第19章 THE BEACH OF FALESA.(19)

The undergrowth was thick in this part;I couldn't see before my nose,and must burst my way through by main force and ply the knife as I went,slicing the cords of the lianas and slashing down whole trees at a blow.I call them trees for the bigness,but in truth they were just big weeds,and sappy to cut through like carrot.

From all this crowd and kind of vegetation,I was just thinking to myself,the place might have once been cleared,when I came on my nose over a pile of stones,and saw in a moment it was some kind of a work of man.The Lord knows when it was made or when deserted,for this part of the island has lain undisturbed since long before the whites came.A few steps beyond I hit into the path I had been always looking for.It was narrow,but well beaten,and I saw that Case had plenty of disciples.It seems,indeed,it was a piece of fashionable boldness to venture up here with the trader,and a young man scarce reckoned himself grown till he had got his breech tattooed,for one thing,and seen Case's devils for another.This is mighty like Kanakas;but,if you look at it another way,it's mighty like white folks too.

A bit along the path I was brought to a clear stand,and had to rub my eyes.There was a wall in front of me,the path passing it by a gap;it was tumbledown and plainly very old,but built of big stones very well laid;and there is no native alive to-day upon that island that could dream of such a piece of building.Along all the top of it was a line of queer figures,idols or scarecrows,or what not.They had carved and painted faces ugly to view,their eyes and teeth were of shell,their hair and their bright clothes blew in the wind,and some of them worked with the tugging.There are islands up west where they make these kind of figures till to-day;but if ever they were made in this island,the practice and the very recollection of it are now long forgotten.And the singular thing was that all these bogies were as fresh as toys out of a shop.

Then it came in my mind that Case had let out to me the first day that he was a good forger of island curiosities,a thing by which so many traders turn an honest penny.And with that I saw the whole business,and how this display served the man a double purpose:first of all,to season his curiosities,and then to frighten those that came to visit him.

But I should tell you (what made the thing more curious)that all the time the Tyrolean harps were harping round me in the trees,and even while I looked,a green-and-yellow bird (that,I suppose,was building)began to tear the hair off the head of one of the figures.

A little farther on I found the best curiosity of the museum.The first I saw of it was a longish mound of earth with a twist to it.

Digging off the earth with my hands,I found underneath tarpaulin stretched on boards,so that this was plainly the roof of a cellar.

It stood right on the top of the hill,and the entrance was on the far side,between two rocks,like the entrance to a cave.I went as far in as the bend,and,looking round the corner,saw a shining face.It was big and ugly,like a pantomime mask,and the brightness of it waxed and dwindled,and at times it smoked.

"Oho!"says I,"luminous paint!"

And I must say I rather admired the man's ingenuity.With a box of tools and a few mighty simple contrivances he had made out to have a devil of a temple.Any poor Kanaka brought up here in the dark,with the harps whining all round him,and shown that smoking face in the bottom of a hole,would make no kind of doubt but he had seen and heard enough devils for a lifetime.It's easy to find out what Kanakas think.Just go back to yourself any way round from ten to fifteen years old,and there's an average Kanaka.There are some pious,just as there are pious boys;and the most of them,like the boys again,are middling honest and yet think it rather larks to steal,and are easy scared and rather like to be so.Iremember a boy I was at school with at home who played the Case business.He didn't know anything,that boy;he couldn't do anything;he had no luminous paint and no Tyrolean harps;he just boldly said he was a sorcerer,and frightened us out of our boots,and we loved it.And then it came in my mind how the master had once flogged that boy,and the surprise we were all in to see the sorcerer catch it and bum like anybody else.Thinks I to myself,"I must find some way of fixing it so for Master Case."And the next moment I had my idea.

I went back by the path,which,when once you had found it,was quite plain and easy walking;and when I stepped out on the black sands,who should I see but Master Case himself.I cocked my gun and held it handy,and we marched up and passed without a word,each keeping the tail of his eye on the other;and no sooner had we passed than we each wheeled round like fellows drilling,and stood face to face.We had each taken the same notion in his head,you see,that the other fellow might give him the load of his gun in the stern.

"You've shot nothing,"says Case.

"I'm not on the shoot to-day,"said I.

"Well,the devil go with you for me,"says he.

"The same to you,"says I.

But we stuck just the way we were;no fear of either of us moving.

Case laughed."We can't stop here all day,though,"said he.

"Don't let me detain you,"says I.

He laughed again."Look here,Wiltshire,do you think me a fool?"he asked.

"More of a knave,if you want to know,"says I.