left us for a moment. Men lay in
the scuppers and vomited. Food went untouched. No man could walk
without staggering. At last we took to the boats. Two thousand miles
from the Marquesas. We lit a fuse, and pushed off. Half a mile away
the _Mongol_ blew up.

"We suffered. _Mon dieu_, how we suffered in those boats! But the
gas was gone. We struck Vait-hua on the island of Tahuata. It was
heaven. Rivers and trees and women. Women! _Sacre!_ How I loved them!

"I came to Taha-Uka with Mathieu Scallamera. We worked for Captain
Hart in the cotton, driving the Chinese and natives. Bill Pincher
was a boy, and he worked there, too. In the moonlight on the beach
there were dances. The women danced naked on the beaches in the
moonlight. And there was rum. Mohuto danced. Ah, she was beautiful,
beautiful! She was a devil.

"Scallamera and I built a house, and put on the door a lock of wood.
It was a big lock, but it had no key. The natives stole everything.
We could keep nothing. Scallamera was angry. One day he hid in the
house while I went to work. When a hand was thrust through the
opening to undo the lock, Scallamera took his brush knife and cut it
off. He threw it through the hole and said, 'That will steal no more.'"

The hermit laughed, a laugh like the snarl of a toothless old tiger.

"That was a joke. Scallamera laughed. By gar! But that without a
hand lived long. He gave back all that he had taken. He smiled at
Scallamera, and laughed, too. He worked without pay for Scallamera.
He became a friend to the man who had cut off his hand. A year went
by and two years and three and that man gave Scallamera a piece of
land by Vai-ae. He helped Scallamera to build a house upon it.

"Land from hell it was, land cursed seven times. Did not Scallamera
become a leper and die of it horribly? And all his twelve children
by that Henriette? It was the ground. It had been leprous since the
Chinese came. Oh, it was a fine return for the cut-off hand!"

Gasping and choking, the ghastly creature paused for breath, and in
the shuddering silence the banana-leaves ceaselessly dripped, and
the hum of innumerable mosquito-wings was sharp and thin.

"I did not become a leper. I was young and strong. I was never sick.
I worked all day, and at night I was with the women. Ah, the
beautiful, beautiful women! With souls of fiends from hell. Mohuto
is not dead yet. She lives too long. She lives and sits on the path
below, and watches. She should