now-white skin: blue, firmament eyes: Golconda
locks. For an instant spell-bound I stood; while with a slow,
apprehensive movement, and still gazing fixedly, the captive gathered
more closely about her a gauze-like robe. Taking one step within, and
partially dropping the curtain of the tent, I so stood, as to have
both sight and speech of Samoa, who tarried without; while the
maiden, crouching in the farther corner of the retreat, was wholly
screened from all eyes but mine.

Crossing my hands before me, I now stood without speaking. For the
soul of me, I could not link this mysterious creature with the tawny
strangers. She seemed of another race. So powerful was this
impression, that unconsciously, I addressed her in my own
tongue. She started, and bending over, listened intently, as if to
the first faint echo of something dimly remembered. Again I spoke,
when throwing back her hair, the maiden looked up with a piercing,
bewildered gaze. But her eyes soon fell, and bending over once more,
she resumed her former attitude. At length she slowly chanted to
herself several musical words, unlike those of the Islanders; but
though I knew not what they meant, they vaguely seemed familiar.

Impatient to learn her story, I now questioned her in Polynesian. But
with much earnestness, she signed me to address her as before. Soon
perceiving, however, that without comprehending the meaning of the
words I employed, she seemed merely touched by something pleasing in
their sound, I once more addressed her in Polynesian; saying that I
was all eagerness to hear her history.

After much hesitation she complied; starting with alarm at every
sound from without; yet all the while deeply regarding me.

Broken as these disclosures were at the time, they are here presented
in the form in which they were afterward more fully narrated.

So unearthly was the story, 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.