A Modern Buccaneer Part 29

"And why not?" she answered, with heightened colour and flas.h.i.+ng eye.

"That my world is one of books I do not deny. I have daily tasks and occupations, but my evenings are my own, and in them I read and muse.

Then this little island, with its patient, primitive people, seems to fade away. I spend hours in Italy, where I revel in Florence, the Pitti Palace, the Arno, and roam the streets of the Eternal City amid the monuments of the world's grandest era, their very decay 'an Empire's dust.' I fall asleep often when reclining on the banks of 'Tiber, Father Tiber, to whom the Romans pray.' But, oh! if I begin to wander away in the track of my visions I shall never stop. And you," she continued with an eager glance, "you, who have seen men and cities, are you contented to linger away your life under cocoa-palms and bread-fruit trees, taking in glorious ease among simple savages until you become one yourself in all but the colour? Is this what you were born and reared and educated for?"

As the girl thus spoke, with head upraised and exalted mien, her wondrous eyes flas.h.i.+ng with almost unearthly light, her mobile lineaments changing with each varying mood, she looked in her strange and unfamiliar beauty like some virgin prophetess of the days of old, rousing her countrymen to deeds of patriotic valour or self-sacrificing heroism.

All enthusiasm is contagious, more especially when the enthusiast is fair to look upon, and belongs to that s.e.x for, or on account of which, so much of the world's strife has resulted.

For the first time I began seriously to ask myself what motives had led me to waste so large a portion of my youth in heedless wandering among these fairy isles. What were my aims in life? What did I propose to myself? As I looked at the girl's face, aglow with the fire of a n.o.ble ambition, I felt humbled and ashamed.

"You have spoken truly, Miranda," I replied, after a long pause, during which my fair questioner looked with a far-away gaze across the ocean plain, now quenching its thousand s.h.i.+fting gleams in the quick-falling tropic night. "I have been idly careless and unheeding of the future, satisfied with the day's toil and the day's pleasure. But I am going back to my people in Australia; there I shall begin a new life. It is a land of duty, of labour, and its enduring reward. There I shall renew the tension of my moral fibre which has been too long relaxed. But you must not be too hard on me. I have had to face losses, dangers, and misfortunes. I have been wrecked; I lost everything I had in the world.

I have been ill; have been wounded; and, but for some of those simple islanders you seem to despise, I should not have been a living man to-day."

"I do not despise them," she said; "of course every one knows that we are descended from those of Tahiti. I only say that they are not fit companions for white men--I mean of educated white men who in the end become as bad as they are--even worse--much worse. But tell me about your being ill. And who tended you? Was it a woman?"

"I will tell you all about it to-morrow if you will walk with me and show me some of the scenery of this beautiful island of yours. But it is a long story, and it is too late to begin to-night."

"I should like it above all things," she said frankly, "though you must have seen so many grand places in your roamings that our poor landscapes will hardly interest you."

"Much depends on the guide," I said, as I gazed admiringly at her eloquent countenance.

"I know that," she answered, meeting my too ardent gaze with perfect unconsciousness of any hidden meaning. "They tell me I am the best guide on the island, and indeed I should be, for my father and I were never tired of exploring and finding out traces of the old occupation by the Sydney Government, and many curious discoveries we made. So I will come here after breakfast to-morrow."

She was true to her appointment, and then commenced a series of delightful rambles which, perhaps, I more truly enjoyed than many later and more pretentious travels.

In despite of Miranda's depreciation of her lovely isle we found endless excuses for interest and admiration. It was truly a wonderful little "kingdom by the sea." Sc.r.a.ped along the side of a hill would be one of the beautiful roads constructed by the forced labour of the convicts which at one time almost filled the island. Rising from the valley slope were gigantic ferns, broad-leaved palms, lemons, oranges, guavas, all originally imported, but now flouris.h.i.+ng in the wildest luxuriance in the rich soil and semi-tropical climate; while above all, stately and columnar, rose the great Araucaria peculiar to the island--the Norfolk Island pine of the colonists.

Hand in hand we roamed together through this Eden amid the main, as though our great progenitors had again been transplanted to this wondrous wild--a latter day Adam, by whose side smiled a sinless Eve--pure as her prototype, and yet informed of much of the lore which men had wrested from the rolling ages. Together we explored the gloomy corridors and echoing halls of the ruinous prison houses--once the dark abodes of sorrow, torment, and despair unutterable.

Miranda shuddered at the thought that these dismal cells and courtyards had echoed to the cries of criminals under the lash--to the clanking of chains--had even witnessed the death penalty inflicted on the murderer and the mutineer.

Mute and terrible witnesses were they to the guilt to which human nature may descend--to the abysmal depths of despair into which the felon and the outcast may be hurled, when, hopeless of help from G.o.d or man, he abandons himself to all the baser instincts.

We seldom lingered amid these sullen retreats, around which Miranda always declared she heard sighs and groanings, sobs, and even shrieks, as though the spirits of those who had suffered, and mourned, and died amidst the horrors unspeakable of prison life still lingered amid the ruins of their place of torment.

How strange, well-nigh impossible, it even seemed to me that the very earth, the dumb witness of crime immeasurable, was not polluted irredeemably by the deeds that she had perforce endured and condoned.

And now--stranger than aught that dreaming poet or seer imagined--that this Inferno should have been trans.m.u.ted into an Arcadia, purer and more stainless than the fabled land of old, and peopled by the most obediently moral and conscientious family of mankind that had ever gathered the fruits of the earth since the days of our first parents.

Day after day followed of this charmed life--magical, unreal, only in that it transcended all my other experiences in the degree that the glamour of fairyland and the companions.h.i.+p of the queen of Elfland may have exceeded the memorials of Ercildoune. If he was enchanted, I was spellbound even as true Thomas. Never had I met with a companion who combined all the charm of womanhood--the grace and joyousness of girlhood's most resistless period--with the range of thought and intellectual progress which this singular girl, amid her lonely isle and restricted companions.h.i.+p, had explored. And withal, she had remained in her almost infantine unconsciousness of evil--her virginal, instinctive repulsion of all things forbidden and debarred--like a being of another planet.

Naturally an end arrived to this blissful state of things. The man-of-war after a few days was compelled to continue her voyage and perform her allotted duties, which comprehended surveys of uncharted coast-lines and suspected rocks. I had to choose between going on to Sydney and remaining in this charmed isle. And here inclination and duty appeared to draw different ways with equal strength. I was naturally anxious to return to my birth-place, my family, and friends.

My feelings of home-sickness had returned with redoubled strength after being long in abeyance. But all such doubts and distrusts were swept away like storm wrack before the swelling surges of Miranda's own isle.

I was fain to yield to the resistless force of the pa.s.sion which now dominated, nay, consumed me. True, I had not as yet definitely a.s.sured myself that this purest pearl of womanhood was within my grasp. I had made no proffer of my affections. I had not, in so many words, solicited the priceless gift of hers. But I was not so unskilled in affairs of the heart as to mistake many a sign and symbol from Love's own alphabet, denoting that the outworks of the citadel were yielding, and that the fortress would ere long open gate and drawbridge to the invader.

True to nature's own teaching, Miranda had not scrupled to confess and dilate upon the pleasure my companions.h.i.+p afforded her, to declare that never before in her life had she been half so happy, to wonder if my sisters would not die of joy when I returned, to chide me for my long absence from them and from such a home as I had often described to her.

And all this with the steady eye and frank expression of girlish pleasure, which a less unsophisticated damsel would scarcely have acknowledged without conscious blushes and downcast eyes.

Miranda, on the other hand, stated her sensations calmly and fearlessly, her wondrous eyes meeting mine with all the trustful eagerness of a happy child, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "You see, Hilary," she would say, laying her hand lightly on my arm, and looking up in an appealing manner, "I have never met any one before who seems to understand my feelings as you do apparently by instinct. You have travelled and been in other places besides the islands, and you have read books--nearly all those which I have. You know that story in the _Arabian Nights_ about the prince that was changed into a bird? He knew that he was a prince, yet he was condemned to be dumb, and was unable to convey his feelings, because to all the world he was only a bird.

"I sometimes think we Pitcairn girls live the life of birds--like that one," and she pointed to a soaring white-winged sea-bird, which presently darted downwards, falling like a stone upon the blue ocean wave. "We swim and fish, we are almost more on the sea than the land, we sleep on the land like that white bird, walk a little, talk a little,--that is our whole life. I think the bird has the best of it, as she can fly and we cannot."

"But you all seem happy and contented," I said, "you and your cousins."

"_They_ are, but I seem to have been born under a different star. I must have inherited some of the restless, adventurous spirit of my ancestor, Fletcher Christian.

"The feeling of unrest and the desire to see the world--the wonderful, ancient, beautiful world of which we, in this island prison, for lovely as it is, it is but a prison for free souls--becomes so intense at times that I almost dread lest I should end my life like his."

"And in what way was that?" I asked. "G.o.d forbid you should ever do a deed so terrible," I said.

"Do you not know? He used to go every day to the top of a high cliff on the south side of Pitcairn to gaze over the ocean--as I have done hundreds of times--thinking, perhaps, of the wonderlands beyond, where he had forfeited the right to live by his own act; and--and one day he threw himself over the cliff, and they found his body on the rocks below. Poor Fletcher! I can partly understand his feelings."

This was but one of our many conversations, always fascinating to me, as affording the rare privilege of exploring a mind naturally of high intelligence, developed by patient thought and a wide range of reading,--the island library, enriched by many generous gifts, being by no means a poor one,--guarded from deterioration by an exquisite natural refinement, yet withal clear and limpid as the transparent seas which encircled her home, where the more deeply the eye penetrated the more precious were the treasures disclosed.

So it came to pa.s.s that the _Rosario_ sailed without me. The Captain and my jolly comrades of the gun-room chaffed me about what they called my imprudent attachment. "You'll have to turn Pitcairner," they said, "and settle down after old n.o.bbs has spliced you upon a fifty-acre patch, where you can grow sweet potatoes, yams, and maize to the end of your days. Surely a fellow like you, with a family to go back to, has something better in view than that!"

"I shall not stay on the island," I said, "I intend to live in Australia, perhaps near Sydney."

"Then your island princess will run away and leave you disconsolate.

They can't live away from their people and where they were brought up.

Some of them insisted on going back to Pitcairn, and are there now. They could not be persuaded from it. They had to let them go. They would have died else."

"I have resolved," I said. "I will take all risks. You shall all come and see us in Sydney. We will live at North Sh.o.r.e, and have a yacht built on the lines of the _Leonora_. Adios!"

So we parted. The _Rosario_ got up steam, and once more I watched the black cloud of smoke pouring from her funnels and the waves breaking as she moved majestically across the bright-hued ocean.

Up to the last moment my simple and warm-hearted friends on the island had serious doubts as to whether I was not going off in the _Rosario_.

They could hardly understand how I could prefer remaining as their guest and friend when the glory and dignity of a man-of-war--their highest expression of maritime splendour--were open to me.

They had, it is true, implored me to stay with them for a few months longer--the young men were equally pressing with the older members of the community. With artless candour the girls promised that if I would stay Miranda should be my constant companion, and, except on Sundays, when, as their chief musician and organist, she could not naturally be spared, I should have a monopoly of her society.

"You seem to like her so much," Dorcas Quintal repeatedly exclaimed.

"And I am certain she likes you more than any one she has ever seen. The worst of it is that she will be so sorry when you have to go away. Clara Young nearly died when her friend went away. That was two years ago. But she got over it in time, and now she is happily married. But she _did_ try to drown herself one day, only we were too quick for her."

"It is a bad thing to have strangers for friends," I said, "if it may end so tragically when they leave. I wonder you entertain such dangerous visitors."

"I suppose we can't help it," the girl replied, laughingly. "It is so pleasant to talk with men who know the great world we can only read about. We just take our chance. We have plenty to do, and that prevents us from fretting too much. I daresay you will hear a little crying to-night. We are all very sorry the big s.h.i.+p is gone."

"It's the old, old story, Dorcas! Girls are a good deal alike all the world over, I suppose, in many of their ways. But you Pitcairners are certainly different in some respects to any women I know anywhere."

"What do you mean?" asked the girl, eagerly. "I know we are simple, and have never been taught very much."

"It isn't that. I will tell you before I go, or rather, I will tell Miranda, and she shall tell you what I say."

So, with the full approbation of friends and relations of every degree of relations.h.i.+p, and, what was of more consequence, with the good-will of the spiritual pastor and master of the island, whose authority was absolute and unquestioned, Miranda and I pursued our untroubled way. In this wondrous Arcadia there were no jealousies, no scandals, no asking of intentions, no fiery, disappointed aspirants, no infuriated brothers,--these obstacles to pure and true love were evidently the outcome of a higher or a lower stage of civilisation. No evil consequences had ever occurred from unrestricted freedom of intercourse between the young people since the formation of the community. No such result was regarded as possible. Immutably fixed in my own course, I knew that nothing--humanly speaking--could affect my unalterable resolve. I had discovered a pearl of womanhood, matchless in beauty of mind and body, combining the higher mental qualities, indeed, with such physical perfection as no girl reared under less fortunate conditions was likely to possess. With regard to the future, if she consented to link her fate with mine I was ready to take all the risks of fortune.

The fickle G.o.ddess has always favoured the brave, and with Miranda at my side I felt that I could lead the forlorn hopes of desperate endeavour, or endure uncomplainingly the toil and self-denial of the humblest station. I had, it is true, led a careless, somewhat epicurean life in the past, surrendering myself perhaps too readily to the charm of island life. But this was of the past, and the half-instinctive folly period of youth. Henceforth I would essay the culture of the mental qualities with which I had been reasonably gifted, turning to account also that very sound and thorough early tuition through which I had fortunately pa.s.sed.

Thus equipped, and with a helpmate at once loving and practical--devoted to duty and the highest forms of unselfish charity--ambitious only for intellectual experience and development--I felt that hope became certainty and success a mere matter of detail. After the departure of the _Rosario_ I became almost a son by adoption among the elders of the community. I learned to accommodate myself to their ways, after a fas.h.i.+on which was rendered more easy by my years of familiarity with island life. At the same time I was careful not to infringe in the slightest degree upon their peculiar customs, or to shock those religious prejudices which were so earnestly accepted in the community.

It was taken for granted that I would settle among them in right of my bride. If I decided to marry Miranda, or any other island maiden, I should be put in possession of a landed estate of fifty acres, where I might dream away life in a round of labour that was half recreation, wandering amid the island groves, reclining under giant ferns or lofty pines, bathing in crystal founts or clear-hued seas at dawn or under the yellow moon. Pa.s.sing contentedly from youth to middle age, from that half-way stage to a later span of life, which in this enchanted land implied little or no diminution of natural powers. Should it be so?