was
half-mast high for Tessa Brayley, and for her father as well--for we had
found him the next morning on his knees beside her, cold and stiff in
death, with his dead hand clasped around hers."

AT THE EBBING OF THE TIDE

Black Tom's "hell" was one of the institutions of Samoa. And not
an unpleasant hell to look at--a long, rambling, one-storeyed,
white-painted wooden building, hidden on the beach side from ships
entering Apia Harbour by a number of stately cocoanuts; and as you came
upon it from the palm-shaded track that led from the brawling little
Vaisigago towards the sweeping curve of Matautu Point, the blaze of
scarlet hibiscus growing within the white-paled garden fence gave
to this sailors' low drinking-den an inviting appearance of sweetest
Arcadian simplicity.

That was nineteen years ago. If you walk along the Matautu path now and
ask a native to show you where Tom's house stood, he will point to a
smooth, grass-covered bank extending from the right-hand side of the
path to the coarse, black sand of Matautu beach. And, although many of
the present white residents of the Land of the Treaty Powers have heard
or Black Tom, only a few grizzled old traders and storekeepers, relics
of the bygone lively days, can talk to you about that grim deed of one
quiet night in September.

*****

Tamasi Uliuli (Black Thomas), as he was called by the natives, had come
to Samoa in the fifties, and, after an eventful and varied experience in
other portions of the group, had settled down to business in Matautu
as a publican, baker and confectioner, butcher, seamen's crimp, and
interpreter. You might go all over the Southern States, from St.
Augustine to Galveston, and not meet ten such splendid specimens of
negro physique and giant strength as this particular coloured gentleman.
Tom had married a Samoan woman--Inusia--who had borne him three
children, two daughters and one son. Of this latter I have naught to
say here, save that the story of _his_ short life and tragic end is one
common enough to those who have had any experience of a trader's life
among the betel-chewing savages of fever-haunted New Britain. And the
eldest daughter may also "stand out" of this brief tale.

*****

Luisa was black. There was no doubt about that. But she was also comely;
and her youthful, lissom figure as she walked with springy step to the
bathing-place at the Vaisigago gave her a striking individuality among
the lighter-coloured