They were at this despairing, flapping stage when slowly the hubbub of the shanty faded. One by one the men went back to their ships. Songs ceased, and wild ejaculations of spontaneous merriment died out. The two pearl fortune hunters from the Paumotus had bummed their last drink and were snoring lustily on the atrociously hard wooden settee. Mrs Ranjo put out the first two rows of candles as old Ranjo struggled into bed with his boots on.
As Grimes and I stole out into the night we followed the last two lurching, ragged shadows as they went arm in arm back to their ship to sleep. They looked like two enormous frogs, staggering and hopping in drunken glee, their hind legs akimbo. We were the last to arrive on that derelict hulk, for it was there that I too retired to sleep.
But I could not sleep that night. I stole from my bunk and crept up on to the old hulk’s deck, watching the dim horizons, and wishing that the western stars might answer that old figurehead’s eternal appeal, the call of those beseeching hands, that the tattered sails might spread, and, ghost-like, steal away, taking us across that moon-enchanted sea, across phantom oceans beyond the sky-lines of mortal dreams. Ah! how glorious to go out of the realms of Time and yet be alive, bound for the beyond, voyaging on an old raft, alone with those ragged old shellbacks, singing rollicking chanteys with them—till we crashed up against the shores of Immortality. As I stood there dreaming I half fancied it had happened; that I saw that huddled, sinful crew of sailormen, with awestruck, staring eyes, creeping up those hallowed shores. It was a mad fancy, I know. I knocked the ashes from my pipe and stole below, once again, into the bowels of the hulk. Uncle Sam, Grimes, the Irishman, the Scotsman and the bank manager were still sleepily arguing as they pulled off their boots. One by one they jumped into their bunks, where the dead sailors, the old hulk’s crew, had once slept and dreamed. Select, in the far corner by the fore-peak, the university man lay fast asleep, his dirty white cuffs still on.
I lay and stared through the port-hole at the infinite expanse of blue sea outside. The world, somehow, did not seem to be made for sleep by night. I crept from my bunk once more; all was silent below excepting for double-bass snores. I stole up on deck.
As I stood there, perfectly alone with the night, so tremendously vast and lonely did the heavens appear that I became, as it were, half-etherealised, inspired by some intense, sad religion. I felt half sorry for God. Staring up at that vast, mirror-like expanse, I half fancied I saw the Great Poet of the Universe enthroned in eternal loneliness, encircled by dark infinities, surrounded by His shattered dreams—the stars.
Only that legendary woman, that derelict’s figurehead, and I seemed to be intensely awake in the whole world. The poetry of existence hung like a mysterious shroud about me. That figure seemed to be my glorious dead romance. She was no insensate, legendary form, but a woman of immortal beauty. The crumbling wood became mysteriously imbued with light, the marble-like shoulders reddened, she blushed to the brow. I smelt ancient scents of burning sandalwood; a faint breath of warm wind stole across the silent tropic sea; her glorious hair was outblown. As I leaned over, the bosom heaved and the eyes shone with etherealised beauty. It was not wonderful to me when she moved, and her arms were outstretched to mine. I felt the fragrance of those lips breathe incense into my soul. The stars shone in her hair. I became half divine. I heard the cry of mortality; it seemed afar off, yet it cried in the swinging monotone of the seas on the reefs. I wondered on her romance: who was her lover, who the artist that had fashioned those beautiful lines, the curves of that graceful throat, her head thrown back? Ah! where was that poet lover as she, the legendary woman of his soul, lived on—rotting in the warm, tawny arms, the impassioned clasp of the wild, amorous, glorious South?
How strange it all seemed—his dust somewhere—and that figure from his soul still pointing its allegorical hands to the far-off stars, still obeying the eternal impulse of his work.
As I stared at that figure I seemed half to remember—perhaps I was that dead artist! What had brought me in all the world to that mysterious corner of the South? I’m mad enough, thought I.
Leaning forward, I struck a match on the poor crumbling shoulder and then deliberately placed the tiny blue flame against the wraith’s crown of spiritual hair—puff! a bright blaze, a fizzle, and lo! she had vanished—gone! my beautiful romance!
I lit my pipe, half chuckling at the thought of my splendid madness, the glorious insanity that a tiny match flame could so easily dispel.