IF you can buy a canoe for two calico shirts, what will your annual expenses in Tahiti amount to? This was a mental problem I concluded to solve, and, having invested my two shirts, I began the solution in this wise: My slender little treasure lay with half its length on shore, and, being quite big enough for two, I looked about me, seeking some one to sit in the bows, for company and ballast.
Up and down the shady beach of Papeete I wandered, with this advertisement written all over my anxious face:——
"WANTED—A crew about ten years of age; of a mild disposition, and with no special fondness for human flesh; not particular as to sex! Apply immediately, at the new canoe, under the breadfruit-tree, Papeete, South Pacific."
"WANTED—A crew about ten years of age; of a mild disposition, and with no special fondness for human flesh; not particular as to sex! Apply immediately, at the new canoe, under the breadfruit-tree, Papeete, South Pacific."
Some young things were pitching French coppers so earnestly they didn't read my face; some were not seafaring, at that moment; while most of them evidently ate more than was good for them, which might result disastrously in a canoe-cruise, and I set my heart against them. Theafternoon was waning, and my ill-luck seemed to urge upon me the necessity of my constituting a temporary press-gang for the kidnapping of the required article.
"Who is anxious to go to sea with me?" I bawled, returning through the crowds of young gamblers, all intently disinterested in everything but "pitch and toss." Not far away a group of wandering minstrels—such as make musical the shores of Tahiti—sat in the middle of the street, chanting. One youth played with considerable skill upon a joint of bamboo, of the flute species, but breathed into from the nostrils, instead of the lips. Three or four minor notes were piped at uncertain intervals, playing an impromptu variation upon the air of the singers. Drawing near, the music was suspended, and I proposed shipping one of the melodious vagabonds, whereupon the entire chorus expressed a willingness to accompany me, in any capacity whatever, remarking, at the same time, that "they were a body bound, so to speak, by chords of harmony, and any proposal to disband them would, by it, be regarded as highly absurd." Then I led the solemn procession of volunteers to my canoe, and we regarded it in silence; it was something larger than a pea-pod, to be sure, but about the shape of one. After a moment of deliberation, during which a great throng of curious spectators had assembled, the orchestra declared itself in readiness to ship before the paddle forthe trifling consideration of $17. I knew the vague notion that money is money, call it dollar or dime, generally entertained by the innocent children of Nature; and, dazzling the unaccustomed eyes of the flutist with a new two-franc piece, he immediately embarked. The bereaved singers sat on the shore and lifted up their voices in resounding discord, as the canoe slid off into the still waters, and my crew, with commendable fortitude, laid down the nose-flute, took up the paddle, and we began our canoe-cruise.
The frail thing glided over the waves as though invisible currents were sweeping her into the hereafter; the shore seemed to recede, drawing the low, thatched houses into deeper shadow; other canoes skimmed over the sea, like great water-bugs, while the sun set beyond the sharp outlines of beautiful Morea, glorifying it and us.
There was a small islet not far away,—an islet as fair and fragrant as a bouquet,—looking, just then, like a mote in a sheet of flame. Thither I directed the reformed flutist, and then let myself relapse into the all-embracing quietness that succeeds nearly every vexation that flesh is heir to.
There was something soothing in the nature of my crew. He sat with his back to me,—a brown back, that glistened in the sun, and arched itself, from time to time, cat-like, as though it was very good to be brown and bare and shiny. From the waistto the feet fell the resplendent folds of apareu, worn by all Tahitians, of every possible age and sex, and consisted, in this case, of a thin breadth of cloth, stamped with a deep blue firmament, in which supernaturally yellow suns were perpetually setting in several spots. A round head topped his chubby shoulders, and was shaven from the neck to the crown, with a matted forelock of the blackness of darkness falling to the eyes and keeping the sun out of them. One ear was enlivened with a crescent of beaten gold, which decoration, having been won at "pitch and toss," will probably never again, in the course of human events, meet with its proper mate. On the whole, he looked just a little bit like a fan-tail pigeon with its wings plucked.
At this point my crew suddenly rose in the bows of the canoe, making several outlandish flourishes with his broad paddle. I was about to demand the occasion of his sudden insanity, when we began to grate over some crumbling substance that materially impeded our progress and suggested all sorts of disagreeable sensations,—such as knife-grinding in the next yard, saw-filing round the corner, etc. It was as though we were careering madly over a multitude of fine-tooth combs. With that caution which is inseparable from canoe-cruising in every part of the known world, I leaned over the side of my personal property and penetrated the bewildering depths of the coral sea.
Were we, I asked myself, suspended about two feet above a garden of variegated cauliflowers? Or were the elements wafting us over a minute winter-forest, whose fragile boughs were loaded with prismatic crystals?
The scene was constantly changing: now it seemed a disordered bed of roses,—pink, and white, and orange; presently we were floating in the air, looking down upon a thousand-domed mosque, pale in the glamour of the Oriental moon; and then a wilderness of bowers presented itself,—bowers whose fixed leaves still seemed to quiver in the slight ripple of the sea,—blossoming for a moment in showers of buds, purple, and green, and gold, but fading almost as soon as born. I could scarcely believe my eyes, when these tiny, though marvellously brilliant fish shot suddenly out from some lace-like structure, each having the lurid and flame-like beauty of sulphurous fire, and all turning instantly, in sudden consternation at finding us so near, and secreting themselves in the coral pavilion that amply sheltered them. Among the delicate anatomy of these frozen ferns our light canoe was crashing on its way. I saw the fragile structures overwhelmed with a single blow from the young savage, who stood erect, propelling us onward amid the general ruins. With my thumb and finger I annihilated the laborious monuments of centuries, and saw havoc and desolation in our wake.
There, in one of God's reef-walled and cliff-shelteredaquaria, we drifted, while the sky and sea were glowing with the final, triumphant gush of sunset radiance. Fefe at last broke the silence, with an interrogation: "Well, how you feel?" "Fefe," I replied, "I feel as though I were some good and faithful bee, sinking into a sphere of amber, for a sleep of a thousand years." Fefe gave a deep-mouthed and expressive grunt, as he laid his brown profile against the sunset sky, thereby displaying his solitary ear-ring to the best advantage, and with evident personal satisfaction. "And how do you feel, Fefe?" I asked. He was mum for a moment; arched his back like any wholesome animal when the sun has struck clean through it; ejaculated an ejaculation with his tongue and teeth that cannot possibly be spelled in English, and thereupon his nostril quivered spasmodically, and was only comforted by the immediate application of his nose-flute, through which dulcet organ he confessed his deep and otherwise unutterable joy. I blessed him for it, though there were but three notes, all told, and those minors and a trifle flat.
Fefe's impassioned soul having subsided, we both looked over to beautiful Morea, nine miles away. How her peaks shone like steel, and her valleys looked full of sleep! while here and there one golden ray lingered for a moment to put the final touch to a fruit it was ripening or a flower it was painting,—for they each have their perfect workallotted to them, and they don't leave it half completed.
It was just the hour that harmonizes everything in nature, and when there is no possible discord in all the universe. The fishes were baptizing themselves by immersion in space, and kept leaping into the air, like momentary inches of chain-lightning. Our islet swam before us, spiritualized,—suspended, as it were, above the sea,—ready at any moment to fade away. The waves had ceased beating upon the reef; the clear, low notes of a bell vibrating from the shore called us to prayer. Fefe knew it, and was ready,—so was I; and with bare heads and souls utterly at peace we gave our hearts to God—for the time being!
Then came the hum of voices and the rustle of renewed life. On we pressed towards our islet, under the increasing shadows of the dusk. A sloping beach received us; the young cocoa-palms embraced one another with fringed branches. Through green and endless corridors we saw the broad disk of the full moon hanging above the hill.
Fefe at once chose a palm, and having ascended to its summit cast down its fruit. Descending, he planted a stake in the earth, and striking a nut against its sharpened top soon laid open the fibrous husk, with which a fire was kindled.
Taking two peeled nuts in his hands, he struck one against the other and laid open the skull of it,—a clear sort of scalping that aroused me toenthusiasm. There is one end of a cocoa-nut's skull as delicate as a baby's, and a well-directed tap does the business; possibly the same result would follow with those of infants of the right age,—twins, for instance. Fefe agrees with me in this theory, now first given to the public.
Then followed much talk, on many topics, over our tropical supper,—said supper consisting of sea-weed salad, patent self-stuffing banana-sausages, and cocoa-nut hash. We argued somewhat, also, but in South Pacific fashion,—which would surely spoil, if imported; I only remember, and will record, that Fefe regarded the nose-flute as a triumph of art, and considered himself no novice in musical science, as applicable to nose-flutes in a land where there is scarcely a nose without its particular flute, and many a flute is silent forever, because its special nose is laid among the dust.
Having eaten, I proposed sleeping on the spot, and continuing the cruise at dawn. "Why should we return to the world and its cares, when the sea invites us to its isles? Nature will feed us. In that blest land, clothing has not yet been discovered. Let us away!" I cried. At this juncture, voices came over the sea to us,—voices chanting like sirens upon the shore. Instinctively Fefe's nose-flute resumed itstremolo, and I knew the day was lost. "Come!" said the little rascal, as though he were captain and I the crew, and he dragged me toward the skiff. With terrificemphasis, I commanded him to desist. "Don't imagine," I said, "that this is a modernBounty, and that it is your duty to rise up in mutiny for the sake of dramatic justice. Nature never repeats herself, therefore come back to camp!"
But he wouldn't come. I knew I should lose my canoe unless I followed, or should have to paddle back alone,—no easy task for one unaccustomed to it. So I moodily embarked with him; and having pushed off into deep water, he sounded a note of triumph that was greeted with shouts on shore, and I felt that my fate was sealed.
It had been my life-dream to bid adieu to the human family, with one or two exceptions; to sever every tie that bound me to anything under the sun; to live close to Nature, trusting her, and getting trusted by her.
I explained all this to the young "Kanack," who was in a complete state of insurrection, but failed to subdue him. Overhead the air was flooded with hazy moonlight; the sea looked like one immeasurable drop of quicksilver, and upon the summit of this luminous sphere our shallop was mysteriously poised. A faint wind was breathing over the ocean; Fefe erected his paddle in the bows, placed against it a broad mat that constituted part of my outfit for that new life of which I was defrauded, and on we sped like a belated sea-bird seeking its mossy nest.
Beneath us slept the infinite creations of another world, gleaming from the dark bosom of the sea with an unearthly pallor, and seeming to reveal something of the forbidden mysteries that lie beyond the grave. "La Petite Pologne," whispered Fefe, as he arched his back for the last time, and stepped on shore at the foot of this singular rendezvous,—a narrow lane threading the groves of Papeete, bordered by wine-shops, bakeries, and a convent-wall, lit at night by smoky lanterns hanging motionless in the dead air of the town, and thronged from 7P. M.till 10P. M.by people from all quarters of the globe.
Fefe having resumed his profession as soon as his bare foot was on his native heath again, the minstrels moved in a hollow square through the centre of La Petite Pologne. They were rendering some Tahitian madrigal,—a three-part song, the solo, or first part, of which being got safely through with,—a single stanza,—it was repeated as a duo, and so re-repeated through simple addition with a gradually-increasing chorus; the nose-flute meantime getting delirious, and sounding itsfinalein an ecstasy prolonged to the point of strangulation, when the whole unceremoniously terminated, and everybody took a rest and a fresh start. During these performances, the audience was dense and demonstrative. Fefe was in his element, sitting with his best side to the public, and flaunting his ear-ring mightily. A dance followed: a dance always follows in that land oflight hearts, and as one after another was ushered into the arena and gave his or her body to the interpretation of such songs as would startle Christian ears,—albeit there be some Christian hearts less tender, and Christian lips less true,—to my surprise, Fefe abandoned his piping and danced before me, and then came a flash of intuition,—rather late, it is true, but still useful as an explanatory supplement to my previous vexations. "Fefe!" I gasped (Fefe is the Tahitian forElephantiasis), and my Fefe raised his or her skirts, and danced with a shocking leg. I really can't tell youwhatFefe was. You never can tell by the name. He might have been a boy, or she might have been a girl, all the time. I don't know that it makes any particular difference to me what it was, but I cannot encourage elephantiasis in anything, and therefore I concluded my naval engagement with Fefe, and solemnly walked toward my chamber, scarcely a block off. The music followed me to my door with a song of some kind or other, but the real nature of which I was too sensitive to definitely ascertain.
Gazelle-eyed damsels, with star-flowers dangling from their ears, obstructed the way. Thegendarmesregarded me with an eye single to France and French principles. Mariners arrayed in the blue of their own sea and the white of their own breakers bore down upon us with more than belonged to them. Men of all colors went to andfro, like mad creatures; women followed; children careered hither and thither. Wild shouts rent the air; there was an intoxicating element that enveloped all things. The street was by no means straight, though it could scarcely have been narrower; the waves staggered up the beach, and reeled back again; the moon leered at us, looking blear-eyed as she leaned against a cloud; and half-nude bodies lay here and there in dark corners, steeped to the toes in rum. Out of this human maelstrom, whose fatal tide was beginning to sweep me on with it, I made a plunge for my door-knob and caught it. Twenty besetting sins sought to follow me, covered with wreaths and fragrant with sandalwood oil; twenty besetting sins rather pleasant to have around one, because by no means as disagreeable as they should be. Fefe was there also, and I turned to address him a parting word,—a word calculated to do its work in a soil particularly mellow.
"Fefe," I said, "how can I help regarding it as a dispensation of Providence that your one leg is considerably bigger than your other? How can I expect you, with your assorted legs, to walk in that straight and narrow way wherein I have frequently found it inconvenient to walk myself, to say nothing of the symmetry of my own extremities? Therefore, adieu, child of the South, with your one ear-ring and your piano-forte leg; adieu—forever."
With that I closed my door upon the scene, and strove to bury myself in oblivion behind the white window-shade. In vain: the shadow with the mustache and goatee still pursued the shadow with the flowing locks that fled too slowly. Voices faint, though audible, indulged in allusions more or less profane, and with a success which would be considered highly improper in any latitude.
Thus sinking into an unquiet sleep, with a dream of canoe-cruising in a coral sea, whose pellucid waves sang sadly upon the remote shores of an ideal sphere, across the window loomed the gigantic shadow of some brown beauty, whose vast proportions suggested nothing more lovely than a new Sphinx, with a cabbage in either ear.
AT Kahakuloa, under a terrific hill and close upon a frothing tongue of the sea, I draw rein. The act is simply a formality of mine; probably the animal would have paused here of his own free will, for he has been rehearsing his stops a whole hour back, during which time he limped somewhat and reaped determinedly the few tufts of dry grass that Nature had provided him by the trail-side. The clouds are falling; the cliffs are festooned with damp gauze; the air is moist and cool; a grass hut of uncommon purity stands invitingly by. A moon-faced youth, whose spotless garments appealed to me as he overtook our caravan a mile back, says, "Will you eat and sleep?" I am but human, and a hungry and sleepy human at that; so I tip off from my mule's back with gratitude and alacrity. In a moment the fine linen of mine host is hung upon its peg, and a good study of the Nude returns to me for further orders. I am literally famishing, and the mule is already up to his ears in water-cress; but then I have ridden and he has carried me. How just, O Mother Nature, are thy judgments!
With the superb poses of a trained athlete, the Nude swings a fowl by the neck, and shortly it is plucked and potted, together with certain vegetables of the proper affinities. Then he swathes a fish in succulent leaves, and buries it in hot ashes; and then he smokes his peace-pipe. Pipe no sooner lighted than mouths mysteriously gather: five, ten, a dozen of them magically assemble at the smell of smoke and take their turn at the curled shell, with a hollow stalk for a mouth-piece. Dinner at last. O, fish, fruit, and fowl on a mat on a floor in a grass hut at evening! How excellent are these—amen! Night—supper over—some one twanging upon a stringed instrument of rude native origin. Gossip lags,—darkness and silence, and a cigarette. The Nude rises haughtily and lights a lamp that looks very like a diminutive coffee-pot with a great flame in the nose of it. He hangs it against a beam already blackened with smoke to the peak of the roof. Again the peace-pipe sweeps the home-circle, and is passed out to the mouths of the neighborhood.
Guests drop down upon us and fill the one aperture of the hut with rows of curious, welcoming faces; assorted dogs press through the door in turn,receive a slap from each member of the family, and retreat with invisible tails; sudden impulses set all tongues wagging in unison; impulses, equally sudden and unaccountable, enjoin protracted intervals of silence. The sea breathes heavily; there is a noise of rain-drops sliding down the thatch. Guests disperse with a kind "aloha." We are alone with the night. The spirit of repose descends upon us; one by one the dusky members of mine host's household roll themselves into mummies and lie in a solemn row along the side of the room, sleeping. I, also, will sleep. A great bark-cloth (kapa) that rattles as though it had received seven starchings, is all mine for covering,—a royalkapathis, of exceeding stiffness. I lie with my eyes to the roof, and count the beams that look like an arbor. What is it, as large as my thumb, cased in brown armor? A roach!—a melancholy procession of roaches passing from one side of the hut, over the roof, with their backs downward, and descending on the other side by the beams,—a hundred of them, perhaps, or a thousand: the cry is, "Still they come!" There is a noise of tiny feet upon the roof, and it isn't rain; there is a sound as of falling objects that escape before I can catch them. My hand rests upon a cool, moist creature that writhes under it,—an animated spinal column with four legs at one end of it. Away, thou slimy newt! Something runs over the matting, making a still, small clatter as it goes,—something looking like atoy train of dirt-cars. Ha! the venomous and wily centipede! Put out the coffee-pot, for these sights are horrible!
Now I will sleep with my face under thekapa,—silence, serene silence, and darkness profound; the sea beating in agony at the foot of the big hill,—a time for lofty and sublime revery. More rain outside the hut; gusts of wind, wailing as they rush past us. Thanks for this shelter. My pillow saturated with cocoa-nut oil—ah, what savage dreams may have disturbed these sleepers! No matter. Will get a wink of sleep before daybreak. Sleep, at last,—how refreshing art thou!
Hello! the coffee-pot in a blaze again; the Nude smoking his peace-pipe; children eating and making merry. Daybreak? No; midnight, perchance,—darkness without, darkness once more (by request) within. "Come again, bright dream." Horror! the house shaken as by an earthquake,—gnashing of teeth distinctly audible; the mule undoubtedly eating up the side of the grass hut! Anon, quiet restored. A suggestion of moonlight through the open door; the twanging of the stringed affair; a responsive twang in the distance. Some one steals cautiously forth into the starlight. All is not well in Kahakuloa. Rain over; mule vegetating elsewhere; roaches subdued; sea comparatively quiet. Welcome, kind Nature's sweet restorer!... Humming of voices; rolling of dogs about the house; ditto of children ditto;broad daylight, and breakfast waiting. Mule saddled, and, with a mouthful of roses, looking fresh and happy. Mule-boy eager for the fray. Time up. Adieu, adieu—O beautiful Kahakuloa! I must away,
Above the terrible hill hang clouds and shadows; fringes of rain obscure the trail as it climbs persistently to heaven; but up that trail, into and through those clouds and shadows, I pursue my solitary pilgrimage.
HIGH in her lady's-chamber sat Gail, looking with calm eyes through the budding maples across the hills of spring. Her letter was but half finished, and the village post was even then ready; so she woke out of her revery, and ended the writing as follows:
"Spring, ——."I know not where you may be at this moment,—living with what South-Sea Island god, drinking the milk of cocoa-nut, and eating bread-fruit,—but wherever you are, forget not your promise to come home again, bringing your sheaves with you."
"Spring, ——.
"I know not where you may be at this moment,—living with what South-Sea Island god, drinking the milk of cocoa-nut, and eating bread-fruit,—but wherever you are, forget not your promise to come home again, bringing your sheaves with you."
Anon she sealed it and mailed it, and it was hurried away, over land and sea, till, after many days, it found me drinking my cocoa-milk and refreshing myself with bread-fruits.
Anon I replied to her, not on the green enamel of a broad leaf, with a thorn stylet, but upon the blank margins of Gail's letter, with my last half-inch of pencil. I said to her:—
"Summer, ——."By and by I will come to you, when the evenings are very long, and the valley is still. I will cross the lawn in silence, and stand knocking at the south entry. Deborah will open the door to me with fear and trembling, for I shall be sunburnt and brawny, with a baby cannibal under each arm. Then at a word a tattooed youngster shall reach her a Tahitian pearl, and I will cry, 'Give it to Mistress Gail'; whereat Deborah will willingly withdraw, leaving me motionless in the dead leaves by the south entry. You will take the token, dear Gail, and know it as the symbol of my return. You will come and greet us, and lead us to the best chamber, and we will feast with you as long as you like,—I and my cannibals."
"Summer, ——.
"By and by I will come to you, when the evenings are very long, and the valley is still. I will cross the lawn in silence, and stand knocking at the south entry. Deborah will open the door to me with fear and trembling, for I shall be sunburnt and brawny, with a baby cannibal under each arm. Then at a word a tattooed youngster shall reach her a Tahitian pearl, and I will cry, 'Give it to Mistress Gail'; whereat Deborah will willingly withdraw, leaving me motionless in the dead leaves by the south entry. You will take the token, dear Gail, and know it as the symbol of my return. You will come and greet us, and lead us to the best chamber, and we will feast with you as long as you like,—I and my cannibals."
I was never quite sure of what Gail said to my letter, but I knew her for a true soul; so I gathered my cannibals under my metaphorical wings, and journeyed unto the village, and came into it at sunset, while it was autumn. We passed over the lawn in silence, and stood knocking at the south entry, in real earnest. Deborah came at last, and the little striped fellow bore aloft his pearl of Tahitian beauty, while I gave my message, and Deborah was terrified and thought she was dreaming. But she took the pearl and went, and we stood in the keen air of autumn, and my South Sea babies were very cold and moaned pitifully under my arms, and the little pearl-bearer shivered in all his stripes, and capered in the dead leaves like an imp of darkness.
Then Gail came to us and let us in, and we camped by the great fire in the sitting-room, whither Deborah brought bowls of new milk for the little ones, and was wonderfully amazed at their quaintness and beauty, but quite failed to affiliate with my striped pearl-bearer.
So I said, "Sit you down, Deborah, and hear the true story of my Zebra." Gail had already captured the bronze babies, and was helping them with their bowls of milk as they nestled at her feet, and I took my striped beauty between my knees and stroked his soft wool, and told how he saved me from a watery death, and again from the fiery stake, and was doubly dear to me forevermore:—
"We were at the island of Pottobokee, getting water and fruit; had stacked the last sack of mangoes and limes in the boat, and were off for the ship, glad to escape with our scalps, when a wave took us amidships on the reef, and we swamped in the dreadful spume. Some were drowned; some clung to the boat, though it was stove badly, while relief came from the vessel as quickly as possible, and the fragments were gathered out of the waves and taken aboard.
"They thought themselves lucky to escape with the remnants, for they knew the natives for cannibals, and the shore was black and noisy within ten minutes after the accident. It looked stormy in that neighborhood: hence the caution and hasteof the relief-crew, who left me for drowned, I suppose, as they never came after me, but spread everything, and went out of sight before dark that evening.
"I was no swimmer at all, but I kicked well, and was about diving the fatal dive,—last of three warnings that seem providentially allotted the luckless soul in its extremity: I was just upon the third sinking, when a tough little arm gripped me under the breast, and I hung over it limp and senseless, knowing nothing further of my deliverance, until I found myself a captive in Kabala-kum,—a heathenish sort of paradise, a little way back from the sea-coast.
"The natives had given up all hope of feasting upon me, for there wasn't a respectable steak in my whole carcass, nor was my appetite promising; so they resolved to make a bonfire of me, to get me out of the way. But that tough little arm that saved me from an early grave in the water was husband to a tough little heart, that resolved I shouldn't be burnt. I was his private and personal property; he had fished me out of the sea; he would cook me in his own style when he got ready, and no one else was to have a word in the matter.
"There he showed his royal blood, Deborah, for he was the King's son: this marvellous tattooing proclaims his rank. Only the noble and brave are permitted to brand these rainbows into their brown skins.
"I was almost frightened when I first returned to consciousness, and saw this little fellow pawing me in his tender and affectionate way. He was lithe as a panther, and striped all over with brilliant and changeless stripes; so I called him my boy Zebra, and I suppose he called me his white mouse, or something of that sort.
"Well, he saved me at all events; and having heard something of you and Gail from me, he wanted to see you very much, and we made our escape together, though he had to sacrifice all his bone-jewelry, and lots of skulls and scalps: and here he is, and you must like him, Deborah, because he is a little heathen, and doesn't go to sabbath school, as a general thing, and worships idols very badly."
Deborah did me the compliment to absorb a tear in the broad hem of her apron, at the conclusion of my episode, whereat my beautiful Zebra regarded her in utter amazement, then turned his queer face—ringed, streaked, and striped—up to mine, and laughed his barbaric laugh. He was wonderful to see, with his breast like a pigeon; his round, supple, almost voluptuous limbs, peculiar to his amphibious tribe; his head crowned with a turban of thick wool, so fine and flossy, it looked as though it had been carded: it stood two inches deep at a tangent from his oval pate.
From his woolly crown to the soles of his feet, my Zebra was frescoed in the most brilliant andartistic fashion. Every color under the sun seemed pricked into his skin (there he discounted the zebras, who are limited in their combinations of light and shade): this, together with the multiplicity of figures therein wrought, was a never-failing joy to me. O my Zebra! how did you ever grow so splendid off yonder in the South Seas?
We chatted that evening by Gail's fire, till my Zebra's woolly head went clean to the floor, and he looked like some prostrate idol about to be immolated on that Christian hearth; and the baby cannibals were as funny as two little brown rabbits, with their ears clipped, nestling at Gail's patient feet.
It was fully nine o'clock by this time, so Deborah got the Bible, smoothed out her apron, and opened it thereon, while she read a chapter. We sat by the fire and listened. I heard the earnest voice of the reader, while the autumn winds rose in gusts, and puffed out the curtains now and then. I thought of the chilly nights and frosty mornings we were to endure,—we exiles of the South. I thought of the snows that were to follow, and of the little idolaters sleeping through the gospel, with deaf ears, while their hearts panted high in some dream of savage joy.
There was a big bed made up on the floor of my room,—the best chamber at Gail's,—and there I laid out my little pets, tucking them in with infinite concern; for they looked so like threediminutive mummies, as they lay there, that I didn't know whether they would think it worth while to wake up again into life; and what would I be worth then, without my wild boys?—I, who was born, by some mischance, out of my tropical element, and whose birthright is Polynesia! Gail laughed when she saw me fretting so, and she patted the curly heads of the babies, and stroked the Zebra's shaggy pate, and said "Good night" to us, as her step measured the hall, and a door closed in the distance; whereupon, instead of freezing in the icy linen of the spare bed at the other end of the room, I crept softly into the nest of cannibals, and we slept like kittens until morning.
At a seasonable hour the next day, I got my jewels—my little inhuman jewels—into their thick, winter clothes again, and we trotted down to breakfast, as hungry as bears. Deborah was good enough to embrace both the little ones, but she gave the Zebra a wide berth, and was not entirely satisfied at leaving him loose in the house.
He was rather odd-looking, I confess. He used to curl up under the table and go to sleep, at all hours of the day,—I think it was the cold weather that encouraged him in it,—stretching himself, now and then, like a spaniel, and showing his sharp saw-teeth in a queer way, when he laughed in his dreams. Presently Gail came in, and we sat at table, and came near to eating her out of house and home. Deborah said grace,—rather along one, considering we were so hungry,—a grace in which my babies were not forgotten, and the Zebra was made the subject of a special prayer. To my horror, Zebra was helping himself surreptitiously to the nearest dish, the while. It was a merry meal. I rose in the midst of it, and laid before Gail an enormous placard, printed in as many colors as even the Zebra could boast, and Gail read it out to Deborah:—
JENKINS' HALL.IMMENSE ATTRACTION!FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY!HOKY AND POKY,A BRACE OF SOUTH-SEA BABIES, FROM THE ANCIENT RIVERSOF KABALA-KUM,—AND—THE WONDERFUL BOYZEBRA,A CANNIBAL PRINCE, FROM THE PALMY PLAINS OF POTTOBOKEE,IN THEIR GRAND MORAL DIVERSION.==>The first and only opportunity is now afforded the great publicto observe with safety how the heathen, in his blindness,bows down to wood and stone.==>These are the only original and genuine representatives of theKabalakumists and Pottobokees that ever lefttheir coral strand.Admission, ——. Children, Half Price.
Admission, ——. Children, Half Price.
Deborah was awed into silence, and Gail was apparently thinking over the possible result of this strange advertisement, for she said nothing, but took deliberate sips of coffee, and broke the dry toast between her fingers, while she looked at all four of us savages in a peculiar and ominous manner. Nothing was said, however, to disparage any further announcement of the entertainment; and, having appeased our hunger, we adjourned to the reading of another chapter, during which the South Sea babieswouldplay cat's-cradles under Gail's writing-table, and the Zebra put his foot into the middle of her work-basket, and was very miserable indeed.
My hands were full of business. As animpressarioI had to rush about all day, mustering the Great Public for the evening. Out I went, full of it, while the bronze midgets were left in charge of Gail and Deborah, and the Zebra was locked in an upper room, with plenty to eat, and no facilities for getting into mischief. I saw the leading men in town: the preacher, who was deeply interested, proposing to take up a collection on the next sabbath, for our benefit,—which proposition I received with a graceful acquiescence peculiarly my own; the professor, at the Seminary, who was less affable, but whose pupils were radiant at the prospect of getting into the cannibals at reduced rates; and the editor, who desired to print full biographies of myself and cannibals, with portraits and fac-simile of autographs. He strongly urged the plausibility of this new method of winning the heart of the Great Public, and was willing to take my note for thirty days, in consideration of his personal friendship for me, and his sympathy, as a public man and a member of the press, with the show business.
Everything worked so nicely that it really seemed quite providential that I had come, as I had, like anything in the night,—noiseless and unheralded. Everything was in good order, and, after our late dinner, I went out again, to finish for the evening,—portioning off my charges, as before, and returning, at the last moment, to bring them up to the hall for theirdébut. But judge of my horror at finding my Zebra stretched upon the floor of his room, quite insensible; and all this time, Jenkins's Hall was thronged with the Great Public, who had come to see us bow down to wood and stone.
I was greatly alarmed. What could this sudden attack mean? He was not subject to disorders of that nature,—at least, I had never seen him in a similar condition. The little fellows began to cry, in their peculiar fashion, which is simply raising the voice to the highest and shrillest pitch, and then shaking to an unlimited degree. Gail was by no means charmed at these new developments, and Deborah fled from the room. In a moment the cause of our trouble was disclosed. Gail's cologne bottles were exhumed from under the bed—but quite empty. Their contents had been imbibed by the Zebra in an extemporaneous bacchanalian festival, tendered to himself by himself, in honor of the occasion.
It was useless to borrow further trouble, so I prepared my apology: "The sudden indispositionpeculiar to young cannibals during the early stages of a public and Christian career had quite prostrated the representative from many a palmy plain; and the South Sea babies would endeavor to fill the vacancy caused by his absence with several new and interesting features not set down in the bills."
I was most cordially received by the audiences and the little midgets danced their weird and fantastic dances, in the least possible clothing imaginable, and sang their love-lyrics, and chanted their passionate war-chants, and gave the funeral wail in a manner that reflected the highest credit upon their respective South-Sea papas and mammas. I considered it an entire success, and pocketed the proceeds with considerable satisfaction.
But to return to my poor little Zebra. His cologne-spree had been quite too much for him. He was mentally and physically demoralized, and could be of no use to me, professionally, for a week, at least. I at once saw this, and as I had two or three engagements during that time, I begged Gail to allow him to remain with her during his convalescence, while I went on with the babes and fulfilled my engagements. She consented. Deborah also promised to be very good to him. I think she took a deeper interest in him when she found how very human he was,—a fact she did not fully realize until he took to drinking.
On we went, through three little villages, in three little valleys, with crowded houses everyevening. Delighted and enthusiastic audiences wanted the midgets passed around, just as we passed the bone fish-hooks and shark's-teeth combs, for inspection.
About this time I received a short and decisive epistle from Gail,—an immediate summons home. The Zebra, in an unwatched moment, had got into the kerosene, and was considered no longer a welcome guest at Gail's. Deborah was praying with him daily, which didn't seem to have the desired effect, for he was growing worse and worse every hour.
There were at least seven towns anxiously awaiting my South-Sea Lecture, with the "heathen in his blindness" attachment. Yet it was out of the question to think of pressing on in my tour, thereby sacrificing my poor Zebra, and possibly Gail as well. I feared it was already too late to save him, for I knew the nature of his ailment, and foresaw the almost inevitable result. When we returned, Gail met us with tears in her eyes and furrows of care foreshadowed in her face. I felt how great a responsibility I had shifted upon her shoulders, and accused myself roundly for such selfishness. The babes rushed into her arms with the first impulse of love, and refused to allow her out of their sight again for some hours.
Deborah was, even then, wrestling with the angels up in Zebra's room, and I waited until she came down, with her eyes red and swollen,—a bottle of physic in one hand and a Bible in the other; then I went in to my poor, thin, shadowy little Zebra, who was wild-eyed and nervous, and scarcely knew me at first, but went off into hysterics the moment he found me out, to make up for it. He had had no opportunity of speaking to any one, save in his broken English, for several days, and he rushed into a torrent of ejaculations so violent and confusing that I was thoroughly alarmed at his condition. Presently he grew quieter, from sheer exhaustion, and then I learned how he had taken Deborah's well-intended efforts toward his spiritual conversion.He believed her praying him to death!Deborah knew nothing of the sensitive organism of these islanders. When moved by a spirit of revenge, they threaten one another with prayers. Incantations are performed and sacrifices offered, under which fearful spells the unhappy victim of revenge cannot think of surviving. So he lies down and dies, without pain, or any effort on his part; and all your physic is like so much water, administer it in what proportions you choose.
I went into the garden, where I saw Gail under the maples,—the very maples that were budding in pink and white when she wrote me the letter bidding me come out of the South, bringing my sheaves with me. The animated sheaves were even then swinging on the clothes-lines, and taking life easily. "Gail," I said, "O Gail, the Zebra isa dead boy!" Gail was shocked, and silent. I told her how useless, how hopeless it was to think of saving him. All the doctors and all the medicines in the world were a fallacy where the soul was overshadowed with a malediction. "Gail," I said, "that Zebra says he wants to be an angel, and he couldn't possibly have decided upon anything more unreasonable than this. What shall I do without my Zebra?" And I walked off by myself, and felt desperately, while Gail was wrapped in thought, and the babes continued to do inexpressible things on the clothes-lines, to the intense admiration of three small boys on the other side of the garden-fence.
The doctor had already been called, and the physic that Deborah carried about with her was a legitimate draught prescribed by him. Little did he know of the death-angel that walks hand-in-hand with a superstition as antique as Mount Ararat. So day by day the little Zebra grew more and more slender, till his frail, striped skeleton stretched itself in a hollow of the bed, and great gleaming eyes watched me as they would devour me with deathless and passionate love.
Sometimes his soul seemed to steal out of his withering body and make mysterious pilgrimages into its native clime. I heard him murmuring and muttering in a language unfamiliar to me. I remembered that the chiefs had a dialect of their own,—a vocabulary so sacred and secret that nocommoner ever dared to study out its meaning. This I took to be his classical and royal tongue, for he was of the best blood of the kingdom, and a King's heir.
Deborah, at the delicate suggestion of Gail, discontinued her visitations to his chamber, as it seemed to excite him so sadly; but her earnest soul never rested from prayer in his behalf till his last breath was spent, and his splendid stripes grew livid for a moment, and seemed to change like the dolphin's before their waning glories were faded out in the lifeless flesh.
One twilight I took the midgets into the darkened room. They scarcely knew the thin, drawn face, with the slender, wiry fingers locked over it, but they recognized the death-stroke with prophetic instinct, and, crouching at the foot of the bed, rocked their dusky bodies to and fro, to and fro, wailing the death-wail for Zebra.
Then I longed for wings to fly away with my savage brood,—away, over seas and mountains, till the palms waved again their phantom crests in the mellow starlight, and the sea moaned upon the reef, and the rivulet leaped from crag to crag through silence and shadow: where death seemed but a grateful sleep; for the soul that dawned in that quiet life had never known the wear and tear of this one, but was patient, and peaceful, and ready at any hour of summons.
Dear Gail strove to comfort me in my tribulation; but the Great Public went its way, and knew nothing of the young soul that was passing in speedy death. Yet the Great Public was my guide, philosopher, and friend. I could do nothing without its sanction and co-operation. I basked in its smiles. I trembled at the thought of its displeasure; and now death was robbing me of my hard-earned riches, and annihilating my best attraction. No wonder I fretted myself, and berated my ill-fortune. Poor Gail had her hands full to keep me within bounds. I rushed to the Zebra's room, and vowed to him that if he wouldn't die just yet, I would take him home at once to his kingdom, and we'd always live there, and die there, by and by, when we were full of years.
Alas, it was too late! "I want to be an angel," reiterated my Zebra, his thin face brightening with an unearthly light; "to be an angel," whispered that faint and failing voice, while his humid eyes glowed like twin moons sinking in the far, mystical horizon of the new life he was about to enter upon. I struggled with him no longer. I bowed down by his pillow, and pressed the shadowy form of my once beautiful Zebra. "Well, be an angel, little prince," said I; "be anything you please, now, for I have done my best to save you, and failed utterly."
So he passed hence to his destiny; and his nation wept not, neither wore they ashes upon their foreheads, nor burned seams in their flesh; for theyknew not of his fate. But there was a small grave digged in the orchard, and at dusk I carried the coffin in my arms thither: how light it was! he could have borne me upon his brawny shoulders once,—strong as a lion's. Gail cried, and Deborah cried; and I was quite beside myself. The mites of cannibals ate earth and ashes, and came nearly naked to the obsequies, refusing to wear their jackets, though the air was frosty and the night promised snow. We knelt there, to cover Zebra for the last time, crying and shivering, and feeling very,verymiserable.
I took a little rest from business after that; seeing, meantime, a stone cut in this manner:—