"No, Mahrster."
Gregson glared at him steadily.
"What did you want of that boat?"
"Me like'm go fish," said Motauri.
The trader sat back again, plying his billowy silk handkerchief.
"The trouble with me—" he said, reflectively, "I can't believe my own eyes; that's the trouble with me. And how could I believe 'em?" he inquired, with almost a plaintive note. "Such things don't happen. They can't. Why—what kind of a man are you? Black, I believe—leastways brown. And she—she—
"A Kanaka. If not you, then another. A Kanaka! To know her, be near her—touch her—play all manner of pretty, cuddlin' tricks around her—to—to kiss her, maybe! To crush her up in his arms—!" The words came away from him hot and slow, from under half-shut eyes. "And I've sat here behind them slats and watched her go by and wished I might crawl where her little feet could walk on me....
"How should one of your sort have the cursed impudence to think of such things? What have you got to do with heaven? Could you see anything in that blind-like look sideways—and hair so smooth over the ear? Do you know what level eyebrows and a fullish underlip mean—hey? Do you? A lip like a drop of blood—
"What did you want that boat for?" he cried, in a terrible voice.
"Me like'm go fish," said Motauri.