But there was no more breath to spare.

I told him not to speak, as it choked him so, and said that Rogani would be here directly, and that none of us was going away. One pang was wanting to him. He had not heard of the plan to take away, so soon as he was dead, his loving wife and nurse, Aluni.

A company of old women then began to discuss his condition, but were silenced by Aluni saying: "Why chatter? Have they not bewitched him? What can we do?”

“What, indeed?" groaned the dismal chorus of old women.

CHAPTER VI.

SORROW WITHOUT HOPE.

ROGANI returned in the evening with two men of mysterious character, who sat down in the darkest corner they could find. Each held an end of a bamboo rod, which they worked backwards and forwards with difficulty, as though their arms were stiff, murmuring the while:

"Who is it? who is it? Who is consuming this our brother? Come, perch upon this rod, and tell us. Who is it? who is it? who-who-who?"

But there was no voice, neither any that answered, save the slow and difficult motion of the rod, which bade us forsake hope, and prepare to deliver to the Unseen and the Unknown our dearest earthly treasure. Had the rod worked easily the answer would have been thought favourable.

Rogani bent down beside his brother and rubbed his own blooming cheek against the hollow, fading face, which instantly looked up and brightened.

"And how are you getting on now, my brother?

When

OUR COMFORTLESS RELIGION.

13

are you going to be once more your own old self? When shall you and I be one again? This accursed sickness has made two of us. I am like your shadow, wandering alone."

"I am the shadow," said Dolo, with almost a smile on his face, a shadow that the gods have wanted, and are taking away-taking a-way."

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For we believed that if a man's shadow fell upon the tapu (or sacred enclosure) of a spirit, that the spirit would steal the shadow, and the man would die.

"They shall have mine, too," cried Rogani; "why should I live to die after you ?"

"For her!" and the dying man's eyes turned towards Aluni. "For her, Rogani, and the child that she shall bear. Let not unkindness come near her, for she has never known it. why do they snatch me away from her?"

"Consume them, O Hauri!" exclaimed Rogani passionately, and meaning Malagai and Toroa, I suppose, for he continued, with tears of sorrow and anger :

"May their heads rot in an enemy's land! May all the gods of blight and withering smite them with decay! May their children be clubbed before, their smarting eyes!"

Curses, more and more bitter, would have followed, but Dolo's upraised hand stayed them. After this he slept for a long time. We watched with him all that weary night, and through the scarcely less weary day.

There was nothing but horror and sorrow in that house; not one gleam of cheerfulness or of hope; nothing to soften the grim reality of death in its most grievous form; no one to wipe away our tears. We bowed our heads to the blow, and sat down to drink our cup of unmixed sorrow.

Opening his eyes wide, about mid-day, he looked anxiously round in search of something, and Rogani's quick ear caught the words:

"My harp!"

He beckoned to me where to get it, and I laid it within his

Dovering about it for a little while, took it up and placed

zembling with the words he could not atten, in Rogan's ap. The lering lad brushed away some tzbidden tears with

read and £ that fesh and blood cend s is ncre was

the Resurection and the Lit” Den stil a rome. remained a dose and press down with day the lackered.

ALL'S WELL, &c.

15

tired take my chopper from me and do my share of work, as you did? Who now will strike the harp? who lead the dance? O, my life's withered root! now, for the first time, have I learnt what sorrow is !"

"Let us be going,” said I.

"Lead!" was his tearful answer.

And so we left dear Dolo to his rest and to his visions, not to be revealed until we meet again.

We returned without Aluni, bringing a pig for propitiation; but she was brought over to Tanasémbé by Kopa, when he came to tattoo Tulu, Talana's pretty little daughter. It was a grand occasion; for a young girl comes of age at her tattooing. The great canoe house-180 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 50 feet high-was ruddy and bright with the leaping blaze of a dozen bonfires, which cast an ever-flitting entanglement of gigantic shadows upon the well-laced roof. The air rang with shouts and songs, and peals of untamed laughter. There was professor Kopa, getting ready his flint lancets, and there was Tulu being handed from lap to lap of a circle of ancient women, hired to keep her awake all that night, so that her sleep might be dead on the morrow; the learned Professor not having yet discovered the uses of chloroform, and being, therefore, reduced to the extremity of employing common sleep instead. Malagai, too, was there, and happy.

Meanwhile I tremble when I think of my daring-I stole round to the house where Aluni was imprisoned, and undid the fastenings, bidding her depart, which she did, and reached her home in Bokona. Malagai's rage I cannot describe. None knew how she escaped; but she was recaptured afterwards, and I do not think she has had much cause to complain of her lot. She was a great favourite, and I fancy Talana was a little jealous of her.

CHAPTER VII.

"AN INFERIOR RACE."

It was on a rosy evening during the calm of the ripe gandogas (about July) that a great multitude was assembled upon the moonlit beach at Tanasémbé.

The unusual loudness of the talk, and some things which were being handed about with great curiosity, but without names, showed the truth of the words uttered over and over again :

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By the Great Shark, but we have seen strange things to-day!" "You are right," cried an enthusiastic person; "what a size their canoe was."

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Size, indeed! What was it they called it? what was it's name?"

Vassa? Vaka?

"Vaka, it was,” shouted Malagai, which, begging his pardon, it was not. However, Vaka became henceforth the name for the canoes of the white man; except his very large ones, “with death on board," which we called "Manawa" (Man-of-war).

"And the inside of it-and the depth of it !-why, it went right down to the bottom of the sea!"

"And how tall the trunks were ! Like these cocoanut trees." And its ropes-like the forest creepers."

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"And the men of it-now, they are white! There is no one of us but who is black beside them!"

"Fool!" cried the learned Malagai, "you don't suppose they're white all over, do you?"

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True, O chief!" replied some flatterer; "only their hands and faces are to be seen, and their feet. They are packed up from their chins to their ankles, like men about to be buried."

a

"Nay, but they are white all over, say I," daringly declared

tall young man named Taorémbé, who was sitting next to me. "How do you know?"