The first days of any voyage are admirable in proportion as little, or
nothing, is said of them. In this, as in other phases of human
intercourse, delicacy lies in restraint rather than in eloquence. Thus
is the bloom of society preserved.
Mr. Dodge, the self-confident, the experienced, the ubiquitous, was
first to "show up." The outer reefs of the California coast do not tend
toward placidity. Even Dodge did not care to count the hours since he
had begun to feel "sleepy" and had sought his cabin.
Mr. Todd next met the sun. To be more accurate, it was a fog, where only
a small bright spot, rubbed as in the centre of a tarnished tray,
indicated our chief luminary. Todd's cap was pulled very low, his ulster
collar very high. His hands disappeared utterly into large pockets. He
walked with the jerky directness of a marionette toward the
smoking-room.
On the third day, when the sun actually shone and the pewter sky was
undergoing a gradual transformation into blue enamel, Mr. Todd was
able to sit on deck,--he still remained noticeably near the
smoking-room,--and to enjoy unprintable yarns from fellow-smokers.
Missionary children began to gambol around the promenade deck, and over
the feet of swathed and flaccid mortals, lately exhumed, all with the
blinking regard of insects suddenly disclosed beneath a garden stone.
Dodge, for a wonder, was not in sight. Mr. Todd had his back toward the
main-deck exit from the salon, when one of the group about him thumped a
knee, stared up, crying, "By G--, look at that!" and called loudly upon
his Maker to witness that the sight was fair.
Out to the deck had blown a golden apparition,--a tall, slim girl with
yellow hair crushed under a wide and most unsailor-like hat of yellow
sea-poppies. Her skirts and the rest of her were silken browns and
yellows. She made straight for the group, rustling like a small eddy in
a heap of autumn-leaves. Todd turned a few inches. At the expression on
his face a third convive nudged the speaker. "Oh, er--beg ten thousand
pardons--didn't have an idea--" mumbled the crimson one.
"Neither did I," said Todd, enigmatically, as he rose.
"Oh, dearest of dads," they heard a fresh voice cry. "Now isn't this a
world with the top off? I feel like a bunk caterpillar turned into a
butterfly."
Pierre followed his three emancipated comrades, immediately after
"tiffin," as the midday meal hereafter must be called. He was, as usual,
immaculate in attire, but bore an air of citric melancholy.
Next arose, in all her might, Mrs. Cyrus Carton Todd. In her aggressive
costume of starched piqué, fortified by gold lorgnettes and an air
carefully adapted from certain acknowledged "grandes dames" of
Washington, she took immediate possession of the Captain, the best deck
chair, and the passenger list. As wife of a senator and lady of the new
American minister to Japan, she was accepted at once, without demur,
reigning Empress of the voyage.
Sportive infants, oblivious of comfortably extended limbs of lesser
mortals, skirted those of Mrs. Todd. Silent Chinese "boys," dispensing
beef-tea and gruel, swung pigtails aside from her austere garments.
Of the party Yuki alone now abode in the mysterious seclusion of her
stateroom.
Before sunset, on that third afternoon, the sea, to use the Captain's
expression, quieted into a "bloomin' mill-pond." White birds fluttered
incessantly about the stern of the ship, sometimes sinking to the waves
for an unstable rest, or rising to visit, in one great silver swoop, the
startled and delighted passenger deck.
Pierre found a chair beside his chaperon. He moved it a confidential
three inches nearer before asking, "Will she not be able to come up
sometime before to-morrow? This is perfect."
"She has commissioned me to say that she will try to make the effort
this evening, after our dinner; that is, if--" here she shook a playful
finger--"_if_ I will play propriety, and any kindly disposed person
could be found to assist her upstairs."
"Ah! I'll go down now, and take seat upon her doormat," cried Pierre, in
his excitement.
"The Chinese coolie might spill chicken broth upon you."
The day waned slowly. Passengers were beginning already their
postprandial walks. Mrs. Todd nodded patronizingly to one and then to
another.
"Madame," began Pierre, with his caressing look, "you have been almost
as a mother--a good, indulgent mother--to me in that big land of yours.
You will continue to be my very good friend in Japan, will you not?"
"Why, silly boy, of course I will," she cried. "Have not I always been
your friend and Yuki's,--even to the point of what Cyrus called
'entangling alliances'?"
"It is because of its preciousness that I want to hear you say it, dear
Mrs. Todd. After all, I am ignorant of Japan, and of what social
phantoms Yuki and I may have to fight. But with your championship, I am
strong, invincible!" He gave her fat hand just the most delicate of
pressures. It might have been the touch of a devoted son; it might, had
Mrs. Todd been twenty years younger, have been--well, almost anything.
His dark, impassioned eyes, the color of new-opened violets, hung on her
kindly face.
If fault could be found with Pierre, it would be in excess of beauty.
From the old blood of France he had received refinement, poise,
delicacy,--the throbbing of purple veins in temples as satin-smooth as
young leaves, and thin nostrils that shivered at every passing gust of
emotion. From the more barbaric, vivid Russian mother had come depth of
coloring, the flash of sudden animation, deep blue in the eyes, and gold
in the hair. Yet with all its fairness the face was not effeminate. One
could think of it, without offence, in the armor of a young crusader, or
even behind the mediæval visor of a robber-baron. There might be a hint
of cruelty behind the wet crimson of the perfect mouth. To Yuki that
face was the epitome of all earthly beauty. Before it, the artist in her
knelt, in adoration.
Shortly after twilight came the reverberating clamor of the first
dinner-gong. Mrs. Todd and her feminine satellites had agreed to
"dress." Mrs. Todd had never made acquaintance with a décolleté gown
until her entrance into Washington, not so many years before. Now she
was wont to declare loudly that she could not really enjoy her evening
meal in covered shoulders,--a statement which always brought the
twinkles to Todd's eyes. He openly loathed his "tombstone shirt-front;"
but Gwendolen, of a later and more favored generation, wore her pretty
low-cut frocks as unconsciously as a flower wears its sheath.
Pierre sat through the interminable courses, scarcely knowing what he
ate or to whom he spoke. His thoughts were all with Yuki. He was to see
her again after three endless days! The little cool, slim palm would
lie, perhaps, in his. He would hear her voice, as different from these
chattering table women all around him as is the sound of running water
to the whirr of machines. The past ten days of journeying--though indeed
they had not been for a moment entirely alone--left a delicious aroma of
familiarity, almost of married friendship. What hours the future was to
hold for them in Japan, in Europe, in India!
Mrs. Todd's half-teasing voice drew him back from the dear reverie.
"Come, Mister Le Beau, dinner is over at last. I noticed that you ate
nothing. The Captain has been telling us the most delightful jokes. But
we must not forget our promise to Miss Onda. Gwendolen, dear, will you
go on deck and see that a chair is made ready for the poor child?" The
speaker had been rising ponderously. She turned again to the Captain.
"These Japanese are always wretched sailors, I am told."
"No good, any of them!" corroborated the Captain, with emphasis. "The
sight of a floral anchor at a landlubber's funeral is enough to make
them ill."
"I wonder how it will be with their admirals before the Russian navy,"
mused Todd, with pensive eyes on a blue-gowned Chinese steward.
"It wouldn't matter either way," sneered the Captain. "No fight is going
to come off! I've known these Yokohama Japs for seventeen years, Mr.
Todd. A bad lot! They are just trying a game of bluff borrowed from--no
offence, gentlemen--from America." The Captain was a Liverpool
Englishman.
"Just so!" grinned Dodge, "the kind of bluff that works,--recipe handed
down by one G. Washington."
Pierre and Mrs. Todd approached Yuki's cabin. She heard them, and
tottered to the entrance of the tiny passage. Her face shone ghastly
white above the square black collar of her adzuma-coat. Pierre instantly
drew her arm within his own. She clung to him helplessly for an instant,
then, with an obvious effort, rallied and stood erect.
"There, there, now, keep to Pierre's arm," encouraged Mrs. Todd, with
the smile of a patron deity. "If you'll promise to be good, I'll go
ahead and not look around." She preceded them slowly along the passage.
Her décolleté back loomed, in the dim light, like the half of a large,
round cheese.
Yuki, once safely on deck, tucked lovingly among soft rugs and pillows
by Gwendolen, found little indeed to say. Mrs. Todd gave orders, before
sweeping off to her game of bridge whist, that Yuki must not be teased
into talking, but must lie still, and let the night air and the breeze
refresh her. Pierre, of course, remained by her side. He cared little
though the whole ship knew that he loved the Japanese girl and longed to
make her his wife. Dodge and Gwendolen had affairs of their own to
settle, and disappeared around the other side. Gradually the deck was
deserted by all but Pierre and his companion. He secured a small hand in
his own. The girl was too languid, or perhaps too blissful, to demur.
"Oh, to be seasick is most unpleasantest thing of all!" she whispered
once, with a short but very genuine shudder. "I shall never cross back
on this water,--never, never! The little bed downstairs it seem like a
grave, and one wish hard that it was truly a grave."
After another long silence, broken only by whispered sentences from
Pierre, she pointed to a constellation. "How nice and kind the stars are
to come out here with us, so far from home! That cluster is exactly the
same one I used to watch from my little room at school. When I see it in
Japan, and count the stars to be sure all have followed, it will be
stranger feeling yet."
"Darling," said Pierre, "sometime we are to carry that little shining
group the whole way round the world with us,--when you are my wife."
The great ship rose softly and sank again, as if breathing. The stars
stared in, unwinking. Yuki's face was deepening in sweet content. Every
shiver of the engine, every angry hurtling of the insulted waters,
thrust them consciously nearer to Japan.
Roughening waves, toward the night of the fourth day, indicated,
according to the Captain, approach to the Hawaiian Islands. He added,
"If any one is keen enough on it to get up at daybreak, he will see the
first outlying peaks."
Todd, in a passion of romantic interest that was part of the whole
marvellous epic, climbed to the deck before dawn. The stars, he fancied,
looked coldly upon him, as if they resented his presence at their coming
defeat. He leaned far over, watching waves that lapped the sides of the
ship in a strange rhythm. Under the brightening day he stared across an
ocean apparently as eternal and infinite as space, that stretched, he
knew, north and south beyond him, twelve thousand miles of unbroken
liquid desert from pole to pole. And yet through the centuries, this
perilous waste had been crossed from oasis to island oasis by the frail
canoes of men;--dark Polynesian painted savages with marvellous powers
of carving and inlaying, who had left traces of their coming from New
Zealand to Alaska, and through the Philippines to Japan. He pictured the
advent of that first dusky Ulysses who, in feathered armor and a Greek
helmet carved from a cinnamon-tree, had here, ages before, terminated
his thousand-mile wanderings from a forgotten South. All this had now
become a new world for Todd's own light-haired Saxon race to fall heir
to, stepping-stones in its inevitable stride to the teeming coasts of
Asia.
Yuki, too, in such excitement that she could barely stop to dress, had
been staring out of the port-hole of her stateroom since an early hour.
If one of the great birds swooping incessantly along the sides of the
ship had paused to look, he would have seen a small face, white as
himself, fitted into the round brass frame. She was there before dawn
had quickened under the sea. The mystery and the first unspeakable
shiver of a newly created day had been hers. "'And God moved upon the
face of the waters,'" whispered reverent Oriental lips. She saw the
first dark triangle of land glide toward her through the thinning
darkness,--the shimmer of rose and green on half-veiled slopes, the
gradual lighting up of tapering peaks,--and then, the full orchestration
of the risen sun.
She reached the deck to find not only Mr. Todd, but the greater number
of the passengers, assembled to watch the gorgeous spectacle from the
entrance of Honolulu Bay. Night had rolled up from the sleepy town, and
surged in great sails of pearl-tinted cloud up dark blue-green gullies
of the hills. Red scars of volcanic slopes burned through the morning,
whole peaks seemed incandescent, and terraced gardens, cleared from
lower mists, stood outlined in reflected orange light.
A few moments more, and the iridescent pageant vanished. Down on the
shore, rude wharves and freight-sheds and cheap, new-painted boat-houses
stared out impertinently. Back of the harbor front the little town
nestled prettily enough in its setting of tropic greens, and half-way up
the volcanic cliffs patches of tilled fields or clumps of forest-trees
relieved the sandy wastes. At intervals a tall white house among its
palms shone out like a child's block, half imbedded in moss.
As the ship touched the dock, and the company broke up to watch the
native boys diving for coppers, Mrs. Todd gathered her clan together for
a holiday on shore. Yuki had decided to wear a white American gown.
Gwendolen also was in white, like a great lily. Dodge showed up in
spotless duck and a pith helmet; Pierre wore immaculate flannels; while
Mrs. Todd, in the stiffest of skirts, the thinnest of lawn waists, and a
white linen Alpine hat a trifle too small, looked unfortunately like a
perfume bottle with a white leather top.
They walked in radiant single-file down the gangway, the faces of all
three women changing to sudden blankness at the appalling rigidity of
earth, after recent days on a swaying deck. "I--I--don't believe I can
walk at all, just yet," said Mrs. Todd, and reached out for her natural
protector. In an instant Dodge had whistled up two cabriolets driven by
sleepy-eyed Kanakas in California hats. At the market, a low
Spanish-looking edifice with no walls, Mrs. Todd insisted upon getting
out. Some one on the ship had told her to be sure to see the market; and
this the conscientious traveller intended to do, though the very peaks
above them seemed to rock and leap with subconscious friskiness. Here
thronged a mingled race, both buyers and sellers,--English, Japanese,
Chinese, Hawaiians, and Yankees. All the vegetable stands were owned by
Chinese, all the fruit by Kanakas. Dodge insisted on the fact as
eloquent of racial tendencies. In this magic climate the growth of
vegetables is accompanied by an even more fervid growth of weeds, and so
requires patient vigilance. Fruit, on the other hand, cultivates itself.
"All the lordly Hawaiian has to do," said Dodge, "is to stand or sit
under the tree, and let it fall into his lap." Gwendolen took the value
from this last remark by indicating a heap of horny "jackfruit,"--a
thing the shape and size of a watermelon, which grows out of the trunk,
apparently, of live oaks, and asking, scornfully, how much Kanaka would
be left when one of those had fallen.
The fish dealers' department gleamed with iridescent color. Shrimps and
crabs seemed fashioned in Favrille glass. Lobsters wore polka-dots of
blue. None of these crustacea had claws, but whether deprived of them by
man or nature was never ascertained.
As they drove up the narrow avenues, the unique mixture of the
population became more apparent. Chinese evidently formed the inferior
caste of laborer, content with a daily wage. Cleverer Japanese bustled
about newly opened shops of foreign wares, or hung out professional
signs of doctor, lawyer, or notary public. The Yankee strolled about
with a half-disdainful glance; but the lordliest was not so proud as the
ragged sons of Kamehameha, who, preëmpting shady nooks in doorways,
stared disapprovingly on the passer-by. In the grounds of the former
"palace," members of a present legislature lolled on the green, and
nibbled peanuts. Pert Kanaka girls, in New York shirt-waists and
automobile veils, minced by the side of fat mamas in Mother Hubbard
gowns, generally of red, with huge ruffles about the yoke.
"Stop, Cy! Tell the man to stop. There's a druggist! I have several
things to get!"
"And look! next to it a book-store advertising the latest novels,"
supplemented Gwendolen. "Doesn't that seem a joke? We must get some. I
see souvenirs, and photographs, and--"
"I'll tell you what we'd better do. You women-folks get out and shop. Le
Beau will stick to Yuki, I guess; while Dodge and I take this carriage
around to the post-office,--I've heard there was one,--and try to find
out the latest news about the war," cried Mr. Todd.
In a quarter of an hour they were back, breathless. "War's coming, and
it's coming soon!" panted the senator.
"Yes, that's the ticket. Japan has called, and Russia must show her hand
or crawfish," supplemented Dodge.
"But not really, really--yet _begun_?" whispered Yuki, who had turned
very pale.
"What _does_ the young man mean?" asked Mrs. Todd, anxiously, of her
spouse. "I can't believe in irresponsible war rumors. I _sha'n't_
believe them. Why, only two days before we left Washington, Prince
Breakitoff assured me solemnly that the difficulty would never be
allowed to reach the point of war."
Mr. Todd winked toward his secretary. "Well," he said solemnly, "Prince
Breakitoff ought to know more about the facts of the case than a
Hawaiian newspaper."
"He certainly _ought_ to," said Dodge, ambiguously.
"War! Who dares to hint of war?" cried Pierre. "Look at this sky above
us, and that tangle of sun and shower dragging rainbow echoes across a
peacock-colored bay! Who could be found to fight on such an earth? Do
you not say so, too, my Yuki?"
Yuki started slightly, and hesitated, as if to form her words. Before
she could speak, Dodge had interrupted: "As long as we are so close,
would you-all mind walking one more block on foot? The prettiest sight
in the town is just to the left of that jutting brick wall down there."
He pointed. Mrs. Todd was off. Yuki slipped in close to Gwendolen, and
clung to her friend's arm. She did not want to think, just now, of war.
Past new American shops they went, ice-cream "parlors," dry-goods
displays of underwear,--"marked down" sales, of course,--and windows of
ready-made gowns on insipid waxen dummies. Dodge had taken a few feet in
advance. He now turned sharply, facing into a narrow street, one of the
old native thoroughfares, bordered by walls of brick and stone where
moss spread and dampness oozed. On an absurdly narrow pavement squatted
a row of fat and shapeless beings, presumably women, half buried in
wreaths and coils of strange flowers.
"Behold the far-famed lei sellers of Hawaii!" announced Dodge, with an
histrionic gesture.
"I see no hens," said Mrs. Todd, through raised lorgnettes.
"These are a different brand of lei," explained Dodge, without a smile;
"flower-wreaths that are to the hat of the Hawaiian dandy what an orchid
or a gardenia is to the button-hole of a Fifth Avenue sport."
The sellers had sprung instantly into kneeling postures, all as if
pulled by a single wire. Brown arms went forth, like those of crabs,
flower hung. "Lei, lei, Honolulu lei! Prettie flower! Prettie ladees!
Dollar--Fufty cents! Here, ladee, prettie lei, twunty-fi' cents!"
"Offer a quarter for three, and see them hustle," said Dodge.
"Oh, what visions of beauty!" breathed Gwendolen, and flung down silver
coin at random. "See, ropes of carnations! Pink oleanders threaded into
regular cables! And oh, the lovely yellow things,--my color,--golden
acacias, I believe. I shall loop myself like an East Indian idol in
these fragrant necklaces. And what are those purple things, and those?
Why, why, I don't know the others at all. I thought I was friends with
every flower. They smell like heaven!"
"Frangipani, ylang-ylang, stephanotis, plumaria, acacia," rattled Dodge,
in the tone and manner of a professional guide.
"What a delightful courier you would make, Mr. Dodge!" cried saucy
Gwendolen. "I think I'll bespeak your services, now, for my wedding
journey."
"I'm jolly well apt to be along on that particular trip, you
know," retorted the young man, with such cool assurance that all
laughed--except Mrs. Todd. That good lady had begun to view, with some
apprehension, the over-confident tactics of the attaché. Gwendolen,
after an unsuccessful attempt to stare him "down," bent flushed cheeks
and laughing eyes to the flowers. "We must all wear _lei_, of course,"
she cried, a trifle unsteadily. "It's positively the only thing to do on
such a day! Yuki, pink carnations will be ravishing on your little white
sailor-hat, and also, by a happy coincidence, on Pierre's new Panama.
Dad, you and mother must have this divine stephanotis, mixed with a
little smilax, for a green old age. Just think of buying strung
stephanotis by the yard! And, Mr. Dodge,--last and not least, Mr. T.
Caraway Dodge!--" Mockingly she caught up a string of magenta-colored
"bachelor buttons," and would have offered them with a curtsey; but
already Dodge had carefully wound his helmet in coils of acacia flowers
until it had become, in shape and size, an old-fashioned beehive made of
gold.
This time she presented her back squarely. The others withheld laughter
until they should have read the expression on the chaperon's face. But
she, oblivious apparently of this new bit of daring, had lorgnettes at
her eyes, and was studying carefully a closely written list,--a
composite of suggestions, made up for her by admiring ship friends.
"Punch Bowl Crater, The Bishop Museum, Banana Plantations, Waki-ki
Beach,--note colors on the shoals,--House where R. L. Stevenson
resided," she was murmuring, as though to fix each in her memory.
Suddenly she looked up. "Cyrus, the carriages! I doubt whether we can
get them all in, but I intend to do my best."
"Mother!" began Gwendolen, in a note of protest. Yuki was smiling, and
Pierre also. As long as they were together, nothing else mattered. The
countenance of Dodge, however, had an acrobatic fall from elation to
horrified disappointment. At sight of this, Gwendolen actually glittered
mischief.
"Certainly, mother dear," she hastened to answer. "Let us take
everything in,--even a little more, if possible. We all need our minds
improved,--and some of us our manners!" Dodge, darting a look into her
face, found only trustful innocence. The carriages had arrived. With
great ostentation he assisted Mrs. Todd into her place. "I think I shall
be able to supply one or two interesting spots not down on that list,"
he suggested, with a tentative look at the empty cushion beside her.
"Claus Spreckels' house, the Infirmary, the Honolulu University with
miles of hedges made up of volcanic stone overgrown with night-blooming
cereus--you mustn't miss that!" Dodge's eyes and his smile were
frankness embalmed and irradiated. Mrs. Todd perforce smiled in reply.
"Jump in," she said cordially. "You're quite a treasure in travelling,
Mr. Dodge."
Gwendolen meekly took a rear seat by her father. As she pressed lovingly
against him, sending upward the tiniest little teased smile of
discomfiture, his face broke into merry wrinkles. "I think you've found
your match this time, little girl," he whispered.
"You just wait," nodded the oracular Gwendolen.
* * * * *
It is a memorable experience, analogous to nothing else in the world,
that landing, for one iridescent day, in the Pacific's mid-ocean,
throwing one's fancies and one's heart into strange tropic scenes, and
then returning at nightfall, like tired, happy children, to the great
old mother-nursery of the ship.
By the next morning, not even a cloud on that horizon from which we are
fleeing betrays the hiding-place of land. At once the island takes
proper place as a vision, a mirage of the imagination, where souls of
certain privileged beings have met, and are henceforth bound in a unity
of mystic comradeship. After such a day, Pacific passengers turn to one
another with kindlier smiles, the whole ship changes into one heaving
picnic party, old Time himself joins in the holiday, and personal
dislikes, brought on board, are flung to the waves. That most of these
animosities, like the Biblical bread, return to the owners after not so
many days, need not affect present hilarity.
As may be supposed, Gwendolen and her closest attendant, Dodge, were
small whirling centres in the round of gay diversions. The conventional
deck-games were started, and a terminating three days of competitive
skill, with prizes bought at Honolulu and marked with the name of the
ship and date of voyage, duly announced. Revelry was to culminate in a
grand "fancy dress ball," the night before landing, a prize being given
to the costumer who showed most skill in fashioning his or her attire
from things procurable on board ship, and in carrying out the character
assumed. In order to waste no more time upon this function, it may be
stated that Mr. T. Caraway Dodge as "Dandy Jim,"--with painted purple
rings on a dress shirt and a "claw-hammer" coat a size too small, ebony
countenance, lips like two flaming sausages caught loosely at the ends,
and a wig fashioned from the hair of his bunk mattress,--sang and
cake-walked himself straight to the prize, while defeated contestants
rent night with applause and acclamation.
From the smoking-room an incessant clinking, as of fairy castanets,
fretted the ears of feminine curiosity. Mr. Todd explained that it was
merely the sound of checkers and chessmen rattling to the shiver of the
ship's screw.
The sun came up each morning, small and round, like a mandarin orange;
expanded himself into a blinding deity; and at evening went down again,
a blood-red orange, into the sea. The days he brought were long and
golden, but not long enough for all the practising of bull-board,
quoits, shuffle-board, and deck tennis. Each morning, after breakfast,
certain acrobatic performances, free of charge, were held. Bag-punching
was the children's favorite. One could count on an audience there, of
upturned faces, wide-eyed and solemn with admiration. Some of the
passengers saw fit to attach pedometers, and walk an incredible number
of miles each day.
In the evening, Mrs. Todd and bridge whist reigned supreme. The Captain
proved to be a player; so, to his present anguish, was Dodge. Gwendolen
took an elfish delight in luring this young man to a table, under
pretence of desiring to be his partner, and then, at the last moment,
slipping in a foreordained substitute; after which she sped off,
carolling, to a moonlit deck. Once there, the fuming and impotent Dodge
recognized only too clearly what she would do. At least a dozen new
acquaintances of the other sex had been made thus far by Gwendolen. It
was her wont to dispense Emersonian philosophy and delicately portioned
encouragement to those who were fortunate enough to secure her
companionship. There was a young Dutch merchant on his way to coffee
plantations in Java, very blond and fierce as to mustachios, and mild in
the eyes. A Chicago representative, on his way to sell to Eastern
potentates his particular make of automobile, had already needed, to
quote Gwendolen's own, words, "a slight slackening of speed."
An English "leftenant" returning to South Africa, carried with him his
own marvellous outfit for the making of afternoon tea, backed by a
mammoth English plum-cake in a tin box. He was one to be propitiated,
especially toward eight bells on an afternoon.
An Austrian viscount posed as the slayer of jungle beasts. "Beeg gam,"
he called them. He doted upon seeing this timid and shrinking maid cower
beneath the bloody wonder of his yarns. No one before had inspired such
thrilling denouements as Mees Todd. He recognized her at once for his
affinity, and on the night before landing condescended to tell her so.
The shock was rude, but he deserved what he got.
Pierre and Yuki joined in these several amusements and occupations
during the morning and afternoon hours, both being much petted and
nattered by the ladies of the ship, as beau ideals of young lovers. In
the evenings, on the balmy deck, they were left to themselves. Wonderful
talks grew between them,--whispers, sometimes, that the jealous wind
tore from their lips before the last word came. Yuki had not won back
the half-troth given, nor, on the other hand, had Pierre gained more.
Often their talk was of impersonal things. The young man delighted to
draw from Yuki quaint phrases of comment, and hints of the Oriental
imagery with which her fancy thrilled. She told him the story of the
stars, Vega and Aquilla, called in her land the Herd-Boy and the
Weaver-Girl; how, for some fault, committed before this little earth was
made, they could cross the milky stream of Heaven, and meet, but one
night in a year.
When he pointed to a flock of flying fish skimming in a blue and silver
phantasy above a turquoise floor, she called them the souls of birds
that had flown too far from land, and been drowned at sea.
Within a few days of landing, a certain change, perceptible, it may be,
only to the most sensitive, crept into the elements of air and water,
and tinged even the up-piling clouds. Yuki stared now, for long moments,
in silence, toward that hidden bank of the West. Pierre felt a change in
her; but when he questioned, she laughed a little nervously, and said it
was merely the outer edge of Nippon's "aura." Undoubtedly she was
restless, a little moody, a trifle excited, and touched, at times, with
brooding thoughts. She dreaded the opening with Pierre of topics which,
all along, she had tried to avoid. Yet now, so close to home, she must
make stronger efforts to free herself.
One afternoon at sundown, when the great reverberating "dressing gong"
had sent most of the ladies below-stairs, Pierre, hurrying up to Yuki,
where, for a half-hour past she had sat alone in a far corner of the
deck looking outward, leaned and said:
"This promises to be the most wonderful sunset of all. It may be our
last. The Captain has just told me that, with good luck, we sight land
to-morrow. Do you dare come out with me to the very prow of the ship?"
"Yes, I dares," smiled Yuki, rising instantly. "I have wished often to
go to that small, lonely point of ship." As they started, he caught up a
discarded wrap. "The wind is fresher there," he said.
In a few moments she remarked, in a slightly embarrassed tone, "That
will be a very good place to say--something."
Pierre made no reply. He also had been thinking of it as an excellent
place in which to say--something.
Together, in silence, they made way over the aerial bridge that connects
the triangular front deck with the main one; moving over the heads of
steerage passengers, principally Chinese, who squatted in the sunken
square to breathe in what they could of the cool, evening breeze. The
sun was setting,--"a polished copper gong like that ship one which makes
much noise," said Yuki. It sank, clear-cut and very round, just at that
point of the horizon where Nippon might be thought to lie.
Pierre placed the girl in the small angle at the peak. An arm was
stretched behind her, and a hand clung to the rail, to protect them
both. He leaned forward until his cheek almost pressed against her own.
The soft incessant rush of wind blew her heavy hair back from a forehead
spiritually pure and white. Her long, delicately modelled nose and small
curved chin made a cameo against the blue-gray stone of dusk. Pierre,
watching her intently, saw the last red ray of the sun quiver on her
lips. The little hands were raised, as if unconsciously, and clapped
thrice, very softly.
"Are you praying to your sun-god, little Christian Yuki?"
"Oh, no, indeed," said Yuki, quickly. "It is not prayer as we Christians
call praying; it is only just our Japanese way of thanking Sun San for
his great beauty, and the much good he does flowers, and people, and
everything. In Japan we often thanks things just for being beautiful."
She smiled up confidingly into his face. Her little hands, now lowered,
flecked the rail like bits of white foam.
"Then I should pray to you, my darling, for in all this world never was
anything more beautiful."
She made no effort to answer this, not even by her usual small,
deprecating smile and shake of the head. The necessity of what she was
to say, blotted from those first moments by visual beauty, now came
heavily back to her. She steadied herself, turning slightly to see his
face.
"Pierre, trust me a little more. Give back that promise,--the promise
you won from my weakness. It holds me from my path like a thorn. Our
cause will be better without it."
Pierre started, and looked at the girl incredulously. "Have you let me
lead you here deliberately to ask me such a thing?"
"Do not admit anger to your thought, dear Pierre," she pleaded. "I must
have said some time. I should have said to you long before this; but we
have been so--happy."
"Yes," said Pierre, doggedly. "We have been happy; and I intend that we
shall be happier still. That promise is all I have to hold you by. I'd
draw it tighter if I could."
"You will not understand,--you will not try to understand me," said the
girl, in a despairing voice. "Such promise given is disrespect to my
parents, particularly to my father. If you do not release, I must tell
to him, of course. It will be bad for you and me. Can you not trust me?
Oh, Pierre, for love's sake, release--!"
"Release you!" he interrupted wildly. "This is my answer. It is for
love's sake that I hold you, and will hold." He seized her in his arms,
and held her with cruel strength. The night had come in fast. He did not
care that the watchman by the tall, straight mast might see them. No one
could hear the wind-driven, hurrying words. "This is my answer. I hold
thus all you have given,--and more. You are sincere, I believe, but
mistaken. A weak yielding on my part would make your parents, and
perhaps yourself, despise me. I keep what I have, I say, and I demand
still more. You must be true to me, no matter what occurs!"
"Pierre, Pierre, you trample on your own hope, though you will not see
it! To release me generously is your own best way!"
"You are the self-deceived," cried Pierre. "Pledge yourself irrevocably.
Then only are we strong."
In the western sky an orange strip of day remained. A single bird, black
against the glow, flew screaming across it, beating curved wings in the
wind. "He will not see at all," whispered Yuki, as if to the bird.
"Oh, dearest, you cannot know in your calm, innocent heart the scourge
of a love like mine! I hunger for you, I thirst! Sobbing, I dream of
you, and I wake to new tears that you are still so far away. In pity, in
mere mercy to human suffering, say that no other man shall marry you.
Say this much at least, that if prejudice and war hold us apart awhile,
you will be true to me until we can seek some new road to happiness!"
"Do I not know,--do I not know?" she shivered, in answer to the first
part of his speech. "Every day my heart is torn to small pieces, all of
different size and shape. I do not understand how in sleep they come
together once more. You are not lonely in that human suffering."
"Oh, you love me!" cried the man. "And on this voyage you love me as you
had not done before! Is it not true?"
"It is true," sobbed Yuki.
"Mine is not love," said Pierre, again holding her fast; "it is hell,--a
raging hell of ecstasies! Oh, kiss me, Yuki; give me your lips before I
die of joy! Now swear,--swear,--that no word but my own,--no
circumstance but death, can loose you from me!"
"You torture like the old monks," she panted. "Oh, do not make me say!"
"I command you, Yuki," he persisted, feeling new strength
as she faltered. "It is my right. We belong to each other.
Promise,--promise,--promise,--nothing but death or my word to loose
you!" He kissed her again and again, like a madman, pressing his lips
down upon hers, catching her hands to kiss, devouring her eyes, cheeks,
forehead, hair; while the girl, beaten down by the whirlwind, made no
effort to resist.
Pierre took the long white ivory pin from her hair, and split it,
thrusting the smaller portion into his coat, and returning that, with
the ornament still attached, to her hair.
"I take this pledge, Yuki," he cried. "You have told me that it binds to
the death a Japanese lover. We are bound. I hold you by a tangible bond.
The next shall be a small, bright circle on this little hand. Give me
the promise, Yuki,--no need to struggle now. Give it me!"
"Kwannon protect me," gasped the girl; "I promise!"
A sudden vacuum fell. Pierre's breath was hard to recapture. He thought
that Yuki had fainted, for her trembling had stopped. He shook one
shoulder and bent down to gaze into her set, white face. Her eyes were
wide open, and held two stars. She moved her lips now, and leaned far
outward, gazing intently, as if watching the flight of an unseen thing.
"Yuki, Yuki, what is it,--what do you see?" he cried, in terror.
"My soul! I think a small soul fled!" All at once she collapsed into
unconsciousness. As Pierre lifted her, he shook springing tears away,
and bit his quivering lips as he muttered,--"I feel as if I tortured a
child; but she does not realize our perils. Her fast promise is our only
hope. Thank God that I could win it!"