In the dark interior, the dead wood all over the forest floor seemed phosphorescent. The glow seemed to come from below the earth, as though from the flames of hell. It only took a few minutes out there alone to believe with all my heart in the ghost stories of the natives.
There was a cave. I don’t know how I found it when I think back to the thickness of that terrain. I remember I could not even see its entrance at first, feeling the formations of rocks with my fingers through the walls of liana wrapping around me. The cave was big enough to become my temporary shelter while more storms fell. I took stock of the little I had with me. One of the guards, in a fit of compassion, had dropped a burlap sack we had with us when we were taken from Vailima. Davenport had saved pieces of biscuits and other food scraps from Vailima in anticipation of our attempted escape. Among other fairly useless items was my slender umbrella. To supplement the paltry food in the sack, there was the usual plentiful fruit in the portion of forest close to the cave. Here were more berries than coconuts and bananas, making it harder to quell my hunger.
It was hard to know day from night out there because the jungle, which was all around, was so dark; hard to know how much time had passed. I would spend hours building a fire, keeping the swarms of flying insects at bay, and then count the sparks until it would burn itself out and I would be assaulted by their buzzing. One morning, something new woke me. My eyes opened on a tall, dark shape standing over me, outlined in firelight. I reached for my umbrella, which I had been keeping by my side. Then I jumped to my feet poised to defend myself.
The stranger held a sharpened spear slightly behind his body and to his side. He easily could have skewered me while I slept, so I calculated that my best chance was to avoid appearing threatening. I slowly placed the umbrella by my feet.
The man was a head taller than I was, at least. His skin was much darker than that of the Samoans I had met—a deep chocolate color instead of reddish brown—and his muscular arms and bare chest were glistening with sweat and blood. He spoke a few words, and I did not recognize any of them. I had improved greatly in Samoan since our arrival, yet I couldn’t place the sounds that came from this man’s mouth.
I put up my hands in the universal sign that I meant no harm—at least that’s how I hoped the stranger would interpret it. His gray loincloth appeared strangely European, unlike the usual lavalavas of the natives, which were made of bark. Then I remembered seeing the same gray cloth on a group of laborers from the German Firm who were being taken to a boat on the beach in Apia. Those men had been the Firm’s plantation slaves. The ones whose escaped comrades’ heads we had seen exhibited on stakes while riding with Stevenson.
Cannibals.
He took a step closer to me and I stumbled back over an uneven rock formation. I gasped as the cannibal dashed toward me. He caught me and stopped my fall.
? ? ?
WE COULD NOT UNDERSTAND each other except through the occasional very simple exchange, but he was sharp as a needle in knowing what I was trying to say. I had enough clues to feel certain the young man was indeed a runaway from the German Firm and he, in turn, must have guessed that I was also a displaced soul of some sort. This vague connection tied us together. As we spent more time together, I was able to conclude that the islander was no more than sixteen years old, though, remembering Stevenson’s maxim—they grow fast in the South Seas—a Western eye would take him to be closer to your age, Mr. Clover, eighteen or nineteen. His natural timidity, genuine eagerness, and a quick enthusiasm suggested his true age. Our tutoring sessions involved pointing—at a plant, a piece of fruit, a lava rock, the moon, the sun—and saying the words in our respective language. The runaway pointed to himself and said what sounded to me like “No-bo-lo.”
We stayed together when we went out looking for food and supplies. When we climbed to higher elevations, Nobolo pointed out at the violently choppy ocean beyond the island and I interpreted this to mean he wanted to leave the island to return to his homeland. I pointed toward the Apia shore and Nobolo seemed to understand where I needed to go. The rains had slowed down after the first few days but until they stopped, and until the treacherous mountain paths dried, the safest thing was to stay where we were—we had a brook for water, we had discovered decent supplies of fruit along a belt of trees, even some clumps of oranges, and the cave was suitable for sleeping and sheltering both of us.
I had cuts on my legs and arms from wandering through the bush, and the insects were relentless trying to savage me. Nobolo brought hollowed sticks of rainwater and cleaned my wounds with a careful, precise hand.
When the rain stopped, the mist was high and soupy. We went hunting together, moving single-file through the thickly wooded, slippery paths. Nobolo had carved a spear for me that looked like his own. The clearer sky and drier earth gave me a feeling of freedom and I sensed that Nobolo was also infused with a new spirit.