第81章

"Yes; I am keeping them till my daughter is of marriageable age, and then I shall sell them.They will be her ." Then he went on with the account of his visit to Strickland.

"I shall never forget the evening I spent with him.I had not intended to stay more than an hour, but he insisted that I should spend the night. Ihesitated, for I confess I did not much like the look of the mats on which he proposed that I should sleep; but I shrugged my shoulders.When I was building my house in the Paumotus I had slept out for weeks on a harder bed than that, with nothing to shelter me but wild shrubs; and as for vermin, my tough skin should be proof against their malice.

"We went down to the stream to bathe while Ata was preparing the dinner, and after we had eaten it we sat on the verandah.We smoked and chatted.The young man had a concertina, and he played the tunes popular on the music-halls a dozen years before.They sounded strangely in the tropical night thousands of miles from civilisation.I asked Strickland if it did not irk him to live in that promiscuity.No, he said; he liked to have his models under his hand.Presently, after loud yawning, the natives went away to sleep, and Strickland and I were left alone.I cannot describe to you the intense silence of the night.On my island in the Paumotus there is never at night the complete stillness that there was here.There is the rustle of the myriad animals on the beach, all the little shelled things that crawl about ceaselessly, and there is the noisy scurrying of the land-crabs.Now and then in the lagoon you hear the leaping of a fish, and sometimes a hurried noisy splashing as a brown shark sends all the other fish scampering for their lives.And above all, ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of the breakers on the reef.But here there was not a sound, and the air was scented with the white flowers of the night. It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body.You felt that it was ready to be wafted away on the immaterial air, and death bore all the aspect of a beloved friend."Tiare sighed.

"Ah, I wish I were fifteen again."

Then she caught sight of a cat trying to get at a dish of prawns on the kitchen table, and with a dexterous gesture and a lively volley of abuse flung a book at its scampering tail.

"I asked him if he was happy with Ata.

"`She leaves me alone,' he said.'She cooks my food and looks after her babies.She does what I tell her.She gives me what I want from a woman.'

"`And do you never regret Europe? Do you not yearn sometimes for the light of the streets in Paris or London, the companionship of your friends, and equals, for theatres and newspapers, and the rumble of omnibuses on the cobbled pavements?'

"For a long time he was silent.Then he said: "`I shall stay here till I die.'

"`But are you never bored or lonely?' I asked."He chuckled.

"`,' he said.`It is evident that you do not know what it is to be an artist.'"Capitaine Brunot turned to me with a gentle smile, and there was a wonderful look in his dark, kind eyes.

"He did me an injustice, for I too know what it is to have dreams.I have my visions too. In my way I also am an artist."We were all silent for a while, and Tiare fished out of her capacious pocket a handful of cigarettes.She handed one to each of us, and we all three smoked. At last she said:

"Since is interested in Strickland, why do you not take him to see Dr.Coutras? He can tell him something about his illness and death.""," said the Captain, looking at me.I thanked him, and he looked at his watch.

"It is past six o'clock.We should find him at home if you care to come now."I got up without further ado, and we walked along the road that led to the doctor's house.He lived out of the town, but the Hotel de la Fleur was on the edge of it, and we were quickly in the country.The broad road was shaded by pepper-trees, and on each side were the plantations, cocoa-nut and vanilla.The pirate birds were screeching among the leaves of the palms.We came to a stone bridge over a shallow river, and we stopped for a few minutes to see the native boys bathing.They chased one another with shrill cries and laughter, and their bodies, brown and wet, gleamed in the sunlight.