“Most beautiful woman in the whole world, just like you,” said Hillary.
So would they talk together; and the pretty native girl would laugh and smirk with the apprentice and wonder if she was as beautiful as he said she was, and if he really meant it when he told her that he longed to elope with her so that they could live on a desert isle together. Hillary little dreamed how one day he and that little native girl would travel across the seas together—in a stranger fashion than he jokingly anticipated.
After the noon sun had dropped and the fire-flies had begun to dance in the mangroves the apprentice put his cap on and strolled out on to the slopes to kill time. And pretty Mango Pango peeled potatoes, sang a melancholy Samoan song, dreamed of the handsome white papalagis and nearly wept to think she was so brown.
CHAPTER VI—THE DERELICT
Hillary was impatient during the interminable hours that passed ere he saw Gabrielle again. “Don’t worry me, Mango,” he said, as the pretty native girl stood on the verandah and blew kisses from her coral-red lips.
“He go mad soon; man who no get drunk am no gooder at all!” murmured Mango Pango as she ran off to obey the orders of her mistress.
It was the next night when Hillary was to reach the zenith of his dreams and happiness. Gabrielle had promised to meet him at sunset and go off in a canoe for a paddle round the coral reefs off Felisi beach. He was on fire with the idea. He could not sleep. His brain teemed with the thoughts of all he would say to Gabrielle when he declared his love. He determined to act his part well and be a worthy lover. She should not be disappointed in him. “I’ll paddle her out to that derelict three-masted ship; that old wreck’s the very place. I’ll take her on board so that we shall be quite alone.”
He thought of the light in Gabrielle’s eyes. “Fancy me being the lucky one to receive her kisses! Wonderful! I know men get exaggerated ideas about the one woman who appeals to them—but Gabrielle!—it’s excusable in me.” So Hillary reflected as he heard the ocean surfs beating against the barrier reefs. It pleased him to hear the winds sighing mournfully through the tracts of coco-palms beyond his bedroom window. His brain became confused as he thought of the ecstasy of holding her in his arms. He sat down by the bamboo table and wrote off a poem. He was so much in love that even the poem was good. He proudly read the verses over and over again, till they seemed more wonderful than anything he had read in the works of the great poets. “I’m a poet,” said he. Then he stared in the mirror at his haggard face, just to see what the world’s greatest lyric poet looked like. Placing his scribbled lyric amongst his valued property in his sea-chest, he once more continued to think over all that he would do when the sublime moment arrived. He thought of how he would hold Gabrielle in his arms. He would be no ordinary lover. He would rain impassioned kisses on her sweet mouth as he held her in his strong embrace. She should not escape him: the very fright that might leap into her eyes through his impassioned vehemence would only serve to feed the fires of all that he felt for her. He looked in the corner on his violin—his old love. How insignificant it seemed when compared to his new love. Yet he felt a slight pang of remorse as he realised how its strings had always responded to his moods. Would Gabrielle’s heart-strings respond as readily? Are the heart-strings of women as perfectly in tune with a lover’s ideals as violins are to the touch of the maestro? He heard the faint booming of the far-off seas sounding through his reflections as they stole across the quiet night. Then he opened his sea-chest and took out Balzac’s Wild Ass’s Skin. He gazed on the faded flower that had lain in the pages. Though it was limp and withered, it was glorified because Gabrielle had worn it in her hair. After that he fell asleep.
Next day the young apprentice became terribly impatient as the hours slowly passed. He was to meet Gabrielle at sunset by the old lagoon. It wanted half-an-hour before the sun fell behind the peaks of Yuraka when he eventually started off. Mango Pango wondered why he was so full of song, so carefully dressed. He chucked her under the chin, even praised her eyes, as he said, “Good-bye, O beauteous golden-skinned Mango Pango,” then hurried out under the palms.
“He fool; he go meet dark-skinned, frizzly Papuan girl, I know! O foolish mans!” murmured pretty Mango as she readjusted the hibiscus blossoms in her bunched tresses and looked quite spiteful.