“‘Let the kid come,’ said Deny; ‘besides, she’ll be useful, knows the lingo, and that kind of thing,’ he added.
“‘All right, Sanga; don’t grizzle,’ said I.
“Then Deny and I went into the village to get permission from Sanga’s parents.
“She couldn’t go off on an excursion like that without getting permission from her parents. Sanga’s mother, a fine-looking half-caste, gave us the kid in complete confidence.
“‘You noble Papalagis; me trust her with you.’
“‘Yes, we’re holy beggars,’ thought I, as we walked away across the rara, Sanga somersaulting with delight like a puppy at our heels, as we left the village and started on our trip to find out all about the Britisher and his daughter. We did take care of that kiddie too, although we had some rough times ere bringing her safely back to her village.
“By midday next day we had tramped many miles inland, and had already crossed the lower ranges of the mountains to the N.N.W.
“Sanga was a blessing to us, and sang weird heathen songs as she tramped by our side. I had dressed her up in a little blue kimono which I had cut out of a large silk handkerchief, cutting holes in it for the armpits. When she looked at herself in the lagoon hard by, she chuckled with delight. The first night was all that could be desired as we slept beneath the palms, side by side, and Deny sang a highland song till I fell asleep.
“The next night a typhoon blew. It was something that I had never heard before in the way of nature’s extempore musical expression. As you know, I am not much of a musician. I can play the flute and knock out the common chords for a song and dance on the piano; but to describe the harmonies that storm made in the mountains is quite beyond me. We were all tired out, just going off to sleep. In fact, I heard Deny snoring. Sanga lay at my feet, her head on my calf, as she hummed in the dark. Then it came—no warning, mind you. Bang! It seemed as if there had been some tremendous upheaval in interstellar space, that worlds and planets were exploding like vast bombs somewhere beyond the moon, the south-western horizon being repeatedly blown out as the débris struck the mountains around us. The enormous breadfruits and banyans, all bending and howling like the sails, rigging, and masts of ships in a hurricane, moaned a wild symphony in the pitch darkness, for the clouds had slid over, puff! and put the moon out without any warning. Once a star gleamed as the wrack raced across the sky. Sanga huddled close up to Deny as I put my hand out to see where they were. Then the moon burst through the cloud and the shadows went racing across the gullies till it seemed that the mountains themselves were moving along, sailing before a head wind! Then the deluge began. We were sheltered in a native hut, but the rain came in by the bucketful. Oceans seemed to crash down from the sky. Mighty trees were uplifted, and before they fell to the earth were carried across the gullies like twigs before the tremendous violence of the wind. Then there started the most wonderful thing in the way of sound that I have ever heard, or shall ever hear again. It seemed that a thousand demons had come out to carouse and play ghostly instruments in some phantom military band. I never heard anything to resemble it. Drums began to beat, a thousand strong, bassoons, horns, double basses, clarionets, ’cellos, saxaphones, bugles, cornets—all wailing and bellowing forth in the wildest orchestral combination that human ears ever heard. ‘God! What is it pal?’ yelled Deny in my ear, and his voice sounded like the wail of a child. My own heart thumped. ‘Strange that I should live to see the end of the world,’ thought I, as that terrible nightmare of sound suddenly subsided, while the typhoon stopped a moment to take breath! We didn’t know it then, but that typhoon was a kind of mighty Wagner of the elements that came by night with universal breath to blow the terrific diapasons, vast bassoons and thunderous wails, whistles, and timpani effects in the mightiest orchestral instrument that creation has made, so far as I know. It was like this: those mountains were volcanic, and so were fairly honeycombed with precipitous tunnels and big cavernous hollows, each hollow possessing its own peculiar, specific quality of sound, so that when the typhoon arrived, and its ten thousand orchestral members, so to speak, placed their phantom lips and blew terrifically into each crevice, the noise resembled something like ten thousand Easter Monday steam-organs and beating-drums going hard and strong on some holiday down in shadowland!
“I don’t exaggerate when I say that some of the notes rang out in clear, silvery, bugle tones, some full and mellow, tremulous with throbbing expression; then the muffled sound of a mighty drum would boom out in that infinite harmony of the dark and wind! When you consider that a typhoon’s terrific and tremendously varied breathing powers blew through a thousand thousand deep-voiced bugles and trumpets with curling tubes that went running right down into the volcanic bowels of the Fijian Isles, there wasn’t much wonder in the fact that wonderfully marvellous subtle musical effects and perfect intonation should crop up somewhere. Of course, Deny and I hadn’t the slightest idea then as to how that pandemonium of sound came about.