LEAVING THE HAPPY ISLAND
Zamna, the Eye of the Sun
HO THERE! Who comes to us in a canoe?" cried the people in the strange land when the Golden Hearted and the wise men arrived from the Happy Island. Many of the natives ran away and others hid in the bushes because they were afraid they were going to be killed. None of them were ever so badly frightened in their lives, and none had ever seen white men before.
"Do you come to fight us? Are you warriors?" they asked.
"I am your friend, not your foe," answered the young prince kindly, and holding a white flag high over his head. "To be a warrior is to have been in many battles, and I never marched a day under the banner of the king, my father. I come wholly in peace."
"He is only a lad. Surely we need not fear him," said the people coming back to crowd around him on shore and to examine his boat and clothes with much curiosity. "Why, then, are you here?" they finally asked.