Burton laughed. 'So he is. Look out, Pulu, perhaps he's a kai tagata' (cannibal). 'Take care he doesn't bite it off.'
Pulu shook his mop of yellow hair gravely. A great pity filled his big heart, for as he had turned to go back to the boat Rídan had fallen upon his knees and pressed his lips to the feet of the man who had given him a drink.
That night Burton and the Scotch engineer went to Rídan's hut, taking with them food and a new sleeping-mat. He was sitting cross-legged before a tiny fire of coco-nut shells, gazing at the blue, leaping jets of flame, and as the two men entered, slowly turned his face to them.
'Here,' said Burton, less roughly than usual,' here's some kai kai for you.'
He took the food from Burton's hand, set it beside him on the ground, and then, supporting himself on his gaunt right arm and hand, gave the overseer one long look of bitter, undying hatred; then his eyes drooped to the fire again.
'And here, Rídan,' said Craik, the engineer, throwing the sleeping-mat upon the ground, 'that'll keep your auld bones frae cutting into the ground. And here is what will do ye mair good still,' and he placed a wooden pipe and a stick of tobacco in 'the devil's' hand. In a moment Rídan was on his knees with his forehead pressed to the ground in gratitude.
The men looked at him in silence for a few moments as he crouched at Craik's feet, with the light of the fire playing upon his tattooed yellow back and masses of tangled black hair.
'Come awa', Burton, leave the puir deevil to himself. And I'm thinking ye might try him on the other tack awhile. Ye have not broken the creature's spirit yet, and I wouldna try to if I were you—for my own safety. Sit up Rídan, mon, and smoke your pipe.'
Two years before, Rídan had been brought to Samoa by a German labour-ship, which had picked him up in a canoe at sea, somewhere off the coast of Dutch New Guinea. He was the only survivor of a party of seven, and when lifted on board was in the last stage of exhaustion from thirst and hunger. Where the canoe had sailed from, and whither bound, no one on board the Iserbrook could learn, for the stranger spoke a language utterly unknown to anyone of even the Iserbrook's polyglot ship's company—men who came from all parts of Polynesia and Micronesia. All that could be learned from him by signs and gestures was that a great storm had overtaken the canoe, many days of hunger and thirst had followed, and then death ended the agonies of all but himself.