“All right,” I said, “go and make excuses somewhere else. Here’s my way, there’s yours!” With that we parted, and I went straight home, in a hot temper, and found Uma trying on a lot of trade goods like a baby. “Here,” I said, “you quit that foolery! Here’s a pretty mess to have made, as if I wasn’t bothered enough anyway! And I thought I told you to get dinner!” And then I believe I gave her a bit of the rough side of my tongue, as she deserved. She stood up at once, like a sentry to his officer; for I must say she was always well brought up, and had a great respect for whites. “And now,” says I, “you belong round here, you’re bound to understand this. What am I tabooed for, anyway? Or, if I ain’t tabooed, what makes the folks afraid of me?” She stood and looked at me with eyes like saucers. “You no savvy?” she gasps at last. “No,” said I. “How would you expect me to? We don’t have any such craziness where I come from.” “Ese no tell you?” she asked again. (Ese was the name the natives had for Case; it may mean foreign, or extraordinary; or it might mean a mummy apple; but most like it was only his own name misheard and put in a Kanaka spelling.) “Not much,” said I. “D-n Ese!” she cried. You might think it funny to hear this Kanaka girl come out with a big swear. No such thing. There was no swearing in her—no, nor anger; she was beyond anger, and meant the word simple and serious. She stood there straight as she said it. I cannot justly say that I ever saw a woman look like that before or after, and it struck me mum. Then she made a kind of an obeisance, but it was the proudest kind, and threw her hands out open. “I ’shamed,” she said. “I think you savvy. Ese he tell me you savvy, he tell me you no mind, tell me you love me too much. Taboo belong me,” she said, touching herself on the bosom, as she had done upon our wedding-night. “Now I go ’way, taboo he go ’way too. Then you get too much copra. You like more better, I think. Tofâ, alii,” says she in the native—“Farewell, chief!” “Hold on!” I
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