Sitting by the fire I resolved to make a first attempt to
discover from Kua-ko anything concerning Rima which might be
known to him. Instead of lying down when the others did, I
remained seated, my guardian also sitting--no doubt waiting for
me to lie down first. Presently I moved nearer to him and began
a conversation in a low voice, anxious not to rouse the attention
of the other men.
"Once you said that Oalava would be given to me for a wife," I
began. "Some day I shall want a wife."
He nodded approval, and remarked sententiously that the desire to
possess a wife was common to all men.
"What has been left to me?" I said despondingly and spreading
out my hands. "My pistol gone, and did I not give Runi the
tinder-box, and the little box with a cock painted on it to you?
I had no return--not even the blow-pipe. How, then, can I get me
a wife?"
He, like the others--dull-witted savage that he was--had come to
the belief that I was incapable of the cunning and duplicity they
practiced. I could not see a green parrot sitting silent and
motionless amidst the green foliage as they could; I had not
their preternatural keenness of sight; and, in like manner, to
deceive with lies and false seeming was their faculty and not
mine.
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