Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 111: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ISLE OF He poked the severed strands from his wrists into a crevice of the lava. With a sailor’s cunning he rebound his ankles, leaving a miaster-hitch that—could be slipped easily in emergency. With fingers and teeth he managed to do the same thing to his wrists, the loop of the master-hitch under the control of his right thumb. After he resumed his place, on some old mats, he contrived to thrust his lean legs through his arms, so leaving his hands in bonds behind him once again. He risked an examination, but he chanced tHat, knowing that his jailers would be apt to give him but a cursory glance in their de- sire to see all the doings of the new ar- rivals. 3 7 With his back against the corrugated wall of the tunnel, Parks was content to bide his soul in patience, knowing the time for an effort at escaping was ‘not far off. McKay and his party went on to the feast, and the two white men took their places under the green bower. They live well in the South Seas, there are menus ready for the plucking, the netting or the spearing that would make an epicure’s mouth water. Wild oranges and shad- docks, bananas, breadfruit, and yams, co- conut-puddings, the pith of the sago-palm, taro-paste, and tasty seaweeds for salads. Fish in infinite variety, pig and poi-fed dogs, turtle for steaks, though the New Hebrides natives are superstitious about the turtle, and its eggs are sacred. But there are the eggs of a bird that buries them in the sand, served scrambled, and there are pigeons. : Dainty eating, and usually well cooked in the steaming pits lined with hot stones and covered with wet mats, ovens that often see the flesh of “long pigs,” the bodies of tribal enemies. Not by choice the flesh of white men, for it is esteemed too salty, and the islanders devour it prin- cipally that the indomitable spirit of the white may enter into their own egoes, via their stomachs. But they are not dainty eaters. They use finger-bowls solely to cleanse their fin- gers of the stickiness of the ¢aro-paste. To see a savage biting the heads off uncooked fish and gulping them down, to see him DRUMS. 101 tugging and chewing on an elastic section of squid, is neither edifying nor appetizing. And the sight of fierce teeth tearing at half-cooked pork under a blazing sun is revolting. It is hard to keep the mind on the fact that it is pork from the hog. ‘T’ve seen some fancy sword-swallowing and guzzling in my time,” said Sime, “ but these chaps are regular boa-constrictors. Look at ’em swelling up with the stuffing they’re putting into °em. Why don’t they wash their faces.once in a while? Some of ’em have got a meal gone to waste on their chops. I’m done. I thought I was hungry.” “The fruit’s all right, and the mullet,” advised McKay. “Stick to them and throw the rest to the dogs. But keep on eating. Take it slowly. No use in offend- ing them.” -The dogs were there as scavengers in a snarling, snapping regiment. Likely at any time to furnish a meal themselves, they revenged themselves beforehand. And, everywhere, swarms of flies hovered. The guzzling went on and on. Once in a while a man would fall back, gorged to desperate repletion, and his fellows, or his wives, would drag him into the shade and knead his back until he got relief, usually in primitive fashion. The supply of viands seemed inexhaus- tible, and the mats were strewn with frag- ments that the dogs snatched at and the flies buzzed over. Pungent kawa, chewed from the root of wild ginger by the women, was drunk freely, looking and tasting some- thing like badly made ginger beer, but with the kick of hundred-proof whisky. Palm-wine and fermented concoctions of orange and pineapple, called in beach-En- glish “swipes,” added to the general in- toxication, and the feast became a bestial orgy. Wild and spasmodic attempts at music with pipe and drum and rattle brought forth efforts at lascivious dances, but the performers were too drunk to essay any- thing but a few suggestive steps and poses, and then, one by one, joined the growing band of snoring sleepers. The sun was low before McKay saw his chance to slip away. Ponda, red-eyed and GOMIIGIOO S (C©)