Part 19 (1/2)
Again she heard the heart-rending moans. Again the awful dragging silence came as the hatchway was lifted. ”Plomp! plomp! plomp! plomp!”
She knew then that four more victims had been cast into the deep. She strained her neck and put her head right out of the port-hole. She saw the dusk of the burning tropic seas and the stars as the vessel kept steadily on its course, leaving the floating bodies in its wake.
The next day the Rajah came into the dismal cuddy several times and spoke to her, but she shrank instinctively from his presence. He noticed her manner and wondered. The girl's uncongenial att.i.tude did not rhyme in with the plans he had so nicely mapped out. But determination was his great virtue. He made many attempts to ingratiate himself. ”Why you no liker me now?” he said, as he looked at her. She made no reply. In his excitement he mixed his language up so much that Gabrielle could hardly understand what he said. His mixture of pidgin-English and broken Biblical phrases made a kind of musical potpourri of exotic sensuousness that haunted the girl's ears, reviving vivid memories of her own people and at the same time reminding her how far away she was from their protection.
”Gabri-ar-le, allow me,” he murmured in his soft, insinuating voice, as he leaned forward and stuck a small red frangipani blossom in the folds of her hair. It was a bloom from the pots of flowers that swung to and fro from the cuddy ceiling.
Gabrielle looked steadily at the man. A strange gleam was in his eyes.
It was just after sunset. Already the eight members of the crew, who were devout sun-wors.h.i.+ppers, had lain p.r.o.ne on the forecastle deck and murmured their dolorous chants to the last gold and purple glow of the departed day.
The stars were s.h.i.+ning over the sea. It was almost calm. Every now and again came the m.u.f.fled drum-like sounds of the heavy canvas sails that bellied out to the breath of the sleepy night wind, flopped, and fell loosely as the halyards rattled and the s.h.i.+p rolled to the gla.s.sy swell.
The Rajah had sat down at the low table, right opposite Gabrielle. His turban was tilted rakishly on one side. As he looked sideways, glancing poetically towards the deck roof, his firm, handsome, curved throat was certainly shown to advantage. He looked like some Byronic corsair. There was no denying that he was a handsome man of his type. He leaned gently towards Gabrielle, one hand on chin, continuing to gaze as though in sorrowful reflection over his shortcomings and the white girl's sorrow resulting therefrom.
”Gabri-ar-le, I lover thee. You know not the ocean of my soul, how dark it is since your eyes should be the stars to s.h.i.+ne over its darkness.
Wilt love me a little, O white maiden?”
He still had his eyes fixed upon her in rapt admiration, eyes that moved up and down her form.
She looked beautiful indeed as she suddenly rose, stood there in the dim light, attired in her sarong-like bluish robe, the divided sleeves of which revealed her rounded arms. The broad scarlet sash, tied bow-wise at the left hip, fell negligently almost down to her ankle. A hot breath of sleepy wind crept through the cabin doorway, wafting the rich odours of exotic flowers that hung all along by the cuddy port-holes on the starboard side. The s.h.i.+p's black cat suddenly whipped across the saloon, looked up into its master's face with its yellow, burning orbs and then disappeared like a shadow.
Gabrielle trembled as she sought to answer the Rajah's questions. She could faintly hear the tinkle of the weird _zeirung_ as some dark man forward in the forecastle accompanied the mellow voice of someone who was singing a Malayan chantey.
”I felt that I liked you once, but I hate you now!” said Gabrielle impulsively. Then she added: ”How could you expect me to like such as you, after all you've done?”
The Rajah gave a grin.
”I want you to take me back to my people,” the girl almost sobbed. Then she rose and began stealthily to move away from his presence; she had noticed the flushed, half-wild expression on his handsome face. She saw the fixed look of resolve in his eyes.
He swiftly put forth his hand and, catching hold of her fingers firmly, softly forced her to sit down once more in front of him.
For a moment he looked at her as though he was about to clasp her in his arms. Gabrielle's heart thumped. She noticed that he sat on the side near the open door and so barred her progress should she attempt to make a bolt. She heard the voice of the man at the wheel humming words of an unknown tongue just over her head out on the p.o.o.p. She knew that the Rajah's mate was laid up with fever in the deckhouse amids.h.i.+ps, and so she was quite alone with the Rajah.
”I know that I am only Pa-ooan. You no' like me 'cause I dark man, eh?
Wilt lover me, canst thou deny me, O maid of mine heart?”
Gabrielle knew by his lapse into Biblical pidgin-English that he was in an excited, treacherous state of mind; she also realised that it was wiser for her to attempt to mollify him.
”I don't dislike the people of your race at all; it's the wicked way that you kidnapped me that makes me hate you. Won't you take me back to my people?”
Though she spoke with apparent calmness, her heart was thumping so violently that she half fancied he heard it beat. She instinctively knew why the man stared at her so. She noticed that he had not lit the hanging lamp in the usual way, either. Only the faint, flickering glimmers from the lantern that swung by the saloon door and the deck sent its gleams towards them. She could just discern the shadowy-like face of the Rajah sitting opposite her. His voice had become strangely soft and seductive, almost musical: ”Do you lover me, one little much, pretty whiter girl?”
”I don't know,” she whispered hastily in a hushed, frightened voice, hardly knowing what she _did_ say, as she swiftly glanced around and realised her terrible helplessness in that cabin far away on the coral seas. No escape there for her! The glimmer of the seas outside the port-holes only gave her a deeper sense of loneliness, if that were possible. She heard the tramp! tramp! of the watch walking the p.o.o.p just over their heads as they sat there.
”Let me go to my berth, I'm tired, I want to sleep,” she said softly, as she hastily rose to her feet. The state of her feelings was obvious. The Rajah could almost hear the fluttering of the girl's heart in that soft, tremulous voice. Standing there with flushed face and her eyes staring with fright, she looked very beautiful. He put his hand out gently and leaned across the table towards her. In her fright she gripped his extended hand. Her hair had fallen down to her neck and shoulders, tumbling in a golden ma.s.s, as she lifted her hand and glanced wildly about her. It had been loosened from its neat coil by the flowers that the Rajah had stuck in the glossy folds. The heathen corsair's vanity was so profound that he imagined the girl had deliberately made her tresses tumble in luring deshabille for _his_ eyes.
A great fire leapt like a blown flame into the man's eyes. And Gabrielle noticed it. She began to move backwards, very slowly, step by step, in the direction of her cabin door. One of her hands clutched her robe tightly against her trembling figure, as though she would not have him see the way her stealthy feet were moving from his presence. He too had swiftly risen from the cuddy table and was moving with a stealthy, cat-like step towards her. It was like some tragic scene in a drama as she moved backward, her eyes fixed on him, and he followed step by step over the cuddy floor. The girl's pale face and frightened, alert eyes were reflected in the large saloon mirror as she crept round the table.
His taller form sent a monstrous silhouette over the panelled walls, his turbaned head going right across the ceiling. And still she moved on.
Gabrielle had sought to mislead him as to her exact intentions. She made a rush, whipped into her cabin and slammed the door. Not till then did the Rajah realise his mistake in thinking that her tresses had fallen for his benefit.