Summer Cruising in the South Seas Part 11

The scene was constantly changing: now it seemed a disordered bed of roses,--pink, and white, and orange; presently we were floating in the air, looking down upon a thousand-domed mosque, pale in the glamour of the Oriental moon; and then a wilderness of bowers presented itself,--bowers whose fixed leaves still seemed to quiver in the slight ripple of the sea,--blossoming for a moment in showers of buds, purple, and green, and gold, but fading almost as soon as born. I could scarcely believe my eyes, when these tiny, though marvellously brilliant fish shot suddenly out from some lace-like structure, each having the lurid and flame-like beauty of sulphurous fire, and all turning instantly, in sudden consternation at finding us so near, and secreting themselves in the coral pavilion that amply sheltered them. Among the delicate anatomy of these frozen ferns our light canoe was crashing on its way. I saw the fragile structures overwhelmed with a single blow from the young savage, who stood erect, propelling us onward amid the general ruins. With my thumb and finger I annihilated the laborious monuments of centuries, and saw havoc and desolation in our wake.

There, in one of G.o.d's reef-walled and cliff-sheltered aquaria, we drifted, while the sky and sea were glowing with the final triumphant gush of sunset radiance. Fefe at last broke the silence, with an interrogation: "Well, how do you feel?" "Fefe," I replied, "I feel as though I were some good and faithful bee, sinking into a sphere of amber, for a sleep of a thousand years." Fefe gave a deep-mouthed and expressive grunt, as he laid his brown profile against the sunset sky, thereby displaying his solitary earring to the best advantage, and with evident personal satisfaction. "And how do you feel, Fefe?" I asked. He was mum for a moment; arched his back like any wholesome animal when the sun has struck clean through it; e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n with his tongue and teeth that cannot possibly be spelled in English, and thereupon his nostril quivered spasmodically, and was only comforted by the immediate application of his nose-flute, through which dulcet organ he confessed his deep and otherwise unutterable joy. I blessed him for it, though there were but three notes, all told, and those minors and a trifle flat.

Fefe's impa.s.sioned soul having subsided, we both looked over to beautiful Morea, nine miles away. How her peaks shone like steel, and her valleys looked full of sleep! while here and there one golden ray lingered for a moment to put the final touch to a fruit it was ripening or a flower it was painting,--for they each have their perfect work allotted to them, and they don't leave it half completed.

It was just the hour that harmonizes everything in nature, and when there is no possible discord in all the universe. The fishes were baptizing themselves by immersion in s.p.a.ce, and kept leaping into the air, like momentary inches of chain-lightning. Our islet swam before us, spiritualized,--suspended, as it were, above the sea,--ready at any moment to fade away. The waves had ceased beating upon the reef; the clear, low notes of a bell vibrating from the sh.o.r.e called us to prayer.

Fefe knew it, and was ready,--so was I,--and with bare heads and souls utterly at peace we gave our hearts to G.o.d--for the time being!

Then came the hum of voices and the rustle of renewed life. On we pressed towards our islet, under the increasing shadows of the dusk. A sloping beach received us; the young cocoa-palms embraced one another with fringed branches. Through green and endless corridors we saw the broad disc of the full moon hanging above the hill.

Fefe at once chose a palm, and, having ascended to its summit, cast down its fruit. Descending, he planted a stake in the earth, and striking a nut against its sharpened top, soon laid open the fibrous husk, with which a fire was kindled.

Taking two peeled nuts in his hands, he struck one against the other and laid open the skull of it,--a clear sort of scalping that aroused me to enthusiasm. There is one end of a cocoanut's skull as delicate as a baby's, and a well-directed tap does the business; possibly the same result would follow with those of infants of the right age,--twins, for instance. Fefe agrees with me in this theory now first given to the public.

Then followed much talk, on many topics, over our tropical supper,--said supper consisting of seaweed salad, patent self-stuffing banana-sausages, and cocoanut hash. We argued somewhat, also, but in South Pacific fashion,--which would surely spoil if imported; I only remember, and will record, that Fefe regarded the nose-flute as a triumph of art, and considered himself no novice in musical science, as applicable to nose-flutes in a land where there is scarcely a nose without its particular flute, and many a flute is silent for ever, because its special nose is laid among the dust.

Having eaten, I proposed sleeping on the spot, and continuing the cruise at dawn. "Why should we return to the world and its cares, when the sea invites us to its isles? Nature will feed us. In that blest land, clothing has not yet been discovered. Let us away!" I cried. At this juncture, voices came over the sea to us,--voices chanting like sirens upon the sh.o.r.e. Instinctively Fefe's nose-flute resumed its _tremolo_, and I knew the day was lost. "Come!" said the little rascal, as though he were captain and I the crew, and he dragged me toward the skiff. With terrific emphasis, I commanded him to desist. "Don't imagine," I said, "that this is a modern "Bounty," and that it is your duty to rise up in mutiny for the sake of dramatic justice. Nature never repeats herself, therefore come back to camp!"

But he wouldn't come. I knew I should lose my canoe unless I followed, or should have to paddle back alone,--no easy task for one unaccustomed to it. So I moodily embarked with him; and having pushed off into deep water, he sounded a note of triumph that was greeted with shouts on sh.o.r.e, and I felt that my fate was sealed.

It had been my life-dream to bid adieu to the human family, with one or two exceptions; to sever every tie that bound me to anything under the sun; to live close to Nature, trusting her, and getting trusted by her.

I explained all this to the young "Kanack," who was in a complete state of insurrection, but failed to subdue him. Overhead the air was flooded with hazy moonlight; the sea looked like one immeasurable drop of quicksilver, and upon the summit of this luminous sphere our shallop was mysteriously poised. A faint wind was breathing over the ocean; Fefe erected his paddle in the bows, placed against it a broad mat that const.i.tuted part of my outfit for that new life of which I was defrauded, and on we sped like a belated sea-bird seeking its mossy nest.

Beneath us slept the infinite creations of another world, gleaming from the dark bosom of the sea with an unearthly pallor, and seeming to reveal something of the forbidden mysteries that lie beyond the grave.

"La Pet.i.te Pologne," whispered Fefe, as he arched his back for the last time, and stepped on sh.o.r.e at the foot of this singular rendezvous,--a narrow lane threading the groves of Papeete, bordered by wine-shops, bakeries, and a convent-wall, lit at night by smoky lanterns hanging motionless in the dead air of the town, and thronged from 7 p.m. till 10 p.m. by people from all quarters of the globe.

Fefe having resumed his profession as soon as his bare foot was on his native heath again, the minstrels moved in a hollow square through the centre of La Pet.i.te Pologne. They were rendering some Tahitian madrigal,--a three-part song, the solo, or first part, of which being got safely through with,--a single stanza,--it was repeated as a duo, and so re-repeated through simple addition with a gradually increasing chorus; the nose-flute meantime getting delirious, and sounding its _finale_ in an ecstasy prolonged to the point of strangulation, when the whole unceremoniously terminated, and everybody took a rest and a fresh start. During these performances, the audience was dense and demonstrative. Fefe was in his element, sitting with his best side to the public, and flaunting his earring mightily. A dance followed: a dance always follows in that land of light hearts; and as one after another was ushered into the arena and gave his or her body to the interpretation of such songs as would startle Christian ears,--albeit there be some Christian hearts less tender, and Christian lips less true,--to my surprise, Fefe abandoned his piping and danced before me, and then came a flash of intuition,--rather late, it is true, but still useful as an explanatory supplement to my previous vexations. "Fefe!" I gasped (Fefe is the Tahitian for _Elephantiasis_), and my Fefe raised his or her skirts, and danced with a shocking leg. I really can't tell you what Fefe was. You never can tell by the name. He might have been a boy, or she might have been a girl, all the time. I don't know that it makes any particular difference to me what it was, but I cannot encourage elephantiasis in anything, and therefore I concluded my naval engagement with Fefe, and solemnly walked toward my chamber, scarcely a block off. The music followed me to my door with a song of some kind or other, but the real nature of which I was too sensitive to definitely ascertain.

Gazelle-eyed damsels, with star-flowers dangling from their ears, obstructed the way. The _gendarmes_ regarded me with an eye single to France and French principles. Mariners arrayed in the blue of their own sea and the white of their own breakers bore down upon us with more than belonged to them. Men of all colours went to and fro, like mad creatures; women followed; children careered hither and thither. Wild shouts rent the air; there was an intoxicating element that enveloped all things. The street was by no means straight, though it could scarcely have been narrower; the waves staggered up the beach, and reeled back again; the moon leered at us, looking blear-eyed as she leaned against a cloud; and half-nude bodies lay here and there in dark corners, steeped to the toes in rum. Out of this human maelstrom, whose fatal tide was beginning to sweep me on with it, I made a plunge for my door-k.n.o.b and caught it. Twenty besetting sins sought to follow me, covered with wreaths and fragrant with sandalwood oil; twenty besetting sins rather pleasant to have around one, because by no means as disagreeable as they should be. Fefe was there also, and I turned to address him a parting word,--a word calculated to do its work in a soil particularly mellow.

"Fefe," I said, "how can I help regarding it as a dispensation of Providence that your one leg is considerably bigger than your other? How can I expect you, with your a.s.sorted legs, to walk in that straight and narrow way wherein I have frequently found it inconvenient to walk myself, to say nothing of the symmetry of my own extremities? Therefore, adieu, child of the South, with your one earring and your pianoforte leg; adieu--for ever."

With that I closed my door upon the scene, and strove to bury myself in oblivion behind the white window-shade. In vain: the shadow with the moustache and goatee still pursued the shadow with the flowing locks that fled too slowly. Voices faint, though audible, indulged in allusions more or less profane, and with a success which would be considered highly improper in any lat.i.tude.

Thus sinking into an unquiet sleep, with a dream of canoe-cruising in a coral sea, whose pellucid waves sang sadly upon the remote sh.o.r.es of an ideal sphere, across the window loomed the gigantic shadow of some brown beauty, whose vast proportions suggested nothing more lovely than a new Sphinx, with a cabbage in either ear.

UNDER A GRa.s.s ROOF.

A LEAF TORN AT RANDOM FROM A TROPICAL NOTE-BOOK.

At Kahakuloa, under a terrific hill and close upon a frothing tongue of the sea, I draw rein. The act is simply a formality of mine; probably the animal would have paused here of his own free will, for he has been rehearsing his stops a whole hour back, during which time he limped somewhat and reaped determinedly the few tufts of dry gra.s.s that Nature had provided him by the trail-side. The clouds are falling; the cliffs are festooned with damp gauze; the air is moist and cool; a gra.s.s hut of uncommon purity stands invitingly by. A moon-faced youth, whose spotless garments appealed to me as he overtook our caravan a mile back, says, "Will you eat and sleep?" I am but human, and a hungry and sleepy human at that; so I tip off from my mule's back with grat.i.tude and alacrity.

In a moment the fine linen of mine host is hung upon its peg, and a good study of the Nude returns to me for further orders. I am literally famishing, and the mule is already up to his ears in watercress; but then I have ridden and he has carried me. How just, O Mother Nature, are thy judgments!

With the superb poses of a trained athlete, the Nude swings a fowl by the neck, and shortly it is plucked and potted, together with certain vegetables of the proper affinities. Then he swathes a fish in succulent leaves, and buries it in hot ashes; and then he smokes his peace-pipe.

Pipe no sooner lighted than mouths mysteriously gather: five, ten, a dozen of them magically a.s.semble at the smell of smoke and take their turn at the curled sh.e.l.l, with a hollow stalk for a mouthpiece. Dinner at last. O fish, fruit, and fowl on a mat on a floor in a gra.s.s hut at evening! How excellent are these--amen! Night--supper over--some one tw.a.n.ging upon a stringed instrument of rude native origin. Gossip lags,--darkness and silence, and a cigarette. The Nude rises haughtily and lights a lamp that looks very like a diminutive coffee-pot with a great flame in the nose of it. He hangs it against a beam already blackened with smoke to the peak of the roof. Again the peace-pipe sweeps the home-circle, and is pa.s.sed out to the mouths of the neighbourhood.

Guests drop down upon us and fill the one aperture of the hut with rows of curious, welcoming faces; a.s.sorted dogs press through the door in turn, receive a slap from each member of the family, and retreat with invisible tails; sudden impulses set all tongues wagging in unison; impulses, equally sudden and unaccountable, enjoin protracted intervals of silence. The sea breathes heavily; there is a noise of rain-drops sliding down the thatch. Guests disperse with a kind "_aloha_." We are alone with the night. The spirit of repose descends upon us; one after another the several members of mine host's household roll themselves into mummies and lie in a solemn row along the side of the room, sleeping. I, also, will sleep. A great bark-cloth (_kapa_) that rattles as though it had received seven starchings, is all mine for covering,--a royal _kapa_ this, of exceeding stiffness. I lie with my eyes to the roof, and count the beams that look like an arbour. What is it, as large as my thumb, cased in brown armour? A roach!--a melancholy procession of roaches pa.s.sing from one side of the hut, over the roof, with their backs downward, and descending on the other side by the beams,--a hundred of them, perhaps, or a thousand: the cry is, "Still they come!"

There is a noise of tiny feet upon the roof, and it isn't rain; there is a sound as of falling objects that escape before I can catch them. My hand rests upon a cool, moist creature that writhes under it,--an animated spinal column with four legs at one end of it. Away, thou slimy newt! Something runs over the matting, making a still, small clatter as it goes,--something looking like a toy train of dirt-cars. Ha! the venomous and wily centipede! Put out the coffee-pot, for these sights are horrible!

Now I will sleep with my face under the _kapa_,--silence, serene silence, and darkness profound; the sea beating in agony at the foot of the big hill,--a time for lofty and sublime revery. More rain outside the hut; gusts of wind, wailing as they rush past us. Thanks for this shelter. My pillow saturated with cocoanut oil--ah, what savage dreams may have disturbed these sleepers! No matter. Will get a wink of sleep before daybreak. Sleep, at last,--how refreshing art thou!

h.e.l.lo! the coffee-pot in a blaze again; the Nude smoking his peace-pipe; children eating and making merry. Daybreak? No; midnight, perchance,--darkness without, darkness once more (by request) within.

"Come again, bright dream." Horror! the house shaken as by an earthquake; gnashing of teeth distinctly audible,--the mule undoubtedly eating up the side of the gra.s.s hut! Anon, quiet restored. A suggestion of moonlight through the open door; the tw.a.n.ging of the stringed affair; a responsive tw.a.n.g in the distance. Some one steals cautiously forth into the starlight. All is not well in Kahakuloa. Rain over; mule vegetating elsewhere; roaches subdued; sea comparatively quiet. Welcome, kind Nature's sweet restorer!... Humming of voices; rolling of dogs about the house; ditto of children ditto; broad daylight, and breakfast waiting. Mule saddled, and, with a mouthful of roses, looking fresh and happy. Mule-boy eager for the fray. Time up. Adieu, adieu--O beautiful Kahakuloa! I must away.

Above the terrible hill hang clouds and shadows; fringes of rain obscure the trail as it climbs persistently to heaven; but up that trail, into and through those clouds and shadows, I pursue my solitary pilgrimage.

MY SOUTH-SEA SHOW.

High in her lady's chamber sat Gail, looking with calm eyes through the budding maples across the hills of spring. Her letter was but half finished, and the village post was even then ready; so she woke out of her reverie, and ended the writing as follows:--

"SPRING,----.

"I know not where you may be at this moment,--living with what South-Sea Island G.o.d, drinking the milk of cocoanut, and eating bread-fruit,--but wherever you are, forget not your promise to come home again, bringing your sheaves with you."

Anon she sealed it and mailed it, and it was hurried away, over land and sea, till, after many days, it found me drinking my cocoa-milk and refreshing myself with bread-fruits.

Anon I replied to her, not on the green enamel of a broad leaf, with a thorn stylet, but upon the blank margins of Gail's letter, with my last half-inch of pencil. I said to her:--

"SUMMER,----.

"By-and-by I will come to you, when the evenings are very long, and the valley is still. I will cross the lawn in silence, and stand knocking at the south entry. Deborah will open the door to me with fear and trembling, for I shall be sunburnt and brawny, with a baby cannibal under each arm. Then at a word a tattooed youngster shall reach her a Tahitian pearl, and I will cry 'Give it to Mistress Gail'; whereat Deborah will willingly withdraw, leaving me motionless in the dead leaves by the south entry. You will take the token, dear Gail, and know it as the symbol of, my return. You will come and greet us, and lead us to the best chamber, and we will feast with you as long as you like,--I and my cannibals."

I was never quite sure of what Gail said to my letter, but I knew her for a true soul; so I gathered my cannibals under my metaphorical wings, and journeyed unto the village, and came into it at sunset, while it was autumn. We pa.s.sed over the lawn in silence, and stood knocking at the south entry, in real earnest. Deborah came at last, and the little striped fellow bore aloft his pearl of Tahitian beauty, while I gave my message, and Deborah was terrified and thought she was dreaming. But she took the pearl and went, and we stood in the keen air of autumn, and my South Sea babies were very cold and moaned pitifully under my arms, and the little pearl-bearer shivered in all his stripes, and capered in the dead leaves like an imp of darkness.

Then Gail came to us and let us in, and we camped by the great fire in the sitting-room, whither Deborah brought bowls of new milk for the little ones, and was wonderfully amazed at their quaintness and beauty, but quite failed to affiliate with my striped pearl-bearer.

So I said, "Sit you down, Deborah, and hear the true story of my Zebra."

Gail had already captured the bronze babies, and was helping them with their bowls of milk as they nestled at her feet; and I took my striped beauty between my knees, and stroked his soft wool, and told how he saved me from a watery death, and again from the fiery stake, and was doubly dear to me for evermore:--

"We were at the island of Pottobokee, getting water and fruit; had stacked the last sack of mangoes and limes in the boat, and were off for the ship, glad to escape with our scalps, when a wave took us amidships on the reef, and we swamped in the dreadful spume. Some were drowned; some clung to the boat, though it was stove badly, while relief came from the vessel as quickly as possible, and the fragments were gathered out of the waves and taken aboard.

"They thought themselves lucky to escape with the remnants, for they knew the natives for cannibals, and the sh.o.r.e was black and noisy within ten minutes after the accident. It looked stormy in that neighbourhood: hence the caution and haste of the relief-crew, who left me for drowned, I suppose, as they never came after me, but spread everything, and went out of sight before dark that evening.

"I was no swimmer at all, but I kicked well, and was about diving the fatal dive,--last of three warnings that seem providentially allotted the luckless soul in its extremity: I was just upon the third sinking, when a tough little arm gripped me under the breast, and I hung over it limp and senseless, knowing nothing further of my deliverance, until I found myself a captive in Kabala-k.u.m,--a heathenish sort of paradise, a little way back from the sea-coast.

"The natives had given up all hope of feasting upon me, for there wasn't a respectable steak in my whole carcase, nor was my appet.i.te promising; so they resolved to make a bonfire of me, to get me out of the way. But that tough little arm that saved me from an early grave in the water was husband to a tough little heart, that resolved I shouldn't be burnt. I was his private and personal property; he had fished me out of the sea; he would cook me in his own style when he got ready, and no one else was to have a word in the matter.

"There he showed his royal blood, Deborah, for he was the King's son: this marvellous tattooing proclaims his rank. Only the n.o.ble and brave are permitted to brand these rainbows into their brown skins.