A CURIOUS QUEST.
Apart from the fact that it was being undertaken solely for the purpose
of digging up and rifling a dead man's body, there was something
peculiarly uncanny to me about this voyage to Vanua Lava. And the more I
allowed my mind to dwell upon it, the more convinced I became that,
somehow or other, what we found would materially affect my welfare. It
may therefore be imagined with what interest I gazed across the
intervening stretch of water at the thickly-timbered island, now
disappearing into the fast-falling shadows. Juanita was wildly excited,
and would have liked nothing better than to have gone ashore and
commenced operations that very night. Indeed, I could not help thinking
that the fortune her husband had hidden away must be even larger than
she had led me to suppose, if I might estimate its size by her anxiety
to obtain possession of the locket.
As soon as tea was over we returned on deck. It was a glorious night.
Overhead, in a coal-black sky, the great stars hung lustrous and
wonderful. Below them all was silence. Not a sound save the subdued
voices of the crew forward, and now and again a tiny wave, stirred by
some gentle zephyr, breaking against the schooner's side, disturbed the
stillness. Then, little by little, the eastern stars began to lose their
brilliance. The sky at that end of the island relinquished some of its
blackness, and presently, with a majesty untranslatable, the great moon
rose into the heavens, casting a mellow light across the silent deep,
and touching with silver the topmost trees ashore. With her coming a
faint breeze stole down to meet us and set the schooner gently rocking.
When we had paced the deck together for a while Juanita drew me to the
taffrail, and passing her arm through mine in a caressing manner
peculiar to herself, fell to talking in a strain which I had never
discovered in her before. The impression her conversation forced upon me
was that she was trying to excuse herself for a great wrong she had
already done or was about to do me, and yet nothing in her actual speech
lent any reason to this supposition.
"To-morrow," she said, half to herself, "will decide a great deal for
both of us."
"How for both of us, Juanita?" I asked. "If you find what you want over
yonder you'll be a rich lady, and then 'good-bye' to poor Jack."
She started as if frightened, and pressed my arm tighter.
"You have been so good to me that I don't know what to say to you," she
continued, disregarding my last speech. "Oh, Jack! if we could only be
ourselves, free to act and to do whatsoever we wished, instead of being
driven so relentlessly on and on by destiny, how much happier we should
be! Do you believe in fate?"
"I believe you are my fate," I replied, pressing her hand with all the
ardour of a lover, "and what better fate could I ask?"
"Or what worse?" she said sadly. "Jack, my poor Jack, you don't know how
you will hate me some day."
"Never, Juanita, and that I'll swear to."
She was silent for a minute or two. When she spoke again there was a
bitterness in her voice I had never heard in it before.
"If I had only known and loved you sooner," she went on, "I might have
been a better woman. But I was cursed from the very beginning; cursed
with a bad mother, cursed with a bad father, cursed with a beauty that
was only a snare for sin; lured to my ruin before I was old enough to
understand, driven by poverty and despair to be what I am--a woman at
war with all the world. Oh, Jack, may the Holy Mother forbid that you
may ever know what my life has been! But there, why should I tell you
all this? let us be happy and believe in each other to-night, if only
for to-night."
"My darling," I cried with real alarm, noticing that big tears were
rolling down her cheeks, "what is the matter? Tell me, and let me
comfort you. This monotonous voyage has tired you, to-morrow you will
be better. Don't give way just at the time when you want all your
nerve."
But my advice came too late; she threw herself into my arms and wept as
if her heart would break. I could see that she was thoroughly upset, but
what had occasioned it I could not of course understand. Since then,
however, I have become wiser, and whenever I think of that night on the
schooner's deck, under the shadow of the island, I say to myself, "Well,
however she may have acted towards me afterwards, at least Juanita loved
me then."
When she grew calmer she began again, this time with a sort of malignant
fierceness that was equally inexplicable.
"My Jack, if I told you that I was a despicable coward and asked you to
weigh anchor to-night and to leave the island without as much as going
ashore, would you do it? Think before you answer, for heaven and hell
depend upon it."
I suppose at some period of his life every man has his fate in his hand
to do as he likes with. I had mine then, and, as will be seen, I threw
it from me. Oh, if I had only taken the opportunity she offered and set
sail without rifling that grave, what awful misery for both of us I
should have averted! But, blind bat that I was, it was ordained that I
should see everything in a wrong light, and so I began immediately to
reproach her for her weakness, telling her that since she had come so
far to do it, it would be worse than cowardice to return without
carrying out her work.
"But, Jack," she said, "if you only knew, if you only knew?"
"If I knew what?" I asked. "Come, come, Juanita, what does all this
mystery mean? What are you hinting at? You're in a very extraordinary
mood to-night." I was beginning to grow impatient with her.
"Don't," she cried, preparing to burst into tears again, "don't scold
me. If you could only know how we shall both look back on this night
some day, and how it will comfort me to remember that at least you were
not angry then!"
When she went below I lit my pipe and fell to work upon my own thoughts.
I tried to recall her conversation and to find a reason for her
extraordinary behaviour, but it was impossible. In vain also I
endeavoured to rid myself of the feeling of approaching danger which
possessed me. At last, unable to make head or tail of it, and thoroughly
wretched, I sought my bunk in the hope of obtaining a little rest
against the labours of the morrow.
My dreams were not pleasant ones. Juanita seemed to stand before me
continually, gazing at me as she had done on deck, with tear-streaming
face, imploring me to forgive her, always to forgive her. I don't
remember ever to have spent a more miserable night. But it was only a
foretaste of what was to come.
Shortly after daylight I awoke to hear the hands "washing down." I went
on deck and had a bath; the clear green water braced me like a tonic. A
more perfect morning could not be imagined. The sea lay around us, in
colour a pale grey, and smooth as the inside of an oyster-shell. Ashore
the rugged mountain peaks were enveloped in vast masses of white cloud,
while on the lower lands every shrub and tree was gemmed with dew. A few
sea-birds hovered round the schooner, and from far down the northern
beach a spiral column of palest blue smoke ascended into the still
morning air.
About half-an-hour before breakfast-time, Juanita came on deck, looking
radiant; all signs of her last night's trouble had completely
disappeared. Stepping out of the companion, she swept the sea with a
proud, defiant glance, as though she had at length achieved something
which other people had deemed impossible. Then her eyes fell on me, and
she came across to where I stood, wishing me "good-morning" with a
bright smile. I felt inclined to ask myself if this could be the same
woman who had wept upon my shoulder the night before, and begged me in
heart-broken accents to forgive her some imaginary transgression. After
a few moments her glance wandered from the schooner and the open sea to
the island, and then the expression upon her face (for I watched it
continually) changed. When she came on deck, it was that of a woman who
through much suffering had conquered; but when she looked towards the
spot where the man she had once loved lay buried, it was the face of one
who had still to prove that the struggle was not going against her.
Just at that moment the bell sounded for breakfast, and leaving the deck
to the mate, I escorted her below.
As soon as we had finished our meal, I gave orders for the long-boat to
be swung out, and a crowbar and a couple of shovels put into her. I had
already chosen the hands who should accompany us, so nothing remained
but to assist my sweetheart down the gangway, take our places in the
boat, and set out for the shore. It was no use trying to persuade
Juanita to remain on board, and let me do the work. She would not hear
of it. On the way I could not help noticing the appearance of her face;
it had become deadly white and haggard, a circumstance which I could
only attribute to the ghastly nature of our errand.
Owing to the fact of there being no reef on this side of the island, we
were able to bring the boat flush up to the shore, and to secure her by
a long painter to a tree.
As I helped Juanita out, I asked her in which direction she supposed the
grave to lie, and without any hesitation she pointed to a little wooded
knoll, about a hundred yards to our left. Off we set towards it.
By this time the pallor of her face was such as to quite frighten me. I
asked her if she did not think she'd better sit down and rest a while.
Her answer, if not assuring, was emphatic.
"Rest! What rest can I have? No, no, no; on, on! I can't rest; I can't
think till we've done the work. Oh, be quick! be quick!"
Reaching the spot she had pointed out, we commenced our search for the
grave. Though she declared her husband had only been buried a few
months, no sign of his resting-place was to be seen. This I accounted
for by the fact that it was situated on a slope, and the wash of the
water (for the rains had occurred since the burial took place) had
smoothed the earth all along the hill-side, levelling and obliterating
all traces of the mound. However, after much diligent search, I found
amid some rank grass a spot which seemed to bear some resemblance to
what we sought, and here I decided to dig.
The ground was by no means hard, and as the two men I had brought ashore
were muscular fellows, it was not long before we had a good hole to show
for our work. Suddenly the shovel struck something with a hollow sound,
bringing my heart into my mouth with a jump. Next moment a corner of a
roughly-made coffin came into view. And as it did so, Juanita gave a
little cry, while I felt large clammy beads of sweat ooze out and down
my own forehead.
Bidding the two men exert all their strength, I worked the crowbar
underneath the coffin, and leant my weight upon it. Inch by inch it
uncovered itself, and at last we were able, by getting our hands under
it, to lift it out on to the level ground. As we laid it down, I heard
Juanita gasp for breath. And when I told her we were going to prize the
lid off, she could bear it no longer, but turned her back, and burying
her face in her hands, bade me search round the dead man's neck for the
locket. She could not do it herself.
Inserting a corner of the shovel between the lid and the side, I tried
to force it open, but it was securely fastened, and defied me. There was
nothing for it but to send off to the schooner for a screwdriver. How
bitterly I reproached myself for not having brought one with me!
The waiting was intolerable. Though it was in reality not ten minutes,
it seemed an hour before the man returned with the tool. Then, one by
one, my hands shaking with nervousness, I withdrew the screws. That work
accomplished, I ordered one of the Kanakas to lift off the lid. As he
prepared to do so, I could not repress a feeling of wonderment as to
what this former lover of Juanita's would be like; at the same time, I
braced my nerves for what we should see.
The lid was off. I looked; I rubbed my eyes and looked again--could I be
dreaming?
_Save for a large roll of sheet-lead, the coffin was empty. No man had
ever been buried in it!_
The whole funeral must have been a farce, intended to deceive some one.
Could that some one, I asked myself, have been Juanita?
My exclamations must have puzzled her, for she cried out--
"Oh, what have you found?"
I was so overcome with surprise that I had some difficulty in finding
voice enough to reply to her. Then I said--
"Juanita, you've been hoaxed! No man was ever buried here. There's only
a sheet of lead in the coffin!"
With that she faced round on me, and never, before or since, have I seen
such an expression of fear in the human face. She stood there, wildly
staring, first at the open coffin, then at the grave, unable to speak.
Her face seemed to grow every moment paler. Then, turning to me, she
said very softly, so softly that I asked myself whether the shock could
have been too much for her brain--
"I have been the victim of a conspiracy; take me back to the schooner."
I signed to the men to collect the tools, and we were in the act of
starting on our return to the beach, when I heard unmistakable sounds of
some one moving through the undergrowth on the bank above us. Juanita
heard them too, and by some means, for which I cannot account, must have
divined their cause, for she faced round like a tigress at bay. Then the
bushes parted, _and the Albino stood before us_!
Anything so uncanny as his appearance at that moment cannot be imagined.
He gazed at us, his fingers cracking, his little pink eyes gleaming
maliciously, and his long white hair floating in the breeze. As I
looked, I felt Juanita fall heavily on my arm. She had fainted.