Save for a
narrow breech-clout, a pair of ear-plugs, and about his kinky hair a
chaplet of white cowrie-shells, he was naked. His body was fresh-oiled
and shiny, and his eyes glistened in the starlight like some wild
animal's. The rest of the boys had crowded up at his back in a solid
wall. Some one of them giggled, but the remainder regarded her in morose
and intense silence.
"Well?" she said. "What for you want plenty fella things?"
"Me take 'm medicine," quoth Aroa. "You pay me."
And this was a sample of their gratitude, she thought. It looked as if
Sheldon had been right after all. Aroa waited stolidly. A leaping fish
splashed far out on the water. A tiny wavelet murmured sleepily on the
beach. The shadow of a flying-fox drifted by in velvet silence overhead.
A light air fanned coolly on her cheek; it was the land-breeze beginning
to blow.
"You go along quarters," she said, starting to turn on her heel to enter
the gate.
"You pay me," said the boy.
"Aroa, you all the same one big fool. I no pay you. Now you go."
But the black was unmoved. She felt that he was regarding her almost
insolently as he repeated:
"I take 'm medicine. You pay me. You pay me now."
Then it was that she lost her temper and cuffed his ears so soundly as to
drive him back among his fellows.
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