Once more the roof of Benbow’s cottage vibrated as the chorus of I owe Ten Shillings to O’Grady struck the silence of those South Sea hills. In the middle of the songs came the hubbub of various calls for rum, terrible oaths and enthusiastic encores. It sounded like some mighty gramophonic record coming on telegraph wires through the earth’s centre, rumbling and humming from far-off civilisation, from the other side of the globe, ay, from London town itself, as the thousand echoes struck the silent hills of heathendom. The native children also flocked across the slopes. Standing on their curly heads, they clapped their tiny hands, and fairly screamed with ecstatic delight as they shouted “Joranna!” One little dusky beggar, who was stone blind, but had ears, wrung his tiny hands, and ran round and round under the moonlit coco-palms. I saw his little tawny face gleam with joy in the moonlight as once again came the thunder of that jovial chorus:
“I owe ten shillings to O’Grady;
He thinks he’s got a mortgage on my life.
He calls on me early every morning,
At night-time sends his wife!”
(Here came tremendous crashes of sea-boots, thumping mugs, and shouts of “Go it, you b—— son of a sea-cook!” Crash! Thump! Then a howl of extreme delight as old mother Lydia lifted her chemise and danced!)
“He wants me to pawn the grand piano!” came the second verse, followed by the “Ta! Ra! Ra! Ra! Ra!”
No living musician, no Wagner of wordy mirth could describe the expressive thunder of that final “Ta! Ra! Ra! Ra!”
“It’s glorious, Grimes,” said I. “Listen to the echoes of advancing civilisation, the echoes of the ghostly footfalls of the coming tramp of white men, salvation armies, bands of hope, the advance guard of the great unwashed! Hear it, Grimes? It’s the sound of the great sign of the London Cross arriving under the Southern Cross, that cross up there inscribed in gold letters across the vault of infinity—the oldest cross in existence.”
By this time the natives had commenced to dance on the hills. Though they had been converted, they forgot their vows and joined in with the white man’s hilarity. I saw their legs go up in the moonlight! They looked so happy. The very sight of those handsome, tattooed men and fine-looking Marquesan girls inspired me. I turned to Grimes and rattled off ex tempore: