66 MYSTIC ISLES 



over the happenings of the day, and fell asleep in joyful 

 mood that I was in the island I had sought so long in 

 desire and dream. I knew nothing of my visitor, for 

 she had made no audible sound, and the shadows had 

 hidden her. 



At breakfast the next morning I was waited on by 

 Atupu, the beauty. Her face was tear-stained, and a 

 deep weariness was upon her. She regarded me with 

 a glance of mixed anger and hurt. 



"Vous etes fache avec moi?" she inquired accusingly. 



"I angry with you?" I repeated. "Why what have I 

 done to show it?" 



And then she told me of her visit and vigil. Seeing 

 me alone in Tahiti, and kind-hearted, she said, she had 

 thought to tell me of the Tahitian heart and the old ways 

 of the land. She had robed, perfumed, and adorned her- 

 self, and entered my sleeping-place, as she said was the 

 wont of Tahitian girls. I had certainly heard her en- 

 ter, and seen her kneel to await my greeting, and if 

 not then, I had seen her plainly when I lifted the lamp, 

 for the light had streamed full upon her. She had re- 

 mained there upon the floor half an hour until my audi- 

 ble breathing had compelled her to believe against her 

 will that I was asleep. Then she had fled and wept the 

 night in humiliation. Never in her young life had such 

 a horror afflicted her. 



I was stunned, and could onty reiterate that I had 

 not known of her presence, and with a trinket from my 

 pocket I dried her tears. 



Rupert Brooke in a letter to a friend in England 

 drew a little etching of our lodging: 



I am in a hovel at the back of my hotel, and contemplate the 



