In the morning old Everard awoke with a swollen head.
"Gabby! Gabrielle!" He shouted. Then, wondering why on earth the girl
did not reply, he struggled to his feet, opened the door and went up the
three steps that led into her bedroom. Her bed was neatly made--it had
not been slept in. He was so puzzled about it all that he looked out of
the small open window to see if she'd fallen out--notwithstanding that
the window was six feet from the ground. Then he passed his hand across
his brow and remembered Rajah Macka's visit. "Rajah Koo Macka!" he
shouted.
"God damn it! I don't remember 'im going," he mumbled, as he stumped his
wooden leg about the room till the bungalow shook, and began whimpering
like a fretful child, nearly falling down with sudden dizziness.
Recovering himself, he got into a frightful rage and began to roar
mighty oaths. "Gabby! Gabby! I'll a-murder you! Where are you? Damn! My
eyes! Ter 'ell with Macka! Ter 'ell with everything! Where are you?"
Then he swung his wooden leg round, poked it right through the
velvet-lined screen that Gabrielle had so neatly lined, and gave a
terrible oath.
Then he cooled down. The reaction had begun to set in. His brain began
to reason over it all. He rushed outside, stumped about and stumped back
again. "Where is she? What's it all mean? She's not the kind of girl to
go off by night with Macka," were his reflections. All day long he
called and called. Then he left the bungalow and roamed away to the
native villages in search of her. He kicked up an awful commotion. The
natives for miles thought a new kind of spirit with a wooden leg had
escaped from shadow-land, for as they peeped from their hut doors they
saw old Everard frantically waving his arms, shouting vehemently,
swearing and calling out: "Gabby! Gabby!" He arrived back at his
bungalow at dusk. "Gab!" he shouted. But she was still missing. The old
ex-sailor realised all that Gabrielle had been to him in his desolate
life.
He wept. He got terribly drunk and kept calling out: "Gabrielle! My Gab!
Come back to your old father!" Then he mumbled in a self-soothing way:
"She ain't really gone. Macka's so relygious. 'E wouldn't take 'er from
me. No! P'r'aps she's gone to the b---- German's wife at K----, or the
mission-room at Tomba-kao." Once more he got up and began to stump
about. He seemed to go mad. He rushed again and again into the girl's
bedroom, caught his peg-leg in the fibre mats and fell down. "It's 'er
gown, 'er pretty gown," he wailed. The tears rolled down his cheeks. He
actually put his lips to the girl's washed-out, torn garment and kissed
it. Poor old man! He had never really found his true self. All the
chances and virtues that might have been his had been shattered by gross
surroundings.
After a while he cooled down again. "Who'd 'ave thought it! Who'd 'ave
thought it!" he wailed. He returned to his parlour. The room looked dark
and comfortless. A terrible suspicion was haunting his mind. But it was
too late. His faith in Macka's supreme holiness had begun to slacken
slightly. Old remembrances and God-given instincts that had been his in
the long-ago, pre-rum days came back to him. But he sought the weak
man's support, and poured fiery liquid between his trembling lips.
"Gabby! Gabby! Come to me! I'm ill, so ill!"
Then he jumped, and looked quite startled and sober. He'd never hurried
so much in his life as he put the bottle down and, with his eyes
gleaming with half-fearful delight, stumped towards the front door.
Someone had knocked.
So great was his hurry that he stumbled as he rushed from the room.
"She's come back, me dear gal, come to 'er old pa!"
He opened the door and stared at the form in the gloom for a moment,
then swayed and fell down--fell in sheer misery and disappointment, for
it wasn't Gabrielle who stood there--it was Hillary.
Hillary did not gasp or say one word that would suit the pages of a
novel; he simply brought out the unromantic words: "God, what luck! He's
drunk!"
The young apprentice swiftly leaned forward and picked up the old
ex-sailor.
Hillary's whole soul was bursting to know why Gabrielle hadn't kept the
appointment by the lagoon. He was delighted to see Everard drunk. It had
flashed through his sanguine, hopeful soul that there had been a
domestic rumpus and that was the cause of Gabrielle not turning up at
the trysting-place, where he had waited all night.
He carried the old man as tenderly as possible into the parlour. The
thought that he was really Gabrielle's father made him feel quite tender
towards the drunken man. He'd never been in that parlour before. He
looked round. Where was she?
"Gabrielle, your poor father's taken ill--it's Hillary who calls!" And
then he stood holding the old man up, his heart thumping with the mighty
expectation of seeing the girl enter the room, with secret joy at her
father's blind, drunken eyes at such an opportune moment.
Hillary had come straight to Everard's bungalow determined to risk all,
to defy the old man outright and get one glimpse of the girl's face and
some kind of an explanation, even if he had to fight his way in. He
called again: "Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Why don't you come?" But the
expected rustle of her dress, the glorious look of surprise in her eyes
at seeing him as she rushed into the room, all that his imagination
anticipated, was only mocked by the echo of his own voice.
He sat the old man in the big arm-chair. Everard opened his eyes and
stared like an imbecile at the youth.
"Where's my Gabby? Who the 'ell are you?" moaned the ex-sailor.
"I'm Hillary, Gabrielle's friend. I'm teaching her to play the violin;
it will be a great help to her. She can make money by teaching, and be
able to help you too," blurted forth the apprentice in that inspiration
that comes to lovers who have rehearsed a thousand excuses for suddenly
appearing before a prospective father-in-law.
Old Everard was too far gone with rum and grief to be interested in the
commercial side of a prospective son-in-law.
"You're 'Illary! Violin! Play musick! You b---- villainous scoundrel!
What have you done with 'er?" yelled the old man, as he struggled to his
feet, a terribly vicious look in his eyes.
"Done with who? Where's Gabrielle?" Hillary shouted out in a voice that
somehow managed to tell the old man that the youth before him thought
that he _too_ had a right to know where Gabrielle was.
In a moment the ex-sailor's mad passion subsided. He leaned forward and
stared into Hillary's eyes and saw the despair, the appeal, the light of
sincerity and truth, everything that he had not seen in Koo Macka's
eyes. In a moment the old man relented.
"Ain't yer seen 'er, kid? She's gone! Bolted with Macka, the Rajah! Find
'er, boy, find 'er for me. You can 'ave her, she's my Gabby!" wailed the
despairing father.
Hillary's heart nearly stopped beating. He couldn't sum up courage
enough to ask the old man to explain what he meant. He dreaded to hear
something, he knew not what. Then the old man continued:
"God forgive me for thinking ill of you. _He_ sent you 'ere ter-night to
comfort 'er ole father."
Hillary still held the man's hand, to give _himself_ courage as well as
to comfort the old man.
"'Ave a drop er rum, boy?" said the old man. Hillary did not hesitate.
He held the tumblerful of liquid to his lips and swallowed the lot.
Everard clutched the youth's trembling hand and almost shed tears as the
rum loosened the apprentice's lips and he told the ex-sailor all that he
felt for his daughter. Even Hillary was astonished to find that
saturnine old drunkard so tender-hearted, so friendly towards him.
After Everard had taken terrible oaths and sworn vengeance against the
Rajah, he finished up by yelling into Hillary's ears that he would give
Hillary, or anyone else, two hundred pounds if they could trace
Gabrielle's whereabouts. Hillary took the distracted father's hand and
said: "I don't want money; I only want to see Gabrielle, to bring your
daughter back to you, and take her away from that man." The apprentice
couldn't persuade himself to mention the name of the man who had
apparently done him this great injury. Hillary had only seen the Papuan
Rajah twice, but the man's face was as vividly before him as if he had
known him for a thousand years.
At that moment he did not want Gabrielle's father to see his eyes. He
felt ashamed that they should be dimmed with emotion. He was overcome by
the feeling that he was the first to love and have faith in woman; the
first to have idealistic views about honour and the ways of men; the
first to run away to sea with fourpence in his pocket to fight the
world, to aspire for fame and wealth, only to find himself sleeping out
in a strange land--in a dust-bin with the lid on! But at the thought of
Gabrielle's manner on the wreck, her tears, her eagerness to fly to
Honolulu with him, the look in her eyes, his dark thoughts fled like
bats from his brain, and once again hope reasserted itself.
Hillary took the old ex-sailor's hand and promised to stop the night
with him. "Don't let us waste the time, it will be dark soon," said the
apprentice. After a little rebellious talk Everard promised to drink no
more, then putting on his cap he went off as obediently as a child to
make inquiries. And so Everard went down to Rokeville, while Hillary
went off on a voyage of discovery into the surrounding villages. His
faith in Gabrielle had by now completely returned. He knew that she had
strange notions, and had many girl friends among the Polynesian natives
who dwelt with the native tribes. He so far recovered his spirits that
he even whistled as he went off down the track. He made straight for the
native village of Ackra Ackra, where the great head-hunter chief Ingrova
dwelt. It was near to sunset when he at length passed through the great
forest of giant bread-fruits that divided the native villages from the
south-east shore. As he entered the tiny pagan citadel the women and
girls greeted him with their friendly salutations and the usual cries
for _tam-bak_ (tobacco).
The unlit coco-nut-oil lamps were swinging from the banyan boughs and
flamboyants that sheltered the small huts and palavanas as he strode
across the _rara_ (cleared space). The shaggy-headed native women
clapped their hands as he passed. Some of the elder tattooed men and
chiefesses puffed their short clay pipes and stared stolidly upon him.
Just by the village patch Maga Maroo, pretty Silva Sula and some more
dusky flappers threw their brown-stockinged legs skyward with delight as
the dusky Lotharios gave wild encores in a strange barbarian tongue.
Even Hillary smiled as he saw the artless, picturesque vanity of the
girls as they sported their fine clothes on the tiny promenade that was
the lamp-lit Strand of their little forest city. He saw at a glance by
those demonstrative exhibitions of European toilets, and fringed
swathings of yellow and scarlet sashes, that the artful traders had been
that way exchanging their trumpery jewellery and gaudy silks for copra
and shells.
Arriving before the Chief Ingrova's palatial palavana, Hillary was
pleased to find that the great chief was at home. As the big, muscular,
mop-headed islander stood before him, he made numerous stealthy
inquiries to find out if the chief had the slightest hint of the girl's
whereabouts. But seeing that the chief was quite sincere in his
protestations that he hadn't seen her for quite two weeks, Hillary at
once told him that she was missing from home. Hillary had persistently
had the idea in his head that Gabrielle might be hiding in one of the
villages in fear of her father's wrath, for he could not help thinking
that the old man had had a row with the girl and had deliberately kept
that fact from him. The aged chief, who was a fine example of his race,
swayed his war-club and wanted to go off in search of the missing girl
at once. His eyes blazed with delight at the prospect of obtaining the
head of the miscreant who had lured the girl from her home. The chief
had a fierce idea of equity and justice; he was a stern disciplinarian
in following the tenets of his religion, the code of morals laid down by
his tribal ancestors. Indeed it was well known that he would not deviate
from his ideas of honest finance by one shell or coco-nut. And it can be
recorded that the mythological gods and legendary personages who were
the great apostles of his creed were more to him in his inborn faith
than the Biblical wonders of the Christian creed are to nine-tenths of
the Sunday church-goers who worship at its altars.
Hillary listened silently to the chief's moralising and his loud
lamentations over Gabrielle's absence from home and felt assured that
the chief knew nothing about it. It was true enough, Ingrova had never
heard of Macka, otherwise Hillary might have been considerably
enlightened, for the old chief was usually friendly to the white men.
The apprentice gave the chief a plug of ship's tobacco, then implored
him to kill no one and secure no head for the adornment of his hut till
he was quite certain that it was the head of the real culprit. Though
Hillary was convinced that Ingrova had spoken the truth, he still nursed
the idea that Gabrielle was somewhere in the vicinity of her father's
home. He could not bring himself to believe that Gabrielle had really
bolted or been carried off by the Rajah. The idea of such a thing had
left his mind. He had thought of her manner on the wreck only an hour
before. "A girl so innocent that I wouldn't utter a coarse word in her
presence--she--go off with an abomination like that--a dark
man--impossible!" had been his final summing up, and then in his
vehemence he had kicked his Panama hat sky-high.
Hillary's face was flushed with the thoughts that surged through his
head as he turned back and, gazing at Ingrova, said: "Look here,
Ingrova, old pal, if you can find any trace whatsoever of the girl I'll
give you a lot of money and my best grey suit of clothes, see?" The
apprentice knew that he was offering the chief inexhaustible wealth by
promising him a suit of clothes. For if a Solomon Islander has one
weakness it is a heartaching desire to possess European clothes.
In a moment Ingrova's ears were alert; his deep-set eyes twinkled with
avarice. He immediately rubbed his dusky hands together and, lifting one
hand, swore allegiance to Hillary's cause. "I find girler if she bouter
'ere!" said he, bringing his war-club down with a terrific whack on the
fallen bread-fruit trunk as they stood there in the silence of the
forest.
"What's that?" The apprentice could hear approaching footsteps.
He rubbed his eyes. What on earth had happened to Ingrova? There he
stood, stiff and erect, his arms crooked; he had suddenly undergone a
wonderful transformation--looked like some gnarled old tree trunk that
had been carved so as to resemble a man. For only the eyes blinked. At
the sound of approaching footsteps he had swiftly succumbed to the old
primitive instincts, and become, as it were, a part of the silent
tropical forest.
Looking swiftly round, Hillary observed a dusky, wrinkled face and
bright eyes peeping cautiously through the tall, thick ferns that grew
around the spot where they stood. Ingrova's form immediately relaxed; it
was no enemy who sought to club him; it was only the friendly face of
old Oom Pa. It was very evident that Oom Pa had heard the speech of the
Englishman, and knowing that the white missionaries disapproved of very
many of the things his priesthood called on him to do in the performance
of heathen rites, he had approached warily. Seeing that only one white
papalagi was there, Oom Pa stepped forth from the thickets and forced
his finest deceitful smile to his thin lips.
"Nice day," quoth Hillary.
"Verra nicer, papalagi," muttered the heathen ecclesiastic, after
looking up at Ingrova, who winked and raised his tattooed brows to
reassure the suspicious priest. Oom Pa prostrated himself in his most
gracious manner before Hillary. In a moment he had risen to his feet,
and standing with head inclined he listened to Ingrova, who had begun to
tell him the cause of the white man's visit.
"Oo woomba!" said the priest, rubbing his chin reflectively, then said:
"Nicer white girl's goner? She who gotter eyes like sky when stars
walker 'bout, and gotter hair liker sunset on rivers?"
"That's her!" ejaculated Hillary dramatically. His heart thumped with
hope. Oom Pa's manner made him think that Gabrielle was somewhere close
behind him, hiding in the palms. The old priest winked and put on a wise
look. Then he looked up and, shaking his head all the while that he
spoke, he told Hillary that he had not the slightest idea as to the
girl's whereabouts.
"I not know where girl is, but I knower you mean white girl who comes
and jumper on _pae pae_ and dance at festival, one, two nights. But she
did fly away like beautiful _tabarab_ (spirit) in forest."
"Dance on _pae pae_ and run away into the forest!" said Hillary in
surprise. "Good gracious! She's not the girl I'm looking for. It's a
white girl I'm after, one who wears a blue dress, coiled-up tresses of
gold that fall over her brow; she's white and beautiful. Dance on your
damned _pae pae_! Phew!" said Hillary, putting his foot out and kicking
vigorously.
Oom Pa also metaphorically kicked himself. He wondered what trouble his
incautious remarks might cause both to himself and the girl. He swiftly
realised that it was an unusual thing for a white girl to do a jig on a
_pae pae_; he also knew that the white men might think that he had
something to do with the girl's strange leaning towards his heathenish
creed, and so would blame him for anything that might have happened to
her. Consequently he at once put his hand to his brow, shook his head
and intimated that he was "old fool" to make such a mistake.
Ingrova, who had immediately realised how near the priest had been to
letting out that he knew something about Gabrielle, astutely changed the
conversation and begged Hillary and the priest to enter his palavana. In
a moment Ingrova had bent his stalwart figure and entered the low
doorway of his rather palatial hut. Hillary and priest followed.
The apprentice, who had never been inside a primitive homestead, was
surprised as he entered the gloomy, tightly thatched dwelling-place of
Ingrova. It was sheltered by the branches of two huge bread-fruits, was
conical-shaped and had a large domed roof. The rooms were spacious,
about twelve feet from wall to wall. Each room was lit up by primitive
window holes. These windows had no glass in them, but were fashioned of
twisted, interlaced bamboo twigs in a clever ornamental style, making
them look like casements that opened on to feathery palm-trees. Indeed,
often by night one could have peeped through those casements and seen
the festival maidens dancing on the village green while rows of
coco-nut-oil lamps twinkled from the palm and bread-fruit boughs. As the
apprentice stared round the room, the dim light intensified the
surroundings. They _were_ strange ornaments, no mistake about that. On
the wooden walls hung the human skulls and bones of the sad departed.
Noticing Hillary's curious stare as he regarded the beautifully polished
skulls, many of which still had hair clinging to the bone, Ingrova waxed
sentimental, stepped forward and took the smallest skull down from its
nail. Pointing to the empty sockets with his dusky finger, the chief
murmured in sombre tones: "Ah papalagi, 'twas in these holes where once
sparkled like unto stars in the wind-blown lagoon the eyes of her who
was my first _parumpuan_ (wife)." Then he sighed, and continued: "'Tis
true, O papalagi, that those eyes did once gaze and look kindly on him
whom I did hate overmuch. But 'tis over now, these many years; and
moreover, man, too, doth much which he no ought to do. And I say, O
papalagi, does not the moon stare with kindness on more lagoons than
one?"
As he said this the old chief made several magic passes with his
forefinger, pushing it across and within the sockets as he sighed
deeply. Then he proceeded: "Here, between these teeth, was the tongue
that sang to me when my head was weary and mucher trouble did come to my
peoples." At this moment the old warrior looked sadly through the
doorway and sighed. Once more he put forth his hands and took down the
remaining portion of that delicate skeleton. Hillary gazed in intense
wonder. He noticed that the white bones were fastened together with
finest sennet, joined with great artistic dexterity, not a bone being
out of place. His thoughts about Gabrielle for the time being had
vanished, as the mystery of that hut clung like a shroud about him.
"What's that?" he murmured, as he gazed on the gruesome object that
Ingrova held up before him. He felt shivery in the gloom,
notwithstanding the tropical heat and the buzzing sand-flies.
As the two old hags who were squated on mats in the far corner of the
room revealed their presence by giving a deep sigh, Ingrova proceeded:
"Tis all that remains of her form, which I did lover overmuch. Look, O
papalagi, here was her bosom; 'twas here that she gave unto my children
nicer nourishing milk, children who now am great chiefs and chiefesses."
Saying this, the warrior ran his fingers down the curves of the dead
woman's throat bones till he arrived at the tiny bones of the breast,
then his finger swerved to the right, passed round by the ribs and moved
downward towards the sharp white bones of the thighs.
"Good heavens!" was Hillary's only audible comment, as he inwardly
thanked God that white people did not keep their dead so that they could
be inspected like grim photo albums on visiting days.
Ingrova gently hung up those sad heirlooms of his past affections on
their several nails again. Hillary, who by now had entered into the
tragic spirit of the weird homestead, pointed to the various gruesome
remains and asked Ingrova whose were the fourteen skulls that hung on a
kind of clothes-line that ran across the room, close to the roof. Even
old Oom Pa sighed as he watched Ingrova take down each bleached skull
and solemnly point to the empty sockets, telling of bright eyes and
gabbling tongues that once made music, sang songs, and knew laughter and
tears. One had been a great high priest who had died at the hands of the
white men sooner than swerve from the spiritual path that he deemed the
right one. He was one of the old Solomon Island martyrs. Hillary noticed
that this special skull was high-domed, revealing by its protuberance
the reverence that man has for higher things, and also imagination. The
teeth were perfect. Another was quite flat-headed, the hair woolly and
the eye-sockets small. After much preamble on Ingrova's part, Hillary
gathered that this skull belonged to the social reformer of the tribe.
Yet another high-domed remnant had bulging bone brows, the skull being
altogether curiously shaped. "Who was he, O mighty Ingrova?" said
Hillary with a good deal of reverence.
Ingrova answered in this wise: "He was, O papalagi, the great
witch-singer of these lands. It was in that little skull-hole where
flamed the magic that sang unto us, telling the sorrow of the dying
moons, and of the voices of wandering rivers and ocean caves. He looked
through those holes" (here the chief pointed to the empty eye-sockets),
"where stare the light of the stars, the sunsets and moonsets, when he
did once stand beneath these very palms, by that doorway, and say to my
tribe: 'Man am no long to live, and, too, his love and joy oft depart
ere his body go its way. All things must die, though the corals rise and
the palms stand for ever before the eyes of day, man's songs must cease
and he got to sleep.'"
"Dear me! What a nice old fellow he must have been," muttered Hillary.
Ingrova had gesticulated and spoken in such a way that he almost saw the
sorrow of the poet's long-dead eyes looking through the sockets of the
skull.
"Well, if this is a typical Solomon Island homestead, I'd sooner go out
visiting in dear old England," thought the apprentice, as Oom Pa
suddenly prostrated himself on the prayer-mat and, turning over on his
back, blew his stout, wrinkled stomach out with enormous breaths in some
religious rite. Hillary made a solemn face and, responding to Ingrova's
appeal, placed his brow against a dead man's beard that hung by the
window hole. It was with a feeling of considerable relief that he so
graciously bowed when two pretty native girls suddenly rushed into the
room and stared at him with wonder-struck eyes. His white face
fascinated them. They were attractive-looking maids, their massive
crowns of hair tastefully ornamented with frangipani and scarlet
hibiscus blossoms. Threaded shells dangled from their arms. One had
large earrings hanging from her artificially distended lobes. They were
two of Ingrova's granddaughters. They at once proceeded to flirt with
the apprentice, giving captivating glances from their fine dark eyes.
And when he accepted a flower from pretty Noma, the tallest girl, he
swiftly accepted a like offering from her companion, who had shot a
jealous glance at her sister from her warm dark eyes. In the meantime,
Oom Pa and Ingrova had met under the palms just outside the palavana.
Ingrova's eyes flashed with fire as old Oom Pa spoke close to his ear,
for they liked not a white man to call in their village without asking.
Though Ingrova was a brave chief, he too was a religious bigot, and his
heart swelled with much devotion as he thought of what his gods would
think to see the apprentice's skull hanging amongst his most sacred
religious trophies. He felt that a skull adorned with dark bronze curls
would be a prize worth securing. Oom Pa placed his dusky hand to his
mouth, coughed and looked around to see that none heard; then he said:
"I say, O mighty Ingrova, this white papalagi may seek our hidden idols
and be after no maid at all. What think you?"
And Ingrova replied: "O mighty Oom Pa, favoured of the gods, did I not
hear you say that you had seen such a one as this white maid?"
Oom Pa puckered up his wrinkled eyebrows and swiftly told Ingrova how a
white girl had danced unbidden on his great tambu _pae pae_ and then run
away into the forest. On hearing this much Ingrova looked towards the
palavan to see that the white man was not within earshot, and then,
swelling his majestic, tattooed chest and shoulders, said scornfully:
"It seemeth a grievous thing for a white maid to be missing, yet, I say,
do not these cursed papalagi come into our bays on their ships and steal
those we love, our wives, our sons and daughters, taking them to
slavery, O Oom Pa?"
"'Tis as thou sayest," responded the priest. For a moment he reflected,
then he looked up into Ingrova's eyes with deep meaning and said:
"Methinks 'tis true that he seeks a white maid, for he who hath a leg of
wood did pass this way, calling in strange tones to all whom he met; and
mark you, O Ingrova, this papalagi who is there in your palavana hath
one eye that is the colour of the day and one the hue of the night."
Ingrova at this wisely nodded, as though to say that he too had noticed
this strange thing. Then Oom Pa continued: "To have such eyes must mean
that he is favoured by the gods of his own race, and so 'twere well that
he should receive our friendship. And maybe, after all, 'tis the white
man's god who tattoos the skies!"
Ingrova sighed deeply as he thought of the exquisite skull that might
have adorned the walls of his palavana. Then he said: "'Tis well, Oom
Pa, for the youth is to my liking." And as they both stooped and
re-entered the palavana doorway the young apprentice little dreamed how
inscrutable Fate had given him one eye blue and the other brown so that
he might not be killed that day by a Solomon Island chief. Fondest
affection seemed to beam forth from Ingrova's eyes as he looked at the
apprentice. "Nice old heathen," thought Hillary, as the big warrior
sighed in deep thought and then placed his hands with regret among the
rare bronze curls of the apprentice's skull that _might_ have been his.
But to give them their due, both Oom Pa and Ingrova were relieved that
things were running smoothly. Together they took Hillary outside that he
might inspect the wonders of the village. As he crossed the tiny _raras_
(village greens) the dusky maids placed their hands where their hearts
beat and sighed over the beauty of his eyes and the wondrous whiteness
of his face.
"Damn it all! I could take an interest in all this if I only knew where
Gabrielle was," thought Hillary, as he looked on the strange scene of
native life around him. Notwithstanding his sorrows, he could not help
thinking how akin primitive life was to civilised life. "One blows his
nose on a palm leaf and the other on a silk handkerchief," he murmured
to himself. "Bless me, though it is a heathen village in the Solomon
Isles, its dusky, tattooed inhabitants seem imbued with the same ideas
and aspirations as my own people."
It was true enough: some of the tiny streets under the trees were clean
and had large, well-built huts that were covered artistically with
flowers of tropical vines. Other huts were small and very slovenly. Some
of the maids had flowers in their hair and shining traduca shells
hanging on their arms. Others wore tappa gowns, a few some remnant of
European clothing, such as cast-off skirts, blouses, bodices and
stockings. One or two wore only those undergarments that are frilled at
the knees and succeeded in showing off their terra-cotta limbs in a most
conspicuous fashion. Some had made real doors to their palavanas, whilst
others still had doors that were made of old sacking. One played a cheap
German fiddle while the kiddies on the _rara_ danced with glee. In front
of the native temple stood a monstrous idol, its big glass eyes
apparently agog with laughter. And on a stump, facing it, stood the
embryo parliamentary genius, Hank-koo, waving his skinny arms,
beseeching the high chiefs to pass a law that would compel all the other
chiefs to make their hut doors so that they opened inwards. "Why not
have doors that open inwards when 'tis as well as opening towards?" he
yelled, as he wiped his brow with a palm leaf. It was then that another
fierce-looking being jumped on to a stump. He too swore by Quat (first
god of heathen land) that for a door to open outwards was indeed
beautiful. "Can not a dying man's soul take flight with ease to
shadow-land instead of being compelled to pull the door back ere
departing hence?" And so the chiefs were always busy remaking doors that
opened inwards or outwards, as they continually changed their minds over
the virtues of such great things.
"Comer, papalagi!" said Ingrova, as he beckoned Hillary to return
towards his palatial palavana. "All is wonderful that I have seen, O
great Ingrova," said Hillary, as he stood once more outside the chief's
homestead.
And then, as the chief leaned on his war-club, swelling his massive
chest and bowing graciously, Hillary intimated that he must depart at
once.
Indeed the apprentice was getting impatient. "It's no good hanging about
here; this won't find Gabrielle," he thought, as he cursed the old
skulls and the atmosphere of gloom that Ingrova's gruesome exhibition
had cast over him. "Why should I be made melancholy through Ingrova's
dead relatives? I don't bring out the bones of my dead aunts and old
uncles to make men miserable." Such was his inward comment as he left
the chief and hurried away. Thoughts of Gabrielle's strange
disappearance returned to him with redoubled force. He recalled how she
had touched his hand for the first time. And as Hillary passed along by
the forest banyans and saw the deep indigo of the far distant ocean, he
stared on the rose-pearl flush of the sea horizon. "What a fool I was! I
could have easily persuaded her to bolt that night on the derelict," he
thought, as he once more started on his way back to Everard's.
In due course he arrived back at Everard's bungalow. The old man was
terribly upset when Hillary told him that he had heard nothing about his
daughter's whereabouts. He trembled violently as he looked up at Hillary
and said: "I've been up to Parsons's shanty: no one has seen Gabby, or
heard of her. What can it all mean?"
Hillary made no reply. He did his best to cheer the old sailorman up.
His unbounded faith in Gabrielle had returned. He recalled her innocent
manner when she had offered him the little flower out of her hair when
he had first met her on the lagoon. "No girl who gave a flower like that
could do wrong," he thought. Not only would he not entertain the idea
that a dark Papuan man could have influence over Gabrielle, but he also
persuaded the father to make no inquiries about the Rajah.
"What proof have you got that the Rajah is the kind of man who would
take advantage of any woman?" he inquired of Everard. Possibly he was
influenced to make these remarks by a kind of Dutch courage. He imagined
that there was far less chance of Everard's suspicions being true if he
himself blinded his own eyes to the possibilities of what a dark man
might persuade a white girl to do. Over and over again he had recalled
to memory Gabrielle's eyes as she had gazed into his own on the derelict
ship. "No! Impossible!" thought he. "I've got boundless faith in
Gabrielle; I feel certain she's only gone up to K----. She's probably
stopping with the German missionary's wife and will be back to-morrow."
"Why the blazing h---- didn't you go there to K---- and see?" said the
old sailor in a petulant voice, as he suddenly looked apologetically at
the apprentice. He had gripped Hillary's hand gratefully in the thought
that a strange youth should have such unbounded faith in his daughter.
"I've only just thought of Gabrielle's friendship with the missionary's
wife at K----," said Hillary.
Then Everard suddenly remembered that he had already sent a native
servant up to K---- to inquire.
All that night the old ex-sailor sat huddled in his arm-chair, crying
softly to himself. He swore that he'd never drink again or hurt a hair
of the girl's head if she returned safely home.
Hillary slept little. Once he walked into Gabrielle's bedroom, gazed on
her tiny trestle bed and thought of all she had said to him. Then he was
obliged to go out of doors and walk up and down under the palms in an
attempt to stifle his grief. In the morning he helped Everard to get the
breakfast. The old man spoke kindly to him and repeatedly muttered to
himself about his foolishness in thinking the youth was such a villain
because he happened to be stranded in Bougainville and hadn't a cent to
bless himself with.
"What did old Ingrova say?" suddenly asked the old man, as he swallowed
some hot tea.
"Oh, he had never even heard of Gabrielle."
"Never heard of her! The old liar!" almost yelled the old man.
Hillary turned beetroot-red. He swallowed some hot tea and nearly fell
on the floor. "You don't mean to say Ingrova's fooling us?"
"Don't worry, boy, Ingrova's all right. I know 'im!" said Everard.
"Thank God!" muttered Hillary. For he had suddenly called up terrible
visions of ferocious head-hunters dancing round Gabrielle's dying form.
Anyway, his fears were quite dispelled by Everard's manner and all that
he proceeded to tell him. As the ex-sailor and the apprentice talked and
then lapsed into silence over their own thoughts, the visitors began to
arrive. It appeared that the grief-stricken father had been about
telling all his friends that Gabrielle was missing from home. The first
one to arrive at the bungalow after breakfast was Mango Pango. When
Hillary opened the bungalow door she pretended to faint. Then she lifted
her hands above her head and went on in a most dramatic fashion as
Hillary explained to her that Gabrielle was still missing.
"Whater you do 'ere?" said the pretty Polynesian girl, as she looked out
of the corner of her eye as only a Polynesian maid can look without
squinting. "I never knew that you knew Misser Gaberlielle," she added,
as Hillary smiled. Then she went on in a terrible style, for she had
known Gabrielle since she was a child. "O Master Hill-e-aire, she kill!
Some one fiercer head-hunter gotter her and cutter her head off!" she
wailed, as she rolled her pretty eyes and then looked at Hillary in a
swift flash that said "No gooder you loving girler without head--eh?"
Giving this parting shot, Mango Pango ran off home to follow her
domestic duties. And then a batch of native women and two white men
arrived outside the bungalow to inquire if Gabrielle had returned. After
a deal of jabbering and unheard-of ideas as to the cause of the girl's
absence, they put the coins in their pockets and went off mumbling. And
still the old man gabbled on, saying: "How kind people are when folk are
in trouble."
Hillary at last put on his hat and went off to make further inquiries.
As he stood shaving himself before the mirror in the bungalow parlour,
he thought of all that Gabrielle had told him about the haunting
shadow-woman. He was half-inclined to tell the father of the girl's
strange talk on the derelict ship out in the bay. Then he decided not to
do so, thinking that the old sailor had quite enough trouble on his
shoulders. Somehow the thought of all that Gabrielle had told him about
that shadow-woman eased Hillary's mind. It gave him greater faith in the
girl. He remembered the look in her eyes when she had sung the weird
songs to him by the lagoon, and also in the forest once when they were
parting. "Perhaps she's a bit eccentric, and that accounts for her
strange absence," he thought. And the thought eased his mind and was
more pleasant than the thoughts that had begun to haunt him. He recalled
Rajah Koo Macka's handsome face. He also recalled how he had read that
dark men had strange and terrible influence over romantic girls. He knew
very well that Gabrielle was terribly impressionable. Hillary gave
himself a gash with his razor as he thought of this, and his hands began
to tremble. Then he hastily dressed himself and told Everard that he was
off to make inquiries about Macka. "We don't know _who_ he is; he might
be anyone, and villainous enough to lure your daughter deliberately
away, after all," said the apprentice, as he lit his pipe, said good-bye
to the old man and went off to search and make inquiries.
It was nearly dusk when Hillary returned from the villages and going
down to the beach by the grog bar came across a Papuan sailor who, he
had been told, was an old deck-hand off one of the Rajah's ships.
The artful Papuan at first swore that he did not know Macka, shook his
head and said: "Me no savee!"
Then Hillary took a handful of silver from his pocket and shook it
before the Papuan's eyes and hinted that if he could tell him of anyone
who _did_ know about Macka's social position he would get well rewarded.
In a moment the native's manner changed. He took Hillary under the palms
and told him a tale that fairly made the young apprentice gasp. And it
was a story that would make anyone gasp.
It was from this native's lips that Hillary heard for the first time
that Macka was an ex-missionary from Honolulu, and that he was a native
from one of the coastal tribal villages of New Guinea, a tribal race who
were the most ferocious and god-forsaken heathens in the Pacific world.
The half-caste native sailor turned out to be a rather intelligent man.
Indeed it appeared that he too was a converted heathen and had first got
acquainted with Macka while attending mission-rooms in New Britain.
"Do you mean to tell me that the Rajah Koo Macka is a member of a
religious society?" gasped Hillary, as the native took a nip of his
tobacco plug and then grinned from ear to ear.
"It am so, boss!" said the man. Then the native continued: "'E am Rajah
Makee and belonger misselinaries everywheres. 'E kidnapper too, and
often taker Papuan girls, boys, men and women by nighter when no one
looker!"
"What do you mean?" said the apprentice with astonishment, only vaguely
realising what "kidnapper" meant. Then the native calmly proceeded to
enlighten him, and in a few moments Hillary had heard enough to convince
him that the noble Rajah would not only be likely to abduct Gabrielle
from her home, but old Everard and himself too if he thought they'd
fetch a few dollars in the slave markets of the Bismarck Archipelago or
elsewhere.
So did Hillary discover that Rajah Macka was an inveterate cannibal,
living on the flesh and weakness of people of his own race. For it
appeared that he had sailed the Pacific for years, creeping into the
bays of remote isles and kidnapping girls, boys, men and women till his
schooner's hold was crammed up to the hatchways with a terrified human
merchandise. He usually sold the girls to chiefs in the Bismarck
Archipelago and New Guinea; the boys and men he disposed of in New
Guinea for plantation work or to be fattened up for sacrificial
festivals, the _piece de resistance_ of some mighty chief's
cannibalistic orgy. Macka was not the only one who dealt in the terrible
blackbirding trade; Germans, Dutchmen and even English skippers made it
their prime stock-in-trade.
Hillary could hardly believe his ears as he listened to the character of
the man who had been Everard's welcome guest. He took the native sailor
into Parsons's grog bar, primed him well with drink and finally got all
the information necessary to follow on the Rajah's track. He discovered
that he was a native of New Guinea, that he possessed a tambu temple
there and was known as the "great Rajah" for hundreds of miles in Dutch
New Guinea because he had been well educated by his heathen parents, who
had sent him to Honolulu to be initiated into the virtues of
Christianity.
Though the sun was blazing down with terrific vigour from the cloudless
sky, Hillary half ran as he stumbled across the tangled jungle growth on
his way back to tell Everard all that he had heard about the Rajah. The
native girls ran out of the little doors of the huts and begged him to
give them one brass button from his apprenticeship suit. Crowds of
native children, quite nude but for the hibiscus blossoms in their
mop-heads and a wisp of a loin-cloth, rushed by the palms with loaded
calabashes, crammed with fish caught in the shore lagoons. They were
flying onward to the market village, the Billingsgate of the Solomon
Isles; a place where shaggy-headed, sun-browned women exchanged shells
for the fresh, shining fish. But Hillary had no eye for the scenes
around him. He steamed like a wet shirt stuck out in the tropic sunlight
as he hurried on; and the constellations of jungle mosquitoes and fat
yellow sand-flies made their presence felt, driving their proboscis
spears deep into his flesh, buzzing their musical appreciation to find
he ate so well. The apprentice's heart was beating like a drum; already
the tale that he had heard had upset his ideas over the cause of
Gabrielle's absence. "Did she go off voluntarily with the Rajah, or had
he kidnapped her?" That thought haunted him, tortured him. He stared
towards the summits of the distant smoking volcanic ranges to the
north-west and thought how they resembled his own heart, that was near
to bursting with emotion, and how he too would like suddenly to shout
his passionate desires to the sky. He sighed as he cut across the silver
sands by the beach. He was going the long way round, for he dare not
pass by the lagoon where Gabrielle had once sung to him.
He was nearly dead with fatigue when he arrived at the bungalow. "Found
'er, boy?" came the dismal query that always smote his ears when he
returned to Gabrielle's home. Hillary simply shook his head and stared
into the glassy eyes of the old man. Then he sat down and told the
ex-sailor every word he had heard about Macka's schooner and his
reputation as a clever kidnapper of native girls and men in the Pacific
isles.
Old Everard jumped to his feet and hopped about on his wooden leg like a
raving madman. Hillary tried to hold him down.
Crash! The old man had stabbed the screen four times with his wooden
member. Crash! He had picked up his spare, best Sunday wooden leg and
smashed all the crockery off the shelf.
"Don't be a fool! Everard! Everard! Don't go mad!" yelled Hillary at the
top of his voice, as the demented sailor still smashed away.
"I'll save your daughter! I know where she is!" yelled the apprentice,
as he endeavoured to stop the ex-sailor's demented yells.
The furniture of the bungalow and all the crockery were smashed before
the mad old man calmed down. Then he took a pull at the rum bottle, sat
down on the settee and recovering his breath stood up again and shouted:
"Where's the _Bird of Paradise_, 'is ship? 'Is ship--has it sailed?"
yelled the old man. Then he shouted: "He's got her on the _Paradise_!
He's got 'er, my Gabby! I see it all now! He's an old blackbirder. Not a
Rajah! Not a godly missionary! By the holy Virgin, forgive me, forgive
me for being a damned fool!" the old fellow moaned, as he recalled Rajah
Macka's sombre voice and his exhortations when he had hesitated as to
whether he'd give up drinking rum or no.
Then the ex-sailor looked at Hillary and yelled: "Go, you blamed fool!
Go and see if the _Bird of Paradise_ has sailed from the harbour."
In a moment Hillary rushed away over the hills. In an hour he returned
to the bungalow and told Everard that the _Bird of Paradise_ had not
been seen in the bay of Bougainville since the night when Gabrielle had
been first missing.
"She's sailed in the night! 'E's got 'er! 'E's got 'er! She's gone! She
wasn't willing! 'E stole 'er, just like 'e steals native girls! Boy,
don't worry. She's a good girl, she is--one of the best," said the
distracted father, his voice lowering to a wailing monotone as he
steadily beat his wooden leg on the floor in despair and hope.
"Of course she's a good girl," said Hillary. His heart nearly stopped
beating at _that_, a thought he would not allow to haunt him.
"There's no time to lose, Mr. Everard. I'll get a berth on some ship
that's bound to New Guinea. I'll find a ship. I'll stow away, I'll do
anything to get there and find his tambu house and rescue Gabrielle from
his grasp. I'll steal, I'll rob anyone if it is necessary." And as the
apprentice said those things his eyes flashed fire, his face flushed
with all the hope and the emotion that was in him.
"I've got money, I've been saving for years, saving for 'er, but she
didn't know!" Everard suddenly exclaimed. Then he looked at Hillary and
continued: "Get a schooner; hire one; I'll pay! I'll spend a thousand to
get Gabby back and smash Macka up!" As he finished he brought his spare
wooden leg down crash on the table. Then he gripped the apprentice by
the hand. "Don't leave me yet, boy, I'm nervous. In the morning you can
go out into the bay and see if you can 'ire a schooner. It's three
weeks' sail to the New Guinea coast. Find out exactly where his blasted
coastal village is. Get all perticulars about 'im."
"Do you really think he's kidnapped Gabrielle? It seems extraordinary in
these enlightened times!" gasped the young apprentice, as he thought of
Gabrielle on a three weeks' voyage with Rajah Macka, the ex-missionary.
"Don't think! She's gone! Where is she?" Then the old man roared with
dreadful vehemence: "Why, damn it all, _I've_ been in the slave-trading
line! _I've_ crept into the native villages by night and stolen the
girls as they slept beneath the palms! Cloryformed 'em! Smothered 'em!
Tied 'em hup! Shot the b---- chiefs as they rushed from their dens to
save their darters and wives! _I_ 'ave! _I_ 'ave!"
"No!" That monosyllable expressed all the horror of which Hillary was
capable over Everard's sudden confession and his private thoughts as to
Gabrielle's fate on that schooner with Macka.
"It's retribution--that's what it is," wailed the old man.
Hillary took his hand and did his best to soothe him. Then he lit the
oil lamp and sat down by the weeping ex-sailor.
"My Gabby's like 'er mother, beautiful gal, but she's 'aunted in 'er
'eart by them spirits of the Papuan race. 'Er mother seed a spirit-woman
spring out from under the bed one night afore she died!"
"A spirit-woman!" gasped Hillary. Then he continued: "Do you mean to
tell me that there are such things as spirit-women running about
Bougainville?"
The old man looked vacantly into the apprentice's eyes for a second,
then said languidly, as though, he was too grieved to talk: "I seed a
shadder meself ther other night, 'ere in this very room!"
Hillary looked sideways at the empty rum bottles in the corner of the
room, then back again at the old man's bleary eyes. "He's got a touch of
the D.T.'s," thought the young apprentice.
Before midnight Everard lay in a drunken sleep. Hillary had made up a
bed by the couch, but he couldn't sleep. The idea of the girl being
really abducted nearly sent him mad. Then he thought of Gabrielle's
strange talk on the hulk about shadow-women and of all that Everard had
just told him about his wife's being haunted by similar shadows. The
idea of the shadow-woman haunted his mind in an unaccountable way,
although he was naturally sceptical about such things as ghosts and
enchantments.
He sat by the small open window of the bungalow and, as the scents of
the orange-trees drifted in on the cool night zephyrs, thought over all
he had read about sorcerers, of the haunting shadow-figures that played
such a prominent part in the love affairs of the medieval ages. Then he
looked out of the window on to the moon-lit landscape and saw the tall,
feathery palms; he even heard the rattling of the derrick of some
schooner that was leaving before dawn. He thought of Mango Pango singing
her old legendary songs in a chanting voice as she peeled spuds and
chopped up the indigestible bread-fruit and tough yams for dinner, and
finally summed up his belief in spirits in the one word "Rot!"
And as old Everard lay just by him, snoring with a mighty bass snore, he
felt half sorry that he couldn't bring himself to believe implicitly
that a shadowwoman _had_ lured the girl away from her home and had
stopped her from keeping the tryst.
"A shadow leaping about--preposterous! Sounds like Doctor Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde. Perhaps she's been reading that book, and told her father about it
while he was under the influence of drink," reflected Hillary. He even
brightened up as he persuaded himself that the girl's wild sayings and
her evident terror had all been brought about through reading that book.
"She's under the influence of Jekyll--that's what's the matter with this
Everard family. Why, bless me, it's all natural enough. I myself am out
here in the Solomon Isles through reading books. I'd never have met
Gabrielle, never heard of strangling shadows and that cursed Rajah Macka
if it hadn't been for Captain Marryat, Fenimore Cooper and Stevenson."
The young apprentice began to brighten up considerably as he reflected
over the whole business. Everard's snores sounded quite musical. He even
began to think that if a terrible tragedy _had_ occurred and Gabrielle
was abducted and he was destined to go off and search for her across the
seas, it was not so dreadful as nothing happening at all.
So he thanked God that he was in the Solomon Isles, living amongst
tattooed natives and strange old ex-sailormen who saw shadows and evil
enchantresses dodging about their bungalow verandahs or racing under the
moon-lit palms.
And as he pondered and listened to the faint, far-off thunder of the
surf on the coral reefs off Felisi beach he heard the guttural voices of
the German sailors singing a chantey as their grey tramp-steamer went
out on the tide, bound for the Bismarck Archipelago. Old Everard was
still wheezing heavily, and at last Hillary too fell asleep to the sound
of that steady snore.