“Aloah, monsieur,” she said, as she poked her sun-varnished physiognomy through the bamboos and handed me a pannikin of hot tea. I accepted the gift with alacrity and thanks, and I unconsciously ingratiated myself into her good graces. She turned out to be the kind old wife of B— —, an English sailor and trader. She was a full-blooded Marquesan, decidedly handsome, notwithstanding the expressive wrinkles mapped on her face. I discovered that she dwelt in a small bungalow that stood in a most picturesque spot on the slopes that fronted the sea. I was soon quite chummy with this native woman, told her who I was, and finally discovered that she was the mother of the beautiful half-caste girl, Waylao, whom I had met the day before on the beach. So much for old Lydia. But as my reminiscences will deal at times with the daughter, I will introduce her.
She was an attractive girl, about sixteen years of age. When I first saw her standing on the slopes she decidedly enhanced the scenery of Tai-o-hae, and that’s saying something for the beauty of Waylao.
As I vividly recall her, Tai-o-hae, its romantic scenery, its background of pinnacled mountains and dim blue ocean horizons once more surround me. Waylao stands on the ferny slopes by the pomegranates and flamboyant trees. She has not yet perceived me. I hold my breath as I catch sight of her and stare with all the ardour of sanguine youth. The softest, warm sea wind creeps through the giant bread-fruits; her loose tappa robe stirs, lifted by the winds, and twines about the perfect limbs of the girl’s delicate figure. Standing there, with hand held archwise at her brow, her massive, bronzed hair uplifting to the breeze as she stares seaward, I half fancy that the dusky heroine of a romantic South Sea novel has suddenly stepped from the pages of my book and stands before me, smiling in the materialised beauty of reality.
“Aloah, monsieur!”—it is a salutation in French official fashion. Her speech rings in my ears like music. She seems even more beautiful than she appeared yesterday when listening to my violin solo in the grog shanty by the beach.
By degrees reality returns. It’s no dream at all. I’m an ordinary mortal, who was bitten ferociously last night by Marquesan fleas and who only possesses one English shilling and ten centimes in cash.