Chapter II: Troubadouring in Tahiti (2)

The old chief bent forward on one knee, and, seizing my hand, pressed it fervently to his lips. I discovered that the little wooden building by the palms was the residence of a native friend of his, whom he had just left after a visit. For a while we walked together, then at my suggestion we went away over the slopes and retired into a café and had a drink. Lord Pokara and I became staunch friends. I found that he was looked upon by all the natives, and by the white settlers too, as a character worth knowing. His majestic bearing was not the least of his attractive attributes. Though his face was wrinkled into a deep, expressive map by Time’s toiling hand, his terra-cotta-hued shoulders, well greased with coco-nut oil, were as smooth as a youth’s. His thick head of hair was undoubtedly grey; but Pokara was “up to snuff,” and had checkmated Time’s tell-tale pigment by dying his locks to a golden hue with strong coral lime. He had evidently been a gay cavalier in his earlier days, for I observed that when the picturesque Tahitian maids passed us on the forest track, all chanting their _himines_ (legendary melodies), he returned their coquettish glances without stint, negligently tossing his shoulder-sash. Nor must we blame old Pokara for his love of sensuous beauty, for he was very old then and so must be sleeping soundly to-night.

“You stopper at Papeete?” said he, as we finished our drink and came out of the café.

“Yes,” I replied; and this answer of mine seemed to give him immense satisfaction.

I saw Pokara almost daily after that, and I vow that it was chiefly his wondrous personality and its effect on my youthful mind that made me leave the Presidency orchestra and take to troubadouring with the old Tahitian chief.

“You comer with me and play violin in villages a longer way off, and we make lots of money,” said he one day, after I had been down at his primitive homestead. Then he began to tell me _Arabian Nights_ tales concerning the riches of the native villages and the wonders to be seen in the pagan citadels over the mountains. And so it happened that we went off together. It was a glorious day when I found myself tramping with my violin strung beside me, crossing the palm-clad slopes of Mount Orehena, _en route_ for the pagan villages where dwelt great high-caste chiefs and chiefesses.

It seemed like some wild dream of a mediæval age when I first stood in a pagan township playing my violin to dark-eyed, dusky houris. They stood with finger to their hushed lips as I played by their bamboo huts and Pokara sang a weird _himine_. I might say here that Pokara had made me memorize several quaint heathen tunes before we started off on that expedition, as well as telling me monstrous tales about princes and chiefs who would cast pearls at my feet as prolifically as one throws rice on a happy marriage morn. But, alas! it was not all as rosy as my Tahitian comrade had painted it. And I thanked Heaven that the expenses attached to the rôle of troubadouring were not over-abundant in those glorious climes. Beyond languishing glances from the star-eyed, golden-skinned Tahitian belles, I did not get much out of the adventure; but I must admit that the sight of Pokara, with his tasselled sash flung gracefully over his tawny shoulder and a fascinating poetic grin on his wrinkled mouth, was something worth sweating across those tropic miles for in far-off Tahiti. I know that Pokara seemed to look upon that trip as the time of his life, as he passed round amongst our dusky audiences with his coco-nut-shell collecting-box. Often the old chiefs would persuade us to stay the night in the village, so that we might serenade them at their sacred festival rites and wedding ceremonies. And for such services we would receive the highest honours and valuable curios—tappa-cloth, pearl shells, and many things that would make a heavy load. Pokara managed to get hold of two large sacks, and, filling them with our presents, had the cheek to ask me to carry one. But this I positively refused to do, whereupon Pokara hid his booty in the jungle till such time as he could come back and fetch it.

I think we had been on this South Sea buskin march for about three weeks when we arrived at a pagan citadel where we had quite an exciting adventure,—though, in good truth, we had many adventures that may not be recorded here. One night, after we had been tramping miles through breadfruit forests and by the rugged feet of lines of mountains, we came to a pagan citadel called Ta-e-mao. I shall never forget the surprise of the dusky inhabitants as we emerged from beneath the palms and I began to play an old Tahitian madrigal, while Pokara wailed out words that I did not understand. I was attired in duck pants and a brass-bound midshipman’s reefer jacket, and had on my head a large, dilapidated helmet hat. As for Pokara, though he was travel-stained and perspiration had washed much of the gold pigment from his ambrosial locks, he was a sight fitted to awaken admiration in all hearts. After the inhabitants had rushed from their huts and got over the first surprise of our sudden appearance, they were overcome with joy as I played on and Pokara sang.

I don’t exactly know what happened that night in Ta-e-mao, though I do know that the high chiefs and chiefesses treated us both with that punctilious etiquette always accorded troubadours in those South Sea mediæval ages. It appeared that we had arrived on the occasion of a great festival that was being given in honour of the visit of an aged king from one of the islands to the south. He was a remarkable-looking old fellow. He had a face like a gnarled tree-trunk carved to resemble a man. His teeth were white as snow. He wore side-whiskers and had a large seashell tied on to them. He was so stout that, when he went to drink out of the festival calabash, the royal attendants laid the receptacle down on the top of his corporation, then bowed and withdrew. He had brought with him his two daughters, or granddaughters, I forget which. They were comely-looking girls. One was even beautiful, according to our European ideas of that oft-misused word. Her thick, curly hair was artistically adorned with orange blossoms, and her attire consisted of a most attractively woven raiment of tappa-cloth that fell to her knees. She had fine dark eyes, luminous with a golden light, and they might well have fired the imagination of a less bold and outrageous youth than myself. Though I was not aware of it, Pokara well knew that she was _taboo-bride_, which means that she had just arrived of age, and, being a princess of a certain grand old dynasty, was entitled to propose to, and accept, the first high chief of royal blood, or whoever might please her eyes. In short, my confession is this: I made gallant advances to her, and she received them with an abandonment that was boundlessly refreshing and romantic, not only to myself but to the royal assemblage of high chiefs and the old king also. One thing will I say in palliation of all that I may have done, and that is, that I had not the slightest idea that the delicious cooling drink proffered to Pokara and myself with immense liberality was an intoxicating beverage. And I am sure that that drink had a good deal to do with the heathenish doings of Pokara and myself and the final episode that night in Ta-e-mao. Her name was Soovalao, and it is a positive fact that Soovalao stood before me, lifted one dusky arm, and sang a heathen bridal _himine_ to my eyes! The applause at this choice of hers was terrific! It is even possible that I, in some subconscious way, responded to the princess’s love-tokens and modest caresses. For I distinctly recall that I heard the tribal drums crash forth a mighty _fortissimo con passione_ as I gallantly accepted the beautifully-carved tortoise-shell comb from her hair, kissed her hand, and repeated some old Tahitian rite! But alas! in delicate compassion for those who would resent this sad confession, I will draw a veil of forgetfulness over the final heathen dance, when I played the fiddle and Pokara sang, and it seemed that a thousand dusky beauties of a phantom forest seraglio somersaulted beneath the moonlit palms!

At daybreak I awoke. Pokara was stirring beside me.

“Hush, O Papalagi, ’tis well that we fly at once.”

“Fly where?” I said, as I rubbed my eyes and stared.

Then the old chief looked at me, and said:

“O Papalagi, you did accept the princess’s comb, great gift from her hair, and the whole tribe have accepted you as great chief!”

“Have they?” said I.

Then, as the dawn’s first bird commenced to sing in the banyans and the village still slept on, Pokara and I crept forth from our little pagan hut, and dived noiselessly into the forest!

“What happened? What _did you_ do, O Pokara?” said I, as we camped by a lagoon that day, ten miles from that pagan citadel.

“You no wanter marry princess this day, and go way to ’nother island to the south of the setting sun, and Pokara see you no more?” said Pokara.

“Um! so that’s how the wind blows,” I muttered to myself.

It was after the aforesaid experiences that we decided to return to Papeete, and at once set out on our long return journey. Pokara would swear terrifically, I know, in his own tongue, as he dropped his huge sack of tribal presents and sat on a decayed tree trunk, irritated, as I climbed the trees in search of birds’ nests. Somehow the old schoolboy’s instinct of bird-nesting _would_ come back to me. It would have made any collector’s eyes shine to see the mighty nests that I found, and the richly-hued splashed cockatoos’, parakeets’, and strange tropic birds’ eggs that I discovered. Most of them were too far advanced in fertilization to “blow out”; but, still, I secured a few fine specimens that had hard shells and would not easily break.

One night, just as we had made up our beds of moss and fern grass by a belt of mangroves, and Pokara was telling me his old legendary stories, we were both startled by seeing a strange apparition step out of the forest. It was a fine moonlight night. Pokara leapt to his feet as I bravely leapt _behind_ him! At first I thought it was a heathen god. But I discovered that the peculiar being was real enough, for It wore ragged side-whiskers, large loose pantaloons held up by a belt, and a tremendous wide-brimmed hat that had nothing spiritual-looking about it. It was a derelict sailor.

“What oh, shipmate!”

“What oh!” I responded, as the stranger gave a loud guffaw and roared out:

“Damn me blasted whiskers, where ther ’ell you sprung from?—a wirelin too!” he added, as he stared down at my fiddle.

On hearing all that we chose to tell him, he winked, and told us that he had knocked the skipper of his ship down, and had made a bolt from Papeete to save being placed in irons.

He _did_ keep us alive that night, I must admit. He had a large flask of whisky in his pantaloons and plied himself from it liberally. And the way he sat by us that night and sang awful songs was something extraordinary and thrilling. He seemed to be unable to sleep, and every time I dozed off he caught me a whack on the back and said:

“Wake up, yer young b——!”

At daybreak he informed us that he must make tracks, as he wanted to slip down to the coast and stow away on one of the trading schooners that traded between the Marquesas group and Tahiti. I think that we were about three days’ slow journey from Papeete when he left us. The last I saw of him was when his big boots crashed though the forest scrub, making the parrots rise and scream above the giant breadfruit trees, as his herculean figure faded away into the shadows of the wooded depths. Pokara seemed mighty glad to see him go! I was sorry. I recall that we camped by a large lagoon near the shore that night. It was a glorious starlit sky, and Pokara, who never wearied of telling me his wondrous stories and old legends as we camped by those high sea ways, sat there by the mountains and told me a very fascinating legend. I saw his eyes brighten as the tale he told revived the legendary atmosphere of his youth.

“You see stars—tips of light up there in sky?” said he, as I lit my pipe and prepared to listen.

“Yes,” said I, as I looked up at the heavens and saw, millions of miles beyond his dark, pointing finger, a small constellation of stars, six in all—two very bright ones, and the remainder stars of about the fourth magnitude.

“You liker know, O Papalagi, who those stars are, why they get in sky and stop up there?”

“Indeed I would!” I responded.

Then the old pagan astronomer sighed deeply, and proceeded:

“Tousands and tousands of moons ago, big canoe come from Isles that am in the setting sun. As big canoe get near Papeete, the win’ blew and blew. Then the _moani_ (sea) jump and jump and push canoe on the reefs; bottom of canoe fall out and sailors all go bottom of sea! One great chief did try to keep life that belonger him, and so he not sink for a longer time; but then he too go bottom. But, though he go to bottom of ocean, he no die dead. It was then that he look round bottom of sea and feel much worried; big place, all ’lone. Then he call out: ‘Me great chief Ora Tua am here at bottom of sea—where am gods?’

“It so did happen that goddess Tarioa, who sat at her cave door weaving the sunsets, seaweed, and the hairs of dead women to make mats for gods’ feet, look suddenly round cave door’s corner and see great chief Ora Tua lying on floor of ocean. Her eyes did shine, for he, too, look ’andsome chief as he stood up all tangled in the sunset. For you must know that the sun was sinking just same time as canoe bottom was knock out on reefs.

“When goddess Tarioa saw Ora Tua, she put her hand to eyes and stare longer while to see so nice chief, chief who had belonger world ’way up ’bove sea floor. She slowly creep out of cave, and while Ora Tua was looker ’nother way, she catch hold of his hair and pull ’im outer of the sunset. As he stand before her, his face and form all shining with golden fire and sunlight that once shine over this world, she say, ‘Ora Tua, you are ’andsome chief!’

“Then Ora Tua look at goddess Tarioa, and answer nice things ’bout the goddess’s face, and he say, ‘Oh, who are you, so beautiful under the sea?’ Then no time am waste between them, they faller in love! Big day gods and Atua (Thunder-god), the god who open door to let out kind sun in morning and tattoo sky by night, peep through crack in that big cave and say, ‘Oh, dear! Dear me! goddess Tarioa am gone now and kiss that Ora Tua, a dead chief who am not _tapu_, but am mortal who once live up in world by the sea.’

“It was then that big gods all rush out of caves and run after goddess Tarioa and Ora Tua, so that they may not kiss again. But so big were their shoulders, all moving alonger underneath ocean water, that it make big waves tumble about up on sea beneath the stars; and so ’nother canoe that was filled with nicer Tahitian maidens knock on reefs and go to bottom of sea too!

“The gods were so pleased that the dead Tahitian girls so pretty all stand before them, that they forget all about wicked goddess Tarioa and chief Ora Tua.”

“What happened then, Pokara?” said I, as the chief licked his lips and looked up towards the starlit skies in deep meditation. And he continued in this wise:

“Well, longer time after Ora Tua kiss goddess, she had two children same time!”

“Twins?” said I, as I laughed, and Pokara vouchsafed a solemn smile.

“The gods of shadowland were terrible angry: they stamp feet till world shake. It was terrible thing for goddess Tarioa to give forth in birth two mortal children!

“Goddess Tarioa know this much, so she cry and cry out: ‘O great gods, giver unto me nice sweet milk for my two _strikas_ (children)!’ for her grief was mucher, since goddess do have no bosoms.

“The gods did all look through the big ocean water like great faces looking through white man’s image glass; they looker terrible angry at Tarioa and say: ‘Your babies wanter milk?—why am this?’

“And Tarioa did hang her head to her bosomless bosom, where the little ones did move their mouths and fingers in much sorrow. For a moment the gods did look in wonder at the children, then they said: ‘O Tarioa, since thy children are mortal, they must die!’

“Then the god who tattoos the skies by night look out of the great Ink of Night, and say: ‘Is it well, O great Atua, to kill these children? Are they not of those who gaze on the great blue ways as my finger, toiling brightly, tattoos the stars?’

“And so did it happen that one god did pray for Tarioa and her children. So they no kill Tarioa, but they run after her and drive her to the far north-west of big ocean floor till she come to the shores! And then she did run up into the world of sunlight, and standing on the shore did say: ‘Oh, how nicer a world!’

“As she look up at nice trees all blowing and singing in win’ and saw above the trees the kind blue sky, she look so beautiful that _kamoka-bird_ (evening-nightingale) fly out of big forest by the sea and sit on her head. It sang and flutter its wings as its feet get much entangle in goddess’s hair. Then it hopped down on her shoulder, and try mucher to poke _stalos_ (fireflies) in babies’ mouths as they cry and cry for milk.

“But still they cry and cry. Fireflies no good! Then Tarioa very sad, so she call out. ‘O god of Rain, Ora, Tane, Maker-of-flowers and birds and nicer things, I have sin in thy sight, but now I do offer prayer. I will, O gods, be as sacrifice to thy altars, and my children shall worship thee if they do live.’

“The great god Tane, hearing her prayer, did walk out of forest. Seeing so beautiful a goddess before his eyes, he say: ‘You wanter food, milk for babies?’ Then he put forth his big hand and held babies up on tip of one finger—and looker much pleased! He then say: ‘Your children, O goddess of sin, may grow up beautiful through having so nicer a goddess mother; they might have light of the great gods, my vassals, in their hearts.’

“Then as the babies cry, god Tane turn in great hurry to a palm tree just by. He touch the top, that was ’gainst sky, with his finger, and lo! out sprang a bunch of ripe coco-nuts! Then he touch shell and so make soft holes. And then he place babies’ mouths to the holes so that they could drink of the nicer sweet milk. He then turn to goddess Tarioa, and touch her breast, and her bosoms did grow—not two bosoms, but four. So did she, being a great goddess and loved by Tane, have four nipples.

“So did goddess Tarioa become mortal. Her children grew up and did have more children who do ever have a far-away look in their eyes when they stare towards the setting sun. For you must know that they are _tapu_ children, and live on the Isles that are far to the north-west. And long, long ago, goddess Tarioa did go ’way to shadowland that is far up in the sky. And it is up in the sky that her eyes did stop and still stop as she ever watches by night over her children.”

Saying the foregoing, Pokara pointed up to the constellation of six stars to the far north-west, and said:

“Papalagi, there she is!—those two bright stars are her eyes and the four pale little stars am her nipples.

“So you see, O Papalagi, why all the children of the islands ’way to north-west are _tapu_ (sacred), for they are the children of the children who did once drink tapu-milk from the bosom of the stars.”

As Pokara finished, he looked intently up at the heavens. And as I too looked up and saw the two bright stars, and the accompanying smaller stars twinkling out there, far-off in the clear night sky, I understood how wonderful the universe must have appeared to the old heathens of many ages ago. I could not laugh over Pokara’s story, as we sat there by the forest lagoons. I must confess that I too felt some weird fascination for his heathen world. And, as the old chief laid his weary head down on the forest floor and the winds sang mournfully in the mangroves, I looked up towards the sky and strangely fancied that I saw the beautiful goddess Tarioa watching from the night-heavens amongst the stars, watching over her lost children. Then I laid my head down on my pillow of gathered moss and tried to sleep. As I watched the moon slowly climbing the blue vault of space over the forest height, Pokara’s deep bass snores broke gently through my meditations. After a while I gazed on the sleeping chief’s face and fancied he looked like some tattooed mummy who had lain there in its scented swathings beside me for possibly a thousand years. It was at that precise moment that my eyes spied a bright spot that shone like a vast jewel under the distant ivory nut palms. It was a small forest lagoon that I had not observed before. I was not as surprised as one might suppose, when the water stirred and a shock-head of glistening hair protruded and two sparkling eyes peered at me. I could hardly believe my own eyes as the head rose higher and a beautiful form slowly emerged from the silent depths. She was a goddess-like creation of wondrous beauty; the glistening waters ran from her tresses down below her thighs as she gazed upon me. She was not more than twelve yards away.

“The wonders of the South Seas have no end,” thought I, as with finger to her lips she beckoned to me and came gliding towards me on tiptoe. I instinctively understood her meaning. In a moment I obeyed. Jumping to my feet, I clutched my violin and followed her. I heard the eerie rustle of her shadowy raiment, as her feet, pattering like rain on palm-leaves, sped softly beside me. Then we came to the sea. It was a wild, solitary spot. Only the tiny whirl of the incoming waves broke the moonlit stillness that dwelt at the feet of the mountains which rose like mighty sentinels to the north-west. Taking me by the hand, she led me out to the edge of the promontory. As I stood there staring on the strange greenish hue of the sea-line, I realized that I was standing on the most solitary point of the earth. Then, as gracefully as possible, I did exactly as she bade me—sat down in the large bowl of moonlight she had mysteriously placed there. And, so seated, I lifted my violin to my chin and played a weird melody, such a melody as a troubadour might well play to a beautiful enchantress. It was all real enough, no dream at all. I even touched myself. “No mistaking me!” I mumbled. Then I gazed on the sky, and observed that the stars swam like goldfish across the midnight blue. I knew that Pokara still lay fast asleep in the forest shadows, little dreaming of the strange visitant who had lured me from his side. In some strange way I realized how envious he would have been, could he have seen me sitting there in that bowl of moonlight playing my violin. He, I knew, always _would_ think the magic of things was wholly on his side and not on mine; and there I was, being strangely favoured by the gods of the present reality, whereas Pokara had to dive far back into a heathen past ere he realized such wonders as I realized that very night. And still I played on, as the maid danced in a way that surely none had ever seen before. It did not seem at all strange when she leaned forward and sang into my ears the melodious old English ballad “The Mistletoe Bough”; and while I played a tender staccato on my violin the waves wailed a wistful obligato _con anima espressione_, as they rippled on the moonlit coral reefs.

Suddenly the maid, who had been dancing with her hands raised, stayed the silent trippings of her feet and fell on one knee before me. In my finest Hans Andersen style, I took her hand and listened to her pleading. My heart beat rapidly, I know, as she said in accents soft and low:

“O pale-faced troubadour from the western seas, come! Follow me!”

“Fancy this being the end of my wanderings in the southern seas!” I muttered deep within my soul, as she knelt there on the promontory’s edge and gazed into my eyes in a final mute appeal. Then I rose to my feet. I well knew that many men had risked their all for the sake of the light of witchery in a woman’s eyes. Perhaps she observed my hesitation, for, as she gazed on me, I saw her eyes blink, and, lo! I got one splendid glimpse of the stars that shone in their liquid depths. Nor could I help myself, as, standing there, I touched her lips with my own thrice before I took the final plunge. I instinctively placed my violin under my coat so that it would not get wet. Once more I looked up at the sky. Then we both dived noiselessly into the ocean and faded away into the depths of a great silence.

I opened my eyes. Pokara was still beside me, fast asleep. Only the passionate song of the _O Le Mao_, high up in the breadfruits just overhead, disturbed the silence of the forest as I stared up at the stars. Then in some vague longing I turned over and tried to sleep, so that I might catch up the thread of that dream again.

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