“Tell me, O Quilla, are you wife or maid?”
“Maid am I,” she answered, “yet one who is promised as a wife,” and she sighed, then went on quickly as though this matter were something of which she did not wish to talk, “And tell me, O Wanderer, are you god or man?”
Now I grew cunning and answered,
“I am a Son of the Sea as you are a Daughter of the Moon.”
She turned her head and glanced at the radiance which lay upon the face of the deep, then said as though to herself:
“The moon shines upon the sea and the sea mirrors back the moon, yet they are far apart and never may draw near.”
“Not so, O Quilla. Out of the sea does the moon rise and, her course run, into the sea’s white arms she sinks to sleep at last.”
Again the red blood ran to her brow and her great eyes fell, those eyes of which never before had I seen the like.
“It seems that they speak our tongue in the sea, and prettily,” she murmured, adding, “But is it not from and into Heaven that the Moon rises and departs?”
At that moment to my grief our talk came to an end, for out of the hut crept Kari. He rose to his feet and stood there as ever calm and dignified, looking first at Quilla and then at me.