“Oh, Hawahee!” she cried.
The tall worshipper gazed first at the unchangeable grace, the cold splendour of his mind’s materialised art, then he stared at the warm, living eyes of the jealous woman that fronted it!
“Can you not make a stone figure of thyself, O Hawahee? For ’tis only in stone that I should seem to truly love thee!” said Sestrina, a wrathful gleam in her eyes.
In a moment Hawahee had clasped her in his arms. Again and again their lips met. And still the gods moaned on in the shadows close by. And still Sestrina wondered why she looked so luring in stone, so beautifully unattainable, and why she felt so jealous of stone lips and arms which could never give their fruits to a lover’s appeal.
“Sestra, forget not the presence of the gods.”
“No, Hawahee!” said the woman, as she too felt the subtle command and warning mystery of the deep moaning voices of the gods—not six yards from where they stood.
“How loudly they moan! Hawahee, I curse the winds of the valley,” murmured Sestrina as she stood there with her arms clinging over the strong shoulders of the man who had worshipped her image. Her face was uplifted, a startled look in her eyes, as Pelé moaned to the wind’s deep breath.
“Say not such things, O Sestra, sweet wahine, love of mine! Listen; I have a plan in my heart that will outwit the gods; but Sestra, you too must pray well; and in a very little while we shall be able to fall into each other’s arms far away from the power of the gods that I have made out of the reverence of my soul’s sorrow. Maybe, O Sestra, I know that the great White God of Langi is a kind god, but still, Atua, Kauhilo, and Pelé have been kind to me—I am cured of the kilia (leprosy). ’Tis the gods who have done this thing to me, so how can I sin in their sight?”
“Cured! Hast thou no fear of anything?” Sestrina gasped. She could say no more, so deep was her surprise and happiness in the thought that her sad comrade should be cured of the kilia.
“Outwit the gods, O Hawahee!” she murmured as she looked about into the shadows with awestruck eyes. Then they kissed again.