Then he turned to Saxon.
"Stay here as long as you like, both of you," he said. "Let her sit there sometimes, where I can see her and fancy.... I'll show you something."
He rose slowly and stiffly, and limped across to a Chinese camphorwood box that stood in the corner. In a minute he returned with a faded photograph in a gaudy frame.
"My daughter," he said. "The only child I ever had. She was Afi's. She died a long time ago. Afi's a chief woman: she was as handsome as Andi Thakombau when she was young, and the girl took after her. Your girl's mother was chief too, I guess. Do you see any likeness?"
Vaiti and her father craned over the photograph. The pretty half-caste girl, was certainly like the stately, slender creature who gazed at her pictured face, though the fire and spirit of Vaiti's expression were wanting.
"I'm growing old," went on the White Man. "I've no children. Stay a bit. I'll be glad to have you."
"Thank you; delighted, I'm sure," drawled Saxon, with a pathetic resurrection of his long-forgotten "grand manner," And so it was settled.
Vaiti, listening and thinking as usual, with her chin in her slender fingers, approved of what she heard, and smiled very pleasantly at her host. It seemed to her that he could be very useful just now.
The four weeks that followed after glided away agreeably enough in the silent hills. Nothing happened; no one came or went—the Fijians, men and women, went out to the yam and taro fields in the morning, and returned in the afternoon; and after dark there would be long, monotonous chanting, and interminable sitting dances, on the mats inside the high-roofed houses. Saxon stupefied himself with kava most of the time, in the absence of stronger drink, and almost got himself clubbed once or twice on account of his too impulsive admiration for the beauties of the village. His host, however, was no censor of morals, and troubled very little about him. On Sundays the Fijians dressed themselves in their brightest cottons, stuck up their hair in huge halos, and went five times to church, under the auspices of the native Wesleyan teacher; while Saxon and his host smoked, slept, drank kava, and played cards. The village provided plenty of yam and taro, kumara, cocoanut, and fish; and there was tea and sugar in the Chinese box, and now and then the White Man killed a pig or a fowl. It was very pleasant on the whole.
In a month's time, however, Saxon girded up his loins to leave this mountain Capua and descend to Suva once more. The Sybil would be ready, and his charter to convey ornamental Fiji woods to San Francisco would not wait.