ackward from his long and
blood-stained snout.

Again the patient women come forth with gourds of water; they pour it
over the heads and bodies of the men, who dry their skins with shreds of
white beaten bark; two sturdy boys light wisps of dry coconut leaves and
pass the flames over the body of the boar in lieu of scalding, and the
melancholy dogs sit around in a circle on their haunches and indulge
in false hopes. Presently, one by one, the men follow Denison and Kusis
into the latter's house and sit down to smoke and talk, while Sipi the
Fat pounds more kava for them to drink. Then mats are unrolled and every
one lies down; and as they sleep the sun touches the sea-rim, swarms of
snowy gulls and sooty terns fly shoreward with lazily flapping wing
to roost, a gleam of torchlight shows here and there along the village
paths, and the island night has come.

THE TROUBLE WITH JINABAN

Palmer, one of Tom de Wolf's traders on the Matelotas

Lagoon in the Western Carolines, was standing at his door, smoking his
pipe and wondering what was best to be done. Behind him, in the big
sitting-room, were his wife and some other native women, conversing in
low tones and looking shudderingly at a basket made of green coconut
leaves which stood in the centre of the matted floor.

Presently the trader turned and motioned one of the women to come to
him.

"Take it away and bury it," he said, "'tis an ill thing for my wife to
see."

The woman, whose eyes were red with weeping, stooped and lifted the
basket; and then a young native lad, nude to the waist, stepped quickly
over to the place where it had lain and sprinkled a handful of white
sand over a broad patch of red which stained the mat.

Palmer, still smoking thoughtfully, watched the rest of the women follow
her who carried the basket away into the grove of breadfruit-trees, and
then sat down upon a bench outside his door.

The sun was blazing hot, and on the broad, glassy expanse of the
slumbering atoll a dim, misty haze, like the last vanishing vapours of
a sea fog in some cold northern clime, hovered low down upon the water;
for early in the day the trade wind had died away in faint, warm gusts,
and left the island and the still lagoon to swelter under the fierce
rays of an all but equatorial sun. Five miles away, on the western side
of the reef-encircled lagoon, a long, low and densely-wooded islet stood
out, its white, dazzling line of beach and verdant palms se