Gabrielle of the Lagoon Part 12

It was from this native's lips that Hillary heard for the first time that Macka was an ex-missionary from Honolulu, and that he was a native from one of the coastal tribal villages of New Guinea, a tribal race who were the most ferocious and G.o.d-forsaken heathens in the Pacific world.

The half-caste native sailor turned out to be a rather intelligent man.

Indeed it appeared that he too was a converted heathen and had first got acquainted with Macka while attending mission-rooms in New Britain.

"Do you mean to tell me that the Rajah Koo Macka is a member of a religious society?" gasped Hillary, as the native took a nip of his tobacco plug and then grinned from ear to ear.

"It am so, boss!" said the man. Then the native continued: "'E am Rajah Makee and belonger misselinaries everywheres. 'E kidnapper too, and often taker Papuan girls, boys, men and women by nighter when no one looker!"

"What do you mean?" said the apprentice with astonishment, only vaguely realising what "kidnapper" meant. Then the native calmly proceeded to enlighten him, and in a few moments Hillary had heard enough to convince him that the n.o.ble Rajah would not only be likely to abduct Gabrielle from her home, but old Everard and himself too if he thought they'd fetch a few dollars in the slave markets of the Bismarck Archipelago or elsewhere.

So did Hillary discover that Rajah Macka was an inveterate cannibal, living on the flesh and weakness of people of his own race. For it appeared that he had sailed the Pacific for years, creeping into the bays of remote isles and kidnapping girls, boys, men and women till his schooner's hold was crammed up to the hatchways with a terrified human merchandise. He usually sold the girls to chiefs in the Bismarck Archipelago and New Guinea; the boys and men he disposed of in New Guinea for plantation work or to be fattened up for sacrificial festivals, the _piece de resistance_ of some mighty chief's cannibalistic orgy. Macka was not the only one who dealt in the terrible blackbirding trade; Germans, Dutchmen and even English skippers made it their prime stock-in-trade.

Hillary could hardly believe his ears as he listened to the character of the man who had been Everard's welcome guest. He took the native sailor into Parsons's grog bar, primed him well with drink and finally got all the information necessary to follow on the Rajah's track. He discovered that he was a native of New Guinea, that he possessed a tambu temple there and was known as the "great Rajah" for hundreds of miles in Dutch New Guinea because he had been well educated by his heathen parents, who had sent him to Honolulu to be initiated into the virtues of Christianity.

Though the sun was blazing down with terrific vigour from the cloudless sky, Hillary half ran as he stumbled across the tangled jungle growth on his way back to tell Everard all that he had heard about the Rajah. The native girls ran out of the little doors of the huts and begged him to give them one bra.s.s b.u.t.ton from his apprentices.h.i.+p suit. Crowds of native children, quite nude but for the hibiscus blossoms in their mop-heads and a wisp of a loin-cloth, rushed by the palms with loaded calabashes, crammed with fish caught in the sh.o.r.e lagoons. They were flying onward to the market village, the Billingsgate of the Solomon Isles; a place where s.h.a.ggy-headed, sun-browned women exchanged sh.e.l.ls for the fresh, s.h.i.+ning fish. But Hillary had no eye for the scenes around him. He steamed like a wet s.h.i.+rt stuck out in the tropic sunlight as he hurried on; and the constellations of jungle mosquitoes and fat yellow sand-flies made their presence felt, driving their proboscis spears deep into his flesh, buzzing their musical appreciation to find he ate so well. The apprentice's heart was beating like a drum; already the tale that he had heard had upset his ideas over the cause of Gabrielle's absence. "Did she go off voluntarily with the Rajah, or had he kidnapped her?" That thought haunted him, tortured him. He stared towards the summits of the distant smoking volcanic ranges to the north-west and thought how they resembled his own heart, that was near to bursting with emotion, and how he too would like suddenly to shout his pa.s.sionate desires to the sky. He sighed as he cut across the silver sands by the beach. He was going the long way round, for he dare not pa.s.s by the lagoon where Gabrielle had once sung to him.

He was nearly dead with fatigue when he arrived at the bungalow. "Found 'er, boy?" came the dismal query that always smote his ears when he returned to Gabrielle's home. Hillary simply shook his head and stared into the gla.s.sy eyes of the old man. Then he sat down and told the ex-sailor every word he had heard about Macka's schooner and his reputation as a clever kidnapper of native girls and men in the Pacific isles.

Old Everard jumped to his feet and hopped about on his wooden leg like a raving madman. Hillary tried to hold him down.

Cras.h.!.+ The old man had stabbed the screen four times with his wooden member. Cras.h.!.+ He had picked up his spare, best Sunday wooden leg and smashed all the crockery off the shelf.

"Don't be a fool! Everard! Everard! Don't go mad!" yelled Hillary at the top of his voice, as the demented sailor still smashed away.

"I'll save your daughter! I know where she is!" yelled the apprentice, as he endeavoured to stop the ex-sailor's demented yells.

The furniture of the bungalow and all the crockery were smashed before the mad old man calmed down. Then he took a pull at the rum bottle, sat down on the settee and recovering his breath stood up again and shouted: "Where's the _Bird of Paradise_, 'is s.h.i.+p? 'Is s.h.i.+p-has it sailed?"

yelled the old man. Then he shouted: "He's got her on the _Paradise_!

He's got 'er, my Gabby! I see it all now! He's an old blackbirder. Not a Rajah! Not a G.o.dly missionary! By the holy Virgin, forgive me, forgive me for being a d.a.m.ned fool!" the old fellow moaned, as he recalled Rajah Macka's sombre voice and his exhortations when he had hesitated as to whether he'd give up drinking rum or no.

Then the ex-sailor looked at Hillary and yelled: "Go, you blamed fool!

Go and see if the _Bird of Paradise_ has sailed from the harbour."

In a moment Hillary rushed away over the hills. In an hour he returned to the bungalow and told Everard that the _Bird of Paradise_ had not been seen in the bay of Bougainville since the night when Gabrielle had been first missing.

"She's sailed in the night! 'E's got 'er! 'E's got 'er! She's gone! She wasn't willing! 'E stole 'er, just like 'e steals native girls! Boy, don't worry. She's a good girl, she is-one of the best," said the distracted father, his voice lowering to a wailing monotone as he steadily beat his wooden leg on the floor in despair and hope.

"Of course she's a good girl," said Hillary. His heart nearly stopped beating at _that_, a thought he would not allow to haunt him.

"There's no time to lose, Mr. Everard. I'll get a berth on some s.h.i.+p that's bound to New Guinea. I'll find a s.h.i.+p. I'll stow away, I'll do anything to get there and find his tambu house and rescue Gabrielle from his grasp. I'll steal, I'll rob anyone if it is necessary." And as the apprentice said those things his eyes flashed fire, his face flushed with all the hope and the emotion that was in him.

"I've got money, I've been saving for years, saving for 'er, but she didn't know!" Everard suddenly exclaimed. Then he looked at Hillary and continued: "Get a schooner; hire one; I'll pay! I'll spend a thousand to get Gabby back and smash Macka up!" As he finished he brought his spare wooden leg down crash on the table. Then he gripped the apprentice by the hand. "Don't leave me yet, boy, I'm nervous. In the morning you can go out into the bay and see if you can 'ire a schooner. It's three weeks' sail to the New Guinea coast. Find out exactly where his blasted coastal village is. Get all perticulars about 'im."

"Do you really think he's kidnapped Gabrielle? It seems extraordinary in these enlightened times!" gasped the young apprentice, as he thought of Gabrielle on a three weeks' voyage with Rajah Macka, the ex-missionary.

"Don't think! She's gone! Where is she?" Then the old man roared with dreadful vehemence: "Why, d.a.m.n it all, _I've_ been in the slave-trading line! _I've_ crept into the native villages by night and stolen the girls as they slept beneath the palms! Cloryformed 'em! Smothered 'em!

Tied 'em hup! Shot the b-- chiefs as they rushed from their dens to save their darters and wives! _I_ 'ave! _I_ 'ave!"

"No!" That monosyllable expressed all the horror of which Hillary was capable over Everard's sudden confession and his private thoughts as to Gabrielle's fate on that schooner with Macka.

"It's retribution-that's what it is," wailed the old man.

Hillary took his hand and did his best to soothe him. Then he lit the oil lamp and sat down by the weeping ex-sailor.

"My Gabby's like 'er mother, beautiful gal, but she's 'aunted in 'er 'eart by them spirits of the Papuan race. 'Er mother seed a spirit-woman spring out from under the bed one night afore she died!"

"A spirit-woman!" gasped Hillary. Then he continued: "Do you mean to tell me that there are such things as spirit-women running about Bougainville?"

The old man looked vacantly into the apprentice's eyes for a second, then said languidly, as though, he was too grieved to talk: "I seed a shadder meself ther other night, 'ere in this very room!"

Hillary looked sideways at the empty rum bottles in the corner of the room, then back again at the old man's bleary eyes. "He's got a touch of the D.T.'s," thought the young apprentice.

Before midnight Everard lay in a drunken sleep. Hillary had made up a bed by the couch, but he couldn't sleep. The idea of the girl being really abducted nearly sent him mad. Then he thought of Gabrielle's strange talk on the hulk about shadow-women and of all that Everard had just told him about his wife's being haunted by similar shadows. The idea of the shadow-woman haunted his mind in an unaccountable way, although he was naturally sceptical about such things as ghosts and enchantments.

He sat by the small open window of the bungalow and, as the scents of the orange-trees drifted in on the cool night zephyrs, thought over all he had read about sorcerers, of the haunting shadow-figures that played such a prominent part in the love affairs of the medieval ages. Then he looked out of the window on to the moon-lit landscape and saw the tall, feathery palms; he even heard the rattling of the derrick of some schooner that was leaving before dawn. He thought of Mango Pango singing her old legendary songs in a chanting voice as she peeled spuds and chopped up the indigestible bread-fruit and tough yams for dinner, and finally summed up his belief in spirits in the one word "Rot!"

And as old Everard lay just by him, snoring with a mighty ba.s.s snore, he felt half sorry that he couldn't bring himself to believe implicitly that a shadowwoman _had_ lured the girl away from her home and had stopped her from keeping the tryst.

"A shadow leaping about-preposterous! Sounds like Doctor Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde. Perhaps she's been reading that book, and told her father about it while he was under the influence of drink," reflected Hillary. He even brightened up as he persuaded himself that the girl's wild sayings and her evident terror had all been brought about through reading that book.

"She's under the influence of Jekyll-that's what's the matter with this Everard family. Why, bless me, it's all natural enough. I myself am out here in the Solomon Isles through reading books. I'd never have met Gabrielle, never heard of strangling shadows and that cursed Rajah Macka if it hadn't been for Captain Marryat, Fenimore Cooper and Stevenson."

The young apprentice began to brighten up considerably as he reflected over the whole business. Everard's snores sounded quite musical. He even began to think that if a terrible tragedy _had_ occurred and Gabrielle was abducted and he was destined to go off and search for her across the seas, it was not so dreadful as nothing happening at all.

So he thanked G.o.d that he was in the Solomon Isles, living amongst tattooed natives and strange old ex-sailormen who saw shadows and evil enchantresses dodging about their bungalow verandahs or racing under the moon-lit palms.

And as he pondered and listened to the faint, far-off thunder of the surf on the coral reefs off Felisi beach he heard the guttural voices of the German sailors singing a chantey as their grey tramp-steamer went out on the tide, bound for the Bismarck Archipelago. Old Everard was still wheezing heavily, and at last Hillary too fell asleep to the sound of that steady snore.

CHAPTER IX-THE HOMERIC SPIRIT

When Hillary awoke in the morning he found Everard in a most sober condition. "Boy, thank G.o.d you're here; I'm down in the mouth. I've been thinking." Then the old man looked wistfully at the apprentice and said: "You can't go off to New Guinea and rescue my Gabrielle from that d.a.m.ned villain on your own, can you?"

"No, I don't suppose I can," responded the apprentice, as he sipped his tea and eagerly drank in the old ex-sailor's words. He knew that Everard was a man of the world and a seafarer, although he was such a fool in his domestic affairs. He also knew that Everard knew more about hiring schooners than he did. Indeed Hillary had found it a hard enough job to secure the most menial berth on board the boats. So he felt that to get a schooner to sail specially out of port on his behalf was a dubious prospect, to say the least.

"Look you here, boy, directly you're feeling fit go up to Parsons's bar and see if you can get in with some of the sh.e.l.lbacks. They're the men for us. Tell them you want to negotiate with a skipper who would go to New Guinea, and don't forget to say that you've got a man behind you who'll pay the necessary expenses for the whole business."

"Bless you! How good of you!" replied Hillary, as he gripped the old sailorman's hand, quite forgetting that he was Gabrielle's father and was thinking of his daughter and not of Hillary's prospects.

"Don't thank me, boy; it's my daughter, ain't it?"

"Yes; but it's good of you to give me the chance to hire a schooner to help get your daughter back again," said Hillary, as he realised the exact position and all that the girl's future welfare meant to him.

The old man took his hand and said: "You're a good lad, and I can see that you're as much interested in my daughter as I am."

"I am!" exclaimed Hillary fervently. Then at the old man's request he put his cap on and went off to seek some kindred spirit, someone who would help him to negotiate with a skipper who was likely to let his schooner out on hire. It wanted some negotiating too! Skippers don't let their s.h.i.+ps out on hire every day.