PART III.

BARBARIAN DAYS.

We had been watching intently the faint, shadowy outline along the

horizon, and wondering whether it were really land, or but a cloudy

similitude of it; while we bore down upon it all the afternoon in fine

style, and the breeze freshened as evening came on. It was all clear

sailing, and we were in pretty good spirits,--which is not always the

case with landsmen at sea.

Sitting there on the after-deck, I had asked myself, more than once, If

life were made up of placid days like this, how long would life be

sweet? I gave it up every time; for one is not inclined to consider so

curiously as to press any problem to a solution in those indolent

latitudes.

Perhaps it was Captain Kidd who told me he had sailed out of a

twelve-knot breeze on a sudden,--slipping off the edges of it, as it

were,--and found his sails all aback as he slid into a dead calm. There,

rocking in still weather, he saw another bark, almost within hail, blown

into the west and out of sight, like a bird in a March gale.

I wonder what caused me to think of Kidd's experiences just then? I

can't imagine, unless it was some prescient shadow floating in my

neighborhood,--the precursor of the little event that followed. Such

things do happen, and when we least expect it; though, fortunately, they

don't worry us as a general thing. I didn't worry at all, but sat there

by myself, while some of my fellow-passengers took a regular

"constitutional" up and down the deck, and over and over it, until the

nervous woman below in the cabin "blessed her stars," and wished herself

ashore.

I preferred sitting and pondering over the cloud that seemed slowly to

rise from the sea, assuming definite and undeniable appearances of land.

I knew very well what land it must be: one of a group of islands every

inch of which I had traversed with the zeal of youthful enthusiasm; but

which of them, was a question I almost feared to have answered. Yet,

what difference could it make to me! The land was providentially in our

course, but not on our way-bill. If we were within gunshot of its

loveliest portion, we must needs pass on as frigidly as though it were

Charybdis, or something equally dreadful; and I began to think it might

be something of the sort, because of its besetting temptations.

There was not the slightest doubt as to the certainty of its being land,

when we went down to supper; and at sunset we knew the dark spots were

valleys, and the bright ones hills. I fancied a hundred bronze-hued

faces were turned toward us, as we seemed to twinkle away off in their

sunset sea like a fallen star, or something of that sort. I thought I

could almost hear the sea beating upon the crusts of the reef in the

twilight; but perhaps I didn't, for the land was miles away, and night

hid it presently, while the old solitude of the ocean impressed us all

as though we were again in the midst of its unbroken, circular wastes.

Then they played whist in the cabin,--all but me. I hung over the ship's

side, resolved to watch all night for the lights on shore,--the

flickering watch-fires in the mountain camps; for I knew I should see

them, as we were bound to pass the island before morning.

The night was intensely dark; clouds muffled the stars, and not a spark

of light was visible in any direction over the waters. A shower could

easily have quenched the beacons I was seeking, and my vigil soon became

tedious; so presently I followed the others and turned in, rather

disconsolate and disgusted.

Toward midnight the wind fell rapidly, and within half an hour we found

ourselves in a dead calm, when the moan of the breakers was quite

audible on our starboard quarter. The Captain was nervous and watchful;

the currents in the channel were strong, and he saw, by the variation in

the compass, that the vessel was being whirled in a great circle around

a point of the island.

Fortunately it began to get light before the danger grew imminent. At

three o'clock we were within soundings, and shortly after we plumped the

anchor into the rough coral at the bottom of a pretty little harbor,

where, the Captain informed us, we must ride all day and get out with

the land-breeze, that would probably come down at night. I rushed up in

the gray dawn, and bent my gaze upon the shore. I think I must have

turned pale, or trembled a little, or done something sensational and

appropriate, though no one observed it; whereat I was rather glad, on

the whole, for they could not have understood it if I had done my best

to explain,--which I had not the least idea of doing, however, for it

was none of their affair.

I knew that place the moment I saw it,--the very spot of all I most

desired to see; and I resolved, in my secret soul, to go ashore, there

and then; amicably if I might, forcibly if I must.

The Captain was not over-genial that morning, either; he hated

detention, and was a trifle nervous about being tied up under the lee of

the land for twelve or twenty hours. So he growled if any one approached

him all that day, and positively refused to allow the ship's boat to be

touched, unless we drifted upon the rocks, broadside,--which, he seemed

to think, was not entirely out of the question. I was sure there would

be a canoe--perhaps several--alongside by sunrise; so I said nothing,

but waited in silence, determined to desert when the time came; and the

Captain might whistle me back if he could.

Presently the time came. We were rocking easily on the swell, directly

to the eastward of a deep valley. The sky was ruddy; the air fresh and

invigorating, but soft as the gales of Paradise. We were in the tropics.

You would have known it with your eyes shut; the whole wonderful

atmosphere confessed it. But, with your eyes open, those white birds,

sailing like snow-flakes through the immaculate blue heavens, with

tail-feathers like our pennant; the floating gardens of the sea, through

which we had been ruthlessly ploughing for a couple of days back; the

gorgeous sunrises and sunsets,--all were proofs positive of our

latitude.

What a sunrise it was on that morning! Yet I stood with my back to it,

looking west; for there I saw, firstly, the foam on the reef--as crimson

as blood--falling over the wine-stained waves; then it changed as the

sun ascended, like clouds of golden powder, indescribably magnificent,

shaken and scattered upon the silver snow-drifts of the coral reef,

dazzling to behold, and continually changing.

Beyond it, in the still water, was reflected a long, narrow strip of

beach; above it, green pastures and umbrageous groves, with native huts,

like great bird's-nests, half hidden among them; and the weird, slender

cocoa-palms were there,--those exclamation-points in the poetry of

tropic landscape. All this lay slumbering securely between high walls of

verdure; while at the upper end, where the valley was like a niche set

in the green and glorious mountains, two waterfalls floated downward

like smoke-columns on a heavy morning. Angels and ministers of grace! do

you, in your airy perambulations, visit haunts more lovely than

this?--as lovely as that undiscovered country from whose bourn the

traveller would rather not look back, premising that the traveller were

as singularly constituted as I am; which is, per-adventure, not

probable.

They knew it was morning almost as soon as we did, though they lived a

few furlongs farther west, and had no notion of the immediate proximity

of a strange craft,--by no means rakish in her rig, however; only a

simple merchantman, bound for Auckland from San Francisco, but the

victim of circumstances, and, in consequence, tied to the bottom of the

sea when half-way over.

They knew it was morning. I saw them swarming out of their grassy nests,

brown, sleek-limbed, and naked. They regarded with amazement our

floating home. The news spread, and the groves were suddenly peopled

with my dear barbarians, who hate civilization almost as much as I do,

and are certainly quite as idolatrous and indolent as I ever aspire to

be.

I turned my palms outward toward them; I lifted up my voice, and cried,

"Hail, my brothers! We hasten with the morning; we follow after the sun.

Greetings to you, dwellers in the West!"

Nobody heard me. I looked again. Down they came upon the shore, wading

into the sea. Then such a carnival as they celebrated in the shallow

water was a novelty for some of my cabin friends; but I knew all about

it. I'd done the same thing often enough myself, when I was young, and

free, and innocent, and savage. I knew they were asking themselves a

thousand questions as to our sudden appearance in their seas, and would

rather like to know who we were, and where we were going, but scorned to

ask us. They had once or twice been visited by the same sort of

whitish-looking people, and they had found those colorless faces

uncivil, and the bleached-out skins by no means to be trusted with those

whom they considered their inferiors. They didn't know that it is one of

the Thirty-nine Articles of Civilization to bully one's way through the

world. Then I prayed that they might be moved to send out a canoe, so

that I could debark and go inland for the day. I prayed very earnestly,

and out she came,--one of their tiny, fragile canoes, looking like a

deserted chrysalis, with the invisible wings of the spiritual, tutelary

butterfly wafting it over the waves. In this chrysalis dug-out sat a

tough little body, with a curly head, which I recognized in a minute as

belonging to a once friend and comrade in my delightful exile, when I

was a successful prodigal, and wasted my substance in the most startling

and effectual manner, and enjoyed it a great deal better than if I had

kept it in the bank, as they advised me to do. On he came, beating the

sea with his broad paddle, alternately by either side of the canoe, and

regarding us with a commendable degree of suspicion. I greeted him in

his peculiar dialect. The gift of tongues seemed suddenly to have

descended upon me, for I found little difficulty in saying everything I

wanted to say, in a remarkably brief space of time.

"Hail, little friend!" said I; "great love to you. How is it on shore

now?"

He replied that it was decidedly nice on shore now, and that his love

for me was as much as mine for him, and more too, and that consequently

he was prepared to conduct me thither, regardless of expense.

I went with that lovely boy on shore. The Captain could not resist my

persuasive appeals for a short leave of absence, and so I went. Perhaps

it would not have been advisable for him to have suppressed me; and he

made a courteous virtue of necessity.

I had leave to stop till evening, unless I heard a signal-gun, upon

hearing which I was to return immediately on board, or suffer the

consequences.

Now, I am free to confess, that the consequences didn't appall me as we

swung off from the vessel, where I had been an uneasy prisoner for many

days; and I fell to chatting with Niga, my dusky friend, in a sort of

desperate joy.

Niga was a regular trump. He had more than once piled on horseback

behind me, in the sweet days when we used to ride double,--yea, and even

treble, if necessary. There was usually a great deal more boy than horse

on the premises; hence this questionable economy in our cavalry

regulations. Niga told me many things as we drew near the reef: he

talked of nearly everybody and everything; but of all that he told me,

he said nothing of the one I most longed to hear about. Yet, somehow or

other, I could not quite bring myself to ask him, out and out, this

question. You know, sometimes it is hard to shape words just as you want

them shaped, and the question is never asked in consequence.

The reef was growling tremendously. We were drawing nearer to it

every moment. I thought the chances were against us; but Niga was

self-possessed, and, as he had crossed it once that morning,--and in the

more dangerous direction of the two, that is, against the grain of the

waves,--I concluded there was no special need of my making a scene; and

in the next moment we were poised on a terrific cataract of glittering

and rushing breakers, snatched up and held trembling in mid-air, with

the canoe half filled with water, and I perfectly blind with spray.

It was a memorable moment in a very short voyage; and the general

verdict on board ship, where they were watching us with some interest,

was, that it served me right.

When my eyes were once more free of the water, I found myself in the

midst of the natives, who had been waiting just inside of the reef to

receive us; and, as they recognized me, they laid a hand on the canoe,

as many as could crowd about it, fairly lifting it out of the water on

our way to the shore, all the while wailing at the top of their voices

their mournful and desolate wail.

It was impossible for me to decide whether that chant of theirs was an

expression of joy, or sorrow: the nature of it is precisely the same, in

either case.

So we went on shore in our little triumphal procession, and there I was

embraced in a very emphatic manner by savages of every conceivable sex,

age, and color. Having mutely submitted to their genuine expressions of

love, I was conducted--a willing and bewildered captive--along the

beach, around the little point that separates the river from the sea,

and thence by the river-bank to the house I knew so well. I believe I

looked at every dusky face in that assemblage, two or three times over,

but saw not the one I sought.

What could it mean? Was he hunting in the mountains, or fishing beyond

the headland, or sick, or in prison, that he came not to greet me?

Surely, something had befallen him,--something serious and unusual,--or

he would have been the first to welcome me home to barbarism!

A strange dread clouded my mind: it increased and multiplied as we

passed on toward the house that had been home to me. Then, having led me

to the outer door, the people all sat there upon the ground, and began

wailing piteously.

I hastily crossed the narrow outer room, lifted the plaited curtain, and

entered the inner chamber, where I had spent my strange, wild holiday

long months before. I looked earnestly about me, while my eyes gradually

became familiar with the dull light. Nothing seemed changed. I could

point at once to almost every article in the room. It seemed but

yesterday that I had stolen away from them in the gray dawn, and

repented my desertion too late.

I soon grew accustomed to the sombre light of the room. I saw sitting

about me, in the corners, bowed figures, with their faces hidden in

grief. There was no longer any doubt as to the nature of their emotion.

It was grief that had stricken the household, and the grief that death

alone occasions. I counted every figure in the room; I recognized each,

the same that I had known when I dwelt among them: he alone was absent.

I don't know what possessed me at that moment. I felt an almost

uncontrollable desire to laugh, as though it were some _masque_ gotten

up for my amusement. Then I wished they would cease their masking, for

I felt too miserable to laugh. Then I was utterly at a loss to know what

to do; so I walked to the old-fashioned bed--our old-fashioned bed--in

the corner, looking just as it used to. I think the same old spider was

there still, clinging to the canopy; the very same old fellow, in his

harlequin tights, that we used to watch, and talk about, and wonder what

he was thinking of, to stop so still, day after day, and week after

week, up there on the canopy. I threw myself upon the edge of the bed,

my feet resting upon the floor; and there I tried to think of everything

but that one dreadful reality that would assert itself, in spite of my

efforts to deny it.

Where was my friend? Where could he be, that these, his friends, were so

bowed with sorrow? The question involved a revelation, already

anticipated in my mind. That revelation I dreaded as I would dread my

own death-sentence. But it came at last. A woman who had been humbling

herself in the dust moved toward me from the shadow that half concealed

her. She did not rise to her feet; she was half reclining on the mats of

the floor, her features veiled in the long, black hair of her race. One

hand was extended toward me, then the other; the body followed; and so

she moved, slowly and painfully, toward the bedside.

It was his mother. I knew her intuitively. Close to the bed she came,

and crouched by me, upon the floor. There, with one hand clasped close

over mine, the other flooded with her copious tears, and her forehead

bowed almost to the floor, she poured forth the measure of her woe. The

moment her voice was heard, those out of the house ceased wailing, and

seemed to be listening to the elegy of the bereaved.

Her voice was husky with grief; broken again and again with sobs. I

seemed to understand perfectly the nature of her story, though my

knowledge of the dialect was very deficient.

The mother's soul was quickened with her pathetic theme. The frenzy of

the poet inspired her lips. It was an epic she was chanting, celebrating

the career of her boy-hero. She told of his birth, and wonderful

childhood; of his beautiful strength; of his sublime affection, and the

friend it had brought him from over the water.

She referred frequently to our former associations, and seemed to

delight in dwelling upon them. Then came the story of his death,--the

saddest canto of the melancholy whole.

How shall I ever forgive myself the selfish pleasure I took in striving

to remodel an immortal soul? What business had I to touch so sensitive

an organism; susceptible of infinite impressions, but incapable, in its

prodigality, of separating and dismissing the evil, and retaining only

the good,--therefore fit only to increase and develop in the suitable

atmosphere with which the Creator had surrounded it?

Why did I not foresee the climax?

I might have known that one reared in the nursery of Nature, as free to

speak and act as the very winds of heaven to blow whither they list,

could ill support the manacles of our modern proprieties. Of what use to

him could be a knowledge of the artifices of society? Simply a

temptation and a snare!

What was the story of his fate? That he came safely home, rejoicing in

his natural freedom; that he could not express his delight at finding

home so pleasant; that his days were spent in telling of the wonderful

things he had seen: more sects than the gods of the South Seas; more

doubters than believers; contradictions, and insults, and suspicions,

everywhere. They laughed again, when they thought of us, and pitied us

all the while.

But his exhilaration wore off, after a time. Then came the reaction. A

restlessness; an undefined, unsatisfied longing. Life became a burden.

The seed of dissension had fallen in fresh and fallow soil: it was a

souvenir of his sojourn among us. He, the child of Nature, must now

follow out the artificial and hollow life of the world, or die

unsatisfied; for he could not return to his original sphere of trust and

contentment. He had learned to doubt all things, as naturally as any of

us.

For days he moaned in spirit, and was troubled; nothing consoled him;

his soul was broken of its rest; he grew desperate and melancholy.

I believe he was distracted with the problem of society, and I cannot

wonder at it. One day, when his condition had become no longer

endurable, he stole off to sea in his canoe, thinking, perhaps, that he

could reach this continent, or some other; possibly hoping never again

to meet human faces, for he could not trust them.

It was his heroic exit from a life that no longer interested him. Great

was the astonishment of the Islanders, who looked upon him as one

possessed of the Evil Spirit, and special sacrifices were offered in his

behalf; but the gods were inexorable; and, after several days upon the

solitary sea, a shadow, a mote, drifted toward the valley,--a canoe,

with a famishing and delirious voyager, that was presently tossed and

broken in the surges; then, a dark body glistened for a moment, wet with

spray, and sank forever, while the shining coral reef was stained with

the blood of the first-born.

I heard it all in the desolate wail of the mother, yet could not weep;

my eyes burned like fire.

Little Niga came for me presently, and led me into the great grove of

_kamane_-trees, up the valley. He insisted upon holding me by the hand:

it was all he could do to comfort me, and he did that with his whole

soul.

In silence we pressed on to one of the largest of the trees. I

recognized it at once. Niga and I, one day, went thither, and I cut a

name upon the soft bark of the tree.

When we reached it we paused. Niga pointed with his finger; I looked. It

was there yet,--a simple name, carved in the rudest fashion. I read the

letters, which had since become an epitaph. They were these:--

"KÁNA-ANÁ, _Æt. 16 yrs._"

Under them were three initials,--my own,--cut by the hand of Kána-aná,

after his return from America.

We sat down in the gloomy grove. "Tell me," I said, "tell me, Niga,

where has his spirit gone?"

"He is here, now," said Niga; "he can see us. Perhaps, some day, we

shall see him."

"You have more faith than our philosophers, for they have reasoned

themselves out of everything. Would you like to be a philosopher, Niga?"

I asked.

Niga thought, if they were going to die, body and soul, that he wouldn't

like to be anything of the sort, and that he had rather be a first-class

savage than a fourth-rate Christian, any day.

I interrupted him at this alarming assertion. "The philosophers would

call your faith a superstition, Niga; they do not realize that there is

no true faith unmixed with superstition, since faith implies a belief in

something unseen, and is, therefore, itself a superstition. Blessed is

the man who believes blindly,--call it what you please,--for peace shall

dwell in his soul. But, Niga," I continued, "where is God?"

"Here, and here, and here," said Niga, pointing me to a grotesque

carving in the sacred grove, to a monument upon the distant precipice,

and to a heap of rocks in the sea; and the smile of recognition with

which the little votary greeted his idols was a solemn proof of his

sincerity.

"Niga," I said, "we call you and your kind heathens. It is a harmless

anathema, which cannot, in the least, affect you personally. Ask us if

we love God! Of course we do. Do we love him above all things, animate

or inanimate? Undoubtedly! Undoubtedly is easily said, and let us give

ourselves credit for some honesty. We believe that we do love God, above

all; that we have no other gods before him; yet, who of us will give up

wealth, home, friends, and follow him? Not one! The God we love is a

very vague, invisible, forbearing essence. He can afford to be lenient

with us while we are debating whether our neighbor is serving him in the

right fashion, or not. We'd rather not have other gods before him: one

is as many as we find it convenient to serve. The lover kisses

passionately a miniature. It is not, however, an image of his Creator,

nor any memorial of his Redeemer's passion, but only a portrait of his

mistress. Do you blame us, Niga? It is the strongest instinct of our

nature to worship something. Man is a born idolater, and not one of us

is exempted by reason of any scruples under the sun. You see it daily

and hourly: each one has his idols."

Little Niga, who sympathized deeply with me, seemed to have gotten some

knowledge of our peculiarly mixed theories concerning God and the future

state, from conversations overheard after the return of Kána-aná. He

tried to console me with the assurance that Kána-aná died a devoted and

unshaken adherent to the faith of his fathers.

I couldn't but feel that his blood was off my hands when I learned this;

and I believe I gave Niga a regular hug in that moment of joy.

Then we walked here and there, through the valley, and visited the old

haunts, made memorable by many incidents in that romantic and chivalrous

life of the South. Every one we met had some word to add concerning the

Pride of the Valley, dead in his glorious youth.

Over and over, they assured me of his fidelity to me, his white brother,

adding that Kána-aná had, more than once, expressed the deepest regret

at not having brought me back with him.

He even meditated sending for me, in the same manner that I had sent

for him; and, if he had done so, it was his purpose to see that I was at

once made familiar with their Articles of Faith; for he anticipated a

willing convert in me, and it was the desire of his heart that I should

know that perfect trust, peculiar to his people, and which is begotten

of the brief gospel, so often quoted out of place: namely, that "seeing

is believing."

It was a kind thought of his, and I wish he had carried it into

execution, for then he might have lived. It was his susceptible nature

that had come in contact with the great world, and received its

death-wound. Had I been there to help him, I would have planned

something to divert his mind until he had recovered himself, and was

willing to submit to the monotony of life over yonder. Had he not done

as much for me? Had he not striven, day after day, to charm me with his

barbarism, and come very near to success? I should say he had. Dear

little martyr! was he not the only boy I ever truly loved,--dead now in

his blossoming prime!

O Kána-aná! Little Niga and I sat talking of you, down by the sea, and

we wept for you at last; for the tears came by and by, when I began to

fully realize the greatness of my loss. All your youth, and beauty, and

freshness, in destruction, and your body swallowed up in the graves of

the sea!

The meridian sun blazed overhead, but it made little difference to us.

Afternoon passed, and evening was coming on almost unheeded; for our

thoughts were buried with him, under the waves, and life was nothing to

us, then.

I no longer cared to observe the lights and shadows on the cliffs, nor

the poppy nodding in the wind, nor the seaward prospect: that was

spoiled by our vessel,--the seclusion was broken in upon. I cared for

nothing any longer, for I missed everywhere his step, patient and

faithful as a dog's, and his marvellous face, that could look steadily

at the sun without winking, and deluge itself with laughter all the

while, for there was nothing hidden or corrupting in it.

Presently I returned into the sacred grove, touching the three letters

he had carved there, and calling on his spirit to regard me as

respecting his dumb idols, which were nothing but the representatives of

his jealous gods,--dear to him as the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of

Olives, and the shining summits of Calvary to us. Then down I ran to the

bathing-pools, and from place to place I wandered in a hurried and

nervous tour, for it was growing dark. I saw the ship's lights

flickering over the water, while the first cool whispers of the

night-wind came down from the hills, filling me with warnings; in the

midst of which there was a flash of flame and a sudden, thunderous

report,--enough to awaken the dead of the valley,--and I turned to go.

I believe, if dear Kána-aná had been there, as I prayed he might be, I

would have laughed at that signal, and hastened inland to avoid

discovery; for I was sick of the world. I might have had reason to

regret it afterward, because friendship is not elastic, and the best of

friends cannot long submit to being bored by the best of fellows.

Perhaps it was just as it should be: I had no time to consider the

matter there. I hurried to his mother, and she clung to me; others came

about me, and laid hold of me: so that I feared I should be held captive

until it was too late to board the vessel. Her sails were even then

shaking in the wind; and I heard the faint click of the capstan tugging

at the anchor-chains.

With a quick impulse I broke away from them, and ran to the beach, where

Niga and I entered his canoe, and slid off from the sloping sands. Down

we drifted toward the open sea, while the natives renewed their wailing,

and I was half crazed with sorrow. It is impossible to resist the

persuasive eloquence of their chants. Think, then, with what a troubled

spirit I heard them, as we floated on between the calm stars in the

heavens and the whirling stars in the sea.

We went out to the ship's side, and little Niga was as noisy as any of

them when I pressed upon him a practical memorial of my visit; and away

he drifted into the night, with his boyish babble pitched high and

shrill; and the Present speedily became the Past, and grew old in a

moment.

Then I looked for the last time upon that faint and cloudy picture, and

seemed almost to see the spirit of the departed beckoning to me with

waving arms and imploring looks; and I longed for him with the old

longing, that will never release me from my willing bondage. I blessed

him in his new life, and I rejoiced with exceeding great joy that he was

freed at last from the tyranny of life,--released from the unsolvable

riddles of the ages. The night-wind was laden with music, and sweet with

the odors of ginger and cassia; the spume of the reef was pale as the

milk of the cocoa-nuts, and the blazing embers on shore glowed like old

sacrificial fires.

Then I heard a voice crying out of the shadow,--an ancient and eloquent

voice,--saying: "Behold my fated race! Our days are numbered. Long have

we feasted in the rich presence of a revealed deity. We sat in ashes

under the mute gods of Baal; we fled before the wrath of Moloch, the

destroyer; we were as mighty as the four winds of heaven: but the

profane hand of the Iconoclast has desecrated our temples, and humbled

our majesty in the dust. O impious breakers of idols! Why will ye put

your new wines into these old bottles, that were shaped for spring

waters only, and not for wine at all! Lo! ye have broken them, and the

wine is wasted. Be satisfied, and depart!"

So that spirit of air sang the death-song of his tribe, and the sad

music of his voice rang over the waters like a lullaby.

Then I heard no more, and I said, "My asylum is the great world; my

refuge is in oblivion"; and I turned my face seaward, never again to

dream fondly of my island home; never again to know it as I have known

it; never again to look upon its serene and melancholy beauty: for the

soul of the beloved is transmitted to the vales of rest, and his ashes

are sown in the watery furrows of the deep sea!

[Decoration]

[Decoration]

TABOO.--A FÊTE-DAY IN TAHITI.

It was on one of those vagabond pilgrimages to nowhere in particular,

such as every stranger is bound to make in a strange land, that I first

stumbled upon my royal Jester, better known in Tahiti as Taboo.

Great Jove! what a night it was! A wild ravine full of banyan and

pandanus trees, and of parasite climbers, and the thousand nameless

leafing and blossoming creatures that intermarry to such an alarming

extent in the free-loving tropics, had tempted me to pasture there for a

little while. I was wandering on among roots and trailing branches, and

under ropes upon ropes of flowers that seemed to swing suddenly across

my path on purpose to keep me from finding too easily the secret heart

of the mountain. I felt it was right that I should be made to realize

how sacred a spot that sanctuary of Nature was, but I fretted somewhat

at the persistency of those speechless sentinels who guarded its outer

door so faithfully. There was a waterfall within, that I had prayed to

see,--one of those mysterious waterfalls that descend noiselessly from

the bosom of a cloud, stealing over cushions of moss, like a ray of

light in a dream, or something else equally intangible.

You never find this sort of waterfall in the common way. No one can

exactly point it out to you; but you must search for it yourself, and

listen for its voice,--and usually listen in vain,--till, suddenly, you

come upon it in a moment, almost as if by accident; and its whole

quivering length glitters and glistens with jewels, where it hangs, like

a necklace, on the bosom of a great cliff. It is the only visible chain

that binds earth to heaven; and no wonder you gaze at it with

questioning eyes!

Well, while I was looking about me, expecting every moment to feel the

damp breath of the waterfall upon my forehead, night came down. Where

was I? In the midst of a pathless forest; between cliffs whose sleek,

mossy walls were so steep as to forbid even the goat's sharp hoof. Down

the hollow of the ravine, among round, slippery rocks, and between

trellises of giant roots, tumbled a mountain torrent. No human form

visible, probably none to be looked for on that side of the inaccessible

dome of the mountain; yet fearlessly I toiled on, knowing that food and

shelter were on every side, and that no hand, whose clasp was as fervent

as the clasp of the vine itself, would be raised against me; and, thank

Heaven! outsiders were scarce.

In the midst of the narrowing chasm, with the night thickening, and the

wood growing more and more objectionable, I heard a sound as of

stumbling feet before me. My first thought was of _color_! I would

scarcely trust a White Man in that predicament. What well-disposed White

would be prowling, like a wild animal, alone in a forest at night? It

occurred to me that I was white, or had passed as such; but I know

and have always known that, inwardly, I am purple-blooded, and

supple-limbed, and invisibly tattooed after the manner of my lost tribe!

I was startled at the sound, and slackened my pace to listen: the

footsteps paused with mine. I plunged forward, accusing the Echoes of

playing me false. Again the mysterious one rushed awkwardly on before

me, with footfalls that were not like mine, nor like any that I could

trace: they were neither brute nor human, but fell clumsily among the

roots and stones, out of time with me; therefore, no echo, and beyond my

reckoning entirely.

At this hour the moon, of a favorable size, looked over the cliff,

flooding the chasm with her soft light. I rejoiced at it, and hoped for

a revelation of the Unknown, whose tottering steps had mocked mine for

half an hour.

We were in the midst of a dense grove of breadfruit-trees. Scarcely a

ray of light penetrated their thick-woven branches; but, against the

faint light of the open distance, I marked the weird outline of one who

might once have been human, but was no longer a tolerable image of his

Maker. The figure was like the opposite halves of two men bodily joined

together in an amateur attempt at human grafting. The trunk was curved

the wrong way; a great shoulder bullied a little shoulder, and kept it

decidedly under; a long leg walked right around a short leg that was

perpetually sitting itself down on invisible seats, or swinging itself

for the mere pleasure of it. One arm clutched a ten-foot bamboo about

three inches in diameter, and wielded it as though it were a bishop's

crook, and something to be proud of; the other arm--it must have

belonged to a child when it stopped growing--was hooked up over one ear,

looking as though it had been badly wired by some medical student, and

was worn as a lasting reproach to him. A shaggy head was set on the

down-slope of the big shoulder, and seemed to be continually looking

over the little shoulder and under the little arm for some one always

expected, but who was very long in coming.

Upon this startling discovery I turned to flee, but the figure

immediately followed. It was evidently too late to escape an interview,

and, taking heart, I walked toward it, when, to my amazement, it hastily

staggered away from me, looking always over its shoulder, quickening its

pace with mine, slackening its speed with me, and keeping, or seeking to

keep, within a certain distance of me all the while. My curiosity was

excited, and, as I saw it bore me no ill-will, I made a quick plunge

forward, hoping to capture it. With an energetic effort it strove to

escape me; but, with the head turned the wrong way, it stumbled blindly

into a bit of jungle, where it lay whining piteously. I assisted it to

its feet, with what caution and tenderness I could, and, finding it

still wary, walked on slowly, leading the way to the edge of the grove,

where the moonlight was almost as radiant as the dawn. It followed me

like a dog, and was evidently grateful for my company. I walked slowly

that it might not stumble, and, as we emerged from the shadow of the

breadfruits, I manoeuvered so as to bring its face toward the moonlight,

and I saw--a hideous visage, with all its features sliding to one

corner; and nothing but the two soft, sleepy-looking eyes saved me from

yielding to the disgust that its whole presence awakened. As it was, I

involuntarily started back with a shudder, and a slight exclamation that

attracted its attention. "Taboo! Taboo!" moaned the poor creature, half

in introduction, half in apology and explanation.

He was well named the "forbidden one": set apart from all his fellows;

incapable of utterance; maimed in body; an outcast among his own people;

homeless, yet at home everywhere; friendless, though welcomed by all for

his entertaining and ludicrous simplicity; feeding, like the birds, from

Nature's lap, and, like the birds, left to the winds and waters for

companionship.

Somehow I felt that Taboo could lead me at once to the waterfall; and I

tried to seek out the small door to his brain, and impress him with my

anxiety to reach the place. O, what darkness was there, and what doubts

and fears seemed to cloud the hidden portals of his soul! He made an

uncouth noise for me. Perhaps he meant it as music: it was frightful to

hear it up there in the mountain solitudes. He got me fruits and a

little water in the palm of his hand, which he expected me to drink with

a relish. He lay down at my feet in a broken heap of limbs, crooning

complacently. He was playful and thoughtful alternately; at least, he

lost himself in long silences from time to time, while his eyes glowed

with a deep inward light, that almost made me hope to startle his reason

from its dreadful sleep; but a single word broke the spell, and set him

to laughing as though he would go all to pieces; and his joy was more

pitiful than his sorrow.

In one of his silent moods he suddenly staggered to his feet, and

shambled into a narrow trail to one side of the gorge. I wondered at his

unexpected impulse, and feared that he had grown tired of me already,

preferring the society of his feathered comrades, a few of whom sounded

their challenge-note, that soared like silver arrows in the profound

stillness of the ravine. It seemed not, however: in a few moments he

returned, and signalled me with his expressive grunt, and I followed

him. Through thickets of fern, arching high over our heads, down spongy

dells, and over rims of rock jutting from the base of the mountain,

Taboo and I clambered in the warm moonlight. Anon we came upon a

barricade of bamboos, growing like pickets set one against another. I

know not how broad the thicket might have been,--possibly as broad as

the ravine itself,--but into the thick of it Taboo edged himself; and

close upon his heels I followed. In a few moments we had crushed our way

through the midst of the bamboos, that clashed together after us so that

a bird might not have tracked us, and lo! a crystal pool in the heart of

a wonderful garden; and to it, silently, from heaven itself descended

that mysterious waterfall, whose actual existence I had seriously begun

to question. It lay close against the breast of the mountain, strangely

pale in the full glow of the moon, while, like a vein of fire, it seemed

to throb from end to end; or like a shining thread with great pearls

slipping slowly down its full length, taking the faint hues of the

rainbow as they fell, playing at prisms, until my eyes, weary of

watching, closed of their own accord. I sank down by Taboo, who was

sleeping soundly in the hollow of a great tree; and the one cover for

both of us was the impenetrable shadow that is never lifted from that

silent sanctuary of the Most High.

The sky was as saffron when we woke from our out-of-door sleep, and the

whole atmosphere was less poetical and impressive than on the night

previous. Stranger than all else, there was no visible trace of the

mysterious waterfall. I even began to question my own senses, and

thought it possible that I had been dreaming. Yet there sat Taboo in his

frightful imperfection, as happy and indifferent as possible. Of course,

he could tell me nothing of the magical waters. He had doubtless already

forgotten the episode of the hour previous. He lived for the solitary

moment, and his mind seemed unable to grasp the secrets of ten seconds

on either side of his narrow present. In fact, he was playing with

a splendid lizard when I returned from my brief and fruitless

reconnoissance; and as I came up he wondered at me, as he never ceased

to wonder, with fresh bewilderment, whenever I came back to him, after

never so brief an absence.

I soon learned to play upon Taboo's one stop; to point a finger at him,

and bore imaginary auger-holes right into him anywhere; for he always

winced and whined, like a very baby, and yielded at once to my

pantomimic suggestion. But what a wreck was here! A delicate instrument,

full of rifts and breakages, with that single key readily answerable to

the slightest touch of my will. I have often wished that it had been a

note more deep, profound, or sympathetic. It was simply merry and

shrill, and incapable of any modulation whatever. Point a finger at

him, make a few coils in the air that grow to a focus as they draw

nearer to him, and he would run over with uncontrollable jollity that

was at times a little painful in its boisterousness.

I knew well enough that I had sucked the honey from that particular cell

in the mountain, and that I might as well resume my pilgrimage. There

was to be a _Fête Napoléon_ in Papeete. We hadn't heard, up to that

hour, of the wreck of the great Empire, and, being in a loyal French

colony, it behooved us to have the very best time possible. Said I to

myself, "Taboo will find sufficient food for merriment in our mode of

_fêting_ an Emperor; therefore Taboo shall go with me to town and enjoy

himself." I suggested an immediate adjournment to Papeete with the tip

of my forefinger, whereat Taboo doubled up, as usual, and, in his own

fashion, implored me to stop being so funny. We at once started;

returning through the bamboo-brakes, fording the stream in some awkward

way, and slowly working our passage back to town.

The Tahitians have but one annual holiday. As this, however, is

seventy-two hours in length, while everything relating to it is broad in

proportion, it is about as much as they can conscientiously ask for.

Taboo and I entered the town on the eve of the first day, together with

multitudes from the neighboring districts, flocking thither in their

best clothes. The lovely bay of Papeete was covered with fleets of

canoes, hailing from all the seaside villages on the island, and many of

them from Moorea, and islands even more distant. No sea is too broad to

be compassed by an ambitious Kanack, who scents a festival from afar.

Along the crescent shores of the bay, the canoes were heaped, tier upon

tier. It was as though a whole South Sea navy had been stranded, for the

town was crowded with canoe-boys and all manner of natives, in gala

dress. The incessant rolling of drums, the piping of bamboo-flutes, and

the choruses of wandering singers began early in the dawn of the 14th

August, and were expected to continue, uninterruptedly, to the evening

of the 16th. Taboo regarded it all with singular indifference. Everybody

seemed to know him, and to take particular delight in greeting him. His

sleepy disregard of them was considered extremely laughable, and they

went their way roaring with merriment, that contrasted strongly with the

grave, listless face of the simple one, who was apparently oblivious of

everything.

The morning after we appeared in Papeete was Sunday, according to the

calendar. The little cathedral, with banana-leaves rustling in the open

windows, was thronged with worshippers of all colors, doubly devout in

the excessive heat. Various choirs relieved one another during Mass,

and some diminutive fellows, under ten years of age, chanted Latin hymns

in a pleasingly plaintive voice, led by a friar in long clothes and a

choker. Taboo crouched by the open door during service, raking the

gravel-walk with his crooked fingers, and hitching about with

indefatigable industry. After the last gospel, we all went into the

middle of the street--for there were no sidewalks--and got our boots

very dusty. Little knots of friends seemed to sit down in the way

wherever they pleased, and to talk as long as they liked; while

everybody else accommodatingly turned out for them, or paused, and

listened to the conversation, without embarrassment on either side.

Liquor was imbibed on the sly; some eyes were beginning to swim

perceptibly, and some tongues to wag faster and looser than ever. The

Admiral's flagship was one pyramid of gorgeous bunting, and his band

delighted a great audience, gathered upon the shore, with a _matinée_

gratis. At sunset the imperial batteries belched their sulphurous

thunder, that came as near to breaking the sabbath as possible. In the

evening more music, up at the Governor's garden,--waltzes, polkas, and

quadrilles, so brilliantly executed that the listeners were half mad

with delight; and you couldn't for the life of you tell what day it had

been, nor what night it was, but Sunday was positively set down against

it in the calendar. At ten P. M. a signal-gun says "Good-night" to the

citizens of Papeete, and it behooves all those who are dark-skinned to

retire instantly, on pain of arrest and a straw-heap in the calaboose.

In the midst of our Sunday festival, while yet the streets were

hilarious, slap-bang went this impudent piece of ordnance, and at once

the crowd began to disperse in the greatest confusion. Taboo, who had

been an inanimate spectator during the day's diversions, seemed to

comprehend the necessity of hasty flight to some quarter or other; and,

with a confusion of ideas peculiar to him, he began careering in great

circles through the swaying multitudes, and continued to revolve around

an uncertain centre, until I seized him and sought to pilot him to some

convenient place of shelter. I thought of the great market, that, like

those ancient cities of refuge, was always open to the benighted

wanderer; and thither we hastened. A lofty roof, covering a good part of

a block, kept the rain from a vast enclosure, stored with stalls,

tables, and benches. It was simply shelter of the barest kind, but

sufficient for all needs in that charitable climate. There was a buzzing

of turbulent throngs as we edged our way toward the centre of the

market-place; you would think that all the bees of Tahiti were swarming

in unison, from the noise thereof. The commotion was long in quieting.

It had to subside like the sea at flood-tide. Every little while a brace

of _gendarmes_ strutted past the premises, feeling mighty fine in their

broad white pants, like a ship with studding-sails out, and with those

comical bobtails sprouting out of the small of their backs. I know that

Taboo and I, having laid ourselves on somebody's counter, listened and

nudged each other for two or three hours, and that it began to feel like

morning before there was sleep enough to go entirely around the

establishment.

The man who is the first to wake in Papeete lights his lamp and goes to

market. As soon as he makes his untimely appearance, the community

begins to stir; a great clatter of drowsy voices and dozens of yawns are

the symptoms of returning day; and in ten minutes the market is declared

open, though it is still deep and tranquil starlight overhead, with not

a trace of dawn as yet visible.

When the market opens before 3 A. M.--and the hour happens to be the

blackest of the four-and-twenty--it is highly inconvenient for any

foreigner and his royal jester who may be surreptitiously passing the

night upon one of the fruit counters, but there is no help for them:

sleepy heads give way to fresh-gathered bread-fruits and nets of

fragrant oranges; bananas are swung up within tempting reach of

everybody; all sorts of natives come in from the four quarters of the

Papeetean globe, with back-loads of miscellaneous viands, a mat under

one arm, and a flaming torch in hand. Rows upon rows of girls sell

fruits and flowers to the highest bidder; withering old women haggle

over the prices of their perfumed and juicy wares; solitary men offer

their solitary strings of fish for a _real_ each, and refuse to be

beaten down by any wretch of a fellow who dares to insinuate that the

fish are a trifle too scaly; boys sit demurely over their meagre array

of temptations in the shape of six tomatoes, three eggs, a dozen or so

of guavas, and one cucumber. These youngsters usually sit with a

passionless countenance that forbids any hope of a bargain at reduced

prices, and they pass an hour or two with scarce a suggestion of custom;

but it is suddenly discovered that they have something desirable, and a

dozen purchasers begin quarrelling for it, during which time some one

else quietly makes his purchase from one corner of the boy's mat; and,

having closed out his stock in less than ten minutes, he quietly pockets

his _reales_, and departs without having uttered a syllable.

Taboo and I went from one mat to another, eying the good things for

breakfast. I offered him the best that the market afforded; and I could

easily do so, for in no land is the article cheaper or better. Taboo,

having made the circuit of the entire establishment, upon mature

deliberation concluded to take nothing. At every point he was greeted

uproariously by the noisy and good-natured people, who were willing to

give him anything he might choose to take. They, probably, felt that it

was worth more than the price of the article to see the sublime scorn on

the poor fellow's face as he declined their limes, _feis_, mangoes, or

whatever delicious morsel it might have been. As for me, I couldn't

resist those seductions. I made my little purchases and withdrew to the

seaside, where I could break my fast by sunrise, and enjoy comparative

quiet. Taboo grinned in the market-place till he was weary of the

applause showered upon him by the ungodly, who made light of his

irreparable misfortune and took pleasure in his misery. He hunted me up,

or, rather, stumbled upon me again, and stayed by me, amusing himself

with pelting the fish that sported, like sunbeams and prisms, in the sea

close at our feet.

It was _fête_-day in Tahiti. I sat, at sunrise, by the tideless margin

of a South Sea lagoon, bristling with coral and glittering with gem-like

fish; in either hand I held a mango and banana. I raised the mango to my

lips. What a marvel it was! A plump vegetable egg, full of delusion, and

stuffed with a horny seed nearly as large as itself. It had a fragrance

as of oils and sirups; it purged sweet-scented and resinous gums. Its

hide was, perhaps, too tough for convenience, but its inner lusciousness

tempted me to persevere in the consumption of it. With much difficulty I

broke the skin. Honey of Hymettus! It seemed as though the very marrow

of the tropics were about to intoxicate my palate. Alas, for the hopes

of youthful inexperience! What was so fair to see proved but a meagre

mouthful of saturated wool; that colossal and horny seed asserted itself

everywhere. The more I strove to handle it with caution, the more

slippery and unmanageable it became. It shot into my beard, it leaped

lightly into my shirt-bosom, and skated over the palms of both hands.

Small rivulets of liquor trickled down my sleeves, making disagreeable

puddles at both elbows. My fingers were webbed together in a glutinous

mass. My whole front was in a shocking state of smear. My teeth grew

weary of combing out the beguiling threads of the fruit. The thing

seemed, to my imagination, a small, flat head, covered with short, blond

hair, profusely saturated with some sweet sort of ointment, that I had

despaired of feasting on; and I was not sorry when the slippery stone

sprang out of my grasp, and peppered itself with sea-sand.

I knew that there still remained to me a morsel that was of itself fit

food for the gods. I poised aloft, with satisfaction, the rare-ripe

banana, beautiful to the eye as a nugget of purest gold. The pliant

petals were pouting at the top of the fruit. I readily turned them back,

forming an unique and convenient gilded salver for the column of flaky

manna that was, as yet, swathed in lace like folds. These gauzy ribbons

fell from it almost of their own accord, and hung in fleecy festoons

about it.

Here was a repast of singularly appropriate mould, being about the size

of a respectable mouth, and containing just enough mouthfuls to

temporarily satisfy the appetite. Not a morsel of it but was full of

mellowness, and sweet flavor, and fragrance. Not an atom of it was

wasted; for, no sooner had I thrown aside the cool, clean, flesh-like

case, than it was made way with by a fowl, that had, no doubt, been

patiently awaiting that abundant feast.

Mangoes and bananas! Their very names smack of shady gardens, that know

no harsher premonition of death than the indolent and natural decay of

all things. The nostril is excited with the thought of them; the palate

grows moist and yearns for them; and the soul feasts itself, for a

moment, with a memory of mangoes and bananas past, whose perfection was

but another proof of immortality, since it is impossible ever to forget

them individually. Mangoes and bananas! the prime favorites at Nature's

most bountiful board; the realization of a dream of the orchards of the

Hesperides; alike excellent, yet so vastly dissimilar in their

excellences, it seems almost incredible that the same beneficent

Providence can have created the two fruits!

It was the memorable 15th of August, 1870; but I have reason to believe

the bananas were no better on that particular occasion than almost

always in their own latitude. The 15th of August, --where was the

Emperor then? I forget; I know that we rejoiced in the blissful

confidence that we were to have a grand time at all hazards. There were

guns at sunrise from ship and shore; a grand national procession of

French and Tahitians to High Mass at 10.30; guns--twenty-one of

them--together with the ringing of bells, and a salute of flags, at the

elevation of the Host, so that you would have known the supreme moment

had you been miles away. Then came a sumptuous public breakfast for the

Frenchmen; and for the natives, games of several sorts.

Taboo and I, having properly observed the more solemn ceremonials of the

day, gave ourselves up to the full enjoyment of these latter diversions.

There was a greased pole, with shining cups; and flowing prints, both

useful and ornamental, hung at the top of it. Several naked and superbly

built fellows shinned up it with infinite difficulty, and were so

fatigued when they got there, they were only too willing to clutch the

first article within reach, which was, of course, the least desirable,

and scarcely worth the trouble of getting. O, such magnificent grouping

at the foot of the pole, as the athletes shouldered one another in a

sort of co-operative experiment at getting up sooner; such struggles to

rise a little above the heads of the impatient climbers beneath as made

the aspiring Kanack quite pale,--that is, greenish yellow; such losing

of grips, and fainting of hearts, and slidings back to earth in the

midst of taunts and jeers, but all in the best of humors and the hottest

of suns! such novelties as these were a very great delight to Taboo and

myself. He, however, didn't deign to laugh heartily: he merely smiled in

a superior manner that seemed to imply that he knew of something that

was twice as much fun and not half the trouble, but he didn't choose to

disclose it. He nearly always seemed to know as much as any ten of us;

and it was like an assumption of innocence, that queer, vacant

expression of his face. I'm not sure that he was not possessed of some

rare instinct beyond our comprehension, which was to him an abundant

compensation for the fragmentary body he was obliged to trundle about.

Early in the afternoon, there were fresh arrivals in the bay: two

mammoth double war-canoes, of fifty paddles each, came in from a remote

sea-district; they were the very sort of water-monsters that went out to

greet my illustrious predecessor, Captain Cook, nearly a century ago.

Taboo and I were only too glad to sit meekly among the ten thousand

spectators that blackened the great sweep of the shore, while these

savages matched their prowess. With one vigorous plunge of the paddles

the canoes sprang from the beach into the watery arena. How strange they

looked! Long, low sides, scarce eight inches above water, and stained

like fish-scales; big, yawning jaws in their snakelike heads, and the

tail of a dragon in their wakes; every man of the hundred stripped to

the skin and bareheaded; their brawny bodies glistening in the sun as

though they had been oiled, while, with mechanical accuracy, the crews

beat the water with their paddles, and chanted their guttural chants,

with the sea flashing and foaming under them. The race was a tie;

perhaps it was fortunate that it proved so. I fear if one crew had

beaten the other crew the breadth of a paddle, that other would have

lain to and eaten that one right under our very eyes. They had their

songs of triumph, both sounding the chorus, during which they drummed

with their paddles on the sides of their canoes, till the frail things

shivered and groaned in genuine misery. Then they renewed the race,

because they couldn't possibly be still for a moment; and they looked

like a brace of mastodon-centipedes trying to get out of the water, with

death hissing in their throats.

The evening of the great day was drawing to a close. Taboo and I again

went out into the narrow, green lanes of Papeete, seeking what we might

devour with all our eyes and ears. They were very charming, those long

arbors of densely leaved trees, with little tropical vignettes set in

the farther end of them. It was almost like getting a squint through the

wrong end of a telescope, pointed toward some fairy-land or other. As it

grew dark, a thousand ready hands began illuminating the avenues that

lead to the Governor's house. Up and down its deep veranda swung ropes

of lanterns; and as the guards at the garden-gate presented arms at the

approach of the Admiral, or some distinguished and decorated foreigner,

the strains of Strauss, deliciously played, filled the illuminated grove

with an air of romance that was very Oriental in its mellowness, and

quickened every foot that was so happy as to touch the soil of Tahiti in

so fortunate an hour. On every part of the public lawns the revels were

conducted after the native fashion. Bands of singers and dancers sang

and danced in the streets, and were frequently rewarded with liberal

potations. Taboo looked on as amiably as usual, and for some time as

passively also; but there was something intoxicating in the air, and it

began to have a visible effect upon him. It was not long before he

strove to emulate the singers. St. Cecilia! what a song was his! I could

scarcely endure to hear that royal Jester striving to tune his

inharmonious voice to the glib, though monotonous Tahitian madrigals. I

walked away by myself, or rather went into another part of the village,

and sought a change of scene; for there was no seclusion to be hoped for

on a _fête_-night.

From the Governor's halls came the entrancing harmony of flutes and

harps; from every lane and alley the piping of nose-fifes and the

droning of nasal chorals; from the sea rolled in the deep, hoarse

booming of the reef, the rhythmical plash of oars, or the clear,

prolonged cry of some one in the watery distance hailing some one close

at hand. Even so savage and picturesque a spectacle as this grew

wearisome after a time, and I turned my steps toward a place of shelter,

and suggested to myself sleep.

In one lane was a throng of natives, wilder in their demonstrations of

joy than all the others. My curiosity was excited, and I hastened to

join them. Having with some difficulty wedged my way into the front row

of spectators, I beheld the subject of their riotous applause. In the

centre of a small ring was an ungainly figure, writhing in grotesque

contortions; tom-toms were being beaten with diabolical energy and

wildness; flutes and shrill voices were chiming in rapid and bewildering

chromatics; the audience--the half-crazed and utterly inhuman

audience--gloated over the shocking spectacle with devilish delight. In

one moment I comprehended all: Taboo, overcome by the general and

unusual excitement, had succumbed to its depraving influences; and,

unable longer to control himself, he was broadly burlesquing, in his

helplessness, one of the national dances. Music had at last reached his

impenetrable soul, awakened his long-slumbering sympathies, and found

him her willing slave. A pity that some diviner strain had not first led

him captive, that he might have been spared this disgrace!

I saw his unhappy body ambling to the shame of all. I saw those pitiful,

unshapen shoulders undulating in vain attempts at passional expression;

the helpless arm waving at every movement of the body, while the

withered hand spun like a whirligig above his ears; his eyes, having

lost their accustomed mild light, stared distractedly about, seeking

rescue and protection, as I thought. In a few moments I attracted his

notice, though he seemed but partly to recognize me. There was his usual

uncertain recognition grown more doubtful,--nay, even hopeless,--as his

face betrayed. Again I caught his eye: I felt that but one course was

left me, and at once I aimed my finger at him. He winced in his

delirious dance. I coiled it round and round, weaving airy circle within

circle; quicker and quicker I wove my spell, and at last shot the whole

hand at him, as though I would run him through. He doubled, like one

struck with a fatal blow, and went to the ground all of a senseless

heap. There was a disturbance in the audience. Some of them thought I

had bewitched Taboo; and it behooved me to go at once, rather than seek

to make explanation of the singular result of my presence there. I went,

and spent a dull night, accusing myself of being the possible spiritual

murderer of Taboo. I had no business to bring him to the metropolis at

that unfortunate season; I had no right to leave him with his traducers:

and that was the whole statement of the case.

The last day of the _fête_ was, of course, less joyous to me. A score of

nameless nags were to be ridden by light weights in breech-cloths; and I

sought consolation in the prospect of seeing some bewitching

horsemanship. The track, in use but once every twelvemonth, and yielding

annually a young orchard of guava-trees, presented to the astonished

gaze of the foreign sporting-gentleman who happened to be on the

ground--if, indeed, there was such a one present--a half-mile course,

with numerous stones and hollows relieving its surface, while the rope

that enclosed it kept giving way every few moments, letting in a mixed

multitude among the half-broken horses.

The Queen was present at the races,--Pomare, whose life has been one

long, sorrowful romance; the Admiral was also there; and many a petty

officer, with abundant gilt and tinsel. At a signal from the trumpeter

the horses were entered unannounced, and everybody betted wildly. One

little African jockey, mounted upon the cleverest piece of flesh and

blood in the field, called for the larger stakes; and he would certainly

have won, but for an unavoidable accident: the little African was

pressing in on the home-stretch, and everything looked lovely for the

winning mare, when, unluckily, she put her nigh leg in a crab-hole, and

snapped her shin-bone square off. The undaunted little African tried his

best to finish the heat on his own responsibility, and went off into the

air in fine style, but missed his calculation, and burrowed about three

lengths from the goal. His neck was driven in nearly up to the ears, and

the mare had to be shot; but the races went mercilessly on until a

tremendous thunder-storm flooded the track and washed the population

back to town. Dance after dance consumed the afternoon hours; and song

upon song, eternally reiterated, finally failed to create any special

enthusiasm.

I saw no further traces of Taboo. Again and again I followed knots of

the curious into the larger native houses, where the lascivious dances

were given with the utmost _abandon_; thither--I suspected--Taboo would

most likely be impelled, for the music was wilder and the applause more

boisterous and unrestrained.

The evening of the last day of the _fête_ was darkening; most people

were growing a little weary of the long-drawn festivities; many had

succumbed to their fatigue, and slept by the wayside, or, it may be,

they had known too well the nature of the Tahitian juices, such as no

man may drink and not fall!

The palace of Pomare--a great, hollow, incomplete shell, whose windows

have never been glazed, and whose doors have never been hung--was the

scene of the concluding ceremonials of the season. The long verandas

were thickly hung with numberless paper-lanterns, swinging continually

in the soft night-winds that stole down from the star-lit slopes of

Fautahua; the broad lawns in front of the palace were blocked out in

squares, like the map of a liliputian city. Each one of these plats was

set apart for a band of singers, and there were as many bands as

districts in Tahiti and Moorea, together with delegations from islands

more remote. Soon the choruses began to assemble. Choirs of fifty voices

each, male and female, led by tight-headed drums and screaming fifes,

drew toward the palace-gardens, and were formally admitted by the proper

authorities, who were very much swollen with the pomp of office and,

perhaps, a little sprinkle of the exhilarating accompaniments of the

season. One after another the white-robed processions approached,--each

fresh arrival looking more like the chorus in "Norma" than the last,

though it then seemed impossible that any Druid could presume to appear

more gracefully ghostlike. Each singer wore a plume of cocoa-leaves,

whose feathers were more lovely than the downy wands of the ostrich.

They were made of knots of long, slender ribbons, softer than satin,

veined like clouded silver, as transparent as the clearest isinglass,

and as delicate as the airiest gauze.

Out of the core of the palm-tree, in the midst of its rich, dark mass of

foliage, springs a tuft of leaves as tender as the first sprouts of a

lily-bulb. These budding leaves are carefully removed, split edgewise,

and the enamelled sheets laid open to the sun; then, with the

thumb-nail, passed skilfully over the inner surface, a filmy membrane is

separated, and spread in the air to dry. A single tree yields but a

small cluster of these pale, cloud-like leaves, scarcely a handful in

all, yet the tree withers when they pluck the heart of it. It is the

very soul of the Southern palm, with every leaf spiritualized, and

looking vapory as tangible moonlight.

The leader of the concert having challenged the choruses from the

veranda of the palace, at once twenty choirs struck into their

particular anthem with the utmost zeal. A discord about six acres in

extent was the result. It seemed as though each choir was seeking whom

it might drown out with superior vocal compass and volume. With much

difficulty the several bands of singers were persuaded to await their

turn for a _solo_ effort that might be listened to with no small degree

of pleasure. From time to time, during the entire evening, some

obstreperous chorus would break loose, spite of every precaution; and it

had always to sing itself out before order could be restored. Taboo

would have thoroughly enjoyed those two thousand singers, each singing

his or her favorite roundelay, independent of all laws of time and

melody. He might have been there, as it was, offering his inharmonious

chant with the mob of contestants.

By the time the series of prize-songs had been sung, the sky grew

cloudy, and the torches began to flicker in the increasing wind; a few

great drops of rain spat down in the midst of the singers, and the reef

moaned loudly, like the baying of signal-guns. It was ominous of coming

storms. At the climax of a choral revolution, in which every man's voice

seemed raised against his neighbor's, a roar as of approaching armies

was heard, mingled with the accompanying crash of artillery. A sudden

puff of wind extinguished the major part of the torches, and wrecked

many of the lanterns in the palace porch. It was simply a tropical

shower in all its magnificence; but it was enough! The _fête_ concluded

then and there, in the promptest manner. The narrow streets of Papeete

were clogged with retreating hosts, who continually shouted a sort of

general adieu to everybody, as they gathered their skirts about them,

and, with shoes in hand, turned their bare feet homeward.

Since the end had at last come, and I had no further claims upon the

people, nor the people upon me,--if, indeed, either of us were ever

anything in particular to one another,--I drifted with the majority, and

soon found myself in the suburban wilderness that girdles the small

capital of the queendom. I wandered on till the noise of the revellers

grew more and more indistinct. They were scattering themselves over the

length and breadth of the island, carrying their songs with them. Now

and then a fresh gust of wind bore down to me an echo of a refrain that

had grown familiar during the days of the _fête_, and will not soon be

forgotten; but the past was rapidly fading, and the necessities of the

future began to present themselves with unusual boldness. Instinctively

I turned into the winding trail that once before had led me toward that

mysterious mountain sacristy, over whose font fell the spiritual and

dreamlike rivulet whose baptismal virtues Taboo and I had sought

together. I felt certain that I could find it without guidance; for the

broken clouds let slip such floods of moonlight as made day of darkness,

and rendered the smallest landmark easily distinguishable.

I paused for rest in the breadfruit grove where first I met with

my weird companion. Presently I resumed my pilgrimage, wending my

way toward the slender path that led through fern, forest, and

bamboo-jungle, to the crystal lake and waterfall. In vain I sought it;

the slightest traces of the trail seemed obliterated. I wandered up and

down the winding way, till I was in despair of finding the slightest

clew to the mystery. I sat down and thought how a slight accident of

forgetfulness was lending a sense of enchantment to the whole valley,

when I heard a stumbling step, too marked to be soon forgotten. I crept

into a shadow, and awaited the approach of the solitary wanderer. How he

tottered as he drew near! He seemed to have lost part of his small skill

since I last saw him. He was laughing quietly to himself while he

journeyed: perhaps some memory of the _fête_ still pleased him. He

passed me, unconscious of my presence. I ran cautiously, and followed

him at a safe distance. We threaded the old path, by stream and cliff

and brake, and, after a little, reached the secluded and silent borders

of the lake. Once or twice he had heard me as I brushed past the bamboos

or a twig snapped under foot, but those forest-sounds scarcely

disconcerted him; he was too well used to them. He paused at the margin

of the lake, stooped awkwardly and drank of it, went a little to one

side where an outlet fed the torrent we had forded some distance down

the valley, and there he bathed. Having started once or twice, as though

with some remembered and definite purpose, he paused a moment or two,

looked about him helplessly, and returned to the foot of the great tree

where we slept the first night of our acquaintance.

There was a faint suggestion of the fall across the sombre breast of the

cliff opposite, but whether it were real or a delusion, I could scarcely

determine. Taboo was soon asleep among the roots of the banyan; and I,

weary of seeking some revelation of the island mysteries, lay down near

him, and gradually sank into unconsciousness. Once in the night I awoke:

the clouds had blown over, and the moon was more resplendent than I ever

remember to have seen it. Out on the mossy rim of the lake stood Taboo,

gazing wistfully upon the mountains. Instinctively my eyes followed his,

and there I beheld the waterfall in all its glory, leaping, like a ray

of light, from the bosom of the sky. I could scarcely determine whether

or no it really fell into the lake, for the foliage about its shores was

too profuse. It flashed like handfuls of diamond-dust thrown into the

light, and descended as noiselessly and airily as vapor.

The clouds soon gathered again. I slept, overcome with weariness; and

when I awoke at dawn, Taboo was missing, as well as all traces of the

fall. This, however, scarcely surprised me, for I had grown to look upon

it as some lunar effect that came and went with the increasing or

decreasing splendor of the moon; or it might have been the short-lived

offspring of the showers that sweep over the island at uncertain

intervals. It was probably the only dramatic result to be looked for in

the career of Taboo. You never can depend upon one of those veering

minds, whose north-star has burned out in oblivion. I believe it was his

destiny to disappear with that rainbow, and, perhaps, return with it

when the fall should noiselessly steal down the mountain once more.

He may have had an object in secreting himself for a season; perhaps he

was renewing his youthful innocence in some more solitary spot. He may

have gone apart to laugh by the hour at the folly of the foreigners who

_fête_ a disgraced emperor; or was he making his queer noises to hear

the queerer echoes that came back to him, and all the while caring no

more for life or death than a parrot or a magpie, or even a poor,

half-shapen soul,--one of those sacred idiots that have found

worshippers before now, and never yet failed to awaken a chord of

sympathy in the heart that is fashioned after the Divine pattern of the

Son of God?

[Decoration]

[Decoration]

JOE OF LAHAINA.

I.

I was stormed in at Lahaina. Now, Lahaina is a little slice of

civilization, beached on the shore of barbarism. One can easily stand

that little of it, for brown and brawny heathendom becomes more

wonderful and captivating by contrast. So I was glad of dear, drowsy,

little Lahaina; and was glad, also, that she had but one broad street,

which possibly led to destruction, and yet looked lovely in the

distance. It didn't matter to me that the one broad street had but one

side to it; for the sea lapped over the sloping sands on its lower edge,

and the sun used to set right in the face of every solitary citizen of

Lahaina, just as he went to supper.

I was waiting to catch a passage in a passing schooner, and that's why I

came there; but the schooner flashed by us in a great gale from the

south, and so I was stormed in indefinitely.

It was Holy Week, and I concluded to go to housekeeping, because it

would be so nice to have my frugal meals in private, to go to mass and

vespers daily, and then to come back and feel quite at home. My villa

was suburban,--built of dried grasses on the model of a haystack, dug

out in the middle, with doors and windows let into the four sides

thereof. It was planted in the midst of a vineyard, with avenues

stretching in all directions, under a network of stems and tendrils.

"Her breath is sweeter than the sweet winds

That breathe over the grape-blossoms of Lahaina."

So the song said; and I began to think upon the surpassing sweetness of

that breath, as I inhaled the sweet winds of Lahaina, while the

wilderness of its vineyards blossomed like the rose. I used to sit in my

veranda and turn to Joe (Joe was my private and confidential servant),

and I would say to Joe, while we scented the odor of grape, and saw the

great banana-leaves waving their cambric sails, and heard the sea

moaning in the melancholy distance,--I would say to him, "Joe,

housekeeping _is_ good fun, isn't it?" Whereupon Joe would utter a sort

of unanimous Yes, with his whole body and soul; so that question was

carried triumphantly, and we would relapse into a comfortable silence,

while the voices of the wily singers down on the city front would

whisper to us, and cause us to wonder what they could possibly be doing

at that moment in the broad way that led to destruction. Then we would

take a drink of cocoa-milk, and finish our bananas, and go to bed,

because we had nothing else to do.

This is the way that we began our co-operative housekeeping: One night,

when there was a riotous sort of a festival off in a retired valley, I

saw, in the excited throng of natives who were going mad over their

national dance, a young face that seemed to embody a whole tropical

romance. On another night, when a lot of us were bathing in the

moonlight, I saw a figure so fresh and joyous that I began to realize

how the old Greeks could worship mere physical beauty and forget its

higher forms. Then I discovered that face on this body,--a rare enough

combination,--and the whole constituted Joe, a young scapegrace who was

schooling at Lahaina, under the eye--not a very sharp one--of his uncle.

When I got stormed in, and resolved on housekeeping for a season, I took

Joe, bribing his uncle to keep the peace, which he promised to do,

provided I gave bonds for Joe's irreproachable conduct while with me. I

willingly gave bonds--verbal ones--for this was just what I wanted of

Joe: namely, to instil into his youthful mind those counsels which, if

rigorously followed, must result in his becoming a true and unterrified

American. This compact settled, Joe took up his bed,--a roll of

mats,--and down we marched to my villa, and began housekeeping in good

earnest.

We soon got settled, and began to enjoy life, though we were not

without occasional domestic infelicities. For instance, Joe would wake

up in the middle of the night, declaring to me that it _was_ morning,

and thereupon insist upon sweeping out at once, and in the most vigorous

manner. Having filled the air with dust, he would rush off to the

baker's for our hot rolls and a pat of breakfast butter, leaving me,

meantime, to recover as I might. Having settled myself for a comfortable

hour's reading, bolstered up in a luxurious fashion, Joe would enter

with breakfast, and orders to the effect that it be eaten at once and

without delay. It was useless for me to remonstrate with him: he was

tyrannical.

He got me into all sorts of trouble. It was Holy Week, and I had

resolved upon going to mass and vespers daily. I went. The soft

night-winds floated in through the latticed windows of the chapel, and

made the candles flicker upon the altar. The little throng of natives

bowed in the impressive silence, and were deeply moved. It was rest for

the soul to be there; yet, in the midst of it, while the Father, with

his pale, sad face, gave his instructions, to which we listened as

attentively as possible,--for there was something in his manner and his

voice that made us better creatures,--while we listened, in the midst of

it I heard a shrill little whistle, a sort of chirp, that I knew

perfectly well. It was Joe, sitting on a cocoa-stump in the garden

adjoining, and beseeching me to come out, right off. When service was

over, I remonstrated with him for his irreverence. "Joe," I said, "if

you have no respect for religion yourself, respect those who are more

fortunate than you." But Joe was dressed in his best, and quite wild at

the entrancing loveliness of the night. "Let's walk a little," said Joe,

covered with fragrant wreaths, and redolent of cocoanut-oil. What could

I do? If I had tried to do anything to the contrary, he might have taken

me and thrown me away somewhere into a well, or a jungle, and then I

could no longer hope to touch the chord of remorse,--which chord I

sought vainly, and which I have since concluded was not in Joe's

physical corporation at all. So we walked a little. In vain I strove to

break Joe of the shocking habit of whistling me out of vespers. He would

persist in doing it. Moreover, during the day he would collect crusts of

bread and banana-skins, station himself in ambush behind the curtain of

the window next the lane, and, as some solitary creature strode solemnly

past, Joe would discharge a volley of ammunition over him, and then

laugh immoderately at his indignation and surprise. Joe was my pet

elephant, and I was obliged to play with him very cautiously.

One morning he disappeared. I was without the consolations of a

breakfast, even. I made my toilet, went to my portmanteau for my

purse,--for I had decided upon a visit to the baker,--when lo! part of

my slender means had mysteriously disappeared. Joe was gone, and the

money also. All day I thought about it. In the morning, after a very

long and miserable night, I woke up, and when I opened my eyes, there,

in the doorway, stood Joe, in a brand-new suit of clothes, including

boots and hat. He was gorgeous beyond description, and seemed overjoyed

to see me, and as merry as though nothing unusual had happened. I was

quite startled at this apparition. "Joseph!" I said in my severest tone,

and then turned over and looked away from him. Joe evaded the subject in

the most delicate manner, and was never so interesting as at that

moment. He sang his specialties, and played clumsily upon his bamboo

flute,--to soothe me, I suppose,--and wanted me to eat a whole flat pie

which he had brought home as a peace-offering, buttoned tightly under

his jacket. I saw I must strike at once, if I struck at all; so I said,

"Joe, what on earth did you do with that money?" Joe said he had

replenished his wardrobe, and bought the flat pie especially for me.

"Joseph," I said, with great dignity, "do you know that you have been

stealing, and that it is highly sinful to steal, and may result in

something unpleasant in the world to come?" Joe said, "Yes," pleasantly,

though I hardly think he meant it; and then he added, mildly, "that he

couldn't lie,"--which was a glaring falsehood,--"but wanted me to be

sure that he took the money, and so had come back to tell me."

"Joseph," I said, "you remind me of our noble Washington"; and, to my

amazement, Joe was mortified. He didn't, of course, know who Washington

was, but he suspected that I was ridiculing him. He came to the bed and

haughtily insisted upon my taking the little change he had received from

his costumers, but I implored him to keep it, as I had no use at all for

it, and, as I assured him, I much preferred hearing it jingle in his

pocket.

The next day I sailed out of Lahaina, and Joe came to the beach with his

new trousers tucked into his new boots, while he waved his new hat

violently in a final adieu, much to the envy and admiration of a score

of hatless urchins, who looked upon Joe as the glass of fashion, and but

little lower than the angels. When I entered the boat to set sail, a

tear stood in Joe's bright eye, and I think he was really sorry to part

with me; and I don't wonder at it, because our housekeeping experiences

were new to him,--and, I may add, not unprofitable.

II.

Some months of mellow and beautiful weather found me wandering here and

there among the islands, when the gales came on again, and I was driven

about homeless, and sometimes friendless, until, by and by, I heard of

an opportunity to visit Molokai,--an island seldom visited by the

tourist,--where, perhaps, I could get a close view of a singularly sad

and interesting colony of lepers.

The whole island is green, but lonely. As you ride over its excellent

turnpike, you see the ruins of a nation that is passing, like a shadow,

out of sight. Deserted garden-patches, crumbling walls, and roofs

tumbled into the one state-chamber of the house, while knots of long

grass wave at halfmast in the chinks and crannies. A land of great

traditions, of magic, and witchcraft, and spirits. A fertile and

fragrant solitude. How I enjoyed it; and yet how it was all telling upon

me, in its own way! One cannot help feeling sad there, for he seems to

be living and moving in a long revery, out of which he dreads to awaken

to a less pathetic life. I rode a day or two among the solemn and

reproachful ruins with inexpressible complacence, and, having finally

climbed a series of verdant and downy hills, and ridden for twenty

minutes in a brisk shower, came suddenly upon the brink of a great

precipice, three thousand feet in the air. My horse instinctively braced

himself, and I nervously jerked the bridle square up to my breastbone,

as I found we were poised between heaven and earth, upon a trembling

pinnacle of rock. A broad peninsula was stretched below me, covered

with grassy hills; here and there clusters of brown huts were visible,

and to the right, the white dots of houses to which I was hastening, for

that was the leper village. To that spot were the wandering and

afflicted tribes brought home to die. Once descending the narrow stairs

in the cliff under me, never again could they hope to strike their tents

and resume their pilgrimage; for the curse was on them, and necessity

had narrowed down their sphere of action to this compass,--a solitary

slope between sea and land, with the invisible sentinels of Fear and

Fate forever watching its borders.

I seemed to be looking into a fiery furnace, wherein walked the living

bodies of those whom Death had already set his seal upon. What a mockery

it seemed to be climbing down that crag,--through wreaths of vine, and

under leafy cataracts breaking into a foam of blossoms a thousand feet

below me; swinging aside the hanging parasites that obstructed the

narrow way,--entering the valley of death, and the very mouth of hell,

by these floral avenues!

A brisk ride of a couple of miles across the breadth of the peninsula

brought me to the gate of the keeper of the settlement, and there I

dismounted, and hastened into the house, to be rid of the curious crowd

that had gathered to receive me. The little cottage was very

comfortable, my host and hostess friends of precious memory; and with

them I felt at once at home, and began the new life that every one

begins when the earth seems to have been suddenly transformed into some

better or worse world, and he alone survives the transformation.

Have you never had such an experience? Then go into the midst of a

community of lepers; have ever before your eyes their Gorgon-like faces;

see the horrors, hardly to be recognized as human, that grope about you;

listen in vain for the voices that have been hushed forever by decay;

breathe the tainted atmosphere; and bear ever in mind that, while they

hover about you,--forbidden to touch you, yet longing to clasp once more

a hand that is perfect and pure,--the insidious seeds of the malady may

be generating in your vitals, and your heart, even then, be drunk with

death!

I might as well confess that I slept indifferently the first night; that

I was not entirely free from nervousness the next day, as I passed

through the various wards assigned to patients in every stage of

decomposition. But I recovered myself in time to observe the admirable

system adopted by the Hawaiian government for the protection of its

unfortunate people. I used to sit by the window and see the processions

of the less afflicted come for little measures of milk, morning and

evening. Then there was a continuous raid upon the ointment-pot, with

the contents of which they delighted to anoint themselves. Trifling

disturbances sometimes brought the plaintiff and defendant to the front

gate, for final judgment at the hands of their beloved keeper. And it

was a constant entertainment to watch the progress of events in that

singular little world of doomed spirits. They were not unhappy. I used

to hear them singing every evening: their souls were singing while their

bodies were falling rapidly to dust. They continued to play their games,

as well as they could play them with the loss of a finger-joint or a

toe, from week to week: it is thus gradually and thus slowly that they

died, feeling their voices growing fainter and their strength less, as

the idle days passed over them and swept them to the tomb.

Sitting at the window on the second evening, as the patients came up for

milk, I observed one of them watching me intently, and apparently trying

to make me understand something or other, but what that something was I

could not guess. He rushed to the keeper and talked excitedly with him

for a moment, and then withdrew to one side of the gate and waited till

the others were served with their milk, still watching me all the while.

Then the keeper entered and told me how I had a friend out there who

wished to speak with me,--some one who had seen me somewhere, he

supposed, but whom I would hardly remember. It was their way never to

forget a face they had once become familiar with. Out I went. There was

a face I could not have recognized as anything friendly or human. Knots

of flesh stood out upon it; scar upon scar disfigured it. The expression

was like that of a mummy, stony and withered. The outlines of a youthful

figure were preserved, but the hands and feet were pitiful to look at.

What was this ogre that knew me and loved me still?

He soon told me who he had once been, but was no longer. Our little,

unfortunate "Joe," my Lahaina charge. In his case the disease had spread

with fearful rapidity: the keeper thought he could hardly survive the

year. Many linger year after year, and cannot die; but Joe was more

fortunate. His life had been brief and passionate, and death was now

hastening him to his dissolution.

Joe was forbidden to come near me, so he crouched down by the fence, and

pressing his hands between the pickets sifted the dust at my feet, while

he wailed in a low voice, and called me, over and over, "dear friend,"

"good friend," and "master." I wish I had never seen him so humbled. To

think of my disreputable little _protégé_, who was wont to lord it over

me as though he had been a born chief,--to think of Joe as being there

in his extremity, grovelling in the dust at my feet; forbidden to climb

the great wall of flowers that towered between him and his beautiful

world, while the rough sea lashed the coast about him, and his only

companions were such hideous foes as would frighten one out of a dream!

How I wanted to get close to him! but I dared not; so we sat there with

the slats of the fence between us, while we talked very long in the

twilight; and I was glad when it grew so dark that I could no longer see

his face,--his terrible face, that came to kill the memory of his former

beauty.

And Joe wondered whether I still remembered how we used to walk in the

night, and go home, at last, to our little house when Lahaina was as

still as death, and you could almost hear the great stars throbbing in

the clear sky! How well I remembered it, and the day when we went a long

way down the beach, and, looking back, saw a wide curve of the land

cutting the sea like a sickle, and turning up a white and shining swath!

Then, in another place, a grove of cocoa-palms and a melancholy,

monastic-looking building, with splendid palm-branches in its broad

windows; for it was just after Palm Sunday, and the building belonged to

a Sisterhood. And I remembered how the clouds fell and the rain drove us

into a sudden shelter, and we ate tamarind-jam, spread thick on thin

slices of bread, and were supremely happy. In this connection, I could

not forget how Joe became very unruly about that time, and I got

mortified, and found great difficulty in getting him home at all; and

yet the memory of it would have been perfect but for this fate. O Joe!

my poor, dear, terrible cobra! to think that I should ever be afraid to

look into your face in my life!

Joe wanted to call to my mind one other reminiscence,--a night when we

two walked to the old wharf, and went out to the end of it, and sat

there looking inland, watching the inky waves slide up and down the

beach, while the full moon rose over the superb mountains where the

clouds were heaped like wool, and the very air seemed full of utterances

that you could almost hear and understand but for something that made

them all a mystery. I tried then, if ever I tried in my life, to make

Joe a little less bad than he was naturally, and he seemed nearly

inclined to be better, and would, I think, have been so, but for the

thousand temptations that gravitated to him when we got on solid earth

again. He forgot my precepts then, and I'm afraid I forgot them myself.

Joe remembered that night vividly. I was touched to hear him confess it;

and I pray earnestly that that one moment may plead for him in the last

day, if, indeed, he needs any special plea other than that Nature has

published for her own.

"Sing for me, Joe," said I; and Joe, still crouching on the other side

of the lattice, sang some of his old songs. One of them, a popular

melody, was echoed through the little settlement, where faint voices

caught up the chorus, and the night was wildly and weirdly musical. We

walked by the sea the next day, and the day following that, Joe taking

pains to stay on the leeward side of me,--he was so careful to keep the

knowledge of his fate uppermost in his mind: how could I dismiss it

from my own, when it was branded in his countenance? The desolated

beauty of his face plead for measureless pity, and I gave it, out of my

prodigality, yet felt that I could not begin to give sufficient.

Link by link he was casting off his hold on life; he was no longer a

complete being; his soul was prostrated in the miry clay, and waited, in

agony, its long deliverance.

In leaving the leper village, I had concluded to say nothing to Joe,

other than the usual "_aloha_" at night, when I could ride off, in the

darkness, and, sleeping at the foot of the cliff, ascend it in the first

light of morning, and get well on my journey before the heat of the day.

We took a last walk by the rocks on the shore; heard the sea breathing

its long breath under the hollow cones of lava, with a noise like a

giant leper in his asthmatic agony. Joe heard it, and laughed a little,

and then grew silent; and finally said he wanted to leave the place,--he

hated it; he loved Lahaina dearly: how was everybody in Lahaina?--a

question he had asked me hourly since my arrival.

When night came I asked Joe to sing, as usual; so he gathered his mates

about him, and they sang the songs I liked best. The voices rang,

sweeter than ever, up from the group of singers congregated a few rods

off, in the darkness; and while they sang, my horse was saddled, and I

quietly bade adieu to my dear friends, the keepers, and mounting, walked

the horse slowly up the grass-grown road. I shall never see little Joe

again, with his pitiful face, growing gradually as dreadful as a

cobra's, and almost as fascinating in its hideousness. I waited, a

little way off, in the darkness,--waited and listened, till the last

song was ended, and I knew he would be looking for me, to say _Good

night_. But he didn't find me; and he will never again find me in this

life, for I left him sitting in the dark door of his sepulchre,--sitting

and singing in the mouth of his grave,--clothed all in death.

[Decoration]

[Decoration]

THE NIGHT-DANCERS OF WAIPIO.

The afternoon sun was tinting the snowy crest of Mauna Kea, and folds of

shadow were draping the sea-washed eastern cliffs of Hawaii, as Felix

and I endeavored to persuade our fagged steeds that they must go and

live, or stay and die in the middle of a lava-trail by no means

inviting. As we rode, we thought of the scandal that had so recently

regaled our too willing ears: here it is, in a mild solution, to be

taken with three parts of disbelief.

Two venerable and warm-hearted missionaries, whose good works seemed to

have found dissimilar expression, equally effective, I trust, proved

their specialties to be church-building.

Rev. Mr. A seemed to think the more the merrier, and his pretty little

meeting-houses looked as though they had been baked in the lot, like a

sheet of biscuits; while Rev. Mr. B condensed his efforts into the

consummation of one resplendent edifice. Mr. A was always wondering why

Mr. B should waste his money in a single church, while Mr. B was

nonplussed at seeing Mr. A break out in a rash of diminutive chapels.

Well, Felix and I were riding northward up the coast, over dozens and

dozens of lovely ridges; through scores of deep gullies cushioned with

ferns as high as our pommels, and fording numberless streams, white with

froth and hurry, eagerly seeking the most exquisite valley in the

Pacific, as some call it. We rode till we were tired out twenty times

over; again and again we looked forward to the bit of Mardi-life we were

about to experience in the vale of the Waipio, while now and then we

passed one of Mr. A's pretty little churches. Once we were impatient

enough to make inquiry of a native who was watching our progress with

considerable emotion: there is always some one to watch you when you are

wishing yourself at the North Pole. Our single spectator affected an air

of gravity, and seemed quite interested as he said, "Go six or seven

churches farther on that trail, and you'll come to Waipio." On we went

with renewed spirits, for the churches were frequent, almost within

sight of each other. But we faltered presently and lost our reckoning,

they were so much alike. Again we asked our way of a solitary watcher on

a hill-top, who had had his eye upon us ever since we rose above the rim

of the third ridge back: he revealed to us the glad fact that we were

only two churches from Paradise! How we tore over the rest of that

straight and narrow way with the little life left to us, and came in

finally all of a foam, fairly jumping the last mite of a chapel that

hung upon the brink of the beautiful valley like a swallow's nest!

And down we dropped into fifty fathoms of the sweetest twilight

imaginable,--so sweet it seemed to have been born of a wilderness of the

night-blooming cereus and fed forever on jasmine buds.

There were shelter and refreshment for two hungry souls, and we slid out

of our saddles as though we had been boned expressly for a cannibal

feast.

By this time the rosy flush on Mauna Kea had faded, and its superb brow

was pale with an unearthly pallor. "Come in," said the host; and he led

us under the thatched gable, that was fragrant as new-mown hay. There we

sat, "in," as he called it, though there was never a side to the concern

thicker than a shadow.

A stream flowed noiselessly at our feet. Canoes drifted by us, with

dusky and nude forms bowed over the paddles. Each occupant greeted

us, being guests in the valley, just lifting their slumberous

eyelids,--masked batteries, that made Felix forget his danger; they

seldom paused, but called back to us from the gathering darkness with

inexpressibly tender, contralto voices.

Thereupon we were summoned to dinner in another apartment, screened with

vines. The faint flicker of the tapers suggested that what breath of air

might be stirring came from the mountain, and it brought with it a

message from the orangery up the valley. "How will you take your

oranges?" queried Felix; "in pulp, liquid, or perfume?"--and such a

dense odor swept past us at the moment, I thought I had taken them in

the triple forms. "You are just in time," said our host. "Why, what's

up?" asked I. "The moon will be up presently, and after moonrise you

shall see the _hula-hula_."

Felix desired to be enlightened as to the nature of the

what-you-call-it, and was assured that it was worth seeing, and would

require no explanatory chorus when its hour came.

It was at least a mile to the scene of action; a tortuous stream wound

thither, navigable in spots, but from time to time the canoe would have

to take to the banks for a short cut into deeper water.

"I can never get there," growled Felix; "I'm full of needles and pins";

to which the host responded by excusing himself for a few moments,

leaving Felix and me alone. It was deathly still in the valley, though a

thousand crickets sang, and the fish smacked their round mouths at the

top of the water. Evening comes slowly in those beloved tropics, but it

comes so satisfactorily that there is nothing left out.

A moonlight night is a continuous festival. The natives sing and dance

till daybreak, making it all up by sleeping till the next twilight.

Nothing is lost by this ingenious and admirable arrangement. Why should

they sleep, when a night there has the very essence of five nights

anywhere else, extracted and enriched with spices till it is so

inspiring that the soul cries out in triumph, and the eyes couldn't

sleep if they would?

At this period, enter to us the host, with several young native girls,

who seat themselves at our feet, clasping each a boot-leg encasing the

extremities of Felix and myself.

Felix kicked violently, and left the room with some embarrassment, and I

appealed to the hospitable gentleman of the house, who was smiling

somewhat audibly at our perplexity.

He assured me that if I would throw myself upon the mats in the corner,

two of these maids would speedily relieve me of any bodily pain I might

at that moment be suffering with.