s of the Cercle Bougainville, the club by the lagoon. The
harbor of Papeite knew ten minutes of unrestrained merriment, tears
forgotten, while from the warehouse of the navy to the Poodle Stew
cafe the hula reigned.

[Illustration: Beach at Viataphiha-Tahiti]

[Illustration: Where the belles of Tahiti lived in the shade to
whiten their complexions.]

Under the gorgeous flamboyant trees that paved their shade with
red-gold blossoms a group of white men sang:

"Well, ah fare you well, we can stay no more with you, my love,
Down, set down your liquor and the girl from off your knee,
For the wind has come to say
'You must take me while you may,
If you'd go to Mother Carey!'
(Walk her down to Mother Carey!)
Oh, we're bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!"

The anchor was up, the lines let go, and suddenly from the sea came
a wind with rain.

The girls from the Cocoanut House, a flutter of brilliant scarlet
and pink gowns, fled for shelter, tossing blossoms of the sweet
tiati Tahiti toward their sailor lovers as they ran. Marao, the
haughty queen, drove rapidly away in her old chaise, the Princess
Boots leaning out to wave a slender hand. Prince Hinoi, the fat
spendthrift who might have been a king, leaned from the balcony of
the club, glass in hand, and shouted, "_Aroha i te revaraa!_" across
the deserted beach.

So we left Papeite, the gay Tahitian capital, while a slashing
downpour drowned the gay flamboyant blossoms, our masts and rigging
creaking in the gale, and sea breaking white on the coral reef.

Like the weeping women, who doubtless had already dried their tears,
the sky began to smile before we reached the treacherous pass in the
outer reef. Beyond Moto Utu, the tiny islet in the harbor that had
been harem and fort in kingly days, we saw the surf foaming on the
coral, and soon were through the narrow channel.

We had lifted no canvas in the lagoon, using only our engine to
escape the coral traps. Past the ever-present danger, with the wind
now half a gale and the rain falling again in sheets--the
intermittent deluge of the season--the _Morning Star_, under reefed
foresail, mainsail and staysail, pointed her delicate nose toward the
Dangerous Islands and hit hard the open sea.

She rode the endlessly-tossing waves like a sea-gull, carrying her
head with a care-free air and dipping to the waves in jaunty fashion.
Her lines wer