Ridan The Devil And Other Stories by George Lewis Becke (read novel full TXT) 📖

stated in court that this was only fair and right; the white man had paid for the damage done by _his_ pigs, and therefore he was entitled to claim damages if the village pigs caused him trouble. (I had previously squared his Honour with the promise of a male sucker.) One day the seven young pigs escaped from their mother and went out for a run on the village green. They were at once assailed as detestable foreign devils by about two hundred and forty-three gaunt, razorbacked village sows, and were only rescued from a cruel death after every one had lost its tail. Why is it that pigs of different breeds always bite off each other's tails? I claimed fifty cents per tail, and was awarded $3.50 damages, to be paid by the community generally. The community refused to pay. His Honour then notified by the town crier that I was at liberty to shoot any pig that broke into the station grounds. I put a cartridge into a Snider rifle and told my servants to call me if they heard a grunt in the night.

Three days after this, as I was discussing theology and baked fowl one night with the local teacher in his own house, a boy burst in and said that there was a strange pig in my garden devouring my crop of French beans. In two minutes I was back in my house, snatched up the Snider, and ran to the garden wall. There was the brute, a great black-and white beast, the biggest native pig I ever saw. His back was turned, but hearing my steps he 'went about' and faced me. 'Twas a bright moonlight night, and the bullet plugged him fair between the eyes. Over he rolled without a kick. Then I heard a shriek or laughter, and saw half a dozen girls scuttling away among the coco-palms. A horrible suspicion nearly made me faint. Jumping over the wall I examined the defunct, and could scarce forbear to shed a tear.

'Twas mine own prized black Australian boar, daubed over with splashes of coral lime whitewash. And the whitewash came from a tub full of it, with which the natives had that morning been whitening the walls of the newly-built village church. The one-eyed old scoundrel of a deacon told me next day it was a judgment on me.



MAURICE KINANE

Eastward, from the coast of New Guinea, there lies a large island called, on the maps, New Britain, the native name of which is Berara. It is nearly three hundred miles in length and, in parts, almost sixty in width, and excepting the north-eastern portion, now settled by German colonists, is inhabited by a race of dangerous and treacherous cannibals, who are continually at war among themselves, for there are many hundred tribes living on the coast as well as in the interior. Although there have been white people living on the north-east coast for over thirty years--for there were adventurous American and English traders living in this wild island long before the natives ever saw a German--not one of them knew then, or knows now, much of the strange black tribes who dwell in the interior of the centre and western part of the island, save that they were then, as they are in this present year, always at enmity with the coast tribes, and are, like them, more or less addicted to cannibalism.

Sixty miles from the western end of the island is the mountainous land of German New Guinea; and sometimes, when the air is clear and the south-east trade wind blows, the savages on Berara can see across the deep, wide strait the grey loom of the great range that fringes the north-eastern coast of New Guinea for many hundred miles. Once, indeed, when the writer of this true story lived in New Britain, he saw this sight for a whole week, for there, in those beautiful islands, the air is very clear at certain seasons of the year.

From Matupi, where the principal settlement in New Britain is situated, to the deep bay at Kabaira, fifty miles away, the coast is very beautiful. And, indeed, no one who looks at the lovely grassy downs that here and there show through the groves of waving palm trees stretching from the beach away up to the rising land of the interior could think that such a fair country was the home of a deadly fever; and that in the waters of the bright limpid streams that ran gently down from the forest-clad hills to meet the blue waters of the Pacific there lurked disease and death to him who drank thereof.

At the time of my story (except for the adventurous American whalemen from Nantucket and New Bedford, and the sandal-wood cutters from New South Wales, who sometimes touched there) white men were unknown to the people of New Britain. Sometimes when the sperm-whaling fleet was cruising northwards and westward to the Moluccas, a ship would sail along the coast in the daytime, but always anchored at night, for it was dreaded for the many dangerous reefs that surround it. And once the anchor was down a strict watch was kept on board, for the natives were known to be fierce and treacherous.

Between where is now the German settlement and the great native town at Kabaira Bay there is an island called Mano, which stands five miles off from the mainland. Early one morning, when the wild people of the villages among the palm-groves which lined the long winding beach came out of their thatched huts for their morning bathe they gave a great cry, for a large full-rigged ship was standing in close under the lee of Mano, and clewing up her sails before she came to an anchor.

Now the natives who lived on the mainland of New Britain were the hereditary enemies of those who dwelt on Mano Island, and it was hateful for them to see a ship anchor there, for then the Mano Islanders would get axes and muskets and hoop-iron.

So, with Baringa, the chief, at their head, they all ran to the summit of a high, grassy hill (known, by reason of a terrible deed once done there in the olden times, as the Hill of Old Men's Groans), and sat down to watch if the ship would send her boats ashore.

'Look!' said Baringa, fiercely, striking the ground with his heavy jade-headed club, 'look, I see a boat putting out from the side. Who among ye will come with me to the ship, so that I may sell my turtle shell and pearl shell to the captain for muskets and powder and bullets? Are these dogs of Mano to get such things from the ship, and then come over here at night and slay and then cook us in their ovens? Hungry am I for revenge; for 'tis now twelve moons since they stole my son from me, and not one life have I had in return for his.'

But no one answered. Of what use was it, they thought, for Baringa to think of his little son? He was but a boy after all, and had long since gone down the throats of the men of Mano. Besides, the Mano people were very strong and already had many guns.

So for an hour Baringa sat and chafed and watched; and then suddenly he and those with him sprang up, for a sound like thunder came over to them, and a cloud of white smoke curled up from the ship's side; she had fired one of her big guns. Presently Baringa and his people saw that the boat which had gone ashore was pulling back fast, and that some of the crew who were sitting in the stern were firing their muskets at the Mano people, who were pursuing the boat in six canoes. Twice again the ship fired a big gun, and then the boat was safe, for the two twenty-four pounders, loaded with grape-shot, smashed two of them to pieces when they were less than a hundred yards from the ship.

Baringa shouted with savage joy. 'Come,' he cried, 'let us hasten to the beach, and get quickly to the ship in our canoes; for now that the white men have fought with these Mano dogs, the ship will come here to us and anchor; for I, Baringa, am known to many white men.'

* * * * *


The name of the ship was the _Boadicea_. She was of about seven hundred tons, and was bound to China from Port Jackson, but for four months had remained among the islands of the New Hebrides group, where the crew had been cutting sandal-wood, which in those days was very plentiful there. Her captain, who was a very skilful navigator, instead of going through Torres Straits, had sailed between New Ireland and New Britain, so that he might learn the truth of some tales he had heard about the richness of those islands in sandal-wood and pearl shell. So he had cruised slowly along till he sighted Mano Island, and here he decided to water the ship; for from the deck was visible a fine stream of water, running from the forest-clad mountains down to the white sands of the quiet beach.

As soon as possible a boat was lowered and manned and armed; for although he could not see a native anywhere on the beach, nor any signs of human occupation elsewhere on the island, the captain was a very cautious man. A little further back from the beach was a very dense grove of coco-nut trees laden with fruit, and at these the crew of the Boadicea looked with longing eyes.

'We must water the ship first, my lads,' said Captain Williams, 'and then we'll spend the rest of the day among the coco-nut trees, and fill our boats with them.'

Just then as the bronze-faced captain was ascending to the poop from his cabin; a small barefooted boy came aft, and, touching his hat, said,--

'Av ye plaze, sor, won't ye let me go in the boat, sor?'

'Why, Maurice, my boy, there's quite enough of us going in her as it is,' said the captain, kindly, for the dirty-faced but bright-eyed Maurice Kinane was a favourite with everyone on board.

'Ah, but shure, sor,' pleaded the boy, 'av yer honour would just let me go, av it was only to pluck a blade av the foine green grass, and lave me face in the swate clane wather I'll be beholden--'

'Well, well, my lad, jump in then,' said Captain Williams, with a smile, and buckling his cutlass belt around his waist he sent the lad down the ladder before him and the boat pushed off.

* * * * *


Ten months before, this poor Irish lad, who was but thirteen years of age, had lost both his parents through the upsetting of a boat in Sydney Harbour. His father was a sergeant in the 77th Regiment, and had only arrived in the colony a few months previous to the accident, and the boy was left without a relative in the world. But the captain of his father's company and the other officers of the regiment were very kind to him, and the colonel said he would get him