"No—no!" I cried out, bending before the face, "Whatever it be, there are loves great enough to burn into miracles. This is not the first time I have loved you—nor the last. Through æons of reincarnation a love like this runs on." I paused awhile, then added, with an effort to smile. "Don't you remember even one or two former lives, dear?
"'... happy we lived and happy we loved
And happy at last we died;
And deep in the rift of a Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot sands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death
And crept into light again.'"
My eyes were fixed so tensely on the portrait that it grew blurred. Slowly it seemed to me to vanish and in its place stood a real and living figure. I could give no detail of its dress or coloring, but it was a figure of marvelous beauty, and it gazed into my eyes and shook its head. Then it faded and I was looking again at the portrait. There was a choke in my throat, and, falling to my knees, I kissed the printed lips.
CHAPTER XIII
ENTER THE INFANTRYMAN
The morning would bring by rescuers and the breaking up of housekeeping in my cave. I had no wish that profane eyes should look upon the portrait or the devout worship of my beloved cannibals. Now that I was leaving them I realized that they were beloved. In my memory loomed a hundred acts of simple courtesy. The portrait I took down from its shrined position; the Damascus daggers I put again into their places, and the Mandarin's kimono I folded carefully into a package. On all these things, as on the era for which they stood, I dropped the lid of the mate's chest.
The morning came on brilliant and fresh with the cleansing sweep of the trades. Sky and sea sparkled in a diamond clarity, and below me on the beach patiently waited the dignitaries of my tribe in festal regalia. Since this was our parting, I too came out decked in the finery of bird plumage. I did not allow them to climb to the now empty shrine, but led them down with me to the beach, where shortly a boat came bobbing over the water.
A queer enough spectacle we must have made, like a flock of blackbirds patched with the oriole's vermilion and the cockatoo's rose. I myself, burned out of my Caucasian birthright, differed from them only in my size.
For a time the handful of white men on the boat hesitated to risk the chances of landing and being kai-kai'd. As they circled at a distance I made my throat raw, shouting reassurances in English, while my wondering blacks contemplated with deep awe this talking of the gods.