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He really had my interest at heart more than I did. Mine was the magnificent carelessness of youth, for I preferred romance to dollars, and adventure to a comfortable billet with all night in. So it was well that I had some one to look out for me. I know that if it had not been for Otoo, I should not be here today. Of numerous instances, let me give one.
At first, when I was unaware of this interest of his in my affairs, he had to divine my intentions, as, for instance, at Papeete, when I contemplated going partners with a knavish fellow countryman on a guano venture. I did not know he was a knave. Nor did any white man in Papeete. Neither did Otoo know; but he saw how thick we were getting and found out for me, and that without my asking.
He was now told that the gun had been stolen by a native of Tiarabou, and therefore Otoo was unable to get it back, so after a little discussion he decided to put up with the loss, and sent word to the king that he would say no more about it. In the evening, however, the musket and some articles that had not been missed were returned, and the men who brought them were duly rewarded.
Otoo was very unwilling that the ships should go, and shed tears when he parted from Captain Cook. A young lad, called Boreo, was taken on board the Resolution. Though he seemed tolerably satisfied, he could not help weeping as he saw his native island left astern. Two days afterwards the ships anchored in the harbour of Owharre, in the island of Huaheine.
The king, Otoo, came to visit the camp, bringing as his present a dozen pigs and some fruit, and then with some of his friends went on board ship to dinner, and to receive the return present. It was then found that the red feathers were greatly valued, a very fortunate thing as articles of trade were running short.
In short, the village was so remote from the coast, and had been so much less affected by recent changes than other places that, in most things, Tahitian life was here seen as formerly existing in the days of young Otoo, the boy-king, in Cook's time.
Before the fleet could sail it was necessary that a grand human sacrifice should be offered. The unhappy victim one of the common people had already been knocked on the head for the purpose. Captain Cook, wishing to ascertain the truth of the accounts he had received, accompanied Otoo to witness the ceremony, and with him Mr Anderson and Mr Webber, followed by Omai in a canoe.
My face was in the water, and I was watching him maneuver for another attempt, when I saw a brown body pass between us. It was Otoo. "Swim for the schooner, master!" he said. And he spoke gayly, as though the affair was a mere lark. "I know sharks. The shark is my brother."
While I was busy arguing and persuading the woolly-headed cannibals to come and labor on the Queensland plantations Otoo kept watch. And often and often his low voice warned me of suspicious actions and impending treachery. Sometimes it was the quick shot from his rifle, knocking a nigger over, that was the first warning I received.
In the South Seas such a ceremony binds two men closer together than blood-brothership. The initiative had been mine, and Otoo was rapturously delighted when I suggested it. "It is well," he said, in Tahitian. "For we have been mates together for three days on the lips of Death." "But Death stuttered," I smiled.
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