f
there was pressure on the brain or a part of the skull was in bits,
his custom was to remove all these and, trimming the edges of the
hole in the brainpan, to fit over it a neat disk of cocoanut-shell,
return the scalp, and nurse the patient to health.

He had known of cases when injured brain matter was replaced with
pig-brains, but admitted that the patient in such cases became first
violently angry and then died. Lancing boils and abscesses with
thorns had been his former habit, but he favored a nail for the
purpose nowadays.

Fearing lest fever should attack Red Chicken, he had prepared a
decoction from the hollow joints of the bamboo, which he
administered in frequent doses from a cocoanut-shell. It was
milk-white, and became translucent in water, like that beautiful
variety of opal, the hydrophane. There was a legend, said the
_tatihi_, that the knowledge of this medicine had been gleaned from
a dark man who had come on a ship many years before, and with this
clue I recognized it as _tabasheer_, a febrifuge long known in India.

A fire had been built outside the straw hovel in which Red Chicken
lay, and stones were heating in it, so that if milder medicine did
not avail the patient might be laid on a pile of blazing stones
covered with protecting leaves, and swathed in cloths until
perspiration conquered fever. The patient would then be rushed to the
sea or river and plunged into cold water.

But this procedure was not necessary. Red Chicken got well rapidly,
and in a few days was walking about as usual, though with a
thoughtful look in his eye that promised a soul-struggle with Pere
Olivier, whose new gods had not protected the fisherman against the
gods of the sea.

CHAPTER XXXII

A journey over the roof of the world to Oomoa; an encounter with a
wild woman of the hills.

Pere Olivier tried to dissuade me from walking back to Oomoa, and
offered me his horse, but I determined to go afoot and let Orivie, a
native youth, be my mounted guide. Orivie is named for Pere Olivier;
there being no "l" in the Marquesan language, the good priest's name
is pronounced as if spelled in English Oreeveeay.

The horse, the usual small, tough mountain-pony, was caught, and
upon him we strapped the saddle with cow-skin stirrups, hairy and big,
and a rope bridle. Orivie, handsomely dressed in wrinkled denim
trousers, a yellow _pareu_ and an aged straw hat, mounted the beast,
and bidding farewell to the friends I