Part 18 (1/2)
There was an intense note of appeal in the girl's voice, such a note as would have touched the heart of the vilest of men, but Macka never moved a muscle. He had stolen so many girls, men and youths, watched their tears, heard their heartrending appeals, and thrown their bodies over the vessel's side when they had died of terror and malaria down in the stinking, hot-fevered hold, that it seemed nothing awful to him to see a girl kneel before him and weep.
He was overjoyed that the girl was awake. He had quite thought that she had been doped too much and that there was a possibility of her never recovering sensibility again. As she stood before him, with the oil lamp swinging to and fro to the heave and roll of the flying s.h.i.+p, Gabrielle's eyes, which had been agleam with fright, suddenly changed, and shone with a new strength. She had realised, with a woman's unerring instinct, the uselessness of appealing to the man before her. As she steadily returned his gaze, the dark man saw the courage of her father's race.
A cowed look leapt into his face. Even in that swift glance he had realised that all would not go as smoothly as he had antic.i.p.ated. To steal helpless Papuans, Samoans, Marquesans, Tahitian maids, to defile them, pitch them overboard when they were dead or dying, and amuse himself by revolver shots at the poor, floating, bobbing bodies was one thing; but to steal a white girl and defile her was quite another. That much he realised most forcibly, for before he could realise anything more than that Gabrielle had rushed out of the cabin and bolted.
She raced along the s.h.i.+p's rolling deck. She looked about her and called loudly in the dark, still hoping that one of the crew might be a white man. When she saw the fierce, mop-headed, dark-faced men rush out of the forecastle at hearing her terrified screams she almost collapsed in her despair. For one moment she stood still and gazed up at the bellying sails as they swayed along beneath the high moon. Nothing but the illimitable sky-lines gleamed around her. She heard the moan of the dark tossing ocean. She did not hesitate, not the slightest indecision preceded her act-splas.h.!.+ she had leapt overboard! It all happened in a few seconds. The Rajah and the mulatto mate at once gave orders for the crew to heave to and lower a boat. It seemed ages to the Rajah as the swarthy crew climbed slowly about like dusky ghosts, as though they had a century in which to fulfil his orders. At this moment the captain of the blackbirder (to give him his correct t.i.tle) revealed his solitary virtue; he could see the girl's struggling form in the dark waters astern. Not a sound came from the girl's lips, only the tossing white hands were visible on the moon-lit waters-then they vanished-she had gone! In a second he had pulled off his coat and boots and plunged into the sea. The men of his race could swim like fish, and dive too, for they took to the water before they could toddle. Even as it was, the Rajah had to dive twice before he could grip hold of Everard's daughter.
He had a tremendous struggle to get the girl back on board, for the sea was a bit heavy that night. When he did get her on deck the half-caste mate and the crew stared on her prostrate figure in astonishment. She had been kept from their sight till then.
Lying there on the hatchway, her white face turned towards the sky, she looked like some angel who had mysteriously fallen from heaven and lay dead before them. They were a superst.i.tious lot, and several of them began to moan some heathen death chant. Even the Rajah was strangely influenced at seeing that pallid face, the drenched, dishevelled hair, the curved, pale lips. The bluish tropical moonlight bathed her form like a wonderful halo. He looked at the watching crew, a fierce light in his eyes. In a moment they had all gone, slinking away. ”Awaie!” he said to one who, bolder than the rest, looked back over his shoulder. And then, as the crew obeyed the mulatto mate's orders to get the vessel under way once more, the Rajah lifted Gabrielle's prostrate form and carrying her into the cuddy laid her down on the low saloon table.
Grabbing a decanter, he poured a small drop of spirit between her lips.
Then he closed the door so softly that only the sudden disappearance of the stream of light on the deck from the lamp inside told that the door _had_ been closed.
They were alone, he and she-the frail, helpless girl in the vile power of pa.s.sion and hypocrisy. For a second the Papuan Rajah gazed around the saloon. Even he was startled by the look on the swarthy face that gazed back on him from the long mirror-his own reflection. Stooping over the rec.u.mbent form, he gently rubbed her hands. They were cold and very limp. He began to think that it was too late, that she was dead. Gently pulling the wet bodice open, he slowly unfastened the blue strings of her underclothing. He gazed in silence on the curves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which were faintly revealed to his eyes by the dim, swaying oil lamp.
That fragile whiteness seemed to appeal even to him; the mute lips, the closed eyelids, the helpless att.i.tude paralysed the dark cruelty of his natural self. And it is only, we must think, because G.o.d made all men, be they black or white, that he was loyal to the great trust that the irony of inscrutable Fate had placed in his hands-he of all men on earth.
The seas were beating against the vessel's side as she lay there. The vessel pitched and rolled as once more it started on its course, and as it rolled the girl's rec.u.mbent form moved and swayed to the lurch of the table. Her drenched bronze-gold hair fell in a ma.s.s to the cuddy floor, the brown-stockinged ankles fully revealed through the disarrangement of the soaking skirt.
Could anyone have peeped from the deck through the cuddy port-hole they would have seen the Rajah bending over the helpless girl. A strange fire flashed in his eyes as he gazed and gazed and gently rubbed where her heart lay. The gleam in his eyes died away, but still he watched, waiting anxiously. His face was set and wild looking. ”Ar-a va loo!”
(”She's gone!”) he muttered. He tried to feel the pulse of the wrist, but he dropped it with a sigh. At last it came! His hand visibly trembled as he lifted her arms up and gently spread them away from her body. Then he put his ear to her heart and listened-there was a sound like a tiny echo coming from the remotest distance. Throb! throb! it came-Gabrielle's soul was hovering between heaven and earth-in more senses than one. Then the throb ceased as though for an eternity of time, but once more it came-throb! throb! throb! And before the Rajah was prepared for it Gabrielle's eyes were staring at him!
Instinctually the girl's helpless fingers half clutched the wet fringe of her loosened bodice. And, strange as it may seem, the heathen Papuan even _helped_ her cold fingers to close the delicate folds.
The instinctive action of the girl told him more of her true character than a thousand dissertations on racial codes, morals and inherent virtue could have done. In a flash he had realised that if he wanted to gain her respect it had to be gained by astute cunning based on strict emotional principles. Recovering his embarra.s.sment, he rolled his eyes and blinked-which is the equivalent of a blush in New Guinea folk. He was really pleased to see that she was recovering. Immediately flinging himself on his knees, he sobbed out: ”Oh Gabriel-ar-le, Marsoo cowan, nicer beauty voumna!” In his excitement he had lapsed into execrable pidgin-English. He heard her sigh. He fondled her hand. ”'Tis I who saved you,” he murmured. He fancied that he was a hero. In his perverted ignorance he saw Gabrielle no longer a kidnapped girl on his s.h.i.+p, but a maiden whom he had saved from the cruel seas. He was bold enough to press her hand to his lips.
Gabrielle watched him. She was terribly ill, too dazed to protest. She was alone on the seas with this man and what could she do? Her final response to his miserable hypocrisy was to burst into a violent fit of weeping.
For three or four days she was quite unable to move. It was only through the careful nursing of the Malayan cabin-boy, a frizzly headed, bright-eyed little fellow, that she was at last encouraged to take food.
He was a child, and so he appealed to Gabrielle. The very innocence of his eyes as he stared in delightful curiosity at her golden hair and white arms when he crept in with the food to her bunk cheered her as much as she _could_ be cheered under such circ.u.mstances.
Sometimes she would lie there helpless and think that she was mad, strange fancies floating through her brain. And sometimes Macka would step softly into the dingy saloon and play on the melancholy organ that he had once used in his tribal mission-rooms. His voice would tremble with pa.s.sionate appeal and subtle seductiveness as he breathed forth Malayan melodies that haunted Gabrielle's ears. Those melodies had a terrible influence over the girl, and one night when the vessel was rolling wildly, being buffeted along before a typhoon, the girl screamed out from her bunk: ”Stop! Stop! I'll go mad if you sing that strange thing again!”
Then the Rajah ceased as obediently as a scolded child and softly crept away. He knew the potent magic of those heathen Malayan melodies! He knew! He knew! And when he had pa.s.sed out on to the vessel's deck Gabrielle called out: ”Tombo! Tombo!” In a moment the little Papuan boy rushed into her cabin.
”Whater you wanter? Whater matter, nicer vovams?”
”Tombo, what's that shadow-thing that runs about the deck at night? I saw it through the port-hole last night.” Then she said: ”And I heard faint cries, wails. What was it? What does it all mean, Tombo?”
Tombo made no reply with his lips, but he softly nestled up against the girl and looked up into her eyes with terrible earnestness. Then he shook his head and said: ”I looker after you, Misser Gaberlelle.”
Suddenly the boy rushed from the girl's side and out of the cuddy in fright.
Gabrielle listened and heard a scream: the Rajah had called the boy and, meeting him on the deck, had kicked him. The Papuan skipper had noticed that the kid was a bit too communicative with his kidnapped prisoner.
Possibly he thought that the boy might let out the truth about the s.h.i.+p and give Gabrielle some hint as to why it sailed by night with all lights out, as it tacked on its course far off the beaten track of trading s.h.i.+ps.
It was quite a week before Gabrielle ventured out of the small cuddy's berth and entered the saloon. Even when she did so she was apparently so weak that she was obliged to secure the a.s.sistance of little Tombo, who held her hand as she wandered about. The Rajah immediately began his sinuous overtures and muttered violent protestations of love into her ears. At times the Papuan could hardly conceal his temper when the girl persistently pestered him with questions, asking him where the _Bird of Paradise_ was bound for.
”You noa worry. You are all right. I take you across the seas and some days you go back to your peoples-when you lover me!” he would say, as he gave a look of deep meaning that the girl persistently pretended not to understand. He would not allow her to walk out on deck unless he were close by. His hungry eyes seemed ever on the alert. Probably he had a fixed idea in his brain that the girl would make another attempt to take her life. And still he swore most earnestly by the virtue of the Christian apostles that he had only kidnapped her from her father's homestead because of his overpowering love for her.
”You know not what men of my race love like, what we would do for a white girl such as you, Gabri-ar-le,” he muttered, as he glanced sideways at her.
Gabrielle saw the look in those flas.h.i.+ng eyes of his. She trembled as she realised how completely she was in his power, and how once she had been fascinated by his voice and his handsome mien. Even then, at times, she half believed that he had repented the wrong he had done her. And the girl was hardly to blame for her credulity, for he never tired of pouring his flamboyant rhetoric in Malayan _vers libre_ into her ears.