Vaiti of the Islands |
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Common terms and phrases
ain't Alligator Alofi Apia asked Atiu beach began bo'sun boat bush cabin chart cocoanut commander Cook Islands copra coral Coral Bay crew dark daughter dead deck Delgadas devil dinghy Donahue door dress Edward Saxon eyes face Friday Island girl Gray hair half hand Harris head Ikurangi island Kapitani kava King knew Lady Victoria lagoon laughed Liali Lialian light listen Litia looked Mahina Malekula Maori Margaret Macintyre Mata mate mats miles misinari Nalolo native never night Niué once Pacific palms pareo Pita poop pretty princess Ranaar Raratonga reef round sail sailor savvy schooner seemed ship shore side Sona stood strange Sulphur Bay Suva Sybil talk Tanna tell Tempest thing thought told trader trees turned Vaiti took Vaka village walked watching wild wind witch-doctor woman wonder yacht young
Popular passages
Page 247 - And though you be done to the death, what then? If you battled the best you could. If you played your part in the world of men. Why, the Critic will call it good. Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce. And whether he's slow or spry. It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts. But only how did you die?
Page 254 - These two people were among thousands providing a "PILLAR OF CLOUD by day and a PILLAR OF FIRE by night so people could escape the vile ordeal of slavery.
Page 141 - s somethin', 'ere's a reef, marked PD and it is PD,' says she, 'for you and I knows there's nothin' there,' she says. 'But we'll look a bit more to the north 'ard,' she says, 'where it's right off the track of ships, and maybe we'll find somethin' and maybe we won't,
Page 141 - Admiralty surveys is n't the for-ever-'n'-everAmendead certainties the little brass-bound orficers thinks them, still, they don't leave whole islands out on the loose without a collar and a name round their necks, so to say. 'So,' says she, 'let me work out the length of time they ran before the hurricane,' says she, 'and the d'rection of the wind, which the old boy remembered right enough,' says she, 'and then look it up on the chart, and I'll be blowed,' says she, 'if you don't find somethin' for...
Page 149 - What'd she give you?" asked Harris, eagerly, as the boatswain stepped across the gang-plank on the quay. The lights of San Francisco were blazing all about; the cars roared past; there was a piano-organ jangling joyously at the corner. "Fifty dollars for the two of us," said Gray, his acid face sweetened with unwonted smiles. " Crikey! Honest men is riz in the market at last. What in h can she have got herself?
Page 131 - An!" he called to a Fijian woman who was sleeping on the mats at the "kaisi" end of the house. "Go and hurry the girls with the supper, and make tea for the marama (lady). Quick!
Page 138 - There was a young lieutenant of Hussars — a Pole — you don't know what that is, but the Russians don't like them, I can tell you — a noble, but a very small one; not fit to black Junia 's boots, according to their notions.
Page 130 - Where's your daughter?" he asked. "Coming. She stopped to tidy up at the river." The doorway was darkened at that moment by Vaiti herself, balancing lightly up the cocoanut log to the threshold. She wore a white tunic over a scarlet "pareo;" her wavy curls, sparkling with the water of the stream, fell loose upon her shoulders; her lips were as red as the freshly plucked pomegranate blossom behind her ear. Something like life stirred in the boot-button eyes of the White Man of Nalolo, as he looked...
Page 136 - It was dirty and discolored, hut he did not think so small and heavy an object could have been washed up on the shore from a wreck. Where mystery is in the air, most men's minds turn naturally to thoughts of hidden treasure, and the White Man of Nalolo had ever since cherished a hope that there was treasure on the island. For...
Page 148 - ... sunken. Everywhere, silence, emptiness, decay. There needed no explanation of the vanished pathway. The Maori blood owns strange instincts. Again, Vaiti knew what she was going to see, before it came — knew, and walked straight over to a certain corner of the enclosure, as if she had been there before. . . . It was under a scarlet-flowered...