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Forty Years Between
by
But a word, and he might land and see her. But a word, and the questions of forty years might yet be answered–answered, yes, to shatter, as like as not, with pitiless realities the tender figment of a dream. No, he said, he dared not expose himself to a possible disillusion, to play into the hands of sardonic nature, ever mocking at man. No; but he would carry his ship close inshore and watch from the bridge the unfolding bays and tiny settlements of that lost paradise, and then, dipping his flag to his vanished youth, he would sink over the horizon, his memory thrilled and his sentiment unimpaired, to set his face for England.
Dawn was breaking as he slowed down to leeward of the island and watched the shadows melt away. It was Sunday, a day of heavenly calm, fresh yet windless, with a sea so smooth that the barrier reefs for once were silent, and one could hear, far across the hushed and shining water, the coo of pigeons in the forest. Under bare steerage way, with the leadsman droning in the fore chains, the ship hugged the shore and steamed at a snail’s pace round the island. On the lofty bridge, high above the wondering faces of his command, the white-haired captain, impassive, supreme, and solitary, gave no sign of those inner emotions that were devouring him. Along the shore the sight of the battleship brought out here and there a startled figure or a group; a couple of laughing girls, astride on ponies, raced the Inflexible for a mile, and then, their road ending in a precipice, threw kisses with their saucy hands; little children ran out into the lagoon, shouting with joy; old men, in Sunday parius and with black Bibles under their arms, turned their solemn eyes to seaward and forgot for a moment the road to church. A white man, in striped pajamas, was surprised at morning coffee on the veranda of his little house. He darted inside, and reappeared with a magazine rifle which he emptied in the air, and followed up his courtesies by raising and lowering a Union Jack the size of a handkerchief. The battleship dipped her stately white ensign in acknowledgment, as a swan might salute a fly, and swept on with majesty.
With every mile the bays and wooded promontories grew increasingly familiar as Sir John was borne toward Lihua, the scene of his boyish folly. He looked ashore in wonder, surprised at the vividness and exactness of his recollection. He might have landed anywhere and found his way through those tangled, scented paths with no other guide but memory. There was Papaloloa with its roaring falls; there, the ti’a a Peau where he had shot his first goat; yonder, the misty heights of Tiarapu, where Tehea and he had camped a night in the clouds in an air of English cold. It was like a home-coming to see all these familiar scenes spreading out before him. He looked at his hands, his thin, veined, wrinkled hands, and it came over him with a sort of wonder that he was an old man.
“That was forty years ago,” he said to himself. “Forty years ago!”
And yet, by God! it all seemed like yesterday.
As Lihua opened out and he perceived, with an inexpressible pang, the thatched houses set deep in the shade of palms and breadfruit trees, he felt himself in the throes of a strange and painful indecision. He paced up and down the bridge; he lit a cigar and threw it away again; he twice approached Captain Stillwell as though to give an order, and then, still in doubt, turned shamefacedly on his heel.
“By the deep nine!” came the hoarse murmur of the leadsman.
It lay with him to stop the ship or not; a word, and she would come shivering to a standstill; a word, and the boatswain would pipe away his gig and the crew would be running to their places. His heart ached with the desire to land, but something, he knew not what, withheld the order on his lips. Let him remain silent, and the opportunity would pass away forever; it was passing now with every turn of the propeller. Had he not told her he would return? Had he not whispered it that night when they were torn apart? Did he not owe it to her to keep the promise of forty years, a promise given in the flush of youth and hope, and sealed with scalding tears?