A Tight Place.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Issue 117, 27 February 1895, Page 3

A Tight Place.

♦ ' SYDNEY BULLETIN.' Alone—as a white mn.u—on Dine Island ! I didn'tbko it. I wasyoung, 1 had never taken human life. My Arebipelagian experience had lain hitherto amongst the Malaysian peoples—reserved and punctilious. This sub-Papuan race, demonstrative and vociferous. 1 didn't understand, and didn't trust. It was all very well in Pondeijohn's company. His reputation as a wizard was safeguard enough. But now he was gone —off to Lukolwitk a Yankee trader who had told him about a strange parrot. ' A new eclectus, my bo}', if description goes for anything. I stall oniy be a couplo of days away ; and, moantime, let nobody near the collection, as you value your life. Those cdleoptera alone are worth dying for.' 1 Well, I didn't suppose my lifo was in much danger over his confounded beetles, but there were other things Tumora might take a fancy to, and about Mr Tumora's disposition l'onderjohn and myself hadn't agreed. Your ethnologist, as a rule, is a bad general physiognomist. So accustomed is he to look for race-indicatiors that ho becomes more or less incapable of individual differentiation.

• Just the average Matabelloislander,' Ponderjohu said. 'No better than the rest of tlieni, and no worse.' I thought lie was a good deal worse ; and now, as I saw him sauntering over through the sago-tree, I stowed the rifle and one revolver away ?n a corner, covered over with an atap. The other pistol I loaded and put in my breast-pocket. Tumora came in—through the roof! Dine houses arc all roof, and the door is, perforce, in the slope of the thatch. The chief looked all around. At the birds, the snakes, the insect-cases, the taxidermio implements on the little table. These things impressed him ; they were the wizard's ; But the wizard waa away; so Tunicra looked ntxt at me, aud wasn't im-pl'tsssd'-a alight fivo-feet-niue to hi* burly sis-one. He smiled with childish vanity, and straightened himself up in front of mo—a portentous figure, with such mass of muscle Upon shoulder and arm as even a pot-be! 1 }' could not render insignificant. His frizzy hair and board were Papuan, pure, and, though his skin had hardly more than Malay depth of tint, his big, drop-ended nose again was Papuan. Malay enough to carry a kris—the hardwood club was clearly his accustomed weapon. Nearly four feet long, with a head like a decentsized pumpkin—l found myself wondering whether I could shoot before it could roach mo. The chief followed my look and hove the thing suddenly above his head. T) and f'o ho shook it with one hand, twisted and twirled it this way and that, till his big biceps stood nearly in a semicircle, and I realised that I would have -".bout as much chance with hfm as a fly ! But all I said was—■ ' That is nothing !'

The infantineFapuannature showed up. With a pettish grin he let the club drop. Then he squatted on the Hour and laughed. ' Would I give him rum ?' 'No, I wouldn't?' Boldly, this—but not without misgivings. ' Would I show him my guns ?' 'My guns were gone with my ' father ' to Luko.' That, my visitor frankly observed, was a lie '. and as frankly I acknowledged it. Then we both laughed, and things began to look move promising. I offered the giant a quarter, pound cake of such tobacco as I had seen the Kc men smoke—black as ink and strong as a team of bullocks. He smelt at it in a puzzled kind of way, then stowed it away in his hair. Next, of course, he was hungry, so I gave him sago-cakes and dried turtle —half-a-dozen of the one and about a pound of the other- and the way it all disappeared made me thankful he hadn't brought with him a ' tail ' of similar performers. The thought suggested the question—why had he come alone ?

' Because ' peering cautiously round and sinking his guttural voice to a whisper— ' because he wanted to see the Weather-Spirit.' ; The Weather-Spirit ?' "■j, the lifciie devil fastened in a box -that tells thy 'father' what wind is going to blow, and when the rnin cometh'.' ■ Fastened in a box ? Could he mean the aneroid barometer ?' I brought, it out, ' Yes !'—sheering off to the end of tho hut and keeping a watchful oyc on the instrument. ' That was the box —would 1 make the spirit spoak ?' 'lt couldn't speak.' T explained. 'lt could only point. This was its finger.' Tumora scratched his head, folt tho lump of tobacco in hi a ] m j r| ,i row ft out, bit off a mouthful, and swallowed tho horrible stuff as if it had beon ginger-bread! Hero was a fresh complication. This sort of thing would poison a rhinoceros! If Tumora died—well, Ponderjohn had described to me a few of the little amenities practised upon unfortunates who were merely suspected of harming a chioi. I tried to explain to the animal that tobacco was to be smoked, not eaten, and for answer ho grinned and took another mouthful. Then lie cautiously approached the barometer— looked hard at the index for a few moments—suddenly swung up h\ H club again, and delivered himself jn execrable Malay to tho effect that

I was an unworthy son of my ' father,' who spoke always truth ! In short, I was a liar of the first water ! ' The spirit, could speak, and if I wouldn't ask it; to do go ' —the impending club said the rest ! , Sliorhl I shoot him, out-of-hand ? _ Tho time was to come—soon enough , —when I would have dropped him , without a wink, but I had never yet , fired at Man ! The momentousness of tho act held my hand and I temporised. , I woidd ask tho spirit to speak/ I said. ' But, as Tumora doubtless know, spirits were occasionally ' i 'Goon !' lie snarled. 'Go on,' make the spirit say wise words !' , His deep set eyes began to burn ; , his teeth gleamed viciously from tho gloomy angle of his beard ; but tho sweat-beads stood upon his scrollmarked forehead, his breath came in snorts, the brown of his devil's countenance was turning green. ' The tobacco !' I told myself, and, even with the thought, the fated wretch gulped down the remnant of the plug. But ho was dangerous still ; so, turning towards the barometer, I stretched out an arm over it and recited a verso or two of something—l forget what. Silence, then, for half-a-minute—-broken only by tho poisoned man's elephantine gaspings. ' The spirit '—l began, and turned barely in timo to duck beneath tlio tremendous swing with which the club knocked Pouderjohn's choicest beetle-case to Hinders, and nearly shook the house down as it landed like a round-shot upon one of tho marblowood posts. Eight foot away I jumped, and jerked tho pistol out. But it wasn't needed—tho effort had linisiied Tumora. Twisting and groaning, ho lay oti the floor—wotted already with the sweat that poured from every inch of his agonised carcase. I made tho door fast, pocketed tho pistol again, stooped over the enemy, and deliberately wrenched him by the nose—slapped him hard in the face- - lucked him energetically in tho ribs ! Not out of potty rovenge, but to malic sure that ho really was in the state of indifference to contingencies characteristic of narcotic-irritant poisoning, Thon I lit my pipe and constituted myself an Executive Council of One, This man had eaten a htz, plug of about tho strongest tobacco in the World. His death—probable in any case -was certain if ho were loft to Limself. Should I use, on his behalf, what medical knowledge I possessed Y ' No !' 1 repeated, as I looked up at tho saucer-shaped dent of the club upon tho massive housepost. ' Better not givo him the chance of repeating that little experiment! Let the law —which is to say tho tobacco—take its course !' Voices—many voices—outside. I opened the door. There was a small crowd around it—jabbering and hustling each other as is this people's way. Not all, though. One old man, shorter than the others, and lighter of coloi'v, stood gravely forward as spokesman. He had made tho Macassar voyage, wore a kris, and spoko the Bugis Malay intelligibly enough. ' Tumora was lost I Tho people were afraid! Had tho white master seen the great chief whose name was Tiimora-1 Hue '?'

The ' white master ' brought him in, closed the door, and pointed to the deplorable object on the iloor. ' Tumora had angered the WeatherSpirit of the white men, and the .Spirit had turned his blood into water/ ' Apia Inihii !' and the old man shrunk away towards the door. 'lt is even so ! "Wise are the white men ! Great is their Spirit! Let thy servant go, lost ho also ' I throw open the door, and waited while ho explained in the Dine tongue. In half a min cite there wasn't a mophead in sight—save one—a nearly black mati, who surlily stood his ground. Tattooed from wrist to elbow in brilliant scarlet, he swung carelessly to and fro the short, cauliflowerheaded elul) of the Aru Islands, There were Aru-men in Dine, I know —follows with more grit than tho Dine-men, or less superstition. This man also I invited inside, and, still sulkily vigilant, he came. I turned to the old man. ' Tell this fellow,' I began—and then came blankness ! •f ■:■ # # if

' Hit you a short-armed blow on tho back of tho head as you turned,' Ponderjohn said. ' Lucky for you you've got an Irish skull ' That tap would have crushed mine like an eeresholl.' bD ' Thanks ! But why didn't tho fellow finish mo when lie had me down ?' ' Well, from what I can make out, your pistol exploded ns you fell, and he thought it was tho spirit that had bewitched Tumora, so lie bolted and loft tho chief here They've only just taken him away. What in creation did you give (he fellow '?' ' Tobacco ? Ho ate a quarter-pound of that black Amboyna !' ' Dovil he did '. Well—listen !' Tho infernal din from tho village took definite meaning now. The women were howling for tho death of a chief. Al/EX Mo.VJ'GOMEKY.