Ralph Stock

“ Resplendent in his new pareu and silk shirt, he sought the most beautiful woman in the world, and found her ensconced in her superlative parlour, powdering her nose. Mata was beautiful—there was no denying that—and, what was perhaps equally desirable, she was the last word in Tahitian culture to reach the Paumotus. Though merely the daughter of a local shell sorter afflicted with elephantiasis, she had stayed for more than a month with distant half-caste relatives in Papeete. ”

“ Roo shook his head.
"We will go to Papeete," he said with unusual firmness, "and I will sell to the Chinaman. He is honest."
Mata allowed a low, rippling laugh to escape her. She knew well Roo's opinion of his rival André.
"I was but teasing, my Roo," she said.
"Then we sail on the Miri in three days' time," boomed Roo.
"Three days!" wailed Mata in simulated alarm. "Only three days?"
"That is all, my Mata, and in the meantime no one shall know?"
"Need you ask? And you will take care——"
Roo tapped his belt significantly. A man is prone to such foolishness in the hour of triumph. ”

“ Mata did not answer, but her meaning was none the less clear.
"Little savage!" laughed André, and stroked her hand as it lay on the rail. "Have no fear. Papeete is not the Paumotus. There are gendarmes to protect life and property. Besides, how is he to prove he ever had a pearl?"
"That is so," mused Mata. But she shivered, and André fetched her bedizened wrap from the cabin. ”

“ And the schooner Miri was plowing a phosphorescent furrow through the night.
"But it was so simple, my pearl, that I hardly like to speak of it. They are big, but they are soft, these Paumotan savages. One tap, in fair fight, too, and the thing was done."
Thus André at the ship's rail, with Mata at his side asking a woman's unnecessary questions.
"I do not like it, André," she said. "That man is different to the others. He will not forget." ”

“ The tone was that of one who repeats a set piece. It was a set piece, composed by one of the bewhiskered directors of the Compagnie in Paris. The buyer recited it, according to instructions, not less than five times daily, and had long since ceased to derive amusement from the naïve idea of "taking action" against a grinning, mother-naked savage of the Paumotus.
"It shall be paid," said Roo, still unmoved. "In the meantime, I desire a pareu and a silk shirt."
"Take them, then," snapped the buyer, subsiding hopelessly on to his spine, "but bring us shell." ”

“ It presented possibilities of a chicanery that was second nature to André. He became famous in the Island underworld as a "fence." No matter how a stone had been acquired, André would buy it without question—for less than half its value. Often he would be sitting at cards when one of his runners whispered in his ear, and he would excuse himself to interview some quaking thief or murderer, or both, in the deeper shadows of the beach. It paid. Such people are more tractable than most. ”