“Nay—not together, but on the same day. Thou hast heard something of it?”
“Only something. And if it doth not hurt thee to speak of it, I should like to know how such a great misfortune came to thee.”
The net-maker looked into the white man's face, and read sympathy in his eyes.
“Friend, this was the way of it. Because of my usefulness to him as an interpreter of English, Taula, chief of Samatau, gave me his niece, Moé, in marriage. She was a strong girl, and handsome, but had a sharp tongue. Yet she loved me, and I loved her.
“We were happy. We lived at the town of Tufu on the itu papa” (iron-bound coast) “of Savai'i. Moé bore me boy twins. They grew up strong, hardy and courageous, though, like their mother, they were quick-tempered, and resented reproof, even from me, their father. And often they quarrelled and fought.
“When they were become sixteen years of age, they were tatooed in the Samoan fashion, and that cost me much in money and presents. But Tui, who was the elder by a little while, was jealous that his brother Gâlu had been tatooed first. And yet the two loved each other—as I will show thee.
“One day my wife and the two boys went into the mountains to get wild bananas. They cut three heavy bunches and were returning home, when Gâlu and Tui began to quarrel, on the steep mountain path. They came to blows, and their mother, in trying to separate them, lost her footing and fell far below on to a bed of lava. She died quickly.
“The two boys descended and held her dead body in their arms for a long while, and wept together over her face. Then they carried her down the mountain side into the village, and said to the people:—
“'We, Tui and Gâlu, have killed our mother through our quarrelling. Tell our father Kala-hoi, that we fear to meet him, and now go to expiate our crime.'
“They ran away swiftly; they climbed the mountain side, and, with arms around each other, sprang over the cliff from which their mother had fallen. And when I, and many others with me, found them, they were both dead.”