spered to
one of his six guards stationed below the platform. The man went out,
and returned in five minutes followed by a girl. Now that the island
girls were beautiful I had already discovered that morning, and this one
was no exception--a small thing about five feet, with glossy black hair
and the tiniest feet and hands. She seemed to me to walk nervously, as
if brought up for punishment; and a thought took me--and I shall be glad
of it when I come to die--that if they meant to ill-use her I might do
worse than assault that venerable pair with my bombardon and end my
adventures with credit.

"My eyes were so taken up with the girl that for a full minute I paid no
attention to my master. She had come to a halt under the platform, a
couple of paces from me, with her eyes cast down upon the floor; and he
on the platform was speaking. By and by he stopped, and glancing up I
saw that he was motioning me to leave the room. Well, they had made no
show as yet of ill-treating her; so I flung her one more look and
obeyed, feeling pretty mean. I went out into the verandah, walked the
length of it and turned--and there stood the girl right before me!
Her little feet had followed me so softly that I had heard nothing; and
now, as I stared at her, she crept close with a sort of sidelong motion,
and knelt at my feet, at the same moment drawing her _sarong_ over her
head to hide it. Then the truth came upon me--I was married!

"Aoodya was her name. What else can I tell you about her, to describe
her? She was a child, and all life came as play to her, yet she
understood love to the tips of her little madder-brown fingers.
She was my teacher, too, and I sat at her feet day after day and learned
while she drilled the island-language into me; learned by the hour while
she untwisted her hair and rubbed it with grated cocoanut, and broke off
her toilet to point to this thing and that and tell me its name,
laughing at my mistakes or flipping bits of betel at me by way of
reward. I had no wife at home to vex my conscience at all. All day we
played about Hamid's verandah like two children, and Hamid watched us
with a sort of twinkle in his eye, seemingly well content. It was plain
he had taken a fancy to me, and I thought, as time passed, he grew
friendlier.

"I blessed the old fellow, too. Had he not given me Aoodya? I puzzled
my head over this favour, until Aoodya explained. 'You see,' she said,
'it was done to oblige th