f powder, then a bullet, a cap,
and some scraps of paper.

Slowly he loaded the musket, and Tahori, seizing the bondman by his
arm, led him out to the open, and stood by, club in hand, on the alert.

Probyn knew his reputation depended on the shot. He raised his musket
and fired. The ball passed through the chest of Makoi. Then four men
picked up the body and carried it into a house.

* * * * *

Probyn laid down the musket and motioned again to Niabong. She handed
him a hatchet and blunt chisel. Tahori smiled pleasantly, and, drawing
the little boy to him, patted his head.

Then, at a sign from him, a woman brought Niabong a shell of sweet
toddy. The chief sat cross-legged and watched Probyn opening the tierce
of tobacco. Niabong locked the box again and sat upon it.

"Who are you?" said Tahori, still caressing the boy, to the white man's
wife.

"Niabong. But my tongue twists with your talk here. I am of Naura
(Pleasant Island). By-and-by I shall understand it."

"True. He is a great man, thy man," said the chief, nodding at Probyn.

"A great man, truly. There is not one thing in the world but he can do
it."

"E MOE [true]," said the fat man, approvingly; "I can see it. Look you, he
shall be as my brother, and thy child here shall eat of the best in the
land."

Probyn came over with his two hands filled with sticks of tobacco.

"Bring a basket," he said.

A young native girl slid out from the coconut grove at Tahori's
bidding, and stood behind him holding a basket. Probyn counted out into
it two hundred sticks of tobacco.

"See, Tahori. I am a just man to thee because thou art a just man to
me. Here is the price of him that thou gavest to me."

Tahori rose and beckoned to the people to return. "Look at this man. He
is a truly great man. His heart groweth from his loins upwards to his
throat. Bring food to my house quickly, that he and his wife and child
may eat. And to-morrow shall every man cut wood for his house, a house
that shall be in length six fathoms, and four in width. Such men as he
come from the gods."

THE DOCTOR'S WIFE

Consanguinity--From A Polynesian Standpoint

"Oho!" said Lagisiva, the widow, tossing her hair back over her
shoulders, as she raised the heavy, fluted tappa mallet in her thick,
strong right hand, and dealt the rough cloth a series of quick
strokes--"Oho!" said the dark-faced Lagisiva, looking up at the White
Man, "because I be a woman dost think me a fool?