It was this civilization that had wounded him, till the thought of his easy and pleasurable life among the barbarians stung him to madness. Should he ever see them again, his lovers? ever climb with the goat-hunters among the clouds yonder? or bathe, ride, sport, as he used to, till the day was spent and the night come?
Those little booths near the wharves, where shells, corals, and gold-fish are on sale, were Kána-aná's favourite haunts during the last few days he spent here. I would leave him seated on a box or barrel by one of those epitomes of Oceanica, and return two hours later, to find him seated as I had left him, and singing some weird méle,—some legend of his home. These musical diversions were a part of his nature, and a very grave and sweet part of it, too. A few words, chanted on a low note, began the song, when the voice would suddenly soar upward with a single syllable of exceeding sweetness, and there hang trembling in bird-like melody till it died away with the breath of the singer.
Poor, longing soul! I would you had never left the life best suited to you,—that liberty which alone could give expression to your wonderful capacities. Not many are so rich in instincts to read Nature, to translate her revelations, to speak of her as an orator endowed with her surpassing eloquence.
It will always be a sad effort, thinking of that last night together. There are hours when the experiences of a lifetime seem compressed and crowded together. One grows a head taller in his soul at such times, and perhaps gets suddenly grey, as with a fright, also.
Kána-aná talked and talked in his pretty, broken English, telling me of a thousand charming secrets; expressing all the natural graces that at first attracted me to him, and imploring me over and over to return with him and dwell in the antipodes. How near I came to resolving, then and there, that I would go, and take the consequences,—how very near I came to it! He passed the night in coaxing, promising, entreating; and was never more interesting or lovable. It took just about all the moral courage allotted me to keep on this side of barbarism on that eventful occasion; and in the morning Kána-aná sailed, with a face all over tears, and agony, and dust.
I begged him to select something for a remembrancer; and of all that ingenuity can invent and art achieve he chose a metallic chain for his neck,—chose it, probably, because it glittered superbly, and was good to string charms upon. He gave me the greater part of his wardrobe, though it can never be of any earthly use to me, save as a memorial of a passing joy in a life where joys seem to have little else to do than be brief and palatable.
He said he should "never want them again"; and he said it as one might say something of the same sort in putting by some instrument of degradation,—conscious of renewed manhood, but remembering his late humiliation, and bowing to that remembrance.
So Kána-aná and the bark, and all that I ever knew of genuine, spontaneous, and unfettered love, sailed into the west, and went down with the sun in a glory of air, sea, and sky, trebly glorious that evening. I shall never meet the sea when it is bluest without thinking of one who is its child and master. I shall never see mangoes and bananas without thinking of him who is their brother, born and brought up with them. I shall never smell cassia, or clove, or jessamine, but a thought of Kána-aná will be borne upon their breath. A flying skiff, land in the far distance rising slowly, drifting seagrasses, a clear voice burdened with melody,—all belong to him, and are a part of him.
I resign my office. I think that, perhaps, instead of my having converted the little cannibal, he may have converted me. I am sure, at least, that if we two should begin a missionary work upon one another, I should be the first to experience the great change. I sent my convert home, feeling he wasn't quite so good as when I first got him; and I truly wish him as he was.
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