immer and lost his wits and his wind. At all events,
drowned he was, and the dusky virgin who loved him, seeing his form
at the bottom of the water, sang her sorrow chant, dived in, and,
holding to his body, perished wilfully at his side. Their love endures,
and that is why their luminous shadows sit at the brink of the pool,
with locked arms and meeting lips, to the disgust of voting women
and confirmed bachelors.
This legend, with variants, is found in many parts of the world. There
are two or three instances of it in the Hawaiian islands, and a
tradition pertaining to Hayti is worth quoting here, as it refers to
the same period and illustrates the same enmity between the white and
native races. Near the city of San Domingo is, or was, a "water cave,"
so named because the entrance to it was several feet below the lake
whose shore it undermines. When the young half-breed, Diaz, returned
from Spain to his native island of Hispaniola in 1520, his mother,
Zameaca, queen of the Ozamas, had disappeared, possibly killed outright
by the Spaniards, or more slowly killed by enslavement at the mines in
vainly trying to satisfy the rapacity of the white race for gold. Diaz,
though partly of Spanish blood, was allied in his sympathies to the
Indians. Hence, they planned to make him ruler. Their conspiracy was
quelled for the time being, with such brutality that those natives
who escaped death hated their tyrants with a deeper hatred than
ever, and fixed them the more strongly in their resolution to be
avenged. The leading chiefs and warriors of the Ozamas took refuge
in the water cave, spying on their enemies and going about to make
converts among the islanders at night. It was not long before the
watchful Spaniards discovered that mischief was afoot, and there
were reasons for believing that the chiefs had their hiding place not
many miles from town. By following various suspects into the country,
and noticing the time and way of their return, they became convinced
that the leaders of the rebellion were somewhere near the lake.
A young woman, a slave in the family of the Spanish governor, was
so often absent on mysterious errands that the authorities at last
fixed on her as the one most likely to betray her countrymen. She was
won to their purpose through her vanity. Her mistress had a comb of
elaborate and curious workmanship, and to have one like it was the
principal object in her existence. The governor told her that she
s
|