Read Ebook: Faery Lands of the South Seas by Hall James Norman Nordhoff Charles

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 486 lines and 104170 words, and 10 pages

While we were standing there, listening to the faint music, Crichton took me by the arm. He said nothing, and in a moment withdrew his hand. I was deeply moved by that manifestation of friendliness, an unusual one for him to make. He had some unaccountable defect in his character which kept him aloof from any relationship approaching real intimacy. I believe he was constantly aware of it, that he had made many futile attempts to overcome it. It may have been that which first set him on his wanderings, now happily at an end. It was plain to me the moment we set foot on shore that he would have to seek no farther for asylum. Tanao is one of the undoubted ends of the earth. No one would ever disturb him there. He himself was not so sure of this. Once, I remember, when we were looking at the place on the chart, he spoke of the island of Pitcairn, the old-time refuge of the Bounty mutineers. Before the opening of the Panama Canal it had been as far removed from contact with the outside world as an island could be. Now it lies not far off the route through the Canal to New Zealand and is visited from time to time by the crews of tramp steamers and schooners. Tanao, however, is much farther to the north, and there is very slight possibility that its empty horizons will ever be stained by a smudge of smoke. As for an actual visit, one glance at the reef through the binoculars would convince any skipper of the folly of the attempt.

Even our own crew of natives, skilled at such hazardous work, came to grief in their second passage over it. They had gone out to the schooner for supplies Crichton had ordered--a few sacks of flour, some canned goods, and kerosene oil; in coming back the boat had been swept, broadside, against a ledge of rock. It stuck there, just at the edge of the reef, and the sailors jumped out with the line before the next wave came, capsizing the boat and carrying it inshore, bottom up. All the supplies were swept into deep water by the backwash and lost. There had been a similar accident at the other atoll--flour and rice brought so many thousands of miles having been spoiled within a few yards of their destination. I remember the natives plunging into the water at great risk to themselves to save a few sacks of soggy paste in the hope that a little of the flour in the center might still be dry; and a Chinese storekeeper, to whom it was consigned, standing on the shore, wringing his hands in dumb grief. It was the first time I had ever seen a Chinaman make any display of emotion, and the sight brought home to me a conception of the tragic nature of such accidents to the inhabitants of those distant islands.

Crichton took his own loss calmly, concealing whatever disappointment he may have felt. Ruau was not at all concerned about it, and, while we were making an examination of the house, went out on the lagoon in a canoe and caught more than enough fish for supper. Then we found that all of our matches had been spoiled by sea water, so we could make no fire. Judging by the way Crichton brightened up at his discovery, one would have thought the loss a piece of luck. He set to work at once to make an apparatus for kindling fire, but before it was finished Ruau had the fish cleaned and spread out on a coverlet of green leaves. We ate them raw, dipping them first into a sauce of coconut milk, and for dessert had a salad made of the heart of a tree. I don't remember ever having eaten with heartier appetite, but at the same time I couldn't imagine myself enjoying an unrelieved diet of coconuts and fish for a period of ten years--not for so long as a year, in fact. Crichton, however, was used to it, and Ruau had never known any other except during her three months' stay at Tahiti, where she had eaten strange hot food which had not agreed with her at all, she said.

That is the whole of the story as Crichton translated it for me, although there must have been other details, for Ruau gave her account of it at great length. Her earnestness of manner was very convincing, and left no doubt in my mind of the realness to her of the apparition. As for myself, if I could have seen ghosts anywhere it would have been at Tanao. Late that night, walking alone on the lagoon beach, I found that I was keeping an uneasy watch behind me. The distant thunder of the surf sounded at times like a wild galloping on the hard sand, and the gentle slapping of little waves near by like the lapping tongue of the ghostly dog having its fill of sea water.

We left Tanao with a fair wind the following afternoon, having been delayed in getting away because of the damaged whaleboat, which had to be repaired on shore. Tino, the supercargo, insisted on pushing off at once, the moment the work was finished. Crichton and Ruau were on the other beach at the time, so that I had no opportunity to say good-by; but as we were getting under way I saw him emerge from the deep shadow and stand for a moment, his hand shading his eyes, looking out toward the schooner. I waved, but evidently he didn't see me, for there was no response. Then he turned, walked slowly up the beach, and disappeared among the trees. For three hours I watched the atoll dwindling and blurring until at sunset it was lost to view under the rim of the southern horizon. Looking back across that space of empty ocean, I imagined that I could still see it dropping farther and farther away, down the reverse slope of a smooth curve of water, as though it were vanishing for all time beyond the knowledge and the concern of men.

Before separating at Papeete we had arranged for a rendezvous, but at that time we still possessed American ideas of punctuality and well-ordered travel. Now we know something of the casual movements of trading schooners and have learned to regard the timely arrival of a letter as an event touching on the miraculous--the keeping of a rendezvous, a possibility too remote for consideration. One hears curious tales, in this part of the world, of the outcome of such temporary leave-takings as ours was meant to be--husbands seeking their wives and wives their husbands; families scattered among these fragments of land and striving for many months to reunite.

I witnessed, not long ago, the sequel of one of these unsuccessful quests. A native from a distant group of islands set out for one of the atolls of the Low Archipelago, the home of his sweetheart. Arrangements for the marriage had been made long before, but letters had gone astray, and upon his arrival the young man found that the family of his prospective father-in-law had gone to another atoll for the diving season. With no means of following, he submitted to the inevitable, and married another girl. Months later, the woman of his first choice returned with her second choice of a husband; and the former lovers met, for the young man had not yet been able to return to his own island. Neither made any question of the other's decision--life is too short; and from the native point of view, it is foolish to spend it in wanderings which, at the last, may never fulfill their purpose.

Nevertheless, I shall make a search for Nordhoff--a leisurely search, with some expectation of finding him. Our islands, like those of Mr. Conrad's enchanted Heyst, are bounded by a circle two thousand or more miles across, and it is likely that neither of us will ever succeed in breaking through to the outside world--if, indeed, there is an outside world. I am beginning to doubt this, for the enchantment is at work. As for Nordhoff, his letters, which follow, may speak for themselves.

Eaters of the Lotos

Marooned on Mataora

It was not yet the season of the Trades, and the northeast breeze which followed us brought a sweltering heat, intolerable anywhere but on deck. Worthington was sitting beside me--a lean man, darkly tanned, with very bright blue eyes. His feet were bare; he wore a singlet, trousers of white drill, and a Manihiki hat--beautifully plaited of bleached pandanus leaf--a hat not to be bought with money. The dinner gong sounded.

"I'm not going down," he remarked; "too hot below. I had something to eat at Uturoa. How about you?"

I shook my head--it needed more than a normal appetite to drive one to the dining saloon. Banks of squall cloud, shading from gray to an unwholesome violet, were gathering along the horizon, and the air was so heavy that one inhaled it with an effort.

"It didn't come down with a crash, as one might have expected. When we had pumped about twenty shots into it, and it was not more than fifty yards away, it began to dwindle. The column of water became smaller and drew itself out to nothing; the rushing noise ceased; the hole in the sea disappeared in a lazy eddy; the dark funnel rose and blended with the clouds above.

"Johnson is a good fellow; his answer to my proposition was to change his course at once and slack away for the land twelve miles to leeward. 'You'll have a great time,' he said; 'I wish I were going with you. Old Tari will put you up--I'll give you a word to him. Take along two or three bags of flour and a few presents for the women.'

"At five o'clock we were off the principal village, with canoes all about us and more coming out through the surf. The men were a fine, brawny lot, joking with the crew, and eager for news and small trade. I lowered my box, some flour, tobacco, and a few bolts of calico, into the largest canoe, and said good-by to Johnson.

"After presenting myself to the missionary and the chief I was escorted by a crowd of youngsters to the lagoon side of the island, where Tairi lived, in a spot cooled by the trade wind and pleasantly shaded by coconuts. The old chap was a warm friend of Johnson's and made me welcome; I soon arranged to put up with him during my stay on the island. His house, like all the Mataora houses, was worth a bit of study.

"The floor of Tari's house was of fine white gravel, covered with mats. A bed of mats, a few odds and ends of fishing gear, and a Bible in the Rarotongan language made up the furniture. The old man had been a pearl diver for many years; he knew all the lagoons of this part of the Pacific, and could give the history of every large pearl discovered in these waters. Twenty fathoms he considered an ordinary depth for the naked divers--twenty-five, the limit. One day he went too deep, and since then he had been a cripple with paralyzed legs, dependent for care on the kindly people of his island. He busied himself in carving out models of the ancient Polynesian sailing canoes, beautifully shaped and polished, inlaid with shell, and provided with sails of mother-of-pearl. Now and then he presented a canoe to the captain of a trading schooner visiting the island, and received in return a bag of flour or a few sticks of tobacco.

"I had some interesting yarns with Tari--I speak Rarotongan, and the Mataora language is a good deal the same. They have three extra consonants, by the way--the f, l, and h. What a puzzle these island dialects are!

"Tairi told me a lot about pearl fishing. The people had divided their lagoon into three sections, one of which was fished each year. In this way each section got a two years' rest. The shell is the object of the diving--pearls are a secondary issue. The divers are not much afraid of sharks, but dread the tonu and the big conger eel. Some years before, when Tari was resting in a boat after a spell under water, one of his companions failed to return to the surface. Looking through his water glass, he saw a great tonu lying on the bottom, sixty feet beneath him--the legs of his comrade hanging from its jaws. Fancy the ugly brute, ten feet long and all head, like an overgrown rock cod, with a man in his mouth. Tairi and several others seized their spears and were over the side next moment; they killed the tonu, but too late to save the life of their companion.

"Conger eels grow to enormous size in the pearl lagoons, and the divers keep a close watch for them. They lie in holes and crevices of the coral and dart out their heads to seize a passing fish, or the wrist of a diver stooping and intent on his task. When the conger's jaws close on wrist or ankle, the diver needs a cool head; no amount of struggling will pull the eel from his hole. One must wait quietly, Tairi told me, until the conger relaxes his jaws preparatory to taking a better grip. Then a quick wrench, and one is free.

"On an atoll like Mataora, where the food supply is limited to fish and coconuts, with a chicken or a piece of pork as an occasional treat, fishing plays a large part in the life of the people. The men were all expert fishermen, and used a variety of ingenious methods to catch the different kinds of fish. Tairi, of course, was no longer able to go out; but a friend of his--an old fellow named Tamatoa--used to take me with him. He was a fine specimen--six feet tall, muscular and active as a boy, with clear eyes and thick gray hair. One day he proposed trying for koperu, a small variety of mackerel.

"The settlement is on the lee side of the island, where a coral shoal runs out half a mile to sea, covered with twenty to forty fathoms of water. It was early in the morning--a dead calm--when we launched the big canoe and slipped out through the surf. About a quarter of a mile offshore Tamatoa asked me to hold the canoe stationary while he went about his fishing. Fastening a twenty-foot rope to the thwart, he made a noose at the other end and passed it under his arms. Then he took a ripe coconut, split it, and gouged out the meat with his knife. With the white pulp in one hand, he slipped overboard and swam down as far as the rope would let him. Through my water glass I watched him put pieces of coconut into his mouth and blow out clouds of the finely chewed stuff, which drifted and eddied about him in the gentle current. He seemed to stay under indefinitely--the lungs of a pearl diver are wonderful things! Now and then he came to the surface for a fresh supply of chum, and finally--at first in twos and threes, and then in shoals--the koperu began to appear from the depths. Little by little he enticed them close to the surface, until they swam all about him fearlessly, gobbling the morsels of coconut. At last the old man reached up for his fishing tackle--an eighteen-inch twig, with a bit of doubled sewing cotton and a tiny barbless hook. He baited the hook with a particle of coconut and dangled it under the nose of the nearest koperu. While he hung on the shortened rope, just beneath the surface, his right arm broke water in a series of jerks, and each time it rose a fish tumbled into the canoe until they lay in the bottom by dozens.

"One evening, at a story telling, I heard a shout from the beach and remembered that I had been invited to go after flying fish. A dozen canoes were putting out through the surf, each manned by four paddlers. I made a fourth in the last canoe; we shot out of the opening with a receding wave, paddled desperately through the surf, and a moment later were rocking gently beyond the breakers. The canoes were formed into a rough line; each stern-man lit a torch of coconut leaves bound with bark, and a man forward took his place standing--net in hand. The net is like a shallow landing net, set on a haft of stiff bamboo, and can be handled only after years of unconscious training. My position, paddling amidships, enabled me to watch how the net was managed--one doesn't often see such an exhibition of dexterity and strength. The art consists in clapping the net over the fish just at the moment when he is lying at the surface, hesitating before taking flight; at any instant the netter may see a fish to port, to starboard, or directly ahead. Our man swung his net continually, and each time it passed over the canoe he flipped it upside-down to drop a fish. Think of the muscles needed for this sort of thing; the quickness of eye and hand, where a delicate balance must be maintained, and one is constantly alert to guard one's face against the fish, which whizz past at all angles. Then remember that it is a pretty serious matter to capsize in this torch-lit water, swarming with sharks, where it is imprudent even to trail one's hand overboard.

"After a spell of calm weather, when the breaching surf had ceased to cloud the waters of the lagoon, and the suspended particles of coral sand had settled to the bottom, Ruri offered to show me how to catch tenu--a fine fish, inhabiting the lagoon in ten to twenty fathoms of water--speckled like a trout on a ground of brown and gold, and reaching a weight of twenty pounds.

"The bonito, which they call atu, is the most important of all fish to the people of Mataora. Almost any fine day one could see a fleet of canoes working offshore, busy at bonito catching, surrounded by a cloud of the sea birds which guide one to the schools. They use a pretty lure for this fishing--a sort of jig cut out of mother-of-pearl, equipped with a tuft of red-dyed coconut husk and a barbless hook of shell. Each fisherman carries a stiff bamboo rod and half a dozen of these lures--ranging in color from pale green to black--attached to ten-foot lengths of line. The islanders have discovered that the condition of the water and the variations of light make certain colors more attractive than others at a given time; and when a school is found they try one shade after another till they discover which the bonito prefer. Then the jigs not in use are hooked to a ring at the base of the pole, and the fisherman begins to pull bonito from the water, heaving them out by main strength, without a moment's play. The barbless hook releases itself the moment the fish is in the canoe, and the lure goes overboard without the loss of an instant.

"One day, after a period of low tides, I saw another method of fishing--rarely practised nowadays--an ora, or fish-poisoning picnic. You know the barringtonia, probably--the big tree from which they make their drums; it grows on all the high islands, and sometimes one finds it on the richer atolls. There were a few on Mataora. Ever notice the flower? It is a lovely thing--a tassel of silky cream-colored stamens, shading to old rose at the ends, and tipped with golden beads. The fruit is odd-looking, like a squarish pomegranate, and it has odd properties, for when pounded up and put into shallow water it seems to stupefy the fish.

"I was sitting in the shade beside Tari's house when a boy came through the settlement, blowing melancholy blasts on a conch shell and announcing that the chief wanted everyone to be on hand that afternoon at a certain part of the lagoon, where an ora was to be held. We set out at noon, the women carrying the crushed seeds of the barringtonia in hastily woven baskets of green coconut frond. A crowd from the other settlements was awaiting our arrival; and when the babies had been put to sleep in the shade, with small children stationed beside them to fan away the flies, the fun began. A shallow stretch of lagoon lay before us, half a mile long by a quarter wide, and into this plunged the women and girls, wading and swimming in all directions, trailing behind them their baskets of poison. As time went on, a faint and curious odor began to rise from the water--a smell which reminded me vaguely of potassium cyanide. Soon the spearmen were busy--wild brown figures, naked except for scarlet loin cloths--pursuing the half-stupefied fish among the crevices of the coral. Before the effect of the poison wore off and the reviving fish began to make their escape to deeper water the men were returning to the beach, the strings of hibiscus bark at their belts loaded and dragging.

"On another day I joined a party of young people for a picnic across the lagoon. It was glassy calm; the water was like a mirror in which the palms of the wooded islets were reflected with motionless perfection. The beaches on the far side, invisible on an ordinary day, seemed to rise far out of water in the mirage. We landed on an uninhabited island, hauled up our canoes, and set out on a hunt for coconut crabs.

"They are extraordinary creatures, these crabs, enormous, and delicious to eat. You will not find many on the high islands; but in a place like Mataora there are hundreds of them, and they do a lot of damage to the coconuts. During the day they hide in their holes, deep among the roots of some big trees; at night they come out, climb the palms, nip off the nuts with their powerful claws, descend to the ground, tear off the husks, break open the shells, and devour the meat. To catch them, one can either dig them out or build a fire at the mouth of the hole, which never fails to draw them. Fire simply fascinates the brutes. They must be handled warily, for their claws can grip like a pair of pipe tongs and shear off a man's finger without an effort.

"We lit a fire under the shade of a puka tree and liberated the crabs we had captured. It sounds incredible, but they walked into the fire, and sat down quietly on the embers to roast! One of the boys climbed a palm and brought us some coconuts of a variety called nu mangaro, with an edible husk, sweet and fibrous, like sugar cane. After lunch we had a swim in the deep water close inshore and lay about smoking while the girls wove us wreaths of sweet fern. It was an idyllic sort of a day.

"I spent five months on Mataora. At first, when the schooner did not appear, I was worried and used to fret a little; but as time went on I grew to like the easy-going, dreamy life, and when at last a schooner came to take me off I didn't know whether to be glad or sorry--there were moments when I almost decided to send for a few things and follow the example of old Ruri.

"During those five months I knew more disinterested kindliness than I had supposed existed in the world; my heart warmed to the people of Mataora.

"When I went to the house to get my things together Tari informed me that, as the schooner would not leave till next day, the people were preparing a farewell feast in my honor. It was held in the assembly house of the village, decorated with arches of palm frond, garlands of scented fern, and the scarlet flowers of the hibiscus. Everyone brought a gift for the departing stranger--a fan, a hat, a pearl fishhook, a drinking cup of ornamented coconut shell, a carved paddle of porcupine wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I distributed what little I had to offer, wishing it were a dozen times as much.

"On the beach next morning the people of Mataora gathered for a last handclasp; smile cynically if you will--there were tears shed; I wasn't too happy myself when I heard their plaintive song of farewell floating out across the water."

Worthington ceased speaking and leaned forward to scratch a match. The squall had passed long since; the immense arch of the Milky Way stretched overhead, and low in the south--beyond Hull Island and Rimatara, over the loneliest ocean in the world--the Southern Cross was rising. Lying on mats behind us, a party of Cook-Islanders spoke in soft tones, their faces illuminated fitfully by the glow of their cigarettes. My companion was lighting his pipe, and in the flare of the match I could see that he was smiling to himself.

"Some day," he said, "you will hear that I have closed up my affairs and disappeared. Don't worry when that happens; you'll know I have gone to Mataora--this time to stop for good."

The Land of Ahu Ahu

It was an hour before sunset when we sighted the land--the merest blue irregularity on the horizon, visible from one's perch in the shrouds each time the schooner rose to the crest of a sea. The mellow shout of landfall brought a score of native passengers to their feet; at such a moment one realizes the passionate devotion of the islander to his land. Men sprang into the rigging to gaze ahead with eager exclamations; mothers held up their babies--born on distant plantations--for a first glimpse of Ahu Ahu; seasick old women, emerging from disordered heaps of matting, tottered to the bulwarks with eyes alight. The island had not been visited for six months, and we carried a cargo of extraordinary variety--hardware, bolts of calico, soap, lumber, jewelry, iron roofing, cement, groceries, phonograph records, an unfortunate horse, and several pigs, those inevitable deck-passengers in the island trade. There were scores of cases of bully beef and ship's biscuit--the staple luxuries of modern Polynesia, and, most important of all, six heavy bags of mail.

"They sing well," he said, "these Ahu Ahu people; I like to listen to them. That is a hymn, but a stranger would never suspect it--the music is pure heathen. Look at the torchlights in the village; smell the land breeze--it would tell you you were in the islands if you were set down here blindfold from a place ten thousand miles away. With that singing in one's ears, it is not difficult to fancy oneself in a long canoe, at the end of an old-time voyage, chanting a song of thanksgiving to the gods who have brought us safely home."

"I never thought I'd see the old country again," he said, "but the war changed all that. I got a nasty wound in Gallipoli, you see, and they sent me home to convalesce. The family wasn't meant to know I was hurt, but they saw a bit of a thing in the paper , and there they were at the dock when the transport off-loaded. I hadn't laid eyes on them for fifteen years.... The old governor--by Jove! he was decent. It was all arranged that I should stop in England when the war was over; I thought myself it was a go. When the job was finished, and I'd got a special dispensation to be demobbed at home, I stood it for a fortnight and then gave up....

"Home is all very well for a week or two, but for a steady thing I seem to fit in better down here. What is it that makes a chap stop in the islands? You must have felt it yourself, and yet it is hard to put into words. This sort of thing, perhaps ... the beauty, the sense of remoteness, the vague and agreeable melancholy of these places. Then I like the way the years slip past--the pleasant monotony of life. My friends at home put up with a kind of dullness which would drive me mad; but here, where there is even less to distinguish one day from another, one seems never to grow fretful or impatient of time. One's horizon narrows, of course; I scarcely look at the newspaper any more. If you stop here you will find yourself unconsciously drifting into the native state of mind, readjusting your sense of values until the great events of the world seem far off and unreal, and your interests are limited to your own business, the vital statistics of your island, and the odd kinks of human nature about you. Perhaps this is the way we are meant to live; at any rate, it brings serenity.

"I've been here too long to sentimentalize about the natives--they have their weak points, and plenty of them. Allowing for these, you'll find the Kanakas a good sort to have about--often amusing, always interesting; at once deep, artful, gay, simple, and childish. At bottom they are not very different from ourselves; it is chiefly a matter of environment. Consider any of the traders who came here as boys--old fellows who will buttonhole you and spend hours abusing the people--the truth is that they have become more native than the men they abuse.

"There are places, like Africa, where one can live among a primitive people and absorb nothing from them; their point of view is too alien, their position in the scale of humanity too widely separated from our own. It is different in the islands. If one could discover the truth, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that these people were distant cousins of ours. The scholars--in whose conclusions I haven't much faith--trace them back, along the paths of successive migrations, through Indonesia to northern India or the land of the Cushites. In any case, I believe that the blood we term Caucasian flows in their veins, the legacy of ancestors separated from the parent stock so long ago that mankind had not yet learned the use of iron. And they are old, these island tribes who were discovering new lands in the Pacific in the days when our forefathers wore the horns of bulls upon their heads. Don't judge them in the present, or even in the time of Cook; they were a dying people then, whose decline had begun five or six hundred years before. It seems to me that a race, like an individual, grows old, loses heart, and fades away. On nearly every island they are dying to-day--a tragedy, an inevitable one, which the coming of the European has hastened, but not caused.

"Whether or not it may be accounted for on grounds of a distant kinship, it is impossible to stop long in the islands without absorbing, to a certain extent, the native point of view. Things which seemed rubbish at first slowly acquire significance; one begins to wonder if, after all, there may not be varieties of knowledge lost to us in the complexities of civilization.... I've seen some queer things myself.

"There is another old woman on Ahu Ahu whose yarns are worth hearing. Many years ago a Yankee whaling vessel called at the island, and a Portuguese harpooner, who had had trouble with the captain, deserted and hid himself in the bush. The people had taken a fancy to him and refused to give him up, so finally the captain was obliged to sail away without his man. From all accounts this harpooner must have been a good chap; when he proved that he was no common white waster, the chief gave him a bit of land and a girl of good family for a wife--now the old lady of whom I spoke. I think it was tools he needed, or some sort of gear for a house he was building; at any rate, when another whaler touched he told his wife that he was going on a voyage to earn some money and that he might be gone a year. There was a kind of agreement, current in the Pacific in those days, whereby a whaling captain promised to land a man at the point where he had signed him on.

"What is one to believe? If seeing is believing, then count me a believer, for my own eyes have seen an incredible thing. It was on Aitutaki, in the Cook group. An old chief, the descendant of a very ancient family, lay ill in the village. I had turned in early, as I'd promised to go fishing on the reef when the tide served, an hour after midnight. You know how the spirits of the dead were believed to flee westward, to Hawaiki, and how their voices might be heard at night, calling to one another in the sky, as they drove past, high overhead. Early in the evening, as I lay in bed, a boy came into the next room, panting with excitement. He had been to a plantation in the hills, it seemed, and as he returned, just after dusk, had heard the voices of a shouting multitude passing in the air above him. I was tired and paid little attention to his story, but for some reason I found it impossible to sleep. It was a hot night, very still and sultry, with something in the air that made one's nerves twitch every time a coconut frond dropped in the distance. I was still lying awake when my fishing companions came to get me; a little ahead of time, for, like me, they had been unable to sleep. We would wait on the reef, they suggested, where it was sure to be cool, until the tide was right.

It was late. The singing died away; the lights in the village went out one by one. The passage in the Ahu Ahu reef is a bad place by daylight--the chances were that no canoes would risk it till dawn. Tari struck a match for an instant and lay down on the mat beside his wife. In the little flare of light I saw her sleeping in the unconscious manner of a child.

"What do you think of her," asked the old woman, "now that you have been away these five years?"

"There is no other girl like her," said Tari.

"Since that is so, take her with you; we shall be pleased, all of us--I in particular, who look on you as a son. She is a good girl; she can sew, she can cook, and the young men say that she is beautiful."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet