I felt myself prohibited personali objectione, as the lawyers say, from telling her. To reveal it to her could place me in danger, because a grudge against Pen Davenport would probably have fallen on me, too. She might have believed leaving me there to die would give the dwarf peace in the spirit world. I had to keep quiet about it, you see.
—Forgive me, but I do not think that is the only reason. You saw she could serve you, no different than Cipaou served you and Mr. Davenport, or Charlie served Mr. Stevenson. Isn’t that right, Mr. Fergins? It benefited you to ensure that she believed it was Belial’s fault, because it meant she would help you hunt for him—so you could find the manuscript—using knowledge of the island that only a native has.
Good fellow! You see it clearly enough. And, don’t forget, it was to her advantage for her purposes that I knew Belial better than she did.
I asked her: “You will help me find him, then?”
“I will and when we do, I will take his head.”
There is something immense about watching a person—a woman, especially—you have seen speaking in one language speak in a different tongue. When she spoke Samoan, it was soft and warm, yet in English she was imperious. She seemed not only transformed but transformative, as though by being in her presence you crossed boundaries, geographical and metaphysical. I speak lyrically of the sensation, but that is how I recall it struck me as she sat cross-legged in the cave as if some ancient goddess. There was a beauty to her speaking English that was independent of her physical attractiveness, and I had to wonder if Davenport had the same experience in his time alone with her. Speaking of her beauty, I had taken this long on the island to appreciate just how radiant she was. Perhaps this is one thing that distinguishes a bachelor from gentlemen who marry—by the point at which we truly recognize a lady’s charms, the time for a natural courtship has passed.
She was made an even more striking vision by her changed appearance since I had last seen her. She was wearing a ceremonial costume, draped in animal skins and multicolored leaves, her hair lined with small purple flowers and pinned back in a cocoon. This, I gathered, Samoan women used as a warrior garb.
She had already done some investigation that eased my mind. None of the larger ships had departed from port, and the waters remained too rough from the ongoing storms for Belial to have hired a canoe or other smaller ship without great risk to his life. Vao had also stopped in several villages along the way to my shelter. While some tribes were strictly loyal to the king and would not speak to a member of a tribe that was not, there were still many who had common cause with the rebels and felt affection toward a former tapo. Through these exchanges, she learned that Belial had traded information he had about Stevenson, a supporter of the exiled chief Mataafa, the king’s greatest enemy and threat, in exchange for the king’s protection and sanctuary.
After remaining the night in the cave, we had an early start looking for clues to where Belial had been concealed. There is a strange fact about a place as rainy as Upolu. The ground does not seem to absorb the raindrops, so that long after a storm has vanished there are still torrents of water rushing down the island toward the coast. Streams that were usually ankle-deep became powerful rivers. We went on foot down one treacherous precipice after another, each one seeming to end at the horizon, until we finally reached the place where she had tied her horse. I shared Vao’s horse but the animal was not strong enough for the two of us and began to rebel under our combined weight, at one point stopping in protest and stomping, and other times audibly groaning; we would not have been able to go much farther but for the fact that we reached the outskirts of a small village outpost. There I bartered my downtrodden umbrella and some kava root we had collected along the way in exchange for another animal. Much like the other natives who had seen the object, my trading partners grasped for the umbrella with awe on their faces and, in spite of its wear, seemed pleased by the multicolored stripes as they took turns twirling it. Without this second horse, the young woman would have had to go without me, and I would have been left to plod through the fickle elements of the island until means were presented to allow me to try to find her again—a risky proposition to body and soul, as you have seen, which is the reason to this day I call that umbrella a lifesaver.
The hurricane had scattered giant branches and tree trunks the size and girth of temple pillars that slowed our progress. After another night in the mountains, with two crashing waterfalls in my ears as I tried to sleep, I watched the clouds dissolve and the mountaintops above light up orange and purple with the new day.
Vao built a temporary abode for us out of banana leaves. We had simple meals collected from the surrounding forest: breadfruit and pigeon cooked fa’a Samoa, that is to say wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over hot stones. I told her about prison and she spoke more of Tulagi, more about her life at Vailima.
“He is our chief and our father,” she said of Stevenson, with a glow to her cheeks. “Tusitala sheltered me and Tulagi after my village was burned, but now it is time that I left,” and there she paused, fear and exhilaration in the treble of her voice. “I cannot always be protected: first my father, then Tulagi and Tusitala and, one day, a husband. This is all Tulagi wanted, was for me to marry, but every time I tried, every time I tried to tell him. . . This time, I must protect myself. I must finish Belial for myself.”
“Why didn’t you just tell Tusitala that Belial tried assaulting you?” I asked.
“I knew Pope Thomas—Belial—was a conniving man. For a smile from him my people bow at his feet. I tried to arrange that Tusitala would find Belial trying to force himself on me, but you came instead.”