other cause but to
escape his enemy, and the place he had come to was that wizard's
hunting-ground, and the shore where he walked invisible. It was at this
period when he kept the most close to the lagoon side, and, as far as he
dared, abode in the cover of his hut.

The cause of the second period was talk he heard from his wife and the
chief islanders. Keola himself said little. He was never so sure of his
new friends, for he judged they were too civil to be wholesome, and
since he had grown better acquainted with his father-in-law the man had
grown more cautious. So he told them nothing of himself, but only his
name and descent, and that he came from the Eight Islands, and what fine
islands they were; and about the king's palace in Honolulu, and how he
was a chief friend of the king and the missionaries. But he put many
questions and learned much. The island where he was was called the Isle
of Voices; it belonged to the tribe, but they made their home upon
another, three hours' sail to the southward. There they lived and had
their permanent houses, and it was a rich island, where were eggs and
chickens and pigs, and ships came trading with rum and tobacco. It was
there the schooner had gone after Keola deserted; there, too, the mate
had died, like the fool of a white man as he was. It seems, when the
ship came, it was the beginning of the sickly season in that isle; when
the fish of the lagoon are poisonous, and all who eat of them swell up
and die. The mate was told of it; he saw the boats preparing, because in
that season the people leave that island and sail to the Isle of Voices;
but he was a fool of a white man, who would believe no stories but his
own, and he caught one of these fish, cooked it and ate it, and swelled
up and died, which was good news to Keola. As for the Isle of Voices,
it lay solitary the most part of the year; only now and then a boat's
crew came for copra, and in the bad season, when the fish at the main
isle were poisonous, the tribe dwelt there in a body. It had its name
from a marvel, for it seemed the sea-side of it was all beset with
invisible devils; day and night you heard them talking one with another
in strange tongues; day and night little fires blazed up and were
extinguished on the beach; and what was the cause of these doings no man
might conceive. Keola asked them if it were the same in their own island
where they stayed, and they told him no, not there; nor yet in any other
of