I watched him. It was a strange and weird spectacle; there lay the vessel, silent, solitary—"a painted ship upon a painted ocean."
Her brooding inmate would sometimes pace the deck for hours with his arms folded; then would throw himself into a cane lounge, and fixing his eyes upon the sky, mutter and talk to himself.
At other times he would imagine that the ship was surrounded by whales, and rush wildly about the decks, calling on the officers to lower the boats. Not succeeding, he would in despair peer down the dark, deserted foc'sle, begging the crew to be men, and get out the boats.
We cruised now for some weeks to and fro among the lovely islands of the Caroline group, trading in turtle shell, of which we bought great quantities. What a halcyon time it was! There was a luxurious sense of dreamy repose, which seemed unreal from its very completeness.
The gliding barque, the summer sea, the lulling breeze, the careless, joyous children of nature among whom we lived,—all were fairy-like in combination.
When one thought of the hard and anxious toilers of civilisation, from whom we had come out, I could fancy that we had reached the lotus-land of the ancients, and could well imagine a fixed unwillingness to return to a less idyllic life. Hayston was apparently in no hurry.
At any particular island that pleased him he would lie at anchor for days. Then we would explore the wondrous woods, and have glorious shooting trips on shore.
We met some truly strange and original characters in these waters—white men as well as natives. The former, often men of birth and culture, were completely lost to the world, to their former friends and kinsfolk.
Return? not they! Why should they go back? Here they had all things which are wont to satisfy man here below. A paradise of Eden-like beauty, amid which they wandered day by day all unheeding of the morrow; food, houses, honours, wives, friends, kinsfolk, all provided for them in unstinted abundance, and certain continuity, by the guileless denizens of these fairy isles amid this charmed main. Why—why, indeed, should they leave the land of magical delights for the cold climate and still more glacial moral atmosphere of their native land, miscalled home?
Then, perhaps, in the former life beyond these crystal seas—where the boom of the surf upon the reef is not heard, and the whispering palm leaves never talk at midnight—some imprudence, some mistake at cards may have occurred, who knows! These things happen so easily.