I reassured her by making use of a few Fijian phrases I had at command, and she soon felt satisfied that my intentions were friendly. I contrived to make her understand that I was tambu, and that my presence in the woods must be kept a profound secret. I also gained enough of her good will to feel sure that we should meet again. The event justified that belief. Whenever the Princess and her companions visited the locality I managed to have a secret interview with her.
In course of time I was able to explain to her that I had been cast ashore in the recent hurricane, and had wandered into the hills after the death of my companions. All she knew of white men was that they were god-like beings who lived in a far country beyond the seas, and who voyaged in ships as large as islands. Much that she had heard on this subject from the tribal minstrel she had always regarded as an idle tale invented for the amusement of the populace.
I said that I feared to surrender myself to her people, told her I was living in a cave which was difficult of access, and obtained from her a promise that she would come back alone some day, and advise me whether it would be safe for me to enter the town. I learned that her name was Lolóma, and that she was the daughter of Tui Thangi-Levu (King Big-Wind), who lived in Koroivónu (Turtle Town), in the neighbouring valley, and was sovereign of the inland tribes for many miles around.
One day the Princess sought me out alone. She brought me a welcome addition to my fare—some native puddings made of ripe bananas, served with a sauce compounded of the milky juice expressed from the cocoanut, and sweetened with rasped sugar-cane.
I showed her the mysterious entrance to the cave. She ascended the tree with the infinite grace of her nation. As she glided through the leaves into the darkened cavern, I thought she must be a veritable wood nymph or sylvan goddess. The sun penetrating through the thick-leaved trees’ glossy veil of green, dimly showed the fretted buttresses, the aisles, the naves, and the fantastic columns and architraves of our sparry bower.
Lolóma was not darker than a Spanish-born gipsy. Though a child in years, as judged in colder climes, she had the rounded form of perfect womanhood. Short curly hair set off a bright and laughing face, in which a pair of dark eyes danced like twin stars in the first shade of night. The soft caressing fingers and daintily-turned feet, the arched neck and the dimpled knee, were as perfect as statuary. The voice so sweet, and untaught smile so flattering, proclaimed the unsophisticated naturelle. And there was that which no sculptor’s art could copy—the heightened color which shone in her face and neck as her bosom heaved with some fresh emotion of joy or fear, and showed on her nut-brown skin like the red coral of the still lagoon seen blushing through the shadowed wave, or the warm glow of the young leaves of the dawn, which often makes a whole forest look in the distance as if it were in bloom.
She was as natural as the plants and flowers among which she lived, and as joyous as a waterfall. She was subject to none of the distractions of her compeers of civilisation. No sorrow had as yet fallen on her young life, and she knew not “passion’s desolating joy.”
Under the instruction of my teacher I made rapid progress in the Fijian language, that soft labial tongue,
“Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin.”