Sestrina: A romance of the South Seas

by A. Safroni-Middleton

Sestrina trembled. For the first time for years she found her thoughts straying from the solemnity of the occasion. And why? She distinctly heard Hawahee extemporising unusual words—words of his own language, words that appealed with fervour to the gods to help him stay the desire of the body.

When they once more rose to their feet and stole forth into the broad light of the tropic day, Sestrina’s head was bowed, and many conflicting thoughts haunted her mind. As they left those sacred portals, the whole isle, the seas, the universe itself, hymned forth an echo of the deep-voiced anthem which they had just heard. The choruses of the feathered lyrists of the trees were pregnant with meaning. As Hawahee’s majestic form stalked along, Sestrina stayed her running feet. With finger to her lips she stood listening to the music of the palm groves: for, as they moaned to her ears, she half fancied that phantom sea-caves existed somewhere up in their green, foamy heights. Crimson-winged lories and sulphur-crested cockatoos wheeled over her head as she once more hurried after Hawahee. She stared up at the sky, and as the flocks of birds whirled away, they looked like clusters of wind-blown leaves of many hues glittering in the sunlight—as though the tropical flowers of that island world had taken wing!

“The gods are happy this day,” said Hawahee as he, too, loitered, and Sestrina gazed shoreward with enraptured eyes. She had come to love the poetry of the distant seas and all the brooding loveliness of nature’s handiwork around her. Day by day she had stood upon those little shores watching the infinite expanse of ocean as the tiny waves of the calm seas crept up to her feet. Those waves seemed her children: with strange delight she watched them run up the shore to her feet, and with sorrow saw them toss their foamy heads, as though in despair, ere they crept back to the homeless deep again. And again, at night she would stand on the shore by the dark ocean and the imaged stars, staring with such reverence as one might feel when kneeling in prayer in some mighty cathedral. She had inherited the imagination and superstition of her fanatic father in diviner tone. Consequently she had been easily influenced by the grandeur of Hawahee’s solemn faith.

Even as they reached the heights by the valley she bowed her head in reverence as the winds swept inland and the murmuring music of the shells was wafted to her ears.

“Sestra, the music is deep-voiced to-day, and so ‘twill be well to visit our brothers,” said Hawahee.

Saying this, he and Sestrina turned their footsteps and walked up to the palm-sheltered spot where Lupo, Steno, Rohana and the rest lay buried.

Each one of the lepers had died with Hawahee’s blessing to soothe their souls. For when they were at last stricken deep by the ravages of the terrible scourge, they had crept up to Hawahee’s and Sestrina’s dwellings and begged forgiveness—forgiveness which had at once been given. Lupo had been the first to go. He had stood on the shore wringing his hands as the clear light of death and the infinite came to his soul in place of the dark of his stricken, blind eyes. Sestrina had at once run down the shore, and had whispered soothing words into his ears, telling him there was nothing to forgive, that she was his dear, erring sister. And when the dying man had turned his face first to the dim horizon and then to the right and left, ere he located Sestrina, he had fallen on his knees and wept like a child. Sestrina’s kind words and wishes for his soul had greatly comforted him as he knelt upon the shore wrapped in the shroud of death, ready for his soul’s last hurry to the stars. Rohana, the last to go, had shaken his fist at the sky and cursed the gods!—ere he fell a huddled heap on the sands. Steno and his two blind comrades had moaned awhile, and had then fallen asleep like children with tired heads. And so, Hawahee and Sestrina’s heart felt sad enough as they knelt by the graves of their dead comrades and prayed. Then they quickly passed back by the reefs on their way home and parted, each going to their self-allotted tasks—Sestrina to her domestic duties and Hawahee to his mat-weaving.

As soon as she had finished her day’s toil, she went down to the beach, and jumping in her canoe paddled out beyond the reefs. Hawahee had made that small craft. His delight had ever been to do all in his power to make the castaway girl as happy as possible.

As Sestrina paddled along, she turned the small prow shoreward again, and hugged the reefs. Then she stopped, and placing her paddle in the canoe took her flute from the folds of her robe and started to play the weird sweet melodies which Hawahee had taught her. Her eyes brightened as she played on, for the winds in the palms that sheltered the blue lagoons sighed a deep effective accompaniment to her sylvan music. The light of reality faded, and her mind became wrapped in a robe of mystery. She became one with the sea, the winds and the tropical loveliness around her. Her unerring clock, the travelling sun, had already stooped to set its golden seal on the brow of the departing day. She ceased to pipe her songs as she looked seaward and watched the melancholy eyes of day on the western sea horizon, touching the ocean with ineffable splendour ere departing into the sleeping lake of all the years since the birth of Time. She came near to tears as she watched the first shadows fall and saw the great flocks of birds come speeding through the distant horizon. On, on they came in their migrating flight, looking like fleets of swiftly paddled sky-canoes. She looked up and saw their curling wings hasten over the isle, and could hear their faint dismal mutterings ere they faded to the southward, leaving a deeper loneliness behind. It was such sights that awakened the pagan mystery of her soul and made her a natural child of the universe. Even as she watched the birds fade away, she recommenced her flute-playing and paddled close to the shores to seek mysterious company. For Hawahee had told her many strange legends, and one said: “The souls of the dead Hawaiian men and women live in the shapes of birds and sing tender melodies for the ears of those they loved when in mortal shape, and wail in bitterness to the ears of those who wronged them when they roamed as mortals on the earth.”

And so, as Sestrina laid her paddle in her canoe and piped her flute, and heard the soft, Lydian music of the wind amongst the leaves, and mutterings of cockatoos, she fancied the dead lepers spoke to her. Then, as the shadows deepened to the westward, she saw shadowy tresses toss as the winds stirred the dark-fingered palm leaves, revealing to her watching eyes, visionary faces of beautiful women who gazed in silent sorrow upon her. Where had she seen those faces before?—dim, remembered faces of those who had watched over her in her childhood. Ere the stars came over the seas, she swiftly paddled to the shore.