CHAPTER VIII
AVAO, TAPAU OF UKULA
THE morning following the arrival of the schooner, Phil and Sydney were on deck early. The “Talofa” was still at anchor. The canoe barges were lying alongside the dock at the store of the Kapuan firm. Herzovinian colors were flying on the schooner. Phil had given his friend a full account of the perplexing happenings of the night before.
“If the schooner brought guns where are they now?” Phil asked.
Sydney shook his head. “Ask me something easier,” he replied. “I’m not good at conundrums.”
After morning quarters and drill the midshipmen dressed for a visit ashore. This was only the second day of their arrival and each was full of eager interest to explore. Their shipmates poked much good-natured fun at them for their strenuosity.
“Hitting the beach before lunch?” the doctor inquired with mock gravity. “I’m afraid I’ll have to examine your sanity.”
After landing they walked along the main road toward the Kapuan firm’s store. As they passed, the portly figure of Klinger could be seen within the doorway, while on the porch a score or more of large boxes were displayed to view. A glance at the barges lying at the wooden dock showed them to be empty. The cargo had been discharged during the night.
“The ‘Talofa’s’ getting up anchor,” Sydney suddenly exclaimed.
The schooner’s mainsail had been set and the crew were plainly seen heaving around the capstan, weighing the anchor.
“The count is off on his cruise about the islands,” Phil said. “I wonder,” he added thoughtfully, “if those boxes really do contain arms?”
“Very likely,” his companion answered, “but come on. You can’t look through their wooden sides.”
At the house of Chief Tuamana, Avao met them with a demure smile of welcome on her comely face.
“Missi Alice is here,” she cried out to them joyously as she took each by the hand and led them into the cool shelter under her father’s roof tree.
The midshipmen glanced about for Alice. The big room was deserted, but from behind the tapa curtain came much merry laughter, and finally Alice appeared dragging with her two very shy young native girls.
“We’re going to make Kava Fa’a Kapua,”[15] she said as she seated herself native fashion, “and then we’re going out to ‘Jumping Rock’ for a swim. If you care to go we shall be delighted to have you join us,” she told the midshipmen.
Avao brought out a small piece of kava root, holding it out for Alice to inspect.
“I’m the alii,”[16] Alice said. “I’m supposed to judge if the root is of good quality before the Tapau chews it.”
“Chews it!” Phil exclaimed. “I thought it was to be a drink.”
“So it is,” Alice replied, thoroughly enjoying the depth of Phil’s ignorance of the Kapuan custom. “Avao is the ‘Tapau’; she will chew the kava root; look!” she exclaimed admiringly.
The midshipmen turned their eyes toward Avao. Her cheeks were already bulging as she sat stoically ruminating the root while one of the other girls fed her from time to time an additional sliver.
For fully fifteen minutes Avao was busily engaged in reducing the root to a pulpy mass which finally she held in her hand and then put into the kava bowl beside her.
Next came the washing. Pure water was poured carefully over the mass and Avao daintily cleansed her hands and then gracefully squatted before the bowl.
While one girl poured water slowly into the bowl, Avao kneaded the material vigorously. The liquid soon began to assume a greenish tinge, and the midshipmen involuntarily shuddered at the idea of drinking the concoction.
“Do you know, kava never agrees with me,” Phil said in an aside, in order not to hurt the feelings of their native friends, “especially in the morning.”
“I never could see anything in it either,” Sydney answered. “I’d much prefer a lemonade or a drink of cocoanut milk.”
Alice overheard the remarks and smiled wickedly. “This is probably the last real cup of kava you’ll get,” she said. “The chewing has gone out of fashion since the fomais[17] have taught the Kapuans about the spread of germs. We got this up especially for your benefit.”
“It was awfully good of you,” Phil acknowledged miserably, “but really I don’t believe I need any kava this morning.”
Avao was now working a strainer[18] to and fro in the liquid. The grace of her motions was delightful to see and elicited much admiration from the midshipmen. Finally, with a last fleck of the strainer, she dropped it into the bowl and clapped her shapely hands.
All present took up the clapping. It was the sign that the kava was ready to be served.
The midshipmen dreaded the ordeal. “I feel like a kid about to be given a dose of bad medicine,” Sydney whispered.
One of the attendant girls then arose with “hipu”[19] in hand. She held the cocoanut shell cup over the bowl, while Avao squeezed the liquid into it from the strainer. The midshipmen were amazed at the charm and grace in every movement. Each time the strainer was squeezed the cup bearer swung the cup in a circle. She then faced about and, with the cup held at the level of her dainty chin, directed her dark eyes toward Phil.
“I’m it,” he groaned.
Alice, bubbling over with mischief, exclaimed: “A cup of kava for Mr. Perry.”
The next second the cup of greenish liquid, after a graceful underhand curve, as the girl bent her knees, was held before the disconsolate lad.
“Cheer up,” Sydney exclaimed. “Hold your nose and shut your eyes and she’ll give you something to make you wise.”
Phil took the cup gingerly. To his horror it was nearly full to the brim.
“Must I drink it all?” he asked Alice nervously.
“If you don’t, I am afraid Avao will look for another ‘felinge,’” she replied teasingly.
“Count for me, Syd,” Phil said, “and when you see the folks at home, say I died game.”
He calmly swallowed the contents without drawing breath, and handed the cup back to the girl.
“Thanks awfully, no more just now,” he said laughing, happy the ordeal was over.
“What’s it like?” Sydney asked.
“More like drinking slate pencils than anything else I can imagine.”
Sydney drank his, shuddering slightly at the bitter taste. All the others, including Alice, drank as if they thoroughly enjoyed it.
“You get accustomed to it,” Alice explained. “The Kapuans drink it as we do coffee or tea.”
After kava was over the lads found that native ponies had been provided by Avao, and within a half hour the cavalcade started. A dozen or more of Kapuan men brought up the rear on foot, carrying many kinds of fruit and edibles wrapped in banana leaves.
Alice and Avao led the procession, while the midshipmen came next. They trotted along a sylvan path for about a mile, then in single file through the wet “bush.”
“It was lucky for us we happened along,” Phil said to Alice as they halted to admire a great banyan tree close to the path.
“It was only by accident I am here, too,” she answered. “Tuamana, Avao’s father, and all the chiefs loyal to Panu, are in council at the ‘Jumping Rock.’ The girls are taking their feast to them.”
“Oh!” Phil exclaimed. “Maybe they will not be glad to see us.”
“The Kapuan is always delighted to have papalangi at his feasts,” Alice assured him; “especially as they know the Americans are very friendly to Panu’s claim to the throne. The Kataafa chiefs might not be so cordial if we dropped in on them.”
The two midshipmen were amazed at the sight when the place chosen for the council had been reached. A score or more of warriors were found squatting in the grass near the huge rock over which the Vaisaigo stream plunged. A large pool of dark water below the falls was thus kept filled, and where the solid stream curved and fell the blackness was changed to white foam and iridescent spray.
They found the council was over. The business having been finished the chiefs were ready to eat and then after a time bathe in the deep pool beneath them.
Tuamana made the midshipmen and Alice sit beside him, and all the best things to eat were pressed upon the visitors.
“I’m glad there’s no more kava,” Phil said in an aside to Alice.
After the feast, consisting of roast young pig, yams, breadfruit, roast chicken and many kinds of tropical fruit, Tuamana called Avao to him. The father talked to his daughter fully fifteen minutes. Phil noticed that both were serious and solemn. Alice had meanwhile risen and wandered away with two of her Kapuan girl friends, to gather the many variegated flowers and leaves so plentiful in the virgin forests. The lads, left to themselves, eyed in wonder the warrior chiefs seated now in small groups; some were motionless, a look of deep contemplation upon their intelligent bronze faces, while others talked, but with the same solemn expression. Each wore the fighting head-dress of human hair, standing above a band of gleaming pearl-shell knobs clasped around the forehead. In the center of this marvelous, barbaric creation of a head-dress and to add picturesqueness and color, a bunch of long red feathers plucked from the boatswain bird waved in the breeze, while in the middle of each forehead, reflecting the sunlight as it filtered through the dense foliage above them, was a small mirror. About their necks were hung necklaces of the scarlet pandanus fruit. About their waists and hanging half-way to their knees were tapa and mats of finely woven grass. Below this their only covering, the indigo tattooing, was visible above their knees. Every warrior when he reaches manhood must submit to the old women tattooers; they cover the would-be warrior with their intricate designs from the waist to the knee, and to refuse to be tattooed is considered by a Kapuan a crime against manhood.
Many of the warrior chiefs, as they arose to cool themselves in the icy cold waters of the Vaisaigo, stopped and shook hands with the two officers.
“They seem to think there is a tacit understanding between them and ourselves,” Phil said to Sydney as one chief after shaking hands brought his “fui”[20] to his shoulder as if it were a gun and took aim at an imaginary enemy. “I wonder if there is,” he added thoughtfully. “That chap’s sign language either means you are going to furnish him a gun, or that he and we are going gunning together after the same human game.”
Avao, after being dismissed by her father, at once took Phil and Sydney by the hand, as is the Kapuan custom, and led the lads to the side of the pool.
In a few minutes the deep pool was a lively scene; men and women were jumping one after another from the top of the rock, full thirty feet, into the deep pool below.
After one or two jumps the lads decided that to watch the sport was more interesting than engaging in it. The icy cold water was deliciously refreshing but soon chilled them to the marrow.
“I see the reason for the plentiful use of cocoanut oil,” Sydney chattered as they donned their clothes. “The natives are in the water most of the time, either in the ocean or in one of these mountain streams, and the water flows off them like off a duck’s back. We with our unoiled dry skins get the chill from evaporation.”
“I’d rather have the chill,” Phil replied, shivering to keep Sydney company.
“What is the reason of this meeting, anyway?” Sydney asked. “Has it a meaning?”
“I have an idea,” Phil said, “that Tuamana was displeased with Avao for bringing us. Did you notice that as soon as Alice Lee was led away by her two girl friends, the chief called Avao to him? I think he was laying down the law to her.”
“I think you must be wrong, Phil,” Sydney replied shaking his head. “Every one seemed so glad to see us.”
“The Kapuans are noted as the most generous and friendly nation in the world,” Phil returned. “It’s almost a religion with them. To hurt a stranger’s feelings by rebuke or inhospitality is something rarely known to have happened. But come on,” he ended. “I see our party beckoning us.”
They clambered up the side of the ragged rock and were soon where their ponies were tethered.
Alice called the midshipmen to her side.
“It’s unfortunate for you that we came,” she said, but her eager, excited face showed no sign of sorrow.
“I thought so,” Phil exclaimed. “What is it, though?”
“The council has prepared a ‘tonga-fiti’[21] on the Kapuan firm, and you two American officers having been here at the council, Klinger will not believe you are innocent.” Alice could not keep back her joyful smile. “Klinger will probably say you put the Kapuans up to it.”
“What are they going to do?” both lads asked in one breath.
“They have heard of the landing of the guns for Kataafa from the ‘Talofa,’” she replied excitedly, “and to-night they are going to break into the store if necessary, open the boxes and seize the guns. They say that this is the only way they can overcome the great advantage in warriors that Kataafa has over Panu, their choice for king. Then they are to turn the guns over to Judge Lindsay.”
“Gee!” Phil exclaimed. “What a box for us to be in. Who told you? Avao?” he asked.
Alice nodded. “Tuamana gave her a severe scolding and told her to say nothing, but of course you know women, and Kapuan women in particular, would die in keeping a secret, so she confided in all of us while you were in swimming.”
“What are we going to do?” Sydney asked after they had mounted their ponies and were riding slowly down the steep bush trail.
“I wish Avao had kept her secret,” Phil replied, annoyed. “Knowing this we must take our information to Commander Tazewell at once; but don’t say anything before Miss Alice. She is too thoroughly Kapuan to understand our reasons.”
Sydney readily agreed.