Remembering that he had been the best swimmer of the Panama coast, he struck out with renewed courage, although his limbs were numb, his arms had lost all sense of feeling, and his face was purple. Dazzled by the sun-light, the coast seemed ever further away, so he shut his eyes and floundered blindly on. When he reached the cove, the tide pushed him gently in, and the sea-foam billowed around him like a bed of down. When he reached the beach, half senseless, he sank down like a tired child, but the greedy waves would fain suck him back, so he crawled higher up, digging his nails into the sand, and tearing his hands till the blood came, but he gave no heed to that. He could go no further, his brain reeled, he sank into the oblivion of exhaustion.
Pallid of aspect and slender of form, he lay like a withered lily on the strand. How long he was in this damp trance he knew not, for the day was as the night to his congealing blood and dim senses.
With throbbing pulse and aching limbs he came back to consciousness. As he opened his eyes, he looked into the black eyes of a girl, whose face bent so low over him that her breath fanned his cheek. As she chafed his chilled arms, he felt the warmth of life slowly returning. She raised his faint head and poured water through his blue lips. Soft hands smoothed the black curls from his death-like forehead, and wrung his damp locks. The sun came up and warmed him into feeling. Loa, the girl who had found him on the beach, did not explain that she had tried for hours to make a fire by striking a knife with flint, as she had seen the men do. Failing in this, she threw her mantle over the slender frame, pillowed his head in her lap, and waited for the day.
Straining every muscle of her lithe, young body, she dragged him to the protecting shelter of a cave. There, with the juice of shell-fish, breadfruit, and wild strawberries from the woods, she slowly nursed him back to life. She dared not leave him very long, as she, unlike the original Eve, was afraid of the snakes that haunted the jungle. The space around the cave was bare, but, in the midst of some foraying expedition, Loa would have a vision of a white body coiled around by a green snake, and, seized with terror, would race back to the cave, only to find her charge a little stronger and more roguish than ever. Gradually the color crept back into his alabaster cheek, for Hawai was young.
As soon as he was able, he took over his share of the housekeeping duties. One of the first things he did was to go to work with the flint. He made the sparks fly, and finally succeeded in getting fire. That night they had broiled fish for supper, and around the genial blaze they looked into each other's faces in the flickering light, half understandingly, half expectantly.
She approved of the poise of his head upon his bare shoulders, and he watched the firelight play on her expressive features and illumine the gold of her hair, that fell all around her like a voluminous mantle.
"Are you the princess of this island, or Mother Eve in the Garden of Eden?" he asked, quizzically.
"Neither, but a poor, ship-wrecked mariner like yourself."
He stared. "Did you come in one of the ships of Hagoth?"
She inclined her head.