tchen were shut up, fires out,
and, as I fancied, everything looked dreary and uncomfortable. If only
a dog had come and wagged his tail in welcome, it would have been
something; but even my dog was gone. Certainly there was an old tom
cat; but I hate cats: there is no sincerity in them, and so I had
kicked this old tom, on principle, whenever he came in my way, and now,
when he saw me, he ran for his life into the bush.

The instinct of a hungry man sent me into the kitchen; there was
nothing eatable to be seen but a raw leg of pork, and the fire was out.
I now began to suspect that this attempt of mine to look down the
_tapu_ would fail, and that I should remain excommunicated for some
frightfully indefinite period. I began to think of Robinson Crusoe, and
to wonder if I could hold out as well as he did. Then I looked hard at
the leg of pork. The idea that I must cook it for myself, brought home
to me the fact more forcibly than anything else how I had "fallen from
my high estate"--cooking being the very last thing a _rangatira_ can
turn his hand to. But why should I have anything more to do with
cooking?--was I not cast off and repudiated by the human race? (A
horrible misanthropy was fast taking hold of me.) Why should I not tear
my leg of pork raw, like a wolf? "I will run a-muck!"--suddenly said I.
"I wonder how many I can kill before they 'bag' me? But--I must have
some supper."

I soon made a fire, and, after a little rummaging, found the _materiel_
for a good meal. My cooking was not so bad either, I thought; but
certainly hunger is not hard to please in this respect, and I had eaten
nothing since the diabolical meal of the preceding evening, and had
travelled more than twenty miles. I washed my hands six or seven times,
scrubbing away and muttering with an intonation that would have been a
fortune to a tragic actor, "Out, damned spot;" and so, after having
washed and dried my hands, looked at them, returned, and washed again,
again washed, and so on, several times, I sat down and demolished two
days' allowance. After which, reclining before the fire with my pipe,
and a blanket over my shoulders, a more kindly feeling towards my
fellow-men stole gradually upon me. "I wonder," said I to myself, "how
long this devilish _tapu_ will last! I wonder if there is to be any end
at all to it! I won't run a-muck for a week, at all events, till I see
what may turn up. Confounded plague though to have to cook!" Having
res