Gabrielle of the Lagoon Part 2

One book was Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_; another, Christina Rossetti's poems; _The Arabian Nights_ and Hans Andersen's fairy tales.

That old captain (he must have been old by the dates in the books) had brought many valuable cargoes across the world, but he dreamed not that his most wonderful cargo was the magic in the books that he was destined one day to leave behind him in the Solomon Isles!

To a great extent old Everard's daughter was the embodiment of the principles and idealisms that were in those faded volumes: in her imagination Bunyan stood there beneath the palms, seeing G.o.d in those tropic skies; Hans Andersen drank in the mystery of sunset on the mountains, and Christina Rossetti laid a visionary hand on the tiny, s.h.a.ggy heads of the native children who had rushed from the forest's depths and had started gambolling at Gabrielle's feet. She hastened on.

"Awaie!" she cried to the dusky little creatures, who looked up at her in a bewildered way, as though they had seen a ghost. "Ma Soo!" they wailed, as they sped away, frightened, into the shadows of the forest. A wild desire entered Gabrielle's heart; she half bounded forward, as though to rush after those tiny forest ragam.u.f.fins. She felt like casting aside her civilised attire, so that she too might race off, untrammelled, into those happy leafy glooms. The cry of the yellow-crested c.o.c.katoo, the deep moaning of the bronze pigeons and iris doves in the bread-fruits seemed to feed her soul with unfathomable music. As she pa.s.sed by a lagoon she saw her reflection in the still depths. The dark-toning water made her appear almost swarthy; her bronze-gold hair looked quite black. It was only a momentary glance, but that glimpse was enough to strike a wild feeling of terror into her heart, reminding her that she was connected by blood to the dark races.

At that thought her heart trembled: to her it was as though G.o.d had suddenly thumped it in some inscrutable spite. In a moment she had recovered. The strange dread of she knew not what vanished. Once more she gave a peal of silvery laughter, and even went so far as to wave her hand to the crowd of dark, handsome native men who were hurrying by on their way back from the plantations.

As she meandered along she began to think over all that had happened on the festival night when she had suddenly felt that strange impulse and astonished the natives by jumping on to the festival _pae pae_ and dancing before them all. She rubbed her eyes. "I can't think that I really did such a thing; I feel sure it must have been a dream." Then she remembered that her gown was torn and one of her slippers lost when she had arrived home in her father's bungalow. "It must have been true.

Fancy me doing such a thing! I wonder what _he_ would have thought." So she reflected over all she had done. Then she began to rea.s.sure herself by recalling how she had often, when only ten years of age, danced on the _pae pae_ with the pretty tambu maidens. And, as she remembered it all, she gave an instinctive high kick and burst into a fit of laughter; then she said to herself: "I'm a woman now and really must not do such things!" She started running down the forest track, and as she pa.s.sed by the native village the handsome emigrant Polynesian youths waved their hands and cried: "Talofa Madimselle!" One handsome young Polynesian, gifted with superb effrontery, ran forward and stuck a frangipani blossom in her hair. This by-play made the tawny maids who were squatting on their mats by the village huts jump to their feet and give a hop, skip and a jump through sheer jealousy.

Once more Gabrielle had pa.s.sed on and entered the depths of the forest.

Pa.s.sing along by the banyan groves on the outskirts of the villages she suddenly came across a cleared s.p.a.ce surrounded by giant mahogany-trees-a kind of natural amphitheatre. Between the tree trunks stood several huge wooden idols with gla.s.s boss eyes and hideous carved mouths. They seemed to grin with extreme delight at the adoration they were receiving from the twelve skinny hags and three chiefs who knelt and chanted at their wooden feet. Gabrielle stood still, fascinated by the weirdness of that pagan scene. Again and again the hags and chiefs jumped to their feet and prostrated themselves before the carved deities. "_Tan woomba! Te woomba, tarabaran, woomba woomba!_" they seemed to moan and mumble as the stalwart chieftains jumped to their feet, wagged their feathered head-dresses, thrust forth their arms and chanted into the idols' wooden ears. The largest centre idol seemed actually to grin with delight as it listened to the mumbling of the chiefs. Gabrielle stared, awestruck, as she listened, and the hags, leaping to their feet, danced wildly and shook their sh.e.l.l-ornamented _ramis_ (loin chemises), making a weird, jingling music as the sh.e.l.ls tinkled. Then they lifted their skinny arms and bony chins to the forest height and mumbled weird chants of death. Gabrielle had seen many similar sights in Bougainville, but never before had she quite realised the full meaning of that strange chanting, or of the sorrow that impels heathens to fas.h.i.+on an effigy with a fate-like grin on its curved wooden lips so that it could stand before them as some material symbol of the Unknown Power! As Gabrielle watched, two of the chiefs turned their heads, recognised her, and gave their sombre salutation: "Maino tepiake!" And still the hags chanted on.

Then Gabriello heard a faint mumbling coming from the belt of mangroves that grew by the lagoons near by. She was astonished to see six tambu maids appear, attired in full festival costume, which consisted of a kind of sarong fas.h.i.+oned from the thinnest tappa cloth. The girls had large red and black feathers stuck in their head-mops and Gabrielle knew by this that someone had died in the village and was being borne to the grave. They were walking slowly, carrying their mournful burden between them. It was an old-time tribal funeral. As the coffin-bearers arrived in front of the idols they laid their burden down. Gabrielle instinctively crossed herself when she saw the wan face of the dead mahogany-hued Broka girl. It was a sad, curiously beautiful face, for death had toned down the old wildness of the living features. The reddish, coral-dyed hair had fallen forward on to the pallid brown brow and gave a pathetic touch to that silent figure. On the forehead was the plastered scarlet mud cross, a sign that the girl had died in maidenhood. She was stretched out on a long, narrow death-mat that had handles, something after the style of an ambulance stretcher, but fas.h.i.+oned in such a way that when the primitive hea.r.s.e of dusky arms moved forward the corpse regained a sitting posture. The effect was gruesome in the extreme, for the head of the corpse, being limp, fell forward or wobbled as the mourners pa.s.sed along the narrow mossy track.

Through entering into the spirit of the proceedings Gabrielle at once gained the sympathy of those pagan mourners. For she too crept behind the procession as it moved along among the pillars of the vast primitive cathedral. The thick foliage of the giant bread-fruits, the b.u.t.tressed banyans and towering vines, that ran here and there like symphonies of green, scented the forest depth. And when the wind sighed it seemed to be some moan from infinity, as though that moving procession and the forest itself stood on the deep inward slopes of some vast sea. Only the remote wide window, through which the stars shone by night and the sunsets marked the close of each tropic day, was visible between the colonnades of tree trunks, as there it shone-the far-away western horizon. Suddenly the procession stopped. The six tambu maidens had begun to chant an eerie but beautiful pagan psalm as they approached the grave-side; then they laid their burden gently down. The weeping hags and chiefs stood looking up into the branches of the tall coco-palm. It was there that the girl's body was to rest till her bones whitened to the hot tropic winds. Along one of the lower branches they had fas.h.i.+oned a grave-mattress of twigs and leaves, jungle gra.s.s and tough seaweed, the whole being fastened on to the branch by strong sennet. It was a weirdly fascinating sight as they stood there voiceless and began hurriedly to perform the last sacred rites over the dead girl. The tallest of the mourners, an aged chief, who had a naturally melancholy aspect, besides both his ears being missing, took a bone flute from his lava-lava and began to blow a weird _Te Deum_. Gabrielle could hardly believe her eyes as the tambu maidens started to whirl their bodies in perfect silence to the sound of the wild man's piping. Only the jingle of the _rami_ sh.e.l.ls, tinkling in exact _tempo_ to the wailing fife (made out of the thigh-bone of some dead high priest), told her that those girls were whirling rapidly in the forest shadows. The hags and chiefs had already fallen p.r.o.ne on their stomachs, so that they could perform the lost mysterious rite. This rite necessitated them rising repeatedly to their knees so that they might take in a deep breath and blow their stomachs out, balloon-like, to enormous proportions. The contrast was weird in the extreme when their bodies receded and subsided into a ma.s.s of wrinkles. This strange rite took about five minutes to perform. It was a rite that was supposed to blow the sins of the dead away ere the spirit entered shadow-land.

As soon as this ritual was completed two of the chiefs climbed the grave-palm and then, hanging in a marvellous way by their feet, they leaned earthwards and gripped the dead girl's coffin-mat by the sennet handles. One old woman (the mother probably) rushed hastily forward, and lifting the corpse's hand kissed it. Then the living limbs of the weird grave-elevators went taut as, still with their heads hanging downwards, they clutched the coffin-mat and slowly pulled the dead figure foot by foot off _terra firma_ towards the sky! In a few moments the dead girl lay lashed to the bough of her strange grave, high up in the forest coco-palm. Suddenly the mourners had all vanished! Even Gabrielle felt some of the fright that haunted the souls of those wild people. They had hurried away because it was known that directly the forest wind blew across the new-made grave the soul of the dead departed for shadow-land and must not be tainted by the breath of the living. After seeing that sight Gabrielle hurried away also. She trembled as she stepped at last out of the forest shadows into the glory of the sunlight. She seemed to realise at that moment that the sun was the visible G.o.d of the universe, the rolling orb that woos the world, creating the green happiness of the woods and bills. She saw the migrating birds going south as she lifted her eyes. Perhaps she felt the winged poetry of the birds on their flight to the southward, hurrying away like symbols of our own brief days. Her eyes were very concentrated as she sighed and then jumped carelessly on to a springy banyan bough and began to sing one of her peculiar songs. Suddenly she ceased to sing, and a startled look leapt into her eyes as she turned her head. She had even let her swinging legs fall stiff so that the old blue robe might fall and hide her pretty ankles. Then she gave a merry peal of laughter that frightened the life out of a decrepit c.o.c.katoo. "Cah-eah! Whoo-cah!" it shrieked as it left its high perch and flapped away. Hillary looked up and threw a coco-nut at it and missed by a hundred yards. It was he who had disturbed the girl. As the apprentice stood before her she blushed softly, as though her bright eyes and face mysteriously reflected the sunset fire that shone on the sea horizon to the westward.

Hillary metaphorically rubbed his hands over his luck. He had strolled over the hills for no other reason than to get clear of his growling landlady, who had begun to give hints over delayed rent. Nor was the old half-caste woman to be blamed, for many white youths from "Peretania"

arrived in the Solomon Isles crammed with hopes and promises and little cas.h.!.+ Besides, the evening was the only time fit for a quiet stroll without being charged by myriads of sand-flies and other winged, tropical things. Though Gabrielle had hinted to him that she generally took her walks by the lagoons, he had gathered that she was usually busy at the twilight hours getting her father's tea, polis.h.i.+ng his wooden leg, etc. Consequently, Hillary's face was aglow with pleasure as he approached the girl. In his confusion he lifted his cap and bowed as men bow to maids in civilised communities. Gabrielle, who was unused to such gallant manners, was delighted. She even gave a little nod in response.

It was a most fascinating bit of "court etiquette" on her part, for she had learnt it from her French novels. Hillary, who had especially noticed and loved the girl's wild, rough, fascinating ways, was charmed at Gabrielle's tiny bit of "put-on." It would have been impossible to reproduce the expression of his face as he flung himself down in the fern-gra.s.s close to Gabrielle.

The girl who was again swinging to and fro on the banyan bough, looked sideways like a parrot on the apprentice's face, wondering why he looked so confused. Hillary always felt shy when she looked at him with those childish, big eyes.

"I'm going to clear out of this G.o.d-forsaken place soon," he said, as he found his voice. Then he continued: "It's marvellous how a girl like you can exist in this infernal hole, full of tattooed savages."

She only stared at him as he rambled on, and wondered why he attracted her so. Then she laughed like a child, and looking him straight in the face said: "You are very different to the other men I've seen round these parts." Hillary felt himself redden as she stared into his eyes; she looked critically for a moment and said: "Different coloured eyes too!" Then she added artlessly: "Do you drink rum?"

"On cold nights at sea," Hillary responded, as he stroked his chin and felt amused at the girl's remarks.

And still the girl sang on as he watched her. She looked like a faery child as she sat there swinging on the banyan bough, the music of her voice ringing some elfin tune into his ears. There was a look that reminded him of Keats's _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_. Indeed, the apprentice half fancied that she was some visionary girl sitting there singing to him from a banyan bough in the Solomon Isles. And as the sea-winds drifted in and made a kind of moaning music in the ivory-nut palms their murmurings seemed to sing:

"I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful-a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

"I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song.

"I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried: 'La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!'"

A strange bird that neither knew the name of began to whistle its evening song and broke the spell. "I wish that d.a.m.ned bird hadn't come and spoilt everything," was Hillary's most emphatic mental comment.

Gabrielle had stopped singing. "Do you love the songs of birds, Miss Everard?" he said as he looked at her and gave an inane smile.

"I do this evening," she replied, then quickly added: "It's the tribal drums, that horrible booming and banging in the mountains, that I hate to hear!"

"Fancy that!" said Hillary, somewhat surprised, as he listened to the distant echoes-it was the tribal drums up in the native village beating the stars in.

"I was just thinking how romantic that distant drumming sounded; the people in the far-off cities of the world would give something to hear that primitive overture to the night, I can tell you," said he.

"Fancy that! Why--" said Gabrielle, as she over-balanced and fell from the bough in considerable confusion at his feet. Hillary made a grab as though she had yet another sheer depth to fall.

"Oh, allow me!" he exclaimed, as he picked her novel up. The girl whipped her robe down swiftly and hid the brown, ornamental-stockinged calves that a few months before had been exposed by short skirts to the gaze of all those who might wish to stare. Gabrielle blushed as she rearranged her crimson sash. She was dressed in a kind of Oriental style, in a sarong, opened at the sleeves to about one inch above the elbows. The crimson sash was tied bow-wise at the left hip; a large hibiscus blossom was stuck coquettishly in the folds of her hair, making her small white ear peep out like a pearly sh.e.l.l. Her _retrousse_ nose had a tiny scratch on it where a bee had stung her the day before.

"Why, you've scratched your arm!" exclaimed Hillary, taking advantage of the delicate situation by gently pulling back the sleeve of her sarong and boldly wiping a tiny speck of blood away from the soft whiteness that had been p.r.i.c.ked by a cactus thorn. Gabrielle put on a look of extreme modesty, notwithstanding that she had danced on a heathen _pae pae_ a few nights before.

"Your eyes are different colours, one brown and one a beautiful blue!"

she suddenly exclaimed for the second time as she burst into a merry peal of laughter.

The young apprentice reddened slightly. "I can't help that I did not make my own eyes, did I?" he said.

For a moment the girl stared earnestly at his face, then said: "Well, you needn't mind, really. I reckon they look fine!"

"Don't you get full up of wandering about this heathen locality?" said Hillary, changing the conversation. "Nothing but palm-trees, parrots, and brown men and tattooed women roaming about gabbling _tabak_ and wors.h.i.+pping idols."

Gabrielle laughed. "Don't you care for the natives? I think they're amusing; especially at the festival dances," she added after a pause.

"Well, I don't object to the festivals; they're original and decidedly attractive. I was charmed by seeing a Polynesian maid dance like a G.o.ddess over a Buka village two nights ago."

"Fancy you liking to see native girls dance!" said Gabrielle, giving a roguish glance.

"Well, I do; there's something so fascinating and poetic in the way they do it all," Hillary responded.

Gabrielle readjusted the flowers in her hair, then said: "Would you like to see me dance?"

"Dear me, I certainly should!" exclaimed the young apprentice, his eyes betraying the astonishment he felt over her question.

"Shall I dance?" Gabrielle repeated.

"What! Now!" he exclaimed. He lit his cigarette twice over, wondering if she were laughing at him or really meant that she would dance there on the spot.

Before he could say another word Gabrielle had risen to her feet and was dancing before him. He blew his nose, coughed, put on an inane smile and then fairly gasped in his astonishment and admiration. Her tripping feet softly brushed the blue forest flowers and tall, ferny gra.s.s that swished against her loose robe. Hillary's embarra.s.sment had changed to a tremendous interest in the originality of the dancer before him. He clapped his hands in a kind of obsequious way for an encore as she swayed in a most fascinating manner, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her eyes s.h.i.+ning, one hand holding up the fold of her sarong-like robe, just revealing her brown stocking above the left ankle. "Well, I'm blessed!" he breathed. She had begun to hum a weird melody; her right hand was outstretched, uplifted as though she held a goblet of wine and would drink a toast to some pagan deity.

He looked at the sunset; he half fancied that it had always been staring from the ocean rim, and would never set! And as he looked at the dancing figure she really did seem to hold a goblet in her outstretched hand-full to the brim-with the gold of sunset that touched the landscape and was glinting over her tumbling hair and eyes.

"The Solomon Isles! The Solomon Isles!" was all that he could breathe to himself as she stared at him, a strange fixed look in her eyes. A c.o.c.katoo fluttered down to the lowest bough of the bread-fruit tree, looked sideways on her swaying figure, slowly flapped its blue-tipped wings in surprise and chuckled discordantly.

"Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!" chimed in Hillary, as he clapped his hands, stared idiotically and felt like hiding behind the thick trunk of the bread-fruit.

"Well now! You dance perfectly!" he gasped. Gabrielle had ceased tripping. She looked embarra.s.sed and had begun to coil up her tumbling tresses.

"Worth chewing salt-horse and hard-tack on a dozen voyages to have seen what I've seen!" was the apprentice's inward reflection.

"Do the girls in England dance like that?" she said in an eager, frightened way.

"Oh no, not as well as you've danced. Blest if they do!" said he. That last remark of hers made him realise that girl before him was half-wild and had danced before him as a child might ere it became self-conscious.

"Fancy meeting a beautiful white girl, half-wild! It's thrilling! I wonder what will be the end of it," mused Hillary, as he stared on that strange maid whom he had chanced upon so suddenly.

Suddenly she said: "I'm no good at all; you may think I am, but I'm not."

"Aren't you?" murmured Hillary, somewhat taken aback.