ENTER THE INFANTRYMAN
The morning would bring by rescuers and the breaking up of housekeeping
in my cave. I had no wish that profane eyes should look upon the
portrait or the devout worship of my beloved cannibals. Now that I was
leaving them I realized that they were beloved. In my memory loomed a
hundred acts of simple courtesy. The portrait I took down from its
shrined position; the Damascus daggers I put again into their places,
and the Mandarin's kimono I folded carefully into a package. On all
these things, as on the era for which they stood, I dropped the lid of
the mate's chest.
The morning came on brilliant and fresh with the cleansing sweep of the
trades. Sky and sea sparkled in a diamond clarity, and below me on the
beach patiently waited the dignitaries of my tribe in festal regalia.
Since this was our parting, I too came out decked in the finery of bird
plumage. I did not allow them to climb to the now empty shrine, but led
them down with me to the beach, where shortly a boat came bobbing over
the water.
A queer enough spectacle we must have made, like a flock of blackbirds
patched with the oriole's vermilion and the cockatoo's rose. I myself,
burned out of my Caucasian birthright, differed from them only in my
size.
For a time the handful of white men on the boat hesitated to risk the
chances of landing and being _kai-kai'd_. As they circled at a distance
I made my throat raw, shouting reassurances in English, while my
wondering blacks contemplated with deep awe this talking of the gods.
At last the rescuers rowed in, and I waded out waist deep to meet them.
The officer in command was a colossal Scotchman with a ruddy face and an
honest mouth as stiffly sober as though it had never yielded to the
seduction of a smile. He gave me a detail of two kanakas whose brawny
arms carried down the chest and its contents.
At last came the moment I had dreaded. I must break the news to these
waiting children that the priests from the stars had not come to bring
them new and permanent wonders, but to take back to the lands of mystery
their goddess and myself. I wished then for a full knowledge of their
tongue, that I might soften the tidings, but I could not bring myself
to the mendacity of promising a return, though they pleaded. When it
came to parting with Ra Tuiki, I forgot my quasi-divinity and seized the
old head-hunter's hand in an ungodlike, Anglo-Saxon grip.
Their island would now be charted. Missionaries would come to them with
teachings of a new faith, but treading on their heels would come men of
another sort, and as I thought of these I wished that we might be able
to leave the place unchronicled. The contract trader would soon arrive,
supported if need be by the authority of his flag's navy, bringing to my
cannibals, or some of them, long terms of peonage under hard plantation
masters.
"What, if I may ask," suggested the solemn-visaged Scot at the helm,
when the bow was turned outward and the boat crew was bending to the
oars, "was all the demonstration of th' niggers?"
"They were saying good-bye," I explained, "We came to have a very
satisfactory understanding."
He pondered my answer for a time in sober silence, then dismissed the
matter with a single observation.
"They took it cruel hard, sir."
Over the side of the _Gretchen_ I went to a kindly reception. I told all
of my story that I wished to tell, admitting that I had posed as a sort
of demi-god, but breathing no hint of the godship which was over my
priesthood.
A week of hurricane and storm had tested the ship's endurance, exhausted
the crew, and driven the _Gretchen_ into unknown waters.
"If it hadn't been for your signal fires," the captain told me, "we
might have gone to smash on the outlying needles. Your lights probably
saved us as well as yourself."
This was no larger ship than the _Wastrel_, but when one went to his
berth at night it was with confidence that his sleep would not be
interrupted by the sudden necessity of getting up to die. She had
carried a cargo of trade stuffs south and was returning to Singapore by
way of Brisbane, laden with copra and pearl shell. Her direction lay
westerly while I wished to go east, but that was secondary. At the
Australian port, I could reship. Indeed, I was told our course might
shortly cross that of a regular line of steamers between Brisbane and
Honolulu. For a few days it was satisfying enough to pick up the lost
ends of the world's stale news. While I had been marking time the world
had been marching; a hundred paragraphs had been lived into history.
On the fourth day a slender thread of smoke rose over the western
horizon which grew into a clean-painted and white-cabined steamer. As
the gap closed white-clad men and even women stood crisply out against
the deck-rail. Then with much signaling from the halyards the two
vessels had converse of which I was the subject, and I with my chest
went over the side of the _Gretchen_. I told the steamer's purser as
much of my story as I had told on the _Gretchen_, and when that evening
I appeared at the captain's table transformed by bathing in a real tub
and submission to a real razor in the hands of a real barber, it was to
find that my story had traveled forward and aft.
St. Paul was a very good man. He had piety and fervor, but also in a
superior and godly fashion he was a man of the world. Perhaps he gained
a firmer grip on his following by reason of his ability to say to the
youth of his generation, "I have been twice stoned and thrice
shipwrecked." I had been only once shipwrecked, yet a ready-made
audience awaited entertainment.
It was on the second afternoon that Captain Keller appeared in the
smoke-room. He was a man of about my own build and almost as bronzed,
but fair haired and his carriage proclaimed the soldier before he
introduced himself. I was idly enjoying the comfort of wicker chairs and
windows which framed white decks and dancing seas. The few other
occupants of the place were lounging about in pongee and linen, chatting
lazily of those things which make talk among men coming out of the
East: tribal risings in Java, the late race-meet in Melbourne. The
military-looking young man dropped into a seat at my table and signaled
to the spotless Jap, who officiated as smoking-room steward.
"Left you alone yesterday," he began by way of introduction. "I saw you
didn't relish being treated like the newest and strangest animal in
captivity. I guess they're accustomed to you now. What will you have?"
"Brandy and soda," I decided; then I added, "Perhaps after being rescued
I ought to make myself more volatile and amusing, but the fact is I'm
readjusting. Did you ever happen to spend six months on an undiscovered,
cannibal island?"
He shook his head and laughed with a pleasant gleam of strong, regular
teeth.
"Then," I assured him, "you don't understand the desire to sit still for
a while. You don't understand the sheer wonder of a soft chair, white
woodwork and the regular throb of engines and the sight of
white-skinned, white-clad men and women. Look there." I held out my
copper-colored forearm.
He smiled again and nodded. "I'm going back to the States," he said,
"after three years in the Islands, capped with two months in India and
Australia. I'm Keller of the 23rd Infantry."
He paused, then went on in a matter-of-fact way. "I've been in the
jungle three months on end. I know what it means. This is my second term
of Philippine service and it's the first time I've gone home quite sane.
After the first three years the melancholia had me. When the transport
left Manila, and I thought of the three weeks before I could see the
Golden Gate, it took three good huskies to keep me from jumping
overboard. It touches one here." With a finger at the temple, he paused,
then added gravely: "And I know some fellows who weren't stopped in
time. One must readjust slowly."
I nodded, puffing with a sense of supreme luxury at the Cairene
cigarette he had offered me, and listening to the tinkle of ice in my
tall glass.
There were some days of almost pure creature contentment and as we sat
under deck awnings or burned cigars in the smoking-room our
acquaintanceship ripened to intimacy. The engines with their muffled
throb were churning out their fifteen knots an hour and the timbers
creaked their complaint to the rise and fall of the prow. Of course all
the time during those days was not spent chatting with the infantryman,
and of course the point of intimate confidence was not at once
established between us. Indeed, I, at first, let him do the talking, and
though he was a modest man he had much to tell. But in the hours I
spent alone I found my thoughts revolving about many things which I
could not generally share. A man may admit to himself without shame that
he has fallen in love with a woman of whose very existence he is
uncertain, but he hesitates to announce it to another. Now, although the
picture which had given me companionship and protection was packed away
out of sight; though I was no longer a dweller in fantastic
surroundings, I still had that presence with me. Whenever I closed my
eyes I saw again the smiling lips and gracious eyes. I knew that I was
henceforth destined to scan all faces until I found hers.
So, being unable to discuss matters that were distracting me I found
need of an outlet, and sought it in transcribing this diary. Of course
the impulse that had stirred me on the island to write down my emotions
each day was one I could no longer gratify. Now I must do the thing in
retrospect and my pen would lack the force which an impending shadow of
fatality might have given it. I had emerged from that pall only to pass
into the shadow of something quite as important. I was dedicated to a
quest. When I found Her I wished to have the story ready to present in
as convincing a form as possible. Sometimes at night Keller and I hung
elbow to elbow over the after-rail, watching the broken phosphorus of
the wake.
We were standing so on the night before reaching Honolulu where Keller
was to spend a few days while I made immediate connection for the
States. He was telling me many things about himself. There was a baby,
born after he had left God's country, now old enough to chatter, and do
wonderful things, whom he was to see for the first time when he reached
'Frisco. His confidence invited mine, and over our pipes, I told him the
whole and true story of my experiences and of how an unknown goddess had
safeguarded me.
"You spoke of the loneliness," I said at the end. "You know now why it
didn't slug me into insanity."
For a long time he stood musing over the recital. He had seen enough of
life's grotesqueries to understand it. Finally he asked:
"Will you read me some of your diary?"
I took him to my cabin and for an hour he listened while I read the
hastily scrawled pages that I had set down. Of course I read them with a
certain diffidence because it had occurred to me that certain phases
might strike a man living in civilization as the vagaries of a brain
touched with sun and isolation. Indeed, I was surreptitiously watching
his face from time to time as a man might watch a jury box when he is on
trial for lunacy, but I was reassured to find there no politely veiled
judgment against my sanity.
"It's decidedly interesting," he said at last, "though it's one of the
things we would rule out as too improbable to believe if we didn't
happen to know it was true. In the first place I have been reliably
informed by many expert witnesses that the South Seas have long since
given up their last secrets as to undiscovered islands."
"I was also convinced of that," I admitted, "until I was cast up on one.
I am now prepared to believe there are many others. Whenever I live six
months in a place I am ready to admit its existence."
He refilled and lighted his pipe, then he said, "I don't want to invade
private precincts, but after hearing that I'd like to see the portrait.
May I?"
I delved into the mate's chest, and unwrapped the newspaper page.
For some moments he gazed at it, and I began to wonder whether it held
the same magic infatuation for every one else that it did for me. His
expression was enigmatical and his voice, when he spoke at last, was
puzzled.
"It's very hackneyed," he said, "but we must go on saying it. The world
is an extremely small place."
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
He was still looking at the picture and he spoke reflectively as though
I had not been present.
"The loveliest girl in Dixie. They all said so."
"In Dixie," I echoed eagerly, "Do you mean you know her?"
"I've danced with her a dozen times," he answered, "and yet I can't say
I know her. I remember that all the men were paying court, and I fancy I
should have been smitten like the rest except that my wife had just
accepted me, and I had only one pair of eyes."
"For God's sake," I said very quietly, "let me have all that you know
about her--name--address."
"It was four years ago," he explained. "We were all at Bar Harbor. She
was visiting at one of the cottages there. I was so engrossed with my
own courtship that other girls, even this wonderful one, didn't count
with me. I don't know where she lived, except that she was from the
South. Her name was Frances." He broke off and an expression of extreme
vexation clouded his face.
"I know her first name," I urged him. "It's the surname I need."
"Yes," he responded, "of course. Her surname was----" Again he halted
and an embarrassed flush spread over his cheeks and forehead. Then he
spoke impulsively. "You must bear with me. It's ludicrous, but the name
has slipped me. It's just at the tip of my tongue, yet I can't call it.
This thing is inexcusable, but ever since that first trip to the Islands
I've been subject to it. Names which I know perfectly, elude
me--sometimes for a few moments, sometimes for weeks."
"Can't you remember it," I demanded insistently, "if you cudgel your
brain? I don't care how mercilessly you cudgel it. I must know."
He nodded. "I quite understand. It has slipped me. I shall remember it
by morning, but--" his voice became graver.
"But what?" I inquired.
"I'm afraid it's too late to help you. We heard just before leaving the
place that she was to marry some man at home. It hadn't been formally
announced, but I think it was quite definite."
I suppose he said good-night and that I replied. I don't remember his
leaving the stateroom. I recall standing some time later alone on the
deck and seeing a white-clad officer tramping the bridge. His noiseless
feet seemed to be treading upon me. The one honeymoon couple on our
passenger-list passed and halted to comment on the rare quality of the
air and the splendid softness of the stars. The little bride laughed
delightedly. "Oh, Mr. Deprayne," she enthused, "it was under skies like
this that Stevenson wrote,
"'The world is so full of a number of things,
That I feel we should all be as happy as kings.'"
I smiled. "Yes," I murmured, "a number of things. Possibly too many
things."
There was running through my memory a passage from the diary written by
the unknown girl. It was one of those passages that had stuck in my
memory through the shipwreck and the island days, a note of optimism
which I had liked, partly because it was rather too imaginative to be
accepted as fact. Now it mocked me.
"It's not just to-day's wonderful things that make life fair," she had
written, "but it's knowing that there is to be a to-morrow, and that
that same to-morrow will be lovelier than to-day. I know (I can't say
why unless it's just that some voice keeps singing it to my heart), that
some day he will come walking into my life as into a place where he has
the right to be and our lives will after that be one life. That is the
to-morrow I am waiting for."