ilway engine rang
about the house. The sceptical reader may here detect the finger of the
tempest; but the women gave up all for lost and clustered on the beds
lamenting. Nothing followed, and I must suppose the gale somewhat
abated, for presently after a chief came visiting. He was a bold man to
be abroad so late, but doubtless carried a bright lantern. And he was
certainly a man of counsel, for as soon as he heard the details of these
disturbances he was in a position to explain their nature. "Your child,"
said he, "must certainly die. This is the evil spirit of our island who
lies in wait to eat the spirits of the newly dead." And then he went on
to expatiate on the strangeness of the spirit's conduct. He was not
usually, he explained, so open of assault, but sat silent on the
house-top, waiting, in the guise of a bird, while within the people
tended the dying and bewailed the dead, and had no thought of peril. But
when the day came and the doors were opened and men began to go abroad,
blood-stains on the wall betrayed the tragedy.

This is the quality I admire in Paumotuan legend. In Tahiti the
spirit-eater is said to assume a vesture which has much more of pomp,
but how much less of horror. It has been seen by all sorts and
conditions, native and foreign; only the last insists it is a meteor. My
authority was not so sure. He was riding with his wife about two in the
morning; both were near asleep, and the horses not much better. It was a
brilliant and still night, and the road wound over a mountain, near by a
deserted marae (old Tahitian temple). All at once the appearance passed
above them: a form of light; the head round and greenish; the body
long, red, and with a focus of yet redder brilliancy about the midst. A
buzzing hoot accompanied its passage; it flew direct out of one marae,
and direct for another down the mountain-side. And this, as my informant
argued, is suggestive. For why should a mere meteor frequent the altars
of abominable gods? The horses, I should say, were equally dismayed with
their riders. Now I am not dismayed at all--not even agreeably. Give me
rather the bird upon the house-top and the morning blood-gouts on the
wall.

But the dead are not exclusive in their diet. They carry with them to
the grave, in particular, the Polynesian taste for fish, and enter at
times with the living into a partnership in fishery. Rua-a-mariterangi
is again my authority; I feel it diminishes the credit of the