49. CHAPTER XLIX.
While for a few days, now this way, now that, as our
craft glides along, surrounded by these locusts of the deep,
let the story of Yillah flow on.
Of her beauty say I nothing. It was that of a crystal
lake in a fathomless wood: all light and shade; full of
fleeting revealings; now shadowed in depths; now sunny in
dimples; but all sparkling and shifting, and blending together.
But her wild beauty was a vail to things still more strange.
As often she gazed so earnestly into my eyes, like some pure
spirit looking far down into my soul, and seeing therein some
upturned faces, I started in amaze, and asked what spell was
on me, that thus she gazed.
Often she entreated me to repeat over and over again certain
syllables of my language. These she would chant to
herself, pausing now and then, as if striving to discover
wherein lay their charm.
In her accent, there was something very different from
that of the people of the canoe. Wherein lay the difference,
I knew not; but it enabled her to pronounce with readiness
all the words which I taught her; even as if recalling
sounds long forgotten.
If all this filled me with wonder, how much was that
wonder increased, and yet baffled again, by considering her
complexion, and the cast of her features.
After endeavoring in various ways to account for these
things, I was led to imagine, that the damsel must be an
Albino (Tulla) occasionally to be met with among the people
of the Pacific. These persons are of an exceedingly delicate
white skin, tinted with a faint rose hue, like the lips of a
shell. Their hair is golden. But, unlike the Albinos of
other climes, their eyes are invariably blue, and no way intolerant
of light.
As a race, the Tullas die early. And hence the belief,
that they pertain to some distant sphere, and only through
irregularities in the providence of the gods, come to make
their appearance upon earth: whence, the oversight discovered,
they are hastily snatched. And it is chiefly on this
account, that in those islands where human sacrifices are
offered, the Tullas are deemed the most suitable oblations for
the altar, to which from their birth many are prospectively
devoted. It was these considerations, united to others, which
at times induced me to fancy, that by the priest, Yillah was
regarded as one of these beings. So mystical, however, her
revelations concerning her past history, that often I knew
not what to divine. But plainly they showed that she had
not the remotest conception of her real origin.
But these conceits of a state of being anterior to an earthly
existence may have originated in one of those celestial visions
seen transparently stealing over the face of a slumbering
child. And craftily drawn forth and re-echoed by another,
and at times repeated over to her with many additions, these
imaginings must at length have assumed in her mind a hue
of reality, heightened into conviction by the dreamy seclusion
of her life.
But now, let her subsequent and more credible history be
related, as from time to time she rehearsed it.
