第104章 THE KING OF APEMAMA(3)

What had the man been after?I have found my music better qualified to scatter than to collect an audience.Amateur as Iwas,I could not suppose him interested in my reading of the CARNIVAL OF VENICE,or that he would deny himself his natural rest to follow my variations on THE PLOUGHBOY.And whatever his design,it was impossible I should suffer him to prowl by night among the houses.A word to the king,and the man were not,his case being far beyond pardon.But it is one thing to kill a man yourself;quite another to bear tales behind his back and have him shot by a third party;and I determined to deal with the fellow in some method of my own.I told Ah Fu the story,and bade him fetch me the cook whenever he should find him.I had supposed this would be a matter of difficulty;and far from that,he came of his own accord:an act really of desperation,since his life hung by my silence,and the best he could hope was to be forgotten.Yet he came with an assured countenance,volunteered no apology or explanation,complained of injuries received,and pretended he was unable to sit down.I suppose I am the weakest man God made;I had kicked him in the least vulnerable part of his big carcase;my foot was bare,and I had not even hurt my foot.Ah Fu could not control his merriment.On my side,knowing what must be the nature of his apprehensions,I found in so much impudence a kind of gallantry,and secretly admired the man.I told him I should say nothing of his night's adventure to the king;that I should still allow him,when he had an errand,to come within my tapu-line by day;but if ever I found him there after the set of the sun I would shoot him on the spot;and to the proof showed him a revolver.He must have been incredibly relieved;but he showed no sign of it,took himself off with his usual dandy nonchalance,and was scarce seen by us again.

These five,then,with the substitution of the steward for the cook,came and went,and were our only visitors.The circle of the tapu held at arm's-length the inhabitants of the village.As for 'my pamily,'they dwelt like nuns in their enclosure;only once have I met one of them abroad,and she was the king's sister,and the place in which I found her (the island infirmary)was very likely privileged.There remains only the king to be accounted for.He would come strolling over,always alone,a little before a meal-time,take a chair,and talk and eat with us like an old family friend.Gilbertine etiquette appears defective on the point of leave-taking.It may be remembered we had trouble in the matter with Karaiti;and there was something childish and disconcerting in Tembinok's abrupt 'I want go home now,'accompanied by a kind of ducking rise,and followed by an unadorned retreat.It was the only blot upon his manners,which were otherwise plain,decent,sensible,and dignified.He never stayed long nor drank much,and copied our behaviour where he perceived it to differ from his own.

Very early in the day,for instance,he ceased eating with his knife.It was plain he was determined in all things to wring profit from our visit,and chiefly upon etiquette.The quality of his white visitors puzzled and concerned him;he would bring up name after name,and ask if its bearer were a 'big chiep,'or even a 'chiep'at all -which,as some were my excellent good friends,and none were actually born in the purple,became at times embarrassing.He was struck to learn that our classes were distinguishable by their speech,and that certain words (for instance)were tapu on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war;and he begged in consequence that we should watch and correct him on the point.We were able to assure him that he was beyond correction.

His vocabulary is apt and ample to an extraordinary degree.God knows where he collected it,but by some instinct or some accident he has avoided all profane or gross expressions.'Obliged,'

'stabbed,''gnaw,''lodge,''power,''company,''slender,'

'smooth,'and 'wonderful,'are a few of the unexpected words that enrich his dialect.Perhaps what pleased him most was to hear about saluting the quarter-deck of a man-of-war.In his gratitude for this hint he became fulsome.'Schooner cap'n no tell me,'he cried;'I think no tavvy!You tavvy too much;tavvy 'teama',tavvy man-a-wa'.I think you tavvy everything.'Yet he gravelled me often enough with his perpetual questions;and the false Mr.Barlow stood frequently exposed before the royal Sandford.I remember once in particular.We were showing the magic-lantern;a slide of Windsor Castle was put in,and I told him there was the 'outch'of Victoreea.'How many pathom he high?'he asked,and I was dumb before him.It was the builder,the indefatigable architect of palaces,that spoke;collector though he was,he did not collect useless information;and all his questions had a purpose.After etiquette,government,law,the police,money,and medicine were his chief interests -things vitally important to himself as a king and the father of his people.It was my part not only to supply new information,but to correct the old.'My patha he tell me,'or 'White man he tell me,'would be his constant beginning;'You think he lie?'Sometimes I thought he did.Tembinok'once brought me a difficulty of this kind,which I was long of comprehending.Aschooner captain had told him of Captain Cook;the king was much interested in the story;and turned for more information -not to Mr.Stephen's Dictionary,not to the BRITANNICA,but to the Bible in the Gilbert Island version (which consists chiefly of the New Testament and the Psalms).Here he sought long and earnestly;Paul he found,and Festus and Alexander the coppersmith:no word of Cook.The inference was obvious:the explorer was a myth.So hard it is,even for a man of great natural parts like Tembinok',to grasp the ideas of a new society and culture.