"You don't know
Llewellyn like I do. How about the tupapau, the bloody ghosts? You
forget that Llewellyn's a quarter Kanaka, an' born 'ere. All that
German university stuff ain't no good against the tupapau. Suppose
you were part Kanaka, an' the kid 'ad done what 'e did? I've seen
some things myself in these waters. That's what's eatin' Llewellyn,
an', believe me, it's goin' to kill 'im if he don't bloody well drink
'imself dead, first. I've seen too many Kanakas go that way when the
tahua got the tupapau after them. Llewellyn remembers what Lovaina said
ol' man Morton hollered when M'seer Lontane took the gun away from him
at the Tiare. 'All right!' hollered the uncle. 'All right! I'll leave
it to God!' The ol' boy loved that kid. 'E told Lovaina 'at 'is whole
bloody family was drowned when the Rio Janeiro went down off Mile Rock
in Frisco bay. The kid was 'is sister's only child, an' 'is uncle left
a thousand francs with the American consul for a proper tombstone on
'is grave in the cemetery. The ol' gent worshipped that kid."

Our session was over, the dinner hour having come; but Hallman had
his final say:

"If Llewellyn 's got the tupapau horrors, for God's sake! let him
stay away from the club. It's got so I hate to see him come in here,
looking like a death's head. He spoils my drink. I'd rather be in
the Marquesas with old Hemeury Francois, who is dyin' by inches of
the spell Mohuto 's put on him. They're alike, these Kanakas; they're
afraid of God and the devil, their own and the dam' missionary outfit,
too. They've got them coming and going. No wonder they're getting so
scarce you can't get any work done."

The next day was all preparation. I would be gone several months,
the usual time for the voyage of a trading schooner to the Marquesas
and return to Papeete. I had no bother about clothes, as I was to
be in the same climate, and in less formal circles even than in
Tahiti. But I desired to carry with me a type-writer, and mine was
out of order. There was no tinker of skill in Papeete, and I had
about given up hope of repairs, when Lovaina said:

"May be that eye doctor do you. He married one of those girl whose
father before ran away with that English ship and Tahiti girls to
Pitcairn Island, and get los' there till all chil'ren grow up big. He
has little house on rue de Petit Pologne."

I found on that street in a cottage an American vendor of spectacles,
who by some chance of propinquity had married