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.