a
centipede, upon which a bare foot quickly stamped. The chief said
casually, "If he bite you, you no die; you have hell of a time."
They were not natives of the Marquesas originally, he said; they
came in the coal of ships. His patriotism outran his knowledge, for
the first discoverers bitterly berated these poisonous creatures,
though no more warmly than Neo, who drew heavily upon his stock of
English curses to tell his opinion of them.

When the time came for saying _apae kaoha_ my kindly hosts sought to
confer upon me the last proof of their friendliness. They proposed
that I marry Vanquished Often.

My refusal was incomprehensible to them, and Vanquished Often's
happy smile in the moonlight quickly faded to a look of pain and
humiliation. They had offered me their highest and most revered
expression of hospitality. To refuse it was as uncustomary and as
rude as to refuse the Alaskan miner who offers a drink at a public
bar.

"_Menike_," pleaded the chief, "that Hinatini more better marry
white man, friend of Teddy, from number one island. She some punkins
for be good wife. Suppose may be you like Vait-hua you stay long time;
suppose you go soon, make never mind!"

The fair chieftess shook her earrings and smiled archly. "Bonne
filly pooh voo, Menike," she urged in her Marquesan French.
"Good wife for you. It is my pleasure that you are happy. She is
beautiful and good. You will be the son of our people while you are
here."

Vanquished Often, who had a vague notion of the greatness of her
uncle's Menike friends, Teddy and Gotali, and of the desirability of
an alliance with one of their tribe, approached me softly and rubbed
my back in a circle the while she crooned a broken song of the
whaling days, concerning the "rolling Mississippi" and the "Black
Ball line." Seventh Man Who Wallows in the Mire himself began to
make concentric circles on my breast with his heavy hand, so that I
was beset fore and aft by the most tender and friendly advances of
the Marquesan race. Never was hapless guest in more unfortunate
plight.

She was but a child, I said; Americans did not mate with children.
They smiled as at a pleasantry, and again extolled her charms.
Desperately I harked back to the ten commandments in an endeavor to
support my refusal by other reasons than distaste or discourtesy,
but laughter met my text. "White man does not follow white man's
_tapus_," said my hostess, gently placing my hand in that of
Van