OF THE SOUTH SEAS 71 



ridiculous aspect of one. His indication of Lovaina's 

 figure made one shriek, and the governor would have 

 sentenced him for lese-majesty had he seen himself taken 

 off. The sounds he made in which he greeted any one 

 he liked, or in anger, were terrible, dismaying. They 

 must have been those made by our ancestors, the first 

 primates, when they began the struggle toward intelli- 

 gent language. Vava's sounds were as the muttering of 

 an ape, deep in his throat, or, when he was roused, high 

 and shrill, like the cry of a rabbit when the hound 

 seizes it. He could make Lovaina know anything he 

 wanted to, and she could direct him to do anything she 

 wished. In that house of mirth, brightness, and laugh- 

 ter, he was as a cunning and, at times, hateful jester, 

 feared by the Tahitians, and, indeed, to whites a shadowy 

 skeleton at the feast, a thing of indescribable possibilities. 

 I knew him, he liked me, and I drew from him by mo- 

 tions and expressions some measure of his feelings and 

 sufferings. But I, too, occasionally, shuddered at the 

 animal cries and frightful grimaces wrung from him in 

 beating down his soul bent on murder. 



Lovaina was a spendthrift, giving money liberally to 

 relatives, lending it to improvident borrowers, and dis- 

 pensing it with open hands when she had it, though al- 

 ways herself in debt. Yet she liked to make money, 

 and to have her hotel filled with tourists who patronized 

 her little bar or drank at meals other wines than the ex- 

 cellent Bordeaux, white or red, which was free with 

 food. Most she loved the appearance of prosperity, 

 the crowding of casual voyagers on steamer-days, the 

 visit of war-ships, the sound of music in her parlor, the 

 rustling of dancers, and the laughter and excitement 



