“Thou knowest not the depth of my love, wahine. Maybe, some day you will be rescued, taken away from this isle, and will go forth into the great world again. ’Tis then you will remember these things, and know how great was my love for thee.” So spake the great-souled Hawahee.
The sweet sorrow of that midnight meeting seemed to have brought comfort to Sestrina’s heart when Hawahee vanished as though the winds had blown a misty form from her presence. “Now I will sleep well, wahine,” he had murmured as he turned to leave her. In a few moments he had stolen along as though in some fear under the palms, and had entered his hut. For a long time he knelt in deep prayer, appealing to his gods for comfort and strength. Then he lay down on his couch, and seemed to pass away into a deep slumber. And as he slept, his life entered the great dream-world of the unseen reality. A wild wind swept through his slumber. Outside his hut the giant breadfruits waved their tasselled arms and sighed some melody of the ages.
On top of the first shore hill stood Sestrina’s hut, deserted! She too had found a second existence, and had risen from her sleep and wandered down to the shore. The ocean stretched away like a tremendous mirror of pale romance as the tossing waves rose from the deep like white-necked children of sorrow’s womb, and knocked in vain at the cave doors, or ran along the dream-like beach. And still Sestrina walked up and down the moonlit shore, wringing her hands in some unfathomable despair. Her face was pale, and the gaze in her eyes as far-away looking as the light of the imaged stars that haunted the blue lagoons by her side. As she walked to and fro, her outblown hair softly lifting and falling about her form as though in rhythmical sympathy with her own deep dreams, she stared in fright out on the vast moon-ridden seas. Inclining her head, she placed her hand to her ear and listened. Only the far-away sigh of the winds reached her, the voices of the shell-gods were silent at last! Again she listened—a startled look leaped into her eyes, for she could hear the distant voice of Pelé rumbling across the pine and palm tracks. It was a noiseless sound, just as one hears when placing the ear against the pearly entrance of a large sea-shell. As though she was haunted by the presence of some unfathomable terror, she wrung her hands, and began to creep tiptoe up the slopes.
“Hawahee! Hawahee! save me! I am a woman, I am weak, and you are strong,” she cried. Her voice, though apparently soundless, sent an echo across the slopes into the ears of the sleeping man who listened!
Still she crept on, her hair blowing wildly about her, her rami’s tasselled fringe swinging to the trembling of her own form. The next moment she stood outside Hawahee’s open door. Her eyes were burning with a strange, beautiful sapphire light. All the visionary beauty of woman shone on her brow and in the fear of her parted lips as she called his name.
Slowly, as though in some terror of the fascination and dread over which her soul had no control, her pale hands clung, pulled at the canvas folds of the doorway’s old curtain. Again and again she pushed and pulled till slowly that fragile curtain, which divided the wandering Sestrina from the sleeper, was swept aside, revealing Hawahee’s handsome form and sleeping face. He tried to rise. He knew that he dreamed, and yet he knew that his dream was the unseen reality of the truth!
Sestrina saw the smile on his lips as he welcomed her presence, for though his eyes were closed he noticed these things. She even saw the warm blood of some passion mount to his brow—the eyelids quivered as though blown by some inward storm of the soul which they hid. “Hawahee, my beloved Hawahee!” she whispered.
Ah, how sweet the voice sounded to the sleeper’s ears! That pale, wraith-like woman who dreamed and voiced all the feminine passion and sorrow of those infinite seas, saw the convulsive clutching of the strong fingers as the sleeper endeavoured to rise from his couch and embrace the vision of loveliness that leaned over him. He felt the touch of warm lips kissing his own. The radiant light of some great passion, mingled with religious fear, shone in the eyes of the figure that knelt by his couch. It was only a momentary glance which he saw. The next second his sad, beautiful visitor gazed in startled terror. It seemed that a great wind had swept over an isle of dreams. It came up the shores like some rude breath of reality sweeping across the pale seas of romance, blowing the moon into shreds of mists and tangled light, scattering the pale-eyed stars in fright from the lagoons.
Hawahee was awake. He distinctly saw a form standing in the moonlight by his hut doorway, wringing its hands as though in terror. A shriek escaped the figure’s lips. He stared again—like some moonlit cobweb stuff, Sestrina’s shape seemed to have been blown from his sight.
“She only comes in dreams!” he sighed, and then the lone castaway fell into a deeper slumber.