Part 8 (2/2)

He had forgotten there were any rocks on the hill He ain He pressed the weeds back and looked down He saw a toht under the tangle

It had never occurred to hiht be dead

He held back the undergrowth again and peered into the depths Yes, it was the grave of a chief, or of a woman of rank, one of those artless mounds of cement and rock that the natives, with poetic fancy, used to call _falelauasi_, houses of sandalwood; _oliolisanga_, or the place where birds sing; or, in vulgar speech, siaht of for forty years, lost, overlaid, and forgotten in so recollection He laid both hands on the thick steround He seized another and dragged it out with the same ferocity It was intolerable that she should suffocate under all this warive her air and sunshi+ne, she that had loved them both; he would uncover the poor stones thatplace; he would lay bare the earth that wrapped her dead beauty

He worked with desperation until his hands were bleeding, until his eyes were stung and blinded with the strea sweat Dizzy with the heat, parched with thirst, and sick with the steaain to desist and rest He cut his waistcoat into slips and bound them round his bloody hands; he broke the blades of his penknife on recalcitrant roots that defied the strength of his arms; he labored with fury to complete the task he had set before hietation, the sky above him, the cracked and rotted tomb below, satisfied at last by the accoold on his sleeves was dirty and disordered; one of his shoulder-straps dangled loose from his sodden coat; his trousers were splashed with earth But for the otten in the edy of human life, on the mysteries of love and death and destiny, on his own irrevocable youth now so far behind him, when he had forfeited his honor for the dead woman at his feet He called her aloud by name He bent down and kissed her e conviction that she could hear hi to his feet, he turned toward the sea and retraced his steps The people were still in church, and the village was deserted as before He walked swiftly lest theyout before he could reach his boat, to torture hinition, with the questions they would ask, with their story of Tehea's death Then he laughed at his own fears, reeneration Time had passed over Borabora, too The world, he remembered, was older by forty years--older and sadder and e hie, and put the vessel on her course The telegraph rang, the engineers repeated back the signal, and the great battleshi+p, vibrating with her ines, resumed once more her ponderous way

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: ”Existence doubtful; position doubtful,” familiar contractions still on any Pacific chart]

O'S HEAD

Silver Tongue loved Rosalie, and Rosalie loved Silver Tongue, and ever since they had first met at the Taufusi Club dance their friends had seen the inevitable finish of their acquaintance They were invited everywhere together, and the affair had progressed froe to the secondary or solemn Sunday drive about the Eleele Sa The third, that of carpenters adding a story to the bakery and dressmakers hard at work in Miss Potter's little establish up close in view

Never was a ave a rosier proue, so called by the Samoans on account of his beautiful voice (but who in ordinary life answered to the hoood thing out of the Southern Cross Bakery, and was regarded throughout Apia as a man of responsibility and substance He was a tall, spare German of about forty, who, like the ht hione by to marry a Samoan maid and settle down

The little Sa but a n cemetery, and a host of relations who lived in tumble-down quarters in the rear of the bakery In one way and another these hungry ue's resources; and though they feebly responded to his bounty--one by driving a natty cart and delivering hotfirewood for the furnace--the account (if one had been made) was far froenerosity Silver Tongue had a reply ever ready on his lips ”I lofe dem like my fader,” he would say in his deep, fluty voice, and the conversation was seldoh to do so--Silver Tongue would flare up, and recall with flashi+ng eyes and a face criratitude he owed his dead wife's _ainga_

Indeed, if Silver Tongue had a fault it was a certain moroseness and fierceness of te offense, that made him somewhat of a solitary in our midst and threw him more than ever on the coht, when one had occasion to seek him out, he was usually to be found on the_sweepy_ with his bulky father-in-law, Papalangi Mativa I doubt if he had another intih I reed, and once or twice approached the verge of estrangement, I was too much his friend and too mindful of the old days on the _Ransom_ to let such trifles come between us

I was, besides, Rosalie's friend as well, for old Clyde, her father, had died in ned her to ation, rendered sacred by an association that extended back to the days of Steinberg and Bully Hayes, when in the _Moroa_ and the _Eugenie_ we had slept under the sa tiation, I say, Ias Rosalie was a child and safe in the convent at Savalalo But when she greomanhood and went to live with her relations in their shanty near the Firard to her Her relations, to begin with, were not at all the kind of natives I liked

They had been too long the hangers-on of the Firm, and had seen too uardians of a very pretty half-caste of eighteen They had an ugly name, besides--but I won't be censorious--and it may have been all beach talk But they were certainly a whining, begging lot, the girls bold and the men impudent and saucy, and I never saw Rosalie in their midst but it made me heartsick for her future

I did the little I could, and let it be pretty well understood about the beach that the man who played fast and loose with her would have to reckon with old Captain Bransob And then I got the missionary ladies to take her up, and as I never stinted a bit of hter wasn't worthy of the best in the land), she ayeties took place in the town Of course, I went about to keep an eye on her--that is, when they asked me to their parties, which wasn't always; and I re very short work of one fellow, a labor captain from the Westward, who seeht and showed hiun To tell the truth, I never had a peaceful ood deal the kind ofhalf the family in his pay while I kept the other, and he even landed the last night withRosalie on the beach to fly with hi for him under an umbrella!

There were irl myself, which, as like as not, was true; for she was one of those tall, queenly wonificent dark eyes, and a way of s,--brilliant, arch, and tender--that er of sixty remember he still wore a heart under his juh I had sense enough to know that God had neverht of three-score years had put out of the ring (not but what I'ht I preferred half so ue

So there was the situation till the war of Ninety-three ca to spillikins Oppenstedt in love with Rosalie; Rosalie in love with Oppenstedt; Bahn and old Taylor working on the second story of the Southern Cross Bakery; Miss Potter doing double tides at the trousseau, and I, the friend of both, with a six-hundred-dollar piano on the way froht, and (say you) everything drawing nicely alow and aloft So it was till that wretched fight at Vaitele, when the Vai their songs, and tossing in the air above them the heads of their dead enemies It made me feel bad to see it all, for to me these people were children, and it seemed horrible they should kill one another; and it made me sicker still to watch the wounded carried into the Mission and stretched out in rows on the blood-stained boards Though not a drinking man, I braced up at Peter's bar and then went on to pass the time of day with Oppenstedt

I found hi a pipe and talking politics with Papalangi Mativa His lean, dark, handsome face was overcast, his eyes uneasy, and had I not known hihtened He was certainly very curt and short in greeting me, and I had a dim perception that my visit was unwelcoue,” I said; though, to be exact, I called hi in native

”Plack!” he exclai off beople's heads!”

”Fourteen by one count,” I said; ”twenty-two by another”

”Gabtain,” said he with a look of extraordinary gravity, ”dere's worse nor that!”

”Worse?” I said