floor and idly watching her little foot tracing circles on the rich matting.
“This is what, Melita,” commenced the German, placing his cheroot in a nearby ash tray and dropping to the divan beside her, one of his fat hands covering hers. “I have come here to take your sister away, marry her if you like. I want her, and I’ve got to have her. See if you can’t persuade her.… By the way, I’ve a present for you here!”
He dived into a side pocket, and brought forth a flat velvet case. Touching the catch he showed the woman the little rope of black pearls that reposed on their satin bed.
“For me?”
The German nodded and his piggy eyes narrowed a trifle.
“Collected by myself. Took five years to match. Worth a few dollars, eh?” he chuckled; and then taking them from her hand he fastened them round her throat.
She permitted him to kiss her once, and then she pushed him away. She did not care for Steinberger’s embraces—for any man’s embraces for that matter. Considering the fire she played with she got along very well without being burnt. Her beauty was such as to rather awe men.
“My sister?” she observed, as she patted the pearls into place. “Is she willing to marry you? Would my pleading make any difference?”
“She has a lover amongst her own people,” growled the man savagely. “Some flashy young buck working on a plantation near Apia, I fancy. I’ll break his neck if I ever catch him. Last time I offered to take her away from this she refused.”
“Of course,” observed Melita dryly, and reaching over to one side she struck a little gong. Almost instantly a girl appeared from the room they had just left. It was evident to Steinberger that the girl had been stationed outside the closed door. Melita always took precautions. She turned to the waiting man.
“Tia Kua, you say, Wilhelm?”
“Tia Kua,” he muttered savagely; and, rising to his feet, picked up the smouldering cheroot from the ash tray and puffed it to life again. Melita gave a message to the waiting girl, who disappeared through some heavy curtains to one side of the room. Melita sank back on the divan, and eyed the flushed face of the man as he paced impatiently up and down.
“You are fond of women, Wilhelm,” she murmured, after a while. The man came to an abrupt halt, sensing the contempt in her tone. He scowled and chewed on his cheroot before replying.
“What I want I get. If I take a fancy to a girl I’m not afraid to pay. You know that!”—with a meaning glance at the necklace that hung from her throat. Melita made a little grimace behind her fan, and her laugh was very soft.
“You have not got me, Wilhelm.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. He even laughed a trifle curtly.
“It is because I do not want you, yet. Some day I may come for you, instead of your sister.”
The half-caste’s eyes flashed in sudden anger, but she made no reply. The callous certitude of the man disgusted her. But he was one of the hotel’s best customers, and it would not do to check him. It was rather amusing, anyway, to hear him wallowing in his own conceit.
The heavy curtains rustled, and a girl stepped into the room, a girl over whom, had she been white, artists would have raved and sculptors sworn away their souls. She was not very tall, but her slender form was perfect, as was every little feature. She was dressed differently than the rest of the hotel girls, in a sort of yellow silk sarong, caught under the left armpit by a large silver brooch. Her tiny feet were bare, flickering to view under the sarong’s hem as she walked.
Her hair was strongly scented and adorned with flowers. The only thing to mar her was the faint blue tattooing that ran from the finger tips to the wrists, and from the soft breasts upward to the base of the throat, but barely visible against the golden-brown skin. Tia Kua was a full-blooded native girl, dark, passionate, lithe and young. Soon, in six or seven years, she would begin to wither and fade. But at the moment she was in the full glory of her seventeen years, a treasure of her sex. Though Melita was her half-sister—they both claimed the same mother—the difference between them was greater and deeper than mere lightness of color.
Steinberger went to meet the girl eagerly, his fat hands trembling and outstretched, a leer distorting his somewhat stubby features. Coolly the girl evaded him and approached Melita. For a moment the two women spoke together in the native tongue, Melita questioning and the other replying and shaking her head. Then the half-caste turned to the waiting German.
“No good, Wilhelm. She does not want you even if you marry her in the white man fashion. She is to be married to her lover the week after next, and they are both returning to their own country. Too bad. But you have a dozen prettier girls on your own island. Why bother about Tia Kua?”
The German swore harshly. He had conceived for the native girl, during his frequent visits to the hotel, one of those inexplicable passions that sometimes sweep men to the oblivion of everything else. As Melita said, there were many prettier native girls who would be only too glad of the chance to marry Steinberger. But perhaps that is why he did not want them, and did want the unobtainable. He continued to swear.
“So she refuses, eh? I’ll take her, anyway!”
“Don’t get angry, Wilhelm. This is apparently one of the things you don’t get. Take your beating with good grace,” laughed Melita, with a touch of mockery in her tone.
With a snort Steinberger turned to the girl and commenced offering her bribes. The gifts he promised would have turned the head of any girl—would have turned the head of Tia Kua under ordinary circumstances. But just then she was in love with a pair of languorous dark eyes and a broad-shouldered, muscular body that worked on the plantations outside Apia. She shook her head repeatedly. Steinberger ended up by cursing her in German and English and bêche-de-mer, until Melita interfered with a flash of spirit.
“Get out!” she snapped. “If you can’t speak decently here, get out! And you’d better stay out. This is not your poop deck!”
With a snarl the German turned to go, but a sudden thought struck him. His eyes sought the black pearls dangling from Melita’s throat, and he held out his hand meaningly. Calmly Melita unsnapped the little gold clasp, and placed the trinket in the fat hand waiting to receive it.
“So,” she sneered, and her voice cut like a whip, “that was a bribe. You must be mad over Tia Kua. Women will be your death, Wilhelm.”
Swearing beneath his breath the German stamped out of the room, and getting his cap made his way down the Point path to the beach, while the assembled schooner captains and mates in the big room nodded to one another and smiled significantly.
CHAPTER III
THE MAN-HUNTER
The next morning Tia Kua was missing from the hotel, and Steinberger’s brig was missing from the anchorage. He had come out of Apia the previous day, and was bound for some unknown destination. Not one of the schooner captains could or would say where.
A grinning Samoan delivered a note at the hotel about two hours after dawn. With quick, nervous fingers Melita ripped open the envelope, and drew out the single sheet of paper it contained, a leaf from a notebook. In Steinberger’s sprawling hand was written:
“What I want I get! This time your sister; next time you!”
Melita’s face went white with passion. There were still four men in the big room who had not yet rejoined their ships, and she read the note to them. They laughed uproariously, until their eyes were wet and their sides ached. That was Steinberger’s way, they explained.
Melita eyed them with disgust. Had it been a white woman who had been abducted she knew that the captains would in all probability have hastened into Apia to inform the authorities. But a native woman! A common native woman! Why, such could be picked up off a thousand and one islands all over the Pacific, and the majority of them were only too anxious to become associated with one of the all-powerful white men. Most likely the