RESCUE.
It was a woman--so much I could make out, in spite of the distance,
some three hundred yards as the crow flies, though more, of course, by
the dip between the two hills--a woman, by the rounded contours of the
silhouette, and a tall one. Of her face, I could as yet say nothing:
she was looking out to sea.
A woman, then, but of what tribe? There was no telling by the dress.
She wore a petticoat of some dark material, reaching to the knee. It
was but a dark patch, of course, as I saw it; and above it was the
white one of another garment. At first, that was all I made out--the
patch of dark, the patch of white, with the half tint that stood for
her bare limbs. She seemed to be shading her eyes with her hand, as
she stood in the glare of light.
Suddenly she wheeled round, as though to descend the peak, and, in
doing it, saw me. We were now face to face, she on the higher summit,
I on the lower, with only the valley between us. I could not see her
features, but she seemed rooted to the spot with astonishment.
I instinctively felt for a weapon. I expected a scream or a signal,
and savage warriors trooping over the hill. But she made no sign.
Hesitation was out of the question: I moved straight towards her. I had
no beads about me for a peace-offering, so I fumbled at my watch chain,
and wrenched off a propitiatory pencil-case that I hoped might serve.
She advanced too. Then, at every step, the bands of light and dark
began to develop into the most majestic shape of youthful womanhood
I had ever seen. The white was evidently a sleeveless undergarment
reaching, like the petticoat of deep blue, no further than the knee.
The naked arms, legs, and feet were no darker than the cheek of a
brunette. The chemise was low, and above it rose the glorious bust,
almost as broad as a man’s, and with a virgin firmness of line that
was strength and softness too. She was very tall for her sex, tall
even for mine, but the perfect proportion between body and limbs took
off all effect of ungainliness. She moved with the beautiful poise and
precision of a mountaineer, brushing hillock, tuft, and boulder in the
slope, as though they formed but one level.
Would she attack? It looked so, else why had she met my advance so
boldly, without calling her tribe? She seemed to have taken the measure
of me for single combat. She would have been a formidable foe, in any
case, to say nothing of the handicapping in respect for the sex.
But there was no more of aggression than there was of flight in her
attitude, as she paused at last, when but a few feet parted us, and
looking down on me in placid wonder, from large and lustrous eyes,
showed me the peculiar beauty of her face. Her features were regular,
without being faultlessly, or rather, faultily so. Her complexion
would have passed muster for fairness in Provence, if not farther
north. The only signs of race type were in a certain prominence of the
brow, and in the deep liquid softness of the gaze. I had seen such
eyes in some of the Coral Islands, and I used sometimes to wish we
could take a pair of them back with us, to put the Italian women out
of conceit with their own. Her lips were rather full and sensuous, but
this did not impair the tender dignity of her expression. Her dark
hair, shining, I regret to say, with some native oil, which, even at a
distance, I could perceive was scented, seemed to have been caught up
with one sweeping gesture, and gathered in a knot behind. Her feet were
rather large, though perfectly formed; and she had drawn them close
together, as she paused, like a child toeing the line in school. To
complete the similitude, she stood perfectly straight, with her arms
folded behind her, and her head thrown back--her bosom, the while,
gently rising and falling with excitement but half suppressed, and
carrying with it, in its motion, her sole ornament, a common English
navy button, fastened with ribbon to her throat. I had looked on
other women as beautiful in feature, but never on one so magnificently
formed. It recalled poetic ideals of the youth of the race.
Evidently she was waiting for me to say something, but how was I to
say it? The whole Melanesian mission might have been at fault in the
speech of this solitary isle. So I began toying with the pencil-case
once more, and then, in a desperate attempt to recall some characters
of a universal sign language, I folded my hands on my breast--as I had
once seen it done by savages of wilder aspect, in a ballet in Leicester
Square.
No language in the world could do justice to my astonishment at what
followed, and therefore I set it down without comment, just as it
passed.
‘You speak English, I suppose,’ said the girl. ‘How did you come on the
Island?’
The accent was as pure as yours or mine; in fact, there was no accent;
and the voice was as soft as the eyes.
For some moments I could utter no word. I went on with the sign
language, but then, only to pass my hand over my brow.
‘Who are you? and how did you come here? We saw no ship from the Point!’
‘Madam, I----’
The gravity of the features relaxed, and the girl laughed.
‘I knew you spoke English; but why won’t you go on? Oh, how stupid I
am! You are faint and ill. Lean on me, and come and have something to
eat.’ In another moment she was by my side, with one strong arm round
me, and nearly lifting me off the ground, in the attempt to help me to
walk--a most humiliating reversal of protective rôles.
‘I can walk perfectly well, thank you; please let me go,’ I had to
say, like some coy schoolgirl in the grasp of a dragoon. It was very
ridiculous, but I really could not get free.
‘Very well, then, but I will carry you when you like. Now, tell me
who you are, and please don’t call me Madam again. Victoria is my
name--after the Queen--“Victoria.”’
--‘By the grace of God,’ I could not help thinking, remembering what I
had feared, and what I had found.
‘Victoria, I was nearly dashed to pieces on these rocks last night.’
‘Where is your ship?’
‘It was over there, but it has sailed away.’
‘On the south side. But don’t you know that the landing-place is on the
north?’
‘I know nothing. I never thought to find a living, still less a
civilised, soul in this place. Tell me where I am.’
‘You don’t seem to know much geography,’ she said, with an offended
air. But she was mollified in a moment. ‘How faint you must be! Lean
on me. If you don’t, I will carry you, whether you like it or no. Poor
thing!’
I wanted no support, but I was nothing loath to lean upon Victoria. So
we walked away, with an arm round each other’s waist, as innocently
affectionate as the primal pair.
She led me towards another slope of the Peak, and, all too soon for me,
with such leading, we reached the top.
The whole island lay before me, from sea to sea, quivering with life
in the morning sun. In its irregular outline, it seemed like some
quaint sea monster that had shot up from the depths of the Pacific
to take a look round, and that might instantly disappear. It was head
and shoulders out of the water, joining the sea almost everywhere at
the base of perpendicular rocks rising to heights of from four to six
hundred feet, and it had little or no beach. On all sides, the wave
seemed in fretful strife with the rock, but beyond the broken lines
of surf lay the calm of the immeasurable ocean, with nothing in the
way, it seemed, between this and the next world. The range of hills
cutting the island in half from east to west sloped to the edge of the
cliff; on the southern side, in deep valleys, filled with plantation
plots; on the northern, into two terraced spaces, one above the other,
commanding a view of the sea. On the highest of these lay a settlement
of civilised men, its cottages lapped warm, like birds in their mosses,
in exquisite vegetation--palms, and banyans, and cocoa-nut trees, and,
as I might guess, by what was nearer to the view, passion-flowers,
and trumpet vines, and creeping plants of infinite variety, the rich
growth clothing even the adjacent summits and hillsides, and the
sharp inaccessible slopes, right down to the water’s edge. Below
the settlement, on the lower terrace, was a grove of cocoa-trees,
with no habitation, and below this again, a little bay, evidently the
landing-place, and the only one on this cruel shore. All this beauty of
nature and homely sweetness of ordered life, lying to the north of the
dividing ridge, had been hidden from me in my rude landing-place, even
the cultivated valleys being shut out by a transverse section of the
rock.
We were still standing on the hill when, from a clump of cocoa at its
foot, a little girl came running towards us--a reduced copy, to scale,
of Victoria, in build and strength and perfect animal grace. Without
standing in the least upon ceremony, she gave me a most hearty kiss,
and asked me my name.
‘I wonder now if you could read it,’ I said, feeling in my pocket
for the card-case which I had kept by me in all my wanderings, and
extracting from it a card that showed woeful traces of the ducking of
the night before. The little one’s eyes dilated in wonder as she read
the inscription, and in one swift glance took me in from head to foot.
Then she turned, and started for the village, at breakneck speed down
the steep incline, shouting as she went, ‘Mother! mother! Here’s a
lord!’
In a few moments she was mounting the hill on the other side, to the
first terrace, and I lost her for a moment in the cocoa grove. She
emerged into the second steep path that led to the settlement, still
uttering her strange cry. I could see the doors opening, the people
turning out, the terrified flutter of domestic fowl.
‘Come!’ said Victoria, and she strode on in the track of the child,
turning now and then to help me. We soon reached the level of the
grove, a majestic scene, roofed with branches, and carpeted with shrubs
spangled with the sunshine that shot through the trees.
I sank down in the delicious shade, not caring to go farther, not
caring to speak. I was more faint than ever, for, in spite of the
excitement of the adventure, my long fast began to tell.
An opening in the trees showed the path to the settlement, with fifteen
or twenty villagers trooping down under the leadership of the infant
herald, who waved them on with my card. There were women and children,
and, this time, men, most of the latter fit mates for Victoria in frame
and stature. Their shirts were armless, their trousers reached only to
the knee, all beyond was bare bronzed skin. They looked all strength,
suppleness, and abounding health.
A dozen began to talk at once. ‘How did you get him, Victoria?’--‘All
last night!’--‘Oh, the poor thing!’--‘How white his skin is!’--‘Is
he a real lord?’--‘Let me give him a kiss!’--‘Has he had his
breakfast?’--‘He must stay with us.’--‘No, you had the last
one.’--‘With me!’--‘Me! Me!’--It was like a clamour of children, but
it was stilled in a moment on the arrival of an elder, dressed rather
differently from the others, and for whom they all made way.
‘Father,’ said Victoria, addressing the old man, ‘I won’t give him up
to anybody. I found him, and he belongs to me.’
‘Take him to my house,’ said the Ancient, ‘and none of you speak a word
to him till he has had something to eat. Here, Reuben, lend a hand;’
and he nodded to a young fellow standing at least six foot two, who
lifted me to my feet as one might lift a child.
It was time, for their talk began to come to me like a far-off buzzing.
I walked as in a dream, but I was aware of a hushed crowd, a beautiful
path through the trees, a green lawn on the summit, bordered on three
sides with houses of dark wood and thatch, embowered in gardens that
scented all the air. Into one of these houses I was taken, and laid on
a comfortable couch.
‘Where am I?’
‘Hush!’ said Victoria. ‘You are in the house of the chief magistrate of
Pitcairn.’