or ruler. Tiha and
Wiwau, the two women, were squat and stout and young, and had long been a
scandal because of their incessant quarrelling. Bashti had set them a
race to run. But such a race. It was side-splitting. Men, women, and
children, beholding, howled with delight. Even elderly matrons and
greybeards with a foot in the grave screeched and shrilled their joy in
the spectacle.

The half-mile course lay the length of the village, through its heart,
from the beach where the _Arangi_ had been burned to the beach at the
other end of the sea-wall. It had to be covered once in each direction
by Tiha and Wiwau, in each case one of them urging speed on the other and
the other desiring speed that was unattainable.

Only the mind of Bashti could have devised the show. First, two round
coral stones, weighing fully forty pounds each, were placed in Tiha's
arms. She was compelled to clasp them tightly against her sides in order
that they might not roll to the ground. Behind her, Bashti placed Wiwau,
who was armed with a bristle of bamboo splints mounted on a light long
shaft of bamboo. The splints were sharp as needles, being indeed the
needles used in tattooing, and on the end of the pole they were intended
to be applied to Tiha's back in the same way that men apply ox-goads to
oxen. No serious damage, but much pain, could be inflicted, which was
just what Bashti had intended.

Wiwau prodded with the goad, and Tiha stumbled and wabbled in gymnastic
efforts to make speed. Since, when the farther beach had been reached,
the positions would be reversed and Wiwau would carry the stones back
while Tiha prodded, and since Wiwau knew that for what she gave Tiha
would then try to give more, Wiwau exerted herself to give the utmost
while yet she could. The perspiration ran down both their faces. Each
had her partisans in the crowd, who encouraged and heaped ridicule with
every prod.

Ludicrous as it was, behind it lay iron savage law. The two stones were
to be carried the entire course. The woman who prodded must do so with
conviction and dispatch. The woman who was prodded must not lose her
temper and fight her tormentor. As they had been duly forewarned by
Bashti, the penalty for infraction of the rules he had laid down was
staking out on the reef at low tide to be eaten by the fish-sharks.

As the contestants came opposite where Bashti and Aora his prime minister
stood, they redoubled their efforts, Wiwau go