, the fighting
qualities of their fathers, the cheer of the fires, the heat of the
ovens, and the baking of the "Long Pig," and the hours when the most
beautiful girls danced naked to win the acclaim of the multitude and
to honor their parents; all these they celebrated. The leader gave
the first line in a dramatic tone, and the others chanted the chorus.
Most of the verses they knew by rote, but there were improvisations
that brought applause from all.

At midnight the man with the elephantiasis removed his _pareu_ to
free his enormous legs for dancing, and he and the others, their
hands joined, moved ponderously in a tripping circle before the
couch on which I lay. The chant was now a recital of my merits, the
chief of which was that I was a friend of Grelet, that mighty man
wiser than Iholomoni (Solomon), with more wives than that great king,
and stronger heart to chase the wild bull. He steers a whale-boat
with a finger, but no wave can tear the helm from his grasp. Long
has he been in Oomoa, just and brave and generous has he been, and
his rum is the best that is made in the far island of Tahiti.

So passed the night and the rum, in a pandemonium of voices,
gyrating tattooed bodies, flashes of red and yellow and blue _pareus_,
rolling eyes, curls of smoke drifting under the gently moving canvas
ceiling, while from the garden came the scent of innumerable dewy
flowers; and at intervals in the chanting I heard from the darkness
of the bay the sound of a conch-shell blown on some wayfaring boat.

I dozed, and wakened to see Grelet asleep. Pae was still filling the
emptied cocoanut-shells, and the swollen green man postured before
me like some horrid figment of a dream. I roused myself again. Pae
had locked up the song-maker, and all the tattooed men slumbered
where they sat, the Paumotan boys with sunbonnets tied about their
heads lay in their corner, dreaming, perhaps, of their loved home on
Pukaruha. I woke again to find the garden green and still in the
gray morning, and the veranda vacant.

The Marquesans were all in the river, lying down among the boulders
to cool their aching heads. The _fefe_ sufferer stood like a
slime-covered rock in the stream. His swollen legs hurt him
dreadfully. Rum is not good for _fefe_.

"Guddammee!" he said to me in his one attempt at our cultured
language, and put his body deep in a pool.

CHAPTER XXX

A visit to Hanavave; Pere Olivier at home; the story of the last
b