ions rather than another, and accordingly
most of the chatter was scornful of O'olo, and to his discredit. But
Evanitalina knew that O'olo was no coward, and her misgiving was that he
was dead, which deepened with the passing of months, and no sign nor
token coming to prove the contrary. Viliamu, too, was assiduous in
declaring it, which he did with artfulness and pretended sorrow, urging
all the while his own suit, like a squid of apparent harmlessness on the
surface, but with its suckers enfolding venomously below.

Never was a maid in sadder straits, widowed before she was a wife, and
unceasingly plagued by Samuelu to marry either Viliamu or Carl. She grew
thin, and when she walked it was like a sick person, staggeringly, and
once of so passionate a temper she changed to a gentleness that nothing
could disturb. The compassion of the other maids lavished itself upon
her, for they saw that she was dying of grief for her beloved; and at
night, when wooed under the stars, they spoke with tenderness of O'olo
and Evanitalina, and of their love so cruelly ruptured; so that every
one wept, even young men who previously had had neither consideration
nor sense, to whom a maid was a maid, were only she pretty, and who
would have hastened for another had the first died; which shows that
true love is like a seed, growing and becoming a tree, from which others
eat the fruit to their own improvement, and increased understanding.

Every day Evanitalina grew more weak, yet unlike most sick persons, she
was without fear at her condition, even welcoming it, and saying: "Soon
I shall pass beyond the skies on my last _malanga_"; an once when she
saw a wilted _aute_, she said: "Such am I, once blooming and now
a-droop," and with that she plucked fiercely at the petals, and crushed
them in her hand, as though she were hastening her own extinction.

One morning, shortly after prayers, as she reclined on a mat, with her
eyes raised to that far-away country of which she often spoke, while
Samuelu sat at the table, writing his sermon, there appeared on the
village green three old gentlemen of stately and impressive appearance,
bearing staves, who, stopping at that distance, inquired loudly whether
this was the house of Samuelu, the clergyman? Then being greeted, and
answered, "Yes," the three old gentlemen ceremoniously advanced, and
ranged themselves within the eaves, saying that they had come on a
wooing-party of sixty boats with Cloud-of-B