Front matter (continued 4)

A land crab moved across a strip of sunlight and sidled into his hole, pulling his grotesque little shadow after him; and the children, restless little spirits, splashed and shouted in the shallows of the lagoon, maneuvering fleets of empty beef and salmon tins reminders of the strange beginning of my adventure in solitude.

Chapter VIII tailpiece

CHAPTER IX

The Starry Threshold

The only visible reminder which I have now of my residence on "the island where the souls were eaten" is a pocket notebook of penciled comment, with a dozen pages, blank and fair, at the back—in themselves a reminder of the fragmentary nature of that adventure in solitude, of the blank pages at the close of every chapter of experience, awaiting the final comment which is never set down. It is a small notebook of Chinese manufacture, with a pretty fantasy of flowers woven through the word "Memoranda," and butterflies with wings of gold-and-blue hovering over it, meant to suggest, perhaps, that one's memories, however happy or however seemingly enduring, are as ephemeral as they and must soon fade and die. But I am not willing to accept such a suggestion, to believe that I can ever forget even the most trivial of the events which took place at Rutiaro or at Soul-Eaters' Island. By some peculiar virtue of their own they stand out with the vividness of portions of childhood experience which remains fixed in the memory when other more important happenings have been long forgotten.

The casual reader of the notebook would never guess this from the comment written there. Did he know the length and the nature of my residence at the atoll, he would be surprised, merely, that with so much leisure for observation there should be such poverty of recorded fact. I, myself, am surprised and a little appalled when I think how the weeks slipped by, leaving me nothing to show for them. I became a spendthrift of time. I was under the delusion that my own just share of it had been immeasurably increased, that in some unaccountable way I had fallen heir to a legacy of hours and days which could never be exhausted. The delusion was of gradual growth, like the habit of reverie which fastens itself at last upon the most restless of wanderers among the atolls. In the beginning I was full of business. I remember with what earnestness of purpose I wrote on the first page of the notebook, "Rutiaro: Observations on Life and Character in the Low Archipelago." I had ambitious plans. I meant to go back and forth between my hermitage and the village island, notebook in hand saying, "Eaha tera?" ("What is that?"), "Nafea ia parau Paumotu?" ("How do you say this in Paumotuan?"). And when I had learned the language and had completed my studies of flora and fauna I was to be the Boswell of the atoll, curious, tireless, not to be rebuked by the wind rustling the fronds of the palms nor by the voice of the sea when the wind was low, saying, "Sh-h-h, sh-h-h," on thirty miles of coral reef. But I was rebuked—or so it seemed to me—and now, I fear, the learned monograph is never to be written. A faltering purpose is plainly indicated in the notebook. It becomes apparent in the first observation on "The Life and Character of the Paumotuans," which reads:

Before the starry threshold of Jove's court

My mansion is; where those immortal shapes

Of bright aerial spirits live ensphered

In regions mild, of calm and serene air.

The president of the Polynesian society would say, and rightly, no doubt, that this is not germane to the subject. But at the time I wrote it it was so accurately descriptive of the place where my house stood that it might have been embodied with scarcely the exchange of a word in an exact real-estate announcement of the location of my property. I set it down one evening in early summer, the evening of my first day's residence at Soul-Eaters' Island. The completion of my house had been celebrated with a feast, and toward midnight I was left alone, watching the departure of the last of the villagers, who were returning in their canoes along the ocean side of the atoll. The sea was as calm as I have ever seen it, and as they went homeward, dipping their paddles into the shining tracks of the stars, my guests were singing an old chant. It was one of innumerable verses, telling of an evil earth spirit in the form of a sea bird which was supposed to make its home on the motu, and at the end of each verse the voices of the women rose in the refrain which I could hear long after the canoes had passed from sight:

"Aué! Aué!

Te nehenehe é!"

("Alas! Alas!

How beautiful it is!")

a lament that a spirit so vindictive, so pitiless, should be so fair to outward seeming.

Standing at the starry threshold, listening to the ghostly refrain, I translated its application—its meaning, too—from the bird to the island where, perhaps, I would one day see it in my rambles. I regretted that it was so inaccessible, so remote and hidden from the world, as though that were not more than half the reason for its untarnished beauty. It is a maudlin feeling, that of sadness at the thought of loveliness hidden from appraising eyes; and I am inclined to think that it springs, not so much from an unselfish desire to share it, as from a vulgar longing to say to one's gregarious fellows: "See what I have found! Can you show me anything to equal it in beauty, you dwellers in cities?" Whatever its source in this case, I was glad that it passed quickly. No tears stained my pillow, even though I knew that Rutiaro could never be the goal of Sunday excursionists. But I was not quite easy in mind as I composed myself for sleep. I had made a poor beginning as a diarist. The first entry was fanciful and, furthermore, not my own. What original contribution to truth or beauty could I make as a result of the day's events? Finally I rose, lit my lamp, and wrote, underneath the Comus quotation:

"The Paumotuans are very fond of perfume. This is probably due to the fact that their islands, being scantly provided with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs, they take this means of satisfying their craving for fragrant odors."

Alas! Alas!

How erroneous it was!

that observation. But I thought when I made it that it was based upon a careful enough consideration of the facts. During the afternoon I had distributed some gifts among my guests, chiefly among the children. I had some bolts of ribbon and dress goods, some earrings and bracelets, thinly washed in gold, which I had bought, on credit, of Moy Ling, the Chinaman, and I had been saving them for just such an occasion as the feast at Soul-Eaters' Island. I also had a case of perfume which Moy had been very reluctant to part with—perfume and toilet waters in fancy bottles, with quaint legends printed on the labels—"June Rose," which the makers admitted had "as much body as higher-priced perfumes"; "Wild Violet: Like a faint breath from the forest floor"; "Khiva Bouquet: The Soul of the Exquisite Orient"; etc. This gift was greatly coveted. Pinga immediately took charge of the three bottles I had given his daughters and packed them carefully in a pareu, together with a bottle of bay rum presented to him by virtue of his office as village barber. Rangituki went among her grandchildren scolding and rating, until she had made a similar collection, and in a short time all of the perfume was in the hands of a few of the older people. This seemed to me rather high-handed procedure, but it was not my place to interfere with parental and grandparental authority. And it was as well, perhaps, that the children should be restrained. Otherwise they would have saturated their clothing and their hair, and the atoll would have smelled to heaven or very near it.

I thought no more of the episode until the following Sunday when I went to church at the village. A combined service of Latter Day Saints and the Reformed Church of Latter Day Saints was being held, an amicable arrangement which would have scandalized the white missionaries of those rival denominations. But at Rutiaro Saints and Reformed Saints live together peaceably enough and, being few in numbers, they often join forces for greater effect in the himines. The meeting was held in the Reformed church, a sightly structure built entirely of niau—the braided fronds of coconut palms—and the earthern floor was covered with mats of the same material. At one end of the room there was a raised platform and a deal table which served as a pulpit. The walls lengthwise were built to prop open outward, giving free circulation to the air and charming views of the shaded floor of the island and the blue waters of the lagoon.

The church was full, the men sitting on one side and the women on the other, according to island custom, and the children playing about on the floor between the benches. Many of the older people, too, sat on the floor with their backs to the posts which supported the roof. Interest lagged during the intervals between the singing, and although Huarai was preaching in his usual forceful, denunciatory manner, I found my own thoughts wandering on secular paths. Of a sudden it occurred to me that June Rose should be discernible among the women of the congregation if it had as much body as had been claimed for it. But I could not detect its presence nor did the faintest breath reach me from the forest floor. I was conscious only of the penetrating odor of drying copra which came through the open windows and the not unpleasant smell of coconut oil.

What had become of the perfume, I wondered. On Sunday, if at all, it should have been in evidence, for the women were in white dresses and before coming to church had made their most elaborate toilet of the week. But Huirai was warming to his theme and demanded attention, at least from me, not having heard him preach before. He had removed his coat and was perspiring and exhorting in a way which would have pleased the most devout and gloomy of missionaries. He had a peculiar oratorical manner. His face foretold clearly the birth of an idea. One could read there the first vague impulse in the brain which gave rise to it; see it gathering lucidity, glimmering, like heat lightning on a summer evening, in his cloudy mind, until it was given utterance in a voice of thunder, which rumbled away to silence as the light of creation died out of his eyes. Then he would stand motionless, gazing on vacancy, profoundly unself-conscious, as though he were merely the passionless mouthpiece of some higher power. The abruptness of his outbursts and his ferocious aspect when delivering them were disconcerting; and it was even worse when, at intervals, his eyes met mine. Even though he were in the midst of a sentence he would pause and his face would beam with a radiant smile, in striking contrast to the forbidding scowl of the moment before. Remembering his mission, he would then proceed in his former manner. Without understanding his discourse, one would have said that he was condemning all of his auditors, who had evidently been guilty of the most frightful sins. But this was not the case. His sentences were short and in the periods of silence between them I had time to make a translation.

"Ua taparahi Kaina ia Abela (Cain killed Abel).... Why did he kill him? ... Because he was a bad man, a very bad man—(taata ino roa).... He was jealous of Abel, whom God loved because he willingly brought him gifts from his plantation.... Abel did not keep everything for himself.... He said to God, 'Teie te faraoa na Oe' ('Here is bread for you').... He gave other things, too, many things, and he was glad to give them."

Huirai talked at great length on this theme, the members of the congregation sometimes listening and sometimes conversing among themselves. They had no scruples about interrupting the sermon. While Huirai was awaiting further inspiration hymns were started by the women and taken up at once by the others. Pinga, who sang bass parts, rocked back and forth to the cadence, one hand cupped over his right ear, the better to enjoy the effect of the music. Rangituki, who went to the different churches in turn, because of the himines, had one of her granddaughters in her lap, and while she sang made a careful examination of the child's head, in search of a tiny parasite which favored that nesting place. Nui-Vahine sat with her breast bare, suckling a three-months-old baby. Old men and women and young, even the children, sang. Huirai alone was silent, gazing with moody abstraction over the heads of the congregation as he pondered further the ethical points at issue in the Cain and Abel story.

I had witnessed many scenes like this during the months spent in cruising among the atolls on the Caleb S. Winship—scenes to interest one again and again and to furnish food for a great deal of futile speculation. How important a thing in the lives of these primitive people is this religion of ours which has replaced their old beliefs and superstitions? It would be absurd to say, "how fundamental," for religious faith is of slow growth and it was only yesterday, as time is counted, that the ship Duff, carrying the first missionaries who had ever visited this southern ocean, came to anchor at Tahiti. One of Huirai's remarks called to mind an account I had read of that first meeting between Christian missionaries and the heathen they had come to save. It is to be found in the narrative of the Duff's three years' voyage in the south Pacific, published in 1799, by the London Missionary Society:

Sunday, March 6, 1797.

The morning was pleasant, and with a gentle breeze we had, by seven o'clock, got abreast of the district of Atahooroo, whence we saw several canoes putting off and paddling toward us with great speed; at the same time it fell calm, which, being in their favor, we soon counted seventy-four canoes around us, many of them double ones, containing about twenty persons each. Being so numerous, we endeavored to keep them from crowding on board; but, in spite of all our efforts to prevent it, there were soon not less than one hundred of them dancing and capering like frantic persons about our decks, crying, "Tayo! Tayo!" and a few broken sentences of English were often repeated. They had no weapons of any kind among them; however, to keep them in awe, some of the great guns were ordered to be hoisted out of the hold whilst they, as free from apprehension as the intention of mischief, cheerfully assisted to put them on their carriages. When the first ceremonies were over, we began to view our new friends with an eye of inquiry; their wild, disorderly behavior, strong smell of coconut oil, together with the tricks of the arreoies, lessened the favorable opinion we had formed of them; neither could we see aught of that elegance and beauty in their women for which they have been so greatly celebrated. This at first seemed to depreciate them in the estimation of our brethren; but the cheerfulness, good nature, and generosity of these kind people soon removed the momentary prejudices.... They continued to go about the decks till the transports of their joy gradually subsided, when many of them left us of their own accord.... Those who remained, in number about forty, being brought to order, the brethren proposed having divine service on the quarterdeck. Mr. Cover officiated; he perhaps was the first that ever mentioned with reverence the Saviour's name to these poor heathens. Such hymns were selected as had the most harmonious tunes—first, "O'er the Gloomy Hills of Darkness"; then, "Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow"; and at the conclusion, "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow." ... The whole service lasted about an hour and a quarter.

How clear a picture one has of the scene, described by men whose purity of faith, whose sincerity of belief, were beyond question. But one smiles a little sadly at the thought of their austerity, their total lack of that other divine attribute—a sense of humor. "Tayo! Tayo!" ("Friend! Friend!") the Tahitians cried, and the missionaries, to requite them for their kindly welcome, organized a prayer meeting an hour and a quarter in length, and sang, "O'er the Gloomy Hills of Darkness." It was a prophecy, that song. The Tahitians and others of the Polynesian family have gone far on that road since 1797.

Of course one doesn't blame the missionaries for this; but it seems to me that the chief benefit resulting from the Christianizing process is that it has offset some of the evils resulting from the rest of the civilizing process. This was not the opinion of Tino, supercargo of the Caleb S. Winship, however. I remember a conversation which I had with him on the subject, when Rutiaro itself lay within view, but still far distant. For the sake of argument I had made some willfully disparaging remark about traders, and Tino had taken exception to it.

"You're wrong," he said. "You know as well as I do—or maybe you don't—what these people used to be: cannibals, and not so many years ago at that. I don't suppose you would call it a genteel practice? Well, what stopped it? I'll tell you what stopped it—tinned beef."

That was a new angle of vision to me. I said nothing, but I thought I could detect a hint of a smile in his eyes as he waited for the statement to sink in.

"I have had some fun in my time," he went on, "arguing this out with the missionaries. I say tinned beef and they say the four gospels. Can't be proved either way, of course. But suppose, right now, every trading schooner in the archipelago was to lay a course for Papeete. Suppose not one of them was to go back to the atolls for the next twenty-five years. Leave the people to themselves, as you say, and let them have their missionaries, with the Golden Rule in one hand and the Ten Commandments in the other. What chance would they have of dying a natural death? The missionaries, I mean. About as much chance as I have of getting old Maroaki at Taka Raro to pay me the eight hundred francs he owes me.

"What makes me laugh inside is that the missionaries are so serious about the influence they have had on the natives. I could tell them some things—but what would be the use? They wouldn't believe me. Just before we left Papeete this time I was talking to one of the Protestants. He told me that his Church had two thousand converts in French Oceania, while the Catholics had only around six hundred, I believe it was. I said that I knew how he could get that extra six hundred into his own fold, and probably a good many more if he wanted to. All he had to do was to charter my schooner, load her with Tahiti produce—bananas, mangoes, oranges, breadfruit; he needn't take a single gallon of rum unless he wanted to. Then we would make a tour of the islands, holding church festivals, with refreshments, at every one; and at the end of the cruise I would guarantee that there wouldn't be a Catholic left in all the Paumotus. He didn't take to the plan at all, and of course it did have one weak point—if the Brothers tried the same game they would have just the same success, and nobody could tell from one week to the next which were Protestants and which were Catholics.

"That's about what happened at Taka Raro the last time I was down there. The population is supposed to be divided about half and half between the Latter Day Saints and the Catholics. There are no missionaries living on the island. The head churches in Papeete send their men around when they can to see how things are going with their flocks. That is usually about once a year for each of them. Boats don't often put in at Taka Raro. I've been there only four times in ten years, myself, and the last time I brought down a young fellow from the Protestant crowd. He had been with me the whole cruise, holding services at the islands where I had put in for copra. I hadn't gone to any of them, but at Taka Raro I felt the need of some religion. I had spent the whole day chasing that Maroaki I spoke about. The old rascal has owed me that eight hundred francs since nineteen ten. He is an elder in his church too. The minute he makes out my schooner standing in toward the pass off he goes on important business to the far end of the lagoon. I went after him that day, with my usual luck. He wasn't to be found, and I came back to the village feeling a bit ruffled up.

"It was just time for the meeting, and I decided that I might as well go as to loaf around finding that old hypocrite while my copra was being loaded. The church was packed when I went in. There wasn't a Catholic in the village that evening. All of those who had been Catholics were taking part in the himine and singing the Protestant songs as well as the Latter Day Saints'. No one seemed to pay much attention to the sermon, though. The young missionary didn't understand the language very well, and the preaching was hard for him. But he seemed to feel pretty good about the meeting, and when we left, the next day, he went down to the cabin to write a report of the progress his church had made at Taka Raro. He must have had a lot to say, for he was at it all the morning. He didn't know that we passed the Ata just after we got out of the pass. That made me feel good, for Louis Germaine, her skipper, has been a rival of mine for years, and I had every kilo of dry copra there was on the island. I got the megaphone and was about to yell, 'Good luck to you, Louis!' when I saw that he had a missionary aboard, too—a priest with a knee-length beard and a black cloak; so I only waved my hand and Louis shook his fist and shouted something I couldn't make out. I was going to the westward, stood close inshore, and passed the village from the outside an hour later. The priest hadn't lost any time getting his congregation together. Since there was no copra to be bought, I suppose Louis told him he had to get a move on. There had been another religious landslide. I was sure of that from the singing, which I heard clear enough, the wind being offshore. Great singers these Paumotuans, and it doesn't make very much difference to them whether the song is 'Happy Day' or 'Jerusalem, the Golden.' Of course I didn't say anything to my missionary. As the old saying is, 'What you don't know won't hurt you.'"

This conversation with Tino was running through my mind as I strolled down the village island after the service. Tino, I decided, was prejudiced. His was the typical trader's point of view. I had heard many other incidents which bore him out in his findings, but they came usually from men interested in exploiting the islands commercially. Huirai's exposition of the old biblical story—was that merely the result of a prolonged tinned-beef crusade? Remembering the kind of sacrifice which was discussed, very likely on this very island, in the days of pure heathendom, such a conclusion seemed fantastical. No, one must be fair to the missionaries. Perhaps they were over-zealous at times, oversanguine about the results of their efforts—so were all human beings in whatever line of endeavor; but their accomplishment had been undeniably great. Here were people living orderly, quiet lives. They didn't drink, although in the early days of their contact with civilization—until quite recently, in fact—there had been terrible orgies of intoxication. To overcome that was, in itself, a worthwhile accomplishment on the part of the Church. Only a few weeks before I had met Monsieur Ferlys, the administrator of the Paumotus, at Taenga. "The reign of alcohol is over," he had said to the islanders there—strange words, coming from the lips of a Frenchman. There was to be no more rum nor gin nor wine for any of the Paumotuans. Henceforth, any trader found selling it or any native drinking it was to be severely punished.

I continued my walk to the far end of the island and, selecting a shady spot, sat down to rest. The pressure of a notebook in my hip pocket interrupted my examination of the problem, "The missionary versus the trader as a civilizing influence." I was reminded that I had made no recent observations on the life and character of the Paumotuans, and the recollection was annoying. Was I never to be able to pursue, in indolence, my unprofitable musings? Why this persistent feeling that I must set them down in black and white? Why sully the fair pages of my notebook? Words, words! The world was buried beneath their visible manifestations, and still the interminable clacking of innumerable typewriters, the roar of glutted presses. In the mind's eye I saw magnificent forests being destroyed to feed this depraved appetite for words, which were piled mountain high in libraries; which encumbered all the attics in Christendom. Words, blowing about the streets and littering the parks on Sundays; filling the ash carts on Mondays. "No," I thought, "I will no longer be guilty of adding to the sum of words. I'll not write my learned monograph." But that inner voice, which itself is a creature born of many words—an artificial thing, however insistent its utterance—spoke out loud and clear: "You idler! You waster of your inheritance of energy! You throwback to barbarism—write!"

"But why?" I replied. "Tell me that! Why?"

"Sir, because it is your vocation. And have you no convictions? Your grandfather had them, and your great-grandfather, and those missionaries of the Duff you have been thinking about. Ah! the decay of convictions in this age! The lack of that old sublime belief in something—anything! Now then, I have come down to you through a long line of ancestors, and I don't mean to die through lack of exercise. You may not believe in me, but you've got to obey me. Write!"

I know that I should have no peace until I did, so I drew forth my notebook and, in line with my thoughts of a moment before, wrote, underneath the last observation on perfume: "The sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages among these islands is now prohibited by law. It is strange to find such legislation in territory under French administration. Is the prohibition movement to become world-wide, then? Is the reign of alcohol doomed in all lands?"

Exhausted by the mental effort, but somewhat easier in conscience, I replaced the notebook in my pocket. It was pleasant then to let the mind lie fallow or to occupy it with the reception of mere visual impressions. At length, although I didn't sleep, I was scarcely more animate then the fluted shell lying close by on the beach or the kopapa bushes which formed a green inclosure around my resting place.

Something whirled through the air over my head and fell with a light splash in the water before me. I sat gazing at it without curiosity, hardly moved, so slowly does one come out of the depths of dreamless reverie. Little waves pushed the object gently shoreward until it lay, rolling back and forth in a few inches of clear water. "What!" I shouted. I didn't actually shout—I didn't open my lips; but the shock of astonishment seemed vocal—as loud as a blare of trumpets or a clash of cymbals. Before me lay a prettily fashioned bottle, half filled with sea water, and the label on it read, "Khiva Bouquet: The Soul of the Exquisite Orient." "Impossible!" I thought. "I am three miles from the village and no one lives at this end of the island." Then I heard voices or, better, one voice which I recognized as that of Rangituki. She was talking in a low monotone, her most effective manner when reciting one of her interminable stories of former days. Cautiously I pushed aside the bushes and looked through. Rangituki was sitting about twenty yards away, in the midst of a company of five. Pinga was one of them and Tevai another—both fathers of families and both much concerned, a few days earlier, lest their children should waste the perfume I had given them. Pinga took a pull at a bottle which I identified as belonging to Wild Violet. He made a wry face as he did it, but he took another and then another, before he set it down. The wind was toward me, and as the corks popped—or, more accurately, as stoppers were lifted—I was forced to admit that June Rose had body, impalpable, perhaps, but authentic.

I passed the furtive revelers unnoticed by going along the lagoon beach, keeping under the screen of kopapa bushes. Should I tell Puarei, the chief, of this evasion of the law? I decided that I would not, for he was a stern man and would punish the culprits severely. After all, on an island where there were so few distractions, what was a little perfume among friends?

All of which proves plainly enough, it seems to me, the folly of keeping a notebook; at any rate, the folly of jumping hastily to conclusions.

Or perhaps, more important than this, it gives further light on the vexed question, Does prohibition prohibit?

I find no other observations on Paumotuan life and character, under this date, unless the word, "Mamafaaamu," scribbled on the margin of a leaf, may be regarded as a discouraged hint at one; a suggestion for a commentary on a curious Polynesian relationship, when—and only when—I should have had time to gather all of the available data concerning it. This relationship has to do with the transfer of a child, or children, from the original blood parents to another set known as "feeding-parents." My interest in the practice dates from the moment when I made my first notebook reference to it, and it was aroused in a very casual, leisurely fashion. For this reason it will be best, I think, to tell the story of it in a leisurely way.

Returning to the village from the scene of the perfume orgy, I found the church still occupied, although the service was long over. The benches had been stacked in one corner; the mats shaken out and spread again on the floor, where fifteen or twenty people were reclining at ease or sitting native fashion—some of them talking, some sleeping, some engaged in light tasks such as hat weaving and the fashioning of pearl-shell fish hooks; others in the yet more congenial task of doing nothing at all. It was the practice, on Sunday, for the village to gather at the Reformed church, which they felt at liberty to use for secular as well as for sacred purposes, for it was a native-built structure, with walls and roof of thatch, like those of their own houses. The two other churches were never so used. They were frame buildings, in the European or American style of church architecture, with formal furnishings and windows of colored glass. To have done any sort of work in either of them would have been regarded as a serious offense, certain to be followed by unmistakable evidence of divine displeasure. As Tuina once told me, sores, illness, even death might result as a punishment for such desecration.

I was thinking of this and other primitive reactions to ecclesiastical furniture, and my hand was faltering toward my notebook pocket when Huirai's little daughter, Manava, entered the church, carrying a white cloth which she spread on the pulpit table. She returned a moment later with a tin of sardines, some boiled rice on a kahaia leaf, and a bowl of tea. I was Huirai's guest for the day, and had been anxiously awaiting some evidence that food was on the way; but I had not expected that it would be served in the church. I had not eaten a church dinner since boyhood, and, strangely enough, the memory of some of those early feasts came back to me while Manava was setting the table. As one scene is superimposed upon another on a moving-picture screen, I saw an American village of twenty years ago—a village of board sidewalks and quiet, shaded streets bright with dandelions, taking ghostly form and transparency among the palms of Rutiaro. Two small boys walked briskly along, ringing hand bells, and shouting, "Dinner at the Pres-by-terian church ri-i-i-ight awa-a-a-ay." The G.A.R. band—a fife, two tenor drums, and one bass—played outside the church where the crowd was gathering, and horses, attached to buggies and spring wagons, were pawing the earth around the hitching posts. Then Mrs. MacGregor appeared in the doorway, her kindly face beaming the warmest of welcomes. "Come on in and set down, folks. Everything's all ready." Members of the Ladies' Relief Corps—mothers of large families, used to catering for large appetites—hurried back and forth with platters of roast turkey and chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes of marvelous smoothness and flakiness—with everything in the way of food which that hospitable Middle-Western country provides. I heard the pleasant talk of homely things, smelled the appetizing odors, saw plates replenished again and again. Throughout the length of the tables old-fashioned gravy boats sailed from cover to cover—but I spared myself further contemplation of the scene, further shadowy participation in a feast which cost the affluent but a quarter, and a bell ringer nothing at all. The vision faded, but before it was quite gone I heard a voice saying: "Land sakes! You boys ain't eating a thing! Have some more of these dumplings? What's the matter with your appetities? Ain't you feelin' well?" It seemed a thousand years away, that voice; and no doubt it was, and is, even farther than that.

Church dinners at Rutiaro were not such sumptuous affairs. They were not, in fact, an integral part of the community life. In so far as I know, this was the only one ever held there and was the result of Huirai's peculiar notions of the hospitality due a white man. I told him that I was not accustomed to dining in churches at home, even on Sunday, and, furthermore, that I liked companionship at table. But he was not convinced, and he refused to join me. He and his family had already eaten, he said; so I sat on a box at the pulpit table, partaking of a solitary meal, and got through with it as quickly as possible.

I smiled inwardly at the thought of the inheritance of prestige, granted me without question, at Rutiaro, merely because I was the sole representative there of a so-called superior race. No white wasters had preceded me at the atoll. This was fortunate in a way, for it gave me something to live up to—the ideal Rutiaroan conception of the popaa—white man. Huirai was partly responsible for the fact that it was ideal. His tales of San Francisco—which, to the Paumotuan, means America—had been steadily growing in splendor. He seemed to have forgotten whatever he may have seen there of misery or incompetence or ugliness. All Americans were divinities of a sort. Their energy was superhuman; their accomplishment, as exemplified in ships, trains, buildings, automobiles, moving-picture theaters—beyond all belief unless one had actually seen those things. And the meanest of them lived on a scale of grandeur far surpassing that of the governor of the Paumotus at Fakavava. Yes, I had something to live up to at Rutiaro. The necessity was flattering, to be sure, but it cost some effort and inconvenience to meet it. I didn't dare look as slack as I often felt, both mentally and physically. I could not even sit on the floor, or stretch out at my ease, when in a native house; and I was compelled, when eating, to resume the use of my two-pronged fork and the small tin spoon, although it was much simpler and easier to eat with my fingers as the rest of them did.

Having finished my meal, I took what comfort prestige permitted by placing my box by the wall and leaning back against a post. Takiero, a woman of barbaric beauty, was sitting near by playing, "Conquer the North" on my ocharina. I taught her the air in an unguarded moment and had been regretting it ever since. Hunga, her husband, lay at her side, his strong, fine limbs relaxed in sleep. I would have given all my gratuitous prestige as a popaa to have exchanged legs or shoulders or girth of chest with him. It was at about this time, as I remember it, that my thoughts turned to the subject of feeding-parents. Nui-Vahine was present, still—or again—nursing the three months' old baby. It belonged, as I knew, to Takiero, who appeared to be quite capable of nourishing it herself. Why had she given it to Nui-Vahine? And why had Hunga, the father of the child, consented to this seemingly unnatural gift? The transfer of parenthood had been made a month earlier, since which time Takiero and her husband had shown only a slight, proprietary interest in their offspring. Takiero sometimes dandled it on her knee, as any woman might the child of some one else; but no one would have guessed that she was the mother of it. Nui-Vahine fed, clothed, and bathed it, and her husband, Nui-Tane, was as fond of it as she herself. They kept the child at their house, and between them made as much fuss over it as though it were their own flesh and blood. What could have been the origin of this strange practice of parenthood by proxy? It was a common one throughout eastern Polynesia. I had seen a good many instances of it in the Cook islands, the Marquesas, and the Society group. Here was a subject worthy of an important chapter in the Life and Character monograph, and I decided that I might as well begin my researches at once.

Takiero reluctantly left off her playing and placed herself in a receptive mood. Why, I asked, had she given her child to Nui-Vahine? Her reply was, because Nui-Vahine had asked for it. "But, see here, Takiero," I said, "I should think that you and Hunga would want to keep your own baby. It is none of my business, of course. I ask you only because I would like to get some information on this feeding-parent custom. Can't you feed it yourself? Is that the reason you gave it away?"

I blundered atrociously in asking that question. Without meaning to, I touched her pride as a woman, as a mother. Takiero looked at me for a moment without speaking. Then she tore open her dress and gave me absolute proof—not that I wanted it—of her ability to nurse her own or any other child. Following this, she went over to where Nui-Vahine was sitting, snatched the baby from her arms, and almost smothered it against her body. She fondled it, kissed it, covered it with her magnificent hair. I had never before seen such a display of savage and tender maternal passion.

By that time Nui-Vahine had recovered from her astonishment and came to the defense of her own. Her month of motherhood gave her claims to the child, apparently, and she tried to enforce them physically. Takiero stood her ground, her black eyes flaming and, holding the baby in one arm, pushed Nui-Vahine away with the other. I expected to see hair flying, but, luckily, both women found their tongues at the same moment. They were like—they were, in fact—two superb cats, spitting at each other. The torrent of words did not flow smoothly. It came in hot, short bursts, like salvos of machine-gun fire, and, curiously enough, it was almost pure Paumotuan, not the hybrid Paumotuan-Tahitian commonly used in their temperate speech. It bristled with snarling ng's, with flintlike k's from which fire could be struck in passionate argument. Other women took sides in the quarrel. Had I poked an inquisitive pencil into a wasps' nest the effect could hardly have been more disconcerting. Hunga was awakened by the angry voices and looked on with sleepy perplexity. Nui-Tane grinned reassuringly, as much as to say: "Don't be upset. You know what women are." Finally, Puarei, the chief, who had been an impassive spectator, bellowed out a command for silence. The tumult subsided at once, and the fury of the women with it. Five minutes later everything was as it had been before. Hunga was sleeping and Nui-Tane polishing a pearl-shell fish hook; Nui-Vahine had the baby and Takiero the ocharina. Neither of them showed the least resentment, either toward me or toward each other. In intensity and briefness the gust of passion which swept through the little church was precisely like the squalls of wind and rain which darken the seas of the Low Archipelago in the midst of the hurricane season, which burst almost from a clear sky and then as suddenly melt into pure sunlight again.

When I left the village to return to Soul-Eaters' island Takiero was still playing the old border ballad on my ocharina. It had once been my favorite air for that instrument. I first heard it in northern France on a blustering winter evening when a brigade of English regiments was marching, under heavy shell fire, into one of the greatest battles of the war, to the music of pipes and drums. Humming the air now, although I still feel a tightening of the nerves, a quickening of the pulses, it is not because of the old set of associations. They have been buried forever beneath a newer set. The village at Rutiaro comes into view, and I see Takiero, clutching a baby against her naked breast, standing in the midst of a crowd of turbulent women.

Should there be some other Polynesian scholar who wishes to pursue farther an inquiry into a curious practice of child adoption I would advise extreme caution at an atoll far on the southeasterly fringe of the Low Archipelago.

The place may easily be identified; for he will find there a young woman of barbaric beauty who will be playing "Conquer the North" on an ocharina.

Chapter IX tailpiece

CHAPTER X

Costly Hospitality

For an authentic test of one's capacity for solitude—or better, perhaps, for convincing proof of the lack of it—two conditions are essential: complete isolation—that goes without saying, of course; and the assurance that such isolation will not be broken into. At Soul-Eaters' Island I expected to find both of these conditions fulfilled. My house was four miles from the settlement, but in reality I had no more seclusion there than a hermit whose retreat is within easy walking distance of a summer hotel. Visitors came in canoes, in cutters; and as the pass and the reef on either side of it were a favorite fishing ground many of them came prepared to spend the day, or the night, or both.

It is as well, perhaps, that the event fell out as it did. If life is to keep its fine zest many wished-for experiences must be perpetually unrealized, and we perpetually following our alluring phantoms until we tumble headlong out of existence. Not having been put to the proof, I may still persuade myself that I am a lover of solitude, gifted for the enjoyment of it beyond other men. Meanwhile, at Soul-Eaters' Island, I had a further experience with Moy Ling, the Chinese storekeeper, which convinced me of very definite limitations in another direction.

Some time after I had taken up residence there the village came in a body to the adjacent island on the other side of the pass. During the year they moved in this way from one piece of land to another, collecting the ripe coconuts and making their copra on the spot. The land was not owned in common, but they worked it in common; and as house building was a simple matter, instead of going back and forth from the village, they erected temporary shelters and remained at each island in turn until the work there was finished. They were not unremitting toilers. After an hour or two of copra making in the cool of the early morning they were content to call it a day, and spent the rest of the time at more congenial occupations—swimming, fishing, visiting back and forth, talking forever of the arrival of the last trading schooner and the probable date of arrival of the next one.

During all of this time I kept open house, and since I was indebted to nearly all of my friendly visitors for past hospitalities I felt that it was necessary to make returns. Unfortunately, I had nothing to make returns with, except such supplies of provisions and trade goods as I was able to purchase on credit of Moy Ling. Fish were abundant in the lagoon, and a few minutes of fine sport each day more than supplied my wants; but I knew that fish was not acceptable to palates long accustomed to little else. Furthermore, having accepted, at the time of my arrival at Rutiaro, the role of the generous, affluent popaa, I had to carry it through. As previously related, although I had been left at Rutiaro unexpectedly, the inhabitants took it for granted that I had plenty of money. The possession of wealth in the form of banknotes is regarded there as one of the attributes of a white man, as necessary to his comfort and convenience and as much a part of him as arms and legs. Pride prevented my disillusioning them at first when I was in desperate need of a new wardrobe; but it got me into a devil of a hole with Moy, and I dug myself in more deeply every day.

Having traded upon the native tradition of the mysterious affluence of all white men by opening up a credit account with the Chinaman I had to sustain his confidence in my ability to cancel it at once if I choose; and, feeling inwardly abject, it was all the more necessary to maintain a reassuring front in the face of his growing anxiety. It was growing. I could see that. He never actually dunned me, but I escaped the humiliating experience only by making additional purchases on so vast a scale, according to island standards, that even Moy seemed to be awed, for brief periods, into a stupefied acceptance of the mysteriously affluent myth. I, myself, was awed when I thought of the size of my bill. Trade goods carried across thousands of miles of ocean are more than usually expensive. A one-pound tin of bully beef cost nine francs, and other things were proportionally dear. The worst of it was that Moy's stock of supplies was much larger than I had at first supposed. He had a warehouse adjoining his store which was full of them, and so, with guests making constant demands upon my hospitality, I was forced to buy with the greater abandon as his confidence waned. But I returned from these encounters with a washed-out feeling, regretting that I had ever accepted guile as an ally and longing for relief from a state of affairs which I knew could not continue indefinitely.

Relief came in histrionic, eleventh-hour fashion. Providence saved me when I thought Pride was riding me to a starry fall. One evening I paddled across to the other island for further supplies. Huirai and his family had been staying with me for several days. Fishing was better on my side of the lagoon pass, he said, but I think his real purpose in coming had been to eat my, or, rather, Moy Ling's tinned beef. At any rate, when they returned I had nothing left. It was still fairly early, but no one was abroad in the village street. There was a light in Moy's shop, however, and looking through the open window I saw him sitting at a table with his adding machine before him. He was counting aloud in Chinese, his long, slim fingers playing skilfully over the wooden beads which slid back and forth on the framework with a soft, clicking sound, and as he bent over columns of figures the lamp light filled the hollows of his cheeks and temples with pits of shadow. In repose his face was as expressionless as that of a corpse. I felt my courage going as I looked at it. What chance had I of carrying through successfully this game of beggarman's bluff? How long could I hope to maintain the fiction of affluence before a man wise with the inherited experience of centuries of shopkeeping ancestors? I had a moment of panic, and before I realized what I was doing I had entered the shop and had asked for my bill.

Moy slip-slopped into his back room and returned with a large packet of old newspapers. He was a frugal soul and kept his accounts, as he ordered his life—with an eye to avoiding unnecessary expense. The journals were painted over with Chinese characters—the items of my various purchases. He arranged the lists in order, sat down to his counting machine again, and presently gave me the grand total. The amount was something over four thousand francs.

Thank Heaven for righteous anger! Thank Heaven for anger which is only moderately righteous. I knew that I had bought lavishly, but I had kept a rough estimate of the amount of my purchases, and I also knew that Moy had added at least 10 per cent to his legitimate profit. He had reasoned, no doubt, that a man who bought on mere whim, without asking the price of anything, would settle his obligation as thoughtlessly as he had incurred it. And I would of course. This was necessary if I were to live up to native tradition in the grand style. But when I saw how costly the game had become, and how thoroughly Moy had entered into the spirit of it, too, I felt indignant; and instead of confessing my predicament as I meant to do, I ordered another case of tinned beef and a bag of rice and left the shop without further talk.

This righteous wrath was all very well, but now that I had asked for my bill, I would have to settle it. How was this to be done? If only I had my sea chest which Tino, supercargo of the Caleb S. Winship, had carried away with him when he left me at Rutiaro! My pocketbook was in it, containing all of my money, more than enough to cancel the debt with Moy. I had rather an anxious time during the next few days. I remember entertaining as usual, but in a faint-hearted way; sleeping badly, and between times, walking up and down Soul-Eaters' Island, trying to subdue my pride to the point of confession. Then one afternoon, when I was sitting on the ocean beach, watching the surf piling up on the barrier reef, I became aware of a vessel, hull-down, on the horizon. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was like a far halloo from a world which I had almost forgotten existed. All through the afternoon she beat steadily to windward until at dusk she was about two miles distant, and I saw that she was one of the small schooners, without auxiliary power, which are used by Papeete trading companies for collecting copra at the less profitable atolls.

All the village came over to Soul-Eaters' Island, for the anchorage at this end of the atoll lay just behind it. The schooner was recognized. It was the Potii Ravarava which visited the atoll about once a year. She entered the pass with the turn of the tide, lighting her way by the fire which was burning in a primitive galley, a tin-lined box half filled with sand. I could see her native skipper at the wheel, a couple of sailors preparing to take in sail, and two native women sitting on the poop, with a great pile of luggage behind them. One of these was Tepera, daughter of Puarei, chief of the atoll, who had been sent to the Protestant school at Papeete nearly a year ago. The other was Tuarava, her aunt, with whom she had been living there. The crowd on the beach waited in deep silence while the schooner anchored and the sails were being furled. I remember that I could hear very plainly the far-off rumbling of the surf on the windward side of the atoll and the hissing of frying fish, or whatever it was, a native boy was cooking at the galley fire. Then the small boat was lowered and the women brought ashore with their luggage. Tepera went at once to her father and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly. Not a word was spoken. Tuarava and Poura, her sister, squatted on their heels close by, their arms around each other, moaning in the same softly audible way. The women then went in turn among all their relatives, having their little cry while the rest of the village looked on in sympathetic silence. When they had finished, a fire was lit on the beach and everyone gathered around to hear the news and to examine the schooner's cargo which was being put on shore. More trade goods for Moy Ling, I thought. Remembering my debt, I couldn't summon any great amount of interest in the scene. I was about to return to my house when Huirai came bustling up, carrying my sea chest. "You like this?" he said. What he meant was, "Is this yours?" but for once he misused his English with splendid relevancy. I sat down weakly on the box, holding a letter which he had thrust into my hand. No doubt of it. It was my box, and the letter was addressed to me in Tino's familiar handwriting. It read, in part, as follows:

We have just met the Potii Ravarava here at Hao. She is going to Rutiaro within a few weeks, so I am sending your sea chest by her. Sorry I left you in that God-forsaken hole; but I was tight that evening, and pretty mad at the way you upset my plans with your marble-playing foolishness. Next morning, when I sobered up, I felt like going back for you. But we had a fair wind, and I had my cargo to think of. The price of copra is on the down grade, and I've got to get back to Papeete with mine before the bottom falls out of the market. You said once you wanted to see all you could of life in the Paumotus. Well, I guess you'll have your chance at Rutiaro. If I was you I would come back on the Potii Ravarava. She only carries twenty-seven tons cargo, so she'll probably go direct to Papeete from there. I am also sending you an empty three-gallon demijohn. Fill this with water before you leave, if you come back on the P.R. Miti, her skipper, is a good sailor, but all he knows about navigation you could write on a postage stamp. I met him once about twenty miles south of Fakahina. He was cruising around looking for Angatau, which was seventy miles to the northeast. Well, he can't miss Tahiti if he gets within a hundred miles of it, so you better take a chance and come back with him. But don't forget to carry your own supply of fresh water. Sometimes these little native boats get becalmed, and it's no joke being thirsty at sea.

Yours,

TINO.

P.S.—Miti has a big bunch of letters for you, from your friend Nordhoff. I saw the packet. It looks as though it had been traveling some. Nordhoff, he says, is in Tahiti again. I'll probably see him there and will tell him to wait for you.

Give my regards to all the marble players.

Good old Tino! He did me nothing but good turns. Late that night when the rest of the villagers had crossed the pass I pried open the lid of the chest—having lost the key—and found my belongings just as I had left them—my camera; my binoculars and charts; and, most important of all, in the bottom of the chest, wrapped in a pair of trousers, my pocketbook. I didn't pay Moy until just before the departure of the schooner, and staged the final episode at an hour when his shop was filled with loungers. I came away with his receipted bill, one hundred and twenty francs, and the consciousness of having adequately safeguarded tradition.

We left Rutiaro the following day. I did not realize until the moment of leave-taking how painful the farewells would be. As soon as they were over I went on board, crawled into the little cabin and, despite the cockroaches and copra bugs, remained there until the schooner had left the pass and was well out to sea. After our separation at Papeete, Nordhoff went on to the southwest. He wrote me from an island he called Ahu Ahu, and from there, apparently, he took passage to Rarotonga, the principal island of the Cook group. Long before the discovery of New Zealand Rarotonga was the goal of Polynesian mariners from the north and west—fearless explorers traveling in their double canoes across hundreds of leagues of ocean, guided by sun and stars, some of them arriving at their destination, many others, doubtless, perishing in search of it.

From Samoa—in the early centuries of our era—came the Karika family to reign in Rarotonga down to the present day; and Samoa is believed to have been the principal starting point of the voyagers which peopled the eastern Pacific. In the language of those old-time voyagers, tonga meant south, and they gave that name to the Friendly Islands. Farther to the west and south they came upon the Cook group—in those days, no doubt, the southernmost ends of the earth—and the high island of this group, the faint blot on the horizon which led the canoes to land, they called Rarotonga (Under the South).

Under the South

Woodcut

CHAPTER XI

His Mother's People

The hurricane season ended in a fortnight of calm before the trade came up from the southeast, announcing its arrival with a three days' gale that caught our schooner among the outer islands of the group. It was by no means a great storm, yet the constant fury of the wind, unbroken by lull or gust, and the lines of huge breaking seas running under a cloudless sky impressed me more than anything I have experienced in ships. By day we lived in a world of blue-and-white—pale-blue sky; sea of a dark, angry blue; acres of white foam. To go on deck by night and watch the leaping ridges of salt water rear up to windward—formless, threatening, fringed with wan phosphorescence—was to revise any beliefs one might have had regarding the friendliness of nature.

On the evening of the second day we were laid-to under a rag of foresail, riding the seas obliquely, a few points off the wind. The schooner took them like an eider duck; it was so thick in the cabin that I slid back the hatch and squeezed through into the clean turmoil above. The mood of the Pacific was too impressive for pleasure, but I was glad at least of the fresh air and able to derive a species of awed enjoyment from what went on about me. It may have been fatigue, or carelessness, or inexperience—at any rate, the man at the wheel suddenly allowed the schooner to bear off; she was climbing the slope of a sea at the time—the crest of it caught her weather side with a crash and next instant a rush of solid water swept the decks. Thin and faint as the voices of sea birds above the roaring of the wind, the cries of native passengers drifted back, "Aue! Aue!"; the hatch slid back abruptly; the skipper burst on deck—bristling, gesticulating, clad in a waistcloth—to deliver an address in passionate Mangaian, insulting and only partially audible.

Under the swinging lamp in the cabin I found Tari—our singular and philosophic supercargo, whose calm no ordinary gale could disturb—bending over his books, a bottle and a glass in racks at his elbow. A mat was spread on the floor and on it—huddled under a quilt of bright patchwork—lay Apakura, his young native wife. Her feet were bound in a pareu and the quilt pulled over her head, for the cockroaches were everywhere. I entered my stateroom to lie down. A large cockroach, insolent and richly perfumed, trotted along the springs of the upper berth and halted just above my face. Waves of the hand had no effect on him—I had reasons for not wishing to crush him in his tracks. One of his comrades began a tentative nibbling at my hair—something tickled my foot—I started convulsively. The sudden rolls of the schooner flung me against her side; it was useless to try to sleep. As I sat down beside him, Tari closed his books and motioned me to fill a glass.

A faint noise of shouting came from on deck; the engine-room bell sounded a sudden and peremptory signal. The hatch opened with a gust of spray—the head of the skipper appeared dimly in the swaying light. "Atitu," he shouted; "I'm going to run into the lee and stand off and on till this blows over." The engine started and Tari and I went on deck for a glimpse of the land, looming close and vague in the starlight. Presently, as we took our seats in the cabin, the schooner ceased her violent pitching and began to ride a long, easy swell. Tari rose, stepped to where his wife lay sleeping, picked up the slender bundle in the quilt, and disappeared into his stateroom; next moment he was beside me again, uncorking a fresh bottle of rum.

"She's had a bad time of it," he said, "with a berth on the weather side; she was spilled on the floor half a dozen times before she gave up and came out here. I shouldn't have let her come along—I had my doubts of the weather, but it was a chance to see the relatives she's got scattered through the group. They're constantly visiting one another; blood means a lot down here where they recognize degrees of consanguinity absurdly farfetched to our minds. First cousins are like brothers, second and third cousins considered members of one's immediate family, and so on through the descendants of remote ancestors. When you stop to think of it, this respect for ties of blood—in the isolated communities of Polynesia—rests on a solid base."

I asked him a question concerning the end of these island people—whether they will fade away and disappear, like our own Narragansett and Seminole, without leaving their mark on the supplanting race or whether they will be absorbed gradually, developing in the process of absorption a new type. Tari set down his glass.

"One thing is certain," he replied—"if left to themselves they would soon be extinct. Wherever you go among the islands you will find couple after couple of full-blooded natives—young, strong, wholesome, and childless. No doubt the white man is partially to blame, but, for myself, I believe the race is worn out with isolation and old age. They are justified in their dread of being childless, but an infusion of European blood—however small—works a miracle; you must have noticed this, to me a most striking and significant fact. It is the cross of white and brown that is repopulating the islands to-day; one can venture a glimpse into the future and see the process of absorption complete—the Polynesian is not fated to disappear without leaving a trace behind ... and perhaps it will be more than a trace, for half-caste children cling strongly to the distaff side.

"The question of half-castes is an interesting one, particularly to men like me—but it is a waste of time to struggle against nature; in the end the solution is nearly always the same. Varana's children furnish the best example I have run across—you've never been to Rimarutu, I fancy; it is not often visited nowadays; probably you've never heard of Varana. And yet he was an extraordinary man, his life an almost unique study in extremes. Like everything real, the story has no beginning, unless one were able to trace back the strain that gifted the man with his exceptional temperament; as for an end, that is still working itself out on Rimarutu. It is, in fact, no story at all, but a bit of life itself—unmarked by any dominating situation, haphazard, inconclusive, grimly logical. No one can know the whole of it—-the play of motives, the decisions, the pure chance—but I worked with Varana for years and have patched his story together after a fashion. Now and then, when the mood struck him, he used to speak of himself; sometimes at night when we were working his schooner from island to island; sometimes by day, as we lay smoking under the palms of a remote atoll, while the canoes of the divers dotted the lagoon. On those occasions I had glimpses of a man not to be judged by the standards of everyday life—a man actuated by motives as simple as they were incomprehensible to those about him. His death, if he is dead— But I will speak of that in its place.

"His real name was Warner—a big, blue-eyed man, slow-spoken and a little dreamy in manner, with an immense blond mustache and a serenity nothing could disturb. I never knew him to hesitate in making a decision or to speak unless he had something to say. All decent men liked him, and the natives, who were better able than a white man to fathom his simplicity, took to him from the first. He had been miserably out of place in England—squeezed through Cambridge, which he detested, unhappily married, done out of a fortune by the defaulting brother-in-law whose last debt he paid, and divorced just before he came out here.

"It is often observed that when an Englishman's feelings are hurt he travels, and in this respect Varana was not exceptional. One day, a little more than a generation ago, he stepped off the mail boat at Papeete—a rather typical English tourist, I fancy—dressed in tropical costumes from Bond Street and accompanied by an extraordinary quantity of luggage. At the club he ran across Jackson of the Atoll Trading Company—the old man liked him from the first and they used to spend the evenings together, lingering over their glasses, talking a little in low tones. A fortnight later Varana left as quietly as he had come—outbound in one of Jackson's schooners for a cruise through the Paumotus.

"It was the year of the hurricane at Motutangi. Varana's boat, commanded by a native skipper, had drifted through the group in a desultory way, touching at an island here and there to pick up a few tons of copra or a bit of shell. One can imagine the effect on a newcomer of those early days among the atolls—long sunlit days when gentle breezes filled the sails of the vessel skirting the shores of the lagoons—waters of unearthly peace and loveliness, bordered by leagues of green. And the nights ashore, when the moon rose at the end of a path of rippling silver, and the people gathered before their thatched houses to sing.... It was not long before Varana realized that he had found his anodyne.

"At home he had been a yachtsman of sorts; by the time they reached Motutangi the brown skipper was leaving a good part of the working of the schooner to his guest. They were diving in the lagoon that year at the end of a long rahui on the shell—a sort of closed season, scrupulously respected by the natives; half a dozen schooners were anchored off the village, where every house overflowed with people from the surrounding islands, and by day their canoes blackened the water above the patches of shell.

"The hurricane gave ample warning of its approach—Varana told me as much as that. He had spent the night ashore with a trader, whose old glass rose and fell spasmodically, sinking always a little lower, until it stood at a figure which sent the trader off, white and cursing, to break open a fresh case of gin. None of the divers went out at daybreak; with the other people, they stood in little frightened groups before the houses. The older men were already beginning to hack off the tops of the stout palms in which they planned to roost. By the time Varana came off in a canoe the schooners were double anchored, the wind was shifting uneasily in sharp gusts, and a tremendous surf was thundering on the outer beach. The native skipper, like the people ashore, knew perfectly well what was coming and, like most of his kind, his spirit broke in the face of a large emergency—before the feeling that the forces of nature were about to overwhelm him. Well, I've been through one hurricane—I can't say that I blame him much! Varana found him not exactly in a funk, but in a state of passive resignation, hoping vaguely that his two anchors would let him ride it out inside. The crew was clustered on the after deck, exchanging scared whispers. Varana, who had the instinct of a deep-water sailor, took in the situation at a glance, and next moment he had taken command of the schooner.

"Without a word of protest the men reefed, got sail on her, heaved up one anchor, and cut the other cable. Varana had very little to say about the rest—how he edged out through the pass and managed to claw off just as the cyclone struck Motutangi—but afterward the story went the rounds of every group. All the other schooners in the lagoon, as well as most of the people ashore, were lost. How Varana weathered it, without piling up his vessel on any one of half a dozen atolls, is a sort of miracle.

"A week later, when he had sailed his battered schooner—the only survivor of the disaster at Motutangi—into Papeete harbor, he found himself famous by nightfall, for the native captain gave him entire credit for the achievement. Old Jackson's imagination was touched, or perhaps it was the destruction of so many rival schooners in the shell and copra trade—at any rate, he acted on impulse for once in his life, sent for Varana, and offered him a remarkably good berth with a fat screw attached. But the wanderer only smiled and shook his head—he had had a taste of the outer islands. It shakes one's faith in Providence to realize that most men die without finding the place in life for which they were designed.

"It was old Jackson who told him of Rimarutu—probably during one of their almost silent evenings at the club. It was a mistake—Jackson thought—to believe that a man could shut himself off from the world; the mood would pass in time, but if Varana wished seriously to try it, he would find no better place than Rimarutu. There was some copra to be had and a little shell in the lagoon; the people numbered about two hundred, a quiet, pleasant lot, not given to wandering from their island. Varana had salvaged a few thousand pounds from the wreck of his affairs at home; Jackson helped him pick up a schooner at a bargain and load her with what was needed; there was some difficulty about a crew, but his uncanny gift with the natives got him three men content to follow his fortunes. On the morning when he shook hands with the old man, stepped aboard his boat, and sailed out of the harbor, Varana severed the last tie with the world he had known.

"I could tell you a good deal about his life on the island—I worked with him for nearly ten years. He began by renting a bit of land—for his store and copra shed—from the chief and setting himself to learn the language. The Polynesian is a shrewd judge of character; they saw that this man was just, kindly, fearless, and to be trusted. Those who had traveled a little declared Varana a phenomenon—a white trader who respected women and never lay on his veranda in a stupor, surrounded by empty bottles. He seemed to know instinctively the best way to take these people, with whom, from the very first, he found himself on terms of a mutual understanding. They regarded him with a mixture of liking and respect, not accorded us, perhaps, as often as we are apt to think; he worked with them, he played with them, and finally took a daughter of the island as his wife—yet it was characteristic that he never permitted himself to run barefoot and that even after twenty years of friendship the native entering Varana's house took off his hat. I remember Tupuna as a woman of thirty—tall, robust, and grave, with delicate hands and masses of bright, rippling hair; the years were kind to her—even in middle life she did not lose a certain quiet charm. Make no mistake—they were happily mated, this man, turned out by what Englishmen believe the highest civilization in the world, and the daughter of an island chief whose father had been a savage and an eater of men. She was not spoiled like so many traders' wives; when they had been on the reef she walked home behind, carrying the torches and the fish—but he felt for her an affection deep as it was undemonstrative, a strong attachment, proven at the end in his own extreme and romantic way.

"During the early years of his life on Rimarutu, Varana had enough to do with his store, his occasional trips for supplies, and his work for the betterment of the island people. He found them living on fish and coconuts, depending for all their luxuries on a dwindling production of copra. He showed them how to thin their palms, how to select nuts for new plantings, how to dry their copra with a minimum of effort. The shell in the lagoon was nearly exhausted; he persuaded the chiefs of the two villages to forbid diving for a term of years. After experiments conducted with Tupuna's aid he set the men to catching flying fish, which swarmed in the waters about the island, and taught the women to split them, rub in salt, and dry them on lines in the sun. Rimarutu is high, as atolls go—five or six yards above the sea in spots; he laid out beds of puraka taro, and had pits dug on the high portions of the island, lined the bottoms with rock to keep the taproots from salt water, filled them with humus and topsoil—scraped up in handfuls—and planted breadfruit, mango, and lime, brought from the high islands to the north. At long intervals, when in need of something that only civilization could supply—paint, rigging, or a new set of sails—he went north with a cargo of copra and dried fish and took on a brief charter with Jackson. On these trips he visited scores of islands, and came to know the people of a thousand miles of ocean.

"It was not until his son was born that Varana began to think seriously of money. His daughters had given him no concern; he explained to me once his peculiar philosophy as to their future. Perhaps he was right. With their happiness in mind, he preferred to bring them up as island girls—without education or knowledge of the outside world and no greater prospects than those of their full-blooded playmates—rather than give them the chances of the usual half-caste: half-educated and partially Europeanized, whose most brilliant hope is marriage with a white man of the inferior sort. But the birth of Terii set the father to thinking.

"The child was about ten when I saw him first, a fine strong boy, very fair for a half-caste, with his father's eyes, a high carriage of the head, and skin touched with a faint bloom of the sun. Tupuna was immensely proud of him. I was a youngster then and new to the islands, but I had heard of Varana before Jackson introduced me to him. It was at Jackson's place, on the upper veranda, that he told me how he had leased Fatuhina; some one had spoken of my work. I had operated diving machines? He needed a man familiar with them, for he had leased an atoll with some big shell patches in the lagoon, and machines would be necessary to work the deeper portions. I was doing nothing at the time. I liked what I had heard of Varana, and I liked the man better still. In an hour we had come to an understanding. I worked with him, off and on, from that time until the beginning of the war.

"Without caring in the least for wealth, Varana had set out to make himself rich. Long before I knew him he had decided the question of his son: Terii was to have the same chances that his father had had before nim—was to see both sides and choose for himself.

"Even Varana's friends spoke of his luck; to my mind his success was inevitable. Regarded with an almost superstitious affection by the people of widely scattered groups, he possessed channels of information closed forever to the ordinary man. It was in this way that he learned of the shell in Fatuhina lagoon; perhaps he did not know that the native who approached him, one evening on a distant atoll, to speak casually of the matter and stroll away, had paddled across twelve miles of sea with no other object than to bring the news to Varana. When the Gaviota was beached he was the first to learn of it—that affair alone brought him a neat fortune; and when men had fine pearls to sell they saw him before they went to the Jews. By the time his son was twelve Varana was a rich man.

"I was on Rimarutu when he left to take the boy to England. Tupuna shed a few tears, but there was no scene—she knew he would return. 'I go to take our son to my own land,' he told her; 'there will be six moons before I come.' Five months later I was waiting with the schooner when he stepped off the mail boat. That night, as he lay on a mat on the afterdeck, dressed in a pareu and a pair of slippers, he spoke of England briefly in the midst of our talk on island matters. 'Damned senseless treadmill,' he remarked; 'I can't think how I stood it so many years.' The ordinary man, who had left home under a cloud of misfortune to return twenty years later, after wanderings in distant lands, with a fortune and a beautiful child, would have lingered not without a certain relish. But Varana was different; he grudged every moment spent in civilization and lived only for the day when he would again take the wheel of his schooner and watch the ridges of Tahiti sink beneath the horizon.

"The years passed rapidly and tranquilly on Rimarutu. The days of Varana's activity were over; he was no longer young, though he kept his store and took the schooner out at long intervals for supplies. Then came the outbreak of the war.

"I was in Gallipoli when the letter reached me, written in the native language by Varana's old mate. It told a story fantastically unreal—incredible from the viewpoint of everyday life—and yet to me who knew him, as to the people of his island, the end of Varana seemed a natural thing, in keeping with what had gone before. Tupuna had fallen ill (the old man wrote) and had died suddenly and peacefully, as natives do. Varana stood beside her grave with no great display of grief, returned to his house and spent three days putting his affairs in order. On the fourth day he gave the mate a thick envelope of documents, called together the people of the island and bade each one of them farewell. When he turned to leave they did not disperse; the women had begun to sob—they felt already the desolation of a final parting. It was the hour of sunset, when the trade wind dies away and the lagoon lies like a mirror under an opalescent sky.... I can see in imagination those simple and friendly islanders, standing in little groups before the settlement—raising no voice in protest, moving no hand in restraint—while the man they loved walked to the ocean beach, launched a tiny canoe in the surf, and paddled out to the west. The nearest land in that direction is distant six hundred miles. When he had passed the breakers—they say—Varana did not once turn his head; the watchers stood motionless while the sky faded, their eyes fixed on the dot that was his canoe—a dwindling dot, swallowed up at last in the night."

Tari ceased to speak. He was sitting propped on the lounge, arms folded, legs stretched out, eyes staring at the table. Without seeming aware of what he did, he filled his glass, raised it to his lips, and drank. Presently he emerged from his revery to light a pipe.

"In due time," he went on, "I had word from the lawyers, inclosing a copy of the will and informing me that I had been named executor with old Jackson, who seemed to have discovered the secret of eternal life. There was also a letter from Varana, written after Tupuna's death—a friendly and casual note, with a mere line at the end, asking me to do what I could for his boy. The land Tupuna had brought him was to be divided equally among his daughters; all the rest was for Terii, saving his parting gift to me. Only one condition was attached—Terii must visit Rimarutu before inheriting the property of his father; once he had set foot on the island, he would be his own master, free to choose his path in life.

"The boy was nineteen when the war broke out; he joined up at once as a cadet in the Flying Corps. During the second year I began to hear of Lieutenant Warner—he had shot down a German plane near Zeebrugge; he had been wounded; he had received the Military cross. Once I saw his picture in the Sphere—a handsome lad, very smart in the old uniform of the R.F.C., with a jaunty cap over one eye and ribbons on his breast. This was the little savage whose shrill cries I used to hear at dawn, when he raced with his half-naked companions on the beach! At the end of the war he was Captain Terry Warner, a celebrity in a small way.... I felt a certain pride in him, of course. We had done our best to meet, but something always happened to prevent my getting a glimpse of him.

"I ran across him as I was homeward bound, leaving San Francisco for the islands. I had already gone aboard and was standing by the rail, watching the last of the luggage swing over the side in nets, when a motor drove up to discharge a party of men and women—fashionables of the city, from their looks. One of them, a lean, tanned boy, with the overcoat of a British officer over his civilian clothes, was saying good-by to the others, shaking hands and smiling very attractively. A little later, when the lines were being cast off, I saw him close beside me at the rail. A girl in blue was standing on the dock, waving up at him. 'Good-by, Terry!' she called. I looked closely; there could be no doubt—it was the son of Varana.

"We had long talks on the voyage south; the lad had not forgotten me. The memory of the old life—of the island, of his mother, of his father—would always be fresh in his mind, but he regarded those days as a distant and beautiful episode, now forever closed. He was going to visit Rimarutu for the last time—to bid farewell to those who remembered him. He had not forgotten the friends of his boyhood; there were many little presents in his boxes, and he told me that the schooner—reported sound as on the day of her launching—would be his gift to Varana's old mate. Afterward he would return to San Francisco, where opportunities had been offered him; he had brought letters to America and had been well received.

"The schooner was in port when we arrived. Varana's mate met us on the dock; there were tears in the old man's eyes as he took the boy's hands in his own and murmured in a trembling voice, 'O Terii iti e.' The tourists descending the gangplank looked with interest at the spectacle of Captain Warner, almost embracing an old barefoot kanaka, dressed in dungarees and a faded shirt, wrinkled brown face working with emotion. As Terii shook hands with the crew—some of them boys with whom he had played in childhood—I noticed that a phrase or two of the native came to his lips—twelve years had not been sufficient to blot out all memory of his mother's tongue.

"We had a long passage south, beating against the trade; Varana had installed an engine in the schooner, but time is cheaper than petrol in this part of the world. Terii delighted in handling the boat; there was salt water in his blood; and his father had seen to his training in navigation and the ways of the sea. With each new day I perceived symptoms of a change in the boy. White suits and canvas slippers gave way to pajamas and bare feet; finally the pajamas were replaced by a pareu, taken from the trade-room stock. The summers at home had not been wasted; I used to watch him at the wheel, working the schooner to windward, an eye on the canvas aloft, steering with the easy certain movements of a seaman born. He was in love with the schooner before we had been out a week, and he had reason—Frisco-built for the last of the pelagic sealing, Varana's boat was the fastest thing of her tonnage in the South Seas. More than once in our talks Terii seemed to forget the plans he had confided to me.... She needed a new foresail; the set of this one did not please him; he was going to have her copper renewed in places; she was getting dingy below; the cabin needed a touch of paint. At times, speaking of these things, he stopped short in the midst of a sentence and changed the talk to other subjects. The language came back to him surprisingly; he was able to understand and make himself understood before we raised the palms of Rimarutu.

"The mate took her in through the pass. It was late afternoon, cool and cloudless, with a gentle sea nuzzling at the reef. The island was like the memory of a dream—fresh green palms, snowy beaches, cat's-paws ruffling the lagoon in long, blue streaks—so beautiful that the sight of it made one's heart ache and the breath catch in one's throat. A dozen canoes put out to meet us from the first settlement; there were greetings from friends and relatives—embraces and tears. Terii lay silent, propped on his elbows and staring ahead, as we slipped across the lagoon; the island people spoke in tones so low that I could hear the crisp sound of the schooner's bows parting the landlocked water. The other village lay beyond the beach ahead of us, Varana's village, where Terii had been born—a place of dreams in the mystery of the evening light. It was not difficult to guess at the boy's thoughts—the moment was one of those which make up the memories of a lifetime. Every man has known them—rapture, pain, the enjoyment of supreme beauty, the flavor of exotic and unrepeatable experience; but not every man is permitted to taste such contrasts as this boy had known in twenty-four years of life.... I was a little envious, I think, of the rarity of that poignant home-coming.

"On the first evening, when we had greeted the people of the village, Terii was led away by his old aunt, Tupuna's sister. Just before bedtime I saw them at his mother's grave—a lonely shrine, roofed over in island fashion, where the light of a lamp shone on stunted bushes of frangipani. My eccentricities were not forgotten; they had spread my mat under the palms before Varana's house, and toward midnight Terii came quietly and lay down close by. I was wakeful in a revery, living over the old days with my friend, wondering, with the usual idle and somber doubt, if we were destined to meet again. Low over the palm tops a planet glimmered like a shaded lamp; the Milky Way arched overhead through a sky powdered with fixed stars—remote suns, about which revolve myriads of worlds like ours.... I rebelled at the thought that the strong soul of Varana should be snuffed out. Terii said nothing for a long time; I thought he had dropped off to sleep, but suddenly I heard his voice: 'I have the strangest feeling to-night,' he said, thoughtfully; 'if my father were here I could believe that I had never been away, that everything since I left—England, school, my friends, the war—was no more than a dream. I can't explain to you, but somehow this island seems the most real thing in the world. I've been talking with my aunt—I'd almost forgotten her name, you know—and I managed to understand a good bit of what she had to say.... There is no doubt she believes it herself. My father comes to her every now and then, she says, for a talk on family matters; last night he told her we would come to-day, and that I would stop here to take his old place among the people. It seems they are good enough to want me to stay—I almost wish I could.' ...

"The drums were going at daybreak—the feast in Terii's honor was the greatest the island had known since heathen days. The entire population was on hand; the beach black with canoes; dozens of good-humored babies on mats under the trees, with small brothers and sisters stationed to fan the flies away. The people sat in long rows in the shade, strings of shell about their necks, their heads wreathed in hibiscus and sweet fern. Terii was placed between the chief of the other village and Tehina, the chief's daughter, a full-blooded Rimarutu girl of sixteen, barefoot, dressed in a white frock, with gold pendants in her ears and a thick, shining braid of hair. There is an uncommon charm about the women of that island—a stamp of refinement, a delicacy of frame and feature, remarked as long ago as the days of Spanish voyaging in the Pacific. Blood counts for something in Polynesia, and one needed only a glance at Tehina to know that the best blood of the island flowed in her veins; her ancestor—if tradition may be credited—was in the long canoe with Penipeni when the god pulled Rimarutu up from the bottom of the sea. I like those people, and in spite of the night's depression I managed to enjoy the fun—I even danced a bit! Finally I saw that the dancers were taking their seats; voices were lowered, heads were turned.

"Tehina was dancing alone to the rhythm of a hundred clapping hands. In twenty years of the islands I have never seen a girl step more daintily. Little by little she moved toward Terii until she stood directly before him, inviting him to dance, hands fluttering, swaying with an unconscious grace, smiling into his eyes. Every head turned; there were smiles, good-humored chuckles, nudges; they were proud of this girl and anxious that the son of Varana should dance with her. They had not long to wait. Next moment Terii had leaped to his feet and was dancing, with more enthusiasm than skill, to a long burst of cheers and clapping.

"When the canoes put off at nightfall I noticed that Tehina did not leave; she had stopped to visit her uncle, the parson of the village church. I saw Terii with her often during the days that followed—fishing on the lagoon, swimming in the cove, lying on mats in the moonlight where groups of young people were telling their interminable stories of the past. He seemed a little shy of me, and no longer exchanged confidences in the hour which precedes sleep. One evening, smoking and strolling alone after dinner, I passed the parson's house and became aware of the vague figure of Terii, walking to and fro impatiently beside the veranda. He stopped—I heard the rattle of a coral pebble on the roof. A moment later Tehina glided like a phantom around the corner of the house, and they went off arm in arm along the path to the sea. I thought to myself that the lad was not doing badly after his twelve years away from the island, but the blood was in him, of course—there was instinct in his manner of tossing the pebble and in the unhesitating way he had led the girl toward the outer beach: the haunt of dreadful presences, a place no ordinary islander would visit after dark. I fancied him sitting there—the rumble of the surf in his ears, watching the lines of breakers rear up under the moon—with Tehina beside him, admiring and afraid. When his eye was not on her she would glance right and left along the beach and back toward the bush, half expecting to see some monstrous thing, crouched and watching with fiery eyes. As for the boy, one could only guess at the troubled flow of his thoughts, stirred by cross-currents of ancestry and experience. In her own environment Tehina was a girl to make any man look twice; for him, with his mother's blood and the memories of his childhood, she must have possessed a powerful appeal—the touch of her hand; her voice, soft and low-pitched, murmuring the words of a half-forgotten tongue; her dark eyes shining in the moonlight; the scent of the strange blossoms in her hair. It was the test, the final conflict Varana had foreseen. I had my own opinion of the result, and yet the other life pulled hard.