256 MYSTIC ISLES 



He made a wry face and lit his pipe. The girl could 

 not understand a word and sat immovable. 



"She 's Marquesan," he went on. "Her mother has 

 written through a trader in Atuona, on Hiva-Oa, to 

 send her to her own valley, but she 's quit. She sits and 

 broods all day. I 'd like to go back to my own home in 

 Warwickshire. I know I 'm changing for the bad here. 

 I live like a dam' beach-comber. I only get a screw of 

 three hundred francs a month, and that all goes for us 

 two, with medicines and doctors. She 'd go to Atuona 

 if I 'd go ; but I can't make a living there, and I 'm rot- 

 ten enough now without living off her people in the 

 cannibal group. She 's skin and bones and coughs all 

 night." 



Ormsby puffed his pipe as Tahia put her hand in his. 

 Her action was that of a small dog who puts his paw on 

 his master's sleeve, hesitating, hopeful, but uncertain. 

 She regarded me with slightly veiled hostility. I was 

 a white who might be taking him away to foreign things. 



"She 's heard us talking about Atuona and Hiva-Oa, 

 and she thinks maybe I 've concluded to go. I can't do 

 it, O'Brien. If I go there, I '11 go native forever. I 've 

 got a streak of some dam' savage in me. Listen! I 've 

 got to go on the Etoile to Kaukura to-'morrow. Now, 

 the natives are always kind to any one, but sickness they 

 are not interested in. You go and see her, won't you? 

 She 's about all in, and it won't hurt you." 



Ormsby went to the Dangerous Isles on the Etoile, 

 and did not return for three weeks. He did not find 

 Tahia in her shack on the hill. She was in the cemetery, 

 — in the plot reserved for the natives of other islands, 

 — and her babe unborn. She had died alone. I think 



