he looked down and pointed to the little coffin, the stream of his
eloquence suddenly ran dry. He tried to go on, hesitated, and covered
his face with his hands, leaving it for the pastor to continue. This
the Rev. Tavita Singua did without further loss of time. He expatiated
on the godlike virtues of Tutumanaia in a strain that would have made
an angel blush, and did not spare the poor clay that had lived but to
die. Another piercing hymn preceded the third address. Old Tuisunga
now stepped forward, his battle-scarred chest naked to the heavens,
the bunching tapa round his loins his only garment. Slowly, softly,
with the tenderest deliberation, he began to speak. He was a born
orator, and knew the way to men’s hearts, rugged old barbarian though
he was. His theme was the bond that this little grave would for ever
be between the missionary and themselves, and his voice thrilled as he
invited Wesley into the fellowship of the bereaved, and told of the
tragedy that underlies the life of man. He drew familiar instances from
the village history; here a cherished boy destined for a name renowned;
there a young maid struck down in all her bright promise. He called to
mind his own son Rafael, who had fallen beside him on the battle-field,
his Absalom, for whom he would have died a thousand deaths. He spoke,
he said, as one man of sorrow to another, one whose heart lay beneath a
fathom of Samoan earth. He drew to a close by declaring that no common
hand should touch the coffin of their beloved. He, the son of chiefs,
the father of famous warriors, would lay the little body to its last
repose, so that it should say when its spirit reached the angels,
“Behold, I am the son of Tutumanaia, and my servant Tuisunga laid me
to rest in the house of sandalwood.” He tenderly lifted the coffin in
his arms, pressed his lips against the unpainted boards, and lowered it
into the grave.
* * * * *
An hour later, a gaunt, black-robed figure made its way through the
trampled grass and fell on its knees beside the grave. It was Father
Zosimus, bowed in supplication before the throne of grace.
* * * * *
It was strange what a simple matter at last brought about the
acquaintance of the only two white men in Fangaloa. Each had timidly
waited for the other to make the first advances, and each had gone
his solitary way, sick at heart, and hungering for the companionship
which would have been so eagerly accorded. It befell that Cook’s well
went dry, and there being no other water in the village save the
brackish fluid the natives were content to drink, one of the mission
boys suggested that they apply to the old priest. So Tutumanaia sat
down and wrote a polite note, explaining his predicament, and begging
for a little water. The note was sent by a messenger with a bucket.
Father Zosimus was overwhelmed when he opened and read the letter; he
was dazed by the suddenness of his own good fortune; he bade Filipo
feed the boy with the best the house afforded, with sucking pig and
_palusami_ unstinted, while he hurriedly made ready for the visit that
he was at last to pay.
Oh, that first meeting! It exceeded his wildest expectations, his most
sanguine dream! Wesley Cook was so cordial, so frankly anxious to be
friends, so overflowing with pent-up confidences, that the priest
almost wept as he unbosomed himself of the scruples that had kept him
back. With innocent craft, he left nothing undone to establish his
footing, and his bland and beaming smile hid a thousand schemes for
entangling Cook in a web of obligation. Could he send some roses to
madam, his beautiful wife? It might distract her from the thought of
her terrible loss. He had so many roses--to give a few would be such a
pleasure, such an honour. Ah, madam would be pleased with them, were
she fond of flowers. She, too, must come and see his garden, his poor
garden, where he grudged not the labour, as it seemed to bring him
close to God. Could he not provide her with some special seeds sent him
all the way from Ceylon--acclimated seeds from the famous gardens of
the lay brothers at Point de Galle? Some guava jelly of his own making?
Some smoked pigeons that he ventured to say were delicious? Would Cook
accept some cherries in brandy that the captain of the _Wild Cat_ had
presented to him years ago--that headstrong naval captain who had come
to bombard Fangaloa, and ended by giving prizes to the school-children?
Father Zosimus did not overstay his welcome. On the contrary, he had
to tear himself away almost by force, so insistent was Cook to keep
him. But he knew how much depended on that first visit; he would
not jeopardise the precious friendship by remaining too long; and
he took early leave, exulting like a child in the rosy vistas that
opened before him. This proved to be the first of many visits, and the
beginning of an acquaintance that ripened into the closest intimacy.
In the day each had his duties to perform, his quiet routine of tasks
to fulfil. Father Zosimus sawed stone for the unfinished church he had
been ten years building with the perseverance of an ant, or dug in the
garden hard by the chapel whose tinkling bell called him periodically
to devotions. Tutumanaia had his school, his Young Men’s Institute,
his medical practice, and the thousand and one labours imposed upon
him by his position and the multitude of his flock. One hour daily he
devoted to the intricacies of the language, another to the translation
of the “Peep o’ Day” and “Glimpses of the Holy Land” into the Samoan
tongue. But at night, when all the village lay quiet on its mats, and
nothing broke the stillness save the drone of the surf and the rustle
of flying-foxes among the trees, then it was that Father Zosimus would
seek the mission verandah and the society of the friend that had become
so dear to him.
Side by side, with their canvas chairs touching, the strange pair would
talk far into the night. The world passed in review before them, that
great world of which they both knew so little; and from their village
on the shores of an uncharted sea they weighed and examined, criticised
and condemned it. Or perhaps from such lofty themes their talk would
drift into the homelier channel of local gossip, or stray into the
labyrinths of Samoan politics. Or Origen, Athanasius, George of
Cappadocia, would be drawn from their distant past to point an argument
or illustrate a deep dissertation on the primitive church. And from
these, again, perhaps to Steinberger’s new poll-tax and the fighting in
Pango Pango.
On one subject they never spoke--the great barrier reef of dogma that
lay between them. Once only was it in any way alluded to--once after
a memorable night when Wesley had opened his heart to the old priest.
In saying farewell the latter had raised his hands, and was deeply
chagrined when his companion leaped back with a look of consternation.
“Oh, my son,” said Zosimus, “the blessing of an old and not unworthy
man cannot harm thee. Do we not each serve God according to our lights?”
But if Father Zosimus had succeeded in winning the young minister’s
confidence and friendship, with Mrs. Cook he had not fared so well.
In the bottom of his heart he felt that the woman’s ill will was
the rock on which the precious friendship might founder, and he
accordingly left no stone unturned to ingratiate himself in her
favour. But the lonely, wilful, moody woman, with her health impaired
by her recent confinement, and her spirit warped by disappointment
and the consciousness of dimming beauty, was in no state of mind
to receive his advances. Unhappy herself, she was in the tigerish
humour when one must rend, if one can, the happiness of others. She
had nothing in common with the frowsy old priest who wore blue jeans
under his snuffy cassock and smelled of garden mould. Moreover, her
pride was wounded by her tacit exclusion from the nightly company on
the porch. Her presence brought constraint and what seemed to her
disordered nerves a scarcely veiled resentment. Though she yawned in
her husband’s face when they were alone together, and did nothing to
seek his confidence, she detested his intimacy with the old priest,
and the thought of it rankled perpetually within her. At first she
had ignored Father Zosimus’s very existence, repelling his overtures
with an indifference quite unaffected, and treating him with the frank
rudeness that springs from unconcern. But as time passed, and every
fibre of her being revolted at the narrowness and hopelessness of her
imprisoned life; as her spirit beat against the bars and her heart
seemed to burst within her breast; she began to perceive in the priest
the means of striking at her husband. Not that she did not love Wesley,
after a fashion; if things had so fallen out, she could have felt the
most poignant jealousy; but she resented the easy, contented nature
that blossomed in that hot hole where they lived, among those greasy,
fawning savages with whom their lot was so inexorably cast. His prattle
about the school, the progress of the “Peep o’ Day,” his zeal for
unearthing legends and old Samoan songs, his whole innocent enjoyment
in his daily tasks and duties, all fanned the flame of her revolt. If
he, too, had risen against the dreary confinement of their life; if
he, too, had faced each succeeding day with ineffable disgust, and had
lain weary and heartsick in her arms at night; she would have comforted
him, encouraged him, strengthened him for the task he had so rashly
undertaken. What she could not bear, what she could not forgive or
condone, was his mild acceptance of his fate; his zest in the pitiful
drudgery of his every-day existence; the petty nature that could thus
expand in the close air of a prison. With a malignity that was crazed
in its intensity, the outcome of hysteria and the first gnawings
of disease, she sought to shatter the placidity which had grown as
intolerable to her as the Samoan sun at noon. In Father Zosimus she
perceived the dagger with which she could stab her husband through
and through; and in the maturing of her plot she enjoyed the nearest
approach to happiness that had ever come her way in Fangaloa.
One evening, when Father Zosimus arrived as usual, he was met on the
verandah by Mrs. Cook, and informed that the minister had been detained
in the village by some trifling errand. He felt a tone of menace in
her voice, and foreboded no good from her high colour and quivering
lips. He would have excused himself had a lie come easily to his lips,
but he was not quick in such things, and took the offered seat with a
sinking heart. He searched nervously here and there for some topic of
conversation that might be interesting and yet free from the slightest
possibility of offence, his ear, meanwhile, alert for the sound of the
minister’s footsteps. But Mrs. Cook was too adroit for the old man,
and, to his inexpressible chagrin, he soon found himself stumbling into
an argument, and the target for humiliating and derisive questions.
He now thought only of escape, for his hands were trembling, and he
felt his cheeks flushing with indignation. Every word he said seemed
only to land him deeper in the mire. When, at last, Mrs. Cook began to
taunt him with a recent scandal in Upolu involving the good name of a
nun, Father Zosimus cried out inarticulately, and flung himself past
her into the darkness. Even as he did so, Wesley Cook came swinging
up the path, and instinctively stepped aside to allow the flying
figure to pass. He looked back at it irresolutely, and then continued
on his way with a premonition of evil to come. His wife received
him with vehement caresses, clinging to him in an hysterical frenzy.
Between her choking sobs she overflowed with foolish, disjointed, and
often incoherent accusations against the old priest. “That horrible
old Jesuit!” she cried; “that sly, slinking, wicked creature; never,
never must he be permitted to cross the threshold again.” Her cheeks
flamed as she continued her tirade; as she described the shame,
the humiliation she had secretly undergone; as she affected, with
passionated outbursts of indignation, to keep back things that were too
black even for utterance. All the time she searched Wesley’s eyes for
an answering fire, and could read nothing but incredulity and dismay.
Then her wrath turned full upon him, and with a hundred quotations from
his own lips she denounced his intimacy with a Jesuit, and bade him
choose between the priest and her.
She threatened to seek old Tuisunga’s protection were he to persist
in this unworthy friendship, and drew in no uncertain colours the
effect of the letter she would write to the missionary authorities at
Malua. Wesley was frightened to the core, and quaked under the lash
of her denunciation. He saw himself disgraced; dismissed from the
Society; turned out into the world, that most forlorn and helpless of
human beings, the discarded missionary. Abjectly he begged for mercy,
simulated an indignation against Father Zosimus he could in no wise
feel, and was in due course forgiven on promising to break for ever
with the old priest.
He passed a troubled night; he felt he had made a mean capitulation,
and, try as he would, he was unable to gloss the matter to his
conscience. He was stung by the conviction of his cowardice and
disloyalty, and yet his common sense told him that he was powerless in
his wife’s hands. He could never outlive the scandal of her desertion,
or explain away those letters which would write him down a pervert.
In the morning Wesley timidly expostulated with his wife, quoting all
the texts he could remember that bore on charity and forgiveness. This
was a course little calculated to allay Mrs. Cook’s wrath. She burst
out upon him with a fury that completely crushed his last effort at
intercession. She stood over him as he wrote the letter in which, with
smooth and nicely balanced sentences, interspersed with religious
commonplaces and trite expressions of regret, he raised a wall of words
between himself and the old man he had called his friend. He knew,
he said, that Father Zosimus could have had no intention to offend,
but Mrs. Cook had taken the matter of overnight in such a way that he
felt unable to resume an intimacy which had been very precious to him.
No apologies or explanations could avail, and he begged that none be
offered; but he trusted, he need not say how earnestly, that in some
future time (D. V.) the dark clouds would roll away, and with them all
memories of this unhappy misunderstanding.
The letter was brought to Father Zosimus in the garden, where he was
digging furiously to drive away the devils that beset him. He tore it
open with his grimy hands, and read it with a feeling of despair.
The few kindly allusions brought tears to his eyes, and his first
resentment against Tutumanaia passed away as he re-read them; but
against Mrs. Cook, the author of his humiliation, his whole nature
rose in arms. Disciplined though he was by seven and forty years of
abnegation, the old Adam in him lay still fiery and untamed. He was
consumed with bitterness towards the woman who had so cruelly wronged
him. What had he to hope “in some future time (D. V.),” old and broken
man that he was? In the fierceness of his indignation he called down
the vengeance of God upon her until contrition overpowered him, and he
threw himself on his knees.
“Oh, Zosimus,” he said, “so old and still so foolish!”
After such a blow it was hard to pick up the threads of life once more,
and interest himself in the recurring tasks which rounded out each day.
But in Father Zosimus there was the stuff of which martyrs are made.
Sore of heart though he was, and spent of body, his unremitting energy
and indomitable faith drove him to work and pray as he had never worked
or prayed before. His lacerated feelings found an outlet in dazzling
garden-beds, trellises of bamboo, and in the stone wall he had so
often planned and as often given up, which was to inclose the seaward
side of his little plantation. And in these tranquil and unexciting
occupations, which kept the hands busy while the mind was free to rove,
a certain scheme unfolded itself which found increasing favour in his
eyes; the means, in fact, by which he might score a triumph over Mrs.
Cook, and restore himself once again in her good graces. Not that he
had forgiven her for the part she had taken against him; his anger
still smouldered beneath the blanket of Christian charity with which he
had sought to smother it; but were he to gain again his footing in that
household on the hill; were he to renew the intimacy that was the very
salt of his life; he must needs pay toll to the woman who held the key
of his happiness. As he dug, or weeded, or carried stones to his wall,
or climbed the ladder beside the shining trellis-work, the old priest
was never far from a sheet of paper and a pencil. Sometimes it was a
hammer that kept these things in place, sometimes it was the well-worn
shovel-hat that guarded them from the puffs of the trade or chance
cat’s-paws from the mountains, while Zosimus, his head economically
wrapped in banana-leaves, seized many an occasion during the course of
his labours to scribble another word on the anchored sheet, or erase
something already written. It was a list of such delicacies as the
limited markets of Apia afforded, for which the old man was intending
to lay out the savings of a year.
It must not be supposed that the Rev. Wesley Cook was having a
particularly pleasant time of it during the days that followed the
breaking off with Father Zosimus. For half a week, indeed, his wife
exerted herself to supply the old man’s place, and had never before
shown herself so agreeable or so helpful. She interested herself in
Wesley’s legends, listened patiently to the story of Sopo’s misdoings,
of the brilliant possibilities that lay in Popo would he only apply
himself in earnest, or lamented with her husband the bad influences
which were undermining the character of a gentleman named O; she wrote
to his dictation a little essay on the “King-names of Samoa,” which
Cook intended sending to the Polynesian Society of New Zealand; and,
in fact, proved herself a zealous, clever, and indefatigable comrade.
All thought of Father Zosimus would soon have slipped from Wesley’s
memory had this new-found companionship been destined to endure; but
it was nothing more than a flash in the pan, due half to remorse, half
to policy, a means to gain time for the breach to widen irrevocably
between her husband and the priest.
The sour, capricious woman could not long brook the task she had
set herself to perform; her spirit soon flagged in the dull round
which made up her husband’s life, and her new part in it grew daily
more intolerable. She slowly lapsed again into the dark humour which
was fast becoming her second nature, and took no further trouble to
conciliate her husband. Cook was slow to realise the change, but
when at last it dawned upon him that she listened with unconcealed
indifference to the tale of the day’s doings, and made no further
pretence of caring either for his work in Fangaloa or for the literary
labours which were his only relaxation, he, too, grew gloomy and
dispirited. The essay languished; the “Peep o’ Day” stood still; and
he spent solitary hours in his study in a kind of stupor. A thousand
times his heart turned towards his old friend, and he longed to
throw himself at his feet and say, “Father, comfort me! I am weak of
spirit and sore distressed.” But loyalty to the overwrought and nigh
crazy woman he called his wife, as well as the timidity which was
constitutional in the man, forbade an open reconciliation, and he
shrank from the thoughts of a clandestine one. So he went his lonely
way, bearing his cross as best he might.
At last the time grew near for the execution of the plan which had cost
Father Zosimus so much trouble and calculation, not to speak of many
dollars from his scanty hoard.
On Christmas morn, as the cannon at Faleapuni pealed along the shore
and roused the villages with its joyful reverberations, Father Zosimus
hastened to transform his dwelling into a bower of ferns and flowers.
With Filipo to assist him, and _’afa_ enough to have built a chief’s
house, the pair worked unceasingly until there remained not an inch
without its flower nor a post unentwined with brilliant creepers and
fragrant _moso’oi_. He drew a breath of satisfaction when it was all
finished to his liking, and while Filipo swept out the litter he sat
down and wrote the following letter:
FANGALOA, December 25, 186-.
MY DEAR CHILDREN: On this blessed morning no Christian can harbour
any unkindness in his heart, nor cast up another’s shortcomings
against him. I am an old and a failing man; the day of my release is
close at hand, and you both must be generous to me as one so soon to
stand before his God. And if I have unwittingly offended you,--as I
know I have done,--I pray you to forgive me for the sake of Him who
was born to-day. I have ventured to prepare a little feast in your
honour, with which I hope we may celebrate, in innocent gaiety, the
renewal of our friendship. At twelve o’clock I shall expect you both.
I remain, my dear children, with heartfelt wishes for your good
health and continued prosperity,
Your old friend,
ZOSIMUS, S. J.
He read the note several times to himself before putting it into an
envelope and addressing it to Mr. and Mrs. Cook. Filipo was at hand,
garlanded with red _singano_ and elegantly garbed in white, prepared
to make a good appearance before the young ladies of the mission. He
trotted off with the note carefully wrapped in a banana-leaf, that it
might be delivered in all its virgin purity. Father Zosimus lit a pipe
and impatiently set himself to await his messenger’s return.
“_Se’i ave le tusi lea ia Misi_,” said Filipo to the young lady that
met him at the door. “_Ou te fa’atali i’inei mo le tali._” (“Give this
letter to Misi. I will wait here for the answer.”) Now, in Samoa, the
word “Misi” is used to designate and address Protestant missionaries
of either sex, and the maid carried the letter, not to Wesley Cook
in his study, but to Mrs. Cook, who was listlessly lolling in the
sitting-room. She tore it open, read it with attention, and putting it
hastily in her pocket, bade the girl send Filipo away. “Tell him Misi
says there is no answer,” she said.
The old catechist skipped down the hill, and repeated to his master the
message that had been given him.
Father Zosimus was painfully overcome.
“Filipo,” he said, “did you see the minister with your very own eyes?”
“_Ioe_,” answered the catechist, cheerfully; “he was writing in his
room, and I saw him through the window, looking very sad, and eating
his pen like a cow at a breadfruit-tree.” Filipo mimicked the action on
his finger.
Father Zosimus sat for a long time in a kind of dream. A glass of wine
served to rouse and strengthen him, and the unaccustomed stimulant
put him in some sort of trim to carry on the duties of the day. But a
recurring dizziness and a sinking at the heart soon drove him to take
an enforced rest. He told Filipo he did not care to eat, bidding him
put away the wine, and call Iosefo and his family to the feast that had
been made ready for such different guests.
With the passing of Christmas Father Zosimus began to work harder
than ever in his garden; early and late he could be seen in the midst
of its blooming flower-beds, digging, weeding, or transplanting
with passionate intensity. A loutish fellow from the westward, a
heavy-featured son of Wallis Island, had been engaged to divide the
burden of these tasks, and for a wage infinitesimally small toiled and
sweated under the father’s eye. To guard this creature from the prattle
of the passers-by, and to check his tendency to gaze dreamily into the
sun; to stifle his inclination to drink, to smoke, to chatter, to
explain how much better they did things in Wallis Island; to keep his
fat face, in fact, on the weeds in front of him, became, indeed, Father
Zosimus’s constant study. Day by day, he stood sentinel over his Uvean,
applied the man’s clumsy force to profitable ends, and kept his own
unconquerable heart from breaking.
It was not every day he could pursue the occupation he loved best, and
watch his plans take shape with slow but appreciable success. January
falls in the depth of the wet season; furious rains and long stretches
of boisterous weather often interrupted the Uvean’s labours, driving
both him and his taskmaster to the enforced idleness of the house--the
former to sleep on the floor or to smoke interminable _suluis_ with
Filipo: the priest to read his breviary by dim lamplight as the deluge
pounded on the roof. It was during one of these black days, when all
the world was awash outside, and a wild westerly wind was tearing
through the trees, bombarding the village with crashing boughs and
cocoanuts, that the priest’s ancient barometer sank to 29°, and gave a
quivering promise of worse to follow. He was looking at the mercury,
and setting the gauge, when Filipo appeared in the passage, his face
bright with news.
“The partner of Tutumanaia is known to your Highness?” he began, with a
question that might well have appeared superfluous.
Father Zosimus turned instantly.
“God is high-chief angry with her rock-like heart,” went on Filipo,
with the calm intonation of one vindicated. “She was presumptuous and
beautiful like an angel; now she is pig-faced and torn of devils; and
her man, oh, he weeps like an _aitu_ in the wilderness.”