506 MYSTIC ISLES 



of smoke. Against this was a single cocoa on the edge 

 of the promontory, a banner my eye always sought as 

 the day ended. Rising a hundred feet or more, the 

 curving staff upheld a dozen dark fronds, which nodded 

 in the evening breeze. 



There was the slightest chill in the air, unusual there, 

 so that I put on shirt and trousers of thin silk and tennis 

 shoes for my walk, and with a lantern set out for the tii. 

 Along the road were my neighbors, the whole village 

 streaming toward the goblin wood. Mahine and Maraa, 

 two girls of my acquaintance, unmarried and the merriest 

 in Tautira, joined me. They adorned me with a wreath 

 of ferns and luminous, flower-shaped fungus from the 

 trees, living plants, the taria iore, or rat's-ear, which 

 shone like haloes above our faces. The girls wore 

 pink gowns, which they pulled to their waists as we 

 forded the streams. Mahine had a mouth-organ on 

 which she played. We sang and danced, and the tossing 

 torches stirred the shadows of the black wold, and 

 brought out in shifting glimpses the ominous shapes of 

 the monstrous trees. With all our gaiety, I had only 

 to utter a loud "Aue!^' and the natives rushed together 

 for protection against the unseen; not of the physical, 

 but of the dark abode of Po. In this lonely wilderness 

 they thought that tupapaus, the ghosts of the departed, 

 must have their assembly, and deep in their hearts was a 

 deadly fear of these revenants. 



When we approached the umu, I felt the heat fifty 

 feet away. The pit was a mass of glowing stones, and 

 half a dozen men whom I knew were spreading them 

 as evenly as possible, turning them with long poles. 

 Each, as it was moved, disclosed its lower surface crim- 



