CHAPTER XC.
Taji With Hautia
As their last echoes died away down the valley, Hautia glided near;— zone unbound, the amaryllis in her hand. Her bosom ebbed and flowed; the motes danced in the beams that darted from her eyes.
“Come! let us sin, and be merry. Ho! wine, wine, wine! and lapfuls of flowers! let all the cane-brakes pipe their flutes. Damsels! dance; reel, swim, around me:—I, the vortex that draws all in. Taji! Taji!— as a berry, that name is juicy in my mouth!—Taji, Taji!” and in choruses, she warbled forth the sound, till it seemed issuing from her syren eyes.
My heart flew forth from out its bars, and soared in air; but as my hand touched Hautia’s, down dropped a dead bird from the clouds.
“Ha! how he sinks!—but did’st ever dive in deep waters, Taji? Did’st ever see where pearls grow?—To the cave!—damsels, lead on!”
Then wending through constellations of flowers, we entered deep groves. And thus, thrice from sun-light to shade, it seemed three brief nights and days, ere we paused before the mouth of the cavern.
A bow-shot from the sea, it pierced the hill-side like a vaulted way; and glancing in, we saw far gleams of water; crossed, here and there, by long-flung distant shadows of domes and columns. All Venice seemed within.
From a stack of golden palm-stalks, the damsels now made torches; then stood grouped; a sheaf of sirens in a sheaf of frame.
Illuminated, the cavern shone like a Queen of Kandy’s casket: full of dawns and sunsets.
From rocky roof to bubbling floor, it was columned with stalactites; and galleried all round, in spiral tiers, with sparkling, coral ledges.