Gabrielle of the Lagoon Part 4

Hillary had intended to place his arms about her and embrace her before she went, but his chance had gone!

As he stood beneath the tamuni-trees and watched, she looked more like an elf-girl than ever, as her canoe shot out into the shadows of the moon-lit lagoon and was paddled swiftly away.

CHAPTER III-SOUTH SEA OPERA BOUFFE

Hillary hardly knew where he was going as he walked back round the coast, thinking of Gabrielle Everard and all that had upset his mind.

When he at last arrived at his lodgings, the old wooden shack near Rokeville, he was tired out. Even pretty Mango Pango, the half-caste Polynesian servant-maid, wondered why on earth he looked so solemn as she gave her usual salutation: "Tolafa! Monsieur Hilly-aire!"

"Nasty face no belonger you!" said the cheeky girl as the young apprentice forced a smile to his lips, chucked her under her pretty, dimpled brown chin, and then went off into his room. It wouldn't have been called a room in a civilised city, unless a small trestle bed, a tub and fourteen calabashes and wooden walls ornamented with grotesque-looking Kai-kai clubs and native spears deserved that name. He could even see the stars twinkling through the roof c.h.i.n.ks on windy nights, when the palms swayed inland to the breath of the typhoon and no longer let their dark-fingered leaves hide the cracks half across the wooden ceiling. But still, that mattered nothing to him; the companions.h.i.+p of his own reflections, away from the oaths of grog-shanty men, beachcombers on the sh.o.r.es, and surly skippers, and jabbering natives, made up amply for all the apparent discomfort of his apartments.

Pretty Mango Pango, the housemaid, was singing some weird native melody; it seemed to soothe his nerves as the strains, from somewhere in the outbuildings, came to his ears while he sat there reflecting. He thought of England, and wondered what his people thought over his long silence.

He knew that they must by then know the truth, for his s.h.i.+p must have arrived back in the old country long, long ago without him. He thought of the wild life he was leading as compared with life in London. "It's like being in another world." Standing there by the window listening to the tribal drums beating in the mountains, he thought he saw the dark firs and palms for miles over the inland hills. And as he stared he felt the eeriness of the scene, and he remembered the ghostly figures that sailors swore they saw on those moon-lit nights, even when rum was scarce. As he thought of Gabrielle his brain became etherealised with dreams. He took out his dilapidated volume of Sh.e.l.ley's poems and read _The Ode to the West Wind_, and finally became so sentimental that he sat down and wrote this letter home:

Dear Mater,-Forgive me for not writing before this. I ran away from my s.h.i.+p. Though the skipper smiled like an angel when you saw him, he turned out a fiend incarnate. I'm out here in the Solomon Isles. I often think of you.... You'd never believe the wonderful things I've seen, the experiences I've gone through, since I left you all. I couldn't stand Australia.

First of all I must tell you that the natives here are inveterate cannibals, but still they're not likely to eat me.

I've got tough. The wonderful part of it all is this: I've met a most beautiful, eerie kind of girl here in the Solomon Isles.

She comes up to all that I ever dreamed of in the way of beauty and innocence in human shape. I know, dear, that you will smile, that thousands of men have thought they had come across the one perfect woman; but it seems to me something to be thankful to G.o.d for that I should _really_ find her! And living out here in these G.o.d-forsaken isles, too! Her father's not much of a catch in the way of prospects. But he's a retired captain and, I believe, is well respected by the population. I'm sure you would like Gabrielle if you saw her, and you will see her if I can manage it all.... It seems gross to have to mention business prospects after mentioning her.

Well, I'm making fine progress with my music. I've mastered Paganini's twenty-four Caprices. I've also composed some wonderful pieces. I know they're good....

I'm reading Sh.e.l.ley, Byron and Swinburne and Tolstoy's _Kreutzer Sonata_. The people here seem strangely to lack poetic vision.

They are wonderful men, though, brave and truthful in their forcible expression at the concerts outside the Beach Hotel.

It's a kind of Brighton Hotel, but the _prima donnas_ are dusky.

I was knighted by a tribal king the other night.

Kiss dear sister Bertha for me. Tell her to read Balzac's _Wild a.s.s's Skin_. It's a beautiful book. She must skip the chapters where the woman's silken knee comes in, etc., etc. Your affectionate, loving son,

Hillary.

Having penned the foregoing epistle, Hillary placed it in his sea-chest.

Like many of his temperament, he wrote more letters under the impulse of the moment than he ever posted.

"It's early yet," he said to himself as he stared out of the window and saw the moonlight stealing across the rows of mountain palms to the south-west. He could hear the faint rattling of the derrick, where some schooner was being unloaded by night. That noise seemed to rouse him from his dreams. He lit his pipe and crept out of the door. A puff of cool ocean breeze came like a draught of scented wine to his nostrils; for it had pa.s.sed over the pine-apple plantations and drifted down the orange and lemon groves. The pungent odours seemed to intoxicate him.

But still he was feeling moody, so he started off over the slopes. He was off to the grog shanty. He knew that originality abounded in that drinking saloon and in the neighborhood of its wooden walls.

The grog shanty of Bougainville harbour was known by sailormen as far as the four corners of the world as the finest pick-me-up and dispeller of fits of the blues in existence. Indeed, that shanty was a kind of medicine chest, the magical chemist's shop of the Pacific. It was the _opera bouffe_ of South Sea life: it made the cynic smile, the poet philosophical, the madman feel that he must surely be deadly sane, and the ne'er-do-wells drunk with happiness. Indeed, the consequential, heavily moustached German consul, Arn Von de Sixth, had crept down the Rokeville highroad one night and seen such sights that German culture received a shock! He at once issued an edict that no native girls were to visit the precincts of the grog shanties after sunset.

But notwithstanding his strict orders the dances still went on. Indeed, as Hillary arrived in sight of the dead screw-pine that flew the Double Eagle flag the scene that met his gaze fairly astonished him. It was as though he was witnessing some phantom-like cinematograph show. A small cloud that traversed the clear tropic sky suddenly blurred the moon, sending lines of shadows over the s.h.i.+ning s.p.a.ces outside the grog shanty. This made the scenic effect look as though a covey of dusky female ghosts had rushed from the jungle and were whirling their semi-robed limbs in wild delight beneath the coco-palms. If the apprentice had any idea that the scene was supernatural it must have been swiftly dispelled by the sound of the wild chorus of a chantey coming from the hoa.r.s.e-throated sailormen a.s.sembled outside Parsons's bar. Then the moon seemed to burst into a silvery flood of silent laughter that went tumbling over the dark palm groves, drenched the distant sh.o.r.e forests with pale light, and touched the dim horizon of the sea; it even lit up the bearded mouths of the sh.e.l.lbacks and revealed the brilliant eyes of the dusky ballet girls who had stolen down from the mountain villages. They had their chaperon with them in the shape of old High Chief Bango Seru. Those brown girls were his prize gamal-house, or tambu dancers. A mighty calabash was by his side. It was in that handy receptacle that he carefully placed the acc.u.mulating bribes that he demanded as payment for all that his dusky protege did-and ought not to do! Parsons, the bar-keeper, poked his elongated, bald cranium out of the shanty's doorway and shook his towel violently.

(It was the signal that no German official was in sight.)

Once more pretty Singa Mavoo and Loa Mog-wog lifted their _ramis_ (chemises), revealed their nut-brown knees and swerved with inimitable grace. The Yankee nudged the German half-caste in the ribs till they both so roared with laughter that they fell down. It was a kind of miniature representation of the wine of the European music hall and _opera bouffe_ poured into one goblet so that the onlooker might swallow the draught at a gulp! Oom Pa, the aged high priest, was there. That fervent ecclesiastic had been unable to resist the temptation thrown out to him by the half-caste German sailors and grog-bar keepers. There he stood, as plain as plain could be, his eyes alive with avarice, as he too winked, begged for a drink and solemnly pointed out the attractions of his two pretty, semi-nude granddaughters, who danced ecstatically, so that he might add his mite to the collection-box for the heathen temple fund down at Ackra-Ackra.

The most unimaginative of those onlookers breathed a sigh of admiration when two Malayo-Polynesian youths stepped out of the shadows and put forth their arms, looking at first like dusky statues, not only because of their perfect terra-cotta limbs and artistic pose, but because of their graceful erectness as their arms and legs moved with marvellous symmetrical precision. Even the night seemed astonished as a breath of wind came in from the seas and ran across the island trees. For now it seemed like a shadow-world peopled with puppets. The youths put forth their arms and dived up, up between the palms, coming down on their bare feet like dusky marionettes dropping softly from the moon-lit sky! Then the tambu maids began to chant and dance. Only the weird jingling of their armlets and leglets showed that they were really there in the shadows, as the sh.e.l.lbacks in their wide-brimmed hats looked on in silence.

"Tavoo! Malloot!" suddenly said a voice. The effect of those two words was magical. Every maid, dancer and onlooker had vanished! Only the palms sighed as though in sorrow of it all as a German official's white helmet hat came into sight far along the beach.

"Did I dream it all?" murmured Hillary. He rubbed his eyes; then he went across the sands to the spot where the dancers had done such wondrous feats. He stamped with his foot to see if there was some subterranean outlet through which the dancers could so mysteriously disappear. But all was solid enough. The moon still shone with its silent, religious light. Parsons flapped his towel three times from the grog-bar doorway.

One could have sworn that the rough men in his bar-room had never left their drinks as they stood there solemnly pulling their beards, discussing old grievances in hushed voices. Not a breath of wind stirred the phantom-like palm groves outside; only the chants of the cicalas were faintly audible as they clacked down in the tall bamboo gra.s.s of the swamps and sh.o.r.e lagoons. Those old sailors and sh.e.l.lbacks looked the picture of honesty _till_ they gazed meaningly into each other's eyes and drank on, sighed and sent the flames of the roof oil lamps flickering over their wide-brimmed hats. But even they gave a startled jump as something out in the silent night went "Bang!" It might have been the signal that any kind of horror was being perpetrated. But it was only a mighty thump on a tribal drum, somewhere up in a mountain village, telling the frightened inhabitants that all was well, that the last of the tambu maids had arrived safely, had entered the stockade gates and that their pagan world might rest in peace for the remainder of the night.

Even Hillary responded to the far-off voice of the tribal drum, for he turned away and strolled back to his humble lodging-house. As he went over the slopes he saw Oom Pa staggering homeward with his mighty calabashes, minus his granddaughters, who had come down from the mountain villages. All was silent as he crept beneath the palms, pa.s.sed under the verandah and entered his room. Even Mango Pango was snoring on her sleeping-mat in the kitchen, so late was it. And yet, as he looked out of his open window and yawned, he could distinctly hear the sounds of m.u.f.fled drums beating across the slopes.

"d.a.m.ned if there is not another heathen festival on somewhere," he muttered. It was true enough: the full-moon festivals were in progress, and down at Ackra-Ackra they were chanting and banging, and their sacred maids were dancing to the discordant music. Had Hillary known _who_ was dancing at that moment on a tambu stage only two miles away he wouldn't have slept much that night. But he was oblivious to all that happened, so he fell asleep and dreamed of dusky whirling ghosts and fate-like drums that swept dancing maidens away into a shadowy pageant of swift-footed figures that bolted into the mountains and were seen no more.

CHAPTER IV-THE SOUL'S RIVAL

As soon as Gabrielle Everard had paddled across the lagoon and pa.s.sed from Hillary's enraptured sight she pulled her little craft up on the sandy beach, hid it amongst the tall rushes and started off home. She stood for a moment hidden beneath the mangoes till three jabbering, hurrying native chiefs had pa.s.sed by.

As she watched them recede from sight down into the gloom of the sylvan glades, she gave a sigh. "I hate to see those big tatooed chiefs; it's through them that I feel so wild at times, I'm sure. I simply curse that ancestor of mine who married a dark woman. Why, I'd sooner die than marry a dark man!" Then she added: "Pooh! Why should I worry? I'm white enough, since I feel such a dislike for them-but, still, I do like dancing and singing at times, I admit."

Then she thought of the young apprentice; his bronzed, frank face and earnest eyes rose before her memory. "He does look handsome; those odd-coloured eyes of his do fascinate me; but it's a pity he's not a pa.s.sionate kind, who would make love like those handsome chiefs do when they sing to their brides on the _pae paes_ and tambu stages. But there, they're wild and can't control their pa.s.sions as we do!" she added. She looked down into the lagoon at her image and blushed deeply at her own thoughts. "I'm getting quite a pretty girl-almost a beautiful woman,"

was her next reflection, as she noticed her large shadowy eyes and her full throat in the still water.

"Hallo, Ramai!" she exclaimed, as a graceful native girl suddenly stepped out of the bamboo thickets, stared with large dark eyes at her, then made as if to pa.s.s on. "Don't go, Ramai," said Gabrielle. The girl stared sphinx-like for a second, then moved on. "I go, Madesi, to pray, tabaran! Must go or die!" answered the strange maid as she turned round, then pointed her dark finger in the direction of the G.o.d-house that was situated somewhere in the taboo mountains.

"Your old G.o.d-houses! Do you really believe in them?" said Gabrielle, looking earnestly into the strange maid's serious eyes. For a moment Ramai stared, put her brown knee forward, made a magic pa.s.s with her hands above her head, and said: "The G.o.ds have spoken more than once to Ramai when the stars did s.h.i.+ne in the lagoons and the caves by Temeroesi, and told the future. And am I not sacred in the eyes of the G.o.ds? For I am head singer at the tambu festivals, so are my love affairs good, and chiefs have died for that look from my eyes that would tell all that a woman may say."

"If I danced on the _pae paes_ would I be loved too?" said Gabrielle almost eagerly.

"Pale-faced Marama, you no dance; the G.o.ds like not your kind!" Ramai answered almost scornfully. Then she glided away into the shadows on the other side of the track and disappeared.

Gabrielle burst into a merry peal of laughter. Once more she looked at her image in the lagoon and began to chant and sway and clap her hands rhythmically, just as she had seen the natives do. The deep boom of the bronze pigeon recalled her to herself as she stood throwing her shapely limbs softly to and fro. The songs of the birds seemed to remind her that she was no longer a child, and that such antics were a bit out of place now that she wore long dresses. She stopped dead, and put her hands into the folds of her hair that had fallen in a glinting ma.s.s to her shoulders as she shuffled her sandalled feet in the long jungle gra.s.s.

"I'm really getting awful," was her next reflection. The sun was lying broad on the western sea-line; it looked like an enormous, dissipated, blood-splashed face that would hurry to hide itself below the rim of the ocean, away from the violent wooing of the hot, impa.s.sioned, tropic day.

Gabrielle stared across the seas from the hill-top and half fancied that that great hot face grinned from ear to ear over all it had seen. A peculiar feeling of fright seized her heart. In a moment she had turned and hurried away. She felt quite relieved as she sighted her father's bungalow beneath the shade of the bread-fruits. "It's late. Won't Dad swear! I don't care; men must swear, I suppose," she muttered as she plucked up courage and entered the small door of the solitary homestead.

The shadows of evening had fallen; the last c.o.c.katoo had chimed its discordant vesper from the banyans near by. The room was nearly dark as she opened the door; only a faint stream of light crept through the wide-open cas.e.m.e.nt that was thickly covered with twining tropic vine and sickly yellowish blossoms. To her astonishment, she was received by her father with a broad smile of welcome. "Come in, deary, don't stand there! What yer frightened of-you _beauty_?" said old Everard, as his lean, clean-shaven face looked up at the girl in a warning way and he placed a forcible accent on the last two words.

"Who's here that he should be so affable?" thought Gabrielle.

Turning round, she was startled to see a tall figure standing by the window. In a moment she hurried to the mantel piece and, striking a match, lit the small oil lamp, scolding her father all the time for his discourtesy in allowing a stranger to stand in the darkness. As she turned and gazed at the visitor she almost gave a cry, so impressed was she by the appearance of the man before her. It was the handsome Rajah Koo Macka, the half-caste Malayo-Papuan missionary. He was attired in semi-European clothes, but with this difference-round his waist was twined a large red sash and on his head the tribal insignia of the Malay Archipelago Rajahs.h.i.+p, which consisted of coils of richly coloured material swathed round and round to resemble a turban. He looked like a handsome Corsair who had suddenly stepped out of an Eastern seraglio.

For a moment the girl stared in astonishment; the Rajah corresponded with her conception of what the grand old heroes of romance were like.

The Rajah took in the whole situation and the impression he had made at this first glance at the father and daughter. He swelled his chest and a.s.sumed his most majestic att.i.tude, and then behaved as though he knew he had befriended the girl by being at her homestead at that opportune moment.

"My darter!" said old Everard, inclining his lean face and introducing the girl with a grin.

"Your daughter!" gasped the Rajah as he stared with all the boldness and brazen admiration that Hillary's eyes had lacked into Gabrielle's face.

He was taking no risks, had no idealistic views about innocence and beauty to thwart his heart's desires-in a sense he had already captured her!