Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/167

 and again a faint perfume of cassi. Perfume, like music, is a voice speaking a language we have forgotten, telling tales we half understand, soothing us now with dreams, raising us now to action.

The cassi flowers were speaking to Le Moan. After a long, long while she moved, raised her head and, leaning on her elbow, seemed to listen.

Close to her was a pond in the coral—a rock pool filled with fresh water such as existed on the southern beach and a fellow of which lay in the village close to the house of Uta Matu.

Dragging herself towards it she leaned on her arms and looked deep down into the water just as she had been looking into the pool that day when raising her eyes she found herself first face to face with Taori.

The cassi flowers were speaking to Le Moan, their perfume followed her mind as it sank like a diver into the pool’s moonlit, crystal heart. Their voices said to her:

“Taori is not dead. Whilst he lives do not despair, for who can take his image from you and what woman’s love can equal yours? Peace, Le Moan. Watch and wait.”

Presently she arose, returning by the way she came. She drew towards the house of Uta Matu and passed the figures on the mat without glancing at them. Then in the house she lay down with her face to the wall. When the dawn aroused Katafa, Le Moan had not moved; one might have fancied her asleep.