“God damn it!” he responded, as his red beard shook with emotion. “The natives on my plantation stop work, dance, go mad and become b—— heathens for four hours every morning while you practise that darned thing.”
At hearing the result of my aspirations to become a great cornet player, I apologised, and had to relinquish my practice for a time. My advice to aspirants for fame on the cornet is to keep in the cities, for there is not privacy enough in the solitudes of the South Seas for cornet practising. But to return to my scratch orchestra.
One night we were all playing in full swing in the shanty, making a terrible row, when Waylao came in, as she often did. When the overture to the fourteenth mug of rum was finished, Grimes and I too stopped for refreshments.
“My word, don’t she look bewtiful!” whispered Grimes as he spotted Waylao.
The girl was talking to Mrs Ranjo, who was telling her fortune.
Grimes blushed to his big ears when Waylao turned and gazed steadily at him for a moment. He started to tune his old banjo up, so as to hide that boyish flush. For a while we sat there in silence, as the girl listened eagerly to Mrs Ranjo’s prophecies. That half-Spanish woman was an adept at palmistry. She had already told Grimes’s fortune and mine, and though I was extremely incredulous, even I had a great deal of pleasure out of the experience.
I watched Waylao as the woman held her hand and scanned the lines. It was easy enough to see that the girl believed implicitly all that the woman said. Nor was there anything wonderful in her doing so, when one thinks of the thousands of well-educated women in the civilised cities who visit the crystal-gazers.
I tell of this little incident in the shanty because it led up to something that was extremely weird and impressive, a scene that Grimes and I witnessed quite by accident in the forest next day.
First, I must say that as we listened to Mrs Ranjo’s prophecies we overheard the woman tell Waylao of one named Rimbo. Now Rimbo was a great, well-known Marquesan prophet. It appeared that he lived in a hut at a solitary spot just round the coast. For a long while Mrs Ranjo expatiated on the virtues of Rimbo’s prophecies—how they always came true. It was easy enough to see that Waylao was deeply impressed. At the time I wondered myself why one fortune-teller should so applaud the virtues of another. It turned out that there was reason enough for this kindliness to a rival, as the reader will see in the next chapter.