Toku, Monckton's Boy, And Brother Of My Boy Arigita, Again Made
Use Of His Master's Pea-Rifle, But This Time He Did Not Meet With
Any Success, And Very Narrowly Escaped Getting A Spear Through Him.
A short time before, when Monckton was out on an expedition, Toku was
carrying his master's revolver, but happened
To lag behind the rest of
the party without being noticed, when a man jumped out of the jungle
and picked young Toku up in his arms, covering up his mouth so that he
could not cry out, and proceeded to carry him off, no doubt intending
to have a live roast. But Toku, managing to draw Monckton's revolver,
shot him dead right through the head, and Monckton, hearing the shot,
turned back, and soon discovered young Toku calmly sitting on his
enemy's dead body. But, alas! the hero had to suffer in the hour of
his triumph, as Monckton ordered him to be flogged for lagging behind
the rear guard of police.
Besides killing several of the Doboduras, we also took several
prisoners, both men and women. We rested here, but several of the
police, whose fighting blood was now fully roused, went out with some
of our armed natives, skirmishing in one or two parties till late,
and we could hear shots in all directions. As we found out later,
they had slain several more of the enemy, with no loss to themselves.
We chose a splendid camp, with the river (which we were informed was
the Tamboga River) on one side.
The forest trees were felled on the other side, forming a strong
barrier, very different from our last camp here in the centre of the
village, and without any defences at all. We had a most refreshing
bathe in the river, but kept our rifles close at hand, as the enemy
could have easily speared us from the reeds on the opposite bank.
After supper we interviewed the prisoners, and we now learned the
real sequel to our last visit and what a narrow escape we had that
night from being all massacred. It appeared that our fighting during
the daytime astonished them much, as they could not understand how we
could kill at such a distance, rifles being quite new to them. Our
fame soon reached a large village much further on, and they said
to the Dobodura people: "Ye are all cowards; we will show you that
we can destroy these strange people." They started off that night
and surrounding our camp on all sides, crept up for a rush; but,
luckily for us, our sentries saw some of them and fired. The first
shot killed one of them, and others were hit. Then came the blaze of
many rifles. This terrified them and they fled. The horrible noise of
the rifles and the flashes of fire in the darkness astonished them, but
what made them depart for good was seeing one of their men fall at the
first shot. It was a very lucky shot, and it probably saved our lives
that night. When asked why they raided the Notus, the prisoners said
that they were friends until two years ago, when they quarrelled, and
had been constantly fighting since. In particular they now blamed the
Notus for the late drought, which they said was due to their sorcery,
the result being that they were forced to live on sago alone, and to
vary this diet were compelled to get human meat.
I was the only one out of five white men not down with fever, but I
was glad that we passed a quiet night, with no attack on the camp. In
the morning one of our carriers, who ventured less than fifty yards
beyond the barrier, received a spear through his left arm and another
through his side, and though I am almost afraid to relate it for
fear of being thought guilty of exaggeration, the man plucked the
spear out of his side in a moment, and, hurling it back, killed his
opponent. I ventured outside and proved the truth of the man's story,
by finding the Dobodura man transfixed with his own spear. Both our
man's wounds were bad ones, but he did not seem to mind them at all,
and was for some time surrounded by a crowd of admiring natives.
We started off early in search of a large village of which a prisoner
told us, but had not gone far when a man jumped out of the long grass
and threw a spear at one of our carriers, only a few paces in front
of me. Fortunately he missed him, but only by a few inches. As he
was preparing to throw another spear, one of our men, whom he had not
noticed, owing to an abrupt bend in the narrow track, which brought
him close to the spearman, sprang forward and buried his stone club
in the man's head, who sank down without a groan.
It was cloudy, but very close, and we passed through open grass
country, bounded on each side by tall forest, in which bird-life
seemed plentiful, cockatoos and parrots making a great noise. Birds
of paradise were also calling out with their very noticeable and
peculiar falsetto cry.
After going some distance we catechized the prisoners, and while
an old man declared that there was a large village ahead, the two
women prisoners said that the track was only a hunting one and led
to the mountains.
The old man evidently wanted to get us away from his village, to
enable his tribe to return, but the women, not being so loyal, told
us the truth, no doubt because they found the forced marching on a
hot day a little too much for them. We sat down for a consultation,
but hearing a loud outcry in the rear, I suddenly came across about a
dozen of the now indignant police pelting the old man with darts made
out of a peculiar kind of grass, which grew around here.
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