The Mask of the Enchantress

The Island

In spite of everything that has happened since that day when my mother came to take me away from Crabtree Cottage, I still remember those years on the island as the happiest of my life. It is still an enchanted place to me, a lost paradise.

Looking back, it is not easy to remember always with clarity. Events become blurred by the years. It seems now that the days were full of sunshine—which I suppose they were except during the rainy season. And how I loved that rain! I used to stand in it and let it fall all over me, drenching me to the skin, soft balmy rain; and then the sun would come out, and the steam would rise from the earth, and I would be dry in a few moments. Each day seemed brimming over with happiness, but of course it was not quite like that. There were times when I sensed a certain fear in my parents. Every time a ship came in during those first years my mother would make a great effort to hide her anxiety from me and my father would sit at the topmost window which overlooked the bay and there would be a gun across his knees.

Then all would be well and when the ship sailed away, having brought us all sorts of exciting packages, we would drink a special wine and we would laugh and be merry. I soon realized that my parents were afraid the ship would bring someone they did not want to see.

When we arrived on the island we were received by Luke Carter, whose house my father had bought. Luke Carter had owned the coconut plantation which had brought a certain prosperity to the island. He told my father that he had been there for twenty years. But he was getting old and wanted to retire. Moreover the industry had faltered during the last years. Markets had dropped off; the people didn't want to work; they wanted to lie in the sun and pay homage to the old Grumbling Giant. He was going to stay, as he said, to show my father the ropes. When the ship left next time it would take him with it.

He was all alone now. He had had a partner who had succumbed to one of the fevers which were prevalent on the island and grew worse during the wet season.

"You're a doctor," he said. "You'll know how to deal with it, I dare say."

My father said that one of the reasons why he had wanted to come to this particular island was because these fevers were endemic here. He believed he could discover ways of treating them.

"You'll be up against old Wandalo," Luke Carter told him. "He runs the place. He decides who is and who is not going to die. He's the witch doctor johnny and great chief. He sits under his banyan tree and contemplates the earth."

During the days which followed Luke Carter took my father round the island.

My mother never let me go out without her. When we did go she held tightly to my hand and I was rather disconcerted to find that the sight of us filled the islanders with mirth, particularly the children, who would have to be slapped on the back to prevent their choking. Sometimes we found them peering in at the windows at us and, if we looked up, they would shoot away as if in fear of their lives.

In the evenings Luke Carter used to talk about the island and the islanders.

"They're intelligent," he told us. "Crafty though, and light-fingered. They're not respecters of property. You want to watch them. They love color and sparkle but they wouldn't know the difference between a diamond and a bit of paste. Treat them well and they'll respond. They'll never forget an insult and they'll never forget a good turn. They're faithful enough if you can get their trust. I've lived with them for twenty years without being clubbed to death or thrown down the crater as a sacrifice to the old Grumbling Giant, so I've done rather well."

"I dare say I'll manage equally well," said my father.

They'll accept you ... in time. Strangers put them on their guard. That's why I thought it best to stay awhile. By the time I leave they will have come to regard you as part of the island life. They're like children. They don't question much. The only thing you have to remember is to be respectful to the Giant."

"Do tell us about this Giant," said my mother. "I know it is the mountain, of course."

"Well, this island is one of a volcanic group, as you know. It must have come into being millions of years ago when the earth's crust was being formed and it was all internal eruptions. Thus the old Giant was thrown up. He's the god of the island. You can understand it. They think he has power over life and death and he has to be placated. They pay homage to him. Shells, flowers and feathers adorn the mountainside, and when he starts to grumble they get seriously worried. He's an old devil, that mountain. Once it really did erupt. It must have been three hundred years ago and it all but destroyed the island. Now he grumbles from time to time and sends out a few pieces of stone and lava ... to warn them."

"We should have chosen another island, I think," said my mother. "I don't like the sound of this Grumbling Giant."

"He's safe enough. Remember he hasn't been what you could call really active for three hundred years. The little grumblings are a safety valve really. He's done his erupting. In another hundred years he'll have settled down entirely."

He introduced us to Cougaba, who had served him well and was willing to do the same for us. He hoped he could persuade us to keep her, for she would find it hard to go from the big house and settle in one of the native huts now. She had been with him for almost the whole of the twenty years he had spent on the island. She had a daughter, Cougabel, who should be allowed to stay with her mother in the house.

"They'll make you good servants," said Luke Carter. "And they'll be a kind of go-between with the natives and yourselves."

My mother declared at once that she would be pleased to have them both, for she had been apprehensive about getting the right servants.

So the first weeks on Vulcan Island passed and by the time Luke Carter was ready to go we were settled in.

My father had already made an impression. He was a very tall man—six feet four in his stockinged feet—and the islanders were a small people. That gave him an immediate advantage. Then there was his personality. He was a man born to dominate and this he proceeded to do. Luke Carter had explained to some of the islanders that my father was a great doctor and he had come to help make the people well. He had special medicines and he believed he could bring great good to the island.

The islanders were disappointed. They had Wandalo. What did they want with another medicine man? What they really wanted was someone to continue marketing the products of the coconut and bring back to the island the prosperity which had once been theirs.

It did seem a pity not to exploit the natural resources. Vulcan Island was the biggest of the group and was all that one imagines a South Sea island should be—hot sun, heavy rains, waving palms and sandy beaches. My father had said that he wanted to call the place Palm Tree Island when he first saw it, but it had already been named Vulcan, which was equally apt really because of the presence of the Giant.

It was a beautiful island—some fifty miles by ten—lush, luxuriant, dominated by the great mountain. It was grand, that mountain, the more so because it was awe-inspiring and, strangely enough, when one stood close to it—and it was not possible to be far away from it on that island—it seemed to possess those rare qualities with which the natives endowed it. The valleys were fertile, but if one glanced up one could see the ravages on the top slopes where the Giant's anger had boiled over and scarred the earth. But in the valleys trees and shrubs grew close together. Casuarina, candlenut and kauri pine flourished in abundance beside breadfruit, sago plant, oranges, pineapple, sweet banana and of course the inevitable coconut palm.

The Giant had to be watched. He could grow angry, Cougaba told me, for she quickly attached herself to me and became a sort of nurse and maid. I grew fond of her and my mother was pleased by this and encouraged it. Cougaba was grateful because not only did she stay in the house but her daughter did also. She was clearly fond of her daughter, who must have been about my age, but it was difficult to tell with the natives. She was a considerably lighter shade than her mother and her smooth light brown skin was very attractive. She had dancing brown eyes and liked to adorn herself with shells and beads, many of them dyed red with dragon's blood. Cougabel was a very important little girl. A certain respect was shown to her. It was because of her birth. She herself told me that she was a child of the mask. What that meant I learned later.

I discovered a great deal from Cougabel. She took me with her to lay shells and cocks' feathers on the mountainside.

"You come too," she said. "Perhaps Giant angry with you. You come to island and Wandalo not pleased. He say medicine man here. Want man to sell rope and baskets and coconut oil... . Don't want medicine man."

I replied: "My father is a doctor. He is not here to work with coconuts."

"You take shells for Giant," she said, nodding sagely as though it would be wise for me to follow her advice.

So I did.

"The Giant can be terrible angry. Grumble ... grumble ... grumble. ... He throw out burning stones. 1 very angry,' he say."

"It's what is called a volcano," I told her. "There are others in the world. It's quite natural."

The English of Cougaba and Cougabel was better than that of most of the people. They had lived in the big house for a long time. All the same it left much to be desired. Cougaba was expressive in her gestures, though, and we could understand her very well.

"He warns," she told us. "He say, 1 angry.' Then we take shells and flowers. When I was little girl, like you, missy, they throwed man in the crater. He was one wicked one. He killed his father. So they throw him in ... but Giant not please. He did not want bad man sacrifice. He want good man. So they took holy man and throw him in. But old Giant still angry. You watch old Giant. He finish all island once."

I used to try to explain to her that it was a perfectly natural phenomenon. She would listen gravely, nodding. But I knew she did not understand a word of what I said and wouldn't have believed it if she had.

Slowly I absorbed the lore of the island from my parents, from Cougaba and Cougabel and from the magician Wandalo, who showed no objection when I went and sat beside him under the banyan tree.

He was very small and thin and wore only a loincloth. I was fascinated by the way in which his ribs stood out. To look at him was like looking at a skeleton. He had a little round hut at the edge of a clearing among the trees and there he would sit all day with his magic stick making lines in the sand.

The first time I saw him was just after Luke Carter had left and my mother's fears had abated a little and I was allowed to go out on my own as long as I did not stray too far from the house.

I stood at the edge of the clearing watching Wandalo, for he fascinated me. He saw me and just as I was about to run away beckoned. I went to him slowly, fascinated yet apprehensive.

"Sit down, small one," he said.

I sat.

"You pry and peep," he said.

"It's just that I was fascinated by you."

He did not understand but he nodded.

"You come from far over sea."

"Oh yes." I told him about Crabtree Cottage and how we came on a ship, while he listened attentively, understanding some of it, I believed.

"No medicine man wanted... . Man for plantation... . Understand, small one?"

I told him that I did and explained as I had to Cougaba that my father was not a businessman but a doctor.

"No medicine man wanted," he repeated firmly. "Plantation man. People poor. Make people rich. No medicine man."

"People have to do what they do best," I pointed out.

Wandalo drew circles in the sand.

"No medicine man." He brought the stick down on the circle he had drawn and disturbed the sand. "No good come... . Medicine man go. ... Plantation man come."

It was very disturbing and difficult to understand, but there was something ominous about Wandalo's actions and words.

Cougabel and I played together. It was good to have a companion. She came to the lessons which my mother gave to me and Cougaba was absolutely overcome with joy to see her little daughter sitting beside me holding a pencil and making signs on a slate. She was a very bright little girl and different from the others on the island with her light chocolate-colored skin. Most of the islanders were a very dark brown, many black. Very soon we were going everywhere together; she was sure-footed and knew which fruits could be safely eaten; she was a happy child and I was glad of her company. She showed me how to cut our fingers with shells and mingle our blood. "We good sisters now," she said.

I sensed that my parents were not as happy as they had hoped to be. In the first place there were the visits of the ships and a few days before they were due to arrive I would be aware of their uneasiness. When the ship left we would be gloriously happy. I used to sit with them and listen to their talking. I would be on a stool leaning against my mother's knee and she would run her fingers through my hair as she loved to do.

I knew that my father had come here to study the malaria, ague, marsh and jungle fevers which abounded. He wanted to see if he could wipe those diseases out of the island. He planned in time to build a hospital.

He said once: "I want to save life, Anabel. I want to make up------"

She said quickly: "You have saved many lives, Joel. You will save many more. You must not brood. It had to be."

I wanted to do something. I wanted to show my love for them and how grateful I was to have been taken away from Crabtree Cottage.

In a way I did have a hand in molding the future and, looking back now, I wonder what might have happened if I had not discovered, through my friendship with these people, what was really going on.

We must have been on the island about six months when the Giant started grumbling.

One of the women heard the rumble when she went to lay a tribute on the lower slopes. It had been an angry rumble. The Giant was not pleased. The rumor spread. I could see the fear in Cougaba's eyes.

"Old Giant grumbling," she said to me. "Old Giant not pleased."

I went to see Wandalo. He was sitting with his stick making very rapid circles in the sand.

"Go away," he said to me. "No time. Giant grumbles. Giant angry. Medicine man not wanted here, says Giant. Want plantation man."

I ran away.

Cougaba was preparing the fish she was going to cook.

She shook her head at me: "Little missy ... big trouble coming. Giant grumbling. Dance of the Masks coming soon."

I gradually learned what was meant by the Dance of the Masks—a little from Cougaba, a little more from Cougabel, and I heard my parents discussing what they had discovered.

For hundreds of years, ever since there had been people on Vulcan, there had been these Dances of the Masks. The custom was practiced on Vulcan Island and nowhere else in the world; and the dance was performed when the grumbling was growing ominous and the shells and flowers did not seem to placate any more.

The holy man—now Wandalo—would take his magic stick and make signs. The god of the mountain would instruct him when the Feast of the Masks should be held. It was always at the time of a new moon because the Giant wanted the rites performed in darkness. When the night was decided, the preparations would begin and go on while the old moon was waning. Masks could be made of anything suitable but they were chiefly of clay and they must completely hide the face of the wearer. Hair was sometimes dyed red with the juice of the dragon tree. Then the feast would be prepared. There were vats of kava and arrack, which was the fermented juice of the palm. There would be fish, turtle, wild pig and fowls, all of which would be cooked on great fires in the clearing where Wandalo had his dwelling. The night would be lighted only by the stars and the fires by which the food was cooked.

Everyone participating in the dance must be under thirty years of age and they must be so completely masked that none knew who they were.

All through the preceding day the drums would be beating, quietly at first... and going on throughout the night. The drum beaters must not slumber. If they did the Giant would be angry. All through the feasting they would continue to beat and, when that was over, the drums, which had been growing louder and louder, would reach a crescendo. That was the signal for the dance to begin.

I did not see the Dance of the Masks until I was much older and I shall never forget the gyrations and contortions of those brown bodies shining with coconut oil, with which they anointed themselves. The erotic movements were calculated to arouse the participants to a frenzy. This was tribute to the god of fertility, who was their god, the Giant of the mountain.

As the dance went on, two by two the couples would disappear into the woods. Some sank where they were, unable to go farther. And that night each of the young women would lie down with a lover, and neither male nor female would know with whom he or she had cohabited that night

It was a simple matter to discover who had conceived, for intercourse between all men and women had been forbidden for a whole moon before. The reason for Cougabel's importance was that she had been conceived on the Night of the Masks.

The belief was that the Grumbling Giant had entered the most worthy of the men and had chosen the woman who was to bear his child; so any woman who had a child nine months from the Night of the Masks was considered to have been blessed by the Grumbling Giant. The Giant was not always lavish with his favors. If not one child was conceived it was a sign that he was angry. There was often no child of that night. Some of the girls were afraid and fear made them barren for, Cougaba told me later, the Giant would not want to bestow his favor on a coward. If there was no child of the night, there would have to be a very special sacrifice.

Cougaba remembered one occasion when a man climbed to the very edge of the crater. He had meant to throw in some shells but the Giant had reached up and caught him. That man was never seen again.

I shall never forget the first Feast of the Masks following our arrival. Everyone was behaving in a very odd way. They averted their eyes when we were near. Cougaba was worried. She kept shaking her head and saying: "Giant angry. Giant very angry."

Cougabel was a little more explicit. "Giant angry with you," she said; and her bright eyes were frightened. She put her arms about me. "No want you die," she said.

I forgot that for a while but one night I awoke remembering it and I thought of the stories I had heard about men being thrown into the crater to pacify the Giant. It was through Cougabel that I realized our danger.

"Giant angry," Cougabel explained. "Mask coming. He will show on Night of Masks."

"You mean he will tell you why he is angry?"

"He is angry because he want no medicine man. Wandalo medicine man. Not white man."

I told my parents.

My father retorted that they were a lot of savages. They should be grateful to him. He had heard that a woman had died of some fever only that day. "If she had come to me instead of going to that old fool of a witch doctor she might be alive today," he said.

"I think you should open up the plantation," my mother put in. "That's what they want."

"Let them do it themselves. I know nothing of coconuts."

The bamboo drums started. They went on all day.

"I don't like them," said my mother. "They sound ominous."

Cougaba went about the house refusing to look at us. Cougabel put her arms round me and burst into tears.

They were warning us, I knew.

We could hear the drums beating; we could see the light from the fires and smell the flesh of the pig. All through the night my parents sat at the window. My father had his gun across his knees. They kept me with them. I dozed and dreamed of frightening masks; then I would wake and listen to the silence, for the drums had stopped beating.

The silence persisted into the next morning.

Later that day a strange thing happened. A woman came to the house in great distress. I had had her pointed out to me as one who had given birth to a child who had been conceived at the last Dance of the Masks. Therefore it was a special child.

The boy was ill. Wandalo had said he would die because the Giant was angry. As a last resort the mother had brought the child to the white medicine man.

My father took the child into the house. A room was prepared for him. He was put to bed and his mother was to stay with him.

Soon the news of what had happened spread and the islanders came to gather about the house.

My father was excited. He said the boy was suffering from marsh fever, and if he had come in time he could save him.

We all knew that our fate hung on that child's life. If he died they would probably kill us—at best drive us from the island.

My father said exultantly to my mother: "He's responding. I might save him. If I do, Anabel, I'll start their plantation. Yes, I will. I know nothing about the business but I'll find out."

We were up all that night. I looked from my window and saw the people sitting there. They had flaming torches. Cougaba said that if the boy died they would set fire to our house.

My father had taken a terrible risk in bringing the boy here. But he was a man to take risks. My mother was such another. So was I, I discovered later.

In the morning the fever had abated. All through the next day the boy's condition improved and by the end of the day it was clear that his life had been saved.

His mother knelt down and kissed my father's feet. He made her get up and take the child away. He gave her some medicine which she gratefully took.

I shall never forget that moment. She came walking out of the house holding the child and there was no need for anyone to ask what the outcome was. It was clear from her face.

People rushed round her. They touched the child wonderingly and they turned to stare in awe at my father.

He raised his hand and spoke to them.

"The boy will get well and strong. I may be able to cure others among you. I want you to come to me when you are sick. I may cure you. I may not. It will depend on how ill you are. I want to help you all. I want to drive the fever away. I am going to start up the plantation again. You will have to work hard for I have much to learn."

There was a deep silence. Then they turned to each other and put their noses together, which I think was a form of congratulation. My father went into the house.

"And to think that was all due to five grains of calomel, the same of a compound of colocynth and of powder of scammony and a few drops of quinine," he said.

No child had been conceived on that Night of the Masks. It was a sign, said the islanders. The Giant had considered them unworthy. He had sent them his friend, the white medicine man, and they had failed to give him honor.

The white man had saved the Giant's child and, because the Giant was pleased at that and because they had performed the Dance of the Masks, he had asked their friend to start up the plantation again.

The island would prosper as long as it continued to pay homage to the Giant.

My father now dominated the island. He became known as Daddajo and my mother was Mamabel. I was known as Little Missy, or the Little White One. We were accepted.

True to his word, my father set about getting the industry of the island working again and because of his immense energy it did not take long. The islanders were wild with happiness. Daddajo was undoubtedly the emissary of the Grumbling Giant and was going to make them rich.

My father immediately started a nursery for coconuts. He had found books on the subject which had been left behind by Luke Carter and they provided him with certain necessary information. He selected a piece of land and placed on it four hundred ripe nuts. The islanders buzzed round in excitement, telling him what to do, but he was going according to the book and when they saw this they were overcome with respect, for he was doing exactly what Luke Carter had done. The nuts were covered with sand, seaweed and soft mud from the beach, one inch thick.

My father had appointed two men to water them daily. They were on no account to neglect to do this, he said, glancing at the mountain.

"No, no, Daddajo," they cried. "No ... no ... we no forget."

"It had better be so." My father was never averse to using the mountain as a threat when he wished to get something done, and it worked admirably now that they were convinced that he was the friend and servant of the Giant.

It was April when the nuts were placed in the square and they must be planted out, said my father, before the September rains came. All watched this operation presided over by my father, chattering together as they did so, nodding their heads and rubbing noses. They were obviously delighted.

The plants were then set in holes two or three feet deep and twenty feet apart and their roots were bedded with soft mud and seaweed. The waterers must continue with their task for two or three years, my father warned, and the new trees must be protected from the glare of a burning sun.

They plaited fronds of palm which they used to shelter the young trees. It would take five or six years before these trees bore fruit, but meanwhile work would progress with those which were already mature and which abounded on the island.

The nursery was a source of delight. It was regarded as an indication that prosperity was coming back to the island. The Grumbling Giant was not displeased with them. Far from sending out his wrath, he had given them Daddajo to take the place of Luke Carter, who had grown old and not caring, so that everyone neglected his or her work and consequently benefits no longer came to the island.

My father applied great enthusiasm to the project. They accepted him now as the doctor, but he needed a further outlet for his tremendous energy and this supplied it. I see now that both he and my mother were restless. Often their thoughts turned to England. They were shut away from the civilized world and only made contact with it when the ship came in every two months. At first they had sought a refuge, somewhere to hide away and be together. They had found it and, having won a certain security, they were remembering what they were missing. It was only human to do so.

So the coconut project offered a great deal to them both. They became absorbed in it. There was a new mood on the island. There were soon goods to be sent back to Sydney. There was an agent who came to see my father and who was to arrange for the selling of the goods which were produced. Cowrie shells were used as currency on the island. My father paid the natives in these. It was amazing how contented the people were now they had something to do. Instead of a couple of women sitting together idly plaiting a basket under a tree as it had been when we came, there were now groups of them seated on platforms open at the sides but protected by a covering of thatch from the sun; these my father had ordered to be constructed; and in them the women would make baskets and fans and ropes and brushes with the external fiber. My father had also turned some of the round huts into a factory for producing coconut oil.

Life had changed since we came. It was now as it had been in the days of Luke Carter when he had been a young and energetic man.

My father set overseers to look after the various activities, and these overseers were the proudest men on the island. It was amusing to see them strut about, and it became the ambition of every man to be an overseer.

In the mornings my father set aside an hour when the sick could be brought to our house to be attended and there was no doubt that the health of the islanders had improved since our coming. The people were aware of this and my father was regarded with respect and awe. My mother, I think, was loved; and I was looked on with affection.

We were welcome on Vulcan Island.

In two years since our coming my father had established himself as lord of the island, and my mother told me later that as time passed they realized that it was hardly likely anyone would arrive on the ship to take him away to stand trial for murder. The coming of the boat was then something to look forward to because it brought books, clothes, special foods, wines and medicines.

It was indeed an exciting day when one awoke to see the big ship lying at anchor off the island. Early in the morning the canoes would go out and come back laden with the goods my father had ordered. How beautiful those canoes looked—light, slim and tapering! Some were about twenty feet long, others as much as sixty. Their prows and sterns were high and beautifully carved and they were the pride of their possessors. Cougabel told me that the prows and sterns protected the occupants of the canoes from arrows their enemies might shoot at them, for in the old days there had been much fighting among them.

I said the canoes looked like crescent moons dotted on the sea when they were a mile or so from land. They shone in the sunshine, for their prows and sterns were often decorated with mother-of-pearl. It astonished me how quickly the narrow pointed paddles carried them through the water.

So it seemed we had settled into the life of Vulcan Island.

I was growing up. The years passed so quickly that I lost count of them. My mother was teaching me and each day she insisted that she give me lessons. She was constantly ordering books from Sydney and I suppose I was becoming as educated as most girls of my age of a certain class who depended on governesses for their education.

Cougabel continued to share my lessons. She was growing up faster than I physically, for the girls of the island were mature at fourteen and many of them had become mothers at that age.

Cougabel loved my clothes and liked to dress up in them. My mother and I wore loose smocks—a fashion of my mother's devising. Ordinary conventional garments would have been impossible in the heat. We had big hats of plaited fiber which my mother softened a great deal by soaking in oil—a method of her invention. She dyed them—mainly red from dragon tree juice, which we called dragon's blood. But she found other herbs and flowers growing on the island from which she managed to extract dyes. Cougabel wanted smocks and colorful hats such as we wore and she and I would go about together similarly clad. Sometimes, though, she would revert to her native dress and wear nothing but a fringed girdle made of shells and feathers which fell halfway down her thighs, leaving the upper part of her body exposed. Round her neck she would wear strings of shells and ornaments carved out of wood. She looked quite different then and somehow changed her personality. When she sat with me in her smock and did her lessons, I would forget that we were not of the same race. We were then simply two children in a country house.

I guessed, though, that Cougabel did not want me to forget she was an islander and a very special one at that.

Once we wandered to the foot of the mountain and she told me that the Grumbling Giant was her father. I did not see how a mountain could be a father and I laughed this to scorn. She grew angry. She could be passionately angry at times. Her mood changed abruptly and at that moment her great dark eyes flashed with fury.

"He is my father," she cried. "He is ... he is. ... I am a child of the Mask."

I was always interested to hear of the Mask and she went on: "My mother danced at the Mask Dance and the Giant came to her through some man ... unknown ... like he does at the Mask Dance. He shot me into her so that I grew and grew until I was a baby ready to be born."

"That's just a story," I said. I had not at that time learned when it was wise to keep one's opinions to oneself.

She turned round and flashed out at me: "You don't know. You only small one. You white... . You make Giant angry."

"My father is on very good terms with the Giant," I said somewhat mockingly, for I had heard my parents joke about the Giant.

"Giant sent Daddajo. He sent you to learn me... ."

"Teach you," I corrected. I enjoyed correcting Cougabel.

"He sent you to learn me," she insisted, her eyes narrowing. "When I am big and there's a Mask Dance I shall go out to dance and I shall come back with the Giant's baby in me."

I gazed at her in astonishment. Yes, I thought, we are growing up. Cougabel will soon be old enough to have a baby.

I grew thoughtful. Time was passing and we were losing count of it.

I was thirteen years old. I had been six years on the island. During that time my father had built up a flourishing industry and, although many people still died of various fevers, the death toll was considerably reduced.

My father was compiling a book about tropical diseases. He was planning to build a hospital. He was going to put everything he had into the project. All his dreams and hopes were for that hospital.

My mother, I realized, had something on her mind. One afternoon after the intense heat of the day had passed, we sat together under the shade of a palm tree watching the flying fishes skimming over the water.

"You're growing up, Suewellyn," she said. "Have you thought that you have not been off this island since we came?"

"Neither have you or my father."

"We have to stay ... but we have talked a lot about you. We worry about you, Suewellyn."

"Worry about me?"

"Yes, your education and your future."

"We are all together. It is what we wanted."

"Your father and I may not always be here."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just drawing attention to a fact of life. It comes to an end, you know. Suewellyn, you ought to go away to school."

"School! But there is no school!"

"There is in Sydney."

"What! Leave the island?"

"It could be arranged. You would come back to us for holidays. Christmas ... and the summer. The boat takes only a week from Sydney. One week there ... one week back. You have to have some education beyond what I can give you."

"It is something that has never occurred to me."

"You have to be prepared in some way for the future."

"I couldn't leave you."

"It would only be for a time. When the boat next comes you and I will go to Sydney. We'll look at schools and decide what is to be done."

I was astounded and at first refused to consider the idea, but after a while they both talked to me and that sense of adventure which lay dormant in me was aroused. Mine was a strange upbringing. For six years or so I had lived in Crabtree Cottage where I had been brought up in rigid convention. Then I had been whisked away and brought to a primitive island. I imagined that the outside world would be very strange to me.

During the weeks that followed my feelings were mixed. I did not know whether I regretted this decision or was glad of it. But I did see the point of it.

When I told Cougabel that I was going away to school her reaction was violent. She stared at me with great flashing eyes and they seemed filled with hatred.

"I come. I come," she kept saying.

I tried to explain to her that she could not come. I had to go alone. My parents were sending me because people like us had to be educated and most of us went to school to receive that education.

She was not listening. It was a habit of Cougabel's to shut her mind to anything she did not want to hear.

A week before the ship was due my mother and I had made our preparations for departure. It was August. I should go to school in September and in December come back to the island. It was not a very long separation, my mother kept saying.

Then one morning Cougabel was missing. Her bed had not been slept in. She occupied a small bed in the room adjoining mine, for she wanted to sleep in a bed when she saw ours. In fact she wanted everything that I had and I was sure that if it had been suggested that she go away to school with me she would have been happy.

Cougaba was frantic.

"Where she go? She have taken her ornaments with her. See her smock here. She go in shells and feathers. Where she go?"

It was pitiful to hear her.

My father calmly pointed out that she must be on the island unless she had taken a canoe and gone to one of the others. It seemed sensible to search the island.

"She go to Giant," said Cougaba. "She go to him and ask him not let Little Missy go. Oh, it is wicked ... wicked to send Little Missy away. Little Missy belong ... Little Missy not go."

Cougaba rocked to and fro chanting: "Little Missy not go."

My father impatiently said that he did not doubt Cougabel would come back now she had given her mother a fright. But the day went on and she did not return. I was hurt and angry with her because she had shortened the time when we could be together.

But when the second day passed we all became anxious and my father sent search parties up the mountain.

Cougaba was trembling with terror and my mother and I tried to reassure her.

"I frightened," she said. "I very frightened, Mamabel."

"We will find her," soothed my mother.

"I telled Master Luke," mourned Cougaba. "I said, 'No sleep in Master's big bed for whole month. Dance of the Masks to be at new moon.' And Master Luke he laugh and say, 'Not for me and you. Do as I say, Cougaba.' I tell him of Grumbling Giant and he laugh and laugh. Then I sleep in bed. Then the night of the Mask Dance and I stay in Master Luke bed and then ... I am with child. All say, 'Ah, this child of Giant, Cougaba honored lady. Giant came to her. But it was not Giant. ... It was Master Luke and if they know ... they kill me. So Master Luke he say, 'Let them think Giant father of child,' and he laugh and laugh. Cougabel not child of the Mask. And now I frighten. I think Giant very angry with me."

"You mustn't be afraid," said my mother. "The Giant will understand that it was not your fault."

"He take her. I know he take her. He stretch out his hand and draw her down ... down to the burning stones where she burn forever. He say, "Wicked Cougaba. Your child mine, you say. Now she be mine.'"

There was nothing we could do to comfort Cougaba. She kept moaning: "Dat old man Debil was at my elbow, tempting me. I'se wicked. I'se sinned. I told the big lie and the Giant is angry."

My mother warned her to say nothing of this to anyone and that was a relief to poor Cougaba and something she was ready to listen to. I had seen the natives benign since they had accepted my father as an emissary of the great Giant, but I wondered what they would be like if they turned against us. And what Cougaba had done would certainly be considered an unforgivable sin in their eyes.

That night Cougabel was found. My father discovered her on the mountain. She had broken her leg and was unable to walk.

He carried her back to the house and set her leg. The islanders looked on in wonder. Then he made her lie down and would not let her move.

I sat with her and read to her and Cougaba made all sorts of potions for her distilled from plants, for she had great skill in these matters.

Cougabel told me she had gone to the mountain to ask the Giant to stop my going away and then she had fallen and hurt herself. She took this as a sign that the Giant wanted me to go and was punishing her for doubting the wisdom of his wishes.

We accepted that explanation.

Cougaba said no more about the deception she had practiced concerning her daughter's birth. The Giant could not be very angry, my mother told her, because he had merely broken Cougabel's leg, and my father had said that as her bones were young and strong he could mend her leg and none would guess it had ever been broken.

So the days before my departure were spent mostly with Cougabel and when the time came for me to go she was calm and resigned.

My father was very sad at our going but I knew he thought it was the right thing to do.

So we came to Sydney, my mother and I, and my delight in the beautiful harbor and perhaps my even more intense enchantment by the big city—for I was accustomed to scenic beauty-reconciled me to this new phase in my life. I was excited by all the people. I loved the streets, which wound about in a haphazard way because they had grown from the cart tracks of earlier days. I loved the big streets best and in a few days I knew my way about. I shopped with my mother in the great shops such as I had never seen before. I had never realized there was so much merchandise to be bought.

We should have to buy clothes for my school, said my mother, when we were in the room in our hotel. "First though," she added, "we must find the school."

My mother made inquiries and we looked at three before we decided on one. It was not far from the harbor, right in the heart of the town. My mother saw the headmistress and explained that we had lived on a Pacific island and she had taught me until now. I was given tests from which I was glad to say I emerged in some triumph, so my mother had been a good teacher. Then it was arranged that I should become a boarder at the start of the term, which would give my mother time to leave me at school and catch the next ship back to Vulcan Island.

What weeks they were! We shopped madly. I knew the names of the streets and how to find them. We were able to buy my school uniform in Elizabeth Street. The headmistress had told us where to go. We bought clothes and stores and drugs to be sent to the ship en route for Vulcan Island; and when we had done our shopping we took great pleasure in exploring the town, watching the ships which came into the harbor, visiting the spot where Captain Cook had landed; and I felt I was a child again going with Anabel on a jaunt after she had picked me up from Crabtree Cottage.

Then the day came when I was taken to my school and we said good-by to each other. I was desperately unhappy and missed my parents and the island so much.

Then as the weeks passed I settled in. My strangeness was an attraction. The girls would listen for hours to stories of the island. I was an oddity and as I was bright and able to stand up for myself I began to enjoy school.

By Christmas when I returned to the island I had changed. Everything had changed. Cougabel was better and her leg showed no sign that it had been broken. Another triumph for my father!

But she was no longer a suitable companion for me. She was just an islander and I had been out into the big world.

I questioned a great deal now. What were we doing here? My mother had talked to me and made allusions to the past but she had always been able to brush aside awkward questions. She could do so no longer. I was getting curious. I wanted to know why we must live our lives on a remote island when there were towns like Sydney, when there was a whole world to explore.

I remembered the castle I had seen years ago. It had always held a magical quality for me. Now I became obsessed by it and there was so much I wanted to know. School had aroused me from my lazy indifference to the past. I was consumed by a desire to know what it was all about.

That was why my mother had decided to write it all down to tell me.

When I next returned for my holidays she showed me her account of what had happened and I read it avidly. I understood. I was not shocked to learn that I was a bastard and that my father was a murderer. I wondered a great deal about what had happened after my father left. I thought of Esmond and Susannah. They were the ones who interested me. I wondered if I should ever see them and I was filled with a desire to go to that magic castle and find them.