Summer Cruising in the South Seas Part 4

What was the story of his fate? That he came safely home, rejoicing in his natural freedom; that he could not express his delight at finding home so pleasant; that his days were spent in telling of the wonderful things he had seen: more sects than the G.o.ds of the South Seas; more doubters than believers; contradictions, and insults, and suspicions everywhere. They laughed again, when they thought of us, and pitied us all the while.

But his exhilaration wore off, after a time. Then came the reaction. A restlessness; an undefined, unsatisfied longing. Life became a burden.

The seed of dissension had fallen in fresh and fallow soil: it was a souvenir of his sojourn among us. He, the child of Nature, must now follow out the artificial and hollow life of the world, or die unsatisfied; for he could not return to his original sphere of trust and contentment. He had learned to doubt all things, as naturally as any of us.

For days he moaned in spirit, and was troubled; nothing consoled him; his soul was broken of its rest; he grew desperate and melancholy.

I believe he was distracted with the problem of society, and I cannot wonder at it. One day, when his condition had become no longer endurable, he stole off to sea in his canoe, thinking, perhaps, that he could reach this continent, or some other; possibly hoping never again to meet human faces, for he could not trust them.

It was his heroic exit from a life that no longer interested him. Great was the astonishment of the islanders, who looked upon him as one possessed of the Evil Spirit, and special sacrifices were offered in his behalf; but the G.o.ds were inexorable; and, after several days upon the solitary sea, a shadow, a mote, drifted toward the valley,--a canoe, with a famis.h.i.+ng and delirious voyager, that was presently tossed and broken in the surges; then, a dark body glistened for a moment, wet with spray, and sank for ever, while the s.h.i.+ning coral reef was stained with the blood of the first-born.

I heard it all in the desolate wail of the mother, yet could not weep; my eyes burned like fire.

Little Niga came for me presently, and led me into the great grove of _kamane_-trees, up the valley. He insisted upon holding me by the hand: it was all he could do to comfort me, and he did that with his whole soul.

In silence we pressed on to one of the largest of the trees. I recognized it at once. Niga and I, one day, went thither, and I cut a name upon the soft bark of the tree.

When we reached it we paused. Niga pointed with his finger; I looked. It was there yet,--a simple name, carved in the rudest fas.h.i.+on. I read the letters, which had since become an epitaph. They were these:--

"KaNA-ANa, _aet. 16 yrs._"

Under them were three initials,--my own,--cut by the hand of Kana-ana, after his return from America.

We sat down in the gloomy grove. "Tell me," I said, "tell me, Niga, where has his spirit gone?"

"He is here, now," said Niga; "he can see us. Perhaps, some day, we shall see him."

"You have more faith than our philosophers, for they have reasoned themselves out of everything. Would you like to be a philosopher, Niga?"

I asked.

Niga thought, if they were going to die, body and soul, that he wouldn't like to be anything of the sort, and that he had rather be a first-cla.s.s savage than a fourth-rate Christian, any day.

I interrupted him at this alarming a.s.sertion. "The philosophers would call your faith a superst.i.tion, Niga; they do not realize that there is no true faith unmixed with superst.i.tion, since faith implies a belief in something unseen, and is, therefore, itself a superst.i.tion. Blessed is the man who believes blindly,--call it what you please,--for peace shall dwell in his soul. But, Niga," I continued, "where is G.o.d?"

"Here, and here, and here," said Niga, pointing me to a grotesque carving in the sacred grove, to a monument upon the distant precipice, and to a heap of rocks in the sea; and the smile of recognition with which the little votary greeted his idols was a solemn proof of his sincerity.

"Niga," I said, "we call you and your kind heathens. It is a harmless anathema, which cannot, in the least, affect you personally. Ask us if we love G.o.d! Of course we do. Do we love Him above all things, animate or inanimate? Undoubtedly! Undoubtedly is easily said, and let us give ourselves credit for some honesty. We believe that we do love G.o.d above all; that we have no other G.o.ds before Him; yet, who of us will give up wealth, home, friends, and follow Him? Not one! The G.o.d we love is a very vague, invisible, forbearing essence. He can afford to be lenient with us while we are debating whether our neighbour is serving Him in the right fas.h.i.+on, or not. We'd rather not have other G.o.ds before Him: one is as many as we find it convenient to serve. The lover kisses pa.s.sionately a miniature. It is not, however, an image of his Creator, nor any memorial of his Redeemer's pa.s.sion, but only a portrait of his mistress. Do you blame us, Niga? It is the strongest instinct of our nature to wors.h.i.+p something. Man is a born idolater, and not one of us is exempted by reason of any scruples under the sun. You see it daily and hourly: each one has his idols."

Little Niga, who sympathized deeply with me, seemed to have gotten some knowledge of our peculiarly mixed theories concerning G.o.d and the future state, from conversations overheard after the return of Kana-ana. He tried to console me with the a.s.surance that Kana-ana died a devoted and unshaken adherent to the faith of his fathers.

I couldn't but feel that his blood was off my hands when I learned this; and I believe I gave Niga a regular hug in that moment of joy.

Then we walked here and there, through the valley, and visited the old haunts, made memorable by many incidents in that romantic and chivalrous life of the South. Every one we met had some word to add concerning the Pride of the Valley, dead in his glorious youth.

Over and over, they a.s.sured me of his fidelity to me, his white brother, adding that Kana-ana had, more than once, expressed the deepest regret at not having brought me back with him.

He even meditated sending for me, in the same manner that I had sent for him; and, if he had done so, it was his purpose to see that I was at once made familiar with their Articles of Faith; for he antic.i.p.ated a willing convert in me, and it was the desire of his heart that I should know that perfect trust, peculiar to his people, and which is begotten of the brief gospel, so often quoted out of place: namely, that "seeing is believing."

It was a kind thought of his, and I wish he had carried it into execution, for then he might have lived. It was his susceptible nature that had come in contact with the great world, and received its death-wound. Had I been there to help him, I would have planned something to divert his mind until he had recovered himself, and was willing to submit to the monotony of life over yonder. Had he not done as much for me? Had he not striven, day after day, to charm me with his barbarism, and come very near to success? I should say he had. Dear little martyr! was he not the only boy I ever truly loved,--dead now in his blossoming prime!

O Kana-ana! Little Niga and I sat talking of you, down by the sea, and we wept for you at last; for the tears came by-and-by, when I began to fully realize the greatness of my loss. All your youth, and beauty, and freshness, in destruction, and your body swallowed up in the graves of the sea!

The meridian sun blazed overhead, but it made little difference to us.

Afternoon pa.s.sed, and evening was coming on almost unheeded; for our thoughts were buried with him, under the waves, and life was nothing to us, then.

I no longer cared to observe the lights and shadows on the cliffs, nor the poppy nodding in the wind, nor the seaward prospect: that was spoiled by our vessel,--the seclusion was broken in upon. I cared for nothing any longer, for I missed everywhere his step, patient and faithful as a dog's, and his marvellous face, that could look steadily at the sun without winking, and deluge itself with laughter all the while, for there was nothing hidden or corrupting in it.

Presently I returned into the sacred grove, touching the three letters he had carved there, and calling on his spirit to regard me as respecting his dumb idols, which were nothing but the representatives of his jealous G.o.ds,--dear to him as the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and the s.h.i.+ning summits of Calvary to us. Then down I ran to the bathing-pools, and from place to place I wandered in a hurried and nervous tour, for it was growing dark. I saw the s.h.i.+p's lights flickering over the water, while the first cool whispers of the night-wind came down from the hills, filling me with warnings; in the midst of which there was a flash of flame and a sudden, thunderous report,--enough to awaken the dead of the valley,--and I turned to go. I believe, if dear Kana-ana had been there, as I prayed he might be, I should have laughed at that signal, and hastened inland to avoid discovery; for I was sick of the world. I might have had reason to regret it afterward, because friends.h.i.+p is not elastic, and the best of friends cannot long submit to being bored by the best of fellows.

Perhaps it was just as it should be: I had no time to consider the matter there. I hurried to his mother, and she clung to me; others came about me, and laid hold of me: so that I feared I should be held captive until it was too late to board the vessel. Her sails were even then shaking in the wind; and I heard the faint click of the capstan tugging at the anchor-chains.

With a quick impulse I broke away from them, and ran to the beach, where Niga and I entered his canoe, and slid off from the sloping sands. Down we drifted toward the open sea, while the natives renewed their wailing, and I was half crazed with sorrow. It is impossible to resist the persuasive eloquence of their chants. Think, then, with what a troubled spirit I heard them, as we floated on between the calm stars in the heavens and the whirling stars in the sea.

We went out to the s.h.i.+p's side, and little Niga was as noisy as any of them when I pressed upon him a practical memorial of my visit; and away he drifted into the night, with his boyish babble pitched high and shrill: and the Present speedily became the Past, and grew old in a moment.

Then I looked for the last time upon that faint and cloudy picture, and seemed almost to see the spirit of the departed beckoning to me with waving arms and imploring looks; and I longed for him with the old longing, that will never release me from my willing bondage. I blessed him in his new life, and I rejoiced with exceeding great joy that he was freed at last from the tyranny of life,--released from the unsolvable riddles of the ages. The night-wind was laden with music, and sweet with the odours of ginger and ca.s.sia; the spume of the reef was pale as the milk of the cocoanuts, and the blazing embers on sh.o.r.e glowed like old sacrificial fires.

Then I head a voice crying out of the shadow,--an ancient and eloquent voice,--saying: "Behold my fated race! Our days are numbered. Long have we feasted in the rich presence of a revealed deity. We sat in ashes under the mute G.o.ds of Baal; we fled before the wrath of Moloch, the destroyer; we were as mighty as the four winds of heaven: but the profane hand of the Iconoclast has desecrated our temples, and humbled our majesty in the dust. O impious breakers of idols! why will ye put your new wines into these old bottles, that were shaped for spring waters only, and not for wine at all! Lo! ye have broken them, and the wine is wasted. Be satisfied, and depart!"

So that spirit of air sang the death-song of his tribe, and the sad music of his voice rang over the waters like a lullaby.

Then I heard no more, and I said, "My asylum is the great world; my refuge is in oblivion;" and I turned my face seaward, never again to dream fondly of my island home; never again to know it as I have known it; never again to look upon its serene and melancholy beauty: for the soul of the beloved is transmitted to the vales of rest, and his ashes are sown in the watery furrows of the deep sea!

TABOO.--A FeTE-DAY IN TAHITI.

It was on one of those vagabond pilgrimages to nowhere in particular, such as every stranger is bound to make in a strange land, that I first stumbled upon my royal Jester, better known in Tahiti as Taboo.

Great Jove! what a night it was! A wild ravine full of banyan and panda.n.u.s trees, and of parasite climbers, and the thousand nameless leafing and blossoming creatures that intermarry to such an alarming extent in the free-loving tropics, had tempted me to pasture there for a little while. I was wandering on among roots and trailing branches, and under ropes upon ropes of flowers that seemed to swing suddenly across my path on purpose to keep me from finding too easily the secret heart of the mountain. I felt it was right that I should be made to realize how sacred a spot that sanctuary of Nature was, but I fretted somewhat at the persistency of those speechless sentinels who guarded its outer door so faithfully. There was a waterfall within that I had prayed to see,--one of those mysterious waterfalls that descend noiselessly from the bosom of a cloud, stealing over cus.h.i.+ons of moss, like a ray of light in a dream, or something else equally intangible.

You never find this sort of waterfall in the common way. No one can exactly point it out to you; but you must search for it yourself, and listen for its voice,--and usually listen in vain,--till, suddenly, you come upon it in a moment, almost as if by accident; and its whole quivering length glitters and glistens with jewels, where it hangs, like a necklace, on the bosom of a great cliff. It is the only visible chain that binds earth to heaven; and no wonder you gaze at it with questioning eyes!

Well, while I was looking about me, expecting every moment to feel the damp breath of the waterfall upon my forehead, night came down. Where was I? In the midst of a pathless forest; between cliffs whose sleek, mossy walls were so steep as to forbid even the goat's sharp hoof. Down the hollow of the ravine, among round, slippery rocks, and between trellises of giant roots, tumbled a mountain torrent. No human form visible, probably none to be looked for on that side of the inaccessible dome of the mountain; yet fearlessly I toiled on, knowing that food and shelter were on every side, and that no hand, whose clasp was as fervent as the clasp of the vine itself, would be raised against me; and, thank Heaven! outsiders were scarce.

In the midst of the narrowing chasm, with the night thickening, and the wood growing more and more objectionable, I heard a sound as of stumbling feet before me. My first thought was of _colour_! I would scarcely trust a white man in that predicament. What well-disposed White would be prowling, like a wild animal, alone in a forest at night? It occurred to me that I was white, or had pa.s.sed as such; but I know and have always known that, inwardly, I am purple-blooded, and stipple-limbed, and invisibly tattooed after the manner of my lost tribe! I was startled at the sound, and slackened my pace to listen: the footsteps paused with mine. I plunged forward, accusing the echoes of playing me false. Again the mysterious one rushed awkwardly on before me, with footfalls that were not like mine, nor like any that I could trace: they were neither brute nor human, but fell clumsily among the roots and stones, out of time with me; therefore, no echo, and beyond my reckoning entirely.

At this hour the moon, of a favourable size, looked over the cliff, flooding the chasm with her soft light. I rejoiced at it, and hoped for a revelation of the Unknown, whose tottering steps had mocked mine for half an hour.

Here we were in a forest of bread-fruit trees. Scarcely a ray of light penetrated their thick-woven branches; but, against the faint light of the open distance, I marked the weird outline of one who might once have been human, but was no longer a tolerable image of his Maker. The figure was like the opposite halves of two men bodily joined together in an amateur attempt at human grafting. The trunk was curved the wrong way; a great shoulder bullied a little shoulder, and kept it decidedly under; a long leg walked right around a short leg that was perpetually sitting itself down on invisible seats, or swinging itself for the mere pleasure of it. One arm clutched a ten-foot bamboo about three inches in diameter, and wielded it as though it were a bishop's crook, and something to be proud of; the other arm--it must have belonged to a child when it stopped growing--was hooked up over one ear, looking as though it had been badly wired by some medical student, and was worn as a lasting reproach to him. A s.h.a.ggy head was set on the down-slope of the big shoulder, and seemed to be continually looking over the little shoulder and under the little arm for some one always expected, but who was very long in coming.

Upon this startling discovery I turned to flee, but the figure immediately followed. It was evidently too late to escape an interview, and, taking heart, I walked toward it, when, to my amazement, it hastily staggered away from me, looking always over its shoulder, quickening its pace with mine, slackening its speed with me, and keeping, or seeking to keep, within a certain distance of me all the while. My curiosity was excited, and, as I saw it bore me no ill-will, I made a quick plunge forward, hoping to capture it. With an energetic effort it strove to escape me; but, with the head turned the wrong way, it stumbled blindly into a bit of jungle, where it lay whining piteously. I a.s.sisted it to its feet, with what caution and tenderness I could, and, finding it still wary, walked on slowly, leading the way to the edge of the grove, where the moonlight was almost as radiant as the dawn. It followed me like a dog, and was evidently grateful for my company. I walked slowly that it might not stumble, and, as we emerged from the shadow of the bread-fruits, I manoeuvered so as to bring its face toward the moonlight, and I saw--a hideous visage, with all its features sliding to one corner; and nothing but the two soft, sleepy-looking eyes saved me from yielding to the disgust that its whole presence awakened. As it was, I involuntarily started back with a shudder, and a slight exclamation that attracted its attention. "Taboo! Taboo!" moaned the poor creature, half in introduction, half in apology and explanation.

He was well named the "forbidden one": set apart from all his fellows; incapable of utterance; maimed in body; an outcast among his own people; homeless, yet at home everywhere; friendless, though welcomed by all for his entertaining and ludicrous simplicity; feeding, like the birds, from Nature's lap, and, like the birds, left to the winds and waters for companions.h.i.+p.

Somehow I felt that Taboo could lead me at once to the waterfall; and I tried to seek out the small door to his brain, and impress him with my anxiety to reach the place. O, what darkness was there, and what doubts and fears seemed to cloud the hidden portals of his soul! He made an uncouth noise for me. Perhaps he meant it as music: it was frightful to hear it up there in the mountain solitudes. He got me fruits and a little water in the palm of his hand, which he expected me to drink with a relish. He lay down at my feet in a broken heap of limbs, crooning complacently. He was playful and thoughtful alternately; at least, he lost himself in long silences from time to time, while his eyes glowed with a deep inward light, that almost made me hope to startle his reason from its dreadful sleep; but a single word broke the spell, and set him to laughing as though he would go all to pieces; and his joy was more pitiful than his sorrow.

In one of his silent moods he suddenly staggered to his feet, and shambled into a narrow trail to one side of the gorge. I wondered at his unexpected impulse, and feared that he had grown tired of me already, preferring the society of his feathered comrades, a few of whom sounded their challenge-note, that soared like silver arrows in the profound stillness of the ravine. It seemed not, however: in a few moments he returned, and signalled me with his expressive grunt, and I followed him. Through thickets of fern, arching high over our heads, down spongy dells, and over rims of rock jutting from the base of the mountain, Taboo and I clambered in the warm moonlight. Anon we came upon a barricade of bamboos, growing like pickets set one against another. I know not how broad the thicket might have been,--possibly as broad as the ravine itself,--but into the thick of it Taboo edged himself; and close upon his heels I followed. In a few moments we had crushed our way through the midst of the bamboos, that clashed together after us so that a bird might not have tracked us, and lo! a crystal pool in the heart of a wonderful garden; and to it, silently, from heaven itself descended that mysterious waterfall, whose actual existence I had seriously begun to question. It lay close against the breast of the mountain, strangely pale in the full glow of the moon, while, like a vein of fire, it seemed to throb from end to end; or like a s.h.i.+ning thread with great pearls slipping slowly down its full length, taking the faint hues of the rainbow as they fell, playing at prisms, until my eyes, weary of watching, closed of their own accord. I sank down by Taboo, who was sleeping soundly in the hollow of a great tree; and the one cover for both of us was the impenetrable shadow that is never lifted from that silent sanctuary of the Most High.