Her little feet
were sandaled and a veil of indescribable thinness was wound about
her abundant hair and fell across her face, but the gold of her hair
escaped the veil and rippled along her gown. Carven chains and
necklaces were upon her throat, and bracelets of beaten gold and
jewels upon her arms. About her forehead glittered a jeweled band
with pendent gems which, at her moving, were like noon sun upon
water.
As he realized that this was indeed she whom he had come to seek,
only to find her hedged about with difficulties--and it might be by
divinities--which he had not dreamed of coping, a kind of madness
seized St. George. The lights danced before his eyes, and his
impulse had to do with rushing up to the dais and crying everybody
defiance but Olivia. On the moon-lit deck of _The Aloha_ he had
dreamed out the island and the rescue of the island princess, and a
possible home-going on his yacht to a home about which he had even
dared to dream, too. But it had not once occurred to him to forecast
such a contingency as this, or, later, so to explain to himself
Prince Tabnit's change of purpose in permitting her recognition as
Princess of Yaque--indeed, if what Jarvo and Akko had told him in
New York were accurate, in bringing her to the island at all.
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