The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom
James Hume Nisbet (1888)
Country of origin: Australia
Available texts by the same author here
IX. Hafid Again on the Road Home.
IT is vain to attempt to describe the agony of the woman when the child she has brought into the world is passing from it, no matter her condition or nationality, if she be a woman.Queen Ine was a woman with all the savage instincts of maternity in full force within her--a savage in every emotion, and the dying child was her own flesh, being torn from her by the remorseless enemy Death; a woman without one consolation, for the South Sea Island teacher who tried his best to comfort, had not learnt enough of his lately-taught creed to translate to her those passages whereby the pastor seeks to alieviate the heavy woe.
From her arms the child had not stirred all through the night, and the antidote which the old woman had rushed off to the village to procure, had been administered too late to be of any service against the subtle effect of the poisoned berries. Every three of the little body had cut the heart of the mother; yet, after the first wild madness of the discovery, she became silent, and only the fierce clutching with her hand at her throat or the sullen bloodshot eyes betrayed how much the mother felt.
All her other children were as nothing to her now, only this one lying so still in her lap with its dimming eyes fixed on space. Her own tearless ones were like flame watching each step of the approaching enemy.
Hafid had disappeared before morning, unconscious of the disaster he had brought upon his benefactress; he wandered, as was his wont, over the most unfrequented portions of the island, and as yet no one had sought for him. By-and-by, however, when the child was dead, their wrath would turn to his direction, and he would be hunted down and offered as a victim to their vengeance.
Emir, the native teacher, would not seek to prevent this action of savage vengeance; to him it would seem all right and proper, in spite of his Christianity.
The sun was warming in the west when the end came. On the sea-shore they all sat silent, except the teacher, who did what he thought right under the circumstances, sang his native hymns and read at random from his native testament.
The tribe was assembled waiting on the death, before they began to weep and lament. Death was a very common visitor with them, and was treated by all except those most interested in a very callous manner; there was no use in wasting any time before the right moment arrived.
Children die easy, and so would this one if they had not tried to save him. Their united efforts increased the torture by prolonging it, but now it was all over, and while the mother's hot eyes still look upon the little tawny ashen face and glazing eyes, the limp limbs are becoming stiff and cold.
Then the ceremony of lamenting begins, while the young men with their spears scatter to hunt for the poor unconscious Hafid; they will do their hour of weeping after they have found him.
But Queen Ine does not weep, or take her eyes away from her dead child. The old woman tries to lift it away, but desists at the wild clutch the mother's hands make upon it, and instead, puts the youngest children by turns to the full, throbbing breasts, where she holds them while they drink, for the mother pays no attention.
It is about the hour when Joe should return, and some of those who have done their time of lamenting set about preparing for his coming back, while others hold up their hands to their eyes, shading them from the declining sun, to catch the first sight of him; but Queen Ine orders or threatens them no more.
By-and-by some of the watchers say they see it, and with it the fire--ship, as they call the steamer, and they all begin to bustle about.
There they are together, the Thunder towing the other along in her wake. Joe has been drinking and swearing, and trying to cheat and lie all day, while his child has been suffering the agonies of death.
A little grey speck, which looms up against the grey undersides of the cloud-bank below the mellow sun-circle, growing from the grey blue to black, separates as the golden orb gets behind it; then nearer every moment, until the dark funnels and masters of the two vessels are easily distinguished, as the amber-brown smoke rolls around that orange and dun space, where the great eye of day is rapidly turning bloodshot as it is nearing that clean-cut line of horizon.
It seems hours to the watchers on shore before they can hear the lashing of the monster's iron tail. Then the yelling and curses of the captain and mate, and dropping of the anchor, intermingle with the blood-thirsty yellings of those ashore who cluster round the prisoner Hafid, dragged by the young men from his retreat in the woods.
"There's something up over there, Joe," remarks Bowman to Joe, as he sees to his revolvers being ready, before he drops into the dingey, inside which the nearly intoxicated Joe is sitting waiting.
"I'll soon settle all that once we land," answers Joe easily, and they pull off towards the excited group.
"Eternal Thunder, what's all this about?" yelled Joe, staggering up towards the group where Queen Ine sits with her dead child, and the natives are gesticulating about their prisoner, whom he does not yet see.
He stops and lays a heavy, uncertain grip on the black shoulders of his wife, as he lurches forward and prepares himself to be delivered of a volley of oaths, when something in the face she turns up to him partly sobers him, and then he looks into her lap and knows all about it.
Queen Ine looks into his face mutely for a moment with the agony of a wounded doe, while he stands swaying to and fro, passing his helpless, horny hand over his drink-dazed eyes and through his beard. Then her eyes drop once more, as if she had not found what she sought for in those brutal features; perhaps she did not look for bread, although she did not like the stone.
Meanwhile Bowman and Danby drew near, and, the dead being only a black child, did not display much interest in it.
Then Joe, whose grief found vent in a fresh volley of curses, asked how it happened, and when one of the natives told him, and pointed to the nearly naked Hindoo standing amongst them, all unconscious of his offence and danger, he turned to where Bowman stood and said,--
"I told you as how that blamed nigger would bring me no luck, and now he has done it, and my wench won't be no good for work for the next month. Poor little man! Blast my blooming eyes."
Something like two drops of water gleamed in Joe's bloodshot eyes as he spoke, but he was ashamed of giving way before his friends.
"What are they going to do to the Hindoo?" asked Bowman.
"Kill him, for certain; may be, roast and eat him."
"No, no! we must not let them."
"I can't stop 'em when their blood's up; it's more than my head's worth. Only Queen Ine could do it, and it's not likely she will."
But Queen Ine belied his idea of her; her heart was too full of woe for any thought of vengeance to stay there, for as Joe spoke she lifted up her dead baby in her arms, and going over to where her tribe stood about their captive, cleared a passage, and taking him by the arm, led him over to where Bowman stood, none disputing her right to dispose of the captive.
"You white fellow, take him away in fire-ship," she said, in the best English she could muster, her voice so husky and dry that Bowman had not the heart to refuse.
"Go way when sun rises. No let them kill Hafid, he good fellow; but take him away."
She returned to her seat on the ground, but this time when the old woman approached she took both infants into her arms, and permitted the other to take the dead baby indoors. She did not look at her husband any more, but bent her head over her little ones as they hung at each breast, so that they could not see her face.
"Best take the idiot aboard at once," advised Joe. "I'll come with you; it feels too blasted lonesome to-night on this yer island, and Queen Ine is best by herself."
Joe slunk to the stern after the others, and said no more till he came aboard, when he straightway set to drown his grief in the only way he knew, which no one sought to deny him. Hafid went forward amongst the other coloured men, and appeared pleased to think he was once more on his way over the seas to find his home. And the others, having already had tea before landing, proceeded to fill their pipes, and lighting up, went up the companion-way to the poop to enjoy the evening breeze.
The young horned moon was slowly sinking below the horizon, and the green and rosy short-lived twilight colours were spreading over the sky.
On shore, in front of the fire, they could see the dark figures squatting, or passing to and fro, and loud sounds of weeping were wafted on the balmy air, blowing the aromatic perfume of burning palm-wood and dulse towards them; fresh arrivals dropping in and joining in the funeral service. And at the sight Joe swore a savage oath, and called for more brandy, which the steward brought to him without the usual slip of paper.
But they were too far off, and the night was getting too dark for them to see the figure which crouched all by itself down by the sea-shore amongst the shells.
Her dead child was being buried by her relations and friends, and her other children were asleep in the bungalow, so that she had come down to the sea-beach to be alone.
And the wind sighed round her from the land, while the little wavelets lapped and splashed about the skirts of her cotton gown and over her bare feet, and the world above her became luminous with moist pitying eyes, which she did not see, for her head was buried in the folds of her gown as it rumpled between her knees. The sounds of the weeping fell unheeded on her ear, for she knew that they meant nothing; but a shudder passed over her back, as the gruff intonation of Joe's curses rolled brokenly in from the deck of the steamer upon the returning breezes, and struck her ear.