University of Virginia Library

A LEGEND OF THE PACIFIC.

A Spanish vessel, touching at one of the beautiful
islands of the Pacific, shortly after the discovery of
Vasco Nunez had made them available, left, at its departure,
a young Spaniard upon it, who having strayed at
some distance from the vessel into the interior, had
been unobserved and forgotten. The island, at the first
glance, seemed uninhabited; and so indeed, in reality,
it proved to be, subject only to the migratory visits of a
tribe from one in the neighbourhood. Our Spaniard,
who was named Velasquez, was of good family, and
was among the many, seduced from the luxurious enjoyment
of an independent fortune in his own country, to
the paradisal enjoyments accounted to belong to the
modern discoveries of the new world. He was not unknown
to the perils of war; and, with all the chivalrous
spirit of his age and nation, he contemned and met
them boldly, and with sufficient firmness; but the perils
of labour for life were perils hitherto unknown, and the
first moment of consciousness which followed the knowledge
of the ship's departure, was one little short of
despair. In a paroxysm of frenzy he cast himself down

upon the sand, bewildered with nameless and numberless
terrors, and frantic with their contemplation.

Velasquez was not, however, so greatly the nursling
of nobility and ease as to yield the contest to his fate
without a struggle. He was of noble spirit, and his
energy of character had been at all times his peculiarity.
He was romantic, too, and after the first paroxysm of
apprehension had subsided, the feeling of its desolation
was strangely connected with the novelty of his situation;
and, in a mood somewhat more lively, he betook
himself to a survey of the dominion, of which he found
himself in the exclusive possession.

The island was but a few miles in extent, and in the
course of a second day's journey he had made its circuit.
It possessed the shelter, from the sun, of several delicious
groves, of which, during the mid-day heats, he
availed himself and found repose; while they yielded
him, at the same time, an abundance of the various fruits
common to these islands, obviating any and every inconvenience
from hunger. A few muscles also contributed
to his repast; and the human mind, always subtle in
expedients when sharpened and brought into action by
necessity, did not permit the young Spaniard so quietly
to suffer, as to make his grief insupportable. He felt
his privations, it is true; but, with the philosophy which
comes of a stout heart and a buoyant spirit, he contrived
to make the best of a situation in which he had no
alternative.

The island upon which he was left offered no means
by which he might have constructed a shallop, for the
exploration of its neighbourhood. This, the main evil
of his exile excepted, was the chief subject of regret

with Velasquez. Could he have traced the waters dependent
upon his sovereignty, he might have explored
the contiguous shores which hung before his eyes upon
the verge of his horizon, like a dim streak, curtaining
the distance. An arm of the sea interposed, presenting
a wall of waters to his progress, which, though but a
few miles in extent, was effectually a barrier to him.
Day by day, after providing for his repast, would he sit
upon the edge of the island, contemplating that faint line
in the distance, which he felt assured was inhabited,
and which he so longed to behold. Even the presence
of a savage tribe would have been grateful, assuring
him, as it must have done, that he was not entirely
alone. When, however, as was frequently the case on
these occasions of survey, he began to despond, like a
good catholic, he told his beads and said his prayers,
and promised many a pilgrimage to the shrine of his
patron saint in the event of her succour and assistance.

One day, while engaged in this mournful contemplation,
surveying the wide waste stretching before him,
ruffled into a petty fury by the influence of a sudden
tempest, he beheld a dark speck in the distance which
strongly attracted his attention. Its course was directly
onwards to his island, in which direction the currents,
operated upon violently by the force of the prevailing
wind, set steadily. For a long time with straining eye
he watched its progress, without being able to determine
what in reality it was; yet a something of hope
kept him chained to the survey of its progress, with a
feeling deeply alive, as if it had an especial interest important
to himself. It had—and, in a little while, our
exile had the felicity to discover that the object before

him was an Indian canoe, in which, however, he saw
but one person, managing it with wonderful dexterity;
and, though unable to control its progress in the one
direction, yet so guiding it as to steady it safely, even
against the influence of a strong breeze and a chopping
sea. The current bore it directly towards the spot on
which Velasquez stood; and he now perceived, with
pleasing emotion, that the warrior who had, with such
good fortune, conducted the shallop safely through the
waters, and under circumstances of so much peril, was
a young and beautiful Indian woman. All his apprehensions
were now awakened to observe how she would
escape the breakers, upon which he saw the boat must
inevitably drive; and he rose, and, with a degree of
eagerness becoming indifferently well a young cavalier
of old Spain, he rushed waist-deep into the chafing
waters, ready to yield all necessary assistance. Nor
did he do so in vain. As the skiff entered the foaming
billows it became whirled among them with a rapidity
beyond all human control, and was torn at once into
fragments by their fury; while the young Indian, plunged
between two struggling waves, for a moment lost all
command of her person, and was borne violently up the
shore, and as violently forced back in their equally terrible
recoil. It was now the moment when our young
Spaniard could render the service for which he stood
prepared; and, with unhesitating boldness and noble
vigour, he dashed in among the struggling waves, and
soon reached the almost supine and certainly helpless
form of the young savage. Grasping her with tenacious
firmness around the body, he supported her upon
the water until the return of the surf, which he followed
with rapidity; pausing, however, and steadying both
himself and charge, with their heads towards the returning
billow which broke over them innocuously. A
second effort placed them within their depth, and in a
few moments they attained the shore.

But the Indian girl, who was both beautiful and
young, lay without sign of life before him; and Velasquez
almost wept to think that a moment the most
luxuriously delightful, which he had for so long a time
experienced, was possibly to be dashed by the loss of
the only creature whom fortune appeared to have designed
to lighten his solitude. He did not despair,
however, but immediately proceeded to put in execution
every available plan for her restoration. Nature
came to the relief of both; and the young Indian opened
her eyes, which the Spaniard perceived to be both
black and beautiful. She spoke faintly too, and in
muttered sounds, which, though they did not syllable
forth his language, were as soft and tender as the
breathings of the night-wind through the twisted core
of the sea shell; and the already enamoured Spaniard
knelt down beside her, and gently raising her in his
arms, imprinted a deep kiss upon the pure coral of her
lips, that gave a beautiful relief and lustre to the clear
and sun-dyed brown of her glowing cheeks. The action
restored her to something like consciousness—she
looked around her enquiringly, and her eyes at length
settled long and earnestly upon the face of her preserver.
As sense returned, she spoke rapidly in her own language,
and seemed to make many enquiries, which
Velasquez endeavoured to answer—though he could not
understand—in words as meaningless to her as hers had

been to him; but as in his speech his eyes had taken
part, and as the tones of his voice were mellowed into
a subdued and touching eloquence, all was not thrown
away upon her ear, and the young savage smiled with
unalloyed delight and artlessness, at the first lesson she
had learned in the language of the pale stranger. As,
at the first, in the primeval hour of the creation, the
speech which heaven bestowed upon its creatures was
that of love, it is fortunately the basis of that ancient
language which the senses of all men comprehend,
whatever may be the difference of clime and custom;
and accordingly, our two islanders were not slow to
ascertain the tenor of certain and sundry dialogues
which their spirits carried on. Thus, at evening, when
the Spaniard returned to his usual repose in the recesses
of the grove, which had been knotted overhead with the
sheltering palm, and strewn below with the long and
pliant cane-grass, she lay upon his arm, with the confidence
of innocence at its birth; and the bridal hour of
the two exiles was as sweet and as pure as the love
that produced it was hallowed, and the destiny in which
it had its origin was solemn and peculiar.

The passion thus begun, and sanctioned, as it would
seem, by an especial providence, was neither slow to
ripen nor modified in its character. The desolation of
their fate, their separation from all mankind beside,
more nearly united them; and, before many days, the
young Spaniard, not less than his dusky companion, if
they did not altogether cease to repine at the isolation
of their fortunes, did not, nevertheless, feel this isolation
as a very particular hardship. In a little time he had
taught her the signification of some of those sounds,

which speak of our simplest wants and impulses; and
she, in turn, had not been slow to make him understand
those of her own language, which, having their origin,
as in all countries they are found to do, in some general
impulses and necessities, are alike common to all.
Thus, day by day, they went on teaching and taught,
until it ceased to be difficult to make them comprehend
their several emotions.

Nor were the lessons of the beautiful Amaya—for
such had she already taught him was her name—been
confined to the use of words. She led him among
the rocks, at the tide-fall, and taught him many
mysteries. Plunging fearlessly into the deeps on one
occasion, and disappearing from his sight, with a wild
shriek of desolation, Velasquez leaped in after her.
He, too was an excellent swimmer, and with a joy
beyond expression, he beheld her in a vast hollow of
the deep, separating from their beds the largest pearl
oysters. He, also, like herself, soon became familiar
with the buoyant element; and though no longer
valuing a treasure, which in his own country had been
beyond estimation, he nevertheless employed himself
in gathering the precious gems, and storing them in
his habitation. Great indeed was the wealth which,
without any prospect or possibility of its use, the
Spaniard was thus enabled to amass; and when he
sometimes looked upon his stores, and thought of his
own sunny lands, and the rich vineyards and the blooming
groves, which he no longer could behold, his spirit
grew melancholy within him, and he even turned with
a listless eye of indifferent coldness upon the young and
simple creature, whose love was little short of adoration,

and who should have been all to him, as, under
such circumstances, he was more than every thing to
her. At such moments of despondency on the part
of her lover she would employ the gentlest artifices,
the tenderest attentions; and sing in her own island
language, notes, the pathos of which spoke as earnestly,
in the deep and touching emphasis of their tones,
as they could possibly have done in the sense of their
language. Wooing him to those hollows of the deep,
formed by the growth of the coral rocks, her strains,
describing their savage enjoyments, and soothing him
for the deprivation of those to which his life had been
familiar, would sound not unfrequently, as we may
suppose, in language like the following:

With a sentiment like this, of the deepest confidence
and love, did the young savage seek to compensate

the Spaniard for the loss of those enjoyments of his
own country, and for those many associations of kindred
and society, which made him often turn upon
her a bleak and melancholy eye.

Nor were her labours in this way altogether without
the satisfaction of their most appropriate reward. Her
song won him from moody contemplations; and her
love, warm from the heart, and kindling with its truest
fires, made the wild blossom around him, and filled
him with associations, which, by their variety, serving
to divert his thoughts from the one direction, brought
his spirit a degree of relief, that supported him in a
life, to him, full of privations.

But a change was about to come over the spirit of
their mutual dreams. There came, at last, a tall and
stately vessel to his relief, in the approaching canvass
and make of which he recognised a countryman, and
a new life animated the bosom of Velasquez. The
bark came to anchor, and Amaya heard, with deep
sorrow, that prevented all speech, her lover declare his
determination to return once more to his native land.
In vain did she entreat, with a warm tenderness, that
was thrown away upon the senses of one too selfish to
yield, too cold to feel, too heartless and ungenerous to
consider, for an instant, the claims of one, from whom
he had derived so much in his solitude, and who had
kept back no feeling, no single sentiment, which, shared
with him, had yielded a solitary delight. Unpersuaded
to remain with her in the secluded abode, so singularly
forced upon both of them, she prepared to depart with
him; but what was her surprise and horror, when he
assured her such should not be the case; that, hence-forward

they should be no more to each other than
strangers, for the first time meeting; and, when urged
by the sudden frenzy of the savage, he told her of engagements,
and a betrothed in his own land, which
forbade their further connection, she forebore all
speech, and, with a mournful sternness of manner, the
solemn emphasis of which he did not understand, she
retired suddenly from his sight. Nor did he experience
much regret, when, after a brief and coldly urged
search, he failed to find out her place of retreat.

He had now taken up his abode in the vessel, and
had removed on board the treasures, for such they had
now become, which he had amassed upon the island.
The young Indian had been a profitable companion.
She had explored the recesses among the rocks, and
had gathered the pearl oysters in abundance, with a
skill and courage known only to the people of her nation.
These, with lavish hand she had given, unconscious
of the value of her gift, into the possession of
the traitor, who had so little deserved them; and had,
probably, in this manner, provoked that feeling of avaricious
pride in his bosom, which could not tolerate the
idea in his own land, of acknowledging a debt, which
must have called for that gratitude, imperatively demanded
by nature and humanity, but which would have
resulted to him in a forfeiture of caste and condition.
The selfish spirit triumphed in the struggle; and, as we
have seen, he did not hesitate to sacrifice the hope and
heart of the young creature, whose imagination and heart
knew no other inmate or object of regard than himself.

It was a night of storm and many terrors. The tempest
was high, and the fierce lightnings, common to that

latitude, kept up a continued blaze, that seemed to fire
the black waters themselves. Secure in a safe anchorage,
the Spaniards were merry in a deep carouse, for
with the morning sun they were to take their departure.
The flagon was pledged to many a fair saint in love's
calendar; and, with swimming cup, Velasquez indulged
in extravagant dreams of a beautiful Spanish
maid, the memory of whom had not entirely departed
from him in his solitude. Still he could not entirely
stifle the workings of his conscience. There was a
sleepless monitor within, that no draught could set at
rest; and all in vain did he seek, in ingenious sophisms,
to excuse to himself his proceeding in relation to the
young Indian. It was with this feeling of self-reproach
and remorse at work, though half stupefied with the
wine he had taken, and surrounded by those entirely
under its control, in an interval of silence in the storm,
such as so frequently marks it, when it appears to
pause in the collection of its scattered terrors, that his
ear caught the well-known voice of Amaya, singing
mournfully broken stanzas of the song already recited,
and which was now familiar to his ear. He rushed
wildly on the deck of the vessel, for he had a presentiment
of some evil, to which this singular occurrence
now appeared to lend confirmation. It came more
distinctly to his ear, and with a glance, rendered acute
by the active spirit within, he saw, or thought he saw,
a form, dimly defined upon the waters, and floating
with them. The vessel, too, appeared to be in motion.
The song again rose—
and, with a nameless fear, the Spaniard stood motionless,
mutely gazing on the dim and distant speck from
whence the well-known voice proceeded. On a sudden
he understood the mystery. The vessel did move,
and, driven by the insidious and powerful current, was
setting in upon the fatal shoals and coral rocks, which
girded in the bay. The Indian maid had evidently an
agency in this; and the Spaniard well conceived, that,
familiar as she was with the neighbourhood, and
prompted by a feeling of desperation, which his conscience
assured him was the natural consequence of
his desertion, she had employed herself with an industry
that resulted in full success, in cutting with a coral
rock the cable that secured them in their position. He
rushed below, and sought to arouse the mariners to
their danger. With a stupid sense they heard him,
but refused to heed, and, indeed, could not be made to
understand, till lifted with a fearful energy among the
rocks, the frail bark reeled and shivered beneath the
shock of their first encounter. Then, indeed, but too
late, did they recover their consciousness. Another
shock, and she parted—her back was broken—and the
waters, with a mad fury, rushed into her sides. Velasquez
seized upon a spar; and floated off towards the
shore. But he was not alone. A wild form swam beside
him; and the song, which invited him to the
flowers beneath the sea, had not ceased to thrill in his
ears, when the arms of the Indian girl were entwined
about his neck; and, with a laugh, which spoke of a
heart-broken revenge, that chimed in well with his own
shriek of agony, the lately forsaken Amaya went down
to the deep, clinging, with desperate frenzy, to the form
of the perfidious lover, who in vain struggled to be free.