“Yes, of course you may,” she laughed, looking up and brushing the wayward wisp back into its place again. “Come and read me some of Kawana Kerei’s legends in the original Maori.” She held up the book as she spoke.
“In the original Maori?” I said, seating myself on the rough bench against the hazel stems. “That reminds me. I saw a picture in an out-of-the-way corner of the drawing-room to-day with something in Maori written beneath it: ‘Degrade the pure one! Whose is the task? Mine! Mine!’ Did you paint that picture?”
“Yes,” she replied simply; “I painted it quite lately.”
Seeing by her manner that she was a little confused, I asked: “Is it founded on some Maori legend?”
“No; it is—it is——” She hesitated, with her eyes cast down; then, after a pause, looked up with a shy smile and asked: “Have you ever had a very vivid dream, of which you can remember every detail so accurately that it seems like a real experience?”
“No,” I said; “my imagination is not strong enough for that; but if you are going to say that picture was painted from a dream of your own I shall believe you.”
She leaned forward in her chair and half whispered: “Yes, it was; I saw it as plainly as I see you now, Wanaki,”—she had caught my Maori name from Tiki—“even more distinctly, if that is possible.”
“Tell me your dream,” I said. “I could not see the faces of the men in the picture, as the light was not good, but I judge from the legend that they were evil. It is strange that you should see unlovely things in your dreams. Will you tell it me?”
“It is rather a terrible subject,” she said, “and I don’t think I quite understood it even when I had painted the picture. Perhaps you will tell me what it means. I dreamed that I went away over the sea for thousands of miles. The silver-tipped waves shone beneath in the bright moonlight, and the little islands, fringed with palms and belted with coral, were studded everywhere on the ocean. At last I came to a vast country, where, in the interior, there were great hills and mountain lakes, impassable swamps and deep wildernesses. I saw ancient ruins and long lines of what looked like giant cactus——”
“Mexico,” I said, thinking aloud.