one Saturday afternoon, bringing Pere Victorien to
Atuona. He was from Hatiheu, on the island of Nuka-hiva, seventy
miles to the north. A day and a night he had spent on the open sea,
making a slow voyage by wind and oar, but like all these priests he
made nothing of the hardships. They come to the islands to stay
until they die, and death means a crown the brighter for martyrdom.

He looked a tortured man in his heavy and smothering vestments when
I met him before the mission walls next morning. His face and hands
were covered with pustules as if from smallpox.

"The _nonos_ (sand-flies) are so furious the last month," he said
with a patient smile. "I have not slept but an hour at a time. I was
afraid I would go mad."

News of his coming brought all the valley Catholics to eight o'clock
mass. The banana-shaded road and the roots of the old banian were
crowded with worshippers in all their finery, and when they poured
into the mission the few rude benches were well filled. I found a
chair in the rear, next to that of Baufre, the shaggy drunkard, and
as the chanting began, I observed an empty _prie-dieu_, specially
prepared and placed for some person of importance.

"Mademoiselle N----" said Baufre, noticing the direction of my glance.
"She is the richest woman in all the Marquesas."

At the Gospel she came in, walking slowly down the aisle and taking
her place as though unaware of the hundred covert glances that
followed her. Wealth is comparative, and Mademoiselle N----, with
perhaps a few hundred thousand dollars in cash and cocoanut-grove,
stood to the island people as Rockefeller to us. Money and lands
were not all her possessions, for though she had never traveled from
her birthplace, she was very different in carriage and costume from
the girls about her.

She wore a black lace gown, clinging, and becoming her slender
figure and delicately charming face. Her features were exquisite,
her eyes lustrous black pools of passion, her mouth a scarlet line
of pride and disdain. A large leghorn hat of fine black straw, with
chiffon, was on her graceful head, and her tiny feet were in silk
stockings and patent leather. She held a gold and ivory prayer-book
in gloved hands, and a jeweled watch hung upon her breast.

She might have passed for a Creole or for one of those beautiful
Filipino _mestizas_, daughters of Spanish fathers and Filipino
mothers. I suppose coquetry in woman was born with the fig-leaf.
This daint