“I remember the fellow well,” Lying Bill interposed. “’E was a han’some man, big as Landers, and dark as Llewellyn. ’E ’ad gold ’air, but never wore a ’at, blow ’igh, blow low, an’ so ’is ’air was so bleedin’ sunburned, it was all colors. ’E was a furriner, an’ ’ad studied in Germany,—if ’e wasn’t a German,—though ’e was a reg’ler pollyglut and parlayed every lingo. ’E ’ad a ’ole chemist shop with ’im on Penrhyn. I used to see ’im treatin’ the lepers and studyin’ oysters night an’ day. At first, I thought he might be a buyer, an’ watched ’im, but he ’ad no time for tradin’. In the divin’ season ’e was always around the lagoons, an’ ’e’d look at every pearl and the shell it come out of. ’E was a myst’ry, ’e was, an’ made no friends with anybody. The natives called ’im Itataupoo Taote, ’Atless Doctor. ’E played a deep game, ’e did.”
At Kopcke’s shack he made us welcome. Lamps were lighted, and cigarettes and a black bottle of rum set on the counter.
“I’ll go and hunt up the old man to spin you the yarn,” said Kopcke, and disappeared in the darkness of the outside. Mandel came before he returned, and as the talk was still on the Taote he gathered up his thread of it.
“This magician’s name was Horace Sassoon, and he was of a rich and fine family in England,” said Mandel. “I knew much about him because I cashed his drafts more than once. He was a medical doctor, educated in Germany, France, and England, and he had been seven or eight years in India. While in Ceylon or the Arabian Gulf he investigated the pearl fisheries and got interested in the processes of mother-of-pearl secretion by oysters. I think he was a real savant, and that he had a strong interest in the treatment of lepers by the chaulmoogra oil and the X-ray. He told me that he wanted to endow a great institution in India, but that he was unable to raise the funds. Me, I am credulous, but I believe the institution was a beautiful woman who spent much money. He had an income sent from Paris to Tahiti, and the drafts, not large, came through my house. I would meet him, as you men did, in Papeete or in these atolls, or Penrhyn, wherever there was diving, but I never suspected his game, though three or four times he said to me, ‘I will have all the money I need some day if I am right in my theories.’ I lost track of him, and did not associate with him the big pearls that came to Paris until I saw the pearl Woronick bought, and heard Tepeva a Tepeva’s account. I won’t spoil it by repeating it, and anyhow, here he is himself!”
Kopcke entered with his girl and her father. The latter was a very big man, the wreck of a giant. He was sadly afflicted; he would take a step, and stop, and then his head would roll over on his shoulder. Each time he started to move, he went through convulsive tremors as if winding himself up for the next step—and I recognized the paralysis which seizes the diver who has dived too often and too deep.
“Maite rii, Tamahine! Go slow, daughter!” he was saying, as he seized a post and let himself down to the floor, where he squatted.
“He was about the best diver in the group, but the bends have got him,” said Kopcke.
“’E’s a Mormon,” Lying Bill blurted, “an’ ’e won’t touch the rum.” Bill helped himself, stood the bottle before him, and began to doze.
“My father,” said Kopcke, “here is a Marite from far across the sea, who wants to know of your adventure with the Taote who gave you the pearl.”
Tepeva a Tepeva shaded his eyes with his hand and peered at me. “Oia ia! It is well!” he stuttered. His eyes fell upon the bottle, and remained fastened upon it.