"Come here," he said.
Somewhat sullenly the girl obeyed and edged up beside him with face bent down. He put his hand upon hers, and for a few seconds looked at the delicate tracery of tattooing that, on the back, ran in thin blue lines from the finger tips to the wrists.
"What a d——d pity!" he muttered to himself; "this infernal tattooing would give the poor devil away anywhere in civilization. Her skin is not as dark as that pretty creole I was so sweet on in Galveston ten years ago ... Well, she's good enough for a broken man like me—but I can't take her away—that's certain."
A heavy tear splashed on his hand, and then he pulled her to him, almost savagely.
"See, Luita. I did but ask to try thee. Have no fear. Thy land is mine for ever."
The girl looked up, and in an instant her face, wet with tears, was laid against his breast. Still caressing the dark head that lay upon his chest, Brantley stooped and whispered something. The little tattooed hand released its clasp of his arm and struck him a playful blow.
"And would that bind thee more to me, and to the ways of these our people of Vahitahi," she asked, with still buried face.
"Aye," answered the ex-captain slowly, "for I have none but thee in the world to care for."
She turned her face up. "Is there none—not even one woman in far-off Beretania, whose face comes to thee in the darkness."
Brantley shook his head sadly. Of course there was Doris, he thought, but he had never spoken of her. Sometimes when the longing to see her again would come upon him, he would have talked of her to his native wife, but he was by nature an uncommunicative man, and the thought of how Doris must feel her loneliness touched him with remorse and made him silent.