st with these
young gentlemen, and the young gentlemen to jest back with them, all but
Lotu. As for Lotu, he saw there could be no living woman in such a
place, and ran, and flung himself in the bottom of the boat, and covered
his face, and prayed. All the time the business lasted Lotu made one
clean break of prayer, and that was all he knew of it, until his friends
came back, and made him sit up, and they put to sea again out of the
bay, which was now quite deserted, and no word of the six ladies. But,
what frightened Lotu most, not one of the five remembered anything of
what had passed, but they were all like drunken men, and sang and
laughed in the boat, and skylarked. The wind freshened and came squally,
and the sea rose extraordinary high; it was such weather as any man in
the islands would have turned his back to and fled home to Falesa; but
these five were like crazy folk, and cracked on all sail and drove their
boat into the seas. Lotu went to the bailing, none of the others thought
to help him, but sang and skylarked and carried on, and spoke singular
things beyond a man's comprehension, and laughed out loud when they said
them. So the rest of the day Lotu bailed for his life in the bottom of
the boat, and was all drenched with sweat and cold sea-water; and none
heeded him. Against all expectation, they came safe in a dreadful
tempest to Papa-malulu, where the palms were singing out, and the
cocoa-nuts flying like cannon-balls about the village green; and the
same night the five young gentlemen sickened, and spoke never a
reasonable word until they died.

"And do you mean to tell me you can swallow a yarn like that?" I asked.

She told me the thing was well known, and with handsome young men alone
it was even common; but this was the only case where five had been slain
the same day and in a company by the love of the women-devils; and it
had made a great stir in the island, and she would be crazy if she
doubted.

"Well, anyway," says I, "you needn't be frightened about me. I've no use
for the women-devils. You're all the women I want, and all the devil
too, old lady."

To this she answered there were other sorts, and she had seen one with
her own eyes. She had gone one day alone to the next bay, and, perhaps,
got too near the margin of the bad place. The boughs of the high bush
overshadowed her from the cant of the hill, but she herself was outside
on a flat place, very stony, and growing full of young mu