CHAPTER VI—THE DERELICTHillary was impatient during the interminable hours that passed ere he saw Gabrielle again. “Don’t worry me, Mango,” he said, as the pretty native girl stood on the verandah and blew kisses from her coral-red lips.“He go mad soon; man who no get drunk am no gooder at all!” murmured Mango Pango as she ran off to obey the orders of her mistress.It was the next night when Hillary was to reach the zenith of his dreams and happiness. Gabrielle had promised to meet him at sunset and go off in a canoe for a paddle round the coral reefs off Felisi beach. He was on fire with the idea. He could not sleep. His brain teemed with the thoughts of all he would say to Gabrielle when he declared his love. He determined to act his part well and be a worthy lover. She should not be disappointed in him. “I’ll paddle her out to that derelict three-masted ship; that old wreck’s the very place. I’ll take her on board so that we shall be quite alone.”He thought of the light in Gabrielle’s eyes. “Fancy me being the lucky one to receive her kisses! Wonderful! I know men get exaggerated ideas about theonewoman who appeals to them—but Gabrielle!—it’s excusable in me.” So Hillary reflected as he heard the ocean surfs beating against the barrier reefs. It pleased him to hear the winds sighing mournfully through the tracts of coco-palms beyond his bedroom window. His brain became confused as he thought of the ecstasy of holding her in his arms. He sat down by the bamboo table and wrote off a poem. He was so much in love that even the poem was good. He proudly read the verses over and over again, till they seemed more wonderful than anything he had read in the works of the great poets. “I’m a poet,” said he. Then he stared in the mirror at his haggard face, just to see what the world’s greatest lyric poet looked like. Placing his scribbled lyric amongst his valued property in his sea-chest, he once more continued to think over all that he would do when the sublime moment arrived. He thought of how he would hold Gabrielle in his arms. He would be no ordinary lover. He would rain impassioned kisses on her sweet mouth as he held her in his strong embrace. She should not escape him: the very fright that might leap into her eyes through his impassioned vehemence would only serve to feed the fires of all that he felt for her. He looked in the corner on his violin—his old love. How insignificant it seemed when compared to his new love. Yet he felt a slight pang of remorse as he realised how its strings had always responded to his moods. Would Gabrielle’s heart-strings respond as readily? Are the heart-strings of women as perfectly in tune with a lover’s ideals as violins are to the touch of themaestro? He heard the faint booming of the far-off seas sounding through his reflections as they stole across the quiet night. Then he opened his sea-chest and took out Balzac’sWild Ass’s Skin. He gazed on the faded flower that had lain in the pages. Though it was limp and withered, it was glorified because Gabrielle had worn it in her hair. After that he fell asleep.Next day the young apprentice became terribly impatient as the hours slowly passed. He was to meet Gabrielle at sunset by the old lagoon. It wanted half-an-hour before the sun fell behind the peaks of Yuraka when he eventually started off. Mango Pango wondered why he was so full of song, so carefully dressed. He chucked her under the chin, even praised her eyes, as he said, “Good-bye, O beauteous golden-skinned Mango Pango,” then hurried out under the palms.“He fool; he go meet dark-skinned, frizzly Papuan girl, I know! O foolish mans!” murmured pretty Mango as she readjusted the hibiscus blossoms in her bunched tresses and looked quite spiteful.As the young apprentice hurried on, his Byronic neckerchief fluttering from his throat like a flag, his eyes twinkled with delight. The glamour Gabrielle had created in his head threw a poetic gleam over the rugged island landscape and on the brooding wealth of nature around him. The blue lagoons, nestled by the lines of ivory-nut palms, looked like petrified patches of fallen tropic sky that had been mysteriously frozen into bright mirrors. Then they seemed to break up into musical ripples of laughter, for a covey of bronze-hued, pretty native girls had modestly dived down into their blue depths as he suddenly emerged into the open. He distinctly saw the bubbles where they had disappeared, and he knew that they were all standing on the sandy bottom of the lagoon hastily slipping on their loin-cloths before they boldly reappeared on the surface.“Talofa! Papalagi!” said one as her shiny head bobbed on the surface, her eyes sparkling as she gazed shoreward and blew the apprentice a kiss as he was passing out of sight. Then he arrived on the lonely shore tracks. The Papuan birds of paradise looked like fragments of feathered rainbows haunting old shores as they floated over the sea. The orange-striped cockatoos, sitting high in the tall flamboyants and tamuni-trees, seemed to shout “Cockatoo-e whoo! Cock-a-too whoo! Make haste! Make haste!” as he approached. They rose in a glittering shower from their roosts, gave dismal muttering as they fluttered over his head, till, hanging their coral-red feet loosely, they resettled on the boughs of the tasselled breadfruits. It was a wildly desolate spot; not a sail specked the horizon as Hillary tramped along, singing to himself. Except for the solitary dark man who lay fast asleep in his outrigger canoe, that was becalmed a few yards beyond the coral reefs, he wandered in a world alone. Only the bright-plumaged birds populated the wooded promontories, cheeks and slopes.As the young apprentice walked slowly along, making time, he repeatedly glanced seaward to see how low the sun was setting. Arriving opposite the alligator-shaped promontory at Nu-poa, he sighted the scattered palavanas of the small hut citadel, Ko-Koa. It was a fishing village; quite a score of canoes floated hard by on the lagoons. The romping heathen kiddies waved their paddles as he passed by. Their alert eyes seldom missed the passing of a papalagi. From out the thatched beehive-shaped homesteads, under the mangoes and mahogany-trees, rushed several old chiefs and their women-kind, who at once began loudly to lament the dearth of tobacco and gin and loose cash.Attractive girls offered him their fabulous wealth of shells and fish in exchange for a silk handkerchief. “You got nice lady fren, papalagi?—one who ’av’ gotter old pair stocking she no wanter?” said one coy maid whose soul yearned to attract some dusky Lothario’s waning glances. But it was all innocent enough in a way. “Women are the same the world over, blest if they aren’t!” he murmured, as he gave a bashful maid a small piece of red ribbon in exchange for her beautifully carved bone hair-comb, which she handed him with inimitable grace, for brown maids are very ambitious for the love of a white man. Some of the youths and maids were half-caste and three-quarter caste, a mixture of Polynesian and Melanesian. Armlets and leglets fashioned from the pretty treduca shells jingled as the girls romped round the apprentice.Those girls of mixed blood were mostly of graceful deportment, many having fine, intellectual eyes. Neither did they possess the ungainly head-mop. Indeed, standing there under the distant palms of the lower shore, their wavy hair tossing to the sea-winds, they made a picturesque sight. And one might easily have imagined that they were tawny mermaids who had crept up the sands so as to stand under the green-leafed palms to comb their tresses and wail luring songs. Hillary stood still for a moment and gazed on that enchanting scene of primitive life, fascinated. Out on the edge of the promontory sat yet another covey of semi-Papuan and Polynesian maids. It was not fancy; they were really singing mysterious songs as they sought to lure the sun-varnished native fishermen who paddled or sailed their buoyant catamarans over the wine-dark waters. Hillary bolted under the palms to escape the embarrassing attentions of both the cadging chiefs and those Solomon Island Nausicaas and Circes. It was not long after that he arrived by the side of the wide lagoon that Gabrielle would cross in her canoe if she kept the appointment. She would come by water, whereas he had travelled three miles, the long way round by the coast. As he stood by the lagoon it seemed to stretch before him like a beautiful mirror that reflected tall fern and palm trees. Even the bright-winged lories were distinctly visible as their shadows flitted across the sky. “Will she come? Is it all a dream?” thought he as his heart thumped heavily.It seemed incredible to Hillary that he should really be standing there by that lagoon in the cannibalistic Solomon Isles, waiting to see a beautiful white girl paddle towards him across the blue waters. He had not waited long before round the bend of the lagoon, far off, came a ripple, quite visible on the waters; in another moment the curved, ornamental prow of a canoe appeared as the moving paddle leapt into full view. The sun was setting and the blaze shot right across the Pacific and touched the mountains to the south-east, sending transcendent hues and shadows down on to the lagoon waters and again into the forests.Women play all sorts of tricks with credulous men and their instinctive love of beauty. True enough, Gabrielle was an artist in the delicate business of self-attire. She knew exactly where to place the blue ribbon at her throat and the crushed crimson flower in the crown of her hair so that it might appeal to the senses of a mere man. The blue and white flowers stuck in her tresses looked unreal, for her hair shone as though it had been set on fire by the hues of the sunset. Her robe might have been cut out of some burnished cloud material such as the angels wear. “Fancy! She’s come!” murmured Hillary as the prow of the canoe softly swerved broadside on to the sandy shore. “Come on, dearest,” he said. Gabrielle looked tired and was breathing fast through her haste in paddling across the wide lagoon. She looked very pale. “What’s the matter, dear?”“Father’s drunk.”“Is he?” said Hillary, as he metaphorically brought his fist down and swept such an unromantic nuisance as a father off the face of the earth. Even Gabrielle looked up quickly as she heard him take a deep breath as he swept old Everard to dust, pulverised. He hadn’t rehearsed through the feverish night all that he intended to do at that moment, and written a mighty poem, to be finally thwarted by a drunken father.Something kin to the fire that shone in the apprentice’s eyes shone in Gabrielle’s eyes also. She trembled, and obediently did all that he bade her do. In a moment they had taken hold of the prow of the canoe and between them dragged it for thirty yards over the shallows that separated the deeper lagoon waters from the sea. They were right opposite to where the Pacific waves gambol into a thousand creeks and coral caves. Without a moment’s hesitation Gabrielle jumped into the canoe. “Be careful, dear,” whispered the apprentice.They lost no time in embarking. A trader was likely to pass at any moment, and Everard had threatened to “kick Hillary into the middle of next week” if he found that villainous apprentice hanging around his daughter. They could just hear the faint echoes of the tribal drums in the Buka-Buka mountains as their canoe shot silently out into the bay. They were off, paddling away together into the unknown seas of romance. Such was that world of rugged shore and dark blue waters to Hillary as he gazed up at the darkening sky. God had just lit the first star, and as he gazed upward it flashed into sight.Gabrielle reallydidlook like some beautiful visionary creature sitting there; and she was voiceless, as befits those who travel across tropic seas of love. The apprentice paddled a long time, then at last he could hear the faint monotones of the seas that were ceaselessly beating against the reefs and the big bulk of the wreck.“Allow me!” he said. His voice trembled as he took hold of her hand firmly, as though he thought she might escape. The prow bumped gently against the hulks’ side near the gangway. That big, three-masted derelict looked like some huge phantom ship as it loomed up there in the silent waters off Bougainville. “Come on, dear.” Very carefully he placed his arms around her and step by step carried her up the ragged rope gangway.Their heads were nearly up to the level of the deck, but there were still two more steps to climb. “Hold tight, dear,” he whispered. His voice seemed to travel like an echo across the silence of the tropic night. Just for a second he gazed into Gabrielle’s eyes, then he gently dropped her down on to the deck. At that moment reality returned; things took some definite shape; Hillary recalled time, the world and the far-off cities.A drove of frightened rats went shrieking and squeaking down the alleyway towards the forecastle. The remnants of torn sail and tangled rigging flapped mournfully to the winds as they both slipped hurriedly across the warped deck. Hillary felt the ecstasy that is the highest attainment of mortal happiness. Had she wholly belonged to him, body and soul, he would not have been half so happy. He stared aloft at the tall masts and felt a mighty sympathy for that vessel lying there by the desolate shores of its last anchorage, for the jib-boom at the bow seemed to point helplessly at the far-away horizon, to which it could never sail. “This way! Come on!” he whispered, as he gazed around in some mad thought that the ghosts of the old crew were enviously hanging round in their great off-watch.They sat down in silence on the old form that was close against the poop, just by the entrance to the saloon. Immediately over their heads, by the deck rails of the now rotting poop, was the spot where the old captain had stood when he sailed the seas. As the apprentice looked upwards he suddenly remembered that he was on the very derelict that had once been the ship of the old skipper who had left the books at Everard’s bungalow, the books from which Gabrielle had gathered her romance.In his mind he saw that old derelict when it sailed the seas in its prime, when the figure-head with outstretched hands at the bows (now with one arm broken off and its emblematic, once beautiful face fast rotting) had bounded across the waves like a living thing, long before Hillary was born. The influence of the surroundings and the girl beside him stirred his fancy. In imagination he saw the old skipper standing on the poop watching the blue horizons and the starlight and moonlight that shone in another age, so far as his own brief run of years were concerned. In a flash he realised that out of all the cargoes the captain had jealously guarded in his long voyages it was the old books that had brought him solace in his cabin that had proved the most wonderful merchandise after all. Where were the imported pianos that had been shipped for the Australasian colonies, Fiji, Java, Callao and Shanghai? What had been their fate? They had been thumped and thumped to distraction and destruction while men drank their grog. Where were the cargoes of old grandfather clocks and German-made alarms? But more wonderful than all was the fact that Gabrielle sat beside him on that very ship, her heart aglow with the romance that she had gathered out of the pages of the old captain’s books. True enough, that skipper never wrote the books, but he lived an adventurous life in the big world, and who will say that he may not have been wiser than the authors?Hillary looked through the saloon port-hole just behind them and half fancied he saw a ghostly glimmer of the oil lamps that had shone in that saloon in the dusk of other days; he even saw the shadows of men moving about the cuddy table. But it was no ghostly pageant of the post at all, simply a stream of moonlight on the torn sail that waved to and fro as it hung from the main-yard and sent its shadow into the dark saloon.The atmosphere that surrounded the wreck and the music of the wind in the decaying rigging affected Gabrielle also. Her old tom-boy demeanor, had completely vanished. Hillary only said, “Well Gabrielle,” and she heard the music in those two words. For a moment they both forgot the world beyond that hulk. Only the stars existed, and they shone into Gabrielle’s eyes as their lips met. The passionate phrases that he had so carefully rehearsed, all the poetic vehemence of the night before, had faded. Not one mad vow escaped his lips. He only held her tenderly, as though he were afraid that she might crumble in his arms—fall as dust to his feet. Not an atom of passion come to ruffle the poetry of his feelings. For the young apprentice wasreallyin love. Her hair touched his face. It thrilled him as music thrills dreaming men. “Gabrielle, you are very beautiful How strange that no man has claimed you before. For that, at least, I thank God.”The girl was silent. “Don’t you believe me?” he added. He glanced swiftly at her face. It was deathly white. Hillary thought it was the rats scampering across the deck that had brought that startled look. Then Gabrielle burst into tears.The apprentice thought little about those tears. He had felt a little like that too when he was really happy. If there was a wrong construction to be placed on Gabrielle’s actions, Hillary was sure to hit on it. It was a natural consequence, since he had gathered all his knowledge of women from his books. To him all women were beautiful and good. He thought of them as leading sheltered lives. They were perfectly different from men. It had never occurred to him to try and explain the differences. His views about women, in fact, were quite conventional, touched with the theatrical glamour that is common enough in extreme youth.And still the tears lingered in Gabrielle’s eyes. No one can tell what the girl really thought and felt, excepting that she heard the simple note of sincerity in all that the young apprentice said and which cannot be written down. As for Hillary, the material world had passed from his sight. Gabrielle wept, but what did it matter? Weeping must be some natural attribute to real happiness. So he thought.It may have been the noisy rats or the creak of the blown rigging that slightly dispelled the romantic atmosphere. “Even the ecstasy of insanity is denied men,” thought Hillary as a haunting thought suddenly disturbed him. “She is weeping because I’ve frightened her. That’s what it is. She’s only a child after all—does not understand! I’m too passionate, too headlong in my way of making love. She’s frightened of me and so she weeps.” Suddenly his manner altered. He led her to the bulwark’s side. The moon had already risen, and as they both leaned over, looking down into the dark waters, they could see their shadows in the silent depths below. Neither spoke; some fascination held them. As the apprentice looked at the girl’s face her shadow-eyes seemed to glance sideways at him. He fancied that he saw something distorted in the movement of her shadow. A puff of wind seemed to drift down from the stars; the hair was outblown, the features unfamiliar. But it was only for a second; in another moment Gabrielle’s full outline developed in the light of the tropic moon. There they were, Hillary with his arm on the shoulder of the girl, who was still staring intently into the still water.“Why did you sigh like that, Gabrielle?” he said. Then he looked on the western sky-line. The ghostly flush, the pale aftermath of the departed day, still lingered. Hillary vaguely recalled how near human happiness is to sorrow; he felt sure there was some sorrow in the girl’s heart. Rajah Koo Macka had looked into Gabrielle’s eyes; but he knew that there are many different ways in which a woman may look at a man. None knew better than he.Gabrielle’s eyes to-night held a different expression as she again scrutinised the young apprentice.“Do you love me, Gabrielle?”She responded by clasping his hand tightly and looking at him in some fright. Her voice was hushed and trembling as she replied: “I’ve got a feeling for you that I’ve never had before for anyone. I think I could die with someone like you.” Saying this, she looked steadily into his eyes, and then added in a half-sorrowful way: “I wouldn’t care if we jumped into the sea and died together; I’d be much happier if I were dead.”“Well now,” said Hillary as she continued: “I’m a hateful girl; I’ve already told you I’m wicked; besides, I’m haunted by a shadow-woman: she follows me, curses me, but I can’t explain it to anyone.”She became excited and raised her voice as he had never heard her raise it before. The apprentice rubbed his eyes. “Jump into the seas and die!” he gasped as he realised all that the girl had so passionately poured forth. “Not if I know it.” Then he added: “What do you mean about a shadow-woman and being haunted by her?”He looked steadily into the girl’s pallid face, then gently pulled her towards him and folded her to his heart.“You’re only a romantic child.I’vemade you ill through my love-making. You don’t understand. Some day, when you are a woman, you’ll know how a fellow must feel, how he can really love such a one as you. Forgive me, Gabrielle, will you?”The girl gently took hold of his hand and, looking steadily into his eyes, said: “Perhaps you are only a boy and it’syouwho do not understand. You are too good a fellow for me. Don’t you believe it; you’ve not made me ill. It’s something that I don’t quite understand.”“But why be ill at all?” was Hillary’s brief summing up after she had rattled this off. But still she ran on: “You’d never believe what happened the other night. I went mad, I think.”“Good Lord! You must not encourage such ideas. You’ve been dwelling with your own thoughts too much.”“I’m not mad, though you may think I am. I could easily prove to you that I’m haunted; you don’t know the horrible things that happen to people of the Papuan race. I’m afraid that even you would turn against me if you knew of my terrible heritage.”“Terrible heritage!” gasped the apprentice, as he leaned over the side and hardly knew what he was saying or doing as he followed Gabrielle’s stare as she too leaned over and looked down into the deep, silent waters. “Is she mad? Perhaps she is.” Then he thrust the thought from his mind. “Phew! Rubbish! She’s beautifully eccentric; if anyone’s mad it’s me!”“Gabrielle, your father’s continual bullying has made you ill—and a bit neurotic. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” For a moment he was silent; the father had given him the pluck and the opportunity to say what he longed to say. “Gabrielle, why put up with a father’s bullying? Let’s both clear out of Bougainville; come with me! We can go away to Honolulu. I’ll swear that I’ll look after you well, never say one word that you may not wish me to say. I can easily make money by my violin playing.”Having blurted out the foregoing, Hillary almost trembled as he waited to see the impression his outburst had made on the girl. He watched Gabrielle’s eyes. “I’ve gone too far again. How rash I am!” was his miserable reflection as she nearly swooned into his arms.“I’ll go anywhere in the wide world with you, Hillary,” she said, to his unbounded delight and astonishment.“Will you!” His eyes shone, his voice was almost shrill, like a happy schoolboy’s over the possibilities of some childish scheme.“How can we manage all these things you’ve mentioned?” said Gabrielle softly, as she glanced earnestly at the young apprentice.It was not Hillary’s imagination, it was all true enough; Gabrielle wanted to go at once—no delay!Hillary knew nothing, guessed nothing of the cause of the girl’s desire for hasty flight. He only saw that the light in here eyes was as sincere as death.“The Solomon Isles! And now an elopement with a haunted, beautiful white girl,” was his mental ejaculation.If he had had the slightest hint of the real reason of Gabrielle’s hurry, would he have hesitated? No! He would have flown with her that very night and never let her go back to the homestead behind the beach at Felisi. Neither the wreck, the stars nor the whisper of the beating seas hinted the truth to him. He looked shoreward across the straits. The night was so clear that he fancied he could see the smoke rising from the crater of Bangana, fifty miles away.“Gabrielle, will you meet me by the lagoon again to-morrow night? We will then arrange everything, and you can tell me if you will come.” Then he added: “I can manage everything splendidly.” He spoke enthusiastically and with assurance, as though he had had a large and successful experience of this kind of thing. Then he continued: “We can fly away to Honolulu, or anywhere you like from this cursed place—even to England.”Gabrielle was so affected and dazed by the apprentice’s enthusiasm that she could only stare in the dusk at his flushed face and brightening eyes as he continued with his emotional tirade: “You don’t know what I’ll be to you, how I’ll love you, dear. I’ll write songs and music and dedicate all to you! I’ll write poems——” Then he paused and exclaimed: “Gabrielle, I’m a poet—you don’t know what I am! You don’t know what I’m capable of achieving in this world if I had someone like you to encourage me.”Even Gabrielle forgot her vanity and felt some sad sense of shame over her own unworthiness, as he swore that the veriest vagabonds of the streets would aspire to fame if they had someone to inspire them beyond their unambitious selves. Hillary poured forth a flood of impassioned words; his eyes shone in his earnestness, and his lips trembled. Then he suddenly realised that his overwhelming flood of words might appear foolish to the girl. He stopped short. He watched her half in fright, wondering what impression he had made upon her.Gabrielle replied by falling into his arms. She could not help feeling something of his almighty boyish sincerity. There in the friendly shadows she told Hillary that he had beautiful eyes. She laid her head on his lap so that he could gaze down into her eyes as their lips met over and over again. How it thrilled him when she said: “Hillary, my Hillary!” And while the torn rigging wailed and the deep waters boomed and resolved into gentle monotones against the derelict’s wooden side she sat by him and sang. A silver sea-bird swooped over the deck and, sighting them there, gave a startled cry as it sped away.“Gabrielle,” he whispered, as he thought of all that he had rehearsed in his mind and of how little he had accomplished now that the girl was quite alone with him on that wreck. Then he softly pulled down the delicate blue neck-fringe of her blouse and exposed the whiteness of her warm throat. And Gabrielle, with an artless vanity that inspired his waning courage, gently let her head fall back so that he might touch, just once, the soft whiteness of her throat with his lips.The apprentice reddened to the ears and blessed the darkness as he thought of his boldness and softly pulled the delicate folds together again. “I’ve done it now! She’ll think I’m a terrible fellow,” was Hillary’s hasty reflection as the girl remained silent. Then he tried to excuse himself. “I’ve read of men doing that in novels and poems,” he said in a semi-apologetic tone.“So have I,” replied Gabrielle; then she laughed softly. And Hillary wondered what wondrous deed of virtue he had done that God should shower such unbounded happiness on his head.It was a perfect night in Gabrielle Everard’s life. No shadow came to haunt the silence of those moments as she sat by Hillary’s side. Only the shadows of the torn sails waving to and fro in the warm tropic wind fell from aloft to touch their happy faces. The soft confusion of Gabrielle’s hair harmonised with the bright thoughts that floated in his mind. The smell of the rotting tarred ropes and the palmy fragrance of the south wind over the sea mingled together and formed a part of his sensations.It was close on midnight when the apprentice remembered the flight of time, which passes with greater swiftness over the heads of lovers than of sad old men and women. Even the rats seemed to scamper and squeak in regret as they both rose and reluctantly crept across the silent deck. A slight breeze had sprung up from the south-east“Make haste!” Hillary whispered as they arrived by the rotting bulwark near the risky rope gangway. The apprentice looked with apprehension out to sea when he noticed that the former calm expanse of ocean was slightly ruffled. “Quick! Quick!” he said, and then Gabrielle went over the side and trusted her weight to the taut gangway rope. “Thank God!” murmured Hillary, as she stepped from the swinging gangway into the canoe. Then to his infinite relief he noticed that the wind had dropped. Though she had embarked, he had still stood hesitating as to whether it was safe to venture back to the shore.“I don’t think it will blow, and it’s only a mile to the shore,” he thought, as the girl carefully took her place in the prow. The moon was just setting as the gangway swung back and Hillary stepped into the fragile craft. Then, like two ghosts, they paddled away, back to the mainland.
CHAPTER VI—THE DERELICTHillary was impatient during the interminable hours that passed ere he saw Gabrielle again. “Don’t worry me, Mango,” he said, as the pretty native girl stood on the verandah and blew kisses from her coral-red lips.“He go mad soon; man who no get drunk am no gooder at all!” murmured Mango Pango as she ran off to obey the orders of her mistress.It was the next night when Hillary was to reach the zenith of his dreams and happiness. Gabrielle had promised to meet him at sunset and go off in a canoe for a paddle round the coral reefs off Felisi beach. He was on fire with the idea. He could not sleep. His brain teemed with the thoughts of all he would say to Gabrielle when he declared his love. He determined to act his part well and be a worthy lover. She should not be disappointed in him. “I’ll paddle her out to that derelict three-masted ship; that old wreck’s the very place. I’ll take her on board so that we shall be quite alone.”He thought of the light in Gabrielle’s eyes. “Fancy me being the lucky one to receive her kisses! Wonderful! I know men get exaggerated ideas about theonewoman who appeals to them—but Gabrielle!—it’s excusable in me.” So Hillary reflected as he heard the ocean surfs beating against the barrier reefs. It pleased him to hear the winds sighing mournfully through the tracts of coco-palms beyond his bedroom window. His brain became confused as he thought of the ecstasy of holding her in his arms. He sat down by the bamboo table and wrote off a poem. He was so much in love that even the poem was good. He proudly read the verses over and over again, till they seemed more wonderful than anything he had read in the works of the great poets. “I’m a poet,” said he. Then he stared in the mirror at his haggard face, just to see what the world’s greatest lyric poet looked like. Placing his scribbled lyric amongst his valued property in his sea-chest, he once more continued to think over all that he would do when the sublime moment arrived. He thought of how he would hold Gabrielle in his arms. He would be no ordinary lover. He would rain impassioned kisses on her sweet mouth as he held her in his strong embrace. She should not escape him: the very fright that might leap into her eyes through his impassioned vehemence would only serve to feed the fires of all that he felt for her. He looked in the corner on his violin—his old love. How insignificant it seemed when compared to his new love. Yet he felt a slight pang of remorse as he realised how its strings had always responded to his moods. Would Gabrielle’s heart-strings respond as readily? Are the heart-strings of women as perfectly in tune with a lover’s ideals as violins are to the touch of themaestro? He heard the faint booming of the far-off seas sounding through his reflections as they stole across the quiet night. Then he opened his sea-chest and took out Balzac’sWild Ass’s Skin. He gazed on the faded flower that had lain in the pages. Though it was limp and withered, it was glorified because Gabrielle had worn it in her hair. After that he fell asleep.Next day the young apprentice became terribly impatient as the hours slowly passed. He was to meet Gabrielle at sunset by the old lagoon. It wanted half-an-hour before the sun fell behind the peaks of Yuraka when he eventually started off. Mango Pango wondered why he was so full of song, so carefully dressed. He chucked her under the chin, even praised her eyes, as he said, “Good-bye, O beauteous golden-skinned Mango Pango,” then hurried out under the palms.“He fool; he go meet dark-skinned, frizzly Papuan girl, I know! O foolish mans!” murmured pretty Mango as she readjusted the hibiscus blossoms in her bunched tresses and looked quite spiteful.As the young apprentice hurried on, his Byronic neckerchief fluttering from his throat like a flag, his eyes twinkled with delight. The glamour Gabrielle had created in his head threw a poetic gleam over the rugged island landscape and on the brooding wealth of nature around him. The blue lagoons, nestled by the lines of ivory-nut palms, looked like petrified patches of fallen tropic sky that had been mysteriously frozen into bright mirrors. Then they seemed to break up into musical ripples of laughter, for a covey of bronze-hued, pretty native girls had modestly dived down into their blue depths as he suddenly emerged into the open. He distinctly saw the bubbles where they had disappeared, and he knew that they were all standing on the sandy bottom of the lagoon hastily slipping on their loin-cloths before they boldly reappeared on the surface.“Talofa! Papalagi!” said one as her shiny head bobbed on the surface, her eyes sparkling as she gazed shoreward and blew the apprentice a kiss as he was passing out of sight. Then he arrived on the lonely shore tracks. The Papuan birds of paradise looked like fragments of feathered rainbows haunting old shores as they floated over the sea. The orange-striped cockatoos, sitting high in the tall flamboyants and tamuni-trees, seemed to shout “Cockatoo-e whoo! Cock-a-too whoo! Make haste! Make haste!” as he approached. They rose in a glittering shower from their roosts, gave dismal muttering as they fluttered over his head, till, hanging their coral-red feet loosely, they resettled on the boughs of the tasselled breadfruits. It was a wildly desolate spot; not a sail specked the horizon as Hillary tramped along, singing to himself. Except for the solitary dark man who lay fast asleep in his outrigger canoe, that was becalmed a few yards beyond the coral reefs, he wandered in a world alone. Only the bright-plumaged birds populated the wooded promontories, cheeks and slopes.As the young apprentice walked slowly along, making time, he repeatedly glanced seaward to see how low the sun was setting. Arriving opposite the alligator-shaped promontory at Nu-poa, he sighted the scattered palavanas of the small hut citadel, Ko-Koa. It was a fishing village; quite a score of canoes floated hard by on the lagoons. The romping heathen kiddies waved their paddles as he passed by. Their alert eyes seldom missed the passing of a papalagi. From out the thatched beehive-shaped homesteads, under the mangoes and mahogany-trees, rushed several old chiefs and their women-kind, who at once began loudly to lament the dearth of tobacco and gin and loose cash.Attractive girls offered him their fabulous wealth of shells and fish in exchange for a silk handkerchief. “You got nice lady fren, papalagi?—one who ’av’ gotter old pair stocking she no wanter?” said one coy maid whose soul yearned to attract some dusky Lothario’s waning glances. But it was all innocent enough in a way. “Women are the same the world over, blest if they aren’t!” he murmured, as he gave a bashful maid a small piece of red ribbon in exchange for her beautifully carved bone hair-comb, which she handed him with inimitable grace, for brown maids are very ambitious for the love of a white man. Some of the youths and maids were half-caste and three-quarter caste, a mixture of Polynesian and Melanesian. Armlets and leglets fashioned from the pretty treduca shells jingled as the girls romped round the apprentice.Those girls of mixed blood were mostly of graceful deportment, many having fine, intellectual eyes. Neither did they possess the ungainly head-mop. Indeed, standing there under the distant palms of the lower shore, their wavy hair tossing to the sea-winds, they made a picturesque sight. And one might easily have imagined that they were tawny mermaids who had crept up the sands so as to stand under the green-leafed palms to comb their tresses and wail luring songs. Hillary stood still for a moment and gazed on that enchanting scene of primitive life, fascinated. Out on the edge of the promontory sat yet another covey of semi-Papuan and Polynesian maids. It was not fancy; they were really singing mysterious songs as they sought to lure the sun-varnished native fishermen who paddled or sailed their buoyant catamarans over the wine-dark waters. Hillary bolted under the palms to escape the embarrassing attentions of both the cadging chiefs and those Solomon Island Nausicaas and Circes. It was not long after that he arrived by the side of the wide lagoon that Gabrielle would cross in her canoe if she kept the appointment. She would come by water, whereas he had travelled three miles, the long way round by the coast. As he stood by the lagoon it seemed to stretch before him like a beautiful mirror that reflected tall fern and palm trees. Even the bright-winged lories were distinctly visible as their shadows flitted across the sky. “Will she come? Is it all a dream?” thought he as his heart thumped heavily.It seemed incredible to Hillary that he should really be standing there by that lagoon in the cannibalistic Solomon Isles, waiting to see a beautiful white girl paddle towards him across the blue waters. He had not waited long before round the bend of the lagoon, far off, came a ripple, quite visible on the waters; in another moment the curved, ornamental prow of a canoe appeared as the moving paddle leapt into full view. The sun was setting and the blaze shot right across the Pacific and touched the mountains to the south-east, sending transcendent hues and shadows down on to the lagoon waters and again into the forests.Women play all sorts of tricks with credulous men and their instinctive love of beauty. True enough, Gabrielle was an artist in the delicate business of self-attire. She knew exactly where to place the blue ribbon at her throat and the crushed crimson flower in the crown of her hair so that it might appeal to the senses of a mere man. The blue and white flowers stuck in her tresses looked unreal, for her hair shone as though it had been set on fire by the hues of the sunset. Her robe might have been cut out of some burnished cloud material such as the angels wear. “Fancy! She’s come!” murmured Hillary as the prow of the canoe softly swerved broadside on to the sandy shore. “Come on, dearest,” he said. Gabrielle looked tired and was breathing fast through her haste in paddling across the wide lagoon. She looked very pale. “What’s the matter, dear?”“Father’s drunk.”“Is he?” said Hillary, as he metaphorically brought his fist down and swept such an unromantic nuisance as a father off the face of the earth. Even Gabrielle looked up quickly as she heard him take a deep breath as he swept old Everard to dust, pulverised. He hadn’t rehearsed through the feverish night all that he intended to do at that moment, and written a mighty poem, to be finally thwarted by a drunken father.Something kin to the fire that shone in the apprentice’s eyes shone in Gabrielle’s eyes also. She trembled, and obediently did all that he bade her do. In a moment they had taken hold of the prow of the canoe and between them dragged it for thirty yards over the shallows that separated the deeper lagoon waters from the sea. They were right opposite to where the Pacific waves gambol into a thousand creeks and coral caves. Without a moment’s hesitation Gabrielle jumped into the canoe. “Be careful, dear,” whispered the apprentice.They lost no time in embarking. A trader was likely to pass at any moment, and Everard had threatened to “kick Hillary into the middle of next week” if he found that villainous apprentice hanging around his daughter. They could just hear the faint echoes of the tribal drums in the Buka-Buka mountains as their canoe shot silently out into the bay. They were off, paddling away together into the unknown seas of romance. Such was that world of rugged shore and dark blue waters to Hillary as he gazed up at the darkening sky. God had just lit the first star, and as he gazed upward it flashed into sight.Gabrielle reallydidlook like some beautiful visionary creature sitting there; and she was voiceless, as befits those who travel across tropic seas of love. The apprentice paddled a long time, then at last he could hear the faint monotones of the seas that were ceaselessly beating against the reefs and the big bulk of the wreck.“Allow me!” he said. His voice trembled as he took hold of her hand firmly, as though he thought she might escape. The prow bumped gently against the hulks’ side near the gangway. That big, three-masted derelict looked like some huge phantom ship as it loomed up there in the silent waters off Bougainville. “Come on, dear.” Very carefully he placed his arms around her and step by step carried her up the ragged rope gangway.Their heads were nearly up to the level of the deck, but there were still two more steps to climb. “Hold tight, dear,” he whispered. His voice seemed to travel like an echo across the silence of the tropic night. Just for a second he gazed into Gabrielle’s eyes, then he gently dropped her down on to the deck. At that moment reality returned; things took some definite shape; Hillary recalled time, the world and the far-off cities.A drove of frightened rats went shrieking and squeaking down the alleyway towards the forecastle. The remnants of torn sail and tangled rigging flapped mournfully to the winds as they both slipped hurriedly across the warped deck. Hillary felt the ecstasy that is the highest attainment of mortal happiness. Had she wholly belonged to him, body and soul, he would not have been half so happy. He stared aloft at the tall masts and felt a mighty sympathy for that vessel lying there by the desolate shores of its last anchorage, for the jib-boom at the bow seemed to point helplessly at the far-away horizon, to which it could never sail. “This way! Come on!” he whispered, as he gazed around in some mad thought that the ghosts of the old crew were enviously hanging round in their great off-watch.They sat down in silence on the old form that was close against the poop, just by the entrance to the saloon. Immediately over their heads, by the deck rails of the now rotting poop, was the spot where the old captain had stood when he sailed the seas. As the apprentice looked upwards he suddenly remembered that he was on the very derelict that had once been the ship of the old skipper who had left the books at Everard’s bungalow, the books from which Gabrielle had gathered her romance.In his mind he saw that old derelict when it sailed the seas in its prime, when the figure-head with outstretched hands at the bows (now with one arm broken off and its emblematic, once beautiful face fast rotting) had bounded across the waves like a living thing, long before Hillary was born. The influence of the surroundings and the girl beside him stirred his fancy. In imagination he saw the old skipper standing on the poop watching the blue horizons and the starlight and moonlight that shone in another age, so far as his own brief run of years were concerned. In a flash he realised that out of all the cargoes the captain had jealously guarded in his long voyages it was the old books that had brought him solace in his cabin that had proved the most wonderful merchandise after all. Where were the imported pianos that had been shipped for the Australasian colonies, Fiji, Java, Callao and Shanghai? What had been their fate? They had been thumped and thumped to distraction and destruction while men drank their grog. Where were the cargoes of old grandfather clocks and German-made alarms? But more wonderful than all was the fact that Gabrielle sat beside him on that very ship, her heart aglow with the romance that she had gathered out of the pages of the old captain’s books. True enough, that skipper never wrote the books, but he lived an adventurous life in the big world, and who will say that he may not have been wiser than the authors?Hillary looked through the saloon port-hole just behind them and half fancied he saw a ghostly glimmer of the oil lamps that had shone in that saloon in the dusk of other days; he even saw the shadows of men moving about the cuddy table. But it was no ghostly pageant of the post at all, simply a stream of moonlight on the torn sail that waved to and fro as it hung from the main-yard and sent its shadow into the dark saloon.The atmosphere that surrounded the wreck and the music of the wind in the decaying rigging affected Gabrielle also. Her old tom-boy demeanor, had completely vanished. Hillary only said, “Well Gabrielle,” and she heard the music in those two words. For a moment they both forgot the world beyond that hulk. Only the stars existed, and they shone into Gabrielle’s eyes as their lips met. The passionate phrases that he had so carefully rehearsed, all the poetic vehemence of the night before, had faded. Not one mad vow escaped his lips. He only held her tenderly, as though he were afraid that she might crumble in his arms—fall as dust to his feet. Not an atom of passion come to ruffle the poetry of his feelings. For the young apprentice wasreallyin love. Her hair touched his face. It thrilled him as music thrills dreaming men. “Gabrielle, you are very beautiful How strange that no man has claimed you before. For that, at least, I thank God.”The girl was silent. “Don’t you believe me?” he added. He glanced swiftly at her face. It was deathly white. Hillary thought it was the rats scampering across the deck that had brought that startled look. Then Gabrielle burst into tears.The apprentice thought little about those tears. He had felt a little like that too when he was really happy. If there was a wrong construction to be placed on Gabrielle’s actions, Hillary was sure to hit on it. It was a natural consequence, since he had gathered all his knowledge of women from his books. To him all women were beautiful and good. He thought of them as leading sheltered lives. They were perfectly different from men. It had never occurred to him to try and explain the differences. His views about women, in fact, were quite conventional, touched with the theatrical glamour that is common enough in extreme youth.And still the tears lingered in Gabrielle’s eyes. No one can tell what the girl really thought and felt, excepting that she heard the simple note of sincerity in all that the young apprentice said and which cannot be written down. As for Hillary, the material world had passed from his sight. Gabrielle wept, but what did it matter? Weeping must be some natural attribute to real happiness. So he thought.It may have been the noisy rats or the creak of the blown rigging that slightly dispelled the romantic atmosphere. “Even the ecstasy of insanity is denied men,” thought Hillary as a haunting thought suddenly disturbed him. “She is weeping because I’ve frightened her. That’s what it is. She’s only a child after all—does not understand! I’m too passionate, too headlong in my way of making love. She’s frightened of me and so she weeps.” Suddenly his manner altered. He led her to the bulwark’s side. The moon had already risen, and as they both leaned over, looking down into the dark waters, they could see their shadows in the silent depths below. Neither spoke; some fascination held them. As the apprentice looked at the girl’s face her shadow-eyes seemed to glance sideways at him. He fancied that he saw something distorted in the movement of her shadow. A puff of wind seemed to drift down from the stars; the hair was outblown, the features unfamiliar. But it was only for a second; in another moment Gabrielle’s full outline developed in the light of the tropic moon. There they were, Hillary with his arm on the shoulder of the girl, who was still staring intently into the still water.“Why did you sigh like that, Gabrielle?” he said. Then he looked on the western sky-line. The ghostly flush, the pale aftermath of the departed day, still lingered. Hillary vaguely recalled how near human happiness is to sorrow; he felt sure there was some sorrow in the girl’s heart. Rajah Koo Macka had looked into Gabrielle’s eyes; but he knew that there are many different ways in which a woman may look at a man. None knew better than he.Gabrielle’s eyes to-night held a different expression as she again scrutinised the young apprentice.“Do you love me, Gabrielle?”She responded by clasping his hand tightly and looking at him in some fright. Her voice was hushed and trembling as she replied: “I’ve got a feeling for you that I’ve never had before for anyone. I think I could die with someone like you.” Saying this, she looked steadily into his eyes, and then added in a half-sorrowful way: “I wouldn’t care if we jumped into the sea and died together; I’d be much happier if I were dead.”“Well now,” said Hillary as she continued: “I’m a hateful girl; I’ve already told you I’m wicked; besides, I’m haunted by a shadow-woman: she follows me, curses me, but I can’t explain it to anyone.”She became excited and raised her voice as he had never heard her raise it before. The apprentice rubbed his eyes. “Jump into the seas and die!” he gasped as he realised all that the girl had so passionately poured forth. “Not if I know it.” Then he added: “What do you mean about a shadow-woman and being haunted by her?”He looked steadily into the girl’s pallid face, then gently pulled her towards him and folded her to his heart.“You’re only a romantic child.I’vemade you ill through my love-making. You don’t understand. Some day, when you are a woman, you’ll know how a fellow must feel, how he can really love such a one as you. Forgive me, Gabrielle, will you?”The girl gently took hold of his hand and, looking steadily into his eyes, said: “Perhaps you are only a boy and it’syouwho do not understand. You are too good a fellow for me. Don’t you believe it; you’ve not made me ill. It’s something that I don’t quite understand.”“But why be ill at all?” was Hillary’s brief summing up after she had rattled this off. But still she ran on: “You’d never believe what happened the other night. I went mad, I think.”“Good Lord! You must not encourage such ideas. You’ve been dwelling with your own thoughts too much.”“I’m not mad, though you may think I am. I could easily prove to you that I’m haunted; you don’t know the horrible things that happen to people of the Papuan race. I’m afraid that even you would turn against me if you knew of my terrible heritage.”“Terrible heritage!” gasped the apprentice, as he leaned over the side and hardly knew what he was saying or doing as he followed Gabrielle’s stare as she too leaned over and looked down into the deep, silent waters. “Is she mad? Perhaps she is.” Then he thrust the thought from his mind. “Phew! Rubbish! She’s beautifully eccentric; if anyone’s mad it’s me!”“Gabrielle, your father’s continual bullying has made you ill—and a bit neurotic. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” For a moment he was silent; the father had given him the pluck and the opportunity to say what he longed to say. “Gabrielle, why put up with a father’s bullying? Let’s both clear out of Bougainville; come with me! We can go away to Honolulu. I’ll swear that I’ll look after you well, never say one word that you may not wish me to say. I can easily make money by my violin playing.”Having blurted out the foregoing, Hillary almost trembled as he waited to see the impression his outburst had made on the girl. He watched Gabrielle’s eyes. “I’ve gone too far again. How rash I am!” was his miserable reflection as she nearly swooned into his arms.“I’ll go anywhere in the wide world with you, Hillary,” she said, to his unbounded delight and astonishment.“Will you!” His eyes shone, his voice was almost shrill, like a happy schoolboy’s over the possibilities of some childish scheme.“How can we manage all these things you’ve mentioned?” said Gabrielle softly, as she glanced earnestly at the young apprentice.It was not Hillary’s imagination, it was all true enough; Gabrielle wanted to go at once—no delay!Hillary knew nothing, guessed nothing of the cause of the girl’s desire for hasty flight. He only saw that the light in here eyes was as sincere as death.“The Solomon Isles! And now an elopement with a haunted, beautiful white girl,” was his mental ejaculation.If he had had the slightest hint of the real reason of Gabrielle’s hurry, would he have hesitated? No! He would have flown with her that very night and never let her go back to the homestead behind the beach at Felisi. Neither the wreck, the stars nor the whisper of the beating seas hinted the truth to him. He looked shoreward across the straits. The night was so clear that he fancied he could see the smoke rising from the crater of Bangana, fifty miles away.“Gabrielle, will you meet me by the lagoon again to-morrow night? We will then arrange everything, and you can tell me if you will come.” Then he added: “I can manage everything splendidly.” He spoke enthusiastically and with assurance, as though he had had a large and successful experience of this kind of thing. Then he continued: “We can fly away to Honolulu, or anywhere you like from this cursed place—even to England.”Gabrielle was so affected and dazed by the apprentice’s enthusiasm that she could only stare in the dusk at his flushed face and brightening eyes as he continued with his emotional tirade: “You don’t know what I’ll be to you, how I’ll love you, dear. I’ll write songs and music and dedicate all to you! I’ll write poems——” Then he paused and exclaimed: “Gabrielle, I’m a poet—you don’t know what I am! You don’t know what I’m capable of achieving in this world if I had someone like you to encourage me.”Even Gabrielle forgot her vanity and felt some sad sense of shame over her own unworthiness, as he swore that the veriest vagabonds of the streets would aspire to fame if they had someone to inspire them beyond their unambitious selves. Hillary poured forth a flood of impassioned words; his eyes shone in his earnestness, and his lips trembled. Then he suddenly realised that his overwhelming flood of words might appear foolish to the girl. He stopped short. He watched her half in fright, wondering what impression he had made upon her.Gabrielle replied by falling into his arms. She could not help feeling something of his almighty boyish sincerity. There in the friendly shadows she told Hillary that he had beautiful eyes. She laid her head on his lap so that he could gaze down into her eyes as their lips met over and over again. How it thrilled him when she said: “Hillary, my Hillary!” And while the torn rigging wailed and the deep waters boomed and resolved into gentle monotones against the derelict’s wooden side she sat by him and sang. A silver sea-bird swooped over the deck and, sighting them there, gave a startled cry as it sped away.“Gabrielle,” he whispered, as he thought of all that he had rehearsed in his mind and of how little he had accomplished now that the girl was quite alone with him on that wreck. Then he softly pulled down the delicate blue neck-fringe of her blouse and exposed the whiteness of her warm throat. And Gabrielle, with an artless vanity that inspired his waning courage, gently let her head fall back so that he might touch, just once, the soft whiteness of her throat with his lips.The apprentice reddened to the ears and blessed the darkness as he thought of his boldness and softly pulled the delicate folds together again. “I’ve done it now! She’ll think I’m a terrible fellow,” was Hillary’s hasty reflection as the girl remained silent. Then he tried to excuse himself. “I’ve read of men doing that in novels and poems,” he said in a semi-apologetic tone.“So have I,” replied Gabrielle; then she laughed softly. And Hillary wondered what wondrous deed of virtue he had done that God should shower such unbounded happiness on his head.It was a perfect night in Gabrielle Everard’s life. No shadow came to haunt the silence of those moments as she sat by Hillary’s side. Only the shadows of the torn sails waving to and fro in the warm tropic wind fell from aloft to touch their happy faces. The soft confusion of Gabrielle’s hair harmonised with the bright thoughts that floated in his mind. The smell of the rotting tarred ropes and the palmy fragrance of the south wind over the sea mingled together and formed a part of his sensations.It was close on midnight when the apprentice remembered the flight of time, which passes with greater swiftness over the heads of lovers than of sad old men and women. Even the rats seemed to scamper and squeak in regret as they both rose and reluctantly crept across the silent deck. A slight breeze had sprung up from the south-east“Make haste!” Hillary whispered as they arrived by the rotting bulwark near the risky rope gangway. The apprentice looked with apprehension out to sea when he noticed that the former calm expanse of ocean was slightly ruffled. “Quick! Quick!” he said, and then Gabrielle went over the side and trusted her weight to the taut gangway rope. “Thank God!” murmured Hillary, as she stepped from the swinging gangway into the canoe. Then to his infinite relief he noticed that the wind had dropped. Though she had embarked, he had still stood hesitating as to whether it was safe to venture back to the shore.“I don’t think it will blow, and it’s only a mile to the shore,” he thought, as the girl carefully took her place in the prow. The moon was just setting as the gangway swung back and Hillary stepped into the fragile craft. Then, like two ghosts, they paddled away, back to the mainland.
Hillary was impatient during the interminable hours that passed ere he saw Gabrielle again. “Don’t worry me, Mango,” he said, as the pretty native girl stood on the verandah and blew kisses from her coral-red lips.
“He go mad soon; man who no get drunk am no gooder at all!” murmured Mango Pango as she ran off to obey the orders of her mistress.
It was the next night when Hillary was to reach the zenith of his dreams and happiness. Gabrielle had promised to meet him at sunset and go off in a canoe for a paddle round the coral reefs off Felisi beach. He was on fire with the idea. He could not sleep. His brain teemed with the thoughts of all he would say to Gabrielle when he declared his love. He determined to act his part well and be a worthy lover. She should not be disappointed in him. “I’ll paddle her out to that derelict three-masted ship; that old wreck’s the very place. I’ll take her on board so that we shall be quite alone.”
He thought of the light in Gabrielle’s eyes. “Fancy me being the lucky one to receive her kisses! Wonderful! I know men get exaggerated ideas about theonewoman who appeals to them—but Gabrielle!—it’s excusable in me.” So Hillary reflected as he heard the ocean surfs beating against the barrier reefs. It pleased him to hear the winds sighing mournfully through the tracts of coco-palms beyond his bedroom window. His brain became confused as he thought of the ecstasy of holding her in his arms. He sat down by the bamboo table and wrote off a poem. He was so much in love that even the poem was good. He proudly read the verses over and over again, till they seemed more wonderful than anything he had read in the works of the great poets. “I’m a poet,” said he. Then he stared in the mirror at his haggard face, just to see what the world’s greatest lyric poet looked like. Placing his scribbled lyric amongst his valued property in his sea-chest, he once more continued to think over all that he would do when the sublime moment arrived. He thought of how he would hold Gabrielle in his arms. He would be no ordinary lover. He would rain impassioned kisses on her sweet mouth as he held her in his strong embrace. She should not escape him: the very fright that might leap into her eyes through his impassioned vehemence would only serve to feed the fires of all that he felt for her. He looked in the corner on his violin—his old love. How insignificant it seemed when compared to his new love. Yet he felt a slight pang of remorse as he realised how its strings had always responded to his moods. Would Gabrielle’s heart-strings respond as readily? Are the heart-strings of women as perfectly in tune with a lover’s ideals as violins are to the touch of themaestro? He heard the faint booming of the far-off seas sounding through his reflections as they stole across the quiet night. Then he opened his sea-chest and took out Balzac’sWild Ass’s Skin. He gazed on the faded flower that had lain in the pages. Though it was limp and withered, it was glorified because Gabrielle had worn it in her hair. After that he fell asleep.
Next day the young apprentice became terribly impatient as the hours slowly passed. He was to meet Gabrielle at sunset by the old lagoon. It wanted half-an-hour before the sun fell behind the peaks of Yuraka when he eventually started off. Mango Pango wondered why he was so full of song, so carefully dressed. He chucked her under the chin, even praised her eyes, as he said, “Good-bye, O beauteous golden-skinned Mango Pango,” then hurried out under the palms.
“He fool; he go meet dark-skinned, frizzly Papuan girl, I know! O foolish mans!” murmured pretty Mango as she readjusted the hibiscus blossoms in her bunched tresses and looked quite spiteful.
As the young apprentice hurried on, his Byronic neckerchief fluttering from his throat like a flag, his eyes twinkled with delight. The glamour Gabrielle had created in his head threw a poetic gleam over the rugged island landscape and on the brooding wealth of nature around him. The blue lagoons, nestled by the lines of ivory-nut palms, looked like petrified patches of fallen tropic sky that had been mysteriously frozen into bright mirrors. Then they seemed to break up into musical ripples of laughter, for a covey of bronze-hued, pretty native girls had modestly dived down into their blue depths as he suddenly emerged into the open. He distinctly saw the bubbles where they had disappeared, and he knew that they were all standing on the sandy bottom of the lagoon hastily slipping on their loin-cloths before they boldly reappeared on the surface.
“Talofa! Papalagi!” said one as her shiny head bobbed on the surface, her eyes sparkling as she gazed shoreward and blew the apprentice a kiss as he was passing out of sight. Then he arrived on the lonely shore tracks. The Papuan birds of paradise looked like fragments of feathered rainbows haunting old shores as they floated over the sea. The orange-striped cockatoos, sitting high in the tall flamboyants and tamuni-trees, seemed to shout “Cockatoo-e whoo! Cock-a-too whoo! Make haste! Make haste!” as he approached. They rose in a glittering shower from their roosts, gave dismal muttering as they fluttered over his head, till, hanging their coral-red feet loosely, they resettled on the boughs of the tasselled breadfruits. It was a wildly desolate spot; not a sail specked the horizon as Hillary tramped along, singing to himself. Except for the solitary dark man who lay fast asleep in his outrigger canoe, that was becalmed a few yards beyond the coral reefs, he wandered in a world alone. Only the bright-plumaged birds populated the wooded promontories, cheeks and slopes.
As the young apprentice walked slowly along, making time, he repeatedly glanced seaward to see how low the sun was setting. Arriving opposite the alligator-shaped promontory at Nu-poa, he sighted the scattered palavanas of the small hut citadel, Ko-Koa. It was a fishing village; quite a score of canoes floated hard by on the lagoons. The romping heathen kiddies waved their paddles as he passed by. Their alert eyes seldom missed the passing of a papalagi. From out the thatched beehive-shaped homesteads, under the mangoes and mahogany-trees, rushed several old chiefs and their women-kind, who at once began loudly to lament the dearth of tobacco and gin and loose cash.
Attractive girls offered him their fabulous wealth of shells and fish in exchange for a silk handkerchief. “You got nice lady fren, papalagi?—one who ’av’ gotter old pair stocking she no wanter?” said one coy maid whose soul yearned to attract some dusky Lothario’s waning glances. But it was all innocent enough in a way. “Women are the same the world over, blest if they aren’t!” he murmured, as he gave a bashful maid a small piece of red ribbon in exchange for her beautifully carved bone hair-comb, which she handed him with inimitable grace, for brown maids are very ambitious for the love of a white man. Some of the youths and maids were half-caste and three-quarter caste, a mixture of Polynesian and Melanesian. Armlets and leglets fashioned from the pretty treduca shells jingled as the girls romped round the apprentice.
Those girls of mixed blood were mostly of graceful deportment, many having fine, intellectual eyes. Neither did they possess the ungainly head-mop. Indeed, standing there under the distant palms of the lower shore, their wavy hair tossing to the sea-winds, they made a picturesque sight. And one might easily have imagined that they were tawny mermaids who had crept up the sands so as to stand under the green-leafed palms to comb their tresses and wail luring songs. Hillary stood still for a moment and gazed on that enchanting scene of primitive life, fascinated. Out on the edge of the promontory sat yet another covey of semi-Papuan and Polynesian maids. It was not fancy; they were really singing mysterious songs as they sought to lure the sun-varnished native fishermen who paddled or sailed their buoyant catamarans over the wine-dark waters. Hillary bolted under the palms to escape the embarrassing attentions of both the cadging chiefs and those Solomon Island Nausicaas and Circes. It was not long after that he arrived by the side of the wide lagoon that Gabrielle would cross in her canoe if she kept the appointment. She would come by water, whereas he had travelled three miles, the long way round by the coast. As he stood by the lagoon it seemed to stretch before him like a beautiful mirror that reflected tall fern and palm trees. Even the bright-winged lories were distinctly visible as their shadows flitted across the sky. “Will she come? Is it all a dream?” thought he as his heart thumped heavily.
It seemed incredible to Hillary that he should really be standing there by that lagoon in the cannibalistic Solomon Isles, waiting to see a beautiful white girl paddle towards him across the blue waters. He had not waited long before round the bend of the lagoon, far off, came a ripple, quite visible on the waters; in another moment the curved, ornamental prow of a canoe appeared as the moving paddle leapt into full view. The sun was setting and the blaze shot right across the Pacific and touched the mountains to the south-east, sending transcendent hues and shadows down on to the lagoon waters and again into the forests.
Women play all sorts of tricks with credulous men and their instinctive love of beauty. True enough, Gabrielle was an artist in the delicate business of self-attire. She knew exactly where to place the blue ribbon at her throat and the crushed crimson flower in the crown of her hair so that it might appeal to the senses of a mere man. The blue and white flowers stuck in her tresses looked unreal, for her hair shone as though it had been set on fire by the hues of the sunset. Her robe might have been cut out of some burnished cloud material such as the angels wear. “Fancy! She’s come!” murmured Hillary as the prow of the canoe softly swerved broadside on to the sandy shore. “Come on, dearest,” he said. Gabrielle looked tired and was breathing fast through her haste in paddling across the wide lagoon. She looked very pale. “What’s the matter, dear?”
“Father’s drunk.”
“Is he?” said Hillary, as he metaphorically brought his fist down and swept such an unromantic nuisance as a father off the face of the earth. Even Gabrielle looked up quickly as she heard him take a deep breath as he swept old Everard to dust, pulverised. He hadn’t rehearsed through the feverish night all that he intended to do at that moment, and written a mighty poem, to be finally thwarted by a drunken father.
Something kin to the fire that shone in the apprentice’s eyes shone in Gabrielle’s eyes also. She trembled, and obediently did all that he bade her do. In a moment they had taken hold of the prow of the canoe and between them dragged it for thirty yards over the shallows that separated the deeper lagoon waters from the sea. They were right opposite to where the Pacific waves gambol into a thousand creeks and coral caves. Without a moment’s hesitation Gabrielle jumped into the canoe. “Be careful, dear,” whispered the apprentice.
They lost no time in embarking. A trader was likely to pass at any moment, and Everard had threatened to “kick Hillary into the middle of next week” if he found that villainous apprentice hanging around his daughter. They could just hear the faint echoes of the tribal drums in the Buka-Buka mountains as their canoe shot silently out into the bay. They were off, paddling away together into the unknown seas of romance. Such was that world of rugged shore and dark blue waters to Hillary as he gazed up at the darkening sky. God had just lit the first star, and as he gazed upward it flashed into sight.
Gabrielle reallydidlook like some beautiful visionary creature sitting there; and she was voiceless, as befits those who travel across tropic seas of love. The apprentice paddled a long time, then at last he could hear the faint monotones of the seas that were ceaselessly beating against the reefs and the big bulk of the wreck.
“Allow me!” he said. His voice trembled as he took hold of her hand firmly, as though he thought she might escape. The prow bumped gently against the hulks’ side near the gangway. That big, three-masted derelict looked like some huge phantom ship as it loomed up there in the silent waters off Bougainville. “Come on, dear.” Very carefully he placed his arms around her and step by step carried her up the ragged rope gangway.
Their heads were nearly up to the level of the deck, but there were still two more steps to climb. “Hold tight, dear,” he whispered. His voice seemed to travel like an echo across the silence of the tropic night. Just for a second he gazed into Gabrielle’s eyes, then he gently dropped her down on to the deck. At that moment reality returned; things took some definite shape; Hillary recalled time, the world and the far-off cities.
A drove of frightened rats went shrieking and squeaking down the alleyway towards the forecastle. The remnants of torn sail and tangled rigging flapped mournfully to the winds as they both slipped hurriedly across the warped deck. Hillary felt the ecstasy that is the highest attainment of mortal happiness. Had she wholly belonged to him, body and soul, he would not have been half so happy. He stared aloft at the tall masts and felt a mighty sympathy for that vessel lying there by the desolate shores of its last anchorage, for the jib-boom at the bow seemed to point helplessly at the far-away horizon, to which it could never sail. “This way! Come on!” he whispered, as he gazed around in some mad thought that the ghosts of the old crew were enviously hanging round in their great off-watch.
They sat down in silence on the old form that was close against the poop, just by the entrance to the saloon. Immediately over their heads, by the deck rails of the now rotting poop, was the spot where the old captain had stood when he sailed the seas. As the apprentice looked upwards he suddenly remembered that he was on the very derelict that had once been the ship of the old skipper who had left the books at Everard’s bungalow, the books from which Gabrielle had gathered her romance.
In his mind he saw that old derelict when it sailed the seas in its prime, when the figure-head with outstretched hands at the bows (now with one arm broken off and its emblematic, once beautiful face fast rotting) had bounded across the waves like a living thing, long before Hillary was born. The influence of the surroundings and the girl beside him stirred his fancy. In imagination he saw the old skipper standing on the poop watching the blue horizons and the starlight and moonlight that shone in another age, so far as his own brief run of years were concerned. In a flash he realised that out of all the cargoes the captain had jealously guarded in his long voyages it was the old books that had brought him solace in his cabin that had proved the most wonderful merchandise after all. Where were the imported pianos that had been shipped for the Australasian colonies, Fiji, Java, Callao and Shanghai? What had been their fate? They had been thumped and thumped to distraction and destruction while men drank their grog. Where were the cargoes of old grandfather clocks and German-made alarms? But more wonderful than all was the fact that Gabrielle sat beside him on that very ship, her heart aglow with the romance that she had gathered out of the pages of the old captain’s books. True enough, that skipper never wrote the books, but he lived an adventurous life in the big world, and who will say that he may not have been wiser than the authors?
Hillary looked through the saloon port-hole just behind them and half fancied he saw a ghostly glimmer of the oil lamps that had shone in that saloon in the dusk of other days; he even saw the shadows of men moving about the cuddy table. But it was no ghostly pageant of the post at all, simply a stream of moonlight on the torn sail that waved to and fro as it hung from the main-yard and sent its shadow into the dark saloon.
The atmosphere that surrounded the wreck and the music of the wind in the decaying rigging affected Gabrielle also. Her old tom-boy demeanor, had completely vanished. Hillary only said, “Well Gabrielle,” and she heard the music in those two words. For a moment they both forgot the world beyond that hulk. Only the stars existed, and they shone into Gabrielle’s eyes as their lips met. The passionate phrases that he had so carefully rehearsed, all the poetic vehemence of the night before, had faded. Not one mad vow escaped his lips. He only held her tenderly, as though he were afraid that she might crumble in his arms—fall as dust to his feet. Not an atom of passion come to ruffle the poetry of his feelings. For the young apprentice wasreallyin love. Her hair touched his face. It thrilled him as music thrills dreaming men. “Gabrielle, you are very beautiful How strange that no man has claimed you before. For that, at least, I thank God.”
The girl was silent. “Don’t you believe me?” he added. He glanced swiftly at her face. It was deathly white. Hillary thought it was the rats scampering across the deck that had brought that startled look. Then Gabrielle burst into tears.
The apprentice thought little about those tears. He had felt a little like that too when he was really happy. If there was a wrong construction to be placed on Gabrielle’s actions, Hillary was sure to hit on it. It was a natural consequence, since he had gathered all his knowledge of women from his books. To him all women were beautiful and good. He thought of them as leading sheltered lives. They were perfectly different from men. It had never occurred to him to try and explain the differences. His views about women, in fact, were quite conventional, touched with the theatrical glamour that is common enough in extreme youth.
And still the tears lingered in Gabrielle’s eyes. No one can tell what the girl really thought and felt, excepting that she heard the simple note of sincerity in all that the young apprentice said and which cannot be written down. As for Hillary, the material world had passed from his sight. Gabrielle wept, but what did it matter? Weeping must be some natural attribute to real happiness. So he thought.
It may have been the noisy rats or the creak of the blown rigging that slightly dispelled the romantic atmosphere. “Even the ecstasy of insanity is denied men,” thought Hillary as a haunting thought suddenly disturbed him. “She is weeping because I’ve frightened her. That’s what it is. She’s only a child after all—does not understand! I’m too passionate, too headlong in my way of making love. She’s frightened of me and so she weeps.” Suddenly his manner altered. He led her to the bulwark’s side. The moon had already risen, and as they both leaned over, looking down into the dark waters, they could see their shadows in the silent depths below. Neither spoke; some fascination held them. As the apprentice looked at the girl’s face her shadow-eyes seemed to glance sideways at him. He fancied that he saw something distorted in the movement of her shadow. A puff of wind seemed to drift down from the stars; the hair was outblown, the features unfamiliar. But it was only for a second; in another moment Gabrielle’s full outline developed in the light of the tropic moon. There they were, Hillary with his arm on the shoulder of the girl, who was still staring intently into the still water.
“Why did you sigh like that, Gabrielle?” he said. Then he looked on the western sky-line. The ghostly flush, the pale aftermath of the departed day, still lingered. Hillary vaguely recalled how near human happiness is to sorrow; he felt sure there was some sorrow in the girl’s heart. Rajah Koo Macka had looked into Gabrielle’s eyes; but he knew that there are many different ways in which a woman may look at a man. None knew better than he.
Gabrielle’s eyes to-night held a different expression as she again scrutinised the young apprentice.
“Do you love me, Gabrielle?”
She responded by clasping his hand tightly and looking at him in some fright. Her voice was hushed and trembling as she replied: “I’ve got a feeling for you that I’ve never had before for anyone. I think I could die with someone like you.” Saying this, she looked steadily into his eyes, and then added in a half-sorrowful way: “I wouldn’t care if we jumped into the sea and died together; I’d be much happier if I were dead.”
“Well now,” said Hillary as she continued: “I’m a hateful girl; I’ve already told you I’m wicked; besides, I’m haunted by a shadow-woman: she follows me, curses me, but I can’t explain it to anyone.”
She became excited and raised her voice as he had never heard her raise it before. The apprentice rubbed his eyes. “Jump into the seas and die!” he gasped as he realised all that the girl had so passionately poured forth. “Not if I know it.” Then he added: “What do you mean about a shadow-woman and being haunted by her?”
He looked steadily into the girl’s pallid face, then gently pulled her towards him and folded her to his heart.
“You’re only a romantic child.I’vemade you ill through my love-making. You don’t understand. Some day, when you are a woman, you’ll know how a fellow must feel, how he can really love such a one as you. Forgive me, Gabrielle, will you?”
The girl gently took hold of his hand and, looking steadily into his eyes, said: “Perhaps you are only a boy and it’syouwho do not understand. You are too good a fellow for me. Don’t you believe it; you’ve not made me ill. It’s something that I don’t quite understand.”
“But why be ill at all?” was Hillary’s brief summing up after she had rattled this off. But still she ran on: “You’d never believe what happened the other night. I went mad, I think.”
“Good Lord! You must not encourage such ideas. You’ve been dwelling with your own thoughts too much.”
“I’m not mad, though you may think I am. I could easily prove to you that I’m haunted; you don’t know the horrible things that happen to people of the Papuan race. I’m afraid that even you would turn against me if you knew of my terrible heritage.”
“Terrible heritage!” gasped the apprentice, as he leaned over the side and hardly knew what he was saying or doing as he followed Gabrielle’s stare as she too leaned over and looked down into the deep, silent waters. “Is she mad? Perhaps she is.” Then he thrust the thought from his mind. “Phew! Rubbish! She’s beautifully eccentric; if anyone’s mad it’s me!”
“Gabrielle, your father’s continual bullying has made you ill—and a bit neurotic. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” For a moment he was silent; the father had given him the pluck and the opportunity to say what he longed to say. “Gabrielle, why put up with a father’s bullying? Let’s both clear out of Bougainville; come with me! We can go away to Honolulu. I’ll swear that I’ll look after you well, never say one word that you may not wish me to say. I can easily make money by my violin playing.”
Having blurted out the foregoing, Hillary almost trembled as he waited to see the impression his outburst had made on the girl. He watched Gabrielle’s eyes. “I’ve gone too far again. How rash I am!” was his miserable reflection as she nearly swooned into his arms.
“I’ll go anywhere in the wide world with you, Hillary,” she said, to his unbounded delight and astonishment.
“Will you!” His eyes shone, his voice was almost shrill, like a happy schoolboy’s over the possibilities of some childish scheme.
“How can we manage all these things you’ve mentioned?” said Gabrielle softly, as she glanced earnestly at the young apprentice.
It was not Hillary’s imagination, it was all true enough; Gabrielle wanted to go at once—no delay!
Hillary knew nothing, guessed nothing of the cause of the girl’s desire for hasty flight. He only saw that the light in here eyes was as sincere as death.
“The Solomon Isles! And now an elopement with a haunted, beautiful white girl,” was his mental ejaculation.
If he had had the slightest hint of the real reason of Gabrielle’s hurry, would he have hesitated? No! He would have flown with her that very night and never let her go back to the homestead behind the beach at Felisi. Neither the wreck, the stars nor the whisper of the beating seas hinted the truth to him. He looked shoreward across the straits. The night was so clear that he fancied he could see the smoke rising from the crater of Bangana, fifty miles away.
“Gabrielle, will you meet me by the lagoon again to-morrow night? We will then arrange everything, and you can tell me if you will come.” Then he added: “I can manage everything splendidly.” He spoke enthusiastically and with assurance, as though he had had a large and successful experience of this kind of thing. Then he continued: “We can fly away to Honolulu, or anywhere you like from this cursed place—even to England.”
Gabrielle was so affected and dazed by the apprentice’s enthusiasm that she could only stare in the dusk at his flushed face and brightening eyes as he continued with his emotional tirade: “You don’t know what I’ll be to you, how I’ll love you, dear. I’ll write songs and music and dedicate all to you! I’ll write poems——” Then he paused and exclaimed: “Gabrielle, I’m a poet—you don’t know what I am! You don’t know what I’m capable of achieving in this world if I had someone like you to encourage me.”
Even Gabrielle forgot her vanity and felt some sad sense of shame over her own unworthiness, as he swore that the veriest vagabonds of the streets would aspire to fame if they had someone to inspire them beyond their unambitious selves. Hillary poured forth a flood of impassioned words; his eyes shone in his earnestness, and his lips trembled. Then he suddenly realised that his overwhelming flood of words might appear foolish to the girl. He stopped short. He watched her half in fright, wondering what impression he had made upon her.
Gabrielle replied by falling into his arms. She could not help feeling something of his almighty boyish sincerity. There in the friendly shadows she told Hillary that he had beautiful eyes. She laid her head on his lap so that he could gaze down into her eyes as their lips met over and over again. How it thrilled him when she said: “Hillary, my Hillary!” And while the torn rigging wailed and the deep waters boomed and resolved into gentle monotones against the derelict’s wooden side she sat by him and sang. A silver sea-bird swooped over the deck and, sighting them there, gave a startled cry as it sped away.
“Gabrielle,” he whispered, as he thought of all that he had rehearsed in his mind and of how little he had accomplished now that the girl was quite alone with him on that wreck. Then he softly pulled down the delicate blue neck-fringe of her blouse and exposed the whiteness of her warm throat. And Gabrielle, with an artless vanity that inspired his waning courage, gently let her head fall back so that he might touch, just once, the soft whiteness of her throat with his lips.
The apprentice reddened to the ears and blessed the darkness as he thought of his boldness and softly pulled the delicate folds together again. “I’ve done it now! She’ll think I’m a terrible fellow,” was Hillary’s hasty reflection as the girl remained silent. Then he tried to excuse himself. “I’ve read of men doing that in novels and poems,” he said in a semi-apologetic tone.
“So have I,” replied Gabrielle; then she laughed softly. And Hillary wondered what wondrous deed of virtue he had done that God should shower such unbounded happiness on his head.
It was a perfect night in Gabrielle Everard’s life. No shadow came to haunt the silence of those moments as she sat by Hillary’s side. Only the shadows of the torn sails waving to and fro in the warm tropic wind fell from aloft to touch their happy faces. The soft confusion of Gabrielle’s hair harmonised with the bright thoughts that floated in his mind. The smell of the rotting tarred ropes and the palmy fragrance of the south wind over the sea mingled together and formed a part of his sensations.
It was close on midnight when the apprentice remembered the flight of time, which passes with greater swiftness over the heads of lovers than of sad old men and women. Even the rats seemed to scamper and squeak in regret as they both rose and reluctantly crept across the silent deck. A slight breeze had sprung up from the south-east
“Make haste!” Hillary whispered as they arrived by the rotting bulwark near the risky rope gangway. The apprentice looked with apprehension out to sea when he noticed that the former calm expanse of ocean was slightly ruffled. “Quick! Quick!” he said, and then Gabrielle went over the side and trusted her weight to the taut gangway rope. “Thank God!” murmured Hillary, as she stepped from the swinging gangway into the canoe. Then to his infinite relief he noticed that the wind had dropped. Though she had embarked, he had still stood hesitating as to whether it was safe to venture back to the shore.
“I don’t think it will blow, and it’s only a mile to the shore,” he thought, as the girl carefully took her place in the prow. The moon was just setting as the gangway swung back and Hillary stepped into the fragile craft. Then, like two ghosts, they paddled away, back to the mainland.