CHAPTER VIII
LOVE STEPS IN
Two birds were sitting in the branches of the artu tree: Koko had takena mate. They had built a nest out of fibres pulled from the wrappingsof the cocoa-nut fronds, bits of stick and wire grass—anything, infact; even fibres from the palmetto thatch of the house below. Thepilferings of birds, the building of nests, what charming incidentsthey are in the great episode of spring!
The hawthorn tree never bloomed here, the climate was that of eternalsummer, yet the spirit of May came just as she comes to the Englishcountryside or the German forest. The doings in the artu branchesgreatly interested Emmeline.
The love-making and the nest-building were conducted quite in the usualmanner, according to rules laid down by Nature and carried out by menand birds. All sorts of quaint sounds came filtering down through theleaves from the branch where the sapphire-coloured lovers sat side byside, or the fork where the nest was beginning to form: croonings andcluckings, sounds like the flirting of a fan, the sounds of a squabble,followed by the sounds that told of the squabble made up. Sometimesafter one of these squabbles a pale blue downy feather or two wouldcome floating earthwards, touch the palmetto leaves of the house-roofand cling there, or be blown on to the grass.
It was some days after the appearance of the schooner, and Dick wasmaking ready to go into the woods and pick guavas. He had all themorning been engaged in making a basket to carry them in. Incivilisation he would, judging from his mechanical talent, perhaps havebeen an engineer, building bridges and ships, instead of palmetto-leafbaskets and cane houses—who knows if he would have been happier?
The heat of midday had passed, when, with the basket hanging over hisshoulder on a piece of cane, he started for the woods, Emmelinefollowing. The place they were going to always filled her with a vaguedread; not for a great deal would she have gone there alone. Dick haddiscovered it in one of his rambles.
They entered the wood and passed a little well, a well without apparentsource or outlet and a bottom of fine white sand. How the sand hadformed there, it would be impossible to say; but there it was, andaround the margin grew ferns redoubling themselves on the surface ofthe crystal-clear water. They left this to the right and struck intothe heart of the wood. The heat of midday still lurked here; the waywas clear, for there was a sort of path between the trees, as if, invery ancient days, there had been a road.
Right across this path, half lost in shadow, half sunlit, the lianashung their ropes. The hotoo tree, with its powdering of delicateblossoms, here stood, showing its lost loveliness to the sun; in theshade the scarlet hibiscus burned like a flame. Artu and breadfruittrees and cocoa-nut bordered the way.
As they proceeded the trees grew denser and the path more obscure. Allat once, rounding a sharp turn, the path ended in a valley carpetedwith fern. This was the place that always filled Emmeline with anundefined dread. One side of it was all built up in terraces with hugeblocks of stone. Blocks of stone so enormous, that the wonder was howthe ancient builders had put them in their places.
Trees grew along the terraces, thrusting their roots between theinterstices of the blocks. At their base, slightly tilted forward as ifwith the sinkage of years, stood a great stone figure roughly carved,thirty feet high at least—mysterious-looking, the very spirit of theplace. This figure and the terraces, the valley itself, and the verytrees that grew there, inspired Emmeline with deep curiosity and vaguefear.
People had been here once; sometimes she could fancy she saw darkshadows moving amidst the trees, and the whisper of the foliage seemedto her to hide voices at times, even as its shadow concealed forms. Itwas indeed an uncanny place to be alone in even under the broad lightof day. All across the Pacific for thousands of miles you find relicsof the past, like these scattered through the islands.
These temple places are nearly all the same: great terraces of stone,massive idols, desolation overgrown with foliage. They hint at onereligion, and a time when the sea space of the Pacific was a continent,which, sinking slowly through the ages, has left only its higher landsand hill-tops visible in the form of islands. Round these places thewoods are thicker than elsewhere, hinting at the presence there, once,of sacred groves. The idols are immense, their faces are vague; thestorms and the suns and the rains of the ages have cast over them aveil. The sphinx is understandable and a toy compared to these things,some of which have a stature of fifty feet, whose creation is veiled inabsolute mystery—the gods of a people for ever and for ever lost.
The “stone man” was the name Emmeline had given the idol of the valley;and sometimes at nights, when her thoughts would stray that way, shewould picture him standing all alone in the moonlight or starlightstaring straight before him.
He seemed for ever listening; unconsciously one fell to listening too,and then the valley seemed steeped in a supernatural silence. He wasnot good to be alone with.
Emmeline sat down amidst the fears just at his base. When one was closeup to him he lost the suggestion of life, and was simply a great stonewhich cast a shadow in the sun.
Dick threw himself down also to rest. Then he rose up and went offamidst the guava bushes, plucking the fruit and filling his basket.Since he had seen the schooner, the white men on her decks, her greatmasts and sails, and general appearance of freedom and speed andunknown adventure, he had been more than ordinarily glum and restless.Perhaps he connected her in his mind with the far-away vision of the_Northumberland_, and the idea of other places and lands, and theyearning for change the idea of them inspired.
He came back with his basket full of the ripe fruit, gave some to thegirl and sat down beside her. When she had finished eating them shetook the cane that he used for carrying the basket and held it in herhands. She was bending it in the form of a bow when it slipped, flewout and struck her companion a sharp blow on the side of his face.
Almost on the instant he turned and slapped her on the shoulder. Shestared at him for a moment in troubled amazement, a sob came in herthroat. Then some veil seemed lifted, some wizard’s wand stretched out,some mysterious vial broken. As she looked at him like that, hesuddenly and fiercely clasped her in his arms. He held her like thisfor a moment, dazed, stupefied, not knowing what to do with her. Thenher lips told him, for they met his in an endless kiss.