Summer Cruising in the South Seas Part 9

Hua Manu's eyes were much better than mine; he seemed to see with all his five senses, and the five told him that _there was land not far off_! I wouldn't believe him; I think I was excusable for questioning his infallibility then and there. The minute he cried out "Land!" I gave up and went to sleep or to death, for I thought he was daft, and it was discouraging business, and I wished I could die for good. Hua Manu, what a good egg you were, though it's the bad that usually keep atop of the water, they tell me!

Hua Manu was right! he walked out of the sea an hour later and stood on a mound of coa.r.s.e sand in the middle of the ocean, with my miserable, water-logged body lying in a heap at his feet.

The place was as smooth and shiny and desolate as anybody's bald head.

That's a nice spot to be merry in, isn't it? Yet he tried to make me open my eyes and be glad.

He said he knew the "Great Western" would be coming down that way shortly; she'd pick us off the shoal, and water and feed us.

Perhaps she might! Meantime we hungered and thirsted as many a poor castaway had before us. That was a good hour for Christian fort.i.tude: beached in the middle of the ocean; shelterless under a sun that blistered Hua's tough skin; eyes blinded with the glare of sun and sea; the sand glowing like bra.s.s and burning into flesh already irritated with salt water; a tongue of leather cleaving to the roof of the mouth, and no food within reach, nor so much as a drop of fresh water for Christ's sake!

Down went my face into the burning sand that made the very air _hop_ above it.... Another night, cool and grateful; a bird or two flapped wearily overhead, looking like spirits in the moonlight. Hua scanned earnestly our narrow horizon, noting every inflection in the voices of the wind and waves,--voices audible to him, but worse than dumb to me,--mocking monotones reiterated through an agonizing eternity.

A wise monitor was Hua Manu, shaming me to silence in our cursed banishment. Toward the morning after our arrival at the shoal, an owl fluttered out of the sky and fell at our feet quite exhausted. It might have been blown from Motu Hilo, and seemed ominous of something, I scarcely knew what. When it had recovered from its fatigue, it sat regarding us curiously. I wanted to wring its short, thick neck, and eat it, feathers and all. Hua objected; there was a superst.i.tion that gave that bland bird its life. It might continue to ogle us with one eye as long as it liked. How the lopsided thing smirked! how that stupid owl-face, like a rosette with three b.u.t.tons in it, haunted me! It was enough to craze any one; and, having duly cursed him and his race, I went stark mad and hoped I was dying for ever.

There are plenty of stars in this narrative. Stars, and plenty of them, cannot account for the oblivious intervals, suspended animation, or whatever it was, that came to my relief from time to time. I cannot account for them myself. Perhaps Hua Manu might; he seemed always awake, always on the lookout, and ever so patient and painful. A dream came to me after that owl had stared me into stone,--a dream of an island in a sea of gla.s.s; soft ripples lapping on the silver sh.o.r.es; sweet airs sighing in a starlit grove; some one gathering me in his arms, hugging me close with infinite tenderness; I was consumed with thirst, speechless with hunger; like an infant I lay in the embrace of my deliverer, who moistened my parched lips and burning throat with delicious and copious draughts. It was an elixir of life; I drank health and strength in every drop; sweeter than mother's milk flowed the warm tide unchecked, till I was satisfied, and sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The "Great Western" was plunging in her old style, and I swashed in my bunk as of yore. The captain sat by me with a bottle in his hand and anxiety in his countenance.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Two hours out from Tahiti, inward bound."

"How! What! When!" etc.; and my mind ran up and down the record of the last fortnight, finding many blots and some blanks.

As soon as I got into my right mind I could hear all about it; and the captain shook his bottle, and held on to the side of my bunk to save himself from total wreck in the lee-corners of the cabin.

"Why, wasn't I right-minded? I could tell a hawk from a hernshaw; and, speaking of hawks, where was that cursed owl?"

The captain concluded I was bettering, and put the physic into the locker, so as to give his whole attention to keeping right side up.

Well, this is how it happened, as I afterward learned: The "Great Western" suffered somewhat from the gale at Motu Hilo, though she was comparatively sheltered in that inner sea. Having repaired, and given me up as a deserter, she sailed for Tahiti. The first day out, in a light breeze, they all saw a man apparently wading up to his middle in the sea. The fellow hailed the "Great Western," but as she could hardly stand up against the rapid current in so light a wind, the captain let her drift past the man in the sea, who suddenly disappeared. A consultation of officers followed. Evidently some one was cast away and ought to be looked after; resolved to beat up to the rock, big turtle, or whatever it might be that kept that fellow afloat, provided the wind freshened sufficiently; wind immediately freshened; "Great Western" put about and made for the spot where Hua Manu had been seen hailing the schooner. But when that schooner pa.s.sed he threw himself upon the sand beside me, and gave up hoping at last, and was seen no more.

What did he then? I must have asked for drink. He gave it me from an artery in his wrist, severed by the finest teeth you ever saw. That's what saved me. On came the little schooner, beating up against the wind and tide, while I had my lips sealed to that fountain of life.

The skipper kept banging away with an old blunderbuss that had been left over in his bargains with the savages, and one of these explosions caught the ears of Hua. He tore my lips from his wrist, staggered to his feet, and found help close at hand. Too late they gathered us up out of the deep and strove to renew our strength. They transported us to the little cabin of the schooner, Hua Manu, myself, and that mincing owl, and swung off into the old course. Probably the "Great Western" never did better sailing since she came from the stocks than that hour or two of beating that brought her up to the shoal. She seemed to be emulating it in the home run, for we went bellowing through the sea in a stiff breeze and the usual flood-tide on deck.

I lived to tell the tale. I should think it mighty mean of me not to live after such a sacrifice. Hua Manu sank rapidly. I must have nearly drained his veins, but I don't believe he regretted it. The captain said when he was dying his faithful eyes were fixed on me. Unconsciously I moved a little; he smiled, and the soul went out of him in that smile, perfectly satisfied. At that moment the owl fled from the cabin, pa.s.sed through the hatchway, and disappeared.

Hua Manu lay on the deck, stretched under a sail, while I heard this. I wondered if a whole cargo of pearls could make me indifferent to his loss. I wondered if there were many truer and braver than he in Christian lands. They call him a heathen. It _was_ heathenish to offer up his life vicariously. He might have taken mine so easily, and perhaps have breasted the waves back to his own people, and been feted and sung of as the hero he truly was.

Well, if he is a heathen, out of my heart I would make a parable, its rubric bright with his sacrificial blood, its theme this glowing text: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend."

THE LAST OF THE GREAT NAVIGATOR.

Think of a sea and a sky of such even and utter blueness that any visible horizon is out of the question. In the midst of this pellucid sphere the smallest of propellers trailing two plumes of sea-foam, like the tail-feathers of a bird of paradise, and over it all a league of floating c.r.a.pe,--for so seem the heavy folds of smoke that hang above us.

Thus we pa.s.s out of our long hours of idleness in that grove of eight thousand cocoa-palms by the sea-sh.o.r.e,--the artist and I seeking to renew our _dolce far niente_ in some new forest of palms by any sh.o.r.e whatever. Enough that it is sea-washed, and hath a voice and an eternal song.

Now turn to the stone quarry darkened with the groups of the few faithful friends and many islanders. They are so ready to kill time in the simplest manner; why not in staring our awkward little steamer out of sight?

One glimpse of the white handkerchiefs, fluttering like a low flight of doves, and then with all the sublime resignation of the confessed lounger, we await the approach of twilight and the later hours that shall presently pa.s.s silver-footed over this tropic sea.

Four p.m., and the roar of the reef lost to us voyagers. The sun an hour high. The steams of dinner appealing to us through the yawning hatches,--everything yawning in this lat.i.tude, animate and inanimate,--and the world as hot as Tophet. We lie upon our mattresses, brought out of the foul cabin into the sweet air, and pa.s.s the night half intoxicated with romance and cigarettes. The natives cover the deck of our little craft in lazy and laughing flocks. Some of them regard us tenderly; they are apt to love at sight, though Heaven knows there is little in our untrimmed exteriors to attract any one under the stars.

We hear, now and then, the sharp click of flint and steel, and after it see the flame, and close to the flame a dark face, grotesque it may be, like an antique water-spout with dust in its jaws. But some are beautiful, with glorious eyes that shine wonderfully in the excitement of lighting the pipe anew.

Voices arise at intervals from among the groups of younger voyagers. We hear the songs of our own land worded in oddly and rather prettily broken English. "Annie Laurie," "When the cruel war is over," and other equally ambitious and proportionately popular ballads ring in good time and tune from the lips of the young bloods, but the girls seldom join to any advantage. How strange it all seems, and how we listen!

With the first and deepest purple of the dawn, the dim outlines of Molokai arise before us. It is an island of cliffs and canons, much haunted of the King, but usually out of the tourist's guide-book.

It is hinted one may turn back this modern page of island civilization, and with it the half-christianized and wholly bewildered natures of the uncomprehending natives, and here find all of the old superst.i.tions in their original significance, the temples, and the shark-G.o.d, and the _hula-hula_ girls, beside whose weird and maddening undulations your _can-can_ dancers are mere jumping-jacks.

Listen for faint music of the wandering minstrels! No, we are too far out from sh.o.r.e: then it is the wrong end of the day for such festivals.

A brief siesta under the opening eyelids of the morn, and at sunrise we dip our colours abreast charming little Lahaina, drowsy and indolent, with its two or three long, long avenues overhung with a green roof of leaves, and its odd summer-houses and hammocks pitched close upon the white edge of the sh.o.r.e.

We pa.s.sed to and fro in the shadow paths an hour or two, eat of the fruits, luscious and plentiful, and drink of its liquors, vile and fortunately scarce, and get us hats plaited of the coa.r.s.est straw and of unbounded rim, making ourselves still more hideous, if indeed we have not already reached the acme of the unpicturesque.

Now for hours and hours we hug the sh.o.r.e, slowly progressing under the insufficient shadow of the palms, getting now and then glimpses of valleys folded inland, said to be lovely and mystical. Then there are mites of villages always half-grown and half-starved looking, and always close to the sea. These islanders are amphibious. The little bronze babies float like corks before they can walk half the length of a bamboo-mat.

Another night at sea, in the rough channel this time, and less enjoyable for the rather stiff breeze on our quarter, and some very sour-looking clouds overhead. All well by six, however, when we hear the Angelus rung from the lower tower of a long coral church in another sea-wedded hamlet. Think of the great barn-like churches, once too small for the throngs that gathered about them, now full of echoes, and whose doors, if they still hang to their hinges, will soon swing only to the curious winds!

In and out by this strange land, marking all its curvatures with the fidelity of those shadow lines in the atlas, and so lingering on till the evening of the second day, when, just at sunset, we turn suddenly into the bay that saw the last of Captain Cook, and here swing at anchor in eight fathoms of liquid crystal over a floor of shining white coral, and clouds of waving sea-moss. From the deck behold the amphitheatre wherein was enacted the tragedy of "The Great Navigator, or the Vulnerable G.o.d." The story is brief and has its moral.

The approach of Captain Cook was mystical. For generations the islanders had been looking with calm eyes of faith for the promised return of a certain G.o.d. Where should they look but to the sea, whence came all mysteries, and whither retreated the being they called divine?

So the white wings of the "Resolution" swept down upon the lifelong quietude of Hawaii like a messenger from heaven, and the signal gun sent the first echoes to the startled mountains of the little kingdom.

They received this Jupiter, who carried his thunders with him and kindled fires in his mouth. He was the first smoker they had seen, though they are now his most devout apostles. Showing him all due reverence, he failed to regard their customs and traditions, which was surely unG.o.dlike, and it rather weakened the faith of their sages.

A plot was devised to test the divinity of the presuming captain.

While engaged in conversation, one of the chiefs was to rush at Cook with a weapon; should he cry out or attempt to run, he was no G.o.d, for the G.o.ds are fearless; and if he was no G.o.d, he deserved death for his deception. But if a G.o.d, no harm could come of it, for the G.o.ds are immortal.

So they argued, and completed their plans. It came to pa.s.s in the consummation of them that Cook did run, and thereupon received a stab in the back. Being close by the sh.o.r.e he fell, face downward in the water and died a half-b.l.o.o.d.y, half-watery, and wholly inglorious death. His companions escaped to the ship and peppered the villages by the harbour, till the inhabitants, half frantic, were driven into the hills.

Then they put to sea, leaving the body of their commander in the hands of the enemy, and with flag at half-mast were blown sullenly back to England, there to inaugurate the season of poems, dirges, and pageants in honour of the Great Navigator.

His bones were stripped of flesh, afterwards bound with _kapa_, the native cloth, and laid in one of the hundred natural cells that perforate the cliff in front of us, and under whose shadow we now float.