eared among his people at Maiana and took service
with a white trader, who always spoke of him as a quiet, hardworking
young man, but with a dangerous temper when roused by a fancied wrong.
In due time Te-bari took a wife--took her in a very literal sense, by
killing her husband and escaping with her to the neighbouring island of
Taputeauea (Drummond's Island). She was a pretty, graceful creature of
sixteen years of age. Then one day there came along the German labour
brig _Adolphe_ seeking "blackbirds" for Samoa, and Te-bari and his
pretty wife with fifty other "Tafitos" were landed at one of the
plantations in Upolu.

Young Madame Te-bari was not as good as she ought to have been, and
one day the watchful husband saw one of the German overseers give her a
thick necklace of fine red beads. Te-bari tore them from her neck, and
threw them into the German's face. For this he received a flogging and
was mercilessly kicked into insensibility as well When he recovered he
was transferred to another plantation--minus the naughty Nireeungo, who
became "Mrs." Peter Clausen. A month passed, and it was rumoured "on the
beach" that "No-Ears," as Te-bari was called, had escaped and taken to
the bush with a brand-new Snider carbine, and as many cartridges as he
could carry, and Mr. Peter Clausen was advised to look out for himself.
He snorted contemptuously.

Two young Samoan "bucks" were sent out to capture Te-bari, and bring him
back, dead or alive, and receive therefor one hundred bright new Chile
dollars. They never returned, and when their bodies were found in a deep
mountain gully, it was known that the earless one was the richer by
a sixteen-shot Winchester with fifty cartridges, and a Swiss Vetterli
rifle, together with some twist tobacco, and the two long _nifa oti_
or "death knives," with which these valorous, but misguided young men
intended to remove the earless head of the "Tafito pig" from his brawny,
muscular shoulders.

Te-bari made his way, encumbered as he was with his armoury, along the
crest of the mountain range, till he was within striking distance of his
enemy, Clausen, and the alleged Frau Clausen--_nee_ Nireeungo. He hid on
the outskirts of the plantation, and soon got in touch with some of his
former comrades. They gave him food, and much useful information.

One night, during heavy rain, when every one was asleep on the
plantation, Te-bari entered the overseer's house by the window. A lamp
was burning,