“This is a curious sort of a household,” I thought. “The mistress, who is sane enough, is told by her husband that she is mad, and fears she will lose her reason; a native who tells me that I am to be his master and travel with him on the deep sea, and a witch woman, whom I have yet to see, on the premises. I wonder what sort of a crank she is?”
I was soon to know, for in a few moments she came in, and instead of coming up to me and shaking hands in the usual Line Island fashion, as I expected she would do, she did precisely as my first visitor had done—greeted me in Samoan, formally and politely, as if I were a great chief, and then sat silent, awaiting me to speak.
Addressing her in the same stilted, highly complimentary language that she had used to me, I inquired after her health, etc., and then asked her how long she had been on the island.
She answered me in a somewhat abrupt manner, “I came here with Tematau about the time that the white lady Lucia and her husband came. Tematau is of the same family as myself. And it is of the blood ties between us that we remain together, for we are the last of many.”
“It is good that it is so,” I said, for want of something better to say, for her curious eyes never left my face for an instant. “It would be hard indeed that when but two of the same blood are left they should separate or be separated.”
“We shall be together always,” she replied, “and death will come to us together.”
Then she rose, walked quickly to the open door, glanced outside to see if any one was about, and returned to me and placed her hand on mine.
“This man Krause is a devil. He seeks his wife's death because of another woman in his own country. He hath tried to poison her, and the poison still rankles in her blood. That is why she is so white of face and frail of body. And now she will neither eat nor drink aught but that of which I first eat or drink myself.”
“How know you of this?”
“I know it well,” she answered impressively, “and the man would kill me if he could by poison, as he hath tried to kill his wife. But poison can do me no harm. And he hateth but yet is afraid of me, for he knoweth that I long since saw the murder in his heart.”