ternly. "Kahuiti, is it not
good that the eating of men is stopped?"

The majestic chief looked at me, his deep brown eyes looking
child-like in their band of blue ink. For ten seconds he stared at
me fixedly, and then smiled uncertainly, as may have Peter the
fisherman when he was chided for cutting off the ear of one of
Judas' soldiers. He was of the old order, and the new had left him
unchanged. He did not reply to my question, but sipped his bowl of
_kava_.

CHAPTER XXI

The crime of Huahine for love of Weaver of Mats; story of Tahia's
white man who was eaten; the disaster that befell Honi, the white
man who used his harpoon against his friends.

During my absence in Taaoa there had been crime and scandal in my
own valley. Andre Bauda met me on the beach road as I returned and
told me the tale. The giant Tahitian sailor of the schooner _Papeite_,
Huahine, was in the local jail, charged with desertion; a serious
offense, to which his plea was love of a woman, and that woman
Weaver of Mats, who had her four names tattooed on her right arm.

Huahine, seeing her upon the beach, had felt a flame of love that
nerved him to risk hungry shark and battering surf. Carried from her
even in the moment of meeting, he had resisted temptation until the
schooner was sailing outside the Bay of Traitors, running before a
breeze to the port of Tai-o-hae, and then he had flung himself naked
into the sea and taken the straight course back to Atuona, reaching
his sweetheart after a seven-hour's struggle with current and breaker.
Flag, the gendarme, found him in her hut, and brought him to the
calaboose.

The following morning I attended his trial. He came before his judge
elegantly dressed, for, besides a red _pareu_ about his middle, he
wore a pink silk shawl over his shoulders. Both were the gift of
Weaver of Mats, as he had come to her without scrip or scrap. He
needed little clothing, as his skin was very brown and his strong
body magnificent.

He was an acceptable prisoner to Bauda, who had charge of the making
and repair of roads and bridges, so Huahine was quickly sentenced
and put to work with others who were paying their taxes by labor.
Weaver of Mats moved with him to the prison, where they lived
together happily, cooking their food in the garden and sleeping on
mats beneath the palms.

On all the _paepaes_ it was said that Huahine would probably be sent
to Tahiti, as there are strict laws against deserting