TWO days after Sestrina had surprised Hawahee before her image, he came to her and said: “Wahine, thou and I have tarried too long on this cursed isle, dwelling in the anguish of our secret desires.”

“Yes, Hawahee,” murmured the lonely woman as she hid her face and stirred the bubbling, sweet-scented poi-poi (taro and yam stew).

“I have thought deeply and long, Sestra mine, and feel ’twill be well to build a raft so that we may float away together over the seas, you and I alone, sweet goddess of my soul; shall it be?”

Sestrina heard the note of resolve in the man’s voice. Her heart was thrilled with a great hope. She did not realise the dangers of being cast away on those infinite waters on a raft, at the mercy of the elements and the hot merciless light of the tropic suns. Often during the first lonely years of their castaway life, Sestrina had suggested to Hawahee that they could build a boat and try and float away to the shores of the great world again. Hawahee had even, for the girl’s sake, agreed to make the attempt, but Sestrina had dissuaded him when she remembered that he would only be captured and sent to Molaki if they did arrive safely on the shores of the civilised world again.

“Hawahee, I long to leave this isle. None need ever know that you once had the dreadful kilia,” she murmured, as she turned her head and gazed tenderly into the face of the sad-looking man who stood awaiting her reply.

The first confusion that had come to her through Hawahee’s presence had disappeared. A great future with a maze of possibilities had flashed into her hopeful brain. For a moment she stood stirring the poi-poi, speechless with joy.

“And the shell-gods—would you leave them—’twould be—” She stopped.

A shadow had passed across Hawahee’s face. In a moment she felt that she had foolishly reverted to a subject that might be the cause of dashing her hopes to atoms. She too, revered the shell-gods, but what were their solemn moanings when compared to the beautiful world of the past, and the memories of her girlhood?

With a sweep of her hand, so to speak, she had swept the mighty heathen gods to perdition. “Curse the shells, curse the gods, I hate the moaning shells,” was her mental ejaculation.

But Sestrina’s fears were groundless, Hawahee had no intention of swerving from his resolve to build a raft and leave the isle.

“Beloved Sestra, do not fear: the shells and the gods will still moan on in the temple of the valley when we are far away and helpless on the great waters.”

How strange is human nature with all its habits and old faiths and long-nursed beliefs!

The next moment a flood of sympathy came to Sestrina’s heart—her jealousy of the gods had vanished—she felt a great wave of sorrow come to her soul in the thought of the poor shells moaning in the valley and she and he so far away!

“Hawahee, we shall be happy when we are out on the great water?”

“Sestra, we will; and see, already the hands of the gods are painting the colours of the sunset with gold and the warm blood of my desires; ’tis a sure sign that they will not be angry.”

Sestrina sprang into his arms, and then turned her head and saw a great flood of crimson and gold staining the vast storied window of the remote western skyline.

“Thanks to great Langi for this hour!” murmured Hawahee.

Then Sestrina went on with her cooking and the Hawaiian stole away into the shadows to pray before his shell oracles. After chanting his prayers into those deaf ears, he passed out of the temple and stole into the shadows and stood before Sestrina’s stone image.

Why did he gaze so solemnly, so silently on that form and face that represented all that was divine, all that was beautiful with innocence and immortal loveliness to his pagan imagination? What had happened that even a heathen’s eyes should fill with tears as he bent and knelt before the cold stone and gazed up into the wide-lidded eyelids? Why did he, for the first time, place his warm arms around the cold grace of that bloodless thing? Who can tell, who can whisper one word, one murmur that can explain the deep mysteries of the human soul’s aspirations for the loveliness which mortals call innocence and beauty and truth? Who? Why is the sweetest nectar, in the divinest vintage that was ever squeezed from creation’s mighty wine-press of toiling suns and stars, bitter to the soul’s taste, bringing nought to sad mortals but the despair of shattered dreams and disillusionment?

The soulful Hawaiian poet rose to his feet and placed his lips in sorrow against the grace of the cold bosom; he placed his warm fingers amongst the chill fingers of the shape’s outstretched hand and cried aloud—like a weeping child! He had placed a withered flower that had faded in the statue’s reality—in Sestrina’s hair—in the small, cold hand’s palm.

“O Atua, O PelÉ, goddess of beauty and innocence, why is my heart afflicted? Why are the visionary shadows of my unhappy soul when shaped into cold stone, sweeter than the realities I touch with living desire, sweeter than the wines of love, sweeter than the touch of passionate lips?”

And there, with his head inclined, the tall, handsome, noble-looking fanatic, listened, awaiting a reply! But only the solemn moan of the gods came to his ears as he gazed once more at the image of his soul’s desire, and then stole away into the shadows.

Sestrina laughed like a happy child to herself as she lay in bed that night and thought of all that Hawahee had said. She could hear the white-ridged combers charging the shore reefs below, and they seemed to be calling, “Come on! Come! out to our wide waters that sweep away through the skylines to the great shores where the lights of the cities gleam.”

“I’ll see the great world again! I’ll gaze into the lovely eyes of memory—the long, long memory! O Atua, O PelÉ!” she cried; and then she remembered—she felt a great shame sweep through her, and immediately called out, “O great White God, God of my childhood, God of the white men, and his God!—he of long years ago.” Then she sighed and shed tears. “Have they forgotten me? Has he forgotten? No, ’tis I who forgot! I who have been faithful in the soul through all the long years. O God of my childhood, you! you know that I have been faithful in my soul to the past!”

Ah, sad, beautiful Sestrina.

Day by day Hawahee toiled over the raft. He had gathered many boards together and had fixed them side by side with the Belle Isle’s old hatchway. With native dexterity he had lashed each plank to the deck and had framed a little bulwark. Then he made small lockers.

“What are they for?” said Sestrina, who kept running to and fro like a happy child, giving all the help she could to Hawahee as he toiled over the craft that was to take them on that great voyage out into the trackless seas.

“It is for food and water, for we must take much water and food with us, Sestra,” said Hawahee as he dropped his rough tools and gazed across the infinite expanse of tropic ocean. No wonder he sighed as he gazed on the dim wastes and the encircling skylines, the only dim, blue hope of that wide world of water.

“That will do for to-day, Sestra. I am tired and will go and bathe in the lagoon and so refresh my body,” said Hawahee as he dropped his tools.

“So am I, Hawahee,” murmured Sestrina.

In a few moments they had both passed up the beach and had retired to their separate huts. They had already had their supper, for Hawahee was in a hurry to get the raft finished, and so had made up his mind to work till sunset each night.

Directly Sestrina had passed out of sight, Hawahee went down to the lagoon to bathe. In a few moments he stood in the cool water. His heart was full of happiness in the thought that a chance of a new life did lie before him and Sestrina. Then he stood gazing towards the aftermath of the dead day as though he had suddenly died, and in some inexplicable way still stood rigid, upright, with the water to his waist, staring at the sky! What had done this, brought this awful change to Hawahee’s face and eyes? It was nothing more than a stinging feeling in his back where the salt water was smarting. He gave a gasp and partially recovered. Then he placed his tappa-robe on, pulling it over his shoulders in a mechanical way as though he was moving in a dream.

Walking along the sand bank of the lagoon, he pulled the robe down and stared again on his imaged shoulder. It was true enough, no mistake!—a great leper patch had broken out! In his grief he ran up the shore, and, throwing himself on the ground, beat his hands and forehead on the stones till they were stained with blood. For several minutes the nobility of his character faded away and left him a frenzied, savage fanatic.

“Wahine! Sestra! come to me! I am clean! I am clean!” he wailed as he realised what the discovery meant to him, and to the woman he really loved—unless be deceived her, told her nothing about his dreadful discovery. In a few moments the natural bravery and nobleness of his soul came to his assistance. He rose to his feet, and lifting his poor hands to the sky, called in terrible fervour and anguish to the old gods of his boyhood. He trembled as he stood there, staring first out to sea and then in the direction of Sestrina’s homestead. But all was silent, Sestrina had heard nothing. The next moment he had rushed down the slope; he was on his way to the heiau (temple). It was a terribly sad sight as he stood in the gloom of that big pagan aisle and with lifted, bloodstained hands, appealed to the goddess PelÉ, Atua and Kauhilo. But their immutable sightless eyes and hollow ears brought no comfort to the stricken man’s soul as the wide, reddish shell-mouths moaned while the wind swept down the valley. Only the goddess PelÉ seemed to gaze from her sombre immobility in sorrow upon the miserable man as he stood there with lifted hands and grief-distended eyes. In the flood of bitterness that came to him, he ran from the presence of those heathen deities and knelt under the palms just outside the temple. “O White God of Langi, Maker of the seas, the stars, the birds and all the wonders and beauty of the universe, and the wondrous clays which I have moulded into the great gods of shadowland, be merciful unto me, a poor heathen untutored savage of the wilds.” And as he moaned on in this wise the night winds caught the words and swept them away! Again he rose to his feet, and, running a few steps, sought the spot where the stone image that resembled Sestrina stood. He wrung his hands in despair as he bowed his head before the moulded grace of the perfect, veined limbs. Then he turned his head and hid his face in his hands. A great fear had swept into his soul; he felt that he might be unable to control his passions, so great was the beauty of the figure before him. “Sestra, I am like to betray thee! I, Hawahee the leper, might make thee unclean. I, who love thy shape, might cast the reality of your loveliness as a loathsome object into the grave by the side of Rohana, Steno and the rest.” In the terror of his thoughts and the possibility that he had lost Sestrina for ever, he leaned forward to embrace the passionless grace of that symbolical form which his imagination had incarnated, endowed with his soul’s ideas. In the agony of his unsatisfied imagination, he embraced the air. The winds wafted the rich odours of the breadfruits to his nostrils. Again he leaned forward and gazed through the dusk with burning eyes at that beautiful figure which he had fashioned with the warm fingers of a wondrous creative impulse, till he had actually robed the stone form with the glamour of a beauty almost divine. He forgot his gods. Only the shape appealed to his staring eyes, the divinity, the spiritual light of his soul strangely seemed to fade. What had happened? Had he drunk too deeply of the pagan’s starry heavens, of the foaming sunsets and Sestrina’s eyes? Was it only sorrow, that almighty alchemist who transmutes mortal dross into purest gold, that had saved Hawahee and Sestrina from falling into the lap of atheistical luxury and warm-scented dreams?

“Sestra, O love of mine! Wahine, thou whom I have fashioned from the moaning ocean’s coral stone, teach me to be brave, I am a leper, unclean! unclean!” he wailed.

The sight of the form’s graceful beauty, the parted lips, the sensuous curves of the shape, the symmetrical loveliness of the outstretched arm and the hand still holding the faded flower, overwhelmed his senses. He sprang towards the silent shape—. His material self seemed to swoon into the grace of soulless stone! He gave a startled cry! Lo, the figure’s outstretched arm had softly closed, held Hawahee in the grip of a passionate clasp! His impassioned lips met the lips of the shape—they were warm; the bosom heaved! The lips spoke: “Hawahee, thou shalt worship me. I, at least, care not for leprosy, or for—”

“Sestra! your arms—your arms are warm! The eyes I made have light as beautiful as the stars in them. O PelÉ, what hast thou done?—forgive! forgive!”

“Hawahee! save me, the light fades—I fall!” wailed the trembling statue.

The giant banyans sighed. The heathen worshipper of stone folded the image of his dreams to his breast. His astounded, overwhelmed senses swam before the bright gaze of eyes that pierced his soul with darts of fire. The same wind that made the deep voices of the gods loudly moan, blew shadowy hair and gossamer drapery about his form and face. Their lips met in the sting of passion and some fear! Like fright the winds moaned as the beautifully moulded arms clutched the worshipper, and the faded flower that had once adorned Sestrina’s hair, dropped from the hand to the forest floor.

Even the winds stayed their breath as though in grief over mortal frailty and sorrow.

“Sestra! where are you?” said Hawahee, as he groped about as though lost in the dark of his own mind. He realised! He broke away. He fled down the valley, and like one demented vanished in the gloom of the banyans.

And Sestrina, who through her subterfuge had heard the truth about Hawahee’s sorrow and grief over his leprosy, fell prostrate to the ground again, and beating her hands amongst the flowers, moaned and wept. The next minute she rose, and running into the shadows, knelt before the stone shape, the rival she had outwitted, and cried like a child before its cold, passionless purity.