ross the lagoon
in the canoe, they would walk around on the inner beaches of Pingelap
and Tugulu. And long ere they came to the house they could see the faint
glimmer of the fire within, beside which Ninia the widow slept awaiting
their return.

Stealing softly in, the girls would lie down together on a soft white
mat embroidered with parrots' feathers that formed their bed, and
pulling another and larger one over them for a coverlet, they would fall
asleep, undisturbed by the loud, hoarse notes of a flock of _katafa_
(frigate birds) that every night settled on the boughs of a great _koa_
tree whose branches overhung the house.

Sometimes when the trade-winds had dropped, and the great ocean rollers
would beat heavily upon the far-off shelves of the outer reef, the
little island would seem to shake and quiver to its very foundations,
and now and then as a huge wave would curl slowly over and break with
a noise like a thunder-peal, the frigate-birds would awake from their
sleep and utter a solemn answering squawk, and the three girls nestling
closer together would whisper--

"'Tis Nanawit, the Cave-god, making another cave."

Ere the red sun shot out from the ocean the eight dwellers on Takai
would rise from their mats; and whilst Ninia the widow would kindle
a fire of broken cocoanut shells, the two men slaves would go out and
bring back young cocoanuts and taro from the plantation on Tugulu, and
their wives would take off their gaily-coloured grass-girdles and tie
coarse nairiris of cocoanut fibre around them instead, and with the
three girls go out to the deep pools on the reef and catch fish.
Sometimes they would surprise a turtle in one of the pools, and, diving
in after the frightened creature, would capture and bring it home in
triumph to Ninia the widow.

Such was the daily life of those who dwelt on Takai.

*****

One day, ere the dews of the night had vanished from the lofty plumes
of the cocoanut palms, there came to them a loud cry, borne across the
waters of the silent lagoon, over from the village--

"A ship! A ship!"

Now not many ships came to Pingelap--perhaps now and then some wandering
sperm-whaler, cruising lazily along toward the distant Pelew Islands,
would heave-to and send a boat ashore to trade for turtle and young
drinking cocoanuts. But it was long since any whaleship had called, and
Ninia the widow, as she looked out seawards for the ship, said to the
girls--

"'Tis not yet the s