Sister of Anne moved restlessly in her sleep and put her ena-covered feet across my knees, feet as hot as an iron pump-handle on a July noon.

“Hakaia!” exclaimed Ghost Girl, and hung the feet over the side.

“Sharks will let men live to kill women,” Tetuahunahuna resumed.  “There are many proofs of this, but most convincing is a happening that every one in Tai-o-hae and Nuka-hiva knows, because it happened only a few years ago.  I saw that happening.”

I looked at him with attention, and after a few puffs of smoke he continued.

“You may think, you who use the Iron Fingers That Make Words, that the shark does not know the difference between men and women.  I have seen it, and I will tell you honestly.  I have thought often of it, for all who live in Tai-o-hae know that woman, and her foster-sister sits there with the ena upon her.  She does not lie in the cemetery, this girl of whom I speak, nor is her body beside that of her fathers in the ua tupapau.  Her name was Anna, a name for your country, fenua Menike, for her father was captain of a vessel with three masts that came from Newbeddifordimass, a place where all the Menike ships that hunt the whale came from.  Her mother was O Take Oho, of the valley of Hapaa, whose father was eaten by the men of Tai-o-hae in the war with that white captain, Otopotee.

“Ue! Those big ships that hunt the whale come no more.  The paaoa spouts with none to strike him.  Standireili makes the lanterns burn in Menike land, and they send it here in tipoti, the big cans.  The old days are gone.

“The father of Anna saw her first when she was one year old and could barely swim.  He came in his ship from Newbeddifordimass, and he said that it was for the last time, for the whaling was done.  He was a young man, strong and a user of strong words, but he looked with pride on the little Anna, and kept her with her with her mother on his ship for many weeks, while the men of the ship danced with the girls.  He would bathe on the beach in the bay of Tai-o-hae, and the little Anna would swim to him through the deep water.  He gave her a small silver box with a silver chain, for the tiki of Bernadette, on the day that he sailed away.

“He did not come again to Tai-o-hae, nor Atuona, nor Hanavave.  We heard that he traded with Tahiti, and had given up the chase of the paaoa.  I have never been in Tahiti.  They say that it is beautiful and that the people are joyous.  They have all the namu they can drink.  The government is good to them.”  Tetuahunahuna sighed, and looked at my bag, in which was the bottle of rum Grelet had given me.

I poured a drink into the cocoanut-shell Ghost Girl had emptied, and gave it to him. “Kaoha!” he said and, having swallowed the rum, went on.

“When Anna had fourteen years she was mot kanahua, as beautiful as a great pearl.  She was tall for her age as are the daughters of the great.  Her hair was of red and of gold, like that of Titihuti of Autuona.  Her eyes were the color of the mio, the rosewood when freshly cut, and her breasts like the milk-cocoanut husked for drinking.