We also spent time drawing in the mud and sand outside the cave. We were sketching maps and the path we would take together and marking where I would ultimately separate from my companion, a fellow I had come to believe was as loyal as Crusoe’s man, Friday. Losing Nobolo was a prospect that I found quite sad, in defiance of any piece of logic I might muster. Having Nobolo nearby, I realized, reminded me somehow of my life before this, when I accompanied Davenport through the great cities in the world. Neither of us knew the island well enough to dictate the plan with full confidence, but between the two of us we possessed a passing amount of information about where we sought to end up and where we ought not to go. Nobolo needed to stay clear of the German plantation and its masters, while I needed to avoid any sighting by Belial.
The maps made communication with Nobolo easier; more challenging was deciding when to set off on our journey. I felt we had to start at night, so that at the height of the midday heat we would not be locked into a part of the island where water was scarce and sometimes dangerous to find.
One night before we were to begin, we roasted a pig over a flame and ate more than we had since living on rations inside the cave. Then, Nobolo brought over a knife he had been carving out of cherrywood and animal bone, and gestured toward his hair. I understood that he did not want his hair to get caught or pulled in the brush during our long journey to come and I agreed to cut it.
As I neared the end of butchering his hair, there was a slight rustle outside the cave. Both of us receded into the blackness to listen. Then there was the light of a torch, held high and in front by one who moved with a slow and purposeful step. I peered into the light, first making out the staring eyes and then a face.
Before I could speak, Nobolo caught sight of the tip of the rifle and was thrown into a panic. He launched into a run and disappeared into the darkness outside.
I tried to catch him as he burst out of the cave but he was quick as a spark. “She isn’t here for you!” My cries went unheeded, unheard or simply not comprehended. Another companion was gone.
XV
As soon as Vao entered, the setting seemed to change: no longer stranded, I felt all that had happened back in Vailima return to the atmosphere. She looked around before she lowered the rifle. She offered some basic information about how she had found me: Having traveled between several villages after leaving Tale-Pui-Pui with Belle, she had overheard that a white prisoner was about to be released and decided to find out whether it was one of us. As soon as she and Belle had returned to Vailima, she rode back to the prison again on her own. When the guards would not tell her anything, she demanded to see the officials at the prison and eventually discovered where they had brought me in the bush, and from there began tracking my movements. She went on with her explanation, retracing her steps that led to the mouth of this cave, but I could hardly concentrate on any of her words, because the language mesmerized me. English.
“How on earth did you learn to speak so flawlessly since I saw you?” I interrupted, realizing even as I spoke that it was foolish. She could not have mastered a language so quickly. We had been keeping our secrets, and she had been keeping her own.
“When my father was one of the leading chiefs, and I a little girl, I was given tutors. Mostly men from the religious missions, they taught me in the languages of all the foreigners who come to the island: German, English, French, Spanish.”
“I never heard a word of English come from your mouth at Vailima.”
“I never speak it in front of white men, or they will not leave me alone.” It was not just the language that was startling, but the heat of her emotions—anger, confusion, loneliness—within the words she spoke, emotions I had not been able to hear in her Samoan. “There have been many attempts to take me since I was quite little.”
“That is why Tulagi was always with you?”
“When a village chooses a tapo, she is assigned a guardian, usually a dwarf or a hunchback, since they cannot start families or fight in our wars. My father was the chief of one of the villages burned to the ground by the Germans for not accepting Tamasese, the king installed by the power of the Firm. Father did not survive the flames, but Tulagi did, and he swore he would protect me until the day when I was married, when my husband assumes the responsibility. Except I never agreed to the potential marriages. Tulagi was unusual, for though he was impatient with my refusals, he respected my decisions. Now with Tulagi wandering the spirit realms looking for rest, everything left of my birthright has been taken from me.”
I was careful with my next question for her. “That is why you have come here?”
“I have come for vengeance against the man who led Tulagi to his death.”
I held my breath, expecting her to speak against Davenport—and perhaps, by extension, me. She may not have come to rescue me at all, but to exterminate me, and here I was trapped, at her mercy.
Before my fear revealed itself she went on: “The man you call Belial. From the moment he stepped foot on Tusitala’s grounds calling himself a missionary, I saw the devil in him. His humiliation of Tulagi, beating him in front of you, ripped Tulagi’s heart in two.”
She returned my stare and I tried to shake away any outward sign of confusion. It was the sight of Davenport leaving her chambers—not Belial’s earlier attempt to seduce her, and his ruthless beating of Tulagi—that finally dragged Tulagi down to despair. I resolved I could never tell her.
—Wait a minute, Mr. Fergins. Wait. How did you come to know the true cause of Tulagi’s suicide?
Well, I did not know, Mr. Clover. Nobody can really know what had been in Tulagi’s mind and heart that day. You are absolutely right to wonder about that. But if you saw Tulagi’s face as I had, after he watched her emerge from Davenport’s chambers, you might think the same way I do.
—Then why did you not tell Vao what you suspected?