At last he made Toby sit down on a
broken canoe by a pile of stones, upon which was a ruinous little shrine
supported by four upright poles, and in front partly screened by a net.
The fishing parties met there, when they came in from the sea, for their
offerings were laid before an image, upon a smooth black stone within.
This spot Jimmy said was strictly 'taboo', and no one would molest or
come near him while he stayed by its shadow. The old sailor then went
off, and began speaking very earnestly to Mow-Mow and some other chiefs,
while all the rest formed a circle round the taboo place, looking
intently at Toby, and talking to each other without ceasing.

Now, notwithstanding what Jimmy had just told him, there presently came
up to my comrade an old woman, who seated herself beside him on the
canoe.

'Typee motarkee?' said she. 'Motarkee nuee,' said Toby.

She then asked him whether he was going to Nukuheva; he nodded yes; and
with a plaintive wail and her eyes filling with tears she rose and left
him.

This old woman, the sailor afterwards said, was the wife of an aged king
of a small island valley, communicating by a deep pass with the country
of the Typees. The inmates of the two valleys were related to each other
by blood, and were known by the same name. The old woman had gone down
into the Typee valley the day before, and was now with three chiefs, her
sons, on a visit to her kinsmen.

As the old king's wife left him, Jimmy again came up to Toby, and told
him that he had just talked the whole matter over with the natives, and
there was only one course for him to follow. They would not allow him to
go back into the valley, and harm would certainly come to both him and
me, if he remained much longer on the beach. 'So,' said he, 'you and I
had better go to Nukuheva now overland, and tomorrow I will bring Tommo,
as they call him, by water; they have promised to carry him down to the
sea for me early in the morning, so that there will be no delay.'

'No, no,' said Toby desperately, 'I will not leave him that way; we must
escape together.'

'Then there is no hope for you,' exclaimed the sailor, 'for if I leave
you here on the beach, as soon as I am gone you will be carried back
into the valley, and then neither of you will ever look upon the
sea again.' And with many oaths he swore that if he would only go to
Nukuheva with him that day, he would be sure to have me there the very
next morning.

'But how do you