The Mask of the Enchantress

The Dance of the Masks

I was at school for two years and was past sixteen when it was decided that I should leave and go back to the island. In the meantime I had made the acquaintance of the Halmers. At school Laura Halmer and I had become close friends. She had been drawn to me at first by the strangeness of my unusual background and had been an avid listener to tales of the island. I had been attracted by her sophistication. She knew Sydney well and the shops were her happy hunting ground. Her family were farmers and owned a large estate to which they always referred as "the property." This property was some fifty miles north of Sydney. Laura, as the youngest of a family of brothers, was somewhat indulged and it was natural that during my second term at school she should suggest that I go home with her for the half-term holiday, which was just one week and thus not long enough for me to go back to the island. This I was glad to do.

At the Halmers' I was in yet another world. I was received with warmth into the family as a friend of Laura's and in a few days I felt as though I had known them for years. The property was an exciting place to be as there were so many activities going on. They were up at dawn and the Halmer men would be out early and come in at eight o'clock for a breakfast of steak or chops. There were many hands about the place, all with their various duties to perform. It was a very big property.

There I first met Philip Halmer. He was the youngest of Laura's three brothers. The two elder ones were big bronzed men and I could not tell one from the other during those first days. They talked of sheep constantly, for sheep were the main business of the property; they laughed a great deal; they ate a great deal; and they accepted me as one of them since I was a friend of Laura.

With Philip it was different. He was about twenty at that time. He was the clever one, his mother told me. He had soft fair hair and blue eyes; he was sensitive and when I discovered that he was training as a doctor I was immediately drawn to him. I explained that my father had gone to the island to study tropical diseases and that he hoped to build a hospital there. I was very enthusiastic about my father's work and Philip and I were often together talking about the island. It made a special bond between us.

During that mid-term week I spent at the Halmers' I learned a great deal about life in the bush. We would ride out, Laura, Philip and I, and make a campfire in the bush where we brewed tea in a billycan and ate dampers and johnnycakes; and few things had ever tasted so good. Philip used to tell me about the trees and foliage, and I was fascinated by the tall eucalypts, whose branches could fall so swiftly and silently from their great height that they could impale a man, and so they had earned the name of widow-makers. I saw trees and earth scorched by the terrible forest fires and I heard of all the plagues which could beset settlers in this sometimes unwelcoming land.

So after that short week at the Halmers' another change had come into my life.

I went back to school and then Christmas was looming.

"They all want you to come back and spend Christmas with us," said Laura.

But I couldn't, of course; they were expecting me on Vulcan.

When I was on the island now I felt shut in, restricted. It was the first time I had ever been less than contented with my family.

My mother knew what was happening. We spent a lot of time together. "Ah, Suewellyn," she said one day, "you've changed. You've seen something of the world. You know that being cooped up on a little island is not all there is to life. I was right to send you away to school."

"I was happy before."

"But knowledge is always desirable. You couldn't live your life here on a small island. You won't want to stay here when you grow up."

"What about you and my father?"

"I doubt we shall ever leave here."

"I wonder what is happening ... there," I mused.

She did not have to ask where I meant. She knew I was thinking of the castle. For I had read what had happened there, and through her words I had seen it all so clearly.

"After all this time ..." I went on.

"We should never feel safe if we left here," she said. "Your father is a good man, Suewellyn. Always remember that. He killed his brother in hot blood, and he will never be able to forget it. He feels he has the mark of Cain upon him."

"It was great provocation and David deserved to die."

"It's true, but there are many who would say that no wrong is righted by another. I feel guilty in a sense. It was because of me that it happened. Oh, Suewellyn, how easy it is to become involved in ... horror."

I was silent and remembered those words later. How right she was!

She went on: "One day, perhaps you'll go back to England. You could go to the castle. There is nothing against you." Then she started to talk about the castle, and the picture was in my mind as clear as it had been when she showed it to me. I could see it then as I saw it on that day long ago, with its battlemented drum towers and great stone walls.

Then she talked about the inside of the castle. She described those rooms: the main hall, the stone undercroft, the picture gallery, the chapel. It was almost as though there was some purpose in this. I was there ... experiencing it all, seeing it through her eyes. It was as though I were being prepared and the Devil was making it easy for me to fall into temptation. I was superstitious perhaps. Was it surprising, living as I did on the island in the shadow of the Grumbling Giant?

My parents liked to hear about my stay on the Halmer property. They were delighted. This was exactly what they wanted for me. They loved me dearly. I had always known that I had the best father and mother in the world; and that my father loved me partly because I was hers as well as his. Our devotion had been more marked because we had been parted in the beginning; and they were ready to let me go because they believed they knew what was best for me. My mother told me this, for now that I knew their secret there was complete confidence between us.

"All these years," said my mother, "we had to hide the truth. Now there are no more secrets. Oh, how glad I am to be done with them."

She spoke to me very frankly. "I would do it all again, Suewellyn," she said. "Without your father life would have been barren for me. I often wonder about Jessamy and little Susannah. She will be about your age now ... a little older, but not much ... just a few months. I wonder about Esmond and Emerald, and Elizabeth too ... and then those boys, Garth and Malcolm. It must all have changed when David died. The old man must be dead by now. That means Esmond will have the estate. I have thought so much of Jessamy. She is my only deep regret. She must have been desolate. She lost her husband and the one who was supposed to be her best friend at one stroke. Jessamy is the one I think of most. She is the one who has made peace of mind impossible for me as his brother David has for your father. We made a compromise, we two. We had each other, but there were always shadows between us. Happiness was there but memory took it away. Happiness has just been an hour or two now and then ... sometimes a whole day. But remorse is a bitter enemy to happiness. That is why your father wants to build this hospital. Kings in the past used to expiate their sins by endowing monasteries and convents. Your father is a king of a man, Suewellyn. He was born to distinction, born to govern and rule. Like a king of old, he is going to expiate the murder of his brother by building a hospital here. He has such plans, and I am going to help him. We shall do this, and I think it will bring him peace. He is going to put everything into it. You know how we have lived here. He has a good friend in England, a banker ... who has been of great service to him. He is selling everything your father has in England and the money will go into this hospital. We can live on the profits from the plantation. Your father would like to get someone out from England or Australia to help him. He wants to make a sort of colony here. He wants it to be prosperous. But his heart is in the hospital. He wants to bring doctors and nurses out here. Oh, it is a great undertaking. That is how he is going to expiate his sin."

My mother was a great talker and since her revelation it was as though floodgates had been opened.

She had always been the most important person in my life ever since the days when she came to Crabtree Cottage as Miss Anabel, but now that she seemed so vulnerable I loved her more than ever. I knew that she was regretting my growing up because she believed that I must be given every chance to have some other life than the island could offer me.

I went to the Halmers' again for the short half term and I was disappointed because Philip was not there. He was working in Sydney, they told me, and it would not be long before he qualified.

I was determined not to be idle and I insisted on going into the great stone-floored kitchen and helping there. It was the busy time of sheep shearing and there were many men to be fed besides the normal hands; and there were the sundowners who came for a meal and a night's lodging in return for their services. I learned how to make crusty loaves, dampers and johnnycakes. I learned various methods of cooking mutton, for there was a great deal of that on the property. I watched with awe the great pies that came in and out of the ovens. And the days slid by.

I talked to the jackeroos and the aborigines who worked round the property and I enjoyed every minute of it. I loved the tall eucalypts, the yellow wattle and the passion fruit which grew in the garden Mrs. Halmer tended with such care.

I liked the family; I liked their rather casual acceptance of me and the way they welcomed me in the best possible way by almost ignoring me, which meant treating me like one of the family.

I was delighted when Philip came home especially to see me. We rode together for miles. It was all the family property, he told me, and went on to explain how he looked forward to being a qualified doctor so that he could begin to do the work he loved doing.

He asked a great many more questions about my father and I told him more about the hospital. His interest was growing every time we talked.

"It's the kind of project which appeals to me," he said. "To have left England to come out here and do that work is wonderful."

I did not tell him why he had come, but I glowed with pride in my father and told Philip how he had won the respect of the natives after struggle and had even started up the old coconut industry. "My father believes that people are only healthy if they are happily occupied."

"I would agree with that," said Philip. "One day I want to come and meet your father."

I told him I was sure he would be welcome.

"And," he went on, "when you leave school, Suewellyn, you will come and stay with us sometime, won't you?"

I replied that I should have to be asked first. He leaned towards me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. "Don't be an idiot," he said. "You don't have to be asked."

I was very happy. I was realizing that Philip Halmer was beginning to mean a great deal to me.

When I went home that Christmas, workmen were going ahead with the building of the hospital. It was a costly business as all the materials had to be brought out to the island and many workmen were involved. My father was in a state of excitement; my mother was less euphoric. When we were alone together she said: "I just have this uneasy feeling. People will come out here. They will come from home perhaps. I know what it means to have a skeleton in the cupboard. Suppose someone opens the cupboard door which we have kept so satisfactorily shut all this time."

"It will all be forgotten by now," I comforted her; but I was not so sure of that.

She went on: "I just have an uneasy feeling. I can't explain it. I'm afraid of that hospital. I feel there is something ominous about it."

"You're talking like Cougaba ... only in a different kind of English, but the sentiment's the same. Dear Anabel, do you think people look for portents and omens when they live for a long time among the superstitious?"

I myself was a little uneasy about Cougabel. I had grown away from her and I found I did not want to spend so much time with her as I once had. Paddling in a canoe no longer seemed adventurous to me. I did not want to hear stories of the islanders. My thoughts were far away in the outside world.

She followed me round for a while looking at me with big reproachful eyes and sometimes I fancied those eyes held a smoldering hatred. I tried to talk to her then, to tell her about Sydney and school and the Halmer property. She listened but I noticed that her attention wavered. Cougabel could visualize no world but that of the island.

I went back to school and for the short holiday stayed again with the Halmers. There was a great celebration because Philip had passed his finals and was now fully qualified.

"Suewellyn," he said, "I'm going to take up your invitation. I'm coming to Vulcan to see your father and the new hospital."

I was delighted, for I knew my parents would be. They had shown great pleasure when I talked of bringing home my friends.

So it was arranged and the next holidays Philip and Laura came back with me.

That was a wonderful holiday. My parents immediately liked the Halmers and of course my father and Philip had a great deal in common. Philip was enthusiastic about the hospital, which was still not completed. Materials and workmen were still coming over and the islanders were still looking on in awe and wonder. It was true that the building of the hospital had changed the face of the island. This gleaming white modern building erected next to our house had transformed the place from a South Sea island to a modern settlement.

My father had dreams in his eyes. At table he would talk long after the meal was finished. I could see that he planned to turn Vulcan into a kind of Singapore. Stamford Raffles had done it there. Why should he not do it here?

We would all listen entranced by his eloquence and none more than Philip.

"What was Singapore before Raffles persuaded the Sultan of Johore to cede the place to the East India Company? At that time there was hardly anyone there. Who would have believed it possible that it could be what it is today? It was ceded only at the beginning of the century. Raffles made Singapore ... introduced civilization to Singapore. Well, that is what I am going to do with this group of islands. Vulcan here will be the center. Here we shall start with our hospital. I am going to make it into a healthy island. We have only one industry but what a productive industry it is!" He went on to extol the attributes of the coconut. "Not a bit of waste anywhere. Everything produced simply and without a great outlay. Already I am planning to have groves on other islands. I intend to extend ... rapidly."

But his great concern was the hospital. "We shall need doctors," he said. "Do you think many would want to come out here? At the moment it will be difficult, but as we develop ... as there are more amenities ..." So he went on.

There was no doubt that both Laura and Philip Halmer were greatly interested in my family.

I was very happy that my parents should like them so much. But I was aware of a certain restlessness on the island. I suppose that living so closely with the people in the past and coming among them when I was so young had given me a certain rapport with them. I could sense that all was not well. It was in their looks perhaps, the furtive way in which they avoided meeting my eyes. Perhaps it was old Cougaba, who kept nodding and muttering to herself. Perhaps it was some of the looks I saw cast at the great white building glittering in the sun.

I had a clear warning. I was lying in bed with my mosquito net around me when I heard my door open softly. At first I expected it was Mother, who often came in for the nightly chats which she so much enjoyed; she usually watched and waited for me to tell her to come in.

For a second no one appeared. My heart started to pound suddenly. The door opened very slowly.

"Who's there?" I called.

There was no answer. Then I saw her. She had stepped into the room. She was dressed in a girdle made of shells strung together like beads on a string. The shells were green, red and blue; they made a faint jingling sound as she moved. Around her neck were rows of similar shells strung together; they hung down between the valley of her breasts; she was naked from the waist up as was the custom on the island. It was Cougabel.

I struggled up. "What do you want, Cougabel, at this time of night?"

She came to the bed and looked at me accusingly. "You not like Cougabel any more."

"Don't be silly," I said. "Of course I do."

She shook her head. "You have her ... school friend, and you have him. Yes, I know. You love them ... not me. I poor half white. They all white."

"What nonsense," I said. "I like them, it's true, but I haven't changed towards you. We were always friends."

"You lie. That not good."

"You should be in bed, Cougabel," I said with a yawn.

She shook her head. "Daddajo must send them away, Giant says. Daddajo not give you this man."

"What are you talking about?" I cried. But I knew. Cougabel —and that meant her mother and all the island—believed that Philip had come here to be married to me.

"Bad, bad," she went on. "Giant say so. He tell me. I child of Giant. I go to the mountain and he say, 'Send white man away. If he don't go, I angry Giant.'"

She was jealous, of course. I understood. I was to blame. I had ignored her now that Laura and Philip were here. I should not have done that. I had hurt her and this was her way of telling me so.

"Listen to me, Cougabel," I said. "These are our guests. That is why I have to entertain them. That is why I cannot be with you so much as I used to be. I'm sorry, but it is just the same between us as it ever was. I am your friend and you are mine. We have exchanged our blood, haven't we? That means we're friends forever."

"It means the one is cursed who breaks it."

"Nobody's going to break it. Do you believe me, Cougabel?"

Tears started to fall down her cheeks. She just looked at me without attempting to wipe them away. I sprang out of bed and put my arms about her.

"Cougabel ... little Cougabel ... you mustn't cry. We're going to be together. I'm going to tell you all about the big city over the sea. We're friends ... forever."

That seemed to comfort her and after a while she went away.

The next day I told Laura and Philip about her visitation in the night and how when we were little we had played together.

"You must make her join us sometimes," said Philip. "Can she ride?"

I said she could and I loved Laura and Philip for being so kind to her. We went round the beaches in one of the canoes. Cougabel and I paddled and there was a great deal of laughter.

"She is really a very beautiful girl," said Philip. "Being so much lighter in color makes her stand out against the others."

Cougabel sometimes reverted to the smocks she used to wear. They suited her, but she was really magnificent in her shells and feathers. I often noticed her eyes were on Philip; and she always contrived to be near him. If there was anything to be served, she would serve him first. Philip was rather amused by her attentions.

Then the trouble started. Cougabel told me: "Giant grumbling. He very angry. Wandalo ask him what is wrong. Giant does not like hospital."

My father had been informed of this by Wandalo, though not so precisely. The Giant had been heard to grumble some days before. When one of the women went to the mountain to lay shells there for the Giant, she had heard him rumble angrily. Something was wrong. He did not like something on the island. The Giant had been quiet for a long time, in fact all the time the hospital had been in the process of building and work on the plantation had been progressing satisfactorily. Why, then, should he start to grumble now?

My father was irritated at first. "After all this time," he cried, "are they going to try to put obstacles in my way?"

"Surely they realize the benefits of the hospital and the growing plantation," said Philip.

"They do, but they are hidebound by superstitions. They allow that old volcano to dominate them. I've tried to explain that there are hundreds of them all over the world and that there is nothing special about an extinct volcano which now and then does a little grumbling, as they call it, while it is settling down. There has been no major eruption for three hundred years. I wish I could drive this home to them."

Philip had already heard from me about the Dance of the Masks and how Cougaba had declared Cougabel to be a child of the Giant. He was enormously intrigued by stories of the island and he used to sit with Cougabel and make her talk to him. She was delighted and I felt it had completely set that matter to rights.

"Of course," said my father, "it's that old devil Wandalo who is really making the trouble. He has always resented me. It doesn't matter that we have saved many lives with modern treatment of these virulent fevers which are pests in a climate like this one. I have usurped the place of the old witch doctor and he is longing for a chance to pull down the hospital."

"That's something you will never let him do, I know," said Philip.

"I'll see him dead first," replied my father.

But old Wandalo sat under the banyan tree scrawling on the sand with his old stick, and there were more reports of the Giant's grumbling.

At the next new moon, we heard, there was to be a Dance of the Masks.

Philip and Laura were delighted. That this should have happened during their visit seemed a stroke of good luck to them.

I was more conscious now than I had been before of that mood of frenzy which came over the island. I realized that though my father had introduced so much that was good and which for a time they seemed to appreciate, they could in one night revert to the old savagery. He had never been able to eradicate the fear of the Grumbling Giant and he realized as did my mother that we had been believing he might have done this but it was only because the Giant had been quiet.

Cougabel was in a ferment of excitement. This time she would join the dancers. She prepared herself in secret and my mother said we should have to take special care with a nubile girl in the house. This had not been the case before because at the last dance Cougabel had been very young.

As a daughter of the Giant—which she herself and the islanders believed her to be—this ceremony was of special significance to her. It might well be that the Giant would favor his daughter. "Would that be a matter of incest?" I asked my mother.

"I am sure such a matter would be overlooked in exalted circles such as these," she retorted. Then: "Oh, Suewellyn, we must appear to take this seriously. Old Wandalo is giving your father a great deal of anxiety with these hints."

"Do you really think he could convince them that the Giant doesn't like the hospital?"

"It's Wandalo against your father and I don't doubt that your father will win. But he'll have the weight of centuries of superstition against him."

They were anxious days for us and, while Philip and Laura thought it was all so intriguing, I was deeply conscious of my parents' anxieties.

Cougabel was always beside Philip. She would sit at the door of the house and when he came out run after him. I had seen them sitting under palm trees while she talked to him.

He told me: "I'm collecting all sorts of Vulcan lore. Nothing like getting it from its natural source."

The law had gone out that no husband was to share his hut with his wife for a whole month. Philip was greatly amused, but impressed by the seriousness of the islanders and their determination to bow to tradition. Consequently the women lived together in certain huts and the men in others. Cougaba and her daughter still lived with us and, as we had no male islanders living in, that was considered to be all right.

How the tension mounted during those weeks! My father was impatient. He said there was little work done. They could think of nothing but making their masks.

My mother said: "They'll settle down when it is all past. Your father is disappointed though. He had hoped they were growing out of all this. There are some good men helping him, as you know, and he has been hoping to train them for the hospital, though he first wants a doctor to help him, and he thought he might train some of the women as nurses. But all this makes one doubt he ever will. If they are going to neglect everything for the sake of this ritual dance it shows they are as primitive as ever. Your father is always hoping to explode this foolish Giant legend."

"It will take years to do that," I commented.

"He doesn't think so. He believes that when they see the miracles of modern medicine they will realize that all they have to fear from that mountain is a volcanic eruption ... and the volcano is most likely dead anyway. I think they imagine these grumblings just to stir up a little excitement. By the way, has Philip spoken to you about what your father is suggesting?"

"No," I said a little breathlessly.

"Really! I expect he is waiting until he has thought about it a little longer. But your father was saying that Philip is tempted. He is most interested in the experiment, and your father will need a doctor. Suewellyn, I should be delighted if Philip decided to join us."

I felt myself grow pink with excitement. If he did that I should be so happy.

I did not have to speak. My mother put her arms about me and held me tightly against her. "It would be wonderful," she said. "A solution. It would mean that you would stay here ... you and Philip. You're fond of him. Of course you are. Do you think I can't see it? If he decides to come I am sure it will be something to do with you. Of course he is thrilled by the hospital. He thinks it is such a wonderful idea. He says it's magnificent and he admires your father so much. And isn't it miraculous that he should be as obsessed as your father with the study of tropical diseases?"

"What you are thinking is that Philip and I will marry. He has never suggested it."

"Oh, darling, there is no need for us to be coy. I know he hasn't yet. It's a big step, this... . Probably he wants to talk it over with his parents. He would come out here to live... . Oh, I know we are only a week or so from the mainland but it's a bit of an undertaking. I should be so happy. This hospital ... this industry we have here is the result of your father's work. It's going to be yours one day. Everything your father has has gone into this island. There's nothing left of his properties in England now. We've been living on his fortune for years and now this hospital has taken everything. What I mean is, it is your inheritance ... and what your father and I would like more than anything is to see his successor here before ... before ..."

"You're both going to live for years yet."

"Of course, but it is nice to see things settled. If only we could get rid of that pernicious old Wandalo and his Grumbling Giant and settle down to the real business of living like civilized people, it would be so simple. Now you're embarrassed. You mustn't be. I shouldn't have spoken perhaps but I did want to tell you how happy we should be if ... if it all worked out. Philip is delightful and your father likes him and so do I. And, my dear child, you are fond of him too."

She was right. I was. I could look ahead to a future when we were all here. The island would grow and grow. We would have other amenities here. My father was a man of immense organizing ability. I believe that Philip was not unlike him. They would work well together. Philip was with my father during the hour of the day when he received patients and my father was demonstrating the treatments which were necessary to the diseases indigenous to the islands.

There were at least twelve islands clustered round Vulcan. My father believed that one day they would be a prosperous group. The coconut industry would be developed and they might even set up others. Perhaps then the ship would visit the islands more than once every two months; but his great aim was to discover the source and treatment of island fevers and this he was determined to do.

The beating of the drums had started. Cougabel was shut in her room. I knew that she, like all the girls and men who were to take part in the ritual, was working herself into a frenzy of excitement.

Everywhere we went we could hear the drums. They were quiet... like a whisper during the first hours, but it would not be long before the noise began to swell.

I lay in my bed and thought of Cougabel coming in to tell me she was jealous. I had seen a look in her eyes then which alarmed me. For a second or so I should not have been surprised if she had brought out one of those lanceolate daggers the islanders used and plunged it through my heart. Yes, she had really looked murderous, as though she were planning some revenge for my neglect of her.

Poor Cougabel! When we were children we had scarcely noticed that we were different. We had been the best of friends, blood sisters, and we had been happy together. But it had had to change. I should have been more tender towards her, more considerate. I did not guess that she was so deeply affected by me, but I should have known because she had gone to the mountain-top when I was to go away to school.

The beat of the drums kept us awake all night and we were an uneasy household: my father angry that they should revert to this primitive custom, my mother anxious for his sake and myself faintly worried about Cougabel and at the same time excited by my mother's hints about Philip.

I looked into the future that night and it seemed to me that there was a good possibility of Philip's joining us. It would change everything. And was it really true that he was in love with me and wanted to marry me and share our island life?

It was a pleasant prospect and one which must certainly be shelved for a while. I had another year at school to do yet.

How I wished they would stop beating those drums.

All through the next day they continued. Now we could smell the food cooking in that open space where Wandalo had his dwelling. We were waiting for the dark and the sudden cessation of the drums which was every bit as dramatic as the beating of them.

Silence at last.

It was very dark. I pictured it all, though I had never seen it.

We should stay in the house, my father had always said. He did not know how they would react at seeing a stranger among them and in spite of the fact that we had lived so long among them we were strangers on a night like this.

We tried to go about our normal ways but this was not easy.

Laura came into my room.

"It's so exciting, Suewellyn," she said. "I've never had a holiday like this."

"You have given me some good ones on the property."

"Properties are commonplace," she said. "This is so strange ... so different from anything I have ever seen before. Philip is absolutely wild about the place." She looked at me, smiling. "It has so many attractions. Promise me something, Suewellyn."

"I'd better hear what it is before I answer."

"You'll invite me to your wedding and I'll invite you to mine. No matter what happens, we'll go."

"That's easy," I said.

I spoke lightheartedly. I had little idea how very momentous that promise was going to prove.

"I shan't be going back to school."

"It's going to be deadly without you."

"This time next year it will be your turn to leave."

"What luck it was meeting you! There's only one complaint. You should have been born a year later and then we could both have left school together. Listen."

The silence was over. The drums had started to beat again.

"That means the feasting is over. Now the dance is beginning."

"I wish I could see it."

"No. My father saw it once and so did my mother. It was dangerous. If they had been discovered heaven alone knows what would have happened to them. My father is certain—in fact old Wandalo hinted at it—that they would be very angry. They would discover that the Grumbling Giant was displeased and something dreadful would happen. G.G. would command it-through Wandalo of course." I looked round. "Where is Philip?"

"I don't know. He said he was going to the hospital."

"What for? It's not ready for work yet."

"He just loves to be in the place and plan all sorts of things. Yes, that was where he said he was going."

Fear came to me. Philip was very interested in old customs. Could it be that he had gone to look at the dance? It was dangerous. He didn't realize how dangerous. He had not lived with these people. He had only seen them gentle and eager to please. He did not know the other side of their natures. I wondered what they would do to anyone they found spying at their feast.

"He would never have gone there," said Laura, reading my thoughts.

"No, of course," I agreed. "My father did explain that it would be dangerous."

"That wouldn't stop him," said Laura. "But if he thought it would displease your father he would not go."

I was satisfied.

We sat together for some time. We heard the drums reach their crescendo and then there was silence.

This meant that the clearing would be deserted of all but the old people; the young ones would have now disappeared into the woods. The silence created a greater tension than the noise. I went to bed but I could not sleep.

Some instinct made me get out of bed and go to the window. I saw Philip. He was coming from the direction of the hospital; quietly, stealthily he came.

I felt sure he had been watching the dancers. I could understand that he had found it irresistible in spite of my father's warning.

Cougabel awakened me next morning. She was in her native girdle, wearing the shells and amulets about her neck.

She was different. She had been to the feast last night.

Laughing, she came close to me and whispered: 1 know I have the Giant's seed within me. I have Giant's child."

"Well, Cougabel," I said, "for that we must wait to see."

She squatted on the floor and looked at me in my bed. She was smiling and her faraway expression indicated that she was thinking of the night just past.

Cougabel had moved into womanhood. She had had the great experience of the Mask, and she believed, as I suppose all the women did until they knew they were not pregnant, that she carried the Giant's seed within her.

Cougabel was certainly confident. She kept looking at me as though she had scored some triumph.

Later in the day I saw Philip alone and I said to him: "I saw you come in last night."

He looked embarrassed. "Your father warned me," he said.

"But you went," I said.

"I should hate your father to know."

"I shall not tell him."

"It was something I just could not miss. I want to understand these people. And how could one understand them better than on a night like the one just gone?"

I agreed. After all, my father had watched a Night of the Masks. And so had my mother. They had hidden themselves successfully. My father had said: "They are really too absorbed in what they are doing to look for spies."

Philip went on: "I'm coming back, you know."

"Oh, Philip, I'm glad," I answered fervently.

"Oh yes, I've made up my mind. I'm going to work with your father. I have a year to do in the Sydney hospitals first though. By that time, Suewellyn, you'll have done with school."

I nodded happily.

It was tantamount to an agreement.

When I returned to Sydney I missed Laura. I paid a visit to the property. There was a new manager there and he and Laura had become very friendly. I guessed they were in love and when I taxed Laura with it she didn't deny it.

"You'll be dancing at my wedding before I dance at yours," she said. "Don't forget your promise."

I told her I hadn't.

Philip wasn't there. He was doing his year in the hospitals and couldn't get away.

When I went back on holiday to the island it was nearly time for Cougabel's baby to be born. This was a very special birth because it was due nine months after the Night of the Masks and, as until that time, she told me proudly, she had been a virgin, there could be no doubt whose the child was.

"She Mask child and she have Mask child," said Cougaba proudly.

It was typical that Cougaba should go on assuming that we all accepted the fact that Cougabel had been conceived on a night of the dance although she herself had told her that the girl was Luke Carter's daughter. That was a characteristic of the islanders which we found exasperating. They would state something as a fact in face of absolute proof that it was untrue and stubbornly go on believing it.

I had brought a present for the baby, for I was anxious to make up to Cougabel for my neglect in the past. She received me almost regally, accepted the gold chain and pendant which I had bought in Sydney as though, said my irrepressible mother, she was receiving frankincense and myrrh as well as the gold. There was no doubt that Cougabel had become a very important person. She still lived in our house but my mother said we should not keep her, for when the child was born a husband would be found for her and we could be sure that he would be very acceptable. A girl of the Mask, and therefore sure of the Giant's special protection and one who had been born of the Mask herself, as they all believed she had, would be a very worthy wife. And as in addition Cougabel was one of the island's beauties she could expect many offers.

I told Cougabel how glad I was for her.

"I glad too," she said, and made it clear that she was no longer as eager for my company as she had once been.

One night I was disturbed by strange noises and the sound of hurrying footsteps near my room. I put on a robe and went out to investigate. My mother appeared. She took me by the arm and drew me back into the bedroom, shutting the door.

"Cougabel is giving birth," she said.

"So soon?"

"Too soon. The child is a month early."

My mother was looking mysterious and at the same time concerned.

"You see what this means, Suewellyn. It will be said that the child was not conceived on the night."

"Couldn't it be premature?"

"It could be, but you know what these people are. They will say the old Giant would not have let it be born too soon. Oh dear, this could mean trouble. Cougaba is terribly upset. I don't know what we shall do."

"It's all such a lot of nonsense. How is Cougabel?"

"She's all right. Childbearing comes easily to these people who live close to nature."

There was a knock at the door. My mother opened it to disclose Cougaba standing there. She looked at us with great bewildered eyes.

"What's wrong, Cougaba?" asked my mother hastily.

"Come," said Cougaba.

"Is the child all right?" asked my mother.

"Child big, strong, boy child."

"Then Cougabel ..."

Cougaba shook her head.

We went to that room where Cougabel was lying back, triumphant but slightly exhausted. My mother was right. The island women made little trouble of childbearing.

There was the child beside her. His hair was dark brown and straight—quite unlike the thick curly hair of the babies of Vulcan; but it was his skin which was astonishing. It was almost white and that with his straight hair proclaimed the fact that he had white blood in him.

I looked at Cougabel. She was lying there and a strange smile was playing about her lips as her eyes met mine and held them.

There was consternation in the household. First my mother said that none should know that the baby was born. She went at once to tell my father.

"A child that is half white!" he cried. "My God, this is disastrous. And born before the appointed time."

"Of course it could be premature," my mother reminded him.

"They'll never accept that. This could be disastrous for Cougabel ... and us. They will say she was already pregnant before she went to the Mask and you know that's a sin worthy of death in their eyes."

"And the fact that the child is half white ..."

"Cougabel has white blood in her, remember."

"Yes, but ..."

"You can't believe that Philip ... oh no, that's absurd," went on my father. "But who else? Of course Cougabel's father was white and that could account genetically for her giving birth to a child which is even whiter than she is. We know that, but what shall we do about the islanders? One thing is certain. No one outside this house must know that the child is born. Cougaba will have to keep it secret. It is only for a month. Explain to Cougaba. It is necessary, I am sure ... for us all."

And we did that. It was not easy, for the birth of Cougabel's child was awaited with eagerness. Groups of people congregated outside our house. They laid shells round it and many of them went high into the mountain to do homage to the Giant whose child they believed was about to be born.

Cougaba told them that Cougabel needed to rest. The Giant had come to her in a dream and told her that the birth would be difficult. To give birth to his child was not like giving ordinary birth.

Fortunately they accepted this.

My father, always eager to turn disaster into advantage, ordered Cougaba to tell the people that the Giant had come to her in yet another dream and this time he told her that the child would bring a sign for them. He would let them know what he felt about the changes which were coming to the island. In spite of her show of truculence I knew that Cougabel was worried. She understood her people better than we did, and I have no doubt that the premature birth would be as damning in their eyes as the child's color. So both she and Cougaba were ready to follow my father's orders.

The only thing we had to do was keep the birth a secret for a month. In view of the gullibility of the islanders this was not so difficult as it might have been. Cougaba had only to say the Giant had ordered this or that and it was accepted.

But how relieved we were when we could show the baby to the waiting crowd. All our efforts had been worthwhile.

Even Wandalo had to admit that the color of the child indicated that the Giant was pleased by what was happening on the island. He liked the prosperity.

"And most obligingly," said my mother gleefully, "he has stopped that wretched grumbling of his. It couldn't have been more opportune."

So we emerged from this delicate situation. But in spite of my father's assertion that it was not so very rare for a colored person who had had a white father to produce a light-colored child, I kept thinking of Philip and pictures of him and Cougabel laughing together returned again and again to my mind.

I think my feelings toward Philip changed at that time. Or perhaps I was changing. I was growing up.