* * * * *


O'Shea kept his word, for two days later Malia, the half-caste daughter
of Ristow, the trader at Ahunui, stepped from out her father's
whaleboat in front of O'Shea's house. The transaction was a perfectly
legitimate one, and Malia did not allow any inconvenient feeling of
modesty to interfere with such a lucrative arrangement as this, whereby
her father became possessed of a tun of oil and a bag of Chilian
dollars, and she of much finery. In those days missionaries had not
made much head-way, and gentlemen like Messrs Ristow and O'Shea took
all the wind out of the Gospel drum.

And so Malia, dressed as a native girl, with painted cheeks and bare
bosom, walked demurely up from the boat to the purchaser of her
sixteen-years'-old beauty, who, with arms folded across his broad
chest, stood in the middle of the path that led from the beach to his
door. And within, with set teeth and a knife in the bosom of her blouse
bodice, Sera panted with the lust of Hate and Revenge.


* * * * *


The bulky form of O'Shea darkened the door-way. "Sera," he called in
English, with a mocking, insulting inflection in his voice, "come here
and welcome my new wife!"

Sera came, walking slowly, with a smile on her lips, and, holding out
her left hand to Malia, said in the native language, "Welcome!"