“We’ll go on to your house, Tsuda,” said Captain Utterbourne more gently,
“and get to the bottom of this business.”
Tsuda nodded and led the way. The Captain turned back with a muttered
remark to one of his men: “I had an uneasy feeling there was something
wrong here. Places send out strong waves of vibration.”
It was, in truth, these same “waves” which had whispered him to take the
one slight precaution of keeping Elsa on board till the situation had
been traversed. As a matter of fact, one of the sly, unspoken objects
back of his acquiescence in Elsa’s request to come along with him on
this voyage had been the thought that her presence here would have a
stimulating and reassuring, a sort of bolstering effect on Mrs. King. If
she had grown lonely and discontented, Elsa would cheer her and (with
perhaps a little judicious manipulation) convince her that it would be
much easier now to face out another year on the island. If King was doing
well it would be a pity to let him slip on to other fields just yet.
But the Captain had felt strangely uneasy, from the moment the anchor
dropped; and he preferred that Elsa be held temporarily in reserve. As a
recruit, Jerome, also, was a little new. But Utterbourne was anxious not
to strike any wrong notes of unnecessary secrecy with him just now, and
besides wanted him to get more or less the “feeling” of these adventures,
which would help his background. Backgrounds were very important things.
He little guessed the commotion in Jerome’s mind at the present moment.
A step or two farther along, Captain Utterbourne remembered he had
neglected to bring out a small chest of bright trash which Tsuda would
pounce on eagerly—gay, valueless objects that would fit into his scheme
of Ainu culture. Possibly the chest might tend to put Tsuda in a frame of
mind for withholding nothing. Men like Tsuda had to be treated tenderly.
The trouble with Tsuda was that he was too suspicious. Tsuda would be
suspicious of a fly if it happened to look a little different from most
other flies.
“Would you mind, Sargeant, going back for it now—h’m?”
So the party temporarily disbanded. Utterbourne and Sutherland went on
with Tsuda, while Sargeant and Rutherford turned back toward the launch.
At this moment of disruption a wild and romantic design entered Jerome’s
head and captured it entirely. In the dark he made his escape from both
parties. Utterbourne supposed he had gone back with Sargeant, while the
returning men thought he had gone on with Utterbourne—or rather no one
gave him any deliberate thought at all. But Jerome, dodging behind a
huge palm, waited until the steps in both directions had died out.
Alone on an unknown island he stood, his heart given over to a sudden
wave of impulse. Stella was dead. In life their ways had been roughly
sundered; in death she seemed, during this feverish, pulsing hour, given
back to him again. He seemed to have achieved an intangible victory over
the man who had once cast him into a humiliating discard—yes, all in the
first, swift, terrible knowledge of her fate.
He would go alone to her grave—he would be the first to look upon it.
Perhaps the others would not even go, since after all what is a grave?
But he would go; it was his hour of triumph. Life had divided their ways,
but death had brought them together again. Poor Stella. Things had turned
out very differently with her from what she had hoped. Probably no one
would ever know just what had taken place. She became starry with mystery
and bound up in an eternal beauty of suspense. Yes, he would go to her
grave; for despite what he had become, Stella must always be in his mind
the woman he once loved. Indifference, while it may carry a man far, can
never quite blot out a memory like that.
During the preceding sombre conversation he had caught at words as they
fell, almost without heeding them at the time. Now they hung together in
his mind and formed a vivid picture. The grave was near the temple ...
you could tell it by the fresh flowers. And the string of lights ... they
were taking up an offering ... an offering to heathen gods for the soul
of Stella. It was ghastly. It all but passed belief.
Keeping his distance, and walking as softly as possible, Jerome made off
after the procession of twinkling lights. Overhead the heavy tropical
stars were shining brightly. There would be a moon presently; the east
was aglow; but in the jungle it was very dark. The way was long, and the
strange men with the lights went ever on ahead.
After a time a tropical grove was reached, in whose midst stood the
temple. No one, at first, approached very close: there seemed a
recognized margin of some sort, beyond which the ground was holy. Of
them all, the single figure alone, bearing in his hands a woven tray
heaped with the choicest fruits of the place, went on toward the temple
itself; the rest squatted upon the ground. Not a word was spoken. It was
a strange and awful ceremony.
The moon was just rising, full and yellow; the first soft beams began to
steal in through the breeze-stirred palm orchard to illumine the temple
with a pale light. But the resinous torches cast up everything in bold,
dancing relief. Jerome, on the outskirts, crouching, felt his mind in
greater tumult even than before. He seemed to himself almost possessed.
It was a Japanese temple. They had ruined Tsuda’s chances of becoming a
priest; but he knew a temple from _torii_ to _sessha_. It was surrounded
by a low wall with a gate. Outside the gate was a tiny spring of fresh
water. Jerome could see it: a little pool just troubled in the torchlight.
All about sprang the rich blackness of a tropical growth, the most lush
he had ever beheld. The moon was climbing slowly up the sky. He was glad
he had come. Life was wonderful and sad. He watched with eyes that tried
to record every detail of this unearthly hour.
The figure with the offering uttered a bit of weird chanting; then
suddenly the words ceased, and the tray was deposited on a small altar
at the foot of a flight of steps leading up to the temple itself. That
was all. The crude fragment of ritual concluded, these strange beings
with bushy hair and prodigious drooping moustaches moved away in silence.
Jerome, crouching in his hiding place, watched them pass by, one by one,
and disappear. He could see the twinkling lights, like far-off tapers,
winding farther and farther. Then silence was supreme.
He remained still in hiding what seemed to him a long, long time. Never
had he been in a place so intensely still. When at length he stirred and
began moving cautiously toward the temple, his senses were abnormally
alert with the painful excitement. But he was ever conscious, too,
of that odd feeling of triumph in his heart. Death had seemed to put
her back somehow into his hands again. He couldn’t get away from
that thought—nor did he want to get away from it. Jerome even began
projecting, vaguely and fitfully, a scene with Stella’s father: he would
go in very simply and tell him how he had visited her grave alone tonight.
The past was irrevocably behind them; but his heart would not be still.
Suddenly he stopped, thrilling with terror, as a great bird rose up
from almost beneath his feet and flew off screaming across the silvered
dark. It looked like a great sinister eagle, yet it had the neck of a
crane and head plumage of what (though moonlight can create delusion as
regards colours) seemed brilliant vermilion. He could hear the bird still
screaming at a great distance, crashing on through the tangle of its
native wood as though quite blind. After that the silence was still more
poignant.
Pulling himself together, Jerome moved on slowly, seeking the grave with
the flowers. There were a number of mounds all about, but they looked
ancient. Far around to one side, however, he found at last the grave
he sought—in the dark stumbled against it, and was really on his knees
before he realized this was, in truth, the end of his quest.