turned to the ebb."{*}

* Note by the Author.--Nearly all Polynesians and
Micronesians believed most firmly that the dissolution of
soul from body always (excepting in cases of sudden death by
violence or accident) occurred when the tide is on the ebb.
From a long experience of life in the Pacific Islands, the
writer is thoroughly imbued with and endorses that belief.
The idea of the passing away of life with the ebbing of the
tide will doubtless seem absurd to the European and
civilised mind, but it must be remembered that an inborn and
inherited belief, such as this, does, with many so-called
semi-savage races, produce certain physical conditions that
are well understood by pathologists.

"Ay, good Malu. I know it. So keep the child within thy own room, so
that the house may be quiet."

Old Malu, who had nursed Mrs. Raymond's mother, bent her head in assent,
and went inside, and her mistress sat down in one of the cane-work
lounge chairs on the wide verandah and closed her eyes, for she was
wearied, physically and mentally. Her nerves had been strained greatly
by the events of the day, and now the knowledge that within a few feet
of where she sat, a life was passing away, and a woman's heart was
breaking, saddened her greatly.

"I must not give way," she thought. "I must go and see how the wounded
men are doing."

But ere she knew it, there came the low but hoarse murmuring cries of
myriad terns and gulls flying homewards to the land, mingled with the
deep evening note of the blue mountain pigeons; and then kindly slumber
came, and rest for the troubled brain and sorrowing heart.

She had slept for nearly an hour when a young native girl servant, who
had been left to wait upon Mrs. Marston, came quickly but softly along
the verandah and touched her arm.

"Awake, Marie,{*} and come to the white lady."

* It will doubtless strike the reader as being peculiar that
an educated and refined woman such as I have endeavoured to
portray in Mrs. Raymond would allow a servant to address her
by her Christian name. But the explanation is very simple:
In many European families living in Polynesia and in
Micronesia the native servants usually address their masters
and mistresses and their children by their Christian names--
unless it is a missionary household, when the master would
be addressed as "Misi "(Mr.) and the