Rikitea. A trading schooner had just dropped anchor inside the reef,
and the runners, young lads and girls--half-naked, lithe-limbed and
handsome--like all the people of the "thousand isles," wanted to welcome
Baldwin the Trader at his own house door.

*****

Two of them--a boy and girl--gained the trader's gate ahead of their
excited companions, and, leaning their backs against the white palings,
mocked the rest for their tardiness in the race. With one arm around the
girl's lissom waist, the boy, Maturei, short, thickset, muscular, and
the bully of the village, beat off with his left hand those who sought
to displace them from the gate; and the girl, thin, creole-faced,
with soft, red-lipped mouth, laughed softly at their vexation. Her
gaily-coloured grass waist girdle had broken, and presently moving the
boy's protecting arm, she tried to tie the band, and as she tied it she
rattled out oaths in English and French at the score of brown hands that
sought to prevent her.

"_Hui! Hui!!_ Away, ye fools, and let me tie my girdle," she said in the
native tongue. "'Tis no time now for such folly as this; for, see, the
boat is lowered from the ship and in a little time the master will be
here."

The merry chatter ceased in an instant and every face turned towards the
schooner, and a hundred pair of curious eyes watched. Then, one by one,
they sat down and waited; all but the two at the gate, who remained
standing, the boy's arm still wound round the girl's waist.

*****

The boat was pulling in swiftly now, and the "click-clack" of the
rowlocks reached the listening ears of those on shore.

There were two figures in the stern, and presently one stood up, and
taking off his hat, waved it towards the shore.

A roar of welcome from the thronging mass of natives that lined the
beach drowned the shrill, piping treble of the children round the gate,
and told sturdy old Tom Baldwin that he was recognised, and scarce had
the bow of the boat ploughed into the soft sand of the beach when he
was seized upon and smothered with caresses, the men with good-natured
violence thrusting aside the women and forming a body-guard to conduct
him and the young man with him from the boat to the house. And about
the strange white man the people thronged with inquiring and admiring
glances, for he was big and strong-looking--and that to a native mind is
better than all else in the world.

With joyous, laughing clamour, the natives pressed