Читать книгу Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land. A story of old Fiji онлайн

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But I had no feeling that the mysterious rites of which I was the privileged beholder were fraught with perdition to man. The twittering prattle of voices low and sweet, and the vigorous gambols of these merry lassies, seemed full of the palpitating passion of life; while the dances of the fairies, the pirouettes of the elves, and the gambadoes of the earth-spirits, could not have had more of dainty grace. As for the queen herself, when she danced, like Perdita’s admirer, I wished her a wave of the sea that she might never do anything but that.

The evening’s madcap revels over, the frolicsome party prepared to return to their village. They ran down the green slopes, waking the echoes with their wild laughter. I followed at a distance, and saw that they gradually became divided into small knots, often walking in twos and threes linked in each other’s arms.

The queen, while roaming alone, struck her foot on a sharp twig, and stayed to bathe the injured member in a transparent pool into which a miniature cascade, lacing a bank like a thread of silver, fell. She sat looking at her reflection in the water with the innocent delight of a flower enjoying its own perfume.