She struck a few chords on the grand Erard piano, and commenced a wailing, dirge-like melody, "a long, low island song," inexpressibly mournful. The movement was chiefly low-toned, and in the minor key, but at times it rose to a higher pitch, into which was thrown the agonised sorrow of irrevocable love, the endless regret, the void immeasurable and eternal, the hopeless despair of a desolated existence.
The words were simple, and more in recitative than rhythm. There was a certain monotony and repetition, but as an expression of passionate and hopeless sorrow it was strangely complete.
The tale was old as life and death, as love and joy, hope and despair. The maiden watching and waiting, during the voyage of the whaleship, the year long through. The sudden delight of the vessel being sighted; the boats going off; the intensity of the anxiety; the returning crew; the eager scanning of the passengers; the refusal to believe in mischance; the guarded half-told tale, then the unmistakable word of doom! He had been drowned at sea; the fearless, fortunate harpooner had, in the sudden flurry of the death-stricken whale, been thrown overboard and stunned. When the half-capsized boat was righted, Johnnie Mills was missing! They rowed round and round, all vainly, then sadly returned to the vessel. This was the tale they had to tell, the tale Susannah M'Coy had to hear. Her over-wrought feelings found relief in the "Maiden's Lament," and after her death her girl companions in singing it preserved the memory of the maiden and her lover, of his doom and her unhappy fate.
There was nothing unusually melodious in the song itself, but as the low, rich notes of Miranda's voice struck on the ear of the listeners, those who had not heard before seemed spell-bound. Not a motion was made, not a sound escaped them, as they listened with an intentness which said far more than the ready and general praise at its close. Knowing, as I did, the extraordinary quality of her voice, I had expected that some such effect would be produced, but I hardly reckoned on such complete and universal admiration.
When the cry of the heartbroken girl rose and echoed through the large room, the effect was electrical; the higher notes were sweet and clear, without a suspicion of hardness, and yet had wondrous under-tones of tears, such as I never heard in another woman's voice. Long before the wailing notes had faded into nothingness Mrs. Neuchamp's eyes were wet. While old Paul, Mr. Neuchamp, and the captain, seemed in no great hurry to express their approval.
"That's the most wonderful song I ever heard," said the old man. "I've heard the girls in Nukuheva sing one something like it, and there are notes in Miranda's voice that take me back to my youth, the island days, and the good old times when Paul Frankston was young and foolish. God's blessing on them! Miranda! my dear, take an old man's thanks. I foresee that I shall have two daughters: one at Marahmee in the summer, and the other in the winter, when Antonia is in the bush."
After this no one would hear of her leaving off. She sang other songs which were not all sorrowful. Some had a livelier tone, and the transient gleam which lit up the dark eyes told that mirth had its due place in her rich and many-sided nature.
"Would you like to hear one of our hymns now?" she asked, with the simplicity of a child. "We used to sing them in parts, and many a night when the moon was at the full did we sit on the beach and sing for hours. I can hear the surge now, and it puts me in mind of our dear old home."
"Oh, by all means," said Antonia, and without further prelude, she began a well-known hymn, the deep tones of her voice rising and falling as if in a cathedral, while the organ-like chords which she evoked from the Erard favoured the faultless rendering. We involuntarily joined in, and I saw Antonia looking admiringly at the singer, as with head upraised, and all the fervour of a mediæval penitent, she poured forth a volume of melodious adoration.
All were silent for some seconds after the last cadence had died away. At length the pause was broken by Antonia.