Gabrielle certainly did look beautiful: the dying flowers in her bronze-golden hair and her negligé attire (a much-renovated, washed-out blue robe and scarlet sash) added to the mystery of that sordid bungalow, as the dim candles and oil lamp burnt humbly before the unfathomable eyes of sapphire-blue. The deep golden gleam in their pupils seemed to expand as the night grew old. What a night of magic it was for her! The strange man from the seas thrilled her.
The old bungalow, lit up by two tallow candles and one oil lamp, the smell of rum, all vanished, and the dilapidated furniture and walls shone with a beautiful light, a light that came from that romantic presence! By an inscrutable paradox Macka was abnormally sensual and selfish, and yet truly religious! He spoke in low, sombre tones about Christ, of innocence, of the hopes of the living and of men when they are dead. Old Everard looked almost sane as he leaned his Dantesque face across the table and murmured “Amen.” And as the girl listened the Rajah loomed before her imagination as some glorious representative of the chivalric ages who had stolen into their bungalow out of the hush of the great starry night. The very walls of the room faded away as she watched his eyes flash. It was the sudden tiny pinch on her leg as he stooped to pick up his fallen cigar that she couldn’t quite place. It most certainly had no Biblical import in the books she had read. But still, “Why worry?” she thought, as she once more came under the spell of that look. And still old Everard looked round with insane eyes and thanked God for a Rajah’s friendship; and still Gabrielle struggled against the fascination of that man of mystery. Though nature has fixed indisputable danger signals in the eyes of voluptuaries, liars, rogues and old roués so that they give themselves away in a thousand acts, women’s blind eyes will not see!
All the old idolatry, the belief in his heathen gods, returned to Rajah Koo Macka that night. His mind was fired with superstition, much as Gabrielle’s was by romance, as he stared upon her. Had not the gods of his boyhood far away in New Guinea spoken of such a one with midnight-blue eyes and the hue of the stars in her hair? And was she not before him drinking to his eyes as she held the goblet at his wish? Had not their lips met in secret before the white man’s blinded eyes?
He even made a further advance in that predestined courtship, as planned by the gods, when he left the bungalow that night. In a way that is the special gift of voluptuaries, he managed to squeeze by her in the doorway, passing his arm about her with heathen artistry till she felt a strange thrill. Old Everard also received monstrous pressures of friendship as he put forth his hand and opened his insane-looking mouth at being so flattered. Then the old ex-sailor fell down in the doorway, dead drunk.
As soon as the Rajah got outside the bungalow he stood under the palms and looked back at that little homestead, a terrible fire gleaming in his eyes. The old superstition, deep in his heart’s blood, asserted itself with that full strength that is always triumphant when invested with the power of two creeds. “She’s mine!” he muttered in the old Malayan language. He looked like an agent of the devil as he waved his arms and made magical passes. Then he gave a low whistle. Two stalwart Kanakas, with mop-heads and glassy eyes like dead fish, stepped out of the shadows and saluted the Rajah. “Talofa Alii, Sah!” said one, as he softly swung his strangling rope to and fro and muttered, “Oner, twoer, threer, fourer,” at the same time ticking off each number with his dusky finger. They were kidnappers, members of his crew. In a moment they were all hurrying down towards the shore. As they stood by the coral reefs, the waves singing up to their feet, the Rajah rubbed his hands with delight, for there were five dark girls lying prone, half strangled, in his waiting boat.
They had just been caught while swimming in the enchanted lagoons at Felisi, where native maidens, at the tribal witchman’s bidding, went in the dead of night to wash their bodies in the charm-waters that made girls so beautiful. Even as the Rajah and his kidnappers stood on the shore they heard the sound of a sharp, terrified scream come faintly on the hot winds across the hills. They knew that another victim had been caught in the thug-nets. It was easy enough too; for it was a happy hunting ground for the “recruiters” down Felisi beach way. In the dead of night native girls often ran along the soft, moon-lit sands like coveys of dishevelled mermaids, placing sea-shells to their ears that they might hear the songs of dead sailors and the far-off voices of their unborn children humming and moaning in the great spirit-land that is under the sea.
Gabrielle’s heart thumped like a drum as she softly closed the door of the bungalow. She thought she must have dreamed it all. A handsome, god-like Rajah had gazed upon her as though she were a goddess—impossible! So thought the girl as she stumbled over a sordid reality—her father’s recumbent form on the bungalow door-mat. He still lay where he had fallen. He was a big man, and so it was with much difficulty that she at length managed to pick him up and lay him down on the old settee. Then she sat down in the big arm-chair. She heard her father gurgling out some old-time sea-chantey, so faint that it sounded a long way off. The two tallow candles were burning low in their coco-nut-shell candlesticks. But still she sat there. The idea of going to bed seemed ridiculous after the wonderful thing that had happened. She was still trembling to her very soul over the Rajah’s flatteries.
She thought of that secret pressure, the hot kiss, the deep meaning look in the flashing eyes. “He even spoke of God. Men seem to think more of God than women,” she muttered absently. “I’m dark, a heathen at heart; I’d like to marry a handsome, dark man like that,” she continued, as she began to beat her hands to and fro. Suddenly she felt a pang at her heart, for she had begun quite unconsciously to hum a melody that she had heard the young apprentice play to her on his violin. Her limbs started to tremble; the old look came back to her eyes; the swarthy, half-fierce look had vanished. She tried to change her thoughts by humming on in that weird way. “I’m heathenish, I’m sure I am,” she almost sobbed. Then a fierce feeling took possession of her as she realised her own unstable thoughts over the two men she had just met. For a moment she sat perfectly still, thinking—then she burst into tears.
Everard still snored on. Gabrielle ceased her tears, clapped her hands and laughed softly to herself. She had drunk a little rum and stuff that she knew not the name of that night. How could she help doing so. Had not the Rajah placed his lips at the goblet’s edge and looked sideways in deep meaning at her as he drank a toast to her father? But it wasn’t the rum that filled the bungalow parlour with mystery and changed the universe for her. She forgot the armchair in which she sat: it seemed that she sat on a lonely shore by night and stared at a blood-red sun that peered at her over the ocean horizon. Perhaps the Rajah had done this mysterious thing to her through his tender pressure. He knew! He knew! But still, he had no hint in his mind of the witchery of that girl’s soul.
She rose from the arm-chair, her shadow dodged about the walls of the bungalow, then she peeped through the open casement. Night lay with its tropical mystery drenched with stars as she stared upward and then again across that silent land. She withdrew her head and placed a pillow under her sleeping father’s head, then crept from the room, passing up the three steps that separated her from her own chamber. Her room was faintly lit up by the tint of moonrise on the distant mountains. “How silly of me to feel frightened like this,” she murmured, as she swiftly lit the oil lamp. Her limbs still trembled. A feeling of intense sorrow had come over her. The apprentice’s eyes rose before her memory again; she thought of the tryst by the lagoon, and it all seemed like some memory of a romantic opera she had seen and heard long years ago. Then she gave a startled cry: a shadow had run across the room. “How foolish of me to be frightened of my own shadow!” she said almost loudly to herself, as though she would seek courage by hearing her own voice. “I’ve heard that mother had nights of madness, when she thought a dark woman, blind, deaf and dumb, crouched under her bed and begged forgiveness for something she’d done.” So she thought as she rushed to the window to get away from her thought.