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- 10290
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10223
- text
- CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE STRANGER AGAIN ARRIVES IN THE VALLEY--SINGULAR INTERVIEW WITH
HIM--ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE--FAILURE--MELANCHOLY SITUATION--SYMPATHY OF
MARHEYO
‘Marnoo, Marnoo pemi!’ Such were the welcome sounds which fell upon my
ear some ten days after the events related in the preceding chapter.
Once more the approach of the stranger was heralded, and the
intelligence operated upon me like magic. Again I should be able to
converse with him in my own language; and I resolve at all hazards to
concert with him some scheme, however desperate, to rescue me from a
condition that had now become insupportable.
As he drew near, I remembered with many misgivings the inauspicious
termination of our former interview, and when he entered the house, I
watched with intense anxiety the reception he met with from its inmates.
To my joy, his appearance was hailed with the liveliest pleasure; and
accosting me kindly, he seated himself by my side, and entered into
conversation with the natives around him. It soon appeared however,
that on this occasion he had not any intelligence of importance to
communicate. I inquired of him from whence he had just come? He replied
from Pueearka, his native valley, and that he intended to return to it
the same day.
At once it struck me that, could I but reach that valley under his
protection, I might easily from thence reach Nukuheva by water; and
animated by the prospect which this plan held, out I disclosed it in
a few brief words to the stranger, and asked him how it could be best
accomplished. My heart sunk within me, when in his broken English he
answered me that it could never be effected. ‘Kanaka no let you go
nowhere,’ he said; ‘you taboo. Why you no like to stay? Plenty moee-moee
(sleep)--plenty ki-ki (eat)--plenty wahenee (young girls)--Oh, very good
place Typee! Suppose you no like this bay, why you come? You no hear
about Typee? All white men afraid Typee, so no white men come.’
These words distressed me beyond belief; and when I had again related to
him the circumstances under which I had descended into the valley, and
sought to enlist his sympathies in my behalf by appealing to the bodily
misery I had endure, he listened with impatience, and cut me short by
exclaiming passionately, ‘Me no hear you talk any more; by by Kanaka
get mad, kill you and me too. No you see he no want you to speak at
all?--you see--ah! by by you no mind--you get well, he kill you, eat
you, hang you head up there, like Happar Kanaka.--Now you listen--but no
talk any more. By by I go;--you see way I go--Ah! then some night Kanaka
all moee-moee (sleep)--you run away, you come Pueearka. I speak Pueearka
Kanaka--he no harm you--ah! then I take you my canoe Nukuheva--and you
run away ship no more.’ With these words, enforced by a vehemence of
gesture I cannot describe, Marnoo started from my side, and immediately
engaged in conversation with some of the chiefs who had entered the
house.
It would have been idle for me to have attempted resuming the interview
so peremptorily terminated by Marnoo, who was evidently little disposed
to compromise his own safety by any rash endeavour to ensure mine.
But the plan he had suggested struck me as one which might possibly be
accomplished, and I resolved to act upon it as speedily as possible.
Accordingly, when he arose to depart, I accompanied him with the natives
outside of the house, with a view of carefully noting the path he
would take in leaving the valley. Just before leaping from the pi-pi he
clasped my hand, and looking significantly at me, exclaimed, ‘Now you
see--you do what I tell you--ah! then you do good;--you no do so--ah!
then you die.’ The next moment he waved his spear to the islanders, and
following the route that conducted to a defile in the mountains lying
opposite the Happar side, was soon out of sight.
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