Hillary hardly knew where he was going as he walked back round the
coast, thinking of Gabrielle Everard and all that had upset his mind.
When he at last arrived at his lodgings, the old wooden shack near
Rokeville, he was tired out. Even pretty Mango Pango, the half-caste
Polynesian servant-maid, wondered why on earth he looked so solemn as
she gave her usual salutation: "Tolafa! Monsieur Hilly-aire!"
"Nasty face no belonger you!" said the cheeky girl as the young
apprentice forced a smile to his lips, chucked her under her pretty,
dimpled brown chin, and then went off into his room. It wouldn't have
been called a room in a civilised city, unless a small trestle bed, a
tub and fourteen calabashes and wooden walls ornamented with
grotesque-looking Kai-kai clubs and native spears deserved that name. He
could even see the stars twinkling through the roof chinks on windy
nights, when the palms swayed inland to the breath of the typhoon and no
longer let their dark-fingered leaves hide the cracks half across the
wooden ceiling. But still, that mattered nothing to him; the
companionship of his own reflections, away from the oaths of grog-shanty
men, beachcombers on the shores, and surly skippers, and jabbering
natives, made up amply for all the apparent discomfort of his
apartments.
Pretty Mango Pango, the housemaid, was singing some weird native melody;
it seemed to soothe his nerves as the strains, from somewhere in the
outbuildings, came to his ears while he sat there reflecting. He thought
of England, and wondered what his people thought over his long silence.
He knew that they must by then know the truth, for his ship must have
arrived back in the old country long, long ago without him. He thought
of the wild life he was leading as compared with life in London. "It's
like being in another world." Standing there by the window listening to
the tribal drums beating in the mountains, he thought he saw the dark
firs and palms for miles over the inland hills. And as he stared he felt
the eeriness of the scene, and he remembered the ghostly figures that
sailors swore they saw on those moon-lit nights, even when rum was
scarce. As he thought of Gabrielle his brain became etherealised with
dreams. He took out his dilapidated volume of Shelley's poems and read
_The Ode to the West Wind_, and finally became so sentimental that he
sat down and wrote this letter home:
Dear Mater,--Forgive me for not writing before this. I ran away
from my ship. Though the skipper smiled like an angel when you
saw him, he turned out a fiend incarnate. I'm out here in the
Solomon Isles. I often think of you.... You'd never believe the
wonderful things I've seen, the experiences I've gone through,
since I left you all. I couldn't stand Australia.
First of all I must tell you that the natives here are
inveterate cannibals, but still they're not likely to eat me.
I've got tough. The wonderful part of it all is this: I've met a
most beautiful, eerie kind of girl here in the Solomon Isles.
She comes up to all that I ever dreamed of in the way of beauty
and innocence in human shape. I know, dear, that you will smile,
that thousands of men have thought they had come across the one
perfect woman; but it seems to me something to be thankful to
God for that I should _really_ find her! And living out here in
these God-forsaken isles, too! Her father's not much of a catch
in the way of prospects. But he's a retired captain and, I
believe, is well respected by the population. I'm sure you would
like Gabrielle if you saw her, and you will see her if I can
manage it all.... It seems gross to have to mention business
prospects after mentioning her.
Well, I'm making fine progress with my music. I've mastered
Paganini's twenty-four Caprices. I've also composed some
wonderful pieces. I know they're good....
I'm reading Shelley, Byron and Swinburne and Tolstoy's _Kreutzer
Sonata_. The people here seem strangely to lack poetic vision.
They are wonderful men, though, brave and truthful in their
forcible expression at the concerts outside the Beach Hotel.
It's a kind of Brighton Hotel, but the _prima donnas_ are dusky.
I was knighted by a tribal king the other night.
Kiss dear sister Bertha for me. Tell her to read Balzac's _Wild
Ass's Skin_. It's a beautiful book. She must skip the chapters
where the woman's silken knee comes in, etc., etc. Your
affectionate, loving son,
Hillary.
Having penned the foregoing epistle, Hillary placed it in his sea-chest.
Like many of his temperament, he wrote more letters under the impulse of
the moment than he ever posted.
"It's early yet," he said to himself as he stared out of the window and
saw the moonlight stealing across the rows of mountain palms to the
south-west. He could hear the faint rattling of the derrick, where some
schooner was being unloaded by night. That noise seemed to rouse him
from his dreams. He lit his pipe and crept out of the door. A puff of
cool ocean breeze came like a draught of scented wine to his nostrils;
for it had passed over the pine-apple plantations and drifted down the
orange and lemon groves. The pungent odours seemed to intoxicate him.
But still he was feeling moody, so he started off over the slopes. He
was off to the grog shanty. He knew that originality abounded in that
drinking saloon and in the neighborhood of its wooden walls.
The grog shanty of Bougainville harbour was known by sailormen as far as
the four corners of the world as the finest pick-me-up and dispeller of
fits of the blues in existence. Indeed, that shanty was a kind of
medicine chest, the magical chemist's shop of the Pacific. It was the
_opera bouffe_ of South Sea life: it made the cynic smile, the poet
philosophical, the madman feel that he must surely be deadly sane, and
the ne'er-do-wells drunk with happiness. Indeed, the consequential,
heavily moustached German consul, Arn Von de Sixth, had crept down the
Rokeville highroad one night and seen such sights that German culture
received a shock! He at once issued an edict that no native girls were
to visit the precincts of the grog shanties after sunset.
But notwithstanding his strict orders the dances still went on. Indeed,
as Hillary arrived in sight of the dead screw-pine that flew the Double
Eagle flag the scene that met his gaze fairly astonished him. It was as
though he was witnessing some phantom-like cinematograph show. A small
cloud that traversed the clear tropic sky suddenly blurred the moon,
sending lines of shadows over the shining spaces outside the grog
shanty. This made the scenic effect look as though a covey of dusky
female ghosts had rushed from the jungle and were whirling their
semi-robed limbs in wild delight beneath the coco-palms. If the
apprentice had any idea that the scene was supernatural it must have
been swiftly dispelled by the sound of the wild chorus of a chantey
coming from the hoarse-throated sailormen assembled outside Parsons's
bar. Then the moon seemed to burst into a silvery flood of silent
laughter that went tumbling over the dark palm groves, drenched the
distant shore forests with pale light, and touched the dim horizon of
the sea; it even lit up the bearded mouths of the shellbacks and
revealed the brilliant eyes of the dusky ballet girls who had stolen
down from the mountain villages. They had their chaperon with them in
the shape of old High Chief Bango Seru. Those brown girls were his prize
gamal-house, or tambu dancers. A mighty calabash was by his side. It was
in that handy receptacle that he carefully placed the accumulating
bribes that he demanded as payment for all that his dusky protege
did--and ought not to do! Parsons, the bar-keeper, poked his elongated,
bald cranium out of the shanty's doorway and shook his towel violently.
(It was the signal that no German official was in sight.)
Once more pretty Singa Mavoo and Loa Mog-wog lifted their _ramis_
(chemises), revealed their nut-brown knees and swerved with inimitable
grace. The Yankee nudged the German half-caste in the ribs till they
both so roared with laughter that they fell down. It was a kind of
miniature representation of the wine of the European music hall and
_opera bouffe_ poured into one goblet so that the onlooker might swallow
the draught at a gulp! Oom Pa, the aged high priest, was there. That
fervent ecclesiastic had been unable to resist the temptation thrown out
to him by the half-caste German sailors and grog-bar keepers. There he
stood, as plain as plain could be, his eyes alive with avarice, as he
too winked, begged for a drink and solemnly pointed out the attractions
of his two pretty, semi-nude granddaughters, who danced ecstatically, so
that he might add his mite to the collection-box for the heathen temple
fund down at Ackra-Ackra.
The most unimaginative of those onlookers breathed a sigh of admiration
when two Malayo-Polynesian youths stepped out of the shadows and put
forth their arms, looking at first like dusky statues, not only because
of their perfect terra-cotta limbs and artistic pose, but because of
their graceful erectness as their arms and legs moved with marvellous
symmetrical precision. Even the night seemed astonished as a breath of
wind came in from the seas and ran across the island trees. For now it
seemed like a shadow-world peopled with puppets. The youths put forth
their arms and dived up, up between the palms, coming down on their bare
feet like dusky marionettes dropping softly from the moon-lit sky! Then
the tambu maids began to chant and dance. Only the weird jingling of
their armlets and leglets showed that they were really there in the
shadows, as the shellbacks in their wide-brimmed hats looked on in
silence.
"Tavoo! Malloot!" suddenly said a voice. The effect of those two words
was magical. Every maid, dancer and onlooker had vanished! Only the
palms sighed as though in sorrow of it all as a German official's white
helmet hat came into sight far along the beach.
"Did I dream it all?" murmured Hillary. He rubbed his eyes; then he went
across the sands to the spot where the dancers had done such wondrous
feats. He stamped with his foot to see if there was some subterranean
outlet through which the dancers could so mysteriously disappear. But
all was solid enough. The moon still shone with its silent, religious
light. Parsons flapped his towel three times from the grog-bar doorway.
One could have sworn that the rough men in his bar-room had never left
their drinks as they stood there solemnly pulling their beards,
discussing old grievances in hushed voices. Not a breath of wind stirred
the phantom-like palm groves outside; only the chants of the cicalas
were faintly audible as they clacked down in the tall bamboo grass of
the swamps and shore lagoons. Those old sailors and shellbacks looked
the picture of honesty _till_ they gazed meaningly into each other's
eyes and drank on, sighed and sent the flames of the roof oil lamps
flickering over their wide-brimmed hats. But even they gave a startled
jump as something out in the silent night went "Bang!" It might have
been the signal that any kind of horror was being perpetrated. But it
was only a mighty thump on a tribal drum, somewhere up in a mountain
village, telling the frightened inhabitants that all was well, that the
last of the tambu maids had arrived safely, had entered the stockade
gates and that their pagan world might rest in peace for the remainder
of the night.
Even Hillary responded to the far-off voice of the tribal drum, for he
turned away and strolled back to his humble lodging-house. As he went
over the slopes he saw Oom Pa staggering homeward with his mighty
calabashes, minus his granddaughters, who had come down from the
mountain villages. All was silent as he crept beneath the palms, passed
under the verandah and entered his room. Even Mango Pango was snoring on
her sleeping-mat in the kitchen, so late was it. And yet, as he looked
out of his open window and yawned, he could distinctly hear the sounds
of muffled drums beating across the slopes.
"Damned if there is not another heathen festival on somewhere," he
muttered. It was true enough: the full-moon festivals were in progress,
and down at Ackra-Ackra they were chanting and banging, and their sacred
maids were dancing to the discordant music. Had Hillary known _who_ was
dancing at that moment on a tambu stage only two miles away he wouldn't
have slept much that night. But he was oblivious to all that happened,
so he fell asleep and dreamed of dusky whirling ghosts and fate-like
drums that swept dancing maidens away into a shadowy pageant of
swift-footed figures that bolted into the mountains and were seen no
more.