Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/99

Once the sobs of Iraçéma reached the Christian՚s soul. His eyes sought her all around, and could not find her.

The daughter of Araken was sitting at some distance upon the turfy grass in the midst of a green clump of Ubaias; weeping veiled her beautiful face, and the teardrops that rolled down her cheeks one after another fell upon her bosom where the offspring of love already breathed and grew. Thus fall the leaves of the flourishing tree before the ripening of its fruit.

"What wrings the tears from the heart of Iraçema?"

"The Cajueiro^[1] weeps and is sad when it becomes a dry trunk. Iraçéma lost her happiness when her Lord separated from her."

"Am I not near thee?"

"The body of Coatyábo is here, but his soul flies to the Land of his Fathers, and seeks the white virgin who awaits him."

Martim was grieved. The large black eyes that the Indian fixed on him pierced him to the heart՚s core.

"The White Warrior is thy husband; he belongs to thee."

The beautiful Tabajára smiled in her sorrow.

"How long is it that he has withdrawn his spirit from Iraçéma? Once his feet guided him to the cool Serras and the glad tablelands; his foot loved to tread the land of happiness and to follow the steps of his wife; now he seeks alone the scorching sands, because the sea which murmurs there comes from the plains where he was born, and the hill of sand, because from its top he can descry the passing Igára."