Uncharted Seas (23 page)

‘Why do you not live inside a stockade and post sentries each night so that they cannot surprise you?’ De Brissac asked.

‘If the raids were more frequent we should do so, but to cultivate our land we must live in different parts of the island, so the farthest houses are several miles apart. We lack horses or any other means of transport, so if we lived in one fortress village we should have a long way to walk to and from our work each morning and evening. Besides, we have special hiding-holes for the women in our farms and a system of alarms by which we can come to one another’s assistance. The Negroes have only succeeded in capturing three women in the last ten years.’

‘It seems, Mademoiselle, that you were exceptionally unlucky then,’ De Brissac murmured.

She smiled. ‘Indeed, sir, I was caught only through a quite unusual circumstance. My uncle, with whom I live, was from home last night, a thing which does not happen more than once in six or eight months, and the three farm-hands who live with
us celebrated an anniversary. They got tipsy and were sleeping off their drink, methinks, so did not hear the approach until too late. Had I had the least warning I could have slipped into the hiding-hole which all the females of the island have in their rooms for just such an emergency. As it was they had broken down the door almost before I roused, and I had only time to don these garments before they were upon me. They dragged me down to the beach and strapped one of the spare balloons they had brought upon my back. With two of them gripping my arms, I was forced to hop along across the weed, utterly undone, and nearly frantic with fright.’

‘I wonder, though, that you were able to manage your ski-sticks and stilts well enough to get away if you’ve never had any practice,’ remarked Basil.

‘I was wondrous struck how simple it is with one of those balloons which buoy one up so splendidly. Thus when I saw the ship, being frantic with despair I formed the resolution to break away, even at the risk of a most gruesome death by falling into the weed and becoming the victim of an octopus. Once I had tripped one of the Negroes and pulled away from the other it was amazing easy. I am so much lighter than any of the creatures that I could take longer hops without the ball feet on the sticks and stilts sinking so far into the weed. Yet they would have caught me if it had been a greater distance for I was near dead of exhaustion when I reached the ship.’

‘Any idea how many there are?’ Luvia asked.

‘There were some hundred and fifty of them in the raid; but there are many more on the island. None of the females they have taken prisoner has ever escaped so we know little of them except what Father Jerome has told us.

‘He was a Catholic missionary on a ship that reached Satan’s Island in 1874,’ Yonita continued in explanation. ‘His account of their customs is too terrible to dwell upon. They live in a great village, sheltered by a mountain cliff at the far end of their island, some seven miles from the coastline you can see. Near by the village there is a prison compound with a stockade all round it which is called the “Marriage House”.

‘Whenever a ship drifts up to their coast they crucify all white men that are in it and any women are carried off to this vile den of vice where they are shut up as concubines for the remainder of their lives. Any male children born to these poor creatures are killed at birth, since the blacks do not wish to bring
white blood into their strain, but the girl-children are kept and reared there until they are old enough to be subjected to the same horrible fate as their poor mamas.

‘Father Jerome was voyaging to South Africa and landed there with seven other survivors. His fellows were tortured to death before his eyes, and he himself was only saved by a miracle. He tried reason, pleading and threats in vain; then he called on God to punish these loathsome savages. A thunderstorm broke and one of the headmen of the black tribe was killed by lightning only a few paces from him. The others were so terrified they lacked the courage to kill him, and holding a council decided that he was much too dangerous a witch-doctor to keep, even as a captive. A score of them trussed him up and carried him by night over the weed; leaving him on the beach of our island where some of our people discovered him the following day.’

The company of the
Gafelborg
plied Yonita with innumerable other questions about the life of the strange community, product of many shipwrecks, which inhabited her island and, over lunch, they continued with unabated curiosity until at last she said:

‘My betrothed and my family will be monstrous put about. By now they will be mourning in the belief that they will never see me again and that I shall endure untold horrors in that iniquitous “Marriage House” to which they all have equal right of access; and that I’ll remain a prisoner there for the rest of my life. I must get back to my own island as soon as possible now so as to alleviate their distress and enable them to rejoice at my escape.’

‘I quite see that,’ Luvia agreed. ‘I suppose you mean to make it by using one of the blacks’ balloons. What about the octopuses, though? We saw one of them pulled down into the weed yesterday, although it was so far off we didn’t realise he was a man.’

‘I am not afraid,’ she smiled. ‘He must have landed directly on an octopus to be caught. Ordinarily they hardly touch the weed with the ball feet, and not a single one of the great crowd that captured me this morning was attacked until some of them fell into the weed after you shot at them from the ship.’

‘It is not right that you should take such a risk alone, Mademoiselle,’ De Brissac said quickly. ‘I will willingly come with you.’

Luvia nodded. ‘That’s sound. In fact I think three or four of us
ought to go. They can be hitched to each other then with good long lengths of line, like a chain of mountaineers, and if one slips the others will be able to pull him up again. I can’t go because I’m in command of the ship. I’ll not be able to spare too many whites, either, in case I have more trouble from our ex-mutineers. They’re pretty certain to be boiled up again now on account of seeing their folk overcome this afternoon. I noticed Harlem didn’t shoot, although I loaned him my gun before we knew just what sort of trouble there was going to be. If the stiltsmens’ attack had proved a piece more successful I wouldn’t have put it past him to turn his gun on us; except that I had him in front of me all along and he must have savvied I’d have plugged him like a dog if he’d tried a fast one. There’s Corncob, though. He played up all right and doesn’t seem a bad sort of man. You could take him if you like. What about you, Sutherland?’

‘By all means,’ Basil agreed. ‘I’m quite willing to go.’

Unity lowered her eyes to the table. She had no grounds for protesting his going, but the idea of his running the risk of crossing the horrible weed-sea distressed her terribly. For the first time she realised that she regarded him now as something much more than a friend.

Synolda looked at Yonita: ‘You’ve been through an awful experience, my dear, and it must have tired you, too, answering all our questions this morning. Your people fear you are lost for good, so surely an extra few hours here won’t make very much difference. I do think you ought to lie down and get a rest this afternoon before you set out on your journey.’

‘I should return as soon as possible,’ Yonita said, but her voice was a little uncertain. She had been dragged from her bed at about four o’clock, and she was now beginning to feel the reaction from the terror and fatigue of the early hours of the morning.

‘Synolda’s perfectly right,’ Unity cut in. ‘There’s the best part of seven miles of weed to cover before you can get to your own island, and you can’t halt on the way, even for a moment. That means a big strain, although, I suppose, you’ll be able to make the journey in about an hour. I do think it’d be ever so much better if you rested until—say five o’clock. There’ll be plenty of time for you to make the crossing between then and sundown.’

‘You’re very kind to be so thoughtful for me,’ Yonita smiled, ‘and really, I suppose, it would be best to do what you say.’

Synolda went down to her own cabin with the island girl and tucked her up. The others remained in the lounge talking of the extraordinary history Yonita had related to them and wondering how they could ensure the
Gafelborg’s
beaching on the white man’s island instead of the blacks’. Soon, however, Unity and Basil retired again to the deck-house which contained the ping-pong table.

They played two games, but at the end of the second Unity threw her bat down declaring that she did not want to play any more.

‘What’s up?’ Basil asked. ‘You’ve become awfully solemn. Aren’t you feeling well?’

She shrugged. ‘Oh, I’m well enough, but worried.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of you, of course. I simply hate the thought of your risking your life by crossing this beastly weed.’

‘Do you? It’s not much of a risk really. I’ll be all right. But Unity—’

‘Yes?’

‘I hate to have you worry for me, but it’s nice all the same.’ He stepped forward and took both her hands in his. ‘You know the worst about me now. Does it mean, in spite of that, you—’

‘Of course I do.’ She suddenly pulled away her hands and flung her arms round his neck.

‘Say it,’ he murmured, drawing his head back from a long, violent kiss. ‘Go on say it—do.’

She tried to laugh but the laugh caught in her throat. ‘All right,’ she said distinctly, smiling into his eyes, ‘I confess it. I love you—there!’

They clung together breathlessly for a few moments while he caressed her. All the false prudery she had imbibed through her stern upbringing was gone to the winds and, like a normal healthy girl who is stirred to genuine passion for the first time, she returned his caresses with an equal fervour.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said at last, drawing back a little and fumbling in his pocket. ‘I didn’t mean to show it to you—not yet anyway—but I will now.’

‘Is it—a poem?’ She looked up with flushed face and shining eyes. ‘Do let me see.’

‘Yes, here it is. I’ve been burning the midnight oil on it between spells of duty these last two nights.’

With his arm about her shoulders she unfolded the sheet of paper and slowly read the lines, savouring every facet of their beauty.

I know two handfuls of the evening smoke
stole while you slept into your waiting eyes
and filled them with a dreamers’ drifting cloak
of deeper grey, as quiet and old and wise
as all the world’s forgotten dynasties
.

But in that smoke which drowned your eyes with grey
were all the things my life had tried to say
and failed: so I went to discover
the dreaming eyes of you, my unseen lover
.

Then we undid the world and threw aside
the stars that we might meet; we never met,
though you were standing, watching at the side,
and saw the deep hill-passes torn to flame
by banked spear-blades whose silver rode in pride
to meet the end of some forlorn crusade
and I marched in the ranks of that brigade
.

We knew the lovers of a thousand years
and learnt with them; we had felt all their laughter
tangled with threads of pain, fretted with tears,
the falling-fading of their dreams; and after
the broken mirrors of their memories
.

We saw them die and learnt the storming power
of love made from such loved inconstancies;
yet neither of us loved until this hour
.

We sought each other over doomed defeats,
in the ashes of a song that once was flame,
behind the masks of constant counterfeits,
the burnt-out mockeries of men’s love and shame,
in the fairy tales that whispered round our feet
.

Yet through it all your grey eyes were the same,
the shuttle worked always beneath your lips,
weaving your smile; your dark hair waved that way
when the first bent wind danced it to proud display;
startling your mouth with unplacated white
your skin rebels against your dark hair’s flight
…

and I would always have you this same way
…

the way you looked when I rode to discover
the unseen eyes of you, my dreaming lover
.

As she finished she turned up her face and kissed him gently.

‘Like it?’ he asked smiling.

‘How could I help liking it?’ she murmured. ‘It makes me a little nervous, though. I’m such an ordinary person really and it’s a sort of miracle that anyone could think such wonderful thoughts about me.’

‘It’s you who’s the miracle, darling,’ he cried, seizing her to kiss her lips again.

It was very silent there in the deck-house. As there was no work to do in the ship most of the others were sleeping in their bunks or talking idly in the lounge. The great weed continent, full of mystery and foreboding, wrapped them round, but the two lovers ignored it in their happiness and the long hours of the afternoon drifted by unnoticed.

They were still entwined in one of the big basket armchairs, her head resting on his shoulder, when Luvia came to find them. He paused in the doorway, a little embarrassed, as they started up.

‘Sorry,’ he murmured, ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you; but it’s five o’clock and you’d best have a bite to eat, Sutherland, before hitting the trail.’

Unity smiled at him, radiant with health and happiness.

‘Don’t be so horror-struck, please. Basil and I have just got engaged. We’ve been planning what we’ll do if ever we get back to England.’

Basil nodded. ‘Yes, I don’t suppose you knew it; I’m a poor devil of a remittance man. But I think my family’ll take me back and give me another chance if Unity vouches for my new-found respectability.’

She laughed. ‘If they don’t, they can go to the devil, darling, because I’ve got money of my own to set you up in anything you’d like to do, and I’ll have more than ever now father’s dead.’

‘I wouldn’t count too much on getting back to England,’ Luvia grinned. ‘I’ve pretty well given up any hope of that myself. But you can settle down together on Yonita’s island—if we can only reach it. Anyhow, all the best of luck. Perhaps you’d rather not make this trip now, Sutherland—seeing how things are?’