The light of man’s cruelty, the hopelessness of all the creeds, shone in her dead eyes.
So died the convict girl. Sympathy had made her brave. She had regained belief in the goodness of things, recaptured, out of misery, the lost faith of her childhood; fearlessly risked her all—gone before One who would not judge as men judge, or condemn the clay of His own fashioning.
They buried her by Calaboose Hill, in the hidden cemetery of the forest depth, where lay old Marquesan chiefs and the home-sick white men. And I, irreligious wretch that I am, went to that hallowed spot, leaned over the dead escapee and placed a little cross on the grave.
After that terrible discovery I returned to Waylao, hardly conscious of what I should say. For a while I managed to keep the sorrow of it from her. She saw by my manner that something terrible had occurred; indeed she half guessed the truth before I told her anything. Her grief was terrible. I did my best to console the poor girl.
“Waylao,” I said, “it is no good grieving; she has gone from all the sorrow of this world; and but for this little bit of ribbon we might well imagine that such a being never existed, never drifted out of the stars, and then, leaving these dilapidated shoes behind, escaped from the clutches of the convict officials.”
Taking her hand as tenderly as a brother might take the hand of an erring sister, I said: “Waylao, come away home to your people. I have been to Father O’Leary and he wants to see you.” Then I told her once more of her mother’s grief over her flight, of all the kind things that people had said about her—for I, too, can be a holy liar—and I took her away over the hills. She was strangely silent as she walked beside me.
“I don’t want to go back, I cannot,” she said when we were within sight of the township. I did not dream of the true state of her mind. All that she had gone through, and the sudden loss of her new-made friend in her sorrow, had evidently unhinged her mind, for I never saw any woman run like she did. We were just passing by a clump of bread-fruits that stretched into the deeper forest by Tai-o-hae when I looked up and saw her bolting.
Recovering from my astonishment, I started off in pursuit. She was light of frame and foot, and so easily outpaced me.