He twisted
his body sinuously, like a snake, until, having sufficiently
limbered up, he bent from the hips, and, with legs straight and
knees touching, beat a tattoo on the ground with the palms of his
hands. He whirligigged and pirouetted, dancing and cavorting round
like an inebriated ape. All the sun-warmth of his ardent life
beamed in his face. I am so happy, was the song without words he
sang.
He sang it all evening, ringing the changes on it with an endless
variety of stunts. "A fool! a fool! I met a fool in the forest!"
thought I, and a worthy fool he proved. Between handsprings and
whirligigs he delivered his message that would save the world. It
was twofold. First, let suffering humanity strip off its clothing
and run wild in the mountains and valleys; and, second, let the very
miserable world adopt phonetic spelling. I caught a glimpse of the
great social problems being settled by the city populations swarming
naked over the landscape, to the popping of shot-guns, the barking
of ranch-dogs, and countless assaults with pitchforks wielded by
irate farmers.
The years passed, and, one sunny morning, the Snark poked her nose
into a narrow opening in a reef that smoked with the crashing impact
of the trade-wind swell, and beat slowly up Papeete harbour. Coming
off to us was a boat, flying a yellow flag. We knew it contained
the port doctor. But quite a distance off, in its wake, was a tiny
out rigger canoe that puzzled us. It was flying a red flag. I
studied it through the glasses, fearing that it marked some hidden
danger to navigation, some recent wreck or some buoy or beacon that
had been swept away. Then the doctor came on board. After he had
examined the state of our health and been assured that we had no
live rats hidden away in the Snark, I asked him the meaning of the
red flag. "Oh, that is Darling," was the answer.
And then Darling, Ernest Darling flying the red flag that is
indicative of the brotherhood of man, hailed us. "Hello, Jack!" he
called. "Hello, Charmian! He paddled swiftly nearer, and I saw
that he was the tawny prophet of the Piedmont hills. He came over
the side, a sun-god clad in a scarlet loin-cloth, with presents of
Arcady and greeting in both his hands - a bottle of golden honey and
a leaf-basket filled WITH great golden mangoes, golden bananas
specked with freckles of deeper gold, golden pine-apples and golden
limes, and juicy oranges minted from the same precious ore of sun
and soil. And in this fashion under the southern sky, I met once
more Darling, the Nature Man.
Tahiti is one of the most beautiful spots in the world, inhabited by
thieves and robbers and liars, also by several honest and truthful
men and women. Wherefore, because of the blight cast upon Tahiti's
wonderful beauty by the spidery human vermin that infest it, I am
minded to write, not of Tahiti, but of the Nature Man. He, at
least, is refreshing and wholesome. The spirit that emanates from
him is so gentle and sweet that it would harm nothing, hurt nobody's
feelings save the feelings of a predatory and plutocratic
capitalist.
"What does this red flag mean?" I asked.
"Socialism, of course."
"Yes, yes, I know that," I went on; "but what does it mean in your
hands?"
"Why, that I've found my message."
"And that you are delivering it to Tahiti?" I demanded
incredulously.
"Sure," he answered simply; and later on I found that he was, too.
When we dropped anchor, lowered a small boat into the water, and
started ashore, the Nature Man joined us. Now, thought I, I shall
be pestered to death by this crank. Waking or sleeping I shall
never be quit of him until I sail away from here.
But never in my life was I more mistaken. I took a house and went
to live and work in it, and the Nature Man never came near me. He
was waiting for the invitation. In the meantime he went aboard the
Snark and took possession of her library, delighted by the quantity
of scientific books, and shocked, as I learned afterwards, by the
inordinate amount of fiction. The Nature Man never wastes time on
fiction.
After a week or so, my conscience smote me, and I invited him to
dinner at a downtown hotel.
He arrived, looking unwontedly stiff and uncomfortable in a cotton
jacket. When invited to peel it off, he beamed his gratitude and
joy, and did so, revealing his sun-gold skin, from waist to
shoulder, covered only by a piece of fish-net of coarse twine and
large of mesh. A scarlet loin-cloth completed his costume. I began
my acquaintance with him that night, and during my long stay in
Tahiti that acquaintance ripened into friendship.
"So you write books," he said, one day when, tired and sweaty, I
finished my morning's work.
"I, too, write books," he announced.
Aha, thought I, now at last is he going to pester me with his
literary efforts. My soul was in revolt. I had not come all the
way to the South Seas to be a literary bureau.
"This is the book I write," he explained, smashing himself a
resounding blow on the chest with his clenched fist. "The gorilla
in the African jungle pounds his chest till the noise of it can be
heard half a mile away."
"A pretty good chest," quoth I, admiringly; "it would even make a
gorilla envious."
And then, and later, I learned the details of the marvellous book
Ernest Darling had written. Twelve years ago he lay close to death.
He weighed but ninety pounds, and was too weak to speak.
