Night came on in the vaulted chamber of the lovely
isle, occupied only by the Indian damsel and the
Maroon. Without all was silent, except, now and
then, the bark of the marmozet as he bounded among
the cocoanut-trees above. Several hours had elapsed
since the sounds of the wild chant of the women had

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failed upon his ears, yet our Spaniard maintained his
place of hiding with religious quietude. Meanwhile,
the girl fed the fires upon her altar. She sat upon a
rude swelling of the rocky floor, her hands folded in
her lap, and the ends of her shortened hair resting
upon her shoulders. Her form was rather between
the Maroon and the fire, the blaze of which, as she
heightened it by occasional supplies of fuel, made
marvellously distinct, in his eyes, the exquisite outline
of her delicate but well-marked profile. And thus she
sat, and such was her only office, for several hours
more.

It must have been full midnight, when our Spaniard,
who had not slept an instant, discovered that sleep
had seized upon the senses of the Indian damsel.
Her form subsided into an attitude favorable to rest.
She sank upon one side, her head resting upon a sudden
elevation of the floor, which conducted to the niche
which seemed to have been employed as a couch on previous
occasions, and where, for the last two nights,
Lopez himself had taken his rest. Her breathing was
soft and regular. It denoted a calm and perfect
sleep. He was encouraged and gradually withdrew
from his place of concealment. His steps were cautiously
taken. He drew nigh to the sleeper—surveyed
her with a keen and pleasant interest;—then,
farther to be sure, he stole forth into the antechamber
of the vault, and gliding cautiously, maintaining a
vigilant watch all the while, he emerged from the
cavern, and stood upon the beach. The waters of the
sea had gone down. The gray sands were quite

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uncovered for a long stretch, the spot being wholly bare
upon which the Indian bark had anchored during the
afternoon. The moon was high in heaven, and at her
full. No cloud obscured or sullied the blue serenity
of the skies. The scene was eminently and wholly
spiritual. There was nothing human visible in the
surrounding aspects of ocean, sky, and land. Satisfied
of this, our Maroon returned, with rather hurried
footsteps, to the cavern. He stole back cautiously,
however, so as not to disturb the damsel. She still
slept, her position being totally unchanged. But the
fire had grown faint upon her altars. He fed it with
a handful of the fuel that lay contiguous. He knelt
beside her, and in the reviving blaze, he examined
closely the innocent features, which he had thought
so very sweet and beautiful in the before imperfect
light. The nearer survey did not lessen her loveliness
in his sight. Her closed eyes, and her slightly
parted lips, were studies for the sculptor, they were
so delicate in their structure, yet so admirably defined.
The features might have been thought Castilian. The
forehead was high but narrow, the nose good, and the
neck moderately large and smooth, rising into the
gentle swell of a bosom which had not yet learned to
heave with other than happy childish emotions. One
of her hands, the fingers of which were long and taper,
had stolen to her breast, the partial drapery of which
it seemed to grasp. The other lay at her side, the
fingers closing upon a handful of wood intended for
the fire. Thus she slept.

The Maroon stooped and pressed his lips closely

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upon hers, she sighed deeply, but moved not. Again
he repeated the kiss, and her eyes opened upon him.
They closed involuntarily. Again they opened, and
now with a wild, appealing expression. He had
slightly retreated, as he found her about to waken.
He had regained his feet. He stood somewhat apart,
the altar being in some degree between them.

We have spoken of the personal appearance of
Lopez de Levya as being pleasing to the eye of woman.
At this moment it looked manly as well as
pleasing; and, in the doubtful light of the cavern,
with his form erect, his features half shaded by the
gloom, his knife at his girdle, and a rich red scarf
about his waist, he might have served for the model of
one of those brigands, a compound of Orson and Adonis,
whom we see so commonly in Italian pictures.
The impression was not unfavorable upon the eyes of
the Indian damsel. But her senses had evidently
mingled the aspect before her with the object in her
dream—the purpose of her watch and ordeal—the
beneficent creature vouchsafed by her savage gods,
from whose guidance her future destiny was to be
shaped and governed. The instincts of the Spaniard
were sufficiently acute to see the impression that he
had made, and to conjecture, in some measure, its origin.
He was well aware that the first impression of the
European upon the aborigines was that of a superior
being. The devout appealing eyes of the damsel—her
hands crossed upon her breast—satisfied our Maroon
that she held him to be so. He advanced a single step,
he smiled on her kindly, he raised one hand upward to

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heaven, while he placed the other on his heart. She
followed all his movements with others like them.
Her hand was lifted to heaven, and carried to her
breast. She too smiled—the smile of innocent hope,
that might have brought with it warmer assurances.
He spoke sweetly and tenderly, but the words were
lost upon incapable but not unheeding senses. She
shook her head with a mournfulness of look that told
him, plain as words could speak, how sorrowful she
was that she knew not what he said. But he smiled
encouragingly, and resorted once more to signs to
assure her of his affection. These she understood.

The language of the heart is a very universal one.
Charity and sympathy may speak and be understood,
though they have not a word in common with the
hearer, from the centre to the pole. She answered
his signs. She pointed to the fires before her. She
threw a fresh supply of fuel upon the blaze, then rising
to her knees, knelt before him, and crossed her
hands upon her bosom. He stooped, and took her in
his arms. She would have receded, but he held her
tenderly in his grasp, and once more pressed his lips
upon hers. She sank submissive in his embrace. She
spoke but a single sentence, but one of its words
smote his ear like a familiar accent. He had picked
up a few of the Caribbean phrases from Spaniards who
had been among this people. The girl had designated
him as “the good White Spirit.” The word
“spirit” had become a frequent one in the intercourse
of the Jesuit missionaries with the heathen. God,
and love, and heaven, good, bad, the sky, the sea, the

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boat, Castile, white and red man—these, and several
other words had, from the communion of the Spaniards
with the tribes of the Caribbean Sea, grown to
be a tolerably common property with the two races.
Lopez rapidly ran over in the ears of the girl all of
this description which he found it easy to remember
on the instant. Some of these she repeated after him
with ready acquiescence. Again she described him as
the good white spirit—her good white spirit—and he
now understood her.

He did not disabuse her. He feared to forfeit her
reverence, in seeking to awake a humbler emotion;
and as the master of her destiny, a celestial visitant,
provided for her guidance, he proceeded to enforce
her affections. He placed himself beside her—together
they supplied the altar with fuel and incense, and
when he kissed her lips, she crossed her arms upon
her breast, and submitted with delighted reverence.

It was the benevolent spirit whose favor she implored,
who then, in his most gracious aspect, presented
himself in compliance with her invocations. She had
been taught to believe that he was difficult of approach—
slow to be won—reluctant to appear;—that it required
earnest and long-continued devotions, and a
painful and protracted vigil. How fortunate was she
among her sex, that, in her instance, he had departed
from his wonted severity!—that, instead of presenting
himself, as he was reported frequently to have done—
in harsh and ungenial aspects—in the shape of
bird, or beast, or reptile—he had assumed his
noblest attributes of form, and put on features not

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only of the highest, but of the tenderest character.
Verily, she was the favored among women! The
tones of the Spaniard's voice were to her sounds of
the sweetest music from the Caribbean heaven. His
smile was that glance of the morning or of the evening,
when the brightness is equally rare and benignant;
and, when his hand rested upon her cheek or
neck, she felt the thrill of an emotion through all her
veins, such as she had been taught to believe was
vouchsafed only to the favored few, the select of the
Caribbean Elysium. Their eyes took part in their
constant intercourse, and never had Lopez looked or
spoken with so successful eloquence. Though she
comprehended but few of his words, yet nothing was
thrown away of all that fell from his lips. As at the
first, in the primal hour of creation, the speech which
Heaven bestowed upon its creatures was that of love,
so love constitutes the basis of that ancient language
which it is still so easy for the heart to comprehend.
Assisted by this heart-manual, it was easy for Lopez
to make his Spanish and her Indian words subservient
to their gradual use; and ere they sunk exhausted into
the mutual arms of sleep that night, they had commenced
a course of study quite as rapid as the Robertsonian
method, by which a modern or ancient dialect
is to be mastered in six lessons.

The bridal hour of the two exiles thus strangely
brought together, promised to be as happy in its progress,
as the destiny in which it had its origin was
solemn and peculiar. With the dawn, the two awakened
to neither repining nor repentance. Life had

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suddenly put on her loveliest aspects to both. The
Spaniard was no longer lonesome in his solitude, and
the damsel was happy in the faith that she was
favored among women, by the very deity to whom her
sex devotes the most dutiful and earnest solicitations.