Clausen cleared out of Samoa the very next day. Te-bari had got upon his nerves.
The forest was dark by the time I had lit a fire between two of the wide buttresses of the great tree, and I was shaking from head to foot with ague. The attack, however, only lasted an hour, and then came the usual delicious after-glow of warmth as the blood began to course riotously through one's veins and give that temporary and fictitious strength accompanied by hunger, that is one of the features of malarial fever.
Sitting up, I began to pluck the mountain cock, intending to grill the chest part as soon as the fire was fit. Then I heard a footstep on the leaves, and looking up I saw Te-bari standing before me.
“Ti-â ka po” (good evening), I said quietly, in his own language, “will you eat with me?”
He came over to me, still grasping his rifle, and peered into my face. Then he put out his hand, and sat down quietly in front of me. Except for a girdle of dracaena leaves around his waist he was naked, but he seemed well-nourished, and, in fact, fat.
“Will you smoke?” I said presently, passing him a plug of tobacco and my sheath knife, for I saw that a wooden pipe was stuck in his girdle of leaves. He accepted it eagerly.
“Do you know me, white man?” he asked abruptly, speaking in the Line Islands tongue.
I nodded. “You are Te-bari of Maiana. The boy was frightened of you and ran away.”
He showed his gleaming white teeth in a semi-mirthful, semi-tigerish grin. “Yes, he was afraid. I would have shot him; but I did not because he was with you. What is your name, white man?”