A Tami-le (secondary priest) respectfully removed the mask, disclosing C’Zarcke clad in a magnificent head-dress of plumes of the red bird of paradise, the feathers inset within a curved arch of mother-of-pearl which fitted down over the head to the lower jaw. Encircling the arch, like nails in a horseshoe gleamed iridescent green and pearl. These were of a tiny green coral shell highly prized and rare, but the pearls merely possessed a superstitious value, since they were “Stones of the Sea.” Down his back, over massive shoulders, fell blue-black curls which, with the banding of pearl and drooping plumes, framed a savage face mesmeric with mental power.
On his broad chest glittered the Zogo-mai, of which there are only three in the world. About five inches in diameter, this beautiful ornament was of perfect mother-of-pearl, disk-shaped, perforated with fretwork into a series of polished patterns. The art of the work had been lost centuries before at the birth of the Bomai-Malu. In the far-off days of the Ad Giz (the first gods or ancestors) the art had been born. Only the chief Zogo of Mer, of Eroob, and of Ugar, dare wear a Zogo-mai. On one thick arm C’Zarcke wore a Zogo-kadik, a finely-plaited arm-guard of cane from which flaunted metallic plumes of the bird of paradise. Round his body clung a voluptuously thick skirt which appeared like thousands of jet-black threads of hair, curling to the knees. These were selected feathers of the cassowary. The waist-band into which the skirt was gathered scintillated with phosphoric beads of shell and flame-stones, which flashed suspiciously like European jewels. With one hand linking with the base of the Au-gud, so C’Zarcke stood.
Above its dais of coral and shells the Au-gud loomed to a height of six feet; a sitting figure in the form of a man, it was fashioned from picked plates of tortoise-shell, polished to a mottled beauty. As it sat with heavy arms folded and slightly bowed head, its broad face expressed savagery shadowed by a cynical wisdom. To the left and right of the Au-gud stood Ses and Aet, who, with C’Zarcke, composed the Zogo-le of Mer. Farther to the right stood the three Zogo-le of Eroob, and to the left the Zogo-le of Ugar. The chief Zogo of each Zogo-le wore the Zogo-mai, but C’Zarcke alone wore the metallic feathers in his Zogo-kadik. Also the skirt of the lesser Zogo-le as fashioned of silken strands, delicately plaited of Ze-leaves. These men wore, throughout, the fantastic masks of Malu, only partially visible behind a barbaric shield of turtle-shell. The face was broadly barred with white in designs apparently geometrical in pattern, each design representing a secret order of Bomai. The cheeks were marked with a row of red triangles, with central disks of yellow. A drooping busby of coloured grasses tasselled from the top. Around his neck each man wore a necklet of the lower jaws of human beings.
Standing in two semicircles partly enclosing the Au-gud and the Zogo-le, were the barbarically dressed priests, the Tami-le. From the head of each drooped an ominous black feather.
C’Zarcke turned to the Au-gud, and his deep voice boomed within the Zogo-house and was thrown back and far out over the amphitheatre of trees. The Zogo-house had been designed by cunning men who understood the magnifying properties of sound. From the Au-gud’s nostrils belched streaks of greenish flame, met by a fiery breath from the god’s mouth which carried the intermingling flames straight out towards the centre of the Sacred Grove.
An instant change came over the people who, leaping erect, shouted thrice to the accompaniment of waving arms and a rhythmic, thunderous stamp of feet: “Oh Au-gudeem! Oh Au-gudeem! Oh Au-gudeem!”
Then with martial tread and flashing eyes, stalked forward Bogo, Mamoose of Mer. Behind him came Beizam, his stripling son, filled with a trembling pride at the greatest event of his life. For in a moment he would be a warrior, he would have taken his first head!
Under like circumstances, a boy on getting his first man would not remove the head himself, that would be done by the uncle (maternal), and the head would be brought to the boy’s mother to hang on the post near the home. But Beizam was the son of the Mamoose, and now he was nearly dying of dread lest he make a mess of removing his maiden trophy in the presence of all these.
For in the surprise raid Beizam had overpowered a prisoner, and his triumph-flamed mind had borne a great idea. He, the chief’s stripling, would slay his prisoner before the Zogo-house in front of all the people! Fitting tableau to the initiation of a chief’s son, and quite in accord with the keen dramatic instincts of the Islanders!
Between two warriors was dragged the prisoner.
They stood him upon nerveless feet before the Au-gud. The man was a warrior of the Yardigan tribe, an aboriginal mainlander. He was tall of stature, and the scars crossing his chest and corrugating his back and shoulder muscles were proof positive that he had slain his men. In nakedness he trembled there, just nerveless clay. Sweat glistened upon his body, which was astench with human grease. A strikingly different specimen of humanity, this stone-age man, his animal-like features strongly contrasting with the clean-cut features of the Islanders.
Contemptuously Beizam thrust a warrior’s gaba-gaba club into the captive’s nerveless paw. But he just stood there, thick-lipped mouth sagging, deep-set shaggy eyes staring piteously at the Au-gud. He was no coward, this Australian aboriginal, simply a child of the forest. Fear held him mesmerized; this sudden transition from the sunlit, quiet bush to these undreamt-of happenings benumbed the reasoning of the brain.
Beizam stepped back, transformed. With lips parted and expanded chest he stared a moment at this hairy man as if he were the most wonderful, the most beautiful, the most coveted thing in the world. Then, with a panther step forward, he swung his stone killing-club and with practised flick of the wrist brought it squarely on the temple of the aboriginal. To the “smack” of the blow there roared shouts and shrieks of approval. It had been a perfect blow, exactly on the right spot, not too hard, not too gentle, just sufficient to stun. Beizam leapt on the fallen man, his gaba-gaba swinging from a wrist-thong as his left hand flicked loose the singai loop from behind his neck while his right whipped out the upi head-knife, razor-keen. Grasping the clay-daubed hair in talon-like fingers, Beizam jerked the face toward the skies and slit the throat beneath. Through this he thrust the singai, until the cane loop poked out from the mouth; then, thrusting the handle through the loop, he drew the knot tight.
There followed a roar like that of stampeding cattle, as the people, all frenzied at the kill, packed themselves before the Zogo-house.
Grasping the singai handle, Beizam jerked up the head so that the throat strained as the reason-cords of the brown man gazing on were straining. One quick slash of the knife cut through the neck to the joint of the spinal cord. With a flick of the wrist the head was jerked sideways, so that the back muscles tautened, and the knife without a jar completed the circle. With left hand stretching the singai and right twisting the head, Beizam pulled strongly but evenly upwards. There was a pronounced “click” and sob, the head parted, and, as Beizam raised it on high, a tapering streak of marrow was drawn out with it. Beizam clenched his teeth on the grizzly neck and sucked and chewed. Thus was the courage and strength of the dying man being drawn into himself! The headless body rose on staggering feet and, with grotesquely thrashing limbs, spun round and round like a stunned fowl giddily striving to keep its balance. A screaming roar rent the air to accompany the dance, and the contorting face and kissing lips of the head above Beizam’s mouth seemed to be screaming in unison. For several moments the body writhed, then sagged down, but Beizam still danced to the roaring acclamations of the throng.
One among them danced too, but his movements seemed regulated as the dead man’s had been; the eyes stared as his had done, the mouth gaped open too, soundlessly.
A sickly