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In the South Seas

R >> Robert Louis Stevenson >> In the South Seas




A reader of the Arabian Nights felt quite at home. Here was the
suffumigation; here was the muttering wizard; here was the desert
place to which Aladdin was decoyed by the false uncle. But they
manage these things better in fiction. The effect was marred by
the levity of the magician, entertaining his patient with small
talk like an affable dentist, and by the incongruous presence of
Mr. Osbourne with a camera. As for my cold, it was neither better
nor worse.

I was now handed over to Terutak', the leading practitioner or
medical baronet of Apemama. His place is on the lagoon side of the
island, hard by the palace. A rail of light wood, some two feet
high, encloses an oblong piece of gravel like the king's Pray
Place; in the midst is a green tree; below, a stone table bears a
pair of boxes covered with a fine mat; and in front of these an
offering of food, a cocoa-nut, a piece of taro or a fish, is placed
daily. On two sides the enclosure is lined with maniap's; and one
of our party, who had been there to sketch, had remarked a daily
concourse of people and an extraordinary number of sick children;
for this is in fact the infirmary of Apemama. The doctor and
myself entered the sacred place alone; the boxes and the mat were
displaced; and I was enthroned in their stead upon the stone,
facing once more to the east. For a while the sorcerer remained
unseen behind me, making passes in the air with a branch of palm.
Then he struck lightly on the brim of my straw hat; and this blow
he continued to repeat at intervals, sometimes brushing instead my
arm and shoulder. I have had people try to mesmerise me a dozen
times, and never with the least result. But at the first tap--on a
quarter no more vital than my hat-brim, and from nothing more
virtuous than a switch of palm wielded by a man I could not even
see--sleep rushed upon me like an armed man. My sinews fainted, my
eyes closed, my brain hummed, with drowsiness. I resisted, at
first instinctively, then with a certain flurry of despair, in the
end successfully; if that were indeed success which enabled me to
scramble to my feet, to stumble home somnambulous, to cast myself
at once upon my bed, and sink at once into a dreamless stupor.
When I awoke my cold was gone. So I leave a matter that I do not
understand.

Meanwhile my appetite for curiosities (not usually very keen) had
been strangely whetted by the sacred boxes. They were of pandanus
wood, oblong in shape, with an effect of pillaring along the sides
like straw work, lightly fringed with hair or fibre and standing on
four legs. The outside was neat as a toy; the inside a mystery I
was resolved to penetrate. But there was a lion in the path. I
might not approach Terutak', since I had promised to buy nothing in
the island; I dared not have recourse to the king, for I had
already received from him more gifts than I knew how to repay. In
this dilemma (the schooner being at last returned) we hit on a
device. Captain Reid came forward in my stead, professed an
unbridled passion for the boxes, and asked and obtained leave to
bargain for them with the wizard. That same afternoon the captain
and I made haste to the infirmary, entered the enclosure, raised
the mat, and had begun to examine the boxes at our leisure, when
Terutak's wife bounced out of one of the nigh houses, fell upon us,
swept up the treasures, and was gone. There was never a more
absolute surprise. She came, she took, she vanished, we had not a
guess whither; and we remained, with foolish looks and laughter on
the empty field. Such was the fit prologue of our memorable
bargaining.

Presently Terutak' came, bringing Tamaiti along with him, both
smiling; and we four squatted without the rail. In the three
maniap's of the infirmary a certain audience was gathered: the
family of a sick child under treatment, the king's sister playing
cards, a pretty girl, who swore I was the image of her father; in
all perhaps a score. Terutak's wife had returned (even as she had
vanished) unseen, and now sat, breathless and watchful, by her
husband's side. Perhaps some rumour of our quest had gone abroad,
or perhaps we had given the alert by our unseemly freedom:
certain, at least, that in the faces of all present, expectation
and alarm were mingled.

Captain Reid announced, without preface or disguise, that I was
come to purchase; Terutak', with sudden gravity, refused to sell.
He was pressed; he persisted. It was explained we only wanted one:
no matter, two were necessary for the healing of the sick. He was
rallied, he was reasoned with: in vain. He sat there, serious and
still, and refused. All this was only a preliminary skirmish;
hitherto no sum of money had been mentioned; but now the captain
brought his great guns to bear. He named a pound, then two, then
three. Out of the maniap's one person after another came to join
the group, some with mere excitement, others with consternation in
their faces. The pretty girl crept to my side; it was then that--
surely with the most artless flattery--she informed me of my
likeness to her father. Tamaiti the infidel sat with hanging head
and every mark of dejection. Terutak' streamed with sweat, his eye
was glazed, his face wore a painful rictus, his chest heaved like
that of one spent with running. The man must have been by nature
covetous; and I doubt if ever I saw moral agony more tragically
displayed. His wife by his side passionately encouraged his
resistance.

And now came the charge of the old guard. The captain, making a
skip, named the surprising figure of five pounds. At the word the
maniap's were emptied. The king's sister flung down her cards and
came to the front to listen, a cloud on her brow. The pretty girl
beat her breast and cried with wearisome iteration that if the box
were hers I should have it. Terutak's wife was beside herself with
pious fear, her face discomposed, her voice (which scarce ceased
from warning and encouragement) shrill as a whistle. Even Terutak'
lost that image-like immobility which he had hitherto maintained.
He rocked on his mat, threw up his closed knees alternately, and
struck himself on the breast after the manner of dancers. But he
came gold out of the furnace; and with what voice was left him
continued to reject the bribe.

And now came a timely interjection. 'Money will not heal the
sick,' observed the king's sister sententiously; and as soon as I
heard the remark translated my eyes were unsealed, and I began to
blush for my employment. Here was a sick child, and I sought, in
the view of its parents, to remove the medicine-box. Here was the
priest of a religion, and I (a heathen millionaire) was corrupting
him to sacrilege. Here was a greedy man, torn in twain betwixt
greed and conscience; and I sat by and relished, and lustfully
renewed his torments. Ave, Caesar! Smothered in a corner, dormant
but not dead, we have all the one touch of nature: an infant
passion for the sand and blood of the arena. So I brought to an
end my first and last experience of the joys of the millionaire,
and departed amid silent awe. Nowhere else can I expect to stir
the depths of human nature by an offer of five pounds; nowhere
else, even at the expense of millions, could I hope to see the evil
of riches stand so legibly exposed. Of all the bystanders, none
but the king's sister retained any memory of the gravity and danger
of the thing in hand. Their eyes glowed, the girl beat her breast,
in senseless animal excitement. Nothing was offered them; they
stood neither to gain nor to lose; at the mere name and wind of
these great sums Satan possessed them.

From this singular interview I went straight to the palace; found
the king; confessed what I had been doing; begged him, in my name,
to compliment Terutak' on his virtue, and to have a similar box
made for me against the return of the schooner. Tembinok', Rubam,
and one of the Daily Papers--him we used to call 'the Facetiae
Column'--laboured for a while of some idea, which was at last
intelligibly delivered. They feared I thought the box would cure
me; whereas, without the wizard, it was useless; and when I was
threatened with another cold I should do better to rely on pain-
killer. I explained I merely wished to keep it in my 'outch' as a
thing made in Apemama and these honest men were much relieved.

Late the same evening, my wife, crossing the isle to windward, was
aware of singing in the bush. Nothing is more common in that hour
and place than the jubilant carol of the toddy-cutter, swinging
high overhead, beholding below him the narrow ribbon of the isle,
the surrounding field of ocean, and the fires of the sunset. But
this was of a graver character, and seemed to proceed from the
ground-level. Advancing a little in the thicket, Mrs. Stevenson
saw a clear space, a fine mat spread in the midst, and on the mat a
wreath of white flowers and one of the devil-work boxes. A woman--
whom we guess to have been Mrs. Terutak'--sat in front, now
drooping over the box like a mother over a cradle, now lifting her
face and directing her song to heaven. A passing toddy-cutter told
my wife that she was praying. Probably she did not so much pray as
deprecate; and perhaps even the ceremony was one of disenchantment.
For the box was already doomed; it was to pass from its green
medicine-tree, reverend precinct, and devout attendants; to be
handled by the profane; to cross three seas; to come to land under
the foolscap of St. Paul's; to be domesticated within the hail of
Lillie Bridge; there to be dusted by the British housemaid, and to
take perhaps the roar of London for the voice of the outer sea
along the reef. Before even we had finished dinner Chench had
begun his journey, and one of the newspapers had already placed the
box upon my table as the gift of Tembinok'.

I made haste to the palace, thanked the king, but offered to
restore the box, for I could not bear that the sick of the island
should be made to suffer. I was amazed by his reply. Terutak', it
appeared, had still three or four in reserve against an accident;
and his reluctance, and the dread painted at first on every face,
was not in the least occasioned by the prospect of medical
destitution, but by the immediate divinity of Chench. How much
more did I respect the king's command, which had been able to
extort in a moment and for nothing a sacrilegious favour that I had
in vain solicited with millions! But now I had a difficult task in
front of me; it was not in my view that Terutak' should suffer by
his virtue; and I must persuade the king to share my opinion, to
let me enrich one of his subjects, and (what was yet more delicate)
to pay for my present. Nothing shows the king in a more becoming
light than the fact that I succeeded. He demurred at the
principle; he exclaimed, when he heard it, at the sum. 'Plenty
money!' cried he, with contemptuous displeasure. But his
resistance was never serious; and when he had blown off his ill-
humour--'A' right,' said he. 'You give him. Mo' betta.'

Armed with this permission, I made straight for the infirmary. The
night was now come, cool, dark, and starry. On a mat hard by a
clear fire of wood and coco shell, Terutak' lay beside his wife.
Both were smiling; the agony was over, the king's command had
reconciled (I must suppose) their agitating scruples; and I was
bidden to sit by them and share the circulating pipe. I was a
little moved myself when I placed five gold sovereigns in the
wizard's hand; but there was no sign of emotion in Terutak' as he
returned them, pointed to the palace, and named Tembinok'. It was
a changed scene when I had managed to explain. Terutak', long,
dour Scots fisherman as he was, expressed his satisfaction within
bounds; but the wife beamed; and there was an old gentleman
present--her father, I suppose--who seemed nigh translated. His
eyes stood out of his head; 'Kaupoi, Kaupoi--rich, rich!' ran on
his lips like a refrain; and he could not meet my eye but what he
gurgled into foolish laughter.

I might now go home, leaving that fire-lit family party gloating
over their new millions, and consider my strange day. I had tried
and rewarded the virtue of Terutak'. I had played the millionaire,
had behaved abominably, and then in some degree repaired my
thoughtlessness. And now I had my box, and could open it and look
within. It contained a miniature sleeping-mat and a white shell.
Tamaiti, interrogated next day as to the shell, explained it was
not exactly Chench, but a cell, or body, which he would at times
inhabit. Asked why there was a sleeping-mat, he retorted
indignantly, 'Why have you mats?' And this was the sceptical
Tamaiti! But island scepticism is never deeper than the lips.



CHAPTER VII--THE KING OF APEMAMA



Thus all things on the island, even the priests of the gods, obey
the word of Tembinok'. He can give and take, and slay, and allay
the scruples of the conscientious, and do all things (apparently)
but interfere in the cookery of a turtle. 'I got power' is his
favourite word; it interlards his conversation; the thought haunts
him and is ever fresh; and when be has asked and meditates of
foreign countries, he looks up with a smile and reminds you, '_I_
got POWER.' Nor is his delight only in the possession, but in the
exercise. He rejoices in the crooked and violent paths of kingship
like a strong man to run a race, or like an artist in his art. To
feel, to use his power, to embellish his island and the picture of
the island life after a private ideal, to milk the island
vigorously, to extend his singular museum--these employ
delightfully the sum of his abilities. I never saw a man more
patently in the right trade.

It would be natural to suppose this monarchy inherited intact
through generations. And so far from that, it is a thing of
yesterday. I was already a boy at school while Apemama was yet
republican, ruled by a noisy council of Old Men, and torn with
incurable feuds. And Tembinok' is no Bourbon; rather the son of a
Napoleon. Of course he is well-born. No man need aspire high in
the isles of the Pacific unless his pedigree be long and in the
upper regions mythical. And our king counts cousinship with most
of the high families in the archipelago, and traces his descent to
a shark and a heroic woman. Directed by an oracle, she swam beyond
sight of land to meet her revolting paramour, and received at sea
the seed of a predestined family. 'I think lie,' is the king's
emphatic commentary; yet he is proud of the legend. From this
illustrious beginning the fortunes of the race must have declined;
and Tenkoruti, the grandfather of Tembinok', was the chief of a
village at the north end of the island. Kuria and Aranuka were yet
independent; Apemama itself the arena of devastating feuds.
Through this perturbed period of history the figure of Tenkoruti
stalks memorable. In war he was swift and bloody; several towns
fell to his spear, and the inhabitants were butchered to a man. In
civil life this arrogance was unheard of. When the council of Old
Men was summoned, he went to the Speak House, delivered his mind,
and left without waiting to be answered. Wisdom had spoken: let
others opine according to their folly. He was feared and hated,
and this was his pleasure. He was no poet; he cared not for arts
or knowledge. 'My gran'patha one thing savvy, savvy pight,'
observed the king. In some lull of their own disputes the Old Men
of Apemama adventured on the conquest of Apemama; and this unlicked
Caius Marcius was elected general of the united troops. Success
attended him; the islands were reduced, and Tenkoruti returned to
his own government, glorious and detested. He died about 1860, in
the seventieth year of his age and the full odour of unpopularity.
He was tall and lean, says his grandson, looked extremely old, and
'walked all the same young man.' The same observer gave me a
significant detail. The survivors of that rough epoch were all
defaced with spearmarks; there was none on the body of this skilful
fighter. 'I see old man, no got a spear,' said the king.

Tenkoruti left two sons, Tembaitake and Tembinatake. Tembaitake,
our king's father, was short, middling stout, a poet, a good
genealogist, and something of a fighter; it seems he took himself
seriously, and was perhaps scarce conscious that he was in all
things the creature and nursling of his brother. There was no
shadow of dispute between the pair: the greater man filled with
alacrity and content the second place; held the breach in war, and
all the portfolios in the time of peace; and, when his brother
rated him, listened in silence, looking on the ground. Like
Tenkoruti, he was tall and lean and a swift talker--a rare trait in
the islands. He possessed every accomplishment. He knew sorcery,
he was the best genealogist of his day, he was a poet, he could
dance and make canoes and armour; and the famous mast of Apemama,
which ran one joint higher than the mainmast of a full-rigged ship,
was of his conception and design. But these were avocations, and
the man's trade was war. 'When my uncle go make wa', he laugh,'
said Tembinok'. He forbade the use of field fortification, that
protractor of native hostilities; his men must fight in the open,
and win or be beaten out of hand; his own activity inspired his
followers; and the swiftness of his blows beat down, in one
lifetime, the resistance of three islands. He made his brother
sovereign, he left his nephew absolute. 'My uncle make all
smooth,' said Tembinok'. 'I mo' king than my patha: I got power,'
he said, with formidable relish.

Such is the portrait of the uncle drawn by the nephew. I can set
beside it another by a different artist, who has often--I may say
always--delighted me with his romantic taste in narrative, but not
always--and I may say not often--persuaded me of his exactitude. I
have already denied myself the use of so much excellent matter from
the same source, that I begin to think it time to reward good
resolution; and his account of Tembinatake agrees so well with the
king's, that it may very well be (what I hope it is) the record of
a fact, and not (what I suspect) the pleasing exercise of an
imagination more than sailorly. A., for so I had perhaps better
call him, was walking up the island after dusk, when he came on a
lighted village of some size, was directed to the chief's house,
and asked leave to rest and smoke a pipe. 'You will sit down, and
smoke a pipe, and wash, and eat, and sleep,' replied the chief,
'and to-morrow you will go again.' Food was brought, prayers were
held (for this was in the brief day of Christianity), and the chief
himself prayed with eloquence and seeming sincerity. All evening
A. sat and admired the man by the firelight. He was six feet high,
lean, with the appearance of many years, and an extraordinary air
of breeding and command. 'He looked like a man who would kill you
laughing,' said A., in singular echo of one of the king's
expressions. And again: 'I had been reading the Musketeer books,
and he reminded me of Aramis.' Such is the portrait of
Tembinatake, drawn by an expert romancer.

We had heard many tales of 'my patha'; never a word of my uncle
till two days before we left. As the time approached for our
departure Tembinok' became greatly changed; a softer, a more
melancholy, and, in particular, a more confidential man appeared in
his stead. To my wife he contrived laboriously to explain that
though he knew he must lose his father in the course of nature, he
had not minded nor realised it till the moment came; and that now
he was to lose us he repeated the experience. We showed fireworks
one evening on the terrace. It was a heavy business; the sense of
separation was in all our minds, and the talk languished. The king
was specially affected, sat disconsolate on his mat, and often
sighed. Of a sudden one of the wives stepped forth from a cluster,
came and kissed him in silence, and silently went again. It was
just such a caress as we might give to a disconsolate child, and
the king received it with a child's simplicity. Presently after we
said good-night and withdrew; but Tembinok' detained Mr. Osbourne,
patting the mat by his side and saying: 'Sit down. I feel bad, I
like talk.' Osbourne sat down by him. 'You like some beer?' said
he; and one of the wives produced a bottle. The king did not
partake, but sat sighing and smoking a meerschaum pipe. 'I very
sorry you go,' he said at last. 'Miss Stlevens he good man, woman
he good man, boy he good man; all good man. Woman he smart all the
same man. My woman' (glancing towards his wives) 'he good woman,
no very smart. I think Miss Stlevens he is chiep all the same
cap'n man-o-wa'. I think Miss Stlevens he rich man all the same
me. All go schoona. I very sorry. My patha he go, my uncle he
go, my cutcheons he go, Miss Stlevens he go: all go. You no see
king cry before. King all the same man: feel bad, he cry. I very
sorry.'

In the morning it was the common topic in the village that the king
had wept. To me he said: 'Last night I no can 'peak: too much
here,' laying his hand upon his bosom. 'Now you go away all the
same my pamily. My brothers, my uncle go away. All the same.'
This was said with a dejection almost passionate. And it was the
first time I had heard him name his uncle, or indeed employ the
word. The same day he sent me a present of two corselets, made in
the island fashion of plaited fibre, heavy and strong. One had
been worn by Tenkoruti, one by Tembaitake; and the gift being
gratefully received, he sent me, on the return of his messengers, a
third--that of Tembinatake. My curiosity was roused; I begged for
information as to the three wearers; and the king entered with
gusto into the details already given. Here was a strange thing,
that he should have talked so much of his family, and not once
mentioned that relative of whom he was plainly the most proud.
Nay, more: he had hitherto boasted of his father; thenceforth he
had little to say of him; and the qualities for which he had
praised him in the past were now attributed where they were due,--
to the uncle. A confusion might be natural enough among islanders,
who call all the sons of their grandfather by the common name of
father. But this was not the case with Tembinok'. Now the ice was
broken the word uncle was perpetually in his mouth; he who had been
so ready to confound was now careful to distinguish; and the father
sank gradually into a self-complacent ordinary man, while the uncle
rose to his true stature as the hero and founder of the race.

The more I heard and the more I considered, the more this mystery
of Tembinok's behaviour puzzled and attracted me. And the
explanation, when it came, was one to strike the imagination of a
dramatist. Tembinok' had two brothers. One, detected in private
trading, was banished, then forgiven, lives to this day in the
island, and is the father of the heir-apparent, Paul. The other
fell beyond forgiveness. I have heard it was a love-affair with
one of the king's wives, and the thing is highly possible in that
romantic archipelago. War was attempted to be levied; but
Tembinok' was too swift for the rebels, and the guilty brother
escaped in a canoe. He did not go alone. Tembinatake had a hand
in the rebellion, and the man who had gained a kingdom for a
weakling brother was banished by that brother's son. The fugitives
came to shore in other islands, but Tembinok' remains to this day
ignorant of their fate.

So far history. And now a moment for conjecture. Tembinok'
confused habitually, not only the attributes and merits of his
father and his uncle, but their diverse personal appearance.
Before he had even spoken, or thought to speak, of Tembinatake, he
had told me often of a tall, lean father, skilled in war, and his
own schoolmaster in genealogy and island arts. How if both were
fathers, one natural, one adoptive? How if the heir of Tembaitake,
like the heir of Tembinok' himself, were not a son, but an adopted
nephew? How if the founder of the monarchy, while he worked for
his brother, worked at the same time for the child of his loins?
How if on the death of Tembaitake, the two stronger natures, father
and son, king and kingmaker, clashed, and Tembinok', when he drove
out his uncle, drove out the author of his days? Here is at least
a tragedy four-square.

The king took us on board in his own gig, dressed for the occasion
in the naval uniform. He had little to say, he refused
refreshments, shook us briefly by the hand, and went ashore again.
That night the palm-tops of Apemama had dipped behind the sea, and
the schooner sailed solitary under the stars.

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