Chapter 47

Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa

But time to tell, how Samoa and Jarl regarded this mystical Yillah;
and how Yillah regarded them.

As Beauty from the Beast, so at first shrank the damsel from my one-
armed companion. But seeing my confidence in the savage, a reaction
soon followed. And in accordance with that curious law, by which,
under certain conditions, the ugliest mortals become only amiably
hideous, Yillah at length came to look upon Samoa as a sort of
harmless and good-natured goblin. Whence came he, she cared not; or
what was his history; or in what manner his fortunes were united to
mine.

May be, she held him a being of spontaneous origin.

Now, as every where women are the tamers of the menageries of men; so
Yillah in good time tamed down Samoa to the relinquishment of that
horrible thing in his ear, and persuaded him to substitute a vacancy
for the bauble in his nose. On his part, however, all this was
conditional. He stipulated for the privilege of restoring both
trinkets upon suitable occasions.

But if thus gayly the damsel sported with Samoa; how different his
emotions toward her? The fate to which she had been destined, and
every nameless thing about her, appealed to all his native
superstitions, which ascribed to beings of her complexion a more than
terrestrial origin. When permitted to approach her, he looked timid
and awkwardly strange; suggesting the likeness of some clumsy satyr,
drawing in his horns; slowly wagging his tail; crouching abashed
before some radiant spirit.

And this reverence of his was most pleasing to me, Bravo! thought I;
be a pagan forever. No more than myself; for, after a different
fashion, Yillah was an idol to both.

But what of my Viking? Why, of good Jarl I grieve to say, that the
old-fashioned interest he took in my affairs led him to look upon
Yillah as a sort of intruder, an Ammonite syren, who might lead me
astray. This would now and then provoke a phillipic; but he would
only turn toward my resentment his devotion; and then I was silent.

Unsophisticated as a wild flower in the germ, Yillah seemed incapable
of perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our
companions. And like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption,
that it was quite impossible for such a person as hers to prove
otherwise than irresistible to all.

She betrayed much surprise at my Vikings appearance. But most of all
was she struck by a characteristic device upon the arm of the
wonderful mariner--our Saviour on the cross, in blue; with the crown
of thorns, and three drops of blood in vermilion, falling one by one
from each hand and foot.

Now, honest Jarl did vastly pride himself upon this ornament. It was