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” Talofa,” he said, and then Evanitalina gave a cry, for it was O’olo; and with that cry, every thought vanished except her love, which rose tumultuously within her like a wave bursting between rocks, and foaming white over them, so that she could answer not a word to his greeting, but stared uselessly at him like a dead person.

“I am going to the war,” explained O’olo, bending down on his beautiful legs, and bringing his face so close to hers that his breath was on her cheek. “Doubtless I shall die, for with many so brave it will be difficult for me to excel them, though that is my intention at whatever cost.”

“But how is it you are not in prison?” inquired Evanitalina, recovering her voice, and speaking in a tremble. “The judge allotted you two months, and lo, here you are with only sixteen days of it expended.”

At this O’olo’s heart warmed, for it showed him how assiduous had been Evanitalina’s counting of his imprisonment, for it was exactly sixteen days, even as she said, she tallying it every morning with a little stone; and it spoke to him better than words of the endurance and strength of her love, which, like his own, was as fathomless as the sea.

“I was made free on this condition,” he said, touching his rifle, “and though to me the Government is nothing, nor the King, nor the quarrel more than that of gulls on a rock, or the squeals of nameless-animals over carrion, yet I consented for thy sake, Evanitalina.”

“My sake?” she exclaimed, astonished. “Were it to please me I would implore thee to remain behind, though I thought my name had long ceased to be anything to thee, and that I was utterly forgotten and cast aside.”

“So did I try to make it,” he said, “for no shark could have been more cruel than thee to me, nor any bat more blind to worth, and because I had neither lands nor family thou drovest me forth with contempt.”

“It was the insufficiency of the two dollars, O’olo,” she protested, “and not that of my love, which was unbounded; and if I merited punishment for what seemed right to me, have I not received it, and atoned a thousand times over for my fault? Did Viliamu gain me for all his wealth and position, or did Carl the half-caste take me to wife? I was truer to thee than ever thou wast to me, and nightly I wept, and held the memory of thee in my arms, like a mother whose babe is dead. And this I will do, if thou wilt return to jail, and break the covenant of thy freedom–I will marry thee, and go live with thee in Siosi’s house, and forfeit rank and honor and the regard of all, reckoning them as naught in the comparison of thy love.”

At this O’olo could hardly keep back his tears, so greatly was he overcome; and his hand met Evanitalina’s and clasped on hers, and his chest shook like one grief-stricken at the death of a near relation. He had learned many things since he had become bad, and knew better than before the gulf that lay between an eat-bush like himself and a member of the renowned I’i family. Our Lord in the desert was not more tempted by the kingdoms of the world than he at that moment by Evanitalina, who was offering herself in all her young beauty for his delight.

But resolutely he put the devil behind him, saying: “I will not have thee stoop to me, so that persons shall mock at thy choice, and the parable of the pearl and the nameless-animal shall be repeated in the Taufusi swamp. No! I shall make of this war a ladder, and reach glory or die and to that I am determined as never was man before. If I come back it shall be as one famous for prowess, bearing heads that I have taken, and with chiefs eager to adopt me. Thus shall I return, an eat-bush no longer nor despised, but a David who has slain his Goliath, with the multitude applauding, and the greatest of the Tuamasanga vying to give me the title of their son. Or, if not that, then shall I claim the land God withholds not from every man, nay, not from the poorest or the lowest, and the name of that land is the grave.”