Meanwhile, brave Melville bore Banoolah down
Swiftly, and left the path, and wound and wound
Through treadless ways, to baulk pursuing feet,—
But none pursued.

                                       The morning faintly broke
Upon the topmost trees, and on the ridge
Where Belah's breath hung heavy. In the shade
Stood, motionless, Paomi, gazing up
To the thick vaporous cloud that changed itself
In rapid-fading forms, but dreadful all,
And threatening vengeance. Seated on hot throne,
Belah stretch'd forth her hand, and shook her curse
From open palms. Paomi turn'd to go,
And, breathless, lifts the latch: Nooravah wakes;
"Our life is crush' d into a minute's space,
And we must die, for Belah follows fast!"

Nooravah sat and murmur'd under breath
Half syllables of prayer to move the Fiend,
With gaspings at her throat that choked her words;
But swaying to and fro to rock the pain,
She caught with deaden'd sense Paomi's voice:
"The child Banoolah lives! " When this she heard.
Oh! with a start, a sudden shriek she pour'd
Straight from her woman's heart, and stood dilate,
With hand outstretch'd, and lips kept wide apart,
All eye, all ear. " She lives! " at last she said;
' Yea; I have blest the gods for many gifts,—
For plenteous summers in the olden time;
For fruit, for flowers, for fish from the deep sea;
For love like yours, Paomi; and, best of all,
For the light step that sounded on the floor,
And the blithe voice that caroll'd at the porch,
And the fair hair that fell o'er all her neck,
And the deep eyes that settled on my face;
But never, never did I bless the gods
With such fond heart as now—Banoolah lives!"

Sudden a tremor shook the solid ground;
Thick smoke fill'd all the hut. A rattling noise
Of crashing boughs and splitting trunks went by,
And earthquake heaved the soil. " Away, away!"
Paomi cried; and madden'd with wild fear,
They. fled. But whither? Upward, in a crowd,
Shrieking and dancing in delirious grief,
Came thousands, waving arms, and swinging high
Sharp spears; and at their head, with eyeballs fix'd
And rigid sinews, lifting moveless hands,
Moved Belah's priest. At such a sight, the hearts
Of the two tremblers wither'd like a leaf
Firestruck; and, 'mid the silence that fell down
Upon the heaving crowd, as in a storm
Comes calm when at the wildest,—rose the voice
Strain'd, harsh, as from an organ not his own.
The words unconscious flowed, of Belah's paest,
And cried, " Paomi, who has done this thing?"
Prone on his face Paomi bent and fell,—
Prone on the ground, yet reeling with the shock,
And heated with the molten sea beyond.
"'Tis I," he said; " I waken'd Belah's wrath,
And robb'd her of her gift, and this the end!"
Then told he all; how, year by year, his life
Grew harder, as the Power forbore her smile;
How, though his veins were redden'd with the juice
Of kingly stems, his fortunes sank so low
That Hunger walk'd around his empty hut,
Narrowing its path, till in a wasted ring
His home lay fireless. Then he told at last
How Belah claim'd her gift, and how he toil'd,
He and Banoolah, through the darken'd path;
And how, when midst a glory from the shrine
The child seem'd girt with fire, an impious hand
Was laid upon him, and the gift withdrawn
From Belah's open'd lips.

                                                     Impetuous heaved
The dusky crowd, like surges on a shore
In moonless nights, with inarticulate sound;
But found a voice, when piercing like a cry
Of eagles in the air, the priest exclaim'd,
"Woe, woe upon the guilty—he must die!
Melville, the stranger who invents false gods,
And young Banoolah,—both of them must die!
Brothers and men! No deed like this is done
In all our years since flung from Belah's mouth
The pearl lay on the waters where we dwell.
This stranger seeks to entangle us with lies,
And tells of one who clomb to Belah's throne
Through whips and scorn, and an avenging tree.
Say, what shall be his doom, and what the child's?"

The crowd was silent for a minute's space:
"Let Melville die, and let Banoolah die,"
Said a weak voice; and when men look'd, they saw
A woman with her hands upon her face,
And knew it was Nooravah—" let them die!"

Lo! there they come! And thousand eyes were turn'd
To where, emerging from the close-set trees,
The aged man came forward, leading slow
Banoolah by the hand; her little feet
Bleeding, and all her motions dull'd with pain;
A fair-hair'd child, like some sweet English girl
Tired with long journeyings in the woods in May,
When following the young flowers to make a wreath,
And heedless of the briars that plant their thorns
In naked leg and ruddy rounded arm,
But different in sad looks, and anxious eyes
That knew of danger near, yet knew not what.

Forth from the crowd two stalwart warriors prest,
And grappled Melville's unresisting hands;
And one caught up Banoolah with harsh gripe,
And never from the ground Nooravah look'd,
And sad Paomi held Nooravah's hand,
And look'd upon the ground, as fathers look
Within the hollow of a daughter's grave!
But all the rabble was alive with wrath,
And howl'd triumphant songs, and bore the twain
Resistless to the beach. The ebbing sea
Lapp'd the calm shore, and in the slanting sun
The moisten'd pebble shone, and here and there
Danced a light skiff, or, half-afloat, half-dry,
Dinted with deepening prow the glistening sand.

Then spoke the priest: " Oh, God! whose tent is spread
In sightless levels of the hungry sea,
Where earth is all unknown, and lonely waves
Welter for ever without sound or form!
We give thee these, whom Belah's hands reject,
And fling from out the land where Belah dwells!
Engulf them in the jaws where ships go down,
And cleanse Earth's blessed soil of so much wrong!
For it is written in our changeless law
That Belah's foes shall perish in the deeps!"

A boat was launch'd, a small and fragile boat,—
And on its floor was placed a cocoa-cup,
With scanty water, and such tree-born bread
As might suffice a child her morning meal,—
Naught else, and from the vessel they removed
Mast, oar, and sail, and in it placed the pair,—
The white-hair'd preacher, and Banoolah.
                                                           Quick!