The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton

“I wish that what you say were true, Mr. Sherry,” she said presently, trying bravely to suppress her tears, “and that my husband were indeed mad.”

She rose, extended her hand to me, and tried to smile.

“You will think that I am a very silly woman, Mr. Sherry. But I am not at all strong, and you must forgive me. Now I must leave you.”

“But am I not to see the famous witch woman, Mrs. Krause?” I said half jestingly.

“Oh, yes. She shall come to you presently. And you will like her, Mr. Sherry, I am sure. To me she been been the kindest, kindest friend.” Then she paused awhile, but resumed in a nervous, hesitating manner, “Niaban is sometimes a little strange in her manner, so—so you most not mind all that she may say or do.”

I assured her that I should be most careful to avoid giving any offence to the woman. She thanked me earnestly, and then said she would find Niàbon and bring or send her to me.

Just as she went out I heard some one tapping at the latticed window near which I was sitting. Looking out, I saw the face of the man Tematau, who was standing outside.

“May I come in and speak with thee, gentleman?” he said in Samoan.

“Enter, and welcome.”

He stepped round to the front door, and as he entered I saw that he had stripped to the waist; his hair was dressed in the Samoan fashion, and in his hand he carried a small, finely-plaited mat. In an instant I recognised that he was paying me a visit of ceremony, according to Samoan custom, so instead of rising and shaking hands with him, I kept my seat and waited for him to approach.

Stepping slowly across the matted floor, with head and shoulders bent, he placed the mat (his offering) at my feet, and then withdrew to the other side of the room, and, seating himself cross-legged, he inquired after my health, etc., and paid me the usual compliments.

As he spoke in Samoan, I, of course, replied in the same language, thanked him for his call, and requested him to honour me at my own place by a visit.

Then, to my surprise, instead of retiring with the usual Samoan compliments, he bent forward, and, fixing his deep-set, gloomy eyes on mine, he said slowly—

“Master, I shall be a true man to thee when we are together upon the deep sea in thy boat.”

“Why dost thou call me ‘master’?” I said quickly, “and when and whither do thee and I travel together?” “I call thee ‘master’ because I am thy servant, but when and whither we go upon the far sea I know not.”

Then he rose, saluted me as if I were King Malietoa of Samoa himself, and retired without uttering another word.

“This is a curious sort of a household,” I thought. “The mistress, who is sane enough, is told by her husband that she is mad, and fears she will lose her reason; a native who tells me that I am to be his master and travel with him on the deep sea, and a witch woman, whom I have yet to see, on the premises. I wonder what sort of a crank she is?”

I was soon to know, for in a few moments she came in, and instead of coming up to me and shaking hands in the usual Line Island fashion, as I expected she would do, she did precisely as my first visitor had done—greeted me in Samoan, formally and politely, as if I were a great chief, and then sat silent, awaiting me to speak.

Addressing her in the same stilted, highly complimentary language that she had used to me, I inquired after her health, etc., and then asked her how long she had been on the island.

She answered me in a somewhat abrupt manner, “I came here with Tematau about the time that the white lady Lucia and her husband came. Tematau is of the same family as myself. And it is of the blood ties between us that we remain together, for we are the last of many.”

“It is good that it is so,” I said, for want of something better to say, for her curious eyes never left my face for an instant. “It would be hard indeed that when but two of the same blood are left they should separate or be separated.”

“We shall be together always,” she replied, “and death will come to us together.”

Then she rose, walked quickly to the open door, glanced outside to see if any one was about, and returned to me and placed her hand on mine.

“This man Krause is a devil. He seeks his wife’s death because of another woman in his own country. He hath tried to poison her, and the poison still rankles in her blood. That is why she is so white of face and frail of body. And now she will neither eat nor drink aught but that of which I first eat or drink myself.”

“How know you of this?”

“I know it well,” she answered impressively, “and the man would kill me if he could by poison, as he hath tried to kill his wife. But poison can do me no harm. And he hateth but yet is afraid of me, for he knoweth that I long since saw the murder in his heart.”

“These are strange things to say, Niâbon. Beware of an unjust accusation when it comes to the too ready tongue.”

She laughed scornfully. “No lie hath ever fouled mine. I tell thee again, this man is a devil, and has waited for a year past to see his wife die, for he married her according to the laws of England, and cannot put her away as he could do had he married her according to the native custom.”

“Who hath told thee of these marriage laws of England?” I asked.

“What does it matter who hath told me?” she asked sharply. “Is not what I say true?”

“It is true,” I said.

“Ay, it is true. And it is true also that she and thee and the man Tematau and I shall together look death in the face upon the wide sea. And is not thy boat ready?”

Her strange, mysterious eyes as she spoke seemed to me—a physically weak but still mentally strong man at the moment—to have in them something weird, something that one could not affect either to ignore or despise. What could this woman know of my desire to leave the island in my boat? What could the man Tematau know of it? Never had I spoken of such an intention to any person, and I knew that, even in my worst attacks of fever and ague, I had never been delirious in the slightest degree. A sudden resentment for the moment took possession of me, and I spoke angrily.

“What is all this silly talk? What have I to do with thee, and for what should my boat be ready?”

“Be not angry with them, Simi, for there is nought but goodwill toward thee in my heart. See, wouldst have me cure the hot fever that makes the blood in thy veins to boil even now?”

“No,” I said sullenly, “I want none of thy foolish charms or medicines. Dost think I am a fool?”

“Nay,” and she looked at me so wistfully that I at once repented of my harsh manner—“nay, indeed, Simi. Thou art a man strong in thy mind, and shall be strong in thy body if thou wouldst but let me give thee–”

“No more, woman,” I said roughly. “Leave me. I want none of thy medicines, I say again.”

“Thy wish is my law,” she said gently, “but, ere I leave thee, I pray thee that in a little way thou wilt let me show thee that I do mean well to thee.”

I laughed, and asked her what medicine or charm she desired to experiment with upon me.

“No medicine, and no charm,” she answered. “But I know that because of many things thy mind and thy body alike suffer pain, and that sleep would be good for thee. And I can give thee sleep—strong, dreamless sleep that, when thou awakenest, will make thee feel strong in thy body and softer in thy now angry heart to Niâbon.”

“If you can make me sleep now, I’ll give you twenty dollars,” I said in my English fashion.

She took no notice of my rude and clumsy remark, though she had good reason to be offended.

“Simi,” she said, “shall I give thee sleep?”

“Ay,” I replied, “give me sleep till the master of this house returns.”

She rose and bent over me, and then I noticed for the first time that, instead of being about thirty-five or forty years of age, as I had judged her to be by her hard, clear features and somewhat “bony” appearance externally, she could not be more than five-and-twenty, or even younger.

She placed her right hand on my forehead, and held my right hand in her own.

“Sleep,” she said—“sleep well and dreamlessly, man with the strong will to accomplish all that is before thee. Sleep.”

Her hand passed caressingly oyer my face, and in a few minutes I was asleep, and slept as I had not slept for many weeks past. When I awakened at sunset I felt more refreshed and vigorous than I had been for many months.

Krause had just returned in his boat, and met me with outstretched hand. His welcome was, I thought, unnecessarily effusive, and, declining his pressing invitation to remain for the night, I left, after remaining an hour or so longer. I noticed that immediately Krause arrived the girl Niâbon disappeared, and did not return.

That was my first meeting with her, and I did not see her again till the evening of the storm, when she brought Tematau to me.

CHAPTER III

We, Niâbon, Tematau and myself, were undisturbed by any visitors during the night, for the storm increased in violence, and, as daylight approached, the clamour of the surf upon the reef was something terrific. About four in the morning, however, there came such a thunderous, sudden boom that the island seemed shaken to its coral foundations, and Niâbon declared that the storm had broken.

“That is what the people of the Tokelau Islands call O le fati le galu—the last great wave, that gathering itself together far out on the ocean, rushes to the reef, and curling high up as the mast of a ship, falls and shakes the land from one side to the other.”

The girl knew what she was talking about, for from that moment the fury of the wind sensibly decreased, and half an hour later we were able to open the door and gaze out upon the sea, still seething white with broken, tumbling surf?

Walking down to my boat-house, I found that the boat herself was not injured in any way, though most of the roof had been blown away. Then feeling that my usual attack of ague was coming on, I returned to the house, and found that Niâbon had made my coffee.

I drank it, and then wrapped myself up in a couple of blankets in readiness for the first touch of that deadly, terrible chill which seems to freeze the marrow in the bones of any one who is suffering from malarial fever. Niâbon watched me gravely, and then came and stood beside me.

“Mr. Sherry,” she said, this time speaking in English, “why don’t you let me give you some medicine to cure you of that fever? I can cure you.”

“I believe you can, Niâbon,” I replied; “you certainly mesmerised me when I was at Krause’s station that day, and I awakened feeling a lot better.”

“What is ‘mesmerise’?” she asked quickly.

“Sending any one to sleep, as you did me.”

“I can always do that,” she said simply, “and so could my mother.”

“Can you make me sleep now?”

“Not just now. Wait till the col’ fit has gone. And then when you are wake up I shall have some medicine ready for you, and then you shall have no more fever.”

My attack of ague lasted about half an hour, and left me with the usual splitting headache and aching bones. When I was able to turn myself, I saw that Niâbon was seated beside Tematau dressing his lacerated back with some preparation of crushed leaves. She heard me move, turned her head, and smiled, and said she would be with me in a few moments. Although my head was bursting with pain, I watched her with interest, noting the tenderness with which her smooth, brown fingers touched her companion’s body. When she had finished she rose, carefully washed and dried her shapely hands, and came over to me.

“Give me thy hand,” she said in the native dialect, as she knelt beside my couch.

I gave her my left hand. She clasped it firmly but softly, and then the fingers of her right hand gently pressed down my eyelids.

“Sleep, sleep long.”

As I felt the gentle pressure of her hand down my face, my throbbing temples cooled, and in a minute, or even less, I sank into a dreamless and profound slumber.

When I awakened it was past nine o’clock, and I found that my own two native servants, who slept in the village, had prepared my breakfast, and were seated beside Tematau, talking to him.

“Where is Niâbon?” I asked.

They told me that she had gone away in search of some plant, or plants, with which to compound the medicine she was making for me. She returned early in the forenoon, carrying a small basket in which I saw a coil of the long creeping vine called ‘At ‘At by the natives, and which grows only on the sandiest and most barren soil.

“Have you been sleep well, Mr. Sherry?” she inquired.

“Indeed I did sleep well,” I replied, “and, more than that, I have eaten a better breakfast than I have for many weeks.”

She nodded and showed me the contents of her basket, and then seating herself at the table, ate a small piece of ship biscuit and drank a cup of coffee. It was then that I noticed for the first time that she was, if not beautiful, a very handsome woman. Her face and hands were a reddish brown, darkened the more by the sun, for I could see under the thin muslin gown that she was wearing, that her arms and shoulders were of a much lighter hue, and I felt sure that she had some white blood in her veins. Her hair was, though somewhat coarse, yet long, wavy, and luxuriant, and was coiled loosely about her shapely head, one thick fold drooping over her left temple, and shading half of the smooth forehead with its jet-black and gracefully arched eyebrows. This is as much as I can say about her looks, and as regards her dress, that is easy enough to describe. She invariably wore a loose muslin or print gown, waistless, and fastened at the neck; underneath this was the ordinary Samoan lava lava or waist-cloth of navy blue calico. Her gown, however, was better made, and of far better material than those worn by the native women generally; in fact she and Mrs. Krause dressed much alike, with the exception that the latter, of course, wore shoes, and Niâbon’s stockingless feet were protected only by rude sandals of coco-nut fibre such as are still worn by the natives of the Tokelaus and other isolated and low-lying islands of the Equatorial Pacific.

After making and smoking a cigarette she set about compounding my fever mixture by first crushing up the coil of ‘At ‘At and then expressing the thick colourless jelly it contained into the half of a coco-nut shell, which she placed on some glowing embers, and fanned gently till it began to give off steam. Then taking half a dozen ripe Chili berries, she pounded them into a pulp between two stones, added them to the ‘At ‘At, and stirred the mixture till it boiled.

“That is all, Simi,” she said, as she removed the shell from the fire, and set it aside; “when it is cool enough to drink, you must take one-fourth part; another when the sun is tu’u tonu iluga (right overhead), and the rest to-night.”

I thanked her, and promised to carry out her instructions, and then said—

“Why do you talk to me in three different languages, Niâbon? I like to hear you speak English best, you speak it so prettily.”

Not the ghost of a smile crossed her face, and she replied in Samoan that she did not care to speak English to any one who understood Samoan, or indeed any other native language. “I am a native woman,” she added somewhat abruptly, “and English cometh hard to my tongue.”

I said nothing further on the subject, fearing I might vex her, although I felt pretty sure that she was not a full-blooded native. However, I had no right to worry her with questions, and if she preferred to be thought a native it was no business of mine.

As soon as my medicine had cooled a little, I took my first dose. It tasted like Hades boiled down, and made me gasp for breath. Then Niàbon bade me wrap myself up in all the rugs and blankets I could procure, and undergo a good perspiration, assuring me that I should have no more attacks of the dreaded ague after the second dose. Calling one of my native servants, a big hulking native named Tepi, to come and roll me up presently, I first went over to Tematau, and asked him how he was doing, and as I stooped down to examine his head, and see if the dressing was all right, a heavy booted footstep sounded outside, and Krause walked in.

One look at his face showed me that he was labouring with suppressed passion, though trying hard to conceal it.

“Good morning,” I said without advancing to him; “take that chair over there, please. I just want to look at this fellow’s head for a moment.”

He stalked over to the chair I indicated and sat down, and a sudden spasm of rage distorted his face when he saw Niâbon. She was seated at the further end of the room, her chin resting on her hand, and looking at him so steadily and fixedly that he could not but have resented her gaze, even if his mind were undisturbed by passion. Tematau, too, turned his head, and shot his master a glance of such deadly fury that I murmured to him to keep quiet. I rapidly revolved in my mind what course to pursue with our visitor, who, though I could not see his face, was, I felt, watching my every movement.

“That will do,” I said to my patient in the island dialect, which Krause understood and spoke thoroughly; “lie down again. In a few days thou wilt be able to walk.”

“By God, he’s going to walk now,” said Krause, rising suddenly, and speaking in a low, trembling tone. I motioned to him to sit down again. He shook his head and remained standing, his brawny hand grasping the back of the chair to steady himself, for every nerve in his body was quivering with excitement.

“What is the matter, Mr. Krause?” I said coldly, though I was hot enough against him, for he was armed with a brace of navy revolvers, belted around his waist. “Won’t you sit down?”

“No, I won’t sit down,” he answered rudely.

“Very well, then, stand,” I said, seating myself near him.

Then I pointed to the pistols in his belt. “Mr. Krause, before you tell me the business which has brought you here, I should like to know why you enter my house carrying arms? It is a most extraordinary thing that one white man should call on another armed with a brace of pistols, especially when the island is quiet, and white men’s lives are as safe here as they would be in London or Berlin.”

“I brought my pistols with me because I thought I might have trouble with the natives over that fellow there,” he said sullenly, pointing to Tematau.

“Then you might have left them outside; I object most strongly to any one marching into my house in the manner you have done.”

He unbuckled his belt, and with a contemptuous gesture threw the whole lot outside the door.

“Thank you, Mr. Krause,” I said, “I feel more at ease now, so will you kindly tell me the object of your visit?”

“I’ve come to get that swine Tematau. I pay him. He is my man. I shall tolerate no interference. I shall take him back to Taritai” (the name of the village where he lived) “if I have to fight my way out of this village of yours and kill fifty of your niggers.”

“Steady yourself, Mr. Krause, and don’t say ‘your niggers’ so emphatically. In the first place I have but two native servants, not fifty, but either of those two would very much resent your calling him a ‘nigger.’ You know as well as I do that to call a native of this island, or of any other island of the group, a nigger, is so grossly insulting that his knife would be out in an instant.”

“Ah, you and I have different ideas on the subject,” he said sneeringly; “but that does not matter to me at the moment. My paid servant has absconded from my service, and I have come to get him. That is plain enough, isn’t it?”

“Quite. But I am an Englishman, Mr. Krause, and not to be easily bluffed because a man comes stamping into my house with a brace of pistols in his belt.”

“I did not come here to argue. I came here for that nigger—my property.”

“Your property! Is the man a slave? Now, look here, Mr. Krause; you have used the man so brutally that he is unable to stand on his feet. He and the girl–”

“I don’t want the girl, and I daresay you do,” he said, with a sneering laugh that made me long to haul off and hit the fellow between the eyes; “she’s a nuisance, and if I ever again see her prowling about my house and practising her infernal fooleries on my wife, I’ll put a bullet through her. But the man I will have.”

“Stop!” I cried warningly, as he took a step toward the sick man, “stop, before you run yourself into mischief. Listen to me. I have but to raise my hand and call, and you will find yourself trussed up fore and aft to a pole like a pig, and carried back to your village.”

“Out of my way,” he shouted hoarsely, as with blazing eyes he tried to thrust me aside.

“Back, man, back!” I cried. “Are you mad? The natives here will kill you if you attempt to force–”

“And I’ll kill you, you meddlesome English hog,” he said through his set teeth, and, before I could guard, his right hand shot out and grasped me by the throat, and he literally swung me off my feet and dashed me against the centre posts of the house with such violence that I went down in a heap.

When I came to a few minutes afterwards, Tepi was supporting me on his knees, and Niâbon was putting some brandy to my lips. The house was full of natives, who were speaking in suppressed but excited tones. I swallowed the brandy, and then, as Tepi helped me to rise, the natives silently parted to right and left, and I saw something that, half-dazed as I was, filled me with horror.

Krause lay on his back in the centre of the room, his white duck clothes saturated with blood, which was still welling from three or four wounds in his deep, broad chest. I went over to him. He was dead.

“Who hath done this?” I asked.

“I, master,” and Tematau placed an ensanguined hand on mine.

“And I,” said a softer voice, and Niâbon’s eyes met mine calmly. “Tematau and I together each stabbed him twice.”

As soon as I was able to pull myself together, I desired all the natives but three of the head men to leave, and then, after the unfortunate German’s body was covered from view by a large mat, I asked the principal man of the village to tell me what he knew of the tragedy.

“I know nothing,” was his reply. “Niâbon can tell thee.”

Niâbon, in response to my inquiring glance—I was shaking from head to foot as I looked at her, but her calm, quiet eyes as she looked into mine restored my nerve—spoke clearly.

“The German dashed thee against the centre posts of the house, Simi. Then he drew a little pistol from his breast and shot at me, and the bullet struck me on the neck. See,” and she showed us a still bleeding score on the right side of her neck, where a Derringer bullet had cut through the flesh. “And then he sprang at Tematau, but Tematau was on his feet and met him and stabbed him twice; and, as he fell I too stabbed him in the breast.”

“This is an evil day for me,” I said to the three head men, “and I fear it will prove an evil day to the people of this village, for the wife of the man who lies there told me that a ship of war of his country was soon to be here at this island. And how shall we account for his death?”

Niâbon bent forward and spoke—

“Have no fear, Simi. Neither thou, nor Tematau, nor the people of this village, nor I, shall come to any harm from the German fighting-ship. For when it comes thou and I, and Tematau, and Tepi, who know of the blood let out this day upon the floor of thy house, will be far away. And when the captain of the fighting-ship questioneth, and sayeth to the people, ‘Where is my countryman?’ the people will shake their heads and say, ‘We know not. He and his wife, and the Englishman, and Tepi, and Tematau, and the witch woman Niâbon have gone. They have sailed away to beyond the rim of the sea and the sky—we know not whither.”

I listened with all my faculties wide awake, and yet with a strange sense of helplessness overpowering me. Then Niâbon made a swift gesture to the head men. They rose, and lifting the huge body of Krause, carried it away.

She came to me and pressed her hand on my forehead.

“You are tired,” she said in English. “Lie down.”

She took my hand and led me to my couch beside the window and then bent over me.

“Sleep, sleep long. For now the time is near and thou must have strength.”