Chapter 11 - The widow queen
All noise ceased abruptly and the branches, which had stirred a little earlier, were still again.
«Who lives?» Blake repeated, stopping at the edge of the forest, «Answer or I'll fire!».
«Was it some monkey?» Jody asked.
"Monkeys don't leave the trees, especially at night. I heard whispering in the middle of that bush" Kaj said.
"They don't dare show themselves, so let's go find them ourselves. We are armed». Kaj offered.
They advanced towards the bush and spread the fronds.
«What are you doing here and why are you hiding?» Blake asked.
Two men huddled close together under the leaves, they looked scared, but they had no weapons in their hands.
«Come out, you have nothing to fear» said the fisherman, in the Indian language.
The two islanders looked at each other, then stood up and stared at Blake as he held the rifle.
«Don't kill us» one of them said in a trembling voice.
Blake and Jody knew the Indian language too, which is spoken on the islands, Blake reassured him:
«We don't want to hurt you, we are not enemies. Follow us. There is also space for you by the fire and there is also some roast to fill you up».
The two did not beg and followed them towards the colossal turtle. They were two small men, five feet tall, thin to show ribs, almost black skin, thick lips, and slightly slanted eyes. They had no ornaments and their dress was a vegetable skirt.
«Eat and then you will talk» Blake offered him a shell full of meat, when an immense clamor arose in the middle of the bush, followed by shouts and screams, alternating with singing that seemed funeral, to a monotonous rhythm with blows of gong and tom-tom.
The two islanders stood up suddenly, frightened, trembling.
«What happens?» Kaj asked, standing up with the others.
«The village chief is dead» an islander said.
«And do they have funerals for him?»
«Yes, white man.»
«Why are you afraid?»
The islander was perplexed, then said:
«We are slaves of the leader. So we had to be buried alive with him, to escort and serve him in the afterlife».
«And did you run away?»
«Yes sir, he was a powerful man, owner of four villages.»
«And his heirs wanted to bury you with him?»
«This is the use, sir. There were four of us, including two women, but now they will have already been killed».
«Have they seen you flee?» Blake asked.
«No, sir, but sure they'll come looking for us.»
«Jody, put out the fire and take the wood to the raft. Let's get ready to leave» Blake ordered.
Now he was the one who organized the trip and had more experience.
«I will never let them kill these poor people.»
They put out the fire, so as not to attract attention, loaded the lifeboat with thick branches, then hid in the woods. They did not intend to leave the island, they did not want to be on the ship's route, because they were sure that the hunt had not stopped and they had to load food.
«If we are discovered» said Blake «we will embark and look for some other refuge».
The singing and screaming had not stopped.
«When will they bury him?» Kaj asked an islander, who listened with anguish.
«Tomorrow at dawn.»
«Will they scream all night?»
«Yes, sir. They have a lot of arak to drink.»
«For my part I will sleep equally. I'm used to the sounds of the sea and the hissing of the wind. Who wants to take the first watch?».
«I'll do it, Mr. Blake» Jody replied.
«Open your eyes well and also observe the sea; the steamboat must not be long in appearing.»
While the machinist armed himself with the rifle, the other two lay down on a layer of fresh leaves and closed their eyes. The two slaves, in deep anguish, eagerly spied the edge of the forest. Perhaps it seemed they had not yet noticed their escape and the screams were far away.
Jody's shift passed without incident, when, around midnight, he woke up Kaj, still no one had shown up and the cries were less acute.
«I think these two little men got scared for no reason. Nobody thinks about them anymore, but be careful Kaj, let's not trust them».
«Did you see anything on the side of the sea?» he asked.
«No bright spots. Either the steamboat has its cars destroyed or it is still far away, or maybe it has given up on pursuit. Good night».
Kaj explored to the edge of the woods and then to the lifeboat and returned to the camp where the two slaves had fallen asleep. The cries of the islanders were heard only occasionally. The aak, the liqueur obtained from fruit must have triumphed, taking away their tongue and legs.
On one of those patrols, as he was about to return to the camp, he heard a sudden clucking in the bushes and soon after several large birds flew away.
Kaj was alarmed. They must have been frightened by someone, to leave their nests in the middle of the night.
It could have been an animal or perhaps some snake, but something else as well. He cautiously retreated to the camp, which was covered by a group of wild banana trees, and listened.
A few minutes later he heard singing a cuckoo, a bird typical of those islands. Singing at night is not natural. That too was scared.
He bent over Blake and woke him up, shaking him.
«Prepare to leave, sir» he said, «we'll come back here later to complete our supplies, if we're fooled».
«Who threatens us then?»
«I'm sure the islanders have discovered our camp and prudence advises us to embark. The steamboat may appear at any moment and they could alert its commander of our presence».
Kaj had already made the machinist and the two slaves stand up, when suddenly a band of armed men with axes and clubs came out of the forest, running towards them and screaming frightfully.
«Get behind me!» Blake yelled at the slaves, who were shouting heartbreakingly, as if they already had knives on their necks. He snatched the rifle from Kaj and pointed it at the attackers, shouting in Indian language:
«Stop or I'll fire!»
The gang stopped. There were about fifty savages, taller than the two slaves and much stouter, adorned with white shells around their necks and arms, with tall bamboo combs in their crimped hair, their skin dyed red ocher to strike terror.
Then other natives came out of the forest, carrying flaming branches like torches and escorting a short, young woman with beautiful features. From her shirt, quilted in gold, large bracelets protruded and she wore a diadem of pearls that adorned her head.
Blake quickly realized that he belonged to a noble caste.
«Who are you?» he asked her when she was close, «What do you want? I am a European and therefore I am inviolable».
The woman looked at him curiously as her warriors respectfully widened their ranks, then replied:
«I come to reclaim the two slaves who have fled from my village: they must follow my husband, the great chief Kanai-Tur, who will be buried at dawn».
«Those two men are under my protection and I will not surrender them.» said Blake in a firm voice. «When a European touches a person of another color with his hands, that person becomes inviolable».
The woman frowned, astonished at not being immediately obeyed, then continued:
«This is not your country and no one has called you here, so you are a foreigner and as such you must obey the laws of my country. Those two slaves belong to me and I will have them».
She gave her warriors a quick nod. Immediately these with a lightning move attacked the three convicts, sending wild screams. Blake, believing he was frightening them, fired over their heads, but only made them more furious.
Four warriors threw themselves on him, holding him still, while the others surrounded the machinist and the pearl fisherman.
The two slaves, instead of taking advantage to save themselves in the woods, were behind the Englishman still hoping for his protection, when they were grabbed by twenty hands.
«Woe to those who touch them!» Blake yelled, trying in vain to free himself from those who were holding him.
His voice was lost in the screams of the islanders and they were dragged away, then they were killed with two formidable blows of clubs that smashed their heads and their bleeding and martyred bodies placed one on top of the other.
Kaj, fearing that the same fate would also befall Blake, with a quick move got rid of those who were holding him.
«To me, Jody!» he shouted «Let's sweep these scoundrels and free Mr. Blake».
If this was possible for that giant of Kaj, who possessed enormous strength, it was impossible for Jody, who was not very strong and had already seen his gun snatched from his hand before using it.
But the pearl fisherman did not hesitate for a moment to engage the fight. With two terrible punches he electrocuted two warriors who tried to close his way, then rushed at the others, trying to break through the group.
He was about to succeed, when he felt a net fall on him that imprisoned him completely paralyzing him.
«We're fried» Blake yelled, seeing the savages rushing to Kaj and tightening him with ropes.
��How will this adventure end now?» Jody thought «Will they make us suffer the same fate as the two slaves to honor the memory of the late leader?».
They understood that by now any resistance would be useless, especially since poor Jody too had been imprisoned in another net and had let his wrists be tied behind his back, without protesting.
The islanders, after loading the bodies of the slaves on stretchers hastily built with branches, dragged the three forced wretches with them.
The chief's widow preceded them, escorted by the men carrying torches. After a quarter of an hour, they came to a clearing, in the middle of which were built two or three hundred huts of beautiful appearance, with walls formed of bamboo and roofs covered with coconut leaves.
People were lying around giant fires where they roasted beef quarters, singing and drinking arak. The three prisoners were almost run through the crowd, then ushered into one of those huts.
«What do you want to do with us?» Blake asked the widow «Be careful, I am a European and the two men accompanying me are my friends, and don't forget that soon my steamboat, which has cannons, will arrive in the bay».
«First you will attend my husband's funeral» she replied, «then the sub-chiefs of the four villages that depend on me will decide your fate».
After making them free from ropes and nets, they closed the door behind them, blocking it with some tree trunks, to prevent them from escaping.