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

8e]
The two Savage Islanders sprang to his aid, drew him up over the side,
and tumbled him into the boat.Then, without a further look, they
seized their paddles and plunged theminto the water. Ridan lay ina
huddled-up heap on the bottom boards.
'Exhausted, poor devil!' said Von Hammer to himself, bending down and
peering at the motionless figure through the darkness. Then something
warm flowed over his naked foot as the boat rolled, and he looked
closer at Ridan, and--
'Oh, my God!' burst from him--both of Ridan's legs were gone--bitten
off just above the knees.
Twenty minutes later, as the boat came alongside the Mindora , Ridan
'the devil' died in the arms of the man who had once given him a
drink./

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

8d]
once in five years. It's a very isolated spot, off the north-鑑st coast
of New Guinea. "Bully" Hayes used to call there once. However, let me
have him.The Mindora may go to Manila next year; if so, I'll land him
at On阛ta on our way there. Anyway, he's no good to you. And he told me
just now that he has been waiting his chance to murder you.'
The Mindora returned to Apia to take in stores, and Von Hammer took
Ridan with him, clothed in a suit of blue serge, and with silent
happiness illumininghis face. For his heart was leaping within him at
the thought of On阛ta, and of those who numbered him with the dead; and
when he clambered up the ship'sside and saw Pulu, the big Samoan,
working on deck with the other native sailors, he flung his arms
around him and gave him a mighty hug, and laughedlike a pleased child
when Von Hammer told him thatPulu would be his shipmate till he saw
the green land and white beach of On阛ta once more.
* * * * *
Six months out from Samoa the Mindora was hove-to off Choiseul
Island,in the Solomon Group, waiting for her boat. Von Hammer and four
hands had gone ashore to land supplies for a trader, and the brig was
awaiting his return. There was a heavy sea running on the reef as the
boat pushed off from the beach in the fast-gathering darkness; but who
minds such thingswith a native crew? So thought Von Hammer as he
grasped the long, swaying steer oar, and swung the whale-boat's head
to the white line of surf. 'Give it to her, boys; now's our
chance--there's a bit of a lull now, eh, Pulu? Bend to it, Ridan,
mylad.'
Out shot the boat, Pulu pulling stroke, Ridan bow-oar, and two sturdy,
square-built Savage Islanders amidships. Surge after surge roared and
hissed past in the darkness, and never a dropof water wetted their
naked backs; and then, with a wild cry from the crew and a shouting
laughfrom the steersman, she swept over and down the edge of the reef
and gained the deep water--a second too late! Ere she could rise from
the blackened trough a great curling roller towered highover, and then
with a bursting roar fell upon andsmothered her. When she rose to the
surface Von Hammer was fifty feet away, clinging to the steer-oar. A
quick glance showed him that none of the crew were missing--they were
all holding on to the swamped boat and 'swimming' her out away from
the reef, and shouting loudly for him to come alongside. Pushing the
steer-oar before him, he soon reached the boat, and, despite his own
unwillingness, his crew insisted on his getting in. Then, each still
grasping the gunwale with one hand, they worked the boat out yard by
yard, swaying her fore and aft whenever a lull in the seascame, and
jerking the water out of her by degrees till the two Savage Islanders
were ableto clamber in and bale out with the wooden bucket slung under
the after-thwart, while the white man kept her head to the sea. But
the current was setting them steadily along, parallel with the reef,
and every now and then a sea would tumble aboard and nearly fill her
again. At last, however, theSavage Islanders got her somewhat free of
water, and called to Pulu and Ridan to get in--there were plenty of
spare canoe-paddles secured along the sides in case of an emergency
such as this.
'Get in, Pulu, get in,' said Rfdan to the Samoan, in English; 'get in quickly.'
But Pulu refused. He was a bigger and a heavier man than Rfdan, he
said, and the boat was not yet able to bear the weight of a fourth
man. This was true, and the supercargo, though he knew the awfulrisk
the men ran, and urged them to jump in andpaddle, yet knew that the
additional weight of two such heavy men as Rfdan and Pulu meant death
to all, for every now and thena leaping sea would again fill the boat
to the thwarts.
And then suddenly, amid the crashing sound of the thundering rollers
on the reef, Ridan raised his voice in an awful shriek.
' Quick! Pulu, quick! Some shark hav' come. Get in, get in first,' he
said in his broken English. And as he spoke he grasped the gunwale
with both hands and raised his head and broad shoulders high out of
the water, and a bubbling, groan-like soundissued from his lips.
In an instant the big Samoan swung himself into the boat, and Von
Hammer called to Ridan toget in also.
'Nay, oh, white man!' he answered, in a strange choking voice, 'let me
stay here and hold to the boat. We are not yet safe from the reef. But
paddle, paddle... quickly!'
In another minute or two the boat was out of danger, and then Ridan's
voice was heard.
'Lift me in,' he said quietly, 'my strength is spent.'
:->/ - - - :-> Transtors:
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2.http://translate.google.com/m?twu=1&hl=en&vi=m&sl=auto&tl=en

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

8c]
at Vailele and Mulifanua, and Ridan alone was left. He was glad of this, for thewhite men on board had been kind to him, and he began to hope that he would be taken back to On阛ta. But that night he was brought ashore by the captain to a house where many white men were sitting together, smoking and drinking. They all looked curiously at him and addressed him in many island tongues, and Ridan smiled and shook his head and said, 'Me Ridan; me On阛ta.'
'Leave him with me, K黨ne,' said Burton to the captain of the brig. 'He's the best and biggest man of the lotyou've brought this trip. I'llmarry him to one of my wife's servants, and he'll live in clover down at Mulifanua.'
So early next morning Rfdan was put in a boat with many other new 'boys,' and he smiled with joy, thinking he was going back to the ship--and On阛ta. But when the boat sailed round Mulinu's Point, and the spars of the Iserbrook were suddenly hidden by the intervening line of palm trees, a cry of terror burst from him, and he sprang overboard. He was soon caught, though he dived and swam like a fish. And then two wild-eyed Gilbert Islanders held him by the arms, and laughed as he wept and kept repeating, 'On隺ta, On隺ta.'
* * * * *
From that day began his martyrdom. He worked hard under his overseer, but ran away again and again, only to be brought back and tied up. Sometimes, as he toiled, he would look longingly across the narrow strait of sunlit water at the bright green little island of Manono, six miles away; and twice he stole down to the shore at night, launched a canoe and paddled over towards it. But each time the plantation guard-boat brought him back; and then Burton put him in irons. Once he swam the whole distance, braving the sharks, and, reaching the island, hid in a taro swamp till the next night. He meant to steal food and a canoe--and seek for On隺ta. But the Manono people found him, and, though he fought desperately, they overcame and bound him, and the women cursed him for a T鈌ito{*} devil, a thieving beast, and beat and pelted him as the mencarried him back to the plantation, tied up like a wild boar, to get their ten dollars reward for him from the manager. And Burton gave him thirty lashes as a corrective.
* The Samoans apply the term 'T鈌ito' to all natives of the Gilbert Group and other equatorial islands. The word is an abbreviation of Taputeauea (Drummond's Island), and 'T鈌ito' is synonymous for 'savage'--in some senses.
Then came long, long months of unceasing toil, broken only by attempts to escape, recapture, irons and more lashes. The rest of the native labourers so hated and persecuted him that at last the man's nature changed, and he became desperate and dangerous. No one but Burton dared strike him now, for he would spring at an enemy's throat like amadman, and half stranglehim ere he could be dragged away stunned, bruised and bleeding. When his day's slavery was over he would go to his hut, eat his scanty mealof rice, biscuit and yam in sullen silence, and brood and mutter to himself. But from the day of his first flogging no word ever escaped his set lips. All these things he told afterwards to Von Hammer, the supercargo of the Mindora , when she came to Mulifanua with a cargo of new 'boys.'{*}
* Polynesian labourers are generally termed 'boys.'
Von Hammer had been everywhere in the North Pacific, so Burton took himto Ridan's hut, and called to the 'sulky devil' to comeout. He came, and sullenly followed the two men intothe manager's big sitting-room, and sat down cross-legged on the floor. The bright lamplight shone fullon his nude figure and the tangle of black hair that fell about his now sun-darkened back and shoulders. And, as on that other evening long before,when he sat crouching over his fire, his eyes sought Burton's face with a look of implacable hatred.
'See if you can find out where the d--d brute comes from,' said Burton.
Von Hammer looked at Ridan intently for a minute, and then said one or two words to him in a tongue that the overseer had never before heard.
With trembling limbs and a joyful wonder shining in his dark eyes, Rfdan crept up to the supercargo, and then, in a voice of whispered sobs, he told histwo years' tale of bitter misery.
* * * * *
'Very well,' said Burton, an hour later, to Von Hammer,'you can take him. I don't want the brute here. But he is a dangerous devil, mind. Where do you say he comes from?'
'On阛ta--Saint David's Island--a little bit of a sandy atoll, as big as Manono over there, and much like it, too. I know the place well--lived there once when I was pearling, ten years ago. I don't thinkthe natives there see a white man more than once in five years.
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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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