"Is the murderer wedded and merry?
Bring forth the maiden!" Yet, though they tore out my heart's core, I told them not of my loss.
Then, anxious, to learn the history of Yillah, all present commanded them to divulge it; and breathlessly I heard what follows.
"Of Yillah, we know only this:--that many moons ago, a mighty canoe, full of beings, white, like this murderer Taji, touched at our island of Amma.

Received with wonder, they were worshiped as gods; were feasted all over the land.

Their chief was a tower to behold; and with him, was a being, whose cheeks were of the color of the red coral; her eye, tender as the blue of the sky.

Every day our people brought her offerings of fruit and flowers; which last she would not retain for herself; but hung them round the neck of her child, Yillah; then only an infant in her mother's arms; a bud, nestling close to a flower, full-blown.

All went well between our people and the gods, till at last they slew three of our countrymen, charged with stealing from their great canoe.