feather-clothed
chief, however, was much disfigured by a huge growth with a narrow stalk
to it that hung from his neck and rested on his shoulder.

"I'll have that off him before he is a week older," said Bickley,
surveying this deformity with great professional interest.

On they came, the girls with the platters walking ahead. On one of these
were what looked like joints of baked pork, on another some plantains
and pear-shaped fruits. They knelt down and offered these to us. We
contemplated them for a while. Then Bickley shook his head and began
to rub his stomach with appropriate contortions. Clearly they were
quick-minded enough for they saw the point. At some words the girls
brought the platters to the chief and others, who took from them
portions of the food at hazard and ate them to show that it was not
poisoned, we watching their throats the while to make sure that it was
swallowed. Then they returned again and we took some of the food though
only Bickley ate, because, as I pointed out to him, being a doctor who
understood the use of antidotes; clearly he should make the experiment.
However, nothing happened; indeed he said that it was very good.

After this there came a pause. Then suddenly Bastin took up his parable
in the Polynesian tongue which--to a certain extent--he had acquired
with so much pains.

"What is this place called?" he asked slowly and distinctly, pausing
between each word.

His audience shook their heads and he tried again, putting the accents
on different syllables. Behold! some bright spirit understood him and
answered:

"Orofena."

"That means a hill, or an island, or a hill in an island," whispered
Bickley to me.

"Who is your God?" asked Bastin again.

The point seemed one upon which they were a little doubtful, but at last
the chief answered, "Oro. He who fights."

"In other words, Mars," said Bickley.

"I will give you a better one," said Bastin in the same slow fashion.

Thinking that he referred to himself these children of Nature
contemplated his angular form doubtfully and shook their heads. Then for
the first time one of the men who was wearing a mask and a wicker crate
on his head, spoke in a hollow voice, saying:

"If you try Oro will eat you up."

"Head priest!" said Bickley, nudging me. "Old Bastin had better be
careful or he will get his teeth into him and call them Oro's."

Another pause, after which the man in a feather cloak with the growth on
his neck