an evil hour in Papua, but Captain McTeague was beyond feeling, beyond thinking, horror-drugged, fear-driven, possessing the strength of a maniac as he sculled the boat north.
He did not remember coming to the lagoon where his schooner lay, but the mate told him later that they saw him standing in the boat, swaying from side to side like a drunken man, and through the glass they recognized Captain McTeague.
There was a tremendous feast the day after his return. Tukmoo and his warriors wakened the jungle echoes by their drums. Captain McTeague lay oblivious, and Okey the mate did the honors of the occasion, standing guard over the deck cot where McTeague lay prone, exhausted, weary to death and fighting nightmares.
"You ban wan great man, Captain," Okey explained later. "Tukmoo ban brang pearls off Po Sung. Debbil-debbils ban gone now. How come?"
Tukmoo had raked over the wreckage of Po Sung's house and found the casket of fine pearls. It seemed a trifling reward for laying the debbil-debbils of Po Sung, but Captain McTeague only shuddered and closed his eyes.
"Haul up the mud-hooks and crowd on canvas," he said to Okey. "When Red Murphy and McMahon and Tawa and the she-ape get a grouch on, there'll be hell popping in that jungle. I've seen it for the last time. Not for a ship's hold of pearls will I put in at any lagoon on the Banda shore. They nearly made a monkey of me, Okey. Honored me by fetching a trained orang-outang from Java to hold my witless brains. Maybe they had my measure at that. I was fool enough to go in and idiot enough to escape. A wise man would never have come out alive."
WHITE LILIES
White lilies grow above your bed;
A gleaming marble marks its head.
The swaying lilies, bending low,
Drip crystal tears; they seem to know
I grieve for your dear spirit fled.
The world tramps by with hurried tread;
It has no time to mourn the dead,
Nor has it solace to bestow
Where lilies grow.
Alone my hopeless tears are shed;
Alone my futile prayers are said.
Dear eyes, that one short year ago
Were lit with love's celestial glow—
Forever closed; above your bed
White lilies grow.
