Then once again he spoke: “Tell me, Sestra, who is he that haunts your slumbers when the winds sigh in the palms and Pelé’s voice echoes down the valley’s hollows?”
“He is one whom I met long years ago, one who said he loved me,” and as Sestrina said this, she turned her eyes away, for they were full of mist. But Hawahee had seen.
“I am a leper, the hated of the White God’s people.” His voice was full of bitterness. Never had Sestrina heard him speak in such a manner before.
“Remember the gods, Pelé and Atua,” whispered Sestrina as she gazed tenderly, helplessly on the man. As she stood there and the soft winds caressed her tresses, blowing them about her face and over her shoulders, the man’s eyes burned with the light of a soft, hungry fire.
Sestrina turned away for a moment and stirred the cooking cakes over the galley fire, then she sat down on her stool, and looking straight into Hawahee’s face, said in a petulant voice, “So you would like me to be rescued from this isle and taken back to the great world that I have half forgotten, eh?”
“Wahine, why say these things,” replied Hawahee, who well knew why Sestrina spoke so. Then he looked intently into the girl’s face and said in a mournful voice, “Ah, Sestrina, I would you were as jealous as you imagine you are. You know well enough that I wish thee to remain on this isle.”
“Then, why have you gone and placed the flag on the palm top again after I went and took it down? A ship may pass, and were the flag seen, men would surely take me away,” said Sestrina, as she dashed her coco-nut goblet at Hawahee’s feet.
“Attend to thy dreams, and not to the flag!” said Hawahee, as he kicked the coco-nut goblet, and behaved like an angry schoolboy. Then seeing how foolishly they were behaving, the Hawaiian forced a smile to his lips, and with a bitter note trembling in his voice, said: “Sestrina, should you be taken away on a ship I could easily die. One thrust with this knife into the heart that worries about you, and I would be at rest.”
Sestrina gazed in consternation into Hawahee’s flashing eyes. A great shadow fell on her heart. She well knew that Hawahee was in earnest when he said such things. “I would sooner dwell on this isle for ever than such an end should come to you after all your kindness to me,” she murmured as she gazed up into the man’s face, deliberately revealing the tears that came swiftly to her eyes.
Hawahee’s heart was thrilled with a sweet yet sad joy as Sestrina spoke. His eyes brightened. And as Sestrina stood up and touched him softly on the shoulder, her tresses, blown by the wind, touched his face, sending a deep thrill through him. His voice became musical and deep with subdued passion. “Beloved wahine, ’tis strange that I have been blind to your wondrous beauty of the flesh till now.”