GABRIELLE OF THE LAGOON.
by A. Safroni-Middleton.
PROLOGUE
Though it was night and there was no moon, a dim, weird light lay over the isle and pierced to the depths of the forests. It was in the Solomons, where the dark, picturesque surroundings of palm and reef, the noise of the distant surfs, made a suitable setting for anything unexpected. Even the silver sea-birds had weird, startled-looking eyes down Felisi beach way. And when the wild brown men crept away from the grave-side of one whom they had just buried in the forest, the winds sighed a fitting music across the primeval heights. But there was nothing strange in that; men must die wherever one goes, and it was a common enough occurrence in that heathen land where the ocean boomed on the one side and inland to the south-west stood the mountains, looking like mighty monuments erected in memory of the first dark ages. Across the skies of Bougainville the stars had been marshalled in the millions.
It seemed a veritable heathen faeryland as the night echoed a hollow "_Tarabab!_" But even that heathenish word was only the tribal chief"s yell as he stood under the palms conducting the semi-religious tambu ceremony. The tawny maidens and high chiefs, with their feather head-dresses, all in full festival costume, were squatting in front of the secret tambu stage, some mumbling prayer, others beating their hands together as an accompaniment. And still the dusky tambu dancer moved her perfect limbs rhythmically to the rustling of her sarong-like attire, swaying first to the right then to the left as she chanted to the wailings of the bamboo fifes and bone flutes. The orchestral-like moan of the huge bread-fruits, as odorous drifts of hot wind swept in from the tropic seas, seemed to murmur in complete sympathy with the pretty dancer. One might easily have concluded that Oom Pa, the aged high priest, was the "star turn" of the evening as he stood there enjoying his thoughts and performing magnificently on the monster tribal drum.
There was something fascinating and super-primitive about the whole scene. The very scents from decaying forest frangipani and hibiscus blossoms seemed to drift out of the damp gloom of the dark ages. The presence of civilisation in any form seemed the remotest of possibilities. Even the fore-and-aft schooner, with yellowish, hanging canvas sails, lying at anchor just beyond the sh.o.r.e lagoons, looked like some strange-rigged craft that sailed mysterious seas.
But as the a.s.sembled tribe once again wildly clamoured for the next dancer to come forward and exhibit her charms, a murmur of surprise rose from the back rows of stalwart, tattooed chiefs-a white girl suddenly ran out of the forest and jumped on to the tambu stage!
One aged chiefess who was busy mumbling her prayers looked up and gave a frightened scream. Even the aged philosophical head-hunter Ra-mai, who had one hundred and eighty skulls hanging to his credit in his palavana hard by, gave a mellow grunt, so great was his surprise. A white girl, lips red as coral, hair like the sunset"s gold, standing by his old _pae pae_! It was something that he had never dreamed of. The tawny maidens squatting beneath the coco-nut-oil-lamp-lit shades on the right of the b.u.t.tressed banyans, lifted their hands in astonishment. For a moment the white girl stood perfectly still. All eyes were upon her. She stared vacantly as though she were in a trance. Then she moved forward a few steps, her feet lightly touching the forest floor as if she were a visionary figure veiled in moonlight. Only the sudden renewal of the wild clamouring and guttural cries of "_O la Maramam tambu, papalaga!_"
("A white girl will dance before us!") seemed to rouse her to her senses, reminding her of the reason she had responded to the swelling chorus of tribal drums.
The barbarian musicians had begun to bang and blow on their flutes in an inspired way as they urged her to dance. Her sudden hesitation was very evident to every onlooker. And as she stood there by the monster tambu idol, its big gla.s.s eyes agog and wooden lips stretched in hideous laughter, she had a strange, unearthly beauty. The winds sighed in the palms; she wavered like a blown spirit-girl that had been suddenly swept out of the night of stars into the midst of those Pharaoh-like chiefs.
Some of those warriors watched with chin on hand, others stared upon her with burning eyes.
Those old chiefs and their women-kind had seen many strange sights and experienced many shocks since German, British, Malayan, Hindoo, Chinese and Dutch settlers had set foot on their sh.o.r.es; but still they were quite unprepared for the sight they witnessed that night. The handsome Malayo-Polynesian half-castes nudged their comrades in the ribs and murmured the native equivalent to "What-o!" To their delight, the white girl had mounted the _pae pae_ and had begun to dance and sing. The whole tribe watched and listened, spellbound. The haunting sweetness of the melody seemed to bring all ears under its influence. It was something in the way of song that those wild people had never heard before.
Only the pretty faded blue robe falling down to her brown-stockinged ankles and the long tortoise-sh.e.l.l comb stuck in the rich folds of her golden-bronze hair told of her mortal origin. And there was no mistaking the reality of that indisputable bang on the heathen bandmaster"s drum.
That dusky virtuoso was certainly inspired by human pa.s.sion.
Ra-mai, who was a kind of religious genius, dropped his festival calabash and rubbed his eyes, for the girl was swaying as though she were fastened on to the winds, her eyes wide open, staring upon him. The old priestly warrior swore, long after, that she was a spirit-maid whom he had loved a thousand years ago, and who had returned that night, as white as a deep-sea pearl, to show men how great a priest and warrior he really was. But he was a poetical old fellow and had a high opinion of himself where female beauty and frailty were concerned. But if there was an element of surprise over her sudden appearance before them, the astonishment of these natives was intensified by her dramatic exit from their midst. Just as the guttural cries of the chiefs and the weird monotones of the chanting tambu maidens had caught the _tempo_ of her dance, she gave a scream, stood perfectly still and stared on those wild men with a terrified look in her eyes. Then, before anyone could realise her intentions, she had leapt from the _pae pae_, had run away into the forest and vanished like a wraith!
The whole tribal a.s.semblage looked into each other"s eyes in astonishment. Such an exhibition of red betel-nut-stained teeth had never been seen in a midnight forest festival before, for they all stared open-mouthed.
"Tabaran [a spirit] from shadow-land!" said one.
"Not so. Didst see the light of vanity in her wondrous eyes as the young chiefs praised her beauty?" said another.
""Tis a white girl suddenly up-grown and full of fever for love," said an old chief with wise wrinkles on his brow. And then yet another said: "Had it been a full-moon sacred festival, "twould have been well to slay her for such boldness, the cursed papalagi!"
Then the festival broke up. And that night the handsome chiefs, and even the aged priests, tossed restlessly on their bed-mats as they lay in their village huts dreaming of a G.o.ddess-like creature who had flitted through their tambu ceremony like a dream.
CHAPTER I-ROMANCE"S FIRST THRILL
On the day following the tribal festival when the white girl had so astonished the heathen priests in the village called Ackra-Ackra a runaway ship"s apprentice emerged from his half-caste landlady"s wooden lodging-house. He was off for a stroll, for the tenth time or so, over the slopes that divided the banyan forests from the small township of Rokeville. He was stagnating and so had little else to do except to make the colour of the picturesque scenery harmonise with his meditations. He was a tall, handsome fellow, about twenty years of age. His bra.s.s-bound suit looked decidedly faded by the hot tropical sun, and the flannel collar of his only shirt had begun to look slightly grimy. All the same, he had that look of refinement which is inherited from good ancestors. A romantically inclined maid would have thought him extremely attractive.
A bronze-hued lock seemed to ooze from beneath the rim of his cheese-cutter cap, for when funds were low in distant lands, and scissors scarce on ships at sea, his hair grew quite curly. One of his eyes was a deep blue and the other a golden-brown. This eccentric combination of colour may have had something to do with the romantic adventures that fell to his lot through his leaving ship in Bougainville. It was quite three weeks since he had made a bolt from his full-rigged sailing-ship in the harbour, consequently his cash in hand had seriously diminished. He had already become terribly sane whilst pondering over the natural consequences of being cashless.
Hillary L--, for that was his name, hated plantation work and all muscular endeavours that did not contain some element of romance. But still, he had long since realised, through his many adversities at the end of long voyages, that wherever one goes one must toil for a living, however romantic the scenery may appear.
"Blasted wicked world this! Wish white men could dress like the natives and chew nourishing nuts for a living!" he murmured, as he thoughtfully saluted the German official who was leaning against a dead screw-pine, on the top of which blew the Double Eagle flag.
Hillary was no fool; he could always be polite at the right time and place. He"d been stranded, with fourpence-halfpenny or so in his possession, in about ten islands during the last twelve months, and he knew that if things got to the worst he could apply to the German consul for a free pa.s.sage to British New Guinea or to Samoa. Hence his politeness. He was British to the backbone, and as the Teutonic official murmured that it was a nice day Hillary nodded and then lifted a cloud of the finest coral-dust with his offside boot. He could hear the German spluttering and coughing in a fearful rage, wondering why the hot wind had suddenly lifted so much dust. Hillary"s contempt for anything in the German line was quite unaffected. The natives whispered: "Germhony mans nicer feller when he looker one way, but all-e-samee, he belonga debil mans."
The young apprentice was one of a type that commercially was not worth a tinker"s dam. If he were a party to any scheme connected with finance, one could safely predict that that scheme was predestined to complete failure. But in the imaginative world Hillary could be p.r.o.nounced a decided success.
It was the same wherever he went. The old sea-boots on the shelf of the seaport"s slop-shop danced a jig on some ship far at sea; the oilskins swelled to visionary limbs as sailormen opened their bearded mouths and climbed aloft, singing the chanteys that he could distinctly hear as he placed his ear to the shop"s dirty window!
The silk, blue-fringed chemise hanging on a nail by the oil lamp clung, as he gazed, to the limbs of some laughing girl; fingers travelling down the yellow keys of the second-hand piano mysteriously strummed out some melody that told of the briefness of life, youth and beauty. This poetical weakness was a veritable Old Man of the Sea on his back. But still, he was no fool, and, like most of his type, he could be strong where most men are weak.
As he turned round and looked on the desolate scene, and stared at the sunset out at sea, his face expressed an emotion that words cannot describe. The parrots rose in a glittering cloud as he stood their meditating, gazing on the small burial ground that he had suddenly stumbled across. It was where a few white men had been buried on the lonely beach-side, miles from the township. The crosses of coral stone were sunken very deep, the names nearly oblitered. "What a G.o.dforsaken, tragic place," he muttered as he read:
TO THE MEMORY OF BILL LARGO, BOATSWAIN DIED JUNE 3RD 1860
SPEARED BY HEAD-HUNTERS IN TRYING TO SAVE SHIP"S COOK-THIS STONE IS RAISED BY THE CREW OF THE S.S. "SALAMANDER" BOUND
FOR CALLAO
Everything seemed tragic in those parts. For as he wandered along the beach a voice startled him as a weird face suddenly poked out of the mangroves:
"Noice even"ng, matey?"
"Yes," responded the apprentice as he looked into the face of a sun-tanned remnant of a white man who stood by a fern-sheltered, thatched den. It was only old Adams, an ex-sailor, leading his Mormon-like existence. He was a kind of Solomon Island aristocrat of independent means. He was apparently attired in a wide-brimmed hat and beard only, for the climate is muggy in the Solomons. He _did_ wear thin cotton pants, but they were so drenched with perspiration that they clung to his legs like a skin. He borrowed a shilling from the apprentice, shot a stream of tobacco juice seaward, then entered his hut, but before slamming the door behind him he looked back and said: "I"d git back to me ship if I was you; the Kai-Kai chiefs are on the b--taboo lay round "ere, and they"d give their ears for that curly mop of yourn!" The door slammed. Once more Hillary was alone. As he walked away he could distinctly hear old Adams swearing at his four wives, who was apparently rushing round the hut looking for his clean shirt. They were dusky women, probably the daughters of tribal kings, and had given their birthrights to Adams so that they could be the wives of a n.o.ble papalagi. Such was the queer, mixed population of that solitary locality where the apprentice mooched along. And Rokeville, the sh.o.r.e township, was not much more dignified; but what it lacked socially was amply made up for by its Arabian-Nights-like atmosphere. Its one street, a silvery track made of coral dust, went winding down to the sh.o.r.e. And when the full moon peered over the ocean rim, touching with dim light the feathery palms that sheltered the tin roofs of the scattered coral-built houses, it looked like some staged faery town of a South Sea isle. Often by night some strange-rigged ship would hug the coast-line for hours while its crew of blackbirders crept ash.o.r.e and kidnapped native men and women from the villages. Before dawn that stealthy craft had sailed away, crammed up to the hatches with cheap labour for the plantations and heathen seraglios of nowhere. By day things looked as real as possible. There was nothing faery-like about Parsons" wooden grog shanty, that stood, sheltered by three tall palms, at the head of the township. Through its ever-open doorway by day and night pa.s.sed the German, Scandinavian, Norwegian and Yankee sh.e.l.l-backs, who drank strong rum at the bar, banged their fists and narrated their Homeric deeds.
That shanty was the commercial centre and stock exchange of Bougainville. It was haunted by about a dozen nondescript, aged Chinese, Dutch and j.a.panese seamen who wore pigtails, pointed beards or scraggy whiskers: on the brightest tropic day _they_ succeeded in adding a touch of romance to the sh.o.r.e landscape, for when rum was scarce they leant their ragged backs against the palm stems and looked like old figure-heads from Chinese junks and Spanish galleons stuck up on end, till they spoilt the picture by pulling their tangled beards as they spat seaward. They also drank rum and existed, apparently, by watching the white seahorses charge the purple-ridged line of coral reefs that made the natural pier of that seaside resort. Consequently the young apprentice preferred the wild scenery of the mahogany forests and the blue lagoons where the brown maids dived, to the mixed society of that delectable township. To him there was something fascinating, almost poetic, about the mahogany-hued Papuans and Polynesians. But his ideals quite saved him from falling in love with a brown maid. And it must be confessed that the Solomon Isles was not an Olympian locality, where dwelt cold, pa.s.sionless h.e.l.lenic beauties, and many a dusky Nausicaa and luring Circe had tempted bold sailormen to destruction by their songs and demonstrative exhibitions of their charms. But some of the maids were innocent enough, for as Hillary wandered by Felisi beach he caught sight of a tiny Polynesian baby girl. She was busy pulling wild flowers that grew amongst the thick tavu-gra.s.s. Her tiny body shone with a hue like a new Australian sovereign as sunset bathed her little figure with its hot light. Her alert, savage ears heard the apprentice"s footsteps in the scrub. Just for a moment her thick curls tossed and sparkled among the tall fern-gra.s.s as she sped away into the forest as though she quite expected a white man to shoot her at sight!
"I wonder what I"ll sight next; why, it"s like some fairy spot," Hillary murmured as he watched the child disappear. Then he climbed over the reefs till he came right opposite the sh.o.r.e islets, where the natives swore their G.o.ds danced under the stars.
At this spot there happened to be a wide lagoon, and on the still waters, just where the mighty banyans leaned over and made a delightful shade, floated a canoe. "The very thing!" Hillary exclaimed. In a moment he was paddling about on the lagoon in the small primitive craft.
Strange birds shrieked over his head, their crimson and blue wings flashing along as they resented his intrusion into their lovely solitude. Some had eyes like sparkling jewels and long, hanging coral-red legs and feet.
"What a bit of luck! I could paddle about here for ever!" was his comment as he swished the paddle, turned the prow of his canoe and went off full speed down the narrow creek-like pa.s.sage that led to the wider stretch of water inland. "It"s like being alone on an uninhabited island," he thought. Suddenly a hush came over the waters. Only the solitary "Kai koo-seeeek!" of a parakeet disturbed the silence. So still was the water of the lagoon that he seemed to float about on a mighty mirror. The huge b.u.t.tressed banyans reflected in the deep, clear water by the banks hung upside down, twisted shapes in an abyss of blue. He could even discern the flock of shrieking, sky-winging lories as their images went wheeling silently over the wooded heights, so clearly was the forest fringe reflected in the depths.
"Good Lord!" he gasped, as he stared on that shadow-world; and no wonder, for on the rim of the hanging cloud, high over the leaning trees of the reflected sky, sped an ornamental canoe! Its paddle was swiftly curling, like a fast-flying bird"s wing. He nearly upset his small craft, so great was his astonishment, for, looking towards the bend where the banyans hid the expanse of inland water from view, he saw that the reflected figure in the canoe was real.
It wasn"t the canoe but the paddler that made him exclaim. "It can"t be an apparition with those hibiscus blossoms stuck in her hair," he thought as he rubbed his eyes and stared again. The blue robe, open low at the neck, was the apprentice"s only excuse for his ridiculous idea in thinking that a beautiful princess of some unknown white race had suddenly appeared on the lagoon. She softly dipped her paddle and, shattering the blue sky and twisted boughs with one blow, came speeding towards him!
"Am I awake?" he muttered. She had waved her paddle, welcoming his presence as though she had known him for years. At first he hesitated, thinking that one word, one sign of recognition from him would make her vanish back into her native skies. But at length he too lifted his paddle and waved most enthusiastically!
As Hillary came closer he saw that there was sorrow in the girl"s blue eyes, as needs there must be, since Beauty is Sorrow"s legitimate child.
A far-off gleam shone in them and glinted in her hair, which tumbled down to the warm white curves of her neck and round to her throat.
It was the pretty _retrousse_ nose that looked so human.
Hillary took a deep breath and gazed again.
"Fancy meeting you here!" he said as in his embarra.s.sment he pulled his dirty kerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face to hide his confusion; then, remembering, he hastily replaced the rag-like kerchief in his pocket.
"Fancy meeting you!" said the girl as she gave a silvery peal of laughter.
The young apprentice"s heart began to thump. He stared into the girl"s eyes as though she had mesmerised him. A wild desire thrilled his soul as she leaned forward, still paddling softly as she returned his gaze.