"Well, dear," said Elizabeth, "I have often wondered whether we were right in keeping her. She belongs to her own people, you know, and not to us."
"But she didn't want to leave us. And they don't care a dump about her, or they'd have come for her long before this. I'm sure she was much happier with us than with nasty savages."
"Yet she has left us now," remarked Mary. "They can't be dreadfully horrid to her."
"Couldn't you fetch her back, Bess?" asked Tommy.
"I shouldn't much care about it," replied Elizabeth. "After all, we don't know what trouble we might be running into. Perhaps she will come back to us herself."
After taking some oranges they returned to their own side of the island by way of the ridge. Tommy was disconsolate. All the sisters had become fond of Fangati, but there was a special tie between her and Tommy, and she was more often with Tommy than with the others.
For the next two days they talked about little else than Fangati's defection. They walked up to the orange grove, in the hope that she would reappear, but returned without a sight of the little brown face they had learned to love. Her departure had left a strange blank; they felt that something had gone out of their life. Until then they had not realized how much she had added to their happiness.
On the third morning after breakfast they were "washing-up" outside the hut—so they called the clearing away of banana skins, fish bones, and pieces of shell—when they suddenly caught sight of two figures moving among the trees some little distance away. They sprang to their feet in alarm. A second glance told them that the figures were those of natives; and, struck with the idea, that the savages were stealthily approaching to attack them, they began to run up-stream toward a patch of thick undergrowth where they could hide.
But they had only taken a few paces when there was a shrill cry of "Me Tommee!" They halted hesitatingly, to see Fangati flying towards them, and her companion standing still at the edge of the woodland.
When Fangati was within a few yards, Tommy, able to restrain herself no longer, rushed forward and clasped the brown girl in her arms, kissing her again and again. Fangati laughed; she laughed at everything; then, hand in hand with Tommy, ran to the other girls, chattering excitedly. She pointed to the solitary native, who had not moved, smiled, patted her own head, threw herself down and clasped Elizabeth's feet, ran a little way, and then came back looking behind her.