More than once, as time passed, he turned over in his mind the possibility of calling at the Protestant mission. But no young girl could have shown more timidity than Father Zosimus. Many a time he brought out his best cassock, and brushed his best hat, and took a long look at himself in the cracked shaving-glass. But he would sigh as he saw the image of that wrinkled, shaggy-haired old man. “You’re nothing but a frowsy old frump, Zosimus,” he would say to himself, “nothing but the husk of what was once a man. Sure, they would have little use for you, that handsome boy and girl in their elegant home.” For to Father Zosimus the whitewashed, coral-built mission-house, with its shining windows and its trim garden laid out in plots, was a fairy palace resplendent with luxury and filled with a thousand treasures. In his simple heart, half prepared as it was to believe anything that redounded to the honour of his hero, he had received with all confidence the glowing tales the natives brought him; and the very glamour with which his imagination endowed the spot helped to keep him back. “If the boy cares to know me, he will come himself,” he said; and the camphor-wood chest would close, perhaps for the twentieth time, on the father’s Sunday best.
But the boy never came. He, too, was timid, and though he often noticed the gaunt old priest, and longed also to speak his mother-tongue with the only creature save his wife who could understand it in all Fangaloa, the opportunity never came to break the ice. A whole year passed, and the Rev. Wesley Cook and the Rev. Father Zosimus, S. J., were no nearer an acquaintance than before. Yet there was seldom a day but they saw each other from afar, the one shy and kind, half hoping to receive the first advances, the other no less eager and no less restrained.
One day Filipo brought a rumour to his master which the latter listened to with deep concern. For a whole afternoon he gave up his usual digging in the garden and paced his little verandah to and fro. Once he even washed and dressed himself in his best, and trimmed his ragged beard; but he took off his clothes again and smoked another pipe instead of paying the visit he had so nearly decided to make. He called in Filipo from the taro-field, and bade him waylay Misi’s girls every day and bring news of Mrs. Cook’s condition.
Day by day the two old men discussed the coming event, and Father Zosimus grew by turns glad and fearful at the prospect. The news came to him one morning in October, as he was kneeling to implore divine aid in the hour of a woman’s agony. Dawn was breaking as Filipo rushed into the chapel, coughing and panting. “It is all over,” he cried,—“the mother well and happy, and the child a little chief, of a strength and beauty the like of which has never been seen in Fangaloa.”
“God be thanked!” cried Father Zosimus, throwing himself once more on his knees.
With the later hours there came less assuring news of the mother and the little chief. There was a devil in Misi, said Filipo; a devil that caused her to lie as dead, or to burst forth furiously into strange tongues, so that all about her stood amazed and trembling. The little chief lay helpless in old Sisimaile’s arms, and the flame of its tiny life was that of a flickering torch. Yes, the papatisonga had not been neglected. Old Tuisunga and Leotele, the speaking-man, were the godfathers at the font; and Tutumanaia read fast, with tears in his voice, lest the babe should die before it had been joined to the Tahitian religion. For Master Wesley Chandler Cook was not destined long to be a member of Christ’s church on earth. As they bore him back to the room where his mother lay, he closed his eyes for ever.
Father Zosimus was stunned when the news first reached him, and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he listened to Filipo. Then he went indoors and rummaged the old chests where he kept his treasures, turning out some trashy velvet with which he had meant to decorate the chapel, a bottle of varnish, some brass nails, and a bundle of well-seasoned, well-polished maalava boards that he had laid away to build himself a desk. He spread them out on the rough table, and studied them long and earnestly. In his youth he had been a joiner and a worker in wood, and though his hand was palsied with age, and his eye not so true as it once had been, he was still more than a fair craftsman. He brought out his tools, clamps, and measures, and asked Filipo what he judged to be the bigness of the chief-son of Tutumanaia.
“Not very long,” said the old retainer,—“scarcely more than the half of your Highness’s arm.”
Father Zosimus put on his spectacles, measured off the velvet, scanned his materials and tools with a workmanlike eye, and then, when all lay ready to his hand, he went outside and began to pace up and down his verandah. The devil of irresolution and doubt was again gnawing at his heart. Unsought and unasked, what business was it of his to make a coffin for the dead child? There was not a soul in Fangaloa but knew that Father Zosimus was skilled in such matters, as his house and chapel so abundantly testified. Were his help required, they would come and seek it. Would it not look strange for him to make a coffin unbidden? Would it not appear forward, grasping, perhaps as though he expected payment for his work? For an hour he wrestled with the problem. Finally he told Filipo to spread the news about the village that the old priest looked to undertake this task for nothing, and was waiting only to be asked. With that he shut himself up in the chapel, and spent the forenoon in reciting prayers for the dead. But, devout though he ordinarily was in everything touching the services of his church, Father Zosimus found it hard, on this occasion, to dwell on things heavenly when all the while his body was quivering with suspense, and his soul hearkened for that footfall on the coral floor. Again and again he seemed to hear the sound of voices, Filipo answering with soft deliberation, the minister agitated and saying with mournful earnestness, “Tell the ali’i patele I must see him instantly.” But no message came; no discreet cough or dog-like scratching against the door warned him that his attention was desired; and the stillness of the chapel remained untroubled save for the murmuring surf and the coo of wild pigeons in the forest.
It was late in the afternoon, and the fierce heat of day was already melting into the softness of night, when the minister’s little son was borne to his rest. Under the equator burial follows swiftly on the heels of death, and life no sooner leaves the body than the diggers must sweat and the hammers fly. There can be no decorous pause to soften the blow or strengthen the bereaved for that last farewell beside the grave. Ashamed, he knew not why, with a desolate sense of defeat, Father Zosimus was drawn to gaze on the burial from afar, crouching on a knoll that overlooked the spot. He watched, with an emotion not to be expressed in words, the affecting scene which played itself out before him. Across the strait blue Upolu sparkled in the setting sun; the foaming breakers outlined the coast like a fringe of silver, and thrilled faintly on the ear; the evening star quivered in the blackening sky, and the constellation of the Southern Cross gleamed in the heavens, the bright solace of many a Christian heart.