They do not bury their dead, but swing them up in a sort of hammock, abundantly supplied with provisions.  It is supposed that this is done with a view to enable the souls of the departed to take their flight more readily to heaven.  The practice, consequently, seems to indicate that the natives possess a confused idea of a future state.  When a child dies, flowers are placed in the hammock along with the provisions—­a touch of the nature common to us all.  They express deep grief by inflicting wounds upon their faces with a shark’s tooth; and, when they feel themselves in danger of dying, they cut off a joint of the little finger to appease the anger of the Divinity.  There was scarcely one of the adult islanders who was not mutilated in this way.

Though the worshippers of the great Rono appeared gentle and peaceable enough, there were to be seen here and there a human jaw-bone, seemingly fresh, with the teeth entire, suspended over the entrances to the huts.  These ghastly objects sent a shudder quivering through Jack’s frame, and made Willis aware that it would not be advisable rashly to throw off his sacred character.

As it was now late, and as they knew that Fritz would be uneasy about them, they put off laying in their stock of water till next day.  Jack told the prime minister that the great Rono would be prepared to receive their majesties whenever they chose to visit him.  This done, Willis and his companion seated themselves in the canoe, and rowed out to the pinnace.

“God be thanked, you have returned in safety!” cried Fritz; “I never was so uneasy in the whole course of my life.”

“Well, brother, we have not been without our anxieties as well, and had we not happened to have had a divinity amongst us, we might not have come off scathless.”

Jack then related their adventures, which gradually brought a smile to the pale lips of Fritz.

“But the water?” inquired Fritz, after he had heard the story.

“Oh, water; they offered us something to drink on shore that will prevent us being thirsty for a month to come, but we shall see to that to-morrow.”

Towards dark, some fireworks were discharged on board the pinnace, by way of demonstrating that Willis’s pipe was not the only fiery terror the great Rono had at his command.

Early next morning a flotilla of canoes were observed rounding one of the points that formed the bay.  The one in advance was larger than the others, and was evidently the trunk of a large tree hollowed out.  Jack’s new friend, the Portuguese, hailed the pinnace, and announced the King and Queen of Hawai, who thereupon scrambled into the pinnace.  His majesty King Toubowrai had probably felt it incumbent upon himself to do honor to the illustrious Rono, for he wore an old uniform coat, very likely the produce of a wreck, through the sleeves of which the angular knobs of his copper-colored elbows projected.  He did not seem very much at his ease in this garment, which contrasted oddly with the tight-fitting tattooed skin that served him for pantaloons.