8b] Short Stories - ''Ridan the Devil''

8b]
'Let him lie,' he said, going aft to the tiller. 'We be fourstrong men--he is but as a child from weakness. See, his bones are like to cut through his skin. He hath been starved.'
* * * * *
At dusk they ran the boat along the plantation jetty, and Pulu and another manled Rfdan up the path to the manager's house. His hands were free, but a stout rope of cinnet was tied around his naked waist and Pulu held the end.
'Ah, you dumb, sulky devil; you've come back to us again, have you?' said Burton, eyeing him savagely. 'I wish Schwartzkoff had kept youup in Apia, you murderous,yellow-hided scoundrel!'
'What's the use of bully-ragging him?' remarked the plantation engineer, with a sarcastic laugh; 'he doesn't understand a wordyou say. Club-law and the sasa {*} are the only thingsthat appeal to him--and hegets plenty of both on Mulifanua. Hallo, look at that! Why, he's kissing Pulu's toe!'
* Whip.
Burton laughed. 'So he is. Look out, Pulu, perhaps he's a kai tagata ' (cannibal). 'Take care he doesn't bite it off.'
Pulu shook his mop of yellow hair gravely. A great pity filled his big heart, for as he had turnedto go back to the boat Ridan had fallen upon his knees and pressed his lips to the feet of the man whohad given him a drink.
That night Burton and the Scotch engineer went to Ridan's hut, taking with them food and a new sleeping-mat. He was sitting cross-legged beforea tiny fire of coco-nut shells, gazing at the blue, leaping jets of flame, and as the two men entered, slowly turned his face to them.
'Here,' said Burton, less roughly than usual,' here's some kai kai for you.'
He took the food from Burton's hand, set it besidehim on the ground, and then, supporting himself on his gaunt right arm andhand, gave the overseer one long look of bitter, undying hatred; then his eyes drooped to the fire again.
'And here, Ridan,' said Craik, the engineer, throwing the sleeping-matupon the ground, 'that'll keep your auld bones frae cutting into the ground. And here is what will do ye mair good still,' and he placed a wooden pipe and a stick of tobacco in 'the devil's' hand. In a moment Ridan was on his knees with his forehead pressed to the ground in gratitude.
The men looked at him in silence for a few moments as he crouched at Craik's feet, with the light of the fire playing upon his tattooed yellow back and masses of tangled black hair.
'Come awa', Burton, leave the puir deevil to himself. And I'm thinking ye might try him on the other tack awhile. Ye have not brokenthe creature's spirit yet, and I wouldna try to if I were you--for my own safety. Sit up Ridan, mon, and smoke your pipe.'
* * * * *
Two years before, Ridan had been brought to Samoa by a German labour-ship, which had picked him up in a canoe at sea, somewhere off the coast of Dutch New Guinea. He was the only survivor of a party of seven, and when lifted on board was in the last stageof exhaustion from thirst and hunger. Where the canoe had sailed from, andwhither bound, no one on board the Iserbrook could learn, for the stranger spoke a language utterly unknown to anyone of even the Iserbrook's polyglot ship's company--men who came from all parts of Polynesia and Micronesia. All that could be learned from him by signs and gestures was that a great storm had overtaken the canoe, many days of hunger and thirst had followed, and then death ended the agonies of all but himself.
In a few weeks, and while the brig was thrashing her way back to Samoa against the south-east trades, Ridan regained his health and strength and became a favourite with all on board, white and brown. He was quite six feet in height, with a bright yellow skin, bronzed by the sun; and his straight features and long black hair were of thetrue Malayo-Polynesian type. From the back of his neck two broad stripes of bright blue tattooing ran down the whole length of his muscular back, and thence curved outwards and downwards along the back of his thighs and terminated at each heel. No one on the Iserbrook had ever seen similar tattooing, and many were the conjectures as to Ridan's native place. One word, however, he constantly repeated, 'Onêata,' and then would point to the north-west. But no one knew of such a place, though many did of an Oneaka, far to the south-east--an island of the Gilbert Group near the Equator.
The weeks passed, and at last Ridan looked with wondering eyes upon the strange houses of the white men in Apia harbour. By-and-by boats came off to the ship, and the three hundred and oddbrown-skinned and black-skinned people from the Solomons and the Admiralties and the countless islands about New Britain and New Ireland were taken ashore to work on the plantationsat Vailele and Mulifanua,
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