South-Sea Idyls

by Charles Warren Stoddard

It was a memorable moment in a very short voyage; and the general verdict on board ship, where they were watching us with some interest, was, that it served me right.

When my eyes were once more free of the water, I found myself in the midst of the natives, who had been waiting just inside of the reef to receive us; and, as they recognized me, they laid a hand on the canoe, as many as could crowd about it, fairly lifting it out of the water on our way to the shore, all the while wailing at the top of their voices their mournful and desolate wail.

It was impossible for me to decide whether that chant of theirs was an expression of joy, or sorrow: the nature of it is precisely the same, in either case.

So we went on shore in our little triumphal procession, and there I was embraced in a very emphatic manner by savages of every conceivable sex, age, and color. Having mutely submitted to their genuine expressions of love, I was conducted—a willing and bewildered captive—along the beach, around the little point that separates the river from the sea, and thence by the river-bank to the house I knew so well. I believe I looked at every dusky face in that assemblage, two or three times over, but saw not the one I sought.

What could it mean? Was he hunting in the mountains, or fishing beyond the headland, or sick, or in prison, that he came not to greet me? Surely, something had befallen him,—something serious and unusual,—or he would have been the first to welcome me home to barbarism!

A strange dread clouded my mind: it increased and multiplied as we passed on toward the house that had been home to me. Then, having led me to the outer door, the people all sat there upon the ground, and began wailing piteously.

I hastily crossed the narrow outer room, lifted the plaited curtain, and entered the inner chamber, where I had spent my strange, wild holiday long months before. I looked earnestly about me, while my eyes gradually became familiar with the dull light. Nothing seemed changed. I could point at once to almost every article in the room. It seemed but yesterday that I had stolen away from them in the gray dawn, and repented my desertion too late.

I soon grew accustomed to the sombre light of the room. I saw sitting about me, in the corners, bowed figures, with their faces hidden in grief. There was no longer any doubt as to the nature of their emotion. It was grief that had stricken the household, and the grief that death alone occasions. I counted every figure in the room; I recognized each, the same that I had known when I dwelt among them: he alone was absent.

I don't know what possessed me at that moment. I felt an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh, as though it were some masque gotten up for my amusement. Then I wished they would cease their masking, for I felt too miserable to laugh. Then I was utterly at a loss to know what to do; so I walked to the old-fashioned bed—our old-fashioned bed—in the corner, looking just as it used to. I think the same old spider was there still, clinging to the canopy; the very same old fellow, in his harlequin tights, that we used to watch, and talk about, and wonder what he was thinking of, to stop so still, day after day, and week after week, up there on the canopy. I threw myself upon the edge of the bed, my feet resting upon the floor; and there I tried to think of everything but that one dreadful reality that would assert itself, in spite of my efforts to deny it.

Where was my friend? Where could he be, that these, his friends, were so bowed with sorrow? The question involved a revelation, already anticipated in my mind. That revelation I dreaded as I would dread my own death-sentence. But it came at last. A woman who had been humbling herself in the dust moved toward me from the shadow that half concealed her. She did not rise to her feet; she was half reclining on the mats of the floor, her features veiled in the long, black hair of her race. One hand was extended toward me, then the other; the body followed; and so she moved, slowly and painfully, toward the bedside.