Louis Becke

“ The chief sat cross-legged and watched Probyn opening the tierce of tobacco. Niābong locked the box again and sat upon it.
“Who are you?” said Tahori, still caressing the boy, to the white man’s wife.
“Niābong. But my tongue twists with your talk here. I am of Naura (Pleasant Island) . By and by I shall understand it.”
“True. He is a great man, thy man,” said the chief, nodding at Probyn.
“A great man, truly. There is not one thing in the world but he can do it.” ”

“ Probyn came over with his two hands filled with sticks of tobacco. “Bring a basket,” he said.
A young native girl slid out from the cocoanuts at Tahori’s bidding and stood behind him, holding a basket. Probyn counted out into it two hundred sticks.
“See, Tahori. I am a just man to thee because thou art a just man to me. Here is the price of him that thou gavest to me.”
Tahori rose and beckoned to the people to return. “Look at this man. He is a great man. His heart groweth from his loins upwards to his throat. Bring food to my house quickly, that he and his wife and child may eat. ”

“ In those days the sleek native missionary was an unknown quantity in the Tokelaus and Kingsmills, and the local white trader answered all requirements. He was generally a rough character—a runaway from some Australian or American whaler, or a wandering Ishmael, who, for reasons of his own, preferred living among the intractable, bawling, and poverty-stricken people of the equatorial Pacific to dreaming away his days in the monotonously happy valleys of the Society and Marquesas Groups. ”