Gabrielle of the Lagoon Part 5

Gabrielle, recovering from that thrilling glance, blushed deeply. She stared at the dark moustache; it was waxed, and curled artistically at the tips. "What eyes!-luminous, warm-looking, alive with romantic dreams!" she thought.

The Rajah looked again at the girl. That second swift glance made her heart tremble with fright, but somehow she liked to see a man stare so.

"My darter 'andsome girl," gurgled old Everard, stumping his wooden leg twenty times in swift succession, as Gabrielle brought out the rum bottle. The business confab that had been going on between Everard and his guest ceased abruptly. The old ex-sailor took the Rajah's proffered cigar, stuck it in his mouth and gripped the ex-missionary's hand, with secret delight bubbling in his heart. That grip said to Everard: "Everard, old pal, I never knew you had such a bonny daughter. Never mind the business I came here about, I'll supply you with cash for rum!"

The old sailor rubbed his hands. He knew that the man before him was wealthy, owned a schooner, and was boss of two plantations in Honolulu, where he had first met him. He put forth his h.o.r.n.y fist and gave the Rajah the first familiar nudge of equality.

Everard was altogether worldly, but utterly unworldly in the great human sense of that phrase. He lacked the swift instincts that should have made him discern the truth and see how the wind might blow. His drunken eyes could not read the deeper meaning in the Rajah's eyes as that worthy glanced at his daughter. He could see nothing of the pa.s.sion and l.u.s.t that is so often in the hearts of the men of mixed blood in the dark races.

Even Gabrielle's half-fledged instincts of womanhood made her realise that the man before her did not exactly represent her preconceived ideas of what the old heroes of romance would look like could they stand before her in the flesh; the look in the Rajah's eyes as he gazed on her was rather too obvious.

That night as the three of them sat at the table and Everard roared with laughter over Rajah Macka's jokes, and giggled in delight at discovering that the Papuan potentate was such a fine fellow after all, Gabrielle's heart fluttered like a caught bird. Rajah Koo Macka had leaned across the table once and stared into her eyes in such a way that even old Everard had ceased his narrative concerning his own astuteness and, like the idiot he was, stared at the Rajah, the rum goblet still between his lips and the table. But the Rajah, noticing that swift look in the old ex-sailor's face, immediately recovered his mental equilibrium, and with astute cunning swiftly turned to his host and said: "I really couldn't help staring so. Why, bless me, Everard, this Miss Gabrielle is the dead spit of the Madonna, the glorious painting that adorned the sacred walls of my missionary home when I studied Christianity's holy precepts."

"d.a.m.n it! Is she?" wailed old Everard, as the artful heathen gent shaded his eyes archwise with one dusky hand and, staring unabashed with a long, reflective glance at Gabrielle, murmured in holiest tones: "Virginity! Virginity! O blessed word!"

Gabrielle certainly _did_ look beautiful: the dying flowers in her bronze-golden hair and her _neglige_ attire (a much-renovated, washed-out blue robe and scarlet sash) added to the mystery of that sordid bungalow, as the dim candles and oil lamp burnt humbly before the unfathomable eyes of sapphire-blue. The deep golden gleam in their pupils seemed to expand as the night grew old. What a night of magic it was for her! The strange man from the seas thrilled her.

The old bungalow, lit up by two tallow candles and one oil lamp, the smell of rum, all vanished, and the dilapidated furniture and walls shone with a beautiful light, a light that came from that romantic presence! By an inscrutable paradox Macka was abnormally sensual and selfish, and yet truly religious! He spoke in low, sombre tones about Christ, of innocence, of the hopes of the living and of men when they are dead. Old Everard looked almost sane as he leaned his Dantesque face across the table and murmured "Amen." And as the girl listened the Rajah loomed before her imagination as some glorious representative of the chivalric ages who had stolen into their bungalow out of the hush of the great starry night. The very walls of the room faded away as she watched his eyes flash. It was the sudden tiny pinch on her leg as he stooped to pick up his fallen cigar that she couldn't quite place. It most certainly had no Biblical import in the books she had read. But still, "Why worry?" she thought, as she once more came under the spell of that look. And still old Everard looked round with insane eyes and thanked G.o.d for a Rajah's friends.h.i.+p; and still Gabrielle struggled against the fascination of that man of mystery. Though nature has fixed indisputable danger signals in the eyes of voluptuaries, liars, rogues and old _roues_ so that they give themselves away in a thousand acts, women's blind eyes _will_ not see!

All the old idolatry, the belief in his heathen G.o.ds, returned to Rajah Koo Macka that night. His mind was fired with superst.i.tion, much as Gabrielle's was by romance, as he stared upon her. Had not the G.o.ds of his boyhood far away in New Guinea spoken of such a one with midnight-blue eyes and the hue of the stars in her hair? And was she not before him drinking to his eyes as she held the goblet at his wish? Had not their lips met in secret before the white man's blinded eyes?

He even made a further advance in that predestined courts.h.i.+p, as planned by the G.o.ds, when he left the bungalow that night. In a way that is the special gift of voluptuaries, he managed to squeeze by her in the doorway, pa.s.sing his arm about her with heathen artistry till she felt a strange thrill. Old Everard also received monstrous pressures of friends.h.i.+p as he put forth his hand and opened his insane-looking mouth at being so flattered. Then the old ex-sailor fell down in the doorway, dead drunk.

As soon as the Rajah got outside the bungalow he stood under the palms and looked back at that little homestead, a terrible fire gleaming in his eyes. The old superst.i.tion, deep in his heart's blood, a.s.serted itself with that full strength that is always triumphant when invested with the power of two creeds. "She's mine!" he muttered in the old Malayan language. He looked like an agent of the devil as he waved his arms and made magical pa.s.ses. Then he gave a low whistle. Two stalwart Kanakas, with mop-heads and gla.s.sy eyes like dead fish, stepped out of the shadows and saluted the Rajah. "Talofa Alii, Sah!" said one, as he softly swung his strangling rope to and fro and muttered, "Oner, twoer, threer, fourer," at the same time ticking off each number with his dusky finger. They were kidnappers, members of his crew. In a moment they were all hurrying down towards the sh.o.r.e. As they stood by the coral reefs, the waves singing up to their feet, the Rajah rubbed his hands with delight, for there were five dark girls lying p.r.o.ne, half strangled, in his waiting boat.

They had just been caught while swimming in the enchanted lagoons at Felisi, where native maidens, at the tribal witchman's bidding, went in the dead of night to wash their bodies in the charm-waters that made girls so beautiful. Even as the Rajah and his kidnappers stood on the sh.o.r.e they heard the sound of a sharp, terrified scream come faintly on the hot winds across the hills. They knew that another victim had been caught in the thug-nets. It was easy enough too; for it was a happy hunting ground for the "recruiters" down Felisi beach way. In the dead of night native girls often ran along the soft, moon-lit sands like coveys of dishevelled mermaids, placing sea-sh.e.l.ls to their ears that they might hear the songs of dead sailors and the far-off voices of their unborn children humming and moaning in the great spirit-land that is under the sea.

Gabrielle's heart thumped like a drum as she softly closed the door of the bungalow. She thought she must have dreamed it all. A handsome, G.o.d-like Rajah had gazed upon her as though she were a G.o.ddess-impossible! So thought the girl as she stumbled over a sordid reality-her father's rec.u.mbent form on the bungalow door-mat. He still lay where he had fallen. He was a big man, and so it was with much difficulty that she at length managed to pick him up and lay him down on the old settee. Then she sat down in the big arm-chair. She heard her father gurgling out some old-time sea-chantey, so faint that it sounded a long way off. The two tallow candles were burning low in their coco-nut-sh.e.l.l candlesticks. But still she sat there. The idea of going to bed seemed ridiculous after the wonderful thing that had happened.

She was still trembling to her very soul over the Rajah's flatteries.

She thought of that secret pressure, the hot kiss, the deep meaning look in the flas.h.i.+ng eyes. "He even spoke of G.o.d. Men seem to think more of G.o.d than women," she muttered absently. "I'm dark, a heathen at heart; I'd like to marry a handsome, dark man like that," she continued, as she began to beat her hands to and fro. Suddenly she felt a pang at her heart, for she had begun quite unconsciously to hum a melody that she had heard the young apprentice play to her on his violin. Her limbs started to tremble; the old look came back to her eyes; the swarthy, half-fierce look had vanished. She tried to change her thoughts by humming on in that weird way. "I'm heathenish, I'm sure I am," she almost sobbed. Then a fierce feeling took possession of her as she realised her own unstable thoughts over the two men she had just met.

For a moment she sat perfectly still, thinking-then she burst into tears.

Everard still snored on. Gabrielle ceased her tears, clapped her hands and laughed softly to herself. She had drunk a little rum and stuff that she knew not the name of that night. How could she help doing so. Had not the Rajah placed his lips at the goblet's edge and looked sideways in deep meaning at her as he drank a toast to her father? But it wasn't the rum that filled the bungalow parlour with mystery and changed the universe for her. She forgot the armchair in which she sat: it seemed that she sat on a lonely sh.o.r.e by night and stared at a blood-red sun that peered at her over the ocean horizon. Perhaps the Rajah had done this mysterious thing to her through his tender pressure. He knew! He knew! But still, he had no hint in his mind of the witchery of that girl's soul.

She rose from the arm-chair, her shadow dodged about the walls of the bungalow, then she peeped through the open cas.e.m.e.nt. Night lay with its tropical mystery drenched with stars as she stared upward and then again across that silent land. She withdrew her head and placed a pillow under her sleeping father's head, then crept from the room, pa.s.sing up the three steps that separated her from her own chamber. Her room was faintly lit up by the tint of moonrise on the distant mountains. "How silly of me to feel frightened like this," she murmured, as she swiftly lit the oil lamp. Her limbs still trembled. A feeling of intense sorrow had come over her. The apprentice's eyes rose before her memory again; she thought of the tryst by the lagoon, and it all seemed like some memory of a romantic opera she had seen and heard long years ago. Then she gave a startled cry: a shadow had run across the room. "How foolish of me to be frightened of my own shadow!" she said almost loudly to herself, as though she would seek courage by hearing her own voice.

"I've heard that mother had nights of madness, when she thought a dark woman, blind, deaf and dumb, crouched under her bed and begged forgiveness for something she'd done." So she thought as she rushed to the window to get away from her thought.

But Gabrielle could not escape from that presence. She looked out on the wide landscape of feathery palms and pyramid-shaped hills to the south-east in a strange fear. Then she stared seaward in the direction of the dark-armed promontory, where she knew the native girls stood on their great G.o.d-nights, coiled their tresses up and dived into the moon-lit seas, so that they might swim and beat their hands at the cavern doors where Quat and his va.s.sal-G.o.ds moaned.

"I'm going mad too," she murmured, as she pulled her head in through the open window and began to undress. One by one she pulled off her sandals and ribbons. Then she heard a queer kind of sawing noise. "What's that?"

she wondered. But it was only the regular intervals between Everard's snores in the silent parlour below. "It's Dad!" she murmured; and the sound of that deep ba.s.s snore soothed her soul as though it were the music of the singing spheres. She took off her blouse, undid the lace corsage, loosened the sash swathing till her semi-oriental attire fell rustling to her knees. "Am I so beautiful?" she murmured, as she looked half in fright and guilt at herself in the oval bamboo mirror. Her eyes sparkled like stars in the gloom as she peeped through her bronze-gold tresses. And still she swerved and swayed, so that the cataract of golden hair fell to her throat and again below the sun-tanned flush of her bosom. She thought of the Rajah, the warm look of his dark eyes. A strange thrill went through her. As though a dark figure ran across the moon-lit s.p.a.ce just outside her window once again, a shadow whipped across the room. She hastily wrapped a robe about her, rushed across the room and stared through the vine-clad bamboo cas.e.m.e.nt. The sight of the masts in the bay and the dim light of the far-off grog shanty by Felisi, where she knew sunburnt men from the seas spent the nights in wild carousal, dispelled her fears. She looked round her; then in some unaccountable fascination she stared in the mirror again. "I'm growing into a woman, getting quite beautiful!"

"I'm growing into a woman, getting quite beautiful!" came some exact echo of her words. She was startled; she swiftly glanced round the room; she could almost swear that she was not alone.

"What's that?" she muttered, as she heard the m.u.f.fled sounds of beaten drums, so faint that it seemed that the barbarian rumbling came across the centuries.

"What's that!" re-echoed her own query. The echoes startled her more than the reality would have done. Thoughts of Ra-mai, the tambu dancer, of her G.o.ds and the terrors of the phantoms that haunted those whom the _tabaran_ high priests had tabooed flashed through her brain. Her bedroom was faintly lit up by the light of the oil lamp that fell over the dilapidated furniture and on to her old settee bed. A swarm of fire-flies whirled and sparkled beneath the palms outside and then were blown through the open cas.e.m.e.nt, right into the room! She swiftly placed her hands over her eyes, as one might at the sight of vivid lightning-a ghostly flash leapt across the room and seared her very soul! The hot night winds swept through the palms outside; she heard them moan as something leapt out of the night and clutched her heart with its shadowy fingers! In her terror she swiftly looked up at her mother's photograph, as though she would rush to the dead for companions.h.i.+p. No help there.

The faded eyes of that sad face only stared in immutable silence down from the frame on the wall, as though in some twins.h.i.+p of misery.

Gabrielle dared not turn her head. She knew that something stood there watching her. Another gust of wind seemed to come from the stars and burst the half-closed cas.e.m.e.nt open.

"Dad!" she cried in her terror, as she felt a hot breath against her face.

"Dad!" echoed the walls of her room in mockery.

"Who are you?" she managed to wail out.

"Who are you?" came the relentless echo.

She had just caught sight of her face in the mirror. Even the fear of that presence in the room was somewhat subdued, so unbounded was her astonishment at seeing the reflection that stared back at her from the bright gla.s.s-it was not her own face that she saw, but the face of a wildly beautiful, dark-blooded woman!

She stared again, paralysed with horror. The fiery eyes mocked her fright and astonishment. Then the expression changed: the face seemed to appeal and smile half sadly at the girl.

It was not a monstrous Nothing that gazed upon her. She turned to flee from the terrible presence. But in a second it had leapt out of the mirror-had sprung at her! So it seemed to the terrified girl; but the figure was standing _behind_ her, staring into the mirror over her shoulders like some relentless, cruel Nemesis from her helpless past, a hideous thing that had searched for centuries-and found her at last!

Old Everard slept on. He heard nothing of the terrible conflict in the room three steps up, where his daughter struggled in the awful grip of that temptress who had found her-a woman from some long-forgotten forest grave in the Malay Archipelago.

It was not madness; nor did the struggle exist only in her imagination.

The sheets were torn, the counterpane rent in twain, as that merciless phantom tried to overpower the girl.

Only those who have been true wors.h.i.+ppers in the great Papuan tambu temples who have seen and heard the magic of the heritage rites, can guess what really happened in the girl's room. Only those who have experienced a like experience secretly know how she felt as she attempted to overthrow that deadly visitant. For a few seconds their two figures swayed in the dark. The oil lamp had been knocked over! Then the small door of the bungalow suddenly opened: Gabrielle had escaped. She ran out into the moon-lit night! Just for a second she stood under the windless palms, staring first one way and then another, as though she longed to leap over her own shoulders-escape from herself. Up the slopes she ran, and down into the distant hollows by Fallamboco. She pa.s.sed the derelict hut where the high priest dreamed before he died and was buried just in front of his front door. The broken, crumbling wooden idol still stood on his grave, its bulged gla.s.s eyes staring in immutable insolence as Gabrielle rushed by. She stopped by the lagoons at Felisi, where the huddled waters lay, the sacred waters that washed the beautiful bodies of the dead brides ere they were buried safe in the highest mahogany-tree of Bougainville.

She was not surprised when she stooped and gazed on her reflection in the waters and saw a second image beside her own in those silent depths.

Standing there in her hastily donned night attire, her hair outblown, her chemise torn to rags at one shoulder, her blue robe clinging to her delicate figure, she looked around in despair. Only the mountains looked on silently as their giant stone heads seemed to stare like Fate across the desolate landscape and out to the moon-lit seas. She looked at the sky and groped in some blindness, lifting her hands in mute appeal. Some past heathen life possessed her. A crawling, half-human-shaped cloud blurred the moon's face, failing suddenly, like a dark hand. It was not a cloud to Gabrielle's changed eyes as the shadow fell over the weird landscape; it was a big thumb busily tattooing the sky, as one by one the dim constellations rebrightened on their darkened background.

She stood alert and peered over her shoulder, her face and eyes bright with startled delight-she heard the tribal drums beating.

Those sounds were real enough. Even the young apprentice in his room over the hills jumped as he heard the booming, then put his head out of his window and bobbed it back, startled like a frightened child.

Gabrielle recognised those sounds. The long, low-drawn chant was familiar to her ears. Softly they came, weird undertones drifting across the silence. Like a monstrous rat that had wings, something whirred across the sky and gave a wretched groan as it swept out of sight.

"Ta Savoo! Ta Savoo!" ("Come on! Come on!") said a voice beside her. A shadowy hand was laid upon her shoulder. The horror of that presence had already vanished. She startled the hills by bursting into a silvery peal of laughter; then away she ran, on, on, into the depths of the forest.

On the brightest tropic night the forest depths were dark with lurking mystery; the mult.i.tudinous twistings of the giant trees and their gnarled limbs, all thickly lichened with serpent-like vines, made a wonderful depth of brooding silence and unfathomable light, and in the moonlight looked like some mighty forest of twisted coral miles down under the sea.

White men would sooner walk miles than pa.s.s through those depths by night. "No, thank ye! No tabooed b-- heathen forest for me!" they said, as they gave a knowing glance. And none could persuade them. Old Sour Von Craut simply shrugged his shoulders, spread out his fat hands and intimated by raised eyebrows that it was the most natural thing on earth to have found the dead beachcomber, with ears and eyes missing, in the forests behind Felisi beach.

Even Gabrielle stopped running, gave a startled moan and looked up in the dim light. Something screamed and gave a mocking laugh; it was a red-striped vulture. The girl saw the whitened bones of its eyrie as it stood up and flapped its wings. For it had made its nest amongst a dead man's bones, a grave up there in the palms of the tabooed forest. Just for a moment she crouched in fear, but not because of that sight over her head. An aged dark man with a large nose was pa.s.sing along, not ten yards off, chanting to himself. It was Oom Pa, hurrying back from the festival outside Parsons's grog shanty. He had a bamboo rod across his shoulders, Chinese fas.h.i.+on, wherefrom his calabashes swung as he disappeared in the depth beyond. In a few seconds Gabrielle was off again. She had been that way before, so knew the near cuts to the villages and tambu temples. As she ran out of the bamboo thickets she caught a first glimpse of the hanging lamps. A breath of wind had swept through the forest, blowing the thick, dark leaves aside that made the natural taboo curtain to the festival spot. She saw the whirling figures of the tambu maiden dancers. She heard the weird music of the flutes and tw.a.n.ging stringed gourds. The chants only increased the wild feeling of savagery that was delighting her soul. She did not hesitate, but deliberately pushed aside the bamboo stems and stood in the presence of that secret midnight throng of sacred wors.h.i.+ppers and the great tambu priests. For a moment the dark heathen men and affrighted women stared from their squatting mats in astonishment, the expression on their faces strangely resembling the carved surprise of the big wooden, one-toothed idol that stood six feet high, staring with gla.s.s eyes from behind the taboo stage. Even the dancing tambu maidens swerved slightly in their sacred movements, their steps put out of gear as Gabrielle, with hands uplifted, and eyes staring strangely, appeared before that _pae pae_.

The head priest coughed in astonishment; then he rose and wailed out: "Taboo! She is white, and such are tabooed by the G.o.ds!"

As he brought his club down with a crash, anger come into the dark eyes of the sacred chiefesses, who had leapt to their feet, all disturbed while they had been paying obeisance to the wooden Idol Quat (chief G.o.d of the skies). It was a specially private occasion, only the greatly trusted allowed to attend. One stalwart chief stepped forward as though he intended slaying the girl on the spot. Old Oom Pa, who had barely wiped the perspiration from his brow and flung down his calabashes of bribes, gazed with as much surprise as anyone on Gabrielle. Then, seeing that harm might come to the girl, he hastily stepped forward and said: "Hold, O chiefs; this papalagi has that in her eyes which tells she is under the influence of our G.o.ds. And, therefore, is she not one of us?"

He swiftly turned and said something in the guttural language of his tribe. Whatever he said was for Gabrielle's benefit, for it greatly calmed the fears of the huddled dark men and their women-kind. In a moment the fierce resentment towards Gabrielle changed to wild grunts of welcome. One aged priest who was grovelling on his stomach before the dwarf taboo idols that were receiving the sacred slanting moonbeams through the palms prostrated himself at Gabrielle's feet. The white girl looked round her like one who stared in a dream, then she gave a merry peal of laughter. The handsome, tattooed braves who stood leaning on the palm stems gave a hushed cry of admiration as they saw the girl standing, bathed in moonbeams, her hair wildly dishevelled, her eyes like stars, her arms as white as coral as she made mystical movements in a dance they did not know. The old priest, who was at her feet lifted his face and chanted some prayer to her eyes.

This act of the priest made the chiefs and chiefesses think that the girl was there by special decree of their _kai-kai_ (sacred moon G.o.ds).

In a moment the whole tribe had followed the priest's act, hod surrounded the girl and were moaning and grovelling at her feet.

"Tala Marama Taraban!" ("'Tis a spirit-girl!") they whispered in an awestruck voice as they lifted their chins and stared at the girl's vacant eyes. The peculiar stare of those wonderful blue eyes intensified their superst.i.tious belief.