That same night, whilst Hawahee slept, Sestrina made up her mind to go off to the shell-temple and pray to the gods. Rising from her couch she hastily attired herself in the much worn tappa-robe and went to the door. She looked out into the night and glanced fearfully about her. The winds were blowing wildly, and she could hear the seas thundering as they rebounded on the outer reefs. The deep strain of superstition in her nature was intensified by the ocean’s monotone and the distant moaning harmonies of the shell-altar. She had heard those strange shell-murmurs for more than a thousand nights, till at last they chimed to her ears like voices of the infinite.
Taking advantage of the wild moaning of the palms as a gust of wind swept across the isle, she swiftly ran by Hawahee’s silent hut. In a few minutes she had reached the solitudes of the valley. Approaching the temple, a great fright seized her heart. She could hear the gods, those wonderful oracles that had been fashioned by the toil of Hawahee’s superstitious imagination, moaning loudly. In the darkness of the valley, alone with the terror of her own imagination, the big shell-mouths had spiritual voices.
For a moment she stood quite still, afraid to approach that pagan temple of the valley. A falling dead leaf touched her shoulder; she gave a startled jump and almost screamed in fright. “Why should I fear since Hawahee prays so fervently; what is the matter with me?” she thought. The next moment she had entered the portals of the temple.
In a moment she fell on her knees before the mighty oracles. With lifted hands she gazed up at Pelé’s changeless face. Was it some wild fancy of the brain, or did Pelé’s large, pearl-white eyes gaze on her kneeling, supplicating figure in sorrow? Yes, as the curved, wide rose-flushed shell-lips moaned a deep contralto note of sympathy.
“O goddess Pelé, O Atua, and great Kauhilo, send the deepest oblivion to my heart, sweep the far-off past away! I would only wish to remember Hawahee, the one whose loving hands fashioned the solemn wonder of your presence.” And as Sestrina knelt and appealed to the gods, they suddenly ceased their moanings—each voice stopped; then a violent gust of wind swept through the banyan heights and Atua’s voice alone moaned a deep angry warning-note to the pagan girl’s ears. Rising to her feet in the terror of her superstition, for she imagined the gods were cursing her, she rushed from the temple. In her fright she ran up the left slope, and ran into the leafy shadows almost behind the temple. She turned to the right and passed under the shade of the banyans through which the moonlight glimmered.
She suddenly stopped, stood rigid, with hands up-raised, electrified, as though to ward off some terror—there before her, standing in the shade of the buttressed banyan, stood a figure; she stared on herself! She stood before a figure of carven coral stone, chiselled to resemble her nearly naked form, a marvellous work of heathen art, the lips, the brow, the expression perfect, even to the immovable eyelids. The massed crown of hair looked real! It was as though it had been carved with a needle. The raised skeins of slenderest stone were artistically left so that the carven ringlets should fall over the shoulders. It was a wonderful emblematical figure of love’s highest achievement in sculptural poetic art. The figure resembled the astonished girl so much, that could one have seen the two figures standing there in the moon-touched gloom, it would have been impossible to tell which knew the warm breath of life and which was the sculptured, soulless stone!
Hawahee had carved her image, made a goddess of her, so that he might kneel to her beauty, her cold loveliness, in secret! Every curve from the brow down to the perfect feet was exact. She stared again and trembled—the lips moaned! The Hawaiian fanatic had—and from what infinite selection and choice?—placed a shell in the mouth. It was a sad, sweet-linked, long-drawn note of melancholy that the shadowy mouth of the pagan girl’s stone shape gave forth.
“Hawahee! Hawahee!” she cried in the momentary sorrow that came as she realised why the sad leper had made that figure. In a flash she realised that he knelt before that deaf, eyeless resemblance of her body so that he could appeal in secret to the woman he loved, could kneel in some half-divine passion without contaminating her own sad reality!
Only for a moment did she stand there staring in astonishment, face to face with the beautiful immobility of her stone self. The next moment she had turned aside, had fled in her terror.
Down the valley’s side she ran. When she arrived outside her dwelling she was gasping for breath. She looked over her shoulder fearfully, then ran inside her lonely chamber, for she could hear the loud moanings of the gods and fancied they were racing in hatred after her!