I realised now with thankfulness that I had narrowly escaped being liable as an accessory for some of Hayston's ultra-legal proceedings—to call them by no harsher name.
How often, indeed, in the reckless daring of boyhood is the fatal line crossed which severs imprudence from crime! The inexorable fiat of human justice knows no shade of criminality. "Guilty or not guilty," goes forth the verdict. There is no appeal on earth. And the faulty, but not all evil-natured victim, is doomed to live out all the years of a life branded as a felon, or maddened by the fears which must ever torture the fugitive from justice!
If I stayed in the South Seas on my present footing, nothing remained but the trader's life, pure and simple. I had little doubt but that I could make a living, perhaps a competence in years to come. But that meant exile in every sense of the word. Complete severance from my kindred, whom my soul yearned to see again; from the friends of my boyhood; from the loved and lovely land of my birth; from the thousand and one luxuries, material and intellectual, which are comprehended in the word civilisation. I had slaked my thirst for adventure, danger, and mystery. I had carried my life in my hand, so to speak, and times without number had doubted whether I should retain that more or less valuable possession for the next ten minutes. I had felt the poisoned arrows at Santa Cruz hurtling around me, even hiss through my waving locks, when the death-scratch summoned a man on either hand. I had nearly been "blue sharks' meat" as Hayston phrased it, on coral strand amid "the cruel crawling foam." All chances and risks I had taken heedlessly in the past. But now I began to feel that I must pronounce the momentous decision which would make or mar my future career. The island life was very fair. For one moment I saw myself the owner of a trading station on Pingelap or Arurai. I am sitting in a large, cool house, on soft, parti-coloured mats, surrounded by laughing girls garlanded and flower-crowned. Around and above, save in the plantation which surrounds the house, is the soft green light of the paradisal woodland illumining its incredible wealth of leafage, fruit, and flowers. Before me lies the endless, azure sea-plain. And oh, my sea! my own, my beloved sea!—loved in childhood, youth, and age, if such be granted to me! In my ears are the magical murmurous surge-voices, to the lulling of which I have so often slept like a tired child. Fruit and flowers—love and war—manly effort—danger—high health—boundless liberty,—all things necessary to the happiness of primeval man, before he became sophisticated by the false wisdom of these later ages, should I not possess in profusion? Why, then, should I not remain in this land of changeless summer—this magic treasure-house of all delights of land and sea?
Long and anxiously did I ponder over my decision. Those only who have known the witchery of the "summer Isles of Eden," have felt the charm of the dream-life of the Southern Main—the sorcery of that lotus-eating existence, alternating with the fierce hazards and stormy delights which give a richness to life unknown to a guarded, narrowed civilisation—can gauge my irresolution.
I had well-nigh resolved to adhere to the trader's life—until I had made a fortune with which I could return in triumph—when I thought of my mother! The old house, with its broad, stone-paved verandah came back to me—the large, "careless-ordered" garden with its trailing, tropical shrubs and fruit-trees—the lordly araucarias, the boat-house, the stone-walled bath wherein I had learned to swim—all came back in that moment when memory recalled the scenes and surroundings of my early life. I could hear a voice ever low and sweet, as in the days of my childhood, which said, "Oh! my boy! my boy! come back—let me see my darling's face before I die."
I was conquered—the temptations of the strange life, with its sorceries and phantasms, which had so long enveloped me, were swept away like a ghost-procession at dawn. And in their place came the steadfast resolve to return to the home of my youth, thenceforward to pursue such modes of life as might be marked out for me. In a new land like my birth-place, with a continent for an arena, I had no fear but that a career would open itself for me. In no country under heaven are there so many chances of success, so many roads to fortune, as in the lone wastes upon which the Southern Cross looks down. On land or sea—the tracks are limitless—the avenues to fortune innumerable. Gold was to be had for the seeking; silver and gems lay as yet in their desert solitudes, only awaiting the adventurer who, strong in the daring of manhood, should compel the waste to disclose its secrets—only awaited the hour and the man.
For such enterprises was I peculiarly fitted. So much could then be said without boast or falsehood on my part. My frame, inured to withstand every change of temperature which sea or land could furnish, was of unusual strength. By hard experience I had learned to bear myself masterfully among men of widely various dispositions and characters. I took my stand henceforth as a citizen of the world—as a rover on sea and land—as more than a suppliant to fortune, a "Conquistador."
The homeward voyage being now fairly commenced, I began to speculate on the probabilities of my future career. During the years which I had passed among the islands I had acquired experience—more or less valuable—but very little cash. This was chiefly in consequence of our crowning disaster, the wreck of the Leonora. But for that untoward gale, my share of the proceeds of the venture would have exceeded the profits of all my other trading enterprises. As it was, I was left, if not altogether penniless, still in a position which would debar me from making more than a brief stay with my friends in Sydney, unless I consented to be beholden to them for support. That I held to be impossible. For a few weeks I felt that my finances would hold out. And after that, was there not a whole world of adventures—risks, hardships, dangers, if you will—all that makes life worth living—open before me; the curtain had fallen upon one act of the life drama of Hilary Telfer. What of that? Were there not four more, at least, to come?