“It didn’t make sense that the runaways would stray from their encampment where they are safe,” I said with a burst of realization, ignoring his crudeness. “They must have sent their men out to look for who could have killed Nobolo.”
“You mean they captured us because they think we did that? That we killed their friend?” Hines asked, gasping in horror.
I didn’t bother to give him an answer, but the obvious one occurred to me: Why shouldn’t they? For all the runaways knew, this wretched merchant and I were among those nameless white overseers who kidnapped their people from distant island tribes, enslaved them, hunted down those who dared run as examples to the rest. I fought the onslaught of emotions, of fear and anger at these dark strangers, but the anger didn’t hold. Why should they show any mercy to white men, who had shown them nothing like it?
Behind the large open fire were more mud huts. Two men, older than the others, sat there and warmed up some bowls, the same kind of “brain bowls” displayed in the Stevensons’ library. Hines sobbed and his whole body became slack as he sloppily panted for air and babbled.
“I saw them,” he shouted, turning his anger toward me. “Your spectacles.”
“What are you going on about?”
“At Vailima. On the frigate you acted like you knew nothing about Stevenson, but a man doesn’t simply walk up to Vailima and let himself in the front door. You hid something from me. You and that somber friend of yours, you came here for some mischief. Didn’t you? You’d better get me out of this situation or I’ll see to it that everyone here and in England knows you are a sneak and a blackguard! I’ll ruin you! Savvy?”
“I suppose you think I would allow that,” I said tersely.
“What the devil would a blasted bookworm do about it?”
When we reached the destination, the sound of hoof falls perked up all of us, islanders and whites alike. A horse broke through the indistinct shapes of the forest. Vao sat atop.
“We’ve been found.” Hines began to laugh with the same touch of mania as his sobbing. “Saved. We’re saved, bookworm, old boy, our hides are saved! Over here!”
He was screaming. I could see the runaways become tense with anticipation. “Hines, be quiet!”
He was hollering now, losing control. “Kill these damn darkies, in the name of God! Kill every last savage!”
I watched as the fool’s mouth creaked open but this time no more sounds emerged, just a stream of dark red. A spear pierced through his throat, the runaway who had thrust it in waiting a moment before withdrawing it. Hines collapsed without another sound and I watched the life wriggle out of him, knowing I was next. Two of the fast-moving cannibals pulled the merchant’s body away by the ankles and though I could not see, I heard the moist crashes of the axes as they hacked through flesh. I averted my eyes and cried out for mercy for myself. I had a thought: They want to make an example, to warn whomever comes to stay away.
Terror overcame me. I tried not to see, not to look at the freshly cut head as it was placed upright on the same bloodied spear that had felled the man. Yet, I admit, when I recall these events, though I am still filled with utter revulsion, I never did pause to mourn my former tormenter. We are born to be susceptible to savagery when we have nothing else.
The hoof falls grew closer. The runaways still seemed startled by the appearance of the beautiful Samoan atop the horse, but regained their senses and began to approach with weapons readied to take her. She would be no match.
“Don’t fight them, Vao,” I shouted.
Next came more sounds of horses and a larger steed, Stevenson sitting tall, followed by John Chinaman and two of the best native warriors from Vailima, Sao and Laefoele. The latter two had faces painted for war, with black streaks under the eyes and across their cheeks. But the newcomers all appeared either unarmed or only lightly armed, and would be easily overtaken.
“Vao, get them all away!” I called out. “Ride now and save yourselves! Ride, Tusitala!” I cried out my admonitions again and again at the top of my lungs until my captors muzzled me.
“Tusitala” was repeated and murmured around the makeshift village of runaways. Soon, the hand across my mouth came free. The light-haired cannibal leader moved to the front, his eyes bright, and repeated, forcefully, that one word, which in his mouth became a wish, a demand: Tusitala!
Stevenson remained in the saddle on Jack and began speaking the runaways’ language. He spoke fluently and, as it seemed to my ears, eloquently.
I watched the watchers held spellbound. In that tide of words that I could not recognize or understand, I saw Stevenson, perhaps for the first time, as the natives had seen him all along. Not as a writer, not as author or novelist. Tusitala: the teller of tales. I could finally believe in that Tusitala, as though I had received from above the brief and radiant gift to believe in a prophet or oracle. I understood, too, what kept Tusitala here. In the South Seas, in this land unencumbered by the powerful and suffocating printed page, the novelist had not forsaken what he had once been; he had finally become himself, even if it cost him everything else he’d ever had.
After Stevenson finished, the cannibals untied me and pushed me into the circle of my rescuers.
“Let us return to Vailima,” Stevenson said.