“No. Just before daylight he called me to him—with my boy. He took the boy's hand and said he'd have been glad to have lived after all. He had been happy in a way with me and the children here in Mururea. Then he asked to see Teremai and Lorani. They both cried when they saw he was a goin'—all native-blooded people do that if they cares anything at all about a white man, and sees him dyin'.”
“Have you any message, or anything to say in writin', sir?” I says to him.
He didn't answer at once, only took the girls' hands in his, and kisses each of 'em on the face, then he says, “No, Lupton, neither. But send the children away now. I want you to stay with me to the last—which will be soon.”
Then he put his hand under his pillow, and took out a tiny little parcel, and held it in his closed hand. *****
“Mr. Lupton, I ask you before God to speak honestly. Have you, or have you not, ever heard of me, and why I came here to die, away from the eyes of men?”
“No, sir,” I said. “Before God I know no more of you now than the day I first saw you.”
“Can you, then, tell me if the native soul-doctor who came here last night is a friend of Captain Peese? Did he see Peese when I landed here? Has he talked with him?”
“No. When you came here with Peese, the soul-seer was away at another island. And as for talking with him, how could he? Peese can't speak two words of Paumotu.”
He closed his eyes a minute. Then he reached out his hand to me and said, “Look at that; what is it?”
It was the little black thing that the Man Who Sees Beyond gave him, and was a curious affair altogether. “You know what an aitu taliga is?” asked Lupton.