o
were in perfect and truly happy accord, they were often devoured
with the bitterest business jealousies, and their wives and relatives
generally shared this feeling with them. And as Mrs. Deasy and Mrs.
Schweicker each had a large native following who all considered
_their_ white man was the better of the two, the question of commercial
supremacy between Peter Deasy and Hans Schweicker was one of much local
importance.

As the word was passed along that the captain was coming, the female
inmates of the two houses each surrounded their respective head, and
looked anxiously over his shoulders at the approaching visitor.
Deasy's wife had put on her best dress; so had Schweicker's.
Pati-lima--otherwise Mrs. Peter Deasy--who was a huge eighteen stone
creature, with a round good-humoured face and a piping childish voice,
had arrayed her vast proportions in a flowing gown of Turkey-red twill,
and the radiant glory thereof had a pleasing and effective background in
the garments of her three daughters, who were dressed in 'green, yellow,
and blue respectively. Manogi--Mrs. Schweicker--who had no children,
and was accounted the prettiest woman in Samoa, was clothed, like her
husband, in spotless white, and her shining black tresses fell in a wavy
mantle down to her waist. Unlike Pati-lima's daughters, whose heads were
encircled by wreaths of orange blossoms, Manogi wore neither ornament
nor decoration. She knew that her wavy hair drooped gracefully down her
clear-cut, olive-hued face like the frame of a picture, and set off her
bright eyes and white teeth to perfection; and that no amount of orange
blossoms could make her appear more beautiful. So in the supreme and
blessed consciousness of being the best-dressed and best-looking
woman in the whole village, she sat behind her husband fanning herself
languidly, and scarce deigning to answer the Deasy girls when they spoke
to her.

Presently the boat touched the beach. The captain jumped out, shook
hands with a number of natives who thronged around him, and stepped
along the path. Half-way between the white men's houses was the
unfinished church, and near to that the teacher's house, embowered in a
grove of orange and lemon trees. As Packenham walked along he looked
up the road, smiled and nodded at the Deasy and Schweicker crowd, then
deliberately turned to the left and walked into the teacher's dwelling!
And Manogi and all the Deasy women saw Miriamu, the teacher's daughter,