Short Stories
dance of the living dead, for in their disintegrating bodies life
still loved and longed. Ever the woman whose sightless eyes ran
scalding tears chanted her love-cry, ever the dancers of love
danced in the warm night, and ever the calabashes went around
till in all their brains were maggots crawling of memory and de-
sire. And with the woman on the mat danced a slender maid
whose face was beautiful and unmarred, but whose twisted
arms that rose and fell marked the disease's ravage. And the two
idiots, gibbering and mouthing strange noises, danced apart,
grotesque, fantastic, travestying love as they themselves had
been travestied by life.
But the woman's love-cry broke midway, the calabashes were
lowered, and the dancers ceased, as all gazed into the abyss
above the sea, where a rocket flared like a wan phantom through
the moonlit air.
"It is the soldiers," said Koolau. "Tomorrow there will be
fighting. It is well to sleep and be prepared."
The lepers obeyed, crawling away to their lairs in the cliff,
until only Koolau remained, sitting motionless in the moonlight,
his rifle across his knees, as he gazed far down to the boats land-
ing on the beach.
The far head of Kalalau Valley had been well chosen as a ref-
uge. Except Kiloliana, who knew back-trails up the precipitous
walls, no man could win to the gorge save by advancing across a
knife-edged ridge. This passage was a hundred yards in length.
At best, it was a scant twelve inches wide. On either side yawned
the abyss. A slip, and to right or left the man would fall to his
death. But once across he would find himself in an earthly para-
dise. A sea of vegetation laved the landscape, pouring its green
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