She gazed into Kora’s eyes with tenderness, for the beauty of mortality and immortality shone in the same eyelight.
Suddenly, with a cry of delight, as a thought came to her, she said:
“O my beloved Chief, I have just thought how we can outwit the serpent-god. For listen! though you die, still you will be mine, for, being a spirit, I shall then be able to take you away to shadowland.”
As the handsome Fijian chief listened, he lifted his war-club and half imagined that he was already fighting the serpent-god.
Kasawayo gazed with admiration upon his herculean frame, and sighed at the thought that she would never possess him in a mortal state. Then she thought like unto this:
“But, still, I shall have his spirit in shadowland, and, though even goddesses cannot have all they want, I shall be satisfied with the spirit of so beautiful a youth, and, more, I can fold him in my arms and imagine he is a beautiful mortal.”
Her reflections were suddenly interrupted by Kora, who gazed upon her with impassioned glance, and said:
“Kasawayo, tell me where this cavern is. I would meet the serpent at once, and, vanquishing it in combat, possess your love and kisses.”
Kasawayo looked earnestly into Kora’s eyes, then, falling forward on one of her rounded knees, and holding a small bamboo branch in front of her bosom so that their figures should be shielded from temptation, said:
“Kora, O beloved, let us gaze upon each other a moment, for methinks it will be the last time I can drink in your mortal beauty with these eyes.”