Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/87

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IRAÇÉMA.
73

top branch of the cedar. Beloved by Tupan is the warrior who has a wife, a friend, and many sons. He has nothing more to desire save a glorious death."

Martim pressed his bosom to that of Poty.

"The heart of both husband and friend speaks by the mouth of Poty. The white warrior is blest, O Chief of the Pytiguáras, Lords of the Sea-shores; and happiness was born to him in the Land of the Palm-trees, where the Baunilha perfumes the air; it was begotten by the blood of thy race, who bear on their faces the colour of the sun՚s ray. The white warrior no longer desires any other country save the land of his son and of his heart."

At the break of dawn Poty set out to gather the seeds of the Crajurú,[1] which yields a most beautiful red dye, and the bark of the Angico, whence is extracted a lustrous black. On the way his unerring arrow brought down a wild duck sailing in the air, and he took from its wings the longest feathers. He then ascended Mocoribe and sounded the Inubia. The sea-breeze carried far the hoarse sound. The Shell of the Fishermen of the Trahiry and the Horn of the Hunters of the Soipé gave answer.

Martim bathed in the river waters, and walked on the beach to dry himself in the wind and sun. By his side ran Iraçéma, collecting the yellow ambergris[2] cast up by the sea. Every night the wife perfumed her body and the white hammock, that the love of the warrior might remain captivated.

Poty returned.

  1. ↑ Crajurú, a tree whose seeds give a scarlet dye.
  2. ↑ Ambar. The sea-beach of Ceará was at that time full of ambergris, cast up by the sea. The savages call it Pirarepoti, "the secretion of a fish."
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