she was still under way, and reached the beach
before Graves came up. There were too many strange brown men to suit
Don, and he kept very close to my legs. When Graves arrived the natives
fell away from him as if he had been a leper. He wore a sort of sickly
smile, and when he spoke the dog stiffened his legs and growled
menacingly.

"Don!" I exclaimed sternly, and the dog cowered, but the spines along
his back bristled and he kept a menacing eye upon Graves. The man's face
looked drawn and rather angry. The frank boyishness was clean out of it.
He had been strained by something or other to the breaking-point--so
much was evident.

"My dear fellow," I said, "what the devil is the matter?"

Graves looked to right and left, and the islanders shrank still farther
away from him.

"You can see for yourself," he said curtly. "I'm taboo." And then, with
a little break in his voice: "Even your dog feels it. Don, good boy!
Come here, sir!"

Don growled quietly.

"You see!"

"Don," I said sharply, "this man is my friend and yours. Pat him,
Graves."

Graves reached forward and patted Don's head and talked to him
soothingly.

But although Don did not growl or menace, he shivered under the caress
and was unhappy.

"So you're taboo!" I said cheerfully. "That's the result of anything,
from stringing pink and yellow shells on the same string to murdering
your uncle's grandmother-in-law. Which have _you_ done?"

"I've been back there in the grass," he said, "and because--because
nothing happened to me I'm taboo."

"Is that all?"

"As far as they know--yes."

"Well!" said I, "my business will take me back there for days at a time,
so I'll be taboo, too. Then there'll be two of us. Did you find any
curious grasses for me?"

"I don't know about grasses," he said, "but I found something very
curious that I want to show you and ask your advice about. Are you going
to share my house?"

"I think I'll keep head-quarters on the schooner," I said, "but if
you'll put me up now and then for a meal or for the night----"

"I'll put you up for lunch right now," he said, "if you'll come. I'm my
own cook and bottle-washer since the taboo, but I must say the change
isn't for the worse so far as food goes."

He was looking and speaking more cheerfully.

"May I bring Don?"

He hesitated.

"Why--yes--of course."

"If you'd rather not?"

"No, bring him. I want to make friends again if I can."

So we started for Graves's h