replied that I had seldom passed such a night, spoke glowingly of
the forest and the stream, and said that I was still determined to
remain behind when the schooner sailed.

"Well, if you will stay," said he, and the trader's look came into
his eye, "I've got just the thing you want. You don't want to lie
on a mat where the thousand-legs can get you--and if they get you,
you die. You want to live right. Now listen to me; I got the best
brass bed ever a king slept on. Double thickness, heavy brass bed,
looks like solid gold. Springs that would hold the schooner,
double-thick mattress, sheets and pillows all embroidered like it
belonged to a duchess. Fellow was going to be married that I brought
it for, but now he's lying up there in Calvary in a bed they dug for
him. I'll let you have it cheap--three hundred francs. It's worth
double. What do you say?"

A brass bed, a golden bed in the cannibal islands!

"It's a go," I said.

On the deck of the _Morning Star_ I beheld the packing-cases brought
up from the hold, and my new purchase with all its parts and
appurtenances loaded in a ship's boat, with the iron box that held
my gold. So I arrived in Atuona for the second time, high astride the
sewed-up mattress on top of the metal parts, and so deftly did the
Tahitians handle the oars that, though we rode the surf right up to
the creeping jungle flowers that met the tide on Atuona beach, I was
not wet except by spray.

[Illustration: Vai Etienne]