Doubtless these half-Christian folk were shocked,these half-heathen folk alarmed.Chench or Taburik thus invoked,we put our questions;the witch knotted the leaves,here a leaf and there a leaf,plainly on some arithmetical system;studied the result with great apparent contention of mind;and gave the answers.Sidney Colvin was in robust health and gone a journey;and we should have a fair wind upon the morrow:that was the result of our consultation,for which we paid a dollar.The next day dawned cloudless and breathless;but I think Captain Reid placed a secret reliance on the sibyl,for the schooner was got ready for sea.By eight the lagoon was flawed with long cat's-paws,and the palms tossed and rustled;before ten we were clear of the passage and skimming under all plain sail,with bubbling scuppers.So we had the breeze,which was well worth a dollar in itself;but the bulletin about my friend in England proved,some six months later,when I got my mail,to have been groundless.Perhaps London lies beyond the horizon of the island gods.
Tembinok',in his first dealings,showed himself sternly averse from superstition:and had not the EQUATOR delayed,we might have left the island and still supposed him an agnostic.It chanced one day,however,that he came to our maniap',and found Mrs.Stevenson in the midst of a game of patience.She explained the game as well as she was able,and wound up jocularly by telling him this was her devil-work,and if she won,the EQUATOR would arrive next day.
Tembinok'must have drawn a long breath;we were not so high-and-dry after all;he need no longer dissemble,and he plunged at once into confessions.He made devil-work every day,he told us,to know if ships were coming in;and thereafter brought us regular reports of the results.It was surprising how regularly he was wrong;but he always had an explanation ready.There had been some schooner in the offing out of view;but either she was not bound for Apemama,or had changed her course,or lay becalmed.I used to regard the king with veneration as he thus publicly deceived himself.I saw behind him all the fathers of the Church,all the philosophers and men of science of the past;before him,all those that are to come;himself in the midst;the whole visionary series bowed over the same task of welding incongruities.To the end Tembinok'spoke reluctantly of the island gods and their worship,and I learned but little.Taburik is the god of thunder,and deals in wind and weather.A while since there were wizards who could call him down in the form of lightning.'My patha he tell me he see:you think he lie?'Tienti -pronounced something like 'Chench,'and identified by his majesty with the devil -sends and removes bodily sickness.He is whistled for in the Paumotuan manner,and is said to appear;but the king has never seen him.
The doctors treat disease by the aid of Chench:eclectic Tembinok'at the same time administering 'pain-killer'from his medicine-chest,so as to give the sufferer both chances.'I think mo'
betta,'observed his majesty,with more than his usual self-approval.Apparently the gods are not jealous,and placidly enjoy both shrine and priest in common.On Tamaiti's medicine-tree,for instance,the model canoes are hung up EX VOTO for a prosperous voyage,and must therefore be dedicated to Taburik,god of the weather;but the stone in front is the place of sick folk come to pacify Chench.
It chanced,by great good luck,that even as we spoke of these affairs,I found myself threatened with a cold.I do not suppose Iwas ever glad of a cold before,or shall ever be again;but the opportunity to see the sorcerers at work was priceless,and Icalled in the faculty of Apemama.They came in a body,all in their Sunday's best and hung with wreaths and shells,the insignia of the devil-worker.Tamaiti I knew already:Terutak'I saw for the first time -a tall,lank,raw-boned,serious North-Sea fisherman turned brown;and there was a third in their company whose name I never heard,and who played to Tamaiti the part of FAMULUS.Tamaiti took me in hand first,and led me,conversing agreeably,to the shores of Fu Bay.The FAMULUS climbed a tree for some green cocoa-nuts.Tamaiti himself disappeared a while in the bush and returned with coco tinder,dry leaves,and a spray of waxberry.I was placed on the stone,with my back to the tree and my face to windward;between me and the gravel-heap one of the green nuts was set;and then Tamaiti (having previously bared his feet,for he had come in canvas shoes,which tortured him)joined me within the magic circle,hollowed out the top of the gravel-heap,built his fire in the bottom,and applied a match:it was one of Bryant and May's.The flame was slow to catch,and the irreverent sorcerer filled in the time with talk of foreign places -of London,and 'companies,'and how much money they had;of San Francisco,and the nefarious fogs,'all the same smoke,'which had been so nearly the occasion of his death.I tried vainly to lead him to the matter in hand.'Everybody make medicine,'he said lightly.And when I asked him if he were himself a good practitioner -'No savvy,'he replied,more lightly still.At length the leaves burst in a flame,which he continued to feed;a thick,light smoke blew in my face,and the flames streamed against and scorched my clothes.He in the meanwhile addressed,or affected to address,the evil spirit,his lips moving fast,but without sound;at the same time he waved in the air and twice struck me on the breast with his green spray.So soon as the leaves were consumed the ashes were buried,the green spray was imbedded in the gravel,and the ceremony was at an end.
