“He was like a wild bull in the hills, that ship’s captain, when he arose, roaring and cursing me.  I feared that he would shoot me, for he had a revolver in his hand and said that he would kill himself.  But he did not.

“A Marquesan who was as hateful to himself would have eaten the eva, but this man had not the courage, with all his cries.  I swam ashore when he became maddened as a kava drinker who does not eat.  The mother of Atuona, whom I told in Tai-o-hae, went to see him, but he did not know her, and she took the tiki from his cabin when she found him praying to it.  He was paea, his stomach empty of thought.  When the ship left, he was tied with the irons they have for sailors, and the second chief sailed the vessel.”

The Ghost Girl shook the ena-covered maiden.

“Oi vii!” she said petulantly.  “Take in your feet.  Do you want the mako to eat them?  Do you not remember your sister?”

The shark still moved a few fathoms away.

We were now in the open sea, with forty miles to go to the Bay of Traitors.  The boat lay over at an angle, the boom hissed through the water when close-hauled, and when full-winged, its heel bounced and splashed on the surface, as we made our six knots.  There was twice too much weight in the canoe, but these islanders think nothing of loads, and for hours the company sat to windward or on the thwart while we took advantage of every puff of wind that blew.  The six oarsmen took turns in bailing, using a heavy carved wooden scoop, but in the frequent flurries the waves poured over the side.

The island of Fatu-hiva faded behind us, and raised Moho-Tani, the Isle of Barking Dogs, a small, but beautifully regular, islet, like a long emerald.  No soul dwells there.  The Moi-Atiu clan peopled it before a sorcerer dried up the water sources.  A curse is upon it, and while the cocoanuts flourish and all is fair to the eye, it remains a shunned and haunted spot.

Tahuata, that lovely isle of the valley of Vait-hua, rose on our left, with the cape Te hope e te keko, a purple coast miles away, which as the dusk descended grew darker and was lost.  The shadowy silhouettes of the mountains of Hiva-oa projected themselves on the horizon.

Night fell like a wall, and nothing was to be seen but the glow of the pipe that passed as if by spirit hands around our huddled group.  The head of Ghost Girl was on my knees, and among the sons and daughters of cannibals peace enveloped me as at twilight in a grove.  More in tune with the moods of nature, the rhythm of sea and sky, the breath of the salt breeze, than we who have sold our birthright for arts, these savages sat silent for a little while as if the spirit of the hour possessed their souls.