In the Wrong Paradise, and Other Stories Page 9

  VIII. SAVED!

  Why should I linger over the sufferings of the miserable week thatfollowed our capture? Hauled back to my former home, I was again madethe object of the mocking reverence of my captors. Ah, how often, in myreckless youth, have my serious aunts warned me that I "would be a goatat the last"! Too true, too true; now I was to be a scapegoat, to bedriven forth, as these ignorant and strangely perverted people believed,with the sins of the community on my head, those sins which would,according to their _miserable superstition_, be expiated by the death,and consumed away by the burning, of myself and William Bludger!

  The week went by, as all weeks must, and at length came the solemn daywhich they call Thargeelyah, the day more sacred than any other to theiridol, Apollon. Long before sunrise the natives were astir; indeed, I donot think they went to bed at all, but spent the night in hideous orgies.I know that, tossing sleepless through the weary hours, I heard thevoices of young men and women singing on the hillsides, and among themyrtle groves which are holy to the most disreputable of their deities, afemale, named Aphrodighty. Harps were twanging too, and I heard therefrain of one of the native songs, "To-night they love who never lovedbefore; to-night let him who loves love all the more." The words haveunconsciously arranged themselves, even in English, as poetry; those whoknow Thomas Gowles best, best know how unlikely it is that he wouldwillingly dabble in the worldly art of verse-fashioning. Think of myreflections with a painful, shameful, and, above all, _undeserved_ deathbefore me, while all the fragrant air was ringing with lasciviousmerriment. My impression is that, as all the sins of the year were, intheir opinion, to be got rid of next day, and tossed into the sea withthe ashes of Bludger and myself, the natives had made up their minds--aneligible opportunity now presenting itself--to be _as wicked as they knewhow_. Alas! though I have not dwelt on this painful aspect of theircharacter, they "knew how" only too well.

  The sun rose at last, and flooded the island, when I perceived that, fromevery side, crowds of revellers were pressing together to the place whereI lay in fetters. They had a wild, dissipated air, flowers were wreathedand twisted in their wet and dewy locks, which floated on the morningwind. Many of the young men were merely dressed--if "dressed" it couldbe called--in the skins of leopards, panthers, bears, goats, and deer,tossed over their shoulders. In their hands they all held wet, drippingbranches of fragrant trees, many of them tipped with pine cones, andwreathed with tendrils of the vine. Others carried switches, of which Idivined the use only too clearly, and the women were waving over theirheads tame serpents, which writhed and wriggled hideously. It was anawful spectacle!

  I was dragged forth by these revellers; many of them were intoxicated,and, in a moment--I blush even now to think of it--I was stripped naked!Nothing was left to me but my hat and spectacles, which, for somereligious reason I presume, I was, fortunately, allowed to retain. ThenI was driven with blows, which hurt a great deal, into the market-place,and up to the great altar, where William Bludger, also naked, was lyingmore dead than alive.

  "William," I said solemnly, "what cheer?" He did not answer me. Even inthat supreme moment it was not difficult to discern that William had beenlooking on the wine when it was red, and had not confined himself to mereocular observation. I tried to make him remember he was an Englishman,that the honour of our country was in our hands, and that we should diewith the courage and dignity befitting our race. These were strangeconsolations and exhortations for _me_ to offer in such an extremity,but, now it had come to the last pass, it is curious what mere worldlythoughts hurried through my mind.

  My words were wasted: the natives seized William and forced him to hisfeet. Then, while a hymn was sung, they put chains of black and whitefigs round our necks, and thrust into our hands pieces of cheese, figs,and certain peculiar herbs. This formed part of what may well be calledthe "Ritual" of this cruel race. May Ritualists heed my words, and turnfrom the errors of their ways!

  Too well I knew all that now awaited us. All that I had seen andshuddered at, on the day of my landing on the island, was now practisedon self and partner. We had to tread the long paved way to the distantcove at the river's mouth; we had to endure the lashes from the switchesof wild fig. The priestess, carrying the wooden idol, walked hard by us,and cried out, whenever the blows fell fewer or lighter, that the idolwas waxing too heavy for her to bear. Then they redoubled theircruelties.

  It was a wonderfully lovely day. In the blue heaven there was not acloud. We had reached the river's mouth, and were fast approaching thestakes that had already been fixed in the sands for our execution; nay,the piles of green wood were already being heaped up by the young men.There was, there could be, no hope, and, weary and wounded, I almostwelcomed the prospect of death, however cruel.

  Suddenly the blows ceased to shower on me, and I heard a cry from thelips of the old priest, and, turning about, I saw that the eyes of allthe assembled multitude were fixed on a point on the horizon.

  Looking automatically in the direction towards which they were gazing, Ibeheld--oh joy, oh wonder!--I beheld a long trail of cloud floating levelwith the sea! It was the smoke of a steamer!

  "Too late, too late," I thought, and bitterly reflected that, had thevessel appeared but an hour earlier, the attention of my cruel captorsmight have been diverted to such a spectacle as they had never seenbefore.

  But it was _not_ too late.

  Perched on a little hillock, and straining his gaze to the south, the oldpriest was speaking loudly and excitedly. The crowd deserted us, andgathered about him.

  I threw myself on the sand, weary, hopeless, parched with thirst, andracked with pain. Bludger was already lying in a crumpled mass at myfeet. I think he had fainted.

  I retained consciousness, but that was all. The fierceness of the sunbeat upon me, the sky and sea and shore swam before me in a mist.Presently I heard the voice of the priest, raised in the cadences whichhe favoured when he was reading texts out of their sacred books, if booksthey could be called. I looked at him with a faint curiosity, andperceived that he held in his hands the wooden casket, adorned withstrangely carved bands of gold and ivory, which I had seen on the nightof my arrival on the island.

  From this he had selected the old grey scraps of metal, scratched, as Iwas well aware, with what they conceived to be ancient prophecies.

  I was now sufficiently acquainted with the language to understand theverses which he was chanting, and which I had already heard, withoutcomprehending them. They ran thus in English:

  "But when a man, having a chimney pot on his head, and four eyes, appearsin Scheria, and when a ship without sails also comes, sailing withoutwind, and breathing smoke, then shall destruction fall on the island."

  He had not ended when it was plain, even to those ignorant people, thatthe prophecy was about to be fulfilled. From the long, narrow, blackline of the steamer, which had approached us with astonishing speed,"sailing without wind, and breathing smoke," there burst six flashes offire, followed by a peal like thunder, and six tall fountains, as thenatives fancied, of sea-water rose and fell in the bay, where the shellshad lighted.

  It was plain that the commander of the vessel, finding himself in unknownseas, and hard by an unvisited country, was determined to strike terrorand command respect by this salute.

  The noise of the broadside had scarcely died away, when the natives fled,disappeared like magic, leaving many of their garments behind them.

  They were making for their town, which was concealed from the view of therapidly nearing steamer. From her mast I could now see, flaunting theslight breeze, the dear old Union Jack, and the banner of the SalvationNavy! {95}

  My resolution was taken in a moment. Bludger had now recoveredconsciousness, and was picking up heart. I thrust into his hands one ofthe branches with which we had been flogged, fastened to it a cloak ofone of the natives, bade him keep waving it from a rocky promontory, and,rushing down to the sea, I leaped in, and swam with all my strengthtoward
s the vessel. Weak as I was, my new hopes gave me strength, andpresently, from the crest of a wave, I saw that the people of the steamerwere lowering a boat, and rowing towards me.

  In a few minutes they had reached me, my countrymen's hands were in mine.They dragged me on board; they pulled back to their vessel; and I stood,entirely undressed, on the deck of a British ship!

  So long had I lived among people heedless of modesty that I was rushing,with open arms, towards the officer on the quarter-deck, who was dressedas a bishop, when I heard a scream of horror. I turned round in time tosee the bishop's wife fleeing precipitately to the cabin, and driving herchildren and governess in front of her.

  Then all the horror of the situation flooded my heart and brain, and Ifell fainting on the quarter-deck.

  When I recovered my consciousness, I found myself plainly but comfortablydressed in the ordinary costume, except the hat, which lay beside me, ofa dean in the Church of England. My wounds had been carefully attendedto, William Bludger had been taken on board, and I was surrounded by thekind faces of my benefactors, including the bishop's consort. Myapologies for my somewhat sudden and unceremonious intrusion were cutshort by the arrival of tea and a slight collation suitable for aninvalid. In an hour I was walking the quarter-deck with the bishop incommand of the William Wilberforce, armed steam yacht, of North Shields,fitted out for the purposes of the Salvation Navy. From the worthyprelate in command of the William Wilberforce, I learned much concerninghis own past career and the nature of his enterprise, as I directed thenavigation of the vessel through the shoals and reefs which lay about theharbour of the island.

  The bishop (a purely brevet title) would refresh his memory, now andthen, from a penny biography of himself with which he was provided, andthe following, in brief, is a record of his life and adventures:--

  Thomas Sloggins (that was his name), from his earliest infancy, had beenpossessed with a passion for _doing good to others_, a passion, alas! buttoo rarely reciprocated. I pass over many affecting details of hisadventures as a ministering child: how he endeavoured to win his fatherfrom tobacco by breaking his favourite pipes; how he strove to wean hiselder brother from cruel field-sports, by stuffing the joints of hisfishing-rod with gravel; with many other touching incidents.

  Being almost entirely uneducated, young Sloggins, when he reached man'sestate, conceived that he would most benefit his fellow-creatures bycombining the professions of the pulpit and the press--by preaching onSundays and at odd times, while he acted as outdoor reporter to The RowdyPuritan on every lawful day. Being a man of great earnestness andenterprise, he soon rose in the ranks of the Salvation Navy; and at onetime commanded an evangelical barge on the benighted canals of ourcountry. Finally, he made England almost too hot to hold him, by theoriginal forms of his benevolence, while, at the same time, he acquiredthe utmost esteem and confidence of many wealthy philanthropists andexcellent, if impulsive, ladies. These good people provided him withthat well-equipped and armed steam yacht, the William Wilberforce, whichhe manned with a crew of converted characters (they certainly looked asif they must have needed a great deal of converting), and he had now formonths been cruising in the South Pacific. A local cyclone had driventhe William Wilberforce out of her reckoning, and hence the appearance ofthat vessel in the very nick of time to achieve my rescue.

  When the bishop had finished his story, I briefly recapitulated to him myown adventures, and we agreed that the conversion of the island must beour earliest task. To begin with, we steered into the harbour, where avast multitude of the natives were assembled in arms, and awaited ourapproach with a threatening demeanour. Our landing was opposed, but afew well-directed volleys from a Gardiner gun (which did not jam) causedthe hostile force to disperse, and we landed in great state. Marching onthe chief's house, we were received with an abject submission that I hadscarcely expected. The people were absolutely cowed, more by thefulfilment of the prophecy, I think, than even by the execution done byour Gardiner machine gun. At the bishop's request, I delivered aharangue in the native tongue, declaring that we only required theBritish flag to be hoisted on the palace, and the immediate disendowmentof the heathen church as in those parts established. I was listened toin uneasy silence; but my demand for lodgings in the palace was accededto; and, in a few hours, the bishop, with his wife and children, weresumptuously housed under the roof of the chief. The ladies of thechief's family showed great curiosity in watching and endeavouring toconverse with our friends. I was amused to see how soon thelight-hearted islanders appeared to forget their troubles andapprehensions. Doto, in particular, became quite devoted to theprelate's elder daughter (the youngest of the bishop's family wassuffering from measles), and would never be out of her company. Thus allseemed to fare merrily; presents were brought to us--flowers, fruit, thefeathers of rare birds, and ornaments of native gold were literallyshowered upon the ladies of the party. The chief promised to call ameeting of his counsellors on the morrow, and all seemed going on well,when, alas! measles broke out in the palace. The infant whom I hadpresented to Doto--the infant whom I had found on the mountain side--wasthe first sufferer. Then Doto caught the disease herself, then hermother, then the chief. In vain we attempted to nurse and tend them; invain we expended the contents of the ship's medicine chest on theinvalids. The malady having, as it were, an entirely new field to workupon, raged like the most awful pestilence. Through all ranks of thepeople it spread like wild-fire; many died, none could be induced to takethe most ordinary precautions. The natives became, as it were, mad underthe torments of fever and the burning heat of the unaccustomed malady;they rushed about, quite unclad, for the sake of the deceptive coolness,and hundreds of them cast themselves into the sea and into the river.

  It was my sad lot to see my dear Doto die--the first of the sufferers inthe palace to succumb to the disease. Meanwhile, the bishop and myselfbeing entirely absorbed in attendance on the sick, the crew of theWilliam Wilberforce, I deeply regret to say, escaped from all restraint,and forgot what was due to themselves and their profession. Theyrevelled with the most abandoned of the natives, and disease and drinkravaged the once peaceful island. Every sign of government and ordervanished. The old priest built a huge pile of firewood, and layinghimself there with the images of the gods, set fire to the whole, andperished with his own false religion.

  After this event, the island ceased to be a safe residence for ourselves.Among the mountains, as I learned, where the pestilence had not yetpenetrated, the shepherds and the wilder tribes were gathering in arms.One night we stole on board the William Wilberforce, leaving the citydesolate, filled with the smoke of funeral pyres, and the wailing of menand women. There was a dreadful sultry stillness in the air, and all daylong wild beasts had been dashing madly into the sea, and the sky hadbeen obscured by flights of birds. On all the crests of the circle ofsurrounding hills we saw, in the growing darkness, the beacons and campfires of the insurgents from the interior. Just before the dawn theWilliam Wilberforce was attacked by the whole mass of the natives inboats and rafts. But we had not been unprepared for this movement, norwere the resources of science unequal to the occasion. We had surroundedthe William Wilberforce with a belt, or cordon, of torpedoes, and as eachof the assaulting boats touched the boom, a terrible explosion shook thewater into fountains of foam, and the waves were strewn with scalded,wounded, and mutilated men. Meanwhile, we bombarded the city and theharbour, and the night passed amid the most awful sounds and sights--fire,smoke, yells of anger and pain, cries of the native leaders encouragingtheir men, and shouts from our own people, who had to repel the boarders,when the boom was at last forced, with pikes and cutlasses. Just beforethe dawn a strange thing happened. A great glowing coal, as it seemed,fell with a hissing crash on the deck of the William Wilberforce, andothers dropped, with a strange sound and a dreadful odour of burning, inthe water all around us. Had the natives discovered some mode ofretaliating on our use of firearms?

  I looked in the d
irection of their burning city, and beheld, on the sharppeak of the highest mountain (now visible in the grey morning light), anobject like a gigantic pine-tree of fire. The blazing trunk rose, slimand straight, from the mountain crest, and, at a vast height, developed awilderness of burning branches. Fearful hollow sounds came from thehill, its sides were seamed with racing cataracts of living lava, ofcoursing and leaping flames, which rolled down with incredible swiftnessand speed towards the doomed city. Then the waters of the harbour weresmitten and shaken, and the William Wilberforce rocked and heaved as inthe most appalling storm, though all the winds were silent, while amighty wave swept far inland towards the streams of fire. There was noroom for doubt; a volcanic eruption was occurring, and a submarineearthquake, as not uncommonly happens, had also taken place. Our onlyhope was in immediate flight. Presently steam was got up, and we steamedaway into the light of the glowing east, leaving behind us only a burningisland, and a fire like an ugly dawn flaring in the western sky.

  When we returned in the evening, Boothland--as I may now indeed call it,for Scheria has ceased to be--was one black smoking cinder.

  Hardly a tree or a recognizable rock remained to show that this had oncebeen a peaceful home of men. The oracle, or prophecy of the old priest,had been horribly, though, of course, quite accidentally, fulfilled.

  * * * * *

  Little remains to be told. On my return home, I chanced to visit theBritish Museum, and there, much to my surprise, observed an old piece ofstone, chipped with the characters, or letters, in use among the nativesof Scheria.

  "Why," said I, reading the words aloud, "these are the characters whichthe natives employed on my island."

  "These?" said the worthy official who accompanied me. "Why, these arethe most archaic Greek letters which have yet been discovered:inscriptions from beneath the lava beds of Santorin."

  "I can't help that," I said. "The Polynesians used them too; and you seeI can read them easily, though I don't know Greek."

  I then told him the whole story of my connection with the island, and ofthe unfortunate results of the contact between these poor people and oursuperior modern civilization.

  I have rarely seen a man more affected by any recital than was the headof the classical department of the Museum by my artless narrative. WhenI described the sacrifice I saw on landing in the island, he exclaimed,"Great Heavens! the Attic Thargelia." He grew more and more excited as Iwent on, and producing a Greek book, "Pausanias," he showed me that thesacrifice of wild beasts was practised sixteen hundred years ago inhonour of Artemis Elaphria. The killing of old Elatreus for entering thetown hall reminded him of a custom in Achaea Pthiotis. When I hadfinished my tale, he burst out into violent and libellous language. "Youhave destroyed," he said, "with your miserable modern measles andGardiner guns, the last remaining city of the ancient Greeks. The windscast you on the shore of Phaeacia, the island sung by Homer; and, in yourbrutal ignorance, you never knew it. You have ruined a happy, harmless,and peaceful people, and deprived archaeology of an opportunity that cannever, never return!"

  I do not know about archaeology, but as for "harmless and peacefulpeople," I leave it to my readers to say whether the islanders wereanything of the sort.

  I learn that the Government has just refused to give the Museum a grantof five thousand pounds to be employed in what are called "Excavations inAncient Phaeacia," diggings, that is, in Boothland.

  With so many darkened people still ignorant of our enlightenedcivilization, I think the grant would be a shameful waste of publicmoney. {106}

  * * * * *

  We publish the original text of the prophecy repeatedly alluded to by Mr.Gowles. The learned say that no equivalent occurs for the line about his"four eyes," and it is insinuated, in a literary journal of eminence,that Mr. Gowles pilfered the notion from Good's glass eye, in a secularromance, called King Solomon's Mines, which Mr. Gowles, we are sure,never heard of in his life.--ED.

  THE PROPHECY.

  [The Prophecy in Greek - not reproduced]