Here lies,In this far land,A Prince of the Savage South,And the Last of his Tribe.
But life called me into the arena again. A showman has little time to waste in mourning over his losses, however serious they may be.
One frosty evening I got my brace of cannibals into the lumbering ambulance that constituted my caravan, with our boxes of war-clubs and carved whale's-teeth lashed on behind us; plenty of buffalo-robes around us, and a layer of hot bricks underfoot, and so we started for our next scene of action. The inexorable calls of the profession forbade our lingering longer under Gail's hospitable roof; and it was not without pangs ofinexpressible sorrow that we turned from her door, and knew not if we were ever again to enjoy the pure influences of her household.
My heart warmed toward poor, disconsolate Deborah in that moment, and I forgave her all, which was the most Christian act I ever yet performed. As we rode down the lane, I caught a glimpse of the low mound in the orchard, and I buried my little barbarians under my great-coat, so as to spare them a fresh sorrow, while I thought how, spring after spring, that small grave would be covered with drifts of pale apple-blossoms, and in the long winters it would be hidden under the paler drifts of snow,—when it should be strewn with sea-shells, and laid away under a cactus-hedge, in a dense and fragrant shade; and I gathered my little ones closer to me, and said in my soul: "O, if the August Public could only know them as I know them, it would doubt us less, and love us more! The Zebra is gone, indeed, but my babes are here, fresh souls in perfect bodies, like rareripe fruits, untouched as yet, with the nap and the dew upon them." The stars sparkled and flashed in the cloudless sky, as we hurried over the crisp ground,—a little, bereaved, benighted company of South-Sea strollers, who ask your charity, and give their best in return for it.
*****
I have told you of my South-Sea show. You may yet have an opportunity of judging how youlike it, provided my baby heathens don't insist upon turning into angels before their time, after the manner of the lamented Zebra. In the mean time, the dread of this not improbable curbing of my high career is but one of the sorrows of a South-Sea showman.
MY Hawaiian oracle, Kahéle, having posed himself in compact and chubby grace, awaited his golden opportunity, which was not long a coming. I sat on the steps ofL——'sveranda, and yawned frightfully, because life was growing tedious, and I did not know exactly what to do next.L——'shouse was set in the nicest kind of climate, at the foot of a great mountain, just at that altitude where the hot air stopped dancing, though it was never cool enough to shut a door, or to think of wearing a hat for any other purpose than to keep the sun out of one's eyes. L——'s veranda ran out into vacancy as blank as cloudless sky and shadowless sea could make it; in fact, all that the eye found to rest upon was the low hill jutting off from one corner of the house beyond a jasmine in blossom; and under the hill a flat-sailed schooner rocking in a calm. I think there was nothing else down the slope of the mountain but tangled yellow grass, that grew brown and scant as it crept into thetorrid zone, a thousand feet below us, and there it had not the courage to come out of the earth at all; so the picture ended in a blazing beach, with warm waves sliding up and down it, backed by blue-watery and blue-airy space for thousands and thousands of miles.
Why should not a fellow yawn over the situation? especially as L—— was busy and could not talk much, and L——'s books were as old as the hills and a good deal drier.
Having yawned, I turned toward Kahéle, and gnashed my teeth. The little rascal looked knowing; his hour had come. He fired off in broken English, and the effect was something like this:—
"Suppose we sleep in House of the Sun,—we make plenty good sceneries?"
"And where is that?" quoth I.
Kahéle's little lump of a nose was jerked up toward the great mountain at the back of L——'s house. "Haleakala!"Acried he, triumphantly, for he saw he had resurrected my interest in life, and he felt that he had a thing or two worth showing, a glimpse of which might content me with this world, dull as I found it just then. "Haleakala—the House of the Sun—up before us," said Kahéle.
AHaleakala, an extinct crater in the Sandwich Islands, supposed to be the largest in the world.
AHaleakala, an extinct crater in the Sandwich Islands, supposed to be the largest in the world.
"And to get into the Sun's House?"
"Make a good climb up, and go in from the top!"
Ha! to creep up the roof and drop in at the skylight: this were indeed a royal adventure. "How long would it take?"
Kahéle waxed eloquent. That night we should sleep a little up on the slope of the mountain, lodging with thehaolis(foreigners) among the first clouds; in the morning we should surprise the sun in the turrets of his temple; then down—down—down into the crater, that had been strewn with ashes for a thousand years. After that, out on the other side, toward the sea, where the trade-winds blew, and the country was fresh and fruitful. The youngster sweated with enthusiasm while he strove to make me comprehend the full extent of the delights pertaining to this journey; and, as he finished, he made a rapid flank movement toward the animals, staked a few rods away.
It was not necessary that I should consent to undertake this expedition. He was eager to go, and he would see that I enjoyed myself when I went; but go I must, now that he had made up my mind for me. I confess, I was as wax in that climate. Yet, why not take this promising and uncommon tour? The charm of travel is to break new paths. I ceased to yawn any further over life. Kahéle went to the beasts, and began saddling them. L——'s hospitality culminated in a bottle of cold, black coffee, and a hamper of delicious sandwiches, such as Mrs. L—— excels in.I had nothing to do but to go. It did look like a conspiracy; but, as I never had the moral courage to fight against anything of that sort, I got into the saddle and went.
Turning for a moment toward the brute's tail, overcome with conflicting emotions, I said:—
"Adieu, dear L——, thou picture of boisterous industry! Adieu, Mrs. L——, whose light is hid under the bushel of thy lord; but, as it warms him, it is all right, I suppose, and thy reward shall come to thee some day, I trust! By-by, multitudes of little L——s, tumbling recklessly in the back-yard, crowned with youth and robust health and plenty of flaxen curls! Away, Kahéle! for it is toward evening, and the clouds are skating along the roof of the House of the Sun. Sit not upon the order of your going, but strike spurs at once,—and away!"
It was thus that I relieved myself. The prospect of fresh adventure intoxicated me. I do not believe I could have been bought off after that enlivening farewell. The air of the highlands was charged with electricity. I bristled all over with new life. I wanted to stand up in my saddle and fly.
It seemed the boy had engaged a special guide for the crater,—one accustomed to feeling his way through the bleak hollow, where any unpractised feet must have surely gone astray. Kahéle offered him a tempting bonus to head our little caravanat once, though it goes sorely against the Hawaiian grain to make up a mind inside of three days. Kahéle managed the financial department, whenever he had the opportunity, with a liberality worthy of a purse ten times as weighty as mine; but as he afterward assured me, that guide was a fine man, and a friend of his whom it was a pleasure and a privilege to serve.
Of course, it was all right, since I couldn't help myself; and we three pulled up the long slopes of Haleakala, while the clouds multiplied, as the sun sank, and the evening grew awfully still. Somewhere up among the low-hanging mist there was a house full ofhaolis, and there we proposed to spend the night. We were looking for this shelter with all our six eyes, while we rode slowly onward, having scarcely uttered a syllable for the last half-hour. You know there are some impressive sorts of solitude, that seal up a fellow's lips; he can only look about him in quiet wonderment, tempered with a fearless and refreshing trust in that Providence who has enjoined silence. Well, this was one of those times; and right in the midst of it Kahéle sighted a smoke-wreath in the distance. To me it looked very like a cloud, and I ventured to declare it such; but the youngster frowned me down, and appealed to the special guide for further testimony. The guide declined to commit himself in the matter of smoke or mist, as he ever did on all succeeding occasions, being awise guide, who knew his own fallibility. It was smoke!—a thin, blue ribbon of it, uncoiling itself from among the branches of the overhanging trees, floating up and up and tying itself into double-bow knots, and then trying to untie itself, but perishing in the attempt.
In the edge of the grove we saw the little white cottage of thehaolis; and, not far away, a camp-fire, with bright, red flames dancing around a kettle, swung under three stakes with their three heads together. Tall figures were moving about the camp, looking almost like ghosts, in the uncertain glow of the fire; and toward these lights and shadows we jogged with satisfaction, scenting supper from afar.
"Halloo!" said we, with voices that did not sound very loud, up in that thin atmosphere.
"Halloo!" said they, with the deepest unconcern, as though they had been through the whole range of human experience, and there was positively nothing left for them to get excited over.
Some of their animals whinnied in a fashion that drew a response from ours. A dog barked savagely, until he was spoken to, and then was obliged to content himself with an occasional whine. Some animal—a sheep, perhaps—rose up in the trail before us, and plunged into the bush, sending our beasts back on their haunches with fright. A field-cricket lifted up his voice and sang; and then a hundred joined him; and then ten thousand times ten thousand swelled the chorus, till the mountains were alive with singing crickets.
"Halloo, stranger! Come in and stop a bit, won't you?" That was our welcome from the chief of the camp, who came a step or two forward, as soon as we had ridden within range of the camp-fire.
And we went in unto them, and ate of their bread, and drank of their coffee, and slept in their blankets,—or tried to sleep,—and had a mighty good time generally.
The mountaineers proved to be a company of California miners, who had somehow drifted over the sea, and, once on that side, they naturally enough went into the mountains to cut wood, break trails, and make themselves useful in a rough, out-of-door fashion. They had for companions and assistants a few natives, who, no doubt, did the best they could, though the Californians expressed considerable contempt for the "lazy devils, who were fit for nothing but to fiddle on a jew's-harp."
We ate of a thin, hot cake, baked in a frying-pan over that camp-fire; gnawed a boiled bone fished out of the kettle swung under the three sticks; drank big bowls of coffee, sweetened with coarse brown sugar and guiltless of milk; and sat on the floor all the while, with our legs crossed, like so many Turks and tailors. We went to our blankets as soon as the camp-fire had smothered itself in ashes, though meanwhile Jack, chief of the camp,gathered himself to windward of the flames, with his hips on his heels and his chin on his knees, smoking a stubby pipe and talking of flush times in California. He was one of those men who could and would part with his last quarter, relying upon Nature for his bed and board. He said to me, "If you can rough it, hang on a while,—what's to drive you off?" I could rough it: the fire was out, the night chilly; so we turned in under blue blankets with a fuzz on them like moss, and, having puffed out the candle,—that lived long enough to avenge its death in a houseful of villanous smoke,—we turned over two or three times apiece, and, one after another, fell asleep. At the farther side of the house lay the natives, as thick as sheep in a pen, one of them a glossy black fellow, as sleek as a eunuch, born in the West Indies, but whose sands of life had been scattered on various shores. This sooty fellow twanged a quaint instrument of native workmanship, and twanged with uncommon skill. His art was the life of that savage community at the other end of the house. Again and again, during the night, I awoke and heard the tinkle of his primitive harp, mingled with the ejaculations of delight wrung from the hearts of his dusky and sleepless listeners.
Once only was that midnight festival interrupted. We all awoke suddenly and simultaneously, though we scarcely knew why; then the dog beganto mouth horribly. My blanket-fellows—beds we had none—knew there was mischief brewing, and rushed out with their guns cocked. Presently the dog came in from the brush, complaining bitterly, and one of the miners shot at a rag fluttering among the bushes. In the morning we found a horse gone, and a couple of bullet-holes in a shirt spread out to dry. As soon as the excitement was over, we returned to the blankets and the floor. The eunuch tuned his harp anew and, after a long while, dawn looked in at the uncurtained window, with a pale, gray face, freckled with stars.
Kahéle saw it as soon as I did, and was up betimes. I fancy he slept little or none that night, for he was fond of music, and especially fond of such music as had made the last few hours more or less hideous. Everybody rose with the break of day, and there was something to eat long before sunrise, after which our caravan, with new vigor, headed for the summit.
Wonderful clouds swept by us; sometimes we were lost for a moment in their icy depths. I could scarcely see the tall ears of my mule when we rode into those opaque billows of vapor that swept noiselessly along the awful heights we were scaling. It was a momentary but severe bereavement, the loss of those ears and the head that went with them, because I cared not to ride saddles that seemed to be floating in the air. Whatwas Prince Firouz Schah to me, or what was I to the Princess of Bengal, that I should do this thing!
There are pleasanter sensations than that of going to heaven on horseback; and we wondered if we should ever reach the point where we could begin to descend again to our natural level, and talk with people infinitely below us just then. Ten thousand perpendicular feet in the air; our breath short; our animals weak in the knees; the ocean rising about us like a wall of sapphire, on the top of which the sky rested like a cover,—we felt as though we were shut in an exhausted receiver, the victims of some scientific experiment for the delectation of the angels. We were at the very top of the earth. There was nothing on our side of it nearer to Saturn than the crown of our heads. It was deuced solemn, and a trifle embarrassing. It was as though we were personally responsible for the planet during the second we happened to be uppermost in the universe. I felt unequal to the occasion in that thin, relaxing atmosphere. The special guide, I knew, would shirk this august investiture, as he shirked everything else, save only the watchful care of my collapsingporte-monnaie. Kahéle, perhaps, would represent us to the best of his ability,—which was not much beyond an amazing capacity for food and sleep, coupled with cheek for at least two of his size. There is danger in delay, saith the copy-book; and while we crept slowly onward toward the rim of the crater, the sun rose, and we forgot all else save his glory. We had reached the mouth of the chasm. Below us yawned a gulf whose farther walls seemed the outlines of some distant island, within whose depths a sea of cloud was satisfied to ebb and flow, whose billows broke noiselessly at the base of the sombre walls among whose battlements we clung like insects. I wonder that we were not dragged into that awful sea, for strange and sudden gusts of wind swept past us, coming from various quarters, and rushing like heralds to the four corners of the heavens. We were far above the currents that girdle the lower earth, and seemed in a measure cut off from the life that was past. We lived and breathed in cloud-land. All our pictures were of vapor; our surroundings changed continually. Forests laced with frost; silvery, silent seas; shores of agate and of pearl; blue, shadowy caverns; mountains of light, dissolving and rising again transfigured in glorious resurrection, the sun tingeing them with infinite color. A flood of radiance swept over the mysterious picture,—a deluge of blood-red glory that came and went like a blush; and then the mists faded and fled away, and gradually we saw the deep bed of the crater, blackened, scarred, distorted,—a desert of ashes and cinders shut in by sooty walls; no tinge of green, no suggestion of life, no sound to relieve the imposing silence ofthat literal death of Nature. We were about to enter the guest-chamber of the House of the Sun. If we had been spirited away to the enchanted cavern of some genie, we could not have been more bewildered. The cloud-world had come to an untimely end, and we were left alone among its blackened and charred ruins. That magician, the sun, hearing the approach of spies, had transformed his fairy palace into a bare and uninviting wilderness. But we were destined to explore it, notwithstanding; and our next move was to dismount and drive our unwilling animals over into the abyss. The angle of our descent was too near the perpendicular to sound like truth, in print. I will not venture to give it; but I remember that our particular guide and his beast were under foot, while Kahéle and his beast were overhead, and I and my beast, sandwiched between, managed to survive the double horror of being buried in thedébristhat rained upon us from the tail-end of the caravan, and slaying the unfortunate leaders ahead with the multitude of rocks we sent thundering down the cliff. A moving avalanche of stones and dust gradually brought us to the bed of the crater, where we offered thanks in the midst of an ascending cloud of cinders, every soul of us panting with exhaustion, and oozing like a saturated sponge. The heat was terrific; shelter there was none; L——'s coffee was all that saved us from despair. Before us stretched miles andmiles of lava, looking like scorched pie-crust; two thousand feet above us hung heavy masses of baked masonry, unrelieved by any tinge of verdure. To the windward there was a gap in the walls, through which forked tongues of mist ran in, but curled up and over the ragged cliffs, as though the prospect were too uninviting to lure them farther. It behooved us to get on apace, for life in the deserted House of the Sun was, indeed, a burden, and moreover there was some danger of our being locked in. The wind might veer a little, in which case an ocean of mist would deluge the crater, shutting out light and heat, and bewildering the pilgrim so that escape were impossible. The loadstone bewitched the compass in that fixed sea, and there were no beacons and no sounding signals to steer by. Across the smooth, hard lava occasional traces of a trail were visible, like scratches upon glass. Close to the edges of this perilous path yawned chasms. Sometimes the narrow way led over a ridge between two sandy hollows, out of which it was almost impossible to return, if one false step should plunge you into its yielding vortex. There was a long pull toward afternoon, and a sweltering camp about threeP. M., where we finished L——'s lunch, and were not half satisfied. Even the consoling weed barely sustained our fainting spirits, for we knew that the more tedious portion of the journey was yet to come.
The windward vestibule wound down toward the sea, a wild gorge through which the molten lava had poured its destructive flood. There it lay, a broad, uneven pass of dead, black coals,—clinkers, as ragged and sharp as broken glass,—threaded by one beaten track a few inches in breadth. To lose this trail were to tear the hoofs from your suffering beasts in an hour or two, and to lacerate your own feet in half the time. Having refreshed ourselves on next to nothing, we pressed forward. Already the shadows were creeping into the House of the Sun, and as yet we had scarcely gained the mouth of the pass. As we rode out from the shelter of a bluff, a cold draught struck us like a wave of the sea. Down the bleak, winding chasm we saw clouds approaching, pale messengers that travel with the trade-wind and find lodgment in the House of the Sun. They were hastening home betimes, and had surprised us in the passage. It was an unwelcome meeting. Our particular guide ventured to assume an expression of concern, and cautiously remarked that we werepilikia,—that is, in trouble! For once he was equal to an emergency; he knew of a dry well close at hand; we could drop into it and pass the night, since it was impossible to feel our way out of the crater through clouds almost as dense as cotton. Had we matches? No. Had we dry sticks? Yes, in the well, perhaps. Kahéle could make fire without phosphorus, and we could keep warm till morning, and then escape from the crater as early as possible. After much groping about, in and out of clouds, we found the dusty well and dropped into it. Ferns—a few of them—grew about its sides; a dwarfed tree, rejoicing in four angular branches, as full of mossy elbows as possible, stood in the centre of our retreat, and at the roots of this miserable recluse the Kanakas contrived to grind out a flame by boring into a bit of decayed wood with a dry stick twirled rapidly between their palms. Dead leaves, dried moss, and a few twigs made a short-lived and feeble fire for us. Darkness had come upon the place. We watched the flaming daggers stab the air fitfully, and finally sheathe themselves for good. We filled our shallow cave with smoke that drove us into the mouth of it, from time to time, to keep from strangulation. We saw our wretched beasts shaking with cold; we saw the swift, belated clouds hurrying onward in ghostly procession; we could do nothing but shudder and return to our dismal bed. No cheerful cricket blew his shrill pipe, like a policeman's whistle; the sea sang not for us with its deep, resounding voice; the Hawaiian harp was hushed. A stone, loosened by some restless lizard, rattled down the cliff; a goat, complaining of the cold, bleated once or twice. The wind soughed; the dry branches of our withering tree sawed across each other: these were our comforters during that almost endless night.
Once the heavens were opened to us. Through the rent in the clouds we saw a great shoulder of the cliff above us, bathed in moonlight. A thousand grotesque shadows played over the face of it. Pictures came and went,—a palimpsest of mysteries. Gargoyles leered at us from under the threatening brows of the bluff; and a white spectre, shining like a star, stood on the uppermost peak, voiceless and motionless,—some living creature lost in admiration of the moon. Then the sky fell on us, and we were routed to our solitary cave.
There is a solitude of the sea that swallows up hope; the despairing spirit hangs over a threatening abyss of death; yet above it and below it there are forms of life rejoicing in their natural element. But there is a solitude of the earth that is more awful; in it Death taunts you with his presence, yet delays to strike. At sea, one step, and the spirit is set at liberty,—the body is entombed forever. But alas! within the deserts of the earth no sepulchre awaits the ashes of him who has suffered, and nought but the winds or the foul-feeding vultures shall cleanse that bleaching skeleton where it lies.
We tried to sleep on our stony pillows. Kahéle woke and found the guide and me dozing; later, the guide roused himself to the discovery that Kahéle and I were wrapped in virtuous unconsciousness. Anon I sat up among the rocks, listened to the two natives breathing heavily, and heard the wind sighing over the yawning mouth of our cavern. I heard the beasts stamping among the clinkers, and covered my head again with the damp blanket, and besieged sleep. Then we all three started from our unrefreshing dreams, and lo! the clouds were rising and fleeing away, and a faint, rosy light over the summit-peaks looked like sunrise; so we rose and saddled the caravan, and searched about us for the lost trail. Hour after hour we drew nearer to the mouth of the crater. Our progress was snail-like; each one of us struck out for himself, having lost confidence in the cunning of the other. From small elevations we took our reckoning, and he who got the farthest toward the sea lifted up his voice in triumph, and was speedily joined by the rest of the party.
At last we came upon the bluffs that overhang the green shores of the island. We were safely out of the Sun's Tabernacle, but not yet free to pass into the lowly vales of the earth. Again and again we rode to the edges of the cliffs, whose precipitous walls forbade our descent. Sometimes we clung to the bare ribs of the mountain, where a single misstep might have sent us headlong into the hereafter. Frequently we rejoiced in a discovery that promised well; but anon a sheltered chasm unveiled its hideous depths, or an indigo-jungle laid hold of us and cut us off in that direction.
Below us lay the verdant slopes of Kaupo. From their dried-grass houses flocked the natives, looking like ants and their hills. They watched us for hours with amused interest. Now and then they called to us with faint and far-off voices,—suggestions that were lost to us, since they sounded like so many bird-notes floating in the wind. All day we saw the little village lying under us temptingly peaceful and lazy. Clouds still hung below us: some of them swept by, pouring copious drops, that drove our audience within doors for a few moments; but the rain was soon over, the sun shone brighter than ever, the people returned to watch us, and the day waned. We surprised flock upon flock of goats in their rocky retreats; but they dispersed in all directions like quicksilver, and we passed on. About dusk we got into the grassy land, and thanked God for deliverance.
Here Kahéle's heart rejoiced. Here, close by the little chapel of Kaupo, he discovered one whom he proclaimed his grandfather; though, judging from the years of the man, he could scarcely have been anything beyond an uncle. I was put to rest in a little stone cell, where the priests sleep when they are on their mission to Kaupo. A narrow bed, with a crucifix at the foot of it, a small window in the thick wall, with a jug of water in the corner thereof, and a chair with a game-leg, constituted the furnishment of thequaint lodging. Kahéle rushed about to see old friends,—who wept over him,—and was very long absent, whereat I waxed wroth, and berated him roundly; but the poor fellow was so charmingly repentant that I forgave him all, and more too, for I promised him I would stay three days, at least, with his uncle-grandfather, and give him his universal liberty for the time being.
From the open doorway I saw the long sweep of the mountains, looking cool and purple in the twilight. The ghostly procession of the mists stole in at the windward gap; the after-glow of the evening suffused the front of the chapel with a warm light, and the statue of the Virgin above the chapel-door,—a little faded with the suns of that endless summer, a little mildewed with the frequent rains,—the statue looked down upon us with a smile of welcome. Some youngsters, as naked as day-old nest-birds, tossed a ball into the air; and when it at last lodged in the niche of the Virgin, they clapped their hands, half in merriment and half in awe, and the games of the evening ended. Then the full moon rose; a cock crew in the peak of the chapel, thinking it daybreak, and the little fellows slept, with their spines curved like young kittens. By and by the moon hung, round and mellow, beyond the chapel-cross, and threw a long shadow in the grass; and then I went to my cell and folded my hands to rest, with a sense of blessed and unutterable peace.
OH, the long suffering of him who threads a narrow trail over the brown crust of a hill where the short grass lies flat in tropical sunshine! On one side sleeps the blue, monotonous sea; on the other, crags clothe themselves in cool mist and look dreamy and solemn.
The boy Kahéle, who has no ambition beyond the bit of his foot-sore mustang, lags behind, taking all the dust with commendable resignation.
As for me, I am wet through with the last shower; I steam in the fierce noonday heat. I spur Hoké the mule into the shadow of a great cloud that drifts lazily overhead, and am grateful for this unsatisfying shade as long as it lasts. I watch the sea, swinging my whip by its threadbare lash like a pendulum,—the sea, where a very black rock is being drowned over and over by the tremendous swell that covers it for a moment; but somehow the rock comes to the surface again, and seems to gasp horribly in a deluge of breakers. That rock has been drowning for centuries, yet its struggle for life is as real as ever.
I watch the mountains, cleft with green, fern-cushioned chasms, where an occasional stream silently distills. Far up on a sun-swept ledge a white, scattering drift, looking like a rose-garden after a high wind, I know to be a flock of goats feeding. But the wind-dried and sunburnt grass under foot, the intangible dust that pervades the air, the rain-cloud in the distance, trailing its banners of crape in the sea as it bears down upon us,—these are what fret me a little, and make life a burden for the time being; so I spur my faithless Hoké up a new ascent as forbidding as any that we have yet come upon, and slowly and with many pauses creep to the summit.
Kahéle, "the goer," belies his name, for he loiters everywhere and always; yet I am not sorry. I have the first glimpse of Wailua all to myself. I am not obliged to betray my emotion, which is a bore of the worst sort.
Wailua lies at my feet,—a valley full of bees, butterflies, and blossoms, the sea fawning at the mouth of it, the clouds melting over it; waterfalls gushing from numerous green corners; silver-white phaëtons floating in mid-air, at a loss to choose between earth and heaven, though evidently a little inclined earthward, for they no sooner drift out of the bewildering bowers of Wailua than they return again with noticeable haste.
Down I plunge into the depths of the valley, with the first drops of a heavy shower pelting me in the back; and under a great tree, that seems yearning to shelter somebody, I pause till the rain is over.
Anon the slow-footed Kahéle arrives, leaking all over, and bringing a peace-offering of ohias, the native apple, as juicy and sweet as the forbidden fruits of Paradise. As for these apples, they have solitary seed, like a nutmeg, a pulp as white as wax, a juice flavored with roses, and their skin as red as a peony and as glossy as varnish. These we munch and munch while the forest reels under the impetuous avalanches of big rain-drops, and our animals tear great tufts of sweet grass from the upper roadside.
Is it far to the chapel, I wonder. Kahéle thinks not,—perhaps a pari or two distant. But a pari, a cliff, has many antecedents, and I feel that some dozen or so of climbs, each more or less fatiguing, still separate me from the rest I am seeking, and hope not to find until I reach the abode of Père Fidelis, at the foot of the cross, as one might say.
The rain ceases. Hoké once more nerves himself for fresh assaults upon the everlasting hills. Kahéle drops behind as usual, and the afternoon wanes.
How fresh seems the memory of this journey! yet its place is with the archives of the past. Iseem to breathe the incense of orange-flowers and to hear the whisper of distant waterfalls as I write.
It must have been toward sunset,—we were threading the eastern coast, and a great mountain filled the west,—but I felt that it was the hour when day ends and night begins. The heavy clouds looked as though they were still brimful of sunlight, yet no ray escaped to gladden our side of the world.
Finally, on the brow of what seemed to be the last hill in this life, I saw a cross,—a cross among the palms. Hoké saw it, and quickened his pace: he was not so great an ass but he knew that there was provender in the green pastures of Père Fidelis, and his heart freshened within him.
A few paces from the grove of palms I heard a bell swing jubilantly. Out over the solemn sea, up and down that foam-crested shore, rang the sweet Angelus. One may pray with some fervor when one's journey is at an end. When the prayer was over I walked to the gate of the chapel-yard, leading the willing Hoké, and at that moment a slender figure, clad all in black, his long robes flowing gracefully about him, his boyish face heightening the effect of his grave and serene demeanor, his thin, sensitive hands held forth in hearty welcome,—a welcome that was almost like a benediction, so spiritual was the love which it expressed,—came out, and I found myself in thearms of Père Fidelis, feeling like one who has at least been permitted to kneel upon the threshold of his Mecca.
Why do our hearts singjubilatewhen we meet a friend for the first time? What is it within us that with its life-long yearning comes suddenly upon the all-sufficient one, and in a moment is crowned and satisfied? I could not tell whether I was at last waking from a sleep or just sinking into a dream. I could have sat there at his feet contented; I could have put off my worldly cares, resigned ambition, forgotten the past, and, in the blessed tranquillity of that hour, have dwelt joyfully under the palms with him, seeking only to follow in his patient footsteps until the end should come.
Perhaps it was the realization of an ideal that plunged me into a luxurious revery, out of which I was summoned bymon père, who hinted that I must be hungry. Prophetic father! hungry I was indeed.
Mon pèreled me to his little house with three rooms, and installed me host, himself being my ever-watchful attendant. Then he spoke: "The lads were at the sea, fishing: would I excuse him for a moment?"
Alone in the little house, with a glass of claret and a hard biscuit for refreshment, I looked about me. The central room, in which I sat, was bare to nakedness: a few devotional books, a smallclock high up on the wall, with a short wagging pendulum, two or three paintings, betraying more sentiment than merit, a table, a wooden form against the window, and a crucifix, complete its inventory. A high window was at my back; a door in front opening upon a veranda shaded with a passion-vine; beyond it a green, undulating country running down into the sea; on either hand a little cell containing nothing but a narrow bed, a saint's picture, and a rosary. Kahéle, having distributed the animals in good pasturage, lay on the veranda at full length, supremely happy as he jingled his spurs over the edge of the steps and hummed a native air in subdued falsetto, like a mosquito.
Again I sank into a revery. Entermon pèrewith apologies and a plate of smoking cakes made of eggs and batter, his own handiwork; enter the lads from the sea with excellent fish, knotted in long wisps of grass; enter Kahéle, lazily sniffing the savory odors of our repast with evident relish; and then supper in good earnest.
How happy we were, having such talks in several sorts of tongues, such polyglot efforts toward sociability,—French, English, and native in equal parts, but each broken and spliced to suit our dire necessity! The candle flamed and flickered in the land-breeze that swept through the house,—unctuous waxen stalactites decorated it almost past recognition; the crickets sang lustily at thedoorway; the little natives grew sleepy and curled up on their mats in the corner; Kahéle slept in his spurs like a born muleteer. And now a sudden conviction seized us that it was bedtime in very truth; somon pèreled me to one of the cells, saying, "Will you sleep in the room of Père Amabilis?" Yea, verily, with all humility; and there I slept after the benediction, during which the young priest's face looked almost like an angel's in its youthful holiness, and I was afraid I might wake in the morning and find him gone, transported to some other and more lovely world.
But I didn't. Père Fidelis was up before daybreak. It was his hand that clashed the joyful Angelus at sunrise that woke me from my happy dream; it was his hand that prepared the frugal but appetizing meal; he made the coffee, such rich, black, aromatic coffee as Frenchmen alone have the faculty of producing. He had an eye to the welfare of the animals also, and seemed to be commander-in-chief of affairs secular as well as ecclesiastical; yet he was so young!
There was a day of brief incursions mountain-ward, with the happiest results. There were welcomes showered upon me for his sake; he was ever ministering to my temporal wants, and puzzling me with dissertations in assorted languages.
By happy fortune a Sunday followed when the Chapel of the Palms was thronged with dusky worshippers; not a white face present but the father's and mine own, yet a common trust in the blessedness of the life to come struck the key-note of universal harmony, and we sang theMagnificatwith one voice. There was something that fretted me in all this admirable experience: Père Fidelis could touch neither bread nor water until after the last mass. Hour by hour he grew paler and fainter, spite of the heroic fortitude that sustained his famishing body.
"Mon père," said I, "you must eat, or go to heaven betimes." He would not. "You must end with an earlier mass," I persisted. It was impossible: many parishioners came from miles away; some of these started at daybreak, as it was, and they would be unable to arrive in season for an earlier mass. Excellent martyr! thought I, to offer thy body a living sacrifice for the edification of these savage Christians! At last he ate, but not until appetite itself had perished. Then troops of children gathered about him clamoring to kiss the hand of the priestly youth; old men and women passed him with heads uncovered, amazed at the devotion of one they could not hope to emulate.
Whenever I referred to his life, he at once led me to admire his fellow-apostle, who was continually in his thoughts. Père Amabilis was miles away, repairing a chapel that had suffered somewhat in a late gale; Père Amabilis would be so glad to see me; I must not fail to visit him; andfor fear of some mischance, Père Fidelis would himself conduct me to him.
The way was hard,—deep chasms to penetrate, swift streams to be forded, narrow and slippery trails to be threaded through forest, swamp, and wilderness. These obstacles separated the devoted friends, but not for long seasons. Père Fidelis would go to him whom he had not laid eyes on for a fortnight at least.
The boy Kahéle was glad of companionship; one of the small fishers, an acolyte of the chapel, would accompany us, and together they could lag behind, eating ohias and dabbling in every stream.
A long day's journey followed. We wended our way through jungles of lauhala, with slim roots in the air and long branches trailing about them like vines; they were like great cages of roots and branches in a woven snarl. We saw a rocky point jutting far into the sea. "Père Amabilis dwells just beyond that cape," said my companion, fondly; and it seemed not very far distant; but our pace was slow and wearisome, and the hours were sure to distance us. We fathomed dark ravines whose farther walls were but a stone's throw from us, but in whose profound depths a swift torrent rushed madly to the sea, threatening to carry us to our destruction,—green, precipitous troughs, where the tide of mountain-rain was lashed into fury, and with its death-song drowned our voices and filled our animals with terror.
Now and then we paused to breathe, man and beast panting with fatigue; sometimes the rain drove us into the thick wood for shelter; sometimes a brief deluge, the offspring of a rent cloud at the head of the ravine, stayed our progress for half an hour, until its volume was somewhat spent and the stream was again fordable. Here we talked of the daily miracles in nature. Again and again the young fathers are called forth into the wilderness to attend on the sick and dying. Little chapels are hidden away among the mountains and through the valleys; all these must be visited in turn. Their life is an actual pilgrimage from chapel to chapel, which nothing but physical inability may interrupt.
At one spot I saw a tree under which Père Fidelis once passed a tempestuous night. On either side yawned a ravine swept by an impassable flood. There were no houses within reach. On the soaked earth, with a pitiless gale sweeping over the land, from sunset to sunrise he lay without the consolation of one companion. Food was frequently scarce: a few limpets, about as palatable as parboiled shoe-leather, a paste of roast yams and water, a lime perhaps, and nothing besides but lumpy salt from the sea-shore.
While we were riding, a herald met us bearing a letter formon père. It was a greeting from Père Amabilis, who announced the chapel as rapidly nearing its complete restoration. Père Fidelisfairly wept for joy at this intelligence, and burst into a panegyric upon the unrivalled ingenuity of his spiritual associate. We were sure to surprise him at work, and this trifling episode seemed to be an event of some importance in the isolated life they led.
At sunset we passed into the open vale of Wai-luanui, and saw the chapel looking fresh and tidy on the slope of the hill toward the sea. Two waterfalls that fell against the sunset flashed like falling flame, and a soft haze tinged the slumberous solitudes of wood and pasture with the dreamlike loveliness of a picture. There seemed to be but one sound audible,—the quick, sharp blows of a hammer. Père Fidelis listened with eyes sparkling, and then rode rapidly onward.
Behold! from the chapel wall, high up on a scaffolding of boughs, his robes gathered about him, his head uncovered and hammer in hand, Père Amabilis leaned forth to welcome us. The hammer fell to the earth. Père Amabilis loosened his skirts and clasped his hands in unaffected rapture. We were three satisfied souls, asking for nothing beyond the hem of that lonely valley in the Pacific.
Of course there was the smallest possible house that could be lived in, for our sole accommodation, because but one priest needed to visit the district at a time, and a very young priest at that. A tiny bed in one corner of the room was thoughtsufficient, together with two plates, two cups, and a single spoon. Luxuries were unknown and unregretted.
"Well, father, what have you at this hotel?" said Père Fidelis as we came to the door of the cubby-house.
"Water," replied our host with a grave tone that had an undercurrent of truth in it.
But we were better provided for. Within an hour's time a reception took place: native parishioners came forth to welcome Père Fidelis and the stranger, each bringing some voluntary tribute,—a fish, a fowl lean enough to quiet the conscience of Père Fidelis, an egg or two, or a bunch of taro.
Long talks followed; the news of the last month was discussed with much enthusiasm, and some few who had no opportunity of joining in the debate gave expression to their sentiments through such speaking eyes as savages usually are possessed of.
The welcome supper-hour approached. Willing hands dressed a fowl; swift feet plied between the spring and the kettle swung over the open camp-fire; children danced for very joy before the door of the chapel, under the statue of the Virgin, whose head was adorned with a garland of living flowers. The shadows deepened; stars seemed to cluster over the valley and glow with unusual fervor; the crickets sang mightily,—they are always singing mightily over yonder;supper came to the bare table with its meagre array of dishes; and, since I was forced to have a whole plate and a bowl, as well as the solitary spoon, for my sole use, the two young priests ate together from the same dish and drank from the same cup, and were as grateful and happy as the birds of the air under similar circumstances.
A merry meal, that! For us no weak tea, that satirical consoler, nor tea whose strength is bitterness, an abomination to the faithful, butmon père'sown coffee, the very aroma of which was invigorating; and then our friendly pipes out under the starlight, where we sat chatting amicably, with our three heads turbaned in an aromatic Virginian cloud.
I learned something of the life of these two friends during that social evening. Born in the same city in the north of France, reared in the same schools, graduated from the same university, each fond of life and acquainted with its follies, each in turn stricken with an illness that threatened death, together they came out of the dark valley with their future consecrated to the work that now absorbs them, the friendship of their childhood increasing with their years and sustaining them in a remote land, where their vow of poverty seems almost like a sarcasm, since circumstance deprives them of all luxuries.
"Do you never long for home? do you never regret your vow?" I asked.
"Never!" they answered; and I believe them. "These old people are as parents to us; these younger ones are as brothers and sisters; these children we love as dearly as though they were our own. What more can we ask?"
What more, indeed? With the rain beating down upon your unsheltered heads, and the torrents threatening to ingulf you; faint with journeyings; anhungered often; weak with fastings; pallid with prayer,—what morecanyou ask in the same line? say I.
Père Fidelis coughed a little, and was somewhat feverish. I could see that his life was not elastic: his strength was even then failing him.
"Père Amabilis is an artisan: he built this house, and it is small enough; but some day he will build a house for me but six feet long andsobroad," said Père Fidelis, shrugging his shoulders; whereat Père Amabilis, who looked like a German student with his long hair and spectacles, turned aside to wipe the moisture from the lenses, and said nothing, but laid his hand significantly upon the shoulder of his friend, as if imploring silence. Alas for him when those lips are silent forever!
I wondered if they had no recreation.
"O yes. The poor pictures at the Chapel of the Palms are ours, but we have not studied art. And then we are sometimes summoned to the farther side of the island, where we meet new faces. It is a great change."
For a year before the arrival of Père Amabilis, who was not sooner able to follow his friend, Père Fidelis was accustomed to go once a month to a confessional many miles away. That his absence might be as brief as possible, he was obliged to travel night and day. Sometimes he would reach the house of his confessor at midnight, when all were sleeping: thereupon would follow this singular colloquy in true native fashion. A rap at the door at midnight, the confessor waking from his sleep.
Confessor."Who's there?"
Père Fidelis."It is I!"
Conf."Who is I?"
Père F."Fidelis!"
Conf."Fidelis who?"
Père F."Fidelis kahuna pule!" (Fidelis the priest.)
Conf."Aweh!" (An expression of the greatest surprise.) "Entre, Fidelis kahuna pule."
Then he would rise, and the communion that followed must have been most cheering to both, formon pèreeven now is merry when he recalls it.
These pilgrimages are at an end, for the two priests confess to one another: conceive of the fellowship that hides away no secret, however mortifying!
The whole population must have been long asleep before we thought of retiring that night, and then arose an argument concerning the fittestoccupant of the solitary bed. It fell to me, for both were against me, and each was my superior. When I protested, they held up their fingers and said, "Remember, we are your fathers and must be obeyed." Thus I was driven to the bed, while mine hosts lay on the bare floor with saddles for pillows.
It was this self-sacrificing hospitality that hastened my departure. I felt earth could offer me no nobler fellowship,—that all acts to come, however gracious, would bear a tinge of selfishness in comparison with the reception I had met where least expected.
I am thankful that I had not the heart to sleep well, for I think I could never have forgiven myself had I done so. When I woke in the early part of the night, I saw the young priests bowed over their breviaries, for I had delayed the accustomed offices of devotion, and they were fulfilling them in peace at last, having me so well bestowed that it was utterly impossible to do aught else for my entertainment.
Once more the morning came. I woke to find Père Amabilis at work, hammer in hand, sending his nails home with accurate strokes that spoke well for his trained muscle. Père Fidelis was concocting coffee and directing the volunteer cooks, who were seeking to surpass themselves upon this last meal we were to take together. In an hourmon pèrewas to start for the Chapel of the Palms,while I wended my way onward through a new country, bearing with me the consoling memory of my precious friends. I can forgive a slight and forget the person who slights me, but little kindnesses probe me to the quick. I wonder why the twin fathers were so very careful of me that morning? They could not do enough to satisfy themselves, and that made me miserable; they stabbed me with tender words, and tried to be cheerful with such evident effort that I couldn't eat half my breakfast, though, as it was, I ate more than they did—God forgive me!—and altogether it was a solemn and a memorable meal.
A group of natives gathered about us seated upon the floor; it was impossible for Père Fidelis to move without being stroked by the affectionate creatures who deplored his departure. Père Amabilis insisted upon adjusting our saddles, during which ceremony he slyly hid a morsel of cold fowl in our saddle-bags.
That parting was as cruel as death. We shall probably never see one another again; if we do, we shall be older and more practical and more worldly, and the exquisite confidence we have in one another will have grown blunt with time. I felt it then as I know it now,—our brief idyl can never be lived over in this life.
Well, we departed: the corners of our blessed triangle were spread frightfully. Père Fidelis was paler than ever; he caught his breath as thoughthere wasn't much of it, and the little there was wouldn't last long; Père Amabilis wiped his spectacles and looked utterly forsaken; the natives stood about in awkward, silent groups, coming forward, one by one, to shake hands, and then falling back like so many automatons. Somehow, genuine grief is never graceful: it forgets to pose itself; its muscles are perfectly slack and unreliable.
The sea looked gray and forbidding as it shook its shaggy breakers under the cliff: life was dismal enough. The animals were unusually wayward, and once or twice I paused in despair under the prickly sunshine, half inclined to go back and begin over again, hoping to renew the past; but just then Hoké felt like staggering onward, and I began to realize that there are some brief, perfect experiences in life that pass from us like a dream, and this was one of them.
In the proem to this idyl I seem to see two shadowy figures passing up and down over a lonesome land. Fever and famine do not stay them: the elements alone have power to check their pilgrimage. Their advent is hailed with joyful bells: tears fall when they depart. Their paths are peace. Fearlessly they battle with contagion, and are at hand to close the pestilential lips of unclean death. They have lifted my soul above things earthly, and held it secure for a moment. From beyond the waters my heart returns tothem. Again at twilight, over the still sea, floats the sweet Angelus; again I approach the chapel falling to slow decay: there are fresh mounds in the churchyard, and the voice of wailing is heard for a passing soul. By and by, if there is work to do, it shall be done, and the hands shall be folded, for the young apostles will have followed in the silent footsteps of their flock. Here endeth the lesson of the Chapel of the Palms.