John Creedy, for his part, thought no less well of his Ethel. He was tenderly respectful to her; more distant, perhaps, than is usual between husband and wife, even in the first months of marriage, but that was due to his innate10 delicacy11 of feeling, which made him half unconsciously recognize the depth of the gulf12 that still divided them. He cherished her like some saintly thing, too sacred for the common world. Yet Ethel[Pg 10] was his helper in all his work, so cheerful under the necessary privations of their life, so ready to put up with bananas and cassava balls, so apt at kneading plantain paste, so willing to learn from the negro women all the mysteries of mixing agadey, cankey, and koko pudding. No tropical heat seemed to put her out of temper; even the horrible country fever itself she bore with such gentle resignation. John Creedy felt in his heart of hearts that he would willingly give up his life for her, and that it would be but a small sacrifice for so sweet a creature.
One day, shortly after their arrival at Butabué, John Creedy began talking in English to the catechist about the best way of setting to work to learn the native language. He had left the country when he was nine years old, he said, and had forgotten all about it. The catechist answered him quickly in a Fantee phrase. John Creedy looked amazed and started.
"What does he say?" asked Ethel.
"He says that I shall soon learn if only I listen; but the curious thing is, Ethie, that I understand him."
"It has come back to you, John, that's all. You are so quick at languages, and now you hear it again you remember it."
"Perhaps so," said the missionary14, slowly, "but I have never recalled a word of it for all these years. I wonder if it will all come back to me."
"Of course it will, dear," said Ethel; "you know, things come to you so easily in that way. You almost learned Portuguese15 while we were coming out from hearing those Benguela people."
And so it did come back, sure enough. Before John Creedy had been six weeks at Butabué, he could talk Fantee as fluently as any of the natives around him. After all, he was nine years old when he was taken to England, and it was no great wonder that he should recollect16 the language he had heard in his childhood till that age. Still, he himself[Pg 11] noticed rather uneasily that every phrase and word, down to the very heathen charms and prayers of his infancy17, came back to him now with startling vividness and without an effort.
Four months after their arrival John saw one day a tall and ugly negro woman, in the scanty18 native dress, standing19 near the rude market-place where the Butabué butchers killed and sold their reeking20 goat-meat. Ethel saw him start again, and with a terrible foreboding in her heart, she could not help asking him why he started. "I can't tell you, Ethie," he said, piteously; "for heaven's sake don't press me. I want to spare you." But Ethel would hear. "Is it your mother, John?" she asked hoarsely21.
"No, thank heaven, not my mother, Ethie," he answered her, with something like pallor on his dark cheek, "not my mother; but I remember the woman."
"A relative?"
"Oh, Ethie, don't press me. Yes, my mother's sister. I remember her years ago. Let us say no more about it." And Ethel, looking at that gaunt and squalid savage8 woman, shuddered22 in her heart and said no more.
Slowly, as time went on, however, Ethel began to notice a strange shade of change coming over John's ideas and remarks about the negroes. At first he had been shocked and distressed23 at their heathendom and savagery24, but the more he saw of it the more he seemed to find it natural enough in their position, and even in a sort of way to sympathize with it or apologize for it. One morning, a month or two later, he spoke25 to her voluntarily of his father. He had never done so in England. "I can remember," he said, "he was a chief, a great chief. He had many wives, and my mother was one. He was beaten in War by Kola, and I was taken prisoner. But he had a fine palace at Kwantah, and many fan-bearers." Ethel observed with a faint terror that he seemed to speak with pride and complacency of his father's chieftaincy. She shuddered[Pg 12] again and wondered. Was the West African instinct getting the upper hand in him over the Christian26 gentleman?
When the dries were over, and the koko-harvest gathered, the negroes held a grand feast. John had preached in the open air to some of the market people in the morning, and in the evening he was sitting in the hut with Ethel, waiting till the catechist and his wife should come in to prayers, for they carried out their accustomed ceremony decorously, even there, every night and morning. Suddenly they heard the din13 of savage music out of doors, and the noise of a great crowd laughing and shouting down the street. John listened, and listened with deepening attention. "Don't you hear it, Ethie?" he cried. "It's the tom-toms. I know what it means. It's the harvest battle-feast!"
"How hideous27!" said Ethel, shrinking back.
"Don't be afraid, dearest," John said, smiling at her. "It means no harm. It's only the people amusing themselves." And he began to keep time to the tom-toms rapidly with the palms of his hands.
The din drew nearer, and John grew more evidently excited at every step. "Don't you hear, Ethie?" he said again. "It's the Salonga. What inspiriting music! It's like a drum and fife band; it's like the bagpipes28; it's like a military march. By Jove, it compels one to dance!" And he got up as he spoke, in English clerical dress (for he wore clerical dress even at Butabué), and began capering29 in a sort of hornpipe round the tiny room.
"Oh, John, don't," cried Ethel. "Suppose the catechist were to come in!"
But John's blood was up. "Look here," he said excitedly, "it goes like this. Here you hold your matchlock out; here you fire; here you charge with cutlasses; here you hack30 them down before you; here you hold up your enemy's head in your hands, and here you kick it off among the[Pg 13] women. Oh, it's grand!" There was a terrible light in his black eyes as he spoke, and a terrible trembling in his clenched31 black hands.
"John," cried Ethel, in an agony of horror, "it isn't Christian, it isn't human, it isn't worthy32 of you. I can never, never love you if you do such a thing again."
In a moment John's face changed and his hand fell as if she had stabbed him. "Ethie," he said in a low voice, creeping back to her like a whipped spaniel, "Ethie, my darling, my own soul, my beloved; what have I done! Oh, heavens, I will never listen to the accursed thing again. Oh, Ethie, for heaven's sake, for mercy's sake, forgive me!"
Ethel laid her hand, trembling, on his head. John sank upon his knees before her, and bowed himself down with his head between his arms, like one staggered and penitent33. Ethel lifted him gently, and at that moment the catechist and his wife came in. John stood up firmly, took down his Bible and Prayer-book, and read through evening prayer at once in his usual impressive tone. In one moment he had changed back again from the Fantee savage to the decorous Oxford34 clergyman.
It was only a week later that Ethel, hunting about in the little storeroom, happened to notice a stout35 wooden box carefully covered up. She opened the lid with some difficulty, for it was fastened down with a native lock, and to her horror she found inside it a surreptitious keg of raw negro rum. She took the keg out, put it conspicuously36 in the midst of the storeroom, and said nothing. That night she heard John in the jungle behind the yard, and looking out, she saw dimly that he was hacking37 the keg to pieces vehemently38 with an axe39. After that he was even kinder and tenderer to her than usual for the next week, but Ethel vaguely40 remembered that once or twice before, he had seemed a little odd in his manner, and that it was on those days that she had seen gleams of the savage nature peeping through. Perhaps, she thought, with a shiver,[Pg 14] his civilization was only a veneer41, and a glass of raw rum or so was enough to wash it off.
Twelve months after their first arrival, Ethel came home very feverish42 one evening from her girls' school, and found John gone from the hut. Searching about in the room for the quinine bottle, she came once more upon a rum-keg, and this time it was empty. A nameless terror drove her into the little bedroom. There, on the bed, torn into a hundred shreds43, lay John Creedy's black coat and European clothing. The room whirled around her, and though she had never heard of such a thing before, the terrible truth flashed across her bewildered mind like a hideous dream. She went out, alone, at night, as she had never done before since she came to Africa, into the broad lane between the huts which constituted the chief street of Butabué. So far away from home, so utterly44 solitary45 among all those black faces, so sick at heart with that burning and devouring46 horror! She reeled and staggered down the street, not knowing how or where she went, till at the end, beneath the two tall date-palms, she saw lights flashing and heard the noise of shouts and laughter. A group of natives, men and women together, were dancing and howling round a dancing and howling negro. The central figure was dressed in the native fashion, with arms and legs bare, and he was shouting a loud song at the top of his voice in the Fantee language, while he shook a tom-tom. There was a huskiness as of drink in his throat, and his steps were unsteady and doubtful. Great heavens! could that reeling, shrieking47 black savage be John Creedy?
Yes, instinct had gained the day over civilization; the savage in John Creedy had broken out; he had torn up his English clothes and, in West African parlance48, "had gone Fantee." Ethel gazed at him, white with horror—stood still and gazed, and never cried nor fainted, nor said a word. The crowd of negroes divided to right and left, and John Creedy[Pg 15] saw his wife standing there like a marble figure. With one awful cry he came to himself again, and rushed to her side. She did not repel49 him, as he expected; she did not speak; she was mute and cold like a corpse50, not like a living woman. He took her up in his strong arms, laid her head on his shoulder, and carried her home through the long line of thatched huts, erect51 and steady as when he first walked up the aisle52 of Walton Magna church. Then he laid her down gently on the bed, and called the wife of the catechist. "She has the fever," he said in Fantee. "Sit by her."
The catechist's wife looked at her, and said, "Yes; the yellow fever."
And so she had. Even before she saw John the fever had been upon her, and that awful revelation had brought it out suddenly in full force. She lay unconscious upon the bed, her eyes open, staring ghastlily, but not a trace of colour in her cheek nor a sign of life upon her face.
John Creedy wrote a few words on a piece of paper, which he folded in his hand, gave a few directions in Fantee to the woman at the bedside, and then hurried out like one on fire into the darkness outside.
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1
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4
missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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8
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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14
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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bagpipes
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| n.风笛；风笛( bagpipe的名词复数 ) | |
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29
capering
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| v.跳跃，雀跃( caper的现在分词 )；蹦蹦跳跳 | |
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30
hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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31
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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penitent
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| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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hacking
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| n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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40
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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41
veneer
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| n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰 | |
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42
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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43
shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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45
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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46
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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47
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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48
parlance
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| n.说法；语调 | |
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49
repel
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| v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥 | |
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50
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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51
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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52
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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