Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [96]
I translated to Naraqino, and he smiled then reached across to pat the rev. on the back.
Before dawn, Naraqino himself had crept into the chapel. To light his way he had carried the lantern of the rev., removing the candle from the glass and touching it against the reed walls. While flames brought King Tanoa and his men rushing from the fort, agents of Naraqino leaped from the bushes to steal away the chest of muskets.
With these thieves and vagabonds we are now allied.
7 August 1835
Believing that a quick dunking from the hand of the rev. would bring him eternal life and power on earth, Naraqino was baptised in the Rewa River. Once his wives had dried his body, he immediately decreed that no other dweller of Bau may ‘wash in the river of Jesus Christ’.
The rev., instead of righting a wrong – for all sinners may bathe in the blood of Jesus – said nothing but announce that Naraqino had shown his subjects the light, and those loyal to their leader should follow his example.
All residents of Bau were obliged to attend this sham of a ceremony, including the two dozen men gifted with a brand new musket. Loaded with the gunpowder procured by Rev. Thomas from the Josephine, at the command of Naraqino, the men fired into the sky above Rewa. The crackle and flare was for King Tanoa on the opposite shore, so he may know that Naraqino is now the keeper of guns, and God.
8 August 1835
Though the rev. seems content to dissolve the scriptures to suit the vices of Naraqino, he does hold more sway here than he did on the other side of the river. He has already declared that a heathen temple and chapel must not stand in the same village. Naraqino, ever ready to please the man who dissolved a palm tree in the click of a finger, has ordered that the temple be destroyed and a chapel erected in its place without delay.
He has also dispatched warriors into the hills and told them not to return unless with the body of the runaway high priest – dead or alive.
9 August 1835
The temple illuminated the village the entire night. When the timbers and wooden idols burned down from glowing crimson to cooling ash, the captured high priest and two of his disciples were tossed upon the embers to fan the flames.
Naraqino feasted on their flesh for his breakfast, and though the rev. declined when offered a seat at his table, for one horrifying moment I believed he considered in partaking.
While Naraqino and his guests cut into the body of the high priest, men with axes set about chopping down trees for the chapel.
10 August 1835
The new chapel shall be the tallest building in all Fiji, taller than the grand house of Naraqino, taller than the fort of King Tanoa. All the carpenters are busied with the labours of construction, and the toil of so many men committed to a house of God should be a vision to savour. Alas, when Naraqino – carried aloft to the site in his chair – sees any man tire, he is quick to threaten that if the chapel is short of building materials, ‘It will be the bones of the idle that replace them.’
11 August 1835
Last night the Rev. Thomas drank kava with Naraqino. Though only a liquid derived from a plant, it has opium-like qualities, and when imbibed in large amounts stupefies close to a total paralysis. Back on Lakemba, the rev. had declared it ‘a tool of subjugation brewed by the devil’. This morning his tack was that: ‘What grows from this good earth must have been sown by His divine hand for a reason.’
He had drunk through the night without sleeping. The whites of his eyes were lined with the tributaries of swollen blood vessels, as though a red river deep within his being had burst its banks.
14 August 1835
For two days now I have done little but pray. Sleeping with one eye open has left me in no state for little else but my translation duties. If not assisting the construction of the new house of God, I am recounting the misadventures of Naraqino into English for the rev. – either