in a dark house, heard
natives talking softly. To sit without a light, even in company, and
under cover, is for a Paumotuan a somewhat hazardous extreme. The whole
scene--the strong moonlight and crude shadows on the sand, the scattered
coals, the sound of the low voices from the house, and the lap of the
lagoon along the beach--put me (I know not how) on thoughts of
superstition. I was barefoot, I observed my steps were noiseless, and
drawing near to the dark house, but keeping well in shadow, began to
whistle. "The Heaving of the Lead" was my air--no very tragic piece.
With the first note the conversation and all movement ceased; silence
accompanied me while I continued; and when I passed that way on my
return, I found the lamp was lighted in the house, but the tongues were
still mute. All night, as I now think, the wretches shivered and were
silent. For indeed, I had no guess at the time at the nature and
magnitude of the terrors I inflicted, or with what grisly images the
notes of that old song had peopled the dark house.

CHAPTER V

A PAUMOTUAN FUNERAL

No, I had no guess of these men's terrors. Yet I had received ere that a
hint, if I had understood; and the occasion was a funeral.

A little apart in the main avenue of Rotoava, in a low hut of leaves
that opened on a small enclosure, like a pigsty on a pen, an old man
dwelt solitary with his aged wife. Perhaps they were too old to migrate
with the others; perhaps they were too poor, and had no possessions to
dispute. At least they had remained behind; and it thus befell that they
were invited to my feast. I dare say it was quite a piece of politics in
the pigsty whether to come or not to come, and the husband long
swithered between curiosity and age, till curiosity conquered, and they
came, and in the midst of that last merry-making death tapped him on the
shoulder. For some days, when the sky was bright and the wind cool, his
mat would be spread in the main highway of the village, and he was to be
seen lying there inert, a mere handful of man, his wife inertly seated
by his head. They seemed to have outgrown alike our needs and faculties;
they neither spoke nor listened; they suffered us to pass without a
glance; the wife did not fan, she seemed not to attend upon her husband,
and the two poor antiques sat juxtaposed under the high canopy of palms,
the human tragedy reduced to its bare elements, a sight beyond pathos,
stirring a thrill of curiosity.