"There is a night thistle blooming up the ravine," he said, "that looks just like the candle-tree you lighted in the church last month. Do you remember, Hokoolele? When I peeped through the window and you were afraid the folk would see me? Ho-ho! Afraid the 'Klistian' folk would see their bad brother outside? But this is much prettier.... Come and see if you can light the thistle."
She kept close to the shadow.
"Are you going to be afraid again?" he asked. "There is no one on the whole mountain to-night. They are all down by the chapel staring at the new lamps and parading themselves along the path. Two great big fireflies by the path! You should see how they shine through the trees."...
He seated himself on the veranda steps and laughed up over the shoulder at her—laughter like a boy's or like a pagan god's.
It was that had tinged and made so live and subtle the fascination he exercised upon her; his unspoiled innocence, his utter, wild simplicity that struck back to the ultimate sources. She could never have felt so toward any of the mission converts, with their woolen shirts and their shoes of ceremony, their hymns and glib, half-comprehended texts; with the fumbling thumb-marks of civilization on their souls. Motauri had never submitted to the first term of the formula. Motauri followed the old first cult of sea and sun, of whispering tree and budding flower. He was the man from the beginning of things, from before Eden; and she who carried in her starved heart the hunger of the first woman—she loved him.
She sank to her knees on the veranda edge above him there and leaned forward with clasped hands to see the soft glow in his deep-lashed eyes, the glint of his even teeth; to catch the sweet breath of jasmine that always clung about him.
"Motauri—" she said, in the liquid tongue that was as easy to her as her own, "I am afraid. Oh, I am—I am afraid!"
"What should you fear? I have promised nothing shall hurt you. The jungle is my friend."
"It is not that. I fear my father, Motauri—and—and that man—Gregson."
She could see his smile fade in the moonlight. "The trader?" he said. "Very many fear him. But he is only a cheat and an oppressor of poor people with things to sell and to buy. What has the trader to do with you?"