and one of
the two natives in it attracted my interest. He was very tall and broad
and proud of carriage, old, but still unbroken in form or feature,
and with a look of unconformity that marked him for a rebel. Against
what? I wondered. Walt Whitman had that look, and so had Lincoln;
and Thomas Paine, who more than any Englishman aided the American
Revolution. Mysticism was in this man's eyes, which did not gaze at
the things about him, but were blinds to a secret soul.

Raiere exchanged a few words with the driver of the cart, and as they
continued on toward Tautira, he said to me in a very serious voice:

"He is a tahua, a sorcerer, who will enact the Umuti, the walking
over the fiery oven. He is from Raiatea and very noted. Ten years ago,
Papa Ita of Raiatea was here, but there has been no Umuti since."

"What brings him here now?" I asked. "Who pays him?"

Raiere answered quickly:

"Aue! he does not ask for money, but he must live, and we all will
give a little. It is good to see the Umuti again."

"But, Raiere, my friend," I protested, "you are a Christian, and only
a day ago ate the breadfruit at the communion service. Fire-walking
is etene; it is a heathen rite."

"Aita!" replied the youth. "No, it is in the Bible, and was taught
by Te Atua, the great God. The three boys in Babulonia were saved
from death by Atua teaching them the way of the Umuti."

"Where will the Umuti be?" I inquired. "I must see it."

"By the old tii up the Aataroa valley, on Saturday night."

That was five days off, and it could not come soon enough for me. I was
eager for this strangest, most inexplicable survival of ancient magic,
the apparent only failure of the natural law that fire will burn human
flesh. I had seen it in Hawaii and in other countries, and had not
reached any satisfying explanation of its seeming reversal of all
other experience. I knew that fire-walking as a part of the racial
or national worship of a god of fire, had existed and persisted in
many far separated parts of the world.

Babylon, Egypt, India, Malaysia, North America, Japan, and scattered
Maoris from Hawaii to New Zealand all had religious ceremonies in
which the gaining and showing of power over fire was a miracle seen and
believed in by priests and laity. Modern saints and quasi-scientists
had claims to similar achievements. Dr. Dozous said he saw Bernadette,
the seeress of Lourdes, hold her hands in a flame for fifteen
minutes without pain o