AT TANASEMBE.

7

the end of life, even we did not believe that—but a haunted Night, without a hope of Morning.

For Toroa had sworn to slay old Roé as soon as he could catch him, for reasons you shall hear in their own good time. And Rogani had a dear little sister named Noni, about whom I have much, ah! very much, to tell. But at present I must take you by pen and paper to another part of Pombuana, and into rougher

scenes.

CHAPTER IV.

I

MISCHIEF.

pass over six years of time, and carry you ten miles along the the coast to Tanasémbé, in the middle Islet of Uri, the abode. of the great Malagai.

It is evening, and there upon a mat, set out in the open space in the midst of the village, sit Malagai and Toroa. They are talking and chewing the areca nut together. Something-mischief to a certainty-must be brewing.

There am I, too, sitting upon the village settle with little lame Talisi, Malagai's favourite and youngest child. The village, by the way, consisted merely of eight houses, each appropriated to one of the Mrs. Malagais, and one for Malagai himself. I must account for my presence there, so far from home, by telling you that Mrs. Malagai No. 6 was a half-sister of mine, and I had been sent for to come to help to thatch her tumble-down house.

We two little pitchers, with the proverbial long ears, could overhear the growling talk of the two great ones, and at a call from Malagai, I jumped down off the settle, and ran into my sister Talana's house, to bid her open the earth-oven, and make mash for two. Her little daughter, Tulu, soon fished out the panas (a root like the potato) from among the hot stones with

a pair of bamboo tongs, and they were mashed and made into a dumpling, which I bore in a wooden bowl and set before the chiefs.

With a hop, skip, and jump I was back by the side of Talisi.

The conversation on the mat changed for a while into the major key; but the meal was a hot and hasty one, and I was soon called to wash the bowl in the sea, and to take care lest any morsels were left about, for by means of such fragments any enemy might bewitch us; at least so we believed in those dark days.

The gloomy talk soon fell again into the minor key, and seemed to be framed out of the surrounding darkness. The murmured mention of the name Aluni attracted our attention.

Aluni was the wife of Dolo, Rogani's elder brother, the pride and darling of the unfortunate family.

Malagai was giving orders concerning her, that Haharo the wizard should bewitch Dolo, that he might sicken and die, and that then Aluni should be brought on to Tanasémbé, to become Mrs. Malagai Number Eight.

We could hear Toroa chuckle with delight as the prospects of money and revenge both glittered before his greedy and bloodthirsty imagination, for he bore a terrible grudge against the whole family of Roé, for having "blasphemed " his wife Uto's good name.

He undertook his dirty work with a mew and a grin of eager cat-like cruelty.

"Yes, Dolo shall sicken and die-and die, dear chief! It is my own pet work: the destruction of that crocodile brood. Shall Uto be defamed by that motherless boy Rogani? Not if the sorceries of Haharo have any virtue. To-morrow it is already done. Sleep!" And the meeting broke up.

POOR TALANA.

9

CHAPTER V.

Α WIZARD AT WORK.

I RAN at once and told my sister what we had overheard, and we cried together over our friends' new misfortunes; but what was our consternation when Malagai himself came in and told us later in the night that we two were to go to Matambala and bring Aluni back, under pain of death. Talana, with perhaps too much plainness, said she would not—“ not if he killed her."

This he nearly did. Then he fled, bidding me take care lest I shared her punishment. A savage call to Talisi, whom he perched on his shoulder, and his retreating footsteps, were all we heard of him again that night. He had gone to sulk at a farm of his, westward a few miles along the shore, as was his edifying custom; and Talisi told me afterwards (for we were like David and Jonathan together), that his father growled and trotted the whole way down, and set to work felling trees by moonlight, as if he had had a whole forest of disobedient wives to deal with.

We must now see how it fared with poor Dolo and his family. Toroa was in high spirits. He set Haharo on the track next day. The wizard procured some crumbs of Dolo's food, or a leaf with which he had scraped the sweat from his brow, and placing them upon the coral altar of his false gods of blight and death, he muttered his enchantments, saying:

"O, Manoga! thine is this portion here, this Dolo! If thou art mighty do thou consume him. Devour him, for he is thine !"

Next, he plucked a leaf of a small ginger plant, called ria, and wending his fatal way to Rota-in-the-East one stormy night, he flung it to the wind, as it rushed over Dolo's devoted roof,

bearing also the deadly message to him who lay unconsciously within :

"Sicken and die! Sicken and die! For thee, Dolo, is this ria thrown. Let death make havoc of thy young limbs!"

As he turned away to face the storm, the wakeful ear which had heard thus far, heard further yet, the irrevocable decree, "Dolo is a dead man."

The roaring of the wind and the cracking of the forest boughs covered the retreat of Rogani, who had gone out to secure the roof with some heavy palm-stems, and had also heard those woeful words; for in those dark days we were the slaves of superstitious fear, which of itself was sufficient to make us lie down and die.

Rogani sent for me a few days afterwards, and Talana said she was well enough to come, too, though her face was still swollen from Malagai's attack. So, under pretence of doing the will of Malagai, we set forth upon our errand of mercy.

Talana rested at a village on the beach, while I went up at once to the hill-top whereon the Three Rotas were perched.

By the way I met Toroa. He was in one of his most hateful moods, when he seemed always about to spring out upon you. He carried in his feverish grasp a long ebony spear, headed with a splintered shin-bone, which was tinged with a faint crimson hue, as if the setting sunlight fell upon it!

Over his oval swinging shield, slung on three fingers of his left hand, glared his twinkling, murderous eyes, blood-red with wanton rage. I was afraid of him, but knew that my relationship to Malagai was better than any shield.

"And what have you come up here after?" he asked, in his disagreeable, whining tone.

"I have come just for my own amusement," I answered. "And I have come to see Roé, the grandfather of you and me. Do you know where he is, boy?"

Of course, I did not know; and he bid me go on my way, as is our fashion.

THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

11

He was soon far below me, and I felt lighter and brighter at his disapperance, as I hopped up the steep, rugged steps of rock. Dolo's house was almost opposite Roé's. Heaving a sigh, I stooped in through the narrow doorhole, and found the small house full of useless, suffocating people, supposed to be friends, but in reality more powerful for harm to the sick man than all Haharo's witchcraft.

A muttered whisper of my name among the crowd caught Dolo's ear, and his great staring hollow eyes were looking for me when I got up to where he lay, a sudden wreck of youth, and strength, and manly beauty! He had been the life and leader of the village; such a player on the kolové, our bamboo Jew's-harp; such a hard worker in his garden; such a clever dancer and good singer! What wonder that all the world was there to mourn beside him, and, most unfortunately, to rob him of the scanty breath he gasped so hard for !

His skeleton was already plain; his stomach had sunk away from his ribs; and death was grinning through his face.

"Aluni," he said, "come here and let me lean against you; it eases me. O, dear! O, dear !"

Aluni-the hunted Aluni-a young, round-faced, bright-eyed woman, rose, and, sitting behind him, cradled him in her arms, pillowing his head upon her breast, and rocking him gently to and fro.

Beckoned by the lean hand, I drew closer to him, and his husky voice-not his, but Death's-panted in my ear, "Don't you soon go away, Pomo."

And then the heavy arm, affectionate to the last, fell about my neck, trembling and shaking exceedingly.

66

They have thrown the ria over me, have the great ones of Tanasémbé," he went on, struggling for breath; "loo-look at my poor body; there's none of it left.

And where-where is our friend, Rogani?

Alas! for me, Pomo.

Why is he not here?

Higher, Aluni ! There-that's right; that's easy. I".