e illuminated back-ground mounting the pi-pi and
approaching towards us.

They came on noiselessly, nay stealthily, and glided along through the
gloom that surrounded us as if about to spring upon some object they
were fearful of disturbing before they should make sure of it.--Gracious
heaven! the horrible reflections which crowded upon me that moment.--A
cold sweat stood upon my brow, and spell-bound with terror I awaited my
fate!

Suddenly the silence was broken by the well-remembered tones of Mehevi,
and at the kindly accents of his voice my fears were immediately
dissipated. 'Tommo, Toby, ki ki!' (eat). He had waited to address us,
until he had assured himself that we were both awake, at which he seemed
somewhat surprised.

'Ki ki! is it?' said Toby in his gruff tones; 'Well, cook us first, will
you--but what's this?' he added, as another savage appeared, bearing
before him a large trencher of wood containing some kind of steaming
meat, as appeared from the odours it diffused, and which he deposited at
the feet of Mehevi. 'A baked baby, I dare say I but I will have none
of it, never mind what it is.--A pretty fool I should make of myself,
indeed, waked up here in the middle of the night, stuffing and guzzling,
and all to make a fat meal for a parcel of booby-minded cannibals one
of these mornings!--No, I see what they are at very plainly, so I am
resolved to starve myself into a bunch of bones and gristle, and then,
if they serve me up, they are welcome! But I say, Tommo, you are not
going to eat any of that mess there, in the dark, are you? Why, how can
you tell what it is?'

'By tasting it, to be sure,' said I, masticating a morsel that Kory-Kory
had just put in my mouth, 'and excellently good it is, too, very much
like veal.'

'A baked baby, by the soul of Captain Cook!' burst forth Toby, with
amazing vehemence; 'Veal? why there never was a calf on the island
till you landed. I tell you you are bolting down mouthfuls from a dead
Happar's carcass, as sure as you live, and no mistake!'

Emetics and lukewarm water! What a sensation in the abdominal region!
Sure enough, where could the fiends incarnate have obtained meat? But I
resolved to satisfy myself at all hazards; and turning to Mehevi, I soon
made the ready chief understand that I wished a light to be brought.
When the taper came, I gazed eagerly into the vessel, and recognized the
mutilated remains of a juvenile porker! 'Puarkee!' exclaimed Kory-Kory,