rns.

It was dark when we touched the earth after two hours' driving, and
leaving the coachman to care for the horses, we went with the chief,
each of us carrying a siphon of seltzer or a bottle of champagne or
claret. Our way was through an old and dark cocoanut grove, a bare
trail, winding among the trees, and ending at the beach.

Polonsky had had built a pavilion for the revel. Fifty feet away was
a kitchen in which the dinner was cooking, its odors adding appetite
to that whetted by the several cocktails which Polonsky had mixed
when the ice was brought in a wheelbarrow from the wagon.

We sat down in chairs on the turf a foot from the jetty boulders,
and watched the inrush of the breakers. A light breeze outside had
stirred the water, and the combers were white and high.

"Every sea is really three seas," said McHenry, pipe in hand, as he
sipped his Martini. "We fellows who have to risk our cargoes and lives
in landing in the Paumotus and Marquesas, study the accursed surf to
find out its rules. There are rules, too, and the ninth wave is the
one we come in on. That is the last of the third group, the biggest,
and the one that will bring your boat near enough to shore to let
all hands leap out and run her up away from the undertow."

Lights were placed in the new house. It was elegantly made, of small
bamboos up and down, with a floor of matched boards, the roof of
cocoanut-leaves, and hung with blossoms of many kinds. The table had
been spread, and there was a glitter of silver and glass, with all
the accoutrements of fashion. We sat down, eight, the chief making
nine, and ate and drank until ten o'clock. The piece de resistance
was the sucking pig, with taro and feis, but roasted in an oven,
and not in native style; and there was a delicious young turkey from
New Zealand, a ham from Virginia, truffles, a salad of lettuce and
tomatoes, and a plum pudding from London. The claret was 1900 and
1904, a vintage obtained by Polonsky in Paris. The champagne, also,
was of a year, and frapped. Tahitian coffee, with brown sugar from
the chief's plantation, ended the banquet.

There was no conversation of any interest. The Parisian count was
far removed in experience and culture from the others, and probably
only the necessity of companionship in revelry and cards brought
them together. Europe, and all the earth, was his playground, and
doubtless he had lavished a fortune in pleasure in the capitals of the
Continent.