Aiola, for that was the girl’s name, looked with the deepest affection up into his eyes, then kissed his tattooed, brown, shapely shoulders.
Waylao no longer attempted to shrink from the afflicted. She helped gather soft mosses and leaves. The stricken lepers opened their terrible eyes and regarded her with deep tenderness as she helped to make their couches.
“No touch! No touch! Unclean! Unclean! Mai Pake! Mai Pake!”[[6]] they moaned as she pushed their limp, helpless limbs into more comfortable positions.
[6]. Leprosy.
“Ora, loa, ia Jesu,” breathed one as she closed her eyelids and died—on the shore.
Ere the night passed they had all died; only the Hawaiian chief and his mistress lived.
As the dawn brightened the east they were still sitting huddled beneath the screw-pines. As the sun streamed across the seas, Waylao, the chief and the Hawaiian girl crept beneath the shade of the palms and slept.
So did sorrow in its most terrible form come across the seas to bring balm and true comradeship to the friendless Waylao.
That same day the chief brought old sails and gratings ashore. Ere sunset had faded he had fixed up the cavern’s hollow into two compartments, one for himself and the other for Waylao and Aiola.
The beautiful Hawaiian girl sat by her lover’s side and sang songs to him, looking up into his face all the while she sang—yes, in a way that was like one sees in glorious pictures of tender romance, only it was beautifully, terribly real.