“I from the American gonsul bought him,” went on the German, “very sheap: two hundred dollars Chile money.”
Kinross looked black. Engelbert patted his hand and smiled ambiguously.
“Dey are yours,” he said. “Pay me back when you have de money. I buy dem only to spite you. My friend, take dem.”
“Paul, Paul,” cried Kinross, “I don’t know what to say—how to thank you. Only this morning I got money from home, and the first thing I meant to do was to buy them.”
“All de better,” said Engelbert; “and, my boy, you blant goffee. Cobrah, poof! Gotton, poof! It’s de goffee dat bays, and I will get you blenty leetle drees from my friend, de gaptain in Utumabu Blantation. You must go? So? Yoost one glass beer. Nein? I will be round lader.”
Kinross tore himself away with difficulty and started homeward, his heart swelling with kindness for the old Prussian. He exulted in the six acres he had so nearly lost, and they now seemed to him more precious than ever. It was no empty promise, that of the coffee-trees from Utumapu; these would save him all manner of preparatory labor and put his little plantation six months ahead. Then he remembered he was leaving Vaiala, and again he heard the hum of London in his ears. Well, he would explain about the trees to Leata, and would beg old Engelbert to help and advise her a bit. Poor Leata! she had lots of good sense and was very quick to learn. He could trust Leata.
He was crossing the malae, or common, of Polapola, when the sight of the chief’s house put a new thought into his head. It was Tangaloa’s house, and he could see the chief himself bulking dimly in the shadow of a siapo. Tangaloa! He hadn’t spoken with him in a year. The old fellow had been good to him, and in the beginning had overwhelmed him with kindnesses. But that was before he had shot the chief’s dog and brought about the feud that had existed between them for so long. It was annoying to have that everlasting dog on his verandah at night, frightening Leata to death and spilling the improvised larder all about the floor, not to speak of the chickens it had eaten and the eggs it had sucked. No, he could not blame himself for having shot that beast of a dog! But it had made bad blood between him and Tangaloa, and had cost him, in one way or another, through the loss of the old chief’s custom and influence, the value of a thousand chickens. But he would make it up with Tangaloa, for he meant to leave no man’s ill will behind him. So he walked deliberately towards the house, and slipped under the eaves near the place where the old chief was sitting alone.
“Talofa, Tangaloa,” he cried out cordially, shaking hands.
The chief responded somewhat drily to the salutation and assumed a vacant expression.
“That dog!” began the trader.