Then the cook closed the galley door for the night and, stepping softly into the fo’c’sle, plumped down a large jar of the best Jamaica rum on Hans’ sea-chest. It was a present from the bed-ridden skipper; and, as the old salts slowly opened their mouths and in one melancholy gulp gave a sad toast to the memory of Moses’ soul, I once more seemed to be voyaging across the seas of some far-off age. I heard the melodies of the winds wailing aloft in the grey sails that swayed along under the stars. And, somehow, I felt the touch of the sea’s old sorrow and romance blow across the deck. The moonlight was falling in an eerie way through the spread canvas and wavering ghostly-wise on the deck just by the fo’c’sle doorway. Again I felt that visionary presence, as it rustled like a richly melancholy-scented wind along the deck, a something that my senses could not place. I felt it creep into the fo’c’sle, sending its shifting fingers tenderly over the bowed heads of those old-time sailormen, who mourned the loss of Moses, the one who had instinctively loved them all, through knowing the hidden virtue of their hearts.
When we arrived off Papeete, we seemed to have dropped anchor in some celestial harbour of a world beyond the stars. Dotted about along the shore, under the waveless coco-palms, were tiny, yellow wickerwork, bamboo huts. The sun was setting. It was a sight to please the most unpoetical being, as dusky figures, clad in tappa-cloth and sashes of gorgeous hues, flitted under the banyan groves. The far-away background of that island world looked like some vast canvas daub, some tremendous transcendent silence lit up by a liquid setting sun. The mountain ranges of Orehena, visible for miles, resembled some old chaos of unhewn creation stuffed, piled up, overgrown with forests, and encircled by the distant blue pigment of the ocean skyline. But the savage children of Adam and Eve were there right enough. Fleets of outrigger canoes were being paddled out by the primitive peoples who had sighted the “Zangwahee.” Those canoes were the Tahitians’ tiny argosies, and were crammed with sweet-scented merchandise, coco-nuts, limes, softly-tinted shells, corals, and luscious fruits. Those merchants of the south clambered up the vessel’s side, rushed about the decks gabbling in a musical tongue that was the more fascinating through being strange to our ears. Some were in such haste that they dived from their canoes into the sea, and, leaping on deck, looked like bronzed mermen as they shook themselves. The water glistened from their lime-dyed locks and ran down their handsome figures. “Yarana!” was their oft-reiterated salutation. It was hard to tell which were the most attractive, the pretty maids with hibiscus blossoms in their curly hair, or the handsome terra-cotta-coloured youths. Whilst the hubbub and general pandemonium of those pretty merchants were in full swing, old Hans, Olwyn, Steffan, Olaf, and the rest of the old salts walked solemnly out of the forecastle, hired a twelve-seated outrigger from the natives, and were immediately paddled ashore.
It was at that moment that I sighted for the first time the old Tahitian chief, Pokara. So tall was he that he overtopped the gabbling crowd who stood on the “Zangwahee’s” deck. He was a handsome, wrinkled old fellow, and his looks did not belie him, for he was a mighty heathen poet and philosopher. Though old, he stood there in his resplendent youth of seventy summers, his eyes ashine with the light of some witchery and fond beliefs shared by no one else. Pokara, was one of a type who are born old and grow up youthful. The blue days, and the death-blood of some thousands of sunsets down his seventy years had mellowed his faith in human things, sent the dross to the winds, leaving him a simple-minded, grand old man. But, withal, directly Pokara sighted my face, he made a bee-line for me. His fine bronze figure was almost hidden, so heavily laden was he with his scented merchandise.
“You nicer white boy, me know!—me know!” said he, as he dropped his bundles, crash! at my feet. Then he continued, “Wise old Pokara say to ’imself, as soon as he jumper on ship, ah, there stand ’ansome nicer Englis’ boy; he gotter nicer face and alle-same-ee know that kind old Pokara am here to sell tings bemarkable cheap.”
After finishing that flattering oration, the old Tahitian drew back a few steps so that he might the better renew his scrutinizing glance over my youthful physiognomy. A second look at my face seemed to make the old chief fairly chuckle to himself. I must have appeared a tenderfoot! He behaved as though he would have me know that he had, by a still more careful study of my features, discovered hitherto undreamed-of virtues and beauty in myself, such virtues that had quite escaped his notice during his first hasty glance of admiration!
Majestically waving away the other scrambling native pedlars with his hand, he said, “Ha! Ha! Yorana!” So how could I do otherwise than purchase a few things that I did not want from that artful old man? I tell these things concerning my introduction to Pokara, because he was a typical Tahitian pedlar, a child in his duplicity, and a fine sample of his race. But Pokara was a child in more ways than one. He was a genuine survival of the heathen days, and his mind was a veritable repository of old legends, star-myths, and the storied history of shadowland. He was a mighty actor by nature, and, withal, was level-headed and good-hearted. Consequently I never regretted meeting him that evening on the “Zangwahee” decks, or at any time during my lengthy stay in Papeete.
I recall that, after I left the “Zangwahee,” I secured a good position as first violinist in the French Presidency orchestra, which I took under my leadership and made into a capital string band. Monsieur le President allowed me a good salary from the official exchequer, and this established me firmly on my feet. But, alas for the foolishness of unsatisfied youth! I tired of success and went a-wandering. But I must admit, and on my own behalf, that Pokara was at the bottom of that business, for I suddenly met him again and got under his pleasing influence. First, I must say that I was in a somewhat melancholy mood that day. The night before, and by the merest chance too, I had seen the last of the “Zangwahee’s” crew. I had just emerged from the Presidency midnight ball, my violin in my hand, thinking to go straight home to my lodgings (an old hut at the end of the township), for, as I have said, it was close on midnight. A glorious full moon was shining over the palm-clad mountains as I hurried on; but it so happened that, after all, I did not return to my diggings till daybreak. For, as I stared between the huddled spaces of the thick clumps of bamboos, I caught sight of some eight ragged-looking human beings attired in ancient seamen’s clothes and antique cheesecutter caps. They turned out to be none other than the “Zangwahee’s” crew on their last night ashore. There they were, old Hans with vast beard leading the way, Steffan, Olaf, Olwyn, the cook, and the rest walking one behind the other in solemn Indian file under the palms, as they made for the nearest café that sold the cheapest and best rum and cognac. And as we all sat together in the shanty by the mountains, the hills round Papeete rang with the echoes of the wild sea chanties of an age that I had never known, while they yarned and sang and drank solemnly at my expense. Old Joffre, the night gendarme, and the sleepless natives came and stood by the café’s doorway, and stared in wonder as those old salts smacked me on the back and yelled many lamentations over their farewells. For I had told them that I had decided not to return to the “Zangwahee” any more. I was truly sorry to see the last of them. They had admitted me to their distinctive social circle, had initiated me into the poetic art of looking backward into a seemingly remote past, and, above all, they had flavoured my soul with a dash of the romance and true poetry of the sea that still wandered on the oceans in the shape of peculiar, old, tattooed men, when I was a boy.
But to resume about Pokara. After leaving those old salts, I happened to be strolling beneath the coco-palms by Motoa beach, a lonely spot by the lagoons outside Papeete. I was standing by the wooden-columned portico of a forest shanty listening to the tuneless chuckling of the blue-winged parakeets, when I was startled by seeing a handsome, silent figure standing beneath a palm tree. It was alive, for the full dark eyes blinked as they stared towards the mountains. The magnificently curved shoulders were squared to their full width, a tappa-sash of gorgeous colour swathed the waist and was tied bow-wise at the left hip, the tasselled end flung gracefully over the right shoulder. The figure exactly resembled a bronze statue. The left knee was bent slightly forward, and one hand was on the chin as the eyes stared in deep meditation. The pose was perfect. Had a handsome Greek statue suddenly stepped down from its pedestal and gripped my hand in friendship I could not have been more astonished. That figure was none other than old Pokara, shorn of his cumbersome merchandise and clad in the full festival costume of ancestral chiefdom. His eagle-like eyes had seen me coming down the orange groves!
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.