Gabrielle of the Lagoon Part 9

"Make haste!" Hillary whispered as they arrived by the rotting bulwark near the risky rope gangway. The apprentice looked with apprehension out to sea when he noticed that the former calm expanse of ocean was slightly ruffled. "Quick! Quick!" he said, and then Gabrielle went over the side and trusted her weight to the taut gangway rope. "Thank G.o.d!"

murmured Hillary, as she stepped from the swinging gangway into the canoe. Then to his infinite relief he noticed that the wind had dropped.

Though she had embarked, he had still stood hesitating as to whether it was safe to venture back to the sh.o.r.e.

"I don't think it will blow, and it's only a mile to the sh.o.r.e," he thought, as the girl carefully took her place in the prow. The moon was just setting as the gangway swung back and Hillary stepped into the fragile craft. Then, like two ghosts, they paddled away, back to the mainland.

CHAPTER VII-WHEN THE STARS DANCED

The day after Hillary and Gabrielle's love tryst on the derelict off Bougainville old Everard sat in his bungalow rubbing his hands with delight. He had been over the slope in Rokeville "celebrating" at the grog bar, had been to the store and flirted with the trader's pretty half-caste daughters, and had tapped his wooden leg significantly as the schooner skippers heard how he'd done things in his day; then he had returned home, full of the best Jamaica rum. It wasn't the rum, or the praise and encores of the sh.e.l.lbacks in Parsons's grog bar, or the surrept.i.tious kiss he'd given pretty Mango Pango on his way home that made him so jovial; it was because he'd met Rajah Koo Macka, who was calling at the bungalow that evening. Already the shadows were falling over the mountains. He was still busily shouting directions to his daughter as though he stood on the fore-deck of that wondrous ship that had sailed all seas and found all that is considered impossible and absurd in this new day. He had artfully enticed Gabrielle to dress herself up, so that she might appear at her very best when Rajah Macka arrived.

"Put the flowers in yer 'air, and don't forget to put thet blue robe thing on," said the ex-sailor, as he critically surveyed his daughter and tapped his wooden leg to punctuate his appreciation. "That's it!

That's it! You do look nice!"

Gabrielle's eyes were shining with pleasure as she listened to her Dad's praise. He so seldom praised her. Then she gazed into the bamboo looking-gla.s.s. Her vanity was excusable, for the scarlet and white hibiscus blossoms made the bronze-gold tresses shine as the sunset shines on a mountain lagoon.

"You're a good gal when yer like," said old Everard, little dreaming for whose eyes Gabrielle had so tastefully arrayed herself.

"Mitia, savee! Nicer ladie!" said the tiny Papuan maid, who at that moment arrived with her basket of fish at the door. The fish were all alive, splashing about in the gra.s.s-plaited basket, as frisky as the little savage maiden, who took her purchase money and sped away under the palms like a nymph of the wilds.

"You're as beautiful-looking as your mother was," said the white man as he sighed. Then he followed his sigh by taking a good pull at the rum bottle. Possibly the memory of his dead wife impelled the weak ex-sailor to take so many extra drops, for he was known to sit for hours like a man in a trance when folk sang certain old songs.

"That's right, tidy the place up! Put the green cloth on. Macka's mighty particular. Those civilised 'eathens like things just so," said the fuddled, idiotic old man. He was expecting the Rajah at any moment, for it was past seven o'clock and he had promised Everard to be at the bungalow before eight. It seemed incredible that the old ex-sailor could not see through such a one as the Rajah. But sailormen are not very wise when it comes to judging human nature. And it didn't want twenty-four jurymen to discern the sort of glance that lurked in the Rajah's eyes when he gazed at his women converts. Had the Rajah been correctly placed in an ethnographical cla.s.sification, he would have been placed somewhere between the orang-outang and the lowest negro type. But circ.u.mstances had invested him with the power to act as a mediator between G.o.d and the souls of decent men and women. His outward life, his fleshy, handsome face were splendid a.s.sets. They stood him in good stead, giving him an extra distinction in the eyes of ignorant natives and even low-caste whites. Not the least of his stock-in-trade were the frock-coat, top hat, kid gloves, spotless patent boots, scarlet waistcoat and the turban swathing, the purchasing value of the lot being about twelve dollars in Beratania Street, Honolulu.

Old Everard gazed eagerly at the clock. "Time's getting on," he mumbled.

And was Everard's daughter as eager over the Rajah's expected visit as her father? Not a bit of it! She hadn't the slightest idea of being in that dismal parlour when Macka arrived. She had made up her mind to make a surrept.i.tious departure as soon as she had tidied up the room. She longed to meet Hillary again. She had been more than thinking about his proposal to fly to Honolulu, for she had planned everything in her mind.

And if anyone could have peeped under her bed at that moment they would have seen a small carpet bag packed with those things that she valued.

She had so often rehea.r.s.ed the whole business and her sudden flight that she had several times looked fondly on her wicked parent, as she imagined his oats and distress to find her gone for ever.

"Where yer hoff to?" suddenly yelled old Everard. The girl had quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed up her cloak and had bolted.

Her inward knowledge of Hillary's love for her tremendously minimised her fears over her father's wrath if he managed to catch her.

It was just dusk. One or two stars were already out when she opened the door and made the final bolt out of the front door into the night. She gave a startled cry-she had rushed straight in Rajah Koo Macka's outstretched arms!

Fate seemed to have planned that it should be so. The Rajah held the girl's hand tightly, almost fiercely, in his swarthy grip. A strange fire was burning in his terrible eyes.

"Miss Everard, Gabri-arle! Langi, O ke mako," he murmured, lapsing into his native lingo as he gazed steadily into the frightened girl's eyes.

It was a masterful gaze, serpent-like in its malignant fascination. The girl bravely returned that gaze. The Rajah realised the struggle that was going on in her soul. His instincts told him the truth. Gabrielle wasn't the first. He knew why her face was pallid, why the cold beads of perspiration stood out on her brow, distinctly revealed to his gaze, as though the moon would shed its beams and show the pity of it all.

"Let me go! Do! Do!" she murmured in an appealing voice.

"Gabrie-arle! I've come, not to see your father but to see you, you, my lovelier whiter girl, lovelier, nicer!" he whispered, as in his emotion he reverted to the old pidgin-English of his boyhood, before he had joined the first missionary society in Honolulu. And still Gabrielle stared into those terrible eyes. Her lips half smiled as she struggled with herself. It was a terrible moment for her as she stood there, her frame trembling as she felt those two terrible rivals struggling to strangle each other-the struggle of the white and the dark woman in her soul.

He whispered swift, pa.s.sionate words: "I lover you, wine of my heart, stars of my soul, O voice of the waves, seas, night storm and darkness!

O stars that are like the children of our souls to be!" he wailed, as he switched off into his beloved _verse libre_, so popular with his kind.

He still held her in his clasp, just as so many helpless women had been held by the devil who reigns in tropic climes.

Gabrielle felt that the struggle was coming to an end. The cold perspiration stood in beads on her brow. She felt faint. And the devil, who always helps his own, sent a shadow across the silvery track by the ivory-nut palms. That shadow touched the small vine-clad verandah of the bungalow. Gabrielle's heart nearly stopped as she saw it, and its darkness fell over her own soul. Her horror was not to be wondered at, for the silhouette had taken human form as something rushed out of the thick jungle-growth hard by.

There was no real cause for Gabrielle's terror at seeing this particular object. It was nothing more than one of the Rajah's native servants, who had rushed from the bamboo thickets, thinking he had heard the Rajah call him.

All the foregoing and the Rajah's successful domination over the girl occupied about two minutes. He had rained kisses on her face, had whispered impa.s.sioned words in her ears, using the names of the Apostles and even the name of Christ to lure the girl back into the bungalow and her soul into darkness. Gabrielle felt as though she had had a paralytic stroke as he gripped her hand and pushed her into the front doorway of the bungalow. She could hardly believe her senses as she went half willingly forward. He was an old bird at the game; years older than Hillary. He had the father on his side too, and that was natural enough when one thinks of the way the world wags. Most men of the Rajah's type, by means of their successful hypocrisy, secure the father's help to b.u.t.tress up their desires. Besides, the Rajah had no personal drawbacks, for he had no idealistic views, no sensitiveness about girlish innocence and what might be considered impropriety. So he was strongly equipped for furthering his requirements; moreover, he had the mighty power of the Christian creed and the glory of its apostles on his side, so far as hypocritical protestations could make them useful to him.

Old Everard was leaning over the table, swearing like a genuine 'Frisco sh.e.l.lback, as they entered the parlour.

"Thought you'd cleared out for the evening," said he, as he stared querulously into his daughter's face. He was too drunk to notice her terrified, helpless expression as he staggered to his feet. He had suddenly sighted Koo Macka, who stood erect, standing with all his grand insignias of Rajahship behind the girl. "Glad to see you, bully boy!

Bless me soul, I thought that the girl had made a bolt, and blowed if she hadn't rushed out at hearing yer footsteps. She's a bit gone on you already, eh? Nothing like a woman's ears when they want to hear!"

The old man gave Macka a friendly nudge and at once lifted a bottle and began to pour out a tumblerful of Parsons's best Bougainville Three Star.

So did the Rajah once more enter Gabrielle's home and gaze with his magnetic eyes at the girl on that very night when she had promised to meet Hillary!

The three of them sat down at the parlour table. For quite a long time Gabrielle sat like a sphinx, a dazed look in her eyes. The Rajah, who sat opposite her, noticed that look. But was he embarra.s.sed? Not he! He simply rubbed his hands and gave an extra curl to his moustache. He had tackled very obstinate ladies in his time down in the native villages.

And it was immensely gratifying to him to think that Everard was a kindly disposed white man and did not dine with a war-club by his side-as old chief Mackeroo did when the Rajah sought his wife for a convert. Blowing his hose in his handkerchief, he at once began business. Gabrielle quailed before his sinuous, reptilian-like glances.

She was trembling, for she knew that she had met her master-and he knew that she had too. He was watching her as a cat watches a mouse. He saw her eyes roam in a furtive way to the door more than once. He knew that she was ready to spring at the first unguarded moment and fly out into the night.

Old Everard wondered why they both sat staring at each other. He suddenly burst into speech, and brought his fist down with a bang on the table. "Why the h-- don't you speak, blind me eyes?" he roared. He was decidedly drunk. Macka lifted his eyebrows and then looked at the old sailor and began to quote applicable Scriptural texts. His voice took on quite a melancholy wail, the old ecclesiastical drawl habit, as he remonstrated with the ex-sailor for roaring in such a rough manner at so sweet a girl. Everard relented, even apologised. Macka stretched forth his hand in a grandiloquent manner and forgave! About half-an-hour later the Rajah's hopes had returned: the girl was his!

For the stars had begun to dance before Gabrielle's eyes. She felt that he wasn't so wicked after all. And the reason for this sudden change in her was not far to seek. The Rajah had slipped some rum and opium into her tea, some kind of mixture that is still used prolifically by the natives who wish to dope artless girls, and sailormen too! "Tea's the thing! Good old papalagi's tea, wholesome drink," he had chuckled beneath his virile moustache.

"Whisky, I say!" Everard had wailed, as he stared with bleary eyes. But the Rajah would have none of it. He dearly loved tea, nothing to beat tea, he swore. That settled it. Everard told Gabrielle to make a pot of tea at once. But Gabrielle still sat at the table and wouldn't move, so Everard got up and made the tea himself and thought of how he would get his own back on his daughter when the Rajah had gone. Let it, however, be said that old Everard would never have made that pot of tea had he had the slightest hint of the consequences. But he was a fool. The ex-sailor was not so much to blame: civilisation has shrivelled up the white man's G.o.d-given weapons of instinct, and so he stands to-day a slave to dull reason, and is positively nowhere when a native's cunning is concerned. It was only natural, therefore, that sinful old Everard should fall into every trap that the wily Malayan-Papuan, made for his daughter's destruction. As the hours pa.s.sed things began to look brighter to Gabrielle. She forgot the night and all that she had intended to do. As for Everard, he got quite boisterous when she laughed, at last, at one of his antiquated jokes. And then, as the old man listened to the Rajah's mellifluous voice, he became so emotional that he forgot and wiped his nose on the edge of the best green tablecloth. "Dad!" whispered Gabrielle, in an awestruck voice over her parent's preposterous act in front of the twelve-dollar suit of clothes and jewellery from the Honolulu slop-shop.

The ex-sailor lifted his grizzled face and, staring with his bleary blue eyes, gave his daughter a half-apologetic look. Gabrielle reddened to the ears at the thought of her sudden good fortune. It seemed that the impossible was occurring. A Rajah of holiest soul looked fondly upon her and her late swearing old father sat there gazing into her face apologetically! It was more wonderful than any fairy tale or any novel she had read. She could have risen from her chair and sung; could even have snapped her fingers with derision at the phantom-woman who she half fancied was lurking outside the bungalow.

Gabrielle hardly spoke as the Papuan Rajah waved his hand and glorified himself in the eyes of his host and his daughter, expatiating on the virtues of Christianity and his own true belief. Old Everard said "Amen," opened his mouth in surprise and hung his head for shame as Macka chided him over his habitual drunkenness. The Rajah pointed his dark finger at the daughter, and said: "See yon sacred maid. White is she as the spotless snow on the mountains of Kaue. Art not ashamed, O white man, to set so bad example?" Saying this, the Rajah opened his prettily bound pocket Bible and in sombre tones read Scriptural pa.s.sages till the old ex-sailor's heart quaked in fear of G.o.d's wrath and his own remorse over his treatment of his daughter. And still the dark missionary proceeded with his exhortations. "Art not ashamed, O man Everard?" "Yus, I ham," almost wailed the derelict representative of the great white races, as Macka continued his Scriptural denunciations in a sombre voice. Thus did Macka the half-caste missionary further his desires. But why record all that really happened that night? It is sufficient to say that Everard's eyes brightened as Macka's heart softened, until the brown man quite forgave the white man for his sins.

Indeed that dim-lit parlour became a kind of confessional-box, whilst Everard fell on his knees and Gabrielle trembled in mighty trouble at her former wicked thoughts over so n.o.ble, so holy a missionary.

Then the Rajah bode Everard rise, and said: "O white Everard, think no more of thy sorrows and thy sins; frailty is the great inheritance, it is the dark shadow that maketh the light to shine and so doth beautify human existence." Then Everard took another swill at the whisky bottle and most foolishly mixed his drinks. And still the heathen man meandered on, and murmured into the ex-sailor's ears: "O heed not the great pearl scheme that I wished you to venture upon; for I say unto these that I've other business on hand. And more, for the sake of thy friendship and contrite heart, and thy hallowed daughter" (he pointed with outstretched finger at Gabrielle), "I'll give thee double the sum that any pearl scheme may have brought thee."

So spoke Macka as he dropped into the Kanaka's usual Biblical style, since it was from the Bible that most of them derived their first lessons in our tongue. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that the heathen was considerably overcome by his own self-glorification. As for the white man, he said holy things, wailed out that he believed in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints and the sacramental drink of the best rum! Then the aged drunken idiot swallowed another tumblerful of whisky and fell forward on his knees.

Gabrielle began to think that she must be dreaming it all: that scene as she sat in the wicker chair watching. Then the n.o.ble Rajah sang weird songs. His voice was mellow and pathetically sweet, nicely tinged with tragedian-like sadness that lingered in Gabrielle's ears. It was all strangely blasphemous. Old Everard simply fell forward on the floor, holding the rum bottle tightly in his hand. Gabrielle and Macka laid him down comfortably on his settee. There he lay, his head forward, mouth dribbling, one arm dangling to the floor, so drunk was he.

Gabrielle cried softly to herself as she placed his head in a more comfortable position and bunched the pillow up. Then she turned aside in a terrible despair and gazed in mute appeal into those masterful eyes.

"Let me escape," her lips mumbled, and her voice sounded far off.

It was no good; the man was relentless. He still moaned his beautiful words, whispering warm Malayan phrases into her ear. She did not understand his native tongue, but her instincts heard. The hour was late.

Gabrielle half heard the rustling of swift-moving feet outside the bungalow. A thick mist seemed to lie over the furniture. She felt that something had crept into the room, something terrible and not to be denied. A swarthy expression pa.s.sed over her face as she leaned forward and listened, for once more she could hear the tribal drums beating somewhere across the centuries. It did not horrify her as before. Macka was there and his eyes had an all-powerful look: why be frightened in his masterful presence? But still she tried to struggle to her feet and rush out of the parlour door. For a moment she forgot and fancied she was standing on the derelict out in the straits. "Hillary! Hillary!" she wailed, as she thought of the stranded apprentice and fancied she still looked into his eyes. Slowly the fumes did their work, fumes of opium and the drink slipped into her tea. She still heard the Papuan's voice; it was not a voice near her, it was a call coming across distant s.p.a.ces.

And still she struggled, as she called out the long-forgotten name of the missionary, one who had taught her in the mission-room from her earliest childhood. But no answer came, only the snores of her drunken father and the sounds of tribal drums a hundred years away. Then the lights burned low. Even the Rajah was overcome with heathenish emotion as she stood by the window and, lifting her face, looked out on the stars and in a strange way sc.r.a.ped her pale hands up and down the gla.s.s, as though she would tear aside the veil that divided her from freedom and the outer world.

And Hillary, who waited by the lagoon, walked up and down, up and down, full of hope, full of faith. And he was still walking silently on the silvery sands by the tossing seas, like a pale figure of romance, as dawn crept over the mountains and the stars went home. And still Gabrielle did not come.