As a maid beseems,
Her eyes drooped from his gaze, yet not too soon
To miss the gleam with which he caught the first
Flash of her beauty. With that glance he gained--
Half conscious of a gladness--that this maid
Was still for winning. As the custom is
Her hair fell in twin braids, and were she wed
They had been sacrificed to that estate.
Maiden she was, his eyes caressed the sign
Black o'er the topaz beauty of her breast.
The stranger spoke. "Malua am I called;
I hold for title Tui Tua Kau.
Over the violent seas, beneath the frown,
Cold and untoward, of a starless sky,
The waves of chance have borne me; thro' the night
Around me and above the pitiless trades
Were blind with darkness, blown like maiden's hair
Across my face. As palm trees beaten by wind,
The tortured breakers tossed their streaming crests,
And all the light of all my life seemed dead--
Then--morning broke, and I behold the sun!"--
He held her with his gaze and found her eyes--
"On Tonga's shore I reigned a chief, and now
I am a beggar at your mercy." Then
The young pride mounting to his cheek, he cried,
"Nay, but I jested, for I come so far
To green Kambara for a lordly bowl
Fit for the kava of a chief."
She smiled,
And with the smile Malua felt the blood
Leap in his heart, his heart inviolate
Never before so stirred 'neath woman's eyes.
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