rial Islands
"Tafito".

I sprang to my feet and seized him by the wrist.

"Where was he?" I asked.

"Quite near me. I had just shot the wild _moa vao_ (mountain cock) and
had picked it up when I heard a voice say in Samoan--but thickly as
foreigners speak: 'It was a brave shot, boy'. Then I looked up and saw
Te-bari. He was standing against the bole of a _masa'oi_ tree, leaning
on his rifle. Round his earless head was bound a strip of _ie mumu_ (red
Turkey twill), and as I stood and trembled he laughed, and his great
white teeth gleamed, and my heart died within me, and----"

I do not want to disgust my readers, but truth compels me to say that
the boy there and then became violently sick; then he began to sob
with terror, stopping every now and then to glance around at the now
darkening forest aisles of grey-barked, ghostly and moss-covered trees.

"Sui," I said, "go back to your home. I have no fear of Te-bari."

In two seconds the boy, who had faced rifle fire time and time again,
fled homewards. Te-bari the outlaw was too much for him.

Personally I had no reason to fear meeting the man. In the first place
I was an Englishman, and Te-bari was known to profess a liking for
Englishmen, though he would eagerly cut the throat of a German or a
Samoan if he could get his brawny hands upon it; in the second place,
although I had never seen the man, I was sure that he would have heard
of me from some of his fellow islanders on the plantations, for during
my three years' "recruiting" in the Kingsmill and Gilbert Groups, I have
brought many hundreds of them to Samoa, Fiji and Tahiti.

Something of his story was known to me. He was a native of the great
square-shaped atoll of Maiana, and went to sea in a whaler when he was
quite a lad, and soon rose to be boat-steerer. One day a Portuguese
harpooner struck him in the face and drew blood--a deadly insult to a
Line Islander. Te-bari plunged his knife into the man's heart. He
was ironed, and put in the sail-locker; during the night three of the
Portuguese sprang in upon him and cut off his ears. A few days later
when the ship was at anchor at the Bonin Islands, Te-bari freed himself
of his handcuffs and swam on shore Early on the following morning one
of the boats was getting fresh water. She was in charge of the fourth
mate--a Portuguese black. Suddenly a nude figure leapt among the men,
and clove the officer's head in twain with a tomahawk.

One day Te-bari reapp