r the morning; but the day passed and the devil any one looked
near me, and from all I knew of natives in other islands I thought this
strange. People laughed a little at our firm and their fine stations,
and at this station of Falesa in particular; all the copra in the
district wouldn't pay for it (I had heard them say) in fifty years,
which I supposed was an exaggeration. But when the day went, and no
business came at all, I began to get downhearted; and, about three in
the afternoon, I went out for a stroll to cheer me up. On the green I
saw a white man coming with a cassock on, by which and by the face of
him I knew he was a priest. He was a good-natured old soul to look at,
gone a little grizzled, and so dirty you could have written with him on
a piece of paper.

"Good day, sir," said I.

He answered me eagerly in native.

"Don't you speak any English?" said I.

"French," says he.

"Well," said I, "I'm sorry, but I can't do anything there."

He tried me a while in the French, and then again in native, which he
seemed to think was the best chance. I made out he was after more than
passing the time of day with me, but had something to communicate, and I
listened the harder. I heard the names of Adams and Case and of
Randall--Randall the oftenest--and the word "poison," or something like
it, and a native word that he said very often. I went home, repeating it
to myself.

"What does fussy-ocky mean?" I asked of Uma, for that was as near as I
could come to it.

"Make dead," said she.

"The devil it does!" says I. "Did you ever hear that Case had poisoned
Johnny Adams?"

"Every man he savvy that," says Uma, scornful-like. "Give him white
sand--bad sand. He got the bottle still. Suppose he give you gin, you no
take him."

Now I had heard much the same sort of story in other islands, and the
same white powder always to the front, which made me think the less of
it. For all that, I went over to Randall's place to see what I could
pick up, and found Case on the doorstep, cleaning a gun.

"Good shooting here?" says I.

"A1," says he. "The bush is full of all kinds of birds. I wish copra was
as plenty," says he--I thought, slyly--"but there don't seem anything
doing."

I could see Black Jack in the store, serving a customer.

"That looks like business, though," said I.

"That's the first sale we've made in three weeks," said he.

"You don't tell me?" says I. "Three weeks? Well, well."

"If you don't be