"Ah!" and Blair drummed quietly on the table till the hot anger cooled. "So that's come at last," he said presently. "I'm sorry. The man's a fool, but as he has chosen, so he must lie."
He explained the matter to Ha'o, who showed no surprise and still less annoyance. His manner even implied that he looked upon the alliance as an honour to Kapaa'a, and that any other view of it might be popularly resented.
"Can you find the man for us?" asked Blair.
"What do you want with him?" asked Ha'o.
"He must marry the girl."
"I will find him," and next day he brought word that the fugitives were camped lightly in the hills, in one of the houses vacated by the dissolved third faction.
Blair, Cathie, and Ha'o accordingly set off at once to straighten the matter out, and a couple of hours' climbing brought them to the place.
Sandy Lean's old mother in Greenock Vennel would surely not have known him in his present estate. With the bonds and trammels of civilisation he had lightly discarded also its outward and visible tokens. His only clothing was a kilt of white cotton, whereby he was already paying tribute to folly in the clouds of flies and mosquitoes which levied toll on his white skin. In the hope of circumventing them, or with a loverly idea of assimilation to his brown bride, he had smeared himself with mud from the taro fields, and was now a motley pastel in black and red and white.
The sound of his voice, droning a comic song, drew them to the house, where he lay flat on his back on a mat. By his side sat the brown girl, doing her best to keep off the flies with a bunch of leaves.
"Hoots, lassie, scat 'em!—scat 'em!" he broke out. "They nip like the de'il himsel'. It's the kiss of a cold Scotch mist I'm wantin'."