[Illustration: André Bauda, Commissaire]

[Illustration: The public dance in the garden]

The speeches done, the governor suggested that the national spirit
be interpreted to him in pantomine.

"They must be enlivened with alcohol or they will not move," said
Guillitoue.

"_Mon dieu!_" he replied. "It is the 'Folies Bergère' over again!
Give them wine!"

Bauda ordered Flag, the native gendarme, and Song of the Nightingale,
a prisoner, to carry a demijohn of Bordeaux wine to the garden. With
two glasses they circulated the claret until each Marquesan had a
pint or so. Song of the Nightingale was a middle-aged savage, with a
wicked, leering face, and whiskers from his ears to the corners of
his mouth, surely a strange product of the Marquesan race, none of
whose men will permit any hair to grow on lip or cheek. While Song
circulated the wine M. Bauda enlightened me as to the crime that had
made him prisoner. He was serving eighteen months for selling
cocoanut brandy.

When the cask was emptied the people began the dance. Three rows
were formed, one of women between two of men, in Indian file facing
the veranda. Haabunai and Song of the Nightingale brought forth the
drums. These were about four feet high, barbaric instruments of skin
stretched over hollow logs, and the "Boom-Boom" that came from them