not very numerous, gathered to prayers. I was once
present: it was the Lord's day, and seven females and eight males
composed the congregation. A woman played precentor, starting with a
longish note; the catechist joined in upon the second bar; and then the
faithful in a body. Some had printed hymn-books which they followed;
some of the rest filled up with "eh--eh--eh," the Paumotuan tol-de-rol.
After the hymn, we had an antiphonal prayer or two; and then Taniera
rose from the front bench, where he had been sitting in his catechist's
robes, passed within the altar-rails, opened his Tahitian Bible, and
began to preach from notes. I understood one word--the name of God; but
the preacher managed his voice with taste, used rare and expressive
gestures, and made a strong impression of sincerity. The plain service,
the vernacular Bible, the hymn-tunes mostly on an English pattern--"God
save the Queen," I was informed, a special favourite,--all, save some
paper flowers upon the altar, seemed not merely but austerely
Protestant. It is thus the Catholics have met their low island
proselytes half-way.

Taniera had the keys of our house; it was with him I made my bargain, if
that could be called a bargain in which all was remitted to my
generosity; it was he who fed the cats and poultry, he who came to call
and pick a meal with us like an acknowledged friend; and we long fondly
supposed he was our landlord. This belief was not to bear the test of
experience; and, as my chapter has to relate, no certainty succeeded it.

We passed some days of airless quiet and great heat; shell-gatherers
were warned from the ocean beach, where sunstroke waited them from ten
till four; the highest palm hung motionless, there was no voice audible
but that of the sea on the far side. At last, about four of a certain
afternoon, long cat's-paws flawed the face of the lagoon; and presently
in the tree-tops there awoke the grateful bustle of the trades, and all
the houses and alleys of the island were fanned out. To more than one
enchanted ship, that had lain long becalmed in view of the green shore,
the wind brought deliverance; and by daylight on the morrow a schooner
and two cutters lay moored in the port of Rotoava. Not only in the outer
sea, but in the lagoon itself, a certain traffic woke with the reviving
breeze; and among the rest one Francois, a half-blood, set sail with the
first light in his own half-decked cutter. He had held before a court