NOTWITHSTANDING the sorrow of the night, of mortal frailty and grief,
the door of the East slowly opened, and dawn in silvery sandals stood on
the threshold of those remote sailless seas. The birds sang sweetly as
the last troop of sentinel stars set out for home. Hawahee had long
since stolen into the solitude of his hut and Sestrina in tears to her
chamber. Nothing was changed. The sun rose just the same, and was
welcomed by that great philosopher, Rohana, with cynical cries of “O
Atua! O Pelé! ee! Wahinnnne! O Haw-wah-he cah cah whoo he!” The
warm-coloured flowers, red and white hibiscus on the hill-sides sent
voiceful, rich odours to each other’s rouged tiny faces and sparkling
eyes. The whole isle, set in those illimitable seas, sighed over the
tropical mystery of brooding loveliness and over the sorrowing heads of
the torn hearts of the two lone castaways.
The isle itself resembled the vast brooding soul of the universe, of
mortal aspirations, hope, prayer, anguish and faith. The giant trees,
haunted by multitudes of bright and sombre-plumaged birds, stirred and
moaned to the sea winds like a mighty, dark-branched brain of brooding
beauty and deep murmuring musical thought.
Sestrina saw signs of Hawahee’s secret anguish on his face when he
appeared before her in the broad daylight. The melancholy gaze of his
eyes filled her heart with intense sorrow.
“Aloah, wahine,” he murmured, as she swiftly turned her face away and
threw the peeled _kalos_ (sweet potatoes) into the cooking pot. “Hide
not thy face, wahine, but tell me of the night just passed.”
“Cah whoo O Pelé!” shouted Rohana as he stretched his neck and head
forward as though he resented such words and that stern gaze at his
beloved mistress.
But still Sestrina remained silent. Hawahee’s face softened.
“Sestra, thou hast outwitted the gods and their faithful servant too!—or
did I dream some madness in my sorrow last night?”
“One who worships a woman of stone might dream any mad thing!” said
Sestrina as she threw a _kalos_ (sweet potato) in the pot and splashed
the hot water over her rami and Hawahee as well! But Hawahee was not
deceived, he easily saw through Sestrina’s simulated wrath with which
she sought to hide her embarrassment—and shame! He heard the tears, the
choking sob in the voice.
“Here is the faded flower that you dropped, my wahine.”
Tears were in his own voice as Sestrina placed the flower to her lips
and replaced it in her hair.
“Sestra, fear not, the raft is nearly ready. The gods may give us
happiness yet,” he murmured. Then, as a sudden burst of passion came to
him, he said, “Sestra, beloved wahine, thou art more to me than all the
gods of shadowland; we will seek the great waters together.”
The next moment he had strolled across the yam patch and disappeared.
Directly Hawahee had gone, Sestrina lifted her hands in thankfulness to
the sky. “O God, I thank thee,” she said. Hawahee’s words had warmed her
chilled heart. She had lain in her bed in anguish of mind, thinking that
now the leprosy had broken out afresh he would not seek to leave the
isle on the raft. “Yet, he has put the flag out again,” she thought. And
as she thought she ran to the hilltop and stared toward the shore. True
enough, there on the top of the palm, that stood on the promontory’s
edge, streamed the old tappa distress flag, calling silently to the
skylines for help! For Hawahee, on discovering his fresh leper patch,
had put the flag out again.
Sestrina gazed long and with deep misery on that flag as it flew from
the dead palm top. “He will still risk the voyage on the oceans! He will
not alter his mind, we will float away on the wide waters together and
receive the boundless mercy of Him who made the stars.”
So mused Sestrina, and strange as it may seem, she felt intensely happy.
What cared she for leprosy? She had dwelt so long in its dreadful shadow
that it had become an integral part of the universe around her. Besides,
who was better than Hawahee? Had he not watched over her through the
weary years and saved her from the grave many, many times? Had he not
sat by her bedside when she was ill with fever, attending her with
religious care and tenderness? “Ah, Hawahee! Poor Hawahee!” she
murmured.
Hawahee had quite forgiven her for her deception when she had placed
herself behind the temple, had removed her stone-shape back into the
shadows and had then stood in its place—awaiting Hawahee’s worship! She
had told him straight to his face that she had no fear of the leprosy.
“What matters, so long as we are happy for a little while, even though
it be away on the hot tropic seas, without water and dying, which you
tell me might happen?”
As Hawahee listened a great fire burned in his eyes, and, unable to
control himself, he had walked rapidly away.
Two days had passed since Hawahee had discovered the new leper patch,
when he suddenly walked into the kitchen shelter, and, looking straight
into Sestrina’s eyes, said, “Sestra, you are the stars of the sorrowing
night, and the light of the great day to me.” Then he softly pulled her
form close to his own, and standing in an attitude of prayer, stared
over her shoulder, and gazed out to sea. Then he clasped the woman
passionately to his breast and pressed one long kiss on her brow.
Before Sestrina had recovered from her astonishment, he had abruptly
loosened his clasp and disappeared under the breadfruits of the valley.
Sestrina guessed nothing of the terrible battle going on in Hawahee’s
mind; how his body was wrenched with pain and anguish as his dual
personality, the two deadly rivals fought for supremacy in his soul. His
better self had knelt before the spiritual altar of his soul, asking the
gods to help him control his mortal desires. Then again: his other self
had knelt before the altar of his body’s desire, till he had shouted in
the passionate throes of a terrible appeal, beseeching the goddess Pelé,
Atua and Kauhilo to destroy his better self! to touch his soul with the
darkness which loves to degrade the thing it loves, and debase
friendship—yes, so that he might revel in the lust and desires of self.
“O Pelé, goddess of blood and fire, make my passions supreme conqueror
over those spiritual thoughts that gave this human heart of mine the
priceless solace, the belief in honour and in woman’s purity and the
White God’s boundless mercy. O let my hungering body sin gloriously,
without one pang of remorse!” And as the frenzied Hawaiian pagan cried
on, he suddenly remembered the warm, thrilling clasp of the
statuesque-shape in the shadows by the altar, and cried out in sorrow
unspeakable: “O Atua, I have fallen before the fire—her beauty tempted
me! Have I seared the soul of beauty, and scattered the flowers of her
pure soul into the dust?—am I too late? Too late!”
So cried the poor Hawaiian leper, appealing to the blind, deaf, and dumb
sky as he knelt before his shell-gods again. The valley echoed the cries
of his misery and loud lamentations as the winds swept like anger across
the island’s trees, taking his voice on its hurrying wings away from
Sestrina’s ears. And still he raved on; the swollen veins of his brow
standing out like whipcord as he cried: “O Pelé, Kauhilo and Atua, let
me be as Rohana, Lupo and Steno were, so that I might once more fold her
I love to this breast, and, caring not for the contagion, hold her in my
arms and drink in the ocean of happiness through my satisfied desires
and not this boundless misery born of my better self! If I am to die and
mingle with the dust, why deny me the joy of a woman’s embrace? Why deny
myself that which I have surely seen in the hungry light of her eyes,
telling me that she would freely give sooner than my soul should burn in
the patching fires of thy cruelty, thy monstrous virtue, O Kauhilo! O
Pelé, O Atua, hear me, I, Hawahee, the faithful: O make me dark and
cruel, the fierce light of pangless sin dwelling in my soul that I may
be happy in the joy of brief desire and not hating thee in my misery!”
So did the Hawaiian appeal from the nobility of his soul to his pagan
gods! When he rose to his feet and lifted his hands to the sky, they
were bloodstained, and the hot blood ran down his face.
While Hawahee’s soul was plunged in misery, Sestrina calmly went about
her domestic duties, her lips singing an old song. It was a song that
reminded her of a world somewhere far beyond that vast solitude, of an
isle which gave shelter to its castaway mortality that consisted of a
pagan’s noble soul fighting against fate, a moulting cockatoo, and
Sestrina’s own soul’s budding hopes. It was only the falling shadow of
approaching night that awakened her sorrow; opened her eyes to the
beauty and wonder of her existence. And, as she stood by the shore
watching the sunset fade, her eyes saw the visible universe of fading
light in the wonder of its true perspective. She realised that she
roamed and sorrowed in some vast crystal of a dream, where the seas
dashed and the trees waved by magical shores. And as she glanced up at
the skies, Time’s sad hand flung the shadowy bridal robe over the bed of
Night, as Poetry’s womb stirred in the tremendous pang that sighed her
thousand thousand children—the stars that stared in wonder from the wide
window of the dimly lit heavens.
She sighed, then stole up the shore and entered her lone dwelling.
There, in her chamber, she knelt in fervent prayer, appealing to the
gods which Hawahee had taught her to worship, enabling her eyes to see
the splendour, the beauty and sorrow of Creation.
Notwithstanding all that had happened, all that troubled her, deep in
her fatalistic heart a gleam of hope remained. She looked like Beauty’s
self kneeling there, as she prayed in her hushed chamber. Alas! she
might easily have been some castaway representation of a sad, lovely
Pandora dwelling on a lonely isle of the wine-dark seas of the boundless
Pacific. Just as the Greek goddess brought Promethean fires from Heaven,
and ills to destroy peace of mind, Sestrina had brought a fatal casket
of love and passion to that isle’s sole humanity—Hawahee’s sorrowing
heart. She too was fatally _All-gifted_. Some far-seeing Aphrodite of
inscrutable spite had robed her with beauty’s charm only that she might
stir the heart of man to rebellious thoughts, turning his dreams from
the gods to misery, and plunging her own peace of mind into the depths
of despair, Hope alone remaining. Yes, Sestrina had also brought the
blessings of the gods to the arcadian loveliness of that tropical isle,
only to open the casket full of the gifts of Heaven, to see them
escape—fly away into the darkness.