第17章 THE BEACH OF FALESA.(17)
About six miles up the coast there is a sheltered cove they call FANGA-ANAANA -"the haven full of caves."I've seen it from the sea myself,as near as I could get my boys to venture in;and it's a little strip of yellow sand.Black cliffs overhang it,full of the black mouths of caves;great trees overhang the cliffs,and dangle-down lianas;and in one place,about the middle,a big brook pours over in a cascade.Well,there was a boat going by here,with six young men of Falesa,"all very pretty,"Uma said,which was the loss of them.It blew strong,there was a heavy head sea,and by the time they opened Fanga-anaana,and saw the white cascade and the shady beach,they were all tired and thirsty,and their water had run out.One proposed to land and get a drink,and,being reckless fellows,they were all of the same mind except the youngest.Lotu was his name;he was a very good young gentleman,and very wise;and he held out that they were crazy,telling them the place was given over to spirits and devils and the dead,and there were no living folk nearer than six miles the one way,and maybe twelve the other.But they laughed at his words,and,being five to one,pulled in,beached the boat,and landed.It was a wonderful pleasant place,Lotu said,and the water excellent.They walked round the beach,but could see nowhere any way to mount the cliffs,which made them easier in their mind;and at last they sat down to make a meal on the food they had brought with them.They were scarce set,when there came out of the mouth of one of the black caves six of the most beautiful ladies ever seen:they had flowers in their hair,and the most beautiful breasts,and necklaces of scarlet seeds;and began to jest with these young gentlemen,and the young gentlemen to jest back with them,all but Lotu.As for Lotu,he saw there could be no living woman in such a place,and ran,and flung himself in the bottom of the boat,and covered his face,and prayed.All the time the business lasted Lotu made one clean break of prayer,and that was all he knew of it,until his friends came back,and made him sit up,and they put to sea again out of the bay,which was now quite desert,and no word of the six ladies.But,what frightened Lotu most,not one of the five remembered anything of what had passed,but they were all like drunken men,and sang and laughed in the boat,and skylarked.
The wind freshened and came squally,and the sea rose extraordinary high;it was such weather as any man in the islands would have turned his back to and fled home to Falesa;but these five were like crazy folk,and cracked on all sail and drove their boat into the seas.Lotu went to the bailing;none of the others thought to help him,but sang and skylarked and carried on,and spoke singular things beyond a man's comprehension,and laughed out loud when they said them.So the rest of the day Lotu bailed for his life in the bottom of the boat,and was all drenched with sweat and cold sea-water;and none heeded him.Against all expectation,they came safe in a dreadful tempest to Papa-malulu,where the palms were singing out,and the cocoa-nuts flying like cannon-balls about the village green;and the same night the five young gentlemen sickened,and spoke never a reasonable word until they died.
"And do you mean to tell me you can swallow a yarn like that?"Iasked.
She told me the thing was well known,and with handsome young men alone it was even common;but this was the only case where five had been slain the same day and in a company by the love of the women-devils;and it had made a great stir in the island,and she would be crazy if she doubted.
"Well,anyway,"says I,"you needn't be frightened about me.I've no use for the women-devils.You're all the women I want,and all the devil too,old lady."To this she answered there were other sorts,and she had seen one with her own eyes.She had gone one day alone to the next bay,and,perhaps,got too near the margin of the bad place.The boughs of the high bush overshadowed her from the cant of the hill,but she herself was outside on a flat place,very stony and growing full of young mummy-apples four and five feet high.It was a dark day in the rainy season,and now there came squalls that tore off the leaves and sent them flying,and now it was all still as in a house.It was in one of these still times that a whole gang of birds and flying foxes came pegging out of the bush like creatures frightened.Presently after she heard a rustle nearer hand,and saw,coming out of the margin of the trees,among the mummy-apples,the appearance of a lean grey old boar.It seemed to think as it came,like a person;and all of a sudden,as she looked at it coming,she was aware it was no boar but a thing that was a man with a man's thoughts.At that she ran,and the pig after her,and as the pig ran it holla'd aloud,so that the place rang with it.
"I wish I had been there with my gun,"said I."I guess that pig would have holla'd so as to surprise himself."But she told me a gun was of no use with the like of these,which were the spirits of the dead.
Well,this kind of talk put in the evening,which was the best of it;but of course it didn't change my notion,and the next day,with my gun and a good knife,I set off upon a voyage of discovery.