As for Tauti, he was equally fine in spirit. Though Uliami might fill his basket the fullest, he always tried to contrive that in the end Uliami had the better fish and fruit, and once he, too, had risked his life to save a man—and that man was Uliami.
Now since these two were inseparable and had given in spirit the life of the one for the life of the other, nothing, you will say, could separate them but Death which separates all things.
II.
One day Tauti, coming up alone from the fishing and taking a byway through the trees, came across a girl crouched beneath the shelter of a bread fruit whose leaves were so great that one of them could have covered her little body.
It was Kinei, the daughter of Sikra the basket maker, and she was stringing flowers which she had plucked to make a chaplet. He knew her well, and he had often passed her; she was fourteen, or a little more, and had for nickname the “Laughing One,” for she was as pleasant to look at as the sunshine through leaves on a shadowed brook. She was so young that he had scarcely thought of her as being different from a man, and she had always, on meeting him, had a smile for him, given openly as a child may give a pretty shell in the palm of its hand.
But to-day, as she looked up, she had no smile for him. He drew near and sat down close to her and handed her the flowers for her to string. Then, as he looked into her eyes, he saw that they were deep as the deepest sea, and full of trouble.
He made inquiry as to the cause of the trouble and Kinei, without answering him, looked down. He raised her chin and, looking at him full, her eyes filled with tears. Then he knew. He had found Love, suddenly, like a treasure, or like a flower just opened and filled with dew.
On leaving her that day he could have run through the woods like a man distracted and filled with joy, but, instead he sought his own house, and there he sat down to contemplate this new thing that had befallen him.
Now, in the past, when any good had come to Tauti, no sooner was it in his hand than he carried it to Uliami to show; and his eyes now turned that way. But, look hard as he would, he could not see Uliami, for there was now no one else in the world for him but Kinei.
He could not tell his news, but hid it up, and when Uliami met him and asked him what was on his mind, he replied “Nothing.” And so things went on, till one day Uliami, walking in the woods, came upon Kinei with Tauti in her arms.