BY this time Tamate and Tamate Vaine had friends in hundreds of homes in New Guinea. The teachers from Rarotonga had grown into strong, good men and women. Their love for Tamate was like the love of children to a father. The little girls and boys at the village schools rushed to welcome the great white chief and his wife, and shrieked with laughter when they tried to speak the strange words of new tribes.
Many natives too had learned to love Tamate’s Master. All life was changed for them because Tamate had come to New Guinea, and they felt for him a love that was deeper and stronger than their love for life. Often they went with him when they thought it was to death.
But Tamate had other friends, men who thought they knew better than he did, and who still worshipped cruel spirits as their fathers had done. Very many of them were true friends to Tamate, and found a big place in his heart and life. He loved them for their own sakes, and he loved them because he hoped that one day they too would love his Master.
When Tamate left Motu-motu, Aveo was one of these friends. He lived at a very wild place farther west than Motu-motu.
Aveo was a great chief, but he seemed much more than a chief to the people who knew him. He had charms, and they thought that the strange spirit they feared was in him, and that he could make famines and storms and earthquakes. They feared that he would use his charms against them unless they gave him many gifts. When their canoes were lying deep in the water laden with sago, and they were ready to sail away, they gave arm shells and pigs to him and asked him to give them calm weather!
Tamate’s first visit to Aveo was a strange one. He had heard much about the charms, and he wished to see them. Aveo had seen him before and was eager to welcome him. He made a feast. While the food was being cooked they sat and talked. Tamate asked about the charms. He found that Aveo believed in them himself as thoroughly as other natives did.
“Let me see those charms, Aveo.”
“Tamate,” said Aveo, “you are now my friend. If I showed you these things you would die. No one but myself must see them.”
“Aveo, there is no chance of my dying or even being sick by seeing your things.”
“Never, my friend Tamate, never.”
“It is all right, Aveo, they can do me no harm.”
A native who was listening said, “You may let him see them. They will not hurt him. He goes everywhere and sees everything, and he is all right.”
Aveo sighed and looked strangely at Tamate. Then he said, “I am afraid, but I will think about it.”
At night Tamate lay down to sleep. His hammock was slung on the platform of a village house. He was very tired, but when he lay down he could not sleep. The night was hot and the air heavy. Strange noises rose to his ears from the other houses of the village and from the wild bush all round. About midnight another noise sounded through those vague ones. It was the sound of the fall of a naked foot on the palm fronds of the platform. It came nearer and nearer. Then a hand touched him and a voice whispered:
“Are you asleep?”
“No, I am not. Is it you, Aveo?”
“Yes, do you really wish to see those things?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Are you sure they won’t kill you? Will you not get sick and then die after you have seen them?”
“I am afraid, greatly afraid, but come with me!”
Tamate slipped from his hammock and followed Aveo in and out through the village, till they came to the last house. It was built on the ground, not on stilts like the other houses. Aveo led the way, first through one room, then through another, till they came to a very small room in which a low fire burned.
When they were both inside it, Aveo put up a door across the opening by which they had entered, so that no one could see into the room. Then he piled wood on the flickering fire and soon the flames flashed up and lighted the dark corners and the two dim figures.
Then Aveo fetched a netted bag. It was small and dirty, but he handled it with great care. He opened the bag a little. Then he stopped.
“That must be enough, Tamate. You will die if I go on, and what then will I do?”
“No, Aveo, I will not die, so do not fear.”
Then Aveo took out a parcel. It was bound up with fibres of cocoanut and native cloth made of bark. Tamate watched and watched. He began to think there was nothing except string and cloth. The logs were smouldering and everything was dim again. Tamate stirred the fire. A blaze lit up the room. Aveo stopped unwinding the fibre, and looked at Tamate. He could not see him well, for his eyes were full of tears, and tears were on his cheeks. His hands shook as he held the little parcel. He faltered, “O Tamate, you will die.”
“No, Aveo, no; I am all right. Go on.”
Then the last bit of cloth was unrolled, and Aveo put three little pieces of wood on the mat. The light from the logs fell on them. They looked like two little dolls and a tiny club. They were very old. Only one man could use them at a time. Long, long ago a father had given them to his son. He had told his son that his father had given them to him. Then the son had given them to his son. No one knew how old they were. No one had heard of a time when they had not been handed down from a father to a son. No one living had seen them except Aveo and Tamate.
Tamate wished to buy them, but Aveo would not sell them. He put them carefully away again. Then Tamate said to him, “Some day a man will come to live in your village. He will tell you of the God who made all things, and who loves us. After that you will not want these things any more. Promise that you will not sell them except to me.”
Aveo smiled, for he was sure he would always wish to keep his charms. He said, “Yes, should it ever happen! I will give these things to my son when I have taught him all.”
Then Tamate found his way back to his hammock and fell asleep.
Aveo came to him another night. This time he brought his sleeping-mat with him. His white friend was going away next morning, and Aveo wished to sleep beside him, or rather to stay beside him, for he did not try to sleep. He talked eagerly of a voyage he had made to Motu-motu and of the kindness that Mr. and Mrs. Lawes had shown him. All at once he stopped and began to sing to himself sadly.
Tamate said, “Aveo, what are you doing? Why have you left off your story so suddenly?”
Aveo pointed to the north. “When I see those two stars,” he said, “I always do this. My father taught me. I know the spirit of the sea hears me. May I go on?”
“Yes, go on.”
After the song was over, Aveo told Tamate about the spirits of the earth and the sea and the sky, till morning came.
When Tamate left Motu-motu to go far west to the wildest tribes of all, who lived near the Fly River, Aveo still trusted in his charms and in his songs to the spirits of the earth and sky and sea.
Many years afterwards, Tamate came back from the Fly River to see his old friends and to cheer the teachers who lived in the villages along the shore. When he reached the village where Aveo lived, the news of his coming spread quickly, and Aveo hurried to the teacher’s house to see his old friend. After they had greeted each other, Aveo said, “What about those things, Tamate?”
“What things?”
“Why, have you forgotten them?”
Then suddenly the white man remembered the night he had spent in Aveo’s village long ago, and the magic charms he had seen there.
“I remember them well,” he said; “what of them?”
“Do you want them now?”
“Yes; will you sell them to me?”
“No—no payment, Tamate. At night when no one is about I will bring them to you.”
At night Aveo came creeping in. He peered all round. He saw two men looking in at a door. They had been watching Tamate as he wrote. Aveo wished no one to see. He said, “Send these men away.”
When he saw that all the windows and doors were shut, he opened his bag and unwound the parcel as before. It was not so eerie as it had been in his own little room, with the gleaming logs.
Although Aveo no longer used his charms it was not easy for him to part with them, and Tamate was so much afraid that he would be sorry and ask them back again, that whenever he got the bag with its strange little dolls, he hurried down to his ship that lay at anchor near the shore. He could talk more happily with Aveo, when he knew that the charms were safely locked up on board.
Next morning Mr. Chalmers set sail for another village. There was a heavy sea rolling, and the little ship was driven against a point of rock. Although Aveo had tried to hide his charms from every one when he took them to Tamate, the natives had found out that they were on board. Though many of these men loved Jesus Christ, they could scarcely believe that the charms had no power at all. When the ship struck the reef they said, “Tamate has Aveo’s things, and the ship is wrecked and Tamate drowned.”
But in spite of the stormy seas every one reached land safely. The ship was floated off the reef and mended, and in a day or two Tamate and the charms sailed away out of the bay.