Beatrice Grimshaw

“ In the afternoons, when the southeaster was howling harder than ever and almost laying flat the little eucalyptus trees that stand up all over the many hills on which Port Moresby stands, I used to climb the heights above the town and wander idly about, holding on my hat and thinking what I’d do with my share of the price of the diamond—if we ever got it safe away to civilization. And down below on the flat, the Marquis would be playing tennis with Mrs. Vandaleur or squiring her about on the beach. ”

“ We had no cause to complain after that; old Burchell, the storekeeper, Hubbard, and all the men I knew bestirred themselves to find us food, drink, tobacco, clothing, beds and to make us warmly welcome to the Kilori. Our adventures didn’t astonish any one very much; most of the men had had experiences quite as startling in their time. Yarns and reminiscences, mostly colored with gore, ran like a flood in the little slab-built bar of the storekeeper’s house, and I saw the Marquis’ eyes grow rounder and rounder as he listened. ”

“ In spite of the Marquis’ accusation, I am not, and never have been, unhappy in women’s society; nor have I had occasion to observe that they are unhappy in mine—to take a leaf out of my companion’s books.
But Daisie didn’t want me, didn’t like me, was more or less afraid of me.
Why?
I watched her, sitting on the sheltered veranda, with the southeaster roaring ceaselessly outside, slamming at the blinds and lifting the long mats nailed on the floor. It was a wild day; a day to make any one restless. ”

“ That was what occurred at the Kilori goldfield store on that peaceful, beautiful southeast season morning, with the birds singing and the river gently flowing just outside and the sun coming up above the trees to look down on another day. The storekeeper jumped out of his bed and ran into the bar, pajama-clad; the cooky-boys scuttled in from the kitchen and peered round the corner of the doorway, wonder-eyed; the miners and the new-chums and the hangers-on of the camp all came running as fast as they could, some with blankets still hanging round their necks, to see what was going on. ”

“ The captain of the Dawn was willing to take us out for a consideration. He was a long time getting away from the jetty, and I grew more impatient every minute, for there was the Gertrude far ahead, and gradually drawing out of sight, while we still delayed. By the time the Dawn had spread her dirty sails to the breeze, the other lugger had diminished to a speck.
The Marquis and I sat side by side on the hatch, watching Sariba and the Basilisk open out into emerald and purple bays, and the tall blue D’Entrecasteaux show up on the far horizon. We did not talk: we were too anxious. ”

“ You might as well trust tissue-paper as silk, in New Guinea,” I said wearily.
“I did not know, I swear. Well, when I see it is gone, I tell Daisee that I have lost a something I have the greatest value for, a gem—I do not say a diamond. And she call many native boys. And they look, look, look, till it get dark. And I will swear, if it were that I was dying, we look every inch. But there is no stone.”
“I reckon Mrs. Daisie could tell you——” I began.
“Halt!” cried the Marquis. “Daisee is as innocent as the lamb unborn. When we see the stone is lost, she will not look herself. ”

“ If the singing or the howling annoys you, you throw something at the disturber of your peace: that is all.
Further, if any one did hear it and take notice of it, there was nothing dangerous in the song—unless one had the clue—the knowledge of what the charm really was. Had any one the clue save myself and the Marquis? Had George the Greek—who had dug Mo out of his grave, to get his diving dress? Impossible. Still, I might as well stop the singing: it was certainly irritating, and the Kiwai had no right to be annoying the town in the middle of the day, almost opposite the hotel. ”

“ Coral beds, when you see them from the surface on a calm day, are like a garden of flowers below the water. Seen from beneath the ocean itself, they take on the hues of actual jewels: the huge fans and mushrooms and ferns of the reef glow with lights of emerald, sapphire, and amethyst; the sun that falls through the water makes magical fires of gold and green. Fish come gently past the windows of your helmet, hurrying not at all, and look in with their cold eyes as they go by ”

“ It grew darker in the chief-house, there as we sat on the bamboo sleeping shelf, listening to the unvarying roar of the rain and watching the excited waving of the head-plumes in the corner where the cannibals held their conference—the plumes were all we could see now, for a naked Papuan becomes rapidly and completely invisible, once it begins to grow dark. The Marquis was very much quieter than usual, but I do not think he was at all afraid. I think he reckoned on having a fight by-and-by, and liked the idea. As for myself, well, a man with any sense isn’t afraid in a tight place ”

“ A boy was fetched from the grass slope outside the hall, where a number of natives had been looking on. He beat his iguana-skin drum, as if for a native dance, with the throbbing, intoxicating beat of the New Guinea drummer. The Marquis snatched a native feather crown off the wall, where it had been hung as an ornament, put it on his head and danced “The Love Dance of the Sorcerer,” looking at Mrs. Vandaleur all the time.
I must say he had used his Papuan experiences well. The dance was New Guinea, yet something more. It had sorcery in it, mystery, magic and sinister, wicked charm. ”

“ And of course, it doesn’t matter where or how the news gets out—it’ll run over the world in a week, just the same.”
“All over the world!” said the Marquis, thoughtfully. “You have reason. We shall be famous, me and you. Flint, I love to be famous. It is the glory of our adventures that has already made that little flower of the tropic, Dai-see Vandaleur, love me as the poor little one loves. It is true, she also thinks me beautiful. But handsome is who tells no tales!” ”

“ The Marquis was almost ready to cry—he had been looking forward to an immediate satisfaction of his curiosity, and he was like a child when disappointed.
“Ask him something,” he demanded. “Ask him at least what it is that he has in his bamboo, and why he carries a human hand round his neck, and what is in that string bag of his. Not to hear anything tonight, my Flint, that would indeed be the long lane that breaks the camel’s back. I’m not made of patience!”
“That’s right; you’re not,” said I. “Well, Koppi Koko, ask him.” ”

“ And in a pearling fleet you may do anything you like, sacrilege, robbery, piracy, or murder, for a pearl, if only it’s big enough. No one would think any the less of you really, though they might have to pretend they did, if there were too many authorities about. As for a diamond like old Mo’s—why, you might dig up the whole of the cemetery without upsetting any one’s stomach or conscience. ”

“ The Marquis and I sat on the hot black sand of Kara Bay and tried to realize that we were shipwrecked.
It was not easy. There was the calm, blue, burning sea in front of us, there was the ruffle of foam on the coral reef a mile or two out from the beach. There were the sea-hawks hovering and veering just as they had been doing an hour or two ago, when we had left the little coastal steamer for a stroll on shore while some small trouble in the engine room was repaired. And there—was not—the Waiwera. ”

“ I said to the Marquis. “I know all that’s in his old bag without looking. I’ve seen other sorcerers’ bags. There’ll be a lot of trash like lizards’ tails and bats’ wings, and frogs’ feet, and there’ll be queer-shaped stones he has picked up, and bits of carved wood, and dried leaves and plants, and there’s sure to be some quartz crystals—that’s great magic, with them—and there’ll very likely be a dagger made of human bone, and a native fork or two, and a betel-chewing outfit—poker-worked gourd, with a boar-tooth stopper, nuts, nice little spatula with carved head. That’s about all.” ”

“ Cassowaries, as most people know, are extremely fond of dancing; and Mrs. Vandaleur incited the Marquis, first to dance with the bird, and afterwards to give an imitation of its style. I do not think I ever saw anything funnier than the tall, thin bird and the tall, fat Marquis, setting to partners on the green grass court, the cassowary taking its part quite seriously, and sidling, chasséeing, springing, like a girl in a theater; the man craning his neck in imitation, stepping stiff-legged, as it stepped and using his arms exactly as it used its wings. ”

“ I stood and listened. At first I could only hear the word for “sorcerer” coming in again and again, mingled with “Kata-Kata”—the name of the district where we had been first met with the wonderful diamond that the Marquis and I were now pursuing. Then the chanting became clearer:
“Aaaaa-yah, Mo is dead, Mo is dead and buried, and his spirit walks about and bites men as they sleep. Aaaaaaah-yah!
“Aaaaa-yah, ah-yah, yah, Mo, the great sorcerer, did not take his charm. Ah-yah, ah-yah, he took it before, and he did not die. Aaaaaa! when he did not take it, he died. ”

“ I think he would have liked to black his face and wear a conspirator’s cloak, and wriggle on his stomach from the hotel to the beach, and have half-a-dozen Greeks and Malays chase him with revolvers.
But, as a matter of fact, nobody saw us, and we got away without so much as a splash.
It was a glorious night: we floated in a hollow globe of stars—stars above, stars below, some flashing like the great diamond we had gone out to find, some glowing like little moons and casting long spears of light into the sea. We had a mile or two to go to the cemetery island ”

“ But there are things that affect the value of laws and principles in their neighborhood, as a mountain of ironstone affects the working of the compasses on ships that pass beneath it. A big diamond is one of these. In the Sorcerer’s Stone we had, so to speak, a charge of moral dynamite that was ready at any moment to shatter friendship, honesty, regard for human life, even regard for a man’s own precious skin.... There was not a bulwark built up through æons of evolution, against the savage passions of mankind, that this lump of crystal in our possession could not send flying in a second. ”

“ But if we can get that diamond—see, the glories of my house are restored; I am once more the proper kind of a marquis, you bet! And you—you are rich. You are a gentle and a spiritual, Flint—I shall be glad to think of you rich.”
All this time we had been making away from the marea, but the cry under the house never ceased to follow us. I could not stand it at last. There are many things in a New Guinea inland town which you had better not inquire into unless you are prepared to put up a fight. But somehow I felt I wanted to look into this, and I told the Marquis so. ”

“ The murder of a man, I think, would have been looked upon more calmly than the murder of a cask of beer, up here on the Kilori goldfield, a long week from the coast. But this last exploit was never carried through. With one accord, the miners flung themselves upon the handle of the pick and dragged it down. They dragged the Marquis down next by sheer force of numbers and sat upon him. One even counseled them to “sit upon his head!” and flung his own body across the Marquis’s fat cheek, as if he were a kicking horse. ”

“ They were an unpleasant crew; their foreheads sloped enormously, making them look scarcely human; their hair was trained in greasy curls that fell far back and increased the beast-like angle of the face. Their black and white eyes looked steadily at us out of their brown faces, and the look was that of savage man, near, yet ten thousand æons of evolution distant. Across the gulf, what thought could travel?
We got up on our feet at once, and I spoke to the men in half a dozen different languages—all the New Guinea tongues I knew anything of—hoping to find some means of communication. ”

“ More than that, the sorcerer had informed us as we went down that the Government station was a bare two days away, down the valley of the river that we had dimly discerned from the height. And we had potatoes enough to last us all the way. And the diamond was still ours.
“Heaven tempers the wind to the lame dog; we are well out,” said the Marquis, looking up at the top of the ridge as we paused in the river bed below. The sorcerer, far away against the skyline, was faintly visible, feeling his jaw. ”

“ And there was the gem that the Marquis and I had been concealing all these weeks, almost at the cost of our lives, lying out on the bar before the eyes of a crowd of sharps and scamps from all the odd corners of Australia!
One thinks quickly in moments of sudden emergency; at least, if one doesn’t, one won’t continue thinking or living long in a country like Papua. ”

“ Flint, this is altogether so good that I feel myself exalted. I will dance——”
“No, Marky, don’t,” I begged. “Somebody might come. I like your dancing all right, and I think you’d knock spots off Pavlova and Mordkin, and the girl who served up prophet’s head—but I don’t want you to dance now. Anything that excites remark and draws attention to us two is going to be bad policy at present. Swear off, Marky, if you’re wise.”
“It was but the dance of Marguerite with the casket of jewels that I desired to make—nothing more, my friend,” said the Marquis, a little wistfully. ”

“ I heard her murmur as he gave her his arm. “How many trusting little women’s hearts have you charmed away? Do you know the power you have? I think you must be very cruel.”
“No, for I make my spelling gently; ‘fair and softly is always to be blest!’” he answered, through the yelling of the wind. Mrs. Daisie put up her hand anxiously among her curls to see, I think, if nothing was breaking away from its moorings and, being assured of this, fainted a little more in the corner to which the Marquis had conducted her. Her head grazed his shirt-front as she sank back in her chair. ”

“ The storekeeper took the bag and poured part of its contents into the scales.
“That’s a fine crystal,” he said, looking curiously at the great diamond as it lay on the rough, hacked counter of the bar. “Where did you get it?”
I did not altogether like the way in which the bloated, evil faces of the new-chum crowd turned towards me as I answered.
“Got it out of a sorcerer’s charm-bag in Kata-Kata,” was what I said, reaching out for the gem. “It’s rather pretty, and they made a great puri-puri (charm) of it down there. Some of the museums down South will give quite a lot for good charms.” ”

“ In the blazing moonlight of New Guinea some wandering native would without doubt have seen us crossing the straits to the cemetery island, even if no white man spied us. The moonless nights were our only chance. ”

“ Daisie made great play with the care of her black draperies in the storm, yet found time to glance at me, I thought, unpleasantly, and the Marquis was pulling his mustache. But I was determinedly stupid.
The two got away in a corner of the garden before long, shamelessly deserting myself and the companion, and I could see that Mrs. Daisie was talking religion again; a thing that disgusted me, and inclined me to have no mercy on her, if ever she should need it at my hands. I can’t say I am particularly religious myself, but any decent man hates to see piety used as a cloak. ”

“ Probably he thinks his whole power depends on it.”
“Flint, my Flint, it would be hard to say what it depends on. He has power, we know it. He has power of life and death. What a man!”
“Oh, he’s only a greasy nigger after all, whatever conjuring tricks he can play,” I said irritably. “They claim a lot, these sorcerers. They say they can kill any one by wishing, and bring him to life again by making spells. If you listened to what they say——”
“But the lizard—he was dead,” said the Marquis, in a solemn voice.
“Hang the lizard! It’s the diamond we are after now. ”