in darkness and he, being lonely, had come over to sit with me awhile.

"That is well, Pâkía, for I too am lonely, and who so good as thee to
talk with when the mind is heavy and the days are long, and no sail
cometh up from the sea-rim? Come, sit here within the doorway, for the
night wind is chill; and fill thy pipe."

He came inside as I rose and turned up the lamp so that its light shone
full on his bald, bronzed head and deeply tatooed arms and shoulders.
Laying down his polished staff of _temana_ wood, he came over to me,
placed his hand on my arm, patted it gently, and then his kindly old
eyes sought mine.

"Be not dull of heart, _taka taina_.[1] A ship will soon come--it may be
to-morrow; it must be soon; for twice have I heard the cocks crow at
midnight since I was last here, three days ago. And when the cocks crow
at night-time a ship is near."

"May it be so, Pâkía, for I am weary of waiting. Ten months have come
and gone since I first put foot on this land of Nukufetau, and a ship
was to have come here in four."

He filled his pipe, then drawing a small mat near my lounge, he squatted
on the floor, and we smoked in silence, listening to the gentle lapping
of the lagoon waters upon the inner beach and the beating, never-ceasing
hum of the surf on the reef beyond. Overhead the branches of the palms
swayed and rustled to the night-breeze.

Presently, as I turned to look seaward, I caught the old man's dark eyes
fixed upon my face, and in them I read a sympathy that at that time and