Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (505 page)

Ever at morn in the blue, and at night when all is black,

Ever it skulks and trembles with the hunter, Death, on its track.

Hear me, Taheia, death! For to-morrow the priest shall awake,

And the names be named of the victims to bleed for the nation’s sake;

And first of the numbered many that shall be slain ere noon,

Rua the child of the dirt, Rua the kinless loon.

For him shall the drum be beat, for him be raised the song,

For him to the sacred High-place the chanting people throng,

For him the oven smoke as for a speechless beast,

And the sire of my Taheia come greedy to the feast.”

“Rua, be silent, spare me. Taheia closes her ears.

Pity my yearning heart, pity my girlish years!

Flee from the cruel hands, flee from the knife and coal,

Lie hid in the deeps of the woods, Rua, sire of my soul!”

“Whither to flee, Taheia, whither in all of the land?

The fires of the bloody kitchen are kindled on every hand;

On every hand in the isle a hungry whetting of teeth,

Eyes in the trees above, arms in the brush beneath.

Patience to lie in wait, cunning to follow the sleuth,

Abroad the foes I have fought, and at home the friends of my youth.”

“Love, love, beloved Rua, love has a clearer eye,

Hence from the arms of love you go not forth to die.

There, where the broken mountain drops sheer into the glen,

There shall you find a hold from the boldest hunter of men;

There, in the deep recess, where the sun falls only at noon,

And only once in the night enters the light of the moon,

Nor ever a sound but of birds, or the rain when it falls with a shout;

For death and the fear of death beleaguer the valley about.

Tapu it is, but the gods will surely pardon despair;

Tapu, but what of that? If Rua can only dare.

Tapu and tapu and tapu, I know they are every one right;

But the god of every tapu is not always quick to smite.

Lie secret there, my Rua, in the arms of awful gods,

Sleep in the shade of the trees on the couch of the kindly sods,

Sleep and dream of Taheia, Taheia will wake for you;

And whenever the land-wind blows and the woods are heavy with dew,

Alone through the horror of night, with food for the soul of her love,

Taheia the undissuaded will hurry true as the dove.”

“Taheia, the pit of the night crawls with treacherous things,

Spirits of ultimate air and the evil souls of things;

The souls of the dead, the stranglers, that perch in the trees of the wood,

Waiters for all things human, haters of evil and good.”

“Rua, behold me, kiss me, look in my eyes and read;

Are these the eyes of a maid that would leave her lover in need?

Brave in the eye of day, my father ruled in the fight;

The child of his loins, Taheia, will play the man in the night.”

So it was spoken, and so agreed, and Taheia arose

And smiled in the stars and was gone, swift as the swallow goes;

And Rua stood on the hill, and sighed, and followed her flight,

And there were the lodges below, each with its door alight;

From folk that sat on the terrace and drew out the even long

Sudden crowings of laughter, monotonous drone of song;

The quiet passage of souls over his head in the trees;

And from all around the haven the crumbling thunder of seas.

“Farewell, my home,” said Rua. “Farewell, O quiet seat!

To-morrow in all your valleys the drum of death shall beat.”

III

THE FEAST

Dawn as yellow as sulphur leaped on the naked peak,

And all the village was stirring, for now was the priest to speak.

Forth on his terrace he came, and sat with the chief in talk;

His lips were blackened with fever, his cheeks were whiter than chalk;

Fever clutched at his hands, fever nodded his head,

But, quiet and steady and cruel, his eyes shone ruby-red.

In the earliest rays of the sun the chief rose up content;

Braves were summoned, and drummers; messengers came and went;

Braves ran to their lodges; weapons were snatched from the wall;

The commons herded together, and fear was over them all.

Festival dresses they wore, but the tongue was dry in their mouth,

And the blinking eyes in their faces skirted from north to south.

Now to the sacred enclosure gathered the greatest and least,

And from under the shade of the banyan arose the voice of the feast,

The frenzied roll of the drum, and a swift monotonous song.

Higher the sun swam up; the trade-wind level and strong

Awoke in the tops of the palms and rattled the fans aloud,

And over the garlanded heads and shining robes of the crowd

Tossed the spiders of shadow, scattered the jewels of sun.

Forty the tale of the drums, and the forty throbbed like one;

A thousand hearts in the crowd, and the even chorus of song,

Swift as the feet of a runner, trampled a thousand strong.

And the old men leered at the ovens and licked their lips for the food;

And the women stared at the lads, and laughed and looked to the wood.

As when the sweltering baker, at night, when the city is dead,

Alone in the trough of labour treads and fashions the bread;

So in the heat, and the reek, and the touch of woman and man,

The naked spirit of evil kneaded the hearts of the clan.

Now cold was at many a heart, and shaking in many a seat;

For there were the empty baskets, but who was to furnish the meat?

For here was the nation assembled, and there were the ovens anigh,

And out of a thousand singers nine were numbered to die.

Till, of a sudden, a shock, a mace in the air, a yell,

And, struck in the edge of the crowd, the first of the victims fell.

Terror and horrible glee divided the shrinking clan,

Terror of what was to follow, glee for a diet of man.

Frenzy hurried the chant, frenzy rattled the drums;

The nobles, high on the terrace, greedily mouthed their thumbs;

And once and again and again, in the ignorant crowd below,

Once and again and again descended the murderous blow.

Now smoked the oven, and now, with the cutting lip of a shell,

A butcher of ninety winters jointed the bodies well.

Unto the carven lodge, silent, in order due,

The grandees of the nation one after one withdrew;

And a line of laden bearers brought to the terrace foot,

On poles across their shoulders, the last reserve of fruit.

The victims bled for the nobles in the old appointed way;

The fruit was spread for the commons, for all should eat to-day.

And now was the kava brewed, and now the cocoa ran,

Now was the hour of the dance for child and woman and man;

And mirth was in every heart and a garland on every head,

And all was well with the living and well with the eight who were dead.

Only the chiefs and the priest talked and consulted a while:

“To-morrow,” they said, and “To-morrow,” and nodded and seemed to smile:

“Rua the child of dirt, the creature of common clay,

Rua must die to-morrow, since Rua is gone to-day.”

Out of the groves of the valley, where clear the blackbirds sang,

Sheer from the trees of the valley the face of the mountain sprang;

Sheer and bare it rose, unscalable barricade,

Beaten and blown against by the generous draught of the trade.

Dawn on its fluted brow painted rainbow light,

Close on its pinnacled crown trembled the stars at night.

Here and there in a cleft clustered contorted trees,

Or the silver beard of a stream hung and swung in the breeze,

High overhead, with a cry, the torrents leaped for the main,

And silently sprinkled below in thin perennial rain.

Dark in the staring noon, dark was Rua’s ravine,

Damp and cold was the air, and the face of the cliffs was green.

Here, in the rocky pit, accursed already of old,

On a stone in the midst of a river, Rua sat and was cold.

“Valley of mid-day shadows, valley of silent falls,”

Rua sang, and his voice went hollow about the walls,

“Valley of shadow and rock, a doleful prison to me,

What is the life you can give to a child of the sun and the sea?”

And Rua arose and came to the open mouth of the glen,

Whence he beheld the woods, and the sea, and houses of men.

Wide blew the riotous trade, and smelt in his nostrils good;

It bowed the boats on the bay, and tore and divided the wood;

It smote and sundered the groves as Moses smote with the rod,

And the streamers of all the trees blew like banners abroad;

And ever and on, in a lull, the trade-wind brought him along

A far-off patter of drums and a far-off whisper of song.

Swift as the swallow’s wings, the diligent hands on the drum

Fluttered and hurried and throbbed. “Ah, woe that I hear you come,”

Rua cried in his grief, “a sorrowful sound to me,

Mounting far and faint from the resonant shore of the sea!

Woe in the song! for the grave breathes in the singers’ breath,

And I hear in the tramp of the drums the beat of the heart of death.

Home of my youth! no more through all the length of the years,

No more to the place of the echoes of early laughter and tears,

No more shall Rua return; no more as the evening ends,

To crowded eyes of welcome, to the reaching hands of friends.”

All day long from the High-place the drums and the singing came,

And the even fell, and the sun went down, a wheel of flame;

And night came gleaning the shadows and hushing the sounds of the wood;

And silence slept on all, where Rua sorrowed and stood.

But still from the shore of the bay the sound of the festival rang,

And still the crowd in the High-place danced and shouted and sang.

Now over all the isle terror was breathed abroad

Of shadowy hands from the trees and shadowy snares in the sod;

And before the nostrils of night, the shuddering hunter of men

Hurried, with beard on shoulder, back to his lighted den.

“Taheia, here to my side!” — ”Rua, my Rua, you!”

And cold from the clutch of terror, cold with the damp of the dew,

Taheia, heavy of hair, leaped through the dark to his arms;

Taheia leaped to his clasp, and was folded in from alarms.

“Rua, beloved, here, see what your love has brought;

Coming — alas! returning — swift as the shuttle of thought;

Returning, alas! for to-night, with the beaten drum and the voice,

In the shine of many torches must the sleepless clan rejoice;

And Taheia the well-descended, the daughter of chief and priest,

Taheia must sit in her place in the crowded bench of the feast.”

So it was spoken; and she, girding her garment high,

Fled and was swallowed of woods, swift as the sight of an eye.

Night over isle and sea rolled her curtain of stars,

Then a trouble awoke in the air, the east was banded with bars;

Dawn as yellow as sulphur leaped on the mountain height;

Dawn, in the deepest glen, fell a wonder of light;

High and clear stood the palms in the eye of the brightening east,

And lo! from the sides of the sea the broken sound of the feast!

As, when in days of summer, through open windows, the fly

Swift as a breeze and loud as a trump goes by,

But when frosts in the field have pinched the wintering mouse,

Blindly noses and buzzes and hums in the firelit house:

So the sound of the feast gallantly trampled at night,

So it staggered and drooped, and droned in the morning light.

IV

THE RAID

It chanced that as Rua sat in the valley of silent falls

He heard a calling of doves from high on the cliffy walls.

Fire had fashioned of yore, and time had broken, the rocks;

There were rooting crannies for trees and nesting-places for flocks;

And he saw on the top of the cliffs, looking up from the pit of the shade,

A flicker of wings and sunshine, and trees that swung in the trade.

“The trees swing in the trade,” quoth Rua, doubtful of words,

“And the sun stares from the sky, but what should trouble the birds?”

Up from the shade he gazed, where high the parapet shone,

And he was aware of a ledge and of things that moved thereon.

“What manner of things are these? Are they spirits abroad by day?

Or the foes of my clan that are come, bringing death by a perilous way?”

The valley was gouged like a vessel, and round like the vessel’s lip,

With a cape of the side of the hill thrust forth like the bows of a ship.

On the top of the face of the cape a volley of sun struck fair,

And the cape overhung like a chin a gulf of sunless air.

“Silence, heart! What is that? — that, which flickered and shone,

Into the sun for an instant, and in an instant gone?

Was it a warrior’s plume, a warrior’s girdle of hair?

Swung in the loop of a rope, is he making a bridge of the air?”

Once and again Rua saw, in the trenchant edge of the sky,

The giddy conjuring done. And then, in the blink of an eye,

A scream caught in with the breath, a whirling packet of limbs,

A lump that dived in the gulf, more swift than a dolphin swims;

And there was a lump at his feet, and eyes were alive in the lump.

Sick was the soul of Rua, ambushed close in a clump;