“I’m feeling strangely sad to-night. What has happened to me that I should fear the wrath of Atua, Kauhilo and kind Pelé?” she murmured, as she lay down on her soft couch for the night.
Then she heard Rohana shout, “Atua Hawee! Hawaee! O Pelé!” and knew that Hawahee was placing ripe corn into the cockatoo’s cage ere he retired to bed in his homestead just across the slope.
“I am safe, for he sleeps!” she whispered, as though in fright, to herself. Then she crept from her couch, and kneeling by the old photograph of Père Chaco, that hung on the wooden wall, she forgot the shell-gods and prayed feverently to the great, merciful God of her childhood.
CHAPTER II
THE next day Hawahee walked into the space of Sestrina’s palm-sheltered kitchen, and said: “Sestra, I have made these things for you.” Sestrina gazed in surprise and delight on the delicate articles which the Hawaiian had placed on her wickerwork table. For Hawahee had, with great patience and artistic toil, weaved a beautiful tappa bodice and tasselled rami (native skirt) for her, and had also plaited pretty sandals for her feet. She examined the primitive, but picturesque, garments with great delight. The old skirt which she had made from the bundle of tablecloths which had been found in the Belle Isle’s cuddy was very much tattered, and there was no more cloth left.
“Aloah, oh, Hawahee, ’tis good of you,” she said, as she stooped forward and picked up a beautifully plaited pair of sandals. “Why, you have made two pairs of sandals!”
Hawahee, who had been standing near with smiling face over the girl’s delight, gave a startled jump forward and snatched the second pair of sandals from her hands, as though he had not intended the second pair for her, and had placed them in the parcel by mistake. Sestrina gazed in wonder. Not once in all the years of their castaway life had she seen Hawahee look so worried and confused. “Why had he taken the second pair of sandals from her like that? Why look so shamefaced, so worried, as he stood there with his head bowed as though in guilt, and then slipped the sandals into the folds of his native jerkin? If the sandals were not meant for her feet, who was her rival on that uninhabited isle, where only she and Hawahee dwelt? They could not be meant for Pelé, for the goddess had feet four times the size of her own.” And as Sestrina stood wondering, Hawahee stalked away, went across the small slope and entered his vine-covered homestead.
“How foolish of me. He means to present them to me some other day, when these are worn out,” Sestrina murmured, as she gazed in delight on the tiny, delicately weaved sandals which she still held in her hand.
Just before sunset on that same day, Sestrina came back from her swim in the lagoon and stood before Hawahee, who at once stopped chopping firewood and gazed upon her. A deep light shone in Sestrina’s eyes as she stood before the Hawaiian arrayed in the tappa bodice, rami and sandals.
On seeing the light in the girl’s eyes Hawahee’s eyes also brightened, the lines of care at once smoothed from his brow. The next moment Sestrina blushed deeply and realised, for the first time, that, however hard a woman strives to conceal the secret thoughts of her heart, her eyes must give her away.