Waylao

“ They heard by instinct the direction of Waylao’s terrified call. They stared at her with shining, bulged eyes; they tried to open their gaping, fleshless mouths in ghastly efforts for speech. They were rotting, hideous skeletons.
By the remnant of that hulk’s deck-house stood a tall native chief. He and a beautiful native girl who clung to him alone looked human. They both stared with fright, first at Waylao, and then across the silent isle. ”

“ Waylao was awake; she stood at the far end of the hold staring at us all.
It was a real treat to see the politeness of those scallawags; some even reddened slightly as she appeared before them. The Dude made his cuffs conspicuous, pulled them down half-an-inch, put his hand to his mouth and gave the old, artful, conventional cough to the girl. ”

“ Waylao has been telling me to-day how she and Pauline sat in the forest by moonlight and sang old heathen songs together, songs that were supposed to make the man who would love them poke his head out of the waters of the lagoon that they watched. Waylao hummed the songs to me. I don’t know why, but the look in her fine eyes made me feel intensely unhappy. I’m a most passionate fellow at times. I have strange moods, moods that make me feel very tender towards women and men. I suppose it’s a kind of insanity. I’ve taken a liking to the funniest old men and women imaginable. ”

“ They knew that the inevitable hour was drawing near when life would be more than a living death, for would they not see their own dissolution? They cared not for the risk of a schooner sighting that signal. It would take Waylao away to safety, but it would not take them. No; the Hawaiians had resolved to go on a longer journey should their hiding-place be discovered. When O Le Haiwa-oe saw Waylao take the signal down, his eyes filled with tears, and in a moment he had run out to the edge of the promontory and placed the canvas sail fluttering to the breeze. ”

“ The handsome chief, the beautiful, clinging woman and the stricken crew of the hulk were escapes—fugitives from the dreadful lazaretto on Molokai, the leper isle.
The Hawaiian chief and his lover—for such they were, though stricken with the scourge—had no sign as yet visible on their faces.
The sympathetic look that Waylao gave them, the pleasure she revealed at their presence, touched their hearts. It was long, long ago since human beings had welcomed their presence. ”

“ In a moment he had dived, clutched the girl and brought her to the surface—coral and all. “Waylao, you would leave us alone to sorrow over your death. Have we not sorrowed enough?”
So did he speak as Waylao opened her eyes and gazed into those of her rescuer.
“Forgive me, I longed to die,” she cried, as Aiola, the Hawaiian girl, opened her bodice to chafe her breast.
“Kilia!” (leprosy) cried the Hawaiian maid as she rubbed Waylao’s bosom and the skin all peeled softly off on to her hand—Waylao had contracted the plague, she too was a leper. ”

“ For the chief had looked on the Hawaiian girl and reminded her of the curse that lay upon them. But Waylao, who had never thought to hear the music of human voices again, forgot her own grief.
But who were they? What were those terrible figures huddled on the deck of the hulk? Instinct told her that some terrible sorrow had drifted across the sea, some sorrow that was tragically human. That stricken crew had not come to hurt the girl. They would not wilfully harm a hair of her head. They had drifted out of the hells of misery. They were the stricken of the earth. ”

“ That same night Waylao sat hidden in the old hulk by the promontory, the crowd of beachcombers around her. That hulk in the moonlight, with its rotting figurehead appealing to the sky-line, might have appeared to a stranger the most isolated spot in the South Seas. But a pathetic human drama was being enacted in the bowels of that derelict. ”

“ The bending pines and palms moaned so loudly that it kept the castaways awake all night, as they sat by the cavern’s doorway together. It was this night that the chief came to Waylao and said:
“O maid, though you have got kilia, you may live for many years, so, should a sail come in sight, they must see the distress signal. You will then be able to go away and see your people before you die.”
Waylao hung her head with grief, and as Aiola tried to soothe her, once more the chief put up the signal, which he had taken down at Waylao’s request. ”

“ The chief had finished his terrible task on the hulk, and as Waylao watched the dark spots bobbing about on the moonlit waters, she saw them drifting round by the promontory’s edge, then, with the tide, go seaward.
The Hawaiian girl clung tightly to her companion’s tall, handsome figure and moaned. The reaction had set in.
“Aiola, Aiola!” he murmured in the tenderest way as he looked down into her uplifted eyes. He was robed in the picturesque Hawaiian costume—a broad-fringed lava-lava to his tawny knees, round his waist a tappa robe swathed in a row of knots of ornamental design. ”

“ As Waylao watched, her fright subsided. They were human. For who but mortals could be so maddened by thirst? Her heart was touched with sorrow.
The chief rose to his feet, filled a large calabash with water and returned to the derelict.
Waylao watched, with her heart in her mouth. The sorrow of others overshadowed her own, as she saw the huddled, loathsome forms on that hulk’s deck struggling for the water, their poor heads wobbling as they sought with their blind eyes to locate the calabash.
The Hawaiian maid on the shore, standing by Waylao, forced a smile to her lips, as she, too, watched. ”

“ Waylao was too wretched to resist the wishes of the lepers. She knew that the terrors of death were upon the beautiful Hawaiian maid Aiola, for only the night before she had heard the maid say, as she clung to the chief: “We must die! We must die, O Le Haiwa-oe! ”

“ As it turned out, Waylao had married an Indian—which means that she had gone through a midnight ceremony which was as follows. A deluded girl would come under the influence of some emigrant hawker from Calcutta, or the Malay Peninsula, usually a man with a smile that would have brought a fortune to a Lyceum tragedian, for it was the breathing essence of limelight sadness and sensual longing. ”

“ The Hawaiian maid, who had crept up whilst her lover was speaking, heard all that Waylao said, and was deeply touched. But they both quickly responded as though with one voice: “We must not allow you to sacrifice your life for our sake; we are sure to die, then it will be you who will be left here alone.” Without saying another word, the chief went out to the palm-tree that grew on the most distant point of the promontory, climbed the highest tree and fixed old Mrs Matafa’s knitted shawl on the topmost bough. ”

“ So much was whispered and exaggerated over the reputation of the missing girl that the little native children sat by the camp-fires huddled in fright; they would look awestruck around and behind them, gazing into the forest gloom, expecting to see the awful Waylao leap from the shadows like a spirit-woman. Old chiefs lifted their hands as they discussed, in hushed voices, with their Christianised wives the fall of the beautiful half-white woman, and the subsequent shock to the morals of the semi-heathen villages. ”

“ Miss Waylao,” I say jokingly through the door chink as I spy Benbow’s daughter.
No answer comes. But as I stroll away I look back and just catch a glimpse of the girl’s face as she gazes after me through the little lattice window. I wave my hand, and she responds with a smile.
It seems a romantic isle to me as I stroll along. The very trees bend over me like wise old friends, wailing the lore of ages as the winds creep in from the empurpled seas. The exotic odours of forest flowers intoxicate my senses; they seem bright, living eyes of woods as they dance to the zephyrs. ”

“ When Waylao reached the Indian’s side she looked into his eyes as though she would read his soul. But I suppose that the instincts of woman failed her in the supreme moment and she did not appear to doubt the veracity of his explanation. I can well imagine that his voice was musical and sounded divinely truthful. How could she be expected to doubt so noble, so manly-looking a lover?
Most of us place our confidence in the most unworthy objects. It’s a pity that faith, which Providence lends us, is not double-sighted in women—and in men too. ”

“ By degrees I learnt that Waylao had been looked upon by the native girls and youths as some beautiful spirit girl from the Langi of Polotu (Samoan Elysium) . For though the young natives were all Christianised, they still had great faith in their beautiful poetic mythology, and were extremely superstitious. Nor is it to be wondered at, when people of the civilised cities believe in fortune-telling, spiritualistic séances and Old Moore’s Almanack! ”

“ Her finger-nails have fallen off, and the new nails are just peeping out of the quicks. I played the violin to her this afternoon. She’s got a voice that fairly thrills one. The skipper says she’d make a fortune in America, on the stage. As we sat on deck last night, Waylao and I referred to the poor escapee girl form Noumea, and I told her exactly how I found the convict girl afloat in the lagoon at daybreak. Waylao cried like a child when I said I had placed a little cross on the girl’s grave.
“The boatswain’s given Waylao a beautiful silk and tappa dress. She looks fine in it. ”

“ I feel sometimes that I’m half in love with Waylao. She’s romantic; has got a beautiful golden gleam in the pupils of her eyes. I can easily see how that devil of a man got her into trouble. She’s been talking a lot about Eastern men, Indians, etc. Got my suspicions about things. I know what the world is: read about life in the newspapers, London, England. Wicked, soulless old bounders some men are.
“I dreamed about Pauline last night. She came to me as I was playing the violin by the old grog shanty. ”

“ As soon as the breathless, staring crew recovered from their astonishment, the cavern echoed and re-echoed the encore: “Hasan! Kattar rheyrak!” (“Beautiful! Oh, thanks!”)
The four grey-bearded marabouts who were squatting on the mats of the dais opposite the pae-pae lifted their eyes and turbaned heads; so overcome were they with envious admiration that their pointed beards were level with the rugged roof as they once again gasped out in sombre syllables: “Allah! O Mohammed’s beard! Bless its growth!”
Suddenly realisation flashed through Waylao’s brain. ”

“ Little did I dream, as we beat across the storm-beaten Pacific, that down below in the depths of the hold beneath my feet wept a stowaway—a figure huddled up, hidden amongst the bales of cargo, moaning in the pangs of fright and misery, imprisoned and starving in that iron coffin, nailed in, dead, yet alive—and that this trembling, dying stowaway was Benbow’s daughter, Waylao. ”

“ The old Samoan couple, the Matafas, had welcomed Waylao with open arms. It so happened that they had lost a daughter who, had she lived, would have been about Waylao’s age. The old boatswain told me that the superstitious natives looked at the girl with astonishment in their eyes, and wailed: “Ah, ’tis her, our lost child, our beautiful daughter; the great gods have sent this wonderfully beautiful girl across the seas to us.” ”

“ His song was one of longing, for his head was full of the romantic idea that he was going away across the big seas to search for the beautiful Waylao. This is how it ran:
“O eyes of the night, O voice of the winds,
Beautiful are the dreams of love.
Sweet are the sounds of deep-moving waters
And the sight of the stars over the mountains:
But, oh, how glorious is the light of a maiden’s eyes!
Eyes that we cannot see—only remember.” So did the handsome Samoan sing as I played the violin in that little hut by Salufata village. ”

“ I know that, notwithstanding her rough surroundings, she is innocent as a child; I know she loves her pet canary. I envy that canary as she babbles on, and I catch glances from her fine lustrous eyes, dark with a blue depth in the pupils, a depth that sparkles at times as though a far-off star shines in their heavens.
In a few moments we part. I hear a musical ripple of laughter as she disappears in the mission-room where resides Père de ——, the old priest, who has known and educated Waylao since she toddled. ”

“ I shall never make a good missionary. Waylao’s look and her manner convinces me that she is better than I am. Confession is good for the soul. I ought to be better than I was last night, for I have confessed the truth—had sinful thoughts, and the half-caste girl has made me a better youth. Wish I wasn’t so passionate a fellow.
“Sunday, September.—Sang hymns to-day in the cuddy. Skipper’s very religious on Sunday. I told Waylao all about England to-day, and became quite sentimental. ”

“ Then he laid his hand upon Waylao’s shoulder and said, in his rich, kind voice, the following:—
“My child, there are many paths that lead to many heavens, for that which is heaven to one man is hell to another. But, believe me, there is only one path to the reward of righteousness and a clear conscience.”
Waylao, who listened more to the music of that old voice than to what it actually said, stood like an obedient child as the priest proceeded:
“Listen, Waylao. Many paths have evil-smelling flowers by the wayside; some paths have sweet-scented blossoms ”

“ Being once more assured that Waylao had been sent by the artful old Mrs Ranjo, off he tottered again.
Suddenly he paused and said: “You never tells white peoples that Rimbo got great tiki [idol] if I take you to it?”
“Oh, priest, I promise to never say one word to a living soul,” said Waylao earnestly, with a look in her eyes that convinced the old tattooed witchman that she had no thought of betraying him to the missionaries. ”