Summer Cruising in the South Seas Part 15

What more indeed! With the rain beating down upon your unsheltered heads, and the torrents threatening to engulf you; faint with journeyings; a-hungered often; weak with fastings; pallid with prayer,--what more _can_ you ask in the same line? say I.

Pere Fidelis coughed a little, and was somewhat feverish. I could see that his life was not elastic; his strength was even then failing him.

"Pere Amabilis is an artisan: he built this house, and it is small enough; but some day he will build a house for me but six feet long and _so_ broad," said Pere Fidelis, shrugging his shoulders; whereat Pere Amabilis, who looked like a German student with his long hair and spectacles, turned aside to wipe the moisture from the lenses, and said nothing, but laid his hand significantly upon the shoulder of his friend, as if imploring silence. Alas for him when those lips are silent for ever!

I wondered if they had no recreation.

"O yes. The poor pictures at the Chapel of the Palms are ours, but we have not studied art. And then we are sometimes summoned to the farther side of the island, where we meet new faces. It is a great change."

For a year before the arrival of Pere Amabilis, who was not sooner able to follow his friend, Pere Fidelis was accustomed to go once a month to a confessional many miles away. That his absence might be as brief as possible, he was obliged to travel night and day. Sometimes he would reach the house of his confessor at midnight, when all were sleeping: thereupon would follow this singular colloquy in true native fashion. A rap at the door at midnight, the confessor waking from his sleep.

_Confessor_. "Who's there?"

_Pere Fidelis_. "It is I!"

_Conf._ "Who is I?"

_Pere F._ "Fidelis!"

_Conf._ "Fidelis who?"

_Pere F._ "Fidelis kahuna pule!" (Fidelis the priest.)

_Conf._ "Aweh!" (An expression of the greatest surprise.) "_Entre_, Fidelis kahuna pule."

Then he would rise, and the communion that followed must have been most cheering to both, for _mon pere_ even now is merry when he recalls it.

These pilgrimages are at an end, for the two priests confess to one another: conceive of the fellowship that hides away no secret, however mortifying!

The whole population must have been long asleep before we thought of retiring that night, and then arose an argument concerning the fittest occupant of the solitary bed. It fell to me, for both were against me, and each was my superior. When I protested, they held up their fingers and said, "Remember, we are your fathers and must be obeyed." Thus I was driven to the bed, while mine hosts lay on the bare floor with saddles for pillows.

It was this self-sacrificing hospitality that hastened my departure. I felt earth could offer me no n.o.bler fellowship,--that all acts to come, however gracious, would bear a tinge of selfishness in comparison with the reception I had met where least expected.

I am thankful that I had not the heart to sleep well, for I think I could never have forgiven myself had I done so. When I woke in the early part of the night, I saw the young priests bowed over their breviaries, for I had delayed the accustomed offices of devotion, and they were fulfilling them in peace at last, having me so well bestowed that it was utterly impossible to do aught else for my entertainment.

Once more the morning came. I woke to find Pere Amabilis at work, hammer in hand, sending his nails home with accurate strokes that spoke well for his trained muscle. Pere Fidelis was concocting coffee and directing the volunteer cooks, who were seeking to surpa.s.s themselves upon this last meal we were to take together. In an hour _mon pere_ was to start for the Chapel of the Palms, while I wended my way onward through a new country, bearing with me the consoling memory of my precious friends. I can forgive a slight and forget the person who slights me, but little kindnesses probe me to the quick. I wonder why the twin fathers were so very careful of me that morning? They could not do enough to satisfy themselves, and that made me miserable; they stabbed me with tender words, and tried to be cheerful with such evident effort that I couldn't eat half my breakfast, though, as it was, I ate more than they did--G.o.d forgive me!--and altogether it was a solemn and memorable meal.

A group of natives gathered about us seated upon the floor; it was impossible for Pere Fidelis to move without being stroked by the affectionate creatures who deplored his departure. Pere Amabilis insisted upon adjusting our saddles, during which ceremony he slyly hid a morsel of cold fowl in our saddle-bags.

That parting was as cruel as death. We shall probably never see one another again; if we do, we shall be older and more practical and more worldly, and the exquisite confidence we have in one another will have grown blunt with time. I felt it then as I know it now--our brief idyl can never be lived over in this life.

Well, we departed: the corners of our blessed triangle were spread frightfully. Pere Fidelis was paler than ever; he caught his breath as though there wasn't much of it, and the little there was wouldn't last long; Pere Amabilis wiped his spectacles and looked utterly forsaken; the natives stood about in awkward, silent groups, coming forward, one by one, to shake hands, and then falling back like so many automatons.

Somehow, genuine grief is never graceful: it forgets to pose itself; its muscles are perfectly slack and unreliable.

The sea looked grey and forbidding as it shook its s.h.a.ggy breakers under the cliff: life was dismal enough. The animals were unusually wayward, and once or twice I paused in despair under the p.r.i.c.kly sunshine, half inclined to go back and begin over again, hoping to renew the past; but just then Hoke felt like staggering onward, and I began to realize that there are some brief, perfect experiences in life that pa.s.s from us like a dream, and this was one of them.

In the proem to this idyl I seem to see two shadowy figures pa.s.sing up and down over a lonesome land. Fever and famine do not stay them; the elements alone have power to check their pilgrimage. Their advent is hailed with joyful bells: tears fall when they depart. Their paths are peace. Fearlessly they battle with contagion, and are at hand to close the pestilential lips of unclean death. They have lifted my soul above things earthly, and held it secure for a moment. From beyond the waters my heart returns to them. Again at twilight, over the still sea, floats the sweet Angelus; again I approach the chapel falling to slow decay: there are fresh mounds in the churchyard, and the voice of wailing is heard for a pa.s.sing soul. By-and-by, if there is work to do, it shall be done, and the hands shall be folded, for the young apostles will have followed in the silent footsteps of their flock. Here endeth the lesson of the Chapel of the Palms.

KAHeLE.

From a bluff, whose bald forehead jutted a thousand feet into the air, and under whose chin the sea shrugged its great shoulders, Kahele, my boy,--that delightful contradiction, who was always plausible, yet never right,--Kahele and I looked timidly over into the sunset valley of Meha.

The "Valley of Solitude" it was called; albeit, at that moment, and with half an eye, we counted the thirty gra.s.s-lodges of the village, and heard the liquid tongues of a trio of waterfalls, that dived head-first into the groves at the farther end of the valley, where the mountain seemed to have opened its heart wide enough to let a rivulet escape into the sea. But the spot was a palpable and living dream, and no fond rivulet would go too hastily through it; so there was a glittering sort of monogram writ in water, and about it the village lodges were cl.u.s.tered in a very pleasing disorder.

The trail dropped down the cliff below us in long, swinging zigzags, and wound lazily through the village; crossed the stream at the ford; dipped off toward the sea, as though the beach, shining like coa.r.s.e gold, were a trifle too lovely to be pa.s.sed without recognition, and then it climbed laboriously up the opposite cliff, and struck off into s.p.a.ce. In ten seconds a bird might have spanned the deep ravine, and caught as much of its loveliness as we; but we weren't birds, and, moreover, we had six legs apiece to look after, so we tipped off from the dizzy ridge that overhung the valley of Meha to the north, and gradually descended into the heat and silence of the place, that seemed to make a picture of itself when we first looked down upon it from our eyrie.

We found the floor of the valley very solemn and very lovely, when we reached it. Three youngsters, as brown as berries, and without any leaves upon them, broke loose from a banana-orchard and leaped into a low _hou_-tree as we approached. They were a little shy of my colour, pale-faces being rare in that vicinity. Two women who were washing at the ford--and washing the very garments they should have had upon their backs--discovered us, and plunged into the stream with a refreshing splash, and a laugh apiece that was worth hearing, it was so genuine and hearty. Another youngster hurried off from a stone wall like a startled lizard, and struck on his head, but didn't cry much, for he was too frightened. A large woman lay at full length on a broad mat, spread under a panda.n.u.s, and slept like a turtle. I began to think there were nothing but women and children in the solitary valley, but Kahele had kept an eye on the reef, and, with an air of superior intelligence, he a.s.sured me that there were many men living about there, and they, with most of the women and children, were then out in the surf, fishing.

"To the beach, by all means!" cried I; and to the beach we hastened, where, indeed, we found heaps of cast-off raiment, and a hundred footprints in the sand. What would Mr. Robinson Crusoe have said to that, I wonder! Across the level water, heads, hands, and shoulders, and sometimes half-bodies, were floating about, like the _amphibia_. We were at once greeted with a shout of welcome, which came faintly to us above the roar of the surf, as it broke heavily on the reef, a half-mile out from sh.o.r.e. It was drawing toward the hour when the fishers came to land; and we had not long to wait, before, one after another, they came out of the sea like so many mermen and mermaids. They were refreshingly innocent of etiquette,--at least, of our translation of it; and, with a freedom that was amusing as well as a little embarra.s.sing, I was deliberately fingered, fondled, and fussed with by nearly every dusky soul in turn. "At last," thought I, "fate has led me beyond the pale of civilization; for this begins to look like the genuine article."

With uncommon slowness, the mermaids donned more or less of their apparel, a few preferring to carry their robes over their arms; for the air was delicious, and ropes of seaweed are accounted full dress in that delectable lat.i.tude. Down on the sand the mermen heaped their scaly spoils,--fish of all shapes and sizes, fish of every colour; some of them throwing somersaults in the sand, like young athletes; some of them making wry faces, in their last agony; some of them lying still and clammy, with big, round eyes like smoked-pearl vest-b.u.t.tons set in the middle of their cheeks; all of them smelling fishlike, and none of them looking very tempting. Small boys laid hold on small fry, bit their heads off, and held the silver-coated morsels between their teeth, like animated sticks of candy. There was a Fridayish and Lent-like atmosphere hovering over the spot, and I turned away to watch some youths who were riding surf-boards not far distant,--agile, narrow-hipped youths, with tremendous biceps and proud, impudent heads set on broad shoulders, like young G.o.ds. These were the flower and chivalry of the Meha blood, and they swam like young porpoises, every one of them.

There was a break in the reef before us; the sea knew it, and seemed to take special delight in rushing upon the sh.o.r.e as though it were about to devour sand, savages, and everything. Kahele and I watched the surf-swimmers for some time, charmed with the spectacle. Such buoyancy of material matter I had never dreamed of. Kahele, though much in the flesh, could not long resist the temptation to exhibit his prowess, and having been offered a surf-board that would have made a good lid to his coffin, and was itself as tight as cork and as smooth as gla.s.s, suddenly threw off his last claim to respectability, seized his sea-sled, and dived with it under the first roller which was then about to break above his head, not three feet from him. Beyond it, a second roller reared its awful front, but he swam under that with ease; at the sound of his "open sesame," its emerald gates parted and closed after him. He seemed some triton, playing with the elements, and dreadfully "at home" in that very wet place. The third and mightiest of the waves was gathering its strength for a charge upon the sh.o.r.e. Having reached its outer ripple, again Kahele dived and reappeared on the other side of the watery hill, balanced for a moment in the gla.s.sy hollow, turned suddenly, and, mounting the towering monster, he lay at full length on his fragile raft, using his arms as a bird its pinions,--in fact, soaring for a moment with the wave under him. As it rose he climbed to the top of it, and there, in the midst of foam seething like champagne, on the crest of a rushing sea-avalanche about to crumble and dissolve beneath him, his surf-board bidden in spume, on the very top bubble of all, Kahele danced like a shadow. He leaped to his feet and swam in the air, another Mercury, tiptoeing a heaven-kissing hill, buoyant as vapour, and with a suggestion of invisible wings about him,--Kahele transformed for a moment, and for a moment only; the next second my daring sea-skater leaped ash.o.r.e, with a howling breaker swashing at his heels. It was something glorious and almost incredible; but I saw it with my own eyes, and I wanted to double his salary on the spot.

Sunset in the valley of Meha. The air full of floating particles, that twinkled like diamond-dust; the great green chasm at the head of the valley illuminated by one broad bar of light shot obliquely through it, tipped at the end with a shower of white rockets that fringed a waterfall, and a fragment of rainbow like a torn banner. That deep, shadowy ravine seemed, for a moment, some mystery about to be divulged; but the light faded too soon, and I never learned the truth of it. The sea quieter than usual; very little sound save the rhythmical vibration of the air, that suggested flowing waters and quivering leaves; the lights shifted along the upper cliffs; a silver-white tropic-bird sailed from cloud to cloud, swiftly and noiselessly, like a shooting-star. A delicious moment, but a brief one; soon the sun was down, and the deepening shadows and gathering coolness set all the valley astir.

Camp-fires were kindled throughout the village; column after column of thin blue smoke ascended in waving spirals, separating at the top in leaf-shaped clouds. It was like the spiritual resurrection of some ancient palm-grove; and when the moon rose, a little later, flooding the Vale of Solitude with her vague light, the illusion was perfected; and a group of savages, scenting the savoury progress of their supper, sat, hungry and talkative, under every ghostly palm. Clear voices ascended in monotonous and weird recitative; they chanted a monody on the death of some loved one, prompted, perhaps, by the funereal solemnity of the hour; or sang an ode to the moon-rise, the still-flowing river, or the valley of Meha, so solitary in one sense, though by no means alone in its loneliness.

Kahele patronized me extensively. I was introduced to camp after camp, and in rapid succession repeated the experiences of a traveler who has much to answer for in the way of colour, and the peculiar cut of his garments. I felt as though I was some natural curiosity, in charge of the robustious Kahele, who waxed more and more officious every hour of his engagement; and his tongue ran riot as he descanted upon my characteristics, to the joy of the curious audiences we attracted.

Some hours must have pa.s.sed before we thought of sleep. How could we think of it, when every soul was wide awake, and time alone seemed to pa.s.s us by unconsciously? But Kahele finally led me to a chief's house, where, under coverlets of _kapa_, spiced with herbs, and in the midst of numerous members of the household, I was advised to compose my soul in peace, and patiently await daylight. I did so, for the drowsy sense that best ill.u.s.trates the tail-end of a day's journey possessed me, and I was finally overcome by the low, monotonous drone of a language that I found about as intelligible as the cooing of the mult.i.tudinous pigeon. The boy sat near me, still descanting upon our late experiences, our possible future, and the thousand trivial occurrences that make the recollections of travel forever charming. The familiar pipe, smoked at about the rate of three whiffs apiece, circulated freely, and kept the air mildly flavoured with tobacco; and night, with all that pertains to it, bowed over me, as, in an unguarded moment, I surrendered to its narcotizing touch.

There was another valley in my sleep, like unto the one I had closed my eyes upon, and I saw it thronged with ancients. No white face had yet filled those savage and sensuous hearts with a sense of disgust, which, I believe, all dark races feel when they first behold a bleached skin.

Again the breathless heralds announced the approach of a king, and the mult.i.tudes gathered to receive him. I heard the beating of the tom-toms, and saw the dancers ambling and posing before his august majesty, who reclined in the midst of a retinue of obsequious retainers. The spearsmen hurled their spears, and the strong men swung their clubs; the stone-throwers threw skillfully, and the sweetest singers sang long _meles_ in praise of their royal guest. A cry of fear rent the air as a stricken one fled toward the city of refuge; the priests pa.s.sed by me in solemn procession, their robes spotted with sacrificial blood. War canoes drew in from the sea, and death fell upon the valley. I heard the wail for the slaughtered, and saw the grim idols borne forth in the arms of the triumphant; then I awoke in the midst of that dream-pageant of savage and barbaric splendour.

It was still night; the sea was again moaning; the cool air of the mountain rustled in the long thatch at the doorway; a ripe bread-fruit fell to the earth with a loud thud. I rose from my mat and looked about me. The room was nearly deserted; some one lay swathed like a mummy in a dark corner of the lodge, but of what s.e.x I knew not,--probably one who had outlived all sensations, and perhaps all desires; a rush, strung full of oily _kukui_ nuts, flamed in the centre of the room, and a thread of black smoke climbed almost to the peak of the roof; but, falling in with a current of fresh air, it was spirited away in a moment.

I looked out of the low door; the hour was such a one as tinges the stoutest heart with superst.i.tion; the landscape was complete in two colours,--a moist, transparent grey, and a thin, feathery silver, that seemed almost palpable to the touch. Out on the slopes near the stream reclined groups of natives, chatting, singing, smoking, or silently regarding the moon. I pa.s.sed them unnoticed; dim paths led me through guava jungles, under orange groves, and beside cl.u.s.ters of jasmine, overpowering in their fragrance. Against the low eaves of the several lodges sat singers, players upon the rude instruments of the land, and glib talkers, who waxed eloquent, and gesticulated with exceeding grace.

Footsteps rustled before and behind me; I stole into the thicket, and saw lovers wandering together, locked in each other's embrace, and saw friends go hand-in-hand conversing in low tones, or perhaps mute, with an impressive air of the most complete tranquillity. The night-blooming cereus laid its ivory urn open to the moonlight, and a myriad of crickets chirped in one continuous jubilee. Voices of merriment were wafted down to me; and, stealing onward toward the great meadow by the stream, where the sleepless inhabitants of the valley held high carnival, I saw the most dignified chiefs of Meha sporting like children, while the children capered like imps, and the whole community seemed bewitched with the glorious atmosphere of that particular night.

Who was the gayest of the gay, and the most lawless of the unlawful? My boy, Kahele, in whom I had placed my trust, and whom, until this hour at least, I had regarded as the most promising specimen of the reorganized barbarians.

Perhaps it was all right; perhaps I had been counting his steps with too much confidence; they might have been simply a creditable performance, the result of careful training on the part of his tutors. I am inclined to think they were! At any rate, Kahele went clean back to barbarism that night, and seemed to take to it amazingly. I said nothing; I thought it wiser to seem to hold the reins, though I hold them loosely, than to try to check the career of my half-tamed domestic, and to find him beyond my control; therefore I sat on one side taking notes, and found it rather jolly on the whole.

The river looked like an inky flood with a broken silver crust; canoes floated upon its sluggish tide like long feathers; swimmers plied up and down it, now and then "blowing," whale-fashion, but slipping through the water as noiselessly as trout. I could scarcely tell which was the more attractive,--Nature, so fragrant and so voluptuous, or man, who had become a part of Nature for the hour, and was very unlike man as I had been taught to accept him.

Not till dawn did the dance or the song cease; not till everybody was grey and f.a.gged, and tongues had stopped wagging from sheer exhaustion.

I returned to my mats long ere that, to revolve in my mind plans for the following day.

It was evident that Kahele must at once quit the place, or go back to barbarism and stick there. I didn't care to take the responsibility of his return to first principles, and so ordered the animals to be saddled by sunrise. At that delicious moment the youngster lay like one of the Seven Sleepers, whom nothing could awaken. Everybody in the village seemed to be making up his lost sleep, and I was forced to await the return of life before pressing my claims any further.

The scorching noon drew on; a few of the sleepers awoke, bathed, ate of their cold repast, and slept again. Kahele followed suit; in the midst of his refreshment I suggested the advisability of instant departure; he hesitated. I enlarged upon the topic, and drew an enticing picture of the home-stretch, with all the endearing a.s.sociations cl.u.s.tering about its farther end; he agreed to everything with a sweet and pa.s.sive grace that seemed to compensate me for the vexations of the morning.

I went to the river to bathe while the beasts were being saddled, and returned anon to find Kahele sound asleep, and as persistent in his slumbers as ever. The afternoon waned; I began to see the fitness of the name that had at first seemed to me inappropriate to the valley; everybody slept or lazed during the hot hours of the day, and a census-taker might easily have imagined the place a solitude. At sunset, there was more fishing and more surf-swimming. It seemed to me the fish smelt stronger, and the swimmers swam less skilfully than on the evening previous; possibly it was quite as pretty a spectacle as the one that first charmed me, but blessings are bores when they come out of season.