MORNING ON THE BEACH—THE THREE LETTERS
The clouds were all fled the beauty
of the tropic day was spread upon Papeete; and the
wall of breaking seas upon the reef and the palms
upon the islet already trembled in the heat.
A French man-of-war was going out homeward bound;
she lay in the middle distance of the port an ant-heap
for activity. In the night a schooner had come
in and now lay far out hard by the passage; and
the yellow flag the emblem of pestilence flew on
her. From up the coast a long procession of canoes
headed round the point and towards the market bright
as a scarf with the many-coloured clothing of the
natives and the piles of fruit. But not even
the beauty and the welcome warmth of the morning not
even these naval movements so interesting to sailors
and to idlers could engage the attention of the outcasts.
They were still cold at heart their mouths sour from
the want of sleep their steps rambling from the lack
of food; and they strung like lame geese along the
beach in a disheartened silence. It was towards
the town they moved; towards the town whence smoke
arose where happier folk were breakfasting; and as
they went their hungry eyes were upon all sides but
they were only scouting for a meal.
A small and dingy schooner lay snug
against the quay, with which it was connected by a
plank. On the forward deck, under a spot of awning,
five Kanakas, who made up the crew, were squatted
round a basin of fried feis, and drinking coffee
from tin mugs.
“Eight bells: knock off
for breakfast!” cried the captain, with a miserable
heartiness. “Never tried this craft before;
positively my first appearance; guess I’ll draw
a bumper house.”
He came close up to where the plank
rested on the grassy quay; turned his back upon the
schooner, and began to whistle that lively air, “The
Irish Washerwoman.” It caught the ears of
the Kanaka seamen like a preconcerted signal; with
one accord they looked up from their meal and crowded
to the ship’s side, fei in hand and munching
as they looked. Even as a poor brown Pyrenean
bear dances in the streets of English towns under
his master’s baton; even so, but with how much
more of spirit and precision, the captain footed it
in time to his own whistling, and his long morning
shadow capered beyond him on the grass. The Kanakas
smiled on the performance; Herrick looked on heavy-eyed,
hunger for the moment conquering all sense of shame;
and a little farther off, but still hard by, the clerk
was torn by the seven devils of the influenza.
The captain stopped suddenly, appeared
to perceive his audience for the first time, and represented
the part of a man surprised in his private hour of
pleasure.
“Hello!” said he.
The Kanakas clapped hands and called upon him to go
on.
“No, sir!” said the captain.
“No eat, no dance. Savvy?”
“Poor old man!” returned one of the crew.
“Him no eat?”
“Lord, no!” said the captain. “Like-um
too much eat. No got.”
“All right. Me got,”
said the sailor; “you tome here. Plenty
toffee, plenty fei. Nutha man him tome too.”
“I guess we’ll drop right
in,” observed the captain; and he and his companions
hastened up the plank. They were welcomed on board
with the shaking of hands; place was made for them
round the basin; a sticky demijohn of molasses was
added to the feast in honour of company, and an accordion
brought from the forecastle and significantly laid
by the performer’s side.
“Ariana," said he
lightly, touching the instrument as he spoke; and
he fell to on a long savoury fei, made an end of it,
raised his mug of coffee, and nodded across at the
spokesman of the crew. “Here’s your
health, old man; you’re a credit to the South
Pacific,” said he.
With the unsightly greed of hounds
they glutted themselves with the hot food and coffee;
and even the clerk revived and the colour deepened
in his eyes. The kettle was drained, the basin
cleaned; their entertainers, who had waited on their
wants throughout with the pleased hospitality of Polynesians,
made haste to bring forward a dessert of island tobacco
and rolls of pandanus leaf to serve as paper;
and presently all sat about the dishes puffing like
Indian sachems.
“When a man ’as breakfast
every day, he don’t know what it is,” observed
the clerk.
“The next point is dinner,”
said Herrick; and then with a passionate utterance:
“I wish to God I was a Kanaka!”
“There’s one thing sure,”
said the captain. “I’m about desperate;
I’d rather hang than rot here much longer.”
And with the word he took the accordion and struck
up “Home, sweet Home.”
“O, drop that!” cried Herrick, “I
can’t stand that.”
“No more can I,” said
the captain. “I’ve got to play something
though: got to pay the shot, my son.”
And he struck up “John Brown’s Body”
in a fine sweet baritone: “Dandy Jim of
Carolina” came next; “Rorin the Bold,”
“Swing low, Sweet Chariot,” and “The
Beautiful Land” followed. The captain was
paying his shot with usury, as he had done many a time
before; many a meal had he bought with the same currency
from the melodious-minded natives, always, as now,
to their delight.
He was in the middle of “Fifteen
Dollars in the Inside Pocket,” singing with
dogged energy, for the task went sore against the grain,
when a sensation was suddenly to be observed among
the crew.
“Tápena Tom harry my," said the spokesman,
pointing.
And the three beachcombers, following
his indication, saw the figure of a man in pyjama
trousers and a white jumper approaching briskly from
the town.
“That’s Tápena Tom,
is it?” said the captain, pausing in his music.
“I don’t seem to place the brute.”
“We’d better cut,” said the clerk.
“’E’s no good.”
“Well,” said the musician
deliberately, “one can’t most generally
always tell. I’ll try it on, I guess.
Music has charms to soothe the savage Tápena,
boys. We might strike it rich; it might amount
to iced punch in the cabin.”
“Hiced punch? O my!”
said the clerk. “Give him something ’ot,
captain. ‘Way down the Swannee River’:
try that.”
“No, sir! Looks
Scots,” said the captain; and he struck, for
his life, into “Auld Lang Syne.”
Captain Tom continued to approach
with the same business-like alacrity; no change was
to be perceived in his bearded face as he came swinging
up the plank: he did not even turn his eyes on
the performer.
“We twa hae paidled in the burn,
Frae morning tide till dine,”
went the song.
Captain Tom had a parcel under his
arm, which he laid on the house roof, and then turning
suddenly to the strangers: “Here, you!”
he bellowed, “be off out of that!”
The clerk and Herrick stood not on
the order of their going, but fled incontinently by
the plank. The performer, on the other hand, flung
down the instrument and rose to his full height slowly.
“What’s that you say?”
he said. “I’ve half a mind to give
you a lesson in civility.”
“You set up any more of your
gab to me,” returned the Scotsman, “and
I’ll show ye the wrong side of a jyle. I’ve
heard tell of the three of ye. Ye’re not
long for here, I can tell ye that. The Government
has their eyes upon ye. They make short work
of damned beachcombers, I’ll say that for the
French.”
“You wait till I catch you off
your ship!” cried the captain; and then, turning
to the crew, “Good-bye, you fellows!” he
said. “You’re gentlemen, anyway!
The worst nigger among you would look better upon a
quarter-deck than that filthy Scotsman.”
Captain Tom scorned to reply.
He watched with a hard smile the departure of his
guests, and as soon as the last foot was off the plank,
turned to the hands to work cargo.
The beachcombers beat their inglorious
retreat along the shore; Herrick first, his face dark
with blood, his knees trembling under him with the
hysteria of rage. Presently, under the same purao
where they had shivered the night before, he cast
himself down, and groaned aloud, and ground his face
into the sand.
“Don’t speak to me, don’t
speak to me. I can’t stand it,” broke
from him.
The other two stood over him perplexed.
“Wot can’t he stand now?”
said the clerk. “’Asn’t he ’ad
a meal? I’m lickin’ my lips.”
Herrick reared up his wild eyes and
burning face. “I can’t beg!”
he screamed, and again threw himself prone.
“This thing’s got to come
to an end,” said the captain, with an intake
of the breath.
“Looks like signs of an end,
don’t it?” sneered the clerk.
“He’s not so far from
it, and don’t you deceive yourself,” replied
the captain. “Well,” he added
in a livelier voice, “you fellows hang on here,
and I’ll go and interview my representative.”
Whereupon he turned on his heel, and
set off at a swinging sailor’s walk towards
Papeete.
It was some half-hour later when he
returned. The clerk was dozing with his back
against the tree: Herrick still lay where he had
flung himself; nothing showed whether he slept or
waked.
“See, boys!” cried the
captain, with that artificial heartiness of his which
was at times so painful, “here’s a new
idea.” And he produced note-paper, stamped
envelopes, and pencils, three of each. “We
can all write home by the mail brigantine; the consul
says I can come over to his place and ink up the addresses.”
“Well, that’s a start,
too,” said the clerk. “I never thought
of that.”
“It was that yarning last night
about going home that put me up to it,” said
the captain.
“Well, ’and over,”
said the clerk. “I’ll ’ave
a shy,” and he retired a little distance to
the shade of a canoe.
The others remained under the purao.
Now they would write a word or two, now scribble it
out; now they would sit biting at the pencil end and
staring seaward; now their eyes would rest on the clerk,
where he sat propped on the canoe, leering and coughing,
his pencil racing glibly on the paper.
“I can’t do it,”
said Herrick suddenly. “I haven’t
got the heart.”
“See here,” said the captain,
speaking with unwonted gravity; “it may be hard
to write, and to write lies at that; and God knows
it is; but it’s the square thing. It don’t
cost anything to say you’re well and happy,
and sorry you can’t make a remittance this mail;
and if you don’t I’ll tell you what I
think it is I think it’s about the
high-water mark of being a brute beast.”
“It’s easy to talk,”
said Herrick. “You don’t seem to have
written much yourself, I notice.”
“What do you bring in me for?”
broke from the captain. His voice was indeed
scarce raised above a whisper, but emotion clanged
in it. “What do you know about me?
If you had commanded the finest barque that ever sailed
from Portland; if you had been drunk in your berth
when she struck the breakers in Fourteen Island Group,
and hadn’t had the wit to stay there and drown,
but came on deck, and given drunken orders, and lost
six lives I could understand your talking
then! There,” he said more quietly, “that’s
my yarn, and now you know it. It’s a pretty
one for the father of a family. Five men and
a woman murdered. Yes, there was a woman on board,
and hadn’t no business to be either. Guess
I sent her to Hell, if there is such a place.
I never dared go home again; and the wife and the
little ones went to England to her father’s place.
I don’t know what’s come to them,”
he added, with a bitter shrug.
“Thank you, captain,”
said Herrick. “I never liked you better.”
They shook hands, short and hard,
with eyes averted, tenderness swelling in their bosoms.
“Now, boys! to work again at lying!” said
the captain.
“I’ll give my father up,”
returned Herrick with a writhen smile. “I’ll
try my sweetheart instead for a change of evils.”
And here is what he wrote:
“Emma, I have scratched out the
beginning to my father, for I think I can write
more easily to you. This is my last farewell to
all, the last you will ever hear or see of an unworthy
friend and son. I have failed in life; I am
quite broken down and disgraced. I pass under
a false name; you will have to tell my father that
with all your kindness. It is my own fault.
I know, had I chosen, that I might have done well;
and yet I swear to you I tried to choose. I could
not bear that you should think I did not try.
For I loved you all; you must never doubt me in
that, you least of all. I have always unceasingly
loved, but what was my love worth? and what was
I worth? I had not the manhood of a common
clerk; I could not work to earn you; I have lost
you now, and for your sake I could be glad of it.
When you first came to my father’s house do
you remember those days? I want you to you
saw the best of me then, all that was good in me.
Do you remember the day I took your hand and would
not let it go and the day on Battersea
Bridge, when we were looking at a barge, and I began
to tell you one of my silly stories, and broke off
to say I loved you? That was the beginning,
and now here is the end. When you have read
this letter, you will go round and kiss them all good-bye,
my father and mother, and the children, one by
one, and poor uncle; and tell them all to forget
me, and forget me yourself. Turn the key in the
door; let no thought of me return; be done with the
poor ghost that pretended he was a man and stole
your love. Scorn of myself grinds in me as
I write. I should tell you I am well and happy,
and want for nothing. I do not exactly make
money, or I should send a remittance; but I am
well cared for, have friends, live in a beautiful
place and climate, such as we have dreamed of together,
and no pity need be wasted on me. In such
places, you understand, it is easy to live, and
live well, but often hard to make sixpence in money.
Explain this to my father, he will understand.
I have no more to say; only linger, going out,
like an unwilling guest. God in heaven bless
you. Think of me at the last, here, on a bright
beach, the sky and sea immoderately blue, and the
great breakers roaring outside on a barrier reef,
where a little isle sits green with palms. I
am well and strong. It is a more pleasant way
to die than if you were crowding about me on a
sick-bed. And yet I am dying. This is my
last kiss. Forgive, forget the unworthy.”
So far he had written, his paper was
all filled, when there returned a memory of evenings
at the piano, and that song, the masterpiece of love,
in which so many have found the expression of their
dearest thoughts. “Einst, O Wunder!”
he added. More was not required; he knew that
in his love’s heart the context would spring
up, escorted with fair images and harmony; of how
all through life her name should tremble in his ears,
her name be everywhere repeated in the sounds of nature;
and when death came, and he lay dissolved, her memory
lingered and thrilled among his elements.
“Once, O wonder! once from the ashes
of my heart
Arose a blossom ”
Herrick and the captain finished their
letters about the same time; each was breathing deep,
and their eyes met and were averted as they closed
the envelopes.
“Sorry I write so big,”
said the captain gruffly. “Came all of a
rush, when it did come.”
“Same here,” said Herrick.
“I could have done with a ream when I got started;
but it’s long enough for all the good I had to
say.”
They were still at the addresses when
the clerk strolled up, smirking and twirling his envelope,
like a man well pleased. He looked over Herrick’s
shoulder.
“Hullo,” he said, “you ain’t
writing ’ome.”
“I am, though,” said Herrick;
“she lives with my father. O, I see
what you mean,” he added. “My real
name is Herrick. No more Hay” they
had both used the same alias, “no
more Hay than yours, I daresay.”
“Clean bowled in the middle
stump!” laughed the clerk. “My name’s
’Uish, if you want to know. Everybody has
a false nyme in the Pacific. Lay you five to
three the captain ’as.”
“So I have too,” replied
the captain; “and I’ve never told my own
since the day I tore the title-page out of my Bowditch
and flung the damned thing into the sea. But
I’ll tell it to you, boys. John Davis is
my name. I’m Davis of the Sea Ranger.”
“Dooce you are!” said
Huish. “And what was she? a pirate or a
slyver?”
“She was the fastest barque
out of Portland, Maine,” replied the captain;
“and for the way I lost her, I might as well
have bored a hole in her side with an auger.”
“O, you lost her, did you?”
said the clerk. “’Ope she was insured?”
No answer being returned to this sally,
Huish, still brimming over with vanity and conversation,
struck into another subject.
“I’ve a good mind to read
you my letter,” said he. “I’ve
a good fist with a pen when I choose, and this is
a prime lark. She was a barmaid I ran across
in Northampton; she was a spanking fine piece, no end
of style; and we cottoned at first sight like parties
in the play. I suppose I spent the chynge of
a fiver on that girl. Well, I ’appened to
remember her nyme, so I wrote to her, and told her
’ow I had got rich, and married a queen in the
Hislands, and lived in a blooming palace. Such
a sight of crammers! I must read you one bit about
my opening the nigger parliament in a cocked ’at.
It’s really prime.”
The captain jumped to his feet.
“That’s what you did with the paper that
I went and begged for you?” he roared.
It was perhaps lucky for Huish it
was surely in the end unfortunate for all that
he was seized just then by one of his prostrating accesses
of cough; his comrades would have else deserted him,
so bitter was their resentment. When the fit
had passed, the clerk reached out his hand, picked
up the letter, which had fallen to the earth, and tore
it into fragments, stamp and all.
“Does that satisfy you?” he asked sullenly.
“We’ll say no more about it,” replied
Davis.