Herman Melville: Typee

33. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE (continued)

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.