Mark laughed, a soft and throaty laugh. "You would not, Joel. You would
not. For you never felt an overwhelming notion that you must dance in the
moon upon the sand. You've never felt that, Joel; and--I have."
"I'm not a hand for dancing," said Joel.
Mark seemed to forget that his brother sat beside him. His eyes became
misty and thoughtful, as though he were living over again the days of
which he spoke. "Mind, Joel," he said, "there's a pagan in every man of
us. And there's two pagans in some of us. And I'm minded, Joel, that
there are three of them in me. 'Twas so, that night."
"It was night when you left the ship?"
"Aye, night. Night, and the moon; and it may have been that I had been
drinking a drop or two. Also, as you shall see, I was not well. I tell
these things, not by way of excuse and palliation; but only so that you
may understand. D'ye see? I was three pagans in one body, and that body
witched by moon, and twisted by drink, and trembling with fever. And so
it was I went ashore, and flung my men behind me, and went off, dancing,
along the hard sand.
"That was a night, Joel. A slow-winded, warm, trembling night when there
was a song in the very air. The wind tingled on your throat like a
woman's finger tips; and the sea was singing at the one side, and the
wind in the palms on the other. And ahead of me, the wild, discordant
chanting of the Islanders about their fires.... That singing it was that
got me by the throat, and led me. I twirled around and around, very
solemnly, by myself in the moonlight on the sand; and all the time I went
onward toward the fires....
"I remember, when I came in sight of the fires, I threw away my coat and
ran in among them. And they scattered, and yelled their harsh,
meaningless, throaty yells. And they hid in the bush to stare at me by
the fire.... They hid in the rank, thick grasses. All except one, Joel."
Joel, listening, watched his brother and saw through his brother's eyes;
for he knew, for all his slow blood, the witchery of those warm, southern
nights.
"The moon was on her," said Mark. "The moon was on her, and there was a
red blossom in her hair, and some strings of things that clothed her. A
little brown girl, with eyes like the eyes of a deer. And--not afraid of
me. That was the thing that got me, Joel. She stood in my path, met me,
watched me; and her eyes were not afraid....
"She was very little. She was only a child. I suppose we would call her
sixteen or seventeen years old. But they ripen quickly, Joel--these
Island children. Her little shoulders were as smooth and soft.... You
could not even mark the ridge of her collar bones, she was fleshed so
sweetly. She stood, and watched me; and the others crept out of the
grasses, at last, and stood about us. And then this little brown girl
held up her hand to me, and pointed me out to the others, and said
something. I did not know what it was that she said; but I know now. She
said that I was sick.
"I did not know then that I was sick. When she lifted her hand to me, I
caught it; and I began to lead her in a wild dance, in the moonlight,
about their dying fires. I could see them, in the shadows, their eyeballs
shining as they watched us.... And they seemed, after a little, to move
about in a misty, inhuman fashion; and they twisted into strange,
cloud-like shapes. And I stopped to laugh at them, and my head dropped
down before I could catch it and struck against the earth, and the earth
forsook me, Joel, and left me swimming in nothing at all....
"My memory was a long time in coming back to me, Joel. It would peep out
at me like a timid child, hiding among the trees. I would see it for an
instant; then 'twould be gone. But I know it must have been many days
that I was on the island there. And I knew, after a time, that I was most
extremely sick; and the little brown girl put cool leaves on my head, and
gave me strange brews to drink, and rubbed and patted my chest and my
body with her hands in a fashion that was immensely comfortable and
strengthening. And I twisted on a bed of coarse grass.... And I remember
singing, at times...."
He looked toward Joel, eyes suddenly flaming. "Eh, Joel, I tell you I was
not three pagans, but six, in those days. The thing's clear beyond your
guessing, Joel. But it was big. An immense thing. I was back at the
beginning of the world, with food, and drink, and my woman.... It was
big, I tell you. Big!"
His eyes clouded--he fell silent, and so at last went on again. "I was
asleep one night, tossing in my sleep. And something woke me. And I laid
my hand on the spot beside me where the little brown girl used to lie,
and she was gone. So I got up, unsteadily. There were rifles snapping in
the night; and there were screams. And I heard a white man's black curse;
and the slap of a blow of flesh on flesh. And the screams.
"So I went that way; and the sounds retreated before me, until I came
out, unsteadily, upon the open beach. There was no moon, that night; and
the water of the lagoon was shot with fire. And there was a boat, pulling
away from the beach, with screaming in it.
"I swam after the boat for a long time, for I thought I had heard the
voice of the little brown girl. The water was full of fire. When I lifted
my arms, the fire ran down them in streams and drops. And sometimes I
forgot what I was about, and stopped to laugh at these drops of fire. But
in the end, I always swam on. I remember once I thought the little brown
girl swam beside me, and I tried to throw my arm about her, and she
wrenched away, and she burned me like a brand. I found, afterwards, what
that was. My breast and sides were rasped and raw where a shark's rough
skin had scraped them. I've wondered, Joel, why the beast did not take
me....
"But he did not; for I bumped at last into the boat, and climbed into it,
and it was empty. But I saw a rope at the end of it, and I pulled the
rope, and came to the schooner's stern, and climbed aboard her."
His voice was ringing, exultantly and proudly. "I swung aboard," he said.
"And I stumbled over fighting bodies on the deck, astern there. And some
one cried out, in the waist of her; and I knew it was the little brown
girl. So I left those struggling bodies at the stern, for they were not
my concern; and I went forward to the waist. And I found her there.
"A fat man had her. She was fighting him; and he did not see me. And I
put my fingers quietly into his neck, from behind; and when he no longer
kicked back at me, and no longer tore at my fingers with his, I dropped
him over the side. I saw a fiery streak in the water where I dropped him.
That shark was not so squeamish as the one I had--embraced. It may have
been the other was embarrassed at my ways, Joel. D'ye think that might
have been the way of it?"
Joel's knuckles were white, where his hand rested on his knee. Mark saw,
and laughed softly. "There's blood in you, after all, boy," he applauded.
"I've hopes for you."