The boat was gone again, and already half-way to the Farallone, before
Herrick turned and went unwillingly up the pier. From the crown of
the beach, the figure-head confronted him with what seemed irony,
her helmeted head tossed back, her formidable arm apparently hurling
something, whether shell or missile, in the direction of the anchored
schooner. She seemed a defiant deity from the island, coming forth to
its threshold with a rush as of one about to fly, and perpetuated in
that dashing attitude. Herrick looked up at her, where she towered above
him head and shoulders, with singular feelings of curiosity and romance,
and suffered his mind to travel to and fro in her life-history. So long
she had been the blind conductress of a ship among the waves; so long
she had stood here idle in the violent sun, that yet did not avail
to blister her; and was even this the end of so many adventures? he
wondered, or was more behind? And he could have found in his heart to
regret that she was not a goddess, nor yet he a pagan, that he might
have bowed down before her in that hour of difficulty.
When he now went forward, it was cool with the shadow of many well-grown
palms; draughts of the dying breeze swung them together overhead; and on
all sides, with a swiftness beyond dragon-flies or swallows, the spots
of sunshine flitted, and hovered, and returned. Underfoot, the sand was
fairly solid and quite level, and Herrick's steps fell there noiseless
as in new-fallen snow. It bore the marks of having been once weeded like
a garden alley at home; but the pestilence had done its work, and the
weeds were returning. The buildings of the settlement showed here and
there through the stems of the colonnade, fresh painted, trim and dandy,
and all silent as the grave. Only, here and there in the crypt, there
was a rustle and scurry and some crowing of poultry; and from behind the
house with the verandahs, he saw smoke arise and heard the crackling of
a fire.
The stone houses were nearest him upon his right. The first was locked;
in the second, he could dimly perceive, through a window, a certain
accumulation of pearl-shell piled in the far end; the third, which stood
gaping open on the afternoon, seized on the mind of Herrick with its
multiplicity and disorder of romantic things. Therein were cables,
windlasses and blocks of every size and capacity; cabin windows and
ladders; rusty tanks, a companion hutch; a binnacle with its brass
mountings and its compass idly pointing, in the confusion and dusk of
that shed, to a forgotten pole; ropes, anchors, harpoons, a blubber
dipper of copper, green with years, a steering wheel, a tool chest with
the vessel's name upon the top, the Asia: a whole curiosity-shop of sea
curios, gross and solid, heavy to lift, ill to break, bound with brass
and shod with iron. Two wrecks at the least must have contributed to
this random heap of lumber; and as Herrick looked upon it, it seemed to
him as if the two ships' companies were there on guard, and he heard
the tread of feet and whisperings, and saw with the tail of his eye the
commonplace ghosts of sailor men.
This was not merely the work of an aroused imagination, but had
something sensible to go upon; sounds of a stealthy approach were no
doubt audible; and while he still stood staring at the lumber, the voice
of his host sounded suddenly, and with even more than the customary
softness of enunciation, from behind.
'Junk,', it said, 'only old junk! And does Mr Hay find a parable?'
'I find at least a strong impression,' replied Herrick, turning quickly,
lest he might be able to catch, on the face of the speaker, some
commentary on the words.
Attwater stood in the doorway, which he almost wholly filled; his hands
stretched above his head and grasping the architrave. He smiled when
their eyes Met, but the expression was inscrutable.
'Yes, a powerful impression. You are like me; nothing so affecting as
ships!' said he. 'The ruins of an empire would leave me frigid, when a
bit of an old rail that an old shellback leaned on in the middle watch,
would bring me up all standing. But come, let's see some more of the
island. It's all sand and coral and palm trees; but there's a kind of a
quaintness in the place.'
'I find it heavenly,' said Herrick, breathing deep, with head bared in
the shadow.
'Ah, that's because you're new from sea,' said Attwater. 'I dare say,
too, you can appreciate what one calls it. It's a lovely name. It has
a flavour, it has a colour, it has a ring and fall to it; it's like its
author--it's half Christian! Remember your first view of the island, and
how it's only woods and water; and suppose you had asked somebody for
the name, and he had answered--nemorosa Zacynthos!'
'Jam medio apparet fluctu!' exclaimed Herrick. 'Ye gods, yes, how good!'
'If it gets upon the chart, the skippers will make nice work of it,'
said Attwater. 'But here, come and see the diving-shed.'
He opened a door, and Herrick saw a large display of apparatus neatly
ordered: pumps and pipes, and the leaded boots, and the huge snouted
helmets shining in rows along the wall; ten complete outfits.
'The whole eastern half of my lagoon is shallow, you must understand,'
said Attwater; 'so we were able to get in the dress to great advantage.
It paid beyond belief, and was a queer sight when they were at it,
and these marine monsters'--tapping the nearest of the helmets--'kept
appearing and reappearing in the midst of the lagoon. Fond of parables?'
he asked abruptly.
'O yes!' said Herrick.
'Well, I saw these machines come up dripping and go down again, and come
up dripping and go down again, and all the while the fellow inside as
dry as toast!' said Attwater; 'and I thought we all wanted a dress to
go down into the world in, and come up scatheless. What do you think the
name was?' he inquired.
'Self-conceit,' said Herrick.
'Ah, but I mean seriously!' said Attwater.
'Call it self-respect, then!' corrected Herrick, with a laugh.
'And why not Grace? Why not God's Grace, Hay?' asked Attwater. 'Why
not the grace of your Maker and Redeemer, He who died for you, He
who upholds you, He whom you daily crucify afresh? There is nothing
here,'--striking on his bosom--'nothing there'--smiting the wall--'and
nothing there'--stamping--'nothing but God's Grace! We walk upon it, we
breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails and axles of the
universe; and a puppy in pyjamas prefers self-conceit!' The huge dark
man stood over against Herrick by the line of the divers' helmets, and
seemed to swell and glow; and the next moment the life had gone from
him. 'I beg your pardon,' said he; 'I see you don't believe in God?'
'Not in your sense, I am afraid,' said Herrick.
'I never argue with young atheists or habitual drunkards,' said Attwater
flippantly. 'Let us go across the island to the outer beach.'
It was but a little way, the greatest width of that island scarce
exceeding a furlong, and they walked gently. Herrick was like one in
a dream. He had come there with a mind divided; come prepared to study
that ambiguous and sneering mask, drag out the essential man from
underneath, and act accordingly; decision being till then postponed.
Iron cruelty, an iron insensibility to the suffering of others, the
uncompromising pursuit of his own interests, cold culture, manners
without humanity; these he had looked for, these he still thought he
saw. But to find the whole machine thus glow with the reverberation of
religious zeal, surprised him beyond words; and he laboured in vain, as
he walked, to piece together into any kind of whole his odds and ends
of knowledge--to adjust again into any kind of focus with itself, his
picture of the man beside him.
'What brought you here to the South Seas?' he asked presently.
'Many things,' said Attwater. 'Youth, curiosity, romance, the love of
the sea, and (it will surprise you to hear) an interest in missions.
That has a good deal declined, which will surprise you less. They go the
wrong way to work; they are too parsonish, too much of the old wife, and
even the old apple wife. CLOTHES, CLOTHES, are their idea; but clothes
are not Christianity, any more than they are the sun in heaven, or could
take the place of it! They think a parsonage with roses, and church
bells, and nice old women bobbing in the lanes, are part and parcel
of religion. But religion is a savage thing, like the universe it
illuminates; savage, cold, and bare, but infinitely strong.'
'And you found this island by an accident?' said Herrick.
'As you did!' said Attwater. 'And since then I have had a business, and
a colony, and a mission of my own. I was a man of the world before I was
a Christian; I'm a man of the world still, and I made my mission pay.
No good ever came of coddling. A man has to stand up in God's sight
and work up to his weight avoirdupois; then I'll talk to him, but not
before. I gave these beggars what they wanted: a judge in Israel, the
bearer of the sword and scourge; I was making a new people here; and
behold, the angel of the Lord smote them and they were not!'
With the very uttering of the words, which were accompanied by a
gesture, they came forth out of the porch of the palm wood by the margin
of the sea and full in front of the sun which was near setting. Before
them the surf broke slowly. All around, with an air of imperfect wooden
things inspired with wicked activity, the crabs trundled and scuttled
into holes. On the right, whither Attwater pointed and abruptly turned,
was the cemetery of the island, a field of broken stones from the
bigness of a child's hand to that of his head, diversified by many
mounds of the same material, and walled by a rude rectangular enclosure.
Nothing grew there but a shrub or two with some white flowers; nothing
but the number of the mounds, and their disquieting shape, indicated the
presence of the dead.
'The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep!'
quoted Attwater as he entered by the open gateway into that unholy
close. 'Coral to coral, pebbles to pebbles,' he said, 'this has been the
main scene of my activity in the South Pacific. Some were good, and some
bad, and the majority (of course and always) null. Here was a fellow,
now, that used to frisk like a dog; if you had called him he came like
an arrow from a bow; if you had not, and he came unbidden, you should
have seen the deprecating eye and the little intricate dancing
step. Well, his trouble is over now, he has lain down with kings and
councillors; the rest of his acts, are they not written in the book
of the chronicles? That fellow was from Penrhyn; like all the Penrhyn
islanders he was ill to manage; heady, jealous, violent: the man with
the nose! He lies here quiet enough. And so they all lie.
“And darkness was the burier of the dead!”'
He stood, in the strong glow of the sunset, with bowed head; his voice
sounded now sweet and now bitter with the varying sense.
'You loved these people?' cried Herrick, strangely touched.
'I?' said Attwater. 'Dear no! Don't think me a philanthropist. I dislike
men, and hate women. If I like the islands at all, it is because you see
them here plucked of their lendings, their dead birds and cocked hats,
their petticoats and coloured hose. Here was one I liked though,' and he
set his foot upon a mound. 'He was a fine savage fellow; he had a dark
soul; yes, I liked this one. I am fanciful,' he added, looking hard at
Herrick, 'and I take fads. I like you.'
Herrick turned swiftly and looked far away to where the clouds were
beginning to troop together and amass themselves round the obsequies of
day. 'No one can like me,' he said.
'You are wrong there,' said the other, 'as a man usually is about
himself. You are attractive, very attractive.'
'It is not me,' said Herrick; 'no one can like me. If you knew how I
despised myself--and why!' His voice rang out in the quiet graveyard.
'I knew that you despised yourself,' said Attwater. 'I saw the blood
come into your face today when you remembered Oxford. And I could have
blushed for you myself, to see a man, a gentleman, with these two vulgar
wolves.'
Herrick faced him with a thrill. 'Wolves?' he repeated.
'I said wolves and vulgar wolves,' said Attwater. 'Do you know that
today, when I came on board, I trembled?'
'You concealed it well,' stammered Herrick.
'A habit of mine,' said Attwater. 'But I was afraid, for all that: I was
afraid of the two wolves.' He raised his hand slowly. 'And now, Hay, you
poor lost puppy, what do you do with the two wolves?'
'What do I do? I don't do anything,' said Herrick. 'There is nothing
wrong; all is above board; Captain Brown is a good soul; he is a... he
is...' The phantom voice of Davis called in his ear: 'There's going to
be a funeral' and the sweat burst forth and streamed on his brow. 'He
is a family man,' he resumed again, swallowing; 'he has children at
home--and a wife.'
'And a very nice man?' said Attwater. 'And so is Mr Whish, no doubt?'
'I won't go so far as that,' said Herrick. 'I do not like Huish. And
yet... he has his merits too.'
'And, in short, take them for all in all, as good a ship's company as
one would ask?' said Attwater.
'O yes,' said Herrick, 'quite.'
'So then we approach the other point of why you despise yourself?' said
Attwater.
'Do we not all despise ourselves?' cried Herrick. 'Do not you?'
'Oh, I say I do. But do I?' said Attwater. 'One thing I know at least:
I never gave a cry like yours. Hay! it came from a bad conscience! Ah,
man, that poor diving dress of self-conceit is sadly tattered! Today,
now, while the sun sets, and here in this burying place of brown
innocents, fall on your knees and cast your sins and sorrows on the
Redeemer. Hay--'
'Not Hay!' interrupted the other, strangling. 'Don't call me that! I
mean... For God's sake, can't you see I'm on the rack?'
'I see it, I know it, I put and keep you there, my fingers are on the
screws!' said Attwater. 'Please God, I will bring a penitent this
night before His throne. Come, come to the mercy-seat! He waits to be
gracious, man--waits to be gracious!'
He spread out his arms like a crucifix, his face shone with the
brightness of a seraph's; in his voice, as it rose to the last word, the
tears seemed ready.
Herrick made a vigorous call upon himself. 'Attwater,' he said, 'you
push me beyond bearing. What am I to do? I do not believe. It is living
truth to you; to me, upon my conscience, only folk-lore. I do not
believe there is any form of words under heaven by which I can lift the
burthen from my shoulders. I must stagger on to the end with the pack of
my responsibility; I cannot shift it; do you suppose I would not, if I
thought I could? I cannot--cannot--cannot--and let that suffice.'
The rapture was all gone from Artwater's countenance; the dark apostle
had disappeared; and in his place there stood an easy, sneering
gentleman, who took off his hat and bowed. It was pertly done, and the
blood burned in Herrick's face.
'What do you mean by that?' he cried.
'Well, shall we go back to the house?' said Attwater. 'Our guests will
soon be due.'
Herrick stood his ground a moment with clenched fists and teeth; and as
he so stood, the fact of his errand there slowly swung clear in front of
him, like the moon out of clouds. He had come to lure that man on board;
he was failing, even if it could be said that he had tried; he was sure
to fail now, and knew it, and knew it was better so. And what was to be
next?
With a groan he turned to follow his host, who was standing with polite
smile, and instantly and somewhat obsequiously led the way in the now
darkened colonnade of palms. There they went in silence, the earth
gave up richly of her perfume, the air tasted warm and aromatic in the
nostrils; and from a great way forward in the wood, the brightness of
lights and fire marked out the house of Attwater.
Herrick meanwhile resolved and resisted an immense temptation to go up,
to touch him on the arm and breathe a word in his ear: 'Beware, they are
going to murder you.' There would be one life saved; but what of the two
others? The three lives went up and down before him like buckets in a
well, or like the scales of balances. It had come to a choice, and one
that must be speedy. For certain invaluable minutes, the wheels of life
ran before him, and he could still divert them with a touch to the one
side or the other, still choose who was to live and who was to die. He
considered the men. Attwater intrigued, puzzled, dazzled, enchanted and
revolted him; alive, he seemed but a doubtful good; and the thought of
him lying dead was so unwelcome that it pursued him, like a vision, with
every circumstance of colour and sound. Incessantly, he had before him
the image of that great mass of man stricken down in varying attitudes
and with varying wounds; fallen prone, fallen supine, fallen on his
side; or clinging to a doorpost with the changing face and the relaxing
fingers of the death-agony. He heard the click of the trigger, the thud
of the ball, the cry of the victim; he saw the blood flow. And this
building up of circumstance was like a consecration of the man, till he
seemed to walk in sacrificial fillets. Next he considered Davis, with
his thick-fingered, coarse-grained, oat-bread commonness of nature, his
indomitable valour and mirth in the old days of their starvation, the
endearing blend of his faults and virtues, the sudden shining forth of a
tenderness that lay too deep for tears; his children, Adar and her bowel
complaint, and Adar's doll. No, death could not be suffered to approach
that head even in fancy; with a general heat and a bracing of his
muscles, it was borne in on Herrick that Adar's father would find in him
a son to the death. And even Huish showed a little in that sacredness;
by the tacit adoption of daily life they were become brothers; there was
an implied bond of loyalty in their cohabitation of the ship and their
passed miseries, to which Herrick must be a little true or wholly
dishonoured. Horror of sudden death for horror of sudden death, there
was here no hesitation possible: it must be Attwater. And no sooner was
the thought formed (which was a sentence) than his whole mind of man ran
in a panic to the other side: and when he looked within himself, he was
aware only of turbulence and inarticulate outcry.
In all this there was no thought of Robert Herrick. He had complied with
the ebb-tide in man's affairs, and the tide had carried him away; he
heard already the roaring of the maelstrom that must hurry him under.
And in his bedevilled and dishonoured soul there was no thought of self.
For how long he walked silent by his companion Herrick had no guess.
The clouds rolled suddenly away; the orgasm was over; he found himself
placid with the placidity of despair; there returned to him the power of
commonplace speech; and he heard with surprise his own voice say: 'What
a lovely evening!'
'Is it not?' said Attwater. 'Yes, the evenings here would be very
pleasant if one had anything to do. By day, of course, one can shoot.'
'You shoot?' asked Herrick.
'Yes, I am what you would call a fine shot,' said Attwater. 'It is
faith; I believe my balls will go true; if I were to miss once, it would
spoil me for nine months.'
'You never miss, then?' said Herrick.
'Not unless I mean to,' said Attwater. 'But to miss nicely is the art.
There was an old king one knew in the western islands, who used to empty
a Winchester all round a man, and stir his hair or nick a rag out of his
clothes with every ball except the last; and that went plump between the
eyes. It was pretty practice.'
'You could do that?' asked Herrick, with a sudden chill.
'Oh, I can do anything,' returned the other. 'You do not understand:
what must be, must.'
They were now come near to the back part of the house. One of the men
was engaged about the cooking fire, which burned with the clear, fierce,
essential radiance of cocoanut shells. A fragrance of strange meats was
in the air. All round in the verandahs lamps were lighted, so that
the place shone abroad in the dusk of the trees with many complicated
patterns of shadow.
'Come and wash your hands,' said Attwater, and led the way into a clean,
matted room with a cot bed, a safe, or shelf or two of books in a glazed
case, and an iron washing-stand. Presently he cried in the native, and
there appeared for a moment in the doorway a plump and pretty young
woman with a clean towel.
'Hullo!' cried Herrick, who now saw for the first time the fourth
survivor of the pestilence, and was startled by the recollection of the
captain's orders.
'Yes,' said Attwater, 'the whole colony lives about the house, what's
left of it. We are all afraid of devils, if you please! and Taniera and
she sleep in the front parlour, and the other boy on the verandah.'
'She is pretty,' said Herrick.
'Too pretty,' said Attwater. 'That was why I had her married. A man
never knows when he may be inclined to be a fool about women; so when we
were left alone, I had the pair of them to the chapel and performed the
ceremony. She made a lot of fuss. I do not take at all the romantic view
of marriage,' he explained.
'And that strikes you as a safeguard?' asked Herrick with amazement.
'Certainly. I am a plain man and very literal. WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
TOGETHER, are the words, I fancy. So one married them, and respects the
marriage,' said Attwater.
'Ah!' said Herrick.
'You see, I may look to make an excellent marriage when I go home,'
began Attwater, confidentially. 'I am rich. This safe alone'--laying his
hand upon it--'will be a moderate fortune, when I have the time to place
the pearls upon the market. Here are ten years' accumulation from a
lagoon, where I have had as many as ten divers going all day long; and I
went further than people usually do in these waters, for I rotted a lot
of shell, and did splendidly. Would you like to see them?'
This confirmation of the captain's guess hit Herrick hard, and he
contained himself with difficulty. 'No, thank you, I think not,' said
he. 'I do not care for pearls. I am very indifferent to all these...'
'Gewgaws?' suggested Attwater. 'And yet I believe you ought to cast an
eye on my collection, which is really unique, and which--oh! it is the
case with all of us and everything about us!--hangs by a hair. Today
it groweth up and flourisheth; tomorrow it is cut down and cast into the
oven. Today it is here and together in this safe; tomorrow--tonight!--it
may be scattered. Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of
thee.'
'I do not understand you,' said Herrick.
'Not?' said Attwater.
'You seem to speak in riddles,' said Herrick, unsteadily. 'I do not
understand what manner of man you are, nor what you are driving at.'
Attwater stood with his hands upon his hips, and his head bent forward.
'I am a fatalist,' he replied, 'and just now (if you insist on it)
an experimentalist. Talking of which, by the bye, who painted out the
schooner's name?' he said, with mocking softness, 'because, do you know?
one thinks it should be done again. It can still be partly read; and
whatever is worth doing, is surely worth doing well. You think with
me? That is so nice! Well, shall we step on the verandah? I have a dry
sherry that I would like your opinion of.'
Herrick followed him forth to where, under the light of the hanging
lamps, the table shone with napery and crystal; followed him as the
criminal goes with the hangman, or the sheep with the butcher; took the
sherry mechanically, drank it, and spoke mechanical words of praise. The
object of his terror had become suddenly inverted; till then he had seen
Attwater trussed and gagged, a helpless victim, and had longed to run in
and save him; he saw him now tower up mysterious and menacing, the angel
of the Lord's wrath, armed with knowledge and threatening judgment. He
set down his glass again, and was surprised to see it empty.
'You go always armed?' he said, and the next moment could have plucked
his tongue out.
'Always,' said Attwater. 'I have been through a mutiny here; that was
one of my incidents of missionary life.'
And just then the sound of voices reached them, and looking forth from
the verandah they saw Huish and the captain drawing near.