The Floating Island (35 page)

It would not have been generous
to refuse these men a service so easy to render; and so the Governor gave his
permission, for which he was thanked by Captain Sarol, and also by the Maristes
of Tonga-Tabou, for whom these Malays had been imported.

Who could doubt that Captain
Sarol had in this way increased the number of his accomplices? that these New
Hebrideans would come to his assistance when he had need of them, and that he
could only congratulate himself at having met with them at Tonga-Tabou and
introduced them on to Floating Island?

This was the last day the
Milliardites were to spend in the archipelago, the departure being fixed for
the morning.

During the afternoon they were
able to be present at one of those half-civil, half-religious festivals in
which the natives take part with extraordinary enthusiasm.

The programme of these festivals,
to which the Tongans are as partial as their congeners in Samoa and the
Marquesas, comprises several dances. As these were of a kind to interest our
Parisians, they went ashore about three o’clock.

The superintendent accompanied
them, and this time Athanase Dorémus expressed a wish to join them. The
presence of a professor of dancing and deportment was surely appropriate at a
ceremony of this kind? Sebastien Zorn decided to follow his comrades, more
desirous, doubtless, of hearing the Tongan music than of looking at the
choregraphic eccentricities of the population.

When they arrived on the spot,
the festival was in full swing. The Kava liquor extracted from the dried root
of the pepper plant was circulating in gourds and flowing down the throats of a
hundred dancers, men and women, young men and girls, the girls having
coquettishly decorated their long hair, which they had to wear in that fashion
until their wedding-day.

The orchestra was of the
simplest. For instruments, the nasal flute known as the fanghu-fanghu, more
than a dozen nafas, as the drums are called, on which they thump vigorously, “and
even in time,” as Pinchinat remarked.

Evidently the highly superior
Athanase Dorémus felt the most perfect contempt for the dances, which did not
enter into the category of quadrilles, polkas, mazurkas, and waltzes of the
French school. And he did not fail to shrug his shoulders in protest against Yvernès,
to whom these dances appeared to be marked with real originality.

First there were seated dances,
composed of attitudes, pantomimic gestures, balancings of the body, to a rhythm
slow and sad and of strange effect.

To these succeeded standing
dances, in which the Tongans abandoned themselves to all the impetuosity of
their temperament, representing in pantomime the fury of warriors on the
war-path. The quartette looked at this spectacle from an artistic point of
view, and wondered what the natives would have done if they had been excited by
the fascinating music of a Parisian ball-room.

And then Pinchinat
—
the idea was
characteristic
—
proposed
to his comrades to send for their instruments from the casino, and treat these
dancers to the wildest six-eights and most formidable two-fours of Lecoq,
Audran, and Offenbach.

The proposal was agreed to, and
Calistus Munbar had no doubt that the effect would be prodigious.

Half an hour afterwards the
instruments had been brought, and the players began.

Immense surprise of the natives,
and also immense delight at listening to this violoncello and these three
violins, going at their loudest, and giving off music that was ultra-French.

The natives remained not
unaffected, and it was clearly proved that their characteristic dances are
instinctive, that they learn without masters
—
whatever
Athanase Dorémus might think. The men and women strove to outdo each other in
leaping and swaying when Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat
attacked the furious rhythms of
Orphée
 
aux Enfers
. The
superintendent could not contain himself, and took part in a wild quadrille,
while the professor of dancing and deportment veiled his face before such
horrors. At the height of this cacophony, in which mingled the nasal flutes and
the sonorous drums, the fury of the dancers attained its maximum of intensity,
and we know not where it would have stopped, if something had not happened to
put an end to this infernal choregraphy.

A Tongan
—
tall and very strong
—
wonder-struck at
the notes which the violoncellist drew from his instrument, hurled himself on
the violoncello, seized it, and rushed away with it, shouting, “Taboo! taboo!”

The violoncello was tabooed! It
could not be touched again without sacrilege! The high priest, King George, the
dignitaries of his court, the whole population of the island would rise, if
this sacred custom were violated.

Sebastien Zorn did not care about
this. He had no idea of parting with this masterpiece of Gand and Benardel. Off
he went after the thief. In a moment his comrades were following in pursuit.
There was a general stampede.

But the Tongan sprang along with
such speed that they had to give up their attempt to catch him. In a few
minutes he was far away, very far away.

Sebastien Zorn and the others,
unable to do more, returned to find Calistus Munbar, out of breath. To say that
the violoncellist was in a state of indescribable fury would be insufficient.
He foamed, he choked! Tabooed or not, they would have to give him back his
instrument. Even if Floating Island had to declare war against Tonga-Tabou
—
and had not war
broken out for less serious motives?
—
the
violoncello must be restored to its owner.

Fortunately, the authorities of
the island had intervened in the matter. An hour later they had caught the
native, and obliged him to bring back the instrument. The restitution was not
effected without trouble, and a crisis was only just avoided in which the
ultimatum of Cyrus Bikerstaff might, on this question of taboo, have perhaps
raised the religious passions of the whole archipelago.

But the breaking of the taboo had
to take place in regular form, according to the usual ceremonies. As was
customary, a considerable number of pigs had their throats cut, and were cooked
in a hole filled with hot stones, and there were sweet potatoes, taros, and
macore fruits, which were also afterwards eaten, to the extreme satisfaction of
the Tongan stomachs.

The violoncello had its strings
let down in the fray, and Sebastien Zorn had to tune it up again, after
ascertaining that it had lost none of its qualities by reason of the
incantations of the natives.

In
leaving Tonga-Tabou, Floating Island steered northwest towards the Fiji
archipelago, moving away from the tropic in the track of the sun, which was
mounting towards the Equator. There was no need for haste. Two hundred leagues
only separated it from the Fijian group, and Commodore Simcoe took it along at
moderate speed.

The breeze was variable, but what
mattered the breeze to this powerful concern? If, now and then, violent storms
broke on this twenty-third parallel, the Pearl of the Pacific did not even dream
of being anxious. The electricity which saturated the atmosphere was drawn off
by the numerous conductors with which its buildings were provided. As to the
rain, even in the torrents that the storm-clouds poured down, it was welcome.
The park and the country grew verdant under it, rare as it was. Life passed
under the most fortunate conditions, amid festivals, concerts, receptions. At
this time, friendly communications between the sections were frequent, and it
seemed as though nothing would threaten their safety in the future.

Cyrus Bikerstaff had no reason to
repent of having given a passage to the New Hebrideans embarked at Captain Sard’s
request. These natives endeavoured to make themselves useful. They set to work
in the fields, as they had done at Tonga. Sarol and his Malays hardly left them
during the day, and at night they returned to the two ports in which the
municipality had given them quarters. No complaint was made against them.
Perhaps an opportunity offered for converting them. Up to then they had not
adopted Christianity, like a large number of the New Hebrides population,
despite the efforts of the Anglican and Catholic missionaries. The clergy of
Floating Island had considered this, but the Governor would allow no attempt of
such a nature.

These New Hebrideans are between
twenty and forty years of age. Darker in hue than the Malays, although they are
not so well built as the natives of Tonga or Samoa, they were apparently
endowed with more endurance. The little money that they had earned in the
service of the Maristes of Tonga-Tabou, they kept with great care, and did not
attempt to spend in alcoholic drinks, which would not readily have been sold to
them. Being free of all expense, they had probably never been so happy in their
savage archipelago.

Thanks to Captain Sarol, these
natives would unite with their compatriots, and connive at the work of
destruction, the hour of which was approaching. Then all their native ferocity
would appear. Were they not the descendants of the murderers who have so
formidable a reputation among the people of this part of the Pacific?

Meanwhile, the Milliardites lived
in the thought that nothing could compromise an existence which had been so
logically provided for and so wisely organized. The quartette continued their
successful career. People were never tired of hearing them or applauding them.
The works of Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Mendelssohn, were run through
completely.

Besides the regular concerts at
the casino, Mrs. Coverley gave musical evenings, which were largely attended.
The King and Queen of Malecarlie many times honoured them with their presence.
If the Tankerdons had not yet visited the mansion in the Fifteenth Avenue, at
least Walter had become assiduous in his attendance at the concerts. It was
certain that his marriage with Miss Coverley would come off some day or other.
It was talked about openly in the Starboardite and Larboardite drawing-rooms.
Even the witnesses to the inevitable marriage were named. The only thing
wanting was the announcement from the heads of the families. Would anything
happen that would oblige Jem Tankerdon and Nat Coverley to make it?

This circumstance, so impatiently
expected, was soon about to take place. But at the cost of what danger, and how
greatly the safety of Floating Island was menaced!

In the afternoon of the 16th of
January, at about halfway between Tonga and Fiji,, a ship was signalled in the
south-east. It seemed to be heading for Starboard Harbour, and was apparently a
steamer of some eight hundred tons. No flag floated from its peak, and none was
hoisted when it was within a mile of the island.

The ship did not attempt to enter
one of the harbours, but apparently was passing, and doubtless would soon be
out of sight.

The night came, very dark and
moonless. The sky was covered with lofty fleecy clouds, which absorbed all the
light and reflected none. There was no wind. The calm was absolute in sea and
sky. The silence was profound amid the thick darkness.

About eleven o’clock came an
atmospheric change. The weather became very stormy. The air. was rent by
lightning until midnight, and the growls of the thunder continued, without a
drop of rain falling.

Perhaps these rumblings, due to
some distant storm, prevented the Customs’ officers on duty about the Stern
Battery from hearing strange hissings and curious roarings, which troubled this
part of the coast. These were not the hiss of the lightning or the rumbling of
the thunder. The phenomenon, whatever it was, did not occur until between two
and three o’clock in the morning.

Next day a new cause of
uneasiness spread in the outer quarters of the town. The men engaged in
watching the flocks pasturing in the country were seized with a sudden panic
and dispersed in all directions, some towards the ports and some towards the
gate of Milliard City.

A serious fact was that fifty
sheep had been half devoured during the night, and their remains were found in
the vicinity of Stern Battery. A few dozen cows, hinds, bucks, in the
enclosures of the park, and some twenty horses had met with the same fate.

No doubt these animals had been
attacked by wild beasts. What wild beasts? Lions, tigers, leopards, hyænas? Was
that improbable? Had any of these formidable carnivores ever appeared on
Floating Island? Could it be possible for these animals to arrive by sea? Was
the Pearl of the Pacific in the neighbourhood of the Indies, of Africa, of
Malaysia, the former of which comprises these varieties of ferocious animals?

No! Floating Island was not near
the mouth of the Amazon, or the mouth of the Nile, and yet, about seven o’clock
in the morning two women ran into the square of the town hall who had been
pursued by an enormous alligator, which had regained the banks of the
Serpentine River and disappeared in the water. At the same time the agitation
of the plants along the banks indicated that other saurians were struggling
there at that very moment.

The effect of this incredible
news can be judged. An hour afterwards the look-outs noticed several tigers,
lions, and leopards bounding across the country. Several sheep running towards
Prow Battery were attacked by two immense tigers. The domestic animals began to
run about in all directions, terrified at the roar of the wild beasts. And so
did the men whose occupations called them out into the fields in the morning.
The first tram for Larboard Harbour had barely time to run into the siding.
Three lions had pursued it, and in a hundred yards more would have reached it.