The Ebbing of the Tide, page 49 by Louis Becke
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then sleep, and while he slept they carried up the things out of the boat and put them in the house beside him.
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"When the sun was high in the heavens, the white man awoke, and my father took his hand and pointed to the boat, and then to the houses across the sea. He bent his head and followed, and they all got into the boat, and hoisted the sail. When the boat came close to the passage of Aleipata, the people ran from out their houses, and stood upon the beach and wondered. And Lauati and Uluvao laughed and sang, and called out: 'Ho, ho, people! we have brought a great gift--a white man from over the sea. Send word quickly to Tuialo that he may return and see this our white man,' and, as the boat touched the sand, the old woman, the sister of Tuialo, came up, and said to Lauati, 'Well hast thou done, O lucky one! Better is this gift of a white man than many turtle.'
"Then she took the stranger to her house, and pigs and fowls were killed, and yams and taro cooked, and a messenger sent to Tuialo to hasten back quickly, and see this gift from the gods. For they were quick to see that in the boat were muskets and powder and bullets, and all the people rejoiced, for they thought that this white man could mend for them many guns that were broken and useless, and help them to fight against the men or Falifa.
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"In two days Tuialo came back, and he made much of the white man, and Uluvao he gave to my father for wife. And for the white man were the softest mats and the best pieces of siapo and he lived for nearly the space of two years in the chief's house. And all this time he worked at making boats and mending the broken guns and muskets, and little by little the words of our tongue came to him, and he learned to tell us many things. Yet at night-time he would always come to my father's house and sit with him and talk, and sometimes Uluvao would make kava for him and my father.
"At about the end of the second year, there came a whaleship, and Tuialo, an