ll at it when an officer of marines came
hurrying to notify them that the frigates were French schooners
from the Paumotus. The whole population had hidden itself away in
the meantime. Well, they had many jokes about it and many songs,
but the governor built this house on the steps of which we sit as a
permanent depository for archives in case of war, and here he used
to come for picnics until a few years ago. There was a post-office,
with a guard of sailors, here. They planted the garden, the flowers,
and strawberries that now run wild. You know our chiefs were always
being secretly warned that England, which owns most of the islands
in these seas, wanted to seize our island."

Over the Diadem the dark shadows were lengthening. The daring pinnacles
of Maiauo were thrust up like the mangled fingers of a black hand
against the blue sky.

Noanoa Tiare pointed to them.

"The ahiahi comes. Night is not far off," she said warningly. "If we
lingered here much longer, we might have to stay all the night."

"How memorable to me would be a sunrise from here," I replied. "I
would never forget it."

She looked at me archly over her shoulder.

"I would like it myself. It would be magnificent, and I have never
spent the night just here."

She considered a moment, and my mind took up the matter of
arrangements. We could cook feis, and there was plenty of other fruit,
with shelter in the house, if we needed that. We could start down early
and be at Lovaina's for the first dejeuner. Zeus! to pass the night in
such a solitude! To hear in the pitch darkness the mysterious voices
of po, the tenebrae of the Tahitian gods; the boom of the cascade in
the abyss; the deep bass of the river in the rocky chute; the sigh of
the wind in the trees; the murmur of the stream near by; the fantasia
and dirge of the lofty night in the tropics. What a setting for her
telling some old legend or fairy-tale of Tahiti!

Fragrance of the Jasmine ended my reverie. She slapped her thigh.

"I dine and dance to-night at eight o'clock," she said. "A rohi! We
must go! Besides, Maru, it would be too cold without blankets. The
mercury here goes to sixty of your thermometer."

We descended by the route we had come, picking up her shoes and
stockings and our hats by our couch, and with the princess leading,
hurrying along the obscuring trail. We passed a Tahitian youth who
had been gathering feis, probably near the tarn, and who was bringing
them to the ma