South Wind Part 4

Mr. Eames had not the faintest idea. Meanwhile he calmly went on collecting and collecting, and collecting. Something might turn up, one of these days. Everybody with the slightest pretensions to scholarship was interested in his work; many friends had made him offers of pecuniary a.s.sistance towards the printing of a book which could not be expected to be a source of profit to its publisher; the wealthy and good-natured Mr. Keith, in particular, used to complain savagely and very sincerely at not being allowed to a.s.sist to the extent of a hundred or two. There were days on which he seemed to yield to these arguments; days when he expanded and gave rein to his fancy, smiling in antic.i.p.ation of that n.o.ble volume--the golden Latinity of Monsignor Perrelli enriched with twenty-five years' patient labour on the part of himself; days when he would go so far as to discuss prospective contracts, and bindings and photogravures, and margins, and paper.

Everything, of course, was to be of appropriate quality--not pretentious, but distinguished. Oh, yes! A book of that kind--it must have a cachet of its own....

Then, suddenly, he would observe that he was joking; only joking.

The true Mr. Eames revealed and rea.s.serted himself. He shrank from the idea. He closed up like a flower in the chill of night-fall. He was not going to put himself under obligations to anybody. He would keep his sense of personal independence, even if it entailed the sacrifice of a life's ambition. Owe no man anything! The words rang in his ears. They were his father's words. Owe no man anything! They were that gentleman's definition of a gentleman--a definition which was cordially approved by every other gentleman who, like Mr. Eames junior, happened to hold a.n.a.logous views.

Gentlemen being rather scarce nowadays, we cannot but feel grateful to the Crotalophoboi for devouring Saint Dodeka.n.u.s and paving the way, VIA the ANTIQUITIES of Monsignor Perrelli, for the refined personality of Mr. Eames--even if such was not their original intention.

CHAPTER IV

Next morning, at precisely 4 a.m., there was an earthquake.

Foreigners unaccustomed to Nepenthean conditions rushed in their pyjamas out of doors, to escape the falling wreckage. An American lady, staying at Mr. Muhlen's high-cla.s.s hotel, jumped from her bed-room on the third floor into the courtyard below, and narrowly escaped bruising her ankle.

It was a false alarm. The sudden clanging of every bell on the place, the explosion of twelve hundred mortars and the simultaneous booming of an enormous cannon--that far-famed gun whose wayward tricks had cost the lives of hundreds of its loaders in the days of the Good Duke--might have pa.s.sed for an earthquake of the first magnitude, so far as noise and concussion were concerned. The island rocked to its foundations. It was the signal for the festival of the patron saint to begin.

n.o.body could have slept through that din. Mr. Heard, dog-tired as he was, woke up and opened his eyes.

"Things are happening here," he said--a remark which he found himself repeating on several later occasions.

He looked round the room. It was not an hotel bed-room. Then he began to remember things, drowsily. He remembered the pleasant surprise of the previous evening--how the d.u.c.h.ess had called to mind a small villa, vacated earlier than she had expected by a lady friend for whom she had taken it. It was furnished, spotlessly clean, with a woman, a capable cook, in attendance. She had insisted on his living there.

"So much nicer than a dreadful room in an hotel! You'll show the bishop all over it, won't you, Denis?"

Walking together, he and Denis, they had been overtaken by another recent visitor to Nepenthe. It was Mr. Edgar Marten. Mr. Marten was a hirsute and impecunious young Hebrew of low tastes, with a pa.s.sion for mineralogy. He had profited by some University grant to make certain studies at Nepenthe which was renowned for its variegated rocks. There was something striking about him, thought Mr. Heard. He said little of consequence, but Denis listened enthusiastically to his abstruse remarks about fractures and so forth, and watched with eagerness as he poked his stick into the rough walls to dislodge some stone that seemed to be of interest.

"So you don't know the difference between augite and hornblende?" he once enquired. "Really? Dash my eyes! How old did you say you were?"

"Nineteen."

"And what have you been doing, Phipps, these last nineteen years?"

"One can't know everything at my age."

"Granted. But I think you might have learnt that much. Come to me on Thursday morning. I'll see what I can do for you."

Mr. Heard rather admired this youthful scientist. The fellow knew what he was after; he was after stones. Perfect of his kind--a condition which always appealed to the bishop. Pleasant youngsters, both of them.

And so different from each other!

As to Denis--he could not make up his mind about Denis. To begin with, he exhaled that peculiar College aroma which the most heroic efforts of a lifetime often fail to dissipate. Then, he had said something about Florence, and Cinque-Cento, and Jacopo Bellini. The bishop, a practical man, had not much use for Jacopo Bellini or for people who talked about him. None the less, while making himself useful with unpacking and arranging things, Denis dropped a remark which struck Mr. Heard.

"The canvas of Nepenthe," he observed, "is rather overcharged."

Rather overcharged....

It was true, thought the bishop, as he glanced out of his window that evening, all alone, over the sea into which a young moon was just sinking to rest. Overcharged! A ceaseless ebb and flow of humanity surged before his weary eyes. That sense of irreality which had struck him on his first view of the island was still persisting; the south wind, no doubt, helped this illusion. He remembered the general affluence and kindliness of the people; that, at least, had made a definite mark upon his mind. He liked the place. Already he felt at home here, and in better health. But when he tried to conjure up some definite impression of town and people, the images became blurred; the smiling priest, the d.u.c.h.ess, Mr. Keith--they were like figures in a dream; they merged into memories of Africa, of his fellow-pa.s.sengers from Zanzibar; they mingled with projects relating to his own future in England--projects relating to his cousin on Nepenthe. Mr. Heard felt exhausted.

He was too tired to be greatly affected by that cannonade, which was enough to rouse the dead. Something must be happening, he mused; then, his meditations concluded, turned on his other side. He slept well into the morning, and found his breakfast appetisingly laid out in the adjoining room.

And now, he thought, for that procession.

Bells were ringing gaily into the sunshine. From a long way off, he discerned the brazen tones of a band, the chanting of priests and townspeople, shrill voices of women. The pageant came in sight--winding its way through the mult.i.tudes under the beflagged arches of greenery, while a rain of flowers descended from windows and balconies overhead.

Cl.u.s.ters of children went before, in many-tinted array, according to their various schools or confraternities. Then came the munic.i.p.al band in uniform, playing the cheeriest of tunes, and escorted by the Nepenthe militia whose old-fashioned costume of silver and scarlet was most effective. The authorities of the island trod on their heels--grave gentlemen in black clothes, some of them adorned with ribbons and decorations. The Mephistophelean judge, the freethinker, was among them; he limped along, expectorating every ten yards or so, presumably to mark his displeasure at being obliged, as official, to attend a religious function. The Commissioner, too, was in the ranks. He appeared just the same as yesterday; very informal in his knickerbockers, and decidedly pink about the gills.

There followed a long train of priests, clad in lace and silken garments of every hue. They looked like a perambulating flower-garden.

Plump, jovial fellows--chanting blithely, and occasionally exchanging a few words with one another. Don Francesco glittered in crimson vestments; he recognized Mr. Heard, and gave him a broad smile combined with something which might have been mistaken for a wink. The huge silver statue of the saint came next. It was a grotesque monster, borne aloft on a wooden platform that wobbled on the shoulders of eight l.u.s.ty perspiring carriers. As it pa.s.sed, all the onlookers raised their hats; all save the Russians, the Little White Cows who, standing aside with wonderment written on their childlike faces, were relieved from this necessity, since the wearing of hats had been forbidden by their leader, their self-styled Messiah, the divinely inspired Bazhakuloff; they were to go bareheaded summer and winter, "like the Christians of old." Some ardent believers went so far as to kneel on the stony ground. The d.u.c.h.ess, the Catholic-to-be, had a.s.sumed this reverend posture; she was on the other side of the street, surrounded by a number of ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Heard, reviewing the crowd, abandoned the idea of piercing that procession and exchanging a few words with her. He would see her in the afternoon.

Then the bishop--the dignitary whom Don Francesco had called "not exactly a liberal." He tallied with that description. A wicked old face! He was blear-eyed, brown as a mummy, and so fat that his legs had long ago ceased to be any use save as a precarious support while standing. He rode, in gorgeous apparel, on a milk-white donkey which was led by two pretty choristers in blue. Attached to the end of a long pole, a green umbrella of Gargantuan proportions, adorned with red ta.s.sels, protected his wrinkled head from the rays of the sun. One hand clutched some religious object upon which his eyes were glued in a hypnotic trance, the other cruised aimlessly about the horizon, in the act of benediction.

Mumbo-jumbo, thought Mr. Heard.

Yet he looked without wincing at the caricature of Christianity. It was like an act in a pantomime. He had seen funnier things in Africa. Among the Bitongos, for instance. They would have enjoyed this procession, the Bitongos. They were Christians; had taken to the Gospel like ducks to the water; wore top-hats at Easter. But liars--such dreadful liars!

Just the reverse of the M'tezo. Ah, those M'tezo! Incurable heathen. He had given them up long ago. Anyhow, they despised lying. They filed their teeth, ate their superfluous female relations, swopped wives every new moon, and never wore a st.i.tch of clothes. A man who appeared among the M'tezo in a fig-leaf would find himself in the cooking-pot within five minutes.

How they attached themselves to his heart, those black fellows. Such healthy animals! This spectacle, he discovered, was rather like Africa--the same steamy heat, the same blaring noises, dazzling light, and glowing colours; the same spirit of unconquerable playfulness in grave concerns.

And the b.u.mbulis, the Kubangos, the Mugwambas! And the Bulanga--that tribe whom Mr. Keith seemed to know so well! Really, the Bulanga were the worst of the lot. Not fit to be talked about. And yet, somehow or other, one could not help liking them....

"Good morning, Bishop!" said a voice at his side. It was Mr. Keith. He looked well washed and chubby in his spotless white clothes.

Accompanying him was a friend in grey flannels whom he presently introduced as Mr. Eames. "Hope you slept well," he went on. "And how do you like the procession? You are doing quite the right thing in attending. Oh, quite. That is why I am here, though I don't much fancy these ceremonies. One ought to conform to custom. Well, what are you thinking?"

"I was thinking of Africa, and the pain which the natives will endure for what they call their pleasures. I wonder how much those men are paid for carrying that statue? They perspire pretty freely."

"They are paid nothing. They pay, themselves, a heavy sum for the privilege."

"You surprise me!"

"They have remission of sins; they can be as naughty as ever they like for a twelvemonth afterwards. That is a consideration. I will tell you something else about that idol. It is five hundred years old--"

"Oh, come!" interposed Mr. Eames, in a tone of gentle remonstrance.

"The saint was cast exactly eighty-two years ago; they used to have a wooden one before that time. Anybody can see from the workmanship--"

"Have it your way, Eames. Eighty-two years old, I was going to say, and not yet paid for. They want some rich foreigner to produce the money.

They are counting on van Koppen, just now; an American millionaire, you know, who comes here every year and spends a good deal of money. But I know old Koppen. He is no fool. By the way, Eames, what do you think of this discover of mine? Of course you have hear of the James-Lange theory of the Emotions, namely, that bodily changes follow directly on the perception of the existing fact and that our feeling of these same changes as they occur is the Emotion. They developed the theory independently, and got great credit for it. Well, I find--what n.o.body seems to have noticed--that they were antic.i.p.ated by Professor Maudsley.

I've got a note of it in my pocket. Here you are. PSYCHOLOGY OF MIND, 1876, pages 472-4 ET SEQ.; 372, 384, 386-7 ET Pa.s.sIM. What do you say?"

"Nothing. I am not interested in psychology. You know it perfectly well.

"Why not? Wouldn't you get more fun out of life if you were?"