Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson Part 4

Till, of a sudden, a shock, a mace in the air, a yell, And, struck in the edge of the crowd, the first of the victims fell.

{78} Terror and horrible glee divided the shrinking clan, Terror of what was to follow, glee for a diet of man.

Frenzy hurried the chaunt, frenzy rattled the drums; The n.o.bles, high on the terrace, greedily mouthed their thumbs; And once and again and again, in the ignorant crowd below, Once and again and again descended the murderous blow.

Now smoked the oven, and now, with the cutting lip of a sh.e.l.l, A butcher of ninety winters jointed the bodies well.

Unto the carven lodge, silent, in order due, The grandees of the nation one after one withdrew; And a line of laden bearers brought to the terrace foot, On poles across their shoulders, the last reserve of fruit.

The victims bled for the n.o.bles in the old appointed way; The fruit was spread for the commons, for all should eat to-day.

And now was the kava brewed, and now the cocoa ran, Now was the hour of the dance for child and woman and man; And mirth was in every heart, and a garland on every head, And all was well with the living and well with the eight who were dead.

Only the chiefs and the priest talked and consulted awhile: "To-morrow," they said, and "To-morrow," and nodded and seemed to smile: "Rua the child of dirt, the creature of common clay, Rua must die to-morrow, since Rua is gone to-day."

Out of the groves of the valley, where clear the blackbirds sang.

Sheer from the trees of the valley the face of the mountain sprang; Sheer and bare it rose, unscalable barricade, Beaten and blown against by the generous draught of the trade.

Dawn on its fluted brow painted rainbow light, Close on its pinnacled crown trembled the stars at night.

Here and there in a cleft cl.u.s.tered contorted trees, Or the silver beard of a stream hung and swung in the breeze.

High overhead, with a cry, the torrents leaped for the main, And silently sprinkled below in thin perennial rain.

Dark in the staring noon, dark was Rua's ravine, Damp and cold was the air, and the face of the cliffs was green.

Here, in the rocky pit, accursed already of old, On a stone in the midst of a river, Rua sat and was cold.

"Valley of mid-day shadows, valley of silent falls,"

Rua sang, and his voice went hollow about the walls, "Valley of shadow and rock, a doleful prison to me, What is the life you can give to a child of the sun and the sea?"

And Rua arose and came to the open mouth of the glen, Whence he beheld the woods, and the sea, and houses of men.

Wide blew the riotous trade, and smelt in his nostrils good; It bowed the boats on the bay, and tore and divided the wood; It smote and sundered the groves as Moses smote with the rod, And the streamers of all the trees blew like banners abroad; And ever and on, in a lull, the trade wind brought him along A far-off patter of drums and a far-off whisper of song.

Swift as the swallow's wings, the diligent hands on the drum Fluttered and hurried and throbbed. "Ah, woe that I hear you come,"

Rua cried in his grief, "a sorrowful sound to me, Mounting far and faint from the resonant sh.o.r.e of the sea!

Woe in the song! for the grave breathes in the singers' breath, And I hear in the tramp of the drums the beat of the heart of death.

Home of my youth! no more, through all the length of the years, No more to the place of the echoes of early laughter and tears, No more shall Rua return; no more as the evening ends, To crowded eyes of welcome, to the reaching hands of friends."

All day long from the High-place the drums and the singing came, And the even fell, and the sun went down, a wheel of flame; And night came gleaning the shadows and hushing the sounds of the wood; And silence slept on all, where Rua sorrowed and stood.

But still from the sh.o.r.e of the bay the sound of the festival rang, And still the crowd in the High-place danced and shouted and sang.

Now over all the isle terror was breathed abroad Of shadowy hands from the trees and shadowy snares in the sod; And before the nostrils of night, the shuddering hunter of men Hurried, with beard on shoulder, back to his lighted den.

"Taheia, here to my side!"-"Rua, my Rua, you!"

And cold from the clutch of terror, cold with the damp of the dew, Taheia, heavy of hair, leaped through the dark to his arms; Taheia leaped to his clasp, and was folded in from alarms.

"Rua, beloved, here, see what your love has brought; Coming-alas! returning-swift as the shuttle of thought; Returning, alas! for to-night, with the beaten drum and the voice, In the shine of many torches must the sleepless clan rejoice; And Taheia the well-descended, the daughter of chief and priest, Taheia must sit in her place in the crowded bench of the feast."

So it was spoken; and she, girding her garment high, Fled and was swallowed of woods, swift as the sight of an eye.

Night over isle and sea rolled her curtain of stars, Then a trouble awoke in the air, the east was banded with bars; Dawn as yellow as sulphur leaped on the mountain height; Dawn, in the deepest glen, fell a wonder of light; High and clear stood the palms in the eye of the brightening east, And lo! from the sides of the sea the broken sound of the feast!

As, when in days of summer, through open windows, the fly Swift as a breeze and loud as a trump goes by, But when frosts in the field have pinched the wintering mouse, Blindly noses and buzzes and hums in the firelit house: So the sound of the feast gallantly trampled at night, So it staggered and drooped, and droned in the morning light.

IV. THE RAID

IT chanced that as Rua sat in the valley of silent falls, He heard a calling of doves from high on the cliffy walls.

Fire had fashioned of yore, and time had broken, the rocks; There were rooting crannies for trees and nesting-places for flocks; And he saw on the top of the cliffs, looking up from the pit of the shade, A flicker of wings and sunshine, and trees that swung in the trade.

"The trees swing in the trade," quoth Rua, doubtful of words, "And the sun stares from the sky, but what should trouble the birds?"

Up from the shade he gazed, where high the parapet shone, And he was aware of a ledge and of things that moved thereon.

"What manner of things are these? Are they spirits abroad by day?

Or the foes of my clan that are come, bringing death by a perilous way?"

The valley was gouged like a vessel, and round like the vessel's lip, With a cape of the side of the hill thrust forth like the bows of a ship.

On the top of the face of the cape a volley of sun struck fair, And the cape overhung like a chin a gulph of sunless air.

"Silence, heart! What is that?-that, that flickered and shone, Into the sun for an instant, and in an instant gone?

Was it a warrior's plume, a warrior's girdle of hair?

Swung in the loop of a rope, is he making a bridge of the air?"

Once and again Rua saw, in the trenchant edge of the sky, The giddy conjuring done. And then, in the blink of an eye, A scream caught in with the breath, a whirling packet of limbs, A lump that dived in the gulph, more swift than a dolphin swims; And there was the lump at his feet, and eyes were alive in the lump.

Sick was the soul of Rua, ambushed close in a clump; Sick of soul he drew near, making his courage stout; And he looked in the face of the thing, and the life of the thing went out.

And he gazed on the tattooed limbs, and, behold, he knew the man: Hoka, a chief of the Vais, the truculent foe of his clan: Hoka a moment since that stepped in the loop of the rope, Filled with the l.u.s.t of war, and alive with courage and hope.

Again to the giddy cornice Rua lifted his eyes, And again beheld men pa.s.sing in the armpit of the skies.

"Foes of my race!" cried Rua, "the mouth of Rua is true: Never a shark in the deep is n.o.bler of soul than you.

There was never a n.o.bler foray, never a bolder plan; Never a dizzier path was trod by the children of man; And Rua, your evil-dealer through all the days of his years,

"Counts it honour to hate you, honour to fall by your spears."

And Rua straightened his back. "O Vais, a scheme for a scheme!"

Cried Rua and turned and descended the turbulent stair of the stream, Leaping from rock to rock as the water-wagtail at home Flits through resonant valleys and skims by boulder and foam.

And Rua burst from the glen and leaped on the sh.o.r.e of the brook, And straight for the roofs of the clan his vigorous way he took.

Swift were the heels of his flight, and loud behind as he went Rattled the leaping stones on the line of his long descent.

And ever he thought as he ran, and caught at his gasping breath, "O the fool of a Rua, Rua that runs to his death!

But the right is the right," thought Rua, and ran like the wind on the foam, "The right is the right for ever, and home for ever home.

For what though the oven smoke? And what though I die ere morn?

There was I nourished and tended, and there was Taheia born."

Noon was high on the High-place, the second noon of the feast; And heat and shameful slumber weighed on people and priest; And the heart drudged slow in bodies heavy with monstrous meals; And the senseless limbs were scattered abroad like spokes of wheels; And c.r.a.pulous women sat and stared at the stones anigh With a b.e.s.t.i.a.l droop of the lip and a swinish rheum in the eye.

As about the dome of the bees in the time for the drones to fall, The dead and the maimed are scattered, and lie, and stagger, and crawl; So on the grades of the terrace, in the ardent eye of the day, The half-awake and the sleepers cl.u.s.tered and crawled and lay; And loud as the dome of the bees, in the time of a swarming horde, A horror of many insects hung in the air and roared.

Rua looked and wondered; he said to himself in his heart: "Poor are the pleasures of life, and death is the better part."

But lo! on the higher benches a cl.u.s.ter of tranquil folk Sat by themselves, nor raised their serious eyes, nor spoke: Women with robes unruffled and garlands duly arranged, Gazing far from the feast with faces of people estranged; And quiet amongst the quiet, and fairer than all the fair, Taheia, the well-descended, Taheia, heavy of hair.

And the soul of Rua awoke, courage enlightened his eyes, And he uttered a summoning shout and called on the clan to rise.

Over against him at once, in the spotted shade of the trees, Owlish and blinking creatures scrambled to hands and knees; On the grades of the sacred terrace, the driveller woke to fear, And the hand of the ham-drooped warrior brandished a wavering spear.

And Rua folded his arms, and scorn discovered his teeth; Above the war-crowd gibbered, and Rua stood smiling beneath.

Thick, like leaves in the autumn, faint, like April sleet, Missiles from tremulous hands quivered around his feet; And Taheia leaped from her place; and the priest, the ruby-eyed, Ran to the front of the terrace, and brandished his arms, and cried: "Hold, O fools, he brings tidings!" and "Hold, 'tis the love of my heart!"

Till lo! in front of the terrace, Rua pierced with a dart.

Taheia cherished his head, and the aged priest stood by, And gazed with eyes of ruby at Rua's darkening eye.

"Taheia, here is the end, I die a death for a man.

I have given the life of my soul to save an unsavable clan.

See them, the drooping of hams! behold me the blinking crew: Fifty spears they cast, and one of fifty true!

And you, O priest, the foreteller, foretell for yourself if you can, Foretell the hour of the day when the Vais shall burst on your clan!

By the head of the tapu cleft, with death and fire in their hand, Thick and silent like ants, the warriors swarm in the land."

And they tell that when next the sun had climbed to the noonday skies, It shone on the smoke of feasting in the country of the Vais.

NOTES TO THE FEAST OF FAMINE