So back he went to Mulifanua. The boat voyage from Apia down the coast inside the reef is not a long one, but the Samoan crew were frightened to have such a man free; so they tied him hand and foot and then lashed him down tightly under the midship thwart with strips of green fau bark. Not that they did so with unnecessary cruelty, but ex-Lieutenant Schwartzkoff, the foreman, was looking on, and then, besides that, this big-boned, light-skinned man was a foreigner, and a Samoan hates a foreigner of his own colour if he is poor and friendless. And then he was an aitu a devil, and could speak neither Samoan, nor Fijian, nor Tokelau, nor yet any English or German....FROM THE BOOKS.

Reproduction of the original: Ridan the Devil and Other Stories by Louis Becke

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Excerpt from Ridan the Devil: And Other Stories But as they talked and sang, and as the boat sailed along the white line of beach fringed with the sway ing palms, Ridan groaned in his agony, and Pulu, the steersman, who was a big Strong man and not a coward like his fellows, took pity on the captive. Let us give him a drink, ' he said; 'he cannot hurt us as he is. Else he may die in the boat and we lose the price Of his passage; for the white men at Mulifanua will not pay us for bringing to them a dead man.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A collection of Australian short stories by Louis Becke.