be killed, but I have no strength.

"I was young and strong, and loved too many women. How could I know
the devil behind her eyes when she came wooing me again? I had left
her. She was with child, and ugly. I loved beautiful women. But she
was beautiful again when the child was dead. I was with another.
What was her name? I have forgotten her name. Is there no more rum?
I remember when I have rum.

"So I went again to Mohuto. The devil from hell! There was poison in
her embraces. Why does she not die? She knew too much. She was too
wise. It was I who died. No, I did not die. I became old before my
time, but I am living yet. The Catholic mission gave me this land. I
planted bananas. I have never been away. How long ago? _Je ne sais
pas._ Twenty years? Forty? I do not see any one. But I know that
Mohuto sits on the path below and waits. I will live long yet."

He was like a two-days' old corpse. He rose to his feet, staggered,
and lay down on the heap of soggy leaves. The mosquitos circled in
swarms above him. They were devouring us, but the hermit they never
lighted on. Le Vergose and I fled from the hut and the grove.

"He is an example like those in Balzac or the religious books," said
the Breton, crossing himself. "I have been here many years, and
never before did I come here, and again. _Jamais de la vie!_ I must
begin to go to church again."

We said nothing more as we slid and slipped downward on the wet trail,
but when we came again to the straw hut hidden in the trees Mohuto
was still on the _paepae_, watching us, and I paused to speak to her.

"You knew Hemeury Francois when he was young?"

She put her hand over her eyes, and spat.

"He was my first lover. I had a child by him. He was handsome once."
Her eyes, full of malevolence, turned to the dark grove. "He dies
very slowly."

The memory of her face was with me when at midnight I went alone to
my valley. On my pillows I heard again the cracked voice of the
hermit, and saw the blue-white skin upon his shaking bones. He could
not believe in Po, the Marquesan god of Darkness, or in the _Veinehae_,
the Ghost-Woman who watches the dying; nor did I believe in them or
in Satan, but about me in my Golden Bed until midnight was long past
the spirits that hate the light moaned and creaked the hut.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Last days in Atuona; My Darling Hope's letter from her son.

Exploding Eggs was building my fire of cocoanut-husks as usual in
the m