CHAPTER XXI

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*THE WATCHER ON THE ROCKS*

The day after their visit to the church, or temple, he had imparted the story to her, explaining carefully, so she could grasp at least the salient points of the narrative, how she and those who survived came to that island. It was difficult to make her understand. She had few abstract notions as yet. The concrete alone appealed to the primitive. But she had developed amazingly, and by repetition and explanation over and over again she began to appreciate the truth. When he told her that she differed from the rest of the inhabitants of the island, she could understand that better, for she too possessed, albeit it had been latent, a full measure of the pride of the white race. She had gloried that her skin was fairer, her hair brighter, her eyes bluer even than those of Hano and Kobo, much more than those of any of the others. Now she began to catch a glimpse of the reason why, not only for her personal difference, but for her instinctive joy in it as well.

"Then I am like you," she said at last, "of your people."

"Yes; of my race, of my blood," answered the man, and the joy and satisfaction she felt in his voice thrilled her, and satisfied her, too; for what pleased him pleased her even more.

"What is to be done now?" asked the woman as they retraced their steps from some island haunt where they loved to linger in the cool of the evening of that day of revelations.

She spoke English. Her mind, like her body, was virgin. She was excessively quick to respond to the stimulus of his teaching, and she possessed a rare faculty for language, he discovered. Conversation was easy and unrestrained; she could use Dutch words if necessary to supplement her English, and even on occasion revert to the island dialect, and he could easily understand both.

"I am going to teach you to understand the message of the books."

"The words of your God and mine?"

"Exactly."

"And where, and when, and how?"

"Listen; I have thought of a plan. I don't know what they would do to us or to me if they caught me with the books."

The girl shook her head with grave foreboding.

"They might kill you," she said, "but I don't know. The things of the God--what do you call them?--books, have never been taken from the taboo house."

"Church," he corrected.

"The church," she repeated, endeavoring with considerable success to form the unaccustomed sound. "I can't tell what they would do, but old Kobo would be terribly angry and afraid. They are all afraid of that house, as I was until you showed me a better way. And Hano hates you, anyway."

"Of course. Personally, I don't fear the lot of them," said the man, smiling and quite confident in his splendid vigor, "but I don't want to have any trouble. I don't want to be the means of introducing bloodshed and hatred into this little paradise."

He spoke unwittingly, not realizing for the moment that wherever human passions enter, even the highest and holiest, they usually make a way through which others that come not in the same category follow. His arrival upon the island, the unconscious supremacy he assumed as related to the rest, the love that had sprung up between him and this fair child of Europe, and of the nurture of the tropic seas, had brought jealousy and hate and envy in their train. There had been no crime committed on that island perhaps since it had been discovered, certainly not for generations, but now--well, he would see. He went on in natural unconsciousness of all that while the obsessed woman hung upon his words--

"That place overlooking the deep bay, where first I saw you, where you go to meet the sunrising--I know now why you do it," he broke off.

"Why?"

"That is where they used to watch and hope for the ships."

"Sometimes I have seen a black cloud far away."

"The smoke of a steamer."

She nodded, not comprehending fully, but acquiescing naturally in anything he put forth.

"But it never came near," she added as he went on.

"From there we can see not only the sea but the whole island. No trees grow near. No one can approach without being seen for a long distance. We will take the books and hide them there in the rocks and cover them up carefully. There I will teach you to read the speaking leaves."

"But when old Kobo discovers they are gone?"

"We will put them back in good time. It will be as easy to put them back as it was to take them. No one goes into the church except at that monthly visit. Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Well, the rest is simple."

Using one of the cocoa-fiber baskets with which the islanders were accustomed to carry their produce from field to house, the two books were carried to the hiding place without suspicion the next morning. Beekman found a suitable recess, rounded it out with loose stones, and made a dry hiding place for the volumes when they were not in use. The natives generally avoided that spot, but once or twice Hano or Kobo or one of the elders had visited it when the two were there. And, as they had done before, they came again in the days that followed, but the lovers were always found apparently idly scanning the sea and talking about indifferent things.

Of course, some suspicion was at first aroused by their unusually long visits to that semi-sacred spot, but it was soon dissipated in the indifferent and inert minds of every one of them except Hano. As he was whiter, so he was abler than the rest. He made up his mind that he would overhear what those two, one of whom he hated as much as he loved the other, had to say to each other in those long hours. He came in the night, searching for a place of concealment where he could lie hidden and whence he could overhear, but at first he found none. To hide on the slope that went upward to form the walls of the little amphitheater which opened upon the bay or gulf and sea at the top of the cliff was an impossibility. In the first place, he never could get there without traversing the only practicable path and being observed the whole way. In the second place, if he had found a spot where he could lie hidden, he would be so far from the lip of the wall that he could neither hear nor see. There were no caves or crannies big enough to conceal him.

In despair, he stepped to the extreme edge and glanced down, and instantly the solution of his problem presented itself. About six feet below the level of the little amphitheater was a shelf of rock. Access to it would be difficult, dangerous, but not impossible. He tried, and, although he was not used to great heights, he made it. Such was the stimulus of his hate. He examined the shelf of rock, discovered that it ran inward a little, so that if necessary he could conceal himself even from direct observation from above.

The next day he would try it. He would get up before daybreak, and when Truda visited the place for her unfailing survey of the sea at dawn, he would be concealed. After that visit the two invariably went back to the village for breakfast. Then they returned and the lessons began. She had proved an amazingly apt scholar. She could spell out many of the words of the Dutch Bible and express most of the thought in simple English. The written word of the log book was still a mystery to her. He had read it to her, but had not tried to teach her from it then; but she had made great headway with the printed word. After she had learned enough of that, Beekman intended to devise some means to teach her to write, but for the present printing was enough. He began with the Gospel according to St. Luke, which he had preferred to the others for its clear, simple, and beautiful style. Truda not only learned the letters and the simpler words, but she also began to apprehend the great truths of religion which Beekman had held perfunctorily and sometimes lightly, but which on that heaven-kissed hill, on that forgotten island, in the midst of that great sea, he too began to appreciate and realize as he had never done before.

Sweet indeed were those hours when he sat with that old Dutch Bible open on his knee, while she sat upon a lower rock by his side, leaning innocently upon him, her head bent close to the pages of Holy Writ, following eagerly his pointing finger with her glance and imbibing the teaching that he gave her. Imbibing other things, too, for sometimes he broke off and closed the book and laid his hand upon the girl's head or shoulder, or turned her face up to his while she nestled closer to him. They spoke together, without reserve, of the deeper things of love and life. There were no conventions save such as the instinctive sweetness and purity of the woman and the stern repression of the man imposed.

Truda had become so proficient in her English now that they no longer used Polynesian at all; they spoke English or Dutch habitually. Consequently, the listening Hano, his ears attuned by jealousy and hatred and love and tumult of passion to catch the slightest meaning, could make out but little of what was said, especially as they sometimes whispered with the soft yet passionate cadences of lovers alone.

There was no wind that day. The long, slow silting of the waves through the crevices in the barrier far below only came up to the top of the island in faint murmurs. The listener could hear voices but not understand. Indeed, the clearest sound that came to him was the rustling caused by the turning of the stiff, thick, parchment-like leaves of the book. He could not understand what it was. He was greatly puzzled by it.

So the hours wore away. As it approached noontime the cooling shadow cast upon the lovers by the rock wall of the little cup in which they lingered, was withdrawn from them by the upward movement of the sun. The lesson for the morning was over. Hano heard them rise, preparatory to going back to the camp for the noon meal and the afternoon siesta. He heard them put something away in the rocks and pile other rocks around it. That at least was clear to him, his wits sharpened by his desire. He waited until they had gone, calculated the time it would take them to disappear in the clump of trees, and then climbed back to the little amphitheater.

His first business was to search for what had been concealed. Without a clew it never would have occurred to him to do so, nor had he wit or experience enough, as a higher intelligence would have shown, to go directly to the spot where the loose stones were piled artificially; but he had the patience to leave no stone unturned, and his persistent search under that burning sun was at last rewarded. After moving some of the larger stones, the books were at last revealed to him. He was struck dumb with terror. He knew very well what they were. He recognized them instantly. He had seen them at a distance upon the altar of the taboo house.

In his half-savage way he wondered that the blasphemers who had broken the taboo had not been struck dead by the angry, mysterious god whom they worshiped. He could only attribute Truda's immunity to some powerful spell, or charm, cast over her by this mysterious visitor whom he regarded as a devil. He did not know what to do in the emergency. He realized that it was a matter for a wiser head than his, if such could be found on the island. Under other circumstances, unconsciously acknowledging Truda's superiority, he would have gone straight to her, but that was not to be thought of now. His only recourse was Kobo.

Putting back the stones which covered the sacred volumes, he turned and ran with all speed to the settlement. The noon meal was over. The islanders were resting in their houses. All was quiet, still. Without a moment's hesitation, breaking what was almost a taboo itself, Hano dashed into Kobo's house, knelt down by him, shaking the old man violently.

"Awake," he whispered. "The taboo has been broken."

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