Читать книгу The Hurricane (Charles Bernard Nordhoff, James Norman Hall) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - James Norman Hall - Страница 5

There were four European residents on Manukura at this time: de Laage, the Administrator, and his wife; Father Paul, and myself. The first, in point of length of residence, was Father Paul. He had come out to the Tuamotu as a youth fresh from the seminary and had spent more than fifty years in the Group without ever having returned to France. He was one of those transparently good old men, so often found in the service of the Roman Catholic Church, whose obscure and devoted lives the world never hears of, but which mean so much to the little flocks they serve. He came from peasant stock in a mountain village near the Spanish border, and his education had been strictly clerical. In his childhood he had been taught to believe in all sorts of ghosts and devils. He found hierarchies of these awaiting him on Manukura, where the natives were nothing if not superstitious. They were very close to being heathen in those days; in fact, they had never before had a missionary stationed amongst them. Father Paul met this situation in a characteristic way. He developed a curious sort of worship, Christian, to be sure, but with a generous mixture of paganism in it. This had nothing to do with basic doctrines, of course. Those he held fast to and taught his people to do the same. They had the deepest love and veneration for him, and he was worthy of it. He accepted the teachings of the Church with the unquestioning simplicity of a child. It is common, in our day, to speak slightingly of these devoted souls. Bigots they may be, in the sense of adhering to one system of belief and excluding all others; but their lives will not suffer in comparison with those of men who believe in nothing, not even in themselves. The world does well to make room for its Father Pauls.

His church, which he had planned and built, largely with his own hands, stood midway in the village. There had gone into it the simplicity of his own nature and the beauty inherent in his faith. It was a coral-lime structure, capable of holding the entire population of one hundred and fifty, with narrow Gothic windows and a little bell tower, all so perfectly proportioned that I doubt whether the best ecclesiastical architect in Europe would have found anything to criticize. It was truly astonishing that an old peasant priest should have worked with such rightness of instinct.

Although in his late seventies, he had the vigor of a man much younger. He had never been ill in his life; with his duties—he was spiritual guide to the natives of half a dozen islands—he had no time to be. His courage, which was as remarkable as his industry, came in part, no doubt, from radiant, unfailing health, but it was based upon his absolute trust in God. Of the six islands under his charge, the nearest, Amanu, was fifty miles away; the farthest, Puka Puka, lay at a distance of more than one hundred and fifty. His only means of visiting his widely scattered parishioners was a small half-decked cutter. She was a stoutly built, seaworthy boat, but when I tell you that she was only sixteen feet over all, with a five-foot beam, you will understand that it required hardihood to make long voyages in so tiny a craft. Low Islanders are thorough seamen and anything but timid folk, but even they shook their heads over what they considered the father’s recklessness. His only companion on these voyages was a fourteen-year-old lad, Mako, one of the sons of Tavi, the storekeeper, who trusted in him as implicitly as the priest trusted in God. They would set out in all kinds of weather and be absent, often, for a month or six weeks together. In the course of time the natives became convinced that the priest was, indeed, an instrument in Divine hands. Nothing could harm him or those under his protection.

One afternoon in March—this was in 1925—the priest and Mako were returning to Manukura from the island of Hao, which lies about seventy-five miles to the southwest. They had left Hao the afternoon before and were still some thirty miles from home. Their galley was a tin-lined box filled with sand which they kept on their half deck in good weather. Mako had prepared supper, after which the father had lain down for an hour or two of sleep.

Mako sat at the tiller humming softly to himself, keeping an eye on the compass and scanning the horizon from time to time. Now and then he would catch glimpses of noddy terns, alone, or in flocks of half a dozen or more, flying landward from their day’s fishing far offshore. They were Manukura terns and would be alighting on Motu Atea or Motu Tonga in an hour’s time. With a breeze so light, the father and he could scarcely hope to reach the pass before dawn. Nevertheless, they were moving. The little cutter was sensitive to the faintest breath of air.

The sun had set and the sea was bright with the blurred reflections of fluffy, fair-weather clouds, glimmering softly in the afterglow. Glancing off to the left, Mako’s attention was attracted by a black object floating on the surface of the water, half a mile or more off the course the cutter was following. At that distance it looked scarcely larger than a match stick and would not have been remarked by one less keen-sighted than a Polynesian boy. Mako kept his eye turned steadily in that direction. Now he would lose sight of it for a moment; then it would reappear riding over the long smooth undulations of the sleeping sea; then he would lose it once more. There was something curious in its appearance; it seemed to rest a little too high in the water for a bit of water-soaked wood made heavier still with barnacles. There was a projection, an excrescence of some sort; if the object was a tree, it might be the fragment of a limb broken off close to the trunk. Of a sudden the lad’s eyes widened in astonishment. He bent his head and peered under the deck where Father Paul was stretched out on a thin mattress, asleep.

“Father! Father Paul!”

The old priest stirred and raised his head. “Yes; what is it, my son?”

“There’s something off to leeward! Come quickly, Father!”

Aroused by the boy’s manner, the priest crawled back to the cockpit and stood gazing in the direction Mako indicated. Dusk was gathering rapidly and in the half-light a moment or two passed before he made out the object.

“You have sharp eyes, my lad. I see it now. What is it, a log?”

“No, Father.”

“Éaha nei! What, then?”

“A canoe, capsized. I think there’s a man clinging to it.”

“A man? Impossible!”

“I saw him move; I’m certain of it. He lifted his arm.”

Quickly the priest took the tiller while Mako slacked away a little on the sheet. They bore down directly on the object.

“Lad, so it is!” the priest exclaimed, incredulously. “He sees us, I think! Stand by, now, to grasp his arm!”

Both stared ahead, scarcely believing the evidence of their eyes. The canoe floated bottom up. The outrigger was gone and the man clinging to the hull was half sitting, half lying astride of it. In the dusk they could make out little save that he was bare-headed and all but naked. The priest hailed him when they were within a few yards, but there was no reply. The cutter was brought into the wind directly alongside. Mako was a strong lad. He seized the man’s outstretched arm as he slid off the canoe and drew him to the cutter’s side; then, seeing that he was too far spent even to cling to the gunwale, he leaned far over and dragged him into the cockpit.

Leaving the tiller, Father Paul was on his knees beside him at once. For the next half-hour they worked over him, giving him coconut water, a few swallows at a time. He was in a pitiable condition from thirst and exhaustion. His hair was long and matted and his cheeks covered with beard. It was not until Mako lit the lantern that the man was recognized. It was Terangi. He had been picked up at a spot—if one may speak of a spot in mid-ocean—nearly six hundred miles from Tahiti. That distance he had covered in a small outrigger canoe such as the natives use for fishing inside their lagoons. If I have failed, thus far, to give you an adequate conception of Terangi’s character, this simple statement of fact will suffice.

He was utterly spent, and presently, without once having spoken, he fell into a heavy sleep. Between them, they managed to push him under the shelter of the deck. Mako remained squatting beside him throughout the night while the priest sat at the tiller. Shortly after sunrise, the boy climbed the mast and caught sight of the palms on Motu Atea, the islet that curves around the eastern end of Manukura lagoon, twenty miles distant from the village islet. It was barely within view; the blurred irregular line of the highest trees could just be seen breaking the line of the horizon. The priest then ordered Mako to lower and furl the sails.

They waited, the cutter drifting, throughout the morning. The day was far spent when Terangi awoke. Mako prepared food for him and he ate ravenously, saying little this while. Father Paul’s one indulgence was his pipe, a meerschaum with a quaintly carved bowl at the end of a long stem. It held a full ounce of tobacco. He lit this while Terangi was at his meal, watching with deep concern and quietly waiting for the man to speak. Mako attended to his wants with an air of awestruck devotion, almost with the reverence with which he assisted Father Paul at Mass. If Terangi was a hero to the boys of Tahiti, you can imagine what his fame was among those of his own island. They had long since heard, of course, of his many escapes and his encounters with the police. Mako, having been the means of saving his life, had a heart filled with happiness. To sit near him, to serve him, to be noticed by him, were privileges so great that he could have found no words with which to express his gratitude. No more than the priest had he recovered from his astonishment of the night before, but he had the ingrained courtesy of his race. It was Terangi’s privilege to satisfy their curiosity or to refrain from speaking, as he chose.

When he had finished his meal, the lad rolled a cigarette for him. The man smoked as he had eaten, in silence, with keen enjoyment. Then he turned to the priest.

“Life is good, Father,” he said. “I little believed, last night, that I should see the sun of another day.”

The priest nodded. “It was Mako who spied you.”

Without turning his head, Terangi laid a hand on the boy’s knee. “I saw you at a distance of two miles—three, perhaps. I feared that you would pass to windward of me on the course you followed. I could do nothing; my strength was gone. Two days and a night I had been clinging to the canoe. The outrigger was badly damaged. I had tied it together as well as I could; then I was again capsized in a heavy squall. There was no repairing the outrigger that time. I could do nothing but wait for the end.”

“Nofea mai oé?”

“From Tahiti.”

“You have come from Tahiti? Alone? In that tiny canoe?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Terangi Tané!” Mako exclaimed softly. All the lad’s capacity for wonder, awe, devoted love, was implicit in the exclamation.

“I came by Mehetia, Anaa, Haraiki, Reitoru, Tahéré. I had no compass. I steered by the sun and the stars. I made a little sail of copra sacking. It is six weeks since I left Tahiti. No one has seen me at any island. I landed on the motu far from the village islets. When the weather favored, I went on again. It has been a weary time.”

That is as much as Terangi ever told of his voyage, as remarkable an exploit, I dare say, as one man has ever accomplished in such a tiny, unseaworthy craft. Mehetia, his first island, is about sixty miles from the nearest coast of Tahiti. Anaa, the second, is two hundred miles farther on, and Haraiki the same distance beyond Anaa. Luck was with him, of course, until his final misfortune, and Terangi was too good a seaman to take unnecessary chances, but one needs vastly more than luck to make such a passage as that. Polynesians are still great historians, and Terangi’s voyage is known now, both in song and in story, from one end of Oceania to the other. It is worthy to pass into the legends of the race.

But to get on with the story——He did not speak again for some time, but sat with his hands clasped loosely, staring at the deck beneath his feet. The old priest gazed at him compassionately, observing the gaunt face, the eyes terribly inflamed by sea water, but more than this, the sombre indomitable expression within them.

“Where are we, Father?” he asked, presently.

The priest pointed to the north. “Manukura is there, just over the horizon.”

“And you are waiting here for . . . ?”

“For you. For night, if you would have it so.”

“I escaped from prison three months ago. You knew, on Manukura?”

The priest shook his head. “We have had no news since the Katopua last came. She is expected again soon.”

Terangi was again long silent. At length the priest laid a hand on his shoulder. “My son,” he said, “I first saw you an hour after your birth. I watched you grow from babyhood to manhood. All the events of your life have been open to me. You trust me?”

“I do, Father. Wait before you speak further. When I escaped this last time, a guard of the prison was killed.”

“By you?”

“Yes. He was at the gate of the prison yard. The gate was open to let the prisoners enter who had been working on the roads. It was a chance. I rushed at the guard. He fired his pistol at me and missed. I struck him on the chest, with my fist. Who would believe that such a blow could kill? But so it was. The man was dead when they took him up. This I learned when hiding in the mountains.”

“You were innocent of the wish to kill him?”

“As innocent as I am of the wish to kill Mako. The man had befriended me more than once. I wished only to escape.”

“It is a grievous sin, but with God, the intent is all. He can forgive heavier ones in those who truly repent.”

“But that will not give life to a murdered man, and so it will be judged by those who sent me to prison. If I am caught, I shall be sent to a place they call Cayenne. Where it is I do not know, except that it is far away. And those who are sent there never come back.”

“Terangi . . .”

“Yes, Father?”

“No one knows that you have left Tahiti?”

“No one save you and Mako; that is certain. They must be searching the mountains for me still; but it may be suspected, by this time, that I have escaped elsewhere.”

“What would you do now?”

“I would see my wife once more, and my mother, and the child that I have never seen. Then let what will come. The little daughter is mine?”

“Can you doubt it?”

“I have been eager to believe it. There has been no one else, then?”

“Never! Your wife has thought of no one but you.”

“Six years is a long time, and she is young. I could understand if . . .”

The priest interrupted him sternly. “Never, I tell you! You do her an injustice to hold such a thought!”

“I wished only to make sure.”

“You do not know your wife.”

“And what time have I had to know her? We were but six weeks married when I was put into the prison.”

Father Paul’s stern expression softened to one of compassion. He had no struggle with his conscience in deciding what his attitude toward the fugitive should be. Secular law was one thing, Divine law another. He had nothing to do with the first, everything to do with the second, and he believed, as did everyone else on Manukura, except the Administrator, that Terangi was a deeply wronged man. Secular law could be implacably, inhumanly just. So it had been in Terangi’s case, but he well knew that de Laage took a different view of the matter. The father had little hope that the Administrator could be kept long in ignorance of Terangi’s presence on the island. In a place where everything was known, and quickly known, concealment would be enormously difficult. There was no man or woman on the island who would not guard the secret as carefully as himself, but the children in their innocence might easily betray him. To avoid this possibility it would be best that none should know save Terangi’s nearest relatives: his wife and mother; Fakahau, the chief, his father-in-law; and Fakahau’s brother, Tavi. The priest was careful to impress upon Terangi the great need for caution.

“I have been a hunted man too long to be blind to the danger,” he replied. “I shall be taken again, that is certain; but I shall have some weeks, even months, perhaps, before they learn where I have hidden. The Administrator is now on Manukura?”

“No; but he is expected to return with the Katopua. He has been visiting the islands to the south.”

They then proceeded to discuss plans for the immediate future, and it was decided that Terangi should conceal himself on Motu Tonga, an uninhabited islet eight miles across the lagoon from the settlement. Father Paul would inform only those mentioned of Terangi’s arrival; the family could then take counsel as to what was best to be done. Sail was now gotten on the cutter. A little before sunset they raised the land, but night had long since fallen before they were coasting along the lonely reefs of Motu Tonga. Mako ransacked the scanty supplies on board, preparing a little bundle of things for Terangi’s immediate needs: a waterproof tin containing matches and tobacco, a pareu, a bed quilt, a clasp knife, various other articles. These he rolled into a tight bundle covered with a piece of matting, and Terangi fastened it with a cord, high on his shoulders. The priest steered the cutter to within a few hundred yards of the reef. Great combers were breaking across it, but Low Island folk are as much at home in the surf as the fish themselves, and a night and a day of rest had restored Terangi’s strength. When they had run midway along the islet he shook hands with his rescuers, slipped over the cutter’s side, and struck out for the land. In the faint starlight he was soon lost to view, but they waited until they heard a distant halloo from the beach. The cutter then stood off to the northeast, and at dawn entered the pass by the village islet.