 | SKETCH EIGHTH. The piazza tales |  |
8. SKETCH EIGHTH.
“At last they in an island did espy
A seemly woman sitting by the shore,
That with great sorrow and sad agony
Seemed some great misfortune to deplore,
And loud to them for succor called evermore.”
“Black his eye as the midnight sky.
White his neck as the driven snow,
Red his cheek as the morning light;—
Cold he lies in the ground below.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,ys
All under the cactus tree.”
“Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Belov'd till life can charm no more,
And mourned till Pity's self be dead.”
Far to the northeast of Charles's Isle, sequestered
from the rest, lies Norfolk Isle; and,
however insignificant to most voyagers, to me,
through sympathy, that lone island has become
a spot made sacred by the strangest trials of
humanity.
It was my first visit to the Encantadas. Two
days had been spent ashore in hunting tortoises.
third afternoon we loosed our sails. We were
just in the act of getting under way, the uprooted
anchor yet suspended and invisibly swaying
beneath the wave, as the good ship gradually
turned her heel to leave the isle behind,
when the seaman who heaved with me at the
windlass paused suddenly, and directed my attention
to something moving on the land, not
along the beach, but somewhat back, fluttering
from a height.
In view of the sequel of this little story, be
it here narrated how it came to pass, that an
object which partly from its being so small was
quite lost to every other man on board, still
caught the eye of my handspike companion.
The rest of the crew, myself included, merely
stood up to our spikes in heaving, whereas,
unwontedly exhilarated, at every turn of the
ponderous windlass, my belted comrade leaped
atop of it, with might and main giving a downward,
thewey, perpendicular heave, his raised
eye bent in cheery animation upon the slowly
receding shore. Being high lifted above all
others was the reason he perceived the object,
his eye was owing to the elevation of his spirits;
and this again—for truth must out—to a
dram of Peruvian pisco, in guerdon for some
kindness done, secretly administered to him that
morning by our mulatto steward. Now, certainly,
pisco does a deal of mischief in the world;
yet seeing that, in the present case, it was the
means, though indirect, of rescuing a human
being from the most dreadful fate, must we not
also needs admit that sometimes pisco does a
deal of good?
Glancing across the water in the direction
pointed out, I saw some white thing hanging
from an inland rock, perhaps half a mile from
the sea.
“It is a bird; a white-winged bird; perhaps
a—no; it is—it is a handkerchief!”
“Ay, a handkerchief!” echoed my comrade,
and with a louder shout apprised the captain.
Quickly now—like the running out and training
of a great gun—the long cabin spy-glass
was thrust through the mizzen rigging from the
high platform of the poop; whereupon a human
figure was plainly seen upon the inland rock,
the handkerchief.
Our captain was a prompt, good fellow.
Dropping the glass, he lustily ran forward, ordering
the anchor to be dropped again; hands
to stand by a boat, and lower away.
In a half-hour's time the swift boat returned.
It went with six and came with seven; and the
seventh was a woman.
It is not artistic heartlessness, but I wish I
could but draw in crayons; for this woman was
a most touching sight; and crayons, tracing
softly melancholy lines, would best depict the
mournful image of the dark-damasked Chola
widow.
Her story was soon told, and though given
in her own strange language was as quickly
understood; for our captain, from long trading
on the Chilian coast, was well versed in the
Spanish. A Cholo, or half-breed Indian woman
of Payta in Peru, three years gone by, with
her young new-wedded husband Felipe, of pure
Castilian blood, and her one only Indian brother,
Truxill, Hunilla had taken passage on the main
in a French whaler, commanded by a joyous
grounds beyond the Enchanted Isles, proposed
passing close by their vicinity. The object of
the little party was to procure tortoise oil, a
fluid which for its great purity and delicacy is
held in high estimation wherever known; and
it is well known all along this part of the Pacific
coast. With a chest of clothes, tools,
cooking utensils, a rude apparatus for trying
out the oil, some casks of biscuit, and other
things, not omitting two favorite dogs, of which
faithful animal all the Cholos are very fond,
Hunilla and her companions were safely landed
at their chosen place; the Frenchman, according
to the contract made ere sailing, engaged
to take them off upon returning from a four
months' cruise in the westward seas; which
interval the three adventurers deemed quite sufficient
for their purposes.
On the isle's lone beach they paid him in silver
for their passage out, the stranger having
declined to carry them at all except upon that
condition; though willing to take every means
to insure the due fulfillment of his promise.
Felipe had striven hard to have this payment
in vain. Still they thought they had, in
another way, ample pledge of the good faith of
the Frenchman. It was arranged that the expenses
of the passage home should not be payable
in silver, but in tortoises; one hundred tortoises
ready captured to the returning captain's
hand. These the Cholos meant to secure after
their own work was done, against the probable
time of the Frenchman's coming back; and no
doubt in prospect already felt, that in those
hundred tortoises—now somewhere ranging
the isle's interior—they possessed one hundred
hostages. Enough: the vessel sailed; the
gazing three on shore answered the loud glee
of the singing crew; and ere evening, the
French craft was hull down in the distant sea,
its masts three faintest lines which quickly
faded from Hunilla's eye.
The stranger had given a blithesome promise,
and anchored it with oaths; but oaths and
anchors equally will drag; naught else abides
on fickle earth but unkept promises of joy.
Contrary winds from out unstable skies, or
contrary moods of his more varying mind, or
whatever was the cause, the blithe stranger
never was seen again.
Yet, however dire a calamity was here in
store, misgivings of it ere due time never disturbed
the Cholos' busy mind, now all intent
upon the toilsome matter which had brought
them hither. Nay, by swift doom coming like
the thief at night, ere seven weeks went by,
two of the little party were removed from all
anxieties of land or sea. No more they sought
to gaze with feverish fear, or still more feverish
hope, beyond the present's horizon line; but
into the furthest future their own silent spirits
sailed. By persevering labor beneath that burning
sun, Felipe and Truxill had brought down
to their hut many scores of tortoises, and tried
out the oil, when, elated with their good success,
and to reward themselves for such hard
work, they, too hastily, made a catamaran, or
Indian raft, much used on the Spanish main,
and merrily started on a fishing trip, just without
a long reef with many jagged gaps, running
parallel with the shore, about half a mile
from it. By some bad tide or hap, or natural
not be heard, yet by their gestures they seemed
singing at the time) forced in deep water against
that iron bar, the ill-made catamaran was overset,
and came all to pieces; when dashed by
broad-chested swells between their broken
logs and the sharp teeth of the reef, both adventurers
perished before Hunilla's eyes.
Before Hunilla's eyes they sank. The real
woe of this event passed before her sight as some
sham tragedy on the stage. She was seated on
a rude bower among the withered thickets,
crowning a lofty cliff, a little back from the
beach. The thickets were so disposed, that in
looking upon the sea at large she peered out
from among the branches as from the lattice of
a high balcony. But upon the day we speak of
here, the better to watch the adventure of those
two hearts she loved, Hunilla had withdrawn
the branches to one side, and held them so.
They formed an oval frame, through which the
bluely boundless sea rolled like a painted one.
And there, the invisible painter painted to her
view the wave-tossed and disjointed raft, its once
level logs slantingly upheaved, as raking masts,
among them; and then all subsided into smooth-flowing
creamy waters, slowly drifting the splintered
wreck; while first and last, no sound of
any sort was heard. Death in a silent picture;
a dream of the eye; such vanishing shapes as
the mirage shows.
So instant was the scene, so trace-like its
mild pictorial effect, so distant from her blasted
bower and her common sense of things, that
Hunilla gazed and gazed, nor raised a finger or
a wail. But as good to sit thus dumb, in stupor
staring on that dumb show, for all that otherwise
might be done. With half a mile of sea between,
how could her two enchanted arms aid those
four fated ones? The distance long, the time
one sand. After the lightning is beheld, what
fool shall stay the thunder-bolt? Felipe's body
was washed ashore, but Truxill's never came;
only his gay, braided hat of golden straw—that
same sunflower thing he waved to her, pushing
from the strand—and now, to the last gallant, it
still saluted her. But Felipe's body floated to the
marge, with one arm encirclingly outstretched.
Lock-jawed in grim death, the lover-husband
death's dream. Ah, heaven, when man thus
keeps his faith, wilt thou be faithless who created
the faithful one? But they cannot break
faith who never plighted it.
It needs not to be said what nameless misery
now wrapped the lonely widow. In telling her
own story she passed this almost entirely over,
simply recounting the event. Construe the
comment of her features as you might, from
her mere words little would you have weened
that Hunilla was herself the heroine of her tale.
But not thus did she defraud us of our tears.
All hearts bled that grief could be so brave.
She but showed us her soul's lid, and the
strange ciphers thereon engraved; all within,
with pride's timidity, was withheld. Yet was
there one exception. Holding out her small
olive hand before her captain, she said in mild
and slowest Spanish, “Señor, I buried him;”
then paused, struggled as against the writhed
coilings of a snake, and cringing suddenly, leaped
up, repeating in impassioned pain, “I buried
him, my life, my soul!”
Doubtless, it was by half-unconscious, automatic
one performed the final office for Felipe,
and planted a rude cross of withered sticks—
no green ones might be had—at the head of that
lonely grave, where rested now in lasting uncomplaint
and quiet haven he whom untranquil
seas had overthrown.
But some dull sense of another body that
should be interred, of another cross that should
hallow another grave—unmade as yet—some
dull anxiety and pain touching her undiscovered
brother, now haunted the oppressed Hunilla.
Her hands fresh from the burial earth, she slowly
went back to the beach, with unshaped purposes
wandering there, her spell-bound eye bent
upon the incessant waves. But they bore nothing
to her but a dirge, which maddened her
to think that murderers should mourn. As
time went by, and these things came less dreamingly
to her mind, the strong persuasions of her
Romish faith, which sets peculiar store by consecrated
urns, prompted her to resume in waking
earnest that pious search which had but been
begun as in somnambulism. Day after day,
week after week, she trod the cindery beach,
glance. With equal longing she now looked
for the living and the dead; the brother and the
captain; alike vanished, never to return. Little
accurate note of time had Hunilla taken under
such emotions as were hers, and little, outside
herself, served for calendar or dial. As to poor
Crusoe in the self-same sea, no saint's bell pealed
forth the lapse of week or month; each day
went by unchallenged; no chanticleer announced
those sultry dawns, no lowing herds
those poisonous nights. All wonted and steadily
recurring sounds, human, or humanized by
sweet fellowship with man, but one stirred that
torrid trance—the cry of dogs; save which
naught but the rolling sea invaded it, an all-pervading
monotone; and to the widow that
was the least loved voice she could have heard.
No wonder, that as her thoughts now wandered
to the unreturning ship, and were beaten
back again, the hope against hope so struggled
in her soul, that at length she desperately said,
“Not yet, not yet; my foolish heart runs on
too fast.” So she forced patience for some further
weeks. But to those whom earth's sure
same.
Hunilla now sought to settle precisely in her
mind, to an hour, how long it was since the
ship had sailed; and then, with the same precision,
how long a space remained to pass. But
this proved impossible. What present day or
month it was she could not say. Time was her
labyrinth, in which Hunilla was entirely lost.
And now follows—
Against my own purposes a pause descends
upon me here. One knows not whether nature
doth not impose some secrecy upon him who
has been privy to certain things. At least, it
is to be doubted whether it be good to blazon
such. If some books are deemed most baneful
and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier
facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom
books will hurt will not be proof against events.
Events, not books, should be forbid. But in all
things man sows upon the wind, which bloweth
just there whither it listeth; for ill or good, man
cannot know. Often ill comes from the good,
as good from ill.
When Hunilla—
Dire sight it is to see some silken beast long
dally with a golden lizard ere she devour. More
terrible, to see how feline Fate will sometimes
dally with a human soul, and by a nameless
magic make it repulse a sane despair with a
hope which is but mad. Unwittingly I imp
this cat-like thing, sporting with the heart of
him who reads; for if he feel not he reads in
vain.
—“The ship sails this day, to-day,” at last
said Hunilla to herself; “this gives me certain
time to stand on; without certainty I go mad.
In loose ignorance I have hoped and hoped;
now in firm knowledge I will but wait. Now I
live and no longer perish in bewilderings. Holy
Virgin, aid me! Thou wilt waft back the ship.
Oh, past length of weary weeks—all to be dragged
over—to buy the certainty of to-day, I freely
give ye, though I tear ye from me!”
As mariners, tost in tempest on some desolate
ledge, patch them a boat out of the remnants of
their vessel's wreck, and launch it in the self-same
waves, see here Hunilla, this lone shipwrecked
soul, out of treachery invoking trust.
Humanity, thou strong thing, I worship thee,
one.
Truly Hunilla leaned upon a reed, a real one;
no metaphor; a real Eastern reed. A piece of
hollow cane, drifted from unknown isles, and
found upon the beach, its once jagged ends
rubbed smoothly even as by sand-paper; its
golden glazing gone. Long ground between
the sea and land, upper and nether stone, the
unvarnished substance was filed bare, and wore
another polish now, one with itself, the polish
of its agony. Circular lines at intervals cut all
round this surface, divided it into six panels of
unequal length. In the first were scored the
days, each tenth one marked by a longer and
deeper notch; the second was scored for the
number of sea-fowl eggs for sustenance, picked
out from the rocky nests; the third, how many
fish had been caught from the shore; the fourth,
how many small tortoises found inland; the
fifth, how many days of sun; the sixth, of clouds;
which last, of the two, was the greater one.
Long night of busy numbering, misery's mathematics,
to weary her too-wakeful soul to sleep;
yet sleep for that was none.
The panel of the days was deeply worn—the
long tenth notches half effaced, as alphabets of
the blind. Ten thousand times the longing
widow had traced her finger over the bamboo—
dull flute, which played, on, gave no sound—as
if counting birds flown by in air would hasten
tortoises creeping through the woods.
After the one hundred and eightieth day no
further mark was seen; that last one was the
faintest, as the first the deepest.
“There were more days,” said our Captain;
“many, many more; why did you not go on
and notch them, too, Hunilla?”
“Señor, ask me not.”
“And meantime, did no other vessel pass
the isle?”
“Nay, Señor;—but—”
“You do not speak; but what, Hunilla?”
“Ask me not, Señor.”
“You saw ships pass, far away; you waved
to them; they passed on;—was that it, Hunilla?”
“Señor, be it as you say.”
Braced against her woe, Hunilla would not,
durst not trust the weakness of her tongue.
whale-boats had —
But no, I will not file this thing complete
for scoffing souls to quote, and call it firm
proof upon their side. The half shall here
remain untold. Those two unnamed events
which befell Hunilla on this isle, let them
abide between her and her God. In nature, as
in law, it may be libelous to speak some truths.
Still, how it was that, although our vessel
had lain three days anchored nigh the isle, its
one human tenant should not have discovered
us till just upon the point of sailing, never to
revisit so lone and far a spot, this needs explaining
ere the sequel come.
The place where the French captain had
landed the little party was on the further and
opposite end of the isle. There, too, it was
that they had afterwards built their hut. Nor
did the widow in her solitude desert the spot
where her loved ones had dwelt with her, and
where the dearest of the twain now slept his
last long sleep, and all her plaints awaked him
not, and he of husbands the most faithful during
life.
Now, high broken land rises between the
opposite extremities of the isle. A ship anchored
at one side is invisible from the other.
Neither is the isle so small, but a considerable
company might wander for days through the
wilderness of one side, and never be seen, or
their halloos heard, by any stranger holding
aloof on the other. Hence Hunilla, who naturally
associated the possible coming of ships
with her own part of the isle, might to the end
have remained quite ignorant of the presence
of our vessel, were it not for a mysterious
presentiment, borne to her, so our mariners
averred, by this isle's enchanted air. Nor did
the widow's answer undo the thought.
“How did you come to cross the isle this
morning, then, Hunilla?” said our Captain.
“Señor, something came flitting by me. It
touched my cheek, my heart, Señor.”
“What do you say, Hunilla?”
“I have said, Señor, something came through
the air.”
It was a narrow chance. For when in crossing
the isle Hunilla gained the high land in the
centre, she must then for the first have perceived
sails were being loosed, perhaps even heard
the echoing chorus of the windlass song. The
strange ship was about to sail, and she behind.
With all haste she now descends the height on
the hither side, but soon loses sight of the ship
among the sunken jungles at the mountain's
base. She struggles on through the withered
branches, which seek at every step to bar her
path, till she comes to the isolated rock, still
some way from the water. This she climbs,
to reassure herself. The ship is still in plainest
sight. But now, worn out with over tension,
Hunilla all but faints; she fears to step
down from her giddy perch; she is fain to
pause, there where she is, and as a last resort
catches the turban from her head, unfurls and
waves it over the jungles towards us.
During the telling of her story the mariners
formed a voiceless circle round Hunilla and the
Captain; and when at length the word was
given to man the fastest boat, and pull round
to the isle's thither side, to bring away Hunilla's
chest and the tortoise-oil, such alacrity of
both cheery and sad obedience seldom before
anchor had been recommitted to the bottom,
and the ship swung calmly to it.
But Hunilla insisted upon accompanying the
boat as indispensable pilot to her hidden hut.
So being refreshed with the best the steward
could supply, she started with us. Nor did
ever any wife of the most famous admiral, in
her husband's barge, receive more silent reverence
of respect than poor Hunilla from this
boat's crew.
Rounding many a vitreous cape and bluff, in
two hours' time we shot inside the fatal reef;
wound into a secret cove, looked up along a
green many-gabled lava wall, and saw the
island's solitary dwelling.
It hung upon an impending cliff, sheltered
on two sides by tangled thickets, and half-screened
from view in front by juttings of the
rude stairway, which climbed the precipice
from the sea. Built of canes, it was thatched
with long, mildewed grass. It seemed an
abandoned hay-rick, whose haymakers were
now no more. The roof inclined but one way;
the eaves coming to within two feet of the
collect the dews, or rather doubly-distilled and
finest winnowed rains, which, in mercy or in
mockery, the night-skies sometimes drop upon
these blighted Encantadas. All along beneath
the eaves, a spotted sheet, quite weather-stained,
was spread, pinned to short, upright
stakes, set in the shallow sand. A small clinker,
thrown into the cloth, weighed its middle
down, thereby straining all moisture into a calabash
placed below. This vessel supplied each
drop of water ever drunk upon the isle by the
Cholos. Hunilla told us the calabash would
sometimes, but not often, be half filled overnight.
It held six quarts, perhaps. “But,”
said she, “we were used to thirst. At sandy
Payta, where I live, no shower from heaven
ever fell; all the water there is brought on
mules from the inland vales.”
Tied among the thickets were some twenty
moaning tortoises, supplying Hunilla's lonely
larder; while hundreds of vast tableted black
bucklers, like displaced, shattered tomb-stones
of dark slate, were also scattered round. These
were the skeleton backs of those great tortoises
precious oil. Several large calabashes and two
goodly kegs were filled with it. In a pot near
by were the caked crusts of a quantity which
had been permitted to evaporate. “They
meant to have strained it off next day,” said
Hunilla, as she turned aside.
I forgot to mention the most singular sight
of all, though the first that greeted us after
landing.
Some ten small, soft-haired, ringleted dogs,
of a beautiful breed, peculiar to Peru, set up a
concert of glad welcomings when we gained
the beach, which was responded to by Hunilla.
Some of these dogs had, since her widowhood,
been born upon the isle, the progeny of the
two brought from Payta. Owing to the jagged
steeps and pitfalls, tortuous thickets, sunken
clefts and perilous intricacies of all sorts in the
interior, Hunilla, admonished by the loss of
one favorite among them, never allowed these
delicate creatures to follow her in her occasional
birds'-nests climbs and other wanderings;
so that, through long habituation, they offered
not to follow, when that morning she crossed
of other things to heed their lingering behind.
Yet, all along she had so clung to them, that,
besides what moisture they lapped up at early
daybreak from the small scoop-holes among
the adjacent rocks, she had shared the dew of
her calabash among them; never laying by any
considerable store against those prolonged and
utter droughts which, in some disastrous seasons,
warp these isles.
Having pointed out, at our desire, what few
things she would like transported to the ship
—her chest, the oil, not omitting the live tortoises
which she intended for a grateful present
to our Captain—we immediately set to work,
carrying them to the boat down the long, sloping
stair of deeply-shadowed rock. While my
comrades were thus employed, I looked and
Hunilla had disappeared.
It was not curiosity alone, but, it seems to
me, something different mingled with it, which
prompted me to drop my tortoise, and once
more gaze slowly around. I remembered the
husband buried by Hunilla's hands. A narrow
pathway led into a dense part of the thickets.
upon a small, round, open space, deeply chambered
there.
The mound rose in the middle; a bare heap
of finest sand, like that unverdured heap found
at the bottom of an hour-glass run out. At its
head stood the cross of withered sticks; the
dry, peeled bark still fraying from it; its transverse
limb tied up with rope, and forlornly
adroop in the silent air.
Hunilla was partly prostrate upon the grave;
her dark head bowed, and lost in her long,
loosened Indian hair; her hands extended to
the cross-foot, with a little brass crucifix
clasped between; a crucifix worn featureless,
like an ancient graven knocker long plied in
vain. She did not see me, and I made no
noise, but slid aside, and left the spot.
A few moments ere all was ready for our
going, she reappeared among us. I looked
into her eyes, but saw no tear. There was
something which seemed strangely haughty in
her air, and yet it was the air of woe. A
Spanish and an Indian grief, which would not
visibly lament. Pride's height in vain abased
nature's torture.
Like pages the small and silken dogs surrounded
her, as she slowly descended towards
the beach. She caught the two most eager
creatures in her arms:—“Mia Teeta! Mia Tomoteeta!”
and fondling them, inquired how
many could we take on board.
The mate commanded the boat's crew; not
a hard-hearted man, but his way of life had
been such that in most things, even in the
smallest, simple utility was his leading motive.
“We cannot take them all, Hunilla; our
supplies are short; the winds are unreliable;
we may be a good many days going to Tombez.
So take those you have, Hunilla; but no
more.”
She was in the boat; the oarsmen, too, were
seated; all save one, who stood ready to push
off and then spring himself. With the sagacity
of their race, the dogs now seemed aware that
they were in the very instant of being deserted
upon a barren strand. The gunwales of the
boat were high; its prow—presented inland—
seemed instinctively to shun, the dogs could
not well leap into the little craft. But their
busy paws hard scraped the prow, as it had
been some farmer's door shutting them out from
shelter in a winter storm. A clamorous agony
of alarm. They did not howl, or whine; they
all but spoke.
“Push off! Give way!” cried the mate. The
boat gave one heavy drag and lurch, and next
moment shot swiftly from the beach, turned on
her heel, and sped. The dogs ran howling
along the water's marge; now pausing to gaze
at the flying boat, then motioning as if to leap
in chase, but mysteriously withheld themselves;
and again ran howling along the beach.
Had they been human beings, hardly would
they have more vividly inspired the sense of
desolation. The oars were plied as confederate
feathers of two wings. No one spoke. I
looked back upon the beach, and then upon
Hunilla, but her face was set in a stern dusky
calm. The dogs crouching in her lap vainly
licked her rigid hands. She never looked behind
her; but sat motionless, till we turned a
sounds astern. She seemed as one who, having
experienced the sharpest of mortal pangs, was
henceforth content to have all lesser heartstrings
riven, one by one. To Hunilla, pain
seemed so necessary, that pain in other beings,
though by love and sympathy made her own,
was unrepiningly to be borne. A heart of
yearning in a frame of steel. A heart of earthly
yearning, frozen by the frost which falleth from
the sky.
The sequel is soon told. After a long passage,
vexed by calms and baffling winds, we
made the little port of Tombez in Peru, there
to recruit the ship. Payta was not very distant.
Our captain sold the tortoise oil to a Tombez
merchant; and adding to the silver a contribution
from all hands, gave it to our silent passenger,
who knew not what the mariners had
done.
The last seen of lone Hunilla she was passing
into Payta town, riding upon a small gray
ass; and before her on the ass's shoulders, she
eyed the jointed workings of the beast's armorial
cross.
| SKETCH EIGHTH. The piazza tales | |