Chapter 43 - Page 2

that at first I little comprehended it;
and was almost persuaded that the luckless maiden was some beautiful
maniac.

She declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from Oroolia, the
Island of Delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal archipelago of the
Polynesians. To this isle, while yet an infant, by some mystical
power, she had been spirited from Amma, the place of her nativity.
Her name was Yillah. And hardly had the waters of Oroolia washed
white her olive skin, and tinged her hair with gold, when one day
strolling in the woodlands, she was snared in the tendrils of a vine.
Drawing her into its bowers, it gently transformed her into one of
its blossoms, leaving her conscious soul folded up in the transparent
petals.

Here hung Yillah in a trance, the world without all tinged with the
rosy hue of her prison. At length when her spirit was about to burst
forth in the opening flower, the blossom was snapped from its stem;
and borne by a soft wind to the sea; where it fell into the opening
valve of a shell; which in good time was cast upon the beach of the
Island of Amma.

In a dream, these events were revealed to Aleema the priest; who by a
spell unlocking its pearly casket, took forth the bud, which now
showed signs of opening in the reviving air, and bore faint shadowy
revealings, as of the dawn behind crimson clouds. Suddenly expanding,
the blossom exhaled away in perfumes; floating a rosy mist in the
air. Condensing at last, there emerged from this mist the same
radiant young Yillah as before; her locks all moist, and a rose-
colored pearl on her bosom. Enshrined as a goddess, the wonderful
child now tarried in the sacred temple of Apo, buried in a dell;
never beheld of mortal eyes save Aleema's.

Moon after moon passed away, and at last, only four days gone by,
Aleema came to her with a dream; that the spirits in Oroolia had
recalled her home by the way of Tedaidee, on whose coast gurgled up
in the sea an enchanted spring; which streaming over upon the brine,
flowed on between blue watery banks; and, plunging into a vortex,
went round and round, descending into depths unknown. Into this
whirlpool Yillah was to descend in a canoe, at last to well up in an
inland fountain of Oroolia.