Even Gabrielle shivered in fright when she thought of the tambu worshippers and the strange look of fear on the faces of the dead who were found in the mountain forests after certain festivals. It was some kind of religious sect who offered terrible sacrifices to the tabarans and the ceremony was something after the style of the Vaudoux worship as described by M. de St. Mery in his work on Vaudoux cannibalistic fetishes in Haiti.
When those fetishes were in full swing they could hear the chanting away down in Rokeville during the silence of the night. “Ach!” the Germans would say as they listened to the far-away shrieks in the mountain citadels: children being clubbed and offered up in thanksgiving song and frenzied dances at the altars of indescribable orgy. And the knowledge that such things happened within easy walking distance from her bungalow made Gabrielle careful about roaming too far after dark. She turned from the denser forest and made up her mind to go through the light jungle that separated her from the picturesque shores and lagoons to the south-west. As she ran along the silvery track she looked fearfully into the shadows of the huge buttressed banyans. Her imagination, vividly alive through her terrible experience the night before, made her fancy she heard something running swiftly beside her in the jungle. She suddenly stopped and trembled from head to feet as the sounds of running footsteps stopped also. “Dear God, what have I done?” she wailed out in terror. In a moment she had rushed off, and bounding over the logs of the deserted dobos (huts) came to the cleared spaces where the scattered ivory-nut palms grew. She looked round with relief as she thought of that dreadful hollow that had so strangely re-echoed her own footsteps. Again she ran off; her fears left her and she began to sing. The sight of the dotted huts of the native homestead on the far-away shore revived her spirits. The rich blue of the departing day shone on the horizon and seemed strangely to influence her thoughts. The sough of the winds in the palms near by had rich music for her ears as she listened. “What’s that?” she murmured, as she stood perfectly still. It was not the sound of beating tribal drums this time: she leaned forward and listened again, as though her very soul would drink in that faint, far-off sound. It came again, softly, a wailing, silvery sound moving on the warm sea wind. No fear leapt into her eyes, no agitation came to her limbs. An intensely beautiful expression seemed to light up her face as her heart as well as her ears heard those sweet sounds. The very palms just over her head moaned a tender con anima tenerezza accompaniment as it came, a sweet-throbbing, long-drawn tremulous wail. Tears sprang into her eyes as she listened to the strain of melancholy in the thin silvery voice that drifted beneath the tropic stars. It was the “Miserere” from Il Trovatore.
It was Hillary who felt the embarrassment of the moment as she ran out from beneath the palms. He had not really expected the girl to turn up that evening, although she had asked him to play his violin at that very spot so that she might chance to hear him. The apprentice felt a trifle foolish as he dropped his instrument and gazed at the girl. It struck him that he had been a party to a sentimental by-play out of some romantic novel or scene on the stage. He gave a sheepish grin that would have been quite out of place even had it been a stage performance. As for Gabrielle, she revelled in the romance of that meeting. She gazed into Hillary’s eyes, more like a child than ever, as she sat there on the same banyan bough where she had first sung to Hillary when the Homeric intruder had so suddenly disturbed them. As the apprentice looked at the girl he noticed how haggard she was. As though to ward off his critical gaze, she swiftly turned her head and murmured: “How romantic to hear you play your violin in the distance like that.” Then she added coyly: “It’s as though we are two passionate lovers meeting, just like they meet in Spain and Italy—you know, in the books,” she added, as she gazed half sadly in the apprentice’s face. Hillary tried to hide his true feelings by joking about her brown stocking. She laughed. Then as the darkness deepened Hillary became bolder and pressed his lips on her hand. The girl responded by pressing his fingers. He gazed steadily into her eyes; he wondered why they looked so beautiful and wild. He had noticed the same expression before. He did not stare with vulgar surprise; he simply pressed the girl’s hand in instinctive sympathy. He knew that some fear haunted her soul. His love for Gabrielle had strangely blinded him to worldly things, but had gifted him with an inward sight that made him wonderfully sympathetic. Just for a second he felt a tremendous premonition of all that was coming to pass in his life through his affection for the girl by his side. In another moment his natural gaiety had returned. He half laughed to himself as he felt the wonder of all that he was experiencing in a place where white girls wore two expressions, laughed in one breath and stared in fright in the next.
Gabrielle was staring into his eyes as though she were asleep and yet had her eyes open. Her face was pallid; she had released her hand from his; she was still singing the song she had begun when her expression changed before the apprentice’s astonished eyes.
“God! what is that weird, beautiful melody that you are singing, Gabrielle?” said he, as he came under the influence of her voice. All the European music that he knew was as nothing compared to the painful soul of melody that lingered in the strain that the girl extemporised.
As she still sang and swayed by him in the shadows he swiftly opened his violin-case, but very softly, as though he feared to frighten the song away from her lips. He drew the bow gently, caressingly, con tenerezza, across the responsive strings and played.
