He introduced me to Pere Olivier, a priest
of the mission, whose charge was in the island of Fatu-hiva. From
him I learned that the _Roberta_ was bound for Oomoa, a port of that
Island.

That I had not been given the vaguest idea what our first landfall
would be was indicative of the secrecy maintained by these traders
in the competition for copra. The supply being limited, often it is
the first vessel on the spot after a harvest that is able to buy it,
and captains of schooners guard their movements as an army its own
during a campaign. The traders trust one another as a cat with a
mouse trusts another cat.

The priest was sitting on a ledge below the taffrail, and I spoke to
him in Spanish, as I had heard it was his tongue. His _buenos dias_
in reply was hearty, and his voice soft and rich. A handsome man was
Padre Olivier, though in sad disorder. His black soutane, cut like
the woolen gown of our grandmothers, was soaking wet, and his low
rough shoes were muddy. A soiled bandana was about his head. His
finely chiseled features, benign and intelligent, were framed by a
snow-white beard, and his eyes, large and limpid, looked benevolence
itself. He was all affability, and eager to talk about everything in
the world.

The rain, which all day had been falling at intervals, began again,
and as the _Roberta_ entered the open sea, she began to kick up her
heels. Our conversation languished. When the supercargo called us
below for dinner, pride and not appetite made me go. The priest
answered with a groan. Padre Olivier was prostrate on the deck, his
noble head on a pillow, his one piece of luggage, embroidered with
the monogram of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the needlework of the nuns
of Atuona.

"I am seasick if I wade in the surf," said the priest, in mournful
jest.

The _Roberta's_ cabin was a dark and noisome hole, filled with
demijohns and merchandise, with two or three untidy bunks in corners,
the air soaked with the smells of thirty years of bilge-water,
sealskins, copra, and the cargoes of island traffic. Capriata, Harry
Lee, and I sat on boxes at a rough table, which we clutched as the
_Roberta_ pitched and rolled.

[Illustration: Near the Mission at Hanavave]

[Illustration: Starting from Hanavave for Oomoa]

When the ragged cook brought the first dish, unmistakably a cat
swimming in a liquid I could have sworn by my nose to be drippings
from an ammonia tank, I protested a lack of hunger for any food. My