South-Sea Idyls

by Charles Warren Stoddard

"I know not where you may be at this moment,—living with what South-Sea Island god, drinking the milk of cocoa-nut, and eating bread-fruit,—but wherever you are, forget not your promise to come home again, bringing your sheaves with you."

Anon she sealed it and mailed it, and it was hurried away, over land and sea, till, after many days, it found me drinking my cocoa-milk and refreshing myself with bread-fruits.

Anon I replied to her, not on the green enamel of a broad leaf, with a thorn stylet, but upon the blank margins of Gail's letter, with my last half-inch of pencil. I said to her:—

"Summer, ——.

"By and by I will come to you, when the evenings are very long, and the valley is still. I will cross the lawn in silence, and stand knocking at the south entry. Deborah will open the door to me with fear and trembling, for I shall be sunburnt and brawny, with a baby cannibal under each arm. Then at a word a tattooed youngster shall reach her a Tahitian pearl, and I will cry, 'Give it to Mistress Gail'; whereat Deborah will willingly withdraw, leaving me motionless in the dead leaves by the south entry. You will take the token, dear Gail, and know it as the symbol of my return. You will come and greet us, and lead us to the best chamber, and we will feast with you as long as you like,—I and my cannibals."

I was never quite sure of what Gail said to my letter, but I knew her for a true soul; so I gathered my cannibals under my metaphorical wings, and journeyed unto the village, and came into it at sunset, while it was autumn. We passed over the lawn in silence, and stood knocking at the south entry, in real earnest. Deborah came at last, and the little striped fellow bore aloft his pearl of Tahitian beauty, while I gave my message, and Deborah was terrified and thought she was dreaming. But she took the pearl and went, and we stood in the keen air of autumn, and my South Sea babies were very cold and moaned pitifully under my arms, and the little pearl-bearer shivered in all his stripes, and capered in the dead leaves like an imp of darkness.

Then Gail came to us and let us in, and we camped by the great fire in the sitting-room, whither Deborah brought bowls of new milk for the little ones, and was wonderfully amazed at their quaintness and beauty, but quite failed to affiliate with my striped pearl-bearer.

So I said, "Sit you down, Deborah, and hear the true story of my Zebra." Gail had already captured the bronze babies, and was helping them with their bowls of milk as they nestled at her feet, and I took my striped beauty between my knees and stroked his soft wool, and told how he saved me from a watery death, and again from the fiery stake, and was doubly dear to me forevermore:—

"We were at the island of Pottobokee, getting water and fruit; had stacked the last sack of mangoes and limes in the boat, and were off for the ship, glad to escape with our scalps, when a wave took us amidships on the reef, and we swamped in the dreadful spume. Some were drowned; some clung to the boat, though it was stove badly, while relief came from the vessel as quickly as possible, and the fragments were gathered out of the waves and taken aboard.