The other natives laughed, and then an ugly fat-faced girl with lime-covered head and painted cheeks called out “Pâpatetele!” and Terere turned round and cursed them in good English.
“What does that mean?” said a white man to Flash Harry from Saleimoa—a man full of island lore.
“Why, it means as the bride isn't all as she purfesses to be. Them pretty soft-lookin' ones like her seldom is, in Samoa or anywhere else.”
The day following the stock-taking Etheridge went to Apia—and never came back.
One night a native tapped gently at Lawson's window and handed him a note. As he read Terere with a sleepy yawn awoke, and, stretching one rounded arm out at full length, let it fall lazily on the mat-bed.
“What is it, Harry?”
“Get up, d——— you! Etheridge is dead, and I'm going to take Lâlia up to Apia as quick as I can. Why the h—— couldn't he die here?”
A rapid vision of unlimited presents from the rich young widow passed through the mind of Terere—to whom the relations that had formerly existed between her and Lawson were well known—as she and he sped along in his boat to Etheridge's. Lâlia received the news with much equanimity and a few tears, and then leaving Terere in charge, she got into the boat and rolled a cigarette. Lawson was in feverish haste. He was afraid the consul would be down and baulk his rapid but carefully arranged scheme. At Safune he sent his crew of two men ashore to his house for a breaker of water, and then once they were out of sight he pushed off and left them. They were in the way and might spoil everything. The breeze was strong, and that night Lawson and Lâlia, instead of being out in the open sea beating up to Apia, were ashore in the sitting-room of the white missionary house on the other side of Savaii.
“I am indeed glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Lawson. Your honourable impulse deserves commendation. I have always regretted the fact that a man like you whose reputation as an educated and intelligent person far above that of most traders here is not unknown to me”—Lawson smiled sweetly—“should not alone set at defiance the teaching of Holy Writ, but tacitly mock at our efforts to inculcate a higher code of morality in these beautiful islands. Ere long I trust I may make the acquaintance of your brother-in-law, Mr. Etheridge, and his wife.”