Iraçéma: the Honey-lips, a Legend of Brazil/Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXVII.
One evening Iraçéma saw from afar two warriors advancing on the sea-beach. Her heart beat more quickly.
An instant afterwards, she forgot in the arms of her husband the many days of yearning and desolation which she had passed in the solitary Wigwam.
Again her graces and endearments filled the eyes of the Christian, and gladness once more dwelt in his soul.
Like the dry plain, which, when the thick fog comes, grows green again and is spangled with flowers, so the beautiful daughter of the forest revived at the return of her husband, and her beauty was adorned with soft and tender smiles.
Martim and his brother had arrived at the Taba of Jacaúna as the Inúbia was sounding. They led Poty՚s thousand bowmen to the combat. Again the Tabajáras, in spite of the alliance with the white Tapuias of the Mearim, were overcome by the brave Pytiguáras.
Never had such an obstinate fight been fought, nor had so disputed a victory been won on the plains watered by the Acaraú and the Camoçim. The valour was equal on both sides, and neither nation would have been victor, had not the God of War already decided to give these shores to the race of the white warrior allied to the Pytiguáras.
Immediately after triumphing, the Christian returned to the sea-beach where he had built his Wigwam. He felt anew in his soul the thirst of love, and he trembled to think that Iraçéma might have deserted the place which had formerly been peopled by happiness.
The Christian loved the Daughter of the Forest once more, as at first, when it appeared that time could not exhaust his heart. But a few short suns sufficed to wither these flowers of a heart exiled from its country.
The Imbú,[1] son of the mountains, if it spring up in the plains where the wind or the birds have borne its seed, finding good and fresh ground, may perhaps one day dome itself with green foliage and bear flowers. But a single breath of the sea suffices to wither it; the leaves strew the ground, the blossoms are carried away by the breeze.
Like the Imbú on the plains was the heart of the white warrior in the savage land. Friendship and love had accompanied him and sustained him for a time; now, however, far from his home and his people, he felt himself in a desert. The friend and the wife did not suffice any longer to his existence, full of great and noble projects of ambition.
He passed the suns, once so short, now so long, on the beach, listening to the moaning of the wind and the sobbing of the waves. His eyes, lost in the immensity of the horizon, sought, but in vain, to espy upon the transparent blue the whiteness of a sail wandering over the seas. At a short distance from the cabin, at the edge of the ocean, was a dune of sand. The fishermen called it Jacarécanga,[2] on account of its resemblance to a crocodile՚s head. From the bosom of the white sands scorched by the ardent sun flowed a pure fresh water; thus pain distils sweet tears of relief and consolation. To this hill the Christian would repair, and remain there meditating upon his destiny. Sometimes the idea of returning to his own country and people would cross his mind, but he knew that Iraçéma would accompany him, and this thought gnawed his heart. Each step that took Iraçéma farther from her native plains, now that she no longer could nestle in his heart, was to rob her of a portion of her life.
Poty knows that Martim desires to be alone, and discreetly withdraws. The warrior knows what afflicts his brother՚s soul, and hopes all things from time, which alone hardens the warrior՚s heart, like the core of the Jacarandá.
Iraçéma also avoids the eyes of her husband, because she already perceives that those eyes, so much loved, are troubled at her sight, and, instead of filling with delight at her beauty as formerly, now seem to turn wearily away. But her eyes never tire of following apart, and at a distance, her Lord and Warrior, who had made them captive.
Woe to her! . . . The blow had struck home to her heart, and, like the Copaiba,[3] wounded in the core, she shed tears in one continuous stream.
- ↑ Imbú, a fruit growing abundantly on the Serra of Araripe, not on the shore; it is savoury, and resembles the Cajá (see note I, page 12).
- ↑ Jacarécanga, a hill of white sand on the beach at Ceará, famed for a fountain of pure fresh water. The word means "crocodile՚s head."
- ↑ Copaiba, a sort of sovereign balsam--copayva.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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| Translation: |
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
