proach.

Stepping slowly across the matted floor, with head and shoulders bent,
he placed the mat (his offering) at my feet, and then withdrew to the
other side of the room, and, seating himself cross-legged, he inquired
after my health, etc., and paid me the usual compliments.

As he spoke in Samoan, I, of course, replied in the same language,
thanked him for his call, and requested him to honour me at my own place
by a visit.

Then, to my surprise, instead of retiring with the usual Samoan
compliments, he bent forward, and, fixing his deep-set, gloomy eyes on
mine, he said slowly--

"Master, I shall be a true man to thee when we are together upon the
deep sea in thy boat."

"Why dost thou call me 'master'?" I said quickly, "and when and whither
do thee and I travel together?" "I call thee 'master' because I am thy
servant, but when and whither we go upon the far sea I know not."

Then he rose, saluted me as if I were King Malietoa of Samoa himself,
and retired without uttering another word.

"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