Tibakwa (The Shark) was a short, squat fellow, with his broad back and chest scored and seamed with an intricate and inartistic network of cicatrices made by sharks' teeth swords. His hair, straight, coarse, and jet-black, was cut away square from just above his eyebrows to the top of his ears, leaving his fierce countenance in a sort of frame. Each ear-lobe bore a load—one had two or three sticks of tobacco, twined in and about the distended circle of flesh, and the other a clasp-knife and wooden pipe. Stripped to the waist he showed his muscular outlines to perfection, and he sat down unasked in the bold, self-confident, half-defiant manner natural to the Line Islander.
"Where's Tirau?" asked the trader.
"Here," said the man of wounds, pointing outside, and he called out in a voice like the bellow of a bull—"TIRAU O, NAKO MAI! (Come here!)"
Tirau came in timidly, clothed only in an AIRIRI or girdle, and slunk into a far corner.
The melancholy trader and the father pulled her out, and she dumped herself down in the middle of the room with a muttered "E PUAK ACARON; KACARON; TE MALAN! (Bad white man)."
"Fine girl, Charley," said the skipper, digging him in the ribs. "Ought to suit you, eh! Make a good little wife."
Negotiations then began anew. Father willing to part, girl frightened—commenced to cry. The astute Charley brought out some new trade. Tirau's eye here displayed a faint interest. Charley threw her, with the air of a prince, a whole piece of turkey twill, 12 yards—value three dollars, cost about 2s. 3d. Tirau put out a little hand and drew it gingerly toward her. Tibakwa gave us an atrocious wink.
"She's cottoned!" exclaimed Charley.