ame to question
Taku and me about the stranger. With them came the girl Temeteri, whose
head was still filled with foolish thoughts of Farani, her white lover.

"I went to the strange girl, put my arm around her, and spoke, but
though she smiled and answered in a little voice, I understood her not,
for I know none of the tongue of Chili. But yet she leaned her head
against my bosom, and her eyes that were as big and bright as Fetuaho,
the star of the morning, looked up into mine and smiled through their
tears.

* * * * *

"There was a creat buzzing of talk among the women. Some came to her
and touched her hands and forehead, and said: 'Let thy trembling cease;
we of Rapa-nui will be kind to the white girl.'

"And as the people thronged about her and talked, she shook her head
and her eyes sought mine, and hot tears splashed upon my hand. Then the
mother of Temeteri raised her voice and called to Taku the Sailor, and
said: 'O Taku, thou who knowest her tongue, ask her of Farani, my white
son, the husband of my daughter.'

* * * * *

"The young girls in the house laughed scornfully at old Pohere, for
some of them had loved Farani, who yet had put them all aside for
Temeteri, whose beauty exceeded theirs; and so they hated her and
laughed at her mother. Then Taku, being pressed by old Pohere, spoke in
the tongue of Chili, but not of Temeteri.

"Ah! She sprang to her feet and talked then! and the flying words
chased one another from her lips; and these things told she to Taku:--
She had hidden among the broken lava and watched the little captain
come back to the boat and bid us farewell. Then when night came she had
crept out and gone far over to the great PAPAKU, and lay down to hide
again, for she feared the fighting ship might return to seek her. And
all that day she lay hidden in the lava till night fell upon her again,
and hunger drove her to seek the faces of men. In the rain she all but
perished, till God brought her feet to this, my house.

"Then said Taku the Sailor: 'Why didst thou flee from the ship?'

"The white girl put her hands to her face and wept, and said: 'Bring me
my jacket.'

"I gave to her the blue sailor's jacket, and from inside of it she took
a little flat thing and placed it in her bosom.

* * * * *

"Again said old Pohere to Taku: 'O man of slow tongue, ask her of
Farani.' So he asked in this wise:

"'See, O White Girl, that is Pohere, the mother of Temeteri, who bore a
son to th