The Jalasco Brig Author:Louis Becke Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: COLLISON'S TREASURE TROVE CHAPTER I. One Collison, a trader, was looking lazily out upon the sea from his store window, smoking his pipe of strong black ' ... more »Barratt's Twist' tobacco, and wondering what he should do to pass the day, when a woman came up the rocky, winding path from the village, and said, " Talofa, Pita, ke malolo /foe?"1 " I am well, mother," he replied good- naturedly, glancing carelessly at the woman (who was a stranger to him) and noting that she was old and toil-worn bycontinuous labour in the taro patches and yam plantations. The remains of a print teputa, or bodice, hung loosely from her wrinkled neck, and partly concealed the upper portion of her figure, and around her waist were many folds of tappa, as old and ragged as the bodice. She was evidently some poor widow or dependant, and had, he thought, no doubt come to beg. And presently, as if to confirm him in his opinion, she looked up timidly and said hesitatingly— 1 Good-day, Peter; are you well 1 " Pita." " Aye, mother. What wouldst thou ?" " I am Monoa, and a stranger to thee, for I live on the itu papa (ironbound coast) and thou hast never before seen me. But thou hast been kind to my son." "Who is thy son, good mother?" said the trader. "Marengo Lima-tasi.1 And now he is sick and like to die, and I am old and poor, 1 Marengo, the One-handed. and come to thee. Wilt give me vaila/akau (medicine) for my son ? " " Aye, willingly," replied the trader sympathisingly, " for Marengo hath been a good son to thee, and 'tis hard that he hath not two hands wherewith to work as other men, for he is strong and of good heart." The old woman smiled, well pleased, and then Collison asked her to describe the nature of her son's illness, and was soon satisfied that the man had taken a ...« less