“‘The very air is poisoned that we breathe about him,’ they shouted.  ’The young man is blameless, his heart is as the sun; but the man who has used his evil magic has a heart black and cold as the hours before the dawn.’

“Then Yaada’s voice arose in a strange, sweet, sorrowful chant: 

  My feet shall walk no more upon this island,
    With its great, Grey Archway. 
  My mother sleeps forever on this island,
    With its great, Grey Archway. 
  My heart would break without her on this island,
    With its great, Grey Archway.

  My life was of her life upon this island,
    With its great, Grey Archway. 
  My mother’s soul has wandered from this island,
    With its great, Grey Archway. 
  My feet must follow hers beyond this island,
    With its great, Grey Archway.

“As Yaada chanted and wailed her farewell she moved slowly towards the edge of the cliff.  On its brink she hovered a moment with outstretched arms, as a sea gull poises on its weight—­then she called: 

“’Ulka, my Ulka!  Your hand is innocent of wrong; it was the evil magic of your rival that slew my mother.  I must go to her; even you cannot keep me here; will you stay, or come with me?  Oh! my Ulka!’

“The slender, gloriously young boy sprang toward her; their hands closed one within the other; for a second they poised on the brink of the rocks, radiant as stars; then together they plunged into the sea.”

* * * * *

The legend was ended.  Long ago we had passed the island with its “Grey Archway”; it was melting into the twilight, far astern.

As I brooded over this strange tale of a daughter’s devotion, I watched the sea and sky for something that would give me a clue to the inevitable sequel that the tillicum, like all his race, was surely withholding until the opportune moment.

Something flashed through the darkening waters not a stone’s-throw from the steamer.  I leaned forward, watching it intently.  Two silvery fish were making a succession of little leaps and plunges along the surface of the sea, their bodies catching the last tints of sunset, like flashing jewels.  I looked at the tillicum quickly.  He was watching me—­a world of anxiety in his half-mournful eyes.

“And those two silvery fish?” I questioned.

He smiled.  The anxious look vanished.  “I was right,” he said; “you do know us and our ways, for you are one of us.  Yes, those fish are seen only in these waters; there are never but two of them.  They are Yaada and her mate, seeking for the soul of the Haida woman—­her mother.”

DEADMAN’S ISLAND

  It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
  And we two dreaming the dusk away,
  Beneath the drift of a twilight grey—­
  Beneath the drowse of an ending day
  And the curve of a golden moon.