and pink gowns, fled for shelter, tossing blossoms of the sweet
tiati Tahiti toward their sailor lovers as they ran. Marao, the
haughty queen, drove rapidly away in her old chaise, the Princess
Boots leaning out to wave a slender hand. Prince Hinoi, the fat
spendthrift who might have been a king, leaned from the balcony of
the club, glass in hand, and shouted, "_Aroha i te revaraa!_" across
the deserted beach.

So we left Papeite, the gay Tahitian capital, while a slashing
downpour drowned the gay flamboyant blossoms, our masts and rigging
creaking in the gale, and sea breaking white on the coral reef.

Like the weeping women, who doubtless had already dried their tears,
the sky began to smile before we reached the treacherous pass in the
outer reef. Beyond Moto Utu, the tiny islet in the harbor that had
been harem and fort in kingly days, we saw the surf foaming on the
coral, and soon were through the narrow channel.

We had lifted no canvas in the lagoon, using only our engine to
escape the coral traps. Past the ever-present danger, with the wind
now half a gale and the rain falling again in sheets--the
intermittent deluge of the season--the _Morning Star_, under reefed
foresail, mainsail and staysail, pointed her delicate nose toward the
Dangerous Islands and hit hard the open sea.

She rode the endlessly-tossing waves like a sea-gull, carrying her
head with a care-free air and dipping to the waves in jaunty fashion.
Her lines were very fine, tapering and beautiful, even to the eye of
a land-lubber.