on his people. A distinguished-looking man, dignified and
haughty, he was one of half a dozen who were working out taxes by
repairing the roads, and he was one of the few who worked steadily,
saying little and seldom smiling.

CHAPTER XVII

A walk to the Forbidden Place; Hot Tears, the hunchback; the story of
Behold the Servant of the Priest, told by Malicious Gossip in the
cave of Enamoa.

It was a drowsy afternoon, and coming up the jungle trail to my
cabin I saw Le Brunnec, the trader, accompanied by Mouth of God and
Tahiapii, half-sister to Malicious Gossip.

Le Brunnec, a Breton, intelligent, honest, and light-hearted, owned
the store below the governor's palace on the road to Atuona beach.
He lived above it, alone save for a boy who cooked for him, and all
the Marquesans were his friends. He had come this afternoon to take
me for a walk up Atuona valley, and on the main road below my house
Le Moine, Jimmy Kekela, Hot Tears, the hunchback, and Malicious
Gossip awaited us.

We waded the river and found a trail that wandered along it crossed
it now and then and hung in places on the high banks above it. The
trail had been washed by freshets often and was rough and stony,
overhung with trees and vines. Along it, a hundred feet or so from
the river, were houses sparsely scattered in the almost continuous
forest of cocoanut and breadfruit. Oranges and bananas, mangoes and
limes, surrounded the cabins, most of which were built of rough
planks and roofed with iron. Here and there I saw a native house of
straw matting thatched with palm leaves, a sign of a poverty that
could not reach the hideous, but admired, standard of the whites.

Many people sitting on their _paepaes_ called to us, and one woman
pointed to me and said that she wished to take my name and give me
her own. This is their custom with one to whom they are attracted,
but I affected not to understand. I did not want, so early in my
residence in Atuona, to lose a name that had served me well for many
years, and besides, if I took another I would have to abide by
whatever it might be and be known by it. It would be pleasant to be
called "Blue Sky" or "Killer of Sharks," but how about "Drowned in
the Sea" or "Noise Inside"?

"Keep your name to yourself, _mon ami_," said Le Moine. "They expect
much from you if you give them yours. They will give you heaps of
useless presents, but you alone have the right to buy rum."

Following a curve in the s