The day after Hillary and Gabrielle's love tryst on the derelict off
Bougainville old Everard sat in his bungalow rubbing his hands with
delight. He had been over the slope in Rokeville "celebrating" at the
grog bar, had been to the store and flirted with the trader's pretty
half-caste daughters, and had tapped his wooden leg significantly as the
schooner skippers heard how he'd done things in his day; then he had
returned home, full of the best Jamaica rum. It wasn't the rum, or the
praise and encores of the shellbacks in Parsons's grog bar, or the
surreptitious kiss he'd given pretty Mango Pango on his way home that
made him so jovial; it was because he'd met Rajah Koo Macka, who was
calling at the bungalow that evening. Already the shadows were falling
over the mountains. He was still busily shouting directions to his
daughter as though he stood on the fore-deck of that wondrous ship that
had sailed all seas and found all that is considered impossible and
absurd in this new day. He had artfully enticed Gabrielle to dress
herself up, so that she might appear at her very best when Rajah Macka
arrived.
"Put the flowers in yer 'air, and don't forget to put thet blue robe
thing on," said the ex-sailor, as he critically surveyed his daughter
and tapped his wooden leg to punctuate his appreciation. "That's it!
That's it! You do look nice!"
Gabrielle's eyes were shining with pleasure as she listened to her Dad's
praise. He so seldom praised her. Then she gazed into the bamboo
looking-glass. Her vanity was excusable, for the scarlet and white
hibiscus blossoms made the bronze-gold tresses shine as the sunset
shines on a mountain lagoon.
"You're a good gal when yer like," said old Everard, little dreaming for
whose eyes Gabrielle had so tastefully arrayed herself.
"Mitia, savee! Nicer ladie!" said the tiny Papuan maid, who at that
moment arrived with her basket of fish at the door. The fish were all
alive, splashing about in the grass-plaited basket, as frisky as the
little savage maiden, who took her purchase money and sped away under
the palms like a nymph of the wilds.
"You're as beautiful-looking as your mother was," said the white man as
he sighed. Then he followed his sigh by taking a good pull at the rum
bottle. Possibly the memory of his dead wife impelled the weak ex-sailor
to take so many extra drops, for he was known to sit for hours like a
man in a trance when folk sang certain old songs.
"That's right, tidy the place up! Put the green cloth on. Macka's mighty
particular. Those civilised 'eathens like things just so," said the
fuddled, idiotic old man. He was expecting the Rajah at any moment, for
it was past seven o'clock and he had promised Everard to be at the
bungalow before eight. It seemed incredible that the old ex-sailor could
not see through such a one as the Rajah. But sailormen are not very wise
when it comes to judging human nature. And it didn't want twenty-four
jurymen to discern the sort of glance that lurked in the Rajah's eyes
when he gazed at his women converts. Had the Rajah been correctly placed
in an ethnographical classification, he would have been placed somewhere
between the orang-outang and the lowest negro type. But circumstances
had invested him with the power to act as a mediator between God and the
souls of decent men and women. His outward life, his fleshy, handsome
face were splendid assets. They stood him in good stead, giving him an
extra distinction in the eyes of ignorant natives and even low-caste
whites. Not the least of his stock-in-trade were the frock-coat, top
hat, kid gloves, spotless patent boots, scarlet waistcoat and the turban
swathing, the purchasing value of the lot being about twelve dollars in
Beratania Street, Honolulu.
Old Everard gazed eagerly at the clock. "Time's getting on," he mumbled.
And was Everard's daughter as eager over the Rajah's expected visit as
her father? Not a bit of it! She hadn't the slightest idea of being in
that dismal parlour when Macka arrived. She had made up her mind to make
a surreptitious departure as soon as she had tidied up the room. She
longed to meet Hillary again. She had been more than thinking about his
proposal to fly to Honolulu, for she had planned everything in her mind.
And if anyone could have peeped under her bed at that moment they would
have seen a small carpet bag packed with those things that she valued.
She had so often rehearsed the whole business and her sudden flight that
she had several times looked fondly on her wicked parent, as she
imagined his oats and distress to find her gone for ever.
"Where yer hoff to?" suddenly yelled old Everard. The girl had quickly
snatched up her cloak and had bolted.
Her inward knowledge of Hillary's love for her tremendously minimised
her fears over her father's wrath if he managed to catch her.
It was just dusk. One or two stars were already out when she opened the
door and made the final bolt out of the front door into the night. She
gave a startled cry--she had rushed straight in Rajah Koo Macka's
outstretched arms!
Fate seemed to have planned that it should be so. The Rajah held the
girl's hand tightly, almost fiercely, in his swarthy grip. A strange
fire was burning in his terrible eyes.
"Miss Everard, Gabri-arle! Langi, O ke mako," he murmured, lapsing into
his native lingo as he gazed steadily into the frightened girl's eyes.
It was a masterful gaze, serpent-like in its malignant fascination. The
girl bravely returned that gaze. The Rajah realised the struggle that
was going on in her soul. His instincts told him the truth. Gabrielle
wasn't the first. He knew why her face was pallid, why the cold beads of
perspiration stood out on her brow, distinctly revealed to his gaze, as
though the moon would shed its beams and show the pity of it all.
"Let me go! Do! Do!" she murmured in an appealing voice.
"Gabrie-arle! I've come, not to see your father but to see you, you, my
lovelier whiter girl, lovelier, nicer!" he whispered, as in his emotion
he reverted to the old pidgin-English of his boyhood, before he had
joined the first missionary society in Honolulu. And still Gabrielle
stared into those terrible eyes. Her lips half smiled as she struggled
with herself. It was a terrible moment for her as she stood there, her
frame trembling as she felt those two terrible rivals struggling to
strangle each other--the struggle of the white and the dark woman in her
soul.
He whispered swift, passionate words: "I lover you, wine of my heart,
stars of my soul, O voice of the waves, seas, night storm and darkness!
O stars that are like the children of our souls to be!" he wailed, as he
switched off into his beloved _verse libre_, so popular with his kind.
He still held her in his clasp, just as so many helpless women had been
held by the devil who reigns in tropic climes.
Gabrielle felt that the struggle was coming to an end. The cold
perspiration stood in beads on her brow. She felt faint. And the devil,
who always helps his own, sent a shadow across the silvery track by the
ivory-nut palms. That shadow touched the small vine-clad verandah of the
bungalow. Gabrielle's heart nearly stopped as she saw it, and its
darkness fell over her own soul. Her horror was not to be wondered at,
for the silhouette had taken human form as something rushed out of the
thick jungle-growth hard by.
There was no real cause for Gabrielle's terror at seeing this particular
object. It was nothing more than one of the Rajah's native servants, who
had rushed from the bamboo thickets, thinking he had heard the Rajah
call him.
All the foregoing and the Rajah's successful domination over the girl
occupied about two minutes. He had rained kisses on her face, had
whispered impassioned words in her ears, using the names of the Apostles
and even the name of Christ to lure the girl back into the bungalow and
her soul into darkness. Gabrielle felt as though she had had a paralytic
stroke as he gripped her hand and pushed her into the front doorway of
the bungalow. She could hardly believe her senses as she went half
willingly forward. He was an old bird at the game; years older than
Hillary. He had the father on his side too, and that was natural enough
when one thinks of the way the world wags. Most men of the Rajah's type,
by means of their successful hypocrisy, secure the father's help to
buttress up their desires. Besides, the Rajah had no personal drawbacks,
for he had no idealistic views, no sensitiveness about girlish innocence
and what might be considered impropriety. So he was strongly equipped
for furthering his requirements; moreover, he had the mighty power of
the Christian creed and the glory of its apostles on his side, so far as
hypocritical protestations could make them useful to him.
Old Everard was leaning over the table, swearing like a genuine 'Frisco
shellback, as they entered the parlour.
"Thought you'd cleared out for the evening," said he, as he stared
querulously into his daughter's face. He was too drunk to notice her
terrified, helpless expression as he staggered to his feet. He had
suddenly sighted Koo Macka, who stood erect, standing with all his grand
insignias of Rajahship behind the girl. "Glad to see you, bully boy!
Bless me soul, I thought that the girl had made a bolt, and blowed if
she hadn't rushed out at hearing yer footsteps. She's a bit gone on you
already, eh? Nothing like a woman's ears when they want to hear!"
The old man gave Macka a friendly nudge and at once lifted a bottle and
began to pour out a tumblerful of Parsons's best Bougainville Three
Star.
So did the Rajah once more enter Gabrielle's home and gaze with his
magnetic eyes at the girl on that very night when she had promised to
meet Hillary!
The three of them sat down at the parlour table. For quite a long time
Gabrielle sat like a sphinx, a dazed look in her eyes. The Rajah, who
sat opposite her, noticed that look. But was he embarrassed? Not he! He
simply rubbed his hands and gave an extra curl to his moustache. He had
tackled very obstinate ladies in his time down in the native villages.
And it was immensely gratifying to him to think that Everard was a
kindly disposed white man and did not dine with a war-club by his
side--as old chief Mackeroo did when the Rajah sought his wife for a
convert. Blowing his hose in his handkerchief, he at once began
business. Gabrielle quailed before his sinuous, reptilian-like glances.
She was trembling, for she knew that she had met her master--and he knew
that she had too. He was watching her as a cat watches a mouse. He saw
her eyes roam in a furtive way to the door more than once. He knew that
she was ready to spring at the first unguarded moment and fly out into
the night.
Old Everard wondered why they both sat staring at each other. He
suddenly burst into speech, and brought his fist down with a bang on the
table. "Why the h---- don't you speak, blind me eyes?" he roared. He was
decidedly drunk. Macka lifted his eyebrows and then looked at the old
sailor and began to quote applicable Scriptural texts. His voice took on
quite a melancholy wail, the old ecclesiastical drawl habit, as he
remonstrated with the ex-sailor for roaring in such a rough manner at so
sweet a girl. Everard relented, even apologised. Macka stretched forth
his hand in a grandiloquent manner and forgave! About half-an-hour later
the Rajah's hopes had returned: the girl was his!
For the stars had begun to dance before Gabrielle's eyes. She felt that
he wasn't so wicked after all. And the reason for this sudden change in
her was not far to seek. The Rajah had slipped some rum and opium into
her tea, some kind of mixture that is still used prolifically by the
natives who wish to dope artless girls, and sailormen too! "Tea's the
thing! Good old papalagi's tea, wholesome drink," he had chuckled
beneath his virile moustache.
"Whisky, I say!" Everard had wailed, as he stared with bleary eyes. But
the Rajah would have none of it. He dearly loved tea, nothing to beat
tea, he swore. That settled it. Everard told Gabrielle to make a pot of
tea at once. But Gabrielle still sat at the table and wouldn't move, so
Everard got up and made the tea himself and thought of how he would get
his own back on his daughter when the Rajah had gone. Let it, however,
be said that old Everard would never have made that pot of tea had he
had the slightest hint of the consequences. But he was a fool. The
ex-sailor was not so much to blame: civilisation has shrivelled up the
white man's God-given weapons of instinct, and so he stands to-day a
slave to dull reason, and is positively nowhere when a native's cunning
is concerned. It was only natural, therefore, that sinful old Everard
should fall into every trap that the wily Malayan-Papuan, made for his
daughter's destruction. As the hours passed things began to look
brighter to Gabrielle. She forgot the night and all that she had
intended to do. As for Everard, he got quite boisterous when she
laughed, at last, at one of his antiquated jokes. And then, as the old
man listened to the Rajah's mellifluous voice, he became so emotional
that he forgot and wiped his nose on the edge of the best green
tablecloth. "Dad!" whispered Gabrielle, in an awestruck voice over her
parent's preposterous act in front of the twelve-dollar suit of clothes
and jewellery from the Honolulu slop-shop.
The ex-sailor lifted his grizzled face and, staring with his bleary blue
eyes, gave his daughter a half-apologetic look. Gabrielle reddened to
the ears at the thought of her sudden good fortune. It seemed that the
impossible was occurring. A Rajah of holiest soul looked fondly upon her
and her late swearing old father sat there gazing into her face
apologetically! It was more wonderful than any fairy tale or any novel
she had read. She could have risen from her chair and sung; could even
have snapped her fingers with derision at the phantom-woman who she half
fancied was lurking outside the bungalow.
Gabrielle hardly spoke as the Papuan Rajah waved his hand and glorified
himself in the eyes of his host and his daughter, expatiating on the
virtues of Christianity and his own true belief. Old Everard said
"Amen," opened his mouth in surprise and hung his head for shame as
Macka chided him over his habitual drunkenness. The Rajah pointed his
dark finger at the daughter, and said: "See yon sacred maid. White is
she as the spotless snow on the mountains of Kaue. Art not ashamed, O
white man, to set so bad example?" Saying this, the Rajah opened his
prettily bound pocket Bible and in sombre tones read Scriptural passages
till the old ex-sailor's heart quaked in fear of God's wrath and his own
remorse over his treatment of his daughter. And still the dark
missionary proceeded with his exhortations. "Art not ashamed, O man
Everard?" "Yus, I ham," almost wailed the derelict representative of the
great white races, as Macka continued his Scriptural denunciations in a
sombre voice. Thus did Macka the half-caste missionary further his
desires. But why record all that really happened that night? It is
sufficient to say that Everard's eyes brightened as Macka's heart
softened, until the brown man quite forgave the white man for his sins.
Indeed that dim-lit parlour became a kind of confessional-box, whilst
Everard fell on his knees and Gabrielle trembled in mighty trouble at
her former wicked thoughts over so noble, so holy a missionary.
Then the Rajah bode Everard rise, and said: "O white Everard, think no
more of thy sorrows and thy sins; frailty is the great inheritance, it
is the dark shadow that maketh the light to shine and so doth beautify
human existence." Then Everard took another swill at the whisky bottle
and most foolishly mixed his drinks. And still the heathen man meandered
on, and murmured into the ex-sailor's ears: "O heed not the great pearl
scheme that I wished you to venture upon; for I say unto these that I've
other business on hand. And more, for the sake of thy friendship and
contrite heart, and thy hallowed daughter" (he pointed with outstretched
finger at Gabrielle), "I'll give thee double the sum that any pearl
scheme may have brought thee."
So spoke Macka as he dropped into the Kanaka's usual Biblical style,
since it was from the Bible that most of them derived their first
lessons in our tongue. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that the
heathen was considerably overcome by his own self-glorification. As for
the white man, he said holy things, wailed out that he believed in the
Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints and the
sacramental drink of the best rum! Then the aged drunken idiot swallowed
another tumblerful of whisky and fell forward on his knees.
Gabrielle began to think that she must be dreaming it all: that scene as
she sat in the wicker chair watching. Then the noble Rajah sang weird
songs. His voice was mellow and pathetically sweet, nicely tinged with
tragedian-like sadness that lingered in Gabrielle's ears. It was all
strangely blasphemous. Old Everard simply fell forward on the floor,
holding the rum bottle tightly in his hand. Gabrielle and Macka laid him
down comfortably on his settee. There he lay, his head forward, mouth
dribbling, one arm dangling to the floor, so drunk was he.
Gabrielle cried softly to herself as she placed his head in a more
comfortable position and bunched the pillow up. Then she turned aside in
a terrible despair and gazed in mute appeal into those masterful eyes.
"Let me escape," her lips mumbled, and her voice sounded far off.
It was no good; the man was relentless. He still moaned his beautiful
words, whispering warm Malayan phrases into her ear. She did not
understand his native tongue, but her instincts heard. The hour was
late.
Gabrielle half heard the rustling of swift-moving feet outside the
bungalow. A thick mist seemed to lie over the furniture. She felt that
something had crept into the room, something terrible and not to be
denied. A swarthy expression passed over her face as she leaned forward
and listened, for once more she could hear the tribal drums beating
somewhere across the centuries. It did not horrify her as before. Macka
was there and his eyes had an all-powerful look: why be frightened in
his masterful presence? But still she tried to struggle to her feet and
rush out of the parlour door. For a moment she forgot and fancied she
was standing on the derelict out in the straits. "Hillary! Hillary!" she
wailed, as she thought of the stranded apprentice and fancied she still
looked into his eyes. Slowly the fumes did their work, fumes of opium
and the drink slipped into her tea. She still heard the Papuan's voice;
it was not a voice near her, it was a call coming across distant spaces.
And still she struggled, as she called out the long-forgotten name of
the missionary, one who had taught her in the mission-room from her
earliest childhood. But no answer came, only the snores of her drunken
father and the sounds of tribal drums a hundred years away. Then the
lights burned low. Even the Rajah was overcome with heathenish emotion
as she stood by the window and, lifting her face, looked out on the
stars and in a strange way scraped her pale hands up and down the glass,
as though she would tear aside the veil that divided her from freedom
and the outer world.
And Hillary, who waited by the lagoon, walked up and down, up and down,
full of hope, full of faith. And he was still walking silently on the
silvery sands by the tossing seas, like a pale figure of romance, as
dawn crept over the mountains and the stars went home. And still
Gabrielle did not come.