and much more in Latin and French. It was the imposing grave of the
Bishop of Uranopolis, vicar-apostolic to the Marquesas, predecessor
to Bishop le Cadre, who had no pride and whom all called plain
Father David.

Suddenly rain poured down upon us, and looking about to find a
shelter we saw a straw penthouse over a new and empty grave lined
with stones. We huddled beneath it, our faces toward the sea, and
while the heavy rain splashed above our heads and water rushed down
the slope, we gazed in silence at the magnificent panorama below.

We were directly above the Bay of Traitors, that arm of the sea
which curved into the little bays of Taka-Uka and Atuona. At one side,
a mere pinnacle through the vapor about his throat, rose the rugged
head of Temetiu, and ranged below him the black fastnesses of the
valleys he commands. In the foreground the cocoas, from the rocky
headlands to the gate of Calvary, stood like an army bearing palms
of victory. In rows and circles, plats and masses, the gray trunks
followed one another from sea to mountain, yielding themselves to
the storm, swaying gently, and by some trick of wind and rain
seeming to march toward the cross-crowned summit.

The flimsy thatch under which we crouched, put up only to keep the
sun from the grave-digger, bent to north and south, and threatened
to wing away. But suddenly the shower ran away in a minute, as if it
had an engagement elsewhere, and the sun shone more brightly in the
rain-washed air.

We continued our search, but uselessly. Hohine and Mupui had
advertisement of their last mortal residence, but not Gauguin. We
found an earring on one little tomb where a mother had laid her child,
and on several those _couronnes des perles_, stiff, ugly wreaths
brought from France, with "Sincere Regrets" in raised beads,
speaking pityfully of the longing of the simple islanders to do
honor to the memory of their loved ones. But the grave of Gauguin,
the great painter, was unmarked. If a board had been placed at its
head when he was buried, it had rotted away, and nothing was left to
indicate where he was lying.

The hibiscus was blood-red on the sunken graves, and cocoanuts
sprouted in the tangled grass. Palms shut out from the half-acre had
dropped their nuts within it, and the soil, rich in the ashes of man,
was endeavoring to bring forth fairer fruit than headstones and iron
crosses. The _pahue_, a lovely, long, creeping vine that wanders on
the beaches to