mmit dark green under a clear sky,
but black when the sun was hidden. Most of the hours of the day it
was but a dim shadow above a belt of white clouds, but up to its
mysterious heights a broken ridge climbed sheer from the valley, and
upon it browsed the wild boar and the crag-loving goat.

Beside the house the river brawled through a greenwood of
bread-fruit-, cocoanut-, vi-apple-, mango- and lime-trees. The
tropical heat distilled from their leaves a drowsy woodland odor
which filled the two small whitewashed rooms, and the shadows of the
trees, falling through the wide unglassed windows, made a sun-flecked
pattern on the black stone floor. This was the House of Lepers, now
rechristened the House of the Golden Bed, which was to be my home
through the unknown days before me.

The next day I watched the _Morning Star_ lift her sails and move
slowly out of the Bay of Traitors into the open sea, with less
regret than I have ever felt in that moment of wistfulness which
attends the departure of a sailing-ship. Exploding Eggs, at my side,
read correctly my returning eyes. "Kaoha!" he said, with a wide
smile of welcome, and with him and Vai, my next-door neighbor, I
returned gladly to my _paepae_.

Vai, or in English, Water, was a youth of twenty years, a dandy; on
ordinary occasions naked, except for the _pareu_ about his loins,
but on Sundays or when courting rejoicing in the gayest of
Europeanized clothes. He lived near me in a small house on the
river-bank with his mother and sister. All were of a long line of
chiefs, and all marvelously large and handsome.

The mother, Titihuti, would have been beloved of the ancient artists
who might have drawn her for an Amazon. I have never seen another
woman of such superb carriage. Her hair was blood-red, her brow lofty,
and an indescribable air of majesty and pride spoke eloquently of
her descent from fathers and mothers of power. She had wonderful legs,
statuesque in mold, and tattooed from ankles to thigh in most
amazing patterns. To a Marquesan of her generation the tattooed legs
of a shapely woman were the highest reach of art.

Titihuti was very proud of her legs. Though she was devout Catholic
and well aware of the contempt of the church for such vanities,
religion could not entirely efface her pride. During the first few
days she passed and repassed my cabin in her walks about her
household duties, lifting her tunic each day a little higher. Her
vanity would no doub