Starei was on the shore, seated on the trunk of one of the thousands of palm trees, which the wind had uprooted and thrown upon the sand; upon her knees rested the head of a white man, who appeared to be a corpse. The beauty of that face was sweet and manly at once and the just appearing beard indicated the youthfulness of the man, whom Starei devoured with eyes bathed in tears.
“Whoever saves him,” she exclaimed, “shall be my husband, my life companion.”
“He is dead,” solemnly replied an aged priest.
“He lives,” cried a man, opening his way through the crowd.
The astonished Indians fell away from him; never had they seen so strange a being among them. He was tall and strong; his hair, the color of corn-silk, rose rigidly above his broad and bronzed forehead and dividing into two masses fell thick and straight upon his shoulders; his eyebrows were two delicate red lines, which joined at the root of his aquiline nose; his mouth, of the purple hue of Campeche wood, bent upward at the tips, in a sensual and cruel arch. The oval of his face, unbroken by even a trace of beard, did not so much attract attention as his eyes, of the color of two coins of purest gold, set in black circles. He was naked, but splendidly tattooed with red designs; from the gold chain that encircled his waist hung a skirt, deftly woven of the feathers of the huitzitl, the humming-bird of Anahuac.
That man, who, many believed, came from Hayti, approached that which seemed to be a corpse, without paying attention to the glance, of profound anger, of Starei. He laid one hand upon the icy brow of the white man, and, on placing the other to the heart, instantly withdrew it as if he had touched a glowing brand; rapidly he tore open the still-drenched shirt of linen, which covered the youth’s breast and seized an object that hung at the neck. This object Starei snatched from him. Was it a Talisman? When that singular man no longer had beneath his hand that, which had, doubtless, been to him a hindrance, he placed it upon the stilled heart of the shipwrecked stranger and said to the maiden, “Kiss him on the lips,” and had scarcely been obeyed when the supposed dead man recovered and, taking the piece of wood from Starei’s hand, knelt, placing it against his lips and bathing it in tears. It was a cross.
“Adieu, Starei,” said he of the eyes of gold; “yonder is the hut of Zekom (fever) among the palms; there is our nuptial couch; I await you because you have promised.”
The daughter of the Gulf could not restrain a cry of anger at hearing the words of the son of Heat; she approached the Christian, clasped his neck in her arms and covered his mouth and eyes with kisses. “No! no! leave me, thou loved of Satan,” cried the youth, trying to release himself from the beautiful being. Starei took him by the hand, led him to her hut, and said to him, in expressive pantomime, “Here we two will live.”
Then her companion replied in the language of those of Hayti, which was perfectly understood in Cuba: