of the mountain into the wide glory of the sunset. There was nothing to
interrupt that full outward sweep, nothing between her and the horizon.
The parsonage at Wailoa could never have been placed or built by any one
of the Reverend Spener's level temperament. He had never found anything
but a grievance in the fact that he should have to dwell so far aloft
from routine affairs in a spot of the wildest and most romantic beauty.
The village itself lay hidden below and to the left, at the mouth of the
valley, whence the smoke of its hearths rose as incense. Half-way up the
winding track stood his little chapel in a grove of limes. And here on a
higher terrace of the basalt cliff, like an eyrie--or, perhaps more
fittingly, a swallow's nest--was perched the pastor's home. The lush
growth of an untamed jungle massed up to its step; beetling heights
menaced it from behind; and always, at all seasons, a rushing mountain
torrent in the ravine beside made its flimsy walls to thrill, disturbing
its peace with musical clamor.
That stream should have been indicted for trespass and disorder by the
worthy pastor's way of thinking. Somehow all the unruly and wayward
elements of his charge seemed to find expression in those singing
waters, which were not to be dammed or turned aside. From the
veranda-rail one might lean and toss anything--a passion-flower--into
the current and follow it as it danced away down the broken slide, lost
here and there amid mists and milky pools and the shadowing tangle of
lianas snatched at last through a chute and over a sheer outfall, to
reappear some minutes later as a spark in the fret of the surf far
below.
* * * * *
Standing there at the verge of the world, Miss Matilda watched the day's
end. For a time the bright gates stayed open at the end of an unrolled,
flaming carpet across the sea, then slowly drew in, implacably swung to,
while the belated spirit sprang hurrying forward--too late. With an
almost audible brazen clang they closed, and Miss Matilda drew back,
chilled, as the veranda shook to a heavy footfall....
"Ah, Captain Gregson--step up, sir!" Her father's voice was unctuous
with welcome as he hastened to meet the ponderous bulk that loomed
through the dusk. "Happily met, sir. You are just in time to join us at
prayers. I believe you must know my daughter--Matilda?"
It was strange to hear the pastor use such a tone with such a visitor,
and stranger still to see the assurance with which Captain Gregson
entered the parsonage, where he had never until now set foot.
"Evening, Pastor. Just a moment. That path--pretty tough on a chap who's
used--ship's deck as much as I have, d'y' see? Very kind, I'm sure. Very
kind and neighborly. And this--Miss Matilda, if I may say so bold....
Very proud to know you, ma'am. Proud and happy."
He made her his bow, plying a broad straw hat and a billowy handkerchief
of tussore silk. She found herself answering him. And presently--most
singular thing of all--he had properly ensconced himself by the tall
astral lamp like one of the family circle, balancing a Testament on his
knee and reading his verse in turn with surprising facility....
Captain Hull Gregson was one of those men apparently preserved in lard,
whose shiny, tanned skin seems as impervious as Spanish leather alike to
age and to rude usage. But if his years were indeterminate, his eyes
were as old as blue pebbles. By those eyes, as by his slow, forceful
speech and rare gesture, as by a certain ruthless jut of jaw, was
revealed the exploiter, the conquering white that has taken the South
Pacific for an ordained possession.
He had led a varied and more or less picturesque career up and down the
warm seas. He had been a copra buyer through black Melanesia in the open
days; had owned his ships and sailed them after labor in the Archipelago
with a price on his head and his life in his hand. And now, rich in
phosphate shares and plantation partnerships, a sort of comfortable
island squire, he had retired to peaceful Wailoa at last as a quiet
corner where business was play and the hot roll dropped on time from the
breadfruit-tree. So much was said of him, and it was not considered
the part either of wisdom or of island etiquette to say much more--nor
was much else required to set him in his place. Certainly he might have
seemed somewhat out of it now. The type does not pervade the parlors of
the missionaries as a rule.
But Captain Gregson turned it off very well. Once he had recovered his
breath, and a purplish haze had cleared from his face, he comported
himself easily, even impressively, neither belittling nor forcing the
social event, the while that Pastor Spener beamed encouragement and
smoothed a complacent brow....
"It's like I told you to-day, Pastor. The notion came to me like
that--I've been a bad neighbor. There's so few of us marooned here,
like. I said to myself--where's the use of being strangers, hey? Why not
get neighborly with those good folks and help along that good work of
faith and righteousness. Why not, hey--?"
He spoke with an effect of heartiness that delighted the Reverend
Spener, and that fell on the ear of the Reverend Spener's daughter as
hollow as a drum.
"Why not, indeed?" echoed the pastor.
"So many places you find a kind of feud betwixt the commercial people
and the mission people," continued Captain Gregson. "Where's the sense
of it? I believe in you, Pastor, and your work and your church. Yes, and
I feel the need of the church myself, and a chance to visit a fine
respectable home like this.... Why shouldn't I have it?"
Miss Matilda carefully avoided looking toward him, where he sat wedged
between the fragile bamboo what-not and the lacquer tabouret, well
knowing that she must cross his smoldering gaze and shunning it.
"And perhaps, by the same token, perhaps you might need me too and not
know it," he continued. "I've a notion I might be of some service to the
cause, d'y see?"
"Undeniably, Captain," said the pastor, eagerly. "A man so
influential--so experienced as yourself--"
"Could help, hey? It's what I think myself. I could. Why even now I'll
lay I could tell you matters--things going on right under your nose, so
to speak--that you'd hardly dream yourself."
"Among my people?" asked the pastor, wrinkling.
"Aye. Right among your own people--at least some of the wild ones that
you want to be most careful of. They're a devilish bold, sly lot for all
their pretty ways--these brown islanders--an astonishing bold lot. You'd
hardly believe that now, would you--?" His voice dragged fatly. "Would
you--Miss Matilda?"
Taken aback, she could not speak, could scarcely parry the attack with
a vague murmur. She feared him. She feared that slow, glowering and
dangerous man, whose every word came freighted with obscure and sinister
meaning. The instinct dimly aroused by her glimpses of him had leapt to
vivid conviction. She knew that he was staring across the room; staring
avidly at the fresh whiteness of her there, the precise, slim lines of
her dress, the curve of her neck, the gleam of her low-parted hair. And
it seemed as if he were towering toward her, reaching for her with hot
and pudgy hands--
But he had merely risen to take his leave.
"Well, I won't be lingering, Pastor," he said. "Not this time. You stop
by my shack to-morrow, and we'll talk further. Maybe I might have some
facts that would interest you. What I really came for to-night was to
bring a bit of news."
"News?" blinked the pastor.
"You should go below and look to your chapel," chuckled Gregson. "I
minded what you said about new lamps being wanted, d'y' see? And so I
made bold to hang two fine brass lights in the porch there myself--as a
gift-offering."
"For us! For the church--?"
"Aye. It's a small thing. But I've noticed myself lately how those lamps
were needed." He paused. "That's a plaguey dark place for lurking and
loitering--that chapel porch."
* * * * *
He was gone; the Reverend Spener had returned from escorting him to the
step and was still formulating praise and gratitude; but Miss Matilda
had not stirred.
"Matilda--! I'm speaking to you. I say--we've been less than just to
Captain Gregson, don't you think? Really, a most hearty, true gentleman.
Did I tell you he's settled the difficulty with Jeremiah's Loo offhand?
Oh, quite. One word from him, and they're asking for a church wedding
now. And there are other things I might tell you as well--"
She turned to look full at her father.
"There is one thing I wish you might tell me. What did you bring that
man here for?"
The pastor went a pinker shade.
"I didn't bring him. He came of his own motion. He desired most
earnestly to come."
"You gave him permission?"
"I did; after he had explained--after he showed me--Matilda.... The
short of it is, we've wronged Captain Gregson. You have heard that he
used to live with a native girl on Napuka?"
"Everybody has heard it."
"Well," said the pastor, solemnly, "he was married to that girl. I've
seen the certificate--quite regular--signed by the Moravian missionary.
There were no children, and also--and also my dear, he is now free. He
received word by yesterday's schooner of the death of--er--Mrs. Gregson.
You see?"
"Ah--!" breathed Miss Matilda, who did indeed begin to see.
He laid a hand on her arm and gave way at last to a paternal quaver.
"Matilda, my child--for you are still a child in many things--I have
taken anxious thought for you of late. Very anxious thought. You must
trust me, my dear. Trust me to do the best for your welfare--and
happiness too--as always. Good night!"...
He left her a dry kiss and a fervent blessing and they parted; the
pastor to write a particularly hopeful mission report, and this child of
his--who was, by the way, twenty-nine years old--to keep a last tryst
with a lawless and forbidden love. She knew it must be the last. For the
previous one, two nights before, had been held in the porch of the
chapel--in that same dark porch so benevolently, so deceitfully
endowed by Captain Hull Gregson....
[Illustration:
_A Rex Ingram--Metro Picture._
_Where the Pavement Ends._
A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]
Her own room opened directly on the veranda. She paused only long enough
to snatch up a shawl, as she passed through to the far side of the
house. Here she could be safe from hostile ears where the mountain
torrent ran thundering; safe from prying eyes in the velvet shadows of
the passion-vine.
She parted the leaves and harkened. A soft, thin trilling came up to her
from the edge of the guava jungle in the ravine, a mere silver thread of
melody against the stream's broad clamor. And then as she leaned farther
out, so that her face showed for a moment like a pale blossom in the
trellis, Motauri came. He came drifting through the moonlight with a
wreath of green about his head, a flower chain over his broad, bare
shoulders, clad only in a kilted white _pareu_--the very spirit of youth
and strength and joyous, untrammeled freedom, stepped down from the days
when Faunus himself walked abroad.
* * * * *
"Hokoolele!" he called gently, and smiled up toward her, the most
splendid figure of a man her eyes had ever beheld. "Star" was his name
for her, though indeed she was a very wan and shrinking one, and so to
lend her courage he sang the crooning native love-song that runs
somewhat like this:
_"Bosom, here is love for you,
O bosom, cool as night!
How you refresh me as with dew,
Your coolness gives delight!
"Rain is cold upon the hill
And water in the pool;
But, oh, my heart is yearning still
For you, O bosom cool!"_
"There is a night thistle blooming up the ravine," he said, "that looks
just like the candle-tree you lighted in the church last month. Do you
remember, Hokoolele? When I peeped through the window and you were
afraid the folk would see me? Ho-ho! Afraid the '_Klistian_' folk would
see their bad brother outside? But this is much prettier.... Come and
see if you can light the thistle."
She kept close to the shadow.
"Are you going to be afraid again?" he asked. "There is no one on the
whole mountain to-night. They are all down by the chapel staring at the
new lamps and parading themselves along the path. Two great big
fireflies by the path! You should see how they shine through the
trees."...
He seated himself on the veranda steps and laughed up over the shoulder
at her--laughter like a boy's or like a pagan god's.
It was that had tinged and made so live and subtle the fascination he
exercised upon her; his unspoiled innocence, his utter, wild simplicity
that struck back to the ultimate sources. She could never have felt so
toward any of the mission converts, with their woolen shirts and their
shoes of ceremony, their hymns and glib, half-comprehended texts; with
the fumbling thumb-marks of civilization on their souls. Motauri had
never submitted to the first term of the formula. Motauri followed the
old first cult of sea and sun, of whispering tree and budding flower. He
was the man from the beginning of things, from before Eden; and she who
carried in her starved heart the hunger of the first woman--she loved
him.
She sank to her knees on the veranda edge above him there and leaned
forward with clasped hands to see the soft glow in his deep-lashed eyes,
the glint of his even teeth; to catch the sweet breath of jasmine that
always clung about him.
"Motauri--" she said, in the liquid tongue that was as easy to her as
her own, "I am afraid. Oh, I am--I am afraid!"
"What should you fear? I have promised nothing shall hurt you. The
jungle is my friend."
"It is not that. I fear my father, Motauri--and--and that man--Gregson."
She could see his smile fade in the moonlight. "The trader?" he said.
"Very many fear him. But he is only a cheat and an oppressor of poor
people with things to sell and to buy. What has the trader to do with
you?"
"He knows--I am sure he knows about us," she breathed. "He knows. Even
now he may be watching--!"
Hurriedly she told him of the day's strange development, of her father's
sudden friendship with the powerful white man and Gregson's crafty,
malicious hints.
* * * * *
"I do not know what he means to do, but for you and for me this is the
end, Motauri," she said, wistfully. "I dare not see you any more--I
would not dare. It is not permitted, and I am frightened to think what
might happen to you. You must go away quickly." Her timid fingers rested
on his close, wavy locks, all crisped and scented with the juice of the
wild orange. "It is finished, Motauri," she sighed. "This is the end."
But Motauri's mouth had set, his boyish brows had coiled and firmed, and
his glance was bright. He drew closer to her with a lithe movement.
"This is the end?" he echoed. "Then I know how. White star of the
night--listen to me now, for I have seen how it must end. Yes--I have
known this would come....
"Here in Wailoa you behold me one apart, because I do not seek to do as
the white men, or kneel in their temple, or make empty outcry to their
gods. Here is not my rightful home. But around the coast two hours'
journey, is the little bay of Huapu where dwell some of my people who
have never given up their own customs, and there I am truly a high
chief, for my fathers used to rule over all the bays. Sweet are the
young cocoanuts of Huapu, and the mangoes and the wild plantains of the
hillside--sweet and mellow. There in the woods the moss grows deep and
soft for a couch, and for shelter are the broad leaves--for hearth the
great prostrate tree trunk that holds fire always in its heart. Like
mine--white star--like mine!
"Once I would not have ventured, Hokoolele. Once I looked at you from
afar, dreaming only of you as one who had dropped from the sky--so
different from my kind. But you are my life and the light of my life,
and I have touched you and found you real--strange and beautiful, but
real--
_"Bosom, here is love for you,
O bosom, cool as night!"_
He caught her hands in both of his.
"Come with me now, for always. I will take you away to the groves of
Huapu. There we will laugh and dance and sing all the day through, and I
will bring you water in a fern-leaf and weave you flower chains and
climb to pluck you the rarest fruits, and build a nest to keep you safe.
There you shall never be sad any more, or wearied, or lonely--or afraid.
Because I will be with you always, always--Hokoolele! Come with me
to-night!"...
Then the maiden soul of Miss Matilda was torn like a slender, upright
palm in the tropic hurricane, for a lover's arm was about her waist and
a lover's importunate breath against her cheek, and these things were
happening to her for the first time in her life.
"No--no, Motauri!" She struggled inexpertly, fluttering at his touch,
bathed in one swift flush. "My father--!" she gasped.
"What does it matter? Your father shall marry us any way he
pleases--afterward. But we will live in Huapu forever!"
And with a sudden dizzied weakening she saw that this was true and that
she had treasured the knowledge for this very moment. Her father would
marry them. He would marry them as he married Jeremiah's Loo and the
shell-buyer--"and only too thankful." Curious that the conventional fact
should have pleaded with the night's spiced fragrance, with the bland
weight of the island zephyr on her eyelids, with the vibrant contact of
young flesh and the answering madness in her veins. Curious, too, that
her dread and loathing of the man Gregson should have urged her the same
way. But so they did, reason fusing with desire like spray with wind,
and all conspiring to loose her from the firm hold of habit and
training.
* * * * *
"We can go now--this minute," Motauri was whispering. "There are boats
to be had below on the beach. We can reach Huapu before morning. None
shall see us go."
"You forget the path--the people--" She could hardly frame the words
with her lips.
"And Gregson's lights on the chapel--!"
But Motauri laughed low for love and pride.
"I do not use a path. Am I a village-dweller to need steps to my feet?
The mountain is path enough for me. That way!... Straight down to the
shore."
"By the ravine?" she cried stricken. "Impossible! It has never been
done. No one can climb down there. It is death!"
"It is life!" With the word he swept her up like a wisp of a thing in
his strong arms. "And also I am not 'no one,' but your captor,
Hokoolele. I have caught my star from the sky. See--thus is it done!"...
* * * * *
Such was the elopement of Miss Matilda, when she left her father's house
and her father's faith in very much the same manner as her remote
maternal ancestor went about the same sort of affair somewhere back in
the Stone Age. And in truth Miss Matilda was living the Stone Age for
the half hour it took Motauri to get them both down the untracked
mountain side. How they managed she never afterward knew. Not that she
slept, or fainted, or indulged in any twentieth century tantrum. But it
was all too tense to hold.
Of that descent she retained chiefly a memory of the stream and its
voices, now low and urgent, now babbling and chuckling in her ear. At
times they groped through its luminous mists, again waded from stone to
stone in the current or lowered themselves by its brink among the
tangled roots. It hurried them, hid them, showed them the way, set the
high pulse for their hearts and the pace for their purpose like an
exultant accomplice. Nor did Miss Matilda shrink from its ardor.
Once embarked, she had no further fear. Unguessed forces awoke in her.
With the hands that had never handled anything rougher than crewelwork
she chose her grip along the tough ladder of looped lianas. As
confidently as a creature of the wild she sprang across a gulf, or threw
herself to the cliff, or slipped to the man's waiting clasp on the next
lower ledge. Massed shadows, shifting patches of moonlight, the
glimpsed abyss and silvered sea far down--these held no terrors. Sharp
danger and quick recovery, sliding moss and rasping rock, the clutch of
thorn and creeper--all the rude intricacies of wet earth and teeming
jungle seemed things accepted and accessory. She was tinglingly alive,
gloriously alert. This was her wonderful night, the great adventure that
somehow fulfilled a profound expectancy of her being.
Only at the chute she could not hope to aid. Motauri meant to find a
certain slanted fault beyond the last break that offered like a shelf.
If they could reach that, they might clamber under the very spout of the
hissing outfall, drenched but comparatively safe, for the rest was no
more than a scrubby staircase that bore away leftward to the gentler
slopes of the valley and the beach below. He told her his plan, then
swung her up again and took the whole task to himself, easing inch by
inch down the narrow channel. The water boiled and raved about his
knees; she could see the streak of its solid flood ahead, where it
straightened for a last rush, where the least misstep must dash them
down the glistening runaway into space.
But she would not look ahead. She looked at the dim, adorable face so
near her own, at the carven lip, the quivering, arched nostril, the
fine, proud carriage and dauntless glance of her godling. The flash of
their eyes met sidelong. With a deep-drawn sigh of content she
surrendered herself to him, drew her arms about his neck until she was
pillowed on his smooth shoulder....
"Strange there should be no boats at this end," said Motauri.
They paused by the outskirts of the village and peered toward its
clustered, ruddy firelights flickering out upon the shore. There was no
one abroad on that empty, nebulous expanse, but they could hear stir
and laughter among the huts and the shrill wailing of a child.
"It is still too early," he murmured, and led her back to the cover of a
thicket.
Miss Matilda was aware of a slackening from the keen excitement and
zested peril of their escape. She had a vague feeling that the boat
should have been ready to waft them miraculously over star-lit seas.
"How are you going to get one?" she asked.
"Any of these people would lend me a dugout, but I thought merely to
take the first at hand."
"I see none."
"No--they are gone. Perhaps the men are fishing on the reef to-night....
But that would be strange too," he added, perplexed.
Somehow the delay, the uncertainty, began to weigh upon her like an
affront. She missed their wild communion, the high, buoying sense of
romance and emprise and impossibilities trampled under foot. She missed
the single complicity of the stream and its turbulent heartening. Here
were voices too, but these were harsh and displeasing, common human
voices. An odor of cookery and unclean hearths stole greasily down the
air. The fretful child began screaming again and went suddenly silent at
a brusque clap. Somebody fell to quarreling in a muttered monotone.
"What are you going to do?" she demanded.
"It will be better if I go search."
"You will not leave me--!"
"Only for a time. I must find someone who has a boat and borrow it. If
there are no others, the trader will lend me his."
"Gregson--?"
"He cannot know what I want of it."
"Motauri--" she cried, appalled, "keep away from that man!"
"I have used his boat before," he soothed. "It will be all right. And we
must--we must have a boat. Remember where we are."...
She had caught his wrist unwittingly, but now she released it. They
stood so for a moment. She was remembering.
"Very well," she said, subdued.
"You will be safe here," he assured her. "Stay close in the brush.
Nobody passes this last house. And when I come I will sing a little,
very quietly, to let you know. Good-bye, Hokoolele--!"
"Good-bye," she said, with a catch at her throat and a strange
foreboding.
Abruptly he had vanished....
How long Miss Matilda crouched in her thicket by the beach of Wailoa she
could not have told. It seemed an eternity. The night clouded down, even
the stars were veiled. An on-shore breeze whined forlornly across the
sands. Her fever had passed. She was damp, bedraggled, bruised and
aching, soiled with mud. The wind sought her out, cut through her limp
garments.... She waited, shivering.