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Updated: May 18, 2025
"Wak-wak," I had said when she first proposed the expedition, but she had laughed gaily and nodded her head to indicate that there was not the slightest danger, and, shamed into it, we had set forth and made an excellent crossing. On the return trip, midway between the two islands, I was floating lazily, supported by a girdle of inflated dew-fish bladders and towed by Kippy.
"Does Zorn know you've got your tower rigged for suckers?" "You tryin' to call me a cheat or something?" The crowd had fallen back, ringing the two men. Bullet-head glanced around. With a lightning motion, he plucked a knife from somewhere. "That'll be five hundred credits for the equipment," he said. "Nobody calls Kippy a cheat." Retief picked up the broken lever.
"Kippy, my dear," I said, "I think we ought to be going." Sweet soul that she was! that they all were, these beautiful women of ours! Anything we proposed was agreeable to them. As we trooped down the mountain singing, our merry chorus shook the forest glades and literally brought down the cocoanuts.
Kippy was towing me shoreward at a speed which caused the sea to foam about my bladders but the wak-wak still pursued us. A second time my dauntless mate rose to the occasion. With amazing buoyancy she lifted herself to a half-seated position on the surface of the water and poured forth the most astounding imitation of the motherhood cry of the fatu-liva. "Biloo-ow-ow-ow-ow-zing-aaa!"
"She jes' wriggles, same's water into a muddy road downhill," Kippy laughed. "Up there in Little Prairie Bend hit's caved right through the old levee, and they had to loop around. Now they've reveted it." "Reveted?"
Late afternoon of the same day was the hour agreed upon for the Judgment. Baahaabaa had sent invitations by express swimmers to all the near-by islands. He invited the entire archipelago. The picture of their approach was interesting. Kippy haled me to the top of a tall tree whence we watched the convergent argosies, hundreds of tiny specks each bearing an outspread taa-taa of gleaming leaves.
I remonstrated, when I saw Tilaana advancing toward me, fluttering her taa-taa in the same menacing way in which Kippy had attacked the wak-wak. "I beg your pardon," I said. "I was wrong. I apologize." We stood in a circle and chinned each other until peace was restored. The view from the summit was, as authors say, indescribable.
Traprock, if you please, would you mind facin' a-stern." I motioned to Kippy to obey, which she would have done anyway. "An' now," said the Captain, "kindly face forrard." Same business. The flower slowly turned on Kippy's head! Stretching forth a trembling hand, Triplett plucked the blossom from Kippy's hair!
"Help! Help!" I screamed, reverting to English. Suddenly Kippy seized the taa-taa from my nerveless grasp. Half closing it, she swam directly toward the monster into whose widening throat she thrust the sharp-pointed instrument, in, in, until I thought she herself would follow it. And then, as she had intended, the point pierced the wak-wak's tonsil.
As I think now of the value of those milky globes, the size of gooseberries, I marvel that not a thought of covetousness crossed my mind. What were pearls to us? "Catch!" cried Kippy, and threw a fish-skin beauty in my direction. I admired its lustre for an instant and its perfect roundness acquiredfrom the incessant rolling of the tides then carelessly tossed it back.
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