Part 14 (1/2)
Here Kahele'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, const.i.tuted the furnishment of the quaint lodging. Kahele 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 c.o.c.k 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 gra.s.s; and then I went to my cell and folded my hands to rest, with a sense of blessed and unutterable peace.
THE CHAPEL OF THE PALMS.
Oh, the long suffering of him who threads a narrow trail over the brown crust of a hill where the short gra.s.s lies flat in tropical suns.h.i.+ne! On one side sleeps the blue, monotonous sea; on the other, crags clothe themselves in cool mist and look dreamy and solemn.
The boy Kahele, 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 Hoke 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-cus.h.i.+oned chasms, where an occasional stream silently distils. 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 sun-burnt gra.s.s under foot, the intangible dust that pervades the air, the rain-cloud in the distance, trailing its banners of c.r.a.pe in the sea as it bears down upon us,--these annoyed me somewhat, and make life a burden for the time being; so I spur my faithless Hoke up a new ascent as forbidding as any that we have yet come upon, and slowly and with many pauses creep to the summit.
Kahele, ”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, b.u.t.terflies, and blossoms, the sea fawning at the mouth of it, the clouds melting over it; waterfalls gus.h.i.+ng from numerous green corners; silver-white phaetons 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 Kahele 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 flavoured 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 gra.s.s from the upper roadside.
Is it far to the chapel, I wonder. Kahele 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 Pere Fidelis, at the foot of the cross, as one might say.
The rain ceases. Hoke once more nerves himself for fresh a.s.saults upon the everlasting hills. Kahele 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. I seem 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. Hoke saw it, and quickened his pace: he was not so great an a.s.s but he knew that there was provender in the green pastures of Pere 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 sh.o.r.e, rang the sweet Angelus. One may pray with some fervour 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 Hoke, 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 demeanour, 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 the arms of Pere Fidelis, feeling like one who has at least been permitted to kneel upon the threshold of his Mecca.
Why do our hearts sing _jubilate_ when 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 reverie, out of which I was summoned by _mon pere_, who hinted that I must be hungry. Prophetic father! hungry I was indeed.
_Mon pere_ led 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, fis.h.i.+ng: would I excuse him for a moment?”
Alone in the little house, with a gla.s.s 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 small clock 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 verandah shaded with a pa.s.sion-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. Kahele, having distributed the animals in good pasturage, lay on the verandah 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 reverie. Enter _mon pere_ with 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 gra.s.s; enter Kahele, lazily sniffing the savoury odours 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 towards 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 stalact.i.tes decorated it almost past recognition; the crickets sang l.u.s.tily at the doorway; the little natives grew sleepy and curled up on their mats in the corner; Kahele slept in his spurs like a born muleteer. And now a sudden conviction seized us that it was bedtime in very truth; so _mon pere_ led me to one of the cells, saying, ”Will you sleep in the room of Pere 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.