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She fought like a wild woman of the hills when they held her in jest to make her swallow the rum, but the strong ship men conquered her, and the sound of their laughter and her cries was so great that the captain himself came forward. When he saw her he claimed her as the youngest, as is the custom. "She went with him weeping. When they came to his cabin, we heard her crying aloud to Maria Peato.
The others were listening curiously. Ghost Girl crossed herself and muttered, "Kaoha, Maria Peato!" "When she had fourteen years, then, Anna was different from all other girls on these beaches. All men sighed for her, but she was one who would not follow the custom of our girls since always.
From the time she played naked on the beach she wore the tiki of Bernadette in the silver box given her by her father, and she said the prayers Père Simeon taught her from the book. She wore a blue pareu, and that was strange, for only old people, and few of them, wear any but the red or yellow loin-cloth. But blue, said little Anna, is the color of Maria Peato, mother of Christ."
She climbed the rigging, and the captain ordered two men to go aloft and bring her to him. "Every one came to look, with yells and with songs. The sailors climbed after her, and she went higher and higher, until near the top of that tall mast, taller than the greatest cocoanut-tree in Atuona. There she held to the wood, calling upon Maria Peato. The captain was like a man mad with namu.
"Many young men, Marquesan men and all the white men, and George Washington, the black American, tried to capture Anna, but Père Simeon, the priest, had given her to the blessed Maria Peato, and the Sisters guarded her carefully.
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