And, as Sestrina reflected, she worked herself into a kind of pagan frenzy over the rebellious thoughts that began to haunt her.
“I am beautiful, O Pelé,” she cried. She ran down the shore. Throwing her hair wildly about her shoulders she stared out to sea and began to sway and chant in a strange manner. She gazed enraptured at her image in the lagoon. “How rounded my limbs are, how full and soft. O Hawahee, how happy am I in the thought of your praise.”
She gazed on her image again and swerved, vanity ashine in her eyes, to see her mass of glittering hair rippling down the shadowy shoulders, falling below her waist as she unclothed, ready to leap into the cool lagoon’s water. Her eyes were bright with passionate thoughts. She turned about and stared on the great shining seas. She drank in the tropical loveliness of the isle as she had never done before. The crimson glory of the tropic flowers gave her a strange thrill of delight. All the spiritual beauty of the forest had vanished! She only saw the warm colours, the hot sunlight and smelt the sensuous exotic odours of the bee-sucked crimson petals of the hibiscus and flamboyant blossoms. The pagan spirit that had suddenly awakened in her soul made her clap her hands in ecstasy as she gazed up at the bright-plumaged birds that sped across the sky. The huge-trunked breadfruit trees that stood by the shore were still her wise old friends as they leaned their richly tasselled leafy arms over her, nearly to the lagoon’s sandy bank, and sighed. The next moment she had leapt from the waters and stood in their shades.
“O wise old trees of the forest, you are happy, and so why should I be sad?” she murmured as she stared at the big leafy heights and thought how Hawahee had told her that they were the reincarnations of mighty gods who had fallen in the past through having mortal desires!
She gave a silvery peal of laughter. She took forth her little bamboo flute from the folds of her rami (skirt). There beneath the sighing breadfruits, she placed the reed to her lips and piped like Pan in his leafy solitudes. Wherefrom came the sweet plaintive notes of the magical melody which she piped? Hawahee had never taught her that melody! She opened her eyes wide in wonder. She rose and ran back to the lagoon’s side, and, gazing on her knees in the water, spied the yet unhealed cut which she had received when she fell in the hollow. Throwing her head backward, she placed her arms up over her shoulders so that her head could rest on her hands as she gazed at the sky. Then with eyes half closed, she murmured dreamily: “Hawahee! Hawahee! I am but a woman!” Suddenly her hair was outblown, for a great wind swept over the seas. The next moment she had dropped her arms and was staring with startled eyes, for the winds had swept down the valley. She could hear the gods of the temple in the valley moaning deeply. “What have I been dreaming? Why have such thoughts come to me?” she cried.
Hastily, and with trembling hands, she replaced her disordered hair, rearranged her rami, and placing her hands over her eyes, hid them in shame. She ran up the shore, ran as though in fright from herself! She hastened to attend her domestic duties. In a few moments the yams and fish were cooked and placed in the platters.
“He is late this morning,” she muttered, as Hawahee made no appearance. Then she heard footsteps; it was as though Hawahee had heard her thoughts, for there he stood by the kitchen porch. Sestrina gazed on her lonely comrade in wonder. He looked very happy. The lines of sorrow had left his brow, and his eyes were full of joyous light!
“Sestra, you are late this morning; how is it? Did you not sleep well, wahine?”
Sestrina blushed deeply, and trembled inwardly in the thought that perhaps the strange man before her had read her thoughts, had heard the yearnings of her soul. “Why did he smile so wistfully and with such tenderness? Why was his face suffused with a great warmth, as though colour of the jungle-peonies had left their rosy flush on his cheeks? Why did his eyes gleam with a wondrous light as though he had scanned the heavens and sighted the angels amongst the stars? Why?”
As soon as Hawahee had breakfasted, he rose from the table and said: “Sestra, I will away to weave my mats, and shall not see you to-day.” And saying this, the Hawaiian, with his soul full of fervent joy over his deliverance from the leprosy, went into the valley to spend the day in prayer. For Hawahee was truly a holy man.