Never the twain shall meet

by Peter B. Kyne

“The tide has turned. It is at the ebb. It will bear me far to the sea that I have loved and upon whose bosom my days have been spent,” said Gaston of the Beard casually. “Thank you, dear Dan, for all that you have been to me in life, for all that you will be to me in death. I go, finding it hurts to leave those I love. Farewell, Dan Pritchard, and you also, my good Monsieur l’Avocat. . . Tamea, dear child, I depart, loving you.”

He pressed to his red lips the rose she had given him and then, with a look of unutterable love for Tamea and a blithe kiss tossed to sea and sky, he ran swiftly to the rail, stepped over it, and disappeared with a very small splash for so huge a man. . . .

“He has gone to join my mother in Paliuli,” said Tamea bravely. “He goes to her, flower-laden, like a bridegroom. It is the custom in Riva with those for whom life has lost its taste to have their loved ones adorn them with flowers; then they walk out into the sea until they are seen no more.”

Presently, to Dan Pritchard, watching over the taffrail of the Moorea, something floated up from the dark depths and drifted astern. It was the emblem of love, the crown of roses and the lei with which Tamea had decked the great pagan e’er he left her for Paliuli. . . . Afterward Dan remembered that Gaston had worn his marvelous going-ashore clothes and that his tremendous trousers had bagged somewhat more than usual. So Dan suspected he had taken the precaution to fill his pockets with pig lead or iron bolts, and with the tide at the ebb he was drifting in those dark depths out through the Golden Gate at the rate of four miles an hour. . . . Well, they would not see him again.

The sun had sunk behind Telegraph Hill, and dusk was creeping over the waters of the bay of St. Francis. Dan saw the flag at Fort Mason come fluttering down, and across the waters came the sound of the garrison band; from the church of St. Francis de Sales over in North Beach the Angelus was ringing.

“Well, Mr. Henderson,” said Dan presently, “the day’s work is done. The launch is still alongside, so I suggest that you go ashore first and send the launch back for me. Your family doubtless expects you home to dinner. I shall remain here, I think, and go ashore later, when Tamea has packed her belongings. I don’t suppose I ought to leave the child here all night alone.”

Mr. Henderson inclined his head, for he was profoundly affected; as the launch coughed away in the gathering gloom to land him at Meiggs Wharf, Dan descended to the cabin, whither Tamea had gone.

As he entered the main cabin she came out of her stateroom. Her glorious black hair had been loosely braided and hung over her left breast; in the braid a scarlet sweet pea-blossom nestled. She still wore the cheap white cotton skirt Dan had observed on her when he first came aboard and she was still hatless, but buttoned tightly around her lithe young body she now wore an old navy pea-jacket; under her arm she carried her father’s very expensive accordion.

“I am your Tamea now, Monsieur Dan Pritchard,” she announced tremulously. “In this new land I know no one but you. I go with you where you will. I will obey you always, for you are my father and my mother.”

The pathos of that simple speech stabbed him. Poor, lonely little alien! Poor wanderer, in a white man’s world—a world which, Dan sensed, she would never quite understand. How wondrously simple and sweet and unspoiled she was! How transcendently lovely! He wished he might paint her thus—he had a yearning to stretch forth his hand and touch her hair. . . and presently he yielded to this desire. At his gentle, paternal touch all the stark, suppressed agony in the heart of the Queen of Riva rose in her throat and choked her. . . .