The New Collected Short Stories (31 page)

When he reached the coast, the other missionaries there saw at once from his face that he had failed. Nor had they expected otherwise. The Roman Catholics, far more expert than themselves, had failed to convert Vithobai, the wildest, strongest, most stubborn of all the inland chiefs. And Paul Pinmay (for this was the young man’s name) was at that time a very young man indeed, and had partly been sent in order that he might discover his own limitations. He was inclined to be impatient and headstrong, he knew little of the language and still less of native psychology, and indeed he disdained to study this last, declaring in his naive way that human nature is the same all over the world. They heard his story with sympathy but without surprise. He related how on his arrival he had asked for an audience, which Vithobai had granted inside his ancestral stockade. There, dictionary in hand, he had put the case for Christ, and at the end Vithobai, not deigning to reply in person, had waved to a retainer and made him answer. The retainer had been duly refuted, but Vithobai remained impassive and unfriendly behind his amulets and robes. So he put the case a second time, and another retainer was put up against him, and the audience continued on these lines until he was so exhausted that he was fain to withdraw. Forbidden to sleep in the village, he was obliged to spend the night all alone in a miserable hut, while the servants kept careful watch before the entrance and reported that an attack might be expected at any moment. He had therefore judged it fitter to come away at sunrise. Such was his story – told in a mixture of missionary jargon and of slang – and towards the close he was looking at his colleagues through his long eyelashes to see whether they suspected anything.

‘Do you advise a renewed attempt next week?’ asked one of them, who was addicted to irony.

And another: ‘Your intention, I think, when you left us, was to get into touch with this unapproachable Vithobai personally, indeed you declared that you would not return until you had done so.’

And a third: ‘But you must rest now, you look tired.’

He was tired, but as soon as he lay down his secret stole out of its hiding-place beyond the mountains, and lay down by his side. And he recalled Vithobai, Vithobai the unapproachable, coming into his hut out of the darkness and smiling at him. Oh how delighted he had been! Oh how surprised! He had scarcely recognized the sardonic chief in this gracious and bare-limbed boy, whose only ornaments were scarlet flowers. Vithobai had laid all formality aside. ‘I have come secretly,’ were his first words. ‘I wish to hear more about this god whose name is Love.’ How his heart had leapt after the despondency of the day! ‘Come to Christ!’ he had cried, and Vithobai had said, ‘Is that your name?’ He explained No, his name was not Christ, although he had the fortune to be called Paul after a great apostle, and of course he was no god but a sinful man, chosen to call other sinners to the Mercy Seat. ‘What is Mercy? I wish to hear more,’ said Vithobai, and they sat down together upon the couch that was almost a throne. And he had opened the Bible at I. Cor. 13, and had read and expounded the marvellous chapter, and spoke of the love of Christ and of our love for each other in Christ, very simply but more eloquently than ever before, while Vithobai said, ‘This is the first time I have heard such words, I like them,’ and drew closer, his body aglow and smelling sweetly of flowers. And he saw how intelligent the boy was and how handsome, and determining to win him there and then imprinted a kiss on his forehead and drew him to Abraham’s bosom. And Vithobai had lain in it gladly – too gladly and too long – and had extinguished the lamp. And God alone saw them after that.

Yes, God saw and God sees. Go down into the depths of the woods and He beholds you, throw His Holy Book into the stream, and you destroy only print and paper, not the Word. Sooner or later, God calls every deed to the light. And so it was with Mr Pinmay. He began, though tardily, to meditate upon his sin. Each time he looked at it its aspect altered. At first he assumed that all the blame was his, because he should have set an example. But this was not the root of the matter, for Vithobai had shown no reluctance to be tempted. On the contrary . . . and it was his hand that beat down the light. And why had he stolen up from the village if not to tempt? . . . Yes, to tempt, to attack the new religion by corrupting its preacher, yes, yes, that was it, and his retainers celebrated his victory now in some cynical orgy. Young Mr Pinmay saw it all. He remembered all that he had heard of the antique power of evil in the country, the tales he had so smilingly dismissed as beneath a Christian’s notice, the extraordinary uprushes of energy which certain natives were said to possess and occasionally to employ for unholy purposes. And having reached this point he found that he was able to pray; he confessed his defilement (the very name of which cannot be mentioned among Christians), he lamented that he had postponed, perhaps for a generation, the victory of the Church, and he condemned, with increasing severity, the arts of his seducer. On the last topic he became truly eloquent, he always found something more to say, and having begun by recommending the boy to mercy he ended by asking that he might be damned.

‘But perhaps this is going too far,’ he thought, and perhaps it was, for just as he finished his prayers there was a noise as of horsemen below, and then all his colleagues came dashing into his room. They were in extreme excitement. Cried one: ‘News from the interior, news from the forest. Vithobai and the entire of his people have embraced Christianity.’ And the second: ‘Here we have the triumph of youth, oh it puts us to shame.’ While the third exclaimed alternately ‘Praise be to God!’ and ‘I beg your pardon.’ They rejoiced one with another and rebuked their own hardness of heart and want of faith in the Gospel method, and they thought the more highly of young Pinmay because he was not elated by his success, on the contrary, he appeared to be disturbed, and fell upon his knees in prayer.

II

EVENING

Mr Pinmay’s trials, doubts and final triumphs are recorded in a special pamphlet, published by his Society and illustrated by woodcuts. There is a picture called ‘What it seemed to be’, which shows a hostile and savage potentate threatening him; in another picture, called ‘What it really was!’, a dusky youth in western clothes sits among a group of clergymen and ladies, looking like a waiter, and supported by under-waiters, who line the steps of a building labelled ‘School’. Barnabas (for such was the name that the dusky youth received at his baptism) – Barnabas proved an exemplary convert. He made mistakes, and his theology was crude and erratic, but he never backslid, and he had authority with his own people, so that the missionaries had only to explain carefully what they wanted, and it was carried out. He evinced abundant zeal, and behind it a steadiness of purpose all too rare. No one, not even the Roman Catholics, could point to so solid a success.

Since Mr Pinmay was the sole cause of the victory, the new district naturally fell to his charge. Modest, like all sincere workers, he was reluctant to accept, refusing to go although the chief sent deputation after deputation to escort him, and only going in the end because he was commanded to do so by the Bishop. He was appointed for a term of ten years. As soon as he was installed, he set to work energetically – indeed, his methods provoked criticism, although they were fully justified by their fruits. He who had been wont to lay such stress on the Gospel teaching, on love, kindness, and personal influence, he who had preached that the Kingdom of Heaven is intimacy and emotion, now reacted with violence and treated the new converts and even Barnabas himself with the gloomy severity of the Old Law. He who had ignored the subject of native psychology now became an expert therein, and often spoke more like a disillusioned official than a missionary. He would say: ‘These people are so unlike ourselves that I much doubt whether they have really accepted Christ. They are pleasant enough when they meet us, yet probably spread all manner of ill-natured gossip when our backs are turned. I cannot wholly trust them.’ He paid no respect to local customs, suspecting them all to be evil, he undermined the tribal organization, and – most risky of all – he appointed a number of native catechists of low type from the tribe in the adjoining valley. Trouble was expected, for this was an ancient and proud people, but their spirit seemed broken, or Barnabas broke it where necessary. At the end of the ten years the Church was to know no more docile sons.

Yet Mr Pinmay had his anxious moments.

His first meeting with Barnabas was the worst of them.

He had managed to postpone it until the day of his installation by the Bishop, and of the general baptism. The ceremonies were over, and the whole tribe, headed by their chief, had filed past the portable font and been signed on the forehead with the cross of Christ. Mistaking the nature of the rite, they were disposed to gaiety. Barnabas laid his outer garment aside, and running up to the group of missionaries like any young man of his people said, ‘My brother in Christ, oh come quickly,’ and stroked Mr Pinmay’s flushed face, and tried to kiss his forehead and golden hair.

Mr Pinmay disengaged himself and said in a trembling voice: ‘In the first place send your people each to his home.’

The order was given and obeyed.

‘In the second place, let no one come before me again until he is decently clad,’ he continued, more firmly.

‘My brother, like you?’

The missionary was now wearing a suit of ducks with shirt, vest, pants and cholera belt, also sun-helmet, starched collar, blue tie spotted with white, socks, and brown boots. ‘Yes, like me,’ he said. ‘And in the third place are you decently clad yourself, Barnabas?’

The chief was wearing but little. A cincture of bright silks supported his dagger and floated in the fresh wind when he ran. He had silver armlets, and a silver necklet, closed by a falcon’s head which nestled against his throat. His eyes flashed like a demon, for he was unaccustomed to rebuke but he submitted and vanished into his stockade.

The suspense of the last few weeks had quite altered Mr Pinmay’s character. He was no longer an open-hearted Christian knight but a hypocrite whom a false step would destroy. The retreat of Barnabas relieved him. He saw that he had gained an ascendancy over the chief which it was politic to develop. Barnabas respected him, and would not willingly do harm – had even an affection for him, loathsome as the idea might seem. All this was to the good. But he must strike a second blow. That evening he went in person to the stockade, taking with him two colleagues who had recently arrived and knew nothing of the language.

The chief received them in soiled European clothes – in the interval he had summoned one of the traders who accompanied the baptismal party. He had mastered his anger, and speaking courteously he said: ‘Christ awaits us in my inner chamber.’

Mr Pinmay had thought out his line of action. He dared not explain the hideous error, nor call upon his fellow sinner to repent; the chief must remain in a state of damnation for a time, for a new church depended on it. His reply to the unholy suggestion was ‘Not yet’.

‘Why not yet?’ said the other, his beautiful eyes filling with tears. ‘God orders me to love you now.’

‘He orders me to refrain.’

‘How can that be, when God is Love?’

‘I have served him the longer and I know.’

‘But this is my palace and I am a great chief.’

‘God is greater than all chiefs.’

‘As it was in your hut let it here be. Dismiss your companions and the gate will be barred behind them and we close out the light. My body and the breath in it are yours. Draw me again to your bosom. I give myself, I, Vithobai the King.’

‘Not yet,’ repeated Mr Pinmay, covering his eyes with his hand.

‘My beloved, I give myself . . . take me . . . I give you my kingdom.’ And he fell prone.

‘Arise, Barnabas . . . We do not want your kingdom. We have only come to teach you to rule it rightly. And do not speak of what happened in the hut. Never mention the hut, the word hut, the thought, either to me or to anyone. It is my wish and my command.’

‘Never?’

‘Never.’

‘Come, my gods, come back to me,’ he cried, leaping up and wrenching at his clothes. ‘What do I gain by leaving you?’

‘No, no, no!’ prevaricated Mr Pinmay. ‘I said Never speak, not that I would never come.’

The boy was reassured. He said: ‘Yes. I misunderstood. You do come to Christ, but not yet. I must wait. For how long?’

‘Until I call you. Meanwhile obey all my orders, whether given directly or through others.’

‘Very well, my brother. Until you call me.’

‘And do not call me your brother.’

‘Very well.’

‘Or seek my company.’ Turning to the other missionaries, he said, ‘Now let us go.’ He was glad he had brought companions with him, for his repentance was still insecure. The sun was setting, the inner chamber garlanded, the stockade deserted, the boy wild with passion, weeping as if his heart had broken. They might have been so happy together in their sin and no one but God need have known.

III

DAY

The next crisis that Mr Pinmay had to face was far less serious, yet it shocked him more, because he was unprepared for it. The occasion was five years later, just before his own marriage. The cause of Christ had progressed greatly in the interval. Dancing had been put down, industry encouraged, inaccurate notions as to the nature of religion had disappeared, nor in spite of espionage had he discovered much secret immorality. He was marrying one of the medical missionaries, a lady who shared his ideals, and whose brother had a mining concession above the village.

As he leant over the veranda, meditating with pleasure on the approaching change in his life, a smart European dog-cart drove up, and Barnabas scrambled out of it to pay his congratulations. The chief had developed into an affable and rather weedy Christian with a good knowledge of English. He likewise was about to be married – his bride a native catechist from the adjoining valley, a girl inferior to him by birth but the missionaries had selected her.