Meanwhile we should be obliged if they would build us a house and
keep us supplied with whatever food they had.

"Do the gods eat?" asked the sceptic again.

"That fellow is a confounded radical," I whispered to Bickley.
"Tell him that they do when they come to Orofena."

He did so, whereon the chief said:

"Would the gods like a nice young girl cooked?"

At this point Bastin retired down the path, realising that he
had to do with cannibals. We said that we preferred to look at
the girls alive and would meet them again to-morrow morning, when
we hoped that the house would be ready.

So our first interview with the inhabitants of Orofena came to
an end, on which we congratulated ourselves.


On reaching the remains of the Star of the South we set to work
to take stock of what was left to us. Fortunately it proved to be
a very great deal. As I think I mentioned, all the passenger part
of the yacht lay forward of the bridge, just in front of which
the vessel had been broken in two, almost as cleanly as though
she were severed by a gigantic knife. Further our stores were
forward and practically everything else that belonged to us, even
down to Bickley's instruments and medicines and Bastin's
religious works, to say nothing of a great quantity of tinned