"No," said Saxon. "Whose house is this?"
"Mine," said the stranger. "Make yourself at home."
It was a handsome chief-house of the best Fijian type, forty feet from mats to ridge-pole, the walls covered with beautifully inlaid and interwoven reeds, the roof bound together with exquisite sinnet work in artistic patterns, of red, black, and yellow, and towering up into a dark, cool cavern of pleasant gloom. The floor was overlaid with fine parquetry of split bamboo at the "kasii" or common-folk end, and piled deep with fine mats in the "chief" part. A Fijian bed, ten feet wide and three feet high, ran like a dais right across the end of the house. It was covered by mats prettily fringed with coloured parrot feathers. There were three great doors, east, west, and south, each framing in its dark-set opening a different picture of surpassing loveliness. Nalolo town (its name is on the map of Fiji, but it reads otherwise) stands very high on the sheer crest of a pointed green hill that is just like the enchanted hill in the pictures of a fairy tale. There is a little round green lawn on the top, and all about it stand the high, pointed beehive houses of the town, each perched on its own tiny mound like a toy on a stand. Sloped cocoanut logs run up to the doors of the houses, and quaintly coloured crotons cluster about them. In the deep, soft grass golden eggs from the guava trees lie tumbled about among fallen stars of orange and lemon blossom, and everywhere the red hibiscus shakes its splendid bells in the soft hill-winds. About the foot of the peak a wide blue river wanders, singing all day long; and from every door of every house, high perched above the cloudy valleys and hyacinth hill ranges, one can see pictures, and pictures, and pictures almost too lovely to be true. There are not two places in the world like Nalolo.
The White Man of Nalolo, however, was only interested in the fact that the river provided excellent crayfish; and that taro grew very well indeed on the slopes below the town. He had once been young, but he was not young now, and did not matter any longer. Therefore he had become particular about his dinner and indifferent to scenery. I will not tell you the story of the White Man of Nalolo, or why he, of all men, rebelled so fiercely against the common lot of "not mattering any more," that he came away to the wilds of the Pacific and the highlands of Fiji, and never went back again, because, like many true stories, it cannot be believed, and therefore had better not be told. Besides, this is the story of Saxon and his daughter.
Saxon was down on his luck. He had a charter for the Sybil, but she was not able to undertake it at present, for, trying to pilot her into Suva harbour himself, he had contrived to run her on a reef, and damaged her so seriously that she was at present careened on the beach in front of the local boat-builder's, undergoing repairs. The builder, knowing something of Saxon's reputation, had insisted on cash in advance, and the captain, in consequence, found himself so nearly out of funds that he was unable to stay in Suva pending the repairs to his ship. He had therefore started with Vaiti for the interior of the great island of Viti Levu, intending to live on the real hospitality of the natives for a few weeks, and tramp from village to village.
He explained something of this as he sat on the mats enjoying the grateful coolness of the house. The other man nodded gravely, watching the door. He offered a curious contrast to the Englishman's coarse red fairness, being lean, sundried, and grizzled, with expressionless, boot-buttoned eyes, and a straggling "goatee" beard that dated his exile from America back to long-ago days.
"Where's your daughter?" he asked.
"Coming. She stopped to tidy up at the river."
The doorway was darkened at that moment by Vaiti herself, balancing lightly up the cocoanut log to the threshold. She wore a white tunic over a scarlet "pareo," her wavy curls, sparkling with the water of the stream, fell loose upon her shoulders; her lips were as red as the freshly-plucked pomegranate blossom behind her ear. Something like life stirred in the boot-button eyes of the White Man of Nalolo as he looked at her.
"Afi!" he called to a Fijian woman who was sleeping on the mats at the "kaisi" end of the house, "go and hurry the girls with the supper, and make tea for the marama (lady). Quick!"