The Breath of the Gods Part 10

If one of the great birds swooping incessantly along the sides of the ship had paused to look, he would have seen a small face, white as himself, fitted into the round bra.s.s frame. She was there before dawn had quickened under the sea. The mystery and the first unspeakable shiver of a newly created day had been hers. "'And G.o.d moved upon the face of the waters,'" whispered reverent Oriental lips. She saw the first dark triangle of land glide toward her through the thinning darkness,--the shimmer of rose and green on half-veiled slopes, the gradual lighting up of tapering peaks,--and then, the full orchestration of the risen sun.

She reached the deck to find not only Mr. Todd, but the greater number of the pa.s.sengers, a.s.sembled to watch the gorgeous spectacle from the entrance of Honolulu Bay. Night had rolled up from the sleepy town, and surged in great sails of pearl-tinted cloud up dark blue-green gullies of the hills. Red scars of volcanic slopes burned through the morning, whole peaks seemed incandescent, and terraced gardens, cleared from lower mists, stood outlined in reflected orange light.

A few moments more, and the iridescent pageant vanished. Down on the sh.o.r.e, rude wharves and freight-sheds and cheap, new-painted boat-houses stared out impertinently. Back of the harbor front the little town nestled prettily enough in its setting of tropic greens, and half-way up the volcanic cliffs patches of tilled fields or clumps of forest-trees relieved the sandy wastes. At intervals a tall white house among its palms shone out like a child's block, half imbedded in moss.

As the ship touched the dock, and the company broke up to watch the native boys diving for coppers, Mrs. Todd gathered her clan together for a holiday on sh.o.r.e. Yuki had decided to wear a white American gown.

Gwendolen also was in white, like a great lily. Dodge showed up in spotless duck and a pith helmet; Pierre wore immaculate flannels; while Mrs. Todd, in the stiffest of skirts, the thinnest of lawn waists, and a white linen Alpine hat a trifle too small, looked unfortunately like a perfume bottle with a white leather top.

They walked in radiant single-file down the gangway, the faces of all three women changing to sudden blankness at the appalling rigidity of earth, after recent days on a swaying deck. "I--I--don't believe I can walk at all, just yet," said Mrs. Todd, and reached out for her natural protector. In an instant Dodge had whistled up two cabriolets driven by sleepy-eyed Kanakas in California hats. At the market, a low Spanish-looking edifice with no walls, Mrs. Todd insisted upon getting out. Some one on the ship had told her to be sure to see the market; and this the conscientious traveller intended to do, though the very peaks above them seemed to rock and leap with subconscious friskiness. Here thronged a mingled race, both buyers and sellers,--English, j.a.panese, Chinese, Hawaiians, and Yankees. All the vegetable stands were owned by Chinese, all the fruit by Kanakas. Dodge insisted on the fact as eloquent of racial tendencies. In this magic climate the growth of vegetables is accompanied by an even more fervid growth of weeds, and so requires patient vigilance. Fruit, on the other hand, cultivates itself.

"All the lordly Hawaiian has to do," said Dodge, "is to stand or sit under the tree, and let it fall into his lap." Gwendolen took the value from this last remark by indicating a heap of h.o.r.n.y "jackfruit,"--a thing the shape and size of a watermelon, which grows out of the trunk, apparently, of live oaks, and asking, scornfully, how much Kanaka would be left when one of those had fallen.

The fish dealers' department gleamed with iridescent color. Shrimps and crabs seemed fashioned in Favrille gla.s.s. Lobsters wore polka-dots of blue. None of these crustacea had claws, but whether deprived of them by man or nature was never ascertained.

As they drove up the narrow avenues, the unique mixture of the population became more apparent. Chinese evidently formed the inferior caste of laborer, content with a daily wage. Cleverer j.a.panese bustled about newly opened shops of foreign wares, or hung out professional signs of doctor, lawyer, or notary public. The Yankee strolled about with a half-disdainful glance; but the lordliest was not so proud as the ragged sons of Kamehameha, who, preempting shady nooks in doorways, stared disapprovingly on the pa.s.ser-by. In the grounds of the former "palace," members of a present legislature lolled on the green, and nibbled peanuts. Pert Kanaka girls, in New York shirt-waists and automobile veils, minced by the side of fat mamas in Mother Hubbard gowns, generally of red, with huge ruffles about the yoke.

"Stop, Cy! Tell the man to stop. There's a druggist! I have several things to get!"

"And look! next to it a book-store advertising the latest novels,"

supplemented Gwendolen. "Doesn't that seem a joke? We must get some. I see souvenirs, and photographs, and--"

"I'll tell you what we'd better do. You women-folks get out and shop. Le Beau will stick to Yuki, I guess; while Dodge and I take this carriage around to the post-office,--I've heard there was one,--and try to find out the latest news about the war," cried Mr. Todd.

In a quarter of an hour they were back, breathless. "War's coming, and it's coming soon!" panted the senator.

"Yes, that's the ticket. j.a.pan has called, and Russia must show her hand or crawfish," supplemented Dodge.

"But not really, really--yet _begun_?" whispered Yuki, who had turned very pale.

"What _does_ the young man mean?" asked Mrs. Todd, anxiously, of her spouse. "I can't believe in irresponsible war rumors. I _sha'n't_ believe them. Why, only two days before we left Washington, Prince Breakitoff a.s.sured me solemnly that the difficulty would never be allowed to reach the point of war."

Mr. Todd winked toward his secretary. "Well," he said solemnly, "Prince Breakitoff ought to know more about the facts of the case than a Hawaiian newspaper."

"He certainly _ought_ to," said Dodge, ambiguously.

"War! Who dares to hint of war?" cried Pierre. "Look at this sky above us, and that tangle of sun and shower dragging rainbow echoes across a peac.o.c.k-colored bay! Who could be found to fight on such an earth? Do you not say so, too, my Yuki?"

Yuki started slightly, and hesitated, as if to form her words. Before she could speak, Dodge had interrupted: "As long as we are so close, would you-all mind walking one more block on foot? The prettiest sight in the town is just to the left of that jutting brick wall down there."

He pointed. Mrs. Todd was off. Yuki slipped in close to Gwendolen, and clung to her friend's arm. She did not want to think, just now, of war.

Past new American shops they went, ice-cream "parlors," dry-goods displays of underwear,--"marked down" sales, of course,--and windows of ready-made gowns on insipid waxen dummies. Dodge had taken a few feet in advance. He now turned sharply, facing into a narrow street, one of the old native thoroughfares, bordered by walls of brick and stone where moss spread and dampness oozed. On an absurdly narrow pavement squatted a row of fat and shapeless beings, presumably women, half buried in wreaths and coils of strange flowers.

"Behold the far-famed lei sellers of Hawaii!" announced Dodge, with an histrionic gesture.

"I see no hens," said Mrs. Todd, through raised lorgnettes.

"These are a different brand of lei," explained Dodge, without a smile; "flower-wreaths that are to the hat of the Hawaiian dandy what an orchid or a gardenia is to the b.u.t.ton-hole of a Fifth Avenue sport."

The sellers had sprung instantly into kneeling postures, all as if pulled by a single wire. Brown arms went forth, like those of crabs, flower hung. "Lei, lei, Honolulu lei! Prettie flower! Prettie ladees!

Dollar--Fufty cents! Here, ladee, prettie lei, t.w.u.n.ty-fi' cents!"

"Offer a quarter for three, and see them hustle," said Dodge.

"Oh, what visions of beauty!" breathed Gwendolen, and flung down silver coin at random. "See, ropes of carnations! Pink oleanders threaded into regular cables! And oh, the lovely yellow things,--my color,--golden acacias, I believe. I shall loop myself like an East Indian idol in these fragrant necklaces. And what are those purple things, and those?

Why, why, I don't know the others at all. I thought I was friends with every flower. They smell like heaven!"

"Frangipani, ylang-ylang, stephanotis, plumaria, acacia," rattled Dodge, in the tone and manner of a professional guide.

"What a delightful courier you would make, Mr. Dodge!" cried saucy Gwendolen. "I think I'll bespeak your services, now, for my wedding journey."

"I'm jolly well apt to be along on that particular trip, you know," retorted the young man, with such cool a.s.surance that all laughed--except Mrs. Todd. That good lady had begun to view, with some apprehension, the over-confident tactics of the attache. Gwendolen, after an unsuccessful attempt to stare him "down," bent flushed cheeks and laughing eyes to the flowers. "We must all wear _lei_, of course,"

she cried, a trifle unsteadily. "It's positively the only thing to do on such a day! Yuki, pink carnations will be ravishing on your little white sailor-hat, and also, by a happy coincidence, on Pierre's new Panama.

Dad, you and mother must have this divine stephanotis, mixed with a little smilax, for a green old age. Just think of buying strung stephanotis by the yard! And, Mr. Dodge,--last and not least, Mr. T.

Caraway Dodge!--" Mockingly she caught up a string of magenta-colored "bachelor b.u.t.tons," and would have offered them with a curtsey; but already Dodge had carefully wound his helmet in coils of acacia flowers until it had become, in shape and size, an old-fashioned beehive made of gold.

This time she presented her back squarely. The others withheld laughter until they should have read the expression on the chaperon's face. But she, oblivious apparently of this new bit of daring, had lorgnettes at her eyes, and was studying carefully a closely written list,--a composite of suggestions, made up for her by admiring ship friends.

"Punch Bowl Crater, The Bishop Museum, Banana Plantations, Waki-ki Beach,--note colors on the shoals,--House where R. L. Stevenson resided," she was murmuring, as though to fix each in her memory.

Suddenly she looked up. "Cyrus, the carriages! I doubt whether we can get them all in, but I intend to do my best."

"Mother!" began Gwendolen, in a note of protest. Yuki was smiling, and Pierre also. As long as they were together, nothing else mattered. The countenance of Dodge, however, had an acrobatic fall from elation to horrified disappointment. At sight of this, Gwendolen actually glittered mischief.

"Certainly, mother dear," she hastened to answer. "Let us take everything in,--even a little more, if possible. We all need our minds improved,--and some of us our manners!" Dodge, darting a look into her face, found only trustful innocence. The carriages had arrived. With great ostentation he a.s.sisted Mrs. Todd into her place. "I think I shall be able to supply one or two interesting spots not down on that list,"

he suggested, with a tentative look at the empty cushion beside her.

"Claus Spreckels' house, the Infirmary, the Honolulu University with miles of hedges made up of volcanic stone overgrown with night-blooming cereus--you mustn't miss that!" Dodge's eyes and his smile were frankness embalmed and irradiated. Mrs. Todd perforce smiled in reply.

"Jump in," she said cordially. "You're quite a treasure in travelling, Mr. Dodge."

Gwendolen meekly took a rear seat by her father. As she pressed lovingly against him, sending upward the tiniest little teased smile of discomfiture, his face broke into merry wrinkles. "I think you've found your match this time, little girl," he whispered.

"You just wait," nodded the oracular Gwendolen.

It is a memorable experience, a.n.a.logous to nothing else in the world, that landing, for one iridescent day, in the Pacific's mid-ocean, throwing one's fancies and one's heart into strange tropic scenes, and then returning at nightfall, like tired, happy children, to the great old mother-nursery of the ship.

By the next morning, not even a cloud on that horizon from which we are fleeing betrays the hiding-place of land. At once the island takes proper place as a vision, a mirage of the imagination, where souls of certain privileged beings have met, and are henceforth bound in a unity of mystic comradeship. After such a day, Pacific pa.s.sengers turn to one another with kindlier smiles, the whole ship changes into one heaving picnic party, old Time himself joins in the holiday, and personal dislikes, brought on board, are flung to the waves. That most of these animosities, like the Biblical bread, return to the owners after not so many days, need not affect present hilarity.

As may be supposed, Gwendolen and her closest attendant, Dodge, were small whirling centres in the round of gay diversions. The conventional deck-games were started, and a terminating three days of compet.i.tive skill, with prizes bought at Honolulu and marked with the name of the ship and date of voyage, duly announced. Revelry was to culminate in a grand "fancy dress ball," the night before landing, a prize being given to the costumer who showed most skill in fashioning his or her attire from things procurable on board ship, and in carrying out the character a.s.sumed. In order to waste no more time upon this function, it may be stated that Mr. T. Caraway Dodge as "Dandy Jim,"--with painted purple rings on a dress shirt and a "claw-hammer" coat a size too small, ebony countenance, lips like two flaming sausages caught loosely at the ends, and a wig fashioned from the hair of his bunk mattress,--sang and cake-walked himself straight to the prize, while defeated contestants rent night with applause and acclamation.

From the smoking-room an incessant clinking, as of fairy castanets, fretted the ears of feminine curiosity. Mr. Todd explained that it was merely the sound of checkers and chessmen rattling to the shiver of the ship's screw.

The sun came up each morning, small and round, like a mandarin orange; expanded himself into a blinding deity; and at evening went down again, a blood-red orange, into the sea. The days he brought were long and golden, but not long enough for all the practising of bull-board, quoits, shuffle-board, and deck tennis. Each morning, after breakfast, certain acrobatic performances, free of charge, were held. Bag-punching was the children's favorite. One could count on an audience there, of upturned faces, wide-eyed and solemn with admiration. Some of the pa.s.sengers saw fit to attach pedometers, and walk an incredible number of miles each day.

In the evening, Mrs. Todd and bridge whist reigned supreme. The Captain proved to be a player; so, to his present anguish, was Dodge. Gwendolen took an elfish delight in luring this young man to a table, under pretence of desiring to be his partner, and then, at the last moment, slipping in a foreordained subst.i.tute; after which she sped off, carolling, to a moonlit deck. Once there, the fuming and impotent Dodge recognized only too clearly what she would do. At least a dozen new acquaintances of the other s.e.x had been made thus far by Gwendolen. It was her wont to dispense Emersonian philosophy and delicately portioned encouragement to those who were fortunate enough to secure her companionship. There was a young Dutch merchant on his way to coffee plantations in Java, very blond and fierce as to mustachios, and mild in the eyes. A Chicago representative, on his way to sell to Eastern potentates his particular make of automobile, had already needed, to quote Gwendolen's own, words, "a slight slackening of speed."

An English "leftenant" returning to South Africa, carried with him his own marvellous outfit for the making of afternoon tea, backed by a mammoth English plum-cake in a tin box. He was one to be propitiated, especially toward eight bells on an afternoon.

An Austrian viscount posed as the slayer of jungle beasts. "Beeg gam,"

he called them. He doted upon seeing this timid and shrinking maid cower beneath the b.l.o.o.d.y wonder of his yarns. No one before had inspired such thrilling denouements as Mees Todd. He recognized her at once for his affinity, and on the night before landing condescended to tell her so.

The shock was rude, but he deserved what he got.

Pierre and Yuki joined in these several amus.e.m.e.nts and occupations during the morning and afternoon hours, both being much petted and nattered by the ladies of the ship, as beau ideals of young lovers. In the evenings, on the balmy deck, they were left to themselves. Wonderful talks grew between them,--whispers, sometimes, that the jealous wind tore from their lips before the last word came. Yuki had not won back the half-troth given, nor, on the other hand, had Pierre gained more.