forever wakeful and writhing and dangerous; but in the light of day
it was all sordid and despairing. Thick smoke hung low over the
burning lava, and thin gaseous flames flickered on the surface, livid
and cringing, like the ghosts of bad men still haunting around the
corrupting body. Below the play of dun smoke and shadowy flame the
lava moved unceasingly, impelled to the south, on and on and over and
over as though its torment were bound upon an axle. Every now and
then two currents would flow into each other with a heavy impact, a
splash and a leap of fire. And then it was as though it clapped hands
in its agony.
Slowly, because he was cramped with having watched it so long,
Mr. Fortune raised himself to his feet and turned away. He had no
thoughts, no feelings. What he had seen was something older than the
earth; but vestigial, and to the horror of the sun what the lizard
is to the dragon: degenerate. Shuddering and cold he went down past
the shadow of the crags and over the scorched expanse of hell-ground
towards the woods, hastening, still having in his ears the growlings
and concussions of the pit and with that foul smell still in his
nostrils.
When he came into the woods he stopped and looked up. The green
boughs hid away the skies. He was glad. He did not want to look at
anything eternal just now. He sat down on a fallen tree. Moss covered
it, and creepers and tree-ferns were springing out of it; but he
parted the ferns and creeper and scratched away the moss and put down
his nose to snuff up the scent of decay. Everywhere in the woods was
the odour of mortality; it was sweet to him, like a home-coming. He
lay down and buried his face in the leaf-mould, pressing his eye-lids
to the warm mouldering softness, trying to forget the rock.
When he felt better he went on again; and coming to a stream he
bathed himself, and ate some fruit. He was not very sure of his
whereabouts, so to follow the stream seemed the best plan. It was
a pleasant guide. He heard it singing ahead as he followed its
windings. All this part of the woodland was unknown to him. It seemed
very venerable and solitary. The solemn girth and glossy great leaves
of the breadfruit trees pleased him all the better because he was
thinking of them as beings transient and subject to laws of growth
and decay. They were steadfast, he thought, because they knew of
their appointed end. They soothed him, bearing faithful witness that
his own should be no other--that he too should one day lie along the
earth and be gathered into it.
It occurred to him for the first time that now he would not, as he
had hoped, be buried in Fanua. And as though the thought had called
up a vision, he saw what appeared to be a graveyard before him. It
was a sort of pound or enclosure, built of rough stones. Whatever the
purpose of the place it was clearly unfrequented, perhaps forsaken;
for the mossy walls were breached and tumbled and the grass grew
clean and untrodden in the entry. Overhead the breadfruit trees
mingled their large boughs like a roof of wings. He turned and went
in. He found himself surrounded by ranks of idols, idols of all sizes
and all fashions, idols of wood and stone, all very old, subdued with
weather, moss-grown, with the grass tangling round their bases.
He knew well what they must be: in this island where everyone had
his own god these were the gods of the dead. At the death of their
worshippers the gods were carried here and left to their repose, till
they too in their time failed and sank into the earth. He remembered
who had died since he came to the island and peered among the idols
for some more recent than the others which might be those of his
acquaintance. Yes, that was Akau’s god perhaps, and that pot-bellied
fellow with the humorous squint might be the god of poor old
Live-for-Ever. Only Lueli’s god would never come here.
Sad Lueli! Just now in his flourish of youth and affability he might
forget his lost god and do quite as well without him; but one day
Lueli would be growing old and then--then he would feel his loss. For
the day must come when a man turns from the companionship of flesh
and blood, be it flesh and blood failing like his own, or the flesh
and blood he has begotten, and seeks back into the traditions of his
race for a companionship more ghostly and congenial--old habits,
old beliefs, old stories--the things his childhood accepted and his
forefathers lived by. In that day Lueli would need his god. The lack
of it would be a kind of disgrace, a mutilation.
“I cannot go from Fanua,” said Mr. Fortune, standing among the idols:
“until I have given Lueli back his god.”
The knife hung round his neck: it would be easy to take one of the
idols, re-trim its features, scrape off the moss and make a new idol
of it. But a feeling of decorum stayed his hand. However, he might
study them, for he would need an example. He spent half an hour or so
in the enclosure, kneeling before the idols, examining the details
of their workmanship and trying to acquire the convention. Then,
for it was still afternoon, he spent some time wandering round in
search of a suitable piece of wood. It must be about two foot long,
straight, without knots, not so fresh as to tear, not so old as to
crumble, of an easy grain to carve, and for choice, of a pleasant
colour. He sought out several pieces and experimented on them with
his knife before he found one to his liking. It was of rather dark,
sweet-smelling wood, of what tree he knew not, for he found it lying
beside the stream. A freshet must have carried it there, perhaps
from the hands of some other woodman; for there seemed to be
cutting-marks about one end of it.
He sat down and began to rough out the image he had in his mind: a
man with a bird perched on his wrist, his head a little inclined
towards the bird as though it were telling him something; and seated
at his feet a plain smooth dog, also looking at the bird, but quite
kindly. After so many failures, great and small: the trousers, the
introduction to mathematics, all his very indifferent attempts at
cookery, boiled bad eggs and clammy coco-nut buns, the conversion of
the islanders and the domestication of the parrots, it might have
been expected of Mr. Fortune that he would put forth on sculpture
with diffidence. But his heart was in it; he had never attempted
anything of the kind before; and anyhow, it is the vainglorious
people who expect difficulties. Mr. Fortune in his modesty supposed
that cookery, conversion, etc., were really quite easy matters,
and that it was only he who made a botch of them. So when after an
hour or so of whittling and measuring and whittling again, he found
himself possessed of a considerable aptitude for wood-carving, and
the man, the dog and the bird emerging from the billet with every
promise of looking very much as he intended them to, he was pleased
but without any amazement.
He worked while there was light; then wrapping the idol carefully in
soft grasses and leaves and tying it into a parcel with vines he set
out to follow the stream by starlight.
Now into the solemn caverns of the wood came rolling solemnly the
noise of the ocean. Wafts of sweet scent wandered to him from
flowering shrubs whose flowers he could not discern, and large
soft moths brushed across his face. He was foot-sore and perhaps
sorrowful, and he knew that soon he must quit this island which was
so beautiful and romantic under its crown of horror, and go, he knew
not whither, but certainly never again to any place like this; but
nothing disturbed his enjoyment of the hour. His thoughts were slow
and peaceful, and looking up through the trees he saw the heavens
without disquiet, although they were eternal. The stream laughed and
ran joyously forward to the waterfall. He looked about him and knew
where he was. The stream which had borne him such pleasant company
was the same whose torrent he had seen wavering and distorted on the
night of the earthquake.
He hitched the god a little closer up under his arm and turned into a
path he knew. As he neared the village he heard voices not far off.
He stopped. Yes, that was Fuma’s voice: and the laugh--only Lueli
could laugh like that. Standing in the darkness he blessed them.
The god weighed on his arm, and it occurred to him that this was
the first time he had ever returned from a walk bringing with him a
present for Lueli. Lueli never came back without some gift or other;
he was as prodigal as his native clime. Trails of flowers which
festooned the doorway and wound themselves round Mr. Fortune’s neck
whenever he went in or out. Shells, which were casually thrown down
on his mat and ran into his sleep when he turned over in the night.
Perfectly uneatable shell-fish because they were so pretty, feathers
and fantastic ornaments which he wore with gratified embarrassment
round his neck. He too had sometimes brought things back with
him, but things practical or edible. Never real presents, objects
perishable, useless and inconvenient, friendship’s tokens, emblems
of love, that passion which man, for all his sad conscience and
ingenuity, will never be able quite to tame into something useful.
Well, at last he was making some atonement where he had been so
remiss. He was a poor hand at presents: an Englishman with a
public school training still lurking in his heel, he would never
be able with any sort of grace or naturalness to offer garlands of
morning-glories or small gay striped crabs. But he was doing his
best; he was bringing Lueli a god.
When Lueli came into the hut Mr. Fortune had eaten his supper and was
almost asleep.
“Where have you been all day?” enquired Lueli. “I kept on looking for
you, and wondering where you had gone. I was growing very anxious, I
assure you.”
“I have been to the mountain.”
“To the mountain?”
“Yes, right to the top of it.”
“Oh! did you see the flames and the smoke they talk about? What’s it
like? Are there a great many flames? Does it make a great noise? Did
you feel frightened? I hope you were careful not to fall in. Tell me
all about it.”
“It is a very impressive sight.”
“Well? Go on!”
“I will tell you the rest to-morrow. Now it is time you went to bed.
You needn’t trouble about Tibby. I’ve fed her.”
He turned over and fell asleep. All night he lay with the idol close
against his side.
For three days he worked on it in secret, chipping and scooping and
shaving, rubbing it smooth with fine sand, oiling it, treating it
as tenderly as a cricket-bat. As he worked, intent and unflurried,
strange thoughts concerning it stole into his mind. Sometimes he
thought that the man was himself, listening to the parrot which told
him how the doom of love is always to be destroying the thing it
looks upon. At other times the man seemed to be Christ, and the bird
on His wrist the Holy Ghost. In these suppositions there was no part
for the dog, save as an adjunct to the design, steadying the base of
the composition, and helping it to stand upright. But there was yet
a third fancy; and then the man was Lueli, the bird neither parrot
nor dove but the emblem of his personality, while the dog was he
himself, looking up at Lueli’s bird but on trust not to snatch at it
or frighten it away.
On the afternoon of the third day the idol was finished. So far it
had been his, the creature of his brain, the work of his hands.
In an approving look he took his farewell of it, and dismissing it
from his care he put it to stand upright on the rock before the hut.
Then, moving very quietly, for inside the hut Lueli was taking his
afternoon nap and must not be disturbed till everything was ready, he
went to the bush by the spring where the red flowers grew. Of these
he wove a rather uncouth garland, after the style of the daisy-chains
that children make, but a daisy-chain like slow drops of blood. He
arranged this round the idol and walked into the hut.
“Lueli!”
Under the smooth brown eye-lids the eyes flickered and awakened.
Lueli blinked at him, shut his eyes once more and stretched
protestingly. It was all most right: he would hear the words as he
should hear them, he would hear them as in a dream.
“Lueli, on the rock outside there is something waiting for you. Go
out and see what it is.”
He was conscious of Lueli rising and passing him by, and pausing for
a moment on the threshold. He sat down with his face to the wall,
for he dared not watch an encounter that must be so momentous. Even
the eyes of his mind he turned away, and sat in a timeless world,
listening. Then, at last, he heard and was released--for what he
heard, a murmur, a wandering wreath of sound, was Lueli talking
softly to his god.
He made a movement to arise, and then stayed himself. This time
he would not intrude, would not interfere. Lueli should be left
in peace. He too was at peace, wasn’t he? His atonement had been
accepted, his part was done. Now there was nothing left for him but
to go away. He began to reckon the days. His letter had caught the
boat, he knew; for last night the canoe had returned and Moki told
him that he had seen the Captain and put the letter into his hands.
That was two days ago, and so by now Archdeacon Mason had hitched
on his gold-rimmed eyeglasses and was scanning the letter at arm’s
length in that dignified way he had, a way of reading letters which
was as much as to announce: “Whilst reserving my judgment I remain
perfectly infallible.” At any rate by to-morrow morning he would
learn that Mr. Fortune wished to be recalled from Fanua: for though
the boat touched at two or three ports before reaching St. Fabien,
she was never more than half a day out of her time. By this reckoning
the launch might be expected, perhaps to-morrow evening, perhaps on
the day following. Then the canoe would push out to the opening of
the reef and dodge forward between two waves. He would stand up in
the canoe, catch hold of a rope, push against that footing, buoyant
and unsteady almost as the sea. He would be on the launch, looking at
the neat life-belt, and smelling brass-polish again and warm machine
oil. He would be off, he would be gone.
Outside among the birds and the sliding shadows of the palm-fronds
Lueli was still talking to his god--a happy noise. Mr. Fortune
listened for a minute or two and then went on thinking. He would
have no luggage and that was a pity, for he felt the need of doing
something business-like, packing would have been a solace. Stay!
There would of course be presents: the islanders would not allow
him to depart without gifts. They would give him mats, carved bowls
and platters, a pig-sticker hung with elaborate tassels, a pipe. A
pleasant people, and very beautiful, with their untrammelled carriage
and arabesqued nakedness. He glanced down at his forearm where he had
allowed old Hina to prick out a vignette of a fish with whiskers.
While she was jabbing and chattering he had thought: “A man who
has lost his faith in God may perfectly well allow himself to be
tattooed.” After Lueli, Hina was the islander with whom he had gone
nearest to a feeling of intimacy. In extreme old age as in infancy,
distinctions of nationality scarcely exist; and Hina had seemed to
him very little different from any legendary old lady in an English
chimney-corner. She might almost have been his godmother, grown so
aged as to be grown gay, and without her wig.
To-morrow he must go round and bid Good-bye to everybody. They would
be very surprised, very exclamatory: he did not think that they
would be very much upset. If they had seemed rather unreal to him
how much more unreal must he have seemed to them! They had been on
easy terms with him--they would be on easy terms with anybody; they
had accepted his odd ways without demur. While he still preached
they had sometimes listened, and when he ceased preaching they asked
no questions. When he was happy they smiled back, and when he was
parched with anxiety they had not appeared to notice much difference.
And at all times they continued to supply him with food and to
perform any service he required of them.
They had grown accustomed to him but they had not assimilated him;
and his odd ways they had taken as something quite natural since
he himself was an oddity. His departure would affect them much as
if a star had fallen out of their sky: that is to say it wouldn’t
really affect them at all. There were once three stars where now you
see two: there was once a white man with a magic box which groaned
when he trampled it, who came to Fanua. In the course of time the
few remaining people who had seen the lost star would brag a little
about its superior size and lustre, saying that there were no such
stars in these days; and similarly in times to come a black and
white being ten foot high and able to speak in a voice of thunder
for seven days and seven nights might haunt the groves of Fanua. The
ginger-nuts, they too might be commemorated in the fact that he fed
men with red-hot pebbles. All he hoped was that they would not use
him to frighten children with. But alas!--he was fooling himself.
There would soon be plenty of white men to frighten the children of
Fanua, to bring them galvanized iron and law-courts and commerce
and industry and bicycles and patent medicines and American alarm
clocks, besides the blessing of religion. The island could not hope
to keep its innocence much longer. Had he not come, a single spy?
And soon there would come battalions. Poor islanders! He almost
said: “Poor flock!” Well, to-morrow he must bid them good-bye, and
to-morrow too, before he bade farewell to the rest he must say: “I am
going away, Lueli, I am going away for ever.”
And then--_suppose the launch didn’t come_? Suppose that the
earthquake at Fanua had been but a ripple of an enormous earthquake
which had swallowed up St. Fabien?
It would not do to fancy such things. He got up and walked out of
the hut. Lueli was gone and had taken his god with him; maybe he had
carried him off to the little copse where he had cherished the old
one. Absently Mr. Fortune sat down on the altar. His hand touched
something cold and flabby. It was the garland of red flowers which he
had woven in order to give the idol a more festive and Christmas-tree
appearance--for a present is a present twice over if it be tied up
prettily. He smiled, and hung it round his neck.
He was still sitting on the altar when Lueli came strolling back
for supper. He came singing to himself, and as he walked he tossed a
couple of small fish from hand to hand.
“Why didn’t you come and bathe too? Look! I caught these in my
fingers.”
“How beautiful they are!”
They were silvery fish with black and vermilion markings and
rose-coloured fins. Their strange blue eyes were yet bright, and they
retained the suppleness and shine of life. One does not admire things
enough: and worst of all one allows whole days to slip by without
once pausing to see an object, any object, exactly as it is.
“We will have them for supper,” he said. “I am sorry that I forgot to
come bathing. But I’ll tell you what. There will be a moon to-night,
we might bathe after supper by moonlight. Unless you want to go down
to the village.”
“No. It would be a lark to bathe.”
The night was so mild that after bathing they lounged on the rocks,
dangling their legs in the water, which felt even more surprisingly
tepid because its black and silver pattern looked so cold. The ledge
where they sat was padded with the soft tough growth of sea plants.
Out on the reef some gulls were complaining.
The shadow hid his own face but Lueli sat in full moonlight. It was a
good moment to speak.
“Lueli, I am going away from Fanua.”
There would be no need to add: “I am going away for ever.” Somehow,
from the tone of his voice or by some curious sympathy, Lueli had
guessed. He started so violently that he lost his balance and slipped
off the rock. He swam a few strokes out into the pool and then turned
and came back again and caught hold of Mr. Fortune’s knees to moor
himself.
“But if you go you will leave me,” he said, lying along the water and
looking up into his friend’s face. “Don’t go!”
“I must, my dear. It is time.”
“Are you going back to your own country?”
“Yes. I expect so. Anyhow, I must go. A boat will come for me,
the same boat which brought me when I came to the island. Perhaps
to-morrow, perhaps the day after.”
“Not to-morrow!” Lueli cried out, his face suddenly convulsed with
distress.
Mr. Fortune nodded.
“To-morrow or the next day.”
“But why do you only tell me now? Now there will be no time to do
anything, I can’t even make you a pipe. Stay longer! Stay even a
little longer! I thought you would stay for ever.”
“I’m sorry if I have left it too late. I did it for the best, I
didn’t want to spoil our last days.”
“But when did you know that you would go away?”
“A long time ago. A bird--” He stopped. It would not do to tell
Lueli what the bird had said to him. He would not understand, he was
incapable of understanding, because he was incapable of feeling that
sad, civilized and proprietary love which is anxious and predatory
and spoil-sport. Even now despite his distress at hearing that his
friend was about to leave him he wasn’t attempting to interfere or to
do anything about it.
“Lueli, you know how sorry I am to be leaving you. I will not speak
of it much, I don’t think we need upset each other by telling our
feelings. We know them already. But I have one consolation. I am not
leaving a weakling, someone that I should have to feel uneasy about.
When I think of you, as I shall do constantly, it will be with
admiration and confidence.”
He looked down at the face raised toward his. Affection, grief,
the most entire attention were depicted thereon; but for all these
Lueli’s countenance still kept its slightly satirical air. And this,
because it was the expression most essentially and characteristically
his, the aspect that nature had given him, was dearest of all.
“When I came here you were still almost a child. How the three years
have changed you! You are as tall as I am now, and a great deal
stronger. You are almost as strong as Kaulu whom you used to tell me
about--Kaulu the strong boy, who broke the waves with his hands and
forced open the jaws of the King Shark who had swallowed his brother.
And you are intelligent too, and as you grow older you will become
more so. Perhaps you may become as wise and prudent as Kana, who
rescued the sun and moon and stars and put them back into the sky.
And when he held up the sun the cock crowed. Do you remember telling
me that? And as for charm--why, I think you the most popular young
man on the island and the best-loved. It delights me to see it.”
“You flatter me,” answered Lueli in a pleased voice.
Then he sighed. “I wish you were not going,” he said, “I shall miss
you. I shall miss you terribly. Oh, why must you leave me?” And he
hung his head, and kicked his heels disconsolately.
The water splashed up, drops of spray fell on Mr. Fortune. He
shivered, but it was not the falling spray which chilled him. What
could he say, how was he to comfort this child?
“Do you remember how I used to tell you about my God?”
“Yes, of course I remember.”
“I haven’t spoken of Him lately and perhaps you have noticed that.”
“Yes.”
“Well, the reason why I didn’t speak of Him was--I have lost Him.
I lost Him on the same night that you lost yours, the night of the
earthquake. No!”--Lueli had made a sudden movement of enquiry--“He
wasn’t anything in the hut, He wasn’t any of the things that were
burnt. He wasn’t the kind of God that could be burnt. But He was the
kind of God that could perfectly well be lost; and, as I say, I have
lost Him.”
“But perhaps you will find Him, perhaps He will come back. I--my
god----”
Lueli’s voice sank into a warm cautious silence, the silence of a
lover.
Mr. Fortune put out a hand and stroked the wet head.
“No. I am quite sure I shall never find Him. But I have no doubt He
is somewhere around, and that is why I am telling you of my loss.
Because, you see, when I go I shall leave Him behind; my God will
remain here on the island where I lost Him. And while He remains, a
part of me will remain too. I do not leave you utterly.”
“Like a keepsake?” ventured Lueli after thinking it over.
“Yes. Like a keepsake. But rather more than a keepsake. Almost like
leaving part of myself.”
“Yes. I think I understand.”
“So now do you feel happier?”
“Not now. But I shall later on.”