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GABRIELLE OF THE LAGOON
A ROMANCE OF THE SOUTH SEAS
BY
A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON
AUTHOR OF
"SAILOR AND BEACHCOMBER"
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1919
COPYRIGHT 1919, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A
PROLOGUE
Though it was night and there was no moon, a dim, weird light lay over
the isle and pierced to the depths of the forests. It was in the
Solomons, where the dark, picturesque surroundings of palm and reef, the
noise of the distant surfs, made a suitable setting for anything
unexpected. Even the silver sea-birds had weird, startled-looking eyes
down Felisi beach way. And when the wild brown men crept away from the
grave-side of one whom they had just buried in the forest, the winds
sighed a fitting music across the primeval heights. But there was
nothing strange in that; men must die wherever one goes, and it was a
common enough occurrence in that heathen land where the ocean boomed on
the one side and inland to the south-west stood the mountains, looking
like mighty monuments erected in memory of the first dark ages. Across
the skies of Bougainville the stars had been marshalled in the millions.
It seemed a veritable heathen faeryland as the night echoed a hollow
"_Tarabab!_" But even that heathenish word was only the tribal chief's
yell as he stood under the palms conducting the semi-religious tambu
ceremony. The tawny maidens and high chiefs, with their feather
head-dresses, all in full festival costume, were squatting in front of
the secret tambu stage, some mumbling prayer, others beating their hands
together as an accompaniment. And still the dusky tambu dancer moved her
perfect limbs rhythmically to the rustling of her sarong-like attire,
swaying first to the right then to the left as she chanted to the
wailings of the bamboo fifes and bone flutes. The orchestral-like moan
of the huge bread-fruits, as odorous drifts of hot wind swept in from
the tropic seas, seemed to murmur in complete sympathy with the pretty
dancer. One might easily have concluded that Oom Pa, the aged high
priest, was the "star turn" of the evening as he stood there enjoying
his thoughts and performing magnificently on the monster tribal drum.
There was something fascinating and super-primitive about the whole
scene. The very scents from decaying forest frangipani and hibiscus
blossoms seemed to drift out of the damp gloom of the dark ages. The
presence of civilisation in any form seemed the remotest of
possibilities. Even the fore-and-aft schooner, with yellowish, hanging
canvas sails, lying at anchor just beyond the shore lagoons, looked like
some strange-rigged craft that sailed mysterious seas.
But as the assembled tribe once again wildly clamoured for the next
dancer to come forward and exhibit her charms, a murmur of surprise rose
from the back rows of stalwart, tattooed chiefs--a white girl suddenly
ran out of the forest and jumped on to the tambu stage!
One aged chiefess who was busy mumbling her prayers looked up and gave a
frightened scream. Even the aged philosophical head-hunter Ra-mai, who
had one hundred and eighty skulls hanging to his credit in his palavana
hard by, gave a mellow grunt, so great was his surprise. A white girl,
lips red as coral, hair like the sunset's gold, standing by his old _pae
pae_! It was something that he had never dreamed of. The tawny maidens
squatting beneath the coco-nut-oil-lamp-lit shades on the right of the
buttressed banyans, lifted their hands in astonishment. For a moment the
white girl stood perfectly still. All eyes were upon her. She stared
vacantly as though she were in a trance. Then she moved forward a few
steps, her feet lightly touching the forest floor as if she were a
visionary figure veiled in moonlight. Only the sudden renewal of the
wild clamouring and guttural cries of "_O la Maramam tambu, papalaga!_"
("A white girl will dance before us!") seemed to rouse her to her
senses, reminding her of the reason she had responded to the swelling
chorus of tribal drums.
The barbarian musicians had begun to bang and blow on their flutes in an
inspired way as they urged her to dance. Her sudden hesitation was very
evident to every onlooker. And as she stood there by the monster tambu
idol, its big glass eyes agog and wooden lips stretched in hideous
laughter, she had a strange, unearthly beauty. The winds sighed in the
palms; she wavered like a blown spirit-girl that had been suddenly swept
out of the night of stars into the midst of those Pharaoh-like chiefs.
Some of those warriors watched with chin on hand, others stared upon her
with burning eyes.
Those old chiefs and their women-kind had seen many strange sights and
experienced many shocks since German, British, Malayan, Hindoo, Chinese
and Dutch settlers had set foot on their shores; but still they were
quite unprepared for the sight they witnessed that night. The handsome
Malayo-Polynesian half-castes nudged their comrades in the ribs and
murmured the native equivalent to "What-o!" To their delight, the white
girl had mounted the _pae pae_ and had begun to dance and sing. The
whole tribe watched and listened, spellbound. The haunting sweetness of
the melody seemed to bring all ears under its influence. It was
something in the way of song that those wild people had never heard
before.
Only the pretty faded blue robe falling down to her brown-stockinged
ankles and the long tortoise-shell comb stuck in the rich folds of her
golden-bronze hair told of her mortal origin. And there was no mistaking
the reality of that indisputable bang on the heathen bandmaster's drum.
That dusky virtuoso was certainly inspired by human passion.
Ra-mai, who was a kind of religious genius, dropped his festival
calabash and rubbed his eyes, for the girl was swaying as though she
were fastened on to the winds, her eyes wide open, staring upon him. The
old priestly warrior swore, long after, that she was a spirit-maid whom
he had loved a thousand years ago, and who had returned that night, as
white as a deep-sea pearl, to show men how great a priest and warrior he
really was. But he was a poetical old fellow and had a high opinion of
himself where female beauty and frailty were concerned. But if there was
an element of surprise over her sudden appearance before them, the
astonishment of these natives was intensified by her dramatic exit from
their midst. Just as the guttural cries of the chiefs and the weird
monotones of the chanting tambu maidens had caught the _tempo_ of her
dance, she gave a scream, stood perfectly still and stared on those wild
men with a terrified look in her eyes. Then, before anyone could realise
her intentions, she had leapt from the _pae pae_, had run away into the
forest and vanished like a wraith!
The whole tribal assemblage looked into each other's eyes in
astonishment. Such an exhibition of red betel-nut-stained teeth had
never been seen in a midnight forest festival before, for they all
stared open-mouthed.
"Tabaran [a spirit] from shadow-land!" said one.
"Not so. Didst see the light of vanity in her wondrous eyes as the young
chiefs praised her beauty?" said another.
"'Tis a white girl suddenly up-grown and full of fever for love," said
an old chief with wise wrinkles on his brow. And then yet another said:
"Had it been a full-moon sacred festival, 'twould have been well to slay
her for such boldness, the cursed papalagi!"
Then the festival broke up. And that night the handsome chiefs, and even
the aged priests, tossed restlessly on their bed-mats as they lay in
their village huts dreaming of a goddess-like creature who had flitted
through their tambu ceremony like a dream.
CHAPTER I--ROMANCE'S FIRST THRILL
On the day following the tribal festival when the white girl had so
astonished the heathen priests in the village called Ackra-Ackra a
runaway ship's apprentice emerged from his half-caste landlady's wooden
lodging-house. He was off for a stroll, for the tenth time or so, over
the slopes that divided the banyan forests from the small township of
Rokeville. He was stagnating and so had little else to do except to make
the colour of the picturesque scenery harmonise with his meditations. He
was a tall, handsome fellow, about twenty years of age. His brass-bound
suit looked decidedly faded by the hot tropical sun, and the flannel
collar of his only shirt had begun to look slightly grimy. All the same,
he had that look of refinement which is inherited from good ancestors. A
romantically inclined maid would have thought him extremely attractive.
A bronze-hued lock seemed to ooze from beneath the rim of his
cheese-cutter cap, for when funds were low in distant lands, and
scissors scarce on ships at sea, his hair grew quite curly. One of his
eyes was a deep blue and the other a golden-brown. This eccentric
combination of colour may have had something to do with the romantic
adventures that fell to his lot through his leaving ship in
Bougainville. It was quite three weeks since he had made a bolt from his
full-rigged sailing-ship in the harbour, consequently his cash in hand
had seriously diminished. He had already become terribly sane whilst
pondering over the natural consequences of being cashless.
Hillary L----, for that was his name, hated plantation work and all
muscular endeavours that did not contain some element of romance. But
still, he had long since realised, through his many adversities at the
end of long voyages, that wherever one goes one must toil for a living,
however romantic the scenery may appear.
"Blasted wicked world this! Wish white men could dress like the natives
and chew nourishing nuts for a living!" he murmured, as he thoughtfully
saluted the German official who was leaning against a dead screw-pine,
on the top of which blew the Double Eagle flag.
Hillary was no fool; he could always be polite at the right time and
place. He'd been stranded, with fourpence-halfpenny or so in his
possession, in about ten islands during the last twelve months, and he
knew that if things got to the worst he could apply to the German consul
for a free passage to British New Guinea or to Samoa. Hence his
politeness. He was British to the backbone, and as the Teutonic official
murmured that it was a nice day Hillary nodded and then lifted a cloud
of the finest coral-dust with his offside boot. He could hear the German
spluttering and coughing in a fearful rage, wondering why the hot wind
had suddenly lifted so much dust. Hillary's contempt for anything in the
German line was quite unaffected. The natives whispered: "Germhony mans
nicer feller when he looker one way, but all-e-samee, he belonga debil
mans."
The young apprentice was one of a type that commercially was not worth a
tinker's dam. If he were a party to any scheme connected with finance,
one could safely predict that that scheme was predestined to complete
failure. But in the imaginative world Hillary could be pronounced a
decided success.
It was the same wherever he went. The old sea-boots on the shelf of the
seaport's slop-shop danced a jig on some ship far at sea; the oilskins
swelled to visionary limbs as sailormen opened their bearded mouths and
climbed aloft, singing the chanteys that he could distinctly hear as he
placed his ear to the shop's dirty window!
The silk, blue-fringed chemise hanging on a nail by the oil lamp clung,
as he gazed, to the limbs of some laughing girl; fingers travelling down
the yellow keys of the second-hand piano mysteriously strummed out some
melody that told of the briefness of life, youth and beauty. This
poetical weakness was a veritable Old Man of the Sea on his back. But
still, he was no fool, and, like most of his type, he could be strong
where most men are weak.
As he turned round and looked on the desolate scene, and stared at the
sunset out at sea, his face expressed an emotion that words cannot
describe. The parrots rose in a glittering cloud as he stood their
meditating, gazing on the small burial ground that he had suddenly
stumbled across. It was where a few white men had been buried on the
lonely beach-side, miles from the township. The crosses of coral stone
were sunken very deep, the names nearly oblitered. "What a godforsaken,
tragic place," he muttered as he read:
TO THE MEMORY OF
BILL LARGO, BOATSWAIN
DIED JUNE 3RD 1860
SPEARED BY HEAD-HUNTERS IN TRYING TO SAVE SHIP'S
COOK--THIS STONE IS RAISED BY THE CREW
OF THE S.S. "SALAMANDER" BOUND
FOR CALLAO
Everything seemed tragic in those parts. For as he wandered along the
beach a voice startled him as a weird face suddenly poked out of the
mangroves:
"Noice even'ng, matey?"
"Yes," responded the apprentice as he looked into the face of a
sun-tanned remnant of a white man who stood by a fern-sheltered,
thatched den. It was only old Adams, an ex-sailor, leading his
Mormon-like existence. He was a kind of Solomon Island aristocrat of
independent means. He was apparently attired in a wide-brimmed hat and
beard only, for the climate is muggy in the Solomons. He _did_ wear thin
cotton pants, but they were so drenched with perspiration that they
clung to his legs like a skin. He borrowed a shilling from the
apprentice, shot a stream of tobacco juice seaward, then entered his
hut, but before slamming the door behind him he looked back and said:
"I'd git back to me ship if I was you; the Kai-Kai chiefs are on the
b----taboo lay round 'ere, and they'd give their ears for that curly mop
of yourn!" The door slammed. Once more Hillary was alone. As he walked
away he could distinctly hear old Adams swearing at his four wives, who
was apparently rushing round the hut looking for his clean shirt. They
were dusky women, probably the daughters of tribal kings, and had given
their birthrights to Adams so that they could be the wives of a noble
papalagi. Such was the queer, mixed population of that solitary locality
where the apprentice mooched along. And Rokeville, the shore township,
was not much more dignified; but what it lacked socially was amply made
up for by its Arabian-Nights-like atmosphere. Its one street, a silvery
track made of coral dust, went winding down to the shore. And when the
full moon peered over the ocean rim, touching with dim light the
feathery palms that sheltered the tin roofs of the scattered coral-built
houses, it looked like some staged faery town of a South Sea isle. Often
by night some strange-rigged ship would hug the coast-line for hours
while its crew of blackbirders crept ashore and kidnapped native men and
women from the villages. Before dawn that stealthy craft had sailed
away, crammed up to the hatches with cheap labour for the plantations
and heathen seraglios of nowhere. By day things looked as real as
possible. There was nothing faery-like about Parsons' wooden grog
shanty, that stood, sheltered by three tall palms, at the head of the
township. Through its ever-open doorway by day and night passed the
German, Scandinavian, Norwegian and Yankee shell-backs, who drank strong
rum at the bar, banged their fists and narrated their Homeric deeds.
That shanty was the commercial centre and stock exchange of
Bougainville. It was haunted by about a dozen nondescript, aged Chinese,
Dutch and Japanese seamen who wore pigtails, pointed beards or scraggy
whiskers: on the brightest tropic day _they_ succeeded in adding a touch
of romance to the shore landscape, for when rum was scarce they leant
their ragged backs against the palm stems and looked like old
figure-heads from Chinese junks and Spanish galleons stuck up on end,
till they spoilt the picture by pulling their tangled beards as they
spat seaward. They also drank rum and existed, apparently, by watching
the white seahorses charge the purple-ridged line of coral reefs that
made the natural pier of that seaside resort. Consequently the young
apprentice preferred the wild scenery of the mahogany forests and the
blue lagoons where the brown maids dived, to the mixed society of that
delectable township. To him there was something fascinating, almost
poetic, about the mahogany-hued Papuans and Polynesians. But his ideals
quite saved him from falling in love with a brown maid. And it must be
confessed that the Solomon Isles was not an Olympian locality, where
dwelt cold, passionless Hellenic beauties, and many a dusky Nausicaa and
luring Circe had tempted bold sailormen to destruction by their songs
and demonstrative exhibitions of their charms. But some of the maids
were innocent enough, for as Hillary wandered by Felisi beach he caught
sight of a tiny Polynesian baby girl. She was busy pulling wild flowers
that grew amongst the thick tavu-grass. Her tiny body shone with a hue
like a new Australian sovereign as sunset bathed her little figure with
its hot light. Her alert, savage ears heard the apprentice's footsteps
in the scrub. Just for a moment her thick curls tossed and sparkled
among the tall fern-grass as she sped away into the forest as though she
quite expected a white man to shoot her at sight!
"I wonder what I'll sight next; why, it's like some fairy spot," Hillary
murmured as he watched the child disappear. Then he climbed over the
reefs till he came right opposite the shore islets, where the natives
swore their gods danced under the stars.
At this spot there happened to be a wide lagoon, and on the still
waters, just where the mighty banyans leaned over and made a delightful
shade, floated a canoe. "The very thing!" Hillary exclaimed. In a moment
he was paddling about on the lagoon in the small primitive craft.
Strange birds shrieked over his head, their crimson and blue wings
flashing along as they resented his intrusion into their lovely
solitude. Some had eyes like sparkling jewels and long, hanging
coral-red legs and feet.
"What a bit of luck! I could paddle about here for ever!" was his
comment as he swished the paddle, turned the prow of his canoe and went
off full speed down the narrow creek-like passage that led to the wider
stretch of water inland. "It's like being alone on an uninhabited
island," he thought. Suddenly a hush came over the waters. Only the
solitary "Kai koo-seeeek!" of a parakeet disturbed the silence. So still
was the water of the lagoon that he seemed to float about on a mighty
mirror. The huge buttressed banyans reflected in the deep, clear water
by the banks hung upside down, twisted shapes in an abyss of blue. He
could even discern the flock of shrieking, sky-winging lories as their
images went wheeling silently over the wooded heights, so clearly was
the forest fringe reflected in the depths.
"Good Lord!" he gasped, as he stared on that shadow-world; and no
wonder, for on the rim of the hanging cloud, high over the leaning trees
of the reflected sky, sped an ornamental canoe! Its paddle was swiftly
curling, like a fast-flying bird's wing. He nearly upset his small
craft, so great was his astonishment, for, looking towards the bend
where the banyans hid the expanse of inland water from view, he saw that
the reflected figure in the canoe was real.
It wasn't the canoe but the paddler that made him exclaim. "It can't be
an apparition with those hibiscus blossoms stuck in her hair," he
thought as he rubbed his eyes and stared again. The blue robe, open low
at the neck, was the apprentice's only excuse for his ridiculous idea in
thinking that a beautiful princess of some unknown white race had
suddenly appeared on the lagoon. She softly dipped her paddle and,
shattering the blue sky and twisted boughs with one blow, came speeding
towards him!
"Am I awake?" he muttered. She had waved her paddle, welcoming his
presence as though she had known him for years. At first he hesitated,
thinking that one word, one sign of recognition from him would make her
vanish back into her native skies. But at length he too lifted his
paddle and waved most enthusiastically!
As Hillary came closer he saw that there was sorrow in the girl's blue
eyes, as needs there must be, since Beauty is Sorrow's legitimate child.
A far-off gleam shone in them and glinted in her hair, which tumbled
down to the warm white curves of her neck and round to her throat.
It was the pretty _retrousse_ nose that looked so human.
Hillary took a deep breath and gazed again.
"Fancy meeting you here!" he said as in his embarrassment he pulled his
dirty kerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face to hide his
confusion; then, remembering, he hastily replaced the rag-like kerchief
in his pocket.
"Fancy meeting you!" said the girl as she gave a silvery peal of
laughter.
The young apprentice's heart began to thump. He stared into the girl's
eyes as though she had mesmerised him. A wild desire thrilled his soul
as she leaned forward, still paddling softly as she returned his gaze.
"Do you live here?--out here in the South Seas?" he murmured as he
almost dropped his cheese-cutter midshipman's cap into the water.
"Of course I do! Do you think I live up in the sky?"
"Shouldn't be surprised if you did," he responded, gaining his nerve.
Then he told the girl that he thought she might have been a princess
migrating or on tour in one of the intermediate steamers.
The girl stared at hearing this sally. The look that came into her eyes
made the apprentice understand the cause of the girl's apparently bold
familiarity. She was quite unworldly. She seemed to read his thoughts,
for she ceased paddling and, looking almost seriously into his face,
said: "I'm Gabrielle Everard. I've lived in these islands with Dad since
I was a child. Dad took me away to Ysabel and Gualdacanar about a year
ago."
"Did he really?" said Hillary as he metaphorically nudged himself to
find her so pleasant and confidential.
"Mother dead?" he murmured as the sea-wind drifted across the waters,
sighed in the shore banyans and blew the girl's tresses about her
throat.
"Mother's dead, of course! Always has been so far as I can remember,"
she responded, looking into the young man's face intently, wondering why
on earth his voice should sound so tender and concerned when he asked
about her long-dead parent.
They paddled side by side. The strange girl's eyes had done a grievous
thing to Hillary's soul. The feathery palms and old trees, catching the
sea-winds, seemed to whisper cherished things of romance and
long-forgotten lover to his ears. It took him that way because he was an
amateur musician.
"What a beautiful voice you've got!" said he, as she dipped her paddle
in perfect _tempo_ to some wild melody that she sang in a minor key.
"Have I? Why, Dad says I've got a voice like a cockatoo!" she responded
merrily.
"The wicked, unmusical old bounder!" said the apprentice; then he
swiftly apologised.
"Oh, you needn't be so sorry that you've said that. I don't care a
cuss!"
Once more Hillary metaphorically rubbed his hands. "Jove! What an
original, fascinating creature the girl is, to be sure," was his secret
comment. Had the young apprentice known that the girl before him had
danced on a heathen _pae pae_ (stage) and sang before those
cannibalistic tribal warriors the night before, he would most probably
have been more fascinated by her presence than ever!
"Gabrielle! Gabrielle! What a name! Beautiful!" he murmured to himself
as the girl dipped the paddle and sang on. By now they had arrived near
the sandy shore of the inland lagoon.
"Must you go?" he said.
"Well, yes; but I can easily see you again, can't I?" Hillary L---- made
no articulate response. "And this is the Solomon Isles, remote from
civilisation, far away in the cannibalistic South Seas!" he murmured
deep within his happy soul.
But mad as Hillary was, he half realised that the girl before him was
more of a child than a woman. She laughed, even giggled a little, like a
happy child. Only five years had passed since she had played with the
native kiddies, who many times had persuaded her to dance and sing their
heathen songs as they pretended to be heathen chiefs and chiefesses
performing on a toy _pae pae_. She had revelled in those dances. But no
one would have dreamed by looking at her that she was not a pure-blooded
white girl. Her father had married a beautiful three-quarter caste girl
in Honolulu, so Gabrielle had a strain of dark blood in her veins!
The young apprentice couldn't fathom the look in her eyes as he stared.
Passion was just awakening in her soul, stealing like a tropical sunrise
over the hills of childhood. To him she appeared like some
spirit-creation that might at any moment take wings and fly away; so
when she turned the prow of her canoe dead on to the soft sand and
jumped ashore, he made a frantic dash and jumped, landing just behind
her. He was determined to know when and where she would meet him again.
But he had no need to fear; she did not fly away. She simply tied her
canoe to a bamboo stem and, turning round, looked him full in the face
with those glorious eyes that were to be for him two stars of the first
magnitude. Then she placed her fingers in the folds of her hair and
taking out one of the hibiscus blossoms, handed it to him, much to his
surprise. He realised that it was more the act of a child than a woman
of the world.
"I've read in books that girls give men flowers that have been fastened
in their hair," she said. This remark and act of the girl's, and the
look in her eyes, had a strange effect on Hillary's susceptible mind. He
almost felt the tears well into his eyes. It was all so unexpected, and
told him in some great poetry of silence what the girl's heart was made
of, the utter loneliness of her existence and the way her childish
dreams were flowing out to the great realities of life. He placed the
flower in his buttonhole, then gazed on the girl as only an infatuated
youth can gaze, and said: "Will you meet me here again, by this lagoon?
Any day and time will do for me."
"I'm sure to be this way again," she said, and before the young
apprentice could stop her she had flitted away under the coco-palms.
Before she got out of sight she turned and waved her hand. In his
excitement he responded by waving his cap. Then she disappeared under
the thick belt of dark mangroves by the swamp track that led inland in
the direction of her father's bungalow.
"What a girl!" That was the only audible comment he made as the girl
went out of sight. And where did she go? She ran away over the slopes
that lay just behind the township of Rokeville, back to her home and her
trader father.
Old Everard, her parent, was a kind of freak too. He was a tall,
clean-shaved, thin-faced man, with blue-grey eyes and a beaked nose; his
mouth had a melancholy droop about it; the face in repose looked strong
at times, but when he grinned and revealed his tobacco-blackened teeth
it looked characterless, almost weak. At times he was extremely
garrulous, at other times either reticent or insulting to anyone who
might be unfortunate enough to come near him. Gabrielle seemed to be the
only person in Bougainville who understood him. He didn't take much
interest in his daughter, though she might have done so in him. All he
did was religiously to exercise his parental control by sending the girl
on his selfish errands, mostly for rum and whisky. At other times he
demanded that she should attend to his comforts when delirium tremens
shook his spine. He was an ex-sailor. Trailing from the mainyard of his
ship whilst anchored off the Solomon Group, he had lost a leg, and
during his convalescence in Honolulu had married, finally settling down
in Bougainville.
His homestead was a three-roomed bungalow, and he kept things going by
the money he had saved during his seafaring life; he was also interested
in copra plantations at Bougainville and at Ysabel. His temperament was
choleric. He was known in the vicinity by the nickname
"Shiver-me-timbers." This cognomen was derived from the fact that he
always stamped his wooden leg, making it shiver in his impatience, when
he wanted a drink, consequently his wooden leg was never at rest. He
looked like some wooden-legged Nemesis as he sat there that evening; and
if any glamour still lingered in Gabrielle's brain from her chance
meeting with the young apprentice, it was swiftly dispelled by the
stumping of that wooden member as she rushed indoors.
Even a wooden leg would seem to have its part to play in the universe:
there was something imperative about its tapping voice. That fate-like
tapping had smashed up many of Gabrielle's young dreams; possibly that
wooden leg was a soulless agent of the devil.
"Here's the whisky, Dad," said she, as the cockatoo looked down from its
perch and shrieked: "Gabby-ell! Gabby-ell! Kai-kai-too!"
In a moment that weird symbol in wood, that represented all that was
unromantic to her ardent soul, ceased its ominous "tip-e-te-tap-tap" as
the old sailor looked up and spied his daughter.
"Thankee, thankee, kid!" he growled as he put forth his hand. Such was
the domestic atmosphere that the girl had rushed back to.
After the young apprentice had waved his farewell to Gabrielle he
strolled away under the palms. "Well, she's a beautiful creature. Who'd
have thought of meeting her in this wild place? She's ethereal, too
beautiful to make love to," he sighed.
Possibly the contrast between Gabrielle Everard and the Solomon Island
mop-headed girls etherealised her natural beauty in his eyes. This was a
fatal outlook for Hillary, considering the girl's impulsive nature and
his chances in the love affair that he had unknowingly embarked upon.
And possibly this outlook of his was the result of outward glamour
having greatly influenced his indwelling life. He had succeeded in
making himself the more unfitted to cope with his immediate surroundings
by poring over such writers as Tolstoy, Walt Whitman, Rousseau and
Ruskin. But still, these writers, with their mad denunciations and
rhapsodies, had helped to awaken in Hillary's soul that adoration for
the beautiful, that love for living art that nourishes a delight in
God's work. The young apprentice did not digest the whole contents of
those volumes; he was too young to grasp their full meaning, but his
mind had grasped enough to make him a kind of derelict missionary of the
beautiful. When the moods came to him he would bury his nose in the
pages of Byron, Shelley, Keats, etc. And the influence gathered from
those poets possibly filled his head with vague imaginings over beauty
and innocence, feeding the fires of wild aspiration that cannot be
realised in this world, and were never realised and acted up to by the
poets who wrote the poems.
As he walked on thoughts of the strange girl on the lagoon _would_ haunt
his brain. He had quite made up his mind to secure a berth on the
sailing-ship that was leaving for New South Wales in a few days, but
Gabrielle Everard's eyes seemed to have magically changed the future for
him.
It was almost with relief that he gave his arm to the drunken shellback
who suddenly appeared from nowhere, struck him on the back and spat a
stream of tobacco juice across Hillary's poetic vision, taking him
completely away from himself. Then the shellback faded away, went off
shouting some wild sea chantey as he rolled over the slopes, bound for
the sailor's Morning and Evening Star--the distant light of Parsons's
grog shanty. It was getting dark. That night Hillary seemed inspired. He
sat outside the wooden building where he lodged and played his violin to
the shellback, traders and natives who came over the slopes to listen.
Mango Pango, the pretty Polynesian servant, grinned from ear to ear,
showing her pearly teeth, as she danced beneath the palms that grew
right up to the verandah of his landlady's homestead. Even the
congregated sailormen ceased their unmelodious oaths as they pulled
their beards and listened to his playing.
Hillary wasn't a master on the violin; his career had been too erratic
for him to get the necessary practice to accomplish great things in
instrumental playing. But still he could perform the _Poet and Peasant_
overture and most of the stock pieces, besides playing heathen melodies
that sent the natives into ecstasies of delight. His sailor critics
swore that his extemporised sea-jigs were the most classical of
compositions that they had ever heard. For when he played the South Sea
maids threw their limbs about in rhythmical swerves, till the soles of
their pretty bare feet sometimes seemed turned toward the South Sea
moon! Mango Pango, Marga Maroo and Topsy Turvy were dancing to their
heart's content as the hills re-echoed the shellbacks' laughter and the
wild chorus of _O, For Rio Grande_ when the concert was disturbed. For
notwithstanding the wild surroundings, the hilarity and awful oaths,
piety roamed those savage isles.
As the strains of the _Poet and Peasant_ overture trembled from
Hillary's violin a tall, handsome savage, attired in European clothes,
stepped out from beneath the palms and complimented the young Englishman
on his artistic performance. He was an educated savage, and naturally
conducted himself in public just as a late missionary from the
North-West Mission School at Honolulu should do. He was certainly an
attractive-looking being, possibly through his mother being a Papuan and
his father a handsome Malayan. Even the shellbacks pulled their whiskers
and beards, and put on their best behaviour as he stood there and spoke
as becomes a Rajah and late missionary who has "saved" thousands of
souls; for he studied the philosophy of the Psalms so that they might
fit in with his views. And it might be mentioned at once that he did not
allow idealistic views to disturb the nice equilibrium of his earthly
requirements. When he was excited his speech lapsed into the native
pidgin-English. But he spoke perfectly as he addressed Hillary, saying:
"You play exceedingly well, young man, and your rendering of Spohr's
concerto strikes me as superb. For perfect intonation and verve your
performance outrivals the rendering by Monsieur De T----, whom I heard
play it at the Tivoli, Honolulu." So spake the civilised heathen.
"'Ark at 'im! an ole kanaka missionary!" whispered Bunky Lory, the
ordinary seaman.
"'Andsome cove with his whiskers on," said another, a Cockney.
There is no doubt that Rajah Koo Macka was a handsome type of man so far
as the world's idea of what's handsome goes. He wore a fine moustache
curled artistically at the ends; had fine teeth, ivory-white; and full,
sensual, curved lips that were not a libel on his character. But his
greatest asset was his magnetic, telescope-like eyes that could sight a
sinfully inclined girl or woman miles off! Indeed he was a splendid
example of a christianised heathen doing his best to be religious
notwithstanding his inherently antagonistic principles. He had plenty of
cash; he owned two or three schooners, and received a Government bounty
for hunting down the white miscreants, those skippers who indulged in
all the horrors of the black-birding slave traffic. He wore three medals
on his ample breast, and besides the aforementioned bounty received a
pension from some missionary society in London which had heard of his
self-sacrifice whilst converting his heathen brothers from cannibalistic
orgy and lust. And more, it was discovered, after many days, that he was
a good and dutiful son to his old father Bapa, who still dwelt in the
Rajah's native village in far-away Tumba-Tumba, on the wild,
God-forsaken coast of New Guinea. Such is a rough summary of the Rajah
Koo Macka, whose ways were mysterious, more so than the wily Chinee! And
though dead men may turn in their graves over the doings of men on
earth, the apprentice only pulled the end of his virgin moustache, no
prophetic breath of all that was destined to happen disturbing his
equanimity.