to collect hermit crabs, to be used as fish +bait. These curious creatures are to be found almost anywhere in the +equatorial islands of the Pacific; their shell houses ranging in size +from a pea to an orange, and if a piece of coco-nut or fish or any other +edible matter is left out overnight, hundreds of hermits will be found +gathered around it in the morning. To extract the crabs from their +shells, which are of all shapes and kinds, is a very simple matter--the +hard casing is broken by placing them upon a large stone and striking +them a sharp blow with one of lesser size. My companion and myself soon +collected a heap of "hermits," when presently he took one up in his +hand, and holding it close to his mouth, whistled softly. In a few +moments the crab protruded one nipper, then another, then its red +antennae, and allowed the boy to take its head between his finger and +thumb and draw its entire body from its shell casing. + +"That is the way the _kili_ (snipe) gets the _uga_ (crab) from its +shell," he said. "The _kili_ stands over the _uga_ and whistles softly, +and the _uga_ puts out his head to listen. Then the bird seizes it in +his bill, gives it a backward jerk and off flies the shell." + +Now I had often noticed that wherever hermit crabs were plentiful along +the outer beaches of the lagoon, I was sure to find snipe, and sometimes +wondered on what the birds fed. Taking up two or three "hermits" one +by one, I whistled gently, and in each case the creature protruded the +nippers, head and shoulders, and moved its antennae to and fro as if +pleasurably excited. + +On the following day I shot three snipe, and in the stomachs of each I +found some quite fresh and some partly digested hermit crabs. The thick, +hard nippers are broken off by the bird before he swallows the soft, +tender body. + +***** + +In a recent number of _Chambers's Journal_ the present writer was much +interested in a short paragraph dealing with the commercial value of the +skin of the shark, and, having had many years' experience as a +trader and supercargo in the South Seas, desires to add some further +information on a somewhat interesting subject. + +In all the equatorial islands of the North and South Pacific, shark +fishing is a very profitable industry to the natives, and every trading +steamer or sailing vessel coming into the ports of Sydney or Auckland +from the islands of the mid-Pacific, always brings some tons of shark +fins and tails and shark skins. The principal market for the former is +Hong Kong, but the Chinese merchants of the Australasian Colonies will +always buy sharks' fins and tails at from 6d. to 11d. per lb., the fins +bringing the best price on account of the extra amount of glutinous +matter they contain, and the which are highly relished by the richer +classes of Chinese as a delicacy. The tails are also valued as an +article of food in China; and, apart from their edible qualities, have a +further value as a base for clear varnishes, &c.; and I was informed +by a Chinese tea-merchant that the glaze upon the paper coverings of +tea-chests was due to a preparation composed principally of the refuse +of sharks' fins, tails, and skins. + +All the natives of the Gilbert, Kingsmill, and other Pacific equatorial +islands are expert shark fishermen; but the wild people of Ocean Island +(Paanopa) and Pleasant Island (Naura), two isolated spots just under the +equator, surpass them all in the art of catching jackshark. It was the +fortunate experience of the writer to live among these people for many +years, and to be inducted into the native method of shark-catching. In +frail canoes, made of short pieces of wood, sewn together with coco-nut +fibre, the Ocean Islanders will venture out with rude but ingeniously +contrived _wooden_ hooks, and capture sharks of a girth (_not_ length) +that no untrained European would dare to attempt to kill from a +well-appointed boat, with a good crew. + +Shark-catching is one of _the_ industries of the Pacific, and a very +paying industry too. Five-and-twenty years ago there were quite a dozen +or more schooners sailing out of Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands, to +the isolated atolls of the North Pacific--notably Palmyra and Christmas +Islands--where sharks could be caught by the thousand, and the crews, +who were engaged on a "lay," like whalemen, made "big money"; many of +them after a six months' cruise drawing 500 dollars--a large sum for a +native sailor. + +The work is certainly hard, but it is exciting, and the writer will +always remember with pleasure a seven months' shark-fishing cruise +he once had in the North Pacific, the genial comrades--white men and +brown--and the bag of dollars handed over to him by the owners when the +ship was paid off in Honolulu. + + + + +II + +It is not generally known, except to scientists and those who are +acquainted with the subject, that a large percentage of the various +species and varieties of sea snakes are highly venomous. These snakes +must not be confounded with the very numerous species of sea eels, +which, though exceedingly savage and armed with strong needle-pointed +teeth, are all non-venomous, though their bite produces high +inflammation if not at once properly attended to and cleansed by an +antiseptic. The sea snake is a true snake in many respects, having +either laminated scales or a thick corduroyed skin resembling +rudimentary scales. The head is flat, and the general structure of the +body similar to that of the land snake. Whether any of them possess the +true poison glands and fangs I do not know, for although I have killed +many hundreds of them I never took sufficient interest to make a careful +examination; and I was told by a Dutch medical gentleman, long resident +on the coast of Dutch New Guinea, and who had made some investigation on +the subject, that he had failed to discover any poison sacs or glands in +any one of the several snakes he had captured. Yet in some instances he +found what at first appeared to be the two long front teeth common to +venomous land snakes, but on detailed examination these always proved to +be perfectly solid; nevertheless a bite from one of these sea serpents +was generally regarded by the natives as fatal; in my own experience +I know of two such cases, one at the island of Fotuna in the South +Pacific, and the other in Torres Straits. + +In Sigavi Harbour, on Fotuna, there is a rock to which vessels +occasionally make fast their stern moorings. In the boat which I sent +away with a line to this rock were several boys, natives of the island, +who went with the crew for amusement. One of them, aged about ten, +jumped out of the boat, and in his hurry fell on his hands and knees, +right on top of a large black and white banded sea snake, which at once +bit him savagely on the wrist, causing the blood to flow from a score of +tiny punctures. The boy at once swam on shore to be treated by a native; +in the evening I heard he was suffering great agony, in the morning the +poor little fellow was dead. + +The second instance was near Raine Island, in Torres Straits. A stalwart +young Kanaka, one of the crew of a pearling lugger, was diving for clam +shells on the reef, when a snake about three feet in length suddenly +shot up from below within a foot of his face. In his anger and disgust +he unthinkingly struck it with his hand, and was quickly bitten on the +forefinger. A few hours later he was in a high fever, accompanied with +twitchings of the extremities; then tetanus ensued, followed by death in +forty-eight hours. + +Although these sea snakes are common to all tropical seas, they are most +frequent about the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. On any smooth +day they may be seen disporting themselves on the surface, or rising +suddenly from the depths, erect their heads and some inches of their +bodies clear from the water, gaze at the passing vessel, and then +swiftly disappear. In nearly all the Pacific Islands the natives hold +them in detestation and horror, and when one is seen lying coiled up on +a rock sunning itself or crawling over the surface of the reef in search +of food, a stone, accompanied by a curse, is always hurled at it. In the +Ellice Oroup, when catching flying-fish at night, one (or more) of these +horrid serpents is sometimes swept up in the scoop-net before it can be +avoided. They range from six inches to nearly four feet in length, and +all have one feature--a blunted tail-end. + +Quite recently much further light has been thrown on the subject by Sir +James Hector, of the Philosophical Society of Wellington, New Zealand. +At one of the Society's meetings, held in April last, Sir James showed +several specimens of _hydrida_, some from Australasian Seas, others +from the Atlantic. The usual habitat of sea snakes, he said, were the +tropical seas generally, but some had been captured in the comparatively +cold waters of the New Zealand coast, at the Catlins River. These latter +were all yellow-banded; those from the islands of the Fijian Oroup were +black-banded, and those taken from the Australian coast grey-banded. +There were, he said, no fewer than seventy species, which, without +exception, were fanged and provided with glands secreting a virulent +poison. In some of the mountainous islands of the South Pacific, such as +Samoa, Fiji, &c, there were several species of land snakes, all of which +were perfectly harmless, and were familiar to many people in Australia +and New Zealand, through being brought there in bunches of island +bananas--it was singular, he thought, that the sea snakes alone should +be so highly venomous. "They were all characterised by the flattened +or blunted tail, which they used as a steer oar, and were often found +asleep on the surface of the water, lying on their backs. In this state +they were easily and safely captured, being powerless to strike." The +present writer, who has seen hundreds of these marine snakes daily +for many years, during a long residence in the Pacific Islands, cannot +remember a single instance where he has seen one of these dangerous +creatures asleep _on the water_, though they may frequently be found +lying asleep on the coral reefs, exposing themselves to the rays of a +torrid sun. They usually select some knob or rounded boulder, from the +top of which, when awake, they can survey the small pools beneath and +discern any fish which may be imprisoned therein. In such case they will +glide down into the water with astonishing rapidity, seize their prey, +and after swallowing it, return to their sun bath. The natives of the +Paumotu Archipelago informed me, however, that they are most active +in seeking their prey at night-time, and are especially fond of +flying-fish, which, as is well known, is one of the swiftest of all +ocean fishes. The sea snakes, however, seize them with the greatest +ease, by rising cautiously beneath and fastening their keen teeth in the +fish's throat or belly. A snake, not two feet six inches in length, I +was assured, can easily swallow a flying-fish eight inches or ten inches +long. + +With regard to their habit of lying asleep on their backs on the surface +of the water, it may be that Sir James Hector is alluding to some +particular species, but whether that is so or not Sir James's statement +must of course be considered authoritative, for there is, I believe, no +higher authority on the subject in the world. Apropos of these venomous +marine serpents I may mention that the Rev. W. W. Gill in one of his +works states that he was informed by the natives of the Cook's Group +that during the prevalence of very bad weather, when fish were scarce, +the large sea eels would actually crawl ashore, and ascend the _fala_ +(pandanus or screw-pine) trees in search of the small green lizards +which live among the upper part of the foliage. At first I regarded this +merely as a bit of native extravagance of statement, but in 1882, when +I was shipwrecked on Peru (or Francis Island), one of the Gilbert Group, +the local trader, one Frank Voliero, and myself saw one of these eels +engaged in an equally extraordinary pursuit. We were one evening, +after a heavy gale from the westward had been blowing for three days, +examining a rookery of whale birds in search of eggs; the rookery was +situated in a dense thicket scrub on the north end of the island, and +was quite two hundred yards from the sea-shore, though not more than +half that distance from the inside lagoon beach. The storm had destroyed +quite a number of young, half-fledged birds, whose bodies were lying on +the ground, and busily engaged in devouring one of them was a very large +sea eel, as thick as the calf of a man's leg. Before I could manage to +secure a stick with which to kill the repulsive-looking creature, it +made off through the undergrowth at a rapid pace in the direction of the +lagoon, and when we emerged out into the open in pursuit, ten minutes +later, we were just in time to see it wriggling down the hard, sloping +beach into the water. Instinct evidently made it seek the nearest water, +for none of these large sea eels are ever found in Peru Lagoon. + +Many of the rivers and lakes of the islands of the Western Pacific are +tenanted by eels of great size, which are never, or very seldom, as far +as I could learn, interfered with by the natives, and I have never seen +the people of either the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, or New Britain +touch an eel as food. The Maories, however, as is well known, are +inordinately fond of eels, which, with putrid shark, constitute one of +their staple articles of diet. + +In the few mountainous islands of the vast Caroline Archipelago, in +the North-western Pacific, eels are very plentiful, not only in the +numberless small streams which debouch into the shallow waters enclosed +by the barrier reefs, but also far up on the mountainsides, +occupying little rocky pools of perhaps no larger dimensions than an +ordinary-sized toilet basin, or swimming up and down rivulets hardly +more than two feet across. The natives of Ponape, the largest island +of the Caroline Group, and of Kusaie (Strong's Island), its eastern +outlier, regard the fresh-water eel with shuddering aversion, and should +a man accidentally touch one with his foot when crossing a stream he +will utter an exclamation of horror and fear. In the heathen days--down +to 1845-50--the eel (toan) was an object of worship, and constantly +propitiated by sacrifices of food, on account of its malevolent powers; +personal contact was rigidly avoided; to touch one, even by the merest +accident, was to bring down the most dreadful calamities on the offender +and his family--bodily deformities, starvation and poverty, and death; +and although the natives of Strong's Island are now both civilised and +Christianised, and a training college of the Boston Board of Missions +has long been established at Port Lele, they still manifest the same +superstitious dread of the eel as in their days of heathendom. I well +remember witnessing an instance of this terror during my sojourn on the +island when I was shipwrecked there in 1874. I had taken up my residence +in the picturesque little village of Leasse, on the western or "lee" +side, when I was one evening visited by several of the ship's company--a +Fijian half-caste, a white man, and two natives of Pleasant Island. At +the moment they arrived I was in the house of the native pastor--a +man who had received an excellent education in a missionary college at +Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands--instructing him and his family in the +art of making _taka_, or cinnet sandals, as practised by the natives +of the Tokelau Group. Just then the four seamen entered, each man +triumphantly holding up a large eel: in an instant there was a united +howl of horror from the parson and his family, as they made a rash for +the door, overturning the lamp and nearly setting the house on fire. In +vain I followed and urged them to return, and told them that the men had +gone away and taken the _toan_ with them--nothing would induce them to +enter the house that night, and the whole family slept elsewhere. + +One singular thing about the eels on Strong's Island is that they +hibernate, in a fashion, on the sides or even summits of the high +mountains, at an altitude of nearly two thousand feet. Selecting, or +perhaps making, a depression in the soft, moss-covered soil, the ugly +creatures fit themselves into it compactly and remain there for weeks or +even months at a time. I have counted as many as thirty of these holes, +all tenanted, within a few square yards. Some were quite concealed by +vegetable _debris_ or moss, others were exposed to view, with the broad, +flat head of the slippery occupant resting on the margin or doubled back +upon its body. They showed no alarm, but if poked with a stick would +extricate themselves and crawl slowly away. + +In the streams they were very voracious, and I had a special antipathy +to them, on account of their preying so on the crayfish--a crustacean +of which I was particularly fond, and which the natives also liked very +much, but were afraid to capture for fear their hands might come in +contact with the dreaded _toan_. + +One afternoon I was plucking a pigeon I had just shot by the margin of a +mountain stream. After removing the viscera, I put the bird in the water +to clean it properly, and was shaking it gently to and fro, when it was +suddenly torn out of my hand by a disgustingly bloated, reddish-coloured +eel about four feet in length, and quickly swallowed. That one pigeon +had cost me two hours' tramping through the rain-soddened mountain +forest, so loading my gun I followed the thief down stream to where the +water was but a few inches deep, and then blew his head off. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And +Others, by Louis Becke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONA *** + +***** This file should be named 24952.txt or 24952.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/5/24952/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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