43. CHAPTER XLIII.
By means of thin spaces between the braids of matting,
the place was open to the air, but not to view. There was
also a round opening on one side, only large enough, however,
to admit the arm; but this aperture was partially
closed from within. In front, a deep-dyed rug of osiers, covering
the entrance way, was intricately laced to the standing
part of the tent. As I divided this lacing with my
cutlass, there arose an outburst of voices from the Islanders.
And they covered their faces, as the interior was revealed to
my gaze.
Before me crouched a beautiful girl. Her hands were
drooping. And, like a saint from a shrine, she looked sadly
out from her long, fair hair. A low wail issued from her
lips, and she trembled like a sound. There were tears on
her cheek, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom.
Did I dream?—A snow-white skin: blue, firmament eyes:
Golconda locks. For an instant spell-bound I stood; while
with a slow, apprehensive movement, and still gazing fixedly,
the captive gathered more closely about her a gauzelike
robe. Taking one step within, and partially dropping
the curtain of the tent, I so stood, as to have both sight and
speech of Samoa, who tarried without; while the maiden,
crouching in the farther corner of the retreat, was wholly
screened from all eyes but mine.
Crossing my hands before me, I now stood without speaking.
For the soul of me, I could not link this mysterious
creature with the tawny strangers. She seemed of another
race. So powerful was this impression, that unconsciously,
I addressed her in my own tongue. She started, and bending
over, listened intently, as if to the first faint echo of
something dimly remembered. Again I spoke, when throwing
back her hair, the maiden looked up with a piercing,
bewildered gaze. But her eyes soon fell, and bending over
once more, she resumed her former attitude. At length
she slowly chanted to herself several musical words, unlike
those of the Islanders; but though I knew not what they
meant, they vaguely seemed familiar.
Impatient to learn her story, I now questioned her in
Polynesian. But with much earnestness, she signed me to
address her as before. Soon perceiving, however, that without
comprehending the meaning of the words I employed,
she seemed merely touched by something pleasing in their
sound, I once more addressed her in Polynesian; saying
that I was all eagerness to hear her history.
After much hesitation she complied; starting with alarm
at every sound from without; yet all the while deeply regarding
me.
Broken as these disclosures were at the time, they are
here presented in the form in which they were afterward
more fully narrated.
So unearthly was the story, that at first I little comprehended
it; and was almost persuaded that the luckless
maiden was some beautiful maniac.
She declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from
Oroolia, the Island of Delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal
archipelago of the Polynesians. To this isle, while yet
an infant, by some mystical power, she had been spirited
from Amma, the place of her nativity. Her name was
Yillah. And hardly had the waters of Oroolia washed
white her olive skin, and tinged her hair with gold, when
one day strolling in the woodlands, she was snared in the
tendrils of a vine. Drawing her into its bowers, it gently
transformed her into one of its blossoms, leaving her conscious
soul folded up in the transparent petals.
Here hung Yillah in a trance, the world without all
tinged with the rosy hue of her prison. At length when
her spirit was about to burst forth in the opening flower,
the blossom was snapped from its stem; and borne by a
soft wind to the sea; where it fell into the opening valve
of a shell; which in good time was cast upon the beach of
the Island of Amma.
In a dream, these events were revealed to Aleema the
priest; who by a spell unlocking its pearly casket, took
forth the bud, which now showed signs of opening in the
reviving air, and bore faint shadowy revealings, as of the
dawn behind crimson clouds. Suddenly expanding, the
blossom exhaled away in perfumes; floating a rosy mist in
the air. Condensing at last, there emerged from this mist
the same radiant young Yillah as before; her locks all
moist, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom. Enshrined
as a goddess, the wonderful child now tarried in the sacred
temple of Apo, buried in a dell; never beheld of mortal
eyes save Aleema's.
Moon after moon passed away, and at last, only four
days gone by, Aleema came to her with a dream; that
the spirits in Oroolia had recalled her home by the way
of Tedaidee, on whose coast gurgled up in the sea an enchanted
spring; which streaming over upon the brine,
flowed on between blue watery banks; and, plunging into
a vortex, went round and round, descending into depths
unknown. Into this whirlpool Yillah was to descend in
a canoe, at last to well up in an inland fountain of
Oroolia.
