Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (828 page)

‘My God!’ he reflected, ‘if I was to lose my life on such a wretched business!’  Often and often, in the story of the Gilberts, this scene has been repeated; and the remorseful trader sat beside his lamp, longing for the day, listening with agony for the sound of murder, registering resolutions for the future.  For the business is easy to begin, but hazardous to stop.  The natives are in their way a just and law-abiding people, mindful of their debts, docile to the voice of their own institutions; when the tapu is re-enforced they will cease drinking; but the white who seeks to antedate the movement by refusing liquor does so at his peril.

Hence, in some degree, the anxiety and helplessness of Mr. Rick.  He and Tom, alarmed by the rabblement of the
Sans Souci
, had stopped the sale; they had done so without danger, because
The Land we Live in
still continued selling; it was claimed, besides, that they had been the first to begin.  What step could be taken?  Could Mr. Rick visit Mr. Muller (with whom he was not on terms) and address him thus: ‘I was getting ahead of you, now you are getting ahead of me, and I ask you to forego your profit.  I got my place closed in safety, thanks to your continuing; but now I think you have continued long enough.  I begin to be alarmed; and because I am afraid I ask you to confront a certain danger’?  It was not to be thought of.  Something else had to be found; and there was one person at one end of the town who was at least not interested in copra.  There was little else to be said in favour of myself as an ambassador.  I had arrived in the Wightman schooner, I was living in the Wightman compound, I was the daily associate of the Wightman coterie.  It was egregious enough that I should now intrude unasked in the private affairs of Crawford’s agent, and press upon him the sacrifice of his interests and the venture of his life.  But bad as I might be, there was none better; since the affair of the stone I was, besides, sharp-set to be doing, the idea of a delicate interview attracted me, and I thought it policy to show myself abroad.

The night was very dark.  There was service in the church, and the building glimmered through all its crevices like a dim Kirk Allowa’.  I saw few other lights, but was indistinctly aware of many people stirring in the darkness, and a hum and sputter of low talk that sounded stealthy.  I believe (in the old phrase) my beard was sometimes on my shoulder as I went.  Muller’s was but partly lighted, and quite silent, and the gate was fastened.  I could by no means manage to undo the latch.  No wonder, since I found it afterwards to be four or five feet long - a fortification in itself.  As I still fumbled, a dog came on the inside and sniffed suspiciously at my hands, so that I was reduced to calling ‘House ahoy!’  Mr. Muller came down and put his chin across the paling in the dark.  ‘Who is that?’ said he, like one who has no mind to welcome strangers.

‘My name is Stevenson,’ said I.

‘O, Mr. Stevens!  I didn’t know you.  Come inside.’  We stepped into the dark store, when I leaned upon the counter and he against the wall.  All the light came from the sleeping-room, where I saw his family being put to bed; it struck full in my face, but Mr. Muller stood in shadow.  No doubt he expected what was Coming, and sought the advantage of position; but for a man who wished to persuade and had nothing to conceal, mine was the preferable.

‘Look here,’ I began, ‘I hear you are selling to the natives.’

‘Others have done that before me,’ he returned pointedly.

‘No doubt,’ said I, ‘and I have nothing to do with the past, but the future.  I want you to promise you will handle these spirits carefully.’

‘Now what is your motive in this?’ he asked, and then, with a sneer, ‘Are you afraid of your life?’

‘That is nothing to the purpose,’ I replied.  ‘I know, and you know, these spirits ought not to be used at all.’

‘Tom and Mr. Rick have sold them before.’

‘I have nothing to do with Tom and Mr. Rick.  All I know is I have heard them both refuse.’

‘No, I suppose you have nothing to do with them.  Then you are just afraid of your life.’

‘Come now,’ I cried, being perhaps a little stung, ‘you know in your heart I am asking a reasonable thing.  I don’t ask you to lose your profit - though I would prefer to see no spirits brought here, as you would - ‘

‘I don’t say I wouldn’t.  I didn’t begin this,’ he interjected.

‘No, I don’t suppose you did,’ said I.  ‘And I don’t ask you to lose; I ask you to give me your word, man to man, that you will make no native drunk.’

Up to now Mr. Muller had maintained an attitude very trying to my temper; but he had maintained it with difficulty, his sentiment being all upon my side; and here he changed ground for the worse.  ‘It isn’t me that sells,’ said he.

‘No, it’s that nigger,’ I agreed.  ‘But he’s yours to buy and sell; you have your hand on the nape of his neck; and I ask you - I have my wife here - to use the authority you have.’

He hastily returned to his old ward.  ‘I don’t deny I could if I wanted,’ said he.  ‘But there’s no danger, the natives are all quiet.  You’re just afraid of your life.’

I do not like to be called a coward, even by implication; and here I lost my temper and propounded an untimely ultimatum.  ‘You had better put it plain,’ I cried.  ‘Do you mean to refuse me what I ask?’

‘I don’t want either to refuse it or grant it,’ he replied.

‘You’ll find you have to do the one thing or the other, and right now!’ I cried, and then, striking into a happier vein, ‘Come,’ said I, ‘you’re a better sort than that.  I see what’s wrong with you - you think I came from the opposite camp.  I see the sort of man you are, and you know that what I ask is right.’

Again he changed ground.  ‘If the natives get any drink, it isn’t safe to stop them,’ he objected.

‘I’ll be answerable for the bar,’ I said.  ‘We are three men and four revolvers; we’ll come at a word, and hold the place against the village.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about; it’s too dangerous!’ he cried.

‘Look here,’ said I, ‘I don’t mind much about losing that life you talk so much of; but I mean to lose it the way I want to, and that is, putting a stop to all this beastliness.’

He talked a while about his duty to the firm; I minded not at all, I was secure of victory.  He was but waiting to capitulate, and looked about for any potent to relieve the strain.  In the gush of light from the bedroom door I spied a cigar-holder on the desk.  ‘That is well coloured,’ said I.

‘Will you take a cigar?’ said he.

I took it and held it up unlighted.  ‘Now,’ said I, ‘you promise me.’

‘I promise you you won’t have any trouble from natives that have drunk at my place,’ he replied.

‘That is all I ask,’ said I, and showed it was not by immediately offering to try his stock.

So far as it was anyway critical our interview here ended.  Mr. Muller had thenceforth ceased to regard me as an emissary from his rivals, dropped his defensive attitude, and spoke as he believed.  I could make out that he would already, had he dared, have stopped the sale himself.  Not quite daring, it may be imagined how he resented the idea of interference from those who had (by his own statement) first led him on, then deserted him in the breach, and now (sitting themselves in safety) egged him on to a new peril, which was all gain to them, all loss to him!  I asked him what he thought of the danger from the feast.

‘I think worse of it than any of you,’ he answered.  ‘They were shooting around here last night, and I heard the balls too.  I said to myself, “That’s bad.”  What gets me is why you should be making this row up at your end.  I should be the first to go.’

It was a thoughtless wonder.  The consolation of being second is not great; the fact, not the order of going - there was our concern.

Scott talks moderately of looking forward to a time of fighting ‘with a feeling that resembled pleasure.’  The resemblance seems rather an identity.  In modern life, contact is ended; man grows impatient of endless manoeuvres; and to approach the fact, to find ourselves where we can push an advantage home, and stand a fair risk, and see at last what we are made of, stirs the blood.  It was so at least with all my family, who bubbled with delight at the approach of trouble; and we sat deep into the night like a pack of schoolboys, preparing the revolvers and arranging plans against the morrow.  It promised certainly to be a busy and eventful day.  The Old Men were to be summoned to confront me on the question of the tapu; Muller might call us at any moment to garrison his bar; and suppose Muller to fail, we decided in a family council to take that matter into our own hands,
The Land we Live
in
at the pistol’s mouth, and with the polysyllabic Williams, dance to a new tune.  As I recall our humour I think it would have gone hard with the mulatto.

Wednesday
,
July
24. - It was as well, and yet it was disappointing that these thunder-clouds rolled off in silence.  Whether the Old Men recoiled from an interview with Queen Victoria’s son, whether Muller had secretly intervened, or whether the step flowed naturally from the fears of the king and the nearness of the feast, the tapu was early that morning re-enforced; not a day too soon, from the manner the boats began to arrive thickly, and the town was filled with the big rowdy vassals of Karaiti.

The effect lingered for some time on the minds of the traders; it was with the approval of all present that I helped to draw up a petition to the United States, praying for a law against the liquor trade in the Gilberts; and it was at this request that I added, under my own name, a brief testimony of what had passed; - useless pains; since the whole reposes, probably unread and possibly unopened, in a pigeon-hole at Washington.

Sunday, July
28. - This day we had the afterpiece of the debauch.  The king and queen, in European clothes, and followed by armed guards, attended church for the first time, and sat perched aloft in a precarious dignity under the barrel-hoops.  Before sermon his majesty clambered from the dais, stood lopsidedly upon the gravel floor, and in a few words abjured drinking.  The queen followed suit with a yet briefer allocution.  All the men in church were next addressed in turn; each held up his right hand, and the affair was over - throne and church were reconciled.

CHAPTER VI - THE FIVE DAYS’ FESTIVAL

Thursday, July
25. - The street was this day much enlivened by the presence of the men from Little Makin; they average taller than Butaritarians, and being on a holiday, went wreathed with yellow leaves and gorgeous in vivid colours.  They are said to be more savage, and to be proud of the distinction.  Indeed, it seemed to us they swaggered in the town, like plaided Highlanders upon the streets of Inverness, conscious of barbaric virtues.

In the afternoon the summer parlour was observed to be packed with people; others standing outside and stooping to peer under the eaves, like children at home about a circus.  It was the Makin company, rehearsing for the day of competition.  Karaiti sat in the front row close to the singers, where we were summoned (I suppose in honour of Queen Victoria) to join him.  A strong breathless heat reigned under the iron roof, and the air was heavy with the scent of wreaths.  The singers, with fine mats about their loins, cocoa-nut feathers set in rings upon their fingers, and their heads crowned with yellow leaves, sat on the floor by companies.  A varying number of soloists stood up for different songs; and these bore the chief part in the music.  But the full force of the companies, even when not singing, contributed continuously to the effect, and marked the ictus of the measure, mimicking, grimacing, casting up their heads and eyes, fluttering the feathers on their fingers, clapping hands, or beating (loud as a kettledrum) on the left breast; the time was exquisite, the music barbarous, but full of conscious art.  I noted some devices constantly employed.  A sudden change would be introduced (I think of key) with no break of the measure, but emphasised by a sudden dramatic heightening of the voice and a swinging, general gesticulation.  The voices of the soloists would begin far apart in a rude discord, and gradually draw together to a unison; which, when, they had reached, they were joined and drowned by the full chorus.  The ordinary, hurried, barking unmelodious movement of the voices would at times be broken and glorified by a psalm-like strain of melody, often well constructed, or seeming so by contrast.  There was much variety of measure, and towards the end of each piece, when the fun became fast and furious, a recourse to this figure -

[Musical notation which cannot be produced.  It means two/four time with quaver, quaver, crotchet repeated for three bars.]

It is difficult to conceive what fire and devilry they get into these hammering finales; all go together, voices, hands, eyes, leaves, and fluttering finger-rings; the chorus swings to the eye, the song throbs on the ear; the faces are convulsed with enthusiasm and effort.

Presently the troop stood up in a body, the drums forming a half-circle for the soloists, who were sometimes five or even more in number.  The songs that followed were highly dramatic; though I had none to give me any explanation, I would at times make out some shadowy but decisive outline of a plot; and I was continually reminded of certain quarrelsome concerted scenes in grand operas at home; just so the single voices issue from and fall again into the general volume; just so do the performers separate and crowd together, brandish the raised hand, and roll the eye to heaven - or the gallery.  Already this is beyond the Thespian model; the art of this people is already past the embryo: song, dance, drums, quartette and solo - it is the drama full developed although still in miniature.  Of all so-called dancing in the South Seas, that which I saw in Butaritari stands easily the first.  The
hula
, as it may be viewed by the speedy globe-trotter in Honolulu, is surely the most dull of man’s inventions, and the spectator yawns under its length as at a college lecture or a parliamentary debate.  But the Gilbert Island dance leads on the mind; it thrills, rouses, subjugates; it has the essence of all art, an unexplored imminent significance.  Where so many are engaged, and where all must make (at a given moment) the same swift, elaborate, and often arbitrary movement, the toil of rehearsal is of course extreme.  But they begin as children.  A child and a man may often be seen together in a maniap’: the man sings and gesticulates, the child stands before him with streaming tears and tremulously copies him in act and sound; it is the Gilbert Island artist learning (as all artists must) his art in sorrow.