n the boat to hold it off the rocks, the others
carried my luggage to Atuona. I took the lead in a drizzling rain,
carrying the light, mighty glad to stretch my legs after more than a
dozen hours of cramp. Passing the house of the chief-of-police, I
heard laughter and the clink of glasses. Bauda halted me with a
leveled revolver, thinking we were a rum-smuggling gang. That brave
African soldier was ever dramatic, and _D'Artagnan_ could not have
struck a finer attitude as he thrust the gun in my face and called
out, "_Halte la_!"

"_Ah, c'est le Yahnk' Doodl'. Mais tonnerre de dieu_, you have been
away a long time!"

CHAPTER XXXIV

Sea sports; curious sea-foods found at low tide; the peculiarities
of sea-centipedes and how to cook and eat them.

With what delight I returned to lazy days in Atuona Valley, lounging
on the black _paepae_ of my own small blue cabin in the shadow of
Temiteu, idling on the sun-warm sands of the familiar beach, walking
the remembered road between banana hedges heavy with yellowing fruit!
The heart of man puts down roots wherever it rests; it is perhaps
this sense of home that gives the zest to wandering, for new
experiences gain their value from contrast with the old, and one
must have felt the bondage, however light, of emotion and habit
before he can know the joy of freedom from it. Still a man leaves
part of himself in every home he makes, and the wanderer, free of
the one strong cord that would hold him to one place, feels always
the urge of a thousand slender ties pulling him back to the thousand
temporary homes he has made everywhere on the world.

So the old routine closed around me pleasantly; mornings in the
shade of my palms and breadfruit, eating the breakfasts prepared for
me by Exploding Eggs over the fire of cocoanut husks, baths in the
clear pool of the river with my neighbors, afternoons spent in the
cocoanut-groves or with merry companions on the beach. Exploding
Eggs directed the surf board with a sure hand, lying flat, kneeling
or even standing on the long plank as he came in on the crest of the
breakers. I had now and again succeeded in being carried along while
flat on my stomach on the board, but failed many times oftener than
I succeeded. Now I set myself in earnest to learn the art of
mastering the surf.

Three or four o'clock in the afternoon was the time I usually chose
for the sport, and once I had made it a practice, all the boys and
girls of the vil