with
the Beast. Such happiness as was hers lay in the companionship of her
little son, and every evening Tom Denison would see her watching the
child and the patient, faithful Amona, as the two played together on the
smooth lawn in front of the sitting-room, or ran races in and out among
the mango-trees. She was becoming paler and thinner every day--the Beast
was getting fatter and coarser, and more brutalised. Sometimes he would
remain in Apia for a week, returning home either boisterously drunk or
sullen and scowling-faced. In the latter case, he would come into the
office where Denison worked (he had left the schooner of which he was
supercargo, and was now "overseering" Solo-Solo) and try to grasp the
muddled condition of his financial affairs. Then, with much variegated
language, he would stride away, cursing the servants and the place
and everything in general, mount his horse, and ride off again to the
society of the loafers, gamblers, and flaunting unfortunates who haunted
the drinking saloons of Apia and Matafele.

One day came a crisis. Denison was rigging a tackle to haul a tree-trunk
into position in the plantation saw-pit, when Armitage rode up to the
house. He dismounted and went inside. Five minutes later Amona came
staggering down the path to him. His left cheek was cut to the bone by
a blow from Armitage's fist. Denison brought him into his own room,
stitched up the wound, and gave him a glass of grog, and told him to
light his pipe and rest.

"Amona, you're a _valea_ (fool). Why don't you leave this place? This
man will kill you some day. How many beatings has he given you?" He
spoke in English.

"I know not how many. But it is God's will. And if the master some day
killeth me, it is well. And yet, but for some things, I would use my
knife on him."

"What things?"

He came over to the supercargo, and, seating himself cross-legged on the
floor, placed his firm, brown, right hand on the white man's knee.

"For two things, good friend. The little fingers of the child are
clasped tightly around my heart, and when his father striketh me and
calls me a filthy man-eater, a dog, and a pig, I know no pain. That is
one thing. And the other thing is this--the child's mother hath come to
me when my body hath ached from the father's blows, and the blood hath
covered my face; and she hath bound up my wounds and wept silent tears,
and together have we knelt and called upon God to turn his heart from
the grog