My mistake. Stevenson went on to a point that I had hoped to avoid: “A man named Lionel Hines came to the house recently. Grotesque man.”
“I’m sorry to hear you have any unpleasant callers,” Davenport said, expertly skating around the fact we knew Hines. It seemed there was more on Stevenson’s mind, and I wondered if bringing us out here, putting us in this vulnerable atmosphere, was more deliberate than it seemed. If Hines had said something about one of us that I hadn’t been able to hear. . . I looked over and could tell Davenport’s thoughts followed the same track. “Did the man say something to . . . cause you distress, Tusitala?”
“He did,” he said, slowing down a little more. “Oh, that Hines is all wheels and no horse. But he carried a wire that he picked up for me from the British consul. It was a warning. There is a movement back in England to have me deported from Samoa.”
“Whatever for?”
“As an appeasement to the Germans, Mr. Fergins. As I’m certain you’ve come to understand by now, they are the Gulliver among the Lilliputians here. The Germans have never liked what they call my interference on the island and their ambassadors in London have pressured the British parliament to do something about it. Me, caught in the talons of politics! Success in the political field appears to be nothing more than the organization of failure enlivened with defamation of character. It is awfully funny—no, I change my mind; it is sad. Nobody but these cursed liars could have so driven me. I cannot bear liars.”
“What would happen if the measure passed the legislature?” I asked.
“Simply stated, I would have to leave Samoa immediately or be arrested. My family, also. Belle would surely be pleased, she is so anglified. She misses life in a city with its glamour and sameness. As for Fanny, well, when she feels well enough she adapts to island life quite a bit more than she will admit. She thinks she has followed me here, but sometimes I think she led us all. It is either gold or poison, to be here.”
“There are worse punishments than returning to Scotland,” Davenport said.
Stevenson threw back his head and made a slow murmuring sound. “If only I could secure a violent death.”
“Pardon?”
“What a fine success!” Stevenson continued, spurring Jack into a canter as he lost himself in his thoughts. “I wish to die in my boots, you see, Mr. Porter. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from this horse into a ditch, Mr. Fergins—aye, to be hanged, rather than pass through the slow dissolution of illnesses!”
“High heaven forbid, Tusitala!” It was startling to hear a man—a great man—talk about dying in such a cavalier way. This speechifying about his own death continued as we went through a poorly cut path through the bushes, until we came upon a sight that made him quiet and would have made me scream if I had not lost my ability to make any sound. Three stakes had been speared into the ground, a human head on each of them.
Stevenson removed his old yachting cap from his head. He was guiding Jack around the sight in a circle and studying it with a scientist’s eye. “‘Lord, what fools these mortals be,’” he said. Then he dismounted. “Fresh,” he reported evenly.
I turned the head of my horse away. Davenport, jaw slack, actually inched his animal closer to the horrible display, though his boots were twitching, ready to spur away from it. “How on earth do you know that?” asked the bookaneer, swallowing hard. “How do you know the heads are fresh, Tusitala?”
“I have seen enough of them on the island to know. When war comes to Samoa, Mr. Porter, heads are taken. Those must not be more than a week or two old.”
I forced myself to look again and tried to examine the horrible sight, but quickly concluded there was nothing to learn from their neutral, almost bored faces. The skin was very dark and the thick hair blown by the breeze. I had to choke down the breakfast rushing up my throat.
“But the Samoans are not in a war,” I protested when I found my voice.
“Not at present, Mr. Fergins, no. The natives never want a war; it benefits no one but the white officials. But the foreign powers are always blowing the coals at each other. In fact, they say that when the next war comes, it will begin with the killing of all the whites. In any matter, those heads were not taken from Samoans; you can tell from the skin.”
“Then who were these poor souls?”
“They are Solomon Islanders, Mr. Fergins. Men rounded up forcibly from a group of islands not far from here, past Fiji, to work on the German plantations.”
“We’ve heard about them before,” chimed in Davenport, “from Cipaou, our native man, and from Thomas.”
“Cannibals, so it is said. It is funny to see the disgust and terror the Samoans have for cannibals, even as they will sever a head from its body.”
“What happened to those three?”
“They must have escaped from the Germans, and been caught by the Samoans they control, the king’s men. This is a warning. The Firm would have you believe it has almost never happened that their laborers—slaves, for all intents and purposes—have escaped.”
“Is it untrue?” I asked.
“Past that deep valley”—Stevenson gestured—“across a very fast-moving river, and through the forest that borders it, there is a hive of fugitives from the Firm. These men must have been traveling to take shelter there when they were overtaken.”
“So this warning . . .” Davenport began.
“Is for any other laborer who tries to escape and for men like me—us—to mind my own affairs.”
Suddenly, Jack reared up with a terrible snort and began walking on his hind legs like a man. It was an unreal sight with the heads as audience.
“Your horse!” I called. “Tusitala, there’s something wrong with your horse!”
“Oh, there’s nothing wrong with Jack, Mr. Fergins.” Stevenson took the reins and tugged twice. The animal gave a complaining whinny and planted his hooves back on the ground. “He was just bored because we were standing around too long.”