[Transcriber’s Note: Lyrics]
Mis Ta-lo-fa, the chiefs are sleep-ing,
The seas in moon-light sing,
My eyes are dream-ing, the winds art creep-ing,
Dead shad-ows round me spring.
Winds sigh-ing by me, my Ma-la-bar maid,
Un-der the co-co palms.
Here thro' the night on my breast in the ... Etc.
A. S.-M.
It was very late when Hillary walked back with Gabrielle to see her home. Even the shouts from the festivals of the heathen villages had subsided, only coming to their ears in dismal wails and tom-tom beatings. Gabrielle felt no fear of the dark forest as they hurried along the silver track with the big-trunked trees clearly outlined in the brilliant moonlight.
“You mustn’t get nervous and allow your brain to have such curious fancies, Gabrielle,” said the young apprentice as the girl clung tightly to his arm at the dodgings of their own monstrous silhouettes.
At length they arrived outside old Everard’s bungalow. All was quiet.
“Good-night, Gabrielle,” said Hillary, as he leaned forward, half inclined to say: “Dearest, may I kiss you?” During the last two hours, however, he had been too much worried about something that he knew not of to have made such headway in his advances. Notwithstanding his wish, he only took her hand and gazed into her eyes, and made her promise to keep the next appointment without fail. And she promised. Then he said: “Don’t look so scared, he’s asleep. Surely you’re not afraid of your father like this?” Then he added: “I’ll wait outside here and have a snooze beneath the palms till I think that you are fast asleep!”
Gabrielle didn’t laugh at such a suggestion, as she might have done two nights before! Indeed, she pressed his hand in almost hysterical thankfulness. Hillary wondered why she should be so frightened, why she should look so delighted after looking so scared. “God in heaven! the girl’s madly in love with me!” was the delighted thought that flashed through his brain.
Gabrielle crept indoors. She heard her father’s snoring as she softly opened her bedroom door and entered the room. She went straight to the small casement that opened on the feathery palms and distant moon-lit seas. She pushed aside the big hibiscus blossoms and peered down. Her heart fluttered with some half-fierce delight as she saw that form reclining beneath the palms: it was the penniless, stranded sea apprentice watching outside his South Sea princess’s castle.
With some great light warming her heart Gabrielle crept into bed and fell fast asleep, and so another night passed. It was only in the morning that old Everard said: “Where the ’ell were yer last night? I wish ter blazes ye’d come back before it’s dark. I’m damned if there wasn’t a shadder a-knocking about ’ere last night!”
“No, Dad!” said Gabrielle.