The Mysterious Island Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Captain Grant's Children

Chapter 60 Captain Grant's Children (60)
The jazz and his party felt that the night was really like a year.Everyone was anxious and unsure of their future fate.What surrounds my mind is the terrifying scene of parting from life and death.Everyone is still thinking, where is Robert Jr.?And where did Paganel go?Was it really killed by the natives!The major thought, these two people might really have more bad luck than good luck, and now they might be on the way to hell.Miss Mary Grant was very sad not to see her brother.How could she let go of the brotherhood between siblings?John Mengel was devastated when he saw the girl he loved so sad.Sir Glenarvan thought of Mrs. Helen in order to avoid the abuse of the Maori, and asked Sir Glenarvan to kill her first; but Sir Glenarvan loved his wife so much, how could he have the courage to kill her with his own hands?The more he thought about it, the sadder he felt.

"Where is Miss Mary? Do I have the guts to kill her with my own hands?" At this moment, John Menger was also suffering in his heart.

Jazz and his party also saw that ten strong Maori men who were all armed outside the door were guarding. Even with wings, it was difficult to fly. It was impossible to escape, so they could only wait obediently.

That's how everyone got through the night.When it was dawn, it was the early morning of February 2.Because of the "forbidden" reason, the indigenous people did not come up to harass this day.There is some food in the shed, but no one is in the mood to touch it. Everyone is extremely sad, forgetting to be hungry, and has not eaten a drop of water.The temple is shrouded in deathly loneliness, and it can be speculated that the Maori will carry out the funeral of the dead and the execution of the murderer at the same time.

Sir Glenarvan was quite sure that the original plan of exchanging prisoners was no longer in existence.But the major still held out a glimmer of hope.

"Maybe, maybe," the major always said, and he urged the sergeant to think carefully about the expression on the face of "Bonecracker" when Karatet died, "maybe, in his heart, the chief thanked you." Yes!" said the major.

But however relieved the major was, the Sir had no hope left.The next day was spent in torment again.Seeing that the Maori showed no signs of execution, they thought why not do it immediately?
In fact, this is a superstitious custom of the Maori people.They believe that the soul does not come out of the body until three days after death; therefore, it takes three days to bury the dead.Therefore, until March 3th, there was no one in the village, and it was quiet; John Mengel often stood on Wilson's shoulders, stretched his head out of the seam to look outside, but he never saw Maori. Nobody showed up; only the guards stood with their guns.

On the third day, the "Bone Crawler" walked out of his house, followed by some main leaders of the tribe.The men walked to the middle of the stockade and climbed up a platform a few feet high.Before these chiefs came, some Maori men, women and children were already here. A few meters behind the earth platform, they piled up to form a semicircle.The venue was quiet and silent.

Then, "Bone Eater" waved his hand, and a Maori soldier walked towards the temple.

"Please don't forget my request!" Mrs. Helen hurriedly shouted to her husband.

Sir Glenarvan hastily embraced his beloved wife in his arms.At this time, Mary Grant also walked beside John.

"Mrs. Helen advocates that a wife can be beaten to death as a husband in order to avoid being abused!" Miss Mary said affectionately to Meng Geer, "A fiancée can also make such a request to her fiancé in the same way. Dear John, now is the time of life and death; and now I want to tell you that, deep down, I regard you as my fiancé! Dear John, may I make this request to you? "

"My dear Mary!" cried John excitedly, "Mary..."

Before John finished speaking, the grass hole on the door was opened; Jazz and his party were escorted to the dirt platform.These two women have made up their minds to let the person they love execute themselves first; now their hearts are much calmer and more comfortable; their expressions are naturally unyielding, resolute and calm.

Jazz and his party were escorted to the "Bone Eater"; the chief began to interrogate.

"Karatte was killed by you, right!"

"Yes, it is indeed I!" Sir Glenarvan replied as if death was at home.

"When the sun rises tomorrow, I will execute you!"

"I'm the only one to die!" Jazz replied forcefully, but his heart was pounding nervously.

"Well, if it weren't for the importance of our 'Tuohonga', maybe you..." "Bone Crawler" yelled loudly, with a vicious look of annoyance in his eyes.

At this moment, there was a commotion in the Maori circle.Sir Glenarvan scanned the surroundings at once and saw a Maori soldier running towards him, panting and sweating profusely.

The "Bone Eater" asked the soldier in English, deliberately making Jazz and his party aware of it.

"You just got back from the war, didn't you?"

"correct."

"See our 'Tohunja'?"

"Well, I see!"

"Now, is he still alive?"

"Dead! Has been shot by the British army!"

Upon hearing this, Jazz and his companions knew that the hope of being rescued could only be dashed now.

"Everyone will be executed!" This was the final verdict made by the "Bone Eater" on Jazz and his party. "When the sun comes out tomorrow morning, put all these people to death!"

Die with your companions!This was a great consolation to Lady Helen and Miss Grant.

The Jazz and his party were not escorted to the temple, but were escorted by the Maori to the funeral of the deceased.A team of Maori bet the Jazz and his party under a huge "kudi" tree.The Maori guard's eyes were fixed on them.Other Maori were silently mourning the dead.

Karatet had been dead for three days.His soul left his body.

Now, his body is placed on the earthen platform, wearing a gorgeous shroud, wrapped in a layer of beautifully woven longwort grass mat.He wears a ring of green leaves and feathers on his head.Arms, chest, and face were heavily oiled, and it really didn't look like a zombie.

The relatives and friends of the deceased stopped in front of the earth platform.At this time, there was an earth-shattering cry on the field, like a chorus.These cries sounded out in bursts, shaking the entire cottage.The relatives who were close to the deceased beat their chests and cried, cried, and slapped their heads vigorously; the relatives who were not related by blood desperately scratched their cheeks with their hands, showing very sincere feelings.However, the sincere piety of these relatives is actually to prevent the souls of the dead from continuing to torture the people in the clan.The soldiers who accompanied the deceased advocated that his wife should be buried with the deceased; his wife was also willing to be buried with her husband, and did not want to live alone in the world.

So Karatet's wife came out.She is young and has some beauty.Sir and his companions saw her with her hair disheveled, crying and howling, narrating her mourning in staccato tears;

At this time, the "Bone Nibbler" walked to her side.The unfortunate wife suddenly wanted to stand up, but the "bone gnawer" swung a big wooden club - the Maori called a "wooden hammer" - and smashed it down vigorously, and the wife fell to the ground and died.

At this time, deafening shouts and curses resounded from the native circle, and they shook their fists at the frightened Sir and his party; but none of them came here; because at this time, the funeral was not over yet.

Karatet's body and his wife's body were laid side by side on an earthen platform; but the chiefs in the underworld cannot be accompanied by their wives, and they need slaves to serve them.Then, six more unfortunate slaves were dragged in front of the platform.These are the captive Maori of the defeated tribe; when the chief was alive, he yelled at them to be cattle and horses, and these slaves suffered and suffered; but now they are going to die and continue to be slaves to the chief of the underworld.

In fact, these slaves have become numb to death, and instead feel that death is a relief from pain.But the jazz and his companions had never seen the sacrifice of a living person, but they were not interested in looking up at this horrific scene.

At this time, six tall and burly Maori soldiers raised the "wooden hammer" high and smashed it down at the slaves at the same time.Immediately, the six slaves fell into a pool of blood all over the ground; this was just an order for cannibalism, and the cannibalism would follow.

The corpses of chiefs and slaves were not treated equally, and the corpses of slaves were not "forbidden by gods". Therefore, these Maori, whether they were men, women, old or young, rushed up to the corpses of the six slaves, crazily grabbing them. eat human flesh.

Sir Glenarvan and his party were so frightened that they almost died.Especially Mrs. Helen and Miss Grant almost fainted on the ground.They all know that they may be in such a situation when the sun rises tomorrow; moreover, they may suffer torture and humiliation before they die...

After eating human flesh, the Maori performed the funeral dance.These savage Maori were writhing their bodies like crazy, and they were still drinking a kind of strong wine made from "extreme chilli";This kind of Maori in a state of insanity has no sense of "forbidden" or "forbidden" at all; looking at the madness, it seems that they are about to rush up and swallow Jazz and his party alive.Fortunately, the chief "Bone Eater" was not drunk.He gave the Maori an hour to enjoy the pleasure of drinking; let them eat and drink enough before proceeding to the funeral.

After drinking heavily, the Maori lifted the Karatets' bodies.According to the custom of the Maori people in New Zealand, the dead should be curled up with arms and legs up to the belly.After that, the burial ceremony began.These two corpses were not buried in the soil all the time; when the flesh was rotten, they were dug up to see the sun again.

The burial ground, or Uduba as the Maori call it, is on a hill two miles from the village.This mountain is on the right side of Daobo Lake and is called Mengganamu Mountain.

Four Maori soldiers carried the bodies; the Maori wept loudly in front of and behind the bodies.Half an hour later, the funeral procession entered the valley.Not long after, on a mountain road in the distance, there was another funeral procession, twisting and wriggling slowly.

The height of Mount Mengganam is eight hundred feet above sea level.On the top of the mountain, there is also a large tomb specially prepared for Karate.

According to the custom, if an ordinary Maori dies, he digs a big pit, piles some stones on it, and buries him in this way; There is a luxurious tomb to be worthy of it.

A fence surrounds the "Uduba" in Karatete; beside the tomb, there are many wooden stakes, on which some portraits of people are carved.It was ocher that painted the stakes red.In order to protect the dead from hunger and cold in the underworld, a lot of food and clothing, and even some weapons were deliberately placed in the tomb.

When all these things were arranged, the bodies of the Karatets were laid side by side in the inner tomb; and in a moment there was a cry all around, and grass and earth were scattered on the bodies.

The funeral ended like this, and the mourners went back one after another.Since then, the Mengganamu Mountain, where the dead are buried, has been "forbidden by the gods", and no one is allowed to go up.

Life and death
When the sun was about to set, Sir Glenarvan and his party were escorted back to the "temple" by the Maori.It can be seen that this temple may be the last night of their lives.

In the face of death, everyone felt very depressed, but they still had a "last supper" together.

"We must cheer up, cheer up, and not be discouraged and let these barbaric Maori look down on us." Sir Glenarvan encouraged everyone.

After supper, Lady Helene mournfully sang Vespers; and in silence all hats were taken off, and they prayed with her.

Indeed it is!How can God be forgotten in this last moment of life?

After the evening prayer, everyone hugged each other again, as if saying their final goodbyes.

Then, Mrs. Helen and Miss Grant retreated to a corner of the temple and lay down on a straw mat.The two hugged each other, and soon fell asleep.After a day of tossing, the two were really exhausted and unable to support themselves, so they could only choose to rest with fear.

At this moment Sir Glenarvan called the other companions aside, and said:

"Friends, our lives are in God's hands. If God's will tells us to go there tomorrow, we must bravely accept God's final judgment. However, we may not die here once. It's over, and I may have to suffer all kinds of torture and humiliation, especially those two women..."

Sir Glenarvan's tone had always been majestic, but at this moment his voice trembled, and he could not continue.But, after a moment's pause, he went on:

"Dear John, you have agreed to Miss Mary's request, what will you do now?"

"I've got a knife here," said John Mengel, drawing out a short knife, "that I took from that damned wretch, Calatet, when he fell to the ground. Sir, now we discuss who will die last and who can fulfill the request of Mrs. Helen and Miss Grant..."

No one spoke, and the shed was still dead silent.It was the major who was the first to break the silence, saying:

"My friends, don't do it now unless it's absolutely necessary. I don't believe it's the end of the mountain, the last hope."

"I don't mean us men," Sir Glenarvan said hastily. "To tell the truth, people are going to die. We people are going to fight them to the death. But those two women! . . . "

While speaking, John raised the curtain slightly, looked outside, counted lightly, and saw that there were a total of 25 Maori soldiers guarding the house.They were lighting a bonfire, and some were lying beside it, and some were standing far away from it; but these soldiers, whether they were standing or lying down, used the He looked at the shed where the prisoners were kept.

Generally speaking, the relationship between guards and prisoners is those who want to escape and those who prevent escape.But generally speaking, the chances of the escapees successfully slipping away are relatively high, because the escaped guards are always caught off guard.However, these Maori guards are full of hatred and determined to inflict revenge, so naturally their vigilance is very high.Although the Jazz and his party were not tied up, how could they have a chance to escape under the current situation of 25 guards?

Moreover, the temple was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the steep mountains made it impossible for anyone to escape.The front is the only way down the mountain, and it is tightly guarded by some Maori soldiers.Seeing such a situation, Sir Glenarvan is giving up his mind now, and he is unwilling to fantasize out of thin air.

Time passed by every minute and every second, and everyone was weighed down by anxiety and helplessness.The heavy night shrouded the mountain, and everyone could see neither the moon nor the stars.The strong wind in the mountains blows in gusts, the wooden stakes around the shed are blown, and the campfire burns vigorously at night.The blazing red light reflected the faces of Jazz and his companions; everyone was depressed, and their hearts were shrouded in the shadow of death.

It was about four o'clock in the morning when the major became alert to a slight sound.He listened carefully with his ears sideways, as if the sound came from the place where the rock stood, behind the stake.The major thought, was it the sound of the wind blowing?But when I listened carefully, I felt that the sound was really different; the sound kept ringing, as if someone was digging a hole in the wall and digging up the soil.

The major understood something in his heart, and immediately went to the side of Sir Glenarvan and John Mengel, and called them both over.

"Listen, listen carefully!" The major lowered his voice and gestured for the two to lie on the ground.

It is indeed the sound of digging!And it can be discerned that it is the sound of a sharp object scraping against the pebbles, accompanied by the sound of the pebbles being rolled down.

"It may be some animal, and it is picking up the nest!" John Mengel said.

Sir Glenarvan patted his head lightly and said:

"Maybe, someone is hacking the wall here..."

"It won't be long before we know what's going on," said the major excitedly.

Wilson and Aubine also sneaked over at this time.Meng Geer picked up the short knife, and the others also found a piece of stone, or simply picked it out with their hands.These few people started digging the wall together.Muradi was watching the movement of the Maori soldiers from behind the doorway.

The Maori soldiers gathered around the fire, seemingly unaware of what was going on here.Maybe the fire was not too close to the shed, it took more than 20 steps to walk, so they didn't know what tricks were being played here.

The walls that Jazz and his party dug and dug are made of siliceous tuff, which is soft and easy to break.Although everyone has no tools, the survival instinct makes the digging speed very fast.After a while, everyone said with certainty that the one standing outside was not an animal, but a human being!Is it a friend who is digging a hole to rescue, or has ulterior motives?
do not care!Dig down first.Although everyone's fingers were bleeding, no one complained of pain.The hope of survival is motivating everyone.After about half an hour of digging, the hole was already one meter deep.At this time, the noise outside became louder.

A few minutes passed, and the Major's fingertips touched the point of a knife, and he drew back instinctively, almost screaming.

John Menger hastily stretched out his short knife, thus blocking the tip of the knife digging in from the outside.He reached out and felt the hand that held the knife; it was a small hand, and it belonged to a woman or a child; in short, it was definitely European hands!

(End of this chapter)