South-Sea Idyls Part 2

He grew silent and melancholy; he quit spelling entirely, or only indulged in rare and fitful (I am pained to add, fruitless) attempts at spelling G.o.d in the orthodox fas.h.i.+on. It seemed almost as though I had missed my calling; certainly, I was hardly successful as a missionary.

The circus failed to revive him; the beauty of our young women he regarded without interest. He was less devout than at first, when he used to insist upon entering every church we came to and sitting a few moments, though frequently we were the sole occupants of the building.

He would steal away into remote corners of the house, and be gone for hours. Twice or three times I discovered him in a dark closet, _in puris naturalibus_, toying with a singular sh.e.l.l strung upon a feather chain.

The feathers of the chain I recognized as those of a strange bird held as sacred among his people. I began to suspect the occasion of his malady: he believed himself bewitched or accursed of some one,--a common superst.i.tion with the dark races. This revelation filled me with alarm; for he would think nothing of lying down to die under the impression that it was his fate, and no medicine under the heaven could touch him further.

I began telling him of my discovery, begging his secret from him. In vain I besought him. "It was his trouble; he must go back!" I told him he should go back as soon as possible; that we would look for ourselves, and see when a vessel was to sail again. I took him among the wharves, visiting, in turn, nearly all the s.h.i.+pping moored there. How he lingered about them, letting his eyes wander over the still bay into the mellow hazes that sometimes visit our brown and dusty hills!

His nature seemed to find an affinity in the tranquil tides, the far-sweeping distances, the alluring outlines of the coast, where it was blended with the sea-line in the ever-mysterious horizon. After these visitations, he seemed loath to return again among houses and people; they oppressed and suffocated him.

One day, as we were wending our way to the city front, we pa.s.sed a specimen of grotesque carving, in front of a tobacconist's establishment. Kana-ana stood eying the painted model for a moment, and then, to the amazement and amus.e.m.e.nt of the tobacconist and one or two bystanders, fell upon his knees before it, and was for a few moments lost in prayer. It seemed to do him a deal of good, as he was more cheerful after his invocation,--for that day, at least; and we could never start upon any subsequent excursion without first visiting this wooden Indian, which he evidently mistook for a G.o.d.

He began presently to bring tributes, in the shape of small cobble-stones, which he surrept.i.tiously deposited at the feet of his new-found deity, and pa.s.sed on, rejoicing. His small altar grew from day to day, and his spirits were lighter as he beheld it unmolested, thanks to the indifference of the tobacconist and the street contractors.

His greatest trials were within the confines of the bath-tub. He who had been born to the Pacific, and reared among its foam and breakers, now doomed to a seven-by-three zinc box and ten inches of water! He would splash about like a trout in a saucer, bemoaning his fate. Pilgrimages to the beach were his greatest delight; divings into the sea, so far from town that no one could possibly be shocked, even with the a.s.sistance of an opera-gla.s.s. He used to implore a daily repet.i.tion of these cautious and inoffensive recreations, though, once in the chilly current, he soon came out of it, s.h.i.+vering and miserable. Where were his warm sea-waves, and the s.h.i.+ning beach, with the cocoa-palms quivering in the intense fires of the tropical day? How he missed them and mourned for them, crooning a little chant in their praises, much to the disparagement of our dry hills, cold water, and careful people!

In one of our singular walks, when he had been unusually silent, and I had sought in vain to lift away the gloom that darkened his soul, I was startled by a quick cry of joy from the lips of the young exile,--a cry that was soon turned into a sharp, prolonged, and pitiful wail of sorrow and despair. We had unconsciously approached an art-gallery, the deep windows of which were beautified with a few choice landscapes in oil.

Kana-ana's restless and searching eye, doubtless attracted by the brilliant coloring of one of the pictures, seemed in a moment to comprehend and a.s.sume the rich and fervent spirit with which the artist had so successfully imbued his canvas.

It was the subject which had at first delighted Kana-ana,--the splendid charm of its manipulation which so affected him, holding him there wailing in the bitterness of a natural and incontrollable sorrow. The painting was illuminated with the mellowness of a tropical sunset. A transparent light seemed to transfigure the sea and sky. The artist had wrought a miracle in his inspiration. It was a warm, hazy, silent sunset forever. The outline of a high, projecting cliff was barely visible in the flood of misty glory that spread over the face of it,--a cliff whose delicate tints of green and crimson pictured in the mind a pyramid of leaves and flowers. A valley opened its shadowy depths through the sparkling atmosphere, and in the centre of this veiled chasm the pale threads of two waterfalls seemed to appear and disappear, so exquisitely was the distance imitated. Gilded breakers reeled upon a palm-fringed sh.o.r.e; and the whole was hallowed by the perpetual peace of an unbroken solitude.

I at once detected the occasion of Kana-ana's agitation. Here was the valley of his birth,--the cliff, the waterfall, the sea, copied faithfully, at that crowning hour when they are indeed supernaturally lovely. At that moment, the promise to him of a return would have been mockery. He was there in spirit, pacing the beach, and greeting his companions with that liberal exchange of love peculiar to them. Again he sought our old haunt by the river, watching the sun go down. Again he waited listlessly the coming of night.

It was a wonder that the police did not march us both off to the station-house; for the little refugee was howling at the top of his lungs, while I endeavored to quiet him by bursting a sort of vocal tornado about his ears. I then saw my error. I said to myself, "I have transplanted a flower from the hot sand of the Orient to the hard clay of our more material world,--a flower too fragile to be handled, if never so kindly. Day after day it has been fed, watered, and nourished by Nature. Every element of life has ministered to its development in the most natural way. Its attributes are G.o.d's and Nature's own. I bring it hither, set it in our tough soil, and endeavor to train its sensitive tendrils in one direction. There is no room for spreading them here, where we are overcrowded already. It finds no succulence in its cramped bed, no warmth in our practical and selfish atmosphere. It withers from the root upward; its blossoms are falling; it will die!" I resolved it should not die. Unfortunately, there was no bark announced to sail for his island home within several weeks. I could only devote my energies to keeping life in that famis.h.i.+ng soul until it had found rest in the luxurious clime of its nativity.

At last the bark arrived. We went at once to see her; and I could hardly persuade the little homesick soul to come back with me at night. He who was the fire of hospitality and obliging to the uttermost, at home, came very near to mutiny just then.

It was this civilization that had wounded him, till the thought of his easy and pleasurable life among the barbarians stung him to madness.

Should he ever see them again, his lovers? ever climb with the goat-hunters among the clouds yonder? or bathe, ride, sport, as he used to, till the day was spent and the night come?

Those little booths near the wharves, where sh.e.l.ls, corals, and gold-fish are on sale, were Kana-ana's favorite haunts during the last few days he spent here. I would leave him seated on a box or barrel by one of those epitomes of Oceanica, and return two hours later, to find him seated as I had left him, and singing some weird _mele_,--some legend of his home. These musical diversions were a part of his nature, and a very grave and sweet part of it, too. A few words, chanted on a low note, began the song, when the voice would suddenly soar upward with a single syllable of exceeding sweetness, and there hang trembling in bird-like melody till it died away with the breath of the singer.

Poor, longing soul! I would you had never left the life best suited to you,--that liberty which alone could give expression to your wonderful capacities. Not many are so rich in instincts to read Nature, to translate her revelations, to speak of her as an orator endowed with her surpa.s.sing eloquence.

It will always be a sad effort, thinking of that last night together.

There are hours when the experiences of a lifetime seem compressed and crowded together. One grows a head taller in his soul at such times, and perhaps gets suddenly gray, as with a fright, also.

Kana-ana talked and talked in his pretty, broken English, telling me of a thousand charming secrets; expressing all the natural graces that at first attracted me to him, and imploring me over and over to return with him and dwell in the antipodes. How near I came to resolving, then and there, that I _would go_, and take the consequences,--how very near I came to it! He pa.s.sed the night in coaxing, promising, entreating; and was never more interesting or lovable. It took just about all the moral courage allotted me to keep on this side of barbarism on that eventful occasion; and in the morning Kana-ana sailed, with a face all over tears, and agony, and dust.

I begged him to select something for a remembrancer; and of all that ingenuity can invent and art achieve he chose a metallic chain for his neck,--chose it, probably, because it glittered superbly, and was good to string charms upon. He gave me the greater part of his wardrobe, though it can never be of any earthly use to me, save as a memorial of a pa.s.sing joy in a life where joys seem to have little else to do than be brief and palatable.

He said he "should never want them again"; and he said it as one might say something of the same sort in putting by some instrument of degradation,--conscious of renewed manhood, but remembering his late humiliation, and bowing to that remembrance.

So Kana-ana, and the bark, and all that I ever knew of genuine, spontaneous, and unfettered love sailed into the west, and went down with the sun in a glory of air, sea, and sky, trebly glorious that evening. I shall never meet the sea when it is bluest without thinking of one who is its child and master. I shall never see mangoes and bananas without thinking of him who is their brother, born and brought up with them. I shall never smell ca.s.sia, or clove, or jessamine, but a thought of Kana-ana will be borne upon their breath. A flying skiff, land in the far distance rising slowly, drifting sea-gra.s.ses, a clear voice burdened with melody,--all belong to him, and are a part of him.

I resign my office. I think that, perhaps, instead of my having converted the little cannibal, he may have converted me. I am sure, at least, that if we two should begin a missionary work upon one another, I should be the first to experience the great change. I sent my convert home, feeling he wasn't quite so good as when I first got him; and I truly wish him as he was.

I can see you, my beloved,--sleeping, naked, in the twilight of the west. The winds kiss you with pure and fragrant lips. The sensuous waves invite you to their embrace. Earth again offers you her varied store.

Partake of her offering, and be satisfied. Return, O troubled soul! to your first and natural joys: they were given you by the Divine hand that can do no ill. In the smoke of the sacrifice ascends the prayer of your race. As the incense fadeth and is scattered upon the winds of heaven, so shall your people separate, nevermore to a.s.semble among the nations. So perish your superst.i.tions, your necromancies, your ancient arts of war, and the unwritten epics of your kings.

Alas, Kana-ana! As the foam of the sea you love, as the fragrance of the flower you wors.h.i.+p, shall your precious body be wasted, and your untrammelled soul pa.s.s to the realms of your fathers.

Our day of communion is over. Behold how Night extends her wings to cover you from my sight! She may, indeed, hide your presence; she may withhold from me the mystery of your future: but she cannot take from me that which I have; she cannot rob me of the rich influences of your past.

Dear comrade, pardon and absolve your spiritual adviser, for seeking to remould so delicate and original a soul as yours; and, though neither prophet nor priest, I yet give you the kiss of peace at parting, and the benediction of unceasing love.

PART III.

BARBARIAN DAYS.

We had been watching intently the faint, shadowy outline along the horizon, and wondering whether it were really land, or but a cloudy similitude of it; while we bore down upon it all the afternoon in fine style, and the breeze freshened as evening came on. It was all clear sailing, and we were in pretty good spirits,--which is not always the case with landsmen at sea.

Sitting there on the after-deck, I had asked myself, more than once, If life were made up of placid days like this, how long would life be sweet? I gave it up every time; for one is not inclined to consider so curiously as to press any problem to a solution in those indolent lat.i.tudes.

Perhaps it was Captain Kidd who told me he had sailed out of a twelve-knot breeze on a sudden,--slipping off the edges of it, as it were,--and found his sails all aback as he slid into a dead calm. There, rocking in still weather, he saw another bark, almost within hail, blown into the west and out of sight, like a bird in a March gale.

I wonder what caused me to think of Kidd's experiences just then? I can't imagine, unless it was some prescient shadow floating in my neighborhood,--the precursor of the little event that followed. Such things do happen, and when we least expect it; though, fortunately, they don't worry us as a general thing. I didn't worry at all, but sat there by myself, while some of my fellow-pa.s.sengers took a regular "const.i.tutional" up and down the deck, and over and over it, until the nervous woman below in the cabin "blessed her stars," and wished herself ash.o.r.e.

I preferred sitting and pondering over the cloud that seemed slowly to rise from the sea, a.s.suming definite and undeniable appearances of land.

I knew very well what land it must be: one of a group of islands every inch of which I had traversed with the zeal of youthful enthusiasm; but which of them, was a question I almost feared to have answered. Yet, what difference could it make to me! The land was providentially in our course, but not on our way-bill. If we were within gunshot of its loveliest portion, we must needs pa.s.s on as frigidly as though it were Charybdis, or something equally dreadful; and I began to think it might be something of the sort, because of its besetting temptations.

There was not the slightest doubt as to the certainty of its being land, when we went down to supper; and at sunset we knew the dark spots were valleys, and the bright ones hills. I fancied a hundred bronze-hued faces were turned toward us, as we seemed to twinkle away off in their sunset sea like a fallen star, or something of that sort. I thought I could almost hear the sea beating upon the crusts of the reef in the twilight; but perhaps I didn't, for the land was miles away, and night hid it presently, while the old solitude of the ocean impressed us all as though we were again in the midst of its unbroken, circular wastes.

Then they played whist in the cabin,--all but me. I hung over the s.h.i.+p's side, resolved to watch all night for the lights on sh.o.r.e,--the flickering watch-fires in the mountain camps; for I knew I should see them, as we were bound to pa.s.s the island before morning.

The night was intensely dark; clouds m.u.f.fled the stars, and not a spark of light was visible in any direction over the waters. A shower could easily have quenched the beacons I was seeking, and my vigil soon became tedious; so presently I followed the others and turned in, rather disconsolate and disgusted.

Toward midnight the wind fell rapidly, and within half an hour we found ourselves in a dead calm, when the moan of the breakers was quite audible on our starboard quarter. The Captain was nervous and watchful; the currents in the channel were strong, and he saw, by the variation in the compa.s.s, that the vessel was being whirled in a great circle around a point of the island.

Fortunately it began to get light before the danger grew imminent. At three o'clock we were within soundings, and shortly after we plumped the anchor into the rough coral at the bottom of a pretty little harbor, where, the Captain informed us, we must ride all day and get out with the land-breeze, that would probably come down at night. I rushed up in the gray dawn, and bent my gaze upon the sh.o.r.e. I think I must have turned pale, or trembled a little, or done something sensational and appropriate, though no one observed it; whereat I was rather glad, on the whole, for they could not have understood it if I had done my best to explain,--which I had not the least idea of doing, however, for it was none of their affair.

I knew that place the moment I saw it,--the very spot of all I most desired to see; and I resolved, in my secret soul, to go ash.o.r.e, there and then; amicably if I might, forcibly if I must.

The Captain was not over-genial that morning, either; he hated detention, and was a trifle nervous about being tied up under the lee of the land for twelve or twenty hours. So he growled if any one approached him all that day, and positively refused to allow the s.h.i.+p's boat to be touched, unless we drifted upon the rocks, broadside,--which, he seemed to think, was not entirely out of the question. I was sure there would be a canoe--perhaps several--alongside by sunrise; so I said nothing, but waited in silence, determined to desert when the time came; and the Captain might whistle me back if he could.

Presently the time came. We were rocking easily on the swell, directly to the eastward of a deep valley. The sky was ruddy; the air fresh and invigorating, but soft as the gales of Paradise. We were in the tropics.

You would have known it with your eyes shut; the whole wonderful atmosphere confessed it. But, with your eyes open, those white birds, sailing like snow-flakes through the immaculate blue heavens, with tail-feathers like our pennant; the floating gardens of the sea, through which we had been ruthlessly ploughing for a couple of days back; the gorgeous sunrises and sunsets,--all were proofs positive of our lat.i.tude.

What a sunrise it was on that morning! Yet I stood with my back to it, looking west; for there I saw, firstly, the foam on the reef--as crimson as blood--falling over the wine-stained waves; then it changed as the sun ascended, like clouds of golden powder, indescribably magnificent, shaken and scattered upon the silver snow-drifts of the coral reef, dazzling to behold, and continually changing.

Beyond it, in the still water, was reflected a long, narrow strip of beach; above it, green pastures and umbrageous groves, with native huts, like great bird's-nests, half hidden among them; and the weird, slender cocoa-palms were there,--those exclamation-points in the poetry of tropic landscape. All this lay slumbering securely between high walls of verdure; while at the upper end, where the valley was like a niche set in the green and glorious mountains, two waterfalls floated downward like smoke-columns on a heavy morning. Angels and ministers of grace! do you, in your airy perambulations, visit haunts more lovely than this?--as lovely as that undiscovered country from whose bourn the traveller would rather not look back, premising that the traveller were as singularly const.i.tuted as I am; which is, per-adventure, not probable.

They knew it was morning almost as soon as we did, though they lived a few furlongs farther west, and had no notion of the immediate proximity of a strange craft,--by no means rakish in her rig, however; only a simple merchantman, bound for Auckland from San Francisco, but the victim of circ.u.mstances, and, in consequence, tied to the bottom of the sea when half-way over.

They knew it was morning. I saw them swarming out of their gra.s.sy nests, brown, sleek-limbed, and naked. They regarded with amazement our floating home. The news spread, and the groves were suddenly peopled with my dear barbarians, who hate civilization almost as much as I do, and are certainly quite as idolatrous and indolent as I ever aspire to be.