“Who the devil’s this?” cried I, for the thing startled me.

“It’s Fa’avao,” says Randall; and I saw he had hitched along the floor into the farthest corner.

“You ain’t afraid of her?” I cried.

“Me ’fraid!” cried the captain.  “My dear friend, I defy her!  I don’t let her put her foot in here, only I suppose ’s different to-day, for the marriage. ’s Uma’s mother.”

“Well, suppose it is; what’s she carrying on about?” I asked, more irritated, perhaps more frightened, than I cared to show; and the captain told me she was making up a quantity of poetry in my praise because I was to marry Uma.  “All right, old lady,” says I, with rather a failure of a laugh, “anything to oblige.  But when you’re done with my hand, you might let me know.”

She did as though she understood; the song rose into a cry, and stopped; the woman crouched out of the house the same way that she came in, and must have plunged straight into the bush, for when I followed her to the door she had already vanished.

“These are rum manners,” said I.

“’s a rum crowd,” said the captain, and, to my surprise, he made the sign of the cross on his bare bosom.

“Hillo!” says I, “are you a Papist?”

He repudiated the idea with contempt.  “Hard-shell Baptis’,” said he.  “But, my dear friend, the Papists got some good ideas too; and tha’ ’s one of ’em.  You take my advice, and whenever you come across Uma or Fa’avao or Vigours, or any of that crowd, you take a leaf out o’ the priests, and do what I do.  Savvy?” says he, repeated the sign, and winked his dim eye at me.  “No, sir!” he broke out again, “no Papists here!” and for a long time entertained me with his religious opinions.

I must have been taken with Uma from the first, or I should certainly have fled from that house, and got into the clean air, and the clean sea, or some convenient river — though, it’s true, I was committed to Case; and, besides, I could never have held my head up in that island if I had run from a girl upon my wedding-night.

The sun was down, the sky all on fire, and the lamp had been some time lighted, when Case came back with Uma and the negro.  She was dressed and scented; her kilt was of fine tapa, looking richer in the folds than any silk; her bust, which was of the colour of dark honey, she wore bare only for some half a dozen necklaces of seeds and flowers; and behind her ears and in her hair she had the scarlet flowers of the hibiscus.  She showed the best bearing for a bride conceivable, serious and still; and I thought shame to stand up with her in that mean house and before that grinning negro.  I thought shame, I say; for the mountebank was dressed with a big paper collar, the book he made believe to read from was an odd volume of a novel, and the words of his service not fit to be set down.  My conscience smote me when we joined hands; and when she got her certificate I was tempted to throw up the bargain and confess.  Here is the document.  It was Case that wrote it, signatures and all, in a leaf out of the ledger:-