“Thou shalt come with us, little one Now, go tell Leota.”
For many months Marsh remained in Apia, unable to find a suitable vessel. Then, not caring to remain in such a noisy and expensive port—he rented a native house at a charmingly situated village called Laulii, about ten miles from Apia, and standing at the head of a tiny bay, almost landlocked by verdant hills. So much was he pleased with the place, that he half formed a resolution to settle there permanently, or at least for a year or two.
Âli and Leota were delighted to learn this, for although they were willing to go anywhere in the world with their beloved “Tikki,” they, like all Samoans, were passionately fond of their own beautiful land, with its lofty mountains and forests, and clear running streams.
And Pautôe, too, was intensely happy, for to her Samoa was a dream-land of light and beauty. Never before had she seen mountains, except in pictures shown her by Mr. Copley or Marsh, and never before had she seen a stream of running water. For Motumoe, where she had lived all her young life, was an atoll—low, flat, and sandy, and although densely covered with coco palms, there were but few other trees of any height. And now, in Samoa, she was never tired of wandering alone in the deep, silent forest, treading with ecstasy the thick carpet of fallen leaves, gazing upwards at the canopy of branches, and listening with a thrilled delight to the booming notes of the great blue-plumaged, red-breasted pigeons, and the plaintive answering cries of the ring-doves. Then, too, in the forest at the back of the village were ruins of ancient dwellings of stone, build by hands unknown, preserved from decay by a binding net-work of ivy-like creepers and vines, and the haunt and resting-place of the wild boar and his mate, and their savage, quick-footed progeny. And sometimes she would hear the shrill, cackling scream of a wild mountain cock, and see the great, fierce-eyed bird, half-running, half-flying over the leaf-strewn ground. And to her the forest became a deep and holy mystery, to adore and to love.
Quite near to Laulii was another village—Lautonga, in which there lived a young American trader named Lester Meredith—like Marsh, an ex-sailor. He was an extremely reserved, quiet man, but he and Marsh soon became friends, and they exchanged almost daily visits. Meredith, like Marsh, was an unmarried man, and one day the local chief of the district jocularly reproached them.
“Thou, Tikki, art near to two-score years, and yet hast no wife, and thou, Lesta, art one score and five and yet live alone. Why is it so? Ye are both fine, handsome men, and pleasing to the eyes of women.”
Marsh laughed. “O Tofia, thou would-be matchmaker! I am no marrying man. Once, indeed, I gave my heart to a woman in mine own country of England, but although she loved me, her people were both rich and proud, and I was poor. So she became wife to another man.”
Pautôe, who was listening intently to the men's talk, set her white teeth, and clenched her shapely little hands, and then said slowly:—
“Didst kill the other man, Tikki?”
Marsh and Meredith both laughed, and the former shook his head, and then Tofia turned to Meredith:—