"What was I to do?" Mapuhi protested. "I owed him the money. He knew I
had the pearl. You heard him yourself ask to see it. I had not told
him. He knew. Somebody else told him. And I owed him the money."

"Mapuhi is a fool," mimicked Ngakura.

She was twelve years old and did not know any better. Mapuhi relieved
his feelings by sending her reeling from a box on the ear; while
Tefara and Nauri burst into tears and continued to upbraid him after
the manner of women.

Huru-Huru, watching on the beach, saw a third schooner that he knew
heave to outside the entrance and drop a boat. It was the Hira, well
named, for she was owned by Levy, the German Jew, the greatest pearl
buyer of them all, and, as was well known, Hira was the Tahitian god
of fishermen and thieves.

"Have you heard the news?" Huru-Huru asked, as Levy, a fat man with
massive asymmetrical features, stepped out upon the beach. "Mapuhi has
found a pearl. There was never a pearl like it in Hikueru, in all the
Paumotus, in all the world. Mapuhi is a fool. He has sold it to Toriki
for fourteen hundred Chili--I listened outside and heard. Toriki is
likewise a fool. You can buy it from him cheap. Remember that I told
you first. Have you any tobacco?"

"Where is Toriki?"

"In the house of Captain Lynch, drinking absinthe. He has been there
an hour."