Rídan The Devil And Other Stories

Whilst I was going through these horrors the old man kept up a babbling commentary on their particular and collective beauties; then he wanted me to look at his specimens of verse, much of which, he added, with fatuous vanity, was his own composition.

I did read some of it, and felt a profound pity for the corpse that had to submit to such degradation. Here are four specimens, the first of which was marked, ‘Especially suitable for a numerous family, who have lost an aged parent, gold lettering is. 6d. extra,’—

     ‘Mary and May and Peter and John [or other names]     Loved and honoured him [or her] who has gone;     White was his [or her] hair and kind was his [or her] heart,     Oh why, we all sigh, were we made thus to part?’

For an Aunt, (Suitable verses for Uncles at same rates.)

     ‘Even our own sweet mother, who is so kind,     Could not wring our hearts more if she went and left us behind;     A halo of glory is now on thy head,     Ah, sad, sad thought that good auntie is dead.’

For a Father or Mother,

     ‘Oh children, dear, when I was alive,     To get you bread I hard did strive;     I now am where I need no bread,     And wear a halo round my head.     Weep not upon my tomb, I pray,     But do your duty day by day.’

The last but one was still more beautiful,—

For a Child who suffered a Long Illness before Decease.

[I remarked casually that a child could not suffer even a short illness after decease. Bilger smiled a watery smile and said ‘No.‘]

     ‘For many long months did we fondly sit,     And watch our darling fade bit by bit;     Till an angel called from out the sky,     “Come home, dear child, to the Sweet By-and-By.     Hard was your lot on earth’s sad plain,     But now you shall never suffer again,     For cherubims and seraphims will welcome you here.     Fond parents, lament not for the loss of one so dear.”’     [N.B.—“These are very beautiful lines.”]

The gem of the collection, however, was this:—

Suitable for a child of any age. The beautiful simplicity of the words have brought us an enormous amount of orders from bereaved parents.

     ‘Our [Emily] was so fair,     That the angels envied her,     And whispered in her ear,     “We will take you away on [Tuesday] night.”’

[“Drawing of angels carrying away deceased child, is. 6d. extra.”]

The old imbecile put his damp finger upon this, and asked me what I thought of it. I said it was very simple but touching, and then, being anxious to get rid of him, ordered two dozen of Kate’s fancy. He thanked me most fervently, and said he would bring them to me in a few days. I hurriedly remarked he could post them instead, paid him in advance, and told him to help himself to some more whisky. He did so, and I observed, with some regret, that he took nearly half a tumblerful.

‘Dear, dear me,’ he said, with an apologetic smile, ‘I’m afraid I have taken too much; would you kindly pour some back. My hand is somewhat shaky. Old age, sir, if I may indulge in a platitude, is—’

‘Oh, never mind putting any back. It’s a long walk to the ferry, and a wet day beside.’

‘True, true,’ he said meditatively, looking at Mary carrying in the dinner, and drinking the whisky in an abstracted manner.

Just then my sister beckoned me out. She said it was very thoughtless of me to pour gallons of whisky down the poor old fellow’s throat, upon an empty stomach.

‘Perhaps you would like me to ask him to have dinner with us?’ I said with dignified sarcasm.

‘I think we might at least let Mary give him something to eat.’

Of course I yielded, and my sister bade Mary give our visitor a good dinner. For such a small man he had an appetite that would have done credit to a long-fasting tiger shark tackling a dead whale; and every time I glanced at Mary’s face as she waited on my sister and myself I saw that she was verging upon frenzy. At last, however, we heard him shuffling about on the verandah, and thought he was going without saying ‘thank you.’ We wronged him, for presently he called to Mary and asked her if I would kindly grant him a few words after I had finished dinner.

‘Confound him! What the deuce—’

My sister said, ‘Don’t be cruel to the poor old fellow. You may be like him yourself some day.’

I said I didn’t doubt it, if my womenfolk encouraged every infernal old dead-beat in the colony to come and loaf upon me. Two large tears at once ran down Kate’s nose, and dropped into the custard on her plate. I softened at once and went out.

‘Permit me, sir,’ he said, in a wobbly kind of voice, as he lurched to and fro in the doorway, and tried to jab the point of his umbrella into a knot-hole in the verandah boards in order to steady himself, ‘permit me, sir, to thank you for your kindness and to tender you my private card. Perhaps I may be able to serve you in some humble way’—here the umbrella point stuck in the hole, and he clung to the handle with both hands—‘some humble way, sir. Like yourself, I am a literary man, as this will show you.’ He fumbled in his breast pocket with his left hand, and would have fallen over on his back but for the umbrella handle, to which he clung with his right. Presently he extracted a dirty card and handed it to me, with a bow, which he effected by doubling himself on his stomach over the friendly gamp, and remained in that position, swaying to and fro, for quite ten seconds. I read the card:—

MR  HORATIO  BILGER

Journalist and Littérateur

Formerly Editor of the ‘Barangoora News’

Real Aylesbury Ducks for Sale

Book-keeping Taught in Four Lessons

4a Kellet Street,

Darlinghurst, Sydney

I said I should bear him in mind, and, after helping him to release his umbrella, saw him down the steps and watched him disappear.

‘Thank Heaven!’ I said to Kate, ‘we have seen the last of him.’

I was bitterly mistaken, for next morning when I entered the office, Bilger was there awaiting me, outside the sub-editor’s room. He was wearing a new pair of boots, much larger than the old ones, and smiled pleasantly at me, and said he had brought his son Edward to see me, feeling sure that I would use my influence with the editor and manager to get him put on as a canvasser.

I refused point blank to see ‘Edward’ then or at any other time, and said that even if there was a vacancy I should not recommend a stranger. He sighed, and said that I should like Edward, once I knew him. He was ‘a noble lad, but misfortune had dogged his footsteps—a brave, heroic nature, fighting hard against unmerited adversity.’ I went in and shut the door.

Two days later Kate asked me at supper if I couldn’t do something for old Bilger’s son.

‘Has that infernal old nuisance been writing to you about his confounded son?’

‘How ill-tempered you are! The “old nuisance,” as you call him, has behaved very nicely. He sent his son over here to thank us for our kindness, and to ask me to accept a dozen extra cards from himself. The son is a very respectable-looking man, but rather shabby. He is coming again to-morrow to help Mary to put up the new wire clothes line.’

‘Is he? Well, then, Mary can pay him.’

‘Don’t be so horrid. He doesn’t want payment for it. But, of course, I shall pay his fare each way. Mary says he’s such a willing young man.’

In the morning I saw Mr Edward Bilger, helping Mary. He was a fat-faced, greasy-looking youth, with an attempted air of hang-dog respectability, and with ‘loafer’ writ large on his forehead. I stepped over to him and said,—

‘Now, look here. I don’t want you fooling about the premises. Here’s two shillings for you. Clear out, and if you come back again on any pretence whatever I’ll give you in charge.’

He accepted the two shillings with thanks, said that he meant no offence, but he thought Mary was not strong enough to put up a wire clothes line.

Mary (who was standing by, looking very sulky) was a cow-like creature of eleven stone, and I laughed. She at once sniffed and marched away. Mr Bilger, junior, presently followed her into the kitchen. I went after him and ordered him out. Mary was leaning against the dresser, biting her nails and looking at me viciously.

Half an hour later, as I walked to the ferry, I saw Mr Bilger, junior, sitting by the roadside, eating bread and meat (my property). He stood up as I passed, and said politely that it looked like rain. I requested him to make a visit to Sheol, and passed on.

In the afternoon my sister called upon me at the Evening News office. She wore that look of resigned martyrdom peculiar to women who have something unpleasant to say.

‘Mary has given me notice—of course.’

‘Why “of course!”’

Kate rose with an air of outraged dignity. ‘Servants don’t like to be bullied and sworn at—not white servants, anyway. You can’t expect the girl to stay. She’s a very good girl, and I’m sure that that young man Bilger was doing no harm. As it is, you have placed me in a most unpleasant position; I had told him that he could let his younger brothers and sisters come and weed the paddock, and—’

‘Why not invite the whole Bilger family to come and live on the premises?’ I began, when Kate interrupted me by saying that if I was going to be violent she would leave me. Then she sailed out with an injured expression of countenance.

When I returned home to dinner at 7.30, Mary waited upon us in sullen silence. After dinner I called her in, gave her a week’s wages in lieu of notice, and told her to get out of the house as a nuisance. Kate went outside and wept.

From that day the Bilger family proved a curse to me. Old Bilger wrote me a note expressing his sorrow that his son—quite innocently—had given me offence; also he regretted to hear that my servant had left me. Mrs Bilger, he added, was quite grieved, and would do her best to send some ‘likely girls’ over. ‘If none of them suited, Mrs Bilger would be delighted to come and assist my sister in the mornings. She was an excellent, worthy woman.’ And he ventured, with all due respect, to suggest to me that my sister looked very delicate. His poor lad Edward was very sad at heart over the turn matters had taken. The younger children, too, were sadly grieved—to be in a garden, even to toil, would be a revelation to them.

That evening I went home in a bad temper. Kate, instead of meeting me as usual at the gate, was cooking dinner, looking hot and resigned, I dined alone, Kate saying coldly that she did not care about eating anything. The only other remark she made that evening was that ‘Mary had cried very bitterly when she left.’

I said, ‘The useless, fat beast!’

The Curse of Bilger rested upon me for quite three months. He called twice a week, regularly, and borrowed two shillings ‘until next Monday.’ Then one day that greasy ruffian, Bilger, junior, came into the Evening News office, full of tears and colonial beer, and said that his poor father was dead, and that his mother thought I might perhaps lend her a pound to help bury him.

The sub-editor (who was overjoyed at Bilger’s demise) lent me ten shillings, which I gave to Edward, and told him I was sorry to hear the old man was dead. I am afraid my face belied my words.

THE VISION OF MILLI THE SLAVE

One day a message came over from Tetoro, King of Paré, in Tahiti, to his vassal Mahua, chief of Tetuaroa,8 saying, ‘Get thee ready a great feast, for in ten days I send thee my daughter Laea to be wife to thy son Narü.

For Narü, the son of the chief of Tetuaroa, had long been smitten with the beauty of Laea, and desired to make her his wife. Only once had he seen her; but since then he had sent over many canoes laden with presents, such as hogs and turtle, and great bunches of plantains, and fine tappa cloth for her acceptance.

But Tetoro, her father, was a greedy man, and cried for more; and Mahua, so that his son might gain his heart’s desire, became hard and cruel to the people of Tetuaroa.

Day after day he sent his servants to every village on the island demanding from them all such things as would please the eye of Tetoro; so that by-and-by there was but little left in their plantations, and still less in their houses.

And so, with sullen faces and low murmurs of anger, the people yielded up their treasures of mats and tappa cloth, and such other things that the servants of the chief discovered in their dwellings, and watched them carried away to appease the avarice of Tetoro the King.

One night, when they were gathered together in their houses, and the torches of tui tui (candle-nut kernels) were lighted, they talked among themselves, not loudly but in whispers, for no one knew but that one of the chiefs body-men might perhaps be listening outside, and that to them meant swift death from the anger of Mahua.

‘Why has this misfortune come upon us?’ they said to one another. ‘Why should Narü, who is an aito9 set his heart upon the daughter of Tetoro when there are women of as good blood as her close to his hand? Surely, when she comes here to live, then will there be hard times in the land, and we shall be eaten up with hunger.’

‘Ay,’ said a girl named Milli, ‘it is hard that we should give our all to a strange woman.’

She spoke very loudly, and without fear, and the rest of the people looked wonderingly at her, for she was but a poor slave, and, as such, should not have raised her voice when men were present. So they angrily bade her be silent. Who was she that dared to speak of such things? If she died of hunger, they said, what did it matter? She was but a girl and a slave, and girls’ lives were worth nothing until they bore male children.

And then Milli the Slave sprang up, her eyes blazing with anger, and heaped scorn upon them for cowards.

‘See,’ she said, and her voice shook with passion; ‘see me, Milli the Slave, standing before ye all, and listen to my words, so that your hearts may grow strong, even as strong as mine has grown. Listen while I tell thee of a dream that came to me in the night.

‘In my dream this land of ours became as it was fifteen moons ago, and as it may never be again. I saw the groves of plantains, with their loads of fruit, shine red and yellow, like the setting of the sun, and the ground was forced open because of the great size of the yams and taro and arrowroot that grew beneath; and I heard the heavy fall of the ripe coconuts on the grass, and the crooning notes of the pigeons that fed upon the red mati berries were as the low booming of the surf on the reef when it sounds far distant.’

For a little while she ceased, and the people muttered.

‘Ay, it was so, fifteen moons ago.’

And then Milli, sinking upon one knee, and spreading out her arms towards them, spoke again, but in a low, soft voice,—

‘And I saw the white beach of Teavamoa black with turtle that could scarce crawl seaward because of their fatness; and saw the canoes, filled to the gunwales with white, shining fish, come paddling in from the lagoon; and then came the night. And in the night I heard the sound of the vivo10 and the beat of the drum, and the songs and laughter and the shouts of the people as they made merry and sang and danced, and ate and drank, till the red sun burst out from the sea, and they lay down to sleep.

‘And then, behold there came into my dream, a small black cloud. It gathered together at Paré, and rose from the ground, and was borne across the sea to Tetuaroa.11 As it came nearer, darker and darker grew the shadows over this land, till at last it was wrapped up in the blackness of night. And then out of the belly of the cloud there sprang a woman arrayed as a bride, and behind her there followed men with faces strange to me, whose stamping footsteps shook the island to its roots in the deep sea. Then came a mystic voice to me, which said,—

“Follow and see.”

‘So I followed and saw’—she sprang to her feet, and her voice rang sharp and fierce—‘I saw the strange woman and those with her pass swiftly over the land like as the shadows of birds fall upon the ground when the sun is high and their flight is low and quick. And as they passed, the plantains and taro and arrowroot were torn up and stripped and left to perish; and there was nought left of the swarms of turtle and fish but their bones; for the black cloud and the swift shadows that ran before it had eaten out the heart of the land, and not even one coco-nut was left.

‘And then I heard a great crying and weeping of many voices, and I saw men and women lying down in their houses with their bones sticking out of their skins; and wild pigs, perishing with hunger, sprang in upon them and tore their bellies open with their tusks, and devoured them, and fought with each other among the bones and blood of those they ate.’

A groan of terror burst from the listening people, and the slave girl, with her lips parted and her white teeth set, looked with gleaming, angry eyes slowly round the group.

‘Again I heard the cries and the groans and the weeping; and I saw thee, Foani, take thy suckling child from thy withered breast, and give it to thy husband, so that it might be slain to feed thy other children. And then thou, too, Tiria, and thou, Hini, and many other women, did I see slay thy children and their children, and cook and eat them, even as the wild pigs had eaten those men and women that lay dying on their mats. And this, O people! is all of the dream that came to me; for then a great sweat ran down over my body, and a heavy pain came upon my heart, so that I awoke.’

She trembled and sank down again among the women, in the midst of whom she had been sitting, and then growling, angry murmurs ran round the assemblage, and the names of Narü and the king’s daughter passed from lip to lip.

Well as they liked their chief’s son—for he was distinguished alike for his bravery and generosity—they yet saw that his marriage with Laea would mean a continued existence of misery to them all, or at least so long as the young man’s passion for his wife lasted.

Past experience had taught them many a bitter lesson, for ever since their island had been conquered, they had been subjected to the payment of the most exacting tribute.

Fertile as was Tetuaroa, the continued demands made upon its people for food by the royal family of Tahiti had frequently reduced them to a condition bordering upon starvation.

But these requests had, of late years, been so much modified, that the island, under the rule of Mahua, had become renowned for its wealth of food and the prosperous condition of its inhabitants.

It was, therefore, with no pleasant feelings that the people viewed the approaching marriage of the son of their chief to the child of the grasping Tetoro, a man who would certainly see no abatement made in the extortions he had succeeded in inducing his vassal Mahua to again inaugurate.

At midnight, long after the women were asleep, the principal men of the island met together and talked of the dream described by the slave girl. So firmly were they convinced that she had been chosen by the gods as a means of warning them of their impending rate if the marriage took place, that they firmly resolved to frustrate it, even if it cost every one of them his life.

But, so that neither Mahua nor his son should suspect their intentions, they set about to prepare for the great feast ordered by Tetoro; and for the next week or so the whole population was busily engaged in bringing together their various presents of food and goods, and conveying them to the chief’s house, where, on the arrival of the fleet of canoes that would bring the king’s daughter from Paré, they would be presented to her in person by the priests and minor chiefs.

On the afternoon of the tenth day, some men whom Mahua had set to watch for Tetoro’s fleet saw the great mat sails of five war canoes sweeping across the long line of palms that fringed the southern beach? Then there was great commotion, and many pu12 were sounded from one end of the island to the other, bidding the people to assemble at the landing-place and welcome the bride of the chiefs son.

Now, it so happened that Narü, when the cry arose that the canoes were coming, was sitting alone in a little bush-house near the south point of the island. He had come there with two or three of his young men attendants, so that he might be dressed and adorned to meet Tetoro’s daughter. As soon as they had completed their task he had sent them away, for he intended to remain in the bush-house till his father sent for him; for such was the custom of the land.

Very gay and handsome he looked, when presently he stood up and looked out over the lagoon to where the canoes were entering the passage. Round his waist was a girdle of bright yellow strips of plantain leaves, mixed with the scarlet leaves of the ti plant; a band of pearl-shell ornaments encircled his forehead, and his long, black hair, perfumed with scented oil, was twisted up in a high spiral knob, and ornamented with scarlet hibiscus flowers. Across one broad shoulder there hung a small, snowy-white poncho or cape, made of fine tappa cloth, and round his wrists and ankles were circlets of pearl shell, enclosed in a netting of black coir cinnet. On each leg there was tattooed, in bright blue, a coco-nut tree, its roots spreading out at the heel and running in wavy lines along the instep to the toes, its elastic stalk shooting upwards till its waving plumes spread gracefully out on the broad, muscular calf.

Yet, although he was so finely arrayed, Narü was troubled in his mind; for not once did those who had dressed him speak of Laea, and this the young man thought was strange, for he would have been pleased to hear them talk to him of her beauty. In silence had they attended to his needs, and this hurt him, for they were all dear friends. So at last, when they rose to leave him, he had said,—

‘Why is it that none of ye speak either to me, or to one another? Am I a corpse that is dressed for the funeral rites?’

Then one of them, named Tanéo, his foster-brother, answered, and bent his head as he spoke,—

‘Oh, Narü, son of Mahua, and mine own brother, hast thou not heard of the dream of Milli?’

At the name of Milli, the hot blood leapt into the face of the chief’s son; but he answered quickly,—

‘Nay, naught have I heard, and how can the dream of a slave girl concern me on such a day as this?’

‘Oh, Narü!’ replied Tanéo, ‘’tis more than a dream; for the god Oro hath spoken to her, and shown her things that concern thee and all of thy father’s people.’ And with that the young men arose and left him without further speech.

Little did Narü know that scarce a stone’s throw away from where he stood, Milli, with love in her eyes, was watching him from behind a clump of plantain trees. She, too, was arrayed as if for a dance or a marriage, and behind her were a number of women, who were crouched together and spoke only in whispers.

As they stood, the sounds of the drums and flutes and conches came from the village, and then Narü went forth from the little house, and walked towards it through the palm grove.

As he stepped proudly along the shaded path he heard his name called in a low voice, and Milli the Slave stood before him with downcast eyes, and barred his path.

Now, Narü, bold as he was, feared to meet this girl, and so for some moments no words came to him, and Milli, looking quickly up, saw that he had placed his right hand over his eyes. Then she spoke,—

‘See, Narü, I do but come to thee to speak some little words; so turn thy face to me once more; for from this day thou shalt never again see Milli the Slave.’

But Narü, still keeping his hand to his eyes, turned aside, and leaning his forehead against the trunk of a palm-tree, kept silence awhile. Then he said, in a low voice,—

‘Oh, Milli, be not too hard! This woman Laea hath bewitched me—and then—thou art but a slave.’

‘Aye,’ answered the girl, softly, ‘I am but a slave, and this Laea is very beautiful and the daughter of a great chief. So for that do I come to say farewell, and to ask thee to drink with me this bowl of orange juice. ‘Tis all I have to offer, for I am poor and have no wedding gift to give thee; and yet with this mean offering do I for ever give thee the hot love of my heart—ay, and my life also, if thou should’st need it.’

And so, to please the girl whom he had once loved, he received from her hand the drink of orange juice, which she took from a basket she carried, and yet as he drank he looked away, for he feared to see her eyes looking into his.