Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/47

"It is time," he said, "to appease the wrath of Tupan and to hush the voice of his thunder."

So saying he left the cabin.

Iraçéma then approached the youth with laughing mouth and eyes sparkling with joy.

"The heart of Iraçéma is like the rice-plant, glad in the waves of the river.^[1] None can hurt the white warrior in the wigwam of Araken."

"Keep away from the enemy, Tabajára maid," replied the stranger in a harsh voice. And retiring quickly to the opposite side of the wigwam, he hid his face from the tender complaining looks of the virgin.

"What has Iraçéma done that the white warrior should turn away his eyes from her as if she were the worm of the earth?"

The maiden՚s words, gently whispered, reached Martim's heart. Thus whisper the murmurs of the breeze in the fan-leaves of the palm-tree. The youth felt anger against himself and sorrow for her.

"Dost thou not hear, beautiful virgin?" exclaimed he, pointing to the speaking cave.

"It is the voice of Tupan!"

"Thy god speaks by the mouth of his Pagé : If the virgin of Tupan yield to the stranger the flower of her chastity, she shall die."

Iraçéma hung her head.

"It is not the voice of Tupan that the pale-faced warrior hears, but the song of the white virgin that calls to him."

Suddenly the strange sounds which came from the depths of the earth ceased, and there was so deep a silence in the wigwam, that the pulses throbbing through the warrior՚s veins and the sighs that trembled on the virgin՚s lips were heard.