By the World Forgot: A Double Romance of the East and West

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

"Yes."

"Well, the rest is simple."

Using one of the cocoa-fiber baskets with which the islanders were accustomed to carry their produce from field to house, the two books were carried to the hiding place without suspicion the next morning. Beekman found a suitable recess, rounded it out with loose stones, and made a dry hiding place for the volumes when they were not in use. The natives generally avoided that spot, but once or twice Hano or Kobo or one of the elders had visited it when the two were there. And, as they had done before, they came again in the days that followed, but the lovers were always found apparently idly scanning the sea and talking about indifferent things.

Of course, some suspicion was at first aroused by their unusually long visits to that semi-sacred spot, but it was soon dissipated in the indifferent and inert minds of every one of them except Hano. As he was whiter, so he was abler than the rest. He made up his mind that he would overhear what those two, one of whom he hated as much as he loved the other, had to say to each other in those long hours. He came in the night, searching for a place of concealment where he could lie hidden and whence he could overhear, but at first he found none. To hide on the slope that went upward to form the walls of the little amphitheater which opened upon the bay or gulf and sea at the top of the cliff was an impossibility. In the first place, he never could get there without traversing the only practicable path and being observed the whole way. In the second place, if he had found a spot where he could lie hidden, he would be so far from the lip of the wall that he could neither hear nor see. There were no caves or crannies big enough to conceal him.

In despair, he stepped to the extreme edge and glanced down, and instantly the solution of his problem presented itself. About six feet below the level of the little amphitheater was a shelf of rock. Access to it would be difficult, dangerous, but not impossible. He tried, and, although he was not used to great heights, he made it. Such was the stimulus of his hate. He examined the shelf of rock, discovered that it ran inward a little, so that if necessary he could conceal himself even from direct observation from above.

The next day he would try it. He would get up before daybreak, and when Truda visited the place for her unfailing survey of the sea at dawn, he would be concealed. After that visit the two invariably went back to the village for breakfast. Then they returned and the lessons began. She had proved an amazingly apt scholar. She could spell out many of the words of the Dutch Bible and express most of the thought in simple English. The written word of the log book was still a mystery to her. He had read it to her, but had not tried to teach her from it then; but she had made great headway with the printed word. After she had learned enough of that, Beekman intended to devise some means to teach her to write, but for the present printing was enough. He began with the Gospel according to St. Luke, which he had preferred to the others for its clear, simple, and beautiful style. Truda not only learned the letters and the simpler words, but she also began to apprehend the great truths of religion which Beekman had held perfunctorily and sometimes lightly, but which on that heaven-kissed hill, on that forgotten island, in the midst of that great sea, he too began to appreciate and realize as he had never done before.

Sweet indeed were those hours when he sat with that old Dutch Bible open on his knee, while she sat upon a lower rock by his side, leaning innocently upon him, her head bent close to the pages of Holy Writ, following eagerly his pointing finger with her glance and imbibing the teaching that he gave her. Imbibing other things, too, for sometimes he broke off and closed the book and laid his hand upon the girl's head or shoulder, or turned her face up to his while she nestled closer to him. They spoke together, without reserve, of the deeper things of love and life. There were no conventions save such as the instinctive sweetness and purity of the woman and the stern repression of the man imposed.

Truda had become so proficient in her English now that they no longer used Polynesian at all; they spoke English or Dutch habitually. Consequently, the listening Hano, his ears attuned by jealousy and hatred and love and tumult of passion to catch the slightest meaning, could make out but little of what was said, especially as they sometimes whispered with the soft yet passionate cadences of lovers alone.

There was no wind that day. The long, slow silting of the waves through the crevices in the barrier far below only came up to the top of the island in faint murmurs. The listener could hear voices but not understand. Indeed, the clearest sound that came to him was the rustling caused by the turning of the stiff, thick, parchment-like leaves of the book. He could not understand what it was. He was greatly puzzled by it.

So the hours wore away. As it approached noontime the cooling shadow cast upon the lovers by the rock wall of the little cup in which they lingered, was withdrawn from them by the upward movement of the sun. The lesson for the morning was over. Hano heard them rise, preparatory to going back to the camp for the noon meal and the afternoon siesta. He heard them put something away in the rocks and pile other rocks around it. That at least was clear to him, his wits sharpened by his desire. He waited until they had gone, calculated the time it would take them to disappear in the clump of trees, and then climbed back to the little amphitheater.