“It is not too late, Loisé.”
She raised her face and laughed scornfully.
“To go back? To go back to hear the old man who was a father and the good woman who was a mother to me, tell me that they hated and despised me!” And then quick, scalding tears.
The man's face flushed. “No, not that, but,” with an oath, “look here, if you'll come with me I'll head the schooner for Tahiti, and as soon as she swings to her anchor we will be ashore and married.”
She shook her head. “Let me go, Captain Lemaire. Whatever comes to me, 'tis I alone who must answer for it. And so—good-bye.”
She stood and watched the boat hoisted to the davits, and saw the schooner slowly gather way, and then glide past and disappear round the palm-crowned point. Then she turned with streaming eyes and choking voice to the brown-skinned people that stood around her, and spoke to them in her mother's tongue.
So ended the sixteen years' life of the beautiful Miss Lambert and began that of Loisé, the half-blood.
LOISÉ, THE HALF-BLOOD
There was a wild rush of naked, scurrying feet, and a quick panting of brown bosoms along the winding path that led to Baldwin's house at Rikitea. A trading schooner had just dropped anchor inside the reef, and the runners, young lads and girls—half-naked, lithe-limbed and handsome—like all the people of the “thousand isles,” wanted to welcome Baldwin the Trader at his own house door.