Ladebat led the van, armed with a fowling-piece.  Halley himself walked at the head of the middle column, a youthful, debonair Frenchman, carrying only a cane, which he swung jauntily as he followed the jungle trail.  When the soldiers arrived at a few feet from the main body of the natives, Iotete advanced and cried out, “Tapu!”

Ladebat instantly fired his shot-gun at the chief, and instantly two balls from native guns pierced his brain.

“Halley,” runs the old chronicle, “advanced from the shelter of a cocoanut-tree to give orders to his men, but fell on his knees as if in prayer, embracing the tree, three paces from the corpse of Ladebat.  Five of his men dropped mortally wounded beside him.  Third Officer Laferriere had the retreat sounded.”

Here, but a few feet from the spot where the gay young Frenchman fell, the jungle had covered his tomb.  Fifty thousand Marquesans have died to bring peace to the soul of that corvette commander who so jauntily flourished his cane in the faces of the wondering savages.  Iotete would better have endured the pranks of brutal sea-adventurers, perhaps.  This mausoleum was the seal of French occupancy.

Farther down the hill we came upon the first church built in the Marquesas.  It was a small wooden edifice bearing a weatherbeaten sign in French, “The Church of the Mother of God.”  Above the shattered doors were two carven hearts, a red dagger through one and a red flame issuing from the other.  A black cross was fixed above these symbols, which Vanquished Often and Exploding Eggs regarded with respect.  To the Marquesan these are all tiki, or charms, which have superseded their own.

Beside the decaying church stood a refectory far gone in ruin, that once had housed a dozen friars.  Breadfruit-, mango- and orange-trees grew in the tangled tall grass, and the garden where the priests had read their breviaries was a wilderness of tiger-lilies.  Among them we found empty bottles of a “Medical Discovery,” a patent medicine dispensed from Boston, favored in these islands where liquor is tabooed by government.

Seventh Man, coming up the trail to meet us, found us looking at them.  He lifted one and sniffed it regretfully.

“Prenty strong,” he said.  “Make drunkee.  Call him Kennedee.  He cost much.  Drinkee two piece you sick three day.”  He smiled reminiscently, and once more I thought of that day when the unfortunate gendarme had surprised the orgiasts in the forest and lost his nose.  The chief accompanied us down the trail.

“My brother of grandfather have first gun in Marquesas,” he said with meaning when I spoke of the days of Halley.  “One chief Iotete have prenty trouble Menike whaleman.  He send for French admiral help him.  Captiane Halley come with sailor.  Frenchman he never go ’way.”  Again his teeth gleamed in a smile.  “My brother of grandfather have gun long time in hills,” he added cryptically.